145. Sexual ADD

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, play Pokemon Go.

MerlinGood morning.

AlexGood morning.

MerlinAre you ready for the pre-show?

AlexThe pre-show.

MerlinAlex and Merlin are doing the pre-show. Max isn't here yet, but hey, let's just go, go. Doctor Who, musicals, it's finger-banging sin. They and them talking, it's all in the pre-show before Max bursts in. Hey, how's it going? You ready for the morning zoo?

AlexOh, boy. See, that was a more wholesome morning zoo. I actually don't know what the morning zoo is. I just know references to the morning zoo.

MerlinThe morning zoo was kind of invented in my metro area in the early 80s.

AlexOh, oh, really?

MerlinThe Q Zoo in the morning on Q105.

AlexWhen you say your area in the 80s, do you mean Florida or San Francisco?

MerlinFlorida.

AlexOkay.

MerlinQ105 in Florida.

AlexThat checks out. Okay.

MerlinYeah. It was like, I don't know, it was like Alex and the Beaver or something. It was like, you know. it's xeno and the monkey cage well now i need that show um yeah and so this guy scott shannon oh god how do i remember this scott shannon and cleveland wheeler and they had the q zoo in the morning and uh it was you know by later standards very tame but it was just their morning drive time wackadoo show and uh i and then scott shannon i think if memory serves went on to do it in other

Speaker Amarkets. I don't know if they invented it. I mean, it's not like they invented a radio

Merlinshow in the morning, but then that turned into, I mean, I think a lot of shock jock stuff kind of came out of that morning zoo culture. You didn't have that

Alexgrowing up? No. I had an iMac with a CD, CDR that ripped CDs. Is that what it was,

MerlinCDR? I'm not okay. I'm not okay.

AlexOh, that was post-emo prime, though. I love that song. It's very good. I miss that band quite a bit.

MerlinDid you ever listen to the band Knapsack?

AlexNo.

MerlinYou should check out. I was doing another one of my little emo runs the other day, and I rediscovered a band I liked called Knapsack. Check out the song Decorate the Spine by Knapsack. It starts with a K.

AlexOh, there we go.

MerlinYeah, give it a listen. It's pretty good.

AlexAll right. You know what? Let's all enjoy it. Let's all enjoy this song.

Speaker AOoh. Ooh. But I decorate's fine for her. We're not who we might prefer.

Motives move so selfish.

AlexOh, there we go.

MerlinYeah, there it is. That's why that's red. Anyway.

AlexThat is lovely.

MerlinIs that too tuneful? Did you like the more screamy kind?

AlexNo, no, no. And I would consider that, I guess that's considered, I don't know. I think Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American. Oh, that's problematic. Jimmy Eat World's Jimmy Eat World's was really the start of it. Although. Really? I was a baby. Oh, no. I'm sorry. Not Jimmy Eat World, Jawbreaker. What am I saying?

MerlinOh, you like Jawbreaker.

AlexOh, of course.

MerlinI saw them open for Meat Puppets and Stone Temple Pilots.

AlexOh, man.

MerlinThat would be much later, probably.

AlexThat, I truly don't know. Like, everything in that era is a blur just because I was on, like, LimeWire and shit. I know.

MerlinI know.

AlexGet in all that.

MerlinOh, my God, yes. And it was, it was, God, it was, it was so interesting with LimeWire. I like LimeWire too and Kazaa. And what was neat about them though was, I mean, something I guess all you youths know now is that the more popular a song was, the easier it was to get. So you could find obscure stuff, but like if they turned off their computer or something, you're like out of luck. If you want a Britney Spears, you were good to go. But, oh, it was so exciting. Yeah. What was I listening to? I was doing a, no, I don't know if this is the show. Is this the pre-show or the pre-pre-show?

AlexThis is the pre-show, I think. If people don't like our emo talk, then meh.

MerlinI feel like we've gotten good notes on the Alex and Merlin pre-show, which does need a name and a song, probably. Probably, yes. What was I listening to? Yeah, I was listening. I was going back and listening to, oh, I've discovered so much good music lately. Is this because of Spotify? It is because of Spotify.

AlexI don't want any of my podcasts on Spotify, but I like the music.

MerlinI like the music.

AlexThis is like how I still like the Louis show.

MerlinOh, I know. I never thought he was funny. You know what happens, Alex? Sometimes I get sad. And not super sad, but like there will be a day. When was this? I can tell by looking here. It was four or five days ago. And sometimes I'll just go, you know what? I need to just not look at Twitter in particular today because it was suicide day. and I was just like, I can't even today. And so what I do is I try to make a practice of saying I'm going to go on Spotify

and I'm going to try to find new music and I will go listen to bands that my friends like that I should try out. I'll go, you know, as you know, I love going to the fans also like section, you know, of a band and yeah, yeah, I discovered Fish.

AlexOh, oh my. Oh my. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MerlinBut like, okay, but like, you know, like Get Up Kids, was that in your wheelhouse?

AlexThat was my first, well, my first concert was Dixie Chicks, but I don't remember it, so it doesn't count.

MerlinThat's before they were canceled.

AlexYep, before, did they get canceled? Oh, I remember. But yeah, it was one of those things where my aunt was just really into the Get Up Kids and thought, you know who would like this? Alex. And it was their-

Speaker AThat's so cool.

AlexRight? And it was their first farewell tour of like four farewell tours. Oh, that's all right.

MerlinThat's all right.

AlexBut it was, I mean, I don't know. I was like 14 and it was wild. That was when I was.

MerlinYou must have been so, you must have felt so cool to get to do that.

AlexNo, I didn't know it was cool. I just thought, I mean, it was like this obscure band that I'd listened to on the internet. So really I thought it was nerdy. Oh, Max is here. Oh, no. With only one deck of cards.

MerlinWe've only just begun. So if you like GetUp Kids, Promise Ring. I like Promise Ring.

AlexOh, love the Promise Ring.

MerlinSo you got a broad base in this because of the file sharing services.

AlexYes, because I was sad. I liked computers. And it was the age of... That's a perfect storm of emo. Exactly. It's sad, pirating, and emo at the same time.

MerlinCursive, cursive. Now, Braid, I never got into Braid. They were old school. Hey, Max. How's it going, buddy? Welcome to the pre-show. Hey, what's up? Good, good, good, good, good. From the Internet Science site, Morning Zoo is a format of morning radio show common to English-language radio broadcasting. Name is derived from the wackiness and zaniness of the activity, segments, and overall personality. Jumping down to history, the first Morning Zoo program, focusing on the zany interactions of two hosts, was conceived and performed in 1981 by Scott Shannon and Cleveland Wheeler of WRBQ.

FM in Tampa. Good job, Tampa. Yeah, Tampa strong.

MaxWe got to do a flirt episode one day. Do you guys think that Epstein was murdered? Are you still alive?

MerlinHere we go. End of free show.

AlexOh, there. All right, here we are. Do you guys need me for this one? Remember, every suicide slash murder joke, stay in, stay in.

MerlinOkay, that's your policy this week is that suicide, murder, conspiracy, it's all okay. Open the floodgates.

AlexOpen, open the floodgates.

MerlinWe're going full Epstein brain.

AlexThis is something I thought of the other day, and I think it's pretty problematic. but if I was a sad teen and I heard about the Epstein suicide and I wasn't into all the conspiracy theories and I was an especially sad teen I would be like oh man that's not how I want to go oh no no no and I would cancel all dark sad plans I had and I'm like I don't want to be remembered not like this I don't want a yearbook a page in the yearbook if I'm associated with a pedophile

no no no no so really I think he's saving lives

MaxThat's why I felt when David Carradine died.

AlexI don't know who that is.

MaxKung Fu.

MerlinDavid Carradine. He liked to get in the chokie. Maybe that's what happened.

MaxHe could have Carradine himself a little bit.

MerlinAccording to Matt, there was nothing he could hang from or with in the cell, according to Matt.

MaxI'm not going to say that Epstein wasn't murdered because he clearly was. But also, how do people – I have heard that line of people go, there was nothing for him to hang himself on. That's a big talking point. And like how do you – fuck do you know that? Like what do they know what the prison cell looks like?

MerlinDo you know what I mean? Like why – They put him in a place where there wasn't even a great – Presposably, he was put in a place where they took away all the tying things.

MaxWell, but he wasn't on suicide watch. That's the thing is they did put him in a place where he could kill himself.

MerlinAll right. Let's get into it. What a week. Oh, here we go. Tell me. Here we go. Lay it out, Max. What's going on? What's on your mind grapes?

