Ep. 255: "The Fancy-Enough Window"
hello hi john hi merlin how's it going good yeah i i made some i i made some stunning coffee today wow tell me about it well coffee around here has been kind of kind of not that good lately i've just been sort of just phoning it in you haven't been doing as much public speaking at appearances
No, I haven't.
By which I just mean you haven't been getting gift bags with free coffee in it, right?
Yeah, but lately I've gone ahead and just bought coffee.
Yeah, I know.
It's a hurt.
But I haven't just been, you know, like I use a coffee pot.
There's nothing fancy about me.
I don't think I'm better than you.
But I've just not even been using the coffee pot very
very well i've just been sort of pouring some coffee in and getting out of the way do you have a mr coffee style drip coffee maker that's right how much do you make when you make coffee i always make an entire pot is that out of convenience for knowing the measurements or is that like an aspirational pot uh i figure well it's it's partly make all the bacon
We got to write an e-book at some point, don't I think?
Make all the bacon, man.
I always make all the bacon.
Make all the coffee, make all the bacon.
I'll save these two strips for that day that's definitely coming in the next day or two where I want to make exactly two strips of bacon.
Yeah, or like, sometimes people will stay over at the house and I'll come downstairs in the morning and they will have made enough coffee for us both.
I'm like, what?
You don't know what's going to happen the rest of this day.
What if the power goes out?
Exactly.
What the fuck?
Enough coffee.
It's another version of packing a small bag, which will definitely be in our e-book.
Or like, you know, for me, I know you're a fan of noodles.
You know, you got me, I used to be a, whenever I'd make steak, I would often make rice.
I still sometimes make rice.
You got me into, I remember one day I said, hey, we're making steaks.
And you were like, yay, steaks.
And I made steaks.
And I served the steaks with some, probably some wild rice.
And you said, no noodles?
No.
And I said, no, John, no noodles.
But, you know, and then you explained to me how important it was that you have noodles with steak.
I've got to tell you, I have come around.
Egg noodles with steak, a delight.
The fatter the egg noodle, the wider the egg noodle, the better the steak is what I said.
I get them wide.
I get them wide.
But here's the thing.
Sometimes I'll think, because, you know, I've got a kid.
She eats a lot of pasta products.
And I'll go...
I'm going to put some noodles in there.
Here's the amount of noodles to make if you've got a bag, a regular grocery store bag of noodles.
You either make hardly any or all of them.
Because nobody wants a quarter of a bag of egg noodles.
That will never come in handy.
Oh, let me put a rubber band.
Let me spend 25 cents on the Ziploc bag for this.
Make all the noodles.
Make all the bacon.
Pennies.
We're talking about pennies.
Yeah, make an entire pot of coffee.
Every time you make coffee, make an entire pot and leave it either sitting on the counter until it's done or if you're going away on a trip for more than three days, go ahead and put it in the fridge.
But also, like, make all the... You know, my daughter's mother does a thing where she will make some food, serve it, and then...
Keep some in reserve, which I think is great.
Always keep a little bit in reserve.
Always keep two cups back in the pot.
I mean, of the produced product or of the source material?
Of the produced product.
Give me an example.
Well, what you're thinking about in this context is seconds or leftovers.
Okay.
If you get to the point in the meal where you're like, I couldn't eat another bite, then you've got
Super nice little lunchy-sized leftover.
Throw in your snap-top refrigerator glass.
It's not enough for a big meal, but when you're poking around the fridge at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, you're like, all I want is an apple, really.
But then you're like, oh, look at this.
Little couple cups of this good stuff.
Or you get done and you're like, I just want some more.
And then you go, oh, right, I've got two more cups.
Because you kept some in reserve.
You kept some in reserve.
So there's that.
I'll toss one out on this one, stew.
Ugh, stew.
You can always use a little more stew.
Well, and you can always throw anything in stew.
That's why it's called stew.
Routinely I make stew, which is just all the stuff that I don't want and wouldn't eat otherwise.
Kind of Pacific Northwestern goulash.
A little bit of goulash.
As you said, John, every culture has a goulash.
They do, and it's one of the words that everyone understands.
Even if you go to Outer Mongolia, you're going to say goulash, and they're going to go, oh, yeah.
Goulash arcappelago, yeah.
Dink.
Goulash always, at least around here, has one freezer-burned chicken breast in it.
It might have even one piece of fish that I don't remember how it came here and I don't know how to cook.
Oh.
You still got the fish?
You still have your aspirational fish?
I do.
That never survives my freezer cleanouts.
My sanity-saving freezer cleanouts that I occasionally do.
Hoop!
bought tilapia no one has ever wanted tilapia and it's a trader joe's package so the portion is very modest it's way too much for one person who doesn't care that much for tilapia and it's it's it's not even nearly enough for three people who are not into tilapia it's there's no good amount of tilapia you throw it away
You know, tilapia is the only fish that can survive in the Salton Sea.
I did not know that.
Salton Sea has become so polluted with the chemical runoff and just like pure heavy metals that rise up from the bottom of the earth.
It killed everything.
If you go to the Salton Sea...
The banks of the sea, which is an enormous sea still, are... I mean, the beaches are made out of dead and decaying fish.
Oh, my God.
These photos are horrible.
It's really apocalyptic.
Oh, this is very upsetting.
Yeah, you can't go anywhere around this enormous sea that you can barely see across to the other side without, like, crunching on a thousand years' worth of dead fish.
But, apparently...
tilapia thrive in that environment and there are billions of them good for them yeah right it caused me to have new respect for tilapia a fish i might add i had never heard of until 12 years ago it's one of those garbage foods that comes along every few years and they say well our special today is going to be the uh hand-caught tilapia suddenly tilapia is everywhere my sense of it was that
After the fishing collapsed off the Grand Banks,
After we had absolutely overfished to the point that the fish stock could no longer survive, that we had caught so many fish they couldn't breed with each other anymore.
And the fish went away in the North Atlantic where formerly we had gotten all of our fish.
You get your cod up there, right?
You get your cod, you get your other fish that you don't think about that much until somebody names them and you're like, oh yeah, that's a fish.
That's definitely a fish.
All those fish up there and the big, big, big fish, the fish that have lived 600 years and
and can use just a tiny little punching motion to break their way out of a coffin.
Those fish, smart fish, all gone.
And then all of a sudden, tilapia, a garbage fish that can live in a polluted desert lake,
Suddenly that's on all the menus, and suddenly you can buy that by the bag.
And I'm like, hmm, where are all these tilapia coming from?
I literally never heard of this fish.
This is a very quick derail here, but do you enjoy fish, like if somebody makes it for you?
If somebody makes me a fish, I will love it.
I think you're the thin end of this wedge for you, and I don't want to make work for you, as you know.
I think what you do is you go somewhere real nice.
I hear they have fresh fish in Seattle.
This is something that I've heard.
And I don't know if you get this, but I think you should get something like a, what's the fancy one I like?
Not Haddock, but, oh, I just had the name in my head.
What's the one?
Grouper.
Get a grouper or similar.
Get a real meaty, heavy fish, fresh as possible, and come home and prepare that with some butter.
I think that's going to remind you that fish can be good.
So I did the other day.
So I did buy an aspirational bag of Trader Joe's tilapia fillets.
Oh, my God.
No one has ever eaten any of those.
It's as big as a sack of flour.
Oh, God.
And every time I open the refrigerator, I'm like, ugh.
Yeah.
It's like putting a bill on the fridge that you know you should pay.
I still have three days.
Aspirational bag of tilapia.
Also, you should join a gym.
Oh, right.
