253. Jimmy Eats Chemicals

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast. This week's challenge, watch Chernobyl.

I know at some point, podcasters are going to stop bitching about Zoom. No, that's not true, because I think we bitched about Skype to the bitter end. But you get what you get, and you get only vaguely upset. Hi, Merlin. How are you?

MerlinHello.

AlexIt's late in the day for both of us.

MerlinI'm so fucked up right now.

AlexOh, no. What happened?

MerlinNo, I just, I honor this temporary new recording time, which is...

AlexOh, it's terrible. Just the worst.

MerlinThis is a terrible, this is one of the probably the three worst times to podcast. At night is bad for me. I really am. I'm very low energy. And that's when John Siracusio accumulates a lot of his dark powers, is it night?

AlexYeah. I mean, I get how he seems to have a healthy work-life balance. And maybe that's why he's not exhausted by 8 p.m. But it's very like that's when he gets girls to draw for him. And, you know, he touches his books.

MerlinHe's a pretty princess. So he gets to define a lot of the terms of things, you know. Still on my apology tour. He made me start.

AlexOh.

MerlinI just I also I want to go through lots of things. We have a lot to cover today. And we're going to need to do some in-band communication because what the fuck? What are we doing?

AlexI don't even know what that means. Is that what in-band communication? I've been listening to a lot of David Allen, so I'm in-band signaling.

MerlinOkay, sorry.

AlexIn telecommunications, in-band signaling is a sending of control information.

MerlinJust extending it, you're making it take so much longer, so much longer.

AlexThe same band or channel. This isn't helping me at all.

MerlinYou know what's definitely not helping me is that I was just using a drinking receptacle that was very poorly washed and rinsed. And I kept drinking this here, my seltzer water. I kept drinking it and going, hmm, hmm, hmm. I kept going, hmm, hmm, hmm. My lips taste kind of waxy. And I realized that's because there's dish liquid.

It's kind of like a margarita, but instead of salt, it's dishwasher liquid.

AlexThat's something I would do.

MerlinI'm so fucked up, Alex. I'm so fucked up. And because I was so nervous about the new starting time. You can tell when I'm nervous because, first of all, I use too much hair product. No matter how hard I try, if I'm very nervous, I don't have any in today because I'm not visible. But that's one way you can tell. Another way you can tell is I probably took too much ADD medicine today because I felt like I really had to be on my game. But 1230 my time is a strange time to be doing this. Doesn't it feel weird?

AlexIt is very, very weird. And going – see, I don't know. It used to be –

MerlinLet's work it out. I got a lot more to go through. all of my all of my nano leaves fell off the wall yes again there's that okay i don't understand how that's possible didn't you i think my walls are wet that's all i can figure is there's some moisture

Alexin my walls if you're part of my saying oh that makes sense yeah that you got the sweaty walls

Merlinsweaty walls that's yes yes not sweaty balls sweaty sweaty walls and some ale fell off and now I don't have my usual accommodating pleasant lighting in here and I turned on my um my key lights and now I feel like I'm being interrogated and I've had a lot of coffee and ADD medicine trying to think if there's anything else what else happened today I ran out toilet paper

Alexran out oh my god you're a mess oh no yeah no it's okay I was able to manage it I I'm in the dock what there's there's nothing here oh wait there's a bunch there's some things

MerlinBut listen, I don't know if I'm using that. I'm going to hear about it from Syracuse on his tech show, on his popular show. He lived long enough to become the Squidward.

There's the kind of communication that's outside the band. But I'm going to have to talk about the show on the show. Because you, the challenge for this week is to watch the HBO, watch episode one of the HBO series Chernobyl and to listen to episode one of the accompanying podcast. That was the on-label challenge for the week. And then, as I think we discussed in a very good after show last week, we talked about David Coe's ill-fated,

God, this tastes terrible. It's like I just licked a perfume.

AlexStop, stop. That's too much base. Your pH is going to get all messed up and you're going to get a yeast infection or something.

MerlinI don't know how that works. I've got an observation about acids and bases. Does it ever occur to you that maybe bases are slippery and acids are sticky?

AlexYes, actually. I think about this.

MerlinBecause if you're doing something with coffee, like the espresso cleaner I use on lots of things, I think it's very basey. And when you stick your thumb and your finger in, it feels very slippery. I don't know if that's science. It feels like science.

AlexYeah, well, that's the thing is I don't enjoy vegetables, but there's a lot of, you know, basey.

MerlinWell, wait, are they putting a square for you?

AlexOh, I am so excited for this.

MerlinI am so – I – okay, okay, okay. I've had a lot of ADD medicine. I saw something last night, and it was the most wonderful feeling because above all, in this entire fucking universe, I knew this is something I had to talk to you about. But second, I was delighted with not knowing how you would respond to it. So save it for the show.

AlexI will. I will.

MerlinWhat was I talking about? My leaves? I was talking about pooping.

AlexYou were talking about your medication.

MerlinA lot of medication.

AlexThe worst times of day to podcast.

MerlinOh, yeah. So anyway, and I was able to put my hands on the back of the truck and locate a copy of that six or nine or 15 CD collection. And you seemed to. So we talked about getting matchy organized or similar. that led to let's listen to the david co heavily caffeinated uh sax fest that is getting things

Alexdone fast don't you love those saxes oh boy like if anybody had no one said anything bad i think about our jazz breaks but our jazz breaks rule what are you talking about they do i didn't know how bad they could be.

MerlinOh, yeah.

AlexLike my, wow. Wow. This is like, ugh.

MerlinYeah, it's, yeah, it's exactly what you would imagine it sounds like. Now, here's my question to you in band. Hi, I hope you're doing well. Did you have a good day so far? You okay?

AlexOh, God.

MerlinOkay, good.

AlexIt was fine. Brain school just went too long, and then I had to pee. Oh, man. And now my lighting's also messed up because it's afternoon lighting and not the morning lighting. So I'm like, oh, but I'm hearing Merlin's voice, even though it's a PM time.

MerlinIt's very strange.

AlexYeah.

MerlinI don't like it at all. We'll do it.

AlexAlso, drinking a monster energy drink, which is less fun than ADD meds.

MerlinYours doesn't have dishwasher liquid on it. And so here's my question to you. I think you've already covered this in the show notes, but you can consider this a teaser because I know how you love money, that fat boob money.

AlexOh, so much.

MerlinFat boob money. Got that. Okay. And so my question for you is, we'll talk about these things. We're going to talk about the squares, I imagine. And so we will talk about the HBO show Chernobyl here on the main episode. And then am I getting correctly that you and I, without Matchy, will be discussing getting things done fast for our Patreon member after show. Is that correct?

AlexYes, yes. And I thought that was the challenge for next week.

MerlinWell, I bet on me. I was saying, like, I don't know how long it'll take. And because there's 39 CDs. By the way, I'm stealing that joke directly from John Hodgman. John Hodgman's joke on his wonderful audio book. Did you ever listen to areas of my expertise?

AlexI stopped at the Hobo Nates. It was very funny, but I fell asleep.

MerlinBut did you, like, hear, like, when Jonathan Colton sings his nice song?

AlexYeah, it's delightful.

MerlinHe asked me if he's playing it with his large hands?

AlexThat's the thing. I love when audiobooks are basically a small variety show or production and it is very good.

MerlinI bet it's a lot more work. A lot more work.

AlexYou mean other than just talking into a microphone? I would agree.

MerlinWell, like getting Paul Rudd in the studio while you talk about like whatever, like whether something is a harbinger or it's like, oh God, it's the best audiobook.

AlexOh yeah. It makes me totally horny for the logistics of it because my gosh.

