194. My Fabric Barrier

MerlinI know that sound. That's the sound of realizing you're on the wrong mic. I have finally, I can't believe I've finally done this I've finally given in and made a checklist I every single time

Speaker AI start a call either someone can hear me or they can't and then I fix it from there oh I see well

MerlinI I feel like why is my keyboard not working I didn't do the checklist right if my keyboard's not working um I always forget something and so I finally started writing it all down because like unavailable okay um like there's so many different things i always forget one the most important one is i feel like i gotta remember audio hijacked but i gotta turn off my fans i gotta pull up my small keyboard hey quinn are you aware of brett terpstra's app called bunch i am not uh i'm gonna

tell you about that in a second because i think it would be a good thing for you to know about what else do i forget oh i forget i gotta go uh option click on the speaker and make sure that i'm getting the USB pre and not, you know, the wrong mic. And what are some of the other ones? There's so many. And it's like, I always forget one. And it's like, you have more settings than I do. I

Speaker Ajust have a mic, I plug it into my computer. I do. I know I need to upgrade my mic system. I will soon. But I just bought a new computer. So new mics are going to be a little bit.

MerlinWell, this is really boring, but you might like it anyway. So you're on a Mac, right?

Speaker AI am on a Mac. Yes.

MerlinSo Brett Trepster makes this really cool app, free app called Bunch. Long story short, you take a text file he's a friend of mine who's a developer who's really cool, makes tons of stuff that I use and love every day. So Bunch is an app where you create a text file it's called, you know, whatever, in my case let's say startpodcast.bunch Hey

Alexthere they are. Oh man I don't like ants I really don't

MerlinYou should see my fly strips, Alex It's like It's like Jigsaw's fucking bone maze for insects in here.

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinYou still got the ants. What's his name? Dougie? Whatever his name is, the landlord. Is he going to help you with your ants?

AlexWell, he said.

MerlinDid you ask if you could have ants before you got them? That's a load-bearing ant.

AlexHe thinks it's from a house plant. We had.

MerlinThat's always your fault. My landlord is so good at that. Everything is our fault. you allowed too much rain and that's why you have a hole in the roof

AlexI mean he could be right like I don't know but I'm pretty sure I just saw some ants crawling out of a wall

Merlinis it worse than last time?

Alexno well I don't know if I've told this story but last time the ants emerged for the first time Matthew my lovely spouse was like go into the bedroom right now. Don't look into this corner.

MerlinAnd you put a towel under the door?

AlexYes, right now. Sorry, Mike. A bunch of Cortex t-shirts are are shoved under my door.

MerlinAnt protection corner.

AlexThat's how it works, right? And I thought it was better, but then I looked into the ant traps and was like, oh, no, they're not. It's not better. It's just that they're dying in this little torture chamber that we've set up.

Speaker AOh, God. Anyway. I mean, not an ideal, not ideal, but like, isn't that the point of the ant traps to catch enough of them so that you no longer have ants?

AlexI don't, I truly don't know anymore. Now, now we're supposed to like seal up the corner. Like what? So then like there's just going to be a bunch of dead ants trapped in our walls.

MerlinOh, no, you're doing an Edgar Allan Poe on your ants.

AlexOh, no. We just hear what noise.

MerlinIt's the ants of Amontillado.

AlexSorry, Quinn. I still don't know how to use this microphone, and so I'm trying to lean away and not laugh as much. Oh, God.

MerlinI'm going to send you a photograph of what I'm working with. I have an ant. There's this kind of ant trap that's so stinky. It's this little bag with stuff in it with poison, and you put water into the poison up to the fill line, and then you hang it there and it stinks. And then flies eventually die in there. But that wasn't doing it enough. So I had to put up.

Do you know what fly tape is?

AlexOh, my God. Yes, yes. Oh, God, that's in our barn. Oh, God.

MerlinDoesn't that kind of put you in the mind of saw just a little bit?

AlexYes, yes.

MerlinSo what I've shown my friends here is a tripod boom mic. What do you call it? A boom mic, right? that has a hideous, like, four feet of sticky ant tape on it.

AlexHey, solve my puzzle. That's taller than your X-Men poster, it looks like. That's so upsetting. Oh, God.

MerlinTo me, my ant men.

Speaker AThis looks like something that I would see in, like, a 22-year-old man's apartment and then really not want to know anymore.

MerlinA coffee can full of chew spit. You know, I should bounce. I really should go.

Oh, God.

MerlinSo anyway, Quinn, with Bunch, just real quick, and we can talk about this later, but with Bunch, you basically say that each line means something in this text file, like quit this app, start this app, turn off this thing, turn on this thing. How would you describe Bunch in a pinch?

Alexuh, Alex? Oh, uh, an easier version of keyboard maestro. It's nerdy geeky in the sense that it

Merlinis a text file, but it's so cool. So like I say, I click start podcast and it quits everything that would, could take up bandwidth and it starts Skype. It opens audio hijack, et cetera. And then when I'm done, I say stop podcast. I click that and that, um, doesn't really quit many things, but it does restart some of my, uh, you know, restart some apps and it opens up Ecamm so I can split the file and it opens my folder full of aliases for my shows so I can drop my episode in anyway it's a really cool app and it's free and for folks like us uh who sometimes I'll run right

Alexup to the last minute before the show it's a big time saver okay the the ants aren't on my time schedule they didn't know that the the episode was pushed 15 minutes back so I what if now it's like Toy Story, like they know, and oh, they know that I go into a room.

MerlinThey don't want to go in the attic? Wait, I lost the story a little here. Ants can be, ants are very easily led, Alex, and I think you're being a little bit cynical about how smart an ant is if you read that book by E.O. Wilson. You just need, it's like Conrad Lorenz and the Ducks. I think you need to get the ants to imprint on you. Maybe you become a kind of they, them, Pied Piper, if I could say. I don't know if that's racist, but then what you could do is you could create, Now you're the antistress. The antor. The, yeah. They'll do your bidding, you know, just like with Bobby Hill when Bobby gets hypnotized by the ants.

I think you need to do the opposite to them. And then maybe they could go and bring you like a Diet Coke or piss water.

AlexWhat I want is to have a bee harness the way that that pregnant woman. A bee harness? I think the phrase bee harness is the funniest. There are no funnier words you can put together.

MerlinBee harness is a very funny phrase. Did I send you all the picture of the lady with the bees on her tummy?

AlexI have seen it. Okay, good. Yeah, that's just, I have so many questions.

MerlinWell, you know, the queen, what did she say?

AlexThey harness the queen to her belly. So the pregnant woman taking the pregnancy.

MerlinOh, she's bait, basically.

AlexYep, yep.

MerlinI got approval from my doctor to have these bees on my tummy for the Insta.

AlexOh, God. Did the photographers have to, like, sign waivers? Like, what?

MerlinI don't know. You know that's like a husband that has to wear, like, pleated cargo shorts.

Speaker AYou know, we make jokes a lot about, like, oh, we were so worried about if we can. We didn't even ask if we should. But why? Why did that woman do this? Why did she think this was a good idea? Like she said, oh, I didn't get stung at all. That's nice. But why?

AlexWell, and what I thought enthusiastically and optimistically was, you know, maybe she just really fucking likes bees. Everybody needs a stamp to stomp on.

MerlinOh, that's her. You're saying that's her deal. That's her deal. Like I had an old lady who was into elephants or like your grandparents and pigs. Like that's her thing. And now that she's on brand with her bee belly harness.

AlexBut turns out she's also allergic to bees, according to her original.

MerlinShe's going to make a great mom. Let's be honest. Everybody got mad when Michael Jackson held his baby over out of a balcony. But the queen bee here shows up with her harness tongue. Jesus Christ. Can I please speak with Bee Protective Services? You mean Child Protective Services? I'll get them after this. One at a time. Right now, I'm just worried about the fucking bees. Oh. Boy, do you think PETA, listen, sorry, now it's a bit. Do you think PETA was, does PETA just freak out when they see something like that?

