186. That Particular Karen

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and Max Temkin. This week's challenge, do some yoga.

MaxHello. Hello. You know what I'm watching? I'm rewatching. What? Nathan for you. All of it. It's so good. It's so good. All right, hang on.

MerlinIt's just as good. Just as good on repeat.

MaxNow I have to throw all the cables over the couch, and I'm going to lie on the couch and talk to you guys. It's going to be awesome. Okay, cool.

MerlinHmm. Checking on my stocks.

MaxHow are my stocks?

MerlinI haven't checked in on my stocks.

MaxHello. Hello. No Alex, huh? Alex said they were having some sort of altercation with their landlord.

MerlinYeah. Yeah, and there's something in the dock here that looks interesting. Well, as long as we're waiting for Alex to finish being shamed about their walls.

MaxGod forbid that landlord discovers that Alex put a poster up. That's not poster tack on the walls, is it? Blue tack. Are you following Max's rude gate?

MerlinOh, Max is rude gate?

Maxyeah there's a big uh i've created a situation on our kickstarter project oh no what happened so we're running the kickstarter for the puzzles yeah oh you're the customer support guy right well it's not cards against humanity right it's me and and jordan and simon and ben and you know it's kind of back to you know it's kind of we don't i don't have like a big team right it's just the four of us and we're just doing it for funsies and and uh it's kind of means we all have to do all the parts of it so i'm just in there answering customer service and i guess i'm

thought that i was being funny with people but it's created a it's created a a scandal where people have started complaining that i'm being too rude because i'll say people will say like they want well one thing on kickstarters people want stretch goals which is where do you know

Merlinabout this yeah the idea is like have another tier where they get more stuff it's not even another tier it's that it's that level of participation yeah basically it's it's like

Maxif we cross this threshold of funding like if we make this much money we'll add more stuff to the project well okay we already made the project like it's designed like we may it's really cool and i i don't want to start sitting there and you know coming up with random stuff to make because first of all like there's like fixed cost to that stuff and also like we're not what great idea are

Merlinwe going to have like in one day you could do like the infomer infomercial thing where you say it's $39.95. And then you say you could get a second one and all you have to do is pay a separate fee.

MaxThat's how you know that something is really good. If they're like, and we'll throw in a whole second one. Have you thought about adding a separate fee? Anyway, it's just a crazy ask. And so people are like, where's the stretch goals? You've been successful. Where's the stretch goals? And so I just tell people like, we're not doing that. If you want stretch goals, you know if you don't if you like what we're doing back it and be happy that we're making a cool thing and we planned it all out and if you don't like it don't back it i you know i don't

want to have people who are like petty tyrants who tell us what to do and apparently this is too rude and it's created a max's rude gate level thing on the what's so funny too is we get met people post messages and comments and they go this is rude i'm unsubscribing i'm a customer and this is rude and then i can see on my little hud that they're still a backer like they're no one's leaving like they're just complaining they're just flapping their gums yeah i boy i don't want to say anything here but i know you know you have this thing of like you don't you're let's say skeptical

of some of these ways of making a living because you don't no no it's not no it's not that i'm

Merlintrying to uh be circumspect about what i say and i don't want to say anything i regret sure Well, I'll say it. Okay, good. Oh, you already got gated. Okay.

MaxI think, I mean, you've made a really good point of like, you don't want to have 10,000 bosses.

MerlinOkay, so here's the thing that I feel pretty okay saying. And I've seen this with people that I know and respect a lot who get, let me put it this way. I think when you charge someone for something, when you ask them for money, I think it's useful to be very clear about what we each get out of the thing. Which sounds obvious. This is why I don't feel bad about selling a T-shirt. The T-shirt costs this much. And if you don't like the shirt or don't feel like buying it, it's totally okay. But if I said that, oh, there's all you have to do is pay a separate fee and you get a shirt, well, like pretty soon you're taking on unintentional existential investors.

Speaker AOh, yes.

MerlinAn ad hoc board of advisors. And there are certain events we've talked about in the past, just in the most general conceivable way, that I've defined as what I call a grievance holiday or a grievance vacation. And that's where you get to do something, and you get to boss everyone around, and they're not allowed to tell you you're fucking crazy. You get to ask for anything, and they go, that's a very reasonable thing for you to ask. That's the kind of situation I don't like finding myself in. Because even if I do find myself in that situation,

I'm going to try really hard not to say something unintentionally hurtful or unkind or ungrateful. But the last thing I want to do is think that you buying a shirt means like you get to give me notes all the time and get a response.

MaxOh, yes.

MerlinAnd in this case, I think you're getting a little bit of that grievance holiday. You know, you didn't like the color of your mini golf ball. The showers were too small. The massages were too moist. Like whatever it is, you have to say, I'm so sorry, sir. Yeah, I'm the fucking Ritz Carlton of T-shirts now. whatever you say. I'm the Nordstrom of whatever your deal is. And that's... I don't have the resources emotionally to take that on. Oh, look. I think somebody's coming in here. Okay, hang on. This might work. I think we got somebody coming in here.

Uh-oh. Hang on. Let me see if I can connect this. Is it my boss? Hello?

AlexHello. I'm on Skype. Oh, is Max here?

MerlinOh, crap.

AlexI don't know.

MerlinI think I accidentally un-Maxed.

AlexOh, no, I'm sorry. You know, it turns out that there's 60 minutes in an hour and not 100, like I thought. Yeah.

MerlinWe should really move to the metric hour. Yeah. Oh, crap. Did I lose him? Oh. Quinn, I'm not really awake yet. I got to be honest with you. It's 925 a.m. Pacific time and I'm not really awake. I didn't sleep very well last night. My dearest Quinn, I hope this letter finds you well. I have unintentionally split the time stream My dearest Delilah Hello?

No, Max. No, Max.

AlexThree of three in the call. It should be all of us. Yeah, yeah. I hear someone snapping their fingers.

MerlinMaybe he's apparating something.

AlexI thought that was only for fourth years.

MerlinOh, right. He is off campus.

AlexAh, read another book.

MerlinHello.

AlexAh, there we are. There we are.

MerlinDid I do something wrong there? No, no. No, no, no. Alex, what we're talking about here is apparently Max has got himself into a dilly of a pickle by creating a thing that we're calling Max's rude gate.

AlexOkay. Is this a literal gate?

MaxI've been rude to the backers of the Kickstarter, and I'm getting scolded.

Speaker AOh, no.

MaxI'll give you, I'll give you, I had just pulled up one good one, Merlin, I'll give you real quick. So someone was like, people post a lot and they're like, you know, international, let me just start here. People order these puzzles to all places in the world. That's great. It's flattering. I'm glad people want them. But there's a fixed cost of sending international mail. It's expensive. It costs money. And then people go, this project is so successful. Can you lower the international shipping rates? And it's like, no, that's not my choice.

I would also like them to be lower, but we're not making any money on the shipping. It's just, that's how much... That's what it costs for that service. Correct. And we're not making a dollar on the... In fact, probably we're going to lose a little bit of money on the shipping when it's all said and done, but that's a whole other thing.

MerlinYou make it up in handling though, right? You charge what you have to for shipping, then you've got handling, and then if they want a second puzzle or a car or shirt, they just pay a separate fee.

MaxThe way it works is like on some of them, you're going to lose a dollar and on other people, maybe you'll you'll they'll overpay by, you know, 25 cents. And you hope at the end.

MerlinOh, I see. It's customer arbitrage. OK.

