205. Practicing Life

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. This week's challenge, follow your nose on Spotify.

hello haha oh you oh i didn't say anything first hooray am i your project now what's happening

Merlinwhat are we doing here no i i are we practicing life on each other what are we doing what what

Alexwhat does that mean practicing life on each other that sounds like something very confused high schoolers do.

MerlinWhen you were a kid and you were in an environment where you felt safe, maybe let's say with your parents, did you ever try on some personalities? Because you knew you wouldn't get hit.

AlexYes.

MerlinThat's practicing life.

AlexNo, I've never put you through a beta. I put lots of people through betas.

MerlinYou can't put a beta through a beta. It won't work. It's like double negative. That's why scissoring is not real. You can't rub something that's not there. That's what Freud said.

AlexOh, it's too early.

MerlinIt's so early. Oh, my God. I explained this. I had this theory. I explained it to my co-host on Back to Work the other day that I'm in this permanent state of being the Sunday after a time change.

AlexIt's 3 o'clock somewhere.

MerlinIt's 3 o'clock everywhere all the time. But also, you know the feeling like I bet you were late for church more than once because of the, you know, time change.

AlexOh, I mean, I had cell phones. So that is not a that. OK, boomer. No, this is not something I've been tired. I have. That's the thing. I always forget when it is because my clocks do it for me.

MerlinOK, so you're doing it again now, which is fine. This is fine. And I'm glad you consider this that safe of a space that you can practice life on me this hard, less than two minutes into the podcast. Because Weird Flex, Gen Zed or whatever the fuck you are, I don't care.

AlexNo, I'm a millennial.

MerlinI'm 30 now. Whatever. I'm an adult. You're a fake millennial geek girl. So you're telling me your parents, because of your background and your privilege and your hogs, you always, you never in an age where we did not have self-setting clocks. when you were like six? You never missed a clock. Is this the life you're practicing on me?

AlexMaybe it's because you said you were never late to church because of a time change. And of course I wasn't because I was always at church already. That was school. That was youth group on Saturday and on Sunday. So I don't know.

MerlinOkay, I'm going to score this one one. It's 15 all at this point.

Alexso i i made a tennis reference the other day and the uh someone the person i was talking to didn't get it and was like oh that's that's so bougie is is tennis bougie like i it's definitely a sport that not everybody has access to in the same way i mean it's not as white as hockey i think right i mean it's pretty white it's very very white but like i mean tell arthur ash but anyway um

Merlinsure i mean i i don't i i i alex i've had quite a week i won't get into it but i've had a week and like i just so i'm kidding with you my friend because i feel safe that i can meta practice life on you with these bits um but um my god everyone's so fucking hostile right now there's so much i mean i guess everybody's always been hostile but i don't know we could talk about your journey this week if you want but i told you about my journey twitter journey twitter journey it's not just Twitter, but it's like, well, no. And like, who feels like they're winning right now? I mean,

who feels like they're winning with the approach that they have taken? Because I just see so many people in so much pain right now who spend an inordinate amount of their day either trying to huddle with people who feel mostly the same pain they do, which is totally understandable, or trying to cause someone else pain because they've shown a vulnerability. And whether that's a person you like or don't like or agree with or don't agree with, to just unload, be ready to unload so much hostility on people for like very unclear goals.

And so when people say things like tennis is bougie, okay, now what? So I shouldn't like or play, I don't care. But just to interrogate that point a little bit, okay, tennis is bougie. So what do I do differently today? I go find more people to yell at and tell them that tennis is bougie like you've done. Thank you for sharing that with me. I appreciate your message. Or does that mean I should now advocate, be a good ally to people who are seeing the hidden hand of big tennis?

Oh, man. They're just mad because we patented the amazing idea. What's it called? Big tennis, right?

AlexThat's the thing. It's like this.

Merlinthe ball's big the racket's big but the court is slightly smaller and that's funny well and it's

Alexit's as if i'm playing big tennis and they're playing little tennis and we all want to play tennis we all want to be on the same court if i'm just gonna if we're gonna beat the rgb metaphor into the ground it's like we all want a clean tennis court it doesn't matter what size it is It definitely matters what size it is.

MerlinBut see, I think I don't disagree. I don't disagree on that seeming like what's happening. But I think that's a little bit, that's the simulation. The simulation part, the part that we have decided is a certain way because of logic, is that we're somehow helping the situation by being awful all the time. And maybe in some cases that's true. But I mean, let alone how often we're being awful to the people who are very similar to us in a way that is, it's so excruciating, it's so unnecessary, and it is, in my opinion, by and large,

so unhelpful. This is not directed at any one person. It's directed at literally everyone, including you and me. And I just want to step away from that becoming a normal way, the default way that we behave with people. And it's making me sad.

AlexHmm. I'm afraid of now what you call feigning surprise. I'm very paranoid that you're always going to think I'm feigning surprise now when I'm just...

MerlinOkay, you're practicing life on me and here's what I'm going to say to you.

AlexNo, no. I'm not feigning surprise.

MerlinCan I tell you one thing I love about you and you have to listen to it whether you like it or not?

AlexOh, God. Kill me. Go ahead.

MerlinWhat do you think it's going to be? What are you worried it's going to be?

AlexI don't know.

MerlinDon't overthink it.

AlexI'm mostly worried that you can hear...

MerlinYou think I'm going to attack your vulnerability because that's what you expect now.

AlexHuh. Why do I expect that?

MerlinBecause you're bad and bougie.

AlexI mean, I agree. I'm bad and bougie because I...

MerlinAlex, I love, I love, I've realized what it is. You share a trait with a lot of the people that I most respect and admire, which is that you are legitimately curious. And some of the ways that you express that is so fucked up. God love you.

AlexIt is indeed.

MerlinNo, it's really fucked up. and you bring me so many things from parts of the internet that just aren't available where I live. And you'll be, oh, look, it's somebody who carved monkey dicks out of, I don't know, out of coconuts and then uses them to do witch ceremonies or something.

AlexYou're playing this down. I send you way weirder stuff than that.

MerlinAnd also you're eating pregnant Pokemons or whatever.

AlexM-Preg, or P-Preg now, as we call it.

MerlinI know. I believe I'm getting it from both sides. so anyway that's what i like about you that's what i likes about you as i think i appreciate that about you i think you are i think you are genuinely curious and i think that expresses itself in interesting ways and i think that's a very laudable thing that's oh wow the faint surprise is just but the faint surprise part it's the part that i think is so interesting we'll put

and notes is this thing I learned about from John Sirakusa. These four sort of social rules of this, they call them social rules as against like a code of conduct. You know, the code of conduct is like, is ape law. You know, it is known. But these four things are things that we're going to do in this community to encourage a generative environment where people are encouraged to ask questions and not be made to feel stupid, you know, by somebody who happens to know Python.

AlexWhat I've realized recently, I can't believe, well, this is happening. I've stopped worrying about feeling stupid because people have always treated me like I'm dumb and unimportant. And that's how most people feel all the time. And I think Twitter right now, people are feeling like that and feeling vulnerable for the first time. So it's like, I must lash out. Otherwise, I'm not smart enough. If I can't, you know.

MerlinWell, I mean, do you ever you ever try to get a raccoon out of an area like a garage or I had I had a hell of an experience a couple of months ago where I think I told you this. I went out to. So there's a day of the week we put out our trash. And then, you know, right before I go to bed, usually I'll see if there's anything else, especially compost that I could take down because that's yucky and I don't want it hanging around. Long story short, I put some stuff in the garbage. I put some stuff in the recycling. And then I noticed the lid on the compost moved a little bit.

And I thought, oh, that's where I must have done that. I opened it and a very, very large mama raccoon ran right over me out of the compost.

AlexI don't like it.

MerlinHave you ever tried to get a raccoon out of an area?

AlexI actually have. It hasn't gone well.

MerlinOr a possum. A possum would be another. But this goes for a lot of animals. I wouldn't say so much a mouse because can one really know a mouse?

AlexExactly.

