163. Manchurian Bottom

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, learn how to draw butts.

Oh, Cameron, are we, we calling Merle, Merle? Let's call Merle. Merle. I keep having Max address him like that to see what will happen. Nothing has yet. He's that mad about it.

Merlin, man.

Speaker AHello.

AlexHello.

Speaker AOh, I can't hear.

AlexThat's because you, that's because Intern Jordan do his.

Speaker ANo, I just had to turn up my thing.

AlexYeah. Yeah. Well, it's okay. You're not a studio normie, unlike Intern Jordan, who, wow. Thanks a lot, Intern Jordan. Welcome back. Welcome. Good to see you.

He actually did a good job taking care of the, what is it now? $150 million studio. And turned all the microphone amps down so there's no headphones.

Speaker AEvery time we say it, it goes up.

AlexDid you just do the bit, Kevin? What? Did you explain? Nothing, never mind. How are you, Merlin?

Speaker AWhat's happening? I don't go here.

AlexYou can't sit with us. How

MerlinMicromodal I think maybe the voice is just This is already unbearable Yeah I know

Speaker ABoys in the house It's gonna get really nasty up in here

MerlinCycle 2.0 Boys in the house

Speaker AI got my bean juice

AlexDad's not here to watch us

MerlinYep yep yep I'm singing into the bean box Wait is he not here this week?

AlexNo No, Max is hanging out with his close personal friend, Jeff Probst, or some magicians, or I don't know.

Speaker AOne or the other.

MerlinOh, wait. So it's really literally just the three of us?

AlexIt's literally just the three of us. Although intern Jordan is observing. So be on your toes.

MerlinWhat is he with the UN or something?

AlexActually, intern Jordan.

MerlinHe's monitoring the election?

AlexOh, do we have a monitor thing?

MerlinInfractions?

AlexIt's Impeachapalooza, right?

Speaker AOh, is that happening right now?

AlexYeah.

MerlinOh, no, no, please, no. No, Daddy's on a break. Daddy's on a break.

AlexReally? You decided to take a break now?

MerlinIs this the show?

AlexIt's like, this is like becoming sober right before spring break. This is very interesting. Yeah.

MerlinOkay.

AlexMy metaphors make sense.

MerlinWhere would I be going for spring break? Would I be going to like Fort Lauderdale?

AlexNo, no.

MerlinWhat year of college would it be? Senior year?

AlexOh, interesting. No, no, no. No.

MerlinOh, boy. That would be a mistake.

AlexYeah.

MerlinI never did spring break things. That was for, I don't know, weirdo normal people.

AlexYeah, no, neither did I. That was for popular people. Yeah. That was for people who one had money and two had friends. Oh, God, yes. My family had one of those. I did not have the other.

MerlinYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I enjoyed a simulacrum of those kinds of things, but I was never fully invested in the sort of alcoholic bro lifestyle. You know?

AlexYeah. No. I, it made my tummy hurt.

MerlinI have soft hands for that kind of thing.

AlexYeah.

MerlinWhat about you, Kevin? Were you a frat boy? I had.

AlexI'm sorry. Yeah, I was. Sorry. Yes.

MerlinWere you nailing lots of chicks and stuff?

Speaker AYeah, I was, I was cruising. I was doing panty raids.

MerlinOh, fucking. I can't even tell you how many panties I've rated Oh my gosh brother I hear you

Speaker AAnd my axe

MerlinWhat's up

Speaker AI went to art school First of all For college so there were no Frats there I went to art school for college We didn't even know what a jock Looks like

MerlinI bet that got a little wild

AlexIt got wild in the opposite direction

Speaker Aactually there was a lot of a lot of promiscuity and like hard drugs and people dropping out

Merlinbecause they were like fuck this i don't need this was it happy promiscuity or sad promiscuity

Speaker Aboth yeah nice nice hot hot and cold running art yeah yeah yeah coming out of all orifices

AlexNo. No.

MerlinOh, my God.

AlexOh. Kevin and I went to the same. When?

MerlinNo, no, stop it. Wait a minute. He just got there. He just got there. What's that a reference to? Shoot, that's a reference. What is that? Is it?

AlexNo, Kevin just did a funny.

MerlinOh.

Speaker AI don't actually know anymore.

AlexThat's true.

MerlinOh, wait. It was. Oh, you know what it was? On Chapo, they were talking about Boris Johnson's novel. his lightly disguised puffed up novel about himself and how he is exploding out of all of his orifices

Speaker Athat's disgusting

Merlinlet's see how you find that I want to hear more about art school though because no I mean like so do you have like distribution requirements it's a four year program and you've got like most colleges I don't know if you know about regular college Kevin

Speaker Anever who is she

Merlinnormally you have like a distribution requirement thing. We're at a normal college, and I did not go to a normal college. I went to a somewhat

Speaker Anormal college. Alex and I went to the same school. Yeah, why am I being left out? We both went to

MerlinColumbia. Yeah. No, not that Columbia. Not that one. Columbia College. Oh, Columbia College. Is

Speaker Athat a certified college? Probably. I think it's accredited. Certifiable. You don't have to be crazy to go here, but it helps.

MerlinYeah, well, my wife started it at the psych department at UCSF. I said she should put that sign up. And she said that would probably not be smart. You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps. It's irony.

Sorry, it's boring to talk about college. Anyway, yeah, you know, it's weird. I've said this for a long time, but I do think it's so odd that we send people off to college at this time when they've had very little actual experience of independence and there's such an explosion out of all of your orifices of independence. There's so many, there's so much shit you have to take care of for the first time in your life. And on top of it all, you're expected to like do well in school and be emotionally healthy and physically healthy and mentally healthy and like, and you know, do laundry and find food.

And oh my God, it's, it's a lot to ask.

Speaker AOne of those things has to break. You can't have all the things.

MerlinAt least one.

Speaker AYou can't have a triangle of wellness.

MerlinIt doesn't work. No, it's more like a Project Odecahedron. You get to hold two sides. Anyway, so okay, all right. I'm adjusting my expectations. Max is here. Max is not here. He is not. Max is with magicians. Okay.

AlexYep, yep, yep, yep.

Speaker AWatching the Survivor finale.

AlexYeah. Do you have a winner pegged, Kevin?

Speaker AI... You just said the word pegged and you activated me.

Alexoh we got Kevin's trigger work

Merlinyou found his bucky

Speaker AI must assassinate the president

Merlinhe's the Manchurian bottom

Speaker ANo, I didn't watch this season of Survivor.

MerlinYeah, you didn't miss much. It got way better. Well, it got way worse and way better toward the end. I don't super want to get into it.

Speaker ASo I've had it explained to me. I've had some of the situation explained to me. It sounds like it got pretty fucking crazy.

MerlinWell, save it. Save it for the show.

AlexIt didn't, though. A gross man ruined a fun game.

Speaker AFor the first time in recorded history.

MerlinI think they should just stop having people named Dan on the show. Yeah. Just on principle.

AlexNo, no. Also Ozzy, but...

MerlinWhat is your problem with Ozzy?

AlexHe's...

Speaker AI thought you thought Ozzy was hot.

AlexNo.

Speaker AI thought that was Alex's problem with Ozzy.

MerlinOzzy's competent, and I think that scares Alexandra as competent people. I do. Oh, trust me.

AlexThat does indeed scare me. Especially the healthy, like the emotionally adjusted ones. It's...

Speaker AI break out into high. Something's wrong there. too normal yeah

Merlinokay I keep looking at these butts in the dock

Speaker AI keep looking at these top two the one that looks sort of like a hot dog filled with cream cheese and then the one that is croissant

Merlincroissant butt

Speaker Acan you imagine meeting

Merlinsomebody that actually has a butt like a croissant two croissants

AlexI would call an ambulance

MerlinOh, man, she is buttery.