Back in the 70s, you put a pig on your refrigerator to remind you you're on your diet.
Yeah, right.
No one likes you, asshole.
It's just like, open the fridge, and it's just an alarm of all the things that I haven't done.
The fridge is there to serve you, and you put something in there you know is just going to make you feel bad.
So I said, self, let's go.
Let's go, big shot.
This is easy to buy.
And let's jump in here.
So I took out what I thought was a reasonable amount of these tilapias.
Question.
Were they in like a block or were they flash frozen such that you could pull one out like with a chicken breast?
Flash frozen like a chicken breast.
Nice.
And I think I threw four of them.
They're pretty small.
Yeah, they're small.
I threw them into a pan with some oil or butter.
I don't remember which.
Threw some salt and pepper on them.
Cooked them until they appeared to be done-ish.
And I ate them with some rice.
Rice, eh?
And I was like, not bad.
Not good, not bad.
So the next time I made a Zatarain's rice in a box, New Orleans style.
You make the rice in a box?
MMSG pile.
I'm a huge fan.
Of the Zatarain's?
Oh, brother.
I don't want to cut you off.
I got a whole methodology with this mandui sausage, buddy.
They're really good.
Guarantee.
I'm very happy to hear this.
Our mutual friend John Syracuse has made fun of me because I eat a lot of Zatarain's rice with things in it.
No, no, no.
They're great.
And it's another way to make stew, right?
You can just throw anything into a Zatarain's, as he says.
You know what's great in there?
Can I just give you a quick tip?
I don't know if you got them.
I live in a house with...
people so we have cherry tomatoes sometimes or those little baby tomatoes you put in a bunch of those on top i don't have those no do you like that uh no but i do oh wait a minute but one time i did have a can a mysterious can of cherry tomatoes a can of cherry tomatoes a thing i never would have purchased in my life i have no idea paul saborin brought it here so i have no idea how it got in my house typical
And I did put it into a Zatarain's.
It adds the missing aspect.
Because the thing is, you make your Zatarain's, and when it comes out, you know, a little bit of salt can be nice.
I like to put a little crystal sauce in when it's cooking.
I'm just here to tell you.
I've actually done an entire podcast about this, so I'm going to keep this short.
But when it's done, when it's at the boiling point,
Right before you turn down the heat on your Zatarainz, that's when you throw in a handful and a half of cherry tomatoes.
And even if you don't like tomatoes, you're going to discover this adds the X factor you didn't know.
It even suggests it right on the box as a serving suggestion.
All right.
All right.
Okay.
Okay.
I'm feeling it.
I'm feeling it now because they mush down.
Oh, they sure do.
They break up.
I think it adds.
It's one of the rare, terrible foods that my wife and I both like to have once a week.
Okay, well, here's life hack number 70,000.
Throw a couple of tilapias.
Tilapia and the Zatarans.
Yeah.
You're just talking about leftovers here.
No, I'm saying go into your freezer bag of Trader Joe's tilapias.
Let it do its business on the tilapia.
And then the tilapia goes in, and then it gets, you know, it becomes, it doesn't disappear.
It's not like tuna.
It chunks up, and then you've got what is almost, let's call it a...
Like a fish stew or a coscopia.
Oh, I know what you mean.
Well, not capicola.
What's it called?
I know what you're talking about.
A cioppino?
A cioppino.
A cioppino.
You know, and go in there, maybe grab a handful of those little frozen shrimps, too.
Oh, yeah.
And then you put some shrimps.
You know what?
Lifehack 70,050.
You know, you throw them in when they're frozen, they're going to cook.
Yeah.
They're going to cook right up.
And they're not going to overcook and get all rubbery like a shrimp will do.
Who is the fucking sophisticate now?
Oh, you are.
You're Johnny Cioppino.
You're Mr. Making Fish Stew at home.
How many other people are doing that that you know right now?
How many people right now are making fish stew at home?
Not many.
They're out there making apps.
They're making apps or they're making deluxe hamburgers, you know, like super hamburgers.
I went to a beach party yesterday and...
And the cook at the barbecue was making hamburgers with chopped onions in the burger, scrunched in the burger.
I've done that.
I sauteed him first.
You saute the onions first and then put them in the burger.
I saute the onions and butter first so they're real soft.
And you cut them small enough so your daughter can't see them.
And then they're in the burger and they provide flavor without objection.
Ah, flavor without objection.
Let me ask you this about the burger.
This is a leading question, so I'll forgive the witness for considering this hostile.
Was it a normal-sized human burger or is it one of those abominations that's deliberately made way too big because men?
I would put this burger right in the sweet spot between those two sizes.
That's a good spot.
When I walked over to the barbecue, I was like, nice big fat burgers.
But I didn't say, asshole.
And then when it went on the bun, it was like, right.
If you grow a goatee, you'll make those burgers whether you want to or not.
You won't even notice.
It'll be like Westworld.
I can't see anything.
Your burgers are too big.
You're not impressing anybody.
They're burned on the outside.
They're raw in the middle.
And they're too big to put into a human mouth.
Yeah, no, I wouldn't support that.
And my friend who is throwing this party, he's not that kind of guy.
Although, he did introduce me to the Yeti bag.
You're familiar with the Yeti bag?
I know the Yeti microphone.
I don't know the Yeti bag.
Yeti bag is apparently something I was not... Oh, I've heard about this.
It's very high-end, right?
I was zero aware of it yesterday, and then I became 100% aware of it.
Somebody mentioned this on a camping trip, and I sat in the tent on my phone looking at these for an hour.
These are so cool.
Well, so at this beach party, this is a beach party that's behind a door.
Right, so...
So it's not exactly like – it's not the 1%, but it's not the 99% either.
It's somewhere in the 10% range.
10%?
Somewhere in that 10 to 12% area where people can have a beach that is behind a door.
And my friend told this story about, like, I ordered this Yeti bag online because it was, you know, like $50 cheaper than – because they're expensive.
$50 cheaper than they would be elsewhere.
And I was like, that's why you get things online.
And he said, but I feel like –
It just came from some post office box in Alabama.
I feel like these things got heisted from a Cabela's somewhere.
You've got to watch that on the Amazon.
You've got to watch because sometimes you get stuff that you get like a used cooler or like an aftermarket eBay-style cooler.
Well, and so he's, I mean, these were new, right?
But it definitely felt like somebody in the middle of nowhere just sending these things out.
It feels like shenanigans.
A little shenanigans.
But the thing arrived, and my friend, apparently the trick about a Yeti bag is when you zip it, you zip it, and then at the end, you have to kind of yank it.
You got to pop it.
That locks it in.
It locks it in.
It locks in the flavor.
It locks in the cold.
He throws some dry ice in there and you can be making ice cream in this thing.
Just put it in the backseat of the car, drive over the mountains, he made ice cream because it's so cold in there.
And he didn't know, my friend did not read the instructions, even though he, I think maybe even looked at a YouTube video and everybody said, you got to yank it there at the end.
He did.
And he said to this guy, this thing, you sent me a defective bag, it's broken.
And the guy in Alabama, miraculously or very responsibly said,
sent another bag, and my friend sent his bag back.
The second bag arrived.
It had the same problem.
Then my friend... It felt to him like the zipper was stuck.
The zipper was... What it is, is when you look at the zipper, it looks like it's misaligned.
That's part of the secret sauce.
Oh, I see.
That's the secret.
That's how it clicks.
Okay.
So my friend wrote back to the guy in Alabama, and he was like, hey, man, I'm sorry.
It was my fault.
I'm a ding-a-ling.