MaxYou hope at the end you basically break even. But it's a lot of like you take your best guess and then you pray. But this guy goes this guy posts this long thing. And he's like he's like, you know, a lot of he goes, if you ship in bulk, you can save money. And it's like I fucking know that. So I replied to him and I go, we're already using the cheapest bulk shipping rates, so there won't be any reductions in shipping price. If you aren't happy with the shipping prices, we respect your decision not to back the project. To me, that's like, that's the contract, right? It's like, if you are happy with the cost, back it.

And if you're not happy with the cost, don't back it. That doesn't feel like a rude thing to say. And then this other person, now this other person named f***ing pops up in the comments and goes, honestly, this is a really rude answer. He obviously put in some effort to respectfully ask you a legitimate question. I am loving the puzzles, but talking to your supporters this way is really testing my faith in your brand. Oh, classic. Classic.

MerlinIt used to be used to really enjoy your stuff.

MaxI know one. You don't have to have any faith in our brand.

AlexWe need to bleep that name. We're going to do that.

MaxThat's not a real name. You don't need to have any faith in our brand. It's not just get the it's a puzzle. You could buy it or you could not buy it. and that's pretty much the end of it. Everyone wants to give $20 and then they want to get on board the boat and go, look at me, look at me. I am the captain now.

MerlinI mean, as long as we're bitching and never going to put this out. I used to run into this with various kinds of services for hire. and and i i think i got a little bit of merlin's an asshole gate when i would talk to people because it would just be like well no first of all like don't give me the boeing contract to sign you know and like i don't do i really need one million dollars in liability insurance

Alexcome stand in front of a lectern for 50 minutes whoa whoa whoa wait is that a thing like you have to get insurance at a speaking gig depends i mean like okay so it depends on who you're working

Merlinwith let's put it this way the reason i call it the boeing contract anybody who wants you to sign a contract that sees benefits for them and you signing the contract which is understandable like you got to protect yourself in business that's if you're working with some kind of like somebody who you find out has a lot of slip and fall suits against people they work for oh i have a little

Maxmax's tip for this okay i don't know how probably i don't know if this is useful to anyone but i get all the time. If I'm having a meeting with a company or something, they send over various documents to sign and you'll have to sign this and do that. Including sometimes when you go visit someone at their office, they want you to sign paperwork now just to like come into the office.

Speaker AYes.

MaxDefinitely you got to sign that NDA when you're coming in. It's like a hold harmless agreement and an NDA and all kinds of stuff. And my new reply, if anytime anyone sends me something as I say, I will not be reading or signing any of these documents, and if that's an issue, I'm sorry, we're not able to work together. I don't think it's ever prevented me from working with... Everyone always goes, oh, we don't need that. We just ask everyone to do it.

AlexHuh.

MaxSo just say, I just say, I will not be reading this or signing it. And I mean, obviously, there's always a small risk of like they say, okay, well, we can't do business then. But I don't think that's ever happened to me.

MerlinI used to run into this thing, and there's a reason that I don't do a lot of things that I don't do. and I have my reasons for not doing what I don't do. And, you know, okay, so just like I'm going to try and anonymize this.

MaxI always know what I'm not going to do before I don't do it. Wait, I know that.

MerlinWhat's that from?

MaxOh, that was the guy from Mindhunter. Oh, Kemper. Oh, there we go.

MerlinKemper. Kemper's not Flerkin. That's different. Okay. So anyways, I'm going to try and anonymize this and generalize this, but there's nothing in this that is untrue. And so for a comedy effect, I'm not going to exaggerate, but I may concatenate, I may create a composite. Somebody comes along and says, hey, one of the guys, one of those guys with the neckbeard says you should come in and talk about mail, email, or whatever. I'm like, fine, yeah, it's this much, and da-da-ba-ba, and da-ba-ba-ba. And they go, okay, well, we'll get back to you. I'm like, okay, you get back to me.

And then that kind of floats around for a while. And then, of course, if it ever comes back, which it usually doesn't, it comes back with tremendous urgency. And it's like this thing, like, so you, whatever happened, I understand work is difficult, but like months went by or weeks went by and now you're back in black and you are ready to really do this thing. And we're going to fucking go ham on these contracts and all these things. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. How about this? How about you send me half of this today through a wire transfer? And we have a what's called mutually assured destruction, Chinese democracy.

We have mutual NDA. A mutual NDA just says that, you know, we agree to be cool. Hey, come on, be cool. That's Midnight Amendment number one. Be cool. But of course, it can't be that because that's not how it works. But then at this point, I'm already down in the count a little bit. And this is where it gets stupid. And I say to them, I will be happy to do this. Here's what you'll get. You get a whole day of me. You use me however you want during the business day. My line used to be, if you want me to grab a broom or pull soft serve cones, I'll do whatever you want for that amount of time.

You're going to get this talk. We can negotiate whatever you want out of this. But it costs this much. And I'm going to, of course, need to fly there. I'd like to be there for two nights so that I can be well-rested to come straight in. Never do that jive where you show up somewhere and go from the airport to the gig.

And I say, okay, and so here's the deal. I'm going to write a number on a piece of paper. It's going to cost you, let's say, 10 units. And they do this. They go, ooh. And I say, oh, that's an interesting noise. How many units did you have in mind? And they go, oh, we didn't really have a budget for this. And I say, okay, well, do you think, is a budget something you could get for this? Like, oh, we really need to sign this. It's like, okay, well, I understand, but we need to do the 10-unit thing,

and I can't do like a net 90 on that. There's got to be something to like basically block the date, as we used to say. And then they would say something like, well, could you do it for half a unit? And I say, so I mentioned a minute ago that I needed 10 units for them. They go, yeah, but do you think you could do that for half a unit? And I say, is that your budget? and they say, we don't really have a budget. And I say, okay, okay, well, the 10 units. So what you could come back is you could say, I want to have it be fewer than 10 units, but it shouldn't be an order of magnitude fewer units.

And then they're like, that's what we got. And only on a very small handful of occasions have I said, I think it would probably, it would be difficult for me to do this well for that amount of money, and I understand, and we try to move on. and then they'll pursue it more and then I'll find myself saying, hey, next time you get poop backed up in your garage and you call the plumber out and he tells you it's going to cost 10 units to fix, I would like you to tell him you don't really have a budget

and you can pay him half a unit and I would love for you to just send me some follow-up on how that went.

Speaker AOh boy. Is a unit like a portion?

MerlinYeah, it's like a portion, half portion. Yeah, exactly. And then you're eating your disco home.

Speaker AOne quarter portion. You follow me, though?

MerlinIt's like, you know, there's no other world in which you go to somebody who works for a fucking living and tell them even that you want to pay half of what they want. And then the plumber is going to go, well, first of all, A, you're still going to paint. We call it a bench charge. Now, what do they call it? A service fee. Like for me to pull up into your driveway is going to cost $100. If you want the VCR to be put onto the repair bench, that's $100. Yeah. And I think that's frustrating. I think people shouldn't do that. And I think it's unprofessional. professional and i think i know i'm being unprofessional but i don't need to be professional

because i don't have a job you need to be professional when you deal with people and how about i start asking you to work for five percent of what you normally make can i take it

Maxand turn it i have a little merlin man for this cut all that out yes i have an idea about this is there maybe something too if there's the there are some types of public speakers right who they go on stage and they have this whole program and they're like, how do I put it? They're like doing this like, you know, this like real salesy. Like a Seth Godin, like somebody who puts on a show. Yes, there's people who put on a show, but it's also, it's like a little bit like rote and like boring and I don't know what to say about it. It's like not something I'm super excited about,

but there's something about that where it seems more produced and like you should pay money for it. And then there's the type of talks that you do or that I would aspire to do that's more in style. It's more fun and naturalistic. I want it to feel more intimate and less like a prepared thing I've done a thousand times. And more like a conversation where I'm thinking about the thing I was asked to talk about. That's just my style.

