153. Schiavo’s Tubes

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, eat an easy protein breakfast.

MaxHello. Hello. Good morning. Good morning, Merlin. Alex dropped their glasses in the Home Depot parking lot. Oh, no. And they're I'm not really clear on what happened there. I think that might be an excuse. Oh, I'm hearing a helicopter. This might be it. This is probably it. Oh, why are there helicopters

Merlinover my house? It's all over. I think they finally. That's it. That's it. Yep. Yep. Yep. Well, it's been

Maxfun, everyone. Yeah.

MerlinWhat do you got on your key chain?

MaxI think, Alex, you know, every time I go to Home Depot, So you occasionally, like, well, I don't know what I'm doing when I'm there. And so I always have questions of, like, can I use this screw instead of that screw? And then once they tell me the right one, I bust the bag open and I steal a few.

MerlinYeah. Well, I think we've covered this. That actually, you're doing them a kindness.

MaxYeah. It's allowed. I think it's definitely allowed. It's just a few screws.

MerlinMake room in the line for the big spenders. That's, um, they take a markdown. No. Oh. They write it off. It's a write-off. Yeah. That's what it is. Yeah. Kramer, I don't think you know how to write off.

MaxBut I think it's possible that I could see Alex getting into some situation where maybe the staff people won't help with a question. And then Alex gets confused and backs into some sort of lesser known aisle. And then it's like a cask of a Montalado situation.

MerlinShe Tina belchers her way into a bunch of drills.

MaxYeah. I'm okay. They start falling down. Maybe one of the employees is passing down, and he just puts his torch through before the last drill fills the gap in the wall.

Anyway, what a fun final episode of Dubai Friday.

MerlinYeah. It was fun while it lasted. Let's go ahead and play the montage.

MaxWe can get real sad before Alex gets here. I'm feeling a lot of despair. Oh, no. I'm feeling a lot of despair.

MerlinMax. Max, what kind of talk is that? Just the country. Really? I don't know. Why? What's going on?

MaxThis morning was really – I've been on Twitter a lot again. It's just not – I'm starting to think it doesn't make you happy. I had a really good run of not reading Twitter very much. Like just – I'm serious. Like less than once a day I was checking Twitter, which is really remarkable for me.

MerlinAnd I was – If you're being honest when you say that, that is absolutely remarkable.

MaxAnd I had deleted it from all my devices and everything. And I don't know why I got back. I'm like – Well, it was all the impeachment stuff, and I'm back on. It's not good for my mental health. I wake up and I work myself into a real panic.

MerlinYeah, it's hard to – I mean, I have ADHD. And so for me – and as I said before, I have a very boring garden variety flavor of ADHD.

I don't run around in circles and stuff like that. But the main thing I need to be aware of is that, as I said before, it's not that I can't concentrate or focus on things. The problem is I may not be focusing on the right things. And then I'm like a dog with a bone. And, you know, that could be, you know, writing 5,000 words. or that could be really trying to make sure Music Brains Picard is tagging my Abbey Road remaster precisely right

with exactly the art that I want, and that's 45 minutes. If it's a little wrong, then you're going to have to reevaluate the whole system starting from the foundation. Well, exactly. I mean, I can live with a little bit of a hack to get my Maxwell Silverhammer on, but for longevity, I'm going to need to look at the whole stack and make sure that the product... Because the system's going to fall apart.

MaxOh, if I have some file that won't play on Plex, I'm like, well, it's time to go into Synology and run diagnostics on all my hard drives. And maybe I should order a new computer while I'm at it.

MerlinYou should also back up your metadata. You get in there and you can scan your library again and you can delete your bundles and then make sure that it all works. Oh, you should see me. You should see me with my Plex.

MaxOof. You know, I have an interesting ADD thought.

MerlinDid I take you off your sad thread?

MaxNo, no.

MerlinI just wanted to say. That's the problem. And that could be Twitter. And that's my, anyway, for myself, that's my problem is like I have to catch myself and realize sometimes I'm shaving a yak. And sometimes I'm just unintentionally like this is not a problem that I need to fix. This is not my circus, not my monkeys. I got shit to do over here.

MaxLet me, okay, I got a little theory to run by you here. Please. So I do my best work. When I look back on something and I'm like, damn, that was good. it was like I had something that I was just like I I need to like when I was in it I was in such a like a good like flow state of like like I just need to do this and then I was like super hyper focused on it and it just like it all I have this this memory of of certain things I've worked on where I was like man that just like really came together like Jen and I when we sit down to write together we'll sometimes get into that where we're just like we're in a groove and we're writing really quickly and it's getting funny and like you know what I mean like sometimes you just get

that. And you don't even realize you're, that's, that's a classic flow state is not even realizing you're a flow state. Oh, and then you look back at it and you're like, man, it was really, that was a good, I was having a good day. I had just the right amount of, um, of, uh, English Sudafed. Hitler pills. Yeah, I had just the right number of English Sudafeds that day. And, uh, it was really all coming together, but I've discovered that there's certain things I do that are, uh, uh inhibitive to that whole feeling and the possibility of that experience and one of them

so one of them is definitely going on twitter so sometimes i get that real itch like my fingers are itching i'm like oh i should go write this thing or i should go work on this thing like you really get that like yeah like fuck yeah i'm gonna put some like uh you know like uh i put like a like a like a jazz album on and i'm really gonna sit down and do some emails now you know i'm gonna

Alexreally get some fucking work done that's never going to happen don't do that the fuck is going

MaxHang on. Whoa.

AlexHi, what's up?

MerlinYou just killed my flow state, dude.

MaxI'm so fooled right now. I'm looking. What's happening? Alex is not here.

MerlinIs she in the booth? What's going on?

MaxCameron, what's happening? I don't know. Oh, my God. Oh, Cameron's talking to the floor. I think Alex might be down on the floor.

AlexI've done this trick on like 12 different shows, but on my own show, it's not funny. All right. The magic trick's dead.

MaxCan't trick a magician, Alex. Get the fuck in here. Let's go. All right. So that's one is like, if I get that real, like, oh, I should do some work now. If I go on Twitter, boy, I could really kill that mood because now it feels like I'm doing something.

MerlinYeah. I mean, I relate. I relate way too much. And it's not just Twitter, but Twitter is is nearly unique in that way. But really, it's kind of at least a two-part process. I mean, the second part is catching yourself when you're doing the thing or not doing the thing you should be doing. But the first step in many ways is to avoid the behaviors or habits, you know, environments that lead you to needing to realize you're doing that. You know, it sounds so obvious until you've blown two hours doing something really dumb and now you feel bad.

And feeling bad is the worst, you know, feeling bad about yourself. That's the wrong way to go into trying to be funny. Or, you know, whatever your work is, you need to be in that, again, we're talking about the Shikshmihani flow stuff, like you need to be in a sort of relaxed state of mind to apply your highest expertise to your most difficult work.

MaxWhat about this one?

Speaker AYeah.

MaxTalking about stuff that you're going to do. Yeah, that's no good. You go out to lunch with your buddy and you're like, let me tell you about this. It's going to be the best so-and-so and we're going to do this and then that thing's going to happen and then that will ensue and then that will happen. Is there any surer way to like never

Merlinwork on it than to start talking about it? I recently gave advice to a friend of mine. I don't know if you know the friend, but I recently gave advice to a friend of mine that it's easy to overthink new projects. And then I think one of the best things you can do is make is dedicate yourself to some kind of consistent output, even if you don't know what the output will be. because once you have made the output, once you've done the work, it will be obvious what you need to do. It's unobvious what you need to do when one is talking about it. I'm not saying my friend was doing that, but that's the thing.