Speaker APETA's too busy worrying about Animal Crossing. Oh no.

MerlinWhat?

Speaker ADid they come for Animal Crossing? Oh my, no, you didn't. This was a little while ago. PETA put out this article about like what's ethical to do in Animal Crossing because you can get bugs and stuff in the game.

MerlinThank you.

Speaker AAnd they were like, that's not humane to those bugs.

MerlinNo. There's nothing, God bless them. Their heart's in the right place, I assume. But there's not a single thing they do that dissuades me from the idea that they are a false flag operation.

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinEverything they do just makes you go like, oh, really? I thought I agreed with you, and now you're being so weird.

AlexI'm going to take the brave, bold stance that I'm not a huge fan of PETA, and I don't like their billboards.

MerlinWhoa, Alex. Easy, easy.

AlexYeah, yeah. For a while, across the street from our office, above a building was a boar being torn apart by a tiger. Do you remember this, Quinn? No. Oh, yeah. It stayed up for two days. And then I think the rich people complained and were like, please, please get rid of this. It was filled with blood splatter.

MerlinWait, I'm sorry. Describe that again. What?

AlexIt was a billboard, a literal billboard, and it replaced the, like, Hey Dingus ad with a PETA ad of a tiger tearing apart a pig thing of some sort. And there was blood splatter.

MerlinWhat's the message of that?

AlexWhat's this splatter? I don't know. Don't let your tiger eat a boar.

MerlinI surely don't know. I see. Well, you know, again, once you read the same magazines I do, we've solved a lot of the big problems at this point. And now we're just mopping up all the little ones. Exactly. Like, you know, voter suppression and tiger murder.

Speaker BMm-hmm.

MerlinOh, okay. PETA's vegan guide. Thank you very much for this, Quinn. Quinn's just shared with the rest of the group PETA's vegan guide to Animal Crossing New Horizons.

Speaker AAnd I will say, this article goes so far and so detailed that I think it's supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. But the thing is that PETA does so many actually wild things totally sincerely that it's really hard to tell.

MerlinI totally agree.

AlexIt also wants to let me have notifications from the PETA website.

MerlinYeah. I said, I said, I didn't say allow. Did you say allow, Alex?

AlexI did. You know, it was tempting. I said not allow. Do I want to tweet about this?

MerlinYeah. I need some PETA push notifications this week. School opens in six weeks. Oh, hang on a second. Oh, looks like there's a video game that's problematic. honey there's no honey there's no dinner tonight the vegan manila clam people are very sad right

Alexnow oh boy okay well good for them that's fun that's fun yeah oh who is oh my god this is so

Speaker Aupsetting is isabel that's the part that's when i got to that point i was like i think they're kidding oh i think they're kidding but but when i first started reading this i really thought it was sincere because it just seemed like a thing that PETA would sincerely do.

AlexI mean, I don't know, dude. This is... Oh, okay. So they're not against it, but they, you know, be critical of the media you love, as they say.

MerlinYeah, teach the controversy.

AlexYeah. Uh-huh.

MerlinHmm. We all have a lot of room to grow.

AlexEverything's paragame. Everything.

MerlinFolks, listen. Hey, peeps. We need to talk.

AlexListen, attention. Thread!

Speaker BAttention, fellow Animal Crossing players.

MerlinThis is not normal.

Speaker AExcuse me, folks. We need to talk. I don't know who needs to hear this, but...

AlexOh, cancel Quinn.

MerlinProblematic, Quinn. We have a lot of content. We have a lot of content this week. We have musical content. I have a question about punctuation and culture. It sounds like, no, hang on. We do, am I not understand, do we have a new chat? I understand we have a new listener. Without your permission, Alexandra, I understand we have a new listener and that he might be interested in stepping in at some point to give us an anecdote about the new trademark breakout hit segment, Driving with Grandma.

AlexYeah. You know, when your spouse goes, I would like to be on your podcast, please and thank you. A podcast in which he's...

MerlinThis is why I canceled the internet at the house.

AlexYeah, yeah. A podcast in which he has said multiple times, I can't listen to it because you swear too much and I just hear about Merlin's dick a lot. What? You know, he's just like, wait, what are you listening to?

MerlinWait a minute. Hang on. Is that something I need to work on? I didn't realize I talked that much about my dick.

AlexI think, yeah, I think he's misinterpreting it. Quinn, could I be wrong?

Speaker AHere's what I'll say is that he texted me to say that he had listened to the episode and enjoyed it, the episode that I was on. And so my theory is that I'm his favorite and he just likes to listen to me. Oh, he'll listen to the episodes you're on.

MerlinI can already feel it. You know what? God damn it. You're the Brad Parscale to our Trump campaign, Quinn. I can already feel it. You are fucking making bank off of this. I don't think you even mentioned our problematic podcast in your new YouTube video, which is fine because your haircut is adorable.

AlexYes. I liked it. That was a very good video.

MerlinYou know what? Fine. That's whatever. Whatever. Whatever. You know, you can decide. Who do you want to be? Do you want to be Stu Sutcliffe or do you want to be Pete Best? I'm just saying.

Speaker AI don't know what those words mean.

MerlinI don't know what that reference is. It doesn't matter. It's Stu Sutcliffe vegan.

Speaker AI don't know.

AlexNeither of us know this reference.

Speaker AI discovered recently that my brand is much less strong than I thought it was because someone tweeted at me, which I will say this made my day. It's like on the street. Why did it take me so long to realize that it was the same Quinn on Dubai Friday, The Incomparable and Relay FM?

MerlinBut not the other Quinn. That's the confusing part.

Speaker AYeah, this thing is like there are actually two Quinns now, which is very confusing to me personally as I'm used to being the only Quinn in any room that I'm in.

MerlinYou're in the Quinn where it happened. Wait, let me do another take on that. Oh, sorry. Quinn. Quinn the room where it happened. Let's go with that one.

AlexQuinn the room where it happened. There we go.

MerlinI'm going through a similar thing right now that is funny. It's something I – who did I say this to? probably to, oh, to my friend Dan, I call this the Cotton Bureau problem, where you're like, okay, guys, there's three weeks to order this shirt, and you go, there's two weeks to order this shirt, and you feel like such a ding-a-ling to keep saying it over, you know where this is going, over and over and over. You say, look, I feel so bad, but listen, there's only gonna be this one opportunity, and at midnight tonight, Eastern Time, is your last opportunity to order this shirt. Now, something that happens every time is we make this announcement a lot, and we're not doing it just to be mercantile,

although we do want your money, but also that people get bummed if they don't know and then they feel left out. So if you want a shirt, order it and tell your friends. The next day you say, hey, thanks, everybody. Thanks for ordering a shirt. That was really cool of you. And then so what happens? Somebody says, well, can I still order one? And you say, no, that's the thing we kept mentioning. And they say, well, you should have told us you had a shirt.

I'm going through that with a podcast I'm on right now. I used to think, see Quinn, I used to think that my brand was stronger too. but like every single day I learned two pieces of information. One, I did not know that show is back. And B, I did not know that there was a YouTube channel for that show that's in the links for every episode.

AlexOh, everybody please go and watch.

MerlinNo, no, no, no, please don't, please don't, please don't, please don't, please don't say the words. All I'm trying to say, no, no, no, I don't do that. All I'm trying to say is that you're Sisyphus pushing another Sisyphus up a hill.