Merlin I think that's something you value in in your talks and clearly been like an influence on me there's something about that where when you do it really well it doesn't seem like it's valuable it seems like oh that's just Merlin he's up there having fun yeah it seems like why would you pay for that it's like no we're doing him a favor by having him to talk about this well and it's it's

Merlinit's another one of those things you're I do agree with you that's a good thought technology hi Alex how's it going I want to hear about your house um but the the other part of that is that uh and I It took me a long time to realize this, probably longer than it should have. But when you're trying to understand anybody's motivation, it helps to put yourself in their shoes. And there's all kinds of things that at first seem very counterintuitive in business that make more sense as you spend more time with it. One of those is like enterprise software. It's easy to sell and it's easy to buy and it sucks to use. But the people who use it are not the people who order it.

They're not the people who they want. So the people who buy that are going to want it. It's like Jared Kushner, man. They want to go get into the Rolodex of people they like to work with. They like to work with Microsoft, et cetera. So that's the way you deal with stuff like enterprise software. And if you're the sort of person who hires outside people to come in, number one above all else is you want the biggest name that people will recognize for the amount of money you're willing to spend. So if you bring in like a Bill Clinton or like Malcolm Gladwell or probably an Apollo Robbins, maybe that's a bad example.

But then that's a big deal because you could say, oh, my God, what a get. Like in my case, when I was a freshman in college, the entire $10,000 speaking budget in 1986 was spent on Kurt Vonnegut, which was very controversial. But I'm very glad. I'm personally –

AlexI mean, I love it.

MerlinI'm very selfishly glad they did it. Yeah, I feel you. Of course, this is right when things are kicking up about the canon and the white guys and stuff. And it was not probably the smartest decision. But here's the thing. If you're not Kurt Vonnegut or you're not, you know, what, Gilbert, the You Pray Love Lady or whoever, any of the Ted characters, if you're not Temple Grandin, then you know what you want? You want a program. You want workbooks. You want leave-behinds. You want CDs. You want that kind of stuff. Do you follow? Like, if you're coming in and you're more educational than Strictly Famous and Entertaining, in their eyes, there's so much extra work to what they're going to want out of that.

So what I would try to sell, quote unquote, was, look, you know, you guys seem cool. Just have me in for a day or two. We'll hang out. The best part of this, it sounds nuts, and don't put this on the floor, but the best part of this will be the lunches that we have where we talk with 10 people who are really concerned, not concerned, but care about their team and want it to be good. That, you're going to learn so much. You're going to learn so much hiring person by standing in the back of the room and watching how different people react to what I'm saying. Because what I'm saying is going to be really fucking crazy. And you're going to see reactions from people. you're going to see some laughs of recognition you didn't expect,

and you're going to see some faces that you didn't expect. Now, guess what? I just gave you the beginnings of a roadmap for deciding who are your allies, for deciding who's going to maybe give you a little bit of pushback, and who just doesn't like me. And I think that's really handy. Ten units.

MaxTo wrap up my Kickstarter thing, the reason for me I keep coming back to Kickstarter is not primarily because of the money. I mean, making basically Kickstarter is a really, really... For me, it's such a better alternative than taking out a loan or having investors or something like that. It's a really good way to start a new project without incurring a ton of debt. And that's huge. and as an artist it sets you free in a way it's the freest way I know to be to make art and I just

don't like that there's this culture that that is not part of the software and it's not like in the terms and conditions of the software of this relationship of creator to backers but it's a thing people bring to the project when they're a backer where they go hey buddy you working for me now why don't you do this or that and that's not part of the deal right like I never doesn't say that on the kickstarter website it's not in the terms and conditions like you're getting the thing

Merlinthat we made, not a permanent parking space in my brain.

MaxYeah. I don't know. And it's hard. And then when I try to assert that by saying, but yeah, I mean, it's a difficult thing to assert. And then when you assert that, people push back and they're like, you're being rude. And the thing is, they don't even cancel their pledge. They just fight with you. Well, yeah.

MerlinAnd it's because some of those folks, I think, I've been that person. I've been that particular Karen. And I think what you want is somebody to go, oh, I'm sorry. Or like, oh, I will fight for your business. you know bob vance vance refrigeration i will fight for your business i i think it's a little

Maxbit of backing something on kickstarter is a little bit of an out of control experience you're spending your money on something that doesn't exist yet and you're saying i'm gonna sit in the back seat here and hope this this buy the ticket take the ride yep and yeah it's a little bit of an out of control experience and i fully understand that twenty dollars is non-trivial from for a lot of people right now. I mean, I mean, that's a tough, I've been in that position in my life where 20, deciding to spend $20 was a, not an insignificant decision. And,

or, you know, whatever, $20 plus our, uh, usurious shipping rates. Is there any way you can bring down an international shipping fee at all?

MerlinLet me have our people look into that. What about sales tax? Could you like, could you like cut that by like 80%? Is that a thing? Do you want my business or not? Can I pay just a separate fee?

MaxI am losing faith in your brand as we speak. That's me in the corner. I just think it's a little bit of this tug of war where people are like, they're putting themselves into what I would say is fundamentally kind of an out of control experience of like, I'm going to support this artist and watch the process of them attempting to create this piece of art and it's going to succeed or not. And that's the gamble I'm taking. And then people are like uncomfortable with that. So they want to have a little bit of control over it.

And they're like, what if you do this my way? What if you do that? What if you do that? Well, you know, I'd rather be in charge than have your $20. That's where I'm at right now.

MerlinOh, now you just gave me a boner. Yep.

MaxThat's why I'm on Kickstarter. I want to be in charge. We want to do it. My autonomy means so much more to me than your money.

MerlinYeah. There's one thing that will not scale up in this crazy world I'm trying to fill with laughter and love. if there's one thing that does not scale up well sure it's time sure it's attention but it's also my agency oh i love my agency i'm kind of a dick about it yep oh there's so many people are gonna

Maxbe mad we're gonna cut this out don't worry we've been posting like backer updates with magic tricks and then we were like you know there's no performer magician in the world who's working right now i mean everybody it's brutal brutal it's awful people are losing gigs that took them like you know months or years to set up per merlin's you know whole thing about going back and forth on that anyway we're throwing some money to our magicians to be like hey would you can we give you like a couple hundred bucks and you like do something for our kickstarter it's a great opportunity it's fun background dates now we're getting this comment people goes it looks like

well you guys have time to watch a magic trick but no no oh he's really busy on twitter but he's

Merlinenough time to answer my email wow all right all right it's almost like we're different people

Speaker Apeople so that has been the after show

Maxthis week no that's the show buddy whatever happens in the show is the show hold on we have a little pool as to what's happening with your landlord did you get in trouble for putting sticky tack on the wall what happened

Alexif this is gonna go in the after show which no this is the show alright alright my well people are like oh Alex isn't talking no but here's no I don't want

Maxshould get in trouble i don't care if alex gets in trouble i i don't care if i get in trouble either

Alexbecause the people are like rolling their eyes like oh you're bad your kickstarter is a million dollars oh you're merlin man you can talk wherever but you guys are the people setting a precedent that other people can follow and start to know their worth like kickstarter i've seen so many kickstarters fail not like they they reach their funding goal but then they fail at because people they they act as if their backers are the um investors who like they are they're a board

Maxor as they so they agree to make it in plaid or something yeah yes also also like these people don't you people don't know any fucking thing about making puzzles if you start saying what we're going to do you're going to wind up with a homer simpson card do you want a homer simpson

Alexcar you get a homer simpson car yeah and and with merlin you know uh demanding oh god oh a wage for his job like there's so many uh you've got to build in you've got to build in i mean if it goes flawlessly oh you have a child yeah like it's it's like it's you've got a plan for it to not go

Merlinwell this is not a big mac like this is not you know i don't have that much control over your shit. You don't get to bring a phalanx of staff into McDonald's and have a discussion about what kind of food we should

Maxbe making. But I gave you the $2.99 for the

MerlinBig Mac. Also, I never really was that hungry to begin with.

