264. So Many Chicken

AlexI know, I know, I, I, I, I know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,

You really don't like Zoom, do you? Don't like Zoom. All right, we've talked about the tech. Do you want to... I want to hear about your health. Oh, can you really not hear me?

MerlinYeah, I can hear you.

AlexOh, okay.

MerlinYes, I can hear you, Clem Fandango.

AlexFuck that, dude. God.

MerlinCan you hear me, Steven?

AlexI don't know that reference, but it was very breathy.

MerlinOh, shit. I got to put it on the list. Well, that's a Matt Barry reference. And... You know what? Hang on. You know what? Hang on. I'm having... Matt Berry. I'm having a very manic morning. I wish it was Monday. Not my Sunday. My I don't have to run day. This is not the show. This is pre-flight. I'm going to send you something. Okay, so first question. And I'll put this here. Have you watched any... What are we doing in the Shadows TV yet?

AlexThe first three. I love it.

MerlinWe should save it for the show. Okay, maybe this is the show. We're going to cut this part out. But this is not germane, but it is very important to me. Do you like Laszlo?

AlexOf course.

MerlinI mean, how much do you love? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I want to talk about this so much. Alex, I'm a little manic this morning.

AlexYou know what? Is this the show?

MerlinThis could be the show.

AlexThis could be the show. And, I mean, we don't talk about the challenges. Not the topics. Challenges, topics? God, I'm a polycaster like you now, too. Oh, gross.

MerlinI don't even know who I'm fucking anymore.

AlexOh, put your headphones in a bowl.

MerlinWe just moisten them and roll them around in flour. You know what I'm saying?

AlexNo.

MerlinYou want little biscuits? You want a little biscuit, Alex?

AlexI think it's very interesting. I'm a little manic this morning. Oh, it's funny. Click this.

MerlinThere's a show. Sorry.

AlexIt's a show. It's a show.

MerlinWe're going to cut this part out. We'll put the video in notes, but I don't want Quinn to have to wrestle with this. There is a show, judging from this numeral, called BBC Four. Did you watch Portlandia?

AlexYeah, I fell off like the second. That's okay.

MerlinWell, if you ever, there's an episode. I think the first time I ever saw Matt Berry was in an episode called Squiggle Man. And it's the one where the characters, you say Carrie and Fred, but it doesn't help much. They're going to start a band because they want cooler music for their kids to listen to. And so they start this post-rock, kraut rock band that's terrible. And they open for this act called Squiggle Man, which is this very beloved children's act. That's the first time I saw Matt Barry. So there's a TV show called Toast of London on BBC4,

and Matt Barry plays this really pompous, ridiculous actor. And there's a running bit on the show where one way he's not doing very well with his stage roles. So one way he makes ends meet is by doing voiceover work with his wonderful instrument. And this is, now what you're going to watch here, you're going to see little bits of these from different episodes, but there's a bit on the show that you're going to get very quickly and it's what happens when Stephen Toast has to go in and do voiceovers.

AlexAll right. Am I starting from the beginning?

MerlinYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me make sure I'm at the beginning too. We'll do three, and we're not going to put this in the show, so there'll be a part where in a second you're going to just hear us laughing and that means that you will have, you could go and watch this as well. Ready? Three, two, one, go.

Speaker BOkay, Stephen, you ready to go?

MerlinYeah.

Speaker BFamiliar enough with the song, you know where you're going with it. OK, so just sing it normally and then do the short voiceover

Speaker Cmentioning the product at the end.

Speaker AAll right.

Speaker CHi, Stephen. This is Clem Fandango. Can you hear me?

Speaker AWho the fuck are you?

Speaker CClem's with us for a few weeks on work experience. Can you hear me, Stephen?

Speaker AYeah, I can hear you, Clem Fandango.

Speaker CIf you sing it normally, then do the short voiceover mentioning the product at the end.

Speaker AHe's just fucking said that. I've got rhythm.

Speaker BOkay, I think I might have lost the backing track then.

Speaker ANo, don't get it.

Speaker BIs that it? Just that one word?

Speaker AYeah. Okay.

Speaker BYes.

MerlinYou'll never hear this word the same again.

Speaker BI hate it. Oh, no. You could be a bit more positive.

Speaker AMore positive?

Speaker BYeah. You know, really go for it.

Speaker AYou want me to go for it? Yeah. All right.

Speaker BYes! Very, very good. Let's just try it without the script. Mine just loosened you up a little bit. Yeah, I mean, it's... What is it, one word? You don't really need it, do you?

Speaker AI probably don't need the script. It's just a word.

Speaker BYeah. Okay, let's do it again.

Speaker AYes! Is that it? Yes. Right. I've got rhythm.

Speaker CHi, Stephen. Yes. This is Clem Fandango. Yes. Can you hear me?

Speaker AYes, I can hear you, Clem Fandango. Mind the gap. Hello, Stephen. Could you do a quicker one? mind the gap hello again how about doing a funky one

Alexwhat does that even mean

Merlinanyway you get the idea

Alexyou're Clem Fandango oh god I'm telling you

Merlinyes I can hear you Clem Fandango

Speaker ASteven can you hear me

Merlinand it just keeps going on and on and on and Clem Fandango is always there repeating whatever someone just said or saying something really stupid

Alexand steven can you hear me god funny voices are coming back yes from 2017 but i we're always behind the brits so the most surprising thing about london was uh hearing that it it actually it i don't know what it is the whatever ephemeral government voice actually does say mind the gap and i still don't really know what the like is that the place where you have i i don't i don't

Merlinknow it's very exciting well like there's the platform and there's the train yeah but there's

Alexnot much of a gap i guess i didn't mind it very well sorry you're having a manic morning

Merlinyes yes yes and it's funny though like i i there's a collection i actually somewhere i have a text document i started a couple years ago of all the different funny meanings of yes oh like i have when i do when i say yes i'm impersonating so many different people it depends on the mood sometimes i'm doing um i think who's it in glengarry glen ross and dan and i you might

remember dan and i used to do this as a bit because there's a bit in glengarry glen ross when ed harris is just going off talking to alan arkin he's like hey the fucking links mitch mitch and murray but and alan arkin just keeps nodding and going yes yes there's that yes There's the Stephen Toast yes. There's the Marv Albert yes from the days on Letterman. Yes. So, you know, they're all important. Every yes is sacred. I'm man at this morning, Alex. I've had a really weird morning.

AlexDo you have a similar list for how Logan Roy says fuck off? Because that means like 12 different things in succession.

MerlinI need a piss. Yeah, fuck off is such a family phrase for them. Or like when Roman Romulus will just say, can't we just tell him to fuck off? Oh, my God. Roman and Greg in the last couple episodes have had – Greg, cousin Greg has had so many amazing lines.

AlexI love Greg the egg.

MerlinCousin Greg is a force of nature. He's so – and he's already – he's become almost like, oh, God, what's an example? well you know like when I was a kid my parents or my grandparents would make references to things and I was like we're old what are you talking about would be like ah that closet's like Fibber McGee's closet and I'd be like what are you talking about you old person or like you know or you know Jack Benny's cheap there's all these kinds of things where there were these characters and you like knew what their bit was

and then that becomes you know you know like Roderick said the other day Rich has crisis or whatever. But for me now, that's Greg. I see there's so many things where I'm like, oh, my God, that was such an impossibly Cousin Greg thing.

God, Kendall, man. When Kendall's like, you know, I may have to burn you. He's like, is that okay? He's like, is it okay? Doesn't sound like that's good for me.

AlexIt's very unhealthy how much I enjoy that show.

MerlinI feel like that might be the one where, like, I've watched that episode two and a half times, the latest one. And, you know, again, we need a safe word for this, the thing where I'm going to stop, you know, doing the thing. Can we work on that? We capture that safe word for us, please.

AlexSafe word. Okay.

MerlinWe're going to call out Claws Alarm or something. Remember?

AlexClaws Alarm.

MerlinWe're going to stop doing the thing where we preface things with another thing if it's not helpful.

AlexRight. Right, right, right.

MerlinSo I'm going to do that here. I need a pass for this one. I know a lot of people don't like this season. That's fine.

Speaker AReally?

MerlinWell, I'm here to tell you. I watched that last episode two and a half times. I thought it was really good. I thought the COVID episode was really good. The one that was obviously shot during COVID because it was all like almost like a bottle episode. But I loved this last one. And it's okay if y'all didn't. But I feel like.

AlexYeah. Oh, another one. I did.

MerlinClausefowl. Clausefowl?

AlexClausefowl.

MerlinWell, that's not a very pretty thing to say.

AlexClaws.

MerlinClaws foul. Bok, bok. No, a chicken. There's a chicken, and the chicken makes an alarm, and that is the claws foul.

AlexOkay.

MerlinSo when you hear bok, bok, bok, that means you're not helping when you try to excuse yourself.

AlexOkay.

MerlinI don't know.

AlexOkay.

MerlinBut I watched it two and a half times, and I did the thing that drives my family crazy, and I'm working on this, which is like, no, no, no, really watch this. And there's the one. So like Logan is, something's up with Logan. right we know he's got to take a piss i think i need a piss and you know poor tom has to keep going to the bathroom and but there's one scene where like it's it's just dawning on the viewer that maybe logan's not just being stoic and playing it close to his chest you know what i mean he's sitting in the chair he's surrounded by everybody they want to know what he definitely

wants to do and i feel like in this series of like three shots you can really see the performance this guy's putting on where at first he looks like regular angry logan roy and then there's this extremely subtle shot where you see his eyes get kind of big and and the third time i watched it i went oh my god he's so scared right now because he just woke up a little bit i mean this is what it's like to have the kind of thing that logan's struggling with which is like you kind of

go in and out a little bit like he just kind of came back to it and he's like okay what's happening

Alexright now you know i'm talking about yep it's got this look on his face oh i know i know like oh no

Merlindid i just did i just go dark for a little while i don't know if you agree but i mean like i feel like that sequence of shots you could watch that and just go oh that's logan being logan but if you really watch and you look at his eyes and he looks like a scared little kid for a minute and of course the thing I said to Madeline is in the absence of if you just suddenly wake up from like a little bit of a strokey stupor or whatever and I don't know what exactly his thing was I guess he the idea is he didn't take his medication and now he's goofy

I don't know if that's how that works but whatever but he dips back out of it and like he's suddenly like a little bit panicky like you and I would be but in the absence of reason, rationality and context he like all of us reverts to his default state which is angry bellicose threatening um aggressive and like what did it really he it seemed to somebody like roman when he goes all right i

say we fuck him and you're like oh is that a strategic decision no it's not it's not a strategic decision that's him coming out of a little bit of a brownout and his his default impulse, this is my theory anyway, being I just start acting aggressive. He doesn't know what else to do but be aggressive in the absence of this other context. And then later on when we see him after things have calmed down later on and the decisions have been made and now he's yelling at everybody and he sounds like such a lame old man when he's like, oh yeah, you fucked it up.

What would you have done differently? I wouldn't have screwed it up. It's like, oh dude, you know what? Remember when he's yelling at Shiv about it? I'm sorry I'm going on, but I know it's kind of a normal. Oh, sorry. Oh, claws fell.

AlexClaws fell.

MerlinI may need to load up some kind of a sound for that. Would it be diegetic, non-diegetic? You know what it is? It's a non-diegetic chicken.

AlexOh, God, that laugh was like a, I don't, I don't, oh, wow. What happened? It sounded a little bit like a rooster noise. And I don't know. Never mind. Now I'm thinking about Brian Cox and getting sad. Oh, who I'm definitely, definitely related to and talented about as him.

MerlinWell, you know who else you're related to? There's an ad on MSNBC right now. And I did not send this because as somebody with a recognized, not a, I say a recognizable name. If anybody sees something somewhere and it says Merlin on it, sometimes they'll send it to me because it's an unusual name.