Alexyou don't mention the youtube videos on the program that's is that the rule and then the

Merlinsecond rule of youtube club is you remember to like it's describing hit that bell no okay so so i sound mad but i'm not mad it's just more like i don't know how to do this anymore without being i don't say off-brand but without looking like an asshole like hey you guys did you know i got a podcast yeah dude you've had that podcast since like you know 2000 like whatever like it's you've had that podcast a long time thanks buddy 2008

Alexit was just formative and you know

Merlinwhat are you struggling with besides ants today uh alex i forgot to bring my drinks in here so i'm

Alexvery thirsty oh why don't you why don't you get them go get them i'm gonna i'm gonna do that but i have to i uh talk amongst yourselves i need to move my fabric barrier all right i'll be back Okay.

MerlinWas that a euphemism? Oh, oh, oh. So out of curiosity, you know, this is literary substrata, not the topic. But how much material outside of the musical have you explored? I can tell from your posters that you like musicals.

But have you looked at the tome? Have you listened to any of the, like, watched the mini YouTube videos about themes and music? Have you heard that Strong Songs episode? How much Hamilton stuff outside Hamilton have you explored?

Speaker ASo I haven't read the original book it was based on, but yes, I've read the Hamilton the musical book. I've seen a lot of videos. I've read a lot of articles. Probably around 50% of the content I consume on the internet is about musical theater, and Hamilton is a large percentage of that just by it taking up a lot of space. And so I would say I'm pretty well versed in sort of the culture around it.

MerlinMm-hmm. My mind was really blown. I've had quite a journey with it. I guess we'll probably talk about this on the show, but I've had such a journey over time, and it's such a funny approach to it. I mean, I know some stuff about music. I play music. I love listening to music. I know enough about theory to be dangerous, but it's so wild that I would consider Hamilton to have been one of my favorite musical artifacts of the last generation for probably two years, maybe more when I started watching this like this one guy's channel on YouTube and like my mind just

never stopped being blown with stuff I'd missed the first time like the like and I talked about this on Twitter the other day but like the the counting means things like counting in Hamilton means things and like what number you get up to and what those intervals are and you know what I mean each one of those things let alone what's happening with the way like as Kirk Hamilton points out in his wonderful podcast on Satisfied, like the way you sing each name. And there's one time that Angelica sings the name a different way with somebody else's melody. You know what I mean?

And it's meaningful. And you're like, that was in front of me this whole time and I never got it. Like this melody is this played slower. This is like, or like, you know what I mean? This is this melody played. It's just so much of that stuff. I guess that's why I get so frustrated when people are like, man, fail. It's like, oh, God. It's like, you didn't make it past the table of contents, dude. You have no idea. Are we talking about strong songs? I was just mentioning the Satisfied episode in terms of like really good extra textual material that I found really good. I could listen

Alexto that thing over and over. I love that episode. Oh, my gosh. Quinn, have you heard it? I actually have not heard that specific thing. It's totally your jam figuratively and literally. Do you ever

Merlinlisten to song exploder quinn for example a bit yeah there are so many podcasts but i no no no no i'm sorry i didn't mean i wasn't implying that what i mean like song exploder to me is like very i love that guy i love the way he works i mean like the what what went into the freaking shook ones part two episode like how long it took him to get to getting that episode out but i feel like song exploder really uh they're very similar there's a venn diagram i feel like song exploder is kind of about the production decisions of a song,

and it gets into the songwriting. And conversely, I feel like Strong Songs gets into some of the production, but mostly in how much it serves what was written and how it's performed. And the way that that guy will go in and recreate a song, every track on a song, as closely as he can himself, and then, I'm not a very good guitar player. Shut up.

AlexIt's just me at the piano, and then he brilliantly plays it.

MerlinOh, it's just me being amazing on every reed instrument. Oh, was that me? Oh, I guess it was. I'm really good at everything. Hi, I'm Kirk.

Speaker BFuck you.

MerlinI love it so much. I mean, what's amazing is, though, like, it's, I'm not trying to say, like, you know, guilty pleasure or whatever, but, like, any song that guy covers is great. The episode on Elton John on Tiny Dancer and, but, but, but, but, but, but, what was it? What's the other one in that episode? Oh, God, I'm spacing. Rock, not Rocketman. But anyway, he'll do that. he did um the one on the one on dancing queen so good the one on mr blue sky so good the one on radio heads paranoid android oh my god they're all whatever song it is if it's a song you don't hate

it's gonna it just blows you away like what's happening and those what makes those songs so

Speaker Awonderful that sounds very exciting i will have to listen to this because that even just listening to you talk about it is like scratching a part of my brain that i'm like yes yeah exactly but i mean

MerlinAnd even stuff like, and this is, again, what makes me sad, but even just appreciating the spot between, I guess, Alexander Hamilton and, but whatever the one is where he goes, pardon me, are you Aaron Burr, sir? You know, he punched the Burr, sir? You know, it's like, how are you not word drunk with how amazing the exchanges are and that that's setting the tone for the rest of the musical about their relationship? Actually, it's exhausting.

AlexGod, it's so good.

MerlinHe's so handsome.

Speaker AOh, my goodness.

MerlinYou guys like Hamilton? It's good.

Speaker AOh my God. I literally, when I was watching and I just was like crying about how beautiful they all are. I was really, I was actually extremely overwhelming. And I texted one of my friends and I was like, I'm really mad about how beautiful and talented everyone in this cast is. Not because they're beautiful and talented, but because they're not dating me specifically. And my friend was like, I also am watching Hamilton right now and had the exact same thought process.

MerlinThat was, I mean, like, I feel, you guys want to talk about Hamilton? Should we get into it?

AlexYeah, Dig Dug Challenge.

MerlinIt feels like we're already here. Dig-a-dig-a-doot. So the challenge is Hamilton.

AlexThat's a challenge. Hamilton.

MerlinHow does a canceled podcast... Anyway, so...

Yeah, so where do we jump in? Let's jump in anywhere. You know, this isn't formal. Let's just jazz.

Speaker AHi, welcome to this episode of Corner of the Sky, Hamilton, part two, featuring my guests, Alex and Merlin.

MerlinYou know, I'll tell you, Quinn, you're going to eat your words because very, very, very, very, very briefly, well, pretty briefly, like, Free to Be You and Me comes up on the TV program, Mrs. America.

Speaker AHey, that's cool.

MerlinYeah, because it was Miss Magazine put it out, yeah.

AlexOh, oh.

MerlinThere's a land that I see where the hills are not free.

AlexYour daughter ashamed me into watching that. And so far, so good. It's very good.

MerlinReally? I didn't know she even liked it at all. Oh, gosh, she's the worst. So you were going to tell us who's not dating you and should be.

Speaker AOh, me, personally? I mean, I'm sorry.

MerlinDid I cut to the chase? Like, I'm keen to find out.

Speaker AEveryone in the show, first of all. But specifically, Ariana DeBose, who is a goddess among women. Yes. And also is starring in the upcoming movies, West Side Story and The Prom. So like everyone watch out. Oh my God, she's amazing.

MerlinSorry, point of information. Is this Peggy? Is that who you're talking about?

Speaker ANo, she's one of the ensemble members and she does the part of the bullet.

MerlinOh, replacing Betsy Struxness in the version we saw. Yeah, I know who that is. She's amazing. But no, Betsy. I guess Betsy was already gone by then.

AlexI know. Yeah. They're both amazing.

MerlinBut she is so good. She has so much personality. Like every little motion, those little nods that she does. She's so good.

Speaker Aoh who's she maria is she gonna be maria no she's going to be anita oh yeah rachel zegler is maria i just she's gonna get her kicks tonight i know too much about musicals anyway but i was gonna say that i saw that this that this musical was um that they recorded hamilton the weekend of uh june 27 2016 and i was like that date sounds familiar and i looked it up and confirmed and yes this was the week that they announced that the main cast was leaving the week after if this is just from memory but i think it was lynn pippa and leslie odom were going to be um this was their

last they only had like one week after this and so me and my boyfriend at the time were in boston and we went to new york for the weekend to try to enter the lottery as many times in hopes of seeing hamilton with the original cast obviously we did not win but it was i had no idea they were filming

Alexit at the time i too i just thought that was really funny i am curious who among us has seen Hamilton in person, live, if you, in a theater. There we go. Those are the words. Yes. Chicago.

