278. The Default Person

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge, watch season two of I Think You Should Leave.

Speaker AHappy Lent!

MerlinGood morning, happy Lent. Rabbit, when did Lens start? Today.

AlexYesterday was Fat Tuesday.

MerlinOh, well, we don't say that anymore. We say Neurodiverse Tuesday.

Woo!

Speaker AI saw it. Oh!

MerlinI'm 170 LBs and I'm good to go.

Speaker AI'm 60 LB. I, oh gosh. Don't put rocks in your pocket. I'll save it for the challenge. Get out of here,

Merlinlittle girl.

Speaker AOh God.

MerlinThis is the worst. This is the worst and the best challenge ever. It's the best challenge ever because God damn it, this show makes me happy. And it's the worst. Did you hear, did you listen to the, sorry, this week on The Watch, they talked about Reggie's Gemstones and then they interviewed Danny

AlexMcBride. No, and now I'm two weeks behind the Righteous Gemstones.

MerlinMan, I'm at a lot of them.

AlexOh, I know, I know. I gotta get those.

MerlinThere's some really good Calvin and Queef.

Speaker AOh! Queef! I love them so much.

MerlinBut they said something. This should probably be on the list, the name list, but I find it so difficult. I always find it difficult to say anything intelligent about things that I like. I can make up intelligent things about something I didn't like or I have mixed feelings about and why. But I end up, and they even said this, I feel like Chris Farley talking to Paul McCartney. Like, you remember when you were in The Beatles?

You know?

Speaker AWait, wait. Is that a thing that happens?

MerlinThere's a very funny bit, a good Chris Farley bit on SNL. I think it started with Paul McCartney, but then they started doing it with lots of the hosts where Chris Farley is interviewing somebody really famous. and he's utterly he's just utterly incompetent he's like do you remember when you read that was cool

Alexand that's me it's like the OG between two ferns

Merlindo you remember when Tim Robinson's character checks his phone while he's talking about the guy he hired to take huge dumps and pretend he's the other guy 150 times and then when he faces the other way and crab walks he kind of looks like the other guy That was funny.

AlexOh, my God. Chris Farley. He was a legend and still is in the Cox, all of the Cox, all the great Cox households.

MerlinAnd in Chicago. Oh, of course. Of course.

AlexYeah. Yeah.

MerlinHe put his body on the line.

AlexHe sure did. He was speedy. Oh, God. It's terrible. But my dad, when he used to get angry and then realize that he wasn't actually angry, like uh i'd be like you're gonna go in the van down by the river and that just still makes me

Merlinyou're gonna have plenty of time to smoke doobies welcome to do by friday it's a weekly challenge podcast where i am an unapologetic fan some people think it's not cool to be a fan oh look at me i'm not a fan i'm a blogger oh look at me i'm not a fan i'm an ad hoc cultural critic pump the brakes Pauline Kale.

Speaker AOh, God.

MerlinAnyway, I'm in a great mood. My sleep is boring.

AlexOh, my sleep was shit. But I was...

MerlinOh, yeah.

AlexDon't... You're pathologizing me. Oh, yeah?

MerlinNo, it's just that I was...

AlexYour sleep was boring. Is boring good or bad?

MerlinI had the TV. I was too tired. I laid down on the couch. and I had the presence of mind to turn on the timer, you know, to shut off the TV, like hotel style, shut off the TV in an hour. But, of course, I was watching CNN International, watching what my family calls war. What are you doing? The War Channel. Just watching war. Now, do you get CNN Prime and CNN International? I get that through Hulu. Have you seen those?

AlexNo, I'm off the Hulu plan because otherwise I would do what you're doing And that's probably not a good thing for me. It's not wholesome. I'm already just watching live streams of kids crying in Texas just hitting refresh.

MerlinThat's going to be fine. Listen, if we prosecute all the people who investigate the prosecution of individuals, then we're going to get these closet cases taken care of.

AlexReal quick, breaking two news items. there's there's war um in europe and uh war there are heroes on both sides i i have not kept up as much with um you know the hot war goss i think as you have oh my god

Merlini gotta send you my i gotta send you my utterly unapologetic it's porn okay remember how people got really into louise mensch you know and louise mensch said that the uh what was it the not the warren or the provost but like the sergeant at arms of the supreme court was going to personally

Alexarrest steve bannon and throw him into an oubliette uh oh is that the tweet i sent you i can't escape

Merlinsome of the tweets uh one of the tweets was really funny because it was her responding to some other ding-a-ling. But this is pure, like, Louie's Mint shit. I don't vet any of this, but I found this Ukraine list. I mentioned this on another podcast on Monday.

AlexOh, I went to look at it. Oh, boy.

MerlinOh, my God. Well, first of all, you do get to see Ukrainians just blowing shit up, blowing people up. Oh, no. It's all yakety-saks. Like, oh, no, the tank rolled over into a river. Womp womp. oh my god what a fucking mess but that's how i am consoling myself right now is reading my ukraine porn sorry i interrupted you were saying a war there's war oh oh and there's also headline headline from this is okay again i have not vetted oh and also trans women women are

Alexbeing let out of ukraine because men have to stay in well they can they can make friends with the

Merlinblack um did you so had you i sent you a tweet from someone called uh j j david goodman yes uh probably j stands for just just david goodman i don't know uh had you seen this before i sent you heard the story though right oh yes um we talked last week about texas's new seemingly

Alexperformative we still don't know if it's a law of what it's an executive order sorry i interrupted

Merlinto do i'm just still no ken paxton he's the real deal yeah that guy okay well i have not vetted this but i'm going to read you may i read what this says and then you can respond please do so texas has a new thing they had such success with reporting abortion doctors that now their new stasi tax that technically listen i don't mention stasi that much but this is some seriously stasi shit the east german secret police where everybody's reporting on everybody people would turn in their parents um breaking texas has begun investigating parents of transgender children for possible child

abuse for providing them with gender affirming care oh no no no merlin what could be seen as

Alexgender affirming care so even if you oh this is that new law don't say gender don't say no no because even if it's like oh gosh this this kid is on birth control um hmm is that like why is that to make like his ovaries shrivel up what's going on there why do you liberals keep wanting

Merlinto control your body oh god new paragraph so begin investigating children so so the deal is that that it is now permissible and encouraged for various people in positions of power or you know spies to report the parents port trans kids and their parents so they can be prosecuted among okay so investigating. Great. We've opened a file on you.

Among the first people to be investigated is the family of a 16-year-old whose mother works for the state agency responsible for such investigations. You feel great about that?

I hold in my hand a list of 325 parents of the queer

Alexsend them to the galas I don't know if this is in the New York Times story this was another thing where they were like freaking I'm like bitch we've known about this come on fuck you guys sorry

Speaker Byou haven't been paying attention

Alexoh no I don't sorry I'm being John's neighbor a little bit that neighbor oh boy

MerlinThis is why you don't talk to your neighbors. Hey, Alex, he read me the entire email off air.

AlexOh, no. Oh, no.

MerlinThat guy needs to get all of the help.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinI'll tell you privately. Jesus Christ.

AlexYou know what? I really wish more people could go to brain school.

MerlinOh, man. Just the break is nice.

AlexYeah. Yeah. Well, I thought it would be a break. Depending on what you're doing, it depends. Welcome to Dubai Friday.

MerlinWell, which brain, which school is what you're saying. you're saying you're saying you go to like brain community college right right or is it like you're just going for profit online university you ever see that bit you ever see that uh that uh that uh don't swim bit um with howard's not howard's not a problem anymore yeah yeah every time i hear the name howard i think of that okay so so people weren't paying attention And so, bitch, we New York Times this. What?