Speaker AOkay.

MerlinBut you know what I'm saying? Or like with you. How many times have you heard about the guy who directed Sid and Nancy? like ha ha you have the same name right true true there's an ad i'm gonna be disclosing here there's an ad on msnbc and you know there's all so many ads right now for like oh it's medicare and you can sign up and joe joe namath doesn't want to take your house away and here's george foreman and like all of this stuff and uh tom selig is still so fucking mad that you don't understand what a reverse mortgage is he's so goddamn angry um but there's one and contra things like tom

so like it's an ad for this service and it's a talking head and the guy's like yeah i used to steal people's titles all the time they didn't even know i was doing it their name was they hadn't locked down the title and it's like he's a convicted felon he used to steal titles for houses from old people and that's why you need this service that you can get where you can prevent people like this guy from stealing your house and his name is matthew cox matthew cox is out to steal your house.

And I didn't send it because I love you both. And it's a burden. I'm thinking a lot about burdens. It would be a burden for me to send you that because then I'm basically saying to you, why don't you tell me that I'm funny?

AlexI mean, you're not funny, but that's very funny. Not the idea of my spouse. I mentioned that specific...

MerlinNo, no, no.

AlexOh, shit, we need a chicken on here.

MerlinWe're going to get a chicken.

AlexIt's Manic Wednesday.

MerlinJust another Manic Wednesday. Have you ever heard that song? Yeah, that song. Is that before your time? Manic Monday?

AlexNo. Well, I first heard the Reliant K cover in my youth.

MerlinThe automobile? Automobile? Reliant K is a kind of car.

AlexYes. They're also a contemporary Christian pop punk band.

MerlinThat's a lot of specific adjectives. Well, technically, they're Christian apologists, emo bands. Charismatic Catholic bands.

AlexI mean, all the Christian bands are sad.

MerlinLet's see. I'm going to search for chicken. So what I can do is search for contains chicken and is the kind of audio, sound, music, other. I'm not seeing a lot of chicken turn up on this Mac. When you... What? What's happening? Oh, wait. Chicken clock. Oh, wait. I got chicken clock. This could whisk my work. Oh, shit, dog. It's just... It's a clock, but it's pretty funny. It's a .caf. I'm sending it to you right now. I could probably load this up on my stream deck, but I just sent you chicken clock, if

that helps.

AlexOkay. All right.

Merlin.caf.

AlexOoh.

MerlinIt's a clock. Ooh. Yeah.

AlexThat's, oh, it's deep in the throat.

MerlinSee, now, if we use that program that I like, we could have loaded up sounds. Oh, do it again.

AlexI hate it. I hate it.

MerlinAll right, we'll work on it.

AlexNo, I like it. It sounds like the chicken's gagging a little bit.

MerlinDon't you think we need a way to punish each other? Shouldn't we be able to punish each other with sound, though?

AlexThat's true. That's true. You know what? You're right. It's very punishing. it's like an abortive blowjob chicken noise like

Merlinthat's that's on the guy my voice um um i was saying about how manic steven toast. I am recording and I was going to talk to you about oh yeah, so

yeah, I think that is a really good show. I think I'm enjoying this season and they were talking on I want to say Blank Check about what a crazy, like Brian Cox had been this typical English working actor guy, working, working, working and then he just kind of burst out and he was in so many things. You know, he was in the he was Hannibal Lecter in the first Hannibal Lecter movie before Silence of the Lambs what i'm pretty sure he was in i want to say red dragon oh shit which i didn't i never finished

reading but oh it's not that's not fair but brian cox was in some shit and then he was in x-men he's great in x-men no red dragon no sorry red dragon is anthony hopkins if i look up what's his name

Alexbrian cox he's the worst student we've got oh he is a very upsetting looking young man oh damn

Merlinlook at him oh my god he are you seeing man manhunter yeah oh shit holy shit look at that

Alexguy that might be some show art god damn holy shit because he's got that i mean one doesn't

Merlinwant to say this kind of thing but he's got you know maybe it looks like maybe it had like uh acne at some point or something so he's got that kind of like he's kind of preloaded to be sort of a tough or a villainy type, I guess.

AlexMm-hmm.

MerlinI love him.

AlexOh, how he slouches. Oh, God, this is so, oh, oh, oh, oh.

MerlinHe doesn't look as smooth and cool as Anthony Hopkins, for sure, right?

AlexOh, no, no. He has more hair, though.

MerlinHe looks more like a guy that would actually eat your liver.

AlexYeah, like, as soon as I saw this, I'm like, oh, this is, this is, if I saw this man, I would just go the other way.

MerlinOh, I don't like that at all.

Speaker AThis blue chip face. I hate it.

MerlinIs there any way, is there any world in which you see that face and you're relieved? Maybe he's a homeless guy guiding you into a parking space. He's someone who's holding an elevator for you.

AlexNo.

MerlinHe has to borrow your shoes or something. I don't know.

AlexNo.

MerlinHe's a bad guy in that second x-men movie the one that i really like x2 x-men united oh you're the oh oh no i'm beach

Alexballing the blowjob face made me beach ball um the oh i i think the first x man's men's oh it wait what's the one with the um magneto opening like his origin story that is featured in two x-men

Merlinmovies uh you mean with auschwitz yeah that's in oh wait that might be in the is it in the first one i know it's definitely in the kevin bacon one um and uh the one with uh with uh uh betsy draper

Alexuh where she's emma frost oh that's right oh that's the one i never for can i'll never forget have to.

MerlinSome of those can be real good. I like X2, X-Men United. That's the one that opens, well, how do you say it opens? But it's when they go on a field trip, Jean Grey and Scott, like, take them and, sorry, and Storm, Aurora, take them to, like, a museum thing, and then they get harassed, and remember, and then he's going to blow. I don't think I've seen

Alexthis one. I feel like I should be an X-Man. I should be an X-Men fan more than I am. And I don't know why.

MerlinI think what you should aim for, it's not my circus, not my monkeys. I think you should consider yourself an X. You should work toward becoming an ex-X-Men fan. Oh. Because X-Men, everybody knows the thing about X-Men. Every Marvel story from the Silver Age has some kind of a basis in... And like, you know, it's come to at least be retrofitted to represent a thing. Like, okay, so X-Men, it's really, it's about discrimination.

X-Men is a story about, you know, I don't want to say it's about civil rights, but it kind of is.

AlexI will say that X-Men is about civil rights.

MerlinIt's about being gay. Yeah.

AlexHave you tried not being a mutant? It's about the blacks and the gays, basically. Yeah.

MerlinBut then they really, you know, give it away. the wonderful director, Brian Singer. They really kind of give the whole thing away when the mother says, have you tried not being a mutant? In that one scene, which is really good. I think the first one's good. I think the two best ones are X2, X-Men United.

And that, I think, does have the Auschwitz stuff. There's one where it's featured more heavily. Oh, God, there's really that trash third one where they have five different nested flashbacks and terrible de-aging. of the professor and Magneto, and it's all really gross.

But then the other one that's really good is X-Men First Class. I like a lot.

AlexOh, oh, that's the Beastie Boy.

MerlinYeah, Beastie Boy's in it, who's also Nux. He's also Nux in Fury Road.

AlexOh, oh, fuck. Wow.

MerlinYou know, Witness Me, and he sprays with the paint, and I'm like, yeah, what a glorious day. That's the same guy that plays Beast, Young Beast. Now, Old Beast is played by Kelsey Grammer, and I'm still not sure if that was the best choice.

AlexI mean, I...

MerlinHe looks like a big collectible doll.

AlexYeah, I guess. Isn't that what all of the characters are? Wow, that's really sexist. No! Go play with your dark phoenix.

MerlinYou know what? I should take a photo for you. And this relates to the non-topic this week, non-challenge. But yeah, trying to find a way to foreground my dolls in my office has become important to me. I want to foreground my dolls. I want my dolls to not be hidden and shamed. I want to get my stationery on display, my stationery collection and notebook collection. I want to not. And this is the point of the whole thing, right? The spaces project.

AlexShould we talk about the thing or are we just going to...

MerlinHey, everybody. Welcome to Dubai Friday. We're having a little bit of a manic Wednesday. Wednesday. I don't know what we're talking about. We've got a lot in the document. You know what? Let's do a mid-show right now. It's not a pre-flight. This is a mid-flight.

Speaker AWhat?

MerlinWe're just going to test the equipment. Three, two. We could talk about the... I would love to talk about the unified field theory. you know how about this let's do it this is a mid-flight you ready how about we do there's a little bit of fu i do need to mention the google docs thing because that's been very helpful to me

Alexthe google docs thing uh it's the second item under news and topics under foo

Merlinoh oh i mentioned i'm back i'm back to work that you claim to have listened to

Alexthe i i think i i did i scripted there was wes anderson there was um there was apparently first right to refusal, which no, I was

MerlinThat's because I'm a polycaster now, I'm poly

AlexPolycaster won a cracker

MerlinThat's not funny, that's not funny I mean someone from Florida Florida cracker they call it

AlexJesus Christ on a Florida cracker

MerlinWhat is this, a podcast house?

AlexI was watching I found out

MerlinWe're a little bit manic this morning, did you notice that?

AlexYeah, and I took a follow-up. I have now beta blockers. What is these called?

MerlinI got propanolol.

AlexShit, that's what I'm on.

MerlinThey are, I'm not going to say they're harmless, but next to the other kinds of stuff, you've mentioned some things, including things that start with a K and things that start with an X.

AlexYeah.

MerlinThese will not be as profound in their effect. They are much more subtle. But if there's anything in my pantheon of prescriptions that is close to a candy, I mean, I think this is, in the end, probably safer than Claritin. Merlin Mann declares propanel.

AlexOh, boy. All right. There's no unsafe dose.

MerlinThere's literally no unsafe dose. It's a black box warning. You know? I'm basically, I'm a little Sackler now. Little Sackler.

Speaker ALittle Sackler.

AlexI've made a...

MerlinLove that actor, though.

AlexLittle Sackler.

MerlinI said to my daughter so many times, do you feel like he's coded as being on the spectrum? I said it so many times. She finally said, why don't you just go look it up? I said, I'm not going to do that. I only look up the names of what else actresses were in. But I'm not going to look up the serious man, Sackler man. And she went. And according to his Internet Science page, Michael Sackler, Richard, Richard Sackler is rumored to be on the spectrum. So I think that's where he got that.

AlexHuh.

MerlinYou know, how far in are you?

AlexI haven't even started it, but I've seen the trailer.

MerlinAre you fucking kidding me?

AlexListen.

MerlinOh, God. I'm tempted to do a devs on you. Not because it didn't turn out good. I finished it last night and it's terrific. But it's very sad.

AlexIt's a very sad show. Of course it's going to be sad. It's about Oxy and the Sackler family.

MerlinYou don't cast Caitlin Dever in something unless you want her to be like the runaway champion of the movie or the person who definitely ends up in a fridge. I love her so much. I love her face. Doesn't she look like a children's book character?

AlexYes. Yes. Oh, fuck. Oh, she does.

MerlinShe looks like, maybe not Eloise exactly, but she looks like, yeah, from a 70s children's book. I think she's terrific.

AlexDoes your household ever get out of sync in terms of television and movie shows? That's the issue with me. I don't want to watch too far ahead.

MerlinAnd again, just to clarify for the canon here, you are loyal to your spouse, whereas your spouse is slightly more TV poly and will sometimes cheat on you and get ahead on something you previously agreed was a you guys show.

AlexWell, I mean, I excused him from... He can watch all the Grey's Anatomy he wants. I can't do the COVID season.

MerlinYeah, please. Congusto. You go do that one without me. I'll be good.