MaxAre you guys obsessing about this? I'm reading quite a bit about it.

AlexThe thing is, I'm obsessing over it, but secretly. Not on our podcast where tens of thousands of people are listening.

MerlinI'm so scared of what has happened to Matt Chrisman, and I don't want it to happen to me. I'm so worried. Because, of course, of course. Do you guys know about the gold temple? You mean the thing that's got the twin-sized bed in it?

MaxMm-hmm. Oh, yeah.

MerlinYeah, of course I know about it. I've got Epstein brain. I'm just not talking about it.

AlexAll right, all right, wait. I need to know what the gold temple is now. I can't find it on Google. What's the golden temple? You love to know about it.

MerlinGoogle it. You love to know it.

AlexYou love to see it. Is this like a golden shower?

MerlinThat's where he put his bikes. He put his bikes and his extra twin-sized bed in the temple that he had on his Virgin Island.

MaxThis week I'm taking antibiotics and probiotics.

MerlinWhoa, whoa. Are you doing culturel? Are you doing culturel? What are you doing?

MaxI'm letting them fight it out.

MerlinFight it out. You guys decide. Are you doing culturel? What are you doing?

MaxIt's like putting the humidifier and the dehumidifier in the same room. They both disappear. We're going to see who wins.

MerlinFinish him.

MaxYeah. It's like a Highlander situation. Yeah, really?

MerlinI take a culturel every day.

MaxWhat am I taking? So I had gotten a sinus infection from all my travel. I was very sick on the podcast last week. Oh, shit, dog. I'm sorry. That's okay. It happens all the time. We're in a closed-up room. And then I have, it's not contagious. It's not? Okay, good.

AlexAfter 24 hours of antibiotics. Oh, I've had this for a week. Whoa, whoa, whoa. How long have you been on antibiotics?

MaxLike five days.

AlexBut that's the thing. But you're having them fight, so I don't know.

MaxAnd then I'm taking Florester.

AlexOh.

MaxFlorester brand probiotic, which is what the pharmacist at Walgreens recommended.

AlexWhoa.

MaxNot just any Walgreens. Not just any Walgreens.

AlexOkay, okay. The fancy Walgreens. The fancy Walgreens.

MaxSuper Walgreens.

AlexIf a pharmacist recommended anything to me, I would slowly back away and go to the nearest Walgreens.

MerlinThat's just a form of judgment. Anytime a pharmacist... Have you tried deodorant?

MaxWait a minute. The pharmacist... Do you know how hard it is to become a pharmacist? I do.

MerlinOh, yeah.

MaxWhich is why...

MerlinIt's as hard as becoming a mall lawyer. Oh. Is this legal or not legal?

AlexHi, everybody. Hey, everybody. Generic.

MaxI don't think you can work in a Walgreens. Do you know the Walgreens I'm talking about? The one that's in the old bank?

AlexNo, actually. I have no idea.

MaxIt's the one that's in an old bank. It's like the flagship Walgreens nationally.

AlexThe one on the corner? Yeah. Okay.

MaxYeah, and it's in an old bank. And they have the bank vault that's full of vitamins. It's called the vitamin vault. I don't think you get to work in the vitamin vault unless you're highly qualified.

AlexI don't know.

MaxThat makes sense.

AlexYeah. That checks out.

MerlinYou probably get special clearances for that.

AlexDo you take vitamins, Merlin?

MerlinNo.

Speaker ANo, no.

MerlinNo. I take, boy, I take a lot of pills. But no, I don't. I'm not sold on vitamins as a thing. Unless, I mean, unless you have a, you know what, who cares? We got to talk about you guys.

AlexI'm trying to get away from the suicide, but let's go. Let's go into the murder. Let's go into how he didn't have anything in his cell, supposedly. There's nothing to say.

MaxI mean, he was clearly murdered by someone powerful or not.

MerlinAnd he's clearly a body double or not.

MaxI mean, obviously. The body double stuff is. Obviously, a lot of really.

MerlinLook at his ear. Just look at his ear. That's a different ear.

MaxNow that I've got some distance on it and I've read all the news and stuff.

MerlinYou got a little perspective. He got some perspective.

MaxWell, in the six hours after he died, I was like, he was definitely murdered by the Clintons or like MI6 or something. Or Mossad.

MerlinIt could be Mossad.

MaxIt could be Mossad. Yeah, a lot of, like, listen, how many fucking powerful billionaires and state actors wanted this guy dead? I mean, probably the Saudis, the British royal family, like the Clinton's and the Trumps.

MerlinYou can't think of any former presidents that wouldn't want to...

MaxHe might have been. He also might have been. I actually do really buy the idea that maybe he had some sort of intelligence community. He was either working for the CIA or he was being used by them. I think that's very... I think all the... Listen, if you want that, all the... The guys are so sick. All the thread is there. If you want to make a string board, it's lying right there in front of you to pick up and connect him to the CIA, if you want. But I also think it's possible that his life was really shitty and he just killed himself and it just happened to be whatever

all these powerful and rich people wanted. I don't know.

AlexI have the most boring conspiracy theory, which is, you know, the guy is well-connected. I'm told that child rapists don't do that well in prison, and I think that his scary friends who are ex-billionaires would not have him go to a nice, safe spot. So I can just see him paying a lot of money to a guard's family and being like, hey, slip me some pills, put some bruises on me, and just, you know.

MerlinWas that Mengele? Was it Mengele? Or who was the guy that killed himself the day before sentencing in Nuremberg? Wasn't there a guy that found a sympathetic guard?

MaxWas it Milosevic? I don't, I don't.

MerlinA little bit on Milosevic? It might have been Milosevic, yeah. Milosevic.

MaxI mean, I know the only people who go to, like only, like no white people go to the ICC, but I know that like the one guy that they almost got on war crimes, like he managed to kill himself the day before his trial, but. Herman Goering. Oh, I think this happened in Milosevic as well.

MerlinHermann Goering, Nazi potentate, World War II, clicking, clicking, clicking, trial and death. Oh, they got a picture of him here. That ear doesn't match, though.

MaxMade an appeal asking to be shot as a soldier. Oh, no, it was another Bosnian Slobodan, and he managed to take cyanide right before his thing.

MerlinRatkom Lodic, maybe? So Goering committed suicide with a potassium cyanide capsule the night before he was to be hanged. Citation 138. Here's the thing. So I will go as far Epstein, but you guys, you guys own this Epstein brain episode. That's fine. Here, here is the thing that I think is difficult to, difficult to avoid, which is there are so many super interesting wackadoo theories about this conspiracy or otherwise, but what it does come down to is something went fucking wrong at some point.

There's, there's no, there's no explanation for what happened here that has everybody coming out looking good and i i think what you said alex does make a lot of sense is that you know he might have done a gearing and

Maxhe did the gearing apparently he was walking around i saw this in some news article that he was apparently walking around the prison asking random inmates for their like um id number and then just putting money in their commissary so he was literally just walking around and just giving people cash and the idea i assume like why would you do that it's just to say like hey don't don't

Alexkill me there's more where this was more where this came from there's there's more of this for your family if you slip me a cyanide pill i listen i don't like billionaires who in general and i really don't like billionaires who abuse children and i feel like there are people with a lot of i know i know um brave bold stance and i think i like billionaires who abuse children more because

Maxat least you're doing something cool. Do you know how tedious it is to be that rich? It's difficult. You should have some sort of James Bond level. A lot of billionaires, when they get rich, and they do the schemes from the bad Bond movies. Do you remember the one where the guy's goal was he owned a newspaper, and then he was going to start a war to print more newspapers?

MerlinThat's so lame. It was a Pierce Brosnan one. You don't deserve a volcano with a planet.

MaxAnd Pierce Brosnan pushes, in the end, Pierce Brosnan kicks him into the printing press, and he goes, I guess they'll print anything these days. Oh, my God. Extra, extra. Read all about it.

I think this will sell very well. And that's what a lot of billionaires do. But I think if I was a billionaire, I think I would do some.

MerlinWould you get weird, Max? Do you think you would maybe start out with charity projects?

MaxOh, I would do some. Would you get weird? I'd be dipping girls into gold.

MerlinI'd have some weird stuff going on.

MaxAnd then eat them?

MerlinIs that what he did? I don't know. I mean, people like gold-plated food.

MaxYou could probably get that on a bagel or something. Here's what I see. I see you doing- I would definitely capture a spy in Smash's testicles. I mean, that's number one on the list.

