39. My Lady Wad

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and usually Max Demkin, but he's not here today. This week's challenge, look at your office.

Speaker ADid you hear me typing just now?

AlexYes. Shit. People just... I'm sorry. I mean, no, I didn't. This is the quiet one.

MerlinI put away childish things. I put away, back when I wondered why my Mac was crashing, I put away my DOS, which is very, very loud.

AlexYes.

MerlinAnd so now I'm just using the Logitech K760, which is renewable, much like Johnny Ives' orange socks. It's solar. I love that touch.

AlexOh, you've been using that bad boy forever. Not that I'm creepy. No, this boy is bad.

MerlinIt was a gift. If memory serves, this is a gift from JXPX1138.

Speaker AI think he gave this to me as a gift.

MerlinYeah. I like the DOS a lot, but my office is really quite a thing. I should take a photo of this and send it to you because you would really like it.

AlexI mean, I don't so I don't want to blow like I don't want to shoot my lady wad in advance. But I just think it's funny that the two times Max has not been on the show. Unfortunately, he is at his law school orientation today. Just happened to be the ones that I assigned a challenge that had to do exclusively with Apple.

MerlinI thought of that last night. How funny is that?

AlexYeah, just just. Yeah. you know what tell our listeners tell our listeners about max i heard he's a good good law boy now yeah but this we've we've talked about this on the show uh but now it's it's officially on yeah we we are all very very proud of max um he is getting a master's in law which is something that a lot of folks in politics do and he's running he's running i i he's running And, you know, suddenly he just went to Iowa one week.

MerlinOh, I want to go and meet the people of the corn. It's important for me, for my business.

AlexLet's look at the Facebook users. How do you use Facebook Live in this car plant?

MerlinWhen Mr. Max comes by, please do not touch him or speak to him personally.

AlexI love people. I do have, just to start off, an official statement. Max has asked me to read. Oh, right. Which, if I was a good employee, I would have. All right. Max Temkin at, I believe, 8.04 Central Time. Please say that Max said our president is a dumb asshole.

MerlinYeah. I'm glad you got that out there.

AlexJust so folks know. Yeah.

MerlinLast night was rough.

AlexOh, wow.

MerlinDid you watch it?

AlexOh, yeah. I know that I shouldn't. I know that my mental health would improve if I just didn't watch this as I'm in bed. And, you know, oh, boy. It was a 2020 rally, which I'm sure I can't look at political Twitter very often anymore. But just it was in Twitter moments. And I'm like, okay, so the youth are watching this and it's, oh, God.

MerlinYeah. Well, I was recording with Syracuse last night, recorded a very funny episode with John Syracuse. And I came home and it was nice and it was early and I got to say goodnight to my kid and hang out with her a little bit. And it was really nice. And then, of course, I sat down and I looked at Twitter. And it was apparent that something very special had happened.

AlexAnd I watched CNN.

MerlinOh, my God. And CNN kind of took off the gloves last night. So I ended up going and watching the whole thing. And, you know, in some ways the most remarkable part, I was kind of obsessed with all the people behind him, like the Donald Trump loves black people guy who's apparently a nut,

and that one smiling Veterans for Trump guy in the lower right who didn't stop smiling. He had this rictus of pleasure that was really disturbing. Did you notice that guy?

AlexOh, yeah.

Merlinlike the i i kept making this face the whole time had this face on i i no one told me to be here everything's fine i want somebody to take that entire thing and uh not in a mean way but i would like them to remove trump from the picture like just make make a like an outline of where he was standing at a given time and then make a one minute compress that to be one minute long so that you can watch the energy of that thing utterly drain.

People were so crazy for the first however long, and they'd occasionally get a big laugh line, and he'd hit all his big points. And then by the end, everybody just looked really tired. Apparently, it was very hot to wait, and they couldn't bring water in. Everybody was dehydrated.

AlexWhat? Oh, my gosh.

MerlinSecurity wouldn't let them bring in water. And it was over 100 degrees waiting outside. But anyway, I mean, what do we say? But it was such a spectacle. And CNN shouldn't be diagnosing him. It's like, well, did you just not see the same thing that I just saw? Did you? I mean, this one poor guy, this poor bastard from the GOP was there. And he seemed like a really smart guy. But he was saying, hey, look, if we want to stay credible, we've got, as media people, we've got to not be diagnosing people. And I'm like, on the one hand, that's true. But at what point do you start going, this is really fucked up?

like this man is not okay like when is when is it going to be all right to say i don't know what

Alexhis problem is but this is not okay i don't know this is this is where max would jump in and start reading part of the transcript and i miss him already i can remember is antifa and i'm like what the fuck just happened like it's it's like when he was like lgbtq rsd uv um and xbl audacious uh and and that and when he pointed at the the media and in in the back and they started booing

And I'm like, okay, so definitely not Brave New World, 1984. And I know, read another book. Another book, bitch.

MerlinYeah, no, but that's the thing. And like earlier in the night, I joked about, I don't know if you ever saw the movie Soap Dish. That's a pretty old movie, but it's kind of a sleeper. It's a really good movie about drama. It's a comedy, but it's about, you know, personal drama on the set of a soap opera. And it's got a young Robert Downey. It's got Hoopy Goldberg. It's got a wonderful Sally Field, Terry Hatcher. It's a really good cast. Oh, Kevin Kline, of course. So I don't know if you were ever a general hospital person,

but it's kind of a Romana Clay of general hospital where Sally Field plays the Erica Kane character. And she's portrayed as this incredibly insecure person who's kind of aging out of her role. And anytime she reaches rock bottom, her, I want to say producer, Whoopi Goldberg, takes her to Paramus, New Jersey. she takes her to a mall where she'll wear like a headscarf and glasses and then Whoopi will recognize her at the mall and go, aren't you?

Oh my god, you're from that show! And then of course everybody at the mall jumps in and covers her with adulation. So anytime she starts feeling low, she just takes her to a mall in New Jersey to cheer her up. And that's what these rallies feel like. This really feels like you know, on the one hand And he's the times when he's just coming out of usually, I mean, obviously these things take time to plan, but days and weeks of just overwhelming bad stuff. And often it's not, let's just guess, maybe some bad stuff that's already on the horizon that we don't know about just yet.

And this is his opportunity to go and like recharge his crazy battery.

AlexI wonder if that was, I mean, I know it's Trump's razor or whatever, but like I wonder if his aides are just like, okay. um he's really really down we need to let him pull out that paper with his statements i can't i just keep watching it over and over what he's done it like three times now at least um and yeah it just conveniently leaves out the last sentence uh fake news fake news um right

Merlinit's it's well here we are we're here on our program we miss Max we miss our little

Alexlaw boy yeah yeah ugh how's it gonna cut into

Merlinhis like his already kind of insane schedule of games working and complaining we'll see yeah seems like getting a master's degree takes a fair amount of a person's time

Alexuh maybe has another time turner I don't know I've only read one book yeah you don't have to answer this question um do you talk to your kid about this all the time yeah i mean i i on another program you mentioned how she'll just send you pictures

of uh that's oh that's amazing um like i i don't know how i would talk to a child in this world and i admire all of the parents i know and especially like the queer and black parents who are like yeah um this is our our world now yeah yeah it's uh well i mean you know uh one of

Merlinthe things I promised myself that I had to backtrack on immediately after having a child was I said, I'm never going to lie to my child, which is bullshit. You lie to your child all the time. It's just what level of lying can you live with? And like, how do you lie in a way that is not evasive of a deeper truth? And so like, you can't tell the whole story. Like when you tell the kid not to get in a white van because a clown needs to find his puppy, like you can't go into super deep detail on why that is. But you need to establish that this is an important thing, even if it's a nice clown and your dad said it was okay.

You have to find a way to have that conversation. Yesterday, second day of school, they learned the procedure, relearned the procedure for fire drills. They relearned the procedure for earthquake drills. And they relearned the procedure for lockout and lockdown drills. And they talked about what happens if somebody tries to come in the classroom. And we can throw beanbags at them. We hide behind here. We try to stay very quiet. You know, there's just facts of life that a kid has to deal with nowadays. But, you know, go ahead.

AlexWait, so when you say we can throw beanbags at them, are they training the kids like a child militia?

MerlinSee, again, I call this the sliding scale of truth or youth truth. It's hard to understand what a little kid, it is problematic to take a kid at the actual syllables that come out of their mouth because they're a kid and their understanding of the world goes a certain way. I think what they're saying is, I'm imagining what they're saying is, the basic thing is, if we get this notice, we need to lock the door, we need to go to this area, we need to be very quiet.

