423. You Were Made On the Good Day

This is Do by Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox. And Merlin Mann, this week's challenge, discover what humbles you. Hello, Merlin Mann. Hello, hello. How's it going? It's going. Everybody, no nobody will let me have a clean open. It just it just it just doesn't happen. So that's just that's you know that's okay. We we just we come in hot I thought that was your preference. I think I've made an assumption. Uh also I'm assuming what you mean. No, I'm never having it. It's better to have like a a reset. And honestly, you know, maybe I'd be better with that too. I don't know. What is a clean open? I'm I don't know I I I don't know what I'm saying. Is that really is it difficult to understand?

Yes, because some people consider a clean open a uh a 3-2-1 clap. Some people consider like everyone has their own routine. Some people consider it just a when the host starts talking. So this is a question you really thought about. What is a clean opening? I would say a good one one version of a clean opening would be to not have two people speaking at the same time saying nothing in particular that's just meta talk. But may maybe you know maybe that makes people feel closer to us. I I think so. And now we're doing MetaTalk about the MetaTalk, which now you're in my wheelhouse. Well, I I was actually just in the end of your brain. How do you define MetaTalk? How do you define questions? Exactly.

Do you define Metatalk? uh referencing uh the other show you do with John Syracusa about feelings which is reconcilable differences. Reconcilable That was very racist Against who? Who did I offend you know what? I think people have fake Chinese accents. Do you know yeah how hurtful that is to people? I don't I don't know what that means. But but um but um it's like you see that commercial there's a commercial for um you know there's something called shingles which is a version of herpes. And it's real bad and you don't want to get it. Oh gross, wait, uh oh. Well, there goes my streak. Sorry. Wait, I'm sorry. Did you want to know what do you want to know more about shingles before we proceed? Please.

That most of us carry around. And as you get older, according to the ads on cable t cable TV you're uh you're more likely to get now my wife she's had the shot for it and I I want to get the shot for it. But but the the one that I see advertised on TV, you understand it's called shingles, like on your roof roof of your home, right? And the name of this prescription. Yes. I I hadn't thought of it, but I bet you're oh yeah. That would be if I were a medievalist I would say, oi. He got the shingles on his roof in it. Anyway, the brand name for this one shingle shot you can get is called Shingrix. Shink. Which I think sounds very racist. Can I still catch flyed lice? That is Someone was in that boardroom going, hee hee hee, okay.

Look what I got away. You know what? I hope so. Because I think that means Well life is just little victories, Alex. You gotta take 'em where you get 'em, you know? Yeah. If if you hold hate in your heart, hopefully you're just holding it in there and it's not easy to be. Mm-hmm Or you'll be in my heart. I gotta make you louder. Um I should just start all over with everything. Um hello. Hello. I kid. I kid. I josh. But you know, I I like the show as it is, mostly. Mostly, mostly. Yeah. You know, you're not the first person to say you're the first person to say that recently, so I suppose that's good. So I get the first mover advantage. Moving into that vertical space. Mmm the sha the shing shingles shingles is the shingrix there.

Let's go ahead and look up shingles because I'll bet you, as you know, Alex. As you know, Bob, sometimes on this program for a long time, uh when a medical condition comes up, what do we like to do? We like to search for it on the website Google and see if they've made a special Upsetting illustration about it. So I'm gonna search for shingles. What I don't as you know, I don't normally use my computer when I'm recording a podcast. Um, nope, Mayo Clinic. Oh yeah. See, they're they're like little, it's like a cold sore, but all over your skin and it and it really hurts. It's like chickenpox. All right, this is very topical and well the the topical truck topical treatment is one way, but ordinarily you'd want to do it more systemically.

Thank you. Herpes Zoster. That'd be a pretty name for a girl. Go ahead. Sher Sherpes Zoster? Herpes. That's that's Shingles' actual Christian name. I'm Herpesha. Not obsessed. But I well I I uh have uh or uh rather I don't know whether or not I have uh w uh what is known as the human uh pap papa I don't know if I have any I can't even say regular terrible differences. Hi. Uh human papillomavirus? Yeah. And uh I heard you gotta gotta give all the girls shots for that, even if they claim they're not having intercourse. That's what I heard. Ooh, shout out to my mom for my little 12-year-old Catholic self. being like a and it was, you know, like two two thousand whatever and uh it th this was a new sh the HBV vaccine was new.

It was parents were very upset about the pressure to give it to pubescent kids. Yeah. But my mom was like, do it, do it. Like luckily we had a decent harm reduction. Because if you're out there getting finger blasted in the in the sacristy You don't want to get herpester. I was I was like mom no oh god I don't want I don't want to know in the sacristy. No, that doesn't happen to girls. Uh well I wasn't lucky enough. Um Catholics have been coming up a lot lately in my TV shows. This is I mean uh if I'm not gonna dig Doug, but the whole challenge this week, which I intentionally didn't remind you to do because I heard it happen. multiple times on your other programs is very moving. Um dig dead this week's channel and wait wait what what would I do on other shows?

What? Um, you were just uh telling very humbling stories and very vulnerable uh ways of thinking about things, especially a a meta sort of thinking. I think I think it's where I derive my power, honestly. I swear to Christ. I think I think it's the only thing I have left that's that's anything like a tether to humanity is that vulnerability and like I don't know, trying to be I don't want to I don't want to say trying to be positive, but I'm I I've I've been a happier person since I've learned to avoid automatically being negative. And that has given me a little bit of a viewport into the like, oh, you know, let's not always well don't let's always talk in hot takes about our emotions. Let's Let's give people a break.

And you know. Yeah. Is that making me a bottom? Do I like being humbled? Do I crave it? Well, what's the difference between humility and uh like self-flagellation? Like that I you know, I'll talk about this challenge. I wrote some stuff down I wrote Do you want to talk about the challenge? Well f first, if anyone knows I'm I'm serious. Hey, I'm I'm doing the thing we're doing. What is happening? What are you doing? Why are you talking to the audience? Audience, I don't I don't know if I have the uh human papill papillomavirus. Okay. And I've heard that there are lead, I bet. I uh not as much as me. I I didn't it is known. Do we have any baby tea baby teachers? Oh you have so much. Well I was the first one out too.

So yeah, you're you're the you're you're you're the you're the pipe cleaner from Mama's Lead. Man, I got rid of a baby and some on my lead. Sweet. Oh g oh boy. That's a You know what? I'm gonna write this down. I am gonna use a computer during this and I'm not going to I'm not going to say it. But uh I uh No I oh this is something th different. This isn't about uh herpes. But I am I wonder because you know I uh like in terms of like rolling the die uh with stuff HPV still y yes it like with rolling the I I'll my family and I Yeah, I I've learned a lot. Because But I I bet I don't want this it's it's dormant. Well don't you have it because if you get a cold sore, isn't that what that i is? Okay.

