213. The Other Matt

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. This week's challenge, Hook Something Together.

Hello, hello. Hello. I don't know if you took my Twitter poll, but do you often pee in the shower?

MerlinWhat? What? I just need to know. Well, I mean, no, I didn't. That was a weirdly thirsty one of those Alex.

AlexNo, it wasn't.

MerlinI pee in the shower all the time. I couldn't even.

AlexBecause. God.

MerlinDo you wash your legs?

AlexYeah.

MerlinDo you wash my legs?

AlexAre you a burrito or a hot dog?

MerlinWhich Sex and the City hot dog are you?

AlexHas this ever happened to you? Am I supposed to know these. I know that there's a character named Mr. Big in Sex and the City. And I find that very funny. And that's about all I know about the show.

MerlinYep. Yep. Nobody puts Mr. Big in a corner.

AlexOh.

MerlinOkay.

AlexHow are you, Merlin?

MerlinI mean, Jesus, what is going on?

AlexI'm just so upset about everybody peeing in the shower because it...

MerlinWhy do you care? Why do you care, Alexandra?

AlexBecause I might be stepping on pee in my own shower. That's my shower.

MerlinAre you concerned that people from Twitter come and pee in your shower? They pee in your shower?

AlexNo, I had a conversation with my spouse about peeing in the shower because for another podcast for an experience.

MerlinAnd the concern that people from the Internet that take polls would come and pee there and then make you stand it.

AlexIs that it? No, no. I, for another project, oh, we released it. The newest episode of Two Headed Girl. Go listen, audience. Thank you.

MerlinIs this period? It's body hair? What is it?

AlexTwoHeadedGirlFM.com. Yay, that's my other podcast. I do for my, this is peeing, actually. And it wasn't until we were talking about peeing and I said, oh, I'm going to try and stand to pee. Because I'm a curious person, as you pointed out one time, and I just wanted to try it. And I physically cannot do it from what seems to be, I mean, that would.

MerlinAlex, there's no I in can't. You know what? It probably is as practice. I bet your pelvic shelf is all fucked up from all those years of being seated like a woman.

AlexRight, right. And I tried every day for a week.

MerlinOr a neutered man.

AlexIs that how it works? I don't know.

Speaker AI don't know how that works. Incels like to be comfortable. I like to relax and look at my Android phone.

AlexYou know, anybody can pee how they want, I think, when it is a personal experience.

MerlinI thought anyone could cook.

AlexYes, it's like, peeing is like cooking in that way, I suppose.

MerlinYou should become a southern humorist. I think you have very much in touch with the common person. Yep, yep. You've got more corn cone than sense.

AlexOkay, here's the thing.

MerlinYou wanted to stand to pee.

AlexYes. So I was trying to stand to pee and I just couldn't I just couldn't do it. And then Matt asked me, well, you pee in the shower. So why can't you do it out of the shower? And I'm like, what? And it was a do you wash your legs situation where it had literally never occurred to me that anyone would pee in the shower for any reason. I understand why people brush their teeth in the shower.

MerlinDid your parents keep the pod that you came out of?

AlexI'm not a pod person.

MerlinDo they keep it the way you put a placenta under a tree and shit?

AlexWell, you know.

MerlinInteresting world. Houses are Pop-Tarts. Scissors are my friend. Mop moop.

AlexI also didn't know you microwaved. How does waist leave body standing? Now, do you microwave your Pop-Tarts or toast them?

MerlinWhat?

Alexwhen was the last time you had a pop tart do you microwave them or toast them oh i i mean it

Merlindoesn't matter but uh the pop tarts i like haven't been made in a pretty long time but when they did make the pop tarts i like i would toast them a little bit i would more warm them um because really it's just not really you know it's like the whole thing with uh the the brothers about like what's cooking versus what's heating yes like when you put when you put grapes in the microwave Are you cooking them or heating them?

Do you wash your grapes on your legs? Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?

AlexGod, see, now I want to try it. Don't say things like that, because now I want to try it.

MerlinPeeing on your Pop-Tarts before you put them into your bedpost?

AlexWhat are we talking about? I don't really chew gum, but I wonder if I were to leave gum out overnight, what would happen? I don't know.

MerlinIt is interesting. You know, here part of it must be, at least in part, like a boy thing. Where, like, boys, I don't know if it's still like this, but time was, you know, you're very much raised. How can I put this? Boy, talking about double standard. It's not as bad as pockets, but it's still pretty bad. As I think little boys are like, eh, just pee anywhere. Nobody cares. Like, just go outside and pee. You know, go pee anywhere. Like, oh, I gotta pee. I'll go behind the dumpster or whatever. Or, like, pee on the priest or whatever. No, he's into that. But, like, whatever. Little boys are like, eh, you just whip it out anywhere.

You take that little salad shrimp out and do your business.

AlexI mean, I know a lot of people of all genders who have peed in the alleys of Chicago, but I mean, I guess I get it.

MerlinYou're a regular Carl Sandburg.

AlexYou are.

MerlinI know many people of many genders who have peed in the alleys of Chicago. City with great shoulders.

AlexWe have alleys. New York doesn't have alleys. You got to pee on a rat to pee anywhere in New York.

Speaker AThe last clothes don't fit.

Alexyou know what i would say i would say if you are if you are peeing in your shower and there is a toilet a literal porcelain chair made to put your human waste you are uh abusing your privilege

Merlinbecause it's right there it's right there i feel i feel the same way like if i ever visit somebody in the hospital i i will breathe normal oxygen the only way i will breathe is if i have access to something I can put on my face. Yeah, I could breathe anywhere, but because I'm a very cultured person, I take it off the decedent. And I, you know?

One time somebody asked David Lynch, they said, what is that stuff that Frank is inhaling in Blue Velvet? And he pauses and then he goes, Something that makes him do very bad things.

Good morning. You're full of means today.