MerlinOh, me too. How do you schedule something like that? Well, anyway, because of the 160 CDs in the Getting Things Done Fast collection that the David Co. company has had disappeared, I figured it'd take you a long time to get through that, forgetting my own codicil. I've had a lot of ADD medicine. Forgetting my own codicil that you only have to listen to the first part of a thing. You only have to read the first part, watch the first part. But it sounds to me like you dug in and you started listening to the jasmine.

AlexOh, yes. And I totally understand why this has been purged from the internet.

MerlinOh, save it for the show. I can't wait.

AlexOh, it's so good, though. I mean, jazz breaks aside. However, Matchy has not been listening.

MerlinYou know what I mean, though, when I was saying like hearing him say it, even with all of his jargon and putting things on your list to remember to buy a new briefcase and update the report in Eldercare and all of his usual greatest hits. Also reminded me how much I have stolen from him. It's really objectionable how much I've stolen from him.

AlexHmm. Huh. Interesting.

MerlinWell, I think I did it differently.

AlexYes, absolutely.

MerlinBut it's how on three separate occasions, I've written the Pretenders song back on the chain gang.

AlexThat's not funny to anybody.

MerlinIt is. It is. But it's like a D and A and a G, which is a pretty straightforward song. And I've written it three separate times and gone, ha. That sounds familiar.

AlexThere's that's a cliche and all music. No, no. You're not special, Merlin, man.

MerlinNo, no, no.

AlexWhat you did is what a lot of smart people do.

MerlinI'm George Harrison. The judge said to George Harrison, look, I don't think you deliberate. This is my words, not his. I think he said to George Harrison, he says, I don't think you deliberately lifted like every part pretty much of My Sweet Lord from He's So Fine. But like, you know, it was in your subconscious maybe. And like you didn't realize that you were basically lifting the chords and the melody and everything.

Alexum but then you know you expanded on it and made it your own and it was different in your own way that helped different kinds of people yeah what what an awful thief

Merlinand that's why today people know inbox zero still doesn't work whatever that is

Please don't defend me on the internet. It sickens me.

AlexI didn't defend you.

MerlinI just thought it was very funny. I'm almost totally off Twitter at this point.

AlexYou can't afford my loyalty, as you say.

MerlinIsn't that a great phrase?

AlexIt was just so funny. It was just a Bloomberg article and five tweets.

MerlinBut it's just so funny. Alex is referring to something in. I want to say Bloomberg. Bloomberg.

AlexWell, in Bloomberg. but I have a subscription to Bloomberg so I couldn't tell what the story was about.

MerlinI've never not reached my article limit with Bloomberg. I think I reached it like five years ago and it's still reminding me.

AlexYeah, it was just a series of tweets that Bloomberg Business put out.

MerlinI'm visiting here with you because I've had a lot of ADD medicine and I'll share this with you is that I don't engage in lots of things and that's right in the sweet spot for stuff I'm not going to engage with. Oh, no. You know me, right? You know me. You know I'm a guy who likes to push a bitch on a plane and who loves to engage in the discourse.

Is there a chance you hit her with your suitcase and didn't realize it? Yeah, I do that. I do that all the time.

AlexWe got to bracket this because it took, I just think that I should get a parade for how difficult it was not to ask about what is it called? The plane situation? Whatever your – yeah.

MerlinMy incident. My Delta variant.

AlexYeah. Your Delta variant because I knew that the story had been told elsewhere and I was like, if Merlin wanted to talk about it.

MerlinI almost sent you a copy the night we recorded it because I thought you'd want to know.

Alexit's well that but but i i was like no i know that if it's gonna happen i'm gonna be patient

Merlini want to i want to praise you for not being that particular guy even though you certainly could it's

Alexwithin your rights but you know well i think i texted you the standard probably can't do anything no need to respond something sounds like it sucks and i i did text you when i was listening to the episode and was it was stressful huh well oh yes the most recent episode of wrecked diffs everyone should go listen to it because it has phenomenal storytelling and i think i said it was like an a24 horror film where i was just like oh my god oh my god oh my god you can just tell from the

music something something good's not happening who what child is getting decapitated but the ending was so much different and so much more satisfying because you could tell i was guilty

Merlinas charged. You can tell. No, no, no, no.

AlexNo, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want to spoil it. I don't want to spoil it. Let's talk about it next week. Because it did not end like an A24 horror film. And it just made me incredibly happy. Well, and I don't like, and a little ageist, I think. Because, God, that old bitch just...

MerlinYou're ageist? I'm ageist.

AlexI am. I got really bad at that.

MerlinFuck her. She's being a dick, man. She's being a dick. Just straight up. Lots of good censoring. And so that's the show. This is it. Thank you so much for tuning in this week. We talked about Chernobyl. I'm looking at broccoli and spinach square. This looks so good.

AlexThat goes down nice.

MerlinAnd I think what was the other thing then about it wasn't my pooping. It wasn't my tiles. It was something else. But, you know, oh, so that's what we're going to do is we're going to talk about that. Out of curiosity. So here's like it's going to be worth listening to this after show, I imagine. Because Alex and I, have we ever talked about getting things done as a thing before, other than last week?

AlexNo. Listen, this has been, what, now, four or six years coming? I have bided my time. I've been a very good little jazz girl and just been, yeah, I don't want top surgery. I just want to hear her talk about GGD.

Merlinwell that's that's the that's the two critical patterns there's always two things with david allen you need to figure out what what is what is what is the desirable outcome and what is the next action step the desire outcome has got no boobs and the next step is get boobs cut off right

Alexi mean i don't know what your going rate was back in the day but i'm wondering how much the cost would translate and it's any anyway uh no we have not specifically talked about gtd

MerlinTranslate the CDs for you? No, no, no.

AlexThe cost of you getting to talk at like a big fancy school and the cost of someone to chop off my tits. And I just find that very funny.

MerlinOh, you see, we should offer it as a package. Maybe we buzz. I enjoyed my evening in Michigan, except for my emotional breakdown. But I like Michigan a lot. That's where your family likes to get their boobs cut off. Why don't we do that? Why don't we offer a two day seminar?

AlexExactly. oh live stream it yeah oh that would be terrific i mean yeah you you guys you do you oh

Merlinthere's a lot of yellow but here we are and alex had brain school i got a new knife coming today that i'm excited about i'm very excited to talk about the squares and uh and so and this is also where we would say hey um we uh we would love to have your money if you like this show uh you like what we're doing or even if you like one of us that's all all you have to like is we don't have to like us if you only like one of the idea of us you know and james baldwin says that's the thing

is that you've got to get people to understand you not the idea of you that's in my quotes file

Alexreally you know that quote you know that quote i wish he took his own advice about trump in

Merlinimpersonation james baldwin yeah oh james baldwin what yes the the the black gay man in the 60s

AlexNo, I thought you said Alec Baldwin. I'm sorry.

MerlinOh, Alec Baldwin.

AlexThat's good advice, though.

MerlinJames Baldwin said in 1961, you have to impose, in fact, this may sound very strange, you have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.

AlexFuck, I must have read that at some point.

MerlinMic dropped. Holy shit. Yes.

AlexBecause this was amongst, I don't want to assume this was about AIDS, but wow, it sure implies it.

MerlinWell, it's from the link. I can see the link. My project over time is to get all my quotes, get them right, and find a definitive citation, which if you're a fan of stuff like, what's that quote thing I like? You know, the quote finder? The commonplace books. No, no. Quote finder. Quote detective. There's that one site that tries to track down quotes. It's like, did this quote actually exist and who actually said it? It probably wasn't Mark Twain.

AlexYeah. Martin Luther King was super smart. He did not say literally everything in the world. I'm sorry if that gets me.

MerlinOh, yeah. He's the one who originally said, boo, cut me sleeping. James Baldwin debates William F. Buckley. And there's a video of it.

AlexOh, wow. Holy shit.