AlexOh, wow.

MerlinFlaky.

AlexLike, if I was walking behind someone and, like, this was going through their jeans.

Speaker AIt really does look. First of all, that's not what a croissant actually looks like.

AlexOh, I mean.

MerlinI can't draw a butt or a croissant. I'm screwed.

Speaker ASo much wrong with this picture. These croissants are, like, crustacean. They look like shells.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinOh, like a tardigrade? I know we don't say that anymore, but like, yeah, okay.

AlexOh, we don't say that word anymore. They prefer water bears. Water bear.

MerlinWhat's the hanky coat for a tardigrade? I don't have pockets. I'm tiny.

Speaker AI am so small.

MerlinI'm so small. I cannot help this. I just want to be loved. Won't someone urinate on tardigrade?

AlexOh, we have esteemed illustrator and artist and Cards Against Humanity events. What are you? Assistant director?

Speaker AI don't know. I work on the events team. I don't know what you would say. Let me refer back to my resume that I'm punching up, and I'll answer it later. Events, illustration, print shop manager, whatever. Man about town.

MerlinThe brand manager for Dubai Friday.

Speaker AYes, yes. Very important. Artistic director.

MerlinWe don't say artistic anymore. We say spectrum, spectrum artist. And we're so happy to have you here while Max does his magician things.

Speaker AHappy to be here as always. Happy to talk about butts and drawing.

MerlinThe hot dogs are actually becoming more upsetting to me than the croissants. Right? Because you said cream cheese and now I'm really bothered by this.

AlexNo, those aren't hams. No, they're not hams.

Speaker AThey're just, they're supposed to be like tires, right? Like this is just like a drawing guide.

AlexOh, no, you're right. I see.

Speaker ABut the way that they're sort of like hot dog colored.

MerlinWe'll put this in, just so you all know, we'll put this in show notes so you can see. But I found this as I Googled how to draw butts from my work. I discovered various tutorials. I think very few of which would be approved by Kevin Budnick. But some of them try to do that thing. We know the thing, there's the thing. where you talk to somebody who's an idiot like me and you go, if you want to draw a human being, make six circles because that's the proportions. And it's like, well, it's not exactly that, but I guess it's close enough for government work. And in this case, they're trying to show you how to draw butts by saying, well, if you can draw two croissants,

you can draw a butt. And it's like, well, you're not super helping me because I haven't really done a lot of pastry life drawing.

Speaker ABut I'm very happy to be returning for a visual episode. I like, I love the running trend of me coming on the show when there's just a complete visual component and so the listeners are like, I have no idea what they're talking about.

MerlinIt's also gonna be a nice opportunity for John Syracuse to tell me what I did wrong in this challenge.

AlexOh, did you? That's the beauty of art. It's subjective. I have a problem with Mr. Syracuse this week. He was dragging in the, you know, So this was the penultimate episode of the end of the Mac Pro saga, if you will, where he tried out Stadia. You're talking about your new computer? No, not my new computer.

MerlinOh, his 10-year mission.

AlexMm-hmm, mm-hmm. And he talked about how terrible it is to have numbers after your name as a username. But when you have a name like Alex Cox, what are you supposed to do, John? And even in 2008, when you somehow got on the Gmail beta.

MerlinYou've got to get off the whole name thing. You need a different, you've got to come up with something that's, you know, like a Google whack. You've got to come up with something that's going to be unique, as they say.

AlexI mean, Kevin, would you like to say what your Twitter and Instagram names are?

Speaker AOh, sure. Why not? My Twitter is at knitted sweater, and my Instagram is Kevin underscore Budnick, B-U-D-N-I-K.

AlexSee, you had to resort to an underscore and a knitted sweater. Well, I picked knitted sweater.

MerlinResort to? I think that's a creative opportunity.

Speaker AI don't, I feel like at the time I wasn't thinking about myself as being like, I'm going to need my name on Twitter. I just picked a thing that I thought was fun. It's like when you pick your first username when you're on like AIM in middle school. Right. And you're like, I don't, you don't think about how it's going to follow you. And I think somebody has the Kevin Budnick.

MerlinAnd now you're Chandler Bing 69.

Speaker ARight. Or your Alex Cox 42.

AlexWell, that's the thing with Twitter. I was so proud of myself for getting that name to the point where Maddie, the decision for when we got married, what names, what last names we would have, Twitter factored in quite a bit. And, you know, character names.

MerlinWhat the fuck are you talking about?

AlexWhen you get into a marriage, you often change your last name.

MerlinThat part I get. How did Twitter figure?

Speaker AYou have to change your username.

AlexYou also need to change your username.

Speaker AIn order to understand, you have to put yourself in the mind of Alex and Mechie.

AlexIt's very hard.

MerlinI'm good. Is the 42, can I ask, is the 42 a Douglas Adams joke?

AlexWhich I thought was, again, very clever in 2008.

MerlinWell, answer the question. Is it a Douglas Adams joke?

AlexYes, it is. Oh, cool.

MerlinAll right. You suddenly seem less dorky. All right.

AlexGood to know.

MerlinLess dorky by being more dorky.

AlexMan, senior year in high school, Alex was like, you know what would be great? Oh, no one's going to get that. 42 isn't going to, you know, this won't follow me until I'm 42 years old. and no one will understand what the 42 is. It must be a special reference.

Speaker AAnd no one got it until I went to art school. Until I made friends with a very specific type of people.

AlexYeah.

MerlinBut that's self-selecting bias. That's good. If people don't get the joke, you know. You're flagging.

AlexI am.

MerlinYeah, exactly. They're flipping the bozo bit. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker AThe 42 is your hanky coat.

MerlinThat's your hanky coat. Urinate on my Marvin. Oh.

AlexOh, at least it'll make me less sad.

Speaker AShad.

MerlinShad Android.

Speaker AYeah, exactly. Wow, I'm seeing the whole picture now.

AlexYeah, yep, yep.

MerlinEarl Grey hot. Okay, so I don't know. I'm really underprepared for this one. We've got a lot of toilet talk, it looks like.

Speaker AYeah, we can talk about toilets. I did a little butt comic right before the show.

AlexWait, wait. It's not up yet, is it?

Speaker AI didn't post anything. And also, we can get a little peek into my process.

AlexOh.

Speaker AOh, wait.

MerlinWe're talking about butts or toilets? Are we in turlets or butts?

Speaker AWe can talk about turlets. We can talk about burlets.

AlexWell, let's save it for the challenge. So let's... Oh, yeah.

Speaker ALet's talk about toilets first.

AlexYeah. Spoilers. Our challenge involves butts. But... Oh, wow. I say that word so much. It's like when you say duty and then it's duty. Oh, wow. Okay. I'm very upset now. All right, Kevin, would you like to share some toilet news with us?

MerlinToilet talk.

AlexToilet talk.

MerlinBoys in the house.

AlexBoys in the toilet.

MerlinThis is just me buying time until I find the link. Boys in the toilet.

Speaker AYou have to find the link because I don't have the link prepared either. Okay, I got it. I saw this yesterday on the website twitter.com. Oh, my God, it's in the dock.

AlexI found it. I found it.

Speaker AIs the slanty toilet in the dock?

AlexThe slanty toilet's in the dark.

MerlinSlanty toilet is the one below there.

AlexMm-hmm, mm-hmm.

MerlinOoh.

Speaker AThe battle toilet.

AlexThe battle toilet? What?

MerlinChoose your fighter. Choose, choose, choose.

Speaker AOh, God.

MerlinI choose you, Toiletmander.

AlexOh, don't ruin it for us. Toilet, toilet. No, don't ruin it.

