Ep. 270: "An Archipelago of Stops"
Hello.
Hi, John.
Hi, Merlin.
How's it going?
Really good.
That new Skype sound really bugging me, though.
Oh, you got the new Skype.
And then it's got this weird, like, there's a break in the loop.
You would think that the loop would be basic technology.
That seems like basic computer maths.
Yeah, you've got a loop.
Just let it loop.
I don't even know what it is.
I don't know why, but I somehow still have old Skype.
Oh, lucky guy.
7.59, and I like it.
Well, I don't like it.
I hate it.
I hate them all, but each one's worse, so it's better than what the future will eventually give me.
I don't know how you did that.
I don't know how you kept 7.9.
Because it does it kind of automagically, right?
Yeah, they forced me into 8.12.0.2.
Ooh, ooh.
Too many.
Too many.
And now, up in the corner of my computer, it says, upgrade to Mac OS High Sierra.
Oh, no, don't do that.
And I'm like, what?
Where did you come from?
I don't like you.
Go away.
Okay, so you get the thing in the upper right.
It says, upgrade to Mac OS High Sierra.
What's your options?
Tell me what your options are.
Well, it says, enjoy the latest technologies.
What are the two buttons, though?
Oh, details and...
Oh, should I just click details?
Family serves.
Okay, it's details and install.
Oh, install, right.
Unlike almost every other notification on the Mac, so normally when you get one of those, you probably know this, you can grab it, grab like the left side of it and scooch it off to the right side of your screen and it goes away without having to click on it.
That's one of the very, very rare notifications that you, for it to go away, you have to interact with it.
Well, so I clicked details and it went away.
It didn't offer me any details.
It usually takes you to a page where it's like, hey, there's stuff and things.
It didn't do it this time.
Just benefits.
So I clicked a bunch of... I went onto the interwebs and I said, why should...
And then it auto-filled to, I upgrade to High Sierra.
That could be the algorithm.
Let's see what I get.
Why should college be free?
Why should we keep the electoral college?
Why should we hire you?
Why should I worry?
Read the rest of yours.
Let's see.
All right.
Why should... Wait a minute here.
Why should...
Oh, no.
I just pushed return.
Why should?
Why should?
Yeah, why should we hire you is the first one.
What sets you apart from other candidates?
No, no, no.
Why should we hire you feet?
Why should we hire you estimated net worth?
Why should we hire you over other candidates?
Why should we hire you answer for fresher?
Why should I get an Apple Watch?
Why should college athletes be paid?
Ooh.
Why should abortion be legal?
Why should abortion be illegal?
That's what I get.
I didn't get anything about college being free.
Yeah.
It's weird.
It's weird, especially because it used to be that you could, like there was a time when Google first came around and fairly quickly overtook all the other ones and everyone went, wow, this is really relevant, where you could like send somebody, you could say to somebody, well, I'm the number one return on Google or I'm on the first page of Google.
Of course, this is the correct answer.
Because it's on the first page of Google and everybody's got it in the same position.
I think that's the way it was for a long time.
And people still do that today where they're like, oh, my God, check out my suggestions for blah, blah, blah, blah.
Like, how do I find hentai porn?
What is hentai porn?
Is there more hentai porn?
Like, oh, my God, look at all this hentai porn stuff.
It's like, dude.
Why should I worry?
What happens if you click on that?
I don't know.
I'll find out.
Why should I worry?
Oh, it might be because one time I googled for the lyrics to A Hard Day's Night.
No, that's why on earth should I moan.
Why on earth should I moan?
It's a Billy Joel song from the movie Oliver and Company, which appears to be an animated film.
Oh, and there's a dog with a necklace of hot dogs.
is that a is that a movie that i missed oliver and company i don't think i know that one why should i worry i wish i worry is a song featured in disney's oliver and company it's sung by dodger the song is a wonderfully upbeat way to introduce the streetwise dog from new york city um let's have a little bit of pov there i'm on the disney wiki disney wiki it's a comedy a comedy drama film
But also an animated... Okay, let me say the whole thing.
1988 American animated musical comedy drama film.
1988 was the... Oh, here it is.
The film is inspired.
It features dogs with hot dog necklaces, but it was inspired by Oliver Twist.
Oh, that's nice.
Yeah, that's nice.
Do you think they have a Jew Fagan?
I'm wondering.
Without looking, without Googling, who should be the voice of dog Jew Fagan?
Oh, it's got to be... Gilbert Gottfried.
No, who's the guy from Torch Song Trilogy?
Oh, Harvey Fierstein.
Harvey Fierstein.
hang on I'm not really quite awake yet I'm kind of awake I'm in the same boat you know what happened to me this morning no what happened
Well, other than reading about the train crash that happened in my neighborhood.
Was I the one who told you about it?
You were the one that told me, yeah.
Oh, shit dog, I'm sorry.
No, it's all right.
I had been awake for 11 seconds.
And you were like, shit, man, that train crash.
Am I right?
Yeah, I think I said something like that Amtrak crash was sure fucked up.
I was like, oh, great.
Here we go.
Let's see what this is all about.
And I learned a lot.
But also then I called...
I called an auto detailer because, you know, I had a little bit of a truck fire last week.
I'm writing that down.
Okay.
And I called this auto detailer because I was like, hey, you guys.
The guy answers, you know.
I'm like, hey, I've got a little bit of a thing.
Your truck detailing or your car detailing place comes highly recommended by a friend of mine.
Mm-hmm.
Would you deal with a truck that had, A, caught on fire, and then, B, the fire had been put out with kind of the worst kind of chemical fire extinguisher?
You sound like one of those surveys you get.
How would you describe your enthusiasm to clean up a little bit of a truck fire?
Would you say you're somewhat enthusiastic?
Very enthusiastic?
Super fucking pumped?
You know, bless his little heart.
that's the kind of thing where like yeah okay all right what do you say what you set it up you kind of already given him his answer oh yeah i was like what are you gonna you know like yeah you're you are a detailer right am i right that's right there in your it's right there in your thing um and he's like yeah i mean you know we should probably do a test test on it to see see how well our those are paint damage
No, not that kind of truck fire.
The other kind of truck fire.
The other kind of truck fire.
There's a lot of kinds of truck fire.
Oh, it's like that William James thing, the varieties of a bit of a truck fire.
That's right.
Is that under the hood type situation?
No, that's the thing.
It did not.
It's what we call it in the business, a dash fire.
A dash fire?
It was in the interior.
It was an interior fire.
Not the kind of fire necessarily that you want.
Wow.
But there's really, you know, no truck fire that you're looking for.
It's not a thing where you're like, oh, I hope I get a truck fire today.
I don't know.
If you've got a personality like mine, you're pretty excited to know a fire is starting.
Because you're like, ah, finally.
Finally, I'm here and I prevented it.
Hey, you know what I did today?
I prevented a fire.
The fire I'm always worried is going to happen.
Could you please unplug?
Please unplug the hot glue gun when you're done.
It's very important.
No one's in the house, right?
You're just shouting this to the cat.
In this case, the truck caught on fire as I was driving and unfortunately on the freeway, which is a bad place.
But I was able to get the truck off the freeway.
And I was, you know, at this point I was going, as my dad would say, huckle-dee-buck.
I was going huckle-dee-buck.
Is that the kind of thing where you go, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.
Yeah, pretty much.
I was like, we're fine.
We're fine.
Everything's cool.
This is no problem.
But then there was a guy that was on the ramp ahead of me that was going a little bit too slowly.
And then I was doing that thing where I was talking to him.
Like, let's go, buddy.
Let's go.
Let's go.
Truck's on fire.
Keep moving.
Keep moving and get out of the way.
And I got around him and I got to a gas station slash convenience store where I often go for breakfast chicken strips.
Breakfast.
Practice chicken strips.
And I pull up out front and I run in and there's a woman stocking some juice.
And I said, do you have a fire extinguisher?
And she said, yes, right this way.
And then proceeded to walk pretty darn fast.
casually to the front of the store or to the other end of the store.
And I was like, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.
Just you could just tell me where it is.
You could just tell me where it is.
And but she walked me up there and she pointed at this thing that was mounted on the wall.
And I grabbed it like I was about to go put out a fire, which I was.
And ran all the way, like sprinted through the store.
And it was really kind of war movie.
Like I pulled the pin and threw the pin across the floor.
And then you jumped in slow motion.
Yeah, just like.
Come out.