AlexNope, nope, nope. Turns out Meredith has been in a closet

Merlinfor the entire season. this fucking season

AlexI do get confused

Merlinespecially in the Caitlin Deaver and Beanie Feldsteiniverse because if you imagine somebody shuffling cards like a bridge shuffle where you do the in two hands and you flutter them together my brain is so fucking confused within the last two weeks my brain is so confused hot and cold, like a Caitlin Deaver on Dope Sick I've got Caitlin Deaver in Booksmart which we watched again. Oh, yay. Now I got Beanie Feldstein fucking all over the place.

AlexShe is popping off. Oh, man.

MerlinNow you're up to, so you saw her LARPing, yes?

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinOh, my fucking God. How great is she in that?

Speaker AOh, little one.

MerlinWait, so are you up to what? No, you're not up to animal control. You're probably around.

AlexI am spoiler

Merlinhave you gone to the vampire club yet?

Alexno oh wait wait wait that's with oh fuck Nickro yes there we go I was like I think my hat is probably cursed it's not cursed

Merlinbut the scene where he introduces his crew Emma and I lose it when he gets to Count Rapula and 50s guy all the people in his crew they're not even wearing capes And Gizmo is going to have to poop where Sam the Cat is. And by the way, Sam the Cat is a running character. He will be back.

AlexOh, my God. I just.

MerlinI love Gizmo so much.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinOh, Colin Robinson. Holy shit. Can you fucking believe in episode one when they introduced Colin Robinson and you're like, wait a minute. What just happened? What just happened on this show?

AlexWell, and that's the club. Isn't the club episode? No. No, no, no. Where is it?

MerlinNo, Colin, they're having the meeting. Close the door. Close it more. They're having the meeting here in the fancy room. Just take a moment. That guy. Holy shit. Nando the Relentless. He's without relent.

No, it's the one where they're having the meeting and then Colin. Oh, you guys having some kind of house meeting in here? I'm sorry. I called him Colin. His name is Colin Robinson. Did you get to... Oh, sorry. Did you get to... I think you must have gotten to not Heidi Gardner. What's her name?

AlexSNL. When we both yelled out, oh, SNL person.

MerlinDid you get to it?

AlexYes.

MerlinAnd then it's like, oh, I get it. EV. And you're like, yes.

AlexOh my God, yes.

Speaker AMy identity was stolen.

AlexYou still like TV.

MerlinI've worked with both of them.

Speaker AOh my God.

AlexOh, what? Wait. What? Huh?

MerlinWell, I mean, like, I feel like I, I mean, as always in life, I've probably been both of them, but I've definitely worked with both of them. I mean, have you ever been around like the Debbie Downer emotional terrorist who's just like always trying to draw you in to their latest, you know, where you're like, oh, hey, how's it going? And then they're always like, you're not going to believe it. You're like, oh, I shouldn't have asked how things are going. Oh, really? Your mom's still on dialysis? I'm going to suck. I should go.

AlexSee, I feel like I could be an emotional terrorist. I don't want to be that person, though.

MerlinOh, no, no, no. Absolutely not.

AlexWhich is why people ask how I am. Lie. Always lie. Just lie. Even if I'm doing amazing, I'm like, oh, it's all good.

MerlinYeah, it depends a lot, I guess, on sort of the context of why someone's asking. But when someone asks how you are, I mean, that's just – and again, this is all covered in the doc. sometimes people ask how you're doing when they're most concerned about how they're doing

Alexoh is oh oh fuck wait oh fuck oh um it's already fallen off my twitter timeline but uh

Merlinso now now you can appreciate the bit where it's a picture that the it's a screen grab from when colin is sharpening the pencils with that look in his eye like like driving people crazy with sharpening the pencils remember and then what i typed under that was yeah here's me 10 minutes into explaining how i use caliber now what you want to do is you can bring it in you can bring it in as an epub or a mobi but that'll really bite you in the buns if you try and move the wrong one

over and you don't even want to get started with that kind of thing you could oh do oh create what's called a virtual library you get a library inside library but a lot of people would find that confusing. You wouldn't know where to go. It's all built in Python, which is based on

Alextabs. Well, that's when you used to be Merlin Man, so...

MerlinYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

AlexYou're really having a Manic Mund Wednesday. This is fun. This is very interesting.

MerlinNo, I'm fine. What are you talking about?

AlexOh, no, no. I am talking about how you're very fond today.

MerlinWell, okay, alright. We're going to do a mid-flight. Okay, so here's what we've got.

AlexAre we still in the mids?

MerlinSorry, we're on mid-flight. we're going to need a chicken noise at some point we've got the let's see, Quincy Punk episode I'm clicking, I'm going over here Google Docs problem we've got spaces not tabs we're talking about spaces

Alexwhat, what, what, what oh, I see what you did there, okay I got very triggered for a second

Merlinin the fullness of time you saw what I did there I feel like and we've got Twitter Blue, yep, signed up for it Spaces Google Docs, oh, what's the main one this week? Oh, I got a feeling this might be a MacGuffin week Unless you did something really cool I did stuff, but it's not that cool

AlexNo, I I think it's good We do challenges Here on Dubai Friday No, no, we're mid

MerlinWe're still testing the equipment

AlexThree

MerlinTwo Spaces challenge. Was there one other thing maybe that we want to cover? I think spaces is good. I want to know about the spaces.

AlexYou keep avoiding spaces.

MerlinAre you ready to pop out?

AlexOkay, listen. I, in last week's after show, I'm not going to go and listen. You're hijacking the show right now? I feel like you're hijacking the show a little bit. I know. I'm just saying my piece before you get into your space space

Merlinthat I... I had two things to talk about before that. We have not left this. Do you know anything about producing public radio? No. All right. And I think actually I think actually I recovered this in the comic book. But you start out... Oh, God, good. I'm doing the morning edition theme from 1990. Hi, I'm 80.

This is Bob Edwards. And then you go into it, and then you go to the news. Right? And then maybe you come back from the news and you say, go ahead, this is Bob Edwards, and I'll be fired in a few years for no good reason. And Bob Edwards says, and here's Lakshmi Singh, or here is, oh God, I can't remember, Ophabiaquist Arcton. Or as I say, Ophabiaquist Awesome. And then you throw, now imagine you're opening a parenthesis here, and then Ophabiaquist Arcton, who's reporting from Dhaka, talks for a minute. And then she's going to roll some tape, as they say.

Now imagine a new parenthesis opening, which is audio tape. Okay? I don't want to go any further. That's far enough. Now, when Ophabia's tape person is done, imagine that parentheses being closed. And what do we do? We go back up a level to Ophabia Quistarcton in Dachau. And then when Ophabia Quistarcton, National P... From Dachau. And then that closes. And then guess what? Guess who's back? Fucking Bob Edwards. You closed all the parentheses. When you go into audio, you then have to go back out of audio

or it's jarring. If you went from tape of the person in Dachau straight to Bob Edwards, you'd say, what the fuck have you done with Ophelia Quist Awesome?

AlexYou like structure.

MerlinI like outlines. I don't like a popular. This is ironical. This is ironical. I think in outlines. Therefore, I outline. Right? Outline ergo sum. and so I do but I don't like too much of an outline

Speaker Afor the actual performance of the program.

MerlinI leave that for other people.

AlexYes.

MerlinI leave that for other people. When people say things like why don't you put in chapter markers and I say to mark what? Like what chapter is being marked? This is the point when they had the mid-flight to the mid-flight?

AlexI mean I was going to say we could do it by flights. You do acts in...

MerlinOh I got to put this in the document. You know, you heard this one? Write drunk, edit sober.

AlexYes. Oh, yeah. I mean, I've heard it. Write high, edit sober.

MerlinI like to plan sober. I like to plan sober and perform drunk.

AlexAh. Hmm. Huh. That's interesting. Huh. Wait. Oh.

MerlinDid you know the Baron is played by Doug Jones?

AlexI. Oh, what? No. This is New by Friday.

MerlinI'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure that's Doug Jones's voice.

AlexOh my God.

MerlinAnd guess what? He does come back and it's fucking amazing. Just go in, chow down, fucking blaze through the, like I said to you, I think at the outside of this, I think the first season is amazing. And like Hamilton and Dune, I spent a lot of time on the first part of what we do in the shadows. I rewatched the first few episodes many, many, many times. By the time you get to the unbelievable last episode of season one, please cancel everything to enjoy this program you're going to be coming back to this show.

So you can get to what happens at the... Here's the secret. That's what they do in the shadows. But it's so goddamn fun. And what was I going to say about, let's see, writing drunk about... Oh, I lost my train of thought somehow.

AlexToo many parentheses. Are we in the mid-flight? Have we landed? Doug Jones. I don't know.

MerlinDo you know who Doug Jones is? Do you know the actor Doug Jones?

Alexthe uh well i know character guy he's character guy he's yeah yeah he's like del toro's go-to

Merlinguy he's like two different amazing monsters in pan's labyrinth he's the eyeball in the hands guy and he's the horned like you know minotaur looking guy yeah he's he's the sex fish in the shape of

Alexwater movie oh i didn't know that oh ah yeah more monsters than i thought oh he has he has a really

Merlina good role on Star Trek, on a Star Trek my daughter likes. He's like a fish man on there. And I'm not saying you should watch this yet because it would be just too, like, it would screw you up and spoil you. But Gizmo, the guy who plays Gizmo, Harvey Guillen?

Guillen, I want to say? Anyway, Gizmo, I love that Laszlo calls him Gizmo. Guillermo, the guy who plays Guillermo, who's a delight,

Alexwho's an outman. I just want to pinch his cheeks. Oh my god, he's so cute.

MerlinWhat do you see the way he dresses in real life? He is adorable. He does a show where he interviews people about the show. And he has a wonderful interview with Doug Jones. He has one where he talks to Nandor and someone you'll meet, Gail. You will eventually meet Gail.

Speaker AI love the way he talks.

MerlinAnd he forces, what is that? He forces, you know, I'm going to say carcass wrong. Carcass.

AlexIt's like there's something depressing his tongue while it's, I can't do his way.

MerlinIsn't it funny though? Like how I feel like there must be a genesis in Taika Waititi's Viago accent. Oh yeah, for sure. But he takes it a totally different way.

Speaker AEverybody thinks you're, Deacon, everyone thinks you're a really cool guy.

MerlinWell, I'm glad to know everyone thinks I'm a really cool guy.

Speaker AWhile he's knitting. It's so funny. All the bloody dishes on the shelf.

Merlinsorry i i fall hard i'm a serial monogamous i'm a polyamorous podcaster but i fall i fall hard i am some i get i get i get fucking up in there when i get into a property and i'm in there with what we do in the shadows right now two two of my daughter's uh christmas gifts arrived today oh i'm trying to think of either of them oh okay i can tell you one of them is not a spoiler It's a shirt. It says, Bat!

Speaker ABat!

MerlinHuman form! Bat!

Speaker AWhen I'm sitting on top of the bus.

MerlinAnd I also got her, I got her something else I very much know she expressly wanted that you won't run into for a while, but it's a painting that Colin Robinson made. I got her a print of that to frame.

AlexOh my God. I'm just thinking,

MerlinI love when his eyes light up, when you can tell that he's imminently draining people of energy when something terrible is happening. This happens in almost every episode. He's videotaping something terrible happening. He's like, ah! And his eyes light up.

AlexThe visual effects in this, much like in the movie, are so good.

MerlinSo good. I totally agree. Yeah, in season three, they're even more bananas than the movie. They get really ambitious. Oh, and Nadja. We haven't talked about Nadja. How cute is Nadja?

AlexThe, I, I, oh, I'm sorry.

MerlinRelationship with the Baron. Some rather acrobatic stuff. I love the Baron so much. That's just the Stairmaster. We can't use any of the space for storage now.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. And Guillermo, Guillermo wants to be a Dracula so much. He wants a master. I love the way he says master. Oh, my God. You guys, what we do in the shadows is a really good show. So we've got Chicken Noise, Google Docs, Spaces Challenge. I wanted to say, this is my albatross this week. I'm very grateful that this was pointed out to me. I wanted to share it with our listeners on my explanation tour.

