Do By Friday
Episode 59 artwork
Episode 59 · January 11, 2018 · 01:06:43

59. Instantaneous Gram

This week's challengeWatch the pilot of Patriot.
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Transcript

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

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin. This week's challenge. Watch the pilot of Patriot.

I'm sorry I'm late. I literally have to go pee. So you're going to be with Max and Renee.

MaxWelcome back everyone to the doctor who fan cast. We can't talk about that without her here. What are you doing? Everybody wants to know where you went max. You still off Twitter. I'm I'm I've been reading Twitter a little bit but but but I Well, we'll wait for Alex to come back my my Assistant Renee is here and she has questions for you. She could ask me on the podcast

Speaker BThis is gonna be tricky. Okay, so maybe we should just officially have this not be the show

MaxWell, Alex is peeing, so it is what it is. Okay.

Speaker BAll right, what do we got? So I'm going to have a package delivered to your friend who... Zach?

MaxYes. Yeah, I'll sign that before I go. Okay, cool. Does he want it signed? What's it for?

Speaker BIt's for...

MaxIf it's for him and his family, I don't want to sign it, assuming... Do you know what I mean?

Speaker BBecause that would be weird. It's like a charity donation thing.

MaxThat's fine. I'll sign it. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker BGreat. Suggestions for lunch on Friday. Where is it? They're downtown? They're going to be downtown, but they can... I think travel up to you.

MaxWhy don't you look at any of those Randolph Street spots? So like Little Goat Diner, the place at that awful country club for rich people. I don't know what you're talking about. They play the club that everyone belongs to. They have like a pool.

Speaker BSoho House?

MaxSoho House. Okay, yeah. They have a restaurant that you can just go into. Rene's really living the dream.

Merlinwhat did you do this morning um i tried to find out if there's a club in chicago that has a pool

Maxthe max couldn't remember no she didn't know renee did know it though it's never been there

Speaker Bit's pretty awful no don't don't this all has to be edited out what's happening so i'm just

Maxcomplaining about so what else what else is that it uh no um

Alexit's early my goal of this day is i thought max was on vacation should we should we stop should we stop and restart the recording uh no i i do edit the show against many people's wishes

MaxMax is on vacation. Yay! I mean, but I'll come and do it by Friday. That's fun. That's not even work. The big thing that's happening today is I'm building out this little basement studio for myself where I can do some work at home and do my reading for law school and play video games at night when Veronica's asleep. I've been working in there, and it's like 80% done, and I've been working in there the last two days because I've been at home on vacation. and there's no window.

The big thing that happened today is the window's getting installed. So I've just been like a little mole person in the basement. And I go down there at 10 o'clock in the morning and last night I came up at 7 o'clock at night and I didn't see the daylight. I would keep the darkness. That's nice. That's nice to have as an option. I might be able to put a blackout shade on the window.

MerlinBut it's also one less point of attack.

MaxI've went my whole life laughing at dads who care about speaker systems. Growing up, I always had some friends who had dads who had freestanding sound panels in their living room, and they were like, no, the sound is optimized. You can really hear the bass in this Star Wars laser disc. And they would always want to show us stuff and how loud it was. And now that I have the studio, I went on the Wirecutter and I bought their recommended speaker system, which is a 5.1 surround sound speaker system.

and I installed it myself and now all I want to do is have people over and have them listen to the bass on Star Wars. That's actually very cool. It sounds so fucking good. It sounds amazing. I've fully dadded out on the sound system. I had Veronica down there and we watched a scene from Harry Potter and I was like, listen to it. They're like whizzing all around you on the broomsticks and she was like, ah.

MerlinThat's me and our TV and we've had it now, I don't know how many months we've had it, and still every time it comes on, I go, look at how white those whites are.

MaxJust seeing it, no, even on the Netflix. No, when it's letterboxed, you can't even see the black. It's so black.

Speaker AIt's so black. It's really black. I just think, you guys, I still really like the TV.

MaxIt still feels so fresh and new to me. You have so little to live for when you're a dad. Oh, man.

AlexOh, yeah, yeah.

MaxYou have so little. You have no respect from society. You have no power.

MerlinNo appreciation. No acknowledgement. Please at least acknowledge the base of my base and the white of my whites. Yeah.

MaxYou're just like, at least I can hear the wizard zooming all around me. Not on Z. Yeah. I'm like pausing movies now. I watched Toy Story 3 the other day, and I paused it right during the trash compactor scene to adjust. Because I had to adjust the surround sound settings. I felt like the rear surround sound wasn't loud enough.

AlexI need to make sure this bass helps me feel more sad. Yeah.

MaxOh, boy. The trash compactor doesn't get me, but the, oh, my God, when Andy takes the toys out and plays with them again. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I was just crying alone in the basement watching that. Kills me. That scene is just devastating.

See, another dad scene, because it's what all dads just want, which is appreciation.

Merlinwe just i mean if we can't be appreciated we just want to be left alone

Alexjust leave me with my base do you have a like special special dad time and special special dad space like not just a space on the couch but you know do you do you have a special

Merlintime to retreat oh i mean i've got an office that's true that's relatively close to the house But no, she's taking over everything. I have to move things to put my seltzers in the fridge. I feel like I ask so little. I say I want one 12-ounce can's width of space in the fridge and then a little bit of depth. That's really all I ask. Can we put the chocolate milk somewhere else?

Speaker ACan that be not when my seltzers come?

MerlinIt's like Syracuse talks about having this exactly iPhone-shaped area on the mantle where he can put his phone. It's like the only area that he has in the house.

Speaker Aand he doesn't even get that.

MerlinThat's how I feel. Why should he get that area on the mantle?

MaxHe hasn't earned it. Yeah, because it's his house and that's how it is.

MerlinIf we had two kids, God forbid, it would be different. But with one kid, she just gets everything. Everything is ours. Anything that arrives in the house, she's like a Tuscan Raider. She's like, she just shows up and it's like, is that for me?

MaxWhen I was a kid, my dad would always have special drinks. He would always have a Snapple iced tea or a special dad's forbidden pastry or something in the house. Like a piece of coffee cake. And of course, my brother and I would eat it immediately because it was appetizing. And it was right there and it was a cold drink right in the fridge. And then my dad would always come down and he'd look in the fridge and his Snapple would be gone. He would fucking flip out and he'd go, who the fuck drank my Snapple? And I always thought that was the funniest thing in the world.

And I was like, go buy another one. But now that now that I own a house, oh my god, if someone drank one of my kombuchas, I wouldn't lose my mind if I like a like a like a guest came over and drank my kombucha, I would fucking lose my mind

MerlinYeah, there'd have to be a tribunal. It's that it's that TSA worker problem I always to give it the canonical examples working for the TSA I've said this before but where you got to stand there and go ladies and gentlemen once again

Speaker APlease be sure you don't have any more than three ounces of liquid. Have you got a water?

MerlinPlease, please, for the love of God, please don't make me keep saying this. And even as the words come out of the poor person's mouth, that person knows that they will be saying that over and over for the rest of their life. And still one out of five people will have a jug of water.