So there's my truck with the door open and the smoke just pouring out of the dashboard.
Oh, shit.
Coming out of all the heater vents, coming out of everything.
But no, like, I don't see, like, it has not yet gone, like, and... So just, I'm sorry, I wanted you to do your story here, but just so you're driving along, and was there an open flame that you could see, or was there smoke coming out?
Well, what happened, I'm driving along, I'm like, what's that smell?
Smells like hot plastic.
But there's no plastic in my truck.
Like, there's hardly any plastic at all.
But it's not a thing where it's like, oh, the thing is hot.
It's like plastic.
I never smell any plastic in here.
Obviously, there's plastic in the truck, but like hot plastic.
So I'm looking around and I'm like, did the baby lean something up against something?
Is there a vent blocked or something?
And then the hot plastic smell gets stronger.
And so I turn on the heater or I turn on the fan and roll the window down to blow the hot plastic smell out of whatever it is.
And in turning on the fan...
Then, all of a sudden, I get, like, burning plastic smell, and then just smoke starts pouring out of the vents.
I would be so huckledee buck at that point.
Really moving at this point.
That is, like, contraindicated.
And moving, moving, moving, huckledee bucking, and then I...
And then as I'm moving – and so then I shut down the fan, right, because no thank you.
Whatever that did, that's not what I wanted.
But then too late, buddy.
Like whatever the thing – however it is that you set your truck on fire, it's not going out just by turning the fan off.
Right.
So when I came out with this fire extinguisher, I didn't read the fire extinguisher.
I was like, is this one of these modern fire extinguishers or is this one of these ones that is like awful?
And I and I hit hit hit it.
And it was like, oh, no, this is one of those awful, awful, awful, awful ones.
Because the fire extinguisher went into the truck and, you know, the like cloud.
And then it immediately like immediately went to every single corner of the truck and came out and felt like I had been hit with tear gas.
And so I popped the hood because I don't know where the fire is coming from.
It's not under the hood.
It's not in the motor.
So I go back around the other side and there's still smoke pouring out and I kind of hit it again from the passenger side, the dash.
And as happens in things like this, there's kind of suddenly a guy standing there who's just like hands in pockets guy who's saying, well, it looks like there's a little bit over there.
You should, you know, like check this one out over here.
And he's kind of spotting for me, I guess.
And also kind of running a commentary.
Like, boy, man, I'm a classic car guy myself.
So I've been in your situation before.
And I'm like, uh-huh, uh-huh.
He's like, yeah, I used to have a Volkswagen.
It had a motor up in the front that was like a vent motor.
And it caught on fire one time, but burned it to the ground.
And I'm like, uh-huh, uh-huh.
And he's just kind of following me around.
like telling me all about all the cars he's had that have caught on fire you know and i'm in the middle of putting out this fire like this isn't a conversation we're having after the have a little focus to the situation well but it was it actually you know it was he was fairly helpful in that he was he was kind of pointing out like you know what if i were you i'd put it up i'd get it up under the dash there over on the left hand side i'm like uh-huh thank you thanks very much he's like i think i see a little bit of smoke coming
But then he's still filling in.
And what's funny is I don't think of him now when I think back at him.
I don't think of him as like an over-talkative guy.
He was just getting all this information into a very intense little 10-minute period that we spent together.
And he made me feel good in that I didn't burn the truck down.
But he also was the first one of what became many people
Saying, oh man, those fire extinguishers are the worst.
Well, okay, so wow, a lot of angles here.
What was it about this fire extinguisher that was no good?
Well, they've improved fire extinguisher technology considerably.
And now they use fire extinguishers that just like
throw a bunch of co2 on the fire and oh they like uh choke it yeah smother it with smother yeah with the with the you gotta have for a fire to happen what you gotta have heat you gotta have fuel and you gotta have uh oxygen oxygen you gotta rob it of something and so these new fire extinguishers they're expensive which is funny because it's not like co2 is expensive i'm on amazon right now but that's how they get you oh my god
I need new fire extinguishers.
I need new ones.
I know I do.
And so the CO2, when you put out the fire, it's very benign, right?
Just like... Whereas these old ones, they're made with this sort of silicate kind of like tiny micro powder that's meant to go everywhere.
And it's meant to create...
Yeah, it's meant to create this, like, oxygen-free environment by virtue of filling it with this kind of, like, yellow, noxious silicate powder that is, like, caustic, right?
It's like it burns paint.
It...
burns your lungs it burns your eyes it and it i i mean it is everywhere in the truck if you go back to the very very furthest back corner of the truck and lift up a piece of paper it will be under the it just you know whatever it's a it's a miracle substance but it also has done at least as much damage as the fire
And if you, I can't imagine doing it in your house, you would have to have a hazmat team come in.
So whatever the cost of CO2 fire extinguishers, it's more than worth it.
And here's the bummer.
I had a CO2 fire extinguisher that I purchased for this very reason.
Cause I'm driving a 40 year old truck and it was in the truck and
And I had been meaning to mount it in like that sort of cool dude way where you mount a fire extinguisher in the cabin of your cool truck.
Oh, sure.
Yeah, it makes it more like a boat.
It's so much more like a boat.
And then I never got around to mounting it.
And then the fire extinguisher was kind of rolling around in the truck.
And then at some point, I was cleaning out the truck to get...
ready to go on some trip or some like haul the haul my mom's new couch or haul some old refrigerator whatever and the fire extinguisher got swept up in a big arm load of like oh it's a sweater and a couple of coffee cups and a
And four magazines and the fire extinguisher.
Yeah, because that's the thing that's on your mind.
The thing on your mind is I've got to get the car cleaned out.
Got to clean out the car.
Yeah.
And so not having mounted this fire extinguisher, I cleaned it out into a pile, and the fire extinguisher is sitting in the barn right now.
So it doesn't do any good there.
No.
And as I was driving, I was like, I've got a fire extinguisher in here.
It should be right here.
It should be.
And I'm reaching where I should have mounted it.
Mm-hmm.
Like, it's right here.
It's so close.
Oh, fuck.
It's not right there.
So I learned a lot of lessons.
But so I called the detailers.
And I was like, will you do this?
Will you do this job?
I mean, this is somewhere between car detailing and crime scene mitigating.
Yeah, right.
So, yeah.
Boy, you're good at making me wonder what's going to happen next.
So, you got smoke.
It's stinky in your car, right?
It's stinky, plus now you got fire extinguisher stuff.
Right.
That's the two major things you're dealing with.
Well...
What I consider to be the major thing that I'm dealing with is that there was a fire behind the dash caused by something.
And so I took it to my guy, my mechanic.
Everybody's got to have a mechanic.
Especially if you're going to have a 40-year-old truck.
My dad had a lawyer, a secretary, a mechanic, a doctor, a cardiologist, an accountant.
And he knew all these people by name.
He was an insurance agent.
And he would go by their offices and he'd sit there and they'd see each other at rotary meetings.
I know he had an airplane mechanic.
He did have an airplane mechanic.
You know, like he had his people.
There was the woman at the film stop that developed his film.
He knew everybody.
And for me, it's just like, oh, I got some stuff.
I send it off to somebody.
I get an email from them.
But I'm trying to build up these relationships.
I have two booking agents now.
But I do have a mechanic.
And I took my mechanic.
Actually, I have two mechanics.
And both of them are practitioners of the style of being a mechanic that I really appreciate, which is that most of the time their answer is, that's not that big of a deal.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, it's fine.
It will, you know, just, I mean, you could replace the timing chain, but I wouldn't.
You know, they give that kind of advice.
I love that kind.
Which is like, all right.
It's more like there's like, you know, like in the world of environmental remediation, you've got like an assessment and then you got remediation.
Sort of it's along the lines of having two kids and, you know, one slices and one chooses.
You don't enrich yourself.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
Yes.
The place I used to work, we had a little more credibility in these kinds of things because we didn't do any remediation.
So we had nothing to gain by giving you a certain price tag for fixing it up.
I feel like you almost need two of everything.
You do.
You know what I'm saying?
It's a little bit of a prisoner's dilemma.
You could do that with your cardiologist.
You could do that with your detailer.
You know what I mean?
What do you think about what they said?
What do you think about what they said?
Hmm?
My two mechanics are, they fall into two categories.
One guy does not want your truck sitting around at his place.
He is doing a booming business of changing people's oil and... Oh, like a printing press only makes money when it's running.
Right.
