167. Max's Workshop

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, clean out your spice cabinet.

MerlinHello, is that better?

MaxI guess. Um, yes.

Speaker AOkay.

MaxYeah, all right. Yeah, well, there's not a lot of internet here. I have a tiny trickle of internet. Hmm.

MerlinAll right. But you're recording your side?

MaxI am recording my side. I have the new little weenus that Alex and I like. It's the Tascam single weenus. Oh. What kind of mic are you using?

MerlinNo, I don't know. I have not. Listen, you guys, you send me pictures of wild animals and equipment, and every time you do that, it's more and more apparent to me this is the only way you two talk to each other. Now, what's confusing, now, you're not going to understand this because you're there, is what's not going to make a lot of sense to you and what really doesn't make a lot of sense to me is I don't have any context for what the fuck you're talking about, why you're sending me pictures of cats or demanding that Alex do something in the office for you. Now, you understand I have an office here. I'm out here in California and I don't have any way

to, I don't have the purchase orders I need to get you the cat. I don't know what you're talking about. Why are you sending me so many cats? And right now you sound like you're talking into a water glass at a day's end. so i don't i don't know what's happening you wanted to talk at 21 minutes past the hour and i said no buddy not yet he said oh i'm in a different time zone and i said okay how's the cat so i'm guessing you're doing something with magic and animals and you got

Maxyour weenus yeah we're using the new the new task cam there's the new it's like a okay so my setup used to be the marco box and it's this it's this black box with like you put batteries in it and then it has xlr's in it and you plug your mics in and i used like a stand-up comedy mic and i would sort of tuck this whole thing under my arm and then i'd pace around and talk into the apparatus okay okay all right the marco box uh like a usb pre yeah but you know

it's it's batteries it's batteries yeah so you replace the batteries with a weenus and then you walk around like david milch now i've got that now i've got this incredible device so it's a little task and it's it's the way it's the wayness the way and it's a little it's like the size of like smaller than a pack of cards and it clips onto your belt and then a little lob comes onto it and it's all and it records onto an sd card and now i can freely i feel like such a cock

Speaker Asitting at my desk like a professional i can i can freely pace around oh is it do you find that That helps you with your work.

MaxI needed my work. Uh-huh.

Speaker AOkay. And then so you pace around.

MaxYou don't like to pace while you're having the conversation? I love to pace.

Speaker AOh, okay. I'll do it too. Hang on.

MerlinOh, yeah. This is nice. I can see why you like this. You can walk around and just do whatever. Maybe you'll look for a card.

MaxIt's good. It gets the blood moving.

MerlinAre there any cards here? What about over here? Okay. You probably found them all. I don't know. I don't like the idea of people going through my things. I don't like that at all. Hmm. I caught up on all my TV over the holiday break. I'm sorry. Hang on. Just real quick. I know you're pacing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What the fuck is happening? Where are you? And are you at your wild animal park in Marin?

MaxWell, shouldn't we wait for Alex? No.

MerlinThis is the show. Whatever's in the show is in the show.

MaxEverything that's in the show is in the show. Are you at the wild animal place in Marin or whatever? No. So there's, I don't even know where to begin this story. So my, well, you're not in California, are you? I'm not in California. I'm in Florida. So my, my, my colleague, yeah, I know my colleague, Melissa, who works, who we've been friends and worked together for, for many, many years. She does PR. One of her clients for her PR company is this very, very, very wealthy man who owns a wildlife preserve in Florida.

And it's 17,000 acres where he has endangered animals that he cares for. And I got invited as Melissa's guest. And I'm hanging out, getting some work done. and you know we like go out and see uh you know rhinos and giraffes and stuff those rhinos were precious god i love those animals got to i got to touch a baby rhino i got to feed a thing of

Merlinleaves to a giraffe it was pretty great um and so like one thing i always think about like we've got this the san francisco zoo is oh man is it ever a bummer um it's just they keep taking our animals away because we keep letting them die and like you can't have elephants we're the elephant authority You can't have elephants anymore. So now they just painted over the elephant sign, and now they have displays and, like, Girl Scout events in there.

MaxIt's crossed out elephants, and it says, Corn Dogs, $4. A-Y-C-E.

Speaker AYou can eat corn dogs.

MerlinWell, this is going to be very, very general, but we always get a season. Every year we buy a season pass and don't use it much anymore. My kid and I used to go there a couple times a week because it's just down the street from us. and we, but, but, but, but here's, here's my one sentence description of the San Francisco

Zoo. Setting aside that almost all the animals are either sad or that there is an empty pen and with a sign, not, not, not the animals hiding. There's literally no animal in there. Like they just, there's just, there's somewhere that just like, you put up anything you want on a sign. Okay. Here's my description of the San Francisco Zoo. No matter where you walk, no matter where you stand, it seems like you're behind whatever you're supposed to be looking at.

You know, so imagine like a dreamlike quality. We're wandering through this space and it's almost like a college campus where they got all their funding.

MaxYou're always looking at the back of Quirrell's turban, no matter how he turns. That's right. That's right.

MerlinSan Francisco's a horcrux. But like, you know, like this happens at, God love it, in Tallahassee at Florida State University. You can tell the times in architectural history when their funding went through because you could see the preponderance of improbably inconsistent brutalist buildings all over the campus. The San Francisco Zoo feels like that. It feels like some of it was built during the Civil War. A lot of it was during race riots.

Speaker AAnd some of it's just pure Frank Geary knockoff bullshit. And no matter where you go, it's like, who made this mall? What the fuck is going on here?

MaxWhere's the servals? That's not a serval. Well, I got to say, I have a lot of complicated feelings about all these, about zoos and sort of, I don't know. It's all a very fraught topic, but. Yeah, absolutely. You know, there's a zoo that I sort of enjoy in Chicago. I mean, it's the one that's sort of close to my neighborhood. It's called the Lincoln Park Zoo. Yeah, right. And what's cool about the Lincoln Park Zoo is it's free every day, open to the public. And there's no, like, gate. You're like walking down the lakefront path, and then you just go in.

Oh, yeah, like the one in Washington. You just mosey in. Yeah. And there's just animals, and it's very cool. The animals, it is a very old-fashioned zoo in that it's largely, it was, you know, the whole idea of that we should keep animals in a place that sort of feels like their natural habitat is a new technology.

MerlinThat's like a late 70s conceit.

MaxYeah, and this zoo definitely has been sort of retrofitted to provide that to the animals, but it's not like it wasn't designed for it. And as a result, it definitely makes me want to die every time I've been there. And I have gone pretty hot. I have gone pretty high to that zoo and that's a bad experience. I don't, I, I make, it just makes me think of,

Merlinyou notice, you notice all the wrong things and ditto at ours. If we get back to the brutalism, it looks, it looks again, very dreamlike the San Francisco zoo. And it really, it really does feel, it does feel like they, how about, how about this? They made an Excel spreadsheet of all the different ways that an animal might be comfortable and then came up with the average and made it brutalist so basically it looks like a disused mall from 1978 where they haven't like you know those people who go to

Maxyoutube videos are going into an old mall got the gorillas have got one one little pond and a few

Merlinleaves yeah uh-huh and like down okay but here's the thing not good well also imagine i mentioned that you had this kind of approach to the library where you said okay this area is called bear Okay, there's a grizzly bear. Oh, by the way, the grizzly bears are very, very well-funded. So they get this amazing enclosure that I think is, I think it's the Packards, Lucille Packard people. So the bears, man, the bears are fucking styling. They got way more space than they need. They're just fucking, they're flipping everybody up. Big bear claw, middle claws in the sky.