AlexNo, no, no. It was the New York Times just at first, I believe it came out yesterday. March. Yeah, it came out March 1st. And they, I believe, added some stuff. But this woman went to she works for social text, like Texas Social Services, and just asked her supervisor, like, is this a law? Like, what are what is there any protocol? call like she didn't even she wasn't like hello my daughter is a trans what do i do like just she

Merlinwas just doing her job but like it feels it feels like it has the weight it feels like it has the weight of a sign in the kitchen that says your mother doesn't work here yeah yeah what is the what is the like you know like seriously like laws are a thing like they talked about this today at the un like okay we can pass this thing it's like a resolution but it's not binding as a law that we follow you know same way the congress will declare it like international girl scout cookie morning or whatever right and so just going in to say like so i heard about this is this a thing i need to

Alexpursue yeah yeah just in terms of like what yeah yeah she wasn't even like i don't like just asking the question she does it's not like this but uh miss jane doe i'm so sorry this is

Merlinthis is a known uh uh parent of a of a transgender kid she yeah she has a and now her age has come

Alexout she's 16 and not that it makes it any like better but it's like oh that's just enough time to be permanently scarred by whatever foster home that she gets dropped in because i'm sure being a trans kid in texas and a foster care is going to be great for like what six months oh yeah i mean

Merlinyou might as well you know tie the kid to a radiator with their own shoelaces yeah yeah

AlexAnd God, oh, there was. And yeah. So, I mean, I guess.

MerlinCould you send me that and we'll put it in notes?

AlexIn the, like, OG story?

MerlinOh, the New York Times article. Yes.

AlexDid they take the paywall off?

MerlinI already watched Dairy Girls. We watched three episodes again last night.

AlexOh, that's next on my list?

MerlinThe episode with the tests and the church might be the best episode. That's where Claire and Erin and Sister Michael all really bloom. I'm not allowed to watch it yet. I know we're not allowed to talk about our spirit animals anymore, but if I were, I would say that's Orla.

AlexOkay, send me the link.

MerlinSorry, I'm in a good mood. I had weird sleep. I'm up. I got really good iced tea. The Bang Bang Machine. Oh, you might have heard they're now controlling traffic with an air horn, so you're going to get some of that.

AlexOh, fun, fun, fun.

MerlinIs this stressful to you?

AlexWhat's going to happen when Daddy takes the Bang Bang machine away? Are you not going to talk about the Bang Bang machine? Is it just –

MerlinOh, no. It will be here for two years. Oh, that's right.

AlexOkay.

MerlinGauge your level. Gauge me if you can say. This is called a pivot. Give me an idea of like your feelings, stress level. Like what's your – I mean are you just like mad? What are your feelings and thoughts about this Texas stuff? How does it make you feel?

Alexthat's a good question of how does it make me feel no no no the the matter of like how does it make

Merlinyou feel is uh yeah i'm always interested in like trying to like i don't know i mean i feel like you know sometimes labeling emotions is a terrible idea and sometimes labeling emotions is one of the most healthy things you can do and like i i don't know i always just think it's interesting to like I imagine you're angry. I imagine you're frustrated. I imagine you're sad. But like, I don't know. It's just in terms of like, how we how we whatever we decide to think or do next. I think it's interesting to explore like, like, what's your disappointment? Like, what's your

Alexfeeling? Um, the the the when when the letter or the executive order from the governor came out of hey everybody spy on children and checks check what's in their pants make sure it matches their clothes it was like pants checks like i really don't want a pants check that sounds like a form

Merlinof bullying in middle school pants check elevator inspector but there's there was there's obviously

Alexthe immediate visceral fury but then immediately confusion over wait what does this mean because Texas tried to pass this as a law and it failed because I thought and a lot of people thought that it was just like posturing for future for future campaigns being like

Merlinhey it feels like it's on the level of freedom fries like we just want to I want to go flex for the people you know who like this kind of shit some real like Marjorie Taylor Greene

Alexkind of yes absolutely because and similar to the don't say gay bill um it's it's really demoralizing for in terms of thinking about how like i just go back and think about uh just saying saying just just being gay as as a kid and like these stories really really did hurt when it was um but but then but there was still nothing near oh we might take your kids

away and we are going to like spy on on your children in in your just and just the practical

Merlinpart of like how like because i imagine i don't know i would have to imagine there's state code at least about what constitutes child abuse and it's it just would be interesting and terrifying to see how they wedge this in to count as like actionable child abuse well that's why that's

Alexlike where the confusion and frustration came because it's like all right with the florida don't say gay gay bills it's at least well now i don't think this but most folks including the the smarties who, um, the, the trans smarties who like are lawyers and work at the ACL, the ACLU and Lambda and stuff. Like the consensus was kind of like, this is horrifying, but we don't think that they,

one, we don't think they are going to pass. And two, we don't think they're going to be enforced because like in kindergarten, it's not as if like, no one, no one, I, I don't know. Like, uh, maybe I'm too old, but no one goes around in a circle. It's like, I feel like a boy today. And I, but, and also it's super gross that, you know, Dems really can be like, hey, we're going to stop this bill that wasn't even going to pass anyway.

So that was, it's more of a like, God, these kids are pawns on all sides.

MerlinLike yet another way for us to get wound around the axle with something that distracts us from the things that make the country better. But it's also the like, I mean, on so many levels, it's so venal and so performative. Again, we need a better word for that. But, you know, it's the, I mean, the ostensible reason, like if you just go, okay, like here's an example. I think the, what was the guy's name? That football player, Michael Vicks, for example, I don't know why this comes to mind, but it was revealed that this guy not only was really into dog fighting,

but he like had a whole like house, like a ranch where he radicalized and fucked up dogs for the purpose of dog fighting and the abuse was like so flagrant and i don't know if any like law or changes or you know focus came out of that apart from him getting you know in a fair amount of trouble but like in that instance you'd go like oh god that's so terrible what's happening to these dogs do we have something that covers that are we enforcing it gun laws we have guns for we have laws for that are we enforcing that but to

say like you see something that feels like it's outside like if you assume good faith hang on if you assume good faith and say like we're actually genuinely worried that like okay here's another one like what in a blue state what if you found out that there was a family that was literally injecting bleach into their kids like some serious like you know john wayne gacy type shit and you go like oh man i guess somehow that slips between the cracks of enforcement or did that slip between the cracks of legislation?

And it's like you assume good faith on this. Well, who are you trying to help with this, right? Because if you were trying to help, you wouldn't start with a law that goes after people. If you wanted to help people and think about harm reduction and drug abuse or think about the way that we struggle and fail to deal with unhoused people, All that kind of stuff. This is kind of the equivalent of saying you can go report on homeless people.

And again, they will be thrown into a giant, maybe a mass grave. An oubliette, if you're lucky. I love the word oubliette. You know, dungeon with a hole.

AlexThat's an interesting adjective to use.

MerlinIt's where they got the name on Mythic Quest. But anyway, you say, oh my God, I'm so concerned about unhoused people. And I'm so concerned about the health of people who are doing needle drugs in unsafe in every way. And to go straight to criminalization of that is pretty gross and venal. But to do it in this way, just to state the blindingly obvious, I think it's because a certain kind of person responds very well to this sort of like,

there's something that made me sad or uncomfortable, and I'm glad to see someone's made a law against it. Well, getting a Beej in Georgia in the 90s puts you in jail. Who's that harming? I mean, just be careful with the teeth.

Speaker AThink of the children.