Okay, okay, first of all, I do not want this. I do not want planter warts, I do not want flat warts, I do not want common warts, and I do not want genital warts. I want none of the warts. But because I excel so much at keeping it in my pants, unless I get finger blasted and wasn't aware of it. I think I'll be okay. Um, it's there's a subtle there's subtlety a little bit to this stuff because whenever when people of my age first heard about herpes, herpes was a word for this dreaded Um what do we say now? We used to say STD. Now they say STI. But basically there's a thing that you can get sexually called herpes. And it gives you I think primarily well here's the thing. When we first heard herpes, everybody thought, oh my God, if you've got herpes, you're a bad person.

and you've had you know, bad sex with a bad person. As John Roderick once said, you know, if Uncle Licky, you know, gives you a kiss, you know, you're probably a bad person. But But there's all kind of herpes. And one starting with the fact there's herpes one, herpes two herpes. So like there's the herpes that like people like me get when they're stressed out. Like I've got herpes. Every almost everybody's got it. I don't have Oh God, why am I saying this? This is really not something I share. further questioning, but to my knowledge, I do not have general herpes. I've never had general herpes. I've had partners with full-on herpes. But like the thing is there's there's this thing, I think it sits like at the base of your um of your spine.

It like sits kind of dormant and it can evidence there's different kinds of herpes that evidence itself in different ways. So As much as people like John Roderick like to say, well, you know, Uncle Licky made you have herpes and now you're a bad person, like there are people, again, like me, who just I I get all the immune stuff. Like almost all the immune stuff happens to me. Including um, you know, I've got uh it's it's very controllable. I've got I've had psoriasis in the past, like not super bad, but like I've had that. Every time I get sick or would smoke too much weed in college, I'd run myself down, I'd always get a cold sore, and it was always at the worst time. I've been married twice, that is to say, I've been to my own wedding twice, and at each of my weddings I had a cold sore.

Oh perhaps predictably. Whatever, you know, life goes on. And the nice thing about the if you get just the mouth herpes and the cold sores is they become they tend, at least for me and I think for most people They tend to become much less um frequent and much less severe over time. So it's not like the species ending event that it used to be. But then yeah, then there's the genital kind, but then you've got herpes zoster and I think uh chicken or then uh sorry the um uh uh the one we're just talking about shingles, and then I think Um I think that um what's the other one? Uh oh I think chicken pox is a kind of fur piece also, I think. But you only get that once if you get it. Yeah, and but then uh I'm like wait, so so then it's like chicken pots?

Uh yes. I I hated it. I hated it so much. I have no memory blissfully no memory of the money. And I got it I got it when I was dude, I got when I was at my big boy job in nineteen ninety one, within like probably I want to say about a year of working there. I came down with chicken pox. I s because I because it was the culture of our office and this is nobody's fault but my own. But I worked in an office where you didn't call in sick. It was considered a real To be honest, I'll be honest, even though men and women did it, it was kind of a macho thing. Like we do our work. I don't understand until I was 25 why you give sick days to your employees. You give sick days to your employees so they don't make all the employees sick.

And I feel so bad about this. I was 23 or so, and I got chicken pox and I got all fucked up. And I'm pretty sure I'm the one that gave it. to another one of the the PhD toxicologists there. And it's like and and unlike unlike mouth herpes, and hey, listen, seriously you guys, I'm not a doctor, so go go read up on this. I I'm not trying to be I can't be accurate about all of this, but I'm I can tell you what I think and what I know. And I had a pretty bad. I mean, I got laid low in a way that, you know, a lot of kids they get chicken pox and they're like, well, whatever. I was really, really sick. But the guy that I'm pretty sure I gave I'm the one who gave it to him, he was probably 35. And unlike the mouth herpes, this is like reverse herpes, where it gets worse as you get older.

So the effects of chicken pox on a grown-ass man, it can make you infertile. As well as make you very, very ill. And I felt so bad. Yeah, like they've got to be a big thing. Was it symptoms? Fr sympt I believe symptoms, yes. Yeah. No, but like where they're ch I'm sorry, I just mean to say where you're 'cause like like you know, we used to have chicken pox parties where one kid gets chicken pox and then you make all of the kids in the neighborhood go play with each other. And get chicken pox so that everybody gets it at the same time and you get it out of the way. That was one approach, you know, the herd not herd immunity, but that kind of thing. But um Uh uh but but I I'm saying in the case of your friend, it was that they got chicken pox and it wasn't just itchy scratchy annoying.

Do you guys like our immune system? Yeah, it really runs you down. It's kinda like having mono. Yes, mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which uh is uh w wild and I don't understand it. And I remember just uh uh again, like having this uh this friend was also Catholic and he's like, you know what I still ki feel kinda bad because like uh he basically got it because he was dating a girl and he's like, I I got sick from uh like it's not an SDI, but like I got herpes from a girl. Why do I feel bad about this and uh unlike cold sores it just getting worse as you get older like how is how is this the same thing how is this all herpes it is very confusing and fascinating and well when when I was getting it a lot and it was heavily affecting my life, I you know, learned what I could about it.

I eventually got a prescription for acyclovir. Which is a topical that helps, you know, uh, I think now it's you can get it over the counter even. But like that used to be the thing that, you know that that would that that you could do with it. But like I it is kind of fascinating that as I I mean viruses in general are completely fascinating to me. I could watch videos about viruses all day. Um, I mean they're tenacious little bastards. They're they're really ugly viruses are like pretty ugly little machines that are really, really brilliant in the way that some of them work. Where they're almost like zombies. That's why we're still wash we're still washing our groceries, you know. Um but Yeah, anytime I would get run down and like, yeah, and like Yeah, I don't get into it, but like the 80s was a real minefield.

Because like you'd be like, oh well we got herpes, at least I don't have the other one, you know. Yeah, th that's it's it's feels like it's still like that. I it doesn't feel uh it it is indeed still like that. And but I don't think you I don't I mean Like I said, I had a a a love a a girlfriend, like a wonderful friend, girlfriend, a girl, friend, and she had it full on and she hadn't initially told me when we got together and she felt so bad when she told me about it. Yeah. Uh the thing is though, I think you're only contagious Well, I can't say. Like for example, there are times where you can get a cold oh, this is really good. This is really good podcasting. You get a cold sore and maybe you could actually pass it on to somebody through a drinking glass or whatever before you realize it.

But I mean I think most of your serious you know what? I'm gonna stop talking about this. There is there's no good way for this to end. I uh I'll end it. Uh b in a in a not or c in a confusing way, like Matt has always g w like gotten cold sores and uh not the other kind. No, it's random. Like it's not. You can also get him from Sun and Wind? Yeah, like some and I I'm I'm like, okay G it i i is it a uh acne or is it a cold sore? And still can't I mean like once you've had cold sores it's a a stress bump. You you you know the feeling and you know that immediate sense of uh here it comes. You know. Alright. I'm I've heard yeah, you're telling me the opposite of uh what you know I've been told a spectrum.

No no no a spectrum of things because I'm like I don't know If I get cold sores or rather I don't I don't know if I get a sort of thing. Oh, you're talking about yourself. So you get you get a little like I say in the UK you get a spot. You're not sure do I have a pimple or is this a stress bump? And I but then a day later I'm like, oh yeah, this is absolutely acne like adult ac that's what testosterone does. It gets too much. Ooh, ooh, no. That's a rotter-cont-heine trick. Ooh, ooh, no. That's not medical advice. Don't tell somebody to lance a cold sore at home. That's that's not good advice. Go to your friend's house. Go to your friend's house. See how they're doing. I just want someone to tell me if I have a face i if I've ever had a cold sore Because here's the thing, is like I'm I'm not I I I there's a phrase I have disliked for I think my entire life And I only realized why I disliked it, it's like since probably my twenties.

