49. Line Boy

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin.

Speaker AThis week's challenge, pick the perfect album.

MaxOh, Merlin's on this morning. No, I'm not. I'm so fucking tired. We got all kinds of voices and characters and bits.

MerlinDon't play lawyer ball, son. That is our new breakout hit character, Guy Who Impersonates Hank Hill. The old guy from Beavis and Butthead. Mr. Anderson. I don't remember to pay the electric bill, but I know Mr. Anderson. Oh shit dog, I'm tired Woo, Halloween baby

MaxLet me propose how I think we might do this episode Yes I think we should do I think we should set up the challenge right away So we can talk about it during the episode But I have I have a lot of other items that I want to discuss But I already want to Start making observations about the music

MerlinMax, I like this idea a lot

MaxMerlin, it was your challenge, please set the challenge up for us What was the challenge this week?

MerlinDugga, dugga, dugga, dugga challenge. Well, the challenge started out. Front matter. You know, just for what it's worth, fucking Syracuse now in our Google Doc, if I say front matter, you know what he does? He cuts it out. He does not acknowledge front matter as a thing. Why?

MaxWhere did front matter come from? Was that Mike Hurley, Jason Snell?

MerlinNo, no, no. It's me because I think in the beginning it's sensible to have a bulleted section in the Google Doc. This is inside baseball. You're getting this for free. You've got to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com and give us your fucking money. We'll talk about that. I think in the Google Doc it's valuable to have follow-up items but also to have what in the literary world in the book bookmaking world is called front matter and that's stuff that's not follow-up but it's the kind of thing you want to mention at the top of the show

Maxoh that's what front matter is I so okay Merlin do you ever make a YAML file I've made a YAML file sure you know what they what do they call that what do they call that business at the header of the YAML the YAML

Merlinyou header your YAML with like you could do that with the markdown document That's your fucking front matter right there. That's your fucking front matter. It's a metadata. And so, you know, if it's Syracuse, he cucks me. He goes in there and he fucking edits the document. He takes out spaces at the end of sentences.

MaxOh, wait a minute. Are you a double spacer?

MerlinNo. He's, oh, no. Oh, you ready to go like fucking inside the looking glass? You know who double spaces after a period? Consistently? Who? Fucking John Syracuse.

MaxNo.

MerlinHe's a double spacer.

MaxIs he a typewriter guy or something like that? He's so broken inside. But people who learn to type on a typewriter, I understand the impulse. And the reason is it's how you used to, because typewriters are monospace, it's how you would sort of legibly write sentences. So I understand that. And a monospace typewriter thing, yes.

MerlinIt's the same way you learn to capitalize. You learn where to put a comma like a gentleman. And you always have two spaces after.

MaxRight. I understand that. it's very like i'm already dreading having to learn new gestures on my iphone to like go into multitasking i don't if i learned how to type with two with hitting that space i want to

Merlinhear every time that i want to hear about that because the way jason snell described it very

Alexkindly it sounds like a fucking mess no no no no it's it's fantastic we're in the minority report

Merlinera okay save it for the show um the uh front matter syracuse he's he's just a he's just a A tall, angry bag of arbitrary opinions. Big meat bag of opinions. No, he's not a good person.

AlexNot arbitrary. I wouldn't say arbitrary. What's Syracuse's most arbitrary opinion?

MerlinIf you live in the United States, you are simply not permitted to use words and phrases that he regards as Britishisms. It makes him furious in a way that I find, frankly, hilarious.

AlexBut that's not arbitrary.

Speaker ACultural appropriation.

MerlinYou know, you're right.

Speaker ANo, it's not it's not it's not a cultural. It's not a cultural appropriation thing. But I actually

MaxI experience I experience secondhand embarrassment. That's why it upsets me is if someone's like, oh, I'm going on holiday I'm like, I'm like, fuck you. Fuck you for making me feel embarrassed Like I imagine if I let that slip how embarrassed I like how much listen, here's the thing Yeah, I watch a lot of British TV and I like great British Bake Off and I start and I in the back of my head in the little subroutine that starts forming sentences I will start to hear myself go like smashing and then I'll catch it before

it comes out of my mouth and I'll be like alert do not say that you will embarrass yourself but when I started but I'm very susceptible to this like when I hear people's talking a lot or if I hear an audiobook narrated by someone with a tick or for me it was when I started watching um uh what's the Japanese uh Terrace House when I started watching terrace house in japan when someone says something disagreeable so like if alex is like uh uh apple's

apple makes uh bad computers it would be very impolite i wouldn't be i wouldn't be like shut up you're an idiot you don't know what you're talking about that is not the japanese response what japanese people do is they take a beat alex give me say a bad opinion for me pandas are stupid

Alexand we should domesticate them.

MaxOh, that's good. You respond in the Japanese style. I get it. Or the other thing is if someone says something very – like if a girl will ask someone out on a date, they also take a long pause and they go, hmm, hmm. It's a thoughtfulness. It's the way that Japanese people – if you hand someone a business card, they'll look at it.

MerlinYou've got to hold it in the two hands by the corners, right? Isn't there a whole etiquette to that?

MaxYes. There's a whole business card ritual. You don't jam in your pocket and go, thanks, bro. Yeah. But the idea is that you want to – it's like whether someone says something – you do not want to let your emotions get a hold of you. You take a pause. You go, hmm. It's respectful. It demonstrates that you're considering their opinion or their offer, whether it's gracious or stupid or whatever. But I started doing that because I was watching so much fucking Aloha State. And you just go, hmm, hmm. And it's a great little tick to pick up because it gives you an extra beat to answer a question or not fly off the cuff if someone says something stupid.

But anyway, when someone does that with the British thing, it's like I recognize that impulse in myself to say like it's a bit – if someone shows me something and I want to go like, oh, it's a bit higgledy-piggledy. And it's like don't say that. That's embarrassing.

MerlinOkay. Listen, pop quiz hotshot. You guys got a second. We'll do a quick quiz here and find out where your line is. Are you ready? Yes. Okay. You need to take an elevator to get to the third floor. Your friend says, shall we take the lift? How do you feel about that? Only if I can eat my crisps, bitch.

Your friend happens to mention that they met this person when they were at university.

MaxThat's humiliating.

MerlinNo.

MaxI would want to. I already feel embarrassed. I feel embarrassed on their behalf.

MerlinOkay. From an American. You would not accommodate that.

MaxNo. Because it's a guy who wears like two polo shirts and he went to, you know, Penn State.

MerlinOkay. And somebody says, trying to make a decision, you say, oh, you think of that as an either stroke or situation. Excuse me? Stroke. Stroke. Stroke for slash. How do you feel about stroke? You having a laugh?

Speaker AYou having a laugh?

MerlinThat's good. Nice pull. Ah, I gotta type up your CV. Let's see. Okay. You broke your arm. you have to go to hospital?

AlexSo minus the article of the...

MaxI would assume that you also incurred some brain damage.

MerlinOkay. All right. We're almost done. In the accident. So you have to take a huge shit and you excuse yourself because you need to go to the loo.

AlexNo, no, no, no. You would just say I need to take a huge shit.

MaxUnacceptable to say the loo. I would assume that you're a huge fucking nerd who's into steampunk and you're probably in a poly relationship and you want to talk to me about it and you watch a lot of Doctor Who and that's why you say that you have to go to the loo. However, wait a minute. the british do have one other incredible bathroom vocabulary technology that is very good to me which for me which is they they do not say they're going to the loo to take a shit they say they're going to the loo to do a shit or alternately you could say uh governor i just did a huge shit that's very it's very funny it's very funny to me to say that you did a shit you go to the wc

Alexyou do a huge shit yes you know it's another good you don't take you don't take it you don't like Leave it. It's way funny. Leave it.

MaxWhen the cards got, we discovered that when we were writing UK edition Cards Against Humanity. And we did some joke about doing a shit. And there's a British advertising bear called Pudsy Bear. So we did a card that was doing a huge shit in Pudsy Bear's eye hole. And I don't think it made it into the game. But the phrase doing a shit is just so funny. Yeah, I just responded to you by saying.

Speaker AOi, mates, who did a shit in the shower?

MaxOkay, last one. Now we're just quoting our favorite. What's that guy, the director that you like? Shaun of the Dead.

Speaker ANow we're just quoting Shaun of the Dead.

MerlinHe got some red on you. Last one. You're closing up your email and you want to be friendly. You say, cheers.

AlexOh, I do that. I fucking hate that.

MaxI hate it so much. I think it's embarrassing and bad, but also I'm guilty of doing it.

AlexWell, it's your fault. When's it appropriate? It's cards. It's just in the lexicon.

MaxLet me ask you this. okay when i i have a very terse email style right if someone sends me an email and i can reply and just say no screenshot it and put it on twitter well that's a little bit different but if someone writes me an email that's not obnoxious or asking me to do something for free that where i want to publicly excoriate them uh i will just you know if i can reply back with four words like i'm sorry i can't make this work or or no or you know or this is great i love it like that's it that's it Like I don't need to, I feel, I understand that it is sort of the accepted convention among humans in our society that you write an email of like commensurate detail and length of the one that you received.

So if someone spent a long email writing to you and, but then you could just be like, I'm sorry, I just can't make this work. It's like you owe them like a whole thing. And I know that it's rude to do that, but I do it anyway. but then I sometimes I feel like if I put cheers at the end of it what I'm hoping to convey is although it might you might project on to me feelings of like anger or negativity because of how terse this email is I'm not mad I just know it's a terse this offset credit right a TOC I mean that's what you're you're trying to bank those TOCs but it's just like you're trying to

be like I'm not mad I just I just don't want to waste my time here can I give you a punctuation

Alexhack okay i have found that an exclamation point is worth about one paragraph of enthusiasm so if you're like thanks this is great exclamation point uh does it scale good is two exclamation

Merlinpoints worth two paragraphs i think so but not like at the end uh two exclamations i i first of all i totally agree with you alex i have i have bent to this convention because reasons it's true My only thing would be if you're going to go with the two exclamation points, I think you need to start with an oh my God or a holy shit. If somebody sends you something really cool, like they buy you a cool domain name, if you're going to go that ejaculatory and you want to get out fast, you've got to start with a holy shit or an oh my God.

MaxPeople always sound like they're yelling when they have an exclamation point to me, though.

Speaker AThank you. Oh my God.

MerlinThank you so much. I'm so excited to work with you. I just made a bear in my loo. Regards. Wow, thank you for this kind gesture.

Speaker AOh my God, I appreciate the kind words.

MerlinBest.

AlexNow I'm, now I'm, I'm very, when I use capital letters, I mean it. I'm very excited. I am indeed shouting in my head. And emoji. Like, LOL, I am literally chuckling to myself. I care very much about these conventions.

MerlinI think we can all agree people should just stop sending email.

AlexAnd text messages. What about no punctuation at all in text messages to just get out all nervousness of, like, everyone being like, oh, was it passive-aggressive? Oh, are they not excited?

MaxI can't remember. I've already forgotten the battle lines on the Rectifs, the great episode about text message etiquette. But Merlin, you were you're in a I can't remember. Were you a we all live in a society guy? Yes.

MerlinYes. No, but I'm on here.

MaxI'm actually on your side.

MerlinI actually think if it's us or it's Syracuse or it's somebody I know I can be an actual decent human being with. I type typographically and punctuationally correct English sentences, including like offset commas. A lot of the time.

MaxMy feeling on this is it's a pretty old man opinion. But my feeling on this is that there's like thousands of years of experimentation with language. And we've sort of settled on these conventions because they're easy to remember and they have specificity and great emotional range. And if it's available to you to type on your phone and use like real words and sentences that you should probably go ahead and take advantage of our entire canon of written communication. It's your legacy.