MerlinA horse's head is ultimately unknowable to me. But you try to get a raccoon out of an area and you're going to see two real specific kinds of reactions that are extremely related. One is it's really fucking mad. And what's the one in equal measure? It's really fucking scared. a raccoon in a corner la la la terrific terrific morrissey song when a raccoon is in a is feels cornered it is i think to my estimation equal parts uh angry and um and scared does that does

that plausibly seem seem like does you see the where i'm going with this yes especially um

Alexgod i'm oh i need to put a link in the show notes to the i only listened to the mountain goats episode where John Darnielle says something similar about possums actually and how part of the reason possums and raccoons are so troublesome is because of that fear and because of their lizard possum brains I guess there's there's no way to you can't raise someone with a possum

MerlinI'm going to stretch this analogy uh well past the breaking point but I will also observe something about myself at this juncture. I didn't want that raccoon to be there. The raccoon, you know, didn't ask. I'm not going to rent fucking shoes. I'm not going to buy it a fucking beer. The raccoon, it just happened to be there because that's, I guess, where the food and water or shelter is, whatever it is, right? But what happens? What's my reaction to that? Am I happy and joyful? No, I'm also a little bit angry, but mostly really scared because I do not want to get

attacked by a raccoon. And I think that's what we see play out a lot of the time. That raccoon realizes that it is vulnerable and it pulls out all the stops to throw all the shapes that will let you know that I am not to be fucked with. And ask yourself if that's any kind of an analogy for

Alexwhat's happening right now. It almost feels as if the raccoons and the possums both voted for Hillary Clinton because it's like, what else were we going to do? And some of the possums were actually like you know what i'm excited about this like you know what maybe absolutely nothing will change but i need to subscribe to this idea of radical hope and you know hope for the best and then then the possums and the raccoons look like big old dum-dums for having any sort of hope

or optimism right or god forbid as a child thought that ruth bader ginsburg was a very interesting and inspiring figure. Because if you did...

MerlinMy kid just said Ruth Konda. No, they didn't. They didn't say that. You said they said that. Yes, and... Oh, God. I guess we should start soon.

Here's another... Oh, yeah, I see what you're saying. You were talking about because now I'm reminded. If I listened to election profit makers, which I'm no longer permitted to do because I have been banned.

AlexYes.

MerlinBut if I did listen to Election Profit Makers, I would say that one of my favorite parts is the attitude of Starly Kine. Not that I don't like the other guys, but of course, like any podcast, I love the mix. But there's something she's so, I don't know, I hope this doesn't sound sexist, but she's just so, it's not that she's hopeful, it's that she's just so humane. It's just the fact that one of her primary, it feels like from a distance, One of her, you know, she's obviously very sympathetic listening to something like Mystery Show.

Willie McGuffin is, let's solve this mystery. But it's also just about how great she is at hearing, listening to people in a way that we can all benefit from. But it's also that, like, she seems so disappointed that she has such an ardent belief that we can all be better. And it seems really difficult for her, not in an emo way, but in a, like, sometimes I have to, you know, I've got to vote my heart or bet my heart, not my head. But do you know what I mean? Do you get that from her?

AlexYeah. And I have a feeling it comes from a similar place of, well, if you're told that you're going to be wrong and that you don't matter, every tiny win is something you kind of need to cling to.

MerlinThere's nothing. Absolutely. Absolutely. But also, but like sometimes, at least in my own head, it's not unusual for me to unintentionally confuse my strong emotions. This is, I think this can be a kind of gendered thing, but I'll just say at least for men, I first heard this concept just thrown out, talking about women, but I think it's true of everybody. And I think it's, it could be true in different ways. But I think with men, the default reaction becomes anger. How you arrive at anger, I've mentioned this before, but how you arrive at anger, there are many paths to anger, or even fury and rage.

but you know they say you cry when you give up you cry when you become frustrated you cry when you can't take it anymore but then the other thing is you also become filled with rage when you've that could have started that could have started with fear it's all you know as a i like to say the seven dwarfs of bad emotions like all the things that lead us to the terrible places uh and for men i think a lot of that does really end up with anger that's you know you could any person, and it could be true of everybody, I don't know, but any person, any situation,

when stuff stacks up high enough, whether that's feeling like you should be entitled to the same sort of middle-class lifestyle that your parents promised you, whether that's digging coal or being a secretary, you feel denied that, and you feel like nobody's listening to you, and pretty soon you're on 4chan you know i'm sorry i'm rambling but um i think she i don't know i heard a rumor that i've been unbanned but i would have no way of officially finding out and i'm not sure what

Alexto do about it i'll i'll keep you updated but i don't know if you've been unbanned although i'm on if i were to listen i would have been only been 45 minutes in so so this this this brad

Merlinseaford person is trying to trap me obviously this person says to me it's likely i'm not but But many folks have come to your aid and you are officially unbanned on election profit makers.

AlexOh, God, I'm so happy. I'm so happy.

MerlinNow, here's the thing. So that already now I'm concerned. I feel like I should probably contact counsel. Maybe I'll call. This is my chance maybe to finally do something with Elizabeth Jo, right? so okay then then then so uh and i said well i i would have no way of knowing i don't i don't want to break my band and then brad sends a uh sends an overcast oh like it like an olive olive

Alexbranch in the form of an overcast.fm link gotcha well but here's this oh gosh don't oh it was a

Merlintest was it a test oh no well that's what this is my concern uh pounds i spoiler alert i didn't include the whole conversation because of the 90 second limit oh come on get thee behind me satan i i i might have had something happen with my name on this program two weeks in a row and i can't hear it and it might be involved over 90 so it looks like it's 32 46 in now listen like last you know like a vampire you gotta get invited in you're not allowed to ask people

I mean, this is really, this is straight out of the Pentateuch. It might be from Leviticus numbers or Deuteronomy. But I have to get an election profit maker's goy. Who can go in and you point the mezuzah, you click the button, the elevator goes down, you know, on a regular basis. And as long as you're inside the wire, you know, you still have to live with Yonke.

AlexMm-hmm.

Speaker ADing!

AlexI want to hear about your journey this week.

MerlinOh, sure, sure, sure. I mean, pretty much I think what I said to you, and I don't want to make a big show about it. I'm not trying to be an hero. I'm not trying to do a better here. I'm not trying to show my ass or dick, depending on which angle you're looking at. But that's pretty good. No, it's just that when RBG died, I knew instantly.

God, what is it? How did you explain this? You know, I always find myself saying these dumb things like, oh, I just realized this thing. Well, I just realized this thing that's incredibly obvious that I knew when I was 11. But now, but then I didn't knew, knew, knew, knew, knew it until like this week, right? You know, you have those kinds of things where you're like, oh, now I get it. that that's what I should be doing or that's why this thing is the way it is now I get it I only needed like 40 years of seeing that played out in front of me all the time well that's what happened last week when RPG died a switch kind of flipped because I of course without going and busting a

gut here and you guys and like you know this sucks but um setting that aside for a minute because there's plenty of discussion of that right now um I just thought you know what hmm this has been a long time coming and it's like i'm pulling a max here and maybe i am but uh i said you know i gotta i gotta step away from the discourse a little bit and so i've i've cut way back on twitter i still look at it sometimes at night i still will make a little joke or something but um i mean i'm not off it but like i would like to see

this reflected like next next week when i look at screen time i would like to see a difference except for the stuff on the Mac, which is hot garbage for screen time. But no NPR, no CNN, no MSNBC, very, very little reading of the news. And trying to focus is actually, this is such a strange week for me. I have three different things I had to do this week for three different podcasts involving different challenges with the playlist.