AlexShame on you.

MaxAlex, what happened with your landlord? Did you get in trouble?

AlexI just forgot to sign the lease. And to be fair, we didn't really get... All right. All right. Here.

MerlinLike originally?

MaxAre you exercising some sort of squatter's rights over this property now?

AlexWell, okay. Okay. Alex's lives matter. Oh. Yes. So that's on me.

MaxAlex, if there's no lease, does that mean you could move to a normal place to live?

AlexThat's okay. Okay. Here, we pre-pandemic, there was a thing where we're like, should we move? Like our lease is until May, right? So I'm actually not sure if I'm supposed to sign it at the end of May or I should have signed it at the beginning of May.

MaxCan I ask you a question? Sure, sure. Who is the person in the relationship that like does the paperwork or is it a split?

AlexIt was a, see, here's the thing. Normally it would be Matchy's job. Like my spouse is like the amazing homemaker who I would just die if he wasn't around.

Maxbut typically when i need well you alex you don't i know i know you and i know you pretty well and maddie you know a little bit and you're definitely maddie's the paperwork person

Alexthe uh he's not super organized he's also not the fighter in the then you're fucked well he he is but like i am the one who is like okay the we should probably get a better deal on this thing and So we haven't signed the lease. And I'm like, hey, can you send that back over? Because I, oh, it was copied and pasted in email.

Can you just send this over?

MaxYou want to talk to my real estate person? No.

AlexBut then I was like, oh, Command F. I'll make an intro. Command F wall. Nothing there. Command F.

MerlinYou're going to get a lien against your lease.

AlexNo, no, no. So Command F frame. Command F. So I actually read my lease.

MerlinWhat's happening right now? Are you viewing code? What's happening?

AlexYes. I'm searching in this PDF for anything about hanging, anything on walls, anything about painting, and it's gone. There's nothing there. And I'm like, oh, oh, oh, oh. So if I sign this lease and then decorate my apartment like a normal human being, can I just be like, oh, it wasn't in the lease. Sorry. however there was there's also not anything in the least about like repairs or anything so we still have a dishwasher that kind of falls off of uh you know when you pull out a dishwasher and

it's got those little wheels ours fall off every time but also don't you have the dishwasher where

Merlinthey didn't think so much about how it would be accommodated by the available space don't you have

Alexkind of a situation with how your dishwasher fits yeah there's yep and that's what we were uh we

Merlinwere kind of emailing back forth and talked you you might be living on a boat you should find out if you're living on a boat. A lot of this would make sense if you're living on a boat.

AlexOh, God. I wish, honestly.

MerlinWell, no, because think about it. It's not, you know what? That's not a wall. That's a bulkhead. And you know what a bulkhead is? A bulkhead is the hull of the ship. Maybe you can't put stuff on the wall because you're going to break the ship.

AlexYeah, we'll put a picture and notes about how my dishwasher fits in relation to the cabinets that are actually there.

MerlinIt's a little bit ad hoc.

AlexYeah, yeah. and then in conclusion I was like oh we're going to start quarter after cool this conversation with my landlord has already ended so I'm going to do some email oh I'm going to get to inbox zero because that's what Merlin means is an empty inbox obviously over on 73 folders well it's that you have

Maxto it's that where you have to reply to all the

Merlinemails in your inbox as soon as they arrive and then you stay there all day until you yell inbox zero exactly stones in your pocket and walk into the sea

AlexAnd I did.

MerlinJust like me.

AlexAnd now I'm getting...

Speaker AHold on.

MerlinI've wished death upon myself. The incantation for killing me is two simple words that you can say. good job misunderstanding that you really made it broken and stupid inside and the thing that i said is not what you did you got to know the territory zero anyway i thought that uh for a little bit i

Alexthought that an hour was 100 minutes and not 60 minutes so i was prepared to get on the call at

Merlin11 25 a.m and not 11 15 a.m i i do you know what alex alex i do that i do that with our kitchen scale. Our kitchen scale is an okay good kitchen scale, but it does do one thing that's a little frustrating, which is every time I turn it on, so we won't use it for several days, and then I need to weigh my meat.

As soon as I turn it on, it's always a different of the... There's three possible ways to see what this weighs. You can see it in grams, or you can see it in pounds with digital, or you can see this in pounds with what's the other ounces? And boy, you really don't want to get that wrong. And so every time you turn it on, it changes a little bit and it's very confusing. And then I have to cycle through all of those in order to know which one it is that I really want.

And then I have to be double careful because guess what? Oopsie doopsie, you get that wrong also with the microwave and the defrost. You know, you're going to be in a world of pain. Do you follow?

AlexYes, and that's what's beautiful, in my opinion, about not owning a place to live is I am not responsible for any of this. We signed-

MerlinBut you should be able to get a digital clock if that's what you want.

AlexBy digital, I mean metric.

MerlinA metric clock.

AlexUh-huh, yep, Celsius. Oh, boy. Man, and I had this whole bit about how Merlin's been killing it on all of his shows. Oh, no, no, we're not done.

MerlinWe're not done. No, no, no, no. Everything we've done up till now is unusable. All unusable. Now the show is starting.

MaxWait, this was good stuff. I think people like hearing us complain about our problems.

AlexWe have a lot of problems.

MerlinI would love to be complimented. I have something that I think I want to save for the after show, and I don't want to ruin it like my usual Trump segments by saying too much.

MaxGive it a little tease. Give it a little tease, and then we'll tell people where they can hear it.

MerlinRemember last week we started a new segment called Are the Libertarians Okay? We're going to start a new series called Long Distance Diagnosis, a.k.a. He Has It Right.

In the after show, we're going to be doing long distance diagnosis of various people to determine, based on our non-medical opinion, whether somebody has it. I mean, he has it right.

MaxAnd where can people hear? If people want to hear He Has It Right, our new segment, Where can they get that, Merlin?

MerlinWell, I'll tell you the truth, Max. People can support us on Patreon. We have a Patreon that you can go to at. Give us your fucking money.com. Maybe you're listening to this and you're going, boy, I'd like to be Merlin's boss.

MaxI'd like to be Max's boss. Well, you can. Here's what it costs you, $5 a month. It only costs you my life. Yep. Wow. That's all it is, the low, low price of $5 a month. You basically get to be our boss. You get to give us notes on the podcast. You get to categorize and share our behavior.

Merlinyep yep yep yep yep so you had the thing is you have money and we want the money so you go to give us your fucking money.com and we uh yeah occasionally there's treats don't get used to it

Maxyou know do not my friends become addicted to treats in this economy maybe you'll maybe you'll post that you'll leave a comment on twitter and you'll be like you have time to watch survivor but not time to do x or y for the podcast interesting merlin posted the wrong file again

Speaker AThat seems like kind of a thing he does a lot.

