224. America is My Marriott

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. This week's challenge, solve a problem with a large bag.

Speaker AHello.

AlexYou know, in this new digital age, now more than ever, as we're all using Zoom, I don't think that having Zoom and Skype open at the same time should cause a computer that was purchased like a year ago to freak the fuck out. But that's fine. Oh, I don't know.

MerlinIs that why you were on video?

AlexI think so, because I was just sending a Zoom call, and I mean, glad all the moms and dads out there know how to do all of this. Goodness gracious.

MerlinSo if you haven't been able to glean this, there's a lot going on here. A lot of it based around, well, the pre-existing pandemic things, but then there's just been this, since November, there's been this construction thing going on at our house that's really disruptive.

Speaker AI've told you about it.

MerlinAnyway, so like three or four days of the last week or so, my kids had to do school at the office. So you listen to Back to Work. You know this part. So basically I had to move some things around. Whatever. Who cares? It's easy. It's not difficult.

AlexOh, I care. A lot of people care.

MerlinWell, I mean, no, no, no. But given that I have an office and a teenager, like, it's cool that there's a place where she can go. And anyway, whatever.

Speaker BOh, that's right. A teenager.

MerlinSo here's the thing to know, though. Yeah, I know. Can you believe that Pokemon trainer? She's Ash. Isn't that cute? Oh, yeah. A little Ash. But I only say this because, God, I really shouldn't say this. This is not a reflection on anybody. This stuff is so hard. But, you know, my kids, she's 13. She's in her room almost all the time, which is fine. She, you know, hangs out. Sometimes she has dinner a little bit, and sometimes she watches five minutes of TV before going back to FaceTime with her friends. But that's fine.

It's great. That part is actually fantastic. What I'm trying to get at is—I'm sorry, it's still early. I'm trying to get at is that I don't hear her school calls. And my wife doesn't hear them either. Like she's working in a different room under normal conditions and my kids in her room. And, um, I mean, I've gotten this sense for a while, for example, that, you know, she, she uses her phone, you know, during the day, like she responds. She, she now gets notifications for my tweets and she made a meme about me.

She now sends a meme about me. She made a meme. Okay. I'll send you the meme. I have been able to guess or glean what it's like. Okay, let's get this out of the way. Here we go.

Speaker BI'm sorry. I just...

MerlinAnd so basically, when she is, as we'll learn in a minute, just trying to keep her sanity through the day, and she tweets at me every single time. It used to just be as simple as, nice tweet, dad. And then it became... And then she would just repeat the exact words of the tweet, copy and paste within like 30 seconds. and they became a bit, of course, which is like you're killing your father. You're banned. I'm cutting off your internet. You can't go to school anymore. You have to go live in Ireland and be a nun.

But then she did make this and she started sending that to me.

Speaker BOh.

Speaker AYeah, she has apps now. She has apps for making memes. Oh, gosh.

MerlinShe has, apart from the family notes, she has one note called Copy Pasta, where she puts all the things that she does to try and get thrown out of text threads, including the entire text of John Mulaney's New in Town.

Speaker BOh, my God.

MerlinThe entire show. She'll just drop that into text.

Speaker AAnd I'm New in Town.

Speaker BI'm Gabe, I have AIDS.

Speaker AI have AIDS, and I'm New in Town. You know, like, somebody smokes too many cigarettes. Those too many scratchy lotteries. Paying the ponies. Just an hour of that. And then it fades out. Executive producer Dick Wolf.

Adal contusions.

What I've sent to Alexandra is the classic meme format.

Merlinof uh impact white impact all caps with a black uh you know border and i guess is this is this a

Alexknown meme the image well that's what not surprises but impresses me this is like a new level this is one a very new meme but you know now i'm in old so i don't okay get them as early but it's like next level

Merlinmemery. It's a woman lying on her side in bed and a man

AlexYeah.

MerlinAnd the top part of the she's asleep and he's awake and she says, wake up babe, new Merlin man tweet. And I don't know

Alexquite how to say this but typically I've seen it shared with like, wake up babe insert completely banal pointless

Speaker AYes. Well, no, and that's exactly what it is for sure.

MerlinIt's so cute. So, you know, you've been in my office. And so like I've been rescheduling, starting the shows early with her shows. And then I just go like hang, I close the big, you know, curtain. It separates the, you know, there's the kind of like studio part, if you like. And then long story short, I'm laying on the couch looking at my iPad. and so she had to be here for the first day. Remember, this is the first day. I want to say it was the first day of the new semester and the first, like over 30 minutes into the call,

I think it was 44 minutes into the call, I texted her 20 feet away and I said, be honest, is it like this all the time? Because 30 of those 44 minutes were mostly talking about Zoom and it was talking about who I'm going to get into the breakout room and if you get thrown out, you can come back in. I'm waiting. Now I see it. I don't know if you ever saw Romper Room when you were a kid, but at the end of every episode, the woman holds up this mirror with no glass in it and looks through it at the audience and says,

Romper, Romper, Stomper, Boo. I see Alex and I see Matthew. And it's just names of a bunch of kids. That's what this was like. It was like this for a long time. Okay, Josiah, Daenerys, Wendigo, like, I need you to get to the breakout room. Okay, I'm going to change that breakout room because two of the three people in the breakout room aren't here today. And this just keeps going on. And I peek around and she's like, yeah, no, it's like this all the time. Now, understand, they've already been through a full semester of this. This is merely just after a couple weeks off, you come back.