And so when we recorded the Rectifs episode last night, John was like, he's so funny. but he was like you know it never occurs to me to make a playlist and like even for for this i i think for our thing where so the challenge on uh reconcilable differences is it is to present your co-host with a song they've never heard that you they think they haven't heard anything they'd like and and for me like i got playlists since i played it playlist i mean i got i got dupes of i got i have daughters of playlists that sounds a little bit like a december song but like i i'm at

the point now where I'm like, I'm like Matthew Cassinelli or Fatici with shortcuts where like, I need, I need two or three layers of organization for my playlist. I have so many and I scroll, scroll, scroll, and there's no way. I love making playlists. And this was a great week, Alexandra, to love making playlists because it gave me something to do. I love making them. I like making them anything. And, and, and so that's been a way that I've been able to focus. I have had a kind of, to use the word I don't love, kind of busy last couple weeks. So that has not,

that's kept me busy. But I'm not trying to make a grand gesture here. It's just to say that, as I mentioned, this on, you might have seen this on one of the Slacks last night, but it's like, it's just, it just never stops being true. Whatever amount of time you take away from Twitter, even if that's just the time that you're in a meeting, it will never stop being strange that when you come back from that time away, you look at it and go, why am I here? What, this is, this is, it's, well, let's just put it in the most, oddly enough,

most value neutral way I can. It's so negative. It's definitely hostile. It's definitely mean. It's definitely ugly. But it's, it's, it's just so negative. And I, I mean, I'm not, I'm not telling anybody to act any different, but I'm saying that's not making me into a better person to see that much negativity all day long. Because then if I'm there all day long, I'm also going to stop noticing that negativity. It's going to seem normal. And I think that's rewiring some pathways, at least for me, that I'm not ready to have, you know, rewired.

AlexI've seen some people since March become not just nihilists, but almost narcissists. And I don't want to say because of Twitter, but because of how they engage with other people. And maybe not just online, but like in general, there's not many ways to communicate with people that isn't binary.

And by binary, I guess I just mean like literally computers.

MerlinThere's not a lot. There's certainly not a lot of subtlety and nuance.

AlexBad near for bad year for nuance. Scott's brilliantly tweeted. I mean, this is actually something that's I think I've been thinking about for.

I don't know if it was on this show or not, but I've been thinking about something you said to me. I don't know if we recorded it, but I think. like it's mine and I wrote it down as you're someone who has the potential to be happy sorry that you you said that to me and I'm like that sounds like that that is uh yeah whether or not

Merlinyou I believe in you I think you have I think you do have it in you maybe like an absorbed twin but

Alexit's definitely in you happiness is your absorbed twin well uh and I was like Merlin shut up what a weird thing to say and then I'm glad you didn't say that out loud it's a little bit like you're

Merlinpracticing life on you.

AlexI think I need to say, what the fuck does that even mean?

MerlinI'm not your dad. You can't just yell at me with your mind.

AlexAs far as we know.

MerlinI'm not Jesus. I'm not your sister nun, sister wife. You're an man.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinSo I told you that I think you have it in you to be happy.

AlexYeah. Yeah. And I still make that noise when I think about it.

MerlinYou know what? Maybe my next Descript project is just going to be one episode of our mouth noise. I bet between IZotope and Descript, I could do something real pretty.

Speaker Aheads up we're pretty

Merlinagain

AlexNope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

MerlinYou ever seen a Nutria?

AlexA Nutria? No? Is that another Pokemon? What?

MerlinYou're not in trouble. This is not a micropenius. Google N-U-T-R-I-A. And while you're Googling that, I will say to you that the story, as I understand it, is that in the 1920s, okay, in the 1920s, there was a rage for beaver skin coats and like bear skin coats. And like whenever you see like, oh, you know, people who are eating goldfish or trying to fill a phone booth with frat boys, like there's these coats and I think they're beaver skin. So in an attempt to help cash in or basically to help serve the incredible demand for this, because you can't just make a generation of beavers, you know, otherwise, you know, they'd be voting in Georgia.

I read the same beaver magazines and beaver books that you do. So in, I want to say, yeah, New Orleans, Louisiana, suddenly people just started acquiring these varmints. So like farms of nutria. And so basically, wouldn't you say a Nutria, I don't have it in front of me right this second, but a Nutria looks a lot like a beaver.

AlexIt's a beaver puppy.

MerlinWell, and also it kind of has the face of the guy who gets his arm or it's got the, its teeth kind of look like the walrus face guy in the cantina who gets his arm cut off in Star Wars.

AlexOh no.

MerlinThat weird yellowish, do you see the big kind of yellow, yellow tooth thing?

AlexOh yeah, yeah. Well, can't unsee it.

MerlinSo people bred these prodigiously, as they say in Dr. Strangelove. And so they prodigiously bred the nutria. And they had a lot of nutria babies. And probably, I would guess, you know, well, this is not a Louisiana joke unless you want it to be, but probably a fair amount of inbreeding. So what happened then was, guess what happened? How many people do you know that have beaver skin coats today?

AlexOne.

MerlinNot a ton. Whoa, God. Oh, is it in the warehouse with all the lighting in the shelves? A full intact beaver, like Batman's giant penny?

AlexI mean, it's not like full on Mr. Burns.

MerlinI didn't think of it as the Batcave for pigs.

AlexIt's, yeah, it's that.

MerlinDa-da-da-da-da! It's that. Oh, God. So the trend went away, and guess what? Now everybody's got a lot of nutria, and we're not going to breed them so previously anymore. The question now is, what do we do with all of the fucking nutria? And like a bottoming out market, financial market, they just open the doors of the cages and let them run free. And to this day, New Orleans, not to this day, the last time I was in New Orleans, you will still see fucking Nutria just rolling around.

You'll be at a stoplight and you look and there's a Nutria just fucking staring at you in the grassy knoll. And you know what kind of sound they make?

AlexOh, God.

MerlinDon't they have like red eyes?

AlexWell, I could have sworn that I've seen one of these before. Oh, they're also called Koi Poo. That's why. Okay.

MerlinOh, Koi Poo.

AlexYeah. And I remember thinking.

MerlinLook at that face. That's a face made for radio. Woof.

AlexThis is a weeb rat, basically. Like it's, this little thing belongs on DeviantArt. And I think that's possibly. Oh.

MerlinWould you, hang on. So would you fuck it? No. get you pregnant eat it or all no no no um making a coat out of it seems really mean

Alexoh god there's i i didn't know this was they're so cute they're kind of cute they're a little

Merlinlike an otter oh but that orange tooth is so bad but the little websies on their feet are just

Alexso i do i love little websies and and i bet when they make make that noise their nose sticks up in

Merlinthe air and it's adorable oh my god like meg ryan oh my god you're right they'll be so cute I don't know. Do you think Meg Ryan's in beautiful Nutria? Who's in Nutria?

AlexI mean, we don't know. From what I understand, they're everywhere. Just asking the question. You know, who's to see?

MerlinOh, my God. It's getting worse. I'm finding worse ones. No, Alex. No. So I just sent you one that's real pretty. And wait till you see this, this beautiful boy. Oh, look at this. Precious angel. Oh, look at that.

AlexYeah.

MerlinLook at that. It just wants to give you a little kissy. Look at the teeth.

AlexOh, boy. I can't tell. Do they get...

MerlinThey need some whitening strips.

AlexYeah. I can't tell if they get less orange or more orange if they age. Does that make sense? Like, some of these teeth are, like, someone took a highlighter to it, and then...

MerlinYeah, like, when you meet a person who obviously smokes and drinks a lot of coffee, you know?

AlexMm-hmm.

MerlinMm-hmm. Might be named, I want to say, like, Randy or Ron. Mm-hmm. Hate you, Ron. Mm-hmm.

AlexYeah.

MerlinSo, anyway, that's the journey in a nut. How's your journey going these days?

AlexI don't have a journey. I just want to not be evicted and not look at Twitter. I don't know. I've lost a lot of, what would you say? Cycles? Cylinders? I don't know.

MerlinEnthusiasm?

AlexMm-hmm.

MerlinNo, I'm trying to de-analogize this into mouth word.