MerlinAnd so, I mean, like, I understand this notion that, like, if you're typing a lot, like, all day long, if you're like a typical young-ish person who's communicating a lot through photographs and short bursts of text, I understand that. And that's a convention. I understand that. But now, you know, recall, if you will, your son, Sue. You go and you look at Don Jr.'s email about the meeting, right, which is not punctuated correctly. And every time somebody reads it, they add the right punctuation to it to make it make sense.

And I think that's fucked up. I think you need to read that sentence as he wrote it. If he wanted to write that with correct punctuation, he would have, but he didn't. I think we need to hang that out for everyone to see. Media, please stop correcting the punctuation and grammar. If Donald Trump, if the current inhabitant of the White House says something on Twitter, don't fix it to make it make more sense. You have to read it exactly as he wrote it. And if it's all caps, you've got to say it in all caps because that's what he said. Are you with me on this? I love a good bracket sick.

MaxSick.

MerlinSad. The best is the parentheses. The parentheses, especially when he's really feeling especially touchy, he'll have two sets of parentheticals. You know, the D's, which left very badly, and then go in, and important for Tax Break, Cole, MAGA. So now with that out of the way, what was the challenge? Challenge. Okay, so this is one you guys have initially, I think, I forget who it was. It might have been Max, but we had this idea a long time ago. Alex?

AlexNothing. Sorry, go ahead.

MerlinSo anyway, Max had this idea that we should pick out what we consider a perfect album, or our perfect album. Now, as you're already seeing with my struggling with this, what we chose is probably not going to be nearly as interesting as how we chose it. But the idea was, by whatever criteria you define, A, pick what you consider a perfect album. B, be prepared to suffer the slings and arrows of your co-hosts because they're going to make fun of you for your terrible taste and tell you why it's not perfect. And that was the challenge. And so we each picked one late last week and sent it to each other.

And we've theoretically listened to them. And that's the challenge.

MaxAll right, Merlin, let's start with you. What was your album pick? We don't need to get into a whole thing. I think we should just set these up for people so that we can start the casual making fun of the albums as we move through our episode.

MerlinI thought you might want that. Yeah. I really struggled, and I really want to talk about the process, but I picked Libertine by Silkworm, the 1994 album from Silkworm. What did you guys pick?

MaxI picked Cloud Cult, my favorite band, and the first album of theirs that I got into, Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus, from 2005.

AlexI picked Celebration Rock by the Japan Droids.

MaxFrom? 2012. 2012. I think it was 2012. The reason I thought it was funny was we picked albums that were almost exactly a decade apart from each other, more or less commensurate with our ages.

MerlinOh, how funny. That didn't occur to me.

Maxas soon as Veronica and I listened to them and as soon as we were like looking at them she's like isn't this kind of funny that you all picked albums that are exactly 10 years apart from each other that's so that's so telling sort of are very emblematic of the music of your eight of your

Merlinmicro like yeah tranche well yeah it reminds me of uh the bit on mr. show um where the kids always want to play video golf and and David Bob and David break character Bob's like the old guy with the with the bald wig and he's like he's like you know we're from different generations i'm into star wars and you love that empire strikes back shit it's true there's these little micro climates around all these i'm sitting here looking at my list and uh which i shared with you and i'll share with our listeners 2003 2003 1997 yeah i

mean it's all 90s and 2000s except for some that are from the 70s i was listening just this morning

Maxwhile I was in the shower to you and Roderick talk about how your feeling of Generation X being like completely passed over in terms of a generation that has like holds like cultural and political power like it's going straight from the baby boomers to the millennials which is more or less like a numbers game I think but also like

Merlinwe just didn't accomplish much we didn't try we didn't try very hard

Maxwe didn't accomplish very much well there was there was the I mean I would refer you to the great Roderick essay Punk Rock is Bullshit oh boy real bomb burner I think he's still

Merlingetting emails about that.

MaxI love, I think it's great. I mean, I actually don't think it's much of a commentary on the music itself, but it's not, it's on the fans. Right. It's the, yeah, it's the culture. But any, anyhow, you know, I was listening to that and thinking like, man, do I, I really have to say like in that conversation, I identify much more strongly with the, with the Gen X folks than the millennial folks. And my age group of people who are like 30 right now, like I technically am a millennial according to the, you know, whatever the bracket of the generation is. If you go look it up on Wikipedia, But I don't feel like a millennial.

I feel like I have way more in common with people who are 20 years older than me than people who are five years younger than me.

MerlinThat's so interesting because I'm just on, depending on how you measure it, and sometimes it's real hairy how people decide this, but I am technically, I could go either way. I'm technically at the tail end of the baby boom, but I am pretty well and truly at the beginning of Generation X.

MaxOh, you're a Gen X?

MerlinLike the music you like, your friends and your interests? Some people, I think this is dumb personally, but I've seen some people say the baby boom goes from, what, 1945 to like 1963 or something like that, which I think seems kind of crazy. But that's a more cultural view of it rather than a strictly like, well, everybody came home and, you know, made bears in their loo and kids came out.

MaxYou have to have a conscious memory of the 60s to be a baby boomer. You can't have been one year old. That's true. In the 60s and been like, I relate to the baby boomer generation. Like, relate to what? Like, you weren't alive for it. But I think, I mean, to me, I think that one of the big fault lines between the generations right now is like technology and like how they understand technology and identity and technology as a tool in their life and what its pros and cons are and all of that. And like I was part of, I did not grow up with the internet as a young kid. I was in middle school by the time we got internet in the house.

So, and that was like through, you know, AOL and IRC and, you know, these way more like, I don't know, like what was it? But like, well, we've talked about my like materialist theory of internet access. Like back then you had to be like both smart and be able to afford a computer in order to talk online.

MerlinAnd very importantly, and this is not a slam, it's just an observation. It was, I mean, first of all, you've got the fact that most of the servers were at universities or were corporate in the case of AOL with the walled garden. But it was a very text-based environment. We came up, you and I both, sounds like you were very young when you got it. I was in my 20s. but I got on in 93 with a telnet account and it was all just pure text I mean if you could download a photo kind of like from a gopher site but it was an entirely text-based medium with a fairly rich uh culture of etiquette around it and like what's appropriate bbs is I came to

bbs before the internet and like there's this shit you do not do on a bbs or you're gone that day so I mean those those are those are a couple differences and now today I just get the feeling It's a very, you know, it's a graphical environment. It's all about the images.

MaxWell, and I mean, I think that's totally true. But also, like, I think kids have a whole different conception of ideas about privacy and performance and identity. And I don't, I mean, I don't, the less we say about this, the better probably. But it's obviously something that's like the idea that there's a generation of kids where their, like, main place that they go is Snapchat. That's like their home is crazy. It makes no sense to me. How do you self-identify, Alex?

AlexI don't know. I just realized now, as you guys were talking about this, I don't remember a time without the Internet. I remember a time when I wasn't allowed to use the Internet because it was this like big, scary place. But, you know, I had the alias Horse Gal 7. I don't even particularly like horses. It was just you have to destroy them. Yeah. No.

It's just the torso.

MerlinBut, you know, that's why the phrase before millennials, before they came along, the phrase we were using was digital native. Right. So which is this really dorky wired kind of phrase. But it is sensible in that sense that, OK, what's the first when is the first year somebody was born that the Internet and connectivity and something like always on connectivity was not a novelty, but was just as familiar as like the phone was to my generation. Right. That I think that's that kind of.

AlexYeah, I mean, my big thing was, like, having an iPhone was obviously the big shift.

MaxAlex, did you ever come home from school and talk to your friends on the phone for over an hour?

AlexYes. Oh, I don't.

MaxDid you ever talk on the phone so long that it became an, that the amount that the coiled cord got tangled around your body became, like, an issue? And your ear got raw and red?

AlexI don't ever recall having a wired phone. Oh, it would get so wet.

MaxIt would get so wet in there. Really wet and red, like a rashy taint.

MerlinYeah, that's your ear after talking to a friend.

MaxI still remember Ben Hantutz and Josh Dillon's numbers from when I got home from school so we could call and talk about video games that we could play someday. Jeez. That we didn't own, but we would call and talk about what units we would build and how we would strategize. And we didn't have the games, but we would discuss what they might be.

AlexI think this was actually more of an issue of me not having friends, really. I would have probably done that in middle school if it was an option. But being Horse Gal 7 was easier. Horse Gal 7? Horse Gal 7. Really? Well, because girls like horses. They're so majestic.

Speaker AAnd I want to be friends with those people.

MaxIt's a special bond. You can never understand it.

Merlin, you went trick-or-treating last night? Mm-hmm. I saw someone was dressed as the giant inflatable minion costume. Oh, dug-a, dug-a, dug-a. So you saw a photo.

MerlinI put a picture of my kid on the internet, which you're not supposed to do. But it's a picture of my kid. We're getting ready to get on the train. My daughter is the warrior princess with a sword. And my wife was like, you know what? Fuck it. I'm going to wear the minion costume. I was like, you're so not going to wear the minion costume. She's like, oh, no, I'm going to wear the minion costume. So my wife who had not. It's so cool. She's the only one in the house that had not worn the minion costume. We're getting ready to leave. We're running late. And she's standing there on our front steps, like taking off her shoes and committing to the minion costume for the first time. She rode public transit that way.

AlexOh.

MerlinShe kept it on until it was not tenable anymore because it took us 20 minutes to move about 30 feet because every she got pictures and hugs. And she was real game. My wife's really, really sweet. She's a very nice person. and she loves kids, and we could not move. There was a line of hulks waiting to be photographed with the minion, and they all came up and were like, Bido, Bido, Bido. It was incredibly cute. So yeah, she totally committed, and she came out, and she was sweaty.

MaxWow, so I guess you could say I really saved Halloween, huh?

MerlinOh, it was the best Halloween ever. Thank you, Max. Wow, wow. Who would have thought? She was mistaken for a boy named Brandon several times, because apparently Brandon was dressed up like that too, so there could have been a wacky mix-up-your-suitcase type situation. But, you know, no, I'm just glad she didn't get sucker punched or anything. It feels like it was a success. I didn't see any Donald Trumps.

MaxOh, yeah. You got to play the knockout game. I didn't see any Donald. I didn't see any Trumps either. I saw no Donald Trumps. So last year was our, we just moved into the house. And if you remember, oh, no, my optical cable. And it was our first Halloween where we got, potentially could get trick-or-treaters. because I always lived in apartment buildings before being a homeowner. But we have a weird door on the side of the house, and no one came to our house because they didn't understand that there was candy to be had.

And I went to Costco. This was last year. I went to Costco, and I bought 20 boxes of candy to give out, and we wound up with 19 boxes of candy at the end of it. And there were tons of kids that just weren't coming to our house. So this year we got cool, colorful lights and put them in the windows, Did I see full-size bars in your collection? Oh, let me tell you. I did this last year, too, but I went fucking balls out with the Halloween candy. Full-size bars, and I got extra boxes of the Kit Kats and the Reese's cups, which are for sure the best candies.

But we went to Costco this year. So this year we decorated the house. I put a little Bluetooth speaker playing the Harry Potter soundtrack outside the house. I made these little cool paper bag lanterns with funny faces on them outside the house. I love this side of you. I never would have guessed this. It looked very inviting and enticing so that the children would come to my house. When we were at Costco, I was like, how many boxes of candy do you think we should get? Like 20 boxes, 30 boxes? And Veronica was like, how about six?