And this is, so this is, you know, half, it's over a semester into the process of doing this. And that's still where they are. and subsequent times she's been here it's equally bad it's not the teacher's fault it's not anybody's

Alexfault but it's just it's excruciating i would say it's the fault of certain people in the united

Merlinstates government but oh yeah no that's i mean i i there's those kinds of things during corn where it seems pointless to even say it because we've said it so many times but i mean there are people like Tony Sindelar, my friends of mine who are teachers, know this. It's like, you know, you can't just slap an adjective in front of a noun and act like it's the same thing as the original noun. So there's education. What kind of education? Well, in this case, it's, you know, middle school education in a, you know, semi-urban area and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You can add those

kinds of adjectives and you can have a specialty. But I'm here to tell you, bud, education is not the same thing as online education. They weren't trained to do this. They had to cobble together the equipment, the curriculum. Alex, I've wanted to cancel well-paying talks just because I'm not allowed to use my own computer for the presentation. You know what I mean? I'm crazy picky about that

Alexstuff. I know many people who do that. It's all wild. Well, it's like, yeah,

MerlinI mean, like, you know, we talked about this in a pretty fun Back to Work episode a million years ago called, I think it's called no, you can't have a candle. And it's like how we all, you know, thank God we're not all Seth Godin. No, I'm a nice guy, nice guy, friend of the show. But like, you know, but you're not going to come out there and like bust balloons on stage and spin plates and do the bullet trick and stuff like that. It's just, I don't know where I'm going with this, but it made my heart so heavy because I was like, oh my God. And I'm just, I'm going to be that guy. I'm going to be that dad for it. My kid's pretty smart. She's pretty quick and she's a leader.

Like she is the one who helps keep people on track. She helps people with their tech problems. She is, as I said one time after a teacher call, teacher said, like, my biggest concern right now is that Emma's having to do so much of the leadership in the room so I'm not around, and I want to know how I can help make that less difficult. And I was like, oh.

And so it just goes on like that. And I said, you know, I know this is absolutely no consolation, but I said, I am really deeply sorry that you and your peers are going through this. It's utterly unacceptable. and every single one of you deserves better. And like, what do we know when you got a class where, you know, every kid has different needs, right? Well, I'm here to tell you, I'm going to tell you a second thing, because it's always two things with my kid.

You, if you are the kid who's like doing okay, and you are the kid with resources, and you are the kid, God, with their own room, and, you know, and you do okay on the homework and stuff like that, you're not going to get a ton of attention. Or when I say attention, I don't mean as in like you're a dancing monkey, But I mean as in like how can I make this 20% better for you? Like you're going to have to spend that time because of resource and time limitations. You're going to have to spend that time on the kid who needs it today. And if you're not the kid who needs that, like you're going to have to just make your own way and paste a lot of John Mulaney bits into the text channel while you're in school.

Because it's – Alex, it's excruciating. The signal to noise ratio is unbelievable. Why am I telling you this? You go through this all the time, I'm sure, with trying to conduct work. But sorry, it's just such a bummer.

AlexBut I'm not a child. And I'm also, I mean, not equipped with the skills, but it became part of my job to do so. So I get the money for fixing the breakout rooms, you know? Like, and a lot of teachers are being paid to teach and do the wonderful Zoom tech support.

MerlinAnd this ended up being a lot of what Syracuse and I talked about the other night, a really fine episode. But how do we get to this? I'll start with talking about John's, I say diet, but basically John's eating habits. And we're talking about that and like the difficulty of being in the position that he's in at home and being a developer and manager. I don't, I don't think he likes that term. I don't like that term, but you know, a lot of what he does is coordinating and like, you know, getting things together and mentoring and all these kinds of things.

So he's a practitioner with the Pearl, but he's also like, he's got to do people stuff and he has to be like available. He feels like he has to be available. Right. And it's like, he can't even like go and have lunch without sitting there with a laptop, which is like so, that's so toxic to me. I don't know. The thing I ended up saying to John is like, it's just, it's a bummer that when we allow the culture of our team to be defined by the handful of most broken people and then for that to become sort of like, as our friend used to say, operationalized in such a way that somebody's chronic bad habits

has now become all but official, you know, culture for what we do. And, you know, there was a time when there were more resources for public schools, right? So you'd have a librarian, an assistant librarian. You'd have the AV person who, like, wheels the TV into class when you're going to watch the, you know, World Series parade or whatever. You know what I mean? And, like, there were all these different people to fill all these different roles. And I know that still exists.

AlexIn private schools?

MerlinWell, yeah, but, like, at her elementary school, they had, like, a grand total of, I think, two and a half part-time janitors title. And they would do the school up every night. And they'd walk around. Because what I'm saying is like even the most ideal circumstances, even in just what we could call normal circumstances, they don't have money for books, let alone like a ventilation system and a way to train people in four weeks. Schools are open. Schools are not going to be open. We're doing this. We're doing that. We were all in on remote education.

And then we went, oh, now we're all in on reopening. Oh, hang on a minute. We're not ready for that. We're back all in, mostly all in on distance learning. It's just, God, we're fucking near into this and it's still such a shit show. It's arguably worse in some ways because we don't even have optimism anymore. Well, we have some optimism, but I'm sorry.

AlexI refuse to accept that. Apologize.

MerlinI don't want to become the guy who just bitches for money. That's no fun.

Speaker AHit that bell, fam. I'm practically a streamer now, Alex. You should see this set up.

AlexAre we going to talk about the octopus? Okay, we'll save the octopus.

MerlinWell, you know, a good way to hear us talk about whatever the hell it is that I'm doing, and if you know, please, write Alex. You can come to listen to the After Show, a way that you can support this program. and keep us how we're... Let's not bullshit about this. You have money and we want it. So much.

Speaker APlease. Yeah, please. Please.

MerlinSome of us want more boobs. Some of us want fewer boobs. There's so much to be done.

AlexOh, that's something to talk about in the after show.

MerlinFor the after show, you go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com and for a small tithe each month, you get nothing. You get the joy of hearing me Fucking bitch about everything. Boo who?

AlexI have to say, I was going through, I think we talked about this in the after show. See listeners. Give us your back to money.com.

MerlinYeah.

AlexYeah. Also, Joe Rogan podcast.club.

MerlinJoe Rogan, who for five minutes my daughter thought was the name of a former president.

AlexOh, okay. can we talk about that for a quick, quick second?

MerlinI'm writing it all down. Cause well, I, I, I finally figured it out, figured out what happened and it's actually incredibly sensible, but no, go ahead. She texted you about this. I said, you might want to text. And she, she, she laid on the beanbag chair after dinner cackling in that way that only like a tweener or a teen, she, she would, she would cackle, like scream laughing and then it would pause for like 10 seconds and then it a comeback twice as loud because she thought it was so hilarious that she thought there was a

Alexformer president named Joe Rogan, President Joe Rogan. You might say that a co-host that you have does something similar and was doing something similar as we were texting about this.