AlexOh, I'm just real tired. and i tired and i don't yeah go as soon as i found out that ruth bader ginsburg died which i was probably the last person to find out because i forget what moment it was where i'm like oh done with twitter actually it was probably when uh kamala harris was nominated and i'm like can't handle these takes nope nope nope and the racist sexist kind of stuff oh well i mean

or just all of it all of it the discourse yeah the discourse like uh yeah these are these are very god we we all i don't want to sound like a fucking like moderate centrist boomer but like why do you not why do you not want to sound like that i can't imagine um okay all right i would

Merlinlike you to think about why you don't want to sound like that um not not now not now i don't time for it now i want you to think i want you to sit with that i have uh because it's like why

Alexdo we hate boomers so much and we don't actually hate boomers what do you what do you what is what are we afraid of becoming i am afraid of becoming someone who doesn't learn from my mistakes um and i think that's a lot of where the resentment towards boomer comes boomers come from but it's been lost in the weeds because people aren't allowed to make mistakes even on fucking twitter

MerlinAbsolutely. I worry about becoming the sort of person who frets about whether they're becoming the sort of person that everyone expects them to become. Do you follow Jason Goldman? It's okay if you don't, but are you familiar? I've retweeted, because he's a good man and thorough, I've retweeted a lot of his dog Phoebe over the years. Are you familiar with Jason Goldman's dog Phoebe?

AlexNo. I have a lot of Goldman's in my life.

MerlinPhoebe is a very, very precious girl. And one of the dogs of Twitter, I have asked that this dog be given to me on many occasions. And so far, I've had no luck. Jason posted a photo. Look at this. From two years ago, look at Phoebe. Look at those eyes.

AlexGod, I saw the orange teeth again and got upset.

MerlinI don't think Phoebe makes a noise like that. Do you see how little? Look how little Phoebe is.

Alexokay uh that that feels less appealing than uh this monstrosity of a bear you know well look how

Merlinlittle phoebe is phoebe's like a teacup she's so little now she's like a normal-sized dog she's a

Alexdog-shaped dog talk about being inbred my why why have you brought me to twitter what what's happening are you're are you diverting my attention away from you're like chili the elf who cannot love no i i'm very happy for this this little uh doggo pupper thing it's just so small she's so you don't like that i don't okay i don't want anything in my charge that if i sit on it it it could die that's pretty i'm very clumsy and uh you couldn't kill the ants and they were a lot

Merlinsmaller i know a lot i mean a lot smaller you know they you had to you had to fill your door

Alexcrack it's called it's called a trench run how do you remember that and i don't but the crack

Merlinfilling i don't even i already don't know what you're talking about oh well because you you were um matt was trying to help you with your concerns and the ants were coming for you and so i think you stuffed, I don't know, like a CGP gray shirt under a door.

AlexYeah, yeah. And a towel to get into the crevice so that ants wouldn't come into my bedroom.

MerlinDave Attell? Oh, and a towel. I would not put Dave Attell under a door. Or put baby in a corner, let's be honest. You want to talk about challenge?

Speaker AYeah. Yeah.

MerlinOkay, that's it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I did it for the earliest show. I could do it for us.

AlexWhat? What? What's happening?

MerlinI'm going to use a combination of Descript and iZotope. Why iZotope? Because of the wonderful feature of iZotope will allow you to... So let's say you want to remove, you do want to like spectral denoise, right? Or you want to do de-click, DS, any of that, right? So you select, I would select just one of those, not a whole module chain, Select one of those and then tick that box that says, what is it? Output only?

AlexI don't know, but I know what you're trying to do and I don't like it at all.

MerlinSo in the morning, my mouth is a little dry like right now. If I demouth that, I could potentially output a file that's just each of those sounds.

AlexSee, my-

MerlinWhich I've done and it's amazing.

AlexI think there are too many pitches and like, I don't even know.

MerlinWell, that's the beauty. That's the beauty of the module chain. The beauty of the module chain is you could, you could, oh man, I'm loving this app. Whoa.

AlexSee, now it should just change up my noises even more so you can't find them and Descript.

MerlinWhat if they had something like filler words? What if you could do the opposite of filler words where you could say, give me just the filler words?

Speaker Aah ah ah ah you know you know they call it a disfluency

Merlinwhich I think is a little racist these teeth are really orange aren't they yes I can't believe you like a what's it called a copybara I can't believe you like that more than Phoebe that hurts my heart

Alexmaybe it's because I saw that episode of the Sopranos where I bad the spoilers for a very old television episode um where where christopher sits on the dog christopher the dog okay okay i don't you know remember oh yeah well you know i used to have a compulsive

Merlinfear of closing a cat in a door even before i had a cat that one would just get in like if there was an automatic door i would my well i don't know if it's my last compulsion but it was my last really good compulsion was it's like you open a door like you know a door with a swinging arm thing that closes it hopefully slowly but i developed this habit of always turning around to make sure that there wasn't a cat running trying to get in the door while it was closing so do you not go

Alexthrough swinging doors are swinging doors even a thing like i'm trying to picture what that mean like so are you talking about a door that you like walk through oh like before okay so think

Merlinabout like before we had automatic doors like at like let's say even like like our 7-eleven does not have automatic doors. Well, I think like most public buildings in America, the doors open out for fire reasons. Thank you, Who concert. You grab the door with your meat hand. You pull it open from outdoors. You walk in. Now, do you have to close that by pulling it? No. The door will close on its own because it's got the arm thingy.

AlexOh, I thought you were like talking about a flappy door.

MerlinA flappy door, like a Star Trek door.

AlexIt goes back and forth like a windshield wiper door. Isn't that?

MerlinAre you obsessed with accordions? What is your deal with accordion things?

AlexI don't know.

MerlinAccordions in pockets? Pocket doors? You like a pocket door? I don't like a pocket door. Because now I worry about closing my finger in the pocket door. Now what would I close in an accordion door? Maybe a German.

Sorry, Bavarian. That was racist. Dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it, dig it. We have a challenge this week. Challenge. Challenge.

AlexDig, dig.

MerlinYou want to start the show? Let's start the show.

AlexThis week's challenge was from you. It's from me.

MerlinYeah.

AlexAnd you're a big fan of Spotify, as you've said before.

MerlinI'm a big fan of playlists is what I'm a fan of.

AlexYes. And it's kind of hard to make playlists on Apple Music, especially when the music you want.

MerlinIt's hard to find music on Apple Music. Okay. So the challenge is, I want to say it's pretty much a straight up redux of a previous challenge from the before times. But the challenge is to do what I am calling a follow your nose challenge. It could be any kind of a challenge. Sorry, follow your nose playlist.

And you know what? As with all of these things, it's a MacGuffin. Do what you want. Do what you like, you know? But my conception of this is, I will describe my specific conception, which I very kindly documented for you. But the idea is to like just the most basic kind of follow your nose is that Spotify is, I think, above many other things, it has great selection. I mean, really, it's so much stuff Apple Music doesn't have. It's not even funny. It doesn't pretend to have your music in the cloud like Apple does or did before you just give up.

But I think the discoverability is a huge part of what I've come to love. Spotify, I love Discover Weekly. I love Release Radar. I love finding, I should show, well, this won't be great for you, but it'll be great for other old people like me. There's this one dude on Spotify that has made so many extremely good playlists of music from the 70s and 80s and early 90s and today. but he um but i find stuff like that i'm like this is terrific but the thing okay so the point i'm trying to make here i'm sorry i'm talking too much you hope it is you go start start with

the band you like and start looking around heavily utilize the fans also like um or do something else it could be youtube could be spotify how did this challenge go for you alex uh what did you

Alexmake i'll send you a link to the playlist that i made uh i also thought it was called follow your ears which is just a adorable name uh compared to follow your nose on spotify i say you're a writer

Merlinif you put a colon after that and then five or six words that would be a ted talk yeah exactly uh let me oh let's see no it'd be like follow your ears the cost of rock music and

Alexthe rock music of cost yeah live love laugh what's that i don't know i'll live love love

Merlini like i like the ones that are like you know the rhetoric of hermeneutics and the Hermenoitics of rhetoric. I like those. It's like shake and bake fake smart. Now with less salt. Bum, bum, bum, bum. I don't know why Intel's involved.

Speaker AI don't know what's happening. I don't know what's happening.

AlexI think it's worth reading Merlin's quote, follow your nose, unquote playlist methodology.