MerlinAnd then there'd be a really crummy-looking Xerox of your Amazon order, of your ball-smashing toilet order. how to train a slave and how to break a ball. I think, you know, I can see you, Max. I mean, you do pretty well in life, but I see you going a Zuckerberg route or like everything around here is named after a Silicon Valley person. Like the General Hospital is now like the Mark Zuckerberg Hospital. And there's, you know, and then you hear this, you hear the, you know, the Evan and Sarah Williams Foundation or the Eric Schmidt Foundation and all of these.

I see you starting a foundation and then you'll move, I see you moving into more of a musk. And I see you getting into some very, very strange projects like, I don't know, buying an island or digging a large hole. Something really deranged. Making a car that can't play a podcast.

AlexOh!

MerlinUnless you got the right ARFID.

AlexMm-hmm. You can play some games in your driveway.

MerlinBut then you should get weird, man. You should get weird and you should have Steven Pinker hang out and go, that's very interesting. Mm-hmm. Oh, you want to, it's a sex farm and we're going to freeze your dick.

Speaker AMm-hmm. All right. All right.

MaxThe story checks out. no I you know what respect like he he got a bunch of money and then he did all the weird stuff he

Alexcould think of nope nope not going uh retracting that statement and we're tell me everything you

Maxknow about the the the temple what's it called oh I just know it's like from google I mean I I've probably heard the same podcast you have but it's from like google images and he's got this

Merlinweird gold dome on his shit and then it was damaged wasn't it damaged by a storm yeah the The hurricane blew it off.

MaxWell, that was something else. I think the thing that got damaged in the hurricane was like an acoustical chamber for a piano. I don't know, man.

MerlinSo what's your theory, Max? Bring the rockets. What's going on? What do you think happened?

MaxWell, I really have to say I'm torn between two theories, and neither of them are great. And the first one is that the first one is the more fun one to believe, which is that there's a satanic cabal of child predators at the highest levels of power, including the presidency. And they do like ritualistic child abuse and human trafficking as a way to like induct each other into the ruling class and the billionaire class. And it's basically a true detective season one, but they're in charge of every facet of our lives.

And when and then that that that's in a lot of ways, the more fun one to believe. And, you know, listen, like conspiracy theories are having a moment like culturally right now. Don't you think everyone's got some sort of conspiracy theory?

MerlinI do. I do. I think I think in times where everybody on every part of the political cultural spectrum has things that are difficult to impossible to understand. And in the absence of evidence about why things are so strange for everybody, we cobble together the suspicions and evidence, quote unquote, that we can find that it ends up becoming like a conspiracy theory. And I think everybody does that. If you think fucking liberals don't do this, holy shit. We're so deep on this stuff. It's human nature, right?

We just haven't branded it as well as QAnon.

MaxIt's true. No, no one wants to think of everything around them as basically as contingent. That's what I'm thinking of. And so like going like people always have something of like, oh, there was an eclipse because like God is angry at us. Like people always come up with some order to basically random noise that they can't understand. And things feel very crazy and out of control right now.

MerlinSo I think for everybody, it feels crazy for the guy who lost his job at GM, too.

MaxBut it feels even I think even for Trump, right, who's the most powerful guy in the world. He's out there tweeting conspiracy theories because they give him a sense of order to his worldview as well. So I think we live in very uncertain times. And conspiracy theories, even if it's bad, even if it's like, oh, this evil cabal of Jews control every facet of my life and they're personally gang-stalking me or whatever, at least someone's in charge. You know what I mean? At least there is an order.

MerlinBut to have conspiracy that catches on, there's two parts that have to work together, I think. I'm not a scholar of this. But first, there has to be malevolence. There has to be somebody who's deliberately doing something to screw with you and yours in particular. But then there also has to be secrecy and cover ups that it's not just malevolence. There also has to be connections between malevolent people that you are not supposed to know about.

MaxWell, a big part of it is that it can't be falsifiable. So anything that comes out that's evidence against your conspiracy theory, you have to be able to take it and turn it. And you go, no, that's part of it. They did that. That's just more proof. It's just more proof. Right. Exactly.

MerlinFalse flag. Yeah.

MaxOkay, so on the one hand, I think you have True Detective Season 1. And on the other hand, I think basically you have Jeffrey Epstein, who is doing an extortion ring with human trafficking to entrap billionaires into giving him money for his fake hedge fund.

I mean, that's not even a conspiracy theory. And power of attorney. We basically know that to be true, I think. I think that's pretty safe that we could say that that's more or less what his operation was. And then, well, it's not that everyone was in on it, and it's not that everyone was a pedophile, and there wasn't, you know, it's just that a lot of that can just be explained by the fact that there is this small group of people at the top of, like, political leaders, rich people, billionaires, social elites, like, science elite, elite people in science, and they all just hang out with each other.

And they have that, you know, that in the in the in among the sort of ruined class, like it's a pretty small social group and everybody visits each other's islands and they all hang out. And so if Epstein has a lot of weird stuff going on, anybody can be tied to him who's in that class because they all flew on his plane. They all went to his island. They all hang out together. They're all photographed at parties with each other. You know what I mean? It doesn't mean they were all doing satanic child abuse. I mean, I actually don't know. Maybe they were, but I'm just trying to— That's the more moderating, common sense thing that I'm trying to hang on to.

MerlinDo you think that he was murdered by somebody? Let's leave out for a minute whether it was Hillary Clinton.

MaxYeah, I was 100%— When it broke, I was 100% sure. I was like, it's all true. Pizzagate was true. It's all real. And now I've read—

Really?

MaxYeah, I had this moment. Veronica will tell you, I went insane.

MerlinThere was a few hours. So Alex, this is the point when I went on to Spotify to go find new emo music. Because I was like, wait a minute.

AlexWith the tweet storm?

MerlinThis is all just seeming a little too plausible. There's nothing sane that's plausible. And there's nothing insane that's implausible. And I need to walk away from Twitter because I'm going to turn into Matt Chrisman if I'm not careful.

AlexI bet both Veronica and Maddie were just like, they probably just both walked away from us and were like, no, no. because I had maybe an hour of this and then I was like, I gotta stop, I gotta stop.

MerlinBut it's him in particular. He's such a cipher. At this point, what we know about him is I would say uniformly weird, terrible, incomplete, right? It's just that he is already a cipher for so much of the boogeyman stuff.

MaxI think in 30 years or 50 years or whatever, all this Epstein shit will have the same cultural prominence as Area 51 and the Kennedy

Merlinassassination. I wouldn't be surprised. I would not be surprised at all. It's going to go down as one of those big ones that there's lots of... Maybe more than JFK. Lots of

Maxpop culture and you know what I mean? Like TV episode ripped from the headlines like TV episodes.

AlexYeah. The reason I don't think that is because I think there's a lot of people like Epstein and it's still going to happen. Is there a lot of people?

MaxHow?

AlexWhat do you mean how? There are a lot of pedophiles.

MerlinAre you familiar with what happened in a well-known Christian church over the last hundred years? That's what I was going to say. On the one hand, you go, wow, I've always been creeped out by my clergyman. He sure seems weird. Then you discover, oh boy, everybody's whispering about this weird thing that happened. At that point, you're like, this fucking sucks. That sucks. But we haven't even gotten to the, what's the movie about that with the Hulk?

AlexSpotlight. And that's the sad part.

MerlinYeah, then you get to the spotlight stuff and you discover the deliberate, it was a conspiracy. There was a deliberate, yeah, that you would move these clergy people to different churches where they'd go and repeat exactly their same actions, slap on the wrist, and it went all the way up to Vatican City. It was, in that sense, truly a conspiracy to cover something up amongst the people who you would most hope you could trust your kids to be around. And they covered up for all of the people who covered up for all the people who covered up for all the people.

And it was cover-ups all the way up.

AlexAnd the most fucked up thing, not the most fucked up thing, but so many kids, you hear about kids being paid off and stuff like that. But there were so many kids just telling their parents, telling the other priests they could trust, like, this guy creeps me out or this guy straight up assaulted me. And it was cover up after cover up after cover up. And that's why I think if you're a billionaire, it's got to be easier to cover that up. because there are still some people in the Catholic Church

who believe that it's either lefties trying to legalize abortion and just all of this nastiness.

MerlinIt's the same persecution we've been facing since the time of Paul.

AlexRight, basically. It's bonkers. And if you're not going to listen to your actual child, are you going to listen to some sex worker who's like, actually, they took my younger sister on a jet to an island because that sounds fucking crazy.