AlexI was just very upset by the idea of knowing.

MerlinOh, yeah. So anyway, I was just going to say it's very sexist because like little boys, I think, are mostly raised to pee anywhere. and like there's a thing there's a thing in the boy community and i i don't know if this is universal but i've been doing this since i was a very little boy it's called sword fighting which is when two two little boys pee at the same time you both pee from different directions and you cross your streams and it's it's done it was i started doing it with my pal rob desotel who was a producer on that 70s show later on um and my friend rob and i used to sword fight um at mount

area elementary and we used to see how far we could get i mean there's a lot of peeing there's almost like a pee-lympics when you're a little boy. There is. Well, if you didn't know about peeing in the shower, I'm going to risk telling you something obvious. When two little boys go to the bathroom and they've got to pee in the urinals, you do a thing where you start at the same point, which is the standard male peeing point, and then you slowly move backwards, but not too slowly because you only have so much, you know, a little bit of juice. Oh, no. You see how far you can get from the urinal and up and arc it in,

and then the implicit winner is whoever got further away. There are many things like this.

AlexWell, what my brothers did as children, maybe they do it now. I don't know. When I saw, and yes, unfortunately, I did see my brothers do this as we were all children. They had those little target practice things that you put in the toilet. Do you know about this?

MerlinWomen?

AlexMaybe. Have you not? Do you know about this? Have you heard about this? I can't do Jay Leno. I tried.

MerlinThere's a thing that, for example, there's a thing that's similarly done. where you put a little picture of a fly slightly off center in there and and people in general i think men specifically can't resist trying to hit the fly because men love its pointless skills challenge was there an actual literal like bullseye hawkeye yes target brand style targets

Alexconcentric circles yes because that helped uh apparently helped you know train the stream if you will train the stream to go in the the control of the stream the boy can't help it well when you're like four i don't know like little richard said the boy can't help it

Merlinmaybe the stream can be trained i mean

Alexyou know we don't really if we can't understand spare the rod and spoil the prostate that's what

Merlinben franklin said my favorite president now now now the thing about the guy who played kyburn the guy who played kyburn on game of thrones i think his name was he was prime minister mcmillan i know

Alexhe's one of the seven actors in britain but but which he's one of seven actors he did have a tumor

Merlinbut it was benign and when he rolls in there with a man on that gurney and he says he had a prostate the size of the orange you know the queen says the queen says uh suck a bag of dicks what she says she says you get you get back to work i need this you see this baby in here this goddamn fourth baby of mine, this baby that's about to make my life very miserable. Oh, by the way, did you once say, or did you five times once say, Matt Smith was this best smelling person you've ever encountered?

AlexOh my God, he is by far still the best smelling person I've ever encountered.

MerlinAnd you had proximity to him because you were at like a fan conference thing and you got something

Alexautographed or something. Is that right? No, no, no, no, no, no. Because Matthew, again, wonderful spouse quick sidebar i i was listening whenever i listen to dubai friday i'm like man i talk about maddie a whole lot now and it's like oh right because that's the only person i interact with he should really get a cut yeah but uh he he knew that i don't really care about autographs um in fact i don't care about meeting people in general with a certain exception for this man

and uh so i got to oh yes yes oh gosh oh god i'm literally looking at the picture right now hanging on my wall and yes it does occasionally come down when my landlord dougie uh pops by

Merlinwell this is my question do you have a photograph of you with matt smith oh yes we'll put it in in show notes like it is on the internet oh yes alex alexander it is critically important that you send that to me very soon because i've been as we've been watching the crown and i keep saying

AlexOh, you're watching the crowd? Yes!

MerlinHow do you think I got to Kyburn?

AlexOh, oh, I am... Where are you at? Where are you at? I'm not on mic because I'm taking a side. Oh, hello. Are you peeing? Nope. Well, I was standing, so I might have been able to, but...

MerlinYou're halfway there. You know, the journey of 10,000 urinations begins with the first squirt.

AlexYep. It's from the doubted Jing. Well, that's the thing. If you don't have a dick, there's no way to not piss on your legs, unless I am grossly misunderstanding my own anatomy. You're grossly something.

MerlinI've been saying over and over that Alexandra says that Matt Smith, a.k.a. the horrible Prince Philip Mountbatten, former half-Greek, half-German, terrible man with blonde hair. I said, you know, your doctor. I think that also might be Alex's doctor, but I'm not sure.

AlexOh, by far my doctor.

MerlinOh, my God. Is this it? Can I look?

AlexYes, please, please. That is a low resolution.

Speaker AOh my God. No. Oh my God. Oh, this is so fucking. Oh my God.

MerlinI'm dying. Please, to the extent possible, do everything possible to take a better photo of this photo. Oh my. What I am looking at. Can I describe this?

AlexPlease, please do. Oh my God.

MerlinAll of the things that make you. How? Yeah.

AlexGo right ahead. Go right ahead. It's possibly the gayest picture of me.

MerlinI'm looking at a photo of a photo. I don't love that this is on the wall. But I'm looking at a photo of a photo. And the photo has three people in it. And there's some kind of a background. The person in the middle is obviously the 11th Dr. Matt Smith.

AlexThe best smelling person in the world.

MerlinThe best smelling person on either side. Recto and verso. On either side of the actor Matt Smith are Matt and Alex both wearing the same Dr. Who TARDIS t-shirts.

Speaker AI love so much. Oh my God. Oh my God.

MerlinOh my God. This is all is forgiven. You pee all over anything. You can pee on me. I don't care. I'm not going to pay you.

Okay. I'm going to copy this. Kissing this to my daughter. Oh, please.

AlexPlease do. Please do.

MerlinOh my God. He said it all in caps. Proof. I love it so much. Oh my God. That is so, okay, can you, if you, well, if you can say without compromising your Dr. Opsek, oh, sorry, actually, Dr. Opsek's my father. What, what, what, what time about, well, if you can say, is it a fixed point in time, about when was this from?