MerlinWe could put it into show notes. And yeah. Holy shit. William Buckley's had some interesting debates. Remember the Gore Vidal stuff? If you call me, what did he say? He said to Gore Vidal, if you call me a crypto fascist one more time, I'll smash your face so hard you'll stay plastered, I think is what he said.

Which is actually pretty good. I'll put this in show notes. So that's what we're doing. So you can go to patreon.com slash Dubai Friday or giveusyourfuckingmoney.com. And if you could tithe us some money, we'd appreciate it. Now, see, now my tithing is really paying off. I tithe to several people, including Kirk Hamilton of Strong Songs. And last night he put out an episode about fingertips. He did an episode about 20 miniature songs, and it was great.

AlexDid I miss? Oh, is it the – I think you convinced me to – I don't know if I'm –

MerlinNo, it's on Main. I just saw something just came up on the Members Only. the voluminous email that I get from Patreon about things I should see. But, boy, it's really good. You know what I'm talking about, right? You know the They Might Be Giants thing, fingertips?

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinOkay, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, you're so young. I thought you only listened to, like, Jimmy Eats Chemicals or whatever. I don't know what you listen to.

AlexNo, he doesn't shove a bass.

MerlinSave It For Sunday, Fistful of Fives, like all those emo bands you like.

AlexNo, who doesn't?

MerlinJimmy Eats Chemicals is a good name for an emo band.

AlexSpeaking of eating, so give us your money.

MerlinThank you very much. Should we start the show?

AlexLet's start the show. Squares.

MerlinThis I discovered on the Twitter. Oh, I think I even put, well, I didn't put the... how I found it, but...

AlexI went hunting because I immediately wanted this.

MerlinI mean, I went all over. I did the thing that you do, that I rarely do. You do this, where I was like, I hit you through all the channels, and then I also put it out in public because I was so goddamn excited about it.

AlexDo you know what was funny? Blocked, like, all of the channels except the Twitter notifications somehow in my do not disturb mode, in focus mode. I know it's a beta. I'm sorry, but thinks I was 15. Well, I know. But please, describe these squares because they just make me so happy.

MerlinWell, okay. So here's – I want to credit because I've got to get better about this.

AlexI think it was my friend Ryan.

MerlinI'm sorry. Anyway, a friend of mine was, quote, tweeting this thing. And I immediately realized this is for you. So the person who had shared this originally has a cute Twitter name, and I don't say cute Twitter names.

Four screenshots and the phrase, nah, they're fucking with us. And you'll see this in show notes. And what this is, is purports to be a product called Square Eat. S-Q-U-A-R-E, like square, and then at. So Square Eat.

AlexSquare Eat.

MerlinAnd so what you're asking, what is Square Eat? And it says here on the internet, Squary, it's gourmet, a gourmet innovative 50-gram square that provides all the nutrients without any additives, tasty, healthy, affordable, and ready to eat. And true to their word, and this will also be in notes, you can go and look at these on the website. It's literally a 50-gram square of something. and then if they if they have not put labels on here to say what this food purports to be

i mean do it i mean tell me so what's your take on this would you agree that this looks like a 50 gram square of food it looks kind of like i think it was actually it might have been ryan or whomever who said this is it it really looks like an airpods pro case form factor i am i mean

AlexI am just trying just not to die from laughing because you go to the square eat.com again only one E but it autoplay is a video without sound so I guess good on you

Merlinguys but it's just

Alexso it's so bad also they

Merlinmade the invest now button really small every website needs an invest now button I think we should probably get one of those

Alexlive own a steak and square eat

MerlinWell, you know, I think, you know, I think, you know, pop-ups for newsletters, tired. Oh, God. Invest now in Square Food, wired.

AlexOh, God. This is so, this is so bad. Oh, my God. We fund her.

MerlinYou are right. The video. Okay. So have we done justice yet to what this is? No, no. So this is a site. Like, my take is here, like, I haven't looked at the deck yet. my take on this is okay listen what if you were kind of into the idea of soylent but you found

Alexit too joyful which is me i am like the corner market but like what if you wanted something

Merlinlike actual soylent what if you wanted something that looks like you were actually like stranded on the dark star spaceship and all you have is boxes of squares to eat the dream and it says on the label what it is and you have no choice but to eat it because A square is all there is for food.

And it's worth your time to visit the website. And I think it's very much worth your time to click on. So you've got square eat, meal plans, boxes, squares. We will be doing this. I'm clicking on squares. And man, my mouth is watering.

AlexI can't find a way to buy the squares. I'm trying so I'm going to email them. I just, oh, my God. There's no way to do justice to it without the video.

MerlinNo, no, there's no way. There's no way. But what I can tell you is like, I mean, I don't want to be unkind. I'm sure this is helping a lot of people. But it really does. So imagine an AirPods Pro case. Like, fair enough. Like if you took your.

AlexExcept it's a square. It is a rounded square. Not a little pill. It is a square. I think it's very important. They really want you to know it's a square.

MerlinRight. But I'm talking about the box. The box you put your, the case you put your AirPods in.

AlexThe box? Oh.

MerlinOh.

AlexOh, here we go. I see. I see now. Okay. See, I apologize. There's no way. This product's too brilliant. It's just too brilliant.

MerlinAnd they're all 50 grams. And again, it's really all about the visuals. As with all food that looks like an astronaut would not want to eat it. Asparagus square, chicken square, chocolate pancake square, beef square, sweet potato, hazelnut, broccoli, and spinach square. Fresh and flavorful mixed green vegetables. Basmati rice square. Wow.

AlexI mean, I am the target audience for this. I would love.

MerlinThis is why I can't wait to hear.

AlexJust a single square, just of vegetables, and just put it down my gullet.

MerlinYou love peanut butter, but why are you fucking around sticking your fingers in a jar when you could just have peanut square?

AlexExactly. Exactly. You don't need to Ted Lasso it. You just get right on the Roy Kent and slurp it up.

MerlinSalmon square, zucchini square, seabass square. It used to be like a name every kind of square. Pistachio on cashew. Cashew square. Oh, God. And then when you've treated yourself to the website, maybe you've looked at the investor deck, you really should turn on sound and watch the video of this guy who has a serious WeWork guy energy to me.

AlexIt's not even just WeWork. It's like, is he trying to have mystique? I don't know.

MerlinHe seems to really enjoy it. He shows you how to unbox it. You get a bag and you take out the box and the box has your squares and you can just scan right across. You can and then the QR code will tell you the details of your square. Because when I'm hungry, I like to use my phone to get information. Well, this chicken square is really upsetting to me. I mean, well, it even comes with it comes with olive oil.

AlexAlex, isn't this basically a chicken nugget? If you really think about it. Yeah, it is. It's just a square mug.

MerlinWell, I mean, one highlight of going to any museum, including or especially the Air and Space Museum that I love so much in Washington, D.C., is you get some astronaut ice cream. Which is, I mean, that's an extreme misnomer in every way because it's not cold. It's not creamy. It's basically like a sponge that dissolves in your mouth and tastes like a lifesaver wrapper. But that's exciting because that's what astronauts, kids like me, drank Tang because of the astronauts. This has a serious astronaut vibe. Now, just so you know, you're not just going to unbox these and pop them in your mouth.

Yum. No, no, no. You take them out and you microwave them first. Okay? Like 30 seconds, you microwave. Then you take them out of their packet, which is very easy to do, according to this man. I have to learn his name. And then you get a pan. You heat it up. It comes with some EVOO. You drop that in just a little bit, not too much. And then you brown it up. Mmm. Mmm.

Alexit is like it's eldritch horror alex eldritch horror well remember when i was uh i in the challenge oh gosh um what is the show called made for love yeah something um the the crazy guy has flavor balls and i i want that except without you wanted flavor balls that's right but i don't want the flavor. I just want the ball.

MerlinI just want... Just all balls, no flavor. That's the Alex Cox promise.

