222. Scarf Time

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. This week's challenge, write down your dreams.

Hello? Do you have something in your, let's call it an eggplant. Do you have an eggplant in your mouth?

MerlinYes, I have tardiness in my mouth. Because I'm tardy.

Speaker AI'm tardy. I don't think you use that word anymore. We're on Friday. I'm in a great mood, Alex.

MerlinI'm in a great mood for a lot of reasons. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Okay. First of all, I want to talk about my daughter's ballet class.

Speaker AOh, I want to hear about it. Also, I wanted to let you know. I wanted to let you. Did you watch the video?

AlexI did. I did. Would you like to share what the video is? Sorry.

Speaker AOh, sure. In a sec. Yeah. I probably sent you a 4K video. Sorry about that.

AlexI was like, why is this stuttering? What's happening? Well, one.

Speaker AYou stutter. We don't say that anymore.

AlexI stammer. I'm going to do it. Oh, okay. Okay.

Speaker AOh, you're allowed to say it? Is that the thing?

AlexHey, Merlin, don't listen to this. All the nice people who...

Speaker AI want to talk about my iced tea after this. Hold on. Jazz girl.

AlexJazz girl. Thank you to all the nice people who were like, hey, Alex, I have a stammer or a stutter and it's hard to record podcasts too. And I'm like, yeah, I feel it.

Speaker AWhat are you talking about? You sound great. What are you talking about?

AlexOh, last week I was like, Quinn, you can keep my stammers and shit in. It's fine. But it was.

Speaker AWhy would we take them out? That's so weird. Oh, because that's like getting a box of Cracker Jack and throwing away everything but the peanuts.

AlexWell, I will tell you. Get the prize.

Speaker AGet the corn.

AlexGet the corn. Well, I have some follow up and I will tell you why. But it has a lot to do with, you know, self-loathing and a lack of self-confidence. But I would say put it in the dock.

Speaker APut it in the dock. I'm over here preparing something. I've learned the secret. I've learned the secret to less cloudy iced tea.

AlexDon't you want a good cloud? I think I'm misunderstanding tea.

MerlinNo, no. I think you're thinking of either a bloom with your coffee. It could be a bloom. Oh, no. Turn this off. Okay, it's boiling. Here's the key.

Speaker AHere's what I was doing wrong like a sucker. Normally, I take this.

MerlinI have this two-quart Rubbermaid pitcher. Normally, what I do is I put in a one-gallon tea bag, which I know. It's too much. I put the boiling water or just slightly under boiling water, which is better. And then I take out the thing in like three minutes and then I dump in a bunch of ice because I want my goddamn iced tea. Yes. But you know what? That's a rookie mistake.

AlexIt is.

MerlinI'm sorry. I'm still a little off mic because I'm making tea. I think that's enough steeping. Now, here's the thing. What I do now, I let it steep a little bit because I put in a lot of tea and a little water. Now I'm squeezing my bag.

Speaker AAs one does. And take that out. Were you good in science?

AlexWell, let's just say this. When you are, quote, a gifted child, they assume you're gifted at everything. And just because you can read fast and at a higher grade level doesn't necessarily mean you're good at math. So, yeah. And anyway, proceed.

MerlinWell, math is science, I guess. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker AYeah. AP Chem sucked. So you know what I'm doing? Hmm.

AlexI actually, yes. So I was in an advanced preparation course for chemistry and what you're doing sounds like chemistry. Yes, it is. It's a kind of everything's chemistry. You think about it really. Ultimately, I think everything's physics. Everything's the Lord.

Merlinnothing is everything so what I'm here to tell you what I learned from several blogs that called this a recipe usually involving a woman whose passions in life are her children and food and now here's what you do you know what you gotta do the problem is okay here's your chemistry get your book out here's the problem you take out my bag I get my bag out and if you immediately make it cold either by refrigeration or in my case dumping in the water that will dilute it and cool it, life hack, you're stunning your tea.

Yes. And that's what makes it cloudy. So what I do now, according to these blogs, I'm following their directions. And I let it get to room temperature for like an hour before I put in ice or any chilling things.

AlexAnd that is why I don't make iced tea, because I enjoy instant gratification like any millennial.

MerlinSure. But you can only afford the best. I've read things about you people. So now here's my old iced tea, and it's in my one liter beaker. One liter beaker.

Speaker AI'm in a great mood. Okay.

MerlinOh, beaker. Seriously, every voice I do is turning into Jerry Lewis. And it's a really nice scene. Okay.

AlexIt is a little bit.

MerlinI tried to do Marlon Brando in Guys and Dolls. Oh, shit. For Syracusa last night. And it instantly turned into first Jerry Lewis. And then I went full Professor Frank.

Speaker Aluck be a lady tonight luck if you've ever been a lady to begin with, Glavin

Alexyou know, for the first time last night I watched Homer's Enemy which I think traditionally

Speaker Aoh my god talk about that and then we're gonna talk about ballet

Alexboy, it uh that's a traditionally

Speaker Alook at me, I'm Homer Simpson I gotta get back to my mansion and eat my lobster

Alexoh boy I mean that episode is oh god it felt i i think that is the episode for millennials because we just watch the simpsons and and family guy and all of the uh not that i watch family guy

Speaker Aone room apartment over a bowling alley and under another so the premise of as we know the

AlexThe premise of Homer's Enemy is a Simpsons episode in which a original character is brought into the show who's supposed to be like and have the characteristics of an actual human being in the Simpsons universe. He's had a tough life.

MerlinYeah. And basically pitched as a classic, not just American, it's also an English archetype, which is the God, there's a name for this in English literature. but it's the kid who raised himself from nothing and i think what's the name jack anyway but anyway it's a person who like you are meant to really admire because they've improved their lot and they're a terrible terrible lot in life little dickens right by by working incredibly hard to get everything that he's gotten much like a certain generation in some ways yeah he's a

Alexplease, sir, I'd like some more, guy. Except he got himself some more instead of being given to him.

MerlinI call him Grimy. It took a couple to learn your name.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinAlex, when that episode came out, it was still very well known that a la SNL, well, SNL is even worse treated. It's like, it was never good. It's always been. It was good for this one time, except everything after that. At this point, The Simpsons was not the show that it was in season three, four, five, six. Anyway, and it was extremely controversial, especially with me, because I was like, wait a minute. It was 97, May of 97. And I was so mad at this episode. It was so cruel.

It was so up its own ass, sniffing its own farts. And like a lot of people who were real big Simpsons heads, as we call ourselves, I hated this episode with a passion.

AlexI can see, I can understand why, especially at the time.

MerlinIt was, I mean, it was just, it was really mean.

AlexWas it, though? It just, maybe.

Speaker AWell, they bring on a character and kill him. And it's like.

AlexSpoilers. Well.

MerlinBut I cannot even tell you, this has leapt. Obviously, you can go to your Disney Plus or your what have you and turn on, I want to say, season five. But like that run that includes stuff like Last Exit to Springfield.

Speaker ASeason three.

MerlinThe monorail episode. All of those. It's amazing.

Speaker AReally, the Conan O'Brien run of the show is just epic. Do you come with the boat? How are you? There's just so many good episodes. And then there was less good episodes.

MerlinAnd then this one came out. Alex, this is one of my all-time favorite episodes of the show.

AlexI'm Lenny.

MerlinI'm Lenny. This is Carl.

AlexWe have both masters. We have both masters. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's what. Lobster. Oh, my God. I just, man, if you're not a fan of The Simpsons or if you're if you are a millennial and are just familiar with The Simpsons, this episode is just so visceral. Like this was not an episode to watch right before bed.

MerlinSounds like a challenge. Put it in the sheet. That sounds like a challenge.

AlexIt does sound like a challenge.

MerlinOh, my God. Your son owns a factory.

AlexOh my god

Speaker AYour son owns a factory He bought it for a dollar Oh my god

AlexIt was That was not an episode to chill out To right before bed Which is often

MerlinSay more about that What do you mean by that It made you feel stressed about the situations

AlexI mean it made me feel stressed about everything I feel honestly like we stopped recording from last week we stopped recording I you know watched domestic terror and an attempted coup happen and then I watched that episode and now I'm here that's like oh wait no recording coup ban parlor going away and then impeachment again and Grimes here okay

so few things happened

Merlinbut like and just just to for a little context here uh if it wasn't i mean the the the super uh dbf heads as as you guys like to be called you people you bastards um as you might have figured out if you are a member of our patreon is there was a very interesting sequence of events that honestly i can't stop thinking about this is this is far from the first time that this has happened where so the context for this is i'm going to go record a show with my friends and there's this one situation in the world that's terrible and then i catch maybe a glimpse of that situation getting more terrible

or in many cases really i'll just be away i with podcasts i can be off the grid for two hours and it's delightful i take maybe i could take things like taking a nap but you wake up and in the space of one hour the world has changed again and not in a good way so as we started recording last wednesday today is january 13th i think yeah as we started recording i had seen bits bits and bobs of like the president's speech, I believe. Definitely Rudy Giuliani. Because we talked about it on the show, right?

Giuliani said, we need to have trial by combat. And you're like, what does that mean?

AlexAnd I even talked about Talia Levin's book.

MerlinI mean, trial by combat, that's like a Game of Thrones thing.

