Ep. 44: "The Story of Lola"
Hello.
Hi, John.
Hi, Berlin.
Oh, God.
It's early.
Are you recording from a different room?
Does it sound different?
Well, accepting the echo, I would expect that it sounded like you might be passing something through your bowels.
Oh, no, no, no.
I was thinking that you were hearing my head reverb.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
No, it's the same great taste in the same great room.
My red leather chair.
I have a red leather swivel chair that rocks and is on wheels.
And I'm sitting at a table that I found on the street.
Okay.
You know, you're nothing if not eclectic.
Eclectic.
Eclectic.
Now, this is probably a little personal, but I understand that sometimes you do record and you're all together.
That's right.
That's right.
In fact, that would be the case right now.
Oh, dear, dear, dear.
It's a warm day, and I am not even bothering with a sheet or a towel.
That's what I was going to ask.
Do you get stuck to the seat?
No, no, there's nothing that my natural form likes more than a little bit of leather, a little bit of warm leather.
Oh, God.
I'll be so glad when fall's here.
Yeah, well, when it's winter, I'm often bundled up in a parka and also leather.
Leather touch.
Lava parka.
That's like two umlauts away from an 80s metal band.
Lava parka.
But it's a beautiful day here.
It's warm.
It's morning.
It's a warm morning.
You sound like the late red barber when he would go on Morning Edition.
Come on in, Colonel.
I'm seated nude in a red leather chair.
The crepe muddle of Bloomin'.
That's fantastic.
And so, I mean, just for our listeners who may be coming in a little late on this, you're a late riser and you're a late go-to-sleeper.
That's correct.
I do not like to go to sleep at night.
Does that expose you?
I just don't find it.
I do not find going to sleep at night.
It's just not a thing that's on my to-do list.
And so when night comes, I get busy.
And then it often then is morning before I realize that I've forgotten to do something, which is go to sleep.
Oh, it's morning and I forgot to go to sleep.
Now, do you work on any of your little projects or your larger projects around the house?
That's really when you get steam on.
After the sun goes down, that's when John comes alive.
That's right.
But then once I am asleep, I really don't want to wake up.
I don't want to get up.
And often morning will...
turn to day and afternoon and then afternoon will turn to evening and I will I'll roll over in bed and I'll say did I forget to do something oh I forgot to wake up
And so I'm always chasing... I feel like the problem is that the Earth is on a 24-hour cycle, and I am on a 27-and-a-half-hour cycle.
You know, this is a thing.
Oh, it is?
Oh, I've read about this.
It turns out that actually each of us does have a different... Everybody's always thought, oh, different people need different amounts of sleep.
But there's been this...
you know, assumption all along that it's based on a 24 hour clock.
And, uh, one reason we're all screwed up.
I mean, there's a lot of reasons we're all screwed up because, because of sleep in particular, but, uh, is that, is that some people are on a slightly different clock and, uh, and there's all kinds of things we have to do with light and with, and with food and with consistency.
And I know light food and consistency have, have some role in your life, but consistency are my accountants.
Hmm.
That sounds like an awfully Caucasian set of accountants.
They really are.
They're all Norwegians.
Yeah, no, I believe that every day, if I had four more hours, in addition to the 24 hours that I was allotted, if there were four more hours that I could do with what I would...
I would have no problem interacting with the rest of the world.
I would be one of those people that gets up and goes out dressed in a button-down shirt and goes and does multi-level marketing or whatever it is that normal people do.
The beauty part is you could do multi-level marketing right from your red chair.
Well, right, except I don't have the four hours a day to allot to it because with multi-level marketing, you have to be really committed.
You get out of it what you put into it.
Oh, absolutely.
I think it starts out as something that's as simple as a part-time income muse.
But then by the time you're done, you've got a secret lover that's very high maintenance.
And really, you're right.
Garbage in, garbage out.
You know what I mean?
Effort in, money out.
So yeah, that extra four hours where it's like, okay, I've been awake for 20 hours and I feel good, but now I need eight hours of sleep.
I don't want to work ping pong, but it's like you've been gypped because you've got a clock that works for you.
It's just a little – I've been roamed.
You got roamed.
You got – you get a little bell for that one.
Thank you.
I like that.
I like that roamed.
I think Josh just signed them.
The –
No, but OK.
I'm going to find this article for you because it's a really good article.
And there's actually – there's a term for this that has to do with something like with social sleep debt.
And there's all kinds of problems.
One of the problems is like we sit around in the dark all day and we're not getting enough of the sunlight that tells our body that it's time to go to sleep and wake up.
Are you talking specifically about people with basement dungeons or –
Well, I think – Everyone's sitting around – or you mean in the dark in the sense that we don't – Well, you know, this is – they call it a vicious circle in psychology and neuroscience in Germany.
What is vicious circle in Germany?
They call it vicious circle, Scheisse.
Because the poop goes in, the poop goes out.
There's no end in sight.
I need four extra hours.
No end in sight.
I need Virmas-Octin hours.
Yeah, Virmas-Octin.
Virmas-Octin, Scheisse.
Yeah.
But here's the problem.
I think the reason a lot of people go into a dungeon and don't come out, they call it seasonal affective disorder.
So you know how some people get sad in their dungeons in the winter.
If you've got the right amount of UV lighting – and all the other thing is you never get jet lag if you do that right.
If you change the way that you eat a little bit before you fly, you change your lighting.
Now, I think somebody who spends a lot of time in a dungeon, whether by choice or otherwise, probably doesn't travel a lot.
Some people go into dungeons and don't come out because their Austrian father takes them down there and seals the door.
Because they're a mutant or just because that's where daddy likes you?
Because daddy's a bad man.
Daddy has to keep you clean and the world is dirty.
Daddy's a bad man.
Time to read the Bible.
That's right.
Daddy's going to come down and visit you, but he's not going to let you out.
Oh, God.
Can I introduce you to Uncle Lincoln?
Yeah.
Boy, there's just so many handles on this suitcase.
But the thing is – now according to this thing that I read that I probably won't be able to find, the eating is a big part of it too.
That a lot of your body is regulated.
And the example I remember this guy giving is one problem with jet lag is it is a multifaceted problem that involves – it involves your brain.
It involves several parts of your brain.
Like there's a part of your brain that sees light.
There's the part of your brain that knows how long it's been since you've eaten.
And you get this – jet lag comes out of this dissonance from all these different forces fighting with each other.
So your body may be in France while your liver is still over the Atlantic.
Yeah.
And, you know, and your bed is back there in Seattle.
Here's what I ate yesterday.
Okay.
I'm going to write this down.
I had one entire pot of coffee.
Okay.
I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Wait, wait, I'm sorry.
I'm just still catching up.
One pot of coffee.
Now, you know, a lot of people, they say when they got a cup of coffee, they don't mean an actual cup.
When you say a pot, you don't mean like a terrine.
You mean like a Mr. Coffee style.
Mr. Coffee style, 12 cup.
You had 12 coffee cups of coffee.
If you can put 12 cups of coffee in a Mr. Coffee pot.
I don't know.
I've never tried.
But whatever that Mr. Coffee Pot is.
Just for reference, most drip coffee makers are either 10 or 12 cup models.
Right.
Mine is a 10 cup model.
That's good.
You're showing restraint.
So I had one of those.
Can I ask you a question?
Was it hot while you were drinking?
This wasn't over the course of a day.
It was hot.
But it was before it all burned off.
You drank...
you drank 10 cups of coffee at a sitting.
Does your, does your coffee maker brew so hot that over the course of the day, it burns off like a, like a gas flare.
I'm sorry to be the one who's doing a little flame on the top.
It looks like very blade runner.
Oh,
We have a Tyrell coffee maker.
It's got giant glasses and an owl.
All right.
So then I had a peanut butter sandwich.
Tannhauser Gates.
But the thing is, if you don't – you know why they make that little litty thing?
Part of the reason for the litty thing is if it sits on the burner – now, we have a really nice Cuisinart where you can keep it at low, medium, or high heat and keep the carafe warm.
But the thing is, as you know from working in restaurants, if that coffee sits too long – like in your case, you go into a bar.
Oh, sure.
It gets all Bernie and you, you order coffee and you're going to go and, and please go fucking make the coffee now.
Oh, I've been drinking coffee out of gas stations in the American desert Southwest for 25 years.
I know from coffee that's been sitting for, you know, from coffee from four, four days.
I do this at the seven 11.
I'm actually a strangely a fan of the entire seven 11 coffee experience.
I like it all fucking stem to stern.
No, no.
Do you put stoke in?
Do you ever, do you ever drop a stoke?
