270. The Fishbowl War

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann.

MerlinThis week's challenge, reinterpret your dreams. It's Do By Friday.

AlexWelcome to episode one of Do By Friday.

MerlinA total hard reboot. new bits, new characters, new funny voices. The year of funny voices.

AlexThis is the first time I've ever... Oh, God, I can't even make the Tina...

MerlinThis is Dubai Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge, reinterpret your dreams.

AlexOh, wow. That sounded like a real podcast. Oh, my gosh.

MerlinI changed into sweatpants.

AlexOh. The comfy sweatpants that we both have?

MerlinNo. No.

AlexOh, man.

MerlinI don't know if you know this, but I have a very low rise. So I'm always having to experiment. I had some American apparel. Yes, I know. Sweatpants that I bought a long time ago.

AlexWait, wait. I know? What's wrong? What is the I know?

MerlinOh, we're not supposed to buy American apparel things because of the mustache man.

AlexOh. Okay, sorry, sorry. Parentheses, close.

MerlinI think his name is Dove Charney.

AlexYes, there was a good podcast series about his weirdness.

MerlinAnd so a couple of those, when I was first getting into the American Apparel things, which I learned about via Lonely Sandwich, and that was kind of Mack Weldon before Mack Weldon for me.

AlexOh.

MerlinWhere I really liked their stuff. You know what I mean? Like I didn't like their ads, I didn't like their stores, but, you know, whatever. I'm not going to front. I like their stuff. And so like a couple of pairs of their sweatpants that I bought over 10 years ago, I've now graduated to what I and my family now refer to as shipwreck pants.

AlexOh, okay.

MerlinLike when you see somebody in a movie and they wash up on shore and all their clothes are ragged because I guess there's like rotating knives in the ocean.

AlexI mean.

MerlinMy kid will steal slash borrow any article of clothing I own except for the shipwreck pants. She won't touch those.

AlexSee, I thought that the shipwrecked pants was, I thought it was going to go in another angle. Like if you could have only one pair of pants on an island.

MerlinOh, Desert Island pants.

AlexYeah. Yes. That's much better. Do you have a Desert Island outfit, perhaps?

MerlinI think it's very close to what I wear most days, which is fat pants, a t-shirt, usually with a podcast on it, like yourself. and then a Mack Weldon Pima cotton long sleeve tee on top, which is what I'm wearing today.

AlexThanks, Mack Weldon.

MerlinPock, pock. Anyway, these are not shipwreck pants, but I decided to, I thought, you know, I'm always trying different sweatpants because blue jeans are just too much, you know? When I get home, I want to change from my comfortable pants into my extremely comfortable pants. And so I thought I'd try American Apparel again and they're fine. The rise is extremely high. The legs are extremely long. I don't know who these are for. Probably somebody in Brooklyn who's like, you know, it's like we've talked about this, haven't we? Like when you see an ad and they're like, Brandon is 6'1 and is shown here wearing a medium.

I'm like, you're kidding me.

AlexUh-huh.

MerlinI wear extra large and I'm like a hobbit. Anyway, I'm wearing those. and just for the sake of continuity we're restarting the entire show from episode one Alex and I started visiting with each other about an hour ago and we talked and it didn't really make any sense which makes it perfect for an after show and so the after show is now a pre-show and it's available to people who help us out on Patreon so you could hear would you agree I told the world's greatest Jesus joke?

Alexyou did and it wasn't even well i guess people will need to listen in to know if it's problematic

Merlinor not how would they do that alex how would they hear the after pre-show front flight how

Alexwould they hear that where did well you can go to give us your fucking money.com which is the first time anyone's ever heard that url laugh that's very clever uh or patreon.com slash dubai friday

MerlinAll new bits, all new characters, all new pleas for attention, all new wordles.

AlexPlease, please.

MerlinPlease, please. Please pay attention. My wordle, she's very sick.

AlexSo you're not on the wordle train.

Merlinum oh i mean no it's a thing it's fine it's i've had to switch back to twitterific just so i could muffle it because i don't i don't i don't want to know what it is and and the thing you know a lot lot's going to get me canceled in life one of this i just don't like games alex i don't like

Alexgames i i know except for cannibalton threes apparently well both that are both are very

Merlingood games. Yeah, Ben Trott and I, we used to play Cannonball back in the day. I have it on Apple TV still. I deleted stars. Never tries to say, you want to watch this in Cannonball? Which would be kind of cool.

So, here we are, and we've got...

AlexBen Trott? Who's Ben Trott? Oh, Six Apart. Oh, I know those things. Oh, gosh. Welcome to Dubai Friday, a retro tech show.

MerlinBen Trott changed my life. One night, in the middle of the night, he installed movable type on my shared pair.com account for $40. And he did in the middle of the night and then he sent me the documentation and that is up there. In the walk hard version of my story, it'll be really boring, but it'll be me reading an email from Ben Trott that was sent at 2.30 in the morning about saying, hi, I'm like 11, but I know Pearl and I've installed movable type. I hope this changes your life and career. And I said, how did you get this number?

I still got his card

Alexthat's so cute I love it and by cute I do mean in a professional lovely friendship way but that's oh god and you're learning Pearl again

Merlintheir daughter and our daughter were born very very close to each other and we were in particular my wife was very close with Mina and they did play group together and I have some wonderful photos of our tiny little babies together. Which I can send you right now. Hi, Alex! I noticed you added a lot of content to the document. I went into the document and I gave us emoji.

So I can identify who's who. You're the squid and I'm the elf. And that's why we're launching. With the relaunch, the hard reboot of Dubai Friday, we also want to introduce our new game cafe. It's called The Squid and Elf.

Alexthe squid and the owl.

MerlinYep. I'm glad we got that drive-thru window.

AlexOh, God. There's a difference between a giant squid and a... Oh, fuck. I already forgot.

MerlinWhat are the two?

AlexThere's a giant squid and a super squid. Big ginky boy. Wait, wait.

MerlinI know squids are a big part of the biome.

AlexThe biome?

MerlinPound for pound. I think pound for pound. You know, I still think it might be ants. But squids are a big part of the biome. That's what Oliver Sacks said. You ever seen that photo of Oliver Sacks wearing the mule design shirt with the squid on it?

AlexNo. I don't know if I know the mule design with the squid.

MerlinOh, this is wonderful. It might still be his Wikipedia photo. Let me go look. Let's see. W space Oliver Sacks.

AlexAh, a giant squid and a colossal squid.

MerlinTwo different things. Tell me about this.

AlexI don't know much about it other than they're two different animals.

MerlinWhat made you think of that, Alex? Because of the squid talk? The fact that you're a cryptid?

AlexBecause I'm a squid.

MerlinSquid day?

AlexI'm a squid. A squid. A squid. Dave squid. I am one. Was it random or why a squid? Do you know about my octopus thing? Are we? I'm very confused.

MerlinOh, I was trying to simulate the sort of chimera one sees on a unisex bathroom.

AlexOh, no. Oh. Oh, boy, I'm sending you a really ugly URL.

MerlinI guess I can probably just send you. This was his Wikipedia photo. So what had happened was that at some point in the early 2000s or so, I'm doing this off the dome, so I don't really know. But I think there was a big scientific announcement slash breakthrough that now squid, pound for pound, were the largest part of the biome. And so Mule Design, a friend of the show, Mike Montero, made this shirt and sold it. Learning about the biome, he said, he made a shirt that says,

Welcome Squid Overlords. And there you can see a picture of the great Oliver Sacks wearing a Welcome Squid Overlords shirt.

AlexAll right, this is actually super, super cool. That's super cool. Oh.

MerlinYeah.

AlexMan.

MerlinYou know, he almost got sued. He almost got sued by Ian Mc... What's his name? The guy from Deadwood? You know? No, no. You know, Al Swearingen? So he'd made, Montero had made this really cool, I think this is going to be told now. It wasn't supposed to be told for a while, but, you know, Mule makes those great shirts, right? They make, he used to make so many good shirts, and Mike's a great designer. And he'd made one that was Al Swearingen with a very memorable line from season one

done up in like a Western typeface, and it was his Al Swearingen character in a speech bubble saying, I think it said, if memory serves, open the fucking canned peaches.

Alexis a great line from Deadwood. That's very good.

MerlinAnd he got a C&D from the lawyer of, I want to say Ian McShane, is that his name?

AlexThat's so, I don't know, but that's so weird.

MerlinAnd he's like, everybody take the pictures, don't take the pictures, don't talk about this, don't talk about this. Because you don't want to do that. You know what I mean? You don't want to get involved in that.

AlexNo. Oh, God. People are weird. We're quite a litigious place here in America.

MerlinI don't like it. Deadwood is still a very good show. I mean, my kid watched the first episode.

AlexStill haven't seen it.