MaxOh, boy. This is my this is one of my big pet peeves in life, which is which is like I think I think this must bother a lot of people who like know stuff about design. But like when you see bad instructions or bad signs and I'm constantly waging this war in my office. But I first became aware of this phenomenon from a blog post that a friend of the show, Marco, wrote when he was working at a software company many years ago. The bathroom with the towels. That's right.

Speaker AAnd he posted a photo. Oh, God.

MaxHe posted a photo of in the bathroom at the software company, everyone on their way out, they would ball up their paper towel. Oh, no. They would use it to open the door handle, right, because no one wanted to touch the door handle, which I do all the time. And then they would ball it up, and they would throw it on the ground because there was no trash can. and as in response the building added all these signs like do not throw your towels on the floor do not leave towels are not permitted to leave the the bathroom or whatever and marco's thing was like just put a trash can outside the door and you'll solve the problem like just like

just like uh you know it's like it's like a it's like a tree in a storm it's like you have to you have to be you have to bend or or it's just going to blow right over it's like you have to whenever when whenever when a hundred people leave that bathroom every day and want to throw their towel lot. You have to like bend to their desire or else eventually there's no sign. You can't like enforce the rule strictly enough. And my, my big, my big fight at the office about this is, well, people put up signs all the time of like, put the toilet seat down or don't leave dishes in the sink. And like, of course that doesn't work. My, my, my battle at the office is that you have to explain

why it matters to you because everyone is too smart to think that the sign applies to them.

Merlinyeah it's but it's also there's that phenomenon that you see in most offices where like there's the formal signage that's gone up that usually has a certain kind of like design aesthetic or you know use the same typefaces and the signs are always the same size 1996 microsoft word clip art but no but i mean i'm talking about like when you go into like a professional office building you'll say this is room 127 you know janitor closet or whatever but then you've got all the ad hoc signage and that's what's really happening in the building and like that's where you've got There's that Vox video about the terrible doors at Vox.

MaxOh, yeah.

MerlinIt's that Don Norman idea, though, of like, you know, you want to have an affordance for people to do the right thing. People, you know, a garbage can is an affordance for not having paper towels on the floor. That should not be that hard to do. But did you guys get the I just texted you a photo from a few years ago that I've always treasured?

AlexOh, no. So this is this is new. can you please illustrate what

MaxI sort of okay so I'm looking at the sign and I sort of I can tell that there's so much to love about this sign I can tell that they're mad there must be mad because they made the sign and put it on their fence but and I know that they're mad about something involving dog poop but the way they've made the sign I don't know what I'm supposed to do

Merlinokay let me explain just for our listeners you can't see this okay this is a fence near a kind of a park area a lot of people walk there's a little playground there's You know, anyhow, somebody has, using very rudimentary Microsoft something skills, printed out a sign that's in like a sub-Comic Sans font with these different shapes on it to make it like a sign. At the top, it says dog poop count. And then there's a square that implies they're going to write this in by hand, but they haven't written it in by hand.

They've typed it in. It says 75 piles! Under that, there's a very, very, very wide oblong that says January 3rd. And then there's a double-sided arrow where they've written in by hand one block. And then under that, it says, we'll put this in show notes. Under that, it says, pick it up! Now, there's so much to love about this. I mean, before we even get into the pathology of a person who makes this sign for reuse over time, puts it into a plastic waterproofing thing, and then zip ties it to a fence.

This is not something this person did once. This is very next door. So do I have some great next door.

AlexI feel like this person has supplies to laminate certain signs, tie them to fences, and a hole punch. That does not look like a traditional hole puncher because there's not three, it's just two. So this person has a setup.

MerlinWell, you know, at a certain point, kids do this and certainly adults do this. You walk around and you go, oh my gosh, on the way home from school today, I saw seven cigarette butts. And you go, that's crazy. Or like, I saw nine bottle caps. You might even say, wow, there's so much dog poop. I'm on my way home from school today. I counted five piles of dog poop. Isn't that gross? Well, not only did that person make a habit of doing that, I want to point out this person at one point took the time, presumably before or maybe, I don't know, before they made the song, it became such a big, they went all the way around and they counted until they had found 75 piles of dog crap

that they could document. And then they made a sign for it. And the beauty of this is clearly I love that this is an ongoing project. This is something this person is going to dedicate a life to, including updating what day they found 75 piles on one block.

MaxWell, this is like like so in our office, the big one that gets put up is signs like slightly amusing signs that go up in the bathroom about once a month saying like wiping the seat and stuff. Put the toilet seat down. Put the toilet seat down. And listen, I know one is a bigger champion of putting the toilet seat down than myself. Like I couldn't be more sympathetic to the cause. Everyone should put the toilet seat down. But like we've tried signs that say put the toilet seat down and they don't work. And there's a lot of reasons for that. But one of them is people are maybe they work for one day, but people are very change blind. Like, you know, it's like something changes and you notice it once, but then your brain like resets to neutral and you don't ever notice it again.

So if you want to make an effective sign that's like put the toilet seat down, like here's the thing with signs. Everybody thinks that they're too smart for the sign. So whenever there's a sign that's like, do not go out on the ledge and take a selfie, everyone goes, well, I know that this applies to all the other dopes who might come out on this ledge because they're klutzes and they're going to fall off. They're going to die doing their periscope selfie. But not me.

Speaker AAnother person killed by the Chicago selfie problem.

MaxYeah, but not me, right? I'm like young and nimble and I go out on ledges all the time. So I'm smarter than this sign and I don't need to follow it. So that's it's like you might as well not have the sign right because the people who have the common sense not to go out on the ledge and take a selfie are going to do that anyway. And the people who want to who really want to do it are going to in defiance of all common sense. They're going to do it anyway, too. So why have the sign and ruin the view for the rest of us? A good sign. Here's the secret. You have to explain to people. You have to respect their intelligence enough to explain why it matters.

So if anyone ever really wanted to solve the problem of toilet seats being left up in our office, what they would do is they would say, you know, a lot of times people leave the toilet seat up in this bathroom and here's how it makes me feel. And then at least even if people only ever read that sign once, that little piece of information would be imparted into their mind. And rather than like scolding them for something, a behavior that's never going to change, at least you could educate them and say, here's why it matters. Now you can be on the inside of this cause as well.

AlexAll right. There's a problem with this because if you're worried about aesthetics, you're basically writing a letter. Like, here's why it upsets me that you leave up the toilet seat. One, patriarchy. Two, which is that sign has showed up in many of the toilets.

MaxBut no, but in all seriousness, reason number one, patriarchy. That's not actually a reason. Like you actually have to explain to the person who's leaving the seat up, who's not me, why it's a problem.

MerlinPatriarchy is why it keeps happening, but it's not why it started.

AlexAnd well, that's the thing. It's like, hey, it feels gross. And it makes me think of it. What would I say? Be like, hmm, I waste many paper towels touching the toilet seat to put it down. And also I think about the penis and what penis in the office has done this.

MaxI mean, if I had to write that sign, what I would say is this is a note from a woman who works at this office. Every time I come into this bathroom, I have to touch the toilet seat to put it down. And it makes me feel really disrespected. And it makes me feel like the men in this office don't give enough of a shit about me to even clean up after themselves for one half second when they're done in the bathroom. And I don't like coming to work and feeling like that. So if you could just do one second of work so that I don't feel like that, I would really appreciate it. That note would explain to people in turn, like it invites the user to have empathy with the problem and see themselves as as as empowered to be part of the solution.