And I was like, how about seven? And she was like, okay, seven. Oh, and then we also got additional boxes. So we had we wound up with eight because we added supplemental bars to the to the mix to the mixed boxes that we got. Those were gone by 630 p.m. And we had to put a sign on the door that said, yes, so we gave out something like 500 pieces of candy in about 90 minutes. And then I had to put a sign on the door saying, no more candy.

MerlinSo you saw a lot of you got a good cross section of kids in costume.

MaxHoly shit. So we got a lot of adorable kids. I saw a lot of homemade costumes, especially with, you know, honestly, the younger the kid, the better the costume because they have less. They're less embarrassed. Right. So they can be cute and clever. And then once they get older, they kind of want to be a franchise because I think because there's safety in that of like, well, I can't be made fun of if I'm Iron Man. Does that track? Yeah. Yeah, it does.

MerlinWell, I mean, there's a funny, there's one of the costumes going around on Twitter that's very cute, but it's a baby, a legit baby dressed as Wayne from Wayne's World. And what looks to me like probably an Irish wolfhound with glasses that looks exactly like Garth, which is absolutely hilarious until you pause to go, neither one of those creatures understands what they're supposed to be. So there's that one period where you dress your baby like, we dressed our baby like a tomato, and it was super cute. She didn't know what a fucking tomato was. Then they get to a certain age. But then on the other end of that, you're right. You get to the Iron Man phase where you're like, well, I've got to be like a sexy cheerleader or whatever.

MaxThe sweet spot is like a six-year-old who was dressed as just like a truck made out of a cardboard box.

MerlinYeah, Ellie's friend in second grade is just like, I just want to be an Egyptian queen. I love everything about Egypt. Her little friend who's part of you went to over the weekend. Like she just wants to look like a cool Egyptian queen. Or like it could just be – you'll still see a cowboy sometimes. You'll just see – or a soldier.

MaxYou have to be 30 again before you have enough self-esteem to wear an actual cool costume. Right. It's true. But then there was also, so those were kind of the spectrum of the children. And then there were also a lot of teenagers who were very vaguely, very threatening to me. And I was very scared of them. And usually they would just wear one piece of a costume. so they just have like a cloak or like a mask or like a fake, like a hand or something.

You know, it's just like, here's one item that I bought that allows me to do the trick-or-treating. And they would always roll up on the house and they'd be like, trick-or-treat. And, you know, someone would be on their phone. And they would always recognize the value of the full-size candy bars. And they would go, can we have more than one? And I just desperately don't want to be made fun of by teenagers. I was just like please don't laugh at me just take anything you want come in the house do you want a television teens are very threatening

Merlinthey're not afraid of death they don't know what they're doing they're confused and angry

Maxthey're not afraid to die they just don't know it's even an option they have no middle brain they won't have a middle brain for 10 years so the teenagers will come up and cry more than one and I'll be like sure and I'd be like, sure, I'm cool. Take as many as you want. But I'm sweating because I know that we are getting down on the boxes. And then they'd come back. They'd start leaving and one of them would turn back and go, let me grab a few more. And they'd be like, huh, okay. And, you know, I'd hold the bowl out for them. And they'd take some. And eventually, Alex, Bobby was over.

And Bob, I'm not good at this. Like the kids come over and I'm always like a little bit late to the door and they're always a little bit. Then they get a little sketched out because they're like, if you don't open the door immediately, it's a little bit weird of like, are they home or were they in the shower? like what's going on here but it's always like a minute late to the door and i'd always get there and i'd be like uh happy halloween and give some candy out bobby took over for me on candy duty and holy shit he would fucking fling that door open he'd go happy halloween he'd get down on his knees with the bowl and give the kids the candy and the teenagers would come and they'd be like can i have

more than one he'd be like well then there won't be enough for anyone else sorry it's a power move he's he's owning that situation he was so good at it i envy that he was so cool you know with kids in a way that I am totally not.

AlexWhat is the acceptable age to stop trick-or-treating?

MaxTo stop trick-or-treating? At what age should you stop trick-or-treating? Or do you mean the acceptable age of how old can you go? Yeah.

AlexI mean, well, no. I think...

MerlinSo if a single... Okay, let's take an extreme example. If a baby came to your door, it would seem strange by himself, his or herself. If a 35-year-old man with a little bit of blood on his cheek showed up, that's probably a bridge too far. So you're thinking like 11 or 12, that seems fine, right? 13, 14, maybe. Like you're asking like what is the age where like even if you're in a group of your idiot friends, you probably shouldn't be trick-or-treating in costume. Is that the question?

AlexI'm asking what is like a graceful age to retire from your trick-or-treating career. 14.

MaxSo I went trick-or-treating. I think that's about right. I mean I remember going trick-or-treating in seventh or eighth grade with my middle school friends with the nerds. And we were too old. It felt wrong. At 13 going to I mean, I was already bar mitzvahed as a man And it felt wrong going to people's house and ringing the bell and getting free fun sized, you know candy and stuff It just was it just was like this is wrong And you could also you look around and you were the oldest people out and you're like this isn't

MerlinJust as an asterisk like if you're accompanying like little kids and you're in costume I say more power to you if you're 17 or 18

MaxThere were fucking 40-year-old men taking candy out of my bowl, but they had a child with them. And it was a tough one.

MerlinI just don't want to impress them a little bit. I checked our door cam while we were gone. We had absolutely zero trick-or-treaters, even though it was a big bowl we left outside. I gave out exactly two pieces of candy, and they were both the delivery men. I gave a candy to my Amazon guy. I gave a candy to my DoorDash guy, and that was it. How is that possible? I don't want to compromise your operational security, Marlon. Well, I mentioned this on the Back to Work program, but I think there's been a – it's probably different where you are. But, well, here's the thing is there are destination neighborhoods. There are some neighborhoods that are especially game that become well known as like, OK, lots of people like do a haunted house or do up there.

You know what I mean? I live in I live in such a neighborhood. OK, so that I think that's the trend. You either go to the mall, you go to a retail area or you go to like where the good stuff is, like a Bob's Burger type situation. And, you know, Max Tempkin is going to have some full size bars and wants to impress a youth. So, you know.

MaxOh, shit. Someone came up to the door. and as they were leaving, and we got a lot, the kids fucking lost their minds for the full-size candy bar. Listen, people, you have no idea the joy. I mean, people would literally, someone literally said, God bless you to me when they looked in the ball. And people, they would scream. The children would scream. They'd go, ah! They'd look in the ball. They could not contain themselves. They were so excited. But the other thing was, there was a fucking, some people were about, I gave the kids the candy. They were leaving and then one of the grown-ups says

as they're walking away, they go, oh was there was no cards against humanity for the adults and i was like and i was like oh i'm not comfortable with that i don't like that one bit oh wait so they knew that you live did did

Alexthey just how do they know it's you that's a great question i don't know that should be really nice

Merlinbut it's so creepy i know oh geez oh well weird you know what you're right i mean I sent you a photo of what we got. We got a bunch of little bars that our household likes knowing that we're hardly going to have any kids. Let me zoom in.

MaxLet me get the little privacy clown activated.

MerlinI can see an arid pubic hair on your bra.

MaxMerlin, you got to be careful. Some of those could be weed candies. Are you looking out for the... Because I heard that... Edibles. I heard they're giving edibles to kids. That's what I heard. They're giving the edibles out to the kids. Razors in the edibles. I'm scrolling up. Where's this picture? Is it the three little bags of candy?

MerlinYeah. But understand, Max, we had zero trick-or-treaters. We know that in the most extreme case, we will get 10 trick-or-treaters, maybe.

MaxWait a minute. It can't be safe to eat glow-in-the-dark M&Ms. What is that? Ooh. Yeah, glow-in-the-dark. How do they get them to glow-in-the-dark? Well, I mean, you know, motivation.

MerlinI think it's the package that's glow-in-the-dark. Oh, it's not the candy.

MaxOh, that's bullshit.

Speaker ACome on.

MaxI thought they were like a depleted uranium M&M or something like that.

AlexDo you guys know how Pop Rocks works? No. Is that something Verona could explain to me? Yeah.

MaxI'm very motivated. What is it? Yeah, it's a good question, actually. Let's learn about Pop Rocks. Uh-oh. And there goes the program. No, just for my own notification.

AlexI'm sorry, guys. My brain is still in the movie It. Like, I'm real off today. You're kidding. You went to see that?

MaxDid you just watch It?

AlexYeah. Too scary for me. I saw the... I couldn't make it through the trailer.

MaxYou didn't do trick-or-treating? You didn't get anyone at your Blue Lives Matter house?

AlexWell, we left. Here's what happened. We just left out a bowl of candy on our stoop.

MaxOf American flags that say thank you for your service?

AlexJust on, like, because it's, I essentially live in what, oh, here's a question. Can I say a three flat? Is that something that an American says?

MaxI don't know. You know, I don't know what that means. I'm never sure what, what does it mean when someone says a three flat or a row? I don't exactly know what those mean.

MerlinI've got around with John Syracuse on this. He refuses to believe that flat is a thing. A flat is when an apartment is in a building of units that are all roughly the same size on different floors. A flat is when you have a floor of a building for your occupancy.

AlexYes. That's how my building works.

MaxIt's like how – it's like you don't – but no one says that. They say we have the whole floor. We have the whole floor.

AlexThat's all people say here. But you've seen my building. It's relatively like skinny. and so each person like has a floor but it's essentially an apartment building but it's not a duplex. There's just three floors.

MaxWhat's a duplex? Those are the blocks with the...

AlexNo, that's just like two apartments. You're talking about little kid Legos?

MerlinNo, a duplex is when you have two units that are next to each other in the same building.

AlexWait, really?

MerlinI think that's when you grab someone's neck

Maxand you flip them over and then you sort of slam them into the ground.

MerlinOh, right, like a, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, there was a guy in Florida that used to pronounce that souple. Or souple.

AlexSuple. Oh, actually, it's a 2003 comedy film directed by Danny DeVito starring Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore.

MaxWe all remember that movie. So you saw It and you're feeling off. You had no engagement with trick-or-treating.

AlexI just left a bowl out.

MaxYou were home and you left a bowl out?

AlexNo, I was not home. I was seeing a very scary adult movie and it was really upsetting.

MerlinYou saw It on Halloween? What is wrong with you?

AlexWell, I was downtown anyway and I don't know. it was it was quite fun um but yeah it's just left a bowl out and my neighborhood is like it's weird because half of the neighborhood is like uh buildings like mine where that if you ring the doorbell you have to like go downstairs to get the person and the other half is a gated community so most of the kids i think just stay in the gated community and get all the rich people big like not just regular size candy bars like the king size reese's cups uh and so i don't know who

I have a feeling Blue Lives Matter guy probably just passed by our door and was like, oh, okay. But yeah, I was.

MerlinWaited to dress down kids dressed as cops. You're stealing valor.

MaxAll right. Do we have any other important Halloween business? Because we got to keep this thing moving.

MerlinCan we, just as a little bit of front matter, do you guys know who bought us that wonderful domain name? Because we should thank them.

MaxOh, right. That's right. So where do I even start with this? So as you know, Merlin, the jail is where we keep all the criminals.

Speaker ALet me look up.

MaxI'm so thrilled right now. As you know. Hang on. I want to look up some good As You Know Bob dialogue.

MerlinOh, I see.

MaxI was going to do an As You Know Bob, but then I couldn't think of any. Let's see. We're going to have to wait 20 minutes to recharge the photon torpedo. Yeah. Go to TV Tropes. I'm on TV Tropes right now. I'm looking for a good one. Steve, Steve Jobs, as you know, we have already received all the Time magazines.