What's a stoke?
A stoke.
You know how you get those little shitty creamers because they're too cheap to put out a giant thing at half and half?
Yeah, of course.
You get little shitty creamers.
You get little shitty creamers of like French vanilla.
I don't use flavored creamers.
Fuck that in the eye.
Like what?
Like strawberry vanilla?
Fuck that.
But there's these little – and you get the little half and half.
My dad called that stuff Sissy Coffee.
That's pretty good.
At a certain point, someone introduced my dad to international coffee.
Little cans?
Little cans, international coffee.
I think you're supposed to sit around and enjoy that with elderly friends.
And it was like Swiss-flavored or something.
It tastes like Switzerland.
it tastes like switzerland it's taciturn and timely and my dad would every once in a while when friends would come over you know he would he would be like i'm gonna make you guys some sissy coffee this is my dad before he became an old man and he had a he had a full full voice i'm gonna make you some sissy coffee and he'd go make this french coffee that's that tasted like chocolate or swiss swiss chocolate
Oh, my God.
Sissy coffee.
And so you get those little shitty little creamers where you don't even have to refrigerate them.
Yeah.
What's a stoat?
I think it's called stoke with the bar over the O, like a long O. But imagine – and I'm just saying, first of all, this drives me nuts because I'm a big creamer.
You are a big creamer.
I get a larger coffee than I need and then I top it off.
Yeah, I like it real blonde, no sugar.
Now imagine one of those stupid little cream bullets.
Now imagine a black cream bullet.
But there ain't no cream in there, buddy.
It's caffeine.
It's a shot of caffeine.
And they say right on there, they warn you right on there.
right?
Don't use more than one of these a day.
You can buy them at a 7-Eleven?
Oh, buddy, you don't buy them.
They're sitting right there by the coffee.
What?
You're kidding me.
Yeah.
So there's like, so you go, if it's like, how do they keep the junkies from just living there?
Well, I think they've got to just sweep them out of there sometimes.
No, you come in there, and the thing is, the thing about a 7-Eleven, like a McDonald's, if it's busy, it's going to be good.
A busy 7-Eleven, they're making a lot of coffee.
Now, I'm like a crazy person when I go get coffee from 7-Eleven.
I sniff.
I look for all the fullest, latest pots.
I sniff each one of them.
If it's too accurate and bitter, I turn it away.
Right?
Leave it.
Leave it.
But then I go grab a stoke, I drop that, and I top it off.
I'm not really going anywhere with this except to say that you need to go to 7-Eleven.
They do still have the pump chili, as our listeners have told us, and the cheese.
I haven't been to a 7-Eleven in a long time.
You know, all the 7-Elevens in Seattle are owned by Sikhs now.
Huh.
Yeah.
And I love and appreciate the Sikh people.
Right.
That's different from the Sufis.
Yeah, very different.
But I have not – I kind of got off the Slurpee train at a certain point there, and I have not gotten back on it.
Well, we – every Sunday morning when we go out for daddy-daughter breakfast, we get her a donut there.
And so, yeah, and I get a giant-ass coffee because I don't like the coffee at the place we eat breakfast.
Actually, we bring a lot of our own stuff.
The last time we went to breakfast at this place, we call it Irish breakfast.
I get a mixed grill.
What is that?
A one raw potato and a beer?
And a fight.
It's a potato and a fist fight.
Have I told you about the mixed grill that I get every Sunday morning?
Yes.
Have I told you about it?
I think so.
It's a pork chop.
It's liver.
It's Irish bacon, Irish sausage, two eggs, potatoes, a grilled tomato, and grilled mushrooms.
Is the restaurant where you eat in 1950?
It's called J.J.
O. Cholesterol.
Where do you go that serves liver for breakfast on a buffet?
It's an Irish restaurant.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
I'm going to take you there because you know what else they got?
They've got like, you know, those Irish, they call it an Irish breakfast roll.
Basically, it's all like regular food, but they put Irish in front of it.
And Irish coffee, that's a whole different thing.
You can't have that.
But at any rate, we bring a lot of our own stuff.
I don't like their silverware.
I don't like their coffee.
I don't like the water.
And so we go in there with a bag.
So I put up a photo the other day of my daughter and I at this place.
We're drawing X-Men logos.
And so I bring in a large coffee from 7-Eleven, a donut for her.
I bring my own knife.
I bring a leather man because I don't like their knives.
I bring bendy straws for her.
We come in there with a whole package because I don't like anything about it except the mixed grill.
Anyway, so you had one pot of coffee.
Now, the peanut butter and jelly.
What kind of bread?
What kind of jelly?
Well, I do a raspberry jelly exclusively.
Not a jam.
Not a jam or a marmalade.
Not a jam.
A raspberry jelly.
Oh, you know what?
I'll use a jam.
You have a stand on marmalade, right?
I don't use a marmalade because I don't want orange in my sandwich.
That's strictly for the continental breakfast at the Days Inn crowd.
Here's the thing about orange.
Leave it alone.
Leave it in the orange.
Yes.
You know what I mean?
Don't take the orange out of an orange and put it on a cake.
Well, you like an orange juice because that's just the juice from an orange.
That's just an orange that's turned into juice.
I have a strong position on mixing two good things into something fucked up.
Christmas porn.
Yeah.
Leave Christmas alone, leave porn alone.
Oh, Christmas porn is great.
I think Christmas porn is a terrible idea.
But then I play Santa Claus every year, so I am able to get into the character of Christmas porn.
There's one particular photo of you with two desperately cute girls sitting on your lap.
They used to go in your mom's refrigerator.
There are many, many, many photos of me with desperately cute girls sitting on my lap dressed as Santa Claus.
And so when I see Christmas porn, I'm like, I can identify with this.
I am the Santa in this.
Unlike most porn where you may not have a beer can cock, like you really can put yourself literally in that position.
That's right.
Have you ever leveraged Santa?
How do you mean?
How do you think I mean?
Well, there's a group of girls here in Seattle, because it is the Northwest, who have mixed burlesque and elves, elvishness, elvendom.
No, there's not.
They have mixed burlesque and elvendom.
Are these like tattooed chunky girls with pointy ears?
Oh, you got it.
They got pointy ears.
They got pointy ears and they come to my... When I play Santa at Christmas time, these girls come and are my dirty little elves.
And there are often 8 to 12 of them.
Did you just say dirty little elves?
That's right, I did.
I may have to rescind my feeling on Christmas porn.
And they – so people – the gig is people come and sit on my lap and have their picture taken and the dirty little elves gather around.
But when – but it's often like at an indie rock event where people are shy about coming and sitting on my lap.
Like they're standing over there and they've got their –
Creeper Lagoon t-shirt on, and they've got their little tattoo of a bird.
And they're like, I want to go sit on his lap, but I don't know.
I don't know.
Should I?
I don't know.
Is it cool?
I don't know.
And in that period, while those people are making up their mind, the dirty little elves will...
take turns sitting on my lap and having their picture taken and invariably they want to bend over santa's lap and have him give them a paddling oh come on and then it it goes from there it's really christmas every day it's really part of the you know i'm getting in the holiday spirit right now just sitting here i read leather chair
I'm glad it's not Christmas because I cannot stand up right now.
Oh, my goodness.
Anyway, back to the coffee.
So what I decided – Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Easy, Tex.
So you're telling me that that's a serving suggestion.
You get a girl with oversized glasses and a bird tattoo and you fucking spank her in a bar, and that's a fucking serving suggestion.
People in the audience say some settling may occur.
Come on up.
I can get that.
I can get that.
She looks fine.
She looks happy.
There's a handsome young gay couple here in Seattle who met for the first time.
They are now married.
They met for the first time sitting on my lap.
Both of them.
When I was dressed as Santa.
Yeah, they met one another.
Yeah.
You're changing lives.
Yeah.
I've been doing this Santa gig for many years and it's been a real, I have to say, every year I'm like, as I'm pulling on my Santa costume that now looks like the one that Dan Aykroyd wore in Trading Places.
There's actually like a salmon in it.
I bet the pants can stand up by themselves.
As I'm pulling it on, I'm like, oh, God, am I really doing this fucking Santa thing again?
And then I show up at the bar, the event or wherever.
The place is full of people.
There are like eight to 12 dirty little elves.
Would you please stop saying that?
There's invariably like the delightful young gay couple who married after meeting on my lap.
And I just feel like, ah, right.
Santa's home.
Hello, everyone.
Hello.
Talk about a North Pole.
Somebody brew me a pot of coffee.
As a sidebar, I'm out of here.
Can I ask you, to the extent possible, can you help me scare up some photographs of that?