MerlinThat's so gross. So anger, frustration. I don't know, man. I'm just so fucking tired.

AlexHere is the one, I mean, I guess the silver lining is when it was a letter of an executive order that's like, okay, what do we do about this?

MerlinA fancy typeset office kitchen sign, basically.

Alexwhat's happening but now that something has happened a uh now that a woman an anonymous woman is being investigated because of supposed child abuse um i'm going to take the bold brave stance and say that it's not anywhere close to child abuse and that her 16 year old daughter has made the choice to possibly maybe it's not a choice alex maybe and and that's the thing is The other part is we don't know if this the state asked for her daughter's medical records and she was like, no.

And so we don't even know which we we don't need to know if there's even any sort of med like meds involved. It's absolutely wild. But now that this horrible thing has happened, like at least there is legal precedent and like lawyers are working on it.

MerlinAnd again, that's more time, time expense, distraction, aggravation. It's horrifying. But it's like, I don't, I hate to, I hate to always bring it back to the same first principle, but I'm reminded of this because we were flipping around this morning and I was about to rewatch an episode of I Think You Should Leave for the 11th time. And I noticed Contagion, which had been a movie that had been recommended to me by my wife. It's really good.

You ever see this? It's a movie from 2011 about, you know, an airborne or contact born, like basically just like a pandemic virus goes around really quickly. And before they can even realize what it is or like where it came from, like it's already spread so widely. And basically it's so much like what happened with COVID. The way my wife puts it, I think really well, it's a very good movie. It's got, you know, it's got Matt Damon. It's got Gwynny. It's got, you know.

AlexThat's cool.

MerlinIt's really, the cast is amazing. Sam, Jesus, I'm so racist. Lawrence Fishburne. And it's got, anyway, just a lot of really good people. Sexiest Man Alive, Elliot Gould. And every bit of it tracks so closely with COVID, except for people do keep going to the office. And I was like, well, yeah, in January of 2020, that was considered something like insane that people would work from home.

But down to Jude Law is a conspiracy theorist blogger who gets people to take cockamamie cures. It's just so... Anyway, the point is we were watching this. It's a good movie. We'll put it in notes. And I was saying something about... You know, because Gwyneth Paltrow, for all the things that she's kind of goofy, she's a great actress. I really enjoy a lot of her performances. She has a fairly small part. No spoilers, but she dies early in this.

But, you know, she's really good. And I was just saying, like, you know, I was like, didn't she, you know, get assaulted by Harvey Weinstein? And Madeline says, no, I think, like, she just barely dodged a bullet. As in, like, just short of, like, walking into the hotel room. And she doesn't want to talk about it. And it's like I see that and I go, yeah, I totally get why she doesn't want to talk about it. I totally get why Annabella Shora doesn't want to. I get why all these people don't want to talk about it.

I do also get why Rose Byrne wants to talk about that. Because, you know, this is, you know, she might be not an extreme case, but she has a lot of courage to come out and keep saying that. I mean, a little easier now. I mean, again, as covered in Inventing Anna. God, the speech that she gives to that guy about you doing this now that it's safe. And we talked about this last week. And I was like, I was thinking about Gwyneth Paltrow and thinking about those women. It's like, let's state the obvious. There are these people in Target parking lots all over America who think that women do report grave abuse because it gets them attention and because they want to take down somebody powerful.

and it's like it's the same kind of people who are constantly threatening to sue people i'm like

Alexhave you ever been in a lawsuit yeah do you know what a lawyer is oh god yeah it's it's so not fun

Merlinwhat do they say you uh you enter as a as a pig and exit as a sausage like it's the worst and i was just thinking about that with you know those those poor women and and just thinking like you know it's so it's so gross that that continues to be i feel like that continues to be a grace note or I don't know, like a thing that a lot of people believe is that women just do that for like their own selfish reasons. I'm like, do you have any idea how fucking hard it would be to be an actress who, if memory serves,

won an Academy Award for a Harvey Weinstein movie and then to go to report that to a friend, you know, like let alone variety. It's like, it is not fun to do that. And it's just like to act like this is something where I don't even, I mean, like if you actually, I'm trying to be rational about this, but to do this in the way you're doing it, you have to misunderstand or ignore in the most cynical way so many realities of life to think there's anything useful in pursuing child abuse allegations for having a trans kid and helping them be trans.

Alexit's like we're fucking really and again it is the suspicion i can just tell you i hear on good

Merlinauthority those kids get bullied by terrible kids just for being who they are i also hear the foster

Alexcare isn't awesome in most cases i totally hear that but you know what i'm saying though it's like

Merlini just it's it just smells so evil and bad and it's just i don't know it just makes me so sad that there are people, and again, we're back again to my weird acquaintances, like either that's a bit or it's not. And neither one of them is a good look, to say the least.

AlexNo, no, no, no, no. And I don't know. I, um, we, with the lawyer part, like it is, that's part of the kind of, um, feeling a little tiny bit empowered part knowing that the people are going to make texas uh play that administration is going to be put through hell because every just in terms of actually trying

Merlinto implement this you mean um oh and well in terms of being held to account for doing it

Alexyeah they they're officially being sued um the doe versus it is now officially doe versus abbott So it's going to be.

MerlinOh, ACLU. Okay. Yeah. I get it.

AlexI get it.

MerlinYeah. But I mean, there was a time when you could say stuff like, shit, I've said stuff in my dumber days, like, oh, she's just wearing glasses to look like a cool geek. Right. It's one thing to say, like, but like, let's just take that a little bit further, that kind of stupidity and go like, oh, you're just, you're just asking for dialysis because you think it makes you look cool. Or like, you know, let's, let's substitute when you do that whole, like, oh, you're just doing this to make me angry and look cool to your friends on uh tiktok it's like but like a

substitute something else that's incredibly painful potentially very embarrassing and and certainly puts you under a spotlight you would not prefer oh you just want an iron lung because you like to lay down it's like that's not you just get a bed you'll be fine like stop thinking that

Alexpeople are doing this to frustrate you it's happening right now too with long covid of like okay let's say that this person is lying about having long covid like that person is still sick in a number of different ways like or like you know but also other stuff

Merlinlike chronic pain any sort of i mean the wonderful dustin hoffman episode of the simpsons which was very funny oh god that's such a sweet episode you're lisa simpson oh always makes me cry but Remember why Mr. What's-His-Name is there at all is because Lisa's teacher is out with Lyme disease.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinRemember? And then she comes back and she's like, you know, the way she says it is very funnier than I could say, which is like, I didn't have Lyme disease. Like, there's a thing that happens when you see stuff in the media and then you think you have that. But, okay, similar to that, another similarly maligned thing is like chronic fatigue syndrome.

Speaker AYeah, yeah.

MerlinIBS, these kinds of things that do not have an extremely well-established etiology, just to say that, well, if this thing exists, we don't know why it exists. And there are people who will then think like, well, because I, as an MD, don't know why this exists, I must assume this is like a made-up thing, that there's some kind of like personal Munchausen. Well, at the same time, we're investigating the laser beams that cause Havana syndrome. And that becomes a whole thing. You fucking potentially believe that over you believe that somebody's put up with the abuse of all of their peers for 10 years or however many years to be who they are?

Fuck. Maybe they got some Havana syndrome. They should investigate that. They shoot it with a gun. I will get the wife of this assistant ambassador. I will shoot her with my microwave rifle. Oh, it's very concerning.

AlexOh, I just learned about that, Merlin. What's the, is it the Russian microwave that, what is it doing, giving people, is that also Havana syndrome?