MerlinThe first episode is really, really, it's one of those really good first episode of a TV show, TV shows, I think.

AlexIs it a sad show? I mean, is this like when I, I mean, I don't know. I was hesitant to watch The Sopranos. I'm not really sure why. But now, like once a day, I think about The Sopranos. And I don't need another HBO show just living in my head constantly, making me think of the nature of masculinity.

MerlinIf there's going to be one, it should be righteous. It should be righteous gemstones. Make that your show.

AlexOh, well, that's how I mean, they've paid their rent year in advance. I finally convinced the rent to live in your brain. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. John Goodman. He's got a room open. Like I keep the door open for him.

MerlinThat's why I brought home my Big Lebowski dolls last night because I wanted – I was trying to say to Emma – I was saying to Emma, like, you're seeing – well, first of all, that amazing flashback episode is just – it's so –

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinAnd the thing that Emma and I just keep saying is the three children are like they're such children. And all three seem like they are stuck, especially Judy and Jesse, seem stuck in a given month in time. We're like, their age difference. We're like, sort of like the kid, the obviously sort of Jewish looking kid who plays Jesse. And then her, you know, how it makes her bird twitch or whatever.

AlexYou know?

MerlinBut I love Judy. She's such a terrible person, and she's so goddamn funny. I'm going to take this knife. Levi, I'm going to take this knife. I'm going to put it in you. Put it in his butt. Put it in his butt, Jesse. Put it in his butt. No, no, put it in his bottom. Is that what she says? Put it in his bottom just a little bit.

AlexThat is a Christian succession, basically.

MerlinThat's what my kid said. She said the exact same thing. They all three are like the three primary. There's no, I mean, Connor. He's in a different family, basically. But yeah, I mean, Jesse is very much Don Jr. slash Kendall, right?

Judy is Shiv slash Ivanka. And Kelvin, I love Kelvin, K-Gem. Kelvin is so, is very much Roman.

AlexHe is.

MerlinSlash Eric in some ways.

Alexgod i'm so excited for that show to come back so excited i do that oh my god i love it and you

Merlinknow we're watching that's that's another one of those where we just put it on and you know we've seen the first episode first um season probably all three of us have seen it probably three times all the way through but yeah last night we were watching those two dynamite episodes there's several there's like you know there's the one where we meet uncle baby billy in the bathtub and you can see his wang and stuff like that. You can see his butt and his hog. And his wonderful, wonderful wife. What's her name?

AlexOh, fuck.

MerlinShe wants to be called Aunt something. I love her. Make them all say it. But I love that show so much. What a great run.

And Keef. I really feel bad that his name is Keef.

AlexKeef. Keef. Oh, it just sounds so, it's so close to Queef.

MerlinIt's just, it's so, it's right there. It's Keith and Queef, which is not, I mean, it's bad. I love when he's working at the DMV, you know, and they want to go in and get, ah, what a great show. But Deadwood is good. Mike Montero is really talented. Oliver Sacks, amazing.

AlexI like his new book, or I don't know if it's new, But Mike Montero, I think, slapped a funny label on the Amazon. The Amazon. His book, when it's sold on Amazon, it's like, you know, Amazon workers.

MerlinOh, that's funny. He did that thing. He changed his Twitter name, basically. Isn't that what that is? Isn't that kind of a Ken Clippenstein move? Like you go and you get retweeted by a ding-a-ling and then you change your Twitter name so they look dumb. Isn't that a thing?

AlexOh, that's a, yeah, that's a, I think Jaboukie, I don't know, this amazing comedian on, Jaboukie, I don't know, they took away his blue checkmark.

MerlinThat's that song from the music man, Jaboukie, Jaboukie. It's for you, Quinn, just for you. I just assume that Quinn's heard every musical, is that fair?

AlexYou know what, I don't know. I, huh, huh.

MerlinWow, we're going to have to do another. another. This is Dubai Friday. Welcome squid overlords. Now you've written some things down here. Is there any of this before we get to our challenge? Is there any coup diversary? We're going to really talk about the coup. I don't know why I'm Sondheim. Nah. We never talked about fighting five-year-olds. It's probably too late to talk about it now. I had a question about you and caffeine.

AlexWhy is it too late? A question we make. I haven't had enough caffeine today.

MerlinThere's four squids and two elves. You pick anything you want. News and Topics is a section.

AlexOh, no, I didn't. I'm just not excited. I just have this in terms of excited, like literally like there is or activated, I guess. Like, I am afraid that this episode will end and something terrible will be happening.

MerlinFor folks who are new to this reboot of Dubai Friday, January. January, God, I hate the way we get obsessed about calling something a date. January on J6, as the hogs call it.

AlexDo they really call it J6?

MerlinAnd now the MSM. That's what I call mainstream media. I call them the MSM. They've been picking it up now, too. So good job, guys. January 6, 2021, Alex and I recorded the Dubai Friday program. And we took our, I think we had at that point been, we started doing the break. Yeah, that's important to the story because it was around 1 p.m. my time, I guess 3 p.m. your time. And we took our 15, 30-minute break. And I turned on MSNBC and there was a riot at the Capitol.

Do you remember that, though? It would be fun to see if we still have those texts because it was like, this looks pretty bad.

AlexIt wasn't that I thought that you were like lying or anything. But you're like, oh, yep. So, oh, they're storming the Capitol right now. okay and it was just a little bit like oh oh oh all right and then for the next you know uh three weeks of my life that's all i i did or what i mean no honestly from november to beginning of february i just oh god i i didn't do the cable news thing like you'd do i did the um what's even

worse just watched uh twitch live streams of people reacting to various things on the news

Merlinyeah yeah no it was it was super bad quite play a video game if you can watch it um okay that drives glenn howard and crazy oh my god and i have to just cite i'm sorry oh god this sucks what a terrible show i should retire um but um but uh the bit about parking and then the next episode about parking you were totally right brilliant brilliant having to clean the milk out of the out of the vents that's how they found out he was eating cereal

Alexyou you don't drive anymore but there was a time where you did right yeah because you were in the suburb yeah yeah you had to well what was the weirdest thing that you okay what's the weirdest

Merlinpg thing you ever did in a car oh well so i i grew up in florida and i'm sure there must be exceptions to this, but if you live in, you know, central Florida, the suburbs of Florida, like, which is, you know, everywhere I've lived in Florida, you really, you needed a car or you needed a friend with a car or a mom with a car. You couldn't just like, even like my in-laws, um, oh, I have many in-laws, but I have a

set of in-laws that live in Bradenton, which is sort of the like east, like north, north of sarasota and they live out east of there on the other side of the highway in this like you know plan development and it's like if they want a carton of milk they got to get in a car and like leave their neighborhood which takes five minutes they've got to like get it go to you know what i saying like whereas here you see where i live like i would never trade this for the world i i could if i were a better thrower i could hit a public library and a walgreens and my haircutting

Alexplace with the same baseball. You have a bubble. It's a great bubble. Love my bubble. I wish

Merlineverybody could have that. So I had a little of both. I had a mom with a car. I had friends with a car, but it was made clear to me very early on, I was not going to be driving because we couldn't afford to have a 16-year-old on the insurance. My mom was, we didn't have a lot of money. Oh, yeah. So I didn't get a driver's license until I was 18 or 19. I had a learner's permit. But the most PG, I have a good PG white privilege story.

AlexOh, please.

MerlinI had somehow in my senior year have worked my way into being friends with some really cool, some cool kids. and in this instance it was the varsity soccer team who were like the if there were beloved sports people amongst cool people at our school we everybody loved the soccer people they had good haircuts well at the time they were considered good haircuts today they look a little dated but you know what i mean and uh and i became friends with them and let's do a short one night

myself and a couple of the varsity boys were going to go to a basketball game school basketball game and uh some one of them had some marijuana

Alexso we went near where g but all right

Merlinyeah they'll just deliver it to your house here it's amazing but back then it was i mean it's still a federal crime and back then it's a long story short we're sitting in our in the automobile near where we would eventually park to go to the game and we smoked marijuana and then a car pulled up behind us with the telltale rectangular headlights that, you know, there was a time when you could kind of like eyeball a car and know it was a cop.

Like that's definitely a Crown Vic. Is that a ski rack? Nope. That is Florida. It's definitely a cop. Cop pulls up behind us, gives us one blast of the woo and the lights. and it's like, oh shit. Because there is literally a Frisbee with marijuana and papers, an upturned Frisbee at my feet in the backseat. And I push the Frisbee forward under the chair

and a cop comes up to the car. The car is full of smoke. And a cop comes up and Jamie rolls down the window and he says the words, the white privilege words that really, my life could have changed if this had sliding doors a different way. I won't say the person's actual name, but hi, Officer Van Doren. And guess what? It was a cop from the Newport Ritchie Police Department

who happened to be the father, not of one varsity soccer player, but of twin varsity soccer players.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinSo Jamie and, oh, gosh, what was the other guy's name with the mullet? The two of them, I mean, this guy was at every game, probably a lot of practices. And he goes, oh, hi, Officer Van Doren. And Officer Van Doren says, okay, boys, where's the beer? And we all go, ha, ha, ha. Understand smoke is pouring out of the window. We've had marijuana and we're scared. And I'm exactly that kind of basic bitch that gets real paranoid, which did not help in this instance.

