188. Benjamin Harrison Enthusiast

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

Speaker AOh, it's it's happening. It's on. There's audio connecting. Oh, this looks really promising.

MerlinCan we do this every day? Do you think we could do this every day? Would that be inconvenient? Just like for an hour every day. Can we do this?

Speaker AIt's a good start to the morning.

MerlinYeah, yeah, you know, for pep.

Speaker AIn my kids, yeah, at a different time. Oh, there we go. Is that the real outdoors?

MaxNo, I have plants. It's my office plants.

MerlinOh, you're down in your little clown dungeon? Sorry, your magic castle? What do you call it? Yeah. Alexandra, this is Max.

Speaker AHi, Max.

MerlinHello. Okay, well, I think we're good. Let's wrap it up.

Speaker AWell, good, yeah. Great show. We established a natural rapport.

MaxI have to put a cable from one place into another place. No, no, it's fine. He's not on the couch. What's going on?

AlexI know. I thought he moved to the couch. Okay.

MerlinThat's better. All right. Hi. Hello, everybody. So we've had time to burn it off. This is the thing. Alexander's agreed to do this every day now. So that's cool. Wow, look at that haircut.

AlexThis is the second time I've done this, too. I just have worn hats. It's very warm in Chicago. I don't know.

MaxI'm a week or two. I'm a week or two out from doing that, Alex. I'm not going to get my hair cut.

AlexI mean, I think I'm kind of stealing valor at this point. But oh, well, I'm not going. I hope no Republican is going to break into my house and throw medals at me.

Speaker BYou look like a troop.

AlexI know.

Speaker BI can't unsee it.

AlexI know. That's why I don't say it.

MerlinWhere'd you serve?

AlexHow about you?

MerlinMe?

AlexInfantry? Yeah.

MerlinOh, I was in Frapdang and Timbong.

AlexStarpoint 86. Yeah.

MerlinOh, yeah. Oh, comrades in arms. To 2221. I'm weird.

Speaker AThe trick is just ask them a lot of personal questions. Because people love to be asked about themselves. You were completely right. It's just like, yeah. No, but it's not important where I served. What's important is where you served.

MerlinYou don't deserve that AARP card, sir.

MaxThat's like journalism jujitsu. No.

MerlinLike use their strength against them, like judo.

MaxYeah, you use the question against them. Yeah. Alex, you look like one of those Democrats that runs for office where you were like, I was a helicopter pilot in Iraq, and now I support reasonable tax reforms and education vouchers. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Ramp Frampton.

MerlinMy desk is made out of the door from the helicopter that I was shot at. I want to be your voice for Missouri.

Speaker AIt's those subtle touches that really...

MerlinThose are little things. Hey, let's introduce our guest. We have a guest this week, which is Alexandra Petrai, who is an award-winning columnist for the Washington Post, a personal hero of mine. And Alexandra has a book coming out on Tuesday from W.W. Norton called Nothing is Wrong, and Here is Why. Alexandra Petrai.

Speaker AHello.

MerlinYou bet I pre-ordered that book.

MaxI've had that book pre-ordered for quite a while.

Speaker AOh, apparently it just started arriving at people's houses, even though it's not out for another week. Oh.

MaxOh, I got cocked. I got a Kindle. I got it on Amazon. So I feel like that's like, I feel like it's good that I supported your book, but bad that I got it on Amazon. So it's sort of a neutral, it's sort of a neutral act.

AlexWell, you did probably order it before we all knew Bookshop existed, which is what I did and then canceled my order and switched. And I've noticed, oh man, all my pre-orders.

MerlinOh, are you still using Bookshop? You haven't heard? Bookshop is canceled. You haven't heard?

Speaker AIs it? I'm terrified that it will be because it just arose so suddenly and was like, this is what I always wanted to have happen is supporting. I get to help.

AlexI get to help.

Speaker AWith great ease and convenience. So I'm just like, there's going to be a dropping shoe and it's going to be like, it's actually just one terrible man named like Gregor and he's just done it all.

Maxdo you guys remember when all the restaurants were closing and then there was that big thing on social media of like find your local restaurant and buy gift cards to support them like get gift cards so that you can like to give them money when they owe like there were like i don't know Like, first of all, I know restaurateurs who went all in on that and they just sold so many gift cards.

But then, like, it's just so ill-advised for a lot of reasons. It's a really bad idea. Like, the laws around... Do you guys know about this?

MerlinLike, I know California has pretty stringent laws about honoring a gift card forever, forever.

MaxYep. It's a substantial turns out. So, basically, if you sell a gift card, there's, like, special tax reporting requirements. And you have to pay the tax on it and then keep the money in, like, an escrow account. and you're not allowed to spend it. It's like a disaster. And it's like, yeah, it's like compounded the financial woes of all of the like sort of chef owned restaurants that did that.

MerlinThat alongside the PPP that nobody's going to be able to repay.

Speaker AI mean, oh, wow. So it's like an added form of debt instead of like, yeah, it's a really bad.

MaxIt's like, it's not good to buy. And also like restaurant, I mean, and also just to, and also then there's just the obvious thing of like restaurants aren't gift card businesses. Like they're, it's hospice, like just get food from them or don't. I don't know. It's too good to be true. It's like bookshop. I like anything that makes me feel good about buying things.

Speaker AAnd if it's pink. I feel like when I still get emails being like, hey, you want to buy some clothes to go outdoors in? And I'm like, bold of you to assume that I will ever be appearing before people.

MerlinAlexandra, I am reliably informed by advertisements on MSNBC that there has literally never been a better time to buy a car.

Speaker AI keep hearing that.

MerlinA new car. Don't get one of those Hertz cars. That's damaged goods. But I would love to find out what I need to do today to put you into a new automobile.

MaxTouch-free delivery? When Veronica and I were watching the live Survivor episodes, did you guys watch that in real time? Yeah. And I haven't seen real TV commercials in quite a while. And this is like some super hyper-normalization hours TV commercial time. because they're all like, it's all like Chrysler has always been there for you and your family. And now you should be there for Chrysler and buy a car with 0% APR financing until President's Day.

It's like, it's very weird. And there's like wispy piano music playing. It was really upsetting stuff.

MerlinThey pivot, but they started out with, they started out as, well, first of all, there was the whole like light of a dying sun problem where like ads were running where you were like, you've got to be kidding me. it's so important that you take this ad down right now. It would be like United, you know, having, you know, an infomercial on 9-11. Like, this is really not the time for this. And then it became, I feel like then it became like,

Speaker Bright now, in these challenging times, America is struggling, but we'll get through this together and we're here for you. And then it was Grubhub, together we'll save restaurants.

MerlinAnd I bet Max has some things to say about Grubhub. but now it's like now they're like oh fuck we really do need to sell something please please buy but it is so fantastical to see any ad there was one on survivor where i just i'm so triggered at this point by people who are sitting near each other and there's one where a little lady's on a plane maybe it's ask your doctor about trivanna or whatever but you're like this is it's so tone

Speaker Adeaf right now no i actually i'm wrong like 100 of the time when i try to guess what the ad is for when the music is playing and you're like, we've always been there. We can't touch one another now. And then it's like Little Caesars and you're like, oh, wow. That's a real turn.

Speaker BExtra meat for a dollar. We've been avoiding the noise for over a decade. Our usurious charges are ruining a lot of the places you used to love. Two pizzas for three dollars.