Oh, my goodness, yes.
Because I want to Photoshop myself into them.
I have them in spades.
Dirty little elves, are any of them actually kind of little?
Are there statuesque ones?
Here's the thing about burlesque girls.
They come in many, many shapes and sizes.
And they're all wonderful.
And in the case of the... There's something really joyful about it.
There really is.
And in the case of the ones down in Portland, which has a much larger actual stripper culture...
The burlesque, because Portland has strip clubs where Seattle really doesn't.
I remember.
Yeah, I know.
Portland burlesque girls are coming at it from a different place.
They're much more, it feels much more professional down there.
In Seattle, the burlesque scenes are, I would characterize them as enthusiasts.
Yeah.
They are often girls who are not coming, have never stripped, are not coming at it from a like, this is, you know, this is my gig.
I mean, I gotta tell you, buddy, I love an enthusiastic amateur.
Yeah, they're coming at it from a like, oh my God, I made this great costume and now I'm going to like take half of it off.
And you go, this is wonderful.
It's a wonderful time to be alive.
I support this 100%.
So when you talk about Portland stripper culture, now are these gals pros?
I mean, are they doing it as their primary – is it a means of woman empowerment or is it a way to make a buck or both?
I mean, are they playing heavens to Betsy while they're dancing or how does that work?
My survey of the strippers of Portland is incomplete, I have to say.
It's been a hit or miss survey.
It's largely anecdotal.
Yeah.
This is one of the things about Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco that people who live elsewhere may not realize, which is that until very recently, within living memory, all three of those cities were disgusting seaports full of human flotsam and rats, piled up garbage, and the last dregs of hippie culture
rednecks, and sailors from Indonesia who got, you know, shanghaied and then kicked off the boat on the West Coast.
In all cases, much more at the heart of it, blue-collar culture.
Absolutely.
Blue-collar towns, there was no computer industry.
The arts were much more regional.
And all three of those cities made a living from
The ocean primarily and then to a lesser degree, the forests and the surrounding farms.
But there was I mean, Seattle had Boeing.
San Francisco obviously had, you know, a more vibrant economy.
Portland had nothing.
Portland had had lumber mills.
And that was pretty much it.
So not only when I was a kid, but up into my teen years and early 20s, all three of these cities were unsafe, unfriendly, uncool, dangerous, scary, murdering, like shitholes perched on the edge of the world.
And nobody thought that the West Coast was a good place to be.
And, you know, like Los Angeles, of course, was its own version of...
Except in place of trees, it was prostitution and Judaism.
But in the last 20 years, all three of these cities have reformed.
Seattle has cleaned up incredibly.
If you were transported from 20 years ago in Seattle to present day, you wouldn't recognize it at all.
The city has become a giant mall.
We pushed everything bad out.
and replaced it with just, like, the most banal sort of cotton candy culture.
And that's obviously happened in San Francisco to a large degree, although the mission continues to be what it is.
The mission continues to be disgusting in a way that there's no longer a mission in Seattle, and there once was.
But Portland, in its way, has...
It has maintained at its core a kind of darkness that all the new condo buildings and all the young people moving there to start techno bands cannot displace the fact that at the center of the heart of Portland, there is a greasy bald man with a comb over paying for sex with a 15-year-old runaway.
That is at the center of Portland's soul.
And I don't think with all the fire hoses in the world, you could push those two into the river.
Like, they are there.
And I don't know what it will take to exercise that from Portland's heart.
So anyway, when I see anyone engaged in, like, sex games in Portland, burlesque or stripping or, you know, anything involving, like, women dancing for money...
I feel it's always more professional, and by that I mean harder-edged and darker and based on a... I ran away from home... I ran away from my stepfather and I ended up here type of vibe.
Whereas...
A lot of that is gone from Seattle, and it's gone from here because of a paternalistic city culture where they're like, you can't drink in a strip club here.
You go into a strip club... Yeah, they want to keep it pure.
Yeah, you have to buy a $10 Coke.
You know, to sit in a strip club here, and it's a $20 cover to get in the door and all this stuff.
And by imposing these kind of, like, rules, they've just pushed every strip club out of town, except for, like, the three or four that are...
The three or four that are here just for those guys that are like, come on, I'll pay.
I'll pay.
I'll buy a $20 Coke.
I just want to see some girl's boobs.
Right.
And so there are, you know, there are half a dozen here, but they don't have that raucous spirit.
I mean, the strip clubs in Alaska.
Oh, boy.
We used to, I mean, when I was still a teenager...
I mean, at the time in the 80s, the doorman at a club in Alaska, his job as he saw it, as the city saw it, there was a guy standing there checking IDs, but his job was just to keep, I think his job was to keep the Russians out.
I don't know what he thought his job was.
It was to keep Russian sailors from invading or something because my friend Kel and I were 16 years old.
And we would sit at home and try on different trucker caps looking for the one that made us look like 18 and a half.
And we'd get the right costumes on where we felt like we looked like guys.
We looked like working guys.
And then we would go downtown and cruise...
The strip clubs.
And it was... The strip clubs of Anchorage were more of an education in human nature for me in... I'm talking about 1985.
1984, 1985.
I learned more about human nature from sneaking into strip clubs than from almost any other thing I've ever done.
Is that right?
Because... From the patrons or the gals, the management...
The whole thing.
There's so much crazy money in Alaska.
It's in the hands of people who, in most cases, at least at the time, didn't have a high school education.
And the strippers would come from all around the world.
Because there are guys that are like throwing down $5,000, $6,000.
There's probably only so many places to spend it, right?
I mean it isn't like you can go out and – I mean they don't have like a Chuck E. Cheese for oil men.
Like there's only so many places.
Oh, there was a Chuck E. Cheese for oil men?
Are you kidding?
This was Alaska.
I need to learn.
Yeah.
No, it's not that there were, I mean, there were a million, billion, trillion places to spend it, but the situation is, here's a guy, he's 24 years old.
He is from Oklahoma.
He never got a high school diploma, but he got his start working on oil rigs in the Gulf.
And then he got contracted to come up and work on the pipeline.
And they are paying him four times the money he was making in Oklahoma.
But if he was married, he didn't bring his wife and kids.
Chances are he wasn't married because he's working 18-hour days.
And then they're paying him in cash.
So when he gets out, what is he going to spend it on?
He's not going to go to the performing arts center and watch the Nutcracker.
He's going to buy some cocaine, buy some booze, go to a strip club, and then go to a hotel and repeat that until his money's gone.
And of course, in the 80s, that was at the peak of the salmon fishery too.
So guys would go out for three months on a fishing boat and come home and they'd have $50,000, $60,000 in cash.
My God, really?
That much?
Yeah, and they were, and this is because the fisheries, so a lot of these guys, and my friend Kel is one of them, he made 50 grand fish and salmon for three years running.
Spent it all on champagne and hookers.
And then the bottom fell out of the fishing.
The price of salmon just plummeted.
The government put all these restrictions on who could, you couldn't just, like, if you had a motorboat and a fishing pole, you couldn't just, or a motorboat and a net, you couldn't just go out there and take as much salmon as you wanted anymore.
And so the bottom fell out.
And then all these guys were suddenly making $8,000 in three months where they were once making $50,000.
And when Kel was 23 years old, the IRS contacted him and said, you owe us like $116,000 in unpaid taxes.
But the bottom had fallen out of the economy up there, and now he's making $30,000 a year instead of $170,000 a year.
And he was paying the IRS back for a decade and a half.
But the salmon stuff, like the oil stuff, that's pretty hard work, right?
Right.
oh, yeah, it's hard work, but when you're 20 years old, what else are you going to do?
You're working 18-hour days and you feel like you're going to be able to do it forever.
So I would go into these places and all around the world now, if you go into a strip club, there are all these policies like don't touch the girls, you have to sit back here, there are kind of big thuggy guys walking around the bar making sure that nothing gets out of hand.
But it's rules everybody knows.
Everybody knows the rules and everybody plays by them.
Well, in the 80s in Alaska, it was literally a situation where the girl was dancing on the bar and guys were grabbing her ankles and she was... I can't imagine that she was...
not a little bit afraid, but she was projecting a kind of confidence of like, that's right, boys!
You know?
Give me your best shot!
If you can grab it, you can have it!
Do your worst.
You know, do your worst.
And the bartender is standing right behind her just slinging bottles at these guys.
And he's got like a Derringer in his shirt pocket and a shotgun on the bar.