And there's so many things. And for me, with writing, it was like, oh, I guess I better go back to doing an outline. Surely an outline, rather than just typing, and as I say, making the clackety noise, rather than typing, I should definitely go back to outlining. But if I outline, wouldn't it be better if I did that graphically? Should I do that with a mind mapping app? well they haven't updated the mind mapping app in a while so maybe i should look into other

Alexmind mapping apps that's 64 bit yeah you gotta make sure that's what this this is our concern

Merlindude so maybe instead i should get some new pentel sign markers and some paper well should i get like really nice i should treat myself right get some nice like bristol paper like a bristol board yeah i should do that oh time for lunch and then there's none of the writing was done none of the work is done if you do the work the work will tell you what to do if you don't do the work nothing can tell you what to do and then you feel like a dick and even i just think there's something

Maxalso like i have a lot of you know coffees with people and they sit down and they're like hey man i'm about to start my brand and we're gonna make clothing and it's gonna become the number one street wear and everyone's gonna wear it and then and so the thing is check this out we're gonna start everything's gonna be blue but then year two we come around boom green now green's the new thing i'm like wow dude you've got this all fucking planned out that's cool i was like you should make a shirt why don't you make something you know stop talking about it bitch question can

Alexthe shirt be blue but i do you know what i'm talking about i do know what you're talking about and it makes like especially in board games too oh my god a lot of people are like yeah it's going

Maxto be like this game in that game and then we're going to get this much on kickstarter and then that's awesome but then we're going to launch the indiegogo simultaneously we launch in europe in walmart and it's like dude slow the fuck down why don't you make your game yeah yeah

Merlinyeah no no it's uh i think this is i you know we're not here to help people but i i think this is really actually legit important stuff is the way that you're in a previous life I've called it being like drinking salt water where you think you're quenching your

Maxthirst. Do you know the NoFap community on Reddit? Yeah. And it's like the Proud Boys?

MerlinSure. You can only do it once a month and it has to be in front of a girl. Is that right?

MaxThat's the Proud Boys thing.

MerlinIs that Proud Boys? You kind of have to come on cereal while people punch you in the face?

MaxIs that it? So it's basically like if you're like if you're like a beta incel and you can't get a girlfriend, the idea... Because of society and women. Something to do with society. Oh, put that on a note card. We're going to come back to the Joker movie. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. But I didn't see it.

We should talk about it.

MerlinI heard four podcasts about it.

MaxBut anyway, the whole NoFap thing is like if you don't nut for a long time, like somehow it'll build up. Do you go backward in space? it'll somehow it'll somehow build up

Alexit'll come out your ass oh I see

Maxyou're building up your essential oils I think it's like I think it's like

Merlinyou're doing a self goop by not gooping

MaxI think it's like Goku I think you charge up and then you go

Merlinit's like a yin and yang you have the light inside of the dark and by building up your goop inside you actually you exhibit more goop and then you express that in the world it's the secret

Maxso yeah you power up and then you can go super cyan and your jawline becomes more pronounced so you become a cyan cyan? yeah but where was I going with that oh right but I think working on stuff is a little bit the same way of like I think you need to I think you need to like I think that going out to lunch with your friends and bragging about how this thing you have planned and how cool your plans are it's a way of it's a way of it's like you know you're you're getting the relief without actually having done any of the work

and then you can brush your hands off you're like well that's a job well done

Merlinoh really yeah yeah it feels it's a simulacrum of work but it's also uh boy i'm really going

Alexclassic uh merlin here i've walked into a back to work episode it's very yeah that's what happens

Merlinwhen you're you shut your mouth go look for your glasses did you break your glasses nerd i did but

Alexdon't worry i carry two extra pairs of glasses one that's prescription sunglasses ones that the same you have like a chewbacca eyeglass bandolier no no no it's just happens to be a case that holds two glasses at once. Was it a Chad?

MaxDid someone kick over your sandcastle and break your glasses?

AlexI wish. I wish I could be like, a man came up and smashed them. No, I tripped on the concrete. They just fell off.

MerlinI'm okay.

AlexI'm okay. It's fine. It's fine.

MerlinI used to think of it in some ways as, you think about somebody in a cartoon, like a Wile E. Coyote wants to knock down a door, and you run in place to build up the steam until your legs are a blur, and then you run into the door, and then you fall down, and you go, and you go back further, and you never bother to check. The door's not locked, and you're an idiot. All that talking about your project at lunch is you running in place and doing a fucking Wile E. Coyote.

MaxThere's no way around it. A lot of times, one of the best parts of a project is getting to tell people the idea. Sometimes that is one of the most, sometimes you have a great idea, and you're like... But that's like nutting before you've ordered dinner. That's what I'm saying. I have never had this feeling before. Sometimes you're working on something cool, and you're like, I have a cool idea. I'm really excited to fucking tell people about this idea. And I'm telling you, it takes some self-discipline. You have to make the thing. You earn telling people about the idea by having the work on it.

AlexThe thing is, it's crazy. I had similar advice given to me that Merlin gave to somebody else. Yes. About a new project. Well, and that's the thing, though. That project was not new. And there were so many things, like it was new in that it had not come out. And we had worked on it for a year. And you can't put, like, and I just need to slap in the face and be like, stop thinking about it. But we didn't talk about it until we at least had 10 episodes ready to be released.

It was just that, it was like, oh, fuck, now people expect something. And because we made the thing, we can't change it because of feedback and blah, blah, blah. But I can't imagine going up to somebody. I could not imagine going up to somebody and telling them the concept of Dubai Friday before the episode was released. I would immediately start sweating and shit in my pants.

MaxWell, you know who he did tell about it was Syracuse, and he said it was a bad idea.

AlexWell, I didn't know that, actually.

MerlinYou should hear what he thinks about Bearded Dragons.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinSo, yeah. Oh, so what was I going to say about this? Anyway, the thing is, the struggle is real, okay? So, like, this is a thing that happened. Like I treasure the times that I have nothing to do. Like it's so, it's like John Mulaney says, you know, when you realize I didn't do anything this weekend. It's like the greatest feeling of realizing. So I love that runway. And at times when it was very important to me to have like uncluttered time to just do dumb shit and be creative and learn about things. And like, as they say, sharpen the saw. Like I really treasure that.

So if there's like this half day period where I finished the morning work stuff that I do and I don't have kid time for a little while, I should be doing something really cool with that time. Sometimes I take a nap. I'm a big guy. I take naps. I eat pho. But how about this? How about I got a rare little block of time and I'm laying on the bed and I'm looking at my phone. And one thing I love about my VPN service is that it really fucks with a lot of services in a really hilarious way. Like Tumblr keeps giving me ads for car dealerships in Parsippany, New Jersey, which I love.

But like I'm sitting there and one thing I love is I'll occasionally flick down to the bottom of the page at Google on a Google search. And I always love that it doesn't know where I am. And then the other day it roughly knew where I was. You can see this is going to be extremely important work that I need to do here because because privacy. Right. And so I shut off. I go shut off the app and the protection of VPN, and then I'm reloading. Ha, ha, ha. Where does it think I am now? Ha, ha. It knows where I am. Ah, okay. And then I turn it back on, and I clear up all the things, and I kill my history and all

the stuff, because this is really super important work for my privacy. And then, and then it thinks I'm in Falsam, California. That's weird. That's where my in-laws live. In Sacramento County? Oh, my God. Have you been hacked by the government? What's happening? I better get my other devices and turn it off on there and see what happens. And now I'm going to VPN sites. Oh, I've got to find the right site to go test my VPN because privacy. See? And then, like, now it's time to pick up the kid. And my day is blown. And nothing important happened. I let, I unleashed a personal tiger in my mind for exactly no reason. And that's exactly the kind of shit that I, in particular, speaking for myself, that I have to watch out for.

Is I have to really catch myself. I don't want to say be mindful, but kind of be mindful. And go, like, you fucking idiot. Like, what are you doing? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Like, first of all, you're fucked. Your privacy means nothing. but but when that goes from being like a fun thing you check in on to something that's allowed to entirely capture your attention until it decides to let go and now and now i'm mad right here we get like that and then you're like oh fuck now i'm mad and like now i'm gonna hang out with my kid in the bearded dragon and be sad and like what the fuck is wrong with me why am i like this

chemicals society i should stop fapping

Alexhave have you ever successfully gone down a rabbit hole and then discovered something useful and i'm not trying to be antagonistic no no absolutely what a question is that no because i mean tons of times tons of times that's like literally the only time that any good ideas or new things happen i know but how do you know if you're just looking at privacy or if... Unintentional hunt for more rabbit holes. There are times when I've made automations

that have changed my life for a decade and then it's like I'm bitching around with shortcuts for two hours and it's like, okay, it's very fun to have my house turn different colors, but why do I need this?