Anyway, I don't want to belabor this, but now, if we do find a way, if you're able to contact this person, maybe you could say, hello, I'm an investor. I'm holding my finger under my nose like a mustache hello i'd like to get get square um do you think which ones do you think you'd want to try basmati rice might be the closest to no flavor well okay but here's the

Alexthing i feel as if i would like the rice ones and maybe even the chicken one really but i i think what what i need is the vegetable one like those disgusting slimy little things i think oh we would

Merlinjust jam it down yeah like a pill basically like a horse pill like a dewormer that's literally how

Alexi eat vegetables now i do it really quick try not to throw up and then there we go yeah it's it's terrible but if it's just a little square you know i i could swallow that it looks like it maybe

Merlinwell do you like looking at these i mean it's funny because um uh we recorded reconcilable differences last night and in the um after show of that we talked about pasta shapes because john

Alexneeded a place to vent about pasta shapes i don't want big spoilers but has he tried the other sport like has he tried the planet money one he has thoughts oh oh the spoiler i will give though is

Merlina lot of it just goes to talking about how tiff and especially marco are extremely wrong about everything. Surprise, surprise. But like, you know, like I happen to agree with Marco. I thought I agreed before I was set straight by Squidward. It was like a farfalle or whatever, the bow ties. Like, oh, you know, that's fine in a pasta salad. But I agree that like it cooks kind of, some of the stuff cooks kind of unevenly. John says that's a feature, not a bug. And he takes exception with that. But here's the thing, you know, and the thing we, I think, agreed on is

the kind of pasta you choose. Obviously, taste. A taste as in what you like is a component. But then also, what kind of sauce? Is it heavy? Is it thin sauce? Is there a lot of meat? That governs a lot of my pasta choosing. But texture is a huge deal. I'm guessing for somebody like you who's deeply weird, the texture of a food is probably really important, right?

AlexOh, yeah. It is top of my mind every time.

MerlinGive me just a good texture. What's a not so good texture for you?

Alexfood-wise? I mean, it depends also on the flavor. Like, with pasta, I enjoy... I know it's not called angel hair, and I know... Caponini! Yeah. I'm sorry for triggering the Italian Americans, or the real

MerlinItalians. That's no good. That's no good.

AlexDiscrimination!

MerlinThrow a turtle at you or something. Spin his car out. Is that what he does? Does Mario throw turtles? What does he do?

AlexWell, turtle shells

Merlinand bananas, and

AlexBut that's the thing. He's really inefficient. He could just throw a little food square.

MerlinYou love Olive Garden. You go to Olive Garden. Okay, so do you like the breadsticks? I don't.

AlexOf course you do. You've got gift cards somewhere. There's a time and a place for Olive Garden, and that is just what I will say. And I think they would get a lot more business if they, like Denny's, were open for 24 hours. Because, I mean, yeah.

MerlinThat's a really good point. What about a cheeseburger? Is that a good texture for you?

AlexOh, no. There's too many.

MerlinIt's got a squishy bun. It's got kind of a greasy thing. It might have some onions or something. But is there like, okay, so like peanut butter. You like peanut butter? Is that a texture you like?

AlexOh, God, it's perfect. Yeah, yeah.

MerlinCrunchy or smooth?

AlexI, for 20 years, only thought smooth. But then I found the right amount of crunchy, which I think is, it's like an artisanal choice. I enjoy a medium ground crunchy, but with also whole peanuts. So basically there are two separate grinding situations going on. Does that make sense?

MerlinYeah, I think so. It's not just like they ran it through once. It's like they're blending the smooth nut butter with the crunch of the partial nut peanut legumes, if you like.

AlexYes, yes. Oh, and french fries are awesome from McDonald's if it is at a corporate McDonald's at a busy time that we've talked about. Yes.

MerlinAnd they just came out. And they just came out. They don't travel well. Well, that leads me to the more I look at this, and I've looked at these quite a lot, Alex. I'm just wondering, I mean, are they all similar in texture? And if so, what is that texture like? Is it like biting into a bar of soap?

AlexWell, based on your experience, I don't, in the past hour or so of continuing to drink your seltzer, you might be able to stomach it. Like, I believe it is also.

MerlinBut tell me, tell me, give me, give me an example of like when you bite into, I'm telling you, I've tried square eat. And biting into one is like biting into a what?

AlexI think a piece of tofu. Like that's, I have a feeling.

MerlinLike firm, extra firm, not silky, like firm tofu.

AlexYeah, like really. Oh, God.

MerlinDo you think it jiggles in your hand?

AlexI don't know. I don't think so. I would like it to.

MerlinI wonder if they're wobbly.

AlexNo. Maybe one of the more, like, I don't know, less dense ones. Maybe the vegetable ones jiggle a little. But I have to imagine they just really pack the vegan meat in there.

MerlinJust imagine getting invited to this guy's house for, like, an entourage marathon. And he's just got bowls and bowls and bowls of sweet potato square.

AlexThe very upsetting thing, too, is I don't think he's in a commercial kitchen. He looks like, I mean, it's a very nice kitchen.

MerlinYou think he makes these in his den?

AlexOkay, listen.

MerlinThey're hand-poured, they're bespoke.

AlexListen, as connoisseurs of Shark Tank, we know how some stuff is prepared. Most of the time, they're there to get a commercial kitchen.

MerlinYou gotta, that's why I'm here. I need help getting a repacker. Also, my mom died. I'm crying.

AlexOh, God. I would, that's the thing. You've gotta, hmm. All right, here's a very callous question.

MerlinYes.

AlexBut do you think everybody goes on there with a, you have to cry story, which is.

MerlinI was talking about the shark tank.

AlexYes. And like, you're prepared to cry and you have your crying moment. but then if you don't get on the show they definitely don't you they just cut that crying

Merlinmoment oh i see well i i watched the show i feel like this might be some input from from max because he's been adjacent to things like this and he's a good watcher of media but i watched that show extremely cynically to me it's like uh cnbc is available in the hotel room and there's a shark tank on that's mostly how i watch it these days but i think oh the covet seasons are interesting Oh, yeah? That's why I can't watch that Heidi Klum show with Tim. It's just too much COVID. No, but I think what happens is there are types.

And I think sometimes there are ding-a-lings. And the ding-a-ling might actually get money. But I think the producers try to get a balance. Like, you ever notice you're not going to get four – usually it's like four, right? Three or four? you're not going to get people who are all um you know whatever brothers lobster or uh the sponge papa or whatever you're not going to get all dingers there's got to be a dingling often the first one is a dingling you get somebody like you know with all respect to to the doctor you know

who sews denim skirts for ladies um you know the sullivan generator i think is a favorite um there's And I don't know if they have a deliberate, if they go into it knowing there's one person who's going to lose their shit because they realize how unprepared they are. And that's how they get the ding-a-ling edit title.

AlexYes. Oh, yeah, for sure.

MerlinLike you could be the guy with the bottle cozy. Do you remember that guy? The weird guy who made all the noises and it's basically a sock you put on a bottle.

AlexThere are a lot of bottle coverings. And they're all dudes. They're like, it's a condom for a beer. Oh, wow.

MerlinAnd I got a pink one for you, Lori.

AlexHere, Dallas.

MerlinI got a dominatrix for you, Robert. And so, but I don't know how quite, but I do think there's, they slot roughly into types. Like think about, from the Sullivan Generator episode, if memory serves, the one that I did make John Syracuse a watch, and I'll always be proud. You got Blondie, right? The lady, the blonde lady with the cookies and she expanded too fast in Florida and all of that stuff. I think there's always going to be people that you kind of pull for. But then you're supposed to realize that, oh, these guys aren't ready for the sharks.

They can't instantly call up their numbers or, oh, you know, the deadly one. The like, oh, by the way, I didn't mention I have a partner who owns a majority and I owe $7 million. And everybody goes, oh. Oh, dun, dun, dun.