I suspect that that gets at some sort of, at a point, we might need to distract this person kind of thing. I don't know. I don't know. But I guess what I would say is that it's it's really easy and comes naturally to me to try and explain the world to a little person. But like I in a dumb eye rolling way, I have a lot to learn from that little person because I bring my own prejudices and understandings of being raised in the early to mid 1970s.

very different from hers. Like her, her world is so different, not just in terms of lockdowns, but in terms of the, the donkulous, uh, diversity of what's just normal for her life. Like I didn't have a kid with a headscarf in my class every year. I didn't have like half kids from Asia in my class, kids from Russia, kids, you know, I mean like that we have a not strictly diverse neighborhood, but you know, diverse enough. Like there's a lot of Russian people. There's a lot of Chinese people. There's a lot of just different people and that's all okay. And the idea of like

making fun of somebody because they like somebody the same gender is just not a thing anymore. It's weird. That's not anything we need to preach anymore. That's just how things are now. There's rainbow flags in the school. It's like we have these diversity days. I've sent you pictures from the parade, the gay pride parade at her school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I sent you her and her best friend with their little rainbow flags they made that like that's all just normal now so like anyway i'm carrying on but it's uh no we talk about trump all the time he's a regular fixture

in the house i think i sent you a photo of her rapidly increasing trump impersonation she's really good she's really good with the okay symbol and we've recently been working on exposing the lower teeth oh oh when you talk like this and you yeah you make the little anus with your mouth but you expose just these four lower teeth that's very important to the visual

Speaker Btry it if you really want if you want to be able to expose the lower teeth i i wrote this on

Aleximmediately immediately i came out against prejudice okay okay i can't do it she's she's she's definitely got me on this i think she's got max on this uh you know did you um there's a

Merlinreally good i don't know if you still listen to trump cast but um i i jacob weisberg is on a lot of the time but virginia heffernan who i love hosts a lot of them oh yeah yeah yeah she did a whole episode in the last month or so with john d dominico the guy who does the tweets yeah yeah i don't know if you heard that one but uh it's very very funny and i'll send you the slate plus extra so you can hear basically just them shucking and jiving for a long time it's very very funny but she he teaches her how to do trump and it's very very funny the gravelly voice and you can hold

Speaker Byour nose and it's so funny.

AlexMan, people don't I should shut you down. People don't like the impressions. No. No more Bane.

Speaker BNo more Trump. No. My statement was very clear on Saturday. I have a copy of it right here. I'd be happy to read you.

MerlinWho doesn't like Bane? Everybody likes Bane. That's a bit. Within a bit. Everybody loves Bane. That should be a TV show. I'd watch that. Everybody loves Bane.

Speaker BI want to break the wheel

Merlinso you know you notice what I did here on in the document uh I've I've renamed this to follow up and front matter because there are some things that are not strictly John Syracuse 2010 follow

Alexup. Correct.

MerlinYou've added something to the list that I'm interested in. Tell me about Nice Goat People.

AlexSo I don't know if you guys missed this or just did not share my enthusiasm but after we shared Max and I told the story of the goat debacle where Wicker Park Fest took our live goats and then I replaced it with a life-size stuffed baby goat and then that was stolen like 20 minutes after and someone just sent a stuffed goat to our office.

MerlinSomebody said, do you have an address where I could send something? And then they went and sent you a goat.

AlexYeah, and it was anonymous. And there's apparently a service called You Goat Mail, which its sole purpose is to send anonymous goats. So I'm very grateful. Like, oh man, I'm hugging them right now, Rancho Jr. Oh, little Rancho. He's a good goat. Got to keep him away from those clown boxes. But yeah, he's not leaving.

MerlinYou owe me a hand-drawn map. Hand-drawn maze.

AlexHe needs his cell phone. He needs his cell phone.

MerlinYou have a sacrifice that we might live.

AlexHave you, this is what people tune in for. Did you get charged again for CISO?

MerlinOh, no, it's hilarious. I got it. Your kid got charged again? Yeah.

AlexWhat? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

MerlinOh, wow. So it's really running like a top at that place.

AlexYeah. I mean, keep my $3. I hope it goes to the Mackle Boys and Cameron and Raya and all the nice folks. But I don't think, I don't know who's doing that money.

MerlinI realized early on it's problematic to complain about CISO. First of all, because a lot of our friends that we like on the internet have things there. And then, of course, Cameron wrote that very nice piece about what CISO as a thing permitted her to do that would have been very difficult anywhere else, her and Rhea. So, I mean, I don't want – I hate to be critical of these people who had, I guess, a good idea, but, like, it was a shit service. It was a terrible service and a terrible app.

It ran markedly – it streamed markedly slower than any other service similar to that that I use, such that I think something's goofy. And the app was dog shit. Like using it on the Apple TV was the worst.

AlexI know that we like to bitch about the like scrolly, scrolly, scroll, tap, tap, but I've never.

MerlinAlphabetical order. Really? I paid whatever, six dollars a month for something that starts with an M. And it's literally all that I've watched on here. Dug-a-dad, dug-a-dad, dug-a-dad, dug-a-dad, dug-a-dad, dug-a-dad. But that's so hilarious. So basically, as soon as Justin had said, hey, look, these episodes are moving.

And I was like, oh, OK, I guess this is my cue. So I went and canceled CISO. And I got this, we're sure you're going note. And like less than 24 hours, it was like, well, the service is going away. But you got charged anyway.

AlexYeah. I mean, whatever. Well, and I think people know that when people bitch about CISO and complain about CISO, they are complaining about NBC.

MerlinWell, I mean, just to be fair, though, I mean, whatever good intentions are happening at the higher floors of that office, the implementation of that service is antithetical to how exactly the people who would pay for that service would want to use it vis-a-vis. This is meant to be a play, a streaming-only play for comedy for hipsters, essentially. I mean, how many people actually signed up for that so they could watch reruns of NBC shows? Probably not that many. People who signed up, that was a groundswell effort of each one of those bespoke shows. I guess Paul Tompkins has a show on there.

Like there's a ton of people who came to that network because their heroes said, hey, come sign up for this. It'll support me and other people like me, which is exactly the kind of thing where you would want a bespoke app. And instead, it was like a garbage fire. It was like a first cut of a web view to use that app. It was trash, and it did not differentiate very well. It was a bunch of stuff I didn't know about or didn't want to see, and the stuff I did want to find, there was no way to mark it as the thing that I was there for. Antithetical to the idea of finding your heroes and putting a star on it, which is what people like to do.

AlexLike, let's say I'm in Seattle, and I'm enjoying some marijuana products. It was really, really hard to find the shows I wanted to see, and I thought maybe—

MerlinEspecially after the edibles. It's hard to scroll.

AlexMaybe it was these gummy bears. But then the next day I'm like, oh, nope, nope. I just want to watch my lesbians.

MerlinI know. I know. And the thing that's frustrating to me as an old man is like, gosh darn, I am more than happy. I just paid for a season of Project Runway Sight Unseen because we want to be able to get to it quickly and have it around. Is that worth $3 an episode? It is absolutely not. But in this case, I would happily pay, you know what? What is it, six episodes? I'll pay 60 bucks. Let me go buy these episodes and then have them. I will pay that money, but that's not the model. So like right now, I can't even steal it. There's not a copy out there that I can even find.

I would buy it if I could. What I'm not going to do is sign up for a service to watch commercials for streaming TV. That's just not, again, who is that for? It's the worst of both worlds. Have you done that? Have you signed up for the new service?

AlexOh, no, I have not. Mostly because I'm also confused by it. And there's a lot of, for a while, I didn't even think there was an app. And also the shows, like, I don't think Take My Wife is on there. And so, again, I want to give these people, like, they're 30 bucks for a show that was incredibly, you know, cheap to make. And, like, get...

MerlinI'll watch those Mubim Bam episodes for years. like I will I can't tell you how many times I've watched ranchos the cult and the amazing final episode gotta have my vape I can't tell you how many times I've watched that episode oh and of course the one with the youths and the water bottle flipping but I've watched that over I've in the time that I had see so I watched it over I would happily pay for that but you know it's just you know the way that this is kind of relevant though is that it's it's awkward to live through the

growing pains of this kind of change in, in this case, media, where you're still seeing some of the thinking and spreadsheets of previous generations and trying to figure out what to do next. They can't make a giant leap to making everything the way, exactly the way everybody wants it. But, you know, Netflix lived through those growing pains. When Netflix first had streaming, it was garbage. It was like, okay, you still get your DVDs, plus you get this streaming thing that's stuff you'd never watch on, like, basic cable. and then it became Netflix

you know what I mean? it's like it's just that for a while you've got to live through the growing pains and the generations of new staff coming in that are okay with doing it a different way I just don't think CISO was up to it

Alexthat autoplay on Netflix though oh my god

Merlinthe autoplay the video thingy and the fact that everything scrolls now there's no you can't just go left and be at the top of anything anymore

AlexI just want my stories

MerlinI feel unmoored I don't know where I am Bug it up, bug it up, bug it up I'm glad you got your goat I think that's a nice thing

AlexThis is long time long time front matter, I guess but I keep forgetting about it. Some folks sent us, Max and I, and I sent Merlin's, but I still don't believe that you actually get mail. I've sent you like six copies of a book that our friend wrote that would love to have you read it. Oh, no, I haven't gotten it. Nope, nope. But we talked about how wonderful using Q-tips are in our ears.

MerlinOh, and that there's some kind of special nerve connection that might surprise you?

AlexYeah, not psychosexual at all. Totally normal. Completely fine. Everything's fine. But they sent what is essentially what looks like a chopstick with a little scratchy dingus at the end. Like one of those old bamboo back scratchers, you know? You got an ear deal, though. Yeah.

MerlinOh, my God. Does it make your butt tingle when you use it?

AlexIt is. I've never, this is the first time I'm using it. Please fight Exitumi. Oh.

MerlinOh my God.

AlexOh my. Oh my. Oh.

MerlinDo you feel it?

AlexOh, this is lovely. Well, well.

MerlinWhat part are you rubbing on? You rubbing on the little curvy inside part?