Speaker AI've seen it in New York and Chicago. Okay.

MerlinI've seen it in San Francisco.

Speaker AOoh, interesting. I didn't know that.

AlexI mean, that's why I asked.

MerlinThat was our, that was my sweet wife's end of school year gift to the family last summer. Oh, yay.

AlexYay, yay, yay.

MerlinI'll send you a great photo of her in front of the big sign. um yeah it was it was um i mean you know it's hard when you're when you're that i don't know how to say this without sounding like such a dick but like when you're when you've imprinted that much on a performance you've heard over and over like you know you really over super notice and go hmm i would have done hercules mulligan a little different or you know but you could also applaud the decisions like the guy who did when the guy does lafayette he's way more doing like a minneapolis like Prince or Morris Day kind of performance.

He's got a really cool 80s fade and he's so committed. That guy was great. But no, from the second we walked into the room, I started crying. Like it was just overwhelming. Let's just get this clear. I'm not going to apologize for how much I like this. I don't care if other people like it. I mean, I do care. It makes me mad that people suck. But I am unapologetic in my ardor for this particular piece of art.

Speaker AI got to see Hamilton in New York as an anniversary present from my boyfriend and he broke up with me like two months later and literally every single person that I told that we were no longer dating they were like oh I'm sorry at least you gotta see Hamilton first I hate that that was the first thought I had I'm sorry no but it was like also

Merlinthe first thought I had that's like Meredith getting free steaks in exchange for paper you ever had a sirloin I think I got some steak sauce in my face that is funny it god it's such a horrible thing of like especially youth but even where we're like oh god now i'm gonna remember that like oh i'm now i'm gonna whenever i think of summer camp i'm gonna think of when i got measles or something but that so that hasn't ruined your hamilton um belt and shong no hamilton is like

Speaker Aweirdly connected to multiple relationships that i've had because i have deep-seated serial monogamy

Speaker Bproblems but anyway um sister you have no idea after show

Merlinwell it's been two hours bring me another one

Speaker AI will say that I am always the person who was like bringing it to other people because I love musicals so much. And I like it started with me and then I just kept introducing it to people that I was dating. So it's still like my thing. So, yeah. Yes.

MerlinWho's the queen bee now? Am I right?

AlexBoth of you know my spouse. Man, I am so wife guy today. But guess who originally didn't like Hamilton? And wait, really? was like uh this soundtrack's really good but i don't know uh and then i i just kept pushing it on him and pushing it on him and then uh we saw um we saw it on a computer in a way that you might not i don't know why we're so cagey about pirating it speaking of speaking of wait

Merlinfor it look for the moment when jonathan groff looks up and totally clocks the person with the

Alexcell phone oh my god yes yes and i i couldn't tell if he was upset or if he was in character

Merlinyou know what i mean i could yeah see at first so i i remember one time and then i started to wonder did i just imagine that because his eye contact with people is holy shit that guy is he's so fucking good and then i thought well maybe he's just looking up because there's lights in his eyes he probably can't see that maybe he's just looking up to the balcony but it does really look like like i'm i see you gotcha see right here with the two fingers there's a stunning clip of

Speaker Aa bootleg out there that i've seen i've i haven't seen the full bootleg but there's just this clip of somebody who's filming in the balcony dear evan hansen and ben platt spots the camera and

Alexthen gives a little shrug oh that's hilarious i think that people who are older millennials or or millennials that they know, like they get it, you know, I don't think people care as much anymore or rather performers don't care. And I think it depends. Yes. Yes. It depends on like the show disruption and, and all that. Hmm.

MerlinWell, it's also that, you know, it's one of those things where like I used to have a service mark on a phrase. And, um, I mean, it's, it's one of those things where like you get all this advice from people where it's like, oh, you know, you've got to go pursue every, you know, use or misuse of your service mark, because if you're not active, I don't know if this is exactly true, but like, supposedly, to keep your service mark alive, you have to be actively defending it against all, you know, all enemies, foreign and domestic. And it's like, so there is the part of it which is, hey, you know, there's a lot of people who have a job because of this.

Maybe I'm being too capitalist here, but there are a lot of people who have a job because of this show. And like in our future, the future shows that we can do, all the great shows are going to depend on being able to monetize this and keep it our own. And like, I get that part of it. I also get the part of like not wanting people to be distracted during

Alexthe show. Oh, absolutely. Can I give can I give my hot hot Broadway take? Please do. Yeah, it is. It's not original at all. But you know, we all know how expensive Hamilton was to see. We all know how incredibly expensive it is to see any popular show on Broadway. I don't like how much money I've spent on seeing Hamilton live. And I am not proud of the fact that in Chicago, I bought tickets from a scalper. Like that was incredibly selfish of me. And I don't regret it.

MerlinOh, so you never answered out. If you if you said I didn't hear how many times? So you have seen Hamilton in Chicago.

AlexYes, I've seen it live four times. Only one time it was like egregious. I suggest if you're in Chicago and you enjoy Broadway, get a subscription to Broadway in Chicago. It is awesome. You basically get tickets to every show, or rather most touring shows.

MerlinOh, right. You did talk about this.

Speaker AYes, as well as discounts on extra tickets. Anyway, real quick, this was the first time that I finally bought a ticket, a subscription to Broadway in Chicago for this year and I was really proud of myself and then literally all of them have been canceled. Yep.

MerlinOh no.

Speaker AI didn't get to enjoy one ticket.

MerlinOh man, that sucks.

AlexYeah, and they are not great on the refunds, which I mean. No, they've been fine.

Speaker AThey've actually, they've refunded the ones that were canceled and the rest of them are quote unquote rescheduled for 2021. So we'll see.

AlexExactly I'm like okay

MerlinWe're all the fire festival now

AlexWould you forgive

MerlinA very short reading series

AlexOh please I would not I will not forgive it I will encourage and enjoy it I will say this show is the reason I was able to see Hamilton Because otherwise I would have just been sitting in the lottery Forever and ever So thank you patrons for sticking with us.

MerlinGive us your fucking money.com.

AlexGive us your fucking money.com for giving Merlin and I money and paying Quinn. But the, I mean, it's just so egregiously expensive. And Merlin, interrupt me whenever you're ready.

And Lin-Manuel Miranda said something that didn't occur to me until I thought about it. More people have seen Hamilton this or last weekend than they have in the past four years.

MerlinBecause I heard in an interview, he said something about how, you know, they always keep a block of tickets set aside for students. And that something like several hundred thousand kids have gotten to see Hamilton live that way.

AlexYeah. Yeah. That is really great. Yeah. Yeah. It's fantastic.

MerlinOf course. Of course. That makes sense. That totally makes sense.

AlexWhich is so scary. um i understand why it would be scary like well those hot those takes really came in hot um but i mean i don't know i really really love when live theater is presented in this way in a way that's done with so much care and i'm sure we'll get into that but this could be the way to keep people employed in the future because it's going to be a long time

before I get to see Dear Evan Hansen.

MerlinYeah, and we talked about this last week with the whole like, what's the future of art going to look like?

AlexIn the after show, go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com. Yes.

MerlinOkay, listen, listen. I'm not going to put this in show notes because I do not want to drag this person because I think they have a point of view, but it's very important that I read this to you. So you two have, listen to Hamilton, You two have seen bootlegs of Hamilton. You two have seen Hamilton live in a room and you have seen Hamilton, the movie.

