227. 3-2-1 Cucks

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. This week's challenge, embrace a platonic Valentine's Day.

MerlinI am recording, but I'm not getting your side. I want to get this right eventually.

AlexI feel like we're at the great migration. I don't know. Some metaphor. Everybody's – is this the show?

MerlinDo it Friday.

Speaker AOh, your enthusiasm is overwhelming. No, no, no.

MerlinYou know, I'm in – I'm trying to – okay, okay, okay. Here's the thing. Here's the thing that I'm trying to unlock.

AlexIt's early for you. I apologize. No, it's not early. I was not calling you out.

MerlinNo, my problem is I made my bones in this racket on a show where we were instructed from the beginning to never assume that anything would be edited. And from the second the recording began, we were contractually obligated to be to be on Showtime, folks, as Bob Fosse would say.

AlexWait, is that you don't have to say if that's true. It'd be very funny.

MerlinNo, keep talking. Go.

AlexJust the idea to be contractually obligated to get on a call.

MerlinI don't know. We didn't get paid for a long time.

AlexIt's like if you forward the – if anybody else is reading this email, it's meant for Alexandra Cox and you can be sued. We will pursue litigation.

MerlinAll right. The thing is you're not – I know you're not a lawyer. You didn't go to a law school in a shopping center. Oh, I wish. Okay. So that's how I started. And I got to tell you. I got to tell you. I think that was good training.

Speaker AMm-hmm.

MerlinAnd I'll tell you why. Because when I do podcasts with other people like who are like real podcasters, they always do the like before. Okay. How's it going?

Speaker BIs there anything you want to promote? and listen, I'll put in the ads later.

MerlinBecause they talk like that when they do podcasts. And then they'll sometimes do that thing where Gray forgets to take out the part where he redid something that sounds smarter. Or like on Slate where they go 3-2-1 and they accidentally leave it in and I laugh and laugh.

AlexI love leaving in the 3-2-1s when I don't have Loopback installed.

MerlinIt's charming.

AlexIt's charming, I don't know.

MerlinWell, I think the 3-2-1 is supposed to alert. I don't know how this is supposed to work. Maybe somebody drops a marker, the engineer, the recorder drops a marker. And anytime somebody goes 3, 2, 1, here's the thing that makes me sound smarter. They're supposed to catch that. And I guess 3, 2, 1, it's like the way people do a clap or whatever, I guess.

AlexOh, see, I was-

MerlinWhat is this, 2005?

AlexI was thinking, right, I was thinking of something different in terms of sharing audio or sharing a screen as a separate track, which I consistently don't-

MerlinYou think that's what 3, 2, 1 means?

AlexNo, no. Like we we usually keep it in when it's something that we are watching together and we go three, two, one.

MerlinOh, no, no. I'm not talking about Sarah. Sarah Marshall. No, no, no. We totally we totally wheeze the juice on that. No, it's more like I think I think what's happening. I don't know, because I got to tell you, I made my bones in this racket a different way. But I think the way it goes is you're going, oh, you know, and the cryptocurrency, you know, the Iraqi dinar, three, two, one, Iraqi dinar or whatever. And they're supposed to catch that and go, make me sound smarter, fix my goof-em-up.

Now, here's the thing. I made my bones in this racket a long time ago with the understanding that as soon as the show started, that was the show. And so what do we learn from that? Whatever's in the show is in the show. Unless we said something extremely problematic and didn't realize, then we say, hey, Quinn, could you cut that out?

AlexUh-huh. When I talk about how much I truly do hate Wonder Woman. God, wow. It's a... Excited for the Snyder Cut, though.

MerlinThe franchise?

AlexOh, the DC franchise? Yeah, it just bums me out.

MerlinWell, we see who hates Wonder Woman. What the fuck does that mean?

AlexI don't know. I just...

MerlinYou're talking about the movie? Yes. You don't like the movie?

AlexYes, I don't...

MerlinYou don't like Gal Gadot.

AlexI don't know enough about her, but I understand she's problematic.

MerlinOh, okay. All right. So the hatred, you start with hatred and then back solve for whatever your fucking deal is.

AlexYou know what? You're right. I pulled a literally when I did not mean to.

MerlinWell, I'm not mad about it. That's Merlin 2021, service release three.

AlexSo you're making your bone and you're always...

MerlinSo in some ways, I think that was good because I learned to – the thing that all you very kind people listening to this show will never realize until you're on a podcast is how stupid you sound on a podcast. Nobody realizes. They're always like, I think actually you meant to say Dick York, not Dick Sargent. And you're like, yeah, I did mean to say that. But you know what? I'm not going to change it because I'm not one of these 321 cucks. Title.

Now, next time you're, let me know how it goes when you're on a podcast and you say something really fucking stupid you regret.

AlexOh.

MerlinBecause you can't fix it. Don't be a 3-2-1 cuck. Now, I think that was good training for me. And it was a good way to make my bones in this racket. Because that way I know that whatever's in the show is in the show. And I think more people need to realize that. This is the difference. And we'll talk about this someday. We'll save it for the show. But this is why there's now so much agita about, well, one reason there's so much agita about podcasts. but is that they'll be like what is podcast well it's like anime like it's not all the same thing

Alexthey're like anime yes let's make it more let's make podcasting more accessible

Merlinoh and you know what i'll save this for the show too if you could you capture this i want to talk about the different things what oh what was that three three two one go one oh hang on let's do a clap now what i do when i'm recording on my own and i i don't know how to make markers and things and no one will tell me how. So what I do is I do this. I go, a flippity jibbit, a wheel of the wisp, a mouse. Fuck. And I go, and then I see four spikes and I know that's where I have to go back in and go three, two, one.

Speaker AA flippity jibbit, a wheel of the wisp,

Merlina clown. And I fix it. So it makes me sound smart when I talk about the big black rock.

AlexOh, I hate it.

MerlinIs it called the slab? And this is the thing. We need to talk about this and how it shouldn't become like anime.

Speaker AWhy isn't anybody talking about this?

MerlinSo what I want you to capture here is we need to talk. We need to, fam, you guys, we need to talk about your Twitter avatar. Okay? Okay, okay? Because at any given time, there is a certain kind of Twitter avatar that tells everybody more than you think.

AlexWell, I would agree with that wholeheartedly. Especially because I think we're kind of guilty of that as well. Nope. Okay. All right.

MerlinWell, sorry. Three, two, one. What do they learn from that?

AlexWe both have black and white illustrated avatars.

MerlinIt means that we're loved and drawn. Someone thought enough of us. Now, if you draw your own avatar, that's a bad one. If you have a necktie, okay, fine. That's how you're going to go. That's cool. Necktie. But if you're wearing a necktie and you're standing in front of a flag and you say proud soccer mom of seven or whatever, I don't know, man. But remember there was that time where there was what they called not monies or mummies. There was a thing where you could go and make an avatar of yourself. Yes. You end up looking like some kind of bridge troll and then people would use those.

Yes. Remember those?

AlexMm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It was another woke signal that we all did because didn't you get to choose to – there were two services and one of them you got to hold a flag, which is totally where I made my bones was the flag. Is that right? In this racket? Yeah, the rainbow flags.

MerlinOh, I see. OK. You got to be careful because if you fuck up those flags, it's real confusing. So we got the regular fruit stripes in one place in our room and then we got the one. And I think it's the, you tell me, I sent you a photo one time. Is it the buy one?

AlexIf it is the prettiest one, it's the buy one. Because as we know offline, I have rated all of the queer flags from- Where?

MerlinDid you do that on the internet? No, no, no, no.

AlexYou know what? I'll talk about it in the after show. My ratings-

MerlinHow do people hear the after show, Alexandra?

AlexWell, you could go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com. And what that does is take you to our Patreon page, where for $5 or $10, I would say $10, because then you get to be a cox's cuck, and I will respond to your messages faster. And you get to, more importantly...

MerlinYou have a list? Are you running some E-Max that lets you know? This person gave you money.

AlexWell, you know how the back end on Patreon changes about once a week, I noticed.

MerlinYeah, the UI doesn't. Woof. Woof, woof, woof.

AlexOh, anyway, if you subscribe to our Patreon, you can hear the after show, which contains all of the hot gossip about Gal Gadot.

MerlinGal Gadot. Oh, three, two, one. Wonder Woman.

AlexWonder Woman. And my rating of the queer flags.

MerlinYou're rating queer flags. Uh-huh.

AlexUh-huh.

MerlinAnd why you probably need to change your avatar. We need to talk about, fam, we need to talk about Memoji.

Alexoh oh you got airpods huh cool um would you say okay well well you know what we'll do this for real i'm going to put this oh which oh fucking i don't are you okay i almost said i hate my iMac which is a terrible thing to say because i don't mean it and i i don't hate it i am not a fan of The Intel family of products.

And I am a fan of currently the Apple Silicon run of products. And I'm spoiled. So, yeah.