MerlinWould you do that? Would you do that for me? Would you? I will.

AlexLet's see how this goes.

MerlinI use marked. I made a beautiful screenshot using marked. Would you read this please? I would love that. And just to be clear, what Alexandra is about to read, I mean, this doesn't really need explanation. But the reason I would like her to read this to you is because you listening friends of the show, I would like you to consider trying this because this is going to sound overly complicated and nerdy because that's how I identify overly complicated and nerdy. But here's how to create Merlin's version, my methodology for a follow your nose playlist.

AlexI just realized there's one word in here that I've never said out loud and I've only read. So let's see how this goes.

MerlinFourth to the last bullet.

AlexDid you say fourth to the last? Yes.

MerlinDoes it start with repeat?

AlexYep. Yep. It sure does.

MerlinOkay.

AlexLip.

MerlinAll right. I'm looking forward to that. Okay.

AlexYep.

MerlinNope. Nope. Nope. Save it for the show.

AlexWell, these aren't numbered.

MerlinYou want me to redo it? I can redo it.

AlexBullet one. Create a new playlist. Two. Start with the song I love and you have chosen Mexican wine.

And add that to the new list. Three, click the band's name, Fountains of Wayne. Four, click fans also like. Five, locate bands you're not familiar with or never heard of. Six, click to listen to their most popular song. And I've got questions about that later, by the way. Seven, repeat ad libidum.

MerlinWorks for me.

AlexUntil you find a song you really like. I forgot, number one, seven, eight, yeah, add the song to the playlist. Nine, click the band's name. Go to fans also like, et cetera. uh uh 10 10 repeat until you're bored or keep seeing the same bands over and over it's the easy

Merlinthe easy version of this which i did for the challenge of john syracuse so like i i so to try and find songs that he would like i knew for example that i started with the easiest conceivable step which is my favorite band that john introduced me to which is churches and so i start with

Alexchurches and they go listen to bands wait john syracuse introduced you to churches churches with a v it's scottish okay all right that's very oh man keep going uh no practice life let's hear it

Merlinkeep going what what's funny about that that i didn't what what is this is a faint surprise i that i didn't know churches that john likes churches that john communicates well which

Alexum because he doesn't really number number two and in addition to that number four which i will add is that he if he were to introduce it to you and i'm very behind on your other program rectifs but if he were to introduce it to you i think that implies that he likes it so i guess it's that part

Merlinthat um i am oh yeah no he he loves mashups he loves lana del rey he loves taylor swift he loves Lady Gaga. Those are all bands that he genuinely loves. That's delightful, actually. I totally agree. That's so delightful. If he weren't the worst, it would be so sweet. I know.

Okay, so here's the thing. So in that case, I go into churches, and boy, what a great band. And I go to fans also like. And so I start clicking around. Now, I could make a real good playlist of just, like, for example, I said on Twitter months ago, like, in my opinion, like the one of these that's most in my wheelhouse. Like I like Matthew Sweet a lot. I mean, he's not one of my favorites, but when Girlfriend came out, like my God, I was head over heels. I think he's terrific. But you know what? His fans also like Paige is bananas.

It's like every single band on that page is a band that I really like. So it's interesting to start with a song that I would give a B plus to. I now find bands that I would give an A plus plus plus to, right? That's an easy way. The wrinkle here, which may not be clear because you were trying to figure out what number bullet you were on, is that the key is to the following your nose part is you don't do the easy thing. You don't do it because it's easy. You do it because it's hard or difficult, as I like to say. And then you just keep clicking through, and that's going to take you on a journey.

And then eventually, I have discovered in the especially genre-heavy stuff I like, you will – I don't know if you tried this, but you will eventually get to a point where you just keep seeing the same 9 to 12 bands.

Speaker AYep. Yep.

MerlinBut it's not perfect, but I did two of these, and I thought the results were interesting. Tell me what I'm looking at here with your Follow Your Ears 22 song mix.

AlexWell, this is actually the first time I've seen Spotify on the desktop, and I don't like it. But wow.

MerlinIt's slow. It's so slow.

AlexAnd also, but the iOS version, how is the iOS version better than Apple Music? I mean, I know how, but it's just infuriating.

MerlinNo, no, no, no, no. It's a totally legitimate question. Oh, boy.

AlexBut yeah, so I...

MerlinI don't think Apple's heart is really in it. I think ever since the MP3 market dried up, I don't think their heart is in it.

AlexLike it's kind of one of those... How a lot of things start off as a pet project and then it balloons. And so now that there's someone... The people who used to care about music are kind of pieced out.

MerlinYeah, like maybe they age out of it. But in some ways, it was just kind of a long-term beaver coat for them. We're like, well, now we've got to let the Nutria go. Oh, by the way, your long winter's demos are gone. Thanks for coming.

Speaker AOh, yeah.

MerlinI'm trying to – now I can't favorite this on the website. I want to be able to listen to it in the app.

AlexI also don't know – there are so many UI questions I have, including what are these – is this one it's added? I think –

MerlinOh, oh, oh. You know what? There's no color to the heart, right? Is that what you're saying?

AlexNo. In the app, underneath... Oh, I see. It says what was added. Ah, I see. So I guess it's the third column. It says like two days ago, two days ago, five hours ago, four hours ago. And it's... That's when you added it to the list. so I did some pruning because I'm like do I really like this or do I want a long uh

Merlinplaylist for the challenge but like so I'm sorry I I might I might be spacing out what I'm looking at is this so like I know the first song and I love the first song yeah um is this is this just

Alexyou plucked around what was your methodology for generating this I literally did this until I started seeing did what your your methodology oh okay all right cool cool cool all right I can't

Merlinsee what you're pointing at i forgot it's kind of a pain in the ass but it is kind of cool i actually

Alexdid forget that you couldn't see things because i was on a screen share what i love about you is

Merlinyou're curious i love you're curious you're curious can't merleon see my finger that was very can't can't no come on come on uh you practice life on me i practice some people say rehearse but life is not a rehearsal life is a highway i'm gonna ride it all night long no it's

Alexsoftware you got to put things in beta um software's a highway yep the i followed your methodology uh and i started with against me because i'm like all right what i want to find

Merlini love that song yes i like the miley cyrus version so much it's so good oh my god miley

Alexcyrus is a really good singer the i i agree she does come like a wrecking ball i bet uh and i I wanted, so I wanted to start.

MerlinIs that what happens when you sit on a dog? No.

AlexAh!

MerlinNo. I hate you wrong. So you started with this wonderful tune.

AlexI started with True Transyl Rebel, which is their last, like, big popular song. Because God bless your transcendental heart.

MerlinTrue Transyl Rebel. That's when I discovered the band probably through NPR.

AlexReally? Yeah, I mean, that's the thing.

MerlinI'm going to start keeping score on the Fain Surprise, just so you know.

AlexIt's not Fain Surprise. Well, that's the thing. Once I thought about it for a second, I'm like, that makes total sense.

MerlinI'm not obligated to like this sort of music.

AlexNo, I was just surprised.

MerlinI do like, I really do. What's that one song? We talked about this when that person had a shirt on. that song how we know that song thrash unreal yeah yeah that's the song what's it called thrash and real oh god that song is so ah thrash unreal that's the one it's such a good song

Alexoh my god so good and okay yeah well but on spotify it does not have a ton of listens which i guess makes sense because um i would spotify skews towards a younger audience and they weren't probably weren't listening to very sad pop punk bands or emo bands.

MerlinIf it's not true crime or trap music, I guess it kind of falls off the radar.

