196. My Fabric Barrier - After Show
2020Show notes
We're taking the week off, but we didn't want to leave you nice people without something to listen to. So, we're unlocking the After Show from our recent visit about Hamilton with Producer Quinn.
More Hamilton talk (duh); questions on contemporary punctuation; some philosophical email discourse; Quinn totally got a cat!; Merlin's mother-in-law ruled; Alex thinks the olds should be allowed to do whatever they want; this whole reopen schools things sure is a mess; is Quinn a tong?; theme dining nights are explored; finally, salt is amazing.
Edited by Quinn Rose
Engineered by Cameron Bopp
Show Notes
- My Fabric Barrier | Do By Friday (Main episode that preceded this After Show episode)
- Howard Ho - How Hamilton Works - YouTube
- Quinn Rose on Twitter: "Say hello to Jinx 😻 https://t.co/mlxkezUris" / Twitter
- a 20-ish Pauline Cudworth | Madeline's mom (prob in the earl… | Flickr
- Grandma Stiness Meets Eleanor | [00w04d] | Merlin Mann | Flickr
Transcript
Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakesMerlinThe thing I sent is a playlist from a YouTuber called Howard Ho, and it's his, I think, very satisfyingly deep dive into musical motifs. And so that it looks like it's just,
the first one is Y10, Dual Commandments. It's amazing. But then it really gets into, you know, just the things we're like. So he'll use this same, like, here's a list of all the songs. Here's all the songs that have this thing in common and that thing in common. And I mean, when you get a sack, like, check it out because it's pretty, pretty good. I'll put it in show notes. Actually, I did put it in show notes. I'm a good boy. also playing corner of the sky shuck ones uh hey welcome back everybody
Alexmaddie also listened to the corner of the sky episode i did and i'm so from 2017 he was actually super nice and was like wow i love watching you be able to grow on podcasts which i i disagree with him and i don't think i have wow that's kind of like you
Merlindon't sweat much for a fat girl like it's you know i mean to be fair i don't i don't want to
Speaker Alisten to anything i did in 2017 again yeah oh i don't want to listen anything i've done in 2020
Alexagain really there's a lot of words i don't say anymore i don't say anymore um what are we doing
Merlincan we get through well we need that we need to talk about a certain cat but first i want to get this out of the way in in show notes um under news and topics please click on the link where does the exclamation mark go? Because I said this to my lady friend yesterday. I said, there's a phrase that people use, I think overuse a little bit, which I've never felt more seen. And somebody posted this tweet two days ago, and I've never felt more seen. Twitter user called at useful underscore noise, real name Keith Harris says,
sometimes I'm writing a two sentence email and I can't decide which sentence should get the exclamation mark.
Speaker AIt's too real.
MerlinI face this. Yep. So many of my emails, my messages, my slacks, especially my thank you for whatever you just sent me, I struggle so hard with this and I would love to interrogate it with you. First of all, do you feel seen with this? Is this something you face? Do you feel the need to put in an exclamation mark and don't know where? Do you find yourself thinking about how do I make this message most effective to what I think this person will want? That's called a leading question in law.
AlexYeah, I used to think about this every day. And now what I do, which please don't email me, looking forward to it, colon, thanks, or semicolon, or sometimes just a comma if I know the person doesn't care about grammar and then thanks, exclamation point.
MerlinDon't do that with Stephen. Stephen will tell you that is a comma spice.
AlexYep, I know, I know, I know. But a semicolon is technically correct.
MerlinYou know what? I know I'm canceled, but I love semicolons.
AlexI really do.
MerlinSome people hate them, but you can deploy a semicolon with great skill. Quinn, do you ever suffer from this?
Speaker AOh, constantly. I feel like every sentence that I write in an email, I spiritually think it should have an exclamation point, but I know that will make me look not okay. Yeah. And so I have to try to figure out what.
MerlinWell, you have to weigh. I imagine even especially as a woman, you have to weigh, does this make me look unserious versus does this make me look mean and shrill? I can't tell you how many of my emails are something like this. Thanks a million for the note. Have a great weekend.
What gets the exclamation point?
Speaker ASee, I feel like I would pull an Alex here and just make it one sentence. Yeah. No.
MerlinWell, here's my problem. And I've tried to identify this on the website, Twitter. But I say, OK, so something like, thanks for the nice note. Have a great weekend. If I say, thanks for the nice note, have a great weekend. It feels kind of anticlimactic.