MaxWell, it's like Don Draper. It's like even when he's not working, he's working. Maybe it looks like he's just drinking rye whiskey and is lying on the couch, but actually he's coming up with the new Coke ad. I love my old golds. Are you guys going to see the Joker movie?

MerlinDid anyone see it? Oh my god Did you see it Alex?

AlexI planned to see it last night but it was sold out So I saw Downton Abbey instead And yeah I 100% like going to see it Because I like Batman movies It's fine

MerlinI'm sure it'll be fine Is Batman in it? I actually don't know anything about it

AlexIs Batman in it? Neither do I but I think I'm supposed to write a manifesto afterwards When you sign something Is it that weird?

MaxI've decided

AlexMerlin knows something that we don't

MaxMerlin already listened to a lot of podcasts about the Joker

AlexOh, I avoided Chappo

MerlinOkay, here's every except for Matt Christman here's every single take on the Joker Hmm, I have really mixed feelings about it, because on the one hand I don't love the pre-backlash to any kind of a piece of art because that's not what art should be

Speaker Aand then on the other hand, I think it was really problematic

Merlinbut you know, the cinematography was really pretty and the production design but he did lose a lot of weight

Maxokay post those are great takes uh i've just you know i tend to it's a movie guys relax everybody

Merlinrelax calm down society when there's whenever there's like some some uh big thing out there

Maxi tend to go like all or nothing like i'm very like uh like an example is like when marvel came out i just didn't care about it for the longest time because i was like i'm not gonna go see a bunch of these fucking movies and then eventually andrew it was andrew made me watch uh he showed me the Captain America movie and specifically he showed me the scene where he's doing the show where he punches Hitler and I was like that's fucking good movie making he knew where to get to and I watched Captain America and I was like okay these movies are good and then from that point now I'm in and I'm like I have

to see every fucking cursed Marvel movie even though they're all the same but I have that I definitely tend to take that all or nothing approach with things and like on all these DC movies I've just don't watch them. I just decided I don't care. And I don't want to break the chain with Joker. Oh, right. That makes sense. Isn't it not kind of... Don't you have things like that where you're just like, I'm not going to care about that?

MerlinYeah, I can't care about everything. It would kill me. No, it sounds like it was well... It sounds like... What I can take away is that it was well done. It's so complicated. This is such a Tavaziri kind of thing. When people have this blanket criticism of a thing as though, whether that's Apple or a movie, like you have this blanket criticism, and then it's like, oh my God, no, this is made of people. There's so many different people. And who amongst this? I mean, you go and you see a movie, and you're like, my God, that music was so good, and that somebody chose or made that music.

Somebody chose what lenses to use and what lighting to use.

MaxOh, yeah, in this case, it's Gary Glitter, right?

MerlinYes, there is some Gary Glitter in it, and he's a dancing man, a little dancing man. And it's all in the Terry Green machine. But it can be frustrating because – never mind. Do you ever pick some? No, I totally do that. You've got to make your decisions to go all in. Now, me, I am always up for going back. Right now I'm on a kick where I am all about ripping my HDR 4K UHD media, and I'm returning to some good movies in 4K UHD,

and I can highly recommend it. I got a whole system going now where beyond Plex, I'm putting stuff on a hard drive. I'm putting an 80 gig movie on a hard drive and watching it locally over USB. What's the best thing you've gone back and watched? Shining.

Speaker AOh.

MerlinImagine the opening scene from The Shining where the VW is going down the road.

Speaker AOh, fuck.

MerlinSo imagine every time you've watched that, even if you saw it in a theater, every time you've watched that, you see that pretty scene, the helicopter shot. When you're watching it in 4K UHD with the right setting, imagine now that that water really looks like water because any water you see streamed it you can it reads as water but it is glorious you but you can i can see stuff like oh my god i can see helicopter blades in the shot i never saw that before it's just it's absolutely going from like going from 480 to 720 was a huge deal i don't know if there'll ever be a deal as big as 480 to 720

720 to 1080 unless you're really close or have a huge tv you may not notice the difference going from anything to 4K UHD if it's done well is nuts Dunkirk oh my god anyway I did that with Iron Man I got an Iron Man and watched me an Iron Man I went back to Iron Man it's one of the great movies

Maxcan you get stuff streaming on your Plex in 4K UHD kind of I mean if it's

Merlinlocal or remote local yeah but you're going to want to go in and totally open up the aperture for the settings you're going to want to look at your encodings and you're going to want to say open the pipe as wide as it gets i'm going to stipulate or guess open the pipe i don't think it's gonna be nearly as good as if you run it off first of all there's shockingly little stuff out there right now in my opinion in um that ultra ultra blu-ray there's not that much out there like i really wanted to buy the lord of the rings movies ultra blu-ray what what what could you want more than the goddamn lord

of the rings movies like but they're not 1080s the better blu-ray is the best you can do something that's not boring? No, it sucks.

Speaker AIt sucks,

Merlinbut my kid likes them.

MaxYeah. But no, I think you could do that. She likes those a lot of, I found those, I mean, I was roughly her age when those movies came out. I think I was 13 when those movies came out. Okay. And I was so excited to go see them and then I had this real disappointment of like, boy, these are boring. She really,

Merlinshe and her mom read the books and really like them and she likes the movies, but I'm just here to say. Maybe I need to revisit them. Yeah, well, I'm telling you, man, go back and watch

Maxthat Iron Man. what's your best one looking back on it what's your best thing where it was some big thing in the culture and you were just like you know what I'm taking the L on this one I'm not going to care about this you're talking about going all in

Merlingoing all in

Maxno no no the opposite you're like you know what guys you enjoy this one I'm just going to mute it on Twitter I don't want to know I don't want the discourse I'm just not going to care about this one and then later you look back on it and you're like damn I fucking won the lottery on that like that was really dumb that everyone was so embroiled in that oh okay

AlexTwilight, maybe? I mean, I don't want to...

MaxCould it be a news story? Yes. I have one in mind that's a news story that I feel very proud of myself.

MerlinThe one that I'll be living down forever is how I have for my entire life, since the Atari 2600, utterly written off video games. And I got that wrong. That one I was wrong about. Like, I didn't realize what a social, cultural pariah I would be by not understanding and embracing how important video games are. I missed that one totally. It's not too late. I know. Here's one for you. Remember back before the 9-11? Maybe this is a California story, but there were several stories that were just huge, and I was following them.

So Gary Condit and Shonda Levy. Remember the congressman and the woman who had died? Remember Terri Schiavo and her tubes? Oh, yes.

AlexOh, I have some Terri Schiavo stories. Sorry. Go, Con.

MerlinYou know, I have a song about that. Do you want to hear it?

AlexTerri Schiavo is not a live-o?

Speaker AChavo's tubes I've been living on Chavo's tubes What's the news about Chavo's tubes

MerlinAnd now when you hear anything in that rhythmic cadence you're going to sing that song

Speaker AYep

MerlinDo you remember how fucking huge that was? You're going to probably need to Google this because you were too young. Oh, no, no, no, Merlin.

MaxThink about this. What was the one where the little Cuban boy? Wait, wait.

MerlinOh, God, Ileana Gonzalez was huge.

MaxOh, I don't know who that is. This was a weird phase. I mean, I was pretty young when all this stuff went down.

MerlinThat was when everybody hated Janet Reno.

MaxI was pretty young when all this went down, but that was in this weird area of history where we were like, it was like the post-history years where all of the conflict was sort of, it was sort of entertainment. It was sort of entertainment news conflict. It wasn't real strife. But also you didn't get it.

MerlinYou didn't get it 24-sevs. Like it would be like in the paper or on the news, but you were not following it in real, real time. There's only so much commitment you could make to it and you had to dedicate yourself to like going, oh, this is the thing I'm going to follow.

MaxIt was an era of history where people had decided that global affairs could only affect them on the same level as like celebrity news. Like it was only this remote thing that happened to other people that was sort of an aesthetic choice of, oh, I don't follow politics. This was like the whole like Francis Fukuyama like end of history era before pre 9-11.

MerlinIs there a name for that? Because I was just thinking the era between the Clinton impeachment and 9-11 feels like a very strange period.

MaxSo I mean, so maybe someone will write in and tell us because I'm not, I don't know a ton about history. But I always think, I mean, that was literally what people said at the time was they were like, they proclaimed, they said it's the end of history. They said we've reached the sort of synthesis of – like democratic capitalism is the sort of synthesis of fascism and Marxism, and it's like now we're in this end stage.