Now at the point that I read this, I had done all but seeing Hamilton, the movie, but I have to read you a paragraph and I would like you to respond to it. Do not contact this person. Do not give them a hard time. I don't think this is meant to be as clickbaity is, but I do want your hot take. This is from a piece called You Don't Need to Watch Hamilton.

And let me read you one of the paragraphs. It's a little bit long, but bear with me because I want to get your thoughts. No, I'm not going to do a funny voice. As for what you can see, there's really not much to look at. Hamilton's...

AlexI'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go on.

MerlinNo, it's just like I already want to stop. Hamilton's bare bones set is little more than scaffolding on a revolving stage with some furniture that gets dragged in and out. Dragged in and out? Is that how the furniture... It's more notable for what isn't there than what is, and that's exactly how it should be, considering the pace of the musical itself, which doesn't leave time for a ton of changes or much space in the audience's brains to pay attention to more than the density of wordplay allusion and storytelling. also to the costumes which occasionally catch the eye i'm thinking mostly of thomas jefferson's

purple coat uh jumping ahead a little bit the choreography while it results in some striking tableau is needlessly convoluted and at times downright distracting so this is in the middle of a fairly short piece on why you know what you're good you don't need to see hamilton now i'm gonna throw you what we in sports call a softball would you agree with the idea that you don't need to see Hamilton.

AlexQuinn, you want to take this one? I've read this piece.

MerlinI've read it six times and it still makes me crazy.

Speaker AI haven't read this because I don't invite that kind of pain into my life.

MerlinI don't think this person is trying to be a jerk. I think they're trying to say like, I'll be honest with you.

AlexOh, I think they're really sincere and really wrong.

MerlinNo, I think this is a person who either has not seen it or maybe has seen it and like wasn't paying attention. But like I said, so in my stupid tweet about this, what did I say? I said, this is well written and I get the point, but wow, do I ever disagree. The choreography, the lighting, the blocking, the prop work

Speaker Band the two literal turntables on stage.

MerlinJiminy, it's so thrilling to actually see. That's my take is like, wait a minute. So like when they're doing the stuff with spinning chairs around and bringing out the box to stand on and like where the people are blocked and when they're up in the, not the rigging, but up on that kind of second level And sometimes it's a ship and sometimes it's a city and like everybody's constantly in motion. I don't know. I think that's kind of cool.

AlexI was just surprised that almost every take in that piece I directly disagreed with in terms of like, wait, you didn't like the costumes because they were bare bone? Excuse me. Wait, wait.

MerlinAre you sure we were watching the same thing?

AlexYeah. Yeah. I was very confused.

MerlinWere you watching Waiting for Godot?

Speaker Abecause that whole that like article sounds like it was written by someone who has like a very strong stylistic sense of what they like in a musical and hamilton is the opposite of that stylistic sense which is like fine i guess i just i very strongly disagree with you yeah it's not

Merlinit's not oklahoma it's yeah i mean like i love oklahoma but like then a digga digga down or no sorry that's radio by copeland but anyway if you're doing the you know the kind of the cowboy dance or chicks and ducks and geese better scary or like whatever like if you're used to a 1940s 50s 60s style musical but i don't know i'm not i'm not trying to be a snob about it it's just more like really that sucks that you didn't enjoy that because i the first time and so why am i saying this because when i did get my hands on a bootleg of this which is not beautiful but as with all

bootlegs you try to just forget the quality of what you're looking at and just appreciate the visuals such as you can and my immediate impression was holy shit there's so much going on and this is so much funnier on stage than you could ever guess i had no idea for okay and also anthony ramos there's so many parts i didn't realize were anthony ramos being great i didn't realize that he and alex were like really good friends and stand next to each other all the time very very good or like the blocking of somebody back here doing something different or like oh you know what nobody ever

told me king george was sitting on stage while this is happening this is hilarious i don't think

Alexit's interesting for three white people to talk about the race dynamics of hamilton there and there's plenty of stuff out there that's that's very good um from like 20 oh man there's like two hours by uh the show champagne sharks that is just oh wonderful from 2016 about like why i don't like Hamilton and it's very interesting and very good uh but like man I don't understand the take of just I don't enjoy this because it's popular and it I I think I feel like I can explain

Merlinthis perhaps I'm gonna set aside the nihilism that has become the only way we feel like we can survive anymore. I'm going to set aside the nihilism and cool kid stuff for one second. And I'm going to give an angle on this and I'm going to be a little vulnerable here. I used to be a sports fan when I was a kid. I used to really like sports. As I grew up and I felt, and I'm not trying to bust a gut here, and I felt more and more bullied by my lack of participation in sports and sports culture, where it was like, what the fuck is wrong with you, F word? Like, why are you not super into this? Why are you not already super good at this? You're not allowed, you're not

allowed to not like this. It was way beyond hegemony. But like, if you never felt that pressure, God bless you. But like, you're gonna go to the pep rally, you're gonna wear the hat, you're gonna wear the shirt, you're gonna support the team. And it was it was just so stifling to me. Even as a straight kid in Florida, it was so stifling and made me so goddamn angry. It really turned me against sports. Was I against sports? No, I was against sports culture. And sports culture is what turned me against sports. And because people who are really super into it

are pretty, I don't know if I have a nicer way to say tone deaf, are pretty insensitive to other people's past and interests and whatever. Well, okay, now let me learn from that. What I'm gonna learn from that is a bunch of people, well, let's just put it this way. Certainly a bunch of people who've never seen Hamilton. A bunch of people who've never heard Hamilton. And on top of that, a bunch of people who are so fucking sick of hearing about Hamilton. Let me just guess. A bunch of them, maybe they haven't seen a lot of musicals.

AlexOr like a lot of musicals.

MerlinNo, no, but follow me here. Like if you came in cold to a filmed performance of Hamilton when everybody had been saying squee for five years, you turn it on and like it's a bunch of people in funny outfits like running around and jumping around on stage. And it must seem like a Simpsons parody, like the Planet of the Apes play or something. You know what I mean? So the way that I'm trying to understand this, help me, Dr. Zayas.

I'm just trying, I'm trying to like, I want to seek first to understand. And the way the angle that I'm understanding is, and I am setting aside the nihilism that I think is literally killing a lot of very smart people's life right now. But even if I set that aside, I do feel like there are a lot of folks, if I had to distill these five paragraphs to one thing, it's a lot of people, not even who, I want to say don't like musicals, it's a lot of people who just aren't, have never been into musicals and not exposed to musicals. You watch this particularly dense text one time, part of one time,

and you're like, fuck that. That's the only way that I can understand a good faith effort to say this is not for me.

AlexMm-hmm. That makes sense. And that's fine. I mean, I don't know. People are just so bored right now.

MerlinBored and angry and terrified. everybody's bored angry terrified and the tribalism that we are seeing right now is just i mean especially i guess on twitter but like the tribalism of like oh my god i thought i thought there was a narcissism of small differences problem five years ago buddy this week people are gnawing at their best friend's shin bones because because it's just like you you have to you're expected to spend your entire day tearing everybody all the way down,

regardless of what you know about it. And it's all so humorless and black. It's just, can't people just enjoy a fucking movie?

Speaker AI know. The sort of rate of intensity of the Hamilton discourse has been very interesting to watch as well because these are ongoing conversations that have been going on for five years. And then, of course, like it's the audience has massively multiplied. It's massively multiplied way further outside of its initial audience, which is like people who liked musicals or who were at least receptible to music. Recept.

AlexWhat's that word? Receptive. Wow.

Speaker AOkay, Alex Cox.

MerlinHey, Quinn. Hey, Quinn. Sorry, real quick. Quinn, marker. Could you fix Quinn's problem with Quinn on Quinn?

Speaker AI am turning into Alex more every single day. You wish.

AlexNo, it's so bad. It's so unhealthy.