And he's, you know, he'll throw your car up on a diagnostic...
thing and it'll come up with you know the computer will give him four codes where he's like oh you know looks like your main bearing is out and he'll and the thing will go and he'll like I mean he can take a motor apart he's no he's not a bad mechanic yeah
But he's just, I mean, just because you can do open heart surgery doesn't mean you should.
Yeah.
It's a Jurassic Park type situation.
He's got like three guys working for him and they're pulling stuff out.
He's managing.
He's managing is what he's doing.
He is.
He is.
And he walks around with a, with a, like a, a spelunker's light on his head.
He's ready.
He is.
He is ready.
He is a, he's Palestinian.
And he's a member of a kind of very strange, what I would consider to be.
Oh, yeah.
He's Muslim, but he's a member of a kind of apocalyptic second coming cult.
Is this the mechanic who's given you the pitch in the past for something?
Yeah.
Is this the one?
Is this the pitching mechanic?
Yeah.
Somebody bends your ear about something you need to get with?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's the one.
His name is Dan, and he... I mean, that's not typically a Palestinian name, but it might be short for Daniel.
I mean, I guess Dan is short for Daniel, right?
It's not short for Danathan.
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Danathan.
That's a terrible name.
Actually, it's Danathan.
Danathan.
Latte.
Latte for Danathan.
Yes.
Poor Danathan.
There's a guy I've seen on Twitter.
His name's Tanniel.
Every time I see it, I think, with all due respect, I'm sure the guy does good work.
Every time I see that, I go, wow, that's the worst name I've ever heard.
Tanniel?
Tanniel.
Tanniel with a T. His name's Tanniel.
His first name, someone named him Tanniel.
Oh, Tanniel.
What was the one?
Danathan?
So, yeah, Dan believes he said to me the last time I was there because he gets a look in his eye and I always know that that's when it's time for me to get going.
But he was like.
You know, this whole Trump in Jerusalem thing.
I was like, oh, boy.
What?
What?
And he said, it's a great thing.
Interesting.
Oh, because it brings the motherfucking rockets.
Yeah.
And I said, you're telling me.
He's like the Christians with the whole Jewish thing.
Because they want everything.
They want Charles Manson.
They want things to blow up.
Some people just want to watch the world burn.
And I accused him of that.
I was like, you are a Palestinian Muslim and you're telling me that Trump making Jerusalem the capital city of Israel is a good thing for you because why?
And he's like, because it's going to bring the, and I was like, stop right there.
Leave it.
it's gonna bring what it's gonna bring peace at last peace in our time two-state solution just chilling the fuck out like what it would bring riders on on white steeds what is it bringing and he was like i and he starts to go you know he's like you know people are people are criticizing trump but he's actually our guy i was like all right okay all right okay and he does you know and he he pulls his
He pulls his spelunker light up a little bit so it's not shining in my eyes, and he really, really, really wants to talk to me about Jehovah.
Well, now he's got you on the hook.
You think you're the only person?
You think this is the first time?
This guy's a salesman.
He's the salesman of the month.
He's been through this so many times.
He knows how to overcome objections.
He knows to use your name to get you in the habit of saying yes.
He's selling you an apocalypse.
And now you're on the hook.
Now you're asking, what color does this apocalypse come in?
Change the clutch on that Honda Civic and leave me out of your story.
But I love him.
You know, I love him to death.
But so my other mechanic, Clint.
Clint does not care if my truck is there at his space.
He will do long form deep dives.
One time I took the truck to him and I was like, something's wrong.
Smells like gas.
He's like, hmm.
He got in and he was like, it does smell like gas.
And he started to troubleshoot it.
and um and he worked on it for a while and he was like well i checked the fuel tank i checked the the all the fuel lines i'm under the hood i can't really get it to i can't really get it to duplicate this problem and it was kind of hot and in the summer and then he left it alone for a day or two and then he came back and he was like it really smells like gas and i was like i know and oh and one time he was like i can't there's nothing wrong with it and i got in it and drove it for a day and then i came back and was like look i can't drive this thing it's like
It feels like it's about to explode.
There's raw gas in it.
He took it back.
He worked on it for another couple of days and then he called me and he said, I was working on your truck really trying to dig down on this and I went in the back and there was a
There was a gas can underneath a blanket in the back of the truck.
Oh, so that might have been the source of the smell.
Yeah.
And it was a hot summer day and the gas was venting.
It was a bad situation.
Occam's razor, right?
Yeah, that's right.
And, you know, the truck had been with him for five days and he was like, you know, no charge.
Yeah, but what are you going to say?
And I said, I mean, I said, I'll give you 50 bucks.
So anyway, I took it to clean.
You gotta pay the dumbass surcharge.
Merlin, can you hang on a second?
I just have one little question I need to answer here.
Yes, darling?
I'm making something really special.
Okay, I can't wait to see it.
Have you spelled Marcia?
M-A-R-C-I-A.
Okay.
Mar-C-I-A.
Okay.
Can you do that?
Okay.
A-R-M-A-R-C-I-A.
Good luck.
School is out.
Yep.
I love her.
I love her so much.
So we are hanging out all day, every day, and she understands what podcasting is.
She understands that dad has his work, but it's very hard to leave dad alone.
Oh, it's very hard.
For an hour and a half.
Last night I said, okay, girls, I'm going to go in the other room.
I've got to get 10 more minutes in on my meditation.
I'm going to go in the other room.
So I'm going to be meditating in there.
I'm not ignoring you.
I'm doing the meditation.
And before I could get engaged in this, my daughter came in and asked me how to spell this related thing.
And I said, you know what's good?
My mindfulness practice has made it so this makes me not want to kick you out the window.
It's not a problem at all.
It's hard.
It's hard.
And, you know, a house becomes the child.
We're getting off topic.
All right.
So you have two different mechanics who both might be in the same serial S-Town style series.
Yeah.
I'm seeing these two guys.
It starts out, we don't know that they're involved, but then we discover there is a link between Danathan and Daniel.
On the one hand, we've got the austere guy over here.
He doesn't want you hanging out here.
He's got the headlamp.
And then over here, we've got more of the guy who sits in a lazy boy, and he'll get it done whenever.
He'll get it done whenever.
And in between, you've got a man with a truck, and his name is John.
Yes.
And I sometimes I'll go hang out at both of their shops, depending on what my mood is.
If I want to talk about apocalyptic, like, like evangelical Muslim guy, I will go hang out with Dan.
And if I want to sit around because because the thing about Clint is he's always got.
Dan never has an interesting car in there.
It's just a steady stream of Honda's, BMW's, Toyota's, you know, like, uh, he's just running, running them.
Uh, Clint will sometimes have like a 78 Camaro that looks like it was in somebody's backyard for 10 years.
I'm like, I'm like, what's the story with this?
And he's like, Oh, well this guy, you know, I got to fix this thing up.
And, and,
It's always something going on at Clint.
Can I just ask roughly, without too much identifying information, about how old is Clint?
Both guys, Clint and Dan, are about my age.
Okay.
Interesting.
See, on first read, and this is my own prejudices, check my privilege, I would guess that Dan was a younger man.
I would guess Clint was an older-than-you man.
But now there's not that many older-than-us people at this point, but in my head, that's how I was imagining it.
Clint is old school.
He was a bass player in a punk band.
He came to me through some other hot rod friends.
I have a friend named Andrew who moved down to San Diego who has a...
who has like a 66 Econo line that's painted with house paint.
That's a good look.
That's a good look.
I don't know what it is, but you can just tell when something's painted with house paint.
It has less of a shine to it.
It's red on the bottom and white on the top, and he calls it the Santa van.
And he has put probably...
And conservatively, $35,000 into a $5,000 van.
What?
Like this thing.
What?
This thing is a piece of garbage.
But he has been – he babies it because he's a motorcycle racer.
So he puts his motorcycles in the back.
Oh, sure.
And Santa Van is legendary among –
rock and roll guitar players and hot rod motorcycle jumpers on the west coast.
Because we've all seen Santa Van.
We've all seen Santa Van on the side of the road with smoke pouring out of it.
So he's like, oh, you got to take it to Clint.
When I first got my first jalopy.
And Clint and I, oh, we'll sit up there and we'll just talk.
And so, oh, so anyway, so I take the truck to Clint.
And I'm like, look, because I'm definitely not taking it to Dan.
Mm-hmm.
And Clint's like, here's his answer.