I didn't know how to do this.
So I'll cover the shipping for both of these things, and sorry for the inconvenience.
According to my friend, the guy in Alabama gave him a little bit of what they call a little bit of the Alabama razzmatazz.
Said like, oh yeah, well, what's up, big smart city guy?
Can't figure out how to use a zipper.
Zippers are complicated.
You know, gave him some, threw him some shade.
My friend was like, well, I'm not going to be friends with this guy anyway.
So anyway, let it ride.
He says a couple of weeks later,
or maybe a month later, the other Yeti bag arrives back at his house with a sign on the thing that says nobody ever came to the post office box to pick it up.
Return to sender.
Oh, no.
Is that called ghosting, John?
Well, who knows what it is?
Alabama ghosting.
I think it means Alabama went to jail.
Oh, no.
So now my friend has two Yeti bags.
Oh.
And he rolls into his beach club like Mr. Conspicuous Yeti Bag.
parks his mercedes in right in front of the door new york city and so he's telling this story and then i'm looking around the the uh looking around the country club there's yeti bags everywhere because it's within this tiny little subculture of 12 percenters that's the bag yeah that you gotta have and i was like whoa whoa i fell into a micro scene uh did you get a fomo
Like a Ford?
Fear of missing out, as the millennials say.
Did you feel like you should have a bag?
Did you feel bagless?
No, because I don't ever pack things
to take anywhere else that I care whether those things are hot or cold later.
So it's one thing to have your Filson bag for travel.
It's another thing to go to a cookout where you're going to lose it as easy as you lose your flip flops.
Well, that and also like in general, I want my I want everything at room temperature.
Oh, right.
So if I was going to a barbecue and I was taking a bunch of meat, I think I would assume I was going to get there in time to cook it where it was.
It didn't.
It wasn't a problem that I just threw the meat into the bottom of a grocery bag.
And you don't want a super cold fresca.
I don't want a super cold fresca.
I don't drink beer, which is the number one thing that people are like, whoa, you got to keep it cold.
And if I'm going somewhere, it's not like I take three Cokes with me that I want to keep.
Anyway, I never use a cooler or
For anything and I there was a little while on tour where we kept a cooler in the van which seemed like a You know a real like vander slicey thing to do like uh, we're really living That's we got a little bit deluxe a little bit deluxe like now.
We got cold.
This isn't here This isn't your first day.
You know, it's a good idea to have something like this in your van exactly except
When you're on tour, it's so freaking boring that when you are thirsty, you pull over because you just want a chance to go into the truck stop and look at all the commemorative spoons.
Even for the five minutes that it takes to fill up the gas and get a pop.
The idea that you're going to put this cooler in there and you're on a camping trip, I don't know.
We ended up not using it that much.
A cooler is ultimately a cooler.
It does something for you, but it also becomes a job.
Now you've got to keep ice in there.
The first time somebody doesn't feel like putting ice in there, now you don't really have a cooler anymore.
I don't know if you've noticed this.
I am somebody who likes a cold beverage.
If I'm at a hotel, I'll put a ton of ice into the drink.
I think they're using new technologies to make ice melt faster.
I'm pretty sure.
I think a lot of the ice you see nowadays, because it's easier to manage water than a liquid than a solid.
But that's the thing.
With a cooler, a cooler is a job.
And if nobody's really that into it, there's not going to be anybody who becomes the cooler czar.
Well, this is why I stopped buying records at some point in the late 80s.
Because if you're buying records, then you've got to maintain a stereo.
And if you're maintaining a stereo, then you've got to maintain an address.
And even if you have a Walkman and are listening to tapes, you've got to have batteries.
And for that, basically, you might as well have an address if you're buying batteries.
Yeah.
And so I stopped buying new music.
I stopped listening to music on the reg because it suggested this whole... I mean, you had to have a lifestyle.
You had to have a lifestyle that I couldn't maintain.
That's a really good point.
And then I never regained the habit of buying music because by the time I had gotten all the way back to a place where it's like, now I've got a lifestyle...
I was in my early 40s.
It was too late to start buying music now.
And you were procrastinating the creation of music, not consuming it.
That's right.
It's your job.
And so a cooler feels like the same thing.
You have to keep the cooler coolant in the freezer freezing.
It's in the freezer freezing to cool the cooler.
And then you've got to store the cooler somewhere.
Once you've got stuff, you need a place to put your stuff.
Yeah, you might as well.
Here's the thing.
The difference between football and baseball.
In baseball, the goal is to go home.
Just go over here.
You know, every day somebody's born who's never heard George Carlin their whole childhood.
I know.
I know.
This is something our late great friend Leslie Harpold used to say this, and I say this every month or so just to make one of the ways I can help keep her memory alive.
She says, I hate buying toys for my toys.
And this gets into the John Roderick problem.
This gets into John Roderick's eel problem.
It's one thing to get stuff, and then it's another thing to get a job for the stuff.
Now you're taking care of it like a Tamagotchi, right?
And now you need stuff for your stuff.
You've got to have dongles for your computer.
You've got to get subscriptions for your computer.
You need a case for your computer.
Yep.
The first time I went to get a case for my phone, I felt like I had really been fucking duped.
Because I walked into the store and I was like, yeah, I need a case for this.
and they were like behold and and then you know there was some wizard smoke and then there's i think we might have a couple here let's go look a wall of these things and i'm like huh i don't care about any of this i don't want it to look like a block of wood i don't want it to have a pokemon on it i just want a case for it and they were like here's a nice case 75 or whatever it was yeah and i said you're kidding me
You're kidding me.
First of all, make the phone so it doesn't need a case.
But second of all... Why don't they make the whole plane out of a black box?
Ha!
Am I right?
Am I right?
What's the deal with airplane food?
And then, over here you got this guy.
We got no soup.
So, anyway, I do not want a Yeti bag.
I don't have any use for it.
You didn't make an offer on the extra bag?
You didn't say, hey, here's 20 bucks, let me take that off your hands?
One, I have too many bags.
And two, this is a country clap.
Well...
People keep telling me this.
People tell you that, but don't internalize that.
Well, you know, people tell me I have too many drum major jackets.
They don't know me.
People say a lot of things, John.
They don't know me.
They don't know how many drum major jackets I need.
You can't land on a fraction.
I will not hear this.
Bags are a good thing.
I organized many of my bags just this morning, and it was a great feeling.
Yeah, I definitely now have a big bag full of little bags.
Oh, you know, we got that.
That's what I did.
I was out of town and I took all of my packing cubes and I nested them, not super nested them.
I folded them nicely.
I zipped them up and I put them all inside of the very large cube and now they're all in one place.
My big problem right now is the 22 pairs of Levi's problem.
We've discussed it before.
But I had the 22 pairs of Levi's zipped in a big bag that was in the back of a closet somewhere.
And I pulled the bag out and I was like, what's in this big bag?
Unzipped it.
Oh, it's the 22 pairs of Levi's.
So I pulled them out again.
And I went through them again.
There's still 22 pairs of Levi's.
About, I would say, about 12 of them are made in the USA.
Oh, it's not H.O.N.
Mexico?
No, proper mid-90s Levi's that I'm sure somebody cares about.
Made it proudly in the Mission District, one would guess.
Yep, yep.
Except every single one of them, I have blown out the crotch.
The rest of the pants are fine.
It's a gift and a curse.
I do the same thing.
Yep, I blew it out.
First it came for the space pen, and I said nothing.
Then it came for the iPhone, and I said nothing.
This isn't a thing where it's like, oh, it's got a rip in the knee.