MerlinSome of the people on one of the political Twitter lists have, I think I want to say Natalie Schur, who's great, S-H-U-R-E. She's covered this, and she's like, guys, fucking relax. Like, you know, Havana syndrome fits into this idea that's very appealing to a lot of people. And maybe if I could say with some lack of generosity, ding-a-ling right-wing conspiracy theorists, there were people, I think it got that name because diplomats and other U.S. workers who were in Cuba living in Havana all were complaining of these very strange.

these very strange symptoms that were pretty scary. And there was no explanation for why, you know, is it like fucking mass hysteria, like St. Vitus dance? Like why do all of these people have these weird symptoms? And then it started happening in other places. And if memory serves, the pattern seemed to be that it was places where Americans, especially American diplomatic officials and other, you know, official American people, were living inside of a country that was hostile to the U.S.

And the theory became that this was like, there's some kind of way that they're shooting beams at where these people live and giving them Havana syndrome. And it was pursued so credulously by a lot of mainstream media. And then at least a lot of the people I think are interesting on, you know, kind of the dirtbag left are like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, there's no evidence. I'll try and find that Natalie Scher. She'd covered this recently in a good way. I mean, I'm not saying it's not something. What I am saying is you have no problem with a lack of ideology when it comports with your ideology.

But ideology, ideology. Now I sound like I'm doing reggae songs. I'm a toaster now. But etiology.

Speaker AHegemony.

AlexWith so many right wing conspiracy theories, it's it's also because it's it's just such an easy solution of, oh, if we can find the big baddies with the microwave.

MerlinAgain, it's the problem with the skeleton key. Yes. Like, this explains everything.

AlexVersus, oh, it's all of these government workers who are, you know, probably jet lagged and have to deal, be in, you know, war zones and don't have enough vacation time or good enough health care. It couldn't be any of those. It couldn't be a number of factors like that. No, no, no. It's the special Putin microwave. Good God.

MerlinEnjoy your meal.

AlexJust got a long, lazy Susan of appliances around the tables.

MerlinOh, yes, I will adopt this weapon. And all looks like shit from a Marvel movie, like rings around the barrel and stuff. They were talking about this yesterday on probably what next, which apparently I am totally gay bones for.

AlexIt's been really good lately.

MerlinIt has been really good. I love that show. Yeah, maybe it was Texas's attack on trans kids. That was really good. But, you know, okay, I'm just abstracted. And again, just to be really obvious 101 level, and I'm no like anti-capitalist like you are, but I certainly am interested. I'm interested in, you know, ideology and hegemony and the ways that ideas pass around. And I think that's all really interesting. But like, sometimes you just have to keep re-reminding people, are you controlling for all the shit that you don't know about,

don't notice or don't care about and you just nailed the first one which is like do you have resources you know like we were so we were talking about this and my response was something like why do black people keep living in poor neighborhoods they must really like it there and it's like why do you live in a slum and you're like dude if i could find a way to not live in a slum do you think i'd be living in a slum also don't call my house a slum you know i'm saying like it's just we never people so rarely it sounds so obvious this is one of those things where either like duh or what? We're like, well, control for like, when we say like, oh, these hillbillies never leave

when a hurricane is coming. Well, what if they're two months behind on rent and their credit card, their chime card is maxed out or whatever? What if all that bullshit from cable news that they've gotten to like, you know, try and eke it out, payday loans, any of that kind of shit. Do we control for that? Are they really hillbillies who will not leave because of the hurricane? Well, if I were a person in that position and I didn't have the cash, I would say things like, well, it's really important to me to stay here for my family. I wouldn't say, oh, it's because I'm poor and in debt.

Or like, again, like the people trying to get out of Ukraine. Apparently, once you get into Poland, you're good. But there are a lot of, especially what, like students and stuff.

Alex16 to 60.

MerlinBut like, no, but like the black and brown people who are being treated really badly. No, they never had a chance. Is it physical abuse? Well, okay, Ukraine has its reasons, I guess, for saying, well, first we need to get to Ukraine. Well, I mean, I don't know. I'm not there. I would function. When I see shit, like, well, God, yes, of course attack the convoy line, says me, who, like, I fired a firearm once in my life, and I was so scared I never did it again. But I'm out there saying, oh, get your rocket-propelled grenades and go attack 40 miles of trucks.

You know, if you've got a dragon, it works. but but like i can be really brave from a remove and say that but like but it's you know i guess ukraine has their reasons they want to get out the women and children of ukraine first who happen to be you know snowy white and they're all so pretty everyone's so pretty in ukraine um the men the men are pretty too the ukraine girls really knock me out one might say um but anyway like i but you know and then so oh well why i'm like you know why'd these people die well you know they couldn't

get out of ukraine oh well you know i just i hate that sort of it's it really is hegemony in its worst form which is like and you know remind me to talk about normal because i had a realization

Alexthis morning about normal wait now wait now um i want to hear now about normal because part of the fascination with ukraine as i'm sure you you know because i and i've tried to not play war uh But we don't typically see people, a bunch of white people fighting each other. And it's like, oh, this is not normal. It's like, well, Russia's been real bad to the Ukraine for a real long time.

MerlinIn the sea of bad takes, in the sea of bad takes this last couple of days, there's one person who's like, well, I just realized.

AlexDid you see the screenshot I sent you of the Tumblr take?

Merlinoh i don't know if i saw this person was like wow this is the first time in my life that uh civilized people are fighting each other and it's like oh god is this your first day you sent me something i'm looking there's ben mckenzie uh oh i love him covid paranoid putin and poop my kid with their friend maybe you didn't it was really bad it was You sent me something about Pokemon Go.

AlexOh, my God. Wait, no, I didn't. Did I?

MerlinYeah, you did. Match the number. Oh, you know why? No, no, no. This was me trying to log into Gmail. And I think it's a notification for Pokemon Go Plus.

AlexOh, yeah.

Yes.

AlexIt was Johto to tour on Saturday.

MerlinI mean, you know, this is this is I didn't pursue this well because I'm not an intelligent person. But like this became more of a skeleton key than it should have. But when I wrote my dumb, really, really shitty undergrad thesis, like when I first learned about Antonio Gramsci and the idea of hegemony, it really unlocked something for me. Because up till that point, I thought, oh, you people, you're also duped by TV and these ads and you're also stupid. And like I've been a Marxist for almost a month now. So I know lots of things.

And it's like, well, no, hegemony, at least in my understanding of it. And he had to write very small on scraps of paper because he was in jail at the time. But the Gramsci idea of hegemony or like kind of what became then sort of the Frankfurt School, I think, was just that idea that hegemony is when we don't. OK, here's another example to me. Hegemony. Like at the office, we don't even need to talk about whether Bob is allowed to be late for meetings because Bob is late for every meeting and nobody is allowed to talk about it.

And why is that? Well, it could be because Bob's a top producer. It could be because he's the boss's son-in-law or whatever. But hegemony means it's like air. We can no longer really grab it. And hegemony has this tendency to engulf everything around it, including opposition. So hegemony tends to dull opposition because it normalizes the parts of things that tend to make people radicalized.

And anyway, I'm probably putting that really badly, but that was an idea that meant a lot to me. And to me, the ultimate hegemony, what I guess you could say we now think of in some ways as privilege, is like I don't even need to think about my shit.

I have grown up in an environment where I am the default person, title. And as the default person, like everything goes my way in that thought experiment about time travel, I could show up almost anywhere, almost any time. And I would be better off pound for pound than 80% of the rest, 90%, 95% of the entire population that's ever lived on earth. Like you take me and you take James Baldwin and we're going to have a real different greeting showing up at various times in history.