He has it for a day.
And he says, well, look, I've been sitting in the truck.
I turned it on.
I turned the heater on high.
And other than blowing a ton of this noxious fire extinguisher garbage at me, it doesn't smell like smoke now.
So a bunch of burned insulation.
Isn't that like pretty legitimately having a stroke and then going like, well, it went away.
I must be good.
That was what I said to him.
He said a bunch of burned insulation and stuff fell out from underneath the dash.
Don't worry, be happy.
I feel like it pretty much got it all out of there.
And I said, don't you want to take the dash down and look and see what happened back there?
And he's like...
I mean, you know, not really.
And I was like, hmm, all right.
Kind of seems right up Clint's alley, though.
Yeah, but he also... I mean, he sounds like a curious man.
He is curious, but he also feels like he's the one that he's kind of the if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
And if it is broke, maybe don't fix it.
It's the risk assessment.
It's a way of saying like me famously with the timing belt that I didn't fix in time.
Jerry had been telling us for a long time.
He says, look, you got a timing belt issue coming.
You don't have to fix it today.
But it's not going to last a year, and it probably won't last six months.
And when it breaks, as my wife has reminded me many times in the years since, when it breaks, it's going to be very, very costly.
And I was like, hmm, sounds like we're good.
Yeah, right.
See, now, if I had a second mechanic at a third location, if I'd had a Daniel or a Danathan, who could go in and say, you know, buddy, like, seriously, I'm down with Jerry.
Two thumbs up.
Replace the timing belt.
Yeah, right.
Or, you know, the question is always like, when this breaks, is it going to be at a time that is convenient to you?
Or is this going to break at an inconvenient time?
How many times when you're in your car, are you just idly driving and thinking, gosh, if someone's going to break, I hope it's today.
Yeah, I don't need anything.
I don't need to be anywhere right now.
Uh, or is it going to be a thing where you're like five minutes late to a thing already?
And it's kind of one of those, um, biases.
Like when people say like, uh, and I know this has been quoted widely, but they used to say all the time, Hey, you know, be extra careful.
Most accidents happen within five miles of your house.
And on the face of that, you go like, Whoa, that's shit.
That's crazy.
It seems like accidents would be happening on the highway.
And you're like, well, no, like, where do you spend 90% of your time within five miles of your house?
Probably.
Right.
Right.
Similar situation.
Yeah, and in my case, I mean, everywhere in Seattle is my backyard, right?
So there's no place here where I'm like, oh, geez, oh, no, I broke down over here because I'm sure I have a mechanic within five blocks up there who's like some rock and roll friend.
You've got quite an ad hoc staff going on.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, Clinton, Dan, right?
I mean, all I need is two, what I need is two executive secretaries.
One of them just to process my federal pension from when I apparently joined the Navy twice.
That's a different story.
That's a whole different story.
Okay.
Apparently, my dad, he joined the Navy ROTC when he joined the University of Washington.
Oh, so he's on the books twice.
He joined as David Morgan Roderick.
Similar to why I get double jury duty.
I was accidentally registered at two addresses.
There it is.
So you're two Merlin Manns.
That's why I was getting always with the jury duty.
So when my dad joined the Navy Navy... So he didn't know the first time that that would qualify as this... Putting that differently, when he actually did enlist in the Navy, he had no way of knowing... He was already in the Navy.
I see.
So then he joined the Navy as David Roderick or something like that.
David M. Roderick.
And he has two numbers.
So...
So in the 80s, when my dad's secretary, who went above and beyond to care for this man, said, what's your retirement plan?
My dad was like, what do you mean?
I'll live forever.
And she said, well, why don't I figure out what your plan is?
And she put together all this government service that he'd done and submitted it to the federal government to say,
He actually qualifies for a federal pension.
And the government came back and said, well, he was only in the Navy from 42 to 46.
And my dad's like, what are you talking about?
I joined the Navy in 39 or whatever.
Oh, man.
Yes.
And he had all this stuff where he was like, look, you know, they gave me this commemorative cup.
Did he talk about shooting the zero out of the sky?
I don't think he told.
I don't think he would.
I mean, that should qualify you just like with a fact like that under your belt.
They should just hand it to you.
I don't think he would.
I don't think he would like lay that on somebody from the Veterans Administration.
Yeah.
But he definitely he definitely had like, look, there's a picture of me at the, you know.
And so she went back and did all this incredible research that he never would have done and discovered this thing like, oh, you know, you enlisted at this point.
And so now she's trying to deal with this enormous bureaucracy and.
Trying to, like, get them to go back to some Indiana Jones, like, filing warehouse to find the two different files and mate them and call them one thing.
Right, right.
You know, this goes back to your conversation you had many, many years ago about how you don't like it when people call bureaucracy a bad... You don't like when people call bureaucracy a bad thing.
Right.
Like, bureaucracy is what...
fills manhole or fills uh potholes in romania and what gets your dad's indiana jones papers found that's bureaucracy eventually if you can do you know if you have the patience and if you have the know-how and um so she did it she managed to she managed to put this together and all of a sudden my dad was like wait a minute i can retire you know it had never occurred to him um and uh so you know i need at least
That, if not then a second executive secretary that also cares enough about me to figure out, you know, to figure out like, wait a minute, you have five completed records here.
I do.
So I get so I call Clint and I say, I'm going to come get the truck.
I'm going to take it down to the.
The Accutint guys who Adam Pranica says are the best detailers in town.
He has a fancy car, right?
He does.
He's a fancy car guy.
And he said, look, you're going to roll it in there, and these guys are all going to gather around your truck, and they're going to laugh at you because it's that kind of place.
And they're going to make you feel like your dumb fire extinguisher problem is like the funniest thing they've seen in weeks.
Sounds like a nice group.
Sounds like I want to really spend some time with folks like that.
I don't get enough of that on the internet.
Yeah, there's going to be a lot of high-fiving, but they're going to do a great job.
They're just going to haze you.
And I was like, look, man, I love getting hazed by dudes in boiler suits that have their name embroidered on it.
I fucking love it.
That's a good roast.
If you're going to get roasted, it might as well be those guys.
I eat it up.
And the thing is, I'm really good at standing there playing the dumb cuck.
I'll just be like...
I don't know, guys.
I just, oh, shucks.
And then they hit me, you know, from all sides.
And I'm like, duh, duh.
And they put a bunch of bars of soap in a pillowcase.
And they're nailing me.
And I'm like, I deserve it.
It's fun for everybody.
Sure.
Yeah.
But so I call Clinton.
I'm like, I'm coming to get the truck.
And he's like, oh, problem.
There's a slow bleed.
Yeah.
Your battery was run down this morning and it shouldn't have been.
So I hooked up my electrical testers and I realize now that the electric rear window and the heater motor are both drawing power when they're off.
But also, if I turn the truck off, they both will work for a while.
And I said, Clint, this seems... That seems important.
This seems important.
And he was like, I think what happened is that some plastic insulation in the wiring melted, and now there's some crossover.
Oh, you got crossover.
I got crossover.
So the thing is, the whole time that he'd been saying, seems like the problem fixed itself, I had secretly been thinking...
And not secretly because I also said it to him out loud.
I think you should take the dash down.
and look behind it right to see what's going on and he was like well i mean you know sometimes things happen probably what happened is your insulation got caught in there and now it burned up and it's fine okay i take it all back what an incurious given the man's job what an incurious uh attitude he has well you know he is just that it wasn't an interesting enough problem for him
No, I think that he, like a lot of people, and myself included, feel like, what can go wrong in these trucks?
It's only got five wires.
But I really, you know, I wanted that dash pulled down.
So now he's curious.
And he was like, this is interesting.
This is certainly a problem I can't send you out of here with.
But also, like, I want to see what's going on now.
So...
I got to call the Accutent guys back and say, look, dudes, I got to push back because Clint's going in and it's Anything Can Happen Day.
And as you and I were podcasting, I got a call that popped up on my computer because for somehow my computer is connected to my phone.
And when people call me on my phone, it comes up on my computer.
Yes.
Yes.
On my FaceTime.
Is that handy?
Super handy.
I got a call from Dan.
My phone rings as I'm talking to you, and it's Dan calling.
It's Dan.
From Community Automotive.
And I'm like, Dan, why are you calling me?
But I couldn't answer.
I'm podcasting.
You'll call him?
We'll call him on the air?
That's weird.
We shouldn't do that.
Well, no.