AlexOh, 2013, because I would have been 23 and yeah, yep. Oh boy. Yep. Yep. 2001? What?

Speaker A13?

Alex2013. You left out an important detail. Your hair? Or maybe, yep.

MerlinI think your hair looks cool.

AlexI know, no.

MerlinIt works with the glasses. Look how cute Matt is. Matt pulls it all off.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinIt's very upsetting. Every incarnation, every regeneration that the other Matt has had. Oh, my God. Extraordinary.

AlexThat's so good. I like that.

MerlinWhat does pog mean? P-O-G? Is that a word?

AlexPog. Well, it's a toy.

MerlinI know about that.

AlexWhere does it say Pog?

MerlinNothing See I'm worried that she doesn't know when she's cursing She said wow that's Pog

AlexOh

MerlinOh god I just got a text from Rob Corddry The New Yorker article's up Okay

AlexWhat now? What now? Is this a show?

MerlinI got the fact check call the other day The New Yorker article from Cal Newport Let's go see what it says

AlexFrom Cal Newport Oh my

MerlinOh, Butterwood and Milton. Oh, God. See, he went with the angle. Fuck. The rise and fall of getting things done. I actively encouraged him not to call it that.

AlexOkay. Ew. Ew. Okay. I liked his last book, actually. Deep Work. But, or wait, no. The Atomic.

MerlinYeah, yeah, yeah. I've heard good things.

AlexWait, wait. What's it? Oh, hold on.

MerlinOh, man. I don't want to be an asshole in this. I had a nice call. Their fact-checking man called me. And I would like to think, you know, I always want the waitress to love me. Oh, Jesus, there's way too much of me in this. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I'm closing this. Um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um. I got a call from the fact-checking guy. I love a fact-check.

Speaker AMm-hmm.

MerlinLove a fact-check. And not only did we get to, like, you know, get a little bit salty about Glenn Greenwald. And I was like, hey, you know, dude, dude, just so you know, like, I think an editor is what keeps a writer from going out with their pants around their ankles and a dirty butt. And, like, I'm very happy to be edited. didn't fact-check. Glenn Greenwald, oh, that half a million dollars a year, oh, it's burning a hole in his pocket. Gotta get over to the substack. Jesus Christ, what happened to him?

AlexOh, if folks don't know what you're talking about, Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Edward Snowden. Along with

MerlinLaura Pointras? Was that her name? They broke the big, was it

AlexSnowden story? Yeah, they did another one too, but I don't remember because he became a dick and he stopped reading his stuff.

MerlinI mean, it's weird. I mean, he's not nearly the furthest case, but it's just like, it's where, I don't know if the people are black-pilled, but dark gray-pilled people and fail-sons are just like, they just cannot get, so many people who are Anne Hero running away from them. Anyway, whatever, whatever, whatever. Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry. We have a lot to talk about today. A lot to talk about today.

AlexOh, we do. Oh, was that your bell echoing?

MerlinOh, it's me hitting my table. I'm a little bit light. I'm having a strange day because I have a lot of projects going on, and some of them are a little bit, are slightly rocky right now, and I'm also a little bit low on supplies. So I'm a little bit off center, which can be very good, I have found. But, for example, I've just used the last of my ice for this ice tea.

AlexOh, no.

MerlinAnd that will not stand.

AlexThat will. Would you like to get some?

MerlinWell, I need to order it from the thing.

Alexoh i i thought you you meant immediately you were out of ice and that was like you know the little last slivers do you swallow do you do you chew the slivers like at the bottom i actively so um

Merlinuh i'm gonna say well to answer your question no because um my grandfather was a big ice chewer i could be to be like my grandpa i became a big ice chewer and then i was told by my dentist that i was getting small cracks in my teeth um yeah also you know i have an anxiety thing so like i do all kinds of like probably bad repetitive things not quite like a david sedaris level but like i need to be careful i need to be careful that i uh don't unconsciously do a thing without realizing i'm doing it and so i had to stop with the ice are you a nice chewer uh i mean not anymore

Alexfor the same reasons i think like i'm i'm a clencher at night um well i'm clenching right now i'm i i get headaches because i clench the oh yes yep i i have a little massage routine to

Merlinto do on my job yeah so anyway like i don't think i clench they call it bruxism i don't think i do it out of the usual physical it's mainly because of the um sometimes if i'm not careful the medications that i take make me grind my teeth and i end up i discovered with a sort of neck back of the neck tension headache by the end of the day that would be not excruciating not like a migraine but definitely like oh this sucks this is gonna take me off my game oh so i gotta be careful about that but chewing ice can be nice and you know like when you're having a baby in the

hospital you know they give you the that really good ice they give you the good hospital ice what would it take for me to get hospitalized i'll know i've arrived when i can get hospitalized

Alexwhenever i am at any sort of hospital i'm like okay i respect you all and think that you are doing a good job give me any and all the things you want to which i know is not like when you're checked in or when you're visiting uh oh both oh both if i can like sneak one of the little cups of juice or whatever because you know you're not supposed to have juice because it's

Merlinis it kind of like when you're in like business class or whatever and you like give me all the things like give me the slippers and the headphones and i want all the things that like give me all the like the amenities i'm gonna steal the bottle of shampoo from the mariont that kind of thing yes absolutely so give me that give me that weird set they have i'm gonna call it a suite a suite of like that weird styrofoamy plasticky pitcher thing it makes me sad to even think about because i associate it with everybody in my family who's ever died you get the glass thing you get the tray you get that really cheap two light tray usually get an amesis bowl i'm

Alexgonna call it you get a barfy bowl a barfy bowl i've never had a barfy bowl well i have a barfy bowl in my bathroom right now oh i i well so do i and it's called my toilet which i use because

MerlinI'm normal. Do you pee in your toilet?

