218. The Key in the Cake

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. This week's challenge, Resolve Different.

Hello. Oh, good afternoon, noon. Hello.

MerlinHello.

Speaker ASorry, I'm late.

MerlinNo, you're good. What am I doing? I'm stopping this. I'm closing this. Oh, man. You should see me. You should see me right now. You should see me.

AlexAre you very handsome? I mean, I know you are.

MerlinDo you feel very handsome right now?

AlexWhy should I see you? No, no, no, no.

MerlinI upgraded my iZotope to the new version because I needed it for technical reasons. I needed the M1 version. and I'm not really sure what else I'm getting out of this for my upgrade, but I am very much trying to work on my sound still. Okay? And so now what I'm doing, because you know I can't hear anything, Alex.

AlexCorrect.

MerlinRight? No, I don't know that. Well, you notice things. I mean, like you're a super taster, like with ears. Like you hear things I don't hear. And so now I'm just sitting here and I just crank everything all the way up and I can hear like four or five distinct, apart from my terrible soprano saxophone, like, you know, vocal chords. I, I, I found like I, I have so many things to clean up in my sound. I got, I got a little, I got a tick, a blip every few seconds. I still got that, that hurts home. I still got my home.

Of course I got, I got people going by outside, driving around like the princess Diana chauffeur too soon.

AlexYou've, you've become an influencer. There's too many scoots, scoots going by and the motorcycle.

MerlinNo, no, no, no, no, no. because they're doing exactly what the guy from the Ritz did. Well, apart from the drinking part, which is you go over, there's just a little bit, not a hill exactly, but you catch just the tiniest bit of air. And then you go, bleep, and bleep, you hear like that's the tires squeaking when they land.

Speaker AAnyway, I'm going to figure this out.

MerlinI'm going to figure this out. But so now the problem is, it's like they say a little learning is a dangerous thing. So like now you should see me. I'm like a monkey with a really nice screwdriver. Like you should see me in there going through all the provided module chains like this one has podcast in it i'll try that

Alexand it's it's really it's really quite something and i am going to ask you the question not to be a facetious dick but out of genuine curiosity and you're not allowed to say it's for my job because i know it's for your job but why why do all this because why um why do the do the sound improvement project? Yes. Is it, is it, well, that's the thing. Is it, is it a project or is it something that you, I don't, oh God, I'm getting into, now I'm getting Merlin manned in my head.

Like, is, is this just a project you are taking on like a funsies, let's tinker and explore, or do you see this as discrete tasks? I'm, I'm feeling, I'm feeling, okay, that's, that's a good

Merlinquestion. I'm going to turn this up. That's another thing I need to work on because everybody's a different volume every day and um oh yeah that sucks i mean part of it is just it's a good question it is part of it is just purely practical and one could say for my work although i don't i don't really i mean that's just some these all these distinctions are getting stupider and stupider all the time um i know i mean a job what's a job well a job is the thing where you hopefully make money for doing a thing but like it's also a job is the thing you hope that your

Alexfriends don't hate you for and then you get health care from it that's and food oh that's that's that's

Merlina fresh perspective i like that and also we got to talk about gray's anatomy because i think i'm a little bit framed um okay so i have so much to talk to you about today um why am i doing it well i do think let me see who it's not for it's not for the people who are constantly bitching about something really obscure that i can't fix although thank you for listening i appreciate you it is partly that like i i the high-minded part is how can i put this okay okay starting over I had this thing I've been kind of batting around in my head for a while and I've been kind of making jokes about it.

But I've actually been there's something I've been thinking about a lot. And it's a vaguely Syracuse-esque point, although I'm sure he would tell me that's not correct. And also, you know, Federico, he's got an MP3 somewhere, Federico's saying his name.

I so I am the sort of person that really just wants wants to get back to whatever the thing is. So, you know, which leads to a lot of hacking. it leads to a lot of like duct taping in life, which is fine because like you shouldn't be fussing about the thing all the time. You just want to, you know, do what you need to do. But something I did learn when I was a bad developer is that it's not to get good at what you do, you will have to solve problems. And to get good at solving problems, you have to understand

what the problem is to understand what you're solving, which sounds impossibly ruminative, but go with me here. Like there's a lot of times in life where we just, to use a phrase I believe from Red Dawn, where we just piss on a spark plug and see if it does anything, right? And so that's the way I developed PHP, and it was not a super smart way to develop. But there's a lot of times in life where like, okay, so something comes along, you've got a problem. It could be something like a light doesn't work or, you know, something easier.

There's a noise in your car. And you do a bunch of things, and the problem goes away. Now that and is doing a lot of work there. Is the thing that you did fixing the problem? Well, what is the problem? Well, the problem is I don't like hearing that noise. I don't like the light being out. Okay, okay, but like what caused that? The real problem is you want to be happy again. Does that make sense? And so, okay, so here's the thing. I feel like, and this is the part I've been batting around that I think is a little profound, is that a lot of expertise, whether we realize it or not, comes out of understanding the problem

that we're solving. And then to do some old school 73 folders to understand how the problem has been dealt with in the past, how you can look at it from different angles. And true expertise becomes that ability to help other people with their problems by having seen this problem, if you like, so many different ways. But the problem with the problem, if I could say it's a little problematic, is that we don't really often know what the problem is. We don't know what we're solving. We don't know what fixed it. And then really quite importantly, you know, sort of like the car talk guys would say,

well, if you check engine light design, just put a piece of electrical tape over it and then you're checking engine light won't be on anymore, you know? But that's not going to fix the engine. Is it the light that's broken? Is it the engine that's broken? It takes expertise to know. And just because the moral of the story is just because you did a bunch of shit doesn't mean you fixed a problem. It just means the symptoms of that problem went away. Does that make sense?

AlexYeah, you should send that little clip to whoever put together chromeisbad.com.

MerlinI heard a little thing on ATP about that. I've been trying to get Syracuse off that monster program for so long. Oh, is this the thing where the developers can't figure out what the hell's going wrong and they can't replicate it?

AlexOh, I think we were talking about the same thing.

MerlinWhat is Chrome as bad? I guess I'll just click. Chrome is bad. Okay.

AlexI think it was Lauren Brichter. R.I.P. Tweety. And scroll to refresh when it was good. It uninstalled Chrome and uninstalled Keystone or whatever gross program it runs in the back.

MerlinYeah, Keystone's their thing that runs all the things. Yeah. I feel like you see it showing up in Activity Monitor.

AlexYes, and you totally do. And I totally have. And I try to use...

MerlinOh, I like the plainness of this page. It's very plain.

AlexWell, and I read this and I'm like, oh, this is great. Because often when I'm trying to help someone fix their computer, especially now more than ever, over Zoom or FaceTime where I cannot see their screen because we're FaceTiming. I am like well have you uninstalled Chrome and I hate that I end up like just just uninstall Chrome here's how to install it and here's how to reinstall it but mom I can't guarantee you

this is the problem this might be a problem but also it's more likely that it's a symptom yeah

Merlinwell sometimes you start with the thing that's like you know it's almost along the lines of is it plugged in? And to this day, sometimes it's not plugged in in that metaphor in my life. But like, if there's a thing where you're like, okay, so you do have enough expertise to say like, okay, this probably won't fix it. But like, it would make a lot of sense if doing this fixed your problem. You know what I mean? Like, it would be crazy not to do this thing in some ways,

Alexbecause I feel like what you're describing, right? Kind of? Yeah, it is. It's, you're exactly right it's the ma'am have you have you unplugged and plugged it back in all right good but uh like right now you can't go you you don't want to like go look at your toe you don't want your toe to be looked at by a doctor because you're afraid that the weird thing on your toe is it covid or is it i've triggered myself i well i i think you know um now more than ever

a lot of people are sort of coming to terms

Merlinyou're in a mood today aren't you? you're in a little bit of a mood you're having a day aren't you?

Alexoh having a day but just coming to terms with the fact that they've put up a lot of very effective tapes everywhere and but and not just

Merlinwhat part of the story are we at? are we still talking about Chrome and Lauren Brichter and your mom?

AlexI am just what are we talking about? I think on the big macro level of all of our lives we've put up tape oh yeah wherever it may be and we're watching it slowly fall apart but it falls apart at different times because we put up the tape at different times and we use different kinds of tape and guess what command strip wasn't using that time

Merlinof adhesive we're mad and we're really super mad about the tape some people use yes and it's like

Alexno no that year of adhesive was the bad year of the adhesive you can't use that adhesive year

MerlinThis is going to be a thematic episode. I can feel it. I can really fucking feel it. No, I'm dead serious. I'm not making fun of you.

AlexBut I, and just when I read the Chrome is bad site, is it like blowing up now? Is it a thing? I'm not being a dick. Is it a thing?

MerlinI have no, I learned about this like four minutes ago. I don't know what any of this is about. And I'm kind of, I'm trying to understand how this tracks back to your question about why I'm trying to fix my audio.

AlexWell.

MerlinAnd I'm not doing great at it. All right. I think I might be in the right neighborhood. I'm seeing some stop signs and mailboxes that look familiar. So I'm just going to pull over and wait to see if you come around the block, and then I'll follow you if I can.

AlexSometimes you just need to step out of my imaginary bleep-bloop car and let me run a few laps and just get it out of my system, I think.

