40. Jardín D’Olive

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, watch fateful findings.

Hello. Hello. How are you, Merlin Mann?

MerlinI'm very, very well. How are you, Alex Cox?

AlexI'm alright. Max is on his way.

MerlinExcellent.

AlexI'm sorry that he wasn't here, everybody. I'm sorry.

MerlinHey, you can't get it every time.

AlexI'm sorry. I know. I know. We had that long, terrible, terrible episode.

MerlinOh my god. Welcome to this week's episode of Fishing for Compliments with Alex Scott.

AlexThat's the female millennial way, Merlin. I need to be told I'm very special. Or I, you know what? I always thought the special snowflake thing was because like everyone thinks they're unique. But then I think I was watching some Nazi YouTube, which is a very, very scary place.

MerlinDad is going to screw up your recommendations.

AlexOh, I learned that very quickly. I'm like incognito.

MerlinThat's almost as bad as Life Hacks videos. Yes, almost bad.

AlexMax is here. Hey, it's breakout star Max. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MerlinAnd so what did you learn from Nazi videos?

AlexIt's because you melt, because snowflakes melt. There will be a meltdown and you're sensitive.

MerlinOh, I see. It's an analogy that works on so many levels.

AlexDefinitely.

MerlinHey, Merlin.

AlexHey, buddy. Hello.

MaxSo the other day in our text thread, I mentioned that I had lunch with a mutual friend of ours. And then you replied back in the text thread. you said oh i love that guy he's a real pistol yeah what does that mean i've been thinking about

Speaker Athat for three weeks who was it well i don't want to say this is everything that happens on the show is the show okay fair enough a pistol a pistol is somebody who is wait a minute you say whether it's good or bad to be a pistol and then i'll say who it is that's part of the nature okay part of the nature of being a pistol is that you're a bit of a pistol it's it's a little bit bad not god you

Merlinmillenniums no it means that you're uh is it like it's like bless your heart it's like people don't

Maxsay that when they're really trying to earnestly give the compliment i'll pray for you i'll pray

Merlinfor you um i think a pistol is somebody who is a little bit mercurial uh or see i don't know what

Alexthat means even that word i'm not entirely sure it means like a mercenary did you guys go to college

Merlinin illinois or something the the thing is a pistol is somebody who could be a little bit hot a little bit hard to handle. It's somebody who's a little bit of an X factor. You're not sure what you're going to get. But it's somebody who's often very funny. I use pistol frequently to refer to somebody who's really funny and a little bit of a wild card. Wild card. Wild card.

Speaker AWho was it? It was our friend Jared Spool. Oh, that guy's a pistol.

AlexWhile I'm fishing for compliments, what would you call me, Merlin? Oh, you're a handful.

MerlinBless your heart.

Speaker AOh, bless your heart. Good job last week. Good episode. I thought it was very funny. I thought it was great. Alex loved it, too.

AlexYeah.

Speaker AThere was no Bane voice, though. There was a little Bane voice.

AlexThere was. Alex shut it down.

Speaker AYeah, it's real funny. She stepped on your balls as soon as you started doing the good bit. She cucked my Bane. You guys had a whole bit going about like a sitcom about the Bane family. Yeah, it was called, what was it? Everybody Loves Bane. good news honey I've invited the boss over for dinner

Speaker Band he's coming in one hour I can't believe you've burned the roast again let me go visit with my neighbor whose eyeballs you see over the top of the fence

Merlinare you guys watching Project Runway?

MaxOh, boy, am I. I fell asleep during the second one last night, but it was very dramatic. Now, let me... I'm going to take a bold stance. I don't like those twins. I think under your twin theory, those fall very squarely under the category of creepy twins.

Speaker ALet me answer in the voice of the Les Hare twin. Indeed. Nobody says indeed.

MerlinIndeed. Nobody talks... She talks... Oh, the way they talk, it's...

Speaker AWell, if I had to describe this garment, I would call it almost mercurial.

MerlinMercurial.

Speaker ANo, it's like they went to a really nice community college where they had a thesaurus and stuff. Indeed.

MerlinNobody talks like that. So this is a show.

MaxYou think she's going right-click, find synonyms in her brain every time she talks.

MerlinRight-click, find synonyms. She should have gone home is what she should have gone. They sent home cha-cha.

Speaker ACha-cha. I could have had a whole season of saying cha-cha, and it makes me happy. This is like on The Bachelorette, how Waboom stayed around for like six episodes.

MaxClearly the producers stepped in and were like, let's keep the twins. Don't send the twins home.

MerlinI totally called it. I totally called it.

MaxBecause who gives a shit what happens in the first five weeks of Project Runway, right? Because it's all ding-a-ling circus. It's the three-ring ding-a-ling circus for the first five to six weeks of Project Runway anyway. Remember that lady that used to like to spin on her clothes? Just keep the entertaining ones around, right?

MerlinThat lady who'd spin on her clothes and rub it on the grass. And like, oh, come on. You got to keep her around for a few weeks. She's a pistol. Okay, so this is a show, this is a program that for us has much lore and ritual around it and a fair amount of audience participation. And can I give you one thing you'll never unhear? Actually, secondly, two things. Indeed, indeed. Indeed. They come cheek to jowl. The one is when Heidi comes out and goes,

Speaker BHello!

MerlinBut then the sound of everyone responding as one is this. She goes, Hello! And they go, and you cannot hear it and start doing it along with them it's so fun and if it's somebody who has a name please welcome please welcome Melanie Johnson Melanie it sounds like they got hit with a very fancy sock full of pennies hello hello 16 designers oh my god

so much ritual and lore I think it's going to be a good season it's going to be a good good season okay I got one beef I got beef I got beef with the latest episode though No way was that stuff actually trash. What is the last time you saw so much pink, yellow, and green trash? And who throws out that much perfectly good vinyl in bolts? Give me a break.

MaxNo. I mean, they staged. They had a scavenger hunt activity in a recycling facility with materials that the producers brought in for them to scavenge.

MerlinSomebody threw out a lot of confetti.

MaxBut it did smell bad. They did make a comment of like, oh, when they got into the workroom, like, oh, Tim was like, good heavens, it stinks in here.

Speaker BWhy is everyone Bane?

MaxListen, I have one voice. Wait till I do my Sebastian Gorka voice. That's Bane, too.

AlexOh, I'm so excited for Gork follow-up.

MaxSebastian Gorka follow-up from the Federalist from Molly Hemingway. Excuse me? I don't know. From Molly Hemingway. She got an exclusive for The Federalist. Okay, so you know the Vice documentary that we watched? The very scary neo-Nazi documentary where it followed the bald guy who cried later?

Speaker BMm-hmm.

MaxWhen they were interviewing him in his hotel room and he was pulling all his guns out of his pants like a bit from a Matrix movie? Yeah, he had like a clown car. In the background on his laptop, he was reading The Federalist. Yep. It's in the background. You can see it. Okay. So anyway, this is Molly Hemingway, an exclusive for The Federalist. She got the exclusive on Sebastian Gorka resigning from the White House. From The Federalist, Sebastian Gorka is resigning his post as deputy assistant to President Trump. Multiple sources familiar with the situation have told The Federalist. That's five of those sources, Sebastian Gorka.

Well, that may come into play in a moment. In a blunt resignation letter, the national security and counterterrorism expert expressed dissatisfaction with the current state of the Trump administration. Now, Sebastian Gorka, listen, I'm perilously close to just stealing a bit from my boys at Chapo here because they have James Adomian comes on and does an amazing, a fucking frighteningly and hilariously accurate Sebastian Gorka impersonation.

MerlinI think there's another voice you could implement at this point that would be close enough.

Speaker ABut here's the thing.

MaxWhen Sebastian Gorka talks, he's gradually becoming more – listen, this is Chapo territory. I don't know. This is not my joke. But when he talks, he does sound more and more like a supervillain. So I think I can't really do his voice, so I'll just read it as Bane because he does – when he speaks, he does sound like a supervillain from a Batman comic. So, okay, so this is from his – what Molly Hemingill calls his blunt resignation letter. This is a quote from Sebastian Gorka. Given recent events, it is clear to me that forces that do not support the MAGA promise are, for now, ascendant within the White House, Gorka wrote.