AlexI do. I pee in my toilet. I do a lot of things in my toilet because I, you know what? Actually, if we're going to talk about hospitals, remember my tiny tumor? I don't want to, you know, steal. Hold it close. Yes, I do.

I got a finger in the day. Just to make sure, before I had it taken out to make sure it wasn't anything serious god this is boring uh before my i had my hand surgery i had to do a lot of urine tests and i i have had to pee on my hands not had to i tried very hard not to chose to we do it not because it's easy but because it's hot uh yes i i i may and can pee on my hands

it takes a long time to get it right so by the end i'd like done it 10 times and i was pretty good at like aiming into the cup. But having a warm stream of your bodily fluids was not pleasant. And I...

MerlinI think it's also just that it's one that's unexpected. You know? It's sort of like me with the cat, cleaning up after the cat and my cat, a horrible, horrible cat who is able to produce the coldest and wettest pee, even if it's like from hours, days, months ago. The coldness and wetness of my cat's pee is it'll never stop being upsetting. And just suddenly discovering a warm liquid touching you and then discovering it's of a human origin. It's a little bit of like a body horror David Cronenberg thing. I don't want to like, you know, squick anybody,

but have you ever been washing dishes in the sink? And you notice something, but you're like, hmm, you haven't quite put your finger on it. And if you're like me, then you go, oh no, do I want to know? And then you look and you've totally cut your finger on a knife in the water. You ever done that?

AlexOh, no, because I am terrified of doing that.

MerlinIt's such an unusual feeling because like if you're slicing, you know, if you're like dicing onions or whatever, you're doing knife things in a drier environment, you're going to go, ah, crap, shoot. And like you have the instant panic of like the first realizing I cut myself and then hoping it's not too bad, et cetera. Right. But when that happens in the sink, it's much like you don't notice it. It doesn't hurt as much.

Alexlike and it's like and then you're like numb from the the cleaning oh and then you got warm

Merlinblood on you and it's no fun again again with the the non-room temperature fluids of bodily origin

Alexwhich is a fantastic bloister called album i mean you know even the most he's not perfect but he is perfect to me uh our wonderful wonderful fictional friend ted lasso you know it's like taking a sip of sparkling water and expecting regular water it's just not a good time

Merlindid i get that on you

Alexuh did are we oh god it's been 20 time flies with you merlin you know when we're having fun. I can't help it. I'm sorry.

MerlinI'm sorry. You're older than you've ever been and now you're even older. Why do I sing that like Jerry Lewis? I don't know. John Linnell does not sound like Jerry Lewis except when I do it. You're older than you've ever been and now you're getting older still.

Speaker AThey call me Dr. Wormgly.

AlexOh my. Alright. There we go. I got that one. I missed your chris gains reference last week i think and i'm very upset with myself because i truly love chris gains oh i love i love him i love he i ironically i well it seems like a nice guy to me you know

Merlinlike the thing is it's easy to bag on garth brooks but i think he seems like a nice man

Alexoh wait why why would people bag on garth brooks because he's he's a country boy like

MerlinNo, I think it's even worse than that. I mean, well, first of all, as the poet says, we hate it when our friends become successful. So, like, Garth Brooks, like, really rode a rocket in terms of success. And he had that kind of success that drives people really crazy. And, again, I'm not here to stand for Garth Brooks. But, anyhow, he came up real fast and hard in the 90s with a very palatable, clearly country, but, like, very poppy country. And I mean, how many people have there been since the 50s who like become slightly more mainstream with their country?

And then people like think they're a sellout or a loser or whatever. Anyway.

AlexOh, Taylor. Poor Taylor.

MerlinBut also it was like pretty, you know, it was pretty middle of the road. I think it's okay. Excuse me. Hyven!

Speaker AHyven!

MerlinLet's just do a group one. I'm going to say, for me, it's a little cooler at the time to be into, obviously, old country. So it's okay to be into the Carter family. It's okay to be into that abusive alcoholic, Hank Williams Sr. It's okay to be into the countrypolitan stuff in the 60s. And it's cool to like Conway Twitty and Dolly Parton and stuff like that. But then you get into the more recent stuff. I think it's okay to be into the outlaws. It's okay if you like Waylon and Willie and stuff like that. maybe even George Jones another lovable

abusive alcoholic but then I think at that time you know being into like Garth Brooks or Shania Twain and stuff like that was pretty basic

Alexoh man I feel like a woman

Merlinman I feel like a woman I love the custodian I love the bit of the custodian with the headphones and Parks and Rec you ever catch that there's the custodian who always shows up and he's always listening to man I feel like a woman on headphones when something's happening but then like at the time I'm gonna say me for example liking uh that i love that one randy travis song i'm gonna love you forever you know forever and ever yeah as long as old women sit and talk about old man that's such a good song or like who's the dude that was in sling blade um you know the the singer who's

the bad guy in sling blade i have no not sling blade but the other i don't know what sling blade is it sounds um his name is i forget but you know i think he was considered pretty basic and then on top of it all so he was and who was he was married to another famous country person i feel like he's a little bit like i think in a lot of ways he's like phil collins there's a lot of similarities in how we look at garth brooks and um phil collins and i'm i've been very guilty of that it took me until like two three years ago to really re-re-re-appreciate phil collins and i'm i'm embarrassed about another notoriously nice guy who was very gifted and and got uh got

Alexsuccessful and then people hated him oh oh people are people aren't nice my goodness they're nice

Merlinnow but you have to go through an in a reg and um you have to pass through this area where like we all agree this person sucks before they can be like rehabilitated they can be enjoyed ironically and then eventually go no actually shit phil collins wrote in like this one year where his life was falling apart he wrote he was dining out on songs he wrote in 1979 for years and they were really good songs and not just the one with the drums like there's just a lot the way that he can take behind the lines this genesis prog song and turn it into like a jackson five song shit dog