MerlinI'm so spoiled because given some acquisitions, because I have projects. One of my projects involves computers. And I now have one computer, which is my primary work computer, that doesn't have the private enclave. Is that what it's called?

AlexOh, I.

MerlinMy old iMac, right? This iMac.

AlexI mean, that's what I call my downstairs area. But if you. All right. So.

MerlinSay it again. Your downstairs area is called. Oh, the enclave. That's where you hide your keys. Your key chain.

AlexOr. Yeah. Clips. Clips are out. Enclaves are in. So I apologize. Your work.

MerlinOh, I love your clips. That delighted everyone in the automobile so much to see that photo. Everybody loved it so much. Alexandra sent me a photo of the chip clip that they used to hold up their jam jams.

AlexYeah. You know what? I'll put that in after show notes. I'm really thirsty for money now today, everybody. All right.

MerlinWhoa, boy, you're getting your money's worth this time.

AlexOoh, well, my shovel was stolen.

MerlinMerlin screwing up an audio hijack. Alexandra's got a clip. Keychain's up the ya-ya. okay i'd like to rent a u-haul please the um what um i have i all right i i apologize i have two

Alexquestions um oh yes you there the three two one say merlin you mentioned that your primary work computer has a secure enclave lacks a secure it lacks a secure enclave oh oh oh you're still using Boomer Mac? I don't know what else to call it. Gen X Mac?

MerlinWow. What plays the Big Chill soundtrack and takes all the millennials money? I'm mining Millennia coin.

My old iMac does not have that. And then what that means is, yeah, it will – well, you know, like unlocking with your watch. Like I think that's meant to be super secure. So that's not always perfect. But that works on all my computers now. But, you know, what doesn't work is – and also then like stuff like do the equivalent of entering your password on the Mac by double-clicking your watch. Do you do that?

AlexI do.

MerlinWell, that's – It's amazing because you don't even have to look.

AlexWell, unless your iMac is like, oh, I'm going to, you do this, you there, open your, or like open whatever, Apple Pay. It primarily happens with Apple Pay. Like unlock via Face ID or my watch.

MerlinBecause I think it's trying to figure out which device should we do this on. Like sometimes it pops up on my phone. Sometimes it pops up on my watch. And sometimes, you know, things get a little cattywumpus sometimes and like something gets confused. And in my case, I have more than one card related thing. And sometimes it's using the card that accidentally, you know what I mean? Like there's that kind of thing. But it does work pretty well, I think. Are you struggling with your Pro Mac?

AlexWell, my one thing on this with Apple Pay, there's a couple other things I think that Safari does that has you open it via Face ID or the watch. If you happen to have two iPhones on your desk and one is a camera, it immediately is like, oh, oh, that one, that one, I guess, is technically a little bit closer. I don't know, but it goes to like my camera that is mounted to the side. So then I'm like twisting to the side, trying to get my face in view.

MerlinBecause you're recording something with video?

AlexYeah, because it's set up as a little camera dingus. Yeah.

MerlinOh, sure. Yeah. And I always turn on D&D when I do that. So I think I don't get it there.

AlexOh, but do not disturb. I feel like it doesn't work with Apple stuff a lot of the time anymore.

MerlinOh, it's a mess. But at least that way I'm not getting notifications while I'm doing camo or whatever.

AlexDoing camo? Are you on Cameo? So where can listeners find you on Cameo, Merlin?

MerlinOh, my name is Turbo Z, and I'm the highest scoring basketball player of all time. And I heard that you're a helicopter pilot. This is Dubai Friday, where we talk about something we heard 10 minutes ago on Election Profit Makers.

AlexYes! It may have been a couple minutes. Actually, I don't know if I was late, but I was sitting here listening to – I'm not quite at the end of one of our favorite shows, Election Profit Makers, which I highly –

MerlinElection Profit Makers.

AlexYeah. I highly suggest it to anybody who has a soul.

MerlinDavid's Aaron Burr musical is going to be huge.

AlexOh, so Lin-Manuel Moran is not going to sleep well at night. Nope, nope, nope.

MerlinI just love when he keeps saying, I'm going to put that in my musical.

Alexdo you not have a running uh a doc of actually this is something from you that i picked up musical xx which is how i used to label all of my or rather like i would sort of tag all of my files the way you title things to tag it yes yeah and that's uh i just have a running doc that i've had for oh god like seven let's see yep seven years uh of dumb musical stuff musical x yeah yeah uh

not not x xx oh i see what do you put it what do you put in there alex uh alex xx run x run x alex i i don't know refx alex i don't know if i this was uh something that well oh this is this is cringe this is mediocre now that i'm reading it uh yeah yeah i just

Merlinhe used antlers in all of his decorating matthew and i sometimes rewrite disney songs and oh my god you wrote this you wrote a parody oh we should i sing this for the for the audience yeah no one fucks like gaston sucks your dick well you can work on that right suck short dick black Gaston. No one's cock is incredibly thick as Gaston's for there's no man in town half as manly. Perfect. Okay.

AlexI know. It trails off, but, you know. No one's got a big

MerlinOh, my goodness. Yeah.

AlexIt's a little spicy, but,

Merlinyou know. Well, because don't we, do we accept that the Josh Gad character is canonically, you know, a friend of Dorothy? Yes.

AlexExcept, well, now he is canonically

MerlinIn the movie, in the movie movie, in the live action movie, he ends up dancing with a boy and being happy. Right. Isn't that a sweet scene?

AlexYeah. I guess if it's a completely different seeing Josh Gad as a cute, boisterous gay man joyfully dancing during a song. Absolutely.

MerlinHe's the Smithers of that movie.

AlexYes. But in in the original and I don't want to be like in the original. But what made him so funny was that he clearly was a friend of Dorothy. And what made Gaston even more of a dick was that he was ignoring his best friend, using him as essentially a tool and not realizing exactly what you said. Like some others, he's in love with his boss. And I mean.

MerlinI see. And he's made, I forget the guy's name, but he's made Josh get into, like cynically made him into his ad hoc beard. Or something. Or his wingman. Is he a wingman or a beard? What do you call it in the community? Is it a hanky code? What's it called?

AlexOh, interesting. That's always.

MerlinBecause this really does relate to our topic today or our challenge, as John Syracuse says.

AlexIt does. Dig dug. Oh, John Syracuse. I just.

MerlinOh, boy. I would have words with him.

AlexI have some.

MerlinWhat are you hot about right now, Alex? What's really getting.

AlexMario.

MerlinOh, Mario.

AlexOne of my favorite podcasters, John Syracuse, your worst best friend.

MerlinPump the brakes, Billy Joel. Jesus Christ.

Alexi just mario and this morning i accidentally said the word mario out loud which it's you should interrogate that oh i know i know he's he's a bad influence so oh yeah oh gosh he does he does that whole group all those guys all of our kind generous friends are just the worst they are

Merlinthey are and now if you want to hear what we say about you that's unkind in the after show

Alexyou should pay us like our friends do oh my ex finally uh unsubscribed and it was like

MerlinOh, how do you know? Do you track that? Do you have like an IP mapping?

AlexIt says on the back end. Well, you know what? No, I'm not even going to tell you what I do.

MerlinYou're talking about the back end. You're talking about Jack's back end, the pomplamoose.

AlexOh, I heard. Is he? You know what? He seems he and his lady friend seem like nice people. And they invited me to a nice. Really? Oh, OK. I don't know them.

MerlinWell, what, the one that looks to the side, like Susanna Hoffs? I think they broke up a long time ago.

AlexOh, Poplumus, right? Didn't they break up? Oh, I don't know.

MerlinWhat, they married and then they made Patreon and she does a cover and looks to the side. It's a video song where you've got to show everything. Like if you're playing a comb, you've got to show the comb. Isn't that the rules of video song?

AlexI don't know.

MerlinDon't you remember this? They were trying to make Fesh a thing. And so all the Poplumus videos, if memory serves, with a lady that looks to the side. Very, very, very cute lady. And then the Jackman from Patreon. And when they would sing a song, and they tried to create this genre where you have to show every... They have rules. There are rules. This is bowling, not nom. You have to show every instrument that is in the song being played. Kind of like that English guy in the bathroom.

Speaker AOh, they were the first to do that? No!

MerlinI think they had a name for it, and they made up... And I'm going to go from the Golden Gate Bridge site to... Is it called Video Song?

Alexvideo song pomplomous oh this is where i was getting fucked up her stage name natalie dawn and but on wikipedia it is natalie nestin i don't know i can't say mario the right way anymore so no one listen to me mario yeah i illegally used one of their songs in a student film thank you jack

Merlinnintendo oh jack i see okay pomplos mousse pomplomousse i think it means grapefruit

Alexyes that's the the la croix flavor um and it is la croix don't oh that's one of the few things i've been well actually done on a podcast was saying the the phrase word no that the brand name you said the phrase word wrong the phrase word wrong which with three two one was la croix

MerlinThis is the kind of program where you really can't stop, look away for a second, or a lot starts to happen. What?