AlexDo you want me to do spoilers for real life?

MerlinI think I feel like I probably do. Yeah.

AlexWell, most shows and especially reality shows, you know, they want to hit. Do you know the four quadrants of like media creation?

MerlinAnd when I say media creation, I learned a long time ago the phrase four quadrant movie. And that was described to me as it appeals to the four major demographics, if not equally, at least in part, that this is a movie that could be for kids. It could be for old people. Is it close to that?

AlexYeah, it's men. I think it's men. Yeah, there's there's it's divided into I'm going to Google this. Oh, oh, I was right. Yeah. So there's two axes, age and gender. So under 25 and then over 25 and then men versus women. Problematic. Shut up, everybody. Everyone shut up.

MerlinNo, there's actually 17 quadrants and not the ones you think.

AlexWell, and that's actually no. What's funny is that it is they have like added quadrants and things. And it's like very much that like woke capitalism of, OK, how do we like? Yes. The extra gay men and then the only –

MerlinOh, you're saying there's like, oh, you got to have otters. You got bears.

AlexYeah.

MerlinYou got Donald Ducks, right? Russ Hanneman says that's gay guys who used to be in the Navy.

AlexBut correct. And so that's what –

MerlinI got guys who shit in suitcases, like the entire spectrum of gender and sexual presentation.

AlexRight. But you can –

MerlinI have a sexual proclivity, but I have a gender preference.

AlexOh, God. It's a choice. That is how typically, especially on reality shows, contestants are sorted. So there will be maybe a quadrant-heavy show, like the Christmas episodes.

MerlinOh, like a thank you for your service episode? Ten years of making millionaires.

AlexYeah, and that's like the over 25 male market.

MerlinI've designed a backpack for dads who don't want to look gay.

AlexYep. Yep.

MerlinYep. Cool. That's great. You really need a camo diaper bag. That and a penis and you'll be on your way.

AlexYeah. And that's how, I mean, if you watch things like, because most of the documentaries I worked on before I graduated, like it was 50% like reality bullshit, 50% like actual cool narrative reality stuff. But really.

MerlinSorry. Sorry. For commercial, like actual production houses and stuff.

AlexOh, yeah. but they rarely got through like the amount of things that oh it could be like a pilot or something like that oh yeah the amount of like shockingly bad i mean they're all it's that's the thing it's all basically the same that's why something like uh fuck boy island or excuse me f boy f boy island survivor and to some degree top chef and um shark tank are interesting yeah And top dress, too. But here's the thing about the top dress.

They do not care about that third quadrant. They gave up on the old men.

MerlinYeah, because Harvey Weinstein made two of those quadrants, watching Master Bait and Hilton.

AlexSo, yeah, some shows are just like...

MerlinMaybe 1230 is a good time. Okay, okay, okay, okay. So you're saying there's quadrants. First of all, I've written down, Alex worked on reality shows, and I've made a box around that. But you're telling me there's quadrants in terms of the folks who are on the shows. You need a mix.

You can't have all just one kind of gay.

AlexYeah, well, so say a general not-themed Shark Tank, show right like you've got to have sure like one of those dude bro products but you also need to have a product that is almost a sweet spot for different ages of women like uh the eyelash one

Merlinoh where you could feel maybe partly because maybe you feel a little bit like an expert and

Alexgo that would never work or whatever the well you just need to it's almost like product testing really is how like you need to sell these contestants as characters and also i i truly have no idea their deals seem to be real in some sense like scrub daddy is the big daddy out there and ring was a thing that uh all right sure human really regrets so i mean i don't know about their i i have a feeling most of this is done in post and i especially am curious and i have not been

able to find this like how many people are completely cut from the show and what sort of that deal is and i feel like there's a big old nda around it and somehow they get rewarded for

Merlinnot being on the show so like so like if you're if you're if you're if they they couldn't so what you're saying here in with the edit we all know that like there is this well i feel like i know that there is a structure and a story they're trying to tell and at least according to that uh that scripted TV show about reality shows, like you get there's a producer who's like your handler and they have your part needs to fit in with the others. But like if they couldn't get to where you made sense in the edit. And also, I mean, think about it. Here's a dumb thing is there are shows where you could mix

and match lots of different things. But like I bet you when they shoot and if it's like stuff like game shows, they probably shoot a bunch out of, you know, over a few days. But they're all like wearing the same clothes. so you would have to shoot to know that you're going to probably throw out a couple or three or even half you'd have to shoot a lot of spots right does that make sense because you couldn't you couldn't bring in something where like you know chris sack is here now instead of uh

Alexdamon socks exactly yeah like i i have a feeling he's always so butthurt about everything he's so mad.

MerlinThey didn't even listen to my offer.

AlexI think that's why you know they have those really quick post interviews. I think those are done, like those obviously are not done immediately afterwards. You've sat at, like sometimes they look, you can tell too, like either their makeup has just been touched up or it's like dripping down.

MerlinIt looks really hot out there. It does look really, like it would be very hot in that room.

AlexWell, it's another like a thing I'm logistically hard for because I actually where Maddie and I are watching Superstore and it's driving him insane because he's like, that's how or rather like in a like, oh, God, this is taking me back to retail because things are so accurate. A lot of the time in the same way, you know, some doctors and lawyers either for good or bad reasons are just like, nope, got to opt out of cop shows and ambulance shows.

MerlinYeah, yeah. The plumber problem, as Syracuse calls it.

AlexJust sit back and enjoy the fake code. My God.

MerlinJust watch the halting and catching a fire.

AlexYeah, just calm. Everybody calm down.

MerlinSo it's got to be what they're putting out there needs to be something. And again, I made the joke about different kinds of gays, but there are certain kinds of, I guess, reality shows where like... Well, really, honestly, speaking of White Lotus, think about Mike on Survivor, who I loved on Survivor. Good luck.

One of my favorite gifts is him holding up the glass of wine. Good luck. But, yeah, Survivor would be a really good example of this, right? Like you're going to need somebody who dislikes women and somebody who hates women and someone who confronts women and someone who underestimates women. You can't just have one kind of misogynist. That would be just misogynist island. Different kinds of MILFs.

AlexAre we title fishing now? Is that what it is?

MerlinYou think I am? I think I'm doing that? You think I have some prepped and ready to go?

AlexYou do that.

MerlinI do that.

AlexOh, wait. Have we ever talked about Purple Kelly? The purple edit? I feel like we must have.

MerlinYou have, but do it again. Because that now, when I would watch, when I was into Survivor, And I would watch that. The guy with the YouTube channel with the chess piece, Absurdium Bambadorbum, he would mention it a lot. Tell people what the purple edit is because it became a term that they would use in subsequent seasons to describe.

AlexSo there was, I don't really remember what the, I read an amazing breakdown and I'll try to find it.

MerlinIs this the one in maybe China?

AlexIt wasn't. It was, oh, Nicaragua. So it's one of the, this is like pre-idol, like the auction was still a thing. This is within the first like 10 seasons, I believe.

MerlinThat runs up to about 2002 then.

AlexI think so, yeah. And there was this poor woman named Kelly Shin, and there were two Kellys. So she got purple Kelly because she had some purple in her hair. and she quit the game and this was producers and especially Jeff who is as we know now which I'm

Merlinsure is much more than just frowned upon I bet there's consequences to doing that yes in some

Alexcases uh what is perceived as a purple edit which means almost completely cut out of the show as

Merlinmuch as possible you just don't see them in the first three quarters of the episodes hardly at

Alexall uh oh yeah or or in um in her case literally not at all until she has just she says something out of context that sounds really stupid or she'll they'll like um like i guess for that season and many past uh both those on the that both survivors on that season and other cast members are like yeah she was such she was so so nice but they got real real mad and the reason she quit but you couldn't see it was she literally had on a like a string bikini and a little like

sun a strapless sundress and this was like the hardcore seasons where it was also about like quote surviving and less about just the game and magically after this season they made sure that women always had the adequate gear they uh gear for you know not freezing to death because and There was this, the guy who won, actually, like everyone was really confused at the time why he won. Because it's like, well, he was just kind of there. And it's because Purple Kelly apparently was the one like doing the alliances and like she was a crucial part of the game.