A person on the internet called Drew, this is DRU89, Drew89 writes to say, Hot Dogs, ladies. I had the same problem. That's me. I had the same problem with Google Docs, rich copy slash paste. turned out to be Tracker Zapper. Might be worth toggling that to see if that fixes it. It was, and it did. Something was happening with Tracker Zapper. And spoiler alert, Rob, friend of the show, who makes Tracker Zapper, is aware of it and is working on it. But this now explains why I was not able to paste style text.

Degst. I'm going to start talking like Nandor. Degst. Bane. I was not able to because something was happening with Tracker Zapper. The I.O. with the clipboard was getting goofy. And that's also why my copy markdown link right-click didn't work. So I wanted to say to a friend of the show, a friend of some show, I don't know which, Drew. Hey, Drew89, thank you very much. That really helped me. I deactivated. And thank you to Rob Knight, friend of the show, for making Tracker Zapper because it rules.

AlexI've never been, I think, on his website. Who? Oh, look. Rob Knight. Oh, it's flashy. His neon sign on this website. Oh, God.

MerlinIs it rknight.me?

AlexYeah.

MerlinA podcast about what's on our minds. Mostly chicken. The devil, you say.

AlexWhat? Oh, ruminate. Have I?

MerlinI'm just saying there's a trend here with chickens is what I'm saying.

AlexIt is. It's a big chicken day. insert family guy joke here

Merlinthat's going to be a title right there big shit

Speaker Aoh no is that a family guy joke

Alexgiggity giggity listen family guy has gone through an evolution that let's just say

Merlinthat's very generous

AlexI'm just okay

MerlinI've enjoyed that show

Alexthere's a rough rough bout but the giggity giggity man quagmire is no longer a giggity man and more of a he just turns into a cat lady and is he still a sex pervert no no no no i mean it's oh what's the point it's um space space

Merlinspaces not spaces spaces good lord i just quagmire stewie lois i don't like when people

Alexget beat up on that show it makes me sad that's that's the chicken but the big old chicken fight

Merlinno oh okay i know what you're talking about he fights a chicken but is there there's also yeah where people like i seem like really injured and it makes me sad oh i mean i don't of the problematic shows i watch i think i have more respect sorry of the problematic shows i don't watch or don't watch anymore i have i think i have more respect for south park because i think

Alexthis guy's got hustle they are incredible like i i still don't know how they i mean they're just

Merlintheir work ethic i don't think we're on the same page in terms of a lot of like you know life stuff but i i really admire what they're able to pull off with that show so quickly so fucking quickly

Alexthat's uh the the uh creator not creators fuck the current producers of american dad okay i Not that I watched that show.

MerlinOh, that's the one with the gay alien.

AlexYes, yes. He's a bi. Well, actually, he's a bi alien. It turns out.

MerlinWe talked about gender unreconcilable differences last night.

AlexOh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, is this going to be like, ooh, ooh.

MerlinYeah, it is. It's going to be like.

AlexAll right. No. I want to hear about your spaces. I still don't quite understand. Bi-American.

MerlinWhat? burn the village to save the village. That's what Robert McNamara said. I should probably get some more tea. Do you want to talk to the audience while I refill my tea, or do you want to take a pause? I'm not even going to urinate. I'm not going to jerk it or anything. I'm just going to get more tea.

AlexAll right. I'll talk to the audience.

MerlinWhat are you going to talk about, just so I know?

AlexOh, I don't know. See, now, normally I would just have a nice little chat. Go have your iced tea, please.

MerlinI don't know. I don't feel comfortable leaving at this point. Why? Do you not trust me?

AlexDo you not trust me with the parabola?

MerlinNo, of course I don't trust you. I'll be good. Why would I trust you?

Speaker AI'll be good. I'll be good.

MerlinOh, God. He's not like Knives Chow.

Speaker APlease, Papa.

MerlinAm I not being good? And then you notice at the end that she has Knives. Remember that?

Speaker AYes.

MerlinThat's because her name is Knives Chow. She's Chinese. Oh, God.

AlexScott's dating a 17-year-old. Oh, God. I am. Oh, fuck. Oh, Last Night in Soho. I need to see that.

MerlinI know. I know.

AlexAnd Last Night in Soho.

MerlinI don't want to be this in the bag for the whole Anya Taylor-Joy thing, but I kind of am. Why not? I think she's amazing.

Speaker AShe's awesome.

MerlinI mean, her in clothes, it's exciting. I mean, no, her in clothes, it's like the Princess Diana girl from The Crown where it's like, oh, yes, just show me them in all of the clothes. Yes, yes, yes.

AlexYes. Oh, Spencer? Man, there's a lot of good.

MerlinNo. Well, no. I'm talking about.

AlexI know, but I also like Kristen Stewart in many clothes. I think.

MerlinDidn't she? She and her lady friend are engaged now, right?

AlexOh, I don't know. I never know what's happening.

MerlinI thought her lady friend proposed to her. All I know is Donald Trump says, Robert Pattinson, stay away from her. Are you going to talk while I get tea?

AlexYes, I'm going to talk.

MerlinHave you heard this podcast ruminate that's about chicken?

AlexI think I have, actually, somehow. What's a Monzo pot?

MerlinWhat's a Monzo pot?

AlexI don't know.

MerlinI'm not going to click it. I'm not going to click it.

AlexDon't click it. Hey, listeners, how are you doing?

MerlinGitHub. I was on GitHub a lot this week.

AlexI think I finally understand GitHub. Maybe.

MerlinOh, I can't wait to hear. I'm going to get some tea. You want to talk to the audience for a minute?

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinYou seem a little manic right now.

AlexI'm... hey hey audience oh my desk is really really messy now so it's a very apt situation for this whole episode i got one of those little clock things that it's what clock things no timer That's what you do where it's it's white, but then you turn it and then it's like all red and it can do a countdown from 60 minutes to zero.

And I don't know, it's just very aesthetically pleasing, which made me think, oh, no, this makes me look like a just a dick, like a minimalist, just a total like bitch cuck for all of the, you know, life hack timery type stuff. Oh, not timer. Timery is a very good app. Timer type stuff. Oh, it's called Time Timer. My God. And I saw it in a bunch of YouTube videos. It's I don't know. I'm cucked by the clock. Is Merlin back? Hello? Yeah. Hello. Hello.

It doesn't take that long to get tea.

MerlinI just wanted to try and figure out what the fuck you're talking about. Cluck, cluck, cluck, timer. Timer, timer. Cluck, cluck. Chicken timer. Chicken podcast. Chicken little. Timer's falling. Mock, mock. You seem a little manic today.

AlexYeah. If now you are very, oh, can you be anti, would you be anti-Semitic or pro-Semitic. If you want to save it for the Jewish working show, I understand, but I still don't. Whoa!

Speaker AWhat?

AlexWait, why is that problematic?

MerlinWhat's the... Wait, you're stipulating that Back to Work is a program buying for Jews?

AlexBuy? Maybe not for?

MerlinNo, it's the alien who's bi. The... These baseball players say they got a lot of funny names.

Alexoh gosh i do think it's incredibly funny that uh oh and then you've got the italian um where where he thought that there were only catholic catholics and jewish people in the world because oh stat no wait not where oh oh i hope he's not listening oh fuck what's what's the island

Merlinyou're like a one person sizzle reel for this entire program

Alexfrom Long Island. I knew that.

MerlinJust so you know, at some point this evening, Wednesday, November 17th, I will be publishing a short audio bit, which is everything that you just said. So if anybody out there, hey, everybody, I hope you're having a great night. Happy Wednesday. I don't know what they were talking about either, and I'm pretty confused. I think there's, I'm going to speak to the listener for a minute. I think there's a lot of either, I can't tell if it's like a Mario Kart anti-Semitism. I'm not sure what we're doing here, but all I do is I went to get tea, and when I came back, My co-host was saying cluck, cluck, cluck, cock timer.

I'm just cocked by the clock. You say again?

AlexI'm just cocked by the clock.

MerlinOh, okay.

AlexYeah.

MerlinAnyway, y'all have a good night. Happy Wednesday. Stay safe.

AlexWhat are your, so is it a safe space? You're moving spaces?

MerlinWhat the fuck are you talking? Okay, listen, we're starting over.

AlexAll right, welcome to Dubai Friday.

MerlinDubai Friday. Hang on one second, I'll be right back.

AlexAll right, listen. Everybody who knows the sort of timer I was referring to, you can add Merlin and be like, yeah. No, no add, no add.

Oh, there's a guitar.

MerlinI open tuned it. I forgot. I was doing Cinnamon Girl. It's open tuned now. Now I can't play. Are you feeling good?

AlexYes, that's twink.

MerlinSo I'm going to try I'm going to try and guess you were talking about Dan and then you were talking about Syracuse, is that right?

AlexYes, yes.

MerlinI'm trying to make myself play guitar more. I don't think I'll get better at it, but

AlexIt's just very soothing. You should start a band.

MerlinYou really should start a band.

AlexYou should start another band. Oh, it's so sick. Keep playing. Let's just have this whole show just be Merlin guitar.

MerlinLet's see. Let's see. Let's see. Let's see. Let's see. Just another manic. I'm going to play it slow if I get it right.

Way out of practice. I can't sing like Neil Young and so consequently I also can't play guitar like Neil Young

Speaker ASailing hardships

Merlinthrough broken heart It doesn't really capture it, does it? I like this guitar it's got a bird on it

AlexOh, you put a bird on it Did you put a bird on it or did it have a bird on it?

MerlinOh, God, that's out of tune You know what, for the after show I'll do some open tuning and I'll play one of my old songs.

AlexOh, oh. Merlin, well, if people wanted to listen to the after show, I don't know why.

MerlinNo, do it. Run with it. Run with it while I tune. Go ahead.

AlexOkay. Hi, everybody. If you're enjoying this, can I tell you about another hour of some... It's usually not an hour. Man, I'm so good at plugging this. You're getting better every week. You're a digital native. Is that what we're called now i am reclaiming the land uh hi everybody welcome to dubai friday if you're enjoying this and you want an another 45 minutes of confusing nonsense you can go to patreon.com slash dubai

friday where merlin i think is going to play one of his songs and you can find that and uh it's our My iOS focus broke, and now I'm getting a bunch of texts. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Dubai Friday. Would you like more of this program? Well, go to patreon.com slash Dubai Friday. You can get a second episode every week here on Manic Wednesday.

MerlinIt's just another Manic... Patreon.

AlexDid you... Oh, gosh. Talk about Manic Patreons. Do you know the number one podcast on Patreon right now?

Speaker AChapel Trap House? No, no, no. They got obliterated.

AlexWhat? How come? Graf Treon. Oh, no. Like, everybody did. Bye.

MerlinCOVID.

AlexI want your cold... Oh, God. I can't believe you haven't seen this. I'm very distraught by...

MerlinIs this one of those things where you get a different internet than me?

AlexOh, no, no.

MerlinI know the lady from Red Scare is on

AlexSuccession. Yep, she sure is. What happened? Have you seen the... Do you see the link that I've provided you?

MerlinOh, I see. Sorry. True Crime Obsessed is creating podcasts. Okay. Oh, no, I don't think of True Crime Obsessed. Oh, they're big, huh? They're very,

Alexvery, very big. Oh, my goodness.

MerlinGood for them. Look at that.

AlexOh, yeah. Hi, love you. We're so freaking psyched you want to join our Patreon fam. Hello, you gorgeous non-garbage people. This is, music notes, Gillian Pence Vale and music note Pat Patrik Hines here. We absolutely love making this podcast for you and the fact that you've listened to it and want to support us, want to flip tables in the best way. Isn't this show about people who've been murdered? What is happening? Oh, my God.