Speaker AAs a result, the best and most effective way that I can support you, Mr. President, is from outside the People's House.

MaxGorka's tenure at the White House was marked by unusually vociferous attacks against him and his family by left-leaning media organizations and the Democratic Party. which does anyone remember the Democratic Party attacking Sebastian Gorka? We all remember those high-profile Democratic Party ads attacking Sebastian Gorka, right?

MerlinEvery time you turn on the TV, there's another one, another Gorka hit piece.

MaxGreat messaging by the Democratic Party going after Sebastian Gorka. And then she goes on, this includes personal attacks against his wife, mother, and son. Those personal attacks were that he belonged to the Hungarian fascist party and were their medal.

Speaker BWhat?

MaxWe read this. This was follow-up from the show. We read this. Sebastian Gorka wore a medal from the Hungarian Nazi party. Yeah, he belongs

Speaker AHe added a letter to his name to show people he's a Nazi

MaxYeah, yeah And then the article ends with this update In response to this story, an anonymous White House official reportedly said, quote, Sebastian Gorka did not resign, but I can confirm that he no longer works at the White House That is harsh, that is so harsh So he did the Trump thing where he was fired and then he goes I'm not breaking up with you You can't dump me. I'm dumping you.

No tag backs.

MerlinHe's such a fucking supervillain. Oopsie doopsie. I'm stealing that from another podcast now. You know, actually, what's his name? John Lovett. He does a pretty good work too. It's a lot like how you get a Rich Little versus a John Biner. You get an impersonation versus an impression. I enjoy them all very much.

MaxWell, I think I've heard it said that one of the issues with Trump is that nobody can do a Trump impression. Everybody does a Trump impersonation. Or is it the other way around? I forget which is which. Basically, like the way that like Alec Baldwin, who's like the best at this, right? He doesn't, he's not making a caricature or a commentary on Trump. He's just, he's just acting like Trump, right? And it's actually a problem. Like Bush and Obama, well, like George H.W. Bush was like, his reputation was like severely hurt by like a very good, you know, caricature that SNL did.

Yeah, the Dana Carvey one, right? Like people remember that, like William Shatner, right? Like people don't remember actual William Shatner from Star Trek. They remember like parodies of William Shatner from Star Trek. There's no equivalent for Trump. Like no one can caricaturize him.

MerlinRight. I'm a fan, as Alex knows, I'm a fan of John D. Domenico's Trump. He does a very, very good. But that's just an accurate impression. I see what you're saying. Whereas whatever the opposite of that one is, the one Dana Carvey did is like making it bigger than the character.

Maxnow the one that I think maybe comes close is the Peter Serafinowicz like I don't know it's like the gay Trump that he does but it is a little homophobic like he's just doing Trump in a gay voice

Speaker Ait is a little homophobic

Merlinhe gets the mouth noises my favorite part is the now I just I kind of insert those when I'm watching him talk yes and apparently another great mystery is exactly what Sebastian V. Gorka actually excuse me honorific Dr. Sebastian V. Gorka he has a fake PhD well apparently his thesis was not stellar but the it's like what he did

as a job

Speaker Aso he never got security clearance

Maxhe never got security clearance there was an incident he had some sort of incident with the FAA I think he tried to bring a gun through the airport and as a result of that He never got security clearance. So all he ever did was he was like a media figure and he would go on and say, soon Donald Trump will say the true name of the terrorists.

Speaker ASo call them radical Islamic terrorists and they will submit to his awesome power.

MerlinI channeled you this weekend when he had been interviewed and said something like, it's like that scene at the end of Star Wars where it says if you jump it out, I'll only become more powerful. and of course political twitter's reaction was um so that's not actually the end of star wars instead of realizing that he was saying straight up no no no we're gonna destroy everything and they're like i don't really don't know about that have you actually read the book it's like no he's telling you he's telling you with his gorka mouth words that things are gonna be bad and you're just

sitting there you're sitting there looking stuff up in an almanac right yeah i mean he's gonna go

MaxYou think he's going to disappear from CNN and the media? Nobody disappears. I mean, same with Bannon, right? They're all just going to do their evil deeds, but now they'll just be paid directly by rich financers of the Republican Party instead of being on the taxpayer dime.

MerlinYou know how it became an artful thing? I like to think I'm pretty good at this. I can do a pretty good fake Trump tweet because his style is so—I mean, he really has a style of his own, and there's three parts to every tweet that he does, and you can very easily mimic his style. the thing is now having heard or read uh transcripts of things steve bannon says you can tell when he's the leaker if you go back and look at stuff the kind of stuff that only steve bannon says in the way that he's saying it he has a very distinctive style and i think that's going to be interesting in the criminology of this over the next year is getting more and more like oh i'm

pretty sure that was a jared or oh you know that was that was probably a bannon because you really get these people's style and it's more that stuff goes on the record one way or another i think it's going to become clearer, you know, who the leakers are.

MaxWell, Merlin, you know what I've always said is every great Trump tweet consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called the pledge. Donald Trump shows you something ordinary, a deck of cards, a bird, a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course, it probably isn't. The second act is called the turn. Now, this is where Donald Trump takes something ordinary and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret, but you won't find it because, of course, you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled, but you wouldn't clap yet because making something disappear isn't enough.

You have to bring it back. That's why every Trump tree has a third act, the hardest part, the part that we call sad exclamation point. I'm not going to bury another Batman.

Speaker BShe was only 15 years old. Here's the gauze and the brandy.

MaxTake a dig a dig a follow up. I got some very nice listener feedback on my, I remember I was complaining a couple weeks ago about Apple wallet and how every goddamn time I take my phone out of my pocket, I accidentally go into wallet mode and then I'm, I try to tap to get my fingerprint, but it just brings the cards back up and I'm like tap, tap, God damn it. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, God damn it. And I have to do that for a half hour. Someone said, okay, check this out you can just go into the settings and disable that like double tap for apple wallet

and then if you actually want to bring your cards up you just hold your phone up to a what do you call that thing nfc our nfc reader and it just brings them up that is so badass i i

Merlinhave you know that i saw the person toot you about that and i think i thanked them for it i'm gonna try that you know what else is great coming in ios 11 i mentioned somewhere else but it's been reported that in ios 11 you know there's the sos where you go tap tap tap tap tap you hit five times really fast and did we talk about this already we didn't talk about this did we but we did not if you hit five times real fast right now on your phone if you've set up stuff like your organ donation your emergency stuff 9-1-1 all of that it's pretty cool nice one for you to know when you're going through tsa or whatnot uh tap tap in ios 11 five taps if you hit uh cancel

Maxit shuts off touch id till the next oh for your opsec isn't that good opsec yeah you can't be compelled to um so like basically law enforcement can compel you to put your fingerprint on the phone to unlock it but they can't compel you to put your code in that's what the courts have said

Merlinanyway it's good it's good for lots of stuff though i mean even if you're just somewhere it feels a little bit sketchy you might want to do that yeah when i go to protests and stuff i

Maxturn off the touch id just in case i'm detained you go to protests and stuff oh big time good for you.

MerlinHmm. I don't, I'm scared.

Speaker AAntifa! That was a very good tweet.

AlexHe keeps saying the words.

Speaker ACan you play that whole thing?

AlexI'll find it. His entire horrifying bit.

Merlin70 minute meltdown.

AlexOh,

Maxhang on. I'll find it. There was a very, someone made a very good video edit of the Antifa bit.

Speaker BThey show up in the helmets and the black men. They've got clubs and they've got everything. And Tifa! Like, I knew exactly where I was going, but it's still so good.

MaxIt's a good amount of time that they did for the lead. So that's by Chris Stevens, MD, on Twitter. It's a very good amount of time leading up to it. It really sells it when it happens.

AlexLately, I've been, you know, I think we all do the ritual of going on Twitter late at night and then early in the morning to see what horrible events have transpired the night before. But it feels like, am I not looking at the right political Twitter? It feels like Taylor Swift is the only thing that's happening right now. And it's like too quiet. It's making me anxious.