MerlinToilet, toilet. Oh, no. Poopy, poopy. Anyway, let's get serious for a minute. This is the hard news section of the show because there's been a lot of Turla talk this week.

AlexOh, boy. Kevin, I believe you found this tweet, which is two pieces of paper.

Speaker AThis is a Merlin.

AlexOh, Merlin. Merlin find of two pieces of paper with masking tape taped to a very dirty wooden bathroom door, it seems.

MerlinThis looks like a place where you can count on a lot of ad hoc signage. I want to stipulate for the record. Okay, so sorry, I got to pop the stack here. I've started following something. I will not look at Reddit. You guys look at Reddit too much, and it's killing you. But I do follow an account that is, I think it's relationship advice. And you get a lot of the like, oh, you know, my girlfriend eats a hamburger upside down, and I want to slay her. What should I do? My ex-boyfriend is dating my father or whatever.

There's all this like r slash relationship stuff. And other stuff creeps in like am I the asshole questions. And it's a lot of fun. And it's really all the Reddit I need. So this says, this is from r slash legaladvice.txt. And the text of the tweet is crossover post. Let the record show that there is no law preventing your employers from sniffing your dumps at work. So, and what we're looking at here is a photo. You'll find this in show notes. It's a photo of, as Alex says, a two-sheet-of-paper sign that's been masking tape to a door.

May I read this?

Speaker APlease.

MerlinSo presumably this is a workplace. It says, if in bathroom for more than 10 minutes, a smell check will be completed to ensure employee not sitting on phone. If it does not stink, period, if it does not stink, employee's name will be reported to office. in this really manic handwriting, with the implication being that if you go in and do a woozy-toosie, somebody's going to come in and do Sniff Your Dump and make sure that you did drop the duke into the duke and that you weren't just boning on the phone.

Speaker AMore than 10 minutes. 10 minutes. I like that 10 minutes is the cutoff.

MerlinTick-tock, tick-tock.

Speaker AA poop should take no longer than 10 minutes.

MerlinTick-tock, tick-tock. I imagine somebody in a Rorschach mess outside. Tick tock. Tick tock. You'll say, can I have another few minutes? And I will look down and say no.

So, anyways, I don't know if this is real, but I thought it was kind of funny. The reason we're introducing this into evidence at this juncture is it started off a whole big week of toilet talk.

Speaker AAnd time theft talk.

MerlinWell, time theft is a known issue. Yeah, exactly. It's quantifiable. Well, as somebody who shits freely, privilege. God, it must be nice. It's so nice. I don't even need to be in that room. Just wherever. The room where they keep us in.

Speaker AI can just make a pants monster right here

MerlinYes But what you don't know is that I took a shit 35 minutes ago So anyway So I don't know if this is real but I guess Here's the thing the real talk though Is that like I My hypocrisy has really Just been very well fertilized over the years I have not worked in an office in a long time I've not been around that many people who work in offices with like real talk talk i don't have co-workers to bitch about the boss tube so i don't i don't know i guess it's a bigger problem than i realized is that sometimes you

know mommy needs a minute you get away you go look at your phone on the toilet i guess and so my understanding is i i guess that's an issue so now real thoughts and feelings about this. Same. Same. Well, do you want to, do you want to get to your feelings or do you want to talk about this new technology that's been introduced? Let's air the stink smell and then

Speaker Awe can talk about the new technology. I just like coming from having worked in, in customer service, like in, and like, you know, retail jobs for so long, like, yeah, sometimes the only time you can Look, your phone is in the bathroom. So, like, when I saw these articles, I was like, it's not really a problem. Are people really spending too much time in the bathroom because they're looking at their phones? And then I remember, like, just needing a second to break away

to, like, just chill.

MerlinExactly, exactly. That's my angle on this is, like, sure, whatever, it's the phone, but, like, fine, whatever. But that to me is unnecessarily demonizing technology and how we use it. When like I'm just – I am – I said this a long time. I didn't realize this until the idea was introduced to me by John Roderick. But I think I am very extroverted to a point and then I get real introverted. And like sometimes I just need to not be around people. Like after I record a show, I just need to be somewhere where I get to control my environment for a while.

there's one place in most offices where you at least historically get to control your environment for a little while and I mean I think that's what it is I think it's just I need to be away from you fucking ding-a-lings for a few minutes not you but you know

Speaker Aus ding-a-lings I need to be with the other ding-a-lings

MerlinI mean do you think it's a phone thing I think it's just a getting away thing people don't smoke anymore right used to be you could go smoke

Speaker AI think it's also a like we don't get enough time to ourselves, like, I mean, not us here at Cards, but as employees, as people who work in America. I'll say us here at Cards,

Alexnot because of Cards, just as people who work in an open office.

Speaker AWell, an open plan office. Yeah, that's for sure.

AlexIt's not even necessarily the company. It's just the culture that we live. It's the culture.

MerlinI'm almost exclusively around people that I genuinely, deeply love more than anybody else on the planet. I still want a break sometimes. I'm still like, can you please go to bed so that I can watch season two of The Leftovers? Can you please, please go to bed so that I can have a few minutes to myself? You know, so, I mean, being around people were like, I don't know, I fucking hate open plan offices. They hired this, I remember they hired this PR guy at my dot-com job, and he just didn't get, he didn't get it. He was just always talking real loud on the phone.

Everybody hated it. There's really nothing to do about it. I mean, it's the worst.

Speaker AI get very self-conscious about volume but only when it's other people I never clock my own volume and I think sometimes I have a very loud like voice especially when I'm just like having a good time at my desk pod with like my my desk pod pals and I and I then I like later think I'm like shit am I loud am I like disrupting people but sound I don't know how well sound travels in our office from one side to the other.

AlexNeither do I. And I'm aware that there are times when I am intentionally loud because it's because of the lady thing.

Speaker AWhen I am talking to a man,

AlexI try to speak louder than them. It is just something that in my lefty mind, that it's like a handshake. It's like, yes, I do have authority here. This is a self-conscious thing I do to try to assert power.

MerlinYou're like necessarily overcompensating by design.

AlexI'm not overcompensating. Nope, nope. This is fine. Everything's fine. I am going to talk. Yeah, yeah. So, Kevin and Merlin, when I'm in the office, I like, so like when Kara and I talk.

MerlinJust so shrill. Just so shrill. I love vocal fry.

AlexJesus Christ.

MerlinNo wonder we make you sleep in a shack once a month.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinPlease, get out of here and get in your blood hut. Your moon haven.

Speaker AIt's hard.

MerlinYou may leave the moon haven in four days.

AlexBut it's genuinely something I think that, especially in our office, everybody has that moment, but it's not, they like lose all self-awareness and well, physical awareness, honestly. And it's not, I don't even think, I don't know, our office feels a little bit better just because we can be a little, like we can be meaner to each other just because we like, our passive aggressive notes

Speaker Aaren't notes, they're just mean notes. There's an informality that is very nice.

AlexYeah, it was at that point where, you know, can be like, oh, yeah, this is cool because we all know each other. There's that awkward period of like nobody wants to be because everybody's pals. No one wants to do it. But I think we're past the threshold where it's like, seriously, bitches, wash your dishes. We're not.

MerlinBitches, wash your dishes. Is that a real sign? That's good.

Speaker ANo, but it should be. It could be. Yeah.

MerlinStop your bitches, wash your dishes.

Speaker AI want to get one of those, like, happy birthday garlands that just says, bitches, wash your dishes, and hang that right above the... We have a really problem with signage is that when we put them up, you know, people don't see them.

AlexYeah, no, we directly confront one another here. Yeah, in this culture.