And Jamie said, oh, Officer Van Doren, no beer here. Says, all right, boys, you know, get on your way. Be safe out there. So basically, long story short, I had somehow sucked up to be friends with some cool kids. We almost got busted for having pot, which would have been so bad for everybody. but uh it was a police officer that he was friends with and whose sons he played soccer with so we got to drive away oh that's amazing my blood pressure was like through the roof oh my god

Alexyou got the i mean that's that's just not just white privilege that's that's the cool kid

Merlinprivilege i mean oh title no it's absolutely true i mean at the time i i didn't have the same vocabulary, the horrible vocabulary that we have today. But I very much knew at the time, I mean, I processed that as if that had not been the twins' father, we probably would have been in a pretty bad way. Now, if it had been my ex-girlfriend's father from the sheriff's department, woof. That would have been real bad because he walked in on us doing stuff, you know.

AlexOh, no.

MerlinOh, no.

AlexOh, bad, bad.

MerlinYeah, making out under a blanket, listening to Cashmere by Led Zeppelin.

AlexAh! Oh, God. Gross. See, I don't remember why I asked you this question.

MerlinWhat's yours? What's your PG story about cars?

AlexNo, you'd think that I was leading somewhere. But it... Oh, oh, not... Well, okay. If that's PG, then this is PG.

MerlinThis did happen also on Sunday, where we learned that Glenn Howerton is a multiple felon. It's goddamn crazy.

AlexOh, my God. um well as you know uh hey everybody thank you i'm alex cox and i grew up in the suburbs as you don't know because this is the first episode um but the welcome welcome i was um you know doing the kissy face with a girl in the back of my car that uh whoa whoa in in high school

Merlinin no no no i didn't say because you weren't you weren't out in high school right oh good god no

AlexNo, no, no. This is when I was I was still 18. It was like the summer after my first year of college. And and we were parked in a like a parking lot and the place was closed. And then, you know, a cop.

MerlinAnd just be clear, just just for because this will be important in a second. Sorry. You at that time, you were going to a Catholic college after having gone to a Catholic high school, correct?

AlexYes, yes, yes. But this happened in my hometown neighborhood. We were, I don't know, making out in a McDonald's parking lot or something. I know, right?

MerlinSmell of fries in the air. Oh, man.

AlexYum, yum, yum, yum, yum.

MerlinThat's how you make a German shit like that. You really fuck up somebody's psyche. You get really confused there. once i was punished by a very stern man in a french coat he smelled like the fries of france and now i can't finish without this smell of cooking oils good lord good lord oh wow that

Alexwould be so unfortunate if that was a real thing that happened you don't get to pick it alex you

MerlinYou don't get to pick it. So you're making kissy face with a girl. And did a cop come up behind you?

AlexYep. And we got the like, I think similar to you. Got the like. And so we were also in the backseat of the car. So in sort of a panic, we just sat there.

MerlinOh, no, that doesn't look good.

AlexNo, it doesn't. It doesn't. And then, you know, the cop gets out, comes and knocks on our window. And it's, you know, they were like tinted windows.

MerlinSorry, officer, we're just back here fingering the rosary.

AlexWell, no, that's the thing is the window slowly opens. And he says, good evening, ladies.

MerlinLadies.

AlexHot dogs, ladies.

MerlinMm-hmm. And so... No, thank you. No hot dogs back here.

The reason I ask is I wonder, because, you know, a lot of colleges, I believe, especially religious colleges, have, like, a code of conduct. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Where it's like you're not like the famous ones would be like, oh, you know, West Point, you the code honor code where you're not allowed to cheat and stuff like that. You're not supposed to cheat anywhere. But I guess I'm wondering if you could have been penalized by a code of conduct at your college in a situation like that. Like it makes the, you know, what's the way they call it in banking? Know your know your customer.

Like if if that you can make the college look bad. if. Yes. Was that another was that another student from the same college? No, no, no, no. This was. So you're you're you're you're a public school.

AlexMackinac, a civilian. OK. Yes, yes. And it's funny you ask that because I'm sure that that existed. But it was so like it would just be unthinkable that that would that would happen. And, you know, there were rules about having boys on a girl level and, sorry, girl, like the floor.

MerlinAt the dorms.

AlexSo it would be like, yeah. So it's as if, like, it was almost like don't ask, don't tell. Like as long as.

MerlinOh, because you also talked about how like on in you, not on you.

AlexMm-hmm.

MerlinIs that the phrase you use? Like if you're going to have drugs, go have them somewhere else. Just don't bring drugs on campus. or alcohol, right? Remember when you said that, in you, not on you?

AlexYes, but that was at my art school, like the fake college, because they were just like, okay, everybody, we know what it's, all the RAs were like, in you, not on you. You can come home fucked up, but do not bring that here.

MerlinYeah, which I think is kind of a cool thing to say in the sense of, hey, look, like I'm trying to be cool about this, but like you're going to put me in a position where I have to do something. you're going to make me look like an asshole and I'm going to have to do something about it so if you're going to do that don't do that yeah it was honestly pretty pretty cool especially I

Alexlike that came about because there were kids I mean it is art school and those stereotypes uh exist and if like a kid was doing harder drugs the basically they didn't want any of um like if you found someone in a really bad way you you would not be penalized for like penalized by the

Merlintime you were in college i bet there was issues of i mean we faced this i was as you know i was an ra which is not what it usually means at new college for one year i was an ra which means i means i gave out light bulbs and toilet paper and you know but uh i mean there was the sense of like yeah we have some legal exposure if you guys let certain things happen but i'll bet by the time you were in college that was a huge deal like yeah the school could be liable if somebody who was paid by the school tacitly allowed and then of course it comes out oh yeah that's been

the rule here forever you know what i mean like the the unstated rule is you can get away with this you can slide on this you should buy an indulgence like everybody else yes well and and

Alexalso it was one of those things where it was the cpd was i mean the chicago police like they were always around so you know uh we were all woke before it was cool going to the location or why why uh why was that uh well just because um the essentially the security guard you know they're security guards but because um you know often there were unhoused folks like hanging out in the campus area and stuff like that. And if someone, like, you know, the more downtown you are,

the more the, like, weird shit is going to happen. Or tourists would come in and into, like, classrooms, basically. And the teachers were cop-happy. So the cops would be called all the time.

MerlinCops are like a sales team, though, where, like, if you hire out a fairly modest sales team in size and, you know, in staffing, like they're going to have to be incredibly focused on high value targets. Whereas if you hire tons and tons, if you're like a Sackler and you hire so many salespeople, you're going to have to, they're going to find a way to gin up sales. and there's a lot of cops in Chicago, right?

AlexOh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're, we're, I think we're no LA, but like Chicago gets pretty, pretty rough in terms of cops assaulting people.

Merlinso so what happened you you they you opened the window they said good evening ladies question mark and then but like did you feel like you were like in trouble like breaking a law or in trouble like oh we just got caught doing a thing we're not supposed to be doing because we're ladies

Alexone well we were breaking the law because it's the suburbs and you shouldn't park in parking

Merlinlots i guess who the fuck knows um last thing we do in a parking lot is park i exactly it's not a

Alexnecking line restaurant no no no no and and also they should do that you know what i'm gonna capture that uh but but this um cop was so confused i think like literally just like he's like oh

Merlinhello ladies he doesn't want to fill out that paperwork yep yep yep and he didn't ask for a

Alexlicense he was just like oh um you you know you're headed home right right you're headed home and we're like uh yeah yes officer and this i'm like definitely i've got like flop sweat uh on right now but um yeah this just looked it it was i i have never seen a cop look afraid like in real

Merlinlife but that with that yeah i bet it's i mean it's probably not as bad as walking in on like erotic asphyxiation but like i bet it's kind of like that where you walk in and go i don't even know i i'm gonna turn like do the like you know do the do the community meme where donald glover walks in with the pizzas and then like turns around and walks out like like okay uh you know you do you i'm out of here like that i don't even want this this is i don't want to have to make

Alexsentences about this in pen on paper yeah like it's like all right what what do you do who do what do you write down who'd and it was still common is it still common for uh cops to like bring kids home um the the white the white kids drive the white kids that was definitely a thing

Merlinat some point was the whole like i'm taking you home to your parents type thing yeah yep take It takes a village to make a child humiliated.