MerlinWell, and the part that Max is talking about that, like we are kidding about this horrible thing or joking about it. But like, look at, oh, my God, look at so many people who are there's so much self-destruction wound up in so many of these powerful people. And we've always thought that about Bill Clinton. Before he was elected, he was doing incredibly self-destructive stuff. He was doing stuff that any rational person would not do because you know you're going to get caught at that. But he kept doing it and he kept doing it and he kept doing that.

And you look at somebody, like imagine a system where you are hiring underage girls. I wish we could get away from that phrase, sexual or erotic massage. You should say what it is. And it's really gross. But part of the system, the part where this gets even more harrowing is that now you're supposed to go out and recruit your friends. And they tell two friends and so on and so on. And you have this handjob pyramid scheme that it's such a horrifying idea to even contemplate. But imagine how reckless you would have to be to assume that that would never get out.

You would have to be so fucking deranged. I mean, this is the same guy who wanted his head and dick frozen.

AlexYou'd have to be Anthony Weiner, basically. Well, but don't you— He was just bad at it.

MaxAt a certain point, like maybe, I mean, I've seen, let me, let me posit this. I don't think he was like a smart man. I don't think he was like a, like a, like a, like even hearing all the, like all the scientists like dunk on him now and say that he didn't understand any of the stuff that they were, you know what I'm talking about? Like he really comes across.

MerlinOh yeah. We all thought he was a weirdo. I drank his free drinks and I flew on his plane and I nodded along, but I always thought he was a loon.

MaxWell, and a lot, they all have like specific anecdotes of like really dumb, like shit that he said or times that he, anyway, he was just, he was not a smart dude.

MerlinAnd he had apparently had a lot of trouble like focusing and would just do this. And there was a one anecdote where like there was a dinner where it was all like models on one side and pop science people on the other. And he would keep oscillating his attention between like, you know, asking the Malcolm Gladwell type person about dick freezing and asking the woman over here to rub his shoulders and just holding court. I mean, that's deranged.

AlexThat sounds pretty cool. I don't know.

MerlinI could get into that.

AlexThat's like blaming mass shooters for having a mental illness. It's not that he seemed to have a weird sexual ADD type thing. It's that he was a billionaire who liked to fuck kids.

MerlinThat sounds terrible. I don't want sexual ADD.

MaxNo, no. Alex, the only point I'm bringing this up is I was going to say, I don't think Epstein is very smart. And I think he did corrupt enough very, very powerful people into his extortion ring that maybe he really did think it would never get out. Maybe he's like, you know what? We're too big to fail.

AlexLike, there's too many powerful people.

MaxToo many people who own media companies. Like, I do think at a certain point, like, maybe he was just deluded.

AlexOh, I mean, yeah.

MerlinAnd so your official, what's your official, what's your official current as we, and you know, by the time we're done recording, we're going to be fucked. You know there's going to be something bananas that comes out.

MaxI'm going to say, I was very fired up about all the conspiracy theory stuff. And I was like, it's like a Satanist cabal and, you know, whatever. and they're all working for the CIA and fucking children. And now I'm more like Schrodinger's cat.

As we get more information, I'm ready.

MerlinIt's either something totally plausible or something totally insane.

AlexOr just completely insane.

MaxBut I'm almost equally ready to believe either one depending on what comes down the pipeline. I really could. If it turns out that there is some crazy Satanist thing that comes out, it wouldn't shock me. I'd be like, yeah, that is supported by everything we know. But also if it turns out to be more mundane and it was just kind of a bunch of dumb rich people who got extorted and there isn't a sort of broader major political conspiracy behind it, I would also just believe it. And also there's another possibility, which is we'll never find out another fact about it.

And what we know is what we know. And this is the end of it. And I would also believe that. And I'd be like, yep, it's going to be one of those. We're just going to get Epstein blue balls for the rest of our life.

MerlinAlex, what's yours? I want to tell mine, but tell me yours. What's your theory tonight? As we record at 1137 Central Time on Wednesday, August 14th, what is your theory on the alleged suicide of Epstein?

AlexOccam's razor, he was a disgusting man who was a coward, and he killed himself because he was afraid of his rich friends and being in prison.

MerlinThat's so rational. Yeah, mine is—

AlexI apologize.

MerlinI've got a Schrodinger's child molester too. One is, however it came to be, he took his own life in his cell that Friday night. And, you know, we can get into the salt and peppering of like how that was able to happen. So I think it was either that, exactly what they said happened, or the previous quote unquote suicide attempt in which he was taken away and taken to a hospital. that's when they switched him with the homeless man it hasn't it hasn't been epstein for almost

Alextwo weeks or or it's like the movie widows and it was just a bunch of pissed off moms who like

Maxoh all right i've changed my it's not impossible that somehow he got like like can we just posit that that's not as kooky as it sounds like it like if there was cia involvement like they've done kooky stuff like this all the time.

MerlinThere are dumber QAnon theories, to be sure. There are much dumber QAnon. The ear thing, like, I don't know. But, like, I... Here's the thing. There's a reason.

There's a reason that they would not give him bail, which is that he has all of the resources. Even if he's not the billionaire he claims to be, he appears to have something like at least, like, half a billion dollars in resources. He does seem to have a lot of powerful friends. If there is, of the people that I'm aware of, if there's anybody who has the means, methods, and opportunity, the resources to do some fucking shenanigans, it's Jeffrey goddamn Epstein. That part I do believe. Was he killed by a surrogate for Clinton?

I don't know. I don't think probably.

MaxI don't think that the Clintons lack the operational competence to do it.

MerlinThat would be too effective. Yeah, they don't, no. No, they could screw up a wet dream.

MaxI mean, here's what I'll say.

AlexTheir server was an iMac in a basement.

MaxIf he was assassinated, it was very clean because we don't know. You know what I mean? They didn't get busted on the assassination. And it was pretty good. It seems like it was a state actor.

MerlinBut you have to be so desperate to do it in this way. This is such a ham-fisted way to assassinate somebody. I mean, you know, I've seen a lot of Mission Impossible movies. There's all kinds of things you can do to people. But like for this particular thing, this is if that was the case, Jesus Christ, there's so many loose ends here.

AlexHow would you have killed him?

MerlinOh, I would I would go in with a with a bowie knife made of ice.

AlexOh, boring.

MerlinI'd stab him in the dick. The doctor was his mother.

AlexBoring.

MerlinBut doctor, I am Jeffrey Epstein.

MaxWhat a fun program. I have a discussion topic.

AlexAll right. Yes. All right.

MaxFirst of all, how did Rosemary Orchard get the new Tom Bin bag?

AlexOkay. Because she's cooler than I am. Okay.

MerlinThat's specifically what they put on the form?

MaxIs it going to be one of the two of you? Is that the deal?

AlexI bet that. I bet that was it. They were like, hmm, hmm, we got this person who's harassing me on Twitter and this renowned, very smart blogger and podcaster. I think, though, that Mr. Ben should really recognize our loyalty.

MerlinMr. Ben's my father. Call me bag.

AlexMr. Ben, if you're listening, right now I'm using a bag. I don't want to name it, but let's just say its design is not at its peak, if you will. But I've had to use it because of the stupid laptop. Like I have to carry a laptop and two iPads for work. But now, but now your beautiful, beautiful Cynic bag is exactly what I need. And you can ask anybody on the internet, ask Apple, ask any iOS developer. I'm an amazing beta tester.

so I really think that if I were to have a preview I would give a lot of great feedback because boobs lots and lots of boobs they have those straps now that don't have the seams yeah or really you're doing

Maxyou lost me

Alexcan you explain that?

Maxwhy did you just say boobs?

Alexsee that's why I'm a good beta tester because backpacks you're playing the gender card I am playing that social justice card

Merlinso hard

AlexUh-huh, uh-huh. And the seamlessness on, have you seen the straps? They're amazing.

MerlinI have no idea what you're talking about.

AlexExactly, exactly. I'm so confused. This isn't for you. This isn't for you. This is for Mr. Ben. This is not for you. It's for Mr. Ben.

MerlinOkay, what about our listeners? How many leaders? How many leaders? How many leaders are you talking about?

AlexSmall leaders? 22. 22 leaders. 22, yep, three more. Okay, okay, I'm sorry. Sorry for interrupting next. Proceed, proceed.

MaxWell, I got a little invite. I said, Mr. Bin, please design a bag that accommodates all of my magic stuff when I travel. And I get a little invite. A bag of holding, if you like. I'm in Seattle, I think, next week. And I got a little invite to go to the Tom Bin facility and meet with them and show them some magic.