Speaker ANo one involved in this pizza ate 29 of them in the course of a month. That's all we can say about it.

Speaker BWhat do you what the fuck should we do with all of this shredded cheese now more than ever?

Speaker ANo, but they had one that was just like a new mask with the properties of copper. It was like one of those basically sort of like my pillow like aesthetic, but this is great. Like even the grandparents who keep buying gold for no reason are being sold masks as like an ad scene on TV.

Alexonly now with the properties of copper.

Speaker AAnd I'm like, wow, I don't know what the properties of copper are benefiting you in this scenario, but I love that those people also think you should be selling masks.

Speaker BCopper was originally created as a way to fix the wrist of Arnold Palmer in these troubled times. Let your mask speak for you and America, and we'll see you out there soon.

MaxI had a really good coronavirus experience this morning, So I like wake up and then you're sort of in your, in a, in a, in a fog. And I like immediately reach for my phone. You guys do probably start doing this, right? You reach for your phone and you open and I'll look at like Apple news. Cause that's for me is like, if there's a catastrophe, like that, they'll probably have it as the first thing or just something that's going to like, I don't know if I'm going to die, it'll be the headline on Apple news. And I looked on and I, but Apple news also has like crazy curation. Like they put weird stuff on Apple news.

And one of the top stories was length of middle finger correlated with risk of death for coronavirus. And then they had like a graphic and you were hold your hand up and you could see if your middle finger was long enough to correlate with coronavirus.

Speaker AAnd then it slapped you in the face. Yeah, exactly.

MerlinI don't even remember the joke. All I know is I end up getting my nose hurt. Look at your fingernails. You can gauge your sexual preference by the way you look at your fingernails. Yeah, look at that. You're a lady. You're a lady.

MaxIf your middle finger is longer than your third finger, then you're more likely to die of coronavirus. Or less. I can't remember.

Speaker ABut aren't they the same?

MerlinIt depends where you start counting, I guess. Yeah.

MaxDo you measure from the base? I start at the taint. Yeah. It has to do with something with testosterone. Oh.

AlexAlways start from the balls, otherwise it doesn't count.

MerlinYou got to start from the balls or it doesn't count. Yeah, in these troubled times. I think I'm about nine hands tall. If I was a horse, I'd be about nine hands tall.

Speaker AA king's arm, yeah.

MerlinA king's arm.

Speaker AI'm trying to really make that happen again as a unit of measurement.

MerlinIs that like a cubit?

Speaker AYeah, it's basically a cubit, yeah.

MerlinSo, this is not, I am not, this is not, what would that be? Or is a cubit a hand? No, well, a cubit, I thought it was elbow. Max, Max, you know about measurements. What's a cubit?

MaxBeats me. You know about arcs? I probably, it was probably one of those things I had to learn that in Hebrew school, I think. What is a cubit? What is a cubit? Let's learn about cubits.

Speaker AYeah.

MaxI'm with you, Alexander. So you're saying instead of having some... It's equal to the length of a forearm. It's a king's arm. A cubit is a king's arm. It's equal to the length of a forearm. This is a cubit.

MerlinSo instead of having some globalist one gram unit that's sitting under a bell jar in France, let's pay some honor to the man. It would change a lot. But didn't that happen with the space shuttle where they messed up? Alexander, isn't there a famous... Sorry, Alex Cox. Isn't there a famous story about them messing up a spec for something on the space shuttle where one group had it in metric and the other had it

Aleximperial or something i are are we talking about this the challenger the sad uh rubber band story or i don't know i don't know why you think i know about spaceships you seem like a space person but yeah with that haircut i do and i'm really not

Merlinyou seem like a space nut have you thought about have you thought about becoming a nut have you thought about becoming like a civil war buff or maybe like a like a pop science like a turns out person you think you'd enjoy that like a shunker vidanian would you like to become a turns out

Alexperson what would you what do you aspire to be yeah i'm but well there's also different genres of turns out people now there's like a merlin man turns out where it's like you know how you should completely clean out your inbox that i definitely said exactly that 10 years ago well actually and then there's a malcolm gladwell like hmm and then there's me i guess which is like an imperial furiosa slash teenage military boy type of look where i'm like

Merlinyou know you're more of a metric you're a metric furiosa

Speaker Acorner the market on like something where it's nobody knows about it but it's easy to know about which i think are the two things because usually nobody knows about things because they're difficult to know about so i tried to become a benjamin harrison expert for this very purpose and i appeared in a documentary about him but the trouble is like there's not a lot to know about him but i still don't fully know most of it so they have like one line i like got really into this i got like a custom uh windbreaker with benjamin harrison on it and i asked to be

credited as a benjamin harrison enthusiast and i appear for like two lines and i'm like yeah he was married and that's it that's all that i say um and but i have two things that i think facts that I know about him, one of which is that he was the 23rd president. Actually, three facts, three facts. Oh, he was 23rd president. You're really quite an enthusiast. His family was worried about him. And he was called the pious moonlight dude when he went courting. And that's it. Oh, and he had two pedicons, Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection. Okay, that's enough Benjamin Harrison

Merlinfacts. But yeah. I didn't know any of those things. So that's the log line. Now, he's different from

Maxwilliam henry harrison wait you didn't know he was the president i believe i believe benjamin

Alexharrison is the only president from indiana he is because we go to indianapolis for for a gaming

Maxconvention every year and there's there's a unusual gen con yeah and there's an unusual amount of benjamin harrison's sort of plaques and memorabilia so i've sort of extrapolated from that but he's got to be the only if they had a better president then you'd see more of that true no he didn't like

Speaker Ato be called the president. He'd like to be called the general. My aunt is obsessed with him. So we went to his gravestone and visited his house. They have an impersonator. They really go all out for Benjamin Harrison. You can 3D print his image in plastic because they have a free template online. The Benjamin Harrison historical site is really trying to make inroads to

Alexthe future. Good for them. Oh my gosh.

MaxI mean, if you're going to do it, why not lean

Speaker Ainto it? Really? What did he do

Maxduring his presidency?

Speaker AThe Sherman Antitrust Act, I think, passed during him, but I could be wrong about it. And he did a lot of the stuff with National Park that Teddy Roosevelt gets credit for.

MerlinOh! Teddy stole valor in that case.

Speaker AAnd he gave some lectures about how women might get the vote soon, so here's some stuff they should know about civic duty. I think.

AlexHe was the reply guy of, like, a teammate. But he was, like, trying to help, but yeah, he was.

MerlinHe Harrison-splained?

Alexthat guy's always doing that this is how you punch the card you know what i mean i i think we all could use a little bit of that now like this is how you put on the stamp this is the voter fraud that's gonna happen right oh yeah alexandra you you seem to not live a lot of your life on twitter but you are very good on Twitter. And there was the wonderful COVID. Oh no. What was it?

A COVID thing or a vote thing that Twitter called Trump out?

Speaker AOh yeah. It was the voting thing. He's like, it had like the mods spoke for the first time.

MaxYeah. Somebody, somebody, somebody called the lifeguard.