MerlinI have a kind of a weird flex, but there's a point... Well, no, it wasn't a point. I mean, what happened was my kid was getting older, and she needed to have... She was no longer going to be co-sleeping with us. she needed to have her own room um you know how this story turns out is i got an office very near where i live but of course i looked at all kinds of options right i thought of like is there any way i can wangle this to do it at home somehow because i was i but i approached the problem very creatively um i think which is like i i did a whole this last time i ever significantly used

Alexevernote for something i was gonna say is it creepy that i know the story how you took that's

Merlingreat story yeah i took pictures and it was autumn geotag but like okay so with the the perhaps slightly less told part of that story i ended up with this office i love with a landlord that i we get along great we're pals um very happy here you know obviously any amount of money is more money than one would like to spend but like it's been really good like not only do i get my own place that is my place lucky me my my wife doesn't have her own place like that um but it gets me out of out of their hair too. But anyway, the weird flex part is that, of course, I was looking for

economical options. And so I was looking into my very first, well, my first choice was to like have my kid keep co-slipping until she's 30 and I get to keep my office at home. But my first thought, of course, was to, what do they call it? Coworking? Like, you know, sharing a workspace. And so I thought, oh man, it'd be so amazing if I could find what they, around here they call a mother-in-law unit like if i could find like some kind of like a tiny little sub apartment or if i could find some place where they just give me a desk and then i'm like yeah but like i do still

do podcasts and i am i guess writing a book so like i i really do need like a place that's kind of anyway i explored lots of options i looked at lots of places and i got a very kind offer uh from a company in south park uh that made the app twitter and they were like you could you could come here and you could, we'd give you space. I might've been for free or it was going to be for really cheap. And they were really nice about it. I was like, oh sure, you know, come in and have lunch and hang out. We'll like, you know, check it out and see the crew. Um, I now know, I believe

exactly one person that works at Twitter, whereas I used to do everyone that worked at Twitter. So I went there and I checked it out. They're in South Park, which is this very fancy little area with great restaurants and, you know, hair salons. And, um, Hey, everybody's there and they're having fun they're shucking and jiving and like this is when twitter was fun this is like you know 2009 and everything's great and um and it was like it was like god bless them thank you so much for that offer but i went and it was like a goddamn middle school cafeteria everyone was working at essentially

like upscale like if cb2 made picnic tables like they're basically in in rows at these picnic tables and they're like oh yeah yeah but you could be that's just the folks down here in customer service you customer service really you're all in this room this wooden room with wooden tables and it's like oh my god it's it was like it was like bedlam like literally bedlam like an insane asylum and so and then so i go upstairs like oh yeah you can have this little desk here and people are like fucking throwing a ball around and listening to edm and i'm like how are you getting anything done here like i would lose my goddamn mind but is it a generational thing i mean well

They seem like they were having fun. All I'm trying to say is there's a reason I ended up spending a little more money than I would like for 10 years to have an office. Because I think the kind of stuff that I have done over the years, I'll put it this way, would be very different if my only option had been be in a room with no fewer than three and up to 60 people.

Speaker AWell, correct me if I'm wrong here because, like I said, I don't go here. But the like that whole sort of like early 2000s like dot com thing and all of like the the genesis of like the like co-working space and like the cool hip like, you know, thing is like it's it's just like dudes trying to recreate what it was like for them in college. Like this is how we feel the most creative because like we're all hanging out and like it's not work. It's play.

AlexIt's like the pick. I do. I think I often wonder if it was that. Or if it was the whole story of, you know, at Pixar, there's this infamous story.

Speaker AThere's no walls.

AlexYeah, speaking of bathrooms, Steve Jobs wanted the bathrooms to be on the opposite side of the building. So everybody would run into each other and have conversations. Because that's exactly when you want to have your creative work. When I need to take a shit. Hi, I just took a shit.

Speaker AWhat's up?

MerlinHow's it going with your mouse movie? Well, actually, I've got a man on the boat right now, so I need to go to the Woody room.

Speaker AYou saw me walk out.

MerlinI just did my shape. I'm pushing a turtle here. I really don't have time to talk about the kitty cat taxi cab fire movie.

AlexOr, but I think the reality... Brave 2.

MerlinEverything's a little loosey-goosey. He drives away in the bumper car he's been sitting in the whole time. I think the very, you look at the materialist thing to look at is the, it's just, it is less costly. Like, you know, nobody, nobody loved the partitions that, so last time I worked in an office,

McOffice, it was, you know, open plan-ish, but we did have cubes. I guess that's not technically open plan. But we did have cubes that came up to about your neck, but it wasn't surpassed. It was still really loud and stuff. Wait, wait, hold up.

AlexIt was cubicles, but they only went up to your neck?

Speaker AIf you stood?

MerlinYeah.

AlexOh, okay.

Speaker AI see where your brain went. All right, sorry.

MerlinWell, basically, it's like, to quote David Allen, it's like a room full of prairie dogs.

AlexThat would look so scary.

Speaker AWeird people prison.

AlexWhat I was picturing in my head is hundreds of people sitting in their cubicles, but the cubicles, even when you're sitting, just close your neck.

MerlinOh, some of the less fancy ones in the middle very much were like that. Oh, that's horrific. Yeah, basically, if you were seated, it was basically just enough. Think about maybe like office space. Sure. Like one of the less fancy ones in office space where like it's just above your head if you're seated.

Anyway, I think the one way to look at it is it is just less costly. You can say all this stuff about collaboration. But isn't that kind of how WeWork started too? WeWork was supposed to be this hip thing where you just – it wasn't – I mean they became a real estate – well, I guess they were always a real estate company. But it didn't start out as a hoteling kind of thing where you would come in and work for a certain amount of time. It wasn't just like companies.

Alexit's all bullshit it's like you want to collaborate more don't be your stuffy uncle's company come to this nice space that this billionaire owns and it just so happens that it's way easier to have this open space because they don't need to pay for the repairs of the carpet cubicles

Speaker AI think we should be tearing down walls

Merlinthank you poor CGP Grey what CGP Grey was going through I lost track at some point but what he was going through with what he was trying to do with his office so he was going to mostly be god the whole thing is so funny he's so fucking weird but he'd like taken everything out of it it was completely empty he stripped it what

AlexI think what he did was normal will you tell the story of another show Cortex what CGP Grey did to his office which I thought sounded totally

Merlinnormal oh well okay disagree anyway he needed a place for whatever reason and he he does this amazing thing where he tells just enough of a story to not really explain what's going on but make you say what the fuck are you doing it's like a core competency of his but what i gather is he wanted a place where he could go and brainstorm and then eventually record uh you know write and then record his videos and uh probably animate do some of the animation but so setting aside for a moment what he did to prepare the way.

He's in, I think, a glass box. But what he eventually discovered is that he would come in really, really, really early. Do you remember this, Alex?

Speaker AYes.

MerlinAnd there's a person on the other side of the wall who came in even earlier and was talking business, business, business to people in China really loud all morning. And I was going to say this earlier, Kevin. It's like you think about, you talk about your voice or noisiness. And it's like, you know, think about the easiest example I can think of is like when it's your music at your party, not you, but one, it's like it could be the louder, the better. When it's somebody else's music at their party, they suck.

Right. And I think that's kind of the case here where it's like, you know, even think about when people fucking whisper in an office. That's annoying, too. Eating. Oh, that's worse. Loud talk. Quiet talk. Whispering.

AlexYou're not making it better.

Speaker AIt stresses me out.

AlexYeah, I think I'm being fired every time someone lowers their voice.

Speaker AOh, absolutely. Even if it's people who I don't directly work with. Yeah, yeah.

AlexLike, oh, that new person's here. They must be taking my job. All right, cool.

