Episode 43 · September 21, 2017 · 01:18:08

43. Couponiér

This week's challengeRead Art of the Deal.

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Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakes

AlexThis is Do By Friday, the weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, read Art of the Deal by Donald J. Trump.

Oh, is this is this a show?

MerlinI'm still I'm still eating.

AlexI have so many questions for you guys.

MerlinReally? You got questions? I'm happy to answer. I'm eating an RX bar, but I'm almost done with it. Let's start the show.

MaxIs the RX bar the one that's made out of two egg whites, one prune? You're close. Three cauliflowers. You know what I'm talking about?

MerlinThose ones? Five golden rings. Three egg whites. Three egg whites, six almonds, four cashews, two dates. No BS. And BS means bad stuff.

AlexI want those bars, but cashews will kill me.

MaxHow much sugar is in there? All of it. Hang on.

AlexSee, I'm having a sugar-free, sugar-free Red Bull. Well, wait, right. I do, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's fine.

MerlinYou live such a comforting lie. Let's see. Total carbs. It's got 15 grams of sugar. That sounds like some BS to me. Well, it's got 12 grams of protein. 12 grams of protein. That is a massive amount of protein.

MaxIt's crackling a little bit. I should get a crackle bar. That's a good-ass bar.

MerlinNow I got stuff, I got BS in my teeth. Three egg whites, six almonds, Farkashoes, two dates, two dates,

Speaker Ano BS, chocolate sea salt, 1.83 ounces, 12 gram protein bar.

MaxThose things are, they're like not really distinguishable nutritionally from a candy bar. And? Right? Okay, I'm just saying like, I got very excited. I saw those at the healthy grocery store that I go to, and I was like, oh, like a healthy energy bar. And it has so much sugar. It's like, you might as well eat like a Twix bar.

MerlinAll food has four things in it. Food has fats, proteins, carbohydrates, and water. That is the entirety of what the pie graph can bring.

MaxBut what are those things made of? Powder. It's all powder. It comes from powder. It returns to the powder in the end. I never thought of it that way. So you're saying that that is a construction. Like this is a Plato's cave, We're looking at a shadow on the wall, but ultimately all the shadows are made of powder. A man can never step in a powder the same powder twice, Merlin, because he's not the same man. It's like my balls, Parmenides.

MerlinI'm a hair of Clygna.

MaxYeah, so you very casually mentioned on a Roderick episode that I just listened to that you did your dissertation on Horkheimer and Adorno.

MerlinNo, no, it was bad. It was bad. I read the Horkheimer and Adorno. I read the Frankfurts, the Frankfurters. but you know what people love is love the frankfurt's love the frankfurt's um i uh more todd gitlin some gramsci stuff uh that kind of thing you know never got into the gramsci i i

Maxreally you know i have a lot of guilt about this because i had i had a very cool visiting professor who taught our like a critical theory class and we read a lot of frankfurt school so we did like sailor benabib and horkheimer and adorno and i don't know a bunch of that a bunch of that stuff and I really struggled with it because I was very, I was like also just starting to work in politics, in American politics, and I was really trying to do the mental gymnastics to like reconcile,

you know, people's capacity for cognitive dissonance is incredible because if you find yourself doing something, you'll go to almost any length to justify the thing that you're doing, right? And I really struggled with the critical theory stuff and I was like, I have to find the the flaw in the Death Star here, right? Like I have to disprove it. And I don't know, like the more experience I get and the older I get and the more I learn about the world, I keep coming back to it, especially in like recent political events. It's the only thing that holds up. It's like the only, there are all these other frameworks of maybe what fuels American capitalism and democracy.

And to me, it's like only the Frankfurt School stuff is left standing. It's only the materialism.

MerlinSee, this is a very general observation. I take your point. I think one of the nice things about going to a liberal arts school is that you, if you're fortunate, like I feel like I was, you will be presented with a handful of problems that you will never solve, and they're problems that can't be solved. And the fact that you're confronted with logical, mathematical, certain kinds of things that can be at once very satisfying and explain a lot, and at the same time can never really solve anything. so I'm going to toss out

you know Gerdel's incompleteness theorem I'm going to toss out the sickness unto death I'm going to toss out the cognitive you know the fallacies and all of the cognitive errors the thing is like you know it's like the Gerdel thing like if this is a full system it's not really a full system like oh what like I know that's a stoner thing but the more you really turn that over in your head you get into the fractals yes I read Gerdel Escherbach I was a stoner but like for all all of those things try your rational brain in a way that is really satisfying and opens you up to the ideas that no

matter on the one hand, no matter how learned you get, there are some things that are going to still be unsolvable and incomplete. But then on the other hand, you know what, no matter how learned you are, there's still going to be things that are unsolvable and complete. Like it's okay.

MaxThat doesn't mean you shouldn't be learned. And obviously the classic one in undergraduate philosophy is people trying to deal with free will. And it's like a sign. It's like a sign of like how well you're accommodating the philosophy program and like understanding your reading that you don't harp on whether people have free will or not. The one that obsessed me. I mean, I was truly embarrassed myself. You can't really think yourself out of it. No. You just have to be... Everyone eventually either becomes a compatibilist or they don't understand philosophy. They're not really getting it.

MerlinI don't pretend to be any kind of an expert on this, but I'll just say that my particular queer fascination in college in some ways was with my understanding of cultural hegemony. And that's what led me to some of the interests. mainly I was interested in TV and how we dealt with TV as a political thing. When I learned a little bit about cultural hegemony, that's when some of the Tumblr started clicking. And I just became pretty obsessed with this idea that the dominant ideology will subsume every attempt to undo the dominant ideology. And that kind of broke my brain a little bit.

And it made me a little bit of a conspiracy, not a conspiracy nut exactly.

MaxThe hyper-normalization is such a good portrait of that.

MerlinOh, you know what we should do? But, you know, the whole idea that, you know, every time you see it in small, like, quotidian ways when somebody like Cassidy gets up there and says, oh, you don't worry, Jimmy Kimmel. We got a Jimmy Kimmel test. We got it all wired. And he goes, yay, he's got it all wired. And you're like, no, that's just the thing that he said. That's just that he's just going to keep doing the other thing. That's just the thing that he said, you know, and like, no matter how radical something becomes, like, there's this there's this path of radicalization. And so for me, that meant nobody fucking cares.

For me, that meant when I'm watching TV and I feel like I'm smarter than the show that I'm watching, that is a great way to keep me watching a show because I think I'm smart. And you know what? Fucking everybody who's watching that TV show thinks they're smarter than that TV show. And that's why people watch that TV show.

MaxWhen I was in my early 20s, one of the big activities that my friends would like to do was they would want to go to the Golden Nugget at 3 a.m. and you'd sit there and you'd like have an omelet and drink coffee. And then you just people watch. You look at all the fucking weirdos that are at the golden nugget at 3 a.m. And you'd be like, I wonder what that guy's story is. He's a fucking pirate. That guy's got a wooden leg and a bird on his shoulder. He's so cool. And to me, I never was able to get into that because I was never able to draw any distinction between the people that were in there that were the weirdos at 3 a.m.

and us who were in there at 3 a.m., right? We were the weirdos. We were in the golden nugget. Like, you know, it's like us being there to make fun of the other people is its own pathetic wasted life of a thing to be, you know, having your omelet at the Golden Nugget at 3 a.m. Oh, my God. You're an intellectual cuck. You're literally a cuckold. You like watching other people be weird.

MerlinThat's your turn on.

MaxI don't. I actually don't. And for the same reason, I don't like watching bad movies because I feel like it's like, yes, I get it. They made Sharknado so that we would watch it. I get it. Not going to cuck you. Have I ever explained my grand unified cultural hegemony hipster theory on the podcast? Have you ever done that?

AlexI don't think so.

MaxI don't think so. Did you want to do that now? That's pretty quick. My theory about the... Because it would have stopped you if we said, yes, you have already said that. Yeah, you could just lie and just say, yeah, you talked about that.

AlexThat's a great idea. Yep, yep.

MaxDid I ever explain the use of calipers to determine jewelry? so the uh my theory is basically that the that there's always been the dom the mainstream culture and then you have a counterculture and then eventually the counterculture becomes commercialized and like subsumed into the mainstream and the mainstream sells it back to people so people are always like oh the hippies were over when you could buy hippie clothes in walmart when capitalism had like fully subsumed it and it was just being sold back to people and you know i think what's happening i think like the weird thing that's happening now is that stuff is

subsumed immediately. So like you had Occupy Wall Street and later that day, there were people on Cafe Press telling we are the 99% t-shirts. So there's no, the treadmill is just going faster and faster and faster. And there isn't even time for a counterculture to develop before it can become part of the marketing, part of the market and it's sold back to people. And that pushes people like young people, you know, or my generation at least is like, that's why people like the conscious embrace of irony and of shitty things. So people go to dive bars and they drink PBRs

and they wear, you know, shitty clothes, you know, resale clothes and stuff like that. And the whole hipster aesthetic is like, well, try to sell this back to me, right? It's like, they're so desperate for authenticity. They're like, I bet you can't sell that back to me like that. You know, they're like looking for those things that don't have value in capitalism and then consciously embracing them. And then when you do like something, you like it ironically, so that when it becomes lame, you can be like, well, I didn't always like, you know, I always liked that at arm's distance.