Speaker AIf you were just like a normal person on the, like on a forum where people were like, I modified this recipe and it didn't work out. for me like just think how much the mods would be fed up with him by now they just be like oh this guy again like yeah can't believe and so it's weird that like this is the first time and not like oh uh you know come and let's remember our second amendment folks i hope they show up at this event

Maxand uh are he accused uh joe scarborough of like murdering an intern last week like

Speaker Athat's just a thing that you're like i like how everyone's just like no this is just a thing the president does now this is really the whistle yeah there there i thought i mean i went and saw it

Maxbecause everyone was it created such an uproar and then i went and looked and it's like they marked his account they had a little icon it was like a little emoji and then it was like it was a little exclamation point and then a somewhat ambiguous yeah right it was like he was like i don't remember the tweet but it was like we can't do mail-in voting because it's like insecure and then twitter put a little emoji below it and it was like click here to learn more about mail-in voting and then I clicked on it and it brought you to a Twitter moments about like just random idiots comments. Including Ronna McDaniel in there.

It basically takes you to a Twitter moments of people talking about mail-in voting. You had like the Trump sort of verified Trump repliers the like dear sirs. And then you had the weird cultist Trump people

MerlinOh, you get the release your taxes, orange Cheeto people? Uh-huh.

MaxIt was wild. And the idea that then Trump took that and was like, they're censoring my free speech. Damn. That was the most tepid.

MerlinThis is absolutely no one did well in this. There's not a single person who did well in this. No. Every part of it sucks. It all sucks. But, you know, it's weird how, like, you know, on this program, Alexandra, we got a little bleak, like, a pretty long time ago. So we're not in the habit of saying we've got him this time. We don't do that. But I do feel like in the last week or so, just on the Twitter front, I think he's escalating his way he is a little bit.

I think his Twitter is actually getting crazier. I think it's getting a little bit crazier.

MaxEven if he is escalating, people love that shit. Everyone still takes the bait every time. It completely hijacks the national conversation. It's a very successful strategy. I think we'll probably ride that out until Election Day, and then he'll get reelected. That's my guess.

Speaker AI mean, he's been escalating ever since he first got there at Trump Tower and rode down as an escalator.

MerlinThey send rapists. Oh, boy. It's never going to end, is it?

AlexHamanka 2024. Can't see enough of that on Twitter.

MerlinHey, why are we mad? Why are we mad at Oscar Isaacs about his Joe hat? Why are we mad about that? Max, do you have a hot take on this?

MaxI don't know who you're talking about. Okay, good for you.

AlexOh.

MaxI'm trying to be less online, but I would love to know about this.

MerlinAlexander Petrae, do you have any insight on why we're mad at the Joe hat?

Speaker AOscar Isaac is a lovely, talented, and attractive individual, but I don't know what the controversy is.

MerlinWow, must be nice. Talk about privilege. Must be nice to be able to tune out to hats. Oscar Isaac was walking around being a fucking human being, and he had a hat on with the word Joe on it. And I went to the Twitter moment, and of course, the first thing I'm going to see in the Twitter moment is, oh my God, I thought a hat died, or whatever. You always say, oh, my God. Oh, my God. The element hydrogen is trending. I must have died. Anyway, so you go in there. Oscar Isaac's got a Joe hat, and everybody's mad.

Everybody's mad, and it's all just Black Lady reaction gifs all the way down. And I think, so I was like, but who's he supposed to support right now? Max, this is why I want your hot take. Who should Oscar Isaac?

Speaker ALike, was it an Arpaio hat? Because then I can see it.

MerlinOh, love that guy.

Speaker AI don't know

MaxI would recommend that people stop paying attention to politics and learn magic tricks that's been my that's the voice we needed today going well for me I'll probably vote oh well okay I'm leaning towards it oh you're back to leaning toward it that's good to hear we'll see how busy I am we'll see what happens alright let's start the show

MerlinAlexander, tell us about your can I ask about your book? what even is going on with your book?

Speaker Ait's coming out in a week although apparently it's arrived in the mail already and it's it's sort of like I keep joking to people that it's like do you hate being stuck in the fire? Hop into the frying pan. Remember the past four years? I thought they were pretty bad, but it turns out they were pretty bad, but also even more so now.

MerlinWhy do you think it is that broken people like us keep pressing that bruise? What is it that we find in contemporary satire or reading against the grain? What does that mean for you as a writer and for your readers? What brought us to where we are? Why are we like this?

Speaker AOh, man, those are like song lyrics, though. I like that. It's like broken people pressing against the bruise, like reading against the grain. I'm like, I want to get a guitar out and learn how to play it and then also set these to music. But I think part of it is just like the only way of describing what's going on now in a way that feels at all close to getting to what's happening is if you're pointing out constantly that it's completely absurd, but also not super funny. And that, I don't know, sometimes when you're just writing a straight news story,

it's hard to do that because you wind up quoting the president like the president said something, and it sounds like maybe a sentence that a person would say, which it never is actually.

MerlinAnd they correct the grammar and the punctuation, and they take out all the bananas. So it's completely free of context, and they just quote it as something that's like a normal thing a person would say.

Speaker ANo, and I don't know, you wind up, sometimes I think, an actual more accurate representation of it, instead of just like the straightforward account with your inverted pyramid is to be like, no, this is a nightmare fairy tale, sci fi horror. It's a weird genre confabulation. I don't know what's going on. Except that this happening in real life. So I don't know, it's like, or maybe people just like to have somebody yelling along at the news with them.

Maxdo you do you think that that this era has been um like this is something i i like to i ask anyone who's like or i'm interested to get people's thoughts who like have to be funny for a living like is this a good era for comedy and a good era for like political satire like i have a hard time because like like we're in it but it doesn't like we're struggling yeah it i don't think it is i

Speaker Aactually think it's like the opposite because a the things are all really happening i i always sort of get back to everything is absurd but nothing is funny it's like if there weren't people inside all of this stuff that's happening who are like having to suffer the actual consequences of all of this stuff you could be like oh wow it's funny that anyone would say that but it's like you know the all the babies being pushed down uh flights of stairs are real babies so it's not it's like it's hard to laugh at that if you're an ordinary compassionate human being so it's

you have to try to figure out like is there some way of making a joke that doesn't laugh at the people who are being severely hurt and it's that's incredibly difficult always to be like like this is ridiculous but it has consequences so i think it just it's a bad time to be alive full stop but

Maxit's also a bad time to be making jokes p uh peter sagel from uh wait wait don't tell me has a great theory he has one of my favorite theories about this which is he's like so normally when you satirize someone you try to take something that's absurd about their character and then you exaggerate it to an unrealistic degree so like bill bill clinton right he's like you make him like extra extra like horny and extra like smooth and he becomes this like farcical figure like what would you take from how could you make trump bigger than what it is like there's nothing to exaggerate

Speaker Alike he already is a projection that is bigger than what he is like everything that he is is

Maxthis like reality tv image and anything you throw at him it he absorbs it he's like the expanding man and he just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and every whatever people come up with any sort of insult or anything it's like he the man has no dignity so it's somehow it just all you could succeed in is like bringing yourself down to his level and he's very comfortable there i don't know

Speaker Ait's a weird it sucks yeah i do think you're right it's like i always i was always reading war and peace because i'm like i don't have any child care responsibilities and therefore i'm like maybe if i read it things will end they said you should read war and peace and everyone just spent the entire book talking about napoleon but like napoleon i realize the analogy is not quite correct but everyone's like is there every century there's just one person who's sort of a void in himself and is maybe good at one or two things like getting media coverage or military tactics

and everyone just spent their entire lives writing novel after novel and thinking and thinking and there's like all we can do is talk about this guy because I can't figure him out and like you look back in the 19th century there's just reams and reams and reams of writing about this guy and I wonder if we're sort of in a similar stratum like that or am I just so desperate to tell people that I've read War and Peace that I've created this really inapt analogy could it