Speaker AYes, I figured you'd like that. My dad said I should text you this because he said you would think it's funny it is it's a presidential day and i was like oh emma you don't know the journey alexandra has been on with joe rogan i i imagine it's over but i don't know if i'll ever really know i think there's still i think there's still a little bit of dick in that zipper there's i think you're still i think you are still internally interrogating the idea of president joe rogan and just asking the question like why do people why maybe everybody else is doing that

too, Alex. Have you thought of that? Maybe everybody that's made him the most popular podcast in history. You know, maybe it's all people going, what's the deal with President Rogan? Rogan?

Speaker BRogan? Spotify? The question?

Speaker AOh, I'm a seeker. All right. Go ahead. Go on with your Rogan self.

AlexI don't know what conclusion we came to initially but i think it was i i was like one yes it does rogan and rate like we were like okay reagan it makes sense uh joe biden like i can see how a brain man and joe joe biden exactly joe biden ronald reagan right but but remember the like all all the fucking edge lords were like had joe rogan hosted debate moderate house who the fuck is

Merlinno no yeah absolutely but like get somebody in there who can who's not afraid to ask the question not somebody who's gonna just just asking the question somebody who's not just gonna be mincing

Alexaround up there like chris wallace you know does he mince oh gosh i mean neolib take but i did feel

Merlinbad about that oh man did you see did you see the did you see the jk rowling contrapoints i am

Alexhalfway through. It's long.

MerlinIt's long. We watched the whole thing yesterday afternoon. My God.

AlexThere were points.

MerlinJoanne.

AlexOh, Joanne.

MerlinThat one slide, the one slide she threw up of it was basically getting to this whole like, look, you know, here's what bigotry is. Like there's this kind of hard bigotry over on this left side, which is like exclusion and, you know, harassment and there's kind of softer bigotry and I was like like mind blown like yes this is you really just nailed it and not just the cancel culture bullet but all of the like you know all the ways that people are just asking the question that's totally

Alexbullshit and Joanne knows it I so I'm trying to give more I'm sorry I'm all over the map today I love it I love it you're you're very much an Alex today which am I on your wavelength be honest Yes. Well, I think if I had not listened to Back to Work this morning, I would have been concerned. Not because you were bummed out. I felt like you were very passionate about the situation. All of the great, terrible situations.

MerlinAll the great situations, yeah.

AlexAnd I there was a I think I put it on Twitter, just the part of that you you mentioned that you're afraid that we're turning a corner where we're not going to be giving people as much slack and we're not going to be as understanding.

MerlinWe're going to grind, I mean, to use a car analogy, we're going to be grinding a lot of gears as we try to get back into something eventually. And we're going to be reminded, in the same way I feel like in somewhat of an inversion, like we learn how many things we didn't know were related in January, February, March, April, right? Like, oh, man, so if that happens, this happens. And if people can't eat out, then people who work in restaurants, they'll get paid and like all the kinds of things. And a theme for me for months has been like I can think a little bit ahead, but I can't think much ahead right now.

I don't know what's around the corner. But I think now that corner has been arrived at. And now we're going to see how hard it is to get into the right gear because we're going to have to reconnect a lot of stuff that for so many reasons got broken or disconnected or neglected.

AlexOr jobs that existed might not exist anymore. Like in – it's –

MerlinI said to Madeline this morning, I honestly don't understand how the economy is still running. I know that that's nothing new. I don't really understand what the economy is. But like I think I roughly understand the idea that people exchange goods and services for money and then that enables them to buy goods and services. But I thought – I don't know how anybody is making it right now. I really – I just don't understand it.

AlexMm hmm. I well, the answer, unfortunately, I think, is most people aren't and they're just really good at hiding it. I've noticed actually that a lot of people who have have experience with either severe or even moderate mental illness. It's not that they are coping better necessarily, although I do know some folks who are. but they are more like the expectations they as if it's not me well they like this this was a big

Merlintheme on this week's special edition of election profit makers the uh the all the all misconnections uh the whoops all misconnections where a lot of the people were you know we're talking about their what did starley say like what they're working on or whatever the person who has learned he's on the spectrum and there's you know all these different people and i think a lot of times it's people who have been through that a little bit and it didn't go horribly they know how to pick up the red phone i think the struggle for people like you're describing if i'm understanding what

you're saying is that they've never had to pick up the red phone before and they're not sure if it's even hooked up they don't even know there's a phone a hundred percent but what is another offshoot of this like the hurricane's coming be safe do self-care oh sweetie sorry I guess I'm doing my coughs oh sweetie but like you know what does that even mean how do I get help how do I do self-care how do I do any of that stuff and also I'm really embarrassed that I need self-care I'm just saying that's like I think a thing a lot of people is just bouncing around yeah I'd love it

if somebody came and cut my steak and fix my shit but like I don't even know who to call about that and I'd feel like an idiot doing it because I know everybody else is sad right now too

AlexYeah. Yeah. I don't know. And also people are learning things about themselves that they maybe didn't want to or were repressing. And welcome to Dubai Friday, the show where we talk about election profit makers, one of our favorite podcasts. But as Starley was –

MerlinI want to learn to say hi the way Starley does. It's so adorable. She goes, hi. See, if I do that, that would be weird.

AlexHi. Hi.

Speaker BI'm going to stop.

Speaker AJohn Kibble, I have vitiligo too. I love that show so fucking much.

Speaker BIt's so good.

Speaker AWhat do you call himself? The pedal yenta? All right. I like podcasts. Yes, I do. I like podcasts. How about you, President Rogan?

AlexI'm surprised at how many people keep saying, oh, it's been, you know, two years since my last relationship, three or four years since my last relationship.

Speaker AAnd then what does Starley always say?

AlexIt's like, no, it hasn't. You lost a year to quarantine.

Speaker AYeah. Not three years. It's two years. It doesn't count.

AlexYeah.

Speaker AAnd you're not allowed to, as Starley implies, I'm barely keeping it together. I've got sweatpants with one leg at this point. I don't know what I'm doing. And you are not allowed to be out there doing your postmortem about all the shit you got done in the last 10 months. Fuck you.