Dan's not going to care.
It'll be one more opportunity for him to explain that the apocalypse is coming.
It's good.
It's good news what happened with Trump.
All right.
Here, let me give Dan a call.
Okay.
Hang on.
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And we're back.
Right now, Dan has the Jetta.
And so... When you put it that way, it kind of sounds like the Force.
Yeah, he does.
He has the Force.
Dan has the Jedi.
All right, here we go.
He is the Kwisatz.
Okay, can you hear it ringing?
No.
All right.
It's ringing.
I can't hear it, but you let me know.
Hey, Dan, it's Jon.
Hi, buddy.
Is that right?
What was it?
The ignition coil did what?
Yeah.
Three coils in the module.
Okay.
Oh, so fully two cylinders weren't firing.
Well, I'm grateful to you.
You're a special man.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
In and out.
And you didn't damage anything that you need to have it for a couple of days to fix it.
I'm kidding.
Oh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
Well, you're a miracle.
I'm going to come see you in a couple hours.
Alright.
Bye.
Oh, I give him the business sometimes, but he gives me a lot of business.
Sure, you give as good as you get.
So it's fully two cylinders, huh?
So the ignition coil, you know, the ignition coil's got a little module, and it's got three coils in there because it's a six-cylinder car.
Okay.
And one of the coils had burned out, and so two of the cylinders weren't firing.
And let me tell you, when you're driving a six-cylinder car that has two cylinders out, it's not a smooth motor.
Okay.
It's a Jetta.
It's a Jetta, yeah.
I inherited this Jetta.
That's a sedan.
That's a four-door.
It's a four-door Jetta.
We had a Jetta for a good long time.
Oh, your Jetta was amazing.
No, we have a different Jetta.
This was a Jetta, but it's a hot rod Jetta.
It's got the VR6.
The VR6.
The VR6, which is a V6, but what makes it an R is...
is that the motor isn't sitting in there like front to back it's sitting in there side to side no yeah the vr6 engine vr6 oh look at that oh my goodness look at that wow that's pretty in a little tiny jetta which all jettas are as we know pretty light pretty light
That's right.
This motor produces enough horsepower that it makes the car very sporty.
It's a very sporty Jetta.
So on the road, it just looks like a black Jetta.
Like, hey, black Jetta, Shyamalan.
Hey, black Jetta.
There's like four million black Jettas.
Yes.
It was the car that everybody had around the time we bought that car.
But this one has the big hot motor, so when some ding-a-ling... Oh, when somebody steps to you.
Oh, yeah.
Some M car comes pulling around me and thinks that it's like Mr. Guy.
Please.
Black Jetta can leave a lot, a lot of people behind.
And that's not a thing I like to do all the time.
No, but it's nice to know it's there.
It's like knowing kung fu.
That's right.
It's exactly right.
I don't deploy it unless... And generally, I only deploy it against people who are behaving...
in a way that i feel is the that they need to be put back in their place sometimes you know who would benefit from a lesson that's right you know not you but one one knows and the thing is i wasn't worried about the jetta the jetta had kind of been sitting around because it because i encountered this problem and i was like oh god what now so i said well i'll just drive the truck he felt like a cock you couldn't you couldn't uh couldn't burn rubber when you had to teach a kid a lesson
You can't just drive around on four cylinders in a six-cylinder car like a professor without a mortarboard like what you do doesn't feel polite.
That's right.
No So the way it stands now is Danathan is working.
You're gonna go visit him today.
Where are we with Daniel?
What's what's good?
So we're back now to the detailers at this point?
Well, no, so Danathan has the Jetta, but it's ready okay, and Daniel Decided he needs to go deeper into the into the truck.
All right, and the thing is school is out
And so my little girl and I are here at the house and no car.
So, oh boy.
So nothing can happen.
Like there's no nothing like there.
Oh, we do have, but it would take you, but it would be a long trip for you to go most places.
I mean, you know, it's like any time.
I don't live in New York City, right?
So I don't just spend $25 on a car.
Oh, no, I understand.
I understand.
But you can take her to Star Wars.
Well, here's the thing.
She's very into Star Wars, but she's never seen any Star Wars.
We'll probably talk about that on a future episode of the show, her interest in Dark Vader.
Well, and I don't know whether... Yeah, right.
She's very interested in Dark Vader, but I don't know what the best Star... Maybe you can help me with this.
I'd be happy to help you with this.
I have an answer and I have a solution.
What is the best...
path into star wars for a precocious six and a half year old girl how do you get there's no one who is not a monster who will tell you to start with anything but star wars 1977 later called episode four you should start i mean you could show her some of the cool there's pretty good cartoons like but they're not going to be as meaningful as letting her be a kid watching star wars um
now now we get to a thornier situation which is which version do you show her oh so you could show her the 2000 whatever version but it's got all the junk in it and that's the one where the death star explodes or the oh no it's like really really well there's like two two other versions but anyway the like the thing is here's the thing i have a version that i can share with you that is called the de-specialized version
What's the one where Han does what he normally does and shoots first?
That's the theatrical release.
That's most of the fan cuts.
It's any of the humanistic normal ones.
That was added, I think, in 1997.
I think, but I could be wrong.
But I can get you a very good copy of what's called the Despecialized Edition, which is where this person or group of persons has gone through to try and, using the highest quality version...
media of each like so for example like where the blu-ray is utterly unchanged from the theatrical release use that where the dvd versions all suck but you go down this cascade the laser disc etc etc etc all the way down to like you know there are some scenes where you're only going to be able to use like this copy of a theatrical release
Anyway, it's basically as... Please don't email me.
I don't care.
But it's pretty close to... There are other ones that are trying to deal with color grading and stuff like that.
There's all kinds.
There's a whole community out there you don't want to get involved in.
No, I do not.
But what I can get you is called the despecialized version, and it is a very good quality version that's very close to the Star Wars we saw in the theater in 1977.
That's my advice.
Others will differ.
That's what I would say.
No, no, that's what I want.
I do not want any CGI Jabba the Hutt walking around.
Yeah, you want some little puppets running around in Mos Eisley?
I don't want any of that.
A little dinosaur just walking around?
No, thank you.
I don't want Greedo shooting when he didn't shoot.
And there's some stuff you don't want fixed.
Like when you're watching for it, it's kind of cool the way that like when Princess Leia is putting the floppy disk into R2, there's a really terrible edit and there's a jump when he's walking down.
There's a terrible edit that I love.
I love that.
I don't want that taken out.
Leave that edit in.
Leave that edit in.
I don't mind not noticing the mats around the TIE Fighters as much because I used to watch it on a really oversaturated thing with the brightness turned all the way up where you could see the mat around the TIE Fighters.
But, you know, I think mainly the thing is, if you show her the fancy recent, most recent, like, you know, George Lucas version, it's not the I'm so glad John Syracuse doesn't listen to this show.
It's not the worst thing in the world.
But I would say just for your own satisfaction as a man, you don't want to be a cuck.
You want to show her the non-cuck version, which I'm going to call the despecialized version, which I will provide for you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you.
But this doesn't fix your car situation.
What are you going to do?
How even are you going to get over to Danathan's today?
I can be...
I can be totes over there either by... Because I have the mobile car seat situation.
Oh, yeah.
I don't miss that.
I can throw... You ever cut your hand on one of those?
You ever cut your hand changing it?
I have beat myself up and beat up car seats.
The car seat is the worst thing in the world.
It's worse than the name Daniel, arguably.
It's so awful.
I've literally cut myself bleeding.
There's blood on the wall down by our front door still from one of the times that I cut myself changing the fucking car seat.
because it's that you put it into that chamber again it's like dune you know fear is the mind killer you put your hand into that goddamn chamber and anything can happen who designed that yeah anyway you got a car seat sorry it's uh it's like in buck rogers in the 21st century you put your hand into the stump uh right right right right right what's gonna happen like one in three you're gonna die remember that erin gray remember her
Do I ever?
Man, she was perky.
Well, so in the truck, at a certain point, my little girl said, I don't want to sit in a car seat anymore in this truck.
And I said, baby, you're a little kid.
You got to sit in a car seat.
And she, I don't know how she knows these things.
But she was like, the truck doesn't have any safety features.
Yeah.
And I said, what?
What's that, sweetie?
And she said, there are no airbags.
There are no, there's nothing in the truck.
So why should I sit in a car seat?
Sounds like somebody else in the family may have talked to her about this.