AlexLa Croix is a brand of bubbly water or fizzy water or soda streamery, whatever, the carbonated water that is very popular in the Midwest and now popular everywhere because a bunch of VCs put it in their tiny fridge. And pomplamoose is basically grapefruit, but they call it pomplamoose. And La Croix is called La Croix because that is the town it's named in. So it's not La Croix. Maybe.

MerlinOh, I see. Oh, I see. It's like La Trobe. One of those things.

AlexIt's like Mario. It's Mario, not Mario.

MerlinMario, Mario with cheese because of the metric system.

AlexOh.

MerlinPompamouse's presence is primarily from, I'm reading from the Internet Science site. Pompamouse's presence is primarily from videos on YouTube, DDD. Their videos mostly take the form of video songs. Alex one word camel case

Alexoh

Merlinthe videos mostly take the form of quote video songs a medium Jack Conte defines with two rules it's always two things with him one what you see is what you hear no lip syncing for instruments or voice and two if you hear it at some point you see it there are no hidden sounds update the website

Alexis that a hot tip yeah also I'm like no there's still I what was I doing that I reached out and now probably mentioned to you and your wife, oh, dearie. Oh, well.

MerlinYou know, there are some people out there trying to get help from Patreon and they've even been to the office and visited and now they can't get anybody on the horn. It's a goddamn shame. The band was interviewed on All Things Considered and discussed the glitz-free manner in which they recorded. It was very amusing. I think it was very good for its time. Oh, yeah, it was very sweet. Jokes have left the room. We're having fun here. But honestly, Patreon, guys, given the the usurious take you should make the site better i i just yeah it's like all of these things we've talked about this but like this kickstarter ish thing oh we dodged a bullet with

Alexkickstarter's patreon why what happened uh that lasted for about three months and then shut down

Merlinoh right oh that thing is that the thing that we were going to get to do because we're special yeah Yeah, well, that's a goddamn shame.

AlexThe previously nice folks at Kickstarter were like, do this thing. And I was like, eh.

MerlinYeah, put your podcast on Spotify. Come out to the coast. Have some laughs. But it does feel like there's a thing. It's always two things with us, right? There are two things that we use to make this program go apart from caffeinated drinks. And that there are two services which will not be named.

AlexAnd powder. There's so many powders.

MerlinSo many powders. I just pack them up into a poultice.

AlexI've got my Alpha Brain Help Support and Memory Focus Daily Cognitive Supplement right here.

MerlinIs that Mike Trinovich? Is that the smooth brain?

AlexYeah.

MerlinGorilla brain. Lizard brain?

AlexThis was something that I received in the mail for free because I signed up for their free trial. And my OmniFocus, it was on me. It was on me. It was not. I had it, you know, set the reminder to cancel the, sorry, cancel the membership to Onnit, which is a wellness site. But then I was one day late. So $99 has gone to the Tim Ferriss knockoff.

MerlinOh, gosh. I've got things like that. I've got a thing where I sign my daughter up for this thing that a teacher suggested that would be helpful with, you know, arithmetic stuff. I don't even know.

AlexOh, well, someone suggested this over Twitter. So that probably wasn't.

MerlinWell, but have you ever gotten the thing where, you know, you know how this is. You know what? I'm so off topic at this point. God damn it. But I got to this get good at math thing. And it's like 70 bucks a year or something. And it says, your membership with Math Goat is about to renew. And I go, fuck that. This is from like two years ago. They're teaching her math. She already forgot. So I go in and I try to cancel, DDD. And it's like, no, now you have to sign in with your child's account. And it's like, really? And then what was the one I recently went through?

Oh, God, canceling my Canary membership? Oh, no. It was just like the AOL days. It was so bananas. You go through, you know, you try and do the self-service, help yourself, do your thing. Make your bonds. Can you tell us why? And so I typed into the field. I said, I don't want this anymore. I said, okay, well, all you have to do is call and contact one of our customer service people will be happy to help you. So you can imagine what happens. You call them and you talk to someone very friendly

who is not really a cancel person, they're a salesperson. And the dude, who's very nice, was like, so what do I need to do to put you in this camera today? And I was like, I don't want it anymore. He goes, right, but is there anything that we could do to like, I said, I don't want it anymore. And we just kept going around and around. And it was nice. He finally did cancel it. But I think the only thing you can really say to a salesperson is I don't want it or I don't have any money. If you give them any – if you give them a reason to sound polite, they've got a binder for that.

They've got tabs in the binder.

AlexDo you ever lie to customer service people who are in that position where they've got to do the Bob?

MerlinI like constantly about these kinds of things.

AlexYeah, I always –

MerlinWell, because you have to – it's like you and – what's her name? Helen? No. What was your character's name? Martha. Martha. It's like when you're doing Martha, well, Martha's character, it's important for you to protect the integrity of Martha's character. You have to stay in character for what that person is. And like somebody who is an actor, you have to say the things that that person would say, not the thing you think that person would say. And this leads you into areas where you might say things that, my God, I would never say that to somebody. But if Martha's running the call, some shit's going to go down.

AlexDo you still use Martha? Yeah. Martha's—

MerlinTell people, remind people what Martha is. Sorry, who they is.

AlexNo, Martha is a she slash her. Absolutely.

MerlinI think she's Karen's aunt.

AlexShe is, yes. Well, I would actually say she's like Karen's woke niece.

MerlinShe's never been treated like this in her entire life.

AlexYeah, like this is an affront. The card is metal. That should be good enough. Like it doesn't, you know, unless the camera's rolling, it's kind of be a bitch. And the idea with my character, Martha, is I could perform being a very angry lady over the phone when I needed to get something for work that I couldn't get otherwise.

MerlinAnd the character helps you to become more assertive in something that needs to get done.

AlexYes. And also when it's a call in which they're like, oh, got to talk to someone higher up. That allows me to be to say, all right, get, uh, let, all right, fine. Let me see if my manager is available. And then I pull a, uh, um, you know, three, two, one, I pull a Glenn Gary, again, Ross, it goes, it goes.

MerlinThat was great, by the way, the way you did that. That was amazing.

AlexMiss Cox. Oh, oh, oh, they're available. One sec. They're available. Miss Cox. Cox. Oh, thank you. And then I'm like, hello. Hi. Oh, God. I apologize for my assistant. Yeah, I know. And then I do my whole bit and then hopefully something's canceled.

MerlinOh, I see. You're like, it's all good, man. Like you've got the assistant who's trying to get Jimmy on the phone.

AlexYeah, but I realized, though, I need...

MerlinI love that he does a Mr. Show kind of voice for that.

AlexOh, gosh. He's not here right now. Welcome to Dubai Friday, the show, the weekly show where we talk about how much we love Better Call Saul, which is, in my opinion, better than Breaking Bad by...

MerlinWhy didn't people tell me about this show? I can't believe it. It's the weirdest thing.

AlexI have a theory about that because no one told me about...

MerlinIt's a joke. It's a bit. I'm doing a bit.

AlexAre you doing a bit, though? Literally no one told me about this show.

MerlinWell, because everybody told me about it and it was only on like a happenstance that I flipped it on and went, this is fucking miraculous. This is a top 10 first episode. And of course, then you just start barreling through it. Michael McKeon, call the cops. Give him all the awards. Oh, my God. So go ahead. So, yeah, why did anybody tell me about it? I like Breaking Bad. Why didn't you tell me about Better Call Saul?

AlexWhat about The Wire?

MerlinShould I watch The Wire?

AlexOh, boy. Well, that's the difference. The Wire, in my opinion, holds up really well, as is The Sopranos. And I decided that so Maddie, despite, you know, television being his beat, has never seen Breaking Bad except for a single episode in some class at some point. And I'm like, all right, we're you got to do a rewatch.

MerlinThat's talk about a cold open.

AlexRight.

MerlinJiminy Christmas.

AlexYou don't. However, I don't think you need.

MerlinIt's the guy. It's the guy from Malcolm in the Middle.

Alexhe's running around in his underwear with a gas mask yeah oh yeah and uh i i sort of hated breaking bad by the end of it like watching how the internet treated skylar like she was the first like maligned tv character i no they should do a you're wrong about about her oh there should be a you're wrong about uh for what's her name i i don't even want to talk about her it feels so caris wisher um no the young woman kelly ann conway's daughter like oh goodness stop stop

Merlineverybody stop bro just stop this reminds me of different things i've heard this week that i also

Alexwant to talk about but i don't feel like writing it down maps and and non-maps because i found out what that is oh yuck yuck yuck yuck my angus please stay what now three two one maps three

MerlinI also sent you a rivet. I want to talk about this rivet. I heard, so first of all, on the media this week, which is a program that I enjoy, it's a public radio show where they talk about, it's a kind of meta coverage of the way the media covers things. And it has a POV, and I enjoy it, edited by Brooke. And they had a segment this week where Sarah and Michael were on to talk about, in particular, maligned women. And it was really good. Their sound quality was better than they usually sound. And it was really good and really crystallized is what it is that I love in some ways so much about that show.