MerlinCome and start measuring things on your desk.

AlexOh, we're going to move this Pokemon toy just over here for a second.

Speaker ATaking your measurements.

MerlinWhat did you say that fidget spinner is? Did I fit a succulent there?

Speaker AYou bought a size six?

MerlinSo anyway, somebody's either, I'm going to not say job, it has become somebody's self-appointed task, theoretically, nominally, to go in and sniff for dumps. That's what they do.

Speaker AToilet police.

MerlinYou did not make toilet in here at all. Well, I smell his phone.

AlexOh, God. All right. Can we think about the logistics of this for a second, too?

MerlinIt's all I've thought about for two days.

AlexYeah. We're going to hire a bespoke toilet sniffer. But what if that person has a cold? What if, for example, I can't shit at work. I try to shit at work. I literally cannot. It is a... I just can't. It is a place where I have often cried. I have often thrown up. Like, so many things have happened.

MerlinIt's a movable feast. You can really, you can do whatever you need to do in there. Scream into the air freshener.

Speaker AYou just...

MerlinI know a lot of people that can't, just will not go into a, when I say a public restroom, I don't just mean one at the mall, like, but will not go into, let's put it this way. I know a lot of people who cannot and will not even try to make toilet anywhere but home unless it's an emergency where they're traveling or something.

AlexThat's pretty normal, I think. Is it? I don't know. It depends, I guess. I pee a lot. I pee so much. Yeah, I drink a lot of water. Kevin, you do too. We are very well hydrated. But I don't know.

MerlinI don't think this is sanctioned. I think this is probably returning here to the sign. And I think this is not that different from the sign that somebody puts up, you know, about the bitches doing dishes. I think this is just Ron.

AlexIt's a bit.

MerlinIt's Ron and Ron is mad. And Ron wants to come smell your dumps. I don't think he's really going to do it. You know, do you think somebody actually smells the dumps?

AlexNo, no, no, no. I think it's Ron and then someone got excited and took a picture.

Speaker AAnd then five minutes later, Ron was like, I'm just having a bad day because my kid was crying. and like, oh, this is fucking crazy.

AlexHate you, Ron. Ron could be a nice guy, a manager who's just in over his head.

MerlinThat's why I wrote this message on the side of the dog.

AlexI hate you, Ron.

MerlinI hate you, Ron. Mr. Perkins.

AlexOh, Ron.

MerlinCome back, Mr. Perkins. Is mom back with my fruit roll-ups? Give me some fucking chili, Ron. And so then, continuing on with, what are we calling it? Turlet time?

AlexTurlet time. Toilet time.

MerlinToilet police. Clambulance. Oh. Toilet time. So, toilet time continues. Diggah, diggah, diggah, BBC? Is that where we are? Wired. We're wired.

Speaker AWe're wired. We're also, BBC features a photo of the toilet.

AlexYes.

MerlinOkay. Who wants to do a reading series here?

AlexI would just like to say this morning, I received a link to just a picture of a silhouette of a man sitting on a turlet like at just, it's not quite 90 degrees. It's like 30 degrees off. It's a 13 degree angle.

MerlinIt's a 13 degree angle.

Speaker AIt's only 13. Specifically 13 degrees.

MerlinWell, technically, I guess that would be 100 and something, but it's an obtuse angle.

Speaker AIt's insidious because it's such a small number.

MerlinIt is what the CIA would call a stress position.

AlexYes.

MerlinYes, exactly. The idea is you get this turlet and you sit on it. Let's just read here.

AlexAlex didn't know Wait, wait, wait, wait. I got this from a friend saying, oh my God, Twitter's so fucking stupid. I can't believe people are believing this. And I too thought it was like a jokey, I don't know, it was someone-

MerlinYou thought it was like a Bloomberg dance kind of thing.

AlexI thought someone saw a picture of this weird looking toilet and did a funny little meme and people believed it, as you do. No, no, no, there is a whole write-up in Wired. can someone take this reading series because we know what happens when I try to read an article Kevin would you like to do the opposite

Merlinwe all appreciate the little things in life oh go ahead Kevin you do it

Speaker Ayeah I can do this we all appreciate the little things in life and that includes spending five minutes on the toilet scrolling through Twitter on company time but that's time theft but those days may be at risk with the standard toilet all one word with the interior cap what do you call that?

Merlincamel case

Speaker Acamel toe A seat that claims to drastically reduce toilet time. Toilet time is not capitalized.

MerlinAlex loves that. She doesn't like making toilet. Please reduce my toilet time.

Speaker AApproved by the British Toilet Association, the BTA. BTA.

MerlinHello, hello, hello. You've brought a foul of the British Toilet Association, haven't you?

Speaker AIt's going to cut down on your toilet time, isn't it?

MerlinThey nicked me mobile, didn't it? Eh. Eh. What's all this thing? Oh, God.

Speaker AWhat's all this thing? You come in and talk, Dave.

MerlinYou're sliding right off that toilet, ain't you? I'm a toilet.

Speaker AI'm a toilet sweep.

AlexI'm going to give you an asbo.

Speaker AYou know, they don't call them police over there. They call them bobbies. Yeah, there's a reason.

MerlinThe toilet bobbies. The toilet bobbies.

AlexYou got to check for those each time.

Speaker AOh, boy. Make sure to check on your lid for the toilet bobbies.

MerlinMetropolitan toilet bobbies.

Speaker AApproved by the British Toilet Association, a members organization that campaigns for better toilet facilities, the standard toilet sits at a downward angle of 13 degrees. After around five minutes of sitting, this will cause strain on the legs similar to a low-level squat thrust. But not enough to cause health issues, reassures Mahabir Gill, founder of Standard Toilet. Toilet.

Anything higher than that would cause wider problems. 13 degrees is not too inconvenient, but you'd soon want to get off the seat quite quickly.

AlexGod.

MerlinBoy, I wonder how many prototypes did they go through before they arrived at 13?

Speaker A12 is not enough.

MerlinOh, wow. Okay, I'm going to cross out 45.

AlexGod.

MerlinToo much slant. We'll never get approval from the BTA. He slid right after Lou, isn't he?

I'm placing you under arrest. I'm a toilet bobby.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinSo anyway, that's probably almost enough toilet talk.

AlexI think it is, but I don't think that this is... This is criminal. Well, I don't think this is going to happen. What is going to happen is bosses are going to be like, we have normal toilets. Aren't we great?

Speaker AOh, yeah.

AlexAnd where this is going is places like Starbucks or Pret, as they call it in Britain, And it's to deter homeless people from being in the bathroom too long. Like, that's all this is.

MerlinLet's take a giant step back and let's return since Max is not here. Let's have yet another moment with materialism corner. Let's ask ourselves this. You have a big company and you've got a bunch of fucking toilets and you don't like the way things are going. Oh, what is your solution? Let's buy weird toilets from a startup. Let's replace all of our regular turlets with startup turlets. No fucking way. No. Not going to happen. No. No. So here's what happens.

Here's what Kevin would say. Kevin from Shark Tank. Sorry, other Kevin. Kevin from Shark Tank would say, well, what's proprietary about this? Well, what if you come up with, it's like, what is it? Six-minute abs? Like, what if somebody comes up with the 12-degree toilet? Oh, but it's made by the actual company standard, not standard toilet and camel toe, but like the actual company standard that makes, wow, how'd they get away with that shit?

Speaker AYeah, wait, because that's the toilet company.

MerlinWhat the fuck? That's the toilet boys. Holy shit. Also, Bemis. Bemis.

Speaker AThere's a toilet manufacturer called Bemis.

AlexOkay. All right. Bemis.

Speaker AWell, just Bemis. B-E-M-I-S. Bemis.