AlexOh, yeah, yeah. And I don't know if I talked about Parler. Not that I was on Parler. I was definitely on Parler. It was Buck Wilds. But the sign off, I think you said, was it's about as bad as we thought it would be. And I was like, nah.

MerlinBut just for the context here, like, it's so crazy making because we start recording and I, you know, I, I love you and I love this show. And it's a it's a bright spot in my week, even though I'm usually more tired than I would like. I love doing it. But really, at that point, it was like, oh, boy, it sucks that all these chuds are going to like, you know, be hanging out, you know, behind the barricades and stuff. and I don't think I looked during the show, but as we got to the point, so Alexandra and I, by my request,

take a break between recording the main episode and recording the member episode. At break time, of course, I popped in to look and it was looking bad. It was a very raucous crowd. We started recording more and I have to admit I was kind of watching things out of the corner of my eye And at the near the end of last week's bonus episode or after show, I said something like, this looks real bad. Because at that point, I believe they were it was turning into a riot.

I don't know if they'd full on gotten into the building yet. But I mean, isn't that insane? Did you feel insane? I felt insane. I felt insane this entire week.

AlexI didn't look away from my computer for... Actually, I don't know. I could ask Maddie, but it was one of the situations where I was brought food and water because I could not be torn away. And I actually felt sort of the opposite.

MerlinOh, because it felt super real?

AlexWell, it's, you know, it's not gasolating. Like we've talked about how that definite, that word is thrown around too much. And it's a good word. It's a good word. But someone is like, oh.

MerlinYou probably don't understand it because you're in some ways a woman. And it's so difficult sometimes for women to understand what's real and to be able to control their emotions.

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinMen understand gaslighting. I think women sometimes struggle with it.

AlexIt's tough. It's tough. When something's being done.

MerlinYou're losing a lot of blood, you know.

AlexI just was like, oh, oh, all of these fears. Oh, my blood goes to my caged penis.

MerlinWe'll get to that. Oh, boy. So Matthew brought you food and probably a bucket, I'm guessing.

AlexI just didn't look away. Well, it's hard to aim for me. But the thing is.

MerlinSure, they don't really have the equipment for after grade headshots.

AlexIt's more of a tube into a bucket.

MerlinOh, I see.

AlexYeah.

MerlinA Catholic catheter.

AlexYeah, I was just like, oh, oh, yeah. No, like me, it is not wholesome, as you would say, to watch these things happen that I have been watching since like the election. Because I truly, we've talked about it many times, I truly thought he was going to win. and was like, wow, I mean, this is still bad, but it's...

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinWell, like I said on EPM, I mean, the craziness of Georgia, where it's like, even more in some ways, more than the presidential election, because I really thought Biden had a really great chance, but the Ossoff and Warnock thing, you're like, no way are they going to win. No way is it even going to be close. They're going to get creamed because we're not allowed to have fun things. And Georgia, like the Speaker of the House, has an endless capacity for disappointment.

AlexMm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And...

MerlinIt's basically the Florida of states.

AlexMm-hmm.

MerlinSo you're glued to the set. The show is over. You have other work to do, I'm imagining. Probably Dougie popped in a couple times.

AlexWell, no. I ended up not doing that. um just who knows why but uh like an hour later or so i had a meeting but we basically canceled meetings for the rest of the day because we were all like oh my god but and then throughout the day um various friends were sending me screenshots of like what their like bosses or hr was uh sending them like people with normal jobs who don't work for a comedy card company and the and it was wild

Like, I know things are turbulent right now as like literally as as people are like we only knew at the time that one woman had died. But like as all of this was happening, like it was still mid fucking day. And I mean, it was just it. Oh, wait, no. Like earlier in some places because East or West Coast. Oh, my God. Like, it just felt wild that it was still being downplayed.

I understand being downplayed in the lamestream media because Donald Trump is the best entertainer in the world. Like, he is for better or no, not for better. For all worse, he is the best entertainer in the world. He has created the most entertainment. of one of my friends who works in tv is like this is like sweeps week and that's horrifying

Merlinhe makes he makes he makes life something where it's hard to look away from like whatever just discovering which of america's numerous desk drawers he's gonna shit oh my god like and

Alexand on friday i believe it was friday i have no idea when he was banned from twitter yes i know Oh, my God.

Speaker AOh, my God. No, Alex, stop. Please give. Can we have permission to please just like runway the fuck into this?

MerlinI know people are going to say, shut up. This is fucking insane. I was really impressed. Oh, boy, the courage that has come out of everybody in the last two minutes of the big game. Oh, my God. But still, the Twitter thing felt so momentous. Our entire household was like as one like jaw drop. Because here's the thing. I mean, Donald Trump has been the president for a lot of my kids in the same way that my mother said when I was a child. This is a true thing. When she was a child, Franklin D. Roosevelt was always president because so she was born in 34.

She was born in the second or third, like the third year of his administration. And so that means that she was my math is really bad here. what 11 12 13 like when uh like our entire life he was president this is all my kid i i've had to say i stopped saying a long time ago to my kid like i promise the world hasn't always been this way and i really hope at least that it will not always be this way but just just for what you just so you know what's happening right now is fucking insane and unprecedented this does not happen all

Alexthe time yeah and kind of in the same vein it felt like until obama bush had been the president for my entire life because he was elected when i i was nine and then i just kept going from there and i mean it was real it was much easier to put your head in the sand because a black guy was president but i still remember the day seeing the daily heralds which is the newspaper of dupe county illinois and it was obama wins nobel peace prize and mcquill wait the commander

in chief of the united states of america won a nobel peace prize and i don't want to be a never wanted to be a woke oracle but like my my like 13 or how i don't even time is an illusion teenage me was like what wait what the fuck why because it seemed like presidents had to be like terrible well yeah yeah and you know i mean even jimmy carter was in charge of the biggest

and most deadly army in history well and just kidding uh other than those other guys but who seem to be coming back and oh see now i'm all in a tizzy but um like no no keep going please well then it was it wasn't i like it i like it when you know there's a phrase i told you my

MerlinMy friend David, you know, maybe this will be a regular segment. Things Dennis used to say. Dennis was real. So in this case, I might say I'll do this as Dennis. Oh, Alex is really letting their witch out.

I like it when people let their witch out.

AlexOh, boy. I mean, I'm not going to pretend I wasn't an Obama stand, But I was much less excited to vote for him in 2012 than I was in 2008. Like, it wasn't like, oh, man, revolution. I was like, all right, we're going to do this again.

MerlinHe probably pointed a drone at you.

AlexAnd it was, but it was still easier for white people to be like, I mean, a black guy's president. Everything's fine. And which is why. How bad can it be under those conditions? Oh, if only we were listening to, you know, the rest of all of the other black people in America. But, you know, the past year on Parler.

MerlinOr at least all the other Kenyans in the world.

AlexOh, really? It's Rosie O'Donnell's fault. it's the lesbians um oh lesbian erasure i love that band yeah i oh god that's such a good band name um yeah i mean i i i don't know i will say the i thought that trumping ben from twitter was the funniest thing i'd ever seen and

MerlinThere could not be anything funnier.

AlexNo. What was funnier was when he went to his alt account to try to start tweeting.

Speaker AMy name is Snrub. With a finger under his nose. Did you see the John Barron account? Yes.

MerlinThat was fun to explain to my daughter. It's so fun. Kids love it when you explain to them why something is funny. I was like, what you have to know about this is that he used to call back when Maggie Haberman was at the, what was it? Was that terrible paper? New York. Not the Terrible.

AlexThey're all terrible. Lame stream.

MerlinPage six. Yeah. New York Post.

AlexBut anyway, so basically. Yeah. New York Post.

MerlinNew York Post. That Donald Trump, and there are recordings of this that are unmissable. We'll try to find them for show notes. But somebody at the gossip section or the news section at one of the local papers, which he was very important to him to be constantly be in the headlines there. And somebody there would get a call. And it's like, hello, this is John Barron, and I am calling on behalf of Mr. Trump. He's banging a very hot model, and I just thought you would want to lead on that. And it's like, okay, thank you, Mr. Barron.

And, of course, then that became the name of his son years later, which is kind of funny.

AlexTotally normal and fine.

MerlinI was working on the book, and then he just tweeted it out, you know. So Frank Grimes, millennials. Oh, The Week. um and then so where was i going with this where were you going with this the week ballet ballet it was somewhere in there oh anyway um you know i i made it through all of last year and i'm here that's all i'm saying about that what can you do yeah saunheim baby um so i had said to alexandra at 25 minutes past the hour hey look i want to make some iced tea

can we have a few minutes i want to get my ducks in a row and that we ended up saying let's can we please record you know what ended up being 20 minutes later quarter till and as my tea was starting to do its thing uh do you want to do the noise or shall i do the noise i hear this now i know there's there's matt matt yeah matt matt but there's also this and i said well you know i i something like i you know i really brought this upon myself

because now the jackhammers are going. And so I made a movie and sent it to Alexandra.

AlexDoesn't it look like quite a scene out there? Well, at first I'm like, why is this? Not why is this a big deal, but why is this remarkable?