Even though he's way smarter than me and super cool. That's hegemony in some ways is like I don't even need to examine this stuff because – Hegemony isn't something that merely benefits the ruling class, although that's certainly a big part of it. It's also that we all will tend to have this reversion to the mean in some ways with hegemony where it's like, you know your place. I mean, don't you have places where you're like, I'm not going to go there. I don't think I'd feel welcome there.

AlexWell, people have asked me, why are you still in Chicago? You work from home. Well, do I work from home? Why don't you move to Montana?

Merlinit's really cheap there

Alexyou can become a cow day you know what I'm saying though

Merlinand that to me and you can call it privilege certainly I think we beat that to death and lose a lot of the power of that word with all of our chicken problems But I do think that's true. And if you're interested, I'll tell you this anecdote from this morning. But that's the thing about normal. That hegemony is a way of getting to define what normal is for yourself or getting to adopt what's normal for you. And it's also a way, admittedly, unintentionally, in almost all cases, people aren't trying to be evil.

It's just that they see people who are operating outside the norms of their particular tribe. And if they're in the tribe of the default person, then that person seems like a revolutionary or seems like a troublemaker. And we don't need to examine how we got where we are. That famous quote, maybe by Fran Lebowitz, but that famous quote that George Bush was born on third base but thinks he hit a triple.

Speaker AYes.

MerlinThat pretty much sums it up. And it's one reason I bristle so much with that phrase, getting back to normal, because, well, who's fucking normal? Not as in who is normal, the adjective, but who's normal, the noun. The normal that we're getting back to is what? And that benefits whom? What are you talking about? Like, I just want my kids to d-d-d again. I want them to be able to do the blah, blah, blah. when what they really mean a lot of the time is I want to get back to the way things used to be where you have to be nice to me

because of the color of my skin and my German car. And I no longer want to have to feel vulnerable in a world in which I've never felt vulnerable. That's what normal means to so many people and why I think it's such a toxic idea.

AlexWell, welcome to the dirtbag left. Jeez, small boy. Happy 2016.

MerlinI woke up this morning, and I thought to myself a funny thought. This is just, you know, one of those random morning thoughts. I don't even talk about this because it does make me look fancy, but like a lot of people, we used to have house cleaners that would come and clean our house. And like, I'm going to say about March 20th of 2020, we hit them up and said, oh, look, you know, because everybody's in lockdown. And like, just to like, we texted them and we're like, hey, you know, sorry about this, but like we can't do, you know, the house cleaning anymore.

And we paid them probably not enough, but we paid them for two sessions that, you know, just to say like, I'm really sorry that we're cutting you off in this.

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinI mean, we can't afford to do it forever, but like, but that's funny. That was, that was, let's say March of 2020. So we're coming up on two years since that happened. And I just had this random thought this morning because I think my wife really does appreciate getting some help. Not because, well, she does do a lot of the cleaning, but also just she appreciates things being in order more than I do.

AlexWell, and also for me, I think for the first time we're going to have someone do spring cleaning, not because like, oh, yes, we're fancy people. I'm bad at it. Like, I'm looking at this fucking, like, I'm like, whoa, this is far too cheap for something that I know a lot of people that are good at.

MerlinWell, you know, remember the thing I said in Slack last week? we were talking in slack uh that marker had some nice remarks about reconcilable differences and was talking about he and tiff like went on a jag like and i think memory serves on the way back from somewhere they like got the it's all too much audiobook and then when they got home they literally rented a dumpster and it's already changing their life like it's true and i was just saying like i think one of the most difficult parts this is actually kind of related i swear I think. No. I think, I said this on Slack, I think one of the most difficult parts about

really trying to get rid of your shit is like, there's all the stuff where you're like, oh, Amazon boxes? Yeah, break them down. Don't break them down. Whatever. Literal bags of garbage? No problem. You push a little further and you're like, oh, appliances that are literally broken. No, I can't donate them. No, I'm not going to repair them. It's a broken $99 microwave. Well, then why is it in your garage? Yeah, exactly. Let's put that in the dumpster. Whatever. But I said, I think one of the most difficult parts about really trying to get rid of your shit is to even see your shit.

Like if there is something that it could be an appliance, it could be that there has been a, maybe not you, but somebody out there has like a broken oven in their garage or a lawnmower that doesn't work. or you feel guilty because you bought something from Amazon, never used it, didn't return it, you haven't donated it, etc. The most difficult part is to force yourself into a modal change of cognition and force yourself to go into, let's call it, you know,

Kahneman's first order thinking or second order thinking. You need your second, whatever it's called. Get out of the automatic thinking. But get into the mode of thinking where like, no, like stop scanning and actually look at every single thing in this particular area maybe that's just one little tiny area i don't know if you agree but i think that's one of the most difficult parts it's like this has been here for so long and i'll eventually realize how fucked up it is that it's always been like this but i still can't see it until i force myself to look at it

differently but once you do that in the same way as getting a dumpster kind of gets your mind right You start, because then it's a game. It's a video game. Like, how much dumpster can I fill? All dumpster. Like, oh, my God, I could fill three dumpsters. It's just if I let myself stop admonishing myself about all the stuff I'm supposed to keep because it makes me feel bad to do anything with it. Once you see it, you have a real change in the way you think. And it becomes very invigorating. As I said to Marco, I feel like you become very mad at yourself.

I become very mad at myself for my past failures at this stuff. And I cannot, I'm so enthused to get rid of stuff at that point that it's a completely different world. It's become so obvious on the face of it that this has not made my life better. And it was only that desire or the motivation to make myself look at it differently. That was the only way I could ever see the $99 microwave. And then once you do that, holy shit. It's like you put on the glasses and they live.

And you're like, oh, my God. I have, oh, shit. Oh, this? Oh, my God. How long has this been there? And then, you know what I'm saying? And, like, once you've made that modal shift, you not only see that microwave differently, you may start noticing, oh, oh, my God. I keep buying new shelves to organize stuff I've never wanted.

What happens when you do that with the body politic? What happens when you do that with culture? Like what if you start noticing the microwave that's been there the whole time? Even though you don't like the microwave, it's always been there. It's like a load-bearing microwave in your mind. And you fucking – don't you think that's related? Yeah. Like make yourself see this in a way you hadn't before and you may surprise yourself that you didn't need to be convinced about the humanity of other people.

You did not need to be convinced about this is really not your fucking problem or anything you need to worry about. Like it's maybe that is like you you you meet somebody besides Ant Jo's friend, somebody you've been friends with for years and find out they're gay. And suddenly you start to feel a little different. You force yourself to look at it differently. And suddenly you see the humanity in these people instead of just seeing them as like a broken microwave.

AlexIt's not even just seeing other people a different way. It's, I think, seeing yourself a different way because there's all of this internalized whatever it is, transphobia, misogyny, racism, and fat phobia that, like, you don't even think that you have it until you're forced to sit at home. That's hegemony, baby. It's like it's all just there. Right. Yeah. And then you really.

MerlinIt's like a tattoo.

AlexAnd not even that. But, like, what did we decide to call it? The great resignation? It's like, oh, oh, I'm being treated like shit. I should leave. Oh, wait, what are, what's this new fad of unions? What now?

MerlinLike the nicer shelves I bought to warehouse shit I never needed. I find myself, I've accepted so much. Again, wisdom document. So much, so much stasis. I've accepted so much abuse, mine or others. I've accepted so many things because it's for my work. I have to be on Facebook for my work. I have to continue to make fun of this fat person because that ingratiates me to people at work or, you know, whatever your version of that is.

