31. A Pukey Thing

AlexThis is Do By Friday, the weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, watch the documentary Six by Sondheim.

MaxHello. Hello. My iPad isn't turning on.

AlexOh, did you install the beta? Oh, yeah. Oh, Mel was kind enough to let me borrow her iPad. And by kind enough, I mean, I begged for about a half hour and traded my AirPods for an iPad. And I got to say, pretty good beta. Other than the fact that it only connects to Wi-Fi about 50% of the time.

MaxOh, it's, I got to say, I mean, I'm having a rough time with it. Oh, really? Having a rough time with it. I have an error where the dock doesn't work after about an hour of use. Like, it just stops working. Have you guys experienced that?

AlexAre you on the public beta? I also just installed it.

MaxNo, I'm on the developer beta.

AlexHmm.

MaxSo. I don't know. You know what it reminds me of? It's like, so I've had, like, over the last couple months, I've had this, like, this, like, horrible back injury that just keeps coming back. And it's, like, it's one of those things of, like, you sort of, like, take for granted when your back doesn't hurt.

MerlinOh, that is a big one. You do not appreciate how well that has worked up until now.

MaxYeah, it's like, I don't know. I don't ever think when I go down the stairs how great it is to go bounding down the stairs. But it's like, now that I have this terrible back injury, it's like every fucking thing. I have to move so gingerly because I'm always scared of doing the thing that's going to hurt my back.

MerlinThen you start overcompensating. If I sleep weird, like I sleep too deeply on a weird twist, and then I wake up the next day, now the whole rest of the day I'm overcompensating, and now other muscles hurt because I'm trying to accommodate the hurt-ass muscle.

MaxStory of my life. Anyway, this is what using the beta feels like to me. You're going to love being 50. I'm constantly so scared of breaking. It feels like a fragile bird or something. Is this the show? Is this the show?

MerlinBecause I will talk about this if you want to talk about this.

AlexYeah, this is the show. I, okay. So I, I mean, I tweeted about my terrible RSI fear because, you know, Twitter is the place where I get my medical advice. Uh, and I indeed went to see a doctor and they're like, well, it's not so much like a repetitive strain injury, but it seems like there's been a lot of pressure on both of your wrists constantly. Do you have nightmares at all? Oh, well, so it turns out I'm just like clenching my wrists in my sleep. Like, like TMJ and clutch, they're like,

and the doctor said, I have a feeling that you are clutching your pillow so tightly and you're sleeping on your wrist. How do I get a

Merlindoctor like this? You know, this is why I stopped going to the doctor. You get like, well, it's a whole bunch of things. Just do everything better. Thanks, buddy. I want somebody who goes like,

Speaker Awell, I'm pretty sure that you have a

Merlinvery specific kind of anxiety that causes you to clench your jaw on this one side while it's too loose on the other side. I don't have any evidence in that. That's the vibe that you throw. I mean, she

Maxwas right of course i i had a i had my back was hurting me like a couple weeks ago it was hurting so bad i was in this meeting with the writers and i was lying on the floor because it was like the only position i could be in where my back was not hurting me is that milch is it milch that does

Merlinthat what isn't the guy the guy who does deadwood he takes oh well i think he's taking i think he's

Maxi think he's taking a lot of poppers and he gets dizzy and he has to like i don't know like i think he's you know i think he's one of these characters like uh i don't know what gives me this image but He's like, you know, before I like to write David Milch, he's like, I like to have a little taste. I'll have a little sip of alcohol. Cut to him pouring an enormous egg cup, brimming with straight room temperature vodka. Price is right. It's going to be on in a few. Might as well have a morning cap. I don't want to give me that image. Anyway, he – oh, yeah. So I'm lying on the floor, and Joe Feldman – Joe's our head writer.

I'm sure she'll make an appearance on Dubai Friday at some point for something or another. But Joe's into all this kooky medicine stuff. She's always doing that whole 30 cleanse, purge thing. And I don't know. She does like, oh, man. Any kooky health stuff, Joe knows all about it. And Joe's like, you got to go to my chiropractor. And I was like, I think there's like a, that's basically a witch doctor. I mean, I don't think it's really medicine.

I mean, I don't know. What are your guys' thoughts on this?

AlexI've been told so many things about chiropractors and also physical therapists. And luckily, I've never had serious back issues other than the doctor also asking, so do you have any back issues? I'm like, only when I fall out of my bed from said nightmares. But otherwise, I'm fine.

I do not have a Casper mattress. Just hint, hint. But I don't know. I'm afraid I'm going to become dependent on it. I'm quite dependent on Claritin-D at some times during the year.

MerlinI think it's a little bit like ear-candling. We're like, oh, it's pulling out these toxins. No, actually, that's the ash. That's what that is. Here's one thing about this. I don't want to disparage something that helps people. We just talked about this on Back to Work. It's really hard to understand what's going to help a given person at a given time with a given problem. And I think, in fact, turns out, I think it's the medical people that I'd like to hear saying that more. Like, I had a gastroenterologist who basically just threw everything at my situation.

We always had $600 a month being spent on basically, like, enteric aspirin that dissolves in your ass at the right time. And eventually he got down to, you know, why don't you try cutting out these foods?

Find out if there's foods that bother you. Take this stuff, this probiotic called Culturelle. And you know what? I went on the Atkins diet, and I got better in about eight days. So I don't rule out the fact that there is voodoo that works. And specifically to chiropractic and acupuncture, it's a little bit like a lot of things where I believe I can take a lot away from Buddhism without finding anything supernal or spiritual about it. For me, it's all philosophy and ethics and psychology.

Maxit's a little bit about that that article you that um that horrible article that you cursed us with that we will not be putting in the show notes about the um uh uh what do you call it general no no no no general um the general anesthesia nightmare yeah yeah and it's like and it's like this reporter this health reporter researcher whatever had to like get surgery and he called the anesthesiologist the night before and he said listen i'm worried i know too much about this right and he's like i i know that i he's like i can see right through it and i and i've

reported on this too much and read too much about it and i'm aware that general anesthesia it's less of us it's like portrayed as a science and the guy wears like a white doctor's coat when he does it but it's basically you're just getting someone really high so they don't know what happens it's

Merlinjust sort of a you know you gotta you've got to get somebody exactly high enough no more no less And I don't think we're that much further. We're not that much further than, like, the MASH era and how well that works. I think it still takes an incredible amount of expertise and not trial and error. But, no, you're right. We shouldn't read that. I just want one last thing to close this is that, like, I—

MaxWell, I have a turns out at the end of this story.

MerlinI'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut off the turns out. No, I just want to say I don't want to disparage that because here's the thing. I know people—my mom quit smoking from hypnosis. She tried everything her whole life. And she went to like a days in for a seminar, got hypnosis. This is around the time of nevermind. She never smoked another cigarette the rest of her life. So, I mean, that sounds wackadoo. But like, guess what? Nothing else worked. Chiropractic, like Buddhism, I think like you don't need to buy into this as a worldview

if there's an element of this that helps you. There are people with chronic pain that can't be helped. and something like CBD oil, something like acupuncture, if that helps you, for the love of God, don't worry about what I think. I'm just more concerned about selling this. I think chiropractic as a worldview is fucked, personally. But I think it does, it can help people.

MaxThat I totally agree with. I've seen too many James Randi videos to know what these chiropractors have these, like, oh, you get a subluxation in your spine and it causes autism. And it's like, all right, buddy. It really is. I mean, I don't know, like I'm just too skeptical and I've read too much of this bullshit to know to know that it's it's I don't know, I could I feel like I feel like when chiro if you go to a chiropractor and it works, what you have is some sort of fake problem. You have some sort of malady

and a fake solution will offer relief from it because whatever is in your mind that's causing your, you know, anxiety or pain or whatever phantom thing is that like, you know, you know, when crazy people talk about being sick and they're like, oh, I've seen every doctor in the world. No one can say what's wrong with me. It's like, yeah, because there's nothing wrong with you. It's in your head. And that's why when you finally, you know, take some sort of homeopathy or go to a chiropractor or whatever it is, they offer some, you know, cockamamie solution that doesn't really do anything, but it addresses the whatever was in your head in the first place.

Acupuncture, I think, actually does work in like double blind clinical trials. I don't know what the mechanism is but i'm pretty sure we talk about scott forestall's thing what is it about

Alexacupuncture yeah please so he did an interview that i definitely haven't watched about four times um and like broke his silence about uh the iphone except not really just told a lot of really well rehearsed stories kind of like a keynote and apparently he was dying and steve of course being that guy dying he was totally what what do you know he had like a pukey thing like he was the doctors didn't know that's the thing and and steve like found this crazy acupuncture

Maxthat's what half the people at apple who worked for steve jobs were dying of a pukey thing because you'd work for three years and he'd fucking he'd fucking throw it in the fish tank and say get the bubbles out right and you'd vomit immediately on the floor

Speaker Bno make it better why do you keep barfing scott it's a condition

Alexbut but he asked the acupuncturist he's like okay if i don't believe in this at all will still work and she's like yeah i'm going to be manipulating your stomach and so you have no control and then he got better within a week and all these doctors were like yep you've got you're you're better and the interesting thing he said was like there were some young doctors who were like no no no it was all in your head that's how uh it was on your head and you were convinced

that you were better so it was like the nocebo effect that got him sick and got there before me you got to watch that video because that explains a lot of this but he said that older doctors and I found that too there's a when I go to older doctors they're more willing to be like yeah I don't fucking know because when you come out of medical school and all of my friends who are in med school they're like yep yep I know this and they diagnose people with everything whereas Whereas, you know, the big boys that are adults are like, yeah, no, I mean, so much has changed. We have no idea what's going on or why this is happening.

So good luck.

MaxWell, turns out. Oh, by the way, I do want to add. This is one of the hallmarks of bullshit alternative medicine is if you have to believe in it for it to work. Yeah, exactly. That should be a huge alarm bell that it does not actually work.

MerlinWhen you put it that way, it sounds kind of crazy.

MaxHere's the thing that no one's ever said is, listen, we're going to do the chemotherapy, but you've really got to believe that it's going to work. Right? These antibiotics, they're pretty good. But if you don't believe in them, boy, they are going to be really frightening.

MerlinI want to do everything I can to land this plane. But for the next two hours, I want everybody on here to pray.

MaxYeah. We all have to clap for Tinkerbell. Yeah. I believe. I believe.