MerlinIt was almost literally, it is catty corner from the front door of where I record. Oh, there it goes. It was, you know, this is happening through means. I can see the blinky yellow light of a truck in front of where we are recording right now. And they're tearing up the streetcar line, putting down new stuff. There's been this huge, lots of gas happening. Big gas has been in the area lately. They said no one was supposed to be in the area. No one. And now all that is happening. And now it's all this. They're taking a break right now. But I sent Alexandra this video.

Go ahead.

AlexNo, I'm just curious because this doesn't happen at Dingle and Dingle very often, right? Because I think I'm just trained to, yeah, like road maintenance in general. Like I'm in Chicago. So and for the past eight years, we've had this campaign building a better Chicago. And that's where all the road work is being done. And we're still building a better Chicago, I guess.

MerlinBut oh, that's nice.

AlexYeah. But but like, is that the idea of the lady with the giant clothes? Oh, no. Well, that's the thing. It's been passed down from the guy.

Speaker AShe's getting smaller and smaller. and her clothes are getting peered.

AlexI mean, if I had done what she'd done, I would still be linked.

Speaker AShe's just going to be a forehead coming out of a blazer. I would also shrink into myself.

AlexBut you've got this commotion coming out of your house, or out of your... There's a commotion where you're recording, and...

MerlinI live on Dingle Way.

AlexYes, yes.

MerlinBut I work on Dingle Street.

AlexI mean, it doesn't often show up on our recording. Thanks, Izzotope. But yeah, what about ballet? How does this connect to ballet? I'm so confused.

MerlinSo the video that I made and sent you, the very, very large video that I sent to you, just as it happens, and so I was trying to give you some context, like this is what it looks like when you walk out and then you see this and then you see that. And as I was coming back to open the door and come in the office, You can hear me say good morning to someone walking by. And I think this person said, ah. But that, that, that, that I said, Alexandra Brady's bits. That's the person who taught my daughter's quote unquote ballet, quote unquote class when she was five.

And then I sent you some adorable. Look at that. These are so cute. In her little outfit. And she would play. Basically, she was good at what she did, though. You know, it was just it's entertaining, fun. You know, some things I think especially with shit like soccer. You know, various kinds of activities. I think one benefit of those things is just giving your kid a little bit of structure, a little bit of challenge, a lot of fun if you enjoy it. But also it makes you leave the house and do things. And especially that combination of leaving the house to do things and structure, I think, can be kind of good.

And she was real good friends with the – you can see these other two girls in the class. They went to preschool together. And then we also get to hang out with their moms who, you know, all us moms would hang out together and they're really cool. but I just wanted to share that with you

Alexsorry go on

MerlinI love visiting with the moms that's one thing I really miss is getting to talk to other moms I miss that the last one I just sent you a second ago is everybody's favorite part which is called scarf time and scarf time is where you go over the big treasure box and you pull out scarves and then the teacher puts on da da da da da da da da da da da da da

Speaker AI want to be a mighty king you are the king beware

Merlinwhich is one of my all time favorite Disney songs because it sounds like the Jackson Fox. And then they dance around and they do scarves. They wear them as capes. You wear your scarf however you want. You just run around. And that, my friends, is ballet.

AlexOh, my gosh.

MerlinAren't they cute? Look how little they are.

AlexThis is so cute.

MerlinThe African-American girl is the best. She told my daughter so many things over their friendship, life and friendship. They were really good friends. And she would tell my daughter the craziest shit. And some of it turned out to be true. One was that at a nearby cafe, there's a mural on the wall. And she would tell my daughter that her favorite stuffed animal was born and point to this one spot. This is where the stuffed animal was born. She would say stuff like never wear anything yellow.

Or if you wear something yellow, bees will attack you. She had a lot of theories about life. And as it turns out, are you ready for this? When I buy flypaper, the flypaper is yellow. I think it's true. I don't know how much of this young girl's wisdom I should follow or not. But much like the Bible, there's a lot of good nuggets amongst some of that bullshit.

AlexI mean, I feel like that's almost like that one tweet that went viral, but it wasn't true. And it's like, here's why Democrats want to impeach Trump. And it turned out like most of it either wasn't true or wasn't exactly like the letter of the law. Like, oh, he can't hold public office again and whatever. It's like, well, it might not be factually. it's not lowercase true, but it's like capital T true, as the Catholics would say.

MerlinWould you say like a Colbert sort of truthiness? Yes, exactly. It feels truthy.

AlexLike you shouldn't wear yellow in general I feel like. Especially now.

MerlinWell, one time we went to the pumpkin patch. Me and the other moms were the chaperones for a field trip to the pumpkin patch. And we were set upon by yellow jackets. You know what yellow jackets love is fucking pumpkins. Pumpkins and

Speaker Achildren like the great xdc album pumpkins and children pumpkins and children if you wear yellow you're gonna be stung okay now now my andry partridge is turning into a muppet i've never

Merlinbeen near a university i'll do i'll play you a mayor simpleton later i might be manic today alex so that was her she walked by i said hello i said good morning i'm a big believer in good morning oh i greet every dog i say hello to every baby and i try to always tell everybody i look at look them in the eyes with my mask covering my face and i say good morning oh i'm i'm a good

Alexmorning guy i'm a um i well i don't know the last time i talked to a stranger oh that's a lie i think the like a couple weeks ago where i went to the drive-thru pharmacy and uh i'm trying to get into the habit of saying thank you i appreciate you which of course is a ted lasso ism but because everybody says thank you it's a reflex it's the yo too of like normal people was that also yo too

Merlinyeah exactly the big yellow one's the sun is um is is that also i appreciate you i had a boss it's a very southern thing to say a lot of people in the south will say i appreciate you i feel like it's a Friday Night Lights thing too. Either Mrs. Coach or titular coach. That's a good one. I really like that. Alex, I have so many secret resolutions.

AlexOh, so I bet they think I'm a bitch when we used to travel. Not that I would often try to go to the South, but I wonder if it's like when I go to a place and I say I would like a Diet Coke and they're like so a Diet Sprite or a Diet Cola and I'm like, oh, right.

MerlinOh, because Coke means fizzy drink.

AlexYeah. And then I'm like, I'm sorry.

MerlinOr like, you know, the function of Han in like on the Eastern Seaboard, you know, Maryland kind of stuff. I love things like that. So anyway, Scarf Time was a fun time and I Just Can't Wait to Be King is a legit banger.

AlexHave you seen, well, not on Broadway, but have you seen the staged production of the Lion King?

MerlinThe Julie Taymor one?

AlexWhat?

MerlinIsn't her name Julie Taymor? the woman who does the puppets the woman who made that show?

AlexI don't know, I'm a fake Broadway bitch

Merlinbut it's where people run around and act like gazelles with the puppets on sticks I think it's Julie Taymor No, I haven't, I would love to It's far from my favorite Disney movie but there are parts of it that are really, really good

AlexIt's definitely the most upsetting Disney movies for me Why? I appreciate it

MerlinNot why is it upsetting to you, but why is it that's the most upsetting to you of the Disney movies? I'm just asking the question.

AlexWell, I will say...

MerlinThe death?

AlexWell, yes. Spoilers. Mufasa, the one true king, dies. And I appreciate that my parents...

MerlinJeremy Irons totally kills him.

AlexYes, yes. The gay Nazi lion kills him. And orchestrates his death. It was very Trumpian. Whoa, oh boy. But I saw that in theaters as a four or five year old. And like I appreciate most of the time that my parents would be like, OK, you know, they're ready for this. Like, sure. I was quiet in movie theaters and I'd seen like movies and theaters before even. But and I don't remember crying. I just remember being like, why are you doing this to me?

It was one of the first really tragic Disney movies. And obviously, since then, you know, every single Pixar one has ripped apart my heart, but it didn't, you know, cause me to like viscerally shake the way that a young child, you know, snuggling the corpse of his dad did at the time. So, oh, oh, wow.

MerlinNow that we have now that we have the Internet, there's a way to turn all this into like a jokey cliche. but um you know something that was a sort of a you know this is known type situation with disney for you know before the internet was a thing just that was something everybody knew um you know sort of related to fridging in some ways where it's like in disney like you're not allowed to have two living parents let alone two happy living parents god no they're hot you have to fuck with the family in a disney movie usually and there has to be something so the reason i say

this is and i'm not trying to be you know contradictory but of course as somebody who's a good deal older than you i was as an impressionable young kid it seems like every disney movie the considered classic disney movie has at least one moment that's like oh you want to have some fun go to the movies hope you're ready for this they're going to kill over 100 dalmatians to make coats out of them they're gonna do what i mean do the stakes have to be can't we do something a little more mrs doubtfire with like stakes that are personal but not deadly no or like i have to

say my favorite as a kid well i probably pinocchio i just love pinocchio i thought he was so cute i loved it but that movie has so much stuff i mean the there's so much that happens in that and i have to say the one in retrospect that didn't freak me out obviously the whale and stuff like that freaked me out but the part that really got me gets me in retrospect is holy shit the way they turn little boys into donkeys on an island? That was so upsetting

to me as a kid.