MerlinShe was playing well in a way, like in the future, the way that somebody would play maybe. But she was doing well, but then she just took off her mic and bounced at some point. So they had to make a season that makes sense given the availability. They had to like find ways to make her look incompetent or something.

AlexYes, but it seems and obviously this is, you know, fan or like producer to cast member to fan telephone type thing. But I guess it was like this was one of the first like first seasons that Jeff got to produce. and he was furious because all yeah also because it um another woman quit and she was set up as the villain so like two storylines completely out of the window out the window and so they

Merlindid her dirty that really screws things up if that was if you're if your plan yep because you think about all like like as max told us or maybe you told us like how many there's like over like like over 400 people working on the show, like at a given time.

AlexThat's a low, that's just the people on the island. That's not including post or casting. And yeah, it is.

MerlinThat is, that's an order of magnitude over what I would have guessed.

AlexYeah.

MerlinI would have guessed 20, 30, 40 people.

AlexYeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, at a challenge because you need a challenge where would they all stay this is probably another benefit of always shooting it in whatever fiji no oh i yeah now it's yeah they own an island that's right 45 is coming up oh oh that number was spoiled for me wow yikes anyway um yeah the oh i miss the hats um the did you see he got booed yeah about the vaccine stuff oh i uh it was I don't know why I'm letting this occupy my brain space.

MerlinBut yeah, like you wrote in the show notes here, get vaccinated. You hogs. No comma.

AlexOh, yeah. Just fucking people get vaccinated. My God. Like I just if you are listening to this show, I cannot imagine a scenario in which you are not in a position to be vaccinated unless you have a rare medical condition, which I understand.

MerlinYeah, it's called freedom.

AlexYeah.

MerlinThat was a very good noise. That is going to be a ringtone that we will make available to our Patreon subscribers. Bonk!

AlexOh, gosh. Oh, man.

MerlinI agree.

Alexanyway nobody make uh jeff probes mad because then you'll get a purple edit uh however i guess she's doing great now and you know she's friends with uh cochran and all and she made someone else a millionaire because i guess she was never gonna win uh anyway but it was just uh i don't it's fascinating to me because that has happened since but never to that extent probably because like She basically, the way that people describe it is that like, yeah, she basically almost died, but it was more so.

MerlinAlmost died from exposure?

AlexIt was like she had got like.

MerlinBecause she didn't have the right clothes?

AlexYeah. And she was always wearing people's clothes. Like the only time you see her, it's almost confusing because she's wearing something else because it's so cold. And it's a really sad story, honestly.

Merlinexcept it's really almost like though that that feeling of like that uh with photos of people on wikipedia a famously you look nice today remarking on estelle getty's wikipedia photo which i think is still i should look it up i wonder if it's the same terrible photo or like um i just grabbed a copy of the difficult to find uh because of kirk's episode last night i ended up wanting to re-watch uh gigantic a tale of two johns and i should send you the photo that they have of john linnell because as with Estelle Getty, you find yourself going, is that the best photo they could get?

And in this case, this is probably the best. Oh, wait. Okay. So Kelly, was she blonde and really cute? Is that her?

AlexYes. But that describes like one fourth of the survivor.

MerlinOh, sorry. That's true.

AlexBut she did have a purple streak of hair. And that's probably why people are like, I remember purple Kelly. They talked about her a bunch. You never see her. Like you see.

MerlinSo I found this article I stuck, we'll put in show notes. It's from something called CheatSheet.com and it is Survivor, colon. What is a purple edit and how can fans spot it? And so just going down a little bit here. When Purple Kelly and Nayanka Mixon quit.

AlexYeah, she was the villain.

MerlinIt was late enough in the game that they both made the jury. Wow.

AlexYes.

MerlinNayanka, what a cool name, is still remembered years later for her villainous antics, but Purple Kelly has become one of the most forgettable castaways. Reason is because in the 11 episodes of Survivor that she was in, Purple Kelly received just one confessional of the camera. Prior to her vote, she had no story arc and hardly made any moves in the game.

AlexIt's really, and what's his name, Jacques?

MerlinJacques?

AlexWhoever the winner was was like her best friend, and he was just nice to everybody. I think, unfortunately, dearly departed Purple Kelly made the show a lot better because it's the seasons where the uh like the terrain is genuinely very dangerous that aren't very good because it's it's much more fun to watch people i think i'm

Merlinthinking of this one that might be i want to say like even like the third it was a very early season and you could tell they were still trying different things out and there's one where it's basically like what i remember boy scout camp being like there's one where they gotta like it's not very well shot. They got to walk on logs and there's a lot of that kind of stuff. Sort of as you say, it's before they seem to really fully, even as we saw early on with Richard Hatch, it seems like they still hadn't gotten that what we tune in for is not always

the eyeball eating, it's the figuring out who's going to be which kind of character and how they make deals and stuff. Like that one African kind of, there's no one African American lady I really like. Kind of like a slightly heavy-ish, she's been back for some all-stars.

AlexOh, right. Sari. Sari?

MerlinMust be Sari. Yeah, she's terrific. There's other ones you just love because they're a train wreck.

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah.

MerlinYou just enjoy them for their disordered eating, you know?

AlexOh, God.

MerlinNo, what's her name? Sugar? Not Sugar. No, Sugar. Sugar's the gal, the burlesque gal. Who's the, never mind, I'm not going to talk about this, but there's the one lady who's very, very slender in an upsetting way.

Alexoh well i mean they get very very slender very quickly um or at least they used to and yeah they they figured out a way to um i survivor i think was the first to pioneer the way for southern gays because it it hit the quadrants a lot of them are not gays they just sound that way

Merlinno i mean okay are we talking about you talking about nick i don't think nick's a gay no not

Alexnick no no no not nick um they're on the blazer man just take off the blazer what are you doing because that's his bit the producers have more control of the clothes than one would hope so it's like is it really because of course like if you're doing a confessional you want something to associate to associate you want people to especially when there's a lot especially when

MerlinAnd it's not like we're all maxed with a PDF of who our picks are. There's a lot to keep straight at first. And as you say, there's a lot of pretty people. And there's always people like, who's the skeleton-looking guy? Ty?

Tyler? Tyrone? Tyrese? There's the one, the skinny guy who's been back for All Stars. There's some people who are instantly sort of recognizable.

AlexYou know what I mean?

MerlinYeah. Like Christian, I want to say. People. But you need a way to be able to identify people, I guess.

AlexAnd that's also why they tend to get a bit further as well. And I don't know if this is the case in the most recent seasons, but the producers will kind of egg people on to just like every reality show.

MerlinI'm sure.

AlexThis is not unique to Survivor. Oh, no. Is someone coming to get me because I'm giving away reality TV secrets? Oh, that was a loud siren.

MerlinYeah. Unfortunately, because of the Patriot Act, I cannot give you details. But you are going to go to you're going to you're going to jail for a very, very long time. You will be served squares.

AlexI wouldn't be surprised.

MerlinOh, I mean, we need to get to Chernobyl. But I need to ask you.

AlexOh, yeah. Speaking of likable characters. Oh, boy.

MerlinI need to ask you to close up this thread. Thank you, everyone, for visiting with us. It's a very strange week. Um, if you, let's take it as red that this, the squares really take off. Um, cause they're just so, as my family say, yum's delicious. Everybody loves, oh, I got a cantaloupe square. I got a, I got a, uh, obviously I got quinoa squares, all things that kids love. Eventually gets so popular that they will make you your own 50 gram squares.