Speaker AYou know?

MerlinAnd they talked about how they go back and forth and how each one of them, in Michael's case, he's trying to never learn anything about JonBenet Ramsey because he's so excited to know nothing. And then go into Sarah explaining the JonBenet thing.

AlexYeah, yeah. I love that.

MerlinLike, don't tell me about the cowboy hat. Don't tell me. Don't tell me.

AlexYeah.

MerlinAnd that was really good. And the other thing I heard was on one of the Slate shows. I can find it for notes, but it was a really, this is going to be controversial. But it was this woman who's, I think she's a linguist, but she kind of, it's a little bit Lakoff kind of thing, talking about like, you know, how words mean things. And basically she just made the case that we've got to stop talking about Donald Trump. We've got to stop talking about all of these people that like, it's, again, it's like Lard Lad. But like if you look at him, you know, that's what keeps him alive is you looking at them.

AlexOh, deep. Well, not deep. Pull for.

MerlinI think that's a treehouse of horror.

AlexIt is indeed. The eighth, if I believe.

MerlinBut Homer loves donuts so much. He can't stop looking at them.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinBut I'll find it for notes. But she's I think her basic thing, which is, again, it's so much easier to agree with something when you agree with it already. You know, it wasn't one of the things where I was like, oh, never occurred to me because I'm loving not being on Twitter too much. I'm loving not watching the news too much. Because when I do, I feel very sad. It's like Lamechdor.

But I'll find that for notes. But it was just this idea that when we, and I know I'm guilty of this. I'm guilty of thinking I'm being, I've joined the resistance because I say stuff like the failing New York Times. But the truth is I'm just amplifying and I'm giving credence when I even jokingly use these kinds of dumb Trumpisms. And what I loved also in her presentation, she's like the professional, like, you know, academic and literary lady, but she's real, she's real fun, real funny.

Highly recommend it. I'll find it. But, you know, she had the same exasperation we all do, which is like, dude, you keep talking about this stuff and you keep – all you're doing is – setting aside how you're basically just feeding the opportunity for them to get money and donations when you talk about Marjorie Taylor Greenwood, whatever her name is. I don't know. That's two things I heard this week. It's always two things with me.

AlexYeah.

MerlinDo you think I'm putting my head – am I putting my head in the sand, Alex? Is that what I'm doing?

AlexNo. So you are you are feed and I am guilty of this, which is feeding into the machine because I enjoy when people talk about talking about Trump and whether like I've kind of gone across, I guess what would like it's like a Trump fandom. Like it's a lib fandom, basically, of this villain of Donald Trump.

MerlinI totally know what you're talking about. In some ways, I miss him.

AlexOh, yeah. Twitter is way less fun. It's just absolutely wild how different.

MerlinIt's like the opposite of nostalgia. It is. You know what I mean? Like nostalgia or as Don Draper says, you know, it's this pain about the past and like wishing you had this happy time again or whatever. And I've got the opposite of that, which is like, you know, on the one hand, I am glad to be angry about different things or fewer things. but and like watching on grandpa uncle joe do his city uh what's called city his town hall last night god damn it what a difference you know it take back everything i said about him it's so much

Alexbetter oh i agree i agree uh but i'm also do you do you wonder uh this is this is like my black pill slash uh q brain talking yeah no bring it he is so much more coherent i said it to my lady friend

Merlinlast night what is he taking the joe that we saw a few months ago when he was yelling at people at rallies and saying well then don't vote for me or whatever he seems a lot sharper yeah which

Alexnot a lot sharper but he seems less dull i will say a lot sharper a lot uh he is fast as you'd say or and almost again sorry like black pill cue brain but i almost think he has stopped himself sometimes and done the politician thing where, you know, they cross their arms and they're like, huh, hmm, hmm. And then answers with, you know, compassion and grace, except when it's

canceling about college debt, in which case, you know, if someone's taken out a loan to Yale,

Merlinstill take it out a loan. But he's not equivocating and pausing. That's part of what makes it great is like, you don't have to agree with him. But when somebody asked him a question, it's like, Well, here's an independent who voted for Trump. Wow. You brought in so many independents who voted for Trump. Cool. And, you know, the black guy who wants to know the black guy with the bow tie who wanted to know, like, what are you going to do to like, are you going to defund the police? What about people who are scared and stuff like that? And he goes, without a pause for each of these, he gives a straight answer. So like in that case, it's, you know, we're not going to defund the police.

We're going to do this thing, but we're also going to blah, blah, blah. And but also then everybody's like, what about COVID? What about COVID? When can my kids go back to school? And Madeline and I are just both looking at each other going like, did you guys just clep out of the last fucking five years?

He got a desk full of dog shit. He arrived. Now that's his. That's his desk now, the Resolute Dog Shit desk. It's like, you know, can't you just pump the brakes? But somebody goes, how soon will we be able to? And he goes, I think we're going to have 600,000 doses available to everybody by the end of July. Boom. Wow. Nobody wants to hear that. And so Anderson drills down a little bit and goes like, well, so will it be in arms? Please stop saying that. You don't sound that smart when you say it. Well, it's different between a vaccine and a vaccination.

Yeah, we get it. But he could just go straight back and he says something that is entirely like realistic and not equivocating bullshit. And like, when's the last time you got some of that? No, the man's not perfect, but Jesus fucking Christ. When the woman who said her son, her son has pediatric COPD.

AlexOh, I didn't see.

MerlinWell, she says, like, my son, like, you know, basically left college because he has the lungs. He's 18, but he has the lungs of a 60-year-old. And he was very concerned. And so, like, you know, what are you going to do about that? And Joe, like, comes back and says, yeah, the problem is he doesn't say, oh, I love you. He comes back and says, well, the problem is.

AlexYou're very special. You and your lung disease.

MerlinYou're very special. We love you. Very special. Go peacefully. No, but you know what? He comes back with two. And, like, what do we know about Joe? Joe loves the grieving mother and blah, blah, blah. And he'll do anything to kiss a baby. As he said last night, he likes babies better than people. But here's the thing that he says to that woman. He might be a map, Merlin.

AlexHe might be a map.

MerlinMayangus, please stay.

AlexYes.

MerlinOkay, save it. Write it down. It's good for the after show. But you know what? He didn't come back with that sort of Merlin Mann answer of first I need you to love me. He comes back with, well, here's the problem, is that the states decide the order of who gets the vaccines. I could I can make suggestions about that, but I don't have a way to make the state do that. But then you know what he does? He does. He does the the Grandpa Uncle Joe afternoon. He says, I've been talking too long here, but I really would love to visit with you after and talk to you about this and look at that. And you know what? I fucking believe it.

Oh, I believe it.

AlexAbsolutely. I have.

MerlinSo, you know, you know, I'm three, two, one cock for for Grandpa Uncle Joe. And I don't know how it happened.

AlexI mean, that's I am not I do not think I'm a cuck for Uncle Joe, but I'm like, I feel as if I could have an argument with Uncle Joe that would not end in screaming or, you know, pounding.

MerlinBecause he's not a billboard for bad faith. Yeah, I just again, I just I love the idea of somebody. And this used to be the case for people on all sides, many sides, good people on both sides. But, you know what, fuck it. Okay, so in the nominal topic somewhere inside of my undergrad thesis, which was terrible, has to do with the work of Antonio Gramsci and cultural hegemony, except I was talking about it with regard to television. And I made a terrible case for it. But I'm going to, the internet science page says, in Marx's philosophy, cultural hegemony

is the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class, which manipulates the culture of that society. the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores, so that the imposed ruling class worldview becomes the accepted cultural norm. And one thing I found so interesting in a lot of this work was this idea of the cultural hegemony ends up consuming, you know, anything, any, anything that reads against the grain or anything that is against the accepted sort of doctrine, ends up getting brought into the system and, you know, denutered.

and I kind of feel like when I in retrospect when I say failing New York Times I think I am very heavily I'm dropping a lot of fucking coins in the cultural hegemony jukebox when I do that I'm normalizing it as they say

Alexwell I hope at least we've gotten to the point where we can recognize that as you do I do like I mean, the friends that have written for the failing New York Times, like, I don't know. I just this week.

MerlinI was interviewed in the New York Times about a photograph of a man urinating outside a library. Oh, first time I was in the New York Times. I'm aware of.

AlexI haven't been in the New York Times.

MerlinI don't read the trades.

AlexI'm not on the Internet signs.

MerlinI cut you off at your comma. Sorry. Go.