Merlinthis today as we record this on monday the diggity 28th it's been kind of a big day but no but no we also got the you got the hurricane stuff going on the floods which are just yeah oh my

Maxgod i don't know what to say about that i mean i don't think there's i don't know there's like there's there's lots of people on twitter who are like stop uh don't do disaster tourism and just like retweet pictures of it like uh here's the links to get involved so i guess go do those i I don't know. It seems bad.

MerlinYeah, it's funny that all the warnings against disaster tourism are by newscasters in Slickers like screaming by the beach. It's like, don't come down here

Speaker Bjust to go eyeball everything.

MerlinLet me do it for you. No, it's a horrible tragedy. There's nothing funny about it. It's just the worst. It's the worst. Taylor Swift. I don't love that song, but I don't have that song.

MaxCan someone explain to me? The amount that I don't know about any of this is incredible. so I know that there was some Taylor Swift news if I'm being completely honest I don't 100% know who Taylor Swift is I know she had some feud with Kanye

Alexoh yeah

Maxmany a feud I know she's not Miley Cyrus right? no

Alexthey share the same name actually Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift they are indeed the same person

MaxI actually don't know anything about Taylor Swift I don't think I've ever heard a song of hers did she do Party in the USA? say no no that is miley cyrus yes no that's you know bang bang or whatever that song i don't know

Alexwhat that is i don't know okay what's a taylor swift song uh shake it off is a well-known song

Speaker Ayep blank space uh trouble when you walked in and now what's the new thing she made an album

Alexand everyone's mad uh it was it was just a very bad song and the the music video was even worse and it ripped off. She looked weird. She looked strange. Yeah, it was so strange. We've, in the office this morning, a lot of gifs were being made of the weird part where she like, there's like weird cuts where she goes to pick up a teacup and then it's just like not, it's just not right. Yeah, and then she ripped off Beyonce and a bunch of weird stuff. Well, now you're gonna get email.

That's fine, come at me.

Speaker AWho cares?

AlexExactly. this is well okay all right no no no go ahead no go ahead merlin i want to hear anything about beyonce as long as you're here you're gonna come out the queen wait wait wait wait wait wait these

Merlinpeople have very here's the thing be careful when you say anything about something where there are many many strong boosters and many many strong detractors because you're gonna get it from both

Alexsides uh i really really like beyonce and i will stand by that statement i i saw the first half of rick and morty and then hulu decided it wouldn't let me watch the rest i don't know why so fucking good just the opening like the cold open of that oh my god oh good

MaxDidn't you watch it at all, Merlin?

Speaker AYeah, I watched some of the first episode. Some of the first episode. It's 20 minutes.

MerlinYeah, that's a long time.

MaxNow, you watch this shitty movie that you made us watch, and you've seen that how many times?

MerlinYou mean all the way through? Mm-hmm. Three.

Speaker ABut you haven't seen Rick and Morty, even the pilot?

MerlinI've seen all three Back to the Future movies. I know the show.

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinHow's it feel, Max? How's that feel? Does it feel good? You like that feeling? I like that feeling when somebody deliberately misunderstanding something.

Speaker AI don't like watching bad things. Oh, this isn't bad, though. It's special. No, it's not bad. Oh, it's not bad? Okay.

MerlinNo, it's magic. It moved over. It did a wraparound.

Speaker AWe all know that. What was it called? Neil Breen? He's ripped.

MerlinRipped like lettuce.

MaxOh, God. It was bad. I don't like watching bad things. We all know that it was bad. Can we not be coy about it? It's a bad movie, and we're supposed to watch it and shit all over it. No, The Room is a bad movie. And feel good about ourselves.

MerlinThis is a special thing.

MaxBut the room is earnest. I've seen the room in theaters and thrown spoons at the wall and whatever. And at least the room is earnest, right? Like what's crazy about the room is that this absolutely deranged guy is giving it his all. And it's kind of beautiful because he's trying. It's kind of beautiful because it's bad, but it's earnest. I mean, what else can you say? It's like you're watching a guy run into a brick wall at full speed. And it's like, well, you got to give it up. You got to give it up to him. at least he's running at full speed. It's like at least it's something to,

you know, kind of rooting for him in a weird way.

MerlinHe lights some candles. He's got some ladies in there. He's got a football. It's a good movie.

MaxBut you're kind of rooting for him in a way just because you can tell he believes in it so hard and he's trying so hard. I didn't know what the fuck was going on in this movie. I didn't watch the whole thing. I gave up on it. Save it for the show. What is this? This is the show. We're doing it.

MerlinDugga, Dugga, Dugga, Dugga. Dateline next door. Update to the update update. You remember last week on the show, Neighbor Uri asked, is it bad? Are people who steal lemons bad people? And there have been many, many updates.

Let's see here. Here's one. I want to get to this one. This is neighbor. Let's see. Neighbor Raphael says, if the fruit on the tree crosses the property lines, like a fence onto the public sidewalk, I'd venture and say probably not illegal. If they come into your property to grab fruits or flowers from the plant, I'd say it's theft. Labeling them as illegals isn't very PC. Talking about a guy who used to use a wheelbarrow full of fruit. And then we've got the same neighbor, Rafael, a little later, says the following.

Foraging is illegal in many states. Theft is a perceived experience. This bike was left alone. Finders keepers for a civilized society were far from being civil. Let's just call people names and judge. and while we're at it, let's give up on rules and rights. I'm for controlled anarchy. Think about it before you respond. Eight dots exactly.

AlexThis was, I think, of all of the next door follow-up, that this is a perceived experience.

MerlinThat is a perceived experience, title. Oh, wow. So, okay, can you help me just unpack that a little bit? What is neighbor Raphael saying? Is this sarcasm inside sarcasm?

AlexI think he's being extremely sincere. I would say this is a young man who spends a lot of time on, like, he's an earnest young man who isn't, like, trolling boards, but he's engaged with the neighborhood in a weird, weird way.

MerlinYou can go and click and then look at what people have said in other places. Oh. Well, this is a good one. Neighbor Paul writes in to say, sirens, then helicopters, period. First, lots of sirens. Then a low-flying helicopter over the Dingle. It was practically overhead moments ago at Dingle and Dingle. What the hell is going on? I started having Desert Storm flashbacks. What? And then, let's see what he has to say in this one. Okay, here we go. This might give you a little bit of pepper for your onion. Neighbor Raphael writes in to say,

I also agree that we may have to start a neighborhood watch team. How do we go about that? and then he spins a tail wait regarding the lemons? no no no no now we're back to sirens then helicopters is a new one and so he has a very very long post here let's see I grew up in Miami and we had a watch group that consisted of many of our neighbors had far less aggravated crimes towns within the county of Miami-Dade then he encourages the feeling of community you'd be surprised how quickly things get done when there are witnesses and signage

that the people are watching out for crimes and those that commit them We can't put it all on the shoulders of the police departments. I'm in. I have a newborn now, and I'd be destroyed if anything happened to him or my wife. Love thy neighbor, and they will do the same. This is a different Raphael.

AlexOh, okay. Because that doesn't sound like controlled anarchy. Exactly.

MerlinIndeed.

AlexI'm a witness.

MaxI'm a witness. Hey! Eventually, the logical conclusion of all of these next-door groups is that people are going to organize like these like uh neighborhood watch uh a combo neighborhood watch militia groups and they're all they're all going to uh elect like a constitutional sheriff like uh joe arpaio or david clark yes like you'll just have one in every neighborhood that the paranoid neighbors are like we have got to put an end to this lemon theft every neighborhood's gonna have

Merlintheir own immortal show yeah

MaxWhat do you guys know about this Joe Arpaio figure? I've been following him for a while.

MerlinHe's running.

MaxHe's running a concentration camp.