MerlinWe fixed voting rights and clean water for everybody.

MaxYeah. It's like we figured it out. We figured it all out. And it's like, yeah, there's some little Black Hawk Down things that happen somewhere far away else in the world that they don't really affect you or anyone you would know about. and you can choose to follow them like you would choose to follow a sports franchise or you could choose not to, but it's just sort of a consumer decision and nothing in the world really will happen. And all that's left is that we'll have just sort of recessions that we go in and out of. But it's all just sort of background noise and everyone can just sort of-

MerlinBut almost like a singularity kind of thing, not quite singularity, but like that everything has reached this sort of like muted C plus level and that's just what it's going to be from now on.

MaxYeah, we figured it out. Everyone just needs to like tend to their lawns now. And obviously the 9-11 was the end of that era. And then we had this sort of – now we have this sort of weird – I read it as sort of this weird pendulum thing of populism and elitism where you have these like real moments of fascism. Like after 9-11 was this real upsetting sort of authoritarian wave.

MerlinThe 2000 election was the warning shot, the John the Baptist. 9-11 was the kill shot, the Jesus. And ever since then, everything's had to be important. Everything's important now.

MaxYeah. Well, we went from it being just this aesthetic choice and like, oh, I don't follow politics and it can't possibly affect you to like which superhero movie you see. You know, the origin story of the fucking Joker is politics.

MerlinOr which superhero movie you haven't seen that you know is pretty problematic. Yeah. So, okay, so to answer your question, Alex, so the question Max posed, is there something where you're glad you sat it out and then you realize you dodged a bullet?

AlexI mean, that's, I was thinking of media stuff. Like, I couldn't avoid the Terry Shivo case. We had an update every day in religion class until she died. But don't worry, she lasted two days without life support. Couldn't avoid that one. I mean, I sort of missed the Twilight series, but that was also because I'm like, I don't think Robert Pattinson's hot. I think the other one's hot.

But that's, I am very. Show me the why. It's so true. His forehead's so weird.

MerlinNo, he looks like a shrimp scampi in a wig.

AlexYeah. I mean, he's going to be Batman. Not excited about that. But please email me. Um, I'm trying to think of the problem is if, if now, if you're like, oh, I'm not ignoring said, or if you say I'm ignoring said new story, you get called out for privilege of like, oh, you don't have to do that.

MerlinMust be nice to not have to watch what's happening here.

AlexAnd it's like, I only have so many, uh, which it, it, it is, it is absolutely privileged, but my cats and plants would die like if I had gone to Washington yesterday. Like it just wouldn't.

MerlinBut the problem is with something like Twitter and I do think there is an element of privilege for sure but on the other hand, let's do some real talk here. It's easy enough to be part of the brigade that tells people they're caring about the wrong thing. What's more difficult is knowing that every single brigade out there has something different they want you to care about and all have the same level of sincerity about that and that's not sustainable. You cannot be an adult and care equally about everything, and you should not be an adult and care about everything equally if you're doing it to avoid the appearance of not being flawless.

That's just no way to fucking live.

MaxMy big one was the Jussie Smollett case when that first went down, and it was big local news in Chicago when it first went down. And I was like, these dudes waited outside of the restaurant, and they were like, this is MAGA country. They were like, hey, is that the actor Jussie Smollett from the hit show Empire? This is MAGA country, and they beat him up. and at the time, I didn't, I'm not, of course, wouldn't have said this publicly at the time, but it just, it put my antennas up. I was like, something's, this is weird. I was like, this is not the city that I know. Like, we don't.

MerlinYeah, it's like the point when somebody's broken into the, when the, when the, when the oceans people have broken into the casino and go, that was too easy. You know what I mean? Like, you go like, wait a minute, this story, this story ticks too many fucking boxes on day, day zero.

MaxLike, yeah, and I was like, and I, and I, listen, I wasn't, I was not, I didn't go on Twitter and be like, I don't believe this. and racism is not real. I wasn't trying to take a reactionary position. All I did was just switch it off. I was just like, you know what? I'm out. I'm not going to follow this. I'm not going to read about it. I muted Jussie Smollett. And then sure enough, what a great decision in my life to have not cared one way or the other about that story. I didn't get worked up about it when it was one way. I didn't get worked up about it when it was the other. And now I wish everyone had given that story a smaller profile because it wound up being...

I mean, he got...

AlexHe achieved what he wanted.

MaxWell, it's become this big cultural signifier for the right, where it's like everything wrong with Chicago. See, see. I know. We're a shy wreck. And I wish we hadn't like, I wish we just hadn't staked everything. You know, I don't know.

AlexNo, I agree. Like the second you said, I was like, wait, who, what? And I think it was one of, again, I had the privilege of, I think I was just literally out of town when that happened. So by the time I was back in town, like it had come out that like he had planned this attack or whatever.

MerlinAnd then everybody gets real quiet.

AlexYeah, what was it? Like, I'm being serious. Was it an Empire actor who was, or not Empire, Entourage.

MaxOh, we're not going to, we can't possibly re-litigate this.

AlexOh, no, no, no. No, I'm saying I literally don't remember what it was. Like, he was a guy on a show. Go, go, look it up on Wikipedia.

MerlinHey, hey, I put a link here in notes that actually allows for a mini, mini, mini pivot, which is just to say. Okay, so I put a link in notes to the You're Wrong About episode about Terry Schiavo. I want to just, as they say on Necktie Twitter, I want to re-up You're Wrong About. I mean, it's not a flawless show, but if you listen to a lot of this show, and as we've talked about before, You're Wrong About is a podcast with these two very interesting people who bring you stories that almost everybody got wrong at the time, but had often a long-lived impact on how we think about life, and that never got corrected.

And so I just want to recommend that show. This episode about Tara Shai was great. As I said before.

MaxOh, is this the one with the child abductions?

MerlinYeah. So the rhyming episodes are very good. Stranger Danger.

AlexThe clown ones. Oh, God.

MerlinAnd Satanic Panic, both very good. So here's one reason I want to recommend this show. And, you know, you could go and just dip in and, like, you could just listen to the Tonya Harding episode. And it's just like, holy shit. I really miss that. But here's the amazing thing about this, and this is why it's relevant to what we're discussing here. There is a theme. There are, I think, several themes that emerge once you've listened to a bunch of episodes of this show. It will not be obvious. Sometimes they call it out, obviously. But it really emerges, maybe because it's their interest and focus.

But so many of these stories are about women as demons. these are stories uh second they're stories about police malfeasance or straight-up corruption um and they're stories where the original narrative was set early in the cycle of the story by media who got it wrong and never fixed it and when you have those three things together you get a lot of terrible shit that ends up infecting your brain you think that all women

are greedy, gold-digging sluts. You think that all black people have to be criminals. And you think that every little kid is in constant danger of being beheaded in a ditch outside a mall. And what's amazing about that is going back, and so to your point, though, Max, when you do have time to cool off and return to some of these things, it's almost like you look at the concerns you had when you were in fourth grade, and you're like, wow, I didn't realize how easy I had it. You look back on some of these stories, and you're like, I didn't realize how wrong I got that. And there are people who still don't understand the Kitty Genovese story really actually.

They don't really understand what happened.

MaxI haven't thought through this fully. I'm forming an idea right now that maybe you guys will tell me if this is a good or bad idea. But maybe it's possible that when these things that are very culturally inflamed but not sort of life or death, like I would say the Joker movie is an example, right? Like the Joker movie is like this big cultural battleground right now and everyone's got takes. And when we will look back on this in 20 years, we're going to go, everyone got it wrong. Like it didn't mean that, it meant this.

MerlinWe used to worry about Motley Crue. Right. I mean, you know what I mean? It's this, you know what I mean? It's just that you look back at that and you're like, how did I get to being this worried

Maxabout Dungeons and Dragons as a culture? My mom one time wouldn't buy me an Eminem CD because she thought it was about killing cops. And when I think back on that, I'm like, it wasn't even wrong. Like physicists say, that's not even wrong.

MerlinThat's a show about your police work there, Lou.