You go down a little bit and you've got the coyotes. There's a coyote. Now, the coyotes get the same size enclosure as the, yes, polar bear, because this area is called bear. And so there's a polar bear. There's polar bear over by the coyotes and the grizzly bears. And I'm not a cartologist, but I'm not sure all those things live in the same place, you know?

MaxWell, I would say, OK, so there's definitely a hierarchy of these zoos, right? So Lincoln Park Zoo, on a scale of one to makes me want to die, fully makes me want to die. The one that I think is much better that does not make me want to die quite as much is Disney's Animal Kingdom. Have you guys ever done that?

MerlinNo, no, no. We've been to the Washington Zoo, and I thought it was extraordinary. The one in Washington is amazing.

MaxAnimal Kingdom, I have to say.

MerlinAlso San Diego. San Diego is amazing, too.

MaxI haven't been to San Diego. I've heard it's a cool zoo. The Disney Animal Kingdom is a pretty amazing achievement in that you go through. It's like sort of a ride where you go through in a safari vehicle, and you never see any fences or anything. So the animals are all kept in their little areas, but it's all done with Disney magic in a way where like they have barriers that you can't see basically. No-see-um. What's that? No-see-um enclosures. Yeah, no-see-um enclosures. Yeah. And it's very, it really is an incredible achievement.

I mean, you go this, you can do a safari in there that's like, you know, I don't know, 45 minutes. You never see the same place twice. It's huge. And it's like terraformed. It all feels like you're in like an African savanna, like very, very Lion King. Like it's really well done. But the one thing to your point about the zoo that you go to, when you get off of the ride, the sort of like safari exploration ride, at the end they have a, you get like a token. They give everyone a token and then you go up to this thing and you drop your token in a box for the type of animal that you like the most.

And then that animal gets funding. Oh no. I vote for the bear from District 12. Exactly. and it yes and veronica and i had very different approaches about the voting she was like she voted for some like awful bird or something that pursued i don't know something charlie brown christmas tree approach she had a charlie brown christmas tree approach and i gave the money like immediately to the the lions and she's like what are you doing and i was like oh my god that says so much about you and i was like she's like what are you talking about and i was like they were

Speaker Acool you're a secret libertarian you're a lion libertarian i saw him y'all and he was awesome

MaxHe entertained me. Sure. He earned it.

MerlinYeah. He earned my token. I don't want to make this sad, but we're still waiting for Alex, and this is the show.

MaxThe lions are going to be out there with one of those, like, make it rain cash guns shooting at the tourists.

MerlinNobody likes a pole dancing lion. So needy. But, you know, even in the best of, like, I'm repeating what you said, but just trying to problematize this a little bit. But even in the best of circumstances, zoos are melancholy. Like even if things are good, even if you go and you see the baby, you know, red panda at the zoo and they've got a really nice enclosure.

But there's this, you're always walking a line with a zoo and you're walking this line that is so easy to cross where you kind of snap out of it for a minute. You're like, what the fuck am I doing here? this is so i mean it's max it's one thing to get married at a plantation and it's another thing to get married at a plantation where they hire black people to be extras yeah it feels really like whoa this i'm not sure okay so like for example yes we did accidentally kill our elephants accidentally

yes some kind of an automated door did kill a gorilla at the zoo there's been all kinds of shit that happened there and like when you walk in knowing that and just and just knowing that this whole enterprise i'm not i'm not trying to be i'm not trying to be controversial here but i

Maxam saying like there's a great louis ck bit where he's like he was talking about one time he was like an he was in like an in asian market like an open air asian market and he was talking about all the weird stuff that they sell and he passed a barrel of was it duck i think it was duck vaginas and you could just there was like a scoop sticking out of it and you could just like You can just like put them in your bag. And he was like, he's like, man, we've really... Yeah, bulk duck vaginas. And he was like, man, we've really made ducks our bitch. Like we're selling their vaginas by the bucket full.

MerlinWe can get the ducks. We can sex the ducks. After we sex the ducks, we'll let them live for a while. Then we're going to literally remove their vaginas. Yes, the ducks will die. And then those go in a barrel and get a scoop. Fuck you. duck you that is the

Maxzoo feeling right though

Speaker Aand then you get a drink in a monkey shaped cup and you're like what the fuck am I doing

Maxlike we've really made these animals our bitches I mean they're living in a little pen that looks like their natural habitat well and so like I'm not trying to be

Merlinyeah right I'm not trying to be like Monterey the Monterey Bay Aquarium has these not only has seafood, but it has signs explaining why their seafood is good seafood to eat because it's sustainable at the aquarium, the one from Star Trek. But no, I'm not, I'm really not trying to like be gross and on PC, but I am trying to say that the reason I say this is that the zoo is meant to evoke a certain kind of high-minded scientificism, a kind of high-minded humanity,

and a kind of very high-minded emotional connection to the creatures. It's meant to evoke all the things. And the duck vaginas of this is like you snap out and you see the Matrix for a minute and you go like, whoa, something about this doesn't quite feel right? I'm not sure I should feel that scientificism about this.

MaxI have an idea about that. I think part of the fantasy of the zoo is the idea that if we're just sort of scientific enough and we manage everything enough, we can like save all these animals, right? Like it's like, oh, the bad news is you're looking at one of the last black rhinos on the face of the planet. But the good news is if we like learn enough about them and study them and like raise them in captivity, eventually we can like save the species and put them back into the wild. And I find that to be a very, I find that to be a very seductive ideology in the sense that it

doesn't even seem like an ideology it just seems like common sense it doesn't seem like a thing you have to believe but of course that's what that's exactly what that's what ideology is yeah but but it is ideology because it has this fantasy of like what's wrong with the planet is that we haven't quite tinkered enough like we need to get in there and twist the knobs a little bit more right and if we if we just get over all the numbers lined up right we'll save all the rhinos and like we won't the problem is that the pro like we need to we need to change that's the whole problem it's like there's no tinkering our way out of like we'll be able to solve all this

Merlinif we just get a little more science sauce yeah right or science spray like we just you know what

Maxi mean like like like we're not doing enough if we do a little more if we get a little more involved

Merlinthat ought to do it this time but it's also but it's also like learning the wizard's true name in the sense that like i was just taking a dump and listening to a slate culture gab fest and they were uh they were talking about that great new york times article on the different textbooks history textbooks in different parts of the U.S. I haven't read the whole thing, but it is a really, the part I read was really good. And you know, and how like Texas versus California has, even by the same company, has very different textbooks. But guess what? Here's the science sauce. Those are all under the inviolable,

unassailable aegis of what we call education. And everybody knows education is good. You're not allowed to say anything bad about education because education is the thing that helps everything. It's the science sauce of children, right? So, but that's how that works. So, like, what science? Like, in my environmental ethics class, we had to read this essay called Playing God in, I think it's called Playing God in Yosemite. And you probably know this story. It's a pretty famous story from, I think, the early 70s. But the ecologists and the well-meaning hippies said, ooh, hey, this is not cool, man.

The coyotes are like, there's like too many, it's like the game of life. There's too many coyotes and they're eating all their bunnies. And now the sweet bunnies are dying. and so you go in and you try to just tinker a little bit you tinker do a little bit of west world you spray some science sauce you say well we're going to introduce more of these no matter what you do you fuck it up worse now there's too many fucking bunnies right or like now they're like the bunnies are taking over and then oh wait i gotta dump it some more coyotes beep beep beep and like you can't go in and futz with that and spray science on the bunnies it's not going to

Maxmake it better the ultimate fantasy here that this is this is the real this is the real like like uh this is the real head fuck for me it's like the ultimate the ultimate fantasy i think that this why is this ideology like so appealing to people the the science sauce ideology it's because it imagines that we are somehow outside of this loop right that there's this loop of nature where it's like the coyotes eating the bunnies and their population and this and that and that's That's over there. That's the animals. But we're over here doing our thing and we just need to spray the science sauce.