Alexgive that horse some line he's i i guess he's always been basic to me in the way that the beatles are basic not not garth brooks phil collins but but garth brooks was always basic for me but that's because he in our super secret text channel we were talking about how my mom's favorite artist of all time is Garth Brooks. And I can't prove this, but I think he is a secret woke because I didn't I didn't know this at the time, but he came out like yay gay marriage in

2000. And I was like, this could have influenced my mother quite a bit. Has he has he has he ever

Merlindriven a floral van downtown so that he could get a big pile of cash to give to his friends? Has he

Alexever done that i i don't i don't know what that that means you were remarking on it in the slack

Merlina few hours ago the the big george cluny gave all of his gave a bunch of his friends money oh oh yeah and then you made you assured everyone in the slack that if you ever got a certain amount

Alexof money you give it to everybody does that ring a bell no no no no no no no no if i ever have 25 000 i will give 14 it was a 14 i will give 14 of my friends so you do recognize the reference

Merlinthat I just made then.

AlexThe floral van? Did I just not read that?

MerlinYou didn't read the whole article.

AlexI did not read the whole article.

MerlinYou're like Eric Trump. You don't even read the whole date stamp.

AlexOh, I know.

MerlinGeorge Clooney, according to our Slack, a Slack that we are on, it's not my Slack.

AlexI truly don't know whose it is, actually, now that I think about it. Sorry, sorry for interrupting. Sorry for interrupting.

MerlinNo, no, no, no, no, no, no. Um, um, um, um, um, um, um. It doesn't matter. Thank you, Goose. Supposedly, George Clooney got a bunch of cash and gave a million dollars to each of like 10 friends, something like that?

Alex14. Sorry, number 15.

Merlin73 folders. Seven meets three cheeses. Oh, that brings me back to the peeing. In probably 1989, 1990, so you've heard me use that phrase, seven meets three cheeses. Do you remember the origin of that?

AlexMm-mm, no.

MerlinOkay, seven meets three cheeses. My friend, whose name I shall redact, was from Philadelphia, and her dad, her family, owned a, I think you'd call it a hoagie place.

Alexthe sandwich situation.

MerlinWell, people in Philly get mad, but like a hoagie to me is very particular. If it doesn't smell like B.O., it's not a hoagie. But they had a sandwich place and their most famous sandwich, which I've tried to find, I can't find the name of it, not important, but it was called like the destroyer, the Philly destroyer-inator or something. And it was advertised as having seven meats, three cheeses. And she could reel off everything on all the sandwiches well into college, years after she'd stopped working there. And when she painted her car herself with house paint, she did write seven meats, three cheeses on the bumper of the car. It's indelible in my head. Seven meats, three cheeses.

In 1989 or 90, she and I had the first known intergender sword fight in Sarasota, Florida.

AlexOh, you can't leave it at that. Please go.

MerlinNo, I'm not going to leave it at that. I'm going to say she, we'd had some drinks and we were visiting, you know, with friends and stuff. And she's like, I'm sick of this bullshit. Like, come out and have a sword fight with me. And I said, you know what, friend? I will do whatever I can to make this happen. So she did a little squat and I brought the mountain to Mohammed and we crossed streams. and people were hiding behind cars because she was a little bit self-conscious about peeing crouching and peeing but we crossed our streams and it felt great it felt great and nobody peed on each other oh you know nothing nothing that's bad i'm not here to kink shame i'm just saying sarasota is a very naturally conservative place a lot of old money a lot of new money a lot of you

know now today i have to imagine everybody's probably doing intergender peeing it's probably

Alexnot even something you remark about anymore i mean not gonna you know i'll i'll do the woke signal definitely talk to more women who have dicks because i i think i think you might actually know the majority of my male friends oh that's so sad oh goodness gracious and how many of your

Merlinfriends with dicks would i have met in 1989 sorry real quick no no no i'm i'm saying my i'm saying today and just take a minute of joy can you and hedonia and madness this is this is our state

Alexi i i know that that's a smart people reference oh god i'm gonna hear about this fucking article

MerlinI'm going to fucking hear about this. I begged him. I begged. I begged. I said, Cal, don't go this angle. Don't go this angle. Go a different angle. There's no fall to GTD. No fall. No, Cal. Just don't do that. Don't do that, Cal.

AlexYou know, the Cals this year aren't doing great.

MerlinWhat was... People, I mean, you mustn't start with an angle. It's one thing to start with an angle. You mustn't start with a point and then back solve to fill the point. The point should come out of what one discovers.

AlexI would probably be a bad person and read this while we are recording this show, but I have used... Rob says I come off O'Can, that makes me happy. Oh, that's good. How do I... Oh, if I continue reading while using an ad blocker, please create a New Yorker account. Fine, fine, sure.

MerlinOh, by the way, I did ask my fact checker a very creepy question. And I had mentioned that the, I was so happy that he recognized this. I was like, you know, I said, you know, I did nothing that matters for this fact checking. He's very generous and cool with his time checking the facts. Because we, this interview, I've been interviewed by Cal many, many times. And this is, this was back in like fall. It's like a year ago.

AlexWhoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You have been interviewed by Cal Newport many, many times?

MerlinSometimes it makes it into things and sometimes it doesn't. and sometimes it'll make it into future things in books. So, can I finish the anecdote, please? I'm sorry, it was really cool. The nice man called when we did fact-checking. And I said, I'm going to tell you something. It does not matter that this is a thing I'm about to say or this should have no impact on anything, but I said, I am a subscriber. And I said, the reason I subscribed, not totally, but the thing that motivated me to finally give money to The New Yorker, I said, was Gia Tolentino. And I said, specifically, the Land of the Large Adult Son article,

which is one of the greatest things ever written. And I said, I'm going to ask you a really creepy question and you can choose not to answer it if you want. I said, have you ever met Gia Tolentino?

Speaker AI said, because she's kind of my hero.