MerlinWell encapsulated by two seconds on The Simpsons when the two kids are in the audience at Lollapalooza and the one kid goes, oh, here comes that cannonball guy. He's cool. And the other guy goes, are you being sarcastic, dude? And he goes, I don't even know anymore.

MaxSpeaking of dialectic enlightenment, you had a Postmates deliver a new Apple Watch band to you, the Milanese Loop. Please describe this. Alex and I were both stunned by this development.

AlexNot only that, I just need to mention that Merlin did not know that you could swap out the Apple Band.

MaxWe talked about this in our aborted podcast from yesterday that was very bad and we won't be revisiting. But basically, we were talking about the Apple Watch bands and uh i was talking about that i really like my milanese loop a little metal loop and then you

Merlinjust got one and how's it going what what what what what is what is what is the question at the heart of this what is what is hard to understand i don't know what i've wanted one of these you like it that wasn't really your question that was the backdoor pilot you you are actually you're trying to make a different point that i'm a fancy lad that's what it is right is that what it is Because I know how much you hate capitalism, and this is going to be your back to a problem.

MaxI would have a gold doubloon postmated to the office immediately if that was possible. I just...

AlexYeah.

MaxI don't know, Jane.

AlexI would love it if my iPhone X came with a postmate, and I would say, yep, five stars.

MaxHe should come with his own microfiber rag, you know, that we've talked about. Yes. You know how fancy electronics from Chinese companies do? comes with a little special microfiber like schmata that you can rub the fingerprint oil your finger oil off of the device with.

MerlinThe Postmates should come with their own one of those. Yeah, that hasn't happened so much. Mainly they haven't even learned how to close the top of the bag for McDonald's so it doesn't get cold. You fold the top over.

AlexAt least you got your fries.

MerlinSo, I'm kind of surprised you guys don't have this. Have you ever gone to Apple, the store, online? and bought something and looked at the delivery options.

AlexYes. And usually it is like two to three weeks fastest or pick up Lincoln Park Apple Store today.

MerlinOkay. Well, I mean, all this is, I think it's a really nice thing Apple has added, which is you can go in and if it's something that's in stock at a store, so you go in and I think it's actually a pretty confusing bit of UI, but you go in and you'll see the like, do you want it for free delivery in two days? Do you want to pick it up at your local store? And then there'll be another option there for two-hour delivery. It doesn't say Postmates on it, but it says two-hour delivery. And for 20 bucks, they'll bring it to your house. So shaming me over paying $19 for a Veblen good to be delivered the same day

seems a little bit on the nose. But if you need something or want something on that day, they will do it. And that's what they did. And then the kid comes out. The kid comes and he brings it. And you got to sign for it. Which kind of... Not sign for it,

Maxbut you got to be there. And what's the deal with the band? Did it live up to your hopes and dreams?

MerlinLet's see. Yeah, so anyway, the abortive episode, we talked about the fact that I learned literally yesterday that I thought you had to get a... I thought you were only able to accommodate bands for a certain level of watch. And in my head, anyway, most any band would work on the fanciest watch. What is funny? I teach you so much about Apple every day.

AlexYou're Merlin Man! You're Merlin Man! That's why... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Continue. I'm sorry.

MerlinIt's a nice band. It's fine. It's not drastically better. My daughter loves playing with it. But yeah, I like it okay.

Speaker AI like it all right. I don't know.

MerlinIt's nice. I like it. I think it's very clever. Can I bring up one thing? I put this in the notes. I got to bring something up. I didn't want to mention this. I don't feel good about this. We have to talk about the divot in my wrist. I wear a watch all the time unless it's charging. And I noticed yesterday I now have a divot in my left wrist where the watch goes.

AlexAll right. Oh, God.

MerlinI kind of have that. I have an invagination, guys. I've got a little top hog. I kind of have it too, honestly. No, seriously. Look at your two wrists next to each other. So have your wrists straight out, and now bend them just slightly. I have an eighth of an inch hole in my wrist where my watch goes.

Okay, because I wear it 22 hours a day. Do you have it?

MaxI have a little hole in my wrist. Is this a white guy thing? Are we wearing our watches too tight? Is it like we're lacing up our sneakers too tight?

MerlinAll I know is there's going to be a funny cause of death for me. And a lot of forms filled out. One of the myriad ways. We're still kind of boiling down which one of us.

AlexThere's a divot.

MaxIs it like the Chinese water torture where you just wear the watch a little bit every day, but then in like 20 years, there's no more wrist?

MerlinThe preferred term is Asian American water torture.

MaxOne day you go to put the watch on and it just clasps into itself because there's no more wrist left.

AlexAll right. If you look at your wrists from the front, if you're clenching your fists and looking at the underside of your wrists, it's much more, oh, wow.

MerlinOkay, are you funning on me? Or do you notice? I have a noticeable thing.

MaxNo, I have a slight indentation on my wrist. I feel like if I took it off for an hour, it would go away, but I can't tell.

AlexYeah, you know what? I'm going to keep my watch off for this show. I just bought this costly band. I'm not taking it off. I do wear my watch, though, to sleep, and maybe that's just because I track my sleep with my broken Series Zero watch. Man, you're fancy. You had Postmates bring you a watch band.

MerlinBeep-a-doop-boop-boop. Did you see how big his car was, though, in that image? It was a very large image.

AlexYeah, that was kind of fun.

MerlinI think I like it. I think I like it, and I'm very excited for my new boy watch to come. I'm excited about that one.

AlexOh, did you get the dot?

MerlinYeah. I'll probably put some liquid paper on there or something and try to cover it up. That's stupid. get a little sharpie so stupid why would you do that I think it looks I think it looks cool

Alexit looks good on the $3,000 pretty ceramic white one that's the one

Merlinit should be on yeah

Alexand that should be it should be it should indicate I am a fancy man this is my fancy watch but I don't want it on the regular guy I don't

Merlinwhen it clashes

Alexit clashes with some of the bands

Merlinit clashes with the kind of pinky-ish sports band

AlexI can't wear my purple band

Merlinwhat a difficult time to be alive

AlexI'm very serious about my Carmex question for the both of you. You're both Carmex users. Can I put this in my nose?

MaxIn your nose? Yes. What do you say more? What are you talking about?

AlexMy nose hurts so much. My allergies are so bad. I have what, from our previous hair removal challenge, you know, I used those nose clippers. It permanently just, oh, God.

MerlinSo you got crusting cracks?

AlexNo. It feels like a chapped lip in my nostrils.

MerlinYou can absolutely do that as long as you don't mind being addicted to CarMax. You'll be fine. Just put it in there. Just really get in there. Put it all around rimmed. I think the ship has sailed on that.

AlexOh, no. So you know how people have like cheat days for diets? This is my cheat day for CarMax. I'm like, oh, God, this morning put it on.

MerlinI'm fitness pizza in my mouth.

AlexAnd you just kind of sink into bed.

MerlinI think what you do is you really dig in there. You take a pinky, if I may say, and you really put it right into the CarMax. You really get in there really more than you think you need, right? Like other situations. Now you want to Get And Penetrate Into there And then you're going to do a turn And then another turn I wish I had some Carmex right now What can I use? I want to put something in my nose

MaxI kind of have a little craving myself I'm out of peroxide Should we take five And go get some Carmex?

MerlinI wish I had some Q-Tips I got a Q-Tip right here Hear that? Yep

AlexOh you really do That's an old one

MerlinYou should see my desk It's kind of a little bit of a situation in here. I got two Dr. Creator bags. Oh, one's open. Oh, no.

MaxNow, are you going all Chicago mix?

MerlinYeah, I got a bag of bags of Dr. Creator Chicago, and I ate a few, and they've been here for apparently, I'm going to say, a week. So I need to get rid of those.

MaxSo you don't fuck with the other Creator flavors?

MerlinWell, I was trying to figure out your Annie's Fannies, whatever you got. You got your big jug of corn. and I was trying to figure out what mix to get and I couldn't figure it out. I want to get that kind, the kind you guys got.

MaxRemember they sent you, sorry, in a previous week. Oh, the Elston mix.

MerlinElston mix.

MaxNo, no, wait. Okay. Wait. No, that's not it. Well, Elgin, Elgin, Elgin mix, Elgin mix. I don't know, consult the show notes. I assume Alex put it in there. They're very comprehensive.

MerlinOh my God, I searched for Elgin mix on Google and my first return is, digga, digga, digga, Elgin man tried to pass off pancake mix as $27,000 worth of cocaine. That's so cool.