Like if you say like it's patriarchy, that doesn't communicate anything to anyone. It's just like like in fact, if you said, hey, if you leave the seat up, that's patriarchy, which I think may literally be a sign that has been up in the bathroom. It has. Yeah. What that says to me is, hey, we live in a broken world and we're and we're mad and nothing is ever going to change. So why do anything why even bother to put the seat down like it? Do you know what? I mean it makes it it makes it feel so help It's like telling someone you are a racist when you go on when people go on Twitter and they say to these like alt-right Fuck boys and they say you're a racist. You know what they say. They say hell. Yeah, I am

We should have an ethnic cleansing in America and there should be like a white Ethnostate or whatever like you've given them no way you have to give your enemy a way to retreat and save face You have to say hey, I know you're a good person, but you just said a racist thing

Alexhere i i disagree though because this is an act that is done in private like no one and i think that by if i wonder no now i want to put up this a sign of like uh if if you leave up the seat alex will be wondering about your it will be thinking about your tiny penis

Maxi i bet you i bet you my 5.1 surround sound system that if you put my sign up that it would decrease the toilet and measure it empirically. Can I pop the stack here? I think you guys are

Merlinaddressing this at maybe the wrong level. I think one problem is that, is it a one-holer? It's a place where you go in and close the door and you're in by yourself? Oh, yes. Okay. Well, that feels like an extremely private space. Nobody's ever been in this bathroom but me, right? This is my bathroom. And then sometimes other people use it. That's generally how people feel about a bathroom. It's why everybody has such weird standards about how they, I think you need to address this at an office level and say, hey, look, you're a bunch of fucking grownups.

I know you know how to do this. And I understand that you're probably just forgetting. That's totally normal. But please stop forgetting. And listen, from now on, lift the seat if you're going to pee. And if you do pee, like wipe it off. That's your pee. That's not anybody else's responsibility. But a sign.

MaxI'm telling you, Merlin, I've done this exact thing that you're saying repeatedly in all like in like all office like meeting. We have like a one meeting every year where everyone gets together and it's the airing of the grievances. And it's usually like, please stop stealing scissors from the office and please put the toilet seat. So I'm like, I've literally addressed this with everyone. And it's like everyone, maybe it gets, like I said, maybe it gets better for a day. But then people, everyone is like, well, I'm just one person. Like everyone else will change.

MerlinIt's funny though, how like it is these, I'm not saying, I'm not trying to minimize this. But on the other hand, it's like sometimes you just get a fucking bee in your bonnet. whether that's where the seltzers are. In my case, I don't know why I can't keep a goddamn pair of scissors. Once a year, my wife will clean out my daughter's room and find six pairs of scissors at different places in her room. The spray that we spray on her hair, the detangling spray, we find six of those. Where do these all live at other times? How do they end up in the laundry hamper? And you do start to feel like a total crazy person. When I look at the dog poop sign in particular,

I feel like you think about all the people who are going to see this sign. A vast majority of the people who notice this sign at all are going to be people who don't have a fucking dog. Oh, boy. The main people that receive this message are going to be people who don't even have a dog. Then there's going to be people who have a dog and clean up their poop. They're going to be like, hey, why are you yelling at me? Then there's going to be people who have a dog and don't clean up their dog's poop and don't fucking care. And they're just going to laugh. It's such a Sisyphean sign.

Maxand it's but like now this is my office uh the bee in my office bonnet is being called a sexist for running the air conditioner in the in the summer there was at one point there was at one point there was a an entire slack channel devoted to calling me a sexist because i i tried to broker a compromise on the air conditioner where we were allowed to keep the office at 72 degrees

Alexwell and i feel like i well one i love god i love it when it's cold speak your truth alex i hear it I'm going to say it. As a woman who loves being cold in the office, I think the appropriate temperature for an office is 69 degrees. Because you can make yourself warmer. You can't make yourself colder. We literally have blankets everywhere in the office. And we have had this problem where, especially in the studio, which does have its own HVAC system, we used to have fucking condensation on the mics.

I know.

MaxIt's humidity, too. It's the whole thing. Alex listen congratulations on taking the red pill here thank you thank you I gotta say I understand if this was fucking mad men and all the men came in wearing full wool suits in the summer and we set the office thermostat to 58 degrees and we had a secretarial pool plugging in the phones and they were all wearing mini skirts and they were shivering I understand that in that point I would be a sexist but I honestly I think the the the the the preferred temperature of the Slack group that was dedicated to calling me a sexist for running the air conditioner.

It was like 80 degrees. They wanted the office to be like 78. And I'm sorry. Like, what about the fat people in the office? It's true. I'm very warm right now. Yeah. We're recording. Yeah. I'm hot right now. I have a sweat right now from popping off on one of my anti-woman rants.

Speaker AYou should start a Slack group that just you were in. It says stop fat shaming the hot people.

MaxI'm so hot and sweaty. I just ate a whole sandwich full of meat and I'm sweating.

Speaker AOh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

MerlinI want to get a massage.

MaxDid you guys want to start the show? Yeah, we should probably start it. Oh, boy. so who carried their iphone around in the in the uh in the in the otter box oh i did oh the otter box i still have like an indent it really it really dug right into my kidney

Merlinit really really hurt you know i tried i tried it but like i mean real real super real talk the honest question as they say on twitter um so like who is that for because i find it much easier to take my phone out of my pocket with my hand then i then i find it difficult bro and it's

Maxlike it's like wearing heels it's like sometimes you have to suffer to look cool that's you know you're gonna be in a little bit of pain but everyone's gonna look at you and they're gonna I go, who's that guy?

Speaker AHis phone is big.

MaxSnap, snap, snap, snap.

AlexI do, okay, I'm glad it exists.

MaxI got that super premium case where it's red just on the inside.

AlexI don't even get that joke. Why did I laugh? Was that a Johnny Ive joke? Was that a red dot joke?

MerlinWhat is that?

AlexAn insider Apple joke? Is that Louis Vuitton?

MerlinOh, it's Louis Vuitton. You got the red bottoms. Yeah, the bloody shoes. Louis Vuitton.

Alexoh challenge get a birkin bag oh that's really hard to get isn't that leather sack that you drink water out of okay no no no uh what are you talking about the birkins from that uh that

Merlintrolls movie no no no no no i think of a pubic wig oh yeah you gotta go to the opera and you

Alexbring a date it's called a beard is that what you're talking about okay uh there was a planet

Merlinmoney episode Jane Birkin and the bag that she made that has become a phenomenon oh the plan

Alexof money about the bag that you can't get yes and it was a big deal on Gilmore Girls I remember because Logan got Rory a Birkin bag and they're the thing is like they are the some of them are only like twenty eight hundred dollars which I know people are like oh clutching their pearls right now but in like the purse world that's nothing and most of them are like sixty five Yeah, a lot of them are like $28,000. But it's a total, like it's just total false scarcity.

It's just.