That's what it seemed like to me.
Kind of seems like little kids don't bring up airbags that often.
It sounds maybe more like one of the other people in your life has maybe talked to her about the truck safety features.
I think that she was listening in on a conversation between two adults.
Oh, really?
Yeah, well, one of them said to another, you know, that truck doesn't have any safety features.
In that case, that part, I'm guessing, might be played...
by your mother potentially who knows and the other one might be your baby mama maybe so or maybe her grammy and granddad were talking about it a lot of people have that's so sweet and so she's looking at me with this this look of you know consternation and with her hands on her hips like let's not play around oh yeah let's not let's not say things we both know aren't true
Right.
Like a car seat is there to protect a child in an environment where other things might happen, like airbags going off and other things.
But this truck is a death trap.
So why should I sit in a car seat?
Security theater.
And I was like, security theater is exactly right.
So I said, all right, if you sit in the middle, in the back, I'll just buckle you in and we'll pretend this never happened.
And so then immediately, so we're driving around.
We're having a great old time.
She's not in her car seat.
She's buckled in.
I'm driving cautiously.
And then she rats me out.
I was driving in daddy's truck without a car seat.
Oh, God.
That is sickening.
Yeah, so now everybody knows.
Oh, no.
Now everybody knows what's going on.
This is hitting me in waves.
This is huge.
You might as well have been smoking in front of her.
That's right.
So what I was going to say to Clint while I was up there was, why don't you order a bunch of new seatbelts, like fancy-ass seatbelts,
I think that it's too late to close that barn door, buddy.
Put them all in.
Put them in the truck.
You know what?
Can you get seatbelts in red?
You mean like a farcical number of seatbelts in red?
Yeah.
Make them all red.
Like a NASCAR kind of harness?
I want seatbelts.
I want ludicrous seatbelts.
It's my baby.
But I didn't have time for it because he's like, oh, well, your dash fire now seems interesting to me.
Baby steps, baby steps.
Baby steps is right.
But you'll have a nice day at home.
Boy, I wish I'd gotten you that Star Wars already.
You could be watching a Star War.
It's great.
I got the fireplace working again, so we've been throwing some logs in the fire.
We decorated a Christmas tree.
Oh, nice.
That's nice.
And it sounds to me right now like she's working on her art project.
So at a certain point, though, I'm going to have to get her up.
I'm going to have to get socks on her.
I'm going to have to do this whole business.
And say, let's go, we're going to Dan's.
Oh, that is hard.
My daughter has not been required to run enough errands in life, and she considers it a terrible inconvenience to her.
All I ever did was run errands with my parents.
I hated it.
I hated the errands.
That's what you do.
You go to the post office.
You don't get a treat.
Your treat is maybe you get like a dum-dum or something.
That's your treat.
Your treat is not that you get like a $30 Lego set.
I don't know how we got into this situation.
No, sometimes at the bank, somebody will give you a mint.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, we get to play with the pen and make the chain go in a circle and all the things that we did to amuse ourselves.
I don't know how we got here except that I'm a terrible, terrible person.
Knowing you and yours, I'm guessing you don't have those kind of problems.
Um, I, well, I have always been of the opinion that she needs to run errands for the exact same reason that you just said.
This is, this is, I, it's so funny.
There's that Louis CK bit about this.
The reason, the reason you have to do this is because you don't want to do this.
I laughed at that on one level, whatever that was five, ten years ago.
I laugh on a completely different level now because I find myself actually saying that.
I say the whole reason we're leaving is because you don't want to leave.
I don't care where we go.
You just have to go somewhere you don't want to go today.
It's very important you be somewhere that's inconvenient for you.
That's absolutely the case.
Just a little teaspoon of inconvenience several times a week is very important.
When I think about my childhood, it is just a constant... It's an archipelago of stops where it's like...
laundromat, bank, post office.
Oh, it's endless.
They're all so boring.
Going to the craft store.
It's so fucking boring.
Ben Franklin's or like now like a... I mean, I would just go and like, what is the most interesting thing I could find here?
I'd go to Notions.
I'd look at zippers and buttons.
That's the most... Flip through the patterns.
Oh, look, culottes.
Jesus fucking Christ.
My kid has to go somewhere to get something that she wants and she considers it an inconvenience.
Yeah, I can't...
I go back and think, what was the highlight?
What was the highlight of my afternoon spent with my parents?
You get to stop by the park.
Maybe.
No, no, no.
They never stopped by a park.
Didn't stop by a park.
That used to be the treat.
The treat was you get to go on the springy donkey.
That's the other treat.
The treat was sometimes my dad would go by this Chinese restaurant where he knew the guy that owned it and we would walk through the kitchen and then he would stand off in a corner and talk to this guy.
This guy, this Chinese guy.
dad had a job and did all of this yeah he had a lot he's a sociable creature he wasn't i have no idea what business he was transacting with this guy but but we would go there and sometimes we would leave with chinese food sometimes we wouldn't but that was always interesting to go there the photo stop meant that there was at least five minutes of going through photos
that we had to do when he came back in the car, where he was like, this one's out of focus, this one's out of focus, this one's picture, the accidental picture of our shoes.
Your dad's famous, like, My Bloody Valentine album cover style of photography.
Every single one.
That was interesting.
Was that a deer or mom?
Yeah, right.
Or was that, you know, like, his ultimate style was, oh my god, look, a UFO.
Here, John, go over and get in the shot.
You know, fuck you.
Fuck you.
If you did see a UFO, there'd be a picture of me slumped in the front.
I've been taking photos with cameras and real actual cameras and my phone for a pretty long time.
And I still have to remind myself, there's so many reasons not to take a picture of the sunset.
I mean, like, you know, especially if you know you're doing it to go, oh, look, it's the sunset.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
You know, it's not bad, but it's not great to post pictures of the sunset.
I don't want to do that too much.
But then there's just the whole idea that given the focal length of a camera, the sunset does not look good.
It doesn't look the way it looks to the focal length of your brain.
And like, oh, the moon is so big tonight!
And you take a picture, and it's just blur.
Blur of a little white circle.
It's not nearly as big in the sky as it seems because of the way your perception works.
But we didn't used to know that.
You get your 110-20 exposures, you pop that into your Instamatic, and then click, click, click, click, click.
Click, click, click.
Double copies, you know what I'm saying?
Well, I don't know it even now because...
Because I sometimes have to go through my photo archive and call all the pictures of the moon that I've taken.
Oh, okay.
Well, I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to yuck on your yum.
I mean, you should do it.
It makes you happy.
It's absolutely the truth.
Every time I see the moon and it looks really beautiful, I'm like, oh, the moon.
And then when I look back at the photo, it's like a blurry, out-of-focus picture of a tiny white dot.
Yeah.
And so it's just like delete, delete, delete, delete, moon, moon, moon, moon.
I'm looking here last night.
I got a new app that I've been trying on the iPhone.
And so sometimes sometimes I'll set up these these odd mise en scene, these little like I don't know what you want to call it, but I'll like set up in this case.
It's my very, very large action figure of Michonne from The Walking Dead, an index card and a Thomas the Train train.
And I'll just send it to you.
It's very strange, though.
And I'll do it.
I'll try and pick things where... Okay, in the case of Michonne, I know she's very detailed.
And I want to see, like, how does it capture her black person's skin tone?
How does it capture the little wrinkles in her pants?
With the index card, I know this is a fine blue line.
This is a fine pink line.
How did that turn out?
And then I got a Thomas the Train, because a lady train's a really cool train.
And then I got a quarter, so I can see what a quarter looks like.
But then this morning, I looked at it, and I was like, man...
what if somebody like found this out in the wild this thing that i have made here it looks like some kind of a very disturbing altar i'll just send it to you in text well you know i've been to uh i've been to your office you've seen my dolls i know that it's a very strange environment uh and all kinds of you know all kinds of magical things might be lurking black lady with a samurai sword how cool is that it's great and you do have like what's the what is the certificate on the floor uh
Oh, okay, so basically it says halide and it says iOS.
And the quarter, I moved the quarter, depending if you get the system, so I could see which photo was taken with which.
It's not a very good photo.
Well, it's curious, too, also, that the wood finish on the floor has sustained some damage.
Stop it.
You sound like Syracuse.
Stop it.
Don't look at the parts of the photo that aren't the parts of the... Yes, our cat claws the wall.