Turns out, I went to Joe's chiropractor. I've been like two or three times. so and the reason my thinking was i'll try my thinking was my back hurts so much i'll try anything and i already unfortunately i already know that if i go to the my actual doctor and say listen my back really hurts he's going to tell me uh blues weight and here's a prescription for like muscle relaxers and i don't want to lose weight and i don't want to take muscle relaxers so what's left is like witchcraft so sure i'll try it and it's covered under my uh my blue You could be a cover for witchcraft.

MerlinWhat kind of deductible do you get on witchcraft?

MaxWell, I haven't actually purchased any medical care this year.

MerlinDo you bring like Belladonna or some kind of monkey's paw? All right, Mr. Tampkin. We're just going to go ahead and schedule you for five weeks from now, and that's going to be two fingers from a monkey's paw.

MaxNo, it's incredible because all of the mystic wisdom of the East, they do still take cash.

Speaker BSo I went.

MaxPriceless. So he took like an x-ray of my back, and I met with him, and that was like sort of the first meeting, and he showed me like a model of the spine. He's like, well, the bones are supposed to fit together this way. Then I went back for my follow-up, and he had the x-ray of my upper back and sort of put it on the light board. And Dr. Francis is the guy that I'm seeing. He's extremely handsome. And he had sort of taken his protractor and drawn all these sort of angles and numbers and lines over my spine.

MerlinLike you're going to be used to cast a spell.

MaxYeah, it was very, and he said it very confidently. He did that thing that con men do where it's like he got me nodding along. He's like, well, he's like, as you know, it's like the disc goes in between the, what do you call it, the bones of the spine or whatever. And, you know, and I'm nodding because, like, he starts off with something that you know. And then it's like, then he starts off on his like, well, this is at a 45 degree angle. We need to get it to a seven degree angle. And I think the theory is that once someone's nodding, they'll just be like, they'll just continue nodding to whatever is said next, basically. And, you know, I was, I'm extremely skeptical, but he did.

So I got, I've been adjusted a couple of times, which is basically he just like cracks your back. Feels, it feels incredible. And I want that so much right this second. I want it so much. It feels great. I don't know what to say. I can't speak to whether it has any long-term pain relief or medical benefit, but boy, does it feel good to have someone crack your back. He does one where I lie sideways, and he'll rotate my hips away from my back, and the whole thing is just like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. What's he wearing?

This sounds so sensual. He wears a fitted button-down shirt tucked into his tackies.

MerlinDo you get to pick? Could you ask him to wear a cape or something?

MaxOh, that's interesting. I haven't thought about that.

MerlinThey should include that in alternative medicine. If it helps to be twisted.

MaxJo goes with her husband Andy, also a writer for Cards. And yesterday, Jo watched Dr. Francis adjust Andy, and she said it was very sensual. He's very handsome. Interesting. He's very handsome. Send me a photo. So I'll just try and serpitiously take a photo. Hey, what's up? What's up, Andy? How's it going, man? Also, one time I was waiting in the waiting room, and you could sort of hear there's like a physical therapy area, and I could hear the old ladies in the physical therapy area talking about Cars Against Humanity, which was very weird. But anyway, so there's an adjustment.

And then traction, which I really do not understand this. You just sort of like lie there in like a, how do I put it? It's like a belt that like lifts your back in the right position. You just sit there for 15 minutes and I don't know, it's fine.

AlexIs this guy also a sex therapist and has all the, like, a sex way?

MaxThe traction thing is very BDSM, honestly.

MerlinCan he make you sign a contract?

Maxuh did i didn't sign any paperwork i don't think he might have guest lit you a little bit i don't know the traction i don't know i don't listen i don't know i go on twitter and i read i read twitter for 15 minutes it's not that bad but here's the thing is then there's exercises and um he has this i do these like different sets of exercises some of them are for my neck and some of them are for my lower back and like one of them is like you lie on a tennis ball and sort of like like uh push this roll this tennis ball into the part into this part of your back and there's another one that's basically like push-ups that's sort of modified push-ups that like stretch a part

of your back and this is the part that i feel is like not bullshit like this is the part that i can sort of understand the mechanism which is it is exercises that like address the part the muscles

Merlinin your back that are sore it feels like basic basic anatomy and physics my wife does this like when we're watching tv at night she'll frequently be down on the ground doing because she's very athletic and she'll be down there doing these wackadoo stretches but they help her a lot they They help her with her performance and with her, you know, not, you know, she runs, she runs pretty long races on trail races. And like, you know, that's hard on a, on a body. And I, I totally see that. I mean, it's not fun, but like if you're trying to avoid RSI, you got to kind of make yourself do these dumb exercises through the day.

You know, I believe it.

MaxWell, I'll, I'll say, so the program he has, so one thing that I like about Dr. Francis is that the plan he, he will put people on is, um, you go for, I believe it's like for, for me, it's like 10 weeks. But Joe's been to a bunch of different chiropractors, and a lot of them are like, okay, well, let's make a plan so you continue to come here for the rest of your life.

MerlinCan I ask a question? Did she go for a certain condition you can share? Was it like a pain thing?

MaxYeah, Joe had scoliosis as a kid, and so she has like a curved spine. So she has an actual medical thing, and she does get real medical treatment and all of that for it, but seeing the chiropractor really helps her. But I will say, so now I've been, you know, I don't know, a couple weeks I've been going, and my back hurts less, so I'm not going to make fun of it too much. Yep.

AlexEvery time that you say Dr. Francis, I can't help picturing my cat in a little Dr. office.

MaxDr. Francis. Dr. Francis.

AlexLike walking on my back.

MaxThere's a thing in Japan where you can go and you lie on a table and they put a cat on your back and it makes muffins on your back and it's called a cat massage.

AlexYeah, I tried to train him how to do that, but he's too much of an idiot.

MerlinYou need two people for that. Nurse Ness.

AlexThat's my cat. People don't. She's more private. I don't put her picture on the internet.

MerlinOh, sorry. Cut that out.

AlexYeah. Do either of you ever, like, crack your neck?

MaxOh, constantly.

AlexOkay. I got it now. Oh, I wonder if you can hear that. Oh, God. Oh, everything.

MaxOh, just talking about it. I can sort of rotate my shoulders and snap half of my back.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinThat also helps because you have to get a good crack. I'm a backcracker, too. I'll do a backcrack. I'll do a backcrack. I'll do a neck crack. I'll make my wife squeeze me until I crack. I'll make her do three specific squeezes at different spinal levels, at the C level, and then that will give me a good – but here's the thing also. If you want to do a good neck crack, you got to relax. You got to let go and let God. You know what I'm saying? You can't do it when you're tense or you won't get a full crack.

MaxThat's when Dr. Francis does the neck adjustment. He snaps my neck like Arnold Schwarzenegger, like executes a bad guy. He gets behind me and just really quickly off to the side. That's how they get you.

MerlinIt's like when they put the earring on to June. Like you say, I'm going to count to three, and then on two you hit it. Boom. That way you have the element of surprise as a cat talker.

MaxI really feel like he could snap me like an evil henchman in a James Bond movie. Like he could just kill me. He could overestimate one, you know. You're carrying a lot of tension in your spine. There could be a You know A raccoon on the roof And the noise could startle him And he could go ah right as he's snapping my neck And just cleanly snap my spine And I would die Oh not again

Here's a lead from a news article that I really liked this week I wanted to share with you guys. This was from a website called The Wrap.

Whipped cream and models can be a tricky combination. Sometimes it leads to the creation of a classic album cover, and sometimes it leads to tragedy. French Instagram model Rebecca Berger has died at age 33 after a whipped cream canister exploded, striking her in the chest, NBC reports.

AlexThat's not funny.

MaxThat's a hell of a lead, though, isn't it? Isn't that quite a journey? It wasn't Whippets. She wasn't doing whippets? What are whippets? I think it was a photo shoot.

MerlinOh, no.

MaxSo it was a technical error. I mean, you can Google. I did Google it to confirm that this wasn't fake news. Okay. And it is real news, and this model did die from being struck. That's pretty funny. Struck in the chest by a whipped cream can.

AlexHold up. What are whippets? Is this another drug that I have no knowledge of?

MerlinYes.

AlexOh.

MerlinWhippets are tiny.

AlexYou don't need to explain it. We shouldn't explain. is this one of those things where you can like sniff the glue at the bottom of the can

Maxoh listen I don't care we're sending the kids the kids are already they're already taking all kinds of medical advice from this podcast alright here's the whip you should explain whip it's Marlon

Merlinno it's alright I don't want to upset her are you guys getting all the cat doctor photos

AlexI am indeed

Maxso you go whip it you open up a new can of whipped cream and this is the starter way

Merlinthe starter way is you suck off the top You suck off the top of one of those crappy whipped cream canisters.

MaxA ready whipped cream canister.

MerlinReady whip, exactly. And you get a little, it's like a popper. You get a little rush. Popper's a different thing. But I'll explain this to you.

MaxIt's like in Wonder Woman, the German general.

MerlinYeah, Dr. Rebentraub. Yeah, when he snorts up Mrs. Poison's special.

MaxYeah, he does a whip it, and then you get super power, and you smash a table into splinters.

MerlinEvery time the president's social media manager goes off, I imagine he's just popped one of those right under his nose.

Speaker BYou didn't see I'm not fired. There's just a bunch of whipped cream cans all throughout.

Speaker AOh, yeah. I put some letters on a photo that I got from photo stock. Oh, yeah. You know, let's start resisting. The president's not being sued. You're being sued. Go check your facts, sir. If you'll see there's litigation underway, you're on the wrong side of it, brother. I've found a fake news network. My asshole's the size of a grapefruit. I could pass anything through here. It's like a large church that accepts refugees. Let me start over.

One time I ate an automobile and I didn't even care.

MerlinYou know, from now on, is it Dan Scavino? Is that his name? Let's just agree from now on we will read his tweets in the voice of, say, Macho Man Randy Savage. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Make sure flash is enabled, bitch.

So what you do is, now here's the deal. If you want to make home whipped cream, this is one of those-

AlexOh, we're still doing it. All right, go on.

MerlinForget it. No, I'm done. You don't even deserve an explanation. Wait a minute. You can get a whippet off of home whipped cream? Oh, sweet Jesus. Oh, you're like little babes.

Speaker BWhat are you doing?

MerlinWhere does the gas come from? The sand mixer? God damn it. Here's the beauty part, okay? You go to a head shop. Head shops are great. In the 80s, they were hilarious. because they sold all of this stuff that was there for a different reason, and you bought it to get fucked up. And they had handwritten signs that said, this is not to get all fucked up. This is to make a lovely dessert topping. So you buy an entire fucking box of 10 or 12 of these things. It looks like something you might put in your butt. It's like a little scuba can, like maybe the circumference of a nickel, maybe three inches long.