AlexBemis toilet seats. Oh, yep. Yep. Bemis toilet seat. That's quite. Their logo's an amos. Their logo is a flowery amos.

MerlinOh, and a little asterisk.

Speaker AOh, boy.

MerlinLike Gail's cats.

Speaker APretty, pretty. It's not as cartoony, but.

MerlinOh, that's a shame.

Speaker AThat's lovely.

MerlinI used to, I'm going to make this real, real short, but it really sticks in my memory. It was fun to live in Florida. I used to work for a guy who not only did continuing education for accountants as a successful going concern. He was also an amateur inventor. Very long story short, he invented, conceptually, invented something in his head that he was pretty, I think he might have gotten some kind of a copy protection on it or patents of some kind. Anyway, the notion is, you know how when you go to the bathroom,

you hate those bullets. This is in the, you know, late 90s. You know how when you go to the bathroom like a public toilet, But you know how you hate to use those yucky, loud air dryers? But you know how you also hate paper towels? What if we put both together? So what if you come in there and it blows scaldingly hot air on your hands for a few seconds because energy and then gives you half of a paper towel?

Speaker Ainstead of one thing that is okay we get two things that are bad yes two things you hate yes

Merlinyes so anyway um he at one point he finally scored a meeting with the people at the big dryer company whose name's escaping me right now but it's the the big dryer people big dryer and um so his plan was i don't think he ever actually did this but his plan was to come in with a pie pan a bottle of water, and a hair dryer. And that was going to be the demo. So he could pour water into a pie pan.

AlexOkay.

MerlinAnd this development person at the company, the lady could dip her hands gently into the pie pan, and he'd go, shh, with a hair dryer, and then hand her half of a paper towel and go, huh? Huh? Huh? Are you with me?

Speaker AOh, my God. Oh, my God. This is a Mr. Show sketch. Oh, my God.

MerlinAm I right? Where do I sign? And then a trap door opens.

Speaker AOh, my God.

MerlinAnd he's down with the seventh cavalry.

Speaker ALike a disposable pie pan.

MerlinPortable pie pan.

Speaker AWhy not like a ceramic one? Yeah, like, well, because Florida.

MerlinYou're a nicer vessel. You don't get rich by spending money, Kevin. He's an amateur inventor.

AlexI can't tell if this is a bit Oh it's not a bit I am so upset

MerlinI hate it He was also a guy that when he would He would go out on the weekends To be a hero he'd go out on Saturday mornings To get a dozen Krispy Kremes for his family And what he never told his family Was he actually had two dozen And ate twelve months away

AlexI mean What This all checks out.

MerlinAnd you know the phrase he used to explain why he ate 12 dots in the time it took? He said they just slide right down. Oh, no. Hold on. Never forget it, and now neither will you. They just slide right down. No. Like a goose.

No. No. You know, really.

Speaker AHe never told his family, and they never questioned why he was throwing up constantly every Saturday morning.

MerlinDaddy, why is there an empty box in here?

Speaker ADaddy's so sick again. Daddy's in vent.

MerlinDaddy has to go make the toilet.

Speaker ADaddy looks really sick every time he goes to Krispy Kreme. Dad, you want some of these donuts you bought for us? No, no, I couldn't eat another bite.

MerlinNo, I'm good. I'm trying to wash my wings.

AlexOh, God. Oh, Lord.

Dig Dug Butts. Butts. The challenge this week comes from our friend Kevin Budnick. No, it does not come from me.

MerlinNope, it does not.

AlexOh, that's right. I don't know whose challenge it was. I think this is an Alex challenge. Oh, my God.

Speaker AI really don't

AlexI've become Max I have no idea

Speaker AI'm pretty sure you Max is going to be out so we need we need to call a Hail Mary

Merlinthe challenge this week is mine

Alexokay okay alright

Merlinbecause I'm obsessed with pants right now and I love the way I love the way the pants draws butts and um hi pants um you should all be following at pants on the internet

Speaker Aagreed and I do

Merlinoh he's I don't know what it is. I don't know what it's his drawings, but it's also just the way he phrases things. Only two made beds. Why is that funny to me?

Speaker AIt's the drill of comics.

MerlinOh, yeah, kind of.

AlexThat's so good. Yes.

Speaker ATiny sock.

MerlinI can't make them any tinier. Anyway, he draws great butts. And so I said, hey, you know what? We should get our old pal Kevin on. Maybe he can teach us how to draw butts. Because as Lisa does, I know, I cannot fucking draw at all.

Speaker ANow, I saw the butts that you drew, and those are some good butts. I'm not trying to blow smoke up your butt. Oh, boy.

MerlinPut your butt meat in the bucket to raise the book. Put your butt meat in the bucket. Pick up the bandsaw you find at your feet. Oh, great. Will I be seeing you on Thursday for barbecue?

Can I stand? I got kind of a situation back here.

AlexAll right.

Speaker AI'm grabbing my iPad.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinI'm grabbing my iPad. So what I learned was I was sitting around last night watching Leftovers. My family finally went to bed, and I tried drawing butts. I can do the hack of the five lines trick. Alex, how did you do with butts?

AlexAlex is drawing butts right now. I'm drawing some butts right now. And when I started off, I guess I didn't text you, Kevin. And you had great advice for us, which was just completely draw an entire page, like fill pages and pages and putts. I have found that my butts are either hearts or reverse penises.

Speaker ACan I also see a pen?

MerlinYeah, yeah. In here.

Speaker AOh, interesting.

AlexThis one does look a bit like a penis. Yep. And so here's a pen.

MerlinA reverse penis. Is that called a keyhole? What is that?

AlexWell, oh boy.

Speaker AIt sort of does look like, it literally does look like the head of a penis with two lines coming up. The glands?

MerlinIt's called the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling. Let's see here. How do I make a new page in this God Forsaken app?

Speaker AThis is wild, Alex. I don't know what these are.

AlexBut I can consistently. Which part is the crack? Is that the crack? That's the crack at the top.

Speaker AI'm going to have to take pictures of these and share them with Merlin right now.

AlexPlease do. Please do.

MerlinI think I accidentally made boobs.

AlexBut like I can consistently draw. It's like every time like those three. And I just.

Speaker AI am sending Alex's butts in the group. Thank you.

AlexBecause I didn't want to cheat and go to like not cheat. Like everybody. All of us went about.

MerlinWhat the fuck? I think it's called sounding. these are upsetting what oh this is really upsetting is it a pad it's really really weird

Alexand i need to find the picture i i need to find the notebook that i just threw all these butts and slowly i'm like holy shit this is just a page of balls and penis this is all this is so um that's a shame it it uh got upsetting and then i started to try to draw anuses and then I found a book. That's a butt. That's part of a butt. It's part of a butt. And then I found a coloring book of cats' anuses and got it.

And that's what I did all weekend. Oh, wow. Was color cats.

MerlinRemember that? You remember that when, what's your name? Gail, you know. Oh, shit. On Bob's Burgers. What's the wife's name? Linda. All right. Linda. Linda's sister Gail. Remember, she starts drawing all the paintings of cat's anises.

AlexOh, what an episode. What a beautiful.

MerlinOh, my God.

AlexBut she could also draw a butt.

MerlinPart of it is I can't draw legs. I can't draw legs, so I can't really draw butts.

AlexYeah.

Speaker AYou don't have to draw the whole leg. You just kind of like.

AlexThat's part of the challenge. It's like, I don't know if the challenge. Oh, God, I just heard it for the first time. Challenge. Challenge. Whoa, that's upsetting. but part of the challenge of drawing a butt is if you don't have legs it's like okay where does are the cheeks sagging is it a bubble butt like what you know was I supposed to have stretch marks it was this whole process you know like Merlin I'm like I think I'm body shaming people

Merlinyou are you definitely are no matter what you draw you're body shaming

Speaker AI'm gonna send a few butt pics

MerlinI'm doing big thigh gap

Speaker AI'm going to send you guys a few butt pics Are you cool with that?