AlexThat was, I mean, yeah, you're always taught, don't run from the cops, which, I mean, makes sense when you...

MerlinI finally had the talk with my kid. Don't never talk to the cops. Never talk to the cops. I watch a lot of police interrogation videos on YouTube, and boy, you really don't want to talk to the cops.

Alexyou're really one question away from a netflix true crime series like it's right and it's like

Merlinwhen you watch some of these and i i i hate to even admit that i do this but you know it's a genre i think it started with what's the guy jcs jeff can't swim or whatever it like there the there was like this there was this trend that started in the last couple years of taking the There's interrogations that I guess come out of some public evidentiary process and then like hit pause and make a clicky noise and analyze it and all that kind of stuff. But and some of them are way better than others. But God, I watched one recently.

It was Total Prisoner's Dilemma where a guy and his girlfriend had 100 percent like killed somebody. and I think they actually had gone to their next door neighbors because this woman was getting beat up but this guy was also kind of a bad actor he'd been in jail before and they split him up and the cop just played this guy like a fucking fiddle he did the whole prisoner's dilemma thing he's like hey look I talked to Joanie or whatever and she told us everything we got video of the whole thing she's like implicated you in this

and because it's a prisoner's dilemma well it's not a prisoner's dilemma in the sense of I'm going to offer this deal But in the sense of we've split you up, you don't know if what I'm saying is true. You don't know if she actually did confess and implicate you. But right now, if you don't give us the story that I'm saying she gave us. So that guy's mind is reeling. He's in this bright room. His wheels are just spinning. But the guy totally good cops him and, you know, lets him go out and have a cigarette and like all that stuff.

But just don't talk to the cops. You ever seen that with a famous video about how you should never talk to the cops?

AlexUh, no, I don't even know how I don't, or I'm not even really sure how I know to never

Merlintalk to, I mean, I think the basic, the basic concept is really, really simple, depressingly

Alexsimple and fucking dark. Yeah.

MerlinYeah. Yeah. No, it's, it's, but the concept is so depressingly simple because the, the, because of the implication, the, the idea is, Hey, the cops are here to like, the cop is your friend. They're here to like, take care of things. But what the thing everybody in America needs to learn is that that cop is in no conceit. Once you are, I don't even want to say charged. Once you like once they're talking to you about something, there's nothing you will say unless you're friends with the son of the cop.

There's nothing you're going to say that's going to make that go away. And yet they will say a lot of things because they know you're under pressure. They know you're scared. They know you're you're not thinking straight. and they will do things that are expressly not going to help your case. Even though like some, one of the main techniques cops use is the whole like, Hey, look, I understand this got out of hand. This kind of thing happens. And I got to say, I've been doing this for 20 years. I've talked to a lot of people and like, this is one of those cases where like,

you know, you're not the bad guy here. You, so, and that gives them some relief to keep talking. But the, the, the, The sickest, saddest, darkest part of it is it doesn't matter whether you did it or not. Their line of questioning is effective regardless of whether you did it. It's just that it's kind of extra effective if you did do it. And that's why you think, oh, I'm not going to ask for a lawyer because that makes me look guilty. That'll stop, theoretically, stop the questioning even though it often doesn't. They'll still keep you in a room and keep talking to you and say, you sure you don't want to talk to us?

You sure you don't want to talk to us? Right? But that's the problem. It's such a white guy thing to learn. It's not just guilty people that get questioned about crimes.

AlexNo, at the very, very best, cops are like an HR for society. They are not your friends. They need to...

MerlinHR, I think you first told me that. HR represents the company, not you.

AlexYeah, they're not...

MerlinThey're the RA of the room. You want some condoms? I'm going to search you. Got anything that'll stab me? got a melted half mass but um i don't know but but you got out of it okay they just let you go home because they were confused and scared oh yeah he was it's not like you were hanging from

Alexa belt cranking your hog the no it's like uh let the pj it was at a point where everyone was fully quote everywhere i'm not a fucking there wasn't like a orgy but um it was just the thing it wasn't

Merlinlike an orgy they wrote on the form effiant declares that it was not like quote it was an orgy or something i can't figure out what this person's deal is you see she slash they seems to have had a lot of diet Jonathan from Queer Eye says his pronouns.

He's non-binary. Oh, Jesus. Jonathan, the artist formerly known as Jonathan. Jonathan is non-binary and says Jonathan's pronouns.

AlexJonathan Van Ness from Queer Eye?

MerlinYeah. Yeah, yeah. Bobby's my favorite. But Jonathan says, so they, he, she? Is that right?

AlexWell, I'm not sure. I don't keep up.

MerlinBut have you heard people say that before? Like, my pronouns are, like, I need to learn more about how I'm supposed to use that. How I'm supposed to integrate that information and use it respectfully.

AlexOh, someone who uses any and all pronouns?

MerlinThis season's all cowboys. This season's all cowboys. They're in Texas.

AlexIs it really?

MerlinYeah, yeah. Oh, boy. Oh, and of course, Bobby's doing all the work. Anthony's there and he's like, today I want to tell you about something you can make for the date. You can get a can of what are called olives and then you can open it and put the olives onto a plate. This is a dish called Taco Bell that you can get from Taco Bell. He's so handsome. He's handsomer than he's ever been and like maybe as useless as he's ever been. But he's so handsome. And at least once per episode, you get to see him without a shirt on. He's very handsome.

Alexthey work that they're being i i haven't seen the most recent but they're serving they're serving an audience yeah yeah uh the um anyway yeah if someone is like i i use they slash he slash he or um they slash she they slash you just switch them up right you switch them up if you're non-binary

Merlinyou like contextually decide in the moment like what you're gonna call yourself right kind of i

Alexthe person might but usually I mean like if someone says that they are okay with both of them it is not an instruction that you must use both of them you can use any and all

MerlinI get it and I have to tell you in that very moment oh god it's this really handsome guy he was an army ranger I have a lot of problems with this episode in some ways but like he's gonna have a date with this woman that he used to go out with and I wonder if he'll finally be able to land her because he lives in a shipping container and raises Wagyu beef and he was the youngest army ranger in US history and he seems cool but there's this really nice exchange where Jonathan is actually doing his hair. You know what I mean?

Sometimes, especially in the Atlanta ones, he would be like, okay, well I'm going to pass you off to this person who's going to be better at this than I would be. But he's cutting this guy's hair, he's given him non-foil highlights so it looks more natural. And they're talking. And of course, like everything on this show, it's entirely manufactured. But it's really sweet. And I really felt for both of them. Because Jonathan's being so cool with the guy. And I am non-binary. And here's how I bought it. And the guy's like, so I feel like am I even allowed to ask you a question? He's like, you can always ask questions.

Like people like being asked questions about that. That's not disrespectful. Right? And it was just really nice. And I turned to my family and I said, this is, this is, I have not earned the kindness of many friends that I've met on the internet. And I know it's incredibly cliche for me to say this, but like, I am so grateful for the people who think enough of me, I assume, to like take a minute and give it to me in Pigs and Bunnies, which Mackey has done so many times to such great effect.

I don't want to walk around saying like, oh, yeah, basically you're the lawyer. You're the gender lawyer and you always have to explain shit to me. As Wint says, everybody stop and explain this joke to me like I'm a two-year-old. But I am so grateful when people do that. It's not lost on me how kind it is when people act like Jonathan or act like Matchy who are like willing to say, you know what I mean? And you, obviously. Like I'm very – I don't mean to get earnest on our first episode of the Dubai Friday program. I'm really grateful for that because I don't, it's not because I'm scared of being canceled, as they say.

It's just, I don't want to be unintentionally, certainly not hurtful or unkind, but I don't want to be disrespectful. But I also don't want to be stupid. And to stop being stupid, I do need some things I think I understand explained to me so that I know what I actually don't understand.

AlexAnd I just want to say I'm very grateful for that.

MerlinI'm not going to name a lot of names here, but we have a lot of friends who've been really nice about that with me. and they carry me like a baby.

AlexFirst episode, and we already have a real gay audience. Thank you for your service.

MerlinYou mean you think we're going to bring in a lot of gay? Is that a good demo to be in?

AlexYou know what? I've been told that their side of TikTok is better, but I haven't really – I remember when I thought TikTok was going to be like the epitome of art and I thought it was going to be mine.

MerlinI don't, but I'll take the word for it.

AlexYeah. Oh, well, we didn't talk about it on an episode.

MerlinI know there's a guy on a couch and his girlfriend came in and we think he's a monster. They talked about that on Sunny too. They talked about it on the podcast as well.

AlexI am shocked at how, oh, you tweeted this too, I think. My favorite comedy show has become my favorite, like talking about my favorite comedy show.

MerlinIn the middle of production. Two episodes a week in the middle of fucking production. For a TV show. It's bananas.