MerlinIt's like a total Veblen good. Except, you know, it does have, it is practical in that you can put things in it and use it. But it's an utter Veblen good. It exists only to show how much money was spent on it.

AlexBut not even that. You need to know somebody to be able to buy a Birken bag. I don't think Max could buy a Birken bag. I do not think he had. I don't think that he would have the resources.

MaxI'm not going to, but I absolutely could. I don't think so. I don't think so. No, no, I don't think so. My only skill in life.

Speaker AIt's a European carry-all.

AlexI don't think Elon, well, if he, no, actually he hangs out with models.

MaxIf I set my mind to it, I could figure it out. No, I don't think you could.

AlexI really, I really. I'm pretty sure you couldn't.

MerlinI'm pretty sure you don't have the money or the prestige or the connections. I don't think you could do it. Is this called goading? Am I doing it right?

AlexYou couldn't get on the cool kid pirating website.

MaxHow are you going to get into the exclusive purse club? What are you talking? Oh, that I want to get on the...

AlexWhich one are you talking about? I don't even know.

MaxI ran far away. We're not supposed to say it on the podcast. Yeah, nope, nope, nope, nope. Listen, can I just throw out a request to our listeners? If you're... Listen, all of the good, cool trackers and everything that I used to be on, they're all shut down by the FBI. Could someone invite me to something cool where I can pirate things? That's all I want.

MerlinWe operate at a much lower level than the Birkins. I got my lady an okay nice Marc Jacobs bag for Christmas a few years ago, which was kind of a bit spendy, but it was a nice present.

MaxThat's the Marc by Marc Jacobs produced by Marc Jacobs.

MerlinHave you seen the famous label?

MaxYeah.

MerlinJacobs by Marc Jacobs for Marc by Marc Jacobs in collaboration with Marc Jacobs for Marc by Marc Jacobs.

Speaker Athat's so funny i can't be real is it real please be real i think it's i think it's a little bit of

Maxperformance like the one thing i know about mark jacobs that i thought i think is pretty cool is like at one point someone like threw a brick through a window of his store in new york and then he took a photo of the smashed window and put printed on a white t-shirt and sold it for like hundreds of dollars oh that's so good and they i don't know they at least made enough money to fix a window and i thought that i actually thought that was pretty cool i i i maybe maybe we'll save

Merlinit for the after show but i i really i feel like i really need to talk about the last couple of shark tanks oh i didn't watch i mean obviously at some point we've got to talk about the shorts frat boys but also what were they called like like turtle dog dog dig dogs nerd dogs dog what

Speaker Awas it called dog birds bird dogs bird dogs oh he picks up the watermelon off the floor and eats it

Merlinat the end. My family rewatched it three times.

Speaker AThe Aristocrats is the worst presentation

MerlinI've ever seen in my life.

Speaker AYou get those guys up around your boys, up your thighs. They're going to protect your nuts and berries. He puts the shorts in his mouth and they drop the watermelon. It's so fucking bad.

MaxSomeone's not getting an invitation to the next Harvard Business School alumni dinner.

Speaker AAnd that guy, how old do you think that guy was? I think he wants you to think he's 22, but I think he's like 35. Yeah. He might have been older than me. He was bro-ing it so hard. But the other one was the Italian guy.

The guy with the stroller that has an elliptical.

MaxOh, boy. Did you see it? Well, he had a lot of patents. I mean, no one could possibly steal that idea because of the...

Speaker AThey just glossed by this, but like, how much is that? $48,000.

MerlinBut, you know, it was, I don't know. We got to talk about a show.

MaxMerlin, for a grown man who owns a Segway and rides a little Segway around... San Francisco, you should probably be careful about making fun of people's elliptical scooters.

Digga, digga, digga, digga. Follow up. San Francisco. At Rainbow Grocery, a cooperative in this city's Mission District, one brand of water is so popular that it's often out of stock. You know we have to talk about this. Yes, of course. Please. But one recent evening, there was a glittering rack of it, Glass orbs containing 2.5 gallons of what is billed as, quote, raw water. Unfiltered, untreated, unsterilized spring water. $36.99 each and $14.99 per refill. Bottled and marketed by a small company called Live Water.

Startups like Live Water in Oregon and Tourmaline Spring in Maine have emerged in the last few years to deliver untreated water on demand. An Arizona company, Zero Mass Water, which installs systems allowing people to collect water directly from the atmosphere around their homes, began taking orders in November.

What adherents share is a wariness of tap water, particularly the fluoride added to it and the lead pipes that some of it passes through. They contend that the wrong kind of filtration removes beneficial minerals. Even traditional bottled water is treated with ultraviolet light or ozone gas and passed through filters to remove algae. that they say kills the healthful bacteria quote probiotics in raw water parlance

AlexI've read this article like every day

MaxI'm trying to find some of the good parts

Alexhere's the problem nobody can beat Chapo Trap House's bit on it they beat us to it I was so mad

Merlinno no no I just having said that that was a very insta classic bit that was very very very fucking funny but this is so on brand for us. We do need to talk about it. But as it will, but whoever said it on there, it's true. I mean, this is like an aha moment for the Silicon Valley shit show, because you're like, okay, I'm really starting to understand this now. It's that you don't feel special until you do stuff that other people are incapable of having, and that you take away the things that are good from other people. So you take away the infrastructure that leads to good public schools. You let the

infrastructure that brings clean water, the miracle of fucking clean water. Instead, you want this? Elon Musk you're your problematic boyfriend in public times it is not as clean as floor you know it's like

Alexfuck it's just you're not going to ride on the bus with a bunch of commoners he's just scared of people poor guy I think he's he's just like oh you don't have hair I actually went obviously of course went looking for this raw water and I don't think you can get it in Chicago I feel like it'll kill me

MaxIf I had to place a bed, I would say Dill Pickle Co-op.

AlexThat sounds like a place that exists.

MaxNow remember, it expires like all living beverages. Rejoice, rejoice. So you only have it for about a month before it turns green. The founder of this company, who's also the founder of Juicero, he said, quote, real water should expire after a few months. His does. Quote, it stays most fresh within one lunar cycle of delivery. If it sits around too long, it'll turn green. People don't even realize that because their water's dead, So they never see it turn green.

MerlinEvery time you buy pads, pick up some live water.

Speaker ARejoice, rejoice. I'm going to need some menstrual supplies and a fresh glowing orb.

AlexOh, God. I bet his girlfriend rolls her own tampons. Oh, good God.

Speaker AOh, whoa, whoa, whoa. Me, me. What?

AlexDo you not know about the organic tampon world? Organic tampon rollers? Yeah. Oh, there are some people who make their own tampons.

MerlinAre they made out of like old socks or like what?

AlexNo, just organic, cruelty-free cotton. You shear your own sheep. You raise some sheep in your backyard.

MerlinYeah, you could use it the same way you make haggis. You'd use its organs as a kind of a vaginal cup. There's so many ways you could bring the sheep to the vagina. Oh, yeah, you just... Form to vagina.

AlexYeah, you use their bladder as like a little diva cup. Oh, this...