But I don't like it when people say, somebody says, um, I think I have X. And somebody says, Oh no, if you had X, you'd know it. And you're like, Well, I feel like I do know it. So I'm very reluctant to say to people, Oh, if you had a cozzar, you'd know it. But uh what I can tell you is they feel different. Not on the outside, but you f there's there's a you feel there's a deeper tingle, like it's got little nervy roots and it's very, very sensitive. Like, you know, getting a pimple on you know that's no fun and it it's you know uncomfortable and it can hurt, but you know, uh but a a cold sore is like we should make this judge I I uh okay, I unironically was thinking about this when you and S Syracusa of uh reconcilable differences.

Hi that sounded less racist. Uh races now I'm saying, goodness gracious. Um talking about w how we communicate just with language versus how we hear words in my uh in our mind. Yeah, they uh But then I struggled so hard to explain why that's hard for me to explain. It's so weird to talk about. No, I do It's like it's like talking about God. It's like the more certainty you feel when you talk about it, the more likely you are that you're talking about something that's not God. If it's explicable, then that's probably not how the dream really went. If that's if it's explicable, it's probably not your actual cognitive process. You know, it's that again that C G P gray thing of your brain telling you what it needs to hear to make it through the day.

It's uh my It is a mind fog, especially at six AM. Do you think you should get checked out? No. Do you think you might have the human type Roma? I'm I'm I might I might. I don't I don't know because some people never show symptoms. So I could also like like you said, what I Wait, wait, I don't know why am I typhoid Mary. Typhoid. But it's a non-gender specific uh carrier. Typhoid Mary. Typhoid Mary is uh if memory serves, is a woman who's purported to have been sort of like uh you know the Decan Du Gas. Like reported to have been like the patient zero of typhoid in um in one context and like yeah. Yeah, people. Yeah, you Hello Typhoid Mary. Is there a Mr. Typhoid? Alex, can I be honest with you and just say that that joke?

is always funny to me because it's dumb. Not not because it's clever. I mean it's clever in a in a in a in a sideways way But uh it's always funny when people is there a Mrs. Zoster It's uh Perp Zoster's my father. But doctor, I am herpesoster. See, names are funny. Hello. Yes. I'm just going through all the things that are funny. They are. You know, rain box rain raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, you know? Mm-hmm. It's one of my uh list of lists is of things that are always funny and and Oh, that's well there's a meta there's the meta list of I've got the list of lists and then the list of things that are funny and the funny then the function funny yeses. I should figure out a way to share this because then there we we've talked about this.

The funny there's different f yeses. Yes. We talk that's the point. That's the whole goddamn point, Alex. There are funny yeses and there are funny hellos. I tell other people on podcasts how we talk about this. We already discussed this on the show. It n it's but it's imp it's important. Anyway. Challenge this week is Alex's and I'm I uh do want to uh at least slightly gently prod your paploma uh about what what led you to this. But the what I remember you saying, uh uh your usual end of after show meltdown was that you wanted us to notice the things That make us feel humbled? Or things that are humbling to us? Is that is kind of the rough idea, right? Yes. And it came up because why? I think I'd said something about how something humbles me.

I believe so. It also was that that wa oh I don't know if I've I've told you this. Now it is uh out in the in internet. Uh that was the day my niece was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. And I was just like, yeah. Oh Alex, I'm sorry. Oh, Alex. No, one of the little ones? Yeah. Yeah. Alex, I'm so oh sweet, I'm so sorry. Yeah. It was a big thing. Your family must be torn apart. Yeah, it's yeah, well it's I mean I'm sorry, I don't mean to say I just I feel so bad for for her and just for everybody. Yeah. It I mean it's one of the uh when I say it's one of those things, it it sounds like such a Cli uh cliche, but uh the um uh in uh uh uh yes. I'm sorry. No, no, no. I'm just saying this entire sh show has been just a a shit show of sad body horror.

They were really thinking about taking a shit? Everybody does it and they don't talk about it. You could shit anywhere I do also kind of think of like I'll never know what it's like for s someone else to evacuate their bowels and I won't ever know what it's like to be confused. That's what the Greeks talked about. They weren't worrying about whether or not Zeus was real. No. Alright, we've got this new plumbing stuff. Those are pre-Socratics and to this day Parmenides and Heraclius still affect the way that we think about things and Xeno, but We should save it for the show. Yeah, I mean more of a Heraclitus guy. Heraclitus says you never step in the same river twice. Heraclitus says everything is change.

Parmenides says everything is stasis. Zeno says stuff like, you know, he has the paradoxes. Mm-hmm. And he was I I think Philip Seymour Hoffman was a fan of his and then wrote the book about him. He wrote a book about Xeno? PSH? Oh. Again. What's his line repeat again? Uh amazing scene where he's not allowed to blink. Remember that? Mm oh, now I do. Oh such a lot of things. See, I consider that like body horror. I didn't know what like body horror was really until recently, but like just the idea of You uh No sh no no but seriously like you like you like you wouldn't like for me I immediately think in a basic way, like uh d David Cronenberg. Or you know, or real really a lot of monster stuff, excluding the stuff that's about nuclear war and trans people.

Like the a lot so much of it is is about like what happens when your body loses its integrity? Or is you know, when your body is, to use another word I like in that context that going compromised. So like, you know the fly or what or what's uh the tetsuo the iron man, which is kind of the apotheosis of that stuff. Um yeah. Oh interesting, so that's a new word for you. Iron meh. No, not a new I I just miss un I guess I mm because of like the trans thing, it's just I thought body horror was I guess a more defined Uh or or rather like my my idea of body horror was much wider because i it's like yeah, so many parts of the body are just horrifying and the idea of being uncomfortable with um your own uh uh body or watching someone be uncomfortable with their body is horrifying along with like the Cronenberghian type thing.

So It's like, yeah, Video Drome but but also w um walking Phoenix not being able to blink is just very upsetting. Oh yeah. Yeah, I see I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I think it's a fascinating genre. And like it doesn't always have to be like, you know over the top. I mean, I think substance the substance it would be one that has addresses body horror on several levels Right. That might be a perfect film. I love that movie. Mm-hmm. Sorry I didn't I'm I I dropped that bomb. Sorry, proceed. I love that movie. I love I think it I think it does what it wanted to do But I mean there's not not just the body horror of like there's a zipper on my back and a little dancing girl comes out of it, but also just the body horror in the sense of the dissonance between what she sees on those posters in the hallway versus what she sees in the mirror and that's constantly being like played back to her the images of Demi Moore when she was young and all of that.