AlexOh, just watching the bloodlust for people in Texas on Twitter. It was. i well how for what oh oh uh see this i i am i'm a little bit on twitter and i actually had to be on twitter for my job but uh and came across a lot of because of the weather yeah and saying oh don't don't send aid there's they're all republicans and not using me i'm like i'm pretty sure pretty sure no pretty sure no it's the same reason i'm okay with the the like three rich people

getting their their debt canceled and like no let's let's send some snowblowers there all right aoc says it shouldn't matter where you went to college what aoc says the oh yeah i still like her and and now we're mad i love her oh my god oh well she's very beloved in our household the the the new wokest of woke takes is she is also canceled because she has not done everything in her first term as a junior congressperson because god forbid yeah absolutely we're changing the name

Speaker Aof all the schools named after her oh oh god i do want to talk about can we oh yeah we can

Merlinalso want to talk about my rivet rivet rivet rivet i texted it to you rivet that that whole so what i just follow up follow up i i think i found my totem yes so in text you will see we You can put this in notes. So when you go to visit the Golden Gate Bridge, which I highly recommend, it's really beautiful.

AlexTiny butt plug.

MerlinAnd there's a gift shop at one of the places. And they have gift shop things because, you know, people love gifts and souvenirs. So what you see in this photograph, we'll put this in notes, is the Golden Gate Bridge rivet replica. So there's a lot of interesting stuff about the Golden Gate Bridge. The color is technically called international orange. They're always painting the Golden Gate Bridge.

AlexI'm talking about Woke Dog. Sorry, go ahead.

MerlinWoke dog whistle?

AlexInternational orange. I believe we call it international orange. Sorry. Sorry, you're rivet.

MerlinWe don't say foreign. Yeah. Oriental orange.

AlexOh, no, no. Don't do that.

MerlinDon't do that. Happy Lunar New Year. And so what I'm holding in my hand is this rivet replica. And it is, as it says on the tin, this is an approximation of the many, many, many, many rivets that are used to hold the Golden Gate Bridge together. and it i don't want to overstate this i do not have a scale here this thing alex weighs a lot

Alexcan you do it do a drop or would it damage things okay i'll help if i how about if i drop it from

Merlinan inch yes from an inch oh i would say it's got to be at least a quarter of a pound and maybe half a pound wow and it feels so it looks like a butt thing a little bit a lot of it yeah it's called mushrooming all the kids are doing it now yeah uh so what happened what had happened was i'm not sure how this happened but

But there's some kind of a commission that was put in place with a good heart and a good cause and saying like, OK, we're San Francisco. We don't want to be assholes. There's a lot of shit in California named after some terrible people. Not as bad as say the streets in Tallahassee, Florida, where literally I spent a lot of time on Gadsden Street. There's Calhoun, Gadsden, Jackson, like you name it. And like some of those are pretty bad dudes.

But the idea is in San Francisco, we want to, I think it started with, I don't know, but I feel like it started with a fairly general mandate of like start exploring ways that we can, in the way that we highlight our history, let's consider being better about celebrating the people who did good stuff rather than like, you know, the people who maybe didn't do such great stuff. Like, obviously there's a lot of stuff named after like Christopher Columbus. the various monks who colonized the area

and killed off a lot of locals and natives. So like right down the road from me, the road turns into something called Unipro Serra. And Unipro Serra was like not a great guy. So that, I think it started off with like, you guys, your mandate is to go like, think about the stuff. There's this blue ribbon committee is supposed to think about the things in San Francisco where it might be beneficial to look at, you know, these things, what we celebrate, and particularly with regard to schools, I'll throw to you in a sec. We want y'all to look at the names of the something like 300 schools in here

and should any of those names be changed and tell me why. So that was late last year, maybe January. Anyway, it's been a few months. Do you want to pick up here?

AlexI am trying to find the interview with, I think it was...

MerlinIsaac Chotner interviewed...

AlexA member of the school board, I think?

MerlinIf you get a call and it says either Ronan Farrow or Isaac Chotner.

AlexYou are in trouble.

MerlinSet the phone on fire, pack your bags and move away.

AlexThere's nothing wholesome coming out of that. But it was just a fairly lengthy interview of just. So how did you put these policies into place for renaming this? And how did you choose?

MerlinYes. February 6, 2021, how San Francisco renamed its schools in the New Yorker.

AlexOh, it was in the New Yorker? Oh, gosh.

MerlinBut this is after the dust up had been happening. So to cut a long story short, I'm trying to say this without any particular political or cultural valence, which is impossible. But what they came up with was that I think approximately one third of the schools in San Francisco would need to be renamed. And in some cases it was because of stuff like Unipro Sarah.

AlexYou know, those things like genocide and whatnot.

MerlinYeah. But once we learned the criteria for this, it was a little head scratchy when some of the names on the list include, well, George Washington, you know, who had slaves, Abraham Lincoln, Dianne Feinstein, like a lot of people. And they said, well, here's our bulleted list of criteria. And you tell me if I'm getting this way wrong because I don't want to misrepresent this. But people who have committed genocide, people who have been – people who have supported basically mistreatment of Native populations, people – now, this is an interesting one.

People who have harmed the cause of in particular gay and trans rights over the years. But the big one, genocide, obviously a big one. But, you know, when you see this list and a lot of folks, you know, the sort of still working class people like in my neighborhood, you see a list and say that, like, you know, we have to rename this elementary school because Dianne Feinstein flew a Confederate flag over City Hall once as part of a commemoration of some event. But yet George Moscone, who was the mayor at that time, like he's cool.

Okay. Paul Revere participated in some kind of a raid. But whoopsie doopsie. We misread the article on HistoryChannel.com and we didn't understand what raid he was participating in. And then Abraham Lincoln because, again, Native peoples.

AlexIt was also definitely enthusiastically written by straight people because – well, actually, I'm not sure. Have any of the Harvey Milk schools been renamed?

MerlinBecause of the Confederate flag?

AlexOh, because he, I have conflicted feelings about Harvey Milk because he was not super, he was really shitty to people who were still in the closet at the time and outed a lot of people. And admittedly, a lot of those people were in power. But there's a lot of like, for decades now, there's been a lot of like, oh, we still celebrating.

Merlinand you're telling me that this flawed ex-sailor with a camera shop was not a perfect person is that what i'm getting yes i i am they should they should have covered that in the sean penn movie

Alexyeah where where he's because i assume he's perfect and uh the like where he's fucking uh the green goblin and uh but but to put harvey milt franco on the yeah he's he is a green goblin and Spider-Man 2. Spoilers for...

MerlinAbsolutely. The greatest superhero movie of all time. Indeed.

AlexExcept for this... Oh, I'm excited for the Snyder Cut. But to put Harvey Milk on the same pedestal as just... Christopher Columbus? Harvey Milk?

MerlinHarvey Milk is basically... He's basically a war criminal.

AlexOh, I think I... My daughter and I started

Merlinwatching the Netflix documentary on John Damianyuk. It was just before your time, but it's a guy in 1985. It was discovered or believed that this guy living in Cleveland was a character who, not a character, a person who used to work at Treblinka, who was known as Ivan the Terrible. And he, you think you know atrocities? Well, this guy's atrocities were even more atrocious. Like he chose to make the last moments of people's lives even worse by say using a sword

to cut off a woman's breast. And so that guy was discovered. And then it's a really interesting story. He gets extradited to Israel and stuff like that. But like, I don't think Harvey Milk was that bad, but I'm not sure.

AlexI'm going to take the bold, brave stance in that Harvey Milk didn't commit a war crime as far as I know of. But who am I to say? I'm not on the school board of San Francisco.

MerlinI ended up feeling bad for this person, for this woman. Because, no, she's just, you know, kind of over her skis a little bit with this. So the latest story is coming out. We'll put this New Yorker article in notes. And seriously, jokes left the room. Isaac Chotner, like Ronan Farrow, like a really – well, Ronan Farrow is obviously a great investigative journalist.

AlexAnd Woody Allen's son for sure.

MerlinOK. OK. OK. He did it his way. But Isaac Shuttner is an amazing interviewer. And I don't know. He not only has this ability. Second of all, he has this ability to do these interviews where he does not shy away from the question that everybody would be terrified to ask this person. But the part that's even more amazing that precedes that is it'll be about a thing that very recently happened. And he gets an interview with somebody within a week or two of them becoming the main character for whatever the dust up is.

And he's great at that. So what emerged and what is emerging as this Chotner interview comes out is that like the research or scholarship behind this decision making was pretty ad hoc. and that not only did they not invite actual academic historians to participate, but according to this interview, if I read it right, this person is saying, well, actually, that's the whole point is we don't want a bunch of historians coming in and cocking up our reboot of San Francisco.

AlexYep. What I like about his interviews, too, is he can be a dick, but rarely goes into asshole territory. I agree. And I didn't walk away feeling bad for this woman because she was high.

MerlinNo, no. He does that thing that any interview you hope would do is that it gives somebody the opportunity to unintentionally show us who they are.