And it's just like...
everybody knew the rules then too but the rules were the rules were like uh there were just two like if you touch the if you put your finger in the girl's poopy he's gonna shoot you with the shotgun and if you uh if you pull out a gun he's gonna shoot you with a shotgun those were like the two rules like don't you pull out a gun and don't touch her in her don't touch her in the beer handle place
No six-packing, gents.
Otherwise, it was a free-for-all.
And in my experience, every of the multiple times that I snuck into these places...
The person in charge of the room, and the room was absolutely, and in a lot of cases, there was no lighting.
It was just fluorescent lights hanging down.
Oh, God.
That sounds awful.
They had turned what had formerly been like a bingo parlor into a strip club, and there were 800 guys in a space that should have had like 60 guys.
But in every case, at least from my perception, the woman was in charge of the room.
There was one visible woman or two visible women in the room and they were absolutely in charge.
Every guy in the room was at their, you know, if she, if she pointed to a guy and she was like, you get out of here or you, you know, take a step back.
Like the guy would absolutely step, do what she said.
And it was because all the other guys in the room would enforce her.
Like the patrons would enforce the woman's dictum.
Right.
So if she said, this guy's, you know, get this guy away from me.
Six guys would grab him and he would be gone in an instant.
Boy, there's there's no there's no twenty dollar bill that's going to impress a lady so much as kicking some guy's ass.
Exactly.
And that was that was, you know, that's it was it was such an animal culture where all these other guys were like, I'll do that for you, lady.
Like a very old West kind of vibe.
And of course, I was a big kid, but I was so terrified in these places.
I mean, you walk around now and you think like you see these kids with the tattoos on their faces or you see like people that are...
that are that are like tough looking but there's nothing to compare to a guy who's been working on the north slope of alaska or a guy that's that's been working out in the in the in the ocean up there the kind of toughness that they have the scariness that they that they possessed i would just i'd you know of course i would go right to the front because that's how i go that's how i do
But they were so terrifying, these men.
And I was just trying to like, I squared my shoulders off and was like, yes, I am another man here.
Just having some lady times.
It must be a really weird adjustment to go from being around.
I mean, clearly we can see the friction, as you say, of a man who spent a lot of time in Alaska having to come back to the States.
But it must be really jarring to go from that kind of a culture to pretty much anywhere else.
I mean, it's like being on the frontier.
It's like being in that Indiana Jones bar.
Yeah, it took me a couple of years after I was down here to moderate my voice and my expectations of other people.
And I would walk into a party and be like, is this party going to go off or what?
And I'd grab the host's father's beer stein and I'd throw it through his front window.
Yeah.
You got to establish yourself.
Yeah.
And it was, and you know, and everybody would just be like, and like, I would come up and say, you know, you, that was my dad's beer Stein and you owe me $1,500.
Oh man, this party sucks.
It did.
It took me a while to reign it in.
And I feel like a lot of guys come out of Alaska, they come down to the States, and they can't reign it in, or they don't want to.
And they turn around and they head back up there.
Because to live like that, to live in that culture...
To keep that kind of energy going, but down here in America, you have to really be digging into prison culture or whatever.
You have to be going to bars where everybody there has just recently been paroled.
And up there, that's kind of the vibe.
Let's just say, I mean, not every bar.
Obviously, there are Fern bars in Alaska, too.
But a much larger cross-section.
It sounds a little like almost like a still in Saigon kind of vibe.
Like you're still reaching for your rifle in the middle of the night.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, like that scene in Deer Hunter where he goes back to Vietnam to find... Not Rutger Hauer.
What was his name?
Christopher Walken?
Christopher Walken.
He goes back to find Christopher Walken and he's in there playing...
It's so early.
What's the game?
Russian Roulette.
Are you talking about when they're in the DD Mao?
In the DD Mao.
You can cut all this out.
I am a legitimate old school pussy.
I'm so uncomfortable in a place like that.
In Portland.
Didn't I ever tell you the story of Lola?
I don't think I've ever heard the story of Lola.
So I was at one of these strip clubs.
And Kel and I had gotten up.
We were up at the front.
So the... It's a... You know, the girl is dancing on the table.
And we had pushed our way through this crowd and gotten so that we were sitting at the table.
Not just, like...
Not just leaning on the table, but we were in seats, you know what I mean?
We crowded up to the front until some guy left his chair, and then one of us grabbed a chair, and then some other guy left his chair, and then we both had chairs.
That's pretty type A behavior.
It was quite an accomplishment to be up there sitting in chairs.
And there were guys, like, falling over us from behind, pushing in between.
But we kind of, like, scrunched together, and we had this little block where we felt mostly safe.
Like, okay, we're here.
We're secure, and we're here at the table.
And there were girls dancing on the table.
And every time a girl would get done dancing, you know, the guys are just throwing money at them.
When it was time for that girl to leave and the next girl to come out, every guy in the bar would start chanting, Lola, Lola, Lola, Lola.
And then another girl would come out and she'd be like, I'm not Lola, but this is what you get.
And everybody would go, woo!
Woo!
And she'd dance and everybody'd throw money at her.
And then she'd leave and everybody'd go, Lola, Lola.
And the next girl would come out and be like, fuck you.
I'm not Lola, but here I am.
Take a look at my pussy.
And so Kel and I are sitting at the table and we're like, who's this Lola?
We got to see this Lola.
She's like...
Lola's the one, you know.
But as the evening wears on, because we've been just chugging beers, I have to go to the bathroom.
And I sit there in my chair until I really, really, really, really have to go to the bathroom.
And I don't want to get up.
First of all, I don't want to get up and lose my chair.
But also, I'm 16, right?
I don't want to get up and turn around and have somebody in the bar look at me and go...
Who's that kid?
Get him out of here.
So I'm sitting at the table and I'm like, I'm saying to Kel, like, I gotta go to the bathroom.
And he's like, well, I don't know what to tell you.
Like, and I, after a while, I can't hold it anymore.
Well,
We're drinking... What they're serving in the bar is Mickey's.
Oh, God.
And Mickey's came in a Big Mouth bottle.
It was called Mickey's Big Mouth.
Mickey's Big Mouth.
I've had a few of those.
And so after a while... Just to be clear, it's a malt liquor.
It's a malt liquor.
It's a fortified beverage.
Kel says, you know, go in Mickey's bottle.
Oh, no.
That's not going to be big enough.
And so, well, so sitting at the table...
I put the Mickey's bottle under the table, and I unzip my fly, and I start to go pee in the Mickey's bottle.
Oh, Jesus, John.
And there's a girl stripping right in front of me, and I'm surrounded by guys, and I can't say whether I'm the only guy with his dick out in the bar, but I am definitely the only one peeing in a Mickey's bottle, at least that I can see, and I'm trying to pull it off.
Well, it's your first time.
That's right.
And I fill this Mickey's bottle up to the very, very rim.
And you're absolutely right.
There's not enough room in the Mickey's bottle for all of the pee.
Oh, God.
And so I'm like, fuck, what do I do with this Mickey's bottle?
Order another round, fast.
No, there are empty Mickey's bottles.
I mean, the bar is just covered with empty bottles because there's no busser.
It's just bottles everywhere.
And at that point,
The girl gets off the stage and Lola comes out.
Now, I'm sitting here with my penis out with a bottle full to the rim of pee under the table.
And I still have to be.
So you're pinched at this point.
I'm pinched.
You're a young man, so you can handle that for a while.
It's not like today.
Right.
I'm pinched.
And here comes Lola.
And Lola strides out on stage, and the place goes bonkers.
And Lola is a pretty, like, lean, dark-haired girl with a huge gap between her front teeth.
and uh you know she she's not like a big big she's not a buxom girl she's she's a she's a little scrapper you know she's like a she's a terrier and she comes out on the stage and she just absolutely owns the room she's marching back and forth she's like shouting at people she's pointing at guys she knows guys by name and the bar goes bananas
And I don't, you know, I'm getting pushed from behind.
So I take the Mickey's Big Mouth.
This was the, this was the error, the classic error.
I do not put the Mickey's Big Mouth full of pee on the floor, which is what I should have done.
I put it on the bar.
I pick, pull it up.
I set it next to me on the bar.
No, no, no.
And I grab another bottle and I make it half full of pee or however much more pee there is.
And I put that on the bar.
And I zip up my pants.
And Kel and I are watching Lola.
We're trying to figure out...
But at this point, you're thinking more about the pee than Lola.
No, no, no.
I put the pee up there, and I'm like, I'm done.
I am out of it.
It's just this bottle now has disappeared into a whole collection of bottles on the stage.
I'm now focusing on Lola 100%, and Kel and I both are trying to figure out why is this woman...
such a icon to these guys.
And it's obvious why, uh, she's like, she's the most rock and roll person.