I just keep buying lights and tripods to stay sane. I mean, you need it for your work.

MerlinCan you believe it's only been – we're in our eighth day now of the new administration? Doesn't it feel – those first two days felt like, in a wonderful way, felt like six months in some ways?

AlexThe only reason I know is because I keep, I've been trying very hard to get a better grasp on time. Because, you know, depending on the president's tweet, it used to just warp time into making a week, a year or a day, 15 minutes. and each day that's like normal is i don't even like saying it's normal i but we've we've covered

all this and now more than ever but uh something doesn't it's not any less real though i mean it

Merlinit feels like a cliche because we say it over and over but like it's also i mean there's a reason bernie's cool there's a lot of reasons bernie's cool one reason bernie's cool the criticism of Bernie, one of them has been like, oh, God, he doesn't have any fresh ideas. He's been saying the same thing since, you know, 1980 or whatever. And you're like, yeah, you know what else? He's been saying the same thing since 1980. I mean, as much as I love the reformation of Grandpa Uncle Joe, I think there's something to be said for like going, you know, hey, you know, that problem's not

solved. And what if I told you it's gotten a lot worse? Even all the time, you'd be moaning and rolling your eyes about how often Bernie keeps saying the same thing. And that's what's true right now. Time is still fucked up. It is still, I mean, like it's still, I don't, you know, I think people misuse that phrase rollercoaster. Like it's an emotional rollercoaster. What you mean is you're sad and sadder. Like, you know, there's not, an emotional rollercoaster could be, for example, a wedding of someone that you love because you feel a lot of different feelings in rapid succession.

But like, you know, this has not been a rollercoaster. This has been like a tower of terror that just doesn't have a bottle.

AlexWell, and to get to that, like, let's say you are on that roller coaster and you're feeling great about the administration and you see that Biden watch is trending on Twitter. Where does your mind immediately go? Because mine went to, oh, he's dying. Definitely dying. Something's going to happen. No, it was literally about like.

MerlinWell, let me guess. Let me guess. Let me guess. Let me guess. Let me guess. I bet that's one of those let's get this trending bullshittery. And my guess would be that it's about his mental health or his, you know, acuity. What was it really?

AlexIt was about his literal watch he was wearing. And it was in like the.

MerlinOh, the Rolex that he did or didn't wear.

AlexYeah. Yeah.

MerlinI'm like, what?

AlexWhat? everybody has to eat I hate

Merlinyou know maybe there'll be a trend piece there'll be a trend piece about that you know the trend piece is about realizing that things are different than they were

Alexyeah

Merlinthat Jen Psaki boy I would have followed her for six months in college it's so nice to see her up there and like being smart and being competent and like and being normal and like saying, yeah, I'm going to circle back to you on that. Like, I don't have anything for you on that. Like, but still like, anyway, I've said enough about Jen Psaki. It's getting weird. But I, that in some ways is one of the most like visible things where I'm like, oh, fuck. Yes. Like, this is, this is what I'm talking about. Like, you know, Paris Climate Accord, you know, Muslim ban, like all that stuff.

Nope, nope, nope. Sorry. Escape, escape, escape. We're done with all of that. Also, also we brought in somebody who's not a weird blonde. we brought in somebody competent who used to work in the state department

Speaker Aand like everyone else in our administration understands how government works it's like it's so it's just crazy it's like you've got this ragtag band of corrupt merry men cycling in and out for the last four years and then suddenly fucking Mossad comes in they're like let me help you with that

Speaker Bwe are trained killers

AlexI mean I think I sent this to you well then I found out everybody had read it I have no idea what is big or what is not anymore because I'm not off Twitter but sometimes I'm healthy enough to go for 24 hours without looking at it and I then saw oh my god there's a piece in the New York Times with Fauci on what working for Trump was really like

and of course, you know, I'm me so I'm like, oh, I gotta gobble this up and then give me the gossip and you slurp it up

MerlinI want the juices to run down my face put it right in there

Speaker AI just want to feel something I'm just so sad

AlexI'd rather be ignorant

Speaker Athat's sad please uh-huh yeah exactly it's like it's like you know you hit your finger with a hammer it hurts less than you see yourself on the forehead to make it hurt more i'm so sick of my

Alexthumb hurting but what the piece really what what the piece really illustrated was oh this isn't Sure, like it's not a return to normal, but it's a return to the adults getting back into the room. And it's like there are competent project managers again. And I don't think this was in the piece, but Fauci did just straight up say it in one press briefing, I think.

The first refreshing thing about this administration is it's okay to say we don't have an answer or we don't know.

MerlinExactly. Don't don't don't make it up. Yeah. And he was on one of the cable news shows. I curse myself with watching and they were probably MSNBC. But anyway, somebody was asking him, you know, you you know, you said something like, you know, Brian Williams was doing his like, I'm going to tell you what I think you're going to say. And then you tell me if that's right thing that he likes to do. But yeah, it's fine. But whatever. And I think it was him because and he says like, OK, so it seemed like, you know, you. I think he said in his own words that he was very, wasn't relieved, but there was something,

there was a word that he used when asked about how did it feel working with or for Trump versus now? Like, do you feel like a burden has been lifted? And I think in his own very, it's not even that he's, he is decorous, but even more than that, he just doesn't want to fucking, he doesn't want to get involved in that. You know, he doesn't want to get involved in all the drama of that. But anyway, in this one particular interview they talked about, he's like, well, you can see in this one press briefing, like, you know, he's practically ebullient.

Speaker AHe's almost giddy. And he says, I'll tell you why.

MerlinHe says, that's because I had just come from a meeting with the new president where he – we had a meeting because he just wanted to assure me that a science-based approach would be the only way that we would be proceeding.

Speaker BOh, fucking shit.

MerlinBut like, how weird is that? I mean, it's just, it's so fucking weird. I told you that story about how we and some other folks had rented a house in Hawaii 11 years ago, something like that. And the place got robbed and we were pretty sure it was an inside job from the folks who own the hotel. They had a very surgical strike, a window that...

AlexI thought you meant that it was like, I don't know, another tech boy being like, oh, I'll I'll take.

Speaker AOh, God, no.