Yes, my daughter did leave some liquid there.
so christmas which is which is the result of the what i mean what what caused the damage to the floor the liquid or the cat oh it's the liquid the liquid what did she leave there some naphtha my god what could you pour on the floor that would destroy it's a very old house
that would destroy the finish in that way it has to be have been some some amazing stuff what was it like mashed potatoes can i uh can i ask you a cliffhanger because we gotta go we'll come back uh we got two more episodes coming for christmas day and for uh the happy new year episode that are pre-recorded those will be coming out mazel tov happy everything uh everybody keeps asking and i'm just gonna leave it a cliffhanger because we probably don't have time to go into it would you be willing to tell us whether you have opened your envelope
Oh, no.
In fact, you won't tell us or you didn't open it.
Well, so my daughter's mother was over here the other day and she said she was in the kitchen.
She was like, what is this envelope?
And I said, because she doesn't listen to the shows.
No.
and uh or or i think follow me on instagram yeah and she said uh what's this envelope and i was like nothing and she said is this your college diploma and i was like no maybe no and she said because it was in the kitchen at this point the envelope had migrated to the kitchen it's it's very suspiciously i've seen the photograph of it it is very suspiciously diploma shaped
Yep.
It looks very much like a diploma.
And, you know, and it is from the University of Washington's office of basically office of diplomas.
Yeah.
And she said, she said, you know what?
I'm going to open this right now.
And I was like, don't you dare.
No, that is not yours to open, m'lady.
She said, I'm just going to open it.
What are you going to do about it?
And I was like, hands off.
So I, you know, I had to like rescue my unopened diploma from her from her.
She, I think, shares the attitude that a lot of people on Instagram and on the Internet have, which is open it.
Oh, you would not believe how much feedback I've got.
I've gotten on other shows.
People are asking me, why did you not ask John to open the diploma on the air?
And I have my reasons, which is it's your deal.
This is your fucking deal.
There's not a lot of... I also respect it.
I respect keeping the envelope closed in a certain way.
I've got to say, I'd probably open it personally because I'm needy.
But knowing you a little bit, I think I understand why you would also maybe not want to open it.
There's lots of reasons.
But it is ultimately your choice.
What I expected was, you know, like most things, most controversial things that you post on the web, you get about a, you know, sometimes a 60-40 spread.
But most of the time, half the people are on your team.
Right there, the 50% that are like, open it.
Stop being such a blah.
And 50% are like, yeah, I agree with you.
Why don't you put it in a frame and put it on the wall?
Or you know what you should do?
There are some people that are like, why don't you just burn it?
But in this case, when I put it on the internet, the responses were about 92% open it.
I know.
And I was like, what's the matter with you people?
Doesn't anybody like take my side in this?
I mean, like...
I get why, but like, it's, how does one say?
It's like, let people have their deal.
You know, let somebody let somebody have their deal.
Maybe is there a chance that their deal in some potential universe is more important than your need for resolution in entertainment?
Well, I you know, as I as I read all of these things and took them together as a hive mind experience, I came to feel that most of the people were not saying like, I want you to open it for my sake as a viewer.
They were saying this is important.
You need closure.
That's such an important distinction.
Is it because they want it opened or because they want you, they think you'd be better off in life having it open?
My sense is that the people that listen to this program are people that genuinely care for the most part about us.
All of the people that listen to this program as kind of like sport hate or whatever, the ones that were just listening to it out of I don't know what.
Those people have self-selected to go away.
A long time ago.
Oh, yeah.
We were problematic before I had a word.
Yeah.
At some point you said something or I said something where people were like, that's it.
Never again.
Never again.
And so everybody else actually genuinely pretty much cares.
And I think there is a consensus that this diploma is us.
It is finally a like an open door.
Where people can get just one foot inside and start to like rattle my cage a little bit.
And my psychiatrist, whom I barely trust, said to me the other day, he's like, why?
The only reason not to open that thing, because after you and I talked about it, I mentioned it to him as a component of answering his question, are you happy?
Mm-hmm.
And he said, I mean, are you happy?
Does it have to be a yes or no answer?
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
No, my answer is always like, what is happy?
But he said, the only reason not to open the thing is to somehow deprive yourself of any feeling of accomplishment.
Like, what is it?
What are you keeping it for?
You're saving it for like a special day.
Or are you just like not able to rejoice?
That's an essentialist argument for opening an envelope.
I think so too.
But I did definitely feel like there were very few people who were like, I cannot think of a single person online who told me to open the envelope who meant me ill.
Everybody meant well.
And then there were a few people who were like, I agree, you know, never open it.
And I feel like they also wish me well.
They just share some mental illness with me.
A folie mini.
Yeah.
But my daughter's mother was definitely in the camp of, I'm just going to open this right now and take this decision away from you, and then you're going to have this diploma that you're going to have to figure out how to frame.
Like it's tearing off a bandage, kind of.
Yeah.
And I was like, unhand it.
Mm-hmm.
And she kind of like rolled her eyes, which is a very popular form of expression around my house now.
Yesterday, my little girl decided that I was equal parts.
What were the words, baby?
Equal parts.
Oh, now she's very shy.
Now she doesn't exist.
She's gone into non-existence mode.
The words were equal parts like...
What was it?
Something like fantastic and awful.
Oh, that's pretty good.
Equal parts.
Oh, wait.
There's a sound coming from underneath this blanket.
What were the words?
Amazing.
Oh.
Amazing and awful.
Amazing and terrible.
That's what it was.
Equal parts.
Equal parts amazing and terrible.
I am both amazing and terrible.
It's not like 60-40.
It's like both things.
Amazing and terrible.
Amazing and terrible, she said.
I got a dressing down yesterday.
We're walking around having daddy daughter day and she goes, okay, don't think about it.
You have five seconds.
What kind of dog do you want?
And I was like, well, she's like, you have five seconds.
One, two, three, four, five.
And I said, pug.
And I, and I, no, right.
Exactly.
And then I go, but it's not pug because there's, it's very, and she said,
Has anyone ever told you that you have a habit of answering a very simple question with a very, very unnecessarily long answer?
Hmm.
She just described the whole reason that you're popular.
Are you kidding me?
This is why you get Lego.
All right.
Well, I guess the bunny's out of the basket now.
Out of the Bastic.
So what happened?
You tore it away from her.
Yeah, no, I didn't.
It's still in the kitchen, though.
It's not like I didn't put it back on the bookshelf.
It's sitting next to the coffee maker.
And now I'm worried that what's going to happen is somebody's going to spill something on it.
And then I'm going to have a envelope with like a coffee mug circle on it.
I don't want whatever's in it.
I don't want damaged, even if it is, as someone suggested online, a list of or even if it's all of my all of my unpaid University of Washington parking tickets.
Right.
That's how they get you.
Well, I think I think you did the right thing.
I mean, I understand either way.
It's it's but it is your decision.
Well, yeah, but I just let people have their deal.
That's all I'm saying.
There is a reasonable version of this story, which is that this is a decision that I should be deprived of.
Can I let me give a nobody fucking asked me, but I'm going to give I'm going to give a read on this and you can tell me to go fuck off.
But like my read on this is my read on this is it's not actually that difficult to guess what's in there.
Right.
And if it were that difficult for you to guess what's in there, you would tear into it on some level.
I think the truth is you know exactly what's in there, and when you feel like it, you'll open it up, and you'll take out the thing that's in there because you kind of know what it is.
I don't think it's as mysterious as everyone wants to make it.
I think if John Roderick were really truly uncertain about what that was, you would have torn it open by now.
I think you know, and I think you're saving a treat for yourself on some level.
Yeah.
Well, I imagine that – so the thing that I'm curious about is, is it beautiful?
Right.
And I think it probably is.
Everything you have should be beautiful or useful.
Yep, right.
But the problem, I think, is –
Well, first of all, my psychiatrist, as he's telling me, you should open it.
He points to his wall, and he's like, look, I opened all my diplomas.
Look how needy I am.
And he has seven diplomas on the wall.
I hate that.
I hate that.
Really?
Are you worried I won't believe you or something?
What are you doing?
Every test he's ever passed, like, oh, here, I got another diploma.
A lot of white ribbons.
And and this was true of my millennium girlfriend also had like a bunch of diplomas, a lot of different diplomas.
I like her a lot, but I'm just saying, oh, because like I there's something about I see something of myself in that.
And it's like the ex smoker problem where I'm like, don't do that.
Don't do that.