Anyone, any of us have ever seen.
She is, she's so rock and roll.
And so like, uh, she's so owning the room that there's just no comparison.
You know, she, like I say, she's, she's, she's kind of a lean boyish gal, but, but she has a, she has sexual charisma, uh,
And so Kel and I are like leaning on the bar watching this girl.
And I feel a tap on my shoulder.
And I turn around.
And it's a sailor, a guy in a U.S.
Navy uniform.
Pie-eyed drunk.
And he points to my pee and he says, is that your beer?
Oh, my God.
And I said, nope.
And he kind of looks around and sort of sly, grabs it, and it is steaming hot.
And takes a big draft off it.
And Kel goes...
That's it.
We're out of here.
And grabs me.
And the two of us run through that, push our way through that crowd and leave that scene in our rearview mirror.
And I swear to you, we ran and ran.
We got out of that bar and ran and ran and ran.
But he didn't immediately flinch.
He figured somebody had abandoned a beer and it got warm.
Yeah.
That's what Sean in his drunken U S Navy dumbass state of like Lola intoxication.
He took a big, big healthy drink of my pee right off the bar.
And I was absolutely certain in that moment, I was paralyzed.
If Kel hadn't grabbed me,
I don't know what would have happened, but I was sitting there absolutely paralyzed that he was going to break that bottle across my face.
Were you at all tempted to warn him?
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
No, no, no, no.
I mean, he's like, is that your beer?
And that was all I could do to say, like, no.
I mean, I wasn't going to like, no, no.
Hey guy.
Hey bro.
Hey, just between dudes.
That's P. There's no, there's no good answer other than the one you gave.
Well, yeah, right.
It wasn't mine, but if you said, if you said it was yours, he's got a prisoner's dilemma here.
If he said it was yours, he, he, he would have said, then you're going to get in a fight.
Yeah.
I mean the, the, the, the correct answer, if it happened today, if I was in that same situation today, I would say, Hey, just between you and me, don't drink that wink.
And he would move on.
But I was 16.
I didn't have the confidence to do a thing like that.
When he tapped me on the shoulder, I was sure that it was a guy there to tell me that we were kids and we needed to get out of there.
So it was a low moment.
I can still touch the fear that I had.
I can still reach out and remember the pure terror.
And yet...
And yet Kel and I would go again and again to these strip bars.
And the thing was, it wasn't even, at least for me, like I don't like going to strip bars.
Like the idea of watching, of paying somebody to dance naked for you is not like appealing to me.
But I was so, this seemed like the place where people were the most alive that I had ever seen in my life, you know?
I mean, that's a lot of conflicting emotion.
It's bound to have an impact on you.
Absolutely.
I mean, I was – because I'm also looking at the women and saying like this is what should be – I should learn to like this, right?
You know what I mean?
Like I was thinking I need to learn to appreciate this because this is what –
is attractive or this is like, this is sexiness.
Oh, especially when you're 16.
I mean, if you're 25, there's any number of angles, but in that case you, you, you better, you better be into it.
Yeah.
I mean the, the, the, uh, at one point I found out in the woods, a stack of iron horse magazines, which was a biker, biker magazine, an old magazine for that was, that was for like a renegade bikers.
And they always had a centerfold, uh,
in that magazine of, like, a biker chick that posed naked on, you know, sort of draped across somebody's custom Harley.
And those girls were always like Lola.
They were... You could see how fierce they were, and they weren't strictly beautiful.
They were hardcore.
And so, you know, I had that to go on, and I had...
But but but going into these strip clubs, you know, it's like, well, what is that when you're 16?
What else have you seen where people are in a mob scene like that, like a high school football game, maybe or or an all school dance?
I mean, it just it can't compare.
You see, the time that I was in a strip club with you, I was you and I were both very uncomfortable.
I thought you handled – you comported yourself very well.
It was – what weirded me out – well, first of all, I was weirded out just because it's really, really not my scene.
But I was really quite taken aback with how extremely comfortable several of our friends were.
Nay, more than comfortable.
Yes.
No, enthusiastic and like – These are people that I've seen looking awkward in a food court and they fit right in.
They were very – they understood everything.
They knew – I don't even say the rules.
It was like they're going to Cheers or something.
Yeah, it was very unusual for me.
Merlin and I and a group of our friends who you would look at and say, oh, what a bunch of nerdy... What a bunch of fruits.
What a bunch of nerdy tech guys with their two short pants.
We were all hanging out, and it was like, all right, it's getting kind of late.
What do you guys want to do?
And a few of these characters were like, let's go to a strip club.
And when they first said it, you know, I was playing host.
When they first said it, I thought it was a joke.
I thought they were being facetious.
I was like, ha, ha, ha.
Yeah, strip club.
And they were like, no, seriously.
Let's go to a strip club.
And I was like, strip club?
Really?
And I felt exactly the same in some ways as I would have when I was 16, 19, or 25, which is that I'm not sure if I'm okay with this politically.
I know I'm going to be uncomfortable.
Yeah, but okay.
But no, but I mean it isn't like – and by the way, just so you know, I spent about the last hour doing very little except for looking at pictures of girls sitting with you as Santa.
But I could get comfortable with that.
But there's just – there's something about –
You know what it is partly?
It's like if you go anywhere dirty, like a dirty place, excepting places in Alaska, they're a little too clean and they smell a little too much like pinesol.
There's something about it that's like – it's almost like a well-kept slaughterhouse.
We're like, you guys have done a great job here.
It's obviously humane and artisanal, but clearly some bad shit goes down here.
And if you recall, so we walk into this strip club here in Seattle.
You walk up steps.
Walk up some steps, pay a $20 cover and buy a $10 Coke.
And we're standing there and, you know, and our friends have like, they can't slap.
They're disappearing into banquettes in the back.
They can't slap that $20 down fast enough.
And they are in there.
And you and I are standing there and getting the lay of the land.
It's like they know the floor plan.
It's like fucking Mission Impossible.
They're right in.
And one of them is like, I like Chinese girls.
Give me that Chinese girl.
And the other one's like, I like Hispanic girls.
Come over here, Missy.
I mean, they were like in charge.
John, they come up and talk to you.
The girls talk to you there.
They come up and talk to you.
It's really weird.
What was crazy about that event was you and I were standing at the front still looking at our $20 bills kind of
wistfully going, I don't want to pay $20 for this.
Really?
Do I have to?
And we're standing there talking and the door opens and out comes like a local empresario and future mayoral candidate here in Seattle who's like, hey, John, how are you, buddy?
big back slap and i'm like oh hey and he's like oh i didn't know you came here come with me and he he wraps his arm around my shoulder i don't know if you i might have left you at this point no i blocked out he guides me through the bar to the back he's like there's somebody i want you to see like pushes me through all the way to the back where there are curtained off areas there are like like um
you know twin beds back there covered with velvet and kind of curtained off with with a lacy curtain and i'm like oh god where are you taking me what are we doing and we walk back there and he he pulls the curtain back and there's a guy a friend of mine who is a who's like a local club booker with two girls on him oh
And the guy who's got his arm around me was like, you know, jump in there.
Look at that guy.
I paid for those girls.
Oh, no.
So we have a right now to, like, you know, jump on him.
And I was like, I don't want to jump on him.
I don't want to be here.
This is disgusting.
And the girls were like...
I don't know.
The whole scene.
My friend, the booker, was shit-faced.
His lap dance was just about to turn into a nap dance.
And I just wanted out.
So I extricated myself from that bacchanalia and came back and found you sitting on one of the – it wasn't a couch.
I was near the stage paying politely as often as I thought I needed to to not stand out.
Right, right.
You're just throwing a dollar bill periodically just so that they – so they didn't notice you.
The thing is if a girl comes up and talks to you, excuse me, an empowered woman, comes up and talks to you in a place like that.
I mean I'm going to sound like such a dick if I go, you know, I don't really want to be here.
I'm not comfortable with this.
It's like, well, no, this is where I work.
This is what I do.
And you give me money to sit here and pretend to like you, and that's kind of why you're in here, idiot.
It's like going to McDonald's and complaining about beef.
It's not going to stack up.
But I don't want to encourage it.
You know what I mean?
It would be like hand-feeding goats at the petting zoo or something.
Well, they're trying to convince you to pay them $40 to give you a personal –
I think what they're doing is, which our friends were happily doing so many dances, so many, I guess that's what they call it.
But I mean, yeah, yeah.
They, and a couple of them went back a few times.
They went and got a refill.
Oh,
That is not how my sexuality manifests itself.
I wish I could have walked out of that situation feeling great about myself instead of just feeling like I was a homemade pussy.