And I don't know if you call it body horror, but definitely I would say definitely like a physical like body Kids. Um physical body dissonance. Or what what's the word? Fix me on this. What's I always get them wrong? There's dysphoria and dyslexia. Dyslexia Freeman? Dysphoria and dys dysmorphia, which is a lot of what is in the audience which is which. Dysphoria is it's God it There's a lot of overlapping. So they always thought like Michael Jackson seemed to have the second one. Because he kept looking more and more like a skeleton man, but he he kept getting surgery anyway. Or like people with anorexia, is that right? Yeah. Yes, yeah. Like there's this trigger episode over. Let's talk about Charlie Kirk.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Um I hope they put his gums in the Smithsonian. Oh my god. Nope. You know, call again context. Oh you see the teeth, but then he gets a big wide grin. You can really see he's got those he's got the Mar Eric Trump gums on him. Trump guns. There are something that I have never commented about on the internet, and I'm really proud of that. So no. No. Yes. We miss you, Gummy. Shawnee. I love you, Gummo. And I'm proud to be an American where my gums are half my mouth. And I go my boys, and we are heading out down south. Uh I I did watch quite a bit of um Charlie Kirk's board. No, please don't. What was No, so so don't make it into a bit. No, that was just a funny thing. It's not a bit.

It's a fun yeah, go up. Okay. All right. No, no, no. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So yes, uh giant uh Dysmorphia would be if like you looked in the mirror and were like, Oh my god, I have Charlie Kirk gums, but really you just And uh there's often people with dysphoria will also have some sort of dysmorphia because the parts of their body that cause them dysphoria It makes sense that totally hyperfixate on it. Like yeah, it's like, oh god, my my hips are super trans man. I have a fr I had a friend with a little bit of a vestigial tail. You ever know anybody with that? No, I wish. Not a full on vista. I mean he's not like Nightcrawler or something, but where there's Well that's a full-on tail, right?

Well he makes something like that. And I mean it's circus he was called Nightcrawler. Talking about Kurt. He's a Catholic, he's super Catholic. He's a German Catholic. That's the worst kind of Catholic. Um But he would have like a little bit of I think what happens is basically it's like a little bit of your spine kind of sticks out above your behind a little bit. You get like a little nubbin? I'm not gonna Now that I'm so vestigial tale. Oh my god, Alex, the list of things in this episode that are upsetting. We can't release this. We can't even finish. We shouldn't even finish recording this. Everybody I just like to say I'm really humbled by your interest in our program. Oh, yeah. What about the tears women get when they're giving birth?

Um oh you know we could talk about people love talking about their tears. Oh you know what what's the thing where weight losers where their butt falls out? What's that called? A um prolapse? We could talk about prolapse Yeah. You ever seen that photo from back before we had memes? Big big big big big uh big weightlifting guy and he had a prolapse while he was lifting and they had a photo of it. Fuck. Uh I thought you were gonna say goatsy and it was just so much worse. Oh I'm not gonna look it up. Not I have I have goatsy stickers on my palm pilot. I uh I I I'm I am aware that that's a good one. I don't know what you know. This is something you have mentioned more often, I think. I need to get my I need to get my information more widely distributed.

Well, I don't know who knows what. Why do you need your um things more? Don't ask questions, don't tell lies. Can I have a couple of your French fries? I'm going to start speaking in rhymes. You know it is true because it rhymes. Lego movie's funny. Um And so tell me how you if you want, I'm happy to talk about this too. As you can probably guess, I've got some things, but I've also I've also as usual, like done the thing I'm so fucking annoying about, which is I'm you know, like like when Syracuse and I do our whatever kinds of back and forth agreed to discussions of things and we're always like figuring out what the rules are You know, in the same way that he heard those boys about which MP3 player they're all to like.

CDRs, nah, F tier, F tier. Um but uh but I I'm always more interested in the rules and and 'cause I I do think you know the words are meaningful and and humble. Uh we'll get to mine. But do you do you want to open with what what interest you uh what interest is What interested you about becoming aware of things that humble you? Uh it started with what uh obviously like like the Hearing that about my niece during the recording, just being like, okay, what about that? Um, and then I'm like, alright, what's the difference between again like humility and just a form of self-flagellation that isn't actually vulnerability and is m m basically a flex. Well I I always that was one of my first big pushbacks.

I'm so humbled to receive this Oscar. Like I don't I don't know what that means. I still don't know what that means, which is why Anne Hathaway is uh speech at the Oscars where she just said, It came true and everyone was mad. I'm like, fuck you, yes Anne Hathaway, your dream came true. That was awesome. Even if it was rehearsed, beautiful Beautiful. She was not humble. She was like, I I fun I I won this Oscar and I deserved it. The in the idea of just uh humbling yourself as a performance in uh especially online oh yeah is an obvious is like an obvious thing but it's uh again a weird line of something I'm like, do do I actually value humility and what does that mean to me? Because Uh it's always two Catholics, uh w would mean humility and humble, because humble is kind of the adjective version of humility.

Right. Oh yeah. I think so. No, it's it's interesting 'cause I mean they are and yet they do have different shades of meaning, I think. Wait, wait, go uh seriously, go on. Well, uh no, I don't I don't want to hijack your thing. But no, I I mean like it's just you know humility People who have humility don't have to try to be humble. That's what makes them have, that's how you know they have humility. D do you know what I mean? It's like people who try to develop humility, because I guess they need to. That's what when it becomes a little bit comical, like you know, um I'm one of the most humble person people I've ever known But like the whole idea of like wanting to be to develop more humility, well it comes seems like that would come from a good spot of wanting to I don't know.

Uh uh I can't get too far into mine, but like of it part of it it's not just it's not just branding and presentation, although that is part of it. I think part of it also is a certain amount, even with a good hardware, especially with a good hard is fake it till you make it. You know. And what's weird is though a lot of the people who aren't humble uh in my opinion, uh who don't come across as humble or people who have humility. I mean, think about words that you and I might use, like sweaty. Like, oh man, like you just can you talk about anything without telling me somebody famous you met once? Or can you I mean, this is not directed at anybody, but just because it's apropos of our show, you know, the whole like, I went to school near Boston kind of thing.

Like th it okay, I g that's useful information to encode in some contexts. And then in other ones it really just sounds like you you want me to ask if you went to Yale or Harvard, I mean. Um but the the I mean I don't know, this does start getting into mind just a little bit, but the words I keep thinking of are context and situation. Situation, the noun, as in how something is situated. And something is like situated in a context. And I think that the things that humble me, uh, I mean, there are the things that make me feel bad about myself. I'm not as interested personally in those for this discussion. But honestly, I wrote down art art and music. Art and music are things that really truly humble me, and I think it's because of situation and context.

Because they situate me The context is that they situate me inside of this much bigger world where grander things than me have been happening for a long time. That's the kind of humble that I'm interested in. You know what I mean? Not not necessarily the kind of like, oh, you know God, what's the guy's name? The the the were the guy the the writer for uh for the show, the producer. He he invented that term, humble brag, right? Um the guy who who wrote for uh Parks and Rec The guy who you know had the drug overdose right after the show. What's his name? You know uh the animal control guys the black guy and the white guy in animal control And they like they they they tried to make a Fred Flintstone uh whistle out of a crow.