MaxOh, okay. I have those to fill up. So I have that in my flat kit. So if I get a flat tire on my bike, I pop one of these things in it rapidly. It's like some sort of compressed.

Merlinhigh pressure then you get a cracker so you get this little usually I had a brass one that was pretty sweet and you put it into the cracker and then you attach a child's punch balloon to that like punk punk punk punk right and then you go crack it fills up the entire child's punch balloon with nitrous oxide you inhale it and then you dance really hard to Suzy and the Banshees for two and a half minutes

Speaker BI can do a pretty good

Maxballoon inflating sound effect can I perform that on the podcast for you? Do it, do it, do it. Okay. Hang on, let me, I gotta, I gotta get myself ready.

Wait a minute, did you just blow, did you just blow up a balloon? No, it's just a sound effect I know how to do. Shit dog.

AlexSo, uh, did you develop this technique to get girls or what? A party, party trick? I mean, that was, that was going to be very impressive. I forgot that I could do it, honestly. All right. Dig, dug, dig, dug, dug a dig. Poppers are different.

MaxPoppers are amyl nitrate. No, no, no. They caught. I don't think that I like poppers or laughing ass. They make me feel dizzy and upset. That's pretty much what it says on the team.

AlexI mean, that's how most drugs at the end.

MaxNo, but right at the beginning. I'm like, ooh, I feel dizzy and upset.

AlexAll right. Dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick,

Speaker Bdick, dick, dick,

Alexcan we, can we talk about the Trump Time Magazine thing just for like one minute? I,

Maxokay, honestly, you guys know how much I consume like Trump news and Twitter and Trump Twitter. I, I literally do not understand this meme. I missed the whole train. I missed it.

AlexSo when I came home and immediately my wife just reads to me, a time magazine with Trump on the cover hangs in his golf clubs. It's fake. And my brain like could not process that for a second. Wait, wait, wait,

Merlinyou gotta, you gotta read this. This is peak. What's his name? Farron Farron hold. Is that his name? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is, Oh my God. There's so much, there's so many levels to enjoy this on an immediate level that you will enjoy this on is his awesome. Well, actually of everything that's wrong with this fake cover and how you can prove it. And, but he doesn't do it in this, like, man, man. He just goes to, oh, there was no Time magazine that week. Oh, and that's a headline from last week. And guess what? They don't use straight quotes. It's really close.

AlexWell, just reading his headline, I was like, wait, he's jumbled in his golf clubs? What's happening? I'm like, oh, oh, wait, wait. I could not comprehend what was happening for a second.

MaxSo among the other things that David Farenthold has uncovered that hang in Trump's golf courses, I don't know if you guys follow all this shitty gossip. You know we do. So there was the portrait that Trump purchased. Trump's used his charity to purchase a portrait, an oil painting of himself, which hangs at Mar-a-Lago. He also has a plaque showing the all-time course high records of his golf game or whatever. And he is number one on all of his golf courses.

Speaker AAlthough in interviews with caddies and stuff, a lot of them say-

MaxGirls under 11. A lot of them say, I have literally never seen someone cheat as rampantly and play as poorly as Donald Trump. Oh, man. Like, he's apparently a—

MerlinAnd he drives on the green. Oh, he drives where the fuck he wants.

MaxBut I—

MerlinNo, you understand, like, I don't care. But for anybody who has the slightest understanding of the way that golf works, I mean, this would be like going bowling and all your friends are being careful to, like, wear the right shoes. And you go out and just take a fucking dump, like, right in the middle of the wood. like he you do not go anywhere near the green in your car again i don't care but for people who do golf you go how could you have any respect for golf you own this course and he's probably all like yeah i do own this course i drive wherever i want i'm a big boy he also some other golf

Maxetiquette that i well first i had to learn that this etiquette existed and then i i was delighted that trump violates it so um he plays through every hole on the course no matter who or what is happening. Oh, come on. So apparently in golf, there's like an etiquette around like if...

MerlinIf the group that's behind is playing markedly faster for a hole or two, I think it's considered gracious for the one in front to say, hey, would you guys like to play through? You offer it and then you can accept it. But you would never just say,

Maxhey, pull over, daddy's coming by. He just pulls right up to the hole, makes everyone stand aside and takes a swing. The other thing is when Trump plays in a group, even if he's playing with like other business leaders or world leaders or whatever, he always goes first on every hole no matter what which is also apparently a big taboo it's funny I almost put there's just some article about all this and I almost put it in the show notes and I was like I don't fucking care I just I know this is like a whole premise a whole thesis of the podcast about funny all this stuff was and it's just I get something is it's just changed I just don't care

Merlinit seemed like you crossed the Rubicon the other night you seemed like you kind of reached and you're already such a karma suck about letting us have any fun with any of this which is fine but it feels like you've reached a certain point with this where it's literally not funny to you anymore?

MaxI guess I felt, I guess I just feel that it went, it's crossed a line for me, a combination of the trivia of, oh, it's a steak's well done, a combination of the trivia with the actual scandal, the Russia shit, which doesn't really affect anyone or really matter. I mean, maybe they'll get them, maybe they won't, whatever. But like, you know where it's just crossed a line into being, it's like the only thing. like what about the power what about what what like it's just it's fucking crazy like that's not enough like that's trivia guys that's like i'm not getting mad at you guys i'm mad at the like

Merlindemocratic establishment but like it's a form of it's a form of self-soothing where like you feel like it's like your your tweet that i hope you don't get annoyed that i do this that i constantly retweet is that feeling of oh this has got to be it even as you know there's no way that this will ever be it and meanwhile you know rome is burning right i came through i think i'm through the other

Maxside. If I made that tweet thinking it was ironically funny that Trump was doing all this awful shit and no one cared and it was so shocking and brazen and there was a sort of, I don't know, black humor to it to it's no longer funny, it's actually real. He actually is really doing bad things and nobody cares. A total failure to articulate policy alternatives, you don't hear about single-payer health care, you don't hear about any sort of alternative non-interventionist or peaceful foreign policy alternatives.

Nothing. We don't have any infrastructure alternatives. Nothing. There's nothing. All we have is some fucking gossip about how he colluded with Russia. Again, it's like why pick that battle? Because the thing is the deed is done on Russia. It either happened or it didn't happen and the investigation is either going to nail him or it's not going to nail him. Nothing that we do or the Senate does or anyone does will change it. It's a trial now. It's like you're gambling. You're putting it all on red. It's like the fates are sealed.

Like he either broke the law and Mueller's going to get him or he broke the law and Mueller's not going to get him or he didn't break the law and Mueller's not going to get him. But like why gamble like the whole fate of the country and our freedom and everything on that? Like it's insane. Like why not at least try to put up some sort of meaningful opposition like be about something other than, oh, Trump eats two scoops of ice cream. Isn't that crazy? It's like the American people don't give a shit. We already tried this, and we already had an entire national campaign for a fucking year about what a bad person he was, and we still elected him president.

So what else do we have?

MerlinYes, you're right. But the problem is that it's when you see something that it continues to overwhelm you at a time when you think you are not capable of being overwhelmed anymore. And when you are overwhelmed by the cascade of everything that's already happened, plus this, plus how much this continues to show that this man has no character or shame. And when that happens, I think it's maybe this is maybe this is how it's supposed to work. But that's why I think it's so hard to avoid.

You're like, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Am I the only person seeing that somebody used a dot PSD file that floated around the Internet a few years ago and down to the same barcode as in that PSD? that basically somebody on his staff did that and and that was okay yeah but i you know i know you're right i know i should be doing my five calls and all that kind of stuff it's it's nothing i'm again

Maxi'm not mad i'm not mad i'm not mad at you guys i think it's fine for us sure you are no i'm really i'm really not i'm mad at i'm mad at senate democrats and i'm mad at my friends who work on the hill that that what about john mccain you mad at john mccain doesn't he kind of doesn't he kind of bug you a little bit john mccain can suck my balls john mccain he's such a fucking equivocator he's like oh i don't uh he's like i'm not really not happy with the process of how this health care bill is going well guess what bitch vote against it then what do you want like you support you're in a fucking enabler like either either draw the line or don't but stop doing this

bullshit where you get credit for being principled because you complain about trump but then vote with him every time all this this entire fucking party they have no principles yeah else it's also that

MerlinTo me, he is a kind of encapsulation of why I don't like words like problematic as a way to describe something. Problematic describes how you feel about something. It doesn't describe what's bad about something. And so when people like – and the liberals, for God's sake, we know how bad they are about this. That's really problematic. Well, tell me fucking why it's problematic. You can't change something by calling it problematic. That's just code because you don't want people to at you. Now, with McCain, he will come out and say, well, I have a lot of concerns about this and blah, blah, blah. And then fucking a week later, yeah, he voted for it. Go look at the record. It's bananas.

But he's always got these two responses. On the one, he gets to be the principled guy that everybody respects and wants to be pulling for. And then on the other hand, he pulls this same shit and he's just another one of these fucking shitlords.

MaxWhen that guy dies, we're going to have to listen to so much bullshit about what a statesman he was and, oh, civility is dead in America. And it's going to be such a fucking hagiography of that guy. I'm not going to be able to stand it.

AlexAnyways. The thing that's killing, like, it's, oh, God, no wonder I have fucking wrist problems.

MerlinYou know what it is, Alex? You got nightmare fists.

AlexYou got the fists of nightmare. My nightmare fists. Like, if I can understand why, like you said, Merlin, if I can understand why something is bad or why something is problematic, but like I can't understand why the healthcare bill is bad because we can't fucking see it and senators can't even fucking explain it or talk about it. There's like exactly like 48 people. It's like, what do my calls do if I can't say why I don't like it?

MaxThere's like 48 people in the whole country that want that. And Trump, now the White House has this new line they were doing yesterday where they were like, the Democrats, they were against the health care bill before they even saw it. They never even gave it a chance. It's like, what are you talking about? There was no, there's like 72 hours between when everyone sees it and when it's going to be voted on. Anyway, I firmly believe that the leadership has the votes and they're probably going to ram that thing through. So at this point, I don't think we'd be having this recess if they – I mean, I think they're very confident that they have the votes.

However, listen, if anyone wants to do anything, like please, for the love of Christ, even if you live in a blue state, call your senators and demand that they oppose this bill. Make them pay for it. They have to – do you guys – people don't understand this. The fight is not over when the bill – when it gets decided, when the bill is released, whatever, so-and-so. It's never over. You have to make them fucking pay every single day of their life. You have to make them rue the day that they vote for this thing. If you have a Republican senator, you have to call them, literally set a calendar alarm and call them three times a week and say, you betrayed me and my family by voting for this bill.