And you're absolutely right. The great resignation is in part when you go like, oh, I don't need I don't need to keep buying nicer shelves for toxic shit. Like buying a nicer container for pain. buying a nicer for container for pain is not as good as finding a way to eradicate the pain and like you know i'm thinking of right now dude um so are you all the way through uh

Alexanadelvy i i've watched it one and a half times i really like it i do think about god think about

Merlinrachel okay and think about how like you know let's uh in passing i will mention it an interesting thing about cons, the word con in con job comes from confidence. Which is like, if I get your confidence, if I show you something about me that gets you involved, same reason Anthony Edwards couldn't get out as the lawyer. Because it became important his identity to believe in the Anna Dalvey Foundation. Foundation. Everybody is Nandor now.

ADF, the Anna Dalvey Foundation. I've got to have 81 such a... But like, That becomes part of our identity. And with Rachel, look at how much at first she had a crush on her basically. She bought her clothes, as Neff tells us about, all that stuff. And think about how her Anna Delvey problem grew because she got more and more invested in what was happening to where – I'm sorry to spoil reality, but apparently this was accurate.

It got to where then like she was putting up with some really toxic stuff. She was seeing some things that were just to quote Maria Bamford, you know, what if I'm a factory that just produces red flags? Anna Delvey is a red flag factory. And then in Morocco, it takes a turn. But she still needs to believe that Anna Delvey has 60 million dollars. And so she that shit with the credit cards. God, as we said, that was so stressful. but she had to believe and then but then what then it got so bad because why because she against her

own better judgment put a bunch of shit on her personal credit card and then put other stuff on the vanity fair credit card or vanity fair right yeah but like but then what happens we'll talk about being on the hook well now at this point like she can get fired she could get like probably there's things where she could be like potentially prosecuted and then on the stand They're like, yeah, but you hung out with her. Did she make you do this? Did she hold a gun to your head? No, no, I just did it. It becomes so important to her to believe that Anna is who she says she is and that she has $60 million because if she believes anything else, she is fucked.

It becomes very not just advantageous but potentially necessary to stay bought in on the same dishonesty that got you into this in the first place. You know, there's a reason the mob, when they jump you in to become a mate, you got to kill somebody. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you got to kill somebody because now they got shit on you. You can't go to the cops because they can go to the cops without you now. And like, that's a lot of America.

A lot of us are Rachel because we are so bought in on our own half-truths and mythology that there's absolutely no way to get out. And that microwave is going to be there forever.

AlexI don't think I think a lot of America's Rachel, but I think more folks than not are Neff in that I know that this is a lie, but it's going to be better for me if I just go with it. And I'm just going to do as much harm reduction or whatever you want to call it. And to like live in this fantasy just to survive, let alone thrive.

MerlinYeah.

AlexAnd I mean, I don't know. That's that's.

MerlinBut I'm like I'm like Laverne Cox where I want to stand in my truth. By the way, I would like to get a Laverne Cox in my life, not for workouts. I just want somebody to pump me up all the time and give me shitty aphorisms that I would be so into those shitty aphorisms if I were in a bad place.

AlexYou can get on TikTok. Go follow Lauren Phelps Roper. She's an influencer now.

MerlinI almost joined TikTok today. What? I'll never join TikTok. But I don't know. Well, my kid who, well, you know, that's how they are, showed me this video of a cat that doesn't have front legs. I know that cat. That stands slash sits on its two legs. To feed it, have you seen this? It stands up and you feed it and then it just sits there and it's like, what, what? But it's totally fine, you know? TikTok.

Speaker ATikTok.

MerlinHuh. I don't know. I just want people to be happy. Now, Pritzker wouldn't do that, right? Pritzker wouldn't sign a thing to adjudicate you.

AlexOh, no.

MerlinBecause that could be trouble for Bonnie. I shouldn't say her name. That could be trouble for your whole family.

AlexOh, she's been doxing it off. Oh, boy. No, he seems to be like in Illinois. We sure have had our governors. So, wait, you know all of this. The Blagojevich and just the-

MerlinBlagojevich, he wasn't franking privileges. he was how did he steal who did franking privileges somebody stole stamps

Alexthat was before my time I think

Merlinnot Gymnasium Jordan but there's another guy who was diddling and he was in the congress that guy was big who am I thinking of

AlexI don't know

Merlinnow what about Wiener Wiener's from New York right

Alexyes he I really wanted to pull for that guy

MerlinI mean not his wiener but it's getting humor in here

jazz break hey you want to do a challenge?

Alexyeah let's do the challenge this week shh this is gonna suck Hey, challenge!

Speaker ASorry, Quinn.

AlexThis week's challenge was Merlin's challenge. God, I'm starting to hear myself say it weird.

MerlinThis week's challenge is my challenge, and it's for the most selfish reasons. As we all know, I think at this point, the number one affliction of the middle-aged American man— Middle-aged, that's getting generous. The middle-aged American man believes that he is underappreciated. One of the only things that frustrates the middle-aged American man more than being underappreciated is being misunderstood. And you, who I believe to be someone who enjoyed season one of the TV show, I think you should leave with Tim Robinson on Netflix, I believe to be a fan of the first season.

Certainly no way the fan that I am, but you enjoyed it. And I made a lot of very funny references that you continued to not get. and even though I had given you this as yet another piece of homework months ago, I got the sense I made a joke several times about tables.

AlexMm-hmm. Need a wet paper towel?

MerlinNeed a wet paper towel? I don't even want to be around anymore. I think I might have said at some point there's too much shit on me. What was the other big one? Oh, it might have been a piece of shit. It was a real piece of shit. Not pushback, slickback. used to be a real piece of shit white bathing suit, sloppy steaks slick back hair god that baby's so big that baby's so fucking big I wonder if that's Tim Robinson's kid because there is a little bit of a resemblance that baby's like three

Speaker Ait's gonna be a real piece of shit

Merlinthe challenge this week that I gave, the official on label challenge is to watch I want to say episode 2, episode 6 of I think you should leave with Tim Robinson in season two, but you, I think, in a very ill-advised, overly confident way, said you were going to just go watch that the whole dang season.

AlexYes. I mean, it's like a... The running time is less than a Marvel movie.

MerlinThey're short. It's like watching Children's Hospital. It's just Children's Hospital or Tim and Eric. It's like it's done. It goes by so fast.

AlexIn fact, I woke up at 3.30 a.m. this morning and just could not get back to sleep, so I watched it again. because, you know, I really...

MerlinSo did you watch all the episodes this season?

AlexOh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm going to say something controversial.

MerlinOh, say it, because I thought the same thing. I thought the same thing. Say it.

AlexI think it might be better than the first season.

MerlinIt might be better than the first season. But the first season has so many fucking highlights. Last night, because once you start watching this fucking show, if you're broken like I am, you just keep coming back to it. I mean, the way that some people will like, you know, listen to a like a favorite album from their childhood or something like if I'll make because you. And oh, do you also get my back on the number of quotable quotes this season?

AlexYeah.

MerlinOh, my God. I mean, like we're all trying to find out who did this from season one. Oh, my God. He admitted. But like my condolences. And I see that he's brought his own larger organ. I lose my shit. When I watched that episode, the first season episode with Fred Willard, I lose my shit every time. And I find myself saying exactly the same thing when he starts playing the organ. And I go, that's really not appropriate at a funeral. But it's also the fact that he brought two.