Um the white guy. Harris Whittles. Harris Whittles. I'm pretty sure Harris Whittles, I'm not gonna look this up, but I'm pretty sure he's the one coined the term humble brag. I am gonna look this up, but I'm not gonna A humble brag is when you say something that makes it Sound like you are performing no, makes it sound like you're a person with who's who is humble. It makes you sound like a person with humility, but ultimately sometimes not very subtly, nested in that performance of humility is bragging about something, which is kind of the opposite of humility I I know I'm over explaining this, but that gives further context in a different way for what I'm trying to say about like, well, where does that come from?

And like trying to perform humility by talking about your first world problem or whatever is like it's not very cool and doesn't seem super self-aware or it's at least not it's probably not effectively communicating the thing that you hope it's communicating, I feel like. Yeah. Yeah. And what's a good example of what's a classic humble brag? Um I like a oh, you know, I was at It was such an honor to blah blah I was uh arrested at this protest or something like that. I got one like that. I got one Those people, usually some kind of like f former celebrity. I'm I'm not I'm just I'm gonna say this in my own voice. I'm not gonna pull any of our friends into this, although there's one of our friends I would love to pull into this.

Those people who post a shitty fucking Polaroid from 1981 of the them with the fifth AD on the set of a movie and going, Oh, tremendous loss today. We lost the great uh you know uh Rupert Zosterwick I had the pleasure and honor of working with Rupert on Amazon Titty Girl 6 in 1981. They post it's a picture of them with the decedent. And there are people who just love posting old photos of them with somebody who just died. They present it as a celebration of that person's life, but See, now me, I'm old-fashioned. The way I celebrate somebody's life is not mentioning that they're dead and pointing to something extraordinary that they made. Like that's the way I'd like to remember them is like, and then I don't want to have a big conversation about how sad it is that somebody died.

It's like, no, that's you're missing the the point. Whereas in that case, that you make that a person who does that, in my opinion, makes it completely about them. And then if they do it more than twice in a year, what a fucking freak. What a weird thing to do. Humble bragging about some about you having known somebody who's a little bit famous today is and I'm I'm sorry to, you know, problematize it that uh uh aggressively, but it's kind of fucked up. Uh it's extremely fucked up, I think to the point where I don't even register uh it because it it's like Uh oh, this is it's uh d d Diane Keaton. Like I'm sure I saw some of those the uh the this past. I had the honor of being Diane Keaton's Scarf Wrangler on uh ladies.

But I I saw a lot of people just simply sharing really good c clips of Diane Keaton and DOS. Like uh I I mean I don't I don't know. Um it's celebrity death is a weird d death is a weird. stupid and fucking annoying online, but it's always been complicated. When I mean my first made the first celebrity death that I remember Well, there have been celebrity deaths that were a big deal when I was younger, you know. Obviously Elvis would be a really big one, but the one that really got me for the first time on a personal level was John Lennon. And it's it's not even for the most, you know, fascinating or adulatory reasons. It's because I liked the Beatles as a little kid and I had just that very year.

um started buying Beatles albums and I had just gotten actually I'm sorry I'm gonna get the chronology slightly wrong here But like I got double fantasy for Christmas that year, so that would be three weeks after he died. But I was well into my like listening to Abbey Road every day period at that time. And when he died and the way that he died It was a new feeling for me because even as young as I was, let's fast forward a little bit It let's say I mean God forbid somebody in a band I love, like one of my big bands, God forbid, somebody in one of those bands dies today. That's gonna hit me on so many levels, not least because, hey, that's one of my guys. Like that's that person's just a little bit older than me, and I revered them, and they greatly improved the direction of my life.

And now they're gone. It's not just to go like, oh, Bob Denver, you were so great on Gilligan's Island. It's something where there are times when people go and you're like that. And and then to just state the obvious, it's fucking It comes out of nowhere. You may not have thought about that person in quite a while. You suddenly remember what they used to mean to you. You see the photo in the paper of how fucking old they got. And it that hits you all at once, but then right alongside that punch is, hey, that's my guy. That's that's one of my people that died Like g you know, i it's it's one thing when like Chubby Checker dies and then like quite another thing if somebody from King Gizzard and the Lizard wizard died.

This uh I'm gonna bring up Charlie Kirk again, uh, but uh I could s see like all uh uh uh every It is difficult to talk about, but like I could see you know like young people hurting. No, no, no. I do because uh you read the papers? Do you know what happens to people who say things like this? Uh no no no I'm I'm saying that's the first time. See four people were deported because of what they said on social media about him? Yeah. Four people were deported. They were fucking deported because of what they said on social media about Charlie Kirk. Yeah, yeah. It's which is You probably wouldn't understand. You're in Chicago. Now out here in San Francisco Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. That's in but this this is but another humility oh it is uh Being downtown sure is wits.

Yeah, you should have you know who should have humility or those those fat, fat, meaty pork chop men. Stucked into those little so fucking funny. I'm sorry, it's funny. If you can't find that funny, all those pork chop men waddling around being bullied, that's so fucking funny. Because they they they're professional bullies. And there's uh there's a character in it named Roland Weary. And Roland Weary is a canonical character? Like he is T-H-E example of a certain type of person. And he's a guy in Billy Pilgrim's unit who uh he's it's funny. He's like he's got every piece of equipment he was ever issued. He's constantly talking about uh cool ways to kill people and and he's he's totally a bully and um people were always ditching him and he hated being ditched.

But but no matter how hard on the line I always remember no matter how hard he washed he always smelled like bacon. And it's like to me I see I see those guys rolling out of that truck and I just see like six or eight rolling wearies with a mustache. I I first saw that photo and I I told you I thought like wow though those guys belong in sh in Chicago just because they look like the typical Big fat yeah, but like big fat Chicago guy. Like and nah, and I say that with all no, I didn't initially make the connection with the bear. I'm sorry, Alex and I are talking about something circuitously because we don't want to get in trouble. But Alex had texted me a funny photo of some uh as we would say in um in my um community some Zofdig first responders Title.

Have you ever used that? Hey, have you ever used that code word? Zoftig? No, I don't think I've heard it ever set as a. Oh, it's a Yiddish word. Lookup Zoftig. You say you say like it was you know Zoftig it would be the way you say it and then there's a pause and then you say she's got a great personality Because she makes her own clothes. That's always the that's always the tip off. Uh y yep to go. There we go. Well, these often first responders were apparently pulled them off the job because people were bullying. I just don't want to get in trouble. I don't want to get deported. It's October 2025. Um who gets in trouble? I mean if they're gonna um Run's house. It's October 2025 and uh The National Guard, uh, along with ICE has been sent to Chicago for this lovely um I mean uh ICE is seriously fucking stuff up.

Well they're sent there because the city's on fire, Alex. Yes, and the it's it's really it it's hard to d honestly joke about the ice stuff in Chicago because like that is just deeply fucked up. Some of the videos that people have made are just Holy shit, I don't know how you watch those videos and not just see Masked Authoritarian This is not fun to talk about. Boy, what a terrible episode. Anyways, so it's October of 2025. Pew pew And a AB ABC Zeven Chicago posted a photo of a uh bunch of not even I would not even consider them like fat men. Like they honestly are I mean I like yeah, they're like a a few fat soldiers Getting out of it If I was gonna be in a foot race with those guys, I would feel pretty confident.