AlexA thing that didn't upset me at the time, but the fox and the hound, where at the end, you know, it's an adult fox and an adult hound, and they can't be friends anymore, and Copper's like, it's different now. I'm a hunting dog now and i was oh i'm like disney i'm sure you didn't try to make a woke metaphor but god damn

Merlinoh my god that cut that really cuts yeah and then of course i mean there's the classic everybody talks about his bambi which is like that scene is in the scene where where where what happens happens and it has happened is like boohoo but the entire run up to that do you remember the stuff like the hunters i believe i want to say in like silhouette like running around it's terrifying

AlexYeah, that was a thing that I believe you say my parents would fast over because that's not something. Fast over, daddy. Fast over. Yeah, like the stuff that was made before I was born that before I feel like Disney kind of took a break with Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. Like, sure, there wasn't two parents, but it wasn't the stakes weren't as dire. Still fucking scary.

Speaker ABut I mean, Bambi.

AlexOh, God. fantasia has one of the most horrifying animation sequences i've ever seen do you remember like the gigantic demon that shows up at one point oh yeah like the like maybe like the night on bald mountain part i think so i don't often watch the whole thing because it's genuinely still kind of scary

Speaker Ato me it's a giant carcoy yes no oh no no one and this is the thing about i you know i think someday

MerlinI can't figure out if this is going to go the way of Oprah memories, recovered memories, or whether this is going to go the way of like the way certain kinds of conditions have a name and a diagnosis. But like, I'm not trying to steal Valor here, but so much of my life, so much of my reactions to my life, so much of my wounds that exist for years after the injury. And like I said, to Syracuse the last night, 98% of my life is spent worrying about a thing that's not happening right now because I don't want that thing to happen again. PTSD. I think we need to a little more

extend the idea. And the reason I say that is not to steal valor. I didn't serve. Thank me for my service. But I do know that one thing that makes sense is my anxiety has a certain basis in my chemistry, but I think my anxiety also has a basis in a wound that never healed, that now makes it so that I, I'm, I'm still feeling the effects of, let me put it this way, things happen in life. And most people are like neurotypical people or whoever typical people title are able to just go,

oh yeah, that sucked. But no, back to it now. And like, I, I have friends who will have something bad happen and then just mull it over in terms of what they did wrong. But for me, it's just like, unless I really look into it, I'm not aware, unless I really look into it, how much I am still, my recovery time for certain kinds of emotional injuries is sometimes endless. I'm still, I'm still, I might as well still be at that point where my stepfather threw us out of the house,

had his head, sorry, had his son throw us out of the house. That, the injury of that at that age, I should be able to like move on from that it's not like I was assaulted but and I'm not even going to go the way of like my dad and stuff like that but just really there are things like you know my fear about money has a basis in many events that happened in the past that I moved past and whether or not those problems ever came up again as a grown person I should be able to deal with that but I feel like I don't say PTSD because that's such a

Alexloaded term but you know ptsd do you ever feel that yeah and i i was going to say it wasn't there a situation with your dad's passing that might contribute to this but then you you mentioned

Speaker Aseven i should get over it i was almost eight i was almost eight but i think you're you're right

Alexyou you said it that it seems like you know that other stuff might have had more of an effect on

Merlinyou and i i think it's i should get a therapist who's not a libertarian oh boy this stuff but but

Alexyou know you know well there's no middle sliders for a lot of these conditions that we have in the dsm like kind of with you know harassment like people are you i mean oh god there are so many people in my life who have harassed me and also have I've been technically physically assaulted and it is not things that have caused me trauma necessarily but they are things that would really fuck up other people and there are small things that have really fucked me up and people are like

Merlinwait really what why right right right like you're not you're not supposed to be that upset about that

Alexbecause I wouldn't be that upset about that right and it's if it's woke to acknowledge that everybody

Merlinhas a different brain like you just you just you just can't allow yourself to have a feeling without bracketing it for the public is that what life is like is that your life that's your life i am just

Alexa little grumpy that well because i mean yeah well and that's the other thing being yelled at by other people who have no influence and no consequence over my life that shouldn't bother me and sometimes it absolutely does not and then sometimes a little thing will get in there like and just tear me apart for weeks on end and yes yes the fact that we don't have middle sliders for fucking emotions

Merlinsometimes let alone degrees of disease oh boy if there's anything if there's anything we need multiple six-dimensional middle sliders for its emotions yeah yeah yeah you know what i think a part of it is and again i should find a non-libertarian but i i i think i think a lot of it though comes down to the the wound that i feel is not the like sort of enduring oh this breakup happened and that was difficult although that that does suck that does not weigh on me what weighs on

me in the most selfish way possible was the minute i found out that that breakup was happening so i I think the wound goes back to the shock of my life just changed in a way I can't handle. If I tried to like supersize it to like the big pattern, something happened and like it's the finding out. And some for me, just for me, that causes the wound. It's the person. It is my stepfather holding up the letter that his son, the attorney, said, oh, there's something for you.

said my mother's name and said, there's something for you on the refrigerator.

Speaker AOh, Jesus.

MerlinAnd she'd been working all day, and he'd been watching CNN and drinking tab all day. And she walked over, and it was a letter from her son, his son, rather, the attorney, who, in Washington, D.C., attorney, big shot attorney, who actually was technically the owner of our house, letting us know that we had three days to get out of the house. I should mention they were married.

So it was something where he was sitting in his chair and his very stinky chair because he smoked these really shitty little cigars all day. And with a towel on his lap, it's an indelible image. The whole place smelled like, you know, head cheese and cigar smoke. And obviously this is quite a memory. So my mother walks over the refrigerator, opens the envelope, and it's a letter. I don't know if it's a registered letter, but it was a letter from her stepson saying, yeah you and your dumb kid have three days to get out of the house that my father lives in that i own

and sometimes it's the finding out the rest of it was a fucking shit show full shizzle but it's that moment when you find out that your life got fucked up in a way you can't handle the overwhelming feeling of it's a shock to the system plus it's something almost primal like there's some very deep like the the roots the stems and roots of a tooth like it gets right into something really And I can't say to a certainty, I can't say at all, it feels like that just rewired me a little bit in just this one fucking one minute thing that just happened.

You know, I used to, I had a tough run with money at one point in college and I got kicked out of the house that I lived in with two of my best friends. And that was terrible. But part of that was the run-up to that where I couldn't. It was the getting thrown out was not a relief, obviously, but it was, yeah, it is what it is. Now you can deal. Now your dopamine is adequately raised to the point where you go into fight or flight mode and you fucking do something. It sucks, but you know what it was? It was the months before that when I couldn't afford to pay the rent.

And every car I saw out of the corner of my eye was the same make and model as my landlord's car.

AlexOh, fuck.

MerlinSo in that case, it's the anticipation of the pain. It's the overwhelming feeling that I can't do this. And then when this does happen, I don't know what I will do. I don't know who I will be when the consequence of that thing that made the wound happen. Do you know what I mean?

AlexYes. I wish I didn't. But yes.

MerlinIt's not a cool thing to say. I'm not saying this for clapping. But I am saying like those are just a couple. Well, that's a handful of things, but you know, and let's just put it this way. Maybe my wiring, my pipes, my wires, my chemistry, my beakers, my brain beakers, maybe all of those things make me vulnerable to certain kinds of high hit point attacks in a way that wouldn't affect other people. However, I got the soft spots that allowed for that arrow to get through.

Those have really accumulated over the years. And I wish I could take a fucking spotless mind pill to go like, you know what? That one time you thought you saw your landlord's car outside Publix in 1988. You're good to like let that particular non-injury go away. I wish I could just I guess that would make it make me not me.

AlexBut that's what I was going to say. if I put on your Shrink's libertarian hat I mean I think a lot about the

MerlinA lot of those conspiracy theories just so you know they're not theories they're just true

AlexYeah, yeah It's not a conspiracy if it's true

MerlinDon't get me started on the people that work at MSNBC because that's a whole cabal

AlexOh, Anderson Cooper was kind of a dick

MerlinBut he writes my prescriptions

AlexNo, I just, I mean, you often talk about how a part of your job is being vulnerable in public. And I wonder if you would be able to do that if you did not experience so many times in which you were forced to be vulnerable as a kid. I don't fucking know.

My breed's broken.

MerlinI don't. No, no, no. I know. I see where you're going with this. I think it's really interesting. And it also makes me think that in some ways, I mean, well, first of all, this is not, I'm not performing. But like the truth is like there are things in my life and characteristics of how I look and that I have a dongus that allows me to be the sort of person who can say shit like my job is to be vulnerable in public. And like there's like there's not a lot of people for whom that's, you know, as they would say, an easy lift. But another thing is like think about how you are.

Not a lot, but think about it a little bit. I may be vulnerable in public. You kind of do a similar thing where you have this one way of you can use your words, coping, self-protection, inoculation.

What does it do to a sword? Arnold Schwarzenegger talked about it. we like you know you put you put in the fire and you and then you cool the sword you put in the fire tempering or whatever it's called i don't know you get a hanso blade but doing a lot of folding and banging and shit right and maybe there's some of that too like maybe you're prepping yourself for a thing you prefer not to happen but you get up there and you're like i don't know if you've read that shirley jackson story the lottery but you're like do now okay now do me

Alexmotherfuckers uh yeah oh for for sure um and i i think maddie said i mean i said oh god who knows i i would i actually wonder how much uh codependence is happening in the world right now between couples who are constantly around each other um i don't think we are i hope to god um because you know he's out in the world how do you do how you define codependence

Merlinexactly I hear that term so much well no because like I felt like the day that I understood what love is is the day that I heard love is caring more about somebody else's life and desires and security than your own and then I've been told in subsequent years no that's codependency and I'm like well yeah or you're

Alexa dick yeah that doesn't

Merlinmake sense but like you have to understand where I was coming from so love love for me used to be and God they talked about this oh my god alex we have to talk about the latest um you're wrong about because they got into a run of some fucking real shit that like you could literally my i turned into an emoji literally no but that whole thing of like understanding that when when a man says to you oh my god we have this great connection what that means is no you know really i just i listen to you talk forever

even though you have no interest in my life. That's what makes it seem like we have a connection. I was like, okay, that's what I used to think love is. So when you hear me say that and go like, oh, that's codependent, bad on you. It's like, no, no. Well, understand that what I started with is you exist to please me aesthetically and emotionally. And therefore that is love. And if you reject that love, you're a terrible person because we have such a great connection. How do you define codependent?