AlexYeah.
MerlinIf I say, thanks for the note, have a great weekend. And you know what I don't want to do is I don't want to say, thanks for the nice note. Have a great weekend. Because I sound mental.
AlexYeah. I sound like a woman.
MerlinBut if I don't do the exclamation point, it sounds like I'm not really thankful or care about your weekend.
AlexIt's very strange. I don't know. I think we all read into, including me, I read into and overthink exclamation points and especially ellipses so much. I don't know if this is a boomer thing, but whenever a sentence is ended with an ellipses followed by another sentence completely, I'm like, oh, God, I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble.
MerlinI'm in trouble. You're in trouble. You're in so much trouble. I'm in so much trouble.
Speaker ABut man, I don't know. My mom ends conversations a lot just by sending a thumbs up emoji. And every time I think I've disappointed her. I do that all the time. All the time.
MerlinWell, with me, that just means I'm washing dishes, and that's from my watch. But, like, for example, my sister-in-law, who threw my glasses away now that I'm angry, my sister-in-law, whom I love, writes the way that I used to. So there's two things you've got to know about me.
One is that music is an important force in my life, and the other is I don't say this a lot. I think of myself professionally in some ways still primarily as a writer. And as a writer, I used to really, really, I still really think a lot about word choice, and I think about line breaks and I think about, I mean, I used to want to be an essayist and a poet. I'm the worst. So I think I overthink all of that stuff in a way that's gratifying to me because I want to communicate exactly what I think I need to communicate here and I want to use,
I'm one of those cucks who likes Strunk and White, sorry, and like I want to use proper, you know, sort of canonical American usage unless it calls for something else and I'm always thinking of Elmore Leonard's thing, Elmore Leonard and his wonderful 10 tips for writing. One of them is you can only use an exclamation point every 100,000 characters that you write. And I don't agree with that, but I do think about it. But I look up the way my sister-in-law texts, and she's not mad, but she sounds mad
because she's writing sentences and using periods, and it sounds like she's impatient. And I don't want to sound like that to people, but I also don't want to sound like I'm 11.
AlexIt's tough, too, because I think we are at a place right now that a lot of are not necessarily grammar, but just the way that we think about punctuation is changing. And I mean, I used to be one of the people who's like, oh, they them is so stupid. Ha ha. That wasn't anything repressed. and I I mean the way that sometimes now I capitalize words for like a haha fun it's it's not that funny I'm but I don't know like does this sort of make sense Quinn uh no offense
Merlin I feel like you sort of know what I'm talking about more with I don't know I don't know like we put a emoji is another thing that I stress about like yeah I just send a thumbs up to people all the time and i'm sorry oh no no i will say it's the interaction with my mom
Speaker Aalways makes me feel like she disappointed in me because it's also like we're talking on facebook messenger so it's just like you just like tap the button and you get a little thumbs up it's it's a very easy thing to do and she does not mean anything by it literally any single time she has done it but there's always just a little bit of me that's like oh okay um but um i think that I get away a little easier with this kind of thing because I am like okay well this is gonna sound a little mean but I'm a baby I'm very young and yes and even I think that like even the pretty
small age difference between me and you Alex is I'm still sort of towing the line in terms of like youth internet culture I'm definitely not in it the way I used to be I'm not on TikTok sorry but But I still am like in it enough that I can kind of like in Internet discussions, I can pretty intuitively feel my way through communication there without having to worry about it too much. And I can err on the side of kind of like fresh faced and bubbly enthusiastic. And like that seems natural to me because I am like often the young person in the room.
You're usually at yes, yes, yes. Whereas I'm like, yes, no.
AlexYes. Question mark.
MerlinI think this gets, I think, I feel like for me, this gets at what I was trying to say, though, which is that I have to, um, the same way that I would with any email, like I, you know, I used to be the email guy. And when I think, I think you have to be, to be an effective communicator with people, you have to have a lot of clarity about not just what you're asking of somebody, but like why you, why now? And I want to do that economically. And so I, you know, I've, I've tried to, I was like, you know, one of my pieces of advice a million years ago was a busy person is much more likely to respond to an email that has a great
subject line and white space that they can see the second they open it. Like, I think when people see that there's going to be at least five, six, I see the, you know, the scroll thumb come up and it's like, oh, it's one of those emails. It's one of those, I hope this finds you well. The Dodgers are having a crazy season. But like, I really do feel it. And so I do sweat that more than I should because that's a choice that I've made in life. But part of that also means I have to do a little bit of in-the-game analysis about what's going to be effective for this person.