The yeah, like I think in a 50-yard dash I could I could toast those motherfuckers Like when I but the thing is I in my brain I'm like Midwest law enforcement. Cops in New York in the 70s go watch, you know, um Taking a Pellem 123, which might be the greatest movie. Ooh, have you ever seen that? Wait, what is it? Have you ever seen the Ticking of Pellem 123? No. Alright, I'm gonna capture that because I think that might want to be a challenge. Um Powell, one, two, three. Um but no, you look at they'll just look n normal people. It's just now everybody shaved their head and they're all ripped and they're probably taking steroids, except for the ones who are just just eating pork chops. So e yes, these m these soldiers are getting out of a truck and they look like giant Chicago guys.

And I They look like no say it. They look like the guys in Da Bears. Sketch. Yes, they look like the bears guys. Yes. Or at least Robert Smigel. They don't look like Justin Thoreau. It's a different kind of cop. No, no, no. And um I uh uh been uh like we said, it's not fun to talk about, but there's been stuff going on in Chicago and I've been busy. And so uh I did not realize uh that this photo had gone viral and people were bullying at like, huh look at look at the biggest thing. Describe what you mean by bullying what you mean is if I I believe if I read this correctly, I mean they weren't they weren't going to their house and like, you know, shitting in their mailbox or something. That they were basically making fun of them online.

Yes. For how they're which we don't do. 'Cause it's not funny. Uh yeah Massage Gen Con? Um The challenge this week is to talk about things that we please save some of the show. Uh b because uh then I f I find out Charlie Clerk Charlie Clerk Vaginal tears nope nope um anal prolapse obesity Uh s my friend texted me that l uh like that they were being recalled, these fat soldiers were being recalled to Texas. Uh to because they were too fat and people and and Pete Hagseth and his administration they were funny, I'm sorry, it's funny. It is, it's fucking funny because I I understand and in my bones I've tried to change and I have have but like this in this instance it's funny. No, okay, I am someone who's but this other Texas where they fit in better?

Yeah, that's uh so then that is the th the thing. H I I thought it was a joke. I thought like oh my god ha ha like they're sending the fatties back And uh like I am relatively fat I mean, people depend. This is another part where I get in trouble of like, when are you fat? When are you not fat? But but the reason that immediately Uh, I thought it was uh funny because these guys look like Chicago guys. And two, these like when I think I do think that it is important to talk about like, ah, we don't make fun of people for how they look anymore. But it is much more You look like that, but also you have absolutely called a woman a a fat ass. You have shamed other people. You have uh like the reason Don't expect me to pop in here and and defend cops.

I'm the wrong person for that. But I I will say that I do un I I understand and have almost fully internalized that message. And I go out of my way. to really try not to well to not say thir f hurtful things, but also to increasingly try to stop sort of thinking hurtful things just because I'm still responding to the same kind of dumb automatic reaction. And like I I wish people would give other people a break in their journey in everybody's individual journey to getting better. But like as is the case for the last ten years, it is sometimes extremely difficult to hold myself to my usual standard. with people who are not only actively being harmful but are doing it in act active actively hypocritical ways.

So like when you you allow you you collect your paycheck because you buzz into this completely innocent town. full of black and brown people and start wanting to like rustle them up and it's Anyway, like just say for example you are a businessman. A businessman who has I think somebody on the news pointed out the other day whose hair is increasingly become the same color as his skin. Like and but and you're like you're just the picture of whatever not health is. It's so difficult to hear that guy call Rosie O'Donnell fat for years and years. I mean, I if she hadn't left the country, I bet she'd be in jail right now. We used to joke about this in 2019. We used to joke about this. The exit strategy stuff like around 2017.

Remember Max talking about like figuring out w you know what to put in your bug out bag to get out of the goddamn country if you're targeted? Ha ha ha. Mm hurrr. Um well I was gonna m ask you about the um idea of being sorry, now I'm I just keep going back to like being humbled versus what what uh humility is. And I do think I I I I just thought it was f very funny, uh again, not just 'cause like haha, fatties go home, but uh Well and they're so attacked. It is extra funny because they're they're such tough guys, but they're so attacked. You know, it's just I'm so sick of hearing about protecting these these pork chop men in masks. Yes. It's it's very d it's just a Yep. Horrible. Yeah. But put put the knee down on a guy's back till he can't breathe.

Yep. Yep. It is yeah. I uh your community paid for that uniform. The i it um in every way. I mean it's sorry. Okay. Hey, uh humil thing about humility is No, it's it's it's difficult to to talk about only because it is like um so fresh in my mind because you know literally, you know, like and it it's also uh uh because the the the one the only blow up that I've been adjacent to was when um The I I don't know if you saw what was happening on um Isaberview n sorry, neighborhood called Broadview and I was uh uh bringing a friend from not O'Hare, but the other airport in the the Chicagoland area. back uh back home and uh the it goes down this street Kedsy and uh it it happens there are some brown and black neighborhoods there but it This was when they um there were a bunch of smoke bombs going off and it was the time that the cops got uh pepper not pepper sprayed sp uh sorry.

got tear gassed as well and that was like the the first like oh oh boy. Um but even w what is like uh I don't want to say more upsetting, but like there's all of the images that go viral But then you're still like three blocks by and like you're hanging out this sounds like a fucking hungle b humble brag. That that's why I feel weird talking about it. But like you're just uh Then talking to this woman who is like, I don't even know, like, uh oh fuck, I dropped my phone, I don't know where my brother is, like wha what is he? And what happened so that somebody can go find them before a after they get disappeared. Yeah. And uh especially then uh when uh like God, there there's literally um in a lot of these cases nothing you can do and uh just also standing not being able to do anything with someone who is also not able to do anything and uh uh I just it it is been such an un uh uh I don't know, it it is the like unreality type type of thing of Like, all right, this is just um this is just how it i it is now.

Um and and then, you know, you go from the actual Chicago area where there's the guys who look like they're dressed up for paintball um tackling people and uh a lot of them Like we truly don't know. Are they ICE or are they just helping out because none of their colours matter? And they're not going to be able to do that. They look well it's but uh but but if the essay just ran out of uniforms and then started uh a a lot of these guys w uh w i if they weren't, you know, tackling offense. If they weren't tackling you, i it would be a Chic a w a Chicago winter guy, like with a balay cloud. Like that is a normal This it would be a normal sight like ah that there's that guy just dressed up. Oh now he is tackling somebody.

Oh there's also now someone with the army It's very well, cause it's you do occasionally uh d shocking uh witness violence in in the world. And uh n now it's like, well, is this um government-sanctioned violence or is this a fight between two people or uh It's in the like l yeah, it is insane and weird. This is the worst show we've ever done. Yeah. These horrible just day-to-day these day-to-day horrors are happening. Yeah. And then I I don't know. uh just knowing that someone is stupid enough to care enough to be like, um yeah, I feel they look bad. You you come home. This is this is bad when they're the th like they are supposed to be the theatrics. Uh because 'cause that very day, like um I know, so it was a different day.