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinSo Chotner says the reason – let's see. The reason I bring this up is that some of the historical reasoning behind these decisions has been contested. Not so much how we should view the fact that George Washington was a founder of the country and a slaveholder, but rather factual things. like Paul Revere's name being removed for the Penobscot expedition, which was not actually about the colonization of Native American lands. And so there were questions about whether historians should have been involved to check these things. And the person responds, I see what you're saying. So for me, I guess it's just the criteria was created to show if there were ties to those specific themes, right?

White supremacy, racism, colonization, ties to slavery, killing of indigenous peoples, or any symbols that embody them. And the committee shared that these are the names that have these ties. And so for me at this moment, I have the understanding we have to do the teaching. But also I do agree that we shouldn't have these ties and this is a way of showing it. So that clears it up.

AlexI almost wanted to look up and see if she had an Instagram and a black square there. I stopped myself.

MerlinBut OK, so now let's let's make the subtext text by paraphrasing San Francisco's Marilyn Lennon Breed, who said something like, I'm going to heavily paraphrase this. Lennon Breed did not actually say this. This is my artist's interpretation. It's like, you know, when John Redcorn is in Leslie Knope's office when they do the recreation to show the cursing of the Harvest Festival. This is my impression of Lennon Breed. Really?

Really? the schools have been closed for one year and there are people spending time on deciding what to rename the schools that are not open that's a thing that we're doing right now the the one third so like san francisco is almost uniquely undiverse amongst adults for a lot of reasons you can probably intuit but it's pretty extremely diverse in terms of kids in school like there's a A lot of Asian kids, a fair amount of black kids, tons of Latino kids.

So, you know, but here's a fact. Private schools in San Francisco are open. So the one-third of children in San Francisco who go to private schools, that's a fun factoid. They're rolling along in their plaid skirts, you know. But, you know, my kid's been in her room for a year. But now what about should we rename her room? There's a fair amount. Now that her room is school, maybe it's time to look into some of the things on her walls.

AlexI'm trying to find the CEO of Hot Topic.

MerlinOh, we got, you know what's coming, you know what's arriving tomorrow? Two Funko Pops of the boys.

AlexOh my.

MerlinWe're getting a Huey and a Billy. Billy and a Huey.

AlexSee, that's how you know you've made it, is when you've got a Funko. Like, we've got a drawing of us as Funkos, but.

Merlinyeah i'm against funko pops but i i want my daughter to to be happy you remember she was billy butcher for halloween yes yes i sent you a photo of that oh halloween by the way well halloween went to the park and took a photo yay trick or treat

Speaker Afuck diane feinstein though actually you know what's funny is that that that park by the way

Merlinum that park i noticed some time ago lost its big uh recreation and parks nameplate And I know that the park for whom – the person for whom that park is named, I know at least one school also they're changing the name because of that guy. So the park across the street is problematic.

Speaker AOh, boy.

MerlinWhat are we going to do? Now, what about St. Francis in general? He likes birds.

AlexHe does.

MerlinSo we can keep the name of the city as far as we know.

AlexYes. uh i believe he i mean he just he although he did commit war crimes before that against birds you see a windmill i'm i he did not put a but

Merlinfrozen windmill this is why green power will never work there's republicans don't send aid to texas if it was saint elizabeth ann seton for which we named the city, it would be San-Hot-tastic.

God, she could really make me atone for my sins. I can just feel it.

AlexShe can wrap rosary around me

Merlinany day. No shit. Spank my back in button balls. Did you talk to Angela about this at all? No. Did you see this? No. Total blind box experience. Angela picked the same saint that we did.

AlexOh my goodness. I mean, oh God. Well, she has very good taste.

MerlinSo she's so stern.

AlexOh, yes.

Speaker AShe,

Merlinshe, you know what? She's, she's my Martha.

Challenge.

AlexThe challenge this week was mine, I believe. And it was to embrace a platonic Valentine's Day. And I suggested you could either reach out to a friend and be like, hey, I love you. Or just express to somebody how much... Three, two, one. Express to somebody how much you care about them.

MerlinAnd they hang up really fast.

AlexYeah, and then hang up the Skype call or now Zoom call.

MerlinI hope at least once Quinn will leave that in because it makes me laugh so fucking hard every time. Just so you all know, the way the after show has come to end. Because I used to, at one point fairly recently, I started saying to my platonic friend, Alex, I love you. Like, not in a weird way and not in like a creepy way or not in like a bit way. But in like, you know, I'm so glad you're in my life. I love you. And then I hear this. And the call would hang up. And then the tables were turned.

I love you. And then I just laugh.

AlexI don't like that this is happening right now.

MerlinAnd if I understand correctly, this sprung partly out of that podcast with Avery Truffleman via The Cut. Yes. Which I listened to this morning.

AlexYeah. And she interviews a few folks who have the closest relationships in their lives are with their platonic best friends. And one of the folks.

MerlinYeah, like what if – but it's so many layers to it. I recommend it. We'll put it in notes. But she's just – she's interviewing this – I really love especially the kind of opening with the woman whose best friend is moving and she can't decide what to do. But then she brings in talking to like an asexual person and like just getting the POV of somebody who's like – my friend saw – what's the movie with the strippers? XXL Mike or whatever?

AlexOh, yeah. Magic Mike XXL.

MerlinYeah.

AlexOne of my favorite movies.

MerlinSo – but her friend had seen this movie and was like, wow, you know, I got some serious moisture in my basement. And the ace person was like, it's almost like colorblindness or something where it's like, what are you talking about? Like you saw somebody in a movie and you thought they were sexy. And like bringing in that POV of somebody who feels certain ways and not certain ways and like how that relates to friendship. It really, I got to be honest, it was really interesting. And it's in a way that's almost sort of embarrassing to me was extremely thought provoking.

Just thinking about the nature of friendship and the, I don't want to say binary, but the fairly digital nature of relationships. I mean, you see it play out, it played out in every romantic comedy plus every other movie is like, well, you know, are you close friends with this person? Well, you either should be heterosexual partners or admit that you're gay. And it's like, no, I mean, maybe I am one of those things, but that doesn't have to be the second act of any friendship is wondering if we'll hook up.

AlexYeah.

MerlinIt's an age old thing, but I thought it was very thought provoking.

AlexIt is just a great look at also specifically, I think, pandemic friendships right now, because a lot of us are with our, you know, quote, families. And by family, that to most people means you either were created by those people or you are married to that person or whatever.

MerlinAnd the way of like, you know, it's against one of those almost like ethno-methodological things where you would go like, well, wait a minute. So for this person I love to have insurance, we have to be married. And if we're married, the implication is it's because we like to knock boots. Why can't I give that medical care to my aunt or my friend? And then that makes you get into this whole like, oh, shit, that's right. We're an agrarian Christian country. And that continues to be the controlling metaphor for every relationship is our relationship to other people and God.

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinBut didn't I thought I don't know that seemed right up your alley.

AlexIt does and is especially I mean the second part especially with the woman who's ace I which is short for asexual. Don't feel bad if people do not feel bad if you don't know that word. I didn't know that word.

MerlinCan you give me the official reading? Can you give me the official reading on asexual? I feel like I understand what that means. It's that it's like the opposite of Janelle Monae. Oh, sorry. Title. But it's where you are. You're not sexually or romantically attracted to people just generally. Right.

AlexJust like sort of every human. It is a spectrum. We kind of talked about this last week, how I find some like cis men. You sent me some photos of people you used to be attracted to in Catholic school clothes. One of them that I tried to be very attracted to because you looked a little lesbian-ish. But the ace people, from my understanding with my friends, is that it is very much a spectrum.

Some people are aromantic, meaning they do not want romance. They don't want a bone, like none of that. And there are some people who do desire like romance and intimacy, but don't want the boning. Like there's, you know, it's kind of like the word, I don't want to say it's like the word queer because ace people often fall under the queer umbrella. But it's one of those things that's like whatever you want to call yourself and not whatever you want to call yourself.

Don't pull up that. I don't even want to say her name.

MerlinAre you talking about sexual preference?

AlexThe white black lady. Yeah.

MerlinWhat you prefer.

AlexThe preference.

MerlinI only like certain butts, but I like them a lot.

AlexBut does that make sense in that they like this?

MerlinI think so.

AlexIt comes down to like the type, really, of, okay, I want to be with a person who doesn't want to bone. And because I do not want to bone. And those are the most of the ace relationships. I know.

MerlinBut it provokes this thought, though, of like, why do we have to have this codicil as subtext and eventually text in every conversation about this stuff? And I realize I'm sounding very simple when I say this.

AlexNo, you're not. Well, it is simple, but we don't think about it.