Merlinalso be that oh is that your uh first time first time reading oh oh i mean no no i wouldn't i wouldn't i skipped i skipped all the wailing chapters in moby dick i'm the worst no they're the best chapters chapter 94 a squeeze of the hand says the person who summarizes books i feel like the thing the thing that we've been saying i think all along on here or at least i feel like i have um trump and twitter twitter and trump it's like no matter where i go um for the longest time, it was all Twitter and all Trump. And part of that is that I used to really like

Twitter. But there's something about the combination of Twitter and Trump where they're turning into this, as you say, Max, like growing rat king. And they get more and more intertwined. What was the headline yesterday? Exactly what Alexander said. There's an exclamation point and a line here, Twitter and Trump, Trump and Twitter. And it's like, it's making me insane. And Max, how are you doing with staying off Twitter? Is that still going well?

Maxi'm i'm reading i'm reading twitter much less per day which i can like see in my screen time like i'm i'm trying to make it not the thing i do when i don't know what else to do like you know it's like the the spackle of your day where you just like have a minute and then you go on twitter and see what people are mad about i'm trying but no i'm not like here's one of the one of the issues is like where else are you supposed to go to find out what that fuck is going on like it's sort of eaten it's sort of eaten all of the other news i mean yeah it's just it's a bad it's in in

addition to all the other problems in the world like i think it's a pretty rough time for news there's like too much information and not enough information at the same time no i think also like

Speaker Alocal news is really suffering and that's one of the most crucial areas of news that you can possibly have because it tells you like how do you be a citizen and like are the businesses taking advantage of your community and all of that kind of like accountability journalism and everything's

Maxsort of getting hollowed out. The only way for me to know what's happening in my neighborhood is like sort of random neighborhood busybodies who have Twitter accounts who like post about the business of what's going on in our neighborhood or in Chicago. And some of them are anonymous as well that they have like, you know, like, you know, like Chicago bars or something like that. And it's just like some dude who just like put and you're like, I don't know, I have no idea who this dude is or what his sources are. But it's like, there's there is no like, like every single local neighborhood level

reporting thing in Chicago has just been decimated, laid off, cut, so it's very hard to... Yeah, the one that I always want is, why is there a helicopter over my house right now?

And where do you... Sometimes there's a helicopter over your house, and you're like, what the hell is going on?

MerlinThere's a really good... I mean, this one might help you with your helicopter. There's a really cool... I'm sorry I brought us down to this level. Siri Shortcut, where you can talk to your dingus and you say, hey, dingus, what's overhead? And it'll look for the closest airplane or maybe other aircraft. You should try it out, though. It'd be fun. You can

Speaker Asee what's flying over your house. I'm not sure I like that, but that's kind of cool.

MaxYeah, I don't know. There was one I went to look up the other day. I was out walking in the neighborhood and I heard a loud explosion, much bigger than a firework. And I thought maybe it It was like a building demolition or a car crash or something. And so I went on local Twitter because that's where, like, how, isn't it weird that, like, where else would you possibly go to be like?

MerlinDo you not have next, I'm sorry, you don't have Nextdoor?

MaxI mean, which is the worst? I can't. I know. I stopped. No, I won't do it. No. Twitter is better. Twitter is less bad than Nextdoor.

MerlinEven during COVID, it's still, it's still, I think every, it's Anna Karenina. Like, everybody's going to have the worst Nextdoor for their own reasons. So, like, for us, yeah, it's still Coyotes. I saw a black it's still very obscure racism and someone stole my packages

MaxOn my next door it's not very obscure racism, people will literally post I saw a black man walking down the street They said no one was supposed to be in the area It's pretty upsetting, I won't look at it anymore So I went on Twitter to find out what exploded and Alex, it's that metal facility that's across the river from the office. And it exploded and they had to call a hazmat team. Yeah. And it's gone. It's shut down.

AlexOh my gosh.

MaxYeah. It's like an EPA disaster.

AlexIs that why our internet's down in the office? Jesus fucking Christ.

MaxNo, this was like a week ago. No, it's general. Look up General Iron Explosion. It was bad. There was dudes in the whole- General Iron. In the whole, you know, like Monsters, Inc. They went in. Oh my God.

MerlinAnd sprayed it. 2319. Hey, Alexander, before we started recording, I was being a fanboy and talking about how I enjoy your work. And I feel like, for me, you're up there with somebody, like I said, like Gia Tolentino or Isaac Chotner or certainly David Roth. Who's doing the writing that you enjoy and find compelling right now? on the topics, just in general, like who in the media, columnists, who's doing work, specifically writing,

that you enjoy right now?

Speaker AI mean, well, you just mentioned a couple of them. I always, although whenever I read, like, I think Chattner, I'm like, oh my gosh, someone's got to, like, never.

MerlinHearing his name, my heart starts beating. He's like the guy in Inglourious Bastards, where I'm like, I just don't ever want to run into this myth.

AlexOh my God, yes. Oh no. Wait for the crème. i don't like that i'm gonna think about that every time now god that's a bingo so yeah

Speaker Asorry i totally totally um geo for sure i always love like uh tapping producer actors like profiles of people i'm always like what's this is gonna be a journey no matter what and i'm gonna feel compassion and i'm gonna like look at things in a new way um i love katie weaver i think she's crushing it um i also like there's people in the post that I'm like really into just because I'm like, yeah, home team. Like, yeah, Monica Hess, Maura Jidkis, like represent, Ben Terris, Dan Zak. I'm just naming the style section now.

MerlinBut also sometimes Philip Bump will come in there to provide some context and a graphic that helps me explain something pretty well. Sometimes I think he or his editors or somebody has a good ear for, that's the guy I'm thinking of, right? Yeah. He'll like sometimes just drop in with this thing to provide context for something. And I need so much of that right now. and I feel like they have a good ear for knowing when to hop in and give context.

Speaker AI also really love reading criticism and I really miss Roger Ebert. I'm like where did he go because I would always know whenever I knew what I thought about something I would always want to see what he thought about it and I'm like this is sad but like Soraya McDonald fills that void a little bit. She's awesome and crushing it and I don't know for laughs I still subscribe to the Shatner Chatner from Daniel Lavery so that's

MerlinWhat is that called?

Speaker ASo it's like the remnants of the toast. So Daniel Lavery writes like a...

MerlinOh, yes, of course. What if phones put too much?

Speaker AI miss the toast so much. I miss the toast so much. Oh, man. I mean, it occupied a special place and nothing beautiful can stay, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, I really appreciated everything that it did and I'm glad to have had it. Yeah. Oh, I feel you.

MerlinSome of the great, like, sentences. Like, great pieces, but sometimes it's just a sentence you can't get out of your mind. Or like Ali Brosh.

Speaker ASpeaking of people that I'm like, I appreciate the time, like all of the, like clean, all the things. It feels like it should have existed in the world. And just like, it's just so perfect. I always, I'm like, every so often you go to Twitter and you Google search Ali Brosh. And I was like thinking of Ali Brosh, really appreciating all that Ali put out there. Like hope she's doing okay.