MerlinThey seem pretty happy. There's a lot of, I mean, you know, I mean, at least us, like, you know, I was called the F word a lot growing up. And you might as well be, you know, the F word. And we got a picture of us on Castro Street. So I'm not exactly sweating it.

AlexYeah. Yeah. Well, but I mean, we don't talk about dead people that often.

MerlinI was in theater, Alex. That's all. Nothing more.

Speaker AI'm so upset by this photograph.

MerlinI was in a Neil Simon. I was in a Neil Simon play. Okay.

Speaker AMm hmm.

MerlinMm hmm. Yeah. So this is the big, is this the big kahuna now on Patreon podcasting?

AlexIn fact, I think they hid their, oh no, 46,032 patrons. Good for them.

MerlinThere's a lot of murder out there. I can tell because Netflix, that's all, it's all murder. Murder all the way down.

AlexI have often thought about my possible murder and I have a very.

MerlinNow that's the name of a podcast that's going to be big. this is alexandra cox and we're here to talk about my possible murder my possible murder well

Alexi'm i've kind of come around to be often a little grossed out by a lot of true crime stuff and i

Merlinmean um we're all drawn to it no i i know i mean i'm not i'm not immune to like a good story but But everything's become so formulaic and so tuned in. I want to like that hooked show you told me about. But it's really almost everything that I think is making podcast shitty at this point. They're like, okay, we've realized that people get bored after 31 minutes. Here's a tiny bit of a story. And it's like, okay, I get it. And bank robbery is fine. But yeah, the crime stuff is, I think it's something that people really like to the point where,

I mean, this is going to be sounding a little nuts. But like if you ask people in 2000, I don't know, eight, like what are most podcasts sort of about? I think it's usually technology, right? And I bet there are people, and this is not a serial joke, except now I'm realizing it is a serial joke. You ask some people what are podcasts about? And they're like, oh, it's either like NPR or murder.

AlexOh, God. Oh, God. I mean, I know that's not going to be –

MerlinThat's what people like. People like this. it's basically people reading I'm sorry I know I've said this before but it's still it's not my favorite kind of show usually it's people reading over a music bed that's not a podcast, it's a radio show reading over a music bed is what NPR is and then you left and decided that you were going to go do this because you're going to make all this money with you know I guess PRX or you know the big one the spots

AlexSpotify no it was the one before it became Spotify I Heart Media.

MerlinYou know, the goddamn reply all people.

AlexOh, Gimlet. Oh, those pieces of shit.

MerlinWell, okay, fine. But anyway, I think if you ask a lot of people today, they'd say, yeah, I love my show. I love my programs. I like to catch up with my stories. You know, they learn about podcasts. At least in my, like, callow, angry podcast veteran version of this, it really feels like Serial is how people learned about podcasts. and to this day it's still like that's still what they're just like like like gavage they're just forcing all of this true crime shit down their throat which is fine i mean i just want people to

Alexbe happy but i don't want people to be happy about murder i really don't know i hope there's still a

Merlinspace for people to shuck and jive and it's it's it's um oh boy talk about a first world problem it's so strange if you listen to a podcast and someone mentions your name um and i'm a fan whether i don't like the people but i like the show accidental tech podcast and they're talking about getting an ad-free version of the show. And Marco's like, I've tried an experiment, which is every time there's an ad-free version of the show, I buy it. But you can't do that everywhere, looking at you, Merlin, and Roderick on the line. I feel seen, and not in a good millennial way.

But I hope there's still room for people to just chuck and jive.

AlexThere always will be. Oh, here's the thing, though. Most of those... But what if there's a pogrom or something?

MerlinWhat if we're shoved out of town?

AlexThey exist mostly on YouTube, though, and they call it a podcast. I don't know.

MerlinWho are they? True Crime Obsessed?

AlexOh, no. By they, I mean like the Storytime Tubers and, you know, it's them.

MerlinStorytime Tubers.

AlexYeah.

MerlinThat sounds like an episode of Over the Garden Wall. What does it mean Storytime Tubers? Oh, Potato! and molasses.

AlexI am shocked. I'm genuinely shocked you don't know about this genre video. I can tell. Like when someone is sitting down, they're like, okay, so story time. They literally say that. And there's, okay, I mean, people have become hundred millionaires because of this. And like, good for you, Gabby Hannah, Hannah Gabby, the great Gatsby. but then they have the story time

Merlinare you saying the person whose comedy we adore is on YouTube

Alexno no no

Merlinisn't that Hannah Gatsby you're saying it's Jay Gatsby

Alexno no no Greenlight West Egg Greg the West Egg

MerlinCousin Greg

AlexCousin Greg Greg the fucking egg Tom Buchanan.

MerlinDaisy Buchanan?

AlexOh.

MerlinHmm.

AlexDidn't she a little bit have it?

MerlinIs it Buchanan canonical?

AlexHmm. I'm so happy you don't know what this is.

MerlinI am too. We're popping out of that and talking about spaces. Hey, everybody. I fixed my Google Docs. Well, good for true crime. You can go to patreon.com slash do by Friday if you want to support what we do here. We'd really appreciate it. We need the money. So a non-diegetic chicken is involved, and we're moving on. So, sorry, transition. And now, introducing my new segue.

So, the spaces thing. This started in the wisdom thing, which I am getting increasingly excited about, is the wisdom project. I've renamed it the Wisdom Project, and it'll probably be renamed many more things, but what's wrong? What's funny?

AlexI'm eating the wisdom. I'm sorry. It sounds like it's, I know I risk. Um, it's, are you familiar with the book series chicken soup for the soul?

MerlinVery.

AlexWow. Wow. So many chicken. Oh, I don't. Um, all right. So your wisdom,

MerlinI'm a, I'm a big fan of a chicken soup for the maniac soul. Oh, the soup's too hot. I need to go run for government. I need to be on city council. Take this out.

I'm aware that somebody, I think there was a book called chicken soup for the soul. And that was a book collecting. Oh shit. I see what you're saying. fuck me yes chicken soup for the soul was originally for somebody you know with the the i don't know reading sophistication of somebody who almost finishes a reader's digest humor and uniform section uh you uh could read something chicken soup for the soul that was a collection of like a little like uh edgar edgar guest style you know bullshit and homilies about life right

Alextakes a heap of living to make a house a home yeah but sometimes there were dolphins i i had Chicken Soup for the Ocean, Lover's Soul.

MerlinSometimes there were dolphins. I'm sorry, before we pivot, though, I'm just trying to say, I think it started out like all this bullshit before it became a series. Maybe it was always meant to be a series, but you've also got stuff like Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. You've got Tuesdays with Maury. There was this spate of books in especially the 80s and into the 90s that were all about, oh, oh, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, and It's All Small Stuff, stuff like that. But Chicken Soup for the Soul in particular, it was basically just, Was there original writing in it? Because my sense was it was more like Uncle John's bathroom book for your dim aunt.

Oh, look at that here. It says you can thicken sauce with a little bit of cornstarch. That's terrific. How are the crops going to be this year?

AlexI would say a generous way to refer to them is, or the first book at least, is a collection of small stories by Demance for Demance. And it sounds like... By Demance for Demance. It sounds like Demance. Good Lord.

It's like undoing...

MerlinAre you saying the name of a person? Is that a proper noun?

AlexI don't...

MerlinA lot of chickens in this episode.

AlexSo chickens. Okay, you're... So the wisdom...

MerlinChicken soup for the soul dog food? What'd that mean?

AlexI think that's for...

MerlinChickens. Wait. Oh, what?

AlexAre you looking at the franchise? Is it slow around?

MerlinAlex, I just searched for chicken soup, and the third Google suggestion led me to something called Chicken Soup for the Soul. This is not punctuated. Chicken Soup for the Soul Adult Chicken Turkey Brown Rice Dry Dog Food.

Chicken Soup for the Soul Adult Dry Dog Food.

AlexChicken Soup Israeli Style. What?

MerlinChicken Soup for the Soul Pet Food. Oh, here you go, Alex. You go to chickensoupets.com. It looks like a French word, soupes. So Chicken Soup Pets, it says fill a bowl, feed a soul. Oh, so they do charity. Chicken Soup for the Soul has donated over 3 million meals to pets in need since September 2016. I do sometimes like to think about, like, what if, like, I don't know, let's say Teddy Roosevelt was around. You could go, like, I want to show you something. and be like, what is this odd glass displaying to me?

You'd be like, well, this is a website on a computer. What is that? Yeah, this is Chicken Soup for the Soul, which is a book of advice for your dimwitted, like traumatic brain injury aunt. And now they've created a mission because, you know, pets are people now and they vote. And so now there's Chicken Soup.

AlexI mean, if corporations can.

MerlinChicken Soup for the Soul classic. Oh, I see. You don't want new Chicken Soup. Small bites, mature, same great recipe, smaller bite.

Speaker AGlucosamine chondroitin!

MerlinAnd he'd say, well, he'd say, I don't understand. What is this glucosamine? Because apparently he's foghorn leghorn. And Teddy Roosevelt said, what is this glucosamine chondroitin on this glass screen? He said, well, this is people who are out of their fucking mind who love this sort of simple advice also want food for their dog that will help their joints.

AlexThis is just fucking wild. What has this turned? Oh, the dog food network? Good Lord.

MerlinDid we, again, now to invoke a different self-help book, did we manifest this by talking so much about chicken?

AlexI think so. I don't enjoy that either. Is this some Rachel Hollis shit? Rachel Hollis? Rachel Hollis. Isn't that Rachel Hollis? Girl, wash your face. Yeah, yeah.

MerlinGirl, wash your face. She's white. Who knew? I can't believe anyone in this century could put out a book called Girl, Wash Your Face, and you're white. she's the worst the big question this week is is being fat unhealthy oh god oh she's from weed patch california boy michael michael michael goes michael goes ham this week

Alexit's good he goes fucking crazy oh oh uh hey everybody welcome to you by friday where we Hey, everybody. So, I need other shows. Maintenance phase.

MerlinMaintenance phase.

AlexMan, I miss a lot of that. Phies.

MerlinMaintenance phase.

AlexMaintenance phase. Got it.

MerlinGase.

AlexOh, I accidentally put it in a playlist in overcast called Good Gay Shit. He's being fat, fat.

MerlinSo, anyway, yeah, this week's episode was something like, yeah, I imagine you've already listened to it. No. I'm almost the way through. Oh, yeah, it's basically, it's one of those, another one of those long-awaited, you know, like, oh, now they're going to go there episodes. what is the actual name of the episode it's called Maintenance Phase it's a really good podcast I enjoy a lot I think sometimes they're a little pleased with themselves but I do still like it but you can tell what's your name why can I never remember her name Audrey

Alexbecause her Twitter name is so fucking funny that it's

Merlinreally funny your fat friend is a funny name she is genuinely losing her shit in this one because it's all of her greatest hits of like are really are we doing this and it's so what's the name of the actual episode i

Alexguess i finished it now it's being fat bad for you it's being fat bad for you yeah and talking

Merlinabout this woman at the i want to say fda and no having to like go up against this diet book guy who's like he's one of the preeminent fat mix fat being fat is killing you 365 000 people a year in America die of obesity and it's like oh my god.

Speaker AAnd then they have a new segment I think called Methodology Queen

Merlinwhere they just like go really deep on why the fuck this is, the methodology on this is so fucked. It's wrecked. That's really good. Absolutely wrecked. But the point is that chicken soup for the soul is a dog food and poor Teddy Roosevelt you know, too soon. Oh, that's right.

AlexHe came in here.

MerlinDid you notice in that image I sent you, Teddy Roosevelt is the only one not wearing ear protection?

AlexDid you send me an image? No.