AlexAnd I'm like, all right, I want, I think people who are listening to something that a decade ago, probably two decades ago, would be called like a queer core. And I'm like, I don't know what Spotify has in terms of queer bands, because most of honestly most of the music i listen to is from my band camp library uh really

Merlinyeah that's so interesting well um i'm interested to learn that yeah could i just faint surprised no

Alexi'm very excited so i'm like all right let's let's start with the the one band i have in band camp that people or rather i know is on spotify and i know i will take me to bands i probably like

Merlinthat are similar um um for what's where spotify has three team dress albums

Alexi yeah i found that i was like oh there's more than one with wrong dates wrong dates on them

Merlinboo fix the dates yeah uh apparently alex alex it's okay with me it's just you know if you want to pass this along to sweden or whatever i don't know where they're based uh if you want to be cute about putting up a remaster or redo or whatever and you want to say the date of that when that you know expanded edition or whatever came out that's fine hakuna matata but please can we not fuck with the date that it was actually released not simply for my ocd of seeing these app these albums in the wrong order but also just the difficulty of like trying to piece this how are

you going to learn about music if you don't know what year it came out that's something a dumb thing to say but it's kind of true like if you don't know if this beatles album came out in 2006 or

Alex1968 that's a problem i'm curious do i guess i am curious wow um because the all hail west texas

Merlinremaster it varies it varies completely from record to record not even just band to band it's record and seriously it's record to record because there are some where you go in it's all exactly especially if it's an older band that doesn't have if you do this with elo you're gonna lose your fucking mind. ELO have been like the reigning kings of greatest hits, then best ofs, and then now today re-recordings. So there's so many versions of everything by ELO. But that would be very difficult. But for most bands, like I think for, I'm going to guess for like Big Star,

Alexit's probably not that hard. I'm sorry I interrupted you. No, I mean, I guess I see the Mountain Goats as a big star, but you know, because I'm one of those people. No, I meant the band big star i'm sorry uh oh oh i don't know what i don't know what that is i know it's a

Merlinrestaurant in chicago with good alex i'm i'm not going to feign surprise i'm just going to simply say um just for my own i'll get a little record i'm keeping here you're not familiar with the

Alexband big star maybe okay hold on no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no i no i'll save it for the after show after show okay okay oh that's right we do one of those hey did you know that we do an uh after show here we do what wait wait wait uh what you might you

Merlinmay have noticed you might think i'm crazy to hang around with you you might think yeah well

Alexwhy do i talk to merlin man every week is it because i admire him as a person and you know it definitely shaped a lot of years and then when uh the app i used for journaling day one no name i'm the jazz girl no interrupting no no no no and maybe like the the app i use to journal day day one you should you should check it out uh it gives you little prompts and and one day it said talk about someone other than your dad who's a father figure and then i burst out crying because

then i thought of merlin yeah uh it's not because of that it's because i we want your fucking money

MerlinWhen I come out of this particular fugue state, I'm going to be so confused. Because I'm definitely in a fugue state. One of us, probably both of us. Clearly in a fugue state. May I mumbo dog face to the banana patch? Oh, daddy bone grease ball. Sick boy.

AlexThe three people who followed that train of thought know exactly what I'm talking about. So why are we here? It's because we want your fucking money. And we talk about, what do we talk? What is this show about, Merlin? Then someone asked me what it was about the other day. And I just froze up.

MerlinWhat's this show about?

AlexYeah. What's this show about?

MerlinKarate and friendship.

AlexKarate and friendship for everyone.

MerlinMy daughter walked by this morning. I did not realize I was doing this. And I found myself going, day man. Ah, master of the night man. Ah, master of karate and friendship for everyone. And she was like, what is happening right now? I was like it's day man fighting the night man it's the master of karate and friendship

Alexoh is always it's always any in Philadelphia not on the list of things to watch after mom goes to bed um I would love to

MerlinI think it might be slightly challenging content

Alexthat's one way to say

Merlinoh my god I love it I love it so

Alexit is one of my favorite shows it's just the one that like the one show that Maddie's like nope I am out no fucking way

MerlinTo me, like, you know what? I'm going to call this, this is like the Smiths. I totally understand. Yep, so do I. No argument. So if they want to find out, what is this show about? It is a show about friendship disguised as a show about challenges. And if you ask me that, I'll deny it. And that's why we do it. We do it for the nice people, for the kids. That's why we do it, it's for the kids. But if you like this and you'd like to hear more, usually when we're done recording and we're exhausted and I've already become a small horse, a little pony, I'm losing my voice and my religion. Then we record another show for anywhere from, I'm going to say, 20 minutes to more recently, 40 minutes or an hour.

And it's not dissimilar from what we're doing. But the kind of fun part is you get to hear us talk about the challenge, talk about the status of various as we become more ambitious about what we're trying to do here. More things with different guests and friends and strange things and challenge levels. And not challenge levels so much about the ducats as like we're just trying to like go next level with the theoretical point of the show. and how do people do that? What do they do? How do they even get involved with this?

AlexOh, they, they can go to give us your fucking money.com. And that leads you to our Patreon page and you can subscribe for $5 a month or $10 a month to listen to the after show. Why would you want to do the $10 a month?

MerlinIf you give for $10 a month, you don't have to, you know, give what you can or not at all. But if you can afford that $10 a month, um, it's funnier. It really is. It's a lot funnier. And then deeper, It goes deeper, too. We've got laughier laughs, cryier cries, mouthier mouth noises.

AlexSometimes, you know what?

MerlinHe doesn't like you.

AlexAll the cucks who subscribe at $10, sometimes they just get pictures of my feet in the mail, and it's been found with mixed.

MerlinYep, yep, and screenshots of their net worth.

AlexYes. and and i don't want to pull a mac a max here but like i i have a cute idea that i think would be well see you won't know about it until the after show where we gossip too um and oh i have i have period updates um but anyway thank you go to give us your fucking money.com

Merlinor if you're at that kind of okay period yes yes yes yes i'm sorry i'm sorry finish your bit

Alexuh you can go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com or if you're at work and they block it which i found some people have had that problem which is adorable to me uh go to patreon.com slash dubai friday isn't that fucking weird that a work i mean it's not weird like i understand workplaces blocking websites but it doesn't block patreon itself it it blocks the word fucking i guess um these the this person could not elaborate uh but isn't that i don't know i thought it was

Merlinvery funny it's very it's very interesting i mean that kind of thing is like i'm um i'm not personally like a giant fan of that stuff but i mean i think i understand why you know there's a lot of things in america where like if you don't understand it at least when it comes to a business i i just there's probably several of these razors that could be applied but i think one is like ask yourself is there any conceivable way that a given thing might as we say in the south might could might could become a legal liability of some kind oh for sure like it makes sense if you if

you explore that all the way down through the seven whys i think you end up with oh i see what if this fella is is looking at uh looking at boobies and then somebody sees him looking at boobies and that's now created workplace problems. I don't know. You know, I mean, I'm speculating, but that is the kind of thing where like, it's like the day you realize that HR doesn't work for you, they work for the owners.

AlexOr you realize that your company probably should have an HR department. And it's like, oh, that's fair.

MerlinSo anyway, you go to Patreon and we hope you can see it. And if you can't see it, that's not a thing we can fix. Also, Dave Weiner created RSS. Yes. So let's get on with our challenge here. Big star. And so that's your methodology. I have a proposal, a suggestion to keep this doable for us and for our poor, long-suffering producer Quinn. Can I suggest we talk a little bit about our list? We could mention things that are on it. And then I would say, why don't you and I maybe choose a song that was especially a highlight from our list? And we could listen to maybe a couple songs each. Is that good?

Just so we don't do this for an hour or three hours.

AlexYes. So with your methodology, I went with True Trans Soul Rebel, which again, against me's most popular song. And of course it is because people paid attention to Laura Jane Grace after she came out as trans because that was and I'm not saying this in a bad way, but that was an alien thing to a lot of people. like wow I totally forgot she like went on NPR that was so cool so that's not a bad thing hooray

but it's not a bad thing I just people are so mad

Merlinon Twitter are you worried you're being secretly interviewed by Judith Butler

AlexI'm just

MerlinYou know, I always go back to Cyrano. The wonderful moment in Cyrano, especially I love the Miguel Ferrer thing, when the guy comes up to Cyrano in the theater and he says, your nose is rather large.