And it becomes, I don't want to, you know, appropriate here, but it becomes a little bit of code switching where it depends who I'm talking to. Like if it's Scott and Adam or if it's Alex or it's one of the late-night queers I stay up all night DMing with, like it's different for each person. like what's the god bless the queers who will dm with me all night um but like i i that's all it's all so different oh my god i i had such a nice conversation with jill gottowicz last night and i could hardly go to sleep and um so yeah that's really that's really difficult but you know on the other hand the positive side of it is i think it is cool that you don't have to be a
french structuralist anymore to understand like like you say like you like to joke about Alex you know there's all kinds of things in life that are construction and you know language is one of those things but just because it's a construction doesn't mean it's not real and if you get it wrong you're going to make Alex and me think we're in trouble you're not in trouble I really really
Alexdon't want to be in trouble for first of all if you're one of the if any late night queers want to hang out with me yes please because I stay up until about three in the morning now these days uh second of all i forgot what my second thing was going to be so never mind it's always two things with you oh uh breaking news the flies or the uh the ants that i thought were ants was a single fly and cat hair so less of a problem than i thought
that's a very different thing yep very very different thing
Merlinbut no less upsetting especially if you start discovering thousands of hairy ants oh I don't need that I like a spider but I don't love a hairy spider woof
Alexis that racist? that's kind of racist
Merlinalright thank you for helping me address this I feel seen Yas Queen Denzel Washington
Alexalthough hard stance no adverbs and also always say said just say said don't say exclaimed i overuse adverbs in casual speech
Merlinbecause i i i know i know from adverbs but i overuse it in casual speech because i think it helps me sound more like how i speak that makes sense and i think there's a way of like and again if you're somebody who god this is so fucking pretentious if you are a person who enjoys verse and you like things like, let's say, Broadway, you understand the musicality of language. And for something to be effective, I mean, everybody knows shit like, you know, day one stuff, like if you're going to tell a joke,
the funny part of it needs to be the last thing, right? To get the big boom of a joke or a bit or a tweet, like the joke has to, you have to hold it off till the end where people are anticipating how this is going to land. And then you try to, this is so pretentious, the musicality that takes you to that. you know and so when i say something like uh you you probably definitely want to check out the video for this like i don't need to say all of that what am i going to say watch my video you know
Alexuh did you know you look nice today is a youtube is on it's a youtube channel now yeah it's a youtube what what what wait did you really not know that no or i'm acting yep yep the nachos
Merlinto get the nachos. She takes all the nachos, the fully loaded nachos and all I get is one little chunk. What?
Speaker AWhat? Now I don't know what's happening.
MerlinOh, Quinn hasn't seen, I think you should leave. I think they should make 16 seasons of, I think you should leave right now and they should put them all out.
Speaker AOh yeah, I've only seen, I've actually only ever seen a couple of sketches from that. I haven't seen.
MerlinYou've probably seen the hot dog. The whole thing.
Speaker AWhat have I seen? I actually haven't seen the hot dog but I've seen enough memes about it Wet mud
MerlinOh you mean like with too small a slice made of mud pie
Speaker AI know I've seen like three of them but the one I really remember is the woman who brings home her older pretentious boyfriend to her game night and it's so good
MerlinOh it's the cigars that are going to kill you Are you talking about that tuk-tuk sound? I do that now every time I stand up I do the Tim Meidenker noise I noticed you had some gazpacho soup can you go get that nutcracker I love that show so much okay thank you sorry I'm talking too much
Alexoh no I did I pulled another I don't know I talked so much man I'm
Merlintoo much caffeine I feel like we talked about that I thought we agreed you weren't going to talk well it's you know I know
Alexhey um Quinn Yes. Yes.
MerlinI heard a rumor that you might have a new little friend in the house.
Speaker AI do.
MerlinAnd I've only seen one photo, and I don't want to be a dick about it, but I need more cat pics, please.