MerlinOkay. It's what they call random walks. So it is something that – it's probably just something I'm doing for fun. It's something I would like to get better at. And out of no particular sense of pride or professionalism, but just because of sort of how I am is like, hmm, I wonder what that periodic clicking sound is. I wonder what that Hertz hum is. And I'm not even that worried about stuff like, you know, outside stuff. It's more like, you know, I want to understand what's happening in my little world here.

The very, very large and long tail of my recent technology. I believe the technical term is rejiggerings. especially my hardware rejiggerings is getting me toward a point in some ways this all goes back to I would like to get a Scarlett Focus right at some point and believe it or not that has an impact on my iPhone and my Synology. It's like it's crazy you, no you of all fucking people in this world will understand what I'm talking about here. How could, it's one of those like a

what's the guy's name, the guy from the guy from the cool PBS show. Oh my god, the guy I love. Oh, my memory's getting so bad. The Connections guy. Not Clyde Rowan. Clyde Rowan's an English actor. You know, that one guy. The one guy the day the universe changed.

Stop yelling at me, all you people out there who are my age. James Burke. It's a James Burke fan. So James Burke used to do these series and he's this English guy, usually in a raincoat with Michael Caine glasses and he's like, who could possibly have understood that the lid on a mcdonald's large soda cup that led to the development of sanskrit or whatever and you're like oh that sounds crazy i'm there for that ride um no but seriously he'll do these things like you know gunpowder is why we have spaghetti or whatever

and you're like what what and he just will do these great series that are so fun and he's jetting around and like going to all these places and it's it's that's how i sort of am right now with how could how could that possibly make any sense that that like the decisions i make here have any implication on the decisions I make over there. And I'll give you, I'll clue you in here. It's all related. Because, not least, for example, last night, my wife got my iPhone 11 Pro. And she's very happy to have it. Yay! I got a new telephone. I've got a lot of new

stuff. But think about this. Merry Christmas. You're a John Roderick or similar, and you're the sort of person that doesn't want to change a bunch of dongles. And let's say maybe you're the kind of person who has to travel. You're the kind of person who's like a Marco Armin, who apparently has exactly the same Thunderbolt hub that I do. There are implications to any change in what you're doing. A change as simple as, I'm a normal human being who picks up a cable and I look at it and I go, this looks like that kind of cable. Believe me, it's almost definitely not the kind of cable you think it is. Because now there's four Thunderbolts.

And there's four Thunderbolts, there's a bunch of USB-Cs. You could do all this different stuff, all with this thing that's all very confusing. And the kind of equipment that you buy, leads into that. I have a Mac from 2015. It's got Thunderbolt 2. It's got Caveman Thunderbolt title, right? It's got very old Thunderbolt. It does nothing. It does nothing. I found Firewire 800 much more useful than I've ever found anything with this Thunderbolt. Oh, yeah. So it is all kind of, in this sense, it is all kind of related. So how did Gunpowder

lead to Spaghetti? Well, I would like at some point to move into what I thought I wanted was the USB-C lifestyle. But it may be what I really want in some ways is the Thunderbolt 3 Plus lifestyle. And if I do that, do you get me? It has implications. So I have so much shit here. I pre-ordered the thing they talked about, the OWC TB4 Hub from Otherworld Computing that they talked about on ATP. Hey, listen, sorry everybody who's here for dick jokes.

I'm sorry. I'll be done in just a second.

AlexI'll talk about my penis in a second.

MerlinSee, now, I am not having any problems with the Ethernet on my CalDigit hub. I really like this thing. I think it's cool. I'll put it in show notes. But, you know, further things here. And I realize it sounds like I'm melting down, and I probably am. But I also have a new laptop, okay? And that new laptop, for me to be able to use it on the couch like a person, guess what? I got a second CalDigit Hub to have at home. And guess what I did? I thread the TB3. No, not USB-C. I thread the TB3 cable through the Baroque sofa so that I can have it on my lap.

AlexBy TB3, you mean Thunderbolt 3, yes?

MerlinI don't want to have to use all those syllables. I'm operating at a much higher level. I'm folding code you haven't even read yet.

AlexI was making fun of you and clarifying for myself.

MerlinSo that was the TV3. I love the existence of the USB plugs on the Borough couch, which still seems kind of strange, but I love it. But one nice thing, I put this together. I know from couches now. So I thread that through there. That goes back. Now, guess what? Under here, I got the hub, and the hub is connected to the Ethernet. So, yes, I'm getting super fast.

I'm an old man. I like a computer and I like an Ethernet. I have things that are on the wireless and are iOS, but I like using a computer.

Speaker AAnd this M1 is fucking bananas.

MerlinIt's a crazy goddamn computer. And so, but that hub's down there now. But I had to learn so much that I never wanted to learn about what Thunderbolt. Like, I'm here, like I say, like I'm a fucking caveman. I'm like, aha, I have an idea for how I could do this. Why don't I get one of those adapters that says, hey, this Thunderbolt 2 port on your 2015, whatever the iMac I have is. Yeah, you can get a thing that will then like convert that to some other Thunderbolt, like Thunderbolt 3. But it doesn't do fuck all.

Like it won't do anything that you would want that for. I have yet to get it to do anything, including powering things, including driving things, you know, all the things. Just being a basic data cable. I can't make that work. I've had to learn so much about this bullshit and it's crazy. And at this point, I'm not entirely sure exactly what I'm trying to improve because now I'm so deeply involved in how all the little pieces fit together. And then like, if I have this laptop, I won't need that laptop.

Oh, guess what? Also, like the things like the MagSafe adapterino I got, they sell this little, I call it an adapterino. But have you seen the thing where you can simulate like a MagSafe?

Alexfor your laptop whoa oh oh oh like sorry it's like a little magnet yes okay yeah yeah yeah

Merlinyeah not no not the useless charger thing um but the i like it it's cute the worst of every world it's but um anyway why am i trying to fix my audio because i i do like a project and it is very much in line with the truth is at the end of the day as they say amidst these troubled times now more than ever. I don't know if I really need a Focusrite, but everybody seems to really, really like them. Oh, really? I know what I have here. No? You hear otherwise?

AlexI don't know. I've been in a fucking bubble.

MerlinI thought the sound devices. What would you get? If you were getting, it's not called a DAW, just so you know. It's not a DAW. It's not a DAW. The artist formerly known as USB Pre-2, if you were going to buy one of those or recommend buying one of those for someone today, what would you

Alexsuggest how how would you decide what's right for somebody i would say um get that little usb mic that jason snell recommends but i see where i know that's not the answer you want i want all

Merlinthe control you get basically a rack it comes with a software rack alex a rack i ain't talking

Alexabout no titties i'm talking about rack baby i think i have the thing that you want what but uh What do I want? Okay. The Scarlet 2x2 Focusrite. Like, I think I got, yeah, it's, oh, oh, I think I have the thing you want. But it's not costly. I mean, it's like 200 bucks or so.

MerlinYeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what it is? It's got the 32 float bit thing. And you get the 32 float bit thing and use the rack or the titties or jugs, as you say. You know what you need for that? Guess what? Guess what? You know what you need? Say it.

AlexUSPC. USPC. Yep.

MerlinYep, yep, yep. If I go out, I was talking to you. Who was it on the Slack? The nice video game man.

AlexThe nice... Zach, our friend Zach Cage. Yes, by his games.

MerlinNo, no, no. Other Slack. Other Slack. Oh, I don't know. Other Slack.

Speaker AYou know, what's his name?

MerlinThe guy who used to make the video games. Oh, damn it. Boy, okay. Like I said to John Syracuse, you know you're officially old when you stop an unnecessary anecdote because you can't remember an unnecessary detail.

But I can't rest until I say his name. I have to learn the wizard's true name. but we're talking about this and like he got this and a lot of people i think dan likes this i feel like a lot of people like this uh the focus right but but the value of that seems to be you put that on a real whizzy computer and then you get a you get a rack you don't talk about you get a ton of like effects and i know everybody loves their fucking dip switches i find using the usb pre to like utterly inscrutable because like usually i thought i had it set up right at one point

and then suddenly like I don't know I try to adjust one thing and I pick it up wrong and all of a sudden I'm clicking on shit everything's a screen on the USB uh pre too you know what I mean in the sense of you forget that your whole iPhone is a screen sometimes and like as soon as I just want to move it I finally velcroed it to my desk so I could anyway I'm not sure what my point is I had so much more interesting things we got to cut all of that no I well you said you have so many things to talk to me about and i know raise anatomy is one of them let me i'm pretty mad about

that i feel i feel my kid no i'm super mad my kid thought it was hilarious i think you're giving me a bum rap and i also would like to talk about feminine hygiene i okay all right all right on it i was i was i was triggered a little bit today i gotta be honest with you i was triggered a little

Alexbit today so are you referring to how i was listening to another one of your shows and you did not disgrace gray's anatomy but you oh that we're talking about that wait what are we talking

Merlinabout so you're gonna help me with this you're gonna help me with my project of fixing my audio

Alexthe focus right thing okay i i get the i i enjoy it well wait wait wait which part are we on we're in Grey's Anatomy are we on the focus right are we on the video game man which what what part of the cul-de-sac are we in I'm still scrolling through I don't know why I can't

Merlinremember he's a very nice man he's a very nice man he's a very gentle man uh Shahid oh yeah Shahid yeah is he a video game man isn't he a video game man yes yes he used to be a video game man right yeah he's really nice he seems very um he's seen on on the relay slack he seems very um he seems like he'd be a person to be easy to get along with yes everybody go i'm gonna put it in show notes listen to remaster his show if he was assigned as my roommate i think i'd be cool with that i know he probably wouldn't be oh no he seems really nice i'd like to be friends with

simone i like to be friends with simone but i don't want to make it weird i think she's perfectly

Alexdelightful you know how you become friends with somebody to talk about them on a podcast that they don't listen to and insist that it wouldn't be weird if they'd be friends no no because then

MerlinAnd now somebody's going to be a snitch. And they're going to go, I'm Saman.