MerlinYeah, I sent you in our problematic side channel.

AlexWe have so many.

MerlinYeah, I sent you something at 109 Pacific yesterday, which is the great artist John Naughton, McNaughton. Naughton has a new painting. Oh.

Yeah. It's a painting of a bunch of historical figures, including, of course, Mr. Trump, sir. and they're all standing around with guns and flags and stuff. Abraham Lincoln is there. He's got a gun. It's not like Oprah. JFK gets a gun. Reagan gets a gun. Who is that on the left? John DeLorean, I guess. John DeLorean gets a gun. I'm not sure who that is. Abe Lincoln. Yeah, he looks, man, he's down a clown. Look at that guy.

AlexYeah.

MerlinWe got a link to this.

AlexIronically, he looks the least gay in this picture.

MerlinIt is ironic. But we don't use that word. But the way JFK and John DeLorean are holding their rifles, I'm just saying.

AlexLiteral limp wrist.

MerlinIs there a coded way that we can put this, Alex? It's literally a limp wrist. They're really gay. I can't.

Speaker AThey look really gay. I'm firing myself, but I think they look really gay.

AlexThere's nothing wrong. Look at Trump.

Speaker ATrump looks like Baron Harkonnen.

AlexThere's never been a photograph or... Donald Trump has never looked like a straight man in his entire life. No.

MerlinAnd he's certainly never talked like one.

AlexNo. No. He just hasn't. It makes sense because he hung out with so many fancy men and discos.

MerlinHe sounds like somebody who's been with the same man, probably a slender Latino man, but he's been with the same man since the late 70s for all kinds of reasons. and they're not like public or like super out about it, but everybody knows, right?

Speaker AYeah, yeah.

MerlinAnd like, if you can imagine them having to deal with a maitre d'. Oh, and maybe he's got early onset dementia. And he's got to deal with a maitre d' about a mix up with the reservation, right? That gay guy, that's what Trump always sounds like to me.

Speaker BVery unfair that our seating has been moved to a later hour.

Speaker AOh, God.

MerlinRodrigo has low blood sugar very strongly.

AlexOh, God. Well, when you...

MerlinGod, I'd fuck Lincoln. Look at that guy.

AlexWho wouldn't? I mean, he's got that log cabin.

MerlinHe's a log cabin Republican. Why is there a snake under there? There's a snake in my boot. And then you got... Anyway, Teddy Roosevelt's the only one. As Southpaw pointed out, Teddy Roosevelt is the only one not wearing ear protection. And how weird is that? This will be in show notes.

AlexOh. Oh. I was like... for some reason, I read, that's Washington on the left, right? Or, yeah, of Trump.

MerlinOh, wait, hang on, I got it. Left is Jefferson, it's not John DeLorean.

AlexI bet that's Jefferson.

MerlinIt says Jefferson, Reagan.

AlexOh.

MerlinTip O'Neill? No. Definitely not Mike Pence. Who's the white-haired guy, third from the left?

AlexI don't know.

MerlinOh, that's Washington. That's got to be Washington.

AlexMaybe, I don't know.

MerlinSo imagine that's hair instead of earmuffs. He'd look like on a quarter.

AlexOh, God, okay. I think it's Jefferson, Reagan. Wow, that's actually really helpful.

MerlinMr. Trump, sir, Honest Abe, TR, and then JFK. And JFK looks like an early macaque of himself. He looks like an early rendering of what will eventually be like, well, you know, you really need to fix the proportions on this.

AlexIt's the first draft of him as a Kendall.

MerlinFirst draft of the president. We don't do these things because they are easy. We do them because I'm short.

AlexWatching the, hmm, welcome to Dubai Friday. We really like TV. Well, I don't know how I feel about, um, fuck, American crime story impeachment. There we go. I mean, I love being, being a star of the 2020s.

MerlinBut also, but, but Dean, the Dean, uh, Dean, um, shit, shit, Dean, you know, community, Dean,

AlexDean. What's his name? Dean. Dean. I don't know his name.

MerlinWhat's the name of the Dean in community? Who makes the puns?

AlexIt took me forever. They don't actually say his name for a season.

MerlinI thought his name was Dean. Him and Chang doing all the dueling puns. Oh my god. I'm so embarrassed right now. Dean Pelton. Dean Pelton as Monica's boss is fucking great. Small role and he makes a meal of it. He's so goddamn good. did you did you did you uh did you did you rock him as being dean pelton the like the second time

Alexhe popped up like we're gonna miss you monica and it was like ah there we go yeah yeah yeah his

Merlinvoice he's he's so good i mean to inhabit i mean i get that character and he comes back later on

Alexhow far in are you on impeachment like halfway maybe at the crate and barrel no the episode uh Spoilers for real life. When she's with the feds in the Crate and Barrel and her mom's on her way. Oh, shit.

MerlinThe one where they take at the mall where they take her to the room. I love that episode. Oh, my God.

AlexSo upsetting.

MerlinYou know, people are hard on Colin Hanks, but I like him. I think he's a good actor.

AlexI agree. I think the—

MerlinYou can really feel his— You can feel his, like, on the one hand, you do feel like— And this comes up in a lot of scenes. Like, when they go out to eat later, you'll see this. you feel this like well you in in his repose you see him thinking like oh shit we shouldn't be doing this like we shouldn't be doing this because it's ethically wrong but it's also going to hurt our case if it comes out that we told her not to have an attorney yeah we didn't say that we didn't say it nope that's fucking bad man and there's that but then um there's also that like but he is like he's a company man like he wants to make this happen we know this is great

as uh kenneth star uh the guy from community from the air conditioning school who's also the the nasty foul mouth guy on veep i love that actor oh oh fuck oh fuck he's you wouldn't recognize him because he's so different from every other character he's ever played oh man

Alexthis all right i take it back i really really enjoy the show i just wish presidents could

Merlinhave affairs sarah paulson dude fucking fucking sarah paulson oh her teeth are so upsetting i wish she would ruin me i wanted i wanted to i wanted to like bring me like within an inch of

Alexmy life i'm not sure how yet but oh have you seen ratchet i tried oh i thought it i thought it looked good it does indeed look is that ryan uh ryan wants to say it also uh ryan murphy yeah he does every show like pretty much every he has touched every show to grace netflix if it's like if it's a fun campy queer show he probably did it yes yeah he's still trying to make up for glee because He did Glee? He did. He did Glee.

He wants everyone to forget.

MerlinYou know, they stole that Baby Got Back arrangement. They stole that from Jonathan Colton.

AlexWait, what? Oh, fuck, I remember this. Holy shit.

MerlinOh, my God. It was really lame. So Jonathan was a total gentleman about it. But he did, at a point, have to come out and say, hey, look, you guys basically just lifted my arrangement of this song. And I wouldn't say it's a big deal, except I worked really hard on this. and I paid Mix and and and and and like Jonathan did everything the right way like it isn't he didn't just like throw a cover on there no he worked with Sir Mix a lot and like made sure everything was cool with what he was doing and then they just took his arrangement without credit

and it's a transformative arrangement I think if we're being honest

AlexI totally forgot about this

Merlinso fellas fellas

AlexI blocked that show took a bridge in so many ways. I've just blocked everything, everything about it. Oh, also the guy,

Merlinthe guy on that show who is also the Grinch, he's one of those people my daughter makes fun of on TikTok. And I don't know if she knows why. The guy, the guy, the guy who looks like he should be on 90210.

AlexThe guy who's like the glee guy. Oh, yes. Mr. Shoe, yes. He has.

MerlinMr. Shoe.

AlexListen, he needs to be made fun of. He needs to be bullied. He needs to be.

MerlinWhy do we hate him? I tried to ask my daughter this. Why are we mad at Lin-Manuel Miranda? Why do we hate him? Why is he a problem? And why do we hate Matthew Grinch?

AlexHe is so fucking weird in everything he's in. He's just like the same way I felt about, what's his name? Creepy guy who didn't want you to say that you were mad at your wife. And not Anderson Cooper. My God. Creepy guy. The nice with Dig Dug Challenge. He was one of the Austin College founders.

Arthur Brooks? Arthur Brooks. Oh. Yeah. Oh. It's just you get a vibe.

MerlinWait, Arthur Brooks was an Austin College person?

AlexYeah. Yeah. Didn't that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

MerlinWait, the guy from the challenge?

AlexYes.

MerlinOh, fuck me.

AlexRemember? I was like, I just get a vibe. I get a vibe. And my vibe was so, so right.

MerlinNow they're dragging poor Steven Pinker down. Like, who's next? whom amongst us who who whom amongst us who has had an afro on the lolita express has been treated

Alexthis poorly in texas oh man i wonder what how i i genuinely what's it called little saint james i let's see fuck what's it called um yeah yeah his little his island with a chapel or whatever with the bed in it yeah what like there was a whole like economy around that island and i'm

MerlinThey've interviewed a lot of people.

AlexThey did, but what do those folks do now? Because they were living there. There was a fucking servant's quarters. But I don't know. I guess patron Saint Ghislaine is Ghislaine Maxwell's trial.

MerlinI brought you a girl from Florida, Master. You guys are getting a lot of value this week from the mania. Wait, we've got to pop the stack a second. We were on Rob Knight, friend of the show, Ruminate, going through tabs, Dean Pelton. Oh, also Beanie Feldstein.

So anyway, the point was I shuffled the deck, and I'm getting Deavers and Feldsteins everywhere. and uh you know there is there's one shot in one thing i watch you know a shot in book smart where like from one angle i finally saw it and i was like oh she's totally jonah hill's sister and i

Alexonly ever see it from like this one angle it's so bananas do you see it there's um i mean kind of fat and funny but other than that no i don't know there's from like a from a side angle on the right

MerlinYeah, when our power went off the other night, and I was like, hey, let's just watch something on the iPad. And I pulled up. I have a life hack, you guys. At least every month or three, reload. If you've got a big device like my giant iPad, load up a bunch of evergreen movies. Like what are the movies that if you were stuck somewhere right now? For us, it used to be third Harry Potter. It used to be, I would say, Scott Pilgrim very much.

Excuse me, I'm sorry. and I happen to have 21 Jump Street on there and I was like, you guys might like this. It's really dumb. Like Red Notice, shut up. I liked it for exactly what it is. Oh, sorry. Did I get a chicken burn for that?

AlexOh, cluck, cluck. Yes.

MerlinBut I thought, I think 21 Jump Street is funny for what it is.

AlexI've never seen it. I don't know why.

MerlinI like Chaining, Chaining, Chaining, Chaining, Tanton. Oh. Chaining, Chaining. All right, all right, all right. All right, all right, all right. Yep, he was great.

AlexMagic Mike and Magic Mike XXL is...

MerlinOh, Magic Michael. Oh, that's right, because Right All Right was in that. Yes, yes, Magic Mike. Yes, it's about capitalism.

AlexReally? I mean, well...

MerlinOh, come on.

AlexWait, hold on, hold on.

MerlinYou say Magic Mike's not about... It's all about... It's all light-stage capitalism is what it's about.

AlexWell, yeah, I mean, in the sense of, like...

MerlinYeah.

AlexWhy am I arguing? Yeah, no, no. It is about... Yes, it's about capitalism. Well, yes. And Magic Michael goes on a magical friend's journey. It's just, oh, God.

MerlinHe deserves that.

AlexHe seems nice.

MerlinHe's also good in that weird movie with James Bond. In the heist movie with James Bond. I thought it was fun. I saw that in the theater.

Speaker BThe heist movie.

MerlinThe heist movie where James Bond, he's playing a different Foghorn Leghorn. But it's like a race car. Is it a race car heist movie? What's it called? Channing Tatum heist movie.

AlexNot Knives Out.

MerlinHe's a little bit manic today.

AlexTalking about Knives. Knives Chew. Chicken and Knives. My God.