AlexActually, kind of the you're wrong about situation where it's not that you love something more than yourself, something in this case, being another human being.

MerlinYou care about them more anyway.

AlexThat's always been my definition of love because, you know, it's always two Catholic things with me, but that was just always, that was just it. Like God is love and you're supposed to care about God and other people more than yourself because that's your mission and whatever. Agape love. Yeah. yeah but um i mean i keep thinking well yes yesterday uh matt and i needed to go get uh covet get a covet test get the brain poke get the good see oh that's that's another thing i've i've

had my brain poked so many times that i think now i almost enjoy it i'm like yeah get it get up in there poke me king really get in there okay yeah but uh the video rachel maddow put out when her partner got covid and they had to be separated and she was like i would give anything for this

Merlinto be me like i yeah i've i i can't i can't i would i would do anything to be able to help you right now and I would do anything to take some of the load that you're feeling. I wish I could take a third or a half of somebody's headache sometimes. I wish we could split up your headache. If we got enough people on this, we could make your headache barely exist at all. The pain that you feel about your sophomore year in high school, I wish

we could split that up between 10 people who love you. If that's codependent,

AlexI don't think that is codependency I

Merlinit's the co part that bothers me so the co idea is or maybe it's the dependency part but like so in the instance of Paula and the juice what is the most codependent part of that relationship because that feels pretty

Alexclose to that we should say that Paula is OJ Simpson's girlfriend at the time he murdered Nicole she's really pretty for a model yeah uh oh god those long legs you know um and so she's talking about her relationship to oj in

Merlinher memoir yeah and you only need in a codependent relationship you really only what we're really seeing is like one person especially if we take out the idea of abuse but there's one person who's carrying a huge load of make trying to make things work but then also is essentially is it the idea that you are encouraging somebody to continue to be the way they are by like i don't know i just that that term feels so 90s to me and something about it just smells like a pink self-help book

Alexand it bugs me um i mean i i think the idea of codependency for me is your definition of yourself becomes fully encased with another person like in the way you i mean i don't know if it's healthy to define your entire existence as one thing. I mean, look at what happened to Jack Dorsey. Like, I don't know.

MerlinWhat happened to Jack Dorsey?

AlexIs he okay? Well, I mean, when you... I don't sign Bitcoin. I feel like, yeah, if you are the entrepreneur...

MerlinPeople who love Bitcoin have the dumbest bios on the internet.

AlexOh, God, it's so bad. It's, oh, they're... A parlor. Oh, that was a big Bitcoin place, man. But like the other thing is I think there should be a lot of middle sliders in terms of relationships. And I guess almost a healthy codependence is what I don't know who said this, but the idea that a relationship shouldn't have to be 50-50, 100% of the time.

But it also shouldn't be like 10%, 90% all the time.

MerlinThat's a good idea of a way to look at a relationship or even a team. Like the whole point of being a team in some ways is not to say platitudes about teamwork. It's to say like we're each – I always think of the X-Men, duh. Which is like we're all here to bring the skill that we've got to what's happening right now. And we may not need Storm right now, but we're going to need Storm later. and Storm could very well be the person of Kitty Pryde, man. They always give the women the coolest defensive skills.

We're gonna need Kitty Pryde. She got her period. She started falling through the floor. It happens to a lot of girls in Chicago. Now, but like you can have a codependent relationship inside of a family or a partner-spousal relationship. Isn't that possible? I mean, you Can you have codependency between, say, like a mother and son?

Is that a thing?

AlexIf we're going to take it as...

MerlinI'm sorry. Let me give you an example. Let me send this to you. What I'm looking at here, would you say... I just sent you some images.

AlexIs that a codependency? The Bitcoin guy!

MerlinNo, after that.

AlexAll right. All right. Oh, God. So what we're seeing is...

Speaker AIt's the saddest Disney scene of all time.

AlexFucking... Oh, God.

Speaker AWhen the trunk comes through the bars. Oh, my God.

AlexWhat now?

Speaker AOh, she's in jail, but she wants to comfort him. That's so codependent, Alex. What I'm looking at. She needs to check herself before she wrecks herself.

AlexOh, boy. The image that I'm looking at right now is two frames from the Disney movie Dumbo, which I know has been canceled. But I forget her name.

MerlinThat elephant couldn't really fly. Stop creating unrealistic images of elephants.

AlexElephants don't wear hats and ties. mama dumbo is uh i believe at this point she is it's out of frame but she is caged by the jail car yeah so she's essentially in elephant jail and she's reaching out to cradle dumbo with her trump and the trump god i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i totally trump that up i'm so sorry

Merlinoh my god i should i should finish making this trump boy um but what gets it is

Alexdumbo has tears in his eyes and his little hat but that's a relationship in which um everyone should wear that it's not a 50 50 no god i i mean her it's like her whole life is taking care of him you know but but will that be her entire existence for her entire well it's an elephant why are we talking about not just an elephant a fictional if she didn't if she didn't want to go to jail she should have been a better exactly exactly you want to get on a plane you

shouldn't be a terrorist that's good is that jeff foxworthy who said that oh man oh it's almost like i know the list was a bad idea it's almost like we should have some state-run websites

MerlinHow did I discover this guy? So I did send you, I believe, a screen grab of Mr. Dorsey's bio.

AlexNo, this is Tom.

MerlinNo, no, no, no. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Was that you? I believe it was you to whom I sent the screenshot of Mr. Dorsey's bio. And I said the two words pod person. Because Mr. Dorsey's bio right now is the symbol for Bitcoin and the word Bitcoin.

AlexOh.

MerlinNow, this one's pretty good. And I don't want to read all of this. Well, see, I don't like to say things where you can find a civilian and drag them. But, oh, so let's just say this. This person whose bio I just sent to Alexandra mentions, of course, they do the multiple noun bio of all people who have nothing to say. But we do see that he's a crypto enthusiast, a tech geek, and a father. Bouncing on Bitcoin will always be my first love. can you can you uh give me your thoughts on bitcoin being this father's first love

see no is the is the is the child the second love or is that a bob marley album am i confused as

Alexyou've said to me many times and i try to remind myself twitter is not real life and twitter's not real life it's not real at least i hope this is somewhat performative god i i see i know i sent

Merlinto Syracuse and distracted him from what he was doing yesterday because I really needed someone to talk to about this. Because I, as the youth say, being honest, being real legit, I legit could not figure out if this was a bit, if this was supposed to be funny. To say in the end of the one sentence that he's a father and then an emoji of a heart. And the second thing, pound sign Bitcoin will always be my first love. And then there's a word he either spelled wrong or is it joke?

AlexNo, I think that's one of their things.

MerlinOh, is it growth hacking?

AlexIs it growth hacking, Alex? It might be. Like, there are a lot of, like, words in the Bitcoin and Ethereum community on Parler where they kept, like, saying words. And I'm like, are these slurs or terms for fake money that I don't know?

MerlinOh, that would be a good incomparable show.

Alexcrypto or not i mean

Speaker Aif you've if you've successfully hacked growth or grown hack how will you know if you've been

Merlinsuccessful how do you even know if your ethereum is against the right uh wall it's a lot to think

Alexabout really really makes you think oh god i i mean oh should we get into follow-up about your award-winning show, Rectifs, where you talk, I believe it's the most recent episode, where you, Syracuse, brought up a behavior that I don't think I shamed you for. I just brought up your... Oh my God. When will it end? No.

Speaker AYou people should all just get a show together and then never release it.

MerlinHow's John doing? How's the other John doing? How's Merlin's red receipts?

Speaker AWell, you know, those are all part of my job. Let me just converse separately with every single person in the world about how the world is going. If you have any questions, bring them to me. Sorry, honey, I have to go talk about the Johns.

AlexOh, boy. You're responsible for all the Johns. How's Hodgman doing?

MerlinOh, I'm responsible for all the great Johns.

You talking about the thing that a ninja breeze threw underwater?

Speaker AOh, boy. Bucatini? That was such a funny episode. John is so funny.

AlexI like that he doesn't have a mute button or can't get to it. A straw.

MerlinYeah, but now I know. And then now the discourse. So I was getting read the riot act on read receipts from you. No, I just brought it to your attention.

AlexI'm sorry for interrupting.

MerlinYou may, you turned it into a thing. You turned it into a thing about how I do this thing that I didn't know I was doing. So obviously I have, please, internet, if you have any questions about anyone named John, or you've discovered something that I didn't know I was doing that I did not, and I'm not talking about like using the N word at the bodega.