MaxYeah. I kind of see where you got to with that, but it was a pretty circuitous route. Even if Eminem was rapping about killing cops, did my mom think I was going to kill a cop?

MerlinThe latest episode of The Wonderful Decoder Ring is, I really recommend Decoder Ring. It's such a fun show. Decoder Ring with Willa Paskin on Slate. And she goes in and does a really deep-ish dive on some kind of a cultural phenomenon. And it never doesn't amaze me. And the latest episode is called Bart Simpson Mania. And it's a really good exploration of what was happening culturally at the time in the late 80s.

MaxWhat do I start with with Decoder Ring? I can't get into that.

MerlinOh, gosh. Really? Truck Nuts. Truck Nuts is really good. Baby Shark is really good.

AlexI'm going to go with baby

MaxI'm going to listen to those three and report back Can I give you a big one?

AlexOh I got one! Hold on, remember when the mom killed the kid Apparently in the pool, but maybe not

MerlinIt drove into the water or in a pool?

AlexNo, no, no, that's a fucked up story That's a podcast See, it's a story I missed Because I'm like, okay, it's this white lady who drowned her children This is not a systemic problem And it was in court for like two years Alright, sorry, Alex

Merlindone. I got very excited. So you're glad you're saying you're glad you set that one out?

AlexYeah, no. Yeah. The one thing. All right. Well, no, no. One more. One more thing on this challenge. I'm on my Hitler Trump pills. There are stories like this that I have the absolute opposite reaction to. For example, a Missouri man says he found a baby's body in his mother's freezer days after her death. And nothing has been reported about this since July 31st. And It's on my Google Alerts, and I want to know the story.

MaxOh, you did follow that one, and it didn't pay off is what you're saying. You know mine is, remember there were those two people, two nights in a row in Lakeview, a guy in a face mask and a black hoodie walked up to an elderly Jewish guy. No, what was it? No, it was a guy who was an elderly gay man and then a Jewish teenager. and it was two nights in a row and he just point blank executed them, shot them execution style in the back of the head

and then just walked away. And there was no clues and it was never solved and it was really fucking freaked me out when it happened because it seemed like they were targeting sort of Trump style outcasts. Anybody who... Yeah, you know what I mean? And it really fucking upset me and freaked me out.

MerlinYou're saying like an actual Jesse Smollett kind of thing.

MaxAnd I don't know. We don't know.

MerlinBut you say people were targeted for being the sort of people who get targeted.

MaxYes. So someone walked up, some guy in a face mask, walked up to this elderly gay dude who was walking his dog and shot him in the back of the head and calmly walked away. And then the next night, a guy matching the same description shot a Jewish teenager. And same thing, point blank, walked away. And then it never happened again. They never caught the guy. We never heard about it. There's been no news. Every so often I look up Lakeview Killer and I'm like, is there anything about this? And it's like the last thing.

MerlinYou sort of think like, did I dream that? Like, how is this not a huge story? It's fucking weird.

AlexWell, that's kind of why it wasn't a big story. It's because afterwards, I think, I don't know. Max, is this a conspiracy theory? Like when there is no news and the cops have nothing, they kind of try to take it back as well as the media tries to take it back because it's like, well, there's nothing here and it's terrifying. It'll make people sad. I don't know. No, that seems like absolutely not something that would happen. Why did we ignore that? This is very upsetting, and now I'm just going to think about living in Lakeview.

MerlinDid you hear the ATC story on cattle mutilation?

MaxI did see that. All the blood got sucked out. Doesn't that seem like some—

MerlinNot a drop of blood. Not one drop of blood, they said.

MaxI mean, isn't the obvious answer that there's some cattle— Watching a lot of old-timey Westerns has led me to believe that there's rivalries between cattle ranchers, and isn't it possible that these cattle ranchers are just terrorizing each other?

AlexI don't want to say that would be funny.

MerlinI always assume, the TV I've watched, the old movies I've watched, well, in the last 30 years, I've come to believe that it's always the Crooked Land developer. No, I've come to believe that people have always, it's a small-out situation, it's almost always somebody doing it to themselves. Okay. You know what I'm saying? That's usually I've seen enough movies to know what's in the box. It's like, you know, it's a surgical precision, not a drop of blood. Like you'd have to know some shit. You have to be like a serious steer doctor to be able to pull that off.

MaxYeah. Well, he's probably got the blood sucker right in the barn. It's part of the, it's part of his kit. Yeah. All right.

MerlinLet me finish up my theory from 20 minutes ago.

MaxOh, sorry. Sorry.

MerlinSo that's okay.

MaxSo my theory is that we almost always like misread these. I think there's like two categories of events. There's like events that are really turn out to be like, like important in like a world historical sense. And then there's just like cultural flare ups that are mostly sort of curiosity. They'll wind up on a podcast in 30 years, and they'll be like, what the fuck are these people thinking? And the ones, especially the ones where often we get both of them wrong, but the ones that are especially these weird cultural flare-ups, we always get them wrong. Always, always, always. Like your point with why you like these, listen to these explainer podcasts.

And I think it's probably unhealthy for us as people to be so close to the take machine where you're on Twitter, and it's like reacting and counter-reacting, just like so accelerated. Like you're just running on this treadmill hoping you don't fly off the back with people reacting, reacting, reacting, reacting to the reactions. Like maybe that's like a really trite observation. But like it's so – and I guess what I'm trying to say is my observation is it is so fucking hard for me to tell the one type of story from the other now.

Do you feel like that?

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinEspecially in the moment because – but I love that phrase you used. You're too close to the take machine titled. No, that's it. I don't know why you would equivocate at all about that because it seems on the field, maybe it turns out. I don't know. Maybe it's wrong. Maybe it is wrong. Maybe you should get closer to the heat of the take machine. I think you're absolutely right because now we're sort of back to where we started at the beginning of the recording, which is like what happens when you end up unintentionally getting too hot about the wrong thing. Jesus Christ, I'm going to think about that. Fuck you, Max.

MaxYou know what it is? It's like every time something happens whenever there's a mass shooting or something, I always go on Twitter and I'm like, I wonder what people are saying about that. And to me, that's like you're standing at the shuttle launch and you're sticking, you're craning your head into the engine going, hey, is this thing on?

What did you think was going to happen?

MerlinThis is everything

Maxright now. It's everything. This is everything

Merlinright now. Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb respond to Matt Lauer.

MaxYou know a big one I have to decide on is succession. I'm right on the bubble Do I go in on succession or not I'm not going to walk into this Are you guys watching it?

MerlinOf course I'm watching it It's sublime We're going to take the bait Like a fucking monkey

MaxIt's not bait It's bait Jerry bait

MerlinI watched the pilot Fine whatever

MaxNo you should

MerlinObviously you should Everybody that you like is telling you it's really good

MaxI know everyone's watching it I know, I know. All right.

MerlinOr you can watch Letter Kenny, which is very, very good. Oh, yeah, you liked one of the little sketches. I loved it. I'm going to get into it.

MaxOkay, Alex, you're watching Succession 2?

AlexNo comment. Why is this bait? I just don't want the sketch.

MerlinBecause then you're going to turn your rage back on us, and we're going to stand next to the heat machine while you go, I don't know. And you'll do it in that voice, too. It'll be super annoying.

MaxI watched the pilot, and it was just good enough. I couldn't tell if I should keep watching it or not. It's already happening.

MerlinNo, it's happening. I want a reality show where it's just you and John Syracuse in a room.

Speaker AJust my two worst friends.

MerlinIs John watching Succession? No comment. I have no comment about anything.

MaxMerlin, ask John if he's watching Succession. I'll ask all the great Johns. I don't read my emails.

Obviously the other thing that we need to talk about this week is, this was so fucking funny. So you guys remember that photo where during the campaign when Trump was being really racist towards Mexican people, he went downstairs to Trump Tower to the cafeteria. He bought a taco salad. Oh, shit, dog.

MerlinWe haven't talked about this yet.

MaxNo. Oh, I thought I had totally missed this. And then he posed, and then he takes the taco salad, he puts it on his desk in Trump Tower in his office. It's like Cinco de Mayo, is that right? His like gilded office. Yes, it was Cinco de Mayo. And he does a double, big, goofy fucking grin and a double barrel thumbs up. And he goes, I don't remember the exact tweet, but it was like, happy Cinco de Mayo.