MaxOh, my God.

MerlinPolice.

MaxOkay. All right. Hang on now. Hang on now. I think this could be a startup idea for us.

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinAll right. All right.

MaxGive me your pitch. A kilo.

AlexAn entire kilo. Yeah.

MaxYou do a little bale of bisquick. You tie it off with a string so it looks menacing.

AlexOh, my gosh.

MaxAnd you go to, I don't know, some high school student, and you're like, hey, buddy, you want enough fentanyl to kill 20,000 people? I think you could even be more straightforward.

MerlinYou understand hipsters better than anybody, and you hate capitalism. So you go in and you say to them, hey, you ready to do some pancaking? You ready to pancake? And they go, fuck yeah, I want a pancake.

MaxThe kids are calling it pancaking.

MerlinBut what you don't know about this potent new party drug could kill you. Pancaking. Caked. Griddle cakes. These are terms that are used to describe pancake mix.

MaxFollow up from the Chicago Tribune. Patrons might still walk into a Garrett popcorn shop and ask for a quote Chicago mix, but the company is now legally required to call its famous caramel and cheese flavored popcorn combo by another name. What? The owner of Garrett popcorn shop settled a suit brought by Candyland over the rights to the name quote Chicago mix, according to court documents filed earlier this month. The owners of Candyland, a small St. Paul, Minnesota, not even in Chicago. Can you fucking believe that? The owners of Candyland, a small St. Paul, Minnesota-based popcorn chain, filed federal trademark infringement lawsuits against the owner of Garrett Popcorn Shops and two other companies in August, alleging that these three had wrongly branded their popcorn confections Chicago Mix.

Candyland holds the trademark to the, quote, Chicago Mix mark for flavored popped popcorn. Under the terms of the settlement with Garrett Popcorn Shops, also known as Caramel Crisp LLC, hell yeah, the chain will no longer use, quote, Chicago mix when it refers to popcorn in the United States. Oh my God. Like Garrett's recipe, the Chicago mix variety sold by the other two companies named in lawsuits, Waukegan-based Cornfields and Cinder's Lance, combine only cheese and caramel corn.

Cornfields sells bagged popcorns under the GH Creator's name, while Snyder's Lance packages its Chicago mix under the Okie Doke brand. So this is big popcorn. They had a fucking battle, and they went after the GH Dr. Creators.

MerlinWell, and they went in and they named names. King of Pop, a.k.a. Gourmet Gift Baskets, listed their product as Classic Chicago Mix TM, falsely using TM. After months of repeated demands of stop infringing, they did finally change their mark to another infringing mark, Chicago Style. They were told that Chicago Style was not an acceptable substitute from day one, but the infringement continues. Number two, popcorn stop. When we tried to contact this company, they didn't want to munch. They didn't even want to tell who the owners were, so we could probably address the cease and desist letter. They stopped using the Chicago Style and it changed, changed it, openly refused to stop using the mark

that continued to use Chicago cheese and caramel. Identify number three, popcorn palladium. Used to use Chicago style. Now they just call it Chicago. Number four, popcorn papa. Chicago style, which is hidden within the tin filling menu.

Speaker AI like that. It is our duty to market, it is our duty to police the market to prevent and remove infringement.

MerlinWe have been highly successful in protecting our rights over the years. Our reviews of the popcorn products are based solely on our opinions. We encourage you to try the original Chicago mix are in a circle, which holds the highest standard when it comes to flavored popped corn. Put it in show notes. Shit dog, that is a litigious community. I had no idea this was such a litigious community.

AlexIf I would have put Minneapolis mix or St. Paul mix, would it be popular in another state? Lamb said, a big city name usually draws attention to a product.

MaxA big city like St. Paul. It's crazy that you can even trademark Chicago mix. I would think that was so generic. What is it? I don't know. It's not a word they made up, right? It's like, I don't know. That's crazy.

MerlinI don't come to Prairie Home Companion and slap the dick out of your mouth. Get it together. Jesus Christ, people. This is America, man. Is this how it really needs to be? This is America. You gotta let them play.

Speaker BLet me get this straight. One day, one day, the kid forgets to wear his jacket. For the rest of his life, he's not boogie.

MerlinIt's really

Maxabout the American city. I just rewatched the pilot of The Wire His accent is so bad in the pilot It's a Kevin Spacey-esque non-committal Let me understand this

Speaker BYou're out there, you're throwing bones

MerlinAlex, have you ever seen The Wire? You should really watch The Wire

AlexI know, I'm gonna get to it They remastered it

MaxI have very strong feelings about the remaster Wait, wait, really?

AlexYou don't like the remaster?

MaxDidn't they mess with the 4x3 and the widescreen and everything? So it was shot in 4x3, and David Simon made the – so one of the – God, where do I even start with this? One of the things that people say about The Wire that's like the thing that everyone knows about it on their little note card is like, well, it's not a well-made show. It's not like a beautiful show, but it's really well-written, right? Or it's like there's nothing great about the filmmaking. Totally wrong. The cinematography in the filmmaking of The Wire is fucking brilliant. It is so well shot. It's so well done. And it was so conscious.

MerlinThe blocking, just the blocking. The scene of them at the crime scene, whatever, episode five, that famous scene, the scene of them trying to get the desk through the door. These are epic television moments.

MaxIt is so well shot. People say it's not well shot because the cinematography is inconspicuous. I think that's what they mean by it. When you look at the cinematography of Game of Thrones, they always pause for a minute and the camera hovers and they're like, look at this shit, huh? You guys like that shit? Look at that.

AlexLike that wall? Yeah, we got the orange and the purple.

MaxLook at that shit. Look at that. You guys like that shit? Take a picture with your iPhone. But The Wire doesn't do that. It's meant to bring you into the world. It's very generous in the way that it works, but it's nonetheless brilliant. And David Simon made the creative decision that even though he was shooting the show in the era of HD on HBO when everything else had long been shot in 1609, that he was going to shoot it in 4.3. And the reason is he didn't want it to feel like a movie. He wanted it to feel like you were watching the stories of these regular people. and he felt that at that time for most living people

the 4-3 aspect ratio was more realistic it was more what you were accustomed to looking at on your television it was more human, it was smaller, it was less conspicuous it was less saying look at these characters in a film and then because of that as a result a lot of the shots and the cinematography and the way that they frame everything is you're always looking in through something so that the director can make a letterbox so you're always peering in through a window You're always looking in, you know, under the awning of a building. They're very clever at making a frame for themselves for the shot using the surroundings.

And that is all totally lost when you lop it off and go to 16.9.

AlexSo I misspoke. I have a version of the wire in HD that fell off a truck that keeps the 4.3 aspect ratio. I agree. No, this is garbage.

MaxHow did that happen?

AlexI don't know. How did they do that? Yeah. Well, they just cropped it.

MaxThey took the 16-9 and cropped it back to 4-3.

AlexYeah.

MaxYeah, but that's not how they mastered the four. I mean, I have doubts about that because they, whatever. A lot of it is already cropped, right? They took the film and cropped it smaller. So you can't just crop it even further to force it back into 4-3.

AlexYeah, I'm going to put the David Simon show. He wrote this amazing thing about, like what Max said, about his decisions. Oh, yeah, put it in notes. That's awesome. I'd love to see that. It's super good. Oh, I like David Simon. We should really watch The Wire.

MaxYou should really watch The Wire.

MerlinYou should really consider watching it.

MaxAll right, follow-up from yesterday. Do you guys know James DeMore, the guy, the Google... We're not going to talk about what Tiff is eating? The Google memo thing. We could talk about what Tiff is eating.

MerlinI don't know. I just thought it's something I like to offer to people because our friend Tiff listens to our program. What do we think she's eating? Well, today she's having lunch. Her lunch today is Capricious Septim of Tempe with Flight of Autumn Mustardinas and Rubella Quick Radish Relish Dishes. It's a sous vide at 129, 129 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 and a half minutes, served on a plank of ochre balsa, sliced diagonally. Sounds like it might have an edible flower in it. Are you finished with your flowers?

You know you can eat those. And I just want to say, for the love of God, I hope Tiff is taking this in good humor, because I love the fact that she listens to our program, and I love seeing her fancy foods, and that's all I want to say about that. I hope she's not mad at us. Do you think she's mad at us?

AlexI love Tiff.

MaxI don't think she'd ever tell us if she was.

Alexshe was listening to that other program uh i i think it's high i don't know it has a gray background high high um and there's a little a little snowman and oh i can't wait for christmas did you see that one guy look at that i don't look at the ones that have high in them i'm not

Merlininterested in that program um uh the black stump uh so did you hear about the engagement wasn't that nice did you hear that the people got engaged the guys wearing the black stump shirt wasn't that No, I haven't listened to those. I'm not familiar with their work. Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke.

Duke boys. Dig, Doug, Dig, Doug. What do you got on Google Boy? What do you got for Google Boy?