AlexI mean, they haven't talked about it, but I have a feeling that the reason or not. OK, this sounded weird. Backing up.

But don't you find or haven't you found that in the midst of a really big project where you're working with your friends, but you don't get to really be friends? that when you, I don't know, go off and do something on the side, it's just kind of a nice relief, especially when you are like, we're a family here, but like...

MerlinWe're all a big family here.

AlexWe'll watch the final episode last night again, and oh God, it kills me.

MerlinI have found that. I also, there would be no back to work if it weren't for me fighting the shitty feeling of not finishing the book. Because like I had done for like a year, I hadn't done hardly any speaking gigs. I hadn't done hardly any writing outside of the theoretical writing for that book. And like, that's probably when I should have known that things were falling apart with the book was when I was like, well, fuck it. I need to do something I feel good about and that I can put out. And I don't know, it reminds me a little bit of like how stimulants work best, the more tired you are.

Like if you're not that tired and you take stimulants, they work okay. But if you're super tired and you take stimulants, you feel awesome because there's more bioavailable energy, I guess. But it doesn't make sense. But I feel like it's a similar thing here where, like, if you're in the grind of, like, the technical and creative process. And, again, we're talking here about the Always Sending in Philadelphia podcast, which is a treat. But talking about, like, how they don't – the way Charlie puts it, they don't have fights. They have creative disagreements. And there is an important difference. But doing that, like, in an editing bay all day long and having to, like, take care of kids and park an SUV, like, it must be – I wonder if it's fun for them.

I mean, I know that stuff is fun for me, but I wonder if it's fun for them.

AlexI think it is. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it for 15 years.

MerlinYeah, like I still don't really understand why they made the show, but I'm really glad they did.

AlexBecause I thought it would be, I mean, I.

MerlinWell, normally don't you feel like when you hear shit like this, it's pressure either from yourself or from your agent manager, publisher. like you know John Carreyrou's Bad Blood final chapter is like it was so joyless so lifeless his reporting on Theranos was so good and the Bad Blood original podcast I feel was kind of adorable because he was such a dork but then he brought it back for the trial and it's so it feels so compulsory and so joyless and he's doing his own ad reads which was probably not

Alexa great idea that's the oh it's one of the few times where oh i i agree but like in a like 30

Merlin35 minute episode there's so many ads and they're like they're really bad and it's for stuff like i think as i want to say southpaw somebody pointed out it is kind of ironic that theranos the company where the emperor had no clothes like so frequently sponsored by those like get a shrink on Zoom services, which feel a little bit like a jam up also. But I don't know. It's just like, it feels like, you know, and you can really feel, I feel like anyway,

in this new era of podcasts with our new Dubai Friday podcast, you can really feel the air coming out of the bubble with a lot of podcasts. That like you start to get that this was either like something like a money grab, something like, oh, it's free earned publicity. I think that's the phrase, right? Like you're not paying for ad space, but you can promote your book by having earned media coverage of your podcast or whatever. And it's, you can tell, I mean, you can tell these are people that are not really into podcasts as a thing.

AlexThat's how the genre of YouTube podcasts emerged, because half the time they're not doing a show. They are doing an ad for their independent YouTube channel.

MerlinOh, 100%. Yeah.

AlexAnd it makes me really sad.

MerlinEspecially the Nebula crowd where it's like, yeah, I was doing something. I remember I was in the garage the other day and I was thinking about like this endless, the endless circle jerk of self-promotion that we see everywhere nowadays where it's like people are always like, I guess like I do this, everybody does this to some extent. Like, oh, you know, in case you missed it, check this out on my sub stack. And then you go to their sub stack and their sub stack is going to have a thing where like it promotes their other thing. And it's like, how do you know when you're done with this?

It's like, what is your thing? What is the thing that you're crazy excited about? What is the thing that you feel is your best thing? And instead, it just feels like this interminable series of trapdoors, like lobster traps and cages that fall down to capture you as a person, as a listener, as an audience for your content. And I don't mean to sound cynical about it, except I think it is really cynical. It's like, well, what do you want me to do that I haven't done yet?

Do you want me to read something that you've written and are proud of? Do you want me to listen to this podcast you've been doing for 15 years that you think is awesome? Like, what's your fucking deal? And like, it just, because it just feels like ads for ads at a certain point. Like, what is your thing?

AlexBeing an influence. I mean, that's the like really dark.

MerlinYeah, cynical but true.

AlexI guess you're not – well, it's not –

MerlinBut like the constant – like if you check out my video, be sure to follow me on Twitter. If you see me on Twitter, be sure to check out my video. Because on the face of it, I have to be honest, that really just sounds like an empty – like just a baleful plea for help and attention of like please care about me in more places a little bit. rather than going like, you know, oh, like I'm fucking Oliver Sacks. I write books or like, you know, I'm not even saying you have to be like a white scientist. But like, is it just that endless grind of becoming influential?

It just never ends.

AlexYes. I mean, from everything I've seen and heard from, I don't know if that was rhetorical, but I don't hear it as.

MerlinNo, no, no. I mean, you know more about this than I do. And certainly my kid knows way more about this than I do. but like i don't know really really upsetting it's like 401s all the way down like it's just it's all just like redirections to something else like oh this thing where i got your attention right now well fuck that go to this other thing so anyway you go to give us your fucking money.com

Alexwhat i want is your money i want all of your money and some of your love say say i want your life Your love, money, and attention for this one specific thing and also why? I don't know. Because everything now is a call to action, but the verb you're supposed to do is like care more? What is it that you want? Is it? Because, I mean, Adam.

MerlinWhatever relationship we have, I want to constantly reframe it as becoming more and more para in its relationship. Like, I want you to pretend to be interested in me in more places. And, like, I'm glad. Okay, I'm going to say a weird thing. It's going to be a weird flex. But I can tell that people don't seem to notice this. And it makes me happy. Fuck, I should even say this. But, like, last night I was exchanging DMs with the singer from a band that I like a lot. And we were sending each other links to songs that we knew the other person would like.

And that was really nice. and it doesn't get a bunch of hearts, which is good, because that means it's working. It means I'm having a conversation here that doesn't need to be a performance. An actor that I like a lot who has Omicron right now, I did a thing I don't normally do, which is I wrote a tweet, and I said, I'm really sorry to hear this. I hope you're feeling well. And that actor responded to that, and it made me feel good, because that's somebody I really, really, really respect. You will call her!

Let Jimmy Simpson just keep doing takes. Please, please, please. He got Omicron. 26 hours after exposure, he had Omicron. Can you fucking believe that?

AlexYeah, I think I told you it's not a matter for me now of if. It's a matter of when and just putting it off.

MerlinI'm trying to come around to that being a good sign. I don't want to talk about this. Okay, we should talk about our challenge. We should talk about our challenge. I want to learn. Someday, I don't want to be this needy, but someday you have to tell me why I'm Sondheim. Because I almost don't care why, but I would love that. The coup. That's enough. Oh, fighting five-year-olds. This is a bit from last week. And then you want to do the challenge after this?

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah. Five by five.

MerlinFive by five. Five by five-year-olds. Five by five-year-olds. I go through these odd oscillations that may be entirely based on my own chemistry and emotions, but it feels like there's something slightly external to this, which is everything will be going okay with technology for a while. And by technology, I mean computer, iPhone, apps, smart home, like all the stuff that I generally really enjoy and that I feel brings functionality and fun to my life mostly. and then there will just be days where I'm like I am cursed today like everything is breaking in

little ways and I said this to you last week because that's why we're running a little bit late and I said I feel like I'm fighting five-year-olds and do you remember that old bit you remember the old bit the one of the old school memes was like it's along the lines of do you want to fight a duck-sized horse or a horse-sized duck like the question was how many five-year-olds could you take in a fight? And the idea is like, well, one five-year-old, you know, maybe, you could probably take them in a fight. Maybe if there's a hundred, you could use them against each other. But like, because I feel like I'm fighting

five-year-olds some days. Like none of these are going to be species-ending fights. But like, just all this little shit. While we were on our break, Alex, my lights went off at my office. And I don't know why. The only thing I was involved in at the time that I'm aware of was fighting a different five-year-old, which is that I love the Eve products. I really love the Eve app. What I don't love is that the devices will not automatically stay updated with the cloud, let alone a given implementation of the app.

So if you want a historical record of all the temperature or humidity or whatever for an Eve device you better remember to open your phone and your ipad and your whatever pull down because like for example just now i saw that my eve weather outside had not updated to the app in 22 days oh well seriously no like like just for funsies pull out your an ios device open eve and see if

do you have things like Eve Energy Eve Room, things like that?

AlexNow I do, but not as, I had the Eve air quality one for a while. I would be surprised

Merlinif all your stuff was up to date without a manual rubber band. Oh no, definitely

Alexnot. Definitely not. So that's what I was doing.