Well, that's not the case. We're we're we're in the we're in the system with everyone else.

MerlinTo quote the great Palmolive commercial of my youth, you're soaking in it. You're soaking in it. You know what I mean? No, that's the thing. This is this is this is the ultimate kind of Buddhist LSD mindfuck is like everything we do is part of nature. like when we if we dump dioxins on the people who are who are delivering the coyotes and bunnies with the sauce that's part of that's part of nature too yeah we're not we're not outside the system looking in as a as a like we're not we're not the galactus of bunnies yeah they're

Maxthey're not trapped in here with us we're trapped in here with them must investigate further i don't know if you can hear this like calamity that's happening but i'm i'm locked in like a So we're staying in a house in the wilderness preserve here, the nature preserve. And it's very nice hospitality and everything, but I'm lacked in like a battle of the wits with the housekeeping staff where I'm trying to make coffee. And the only option is a coffee pot that I'm required to make 10 cups of coffee in. And I have a little bit of coffee and then they come and clean up.

And I wanted the other, you know, I get half a cup and then I come back and it's clean. So I'm constantly making a new pot of coffee. I can't leave it.

MerlinOh, and now let's play a game of what I like to call Hotel Room Zork. So for this game of Hotel Room Zork, your mission, as provided by the GM, is that you want some coffee with a minimum of interaction with staff.

There are doors to the north and east. Touch coffee. Leave note. increase tip increase tip make coffee make coffee make coffee yeah i just want i just want a little bit of coffee

I find it... Here's the thing. Monty Python is funny because relationships and communication are either difficult or impossible. Monty Python is a TV show about how human communication is utterly fraught. And that's undergirded by how difficult relationships are. Because relationships are difficult and language is complicated, I fail utterly at communicating to other people. I do very badly. You should see me in a Chinese restaurant.

Believe me, it's a real poop show. So if I want somebody to stop throwing away my coffee, I have to go through the most complex mental gymnastics, cultural.

It's mental, it's emotional, it's cultural, it's class. How do I get my coffee in a way that I can live with?

MaxDo you know what I mean? Well, oh, sure, because I've thought about what's the best way to approach. It's different people who come and clean throughout the day. Of course.

MerlinAre you going to put a sign and put a sheet over it and say, do not touch? That's going to look good on Instagram.

MaxAnd then I've thought about maybe someone comes in and I say, hey, could you please leave the coffee? But that's not part of the procedures. That's not in the manual. And then someone else comes to check and they see the coffee and now they get disciplined.

Right? Which animal do you give the coin to? Twelve strokes. Ow. Yeah.

Speaker AConsuela. Consuela. I don't know. I don't know what happens at this establishment. I don't want anyone to get flogged. Master is very disappointed with you.

MaxI can't be like, and then what are they going to say? He asked me to leave the coffee and they'll be like, you should have cleaned it anyway.

MerlinYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, you are cordially invited to join Syracuse and me on the podcast that will never be released or probably recorded about the things that we don't talk about. Yes. We don't talk about things like how do you leave a note in Spanish that says, please don't turn off my smart plugs.

Speaker ADon't touch my TV. Do not touch the TV. No touchy-la TV. Oh, boy. I'm going to go to hell.

MerlinStop turning my scale 90 degrees. Why do you turn it? Who turns the scale? Have you ever used a scale, madam? Why do you turn the scale 90 degrees? So John and I don't discuss this because it can never be discussed. But if we did discuss it, the theory would be, and we need a good name for this, But the housekeepers change something just enough so that you know that they cleaned it. That's the folded triangle in the toilet paper. Holy shit.

MaxIt's the toilet paper arrow. The second toilet paper arrow. When Veronica and I have our house professionally cleaned, I never have my office cleaned because it's too... I'm too particular. I couldn't have someone in there cleaning. And then I'm constantly going downstairs, and I'm like, I have to go mop the floor downstairs or vacuum or clean. I have a lot of cleaning upkeep down there myself.

MerlinOh, wait, are you there while they're cleaning?

MaxOh, no, I'm trying not to be.

MerlinOkay.

MaxBut same reason, I don't like to be there when there's movers taking my stuff out, because I'm like, should I be doing something? And they're like, please get out of our way.

MerlinOh, the McElroy's have a whole bit about this. If there's anybody that comes into your house to do anything, it's their house until they're done. get get out pack your bags and move away i would i would lose my god i don't even like coming in the house to like to like pick up pick up a flashlight or something like i'm like hey how's it going and in fact my my theory oh boy i'm this is not going to be released my theory is that if there is somebody that on some let's say regular basis comes to your house they've met you over

let's say a certain number of years they've met you a few times but let's be honest 99.994 percent of the time they are the only people in that house it is actually in their mind it is their house right because you're not there you're not there like doing a disco dance or something you're just you're just you're just photos in an envelope la la la that's right oh shit yeah anyway i have the how what so what are you gonna do max i mean it's it's it a resort it's not a

Maxresort. I'm constantly going down into the office to like vacuum and Veronica's like why don't you have why isn't the office like professionally clean with the rest of the house and I'm like I can't possibly begin to explain to you the number of things. If they dislodge one of my smart switches the whole system comes tumbling down. Spock's phaser. One if one ethernet cord gets gets bumped my alarm doesn't go off in the morning my day is ruined. Max Spock's phaser is

Merlingone. Spock's phaser is gone. Spock's phaser is gone. This has been the last 18 hours of my life. Spock's phaser. Oh yeah, Spock's phaser's gone. What do you mean Spock's phaser's gone? It was there yesterday, but now it's gone. They probably threw it away. Whatever. It's okay. I can tell it's not okay. It's really not okay. Her beloved Spock. Her beloved Zachary Quinto Spock on the desk.

MaxOh no!

MerlinWith the little tiny, tiny, tiny easy to vacuum up phaser that was she knows. She knows that when she left at 7.32 on Tuesday morning, Zachary Quinto was holding a phaser. When she got home at 4.07 p.m., Spock no longer had a phaser. Now, as we learn from all the president's men, right, you wake up and there's snow on the ground. What happened to Spock's phaser? Well, it was Tuesday,

Maxso we know what happened. That is one magic phaser. And they're spectacular.

MerlinYeah, that sucks. I remember when my Han Solo lost his black... Well, I don't remember when. I remember that. My 1970 Diggity 8 Han Solo lost his phaser, and I was so sad.

MaxI can't believe you allowed your daughter to get the Zachary Kinto.

MerlinIt's what was available. Well, she also got the young Ozymandias, and then we returned it, because it wasn't cool enough. She wanted the old Ozymandias. Okay. I want the Jeremy Irons Ozymandias. Is that an action figure? That's what I'm saying. I'm going to say... Oh, when I say old, I mean elderly. That's what I mean. Oh, gosh, I'm sorry. Gosh, language. See, language is a virus. Ooh. What I meant to say was what I got her as a last minute was an admittedly kind of shitty and overpriced Ozymandias from before Watchmen. And he's kind of weird. He looked weird. You can find it on Amazon. And she didn't even open it. She's like, oh, I love it.

But she never opened it. And I was like, you're not really into that, are you? She said, oh, no, it's great. I said, did I tell you this story already? And I was like, it's OK. We can return it. You can use the credit for something you like. She's like, oh, no, really? I feel so bad. and I'm like, you like the old guy, right? With the catapult. She's like, yeah, really like the old guy with the catapult.

Speaker AWait, do you guys watch the HBO show Watchmen together?