MerlinSteve, as you know, the exit signs have to be lit up. Steve, as you know, you're Steve Jobs. I am from a country.

AlexHe made an iPod for his daughter so she'd love him again.

MerlinOh, my God, that's so sweet. Oh, my God. He's so misunderstood.

MaxOh my god It's not a good movie it's a very very bad movie Dear God Obi-Wan Qui-Gon Jinn would never join you Count Dooku don't be so sure You forget he was once my apprentice Just as you were once his But from my point of view The Jedi are evil Alright anyway Merlin as you know We discuss We have a super secret channel Our after show that people can subscribe to to find out what the upcoming channel is.

So, for example, if people wanted to know that we were choosing our sort of favorite albums that we wanted to have ridiculed, they could know that in advance and play along with us. And they do that by giving us their fucking money. It's $5 a month. You get access to a whole other episode of the podcast every single week. And that is at giveusyourfuckingmoney.com. Thank you to whoever bought that for us. Do you know Alex?

AlexI do, but I don't know. I don't have their Twitter handle. I only have their real name in an email. So I don't want to say it.

MaxCan you say their first name?

AlexListener Lata. Thanks, Lata. Thank you, Lata. I realized that in all caps, I said, this is amazing. Thank you, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. This is amazing! But I really was like, oh my God, this is so cool. However, I did invoke the three exclamation point three paragraph rule because they did not send like an overly wordy email, just had a lot of information. So I wanted to convey that I was excited and cared about their email.

MerlinI would also like to thank listener Merlin for purchasing. Why are there helicopters over my house? Dot com. Oh, right. But I, but I don't, but it doesn't work for me. It goes to, it goes to the back on our bullshit episode, which is probably our best episode. You think so? Nah. I think it's no you all lesbian moment. I don't, I don't even know. I, I, I already, the minute I told you what I thought was a perfect album, I already regretted it. I already thought there's already two Silkworm albums. I like better, let alone this is not a perfect album. I should not be allowed to pick things. That's what I think.

I don't think I should be allowed to decide what's good.

AlexI think people would enjoy our very second episode, A Reasonable Monster, in which we talk about, oh no, never mind. I thought we talked about just Steve Jobs' movie, but we talked about Steve Jobs' The Lost Interview, and Max just happened to be gone that week.

MaxAll right, here's the situation, guys. Now, you guys both got your iPhones.

AlexNo. I mean, I will have it on Friday.

MaxNobody has an iPhone, but I'm saying you've got your preorder.

AlexWell, some YouTube youths do, but yes.

MaxRight. And Merlin, you're waiting to see. You're going to sit back and wait. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Here's the situation. I went to sleep and did not wake up to do the preorder. So I got up first thing in the morning. My head comes off the pillow, and I was like, uh-oh, I fucked up. I did not order my iPhone last night. So I immediately went on the app where I had already like, you know how you can go on the Apple store app and you can like prime the pump. You can like have the order like ready to go.

And I immediately woke up and I was just like, just like head off the pillow like, oh, fuck. Got open the app, went in, did my order. I was out in 10 seconds, you know, like I didn't even bother with the AT&T bullshit. I'm just going to buy the phone outright. And it ships in. I will be lucky to have it by Christmas.

AlexNo, you're going to have it mid-November.

MaxLet's see if I open up the deliveries app.

AlexAm I miscalculating how many weeks are in a month? Five weeks. Yeah, no, you'll definitely have it before Christmas.

MaxHang on just a second. I'm going and I'm scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Delivery. iPhone X, 256 GB, space gray, 47 days. What? Wow. 47 days. Delivered December 18th. I am not waiting 48 days for this phone. So here's the deal. I'm going to get a boy. I got to get a boy. Get a boy. I'm going to get a boy to wait in line for me and buy the phone.

When does it become available? Friday. Friday. Friday. Friday. Friday. Friday. Get a boy. Get a boy. So, Merlin, if you want this phone, the 256 GB Space Gray, I'll send it to you when it gets in. Otherwise, I'll just return it.

MerlinHmm.

MaxUm, how do I get a boy? How do you get a boy? I think this is, I think this is very on brand for Dubai Friday to get a line boy to help get the phone. I totally agree.

AlexFor people who aren't subscribed to the after show, even though they should be, can we give a little bit of context for the boy?

MaxYeah. What context? What do you want me to say? I want to pay someone to wait in line for me so I don't have to wake up at three in the morning and go to the Apple store.

AlexWell, people don't know that that is a thing you can do.

MaxOh yeah. It's a, it's a shitty thing that people do all the time.

Alexuh i i sent you a variety did i send you a variety of boys no you did not although we were talking

Merlinabout a very handsome boy you found a handsome boy who says he's good at waiting in line when

Maxwe were discussing this the other day alex you said to my uh assistant renee you were like oh you could just send renee to go wait in line and renee was like no thank you no thanks she well

Alexyou both replied with oh uh she's an administrative assistant not a uh renee's not like i would have

Maxrolled over like okay renee doesn't like like pick up my dry cleaning for me boy this matthew looks like a handsome guy that he's been and then in our slack casey list was like i would go wait

Merlinin line for you and i thought about it was that a goof it sounded like he really wanted to

Maxparticipate you know the other thing i thought about was maybe casey in that moment was like this could be funny but then i was sort of like i bet he's not actually sort of projecting forward until like waking up at three in the morning in the cold and standing outside the store and having to make small talk with the weirdos.

AlexI saw a white Tesla. It was pretty great. Anyway, I... Well, here's what I'm nervous about for you, Max.

MaxWhat are you, a six-year-old boy? You're telling me a story about a car that you saw? What kind of a story is that, Alex?

AlexNo, that's not... The story is done. I said I saw a car and I liked it.

Speaker AIt was nice. I saw a dump truck. OMG! Oh, my God! Thank you for your kind words!

AlexAt WWDC, I saw a Tesla Model 3 and I texted like everybody I knew.

MaxYou're still telling me the story. What is this? You're making it worse. You're making it worse. You're making it worse. This is like when I meet, it's like when I see Sandy's kids or whatever and I'm like, what's new? What's new dude? And he's like, I saw a dump truck. I'm like, that's not, I can't work with that.

MerlinThis is me and animals. This morning we were 10 minutes late getting to school but we still had to stop so I could take a photo of a cat.

Speaker AI was like, I got home, I showed my wife.

MerlinI was like, look at the cat we found. We thought it was upstairs. We heard it. And then we thought it was upstairs. And we looked down. And look at it. It's white. It's got a little black dot. And it wanted to come back in. And she's like, don't you have to go do anything right now?

MaxIs that the whole story? And the car had wheels.

Speaker AI think it had electrics.

MaxIt's a very Ralph Wiggum story. to be like, I saw a car and the car turned around and looked at me.

Speaker AI bit my working.

AlexDig Dug. Max, I'm worried about what time, like how do you assign your boy to have a,

MaxSo I don't know how this works. So I know that people do this on TaskRabbit. I am logged into TaskRabbit. I've never done a TaskRabbit. I have no idea how any of this works. Matthew self-identifies as a line boy. Where are you seeing line? What do I actually type in? Scroll up. Don't go all the way up to Richard Speck.

MerlinBut you can go up and see Matthew in the thread.

MaxI really don't want to get into that. Can I ask you some questions about that? Okay, Alex, where are you seeing? God, I don't understand this. It wants me to put an address in?

AlexYeah. So you would put in.

MaxShould I do the Lincoln Park or the Michigan Avenue Apple Store? You should do Lincoln Park. Why? Because Michigan Avenue will get more phones.

AlexMichigan Avenue also already has a line of people sleeping on the streets.

MaxWait. Let me ask you this, Alex. Why don't I have them go out to Highland Park? Oh, interesting. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Or what's the other one in the mall? Woodfield?

AlexOak Brook has one. Woodfield has one. Naperville has one.

MaxWhat about the Oak Brook Apple Store? because like what do they give if they're already wasting their whole day getting this phone for me why don't they what's what do they care if they drive it up to me in chicago that's actually

Alexyeah that i've gotten almost every phone from the oakbrook apple store i've gone to oakbrook too

Maxthat's when i got my apple pencil i call i was like on a whim i just called the oakbrook store and i was like do you guys have an apple i was like do you guys have an apple pencil and they were like oh yeah come on in and i was like really you have you just have them yeah because

Alexonly uh i guess that was the whole story that was the whole story i got a pencil

MerlinMatthew has 99% positive reviews out of 355 in the section called How I Can Help. He says, I am great at standing in line. We'll give updates as the line progresses to keep you updated on the situation. I want that guy. Where do you see him? He's a task rabbit. Is that what he is? Where'd you find this boy, Alex?

AlexI think, okay, so if you go on the website and it says need something different, you just type line and wait in line pops up.

MaxSo the Apple, so hang on. So the, okay, so the Apple store is going to be 70 Oak Brook Center in Oak Brook, Illinois. Compromising their OPSEC here. Unit or a part. Okay. 70 Oak Brook Center. Should I get two boys to wait in two lines?

AlexI think so. I do. That was what I was going to suggest.

MaxHow much is it? $60 an hour.

AlexNo, that was the most expensive boy I could find.

MaxSo it caps at 60. Hang on. Let me open up Salver. I need to do a little Salver math here.

MerlinYou say Salver, I say Solver.

MaxStop. That's embarrassing me. Solver. Don't say it like that. Solver. Solver. I've got some. So it took me lift. It took me lift up. It's hard to talk. What time do you get in line for a phone?

AlexI would say for this one, 4 a.m.

Max4 a.m. Okay, so six hours times $60 an hour is, what's wrong here? Oh, I see. $360. I mean, that's a lot of money, but not objectively. It's for the show. Do it for the show. Well, oh, can I expense it to the Patreon budget? It's becoming apparent to me that I need to start getting more recoupable costs on this show. Yes, you can. Yeah, yeah. You can expense the pizzas. Oh, okay. Yeah, for sure. You certainly can expense the pizzas. All righty. I'm not going to expense this. But here's the thing.

It's like I would never do this for $360. But so it seems like a good value of like buying someone's labor, but it still feels ridiculous to spend that much money.

AlexWell, I'm trying to think about how much an hour, like theoretically how much you would be paid an hour. And if you think of it like that, it's definitely a good – pretend that your phone is broken and that you need it and trick yourself into thinking that this is a very good idea.

MaxJust commit. You've got to commit. So tell us what you need done plus any requirements or questions you may have. You can edit this later. Wait in line for an iPhone X at the Oak Brook Apple Store. Ideally, I would like a 256 GB space gray phone, but really, I would take any model.

I don't, I mean, what's the smallest one is what, 128?

AlexNo, like 32. No, they're not doing a fucking 32.

MaxNo, they're not. Hold on, what's a 64?

Merlin64. 64.

MaxOkay. I can't work. I can't work with a 64 gigabyte phone. Okay. All right. So I really would need a, what are the different options?

AlexUh, space gray or silver.

MaxYeah. But with the GBs, I don't really care what color it is.

AlexTheir space gray clearly looks better, but 256 GBs. It's too shiny.

MerlinYeah. I got, that's my series three is a, is, is my first shiny I've bought in a long time.

AlexOkay. Ooh.

MerlinI'm just trying to understand where are the, is it grippy?

AlexOh, I haven't touched it.

MerlinThat's the problem. I think if it's space gray, I mean, it's not going to be like the piano black. Isn't it going to be kind of slightly soapy iPhone 6 feel?