AlexI don't know what it is.

Speaker AOh, God, no. I want this many USB cables. I've got the MacBook with the book you'll never finish.

Speaker BWee-hee.

MerlinNow I'm off to jack my mean bone. So anyway, but, you know, it was so stressful. It sucked. It was just so stressful. And the extra, like, to add insult to injury, it was pretty obvious that given conditions like they knew where we were, what we had, but also this window that had been on inspection, you could tell, oh, this is so not the first time this ever happened at this place with this particular window.

But anyway, whatever, boo-hoo, bad vacation, but we were so stressed out. And then when we left, I think I told you this story. When we left, we just went to, you know, we're a Marriott family. And we went to Marriott and we arrived there.

Speaker AAnd they were like, hello and welcome. Here's your room. I'm like, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for having us here.

MerlinAre we safe? And they're like, oh, yes. And you can have drinks by the pool and we can bring you a sandwich.

Speaker AAnd, oh, would your daughter like to have a toy? And you're like, oh, God, you're being so nice to me. I feel like, you know, it's like letting Patty Hearst out of the closet. Yes, it is to go rob a bank. Yes, it is to rob a bank. You will wear a beret and carry a gun, but at least you're not in the closet. Count your blessings. Thank you very much. You know, and that's how I kind of feel right now. I kind of feel like America is my Marriott.

Merlinall right all right all right let's keep it what else we got we got okay we got president

Alexjoe rogan for later we got camera stuff for later well do you what is oh this is the wrong Master proposal. What is that? Okay. Master proposal. That's very upsetting.

Speaker AI am your daddy. I am master proposal. And I have a proposal for you.

AlexI really, I still hope the pee tape is out there. And I really, really hope he's, I just want Trump to be a bottom. So, oh, I don't want to stop talking about him. Or I do want to stop talking. Oh, God, see the Freudian slip.

MerlinPresident Rogan will release it. Here's my thought on that. I also would like the tape of the P to be out there. But here's the thing that consoles me. I bet that either it doesn't exist or doesn't exist in the way we think or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think basically he paid some ladies to be on a bed. But I will say this, and this is very much going to be one of those we've got in this time, which is like, you know, time is not – time and evidence are not the friend of the ex-president. You know, Access Hollywood, Charlottesville, Muslim Band, Sean Spicer.

There are all these things where you're like, no way is this going to get stupider. And it always did get stupider. And also in each instance, there's never a case. Well, I say never, but I bet there's almost never been a case where we go, whoops, he wasn't as bad as we thought. No, he's worse than we thought. And it gets worse.

AlexWe're going to see way worse tapes, I bet.

Merlinthat's the thing I am saying. That is what I'm thinking. Maybe it's just merely my hope, but I hope there's some super fucked up stuff. I hope he's got that, like that, just a photo of him. Like, I don't want to kink shame, but you know, I don't like posing with that, with that nine pound dildo or something like, so I like, I'd like it to be something really, really wild, you know, find out that he likes to, you know,

see, I don't want to say anything because I don't want to yuck on somebody's yum, but he's gross. And you're all just going to have to deal with that. And, you know, somewhere out there. There's got to be some information on that guy. You know what? I'll even take more of those Molly Haberman behind the scenes things about like how he gets spray tanned. I'll take more of those. That's all I can get. But also it is nice. It is nice. And it is weird to not have him be at the center of everything right now.

Speaker AAnd I secretly worry that impeachment is going to really be bad.

MerlinBut I said that in passing. But I, everybody keeps saying the same thing, which is let's put this behind us. but like what we mean by put this behind us really differs from person to person. I want Joe Biden to get all his cabinet people. I want him to give everybody all of the money. I want him to be able to do good things. And I don't, I don't want everybody to be distracted in a way that isn't actually very, I don't want people to be distracted,

distracted in a way where this shit's never going to happen. He's not going to get voted out. I mean, and you're not, I mean like, okay. And you're going to ban him. I mean, he's an old dude. Like worst case, like you take away his bennies, his futures and benefits, and you take away his ability to fundraise against a theoretical future presidential run. But I don't know.

AlexI mean, that's the issue that I have is I want so badly for this man to – I want this man to be embarrassed and suffer and be shunned from –

MerlinI want him to be sad. I want Don Jr. to be very, very sad.

AlexI was like, if he dies of COVID, I will be so mad. I don't.

MerlinOkay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Secret Service. That didn't happen. Quinn has edited that out.

AlexI said I didn't want him to die. I said I didn't want him to die. That's all I said.

MerlinOh, is that how we're doing this? I didn't want him to die of COVID. I see. Never have I ever not. What?

AlexBut that's the problem is we were I feel gross when people just dunk on the media for like playing into Trump's hand and covering it because it was free campaigning. But because everybody's got to eat like Maggie Haberman at the end. I think it's Molly. But these are all I don't know. It's it's really fucking hard. And I hate it. Yes. But Donald Trump is, I think, the best entertainer I've ever seen in my life.

Like, there is nothing more entertaining.

MerlinYeah. I mean, he's kind of a classic Las Vegas act in a lot of ways. Like, he's showy. He understands the proscenium effect. Look it up. But he's also really good at sleight of hand and, as I say, classic misdirection. He's really—I don't know how the guy's still standing. I do want Don Jr. to be extremely sad. I think he's already extremely sad, but I have different sort of medieval ideas in my head about what I'd like to happen to each family member that I will not share here. But it is a little bit saw.

AlexYou just don't want them to die of COVID. That's all we're saying.

MerlinNo, no, it has nothing to do with dying.

Speaker AYou know, it's very much. Oh, then I will allow you to die.

MerlinNo, I'm talking more like I would like Jared to have a maybe a crescent moon shaped cold sore about three quarters of an inch on the side of his face for the rest of his life. And I want it to not really ever totally scab over, let alone heal. I'd like it to be weeping a little bit. I would like him to be weeping. I want his face to weep. I want him to be a grotesquerie. I would like, maybe I'm thinking of Saw. Maybe I'm thinking of thinner.

I would like it to be as though he has run over America's Gypsy Woman. And I would like very bad things. Roma Day. I would like something very bad to happen to him. But no, I don't want anybody to die. I just want people to be happy.