AlexSaman. Alex talked about.

MerlinI'm not going to say it like that. I'm going to say it like that because that's how the internet sounds when you talk. Oh, maybe if I keep saying. Oops, sorry.

AlexOh, no. I just want to be friends with Gabby Dunn.

MerlinHow do you say that's not a goose? Of course that's a goose. Why didn't you correct our listener? That's a goose. It's a Christmas duck.

AlexIt is a Christmas duck.

MerlinIt's not a duck. That is a goose.

AlexIt's a Christmas duck. You live in. There are no geese in San Francisco. there may be ducks

Merlinthere are no geese in San Francisco you know what though you are quacking I guess if you have a goose

Speaker Ait would be more like

Merlindon't they have more of a kazoo sort of sound a goose

Alexyou're right I might be doing a duck uh huh

Merlinthe call is coming from inside the mallard fuck

Alexwhat am I talking about Grey's Anatomy are we at Grey's Anatomy you were upset that I

MerlinYou could probably skip over it. You gleaned from something I said that I quote unquote don't like Grey's Anatomy, which is not fair. I don't think Grey's Anatomy is a good TV show. I don't dislike it. We have it on in the background sometimes. We blew through the entire goddamn show. Now I'm watching another program. You know why? You know what brought me in? The show turned out to be really good, turns out. But I came to it because it was George. I heard George was on a show. My lady said, you've got to watch this show. I was like, whatever. And so I'm watching it and it's got George on it. And I still miss George. I don't like Grey's Anatomy, but I miss George. Isn't that strange?

AlexYou just said that you don't like it.

MerlinThe one guy was mean to him on the show. Did you know about that?

AlexYes, he was very, very mean. And then he ended up being back on the show and then people were very, very angry.

MerlinYeah. But he was mean. Problematic.

AlexSo problematic.

MerlinBut that guy sounds like a legitimate dick. The doctor who hurt his hand and couldn't surgeon anymore. That guy?

AlexOh, yeah. He was a genuine asshole.

MerlinHe was like legit shitty to that actor behind the scenes.

AlexYes.

MerlinBecause he's gay.

AlexIt's when we canceled people when they caused actual harm to human beings and then did not forget about it months later.

MerlinWell, I think people disagree about what it means to be an asshole. Yes. And I sometimes feel like one person who gives this is John Gruber, not because he's an asshole, but when he had his asshole of the week or whatever. I think the difference between a dick and an asshole, a dick is somebody who's just difficult to deal with, but an asshole, to me, knows exactly what a dick they're being. Like an asshole was being deliberately awful, as I say, almost like a griefer. Huh. Or maybe they don't know.

AlexI don't know. No, I agree. I just don't know if I feel like asshole is too light of a word almost for that.

MerlinNo, I agree.

AlexDicks are dummies and assholes are bullies.

MerlinWell, and this is exactly the kind of thing that's going to get both of us canceled. If I were being honest publicly which I don't like to be about a handful of topics, I think we get so lost in the weeds about certain kinds of things where it becomes fashionable to front a very strong feeling about something over a period of time and then basically forget about it. About two months. No, 36 hours in a lot of cases. Once you've made everybody mad enough to think that they can make the black girls on Instagram like them for pretending to be somebody who may or not. Which is fine. That's a completely valid

dumb way to protect your life. Everything's valid.

AlexIt's valid. Everything's valid.

MerlinOtherwise it wouldn't be. But then sometimes there are things that happen where you go oh, shit, man, I really wish we kept our powder dry to take care of this. Like that really nice guy who like I think he was not out and he did not want to be out. Was that part of it? The actor who plays George? Was that part of the problem? But the guy was like basically abusive to him, right? Like on set. And we're not talking here about some kind of like, you know, rolling your eyes at somebody or like eating off their craft services. Really, he made that guy's life really difficult, like kind of on purpose.

AlexYeah. and and i believe he outed him publicly and that's shitty that's really shitty it's yeah i i mean i actually remember uh that at the time being like another one of those pivotal like media moments where you could see my parents sort of inching closer to the being okay with the gay direction

Merlinyou know we've like we talked about this before like i apologize i apologize i have to i was texting to my wife who's having trouble with her phone that i just gave her go back your parents

Alexand the gays uh oh no just um when all that sounds like a tim allen vehicle the parents and the gays oh gosh they would never get in they're a tom we are drive that vehicle into the sea am i right so they're okay okay with the gays what the no uh when it was such a public thing that this This guy had disgraced poor George who just wanted to be this cute little, well, wasn't, was a twink, but wasn't a twink on the show.

MerlinWell, I mean, I think probably he wanted to work. He wanted to have his work and his life like a lot of people. And like if his life is too well known, there has been a time in life, believe it or not, young people, when like you would get a lot less of the work and then consequently have a lot less of the good life.

AlexYeah. Yeah, and I, like, just because somebody is a billionaire, like, yes, I will eat their flesh and, like, guillotine Tim Cook. However, I don't think that...

MerlinThat took a turn. Who's the billionaire in this example?

AlexWell, Gawker...

MerlinThe Ackerman?

AlexNo, no, no. Tim Cook, ride with me in my electronic vehicle. Ride with me.

MerlinYour imaginary bleep-bloop car?

AlexGet in. Scoot, scoot. We're going to bleep-bloop.

MerlinOh, okay. All right, we're going shopping. All right, dummies. What? What does she say? I forget what the line is.

AlexI saw this.

MerlinJohn will tell me. John and I are going to tell you.

AlexWell, I mean, Tim Cook, supposedly. Oh, Tim Cook. I know him. He's the gay Apple boy who supposedly canceled an Apple TV show about God. Excuse me. Excuse me. Apple TV Plus show.

MerlinI've never been more grateful. I have to have almost no idea what you're talking about. Tim Cook heard and Apple was making a show about Gawker and canceled it. Okay. And I did not devote another single iota of attention. Tell me what happened with the gay Apple boy and the TV show, which is one of the great Aesop's fables also.

AlexYes. It was a big deal that the actor who played, I truly don't know what his name is, when he- George? George, when he came out-

MerlinAre you talking about Tim Cook and the Gawker show?

AlexHold on. Let me- I'm driving.

MerlinOh, sorry, I'm in your car. I'm sorry. Let me get my seatbelt on.

AlexI'm the robot jazz girl here. Buckle up.

MerlinOh, no, I'm virtually buckled. Believe me. I'm not going anywhere.

AlexOkay, when George...

MerlinI made you a little bit of a ladybird. I love that movie. I love that movie. Spin kick out of the car in a minute.

Alexoh boy uh when when george from gray's anatomy was basically forced out of the closet because he was being so badly bullied by his co-workers specifically the um and and being led by the the lead actor on gray's anatomy who was at the time i believe the highest paid actor other than Patrick Dempsey. This is the boring

part of the story that doesn't matter.

MerlinWait, were we talking about the same guy? Were we talking about the mean surgeon man with the hurt hand?

AlexThe mean surgeon man. Burke, there we go.

MerlinHow do you possibly consider him...

AlexWait, what's... Well, you called him the lead actor?

MerlinHe's got to be like sixth on the

Alexcall sheet, maybe. Oh, at the time? No, he was like...

MerlinYou got Meredith, you got Black Man with the Beard, you got OCD Lady, you got... But you're saying he was above OCD lady?

AlexYes. Miranda, yes.

Speaker AGod, I love her.

AlexThat's why it was such a huge deal that he left the show and people were furious because it was also another thing of like, well, why would you ever fire someone?

MerlinOh, and he gets away with it because he's the big TV boy.

AlexRight. And also at the time, it was like, why would you ever fire somebody for not believing in homosexuality? It's his own personal beliefs. and everybody, including Meredith, a.k.a. Ellen Pompeo, I don't know. Rich, Grayson, Admi Lady was like, oh, no, it was hell to work with him.

MerlinOh, you were really hung up on how much money people have.

AlexNo, no, no, no.

MerlinIs it a defining characteristic in a lot of your sentences?

AlexYes, probably because it's-

MerlinYou want to eat them. Did you want to eat Meredith, too?

AlexWell, I mean, if she would have me, if she would have me I mean I'm not going to go there alright

Merlinwould you eat dinner first I'm putting don't fill up on bread that's what Meredith would say she'd say go downtown we're having a late night snack I'm Elaine Pompeo

AlexI'm putting I'm putting autopilot on and we're when

Merlinstart porky pigging on that shit anyway Wait, um...

AlexWait. God. Oh, my God.

MerlinLater, later, later. That's a klaxon.

AlexMy brain is breaking.

MerlinHave a little fire, Scarecrow. How's it feel? How's it feel? You thought you were driving your imaginary scoot, scoot, scoot, but you're actually in my car. Do you really know nothing? Shopping, dummies.