AlexWell, I mean, the idea is you can kind of get in there, not quite to the ear canal. Oh, I'm doing the max thing where I'm not on mic. But, oh, oh, hello. and my ear the thing is though I'm very self-conscious and keep my ears very clean but I think the idea is this is like a scooper mechanism so I feel like

Merlinyou would both

Alexenjoy this

Merlinokay well let's let's give a little love what is the brand or if somebody wanted to find that what's that called

Alexoh no it is from a bespoke Asian grocery store so you've got one of those or if you're in the Chicago suburbs H Mart I guess let's okay

MerlinAlthough we do have a bespoke Asian grocery store that is really more like a zoo than a grocery store. There's like, there's like, their like meats and fowl and fish section is more like going to an aquarium. Need a giant clam? Not a problem. Giant clam, that is a very disturbing thing. Okay. All right. And so what is it called?

AlexYou know what? I can't read Korean, but... Okay, well, let's just let go and let God.

MerlinEar scratch. Ear scratcher?

AlexYes.

MerlinOh, there's a... I see. Okay, okay. How about Asian ear scratcher?

AlexIs that people? Asian, yes.

MerlinOkay. Oh, oh, oh, oh, bamboo ear pick?

AlexI think so, yeah.

MerlinThat seems right. Oh, hang on. Okay, so the ones I'm seeing here have what look like charms you would put on your Nokia phone attached to a chopstick with a little scoop hand at the end.

AlexThat seems about right, except mine has a little pom-pom sort of at the end that's supposed to, this postcard says that you're supposed to, you know, like scoop, scoop, and then this is like the cleanse.

Speaker BOkay.

AlexYeah, like how there's the flossy, like when you have floss, those little pick things where you use a floss and then you use the other side to like scrape, scrape out the-

MerlinAlex, I'm learning so much. Here's a whole world. I just found Japanese high quality ear cleaning pick three picks mimikami from Japan. And those have what looks like a giant cotton ball on the end.

AlexYes.

MerlinAnd then a scooper. Oh, there's a whole world out here. Gold tone metal. Oh, doctor. Gold tone metal ear pick spoon curette earwax remover Chinese character style. Ten pieces.

AlexWait. The link that you sent me is to Walmart.

MerlinLook at this. Walmart has all the great ear picks.

AlexLook at this.

MerlinThere's a whole world here. LED light ear pick spoon curette ear wax.

AlexGet your guns and your Asian ear picks.

MerlinThis one's got science, Alex. Look at that. The flashlight ear pick, it says right on there. I heard on the NPR this morning. Boy, these are terrible URLs. I heard on the NPR this morning that Google is partnering with Walmart to try and compete with Amazon. that basically their version of talking to the dingus to order things is going to be your google home will at some point soon be able to get things from walmart can't see that backfiring

Alexreally the best of both worlds so will you be able to order guns through your google home like okay let's hang on one second alexa order a rifle

MerlinAlexa, order a rifle. Oh, come on. Alexa, buy me a gun.

AlexHave you ever misspoken to Alexa and suddenly she starts this? This has never happened to me before, but I must have said, like, let's. All right, I'm going to do it now. Alexa, count down from 10. And if that triggered your Alexa, it is the scariest thing that has ever. I almost unplugged her. I'm like, what is happening right now? And I can't.

MerlinShould I do it?

AlexLet's see. Let's see. Does it work?

MerlinAlexa, count down from 10.

Speaker C10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.

MerlinOh, that was more upsetting than I expected.

Speaker CYeah.

MerlinLet's find some good real... Let's visit our Alexa page. Alexa heard Collection Baby. Sorry, I couldn't find the answer to your question. What's this from? I don't know that. Oh, okay. She heard Lil White Play Bouquet. So it played a song called Bouquet Final. Oh, my daughter's playing Clint Eastwood a lot. Look at that. She likes the gorillas now because they're in a movie. How old is Jerry Seinfeld? That was real.

AlexWait, what movie are they in?

MerlinI want to say maybe, was it Trolls?

AlexFor some reason, I've become a lot more invested in Trolls. Yeah, she watched it and she likes it.

MerlinBut wait till she sees the next one, am I right?

AlexHave you seen the Emoji movie?

MerlinNo, absolutely not. That was a bridge too far. That was one where even when we saw it in the theater, we were like, hmm, I don't know about this.

AlexIt turns out I was on Total Media Blackout for the Emoji Movie. Didn't know what I was.

MerlinDid you end up seeing it?

AlexNo, but it's kind of like one of those things where you're hovering over that iPad button and you don't push it. but you're like, I just wonder, I just wonder. So I might do it. Challenge, we'll see.

MerlinYeah, I don't know. I mean, the reviews were not salutary.

AlexHow has Siri been for you lately?

MerlinWell, Siri continues to be kind of a, what John Sturkies calls, like internet weather type situation where some days it works really well. I am frequently really amazed with how often it's – how often – so you know I do that. I think I mentioned I do that thing where when I'm going to put – when I wake up in the morning, I say to my watch, remind me to get my watch in one hour. And then I put it on the stand and that gives it a nice charge up.

But like it's – it mishears me a lot lately. here's the wrong thing like today well I don't want to say anything too personal but we had a stinky pair of shoes that I needed to de-stink when I got home we didn't want to wear those today because they were stinky and so I did the treatment on them with the silica packets and what was it that it heard me say it heard me say letter D stink Alex chew and I knew what it meant

you know remind me to D stink Alex chew when I arrive at the house in 30 minutes. And it did do that. How's it been for you lately?

AlexWell, I sent you some things from this morning where I was trying to play stuff from my car. And it heard I'm not okay. Okay, so Apple Music got the song right, which I guess a win for Siri. But when I said play I'm not okay by My Chemical Romance, it was shut up, play I'm not okay by Chemical Room.

MerlinBut it got it, but it still got it.

AlexYeah, yeah. I mean, it got the words wrong,

Merlinbut it grokked what it is you probably wanted.

AlexWhich was really impressive to me. I'm like, okay, cool, cool. And then I did Play Anthem Part 2 by Blink-182, and it got that. However, it played Anthem Part 2 by Rockabye Baby lullaby renditions of Blink-182, which I don't know if that's a fault of Apple Music, or it was very pleasant. I enjoyed it.

That's very strange. Yeah.

MerlinYou know, the Amazon lady continues to be the winner for me.

AlexWell, how does, do you Spotify that? Or are you just saying in general for that in terms of like voice?

MerlinWell, I mean, I have, I mean, it would be disingenuous not to admit that I buy most of my stuff from Amazon. And so, I mean, just to get that out of the way, you know.

AlexYou're like a millennial.

MerlinI know. I'm a bad person. But like, so given that truth, it would also be silly for me to not leverage using the dingus to order and reorder stuff. So now, for example, I gave my daughter my really nice pencil sharpener because it was for the first day of school. And so I said, dingus, reorder Coom Longpoint Pencil Sharpener. And then on the view, it pulls up the options and you say, which one do you want? You click it and it buys it. You know, reorder paper towels, that kind of stuff. And so I still find the Amazon product to be far superior at getting what I said, even when it's weird and difficult, and then knowing what to do about it.

AlexYeah, I know that I'm bugging my house, but oh, my God, holy fucking shit. Not that I'm a person that would be like looking at my laptop when I'm recording a podcast. I'm a professional. No, sure, sure, sure. But just saw that picture you sent me of your office.

MerlinOh, yeah.

AlexYou okay? Everything's good.

MerlinThe funny part is those kombuchas are from our kombucha era. I really need to get rid of those.

AlexI mean, I'm surprised they're not like growing into little monsters. It's a living beverage. Yeah, yeah. I would love it if just like little Pokemon type things slowly. You could be creating life.

MerlinYeah. I can see my fidget spinner. Not my fidget spinner. My cube.

Alexman i'm sorry uh i stole sorry max i stole some of your uh carmax wax based vanilla karma oh wait these are for cold sores too what the heck well they say that all it is basically it's wax and aspirin uh it's a pleasant i wonder if people put this in other places it's oh doctor it's

Merlintotally addictive because pretty soon you're going to need it it's like a chapstick or one

Alexof those nose suckers that max uses oh that's uh i would not be surprised if that's a thing that

Merlinhappened there were a lot of carmex addicts at my college seriously yeah because it's basically so you start putting it on and then you start kneading it because like basically there's a acetyl salicylic acid so there's aspirin in there and what that's doing is that's putting a little aspirin on the cracks in your lips and going, and it smells nice. But then pretty soon you kind of need it. You know what I'm saying? It's like the opioid crisis.

AlexYeah. I haven't been putting it on for the past 40 minutes or anything.

MerlinOh, good, good, good. That sounds healthy.

AlexAll right. Man, I thought last week's episode was going to be the worst week ever, but this is definitely the worst. No, no. It's not me. It's you.

MerlinYeah, it is me. You want a Yahoo? I got the dateline next door. Neighbor Yuri, subject line. Is it bad? Body text. Body text. Are people who steal lemons bad people? That's it. And then there's a picture of somebody. There's like a security cam picture of somebody.

AlexLike in the act of stealing a lemon or just a shady figure?

MerlinIt's basically it's an elderly Chinese lady with a backpack grabbing a lemon. Okay, so here's some of the responses. Neighbor Amy says, Unless they are starving, then yes, they aren't good.

Neighbor Charles, neighbor Charles, bordering on sociopathic, unless they're undocumented aliens or PG&E, of course, how many lemons did they stick in their backpack?

AlexNot good.

MerlinThere's a lot of amateur lemon legal scholars in here. She should be hosed down with a power washer or a paint gun. I understand how to share, but this is just outright theft. Why doesn't she help herself do a car tire or two while she's at it? This is why we can't have nice things, says neighbor Joseph.

AlexI mean, that's true. But like, you know, if you're going for a lemon, why not go out?