MaxDivacup. Like the Navajo. oh god you sound so wise when you say that in the not lowest style here was the other here was the other quote that from the new york times piece that i could not believe is real like i mean it's it's out it's like onion-esque he goes the founder of this um um raw water company he says he poured himself a glass of water and he says the water from the tap just doesn't taste quite as refreshing he said. Now is that because I saw it

come off the roof and anything from the roof feels special? Maybe.

AlexPumpkin Christ!

MaxAnyway, I do think we should do this as a challenge. Oh, man. I mean, come on, it's so on brand for us. It's probiotic. Rejoice, it's a living beverage.

You're still hanging on to those, huh? You might need them. A couple March boys here. You might need those. For my work.

Speaker AIt's good, it's good.

MerlinYeah, well, you know, it's funny because, like, we are so fortunate in San Francisco. This town is a terrible city. But we have really, really, really good water. I mean, it's just really, really awfully good. And, you know, I think, like, when I go to visit somewhere, especially in Florida.

Speaker AOh, God, yeah.

MerlinWell, and, you know, it's hard in Florida. You've got to do stuff to the water. And if you, you know, if you, at least when I was a kid, you would see, like, the houses would have giant rust stains on them from sprinkler systems. Like, the water's not very good. It's very hard water, and it tastes pretty nasty. And I just, I think, like, you know, again, that's a copy-chopo, but, like, this is a modern miracle. It's a miracle that we are so fortunate, most of us, I mean, obviously there are places like Flint. But it's incredible how cheap clean water is.

It is miraculous that we have this. It is like a precious gift. And it's one thing we have managed to mostly not totally fuck up at this point. It's such a strange thing. It's one thing to say like, oh, I want, I think factory farming is a terrible idea. It's very wasteful. It uses too many resources. It's cruel. I could see a million reasons to say I'm getting off meat and I want to eat organic, you know, alternatives to meat. That's a problem that we really need to solve. I even say as a as a beloved carnivore But water there's so many things that we could do to water that would help everybody and this is just so fucked up

That wasn't funny, but it's frustrating

MaxIt's time and resources to this is it's crazy It's widely known among most people that the tap water is like considerably safer and higher quality than bottled water

AlexYeah

Merlinuh hmm well i mean a lot of the a lot of the raccoon water is just coming from a municipal system you know but there is just municipal water most of it right i mean yeah right most bottled

Maxwater is just like like there's one big bottling company that just bottles water from the north suburbs where alex and i like grew up and is that right yeah and it ships all over the country but they're just bottling tap water right like and in chicago has good water so that maybe if you don't like the taste of your like local municipal water but like the regulations on water on bottled water are way looser than the regulations on tap water that's why i mean that's the whole like scary

Alexplastic thing is you can they can they can melt in a factory for like that's that's why water does have an expiry date and i and i'm super bad about this i drink uh bottles of water all the time i have one right now um because it's easy and convenient but oh my god we switched over to

MaxWe have some bottled water in the office in our conference room. And so if there's people come over, they can grab a bottle. And I had asked, I think I sent Renee out to get that boxed water is better brand. Because I was like, do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. In like a milk carton? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it has a screw top. It's good. I think it's a great product. And I do feel better about drinking it than a bottle of water. So I sent Renee out to get those. And then the cards guys were here for the retreat. And they were like, oh, you know, that's like an evil company. They're owned by like the Mercer family.

And then they're like, it's like, it's like part of the like Blackwater empire or something like that. It's like, it's like Betsy DeVos is like water company. Something like that. They're pretty evil. Yeah. The other thing that's pretty crazy is like, if you lived a thousand years ago or, or in like medieval times or something like that, like this is probably how you would die. It's like you would drink bad water. Like someone would die in your village and they'd throw their body down the well and then the entire village would die it's probably how you would die it's and now no one

dies because of their water is well rarely like you know yeah yeah yeah i where do we go from here

Alexlike what what commodity after water can be made special seeds uh well that's already happened

Maxlike the monsanto free seed in china there's an air market there's like people who buy like

Alexair fresh air oh wow i mean that's i mean again that's already happening so i guess oh challenge oxygen i i want yeah what the the next internet of things crazy is like how much co2 is in your air and then but then there's the good co2 and the bad co2 release the oxygen all right go to giveusourfuckingmoney.com and there's a five dollars here and you get a second

a second show every week which i don't really edit it's a premium episode and uh that's usually where feelings happen. But for $10, you can get a wonderful poster with all your favorite characters like Mr. Elon Musk.

MaxWe're working on some new swag to send out to that $10 list.

AlexI don't even know. We are, yeah. Sure, okay. We'll go talk about it next.

MerlinAlex had an idea for a new challenge level. Alex and I, Max, I know you've been busy. You've probably even kept up, but Alex and I had a new idea for a big, what do you call it, a force goal? What's it called?

AlexA stretch goal.

MerlinA push boy.

AlexBut like actual real stuff. Our posters are almost gone, and so we send them out once a month. And so get them. Actually, if you're hearing this episode, if you want a poster, order it or pledge by the end of this month because then I think we're done.

MaxListen, if you want to do the challenges on the podcast with us, every week we do a premium episode. Oh, I forgot that part. Yeah, we plan out the next week's challenge. I forgot the main reason we did this. And you can do it with us, and then you can be up to date. Otherwise, you're forbidden from doing the challenge. I actually do really want to talk about the challenge this week. It was my challenge. Can we get to it?

AlexDig dug.

MaxAll right.

MerlinI had a pretty good Nextdoor.

AlexOkay, wait. All right. I want to hear about Nextdoor.

MerlinWe can cut it out, though. It's not that good. Never mind. Cut that out.

MaxI had a whole thing about how Donald Trump Jr. said that Ellen DeGeneres was running a shadow government with Barack Obama.

AlexIf you want to hear about Merlin's Nextdoor story and how Ellen DeGeneres- Can I just give you a subject line?

MerlinJust a subject line.

AlexYep, yep. Go for it. Tease it for the after show.

MerlinPossible stray pit bull mix wearing warrior's shirt.

Speaker AWow, you don't... I'm not even going to...

MaxI'm going to read it again.

MerlinPossible stray... Actually, let me read it as it's written. Possible stray pit bull mix wearing warrior's shirt. It's a dog in a t-shirt.

MaxI'm not going to... There's a lot of... A lot of levels. There's a lot of levels. There's a lot going on there.

AlexAgain, if you would like to hear Merlin unpack this, give us your fucking money.

MaxAll right. The challenge this week was, so I don't know if our loyal listeners may have remembered from a couple weeks ago, Merlin recommended the Amazon original program Patriot. Not The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson, where he murders a British commander with a tomahawk. Sorry if you watched the wrong thing. I actually do like that movie. It's a pretty good movie.

Are you not entertained? Which one is that? Oh, The Patriot. It's pretty good. It's got a good score by John Williams. Anyway, it's got fife and drum. I love fife and drum music. It gets me very excited.