MerlinAm I right? Up here. they um they uh is now speculated that he's gonna as they say primary jeff flake is the speculation but the thing is this guy's pulled out short a lot of times he likes to say a lot of things he's been he's been claiming he's gonna run for governor since christ was a corporal so i'm not

Maxsure how much you put into the here's here's the thing did you guys see there was this great twitter thread from the phoenix new times and they were like yeah and they were like we've been covering 20 years and here's a list of the things about him now they eventually got him you know they took Arpaio down like the government got Al Capone on tax evasion, where it's like they just found a thing that they could prosecute and they got him and that's what he was pardoned for. There seems to be a good amount of dirt where it's like, well, if he ever seriously launches like a more prominent political career, like they'll nail him on some of this stuff. But I don't know.

There is a, there was a, there was a, I think the scariest thing here is I do think there's a signal that Trump is saying, did you see the speech he gave to law enforcement a couple weeks ago where he's like, you people, you're wonderful people. Whenever you put these criminals into the back of the car, you always cover their head. You don't want them to bang their head. Stop doing that. I like the old days when we didn't used to cover their head. He's basically telling the cops, go ahead and bang up the protesters or criminals, right? Smash their head on the car when you put them in.

And it's like, isn't the pardon a little bit communicating? like hey go ahead and do whatever the fuck you want and i'll pardon you yeah it's the same way he tells his like violent mob uh base like uh oh uh you should beat up these protesters and i'll

Merlinpay for your legal fees the thing is the thing about him is one of the things about the president is that he doesn't spend money i don't think he's ever spent his own money on much of anything so you know in that case i mean i mean has he ever paid the legal expenses of somebody who's done something on his behalf. I doubt it. It's just, it's just, everything that comes out is

Maxjust going to be something for the base. Well, there's stories out there, like you can find online of like, oh, Trump, like in his limo, he passed some like family and they had a flat tire on the side of the road. And then he gave them an electoral map. He stopped and he helped them. And then like a month later, they got a check for like a million dollars or whatever. And it turns out that all that stuff is fake. And it was all placed in the press by Trump himself. And he would call is his like fake personas john baron you know yeah right right john baron who happens to

Merlinhave the same name of his future child that's a good name you don't waste a good name like that

Maxbaron yeah anyway my favorite joe arpaio thing that i learned is that one time he orchestrated an assassination um attempt against himself oh yeah and framed and framed someone it's part of

Merlinthis larger thing of like how much he how much he has cost in terms of lawsuits and settling lawsuits Do you want to describe the almost impossible to describe situation that he created there?

MaxBecause it's pretty mental. Well, the figure I saw from the Phoenix New Times was that he's cost them $44 million just in racial profiling cases.

MerlinTell me if I understand this correctly. He wanted, I guess, a little goose. And so he hired someone to pretend to try to kill him, but then also actually take the fall for it. Wasn't that how it worked?

MaxYou know, I don't know the exact details of it, but I think he definitely did try. Here, let's see here. He definitely did try to frame someone for this assassination attempt. Let's see. This is from John Dickerson, October 28, 2008. Taxpayers spent $1,100,000 this year to settle another of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's lawsuits. The New Times has learned through public records requests. the suit was brought by a man who Arpeo framed in 1999 in a staged murder plot against the sheriff.

The payout nine years after the wrongful arrest is an indication that the aging lawman's publicity-driven, unsavory antics may keep costing taxpayers big money well into the future. The county is already struggling with a huge budget deficit, and the excessive cost of Arpeo's operation isn't helping matters. in 2004 victim james savile's family sued our pay over 10 million after savile was found not guilty of attempting to kill the sheriff the county recently settled with savile for an

Merlinundisclosed amount how does how does he not come forward at any point and say hey there's been a mix-up here haha we all had our fun i mean that's how do you stay quiet that whole time that's so

Alexstrange i mean i think he might not be a good person you want are you sure you want to back on that, Merlin?

MerlinI'm on the fence. Did somebody want to talk about the branding on Charmin toilet paper?

AlexOh! Big dog. I was, you know, we just last week we talked about the whole undercarriage. Yeah, the undercarriage talk and I can't stop thinking about your whole back and forth wipe situation, but anyway I recently purchased more toilet paper and instead of the pleasant flower indents

Maxyou have two main keywords that you can pick in the toilet paper aisle you can pick between your soft and your strong

Alexoh soft, always soft

Maxand Merlin what do you go with? I like sturdy

MerlinI like a combination of both I get a high end cotton now

Alexyou're both fools

Maxit has to be strong it has to be strong

Alexgo on finish your story I just noticed that instead of like the little pleasant flower indents, now all the Charmin toilet paper says Charmin on it. And I was just really upset. It's, oh God. I don't like that. It's like seeing Samsung and LG on stuff. Oh, no. But I need to know. What is that for?

MaxIs that so when you're like, when you wipe your ass, you like read it like Braille,

Alexlike, oh, the Charmin logo. Yeah. I'd be fine if there was like some little bears or something. Yeah.

MerlinI think I get, I think we've got the Sweet Home one. We get Cottonelle Ultra Comfort Care Family Roll Toilet Paper Bath Tissue 36 Toilet Paper Rolls Cottonelle.

MaxHow did you recall that so quickly? Where did that information come from?

MerlinOh, it's just all up here. It's like a mind palace.

MaxRemember Sean now? You just looked that up on some sort of – you went to hashtag run X, went under T for toilet paper.

MerlinYeah, well, what I do is I pipe it through Todoist, and then I have a script that sets off a hazel on my new – And then a ball goes down a slide.

MaxBing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.

MerlinIt knocks over a glass of milk. A child comes over and laps it up. Then I pipe that through my shell script. Clean ripple, says the Cottonelle.

AlexCopy image.

MaxOh, God, this sweet homepage. Do you guys ever have blowout when you're wiping? So here's the situation. if you get the soft and not the strong you're wiping and you have blowout your hand goes right through the toilet paper you're talking about splatter well it's an adjacent problem to splatter but it's it's own thing blowout this is ultra comfort care

Merlinit's a two ply and it's pretty strong I'm not much of a blower but you know I can't say anymore

MaxI like to get in there like a NASCAR pit crew I do not want to waste a lot of time. Fast and efficient. Now, I'll sit in there and I'll read an entire Dostoevsky novel while I'm sitting on the toilet. I'll stay in there all day if I can avoid the demands of my real life. But when I'm actually wiping, I want my whole crew standing by with drills in hands, ready to switch out the tires, wash the windows, and I hit the racetrack.

So I move very fast and efficient. There's no wasted actions. It's a very clean mechanical process, and I do not want blowout.

MerlinYeah, so what's your preference then? You get sturdy, strong. Strong, strong. Strong like bull. Strong, yeah.

Speaker AHuh, you don't need no clean ripples.

MaxNo, and here's the other thing is I go to Costco, and I buy 600 rolls of toilet paper, and then I just have toilet paper for two years.

MerlinThat's smart. That's really smart.

MaxLike if you have storage, if you can manage that in your house, like I have like basically shelving in all of our bathrooms where I can just put hundreds of rolls of toilet paper.

MerlinUh-huh. Uh-huh.

MaxAnd it doesn't look awful. It's either hidden behind a cabinet or it's like sort of neatly tessellated on the shelf.

MerlinOh, no. You know, I'm not one for the Veblen goods, but I put it all out. I don't care how much toilet paper you see. I want it out there. You see six or eight rolls, you know that I'm a wealthy man. I'm ready for anything.

MaxPeople come out. So there's like a whole shelf in our sort of like guest bathroom that's like just filled corner to corner with toilet paper rolls. And people come in and like, wow, that's a lot of toilet paper. What do you have going on here? And I'm like, yeah, make fun all you want until you're at home and you run out of your last toilet paper roll. Now you've got to wipe your ass with a Time magazine. It's not going to happen here.

MerlinIt's not going to happen here. You walk into somebody's gas bath, their disused gas bath because you've got some business to do. Maybe you go down to the rumpus room because you've got some stuff you know you need to do. right and you guess what you see uh sitting there sitting there on the shelf you know they got they got some of that that healthy for the planet toilet paper oh you know what i mean they decided to shop green oh i am not looking forward to that that's the worst of both cases because it's neither

Maxsoft and you get blowout yeah it's neither soft nor strong it's like sometimes this is a larger

MerlinThat's your seventh generation problem. I like their dish liquid, but their toilet is poop. The toilet paper is garbage. Don't get it.