MerlinYeah. This is really random, but I kind of feel like this is, it was during COVID lockdown that I discovered Bon Appetit kitchen. And I, I, I kept hearing about it from my friends and I thought, Oh my God, I'm already such a normie dad. Like, I don't need another thing like that in my life. But I instantly imprinted on that show and those hosts. And, like, to quote the Big Lebowski, you know, sometimes there's a man. Sometimes, you know, there's a man of his time. The Bon Appetit Kitchen really filled a role I didn't know I needed in my life. That combination of those, oh, I have these new friends online now.

And they're each different. And they're like a super team. And the one lady, like, we just made her, the baking lady, we just made her like biscuits like her you know for jeez I'm sorry we just made her biscuits but like I love all these people and they're all different there's the guy that likes to pickle things and like that combination of like nerdy super group each got their own personality that I feel that way about Twitter we're like well it mostly all sucks except for my little friends who don't know me and I love them

and like I don't need them to know me and love me but I'm so glad they're there and every day I love to just go check in. Just David, like David Roth in particular, like just his taste in what to retweet, like what to say about it. Ashley Feinberg. I mean, Taylor Lawrence. There are people out there who like, any other moment, what would their job have been? Finding Sebastian Gorka's Amazon wishlist? Like who does that?

Speaker AYeah, that stroke of genius.

MerlinOh, so good.

Speaker AMan. No, the internet can be good sometimes, I guess.

MerlinYeah, that's all right. You're the guest. What a brave, bold stance.

AlexThank you for your service.

MerlinHappy Father's Day.

Maxthere is a there's not really a new uh uh roger ebert is there i was just i was thinking about like isn't it isn't it a good feeling when you sometimes i'll go watch a movie like an uh i will watch for the first time an older movie and then after it's done and i'm thinking about it, I will realize, ooh, there's probably

an Ebert review of this movie. There's Ebert of it. Yeah, exactly. And it's like, I can go get the correct opinion about this film. Like, forget what I think. Like, what's the right thing to think about it? Man, there isn't really, there's not really a new, like, criticism is not in the, in the, does not occupy the same place in our culture,

MerlinI guess. You know, he had a handful of famous takes that did not age well. They were kind of lame at the time and did not age well, but... Are we going to cancel Roger Ebert? Yeah, Roger No, but like, you know, his take on video games was a little bit silly, even by my standards. But pretty much, I mean, he was such, he had such an, again, such an eye, such an ear for recognizing something that needed to be written about. And that's such a gift that we don't even realize how few people have that really well. But just his, and of course, then all the way down to like his, you know, stuff like Fruit Cart and all the cliches in movies.

And like, I don't think, I think you're right, Max. I don't know who, I don't know who our Ebert is now.

Speaker AWell, it's funny. I feel like criticism is another thing that sort of suffered in the, like, journalism going away. It's like the sort of you used to have, like, oh, like, here's all kinds of people reviewing stuff. And now I'm like, I don't, where's the, there's so much content, but where's all the criticism? But maybe there's tons. Oh, Emily Nussbaum, she's also. Yeah.

MerlinAbsolutely. People are looking, I think people are often just looking for an advocate. They're looking for somebody, like, I mean, not to be Roger Ebert here, but like if mostly what's out there are the blockbusters that can get created the tentpole 10 movies a year for a studio or whatever. Like, I mean, what do you really, I think Avengers Endgame was okay. Like it was a good movie. It's a fun movie. It's cool. But like, I don't know, what do you have to say about that that's not ultimately about either the medium, qua medium, or on how fans act about it. Like, what is there to say?

Like, yeah, he looked good. That guy from No Country for Old Men was really good as the purple man. What do you say about it? Versus you look at a show, like a podcast I like a lot called The Watch, or even like the Jason Snell's podcast with Tim Goodman, which recently ended.

AlexTV good time.

MerlinTV talk machine. But it becomes about the medium or the way that the show Upgrade has become increasingly about, you know, streaming media. That's a more interesting conversation in some ways than how the purple

Alexman did in the movie. I think that's why a lot of critics are struggling because people react. They don't just react to media differently. They're consuming it in completely different ways. So the reaction is different based on like, I mean, I don't know if people who are watching Tiger King for the first time this moment are freaking out as much as we all did. Like how much of that is a zeitgeist thing and is are we just excited to watch something together again like because

game of thrones was a year ago so now we don't watch anything at the same time right and there's really like i i'm kind of going back through ebert's old stuff because i'm such a nerd but like he wrote an amazing thing about babe pig in the city too or babe too big and pig in the city See, I even butchered his headline.

MerlinWow, wow. Butchered?

AlexI'm so problematic. Too soon. And I mean, we were all in the movie theater watching, babe, Pick in the City. And it's, I mean, I don't know. I'm sure Emily Nussbaum is, I think she talked about this in her new book, like, at the end of it. But it's like we are at a time where we don't even know what media is we should critique. Like, are we going to talk about you, Alexandra, the story you wrote about Trump or the fact that Trump featured it or the White House featured it in a press release as news?

Like, wow, the onions are just there's just too much. And then your eyes start to water and you curl up into a little ball and hide under your desk.

Merlinthat's the lyrics that I want set that to music

AlexI just I found the amazing Ebert quote I liked babe for all the usual reasons but I like babe big in the city more and not for any of any of the usual reasons because here is a movie utterly bereft of usual reasons and like that's just so beautiful

Merlinis that that was George Miller right

Speaker Ayeah that's Furiosa yeah yeah Not Fast and Furiosa. Mad Max.

MerlinFast and Furiosa. Too Fast, Too Furiosa. Furiosa Drift.

Speaker AYeah, and he did Happy Feet. I love his filmography.

MerlinThey've just gotten up to Mad Max. So a podcast I like a lot, Blank Check, has been doing George Miller movies, and it's been just terrific. And you look at what that guy did, and just the boldness of him like, oh yeah, I want to do this movie. Basically, I made a comic book of what the movie is. It doesn't really have a script. something's going to happen act like you're looking at flames over here uh also there's these guys with poles and spiky cars oh and by the way toe cutter from the first man max movie he's back but now but now he's a man with some kind of problem and bottle caps and can you imagine

showing up for that or being like zoe kravitz and just being like uh okay where do i stand

Speaker Afire fire no i loved it i loved it so much that i saw it and then i just turned back around and went into the theater and saw it again like i really loved it i had the same experience might

MerlinWe were visiting with my wife's family, and so they were watching our daughter, who was really young at the time, and we had a date night. I was like, can we please? It was like July of that year. And I was like, can we please, please, please, please go see Mad Max Fury Road? Please, please, please, please, please. I was so pumped.

Speaker BAnd I just remember sitting there, you know, my world is blood and fire.

MerlinAnd then the cars come over from around behind you. And I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Like the entire movie. I like my head was pounding with excitement for that the experience of that watching it at home. It's really good. Speed Racer another one. Speed Racer at home is really better than everybody thinks movie. But seeing it in IMAX is like it's such a different experience to your point Alex like which experience are we talking about? Are we talking about a quibi about the lady with the arm?

Like what are we talking about? Like how do you even get at that? What's the handle for that suitcase?