MerlinThere's three versions of the file, and then Dropbox did something where he did a copy. He did a drag with it, and the wrong file got brought over, so he did it again. He did it three more times, so he successfully uploaded the wrong file three times. Now, I could tell people that that was a Dropbox error, but nobody cares. It's like I say to my daughter, do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?

MaxYou can have that most supreme pleasure of just basically being the director of Dubai Friday.

AlexYeah, you can send Alex messages about how the RSS link doesn't work. And I can say again and again, you got to talk to Patreon. You really got to talk to Patreon. I'm sorry.

MerlinThe 40 minutes we've been here, what you need to take away from this is thank you. We appreciate your support.

MaxAnd that's only $5 a month at GiveUsYourFuckingMoney.com. Yeah. And basically you get to come in. Now, at that point, you're a financial supporter of the show. You're basically the producer of the show.

MerlinYou're practically somewhere between family and the board of directors.

MaxOh, okay. Yeah, we wouldn't want you to lose

Merlinyour faith in the brand right oh god oh oh guys seriously please don't lose faith in the brand

Speaker Agod the guy from the comedy car company so rude

Maxhe's a dark horse we got one of them we got one of them the quote was uh there's you know we have like quotes on the page of people talking about the puzzles and one of them is this puzzle fucking rocks and someone left the comment about the kid someone's someone left this comment and they were like i was reading that did i talk about this on the show already yeah you did i did okay sorry yep yep i'm sorry guys it's been eight minutes or a year since the last episode i don't know

Merlinwhere i am right now i have no idea yeah i almost made the dr manhattan joke again but i don't i

Alexthink that's a little too hot on a hat i i have a semi set okay all right we're let's start the

Maxshow yes girl hey alex i i introduced you to my my real estate person i think you should i think you should get a new place.

AlexYou gotta get,

Maxyou gotta get out of this.

AlexNo, I need a, I need a money man because I'm constantly worried that I am either not, you know, now that everyone's mad at us for talking about money.

MaxWe prefer to be called Jewish people.

AlexHa ha ha!

Speaker AHa ha ha! Ha ha ha! Oh God! Oh!

MerlinMy name is Moysha Pentateuch. I run the money. Get Hollywood on the phone. I'm very upset right now.

Speaker AMoysha Pentateuch would be a great name for a character. He's got the big furry hat.

MerlinYep, yep, yep. No, I would not like to buy your do-si-dos. I would not order those. I'm not interested in that. My hat is very large.

AlexIt's a real bad time to get canceled. oh god oh i'm i'm just constantly afraid that i'm either paying i i just want to give all all of the taxes like i i don't care take take all of my taxes but i don't know how much to give give you

Maxoh i have i have i do have a good i have like an accountant if you want an accountant i yeah yeah

Alexi've gone through three accountants who are i just keep imagining this simpsons like group like when

Merlinlike when mr burns's lawyers show up and it's the guy i just imagine all of these cartoon characters

Alexwith briefcases like hello hello miss cox you would be shocked to know how few people know what podcasts are they're like wait so you people pay up you get it every month you don't have a and i'm

Merlinlike i don't know what to tell you can we literally talk about anything but money now please yes

Alexplease please i'm sorry i'm sorry it's so hard for me it's so hard for me to manage all my money

Maxdid i ever tell you guys the story of when cards against humanity got audited and i had and i was the person who was picked to deal with the auditors.

MerlinIt had to do with the island or something, right?

MaxNo, it wasn't. What happened was, at some point, our business got big enough that we moved from the small business division of the IRS to the big business division of the IRS. And most people who are in the big business division of the IRS, they have some sort of complicated company. And their tax forms are like long. And our company is very simple and our tax forms are short. And we got audited because they were thought we were,

I think they thought we were probably selling drugs or something like that.

AlexI wish.

MerlinI just remember this one tweet. I remember a tweet you had that was so fucking funny. There was something like you had to, I don't think it was a government thing, but you had to talk to somebody about explaining why it was that you had bought a remote island.

MaxOh, yes, yes. That's like our, we'll talk to our accountants and I have these like conversations that go in circles. But at one point we had to have this team of auditors of two IRS auditors came to the office because I and I think part of it was I think they wanted to see that it was an actual office. I think part of it was that they wanted to see it was a real office and not like a drug front. And part of it was like they just want to I don't actually maybe someone knows more about this than I do. I don't know why they wanted to come out, but they wanted to basically sit and ask questions about the business.

And of all of the partners and people involved in cards, I know the least about our fine. I mean, I know almost nothing about our finances. I don't know how many people buy the game. I don't know how much money we make. I really don't. That's not your part of the job. No, I'm very lucky that I have other, let's call them the money people.

MerlinThey're all named Josh or Moysha.

MaxThey're like more competent at running that part of the business and they take some enjoyment from it. And for me, it gives me a panic attack. So I just don't know any, I don't know anything about it. So it was sort of decided that I would be the person to meet with these IRS people because whatever question they ask me, I would just be like, I don't know. I'll have to get you more information on that. And it's kind of like the perfect crime because it's truthful. I genuinely don't know the answers to any of their questions. And so they came to the office and they were so confused. They fully did not understand their business. So they were sitting in the conference room and they take out their notebooks.

And they're like, so you make the games here? And we're like, no, no. And they're like, but you sell, but you sell, but where do you make them? We're like, well, they're printed overseas and we import them. And they go, you import them here into this building. And we go, no, they go to warehouses. and they go so but you sell them here you sell them in this building and the customers come here to buy them no no we sell them on the internet and they go well but if you sell them on the internet how do you take credit card numbers and we go well we use we use a service we use a service that takes the credit we use like stripe and stripe takes the credit card numbers and they go but

you store the credit card numbers here we go no no that happens digitally elsewhere they were it was it was that for like hours it was wild it was a crazy they like fully didn't and they were like And what else does this business do? Do you invest in things? We're like, no, we make card games. That's like the Marco thing that he said on Quora about Instapaper that I quote all the time, which is we sell a product for money and then we spend less than we make. Right. Did you guys ever have to apply for unemployment in life? Nope.

No, I've never had enough employment to subsequently apply for unemployment.

MerlinWell, I feel like I have this whole like, because my job's been kind of odd for a pretty long time. I mean, there was a time, the last, I kind of feel like the last job that made sense at the moment that I could explain to somebody, I'm not trying to be clever about this, but in up till 1995, I get to say to somebody that I'm like a line editor, or I'm a graphics editor, like I make graphics, or I, you know, edit things. And that's, that's a good job. There's like a probably some kind of a code for that, like an employment code for that. And then increasingly, it got weirder and weirder. And it's just so funny, though, if you ever are unemployed, I can't put my hand to it right now.

but I don't remember. It might've been in Florida. You know, you've got to go in. You've got to keep looking for a job. You've got to show that you've, you know, gone to these places to look for a job. You have to talk about the kind of job that you had and the kind that you want. And I was just like a big bag of square pegs. Like there was nothing about what I had done or would do that made any sense to anybody. And I always come back to that scene in Idiocracy where I'm not sure is trying to go through the health screening, you know, because he got hurt. And there's the guy with all the probes and he's like sorting all the tropes. this one's in your ear, this one goes in your butt,

this one goes in your mouth. And I feel like I've caused so many situations like that. So you go in and it's like, well, I'm a web designer. You're like, okay, what is that? In 1995, like I used to say, half of my job was explaining to people what a website is and the other half was telling them why they needed one. But there's that. And I just have this, I want to find this. I have a specific recollection of needing to go in and say what kind of job I'm looking for. And I just remember finding this insane list of stuff. One of them I remember was Circus Agent was one of them.