MaxHe had a good tweet yesterday. This is the guy who wrote the-

MerlinHis brand is rapidly evolving.

MaxThis is the guy who wrote the memo. He got his calipers out, and he's like, consider the evidence. Women have inferior brains, and they're bad at computer code. and then he got fired from Google and for a while he had honestly he had the greatest username on Twitter which was Fired4Truth like the number four that's the coolest name I'm sad that I don't have that name on Twitter

Merlinhe even had plenty of characters but he went with the four

Maxit was so fucking cool that's the coolest thing that anyone has ever done is make their Twitter name Fired4Truth so yesterday he says he makes a Twitter poll and he says by the way James Damore He looks like, who's the guy from Girls? Or he's like the new, he's like Dark Sater. He looks like Calo Rilo. He looks like Calo Rilo, but if he was left out in the sun and he melted. Right, right, right. His face is, he's like oily.

He looks waxen. He looks like he's, he literally looks like he's like out and on a hot day and he's like, and he's melting. I think he looks moist. He constantly looks moist. But, okay, so he tweets yesterday. the KKK is horrible we're already off to a good start and I don't support them in any way comma but

Alexbut

Maxcan we admit that their internal title names are cool e.g. quote grand wizard and then he does a poll and it's like options yes no the names aren't cool no that's racist and no other now I voted for no that's racist so I could see the results but yes was the winning answer with 30% oh and then he and then he goes you know you've and then he replied and then people got mad at him right because he's saying one of the dumbest things anyone has ever said on twitter and then

he says you know you've moralized an issue when you can't criticize its heroes or acknowledge any positive aspect of its villains what a fucking that's the most that's like the the he has like galaxy brain like that's the that is the that's that is the craziest way to look at he's like now you know what the one thing about the kkk is is finally we've moralized them we've made morals about the kkk you guys we've gone too far we have morals about them we we can't acknowledge the

Alexheroes of the kkk or the positive aspects of their villains know like what i well first of all i feel bad about making fun of his appearance but now i'm doing a google image search of him and like if I saw him on the street, I would just like want to push his face up. Just be like, are you okay? Just like, let's smoosh it up a bit. Why don't you smile?

Hey, sir, the t-shirt is really, it's Google. Cool. This man. But, but like, what, what does he, do you think this person has like real life friends? And what do they do? They're not sitting at the golden nuggets.

MaxThey sit around and they talk about how cool the KKK is. And like, man, I wish I was a grand wizard. That's so cool.

Merlinthat's awesome well i mean this is to me this feels to me like the kind of dumb thing i would have said in high school or college where i would i would go like well you know but seriously you really you know they made the trains run on time they had cool parades we're like you know you might think that and that might in some way be true but like if you say that like who will benefit from what you just said like are you going to be lauded for being a great uh you know what aboutist are you going to be seen as an aesthetic uh influencer like you know what maybe just avoid

the compliments to the kkk unless you have a reason why you think that would be useful and then he makes it about him that's the beauty part and this is what makes this side of the aisle so interesting is the way that you could say something really stupid that has no good purpose to it and then make it all about you're inviting you're inviting people to get mad at you and then you're mad that they're mad and guess who never gets to do this is black ladies like you're not allowed to do that. Only white guys are allowed to say such stupid fucking bullshit and then get their feelings heard about it and say, no, you're the racist.

MaxWell, they're mad at Colin Kaepernick because he sat down during the national anthem or whatever, and Colin Kaepernick can't play football. Football. Colin Kaepernick can't play football because he was too rude and he sat down during the national anthem, but this guy's fucking going like, yeah, the KKK was pretty cool if you really think about it, right? And then it's such a fucking grievance, he's like, how dare you get mad at me for saying the KKK was cool. You're suppressing my free speech. I was fired for truth. Which one is it? Are you a First Amendment activist and everyone

has the right to offend? I didn't say that I like the KKK.

MerlinI was just making a remark and then you chose to make it very racist in your own way. That's racism. Racism is I can't give a casual compliment to the KKK for the cool names.

MaxI was merely talking about how aesthetically cool and powerful and awesome the KKK was. I didn't say I like the KKK. I just said I really like their titles. Awesome feelings in me.

AlexI think this is like a Milo hippopotamus type thing where he's like trying to build his brand or what? Like what's the end game? Is it just to have his Reddit buddy?

MaxThere's like one guy from Second City, like some white dude who's like suing Second City for racial discrimination. Oh, my God. Which is like, I mean, best of luck, buddy. But that's good. You know, there's one thing about the Chicago comedy scene. It's that everyone's really going to rally behind you in your false racial discrimination.

MerlinNone of that was that he feels like he was discriminated against because he was white and he didn't get opportunities. Is that it?

MaxNo, because people were rude to him. Because they held up a sign that said honky or something like that as part of it. But also, he was in a comedy show.

MerlinHe was ready to laugh. But, you know, it's also that, I mean, I'm just shooting fish in a barrel here. But, you know, it's also that whether it's Cernovich or Alex Jones or any of that. I mean, let's just be honest. Let's be fancy for a minute. the bar for pleasing the audience that these people wish to reach is ridiculously low especially given the fact let's even let's even take away the bots let's take away the bots the bar for this is so low because just saying just shit posting nonsense about whatever is a totally fine way to clear the bar for this stuff there's not going to be a critical discussion about this

there's nothing going to be a pseudo critical discussion about this you just say stupid horseshit and the people who do have an actual thought about it respond and they seem like bad sports that's that's part of the problem is that it's just it's just a bunch of people wallowing around in their own and other people's shit and talking about how brown it is haven't we reached

Maxa great state that's well well it's it's why i think that the kind of comedy that we do about you know making fun of how this guy looks or just just sort of funny reading their funny gaffes or whatever that's why i think it's like permissible and and progressive comedy is like you know they have all of the appearances of propriety and they do go they go well yeah i just want to have a conversation. I just want to show up and I want to have a conversation about the issues and you're being rude and making fun of me. But that's not what they're doing, right? They don't actually seek to engage people in good faith and debate. They actually seek, they're just being provocative

and they're just making noise for the sake of making noise and offending people to offend them and trying to shift the debate into making it more and more acceptable to talk about racism. and what can you do? It's like you can't ignore them because then they just get more and more provocative until the point where they're intolerable. And you can't, and by the way, it's a very, I know that is one of the things people say is like, just ignore them and they'll go away. Like we tried that and now Donald Trump is president. So what else do you got? Now we need something new. So it's like, okay, we tried ignoring them and not engaging.

That didn't really work. They are gaining cultural power very quickly and they're actually threatening people, you know, like my friends and neighbors. so that didn't work well then you could also try and engage them in debate and you could stand up at the podium and be like no let's actually debate whether the women's skull shapes make them good or bad programmers but it's like even having that debate is a farce right because there's not two sides right it's I'm not going to engage in both sidesism of whether like whether Muslims are secretly trying to institute Sharia law

in the United States because that's an insane conspiracy theory and I can't I can't have a debate about the facts because the premise of the question is so flawed. So it's like, well, what's left? It's that you make fun of them. You have to ridicule them and you have to expose the inherent contradictions in their thinking and their logic, their ridiculous worldview and the utter stupidity and simplicity of their fan base.

AlexI think we're sort of skirting around one of the things in this Twitter poll. Like, I want to see it too. Well, like, yes, no, that's racist. But the reason I don't know if he's like a full, like, hippopotamus is that he has the option. And no, the names aren't cool. Of course the names aren't cool. Grand Wizard's the stupidest fucking thing. And like what did he, was that part of the debate? Is that like actually part of his thing of like, hmm, I really wonder if other people think this is cool. Oh my God.

MaxIt's so fucking weird. If you want to keep digging, I mean, if you keep scraping at this and you keep scraping and scraping and scraping, it's like, what does it mean for something to be cool or not? Is he saying, so what his argument is saying, what his argument is saying is, okay guys, absent all historical context and all meaning is the name grand wizard cool and i don't know i'm not actually really i mean the grand wizards what they advocate is of his very innocent question it's a very innocent question but it's like yeah but it's like but but i get okay so it's like let's pop like i don't know like how do i evaluate like what the grand wizards want is to murder me so

yeah i have a hard time sort of saying well just purely on aesthetics like is their cost Is their costume cool? Like, it's his own, that's like, that's his unique privilege to be like, well, I don't have to care what they say. So are they cool aesthetically? Right? It's like, you know, it's like, this guy's not actually trying to murder me with a machete.

MerlinSo is his machete cool? Setting aside the gas chambers and the furnaces. Should Jews have been charged for their lodging at the camps? I'm just asking as a real estate investor. Don't make this emotional. Don't make this weird. I'm not saying I approve of what happened. I'm just asking a simple question. They have all the money.

AlexWhat do you guys think is better? The bespoke KKK sheets or the parachute KKK sheets that they're using now?