AlexOh, God. Well, they both have the same glass back. Oh, my God.

MaxThe only size options are 64 gigabytes or 256.

MerlinYes, that is right.

MaxThere's no other. There's nothing in between. That's correct. Yes. So it's a phone with not enough memory to really do what you need or a phone with way too much memory that you're paying an insane margin on. That's right.

AlexThe youths are going to get the rich youths are going to get the 64 and all the nerds are going to get the 256.

MaxOh, my God. Okay. So I don't have any flexibility on the size. It has to be the 256. Okay. So I'm going to tell the tax grab it. So I'm going to say I need a 256 GB model, but either color is fine if the space gray is sold out.

AlexMerlin, he's getting the girl phone. 256.

MaxWhat, the silver?

AlexIt's so shiny.

Speaker AIt's not white.

MerlinI mean, it's not embarrassing.

MaxI love those white iPhones. I thought they were beautiful.

Speaker AThat's problematic.

MaxThat is really problematic. I'm very confident in my masculinity and I can hold a white phone.

MerlinYou really shouldn't be.

MaxAs long as I don't run into any teenagers who might laugh at me, I love a white phone.

MerlinA white phone.

MaxDo they make it for men?

Speaker A$100,000 on a girl phone.

MerlinDo they make it for men?

MaxDon't laugh at me.

Speaker AYou're making it worse.

MaxI really... It's upsetting.

AlexOh, Max did not want the, if you remember, I gave you both the hair removal cream called NADS.

MaxI got rid of, I'm not going to put that on my balls. I'm not going to put that anywhere in my body, to be quite honest.

AlexI used it on some parts of my body. It was wise to not use it.

MaxTask date, hang on now, task date and time. I need Friday, November 3rd. Oh, you can't even get someone before 8 a.m.

AlexI think if you message them, you like I've used we use TaskRabbit a lot when we were like setting up the office and we needed people to go pick up like big TVs because we had no cars to do so. And they basically were like they called and were like, OK, what would you actually need?

MaxSo I could get Kevin and he says how I can help. I'm really patient. I have no problem waiting in line. And he has one completed waiting in line task.

AlexOh, wow. One? The boys I were looking at had like hundreds.

MaxAll the good boys are probably gone.

AlexI think all the good boys are in Chicago.

MaxOh, I see. They're sorted by... I could get Demetrius, and he's done five with 100% positive reviews, and he says, I don't get tired.

AlexCan you look specifically... Search specifically for iPhones?

MaxThese are cheaper than $60 an hour, by the way. These are $20 an hour.

AlexOh, these are the suburb boys.

MaxYour boy Alex's boy had a really good haircut. Should I change the thing to the Lincoln Park store?

AlexI think you'll have better luck there.

MaxOkay, fine. You think I'm going to get a higher caliber of boy?

AlexI think you're going to get a higher caliber of boy. A city boy. I don't want a country boy.

MerlinAlex's boy has completed 465 tasks. Alex, yesterday.

MaxWouldn't it be great if all the Cards Against Humanity people had that on their bio?

Speaker AHow many tasks they've completed at Cards Against Humanity?

MerlinAlex just for what it's worth yesterday on Dan's back to work program I used NADS live on air whoa no and it smelled like a fish's ass my bathroom still smells like it

Alexit smells so so bad it's it's it's like the the Seinfeld car smell I it just followed me

Merlinit is like but like it no here's the thing when I say a fish's ass I know a fish doesn't have an ass just telling you it smells like a fish saying it smells like a fish does not give you a sense of how much butt it has in it and when i say it smells like butt you're not really fully getting how much fish is in it i put about a nickel sized amount on my forearm and i had to stop the program and go wash myself it was so nasty an entire leg merlin an entire leg let's see you you can opt

Alexout of that you don't have to do that i don't know you don't have to do that just go natural man Just go let it all hang out, man. Oh, no, no. You can comb it. I guess you've never had this experience, but if you have shaved your legs and then you let it grow, you can feel it, like, in your pants. And it's very uncomfortable. That's a myth. No, it is not. It is not. There have been, there are, it is, wait, really? Really? I'm so upset. No, well, also, I have the girl, the, like, not the skinny jeans, but the ones that have to, you know, touch your calves.

Oh, the peg legs.

MaxHow's it going, Max? Did you find a boy? I'm going with Demetrius. He's the most experienced line waiter. He's waited in four lines, and he has 100% positive reviews. Now, my concern is that I cannot make this task start earlier than 8 a.m., and that is definitely not early enough to get an iPhone X.

MerlinI have an idea. Go on. Can I tell you my idea? Please. Hire Demetrius to go and wait online as a test task. Have him go and buy you something you want or need from an Apple store showing up at 8 a.m. If it goes well, say, thank you, Demetrius. I would like to give you five stars and a full-size candy bar. And I would like to talk to you a little bit about what flexibility you got on start time. So if it goes well and you know Demetrius is as patient as he claims to be, you now have a boy. This is getting really expensive and time-consuming for me.

MaxThat's right. And I only have, I only have, I mean, we're recording this on Wednesday, I only have 48 hours.

AlexI say pull the trigger now This is I mean you have to be in the studio For at least another half hour Should I post it on Craigslist?

MaxNo That's what Nathan for you does Did either of you watch any of the Nathan for you videos That I sent you? Yeah I did I'm about to be so mad

AlexNo it was very good It's a little on the nose

MerlinBut the way he carries himself is very very funny Okay I watched the poop yogurt one

AlexI'm very worried that Instapaper is never going to be updated for the iPhone X. And I'm going to have to switch to that other one. This is what I think about my scary movies.

MerlinI know I will capitulate and I will adapt. And everything about this thing that looks stupid and annoying to me will eventually seem like common sense. But there's so much about this phone that really feels like, I don't know if I'm ready for that yet. I really like my button. I know. I know. As soon as I pick it up, it's going to be like, what? This is not a feature. This is just a thing now, doobity-boop-boop-boop. But like, ew.

I just, I don't know. I'm going to wait and see. I'm going to hang back.

MaxOkay. All right. I think I've hired my guy, and hopefully this is not a fiasco. I don't know, man. I feel very uncertain about this. Let me go back to Solver and just hang on. You've got to go earlier, dude. It's only going to cost me, it's going to cost me like $180.

AlexOffer, be like, hey, can you text me? And then be like, all right, here's the deal. I need you to get here at 4 a.m. And also, I will pay you in cash. Oh, shit. You will pay the extra hours in cash because you can't do it in the app.

MaxOh, shit, Alex.

AlexYeah. Tax-free line money.

MaxYes. Yes. This is very smart. Okay. Okay. All right. What do we do next? I already forgot what podcast this is.

AlexIs anyone still listening?

MaxOh, I'm very apprehensive about this whole procedure.

MerlinDo you guys want an update on what Tiff's eating?

MaxYes, please. Oh, I would love to know what Tiff's eating.

MerlinTiff's enjoying the program this week. She's having autonomous field green medley with bilateral heritage game fennel and pinewood smoked heart of mallow charcuterie. That's served over unbasted limoncello fontanelle en croute, penetrated with little pink sword picks, dusted with poppy blush reduction and sliced diagonally. She's having a light lunch.

MaxIt sounds more Hannibal Lecter every week you do it. That's the idea. I knew I was going to eat the salad a day before I ate it.

MerlinI've learned a great deal of my techniques from Tiff Harman. From watching her videos and the way that she makes such a lovely meal in costumes for her child, they admire me and enjoy talking to me.

MaxOh, I always know when I'm going to eat before I'm going to eat.

MerlinNow, what are you nervous about, Max? Are you nervous about your boy? Well... You've got to really get in there. Here's the thing.

MaxYou know, I always fuck this up, and I never have the phone, and everyone gets a phone. I just want to join in on the fun and have a phone on the... It's fun. I just don't...

MerlinYou got the phone mode. Here's the thing. You need to fucking commit to this. You need to set aside the idea that this is costly. Okay? You need to stop feeling bad about this. If you're going to buy this douche phone on the day it comes out, be prepared to pay for it and go all in. You need to get offline with Dimitri. You need to cross his fucking palm and you need to tell him, here's what I need from you because otherwise, it's going to be a costly... What is that a British thing? What does that mean? What just happened? What? What? What is that? What did you say?

AlexCross his palm?

MerlinYou need to give him some pounds sterling. You need to give him some shekels. You know what I'm saying? You need to get in the lift and pull the lorry. What is that? A couple quid? I think it's a tuppence a day. And so my only point being, Max, like this is the problem. This is like they say on The Good Place. That's the problem with human beings is that they will take something amazing and ruin it so they can have more of it. Don't do that. Don't be that guy. Don't be frozen yogurt guy here. Go all in with him and say, look, I'm going to make this worth your while. but like him being there at eight is not going to be necessarily a good thing you may be spending a

lot of money to not get a phone or i don't know i think you need to go well i will cancel the job

Maxif he can't get go early like i'm just so does that make sense so i've hired you want to call

Merlinhim or text him right now no i don't have a way to do that it'll it'll task rabbit will i bet you text rabbit given that their only value is as a finder i bet there is a severe admonishment to

Alexnot make offline deals with people i've done that so i think it's like well it was more of like hey

Merlincan you do this earlier and i'll give you that's what i do with my tv when i got my tv delivered i asked the people like hey like an idiot i'd said to my customer service person can i pay this person money to carry it up for me and they're like no that would require a separate bill of lading and make it up and then the guy shows up i'm like hey you take 40 bucks to carry my tv he's like shit dog yeah not made of fucking stone ticket ticket ticket ticket ticket we talked about the weather gave him some candy oh did that candy what about you miles davis oh boy can you just

Speaker Agive me a speck give me a speck of candy

Maxhere's an interesting thing about the music so my band that i chose cloud call was that band is nothing but hooks. It's just hooks in the sense of ways, things to be interested in every song. It's just a weird fucking band, and everything is weird and interesting, and it's this crazy circus of things vying for your attention, and you're just like, wait, what? And you just want to follow everything happening in the band.

It's even crazier if you ever see them live. I'll get into this whole thing. It's very economical.

MerlinIt's got huge hooks. They get in, they get out. They're lush, but economical. I really liked it.

MaxBut here's the thing with Silkworm. No hook. There was nothing there for me to grab onto. I was just listening to a sort of pavement-y sound, sort of post-rocky. I mean, I thought there was good songwriting.

You don't think Couldn't You Wait is a little hooky? I don't mean a hook in that the song didn't have a hook. I mean, a hook is not the right word to use because it has a music meaning.

MerlinThey're very angry and austere. They're very Steve Albini. Steve Albini has never been more appropriate for a band

MaxDoes Steve Albini produce this album? All their albums, yeah That makes a lot of sense to me So I just struggled Please keep in mind I haven't sat with this album I listened to it once

MerlinThis is problematic, you can't give somebody an album that requires 10 listenings I'm a busy guy You would not believe how I glossed over you guys You have no idea

AlexIt was 35 minutes 35 minutes.

MaxSo I'll say, like, I listened to the whole album of Liberty Team, but at the end I was left with, like, it kind of felt like one long song, and I was like, this feels, well, like, we talked about how much we love Slint, right? And Slint is an album that I think if you hear that for the first time, you're just like, there's just nothing here. It just sounds like glum, jangly guitar. But if you listen to it 10 times, it opens up in this really satisfying way. And I would imagine Silkworm is probably the same way.