This is blown out...
crotch yeah my mine is you get a you get a blown out crotch of like a half inch to two inches and then you get like a thread comb over on the edges yep and it's the hardest part of the jean to repair i mean i i learned to use a sewing machine just so i could repair my jeans but to get in there and repair the crotch is really hard that's a that's a tough place that's like heart surgery for pants yeah and then you're like well i'll take it down to the seamstress person
The seamstress person is going to charge you $15 to do a repair or more.
So then you're looking at 22 pairs of Levi's.
Each one is going to cost you $15 to fix to have now a beat up pair of Levi's.
Here's my algorithm.
If it takes me a calculator to figure out how to fix the crotch and 22 pairs of pants, it's too much money.
Okay, so yes, but I'm back to the problem of laying out these pants on the bathroom floor.
And it seems like value, the thing seems to have value.
It's got a valence.
The amount, surely, and also the Americanness, and also the Hige, and a lot of other things.
Oh, the Hige is huge.
Right?
There's so much Hige in that bathroom, you can barely get in there.
You're pushing the door, and it's like the Hige is pushing back.
It's full of striations.
And so it appears to have value.
And so I'm very confused by it.
I'm walking around the house.
I've got a palm on my forehead going like, what am I going to do?
These things are like, they're dragging me down.
I got an idea.
Can I kind of repurpose my tilapia hack for this?
I think I might have a solution that's going to sound really obvious, but I'm going to toss this out.
You know, it's kind of the opposite of making rice.
Like Dr. Katz says, you're not making grains of rice.
You're making a rice.
It's the opposite of that.
You need to get away from the 22.
And here's what you need to do.
You need to go into a very large area of your house and without prejudice, lay all the pants down.
And then you need to do like you did with your passport.
You need to just listen.
Just listen.
Because one of those pairs, this is going to take you five minutes to get out of that mindset you're in right now.
Five minutes later, you're going to hear, hey, buddy.
One of those pairs will speak to you and you will know which crotch to mend.
Oh.
One pair.
That's all you need.
You say to them all with your mind bullets.
You just say, hi, everybody.
I know it's been a while.
You're all here.
I'm glad we're all here together.
First of all, I just want to say, none of you need to be worried about this, right?
It's an all-hands pants, meaning none of you guys need to worry.
But here's the thing.
I'm just going to stand here for five minutes.
I'm going to stand here.
I'm going to sit with this, and I want one of you to whisper.
With whom do I begin?
Uh-huh.
Okay.
Hey, buddy.
Don't you think?
I bet you one speaks to you.
All right.
You might be able to do it in your head.
Is there one pair that you remember who's he gay you remember creating in the 90s that's really speaking to you?
Yeah, all right, okay.
All right, I'll look into this.
Yeah, you know, does it make sense from an intellectual standpoint?
I think, obviously, emotionally it makes sense, but I think it's very rational.
Well, it is very rational, but it is the opposite of make all the bacon.
Right?
Fix all the Levi's.
It's the exception that proves the pants.
I guess so.
All right.
Okay.
I'll give that a try.
I mean, I've been feeling like the 22 pairs of Levi's is like a vest of geld, and somebody threw me over the side of the boat, and it's like some parable.
Oh, you're Jamie Lassiter in heavy armor.
Yeah, right.
It's a parable.
It's parabolic.
Oh, you know a parable.
You can smell a parable coming down the road.
I fucking hate parables.
I hate parables because first I realize that they're there and it makes me mad.
And then I realize how appropriate they are and it makes me super fucking mad.
You realize that you're right in the center of the parable.
You look around, you can't tell who's the parable because it's you.
No, and the parable just makes this noise.
You're like, yeah, I know.
You're like, shit, here I am.
I'm sinking in the river because I think that my vest of geld is worth more than my own life.
Yep.
It's like a Bible parable.
Oh, it's absolutely.
This is like something right out of Luke.
Well, you're right, but I think this is a philosophy program.
So, I mean, I think you can say, yes, make all the noodles.
Yes, make all the bacon.
Yes, make all the coffee.
But I feel like there must be a corollary to that, which is, for example...
Let's make this a little bit Talmudic.
Forgive my French.
You go to the store, you can't buy every kind of coffee.
You've got to start somewhere, and you've got to say to yourself, you know what?
I'm going to buy this coffee, and if it doesn't work out, I'll try a different one.
It doesn't mean I don't shop anymore.
It doesn't mean I'm not going to drink coffee anymore.
Coffee I drink, yes.
So, I mean, but right there, there's a big difference, I think.
This is another problem.
This is like another part of the No Yeti Bank problem for me.
Which is that if I go to the store and buy coffee, it is not with any awareness or intention of, quote, trying this coffee.
to see if i like it and to maintain an awareness that that's what i'm doing long enough to make it to the store the next time to either buy the same stuff again having tried it and like it or by a different kind having tried it and not liked it because wow that's super interesting to me yeah
Every time I go to the store, it is like I've never seen coffee before.
I buy it based on whatever imaginary criteria are flying through my head at like five minutes before the grocery store closes, which is whenever I'm in there.
And I'm like, oh, let's see.
And I do some kind of accounting based on is there one on sale?
Does that one seem like it's on sale because it's cheap coffee and I don't want it?
Like it's got to be within the fancy enough for me.
window, right?
I'm a fancy guy.
The coffee's got to be fancy.
The fancy enough for me window is very familiar to me.
I know exactly what you mean.
Yeah, I'm not going to just get Seattle's best coffee.
Well, you've got a rounding algorithm where on the one hand, I mean, this is probably a stupid perception error, but on the one hand, you go, that's really cheap.
There's probably a pretty good chance I won't like that.
On the other hand, you go, oh my God, that's way too much money.
I would never pay that.
And so that naturally narrows you to that 80% in between.
Sure, the fancy enough window.
And then you fall for the thing where it's like, well, this brand has got like six feet of shelf space.
But over here, there's just two little bags of something called San Francisco Coffee Company or the Tillamook Valley Coffee Roastery.
And you go, that's got to be artisanal or at least special.
It's special enough to be a small group.
You know it's not a red can of Folgers.
Right.
Right.
Or, you know, you're not buying some Illy in a silver can just because the can is cute.
That can is awesome.
Or because that's what you drink in Europe and you're like, not my Paris.
Wait a minute, not my Paris.
You're thinking to yourself, I'm somebody...
I'm somebody special that's got fancy coffee in my European coffee.
I don't even know if it's fancy.
I would put Illy as far as how much I enjoy drinking it.
It's fine.
I would put it along the lines of fancy enough hotel room coffee maker coffee.
It's fine.
It's fine.
I mean, in Europe, I feel like I've had Illy coffee out of a vending machine.
I don't think it's fancy.
It's just got a great can.
So I go into the grocery store each time like a newborn babe.
And I couldn't tell you the coffee that's on the counter in my kitchen that I where I just left the house five minutes ago.
That is fascinating to me.
So I make no no decision ever based on like Zatarain's.
I know I like and I don't need to go and look at all the boxed rice dinners because I did find a thing.
where it's like, that's great.
I'm going to buy that.
Zadarant is an unusual example of, it's definitely, certainly in the fancy enough window, but like, it's also that like, I've had other brands of that and they're not as good as this.
And if you can eyeball that and just put it in the cart, boom.
Talking about rice-a-roni?
Oh, you know, I used to eat, I used to like hamburger.
That's a San Francisco treat.
It is, it is.
I used to like hamburger helper sometimes.
That could, that can be good.