That one always sticks in my mind. It's like, you have a code for a job called Circus Agent, but you don't have one for a web designer. And then I can't, you will not accept me showing you how I applied online for this job at monster.com or that I sent an email to this person. They're like, no, you got to fill out this form. You're like, this is such caveman shit. And it's all just a tick of box. It's all just busy work for somebody.

MaxI took one of those, like in high school, we had some sort of class where we had to take one of those job. Yeah, like a jobo. Jobo. Yeah. A jobo. And it told me, the two that stick out in my mind that it told me that I would be happy at or good at or whatever were candlestick maker, like candle maker. I think it's called,

Merlinisn't that called a chandelier or a chandler? Isn't that what it's called? A luthier. A luthier, a luthier, I know that. A luthier makes guitars. A cobbler. A cobbler makes shoes. What about a cooper? What's a cooper make? Mini. Cooper Mini. That's exactly right.

MaxNo, it told me make candles or work in a box factory. And I thought that was so funny. I was like, I can't believe.

MerlinMy dad's a pretty big deal down at the cracker factory.

MaxI can't believe either of those were like prominent enough jobs to be like top level suggestions in this algorithm. Alex, did you ever do one of those or were they gone by the time you were in school?

AlexWell, we had something called Junior Achievement, which it was kind of like dare, but for capitalism.

MerlinI remember that. I totally remember. It was like farmers. It was almost like future farmers of America, but for like having a small business kind of.

Alexoh, this didn't even presume that you would have a business. It was just like, you are going to work for this company, and this is how a company works, and nothing I learned has ever actually come up in real life. Much like Dare. I would love it if someone offered me free weed. Come on, no, no, that doesn't happen. I would, I mean, I don't want to talk about money. Oh, we're going to get in so much trouble.

MerlinOkay. Oh, my God. Archive.org. Shit, dog.

AlexArchive.org.

MerlinKung Fu Grip, August 1st, 2003. Cal Jobs walks you through a maze of occupational nomenclature to determine where your resume should be filed. Seems reasonable, except the choices are straight out of a careers book from 1972. too.

Yeah, so there's one for circus agent. Can I read you a few more? This is as of March 2003. Crossword puzzle maker, decontaminator, fine arts packer, fingerprint expert, fireworks display specialist, guest room quality assistant, jockey agent, lie detection examiner, prospector, setter up, that does have a dash, and silhouette artist.

What's a setter up? I don't... No, I think you... I'm gonna just say from context clues, I think you set things up.

MaxYou know, that sounds like... I'm not to derail, but I could really use that in my life. Is that a thing?

MerlinOh my God, we could all use a setter up.

MaxYes. You got enough interns, now you need some setters up. Like attorneys general. Yeah, it's like... It's not enough to get the... I know that I could buy the new Apple TV, but what I really need is the setter up. I don't want to be futzing with the optical cable. Oh, shit dog. You know who needs a setter up?

MerlinJohn Roderick. That guy needs a setter up.

Speaker AOh. Can you imagine how he

Merlinwould benefit from a setter up?

Speaker AWhat?

MerlinMake medical appointments for him? You know, that kind of thing?

MaxYes. It'd be huge. You know, that should be. I think that's the fantasy. What people want the geek squad to be is setter ups. But I think in practice what they are is undercover FBI agents looking for child pornography. Oh, 100%. Absolutely.

MerlinYou know they're bugging your shit. You just know it. Yeah. Woof. That's a good looking site. I made a pretty page. I used to really care about CSS. us look at that it's in show nuts uh we'll see if the cow job site is still up and maybe we can find

Maxthat's an amazing that's an amazing i wonder if those things if there's still that list of jobs but that's very funny i'm trying right now cow jobs can you imagine if there was one of these for like you know millennial jobs where it's like hula hoop instagram influencer like

MerlinKardashian Wrangler

Speaker ARosé

MerlinGlass of Rosé thrower

Speaker AThe real

MerlinThe real Housewives of California County

MaxI tweet about which brands are anti are turfs on Twitter all day

MerlinOh yeah, or like I let people know what what BTS fans want canceled. Cancel party.

AlexI still don't know what that is. I don't understand.

MerlinI think it's a Korean band thing. 42 minutes in. Long distance diagnosis. Alex. Oh, yeah. Did you want to talk about opening the economy? Stock and flow. Musk follow up.

AlexI don't. Oh, God. You're jumping around in the dock. I don't know. This this I was going to talk about how you, Merlin, have been just on a fucking podcast here. You've been... Oh, thank you. Yeah, you've been doing some amazing, really good work, and I encourage people to listen to Rectiffs and Roderick on the Line and Back to Work, like, dive back in if you've fallen off the train. But this, I think this is the show. This is the show that breaks your streak. This is the show that gets you cancelled. Oh, this

Merlinparticular episode, this pod? Yep, yep.

AlexThis, uh, on the pod,

Maxyep. I didn't choose to say money, people. The... Oh, is that what do you what do you like to be called? I want to be respectful. A person of money.

MerlinI was reading Alex's bio by accident yesterday, and it says they slash them. T-H-E-Y space S-L-A-S-H them and it sounded like a threat

AlexI think it's pretty funny I like it I thought it was pretty funny and other people do too and I was like one of the three jokes a year that land for me alright you're really jumping around in that doc

MerlinI am having a lot of fun I think Roderick Online has been really pretty fun lately oh you know what you haven't had enough of is Merlin crying content We haven't had that in a while.

AlexI haven't listened yet. I'm afraid to.

MerlinAnd you'll get that on the Rectiffs. A little bit. A little bit on the Rectiffs that comes out tonight.

MaxWait, can I guess? Did you talk about your daughter getting older?

MerlinNo, no, no, no. It's about a relative who died this week.

Speaker AOh, I'm sorry.

MerlinIt's fun. You got a Relay Dive. I also talked about why I like improv. Thank you for saying that.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinAre you still going through the back catalog with Matchy?

AlexOh, back to work? Yes, yes. because that podcast with the Brit and the guy who makes the stick figure videos released a podcast episode called Productivity 101, which I forced Matchy to listen to. And now I'm forcing him to listen to, you know, second Arrow era of Back to Work.

MerlinSecond Arrow's good. Yeah. Yep, trigger bites on the bus driver.

AlexWell, we talked about this before. He had a job. we talked about having a Matthew had a jobby job and now he's kind of in this amorphous blob that I I'm not in I have a jobby job I work at Cards Against Humanity my spouse now is technically a full-time podcaster like if you were to like go and be like what do you do for money not a jock

Maxnot a jockey age yeah hey I uh can I just say and people I'm sure people listeners of this show probably know about your podcast with Matchy, which is Two-Headed Girl,

Alexright? Oh, yeah, where we talk about boobs?

MaxYeah. I just recently discovered that there is a Patreon for Two-Headed Girl, which you've probably mentioned, but I just I don't know. I just became a supporter and I was really delighted to see that there's all kinds of bonus episodes, including media reviews, which are really fun.

AlexOh, we get really bitchy about it. Thank you. Yeah, give Give us...

MerlinAlexandra, if people wanted to support you, where would they go?

AlexYou can go to patreon.com slash two-headed girl. And that's another reason why I think I'm going to jail. Because who has two Patreons? Like, what the fuck? All right, all right.

MerlinPump the brakes.

AlexI'm sorry, everybody.

MerlinDo you want to do-go-do-go challenge? Because we still have a lot of content to cover in the after show.

MaxYes, the challenge this week was to have some sort of yoga-adjacent or do something involving yoga. Do some yoga. Do some yoga.

AlexThis, I think, was my challenge. Did anybody do it?