Speaker AI'm talking about, there's a piece, there's a blue, little blue radio button on my goddamn phone that I've never touched. and ergo I draw no inference if I could ask if you could just do me it would be a blessing

Merlinif you would just understand that I don't have a purpose to not doing or doing a thing I didn't know I'm not doing or doing and but really feel free to opine on what that means about me and I'm terrorizing youth because of my radio button oh it's blue well that's what Syracusa got wrong

AlexI brought it.

Speaker AIs it default? Is it default? Please say it's default.

AlexIt's now when you set up a phone on iOS.

Speaker AWhich I did. Which I did.

AlexA phone on iOS.

Speaker AAn iPhone.

AlexIt is. I was like. My mom was like sending me pictures of every single thing of like. Do I want to send my information to developers? Does it email them?

MerlinI like that. That's nice. and you get to help. That's such a nice feeling.

AlexWell, and then she sent me a picture of read receipts are on. Would you like to turn these off? And, you know, what are you going to do when something's grayed out?

Speaker ACan I ask what you advised?

AlexYeah, exactly. And I'm like, mother, you do not want those on. But that is why I brought it to your attention is because I had never seen them on for you before. And there are things like Instagram where you can't.

Speaker AOh, so it was the setting up of the new phone. Oh, my fancy blue phone made it happen.

AlexOh, you got a blue one.

MerlinI got a blue one. I want to talk about cases. Oh, I'm going to put on the list of cases.

AlexOh, yes. Save it for the after show.

MerlinWe're not going to have time. We got to talk about remote penis extortion. We got to talk about writing on manatees. We got to talk about phone cases. If you enjoy the show, if you enjoy the show and want to support the show, you can go to give us your fucking money dot com. And for I have a secret. I have a secret that I don't tell people. And I'm not going to tell you. I'll tell you in the after show. Oh, I'll tell you in the after show.

But yeah, and if you don't like the show and don't want to support us, I totally understand. Go support what you're wrong about because they say the same thing.

AlexYes. Oh, God, that's so true. Yes.

MerlinWe do. But like, just to be clear, we do want your money.

AlexOh, yes.

MerlinYou have money. So much. And we want money.

AlexAnd I'm going to talk partially about why in the after show.

MerlinIt helps pay for all the parts of the body that we would want to. Yeah. I was going to get me veneers. I'm going to get veneers. I'm going to get larger nostrils I'm going to have my forehead I'm going to have my forehead shortened I'm going to get neck extensions I'm going to get I'm going to get a fourth arm yes I'll explain it later

Alexit's more

Merlinarms for hugging it's a codependent thing

Alexokay I'm giving a lifestyle

MerlinDr. Octopus I'm going to be honest with you

AlexOh, boy. Give us your fucking money, bitch. Or JoeRoganPodcast.club. I forgot that I bought that when we were drunk at the holiday party. JoeRoganPodcast.club will also take you to our Patreon page.

MerlinShut the fuck up. Say it again.

AlexYeah, yeah. Do it. Do it. JoeRoganPodcast.club.

MerlinAnd that goes to our site?

AlexIt goes to the Patreon site. Oh, my God. I totally forgot that I did this during the holiday party.

MerlinWe're never going to get to like a John Kimball level of multiple ways to reach something. We will never be as good as he is with Bitly.

AlexOh, no, no, no, no. I'm just aspiring.

MerlinYeah. Oh, but also for the after show, another thing to know, this shirt's based on Mythic Quest arrived.

AlexOh, why does Mythic Quest get merch and Ted Leso doesn't?

Merlinbecause um so i received an envelope yesterday two days ago from something called ubisoft which sounds like a software company and i guess i don't know but apparently and my lady said you got this thing she said ubisoft and then i say ubisoft yes i know what ubisoft is go on yeah it would be soon right like you know what um and anyway i opened it up and i was like oh yes of course it's the dark quiet death shirt and the studio shirt and you have never seen a 13 year

old kid so happy as to have the the people in the dungeon holding hands oh my god oh no she's so happy she said thank you so many times and she almost touched me it was nice i miss it so much oh god i miss cuddling every wednesday morning in the dark fantastic four i'm gonna cry anyway she liked her shirts from ubisoft alexandra what is ubisoft and why is it soft and ubiquitous it's ubiquitous software Ubisoft is

Alexis a video game company and I that's why I was like I think I know where this is going I think I know where this is going but also I don't know if are they making a spin-off game I just I mean oh now I I'm getting too excited I'm afraid that

Merlinmaybe because they had infrastructure in place to service the merchandise wanting public?

AlexWait, I'm... Or is it...

MerlinDo you think that they licensed that name from them?

Speaker AI wonder what the deal is with that. Let's find out.

AlexYeah, that's what I'm trying to investigate. And I have friends at Ubisoft, and I... Mythic Quest... Oh, there is an immediate autocorrect. Even on a... Oh, oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, oh, sorry. Okay. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Somebody call a cop. What's going on? real time follow-up uh holly yes fuck you hollywood reporter stop calling um mythic quest how ubisoft created the fake video game at at center of apple plus comedy and this article is for oh uh from

february 7th 2020 so probably why i missed it but the yeah i guess they are making or have made a game based on Raven's Quest, maybe? Oh yeah, if you go to...

MerlinI hope there's a shovel. Please let there be a shovel.

AlexOh, I want a flashlight. Dinner party! I want a flashlight so badly! Oh my god, the flashlight!

MerlinIt sounds to me you would have laughed so hard at me saying dinner party in an Australian accent. How far? You're still at the same place? You're around two or three?

AlexI'm at the place where a character is drawing jail bars. um oh yes who just realized a feeling that i felt many times wait a minute is that was that

Merlinis that i am doing that i'm trying to remember uh no it oh oh oh oh is it uh is it a cute girl

Alexis ice cream sandwich girl it is what my aunt now refers to as asian alex and i'm like no that's not a thing you can say oh god i love her dinner party don't stop saying dp oh so yeah it's uh where poppy has just poppy poppy lee yeah she's she's been you don't have a car you've got like 20 laptops and you don't own a car oh that's what we gotta talk about in the after show

Merlinthings are happening i've got so many things written down so we're gonna solve a mystery about Ubisoft and Mythic Quest, Homer's Enemy. I wrote down the word Joe. Oh, that would be part of Ro Rogan. Okay.

AlexYeah. Joe Rogan podcast.club, which I have burned into my brain, unlike every other URL that I've accidentally said on the show.

MerlinSmiling Asian boy. Smiling Asian teen boy.

AlexStill in the back of my closet, and I see it occasionally when I'm switching out seasonal clothes, and it's very upsetting.

MerlinWhen you're switching stuff out in the closet, that feels meaningful.

AlexOh.

Speaker AChallenge!

AlexChallenge!

Speaker AOh, God! Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, this is so weird, Alex. Do you hear that? Listen. Oh, that's horrible. You know why?

AlexI know what's happening. It's loosened. No, you don't. Has it loosened?

MerlinIt's gotten loose?

AlexAt the bottom?

MerlinHas it loosened? No, it's worse. Guess what? I love magnets. Yes, I do. I love magnets. How about you? There's a magnet, because what magnets do is they magnetize to other things. Now, there is a magnet on there, and now if I take it off, it goes like this.

Put the magnet on, it goes like this. Wait, hang on. Put it further down.

Speaker AOh, no! Dang. Oh, that's really bad. That's good. Oh, God. It sounds like I'm in a drum circle. Oh, boy. Oh, God, no. Get out of here. No magnet.

AlexI love that noise.

Speaker AChallenge.

AlexTake-take challenge. Oh, this week's challenge was mine. And I was like, this was before I was watching the Capitol being stormed. But I was like, let's record it.

Speaker AOh, I remember that. That was last Wednesday.

Alexright yes i remember yeah that was that was last wednesday or 15 minutes ago still not entirely sure um and i was like let's record our dreams because yeah what could go wrong um and you did

Merlinyou also have some angle i didn't quite understand this but you had an angle of there's times people don't want to participate in the challenge for some reason you want people to feel free to talk

Alexabout their dreams what was that oh i was like hey everybody i want to hear about your dreams but i think it might have either got uh gotten cut or but i totally dropped the ball on that and i'm like uh like as quinn's editing this episode i'm like oh that's right we did an episode of dubai friday uh all right another person has died let's let's go um but yay challenge but i uh just wrote down the dreams i had every day this week and they are all

fear and anxiety based. A couple of them would be what are considered night terrors. And in fact, the only time I did not have or I could not remember dreams was last night, which I found

Merlininteresting. So maybe you're a calming present. Can I ask a question for question for context? Yes. Answer any way you want. If you can say, so it's kind of a three part question, because it's always two things with three. How often do you dream? How often do you remember what you dreamed? And how much are the dreams something that you feel like you can articulate, answer any way you want? As you're going to hear from some of mine, I mean, the way that I dream

and the way that I talk about it is different, I think, from a lot of people who remember or tell their dream as a story. Well, mine ain't stories. if i do remember it it's impossibly impressionistic and i do feel like i've been eating a lot of laudanum all day how often do you dream how much do you remember them because that's a lot of dreams to me that's a lot of dreams to have and remember especially for

Alexsomebody who does edibles that's wild not all the time uh really you should it's amazing

Merlinbest thing to come best things to come out of covid ted lasso and these watermelon gummies But I digress. How often do you dream? Do you remember? What's your deal?