MerlinI was updating that, and then boop! All my lights went off. Now, that's one five-year-old, I'm fighting, and then another five-year-old notices I'm distracted, so the five-year-old turns off my lights. Do you ever feel like you're fighting five-year-olds?

Alexi mean yes but what's worse than fighting five-year-olds is not knowing which five

Merlinfive-year-old you're fighting like that's really true yeah it's like okay when this thing gets fucked up is that because of well and i can not to name names here is that because of the eve hardware the eve software home kit automations that i made in home plus you ever accidentally turn on execute once in home plus you don't see it in home kit but that's why it's not working is because you hit execute once something that's available only in home plus is that why it didn't work did the time of day like i cannot get our front light to turn on in the most basic thing

we have sent i have three two sources of motion sensing at our front door that turn the light on automatically and then i have if and it turns off after so many minutes i've got another automation at 3.30 that turns, that should turn on the front light, and it doesn't work, and I don't know why, and I've tried all the things, and it's like, which five-year-old was that? Was that Home Assistant? Was that HomeKit? Was that Eve? Was that the Logitech camera that's sensing motion, right? I don't even know which five-year-old is beating my ass.

AlexExactly. Like, if a little shit comes up behind you and starts strangling you.

MerlinHot.

AlexI mean, I really like this dumb little metaphor because it goes to anything. Like, okay, I feel like shit. Is this because I haven't had-

MerlinOh, right. Water. You're like a baby. We're like, do I need my diaper changed? Am I bored? Am I in pain? It's like, you know, the classics, right? Like, am I tired? Am I horny? Am I hungry? Have I had enough water? Have I had too much caffeine? Not enough caffeine. Too many drugs. Not enough drugs. Right? I mean, there's a little or too much. Am I right up here? Fucking five-year-olds. Challenge.

AlexThe challenge this week was to reinterpret your dreams. And what I took this as initially was to think about my dreams in a different way than I normally do.

MerlinOh, I love this.

AlexI'm one of those people who tries to journal their dreams along with journaling my gratitude, live, love, laugh, all that. And unfortunately—

MerlinAll the emotions one might want to print on a pillow.

AlexExactly. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. It's a good day to have a good day. Mm-hmm.

MerlinOh, don't have a good day. Have a great day. That's what Free Guy says.

AlexMy mom keeps giving us that kind of shit.

MerlinOh, no.

AlexWhat do we do with this? Where do we put it?

MerlinLike the mom on the other two, that kind of stuff.

AlexYes, exactly.

MerlinLive, laugh, love. Thanks, Bonnie. It's wine 30. I am very interested in that. I want to hear this because I think you'll have more to say about this probably than I will. But my context for this, when I'm putting things into the sheet, I was hoisted by my own petard, I think. But I'll put in something in the sheet, usually something pithy that then you will totally mangle when you say it. In this case, reinterpret your dreams. But sometimes if I think I might not remember why I thought this was interesting, I'll put something under note or similar.

I'll put a link under the link. And what I had said was, to help me remember what this was about, I said, what if dreams were your brain's way of saying, lol, here's you, idiot. which at the time I thought, wow, that's kind of fun and clever. And I've read it many, many times now, and I don't remember what I was talking about.

AlexOh, it's like Jeff Goldblum. Shit.

MerlinOh, it's Jeff Goldblum all over again. You're right.

AlexOh, geez. Oh, man. Suddenly I'm stressed.

MerlinI think what I was trying to say was kind of what you're saying, what I'm saying, I guess, is like, and I'd be interested in talking a little bit about this from my POV, but my view about dreams, their significance, et cetera, has changed a lot over the years, like a lot, a lot, like changed a lot twice. But, you know, I don't know.

Sorry, I'm carrying on. Tell me about how you did this. What did you do?

AlexOkay, well, putting a big old pin in the, it changed twice. Oh, okay. That, that there, red string. Wow, I talk about caffeine.

MerlinI can do that. It's fairly quick. It's fairly quick. I thought that there was, I came up at a time when, I don't know if I would have called it Freudian at the time. Not Freudian as in dicks or Freudian as in, you know.

AlexYou and your mom need to talk about something? What's, okay, yeah, okay. No, but really, how Freudian?

MerlinI had a dream and my mom was wearing a donut. But Freudian more in the sense of maybe even more Jungian, like something unconscious. That there's something your brain is trying to, I believe for a long time, the dreams or I believed, I thought, the dreams could be perceived as certainly could be wish fulfillment.

Or that it was your brain's way of trying to sort of tell you something. like the Twin Peaks parody in The Simpsons, where Lisa is saying something over and over and she can't get it through to Homer that it's what she's saying. Wish fulfillment, yes, but also your brain's unconscious way of bringing something to a more conscious level. And that your job as the dreamer and the interpreter

is to figure out what it means, what the truth is behind that that your conscious mind is avoiding. I think for a long time, very much alongside wish fulfillment, that's what I thought dreams were. Then more recently, especially talking to people like Syracuse, this idea that dreams are brain garbage.

Because we've heard for a while, it's always two things with sleep scientists. Oh, number one, we don't really know why people sleep. I mean, yes, we know people get tired and need to sleep, But why do you have to sleep? Why do you get so weird if you don't sleep? And I think for a long time, up until fairly recently, the party line on that was sleep is important for lots of emotional health. Because one thing that happens is, I think the phrase they used to use in the 2000s was like, that your thoughts and memories are being recorded, categorized, and dealt with.

that when you sleep, it's an autonomic function that your brain is dealing with whatever has happened, quote, that day.

AlexRight.

MerlinAnd the more you think about that, the more you go, really? Is that what that is? And now I think today we're sort of back to we're not really exactly sure why people sleep, but putting it that particular way is a little bit mechanistic and desktop model. Do you think? I mean, yeah.

AlexYeah, it's kind of, it's something that you, actually, it feels like another like Snapple-ish fact of like, well, this makes sense.

MerlinTurns out.

AlexBut does it really? Like, it's, I don't know.

MerlinSo that was the second turn. When we come back to my turn, I'll tell you what I think now in this third era of the dreamscape. But tell me about you. Do you dream a lot? Do you remember your dreams?

AlexI dream a lot when I am like stressed out in in general. So, you know, the past six months dream it a whole lot. And most of it is I I don't want to it's it's weird because it's that's the other thing. It's like our dreams actually memory. Like, what does that even mean? Like, I don't know. I don't have a lot of dreams like you do that where I don't even know how to describe them.

MerlinYou know, your dreams like my dreams are, at least famously to me, much more of an impression, a feeling. I mean, they're they're they're more like like a like a Fellini film than like a funny story. I have things I can articulate as a funny story, but if this were one of those annoying five levels of expertise videos, I would have to say that at the top or penultimate level, I'm telling you, I'm trying to give you in words something that can't be put in words.

Because the more I describe this feeling, the less you'll understand the feeling. And so I need to give you the impression that I had. Whereas some people seem to have this or they're lying. They just have stories. It was your house, but it wasn't your house. And we went, which I get those too, but it seems like there's a lot of people who are like, oh, I had a dream that we went to an amusement park. And it's like, oh, God, it must be cool to have a dream you can explain that easily.

AlexI mean, that's kind of how mine usually are. They're very like a recurring one that I've had since I can remember is being unprepared for a math test.

MerlinAnd just that's so your shit.

AlexYeah. Yeah. It's one of those very stereotypical ones. a lot of people are like, oh, yeah, not ready. But it's not even quite a scene in terms of you drop into a story. It's just you.

This is why people shouldn't talk about their dreams. It's just that feeling of you being sitting there and that emotion of like, yes, I am taking this test and it feels terrible. And in general, that's usually when I'm stressed out. But I have other dreams like a recurring.

MerlinDo you find yourself remembering them better when you're stressed out? What else? I mean, does the nature of them change? Are they more what we would typically call a stress dream? Like, obviously, you're not prepared for a test would be, to me, a classic stress dream. The ones we've all had, not prepared for a test, naked in the hallway at school, all that kind of stuff, right?

AlexYeah, and I think that I remember those more because they typically wake me up. I have in the past also had night terrors, which are not a totally different thing.

MerlinIt sounds horrible. It sounds like those are horrible. And for the people that are around you, it must be terrifying. Have you ever had those with Matt? Yeah.

AlexHonestly, I think they are worse for him than for me.

MerlinIt's like snoring. It's the revenge. That's how you get him back for the snoring.

AlexThe thing I was trying to think about now was, for example, one recurring dream I have is my hair growing back long. And I've always associated that with, oh, like that's my fear of having to be more feminine again and having to just, you know.