And just make them.

AlexFuck three times a week every single day.

MaxIt takes five minutes. Make them pay for it. And if you have a Democratic senator, call them and say, why didn't you do more? Blowback. You have to have blowback. Because once they're done with the health care bill, we're going to get to tax cuts and they're going to slash entitlements. And once we're done with entitlements, it's going to be national security. It's going to be a rolling thing of one thing after another. And if they never feel the heat of this, if what they learn from this is that they can ram this legislation through and there's no meaningful consequences, then, boy, it's going to get a lot worse. And they're going to learn the lesson from this, that this sort of, like, opaque policymaking procedure with no protection for the minority, that Americans will just sort of tolerate it and they'll get mad online but not meaningfully do anything.

You know, I keep telling people – and then there's also this, like, whole narrative – oh, boy, this is depressing. Sorry. Yeah. There's this whole narrative of like –

MerlinYou guys should check out these Dr. Cat pictures.

MaxThere's this whole narrative that the Democrats have or that you see of like, well, oh, it's okay that Republicans are voting for this because they're throwing away. Like we'll definitely retake the House and the Senate if they do this. Like they're signing their, you know, like their like suicide note here. And even, you know, in the fucking idiot Democrats in the House were singing, hey, hey, now, now, goodbye. Like, you know, like that – Like singing when this bill passed, like what is wrong with you? Like have some fucking, A, have some dignity that millions and tens of millions of Americans just lost their health care and their children are going to die.

And B, you're just fucking lost. Could you have some shame? Could you be embarrassed? Could people be mad that they're losing for one minute? You've made me.

MerlinI hate losing. Why is everyone so proud of losing?

MaxBecause we beat the expectations. You've made me realize.

MerlinNo, no, no. I'm here to say. You have made me realize how funny that is and how sad that is when the response is, yeah, yeah, we got to write where we want them. We lost the election, but we performed by 5%.

Speaker AOh, God. Tell it to the refs.

MaxBy the way, John Ossoff, that whole narrative of, like, wow, a really strong showing in a red district, he did one and a half points worse than Hillary. Do you guys know that? That was lost in the whole narrative. You know he did worse. You know we spent $13 million on that race, and he did worse than Hillary.

MerlinYeah, but I think, let's be honest. We're going to be losing a lot worse than usual, although we will continue to lose. I think it's a very, very exciting trend.

MaxI hate losing. I hate it. And I'm not – I don't understand why. So people get so fucking defensive whenever, like, when this – I was mad yesterday about this health care bill. I'm like, people get so mad at me. I'm like, I hate losing. I'm so mad at our elected officials that they're – and the Democratic, the Senate Democrats, because they're such losers. And they're not meaningfully slowing this thing down or doing anything other than the symbolic to prevent it. and people get so defensive and salty. It's like, why? Do you like losing? It's okay to be mad. These people work for you. Make them fucking work for their dinner.

AlexI mean, fuck, even if you don't care about losing, your friends are going to die. You will have friends who you can't, they won't even be able to get fucking chemo. They're not going to be able to afford antibiotics. You know how much antibiotics cost? They're like over $100 to fix strep throat that will turn into pneumonia, and then you die.

MaxListen, so here's what I was going to say. The only thing about – the final thing I'll say about this, like, we have them right where we want them thing, is, like, I don't know, people have a short memory. So in 2013 when the Republicans did the government shutdown, do you guys remember that?

AlexOh, yeah.

MaxEvery day on the news there was pictures of the veterans who went to D.C., but then they weren't allowed in to see the World War II memorial, you know, whatever. Very sad story. People couldn't get their government benefits and their checks or whatever. That was the lowest period of popularity of a political party in American history in the recorded history of polling. The Republican Party polled. They hit a new bottom of the scale of how unpopular a political party could be. They were historically the least popular party ever in American history during the time of that government shutdown.

One year later, 2014, they won big in the midterms. So people have a short memory. If you think that this health care bill that's so unpopular is going to hurt Republicans in the midterms, you are in for another—you're in for a surprise. Because people—the thing is, even if people have a very low opinion of Congress, they like their congressman. That's the sad truth. Everybody likes their congressman, even if they don't like Congress.

MerlinHere's the strategy. We go out there, and we let them keep throwing strikes, and we don't swing. Right? Wait for it. It's a long strategy. We let them get up by seven to eight innings, and then we make fun of how the picture looks.

AlexMan, these Dr. Cat photos.

MerlinOh, look at that. One's got a real stethoscope. You can tell he's a doctor.

MaxSalon. It has been widely reported that Trump has been unable to hire any top firms to represent him because they believe he is likely to shoot his mouth off against their advice. According to Yahoo News, one lawyer said the concerns were as follows, quote, the guy won't pay and he won't listen. So after Comey's last public testimony, Trump unleashed his longtime private lawyer, Mark Kasowitz, to rebut the charges, and it was not a smooth performance. The president apparently decided he needed someone with a little bit more experience in Washington. Since all the A-list defense attorneys were, quote, unavailable to come to the president's defense, he had to turn to the right-wing fever swamps

and a man named Jay Succolo, a familiar presence for viewers of Fox News. It's a bit unexpected for Succolo to work for a president with a reputation as a crude libertine who clearly lacks any sincere commitment to religion or traditional values. Succolo is best known for his work at the American Center for Law and Justice, the Christian conservative's answer to the American Civil Liberties Union, which Pat Robertson founded in 1990. Now, why would Donald Trump hire a right-wing First Amendment lawyer rather than a defense attorney? Well, it's obviously because Succolo is a, quote,

legal analyst for Fox News, which Trump watches obsessively. He likely saw Succolo, quote, defend him on TV one night and decided he would be a good defense attorney. So that is who is defending Trump now on this whole Russia issue. It's like a TV talking head lawyer who he saw on Fox News. And you know what? That's because I think Trump fundamentally understands the issue, which is it's sort of an issue of, like, public perception and not, And it's like, you know, he needs a Johnny Cochran because he's on a TV trial and it's that he's performing the TV reality show of Trump's trial.

And it's not an actual trial.

AlexHappy Wednesday, guys.

MaxNext door.

MerlinConnie writes to say subject line suspicious, suspicious person doorbells. A suspicious person at a potential house break in break in occurred this morning when a 302 a.m. when a suspect rang the doorbell. Our camera captured 30 seconds, and then it cuts off right before the suspect potentially tries to kick our door open.

Speaker AAre you hearing this? Are you hearing this? I don't know if you're hearing this. Okay, the suspect rang the doorbell. Our camera captured 30 seconds,

Merlinthen it cuts off right before the suspect potentially tries to kick our door open. We have a tunnel entrance. This is the third time in the past two years. Someone rang our doorbell in the middle of the night, but we didn't have a camera before. I think the first time was a lady. The second time it happened, several months later, We tried looking out our living room window, but didn't see anyone. This incident occurred at Dingle and Dingle. Please be vigilant around the neighborhood, everyone. I have reported this information to the police. Neighbor Luke responds to say, thanks for sharing. Let's make sure he'd link to a video. Thanks for sharing. Why do you think he says help in the video?

Speaker BHe says help.

MerlinWow, he surely sees the camera. Scary and strange.

MaxHelp. Thanks for sharing. Well, classic misdirection when you're doing a con, right? When you do a con, here's the thing. Here come the Mini Coopers. When you're running a con on someone, you have to give them something they already want. You know, it's like they're conning themselves with their own greed. You know what I mean?

MerlinYeah. That's what makes it work. Had a person ding-dong ditch our house last night. Had a person ding-dong ditch our house last night. Could be burglars testing to see if anyone's home. Or could be those meddling kids. Scooby-Doo reference. Classic.

AlexWhoa, whoa, whoa. They wrote?

MerlinScooby-Doo reference in parentheses.

AlexIn parentheses.

MerlinThat's right, Raggy.

AlexGod damn it.

MerlinIf he was in need of help, why would he try to kick in the door? Potentially.

AlexI really regret never having signed up for the service when I lived in downtown Chicago in overpriced condo buildings.

MaxOh, I can tell you the number one issue of people who live in downtown Chicago. It's buskers playing the saxophone too loud. I've been to tons of CAPS meetings and city council meetings where people complain about buskers playing the bucket drums too loud.

Speaker BI've seen... Crusty Jugglers.

AlexThere's actually one guy who it... I'm just going to call it Socks Park because I forget which corporation currently owns the stadium.

MaxOh, isn't it called Guaranteed Rate Field now?

AlexYeah, yeah. It was like... It's so bad.

MaxCan you fucking believe that? I'm pretty sure it's called Guaranteed Rate Field.

Speaker BI don't know what that is.

MaxWelcome. It's a beautiful day here at Guaranteed Rate Field. And here come the Chicago Socks. Chico's Bail Bonds Baseball-torium.

AlexWell, there's this one guy who just constantly on his saxophone plays the Simpsons theme song over and over and over again. Oh, I know that guy.

Speaker BYeah, but he doesn't even collect money anymore.

AlexIt's like off-key. I think it's just to annoy all the white people, and I love him so much.

MaxHe throws in those Steely Dan drop-D chords a little bit.

AlexOh, Chicago treasure.

MaxOkay, I have some real-time next-door follow-up. I believe my cordless drill was stolen from my garage. You do? I don't think so. Have you informed the police, Max? I did not follow a police report. Well, I'm not 100% sure that it's not lost in my house. But here's what happened.

I have this garage door, and I got a smart garage door, so it's like a Wi-Fi garage door, so I can use an app to close my garage, basically. and something is, it's very temperamental and something has been wrong with it for like a month where it says like error code 13 and the only thing that seems to be wrong is that there's a function on the garage door where I can tell it if the door is up close yourself after five minutes or after whatever, you know what I mean? You guys have that right on your garage that's not working, so instead it just flashes and says like error code 13 I don't know, I think the sensor might be a little

misaligned or who the fuck knows anyhow, the garage door does not auto close and there was some sort of incident a couple weeks ago where I ran to work or ran to a meeting or something. And I think it might have been Veronica and I went out grocery shopping. We weren't even gone that long. But when we came back, the garage was still up, right? And I just didn't – I wasn't sort of – I didn't know.

And I guess anyone could have just gone in and taken anything. And then this weekend I was doing a little bit of yard work and I needed my cordless drill. And sure enough, it wasn't there.

MerlinSo I think someone – This sounds like a targeted attack. This sounds like active measures against Mr. Max Temkin. knowing he's been so blithed about other people getting their cordless drills stolen. It's time for him to get his.