There's so much to this show. There's so many levels. But Fred Willard, even though he's replacing an organist named Peg, he's called New Joe. and new joe has brought two piles of plates to throw on the floor and break while he plays a giant carnival organ at the funeral i'll play her up that's not necessary levels uh but i'll just sit down and i'll just like yeah so we rewatched that one last night and which is i think is also the one with focus group marry her mother-in-law

is that the black guy the black guy bluetooth capability

Alexstinky too small the the the magic you oh the magic you ruined my fucking life

Merlinthis is a good episode oh my god i so i i will i just need to let you know ahead of time i will be heartbroken if you say you didn't like it. It sounds like you liked it.

Oh, oh, oh, I need to ask, even though I'm doing the thing that I hate when people do to me, is there a there's not a reason you hadn't gotten to this. It's just life is out there and you're doing stuff. You weren't like, you hadn't like, and then of course you hear from other people, oh my God, you gotta watch it, you gotta watch it. Is there any reason why you hadn't watched it, given that you liked the first season? Just didn't come up? No.

AlexWe need a the, just, I would have been disloyal in watching it without matchy but now i did matchy like season one yeah yes with the caveat of like not everybody's sense of humor right right well for for him visual and sometimes like uh like poop and puke stuff is just

Merlinlike he's like nope i'm out and you do need to watch it i i castigate my family for looking at their phones when this is on because that's a thing i do i'm so fun to live with but i'm just Like you're missing, like I know you've seen this seven times. Like my kid and I just watch it over and over. I'm like, there's just so much amazing visual humor. There's so many, it's so, there's so many fucking layers to this show. Explaining comedy is the worst thing you can do. But like you take something like Tammy Krabs

and the Tammy Krabs bit, like the Claire's bit, has so many fucking layers and levels of why it's funny. And the amazing thing, and I think I might have said this back in the Max days when we first watched it. It was Max that turned me on to this show. But I think what I said early on was the amazing thing, and this goes straight back to Round Ball Rock, which I will put in notes. A wonderful SNL sketch that Tim Robinson, his brief and unsuccessful tenure.

Have you ever seen Round Ball Rock? No. You've seen that, right? What?

Speaker ANo.

MerlinWell, if you tune in to the after show, you will be here as Alexandra sees Round Ball Rock for the first time. So he was a writer for SNL. For like a day. Well, I think like a lot of people, I mean, maybe like Larry David, maybe like, you know, just it wasn't a good fit, you know.

As Tina Fey said on SNL this week to John Mulaney, oh, yeah, you were such a good writer here. You created that character with Bill Hader. And then you had like 800 other things that haven't aged well. But when you see Round Ball Rock, you'll know what I mean. But also, like, when you're even, like, the very first sketch of the very first episode, he's in a coffee shop having a job interview. He goes to open the door to leave. And it's a door that goes in instead of out.

And he's, you know, the funniest thing you can have in comedy is not somebody doing something stupid. The funniest thing in comedy is somebody seeing someone else do something stupid. I got that from John Cleese, but it's true. Watching Basil Fawlty is funny. But watching Basil Fawlty be seen by all the guests at his hotel is like the moose falls on his head or he punches the clock or whatever. It's very funny. And the job interview guy says to him, like, it opens in.

And then he's like, no, it goes both ways. And he ends up, no, opens out, opens out. Right. And then he ends up like basically pulling the door off of its hinges with creaking. That's funny. but then spit starts coming out of the corner of his mouth as he's grimacing staring at the guy that he's he doesn't want to disappoint with his stupidity and then he's and then he tears it off the hinges and he says no see it goes both ways yeah yeah yeah yeah tim robinson bits have are

weird and then they have a twist and then they have another twist like like you remember that show the characters that you and i love you know with the absolute paint job and he's talking about the sea captain who came in and he talks about who they pick up um or uh uh lopez george lopez they picked up george lopez and he has a bit about the sea captain which just goes by and at the end of the sketch the fat sea captain walks in and wants to use the bathroom it's like the tammy craps doll is that i think to like the next level there's so much happening in that sketch

Alexgod damn the kids in this series

Merlinisn't that girl the main of the five hand rolled macanudos isn't that girl fucking amazing

Speaker Aget out of here little girl

Merlinyou know her 60 lbs

Speaker Amom mom i'm 60 lbs

Merlinwhile she's weighing herself her mom is standing there with the doll and hands it to her so there's a doll and the problem is the doll had farts the doll had farts the doll had fart don't those dolls have farts in their head and then her explanation no well there's a guy there who was farting in the doll heads because he didn't like the contract workers weren't being treated like full-time employees but now they have a low-grade poison and now this is the quote it is i believe i believe my my current twitter bio um the the

Farts isn't a problem now. The farts isn't a problem now. It's so fucking funny. And then when they open that horrific, it would be funny, an SNL bit could just be made around the fact that there's a doll with a head that pops off. So you can look inside and see if there are any farts. But the poison, the poison is only deadly for children that weigh less than 60 pounds.

Speaker AI am realizing too.

MerlinAnd that for you, for a girl, your size that's that is like smoking five hand-rolled macanudo cigars every day it's a

Speaker Agreat way to unwind oh my god levels levels levels and it just just getting in the at the end the

Alexgirl takes the rocks out of her pocket and you're like oh my fucking god i i that's the it's with jim robinson it's not even someone else watching someone do something stupid that person who's watching and that the twist is often that person is often stupid or deranged in a different way

Merlinand it just oh my god like oh my god yes i said this to my family last night only because sometimes i find myself like why are you guys not laughing at this as hard as i am we were watching uh that episode that i think it ends with the claire's video i think that's the last yeah last you got to watch this and start it before you can get your ears pierced to claire's little girls have to watch this video so they won't be scared. And it's so fucking funny, the introduction of the guy who just wants to be able to remember laughing when he was alive.

You know, that's a funny thing, funny fucking thing. But you know what makes that so great to me? And I finally, I became so pedantic about this. I finally said to my wife, I'm like, do you get why the other guy in the room being there, the other guy who's impatient and just wants to get his ear, do you get why this is so funny? I'm like, he's obviously seen this video numerous times. He's obviously then chickened out on getting his ear pierced several times because of what the old man says.

It's like there's, but like the addition of that character, the addition, you got to watch it again. The addition of that character and when the guy first describes what it's going to be like to be dead and not be able to look back on any happy moments in your life. And that's why I laugh all the time. and you see the existential dread and he's scared to get his ear pierced

AlexI think part of what

Merlinwe become more friends than lovers I bought her a Sibian it was hard to choose there were so many options

Alexpart of what makes I think also just the all well most of the sketches for another hat on the hat that works is the just the frames and i maybe that's why the stuff he wrote from snl didn't land like initially that older guy is not in the frame of that claire oh right yeah yeah you don't see um initially you

Merlindon't see in i mean i'm so glad you know about dan flashes now talk about a fucking quotable sketch but it starts out you're in a bit it's similar right you start out you're in a business meeting and everybody's acting the way you act in a business meeting and then they talk about we might be done, you know, early and then you see Tim Robinson is laying on the couch and he's tired because he's jet lagged even though they've been there for 10 days. He's spending all the money they give him for food on shirts with complicated patterns. Same

idea though, right? At first everything seems normal. I'll eat your wife's wig. I'll eat her whole fucking head. Yes, yes. And it's a very, I mean, I got to maybe say up there with Letterkenny in terms, I was saying this to someone, oh, and Allison on Twitter. I was saying like, she's like, whoa, Letterkenny, is this maybe the funniest thing I've ever seen? And I responded and said, like, I know that, like, I need to be in a very specific mood to watch Letterkenny.