But, uh,
my contra concern here and this just shows you how broken inside i am is like i just worry about missing okay so here's what i hate what i hate is when i get something and i bring it home and i go oh crap you know oh because of the way this branding and packaging works i mistook this for something else so so classic example fat free half and half
No, no.
Why is that even in a store?
And why does it look so much like regular half?
It's like making a toy.
It's like having a toy gun right next to a real gun and going help yourself.
Yeah, it's it's it's so bad.
And so I but I you know, I've learned my lesson.
I've learned to like, here's the thing.
Stop and look at it because here's what would happen.
What if I do that twice in a row?
What if I actually go to the store?
I accidentally buy fat free half and half.
I bring it home.
I go.
I go back to the store.
I pick up some half.
Oh, guess what?
I just bought fat-free half and half again because I wasn't paying attention.
That's the thing going through my head is like, what if I keep accidentally buying the wrong thing and there's too much latency between the purchase and the attempt to consumption for me to put the links together?
No, that's just me.
That's just me.
I'm admiring you.
I'm admiring you at this point.
You care so much about the things in your home, your 22 pairs of Levi's.
You can walk into a store with Zen mind, beginner's mind.
Just give me some coffee.
Every time.
And I do it with bread, too.
I walk in, you know, there's 8,000 kinds of bread.
And every time, I swear to you, every time I stand there and I say, well, 22 seed bread has 22 seeds.
That's, you know, that's like 13 more seeds than nine seed bread.
That's a seed for every pair of Levi's.
But wait a minute, what if 22 is too many kinds of seeds and what you really just want are the basic nine seeds?
Yeah.
Yeah.
These are the potato hot dog buns?
This is ballpark hot dog buns, but they're potato buns?
But no, wait a minute.
Why'd you put the potato hamburger buns next to the hot dog?
What taxonomy is happening here?
Why is there 22 seeds in this bread?
Well, and I feel like each time that I do this and then I arrest that tendency, I'm at the top of the log ride at Disneyland.
I'm about to get on and go down the log ride.
And then I say, you know what?
Pick one.
And then I reach and I pick one of the numbers of seeds or one of the numbers of other components in a thing, nuts, nuts and seeds.
I just go, okay, go.
And so I feel like I have conquered something.
It's like you're jumping off the high board.
It is.
It is.
It's like, don't think about it.
So I go.
Get in my cart.
Yeah.
And I think part of it is that every time I do that calculation, I do feel like if I go in by rote and pick the thing that I always get, then I'm also, I'm potentially making a grave error in missing something in the variety and
And so I make that, you know, I do that calculation each time, and I feel somewhat confident that I got the most suitable thing at that moment for me in this moment.
But John, you're a traveler.
You're a seeker.
Yeah.
I mean, you're traveling in a grocery store.
You're walking through Europe, except it's a safe way.
Well, so we go to the same Mexican restaurant for a family dinner periodically, and everybody at the table gets the same thing over and over, right?
The three ladies get shrimp tostadas, a thing I'm like, okay, man, shrimp tostada.
I honestly don't know what that is.
I've gotten one because this is my thing at the Mexican restaurant, El Farol.
I go in, and the waiter knows us.
He's a good man, good friend.
And he knows that he's going to get out three shrimp tostadas, one cheese enchilada, or bean and cheese burrito.
Quesadilla with no cheese for the child, please.
Oh, and she's adamant, like, no rice, double beans.
I'm like, all right, whatever.
You take it as it comes.
But then he knows that I'm going to pick a different thing off the menu.
Does she get the pot beans or refried?
What does she get?
She wants whatever beans he got.
Could be black beans.
She doesn't mind a black bean.
Doesn't mind it.
Likes it.
She does not want any kind of rice, no matter what.
Interesting.
And I'm like,
How do you not like rice?
But then I'm the guy that doesn't like potatoes.
Don't even put them on my plate.
Don't put them on the table.
She doesn't want potatoes either.
God bless her.
But she's just extended that all the way to rice.
Yeah, potatoes doesn't fall far from the tree.
Well, they have the potato tree.
That's another place that you have to watch.
I love that book.
Just keeps giving and giving.
And then with what was left, they made cottage fries.
Finally, I have a cottage fry to sit on.
Spoilers for the potato tree.
Yeah, that's where the wild things are.
you when you go to a restaurant john roderick it seems to me you do go out of your way to to the extent possible unless it's part of the tradition of the place like when we would go to the dim sum place r.i.p we would always get the same thing because that was part of our thing that we did but you you go to the same restaurant you get you deliberately you search through your mind you want something different every time and i will get things that i don't that i am almost certain i don't like right like
I'm not a big fan of a mole sauce.
Let's just be honest.
You know, I've been to Oaxaca.
I've had the mole.
I've been to where the mole comes out of the ground in springs.
Is that right?
Mole springs?
Yeah, and I had the mole springs, the famous mole springs of Oaxaca, Oaxaca.
But I do not want it because, you know, don't get your chocolate in my peanut butter.
I don't understand the whole mole phenomenon.
So I don't want that.
Mole is like the wine of Mexican food.
It's like something you get to be real pissy about because you know stuff and you go way beyond the fancy enough window.
Fuck that.
Fuck that.
Is that right?
Do you know people that are fancy about mole?
People are fancy about everything, John.
They know they can capitalize on how little somebody cares about something obscure that they can become an expert about.
And they go, well, actually, the cacao is found in the shade of the potato tree.
Shut up.
Yesterday, I went to a beach that was behind a door.
You've got to tell me who this is when we're off air.
I've got to know.
Is this anybody I know?
Well, so I have a good pal.
It is somebody you know.
I have a good pal who's in the business.
Let's call it.
Let's say he's in the business.
Is this the guy whose house I insulted?
It's not him, is it?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
That's some drinks that night.
No, that was 120% justified.
That's when you spit on the streetcar and Ben took us to meet MC Hammer, wasn't it?
I spent on a streetcar and I tweeted about it.
And then the San Francisco streetcar Twitter account was like, stop it.
And I felt so bad.
Right.
And and and that Twitter account and I still communicate with each other, at least did before I got.
I'm glad you work things out.
OK, so it's somebody who's in the business who has a beach behind a door.
And this is not our business.
This is not he's not in my business of show.
No, he's not in your business.
He is in a business.
Oh.
And it's a kind of business that is show business adjacent.
Let's call it this.
It's a creative business.
It's the home of a creative.
So this friend of mine is a creative.
Oh.
And he is a creative in a way in which there are instances where he would actually describe himself as a creative in a room where he would never break character and everybody in there would nod because, yes, that's how we talk.
But he also could be in a place with me and know not to use the word creative that way.
But he's not one of those people that's living a double life.
He is himself everywhere he goes.
Yeah.
He's himself everywhere that he goes.
He's himself everywhere he goes.
He's not a guy that sometimes uses the word creative, and then when he's with his friends, he rolls his eyes at the word creative.
So he's not in artist management.
No, he's not a faker.
It's just that he understands.
He's smart enough to know.
When you're with a group of people that don't talk that way, you don't talk that way.
Right.
That's smart.
That's good for most careers, and not all of us take up that mantle.
That's a good way to roll.
For sure, right?
You don't open the kimono in a room where nobody's wearing a kimono.
And if the room's full of kimonos, that's a very awkward thing to ask of people.
Sure, don't do that either.
But if you're in a room and you're talking to some VC people and it's a scene... You want to do a deep dive or a drill down?
Yeah, it's a scene from the movie Facebook.org.
Facebook.io, that's a very good movie.
Yeah, right?
David Filcher.
That's Web 2.0.
Mm-hmm.
But what we have here is a failure to communicate.