MerlinHose down the old lady. That'll teach her. She seems to be this. This is neighbor Gladys. She seems to be the same person who comes and gets all my recycle when they're inside of my property. Hose her down. Bordering on sociopathic. Thank you, neighbor Yuri. I've stopped mostly reading next door because it's all sad. It's all car break-ins and coyotes. Oh, and loud noises. it's never ducking and it's always fireworks.

AlexPeople, people, I don't know if you've seen that, but people have been, um, sending us like, uh, all of these things about how next door is super racist. And, um, there's no quick fix for the next door problem. And I like, yeah. Cause white people use it. Of course there's going to be, um, saw a guy with a hoodie. Saw a guy with a hoodie. Oh, this is a long article. I'm not. Well, cause you know,

Merlinthat's the thing is you, So it's sort of why I sometimes have a little laugh at you and Max when you go to find out what people think on the internet. Because what people have to say on the internet is rarely temperate by design. That's not what it's for. And if you think about why people would come to Nextdoor, well, they're there out of concern. They're not there out of just wanting to share good wishes, at least not in the crime and safety section. They're there because they're scared. They're worried about change. and like we said before on here, I think they are often struggling

with the way culture changes and how they understand it and they're looking for reinforcement of the idea that things work a certain way, not necessarily in a strictly racist way, but more in a sense of like, I understand what kinds of things to be suspicious about and I need more proof that I'm suspicious of the right things. I don't think that's strictly always racist, although it does pair nicely with it. I think it's often people who just want somebody to agree that they're being paranoid about the right things.

AlexThey want an amuse-bouche of paranoia, basically. Just something to get them started. I think so.

MerlinDon't you think it's somewhat of a tribal thing, though?

AlexWell, actually, I found something really interesting about my next-door community or whatever. We have gated communities a few blocks down from us, and they are just siphoned off and not on our next-door map. So I don't know how this works, but like next door has a separate community for these gated. You have a gated next door? I don't. I can't see it. We're the peasants.

All right. You have created a big boy Google Doc. I've never actually looked at a Google Doc so much during a podcast. This is very exciting for me. How do you mean?

MerlinBecause we added all this front matter to it?

AlexI guess so. Oh, what is this? We need to talk about Alex's attraction to tech boyfriends? Oh, okay.

MerlinCan this be our moose boosh?

AlexSure, sure. But one quick point of order, and I think we need to revisit this. when Max is back. But we talk a lot about, let's say, undercarriage hygiene.

Speaker BYeah.

AlexAnd it just hit me. It's always about when you guys are shitting. I have to sit down every time I go to the bathroom. You don't have to do that. You don't have to.

MerlinYou don't have to.

AlexNobody's making you. Okay, true. It's true.

MerlinYou can get one of those Indian subcontinent toilets. It's just like a big hole you squat over. Would you like to squat over a hole, Alex? Is that something you'd enjoy? Scar Swing Guy's got to go squat

AlexOh boy Squatty potty I'm also We have those in all of our office bathrooms I don't know why I don't know who determined this

MerlinTalking about the little stair step thing?

AlexThe thing that was on Shark Tank Yeah Shark Tank thing But I'm also a little concerned You guys spend a lot of time in the bathroom Do I? I don't know I don't know.

MerlinI think I spend a reasonable amount of time in the bathroom. Yeah, I don't know. I think for some people it's a, well, we shouldn't talk too much about poop. But I don't like to pee sitting down. I'm not dead set against it. I will tell you that there are a lot of men who are not going to make a big show of it. But there are a lot of men for whom, for a variety of reasons, they are very happy to go into a stall, drop trowel, and sit down to pee. I know a lot of guys, they don't talk about it.

I think it's partly out of convenience. It's largely out of privacy. But there are a lot of guys, because if you're going to be sitting down, you might as well have privacy. There are a lot of guys that like to pee sitting down, and they just don't talk about it.

AlexWell, the thing that was brought to my attention is a lot of times a guy will have to pee. But instead of going into a stall, they will wait in line for a urinal. Why is this a social code? Why can't you just go and stand? If you want to be a stander, stand in a stall.

MerlinThat's a very good observation. It's so weird. It is. You know what? You're absolutely right. I haven't given a tremendous amount of thought, but my hot take would be that you want to show and prove that you're not the kind of guy who's a stall stander.

AlexI'm a penis stander. I'm a penis boy.

MerlinI stand over here by this guy. And I never go to the kid's urinal. I always go to the big boy urinal. most restrooms let's say you got a usual typical three urinal setup uh with the little partitions and you'll have like on the frequently on the like innermost like closest to the corner from the away from the door you'll have a big one you have another big one then you'll have a lower one that's like for a kid to use but it's just as easy for a grown-up to use it but you get into some very interesting prisoner's dilemma because first of all there's the kind of like being in an elevator

There's the unwritten rule of like, you know, just like with treadmills, you never take the urinal right next to somebody if there's any other option. But you get into some funny prisoner's dilemma where like you also don't want to be the, I think in men's lore, you don't want to be the one who uses the little boy urinal.

AlexOh, yeah. No, because that means your penis is short enough to use. You have little penis.

MerlinYeah.

AlexI don't know how pee works.

MerlinBut the thing is, it's actually closer to the ground. that would better accommodate an enormous, say, five to seven foot long penis. It would be better.

AlexWell, that's what I was thinking. It shouldn't be like, yeah, I can use this. Look at how close my dick is to this. Just look at it. It's porcelain.

MerlinNow, wait. Now, let me ask you another thing, though, while we're on this, though. I feel like we talked about this. Have we talked about how much clothing you want or need to have on to use the bathroom?

AlexWe talked about this, didn't we? Oh, yeah. The phenomena of many people, like their stages of being naked.

MerlinI just want to say I've been asking about this, and I'm finding out that more and more people want to be neither fully clothed nor fully naked when they use the bathroom. I have been in my travels asking around. I've discovered there are people who will put on clothes to go to the bathroom. Not a lot of clothes, but some people are not comfortable using the bathroom naked.

Alexi mean i guess that i don't think about it often what what i mean these are private worlds we don't talk about these things with other people i mean this is this this is why you know donald trump happened uh that wasn't a funny joke something something liberals conservatives um but like so people are like let's say they're getting in or out of the shower they they need to either disrobe or robe to a certain amount to make sure yeah i mean well i just began this the conversation

Merlinoriginally began however many months ago with i think i was bringing up the phenomenon of learning that there are people who are very particular about certain pieces of clothes they take off especially when they make a number two like there are some people who take off their pants or take off their shirt and put it on a hanger when they go to make a number two i mean i don't want to

Alexjudge i know like like i have a lot of friends with like ibs and stuff like that and it like i don't want to make fun of people who it's i i am a i'm a very self-conscious peer it's it's i i oh yeah no even with my like if it's in my personal bathroom and i know um my wife couldn't hear me i'm like okay don't worry but i i'm very anxious right now i might be in here for like 10 minutes to take a shit and I will be playing a podcast.

So I guess that's a, I don't like using the bathroom in silence. It's very upsetting. Don't like shitting in the office. Very, very upsetting.

MerlinI think you got the first couple lines of a pretty good country song here.

Speaker BWell, I don't like peeing in silence. I don't like shitting in the office.

MerlinNo matter what you hear for the next 10 minutes, don't come in.

AlexThere might be screams and grunts. Just let it be. Let it be. Okay, I changed my mind. I changed my mind. Ah! Get me out! I wonder if people have some safe... I know a lot of people like this. I wonder if there's a safe word.

MerlinOh, right.

AlexRed, red. I've fallen and I can't get up. It's always beats. uh i now i'm just picturing i like i wonder if there's folks in our office who need a certain amount of like i i i don't know like there's no place to hang a shirt there's no place to do you have you encountered any of these people who uh practice this in a public place um i mean

MerlinAnd it's not something people are comfortable talking about in any way.

AlexI can't imagine why. Well, yeah.

MerlinI mean, it's like, so one thing I've always believed is there's some part of every, I'm guessing, every American who wonders if they wipe wrong. Because we don't talk about that. And if we do talk about it, it's really gross and weird. But that just to me is a canonical example of the kind of like, I wonder if I do this weird and differently from everybody. And sometimes you'll hear about it with foods where you go like, oh, that's a strange way to eat an Oreo. And you're like, well, I don't know. That's the only way I've ever eaten an Oreo. And I never talk about eating an Oreo, right? It's not just for going to the bathroom.

But especially with going to the bathroom, you're probably not going to have a roundtable when the meeting is getting started about whether you go front to back, side to side, up and down. Are you wearing a dress? Do you put your shirt on? Nobody's going to have that conversation. Like, you know, like what if you suddenly discovered after like 15 years that your kid can't pee without eating a donut? You know, like you'd want to know about that and like get in there and say like, this is going to really limit your options in life. You can't always get a donut.

AlexDo you think, I feel like, I always wonder about, I've heard one person doing this, a standing shitter, which I don't, I don't know. This seems like something Trump would do. Like I can. My father can name exactly into the toilet.

Merlinmy father doesn't even need to stand on the seat the seat accommodates him it's good there was a um back at our uh the publics that we live near the supermarket we live near in college uh there was a widely known local character called the phantom shitter and there was somebody who would go into the ladies room at um our publics and i wish i could show you by demonstrating this It was basically agreed by everybody that works in public. There's no way this man or woman could accomplish what they accomplished unless they stood on the seat and did basically like a sexy hula dance.