AlexSteal a bag.

MaxSteal a bag. Steal a bag? You can just buy their products on the internet.

AlexNo, you can't. I have purchased. I've pre-ordered the bag. But it won't come until October.

MaxOh, I pre-ordered it. I pre-ordered it. Did you do the small one?

AlexYeah. Yeah, yeah.

MaxI did the small one.

MerlinWhat's the bag called? What are we talking about? What's it called?

AlexSynic. It's based on the synapse, but it has Nick's name in it. Isn't it cute? I don't really know who Nick is.

MaxOne of the features that I'm excited about is the-

MerlinOh, there it is. Oh, it's curvy. Look at that.

MaxI'm really excited about the luggage pass-through. That's actually a really nice feature.

AlexLook at those straps.

MaxAnyway, I have the small synapse. That's so fucking weird.

AlexExcuse me. You bring your big old brain bag into theaters. That's what a loyal customer you are. you bring the bomb bag everywhere.

MerlinBomb bag.

MaxBomb bag. I have traveled all over the world with my, what do I have? The Synapse 18?

AlexYou have the Synapse 19.

MaxThe 19? I think it's the greatest, it's small, but it has so many little pouches and compartments and they're just, it's like literally feels like it was especially made just for me. And I brought that bag all over the world and it's still in perfect condition and it's the greatest backpack I've ever owned. and I'm very, very loyal to the Tom Bin company. But I thought, here's an interesting question. So now I have like this new problem, which is I had everything all finally fucking sorted out and figured out and now I'm into magic. And so now I have to carry, now I have to like work into my system

carrying magic props. And I had such a good system. It was all figured out. I was like a day away from retirement and then all of a sudden, now I have a bunch of magic shit to carry around in my bag.

MerlinThey give you a new partner.

AlexI mean, have you gone into their cubelets and like the snake charmers and my, okay. So my, um, my backpack, which is not the peak of design, uh, is filled with Tom Ben products because they're way, way better. There's organizer cubes. There's, there's little, they actually have a knitting pouch. I love it. It's adorable. Uh, and in, in, in a toiletry, the clear cube and all of those go on. O-rings. Don't you have any of the O-ring

products so you can just pull it out and then you... Oh, Max. Oh, dear.

MaxYou have to educate me about this. I don't know

Alexabout all that. See, Mr. Bin? See?

MerlinI feel like I'm listening to a Linux podcast in Esperanto.

AlexIt's not for you. Not everything's

Merlinfor you. Not everything is for you. Well, it's for boys. I think I got

Maxsomething on my foot here. Hang on.

AlexOne thing is for him. It's one well for boys.

MerlinMix minimalist wallets.

MaxCubelet. Cubelet. I love to know about that.

MerlinOkay. Oh, wow. They sure do have a lot of pouches. I love a good pouch. Oh, my God. It's like extreme restraints for bags. Alex, give me one of every pouch, okay?

AlexLook at the O-rings. Oh, and the colors.

MerlinWhat does that mean? Is it clippy? The clippy, you mean?

AlexWell, the clippy is what goes on the O-rings that are inside the bags.

MerlinBut doesn't that pull the sides down and make it weird? No, no, it does not. It does not. All right, all right.

MaxLet me bring this back around. I'm curious about this. I have a, I could tell you, I don't have it with me, but I could tell you from memory pretty much everything I have in my backpack. And I carry a lot of weird shit in my backpack, like just for those like just in case moments.

Do you guys have like a thing like that where it's like, yeah, this is my setup. Like I need this for my work.

AlexOh, yes.

MaxWhat's in the backpack all the, so should I give you, can I give you a few examples of some of the weird stuff I have?

AlexWould you like to hear the left pouch and about the different, one thing Tom Bin doesn't make, a solid pill case? Yes. Nope.

MaxSo here's what I do. Altoids tin. And then I have little, and Merlin, do you remember many episodes ago you recommended a product that are these clear pill baggies that you can label with a Sharpie? Just refilled mine last night. And so I carry, so I figured out the most space efficient way to fit a variety of pills and powders into my backpack is I have one of those metal Altoids tins, the large one, not the minis. And then in there, sub-organization. That holds all your pills? Yes. One Altoids 10 holds all those little pill baggies that you have.

But I don't have a lot. What do I have? I have ibuprofen. I have got.

AlexAre you a Tom guy? Yeah, Tom's.

MaxI've got ibuprofen, Tom's.

MerlinYou should have more drugs. You should definitely have more pills. Okay. Well, what do you have in there? I'll take a photo if you want. I got a lot.

AlexYes, please. Yes, please.

MaxWhat are the good... Oh, you know what I carry around is one of those... I carry around one of those Flonase, the thing that you spray in your nose and it decongests you that's bad for you and you're not supposed to use it. Oh, yeah, right, right, right. Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. I have to have it with me in case I can't breathe.

AlexYep, yep.

MaxI know it's... You shouldn't use it.

MerlinI don't endorse this. I'm going to mute for a second. You guys keep talking.

AlexI want to see the pills.

MerlinNo, I've got to get my bag. I've got to get my bag. Oh, okay. I deploy things as needed. I don't have everything have everything right next to me here. I just have what I need right here. I'm not going to go into battle with loose change in my pocket. Okay, okay, okay. So I have a...

MaxSo that's the left pouch, and that's all of my medical and cleaning supplies. And then I also have a Lysol wipes, which I use to wipe down the airplane seat. I have Purell wipes for my hands because Dr. Don said that that's good. And then I have glasses cleaner, screen cleaner. These are all individually. I steal them from the office, the little individually wrapped pads.

AlexYes.

MaxYou know what I'm talking about?

AlexYes, yes, yes. I definitely don't have any in my pack.

MaxNow, you know what's one that I really like, the screen cleaner, is the one where it's two pads. You have a wet and a dry. Oh, yeah. That'll fucking get the job done. Do you know what brand those are?

AlexCan we recommend that? I don't know. I think it's called Screen Clean with a K. Yeah, I'll find it.

MaxThat's a good fucking product.

AlexIf I had my Tom Bin bag, I would know exactly what it's called. But unfortunately, I'm using this design bag.

MaxSo I have one pouch with all of my hygiene cleaning and pills. And then on the other pouch, I have pens. I have office supplies. So pens, Sharpies, checkbook. I have a little flashlight. I have a tactical flashlight, although I'm open to upgrading to a better tactical flashlight. I have a good small flashlight. I have a little, what's that foldy utility knife thing?

AlexA Leatherman?

MaxA Leatherman. I have a Leatherman with no blade that still gets me inspected. They still have to yell at me at the airport,

Alexeven though it's airplane safe. I realize that I have the same well similar setup to Gray in that the left pouch is all human needs and the right pouch is all like cyborg needs

Maxoh that's such a good way to think of it

Alexoh that's really good it's all the you know and the Tom Bin Synapse 19 this is for my meat life I'm sad meat nose doesn't work oh gosh but you know Are you, it's basically a book.

MerlinGenerating sad emoji of human, I mean person.

AlexOh, God. Oh, wow. And you know what? You know what? The middle, not just big enough for a water bottle, but not just big enough for a Kindle, but I can fit a physical book in there as well as my 11-inch iPad and my 13-inch MacBook Pro.

MaxThat middle water bottle. So the thing I love about the Tom Bin Synapse bag is it has this long pouch running on the outside straight down the middle front. So it's like the front spine of the bag. And it's designed for you to put one of those sports water bottles in. But let me tell you what I carry in there. I've got one of those big, big anchor batteries. Do you know what I'm talking about?

MerlinOh, you got the – yeah. I just bought a new Longboy. It's like six or eight inches long.

MaxYes. Yeah, exactly. It's very heavy. I mean, you could kill a rat with this thing if you had to. Do you know what I'm talking about?

AlexYeah, it's like the reverse Iron Man because it's on your back. Yes, exactly.

MaxAnd I have that. I do not feel comfortable. Like, I can't, like, unclench my butthole unless I have that on my person and it's fully full of juice. And I can run my laptop off of that. I can charge my phone many, many times. Like, you know, you could get through a whole international flight with that connected to your iPad. Like, it really is like a power bank.

AlexMerlin has just sent us a photograph of his pills.

MerlinSo it's meant to be seen in this cereal order.

AlexCan I guess which one each is?

MerlinI don't know. So the first one is my North Face mini duffel bag that I highly recommend. They're really good. They're a little overpriced, but I swear by them. I use them until they fall apart.