MerlinIt was something like best taco bowls in the world, Cinco de Mayo, you know, pound sign, whatever.

MaxI love Mexicans. Oh, that's it. I'm eating their food. I love my Mexicans. And it was so, I mean, everybody sort of dunked on it. It was such it was I mean, talk about the take machine like that was all it was just fucking it was on, you know, all the late night. It was just taco salad week and we were all making fun of Trump for his taco salad. Just like now we're making fun of him for his comic sans constitutional crisis. I'm like, I used the wrong font. That's I got him this. Yeah. And no, but you're right.

MerlinBut there was this also it came in the midst. I don't remember the order this happened in real quick, but there were the campaign kept posting these dumb photos of him with food.

Alexthere was the McDonald's

Maxthere was the McDonald's on the airplane

Merlinthere was the one where he had the KFC and you could analyze his terrible taste the McDonald's with his hamburgers and then podcasts

Alexwould eat all of their shit I think that there is

Maxa kind of a strategy of like when people get too mad at Trump he'll start to do silly things that nobody actually cares about. I enjoy human food like you do humans but he starts to do those silly things and he goes here's a chew toy like they're gonna watch people are gonna go fucking nuts about this and they're gonna forget about all the other stuff right and there is a way of like if he's like actually you know creating a constitutional crisis and everyone's making fun of the font that his memo is in it does have a way of discrediting our argument you know it's like you can't be equally mad about the font and that he's not

Merlincomplying with the impeachment right you can't you can't impeach a president this successful who who allowed Syria to be invaded. That's Article 2.

MaxI can't think too hard about that. Oh, God.

MerlinHere's the thing. Now, what have we learned from Max and Alex? You always zoom in. What we didn't know was, look at me over here, I'm a fucking idiot, and I'm staring at the bowl and getting mad. Oh, I got a post. But turns out.

MaxTurns fucking out. I don't know why it took until this long, because this is years after that photo was posted, But someone took that picture and they were like, I wonder what else is going on in this room. And they zoomed in. They enlivened the photo and they zoomed in. And sure enough, behind Trump, there's an open drawer of his desk drawer. And it's full of like papers and shit. But also you can see it is just brimming with no less than five or six visible boxes of English Sudafed, of like UK Sudafed. And the drawer is not fully open.

So you would imagine if you open the drawer fully. And it's deep. We can only see the top layer of the drawer.

MerlinIt could be a Patron and a dildo for all we know. We don't know what's in there. That's just what we see.

MaxThere could easily be 20 boxes of UK Sudafed in there, which I believe.

AlexNo, the best thing in that drawer is the Sudafed. It only gets worse the more you go back. Oh, if you have Sudafed at the front, it's like how you keep the nicest makeup.

MerlinOh, you're saying that's like putting your Playboy on top of the porn so people don't get all the way down to big-ass titties. he's putting he's putting the that's his cover story it's english pseudofed who knows what's

Alexunder the pseudofed holy shit alex you put the regular vibrators in front so you don't get to the bdsm letter leather in the back it's common knowledge classic misdirection there was a another

Maxum tweet that i linked you guys that is also quite old and it was from some pa on the apprentice who came forward with some trump gossip and he was like trump was well his allegations were a little kooky but he did say trump on the set trump would take he specifically said uk suda fed like it was

Merlincandy and that is such a is this the stand-up the stand-up comedy guy that has all the adderall

Maxtweets or is it a different guy yeah and he said he was taking like adderall but he specifically called out the uk suda fed and i was like that's so specific for us to have now found it in the photo for him to have made it up and he also claimed that trump was doing biker meth getting it delivered, delivered into the set. But I do think Trump is abusing Sudafed. And there are like, you get paranoia, psychosis, like serious medical problems from that.

AlexSorry, I'm trying to buy Sudafed from the UK right now. I'm trying to. I'm

Merlinlooking at the landscape and trying to decide my angle

Maxon this. Now, the reason, why is he getting it from the UK? I think it's because in the US we have this like meth problem and so it's actually hard to get too much Sudafed.

MerlinYeah, getting Claritin D is like, that's half a day for me. And then make sure you don't do it often enough that the federales come to your house.

MaxI think that's why Trump, I don't know. I'm actually speculating. Maybe Mike can ship me a little something from Her Majesty's World of Carrier Service. But I'm guessing maybe it's possible. Asian pills, governor. Maybe they don't have as much restrictions on how much.

MerlinHave we Googled the actual ingredients? because I already speculated to you on our super secret private text channel that I'm guessing as somebody who has been, used to take the prescription Adderall and has like a 15 or 20 year history back in the day with ephedrine, I'm going to guess it's like ephedrine. And ephedrine fucking rules. Ephedrine is like Adderall Jr. It really fucking rules. And I would not be surprised at all. And like, you just can't get that now. Because like I said, I've got a spreadsheet about this. It used to be ridiculously cheap, but then people were turning it into like trucker meth. And so that's how we got into this era of like, first of all, you know, first they came for the ephedrine and I said nothing.

It just got more costly and difficult to get. They started cutting it with the stuff called glyphenicin, which is a cough suppressant that made it less speedy, which sucked. But it used to be the purest fucking hit was this bronchodilator called ephedrine that you could buy at the store. When Lisa gets the big jar of trucker pills, that's basically ephedrine. And it was practically speed that you could buy at the Shell along with your malt liquor, hypothetically. And I'm guessing, have we done a Google search on the ingredients?

AlexOf course. And here's the thing.

MerlinOh, Alex, please share your wisdom. Tell us about this.

AlexOn the Sudafed website, both the UK version and the FDA, and the United States one and the FDA, all of the ingredients are the same. But if you I can't find a picture of what the box says, because if you look at the boxes of like Claritin D and Zyrtec, you go online and it essentially says the same thing. Right. But then you look at the boxes and there's that like one proprietary drug in each that is separate.

So if somebody can take a picture of the ingredients like every every inch of the box of Sudafed from the UK. Hang on.

MaxWhat time is it in the UK? Oh, I think I had to count it. 6 p.m. Here we go. Hang on. Send a text to Mike Hurley. Mike, we are recording. Hang on. I'm going to call that fucking guy.

AlexOh, God.

MaxOkay.

AlexHang on. Let's get him on the blower. I think this is another thing, too. It needs to be the Sudafed brand and not the... Because Walfed, there's a bunch of... I don't want to take Walfed anymore. That's what I enjoyed this morning.

MerlinWait, are you talking about the active ingredient cancer problem?

AlexOr the fulluring? that thing this no no no i'm i just have pseudofed because i probably have a sinus infection um and i'm like this but i actually it's actually wall fed like the um oh oh no i hear the answer did did oh no okay no i think he hung up okay but it is way way different and i assume most of the time because a lot of prescription drugs are um you know the white labels are okay uh and i guess

i just assumed because wall fed and pseudo fed like they're safe i don't know i should have

Merlintreated them like psychiatric drugs i'm looking at the box i'm looking at the box here and here's what it's got three ingredients it's got paracetamol which is british for um tylenol it's got caffeine which is British for caffeine and it's got phenylephrine phenylephrine

Alexwe have that as well

Merlindo we?

Maxhere we go hello

Speaker Byou have me for one minute

Maxwhat show are you recording?

Speaker Bwell I was about to start recording Connected but like shows can't merge over on Cormac's okay here's the deal

Maxso Mike tell us everything Merlin says it'll be quick. Tell us everything you know about UK Sudafed.

Speaker BI know that you can't buy a ton of it at once.

MaxDamn it. That's our number one theory. Can it be crushed into a powder? Merlin wants to know if you can crush it into a powder and snort it.

Speaker BFor as much as I know, we don't have that system like you do in America where you have to show driving licenses and stuff. Okay.

MaxSo you just have to send your Smurfs to go buy it.

Speaker BYeah, I think so. Like Sudafed is not like, I don't think it's like super controlled, but isn't that the stuff that you make meth out of?

AlexSort of.

MaxThere's an ingredient. You guys don't have meth. You don't have a meth problem, do you? It's called meths. Damn it. That's the best joke of the episode.

Mike, could you or is Adina around? Could someone go to the CVS and take a picture of the ingredients of the Sudafed?

AlexNo, no, no.