Because there was such a – the splatter patterns were so – I mean you could tell by the droplets like you'd see on like CSI. You could see that this was coming from quite a distance. Unless they were like – so look, I'm standing up here and I'm going kind of like –

Alexand i have to wonder about the regularity of this like because the yeah i the the splatter can't be a good thing okay well let's let's let's just we need to get to offices and this is actually

Merlina pretty good pivot to offices there is a genre of person that i'm just going to call a bathroom ruiner i'm not talking about your garden variety had too many onions last night person i'm talking about there is a phenomenon i see this at our public library all the time uh there i can think of one specific occasion where we had a phantom shitter of our own at the library and they're always trying to catch this guy one day this is back when my kid was real little and back when i take her into the men's room and go to the stall right because that's what you gotta do when your kid's two or three right you're not gonna let him just go oh just go in the ladies room it'll be

fine and we wait we wait we wait we wait we wait and my kids really really really gotta pee at this point because kids don't realize they have to pee until they really have to pee. And this man from the neighborhood comes out totally stone-faced. He walks out. So now I run my kid into this bathroom. Approximately six rolls of toilet paper plus poop, full rolls of toilet paper plus poop have been stuffed into the commode. This man just did this by design. For some reason, this guy took a dump and then decided to make the bathroom uninhabitable.

and I went out, like I do, and I was like, hey! And I said to the library guy, this guy just totally ruined... Oh, always. Oh, I yell at everybody. You come into the crosswalk? That's my crosswalk. That's my bathroom. My daughter can't go... She plays with her toys. She can't go and use the bathroom now. So I went and I said, library guy, this guy just ruined the bathroom. And the guy goes, oh, not again. And he chases the guy out of the building. This is something the guy does a couple times a week. He just comes in and ruins the one stall public restroom at our library just because that's a thing that he does.

Much like the Phantom Shitter at Publix.

AlexAnd Publix is a nice place. It's where shopping is a pleasure. It is. That is actually one thing that I genuinely enjoy when I go to Florida.

MerlinOh, have you been?

AlexOh, hell yes. Isn't it amazing?

MerlinThe aisles. It's what I imagine people think America is like. The rest of America is another country and Publix is America. where you go like, there is so much parking.

Speaker AIt can accommodate four different carts down every aisle. All the kinds of ice cream are here.

AlexWhere the streets are made with gold and the aisles are properly labeled.

Speaker AAll the things I have are put in my mouth. I never knew sandwich until I have a Publix sandwich. Everything else was a cold lie. Two carts can fit in the aisle. All the carts can go. And you might never see, you see one person in the eye, they look at the flower. I never see them again. The whole time is so big. I say, I don't need the whole standing rib roast. Could you cut me off the two bone rib roast? And they say, yes.

I make nice for you and put on the prize. And they do it.

MerlinThey do it.

AlexThings haven't been going well with Tony in a while. are we doing this i'm sorry i'm sorry are we doing this isn't that what he says

Merlinthat's uh yeah the thing about an office is like you got to share that bathroom you got to work with those people and you have to not acknowledge what is happening in there

AlexI had a boss

Merlinwho was the not my immediate boss but he was the guy who ran the company that I worked for in the early 90s and he just didn't I think he just he ate a lot of starchy foods and did not drink enough water and every time he went to the bathroom it was a holocaust I mean we're talking about like mouth noises we're talking about literally groaning groaning when he was in there

Alexokay

Merlinbut that's the boss you can't talk about that but now the rest of the time You're going to walk around the office and say, oh, that's the guy that groans in the bathroom. That's the thing. If you wear nice shoes, people are going to know you're a groaner because they can see it under there.

AlexGod.

MerlinWe know him by his shoes and his groans. Dig dug. Dig dug. Dig dug.

AlexDugga, dugga, dugga. Are you prepared to discuss this week's challenge?

MerlinYeah, I sure am.

AlexAll right. The challenge this week was be prepared to talk about the new Apple Park because you know how I enjoy. Mr. Ives Dick. And so I linked you guys a Wall Street Journal article that was nearly impossible to read. And I made a PDF of it from Instapaper. Thank you for doing that. And also talk. I'm very interested in because you've worked in many offices. I have not. What is the worst office you've worked in? Shitters aside, squeaky shoes aside. And

what's the best office experience you've ever had? Because I'm boring and I like to talk about

Merlinthese things. Why are you like this? How did you get like this?

AlexI'm Catholic.

MerlinYeah, I'd be happy to talk about this. That was a hell of an article. It was very, this is, I guess, a famously a famous article from a few weeks ago where someone was granted extraordinary access to Bono and to Tim Cook and to Joni Avey and lots of other celebrities and talking about the anyway everybody's read this article i guess but it was interesting i don't know how they did

Alexdid everybody subscribe to the wall street journal what happened i it's so perplexing but you know it

Merlinwas funny because it was at once full of very interesting facts numbers and and anecdotes and well-noticed moments but it was also uh really almost collage like in the haphazard way that it was put together as a piece of writing. Did you get that at all?

AlexOh, yeah. It was not.

MerlinIt was not well. It was not well edited. Like it didn't have a through line. It was mainly just a lot of anecdotes about how Johnny Ive is a fancy design boy.

AlexYeah. And well, it started like sort of this like like a feature piece. And then it goes a bit to being in like a column editorial type thing. And then at the end, like a bit of reporting on Apple employees being angry. And it just did not float well. but I mean

Merlinwould you grant though that there were let me just pull it up I've got it here but there were lots of little nice notes like I say like noting that he has orange socks noticing how just noticing how he mixes his cranberry juice and whatever soda water and then has two double espressos that kind of stuff those are nice touches but it didn't I mean I know this is not the point of this discussion but I thought it was kind of uniquely erratic as a piece of writing J.J. Abrams It was really strange. It felt like a lot of interesting things on index cards were mostly mixed up and then written down verbatim.

AlexYeah, I was trying to look up the person who wrote this. But again, Wall Street Journal.

MerlinChristina Passariello.

AlexYep. Thanks, Jeff Bezos.

MerlinYou're talking about the failing Amazon Washington Post?

AlexYes. the fake news with the lady in the tube.

MerlinThere are a few protesters outside. Okay, here we go. Christine, is she on Facebook, Twitter? No, I don't think I know her.

AlexOkay, my favorite CNN screencap was with Trump being like, they're not showing the crowds right now. They're not showing the crowds, and it's a wide shot of the...

MerlinThe lights are going off. They're shutting off the cameras.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinThat's weird, because we have you on camera and live, noting that they're shutting off the cameras. is oh boy that was one of the best parts about the sorry i'm sorry i'm regressing but one of the best parts about the sea it's just like everybody just saying look does he not know that we have tape of everything that he said because it seems like he doesn't know that but the truth is i guess

Alexthe people who are listening don't care now now i'm back and thinking about like the bathrooms at trump tower like so i've actually been to both the trump tower in new york and the uh like way like when i was in middle school it was just um i didn't stay there i don't know what it like i I don't know. This is.

MerlinI mean, it's a tourist attraction. It says there's a big sign out front that says these are the hours that visitors are allowed. It's a place that people go.

AlexYeah. And and the Trump Tower in Chicago, which isn't even I mean, people know this. It's like not owned by him. And but of course, it's our beautiful river walk is fucking ruined because there's big goal. Oh, gosh. I know this is a very fancy like Chicago person to say and like it's not Willis Tower. It's Sears Tower. um but god it's just the most gaudy horrific just it's it's horrific but then you go inside and it's like clearly based on like his other properties he had nothing to do with this because

this is a beautiful building with beautiful architecture um that was destroyed by his ego

Merlinbut it's but it's an interesting um problem maybe unintentionally an interesting corollary to the johnny ive building where say what you will about whether this will be a great place to work He clearly has not only thought about every detail of this, but apparently gets frustrated if you even hint at the fact he hasn't thought of every detail. Of course, I've been consulting with an arborist about where to get these trees for years, like all that kind of stuff. But that's the funny thing about licensing and branding is that, you know, I mean, this is not a particularly interesting or insightful thing. But like, no, he's a guy who gets paid money so you can put these five letters on your building in that dumb 80s typeface.

That's what he does. there's no imprimatur on on his properties except for the ones that i guess he directly owns and

Alexgets to make gold i don't yeah i do not i i don't think he thinks about the typeface i don't think he thinks about what kind of uh you know toilet paper goes in the bathroom it's just like how big are these letters and how often are they going to be scattered across the building um and is there a little little urinal for eric but oh man i imagine that he has one of those like like practice like did a practice party yeah well well and and i oh god i remember this with my brothers there was little these little like stickers you would put in the toilet that you're

supposed to aim for aim for this buddy you can do it yeah it was yep yep it's hard little boys

Merlinhave pee pee problems but okay so but looking at the article i mean i i thought it was i thought it was an interesting read i i mean just as an article i thought oh and there's there are a million crazy facts in here did i misread this okay so let me go to this one this is this was the single most like what

moment where i thought this has to be a typo about the cafeteria doors the main cafeteria where i began his tour of the recent progress on campus is a four-level atrium with massive 440 000 pound glass doors how do you get a four how do you get a 440 000 pound glass door

Alexuh you you be you're the most successful profitable company in america that's how you do it i guess um but but that's definitely true um steven levy's piece uh which i linked is is much more masturbatory and i enjoyed it a lot more obviously because i just have to paper it i love it um that that's the one that talks about you know the patented pizza boxes um and all all that oh

MerlinOh, that's where all those came from. Okay.