MerlinYeah, totally It's better than Alex's dick pics What a goddamn mess That's in my history now

AlexOh boy

Speaker ASometimes I like to do Some speckles on the butt

AlexSo is that hair? It could be hair

MerlinIt could be butt acne

AlexOkay, okay I see, I see

MerlinWhoa, look at that Oh, look at those butts

AlexAll right. Here's, okay. So here's my issue. Kevin's one with legs. If you turn it, that's like a cute little Gumby guy giving a hug.

What? Like, okay. What? No, turn. Okay. So like this guy, look it. It's a little, oh, wait. My iPad also turned. Fuck. Technology. Technology. Can't do hard. So this one right here, Merlin, turn around. Like, look it. It's like a ghost giving you a hug. See?

Speaker ASee?

AlexNo? Hold on. Hold on. Give me a second. Give me a second. We're doing a project test.

Speaker ABasically. A ghost giving you a hug. Okay, if you were to add. Oh, yeah, no, I see it. I see it. Yeah, that's a ghost giving you a hug.

AlexHere, let me. Oh, this one even more. Like, it's, oh, iPad, come back.

Speaker AIt also could be a ghost with boobs.

AlexLike, yes, then I was going to go to the next one, and that's boobs.

Speaker ABlast my cash

MerlinBlast my cash

AlexAnd even one of yours looks like The one that I guess Looks like a A sitting butt Maybe that's also like a little Penis head kind of

Speaker AYeah I was trying to So there's a difference in the way that I'm drawing The butts in the way that I think both You and Merlin are drawing the butts is that Y'all are trying to do some sort of like a front facing or like basically you're looking straight ahead at the butt.

MerlinOh, I see. Instead of like a side view. Yeah.

Speaker AYeah, I'm doing sort of a three quarters butt, which is I think the easiest way to 360 no scope butt. 720.

MerlinThat's why 720 blaze it. That's why they, Mo Sislak is the only character today that they will frequently show full front on because it's such a grotesquerie. Well, they learned a long time ago they can't do that. If you have a Simpsons character looking...

Speaker AFront-facing Bart.

MerlinYeah. You don't realize how, except in the very early seasons, or when they want to achieve a really trippy effect, usually with zooming in the camera, I think it's pretty much Moe. It's just about the only one. Because everybody else looks so fucking weird.

Speaker AMods are asleep. Draw front-facing Bart.

AlexOh, the things that go on Reddit. Okay, here we go.

MerlinOh, my butts are very dim.

AlexI want to know Merlin's

Merlinapproach. Put a but hole on one of them. Oh. I gave him a novelty size but hole.

AlexThese are very pant-like, if you will. Oh. That one's nice. Yeah.

MerlinI want to make some juicier ones. That one in the top,

AlexI'd tap that butt.

MerlinYes.

AlexThe one underneath is a... I'm trying not to picture what the rest of the humans would look like on these butts. Good for you. But let's just say the one below it.

MerlinThe one with the simulated asterisk butthole?

AlexNo.

Speaker AThe one that has the arrow with butt pointing at it?

MerlinOh, I just sent you another one.

Speaker AOh, there's another one? Oh, I see, I see, I see. Oh, yeah, I love this simulated asterisk butthole. It's very good. That's sort of a draw the butthole first and then fill in the rest.

MerlinI kind of like the top one. I think that's got kind of Leonardo quality.

Speaker AOh, yeah, that's very pantsy.

MerlinTop middle's a little bit Da Vinci.

Speaker AHonestly, yeah. It's gestural.

MerlinIt's gestural, it's editorial. It's more interesting. Can I see it without the jacket? Sorry. I'm holding up a card here just so the lights don't get in my eyes

Speaker AI take a field trip take a figure drawing class for fun

Alexfor your work I think it would be fun you must have taken a figure drawing class

Speaker Ain high school

Merlinlike a life drawing?

Speaker Ayeah like drawing from a model for like two hours or whatever what sort of people sign up

Alexfor and I'm not I'm like for real I'm not talking about like body shape but like everybody you gotta

Merlindo it that's base that's like that's like color theory you like gotta do it no no but what sort

Alexof people sign up to be the models oh my ex my ex used to do it oh yeah it's normal looking people usually honestly it's not I'm not I don't care what they look like I mean what is their mindset

Speaker Aa lot of times it's other art students or people who are like actors like actors do it okay that checks out. At least that's in my experience with people who I've been in class when having model for the class. When I was at Columbia, I took figure drawing and 3D modeling with clay, like sculpting. And specifically in the sculpting class, the model had to be very physically fit,

very cut. So you could see.

AlexSo you could literally, he had, whoever needed to be very sculpted, that makes total sense.

Speaker AYeah, so you could see all the muscles.

MerlinIf you just look like the assistant principal, it's not going to be as fun to make.

Speaker ARight.

MerlinYeah. There are certain people that play. Hi, Kevin. Hi, Kevin. It's me, Mr. Phillips. I mean, Mr. Phillips, your old vice principal.

Do you have a Chicago accent?

Speaker Ahey

MerlinI don't know

Speaker AI don't people tell me sometimes I don't have a Chicago accent and then it comes out sometimes I think too sort of a challenge

Merlinwhat's Roger Ebert I heard somebody on the radio today and I thought it sounded like Roger Ebert and I thought is Roger Ebert from Chicago because he doesn't have a Chicago accent

Alexhe's from the suburbs

Merlinit was somebody being interviewed about what? Something in San Diego. I forget what. But it sounded so much like Roger Ebert. Well, you know how Jonathan Penner on Survivor sounds so much like Alan Alda?

AlexI don't know who Alan Alda is.

MerlinYou know Penner? Penner's the guy. He's been an actor.

AlexDid you watch Marriage Story? No. No, I have not yet.

MerlinNo. But it turned out that one was right. They're both from Long Island. They both have, Alan Alda and Jonathan Penner both have a Long Island accent.

Speaker AThat makes sense.

MerlinSo anyway, you're drawing your vice principal with Clay.

Speaker AYeah, I'm drawing him with the clay. Get my hands all up in it. Really get in there, yeah. Yeah, like figure drawing is fun because, like, 3D modeling is, or, like, you know, not 3D modeling. I guess that would be, like, with a computer, but, like, 3D whatever the name of the class was. It does not matter.

Figure drawing is fun, and you do several different poses in, like, the period. and also there's not like sometimes it'll be like okay spend an hour on this drawing. Sometimes it'll be like oh spend like five minutes on this drawing and they change up the times.

MerlinOh that must be so interesting. It's really

Speaker Afun and like it really does give you sort of an approximation like it doesn't turn you and you don't become like a master of the physical form or whatever but you know walk away with some semblance of like okay this goes that way and then this line is supposed to go like that and you know. That was one of the things like

MerlinI got out of the drawing on the right side of the brain book is that, you know, you do all these things to sort of, which is such a good book. And I got it for my kid and I can't get her to crack it because I think she'd really enjoy doing it. But, you know, there's a lot of, the famous one in there, I guess is like, like find a photo of someone's face and don't even look at it right side up. Like start drawing it upside down, you know, and I'm sure you've done this, Kevin,

Speaker Abut I've gotten stuff like that as Christmas gifts and whatnot. You threw them at the trash.