AlexOh, I definitely I wish I could say how often I I mean, isn't the I don't even know if it's true. But what I've often heard is that, oh, everybody dreams every single night. We just don't remember.

MerlinAnd you remember that you might remember the bit like right before you wake up.

AlexRight, right. And I think I probably remember dreams vividly about a quarter of the or half the time I get like at least six hours of sleep.

MerlinAnd so you get them when you sleep longer and better.

AlexYes.

MerlinOr you remember them when you sleep.

AlexI remember them vividly when I sleep longer or better about 50 percent of the time. Which can be a blessing and a curse. well uh when exactly but when it is a fitful night's sleep or i've only gotten a little bit of sleep usually then um it's my dreams get even more i think like yours i always describe them kind of like if i if you were watching a movie you'd be watching like f for fake or something like it like kind of makes sense sort of and there's a bit of a through line but not really

and there's a lot of references.

MerlinYeah, like something like a Nicholas, I forget how to say his name, Winding Refn. Like I was watching some of Neon Demon last night. And, you know, it's one of those like, surreal is an overused word. Sometimes I think magic realism is a better word, but also it's that sense of like, because magic realism, the way I heard the difference between that and surrealism, and this was in college, so I don't remember, but, you know, magic realism is like ordinary world where extraordinary things happen. Sort of. It's somewhere between, and please, it's so important you not email me, but somewhere between surrealism and sci-fi is where I think where magic realism lives.

So, you know, years later, as he, I'm doing this off the dome, by the way, years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendio would remember the distant afternoon that his father took him to discover ice.

Arguably, perhaps inarguably, one of the greatest first sentences in a book ever. He discovered, he took you to discover ice in the afternoon, large stones. You put notes on things so you remember what it's called. Like, this is a fever dream. And that's where we are. The dream. The dream, your brain garbage has made a little thing for you. Here's a present. I hope you're sad.

AlexThat's what it is. That's a brain present. Oh, gosh. I mean, well, and this week, the presents I received were the ones that, like, you expected, but you don't want. Like, you know, when like every year at Christmas, like, you know, something's coming and you know, it's going to happen.

Speaker AAs they've said for the last four years, it's not a surprise, but it is still shocking.

AlexYeah, exactly.

MerlinSo you've had, you've had, you have, do you ordinarily, and if you want to say or not, and how do you even say, in something apart from the last four years? I guess your whole life is a trauma. So, I mean, have you always had mostly dreams that are upsetting? do you have fun dreams do you have whimsical dreams do you i'm a flyer do you fly oh nope i have you don't fly it's so fun to fly i fly all the time i've had a couple of lucid dreaming

Alexexperiences and that's always the first thing i try and it doesn't work and i'm like okay i can walk around even if it's like i'm in my high school i can walk around and open all the lockers and bullshit but i can't do any of like any mystical shit like there's no i should hook

Merlinyou up with my friend grant he's he's good at this but this also is a good opportunity for me to say something that like um so my dreams are my dreams i don't know okay so when i write these things down and then i force people like john circusa and you the listener to listen to my quote-unquote dreams i think here's an important distinction is like so like i do because i'm an nvl user it's very easy to have a title for a kind of thing that you want so you can have a kind of thing where the leftmost side of the text string is the most general and then it gets increasingly

specific as you type. So I could have something like show note X, Dubai Friday E, right? So all

Speaker AI have to do is type that and then I can enter the rest of that and then do my text expander. But the idea is start with the thing that you don't need to tag it if you name it well.

MerlinAnd so for me, I used to be dreams. And then of course I grew up and I changed it to dream X because that's a, as we say in England, a nonce word. The dream X means this is about a dream. But like, don't, you know, if I do a search in the future, find that. And then later on, you know, I changed that to dreams and night thoughts.

AlexOh, interesting.

MerlinAnd I'm not going to over explain this, even in the audio book that I'm going to do about this. Kidding, not kidding. Not kidding, not kidding. Probably not kidding. You're probably going to get an audio book of me reading my dreams. The toughest thing is figuring out if there should be a music bed and what it should be. But dreams and night thoughts. As a kid, I grew up in like the first dream I remember. I think I remember. Who knows? Moments snap together like magnets. I remember being, and this is not sad. This is fun. I was eaten by a purple flying dragon from a book I had as a kid.

And I remember being inside of the dragon's tummy while it flew around. And I got jostled. And because it was purple, there was a slightly translucent purple quality to being inside of its stomach.

And so that's a dream. Yeah. But like, for example, it makes it easier for me to understand a lot of stuff.

So that was a dream, right? Dragon's tummy? Let me ask you this. Is this a dream? Half speed in reverse. Walking backwards. Back into the dream. Three lines. Is that a dream?

AlexYes. That's an audiobook. You got a stupid one.

MerlinIt's not a dream. Nope. Not a dream. It's a night thought. night thoughts are different than dreams there's no story here and we're not going to turn this into a short story so if i were to say for example a coffee table book of sleep audio app is condiment you can be the pan or the butter but you can't be both envelopes are paper clothes and behind the scenes with armin tamzarian is that a dream no those are night thoughts those are night thoughts and but night thoughts can also be i just figured out a way to count in a new way that makes my heart beats slower. That's a night thought. It doesn't have to be a little story. And I'm only

doing this in this defensive way to say that you can object to whether what I'm telling you was, quote, in the dream. What I can tell you is it's a very slightly edited version of how I remember it, put it to paper, and gave it not structure, but gave it me. My brain garbage got turned into something that's me this dream and night night thought got massaged with um the artfulness of

Alexhaving lived damn i used to like poems yeah i i know man people got mad i only record i only

Merlinrecorded wrote down two dreams do you want to do one of yours we'll do we'll start oh oh dang it i

Alexjust go i love you day one but there's too many features now too too too much it's it's turned into um i don't want the map of where my dreams are i just oh oh damn whoa that was so the map

Speaker Aof where my dreams yeah yeah i know i said no no no i know you meant to do that yeah yeah i'm smart

Merlini'm writing longhand i'm writing longhand it's just basically it's turned into uh what's that app i used to like it's turned into late stage evernote that's yes that's what i was going because

Alexi was like there's a certain thing that i put in here uh you guys if you guys have lost the story

Merlinlike i don't need a thing where i turn down the edge of my ipad to do a quiz that's not part and that was an actual evernote app like i don't okay that's cute but just get real good at making it easy for me to break things down that's at the point where you do anything to the exclusion Sort of like John Sturkiesa talks about, I don't know if it's his entire goal, but one of his biggest goals is how quickly do we go from TV not being on to me watching the thing I want to be watching? And that's measured in bazinga seconds, like super nano bazinga seconds. Because if it takes a second longer than it should, it's frustrating.

And that's what these apps are for. These apps are for, above all else, get the thing. Don't worry about getting cute about it and making a map and shit. Get the thing.

Alexyou know the and and the only reason i i i do use day one for some stuff but i don't like other than this week don't open uh it to write things down i usually use drafts and i often do my write down my dreams anyway i i don't know it's something to do in the morning other than

Merlinlook at twitter this would be a good use for toolbox pro also this would be one like real a real good oh shit oh i can't i'm so fucking rock hard for toolbox pro right now uh you you're also

Alexsuper hard for matthew casanelli man what oh just about to that's a little awkward i also i do think

Merlini think it's casalini i think you're oh i'm sorry um michael corleone um i barbecue sauce well also i put up a dartboard i have a dartboard i've got a professional english dartboard oh wait really isn't it fun it's fucking amazing but it's so fun it's not like the sears we got to get to the topic it's not like the you know cheapest possible dartboard of my youth this is the dartboard it's t-h-e dartboard it was by i forget what it's called i had to get a youtube tutorial

on how to hang it with a belt because i wanted to put it on my door at the office but uh but it worked and i'll tell you man i got some pretty good darts i got a real good dartboard and throwing tungsten steel and brass at something and having it go thunk is unbelievably i forgot how satisfying

Alexthis was yes i don't think i'd ever used a real dartboard actually until i'd been to england

Merlincome on over come on over it's amazing we could play cricket is that what it's called i think it's

Alexcalled cricket that's well yeah that was the thing like just like popping into random pubs in the middle of the night and like just being like oh he might want to have some i want to have a dot and i'm that's a very that's a very good accent sure that's my mike hurley and it can maybe it

Merlincould help you learn about how to be more curious do you think i hope so what's the line what's the line um what's the line that guides your life right now that i love remind me what it is so rupert is there ted is there he forgot he's right-handed there's always been my whole life there's been guys like you. And then what's the line you love?

AlexOh, fuck, fuck. Be curious, not judgmental.

MerlinOh, never cowardly or cruel. Never give up, never give in. You told me your name was a promise. It's a contract.

AlexCurious but not judgmental. Damn it, damn it.

MerlinOh, wait, Walt Whitman. He saw it on a school, right?

AlexWhat? I saw it on a school?