Speaker AAfter, so I, okay, background for this, I've wanted a cat for my entire life. My brother is allergic, so this has not been possible for me. Went through college, thought really hard about potentially illegally getting a cat in the dorm, decided that wasn't a good idea. last year my apartment had a dog my roommates had a dog so i decided it wasn't the right time yet uh cut to 2020 i was i was traveling a lot through the winter and i decided when i got back from my big trip in march i would go to the shelter and adopt a cat and finally have one and be happy and
bam bam bam covid19 shelter closed could not get a cat it is now july 8th as we're recording this And three days ago, the shelter was open and I got my baby. Her name is Jinx and she's perfect. And also shout out to Matchy, who was incredibly helpful through every step of this and helping me make feel better and giving me lots of advice.
MerlinMatchy is America's pet friend. Matchy is the pet friend. Oh, Matchy can help you with so many aspects of so many animals. What a wise man that is.
Alexbut but Quinn uh can I ask what's a video that you sent Matchy with a concern okay listen I think
Speaker Ait was a very valid concern I'm I'm really worried that my cat is too hot and I'm really worried that she might be sick in some way and I'm very anxious and by the way oh no that's not what I was talking about I'm getting to this I'm Matthew has told me that my concern for Jinx really reminds him of your concern for your cats and that we are both equally anxious about them but i sent i sent matthew a video the morning after uh so that uh i adopted her in the afternoon and then the next morning i was i sent matthew video and i'm like she sounds like she's breathing really
funny what is this noise is she okay and he sent back quinn she's purring is it covid is it covid do i have a covid cat i was concerned it didn't sound right
Merlinis tiny cat ventilator yeah
Alexand i mean quinn you i should not be making fun of you because i was very concerned that francis had like um i i don't know like a rash or maybe tiny tumors but no those those were his nipples
Speaker Ai forgot that uh males also have nipples so my my favorite thing about jinx so far is that if i tap my lap she will jump up on it oh god and so she's now in my lap we'll see if she's making noise she's not me well she's purring she she doesn't really meow she goes and then i go back at her
Alexyou know the whole meow do you do you know the meowing thing how cats don't meow at one another it is purely them trying to communicate with humans yeah isn't that fucking crazy wait can you hear her oh nope okay no but i bet we'll be able to on the uh on the actual recording to quote
Merlinmy great deceased favorite person, my mother-in-law, when we would always say, oh, check out Ellie. She does this thing. And she'd say, because she was a theater person, she'd go, ah, she's not a performing monkey.
I miss you, Grandma Steinus. I miss you so much. Oh, I should show you. I've got a photo of my mother-in-law when she was at Smith in the 50s. And she was hugely into theater. she was she directed plays like throughout her whole life my wife was in one of her plays she was such a fucking badass she went she yeah so she was born in 1929 she went to smith in the 50s she was a she was a tv news producer in providence she was so fucking cool
wow she was really cute too god i miss her i miss her so much oh my god and i mean not
Alexthat that is impressive on its own but in yeah in the 50s in 50s new england wow oh my gosh oh oh quinn these be oh a cat picture oh oh oh did she does the face does she love like being by your face and and smelling you and oh my god i lay down to go to sleep yesterday
Speaker Aand i'll send you a picture of what she decided needed to happen this is how this is how she went to sleep yesterday literally with her face pressed up her back of her head pressed up against my face.
MerlinQuinn, you have a great look. You have such a good look.
Speaker AThank you.
MerlinI'm really envious. I want to look.
AlexI know. It's infuriating. It's super frustrating. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Speaker ACan I ask where the name Jinx came from? It's very cute. So, thank you. It actually came from my mom. My mom has also always wanted a cat and always wanted a black cat. And she said that she wanted to get a black cat and name her Jinx. And I was like, great, I'm stealing that. It's a really good name. That's perfect. And she looks like a jinx. She's this really small, sleek, black cat. Oh, it's perfect.
AlexYeah.
Speaker AOh, God, those little fangs. Oh, God. I also, so my cousin has a cat, and he lives in Pennsylvania, so they'll probably never meet. But his cat's name is Loki. And I feel like if we put jinx and Loki together, we're just asking to get cursed.