Any man doesn't put a spoon back.
So anyway, so he is a member.
This is the thing.
He's in business.
He's in a business.
He's a creative.
And he feels like, because of his position as a member of the creative class...
who is also a member of the business class, that he needs to be a member of a lot of things.
Because networking.
Yeah.
Right.
It's like, hey, we got to have a meeting with this.
And he's like, oh, well, why don't we go to X thing that I am a member of?
And then the person who's doing business with him is like, mm-hmm.
this guy's a hot this guy's a roller this guy's a player oh they is this this person speaks my language sure this is this world that i'm always talking about sort of uh having a toe in you learn this from your father you learn from your dad you're a member you're a member of this you're a member of that that's how when it's time to uh make a deal make a plan
It's like, oh, are you a member?
Oh, I'm a member.
You say you get a member long enough and pretty soon generals are doing a dance about you in drag.
That's right.
And actually, frankly, now, Merlin, I've had admirals do a dance about me.
Oh, you know what?
We should circle back to that.
I want to hear how all that went.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's a lot to talk about.
I hope we didn't do anything to damage the relationship of last year's hosts because I was very sad.
It was like within days of us talking about that nice couple.
They announced they weren't going to be together anymore.
I can name names, but the people who had, the people who were the king last year.
Yeah.
People who were the king last year.
Not a couple anymore?
Not a couple anymore.
I hope we didn't do that.
Okay, so anyway.
So you've had Emerald's Dance for you, and this is a person who's industry adjacent, who knows when to use creative kimonos and knows when to not.
Yep.
And who has the social lubricancy to know which kind of places to take people when deals are to be cut and lines that are dotted need to be signed.
That's right.
And he has leaned in.
Right?
Lean in.
But he also knows how to... That's that Cheryl Crow book.
Yeah, well, it's Who Hid My Cheese.
That's right.
Car watch on a Tuesday afternoon.
He knows how to hide the cheese.
He knows where he hid the cheese.
If you've got to move it, you've got to remember where you put it when you moved it.
That's right.
And he knows whose cheese he's moving.
That's the book I want to write.
I move your cheese.
Fuck you.
Exactly.
You want to know where your cheese is?
Yeah.
You talk to me.
B, I'm not telling you where your cheese is.
A, I fucking moved it.
So he's a member, and he said, he's confided in me.
He's like, you know, all this membership, it's fucking breaking the bank.
I don't want to be members of all these things.
It's expensive to be members.
That's why they charge a lot.
But it's a business expense, because pretty much you've got to be members of these things.
Because if somebody hires Beyonce to play his daughter's 16th birthday party, am I going to not be a member of that?
Or am I going to be a member of it?
Of course I'm going to be a member.
Yes.
She's very talented.
She is.
And it's very expensive to hire her to do things.
Oh, also, on that topic, just very briefly, on the program I do with Dan Benjamin, I don't have a ton of podcasts.
I'm not like some people.
But I have one other one with your good friend, Dan Benjamin.
You do a show called Roadwork, which you can find at 5x5.tv.
That's right.
And Dan is a guy that you introduced me to.
Yes.
I said on that program that, you know, I don't like playing shows, right?
Very much.
But if somebody wants to pay me to play a show, I'm not going to say no, right?
You're not made of stone.
Right.
And Dan says, oh, what does that mean?
And I said, well, like that birthday party I played for the Starbucks guy.
The only reason I played the Starbucks guy's birthday party, I mean, he convinced me that the Longwinters were his favorite band.
But he also said, I want you to play my birthday party.
And I said, that's not a thing that I will ever do.
And he said...
uh how much would it cost to have you do it and i so then uh you're familiar with this concept i sure am i i'm already familiar with this concept right the you money right you say well pay me you money it's an event event you don't want to do for people you're not necessarily that attached to you you're pretty sure it'll go badly it might be disruptive it's any of those things the red flags are flying everywhere on the field and you go i'll just add a zero to that
Well, and the thing about you is I remember when you started introducing the concept of fuck you money and people started paying it to you.
And then you were like, you know what?
I'm going to charge even more fuck you money because I don't want to do these things.
And people paid you that.
Well, I mean, it started at a pretty small level.
But yeah, but pretty.
You got up to some fuck you money.
And then I then I was there.
I remember the day when you were like, there is no amount of fuck you money.
you could buy me a boat and i still won't do this because because that's a whole show but you got to know you got to know when i say what you're worth i don't i mean partly yeah i mean with the market and yeah i partly mean like what's what's fair to everybody but it's also like the 10 000 things you will not be doing when you're doing that thing and the maybe 50 000 things you're not doing in the run-up to that because they can't pay a deposit yeah yeah
Well, so anyway, immediately after that show airs, I get an email from a nice gal.
And she says, I want you to play my... We heard your podcast.
I want you to play my husband's... I want you to play for my boyfriend, I guess she said.
Wow.
And I was like... And I wrote her back and I said, listen, you sound like a nice lady.
But I don't think you were... I don't think you heard what I was saying.
There's no way I'm going to play for your husband or your boyfriend...
Because there's just, it's just, you know, like, I don't want to, I don't, seriously, thank you for writing.
And she wrote back, very calm and cool.
And she was like, but seriously, like, how much?
And so I wrote her back and I said, look, here's the thing.
Plumbers make bids.
Musicians
consider offers oh i see so i'm not gonna bid on this thing that you want like i because i'm not you know you just you just moved your cheese i just moved the cheese a little bit move the cheese because what you don't want to do is say uh two hundred dollars to somebody who was thinking twenty thousand dollars right because then they're gonna go oh shit yeah yeah bring money bags let's start
You go first.
But if you say $20,000 to somebody that was thinking $200, you know.
That's how they get you.
Yeah, now they're on LiveJournal writing a blog about your rider.
Anyway, so I said, you know, make a bid.
So she comes back.
Nice gal makes a bid.
And I was like, huh, that's in the ballpark.
Okay.
It didn't immediately turn you off or make you go.
No, it was in the ballpark.
So I wrote her back and said, you know, throw like a three, five pound bag of M&Ms and your engagement ring.
And we got a deal.
And she was like, done.
Just like one word, done.
Can I have her number?
And so...
It was for the next day or two days later.
So I got in my car and I drove several hours to this place and I show up and I walk into this house and none of the people knew I was coming except for her.
Well, wait a minute.
It was a situation where there were about 10 or 11 people there.
That's it?
Like seven guys and four women.
And I think, if I'm correct, all the women knew that this was happening.
Oh, what a nice present.
That's a nice present.
And they were longtime fans.
And I sat down in the living room, and there were two grown-up men that were in your and my age range.
Is this going to turn into a key party?
And then three of their sons, who were between 19 and 30 or something,
And everybody knew everything, right?
They all knew all the songs.
They all knew all the podcasts.
What a dream.
And I sat down and I was like, hi, nice to meet you.
And the wives were teasing them.
The wives were like, they're freaking out right now.
You can't tell, but they're freaking out.
And the guys did not appear to be freaking out.
Shut up.
But there wasn't even that.
Like, honey, knock it off.
Everybody seemed normal, super normal.
And also super great.
I sat down and I was like, all right, what do you want me to play?
And between them...
They each pitched a few songs, all of the songs totally great, like totally unexpected choices.
And each time I was like, all right, well, that was great.
Now, what about the next song?
Somebody came up with another and they weren't trying to be obscure.
They were naming their favorite songs.
And it just so happened that it was completely great, weird set list that I never would have otherwise played.
A couple of them I had to remember how to play as I was playing them.
Played, played the set.