But no, so this is called Patriot. Merlin recommended it to me. And the way he pitched it is it's like an Elmore Leonard novel, which I love, mixed with a Coen Brothers movie, which I love, sort of with the cinematography, with the very sort of not cute, but very precise and smart cinematography of, like Wes Anderson or it kind of reminded me of Breaking Bad a little bit of like you had these very precise shots that really rewarded your attention. They sort of helped you they helped you notice

things in the scene. Yeah, kind of alternating between using

Merlinthe edges of the screen and focusing very heavily on the center of the screen. Very Wes Anderson

Maxkind of approach. It was really good filmmaking and anyway, it had all the stuff I loved and you didn't even tell me anything about the cast but holy fucking shit, the cast. And I was a little bit skeptical because I've watched a couple of these Amazon original shows and none of them have stuck. Like, I don't think they're that good. Look, I watched like a little bit of Man in the High Castle and a little bit of the Jeffrey Tambor one. And I haven't, none of them have like, they're all like, okay, they're all fine. But this, holy shit, I watched just the pilot of this.

I would say within the first 20 minutes or the first 10 minutes of this pilot, I was like, this show feels like it was made just for me.

MerlinLike, you can watch the first, a lot of people say the first nine minutes there's something there's stuff that happens in the first nine minutes that's nothing epic but like by the time he's done singing his song you're like what in the fuck is this like i i felt the first scene for me the first scene i was like yep

Maxyep yep yep yep so the so so the premise of the show i'm not i'm gonna try to

Alexwe've agreed we can spoil the pilot this so for right now uh let's do non-spoilers and then i when we want to get into Super East spoilers.

MaxThat's fine. Perfect. So without spoiling it, the premise of the show is, it's the story of this spy played by an actor who I've never seen before. I don't know the guy's name, but he's unbelievable. He's so, I mean, he just, he's so funny and so sad. It's just, it's like, I don't know. I just, there's a lot of, he's a very small actor too. So like a lot of the acting is just like a closeup of his face and you just see him.

MerlinBut just the tiniest little, his name's Michael Dorman. He's born in New Zealand, based in Australia. And he even has a subtle Texas accent. I don't know how he pulled that off. But yeah, his face registers tiny little changes. And he does this little smile of recognition at certain points that's just heartbreakingly beautiful. He's so good. And it's a dark comedy. We're not telling you the part that it's a fucking black comedy.

MaxA black comedy with the feels. It's so funny. It's so funny. I was laughing out loud like alone watching it. It was A whole breakfast a whole spread with breakfast bread, etc

Speaker AOptimistic meal But so as the wolf says in my favorite Oh my god

MaxSo it tells the story of the spy and he he has to get a knock which stands for a non-official cover where he sort of infiltrates a piping company in Milwaukee in order to

In order to travel with this company to Luxembourg to do some some dirty business for the State Department

MerlinThat involves basically Iran not being able to produce a nuclear an imminently producible nuclear weapon

MaxYeah. And, you know, it's like, so there's this on the Jewish holiday of Passover, there's a song called Dayenu. And the idea of this, the idea of the song is you're like listing all the things that God did for the Jews when they were getting out of Egypt. And then at the end of every line, you say Dayenu, which means like it would have been enough. So it's like if God had just sent the locusts Dayenu, it would have been enough. If God had just told the Jews to bake their matzah so they could escape into the desert,

Dainu, it would have been enough. If he had just parted of the Red Sea, Dainu, it would have been enough. And that's how I feel about this show. Like, if it just had, if it was just a workplace comedy with this really sad guy in this crazy piping company in the Midwest, Dainu, it would have been enough. If it had just been the spy comedy where it's like a Coen Brothers, everything goes wrong, and there's all this international intrigue, and it's really funny and smart, like, Dainu, it would have been enough. If it just had Terry O'Quinn from Lost and Red Foreman from That 70s Show, both playing unbelievable characters, like, dying, it would have been enough.

But also, the guy, the whole hook of the spy character is he's a folk singer, and he sings these very literal, earnest songs about exactly what he's doing as a spy.

Speaker AAnd his honesty is probably good for folk music, but maybe not for somebody in the intelligence. It helps him with the feelings. It helps him with his feet.

MaxMaybe I'm partial. I think they're good. Like, Dayanu, it would have been enough. Like, if it just had his fuck-up brother in the tracksuit.

MerlinBut it's also his, but like the introduction of his wife, who's like a fully formed, like, character. And they have a good relationship, but they can't be together. You never see that.

Speaker AMy God, the all-women's detective agency in the lives of yours. What is it?

MerlinSkirts and stockings?

Speaker ASkirts and stockings. The one with the glasses. The one with the glasses who follows Cool Rick. Oh, my God. We haven't talked about Cool Rick. You getting crumbs in there, buddy?

MaxThis show has so much. And let me say my final pitch for the show, which is nobody knows about the show. Merlin, how the fuck did you find out about this?

AlexApple TV came on for me. Apple TV came to Amazon. Sorry, Amazon came to Apple TV.

MerlinI listened to a podcast that Jason Snell does with Tim Goodman called TV Talk Machine. It really gets my Friday night take a shower show. That and Dickerson. because people care about my shower podcast. Dickerson in the shower. Dickerson in the shower. La, la, la. He's just moved to a different show at CBS.

And so I listened to that program. And Tim had talked about doing his, he hates doing this, like most critics, he hates doing his end of the year top N list. And he mentioned this show called Patriot. And he said, well, first of all, I made it number four. And even as I was making it number four, I realized it probably should have been way higher. And I was like, hmm, this sounds really interesting. Explain the premise. The premise is that he's a spy with PTSD who sings incredibly on-the-nose folk songs about how his missions have gone wrong. And I was like, well, sounds like that might be in my wheelhouse.

And so then I watched the pilot. And then I watched the pilot, and I was just like, Max, it's just boring to say. This feels like somebody made this show. Somebody made Stephen Chu just for me. with the helmet and the earnestness and the playing the piano. And, and yeah, so that's how I learned about it. Not many people know about it. And I have officially adopted this as a thing I'm going to tell people about. And this is going to be my new Hawkeye and I'm going to be really annoying about it. But I really encourage people.

Give it a shot.

MaxGive it a shot. And now, give it a shot. Now, I agree with Merlin. There's like a song kind of in the first, like I'll say 10 minutes of the pilot. And I was, I was in, I was like, okay, I'll, I'll, I'll stick with this. But then at the end of the pilot, there's a one or a one long tracking shot where it's sort of the culmination of the episode and sets up a lot of the season. And it's one of the funniest, perfect things I've ever seen. And I saw that and I was like, this might be the best pilot I've ever seen in my life. Do you know what I'm talking about?

MerlinYeah. Yeah. Yeah. They say that they say I've mangled this over the years. But people say when talking about the three-act structure of a play or a movie that in Act 1, our hero climbs a tree. In Act 2, we throw apples at him. And in Act 3, we see how he changes as he figures out how to climb down. And I feel like that is fully realized, except you don't really get too much of 3. But he gets so many goddamn apples thrown at him just in the pilot. And believe me, spoiler alert, it doesn't get better. But it's so perfect.

But you're right. Dramatically, it really sets this up as something where you're like, I've got to see the rest.

MaxEvery time you think that he couldn't be more fucked, everything goes more wrong. And every time it happens, it's so funny. It's so funny.