MerlinSo many bands like that where just over time, the repetition, you start to feel these waves of like, for me, we'll get to this when we talk about our criteria. For me, sequencing is a big one. And the feeling that like each song mostly works as a song, but also that it's telling this bigger story. And this is why I had When I Pretend to Fall on my list, because I think that's a masterful sequence. That would be a very good album in another order. But the order the songs are in on When I Pretend to Fall makes it a classic album unimpeachably. and you can't pick that up on one listen right? I mean that's me and Kanye

we're like going and listening to these Kanye songs one at a time and I loved Monster for years. I like Lights, I like Lights, but listening to them in order, it's like it just blooms as this thing and you don't get that on the first three listens. Well I agree

MaxI guess I agree with you on the order but Kanye is an artist who the first time I heard Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy from the first ten seconds of the first song I was like I am in. Like this is just in my brain. It's got its little tendrils in my brain. But I mean to me one of the characteristics of a great album is the first time you hear it like immediately you turn you know that the thing flickers on and there's like something for you to grab onto and you're like I love this beat. I love this groove. There's something there that I can like sink my teeth into right away. And then

on the 20th listen you're like holy shit I get this in a new way that I didn't before. And Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy does that. I think Radiohead does that for a lot of their work. Like there's something there the first time but boy the dozens dozens time you listen to kid a you're like this is you know listening to your

Merlinalbum um max also um the comparison game is so dumb but i immediately thought of of montreal uh i don't know if you ever got them but like a similar kind of thing where the first the one

Maxwith the connected dots and i saw saw them live at pitchfork and with their fucking three ring

Merlinthree ring circus live show yeah yeah that's true of a lot of those of the elephant six bands but But like with Of Montreal in particular, you listen to it the first time, you're like, wow, these are really good pop songs. But then, especially the one, there's that one really, the really sad tomato one that's kind of about his breakup. It's just like you get to the middle part of that album when you're listening for the third time and it's crushing in a way that it wasn't on the first time. Because you've heard the progression, you know the story now, it actually becomes more moving. But at the same time, you hear like, you know, suffer for fashion and go like, this is an unimpeachably great pop song.

AlexI kind of it kind of felt like a not a rock opera. I don't know how to describe it. Like I don't I still don't know if I'd like this album.

MaxBut was this my was this happy hippopotamus? No, you're talking about Silquhorm.

MerlinYou are under no obligation to like this album. It's totally nobody likes this band like I like this band. And that's one reason I picked it.

MaxMerlin, here's the thing. Here's what I thought maybe you were doing. I thought maybe I was on to your little game here where you picked up where you picked one of these like shibboleth bands that music people like. where it's like, if you're cool, you pretend to like this band. And so I was like, maybe Merlin set us up. He's trying to cuck us. So we get on the podcast and we're like, this band was boring and sounded like, you know, 90s Steve Albini music. And it's one long song that, you know, there was no point of access for me into. But then we're going to sound like idiots because we're trashing. We're like, yeah, Nirvana, what is that?

They just start with the chorus, huh? What is that, their little gimmick? You know, but we sound like idiots to everyone in the outside world. so i asked i was playing video games with uh our friend uh paul saboren friend of the show paul saboren and i was like hey paul you know this band silkworm are they like uh are they a band that like cool music people know and he's like silk who yeah well okay here's so i don't think

Merlinit's that so i don't think it's that it's well okay but here's and this is why i think the criteria are more interesting the content because the criteria cannot even fully be articulated to me and i'll give you another example so i i was tempted i was tempted to pick an album by bad finger uh bad finger like the move and like a lot of like 60s pop bands they don't have like what i would consider a perfect album the move in particular are all about the singles their albums are good but they're they're all you know like like the who a lot of the bands in the mid 60s the power came out of their succession of incredible singles so i mean same thing with

bad finger so you know um baby blue you know you know all the classic bad finger songs but the thing is what you may not know unless you're a dork is what the band was going through at each of those stages. So sometimes in the same way that like, even it's like a Rocky story where like, no, Rocky didn't win, but he kind of won. And that's when you're listening to it and you know, this, this band, they put out an album and it did so shitty and it was so hard and it turned out like pretty good. And then it got worse and they put out an album after that. And that album was

even better under more horrible conditions. And there's this part of me that's like, I'm just, I'm pulling for these bands because I know just a little bit about their bio. Does not come through in the music. Impossible. And so in this case with Silkworm, this is a pivotal album for them because it's between like this, oh, we're these four dorks who don't wear shirts, you know, in Montana to like the guy who is kind of the star of the band leaves right after this album. And they become a three piece for the rest of their career. I can't articulate that in what goes into this, but I can feel the tension. I can feel the anger.

I can feel them yelling at each other with their instruments in a way that I find very moving. So, no, I mean, I was not trying to be like a hipster outsider. It's just that this is one of those bands that has a really special place for me. They got a lot of play when I lived in Tallahassee, and I became very familiar with them. Other guys in my band became friends with Tim and some of the guys in Silkworm. And I have this connection to them that that's part of what makes the criteria so slippery. because what we fought about that people don't see here, what we fought about is, look, what do we agree?

There's one we all agreed on. Nobody's allowed to pick In the Airplane Over the Sea. That would be so fucking lame because everybody agrees that's a really good album. So that's why, anyway, I don't mean to sound defensive. I meant more to say, like, I think the criteria for what you consider, it's like, you know, if everybody always, like you said, Max, if everybody always says Pet Sounds, like, we don't get anywhere. We don't get anywhere if we go, oh, yeah, here's this, oh, yeah, you know what, you should check out OK Computer. It's a really good album by Radiohead.

MaxI appreciate listening to this. This sounds like what it sounds like if I was 10 years older than I am now, I would have I would have heard this. I would have smoked a clove cigarette at the Black Cat in D.C. while I was waiting for Pavement to start their set.

MerlinYeah.

MaxAnd I would have I would have talked over this band.

MerlinI could see that. And that's probably how they felt, too. I mean, they had a lot of like there's nobody here tonight experiences. But, yeah, it's hard. It really gets to this deeper thing with me. I've said this to you guys before. One reason I feel like I'll sometimes be on the podcast The Incomparable, and that is pretty consistently what I know to be my worst performances on a podcast. Anytime I have to be in a group of people talking about media, because I am utterly ill. There's so many things I feel like I can talk about with some level of sanity.

MaxMerlin, when do you listen to this album in your life today? When is like, this is the time, this is the moment that I should listen to Libertine?

MerlinI don't listen to that much music day to day like I used to right now. But it would be something I would just put on repeat when I was writing or just doing stuff.

MaxSo you have a level of, like, I love when I get to that level of familiarity with an album where I can put it on and I don't even really process the lyrics in a way that interferes with my ability to write. for example because it's like it's almost everybody needs music like that where even if

Merlinit's some people can't write with lyrics on but yeah you're right i mean for me that's that's rem or the rends it's something where like this is so deep in my dna that like you know i i just i know

Maxit inside out and you and and then sometimes those albums for you the ones you really connect with they like cultivate like a kind of a mood in you that you can get with writing so like this is my you know like i definitely have my albums of like this is my like chill out albums and this is my like high energy albums if i'm trying to get a certain vibe in my writing i can put that on and it and and i'm not even sort of intellectually processing the music that's happening i'm just

Merlinsort of i'm just sort of slip into a mode really quickly because everybody i'm sure i hope you guys all have albums where you're like as soon as you hear so if i put on either or which has a very special place in my life uh and i hear doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom I am instantly transported to a very complicated time in my life. And it gives me very complicated feelings. I hope everybody has albums like that. It's not always a happy feeling. It's not always a good feeling. Some of the best albums, when you put them on, are like, oh, God, it's this ride. And by the end, you're so excited.

And he sings Say Yes. And it's a wonderful, happy ending for the first time to an Elliott Smith album. But you know what I'm saying? Everybody's got those albums where you put it on. You're instantly, emotionally transported in a way that feels nearly physical.

AlexYeah, I realized that was kind of the main thing for my requirements. I sent you the list. And one that I put on that initially was a goof, but it's not really a goof, is that it made me laugh and cry. And every album that I was looking at, like, yeah, Pet Sounds is great, but I have no emotion listening to that album anymore. When I first heard it, it was from soundtracks. to 90s movies.

It wasn't something that was independent.

MerlinThis also kind of started with a goof about Max hating the Ramones. And I was talking about like... No, no, no, no, no, no.

MaxWait a minute. I hate Blitzkrieg Bop.

MerlinOh, in particular.

MaxBecause I think it's a song that is...

MerlinIt's now a Mona Lisa song. You cannot watch CNN without hearing Blitzkrieg Bop

Maxin three different promotions. I have no context for... I was not like alive for a time when Blitzkrieg Bop was like, a cool rocking song. Like it was always a song that was selling me a Hyundai or Anthony Bourdain. Right. It's so frustrating to me. That's so mad. And, and you know, it's ultimate sort of soft suburban dad wearing a V-neck sweater vacation was like being the like closing cool song of the Marvel Spider-Man homecoming movie.

MerlinLike buying a Ramones t-shirt for your baby. It's like,

Maxit's like, yeah, it's like, I mean, and I don't, so I don't hate the Ramones. It's like, they're a great, they're a fun band i just that particular song like i think it's really lame now because of cultural context reasons yeah hey you know that you know the mural the elliot smith mural on figure eight yes that's uh ben from cards that's his coffee shop dinosaur coffee oh wow no kidding i think a lot of the wild did that she's very talented the mural got partially like destroyed this year but not by ben by this by their landlord there's so many there's so many records i should

Merlinhave chosen instead of this i don't know what i'm just i put it you know what it is i put it on and I got the feelings and like, I, I like, this is the one.

MaxThat's a dinosaur, dinosaur coffee in Silver Lake. Everyone should go to that. Thank you to our sponsor, dinosaur coffee.

AlexNo, now I'm just having all of those feelings. Like looking at my list of songs and, or not songs, albums. You texted that, right? Yeah. When I put on Silkworm, it immediately sounded like Jawbreaker to me. And I was like, wait, what is, what's happening? And it sounds like pre-emo. it's not like to me I was like this isn't post rock emo that's not a real thing it is a thing I made up because that's what it sounded like to me no what you mean but like it's got that feeling

Merlinof like it's very emotional it's it's very um challenging from like a instrumentation standpoint like it's real real crunchy and and can kind of like and very emotional like it's got it's in this case I think very angry what I'm curious what I'm curious let me ask you about that okay

MaxLet's talk about your album Stop talking about my album We'll get to it in one second This is my last question So I think objectively If you listen to that album It does not sound emotional It sounds kind of emotionless What? Really? It sounds kind of flat You're so high Those three Joel R.L. Phelps songs on side one Oh, you've got to be kidding me But, okay, but listen So how do I This is a hard point to get across So like sonically I think it sounds kind of I think if you're like an alien and you evaluated the album, it sounds kind of flat to me.

MerlinYeah.

MaxBut, but, but I think, but like clearly when you listen to it, you do get a feeling of that. It is that kind of emotion, but it's like a kind of a muted nineties, angry anger. I don't know. Do you understand what I'm saying?

MerlinOf like, there's like, there's like, it's not, it's not, you're not really engaged with that emotion. You're just kind of performing the emotion.