MerlinI think it's such a dude thing of like, well, did you fuck her? And it's like, okay. Okay. I mean, you know, again, this is one of those things that'll, one of the many things that'll get me canceled. But I remember hearing this one time and it really kind of lit up my synapses when like you talk to somebody who's like, well, I didn't say anything inappropriate. I complimented her. I told her she should smile more and didn't need to wear as much makeup. And like, whatever. And it's so hard to have a long arc of education for that person, not to re-educate them to

be woke, but to say, well, the implications of what you're saying are really unkind, and it's not appropriate at some place like work to even be talking about how people look like that's not okay. And again, I don't know if this is the current way to think of this, but the shorthand for this that I learned that has served me well is don't ever say anything. In my case, let's just keep it real simple. Never say anything to a woman that you wouldn't say to a man. And I'm not just talking about did you fuck her. I'm talking about like you would never say that your friends – you should never say to your boss like your butt looks good today.

And I realize that's not complete but boy is that ever a good start.

AlexYeah. I've literally never had that.

MerlinDo you get what I'm saying though?

AlexYeah. And that's something I've literally never even thought. I mean that's – in that I've never thought about it. It's just something that is in my brain is that there are things that people will not say to me because I'm not a man. But also there are things that people will say to me.

MerlinBecause they didn't realize you're not a man.

AlexYep.

MerlinThat one broke my heart. That one broke my heart real good. Thanks, everybody. Hi, I'm Merlin Mim, penis lawyer at law. Penis, that's choir.

AlexI, I, I, well, the, the other thing that happens, um, brilliant thing that not, not brilliant. The thing is, it is opposite of, of brilliant. At least I think it is quite obvious that that is something you shouldn't do, but you know.

MerlinIt helps to, it helps to say it though.

AlexIt does. It does. And what I found the most interesting about this whole thing was actually what they didn't address, which is the amount of folks who are – I'm going to fly the queer flag again. There are quite a few. I know. Everybody strap in or strap on.

MerlinAlways with the flags. You love your flags.

AlexI'm a real Roman Mars today.

MerlinYou put it in your money.

Alexthis is me with a skyline oh boy uh they there's some there we we talk about chosen family a lot now and most people know what that means in and again most don't feel bad don't feel bad no one feel bad chosen family is a term for uh obviously a family you've uh chosen and oftentimes or at At least it started.

MerlinIf you find other people allied with your outgroup in many cases and whether or not you find a specific common cause, you know, and this could get us into Kurt Vonnegut and, you know, Wampeters and Grand Falloons and Karasses.

But like I kind of super believe in that concept. My problem is because I believe so much in a caress, I end up, I think, making the category error of saying caress when I mean Grand Fallon.

AlexDid you read that book? Only once.

MerlinThere is a book with that title, but I think it comes from Cat's Cradle. I think it's from Bokanon. Bokanon is.

AlexOh, really? Oh, I thought you were talking about Cat's Cradle. So never mind then.

MerlinWell, there's a lesser Vonnegut novel, not one of the well-known ones. I think it's called, was it Wampeter's Foma and Grand Falloons? But Bokanonism is a very cool, made-up religion that is first mentioned in, well, not first mentioned, but heavily featured in Cat's Cradle.

And it contains a lot of very, so in Bokanonism, we'll put this in notes, a Karas is a group of people linked in a cosmically significant manner, even when superficial linkages are not evident. A grand faloon is a false caress. That's a group of people who imagine they have a connection that does not really exist.

Speaker AOh, that's good.

MerlinA wompeter is the central theme or purpose of a caress. Each caress has two wompiters at any given time, one waxing and one waning. FOMA, those are harmless truths.

Busy, busy, busy. The words that Boganists whisper when they think about how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.

Alexbusy busy busy god i can't believe i mean i didn't go to lunch with vonnegut but save it for the show he smoked a lot oh god oh cigarettes are coming back he's an old man with

Merlinhis palm oils my name is young johnson i live in wisconsin i work in a lumber mill there potty wheat

Alexoh boy read another book

Speaker ADid you do the challenge, Merlin?

MerlinNot really. No, not really. Part of my problem is I never remember I had to do this show until usually Tuesday.

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinBut no, but I did think about that a lot. And I thought about people in my life that qualify for such a consideration, you know. And the way I might have phrased it in the 80s or 90s is, hey, you know, we might as well be gay. Like where you've got a friend, in my case, like I think of my friend Michael Ferguson would be the best example. Who like, you know, has just been, I don't know which Bokanon group he's in. But like, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how to describe it. Like we looked alike, we dressed alike, we acted alike.

Like, you know, we, he became my, one of my, well, probably the greatest musical Sherpa in my life, just introducing me to so many bands and things. So people like that, though, where it's like, I don't think that, at least as far as I know, romance and sexuality were never a consideration. But I could understand in 1986 how somebody from the outside would look at that and go, you know, eventually they'll get drunk and hook up or whatever. And it made me, I mean, it's not that I'm,

not that there's anything wrong with that, but it does make me feel a little bit icky about how I have probably advanced that same retrograde idea.

I don't know. I don't know. It's also just weird because, again, I'm always saying this, but like friendships were so much easier in college because you just run into the same people all the time. You eat together, you go to school together, you work together, you play in bands together, And like you just see, like I say, I would see it was 520 people at my school, but on campus, I don't know. And I was an RA for a year. Don't email me. But like I knew everybody's name. I knew everybody's name. I knew everybody's deal and at least my idea of what their deal was. And then you're plunged into this world.

Probably you're starting with unemployment, but then some employment. And then you're plunged into the world of work and everything is so different and so fucked up. And you're now expected to, like in my case, living in Tallahassee, Florida, you're really expected to like play softball and eat wings, which is not bad, you know. But if you're somebody who like, for example, never goes to lunch with everybody, you're kind of on the outs a little bit. Do you know what I mean? Amongst the non-commissioned officers, all the people who aren't the big shots, there's supposed to be this kind of shared friendship or light friendship and gregariousness.

and I don't know. It's just weird and it feels so fake. And sometimes you meet wonderful, wonderful people that way. But like, you know, I think about that term we use less now, but with kids, you have something called a play date. And a play date in the early days, like you all have heard this term. I don't mean to be talking down, but like when you've got a fucking baby that can't really sit up, you end up having these things called play dates where it's mostly like the, usually the moms, almost always the moms take the baby and they hang out with similarly aged kids.

Now, when they can finally sit up, they end up doing something that is a wonderful term, parallel play, which is, hi, I'm a baby. I'm at the point when I can just crawl a little bit and fall on a block. But like the parallel play means you've got a bunch of kids that are just each doing their own thing because they don't really have the object permanence or deep personal attachments. But at a certain point, you stop calling it a play date because a play date is something where you, I mean, at least in our household, a play date meant like you grab your baby and make it be near other babies.

And then eventually that becomes you got your kid is developing a better friendship and you say, oh, we should work out a play date. And so that becomes like, OK, now the moms or dads go and you go to a playground and those two toddlers or elementary age kids play together. and maybe that friendship grows. But as I sit here today with a kid who's 13 and change, I would not arrange a play date for her to go have to be near, setting aside COVID. I would not arrange a play date where she has to go and be friends with somebody that I think that she should be friends with.

AlexOh God, she is hashtag blessed.

MerlinBut that new look is really something, isn't it? With the red hair? She's very medicine.

AlexIn a great way.

MerlinBut I'm just rambling at this point, but like it's friendship of any kind. I'm just going to say my thought on this after college or after, you know, after your teen years, once you're into your mid twenties, usually it varies for everybody, blah, blah. It's so much harder to have friends. And especially like, let's say you start nesting with somebody like me and my lady friend been together coming up on 22 years, you know, and we're, we, even in the best of times, we're pretty parsimonious about,

Ooh, Party in Alameda tonight? You got to cross the bridge twice. Nah, I'm good. There's all the things where you end up spending less time. And then you, at this point, there's been this sales funnel of friendship where only a very few people make it through the other end.

Speaker AYes. Oh, that's so good.

MerlinAnd especially where it is mutually agreeable that you cancel things to spend time together. It's really fucking hard to do. I think other people have less of a problem with it. Maybe that's on me, but I think it's hard to admit to ourselves that easy friendship is not really a thing anymore. When you think about who you would call to say you're worried about a diagnosis, how many people outside your family right now would you feel comfortable doing that with? Whereas I had probably 12 people I would do that with in 1987.

I don't know. I don't have a point here. I think it's worth acknowledging the difficulty of maintaining an actual real living friendship. but you know then we have we have friends like my friend christine who uh works for the the bearded lucas man and she like she sent valentines to our house we see her once a year she is the one who introduced my wife and me to each other she tricked us into liking each other at a bar you know the story right so she says she says to madeline oh michael's friend merlin is here and he's really into you and she and she says to me oh my god um michael's friend and my friend madeline

is here and she's really into you. I didn't know that.

Speaker AOh, my God.

MerlinOh, yeah. Then we went home together that night and she moved in three weeks later.

Speaker AOh, God. Anyway. You're such a lesbian. Oh.