And Cyrano goes, my nose is rather large? He goes, yeah, it's rather large. And so, as we all know, of course, then Cyrano is going to sword fight the guy. He's the best swordsman in town. But he's also going to compose a very difficult poem on the fly with everything the guy could have said that would have been funnier than or more insightful than Your Nose is Rather Large. And of course, he does it and he wins. Except Judith Butler does that with people's mouth words.

I'm going to be as nice as I can in showing you the flaw in the premise of what you said while also making the point that I would like to make without sounding like an asshole. That's so hard to do.

AlexOh, never, never do interviews unless you're Merlin Mann and you want to be in GQ.

MerlinTrue Trans Soul Rebel.

AlexSo, all right, all right. One thing I will say about this playlist, which will be in notes, is I think you should listen to it in chronological order just because it gets weirder and weirder.

MerlinOh, interesting. Okay.

AlexAnd, but well, and I guess by weirder, I mean more obscure. um and i i should have known this i know that last one pretty well well okay okay so here here's the thing i i started with the start started with against me and you said repeat until you're bored or keep seeing the same bands over and over but i did um you know or it ended up being a reach around as you say that eventually it got back to um the mountain goats which i've mentioned uh that's why

mentioned them before but suddenly uh their album tallahassee starts showing up and i was like oh oh cool like that's super cool that there's spotify's just like hey buddy here's where you want to be here's where you want to be be like remember these and just in case you haven't heard of this uh but yeah i that's a really good song ran down this people ask john durneil to play uh that song at their wedding and so we're talking about the song no children from the album tallahassee yeah it's fucking why do why would you want that at your wedding even as a bit I don't know.

I don't know.

Speaker AIn my life, I hope I lie. And tell everyone you were a good wife and I hope you die.

MerlinI think it's a fight club. It's a fight club type situation. No, no, no. In the sense of like, this isn't what you, it's actually the opposite of what you think it's about.

AlexYeah. Ah, okay. Yep, yep, yep. No, that makes sense.

MerlinBut you know what they should do? you know, I'm going to give you a trade secret. You're the listener. Alex, I'm sure, already knows this. There's a lot of keys to a good mix of anything. And I ignore most of them. But one of them is, I know you've got to start with a banger and you've got to end with something perfect, something appropriate. Here's the problem though. Okay. So you started with something great. That's cool. You add things, add things, add things. Uh-oh. The thing you had as the last on your list is now fourth to the last on your list and you got to keep moving it, right? like I always want this playlist to end with this particular song because that's the point of it

uh right I think you should be able to pin something to first and I think you should be

Alexable to pin something to last oh interesting you know what I mean like sort of a pen versus prepend yes yes yes that's that's so good like oh oh so just so I'm understand understanding you like all all of these songs in the middle can be played on shuffle but you need this first one

Merlinpotentially i mean i i i would love i like keeping a certain order and generally on things like youtube you can do that you're here on spotify you can drag them around but yeah yeah it would um yeah yeah and so um isn't that interesting it brought you back around huh yeah and then i

Alexwent down a mountain goats rabbit hole for a while. And God, I don't know. I was skeptical and continue to be skeptical of Spotify because of their value in algorithms. Because, you know, we're in the era of Facebook. And it just makes me fucking nervous, especially because they're buying all of these podcast companies and podcast creation tools and it uh go to please support us

but uh the fact that it can surface bands that i i didn't know about but it okay this is weird it also started to surface bands that um i basically it the bands that i had listened to in college or the of like the people that I have dated before and then I'm like wait is this because you know that I'm like Facebook friends with them or is it because they follow me on Twitter oh I

Merlinsee it's a little bit of a like a reply all ish like how did you figure what like what or like maybe even the way Siri decides you want this app or spreadsheet right now like what how did you

Alexcome buy this it's yeah it was well and then i'm like oh wait no it's just because i happen to enjoy like acoustic folk punk things that that's why or whatever spotify decides to call it on thursdays that it's like all right um yeah i i don't know i thought it was really interesting but because it started circling back i've it felt less uh doomsday-y in in the way that you it feels on um what is it oh youtube youtube you know like it's just going to keep showing you

more and more extreme versions of something oh i see what you're saying yeah the the the it is said

Merlini don't i don't get this for some reason it might be pounce on privilege but it is said that youtube's algorithm probably unintentionally because that's how an algorithm works but that it um will guide you initially gently into increasingly more extreme versions of what whatever you were looking at especially with politics it is said is that is that what is that

Alexwhat is said yeah i i believe um and that's why i have an alternative google account just so i can go down the far right rabbit holes it's another great reason for firefox i mean anything i can't

Merlindo on safari or don't want to do on safari because i have so firefox is on permanent lockdown like there's there's nothing in firefox it's just empty um and it holds nothing it sees nothing it remembers nothing but and it's also great because there's stuff where like i'm not gonna open chrome for this if it doesn't work in firefox it's not gonna work you know what i mean but but even still then i sometimes wonder like everybody who's so gay bones for incognito mode i mean is it it would it be surprising to learn that they that's less incognito than you think

i assume that it is i mean oh oh dude holy shit did you read that article uh yesterday about the people who made the thing for scanning uh websites for what it's actually tracking i guess you didn't see it no i'll find for you keep talking tell me about this list tell me

Alexwhat song to listen to oh wow i like all of these songs more than i even thought i did not that i

Merlinthought oh that isn't that a nice feeling i think that's a nice yeah these songs are in the order

Alexthat I discovered them. I just took some out because I liked so many of the songs. Let's go with Gengar, Gengar, Gengar by Dowsing. All right, I will do a three, two, one.

Speaker Aso that's a song that the title is just the name of a pokemon three times which is oh and that makes

Merlinit appear like candy man is candy man a pokemon you wash your legs in the shower it's a hot dog

Alexa burrito tell me about uh yeah so this will be a notes hey that song is really good and it's not

Merlinwhat i expected it's uh what would you call would you call well not that it matters because we don't use labels here safe space what kind of music would you call that would you call it emo i yeah

Alexlike the sort of pop punk that like is also considered like late emo kind of thing what when is this from 2012 maybe uh i forget oh see and now i just saw sorry um i i found that they did an audio tree session and that's a lovely studio here in chicago that awesome yeah oh oh fuck that's amazing um but yeah i i don't know like emo pop pop punk stuff that everybody makes

fun of but secretly likes like very my chemical romancey basic oh really interesting interesting yeah yeah um it's for the people who voted for hillary clinton did i tell you what my second list was oh go go no you didn't go on you do i i like that song i think that's good and we'll

Merlindrop in the audio for that. I don't, I don't, this is my quickie because I felt, it felt insufficient that I only had the other one that I'd done. But I mean, I hope I can get a little bit of credit because I've had to make so many goddamn playlists this week. I made this last night after rec diffs and I'm going to need you to pick the ones of these that you don't know. So I can choose what to play. I started with I'm Not Okay, I Promise by My Chemical Romance. And I made a brief little eight song playlist based on that following my nose. Now, the Academy is, I think you did tell me about.

I learned about that from you, right?

AlexYes. And also I know...

MerlinAre there any of these bands you don't know?

AlexNo.

MerlinYou know all these bands?

AlexYes.

MerlinWait a minute. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Hang on. You know My Chemical Romance. No, just respond yes or no. Do you know My Chemical Romance?

AlexYes.

MerlinDo you know All Time Low?

AlexYes.

MerlinDo you know May Day Parade?

AlexYes.

MerlinDo you know We Are The In Crowd?

AlexYes.

MerlinDo you know Sing It Loud?

AlexI actually don't know.

MerlinI could be thinking of two things. Maybe. But you also know the Academy is in something corporate.

AlexAnd the audition, yes.

MerlinOh, you do know the audition?

AlexYes.

MerlinWait, then what's the one you... Wait, I'm confused. Which is the one you least know?

AlexSing it loud.

MerlinSing it loud. Let me see if this is good. Okay, this was pretty straightforward. It's pretty straightforward. Ready to do a three, two, one?

Speaker AMm-hmm.

MerlinThis is Sing It Loud doing the song Come Around from the album. Come around. Three, two, one, go.

Anyway, pretty much what it is. Yeah, this counts as emo, right?