Speaker BB.

MerlinWake up, babe. Merlin's mad about something. We could also talk about pandas. One idea for a challenge is you talk to your therapist about what your fucking problem with pandas is. And I talk to my therapist about what my problem with manatees is and how much it is actually a bit or not.

AlexOK, OK.

MerlinYou're like Chili, the elf who cannot love.

Speaker AIt just wants to fall off the snowball. What the fuck's wrong with you?

AlexMaybe, you know what? Maybe pandas are to me like what Trump was to Maggie Haberman. Like we need to exist.

MerlinOr like the way I look at anything that ends with Chan.

Speaker AThere's not a place in my life for thinking this is good. You hate pandas. You hate them.

AlexI don't hate them. I am so confused.

Speaker AYou despise them. You despise their weakness. I do not.

AlexI was burning in the bamboo.

Speaker AWhat is this thing called play? Why would you play?

AlexBut is the... Okay. Okay.

Speaker AOkay. Okay.

AlexStop.

Speaker AFolks. Scratching lotteries.

AlexCome on, man.

Speaker AFolks. Hey, listen. We need to talk, fam. We need to talk. We need to talk about Joanne.

AlexLet me turn around my wildlife chair. And so you want to talk about pandas.

Speaker AHey, gang. Let's have a rap session about pandas.

MerlinLook at those little black and white stinkers. What's going on with those guys? Those little Chinese bandits.

Speaker AWas that racist? I love pandas.

MerlinHey, guys. How's it going?

Speaker AHave you ever heard the good word? I'm Robert Panda, your youth minister. The Reverend Robert Panda. Oh, that'd be so cute if your youth minister was a panda and he could play guitar. Oh, my God.

Speaker CSeek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. I just want to get in the bath stick.

Speaker BI'm just thinking of a panda now Beloved let us love one another

Speaker AFor love is of God And everyone who loveth is born of God And knoweth God he loveth not I just want to get in that band stick And they give out little bamboo pieces That's Reverend Panda's catchphrase And then he falls on his bottom

Merlinchallenge oh the challenge this week i don't i do not have much i've got something but not much

Alexoh interesting um you wrote in the doc big bag theory is it that's that's not verbing a noun

Merlinoh i was i was having fun with it oh you found the document okay yeah yeah i was having fun with That's not the real name.

AlexI believe it was do something useful. I wrote it down. Oh, yeah. Something with big bags. Big bags. Big bags. I mean, I love bags.

Speaker ASolve a big bag problem. Big bag solve problem. What is it?

AlexWhat was it? Solve a command F bag. Solve a problem with a large bag. There we go. Cool. and so I solved multiple problems with bags this week and the inspiration from this was actually from the Gardner's quote book that was there are very few problems that can't be solved with a large bag or something like that I love that book yeah it's it's perfect bedtime reading it really is I've very much

come around to it and have maybe read it a second time it's just kind of a delight

Speaker Asolve a problem with a large bag oh i misinterpreted this oh oh i okay all right i can go oh now i do a murder i have

Merlinthings for you solve a problem solve a problem with a large bag see i i i that this needs disambiguation i thought you meant fix a problem that you're having with a large bag oh god that's not any better i thought what you're saying is one starts with a large bag and then develops a problem, how does one fix that? And what you're saying is you get one of those, like, Lane on Gilmore Girls. Like a very, very, very, very very large bag. Remember Lane's suitcase? Do you remember that when her mother's gonna send her away? Do you remember the suitcase? Remember how big it is?

AlexYeah, and all the... Oh, it's so funny.

MerlinThat's a very good visual bit.

AlexThe... I think we've already used it as show art multiple times. It's very good.

MerlinOh, we did. Shit. Lane Kim suitcase.

AlexOh, well, I...

MerlinSaudi Prince Falcon.

AlexI love that. Oh, I wonder what the Falcons are doing now, because if they're not on the planes.

Speaker AOh, right. Are they on the do not fly list?

AlexI don't know.

Speaker AThe Falcons can totally fly.

Speaker BOh, God, I bet they're discriminated against. Because what if.

Speaker AHe's slow, he can fly.

AlexI'm just picturing like the mega moms with eagles on planes. And I don't know.

MerlinI don't know. Oh, interesting. What's the name? Marjorie Taylor Bradford Woodman Green, the horrible QAnon lady. I can see her bringing a fucking bird on a plane.

AlexYeah.

MerlinThat chick is whack. Like she is. She's goofy. She's real goofy. I don't know if you know that.

AlexNo, I thought all of those people were very sane and healthy. well adjusted in their positions and their lives.

MerlinShe yelled at the Parkland man because he got to meet with senators and she didn't.

AlexYeah. Oh, that was from this morning, wasn't it? Was it? I, oh gosh.

MerlinI just saw it in passing yesterday. I don't follow any of this stuff. As soon as I start having any level of engagement with Twitter, I close the app. That's healthy. It's the worst.

AlexIt is. I mean, it's a lot quieter.

MerlinIt's also, but the other part of Twitter, just real quick, is it's also, like, I don't want to say a gateway drug, but, like, the problem is too much Twitter makes you do too much other dumb shit, like reloading websites, because, like, it's the, you get so stoked about, you know, even people I really, really, really like on Twitter, like, there's just, I do feel like the cool political Twitter people, like, there is kind of a new voice that's even more annoying than the old voice.

AlexYes.

MerlinIt's, like, in the, like, last few weeks, let's say, like, it's,

Speaker Awhere it used to be

Merlinnow it's more like hmm so it used to hear the difference it used to be this was Twitter let me get warmed up it used to be this was Twitter and now Twitter is hmm

Alexthere's no more huge if true

Merlinand it could be followed by the word interesting I just think it's very interesting to me that you would die in a fire boy that's a big bag Lane Scott it's a very big bag Yeah, I think we did use that Wow, that's weird I think I probably chose it too I should get back in the closet You know I live near the bank that she robbed?

AlexWhat?