MerlinOh, what's your thread count? So part of the problem, a big sheet. I learned a wonderful word. I was kidding, of course. I love Hello Internet. I learned a great word this week. I can't believe I never heard before. And that word is Kafka trapping. I'm sure Max already knows this. I don't actually. Kafka trapping. it is a sophistical and unfalsifiable form of argument that attempts to overcome an opponent by inducing a sense of guilt guilt as in you've done something not as in you feel bad about it by inducing a sense of guilt

and using the opponent's denial of guilt as further evidence of guilt oh this is a big leftist but it's in reference to the Kafka part is of course that it comes from this idea in the trial which is like once you're accused of something the more that you deny what you're accused of, the more it proves that you're guilty of what you're accused of. It's a Cardassian trial on Star Trek. Oh, is that Kim or Robert? There are seven lights. Hey, that was good.

MaxThat's the one. Those are the Cardassians.

Merlin, would you present... Are you comfortable presenting the follow-up on Steve Bannon's two shirts?

MerlinOh, yeah, I'll do the best I can. Let's see. I haven't read that article. I'll probably pass to you for going into the details of that one. Is that on The Cut? Was that The Cut? Yeah, I don't really know what The Cut is. I have just discovered. I kept seeing links to The Cut, and I finally have started actually going in and seeking it out and reading it. And holy shit, what a great site. Really? I love that they do fashion. I think so. I love that they cover, like, well, here's what's going on with Burberry and Fashion Week, and also, like, here's why Steve Bannon wears three shirts. I love that.

MaxOh, it's a fashion website.

MerlinIt's a women's stuff website that does fashion. And also this, at least that particular woman, like she does great like political stuff.

MaxI didn't know that. I'd never seen the site before. So there you go. All right. So this is from Apollo from the cut.

MerlinHe was on 60 Minutes. He was on 60 Minutes. People have noticed in the past that Steve Bannon wears, he's like Heidi. I don't know if you remember the beginning of Heidi, where Heidi's walking up the mountain wearing all of her clothes. It seems strange. we constantly see Steve Bannon wearing multiple layers. Like, is this a preppy thing? What is this? And then on 60 Minutes, as we said, and I think in a previous episode, it looked to me like he was wearing like a polo shirt with like a going out to the disco shirt over it with a blazer over that. And so this has America asking, why is Steve Bannon wearing so many shirts?

What have we learned?

MaxAll right. So this is from The Cut. While Bannon declined to explain on the record why he wears so many shirts at once, his spokesperson agreed to speak with me and offered to talk to Bannon's younger brother, Chris, a former Navy pilot whom he once worked with at a company called Biosphere 2. Pause. Did you know that Steve Bannon ran Biosphere? I didn't know that until recently. It's insane. I went to Biosphere in Arizona. It was cool. Bannon 90s. I remember that Pauly Shore movie.

MerlinWas it Pauly Shore? Remember that movie?

MaxOh, yes.

MerlinI saw that.

MaxYep. I saw that. Not good.

MerlinNo.

MaxNot good.

MerlinVery bad.

Maxworked with his brother former Navy pilot that created a space colony prototype in Arizona on my behalf in order to provide insight into his fashion history quote sources and quote friends with quote knowledge of Bannon's wardrobe also talked if you've ever wondered how Bannon came to be seen as some kind of looming man of mystery in the White House this is part of it even information about the shirts he wears is treated like a kind of dark secret quote friends of Bannon said that the shirt thing is something he picked up at military prep school and that he refers to it as beach fashion.

A representative for Benedictine College Preparatory, the Virginia school from which Banning graduated in 1971, said he didn't know anything about multiple shirts being worn by students there currently or in the past, but that it was possible. Quote, I don't know what the uniform was exactly when Mr. Banning was here, Mike Forster told me. It ranges from wearing camouflage fatigues and sometimes dress shirts or pants and tunics. There are not multiple shirts. Now, Merlin, you went to a military prep school. I did.

MerlinDid you wear multiple shirts? as part of your beach fashion? Oh, are you kidding me? For beach fashion, we always did. You know what I remember? There was a thing in the 80s for wearing two polo shirts when you pop the collar. That was a thing. That's not what he's doing. This is like Baron Harkonnen is going to go have a day at the beach. This does not make in.

Speaker AI'm going to go have a lovely day at the beach.

MaxDo you guys know my Baron Harkonnen reference that I'm doing from Jodorowsky's Dune? Is anyone getting that or is that just for me? Have you guys seen Jodorowsky's Dune?

AlexI've seen part of it it's more that I know what you're referencing and I enjoy it

Maxwhen he's doing the interview about designing the giant he was showing the art from what's the guy a blueberry or whatever and he did the whoa whoa whoa you're talking about you're talking about the ship the ship with the tongue the ship with the tongue but then Jodorowsky is such a fucking nut he does the sound effects or everything and he's like yeah he does the sound effects

Merlinand the tongue come out like this or that

MaxI rewound it I rewound it 30 times to watch him do that and i think about baron harkonnen's head and then jodorowsky doing the sound effect every time i see steve see bannon talk i just think of the thing where he has the boy brought over we can

Merlinuncork him and just suck the blood out of him look at our super secret uh google doc for some very

Alexvery good photos of steve bannon why why no go look look how handsome that oh fuck oh that no No, no. This is more upsetting than his skin now is that the final picture. He looks like a fancy lad.

MerlinHe was a fancy lad. He looks like Nick Lowe in some of these. Look at that.

AlexWhere is this? In the super secret. It's the way of Google Doc. Yeah. According to whatever this is, you are in here.

MaxI'm scrolling up and down. I don't see any pictures.

AlexVery bottom. He seems to have a root beer.

MaxOh, there we go. Okay. Wow. He's. He looks good. You know, he was an 80s guy, and he clearly reached the peak of his sort of powers in the 80s, and he just never moved on, I guess. I don't know.

MerlinHe's working that look that I like to call Jean Jean. You got to be real careful with working Jean Jean. So if you're going to wear denim top, denim bottom, denim shirt, you need to be real careful because you're kind of getting into like a little bit of fetish wear. Like, be careful about Jean Jean. He's got a full blue jean committee.

Blue jean committee, you stop it.

MaxStop your in-jokes with me, you.

MerlinSteve Bannon. Merlin, you know that documentary

Maxabout the Eagles? You should watch that. I think you'd like it. Documentary about the Eagles? The two-parter that I've watched

Alexsix times? Hold on. Hold on. Are we moving

Maxon from this article? No, it's a documentary about the Eagles.

AlexYou'd like it. Oh, the Eagles. Are we moving on from this article? There's a very important paragraph. No, no, I'm not moving on.

MaxI'm not moving on. I'm not moving on. No moving. No moving.

AlexNo moving. No moving. No moving. We need to get. All right.

MaxAll right. What the fuck are we talking about? Military prep school. So you can confirm from your own personal investigation that this is not actually a thing for military prep school.

MerlinWell, you know, in terms of disclosure, because I am an attorney, I went to school at a different time. But we would mostly wear one shirt. We were just glad. We would call it mufty. Mufty. Mufty is when you are out of uniform and you're wearing your regular street clothes but with your dumb gay boy haircut. And so I would usually wear like a terrycloth shirt with maybe a terrycloth short. I would wear some Oxford tennis shoes. We never had those layers. I can't say. I was in St. Petersburg. Now, where was he? Where is Steve Bannon from?

MaxWell, I don't know. He went to Benedictine College Preparatory in Virginia. What is a tunic? It says that the guy from the school said that the students wear camouflage fatigues and sometimes dress shirts or pants and tunics. What is a tunic?

MerlinI think of a tunic as a sleeveless, bag-like, like imagine like almost like a night shirt with no sleeves. I would call it tunic.

MaxI am only familiar with tunics in the starting gear that you get in every RPG where it's like, you know, it's like a rough tunic. One AP, right? You're going to make a crafting table.

MerlinYeah, I see a tunic. Tunic under garment. Oh, look at that.

MaxHe's got a goblet. And then as soon as you get the damaged leather armor, you put that on.

AlexRight. It looks like a potato sack with just like a head hole cut out. Okay.

MaxSo it's like what a poor person in a 1940s cartoon wears. It's like if you don't have a barrel, you have a tunic. You can't afford a barrel. Yeah. Where do they get those barrels?

MerlinWho's coming up with this stuff?

MaxForster added that he and Bannon are roughly the same age. Quote, and I remember when I was in college, there were kids who wore multiple shirts. They'd wear a turtleneck with a shirt and a jacket. Many of the men featured in a promotional video on the school's website appear to be wearing at least two shirts at once, which is a start. Never two. Never two, his spokesman said, of the exact number of shirts worn by Bannon himself at any given time. Never one. Certainly never one. And most of the time, never two.

It's usually three. He usually has three shirts on.

AlexWell, one is none.