AlexOr are we fighting about whether or not it's a feminist film and like all of those takes that just jumble on. Yeah. And I, yeah, I like I'm traveling back in time now to how excited I was about Fury Road. And I think I literally saw it twice in one day as well and then went to see the black and white version because, oh, my God, why? Of course, he's got this weird super cut. Hell yeah. and then you come out of it and it's you're responding to the media the consumption of

the media and then the takes on the consumption of the media and I'm not saying that that's bad but I don't know if Roger Ebert how he would have responded to that now like I wonder if he would have just kind of become kind of an old crank sort of like I like Matt Doherty a lot he seems like a very nice human but I don't think the sort of classic um I don't know that the classic like cinematic hot takes really exist like especially after um birth movies death is kind

of like petering out and stuff like that um but I I don't know so Ebert's like from he's from a

Merlindifferent time I mean the fact that he was a screenwriter like the fact well I mean okay he

Alexwrote a script.

MerlinBut I mean, he came from kind of an era where rock and roll had reached maturity and become important.

MaxI think there was two things. I think it used to be that not everyone could publish their opinion about something, and so the people who could publish their opinions, it was more special to read someone's opinion about something because you didn't just have this infinite stream of everyone's opinions about everything. That's become super commodified. the other thing is like it like to me i like criticism that's just about aesthetics like i like writers who are able to say like i like this and here's what this thing is trying to do and i

like it or i don't like it and i think a lot of what passes for criticism like social media criticism and people like getting into arguments about media is people want to have like an unassailable position they want to they want to like have this this fortress of opinion that they live in where it's like if it's not that like I have an aesthetic judgment and if you and you have an aesthetic judgment it's like mine is the morally correct position and if you don't agree with me we have like an ethical you know we don't see eye to eye like ethically that's just it's like no fun I mean maybe maybe it's right maybe it's the future maybe that's like how we're gonna

talk about you know I don't know like books and movies and stuff from now on but it's no fun it's

Alexnot as fun as talking about aesthetics i i mean there's that one blog that just reviews is it signs in films or uh typefaces i yeah fonts and yeah yeah good for pirates here

Merlinit's it's also interesting how like um it's so funny when you say something like you say twitter or you say youtube i wish i could rephrase that as my twitter my friends on twitter or my friends on YouTube. You know, my little friends. Because when you say YouTube and you just think of, you know, whatever, PewDiePie or whatever. But I think of somebody like Movies with Mikey where I really... Something that my friend John Syracuse introduced me to, which is like, he does a movie and he just talks about what he's excited about in the movie. Very high production value. It's really cool.

And he's an exemplar of something that's become very important to me, like Roger Ebert was, which is, I don't always agree with this person on maybe some level. I don't know. Maybe they like that I didn't or whatever, but I'm super interested in what they have to say about it. That to me is a content creator that I can enjoy as somebody who, without regard to what it is that they're talking about, I'm there for their voice, which I think, to pivot quickly, is one reason podcasts continue to do pretty well. It's like you get to know your little friends

and they're your friends in your ears and that's just the best. And like we don't need, And in the same way that we did in 1975, back then you needed somebody to be the arbiter, to be the gatekeeper, as you sort of said, Max, to be the person who lets you know this is an important movie. Like, not Janet Maslin, but who was the lady in the 70s?

But, you know, somebody like, even more than Ebert, somebody who could tell you this is an important movie. We don't have a role for that anymore. I'm more interested in this today in somebody's enthusiasm than in their desire to tell me, like, is this the big thing and the real thing? I love those little voices.

Speaker ABut it's also like the movies themselves are so like, this is the big movie. Like, you've got to see. People who didn't even see a bunch of Marvel movies were like, I guess I have to see Endgame. That was just a thought that a lot of people around me seemed to be having even if they hadn't been watching it. And I'm just like, how did we all agree that this was? so I feel like there's almost the, the gates have been flooded already to use the, like it's weird how the gate, like the gatekeeping actually happened that a way different part of the process. It's not like after you've made the movie,

it's way before your movie even gets to be made that the gatekeeping is sort of happening.

MaxWell, they're there. I think it's, I think it's exploiting. I think that the, that movie studios like understand that there's like a huge portion of the public that want to, that basically their hobby is like putting their opinions and they're curating their things and talking about them online and so these studios are like vying to get a piece of that and they're like well you're not shit if you post about movies you're not shit if you don't post about our movie and so i i think you're totally right of like they have this like event-based marketing where it's like you know are you gonna be one of the people who sees the star wars at the right time

on the right night and then there's also like controversy marketing where people make it like like I'm not entirely convinced like whenever there's like a like a woman superhero and there's this huge uproar and then counter uproar I'm not convinced that some of that isn't manufactured or or amplified by that that part of that isn't the marketing of the film but I don't know but I like it's hard for me to imagine like I just like it's gotten to be such a predictable cycle of like okay they're going to do a woman superhero and then there's going to be this one group of people that gets mad and this other group of people who gets mad that there's people that are mad and

they're going to have it out and it's going to be then it's this act of politics of like no I'm going to see the woman superhero movie like I'm don't worry I'm a good person I saw it Max you need to be an ally

MerlinI saw it yeah you need to be an ally

Maxfor the IP lady yeah no I saw it I'm good don't worry

MerlinI bought an extra ticket I bought an extra ticket in my grandmother's memory I wish she could be here for this

Speaker AI look forward to one day when the conversation like hopefully Sunday we'll just know this movie like it was a female superhero and also it was a shitty movie we can all just

Speaker Bwe can all apolitically agree on this

Speaker Abut that'll be a beautiful day when you can just like make a crappy movie it has women but yeah we should just make a lot of crappy movies with women I miss crappy movies

MerlinI miss moonshot weirdo 80s and 90s movies sorry it's old man talk but there's just so many like small movies that were just really fucked up and weird and that's not going to happen anymore I don't think you're going to get like a a Ferris Bueller today? Well, book smart, book smart,

Speaker Abook smart, book smart,

Maxbook smart. I went, I went back and watched, uh, I went back and watched total recall recently. And I was thinking like, that's an example of the kind of movie that, that I don't, I like, I, I'm not smart enough to say what it is about that movie. That is so weird. That makes it so like,

Merlinthat's for Hovind, right?

MaxYeah. It's, it's Paul Verhoeven. And it's the, it's the one where, where Schwarzenegger gets the memory of the Mars vacation. Yeah. Yeah.

MerlinIt's, it's,

Maxit's so, silly it's just like a silly movie but also he's so horny he's really horny and it's like super it's like super well executed but for like but it's like there's a lot wrong with it but also it's like it's like taking a big swing i don't know it's like the cut like all the marvel movies are in on most senses like much better movies than total recall but they're also this like smooth paste it's just this like slurry of entertainment that i don't really remember like like i remember every time that Arnold Schwarzenegger like kill someone

with a chainsaw and a total recall I don't remember any event in any Marvel movie

Speaker AI love the movie that failed greatly that's why I was so excited by Cats because I'm like I didn't know it was possible to come out of the studio system and somehow nobody noticed that this was happening

Merlinso many people had to make a decision for this to be the way it is so many people had to either affirmatively or passively say this is okay and it just kept moving through the pipeline. It's incredible.

Speaker AThat was a great film going experience. Like everyone in the theater was high. We were all shouting and like waving phones when Jennifer Hudson was singing. And it was...

MerlinThe snot, all the snot.

Speaker AOh my gosh. Like she was in a different movie and that was fine. It didn't need to be in the same movie.