Speaker AIt's not bad. I love it. But that was a wild example of that happening in real time. Anyway, so the audience has been people who like musicals or people who are at least receptive to musicals. But now it's kind of everybody. And so there's been like this really rapid fire, really intense level of discourse about it. And it's like, didn't we already have all these conversations? Haven't we already been doing this?

MerlinYeah, but those conversations were happening over on the Harry Potter Live Journal community. It would be like me walking into a stadium going like, why are the fat men hitting each other? And they go, can't you understand the nuance of the defense that the bears are playing here? And you're like, yeah, but why are the fat men hitting each other? And you're like, oh, come on, give me a break. Like, you're not even trying to understand this game. In that case, like, you walk, you know what? Guess what? I guess by your standards, I would have to say, yes, musicals are kind of silly. Why are people singing? Well, they're singing because it's a musical. And that's a thing people do in musicals. And like, so what am I going to do?

I'm going to send you back. I'm going to send you back to showboat. I'm going to send you back to carousel. Oh, listen, listen. It's like me trying to explain to my kid, like what's happening in the video for Stacy's mom. It's like, no, no, no.

Speaker BLet me explain. For you to appreciate this, I'm going to have to really give you an education.

MerlinCarousel, the scene on the bench. Okay. Yeah. Why are the fat men hitting each other? Okay. I should go.

Speaker AI have a couple of things on this. One, this genuinely, if you are someone who's not into musicals, but you would like to try out some musicals tweet at me and tell me what movies you like and i will give you some musicals to listen to i genuinely love doing this such a good idea yes whoa really oh my god yeah oh that's so cool also in terms of like um some i will say in like this sort of like hamilton specific discourse i keep using the word discourse but it's inherently funny to me at this point um but why won't you debate me i will say that like i don't care if you don't like hamilton as long as

you are making a good faith attempt to like interact with the craft and not just dismissing it because it's popular. And I don't care if you do like Hamilton, as long as you're making a good faith effort to interact with the very valid criticisms of it as an art piece, especially in terms of its political messaging. And I will say, obviously, no one expects it to be an American history textbook, but... Oh, but that's... Some people do. That's what's... Most people don't expect it to be an American history textbook, but I think that we can hold pieces of art absolutely responsible for their political messaging.

MerlinIf you want that, you got to watch 1776. 1776 will tell you a lot about who should sit down. It's really a document, a historical document.

Speaker AWell, I will say, listen, the reason that I do, the reason that I don't dismiss arguments of like, oh, well, obviously these aren't accurate portrayals of the founding fathers. Like, of course they're not factually accurate, but they absolutely do like influence the people who they experience it, especially younger people, because my sort of perception of what the founding fathers were like as people was incredibly influenced by the musical 1776 which i saw as a child yeah um anyway and i do i will give homework to the audience for anyone who does want to engage with this in a good faith way the article by heath

saunders what i think about when i hear that broadway is racist is an incredibly well-written important piece by a phenomenal performer and also just in general the publication token theater friends is amazing and you should definitely follow their podcast but they're they're doing a Hamilton roundtable that is dropping the day after this episode will come out which also will have Heath Saunders on it actually and I'm really excited to watch it slash listen to it and you all should too because they're going to know a lot more than us that are going to have really interesting

Alexthings to say about it and on Disney plus now there is like a little I it's not it's not quite a making of but it's the cast reflecting on what hamilton means today versus you know in 2015 and

Merlin2016 they talked about that on culture they talked about on culture gab fest today like it's a i would say alongside parks and rec but um it's very much a moment it's an obama moment this this entire thing and it's you can't help but see it so differently now but which is which is good i

Alexlike i like that and and leslie odom jr says something really smart uh sort of about the discourse and he's like well better late than never i guess oh my god i will say every performer

Speaker Ain this musical absolute icons oh my god they are all so and i love every quote that they give about like the sort of the historical context of hamilton is so great like there was an art there was some interview a while back where they asked david diggs like what um research he did to play

AlexJefferson he's like not much that guy was an asshole yes and that's the thing of like people are like oh what this story about all of these heroes and it's like no man they suck and what's great is seeing how much they suck and yeah did you know Stephen Sondheim owned slaves

MerlinCan I say two quick things and then we fanboy out a little bit? I want to say two quick things to get past the discourse, but these are two things I would like to say. I'm going to quote myself, and then I'm going to postulate something. This is what I said the other night in a fit of peak, and I think it kind of summarizes what I'm trying to say here. I said, I'm glad people are finally willing to beat up on strangers who enjoy musicals. Those folks have been getting away with vulnerable outsider expressions of institutional exclusion for way too long. Why don't they just excel at violent team sports like a normal lonely outcast? I want to say

to you two cool for school kids like maybe you never needed musicals maybe you never needed stage band maybe you never needed comic books maybe you never needed the kind of the kind of thing where you can look down your nose at this bullshit but like maybe you hate LiveJournal and Doctor Who but you know what I don't want to be corny enough to say rock and roll can save your life although I do believe that I believe it saved mine on six distinct occasions but but give somebody a little bit of space for the thing that kept them whole for a little while.

The thing that kept them from losing the integrity of their soul just because it's not the thing that you got by with. If you got by with pom-poms and handjobs, good for you. I didn't want that life, but I sure envied wanting something that normal that could be given to me. And not everybody had that. Second and finally, um we'll cut this out but um i have a theory that one of the difficulties of being um a young person

well let's speak for myself when i was when i first got out of high school i was extremely sad i had no prospects uh what i did have was punk rock um like hardcore like american hardcore and english hardcore like meant a lot to me and indie rock and college rock and whatever and rem but But it was very much like punk rock and the idea that I was going to reject pretty much everything out of hand unless I decided to let it in. That the portcullis was down, you know, RoboKiller was on, and boy, everybody sucked.

And I – but what was I doing? I was basically an advanced 14-year-old because I had come to define myself almost exclusively by what I didn't like. and I think I don't want to over dramatize this but I want y'all to ask yourself how much today you've identified yourself by what you don't like because that's a basic 14 year old move and it is basic and if you're 26 or you're 36 or you're 66 and you still find yourself largely defining yourself by what you don't like you might want to take a minute with that because

I'm not saying you know you should define yourself by whatever you want it to be but like what have you, what are you vulnerable about? Like, what have you let into your life that's made your insides a little bit soft and moist in a way that will help you evolve? Or are you still fighting those same battles you fought in seventh grade and you still have not retired from that army? And that's, I just want to say to my, to my good friends out there who have embraced nihilism in a way that feels safe and fun and cool. It's like, be careful because, you know, the whole world is

moving on without you and you're still stuck in this translucent bubble of negativity and i don't know how well that will serve you well also this is a really good musical and you should give it a

Alexchance history has its eyes on you motherfuckers read another book read another book

Merlinalexander um leviosa

Speaker Bgoing to be our son.

MerlinThere were so many bits in this that tore me apart. So many songs I've heard so many times. But like just the way they were able to like get the camera in there on Leslie Odom on Wait For It. Oh my God. It's just like I wasn't prepared. That song in particular, I love that song. But as soon as that piano started, I was like, oh, yeah, this.

And then that tight shot of the wait for it, wait for it. You know, I'm not standing still. I'm lying in wait. And you're like, oh, God, I know how this goes. And this moment is so emotional to me.

AlexCan I talk about the choreography for a sec?

MerlinTalk about anything. Yeah.