MerlinGod, no, it's MA. Who could show that to a kid? Ugh. Okay. What? All right. No, no, yeah, she's seeing it. She's seeing it. You got to fess it over some parts, but she's seeing it. I, uh. Once you got a kid, you realize how much there's only a few actually super bad things in things. There are some things. Oh, I don't care.

MaxI'm not judging. I let her.

MerlinNo, no, no, no, no. Ghostbusters is worse than Watchmen. Hmm. It's problematic. Very problematic. There's so few blowjobs in Watchmen. Right. From ghosts.

MaxDr. Manhattan's not going to need ghost blowjobs in Watchmen.

Speaker AIt's 1984. I am Dan Aykroyd. It's 2007. I made Skull Vodka.

MaxI'm trying to give you a compliment here. Over the break, I caught up on my media watch list, all my stuff that I need to get into. and I watched like I obviously went through HBO's Watchmen fucking fantastic show yeah it exceeds in my opinion I mean I enjoyed the comic book I read it in college and you know it was one of those things that every all that's like a big holds a very high place of esteem and nerd culture and maybe it's just that I wasn't around when it was like brand new or whatever but I never had the same sentiment for it that everyone else did but in my opinion the HBO show far outweighs the the

comic book and you don't even know how much you need to know about the comic book really to enjoy the watchman but it sure helps uh what a fucking great show i mean one of my favorite things on tv in the last definitely in the last decade and i also caught up on hbo's succession another show

Merlinthat you recommended to me and holy shit i didn't recommend it i didn't recommend it i stopped recommending things to you a long time ago i said it's a good show okay well i like your

Maxrecommendations and isn't it good don't you love it it is a treat i think it took a little bit that's a show that took a few episodes to sort of figure out its tone. And I think it became more, it to me, it became more like Veep as it went on.

MerlinOh yeah.

MaxOh yeah. It started off a little, it started off a little, a little David Fincher-y, a little dark and brooding.

MerlinIn some ways, each character, each character was in a different HBO show in some ways. And, and that, that became more sensible and you could see Kieran Culkin and Brian Cox and, and Kendall, like them being in the same universe made more sense. And then you also get the rhythms of like the way Shiv always says the same five words. And like, there's just like the certain, yeah, yeah.

Speaker AUh-huh.

MerlinOh, yeah, yeah. You like, you get into the rhythm of that. Yeah, I totally agree with you. You know, one thing about Watchmen though, I just did a podcast about it for Incomparable. But like, it's, and I will continue to say anytime I have the opportunity, people who bag on this Watchmen, I think don't like the original as much as they think. Because if they like the original as much as they think, it is logically implausible that they will not like this one. Because it takes all of those themes and blows them up 10x bigger. That's, well, the stuff.

MaxYou know the best, again, like I said, I wasn't there when Watchmen came out, right? I was too young.

MerlinWell, that's what I was going to say. It was, yeah. The point I wanted to make to you was that, like, what was true in 1986 is still true now. In 1986, Watchmen the graphic novel was innovative, unusual, and exciting, but also relevant. Okay? Now, today, it's not as relevant as it was then. But the HBO show has all of those things.

MaxIt's that the comic created a post-Watchmen world where everything is a little bit Watchmen now. The whole conceit of Marvel movies and the DC, you know, the Nolan Batman movies, the whole notion of like these like gritty, realistic superheroes. That was like kind of a Watchmen thing, right? Of like, let's like dignify it and think about what it means for society, really. Is that's like a whole that isn't that the whole thing with the what with the with the with the Watchmen comic that everyone loves?

MerlinYeah, I mean, I think so. I think that the Watchmen comic was about comics in a way that was, that was fresh and well done. And, uh, I mean, I think that Dave Gibbons artwork, I mean, everybody calls it, you know, Alan Moore's thing, but like that would not be, I mean, he, I'm saying Dave Gibbons and gave him Gibbons and the colorist, like whose name I don't know, um, brought at least as much as Alan Moore. You just start digging into every one of those frames. It's a comic about comics, which, and, and it was a well done comic about comics. It wasn't just flip about that. And I think that was, that was very,

Maxvery exciting for the time. I fucking loved Watchmen. Thought it felt very lively and relevant. It was, HBO's just on a roll right now too. They have a, HBO's got a lot of good shows on right now.

MerlinAnd you can still go back and watch Veep over and over and over. It's, the goddamnit, that show. I watched the, I watched the extended bathroom scene last week again.

MaxYeah. Isn't that one of the funniest things like ever filmed?

MerlinI mean, are they, are they, are they breaking? Or is that laughter supposed to be part of the scene? I think, I think they're breaking.

MaxI don't know. I mean, I think they're feeding off of each other. I think whatever magic is happening in that scene, they're feeding off of each other.

Speaker AA magnifying glass.

MaxWhy do you have a magnifying glass? Yeah, but I think it's real. I mean, I think it's, I think there's, I think it's, I don't know, man. I think it's, they got to, sometimes an actor gets to a place where the line of what's real and what is the acting is blurred. And I don't mean that in like a pretentious way of just like there's some famous performances where you can tell like, this guy's really fucking scary and mad on screen or they're really upset or they're really laughing. And there's just, I don't know, that was a real moment.

Like it's-

MerlinBut Gary's, you know, it's not that I've forgotten how good he is. He's so great in that. He's so great in Arrested Development. But just there's so much, this is definitely a post-Arrested Development show in the sense that, boy, there's a lot to catch and a lot you'll miss. And just the way that Gary's, just his constant being the chorus to her play, like constantly going like, watch out for this one.

Daughter has a doll hand or whatever. Like, you know, all the ways that he's just whispering to her. Some of it is information that she needs. Most of it isn't. And some of it is just footnotes and commentary to what's happening right now.

MaxRight. And he does it in this low-key way. And then depending on how, I don't know. It's just the show's fucking brilliant. But I also love that, like... Gary Cole, Gary Cole by himself. So good, Nevada. Yeah. Stacked cast. Very good show. I don't know what else. Yeah, that's what I've been watching.

MerlinThank you very much. I appreciate you saying that.

MaxEventually, I'll catch up to all of your media recommendations. I do really like them. I think you're a good recommender.

MerlinOh, thank you. You know, I'm sorry I'm yelling. Here's what's happening. Here's what's happening. Max is at a Days Inn in a bathroom, and you are much more quiet than usual. And I do this thing that is not logical, which is when you're quiet, when someone else is quiet, I talk loud, which is why I keep yelling and talking over you.

MaxYou know what? I'm going to try something. Let me try something. Let me try a little hot patch here. Hot patch. I'm going to switch to my AirPods and we're going to see if that helps. I'm deploying the AirPods. Will you still record locally though to your weakness? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. This is good podcasting. Oh, that's different. Now you're getting a lot of low mids. No, hang on, hang on. Now you're hearing me through the iPad speaker. Oh. Switching to the AirPods. AirPods activated. All right, that'll work. Is that better?

MerlinYou sound great. You sound great. Hey, listen. Hey, I don't know when Alex is coming, so... Challenge! Yeah, we're doing it. What was the fuck was the challenge throughout your spices? It's 35 minutes in, so maybe she can come for the after show, if you know what I mean. Yeah, that's fine.

MaxI love not having Alex. It's great.

MerlinBoys night. Are you telling me? Yeah, boys night. I'll bring my famous dip. Yeah, we're having a little sausage party. Just bring a case of skull. Yeah. The challenge this week is from me, and the challenge was to clean out something specifically in as much as you're able to clean out your spice cabinet, your spice rack. Because that's something I thought I'd done recently.

And that was the challenge. Did you get a chance to clean out your spice rack this week?