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas this one's all of the people, all the employees complaining. And we're weeks late to this, to all the other, all the great shows that have talked about open offices and open workspaces. But I don't really have a dog in this fight because I don't know how people work. but I think it was on Gruber's show where some people were like,

yeah, I'm working on something really cool, but after this is done, I am out, which is shocking to me. Out of the company? Yeah, because this will be so disruptive and just antithetical to how they work, which is, wow, wow.

I don't know.

MerlinI mean, gosh, I would never want to say anything against Sojani. I mean, I'm sure he knows what he's doing, but in thinking about the offices I've been in, offices I've visited, offices where I felt like I thrived for whatever reason, it's difficult to just pin it. Obviously, it's nearly impossible to talk about whether an environment works based on any one factor, obviously. I mean, how can you account for any workplace by just looking at the building? There are certainly, there must be cases where you go, oh yeah, like we're in a really musty cave.

It's a terrible place to write Python. Like I could see that. But like, how do you account for, you know, the culture and all these kinds of things? And obviously he, like Steve, is trying to do a lot of by design social engineering. But I don't know, my impression walking away from this, and I haven't been there, I'm sure it'd be stunning to visit. I bet it's basically like a church meets a forest. But it's interesting to think about building an office or building any kind of a building that's going to have people using it.

And the extent to which, on the one hand, you get something like the Apple Store, which is, I don't know if it's a cool place to work. It's definitely a cool place to visit. It's definitely designed with an Apple aesthetic that highlights what is unique about Apple products. In this case, though, I don't know. It would be hard for me not to feel more generic as a human being in this building. It seems like it's really built to be this Zola-esque building that's really about crowds more than individuals.

I don't think any one person is too much taken into account for any variety of things here. And, you know, that's good, I guess. But, like, it does feel like as gorgeous as it is, it's kind of a big power play about how designy Johnny and Apple are. I don't know if it looks like it would be that great of a place to work for a variety of reasons, just for myself.

AlexSo then let's go to – people can read the thing. um it's if if for some reason you are a listener of our show and don't know about don't don't know about the app the new apple campus apple park it basically looks like a spaceship um and there are awesome a bunch of awesome uh like drone um shots of like it being built and now they have uh this is in the steven levy article not the uh levy i'm not sure he had a great interview on a long form that i liked a lot i've loved him i've loved him for years he's

Merlinhe's been great like as long as i can remember i was reading him in the 90s yeah yeah i remember

Alexreading him before uh walt mossberg just because i i don't know that because i was exposed to wired more than um like newspapers uh but but anyway um like they they have now set up like drone protections which which is like a real real thing that they did not consider until it was built like oh yeah people are going to want to see this people try to sneak into infinite loop like of course this is something um and reading this it just i i feel like i would love to work here but

we can get into why uh in a second but it feels like so many things haven't been taken into account for an actual workspace i'd love to hear about both uh the all right well i'll get into my office experiences. Wow, what a bad show. Hold on. I need some Carmex.

This is really...

MerlinWhy are you like this? You gotta lean into it. This is the show. You're doing the show.

AlexOh, no. I'm leaving in the Carmex. Don't worry. Don't worry, people.

MerlinWhy are you so hard on yourself? Because you're Catholic.

AlexAlways blaming

Merlinthe Lord.

AlexMy experience is with offices and i gotta mention again like right out of college hired by cards against humanity um and but in in college like the places that we worked um like as as students like you know we don't we don't have private offices and we were always needed to be heads down editing we didn't have anything like slack so we needed to be by each other um and you sort of like build up this system of uh i think actually we used like twitter dms or something um to like get people's attention

and be like hey can you come look at this edit because we were you know whether it was like a school cafe or uh someone's dorm room like we just sit in silence but that was the like it was easy because we were all doing the same thing and we all understood the code of we're getting shit done let's all be quiet and and do stuff um and even even working i guess alone like you as a student in in an urban uh downtown area like starbucks often becomes your office and like i guess it's

can it's kind of like um folks who work remotely you get the you take your warby parkers and your laptop and go to a cool coffee shop. But then I worked at a documentary production house, which was, it's literally a house. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Cartemquin. This is all public and people know where this is, but don't be creepy. It was built, a house that was built in the 70s,

and they could only like the founders bought this house to work out of um and it's not like there's office spaces they just turned rooms into offices and like made a laundry room and editing bay and a shower place like ripped out the shower and like that's where they'd store all the hard drives um but in terms of folks working it's it was very hard to get space to like use an editing bay like folks who've been like nominated for oscars like they couldn't like they had to

squish into this tiny tiny little space um and as when i started off as an intern they we would all just huddle into this basement and it was constantly loud constantly like people doing um like watching stuff live and people just like holding their headphones close to their ears so you couldn't uh you know you could concentrate on what you're doing but it felt ill-suited to what your basic job was it was it was horrific but we all knew it was horrific and but that's that that is the only option like you're working on a non-profit film like of course that's that's just

how it was it's not like we could go to our bosses and be like hey so you know can we get can we get some cubicles like this is this room is like smaller than uh most san francisco apartments and that's saying something uh and then man this is boring um but then moving to the the first cards against humanity office that i ever worked in what used to be a um man i hope i'm doing max justice here it was a pharmacy storefront in logan square uh and it was also very small and it but

we began growing and growing and it was super cramped and um almost like the day i started working was when max came in with the plans is like okay all right we got it we found our warehouse we're gonna build an office here um and have you ever seen pictures of our current office yeah i

Merlinhave i mean just like little videos mostly the people have shot in some snaps but it looks uh isn't there like a big like primary like a old sign or something um it's well it's been like a

Alexpickle factory a candy factory a car factory all the all the great factories um comedy factory the Oh, Lord.

MerlinCards Against Humanity office.

AlexOh, yeah, I'm sure. We have some actually cool.

MerlinOh, there. Yeah, Hyundai. Is that what that is? It looks like a container.

AlexOh, yeah. We brought in. And I can say nice things about Max because he's not here. Awesome.

MerlinOh, it's Hyundai. Hyundai. That's what it is.

AlexHyundai. So you're looking at our two shipping containers that we brought into this office. We knocked out one of the walls and brought in two shipping containers. and turn them into conference rooms and cubbies. And those were the ones that actually, I guess, came. They carried Cards Against Humanity cards. So that was definitely a cool, not vanity thing, but this is something nice and special. But you can see we have a super open office.

But the intention, all of the thought and design, Max designed this office, and it's a beautiful, amazing space. And it's the best office.

MerlinIt's really pretty. It's not inhumane. I mean, it's very modern in the old sense of the word. But it's very warm.

AlexWell, and the big thing, too, is he was very conscious about, like, yeah, this is an open office space. So we are going to build in as many. Like, we've got these little cubbies that, you know, you can go and hide in. And humans are just too much. and you know we've got like our studio and our theater and some of the best work I've ever done is off of the couch in our studio and yeah and so I've I've literally never had a job I don't think I've ever like seen a cubicle farm in my life and what really well yeah I mean why would

I why would I I've never been in a situation where that I mean just just because the color

MerlinMy crystal is that it has been the default office setup since I was a child. Going to my mom's real estate office in 1972, like it was Cubes. That's just all I've ever known. With a couple things that weren't that. But no, by and large.

I mean, in some ways, not to interrupt, but in some ways it's a little bit like whoever your operations person is at a large organization is going to have a lot of sway over how things work from day to day. And certainly things at a very high level. Because like the way that they source things, the way they buy things, the relationships that they have, the concerns, hangups or lessons of their past are going to be reflected in all of that. You know, their their parsimony with certain kinds of decisions is all going to be very affected by that. So, I mean, that's it just that I think that those were the same. They weren't cheap.

I mean, like actual office cubes are not inexpensive to put together. But like anyway. So I'm trying to see. God, this is gorgeous. What a pretty, pretty place.

AlexIt's, yeah, I mean, so yes, we have the like, I don't want to say generic, but like what people would think of as an open office. That's what we have. But what was really, and I'm biased because like I, you know, watched the thing get built and I helped build the studio. And it feels like it's Max's baby, but I feel like I helped raise it a little bit.

And this is all I've ever known. but also what really, I'm sorry for saying this, Max, but what you did was so good. He, he built the office in a way that things can change and adapt to how people need to change and adapt to their work, which is like, I, I believe that he put the amount of care at the scale that this office exists. Like he put the amount of care that like Johnny Ive would put into his big spaceship, except it doesn't feel like he took into consideration how apple has worked for the past

uh like he's been there what 25 years and like he's always had his like little design studio and been and i don't know like is are you just do you completely lack the the awareness of how your company works um why do you say why do you say that uh because like you mean in terms of in terms

Merlinof not having more private offices for coders and stuff?

AlexYeah, yeah, I guess. And even folks with, let's say I'd heard from folks who are just, they just like their cubicles because just turning around and watching seven of the C-level executives, I don't know where it's like around is that's hugely stressful. And I don't know, like if you're on, um team purple and you've got your secret like air sealed sensory deprivation zoned like that's

that's that's fine for ivy boy but i i don't know and talent retention is something that i get really scared for for apple um because you know fangirling but i like you know you lost you lost your swifty boy it's right right all right i've talked far too much for this episode No, no, no.

MerlinWell, I mean, you know, one thing that seems like a unique challenge, it's first of all, I mean, I'm not saying this is what happened. But there's a kind of indulgence that is uniquely interesting to a middle aged man, which is making something bigger than himself that will exist after he is gone. Everybody has that to an extent, but that is a special affliction of middle aged men. And that's why, you know, you're able to get so many people to donate to things where they get a building named after them or a park or, you know, or whatever. A disease, I guess.