MerlinWell, that is the kind of thing where if you had to explain it to a cop, they'd be like, eh, you know, maybe that's not such a good mix. this one is called world killer okay i got pictures of grandma steinus here
Alexum oh yeah we suffer me yes no no i will not i will enjoy this look at this check this check
Merlinthis lady out this is 19 that's 1950 not sure and then the greatest picture i ever took in my life so i don't know if that go through sometimes it doesn't go through oh my god and then this is my favorite photo i ever took in my life this is that woman meeting my daughter oh my god oh my god oh oh my goodness i was i was texting with my i was texting with my niece on
the other night and i was just saying like not not the one in arizona the one that does comedy and who works for, what's her name, the choice group with, what's her name? Oh, Liz Winstead. She works for Liz Winstead and was a big UCB person back when there was a UCB. But anyhow, we were texting, got back and forth, and I was like, I can't say this to hardly anybody else, but I'm so glad Grandma Stinus died before she could so definitely die from this.
she didn't have to see trump get elected and she didn't have to die from covet and i'm so like
Alexweirdly she's like i think about that all the time yeah no i kind of oh god this is this is dark but like my i i'm very happy my grandparents are um back here in oh right they left because they left florida right yeah yes um and they i i was like uh i don't know but all right and i forget where i hear that i heard this but i think there's a very good point in like
you know older folks who are in their like 80s and 90s let them do whatever the fuck they want Like, I like she if she were to have died without missing her without meeting her first great grandchild. Like, I know that I wouldn't like that would I don't know. I don't know. Like, I obviously I don't want them like roaming and going out and about. But free range grandparents.
Yes. Yes. It's like there should be more senior hours now. like we shouldn't be allowed to go into the grocery store just the grand the the olds should be in the grocery store because like they don't fucking know how to use to task rabbit or amazon or uh instacart that's the other thing um but yeah one of the first people uh i saw actually she's like i i didn't go see my parents i went and saw my grandparents because they were like i don't i don't care like it it is more important like i haven't seen you in six months and i i
don't know i i respect and understand that um oh happy corn happy corn look at that uh look at
Merlinthat short video oh yes just quick real quick oh look at my little daughter she's so little she's almost 80 at this point isn't she cute she gets smaller and smaller all right let's talk about something happy here oh so jinx oh jinx is oh look at those fangs yeah did you guys see the picture of george on the copy of infinite jest what no oh my god allison posted a photo of george
laying on a copy of Infinite Jest.
AlexYes! Yes!
MerlinI apologize. I love him so, so much. Have you seen George? You've seen George, right?
Speaker AQuinn? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Oh my god.
MerlinGosh. So perfect. I used to think, I used to be one of those sort of callous people to be like, oh, pet people. Like, you know, I've had pets, but I'm not like a pet person. But like the way that my wife is with our pets is so fucking cute. She frets over all of the pets so much. One of the first things was when she said, well, we've got to get Bando back in his cage. It's just about his bedtime. I said, what are you, what, you mean just it's time for bed? She said, no, he goes to bed at 7.30. And I said,
I wasn't aware of that. Are there other things that I didn't know about the lizard that you've gleaned? And there's all kinds of things. She's very concerned about his diet and about this particular poop that he took. And like, do you think he'd be happier if we put a plant in here? And it's like a little baby. And it's so fun oh god i'm i'm you guys need to get a dragon get a dragon tell me look at that angel
Alexhere's the problem with us moving we would inevitably move somewhere like i don't like there's no way to get an apartment that would be smaller unless it was like a full-on actual studio and if we get an apartment that just even has like a bigger like living room like living area type space, I know either a dragon or another cat will come. It'll just happen. Two cats was... Francis was an accident. That disaster cat was not a plan.
And I just know.
MerlinFrancis was an accident.
AlexHe was.
MerlinJust that one time you didn't use protection.
AlexHe was an oops.
MerlinWhat's the problem with being Catholic? You get a little careless.
AlexWe didn't pull out the catnip.
MerlinYou give birth to a cat.
AlexOh, man. You sound sad today, Merlin, or maybe you just don't sound manic.
MerlinOh, no, I'm just very vulnerable. And I don't know. I've mentioned this to my friend John Roderick. At different times of day, I have different vulnerabilities. And one of them is afternoon is my terror about COVID time. And then evening tends to be my like, why is everybody so terrible time? And it's hard to shake. I need to get off the internet. But I don't know. I don't know. No, I'm fine. I'm actually real good. I'm excited. I'm excited. We're, you know, five by five. Things are good. I'm worried about school. I'm very upset. I'm very upset about school. And like, I'm just like, I'm sorry to bring it all back to COVID. But like, this is it's so fucking stupid. And I feel like, I mean, you know, there's a little bit of that Cassandra feeling where you're like, oh, it's recently been announced by the governors of these states that they think opening too early might have led to a spike in COVID cases. And I'm like, you think? Like, fucking really? Okay, wow.