Speaker BWell, I could just, I mean, you could, this is just on the web, though.

MaxWe can't find it. We're having trouble finding it.

AlexI mean, I'm sure that you listen to the show, obviously, Mike. I'm sure multiple times. But the ingredients are the same online. But I think on the boxes, they're different. so that is the that's the situation however we have already asked our listeners well listen

Maxif one of you wants to help us with this important investigative report that may or may not bring down the president of the united states i'll leave it up to you there isn't a chemist near here

Speaker Atake listen take your get in the loo and take a lori to the

Maxchemist. Come back with some Hitler pills for us, okay?

Speaker BAnd I have real work to do now.

MaxGoodbye, everybody. Bye. Thank you, Mike. I'm so mad that Mike got the best line on Dubai Friday. I mean, oh my god. That's the last time we call him. That's so rude. That's the last time we have him on the show.

AlexOh, there was a challenge.

MaxChallenge. So yes on succession. You're watching it too, Alex. Why are you guys so sad? I'm asking if I should watch this show or not.

MerlinBecause this is how you operate. You think this is the first time? This is not my first day. I know how you are. You're like this.

AlexWelcome to Dubai Friday.

MerlinOh, my God. You're a Bateman. You're Patrick Bateman. Fuck that guy. Fuck my curly. Jesus Christ.

It's not right. It's no wonder we left. Okay. So the challenge this week. Was it Max? Was it Marco? Was it kind of Marco? Oh, it was kind of Marco. Let's give it to Marco. The challenge this week was to make a high-protein breakfast.

Speaker AMm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

MerlinBecause I was bitching about how I don't like cleaning things. And I like an egg. I love an egg. Huge fan of eggs. I'll eat an egg by itself. I'll put an egg on another thing. I like an egg and a potato. I like an egg and a ham. I like all kinds of eggs. Eggs on bread? Sure. Bring it on in. But so the challenge was find some kind of a satisfying, and I think implied in this, is an easy, high-protein breakfast. Is that correct?

AlexYes. I am going to send it to you right now. Always, always with the iPad and Amazon. All right.

There we go. And I enjoyed it quite a bit.

MerlinOh, I don't like these videos. Oh, you made a joke.

Alexis this a joke no no do you understand how i could think it's a joke no i genuinely don't i've talked about peanut butter oh right because you think it's peanut butter no no no no no no

Merlinno that's that's the point is she she doesn't even know when she's making a joke anymore what am i looking at it's a p28 alex has sent us a product called p28 foods formulated high Protein spread peanut butter, 16 ounce.

AlexYeah, I guess I really don't talk about...

MerlinDid you really eat this?

AlexYeah, I guess I don't talk...

MerlinDid you really not realize you're sending us peanut butter?

AlexYeah, I really don't talk about how much I fucking love peanut butter on this show.

MaxThe tagline is food that performs registered trademark.

AlexRegister trademark, yeah. Yeah, so I just had a spoonful of this every morning.

MerlinThis butter can nut.

MaxIt's actually called peanut butter flavor. There's not actually peanuts in it.

AlexYeah, it's just like basically like high protein soylent that's flavored peanut butter.

MaxIs it a meal replacement?

AlexI don't know.

MaxThat wasn't the challenge. Alex, that sounds horrible. You're eating a giant vat of chemicals and you don't know what it is?

AlexI am. Look at the back.

MaxDid you eat this? Did you actually eat this?

AlexYes.

MaxOkay.

AlexI've been eating it for a week. It's fine. It's got vitamin B3.

MaxAre you trying to eat that?

AlexNo, I guess so. I just I've had a oh I guess I've had half a serving every morning uh a single tablespoon of this uh and yeah because sometimes I mean I'm gonna order it and try it yeah me too I'm gonna

Maxtry it I just I'm making fun of you for it the oh oh yeah you guys ever checked out nuts.com uh oh dude I'm I'm living the nuts.com lifestyle we have little jars of nuts all over our house somebody should tell Marco about that we're getting we're getting fruit leathers we're getting candies.

Oh, their butters? Have you tried their nut butters? They have the best nut butters.

AlexOh, well, I do have their peanut butter, but I felt it was a little too sugary for the challenge. I feel like I'm being gaslit right now. Are you guys gaslighting me right now? No, let me see if Maddie can take a picture of the peanut butter. Veronica and I have been

Maxgreatly enjoying the nuts.com house brand almond butter. Almond butter. And it's very nicely emulsified. You don't like when an almond butter gets unemulsified. And then you have the loose, oily part. no matter how well you stir, you have a loose oily part on top and then you have a hard soft ball of almond particles on the bottom.

MerlinIt's lost its integrity.

MaxAnd you have to fucking, you get in there and you're cranking, you're cranking, you're cranking, you're just trying to break up the almond on the bottom and get it all incorporated. Now you've got oil sloshing over the top of the jar, getting under the label, getting on your hands, it's staining your wood.

You hate to see it.

MerlinYou hate to see it get that mystery oil on there.

MaxI'm happy to talk about the high protein breakfast that I designed, But did you do this challenge? How's it treating you, Merlin?

MerlinWho, me?

MaxYeah.

MerlinYes. So I repeated an old classic. You know, the thing is, you guys, fuck. I almost feel like we need to have our challenges go further out because the week just gets away from me. And I meant to do Dan Benjamin's egg casserole. He gave me a really good recipe that I shared in the after show last week. Dan Benjamin, he'll probably make a website about this now. But it's an egg casserole where you get a bunch of sausage and eggs and you make, like, you know, an egg casserole. It's like you can cut into pieces like a lasagna. But, of course, the wheat got away from me. This morning, I went, ugh, I need to do this.

And so what I did was I did this. I took a mug. I put about a tablespoon of butter in it. I put in one egg and some salt, and I scrambled it in the mug, stuck it in the microwave for 40 seconds, took it out, re-scrambled it, moved it around, another 40 seconds, and then I ate it, and it was fucking great. Really? Egg in a cup. Yeah, no, it's, and the thing is you can do mix-ins. You could put in some ham, put in some cheese. It was really good.

MaxIt was like. Would you be willing to write down the instructions and the microwave power levels that you used? I'm actually very curious to try this.

MerlinIt's actually, I mean, it's hard to screw up. We've got a very high wattage microwave that I really like our microwave. No, you could just try it. I'd be happy to, but you could also just experiment with it. It might do 30 seconds, stir another 30 seconds, but it's so fucking easy. And then you've got to scramble an egg in a cup.

MaxIn my head, it seems like no matter how delicately you did it, that the egg would turn real hard and sulfurous. You know that?

MerlinIt was surprisingly fluffy and airy. It was really nice.

MaxYeah. I'm excited to try this.

AlexThis is awesome. Oh, sorry. Everything's cool.

MaxDid you drop your glasses again? What happened? You okay, buddy?

AlexMike installed Pokemon Go on his Galaxy Fold, and I got so excited, and he just texted me, and I thought he was going to be mad at us, but he's still. All right. Yep, we're talking about the emulsification. Yep, yep.

MerlinDid you have extra Hitler pills today, do you feel like?

AlexNo, no, I think it is actually.

MerlinDid you do different Hitler pills today?

AlexI did. What country are they from? I did brand name Sudafed instead of Walfed. So maybe that's what.

MerlinAre you guys off Clare and D? Am I the only one in this fucking program doing Clare and D?

AlexNo, it's just the extra. I have like extra sinus pain, you know, like a headache. So that's like what Sudafed. Oh, I see. Okay.

MaxI'm going to talk about my amphetamine regimen in the after show this week.

MerlinOkay, I will too. I have mine. In bodybuilding, they call it stacking.

MaxI have a stack. By the way, we're all going to talk about our stacks and our pre-workout.

MerlinMax, how will people, when this comes out on Thursday, October 10th, where will people be able to hear us talk about our amphetamine stack?

MaxIf you want to hear about our amphetamines and buy some from us and learn how to turn them into other more potent drugs, you can subscribe to the Dubai Friday after show at giveusyourfuckinwiney.com. And here's the way it works. Dubai Friday. Why can we tell you the truth about Jussie Small and all of the other liberal media has to lie and tell you lies about it? Well, it's because they're ad supported and they're reading. They have their big liberal ad supporters like Casper Mattress and the Molecule Air Purifier System. And we don't have any of that stuff. We don't have any of these liberal media apologists giving us money on the show.