If you were going to this guy whose name I still haven't learned, you have the opportunity to get, let's say, three different kinds of bespoke Alex-only squares made. And assuming that – I'm assuming a lot here. But assuming that the texture – what would you ask for? What are your special squares?

AlexA peanut butter – like a very kind of keto cookie peanut butter style one. One that it seems like they have just shoving.

MerlinThat sounds like a power bar. That's kind of a power bar, isn't it?

AlexI mean, it is. It's definitely less. I'm coming at this with like, all right, what are these things that I can only.

MerlinWhat would you actually eat, look forward to eating?

AlexAnd that I can only eat for the rest of time. I'm going to say the peanut butter one that's just packed with protein. a veggie square that has as much vegetables and all those bullshit by administration. I see. And then, I mean, I guess I would somehow...

MerlinPopcorn, maybe? Something like that?

AlexThat's what I'm wondering is how could I...

MerlinYou can eat it with a spoon like a weirdo.

AlexNo, I can't. I gotta use the gullet.

MerlinIt's a big spoon, Alex. How'd they die? Well, you know what I mean. Try and eat an AirPod case with a spoon.

So for you, it's really more like medicine. It's a medicinal. It's a prophylactic. You want something you just jam in your face and you close your eyes and think of England. And down goes the AirPods.

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think if they could make-

MerlinYou should contact them and say, look, I'm an investor. I think these look way too delicious. The grill marks are going to put a lot of people off. This should be more like taking a food-based vitamin. It should be extremely unpleasant and it should be full of things that no one likes. And I think that would be huge.

AlexIt says 100% natural, ready to eat, nutritionally balanced. And oh, dot, dot. There's an ellipses. And then there's a space between the ellipses and incredibly tasty.

I don't like that.

MerlinI clicked on the I did click on the invest.

AlexYep. In highly. that's number one. It goes to

MerlinWeFunder. WeFunder.

AlexWeFunder.

MerlinWeFunder. Oh, Alex. Alex, how long... Wait a minute. WeFunder. How long has this been going? Because they're not doing great.

AlexNo, they are not.

MerlinThey have 45 investors, Alex. You're going to really need to put some wood behind the arrow if you want to see. They all have $150,000, which is chump change for this kind of thing. 45 investors. Maybe you could lead a round. Would you like to be an angel? You're my angel.

AlexI wish I knew still what angel investing is. Kara Swisher has yet to explain to me. But wait, if they have, wait, what's 150,000 divided by, wait, how many people do they have?

MerlinSo it's about, I think if my math is right, that's about $3 each, I think.

AlexYeah. No, no, that's, wait, no, that's $3,000 each. Oh, that's close. Oh, wait, wait, wait. $3,333.333.333.333 cents.

MerlinBut that's not... Oh, they're getting a valuation of $6 million. Also not great.

AlexYeah.

MerlinThe lead investor on this is a fellow named Mateo Sentec... Sentec...

AlexThere's no way that this man is real.

MerlinNo, no. He looks like one of those this person doesn't exist photos. He says, I invested in SquareEat because of their ambition to revolutionize the ready-to-eat industry. with a new concept of, oh, this is not good. Oh, Mateo. I invested in Squary because of their ambition to revolutionize the ready-to-eat industry with a new concept of food. The Squares are innovative and profoundly differentiating. The business is much more scalable than traditional meal plans.

A dressable market is large and in rapid expansion.

AlexHuh. This is the most depressing. Like, I don't think...

MerlinSo just so you know, Mateo put in $20,000. Their biggest investor has put in $20,000.

AlexI'm just very upset. No, no, no. Their lead investor. Wait. Oh, yes, yes. 20. Oh, my God.

MerlinThat's not. I mean, I would want to run this by Mr. Wonderful because, you know, you know what he loves? He loves weddings and funerals and weddings. And yeah, things where people spend irrationally. and i think if me ma took a dirt nap and you put out you put out a bunch of of mealy pseudo plastic squares you know you could sit shiva and just have a nosh yeah this is this is

Alexso oh oh there's investor uh perks oh my gosh wait problems oh my gosh wait there is a deck

Merlinoh dear me wait a minute problems oh no oh no earning a return is just one of the tabs We created a new concept of food. Our squares last up to three weeks, of course, with no additives, and are tasty, healthy, and made with precisely measurable nutrients amount. Okay, I would have given this a second pass. It's 100% natural and long-lasting. Oh, this is a great deck. I think Guy Kawasaki would love this.

AlexI also just went to the WeFunder landing page.

MerlinOh, who's big on WeFunder right now? Is there anything we should be? You know, maybe you and I should have a fund.

AlexThat's what I'm thinking is like, I mean, let's.

MerlinOh, you know what it's called, Alex? They fund.

AlexThey.

MerlinChernobyl. Chernobyl.

AlexI so this week's challenge was for us slash me whatever for to watch the first episode of Chernobyl and listen to the first episode of the Chernobyl podcast. Yep. And I really love everything about this show.

MerlinOh, I'm so glad to hear it.

AlexI only got to the middle of the third episode, though, because.

MerlinOh, you got you got pretty far in, though.

AlexYeah. Well, it's you start. I started realizing, why am I so squeamish? And like, sure. Yes, it's because it's a tragedy and many, many people died. But like the part where someone wants to hug someone else and they're like, don't do that. Like, you can't stand too close. I'm like, oh, this is.

MerlinDid you get to the one where the woman goes to the hospital in Moscow?

AlexYep. That was when I was like, oh, God, this is too familiar for comfort too soon.

MerlinAnd he says, I don't know how far he got in the podcast, but in that episode, Segal asks him about it. Like, you know, you didn't show, you know, the face of that guy. And he was like, yeah, that was some actually really good notes we got, I think, from HBO that was like, look, you know, you don't. They didn't even like do the makeup. they didn't do anything but they were like you know it's easy to go over and into like exploitation and you know you don't want it to just be grand guino kind of stuff right and i was very pleased

Alexespecially in the uh first episode like it would have been very easy to do that with uh all of the

Merlinchemical burns and yeah but what a what a masterful job i mean i feel like of um you know i think we might have talked about this, but how, you know, one way to watch, my family loves guessing what's going to happen next or asking. I started watching Reminiscence, I think it's called, and I'd watched the first five minutes and then my wife came in and said, hey, do you want to watch this? It seems kind of interesting. You know, it's got Wolverine and Dandy Newton and et cetera. And so the movie opens, the credits roll, and then it's a long, like a drone shot going

over a city that's like partly underwater. and because it's my family whom I love so much, my wife starts going Los Angeles and I go and I said the same thing I always say which is honey, you're watching the same movie I am the movie just started in our house I guess and this is probably my fault but there are points for guessing there's points for guessing in our house all my kid wants to know is how fast she can figure out the twist but in this one

you watch something again like ha ha like lawn order and you're like oh like if somebody who was more famous 15 years ago is in the first eight minutes they did it right but that's part of the fun of that show is the like feeling smarter than the show which is exactly what they want you to do and in this case when like for like when the firemen arrive and the guy finds the carbon fiber thing and i just feel like there's such a good sort of breadcrumb trail of like we us getting to go oh and imagine what things mean and then having it fleshed out it's a very smart show i think well and i was going to

Alexask you because you were alive when this happened and i was not so i am very far removed from or was very far removed from like the facts of all of this and i mean i guess most of the world was for a while based on the two and a half episodes i've seen but i okay i will admit i think i i said this on the bird site but i got through like the a good half hour being like wait did i were there a bunch of brits and like running this plant did i just totally wrong

Merlinbecause because as craig mazen said they didn't want to do boris and natasha yeah which i thought

Alexwas really good i i agree like uh russian accents get too funny too fast yeah but i i guess if there had just been actors with diff right i don't know it worked out eventually it was fine um but i was like why does lane have just have his normal accent what's going on well it's funny when

Merlinbecause when craig mazen said he mentioned an uh an hbo show from the 90s that i not only remember very clearly but i remember having exactly the same thought as he did which was a pretty good show called citizen x and it's about this guy named chikatilo who is i think purported to be possibly the like the the biggest greatest body count serial killer of all time and and that show like uh spoiler alert like like this one is kind of is about how the system will not allow

the country any part of the country look like it's failing at something and so the the kind of the citizen x the theme is basically donald sutherland plays like the the head guy and as he mentions Max von Sydow is in it. And Stephen Ray is really good in it. But the idea is, like, there are no serial killers in the Soviet Union.