MaxWell, I did. I organized some other drawers, but Veronica and I did recently clean out our spice rack, and I am prepared to discuss it. Okay. But I'm going to send you some photos of the drawers that did get organized. Oh, cool, cool, cool. Scrolling past all the rhinos.

MerlinOkay, here we go. Rhinos, rhinos, rhinos. I think what we're talking about here is beneficial because not only is there, in terms of a spice rack, so the optional other things, spice rack, medicine cabinet, linen closet. What I was looking for is something where things tend to accumulate, where there will likely be one or more past due items, and where you could see a benefit. I did not say this in the challenge. I'm saying it now. Third, where there would be a benefit to you, what my family calls the Tiny Life Improvement Project,

of benefiting from opening up some space and being able to rethink how you use a space.

MaxIt drives me crazy, specifically in places where I tend to be in a hurry. So I would identify places like in my office where I'm working, in my bathroom, where I'm trying to get ready in a hurry in the morning, where you need that one specific thing and either you can't find it. But you know you've got it. Yeah, it's around here somewhere, but I don't, the nail clippers. Where the fuck is the nail clippers? It's never where you want it when you need it. So that drives me crazy. But the other thing is when you're out of something and you don't know you're out of it until you're out of it. Oh my God.

And then you have to order it. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's like you can't see it coming.

MerlinOh no, the wrong time to realize you're out of nighttime Theraflu is the night you get sick.

MaxYes. Well, for me, it's like I use, I'm a terrible person and I have no regard for this planet. so I use the little disposable floss picks. Those are great.

MerlinDo you know what I'm talking about? Oh, God, yes. They're sharp on one end. You got a little flossy at the end like a violin.

MaxIf I don't keep those organized, if I have like a loose bag and I'm pulling them out one by one, the day will come when I go to reach for a floss pick and there's none in there. And that will not do. That won't work for me.

MerlinIn passing, let me give you a thought technology. This is going to fall somewhere between packing a small bag and like a child safety measure.

Well, you may not need this like I do, but let me go with the other one here. And okay, so you get your box and you're going to order some things. And I'm going to tell you what mine are. Yours will differ. You're going to buy the fancy Marco scissors. You buy scissors, you buy nail clippers. You buy a pencil sharpener, a nice one, a comb, a comb long tip. You get a mechanical pencil, a deodorant, and a hairbrush. you put those in a box and you hide the box i you know i have a whole different approach to this but i have solved another way no i've solved this problem in another way oh my god i'm i'm

coming right now max holy shit these are beautiful all of the items that you're describing i just

Maxwent on amazon and i got like 12 of them and i have yeah but do you but do you deploy and disperse them yes it's a strategy of saturation so what happens is i do run a little experiment i put it I put a nail clipper in the drawer where it needs to go in the bathroom and then someone takes it away. Maybe it's me, maybe Veronica, whatever. It goes where it needs to go, right? It winds up in another bathroom in the house, let's say. I don't know. I don't know where these things go to. Someone throws it in their suitcase and then it stays in their luggage. I have no idea.

No, all you got to know is it's not where it should be. It's not where it should be. Now, but what's the plus? Where someone needed the nail clipper that time, now there is one. so now i deploy a second one in the bathroom and that gets taken and i deploy a third one and a fourth one and a fifth one and eventually my iron will will outlast the ceiling of the nail three is two two is one one is none eventually enough nail clippers will have been i will saturate the house with nail clippers such that there's one i don't care if there's one in every

drawer in the house as long as there's one where i need it you're terraforming the the earth with

Merlinnail clippers. Yes. It's a Gaia

Maxbomb of nail clippers. I will salt the earth so that nothing else can grow,

Merlinbut I will have a nail clipper in the drawer where I want. I buy the nice Japanese nail clippers, and I collect them as I find them, but mainly I don't know where they go. Somewhere, there is a room in our house that I haven't discovered yet that's full of scissors and nail clippers. So, like, tonight, I'm doing a show with John Roderick. We're doing a live Roderick on the line, and I'm bringing along my guitar so that he has a guitar to practice on for the rest of Sketchfest during the week. Now, John Roderick is at some point probably going to take out the guitar. He's going to find the capo tuner combination. And then he's going to see a set of Japanese nail clippers in there.

And he's going to think, what the fuck? Who puts nail clippers in the guitar case? You know who does? Me. Me. Because when do you need to clip your nails? When you notice when your nails are long. You know what? Notice, then deploy.

MaxNotice, then deploy. That's right. So my strategy for the wooden box thing that you're mentioning of deodorant nail clippers and stuff, I saturate. I keep going and I keep buying them. And for that reason, there's some things where I don't get those fancy Japanese nail clippers. I just get the basic ones on Amazon, which are good enough.

Speaker AYeah, yeah.

MaxBecause I can't get a hundred of the little ones. But yeah, I just saturate. Chapstick is another one. When I want a chapstick, I don't want to not know where the chapstick is.

MerlinI just want a chapstick in every drawer. I love what you're doing here. The drawer with the husky. I love this drawer in particular. I'm seeing you got wipes. So let me show you what. So let's talk about spices real quick.

MaxHoly shit. So Veronica's is newly, as of a year ago, gluten-free for medical reasons. And that means any sort of cross-contamination or anything could be an issue. So we actually did a deep clean of the kitchen. All the spices went. And we really got into sourcing spices. And we went to different markets. And we ordered online. And we switched to... We got rid of basically all the spices in the house went. um if any if you have ever been gluten-free or you know anyone who's gluten-free you know that

like in there's gluten in like shocking things that you would never yeah just as a society we just kind of put just kind of jam flour in everything so there's like you'd be shocked of like there's like garlic powder and you look at the ingredients and there's something that has gluten in you know mixing as a filler or something with the garlic powder but so what we did was we went with mason little mini short mason jars full of whole spices and then we and then all labeled with a label gun i should have really taken a picture of this that's so cool it looks

it looks awesome it looks very like uh um magaziney uh like uh it looks like like yeah it looks nice but um yeah we just throw them in a little spice blender and when you need to cook with some you You know, seasonings, here's the other thing. Seasonings don't last as long as I think people think they do. They really go pretty quickly. I mean, I think maybe if you buy one of those, like, red McCormick jars of, you know, cumin or something, I really think you've probably got six months on it before it starts to lose its potency.

And I think most, like, I just think it's the wrong approach. So I think, like, I think it's like, it's a little bit of like coffee beans. if you buy pre-ground coffee that it's already old by the time you get it but it's certainly going to lose all of oh it arrives old yeah it arrives old but then it also ages like much more quickly like you know it's like i'll go to like there's like old people have like they they like hoard bags of starbucks they have bags of starbucks coffee that are five years old pre-ground starbucks coffee and they're like i'm saving that it's good and it's like it's i assure you it's not

Merlingood that's fancy that's fancy we'll save that for company yeah no i assure you that's not good

Maxanymore. And the same thing is true of spices. So I think if you get, I don't have any science to, I haven't sprayed any science sauce on this. No, no, no, no, I absolutely agree. Well, sort of seems intuitive to me that if you get whole cloves and you smash them up yourself, they're going to stay nice and fresh longer. I got one for you next time. And this is probably

Merlina self-evident one, but it'll get you a feel for what we're talking about. Let's say you got a 20 ounce Kikuman soy sauce that you've been sucking off of for six months because you're not a big soy sauce user. All right? Now do this. Go buy a new, maybe even a smaller, but, you know, get a new Kikuman soy sauce. And what I want you to do is I want you to open the one you've been sucking off of for six months. I want you to open the brand new one, and you tell me there's no difference. Oh, you smell it immediately. It's exactly right. Yeah, yeah. It's true for all of these things. Oh, man, I love the coins. This all sounds

like stuff, street names for drugs. Let me show you what's going on

Maxhere. Core gimmicks. Mule coins. You go for, you go for, What do you want to do? You want me to talk through this or you want to tell me about your spices?