No, you wish you could have walked out of there with a girl on each arm wearing a fur top hat and climbing into a white Bentley suit.
With a woman literally holding my dick.
Yeah, with a woman holding your dick and Rick James driving it.
That's what we all wish.
Instead, we slouched out of there in our dockers and went back to the hotel that was being paid for by the conference.
Oh, no.
What did you have after the peanut butter and jelly?
Oh, so I decided here's how I was going to consume coffee from now on.
Coffee cups are not big enough.
And I don't want to go... You get one of those fruity French bowls?
I don't want to go the route of some big coffee cup.
Like, if you go to Starbucks... You know what I'm talking about?
When you get one of those French kinds, it's like a bowl with a handle.
Like a cereal bowl with a handle.
I don't want to do that.
I'm opposed to this, John.
In the 90s, I drank coffee out of a pint glass.
And that was before the culture universally decided that a coffee cup was too hot to hold unless you had a paper diaper for it.
There was a time, if you can imagine this, before 1996.
When people could hold a warm beverage.
When people could hold a warm beverage without having a diaper on it.
Without needing a prosthetic device.
And so I used to drink coffee out of a pint glass, which is glass, and which got very hot.
But a serious pint glass, it won't shatter with the heat.
Is that right?
These are serious glass, old-style pint glasses.
But as time has gone on, I've realized that pint glasses are, when they're filled with hot coffee, are inherently unstable.
They are smaller at the bottom than they are at the top.
Mm-hmm.
So I do, and I want, you know, I want a coffee mug.
So anyway, I discovered, or I remembered, rather, all those two-liter beer steins from, like, Beerhausen Munchen.
You know, they all have all of the... In, like...
Bavaria, right?
They make those... They call it Schwartz Café Scheissen.
But they're not made for coffee.
They're made for beer.
They're beer steins, the Bavarian style.
I know what you're talking about.
It's like a foot high, right?
They're a foot high, and they're gray ceramic, and they have a little two-liter symbol that's been punched into them.
Oh, like the queen's measurement kind of thing?
Up to this line is two liters.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And then, generally, if it comes from a particular, like, beer house, beer stube, they have their emblem on it.
You know, their coat of arms is on these things.
So, I made it a point, as I travel through life, to collect... And this is the type of thing that, like, old men collect, right?
Beer steins.
Like, guys collect these...
And display them next to their wives' menagerie of Hummel figurines.
Or spoons.
Ladies like spoons.
Right.
Spoons or little bells.
Or spoons with bells.
I don't know if you've seen those.
Very popular.
Snow globes.
So I started buying these things.
And now I have a collection of beer steins that will hold two liters of coffee.
John, do you have any sense of how much coffee, how too much coffee anything approaching two liters is?
Not at all.
And does it keep it warm?
Yeah, because they're insulated to keep your beer cold.
You're telling me the Germans buy beer two liters at a time and drink it?
That's correct.
They drink two liters of beer at a time?
Have you ever seen the Hofbrauhaus in Munich?
I've seen photos.
The girl comes and she's got like 70 beer steins.
Oh, like the poly girl.
Boy, you could have to have a lot of upper body strength to do that.
Those girls are amazing.
They really – they are powerful, powerful ladies, the German girls.
But in any case, so I drink my coffee out of one of those.
I had a peanut butter sandwich.
I took a bath.
I'm talking about what I had to eat yesterday.
I got the coffee.
I got the coffee pot, the PB&J.
And so just to close that loop, that is the Stein is your current go-to.
You put – it sounds to me two liters.
Of course, for me, canonically, two liters would be like a two-liter plastic thing of Coke.
You know what?
These are 1.5 liter.
Oh, well, that's reasonable.
These are 1.5 liters.
That's right.
They're not two liters.
It's 1.5 liters.
1.5 liters.
And so that is two bottles.
Like if you get a bottle of liquor, my tequila comes in 750 milliliters.
I believe that's the standard for a bottle.
For a bottle that you're going to tuck into your shirt.
No.
Not for a bottle that you're going to... Let me look.
I'm pretty sure.
So that's... But anyway, that's a fuck ton of coffee.
Yeah.
And you put cream in.
You put cream in.
I did.
I put a little cream in there.
I'm not a... You're not an animal.
I know that the sultan said that putting cream in coffee ruins both things.
But I do not believe... It's like, see?
Now we're back to the Christmas porn.
But so then for lunch, I had some macaroni and cheese with hamburger in it.
Oh, she make that yourself.
Yes.
I believe that I believe that macaroni and cheese is only improved by adding hamburger or sausage to it.
Oh, boy.
Yes.
I don't know if I made my kielbasa dinner.
So do you make a craft dinner and you put do brown meat and then mix it up with the craft dinner?
Correct.
And sometimes I put a little, you know, a little garlic, a little onion in there.
Well, that sounds delicious and economical.
It's very good.
Craft dinner is not an expensive thing.
And this is different.
Obviously, this is different from Chili Mac.
This is straight up craft dinner with beef.
You ever make a Chili Mac?
I'm not a big fan of Chili Mac.
Okay.
But then later on in the day, I had two chocolate chip cookies, and then I had two Lifesavers.
And then at 1 o'clock in the morning, I made two hot dogs, and I covered it with a can of chili.
Okay.
And then eventually you went to bed.
And then I went to bed at 4 o'clock in the morning.
And now I'm talking to you.
It's very early.
My God.
And do you have a hot dog on a bun?
No.
I find that if I buy hot dog buns, I like hot dog buns.
If I buy a package of hot dog buns,
I use two of them, and then the rest sit in the refrigerator until they get molded.
They go blue.
They go blue real fast.
So it's not a thing that I feel is a good investment.
Hot dog buns... Like, if you buy a package of corn tortillas, they will... I mean, I have a package of corn tortillas in my refrigerator that now I'm keeping just to see...
Just to see if when I die, my heirs inherit this package of corn tortillas and still find them tasty and useful.
If you seal the bag, you'll be fine.
Keep it someplace dark.
They appear to last forever.
I don't know.
I've never seen a corn tortilla go bad.
But a hot dog bun will go bad in a blink of an eye.
So I feel like it's not a... Unless I'm having a barbecue, there's no reason to get a package of hot dog buns.
So no, it was just two hot dogs and I put some cheese on them, let's be honest.
And then I poured a can of chili on top of them.
What kind of what brand?
Not Dinty Moore.
Uh, no, I have to say that, that, that, uh, that the chili I used was stag chili.
Okay.
Now I've seen stag.
Every time I go to the store and I see chili, I think of you and I think, uh, that you would probably be, so you wouldn't, you, you wouldn't, you wouldn't think less of me if I, if I tried some canned chili.
No, I don't prefer it, but, uh, but in a pinch, if it's one o'clock in the morning and I feel like two chili dogs.
So stag chili, is there a certain varietal to get or watch out for with stag chili?
Well, so stag has a whole selection of chilies, different flavors.
But here's what I typically do.
I buy a bunch of vegetarian chili.
And then I buy a few cans of stag for when it's 1 o'clock in the morning.
But what I do is I buy a bunch of vegetarian chili, and then I make five pounds of hamburger, and I pour 15 cans of vegetarian chili in it.
And then I have a pot of... Are you wearing clothes while you're doing this?
It depends.
Isn't there splatter?
Sometimes just an apron with nothing else.
But I feel like... I feel like the problem with buying things like canned chili at a supermarket is that...
It's the pump chili problem.
At one point there is a cow and he's eating some grass and then somehow he becomes pump chili and everything in between the cow eating the grass and him being in a bag in a pump.
It's all stuff I don't want to know about.
You're not going to get that.
It's not going to be choice bits.
It's not.
It's not.
It's not going to be good at all.
And to the degree to which I can control my hamburger supply by buying organic hamburger from a local guy that I know, I try to do...
I got to tell you, I'll pick up a ribeye, but I'm getting a little antsy about the ground beef.
It's finally cheap chicken and cheap ground beef are starting to really worry me.
Yeah, because you know the process by which a Tyson's chicken is made?
There is nothing good about it.
From the time that the egg comes out of a chicken that is owned by Tyson to the time that that chicken tender...
is going through your gut like every step of the way something evil has happened and so anyway so I take the vegetarian chili which just by definition if you are selling vegetarian chili you are a hippie
And so I feel very confident if I buy a can that says organic vegetarian chili, that the chances of there being any hate in that can are very, very small.
Do you buy anything more masculine to offset the appearance that you're a giant faggot?
No, because I don't care what people in supermarkets think about it.
Good for you.
Good for you.
Can I tell you what bugs me?