Uh like when you're in d downtown Chicago, it's you go from the scary guys with masks to the also scary guys, but you know, they are in full uniform and uh they are you know they they were clearly pulled from a desk somewhere and they just stand in line and they're walking around and tourists are taking pictures of them and that is almost as weird. uh a as seeing the violence is just seeing the awkward uh like like that feels like the SS-ish type of stuff. But uh I mean And uh anyway, the fancy. Ernst Jerome, the head of the SA. The uh oh yes. So was um oh gosh, he's also a friend of Dorothy. Yeah. Oh, are we talking about the g same guy? I think uh his name's Ernst Rome, I think we are, yeah Uh well he he uh w that was that was Hitler's buddy, right?

And he kept uh the they took him the night of long knives when he was with his uh uh his many man friends and locked him up in a cell with a shirt off he tore his shirt off and they shot him Every depiction of it, they always make sure to show how they basically left him a gun and said, You gotta take care of this. And then he said, I'm not gonna do it. They came in and uh Well you know the was that Netflix series we watched that really good series like Hitler Circle of Evil or something like that? Yeah. William Shearer. I loved that series. Yeah, and I that's a really good Ernst Rome in that one. And then of course I've watched um let me check here, uh hundreds of YouTube videos about this. But yeah, Ernst Rome, that was his I mean, he he was one of Hitler's earliest and most loyal um compatriots.

Eventually, you know, I mean I I I I think it's it's it's valuable Instead of just always looking at the hierarchy of how it ended up, is to look at how it started, which is this ragtag group where you really had to know that you can trust your pals. And Aaron Sterone was one of his very closest and his role became extremely important. in you know after Hitler was coming back because the there was a ton of actual real violence on the street. And it wasn't just fascists, it was also communists. And but whoever it was, there was just there was chaos and the economy had gone completely to shit and like there's just, you know, these gangs fighting each other and the SA you know, came in and like was very organized and they got pretty well funded and then they, you know, straightened a lot of that out because they as they always say, they liked a good punch-up But then by the time 33-34 comes along, Hitler's they they are now causing so much of the violence that he promised his chancellorship would take care of.

As well as like Ernst Rome is m he didn't care that he was gay. I mean every account I've read, he just really just didn't care. I mean I guess except insofar as it's something that could be used against him, as it eventually was. But uh no, it was just that, you know, Hitler the deals Hitler needed to make were with, you know Krupps and Mercedes Benz. You know, he the deals that he needed to make to like get and maintain power, he had to keep the and he had to keep the Weim the Weimar happy. Or excuse me, the uh the Wehrmacht. He had to keep the army happy. The army was starting to feel really threatened. Why my God, this episode fucking sucks. It's gonna get worse too because I'm gonna read you I'm gonna read you part of the plot of Tatsuo Iron Man before we ding out.

So it's gonna get worse. Can I just read you what I said and we'll leave soon? I uh no, let's let's Well how much more is there to say, Alex? It's uh it's an hour and six minutes. We still gotta do another show. Do you want to what you can talk about your humbleness and your humility, but I I don't want to talk anymore about vaginal terrorist or Charlie Kirk. Oh God. Oh no no no no no no no no no no. Uh that's I s just was spent the weeking about w if I value or rather like w what uh makes someone humble and okay yeah so we we've taken this from very different approaches you're talking you're thinking about it as a care a quality of somebody's character Well that helps a lot to realize that. See, it's meta talk.

I'll save it for the after show. in my own head, those words help me understand you're talking about it as care what I would call character. Yeah, yeah. Uh and I But th I I think I'm supposed to do this on uh Blue Sky, but there's this s a song that like just completely encapsulates the Catholic school the specifically like the middle school aspect of of going to a Catholic school and God just It it's odd how uh I can be like I think h humbled by suddenly realizing just how I I I am floored by um I mean I when when I say trauma, I mean it like in the sense that we talk about it, not like a like, oh trigger warning, this is very upsetting. But just how related. But just the naked swimming. Can't stop thinking about it.

Um school policy. But Uh-huh. But like a lot of the you know a lot of w fucked up things that went on in Catholic school weren't even the um mm, you know, the b pedophilia type thingy type the pedophilia type thingies. Not a title. Would have been one of the worst one. Um, how you can be just uh humbled by remembering slightly traumatic experiences and how it can find out. I I don't know. See that's that's why I'm trying to avoid for mine anyway, that's why I'm trying to avoid that, is because like to be humbled by something has almost the feeling of a first mover of uh, you know, what Aristotle would call a first mover. Not a first mover as in like who gets to market with pet food online first.

Um something something something causes something to happen in the world. The The the the thing is in the w the w that's why I heard it differently is I I heard you saying 'cause I was talking about an experience I forget what it was, but something that humbled me and I thought it was clear from what I was saying what I meant by that, which is that like again that It makes me feel comfortable being small in a big world. That there's there's a kind of to be but like but I what I didn't mean was to humble somebody as in like take them down a peg. Or put them in their place. Or, you know what I mean? Any of those kinds of things where it's like, and so, but and that the reason one reason I think it gets complicated, at least for me, is that Those negative connotations are there for a reason.

Because you can talk about this subjectively as trauma, or you can talk about it objectively as a kind of um I don't know, uh very uh uh uh there's a lot of institutions that have a lot of assertions about how you should live. And one of the ways that we maintain consent is by getting people into an emotional situation where they won't do the kinds of things that cause us trouble. And one of the ways to do that is to make people humble, to create humbleness in them, to, you know, in the case of the particular sort of religious background that I'm from to make people really understand what their place in the order of things is. Yes, you're top of the food chain. Yes, you were made on the sixth day.

You were made on the good day title. Capture that. Um, all those things. And yet, we also then, at least in my testament, you get into the idea of original sin and how you enter this world with a fucking debt. to existence. Jesus died for your sins. He was the only one who was without sin. He was the Son of God and you're part of the species that killed Jesus. So now every child born into this world has something. It's not just an NX NXS song. It's also that's the concept, original sin. And it's like it's the sin that you're born with. Which sounds like a Lady Gaga record. But and and I I mean like and I I I I'm I'm tempted to apologize, but I'm not gonna apologize because I I think the thing that I'm saying Here is important and needs to be said more often.

Why I'm getting slightly less uncomfortable talking about things like trauma. Um, if if we don't start noticing the emotional coercion that's built into our institutions, it's going to be hard to get better as people, let alone as a society. And when we in our own, now listen closely, because this is if you listen to the MCU, MPU, MPU, if you listen to the MPU, you're gonna see some connections here. When we reflexively try to create invulnerability, when we reflexively generate or um put out and put negativity out into the world. We do all these kinds of things. We are often unintentionally um underscoring the institutional coercive that made us how we are. So again, see also, hey My family beat the shit out of me every day for no reason, and I turned out fine.

You know, which I mean I I I'm putting that some kind of extremely. I'll maybe put it in a less extreme way. This is the way everybody said this. my entire into my adult life, my p my dad hit me and I turned out fine. Is something people used to say a lot. And I feel like at a certain point in life I started hearing that, and you would hear it. This is not something that happened in the seventies. This just People would say this. I hit my kids because my dad hit me and I turned out fine. Like that's a pr that's there's all kinds of levels to that, but Uh uh on like on the face of it, like a priori, if you're saying that, you're not okay. It's like, you know, the thing is somebody who's had two drinks You'll notice somebody who's had one drink or two drinks are is often the person who's most likely to not want to drive.