MerlinHang on. I'm not done. Quarter gimmicks, meal coins, double deception, dollars on gimmick, weird coins, they're calling it. Holy moly.

Speaker AOkay, my spices?

MerlinIs that what you're asking? Okay, so I did actually do what I thought was a fairly thorough job probably a month or two ago. Because I kept going to grab spices. okay let's say you get the red cap mccormick and mccormick used to be the nice one it's like mccormick or spice islands or whatever the fuck i i enjoy mccormick yeah i used to date the daughter of a mccormick vp now tell her i said hi and so you got your garlic powder baltimore in baltimore you got your you got your let's say you got a garlic powder or a garlic salt no no no let's

say like if you you'll notice this if you go to somebody's like vacation house or boat house there's a certain quality to an old spice bottle label it's gotten a little bit moist and greasy gummy it's gotten gummy and the stuff inside is approaching like white i like when the label i

Maxlike when the label is fully desiccated and it's starting to it's just being held on by one dot

Merlinokay here's a here's a here's a a a life hack for you um if you can't read the date of expiration you should throw it away. If you literally, if it has rubbed, as I say in England, if it has rubbed off, you need to get rid of that. Okay, so anyway, I went through this, and my method a month or two ago was to take a grocery bag, and I took out all of my primary, I have those two shelves where I do a lot of spice things. Those are my shelves. Don't put things on those shelves.

Those are my shelves. And I checked all of those, and if those were old, I threw them out, I put them, I didn't throw them out, I put them in the bag. And then I went through the bag, and if there was anything in there I knew we needed, I immediately ordered a replacement. Now, Max, I thought I'd done a pretty good job with this, and I had some laughs. Let's be honest. I had some laughs because there was some stuff from 2016, 2015.

I did it again on today's Wednesday. I did it on Monday. I did the same thing, and I didn't fill a grocery bag, but there were enough spices that the bottom of a grocery bag was full. That's the second cut at this. Okay, you want to hear my top four winners?

MaxWhat are your... Well, I'm going to make a prediction. You know, there's a lot of things where you read a recipe online, and it needs a certain... calls for a certain spice or something, or a special ingredient. And you go get it, and you use it that one time, and then you're like, I'm never going to make this again. It was too hard. Now that spice just gets a free ride.

MerlinYeah, like I got sumac on rice one time, so I'm going to buy sumac, and oh my God, now it's 14 years later or whatever. Yep, yep. Okay, fourth place, whole allspice. Okay, now here's the thing. These are the expiration dates. That means these were probably bought, in most cases, two years before. Ooh. Because the expiration... Well, no, if you go out and buy even nice spices right now, depending on the spice, it'll be a year or two years on most of them.

MaxYes.

MerlinFourth place for the third runner-up, whole allspice, April 11, 2015. Third place, ground nutmeg, August 13, 2011. Oh, my God. second place our old pal chili powder September 6th 2010 and in first place a lonely little half size cayenne red pepper April 6th 2009 which means we bought it

before my kid was born

Maxwow that spice was older than your daughter

Merlinwell I mean if it was from 2007 if it was a two year spice which it probably was yeah for sure

MaxWow.

MerlinThat's the second cut, Max. That's wild. That's the second time I went through this. That's not including the mini, mini, mini I got before.

MaxHave you ever experimented with grinding your own spices?

MerlinWell, judging by the whole fucking nutmeg that we've got in our spice cabinet, I know somebody in the house has. Thank God we've got whole nutmegs. Let me tell you something.

MaxLet me tell you something. Nutmeg you don't grind. You grate it on like a microplane. Do you have a microplane? Sure. It's like a mandolin with holes. Yeah, a mandolin with holes. You rub the nutmeg on that.

MerlinOkay. That sounds like something my wife would do. Yes. She's a nutmegger.

MaxLet me tell you, if you're not grinding your own spices, you're really missing out on cooking. Am I? Grinding your own spices. I think so.

MerlinShould I make my own garlic powder? I should ask Syracuse. I like the frozen cubes, but I also will sometimes for pasta, I will use the garlic powder, the pure garlic powder. Garlic powder is not a good thing to use and cook with. Garlic salt is better. Garlic salt is better than garlic powder, for sure.

MaxI'm not going to get drawn into this, but I do think it's one of those things where when you eat food at a restaurant or a professional bakery and you're like, this tastes, you know, like they say on MasterChef Junior, they say it's a restaurant quality dish. one of the things that distinguishes a restaurant quality dish is probably that they're grinding their own spices fresh and they're using fresh spices. It's one of those things that the taste difference is pretty extreme.

AlexHey, sorry I'm late.

MaxOh, God. that's a horrible noise speaking of nutmeggers alex cox's voice a horror horrible noise alex you are so no you are alex you are so loud. Can you be less loud

Merlinsomehow? Max, are you saying that the voice from the admin Chicago studio is loud, is what you're saying? Oh, my God. Is it really? You find that loud.

MaxIt's bracing. It's like when you turn the

Merlinshower on. I just want to be clear, though. Just so our listeners know, you're not in a days-in bathroom right now. You're not in the admin Chicago studio right now. What you're saying to me, I've never heard this before. You're saying that sometimes the voice coming from Chicago is, let me get this right, loud?

MaxYeah, it's like when you get in the shower and turn it on and then the ice water comes and blasts you in the face.

MerlinWould you say that it's excruciating and it sometimes feels like the people on the other end aren't really listening when you say how loud it is? Would that be anything like your experience that you're having right now?

MaxAlex logs on and she's like...

MerlinHere's a picture of a cat. I don't know why. Okay, hey! Hey, ladies and gentlemen, breakout hit character, Alexandra, how are you?

AlexOh, man. And I, oof. Let me walk you through these drawers.

MerlinSo, Alex, Max was showing us his drawers.

AlexI am, okay. So, horny for drawers.

MerlinGod damn it. Max lives in like a flax or a museum. It's amazing.

AlexOh, Max's workshop is, do you call it your workshop or your studio? You should call it your workshop.

MaxI just say the basement usually. I don't know. That's a little gay.

MerlinI would go with studio.

AlexThat's, well, maybe that's why I want it.

Speaker AWorkshop sounds like a place where you make puppets. It sounds like a place where you make puppets. Yeah, Maxwell's Workshop sounds like a place I would lure children to.

AlexYeah, actually, I retract.

Speaker AWant to meet a live clown? Why did you say live? Just shut up and get my ice cream dry.

MaxStarting on the top, this is Max's personal bathroom supplies drawer. So this is the one that's not shared. And these are all of my personal bathroom accoutrements.

MerlinWhat's the brass ball grabber down by the dental tools? Is that a barbecue testicle wrench? What is that?

MaxThat's a tongue. It's a tongue scraper. So you brush your teeth and you drag that.

AlexIn the Japanese style? No, no, no. I have a tongue scraper. Don't shit on the tongue scraper.

MaxAll right. You brush your teeth and then you scrape that thing across your tongue. I'll say I don't actually use that. I got that one out of curiosity and it's no good. I prefer, I like a plastic one that I got to target better.

MerlinDo you put it in the autoclave? How do you clean it?

AlexYeah, this thing looks very upsetting.

MaxOkay, well, let's move on.

MerlinOkay, anyway, nice. So what you've got here is, oh God, you've got your emergency. God, this is so enviable. You've got your picks. You've got razor blades. This is beautiful, Max.