MaxHe's a layering extremist, if you will, adhering to a disheveled uniform of shirts from Brooks Brothers and Orvis, a brand that makes clothes for fly fishing and other outdoor sports. I got some Orvis. He does not fly fish. He keeps them both folded and hanging in his closet at the Breitbart headquarters, a townhouse in D.C. known as the, quote, Breitbart Embassy, as well as in other unspecified closets and unspecified locations. Quote, they are not all long sleeve, his spokesperson explained. There are some polos that are short sleeve. They added that when wearing a suit in the White House,

perhaps he only wore two shirts beneath his blazer, an undershirt and then a button-down, but he wasn't sure. Now, all right, I'm going to cop to this. If wearing an undershirt and a button-down shirt counts as wearing two shirts, then I'm a two-shirt man. Especially when it's cold, I almost always wear an undershirt under my dress shirt. Oh, yeah.

MerlinI feel like it's like not wearing underpants. Of course you have an undershirt.

MaxYou're going to sweat. You're going to get, I don't know, it's like a layering thing as well if it's cold. I don't know.

MerlinI'm going to just speak from experience. This is not about Steve Bannon, but I'm going to speak for myself. I know that there have been times in my life, my very young life that I'm having, that there have been times in my life when I haven't particularly liked the way my body looks. And I know that there's a couple things one can do. I don't know if these work, but it feels like they work. There's two things you can do. One thing you can do is to have a couple layers that do not reveal every bump and invagination. If you wear a couple three layers, you get a smoothing effect and you wear something black.

That's what I know. Okay? I think there's a reason that a lot of business guys wear a droopy black suit or even a tailored black suit because a suit can cover up a blazer. Even a blazer. You look sharp. Sharper than if you're just like, you know, wearing a tunic. but it also covers up so much about i'm not saying this is about steve bannon and the president but i am saying that it is conceivable that one would dress like that because it covers a lot of

Alexphysical inconsistencies so this like these are this is the masculine equivalent of spanks basically it's just putting on enough shirts so you don't see yeah i guess it's but it's not even

Merlinthat you want to hold it in where you can wear like a like a man girdle you just eventually you

Maxput on so many clothes that you're wearing like a ghillie suit and you can just sort of you can get a boy corset uh chris bannon his brother conveyed through a spokesperson his agreement uh that an astounding number of shirts was normal for steve he added that wearing an undershirt underneath a dress shirt underneath a blazer which is only one shirt shy of his brother's style has historically been considered normal and i have to agree that is historically normal what's weird about steve bannon is he wears one more shirt than me he wears two button-down shirts that's very weird Bannon's spokesperson also thought it was important to note that he is particular about what he adorns his shirts and blazers with.

A series of pens, usually the Pilot Precise V5 stick rolling ball pen. Which I'm very upset about because that is my pen that I like. I like the Pilot Precise V5 extra fine in black. Like with the shirt, the pens travel with Bannon through the world in multiples.

Quote, what did the shirt say about Steve Bannon? His spokesperson added before answering the question. He's always got a contingency plan. And if one shirt gets ruined, put on the next one. If the pen dies, just use another pen.

MerlinSo three is two, two is one, and one is none. He's ready.

AlexHe's good to go. Yep. Bam and life hacks. Great. Life hack.

MerlinI sent you more. Cut this out. I sent you more good articles from The Cut that can make you decide whether you like this thing.

MaxOh, there's one here that's like seven weird secrets your doctor doesn't want you to know about vaginas. It's from our partners. That's our partners, Merlin. That's how you know it's good. Hmm. It's just from their partners. It's from MindBodyGreen. Seven vagina myths this doctor wants to clear up right now. Let's see what they are.

MerlinHuh.

MaxVagina myths. Safari cannot open this page. The error was the URL was blocked by a content blocker. Thank you, Safari.

AlexYep. It was Ghostry also blocked it online.

MerlinWell, you know what's a funny thing? What's a funny thing is all the sites that shame you and try to make you feel bad about content blockers and like, oh, we're doing really good work. You should support it to do beedly didedly dee. and then they fucking shit out those giant blocks of css styled nonsense for their quote unquote partners and it's every time i see that i'm like you know i understand everybody's got to make money but like do you ever do the people who publish this ever really think about the damage i'm not talking about the cut here this is true for everybody like it used to be those was it to boodle like or any of those like stuff from our partners and it's always like it's a hot chick

and a foot and a skin problem you know what i mean those sets of like four images and like you know 17 things they didn't want you to know about your TV.

MaxThere's one that I'm that I'm haunted by and it's a picture of a giant disembodied foot on a beach like a huge foot and it's just like you won't believe what these celebrities look like now.

MerlinOh no.

MaxAnd it's like you want me to click this so I can find out if one of the celebrities turned into a huge foot on a beach. I'm fucking I'm haunted by this one like I see it all the time and I think about it all the time. This is all this is half of the Olsen twins. I'm a foot.

James Damore is going to turn into a giant foot. He's halfway there.

All right. Here's a good topic for Dubai Friday. So our friend Paul Saboran from Paul and Storm tweeted the other day. he goes at 9 12 a.m. he goes uh they share a twitter account like an old like a like a married email address it's so cute it's always p yeah so it's like p no well if it's an angry politics tweet it's a it's an s uh so it's like p paul it's 10 a.m and i've already been to chicago and back today how's your morning so i texted him and i was just like what the fuck like you came

into chicago for like the morning and then left and we didn't even get breakfast or uh an airport or anything. And Paul texts me back and he goes, FYI, I was doing a, quote, mileage run this morning to meet an elite status challenge for American. Flew to ORD, turned around, and flew back 40 minutes later.

MerlinWhat I've heard about?

MaxI didn't think this is real. Is that really real? People do this? Paul did it. I mean, what he's saying is he needed to pick up some extra miles to keep his elite status.

MerlinOh, God.

MaxI've heard about this. And so he basically did an extraneous flight where he flew to Chicago and back just to put some miles on the book so his status didn't get downgraded at the last second.

MerlinThat is mental.

MaxI mean, I think it's possible that Paul is like a deals guy.

MerlinHow do you mean? Oh, you think he's a couponier?

MaxHe's a couponier. You know these guys? Oh, I know these guys.

MerlinI used to be like that a little bit with miles. Okay, so just to clear the decks on this because I do want to talk about couponiers. So what level are we talking about? Are we talking about like 25K? we talking 100k like how much are we talking about because he usually drives i think he has

Maxelite he has elite status of american what the fuck does that flies all paul flies everywhere

Merlini know because i fly places all right but apparently not enough so you think it's like 50 000 mile 100 000 mile like like big we're talking about big numbers we're not talking about you're gonna get get one uh first he has a hundred he has a hundred thousand miles a year yeah shit dog that's a lot of pirates whoo wow okay and so the idea is you're getting near the end of what a quarter uh an eighth or whatever part of a year and if you don't get your end miles in by that or bought ticketed flights then you lose your quote-unquote elite status is that right i think that's how it works i think he's a company eh yeah all right i've i've done

Alex15,271 miles which feels like oh not a lot but enough that i should get some like like an extra

Maxapple or something i'll send you something i have status on united and and uh because i like but here's listen for anyone listening that's like having status for the middle passage these people i'm i'm actually i'm a pretty big fan of united but i think i've had better experiences well so you have to keep in mind chicago is a united hub so like out of in and out of in and out of o'hare united is quite good because they get they have like higher priority than other airlines over you know runways and stuff but i know people are very it's very divisive i i have

good i generally have a good experience at united except that their goddamn fucking wi-fi never works but here's the deal if you fly a lot for work i mean you probably already figured this out but some as someone explained it to me like it's not a mystery just pick an airline and always fly that airline and eventually you'll get status it'll just take care of itself and it's pretty nice i get like first class upgrades and stuff i buy that a little bit i definitely buy that if you live in

MerlinChicago, or if you live in Atlanta, or you live in, you know, like, I guess Los Angeles, but like, it's sort of like my old back to work thing of like, you know, what do you want 10 times more of? And like, for me, United has not been a smooth thing. I would do that with Virgin and JetBlue, because I'm a fancy boy. There is no more Virgin. No, it's still around. It's, they're sunsetting it, but it's still its own brand inside of Alaska. I know, but for another year, it's still technically virgin, I think.

MaxThey took away my virgin elevate points.

MerlinYeah. Well, you got emails about it.

MaxThey're now like Alaska Airline Doge coins or something. I don't know what they use.

MerlinOh, is that what they use? Inuit bucks? 15,721 miles.

MaxIt's six liters of whale blubber. Oh, that's very difficult. Is that metric? Amber. No, it's... Ambergris? They converted all my virgin elevate points into ambergris.

MerlinYou're going to cut out me saying it first, aren't you? Uh, you're Travis Stats. Wait, I can't. Did you just make that joke?

MaxYes. I can't fucking hear Merlin in my headphones. How's it going, buddy? You hear the crackle?

Speaker AThe crackle. Release the crackle.

MaxNo, I can't. I can barely hear you. You're like a whisper, and Alex is the loudest thing I've ever heard.