You know what bugs me?
I don't like talking about my groceries.
Is this a problem that you have?
People want to talk to you about your groceries?
Oh, for the love of God.
At our Safeway, there used to be one lady, one hyper-bibulous woman.
I mean, you think I talk?
She's just a solid streak of nothing.
And she's just commenting on everything.
She clearly needs some of my medicine.
She's out of control.
And she talks about every single item.
Item?
Oh, she'll pull it up.
No, no, no.
This is not like going to Williams-Sonoma where they instructed to compliment you on your decisions and talk about interesting things you could do with it, which also drives me crazy.
I go in there and I buy SodaStream.
I hand in my old SodaStream.
I get new SodaStreams.
But they have to make a remark about it.
There might be a lot of people like this.
Do you like to make this with the mix?
No, I'd like you to take my money and let me leave the fucking mall.
Yeah.
I want to have a sign, sort of like with the taxi drivers, right?
I just want to say, turn off your music, throw away the air freshener, and for love of God, stop talking to me.
Well, it's like that at my dentist's office.
I sit down in the chair.
I mean, obviously, particularly at an orthodontist where they're used to talking to 10-year-olds.
I sit down in the chair, and the girl leans over, and she opens her mouth, and she's like...
Hi, how are you?
And she's farting rainbows in my mouth.
And I'm like, fuck off.
I don't want to talk to you.
Fix my goddamn teeth.
And you know what else?
Now, I'm ready to disagree on this one, but I'm telling you, I also don't want you to tell me how to improve my dental health.
Fucking A. Can you just keep your tips and tricks to yourself?
There's so much shame involved in the mouth.
No, it's not even that.
I just don't want to talk about it.
You know what?
Get all the brown stuff off.
Put some of that shit on there that makes it white.
Floss me.
But you know what?
Don't give me a bag full of stuff.
Don't give me fucking homework.
There really is a lot of shame about teeth, though.
But it's like going to a car wash and having people talk to you.
You don't have any cavities.
I have no cavities.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, but you'll remember now that the hygienist, when I would still go to the dentist, because they're jackals, she would give me the same Xerox each time about how if I don't floss, I'll get a heart attack.
there's this has been conclusively shown that the stuff that is in plaque will get into your body i know fucking van hoot out there is going to send me links about this yeah it gets into your body oh yeah you kidding me the stuff in plaque gets into your body and it gives you a heart attack what is it it's cavity creeps cavity creeps is that right they still have those
Well, they can't make cavities on you because somehow some wizard cast a spell of dentine on you or something.
We make holes in teeth.
But the cavity creeps are figuring out a way to get in and fuck with your heart.
They're making cavities in your heart.
Fucking A. They've evolved.
They've become sentient like the Nutria.
What you need is scrubbing bubbles.
Well, you know, it's funny.
I need to clean my office because it really is just awful right now.
Do you have any Mickey's Big Mouths full of tea?
No, I have one jug I keep right here for podcasts, and within at least a day or two of being done.
Oh, I have several facts for you, John.
Can I give you two facts quickly?
I know I don't want this to run long, but I have two facts for you that are very important.
First of all, apparently, the amount of time that is spent by a typical federal chicken inspector on a bird, a third of a second.
typical federal chicken inspector isn't that a baby ladies and gentlemen guided by voices uh no it's they spend a third of a second per chicken they get three three chickens a second that's that's the inspection process for chicken so here's what the inspection process is alive alive alive alive alive oh not alive but you remember when that happened i was during the clinton years i remember the clinton years because tyson had given him a lot of money where they locked the doors on the place and there was a big slurry of chicken water and shit remember that
Oh, yeah, slurry of chicken water.
And shit.
And shit.
Here's the other thing.
Now, I need to fact-check myself on this, but I'm pretty sure, and this is why I didn't mean to cock-block your Mickey story, but I'll tell you something that I learned a long time ago that I constantly keep in mind.
I don't know if it's entirely accurate, but I have a feeling that based on your experience on the road, so you've peed into a, what, probably a Dijani bottle, like a Big Mouth bottle?
Yeah.
You're talking about being on tour?
Well, when you have to pee in the van.
No, no, no.
Gatorade bottles.
Nice wide mouth.
Big wide mouth and 32 ounces.
The typical bladder will hold.
I don't know if this is comfortably.
I'm dying to know the answer to this.
You ready?
Maximum.
One liter.
Really?
So, but here's what I'm saying.
If you really, really, really have to pee, never grab anything that's less than a liter or you're going to be in a sad, sorry state.
You're going to have wet hands.
One liter.
Okay.
Well, 32 ounces.
I've topped off a liter and I think I may have gone over, but I need to double check this, but I'm pretty sure, you know what?
Yeah.
Well, first of all, tell me, does that comport with your experience at all?
It does.
It absolutely does.
It absolutely does.
A large Gatorade bottle, I have never filled.
But one of the single serving sizes of Gatorade bottles, it's just not quite enough.
16 ounces, not quite.
You can go over.
And that's embarrassing, particularly if you're in the backseat of a tour van that's hurtling across the roads of North Dakota.
And you're like, I gotta pee.
And the driver, in this case probably me, says, we're not stopping.
I'm playing two roles in this scenario.
I'm the driver who's not stopping, and I'm also the guy in the back who wants to be.
It's like that Alanis Morissette video.
Yeah, that's right.
Isn't it ironic?
It's a Dijani bottle that was smaller than you think, and then you gotta take it in back and make a little tink.
Don't you think so?
First of all, yes.
I have never allowed a Dasani bottle of any kind into any piece of my property.
Because Coca-Cola supports apartheid?
Not only because Coca-Cola supports apartheid.
They still do that, don't they?
The way that they make the Dasani water taste the way they do is that every bottle of Dasani water is filtered through a dead raccoon.
Is that right?
I had never heard that.
You can taste it.
Every bottle of Dasani, they have a thing there where they filter the water through a dead raccoon.
And at a certain point, they have to change the raccoon out.
Come on!
It doesn't taste that bad.
It's so terrible.
Did you know they had minerals to make it have more of a flavor?
You know what that means?
Salt.
They add salt to the Dasani water.
If you don't think there's salt in Dasani water, my friend, you are fooling yourself.
No shit.
Salt and also whatever other minerals come out of a dead raccoon.
It is the worst, worst, worst.
And the thing is, here's my feeling about Dasani water.
If Coca-Cola can manage to convince people that this pollution is refreshing water...
then what we should do is employ the Coca-Cola company to convince the Pakistanis that they do not really care that much about Kashmir, and maybe we can end war.
You know what I mean?
Oh, you're saying it's like a Jedi mind trick.
It is a fucking Jedi mind trick.
The Coca-Cola company has, by throwing $1 billion at the marketing of this product, they have taken this polluted water...
That they have added salt to and that they have filtered through a dead raccoon and they have put in what I find to be even unappealing looking bottles.
And then you find it everywhere now.
You go to places and it's like, we exclusively serve Dasani water.
Oh, it's all about exclusivity now.
I think they have done such an amazing job of convincing people that this pollution is nutrition that we should employ them.
We really should.
To go to...
Kashmir and say, listen, everyone, you know what we're going to do?
We're going to make a free state of Kashmir and it's going to be an open city and everybody can come.
And so Pakistan and India, you guys can just relax now.
And then you can stop funding the terrorists in Afghanistan because that's all about India too.
So you're saying, if I understand what you're saying, you're saying if they have these persuasive skills and they've made the kind of dough they're making by putting water and plastic and selling it, you're saying maybe give a little back?
It's time to use your Jedi mind tricks.
Now, who wants cashmere?
Who is it that different people want it?
Is that the problem?
Oh, who doesn't want cashmere?
Yeah, I love that song.
So India and China and Pakistan.
The Chinese are in on it.
Listen, the Chinese are on everything up there.
Anywhere that China touches, I guarantee you that the Chinese are trying to think of a way to move that fence a little bit.
They're like, here's the border, but I think really, if you get right down to it, really the border belongs over here, just 100 miles further along, because that used to be China.
That's traditional China.
Anyway, Kashmir is this beautiful, beautiful place.
It's a lovely place.
And all of these countries believe that it is their ancestral homeland.
It's rightfully theirs.
Yeah.
And it is the source.
Cashmere is the source of all the problems there.
It's absolutely the source.
This happens in a lot of countries.
And I have to tell you, I'm not the international polymath that you are.
But I think if there's anybody who can settle this shit, it's probably Coca-Cola.
That's exactly what I – They have international market penetration.
They got a cool logo.
They can get up there and they can give free Dasani water to everybody.