AlexOh, I just saw the pills, but you've got all of your stuff here. Okay, thank you.

MerlinYeah, so then the second one, what's to be known here? Yeah, so I got a one terabyte SSD with movies on it, like if we're in a hotel room, we want to watch movies, you can plug it in. So you got cultural claritin, the pen Max told me about, Identipen, my backup AirPods, YubiKey, and then the bag of drugs. YubiKey had a pretty bad... I got the replacement. I have to replace mine. Yeah. And then there's the drugs. There's the drugs. So you got some herbals, you got some non-herbals.

I couldn't fit all that. I had to have a very, very, a comically large Altoidin.

AlexWell, that's the thing. Get a cubelet.

MerlinAnd, but I just realized I don't have any Imodium in here. I'm going commando and didn't even know it. Oh, no.

MaxMerlin, can you explain the, you mentioned the Adana pen several times on the podcast. Yeah. Can you give me the, like, elevator pitch for it? I mean, I carry a thick Sharpie and a thin Sharpie.

MerlinSure. I need an old Sharpie and a young Sharpie. So, things to know about an Adana pen. First of all, it is a thick and a thin Sharpie in one. So, look at that pen. It has a cap on either end. One is a Sharpie size on the right side. And the one on the left side is fine. It's also a super, like, it's almost like a space pen for markers. This is what people use to sign fucking golf balls. Like, you can write on almost anything with this, and it doesn't smear. And it's Japanese.

MaxI don't think I can use this for my magic purposes.

MerlinOkay. Okay. Is it too permanent?

MaxNo, it's that, here's the thing. Don't give me any trade secrets. It's not a trade secret. Okay. If you're doing a magic trick, if I was doing a magic trick and I took out an identipen and I said, sign the card, and then the signed card goes into my pocket or whatever the trick is, people would go, let me see that pen.

MerlinOh, because it's not a Sharpie. They're going to think it's kind of a magic monkey pen or something.

MaxYeah, yeah, yeah. I am telling you, I am telling you, it's crazy. Like, I had a jet at Gen Con. I hurt my finger. I had like a hangnail on my index finger and I had to keep putting my hand into my pocket to get my wallet and shit out. And I black swaned my whole finger. All the skin came all the way up, up past my hand, it came all the way up my finger, up to the first knuckle, past the hand, all the way up to the elbow and then it peeled off my ear.

MerlinOne long strip of skin. That exposes an entire nerve. Yeah. You get an arm nerve.

MaxIt was one of the most painful things that's ever happened to me.

MerlinKeep thinking to yourself, I wonder if this is done. It's not done.

MaxKeep pulling.

MerlinKeep pulling.

MaxKeep pulling. No, it just kept coming. And it was so bad. So I put a little Band-Aid. I tried to get it in one big piece. Does anybody have 60 Band-Aids?

So I found our first aid kit, and I put a Band-Aid on. And then I was doing magic for people all weekend. And every time I would do a trick, they'd go, what's up with that Band-Aid?

MerlinThey'd go, it's a fucking hangnail. It's a Band-Aid.

MaxBut it's true. I mean, that's the deal. It's like I've learned every little detail matters. You don't want to give people anywhere to hide, right?

MerlinEverything's got to be above board.

AlexYeah.

MerlinNo, that makes sense. Yeah, Sharpie's good because people instantly recognize a Sharpie. That makes sense. But I recommend get you a pack of Identipens. You can get a four pack of four different colors and just try them out. Once you use it, it's really great for just a go-to marker. It's super permanent, so keep that in mind, but it's real good.

MaxCool. All right, what else? Do you guys have a flashlight that you're happy with? Yes. Do you carry that in your bag?

AlexNo.

MaxWhat do you like, Merlin? Hang on. I've got to be right back.

AlexI don't keep everything right here.

MaxWhy don't you go ahead and bring the whole backpack over, buddy?

AlexI know. I thought he had brought it all over. What's he getting, one thing at a time? Yeah, just bring the whole brain bag.

Maxthis is amazing this organization system is unbelievable

Alexwhat are you looking at

Maxyour little red bag here with all your pills

Merlinand stuff in it oh these things are terrific I have like five of these like one is just my go bag for dongles one of them is this is my daily carry Merlin

Maxwhat's this little

Merlinass buzzer here the SSD drive, little drive, or the YubiKey? I don't know. It's plugged into a USB cord. That's a YubiKey. That's a YubiKey?

MaxYeah. What the fuck is that?

MerlinYubiKey?

MaxWhoa.

MerlinYeah. What's the deal with it? That's an older one. That's my replacement YubiKey.

MaxYeah.

MerlinI also... I have one of those little tiny bug-sized ones that's just a little USB-C thing. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. Well, I bought a couple. So you ask me, do you have a flashlight? I not only have a flashlight, but I have a multi-markdown table where I compare the capabilities of all my flashlights.

AlexTell me what to buy.

MerlinTell me the good flashlight. Oh, God. I have so many flashlights. Oh, my God. I have a box of flashlights. Tell me which one to get.

MaxWhich one do I want?

MerlinWhat's the good one? Well, okay, so here's one that I, this is my little carry one. I might have learned about this from Marco. Try Fenix LD12, lethal dose 12. Lethal dose? No, no, it's LD, but that's a pharmaceuticals. F-E-N-I-X. F-E-N-I-X LD12, I want to say. Wow, look at that guy. I feel like I learned about this from Marco. This is the one I keep clipped to the outside of my very, very, very, very, very large Tom Bin brain bag. Tom Bin brain bag. And it's great. It's a flashlight.

It weighs something. But this is a great, it's not too heavy flashlight.

AlexHave you ever used this? Or, well, I should say...

MerlinYeah, I use it fairly often. Once you've got... It's like becoming that guy, the sound guy at the bar who has all this shit on his belt. Where once you have a space pen, you start writing stuff down. Once you have a flashlight, you will be amazed how many times you are glad you have a flashlight.

Maxnow the one that I have that I enjoy is a I think I talked about this on the show before we've talked about everything on the show before but it's a little it's a little torch like it comes out of its sheath and it's like a lantern

Merlinlike a dachshund's penis

Maxyeah so it's a normal flashlight but then you can also like unsheath it and it comes out like a lightsaber and it's like a lantern the kyber crystals are pretty expensive

Alexbut yeah and she flashed late this is not gonna go well what else do you guys

Maxdo you guys have a multi-tool do you have any any sort of tools or implements in there

AlexI have the Kershaw that Merlin gifted me wait but you can't travel with that no

MaxI'll never put a knife in my backpack because I fucking know that I'll forget it's there and bring it through TSA by accident

AlexI do a clean sweep every time I travel like along with my travel list is also my don't travel. I have too much.

MerlinRight. Well, that's, and that, to me, that's another use of one of these little mini duffels is that's where I have stuff like I've got a really nice leather man. I've got a wine opener. Anything that's going to like cause me trouble. You don't carry a wine opener? You think you're better than me? Are you?

AlexNo, no, no. No, no, no. I think I actually carry a beer thingy just because it's on one of my key chains. But why? Did you just become wine opener guy as well as flashlight guy when i travel i like wine i i'm sorry i'm sorry i just sent you a link

Merlinto my flashlights google sheet i had to eventually bring it in from out of um markdown so you can see here which ones put out the the most uh wattage how many milliamp hours the type of battery a url for purchasing it and uh some of the various things i hope that's useful to you

MaxOh, it's destroyed me.

MerlinNo, I don't actually own eight flashlights, of course. That would be weird. It would be weird to own eight flashlights and have a spreadsheet. It's not like I have spreadsheets for everything I do. I'm not a weirdo. It's not like I track the historic price of ephedrine or compare the price of Canada Dry Seltzer at five different vendors. Not weird.

MaxNow I've got the dongle. Now the final one is on the bottom of the backpack on the Tom bin. That's where the dongles live. So what's in there? I've got my AirPods.

MerlinOh, interesting. All the way down there. Yeah. I keep mine on my top Zippy Boy or my right pocket.

MaxSame, same. The top Zippy Boy is for magic tricks now. Oh, so it's been degraded. So the AirPods have been downgraded. But also, like, I don't use the AirPods too often because when I travel now, I do the, I have my over-the-ear noise-canceling headphones. Sony's? Sony's? No, I'm on the Bose QuietComfort 35s. I think they have better sound quality and better noise-canceling to my taste. And they're more comfortable. They're better all around. Immolent DN35. That's what I'm looking at right now.