AlexDo you know nothing? Do you really know? Is this a bit, or do you know nothing about the canceled Apple TV show?

MerlinI saw a headline that said, I saw a headline on Google News where, you know, it's like I only have two sources of exercise at this point. Now that I get ads on Twitter, one of them is blocking everybody who has an ad on Twitter. And the only other exercise I get is telling Google News what sources of news I don't want to see anymore. So my right finger is strong like bull.

So I saw that Apple was something along the lines of Apple was developing. Tim Cook found out Apple was developing a show about Gawker and he canceled it.

AlexInside sources report that...

MerlinHow does one say? I hated Gawker and the entire Gawker family. I think it's a... There were a lot of talented folks who worked there, but there were a lot of really extremely bad human beings that worked there that hurt a lot of my friends on purpose. They were, to use a journalistic term, assholes to my friends. Yes. And I thought they were fucking parasites. and I'm sorry about what happened with the whole Hulk Hogan thing. That was the worst. But, you know, I don't want to pox on both your houses, but I wouldn't mind if the electric went off for a while.

Speaker AAnd so why is he mad about the Gawker show?

MerlinIt was basically going to be like a docu thing about like, oh, Gawker, what happened in the rise? And now all these people that we like used to work at this terrible website and then Peter Thiel comes along. Is that what it's about? Oh, is that the connection?

AlexNo, no. Well, yes and no, because it was going to be a fictional show based on all of those events. And Tim Cook supposedly said, why are we developing a show about a company that has repeatedly insulted me?

MerlinOh, and like, are they the ones who stole the phone?

AlexThey stole the phone and they outed Tim Cook.

MerlinSo there's these two families of websites. I find it very confusing. There's like, you know, Gadgetcock and Gizmodingus. And like there's like, oh, we're the shitty Silicon Valley gossip site. Oh, we have that too. And we life hack and we hack life. And like there's the Gawker family. And what's the other one? Is it Calcanus' company?

AlexOh, gosh.

MerlinIsn't there like a Gawker at Avignon and it's all the same shit but like with a different terrible owner?

AlexI know what you're talking about.

MerlinYou know what I mean? Like Gizmodo versus what's the other one?

AlexWas Valleywag part of Gizmodo?

MerlinOh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, Valleywag was part of Gawker.

AlexFaux shizzle. Yeah, yeah. And well, and that's people are up in arms about Apple canceling this show.

MerlinSo it's not about the time the phone got stolen. Was that a Gawker related thing or was that the other one?

AlexIt was a Gawker related thing because, of course, they're like, why would even if you are a billionaire, why would you want a show made about?

Speaker AOK, no. All right. We're going to circle back in the cul-de-sac.

AlexI promise. like the ass of the suit i was just really surprised that people were so upset that this show was about a fictional gawker like how uh mystic quest is about a fictional like uh rock

Speaker Astar games who's mad uh oh i'm the people who are like who's mad about which part like i don't

MerlinI can't even tell what's true anymore.

AlexWell, exactly. Do we even know that Tim Cook said that?

MerlinSo it is true. It is true that Tim, according to sources, it is true that Tim Cook did not want to have an Apple show made about a thing. Do we stipulate that we think that is true?

AlexOh, I believe 100% it is true.

MerlinOkay. Then, ergo, when people learned about that news, you're saying that's what they were mad about was that Tim Cook had intervened about this. Or is it that people have such a thirst for a fake gawker show that they feel really let down? What are people mad about in your estimation?

AlexThose things, but also the term gatekeeping has been thrown around a lot.

MerlinIt is his gate to keep.

AlexYes, as if a production company. And it's like, what gives a large production company?

MerlinIt's hard to believe that a company that would have policies like they have on the app store would come along and say, we don't want to pay to make millions of dollars to make a TV show. It's really out of order. As an Apple fan, I find it very strange that they're exercising control over something.

AlexAnd it's like, OK, so when Netflix cancels a show, it's not problematic. Like, I mean, they took away Tukun Bernie and people were like.

MerlinTukun Bernie? Who's Tukun Bernie?

AlexNo, Tukun Bernie.

MerlinTukun? Tukun?

AlexIt's a toucan and a sparrow.

MerlinOh, a toucan. Oh, this is the show everybody liked on Netflix.

AlexYes, yes. And everyone was really sad that it got canceled.

MerlinThat wasn't Tim Cook, though, right? That was somebody else.

AlexNo, no. That was whoever is the body in charge of Netflix at the time. But I mean, and I just found this very interesting because it was the whole, you know, like who lives, who dies, who tells your story. It's like, why? Okay. Who does?

MerlinWho lies? Who lives?

AlexWho dies? Who tells your story?

MerlinJust so we're clear also, right now I am going through the unimaginable.

AlexYeah.

MerlinYou know, if I were having a neurological incident right now, I would have no way of knowing. I'm so deep in my own synaptic failings as I ride in your imaginary car.

AlexOh, much like Archer Sterling. I too.

MerlinArcher Sterling.

AlexArcher Sterling.

MerlinOh, I know him from the TV show.

Alexyes yes aka uh bob belcher um they both have a fear of neurological events especially aneurysms and i may be having one of those as well aneurysm but but i'm just thinking about the outrage that in like 2010 the outrage that happened when this guy was kicked off of gray's anatomy me because because he basically threatened to quit if uh they didn't get rid of george

talk about george or or uh or the doctor the the black doctor who was the big deal surgeon who

Merlinbroke his hand and then didn't he turn out to subsequently be also be like an ongoing asshole it wasn't just this one thing like he's kind of a jerk right it was yeah it was like uh he was

Alexbasically like well it's them or me them literally being the gays and like not just george like

MerlinI forget how he left, but he did at some point go back to his home planet, right?

AlexWell, he got fired.

MerlinI mean, did he just get dropped in one episode? Did he get like Colonel Blake?

AlexI believe they broke his contract early because this will not make sense to any Grey's Anatomy or anyone who has not seen Grey's Anatomy. But you remember how he was supposed to be married to Sandra Oh, and then suddenly he wasn't.

MerlinOh, interesting.

AlexYeah, that was not planned.

MerlinHe's not good enough for her. He's not good enough for her.

AlexNo one's good enough for her.

MerlinDo you remember how they couldn't recognize him and he's been a hero?

AlexDo you remember that? Mm-hmm.

MerlinDo you remember that? Do you remember the feeling you felt when you saw that?

Alex007. 007.

MerlinIt's really sad.

AlexOoh.

MerlinBarbecue sauce.

AlexWell, and that's why I do not watch Grey's Anatomy right now because I can't handle the COVID stuff.

MerlinWhoa. Whoa. What? So you're, you're, okay. You're doing, hmm. Last night, you were doing exactly what I do, which is you were kind of watching Grey's Anatomy while you wrap presents, which is actually, ironically enough, precisely the thing I said. I believe what I said, and if the court reporter would read it back, I think what I said to Dan was it's the kind of show you'd have on in the background while you do something like wrap presents. I think is what I said. And then you made a video of your partner very quickly saying, you said, who hates Grey's Anatomy?

And your partner said Merlin. By the way, your partner is getting more handsome like by the moment.

AlexI know. It's very upsetting.

MerlinMy daughter and I were both like, whoa.

AlexAnd well, and then he's like, don't send that. My acne is so bad. And I'm like, what? Sorry. And well, and then he's like, oh, you're just sending it to Merlin. Never mind. Which I'm like, I think that's a compliment. But I just found it humorous that I was wrapping presents and I was doing literally the same thing you were doing except i had noise canceling headphones on and was not listening to gray's

Merlinanatomy because which we will now have to talk about in the after show which you can support by going to give us your fucking money.com i was listening can i transition oh please please do

Alexanyway what oh you're a christmas donkey you brought them all the way to the manger there's

Merlinroom in the inn oh you think i'm like or maybe i'm a musician of bremen maybe i have everybody on my back. When you only saw one four sets of donkey prints, it's when I was carrying you.

AlexThis is one of those nights where I know I'm gonna have a nightmare where someone who's never heard the show before listens to an episode

Merlinfor the first time. You know what you should really try super hard not to think about? Don't think about this and definitely don't look it up but try not to think about how upsettingly large in context, how upsettingly large a donkey's head is. You ever thought about that? I do. actually. You ever seen what a donkey like really looks like? Doesn't have to be a Balthazar. It could be anybody. But you see, it's surprising. We have one at our zoo. I assume it's still there. We haven't been in the zoo in a while. There's a donkey at the zoo. La la la. And it's in the like, you can feed the goats area. You know, you can feed and groom the goats.

Well, you know, priests do a lot of the grooming.

Speaker ABut you...

MerlinThey have a donkey. They have a donkey there and the head's fucking huge.

AlexIt really looks like...

MerlinIt's larger than a horse's head, but on a pony-sized thing. It's real bad.

AlexI mean, it's like one of those TikToks where, like, oh, God, it's the TikTok where, like, God does the mixture wrong. And, like, he's like, oh, look at this. It's going to be this little, cute little horse. And then spills a big bucket of gigantic moose head into. I know how much you love TikTok.

MerlinOh, that sounds like something my kid would show me.

AlexYeah. She'll find that funny.

They're upsettingly large. They're just so big.

MerlinBig heads. Big fucking heads. Big fucking heads on a donkey. I don't like it.