MaxI sort of, I stretched. You guys, what did you guys do?

AlexSo I'm one of those app people who refuses to exercise unless there's a big process involved because otherwise it doesn't count. Like, why would anyone exercise without a Fitbit or an Apple Watch? That's just ridiculous. And there's a number of yoga apps that I like. One's called Down Dog, and I think it's silly. And the name makes me laugh because it makes me think about butt sex. And that's also the only, like, I'm not a yoga person who actually knows what all the moves are called.

I just watch the videos and stretch. And then afterwards, I feel pretty good about it. I don't know. With staying inside, I'm really worried about, like, blood clots. and it's for me yoga is basically a lot of stretching it's not i heard you've been considering

Merlinuh possibly leaving the house just a little bit is what i heard uh people seemed really upset

Alexlearning that i don't leave the house who was upset about that uh alex um well the listeners you and and listeners oh yeah i was there um uh but but they're also you don't want one of those

Merlinlike uh one of those things that like a heavy guys get in first class where you get a clot in

Alexyour leg you're trying to avoid that yeah i don't know that worries me that's the thing that can happen right you're gonna have to get prescription socks yeah i should i should get those anyway uh yoga is the one thing i can do every day uh i also recently got a switch ring is it called a ring fit no that was what the we fit was called i don't know there's a switch game that has a ring like a almost like a Pilates ring. And the game is just working out with this Pilates ring. And it's

really fucking fun. You literally chase a dragon while doing these stupid little exercises. And this morning, I just had a delightful time. Did any part I recognize that what I just said sounds ridiculous and makes no sense. But I can't say anything. I think I think I understand. I

Merlinthink it's what we talked about last week where I think I had said something about how I think for most geeks if it's an opportunity to buy or use interesting gear even if that's just a bag you're more interested in the project and this is why when we start an art project it's nice to get some new Pentel sign markers and a notebook it sounds like for you the hook you're looking for is some kind of technology that it will entertain you and get you doing what you would like to do

Alexyou wouldn't just let's say go to a studio with a mat you like the app i i i used to do that and then there's there but there's other people there and then you're like i would love to see you doing

Merlinyoga i just i'm having so much trouble for some reason oh it's very upsetting is it why do you

Alexfind are you physically awkward oh no but i'm also surprisingly flexible so it's very strange to see someone with, let's say, a nerd body doing really flexible things. But man, seeing me run is just very upsetting. It's, I think, very triggering for people.

Anyway.

MerlinI peanut buttered in the hardest possible way, and I didn't even try, and I'm sorry. I do have a little bit of a history with yoga. Actually, there's a fives about this, I think. I dove, divin, I divined into it through my then probably girlfriend's DVDs of a person called Rodney Yee.

So basically, I am not physical. I am not very live. I don't like doing anything with my body. I mean, I think there are all kinds of medical conditions that I might be able to handle better than a lot of people just because I'm not super into movement. But this Rodney Yee fella, boy, he'll take a piece out of you. he really he really it's it was basically like learning jeet kune do from like a like a bruce lee video it's like this hurts my body so much and i was so tired i kept falling down on parts that shouldn't be falling down on and i'm not good i'm not good at yoga and a lady does it all

the time and she's great at it like i say she's got a belgian she does it with a belgian but i owe you an amends i peanut buttered you know i didn't sleep well last night i was i woke up i was anxious i i i felt like i couldn't breathe i almost had a panic attack i did some writing And then I know, no, no, no, no sympathy. And then I woke up as you do. And I was like, I don't know if I got yoga in me this morning.

AlexNo, no, that makes that makes sense. You also leave the house. So I brought this challenge with the assumption that I'm like, well, Max has to leave the house because he just goes to the restaurant because essential business. um and you but you leave the house to like go on hikes and stuff like i go hiking uh no you do yeah both of you i'm realizing are kind of supposed to alex you're supposed to do that okay here's

Maxhere's the thing i think i'm alex i leave the house probably once per day and the places i would go would be like the little the small grocery store in my neighborhood sometimes you know veronica and i will go out to kind of the suburbs to try to find like hiking trails that you know where we won't pass within six feet of other people i go to the cafe and wash dishes or just you know just do just help out or do whatever they're every so often you're right there on the

Merlinline and you say if you're gonna arrest anyone let it be me yeah um i don't know i mean it's it's

Maxnot no risk but it's the lowest risk that i can do can i do a hopefully brief sidebar here just

Merlinto reiterate something I think is important. So I've been saying this for a pretty long time, because I do hoover up a fair amount of information every day about this stuff. It's not necessarily the healthiest thing for my emotions or mentality, but I do try to follow what's going on. And I'm just here to say, even in the best of cases, there's so much confused and confusing messaging going on. You can address this at any level. You can start at the very top with how all Mike Pence has been saying for two months is how important it is to socially distance

and wear a mask and stuff. And then he mostly doesn't. He's wearing one today for the first time in months and months. Or just not often, right? So there's that kind of mixed messaging. There's also this mixed messaging of what it is. The one that really gets me is the, what are we trying to accomplish with social distancing? And have we communicated that well to people? And I don't think that has been communicated well. Let's go to another level. Now let's try and do this coastline of Scotland problem of like when it's safe to do anything anywhere. And it's so fucking different from every single place to every single place. Inside of, I mean, obviously in a state,

it's gonna make a huge difference. The ability to open up Atlanta is very different from the ability to open up Valdosta. Like there's such different places with such different, you know, what's the word, like threat matrix. Anyway, it's just, I think this is why, what I'm trying to get at is, at least the folks I know, we're all trying really hard to do well model well and to actually, let's be honest, perform a little bit of theater. Like I'm wearing this mask. I don't know if it's going to make a difference, but I'm going to wear this because I want you to see more people wearing a mask, right? And so with that, though, certainly comes a certain

amount of things that Scott Simpson once had this great quote about how he's the only good parent in the world. Everybody else is either way too strict or way too lax at a given time. And I think it's the same way with the social distancing stuff where we're like, oh, that jogger's out there and doesn't have a mask on. Well, you know what? It's okay to exercise without a mask, especially if you're socially distanced. The thing that people want more than anything right now is certainty. Certainty about what's happening and where this is going to go. And you know what? There's no fucking certainty. And I think that makes us feel a little guilty about admitting

we do stuff like go to the grocery store. So what do they say today? They say, don't go in pairs to the grocery store. Definitely don't go in threes to the grocery store. Have a grocery store person. Will that be the advice everywhere forever? I don't think so. People are exhausted from having to, I mean, this is known. People are really fucking exhausted with having to think about all this stuff. And I think the only sport they have at this point is looking down their nose at other people. It's not a lot of exercise. There's definitely no cardio. But looking down your nose is a great American tradition.

I hope we get to a point where it's okay to admit that we went outside today. Because you really are supposed to go outside a little bit. I absolve you. Domini, Domini. Now I drink the rest of the cup.

AlexIt's not about breaking rules or making myself feel better or even like being afraid of getting sick. It's just, I don't know. Like I realized my theater of staying inside isn't theater because no one's seeing it. But also it's-

MerlinBut the corollary of them seeing you outside

Alexmake me feel like oh no i promise i'm being good right yeah yeah well and and i when i go outside

Maxi have a mask there's a whole category of dilemmas in in this world where it's like in general i don't want people doing this but really it would be okay if you did it because you're just more confident and more careful than and more intentional than most people like i i you know you don't want to say to people like it would have like a problem it would create problems if you said to like all americans like hey go ahead and go outside and go for walks and stuff a lot of people they

frankly can't handle that amount of responsibility even our listeners probably they'd fumble it up and they'd have the mask not covering their nose and fucking spraying their germs everywhere like animals but alex i know you would be fine you and maddie would like take the appropriate precautions and stay away from people and be responsible. That's all it comes down to.