MerlinThat's a bright flashlight. So you might need to go into some different batteries. You know, what's baller, though, is some of these come with a USB battery. Actually, the Fenix might be one of these. It comes with a weird little battery that has a USB mini port in it. So you can charge the battery without needing an intermediary device. That's cool. Let me go look this up. Yeah, this is one.

MaxOh, yeah, yeah. Check this shit out. I got to send you a photo of this. This is so badass. I've got AirPods. I've got that little adapter for the iPhone that's lightning to eighth inch. because I don't know that I've ever used that, but it takes up no space, and I'm always concerned that I might need it.

MerlinOh, you're going to need it. I mean, I have a little hanging meshy bag where I keep my... What's the thing to make your iPad connect to your Mac? I advertise on my shows. Do you want to see to Lightning? No, the fucking... What's it called? That company that makes the thing where you can throw your Mac screen to...

AlexLuna! Luna Display.

MerlinLuna Display. I've got my Luna Display in there. That thing's comically small. It's really cool. So that I've got one of those. Yeah, I've got all the little baby dongles, like all the annoyance dongles. Like, you know, you're going to be in a rental car and it's not going to have a thing and you're going to want the little dingus. Like I keep all of those in there.

AlexYeah, I've become the USB-C and lightning to eighth inch.

MaxI'm fully switched over. I'm completely migrated onto the sort of tri-part USB to... Oh, the Belkin one of those is so great. Yeah, I'm fully migrated over, so my bag is full of those.

MerlinDon't get a cheapie. When you first told me about those, I bought a cheapie. Don't get the cheapie. Get a Belkin because you now have something that will charge. Describe this to people because this has been a game changer for me.

MaxSo it's like a little Hydra. And so on one end, it's got normal USB. And then on the other, it's got USB mini. But then it's got little caps attached to it that go to Lightning or USB-C. So I just have one of these in my backpack with my battery. And from that, I can plug it into my phone, my iPad, my iPhone, my computer, or any of the various little micro USB shits that ride around in my back.

AlexAll right. Someone's going to have to give me a link to this because, one, I want it, two, for show notes. What is Belkin? I have the cheap.

MaxIt's called like Belkin three-way USB cable. Try searching for that. It's called Polycule. and what else do I have in there? Oh, I've got the pod, Alex, that thing that we found out about from the sound guys at the MCA. And so it's an eighth inch to XLR adapter. And I wind up, this thing, I use this thing all of, if you do public speaking a lot, which sadly I do, you will use this thing all the fucking time because you'll show up at venues and you'll go, I need sound to come out of my computer and they'll go, all we have is XLR and you go, you know,

and their solution used to be, what if you hold the microphone up your speakers?

MerlinWe'll get a direct box.

MaxIt's got a nice deep bass sound. Yeah. I'm just going to hook up the D. No, this is a little, it's a little inline. It just looks like a cable. It's very magical. And it does all the conversion and everything right in there.

MerlinBelkin universal cable with micro USB, USB-C, and lightning connectors.

AlexOh, yeah. I have a cheapie of this in my bag, too.

MerlinGet the nice one. Because the thing is, if you travel, in my case, I was traveling with it, and suddenly the USB-C just wasn't working. So, yeah, I would pop. And look at my cool battery. You see my battery? Isn't that from the future? That's really futuristic and cool. Yeah, it's got a, what is that, a mini? Right, USB mini. Yeah. Yeah, pretty badass.

MaxYeah, I've managed to eliminate, I do have some stuff that's USB mini, but that's the only one I have now. I used to have micro and mini.

AlexOh, micro.

MerlinWhat if Jeffrey Epstein had a Belkin Universal cable in his cell?

AlexThat's it.

MerlinHas anybody thought about that?

AlexThat's what happened. It's the USB standards. Oh, my God. He had a charging mishap.

MerlinHe had an oopsie-doopsie. Oh, no, my neck.

AlexThis is how a lot of Apple nerds are.

MerlinThere's too many Qi chargers. The heat accumulates with the energy.

MaxWhenever Apple moves up, I'll lick the SD card from their laptops. Everyone's like, I'm going to kill myself in my cell. I can't go on.

AlexDick Duck Challenge. It's the most important challenge we've ever done before. Alex, Alex. I think, I think. The challenge this week. That's my Alex Pokemon.

MerlinAlex, Alex.

AlexAlex, Alex. Ow, ow. This week's challenge was just to play Pokemon Go. Yeah. One of my favorite video games of all time. Wait a minute.

MaxDo we exhaust the topic of what's in our backpack?

AlexOh, my gosh. Well, I think until Mr. Bin sends me.

MaxWhat other cables and adapters do you guys have? Save it for the after show. To find out what's in Merlin's bag. How even would they find out, Max? So you can support the Dubai Friday Patreon. It's the only way we make any money to continue doing this show. There's no ads, none of that nonsense. We're not selling you that thing that makes your thing go on the iPad or none of that stuff.

AlexWe're not telling you to get Mr. Bin products. No, no, no.

MaxNo, no, no. You're never going to hear an ad on this podcast. and we're just listener supported so that we can, and you know what? Here's the other thing. I think a lot, all right, how about this? I think a lot of the podcasts out there that talk about Apple and backpacks and all that kind of thing, I don't think they're going to be wildly speculating about child predator Jeffrey Epstein

Merlinand how he was murdered by the Clinton crime family. You don't get that all in one place. You won't hear Federico Vatici speculating about how a child molester died.

MaxYou're not going to get that. Now why is that? It's because they're cowed by their corporate overlords, okay? You can't talk about how Jeffrey Epstein was murdered by Hillary Clinton and she was wearing a cat burglar outfit and slipped into the cell. A bandit hat. Yeah, you're not going to hear the boys on ATP talk about that.

MerlinImagine you're tiptoeing around like the Riddler.

MaxAnd why? It's because Casper wouldn't give them an ad afterwards, okay? It's a whole new kind of mattress.

AlexEpstein and latex off limits.

MaxOh, God.

MerlinClear history, clear history.

MaxYeah, you're not reading a SimpliSafe ad after you talk about how the MI6 killed a child predator to protect the reputation of Prince Andrew.

MerlinYou're not going to hear about how the twin bed inside of a Virgin Island church was used for children. You're not going to hear that on Pod Save America or any other pod.

MaxNo. And that's why we can't talk about that is that there's no advertisers. and it's just that we get to wildly speculate about any sort of reckless conspiracy theories that we want without any supporting evidence. And that's because we have no advertisers and we're literally supported.

MerlinWe answer to no one, not even God.

MaxNot even God, baby. And you can go to, the only people we do answer to are our $5 Patreon backers at giveusyourfuckingmoney.com. So if you go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com, you give us $5 a month, you become one of our, what is it? Our Cox's Cox? No, Powder Nation. Our Powder Nation members, and you get access to our after show where we will continue to wildly speculate about child predators. This week on the after show, Merlin will finally reveal all of the cables in his bag.

And I think we might even get into a little bit of Venge's talk because I think Merlin saw Venge's. Oh, right. You never know. You never know. And if you want to hear Merlin's take on Venge's, he had some very controversial things to say about it. I know we're all over Jeffrey Epstein, but wait till you guys hear what Merlin has to say about Avengers. and you're going to have to sign up. It's $5 a month to give us your fucking money.com. And if you sign up for $10 a month, what do you get?

MerlinYou get to be one of Alex's beta testers and she crushes her bag on your balls.

AlexAnd around Christmas time, I think, is when our...

MerlinBeta tester, that's so good. That should be a level of the beta test. She tests how much of a beta you are.

AlexOh, the beta cucks.

MaxFor our $10 people, we will reveal the truth of how Jeffrey Epstein really died.

AlexOh, okay.

MaxPlease don't share the links.

MerlinDo not share the links.

AlexYeah. Yeah. Don't do that. Don't do that. But it's so, oh, we'll talk about it later. But it's really, really cool. All right. Are we going to do our challenge?

MerlinThe most important challenge we've ever had.

AlexIt's our most important challenge. This challenge comes from Alex Cox. And it's to play Pokemon Go. Did anybody play Pokemon Go? I know Max did at some point. Oh, what level are you at? I'm battling Team Rocket at our Pokestop right now. Right now I'm on Golbat. And my Dragonite is not doing great right now. Come on, buddy. Yeah, yeah. So Merlin, you're not a fan of games and fun. I hate games. You hate games.

You hate my lovely pocket monsters. Did you play the game and what did you think about it?