AlexThey're the Funko Pop of animals. It's very strange.

Merlinisn't it enough to know that I ruined a pony making this gift for you okay nevermind we don't have time for any of this we have time for none of this what is this look at the fucking doc I had a remark about feminine hygiene I'm actually not that interested in your headphones but I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about it maybe that's for the after show and I'll just do two bits of follow up here one is I wanted to say thank you to our guest friends who were on the program last week for the holiday party it was very weird and not as weird as this week's,

Speaker Abut it was weird and fun.

MerlinAnd in particular, and this is not an attempt, this sounds like an attempt to make you give us money, and it's not. I thought the after show in particular was very fun. It's so nice to see those guys get to be, well, I say those guys. In this case, I mean, all of our friends are great, but the ATP guys, it's nice to see them get to, you know, loosen their white tie a little bit. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Syracuse can be funny when he wants. It's weird. I know. I mean, I don't know if he can do it when he wants. It might be like a shart. It might be the kind of thing you can't control, and that's why he's always muting.

I also wanted to say, oh, I was communicating this morning with a friend of the show, Angela, who just saw Ted Lasso and was saying, hey, thanks for talking about Ted Lasso. In show notes, you will find a thing that I'd sent to a friend of the show, Angela, which is somebody called, I believe, Seth Trowbridge put together a thing on Google Drive. It's just a bunch of cool vector graphics based on Ted Lasso stuff. So if you want to print out your own believe sign or you want to print out the graffiti on the seats. Plus, the person includes all the fonts, which, as Angela and I, we talked about at length,

how important it is to try to get the right font for the thing.

AlexOh, God, Angela, why'd you do that? I'm going to make so many counterfeit products. Yes.

MerlinOh, my God. Why do they not do it? Why are they not selling things? Let me tell them to sell them in Relay. Why won't you sell me one of those dumb shirts? I know. One of those shirts. Jamie Tart. No. Jamie Tart. Of course I'd get a Roy Kent. Of course I'd get a Roy Kent. Come on.

AlexOh, my God. I love Sam.

MerlinOh, my God. I love Sam.

AlexI love them all. Oh, because Imperialism, right? I love that show.

MerlinWhich part, Siggy?

AlexIs it all right if I don't keep the little soldier? Do I have the fondness of the military?

MerlinOh, because I'm Imperialism. Richmond on 12. Okay. Richmond, until we die. So, guest friends. Oh, yeah. I just, you know what? I got to be in my barn. I woke up this morning, do-do-do-do-do, and Marketplace, the morning report with David Brancaccio, I believe, was on.

Speaker AAnd they're talking about this thing where, quoting from the Marketplace website, headline,

MerlinTrump's COVID relief package criticism. Doodly, doodly, doodly. Congress this year expanded the list of items that can be purchased with flexible spending accounts, which I think is a health thing where you get a certain amount of money. You get like a slush fund for stuff. And I don't know, that's probably where you get stuff like buying glasses and stuff, right? Anyway, the Congress this year expanded the list of items that can be purchased with flexible spending accounts, including for the first time, feminine hygiene products. First of all, I want to say yay. That's super cool. I'm glad. Like, we should give those to people.

That's, it's nuts. But for some reason, out of nowhere, I'm laying in bed looking for the motivation to get on with my life. And for some reason, the phrase feminine hygiene really stuck in my craw. So, of course, my first thought, which is really basic, was like, well, what the fuck would the equivalent be? What is masculine hygiene?

Speaker ADude wipes.

MerlinFeminine hygiene. I know it's a euphemism, but why are we still saying that? Why don't you say the period stuff? You usually, Alexandra, you usually have an opinion of one or another about femininity and how you're hygienic. you know you have thoughts on you you have thoughts on period shit like what how do you

Alexfeel about the word the phrase feminine hygiene i mean in our household we we still sometimes use the term unspeakable feminine products to refer to it because it's just funny uh but no feminine hygiene has was just you know has started as a dog whistle for the yeah it's one of those code

Merlinwords like like we say oh like those old lysol ads we're like hey you know do this you know put cleaner on your pussy. It'll make you clean. A husband doesn't like a wife who smells like the sea or whatever. You got all that stuff. And they really did. Seriously, that was like a bullet point for Lysol. You were literally

Alexsupposed to put Lysol in your pussy.

MerlinYes, in your cooter. Yes. And so you, and the idea is like, oh, he never has a second cup of my coffee, if you know what I mean. And then you get into words like fresh. You gotta feel, you wanna feel fresh. And so you douche and you fuck yourself up. The pH, the pH. Self-cleaning oven. Oh, a self-cleaning oven. Is that what you're saying? Yes. You just get running on high for a while? Yeah.

AlexMm-hmm. I mean, there's nothing wrong with a rinse, I'm told, but yeah.

MerlinBen on me for not having the thought till this morning, but isn't that, is it kind of fucked up in retrograde that we still say feminine hygiene? Isn't that kind of a dumb euphemism?

AlexAnd I don't, okay, I don't.

MerlinFor something almost every person with that particular set of pipes gets and does for decades.

AlexUh-huh. Yeah. And I don't, I really.

MerlinIt's not like having a lazy eye or something or having like, I don't know, like constant boogers. Like it's a thing everybody does.

AlexYes.

MerlinEverybody hurts sometimes.

AlexYes. And I mean, but it's also one of these things where, sure, it really, it does really suck that we still call them feminine hygiene products. Like it, it just does. It causes.

MerlinIt's just, it implies that this thing that you do.

AlexIs dirty.

MerlinYes. Yes. I mean, like, whereas, like, you know, I guess, well, we got the same euphemisms for, like, you know, bathroom tissue and stuff like that, I guess.

AlexWho calls it that? What? Really?

MerlinOkay. You know what? That's awesome. You know what? If it weren't for, I don't even want to say SEO. If it weren't for smart UX decisions where you get the thing someone's looking for rather than the thing you like to call it. So, like, rather than brand management, we want to match up. Yeah, we want to match up the brands. But we also want you to find the thing you look for. And if you're a person going to a website and you want toilet paper, you search for toilet paper. Like nobody looks for bathroom tissue. But that's, you know, rather than like, you know, shit grabbers or what else would you call it?

Like turd tumblers. That's my new porn name, by the way. That's my Dirk Diggler.

AlexI'm the turd tumbler. It sounds like a terrible Christmas present.

MerlinNew from Ronco. Have you tried turd tumbler? try turd tumblr anyway i think it's gross i don't think people should say that uh you know i don't want to say

Alexi don't like people saying that i i i agree i i it sucks but i think what sucks way way more And I hope slash think most people who use the feminine hygiene products would agree that the bigger problem is that like this wasn't already on the list because, you know, it's it's a pooping for pussies. Everybody does it. And yet somehow. Poopin' for pussies.

MerlinYeah. And thank you for that. I'm going to put that on the list. That's really good.

AlexWell, in even.

MerlinWe've got no titles this week. Poopin' for pussies. Poopin'. Poopin'. Poopin'.

AlexIn most places, you can't use food stamps or what's called, in Illinois, it's called.

MerlinFor period stuff? I would not use food stamps for that. That's not hygienic. Sometimes you need to use. You were about an EBT card? Could you put that up in your cranker?

AlexYeah, I don't know.

MerlinPooping for pussies. That sounds like either a terrible community college course or.

AlexIt's considered a 202.

MerlinPooping for pussies. Rocks for jocks.

Alexjust the reason this story frustrated me is once again how much the republican party likes to

Merlincontrol what goes in and out of vaginas i mean it's they they it's there's so much like the coding really falls apart when i mean i feel like there's like probably half a dozen or more ways that you could say well they do this because of that i mean there's a lot of to quote the great Adam Serwer, I believe his name is. I've never had to say it out loud. The cruelty is the point, right? There's a lot of shit where it's like, there's practical stuff. Like we know that, you know, we accept our own euphemisms for saying stuff

like pro-choice, you know. Well, it's not really pro-choice. It's like pro being able to run my fucking life.

AlexI'm pro-abortion. Love abortions. Great. I am happy to say that.

MerlinYeah, I don't have a pro. I mean, like, I don't love that word. I do feel like it's a little more, I don't know. Who cares?

AlexThat is true, actually.

MerlinBut the point is, though, there's all these different angles where you're like, if you're fucking lucky, we're going to leave you with a nearly impossible decision. If you're lucky, we'll leave you with an impossible decision. And so the most basic sort of impossible decision is, well, you can have a job or you can have intercourse. Yep. Yep. And that's in the best of cases. We're not even talking about the kind of sexual assault that leads a lot of ladies to have a baby. But, you know, there's so many things where they're like, you know, it does really seem like the cruelty is the point to come up with some way to put you in an impossible situation to gaslight a woman or to get her to doubt, really to doubt her own sanity, skills, and future.

That in order to feel any degree of security, whether that's financial security, physical security, any of those kinds of things, like you have to agree that you are, you have to agree that you're a bad person and that you will follow our rules. Like you're not allowed to thrive. Like if you thrive, like it's very like very Jim Crow in some ways. Mind if I tell you about feminism? Have a seat. Welcome to Pooping for Pussies.

AlexI was about to talk about how suddenly all the white women are buying up Plan B. And like.

MerlinOh, because of all the abortion stuff? Yeah.