MaxDon't get it. Now, do you ever go to a hotel, and some hotels have gone, they've opted fully for the soft towel. So they have the softest towels known to make. I don't want a soft towel. We're an absorbent towel. But it doesn't absorb any water. You're equally wet before and after you use the towel. Oh, God. Yes. It repels water. It's like trying to dry yourself with a trash bag.

Speaker AIt's a hydrophobic cloth, yes. Yeah. No, no, we buy hotel towels. Who gives a shit how soft the towel is? No. It should dry you. No, no, no, it should hurt a little bit. That's how you know it's working.

MerlinThat's like when you gotta get in there and do your pit crew. No, we get those, but the longer you wash them, like, the better they get. They get less soft and they get more absorbent and you gotta really get in there.

AlexIs this science? Is that how it works? Okay, both of you are adult men. You can afford nice soft towels. Why hard? I am very confused. Soft is not absorbent. Soft is soft. No, you can get... I'm living my life wrong, I guess. I don't...

MerlinGet yourself some hotel quality Turkish towels. You wash them and wash them and wash them. And it's like gold-toed socks. You just keep buying them and replacing the old ones.

AlexOkay, so sweet home towels. Is this going to be as upsetting as the... I have those. They're fine.

MaxThey're good. They're very absorbent. They look very soft. They're fine. They're plenty soft. But soft, all I'm saying here is softness is not the number one thing in a towel. Oh, no. It's a distant number two.

Speaker BOh, God. Field crush luxury. Field crush luxury.

AlexAre either of you bathrobe people? I have a bathrobe.

MaxI don't wear it much. I'm a sweatpants guy. I don't know when I would wear a bathrobe. I have one, and I don't wear it very much. I'm not a swinger.

AlexYou both take a lot of baths. I don't know. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

MerlinWhat? The projection is off the charts here. You have so many flaws, Alex, and you go and you pick, pick, pick. You get in there and you pick. A bath is a nice thing.

AlexI'm... You go make some Alex soup.

MerlinYou know how delicious that could be? Oh, God. A little bit of Cox chowder.

AlexOh, God. I'm so glad I haven't eaten food today. Like, my bile has just gone up all up into my throat now. Oh, wow.

MaxOh, Merlin, you got a big guest appearance on Upgrade FM.

MerlinUpgrade, the silly season.

MaxUpgrade.

AlexWait, I had a guest appearance on Upgrade. It was discussed. I didn't see it on Twitter. Wait, what was discussed? Oh, no. It was discussed.

MerlinYour guest ships on various things were discussed. Oh, all right. Oh, God.

AlexI like that, Jason.

MaxI like that Jason Snell. It's a controversial opinion. I'm going to come up pro.

AlexYou sure? You sure? You're going to hear from both sides.

MaxYou're going to hear from both sides.

AlexYeah.

MaxHe's very good. Yeah, there's a lot of sides. He's very good on the... He types very fast. He's very good on the talk show. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I haven't listened yet. He's an all-timer talk show guest.

MerlinWell, let's not go crazy. did they talk about actual Oreos on the show

Alexyes I was shocked that was very very I've never had Numenos

Merlinthis is also timely there's also breaking news well not breaking news it's an old but there's a really good planet money in their summer of reruns about the guy who wanted to bring back Hydrox the Hydrox

Alexwhat's Hydrox? Oreos is

Maxa knock off of another cookie called Hydrox this sounds like a

AlexMarvel villain. It does. Oh, that's not pleasing packaging. Learn to get into my creamy shanta.

MerlinBut it was really good. It's about this guy. I guess he made lots of money doing something. I like Planet Money. That's a very good podcast still. And so he decided he wanted to bring back the brand. I haven't finished listening to it yet, but the beginning of it was very good.

MaxOh, do you guys ever go to a restaurant and you take a bunch of friends and you sit down and the server comes over to the table and they're like, is this everyone's first time? Have you all dined here before? Oh, God. And I fucking freeze. I freeze. I panic, and I lock up, and I don't know what to say. Because it could go either way. Always say yes. Always say yes.

MerlinNo, no, no, no, because it could go either way.

MaxHere's the math. Here's the math. Okay, number one, I've been there before, and I don't want them to think that I'm lame or that I'm some sort of novice. I want them to know that I'm cool.

Speaker AAnd you're singing, and you're expected to join in?

MaxNo, I want to be part of the cool club.

Speaker AI don't want to, you know.

MaxIs this your first time going in with us? We're cool. We're cool. I'm back. Listen, I've been here so often. I'm bringing my friends, right? Besides our sort of family style. But it's their first time. So I don't want to deprive them of any of the information of like, you know, what? First of all, okay. Let me take a step back. First of all, what the fuck are they going to say? Like, oh, it's a restaurant. It's like you look at the food that you want on the menu. Exactly. And now you don't get all of it. You just pick the things that you want. And then we bring that out and you pay when you're done.

MerlinWe do things a little bit differently here. Wear this leather mask. What? All right.

Speaker BHere's our safe word. You are the gimp. What? Wait a minute. It's too late to change my reservation.

MaxIt's like, I mean, the most information they could ever tell you is it's family style and you're supposed to order a lot of small plates and share them. Well, they're going to say it anyway, though.

AlexThey're not going to ask you.

MaxBut here's the other thing. Now, here's the situation. Sometimes, though, there is information. Like, if I want to know all the information, like, is there some sort of special or, you know, you know what I mean? Like, tell me all the info. So what I want to say is, yes, I've been here before and I'm cool. And I know how to order off a menu. I'm sort of generally familiar with the principles of how a restaurant operates. But if there's any special information that I should know that you think I plausibly might not know despite having dined here before, please just tell me that information. And also, it's my friend's first time, but they also know how a restaurant works even though they haven't been here before.

But that's a lot to communicate. That's a lot to communicate.

MerlinWe have an area in the back with various heated and cooled foods that will be put onto what we call a plate. You will have an opportunity to look at this large piece of paper to let us know what kind of heated and cooled foods you would like us to bring to you. But then you go to a place like you go to a Brazilian steakhouse, and that can be handy. Like if you've never been, it's going to be super confusing if you don't know about the abrogado. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker AYou know what, though?

MaxHonestly, just don't ask me if I've been to there before. If you have some information, like here's the thing. If you don't know to turn your card over to red, you're going to be bombarded with the meat guys. They're going to hover like vultures around you, carving meat onto your plate, and you frantically, like Lucille Ball, you're like shoveling it into your mouth faster and faster, but you can never keep up. So if you don't know that, you're fucked. So it's like a critical piece of information. It's very costly if you don't understand that. So just tell people every time. Just assume they've never been there before and tell them that information.

I don't ask if I've ever been there before. It's so strange. I should have some sort of card printed up where I can be like, before you ask me if I've done here before, here's all the information that you need to know.

MerlinYou want to give him a November – let's call it the November tango. I'm giving you the November tango card. We're not going to be speaking. Abrogado.

AlexI know Max loves when we do this. But if you have a tweet-length suggestion of how Max can get across all that information in 140 characters, please tweet at Alex Cox. Don't tweet at Max Tumpkin. He won't read it. But I wonder if...

MaxLet me go through the obvious answers that I don't want to hear. First of all, don't say to say it's my first time no matter what. Because a lot of times I go into places where I know people who work there or whatever, and I can't really say, yes, it's my first time. Because they'll be like, come on, man, I see you in here all the time.

MerlinNo, you're already taking the question too seriously, and you seem like you don't have a sense of humor.

MaxYeah, just... And then I also don't want to say... Because a lot of times I try to bring people to a new restaurant when we go out, right? I want to bring them to my place, right? So it's like, I don't want to say, well, like, what do I say? Like, oh, there's, I've been here many times because I'm cool, but there's new people and there sucks. You have to explain to them, but don't address it to me. It's like, there's no, it's very awkward.