MerlinRemember, it's a quote from Walt Whitman. He's taking his kid to school and he saw a quote from Walt Whitman. and he said it would be less judgmental more curious something like that right yeah

Alexbe curious not judgmental and that was Whitman yeah yeah yeah oh I got it right

MerlinI'm gonna find that for notes don't don't

Alexhey future Alex don't don't doubt yourself when you're like 99%

Speaker Asure hey future Alex sing the body electric bitch you contain multitudes

Alexyou contain multitudes and you could you do that you could have corrected Merlin when he got wrong what a da was but you didn't Oh, yeah.

MerlinI also misquoted, I think I misquoted a Shelley poem recently. Oh, and I forgot, John Keats' quote is not Ode on a Grecian urn. It's Endymion. I had to read Endymion for a class I had called Long Poems. Suggestion, don't take a class called Long Poems. No. Because it's one thing to read The Wasteland. Everybody loves The Wasteland. But then you also have to read John Keats' Endymion. You have to read, of course you read Leaves of Grass and shit like that. You read Patterson by the great William Carlos, Wendy Carlos, William Williams.

William Williams. Now I'm doing a John Cale joke. Do you know that song, Paris 1919? Do you know that song?

AlexNope.

MerlinYou're going to listen to it. Okay, I'm going to write it down.

AlexThis isn't Rectiffs, where John got wrong.

MerlinOh, I played it for you in the covers episode.

AlexI know, but I don't remember.

MerlinShe's that you're a ghost.

AlexThat song?

MerlinListen to it again. Save it for the show.

AlexI just, I, I, the reason I, I must say the reason I was concerned about your read receipts is because one, they were never on before. And two, it's not about making me feel bad. Well, it's always two things with you where I was like, I see this, this read receipt and I wonder if there's something, if I am letting you down or if there's something more expected of me or if there's another actionable item. and I thought it would no no okay fine he was right it's totally about me and I'm like is this

Merlinlike a subtweet you know it's I'll tell you here's something that's crazy to think that's something so crazy to think and this has an impact on so many parts of my life in ways that I wish it didn't but um you ever think about this like think about so like you have the people in your life that you nominally love like there are people in your life and like you have a bond with them right but what if somebody took your love and went a little bit prisoner's dilemma on both of your asses and what if so prisoner's dilemma right classic game theory time for some game theory

they put you in different rooms and they say shit that's not true to you and your partner in an attempt to undermine your relationship what don't answer this but think about this what what shit like that are you likely to believe or not believe and maybe more importantly what shit like that do you believe or not believe that your partner will believe could somebody fuck up your 20 30 50 year relationship with one piece of information that's not true and you with the inability to check it do you follow the question

yes and i mean i mean it's one thing to do let's do a paula barbie area let's do a you know Finding out that your partner is a very different person than you thought and that they do terrible things and that they might potentially kill you, that kind of thing. Some people stay in that relationship. Some people don't. But I do. I do. I wonder that here because it's like I like to think that you and I have a pretty good relationship. And it would it would pay me to think that the way I do or don't respond to a text message would make you wonder if we're friends.

and yet I totally understand that.

AlexAnd it's, I think...

MerlinYou got Prisoner Dilemma, bitch.

AlexNo.

Oh, boy. Real quick.

MerlinHour and 30 minutes. Read me a fucking dream. Piece of shit. Read it. Walt Whitman. I'm on the page for Walt Whitman. I'm on, who's good but a little overrated. I think Allen Ginsberg took what he did and went to the next level. You understand? And that's why he was able to see him in the supermarket.

Was he lost in the supermarket like Joe Strummer or Mick Jones? I think it's probably Mick Jones. Now, Paul Simenon, he does not get the credit he deserved. The hair that I have, as I said to John Syracuse, right now I look like a less handsome Paul Simenon, trying to look like him for Punk Rock Day. you like the clash alex it's a band

Alexi'm familiar

Speaker Aum all right um this efficiency and progress are ours once more now that we have the new Tehran bomb.

MerlinNo, never heard a word.

Speaker AThat was a joke. What about Shirley Jackson's book, The Lottery?

AlexWell, this week, Nazi Punk's Fuck Off has been in every one of my dreams except one.

Speaker ASo you've been to school for a year or two and you know you've seen it all. Right, all right.

AlexNext.

Speaker AReference and acknowledge. Reference and acknowledge.

AlexHere's one. Like yesterday, a reel from Riot's C-SPAN and Talking Heads from Cable News. I would not be able to tell you if this was a dream or if this was real, if you played the clips back to back. For some reason, Mike Pence was a little more attractive than in real life. um there my co-worker kara and i except it wasn't kara we were brought into a room by a boss that we knew was republican for some reason and he took away our health care on the

Speaker Aspot um really are you serious oh alex you hate that you love your health care i love my health

Alexcare uh maddie brought over her best friend um who works in a covid lab and that part is true except they didn't do this but the friend who works in a covid lab uh into our apartment to take care of her because she tested positive i was mad at them and then the best friend punched me in the nose which split open and i woke up with my jaw aching and my head pulsing from sinus pressure and uh they pretty much go on like that which is uh me i was uh at the capital steps uh

but I wasn't there watching a woman get shot. And then there, oh, I can't remember. Still half asleep. I'm at my family's lake house. Brought me there under false pretenses because they didn't like my lifestyle. Pokemon were real, but they were dangerous. And I had access to the boat and tried to escape. And those were the most vivid ones. So I feel like you can see a pattern and they're all about insecurity and fear, especially what took place in that week.

And that's kind of the pattern, but for like real big stuff. But my question to you is when you feel pain in a dream, do you ever feel that pain? Do you ever wake up actually feeling that pain? Physical pain? Yeah, physical pain. Like when I am falling in a dream, I, ugh.

MerlinI don't think so. I sleep wrong sometimes and hurt my ankle, my back, my neck. or all the rest of my body. I sleep wrong. There's a thing that happens in middle age, Alex. Really, it's going to be fun for you, which is called sleep injuries, I call it. A sleep injury is where you, it's along the lines of me hurting my back trying to pick up a USB cable. The kind of thing, again, you know what? Marker, there you go. Write it down. You're going to get it. I know. No, I don't think I do. Do you? If you feel physical pain,

have you had times where physical pain in a dream became physical pain in real life?

AlexOh, very, very often. But I think I...

MerlinAlso, it's probably started with an alarm clock, right? You started with... You know, I'm talking about where people hear an alarm clock in the dream, and you're like, oh, well, that's because my alarm clock went off. You probably had physical pain, and then that made a cameo, a Vatican cameo in your dream. Okay.

AlexYes. And I think there seems to be a correlation between me being able to remember my dreams more and waking up with a cleansed jaw or a pulsing head.

MerlinOh, God, yes. And clenched jaw, you know what clenched jaw makes is herty neck.

AlexI know. Yep, yep, yep. And that's, I mean, honestly, it's kind of a nice thing because it's not a nice.

Speaker ABeing alive!

AlexOh, my brain is like something is broken in here. So I'm just going to give you a shooting pain in your jaw. And it's not because you like choked on dick. It's because you had an upsetting dream or something. and then I try to give myself a little back massage, but not at the point where my back hurts and I'm picking up just needles.

MerlinYou should get a magic wand, like a Hitachi for stress relief.

AlexOh, yeah. Have you heard of Casper?

MerlinYou guys know Casper. I'm going to read your short one and then you do another and then I'm going to read a long one. Cool? There we go.

AlexOkay, okay. Let's go.

MerlinOkay, this is the, I was making myself, I hate that phrase, trying to remember to remember, to write down the dreams. So this is January 7th, which I think is about a week ago. It's very short. It's three bullets. McElroy Brothers. Tech to create, store, and throw real-life objects on your phone, like couches, rope ladders, jars, and portals. Now you.

Or I can read my long one, and we can just bounce, because it is getting very long.

AlexRead my long one, because they're all really sad, or all really violent, and I don't want to rewrite that.

MerlinOkay, you ready?

AlexIt involves heads.

MerlinI'm going to read this. Go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com. I'm going to read this.

AlexJoeRoganPodcast.club

MerlinHere's what I'm going to do. I'm going to read this. I'm going to pause for a second. You're going to make a little giggle. I'm going to hit the bell, and then we're going to take our break. Are you ready?

AlexAll right. All right. All right. Action.

MerlinThere are always four generators, but only one is a vitally active engine. We've never figured out which one is the real engine, nor what it actually powers. But almost everyone agrees it must be something very important. The generators never let on. They definitionally cannot. And the generators are always in the quarter, a top quarter of the interface, evenly spaced, and literally justified. And they come back to me most nights for almost six weeks. They are starved for something to power, but utterly discouraged about finding one man to fully appreciate them. It hurts not to be picked, even or especially if you suspect you power nothing.

I am curious about the engine, but incapable of ever understanding it. I keep analyzing the wrong generator, I'm pretty sure. Then the Paris airport again, and there are no easy hot wings, but I'm in first class and I'm terrified to have no money. The first class cabin is lush, but my family is in a hovel that hasn't had electric since before the fishbowl war. I try to play it cool But I cannot even remember the fishbowl war

AlexHow many milligrams of edibles are you taking?

Speaker AListen smartass Okay now the show's not over Hey fuck you

AlexNo it's over it's over

MerlinMarib no no no Alright alright Marijuana makes you dream less

AlexOh really?

MerlinTo know an issue I think so I don't know Cut it off wherever you want Quinn Wherever it's funny

Thank you.

Show notes

Transcript

222. Scarf Time

Show notes

Transcript

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