And then the, you know, like chief gal in charge was like, all right, well, that's great.
Now we got to go because we're meeting some other people because there's a wedding this weekend.
And so it wasn't it wasn't secretly a hangout opportunity.
Well, and that's bad.
Not that that's bad.
But she was like, she was like, that was great.
Done and done.
And I said and they were like going to dinner at some food truck corral or something.
I said, hey, you know what?
I'll join you guys for dinner.
Uh, because they said we're good.
No, no.
And they were like, fine.
And it's not like we all, I mean, we went to a food truck row and each got our own food and then sat together and ate off paper plates.
But, but, and I brought, you know, I brought some gifts.
I brought, uh, I brought her boyfriend a couple of candles.
I could see you being so good at this.
So good at this.
And, and then I was back in my car and I was back home by midnight and
And I was like, oh, that works.
All I had to do was say that I would do it.
And then somebody basically understood that that was a dare and said, all right, sure.
This would be worth it for me to have you do this as a gift to the people that I love.
And did it.
She was just nonplussed.
I mean, I basically wrote her a couple of times and was like, lady...
Like, go away.
And she was like, no, not going to go away.
Tell me what you tell me.
And I was like, oh, fine.
And then by the end, we were like, fine, both of us.
And it was super fun.
It actually ended up being very fun.
It was nice to meet these people.
I enjoyed their choices.
I brought them some candlesticks.
Wow.
If you can get two of those a week, buddy.
Right?
That'd be nice.
Two of those a week.
That's all you need.
Well, shit, two of them a month, I'd be happy.
But
So anyway, that was a very, I mean, a little bit of a digression, but a real eye opener for me about like, right, right, right.
There is a, there is a place out in space, an X point where somebody says, cause there are a lot of people, even people listening to this program right now who are like, maybe he'll come play my birthday party for $200 and I will not.
And it's not a thing where only rich people get good things.
Because you can get a Yeti bag for free from a guy in Alabama if you just play your cards right.
Well, this is where we come to Hodgman's Corollary, which I don't totally buy into, but I respect for John Hodgman.
Hodgman's Corollary is that the corollary to it never hurts to ask.
As you know, what is a Hodgman's Corollary?
Oh, it does definitely hurt to ask.
It always hurts to ask.
Because the problem is that good-hearted, just a good-hearted American citizen who says, hey, I'll give you $200.
Man, that's more money than I would ever get for something like this.
So guess what?
Now you're not getting paid.
You're spending that time.
And guess what?
Now you're the asshole.
Yep.
Yeah, well, I always tell the story about the time that I had saved up $500 to give you for building the Long Winters website.
And, uh, and I was like, stay, I was like basically standing there with it in an envelope behind my back.
Like I'm going to blow Merlin's mind and give him $500.
And I said, you know, Merlin, I've been meaning to talk to you about the website.
And you said, let me stop you right there.
I built that website because I love you and I love your band.
And if you are about to, let's say, for instance, hand me an envelope with, like, let's say, for instance, $500 in it, it would just be hard for me and you both.
I will not discharge this debt.
So let me just say in this instance, let me just dissuade you if that is even what you're about to start talking about.
I got two prices, buddy.
Free and you can't afford it.
that's right and i was like uh oh okay well uh and i you know this envelope was 500 and it just went into the went into the little what an asshole god i was so arrogant i'm so sorry no it was it was very instructive okay all right look the work i did for you is between 25 and 50 000 worth of work and i would never ask you to pay for it but also yeah
We've been talking about this since our first public broadcast together on my old video show, that in many ways our businesses such as they are are very similar.
And one of the ways in which they're similar is that nobody wants to pay you, A, because B, it all seems really easy and fun, right?
Like, oh, you love playing your music.
You get to travel.
You get to meet people.
You get to craft services.
And, you know, that used to be a real struggle for me.
And so when I would...
throw that particular shape, that is on the basis of the preceding 15 years of going, sure, I'm just glad you love me.
$50 should be more than enough.
And then what the thing is, if you do that, gosh, what a nice guy.
What a nice guy.
He made the site for this mall for $50.
What a nice guy.
The thing is now, I mean, you have turned your life into a living hell.
How many people, how many clients like that can you afford to have before you just simply don't have a life anymore?
Yeah.
Well, and the realization I had somewhere along the line, which was when people said, oh, all we can afford is this.
We'd love to have you.
Yeah.
And then you write back.
As they say, that's the red line.
This is this much money.
There's not a nickel more.
Not a nickel more.
And you write back and say, the smallest amount I could do it for is twice what you're offering.
Yeah.
And they're like, okay, I think we can make it work.
And you go, oh, I see.
Everyone's a liar.
Yeah.
I guess I didn't know that before.
I mean, I should have.
You think that's why the Posies wrote that song?
Everybody's a liar.
Everybody's a fucking liar.
Because they were sick of getting shortchanged.
Yeah, they were like, shit, are you kidding me?
All this time there was twice as much money lying around?
Let me go ask my manager.
Bastards.
I'm not above saying to somebody, would you leave your job...
and wife and daughter to fly across the country for three days for this amount they go of course i would i said well then that's not smart because if you really thought about that that's not such a good deal yeah that's less than you'd make in a day of your work at your job yeah that's right so uh so anyway yeah now i'm now i'm trying to figure out like yeah
You know what you need, buddy?
I'll do these.
They're not a sponsor this week, but you need a Squarespace one-page website.
John's Bespoke Entertainment Services.
And don't overdo it.
You should probably have a kid, maybe an intern, who monitors this for you.
And you just say, make me an offer.
Here's what I'll do.
I'll come and hang out.
I'll play some songs.
You know what I'll do.
I'm John Roderick.
I'm John fucking Roderick.
Yeah, but see, here's the thing, right?
I mean, I have a relationship with a booking agent.
I don't want to formalize this process because at a certain point he's going to say, are you playing house shows?
House shows?
What are you, Dave Bazon?
Not a thing I do.
I do not play house shows.
Here's the thing.
Boy, if you do it with Dave, wouldn't that be fun?
Oh, my goodness.
What it would be is it would be we would be splitting an amount of money that's already too small.
But the thing is, I don't play house shows.
I did not.
I would never come down to a town to play a show for your boyfriend.
No, I wouldn't do it.
It's not a thing I would do.
In rare instances, I will do it.
But it's the rare instance.
It's not a thing that I'm like, hey, I'm putting out my shingle.
I'm open for business.
I hear you.
No.
You know what?
I withdraw the suggestion.
You're absolutely right.
Sorry, Squarespace.
No, no, no.
It's all right.
I'll have Squarespace do something else because right now I've got a lot of assistants.
I've got a lot of assistants that are queuing up.
What?
Some great assistants.
Huh.
Because I put the call out for assistance again.
Oh, no.
John, are we going through this again?
Well, I don't just, I feel like... Don't have anybody move.
I got 22 pairs of Levi's.
Are they local?
The Levi's?
Yeah, they're in the bathroom floor.
Okay, what about the potential assistants?
Is it going to be somebody in Wales?
Most of them are in other places, but there's one person that's in Seattle.
I'm like your personal Cassandra.
I cut out all the parts where I warn you about things, John.
I cut it all out.
I cut it all out.
You know the super cut I could make of, oh, are you really sure you want to do that?
If that goes perfectly, that'll make you happy.
Are you sure?
Are you sure?
You cut all those out, huh?
Oh, buddy, I cut all those out.
I've been thinking.
I've been thinking.
No!
This is the thing.
This is the one that's going to revolutionize my life.
This is going to be it.
I'm going to have an assistant come over.