AlexI thought you were going to ask if they'd ever fact-checked Gia Tolentino, which feels like a normal question.

MerlinYeah, it sounds dirty. Well, this is the problem with being pretty.

AlexHave you ever peed with Gia Tolentino? Like, what does it mean? I'd cross streams with her. That'd be fun.

MerlinActually, we have a challenge this week. We do. This has been an unexpectedly fascinating challenge for me.

Speaker AOh.

MerlinI've never been so enthusiastic about something I completely don't understand. I don't. Oh, apart from masturbation. This has got to be the most excited I've ever been. All right. We're moving on. Okay.

AlexAll right.

MerlinOh, so you talk about dildos and that's fine.

AlexI don't talk about using them. When have I talked about dildos?

MerlinIsn't that implied, Alex? Isn't that implied?

AlexWhat?

MerlinYou're just a collector. I had a friend who couldn't play guitar, but he collected guitars, and I always thought that was kind of weird. I always thought, why don't you just masturbate? My point being, the challenge this week was, how did this happen? I, where did I hear about it? Oh, it must have been in my feed, in my feed of RSS feed. So you learned about this from me, probably, right?

AlexYes, because I listened to the Omni show, which you recommended that I didn't really know existed anymore from Omni group.

MerlinI still haven't listened to the episode.

AlexOh, really? Oh, interesting. Go on.

MerlinWell, OK, so the point I'm just the only reason I'm trying to point out the provenance here is that the way one discovers things becomes, you know, somewhat has an impact on how you end up getting interest in something. somewhere in my feed it came up that our friends at the omni group uh who have a podcast had interviewed this guy who is he's a some kind of like an adjunct professor like a pseudo professor but he's a cognitive scientist and his his bit his deal his angle is cognitive productivity and whatever that means um but the cool thing is so i guess i don't know how long it's been out but

he and some team of people i don't know who it doesn't matter who the relevant thing is he's created a new he and his team whomever have created a what a new to me app for the mac called

Alexhook are you waiting for me to jump in i i'm trying i'm realizing i'm talking a lot i'm getting a lot of texts from people and i'm trying not to read them oh oh um because i don't i don't like being interrupted i should close this window i i definitely am not signing up for a new yorker subscription right now but i do for gia i love her um i didn't know about this either somehow i had known about this guy's book and i'm not sure why or how i had it but i i sent it to you

and i don't think you looked at it but but that sounded passive aggressive i don't know why i did

Merlini opened i opened it up and like it's another one of those like god is there any book in this book Jesus fuck, there's an entire opening about what style of markdown he used?

AlexYep, it's...

MerlinAnd I'm just like, flub-a, flub-a, flub-a Later on, there's many videos in bed, flub-a, flub-a, flub-a So, it rarely has been more true Break the book in half and start there

Speaker AYep, yep

MerlinAnyhow, so I don't know all of that But okay, so can I just pitch what this thing is and why it interested me? I'm going to give you my very, very initial impression Or you could do that, you could tell me what your initial impression is of what this thing does

AlexPlease do. I peanut buttered slightly, but we'll get to that.

MerlinThat's okay. That's okay. That's okay. Did I get the... Did you listen back to work yesterday?

AlexI did not. No. Sorry.

MerlinOkay, cool. Cool. Cool. Excellent. Perfect. No. Good. So I was telling Dan about this app. Here's the thing. So what is Hook? Hook? Sorry. A second bit of prologue. There have for many years on the Mac platform been various attempts to create different kinds of systems for accumulating and managing information and knowledge. Right. So, like, for example, in the in the like the Jurassic period, Microsoft Entourage came along with this amazing ability to like attach things to things. So your email, these email messages could be attached to a calendar event, could be tied to contacts.

It was really, really interesting. Then you go along come stuff like Dev and Think or Tinderbox or mind mapping to some extent. You've got these different kinds of things that are meant to be a manager for information, something that Stephen Berlin Johnson has talked about in the way that he writes and how he uses Devin Think. Very interesting, thoughtful guy, how he makes his turns out books with Devin Think. You look at somebody like John Dickerson, and I think he's a big Evernote boy. But the notion being that I need a way to capture and manage information.

oh sorry another one that's important to all of these folks mostly is like let's say you're a researcher like Cognitive Boy like you want all your pdfs in one place and maybe that works with Zotero or you're like whatever your bibliography app is but there's been many attempts over the years to do that and some there are people who are like very dyed in the wool at one system or another but a fairly common feature through a lot of those it's is that it mostly involves getting things into one app. Now, think of, so what is, Hook is a way, boy, I'm going to need your help

to fully understand this. Alex, I spent a week with this and I'm still a little bit confused, but super interested in. So the basic idea of Hook is Hook is not an app for maintaining all that stuff. Hook is a place, as I understand it, for maintaining relationships between things in the world. So you can say, here's a task paper document. Here's a text file. Here's a PDF. Here's a website and how how can it can there be a way for me to say that i associate these things both ways which with each other so every time i'm in my task paper document for this project show me all the things that are like associated with this project and it's all this is the part

Alexthat really got me it hooked me oh no no listen i didn't make the bye joke so nobody who's ever said no pun intended was being serious okay so hook hooked you what's interesting though is it's

Merlina lot like using launch bar so you basically you hit a command to bring up a launch bar like dingus and then you can do things like copy the url get a markdown link for the url associate it with another thing create a hook file even though i don't really understand what a hook file does and i was very intrigued alex i've spent so much time with this i've watched videos i've installed uh launch bar actions i've done so many things and i'm still not entirely sure if i'm doing it right at all. What is your feeling up to the edge of peanut butter that you did

Alexwith Hook? I did listen to the Omni show and the guy who has made this it seems so fucking weird in the best way and by weird... He's a fast talker.

MerlinHis YouTube videos are a real speed run.

Speaker AWhoa,

Merlinpump the brakes. Usually it's the other way, right?