MaxWhy do you have emergency? emergency you know i because i was trying that for a while i was trying that i was drinking emergency for a while in an attempt to not get sick all the time we talked about and then a lot of people wrote in and said actually it's bad yes we talked about this it'll give you kidney stones so i'm not drinking it anymore all right but i already have it organized in the drawer

Alexokay do by friday.com alex do by friday sorry uh okay and where could i find those show notes um

Merlinanyway i want to thank uh this time of the week i want to thank our friends for the 10th week we God, I want to thank our friends at Extreme Restraints. You ever wanted a way to scrape your tongue with something brass? What if your penis turns into a werewolf? Back to you, Max.

MaxAll right. Next up is just one of my many magic drawers. I have a lot of these, but this one has coins in it. Your magic drawers.

Speaker AMy magic drawers. I want to see a live clown in my magic drawers. Yes.

AlexAnd workshop sounds gay. All right.

MaxAnd magic drawers.

AlexThis is my magical drawer.

MaxI just thought you guys would enjoy just seeing this drawer of crazy like special. I love your coin slots. I think I've had to tell like everyone, everyone in my house, I've had to say like, hey, if you ever see like a penny lying around, that could be like a $40 penny. Do not don't don't discard it or put it in your pocket.

AlexDon't touch my pennies. You can't touch his pennies.

MaxNever touch a penny.

MerlinI really hope Bernie Sanders wins.

MaxOkay. Next is my wall of camera stuff. That's just my pegboard wall.

AlexWhy so many Lissy hard drives?

MaxBecause I use them to store files on. Oh, files. They have different Final Cut Pro libraries on them.

MerlinThis looks like the least sexually appealing sex dungeon I have ever, ever seen.

AlexI mean, that's a lot of tape.

MerlinOh, man, what do you do with those Gorilla Pods? I bet those feel good coming out.

AlexOh, right?

Maxthe tape Alex I don't know why you don't have that much tape in the cards

AlexAV closet I use all six of those tapes no we do but that's many people not a single people

Maxbut I need there's six different types of tape you've got masking tape painter's tape the six tapes you meet in gorilla tape yes there's metallic there's metallic conduit tape

Merlinand then there's wide gaffers tape oh sure the metallic conduit oh my god the dice drawer Wait a minute. Are you making Monopoly hotels? What are the...

MaxSo that's my game design. That's a drawer of pieces and parts for designing games.

MerlinOh, wait. Okay, I think I saw this at the hobby shop. You can like build your own... Are there sets like a build your own game set? I feel like I've seen that.

MaxWell, this one is stuff that... This is shit that I ordered on Amazon. Okay, cool. This is really cool. But basically, if I'm working on a game prototype and I need little cubes or something, I have them. What are the Starbucks bars in your left hand? What are those? Those are the Via Pod that Marco recommended. I put them in my travel bag.

MerlinThat's travel coffee?

MaxIn case I'm ever in a tactical travel situation where I can't get a good coffee. I have not tried one yet, but I think Marco has good taste in coffee, so I'm going to give it a shot.

MerlinAlex, just so you know, the staff at the Animal Hotel where Max is in the bathroom right now, they keep moving his coffee and taking it away. He's having trouble maintaining the coffee.

AlexAre you at the Animal Kingdom Hotel? I know the problem. You know what? I'll listen to the show. I'm glad you weren't trampled by a rhino.

MerlinWait, so you don't know where he is either?

AlexI have a feeling that it, well, it's, I don't want OPSEC, but he's in a place that's warm. No, no, no, no.

MerlinThe only point I'm trying to make is that earlier in the call, oh my God, we're both outside the system. I was saying how crazy it is that I think the only time you two talk to each other is in the text message thing, because I don't know what the fuck is happening. I assume Alex does.

AlexNo.

MerlinYou're telling me sometimes you don't know what's going on either?

AlexDo you think I ever know what's going on? You know what they say about assumptions.

MerlinYes, they're delicious.

AlexThey're yummy.

MerlinMax, is that a pestle? Is that a mortar and pestle for your spices up there? What are you looking at? Oh, husky drawer, camera batteries, anteloups. And then you've got, like, it looks like a coffee maker for a mouse. Is that a candle or a spice grinder? Oh, the thing on top? Image 1376.jpg. Yeah. Take a look at this, y'all. I'm a mouse and I like coffee.

Speaker AStop moving my coffee. I'm here to see the servals. Ho-ho!

MaxHo-ho! That's a, that's a, that's a, my, that all is stuff for making tea. Beloved characters. Keeping tea warm. Beloved characters.

AlexShould we move to the bookshelf? This is my workshop.

MerlinHo-ho! This is my workshop. up. This is my clown and he's alive. He's alive because I let him be alive.

Speaker AI put a TV outside his cage so he can watch me destroy his city. First I break the clown's body. This is a real mind hunter character that you've created. Have you ever seen a clown cry?

I like to read in Bible versus while I use this straight razor. Did you know, Mr. Pickles, did you know there are six kinds of tape? You will.

Killing my clown. My next step.

AlexOkay, all right, all right. Oh, bookshelves.

MerlinChicago Manual of Style. Let's go.

MaxWhat do you want to know? And then this is the other side of the office. I like the way things fit into the things.

MerlinDid you make these yourself or are these from a store?

MaxMm-hmm. No, this is all custom.

MerlinOh, cool. Wow.

AlexDo you have a way of organizing your books? Is it just aesthetic? Like I see there's a law one, some.

MerlinOh yeah, by size it looks like.

MaxThe shelf is, the shelves are generally kind of themed. So you've got like a design shelf, a grammar reference shelf, and then like a games shelf.

MerlinAnd they go from tall to short, the way you would arrange the bodies of clowns.

Speaker AOh boy.

AlexSee, I'm thinking of going.

Speaker AI'm sorry, Jimmy Yum Yum. Sorry, Jimmy Yum Yum, you're the littlest clown.

AlexSorry.

MaxI have to kill enough clowns to spell a message based on their bodies. D is for daughter. D is for daughter.

AlexI think I need to switch up. I do alphabetical by author last name in the category of, yeah, this is much more appealing.

MaxAll right. The next picture is the one that I'm really proud of.

AlexOkay.

MerlinI turn all of mine backwards and then draw dicks on the pages that are visible.

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinIt's a design thing I saw. I saw it in Dwell.

AlexOh, my.

MerlinThis is the true galaxy brain drawer. The pens.

AlexAll right. Walk us through this.

MerlinThis is Max's office supplies. That's a classic Swingline stapler. We have one of those. Oh, Alex, you know the galaxy? Literally, the galaxies that my daughter likes to paint? She did that to this Swingline stapler. It's pretty cool.

AlexOh, shit. That's awesome.

MerlinYeah.

AlexThat's the only thing better than a red stapler is a galaxy stapler, as they say.

MerlinYou know what? Okay, so in life, the only things I really want, blah, blah, blah, family, happy health, fuck that, who cares? The only things I really want in life are a fountain that displays, I want a fountain or a Coke machine-like thing that dispenses four kinds of gravies, which I'd be happy to discuss with you. And the other thing I want is an unlimited supply of Sharpies. I want to be like fucking Jerry Lewis with socks. I want to use a Sharpie once for a few minutes and then just throw it away. just i i the i love the idea of you got lots of uh precise what are those called the pent is that

a pentel the thin the the thin ones those are great those are great the um yeah but these these are you've made great choices in all of these things you should get the marco scissors though

Maxyou should get the marco scissors you know i'm scared of the i recognize that they're amazing scissors but there's two things that prevent me from buying them they're too sharp they are too

Merlintoo sharp they're insanely sharp i don't even i'm scared to use them i keep them in a soy sauce

Maxcontainer number number one when you go to order the marco scissors you have to fill like a form out on some guy's website and it does not work with one password and that's enough right there to sour the deal you know alex's paypal is not going to work there oh boy that's gonna that's that's that's enough to skunk the deal right there but then yeah the other thing is i would

Merlinbe very scared all i want to do is buy some clown coffins i don't want to fill out a form Scissors are.