AlexWe're always going to. Listen, white women with pussies in liberal states, we're always going to be able to get abortions one way or the other, just like we've been able to get weed.

MerlinAnd to vote. I mean, it's all it's all those things where it's like the Republican Party has really figured out how to gerrymander the country into all the places that they want to fuck up with surgical precision, including stuff like we're not going to contest any election results for Trump. One, like that would be weird because nothing bad happened.

AlexYeah, that's those are the good ones. Yeah, those are that's where those those were the suburbs that were saved. I saved your suburbs. I saved them.

MerlinIf you didn't want your vagina to be oppressed by pork chop men in Washington, you shouldn't have gotten a vagina. You should have thought about that. You should have got different equipment. Maybe you could have gotten, oh, you're always bitching about how you own pockets. Well, put a pocket on it. Poopin' pussies.

AlexI told myself I'd stop doing the whole theoretical checking of my privilege when it's like, shut up. Who cares? Yeah. But I just looked. I can literally have plan B delivered to my house in less than, well, it does say 15 to 35 minutes. Whoa, you're kidding. Yeah.

MerlinIt's fucking wild. Yeah. Yeah. There's black guys rotting in jail right now for like a lid of weed. But I could have watermelon gummies here in about an hour.

AlexYeah. I'm fucking, I was just curious because I'm like, yeah, huh. The other day, they was, I don't know, I was ordering dinner. I'm like, oh, wow, they sell a lot of condoms on this website. And I went to, oh, yeah, no, this is fucking wild.

MerlinWell, you know, like the way you can go into like a bodega and buy, you can buy loose cigarettes at a bodega. Maybe you should gobble up all the plan B, pardon my saying. Maybe you should gobble all that up. And I'm talking about Meredith here. I'm not talking about a midnight snack. I'm talking about you going to business. You become a shi- a they-trepreneur. You gobble up all the plan B, you know, you drink up all the Hennessy they got on their shelf. You just let me introduce myself. My name is Alex. And I got the pills for your baby be gone.

AlexThe baby be gone pills.

MerlinBaby be gone. Would you say you want to resolve to have fewer jokes about your privilege?

AlexOh, I mean, this could get into our holds.

MerlinPlease let me free me from this. I'm like a ghost that needs to be freed from this episode.

AlexIs that your jar?

MerlinNo it's worse because you put it down You know a bell is a cup until it's struck

AlexChallenge Dig duck challenge

Oh It was your challenge this week And I'm gonna let you explain it Not just because I'm bad at words But because I don't

MerlinI hate the ones where I prepare.

AlexOh, go ahead.

MerlinI spent an hour Sunday or Monday night preparing for back to work, and then Dan talked about something else. I was prepared for his question, do you have to be goal-oriented in order to be successful? Which is just, you know, me, I'm a dog with a bone. Boy, a thing like that.

AlexExcuse me, Merlin. I'm sorry to interrupt. Merlin, do you need to be goal-oriented to be successful?

MerlinThat's a really good question. This challenge, oh boy, and I'm going to change this. You are not, you are forbidden from saying this because I was making a joke when I said episode 218 resolved different. See, I've never loved that phrase, think different. And I'll tell you why. Because obviously, to be grammatically correct, it should be think differently. But Steve is saying, Steve or the marketing staff behind the Saatchi and Saatchi and Steve, what they're saying is what they really mean is think, colon, different.

Are you aware of that? it's not they don't mean to be grammatically incorrect they're they're right they're they're your brain reads that and it's the equivalent of think differently but what they're saying is think

Alexdifferent okay no literally my mind is not i oh well uh we'll talk about literally remember the

Merlinapple campaign think different yeah you got all the posters of the people and because god loved

Alexmacintosh i know gandhi oh godly gandhi loved the the fruit computers the grammatically correct

Merlinversion, I believe, would be think differently because your adverb is modifying a transitive noun. Think differently.

AlexNo, you're actually like blowing my mind. I'm like, holy shit, that's so good.

MerlinSo what they're saying is you would not use an adjective to modify a verb. You don't say think, you don't see, you know, it's like, no, actually, I don't feel, I'm not doing good. I'm doing well. Did you watch Mythic Quest? Have you watched it?

AlexOh, I'm about halfway through.

MerlinDid you get to the episode in the past?

AlexOh, yes.

MerlinHoly shit. Where the fuck did that come from?

AlexI don't know.

MerlinIt's got Peter B. Parker or Peter Parker. It's got 616 Peter Parker, the guy who's the voice of Spider-Man. And it's got the big-eyed girl who is or is not Lizzie Kaplan. No, it's the one who's not Lizzie Kaplan. It's the one. It's the lady from the Black Mirror Star Trek.

AlexYes.

MerlinOh, my God. That episode was so fucking good.

AlexIt was my favorite short film of 2020. I know it probably wasn't produced then.

MerlinBut then there's callbacks to it after that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But like the tester, like, oh, and did you know who the, have you gotten to where the girl becomes the streamer and they bring in a different tester? Have you gotten to that?

AlexYes. The last episode I saw was someone was thinking about leaving the company.

MerlinOkay. Okay. Do you know who that person is?

AlexI don't know, but everybody that I...

MerlinI accidentally discovered this the other day looking up people on the IMDb. Oh, because I'm confused about all the big-eyed actresses. It's mental. I rewatched Reigns of Castamere the other night, and Jon Snow's lady friend. I was like, wait, what the fuck? How is there a third one of these now? They all look so similar. I'm not saying they're the same. I think in some ways Lizzie Kaplan is the canonical big guy actress. But then you've got the lady from Black Mirror. And then you've got the lady who's, not John, Rob.

Rob Snow's. Rob Snow. Rob Stark. Rob Stark's lady friend.

AlexYeah.

MerlinGod. I made a soup of that, didn't I?

AlexDo you remember her? Do you remember Rains of Castaner? Yeah. Oh, yes, I do.

MerlinIs that a stick in your mind a little bit?

AlexJust a little bit. Just a little bit.

MerlinVilch's relationship with the women in his life is very strange.

AlexYeah. Yeah, not a fan.

MerlinDid you remember how much she looks like those other ladies, though? I didn't. Mm-hmm.

AlexWell, I didn't until I saw a tweet of yours where I'm like, oh, wow. Those really are not the same women? Okay. Oh, boy. And then I felt bad.

MerlinAlmost back to the topic, Mythic Quest. Anna, what I want you to do, what I want is for you to Google, let's say, Mythic Quest Lou.

AlexMythic?

MerlinTry that.

Alexquest Lou that's the actor who plays the tester the okay I just got the IMDB page

Merlinit's the guy who wrote Chernobyl

Alexno oh my god

Merlinit's Craig Mazin

Alexoh my god oh my god oh my god

Merlincan you fucking believe that

Alexthat's amazing

Merlinand he thinks the adorable lesbian girl is in love with him Oh my God. Oh, that's, that was. That show is so much better than I expected. I mean, it's not like top to top drawer, but like it's not, it's, it's, it aspires to be somewhere between like Silicon Valley and Veep and that sometimes it hits it. But like that, um, I mean, this is, this is, I'm saying a lot here, but I'm exaggerating a little bit. I kind of feel like that episode with Spider-Man and, uh, and the Star Trek, I kind of feel like that was their San Junipero.

AlexYes. That's such.

MerlinLike, whoa, this is a different show. and this is a good show but then there's a different show for one episode that's like whoa

Alexwhat are we watching here jesus christ i mean that's what made me not that i wouldn't have stuck with it like but it was like oh shit there's something here yeah yeah yeah but i mean it's like

Merlinit's the you get you get the bits you get the bits and the beats and like you get that like you know oh god i love the guy with the mustache um the um the guy they're always like beaten up on like operations guy?

AlexThe guy, he's a cricket from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

MerlinHe's totally cricket. Yes. Nice pull.

AlexYeah.

MerlinWhat if Jimmy Simpson wanted to show up? Really cricket. He'd be great if Jimmy,

Speaker Ais he the guy, is he the one who, he's like,

Merlinhas all the maladies happening to him? Is he the priest or going to be a priest? And there's the episode where they have dinner, is it Thanksgiving dinner?

AlexMm-hmm.

MerlinThat one's fucked up.

AlexYes. Oh.

MerlinJimmy Simpson is, I think it's his name, right? Jimmy Simpson, Jimmy with an I, simpson two eyes there's there's two eyes in jimmy he is such a gift he's such a fucking gift he's great on westworld but like he's amazing as lyle the intern on letterman so fucking funny and then as uh oh shit what's the family called the the brothers and the sister the sister with the mustache is actually gorgeous in real life oh the milk people uh boils but yes the point the boils Oh, shit.

That stuff in the eye. His missing eye. He has an eye drawn on his patch. Oh, my God. It's so upsetting. And they're always in the bathrooms.

AlexOh, God. The milk. I love that show. Adults drinking milk. I don't know. It's a, oh, God.