MerlinThat's because Alex ducks me. She also mutes me on Twitter. Alex mutes me on Twitter, and she ducks me on the podcast. You heavily ducked me last week. You ducked me hard. I got ducked. Because in the original cut, I sounded great, and Max said, everybody's too loud. and then you compressed me

Maxand you ducked me so hard I disappeared. No, no, no, the opposite, Merlin. Yes, the opposite. The opposite of that. The opposite. You were too quiet. You just have to, whatever, we'll talk about this later.

MerlinThis is the show, everything that's in the show is in the show and that's why you gotta throw it out if there's any bad parts. Oh, wait a minute, we did not finish the couponiers. Oh, sorry, the couponiers. We did not exhaust this topic. Okay, yes, I think it's a thing. I tried to mention this to you in our abortive episode yesterday. I am shit with couponiers. Coupons. Coupons? Where I get a coupon, like from our bookstore, hey, guess what? You bought enough books. Here's $10 for books. I get a gift card. I have no idea how to manage this stuff. I'm terrible at. Whereas other people, you know what? I bet Paul will get in his goddamn van and drive somewhere to get a coupon.

I think that's how he rolls.

MaxI don't really do coupons because, and it kind of falls into my theory of somebody's getting fucked.

MerlinOh, you're so getting fucked. You're so good. Well, Walgreens gives you that little like, oh, guess what? You get seven bonus bucks when you buy participating pads. And you're like, no, you're fucking me.

MaxYeah, if you go to the grocery store and you have your coupon for like half off a case of Diet Coke or whatever, it's like, listen, somebody's getting fucked, right? Someone is not – somehow somebody's getting fucked because there's no free money. And listen, you consider all the parties involved, right? You have the Coca-Cola Corporation, the grocery store, and you. Let me tell you something about getting fucked. The house never loses. They're not losing their $7. I guarantee you somehow at the end of the day you're the one who's getting fucked. they know that if they give you the coupon you'll spend more in the chip aisle right like

they'll get you something by the balls some other way so I don't do the coupons I feel like somebody's definitely getting fucked I feel like the only way I know there's these like deals websites where people like spend their they they waste away their lives trying to like collect yogurt

Merlinoh you gotta get flu's beans and box tops yeah

Maxlike people literally do that yogurt shit so I had a friend in Chicago That is such a fucking jam up.

MerlinYou know somebody's getting fucked, and it's not the Komen Foundation.

MaxGive me a fucking break. Well, in that case, it was the yogurt company. Big yogurt. So someone, there was a, I mean, I had a friend in Chicago who did one of these things where, so, okay, so when the federal government released the, I think it was like their new dollar coins or something like that, they had a program where you could order them from the mint, from the U.S. mint, because they were trying to get them into circulation. So they were like, you can order these coins from the Mint and we'll send them to you for free. Free? Free shipping on the coins.

Because they want to get them in circulation and they had to deal with the post office. So what he did was he took his credit card and bought $100,000 worth of dollar coins and had them sent to Chicago and then took the coins to the bank and deposited them into his bank account and paid off the credit card bill. But he converted the credit card points into like miles or something like that.

MerlinOh, it's a kind of existential arbitrage.

MaxThat's a good one because really who's getting fucked? I guess just the taxpayers, but in such a small amount that it would be imperceptible, right? Like we're all paying a— Okay, sure. They won't mind. They're used to that now. Well, we all paid a hundredth of a penny for that deal, right? But here's the thing, though. Is that your life? That's your life now as you're hauling around a wheelbarrow full of dollar coins and maxing out your credit card? I knew people who used to—

MerlinLike every summer, I guess, I don't know if they still do this. I'm not so much of a McDonald's EA as I used to be. But time was that every summer they had the Monopoly card thing where you'd go in, you get the Malapy cards. You get the Malapy cards, you take it off of your drink and you save them up and you try and get a boardwalk in a park place, etc., etc. I knew people and they had rules, right? A guy who went to military school did this. They had rules. You could only come once per hour. And so basically, they would spend their entire weekend going from McDonald's to McDonald's,

collecting as many as they can. I still think they're playing small ball, if I might say. I don't think at that point you were operating on a high-level Couponier level. Now, if you're buying lots of Krugerrands and having them delivered, that's another thing. Also, paying for things, isn't this the big trick? You pay for something with a credit card that gets you miles. That's what happened with the Krugerrands, right? Yes. Okay, so you pay for something. And this is why I say it's existential arbitrage. because you pay for it with your credit card. You get points back or miles on your card.

And then the real arbitrage is you find some way to make more than it cost to deal with the thing that you're getting. Is that the idea? And it should be something either useful that you will actually use or more often could be something whatever you sell on eBay. Is that the idea? Yep. Because that's a lifestyle. That's not a fun hobby. That's a lifestyle. That's like a whole, now you're like one of those people like on cable TV and that's like all you do now is you're that guy. You're the new couponier.

MaxWell, as my friend Aziz describes it, it's like winning a hot dog eating contest and the first prize is more hot dogs.

MerlinOh, God. Talk about Gramsci. Shit dog.

MaxLate stage capitalism. All right, let's talk about the challenge. We got to talk about reading art of the deal. Merlin, why'd you pick this one? And what did you like about it? I don't like you.

MerlinWhat'd you learn? He doesn't like you either. I forget how it happened. Dig, dug, dig, dug. If you give us your fucking money on Patreon, you get to listen to an extra bonus episode for every public episode the plebs get. And that is where we talk about our challenges. And we talk to one another, frankly, about what we'd like to do. And we gossip about our friends. And I don't remember how we got onto the topic of this.

MaxI have some good shit for the after show. I have some items that I've brought to the store. I'm going to give to Alex.

AlexI don't see any of them.

MaxBecause I'm a little, well, they're in my backpack. I'm a little scared of them. I'm going to give them to you, and we'll talk about it in the after show.

MerlinOkay, sign up, sign up.

MaxYou can subscribe at patreon.com slash Dubai Friday.

MerlinDubai Friday.

MaxBut you have to say if you're a cop. Yep.

Merlinlet me smell your dick uh so you uh uh i never read art of the deal so here's my background with art of the deal i remember it being a purportedly very popular book uh i sent you guys a link to this last night i remember when funny or die out of nowhere released the art of the deal movie with johnny depp which is not great but pretty funny and has a lot of great cameos which is a very i don't know did you guys ever watch it do you know what i'm talking about

Maxoh i saw you sent the netflix thing and i i don't have time in my life to watch that but i I'm very curious about what it is.

MerlinWell, it dropped out of nowhere during the election. And I mean, it's one of those like, oh my God, I didn't even know they were working on this. They dropped this thing. It's Art of the Deal. And of course, it's very Tim and Eric-ish. It really looks like a video from the late 80s or early 90s. Like every aspect of it, all of the chyrons and the graphics and everything. And it's Johnny Depp as Donald Trump and a cast of lots of very funny people in different roles. And the conceit is that a little boy steals a copy of the bestselling book of all time, Art of the Deal, and he gets caught by security, almost gets caught, so he hides in Donald Trump's office.

And now Donald Trump is going to walk him through what it takes to really learn the art of the deal. How he got the Taj Mahal away from Merv Griffin, played by Patton Oswalt, like all of this great, great stuff. And so, and it goes through all of like the 10 deal points that you learn. That's been my background with the book. that said there's also been a lot of hot take think pieces in the last year about what we can learn about Donald Trump from reading Art of the Deal which is not much because he's a terrible turd of a human

Maxbut I don't think you can learn anything about Donald Trump because he didn't write the book it was written by that guy Tony Shalhoub

Merlinhe's the guy there's a man inside of his head inside that alien movie Monk psych so anyway I thought it would be fun to read I flipped through it a little bit I tried to find references to the children in Russia. Anyway, it's a terrible book, and I'm sorry I signed it. It was a terrible challenge.

MaxI didn't have much to add. I enjoyed the quote. I've read hundreds of books about China over the decades. I know the Chinese. I've made a lot of money with the Chinese. I understand the Chinese mind. That is awesome. He's got some real fired-for-truth calipers going on and really understanding that Chinese mind.

I don't know. Mostly what I took away from it is that there isn't a coherent message or ideology of the book, that the only message is... The message I took away from the book is that Trump's... Is that... Oh, there's some sirens going on there. Someone call the cops about what I said I was going to talk about in the after show already?

Alex is on her phone here. Alex, why are you on your phone? Get off your phone.

AlexNo, I'm looking at my fun quotes.

MaxAll right. Here's what I took away from reading this was there's no real coherent message or ideology or original thought. in the book. It's Trump's looks at the, he is a kind of a sociopath and he looks at the rest of the world and he sees an array of human vulnerabilities that would make people engage in systems of trust and respect. And that he can basically take advantage of these systems, that he can sort of have an arbitrage on deal-making if he has no integrity and asks for everything he wants and bullies other people into submission. And that the idea is that you should never respect

your opponent and not sort of enter into these relationships of mutuality and commonality and respect that bind mere human beings.