MerlinThe Patty Hearst Bank The Patty Hearst Bank It's, I mean, by Sunset District standards It's close It's more in the inner Sunset But it's also, it's like around the corner from where we adopted Bando

Speaker AI don't know why I think that's cool

MerlinAnd they're still in business It makes me so happy I'm starting to think it's like a family owned business the pet store where we adopted our good lizard boy because they're still open and Jesus fucking Christ this place we should give them a shout out I'll find the name of the place because I forget it right now but they were awesome and they gave us our good boy and it looks like somebody has owned that building it's one of those raggedy ass old city sort of buildings where everything's really gritty inside but it's kind of lovely and lovable and the kind of place where somebody might have their own refrigerator

like out in the middle of the room and a recliner, that kind of place. Not that, but like that. And I wonder if their parents owned it and now they run it. I wonder if that building is owned by them.

AlexOh, my gosh.

MerlinYeah, but so that bank, it was a bank and then it was a blockbuster and then I think it was a bank again.

Speaker BOh, blockbuster. Oh, pause.

MerlinOh, shit. I'm so confused about that. Oh, yeah. Also, here's my sound. The story that you're about to talk about. Here's my sound for this.

Speaker BHmm.

AlexWhat story am I about to talk about?

MerlinThat's the sound of Twitter commenting about GameStop. You ready? Hmm. But anyway, so the famous photo, there's the photo of her on the surveillance footage. Not the one of her in front of the PLO flag. Not PLO. SLA?

AlexOh, I don't know.

MerlinI only know the bank one. Fucking Judean People's Front. People's Front of Judea. Anyway, wow, my head's on a swivel today, isn't it?

AlexI figured that would be the case. Banks, bags. Oh, I wonder what. Are bank robberies still happening? Oh, gosh. Or burglars.

MerlinOkay, so the bank. I'm really, this is too much. I'm not going to get this bad op sec. But yeah, the Bank of America near here got robbed a couple years ago.

AlexNo, no, no. I mean, like in COVID times.

Speaker AOh, I see what you're saying. You do it over Zoom. Yeah. Womp womp.

AlexAnd get the crypto jackets on there. It's like, I'm very passionate about this.

Speaker ACrypto and blockchain and Bitcoin mean different things. Mm-hmm. Pound sign.

AlexEthereum.

Speaker AEthereum. We're having an ICO. Okay. Patty Hearst, bank robbery. Talk about your bag problem. Bags. Bags.

AlexOh, well, you know I'm very passionate about the usage of bags when, well, suitcases, backpacks, all of that. But I haven't needed to use any of those for a while. With the exception that I, well, one problem I solved this week was what if I need, I need to leave the house immediately because Matt has gotten COVID from one of his clients

because one of his clients is a special-

MerlinOh, in that case, you're the Rachel.

AlexYeah.

MerlinYou're Rachel, Matt's the Susan.

AlexYeah. And we talked about this. We were like, oh, we should probably have COVID go bags. Yeah, keep a small backpack. So that's gross. But what I was actually thinking was using this as an excuse to continue to purge our apartment from, you know, as you would say, purge our objects of things

Merlinthat like... Things need to leave my house.

AlexYeah. Well, but also things that that don't define... This sounds very like Buddha-y or the stuff that we don't want to define us or things that we're trying to convince us that we are...

MerlinOr what you're saying is the things you own start to

Alexown you. Is that it? Yeah. I mean that...

MerlinYeah. Buying stuff from Ikea, working for an insurance company. Soap. A lot of people misunderstand Fight Club.

AlexI, yeah, I, yes, I'm told. I've been told many times that I misunderstand Fight Club, the film, and the book.

Speaker AThe third rule of Fight Club is stop talking about the movie Fight Club.

AlexPlease, please.

Speaker AAnyway.

AlexI get it. He's my sister, my mother. Anyway, the-

Speaker ABig bag, big bag, big bag, getting ready, go bag, might have to take somebody to the hospital.

MerlinYou're thinking about the kinds of things. Then we went through this when we were fixing to have a kid, and by that I mean my wife. And so we were very much heavily instructed to have a bag ready to grab. Because that might be Braxton Hicks or it might be your daughter. And you need to bounce.

AlexDid you have a playlist? You don't need to. I have often thought about making a playlist.

MerlinNo, the only thing that she really wanted was a tub. Like a room with a tub. And we were given a room with a tub. She wanted to be able to just give her comfort. to be able to just sit in the bath or squat in the bath or do the kind of pregnant lady things you do with water. But, yeah, we got a tub, a room with a tub. We got real lucky, but it didn't work.

Speaker BOh.

MerlinIt was like Denzel Washington trying to get the lye out of his hair. You're going to stick your head in the toilet, you know what I'm saying? Oh, gosh, it's even worse. Good movie.

AlexDangle that bath. Oh. I don't know why that made me incredibly sad. Oh, wow.

MerlinWhat, Denzel Washington sticking his head in the toilet?

AlexNo, the idea of like, oh, yeah, a bath. Oh.

MerlinYeah, and it also had detritus. It also had detritus because you're thinking of contrapoints, you know, with the milk and roses.

AlexOh, she can. If anybody can look good in a bath, it's Natalie Wynn. My goodness. That's a great look.

MerlinThat's a terrific look.

AlexI love her so much. Anyway, bags.

Speaker AI do, too. As somebody who's had their own running with cancel culture. I got to Natalie surrounded by garbage bags drinking malt liquor.

AlexI mean, at this point, everybody's lives, now more than ever, have been affected by cancel culture.

MerlinSo you're, you're, so, so you're thinking, I mean, partly, I guess it's kind of just a thought exercise, but like, what's a problem I can solve with the use of a large bag and this would be your test case? Does it require getting a new bag? No. What was the thrust of your approach?

AlexI am, well, continuing to solve the problem in my apartment of having too much shit in here and throwing it all away or trying to give it away. But you know what? Nobody wants my micro USB cables, so I'm just going to bite the bullet and I've been throwing them all away.

MerlinNobody wants my micro USB. For some reason, I'm reminded, Jeff Garland had a one-man show he did for a while called I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With. And that's, I think that you just gave a title, No One Wants My.

Speaker BI mean, like a decade of these cables, and they come with every fucking thing. And I'm like, I'm sorry. I know.