MerlinWhich is just to say, I think it's difficult. and I wish I could sit here and say I've done a good job of maintaining those friendships, but mostly I just don't realize a friend of mine is on Twitter. I go, hey, it's you. You're on Twitter and stuff like that. But like, I don't know, man. I just, I don't maintain that well and I do miss it and I'm glad, but I'm glad it exists.

AlexI think you made a very good point and the perfect point, which is one, friendships are hard to maintain, especially for parents, but I will add-

MerlinAnd it sucks to admit. And it sucks to admit.

AlexIt does. But it also especially sucks to admit that I'll double one of the generational things. Like millennials, we're kind of slow on the uptake with getting houses and having kids if we choose. And there is even less social –

MerlinWhy don't you marry your avocado? Yeah. You love it so much.

AlexAnd it's even now more than ever. Now more than ever. It's really hard to keep up with folks. Even, I mean, even people that you work with.

MerlinIt's embarrassing to keep up with folks. I'm not on Twitter. So I just assume that everybody's about to get divorced. I don't know what to even fucking ask of people because, no, I'm not on Facebook. I'm not on Instagram. People send me links to Instagram and it says log in. I don't know what the fuck is happening in anybody else's life except for the bits of their performance that I catch as I'm walking by their window. And that sucks. But you know what I'm saying, though? Part of the difficulty also, at least for me, because I'm from Ohio and it's where it's all about, you know, covered dishes and apologizing.

Like I don't want to get in anybody's shit. I don't want to like assume anything. When you ask things like, well, you know, how are your kids doing? Well, it's complicated. Oh, OK. You know what I mean? Like there's just so much stuff where like if you aren't actively maintaining that, it can be hard to pick up. And if you're like me, you're also plagued with guilt about what a shithead you've been about not maintaining it over the years.

AlexYeah.

MerlinI feel terrible about that.

AlexAnd I both think you are, oh, don't cancel me, don't be mad. I think you are right to feel bad about that because I feel bad for the same reasons. But it's very hard. I mean, it's fine to say over and over again. It's really hard to maintain friendships as an adult because we don't value them as much as we do romantic relationships.

Merlinand also as just john mulaney says it's easier not to do things yes it's so great not doing things i know nothing tastes better than canceled plans but but like it is you know i i if i'm being honest like i you know i'm a serial monogamist historically i'm just on a pretty good run right now um 22 Too strong.

AlexWow.

MerlinHumble brag. But like I think it would be difficult to maintain more than one really good friend at a time, especially as that term is so, you know, watered down, bastardized, denuded, made more confusing. Well, what the fuck is a friend now?

AlexExactly.

MerlinYou know, just as much as I would say like, I love this. It's the greatest thing in the world, which is my way of saying, yeah, it was good. I liked it. You know, there's just so much built in hyperbola to how we communicate with each other nowadays. And I think that extends to our relationships.

AlexI am so glad that I, wow, I am so, Jesus Christ, I can't believe I'm saying, I am so glad that this moved you, upset you so much. I don't know. I don't know. I think a lot of people are going to listen. And I can't – I'm going to acknowledge that not a – you know, tons of people listen to the show. But we have like a fairly diverse listenership and there are people who are like –

MerlinMore diverse than we deserve. Yes.

AlexFor sure.

MerlinSorry about everything.

AlexWell, I mean –

MerlinWell – It just has got me easier. I could pretend that I'm better but you'd know. You guys, that's the thing. I can act like I'm better than I am, but it would be so embarrassing for all three of us.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinMe, Alex, the listener. Oh, interesting. Well, you know, I was donating some organic Brussels sprouts to a black baby.

AlexI was posting that infographic on Instagram. Oh, my God.

MerlinLook at all the birds on wires. That's really moving. Good job. Oh, look, look at that. You put a sign by your baby. Good for you. Is that how old it is? Cool.

AlexWell, that's...

MerlinOh, look, it's your toes while you're on a boat. Oh, thank you.

AlexOh, wow. There's a lot of feet on Instagram still.

MerlinToo many feet. Too many feet. Too many feet. Ah, as far as I can tell, Instagram consists solely of a login window. Oh, you sent me a photo of a sign with a misspelling.

AlexFor me, Instagram consists of, oh, wow, I truly have not been keeping up with these people and these lives that I deeply, deeply care about because algorithms suck ass. And it made me not sad that that's, yeah, I guess, I don't know.

MerlinMelancholy?

AlexMelancholy. And that, I don't know. It's like there's no place to hang out anymore. That's – like there's no the place for the internet kids to hang out. And even – and I don't mean like the cool tech kids.

MerlinNot as much. No, at this point I think we've really all – we all signed each other's yearbooks many, many years ago and now we're not sure what comes next.

AlexYeah, and it's weird and I do hear this from the youths.

MerlinHave you heard this? Stay cool. Have a good summer.

AlexYeah, well, like even it's like some... Love you like a sis. Oh, gosh. I thought that I had peanut buttered on this real hard, but then I remembered last week or two weeks ago, I reached out to who we still refer to as our engineer, Cameron, but he has not engineered the show in a while because we have not been in a studio.

MerlinHe's here in spirit.

AlexYes, in spirit.

MerlinBehind the ones and twos.

AlexYeah. And he was an incredibly talented musician. And I'm like, God, I haven't reached out to Cameron in so long. And like, I used to talk to him at least once a week, more, usually more. And we worked really closely together for a long time. And I just, and I was like, hey, can I hire you to do a song? And he's like, okay, yes. Is this for Dubai Friday? And I'm like, no. But now I'm like, yes. So he gave me permission to play. Oh, here, let me sound.

I know that you don't like birthdays. And I also don't really like birthdays. But people seem to like them. And I don't know if I wish, like, anyone a happy birthday. Because I'll, like, go. I'll not check into a Slack one day. And then I don't. I'm like, oh, fuck. And especially when it's, like, a meaningful. Like, a lot of people are turning 30 this year that I know. because we're the same age and i was like fuck yes i don't need a 30 birthday party let's just skate by this not because i'm ashamed of my age but i just don't i don't want a party about me

uh unless it's about my podcast podcast party yeah uh give us your fucking money podcast party in the usa but i i felt really really bad especially because folks often like i i i don't know i'm not good at keeping in touch with people especially this year not even like because of the pandemic but just trying to do new things and that are really solitary and when i say isolating it's also like intentionally isolating so like i've done this to myself nobody has has been mean or

Merlinkept out of touch a shorter version might be you're not going to blame covid for like you're right yeah i i think uh i wish i had that courage i mean sorry i can't come

Alexwell and now i also don't have the excuse of well sometimes i do but but uh normally i had an excuse of oh my god uh my boss needs to keep me here for like three extra hours it's gonna take a long time and now it's different like sometimes that that happens but fewer things are like on fire and products like go out but we're not in you know

MerlinBut just in passing, what you're describing is what so many American men are terrified of. It's why they play CNN in airports. The idea of being alone with the voice in your head in public and not having sports to talk about scares the shit out of so many men.

AlexAnd it scares me because it's awful, for me at least. That's why I take the McDowell.

MerlinYou've got to really taper off.

Alexif you're gonna do it you get taper off yeah yeah you will otherwise you'll get not covid you get

Merlina state it's called saint stephen's affliction oh boy not a hot saint isn't it something in the black box that gives you a big rash don't google it please don't it's a it's like a it's like john

Alexi don't want to call it it's a fucking deadly rash but it's basically it's something like that and if you're on lamictal you will get a rash fairly quickly or if you and you'll die yeah

MerlinYou catch Navin Johnson's disease

Speaker AOh there we go

MerlinSo you were saying

AlexOh so I was like Cameron Can I hire you to make a birthday song That is just Me apologizing And so I would like to include this in the song Or include this in the song 3, 2, 1

MerlinWe'll drop it in

AlexYou listen now You do that

Speaker BIt was your birthday

MerlinOh my god Oh my god, this is great! Holy shit! I love his voice!

Speaker BOh, he's amazing.

MerlinOh my god, this rules! I want to play this on a cassette all the time in 1999. Oh, I'm going to buy a song.

Speaker BIllinois. Stuck in Illinois. I'm going to be a little bit I'm going to be a little bit I'm going to be a little bit

MerlinOkay. I'm going to hire him. That was good. Good job, man.

AlexHe's amazing.

MerlinWe should just start adding more people to the credits. It'll make us seem like a bigger deal.

AlexRight?

MerlinIf we act like we have a staff.

AlexWell, I thought about that. Should I take Cameron off? And I'm like, oh. But then just talking to Cameron.

MerlinNo, no, no. We should add lots of people with obviously very diverse names. Yeah. and then just say we like that it's a click we like that it's a club oh yeah and we got to take harvey milk out of the show notes cancel harvey milk oh boy yes yes no

Show notes

Transcript

227. 3-2-1 Cucks

Show notes

Transcript

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