MerlinThat's what I, I think the easiest way is to say, uh, like, like when we go to the steak, Brazilian steak place, which is kind of my favorite restaurant. And if it's just my daughter and me, we always say, oh yeah, we love coming here. So I think you could say something, this is not funny, but you could say something as simple as, oh, I'm a huge fan, but I think there's a couple of people here who were here for the first time.

Speaker AWe got a couple of first timers here. Ring the bell. Time for the finger banging.

MerlinDrop those pans. Drop those pans. Here comes all your food. Oh, boy. Have I been here before?

MaxI brought my own kit mask. Reach into my bag.

Speaker BYou're a bad dog tonight. You're the dog now, man. Yes, I do want the bacon wraps today. You're the dog now, man. I should get an award for that.

Speaker AMore of the cheesy breads.

Speaker Bgo fill up on your salad bar that's how they get you oh Mr. Wayne I see you're going to the salad bar

AlexI'm sure that this is a bit that someone has done somewhere no no no

Speaker BI think that's from Mad TV actually how do you prepare your Italian wedding soup

AlexAll right, dug a dig dig. So you've both eaten at Olive Garden, I'm going to assume.

MaxNow, Italian wedding soup sometimes takes on the exact appearance and consistency of diarrhea.

MerlinYeah, that's how you know it's working.

AlexAre you talking about Jardin d'Oleve?

MerlinYes, I have been to Jardin d'Oleve.

AlexOkay. In terms of like, is it truly unlimited breadsticks and salad? Yes, yes.

MaxWe went with the whole writer's room. And we basically got a private room at the Olive Garden. We got the family room. And we sat there for like four hours and did a writer's meeting and ate breadsticks the whole time. Oh, God. That's a dream. And we ordered wine by volume. We just got the biggest bottle of wine. We were like, what's your best wine? And they were like, we don't have a best wine, but we have a biggest wine.

That'll do it. We ate a tremendous amount of breadsticks. We ate hundreds of breadsticks.

MerlinOh, God. I don't know if this is still available. Well, when I was in college, boy, we would get real silly. We'd go to Jardin d'Olive, and they had a deal where it was unlimited breadsticks and salad for something like $6. And refills on Coke, because I think they're owned by Coke. And oh, my God, we would get so silly. We would sit there for like two hours. More Alfredo sauce. I mean, like, it was bad. It was bad. I felt so bad for the waiters.

Speaker ALike, that sucks. We got very sick after. Almost to a person, everyone felt very bad when we left.

MerlinThat's when you're going to want some very strong toilet paper. Strength.

MaxYou have to go for strength, not softness.

MerlinWhat do you think Sebastian Gorka, on the continuum, do you think he goes more? See, I'm thinking it's kind of like a BDSM type situation where he probably wants something very soft because then that's a contrast with his personality. What kind of toilet paper do you think he uses?

MaxWell, he's using those Alex Jones tactical dude wipes.

Speaker BOh, of course.

MaxHe's using the tactical sanitation squares. And they're sort of military-grade pre-moistened, you know, baby wipes.

Speaker AFinally proof that Michelle Obama is a man What?

MaxSebastian, oh I saw that on Breitbart That's a wonderful story I saw that Sebastian Gorka I'm confident that he uses Dude wipes You know, flushable wipes Every time he wipes his ass Because what does he, he has no, you know, he's an asshole All these people are assholes, so what do they care They just clog the septic systems Sure, create a fatberg, what do you care, you don't have to fix it

AlexMm-hmm, mm-hmm uh question do you guys think that um with with the bandon's big return to breitbart that we're gonna get like a ton of leaks just just like a fatberg of leaks and will it be interesting or

Maxgood or help in any way shape or form they're gonna do the same bullshit that breitbart always does. I bet they'll bring back their black crime tab. Oh, I remember that. They actually got less racist when Bannon left. During Bannon's tenure, they used to have a whole tab on their website called black crime. Oh, God.

Speaker BBlack crime.

MerlinI don't know. I think the biggest part of his weird, erratic, disinformationed 17-dimensional chess is I think there's going to be a huge amount of leaking from him. Like, big, big, big. I really do. Because now, the thing is now he's gonna he's got he's got scores to settle and he knows a lot of stuff or he can make up a lot of stuff and he knows the kind of he is very media savvy in that sense he knows what people will print and how hungry people are for crazy Trump stories look what did Bannon do in

Maxthe White House he sat in meetings and got drunk and said crazy shit to the media what is he going to do outside of the White House he's going to sit in different meetings and get drunk and yell multimedia. Nothing is going to change. He'll have like slightly like, I don't even know. I was about to say I'll have less access to the president, but I honestly don't even think that's true. I bet he'll have the same amount of access to the president.

MerlinYeah.

MaxGood link, Alex. I'll just call him up. What'd you find? I don't have any of the doc or nothing.

AlexNo, no, no. In our secret check. Wow. Secret text channel. Breitbart has a store and I expected you know, sort of like Alex Jones type products, but no, no, no. There's a Steve Bannon hashtag war hashtag war for the fidget spinner

Maxthey didn't even pick a picture of him he looks like it's like an extra blotchy picture of him he looks like Baron Harkonnen

Merlinthat's my first thought is he's had a long day he's gonna go home and drain a boy

Speaker Bunfortunately I've been making meth in my bath talk so I have to put the acid somewhere else

MerlinLeftists need comfort at times like this. Gift them. That's not a verb. Gift them this pacifying. Oh, who writes this? Leftists need comfort at times like this. Gift them this pacifying item that will give them something to do in between pulling down monuments. Or keep one for yourself. That's terrible writing.

MaxTwo minutes spin time. But don't you see that Breitbart did this so that we would make fun of it and now we're making fun of it? Oh, they got us this time. Oh, man. No, I'm serious. Why do you think they did this? the whole thesis of Breitbart and Trump is that they're just going to drive libs crazy. And we do need to exercise a little bit of discipline and not being driven crazy by all of their like blatant, like come make fun, you know, we dare you like the whole country. Like, listen, Merlin, you've said this many times. Nobody is persuaded by hearing how much of a, about how much of a fucking idiot they are and how,

and how bad of a person they are. Right.

Speaker BYeah.

MaxThe, the, the right does not want to hear whatever else we can say about whether it's right or not. And whether it's moral or not or whatever, the right will never be persuaded by the left saying how that they're awful people and they're irredeemable and that they're idiots. I know. So the more that we sit here shitting on them, selling that they did this dumb, they made a hundred of these fidget spinners, right? They're already sold out, right? So how many did they make? They made 50 of them. They made 50 of these goddamn fidget spinners in China, sold them on their website to get a rise out of us. And now here we are like, like a dutiful dogs making fun of them on our podcast.

And we're giving them, we're getting, They're getting a rise out of us exactly as they wanted. And we're not engaging them on any issues.

MerlinWe look like idiots. I'm not sure whether we do or don't talk about a page on the internet is going to change that much one way or another. What I will tell you is this. I think it's the patterns of what is done, not done, intentionally, not intentionally. The patterns are becoming clearer in how this stuff goes. So I feel like, yeah, maybe we're supposed to get mad about this. I'm not even mad about this. it's more like a little kid who has some kind of one joke they keep telling over and over,

or some kind of a dumb prank that was never really all that funny. It's just you play along and go, yeah, that's funny. But in this case, I feel like there is a lot about their playbook that has gone from being terrifying to a little sad, where there's some stuff that is absolutely legit terrifying. There's other parts, though, where I feel like you can see The Matrix a little bit with some of this stuff.

MaxI agree that I think we can see the matrix and that you can see past a little bit of the media spectacle of what happens week to week. But it's also sad that the libs keep kind of falling into the trap over and over. Like the right, the Steve Bannon, not the Steve Bannon right, the alt-right, they want to engage on culture war bullshit. They want to argue about whether we should tear down statues. They want to argue. They seek these fights out. They instigate them. They start them. Because here's what they know. they know that the right turns out to vote they get out of bed to vote on culture war issues they

feel like that they're threatened by obama by you know whatever civil rights issues or whatever and these people get out of vote and they vote for the school board and they vote for the sheriff and they vote for congress because of culture war issues and the left we make a big fucking stink on twitter and we excommunicate people from our communities and we ban people from college campuses We exercise power in all the places that we hold power to engage on these culture war issues, but we don't vote on them. The left votes on material issues.