MerlinKnives Chow out. Logan Lucky. Logan Lucky.

AlexLogan?

MerlinLogan Lucky. It's also got Darth Vader guy in it, too. It's got a girl's guy. Adam Savage. Adam Driver. Adam Driver. Adam Sad.

AlexHe is so cute. There's something. I know that everybody finds him incredibly attractive for some reason, and I just want to focus. No, that's not a... No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Cluck you. No, no, no, no, no. I am saying that I understand people find him attractive, but I am... Oh, I guess so. Fine. Cluck. Cluck. I got clucked. Where are we in your stack, Merlin?

MerlinHe's got an intensity.

AlexHe does. On girls, he was so upsetting to me.

MerlinI never spent much time with that.

AlexRiley Keough. She looks familiar.

MerlinShe looks like Fitz or Simmons. Is she from Fury Road? She looks like Fury Road. Who is she? Riley Keough. She looks so familiar. You sure she's not a Fury Road? Is she a milk mother? Yeah, I think she's a milk mother. Yep, she sure is. She's in Fury Road. She's in something called American Honey. It Comes at Night. Logan Lucky.

Alexoh yeah look at her oh she's pretty i don't like this at all i'm picturing her with girl so we're at minute 86 we should probably get into uh the spaces yes spaces oh how where are you audio hijack um there i have two recordings going i don't know why i was two recordings with you yeah huh oh well um merlin the should we just wait if we just skipped right over and went to the

Merlinchallenge that would drive people nuts.

AlexIt would drive me insane. All right.

MerlinI have this thing that's happening. So the thing that I am now calling chicken soup from Merlin's soul. So the wisdom project, I don't want to go on about this, but I'm pretty excited about it. I'm feeling good about it. It's like, it's kind of my shit, I think. I think I might be good at this. But I do like pal to pal. I'm good at this, right? It's not just me, right?

AlexNo, no.

MerlinI think the tone and the feel and the bullets, it feels good to me. You know, and I've been good about, you know, like I say, not getting too wound. This does actually relate to the challenge. Not getting too wound up in the meta part, the admin part. Although I would eventually like to get this into Scrivener because my dream for this is to make a living electronic document where every one of these bullet points. Yes, it maintains a sense of, quote unquote, order. So like a related thing is with the previous thing, but they're also all separate, serial numbered and tagged.

So you could pull up a collection of just show me all the ideas about this kind of thing, like, you know, getting organized or about like, I think that would be a good use, a use case for tags, honestly. It doesn't you don't need to be cute about it, but have a way to say like each one of these lives on its own page and is permalinkable. But you can also just choose to print it out and read it as a book. I don't care. But also you could say show me all these things or related using some kind of, you know, I was about to say AI or ML, but really the equivalent of a WordPress plugin.

It would be kind of cool to have like show me related wisdoms or whatever we end up calling it.

AlexYou know what I mean? Yes. No, this is very. Yes.

MerlinIt's just the one word.

AlexYes.

MerlinCan you hear me, Stephen?

AlexYes. No. Oh, this gets more and more ambitious every time you talk about that.

MerlinI hope not. I mean, here's what I figured. And after spending, like I say, I joke about this. It was less than half a day, but maybe two weeks ago I spent – I re-licensed Scrivener, which I haven't done anything substantial with in, hold for laugh, 10 years. But I did pull that up. And then, of course, this is not a joke, unfortunately. the first thing I did was go, ooh, Palatino and indented. And then I'm remembering, oh, this, I know, I remember this feeling. Whereas I like to put it, oh, here we go again.

That feeling of like, oh, this is how you, this is one of the numerous ways you fucked up before. When you find yourself wanting to change fonts, run away. And I know that sounds like hacky advice, but for me, like I caught myself and I said, wait a minute, this might be a good place to go eventually. Somewhere between Scrivener and an actual database would be good eventually. But I also don't want to lose how easy it is for me to just add lines to a text file like I'm doing now. Again, apropos our challenge. You follow? But, like, eventually, and I, fuck it, I could just give this to somebody else, pay somebody else to do it.

But, like, you know, just be like, okay, here's the model. Like, I've done the OML of this or whatever. Like, here is, here's the model. The model for this is, this is a something, not a book. Let's not call it a book. This is a project. this project has snippets each snippet has tags tags have relationships and then that would at least be the starting point you know I think that would be really cool and then we could say hey you know print me out an EPUB about getting organized

and it would do that and it would still maintain its bulletness and its funness

Speaker Ayou should do that

MerlinI am doing it I'm very excited about it

Speaker AI know I know I know

Merlinbut that felt like a victory for me to go yeah I mean like haha, jokes have left the room. There's a lot that made the abortive book project difficult, and almost all of it was because of me and how I am. Again, no excuse, sir. I don't have an excuse for that. But what I can tell you is there is known issues out there that I need to watch for.

I need to be careful not to allow myself to be legitimately distracted, even if it's something that's nominally productive. It would be pretty ironic if the third or fourth, It's like, is this a book? I don't know. It's a something. I like the bulletness of it. But don't worry about all of those implementation details until you have more to work with. Like, I'm not sure how many words are in here. What, probably 5,000 maybe? I haven't checked. But let me go look in. But, you know, if this got to 50,000 words, I'd think to myself, like, okay, right now it's according to, marked, it's 3,300 words.

Anyway, don't worry about that. That's all implementation details. It's all down the road. And then what's cool about that, apropos of the spaces idea, is I'm not admonishing myself to stop capturing things even if it doesn't fit the format.

Right?

AlexOh, okay. I see what you're saying.

MerlinRight, right. And so I've got this one text file, which is sort of the live version of this that I can paste onto the gist in GitHub. Because I have not done sexy things. Spoiler alert. Using Tower and GitHub together is not going to make this a gist. And I kind of want it to just be a gist. Right? But then I also have the running document where I can, again, like they say, write, drunk, edit, sober, where I can just capture everything I want to capture very easily. Do you follow?

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinSo, I mean, like, and then what I do is, so when I feel a movement coming, when I feel like I need to make, I go and I create a new H2 with a date stamp. And then I end up, well, this is where I end up with stuff with, oh, I love this one. Your kids are not little versions of you. That was one. Be mindful about giving gifts. This was all on November 7th. If you have trouble keeping up with dishes, you probably, yep, yep, yep, that's where I, but then I've got stuff like put everything in one place. Put like with like. Like, what does that mean?

Speaker AI don't know yet.

MerlinI mean, I know what that means, but it's not in the bullet format yet. I know that if you're going to clean out your house, you have to, if you want to take care of your clutter about cables, begin with the end in mind, which is most of these need to leave my house. How do you get there? Every single cable in your house has to go into a pile. Really? Why? Because you won't know how many cables you don't need until they're all in one place. That's going to be great when it's done, but it's not done yet. Isn't that a good advice?

AlexYes.

MerlinYeah. You're not going to realize how many cables you still have with the wire thingy around it, how many USB mini cables you've got with a wire thingy. Do you need those? How many of those do you need? Keep twice as many as you need, and now you have four.

Right?

AlexI don't want to say yes, because I'll go, yes.

MerlinAnd guess what? You can always buy another. You can always buy another. Oh, and then, so this is where this started. I can feel where this started. Don't crowd your storage space with junk. Start by making room for stuff you love. What does that mean? I'm not sure yet. Oh, and thinking about how you optimize your work. Try to distinguish between things that are necessarily difficult. That's all in here. But then I just have a line here from two days ago at 8 p.m. Try to fix more stuff than you break. That one's probably done.

AlexThat's really good.

MerlinCould do a ton more with that. But as with, for example, look for the chimneys. Now, there's an impulse in me. Understandable. I've answered this on Twitter at least a couple of times where people say, hey, what do you mean by look for the chimneys? And I'm very happy, as I'm able on Twitter, to say, well, here's what I think that means. Here's how I perceive that. Keep moving and get out of the way. Well, you'll know it or you won't, or you'll figure it out. I don't think I need to do a paragraph on that because this is not a thing about paragraphs. Try to fix more stuff than you break.

What do you mean? Well, what do you mean? I mean, yeah, fix the stuff you break, but like, you know, or like try not to break stuff, but if you break something, fix it. And in general, I'm not going to say this, but okay, pal to pal, what does it mean? It means that you should endeavor to improve the things in the world rather than breaking them and assuming someone else will take care of it. Now, what does that mean to you? Oh, I see. Like, you know what I mean? Like, if you're make more, clean up more messes than you make,

don't leave that, try to fix more stuff than you break to me kind of stands on its own. I'm getting somewhere with this eventually. I told you this was gonna be a long one. But then I get into shit like this where I'm like, there's the one that John Syracuse kindly keeps reminding me that I phrased this wrong. Remember whose event this is? Which is wisdom from the Rhode Island trip. Remember in talking about the COVID stuff? It's like, hey, you know what? The point when you had agency in this was in deciding whether you're going to fucking Rhode Island. Once you've gone to Rhode Island, you've lost a lot of agency because now you just got to go do the things.

No, I don't. I could be a mope about it. Well, what do you want 10 times more of? What if everybody here decides to be a mope about it? It's not your fucking event. If it's somebody else's clambake, show up and be cool. Be helpful. Fix more than you break. But remember whose event it is. If it's not your event, you don't get to control it.

AlexYou don't have to go. Don't go.

MerlinYeah, yeah. But like, and then another note that runs through all of these that, you know, people will glean is stop acting like you're a hero because you're not a hero. Taking the trash out does not make you a hero. Telling somebody what they quote unquote should have said, you're not a hero. Stop acting like you're a hero. Don't be an asshole. That's what a ton of these are. But then I get to something like this. So remember whose event this is. That's going to need some fleshing out, right? So right now that line just is, remember whose event this is, lessons from Rhode Island visit. And then some themes, colon.

Trying to chase feelings away. Home and organization. Cognitive errors. That's some very young shit. but they're all good. Trying to chase feelings away, that was not that hard. Well, hey, maybe don't try to chase your feelings away because not only will it not really work, but feelings kind of like being chased away and it just gives them strong legs. See, that's pretty good.

AlexYou get really good at it really fast.

MerlinHow do I get to this idea of not being able to afford someone's loyalty? I can't afford your loyalty. The line from my pal Giles. How do I wrangle that? I'm not sure yet, but I know I want it to be in there. Big pattern. Be a good neighbor. What does that mean? I don't know. Ways to elevate your mood? I got five of those. Stop being passive aggressive. Find a snack you like. What does that mean? I don't know. It's all here. And one of these was, in typing all this horse shit, was I had this, I had a pre-breakthrough and then a breakthrough.

And the pre-breakthrough was, ha ha, Merlin's always complaining about people being in his active working area. And I was like, ha ha, I do do that a lot, but it does kind of drive me crazy. And I was like, hmm. It's interesting, though, because there's different levels of this. We know that there's the active working area.

Do I need to explain what this is? Will people know what I'm talking about? Probably not.

AlexTweet-length explanation.

MerlinOkay. Tweet-length. Something Syracuse and I talk about a lot on Reconcilable Differences is basically struggling with the way that spaces work, especially at home. And what started as a joke but isn't really a joke is, like, feeling like the other members of your household don't respect your spaces. like John feels like he doesn't have a place to put his phone down and charge it. I get frustrated when people marinate meat in my seltzer area of the fridge, et cetera, et cetera. But then the slight beginning of the tipping point was, well, wait a minute. What are these different areas?

And I just wrote down really quickly these like five bullets, and this is still bullshit, but I'll work it out, five kinds of areas. You've got like basically an active working area, a working area, a holding area, a storage area, and a deep storage area. And well, what the fuck does that mean? I was like, hmm, I feel like there might be something here to this. That's why this doesn't fit into the wisdom document per se, but I'm very interested in the spaces idea. Then that little tipping point that became the big tipping point is last week cleaning up my office where I'm like,

holy fucking shit, it's real. Oh, you know what? Here's your special. You get a special. You ready for this? Here's the shortest version of this that I've got. I haven't written this yet. This is off the dome. You ready?