MerlinIt's funny and it's sad. And there's a point actually in the final episode, this is not a spoiler, but this is just what his father says to him. It basically gives you this adult mandate of like, sometimes we're told not to do things even when we know it's a thing that we've got to do. And you get that that's the nature of being in this intelligence community is that there is horrible stuff that you're told not to do that you know you actually do have to do. And he's just stuck in that machine and the teeth of that machine and they're just chewing him up.

AlexBefore we get into spoilers, I feel like we're not addressing that. It's also super whimsical. Like it is a fun show to watch. Despite like I was laughing out loud and crying.

MaxIt's a very smart show. and not in the way of Rick and Morty where there's literally a character who tells you that he's smart.

AlexI was a woman and I could understand the show.

MerlinBut it's smart. The language is very musical and lively. And there is a lot of the stuff that I love, along the lines of, again, of a Coen Brothers movie, there's a reason that The Big Lebowski is so quotable. Or if you take something like Glen Ross, because there's a musicality and a sound just to the language of the piping industry that is so bizarre and hilarious. Will you do the little piping speech, Merlin? I know you have it somewhere. Well, this might, you know, before we go to the spoiler, maybe I should just give you a quick update

on what Tiff is eating today.

Speaker AWould that be okay if I did that? Yeah, please.

MerlinOkay, well, let me walk you through Tiff's lunch today. Okay, she's eating light today, all right? So she pan-bargled corn tam shamblings with bon-tom-dumas and seasonal frank stranglers. Those are quad, coke-quartered, and half-heart-hangled with spankled French shambles in a dampened room brine and then you let that set okay while the pant press is preheating you drown six to nine prank pine caps and duck reduction you throw that away everything that you have left gets breast roasted in bun tungsten and then dropped on capstan creases of narrow bicentennial breads that's sliced diagonally most of those words i didn't even know

Maxwhat about his what about the the co-worker at the piping place dennis is that yeah yeah dennis

AlexOh no, we can't talk about him We can't talk about Ichabod Watch this show I also

MaxI thought Ichabod was your nickname Why would you think that?

AlexFrom now on Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers Spoilers from this point on When Ichabod says

Speaker AAre you aware About her sexual cuddling I was like it just keeps building did you finish the season yes let the just let the endorphins and

Maxthe dopamine watch it but here's the thing is that went from being one of the probably the funny it probably from probably being the funniest line in the season to also being one of the most poignant moments in the season that was another really beautiful moment like this show is so rangy and And it's just like –

MerlinReally, you don't know where it's going to go, and then it goes somewhere, and it wasn't what you expected. And it completely subverts your expectations.

MaxI don't think I've had a feeling watching this show that was like this since – maybe since I watched Arrested Development. And when I was watching Arrested Development, I was aware. I was like, I am watching a modern classic. I've never seen anything like this before in comedy, and it's so tight. It's like I when I was watching Arrested Development, I was like, I will watch this 10 more times just to catch everything happening in here. It's it's so good and it's so smart and it's thinking 10 steps ahead at every turn. And I have not really had that feeling since since watching Patriot.

I just I love this show so much. Could not give it my my highest a higher possible endorsement. And here's the thing is nobody knows about the show and nobody is watching it. And if you get into it now, you get to be a hipster. You get to be a Patriot hipster. You can be one of the guys. You can say you liked it when it was the first season.

Speaker AWhen it eventually gets canceled because no one watches it,

Maxyou can be like, oh, fuck you guys for not watching it, which is how I'll be after it gets canceled after its second season.

MerlinEverybody's laughing and rioting and cornholing. Except Buster.

MaxWho would want to go up in that musty old claptrap? Ah, the cabin. say you're on the cabin.

MerlinYou do it better.

Alexdo the noise alex you can't do it now i'm a donkey what's oh it sounds like someone's making

Speaker Asome kind of organic juice from a donkey donkey juice hi can i talk to you today about donkey

Maxjuice so all right well i i don't i don't think now upon reflection because i thought when i well so here's the thing when i was thinking about this challenge i was like people are going to watch it with us but most of our listeners didn't watch it with us because they're not premium

Alexsubscribers. That's why we've earned.

MaxI don't think we should, I don't think we need to spoil it any further. We could say

Alexexactly what happens. We could tell every single plot twist and it still would be an amazing show. So we don't need to say anything. We don't, like, one thing I do want to say, if you are a person who makes television, just, like, I don't, there's been a trend recently, I think, in the golden age of television. Or whatever we're calling it now.

MerlinPlatinum. What? sorry some people are calling it the platinum age prestige tv where where it's just uh i i don't

Alexknow everything there's there's this style that is just kind of like people are just trying to mimic breaking bad and mad men and it's like the uber for this or the mad men for this about the

Merlinfake smart shows yeah house of cards style like fake smart shows where you're like you know all the moves but it doesn't feel it doesn't feel fresh or consequential or particularly brainy or toothy it's just but it knows all the gestures of seeming like a premium show what's it's it's

Maxeither it's either mimicking david fincher or filmed like or filmed by david fincher which which um which uh what's that politics the kevin spacey one uh us cars yeah it's like house of cars was literally like the pilot was directed by david fincher right so like it has this very smart camera work where it's like the camera's always like in motion and it's always like gesturing to something and there's people talking to the camera and it has this very smart air about it of like, ooh, pay attention to all of this. Like, you're going to put all the pieces together. And like, you're not. The pieces don't make any sense. Like, it's just,

it's just, it's just, it's just a cheap trick of like mimicking something that's smart in the hopes that you feel smart for watching it, I guess, and give it more credit than it deserves. But that's a show that's like clearly really, they don't have much of a plan. It's not going anywhere. Nothing makes any sense. And like, it's just Patriot's not that. Like all of those smart camera moves, when they're moving the camera in or doing something really deliberate, like it does fucking pay off it does matter like you are supposed to pay attention to that the pieces do fit together if they never made another episode of the show i would be completely satisfied i would

be absolutely satisfied and i'm optimistic for the second season but like i don't need any more like this is a 10 episode masterpiece every episode of the show was perfect perfectly cast perfectly

Merlinwritten perfectly shot it was perfect i'm so i'm really i'm so glad to hear that you liked it because it is um it reminds me a little bit when syracuse said you might want to check out the show called the leftovers he's like i don't know if you like it i can promise you that it is very very weird but it's worth you know uh worth taking a shot that's kind of how i feel with this because i could very much see somebody watching this and going oh it's cute because it is it is it's cute it's it's not you know it's not a serious show on the face of it it's not a purely comedy show

It is really quirky, but it is so successfully quirky without being cute. And that is very, very hard to pull off. I mean, when you see Wes Anderson when he's not really totally, you look at something like Mr. Fox or Rushmore, which I think are awfully, awfully good. But even as good as the one with Gwyneth Paltrow is, it's still so Wes Anderson. You know what I mean? And then you get into Life Aquatic, which is practically Wes Anderson porn. And it's like, oh, you know, you're doing that thing again. And I never got that sense with this.

And I never got the sense that it was a direct – I'm talking too much. But, yeah, we're just talking about how much we like it, which is good. It's really, really good. I've watched some episodes five times. I've watched several. I've watched episode eight three times now. I saw all of it twice with my wife. I've gone back just on my own for fun and watched the pilot a total of five times. And I have watched – I've watched ten twice. But eight is, I think, one of the unimpeachably great episodes of TV.