MaxIt's like, I feel it when I hear it. I can feel like you said like I feel that there's this tension and this anger and this emotion in the music but I don't think it's like sonically there like it's like there's no one yelling or

Merlinlike the one guy with the really high voice um yeah Joel R.L. Phelps who after this went off to start the Downer Trio which is another amazing band he his songs are very it's his songs in particular like he was the weirdo in the band he was probably I think somewhat inarguably the most talented songwriter coming from einheit into silkworm he was like he was the baller and everybody in the band kind of like learned a lot from him timid just talked a lot about how much he's learned from him but like he was also a very very difficult character when you'd go and see them live he would he was doing a robert frip he would just stand with his back to the audience

he was a very weird guy that's so cool such such an asshole but i saw when i saw tv on the radio

Maxthe main guitarist he had a cigarette dangling out of his lips like it was about to fall onto the stage and just turn his back to the audience and fucking crush it very cool

Merlinbut you can hear there's some parts and also the other part Alex that's very emo-y and I think we all agreed I wasn't allowed to pick a certain Pixies album but the loud quiet loud stuff is sort of proto-emo when you hear a band that does the loud quiet loud stuff or with big silences in the middle of it and sometimes there will be these things where Joel will do this scream, and then Tim Midgett goes, with this fucking angry, like, fuck you, distorted bass note to respond to his yelling. I don't know if that's intentional, but I feel that tension when I'm listening to it.

I think there's a difference between sadness and rage and anger. I think anger is different. A lot of people who think they sound angry mainly sound like they're having rage. Anger is more like roiling, like, fuck, kind of feeling which differentiates it from some punk rock which is merely just like you know adolescent uh sad rage all right if you could encapsulate uh

Alexadolescent sad rage into a sound like like i think of like meh

Merlinif there was a thought if there was like a balloon for your music it would just be like It's like grumpy, grumpy cat. Did anybody consider Sunny Day Real Estate at all? Was that ever on your list?

AlexYes. I actually thought that Diary would be considered, we would all agree on it. I really like that album a lot.

MaxWhat album?

AlexDiary, Sunny Day Real Estate. What is this?

MaxProbably maybe one of the best legal albums ever, ever. I don't know them at all.

Speaker AOh, really?

MaxSo good. I would like your thoughts on Advice to Nappy Hippotomous, and then I'll tell you a little bit of the story of the band and the album and then see, I'm curious what you guys made of it.

AlexI love this album and I know most of the story.

MaxDid you already know it?

AlexYes. Of course, we have the same taste in music. It is not my favorite Cloud Cults album, so I'm interested as to why you picked it. But yeah, I don't really have anything to say. I think this is one of their best. I think it's a bit long. It seems a little bit self-indulgent. A bit long.

MaxIt's like 40 tracks.

AlexWell, no, I mean, most of their albums are pretty long. Yeah, that's true. It felt a little self-indulgent in some places. But yeah, I don't really have anything to say. Like you put it on, you listen through the entire thing. And especially knowing like the backstory of the band and of the guy, like it's another thing of where context feels like it's very important to listening to it. So I don't know how I feel about that when picking a perfect album.

For me, also with my album, Celebration Rock, I think it stands alone without the context of what was happening. But I don't know if I gave Cloud Cults, this album particularly, to somebody if they'd be like, wow, this is absolutely beautiful and wonderful.

MaxWell, Merlin had never heard of them before. So what did you make of it?

MerlinSo with both of your bands, I had no familiarity. I knew the name Japan Droids, but I'd never heard them. I'd never heard of your band, Max. But in both instances, they passed a basic bar, which was I found them both listenable, more than listenable. The lowest bar is like, can I roll with this? And I instantly was able to roll with both. But also that I really also instantly was like, what's going on with these guys? You know, again, sort of like with Of Montreal or Of, you know, Neutral Milk Hotel or Apples and Steri or any of those.

you're like, what is their fucking deal? Like, how did they end up sounding like this? This is super interesting. So no, I don't know any of the backstory. And I have avoided doing a deep dive, a Wikipedia dive on either, because I wanted to wait. But now I have lots of, I do have questions. But no, I found it, yours, Max, I found, I found, I only listened to it once, but I found it very enjoyable. They do that thing I love where they got intro parts and there's no rap sketches or anything like that.

MaxGuy coughing from weed smoke in the middle of the set. fucking keep feeding him feeding him uh all right I hate rap sketches I hate them so much I kind of love them but not on the 40th time not on the 40th time through of 36 chambers I don't really need to hear it oh my god or the worst one is when the biggie rap sketches come on on shuffle in my car and there's just like

Speaker Ajust like some loud like

Maxdriving a congressman to an event and there's just like some sort of crazy blowjob sketch comes on the stereo on Shuffle. It's like, that's a rap sketch. Just quickly to get this out, Alex,

MerlinI love yours. I will be listening to this band again. I'm very curious. Is it just two people in the band? Yes. Oh, man. I loved it. It was catchy as fuck. Those songs were propulsive, and I really enjoyed it.

MaxOkay. Here's the deal with Cloud Cult. It is an indie band. Merlin, you totally nailed it. It's in that same... They're not Elephant 6 or anything, but they're you can definitely hear that that's their inspiration.

MerlinI would say like, you know, what, you don't want to say Baroque pop, but like definitely in that, like you could tell there's some strings and stuff and a lot of instrumentation and big sound coming out. Yeah.

MaxYeah. And that was what I was listening to at the time when I found them. And I was like, holy shit, this is awesome. I think they're also kind of hippies. And so there's a little bit of that kind of crunchy, you know, funk kind of stuff happening.

AlexWait, I need to get this out of the way. Have you seen them live?

MaxMe?

AlexYes.

MaxLike many, many, many times.

AlexHow do you feel about the goggles?

MaxThe goggles.

AlexHe has like his steampunk goggles.

MaxOh, I can talk about that. I mean, the guy, I'll get to that in a second. Oh, no. But, okay, it's not, well, at least when I've seen him live, it's not, he doesn't wear goggles. He wears a Mardi Gras mask, but he has stage fright. I've seen that, too. He has stage fright, so he wears like a, he wears like a. Sure picked a good business. Well, yeah, I guess. so basically and then oh and then their other big inspiration is my god

Merlinthey kind of they kind of look like if Pepsi wanted to do an ad campaign and they couldn't get broken social scene like oh get somebody a little bit more younger

Maxthan Scooby Doo they're really cute no they're adorable Boards of Canada their other main influence is Boards of Canada so they're very direct and their earlier stuff even earlier than this sounds way more like Boards of Canada than it does Elven Six and this is kind of a transitional album where they actually start doing some more like you said like more like uh orchestral like kind of songwriting so basically it's this the craig minnowa is the front man the guy who wears the mardi gras mask and uh he's a singer songwriter and kind of creative director for the band as far as i know i think he writes almost all the songs

but then other people kind of do their own instrumentation and this album was um written about his son that died right before he recorded the album so basically um oh yeah so his so his like his son was maybe one or one or two or something like that and died and his wife left him and i think he had like a chronic back injury or something and um he built uh he lived on a on a on a farm he's like an organic farmer and um i think he now also does like or maybe also then he's like soundtracks for nature documentaries and stuff like that and he built like a solar

powered recording studio and they were the reason no one's ever heard of them is they're a completely independent band. They've never been on a label because they want to have all of their merchandise and their CDs and stuff be a hundred percent renewable and no labels will do that. So they just sell and distribute all their own merch. Like for that reason, there's never been a Cloud Cold album released on vinyl, which is kind of interesting because there's no way to do sustainable vinyl, I guess. But they just do everything themselves. Like I got a Cloud Cold t-shirt like from the bassist at the first show I saw of theirs in high school. Like, you know,

They're kind of one of those bands, and they tour around in their own biodiesel van.

AlexIt's so cool. It's really cool, actually.

MaxYeah, so among people who know about them, it used to be the secret club, and I would say I think they're out there now. I'm always surprised when I post some Cloud Cult thing how many people fave it, or they're like, oh, I love this band. So I guess they're kind of getting out there a little bit, but I always felt like it was always my personal mission to make people hear about Cloud Cult. So now as to the art direction, this is one of my least favorite album covers of all time, the art on this album. And I have to say that really – it's really atrocious and embarrassing. And I actually – so after the Obama campaign in 2008, I had left school to work on the Obama.

I dropped out of college or took a leave of absence from college to work on the Obama campaign. And after the campaign ended, there was some time before I could go back to school before the semester restarted or whatever. Is that his child?

Speaker AYes.

Maxor a drawing of his child or whatever. So there was some time where after the campaign, I didn't know what to do with my life, and I was kind of drifting through life, and I was, you know, I don't know, how old are you? I was like 19 or 20, and like just had nothing to do with my time. And so I emailed at one point, Cloud called, and I was like, I just was working on the Obama campaign and did identity and design for the Obama campaign. Could I like fix the identity for your band and like make you a better like logo and album art system and help figure this out? And I think they wrote me a polite email, but they were like, we don't want any help with that.

Speaker AAnd but anyway, and then I've since and you know, I've since decided.

MaxThank you for your message. Yeah, I'm sure I wrote. I'm sure I wrote a really arrogant email to them, too. Now I haven't gone back to look at it, but I'm sure it was really arrogant. And like, you know, you guys suck and I'm great. And can I fix your band for you? Obama. And I'm sure I was very full of myself.

Speaker ABut but I've since then I've never.

Maxemailed them or corresponded with them or talked to craig or had any at there's it's like it's like it's like i just don't want to fuck that up like i'm very happy with the relationship i have with this band uh as it is but anyhow i agree with you their visual design and their costuming and they went through a whole steampunk phase and it's all very embarrassing but anyway that being said i i fucking love this music i think it's incredibly eclectic i think he deals his music is not this is their most depressing album for sure um wait listening to it what but but so how do you feel

Alexabout they live on the sun then because that was immediately after yeah that's not a good album

Maxthough but it doesn't work there's almost no good songs on that album yeah it's just not good it's not a good album it's not good it sounds like a it sounds like a it's just not good they have a lot of like they do a lot of like nursery rhyme songs and stuff on that i just do not like it i I mean, I think it's interesting, and maybe I would have liked it at the time if it was my first Cloud Called album, because it's like you can clearly hear this band. That album has like 50 songs on it, and they're just trying everything and trying to figure out who they are as a band and what their sound is and what they're about.

To me, Happy Epipodamus, it keeps some of the experimentation, the novelty, but they have, as members of the band, they have a cellist and a violinist. And there's also two painters who are members of the band, and when they tour, they paint with the music on stage. I've heard of this and at the end of the concert they auction the paintings off and the money is given to like environmental charities and helps pay for the band's tours and stuff but and I've never won a painting I always bid on them and I've never won one but let's see what else do I want to say about them

they're one of the most fun live bands I've ever seen live and I think even if you have almost zero familiarity with their music you'll go to this concert and the painting and their fucking light show is amazing and they're their choreography is great and they like always have fun some fun gimmick of like all of a sudden in the middle of a song all the band members will like pull out baking sheets and do like a like a like a rhythm breakdown where they all like bang on baking sheets and dance around the stage like it's just such a their music is so sad and melancholy and so life-affirming and such a

celebration of like the human condition it's very beautiful to me i've been listening to it forever like i found this album when i was like 17 which is like that's like your sweet spot where these things get into your brain and they're what's also fun is they put out an album almost every two years they like clockwork have a new album out and their progression as like recording artists is unbelievable like their stuff is so beautiful and polished and and wonderful now but i i have a soft spot in my heart for the raw madness the just the total fucking craziness of this album

those really abrasive synths and the funk drums and it's just the whole three ring circus of the

Alexband is very fun to me in this album. The first album I heard was Light Chasers, which came out in 2010. And that was like, I don't know, it was when I was like, it was my post emo phase, but I was slowly getting to bands that were good. And how do you like their new, I don't know, their new stuff seems so much more polished. Like I eventually went back and listened to They Live on the Sun and I was like, oh, wow, this is a different band.