AlexYes.

MerlinThere's areas in your house and in your life that represent differing amounts of activity and consequently value. If it's an area where there's a lot of useful activity, that should have a lot of value to you. Then there's areas that are valuable, like all the way down to like a storage shed that you pay for, right? But be careful, because in life, almost every area, if it's not taken care of, will tend to become one of the lower and less valuable areas.

AlexIt's very, very good.

MerlinThe active working area, like where I'm cutting up the roast, turns into merely a working area. If I don't tend to that as a place that needs to stay open and active, that turns into a regular working area or what I think of as, say, a desk. But this is where it gets good. You have a working area on your desk, right? Even if you're not actively working right now, you could sit down and start working at your desk anytime. But like Kanban or otherwise, I want to start working on something. Let's say I want to take a hard drive apart and I grab my screwdriver, grab all the stuff. I grab the magnetic mat. I grab all those things. Well, now part of my working area is also a holding area.

But now can we feel the threat of this? What if I get distracted and walk away and I just move the hard drive stuff over to the side? Well, now that holding area inside of my working area, if I don't tend to that, now it's becoming a storage area. That happens five more times. I don't have a working area anymore, let alone an active working area. Because if you don't tend to it, if you put your mail down on the counter, that counter goes from being a working area into a storage area. Because you've just let the value of that disappear.

And now everything in your life, what is one of the most basic tenets of both getting things done and it's all too much? Pick an inbox. Otherwise, what happens? If you don't have an inbox, Alex, what happens? Your whole life turns into an inbox.

AlexIt's just a big old pile that you're trudging through.

MerlinRight, though? Don't you agree? Oh, yeah. Like, wasn't that like a scales fall from your eyes moment of like, holy shit. But even if I feel organized, because I made the distinction. Oh, this needs to go in the book. The distinction between being tidy and being organized and how they're different things. I'm incredibly untidy, but organized. And it makes my family crazy. But if you've, do you follow me? If you put something down, like where Dennis said, we're not going to put anything on this counter. When I put the mail down, that has now turned into the mail area. I'm now going to have to fight with myself because that's where the mail goes.

and it takes the most valuable, lively heart of your home and turns it into storage, literal storage for garbage. So every level of this will tend to sink to a lower level and the lowest it can mostly go, well, the lowest it can go is gone. But like, you know, in the case of the garage, what's gone in the garage? Gone is where something that was deep storage turns into water damage and I never noticed it because I wasn't paying attention. Even deep storage needs our help. Working area turns into a holding area, It turns into a storage area.

It turns into garbage. Any one of them will tend to become a sink for garbage unless we tend it actively. And that's changed the way I think about this week, my office. Where I opened all the sarcophaguses. I got rid of the fax paper. What the fuck? I've had fax paper in a box since 1999.

Alex, one time, I'm much more sentimental than anyone in my family. I'm the most sentimental. Madeline's the least. And Emma is, depending on the day and the topic, somewhere in between. One day we were walking down the street on the way to my office,

eight years ago probably, and there was a really sad looking, like kind of slightly oversized, not like toddler size, like a teddy bear. And it was raining. It was a teddy bear with a red ribbon around its neck in the rain. And it made both of us impossibly sad. Alex, we picked up that teddy bear probably eight years ago off the fucking street in San Francisco. Now I'm doing that commercial, wet teddy bears. We brought a wet teddy bear to my office

and we felt good about ourselves. It dried off. I put it into a box. I've been paying to store that box in rent at my office for over eight years and I did not throw the bear away until yesterday.

AlexI mean, that's completely irrational unless you're me and I'm like, yeah.

MerlinBut I didn't think about it. And now I'm storing garbage. I mean, with all due respect to the bear. But like how much stuff do you come across where you're like, oh, that's a fun souvenir. And I'm trying to avoid, you know, saying something triggering or, you know, unkind about hoarding because it's in my family. It's a thing. It's very much in my family. I have elements of hoarding. I just have the kind of hoarding which is like the go dead to this sort of thing. And I've lived in houses. I've lived in homes and apartments that had paths through them. And this office has had paths through it at points.

right? I could show you some pictures that would like fucking curl your hair. And why? Because I've gone dead. And now everything turns into a garbage thing. There's nowhere to even have a working area, let alone an active working area. And that is the thesis. And why it has leapt out of the wisdom document is because I think there might be something here about reclaiming value in our life in a Peter Walsh-like way by saying, how do I want to live? Well, how I want to live has to be supported by the decisions I make about my home and life. And like, if those don't line up, why do I keep making space to store stuff I don't need? How many times have I moved a

box with thermal fax paper and never even realized it? I've got dongles for things I don't even know, I have no idea what these are for. It's absolutely bananas. Like I say, leftover Polaroid. There was a point where I went through a phase for a while where I was putting index cards into index card sized envelopes and I had like a system. All the actual index cards still in the envelopes in a box that i can peg that to about 2006 fucking insane but because it's in a box and i don't

Alexhave to see it it's tidy the thing that i find most interesting about this is getting from not necessarily deep storage but but let's just say storage to work it to working area like would you say working area sort of like a great example of that here just just super quick like

Merlini have this table over here which is basically like a you know the kind of table like i think about like a not a kitchen island but like an like a kitchen industrial like aluminum or stainless steel table right so i have this table here um and it's in the part of my office where the portrait of abraham lincoln is and all my like you know yeah so i put up there so and that's got two lamps on it and it's um and it's where my change goes when i walk in and like and that should be the ultimate like holding slash working area that should live as a working area and occasionally

spend time as a holding area and the shit that i have piled up on that table right now is pathetic it's so sad like why do why did i choose to keep a kikumin soy sauce container of what I call small screws. Who is that for? What is this collection?

Just because, I mean, right? So that's an example, right? The slide from active and working to stored and dead. Go ahead. You're saying what you thought was interesting about it was the working slash holding stuff.

AlexWell, I'm at a point where, oh God, my whole apartment is two paths because we, I keep on going into what I can. You mean there's like a fork in the apartment? It's bad. No, like literally, it's very, very bad. And it stresses Matt out. And like, we're getting rid of so many things.

MerlinIs it like Amazon boxes or?

AlexBut, oh, yeah, Amazon boxes, but worse. But worse, I did a terrible thing. Plastic bins. We do not need this many plastic bins. The plastic bins of shit are going to go into my car.

MerlinBut it gives you relief. It gives you relief. You feel like this is an old bit for me. I still have to be reminded of this, Alex. I swear to Christ. Like, don't buy plastic shit to organize garbage. Like, you're not allowed to organize until you've thinned the herd. There's nothing to organize because you don't even know what's worth organizing. Anything, again, from the document, never organize anything that should be discarded. Like, that's insane. That's completely, it is like alphabetizing your recycling. But I do it. And why do I do it? Because this is me in the banker's box, right?

Classically, like here comes dad with the banker's box, everybody out of my way. Like I can't live like this anymore. Everything on the coffee table and arm sweeps across it. So that's going to be a crazy. This is like Roderick's dad stuff. That's going to be a crazy combination of useless garbage and something very precious that I know I'll need. It might be a utility knife in there now. Like, OK, and someday I'll be all out of utility knives because they're in like every conceivable plastic fucking holder in this entire house without purpose because they just needed to make a space.

I needed to turn a garbage area into a working area. But now I suffer by that box becoming new garbage storage. Kind of.

AlexOh, yeah. Yeah. And well, OK, then. and I asked this, which I think you have an answer to and involves your dark Phoenix says, um,

Speaker Alike,

Alexuh, what, what, like a Pokemon toys from 1992 does one choose to keep? Like, like I, Oh, this is the problem with being overly sentimental. If you go through the things and you don't feel like it's trash. Like what made you think that that teddy bear finally, like you, had the Ikea moment of, why are you sad? This is not alive. It was in a box,

Merlinbanker's box with a lid. And I finally was like, okay, one of my steps here is going to be I'm going to open every single one of these banker's boxes. Like, Constellation Prize, the steak knives prize of this is, well, can I consolidate some of these boxes of seemingly useful things? But really, the idea was, like, I want to see a pile. By the end of today, I want a pile of, like, eight boxes high of banker's boxes that I have removed all the shit from and it's going to go away. That was the goal. But even the consolidation, like, oh my God, comics and books and

stuff that I would like to have out, like that all goes in a place. Wait, this needs to go in the document, which is, I'll capture this later. To me, it's only a collection. If you love it, keep it in one place and curate it.

Oh, that's

Alexreally good. It's

Merlinnot a collection. I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess if you're the Guggenheim, please divest from the Sacklers or your MoMA, you could very much say like, oh yeah, we have this whole warehouse for all this stuff. Cause we, you probably don't have a warehouse. And if you do have a warehouse, it better not be full of shit. Gross. Um, but like, so it's only a collection. If it's loved, if it's loved, collect, let's say collected, loved and curated. So, you know, putting out your favorite stuff. I should take a photo of this, this thing. Um, I found on the street,

which is, uh, from, from somebody's bathroom.

AlexWhat?

MerlinYou know what? When we take the break, I'm going to take a photo of this.

AlexWait, wait, wait.

MerlinFrom the bathroom.

AlexWait, wait, wait.

MerlinI kind of don't want to tell you until later because I'm enjoying this.

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinWe should wrap the episode. I tried to do stuff with GitHub, and I realized I still have a long way to go. We'll eventually, hopefully, have our friend, we'll ask our friend Gabe to come on. But basically, I set up GitHub with Tower and then quickly realized, I've used it before, but I realized, oh, no, this is a project. This is not just a one-off. So I'm excited to use Tower with GitHub, which everybody seems to agree is the most idiot-proof GitHub client. But I didn't actually do any real

Alexpublishing apart from what I already do. What did you do? Oh, no. I mean, I updated a couple of my gist. I love saying gist. You know what? It sounds very New Zealand, doesn't it? Yes. Yes. well and check out my gist speaking of new zealand uh i realize i continue to be terrified to put things on the internet except for twitter for some fucking reason which mostly i know i know you ever set the tweet delete you know uh i do yeah yeah um and i don't know and i just continue to go back to the um talk

where you cry where uh no no one's it is not my job to put things on the internet it is a fun thing it's mostly not my job to put it's not my job to put words onto the internet it is a fun thing that i like to do that no one is going to eat me for that is not going to oh right i did

Merlinyou know what is the thing i still crave and i feel like oh by the way i did contact gabe but i might be an old email or something i haven't heard back from him but hopefully he'll get back to us but um uh that was in band uh but uh the you know what what i do love though the thing here's what this all comes down to and this is why you fucking i think inspired me with the whole like you sent me those links like here's how to do this with ulysses and blah blah blah blah and of course yes i did open stuff up and then went whoop no out of scope like fucking don't do this now you don't need to do this right now but you know what i would love is here's what i want what i want what

I want is a way to continue using exactly the same busted ass workflow I've always used. This could be with text files. This could be with drafts. I want to wait a type of thing and hit a button and have it go into a place on the internet. I mean, I could probably do that with, but I don't want it to be cool. I don't want it to be fun. I don't want it to be my synology because I don't want, you know, unless it's going to do some R sync to somewhere safer. But I mean, that's what I, what I really want is a way to just have like a, basically I should call it a weblog or blog.

AlexI've heard of those. Have you heard of Tumblr?

MerlinA weblog or blog. That's all I'm saying.

AlexBlog.

MerlinBut I don't blog. He posted it on his weblog.

AlexI can't smell this. You should write a book. Yes!

Thank you.

Show notes

Transcript

264. So Many Chicken

Show notes

Transcript

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