I'm so sorry I didn't say anything earlier. And like right now, all this reopening stuff is fucking killing me. And I feel like I'm not saying I'm the only person that thinks this, but like I don't see anybody else talking about one aspect of this as much as I think about this. The number two is going to be what's involved for things like getting up to speed with school to open in six weeks. the other one like like i yesterday i never loved nicole wallace more than yesterday where she was talking to the head of not nea but a teacher's union about reopening and yeah you know we really
need these resources we need that and i was like she said this thing it was like from your mouth to god's ear and she's like well it sounds like you know there's things we need to do to get the classrooms safe but how do we get the teachers from their house to the classroom and i literally did a yes thank you like why am i the only person who's fucking obsessed about how they get to the safe destination. And is anybody thinking about this? Like I said yesterday, it's Kobayashi Maru. There's no fucking solution to any of this that isn't extremely difficult and probably impossible in the timeframe we've got. I used to manage projects. I'm here to tell you, we do not have
the budget or the resources or the time to match the scope of what people want done in this amount of time. So today, this woman, this wonderful teacher had this great thread. I don't think fucking anybody who's actually reading. And she's like, have any of you ever actually been in a school? Like every, I mean, I know this. The entirety of elementary school, the way the entire school has been built was not built to ever keep in mind, how do we make children not be near each other? Let alone, how do we make adults not be near each other?
Walk into any fucking classroom with almost any kind of funding. That's not maybe like a Montessori school, although probably a Montessori school. every single elementary school classroom. Are there desks?
Speaker ANo.
MerlinThere are tables. And those tables usually have six kids around them because that's how they built the whole class. Tell me how we're going to fix that in six weeks. Well, what are we going to do? You have kids come in one day per week, so you're spreading around the amount of exposure in this locked-in built-ness.
I'm so fucking mad that I understand the need to get the economy going. I understand all of those things. But people who should know better, not just the ding-a-lings at the top, but so many people that should know better are not listening to topic experts on what is actually needed to do even a fraction of what everybody wants done. And all the governors are mad because the young people don't wear masks. It's like, well, you know, you are the idiot who said Chili's needs to be open because America.
And now you're mad that people weren't wearing masks while they ate their wings around a table? that's so fucking bad faith and stupid. And it just makes me really angry that people think we're going to be able to clep our way out of this, that we're going to be able to be Captain Kirk and figure out how to change the programming of the Kobayashi Maru scenario. Well, you can't. Not in six weeks. It's not going to happen. And I'm DMing all morning with teachers, friends of mine texting me going like, in some cases, like, hey, thanks for saying that. Nobody's talking about this. I'm like, yeah, no shit.
Because if you don't get the schools open, you can't reopen the economy, but you can't get the schools open safely. Believe me, the last thing you want is a giant COVID explosion among children and teachers and the parents and family members that they bring that back to every fucking afternoon. And I'm sorry I'm ranting, but get my back. Doesn't this seem really short-sighted?
AlexYes, absolutely. And I don't want to invalidate. You're right. Nobody is talking about this like on Twitter, but that is a constant conversation between at least like the moms I know right now, because as was pointed out.
MerlinI need to get back to work, but I don't want to send my kid into the death pit.
AlexRight. Like because if my kid gets sick, I need to stay home. And like, God, God forbid.
MerlinMy boss expects me to do the same amount of work and have the same availability, even though I have two elementary or toddler-aged kids. You know what? I would like one fucking man to go out there and try to pull that off. Guess what? Mom's taking a day off. She's going to the mud bath or whatever. I want you to go do your big boy job while you try to take care of two kids who are literally trying to kill each other, hit each other with the cat. I want you to get on the Zoom call. I don't think it's going to be a funny South Korean guy situation. I think it's you are potentially going to become, by the end of the morning, become an emotionally abusive person because it's so fucking hard.
You're going to like lock them in a room because you have a job to do.
AlexThere was a great piece like that said or made the case like, oh, yeah, in this world right now, it's kids or job. Like you can't do not you can't do both, but we should not be expected to do both.