MaxI objectively I think it's way better so like if you're listening to this and you want to check out Cloud Cult I strongly urge you to I would say and Veronica is also a huge fan and we talked about this a little bit I think our favorite Cloud Cult album is probably The Meaning of Eight which is the album that came after that I think that's or Light Chasers so go you can get them on Apple Music or Spotify or whatever but check out The Meaning of Eight or Light Chasers like those are your starter albums. They're objectively way better. They hold together better maybe as albums.

So you kind of fell for that too. That's super interesting. I mean, the way I thought about this in terms of picking an album was you've got the best, your favorite, and the most important. The best to me is Radiohead. In my lifetime, among the bands that I am very intimately familiar with, the best band is Radiohead. They have the strongest canon of work, and they're the best. They're like a desert island band. I listen to those albums, and I find something new to like every time. The most important one of my bands that I like,

I mean, you'd have to go with Bob Dylan or The Beatles or something like that, but my favorite is Cloud Cold. Cloud Cold is the one I keep coming back to. It means the most to me personally. I'm like, this is what's playing in my head. I love that distinction.

AlexI mean, Pitchfork kind of makes that distinction, but in the opposite way. Like, Light Chasers has a 5.4. What the... Don't look at that website. Put that website away. I can't... That's a bad website. It defines, like, college for me, though. Like, I... I mean, one thing with Pitchfork,

Maxone thing with Cloud Cult that I think you have to come to terms with is they're a deeply uncool band, and I like that they're all... They have a little bit of that, like, David Foster Wallace feeling of, like, they're a little bit...

AlexOh, you're so right.

MaxThey're like a little bit engaging with like irony and coolness in a way of being like, we're going to come on stage. And the guy, he comes out and he dances around barefoot and he plays his pedals and loopers with his feet. And they just come out like lunatics. And they're singing these, frankly, quite embarrassing lyrics. But they're, you know, like, believe in yourself, no one else can do that for you kind of a message.

It's like if you read this as a poem, you'd be embarrassed by it. But somehow it works because of the earnestness that they approach it with. And somehow I listen to the sappiest shit in their lyrics. And I'm like, wow, this is really what I needed to hear today. And it sounds very earnest and sincere. But, like, of course, Pitchfork is the most inculcated to that of any publication in the world. Like, there's nothing will pierce the heart of the guy stroking his goatee and going like, no, it's a 5.4.

MerlinI mean, this is an analogy that will not make sense to a lot of young people today. But there was a time when you could go into a record store in a college rock town, a college town, go into a record store and ask advice from a person working in there who is usually a really pretentious dick. And you know what? It's a great way to find out what kind of stuff a pretentious dick likes, but it's not necessarily a way to find good music. That's that's that's how I feel about Pitchfork. I mean, that and the fact that like for fucking I don't know how many years now it is just I haven't looked at it in years ever since the Travis Morrison incident.

I will not open the website. but like they they it's just so clearly the worst of blogging of that whole like well i kind of have something to say about this but really mostly i want you to notice me writing about it and it's

Maxlike it's not but what you what you want is uh is it is it done high fidelity that scene where jack black puts on um bill callahan isn't that it and dances dances around like a lunatic is that the smog guy that's smog yeah yeah he puts on like what is this it's like cold-blooded at old times. Is that the song?

MerlinI don't know. I know Julius Caesar. That's the only one I know.

MaxAnyway. I am Star Wars today. You want a guy who's... I fucking love that guy.

MerlinThat guy's crazy as hell, man.

MaxBut when you go into the record store, you want someone who's just unabashed. They're not trying to be cool. They're just trying to get you some fun music.

MerlinYou want to be like my comic shop where you go in and say, you know, I liked Superman when I was a kid. What would I like now? And that's a dumb question that they're happy to answer and go like, oh, there's all kinds of stuff, these directions. If you want something more, you want somebody like that. But if you want to find out what a pretentious dick likes, there's a website for that.

MaxMy final closing thoughts on Cloud Cult, and then I'm happy to entertain any questions, are number one. Another thing I like about Cloud Cult is there's no bands like them. You can't describe Cloud Cult to someone and be like, oh, they're kind of like this band. There's no one like them. They're fucking singular. They're just singular out there. Like there's nothing. No one else has that sound or that business model or anything about them. and uh oh and then i was also gonna say uh i thought it was interesting to talk about when we would listen to these albums and this is a like uh i had a shitty day and it's raining and

i have to drive home like i would put a cloud called album on and feel a little bit better about my life and be like it's one of those like put everything in perspective we're all gonna die you know let's all let's all just be human beings for a second but in a way that's not morbid and sad but uplifting good good good criteria alex you can talk about your pandroids

AlexYeah, I don't have much to say about Japan Droids. No, say much, say much, because I don't know.

MerlinI've heard the name so many times, and I was really struck by how fucking in my wheelhouse this band is. Yeah, what's the deal? Why'd you pick this?

AlexOkay, so Japan Droids, they're like a typical kind of post-punk garage, two weird kids from Canada. And they released their first album called Post Nothing in 2009. and that's when I was like graduating high school and it was okay. It was really angry and kind of flat. It's just two guys and that album is entirely just one guitar and a set of drums.

But and they were actually going to break up just because they felt like the band wasn't going anywhere. And the lead singer thought he was he didn't consider himself a lead singer. They were looking for a singer and he's like, I'm not great at this. But then they wrote this album called Celebration Rock. And it was very much like, this band is very much the two of them. There's really not a front man. They're very, very tuned to one another as performers. They're one of my favorite bands to see live, even though I really like the crazy theater performances. Cloud Cults has

always been amazing when i've seen them uh sufion stevens is probably also another one of uh my favorite guys to see live uh but they were just so like naked and pure uh and celebration rock has the same feeling as their first album but it's it's like they gave no fucks and put everything into this it i don't know i'm not good at articulating why i like music oh i am anyway

Merlinwhich is i know you are very very good i like it a lot i i listened to it when i was in my 20s and

Alexnow i'm 50 well that's the thing is like this album like i came out like right when i am like started dating maddie and like it was when a lot of like bad shit in my life had ended and sort of yeah i don't know um it's like you're here comes the sun i don't know i just mean in the sense

Merlinthat like the thing is you don't know when you're in shit you know that it used to be better and someday it might get less bad but like when you're in this shit it's hard to know when you're really emerging from it i i'm not trying to put words in your mouth but i feel like there are certain albums where you're like oh shit this is when things were really changing and i didn't even realize it yet and now i now it's emblematic of that change that i was going through yeah like

Alexactually seeing them live right after uh celebration rock came out and thinking that it was going to be like the last their last show or one of their last shows on their last tour and being like okay this is something i'm going to remember for the rest of my life and there's nothing like this that will ever happen to me again uh and it was like just bittersweet and it's a very energetic album but it also just feels nice to me or at least by the end like uh one of the criteria for like picking

a perfect album for me is is also the track listing but the story arc as well like how they fall into temptation temptation and then eventually emerge it's it's very like um nick and nora's what what is that dumb movie uh man with uh no no with um of course i think it's a movie from the 30s yeah no no no no oh nick and nor is infinite playlist that one um oh it's so bad uh but i i

don't know especially like the the last track most people like the house that have been built which is uh the single that kind of like put them on the map and made even pitchfork soften their hearts for Japan droids yeah um but the way that that album plays out the with the last song it's just absolutely perfect to me the and the the chords are this album also it was just one guitar and drums and it's I don't know it's it's unlike a lot of music I enjoy because you know it on the

surface it's like yeah here are two angry boys who are sad most of the time uh but there's an earnestness that most emo bands and most like uh i would call them punk bands most people would disagree who are merlin's age um i don't know they're also just very nice it doesn't i don't meet a lot of bands that i actually like i meet them i'm like oh you are you are nice boys you're some nice boys um but uh yeah that's all i really have to say about it is listen to it it's it's

also an album that i can really put on at any time because it has so many weird emotions all throughout it like uh you can skip to you can like skip to the song that has that exact feeling you know um which i guess some people uh like some people have called it immature in that way because it's like oh this is the sad teenager song this is the redemption song this is the party song but i kind of like that especially because it goes in in order that just seems like a perfect

Maxstory arc to me i got a feeling of uh listening to this album it felt uh desperate to me yeah like there was like uh it felt like uh like this like last night on earth kind of a feeling like urgency yeah yeah which i i mean i like that it's a cool it's a good vibe in music i mean i get that a lot in pop music now i feel like a lot of the sort of stadium pop music that happens nowadays has that sort of like anthem anthemic you know uh like third act of a movie feeling

uh which i definitely got from this but i don't i'm curious like when when do you listen to this album all the time because it was like a little like i was in the shower listening to it and i

Alexwas like oh this is a little it's really intense like yeah i wouldn't say abrasive i would intense is a much better word there's another there's alex have we talked about team dresh no i don't know

Merlinwho that is oh my god um talk about urgency uh go check out personal best by team dresh like today like go listen to personal best by team dresh today and that's all i'm going to say about that i i want to let you just discover this on your end terms but check it out oh that was my

Alexother criteria for good a good uh or a perfect album is you can't like have an outside influence of uh someone saying oh this is so cool this is something i'm saying this one because i think

Merlinthis one there it's if this is not in your wheelhouse i'll buy a hat and eat it right right

Alexyou're not giving me like any context though which i like yeah go look at the cover uh yeah Well, eventually, this album was so successful, they are still touring. And actually, I think I'm seeing them tomorrow night. Just to say the first. Yeah.

Speaker AYeah. I'm seeing them tomorrow.

MerlinWow. Go look at the personal best. Look at the titles of the first five songs. Kickoff track is Fagetarian and Dyke. Number two, Hate the Christian Right. Number three, She's Crushing My Mind. Number four, Freewheel. Number five, She's Amazing.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinIt's so gay. I'm so excited for this. Oh, it's super duper gay. And it's fucking gorgeous and passionate. punk rock like just paint peelingly good fucking lesbian punk rock oh they're so good should we talk about have we over talked about this I just had a couple criteria I wanted to mention and why again this is the thing here's the thing everything that's in the challenge is in the challenge as long as you attempt the challenge you know like if you fail that's interesting too I think I failed at this challenge but I love the journey so I sent you a screen grab of this

I had a bunch of stuff that was just kind of like I started out of course this is the way writing works I started out with all the stuff that I knew was like, hmm, here's the things. Here's my basic, what would you call it, like core criteria of no duh stuff, right? Like this has to not be a compilation, right? No best stuff or greatest hits. How do you pick a perfect album? It can't be a various artists collection. It's got to be at least 30 minutes long because there are some EPs that are pretty perfect just by virtue of the fact that they're so short. Production sequencing count. Don't care so much about popularity. There's two things I just wanted to say that I feel like I should like it as much or more than when I first heard it.

I'm not married to that. But the other one was, and this is my ineffable, not useful thing that I still think is important. When I say it's a perfect album, was it perfect at what it was attempting to do? Like a version of the Roger Ebert criteria. Was it perfect at what it was trying to do? Importantly, regardless of whether the band themselves knew what they were trying to do. like did it end it did it end up being a fantastic document of that moment in time for the band i think that's a huge piece of it for me like you can have these bands just push out album after

album of really good stuff you're like yeah yeah that's really good like it's really hard to pick which one's the best there's other ones where i do feel like you can feel like this person there's something personal about this thing and the fact that it got made seems miraculous it's like seeing a shooting star go by and you're like no matter how many people i explain this to it's never going give you the feeling of being there when a shooting star arrived and went away.

Show notes

Transcript

49. Line Boy

Show notes

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