MerlinThe moment when Rebel Wilson unzips what you thought was her fur and then that was...

AlexNo.

Merlinsomebody had taken a phone in the theater and shot that and put it up like the weekend it came out I just watched it that loop of that over first she eats the roaches and then she gets up and she does and it's like I just I was like I don't know what I'm watching

Speaker Alike I almost wish that they had done it with like they were just doing cats cats doing cat movements but I know it's wholesale is like the choreography but still I would like to watch it's like really good CGI cats instead of like the weird cat people hybrid like house cats

Alexthat would be adorable i mean i would be on board that would be amazing there should be more movies

Merlinwith cats there should max have you got any progress on buying a tiger have you looked into

Maxthat anymore oh hey uh veronica was not well but the tiger's a bad yeah well i think i think

Merlinactually yeah there is another update as well correct yeah i had a lot of i mean i think a

Maxlot of people had this experience of like i started watching tiger king and in the first half hour of watching Tiger King, I was like, I should get a tiger. It's very attainable for me. Like, cause they're all talking about that. You can just go out and get one of these things for, you know, $2,000. And I was like, well, shit, I can get a tiger. And then the more you watch your Tiger King, I think it probably did a pretty good job convincing me that that wouldn't be a good thing for my lifestyle. Just because it's attainable does not make a good idea.

Speaker AThere's two big assumptions. And it was like, oh yeah, watching Tiger King, my takeaway was immediately got to get a tiger. And I'm like, that was not my sentiment.

Maxreally i think a lot of people watch the for you start watching it and you watch all these people buying when you're looking at the tiger cubs and they're buying them and you're like man that would be maybe i should get a tiger that would be cool that'd be a cool interesting thing about me if i

Alexhad a tiger well and if tigers are only a couple thousand dollars how much is a sloth like you

Maxknow can't be that much then i downgraded to the sugar glider yeah so what happened with that veronica's not a fan she doesn't want a sweet little sugar glider named potato

Merlinit'd be so cute

Maxno they make a sound that's very upsetting too what's the sound it's a hacking it's a sort of hacking cry

Alexoh no

Maxwhy not and they're nocturnal so they make the sound all night

AlexI mean that's basically a cat that flies or a baby

Maxoh and then also the other thing is I was thinking that it would eat berries sort of adorably like maybe I'd feed it like raspberries they eat grubs and worms and cockroaches and things like that. And so Veronica pointed that out. She's like, are you going to get the live critters and feed the sugar glider?

MerlinNow you're buying pets for your pets.

MaxYes, exactly. And I was like, well, no. And I was like, would you do that? And she's like, I don't want it to begin with. So that was sort of the end of that.

MerlinWhat if you just kept it downstairs? You could keep it downstairs. Well, potato could just live in your studio.

MaxI would still need to have a special container of grubs to feed my sugar glider. I put the grub in the forceps and then I'd have to feed the sugar glider.

MerlinOh, Max, when we feed our bearded dragon a hornworm, he's so cute. It's so cute. You should get that. Get something you can feed. Not just moosh for the cat.

AlexIt's very satisfying. Well, and when you get something like feeding a live grub to a bearded dragon, there's just something about it that's very dark and satisfying because they just are so at peace and so happy and you just are seeing them like rip it apart and it's like oh i just end i helped

Merlinend a life but they seem cool with it so it is actually it's actually extremely dark you you buy you buy a deli tainer this is this is so fucked up i freely admit this is super fucked up um You get a deli tainer. It's got holes in the lid. The lid is taped on because the lid, wait, let me get this right. Yeah, the lid is actually going to be sort of the floor. So when you turn it over. So what would be the bottom of the deli tainer is this gross, light brown, rudimentary paste.

There's like a ladder and there's 25 tiny hornworms on the little ladder. And they climb up there and they eat the rudimentary paste and shit down into the lid. and then sometimes it's so macabre you just keep them in the closet and let them eat yes yes you will soon grow grow quite rotund and then you get giant comedy tweezers you grab them you grab them out and then you feed them to another animal it's so

Maxfucked up I'm not I'm not like I haven't thought about it a lot but I'm not 100% sure that like the sugar glider deserves to live more than the grub. I mean, that's like a, you're doing, like, that's a very confident moral calculus if you're fattening up the grubs to feed to the sugar glider. When you feed the grubs. You've for sure decided that the sugar glider is more important than the grubs. And I'm not sure, I'm not that sure about that.

Speaker AYeah, as someone who's only ever had, like, as an adult, I've only ever had animals in my living space, like, not on purpose. So I had, like, a mouse one time because I didn't leave the bread secured in an adequate way. I had some spiders. People loved those. They were like, get rid of the spiders. I'm like, they might be eating something else. It's good that I have them. I was really living in a high standard of cleanliness.

Speaker BWho am I to play God?

Speaker ANo, well, the mouse. And I wanted to do one of those traps that isn't a meme trap. And so I read online and I built this elaborate Rube Goldberg contraption a contraption where I had a bucket and I had a, like a yardstick that went up to the lip of the bucket. And I read that mice just go absolutely wild for peanut butter. So I took an empty beer can and I smeared peanut butter all around it. And I suspended it from a wire and you're supposed to suspend it from a wire, like over a full bucket of water. And then the mouse is supposed to fall off the can after it's being enticed by the peanut butter and drown in the water.

But I didn't want it to drown. I just wanted it to fall in the bucket and then I would deal with it. But it like, just,

Merlinjust break some little mouse bones.

Speaker Alook at it and it was like this contraption is beneath me it never used it it kept eating the bread though there's so many points of

Merlinfailure in that particular and then the marble goes down and pushes the toaster

Speaker Ano this the mouse was just like this is beneath me I called I named it Jean Valjean because it ate some bread and disappeared

Yeah, my husband's like, this is why I don't believe that you're fundamentally a clean person at heart. Because, like, you tell me these stories about your spiders and your mouse as though they're, like, fun anecdotes to share instead of, like, a sad indictment of your living situation.

MerlinIt doesn't have to mean that. Maybe you're like a, I don't want to say a Pied Piper. Maybe you're some kind of a fantastical creature and the unicorn wants to put its head in your lap. Maybe the spiders are going to do your bidding. Have you thought of that?

Speaker AOh, that didn't, now I've thought of it. And I love it.

MerlinGo, my pretties. Kill, kill.

AlexWell, Dig Dug, speaking of living spaces, Merlin, what was our challenge this week?

MerlinWelcome to the challenge. The challenge this week was to make a nest or a fort or mostly a nest because Max, as usual, the challenge comes out of our discussions. And Max had created for himself a heated blanket nest in his home studio workshop magic dungeon. And he wanted us to go and do likewise. Who had the best Nest?

MaxI've supplemented my... I realized that in order to really take advantage of the Nest and enjoy it, I had to implement further home automation things in my house. So I have a new device now that's plugged into my basement that's probably mining Bitcoin for some Chinese hackers. But it switches my stereo receiver inputs so I can stay in the Nest and not have to get up and press the buttons on the receiver.

AlexOh, my God. Oh, my God.

Maxwow speaking of Rude Goldberg

Merlinthat's pretty subtle

Alexwhat is the one situation give me a concrete example you're on the couch what buttons are you needing to push that you're now pushing from the couch

Maxwell I've got my switch plugged in to the TV I've got my Apple TV and then I also have my computer plugged in I have everything basically plugged into this receiver

MerlinSo basically what you've done is you've taken out the role of an input button on a remote.