Merlinand yet another reason i love ashley parker so much i love i love her work i love her appearances but i love her advocacy for the whole like listen people and you know my friend i have a lot of friends that are very heavily advocating for this like you you we can't have it all the women women have known that for a pretty good long time but it's fucking time for america to learn that we can't have it all and we especially can't have it all if there's no budget for it look at that photo look at that photo you excited about that future oh god that's this is a picture of a Little kids in a class wearing a mask and a plexiglass shield with hand sanitizer on their desk.
AlexAnd who paid for those fucking shields and who's going to pay for the replaceable masks? And I mean...
MerlinThat thread, I'm telling you, man, if you go read that thread I'm talking about where the teacher's like, first of all, in the best of situations... I mean, just one example. Obviously, there's the kids around the table thing. But then there's the whole like, well, maybe you don't know how schools operate. But here's something you need to know. In order for us to do this safely, every kid must have their own materials. that no other child touches. Well, guess what? I pay for all of those things myself out of my salary, and I have to beg all the parents. Believe me, we bring in boxes and boxes of stuff.
We give out Amazon gift cards. That's what you do now.
AlexThe Kleenex. Do you do like the Kleenex, the paper towel?
Merlin100%. So what am I going to do? Now, with my money, the amount of money I have, from the time I spent all day trying to get five-year-old boys not to put their fingers in each other's mouth, now on top of it all, I got to buy 30 fucking sets of crayons and make nobody touch anybody else's burnt sienna. Fuck.
Fucking figure it as Wayne from Letterkenny says. Figure it out. Jesus Christ. Happy times, happy times, happy times, happy times. This is the first piece. Nothing else in the tile puzzle moves until we figure this out.
AlexI mean, I'm thinking about this way too much, probably, because right now there's very little that I can actually do. But like, ugh.
MerlinAnd you hate that. You hate that. That drives you crazy.
AlexOh, I hate it.
MerlinNo, that's one thing I love about you is you don't obsess over the things that you don't have control over. But this feels irresolvable.
AlexWell, I try not. I try. But I mean, seeing all of the photos of like this, the shaming of people like, look at all these people like gathering together. It's like, well, at least they're outside, like shaming a bunch of gays on Fire Island. Fine. But like that shouldn't be.
MerlinYeah, well, yeah, let's keep the bar open, but close the beach.
AlexYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And let our kids go back to school. And it feels, I don't want to be like a conspiracy jazz girl, but it feels like that is what is being focused on instead of, oh my God, what's going to happen when we continue, like the second wave happens, But employers are less willing to give sick days. And not just for, quote, essential workers who are being forced to put their lives on the line.
But we've already treaded all over this. But what happens to also middle class and upper middle class folks where their bosses are like, yeah. I can't do the voice as good as you.
MerlinWe're paying a lot of rent on this place. We really could. but Alex there's a bit on this show that's definitely a bit but also very much not a bit and I'm going to kill the joke now by identifying the bit and explaining the bit there's a bit on this show that we've done for some time now that's a bit and not a bit which is I do care about how you are and I care about how you feel and I treasure you as a friend but like sometimes on the show I'll say how are you doing just tell me you're fine because I'm a man and when I say how are you doing what I'm really looking for is you saying you're fine right that's funny and it's not funny
and it's really true. There are a lot of people out there, let's be honest, especially men and Karens, who are out there saying, how are you doing? Tell me you're fine. Which is a way of saying, I don't want to have any responsibility. I don't want to have any responsibility for helping your life get better. And I'm really not even that interested in hearing how it's not that good right now. Oh, also, there's no budget. Can you go back to the normal that I like? because I represent this hegemonic force in life
that is accustomed to everything accommodating, the way that they want to live, and even the slightest amount of inconvenience for me translates to me having a quick talk with your manager about what you're not doing. So don't tell me your problems. Look, you've got to stop being irresponsible and get back to work. It's like, holy shit. That ability to make somebody else live your idea of normal is the darkest kind of American power. Yeah.
Challenge.
AlexHappy corn.
MerlinHappy corn. Do we want to do gadget challenge?
AlexOh, oh, that's what I thought we were doing. I have ordered, what did we call it? A kitchen or bathroom gadget?
MerlinA kitchen or I would say household gadget that it could just be like a funny thing that you think looks cool and funny, like an OXO avocado peeler, which is amazing. But it could just also be something you've always wanted. Like maybe like a nice garlic press or a good tongs. I don't know.