MerlinRight. But that reaction is important. That reaction is not useless. I feel like I mean, it may be brain garbage, but it's my brain garbage. Like if Professor Trelawney shows me a cup and I go, hey, that really looks like a wolf. That seems important to me. Like it may be brain garbage, but why it's like a Rorschach test or another kind of a Jungian idea of like, well, I wonder why that looked like a wolf to me. What in my actual conscious brain garbage led me to see, you know, poor Professor Lupin in a cup?

Well, you're having a really tough night. I love that movie so much. I know it's not very cool, but Prisoner of Azkaban is so fucking good. and you get you get to the point you're like oh shit that's right there's still two more movies in this movie oh my god oh my anyway but like that is it's our it's the it's the dreamers creed you know there are many like it but this one is mine well but that's the other thing is i didn't

Alexrealize this until recently but that is a common dream uh amongst afab people because you know it's always it's always the gays with me assigned a signed feminine assigned female so yeah and the the other one is um a lot of people have nightmares where they're in they're lost in malls and i've had those too and it's like what the what it like i could think i assume about malls constantly yeah why why is that a thing um i don't know i mean this is there's a fives about this i mean

MerlinAnd now more recently, it's Las Vegas. But yeah, no, like museums. So like a common dream for me for a long time was I'm on a dark ride, like at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota. The Ringling Museum, like basically a, oh, Rubens, what do you call that? Baroque art museum, Baroque paintings, but it's a dark ride. So like museums, malls, today airports, a lot of airport dreams.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, but like what did – but I do think it is instructive and this is that second pivot. So let me just say it. It's an extension of it's brain garbage but it's my brain garbage, which is like if I let myself just look at whatever these tea leaves are, that's not uninteresting to me. And I do also enjoy the exercise of trying to articulate quickly and as fast as I can and as sort of correctly as I can. How do I take the unimaginable?

How do I take this thing that is pure feeling beyond? Because what is it that's annoying about hearing somebody's dream? You had to be there. And so we try to explain the you had to be there-ness, which is a fool's errand, right? And so when you say to somebody, oh, it was, say, for example, likely, like, so like when I mentioned a while back, this is a real dream. I dream a lot about airports and museums. So perhaps it's not surprising that I'm in a huge airport. And then part of that airport becomes a museum. And then inside the museum is another airport, etc., etc.

Now, that sounds silly and kind of fun. And of the dumb dreams, the weird dreams I have, that one's actually closer to something I can describe than usual. But now how do I tell you how that felt? Why am I telling you this? Why would I tell you about the museum in the airport and the museum in the airport? Well, I can't describe to you what it felt like because the feeling is the most important part. Like, have you ever had a dream that felt very moving to you? Like maybe where you like meet a deceased relative or something, but there's something just slightly different about it.

Not bad or scary, but like I – when I was young, I would have dreams about meeting my father. And it would be so impossibly moving. I would like – I would wake up and it was just really – it was so real to me. And I could say, oh, I had a dream last night. I met my dad again. I mean you'd be like, oh, yeah, wow. That's a bummer. That must have sucked. But like I can't – because there's no – you can't account for the feeling. So when you say to somebody the classic it was you but it wasn't you, it was your house but it wasn't your house, that sounds fucking stupid and cliche and dumb because you can't – I feel like you can't give somebody what that felt like.

AlexYeah. And that's why I mean, I guess this is my own turns out is instead of trying to like make sense of it in any like I was just like, all right, I'm not I'm not going to try to think of this in in any sort of way that like I don't want to think about the plot or like the intellectual implications. I want to see how I literally physically feel. I mean, it goes back to the body keeps the score type thing.

It's like, all right, I wake up and I want to try to imitate the feeling I had, whether it be good or bad. Because at the I don't know, because I instead of ruminating over what I said that was mean to my dead grandma, I was like, all right, how why I'm my body is really, really tense. Maybe I should, you know, I can't look at the chimneys in bed, but I can just try to breathe a little bit differently.

And I don't know.

MerlinI do that. I've written down things where a strategy for coping with stress came to me. And this is a really silly distinction. But when I tag these in NBALT, I always name them DreamX because that's the easiest way. But I also call them dreams and night thoughts. And to me, a night thought is not necessarily the same thing as a dream. A night thought is something that's almost like a sensible sentence, except it's not sensible. Do you know what I mean? But it's something that feels like a strategy.

I'm trying to find a good one in here. But, yeah. Why were you mean to your grandmother? What was that? What was that about?

AlexBecause she wasn't honest. Wait, really? She wasn't honest with me about the dementia and Alzheimer's.

MerlinIn the dream?

AlexYeah. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I was like, why couldn't you just tell us? And you're like, well, you were five. And then she started talking to me in Polish. And I can't understand Polish, but I could understand her Polish.

MerlinAnd it was her, but it wasn't her.

AlexAnd I've always had dreams about dead people. But during super extreme COVID lockdown, I started having dreams about many of my friends and family.

MerlinOh, my God. You're haunted. You really are haunted. Seriously.

AlexWell, and I now have I always text my buddy in front of the show, Tom or Kevin. I'm like, oh, I had a dream about you guys. And again, I sometimes I feel sad afterwards.

MerlinAbsolutely.

AlexAlso feel a live, love, laugh more often. Now I wake up feeling not serene, but almost grateful. Again, I know like live, laugh, love.

MerlinWell, I think you feel very purging, almost like having had a good cry.

AlexYeah. Oh, that's a good way. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Huh. Huh.

MerlinBut see, now that's a fun reframe or useful reframe. It's like instead of like seeing this as a way to, I don't know, maybe this is too subtle by a half. But like instead of seeing this as like, oh, this is a puzzle that I need to solve to understand myself. like this seems like just a slight five degree adjustment and that framing could be something more like um instead of turning instead of making it a puzzle that has a mysterious tricky answer like what if it's like well instead what if this is more like me taking my temperature

emotionally like what or you know what i mean like except it is a dream and it's weird and it doesn't make sense it's not supposed to make sense and like but how do i feel about the wolf

Alexin the cup like what does that tell me yeah i i just realized more often than than not i leave dreams trying to produce some sort of action items like oh i know you shouldn't leave your sleep with with next steps i think you cannot you mustn't if you're gonna write down

Merlinyour dreams and night thoughts you mustn't wait too long and you mustn't at least for me also my own best practice is like don't think too much but sometimes it does kind of fall apart i have some that are useful but then i have some where i just my some of my favorites are where i just type bullets and this is this is one of my stress problem solving ones i think from august 2019 sit with it if there's a problem or concern literally sit with it sit down next to it listen to it comfort it also the other thing okay

AlexDon't forget that one.

MerlinHuh? Oh, God. I want to read you. I like reading my dreams because I know it does drive people crazy. But some of them, I'm trying to find one that I haven't read you.

Oh, shit. This one's good. Farragut Hotel Hell, Open Doors Gauge Occupancy. Big news. Night Factory, a subsidiary of Night Company. Set in Gaudi old style, gravy brown in color. Night Company is me, my mind, my company, and my process. Night Company is best known for Night Factory. Night Factory processes all night thoughts and data. This results in dreams and confusion. When your mind races in the middle of the night and you can't concentrate and you can't focus and you can't remember what you know and how you know it, that's because you took the wall off Night Factory and you're seeing the raw activity inside. You're blinded in a way.

AlexThat wasn't like an ad that Dee and Charlie from It's Always Sunny would make.

MerlinKitten mittens. Fight milk.

AlexNight Factory.

MerlinNight Factory, a subsidiary of Nightman. Staplers and executive tabs, tab systems. I understand staplers, but tabs are the important house. Grandparents' house, but a swamp shack. Extra door in the back no one ever saw, and no one believed me. Clean it out, the furniture is hollow. Looked nice when we were done. So many guns in the outside cabinet, and then 47 handguns. Sun came up, and there was briefly a clothesline. Appears like a rainbow.

AlexOh, I know it. I would never say that dreams are weird.

MerlinA coffee table, book of sleep, audio app as a condiment. You can be the pan or the butter, but you can't be both. Envelopes or paper clothes for paper, behind the scenes with Armin Tanzarian.

You can be the pan or the butter, but you can't be both. What the fuck does that mean? There are always four generators, but only one is a vitally active engine. We've never figured out which one is the real engine, nor what it actually powers, but most everyone agrees it must be something very important. The generators never let on. They definitionally cannot. And the generators are always in the quarter of the interface, evenly spaced and literally justified, and they come back to me most nights for almost six weeks. They are starved for something to power, but utterly discouraged about finding one man to fully appreciate them.

It hurts not to be picked, even or especially if you suspect you power nothing. I'm curious about the engine, but incapable of ever understanding it. I keep analyzing the wrong generator. I'm pretty sure. Then the Paris airport again, and there are no easy hot wings. But I'm in first class and I'm terrified to have no money. The first class cabin is lush, but my family is in a hovel that hasn't had electric since before the fishbowl war. I try to play it cool. I cannot even remember the fishbowl war.