Speaker AUsually it's like, I brought to you by skills class.

Merlinthe master class all the great courses and you're like okay I'll drag it out remember in our last video I'm gonna look down here for the link and this guy's more like I'm trying to do this stuff in his very short very fast videos did you find them a little bit like overwhelming?

Alexwell I did

Merlinhere's the four ways you can do this ah

Alexwell and that's how I felt it was like watching a Ruby on Rails video for me. I'm like, I kind of...

MerlinOh my God, that's so funny. You should say that. That's hilarious when DHH... DHH is the guy who invented Rails, right?

AlexI didn't know that, but yeah.

MerlinSo you had Ruby and then Rails was the... But the very first video, it's the video that made TextMate famous. So he was on some early beta of TextMate and he did this. He even had a catchphrase, like a, you know, like a There It Is or a Bazinga or something. And he blew through, like, setting up Rails, getting your jam running, like, all the shit. And it's like, and the classic, like, wait a minute, what text editor is that? And he's just doing all this stuff, and, like, flowers of functionality are blooming on this black background.

You're like, what are you doing? And now Rails is everything, you know? This is back when it hardly worked at all, but, like, boom. Maybe it was boom. Boom might have been his catchphrase. That's so funny. But you're watching it as that kind of demo where you're not meant to learn from it, you're meant to be overwhelmed by it?

AlexWell, I mean, it turns out to this that I think those videos are primarily meant to be watched in line with the book, because I think you might have gotten to that part.

MerlinAre you talking about Cognitive Boy here?

AlexYes, the cognitive, what is it? Cognitive productivity for Mac OS. and like as I'm reading this it would be like and now you know view this video and go to YouTube and I was like oh okay I see how this works with Omni Outliner and linking back and forth all of the examples in the videos that I saw were very specific and I'm like wait what okay but that helped a lot

and it kind of. This is the book that you

Merlintold me about? Yeah. He's got two books. Does he have two books? Is that right? Yes. You know, I should really get my shit together, Alex. I gotta quit thinking about curtains and ice, and I really need

Alexto just focus on my work. Oh, are you also on a curtain journey? I am gonna...

MerlinWait, wait, wait. You know what? I'll send you a raw cut of last night's Rectifs where I talk about projects. John asked me about what my deal is with projects. Oh, I'm almost... And it came out very Merlin, man.

AlexI'm almost caught up on Rectifs, and

MerlinI've discovered that with my drop ceiling that I have here at my private office, I can get these little brackets. Brackets go on to the holdy uppies. Brackets have hooks. Hooks get other hooks. Now you're hooking things to hooks. And now I'm doing sound dampening motherfucking curtains.

AlexYep, yep, yep, yep.

MerlinYep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

AlexYou. Damp the sound. Damp it. I'm trying so hard to get my sound situation better. But actually, the best thing I've used so far is a bunch of Pokemon stuffies that I have acquired over the years at comic conventions, including the one in which I met.

MerlinDo they go in your face or like where do they go?

AlexThey just go around my desk.

MerlinOh, is this in your little, your little, your disgusting little Library Carol area?

AlexLibrary Carol? What the fuck is that?

MerlinWill you send me a photo of a very sad looking little area in your house I think where your desk is?

AlexYes, this is my bedroom where my coworkers see the place I sleep every day.

MerlinWhen I say Library Carol, it sounds like I'm trying to differentiate between three women named Carol. Oh, you know Library Carol.

AlexYes, it literally does.

MerlinIt's not Sword Fight Carol. It's not pee in the shower, Carol.

AlexIt's Library Carol. she doesn't cross the streams

Merlinat New College we would do that my friend, I think there's a phrase, it's called kenning, but you'd be like, oh yeah I saw Amy last night, like which Amy, Snake Amy? no, other Amy, Gotham Amy? no, not Snake Amy, like if somebody gets like an appellation in front of their name to like avoid namespace pollution of the three Amys the three Amys you meet in heaven

Alexthere's a sequel to that book now

MerlinYeah, my Tuesdays with Amy. My Tuesdays with Snake Amy.

Snake Amy had a snake. Snake Amy had a very, very, very, very big snake. And she would feed it live animals. and one time the animal that she was about to feed to her animal, I think it was a gerbil or a guinea pig or something had died so she microwaved it and it came back to life in the second court lounge it was really upsetting and then its eyes popped

Alexoh god, it's worse than Syracuse's toe oh, oh, I've been triggered, I'm sorry, go on alright, so the eyes popped out

Merlineyes popped out garth brooks uh hook hook and so anyway enough of this wallowing and hypocrisy it's a very interesting looking up i'm not entirely sure what i'm supposed to do with it but i'm very intrigued by what it might do and and just to highlight like i said the part that makes me excited is in its launch bar like ability to make connections and maintain the knowledge of connections without having to like expressly do too much in a given app apart from what you would want to do normally, right?

AlexYeah. The way that it, I don't know, I think I was reading this in the forum that he has, which is really helpful. But it's kind of like deep linking.

MerlinFor somebody who peanut buttered, you did pretty good. You're way ahead of me in terms of actually learning how this thing works.

AlexWell, no, because.

MerlinI just keep mashing on buttons.

Alexi i i mean i i don't think that i am using it to i know i'm not using uh its full potential yet but it's it's like having not having a wiki for your mac but but like how you have links and drafts that's too far off is it yeah well like um yeah but in instead of like linking to another draft in drafts it links you you said this like it can link you like you open um omni focus a

certain omni focus project and then it opens up the pdfs and whatever associated but he's also he

Merlinimplies he seems to imply in a way i need to really focus on like it's so interesting to me like he does a lot of stuff okay like there's so much to this like for example you can have templates you can create templates for kinds of projects and like clone them and stuff like that and the way that he does task paper is he uses um you know uh octothorpe's like had headline styles like uh markdown style headline styles and he seemed to be able to like link to things inside of things and i'm like i'm so confused about what you're doing like i can figure out because of id

tags how to like link to an area on wikipedia but i don't know i i kind of want to learn this but also a little bit scared. And the fact that it doesn't have an iOS component, not that he's meant, you know, I think he's by design not done that, but like, if I were going to go all in on an Evernote style system, I would want it to be everywhere.