MaxOkay, well, here's what I think happened. I think that maybe there was a jogger came by and engaged me in conversation while I was out watering the plants a couple weeks ago. And that's the mouth, right? That's the front man. So he was there. He got my attention while I'm back. Was turned a team of people that came in. They disabled the nest cam in my garage, which happened to be not working at the time of the theft. they broke the sensor that auto closes the garage and that's the groundwork right and then

and you know what they have is they have the fidgety sweaty guy in the van across the street going get out of there get out of there he's about to turn around you know what I mean four seconds yeah exactly and then I turn around and you think that they're still there and I'm going to catch them but when I turn around the camera cuts and you can see that they're gone they just made it and then of course they waited until I was out and sure enough the garage door didn't close and they sneak in and like, go, go, go, he's gone. And they get in and they take my cordless drill.

MerlinI mean, I can't think of another plausible explanation apart from you misplacing it.

MaxI did. I went to Home Depot and I bought a new drill. Brushless motor. It's pretty good. That's what they do. That's what they do. They wait for the insurance money to come through.

MerlinThey're going to be straight back. They're going to shoot some Batman gas in your face. You're going to go down like Trotsky. And boom, two cordless drills.

AlexMax has sort of breezed by one thing. It's kind of like how he doesn't like talking about Tesla and Merlin doesn't like talking about having an iPad. But you now have the keyless lifestyle. And I am very confused about how this is possible.

MaxI don't know. It's not keyless. I have one key.

AlexWhat's the key for?

MaxThe key is to my house.

MerlinStill got a dumb house. Smart house. Oh, that's funny.

MaxI have a fucking lock on my house.

MerlinYou got a feature house. That's what you got.

MaxA feature house. I actually don't. You guys know how I feel about this. I don't have any features in my house. Mm-mm. Mm. I don't have any smart home shit.

AlexDon't you have a tube friend?

MaxA what?

AlexThe lady in the tube.

MaxOh, yeah, but you know, it's funny. I was curious when the new Alexa came out.

MerlinMine arrives today, and the Arments have already given up in less than 24 hours. It's so ugly. It's so fucking ugly. Are you going to unbox it? Oh, yeah, I'm going to do a whole video. Oh, good.

AlexLike and subscribe.

MerlinI was so pumped for this thing. You know what? I'm never going to do, I don't do the video stuff now. I will never do the video stuff. There's no way I'm going to let them get my contact list. And then Marco posted a photograph of what the thing looks like from like a back rear, like a rear side angle. Wait, you can do like, what's the video stuff? Right now, they introduced this in advance of this one coming out. With your lady in a tube, you can basically upload your contact list and say, it's okay for people to audio and video call me via my echoes.

and you can also enable... I'm sure you've read about this.

MaxWait a minute. Wait a minute. So you're going to call me. It's going to be 2 a.m. I'm going to be frying bacon with no shirt on and the echo is going to light up and Merlin's face is going to be there. Oh, it's worse. Did you hear about drop-in?

MerlinHave you heard about drop-in?

MaxWhat is this?

MerlinOh, you're going to love this, Max. If you enable it, people on your list will be able to turn on your camera. So basically, they'll see... They said, hey, let's do a drop-in, right? Hey, let's go see Grandma. And then so at first it shows up like a shower door, like kind of bubbly, and then automatically just turns the camera on. They go, hey. So people just be in your fucking kitchen when it suits them.

MaxOh, this is very 1984. Oh. Because the thing is you don't know when they're watching.

MerlinWell, you get a second. You get like a couple seconds to shut it off. It's that they have the ability to watch you at any time. Well, so there are a couple. And Joe Rosen still don't get mad at me. I do think that's a weird feature. and it's not on by default, but if you turn it on, then yes. But the thing is also, it goes for anybody in your household and I think for their contacts.

MaxHang on now. All right. Hang on. All right. First of all, all right, let me just say, with respect to the lady in the tube, let me just go back to this for one second. So I was debating, do I get the new thing? And I use, you know, there's an Alexa app and you can go on and one of the features of the app is it basically shows you a log of all the things you ask Alexa to do, right?

MerlinOh, I love looking at this.

MaxSo I went, so I was like, you know what, I'm going to see, do veronica and i use this device enough to warrant me buying the new version of it and if we use it a lot i'll i'll upgrade and if and if it turns out we don't i'll just we'll keep the one we have and i went through and we use it about four times a week to set a timer and like one time in the last month veronica had to play wbez so that's the that's what we're doing with it yep and i think maybe i've told it like you know buy olives once or twice whatever yeah violence

you know i'm run out of something and i'm like you know whatever put uh i need canola oil yeah yeah i do it all the time but i'm curious like if you go into your app does it you know because that's listen it's a little bit like rescue time right like you can have your story of your relationship with with this computer with this thing but the data tells the true story like are you really using this thing like like multiple times per day all i use it for is setting a timer

Alexalex yeah we i actually mel uses it probably like five times more than i because she does all the

Maxcooking and all the important things can you go into your app and read some of the things that

Alexyou've told i would love to i would love to she actually because it can only be paired to one thing so it's paired to her phone or maybe i can see it in the um you guys are fucking married get an amazon family account the i mean it is it is cool like in a shared iCloud account it's such

Merlina disaster oh yeah oh like when you get an email from somebody and it's like it's from the hendersons It's like, well, that's weird.

AlexBut no, we turn the lights on and off. Oh, here we go. Like a million, what's the weather? What time is it?

MerlinI do a lot of streaming audio. I went to toilet paper the other day.

MaxWhat do you stream? Hang on, hang on. What do you stream? KALW, KQED. Oh, KQED is fantastic.

MerlinYeah. And so you just say, hey, Vegas.

MaxHave you ever watched their live sessions they do in the studio?

MerlinOh, yeah, the Tiny Chair Concerts. I do that, yeah. But it also, here's the part that Max is going to love. Max, if you go in, it'll also show you all the various times that it thought it heard you say something when you maybe didn't even know that it heard you say something. It just got triggered, as they say, as the millennials say.

Triggered much? Then you can play the audio of what you said, and it's frequently really funny, what it thought you said from across the room.

AlexOh, I've never gotten that.

MerlinOh, no. No, no. All you do, just go into home, and then click on it. You'll see the history there. The last thing it heard us say was, what are the newest apps in the cellar? It heard that. At one point, it heard me say, play God, Mommy.

Let's see. Should I use Tinder? Is nice to her? It heard me say. Game of Thrones. Yeah, I did ask that.

MaxSo are you using this thing legitimately? I mean, aside from times when it mishears you, are you legitimately using this thing, like, multiple times per day? Yeah.

AlexI mean, it controls all the lights in my house. Oh, you too? Yeah, all of them are. I mean, also, there's only, like, at most 10 light bulbs in my house.

MerlinBut also, let me give you a scenario here that explains this a little better. Once you start, who fucking cares? Once you start using this, you stop thinking about it. And it's just a thing that you do. So I don't have a clock radio anymore because I wear my watch to sleep.

MaxDon't you see that that's bad? Because eventually you just transform yourself. You're in your Dale Gribble basement. You're taking your poppers and you're watching your security camera feeds. And you're like, oh, what's great about this lifestyle is eventually you just stop thinking about it.

AlexI mean.

MaxYour skin is all pale. You're like, I don't even question it anymore.

MerlinYou become a cyber man. But stuff like. So here's the nice thing about. So to me, like saying, hey, dingus, turn on the hall lamp is not super helpful. What is helpful is, hey, dingus, goodbye. Or hey, dingus, turn everything off. Or for me, I do this thing at night because I'm a weirdo. I say, hey, dingus, go red. And it turns all of my hue lights in the rooms that I'm in into this very dark red that makes it very conducive to like not going to wait.

MaxHow did you not name that red alert?

MerlinYou can do that. You can have it do whatever you want. No, you're right. You don't need this. This is not for you. But now the thing is it's out for delivery. I'm going to be so bummed. I pre-ordered this thing. And like it looks – have you seen like what it looks like? Dugga, dugga, dugga.

MaxI have seen it. It looks like a chumbie. It's a little chumbie. What if we all got this thing and did drop in for one week? Nope. I'm in. I'm in. You're in. You're in. That's the challenge.

AlexOh.

MaxDo you want me to – Oh, I like this challenge. Drop in challenge. Oh, God. Drop in challenge.

AlexThere's nothing you like more than getting your boss just appearing in your home at 2 in the morning. Hey, what are you doing, frying up some bacon?

MerlinYou know what, you guys? I can tell you there is one very prominent internet circus performer who is not going to be loving this.

Speaker AI can see from here that you're buying the more costly red peppers.

MerlinWhy do you buy Brussels sprouts pre-cut? You can do that yourself and save $5.

AlexI can just see Max popping up in my kitchen judging the food that I'm eating.

Maxreally close to the camera yeah Alex why are you eating white bread with a spoon

Alexwhy are you eating white bread and crying have you ever made bread balls you just roll them up

Merlinin tiny balls sure uh I'm uh uh yeah I showed I showed um I showed my daughter my daughter who has the same diet as you she makes rice sandwiches you guys sent me that wonderful photo of Alex eating a big old plate of Texas toast I said hey here's Alex because she really likes you With a friend of the show, Casey West. Yeah, exactly. And she said, what is that? Is that bread? I said, yes, Texas toast. She goes, now I really want some Texas toast.

She got a real case of the bread balls.

MaxI got to get my toaster. I got a raging case of the bread balls.

MerlinYou can't take me up to the point of buying the bread and not let me make the balls. Man, you're killing me.

MaxReal-time follow-up. Digga, digga, digga. Copyright John Syracuse 2010. 10. 11. 2011. Listen, on the talk show with John Gruber, the live one, I just listened to it from WWDC. You guys checked out my brother and me. It was very funny. It was very funny.

And who was it? Craig Federici made some joke where he's like, I was really, or he had some comment. He's like, during the keynote, I was able to say, hey, Siri. And everyone's Siri didn't light up. Oh, there goes my thing. And everyone's Siri didn't light up because we have like really good voice recognition. And then he made some joke to Gruber if he's like, hey, you can probably stop saying, hey, dingus now. Do you remember that? I just want to point out, I just want to set the record straight. I am very confident that Merlin created that joke and the phrase, hey, dingus, on an episode of the talk show like a couple years ago when you guys were talking about voice technology.

And I just feel that you, you know, Merlin, that's your one accomplishment. You're known for this one thing.

MerlinI feel like I asked for so little.

MaxWhy can't you just get the credit for this?

MerlinCan I just have a legacy of this one thing that I said one time? You know? I mean, I'm heavily credited with being the creator.