But like the true kind of foresight in some ways is, and I'm not saying he does or doesn't have this, but just at a high level. It takes real foresight to go beyond what our needs are right now, what my desires are right now, to think about, on the one hand, what will this space need to accommodate, afford, and encourage when our company is completely different and is run by people who are not me and are really different from me? Maybe there's no way to do that, but when you take on a building of this kind of stature, I mean, it's going to have an editorial feeling to it.

obviously it's going to bear the marks of um you know i mean there's so much i guess yeah but i mean like you know the whole like oh this is the last thing he worked on with steve and steve's dream and stevie mc steve steve steve you know i mean this apple's never really going to get to move i can't believe i'm saying these words i'm sorry everybody apple's never going to really get to be whatever it's going to be next until that stops being something that happens as often as it does. Evoking Steve is at some point,

if it isn't already going to be, in different ways, in different levels, different places, different products, is going to become more and more of a hindrance. Because they need to be a different company. I mean, there's a reason they fired Steve. You know? Like, he didn't know how to make big company go. And, like, that was, you know? I mean, and then he came back and it was the right conditions and that worked out fine. And thank God for all the nice things he made. Yada, yada, yada. But, like, you know, that's the really amazing thing. And that's what sets some people apart is that ability to think about something that's for somebody who's not them.

You know, on the face of this, this feels a lot like something that's for Johnny. And I guess it's probably for a lot of the kind of design folks that share his aesthetic. But, you know, it's the devils in the details. And, you know, every, I'm not criticizing, but I'm trying to think about, when I think about successful offices, office spaces, office cultures, I'm trying to think beyond the physical desks and layout and stuff like that. I'm thinking about like of different ones I've had that worked well for certain reasons. I was a, I'm not an intern.

I forget what they call what I did. But I was basically the lowest person on the ladder at a newspaper one summer. So I did a lot of like funeral notices, movie times. I did just, you know, scut work. I did the clip files, all that kind of stuff. Like, not copy editor. Why do they call that? But anyway, I was like, I was low boy.

AlexDid you ever have to put a divorce notice in a paper? Like when someone can't find their spouse and they want a divorce. And the only way to do that is, that's a fun fact I learned the other day. Anyway, sorry.

MerlinThat's super interesting. Yeah, no, it was more of the stuff that required. It's so funny to think about today. But in 1989, I had to call every local theater on Fridays and listen to their message and write down what all the movie times were. And that became the movie times. And I would do some funeral notice things, et cetera. But anyway, that one, boy, what an interesting time that was because they still had this bespoke journalism computer system.

I think it was called The Coyote. but basically there was this crazy like you know i don't even know if it was based on like regular pc software but the system that they had was like along the lines of the bloomberg terminal and like you took pride in how horrible this thing was to use and the fact that you knew how to use it but that was an entirely open environment uh and it worked great and everybody there was mostly doing similar kinds of things which is like smoking cigarettes drinking coffee and tracking down information on the phone all day. It was just phone calls. But there was a pretty rich culture

there of how that worked. And there was a very rich culture and understanding about how you marked on the board where you were when you went out. Because again, you had a pager, but you didn't have a phone. All that kind of stuff. And in that environment, what worked well for that newspaper, that Sarasota newspaper in, Bradenton? Newspaper in 1989 probably would not be that conducive for people who are doing a tech job or movie editing today. But I'm trying to think, I'm trying to look beyond the physical structure. I mean, my favorite office I had was that job in

the 90s where I had my own office. That was great. I don't know if that was the best for everybody. I mean, everybody liked the fact that pretty much everybody had their own office. You got a bigger or smaller office, depending on whether you're a big shot. But except for the admins, a couple people that had to share a room, but everybody had their own space. There was a pretty mostly mature culture of how you interact with people, what shutting the door means, when it's okay to have the door shut for a long time. Those things all develop their own level. But I don't know.

But finally, I guess I think about the dot-com job that I had, where we were all, everybody, So basically, we had a company that was a spinoff of a real estate publication. And we were the online component of that that was doing its own play. And so basically, everybody was in Menlo Park in an old dentist's office. And like cheek to jowl, it was our little web team. It was the marketing douche. There was the business development people.

There were eventually the ad sales people. and then there were them like hardcore like relationships with realtor people and it was very interesting and somewhat fraught for all of those people to be in the same room because the marketing douche was really loud and talked all day long about parties that he'd been to the ad people were like on the phone all day business development people were out of the office a lot and you know we were just kind of permanently there like you know typing things and having meetings and making whiteboard things but so it wasn't really ideal but you know everybody kind of

put up with it because that's that's what the situation was i don't know i don't i don't have anything very smart to say about this i don't know if i'd want to work at this place um it seems like it'd be a great place to visit but like i'm not sure if i'd want to it feels like a place that

Alexthat's too big for the human soul interesting you know huh i had not well the thing would you want to work there would you want to work oh i mean well no and only that um i never want to leave this office ever and i live here and it's great um but i i it seems like apple this is boring but um it's very it's always been um segmented by by the teams and there's some

great episodes of debug that talk about like a lot of frustrations within apple is also like the secrecy within the companies and like teams not communicating with one another um it's it's not just like you know the whole pixar cliche of like collaborate when you go across to the bathroom

Merlinwhere your tiny urinals but you know but like it's almost like a soviet state thing where like the you want to ensure that you know the absolute minimum amount of information possible so you could never even be perceived as somebody who's leaked stuff like that right i mean isn't that

Alexisn't that a thing i think well yeah it's it's it's um the like mid-level managers i think that Like it's, it's, I don't know. I'd never worked at a giant company. I don't have any sort of, I just don't have a concept of that. And I, I just see like, this doesn't look like a place where individual teams can collaborate in a successful way. But I, as like an off, but at the same time, our office is while there are like cards against humanity employees,

we're like dispersed all across the office and like intermixed with um you know folks that uh are are like office mates but they are freelancers and designers and other sorts of artists and stuff like that uh and there's there's times where we're like move desk because the um you know the dev team has to be together to work on a big project and like again it's it's very modular and stuff like that but this thing is like literally set in stone in some places like uh here here's this personal rock climbing wall which like yeah this looks cool as heck but i haven't been in a lot of again

never seen cubicles i don't even know like do can you still put like little tacks in the walls is

Merlinthat a thing i don't know i mean i imagine in some places there's a fairly well enforced um like what even if it's pixar where you can make it into a tiki hut or whatever like there's still a pretty good sense of like what's allowable and like you know in most places i think you know they don't want it to look too messy you know you know what i mean like you can't have a messy desk or messy walls i mean i think that's like a like a pretty pretty normal thing we try to do that

Alexabout once a year and then it's we sort of dissolve in into um or like some sort of organized chaos which is just how you know a lot of creative folks work well i'm trying to think about i'm this is i'm

Merlinpulling this out of my ass but i'm thinking about this continuum that we may or may not share or agree on, but you've got a continuum of over here on this one side, you've got a bus seat. And over here on this other side, you've got not only your bedroom and your bed, but your side of the bed and your pillow, right? So like you have every reason- Got daddy's chair. Right. Well, yeah, yeah, exactly. That's my part of the couch. But like over here in your bedroom, like you have every reason to feel that that is your sacrosanct area and like things you put there should be left a certain way. Nobody else like just takes your pillow and doesn't bring it back

unless you have a child. But on the other end, you've got a bus seat where like it is funny how protected people can get about their seat on public transit. It's like nobody else has ever been in this seat except for me. But like that seat is there to accommodate. It's not there to accommodate you. It's there to accommodate a mass of people over 40 years. And like there will be many, many different people in that seat. And like you need to regulate your expectations and behavior in a way that comports with how much that seat is not really yours. not everybody does this of course but like i you know i try to think don't mean to make this about

me but like you know i try to pull my weight on the train like i try to like take off my backpack and i move out of the way and i don't take two seats and all that kind of stuff and because you know i think that's part of the social contract and then at the other end yeah maybe i may be picky if somebody steals my pillow the interesting thing in between is that you want to give people enough of a sense of ownership of the office and their space that they feel comfortable that they feel, I don't even know what words to use, I hate to say the word creative, but they feel like it's enough theirs that they know they belong there. They don't feel like an

outcast there. They don't feel like they're sitting in the lobby, right? But on the other hand, you don't want it to become so familiar that it becomes like their bedroom and they're miffed if somebody wants to come into their office for some reason. And I think that's a very difficult balance to strike because, you know, while we may not have private offices anymore with a door, I mean a lot of that role in some ways has been taken over by headphones and similar where like in some office cultures like headphones is telegraphing something very specific like if I'm

not the kind of person that always has headphones on these headphones should let you know that like I'm doing a thing right so I don't know I just think that what's it then that becomes interesting it's one thing to say okay this is a startup with a bunch of like six stinky boys around a table in like in Silicon Valley but like then there's different kinds of people and you bring in this diversity and like how do you make people feel welcome so that they're not sitting in the lobby But how do you not make it so they can just go be a developer who disappears in a room? As, you know, was it Jill Spolsky says, beware of a man in a room. Like somebody who just goes black and you just don't hear from anymore. It's such an interesting balance to strike as your team grows, as the culture stretches, bends, and maybe breaks.

and like what you as a manager or better put leader decide to do to like bend the bend the room and massage the culture to accommodate the people who are there now rather than the people who used to be there that seems ridiculously challenging to me uh yeah which is why again

Alexi'm i'm gonna say i'm gonna say nice things about mx again which is uh part of like wanting to make people feel welcome in the office and that it's uh there's that it is home like nobody um can i i am one of the people that uh definitely you might find this shocking merlin but i spent a lot of time at this office is that right and uh and i do get that way about um the the at first i thought that it was me being anal like don't don't touch the buttons in my studio don't don't don't leave

this but then it became clear like okay i guys if we don't clean up this space the next people who use it there are varying levels of skill set like please reset the board don't fuck this up like when i when i call merlin i want to be able to hear him instantly i don't want to see what what weird shit you did um and again that's that's that is largely like my i'm technically the manager of this office so it is on me to make sure that the studio yeah uh yeah not the office the my personal office where I go and disappear and surrounded by microphones. But like largely making sure that

people feel welcome, but also understand that it's a shared space and yada, yada, yada.