AlexThe, sorry, not choreography, cinematography, because that's, I wouldn't say that I'm an expert or anything. that's just kind of like my air my my thing some sometimes before you were jazz girl you were film girl i was i was indeed film girl and very pretentious film girl you wore two sets of tiny glasses i did yes and those headphones those shitty headphones that are always around my uh neck when i'm looking at a monitor and yelling at people and pointing for another day gaffers tape

on your lesbian belt clap my ring of keys it's always jingle jingle jingle that's like the

Merlinthat's the lesbian version of uh battle medals oh that's a big ring big ring

Alexoh man but i i gotta say i've not only never seen a stage production so well shot but a fucking movie with dancing show so well shot like those crane shots uh they they're used just enough you know when they're like showing um this the whole stage from above uh it is

Speaker Aremarkable the image from the top during the reynolds pamphlet where the the ensembles like rolling around on the floor that is imprinted in my brain oh it's like almost like busby berkeley

Alexor something yeah right oh and every cut during satisfied when it's like it's just like bam bam bam and that's not something that they do in every every song they tailor the cinematography to each song because each song is its own story and they're doing and they're doing inserts

Merlinso they pointed this out on uh gap fest today i mean like i i've i'm familiar enough with this to know that when the title character comes out um and says his name there will be 10 to 120 minutes or seconds of applause that was done i think with an insert that was not the live show that was with the audience not there and i can't i think the camera on stage definitely the leslie odom stuff does that make sense alex does that comport with what you think because that's actually the one

Alextime i was distracted because i'm like why aren't they cheering and it's like oh right that's not how the show was originally not originally intended but like in famous you know in some musicals that there's always you know an applause point where after a big number but that's not what that is

Merlinwell it's also like for a friend of this and talking about Dear Evan Hansen friend of the show Seth Rudetsky talks about the amazing way he sings Waving Through a Window such a great you guys have seen that right the Seth Rudetsky series the Waving Through a Window one is outstanding but he's talking about his straight tone and the way that you know you know i learned this time on the brain and and like the way that he's like there's this hesitancy and so for that care the title character to come out and say um you know my name is alexander hamilton and it's like he's so he's you can see his eyes he just has that like hound dog look and the desperation and you know

boy does he know it but you know what i mean he's so vulnerable and then for that he followed by two minutes of cheering. Exactly.

AlexYeah, because it's not the Christian you know. God, now I'm Biden-ing. I'm going to turn Quinn into a centrist. I'm sorry. Tell you what, Jack. Tell you what, Jack, man.

MerlinComes here. Trade all the things you can't afford. Come out here. Back in Wilmington. I had the hair on my legs. Blackjack. Come up and say, hey, pal. Hey, pal. That's no ice cream I'd want to put in my hat.

AlexLove the popsicles. Folks. I have a somewhat controversial take. I don't know if it's controversial. I actually don't know. Maybe Merlin shares this. I don't know. Let's not put anybody in the spot. I don't think Lin-Manuel Miranda is the best singer, shall we say? And sometimes is outshone by a lot of the other.

MerlinHe's a great rapper. But thank God they were able to tune that show over time to each person's strengths. But I totally agree. but I feel like it's, again, it's a Doctor Who type situation, which is like, you know, I don't dislike Peter Davidson, but he's not my doctor. Like Tom Baker is my doctor. And like Tom Baker and to an extent, well, David Tennant, I need his poopies. But like, I mean, like everybody's got a favorite doctor. And so does that mean you have to hate the other doctors? Like, no. But like, yeah, he is a pretty, if you listen to my shot,

I said this the other day, but like, imagine just so you do eight shows a week. Can you just imagine just having to show up, get into makeup and costume, get on stage with those lights, and just perform my shot eight times a week?

AlexThat's, God, I can't imagine how-

MerlinThat's like running a 5K. That's crazy.

Speaker AAnd I will say also, Alex, that is not a controversial opinion.

MerlinEverybody likes the handsome guy, right? Doesn't everybody like the handsome guy?

Speaker AEven Lynn has acknowledged that the other members of the cast are better singers than he is, which is why a lot of them have more singing forward roles.

AlexWell, but here's part two of the controversial take because that's, you know, it's always two things with Merlin. I think he is one of the best performers, though, in terms of just acting. Like a theater kid. Well, no, though. Like my Hamilton is Michael Cervantes, which is the. Yes. Yep. and but you know part of the nature

of filming it obviously the original cast members you can tell they are playing to the cameras as well as the audience and I became familiar with Lin-Manuel Miranda like seeing him from fucking house when he's really? yeah he's in when he's Alfie in house whoa how's the TV show

Merlinwith Lupus? that show with the Hugh Laurie show?

AlexYeah, I love House. I love it so much.

MerlinOh, I love House too. I'm trying so hard to get Emma into it.

AlexI love it. I love it. I love that cast. I don't like being like the first season, but like the first half of the first season. But I loved, I don't want to spoil it, but he's this bipolar rapper and he just, oh God, he stole my heart.

MerlinReally? Oh my God, that's so cool.

AlexYeah, and I kind of knew about In the Heights, but then I was like, this guy, man, there's something about him and I felt the same way about the entire cast being filmed and it makes Lynn said this like it makes sense that so many of them went on to do screen parts because they know how to perform to a live audience as well as to a camera and that is what part of what made this so successful and I wonder if Broadway and theater in general is going to kind of take that

turn as we figure out ways to produce things that used to be, you know, used to have a live audience. All right. I'm done with my burning hot take. I do think like I'm trying to find exactly

Merlinthe line. God, I wouldn't be able to do this. Oh, Philip, when you smile, I am undone. It's like, oh, God, I'm it's just it's so perfect. Or, you know, Philip, you'd like it. It's quiet uptown. It's like, it just tears me apart. And I do think his voice is, I mean, like he does kind of do, I don't have a bad word to say about the guy. Yeah, I do know what you mean. I mean, being up against Chris Jackson, I mean.

And like I say, Anthony Ramos, I guess I never fully appreciate how great he is in this. I mean, his performance, the brightness of his face, the freckles, the singing, the everything, you know. The gayness.

Speaker Athe game you don't know what i'm talking about when i say this there is there's some subtext

Merlini thought he was with i mean i'm sorry i don't mean to be gender normative or sexy normative sexy normative but isn't isn't he with peggy aren't they getting married oh they are i mean in the show oh i'm sorry you mean as in like slash fiction like like weird alex world of

Aleximagine okay no it's not slash fiction no no no it's not though like it uh i you're saying they're passing strange i uh actually i've also read the ron chernab a book you know because i

Merlinread other books um i i have a copy of it with my three uncracked copies of infinite chess but yes

Alexyes i ended up i ended up getting it on kindle it's very heavy um and the pages are very thin but but he hamilton as he had he probably had multiple affairs not just with um uh uh the Reynolds, I don't remember her first name.

MerlinThe Reynolds woman.

AlexThe Reynolds lady. But there are also some rumors about some stuff he did in the war, which a lot of young men.

MerlinI call fanfic.

AlexNo, okay. If it's in Ron Chernow. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Quinn, have you not heard of this?

MerlinYou mean like companionship or like diddly-dee? Like what are we talking about here? Are we talking about magic or are we talking about magic? What are we talking about?

AlexBest friendship as well as some Brokeback Mountain style stuff. Oh, I see. And it was intentionally not. Sexual tension is a bit much to say that is built into the musical.

MerlinI know what you mean. It's like how I feel about Jonathan Groff. Like, I don't want to, like, have sex with him, but I want to do everything but have sex with him.

AlexI don't know, but you can really see the intimacy.

MerlinDon't you think he'd be a good hang? wouldn't you spend two hours at denny's with jonathan groff i oh man he's like the least obnoxious person in glee every interview every single interview with him i'm more like i want to be his best friend he's so he's so cool and he listens to what people are saying and he's so

Speaker Ahandsome oh he's your merlin man oh i'm wildly in love with him he's so charismatic he's so

Alexcharismatic i don't want to disappoint you quinn but i think he'd be into more i know than you I'm sorry. I know.

Speaker AI know. I'm aware. I'm disappointed too, really. Listen, I love musical theater. A lot of the men I'm in love with are gay.