MaxAm I wrong that you originated that joke?

MerlinIt's also funny because dingus is a wonderful word that I think was brought back into nerd vernacular by one John Patrick Gruber when he had the markdown dingus on his site. So I feel like he brought dingus back onto my radar screen.

AlexOh, no.

MerlinSo I always started saying dingus from hearing you on like back to work. Yeah, you like dingus so much in the last three albums. But, you know, that's fine. That's fine. It's really not just about email.

So Craig, here's the thing. I wanted to try out the new Siri Boy, and so I had – leave this out of the show. I had my new iPad, my old iPad, and my phone next to each other all enabled. I need a young iPad and an old iPad. Never speak to me or my iPad again.

MaxPlease, my iPad. She's very sick.

MerlinShe's very sick. And I wanted to see who's the fast boy and who got heard. And you know what? I'm here to tell you. That whole like it only gets heard on one device thing, it ain't mastered yet.

MaxOh, absolutely does not work. Sometimes I'm like, I use that thing a lot when I'm in the shower and I need to know what time it is or whatever. And if there's other devices within range of the bathroom, they all fucking go off. And sometimes five minutes later, I get out of the shower and they're still in Siri mode, frantically trying to transcribe the white noise in the house.

MerlinHere's one. I'm no engineering person, but can I suggest one? How about if it was heard by an Apple Watch on a wrist, maybe always let that one win. Maybe put all your wood behind that particular fucking arrow. Because no, I don't want my daughter's iPad and this and all these other things going off. If you heard it from an Apple Watch, always let the Apple Watch win. It's not going to hear it unless it's on the wrist. It's not going to be on unless you've raised your wrist. You follow? I stand there and I sit there and I'm in the motherfucking kitchen.

and I've lifted it and I've got the screen on and I touch the crown and I say, hey dingus, set a pasta timer for 10 minutes. Remind me in 10 minutes to take out the pasta. All over the house everything starts squeaking and squawking. It always hears me better on everything but my watch.

MaxI hate it. Until this exact moment I forgot that there was Siri on the Apple Watch. Absolutely forgot that it was there. You can do dictation. You can open drafts. I should probably use that occasionally. You should. You can open drafts.

AlexYou have a series zero like I do, right? It's going to be like, hold on, hold on, hang on.

MaxI'm ready to upgrade. I hope there's a new watch this year. I skipped the two because I felt at the time I was like, you know, I don't know if this is a lasting thing. I was like, I'm going to give it another year and see if I still wear this watch every day or if it's just sort of like a passing dalliance. Listen, occasionally I forget my watch at home or leave it, you know, whatever. It doesn't charge overnight or whatever. And I fucking miss it. I use it all the time. It's a great product. I really, I use it all the time.

But I mainly use it as a watch. Like I don't have any, I don't have another watch. So this is like just, I've never owned another watch. So I just like knowing what time it is. And I kind of look on there and it tells me on my calendar what's coming up. And that's the whole feature set for me.

AlexAm I not using it enough? I like Mickey Mouse too. I mean, I use it for, I mean, I use it for everything. Actually, I do use Siri to just add things to like my inbox and stuff. I'm trying to think of and calendars but the workout stuff has gotten really cool like even when I'm just like a fucking lazy ass I always forget but even if you just go for a walk and I'm like yeah look at those five and a half calories

MaxI always forget

AlexI don't know I think it's just ingrained in my brain because gamification works with me

Maxoh yeah that's me in sleep

Alexyeah

Maxfollow up Gizmodo There's no shortage of things to be mad about In late capitalism Pretty high in the list though Is the eat, pray, love brand of pseudoscience Promoted by Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop Somehow, do you guys know about Goop? It's her Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle brand Oh yes Somehow Goop, which previously encouraged women To shove eggs up their vaginas Has outgooped itself The brand is now promoting stickers called Body Vibes The product, which I remind you Is literally a sticker

uses, quote, NASA spacesuit material to, quote, rebalance the energy frequency in our bodies, whatever the actual fuck that means. Human bodies operate in an ideal energetic frequency, but everyday stresses and anxiety can throw off our internal balance, depleting our energy reserves and weakening our immune systems, Goop says on this website. Well, obviously everyone knows that. Quote, Body Vibes stickers made with the same conductive carbon material NASA uses to line spacesuits so they can monitor an astronaut's vitals during wear come pre-programmed to an ideal frequency,

allowing them to target imbalances. A representative from NASA's Spacewalk office told Gizmodo that they, quote, do not have a conductive carbon material light in the space. Oh, man. So, listen, challenge. I think we need to buy these Goop Body Vibe stickers.

MerlinOkay, how about this? Let me put a little bit of mustard on that sandwich. We get the Goop stickers, and then we just pop in on each other. Hey, buddy, how's the sticker?

MaxAre you rebalanced? Tell us your energy levels. Are you balanced right now? You don't need to sharpen that knife. You just need to hone it.

AlexThis reminds me kind of like the Bluetooth-enabled Diva Cup. Like, I don't know.

MaxWell, it's very David Avocado Wolf to me. My main man, David Avocado Wolf, because, you know, I think this is a new technology, much, you know, like the avocado. First they laugh at you, right? That's right. But like the avocado, I think this is a way to harness the energy. And, you know, I think you take this, you realize that gravity is just a social construct and that men strive to float towards the moon. And you put these NASA stickers on and it rebalances your carbons.

MerlinLet me ask you a question. You ever seen an unhappy astronaut? Not a thing. I mean, the thing is that I've always said that human bodies operated an ideal energetic frequency. You've said that for so long.

MaxYeah. Yeah. And, you know, any kind of stress or anxiety, it throws it right off. I just like to go to my chiropractor and get centered every day.

AlexI really like how the Goop website has detox pantry essentials right next to the best sparkling wines in their shop. It's Goop.

MaxIt's Goop. I did watch the first episode of, well, I hesitate to say the first episode, the first 45 minutes of Planet of the Apps. I watched, like, the first three quarters of it before I had to turn it off. That's a very bad show. And among its many sins, it does not explain what's happening. Like, I'm constantly watching these people, like, preparing for meetings and, like, making pitches.

MerlinIt knows that it's a Shark Tank ripoff, and it knows that you know it's a Shark Tank ripoff.

MaxI was so fucking lost the whole time. I was like, wait, what? I was like, why is he meeting with them again? What's this meeting they're going to? Why do they need money? I had no narrative, like, connective thread that I was, like, that I could follow.

AlexI also don't understand. Do the, like, like, Gary Vaynerchuk.

MaxWho is that guy?

Alexmoney oh is that dude that's wine library guy he used to back in the revision three like dignation days he had a show where he would get excited about wine and like he was like the uh

Maxum what's the what was the guy now alex listen to me i'm a famous technologist and i'm only going to tell you this because i uh i care about you and i want to be straight with you and i'm gonna give you the straight shit you're an idiot your product sucks uh uh i hope you die now what are you gonna

Alexto do to fix it see even you give me that voice is less annoying than his actual voice uh he is

Merlinthe wine guy he uh turns out uh brady's bits he bought the app that dan benjamin and dan cedar home made that corked app for tracking wines that you like so he made that part of his wine empire

Alexdid you know that 95 of the wine bought in america is less than 12 the devil you say i really feel

Maxlike he is popping some sort of Dr. Poison poppers right before he walks on set and he's just like he's like what are you going to do to stop Facebook from stomping all over you?

Speaker AI like the idea. What's your competitive advantage?

Speaker BGod damn it.

Speaker AI'm just so angry that you're going to get beaten and you haven't even started yet. I got balls full of anger. God damn it. wine is so fucking good. I have big, huge bread balls full of opinions. I got wine balls. They're fucking Chablis bullshit.

Who's gonna make this happen? Why would I want to buy it? I don't want to buy it. I don't want to sell it. God damn it.

MaxI think Gwyneth needs to get one of these NASA patches and just really bring them back down. They come back from the break and he's just covered with patches.

MerlinRestore the dictator to hell. Oh, okay. Breaking news. The goop. The Illuminage Touch, $495. The people at Illuminage have cracked the code on hair removal. For bikini line legs, arms, and even face, this painless combination of radio frequency, RF, and intense pulse light, IPL, energy removes hair more effectively than any other at-home device. And best of all, it works with all skin tones

and the widest range of hair colors. $495 and the bag done.

MaxThis is Alex Jones for new age bougie women. You look like a goddamn Wolverine. Get some of that off your face. Jesus Christ. I got a five o'clock shadow. Did you guys ever see the Indiegogo for the laser razor? It was just like razor. It was like Supergirl, like trimming somebody's hair with her eyes. No, it was a razor that purported to use like a laser beam to like shave you. And they had this proof of concept video of this ugly, bulky prototype. And it was a guy, and it was an ultra close-up of a guy's arm and his arm hair.

So every arm was like a fucking tree trunk. It was this huge macro close-up. And he was very slowly and repeatedly dragging the laser beam kind of thing across his arm. And none of the hairs were going anywhere. And it was on its face one of the funniest things I've ever seen. It was this thing that obviously didn't work. and they raise like a million dollars on the go-go. Oh, God. I mean, it's like, you know, you got to believe it. If it's going to shave you, you got to believe in it. If you don't believe it's going to shave you, it's not going to shave you.

MerlinA lot of people don't know that. That's why a lot of people die in knife attacks every year. They don't know you have to believe in the knife to be stabbed by it. I take away your power.

Speaker AI do not believe in you, good Sir Blade.

AlexAll right, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig. Are we going to talk about our challenge this week, Merlin?

MerlinDid you get a chance to watch the program, Max? I did. I finished it this morning. Do you want to talk about it? We don't have to.

MaxSure. Okay. I mean, it was a hard. All right. First of all, I'm sorry. Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig. Just this week. Set up the challenge. Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig.

MerlinDig, dig. This week the challenge was mine. My challenge was to watch the recent documentary about Stephen Sondheim on the HBO network called Six by Sondheim. Stephen Sondheim is a writer of music and lyrics who's been around for a long time. Wait, this was a new documentary?

AlexNo.

MaxOkay.

AlexYes. It came out last year.

MaxOh, okay. I thought maybe it was made in the 90s. It has a bunch of CGI and all the CGI looks like it was from a Nintendo GameCube. So I thought maybe it came out. He's not actually that ripped, Alex. He's not that ripped.

AlexShit. All right. I'm sorry. Continue, Merlin. I'm sorry for interrupting. We're done here.