AlexOh, he goes on walks every day and he does most of the show.

MaxWell, you know if Maddie's going on walks and you live with Maddie, then you're exposed to whatever he is.

AlexOh, 100%.

MaxSo go on the walk. You're already going on the walk. You're going on the walk whether you go on the walk or not. So go on the walk.

MerlinGo on the walk.

AlexDon't you get anxious when you go outside though?

MaxNo, if you're in the forest and you can't see other people, then I am not anxious.

MerlinIt's a lot like racist humor. I don't trust it to that many people because, first of all, when most people do racist humor, it's not very subtle. And they don't really understand how to do it. And I also don't want to model the idea that we should all be doing racist humor. So we leave behind some very strong racist material a lot of the time because we wouldn't want to model that this is something we want everybody to be doing. What I'm saying, Alex, is I trust you with racist humor.

AlexThank you. And walks. Thank you. Well, okay, so let's all pat ourselves on the back for sort of being prepared for this pandemic. Like all three of us were a bit neurotic and we were like, oh, we're pretty ready for this. And I keep thinking, okay, what is the next step to prepare for the next six months going into also winter when we're going to see a spike?

MaxStockpile seeds and ammunition.

AlexNo, no. Well, who says I haven't done that already?

MaxOh, now we're talking. After show.

MerlinYou're allowed to have guns? I think your landlord wouldn't want you to have guns.

AlexBut God, who knows? He lives in the suburbs, I think, though. So what if in three months it is, okay, seriously, martial law, nobody goes outside. I am prepared for that. I sent you a screenshot of my sleep of the past week. And you know, it hasn't been that bad. Mostly seven hours of sleep, except Saturday.

MerlinThis seems like a lot of sleep for you, Alex. This is great.

AlexYes, yes, it is. But Saturday, zero. I was up for 48. I can't do the math right now.

MerlinYou pulled an all-nighter?

AlexOh, yeah. Usually when it's now, it's either I get a decent amount of sleep or I just don't sleep the entire night. And I don't know what it is, but there seems to be a correlation with me thinking about leaving the house and thinking about doing things outside and then just not sleeping. And I mean, I don't know.

MerlinWell, that's so interesting. You get anxiety about the idea of, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to trigger you, but you get anxiety about the idea of leaving the house?

AlexYeah. Oh, yeah, totally. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's not quite, again, it's not quite fear. It's just a.

MaxIs it like a rational, is it like a specific, are you worried about getting sick or?

AlexNo, I mean, I'm enjoying not being sick and not getting sinus infections just because I'm not around people and it's great to not have sinus infections. This is, I think, the first year in like my entire life that I haven't gotten one. I'm maxed now. I'm talking about stuff I talked about last week. But I, there are so few things that I can control in my life and not just physical health, but like mental health is a real issue for me. And being able to be sort of in this stable state of like, OK, I can I can choose to stay inside.

And I know that if I whatever, if I get sick from Maddie because he's, you know, at the grocery store, whatever. But like, I don't know. What if I become that person who doesn't have that self-control and I'm outside and like I don't get to choose whether or not I have hallucinations, which is a thing that doesn't happen very often anymore because I try to take very good care of my mental health. But like what what happens if I leave the house and then I'm like, well, fuck, I need to do this now every single day or or even worse.

I get this delusion of, oh, it's fine. Everything's fine out here. Like I'm afraid of losing even more agency. Does that make any sort of sense?

MerlinYeah. I mean, it's so funny. We watched, my kid is kind of obsessed with District 9 right now, which is such a good movie. But it's a very upsetting movie. And I said, you know, there's a name for the genre. It's called body horror. And I mean, it's not solely a body horror movie. But I would say this is, you know, except for some fairly extreme examples. Like this is the first like actual sort of like body horror movie she's seen. And so we talked about The Fly and we talked about all these different things. And I wonder, I mean, I'm not a student of this, but I feel like a big part of body horror is about, well, it's about something as personal and physical as your own body being something that you unquestionably no longer control.

And that in a lot of cases is very much working against you, right? When you say that's kind of a body horror theme, is that too obvious? But like, it's about losing integrity. It's about losing the integrity of being able to control your physical and certainly eventually mental and emotional world. I'm not saying that's what you're doing here, but it sounds like it is a fear of loss of control that you are addressing here. It doesn't sound like strict agoraphobia. There's only one person we're going to long distance diagnose and it's not you.

What is it? Can you isolate what the thing is that you're – is it a loss of control, a fear of –

AlexOh, yeah. It's a fear of control of my mental state because that's something I worked really hard to achieve. Like a lot of different cocktails and like, you know, a decade of my life working to figure out how to, you know, have control over that. And thank God, like, I still have insurance because I like a couple weeks without medication. I am who probably homeless and like eating bats, bat soup.

And God, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Irony. But but also in the game, I'm also kind of three weeks behind everybody. Because right before like the big shelter in place and lockdowns happened in Chicago, Matt had surgery. So I was taking care of him for a couple of weeks. And so I wouldn't have been I wouldn't leave the house anyway. And I was ready for that.

And it was actually Mother's Sunday. Yes. Mother's Day. I watched the entirety of the series Working Moms on Netflix. I recommend it to everybody. it's delightful, it's a Canadian comedy about moms and that was the first time I just like cried real hard about the world, which isn't something I've done in a while and it felt good because I'm like alright, I know exactly why this is happening

I was hashtag triggered by this show and I'm thinking about not being with my family and it's like, alright there was a rational reason to feel that way. And while it's not like I have control over that, at least I know why that happened. Whereas when your mind, like you said, when your brain is often working against you, it's hard to have those moments of self-realization

of like, yes, this is why I'm anxious. This is why I don't want to go outside.

MerlinWell, I feel like one doesn't have much distance from that, any kind of like metaphysical or emotional distance from that. And like when that's the problem with anxiety is it's very, I've said before, it's like trying to pick up the tweezers with the tweezers. Like when you're, when you're having an anxious period, you are just, I am very much just in a protective, like lockdown. This feeling needs to go away kind of thing, which is not actually the most intelligent way to face it. But that's the truth. It's like, please don't let this get any worse. I already can't handle this.

Please don't let it get any worse.

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinYou know what I mean? And like, it becomes like you, but like you, now you're, I get so far into that and create such a knot for myself that there really isn't a way out. And like now all the systems, now it's my own. I am causing the body horror on myself because now my heart is beating faster. My breathing is weird. I'm checking my oximeter to make sure I'm not dying. And like, I'm doing all those things. And, um, it's not probably the best solution, but it feels you go into a kind of survival mode where like you do not have the distance to say, oh, we'll laugh about this someday.

Maxfor me i didn't do a yoga class but i did stretch more in the shower i did a lot of

Alexyour shower is big enough for stretching i oh yeah all right oh yeah i fucking designed that

Merlini fucking designed that bathroom you got and you got that big fred flintstone bathtub yeah i mean

Alexyou got a lot of room to really stretch out can you that's where i'm at can you touch your hands to the floor. Oh, yeah. Ah! Merlin?

MerlinGiven the rules as stated, I can totally do that. Okay, alright.

AlexAlright. Alright. Fine.

MerlinI'm doing it. I'm doing it now. Whoa, this is easy.

186. That Particular Karen

Show notes

Transcript

186. That Particular Karen

Show notes

Transcript

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