Oh, boy. Can I pick a challenge for next week? The fishbowl war. The fishbowl war.

AlexPick a challenge for next week. Welcome back to the after show, everybody.

MerlinThe brand new. Wait, no, this is the regular. Wait, hang on. This is the free after show that's included in the regular show, right?

AlexNo, no, no. This is.

MerlinWell, you're doing an after show as well as a before show?

AlexNo, we're squeezing the after show or the before show and then jazz break and then the after show. No, that works.

MerlinWait, so we're going to have two Patreon episodes in one regular episode? Oh, you're going to strap this on to the end of the... That's going to be really confusing. Oh, shit. So we're doing an after show that gets strapped on to the pre-show now.

AlexWe just pick a challenge, and that'll be the... Yeah, yeah.

MerlinYeah, but don't put it out. Just keep this in the main episode. Make it easy.

AlexAll right, all right.

MerlinI don't know. What the fuck? I don't even remember the fishbowl war. All right. Now you got me mad. Now I'm going to read more.

AlexAll right, all right. All right.

MerlinMcElroy Brothers, tech to create, store, and throw real-life objects on your phone, like couches, rope ladders, jars, and portals.

AlexOh, hey, everybody. Guess what? Because this is the first episode of Dubai Friday, you don't even need to go to patreon.com slash Dubai Friday.

MerlinFirst one's free is what they say.

AlexYeah, yeah. So you want to pick a chill. It sounds like you have a challenge in mind.

MerlinI'll allow it. I'm cheating because I've already told Alex, given that we're doing this strange order for our first episode of the reboot of Dubai Friday.

AlexThat's a bit.

MerlinIt's my understanding you are in receipt of a Massimo blood oximeter.

AlexFuck yeah, I am.

MerlinHow about that logo? Isn't that a pretty logo?

AlexOh, boy. No comment.

MerlinThe logo makes me insane. Because it's like, you know, the joke about, you know, the classic designer joke. The client's always saying, can you make the logo bigger? Can you make the logo bigger? In this one, it's like somebody with some kind of a neural processing issue said, can you make it tighter? Could you make it narrower? Can you just squeeze, grab that little box on the right and just keep, but like, no, it's already really hard to read, sir. No, no, tighter. Tighten the Massimo. Make it tighter. Make it little.

He's very skinny.

AlexMake the Massimo very, very skinny.

MerlinRecitative has too many syllables and takes too long to say. Enjoy the light show is what it would say to talk about things ago by in life. It's like so it goes, but for intrusive thoughts and the emotions that they cause.

AlexThat seems like if you put David Foster Wallace and Kurt Vonnegut in a blender and just went like blah, blah, blah, blah. And then that came out.

MerlinPut them in a blender. Put them in a blender. That's what I say. and so here's the here's i uh i mentioned this before but when i was in college and was having some some of the uh stress issues one has when one is one three is two and one is one when one is oneself one has stress issues and mike alexander in the um the wellness center i think it was called suggested i try something called biofeedback i did not know what it was. I'd heard of it because I was a child of the 70s and knew about wackadoo shit like

rolfing and biofeedback. And he said, basically, attach this thing to your finger and sit here. And I forget exactly what the task was, but try to get that light to turn off or blink or not blink or something. And he left me there for 15 minutes. And I thought I was very clever because what I had figured out, because I'm more competitive than I like to admit, is that, oh, if I try to calm myself down, that seems to make the light go away. And I was like, huh, screw you, Dr. Alexander.

I just beat the machine. Bazinga. And that's the war cry of the tall leader, Sheldon. What does this one do? Nothing, nothing. Time for night notes.

But he's like, yeah, you just did biofeedback. And basically, I mean, it's sort of like a home lie detector test. like oh shit tight oh that's good yeah because like the real i mean the biofeedback on like a quote-unquote legit biofeedback device is i think it does do stuff like tests like a lie detector does a sorry a polygraph does it detects the like galvanization of your skin like you know the conductivity and things like that um but it's a whole bunch of things right so when you're monitoring somebody you know whether you're you know sandra o or mike alexander you got somebody

hooked up to a machine and you get stuff like pulse. Uh, you get stuff like breathing rate, you get stuff like what I'm saying is I, I have been looking for years to replicate that experience. It's my, it's my Proust, Proust Madeline of, uh, therapy. I really want to have that experience again and I want to get good at it. And in the world of top down and bottom up approaches, I feel like something like faking biofeedback, in my opinion, is a really interesting bottom-up idea.

And that was the idea for the challenge is you were kind enough to get one of these. Now you also know whether you got COVID, which is handy. I got this. My shrink had me get one of these for my sleep to monitor my sleep. But you can also kind of fake something like it's not biofeedback. Don't sue me. Don't C&D me.

AlexOkay, well, biofeedback isn't like trademarked.

MerlinBut I think it should. I mean, I don't know exactly how biofeedback works and I can't be asked to like go look it up. But I'm sure or I will guess that pulse and breathing rate both factor heavily into that. It's just you're not getting stuff. I think a big part of a polygraph is the like how conductive your skin is. because like, are you sweating? And like, anyway, that's how one way I've been using this for since COVID anyway.

I got it for sleep. I brought it back out for COVID. And now at least a little bit every day I try to wear this. And one of the exercises I do is to, and this is my thing used to be try and bring down your heart rate, which is kind of like pushing a rope. You know, it's way easier or less difficult to control is your breath. the challenge is set this up, I think you've already probably set it up with the terrible, the app's fine it's the logo, it's awful

AlexI have not it's real straightforward

Merlinoh wait, you use that cool touch screen boy, I'm going to take you back it's like having a finger chubby title should this have a stylus? because I feel like this should have a stylus once you have it hooked up and I sent you a screen grab because I brought it into my office with me today for the challenge and things that are measured, several of which are very weird to me. Okay, classics. O2 saturation. So how much oxygen O2 is in your blood? Because that was an early thing they told us,

hey, watch out. If your O2 goes way down, that might mean you have COVID because you're not getting enough air in your blood, oxygen in your blood. All right, so top one, O2 saturation. Other real straightforward ones, how many beats per minute? What is your pulse? right um we'll come back to this in a second breaths per minute super interesting plus variability and perfusion index are i think a little bit meta i have no idea what the fuck those i know well if you mouse over or click on them it'll tell you one of them is basically like

so you ever like have your hands be really cold or your fingers like you know of course you have you live in chicago but your fingers get cold and it's like because blood's not doing a lot in your hands right now. One of those is basically how much blood is in the area that's being tested. Because what this is doing, I think, is just shooting a red light through your skin. Sort of like your watch does, right? That's how the watch does this stuff. I forget what plot variability is. The specific challenge I was going to suggest, you'll notice if you're looking at this image,

so they'll show you the range of what's considered normal, what's high, what's low for any of these things. like you really don't want your O2 to be below 88 for a long time. I was going to suggest, and you can just take this any way you want, but my suggestion and what I'm going to do is make a daily-ish practice of putting this dingus on and trying to see how low I can get my breaths per minute and for how long. Because I do think trying to change your heartbeat is a little bit.

How do you tell your heart what to do? oh man that sounds like an air supply song how do you tell your heart what to do but you have i anyway feel like i have way more control about my breathing and so you know there's like you know have you ever seen in david smith's apps he's got a thing called box breathing you know i'm talking about do you know about that there's that so like but instead of just thinking of it as in out in out. It's also in, hold, out, hold. Anybody who's noodled around with relaxation and meditation is

familiar with this, but like, I try to imagine a long, even breath passing easily through a tube like a paper towel tube. I imagine, imagine, imagine in my head, the air has no problem at all. I have the agency to say, move this air through the tube and do it very smoothly and evenly, not abruptly, but like a long, like, you know, instead of like a, we're not trying to do that. But I have gotten it down to six breaths a second. But it was, as you can see here,

my typical is more like 20 to 25 breaths a second when I'm not thinking about it. And my thesis and belief is if you can get your breath down to whatever your version of that is, somewhere between say five and 10, maybe even 15, I would say 10. If you'll discover this is here's the trick here's the spoiler is that that's what i was doing in 1987 or 88 i think that's what i was doing unintentionally was like calming myself the fuck down it's just the breath has a bigger

handle on it for control so yeah that's a challenge set up your dingus get it going do whatever you feel like but at least once please uh i'm not a doctor you know check this out with your health professional see how low how low can you go how many breaths per minute and then did that make

Alexa difference to how you feel i'm so excited for this i'm so excited i mean you know my enthusiasm for strap-ons i guess but me i mean oh man my perfusion index is through the roof

Thank you.

Show notes

Transcript

270. The Fishbowl War

Show notes

Transcript

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