MerlinMy whole family has been playing Pokemon Go for a week.

AlexWhat? Yes.

MerlinAre you guys enjoying it?

AlexAre you serious? That's so good.

MerlinI mean, yeah, yeah. No, everybody's in.

AlexSo I'm at five.

MerlinMadeline is at five. And my daughter is at level 15.

AlexOh, nice. Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. That means we can trade in battle. Yes.

Speaker AI mean, it's only been, it's only, oh, God. Raid, stop. What are these pop-ups?

MerlinOkay. Okay, stop. A raid battle is going to start nearby. Swipe. Swipe. Swipe.

Speaker ASwipe.

MerlinYeah, so, yeah, yeah. It was more fun than I expected. I still have no idea what I'm doing, but it's fun. And yeah, we walk around and we do things and we poke around. I still don't know what I'm doing, but it was terrible, but not as terrible as I'd feared.

AlexHonestly, that's all I wanted. That was all I wanted.

MerlinI figured out how to throw a ball. I learned to conserve my balls. I learned how to gather balls. I could gift balls. I could send people balls.

AlexYou can't send people balls. Yes, you can.

MerlinCan't you? Can't you send somebody when you were at a stop? Don't you get all the loot from the stop?

AlexYou can send people gifts, but they don't necessarily contain balls.

MerlinSee, I don't understand that. When I went to the section, it just showed me signs for where I'd been. And it didn't show me what it was. What am I sending when I send that?

AlexThe gifts, it can contain eggs, Pokeballs, Stardust.

MerlinThat's why I say that I'm sending balls.

AlexYes, yes. But you don't necessarily send the balls. Does that make sense?

MerlinYou send whatever the contents of the sign was.

AlexRight.

MerlinAnd that's a stop. That's a PokeStop. That's different from a gym.

AlexAnd we have two Pokestops now at our office. See, the difference.

MerlinHow do you become a Pokestop, let alone two Pokestops? Good question.

AlexIs there like a governing body?

MerlinHow do you do that?

AlexYes, yes. Good question, Merlin. Thank you. Well, the Pokemon Go game is based on another product that Niantic Games, which is the company that Pokemon partnered with. I think it's called Ingress. Ingress. There we go. And basically, it's the same concept of Pokemon Go, but it's like you have to use your weapons to take down the fortresses, whereas Pokemon Go, you need to use your adorable enslaved

pocket monsters.

MerlinOh, so they're using that existing infrastructure about all the space and map and all that stuff gets repurposed. It's just you're throwing balls.

AlexYes. Okay, cool. But the reason you become a Pokestop or previously a Fortress is if you are a public work of art or a notable landmark. And I think Starbucks, all Starbucks are now our Pokestops.

MerlinThat's weird. There's a furniture store near our house that always has a lot of distracted Asian youths in front of it.

AlexWell, and that's the great thing, though, is it doesn't matter if the mural or some sort of piece of art is there or not. It'll still usually be a Pokestop. But since our office is now cool murals and art pieces, slowly we're accumulating Pokestops, and it's very exciting. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah. Now, a gym is different from Pokestop. A gym, you not only can spin and give gifts, you also can battle the Pokemon that other trainers have left there.

Does that make sense?

MerlinYeah, I wasn't allowed to even enter the dojo until I'd reached level five. My kid's a little reluctant to do gym battle. But she also said there's something about, she just spoke in noises I didn't understand, but she said something about how you can leave something there and it makes money for you or something?

AlexYes, you can leave one of your pocket monsters there, and it will battle other trainers for you. And then when it returns, it faints and returns, and it brings Pokecoins with it that you can use to purchase Pokeballs.

MerlinIt's like a painting goblin.

AlexBasically, I leave my goblins all over the city, and they bring me back gold.

MerlinToby, Toby, bring me coin.

Alexbring me coin toby oh boy yeah it's a it's a fun game and i like it a lot and uh it's kind of had a resurgence in the past few uh months because they brought back like all the characters from the 90s like team rocket and uh what's what is that the one with the cute girl that's on the app

Merlinstore huh yeah that's the one was like a lady in a shirt right uh yeah yeah a shirt that has an r

Alexon it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MerlinYeah, I found myself sexually attracted to a girl in the App Store. Yeah, that's it.

AlexGood for you. I hope we're happy together.

MerlinI think it's pretty woke of me.

AlexOh, for sure, for sure. Does that make me a furry? Am I a furry now? No, you're part of Team Rocket, so you need to answer

Merlinto... I think I'm more Team Team Rocket.

AlexMmm, got it,

Maxgot it. Alex, I have a question. So right now I'm going through my Pokemon list and I'm turning some of the ones that I don't like into candy and then feeding them to the other ones.

AlexSo I like to think that you're just sending them to the professor, and he's rewarding you with candy.

MaxSo the professor just has as many Pokemon as I have. The professor has that much candy for that Pokemon.

AlexWell, in the Pokemon world.

MaxCould he just give me some of the candy?

AlexHe could. He could. But this is in a post-apocalyptic, post-capitalist society where Pokeballs are the currency most of the time. They also have yen, but really it's the Pokeballs that you want. So he's sending you candy to thank you for helping him with his research.

MerlinOh. Yeah.

AlexMm-hmm.

MerlinOh, no, that's the guy from the boy band that always wants to talk to me.

AlexThat's a different professor. He is the field professor.

MerlinOkay.

AlexSo there's a professor. Is that a chair or a grant? How does that work?

MerlinI'm the field professor for Pokemon Go.

AlexHe's also really hot.

MerlinYeah. Yeah, no, he's very spiky.

AlexHe is. Okay. Did you learn how to throw a curveball?

MerlinNo, but I do miss a lot.

AlexOkay. Does that count?

MerlinGoddamn.

MaxAnd then after you got them, they run away. She's like, be careful. It's my biggest objection with this game is that it's like fundamentally like the main thing you're doing, which is throwing the balls at the Pokemon, is very tedious and not fun.

AlexI love it. I love it. Because I love my phone as it's a $1,000 fidget toy. and now I get to fidget with my pocket monsters. I like it. Oh, boy.

MerlinWhoa.

AlexOh.

MerlinYes. No, no. I know I'm being supportive.

AlexThank you.

MerlinYeah, but it was fun. It was fun. And yeah, it was good. Now, can you tell the people about, because I think this was in the after show. Could you tell the people about the wrist accessory that we bought?

AlexAll right. So the Pokemon company released what was called the Pokemon Go Plus. And it was this little thing that kind of looked like a Pokestop, actually. And every time you got close to a Pokemon or a Pokestop, it would buzz. You would click the button on it and you would get a gift or it would try to catch a Pokemon for you. But the app did not need to be open. However, there were a number of third-party companies that learned how to kind of hack the API that was, I think it was like a hardware API.

I honestly don't know what I'm talking about. Oh, wow, okay, cool. And they created this thing.

MerlinBasically, it's like the way they fake traffic in China. It's like it simulates clickies.

AlexSo, yeah, basically, they created this little bracelet that you don't need to tap it. It just automatically does everything for you. and you can also select whether you want to not. Let's say you're playing this game for free, like a noob. You can set it to not catch Pokemon you already have or to not collect things at Pokestops. No more Bulbasaur. Bag is, oh.

But yeah, this is something that now, like half of our office owns. Mine is charging right now.

MerlinWell, I'm happy to tell you that that was really the nadir of my adult life was when I got a little wrist thing that I had to set up and charge and learn how to use and look at the inscrutability of. I still don't understand how it works. And I don't even know if my kid even got it. It's really the worst of all worlds because the charge doesn't last that long. I don't understand how it works. But no, but it's working for you. That's more like robot things to affix to yourself.

AlexYep, yep, yep, yep. It goes right next to my Apple Watch.

MaxAlex, does yours stay paired to the app? Mine straight up doesn't work.

AlexNo, you have to re-pair it every... I think it depends on what build of the game. It depends on a lot of things. But usually, if you've enabled notifications, it'll say, your session has stopped, and then you just re-pair it. That is with the official product as well, it happens. Yeah, you got to re-pair it.

MerlinI'd like to mention just in passing that John Syracuse is right, and I am the absolute worst at sending things to the wrong window. I just came very close to sending my family a picture of a sexy cosplay girl from a video game.

AlexOh, yes. That's Jessie from Team Rocket. Yeah. Hello. Sure is.

MerlinThat will serve me well at sea. She's a rocket girl.

AlexOh, God.

Thank you.

Show notes

Transcript

145. Sexual ADD

Show notes

Transcript

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