Somebody who's had one or two drinks Even if they're fine to drive, like literally, empirically fine, like maybe it's a big guy, maybe it's a big cop and he had two drinks. That's not going to be enough to make him drunk. But he still has his sense about him. He still has his wits about him and knows I don't want to risk it. Somebody who's had four or five drinks You know, maybe maybe I'll just drive a little bit. I'll drive slow. But somebody who's had like uh like a twelve pack the most confident driver you've ever met in your life. At the very moment when you sh you wish that person could call upon the best judgment they've got about something. they are incapable of exercising that judgment because of how they are.

I d I I don't want to put this too over simply, but like somebody who's had like the better part of uh you know uh uh twelve pack of beer is not in a position to decide whether they should drive And they're the last person in the world who would know and let alone admit that. And you know why? It's because they're drunk. Have you seen that we've got into sort of a logical circle here? Well, that's the problem. And Sometimes those sorts of negative loops or those kinds of harmful loops are really, really hard to get out of. So my case that I wanted to make here, which is very different from yours, although I love yours, um, is that that's that's why the rules are fun and the challenges are fun.

Oh I'm not complaining. This is due by Friday. Okay. No, but um When I think about uh I would love to get to the point where I can be confident enough to talk about exact examples of this without sounding like I'm trying to be fancy, but Like there's music that like really deeply moves me. Um so okay, let's leave aside the classical because that maybe let's talk about let's talk about a band. Called The Cindy's, who have a single out right now. The Cindy's um made this song, I think it's called uh Dry TV, and it's my favorite song that I've heard this year. Um, I was the second viewer of the video on YouTube, which probably now has like, I don't know, probably 200 views. I don't know. It's one of those bands where it's like, well, I don't I mean, it doesn't I don't have any stake in whether they become popular and successful, but I do have a stake in like going, holy shit, this is one of those like It's it's it would take me three paragraphs to describe why I like this band.

Short version is it's like Teenage Fan Club Meets New Zealand flying nun bands and the clean. Like i if but like kind of via just a lot of Australian continent, but they're from they're from England. Anyways, that I listened to that song, Dry TV, wonderful lyrics, just right up my alley in terms of mid-tempo power pop. And by the time I get to the end of that song I've got shivers and I listen to it again. And I I do that with Iron Lung by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizards. That one video that I'm always posting and it's got the you see the guy with the head with the curly hair and the mustache and they're singing and I say this is the greatest live performance I've ever seen in my life I mean, I I don't know why it's important to me to share that, but it is.

That's an example though. Those things they I could I could say this I could say this about Jacqueline Dupree, you know, playing Elgar. I could say this about a lot of stuff, but It's does whatever your version is. Maybe it maybe it's a tall baseball man hits baseball good. Like whatever that is for you though, the way I can describe this is when it is successful. And it is often with art, so I'm cheating a little bit here. I feel like a ridiculously small part of a suddenly much larger world. And i it's gotten to the point now where I sort of speculate about myself and if I'm being honest, I speculate about others. Is part of your problem that you have decided you're a very large person in an increasingly small world.

Because if you're if you feel like your world has gotten small, I mean you don't have to be Jonathan Swift to figure this shit out. Like maybe that's context. Maybe, maybe you're a giant or maybe you're little. I don't know. But The opportunity to find oneself satisfied and peaceful about realizing what a small part you are, a smaller part than you realized, of a world that's bigger than you realized. And then I then it occurred to me that I kind of said this in the document, and I'll quote myself here. Find moments of grace where you feel gratitude for the gift of having a small place in a world that is much bigger, older, and more interesting than you are. And I think that's what I'm talking about.

And yeah, music's great. It can help distract you while you're doing data input. But I hope to God everybody out there finds something that situates them as something very, very small. in a way that is ultimately extremely rewarding. You can get it from religion. That's a big part of faith in some ways. Well, not faith per se, but You know, a wholesome religious experience part of that is like you're part of a congregation. Like that's a very meaningful term. You know, that's your boys. Um, but i I I I just want to believe that people can find it out there. You know, I worry that there's a lot of noise that people really honestly invite into their world that's not making their cognition, decision making, and emotional stability better.

And like one way, surprising way, is to have the experience of something where you go, oh man. It isn't just that all my problems went away, because they don't. That's the real problems float. But you can do a reset, a soft reset on yourself to realize how very, very fortunate you are to be alive at all. And to be this little tiny part of this world where miracles happen, like every single day, if you just, if you let the world get bigger, bigger, and then consequently let yourself get smaller. And it doesn't make you less important or significant or human or anything, but the bigger you think you are in the world, the less likely you are to realize how good that world is. And when you let yourself feel a little bit contextually, situationally smaller, I mean, I'm never gonna invent calculus.

But I can sure appreciate the bridges that we make. And like, I don't know. There's just so much miraculous stuff around. I hate you sound like such a hippie, but there's so much miraculous stuff around us every day. And it's it's not the world's fault that it's not working out the way you want. There's there's nobody alive who thinks things worked out the way that they wanted. There's never been anyone alive who really thought that, I don't think. Look how unhappy royalty is. You know, it seems like they got a pretty good gig. Seems like rich people should be really happy. Well, just think about in terms of h humility, humbleness, things that humble you. uh the transitive verb. Um just think about things that give you an opportunity to be h become gratefully smaller in a miraculously bigger world.

Um so this movie there's a Japanese movie. Oh, all right. Um Let me see if I can find this. Oh good, my Dremel's out for delivery. That's a relief. There's a uh a Japanese movie from uh let's see here, uh 1989. It's called Tetsuo the Iron Man. I am not recommending this movie, but I'm telling you about this movie. I would like to now, in toto, read you the entire second paragraph of the plot. Okay. And and then uh if you approve all things out after that, you ready? Yes, you've earned multiple battles. Please, please. Well we i it helps to know in the first paragraph he has a self-inflicted wound in his thigh, uh uh uh blah blah blah. Uh paragraph. At home, The salaryman sleeps next to his girlfriend and has a dream in which he is sodomized by organic metal machinery.

Waking up, he either imagines or discovers that metal is taking over his body. When he attempts to have sex with his girlfriend, his penis becomes a metallic drill, which leads him to lock himself away from his girlfriend. She approaches him, saying she's not afraid of him, but he attacks her, and when he tries to sexually assault her with his transformed penis, she stabs him in the neck. causing him to fall into unconsciousness. The salary man regains consciousness sometime later to find his girlfriend has impaled herself on his drill, killing her. You know about morgellons? Fuck. Do you know about morjolons? You know about mordulons? You know about the things that because of the plastics in your skin?

You know? Joni Mitchell thought she had morgulons. You know about mordulons? Yes. Yes. Imagine Mordellon's butt but it's little metal shavings. Uh yeah, and and mansions coming coming in. It's called uh it's called Tatsuo the Iron Man, and I don't think it's f I don't think it's a Marvel thing. That's not Robert. Do you think the word body horror sounds racist? Like if you did have a fake Chinese accent, would that be offensive if I said body horror? That's okay, right? Um hi See, I don't ask questions when I don't know what to say. I just don't say anything. Tell me no lies. Hey, look how early it is. 1155. raw transcript