AlexYeah. I think this is the singer actually from, oh, fuck it. Oh, no, no, nevermind.

MerlinI just, I think maybe I'll spend the rest of my day just making up names for emo bands.

AlexDo a fives, do a fives.

MerlinI should. I want to, let me, let me see if I can do one off the dome. Something like maybe, um, oh, oh, my, my pirate ship is filled with blood, but it's all lowercase. Uh, the instance of instance, and it's spelled two different ways.

AlexMm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

MerlinYou know what I'm saying?

AlexYes.

MerlinThe instance of instance and the instance of instance.

AlexYou-

MerlinSubtitled my TED Talk. You were going to ask me something about when I feel like I said, I said something about how in my methodology, I just want my, as you say, circling back here.

Speaker AMm-hmm.

MerlinI said something about how you click on the band name and then when you click the button, you listen to their most popular song. And you said you want to say something about that.

AlexOh, no. I was just confused because sometimes the number that's listed underneath it.

MerlinOh, I know. The total plays are usually the number one. How does one say? Almost all these bands have a song. Almost every band that you've heard of has a song that has way more listens than any other one. Like Paul and Storm, for example. Or, sorry, their old band. The Da Vinci's Notebook. The Penis song has a lot of plays. But I hear what you're saying. So, like, the number one song might be $10 million. Number two song might be $50,000. the number three song might be like half a million. It's like, it's, yeah. I guess it could be Velocity, you know,

like maybe the way the apps or the podcast store works. I don't know.

AlexNo, that makes total sense. But for me, wait, no, that doesn't make sense. Because for me, often the song that was number one wasn't the one with the most listens.

MerlinNo, no, no, I'm sorry. I was trying to say that that is the case.

AlexOh, okay.

MerlinI'm trying to say, it seems that unless there's something deliberately confusing or misleading about this, there is a thing over here that defines how many total lifetime plays versus the chart position, right? So no matter how popular your podcast was in 2005, it doesn't guarantee a spot at number one today.

AlexYeah, that's kind of cool. I like that.

MerlinSo I'm guessing. But, you know, it's not perfect. I mean, but if you did my methodology and clicked through for each band, you would not get very far. This is quick and dirty. This is quick and dirty. And as you go, the other thing I do is I heart songs as I go.

I sound like Knives Chow.

Speaker AOh, I heart them so much.

MerlinI heart them. I heart the songs as I go. And that, of course, no, that's going to help the robot figure out what I like. but it's also a way to if even if it wasn't my pick out of all of those bands you know you can

Alexstill follow your nose i'm so afraid spotify i will be bought by facebook at this point like it's a natural progression it shows up on instagram like really really descript and spotify are all that i have left yeah why can't we have nice things i did make another list do you have of the list um no but i listened to a lot of the playlists that artists had created which is something i didn't know existed uh like john darneal has a mountain or has a mountain goat

Merlinit's a little bit on the nose a little bit on a goat it's

Alexfuck what's it what's it uh oh it's hard to find playlists once you've made them and you don't know

Merlinexactly what it's called oh my god oh oh so so so uh tip and a bitch tip of the bitch tip of the hat seth rudetsky uh no tip and a bitch uh the tip is i didn't learn till this week even as an inveterate lover of making playlists i learned a couple weeks ago that you can make folders which i didn't know Oh, I still don't see a way to sort by things like date or ownership, which is maddening. But you can make folders. The other cool thing I learned is, and it's so obvious, why would I not try this on a Mac? It's just I'm so used to, I learned about Spotify through iOS.

So I still think of it as being like an iOS app. But you can drag a song into a playlist. You don't have to do the crazy triple dot click thing. Did you know you can do that? I love that.

AlexYes, yes. Because I don't know. I assume it's not an electron app, right? Is it? No, no.

MerlinI don't know what that is.

AlexOr maybe they changed it up. Uh, what Slack is. So it,

Merlinhow it doesn't work. It's basically a web app. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, uh, yeah.

Speaker AWhat was that app? We used to make, uh, wrappers around. What was that called?

AlexTwitter.

MerlinWe could wrap a site. Oh,

Alexuh, flux. No, that was the,

Merlinno, it doesn't matter. Artist list. We got to get out of here. I'm losing my voice. Artist list. No, I want to either play for you one of my Mexican wine-based songs, or I would like you to pick. Did you listen to – you probably did not listen to the list. It's okay if you didn't.

AlexNo, I thought that that would be cheating. I don't know.

MerlinOh, okay. Well, you can pick one or I could pick one, and there's no guarantee, no copyright intended. I can't promise you that this is going to be something. Ah, I don't want to embed. I know I'm bad. I know I'm bad. Oh, jeez. I don't like this interface in so many ways. I'm clicking. I'm going to share. I'm going to copy, song, link. Oh, man. They should let you define your favorites.

AlexWhat do you mean by that?

MerlinOh, damn it. Wait, wait. Stop. Stop. Don't look at that. That's the song. Boy, that's some really bad. You know, graphic design is my passion. His name looks like the Google logo.

AlexSo wait, am I not clicking on this link?

MerlinNo, I sent you the song instead of the list.

AlexOkay, okay.

MerlinThere's the list. I sent you the list already.

AlexThere's the list.

MerlinLet's see now. Do you want to pick one of these or do you want me to pick one?

AlexYou pick one. Oh, this fucking webbed you. How do I get? God. All right, all right. Pick, pick.

MerlinLet's try. Let's try. Hang on. Let me look real quick. One thing that's super cool here. So this is all based on, it started with, not based on, started with Mexican wine, which is a song I needed to talk about for a podcast I was on this week. And then I clicked through and totally, I'm sorry, I'm trying to avoid terms like this. I won't say blind, but like without like knowing what I was clicking. So the fans also like for Mexican wine brought up a band called Tinted Windows that I thought sounded familiar, but not that familiar.

Guess what? tinted windows this song kind of a girl is a pseudo um what's the word super band what do you call it when you got a bunch of people a uh i think it is super like it's a it's a this drummer what do you call that super group super group it's got it's uh the drummer from cheap trick some other chicago luminaries but adam schlesinger from fountains of wayne oh oh wow now if now now i could i'm here mostly for the extreme power pop of these but you want to try

kind of a girl by tinted windows i'm gonna do a couple bits we'll just do a couple bits okay okay three two one go

Alexkind of gbv

Speaker Aoh

Merlinbun e carlos has such a great feel to his drawing this is very good all right let me give you a couple more snippets now this one this one blew me away. I'm going to spoil the plot here and say I love shit like this.

It reminds me of. It reminds me of Jellyfish. It reminds me of Queen. It reminds me of XTC. And all in the space of a given 20 seconds. This is wonderful Baroque pop. Try insanity. Paren. The sanest thing you've got by the nines.

AlexAh, I know this song.

MerlinYou do? How do you know this song?

AlexI don't know. Maybe a, like, Best of, like, Power Pop or Best of. It was something like the Beatles. Like, inspired by the Beatles or something, maybe? I don't know.

MerlinOkay. All right. Last one. Last one. This is lovely. Thank you. Last one, try I Can't Get You On My Mind by Adam Schmidt, whose album looks like an emo Google logo.

AlexOh. Oh, this is.

MerlinCome on when you're ready.

AlexI hate it. Okay, go ahead.

MerlinYeah, thanks. I hate it. Three, two, one, click. Oh my god. Boner. So, this is by a person who obviously loves the band Big Star, just for what it's worth.

Speaker AOh, fuck.

MerlinAnyway, what do you think?

AlexThis is like, this isn't by someone from Chicago, right?

MerlinI don't know. Because, you know, like they say in Equus, moments snap together like magnets. I don't know how these things, I don't know how it do, how it work. How it work.

AlexI mean, I don't want to say that Tinted Windows definitely reminds me of Warning Era Green Day, but it's definitely Green Day from...

MerlinOh, I see. that was a sentence okay warning warning is the album from green day era is the era and green day is terrible okay i got it

Show notes

Transcript

205. Practicing Life

Show notes

Transcript

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