MerlinYeah, I mean, there's not, I wonder sometimes that this is one of those unintentional schisms or unconscious schisms that we're not aware of, which is that like, I don't know how quite to put this, but like, you know, just because you're more comfortable making racist remarks does not make that more comfortable for other people. That there's a certain, I know that sounds obvious, But I mean, in this sense of like nobody here is your servant and nobody here is your master. It's much more harrowing than that. You have a role as a team player in this office.

And it's important, like I would want to say something along the lines of or show something along the lines of it's important that you we expect that from you and that you expect that from others and that not need to be a hostile thing, which is a lot harder than it sounds. Right. So, you know, it's I think it can be uniquely difficult to try and produce an area where there's professional behavior and collegiality without it feeling like some kind of, you know, drudgery for people. I don't know. I think it's I don't know. I'm just I'm glad to have my own little room.

Alexthat's what I'm I'm curious about because uh the time like there are times where I will uh shut myself off in a cubby and be like hey listen guys um I have this big editing thing like I I need to just be in here for a couple hours let me know if you need it but then I uh it ends up that I leave this windowless room and then I'm like oh it's dark outside and that would be pretty unhealthy. I feel like if I did that every day, do you have window? I don't want to compromise

Merlinyour obsec. No, not really. But I mean, you're also, I'm happy to talk about the office. It's actually not that interesting. It's just a bunch of junk and I record. But there's one part of this also that we're kind of, I don't say we're avoiding or skipping, but why do we have an office? Why don't we all just work wherever remotely? Let's say you give somebody a budget. You give somebody a budget of $300 a month to do with whatever you want. It looks like your seats are like $250 a month to get a desk there. But like, you know, okay, well, we don't want to do that. Well, why don't we do that? Because we need face-to-face because why else? Because this,

because this, because this. It's interesting to me though, that today we feel like aside from corporations and very large teams, we are more and more getting to a point where you have to ask the question, not just do we need an office, but if we do have an office and we want to eat the expense of, I mean, it's very costly to put an office together and keep it running. A lot more costly, I think, than most people really realize, especially if you're anywhere near a city. I feel like today we're reaching a point where that becomes a very conscious cultural choice about what will it mean if we have an office and how will we possibly earn back as a startup, for

example. I mean, you take like 1Password. Everybody works at 1Password until fairly recently was in their house and mostly contractors. There are a lot of companies out there that look like big companies that are very loosely organized and staffed.

Speaker ASo you know what I'm saying, though?

MerlinLike to me now, it's interesting to think, rather than saying like, okay, you know, we're dingle and dingle and we're going to hang out our shingle as, well, that's funny. We're dingle and dingle, going to hang out our shingle and biggity bingle in our little office place. And so you say, well, the first thing you do is you sign your little agreement and then you go find an office and then you're going to staff it, right? And that's a kind of classic, maybe pre-classical, like old school idea about how you build an office. Nobody does that nowadays for most businesses. I mean, there are certain known kinds of businesses like a shoe store or a restaurant that operate that way, I guess.

But like I feel like today we're reaching a point where you have to ask yourself, it's really got to be worth it for us to make this building. And then it's going to have to really earn back, you know, over a certain amount of time. So you kind of can't help but put strictures on what needs to happen in that office because most people don't have the dough to just throw around and say, oh, what the heck, let's go get a three-year lease on this giant building. Do you know what I mean?

AlexYeah.

MerlinIt's a more mindful, deliberative decision than it was 20 years ago, I'm guessing.

AlexWell, I thought something was really interesting. Our buddies, Stephen Hackett and Mike Hurley, who are the co-founders of RelayFM, they obviously work remotely and in their own offices, but they set a time together each year to spend like two weeks together just talking about.

MerlinDid you listen to the latest Cortex?

AlexYeah, yeah. It was really good.

MerlinIt's been a week. It's been a week in the same house pretty much.

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinSuper interesting.

AlexWe kind of do something similar. Like a lot of times we'll do sort of like office or like team retreats or whatever. And I don't know. It feels so like snooty and hipstery but like that just like change in location. I don't know why it helps. I don't know why it's something that like makes us more productive or makes us be more creative. But even like, again, the office like was designed for small spaces.

One day we had our events team had a retreat literally just in one of the small conference rooms that has a bunch of comfy chairs. and it was one of the most productive days we ever had. We just like- Is that right? Yeah, we just locked ourselves in and yeah, no, there's just something about that and something about the freedom of like, Max and I talk a lot about the magic circle in terms of gaming. Like once you're in a game, you accept that this is the universe and these are the rules of this.

And it's kind of like that.

MerlinOnce you're bought in, like you're in this little universe.

AlexYeah, and I think that might be part of it. I guess. And I can only imagine that that's what happens at large companies doing incredibly creative things that are, you know, working on the Ferrari iPhone is like, okay, none of our families don't exist. Our other coworkers don't exist. This is, this is our lives right now, except, you know, it's for them 24 seven and not, you know, seven days. And I don't know, I'm also really interested in the folks who are freelancers and who do work remotely who rent out office spaces like i understand it in the sense of like okay it's tough to work at home if

you have kids and stuff like that but a ton of people i know don't well you do you do this and i but i i understand because it's you have uh like unique recording needs and and stuff like that

Merlinum right i mean there's there's all kinds of reasons to do it but but uh you know one downside of this. I went through this. So basically after that, the dot-com went under and got acquired. I was very fortunate to get, this is a totally inappropriate title I had not earned, but I became the creative director of that real estate magazine, which is to say that I worked on the website for that. I built up these products, blah, blah, blah, blah. It was kind of a jack of all trades, more like jack off all trades. And it was a little bit of product management,

project management that kind of stuff and but i work from home um in san francisco and in some ways it was fantastic because like when i had to go and learn cold fusion and go build this mini site it was fantastic to just be able to get this shitty pc and be able to work on it all by myself and just check in with my boss back in florida and ask questions that was all really great but like at least all the jobs i've had like that um i also even like just being out for the day I felt really out of the loop. If the primary, if there is a locus of culture and decision making happening anywhere, like

if you're at the remote office, it is just not as fun. People just forget to, it's like some of the arguments we have about this show. It's just because you guys talk to each other all the time and I'm like, hey, yeah, yeah, what about me? Like, I don't really need to know all those things, but you would never think to tell me that because you're used to just being in a room with each other. You know what I mean? There's all kinds of little bits, back to that office though, there's all kinds of little bits of culture you just utterly miss out on. You miss out on like what the mood in the room is today. And there's certain kinds of things that everybody can pick up when they're in the building that they wouldn't they would not think to communicate to anybody else.

And also you're on a fucking conference call where you can barely hear anything that's happening. I don't know. I always felt that very that was the one part of the job I found very isolating being remote was to not be in the room where it happens.

AlexDo you feel isolated now because of like, you know, all of your work is with other folks across the all across the country?

MerlinNo, I don't. I don't feel isolated at all. I mean, it's much more isolating to be a parent with time constraints in that I don't get to have the social life. I could have the social life that I'd like to have, but it would be difficult and onerous. And maybe I'll get to it someday. But I have plenty of interaction. And I kind of interact for my job. So, I mean, I get to like pal around with people and that's all okay. I don't find it isolating at all. I mean, because it's never more than a few hours until I'm back hanging out with my family or what have you.

But, you know, I'm an old guy. It's different for me. I'm not like a single young person in a big city. You know, I'm a very happily married family old man in a small part of a big city.

AlexOh, I can't wait to be an old lesbian.

MerlinOh, you're going to be so good at it.

AlexOh, your cats. I do. I think I'll finally, that's finally something I'll be good at. It's very exciting. I'm just going to shuffle my papers and talk to them and be like.

MerlinDid you know? Senator John McCain.

Speaker BRecovering from brain cancer surgery.

MerlinThe ship named after him.

Speaker BOh.

AlexI just can't believe you looked at the eclipse. How? Who?

MerlinHe didn't look at it for very long.

AlexI don't care. I don't care. I saw the pictures with him in a glass, the glasses with his jaw. Like, ah, Baron. Thumbs up. I like Baron.

Merlinour household has agreed by mutual assent that Baron seems like a really cool little kid

AlexI can't imagine what his life is like and I really

Merlinimagine how kind of sad I don't mean to project but like god all those times his dad could have come and just hung out he just went and fucking played golf I don't mean to criticize I'm not trying to be like a dumb parent guy here but like doesn't he miss his son I get that he probably doesn't miss his wife because she's not as hot as she was a few years ago but like doesn't he miss his kid like i would it would be killing me all day long to not i don't

Alexknow it just seems so strange to me i mean well you're you're uh not a sociopath so he seems like a nice little kid he's 11 leave him alone i i uh people suck baron alone uh he was that you crying

Merlinunder a sheet

AlexHehehehehe!

Show notes

Transcript

39. My Lady Wad

Show notes

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