MerlinWe're done here. No. And so it's basically the story of this guy who's, I don't know, he's kind of like a songwriter songwriter. Like he's very hugely respected and revered. And he's kind of a big boy. He's a big shot. And it tells, I think it very wonderfully tells a lot of his story, his biography. and the context for it is like talking in particular about six songs from musicals that he's done. But it's really just an excuse to talk about this guy and his life. And I hope interestingly to Max, how he works and how he thinks

and how he functions as an incredibly interesting neurotic man in the world. And I find it wonderful, motivating, moving. And I've watched it three times this week. Six by song.

MaxThe first thing is, I didn't find him that neurotic. He's just a guy who works hard and cares a lot. am I supposed to have watched that documentary

Merlinand been like this guy is really weird given that the movie opens with three quotes from him about being neurotic I think it's probably

Maxa pretty good guess he's a little bit neurotic he's Jewish right? Jewish people just talk about how neurotic they are it's part of the culture it's like saying that you have the best proctologist at the dinner table you're saying he's a fake geek Jew I'm just saying it's like you guys are reading too much into this that's just him being a Jew that's not a thing talking about how neurotic you are is not is not a thing.

MerlinDo you want to read some more about late capitalism?

MaxNo, I liked it. I really liked it. I just wish it was like this guy is, I don't know. I just, I don't know enough about musicals to like all of the, so all of the songs that they've, I haven't heard any of his musicals. I was very interested in the one at the end, the one about Sundays in the park. Yeah, that was, that was a well done segment. And that was the one that grabbed, that was the musical. If I had to pick one to go see based on the documentary, I think I would enjoy that one the most. But, you know, I just don't think musicals are like that, I just don't think it's that great of an art form. Like it's not for me, I don't know.

It's just so corny and I just, this guy, I mean I appreciate that he's like laboring so hard and he's at the top of his craft. He's doing this like really obscure thing. I don't know. It's obscure? I just cannot, I just, I don't know. I don't know. Says the guy who makes comedy cards. Every single one of the songs they played sounded exactly the same. Comedy card boy does not like she's solid. It was the same song six times and they all had some cranky old lady dancing around with an umbrella and belting it out. I used to be young. I don't know.

Speaker BYeah, all right. All right, I'm good.

MaxYou want to go ahead and take the rest of the call off? But I liked all the parts where he was being interviewed were magical. He is such an interesting personality, and his talk about the creative process, which I hope we can get into, was very good. I had a feeling you would like that. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. Absolutely loved it. His thoughts about teaching and mentorship were incredible. I wrote down a couple of quotes from him that I really loved. Yeah, me too. The audience will know that they've been served a meal. Holy shit, I believe that. And then he points.

MerlinHe does that point.

MaxYeah. They'll know that they've been served a meal. So talk to people. I say that to people about card stuff all the time. It's a very difficult idea to talk about or convey. So I loved all that shit. I just wish that they'd... Okay, let me ask you another question. I absolutely did not follow that.

MerlinI want to hear what Alex has to say also.

MaxBut wait, I just have one point of order question before we get into this. so there were like two songs that dealt with these three young people who were trying to make it in musicals did okay is that a musical they made for this documentary that scene autobiographical

Merlinthere's two songs there's two songs yeah yeah yeah they were made for this it's got the lady from that tv show in it and and and it i don't know who that is did he write them what's her name amerigo vespucci she's the girl from that uh that tv show she's from um like uh which what What show is that, Alex, that she's on?

AlexI don't remember. I do know she's in the Magical Pants movie. Oh, the Sisterhood? Is she in the Sisterhood? Yes. But also Darren Criss, who plays my favorite character on Glee. Not that I watched that show at all. But it was originally a, I think he made it in 1980.

MaxSo that's a real thing he wrote?

AlexYes.

MaxOkay. Is it meant to be autobiographical?

AlexYes.

MaxOkay. But did they film that little crazy segment for the movie?

AlexNo, it existed as a... I think they made it... Merlin, I might be wrong. Didn't they make it for a Tony's special or something?

MerlinThe part with America Vespucci? I think that, like the guy from Fantastic Mr. Fox, which was done by Todd Haynes, I think they were made for the documentary.

AlexOh, wow. That is an expensive thing to make for a documentary.

MerlinYou know what I'm talking about? The Travis Cocker? Jarvis, Jarvis, Travis? Whatever that guy's name is from Fantastic Mr. Fox and the band that's not Blur. the one with him singing the lady song and everybody stares at him. I'm pretty sure Todd Haynes made that for the documentary.

MaxI agree. I felt like I got the impression watching it that whenever they showed a whole song from beginning to end, it was a special thing filmed for the documentary. And they had them for most of the six songs that they talked about.

Well, in any case, Alex, help me out here, buddy.

AlexIt seems like Max really enjoyed this, except for the part where there was singing. if you did something

Merlinthey should make it 45 minutes long and make it much more consuming you have to come out and tell a story

Maxthere's another universe where this documentary got made but Stephen Sondheim is just the best at painting model trains and it's the same documentary to me it's like I would never do this with my time how many people do you hire to write comedy cards?

Merlinhow many people are on your staff?

Maxwell okay listen I literally wrote this down if you want to go there I literally wrote this down in the notes I said basically what he does of like writing these so he picks a sentence and writes a song and there's a It's basically like a parlor trick. It's like it's like not it's like not that great He just got extremely famous and they made a documentary for him and then and then and and now he's like a personality And it's like listen It's like that's like if people and I were literally remember my notes This is like if someone interviewed me about writing cards against humanity cards when I was like 80 years old And I was like well at the time what I was trying to do was develop an American opera

it's like what it's like you're just writing song and dance for people like and you're good at it I don't take it away that he's good at it it's just like can we like dial it down a notch like Jesus Christ

Speaker Ainitially it was a card about farts and I realized I wanted to serve them a meal

Maxbut what was it about farts we weren't getting to the heart of it then you twirl your finger around it's like you're writing a catchy song I don't get it that's a word

AlexI mean This is, this is, he's the most prolific writer on Broadway, other than perhaps Hammerstein, who was, as you know, they, they go.

MerlinI mean, he's not as like balls out consistently cloud, crowd pleasingly successful as like Andrew Lloyd Webber. Right.

AlexBut he used to be, I think.

MerlinWell, but he's had a lot of, as he talks about, he's had a lot of things that did not go great. And he's usually a few, he's a little bit, not Bowie, but he's a little bit ahead of everybody else, has been for a long time. And he's very, he has a very peculiar style. And like he said, it drives him crazy when, what was it? Hummable. He hates the word hummable, right? That was amazing. Yeah, that was amazing.

MaxI relate to that so hard. And my thing about that is when people say that games are addictive, I fucking hate that. For the same logic and the same reason of like, ah, it drives me nuts.

Alexuh the the whole like crux of this documentary though which i i was not expecting is he's he's not like was it was the whole teaching aspect of it like the the way it's cut together i really like it was it felt brilliant like they take he's essentially been saying the same things at like a good teacher for for i don't know like 30 years over and over and they they cut to bits where he's in his 30s talking about something, and in his 80s, he's saying the same thing.

And there's longer bits on YouTube where he just teaches his songs, and you're right, he has not had hit after hit after hit, but all of his musicals are so ambitious.

And really, I like how they highlighted also songs that were meaningful to him, or were groundbreaking or a good story instead of just going to all of the typical hits. I mean, they kind of touched on some of them, like stuff from Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods. But those aren't good stories. They were successful musicals. There were hummable songs.

MerlinBut they didn't tell us, didn't? I mean, I feel like there's this syndrome. I'm not trying to bag on Brian Wilson, But I feel like there's kind of this Brian Wilson syndrome where it's like, let's do another interview with Brian Wilson to talk about pet sounds. And or it could be something with McCartney. But you're like, OK. All right, everybody, get in the sandbox. Yeah, exactly.

That's a hell of a story. The cat used it. But in this case, I didn't know a lot of these stories. I don't know a lot about this guy. And I think I'm cutting Alex off, so I want to stop in a second. But all I want to say is, you know what I knew going into this? Like, I know a bunch of his songs. I've watched tons of those YouTube videos with the blue background where he trains people to sing his songs. I know so much about Stephen Sondheim and his approach. I have never seen any of his musicals. The closest I came is I have seen some of the Johnny Depp movie, the Sweeney Todd movie.

I've never seen any of his musicals. And yet around my house now, like I said, we're sitting around with the lyrics up on a laptop screen with the whole family singing Getting Married Today. like my entree to this this is another one of those Doctor Who type situations where like my entree to this is so weird I am so fucking into Stephen Sondheim right now and I've never seen one of his plays

Alexisn't that bizarre that is very interesting well I don't know like the thing with theater is most people have not seen the shows that they would say that they love the music to

MaxMerlin you're not an old lady you're a homosexual

Alexso be forgiving oh god that was my favorite line I don't know. I've never seen a creator open up in the way that he does without sounding like he wants his audience to feel sorry for him. Like I think every story he tells has a meaning and has like a teachable moment.

MerlinHe's got so much like I'm so on to this because I'm with you on this because I actually wrote down a few quotes where he does this thing that is nearly unique, which is that he seems to be making a real study of what it means to be a human being in a lot of ways. That sounds corny, but like, you know, and he's had some struggles that we can get to, but he seems genuinely interested in what's actually going on in the world. He wants to write songs that are about these kind of these strange things. He wants to challenge himself. But to the point about him in particular,

you notice how often he says something self-effacing, like, oh, I have this, I can't really play with my left hand. But he's not doing it to go, Oh, Stephen Sondheim, of course you're a good left-handed piano. He knows he's not good at that. And if he is good at something, you know what he says? He says, I'm really good at that. I love that about him. And I love the fact that even when he talks about the shattering pain of his fucking mother telling him that she didn't want him to be born, you could see that it's a painful thing for him. But it's not something he's not telling you that story to make him seem more likable or sympathetic.

he's telling you that because he's a student of humanity and the fact that that happened the way that it did helps him have a story about how humanity works and he now he applies that to what he does he's not doing that for clapping he's saying that because this has to do with his

Alexbigger belt and shawl and and it leads into the story about how um you know the the hammersteins essentially adopted him and love that and became not only his mentors but his parents and then it turns around where as i think it was uh as hammerstein was on his deathbed he said that um sondheim was his greatest teacher and my friend my friend and teacher oh that that teared me up can we can we talk about my favorite segment that you know hit all

Merlinthe gay buttons yep oh wow there's so many before you get to that because we should get to that i just want to point out that this is a without being in any way overt about it this is a great gay text is what I'm here to tell you. Even setting aside the amazing heartwarming coming out-ish footage and story. This is a story about making your own fucking family. It's about figuring out life on your own terms. It's about being a weirdo and an outsider. There's just so many great themes in this, but it comes across as stories of a guy from Broadway, but there's a lot of living

in this movie. What was the coming out story?