AlexHe actually did tease the iOS app in the OmniFocus.

MerlinHow would that work though? I mean, Greg, look at what Greg's done to make drafts work in different places, like the work that went into that. How would you do that here and have it

Alexmaintain across platforms uh i don't know because otherwise i would very much enjoy it existing sorry hold on one second i thought i could suppress it i couldn't i know then the closet falls on you i suppress it's oppression

Speaker Ai love you jesus oh

MerlinThis is a terrible part of the show. We should do something else. Check it out.

I'm hitting the abort button.

Speaker AI'm hitting the Dubai Friday escape key.

AlexHold, hold, hold. I mean, I think many of our listeners are into Mac OS again because...

Merlinbecause... Yeah, and having apps that people don't understand being described to them.

AlexYep, yep. Well, all right. Imagine you clicked something on your computer, and then it opened up everything you wanted to reference for that project. Like, I would have loved this when I was in school. Like, when I was in school, Evernote was still good. And I guess Notion has replaced Evernote for most people who are in school.

MerlinOh, right. Is that the thing Federico's into?

AlexI, no, I haven't listened to a podcast in a while.

MerlinNo, I'm sorry. Was there a bit about how he wants to do everything in Notion? Was there, what's the app? What's that app?

AlexOh. What is Notion?

MerlinI'm sorry, I interrupted you. Notion, I'm going to learn about Notion. I feel like I downloaded Notion.

AlexI mean, no, it's a web. Well, that's the thing. Notion.vip.

MerlinOh, Jesus, yes. This is exactly it. This is exactly, this is the Federico app.

AlexOh, oh. but it's not an iPad

Merlinthey were giving some jazz about how he always is trying to turn everything into a notion thing

AlexI should start listening to podcasts again bulletproof workspace what got me most excited about this is unlike Alfred which I toes over launch bar because it was ready day one for Silicon Max and M1 Max whatever uh you're right this is terribly boring but i i want to open a single text file and then have multiple files and web pages like i want everything to open at once and yeah yeah like

Merlinalmost like almost like a separate trapper keeper for each thing that you do that's maintained without you having to like keep it maintained like were you with the kinds of things where like for example when we're creating show notes for something or you know or like for a show or like we're gathering links like we already are doing a version of this it's just a real caveman version of this did you also notice that it's got in some apps it's you know it supports some apps and not others but and believe me i did check this in messages you see the copy all links yes yes yes yes yes if they ever bring that to messages oh my god well but but that's the

Alexthing with some stuff i'm like is it that this app isn't supported or is it that i'm doing this wrong that's about half of what i do with computers yeah or is it like i mean i think the levels of

Merlinsupport and optimization vary. I think it makes a lot of sense that he would begin by scratching his own itch. It sounds like he likes Task Paper and LaunchBar, which obviously makes it something very relevant to me. I am going to spend more time with this.

The thing I said with Dan, I'll say again here, is I just want to salute and acknowledge anybody who's still trying really hard to make interesting stuff for the Mac, whether that's Greg or Paul or cognitive guy, whoever it is. Like, people out there still trying to make good stuff for the Mac. I mean, Gus and Acorn. I use Acorn all the time. I'm like, there's all this stuff where I'm like, oh, I'm so glad people are out there. So, like, the little, you probably didn't see this. I did some goof-em-ups over the weekend with typefaces and stuff.

And, you know, Alex, I don't have a Vector app anymore. All I have, I have a ton of, like, I've got Pixelmators, I've got Acorns. I've got lots of those. I've got Procreate's. I've got more vector capabilities on my iPad than my Mac right now.

AlexOh.

MerlinI already pay too much for Adobe apps I don't use. Like, do I want to buy? You know, if I want you, everyone, listeners, if I want an app where I can draw things and do better kerning, somewhere between basically something like Illustrator. I don't know. See, I haven't even kept up. What should I be using for that? Is there like a non-Adobe app that I could be using for that stuff?

AlexThe only thing I've ever used is the GIMP, which was open source and a name that did not age well with the app. I remember that. It was great.

MerlinDid it run on Java?

AlexI don't know. I do not remember at all. I just remember it actually works. Alex, this used to be my job.

MerlinI mean, this is my job you make job was like I started out doing layout and stuff like page maker and quark. But then like most of my day was spent in I don't remember what it's fucking called freestyle. What was there was the Adobe one, the Aldis one, like Aldis freehand, I want to say. Anyway, that used to be my job. And then it occurred to me the other day when I was trying to open some Ted Lasso files, I got off the Internet. Like, I don't know how to open an SVG. If I open an EPS, I'm going to have to pick what what size pixels I'm going to want because I can't edit shit. I don't, I don't, do I want to, do I want Illustrator?

I don't, I don't like having all these apps for my apps. I don't like Setapp bugging me all the time. I don't like Adobe CC, CC Rider or whatever it is, bugging me all the time. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of all these things in my launch bar with red badges. I'm tired of it. Launch bar, menu bar, menu bar, menu bar.

AlexBartender bar, bartender. Bartender. Bartender. Bartender. Don't, don't, don't get into vector apps. You don't, you don't need to. I, I.

MerlinThe Ron Howard movie? Did you say backdraft?

AlexVector apps.

MerlinI think I'm definitely having some kind of a neurological thing going on, and the neurological thing is you.

AlexVector? Vector? I'm sorry. I'll get back in my pod. I'm sorry. Plan. Plan. Plan. Plan.

Speaker APlan.

Thank you.

Show notes

Transcript

213. The Other Matt

Show notes

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