We're completely donor supported, which is why we can tell you the truth. and you can give us five bucks a month at giveusyourfuckingmoney.com and subscribe to the Dubai Friday After Show where you will get another whole episode of Dubai Friday where we plan out the next week's challenge and talk about any sort of legal and illegal drugs that we're taking and so on and so forth. I have a couple of other quick plugs to do and then I want to talk about the egg that I made. We have a presidential candidate, Marianne Williamson coming to the Cards Against Humanity office for an event this Friday.

AlexThere were definitely one.

MaxIt might also be streamed or recorded so maybe we'll have some, by the time this comes out, we might know some info about that, and you can check the show notes if there's a way to participate or watch from afar. And I also would like to plug a podcast from Alex Cox and Matt Cox called Two-Headed Girl that I have really, really, really been enjoying, and the new episode just dropped yesterday. And it is just really well edited,

and it's, I don't know what to say, Like it's a really, really good conversations and it's things that I'm really interested and curious about that you guys are very generous and talking about and explaining. And I think it's a really cool project that you guys are doing and really super fun to listen to. And I really recommend that people check it out. And that is at where do you where would people find that?

AlexTwoheadedgirl.fm. I don't know how to take compliments, but Maddie is very, very good. And I think we're telling a very good story. I'm digging it. Yeah. they'll come out more

MerlinAlex Alex you just say you say thank you

Alexthank you very much the new episode was

Merlinthe new episode

MaxI told you this yesterday

Alexbut the new episode

Merlinwas excellent

Alexthank you thank you very much please go to twoheadedgirl.fm you should also say

MerlinMerlin you're very cool say that too

AlexMerlin is very cool oh my god thank you Alex

MerlinI love your show

Alexyeah thank you thank you it is a really good show

Merlinand you can support it on the Patreon and if you have even

Alexmore money yeah yeah but if you had to pick one though

Merlinoh yeah just definitely do do by Friday

Alexyeah

Merlinbecause you know the thing is all these other places they want to

AlexHe's going to the same place.

MerlinThey want to sell you a mattress, but we're here to tell you the truth, and the truth is not free. It's going to set you free, but it won't set you a mattress.

MaxAll right, here's what I'm doing. Here's what I'm doing. I'm soft-boiling an egg. Okay, so I'm taking the eggs. I'm taking the eggs. I'm putting it in a cold, a small pot, the smallest pot I have, a little sauce pot, nothing, just a little bit of water because you want the water to get hot quickly. I'm putting the eggs straight cold from the refrigerator into the pot, Fill it to the top with cold water. So cold eggs, cold water. The whole thing goes on the stove cold. I put it on a full blast flame until it comes to a boil. And then once it hits boil, I'm going to let them boil for four minutes, not one second more or less.

Then the whole thing comes off the stove. I shock them in cold water, and then I peel them. And now you're going to have a soft white and a runny yolk, okay? But it's going to hold its integrity as an egg. Now that egg is going to go into a little ramekin. It's in a little ramekin, okay? I'm going to splash it with some soy sauce. I'm going to hit it with the soy sauce. I'm going to put a little hot sauce on there, some Frank's Red Hot. I'm going to put some sesame seeds on there, and I'm going to put that Japanese condiment where it's the chopped up seaweed with salt and sugar. Oh, shit, dog.

This is an umami explosion.

AlexHow many is this taking?

MaxAnd now I'm going to cut that egg up with a fork, and I'm going to eat it in pieces, and I'm going to do that twice. Fuck yes. You write that down, bitch. Oh, boy. That sounds fucking great.

MerlinUmami explosion.

MaxAnd you're end clean. You end clean. That's what's amazing. The pot goes right back in the cupboard. The pot goes right back in the cupboard. Nothing to wash.

MerlinOoh. That's what I love about the mug, too. I mean, it's no more. It's almost like if coffee was an egg. It's a freebie. God, that's so good. I love ramekins. I love the word ramekin. I love ramekins this morning. We had one. You know how you get stolen stuff? Like you get a stolen plate. You get a stolen bowl. Like, you know, maybe it came from a potluck or a school event or something. Somehow in our house, we got a one-ounce ramekin, and it's what I put my pills in in the morning when I'm getting ready to take my pills. I just ordered a six-pack of one-ounce ramekins

because I'm going to trick out my system, and they're so goddamn cute. I love the word ramekin. Ramekin.

AlexPills. For food or just pills?

MerlinCould be for sauces. If you want to be like a fancy boy, if you want to be a duchess and have all your ingredients all set aside. I made a really good chicken marsala last night, and I like to go and put all my ingredients into different ramekins because it makes me feel, I don't know, like English or something.

AlexMax, is this pre... God, that sounds good, Max. Like, is this in the morning, or is this a pre-preparation?

MaxNo, I wake up... I mean, the total cooking time is six minutes end-to-end, including eating it. It's so fast.

MerlinGod, that's so good.

MaxIt takes... It's about the same... So sometimes I'll just stick the eggs on. I'll go make coffee. By the time the coffee's done, the eggs are done.

AlexAnd have you felt anything different from the past week?

MaxNo.

AlexMerlin, how about you?

Speaker BWhat?

AlexNo, from like eating breakfast.

MerlinOh, no. No, I'm sorry. I thought this was going to be a magic trick. I'm sorry. I got triggered. Oh, no. No, no, no. I understand. Look under your chair. There's a live chicken. Oh, God. No, I only did it today, but I think I'm going to do it more because like yesterday, for example, before I finally made chicken marsala, I hadn't eaten all day because sometimes I was just space eating. Literally just now, I put in my pho order because I need to fucking remember to eat during the day. And sometimes I don't. Maybe it's my Hitler pills. I don't know. But I got to remember to eat. And boy, starting off the day with an eggy breakfast and no mess cleanup, I think it will feel different.

Do you feel different, Alex? You had some peanut butter.

AlexOh, I hate it. Okay. We talked about this in the after show a little bit, I think, last week. But I typically just never eat breakfast because I'm not hungry in the morning. And it's like, well, if I don't need to eat breakfast, then I won't. And it then the first time I eat is around 1 p.m.

And if it's just protein, then I feel like awesome. Like, you know, when you have like the sluggish, like it's like 3 p.m. Most people have around 3 p.m.

MerlinBelieve me. Yeah. And I'll bring I'll bring a pack of ham. I'll just eat a pack of ham because if I have anything with carbs in it, that's it. Nap time.

AlexYeah. And we've had. Oh, God. Evan, one of the chefs in our office has been making bread. and I'm like, oh, I wait until the end of the day and I'm like, kill me, but it's so fucking good. But yeah, just having, I will have a scoop of my peanut butter in a corner of the office where no one can see me because I'm like, fuck, I am hungry. Like I normally do need to remind myself to eat.

MerlinBut you don't like the taste? What is it you hate about it?

AlexNo, I just don't like how I feel because I'm not, I am getting, I am actively feeling hungry and sluggish earlier than without having breakfast.

Merlindoes that make sense yeah yeah no like you're out of fuel so you need you need robot fuel you

Alexgot to get that in there no no no no no no no when i don't maybe that's because you're not eating food no no opposite of food no no i don't eat breakfast in the morning and then around naturally around 1 p.m i'm like hmm i should probably have some food um but when i've been having my spoonful of protein peanut butter every morning i become actively hungry in a negative way I'm like, fuck, I really need food and I feel sluggish. Interesting.

MerlinSo it's almost like, as they say, an appetizer. Like you're creating appetite.

AlexIt's, yeah, yeah. And I don't like it. And then I, yeah, I don't know. I just don't like it. Could there be an adjustment?

MerlinCould there be an adjustment period where you just need to do it for a while and kind of reboot your system?

AlexBut why would I want to? Because then I'm also hungry like all day. I've been like eating late at night and there's nothing. Normally, if I'm doing that.

MerlinYou should find out if you can get nutrition from a patch.

AlexThat would be so your shit. That's not a joke. I would love it. Like pill vegetables? Are you kidding? I am up.

MerlinIt even makes my pee smell like asparagus. Ha ha. I don't pee.

Show notes

Transcript

153. Schiavo’s Tubes

Show notes

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