AlexHe said he wasn't in love until

Merlinhe was 60.

Alexyeah and he the whole all the way leading up to that is him there's this big thing in the queer community about having like your chosen family and that's essentially what he had to do um but there was no there was no word for it there was no like community for it except the except for broadway and he was you know fortunate enough to be like scooped up right away and fostered um in a way that he was able to like pass on all of his knowledge to i assume other kids who were in the same position and just I've never seen um Company which is apparently one of his most

experimental musicals but I think it's about like six couples and one single guy who is uh is clearly gay uh and just you know just by coincidence all of the uh most most watched clips on YouTube are sung by um like that uh the the fancy man from Law and Order SVU or uh what's his name um doogie hauser and and those are just oh there's a version of yeah the one on youtube

Merlinthe one with the uh spanish subtitles oh i don't know if i saw that one uh i i watched i

Alexi've watched a lot but you you watched the one you watched the one doogie hauser yes yes how about

Merlinthe vocal performance of amy in that one wasn't i didn't like as much as the lady from alice but her physical comedy performance is so freaking funny in that in that production where she's like she's like crawling around the you really get the sense that she is like crazy and she's crawling

Alexaround on her knees and like oh it's so good yeah that's that's when i it like this this musical made me or uh this documentary made me want to seek out more of these musicals it's hard to find

Merlini want i want a legit copy of company and it's like this is one of those goddamn things where it's like you've got to get like an out-of-print dvd to have a legal copy of this it's gross so

Alextell me more about your gay bones, Alex. Uh, no, no, no, just, just as a, I forget the, when they were recording, they were recording the cast album, right. That, or that's what they were doing. Um, and you know, that it was like expertly shot that, that they, I don't know who was, uh,

MerlinI got a story on that. Yeah. Oh, you know what? CBC was going to, uh, Canadian broadcasting folks we're going to start a whole big series of you know basically documenting stuff related to theater and i think music's musicals in particular and i think that may be the only one that got made i've never seen it all the way through but i've seen a ton of clips uh from it but the songs in that

Alexone are really good the songs in company are terrific uh just the someone to sit in your chair i would like to hear about alex's uh bread balls and gay bone i okay there's i mean that's what it is there's there's this one line that it's uh someone to sit in your chair and someone to ruin your sleep that just i i don't know that's like oh wow um oh that's it the no no did the just

Merlinjust merlin help i thought you're gonna tell the anecdote about uh going on the loretta young he tells a story that even he says is probably apocryphal about ethel merman where ethel merman I thought this was your story. I'm sorry. Ethel Merman was going to go on the Loretta Young show. Loretta Young famously very kind of like prim and proper. And he tells this joke so perfectly. Now I'm just repeating Stephen Sondheim's stolen joke. But Ethel Merman comes on. She says, oh, god damn it.

And Loretta Young says, well, when people come on my show and they curse, I ask them to put 25 cents in the can. And then it happens again. It happens again. Finally, Ethel Merman says, here's $10. Go fuck yourself.

AlexOh, God. Just, oh, man. I love those stories. And then this has made me, too, like, this documentary is essentially a compilation of dozens and dozens of amazing YouTube videos that are, like, freely available. And I need to do another deep dive. I've never watched a documentary for three days straight just for funsies. Like, it was, oh, God.

MerlinThose videos are so good. I keep compulsively linked. Oh, by the way, I have also discovered the world of Stephen Sondheim animated GIFs, which are amazing. But the one that still really gets, the Getting Married Today one is very good. But the one that still gets me a Scent in the Clowns, that's, like, the stupidest song. It's, like, it's so mawkish. It's so bleh. but him on stage with that woman, like helping her understand what this song is about, how to sing it. The way he talks to the guy about Sweeney Todd and his blades. He's like, this is a love song.

Make it sexy. You're singing to your razors because they're like a lover to you. He has thought through, and he talks about this. You've got to think through, and I thought you would love this, Max. You have to think through every line and what it means. You have to be able to defend everything that you have written to a singer and explain to them how to do it. I love the way he thinks about this stuff. It is not masturbatory. It is all for a purpose. And I found it utterly inspiring.

MaxWell, I think to abstract a little bit from this of stuff that I could find that would help me think about my own work or whatever, is I think this is a guy who's deeply embraced the constraints of his medium in a very productive way. So he understands the relationship of the cadence of words and the melody and the necessities of the plot and writing for the actress. He talks a lot about constraints. He talks about constraints as much as anything else in his creative process. And he also has this metaphor of it being like a puzzle.

And I do think when you're doing creative work, I very much relate to the puzzle element. A lot of doing good creative work is deeply understanding the constraints, the rules of what you have to do, the things you can't break, the promises you have to deliver on, and you lay them all out on the table before you like a puzzle, and then you find the best way to fit them together. And there isn't one... When you have a creative problem, there isn't, you know, you're trying to write a joke or a song or whatever. There's not one right solution. There is the solution, which is the most elegant way you can come up with to put all the puzzle pieces together.

And then when it's a really elegant solution and all the puzzle pieces are represented, the effect it has is that feeling that the audience, when they see it, they feel that they've eaten a meal. The heart and the intellect and the consideration, they do come through. and people can say, the effect is that they feel that they're seeing a work of genius, right? That like, I can't believe someone thought of all these pieces and fit them together. But I think behind the scenes, there is almost an element of, I don't know, feeling like it's a trick.

I mean, some people feel like it's a trick or they're a fraud or, you know, people do grapple with those feelings for the simple reason that like, they can see behind the curtain. They can see that all they're doing is, it's not that hard, like anyone could do it.

MerlinWell, it's time for that monthly quote from your friend, Pat. don't compare your backstage to other people's on stage that's exactly it probably my favorite thing that's ever i love that program and i wish you guys would do it more that line i still think

Maxabout it constantly i i think that's so true and like the the the truth of a lot of the creative process and a lot of work of i don't know making games or comedy or whatever is like it's a lot of understanding you have to understand what puzzle pieces need to be in the puzzle and then just find a way to fit them together and there's your answer and then at some point you stop because you're like you can't keep futzing with the puzzle forever at some point you're like this has got to go and then it's done he also talks about how you

Merlindon't sometimes the best song in the show ends up being one that was written when it was like just finishing up

MaxI was just oh I was just about to say that and like the effect of that is like when you're doing the puzzle like you're often consumed by the work of just getting everything to fit together and like get it out by the deadline and a lot of times it is remarkable how much everything just looks to you like you're just doing the work of solving this puzzle and it is essentially arbitrary and capricious what people like and what people don't and what they respond to and what they don't. And sometimes you labor over a really difficult problem for a really long time and you come up with a really beautiful solution that the sort of, I don't know what you call philosophy,

it's like the techne, the like, how do you say it? The like...

Speaker ALike practicum?

MaxYeah, like practicum. It's like an elegant thing if you understand the practicum of what you're doing because it's like, ah, only I could have done this with the tools at my disposal. And you make this really beautiful thing and you put it out there and nobody gives a shit about it and you're like, fuck. And then you remember, it's like, yeah, they don't see that part. They don't care about that. And then something you shit out some little joke or some aside or something, and that becomes the, you know, some send in the clowns. And that becomes, you know, you do it in a night, and it's like, sometimes it's really easy for you, and you're just like, I don't know, I didn't really labor over that at all. I just sort of, like, constructed a smart puzzle and solved it and put it out there, and that's the thing everyone seizes upon, and then you're a genius.

It is essentially random. And I know a lot of, you know, people, game designers, whatever, who have, like, made their labor of love, worked for years on it, they finally put the thing out. and it's like other game designers can see the beauty of it and can see all the work that went into it, but it's just sort of like a wet fart to the public. They just never get it.

AlexI mean, that's essentially what Company was. He got a chance to make his own puzzle because he talks about how, like you said, he every line in every song needs to be defended and because there are so many things going on in a musical and more so now like everything is flash there there's crazy choreography there's crazy choreography and yet he puts those pieces together in a way that's like so flawless

and even when it's he's only doing lyrics like what i i didn't realize he only did the lyrics to West Side Story. Like, that's crazy to me.

MerlinYeah. He, I mean, they even have motion graphics about this, some really weird motion graphics in this. But clearly the puzzle, he talks about the puzzle. Oh, the pointilless thing at the end was kind of weird. I thought that got a little silly. Why was it painted on like a burlap sack? It had a lot of knobbiness. But the other thing, and I don't want to disrupt the master in his analogy, but like the truth is, and I think he actually gets close to this truth. A puzzle is a good way to describe how you take something that's disorganized and organize it.

But the trouble is, like, with what he's doing, there's so much more to it than that. Like, you don't have a lid to know what it is that you're making. You kind of do. You don't even know if all the pieces are there. You don't know if you get to the end, there's one piece missing, and it turns out it's an entire separate set of jigsaw puzzles that you've got to fit together that just happen to be that size. Because guess what? You've also got Hal Prince. You've got the budget for these things that you've got to deal with. You've got the time constraints. And like to me, like it takes a very strong character to be able to do that and not succeed at it every time, either financially or critically, to keep going.

And like he says, it's a little it's a little bit of the Walt Disney thing where like he makes musicals to make be able to make more musicals. And I just find something very admirable about that, admirable about that. But also to the big Max thing, just that whole idea of what was the quote? You can't learn it in a classroom. You got to just put it on and put it on and put it on because you're until you're there. You got to remember you're writing for a show. this is not something that's going to go in a museum. It's something that people are going to watch on stage, in a certain context, on a certain night, with certain weather, with these lights and these costumes. And I just, you know, there's nothing in this that I can take to,

not much in this that I can apply directly to the bullshit that I do. But like thinking this carefully and closely about whatever it is you care about making, fucking A man, like you cannot go wrong with that kind of change to your thinking.

AlexI wonder what task manager he uses these days.

MerlinDo you think he uses like maybe a thing? or remember the milk?

AlexI don't know. Maybe to do. I bet he thinks, Alex,

MaxI bet he thinks a lot about his workflow. That's the frustrating thing about people who make musicals is nobody comes up and then goes, oh, what brand of piano do you compose on?

MerlinWhat kind of stool do you have? I've been really struggling with this sonata and I think it might be because of my stool.

MaxI really want to get as good as writing musicals as you are, Mr. Sondheim. What kind of, what brand of vodka are you drinking out of your goblet?

Show notes

Transcript

31. A Pukey Thing

Show notes

Transcript

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