MerlinI know. And I have to remember not to organize that. I'm going through a lot right now. as you can imagine with cables right now and things. And it's like, no, wait, stop. Every time you run into the, how about this? How often do you find one of those? And it's still got the twist tie on it.

AlexOh, twist tie and in plastic wrapper. So I'm like, whoop.

MerlinRight, or like when you buy a flight of something, like in some cases I'll buy several of something at one time because they sort of work together. I can't think of a good example of this, but they each come, you get the dingus, you got the box, you got the instructions, and you've got the twist-tied in a plastic bag cable. Oh, gosh, there's six of these? I should keep these because, you know, there's going to be a point when I want a USB-A to micro USB and I'm going to want six of those that are like eight inches long. That's going to be handy.

Maybe someday like these, they have ticker tape parades. Maybe someday there could be a USB cable parade. The astronaut's back. Ow, ow, ow. Quit it. Ow, that hurts.

AlexI mean, there's a time where I would show my tits for a USB-C cable. Like, they're pretty expensive still.

MerlinIt's true. It's absolutely true. I'll tell you, man, these Thunderbolt boys. Oh, wow. Also, I made the stupidest goddamn mistake. I kept getting fancier HDMI cables. I'm not sure why. Have you experienced an 8K HDMI cable?

AlexI have a 20P TV. No, I have not experienced.

MerlinThese things suck. so much. They are like almost half an inch thick probably. You can't, if they arrive coiled, you can't uncoil them. How about this? You stick it in a hub. You stick it in a camera. You stick it in a whatever. And the weight and torsion, the twistiness, rips the HDMI cable out of whatever it's plugged into. TV. Apple TV. Whatever it is. No matter what you do, it just goes whoop! It just whips it right out. fucking embarrassing 8k my ass

Alexwho is this are you trying to impress bando who is this embarrassing

Speaker Athere's too many k's there's too many k's dial it down I ain't talking about Kelvins

Alexoh wait so how did you interpret the bad I actually a frenemy of this show John Syracuse would probably say well Alex did say you're ghost running it's pronounced bag not bag It's bag. You're thinking of bag. Bag. How did you interpret it?

Speaker AAfter not, he'll be known as Professor Gaslight.

Speaker BOh, didn't he? What did he call your haircut?

AlexThe Alex Cox cut or something?

MerlinOh, I think so. Excuse me?

AlexExcuse me? Oh, well, you saw my hair today.

MerlinI bought my own cat clippers for work so I can do it. So I can auto barber. I can barber myself. I bought a second cat clipper just for me at work. So I can just stand there and look at myself in the mirror aging.

AlexIt's a little bit satisfying though, isn't it?

MerlinIt is. It's very satisfying. And so what did you end up in the physical world doing? Large bag.

AlexOh, Lark. I took, well, in fact, Matthew doesn't know this yet. I wonder if he does listen to the show.

MerlinI think Matthew listens to the show. Matthew and Tina are two people from whom I get notes about the show sometimes.

AlexYes, I get many notes.

MerlinThere's a scandal. I don't think John even knows it yet. There's a huge scandal hanging over his family right now. The Christmas tree stand was not his parents.

Alexit was she that got it in 2001 oh oh that's that's that is very oh god that was i offered

Merlinher equal time uh on the program with the provision that that because my my wife uh doesn't have the internet she can never be on the show but tina could she could she could yeah oh my god

Alexthat that watch back that's huge i wish i was kidding i feel like that is a big deal yeah Oh, but I called 1-800-JUNK and scheduled a pick of date.

MerlinThey're expensive, but they're good.

AlexThey are expensive. They're crazy expensive. But then I thought, do I want to risk COVID or spend $100 to get it? Hey, everybody, go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com.

MerlinYeah, so Alex can afford to have two frat boys who smell like smoke come out and go, hey, this is your first time using this?

AlexYeah, and I'm just like-

MerlinIt's called tapas. No, I'm a regular. I'm a regular. There's no batteries. there's no pain. Please don't talk to me. I don't want to be your friend. Please, please, please, please. I don't want to talk to you. Please just take the things. That's the benefit, though. And I've wadiered them about this over time. I think a lot of their business comes from you know, rich lawyers, mother dies and has to clean out house. And so they show up and it's just north of a crime scene and they will clean everything out and charge you a lot and they clean up, which is nice.

And they claim they recycle things, although I don't know how plausible that is. Yeah.

AlexI'm like, hmm.

MerlinYou're going to go through all of this trash? And what? You're hoping there's copper pipe in there? Like, it's, you know, aluminum's not fetching a high price right now.

AlexYeah, I don't know what. Going through, extracting nickel. I don't know why this is so funny.

MerlinCould be nickel. Could be nickel. Could be cadmium. Maybe they could find one of your paint sets. Oh, no. I said no paint. Uh-oh. Diamond dentures. Diamond dentures. Da-da-da-da.

Alexwe gotta stop soon i'm losing my fucking mind just just before we take our our lovely uh uh mid mid show break before uh the listeners accept your fucking money yes we're we we get your fucking money so i can have all of my trash cables taken away merlin what did you do this is the year

Merlinwhere alexander alexander is reallocating their fucks and i'm gonna just postulate it's not my place to say you're also you're looking to to get in the business of reallocating all the boobs so some people will have more and some will have fewer oh i wish right some people have three you could be yeah you could be like somebody from like a like a douglas adams book that would be fun

Alexi'm i'm and you know don't don't get me wrong this is not like a boobs for all i i'm not going all bernie on the boobs like i feel like obamacare obamacare would have been awesome for boobs. You can keep them if you want, but if you don't...

MerlinIf you like your boob, you can keep it. Maybe you only like one of them. Or maybe you want it moved to the middle like a Cyclops.

AlexYes.

MerlinA wheel within a wheel. That's pretty good. You can put a camera in there. Ooh, let's get a smart device. Ooh, what if you got a nipple ring that was also like, I don't know, a credit card or something?

Speaker BPardon me, sir.

Speaker AJust please enter your pin. Hang on, hang on. god this hurts oh god it's a smart card i have to keep it miss miss could you please put your shirt back on i need these groceries for my work

Thank you.

224. America is My Marriott

Show notes

Transcript

224. America is My Marriott

Show notes

Transcript

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