And then as everybody is choking it down and thinking, why does this taste like the inside of a record?
Well, is it hot in cashmere?
Well, it's mountainous.
Okay, but I'm just thinking you walk all the way up to the meeting, right?
You've got to walk up a hill.
You're probably sweating.
You've lost.
Now, who makes Gatorade?
Does Coke make Gatorade?
I think Gatorade is made by the University of Florida.
That's where it was invented, like the flat iron steak.
Was it invented at the University of Florida?
Well, they only invented it like 15, 20 years ago.
The flat iron steak.
The flat iron steak was discovered.
They discovered geometrically a new way to cut up a cow to get a nearly perfect piece of steak.
It's an ideal piece of steak.
And they cut it up in a different way.
They cut a different angle.
They came at it from a 3D angle.
I'm going to research this because this is fascinating to me.
I'm on the page.
I just sent you the link for this page.
Questions and answers about the volume of the human bladder.
The largest number I can find for capacity, capacity for most of them, 600 cubic centimeters, which would be 600 milliliters.
The highest I can find anywhere is 1,000 CM3.
That's cubic centimeters, right?
Which is a liter.
A liter, right.
That's it.
That is the maximum.
Boom.
You're full.
Wow.
Now, here's the thing.
I'm going to do this off air.
I have to pee really, really bad right now.
And so when we wrap up here, I'm going to pee and measure it.
Now, when I – that's great.
Will you do that?
Can we compare results on that?
Well, I don't have to pee right now.
But John, if you knew – now listen, if you spent the last – if you spent the last 55 years of your life knowing that you had at best a liter, maybe in your case, you're from Alaska and you're pretty tall.
So what are you, 6'3 and 9 tenths?
What is it?
So you might have – let's say you got 1.2 liters.
Like aren't there – wouldn't that change the way you think about bottles?
Yeah.
Well, what happened when I was, I used to live in a warehouse loft that I kept meaning to put a bathroom in.
That was a long time ago in my 20s.
How long had you been meaning to do that?
I lived in this warehouse for four years.
And there was no bathroom.
Did you have a sink?
And no kitchen.
Was it like a utility sink?
No, but there was a bathroom in the building.
Which was shared by all the other artists.
God, sharing a bathroom with artists in a fucking warehouse?
Dog breeders.
Do you know how those people eat?
Oh, I do.
Lentils, John.
I know, I've seen it.
But in any case, I kept a... So, because we didn't have running water in the... I lived here four years with no running water.
I would buy water by the gallon.
I would buy gallon jugs of water.
And then it was a big warehouse, right?
So I built a room for myself over in the corner.
And in the middle of the night, to get up from my bed and walk across my giant warehouse, out the door and down the hall where somebody was probably having a midnight art opening and somebody else was welding something, to go to this bathroom that was literally a mile away.
Was it a one-holer?
The bathroom?
Oh, yeah.
So it wasn't like an airport bathroom?
No, no, no.
It was one toilet, and the bathroom had been slapped together by somebody.
It's not a bathroom that you would be comfortable in.
It's a bathroom where when the wind was blowing, the wind would come through the cracks in the wall.
So anyway, I kept an empty gallon jug under my bed, and if I woke up in the middle of the night and had to go pee, I would go pee in this gallon jug.
Mm-hmm.
But because of my hoarding tendencies, I ended up sometimes with three or four gallon jugs of pee under my bed.
So it was pretty high up.
It was like on a standard.
It was a high bed.
Yeah, it wasn't like a mattress on the floor.
Yeah, I had some standards.
When you're in a warehouse, you're going to want to be off that floor.
It was very embarrassing when a lady would come over.
Typically, most ladies wouldn't discover it, but every once in a while you get a nosy lady who wants to see what's under your bed.
And then she's like, what's all this apple cider?
Yeah.
She's checking for duct tape and knives.
And you go, oh, I'm sorry about that.
That's just part of the problem.
Living alone.
Living alone.
You stop noticing things like that quite as much.
You really don't.
Don't you think that's part of it?
It is.
And the thing about the warehouse loft is that it backed up on the police station.
And this was during, so the police, they kind of built this police station at the time.
So we had an alley between us and the precinct, the main precinct house for the neighborhood.
And it was during the WTO era and right before that.
And it was at a time when I was, you know, I still felt somewhat legitimate, legitimately mad at the police for being there protecting us.
And so sometimes rather than – because the thing is if you leave pee in a milk jug under your bed for very long at all.
It takes on a certain – if you've ever been around – God forbid you've been around a cat.
It takes on a certain ammonia quality.
Oh, it really does.
It's a terrible, terrible musky thing.
And it happens pretty fast.
Like you might be okay for a day or two, but then you walk in.
You've gone outside to go get some coffee.
You come back in and it really smells like cats.
Yeah.
It's terrible.
And, and so did you cap them?
Did you cap them?
Of course.
Come on.
I'm not a fucking monster, but, but I, you know, if it was, if the pee was fresh, I would take it in and I would dump it in the toilet.
But if it was, but you know, standing there, standing there at a communal toilet with a gallon jug of pee, like you didn't even have like a drain in the floor.
It was either the window or the door.
That's not a thing where you think, I am flourishing.
I'm imagining you having a child's wagon, like a red rider, just pulling six gallons of pee.
We're making a bathroom run.
Hey, good morning, Mrs. Johnson.
Hello, Mr. Hooper.
But if the pee had turned to ammonia, if the pee had gone south, if it had turned...
and had become like rotten pee i did not want to stand in the toilet and and like and go duke duke duke because it was just this terrible thing so what i would do is i would open the bathroom window and i would hurl the gallon jugs of pee at the back of the police station
Oh, they'll never figure that out.
And these things would explode, and it'd just be this terrible, oh, ammonia pee all over everything.
That alley, I'm sure, still is a super fun site.
But, you know, I mean, going back to Super Train or the predecessor, the precursor to Super Train, your father's Alaskan train.
I mean, you've always enjoyed throwing things out of windows.
It's absolutely true.
Right.
And so, I mean, that's a hard habit to break.
And it seems to me like you've developed – at this point when you were living in the artist's warehouse, you had a chain of interesting –
repetitive behaviors like it's hard to stop peeing in a jug i mean that boy that's real easy it's so easy in it and honestly i mean i know there are people probably listening who are thinking that is disgusting i can't believe that's just disgusting because they haven't tried it but you know what if you if you are able to pee into a milk jug and have not done it i highly recommend you do it today go get a milk jug pee in it you'll see what i'm talking about it's a great feeling
And then chuck it out a window.
And then if you have access to a window, chuck it.
Is it the police station or the window that's more important?
It's the window, right?
It's the window.
The thing about the window, it was a big window, an old warehouse window.
And I could kind of, within the bathroom, wind up
So that I was really hucking this stuff.
And what I always wondered is, you know, if you look down the alley to the end, there's a busy street.
So at some point, surely, someone was walking by, happened to glance down the alley, just as a milk jug full of orange pee came out of a third-story window and hit the building across the street and exploded.
Fire in the hole!
And they had to think to themselves...
They had to think, hmm, well, on my way to my job interview, can't stop and think about that.
I just imagine a cop out back.
Cop smoke.
If I were a cop smoking, I would go in back to smoke.
Yeah, but this alley, I mean, I think even before I lived there, this alley was a magnet area for pee.
I think the cops, you know, and in Seattle, right, the cops are disencouraged to smoke.
Oh, yeah, I think they asked them to do it like not in public.
It looks weird when a cop smokes.
Yeah, it does.
It does.
It's not the old days now.
You don't just have cops standing around smoking.
My daughter is frequently treated to the sight of cops cocking shotguns.
Oh, right, because you live right next to a police station, too.
Yeah, I mean, not right next to it, because that would be creepy to tell people where I live.
But what are you doing now?
When you're doing that, you're making sure it's empty.
Is that right?
when you go chuck chuck so they got they got the ring finally my daughter and i went and asked because we always noticed that when they're when they're loading up their cop car they got they got a giant ass rifle and another giant ass rifle one of them is orange and and so i went over and i said uh excuse me if you don't mind me asking is the orange one uh for training purposes is that not a real rifle no because you know the deal right how they had to put the orange tips because people were killing kids you know about this right yeah of course
We know about this.
Our listeners may not know that if you have a child's toy gun, it has to have an orange tip.
Now, that's true around the world, I think.
Because kids were getting killed.
People were getting killed by holding up toy guns, and cops thought they were real guns.
Yeah, but cops are killing kids who hold up a sandwich wrapped in tinfoil like this.
That'll do.
That'll do.
That could be ammunition.
It could, right?