MerlinThere's just a bunch of exercises for people who are really left-brained, like me. That's cool. And so just for fun, if you were to just go find a picture of Oprah or whatever and just start drawing what is in front of you rather than what you think you're drawing, it's the wildest thing. It'll look better than any drawing you've ever done. Or you do the exercise where you have to do the thing without looking at the paper or without lifting the pencil. There's all those different ones. And it is pretty wild to see something on the page that's not at all what you thought you were drawing or what you thought you were making.

You know what I mean? Both in terms of the figure, the object and what you've created. It feels like it was drawn by a stranger. It's the weirdest thing in the world. But like I was going to say what this is that the when you're drawing anything, including people like being very limited in the number of sort of like strokes or lines that you can use. You I don't know. I just think it's so interesting. That's that's why I had the most success with the YouTube video of drawing the butt with five lines. It's got monkey shit. But like but it is kind of wild because like if you have unlimited numbers of lines, I don't know.

I just think it's really interesting. well look at look at like you know some of Picasso's most famous especially later in life when he got I guess representational they're just well yeah they're really they just hint at what the thing is like well that's clearly a bird or whatever or that's you know you know anyway I

Speaker Ajust think that's the same thing that I was sort of like what I think the only piece of advice I gave you guys for this was like just draw fill a page with butts which is like a Charles Schultz thing that I picked up in college from like a drawing class that was like burned into my brain is that he would spend an entire page drawing a mailbox, and then by the end of the page or whatever, he would have the most pure form of mailbox, which is like you can get to... That's what cartooning is. You can get to that thing in the fewest amount of work.

MerlinYou take away everything in essential.

Speaker AWhat is the least amount of effort you need to put in to represent mailbox?

AlexI think there's sort of a similar thing that happens in design. And now I just, it's totally caught in my brain. Because I keep thinking, like, I genuinely was like, well, what's a butt? Like, it's boobs without nipples. Like, but it is, like, I don't know. I find that fascinating. And I don't know whether I'm left-brained or right-brained. Like, truly, like, different doctors and therapists have been, like,

MerlinI think you're pretty left-brained. I think you're pretty left-brained.

AlexI think I am, too. And people are like, well, you don't like math.

MerlinWell, I mean, like, we don't even have to use this dumb term. When we talk about that, and again, I'll try to find the book for notes, but it's something everybody's probably seen at some point. It's like having a copy of Impro. Everybody's got one at some point in life. But drawing on the right side of the brain is for people like me. How can I put this? There are people who know how to draw, use a series of lines or strokes or colors to create something that is representative, perhaps, of an object.

But you look at the thing and you go, oh, I see that's the thing. Like I, people like me call left brain, whatever you want to call it. I, I very like in a very fussy way, try to make the thing it, I think it should be in my head, which is exactly the wrong way to approach it. Right. It's, it's so, it's almost like, you know, I was saying to my kid, we were doing some flashcards a couple of days ago and I was talking about how, you know, in a definition, um, when you're defining something, you know, try to never obviously, you know, use the word that you're defining in the definition.

Right. And it's like, you know, you have to be creative and you become poetic and like you can be poetic with art and drawings. And I'm rambling on. But like I really envy it. The only two things in life that I haven't achieved that I really wish I had worked on really.

The two I'm willing to say, being able to play piano, being good at playing piano and being good at drawing. I'm so envious of people.

Speaker AI wish I had learned how to play an instrument.

MerlinMy icon on Twitter was drawn by this guy named Dave Gray, who I became acquainted with. And he's a really interesting guy. he used to do these drawings for, I want to say Business 2.0, but he had this whole library of little people, these little, what's the word I always forget, Alex? Not orthogonal, but isometric. Like isometric people, and he would get hired in the 90s. You'd see his stuff in 2000s in business magazines where he'd explain these very complex ideas using all this library of little isometric people.

But every talk he would go to, in that case I think it's South by Southwest, he would just doodle while he was listening. and like I was just like what is this magic that you're doing like everything you do like it's just it just comes right out of your fingers and like I don't know just I could have tried I suppose

AlexI mean you could but there is I don't want to say like there are certain people who are incapable of drawing but Kevin Max calls it a superpower kind of as a joke but it really is you can just draw cartoon characters from the 90s and that and I've seen like the same people can do it with all 800 Pokemon. Like it is just something where it lives in your head and it's, sometimes it doesn't look, you know, it doesn't look as the original artist intended,

but it's like a mailbox. Like, yes, that is exact.

MerlinThink about people with puzzles. Like there are some people like when I, when I listened to actually a pal of mine had the puzzle on a weekend edition on Sunday, I got here in town and like, I'm one of those people were like the puzzle on the show, I'm talking here on, you know, the Will Shorts thing on NPR. It's like I usually get a majority or more of the answers, but I never in fucking a million years could solve the weekly challenge. The challenge where, like, the hard challenge where you try to get on the show. My brain just breaks down and goes, I don't even know how to solve for this.

It would be like asking me to create rain. It's like I just, I wouldn't even know how to begin. You know what I mean? And some people just have a brain for puzzles where they're like, they go into this um you know like alan turing sort of like mind palace maybe i'm just thinking of benedict cumberbatch but then just have the ability to like see everything like sort of fall into place and it's just like your brain works like that or it doesn't i think no for sure and

Alexi like i kind of on your side of your brain though merlin i'm thinking about uh the i don't know if It's out the episode of the podcast you sent us where.

MerlinThe procrastination thing?

AlexWell, yeah. And just the analogies that you come up with were so good. The headlights.

MerlinOh, good. You liked them?

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinI thought that turned out pretty good.

Speaker AAs you know, I'm familiar with your work.

AlexBut the idea that, well, actually, this is Anne Lamont. But still, it's not that.

MerlinOh, I love that quote so much.

AlexYeah. The headlights, the map gets you to where you're going.

MerlinKevin, this is a quote from E.L. Doctro via Annie Lamont. And we were talking about having a plan for what you're doing and being able to get it done. And how much granularity do you need in planning your projects? And I'm really just quoting Doctro. Something like, what you need are the headlights to get you to the city where you're going. You know what I mean? Or in the way I phrased it was, I have a map to help me get to Houston, but I have headlights to get me out of the driveway.

Speaker AI've always loved that analogy.

MerlinYou know what I mean? So how is it you're able to drive across the country when your headlights only go like 100 feet? Well, that's how headlights do. And like, I don't know. Yeah, I think I have that sometimes. Sometimes I can rhyme. Sometimes I rhyme slow. Sometimes I rhyme quick. Get head on a swivel. You know what I'm saying? I like your butt dimples, Kevin. Nice butt dimples.

AlexOh, aren't they good? I love Kevin's butt dimples.

MerlinLooks like an angry Chinese boy.

AlexMm-hmm.

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinSmiling Asian boy.

Speaker AThose are the Are they not in Put those in your drawing right The weird like The weird like lower back muscles above the cheeks

AlexI see I felt like I was fat

Speaker AI'm like is this muscly or fatty No that's like Everybody has those I mean Well it's also like People are not People are not like Cut right Like everybody has Yeah Everybody's smooshy

AlexYeah people are smooshy

Speaker APeople are smooshy Even people who are super physically fit Are represented by round shapes

MerlinI'm Rubenesque

Speaker ACherubic

MerlinDid you see the photo of my fat lizard boy From yesterday? Oh my god his little tummy Did you see it? He's so proud He's so dignified

Speaker AFucks me up

MerlinPleasantly plump

AlexSo pleasantly plump Look at his tummy.

MerlinLook at his tummy's on the rock. He's warming that tummy.

AlexDo you rub his, have you rubbed his tummy yet?

MerlinYes. I like to rub his beard. That's my favorite.

AlexOh, yeah.

Speaker AI am Cirque du Soleil now.

Show notes

Transcript

163. Manchurian Bottom

Show notes

Transcript

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