MerlinI was trying to say to Matt. So, like, I don't know. It's a little much to probably show to our kid in full. But I was just saying to Matt, like, when did we get into that? I got real, real into Sonny for a while. and I was going back to try and remember what, and I did, I finally remember it's the second episode, Cold Open or not, you know, but like something PM outside Philadelphia and it's the one, the episode called Charlie Wants an Abortion

Speaker Aand I remember

Merlinthey're like, Mac and the two of them were going to play basketball and then Charlie wants to play and he's like, no, you're going to be the ref

Speaker AI don't want to be the ref, I want to play I want to play, I want to play

MerlinDo you represent the lollipop guild? and they all do you think that's a munchkin dance here's a munchkin dance it's so fucking funny charlie i need to talk to you about our son you never want to hear that

Alexoh people love this people love when we talk about other shows on the show um um challenge just skip this we could skip it i know i know no no no no merry christmas I want this. This is my day. Christmas. It is my day. Okay, you're the Christmas jazz. I am the Christmas cunt, and I want to know what you prepared for in this show.

MerlinOkay. I'm sorry for you. I should probably do an include once here of, like,

Speaker Abecause it's more secure than just a regular include. It took me a long time to figure that out.

MerlinThere's an include once here of, like, all of my, as we say in journalism, my priors on New Year's resolutions, where like I've had a bit about this for a while from the 97 folders days of, you know, like I think I think I've often thought of New Year's resolutions as potentially being a pretty big anti-pattern. Like it seems like a good idea, but it's like not a good idea because if, like I say, I mean, if New Year's resolutions worked, we wouldn't need them anymore. You know, there's so many things in what feels like self-improvement

that if they worked, you wouldn't really need them. In the sense that we tend to, like we're doing all the worst things. It's this completely arbitrary idea about how we're going to change, you know, usually something we have no business to think. So something we've never succeeded with in the past. And then like you wear a funny hat and say, well, starting tomorrow, like my life's going to be different. And, you know, long story short, I think it's a way to unintentionally rehearse failure. Unless you have an, especially, unless you have an infrastructure in place for changing into the sort of person you'd like to be

or just following your own fucking dumb rule you just made up. New rules. Right? So include once here all the stuff I've said previously about that. But then, having said that, I had this crazy thought that started with specificity and then kind of moved up a few levels to be a little more philosophical.

And I realized I like this. I had this idea. I can't decide what this is called. it's so far all i've got is two for or one for me one for you or in a nod to the simpsons instead of resolution it's a resumolution so it might be a resumolution sex on my phone so the resumolution goes like this um there's this thing uh that you would like to be doing differently the original idea then was like you do this thing it could be a private thing it could be a thing you don't even tell anybody else about but like there's an improvement you want to make in your life

And then the original idea was there's also a second part that involves other people. But I realized the second part should always pretty much be the same thing. So my example that I started with, and I'll tell you why I think this is good. So it starts with, I know it's a joke that we all do, the Chris Trigger thing, of saying literally when we mean figuratively. And like, let's just, can we just skip all the bits about the bit? Okay. I realized I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to say literally what I mean figuratively, and I don't want to do a bit about saying.

It's really just an impossibly tiny change with almost zero stakes to it. So the first part is I'm going to try to stop misusing that word when I know better just because. But you know what else I'm going to do? And this is where it gets good. The other part is I'm going to stop minding when other people continue to do that. And so what started as I'm going to do the one for me, one for you. I think the resumolution could always be, I'm going to do X differently, and B, I'm going to stop minding when everybody but me continues to do X.

So it becomes about a little bit of self-improvement, a lot of forgiveness, forgiveness of oneself and forgiveness of others. And I have more about this philosophically, but that was my idea. The idea started out as you make a small change and then really you try to stop being bothered by people who haven't made that change. So it's one thing to quit smoking, but it's another thing to become the sort of person who quit smoking and somehow is able to stop haranguing other people who continue to smoke. Unless that's what you choose to do. But this is my Resumolution.

There are many like it, but this one is mine. That's the Resumolution Creed title. Did that make some sense?

Alexoh it makes total sense in the context in which you've just talked about it but i don't understand why you've suddenly come across this why why suddenly well it could be i'm i'm it's i'm less

Merlininterested in the specificity of where this started in i i i want you to look at the moon not my finger like i'm right so like i it's not that i think oh let's talk about you know how people misuse words. I think the more I thought about this, especially through this morning, the more I thought about this, the more I realized, you know what else this is related to, dude? S1E9 of Ted Lasso. All Apologies. Which has changed my life. That one episode of that show kind of changed my life. It really, when I say kind of, it's so I won't get in trouble

for saying a TV show changed my life. It changed my life. I think about the All Apologies episode all the fucking time. And at the heart of it is, like I've said before, Like we've talked about here. There's the, you know, again, the grace too powerful to name. There's forgiveness. Forgiveness is powerful. An apology about the right thing tendered in the right way for the right reasons is one of the greatest things in the world because it lets you both off the hook.

And it also gives you, as I've learned from S1E9 of Ted Lasso, all apologies. I've also learned that it's a little bit contagious, that when you are a little bit more vulnerable and forgiving, when people forgive you, you want to forgive others. And so I realized my favorite part of this has nothing to do with Chris Trager. Love the character. It has nothing to do with the first part. The really big part is the second part, which is I'm going to stop being a judgy dick about this one thing because it helps no one.

but also and I'll get to this in a sec one of the worst parts about traditional resolutions in my mind is that they're arbitrary in a not very fun way and they're usually unforgiving in a terrible way like you broke the rule like you broke your own rule your own idiot fucking rule that you made up a week ago so now you failed at your resolution try again next year but like you know what if we were forgiving of ourselves and of others.

What if we were our own little pocket universe episode of Ted Lasso where we just tried to be less of an asshole about almost everything? And especially just because I'm doing this one thing doesn't mean I demand the world do it with me. That is such a powerful thought technology. It's going to be okay with me if everybody's not like me.

AlexThat was really good.

MerlinWhat's going on here? Whoa! Whoa! What'd I do? Am I in trouble?

AlexNo, you're not in trouble. No, it was a very good...

MerlinYou're talking about Hamilton. Hamilton?

AlexI mean, no, the Ted Lasso. Oh, God. I just, I think about both that Ted Lasso episode and the song It's Quiet Uptown from Hamilton pretty much every single day. because every single time every yeah i i think it is

in the the one thing i've taken away from 2020 i guess in in yeah nothing theoretically sure nothing's going to change at midnight uh in 2021 starts but it brings people some comfort um and this year oh you mean to be to be getting at to be getting out of 2020 yes um and i uh come come into my uh electric vehicle yeah no i'm getting in i'm

Merlingonna put on the seatbelt put on my other seatbelt i never really left the car get the helmet uh

AlexSupplemental restraint. But amongst all of the theoretical wokeness and the theoretical white people addressing oppression in 2020 and how fast these 48 cycles go in terms of caring about people and then not caring about people or going from caring.

MerlinYou're talking about like the 36 hour care influenza?

AlexYeah, the, you know, the black squares and, like, you know, trans people exist. It's like, yeah, cool. What are you going to do about it? Nothing. All right. Oh, we're just doing the squares and then we're done. Oh, OK, cool. Sure. Your neighbors are still being priced out of their homes. But OK, cool. Moving on. and but but and then but and that's a really cynical take i i have seen people making genuine

Merlinchange it's it is it is it's but it's but it's hat on a hat cynical it's cynical on cynical though because like the the the ultimate cynicism is like uh i have no desire to fucking call quote unquote call out anybody about anything like who cares what i think you know but it is it is frustrating in the same way that like it's frustrating to have to deal with this administration and the double speak and corruption of what they do. But it's considered like, oh, you're being mean to poor people. You're being mean to the economically anxious when you criticize Mr. Trump, that kind of thing.

Where it's like, come on, man. And also, you know, if Rudy Giuliani farts, can't I just enjoy that for an hour? He's a bad person. He's a really bad person. And like you shaming me about how like, well, you know, one out of every 700 Americans can't stop farting. And it makes it really hard. My dad's a farter or whatever. You're like, oh, fuck. Can you just give me a break? Farts are funny. Really genuinely sucks. And like, could you just get out of my shit for like one fucking day? Who are you really trying to help? You're not really trying to help anybody. What you're really trying to do is have the world look at you. And you're trying to have people that you don't know admire you because of the dumb shit you're saying.

And then, but you don't really care a super lot. You know who cares? Like Stacey Abrams. People like that. They care about stuff because there is continuity of care to what they are trying to accomplish. Like, they're not there to just like put on the ribbon and do a little disco dance. then go back to whatever grift they're working on. Like, that's care. That's, it's just like, why do we have to be so, like, just, is it making any of us better to be this terrible to everyone? It's really, really depressing. I'm almost off Twitter.

I'm on Twitter very, very much, I won't say rarely, but less than I was. And like, it's just crazy. Like, more than ever. Like, literally more than ever. To jump in at, on Twitter at like 8 p.m. Pacific, and you're like, fuck! Everybody here is out of their goddamn mind. It's just, it really is like, what was it called, the Five Minutes Hate or whatever in 1984? It really is like, it's just constant, almost like the depiction of a stock trading floor

in something like Trading Places, like one of the great Chicago movies. When you see the way people behave on the trading floor back in the day when they would do the live trading or Ferris Bueller, right?

Speaker AMm-hmm, mm-hmm.

MerlinAnd it's like that has become normal life. Like just people walking around in a smock screaming is just like how people behave now. And I think they think they're helping.

AlexAnd it's not just, well, we've, I think we have tricked ourselves into thinking that we're helping the same way we trick ourselves, you know, thinking that in 2021, like, oh, I'm going to journal. I'm not going to be fat. I'm going to, like, whatever it's going to be.