MaxBut the receiver is in a closet. This actually makes a ton of sense, I've got to say. The receiver is in a closet, and it's an IR remote. And so I can't, the remote, there's a wall. So I have to get up, I have to leave my nest, walk into the closet, open the door, get the remote, and then hit the button. And the other problem is my receiver is like a little too smart for its own good, where sometimes I'll tell it, please put the Nintendo Switch on. And then it will battle me. It's like we enter a contest of the wills where it's like, no, I think you really want the record player.

And it starts to switch because maybe it thinks it's getting audio from something else.

MerlinAlso, you've got namespace pollution with words like TV and switch. Right? Where like there's command. I'm not to be a nerd about this, but there's like, you know, hailing phrases and command phrases. And you know what I mean? It's like we say switch to the switch. Yeah. Oh, right. I see. Switch to the TV. What TV? Apple TV? No, I just want to watch Apple TV Plus on my Apple TV with the TV app.

MaxAlso, I have four computers plugged into my receiver and no televisions. So it's all confused. I have to also remember, okay, this computer is cable, and this computer is antenna. And it's like nothing is built for my setup. I'm living in a world that's not made for me.

AlexPeople don't respect your lifestyle choices. Don't worry. It gets better.

MaxI just want to lie. I just want to. But here, I could show. Since we're on video, this will be good for our listeners. I could show you the nest. Oh, wow.

MerlinCool.

MaxSo that's my little nest.

MerlinOh, my God.

MaxSo the little flannel blanket is heated. It's plugged into an outlet on the floor under the couch.

MerlinDo you fit on that couch? It looks a little bit Michael Scott in its legs.

MaxOh, I'm very petite. That's my bed. I'm a small businessman. You are small business. That's funny. A little guy. I fit on that couch great. I take a nap on there.

AlexWithout being curled up? That seems like a curl. You know what? You're right. Small business.

MaxSmall business man. It's not that small. I think it's probably average.

MerlinIt's not a micro.

MaxI mean, I think a lot of people probably lie about this as their couch.

Speaker BIt's very cold in the basement.

Merlinokay so you mostly pimped out your nest i can go i uh well does anybody else want to go alexander

Speaker Ado you want to go well so mine i'm like mine is just a messy area filled with newspapers which

Maxfelt right for me as like a sort of nest are you a gerbil yeah that's a lot like the sugar glider

Speaker Aactually that i kind of want to push a little of it onto a chair before i show it to you

Merlinso somebody else should oh you know you don't have to do that if you don't want to yeah you

Alexdon't have to show that's not part of it mine's even more embarrassing you're probably going to see my shorts shorts in the american sense not the underwear british pants monstrosity uh that's my nest there uh but i i went through this which is also my bed uh and i went through the whole complex thing of, oh, I want a heated blanket. But then my spouse said we couldn't get a heated blanket because the cat claws would get into it. And then our apartment would start on fire, which isn't ideal. Your landlord would hate that.

He'd be very confused. Why? You have cats in there?

MerlinI would prefer you not do things that change the temperature of the apartment. That's not in the

Alexwell

Merlinother Alexandra first Alexandra has a unique relationship with their landlord

Alexhe's a first time landlord he doesn't really know how to lord over us in that he just orders appliances that don't actually fit into our kitchen we're not allowed to hang things on the walls

Merlinwe're not allowed to have curtains at one point

AlexNo, we can have curtains, but they were here before we were. So those have been there for, yeah, those are our legacy curtains. But eventually I found a place that would sell me a wedge that will be put on my bed so I can make it into a little reading nook. So right now, yeah, I just stack a bunch of pillows. and I this this technology right here is a whole wait wait wait so you put you put the iPad no so

and then it's like you're lying in bed like this and you don't actually it's and there's a little place too for your phone because normally you know I fall I fall asleep with my phone like against my face in sadness and but no now now it's just wedged in this little

Maxmonstrosity i got going i read a thing the other day that salvador jolly would do an exercise where he would um stay awake until he was exhausted and then he would sit down he would sort of slump over in a chair and he would hold a spoon in his hand and he would have a serving tray on his lap and he would wait to fall asleep and as soon as he fell asleep the spoon would drop and it would hit the tray and he would startle and in that you know when you startle and you wake up real quick you have like a crazy hallucination from from starting to fall asleep and that was like a part

of his method is he was like then he would like sketch the hallucinations that he would have and i realized i do that to myself about three times a week because i fall asleep like this with the ipad and i start to drift off a little bit and i hit myself in the head with the ipad yeah

Merlinsecret Spaniard Max Tempton

Speaker AMerlin how are you you can get a black eye from doing that

Maxoh yeah it's not good how much I do that I'm trying to cram in a little more a little more content into my day

Speaker BI'm just about ready for bed I just need a little bit more content

Maxthose juicy grubs they're almost ripe for the harvest I got to pack them in my mouth before I fall asleep.

MerlinAlex, can I ask you a question?

AlexYes, please.

MerlinThe wedge. A wedge that you put into usually a bed to be able to sit up. What do you call that?

AlexOh, a bed wedge? I truly have no idea.

MerlinI don't know if my friend made up this term. I think she probably didn't, but she would refer to it as a husband. And I always thought that was a fun name for it. The thing you put in bed to be able to like sit up and read. Have you ever heard that term?

Speaker AI've heard of like husband pillows. Those are the ones with the big arms and the sort of square head. Oh, that.

MerlinAnd that's like almost like a lady anime pillow that you would get. Yeah. Sort of like, or like a floppy waving man.

AlexWacky waving, inflatable, flailing. That's it. That's the one. No, I'm trying. In fact, I'm trying to find a husband pillow on the internet right now. And, oh, I see. I see. Okay.

MerlinOh, I see. Okay. That's different. Okay. What is a husband pillow? My husband pillow.

AlexA husband pillow is like the thing that's like a regular pillow and it just has little arms next to it.

MaxThis is an evolution of what we used to call a husband. Wait, is there something that this pillow is doing that I should be doing as a husband?

AlexOh, shit.

MaxOh, just listen.

MerlinRight? Just listen.

Speaker AProviding lumbar support.

MerlinYeah, I mean, that's... Provider? That's... That good listener, lumbar support. Veronica doesn't want advice. She just wants you to listen. What is this husband...

MaxWhy is it a husband pillow?

Speaker AI've also seen one where it just has an arm, like, just sort of a rogue arm that you can, like, swing around yourself. But that might be, like, an off-brand boyfriend pillow. Or, like, a... I feel like there should be gradations of it where there's, like, the lover pillow, and it's just like huge and immense.

MerlinOh, like all the way up to Tina Fey's brownie boyfriend. Like you could go all the way up the ladder to the level of verisimilitude you'd like in a Mick Philippe man.

Speaker AYeah, like long distance boyfriend pillows like doing something different. I don't know.

MerlinOh, that's a good idea. My friend in Canada, my friend in Canada pillow.

Speaker BYeah.

AlexI'm trying to envision a throuple pillow right now and like detachable parts and like what would happen. This is really, there should be an ego system. This is why Velcro was invented Exactly

188. Benjamin Harrison Enthusiast

Show notes

Transcript

188. Benjamin Harrison Enthusiast

Show notes

Transcript

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