The left votes on, will your minimum wage get bigger? The left votes on, will we get better health care? And listen, I'm proposing a thesis of how politics works. And if I wanted to design an experiment to test my thesis, what better experiment could I possibly propose than the last general election? where you had Trump who almost, Trump had no serious policy. He only engaged on these dumb chicken shit culture war issues. Like we're going to build a wall. Like we all know that that's fake. It's just a dog whistle for anti-immigrant hysteria, right? All of Trump's nonsense,

right? Of what he's going to do. Oh, we're going to commit war crimes and go take their oil and win these wars or whatever. Like it's all nonsense. It's not, he's doing the exact same Afghanistan policy that Obama was doing. It's all trivia and nonsense, but they won the election on these culture war issues, and we played right into their hands. The Clinton campaign played right into their hands. They made the whole election character referendum on Trump and a debate about these culture issues, and they said, when they go low, we go high, and love Trump's hate, and all of that nonsense, and we put up the biggest defense we could against these culture war

issues, but we didn't sort of dig in on the substantive things. We never sort of like led by proposing our policy alternatives, and we were never able to capture that story and that momentum on the real issues. And we got our asses whooped. And we're doing the same thing again. We're getting our asses whooped in the midterms. Democrats just sent out an email, and they were like, hold Trump accountable on the wall. He didn't build the wall.

AlexLike, we go, you are one of the people that I trust most about politics. You've been doing this since high school. And it's just hard because, like, we're going in circles. They're going to protest. And it's like, what else?

MaxSo I don't think protests are going in circles. I think that there is. Oh, no, no. I think protests are very effective, especially protests. You know that a protest is effective if it disrupts commerce and infrastructure. Because that is a demonstration. That is the difference between. Okay. Protests are bad if they're merely symbolic, right? If people gather together and hold up funny signs and take pictures for Instagram. I mean, I would describe that as more of a rally. And the purpose of rallies in politics is to fire up the base.

So even that's not nothing, but I don't know that it necessarily is like a winning strategy. Now, protests can be a winning strategy, and that's when they disrupt infrastructure and commerce, because that crosses the line from a rally into the exercise of power. It's the exercise of political will, right? You're saying we are powerful, we're putting our bodies in this place, and we can't be denied. The alt-right did that very effectively in Charlottesville, right? They showed their numbers. They disrupted commerce and infrastructure. And they were undeniable. And it was very scary.

And that's a tactic. In the Vice documentary, they talked about the left is really good at this. And we're stealing these tactics from the left. So it is not nothing. I think that the strongest protest of the whole Trump administration was the airport protest when the immigration ban went down. And that was powerful for a number of reasons. But the most important one was it disrupted commerce and infrastructure, right? People could see, okay, we can't operate these airports if there's all these people's bodies in the way. And it was basically the voice of the people saying, we will shut this thing down.

Like, you need to listen to us or there will be political and economic consequences. That is the exercise of power in politics.

AlexYeah, I think I misspoke because I think what I was referring to is like rail is in the constant like we go down to trump tower and it it it feels very empowering and like yes the these are the humans we are putting our bodies between uh horrible people and marginalized folks but um i but so much of that is done um you know in in back channels and and so that people can stay is safe. And one of the most amazing things about the O'Hare protest was like all, it happened so

quickly that all of the organizing seemed to happen in public. You know what I mean? Like it was, like there was, all of the information was shared, like people, or it felt really calculated and organized. It's like, okay, here, here's what the lawyers are doing. If you don't have a skill that we need right now. Here's where we need you to be. And I think I'm just asking, because people give us feedback on this, is like, okay, what do you do if you want to be Antifa? What do you do if you want to join the alt-left?

I guess that's the thing, because there are a lot of, especially young people who, they're not from the grassroots, even their parents, they didn't understand they don't know how to organize. And not that that's anybody's fault, but all they feel like they can do is post on Twitter.

MaxYeah, I mean, posting on Twitter is not in and of itself bad, but I think that a lot of people do it as an alternative. They do these symbolic things instead of doing material things, and that's bad. Like doing symbolic things is not just another way of doing material things. It doesn't help.

MerlinTwitter can be useful for stuff like that. It's really most effective as a way to promote your new book about how always-on mobile culture is killing us. Right.

AlexWait, wait, wait. Was this a subcast? Which book is that? I'll cut this out. What book is it?

MerlinNo, it's okay. There's a guy on political Twitter who's part of the whole, like, meh culture. And he's a young guy. He's a young guy. But he's part of the whole, like, everybody got dumb when they got cell phones. and he keeps tooting about his stuff and retuning other people's stuff about his stuff. And the hyper-normalization starts to kick in and I go like, am I losing my mind? Are you really using Twitter that much to promote your thing about how Twitter is bad? I guess it makes perfect sense. I'm the one who's crazy.

Jumps out window. You're right. The thing is, it's a little bit like, I don't know, like are you creating light or are you creating heat? Where it's, I guess I feel like as a, if you've gotten your steam valve released, it can feel like you've done something. Like if you got a real good sick burn on somebody, that can feel like you've really accomplished something. If I understand what you're saying, what you're saying is like the steam release is not helping.

MaxYeah, I need everybody on Twitter to become like NoFap, right? because you have to stave up your masculine energy. You can't just be spraying it everywhere. You have to save it up so that you fuck.

Speaker ANow I've got to Google what that means. Oh, Merlin, welcome to the world of nofap. This is a big thing among the Trump people. It's like a big Reddit.

MerlinIt's a community, Max.

MaxOh, it's a movement. Now there's a big crossover on the vent. Not too much movement, though. Where's the bell? There we go. Okay, I now probably should be wrapping up this podcast, but I want to play the scene of the movie that we had to watch that broke my spirit. Can I do that? Yeah, please. Okay, hang on.

Speaker BDinner will be ready soon. I'm hungry. I can't wait for dinner. It seems like It never happened. I've got great family genes. But I'm still in pain.

The elephants. What about the elephants? Can I have some wine, please?

MaxOkay.

Speaker AWait, no, no, no. We need to hear about the elephants. Gotta hear about the elephants. I turned it off. No, that's gay. Did you see the end?

MaxNo, hang on.

Speaker BBut I have this really interesting project about elephants in Africa. I'm sure Dylan doesn't want to hear about that now.

I want to hear about our project.

MerlinBut what you can't see is that each one of these is an awkwardly tight shot of a human face talking with live on set audio so you can hear whether the air conditioning is in a different part of the room every time somebody talks.

Speaker AOh, and the corn.

MaxOkay, so I watched 30 minutes of this movie. You didn't watch it again? No, first I said I'm going to watch 15 minutes of this and that'll be enough to talk about on the podcast. And then I was like, 15 minutes in, he was in the hospital and there were these long shots of the blinds blowing around and there was like a ghost. And I was like, I was like, okay, I still don't even know what the plot of this movie is. And then I watched until 20 minutes. I still didn't know what the plot was. And then I watched until a half hour when this dinner was happening.

And I still didn't know what the plot was. And I was like, I can't fucking believe Merlin made this the challenge. I don't know why we watch this.

MerlinYou don't have to watch the whole thing, Alex.

MaxWhy? Why? I mean, I get it. Okay, I get it. It's bad. It's not bad. It's perfect.

MerlinIt's magic. But it is bad, though. No. No.

MaxAre you being honest? You honestly don't think it's a bad movie?

MerlinNo, it's definitely not a good movie, but it is unique in the fact that he was somehow able to competently put that onto even a piece of media and hand it somewhere and have it turn out the way he did. So here's my headcanon. Then we can stop because I know we're running long. My headcanon is that when, at the beginning of the movie, the girl goes away, a young Neil Breen, young Dylan, goes into a fever state and hallucinates the entire movie about what he thinks it's like to be an adult.