AlexYeah, that's the other thing is I, Quinn, you, I think you share that tweet with us. It's like, I'm not, it's not that I don't like Hamilton. I just hate seeing theater kids happy.

MerlinYes, yes, yes.

AlexAnd that made me laugh.

MerlinNo, a lot of it's just good-natured-ish trolling. It's like, no, I actually do not like this, but mainly I'm just here to needle you about this. It's the same thing where if I feel like somebody, this morning I posted a thing because I'm so fucking freaked out about school right now. And people are coming in and like, how's this different from my grocery store? And actually there's some research from Finland that indicates that children are strong like bull. And it's like, I will sometimes have a little fun with somebody like that,

like not in an overtly super crazy mean way, but I'll get a little bit 20% Cyrano on somebody just because I'm in the mood to just bat a mouse around a little bit. But like, I do think there is that element. And then there are people then, it's the same way you go to Amazon. You see an incredibly stupid review. You click on the name and guess what? That's all they do. That's all they do all day long is stupid reviews. Same on iTunes, same on anywhere. And it's like, well, you know, if you knew that, and I'm sorry, I'm gonna be really, I'm gonna be a huge dick for just a second because I see this in my dear, dear friends. They lose fucking half a day

arguing with Charlie 2 followers. And it's like, you just amplified them to have triple the followers they had this morning with their dumb bullshit because you chose to not do other things so that you could spend time, you know, wrestling a pig.

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinLet's talk about something fun.

Speaker ACan I shout out my Hamilton boyfriend? Yes, please. Okay. Again, everyone in this cast is beautiful and perfect, but my Hamilton boyfriend is Thane Jasperson. He's a member of the ensemble and plays Samuel Seabury. And I could not tell you why besides the fact that maybe his perfect arms, but I just am deeply in love with him. I think that he's such a good performer and I love that he's like just in the ensemble but like stands out so much. And he was in this, which made me really, really happy.

MerlinOkay, so does he have two parts in this? Because I feel like either he has a different part in the second. Is he also, sorry, sorry, sorry, wait. Is he also Lee in this? or is that a different person?

Speaker AI don't think he is.

MerlinAll I remember is seeing him go up there and I was like, oh my God. It's like if they wanted to cast a David Tennant type but from England instead of Scotland. I was like, that guy has such big David Tennant energy to me. He's great in that. But Quinn, Quinn, yes. Like you just gave a perfect example. Like if you just, if one, relax, breathe. if one just listened to what's the name of the piece it's called my name is Samuel Seabury

not the rabble who screams

Speaker Afarmer refuted

Merlinif you heard that you go oh this is really cool oh I get it it's kind of like a rap battle where one person is greatly outmatched but you don't need to see what that looks like on stage

Speaker Bright it's hilarious

Merlinthe way they're like egging and the Hercules Mulligan some people were egging him on some people were holding him back tear this guy apart and and then he gets up there and he gets on the thing with him and they're

Alexjostling for position it's fucking hilarious but i am curious gwyn to go get back to why him why is he why is he the boyfriend i feel like you haven't oh why why is thane jasperson my boyfriend just

Merlinhot or is it his performance thane jasperson sounds like a name that i would make up the

Speaker Ait is a very good i think it's it is partly that his name is very good um and it is partly because I think that I just he's also just like such a prominent member of the ensemble because he is Seabury and just like he's paired with Ariana DeBose a lot and seems to be like very forward in terms of the ensemble and so I don't know I just like noticed him early on in like a video or something and then I've just sort of I've imprinted upon him I feel like I've done the

Alexsame thing with Ariana how do you say is it DeBoy how did her last name or DeBose I don't know

Speaker AHere's the thing.

AlexI'm not sure I've ever heard anyone say it out loud.

Speaker ASo I'm not 100% sure.

AlexYeah. I haven't seen West Side Story yet, obviously. But man, that is, oh, I'm so stoked for that.

Speaker AI'm so excited. Oh my God. But yeah, she's just so good and she's so pretty.

MerlinOh, wait, is it going to be a movie?

AlexDecember 21st, in theory.

MerlinOh, December 18th. This is so, oh, look at this. Wow. Do I know anybody else in this?

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinOh, Ansel Elgort. I thought he was canceled. Ansel Elgort. Who knows? Rachel Zegler.

Speaker AI don't know what's going on with that.

MerlinOh, Rita Moreno. I love her.

Speaker AI can't keep track of who is and who isn't. Oh, did you, oh, what's his name? If he did do what he's been accused of, I'm going to be really mad because I was really excited for this West Side Story movie and the rest of the cast is phenomenal.

MerlinThey could recast Kevin Spacey. are we dinging on that is that is that no no we can go we can go just remember we still got to do an after show everybody everybody gets all burnt out including me and then we still have to do an after show you can listen to the after show uh give us five dollars give us your fucking money.com can we talk about bangers can we talk about more fans and more crushes and more bangers yes please i just i just want to i just want to talk about how much i fucking love this um um um boy you know what's the song that precedes it?

Helpless and Satisfied. Man, you know? Okay, so here's my controversial opinion. I think Phillip Sue is great. I think she's beautiful. I think her stage presence is amazing. I think her singing is good on the cast recording. I thought she sounded much better or more exciting and full. Her performance on Burn in this, talk about a fucking banger. oh yeah she's really she pushes it a little bit more it's more throaty but also her i mean getting

to see her do helpless and then and satisfied it's like i appreciate her character so much more

Alexafter getting to watch this i and her performance i kind of hope that they release the you know well i guess it would be the soundtrack for this because sometimes the acoustics are not better but it really sounds more like a Broadway original cast album. I don't know.

MerlinWell, especially when you can hear them like, or for example, like with the ladies, and there's that great bit where you could just miss if you turned away, which is like as the guys are walking, the four of them are kind of walking, they're also making eye contact and like pointing to people in the front row. You know what I mean? And there's this kind of jostling and fun and the crosstalk, and you can hear them talking to each other. I agree with you. I would love to hear that.

AlexOr just, you know, the clinking of the glasses during Room Where It Happens. Like, there are just little things like that when you couldn't see it in the bootleg. But when I saw it live, I was like, holy shit. And just, you know, some of the book banging and stuff.

Speaker AOh, wow. The thing that has really keeps blowing my mind when I think about this is that I can just go watch this again whenever I want. Like, I feel like there was so much buildup to like being able to watch Hamilton on Disney Plus that now I'm like, oh, I can go back and watch this as many times as I want now. It's just available.

MerlinYeah, this could be my new Big Lebowski. This could just be something I put on and watch for any given 20 minutes of the thing.

Speaker AAnd I'm so excited to like just really over the course of the next year of my life, absorb every single minute detail of the show. That's how I was with Rent, even with the Rent movie.

AlexAnd I've seen, well, how many times have you two watched Hamilton so far? The Disney Plus version. Just once so far. Ah, okay. All right.

MerlinI watched, oh, God, I tried to stay up on that Friday night. I made it to about one. And then I watched it. Okay, so my kid, whom I love, has really moved on, and it's killing me. She's like, listen, there's all these other musicals I like so much better. like she'd read she wants to listen to six or she wants to listen to mean girls or she wants to listen to all of these things and she said tiktok has taught her words i don't know anymore and it's caused a rift which is fine because she's 12 and riffs are what it's about but like you know i couldn't get her but but madden i did watch it i would say a total total count probably twice

there's some parts i've watched several times i've watched the last n minutes several times I need to go back and watch Guns and Ships again as soon as we stop right here

AlexI've done it I've done it I've ejaculated three times to this

MerlinDid you get the hand washing thing pop up on your watch?

AlexAlmost done, I know I know, I know I really think Almost done Almost done

Merlinalmost done god i'm so close to clean

Show notes

Transcript

194. My Fabric Barrier

Show notes

Transcript

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