Speaker ADon't underestimate a good tong.
MerlinOh, I've got three sets of tongs and three extremely strong opinions. The tongs my wife likes are not good tongs. And I'll say it here, but she doesn't listen. I don't like her tongs. They're magnetic. They're too clever. They're too clever. Don't give me a magnetic tong. Oh, no, no. Are you kidding me? I don't want to think about physics when I'm using a tong.
Alexare you a are you a uh you don't need to be a a tong person do you self-identify as a tong person
Merlinyeah are you are you what's your what's your gender are you tong is that racist
Alexare you are you a kitchen person okay person i don't know i do eat i don't know what you're asking me neither do they do you cook food i guess do you i i think i think the answer to your
Speaker Aquestion is yes i do cook and i and even in the pre-pandemic days i did cook all of my meals basically um so yes i'm not super great at it i'm trying to get better and trying to learn new things and make more than those sort of like four bases of dishes that I make over and over again and just
Alexslightly vary every time but yeah wait what are the four dishes um burrito bowls uh tofu stir fry
Merlinpasta just generally um and then uh pasta bowl burrito pasta I guess like most of what I eat
Speaker Astarts or a salad i guess different types of salad like i think that everything i most of what i eat like stems from those four things i like stuff i can make on stoves uh but i'm trying to learn more
Merlinhow to make more things we do a lot of theme dining as i mentioned alex where we do like we've got potato night we got sausage night we got all the different things um my wife did a tremendous amount of work last night on a really good theme night which is uh which i usually call let's have appetizers for dinner but it's like wherever it's all well we've also got the all sides meal that we've talked about and had a challenge about here but like where it's just you know you know i've always said like i i don't seek out fruit and vegetables but if somebody makes it for me i'll eat it because i'm nine and and in this case like she's blanched some green beans she's gotten this
this wild ass dippable i think not greek yogurt but some kind of yogurt she's we got two kinds of salami we've got um what are the little pickles cornichons or whatever we've got we've got uh spicy mozzarella balls all of this stuff two kinds of bread i'm just saying alex i don't know how you like deep but let's have appetizers for dinner can be a pretty good dinner oh indeed
Alexalthough uh my my again if you're hearing this matchy my lovely wonderful perfect wife uh does most of the cooking um although i do make myself a peanut butter sandwich and apple uh which is my my favorite meal most days um he's getting he's like getting in to cooking now and most of the time i'm like it's got too much flavor for me i'm sorry and it's so spice
spice bomb until his butt falls off well he put salt and pepper on the chicken it wasn't
Merlinwaiter there is too much pepper in my pepper gosh it burned a little cut in my mouth i didn't like
Speaker Ait i grew up in a in a very not to be mean to my parents but there wasn't a lot of flavor in the food that i ate growing up like partly because my mom was very health conscious and like didn't add salt to anything and i've learned about salt recently and wow this stuff is good makes food
Merlintaste good who knew a little a little bit of salt can really make something come alive i read salt
Speaker Afat acid heat and i'm just like i didn't like retain a lot of the specific information i'm working on that um and the more sort of granular notions of cooking and making dishes but i did like really learn hey you should add salt and fat to your cooking because it makes it better
MerlinAlso, something I've always been a huge fan of salt and I've always eaten too much of it, but something I did not learn until very late in life, I don't mean this as advice, but I used to just, because I was always such a meathead in terms of how I cooked. I learned to cook ham and eggs when I was 12 and that basically, I'm a man. So all I ever knew was how to, I don't want to say fry, how to saute, use a saute pan, and I learned the two oven settings that every man knows, which is 350 and broil. And that's it. And this is way before I learned about par cooking.
It's way before I learned about sous vide or any of that stuff that's not as complicated as it seems. But when you add the salt can be huge too. Like salt after it's done cooking. And this is admittedly most true for meat. But for lots of things, like you put salt in the pasta water for sure, right? But also like if you salt too early, it can kind of screw up, you know, the way it is. Or like when you add the soy sauce to the tofu fry or whatever. Like it's weird how that stuff can have such an impact.
Speaker AYeah, absolutely.
AlexAre you a vegetarian Quinn? I apologize. I feel like I forget this all the time. Okay.
MerlinSo that means that she doesn't play animal crossing.