AlexI'm not encouraging the behavior. I'm ignoring the behavior. It's like Jackson Galaxy says, ignore the behavior.

MaxScissors are like nail clippers. They disappear, and then you need to get another pair, and then another, and then another. And I can't go order a pair of fancy Marco scissors every time they disappear.

MerlinYou're right. These are, if memory serves, those are 3Ms. Those are the number one scissors on Amazon, and that's just what I got.

MaxI think I got like six.

MerlinOkay. They look like Walgreens scissors I've seen.

AlexBut yeah. Okay. Oh, shit. No. That was. Well, yeah.

MerlinCan I send you my scissors too? So I have one pair of Marco scissors that I don't use because they're too nice. And then I'm going to send you a link to ones you can get.

AlexWait, that's like having a notebook that you don't. Oh, this is very not Merlin Mann.

MerlinYes. It's exactly like that. I have six boxes of notebooks I don't use. Because I'm a collector for my work. But I want to send you the scissors that I get and deploy at scale. They are available on Prime now, and they're extremely good. I'll put those in notes. This is so nice.

AlexNo, but how do you, do you have like an Amazon subscription? Like, how do you refill this? Because, you know, we all go through.

MerlinSubscribe and save.

AlexYeah, subscribe and save to my deodorant.

MerlinDo you want the insurance?

AlexYes, I want the deodorant insurance, please. One time I actually did that. I also sometimes accidentally send my deodorant to Max. I don't know why it keeps happening. Oh, no. Oh, no. Yep.

MaxThat has happened multiple times. And at first I thought, I brought it over to you and I was like, is this a Dubai Friday fan trolling us?

AlexIs this a bit? And I was like, I like the powdered shower scent. It'll be in notes. Anyway. But I've never found a good ratio of when to reorder pens. Like I've got most of my other like toiletry supplies on an automated thing. So like when I'm running out, I know that, okay, the toilet paper's coming. Everything's all well. But how do you restock pens?

You just have like a closet full of them. And then like, I don't know. This is the thing that stresses me out is one day I'm afraid that the office is not going to have Sharpies. And it's just.

MerlinIt's really complicated, and I'm not trying to be funny. We're going through this with hornworms for the lizard because it's, and this is a concept I talked to Syracuse about last night, this like life has rally thing, where it's like the thing is, okay, so it's like a word problem. Life is a word problem. I'm going to write it all night long. So we get hornworms. Now, I buy hornworms from this place on Amazon that's like a family farm that sells through Amazon. And they arrive, and they're small, and I decant them, and there's 25 hornworms in this thing.

Now, those hornworms have to grow more before we can feed them. But there's a window of them being the right size before we feed them. Now, guess what? If you run out, it takes a week for them to ship. So do you follow me? How do I time the acquisition of the hornworms? And this is actually like pens don't die as quickly anyway, unless you leave the cap off your Sharpie. But I got to time the purchase of these with the order of the next one and the growing of the others. I don't want to waste a hornworm. I'm not a monster. but that's kind of what you're talking about here right you've got to like i like i will look back

historically at how many times i've bought something on amazon try to figure when it was a panicky last minute thing and then try to figure the relaxed amount of this so i don't end up with

Alexsix cartons of toilet paper accidentally well that i mean that's one exception you can never have enough of that but there i this is a genuine thing of like i don't want to i i have my computer automates so many things. I want a shortcut to order my pens. Like I have my razors sent at a regular interval, but I don't know. God, this is such a like first world.

MerlinNo, it's, I mean, it is and it isn't, but I think I know what you're talking about because here's the other way, the other problem with this, I mean, let's just, let's set aside the privilege part because who cares? Like if there's stuff that you need and you are an Amazon customer, if you're not, that's fine. Just go start your own podcast. But like if there's a thing that you want on a regular basis. Well, here's part of the problem. We like a certain kind. Okay, this is a actual real world example from this week where my wife did make fun of me. There's this thing called the clever dripper, which is this little clear... Clever dripper. That's funny how, Alex.

AlexIt's not like penis liquid. I was laughing at something completely different. Penis liquid. Yep.

MerlinSo it's a clear... Basically, it's a thing you put a coffee filter in. Clever dripper is my Twitter bio.

AlexI thought you were off Twitter

Speaker AWriter, father, lover

MerlinClever dripper

Speaker AAnd so it's a thing

MerlinYou put a coffee filter It's like a pour over But what's cool is It's got a stopper And then once you've done You put your coffee in You pour the water slowly You stir it And then it sits for a little bit With a cap on it if you want It comes with a little lid And then you put that over your mug And it's basically a one hitter And this one I really like I really like the Clever dripper a lot But they do get kind of gross. And if you clean them with almost anything, they get cloudy and weird. If I use that nice espresso machine cleaner stuff, it like basically peels the paint off.

Not paint, but you know what I mean? It corrodes it. So anyway, and I bought other ones, but then they arrive and they're from a different company. Or they're fake and they're the wrong size and they're fucked up. So I ordered a replacement for this one. It arrived. It was the right kind. And you know what I did? And I immediately ordered two more, like a fucking pharaoh. Because my wife's like, why do we have three of these? And I said, ask me in two and a half years why I bought three of these. Because you ever want to buy the same pair of Nikes?

Sorry, we don't make those Nikes anymore. Like, what I'm trying to say is you want the right kind. You want it to not be fake. And you want it to be from the company that doesn't fuck up. We just bought, ah! Sunday before last, I ordered a new simple human can to replace this disgusting simple human can we've had my daughter's entire life. And guess what? It still hasn't arrived.

MaxOh, no.

MerlinOh, no. Is everything okay? Everything's good. Is it really okay? Say your code word. Red. Red.

AlexSay cunt. Oh, cunt should be the code word.

MerlinCunt grind. Cunt grind. Cunt grind. I can't say that.

AlexWhoa, Max said cunt? Wow. All right. I did not. No, I don't say that word. All right. All right.

MaxSome topics and words are never funny.

MerlinI'm saying I appreciate your problem, what you're saying here, Alex, because not everything is the same.

MaxOkay. You know what? I will say magic has made me an insane person with the I don't know if I'll ever have a chance to get this again. And so I have to get a lifetime supply of them. And this is like a thing that is common to a lot of magic people. but like sometimes people will come in in in max's workshop and they'll be looking in my magic drawers and they'll and i bought at one point i bought like 30 i spent like hundreds of dollars to buy 30 tiny novelty leather purses from oh right i remember this yeah yep and i was so excited

to find them because they're only made they're only made by one guy and he's this elderly japanese magician and and i you know i hate to say but when he dies like there's not when he dies the coin

Merlinpurses go with them in the Japanese style.

MaxYeah, there's no cottage industry of guys making tiny coin purses. There's one dude making these, and I really like to perform

Speaker Aa trick. Maybe you could apprentice with him at your workshop. At my workshop. Could it be called Max's Children's Television Workshop? Well, I'm sure as fuck not. I'm sure as fuck not going to sit there with a leather, with a

Maxspecial leather sticker making. I'm not going to be making these. This is where I work in my leather. I'm not going to be making a novelty little leather purse, but I love to pull a full-size Sharpie out of it.

Speaker AOut of a clown's skin. Yeah. This is Mr. Pickles. Mr. Pickles has empty coins. That could be a $40 penny, Mr. Pickles. Draw the strings. Draw the strings.

Thank you.

Show notes

Transcript

167. Max's Workshop

Show notes

Transcript

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