If I'm not in the right mood, I can't tolerate it. But if I am in the right mood, conversely, there's literally nothing else I want to watch. I just want to see the skids out there, out there dancing. I want to see the hockey guys like they'll let her, you know, and I think this is this show is so not for everybody. But Jesus, fuck, is it ever for me?

AlexI think it's for more people than one would think based on how it's advertised. Like, you know, the demographic is like, oh, it's a boy show.

MerlinBecause it's like one of those shows where you're watching. It's weird. It is like Cartoon Network shit in that sense of like, is there a method to the madness? Is there something more to this? I happen to think especially with the writing of Tim Heidecker, there's so much more going on than just being weird. But there are – I've never understood the fucking Meatball and Milkshake show. I never understood that. It's just not – I'm like, okay, this is just da-da. But like with Tim Robinson, like there's something to it. And the way his characters commit so fully, whether that's eating the gift receipt or, you know, leaving huge mud pies.

I'm like, oh, tell him it's the house where he can see the KFC slide from the window. And it goes and goes.

AlexThe more that we talk about this.

MerlinBut it's not just weird. It's like it goes somewhere.

AlexThe more we talk about this and the more I see your love and appreciation for especially Tim Robbins. Yes, Tim and Eric and the whitest kid. Oh, I don't know. I don't think.

MerlinNo, you still haven't sent that to me. You keep threatening to.

AlexWell, now I'm threatening to make. Well, did you watch SNL this week out of curiosity? I've seen. Well, I saw when Pokemon almost attacked.

MerlinOkay, so you saw the good COVID sketch.

AlexYeah, good COVID.

MerlinSimilar kind of thing there where it keeps pursuing this insane line, takes a twist and a turn, and then pursues a completely different banana. Like, why is Paul Rudd there? Why does Al Roker have Edward Fortyhands and his long hair? That kind of humor is so exhilarating to me.

AlexThat's the only reason to be on TikTok is – or, well, now it's –

MerlinI think Vine was like that.

Alexvine definitely had moments like that that's what was brilliant about vine and those those three i'm not a quitter those three kids were got well i mean it's uh people argue is it because they went viral on

Merlintiktok or is it because of nepotism oh you're talking about the uh the the new guys yeah

Alexplease don't shut the door or uh oh yeah don't disturb me something like that yeah yeah and i

MerlinOh, they were on TikTok, huh?

AlexYeah, yeah. And I guess one of the guys is also like a nephew of a producer, and people are mad about it, but it's like, ah, welcome to showbiz. Like, really, though? I mean, duh. And just like the joy they are able to bring without, not like even punching down.

Speaker AThey're just passing good legislation.

AlexYeah.

Speaker AI love the Pokemon.

AlexThe immediate, my immediate thought was like, wait a second Pokemon being real isn't a good thing was that was that an evolution of Jigglypuffs

Merlinat the signing because it looked like there were like was an evolution of some kind of a Pokemon

Alexthere for the sign oh Wiggly Wiggly I believe Wigglytuff was there Zapdos was not the capital building but if I was like wait wait a second what's the flying thing is the flying thing the

Merlinthing that you have now the the Mystic uh Mystic Oracle uh Classic Rare that was all right he

AlexZapdos is one of the first legendaries, one of the three legendary birds from the Canto region. Zapdos, Articuno, and Moltres. Did you say from the Canto region? The Canto region.

MerlinOkay, okay, all right.

AlexBut that, and unfortunately, Moltres is often confused with Ho-Oh, who's from the Johto region, and the Johto tour was this weekend, which is why I was mostly ignoring all of my, all of the things on my phone.

MerlinI kept waiting to hear you say, I love this show. Or I kept hoping that you would, you would, we need to talk about tables before we leave, but I kept hoping that you would make a joke with me. And you never did. And I figured maybe, I thought you were maybe incarcerated or had gone to permanent brain school or something.

AlexSomeone would have given you a note.

MerlinI don't know if they would. I don't know. I never know where I stand with people. You've got to learn how to treat the crypt keeper.

But the kid, but again, the cast, the supporting cast, the kid in the back.

Speaker AOh, my God.

MerlinHow is tables a job is one of the funniest. Tables. I don't want to hear anything about tables. Is that the same woman? It's the same actress.

How great is Patty Harrison? I don't know if you know this, but she got sewed into the pants of the big Charlie Brown at the Macy's. And she still hates fat boys. And she hates how much she needs wine. She looked in the toilet. It was all black and purple. don't bring me a bad deal

Alexwelcome to Dubai Friday we just keep quoting stuff

Merlinall right uh we get down god now what do we do to leave well now

AlexI I am I am making a pledge I this is another thing that I I don't think that Syracuse uh I go back and forth whether I think

MerlinYou're looking for an unclaimed topic?

AlexNo, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. When he wrote his...

MerlinDo you want to talk about eminent domain in Washington State? No, no, no.

AlexGood Lord. He's the one who does challenges. But on his list of things that were his demands for streaming services, which were all reasonable, the one that I go back and forth on, like, this should be required... is the ability to make playlists of shows because that's kind of my thing. And I think I need to put a playlist of American Dad episodes together. Oh, wow.

Because after, this show has been on for-

MerlinIs there more to that than just being kind of like a family guy goof?

AlexThat's, so yes. So when Seth MacFarlane left the show-

MerlinYou got the gay alien. I know about the gay alien.

AlexBisexual alien. Don't do erasure. Don't do it.

MerlinOh, no. Shame on me. I just canceled myself. How do aliens fuck? Plux will let you do that, but there ain't a lot. Oh, boy. In the after show, I'll also tell you how much I love Peacock right now.

Speaker AHoly fucking shit.

MerlinThey're so – they're the anti-Netflix at this point for me. Netflix, I keep – Netflix, like YouTube, only on Apple TV. YouTube only on Apple TV keeps giving me shitty suggestions over the same shitty suggestion over and over and on Netflix I'm like I think I've seen everything I feel like I'm wandering around in what's that game with the sand and the flags? Missed yeah no no no

the one where you wear a dress and like you know go up hills in the sand

Alexit's Journey

Merlinyeah it's like Journey it's like that where I'm like okay there's this massive expanse that I don't understand. And that's how I feel on Netflix. I'm like, really a more Dutch murder or whatever. Whereas I open Peacock and it says, Oh, Hey dude, look over here. There's a little button that says WWE. And when you click on it, there are thousands of hours of curated wrestling. I can watch 255 minutes. That's just the best of Daniel Bryan.

You know what I'm saying? I can go in, I can watch a documentary on The Undertaker. That's all in there. Sanford and Son, you can totally, that's not wrestling, technically. You can just go watch, I'm coming at you. You can just go watch Sanford and Son. Fucking Peacock. Man, it's a really good app. Table stakes. Yeah, you were saying Syracuse's app. I have a lot of tea.

AlexYou like TV, and I'm the way I.

MerlinTea, like testosterone. What? Oh, shit. Now we're really...

AlexAre you singing I'm Lovin' It? What is the happening with the trumpet?

MerlinOh, I could if you want. Is that a request?

AlexWhat's your favorite? Do a commercial jingle.

MerlinOh, just any commercial?

AlexDo it. Do it. Yeah, yeah. Dance. Dance.

MerlinOh, shit. Let's see. Dirty Monkey will not dance for you. Hey, Wendy's has fries.

That's not a thing. I could do another one. No. I could do – oh, oh. 588-2300. Empire.

AlexI still don't know what they do.

MerlinOh, I heard the horn. Carpet. Tables. That was a weak bell.

Show notes

Transcript

278. The Default Person

Show notes

Transcript

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