AlexOh my God. Think about it. That goes with my theory because I was like, do they think that sex just happens from the waist up? What's happening here?

He thinks that explains it all.

MerlinYeah.

AlexWould you like to just introduce what the challenge was really quickly?

MerlinThe challenge this week falls to me and I wanted them to watch the 2013 movie Fateful Findings.

MaxThis is the real Fateful Findings of podcasts. I and other banks. I resign as president of the bank. So what is the plot? What is the plot? He gets hit by a car and then it's sort of a family drama and then he's a hacker? And a novelist.

AlexDid you get to the part where he's a productivity guru and then he just throws books everywhere?

MerlinDid you get to the one where he has two different therapists and one of them disappears? Man. No, literally on screen. It's two different therapists, one of which he goes to in a boardroom and the other one they sit on folding chairs with their knees touching.

AlexMan, if I could see my therapist where we're in a boardroom and we get to sit, I would love to sit way, way, way, way, way far away. Max, here's the thing. Any question you have about this movie, it's probably we can answer with, I don't know.

MerlinThe wizard did it. Maybe. Yeah. Oh, but when the paintings shake and the mirror, oh my God, and the black shoes and the door, more shoes and the shoes and then the blood by the shoes and the blood by the shoes are gone.

MaxSo I can say, so I like The Room and I've told people, oh, you should check out The Room. What I like about it is that it's a singularly insane movie in the way that it was filmed and the story that's put together on screen. It's got heart though.

MerlinIt's got heart.

MaxBut yeah, but the guy Tommy Wiseau, he's trying so, I mean, this is it. His entire life has led up to him making this movie. and there is something innocent and that you can root for in the film. I genuinely get a good feeling in my heart when I watch The Room because I'm like, this guy's trying as hard as I've ever tried on anything in my life to make this movie and he's pouring his soul out on the screen and it's bad but there's something joyful that I like about it anyway and that's I think kind of what explains the enduring fan cult around The Room.

I just don't get it for this movie. I understand.

AlexYou're forgiven. The thing with The Room is, though, like, I became obsessed with this movie. So, like, it was so hard and fast. And, like, I want to go home and watch it again. The Room was, like, okay, this is really fun. This was a fun thing in college. And it wasn't until, what was the one book that came out? Oh, The Disaster Artist. And, like, Tommy Wiseau started making more public appearances. And you sort of understood the lore of this movie. And then like, you know, what happened, how hard it was to make and, you know, just like the crew walking out on him and all that.

This movie, it's really hard to find anything about it.

MerlinIt's really, it really is just him.

AlexOh, man. The credits. The credits. He totally buries the lead. and that the like final note in the credit is like anybody with like a B or an N in their name is actually, oh my God.

MerlinNo, there's no accounting for taste with these things or lack of taste, but there's something about this. Again, you kill the joke when you try to explain it, but there's something special about this. We're on several different levels.

I sometimes feel like even in a given scene, I think I understand what he was going for. It's sometimes, but it doesn't usually land the thing and it ends up sounding very alien. But then the beauty part is jamming all of these together in a way that has absolutely no continuity to where, like I said to you guys in the text channel, it really is like at least four different movies and none of them make any sense. There's no explanation for much of anything. I would put this on the level of an Ed Wood movie. Like, I think this is special. the level of like ambition of like the big ideas that this guy was going for just what ends up on

the screen is just amazing like just you could read any of the things that those people say at the end and i think he probably felt like this was like a special movie about something and like and that's why i say it really it's almost childlike in a certain way like the understanding about how the entire world works is really childlike yeah everybody everybody wants wants his nut to be popped into them like and everybody in the world is part of a conspiracy the government is part of the conspiracy the corporations are part of the conspiracy and if i could just speak the truth to

power with my magic stone i would get all of these lying people to come forward it's it's a fantasy and like the way that it plays out is just it's so artless that it's special to me i don't i'm not a bad movie fan either i've seen maybe four movies ever on the flop house maybe like that's i know i

MaxThe cards guys and a lot of my friends, they love watching bad movies. And they watch all the mystery science kind of canon of movies where they're like, I don't know, that fucking Santa Claus on Mars shit or whatever. And I've had to sit through a lot of those because it's what my friends like to do is sometimes it's like, hey, let's get high and watch a bad movie and then laugh at it. And I guess it gives people a feeling of superiority. I mean, I don't know. It's not for me. I always feel like it's a tremendous waste of my time. and there's so much good shit out there.

That's why I made you do it. You needed this.

MerlinYou needed this.

MaxI didn't need it though. I haven't seen The Shield and I understand The Shield to be one of the best TV programs ever. People love it. I'm constantly hearing like, oh, it's like The Shield when I like something. I know I should watch that but there's a lot of episodes of it and I don't have any time and it's like, how could I sit there and watch Fatal Attraction or whatever? What is it called? Fatal Outcome? Fatal Findings. Yep.

Speaker AHow can I sit there and watch Fatal Findings when I haven't seen The Shield?

MerlinI know.

Speaker ALook at you. Just look at yourself. Well, I'm glad Alex liked it.

MerlinWe got to find a funny way out. I got to go pick up my kid.

AlexIt's okay. Here's what I'm going to say about this thing is like it's, oh, man. Like you said, the room and all like Santa Goes to Mars and stuff like that. Like they all know that it's, they're trying to tell a story. And like you can see what story they're trying to tell. Merlin, I still don't know what story was trying to.

MerlinYou don't know what the story was supposed to be.

AlexNo, I have no idea. And that's what's so fascinating. And I'm watching this with all of, not to go all film student, but knowing just the grammar of cinema and what the fuck is happening. They talk about this on The Flophouse. I'm like, I don't know what is trying to be portrayed on screen. I don't know what any of these motivations are. I have no idea what's happening. None. And that is what was so fascinating and so just, it doesn't make me feel superior it makes me want to understand I want to know what's going on in this man's mind

MaxI think there is a cottage industry of people who make bad movies so that other people can watch them and be like I'm watching a bad movie like the trauma kind of movies right Sharknado you know all that kind of nonsense oh yeah yeah yeah I'll say about this movie I don't think it's trying to be a bad movie I think he's just trying to make a film but it's just awful

MerlinYeah, I don't mean to sound defensive about this. I don't like to. We watched The Simpsons last night where they made fun of fat people. And I said, you know what? I think this is really mean. Because that's the kind of thing where I think, you know, that's not a thing we need to do more of. That's a thing we need to do less of. I'm not here to make fun of the movie per se. I don't get that much thrill out of hate watching anything. I agree on that. I think what makes this different for me, to Alex's point, is just how weird, how unintentionally weird it is. and that even when I think I understand

what the thing is supposed to be, I don't know what the thing is supposed to be. I still don't know what the ghost thing is or what the guy with the black shoes is. I still don't know. Maybe Neil did, but to be inside of somebody else's brain this deeply, it took time to make this. I think it's fun to just sometimes be unmoored from stuff that you understand that's just merely bad into something that's like, I don't know, I think it's transformative.

MaxDid we get him on the podcast?

MerlinNo. He's an architect. He's an architect. He's very busy.

AlexYes. He's an architect on the side. I just realized, I think, that the reason I became so obsessed with this so quickly is it's like after I see a documentary and I'm like, okay, how did they do that and why? Like, how did, what was going through their brain? Like, or in Errol Morris' movie Tabloid and he's talking to this crazy woman who kidnapped her husband or boyfriend. and you're just thinking, how did he, one, get her to say this?

And what is she thinking? And I just want to understand this man's brain. That's, again, the room or Piranha or Sharknado. People come out and say, oh, well, we did this because of this. And you know what they're going for. I have no idea. I don't know what the pebble is. Is the pebble a hard drive? Is the ghost him? Why does it run into a mushroom? it's so uh and there are plenty of like i enjoy the flop house and how did how did this get made

too is kind of good but this i'm i don't know it's it's like the prestige this movie can suck

Speaker Amy balls i and other balls have been sucked with my incompetence

Speaker BSmash cut.

MaxIndeed.

Show notes

Transcript

40. Jardín D’Olive

Show notes

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