Maxremind me which one which one is a is that a luxembourg is that a luxembourg one he's

Alexsitting in the circle yes yes that has my favorite shot we got an email oh my god the people coming in and out of frame that that's my favorite and you see people coming

Speaker Afrom a distance you're like oh shit oh shit oh shit is that leslie is that gonna be leslie

Merlingod damn it that shot that was so good and his response is his monosyllabic responses where he's just like okay cool yeah that's cool okay that's cool did you have progress on that paperwork not

Speaker Aas yet the extra number it all comes down to the extra number my husband this is my husband oh my god you don't know who dick cheney is he likes your voice you have a very nice voice and everyone goes yeah you have a very nice

Alexoh god like you thought you knew where the dick cheney episode was headed and you knew and it did head there but like you don't know who dick cheney is oh my god and and i i still what does your father do hold up hold up if you are listening to us and you're like I fucking hate Wes Anderson. This isn't, it's not Wes Anderson. It's not cute for the sake of being cute. There are poignant tracking shots. Like it doesn't, not every single shot is centered.

It's not like, please, if you hate Wes Anderson.

MerlinThe shot where Leslie's waiting for him to show up for breakfast, where he's just sitting there, he's perfectly, everything is perfectly centered. And he's got the whole spread out in front of him. With the breakfast spreads, et cetera.

AlexBut there's also those like chaotic shots where like he's riding a bike. and it's every shot it's not Wes Anderson porn it's not Coen Brothers porn it's just it's own thing which is I don't know how Stephen Conrad got to do that because I don't know

Maxwho's the guy the showrunner and the director

AlexStephen Conrad and he's done he did Pursuit of Happiness and Walter Mitty which I haven't seen Weatherman which I have seen for some reason what else but yeah I don't know

Merlinguess this was his also the though um what's his name the the horndog guy from ali mcbeal is one of the co-creators sorry sorry okay the guy who gets overdressed for the hunting expedition and wants john to shoot all the birds for him oh okay he's a co-creator of the show he's the ali mcbeal guy and i think he's a co-creator he at least wrote and i think maybe directed some of these he was very he was very funny in love with her he's so oh just so much desperation just but But, you know, one thing. Yeah, the whole Twizzlers speech. What? The Twizzlers speech.

Oh, my God. The Twizzlers.

Speaker AAnd then they did it. They went there. Yep.

AlexI just. And the Asian woman, she is a tiny part in Pitch Perfect, which is a fucking great film. Everyone go see it. It's real, real good. Not the third one, the first Pitch Perfect. But she's so good. good and i thought that like maybe that part in pitch perfect it was just it happened to be like good comedic timing and good directing no she is so good in this everyone is talking about the glassblower the a puppeteer doesn't make a difference same thing really Really?

What are you preparing for a class bloke?

Speaker AYou think it'll be better? Well, she has to work with them.

MerlinIt's like, I'm sorry. We're doing that thing. thing that's so fucking annoying but i mean like it's hard for me to imagine somebody who enjoys this show i just think now we're just selling it but like there's just so much joy uh and so much sadness as as tim and as jason snell says he just calls the show sad spies because it's just like okay who's the sad spy this week who's the person whose backstory oh the brothers you get the level of the brothers and the mirroring of the roles of the two brothers in in the different you know what i mean jay wick sands is wonderful you get those two brothers over here and these two brothers

over here and the father that has expectations of them both and it's like yes i ask a lot of you oh oh god and then the brother he just wants to have a cold beer he brings the beer and his

Alexbrother's gone it's a lot it means a lot that you just want to have a cold why am i just quoting this show i oh god it's totally quotable it's incredibly quotable it's so you guys know jack

Maxbirdbath is that correct i know him from he's an artist in chicago and i know a couple of other people on the show too i'm gonna see if it was shot in chicago i'm gonna see if i can get a couple people i'm gonna see if i can get anyone to come on dubai friday and talk about the show now i'm obsessively watching trying to figure out where in chicago maybe in a month we can um uh uh have a guest on and do like a spoiler cast if anybody if anybody ego surfs and finds out and

Merlinthey'll get to this point in the time stamp of the show and say hello how are you if you're involved with this show tell me what i can do to help make it big and popular and promote it i would do anything i can to make people aware of this show and help make it successful this is what i want

Maxout of tv it's in some ways i think alex actually was the one who told me this but like in some ways it's unfortunate that it's on amazon so it's great that it's on amazon because who the fuck else would make this show but it's unfortunate in a way because i think amazon at least for me they they don't have a lot of credibility like if something is an amazon original i'm i'm kind of like

Speaker Atransparent they're getting there was a transparent was all right like no i mean it was critically

Merlinlike it was wasn't that just a the cracking big winner yeah yeah it was it was a trans show about

Alexpeople who aren't or for people who aren't trans and it was kind of like meh meh i don't know i wasn't a fan man in the high castle i was like okay and we get it but uh the uh mazel's oh my god like i am i'm all in for that that's another very good show well i i know that yes max i know you're i'm not i'm not telling you to watch gilmore girls i i know but uh there's the difference

Maxbetween Miss Maisel and Patriot. I'm not comparing them in any sense. I am, Max is. The whole premise of Miss Maisel is that she's this brilliant comedian who hangs out with Lenny Bruce. And you see her do stand-up in the show. But the stand-up's not funny enough? Yeah, in order for it to be plausible, it has to be funny, and it's not funny. And in Patriot, he's supposed to be a pretty good folk singer. And in order for that to be plausible, he has to sing some pretty good folk songs. And you know what? They're pretty good folk songs. He pulls it off. Afternoon spray.

AlexOh my God. I can't believe it. Oh, the canoe. The canoe. Holy shit. Oh, the kayak.

Speaker AYou keep covering the same portion of the kayak.

MaxYou guys got why it had the hole in it, right? Why? Because. Edit this out. Okay, edit this out. It's because when he went to hang himself, he had to punch the hole in it. That's why it had a hole in it. To hang the rope from? Yes. No. Wait, no, no. You see that later when you see him rig the whole thing up on the kayak? Oh, fuck.

AlexOh, yeah, because he's trying to, ah, okay, yes.

MaxSo that's why I had the whole. That's what I was trying to figure out. There's so many little things in that where I'm on the second time through, or like I'm still kind of watching it the second time, but there's so many little parts.

MerlinDid you notice the fake FedEx that keeps coming up? What? The fake FedEx that he gets late in the season is the same brand as the company on the truck that hit Steven. What? No, no. Oh, my God. Yeah. Oh. What's the fake FedEx? Oh, the book.

AlexWell, watch it.

MerlinThe book. So when the book gets delivered, I believe it's the book that gets delivered, but it's like a fake Fed. It's a FedEx, right? That's the same brand as on the truck that hit Steven at like minute seven.

AlexCan I just say, I love in Seinfeld that they call it Federal Express.

Speaker AI still call it Federal Express. That's what we called it. That's what it was called. It just delights me. It's like calling a telegraph provides the service for my information phone.

Alexit's actually shocking how because so many shows

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