MerlinI'm going to basically, and this is part of my philosophical bit, which we might get to in the after show, is that, like, if you're really being honest with yourself, so much of a New Year's resolution starts from a dark place and is about negativity and then has an arbitrary set of rules that set you up for failure. And it's like, whoa, really? Have you really thought that through? Not you, not you, but other people, right? Because you would never do that. You're smart. But like other people out there, listener, like you set yourself up for all of this. It's like negativity. It's like a negativity club sandwich. And the toothpicks are your life, man. Fuck.

AlexWell, and that kind of gets back to my minor sobbing. And the first time I've used the mute button is like this isn't about like even even cancel culture or or a co-host being canceled. This is not a like a sub tweet about all that. It's that forgiveness has gone out of fashion, which is what?

MerlinI think it's mostly considered. We canceled forgiveness. So it's a thing for weak chumps.

AlexIt's it's yeah, you're a cuck if you forgive somebody. And I'm and you're a cuck if you apologize and you don't apologize properly. And you know what? Like you're we make fun of like the, you know, the Apple Notes screenshot and apologies. But it used to be that that really meant something to people. someone publicly apologizing about like if um to go back to fucking gray's anatomy uh if

if uh the surgeon guy had come out and been like wow i was terrible to my gay co-workers and even worse the gay people who worked for me and i am sorry i ruined a time in your life and I just yeah when I

Merlinthis is in no way to celebrate myself on this because like I I apologies used to be so valuable and they're basically we've lost our gold standard for apologies now that it's just something that you say out of the side of your face to like like I say to make somebody else think you're cool

Alexit's hard to do privately let alone publicly

Merlinwell when okay and that's the other thing that's the other thing like what if like if a resolution fell in the woods with the Pope shit on it yeah I don't know how about you don't nobody needs to like or heart or star your fucking life that is not making you better right um it's not making me better right so but like the point i'm trying to make is that uh i mean i for one thing i've tried to i'm really bad at this i have tried over time this is not a resolution it's just the way i'm trying to improve it's like i'm trying to stop saying i'm sorry for

stuff that either doesn't require an apology or where i'm not actually sorry yep like and i'm Sorry, that's very funny. No, but the thing is, let's reserve that. Let's reserve that for the time that we do need to apologize for something. And if you're amongst the handful of people who've gotten a sincere apology from me, hopefully privately, it usually begins with this. I did something really shitty. And I feel terrible about it. And I regret that I did it. And I'll tell you why I think that's valuable.

Because to say to somebody, I apologize, I'm sorry. that is I mean you're writing it you're writing a check that no one will even bother to cash you're just saying a bunch of words I think you you don't have to balance scrape but I think it does if you are apologizing I think it and you mean it and you care and you want to make it right I think it does really help to say you know I did a shitty thing like and and you wait a minute stop right there do you say I didn't realize it was a shitty thing or I was a different person like I don't I don't know like there's a bunch of shitty stuff none of us will ever atone for but I do think

that has to start with you saying, like, I did a shitty thing. You know, and this kind of relates a little bit to the episode of a podcast in mind you listened to the other day, which is there are some things you can't fix in life. And if you try too over much to get somebody to say, don't worry, you're good, or you're not in trouble. If one too often comes to a situation that's fraught, mostly in order to feel that they are not in trouble

and that they are a good person. Well, then that's not really an apology. That's more like a backdoor brag in some ways. I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm going on.

AlexNo, that's exactly what I was getting at.

MerlinI mean, this started someplace very different than where it's ending up.

AlexIs it, though? Because, I mean.

MerlinWell, because. Okay, here's what I wrote down. And then we can move on.

Alexof fun it's it's a both of these things are about uh accountability in the true sense of the word

Merlini think accountability perhaps i'm i am not trying to paint myself into an existential corner when i'm going to encourage the whole world to find out what a shitbag i am it's more to say like it's more to say like you know you don't don't how about you don't worry about me how about you don't worry about me and maybe I don't worry quite so much about you. And how about I try to sharpen my own saw or for that matter, dull my own saw to be less of a person who saws things like analogies and metaphors. But like, you know, be less shitty is not

very catchy, but that's one that I think I would like to kind of keep in mind. But here's what I wrote down. Like I was trying to like sort of, you know, you analyze, you synthesize, You take it apart, you put it together.

Speaker AAnd I was trying to figure out the resolution.

MerlinI was comfortable with words for the usual resolution, which is they're usually very abrupt. They're based in or starting from some place of negativity. They are usually unreasonable. A typical resolution is unreasonable in as much as it's not a thing. Like I say, if you were good at that, you wouldn't need it anymore. It's unreasonable because if you've never succeeded at this before, who the fuck are you to think you can do it now? Yesterday's weather. Like if you've never climbed the sheer face of a thousand foot mountain, like why would you start today?

You've never got more than a foot off the ground. Right. That's not reasonable. Unforgiving. Like if I break this, in order for me to think this is real and to take it seriously as a resolution, I must necessarily be unforgiving with myself. Like I've got to, and now we're getting into that book that I like, The Now Habit, which was written by a hypnotist, which is weird. But the hypnotist who wrote The Now Habit says that the thing that makes people procrastinate really is procrastination is in a lot of ways a fear of in order to beat procrastination, you must beat fear.

That it is fear that causes us to procrastinate. And we fear many, many different things. But like if creating, taking a situation, whether it's yourself or your kid or your friend, your co-worker, and making it more emotionally fraught and raising the stakes, that's a rookie move. It is a rookie move to think you could change anything by making people more scared about it. And so abrupt, negative, unreasonable, unforgiving, and arbitrary. And the only one of those that I like is arbitrary. I like that. I say, you know what?

Make it fucking more arbitrary. Your resolution or what so far we're playing in the space of resolution, whatever this is called. That's stupid. I don't want to use that. It should be arbitrary. It should be crazy arbitrary. And the beauty is like the more arbitrary it is, the more likely you are to be forgiving of yourself and others because it's just some arbitrary bullshit. Like me not saying literally, who cares? But me not being a dick about other people doing that, that arbitrary, silly, stupid thing. Like that's, I mean, that's, that's the, that's, that's the key in the cake right there.

AlexYeah. And I think you should even build on that because there was a guy once with, you know, like 78 folders who said we procrastinate when we forget who we are, which is really, really, I mean, really good.

MerlinOr like the flip side might be we procrastinate in some ways when we've briefly forgotten who we are, but also when we like we're struggling with admitting how much we don't like that person.

AlexYeah. Oh, I mean, that is why that was taped on my wall for a very long time. Because I was very, very afraid of why I was procrastinating doing certain things, which I mean, it and I, I try not to deify folks, but it would, it is diminishing to say that

that phrase didn't change my life because that was something I mean that I was procrastinating from going to art school because I didn't want like I don't know there are a million things

Merlinthat right that if you if you if you failed at pre-med there at least be some honor to your failure but if you fail at art school yeah thank you yeah like if I get a job if I don't make a

Alexpodcast with Merlin Mann, I have become a complete failure at my artistic, my BA in cinema or

Merlinwhatever it is. Failure is always an option. That's what they don't tell you at NASA. I'm going to see if I can get this app to read this to you. And I think that can be a thing we end on. It won't be that funny, but I have something I would like to share with the students. Let's see here. Let's see if I can get it to talk.

Okay, I'm going to do that again. Hang on, it's Italian. When Federico Fellini, which I was thinking about this morning, because somebody was talking about this new, it's called The Essential Fellini, and it's 14 films. But on Morning Edition, they were talking about this collection of Fellini films, and I like some Fellini films quite a lot. And the story goes that And, you know, for reasons that will be obvious, once you've seen the movie, Eight and a Half was a very difficult film for him to make. It's sort of a really him like officially kind of crossing over from his Italian realist roots into something more, if you like, surreal.

But it's a hell of a movie. It's got this problematic in its ways. But so he's really struggling because it's a film. I mean, it's a film about a guy who has trouble making a film about how it's hard to make a film. It's like he's locked his keys into a lot of very tiny cars. but he's struggling with it so he took a piece of tape and he wrote something on it and the story goes that he put this piece of tape over his you know his viewfinder right you look through when you're when you're shooting the movie and this is what the piece of tape said

and if we translate that into english let's see if it'll pull this yeah this is a rough translation

Speaker Bremember it's a comical movie

Merlinput a piece of tape up that said remember basically in my words remember this movie is supposed to be funny how fucking great is that

Alexso good

MerlinI had that over my computer for years and it didn't help but I think it's a good piece of advice

Thank you.

218. The Key in the Cake

Show notes

Transcript

218. The Key in the Cake

Show notes

Transcript

0:00

0:19

0:27

0:28

0:31

0:39

0:42

0:43

0:45

1:10

1:11

1:43

1:48

1:53

2:08

2:10

2:27

3:02

3:13

3:42

3:47

4:21

4:35

5:06

5:36

6:13

6:45

7:10

7:18

7:31

7:36

7:39

7:54

8:01

8:07

8:10

8:41

8:48

9:09

9:44

9:49

9:52

10:05

10:08

10:32

10:38

10:44

10:50

11:00

11:09

11:10

11:21

11:31

12:01

12:31

12:51

13:22

13:53

14:27

14:57

15:29

15:31

15:47

16:21

16:24

16:31

16:34

16:56

17:04

17:05

17:37

18:08

18:19

18:28

18:55

18:59

19:15