AlexRight?

MerlinYou know what I'm saying? Like, their position is there's no serial killer for us to find because that is a product of, like, corrupt, decadent Western society. In the Soviet Union, we don't have serial killers. And you can guess how well that goes. But the thing Craig Mason talks about that I really do remember, and he says this in the podcast, you got Donald Sutherland doing the Boris and Natasha. You've got Stephen Ray, who's very lightly covering his Irish accent. And then you got Max von Sydow, who's Max von Sydow.

And it's kind of disorienting the way that's all over the map.

AlexWell, as soon as they were like the famous people were all doing like their regular quote regular accents. I was like, OK, this is just we're not we're understanding English because, you know, it's like a babble fish came into our ears. All right.

MerlinOr like or you could do the very clever thing they do. And I think clever thing they do in Hunt for Red October. Do you remember how they handle it in that? When they first get on the Russian sub, everybody, including I want to say Sean Connery is speaking Russian. And then there's this one scene in one of the cabins where, what is the effect? I want to say they push in slowly and then pull out. And suddenly everybody's speaking English. And it's kind of their, like, hint to you that, hey, act like they're still speaking. You would not watch this movie if it was in Russian.

AlexI vaguely, vaguely remember this.

MerlinIt's a good movie. It's a really good movie. Alec Baldwin's great in it.

AlexUh, the, uh, they were also very, I don't want to say like charitable. I, uh, it seems like they portrayed even like party members fairly well. Like in a not.

MerlinThis, this is, okay. So I got to get this out. The podcast is almost as good as the show. It sounds insane to say that, but you've already heard me on like four or five occasions interrupt you to say, yeah, they talked about that on the podcast. That's one of the things Craig Mason said was important to him. He wants to show the consequence of lies. Like it's there from the first frame. It's like this is what happens. Lies have this consequence. There's a cost to lies. But he also didn't want to make it look like it would really – if he portrayed everybody up to and including Gorbachev as being these like, you know, fingertent villains, Mr. Burns types, you would miss the point that like this is something everybody needs to watch out for including us.

AlexYeah. it like i i don't know like just the ability to portray the structural issue without i mean in some in some ways it's a it's a more soviet film than american but it's except minus the you know propaganda well it's like yeah this here are all these failure points it was not just one dude

MerlinIf Emily Watson hadn't picked up, the character she plays hadn't picked up in Scandinavia somewhere. No, wait. No, sorry. Was she in Ukraine? No, she wasn't. Where was she? She might have been in Ukraine. But the fallout, the radioactive stuff in the air went really far. And if it hadn't been for people picking that up outside of that area, we certainly would not have known as quickly or in the same way.

That's a secret they couldn't keep.

AlexAnd that's just fucking wild to me.

MerlinHave you gotten to the episode with the roof stuff yet?

AlexDoes it involve helicopters?

MerlinSo you saw the one with the helicopters. So this is a spoiler. But, I mean, sorry. It's a spoiler. But, you know, it's just I'm telling you, I'm not spoiling the show. I'm telling you the story from history.

AlexYeah.

MerlinWhat they eventually arrive at, you could see that, like, the radio, the way they describe radiation as being like these little microscopic bullets that just fly through everything. Yeah, I saw that. Oh, that was so chilling. It was just so chilling to me.

AlexYes.

MerlinThe helicopter can't fly over this. You guys, you guys, you're too close. Like, it couldn't operate because of the radiation. Like, pelting it.

AlexWhat an amazing way to show horror without gratuitous violence. You know?

MerlinExactly. The scale of it feels about exactly right. But what they get to is that eventually what they're going to have to do is create what became called the sarcophagus, which is we're just going to have to like.

AlexOh, yeah. I didn't see that, but I know it.

MerlinCover over all of this. But there's this one of my the most amazing episode in some ways is when they basically realize that we're going to have to go up on the roof and throw all this stuff back down into where the reactor was. And then we're going to have to concrete over that. But and they discover there's these three different piles with three differing amounts of danger because it's the amount of radiation, the amount of time you're exposed.

The amount of radiation, the amount of time, and what's the third factor? There's three factors. But basically, they got-

AlexThe distance, I think? Amount of, well, yeah.

MerlinSomething like that, yeah. But they got, I think eventually, hundreds of thousands of people working on this. It was nuts. But one of the most amazing episodes to me is where they have to go up on the roof, and your entire, not daily dose, your lifetime dose of radiation will be 90 seconds on the roof of this building. And so the most, so have you met that general guy? He played Chris Finch on The Office, that one guy.

AlexAre we talking about the one with like the birthmark on his head or the like Lane's buddy?

MerlinNo, that's Gorbachev. No, there's that one where they're having a meeting. We're Lane, Lane and Dr. Selvig are having a meeting with this uniformed, you probably haven't gotten to it yet, but I encourage you to keep watching. But basically they have these three piles named after this guy's three nieces and nephews. But no, you're going to- Oh, no, I haven't, yeah. So they have to bring in enough people to where you can get all these people into the rudimentary outfits, train them each, get them up onto this right before you go onto the roof.

Once you're on the roof, out that door, you have 90 seconds to basically throw one thing into the pile and then make it back inside and then you're done. That's it. You cannot have any more radiation in your life because of that 90-second period. And it's exactly as harrowing as you would imagine. And there was a documentary about this that they referenced. I've got a copy of it that's just mind-boggling.

AlexWere you aware of this when you were – Yeah. I guess I'm asking is how 9-11 was this in terms of – god damn it.

MerlinI would say the Challenger was a bigger deal in the States. Um, this, I honestly don't remember at that point I was probably already in college. I don't remember what month it happened, but if the challenger thing happened the year I was not yet in college.

AlexOh, I think that he mentions that on the podcast actually.

MerlinLike I, I, yeah, yeah, yeah.

AlexIt was, you know, it was so close to it.

MerlinThat was an absolutely shattering event. It would have been shattering no matter what, but the fact that the first civilian who was female school teacher. And you know, my chemistry teacher from my high school was a semi-finalist. So she was out there, the news crews were there at Gulf Comprehensive High School out on the football field or whatever watching the space shuttle launch. And like she watched while that smoke went up with like a there but for the grace of

AlexGod. Oh my God.

MerlinShe had the same haircut with the gym teacher and lived with her just for what it's worth. And she was great. Margaret Peek. She passed a few years ago. I really think this is a very good show. It's a very smart show. And you're so fortunate if you all haven't watched it yet. There's nothing here that we're ruining. Like it's this is one of those. It's all in how it's done. And the amazing part on top of that is that the podcast series is like you just want every episode to be three times as long. Because Craig Mazin really walks in. Sigel does a good job with them.

AlexNo, he doesn't. He does a terrible job. He needs to shut up. He's basically Bo Birdamig. I'm like, you're not here to chuckle. And he does the active listening thing of like, uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, yeah. I'm like, ah, god damn it. I mean, it's fine.

MerlinAnd then at one point he leans over Craig Mason's desk and says, so what do you do here?

Thank you.

253. Jimmy Eats Chemicals

Show notes

Transcript

253. Jimmy Eats Chemicals

Show notes

Transcript

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