MerlinYeah, basically become a professional weasel because it might give you some kind of an advantage. But those are all means. If there's one thing, and I don't mean to turn this into a KKK, Fire for Truth Twitter poll, but one message you can take away from all of this, I think, and again, I hate to do this long distance. This is unkind. He's another human being. But the bottom line is he did not get a lot of love from his father. And it's apparent in every single thing that he does. I hate to do that reductive, liberal bullshit, but it's fucking true. You can trace almost everything he does to the fact that he has an unslakeable desire for his father's approval and basically his affection.

I don't think he got that. And I think every transactional decision that he makes in his life can be written straight down to the idea that like there is this tower that he's never going to be able to climb, which is his father, who is dead, didn't particularly like him, and he'll never impress him. And there's no way to really succeed, but he'll do everything he can to do what he thinks his father would have liked.

MaxYou know, it's obvious. I agree. I mean, I think that's a pretty spot on reading of him. And I think it's obvious in Trump's character that he's a pretty miserable guy and he has no real satisfaction. Right. He hungers, but he's never full. He doesn't laugh. As everybody knows, he doesn't laugh.

MerlinHow do you trust someone who never laughs?

MaxHe wishes for company, but he's never satisfied with people. He's thirsty, but his drinks don't slake his thirst. It's like he always has these needs. And so in absence of any sort of satisfaction or accomplishment, he wants this sort of tangible trappings of accomplishment that nobody can, how do I put it, that it's like nobody can deny, right? it's like if you live in a house on a golden house and you sit on a throne nobody can take away from you that you have all the outward trappings of being rich it's undeniable

he's forcing everyone to see him in the way that he wants to be seen so it's like absent his own internalized happiness he's like well i'll inflict the way i want to be seen on you and in my heart it really upsets me that he's the president and that now we all have to look at him in that way

Merlinright that he wanted power and he got it he he wants i agree you you i think you really nailed it with that part of like the indisputable part so but like in his eyes right so what happens so he gets he gets the hottest wife for now he gets the goldest apartment that is available and then he has put that out there in a way that in his mind is unassailable undisputable nobody has the biggest and the best like i do and then you know what new york which is its own scene looks at him and goes, eh.

And I think that drives him crazy. Washington doesn't even have time to go, eh. Washington looks at him and says, oh, you don't understand how this works. I think it drives him crazy that he's done everything that he can think of to make himself look like a big shot and it still is not enough for people to respect him. He has no desire to do the hard work of doing the things that make someone actually respect you for being a decent human being. And it drives him utterly crazy that he will not be acknowledged by everybody as being as great as he would like to believe that he is.

And there's no end to that. There's no bottom to that. There is no floor to that feeling. If you never get past that feeling that every 14-year-old boy has, you will never be a real human being. He's fundamentally broken inside.

AlexWhat really freaked me out about the first chapter of the book that's like a week in the life is, you know, it's just a manic series of phone calls and meetings that don't seem to make any sense or like have any sort of purpose or goals at the end of them. and it sounds exactly what all of the like leaks coming out of the white house are that it's just chaos people coming in and out and it's like okay this is what he thinks success is and and it's it really feels like he has this thing of like he wasn't the one true heir and the the book is

talks about this a little bit about how his brother dies like tragically but it feels like he he wasn't like the chosen one and it was always well i want to strike out and go to manhattan and and do my I don't think because Freddie was Freddie was the one who was supposed to be be the real estate guy.

MaxYou know, if you if there's one thing that I can take away from this that makes me feel better, it's this, you know, I'm watching the Ken Burns Vietnam War documentary, which may be an upcoming challenge to watch like the first installment of that.

AlexThe first 10 hours.

MaxI don't know Alex I don't know what are your thoughts on Ken Burns but like I think he's a very powerful filmmaker and his last few films have been a little formulaic they he's kind of

MerlinI will save it for a future show that team has more of a point of view than they want to admit but they are brilliant at executing what that point of view is that that's my only thought on

Maxthat I think he I thought jazz was pretty good but baseball was was not good at all and I felt concerned that I was like maybe Ken Burns is sort of over that he's just going to kind of fall into a comfortable shtick for the rest of his career and we won't sort of get the lively excitement of the best of his filmmaking and holy shit this Vietnam documentary is fucking from the first five, you watch the first five minutes the sort of intro of the whole thing and it's unlike anything else I've ever seen it is powerful, powerful

Merlinthe setup for that is very, very the setup is very good. You know what else I would recommend you can find I think for free out there, it's in the PBS app there's a 25 minute preview of the series. This shows a lot of behind the scenes stuff, how they spent 10 years on this. Just how they made the music for this is really quite good. Whether or not you agree with their POV, and I think it's important as a grown-up to figure out what somebody's POV is. They feel like they have created something that adequately shows every single side of it as well as can be told. And I don't know if that's true or not, but when people say things like that, I start watching Extra Double

Careful. With that said, it's a great piece of art. It is a very good piece of art.

MaxI thought their treatment of Ho Chi Minh was excellent. And I thought, and I thought the whole Americans don't really. So I, Oh God, we're way in the weeds of what I wanted to talk about, but whatever. Americans don't really know anything about the French occupation of Vietnam. It really, it's very hard for me to, I can't believe people have opinions. Oh my God. That was so great. About the French occupation of Vietnam and the Vietnam, you know, revolutionary war and all of that. So it's like, you kind of have to, they did a very good job handling that.

MerlinWhen it got to the point of Ho Chi Minh writing letters to Harry Truman that were never delivered to Harry Truman, you're like, holy shit.

MaxYeah, I'm a pretty happy customer as long as they get into some of the background. So you understand Vietnam was not just a country that was sitting there while we, you know, at the time that we had a proxy war with China. Like it actually, these people have never had a, they never had respite from conflict for like 100 years. But okay, all of that aside, I'm in the second segment of the documentary. And they're talking about this sort of hearts and minds era of the war where they're building the, what were they called in the protective hamlets or whatever. And they were, but then they'd go out and like torch a whole village and kill all the women and children. And then people in Washington, you know, they were like, they were like, whoa, these people, they're turning against us.

I can't understand why. Like, why aren't we winning over their hearts and minds? And that's the thing that ultimately consoles me. You know, and obviously like that was the key insight that caused us to humiliate ourselves in the international stage and lose that war was that we fundamentally didn't really understand how bad things had gotten for us until it was way too late. And, you know, that's the, that, that, you know, when you have, when you have that amount of force kind of crushing you, like all you have left is the hearts and minds. It's like, well, you, it's like, you could take everything from me except for that.

And that's ultimately what I keep coming back to about Trump is like, you can live in a golden castle and you can sit in your throne and you could be the president. You can have all the trappings of power. You know, it really says, it really says something about our society that Trump from the art of the deal, he, his whole thing is treat people with the least amount of dignity and have the least amount of empathy and don't be clouded by any sort of human characteristics. They're all weaknesses. And that that got him so far that he's the president now. And I resent that. I resent that about the man. I resent that about the society that enabled him. I resent that about the political process that was so easily hijacked by that simple

computer virus of a lack of morals. But what can you do? It's like the only thing I come back to is like, I don't have to respect him. I can think that he's a tacky piece of shit, and I don't have to respect the trappings of his power.

I've been thinking about watching the Vietnam documentary and the Trump stuff. I'm obsessed with this poem by this guy, Berthold Brecht. He was a Jewish poet who wrote a lot about the Holocaust from World War II. This is the poem. We actually put this in the inscription in the back of Secret Hitler. It's very short, but it's a poem called General, Your Tank is a Powerful Vehicle. and he says General your tank is a powerful vehicle it smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men but it has one defect it needs a driver General your bomber is powerful

it flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant but it has one defect it needs a mechanic General man is very useful he can fly and he can kill but he has one defect he can think very good Art of the deal so I don't know Art of the deal that's what I came away from I can understand Trump's will to power, but I don't have to respect it.

AlexNothing else to say about this book. It was terrible, and I agree with everything Max said.

MaxMy style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I'm after.

MerlinNo, come on. Max, Max, do the voice. Do the voice. Please do the voice. I'm retiring the voice.

MaxYou do it. All right. Let's see. Is it in here? Let's see. Oh, yeah. It's in there. I have a couple of good Trump quotes. The modern art one

Speaker AMy style of deal making is quite simple and straightforward I aim very high And I just keep pushing and pushing And pushing to get what I'm after I've made a lot of money with the Chinese I understand the Chinese mind I've always felt that a lot of modern art is a con

AlexI believe in spending what you have to But I also believe in not spending more than you should No, thank you That's a good It's so bad

MaxWow, highlight that. That's a good one. Popular highlight.

AlexThe worst times often create the best opportunities to make good deals. You know, a door becomes a window.

MerlinGod never opens a billionaire without closing a millionaire.

43. Couponiér

Show notes

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