They're going to say, let me take care of these jeans for you, boss.
And then they're going to come back all perfectly repaired.
Oh, my God.
And I'm going to go, how did it happen?
How did you do it?
And they're going to say – they're going to like winkle their nose like a little – Little I Dream of Jeannie.
Yeah.
And I'm going to go, what the – wow.
I got the best assistant ever.
Oh, you know, you know what?
It definitely won't be what it definitely won't be is somebody who's not making enough money to really put their back into a kind of half asses it and then doesn't doesn't really do it.
Right.
You got to do it yourself again.
That won't happen.
No, you got an extensive training program.
You set up some desks.
People come in.
Right.
Well, so I did do that.
That didn't work.
But what's nice about so far, everybody that has replied seems like a very professional person with a lot of talents and skills.
Have you looked at the Facebook pages?
Well, yeah, mostly.
And they all seem like they're all legit.
Do they complain about their old jobs?
Look for complaints about old jobs.
I feel like it's a situation where they're like, look, I can build this website for you for $50,000 or for free.
Which one do you want?
Yeah.
I don't know.
Are you going with free?
I haven't gone deeper with anybody yet.
I've gotten the emails.
I've written them back.
I think mostly I wrote everybody back and said, wow, amazing.
You seem amazing because they all did.
You need a Dick Cheney.
You need somebody to be the assistant who helps you pick out who your assistant should be.
Well, this is the problem.
The last time that happened, she picked out herself and then hired herself an assistant.
She did a full Cheney.
Isn't that what happened?
Am I quoting that correctly?
Yeah.
He said, the best candidate for vice president is me.
And then he was the vice president.
And then he started 60 wars.
Had his man-sized vault in his office.
Yeah.
Incredible.
That's still an incredible story to me.
The entire Bush administration existed.
It's still a...
Okay, now here's the question for you.
Are there any principles to be gleaned from the fancy enough window that you could apply to the way that you abduct a new intern?
Is there a fancy enough window through which these people should pass?
Well, that's the thing.
One time, I was reading back over some resumes that I received the last time I did this, and a couple of them were like, I am a professional office manager.
who used to work for NASA.
I'm the person that's responsible for the life support systems of the astronauts.
And I heard that you're looking for an assistant.
You left because why?
And you want to work here, why?
That's...
Well, but it's just, you know, that's the thing about our podcast.
It goes out into the world.
I guess it does.
I don't hear much about it.
I hear occasionally, yeah, I can't even follow it anymore.
Sometimes, twice a year, I hear that somebody I didn't know listens to it.
It's out there.
I guess.
Do you think so?
Do you think it's out there?
It's out there.
Do you mean people who listen to the program?
People listen to the program, but they're in their own place.
They're sitting there under their potato tree, and they're saying, I'm just doing my thing.
I'm just riding in the back of my limo.
John and Merlin live out in space somewhere.
The other day, I'm sitting here.
I get a text message from my sister's good friend, Kenna.
Kenna says, I'm in Australia.
I was doing a podcast with some people.
Turns out they're Roderick on the Line fans.
Shut your mouth.
And they want to say hello.
Are they in any position to help us get a phony award?
Here's the thing.
So they send me a video, and it's three very nice people in Australia with those delightful, delightful Australian accents.
Top-notch, high-quality accent.
Right.
They're just like little koala bears.
And they say, you know,
Aye, aye, John.
Yeah, they say, like, put a shrimp on a barbie or whatever.
I didn't understand.
Oh, a spider's a dead bee.
Now that's a knife.
Oh, God, I hate this so much.
Oh, my God, these are people who've lived lives, and we have exactly four bullets on them.
They have an entire culture.
Uh...
And so they're having a little they're having a little moment with each other because I think they probably are thinking, oh, right.
This woman's from Seattle.
We said just hilariously like, oh, do you know John Roderick?
She says, as a matter of fact, I do.
And then she points her camera at us.
And so they're like, hi, you know, what's up, John?
We're big fans.
And she says, what would you say to John if he could say anything?
And one of them says, well, I'd like to know if any of those stories are true.
Immediately infuriated.
That makes you so angry, John.
So then they're like, la-da-da-da-da.
And at one point they say about the woman that's a member of their little triumvirate.
They say, like, oh, she has a nickname for you, which is that you're her Tuesday husband, because if she was ever going to have an affair on her actual husband, it would be with you.
What a lovely compliment.
That's such a nice note.
Wow, Tuesday husband.
I feel like that's part of Australian culture.
That's a thing that they might say down there.
They said it with such ease that I was like, Tuesday husband?
Is that an Australian coinage?
That's good.
Who's your Tuesday husband?
No.
And it's me in this case.
So I immediately make a little video myself, which I would absolutely never do.
It's not a thing I do or would ever do.
But I did in this instance because I was mad.
And I said, are my stories true?
Are my stories true?
This is the thing that you dare to say to me, you ding-a-lings?
Are my stories true?
My stories are even truer than I tell.
I don't tell the real true story because Merlin doesn't want to hear it.
No, I understand.
You're like Milton Berle.
You just take out enough to beat him.
You know what I'm saying?
If I told you this whole story, you know what?
It would be some kind of Lord of the Rings situation.
You'd be engulfed in flames if I told you the truth.
Yeah, you'd be engulfed in flames.
Everybody else would, too.
I'd be in jail if I told you the whole story.
You'd never sleep again.
So I send this thing to them.
Oh, and then another thing I said in my thing was, listen, jerks, you're down there in Australia.
Why have you not done it?
You are podcasters in Australia.
Why have you not brought us to Australia?
There's only one country that is officially sanctioned to give away the fake podcast award called The Phony, and that is Australia.
Yep, that's right.
And so then they send another video back, and they're like,
And I didn't even say about, I didn't even talk about the phony awards.
I said, if you listen to Roderick on the line, you know, your job, you already know your job and you're not doing, you're failing.
And so they write back and they're like, Oh, we'll invite you down to the headphone awards.
And now I'm just steaming mad because they're now they're having fun with it on that in your face when they should have been working this whole time.
So that's again, another thing I would never do, but I guess far away that is.
I'm doing it now.
So far away.
I do have a sense of how far away it is.
Just from SF to, in this case, New Zealand, 15-hour flight.
Yeah.
That's too much flight.
Well, so... With a four-year-old.
So it's baked in.
Wait a minute.
Do either of us have a four-year-old?
What the time?
Oh, I see, right.
So baked into the headphone awards is comfortable travel to there, right?
Oh, I think that's right on the tin.
It's right on the Barbie.
Bare minimum, you're not going to put us back in steerage.
When those nice people from New Zealand flew me out for that talk where I cried, they put us in like a business classy thing, and it was amazing.
i see you do you got that's that's that's just a bare minimum but everybody should know what that was that was i negotiated that my friends and his family were back in coach and i felt really bad but but uh but no i mean you kidding me we're bringing the family bring the family you've had this well bring your oh john john you love your guitar and your family bring your guitar and your family just come on over yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no no
No.
No.
But there is a way to do it.
There is a right way to do it.
It's not like, this is what I'm learning.
It's not like, no, hard no.
It's like, sure, yes, but no to the thing that you're thinking.
Yes to the thing that I'm thinking.
I would say it's like a silly putty no.
Where like, if you feel like a fresh silly putty, you take it out of the egg, you push on a silly putty, it will yield, but it's going to take you a while.
That putty's not warm yet.
You have not warmed our putty yet.
All you've done at this point is introduce the egg.
Yeah, you want the putty to yield before it's warm.
And that's not how putty works.
Ha ha!
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do.