Stop.
You know what?
Here's something for you celebrity Twitter.
How about this?
How about when somebody dies, your fake eulogy you post does not include a selfie with that person.
Stop doing that.
We get it.
You know the dead guy.
That's fucking great.
I just want to say what an honor it was to be interviewed by them after nobody knew who they were anymore.
Don't do that.
Stop doing that.
That's not classy.
And having all your diplomas on the wall as a fucking doctor is so not classy.
Yeah.
See, now, instead, if it was Danathan and Daniel, and they had some certifications that they'd been through, like, different kinds, I think that makes a lot more sense.
I think if you've got a restaurant, and there's not shit in the food, you have every reason to put up an A or a 100.
But, like, if you're a professional, like, that's so needy.
It's so gross.
I don't know.
They all do it.
It's part of their thing.
It's like you have some kind of imposter syndrome, where you have to be reminded that this very, very large piece of vellum proves that, like, you're worthy in the world.
And it's like, oh, God, like, what are you, five?
Five?
It's just in the fashion.
It's their fashion.
You know, you walk in and you look at the stuff on the wall and you're like, oh, that's interesting.
Oh, and they got the lab coat and they got the fucking stethoscope.
I get it.
It's a little on the nose.
Like, mainly that looks like somebody in a pharmaceutical ad.
It caused me to reflect.
And this happened.
This got doubled down on yesterday.
Because I think I told you...
But one of the listeners of our program, and I think a longtime fan of Merlin Mann, all the way back to Tech Work Pod Weekly.
Oh, sure.
Tech Work Pod Weekly.
Yeah, yeah.
Tech Pod Work Weekly or whatever that was, where you were very popular.
This Week in Tech Pod.
This American Workplace.
This Pod.
Whatever, you were very early on the internet.
I mean, before most people even knew what it was.
And there were a lot of people that found you then because there were only 45 people on the internet and they all found each other.
But at that time, this person who is... What would you say?
A military academic.
Jesus.
No fucking idea.
Yeah, a person who... A young gentleman who...
And I don't want to out him except to say that he is a real-life person.
A real-life person, a military academic.
His name is Colonel Kaplan.
Okay.
He was the head of the history department.
He was the chair of the history department at the Air Force Academy.
Oh, my God.
And now teaches at the Army War College.
uh and is teaching like strategery and um and does all kinds of uh like you know military thinking and this is this is um do you ever get that if you ever dig out that area in the desert you know i'm talking about oh for sure you this this is a fellow you're gonna want on your side you're gonna he's gonna be able to tell you how much to move dick cheney's furniture every night
He's already on our side.
There are a lot of people who come to this program and who have made their way to me who came through you because there are a lot of people who... How implausible.
Gosh, how strange that is that they're...
Wow.
That's amazing.
What an honor.
Thank you, John.
I'm so glad you were able to do this.
There are people who listen to Roderick on the line who are familiar with the other guy.
Yeah, who came through Merlin Mann.
Came through me.
Oh my goodness.
I would say a lot of people.
Wow, that's amazing.
It's almost like I've done stuff on the internet a long time.
Yeah, right, right?
Wow, that's crazy.
The thing is, you're still on the internet.
I know, it's almost like I gave you your first internet site and got you to have a show that became your career.
I just feel so honored.
I'm going to post a selfie with you.
I'm going to post my selfie with you.
Just say, I knew him before, right?
I knew him before he died.
In the before times, yeah.
Okay.
All right.
So I'm not sure what this has to do with your car or your doctor.
Well, so Colonel Kaplan invites me.
It's not quite an invitation.
He proposed me.
He submitted me to go to the National Security Seminar.
Which is a seminar at the Army War College every year, right before the new crop of Army and Navy, Air Force, Marines, like colonel level war fighters graduate from this college where they're taught to think strategery.
They have some civilians come in.
to talk about big ideas, right?
Like the use of military power in the geopolitical sphere.
And they intentionally want people that don't have military backgrounds.
They want people from a wide variety of civilian life who are interested in talking about that stuff, which is me.
I'm a good example of a person like that.
Yeah, you're almost overqualified.
Yeah, who wants to sit with a bunch of colonels and talk about how to use American power.
Or in my case, when not to use American power.
So he proposes me and he's like, you got to go online and fill out this, this thing.
You tell them who you are and so forth, because he's like, although I recommend you as a, as a member of the faculty, it gets decided by some, but some people at the army and I don't even know who they are.
Okay.
So I go online and I'm filling out this thing.
Like, who are you?
What do you do?
And I'm like, I'm this guy.
I do these things.
And then there's a whole section of it that says, um,
Why don't you list all of your awards and like diplomas and awards and other, you know, all of the if you have won, for instance, like the the like Legion to Honor or whatever.
Right.
If you if you have if you've been awarded the Iron Cross with Iron Cross with diamonds, you know, put it here.
And I'm like, I'm thinking and I'm thinking, I'm like, oh my God, you know what?
I don't have any awards.
No one's ever given me an award.
We've never won a phony award.
No.
I don't think we've even been nominated.
Never even been nominated for a phony award.
If phony awards existed, we should at least have been nominated.
But they haven't even invented the award that we haven't been nominated for.
Right.
It's sickening.
I've never been nominated for a Grammy.
I've never been, you know, and so I'm thinking like, what are my awards?
The Seattle Weekly...
gave me a plaque back in 2005.
No, no, no, I'm sorry.
2011.
Okay.
That gave me a plaque that said Tweet of the Year.
That's nice.
Tweeter of the Year.
Wow.
I have a thanks for your service certificate from the Recording Academy for the eight years I was on the board.
And so I come up with what I put there was I was King Neptune.
Oh, that's a hell of an honor.
You're helping basically redefine the role of King Neptune.
It's the only honor I've ever received.
Well, come on.
If somebody said, what are your honors?
What are the things that you would put up there?
Were you like Mac Tech Pod Weekly Man of the Year?
I've done that, and it's awful.
It's awful, and it's hollow.
And I'm sorry, I'm going to be holding Caulfield for a minute.
Anybody who's been impressed by that?
Am I allowed to curse?
Can your daughter hear this?
No, go go right ahead.
Anybody who's impressed by stuff like that can suck a bag of dicks.
What are the ones that I don't I don't I don't acknowledge this.
It's gross.
It's so gross.
I mean, yeah, I've like done stuff.
I've been places and I see any place that I've ever done that.
And all I see is neediness.
It isn't it isn't.
I mean, yes, in some ways it is.
It's sort of like the whatever the the.
brooks brothers suit or whatever that you wear on wall street right it's the stethoscope it's the thing that shows your bona fides it's like a super bowl ring or something like that it's a way it's a chunking mechanism for being able to say okay you're allowed into this this far into the into the celebrity area of the green room but not any further than that and like i just i'm sorry uh i don't know mechanism though i'm really chewing on that but
But here's part of the problem is also that, like, I reject, this is a very back to work, it's another podcast I do, it's a very back to work point, but I reject the narrative that life is about a series of arrivals, because I think that's a terrible way to think about life for so many reasons.
And so I think people who can quickly conjure up all of those things, first of all, it might be for professional reasons.
It's a very LinkedIn kind of thing to be able to say, I had this position there and I won this award there.
And it's like, you know, I was able to like resume bullet points of I doubled revenue by biddly, biddly, biddly.
But, you know, and that got me the, you know, salesman of the business.
Millennium Award.
But I just feel like all of those things not only encourage that narration to stay alive, that narrative about arrivals, not only encourages that to stay alive, it's more fuel for that fire, but it also makes every time you do that, 10,000 people feel shitty about who they are because they don't have that stuff.
And they shouldn't.
And they shouldn't.
And I don't want to participate in that and it bugs me.
And when people get into that stuff and they want to tell you about who they've met that's famous and stuff like that and all this multi-level plateau shit about what you've done in life, I run the other way.
Because there's things that I'm happy that I've done in life.
There's things I'm not happy about.
But I don't know if you call them achievements.
But, like, how do I say I started a website that very quickly accidentally became well-regarded amongst people I respect who had no idea who I am.
It certainly was.
Well, there's not a name for that award, and who cares?
It's the 43 Folders Award.
Well, but see, but the point of that is that's for me.
That feeling is for me.
That's not for you.
If I make that feeling for you, I'm bragging, and I'm not bragging.
I'm just saying, like, that I felt...
I felt a really good feeling when that became a somewhat indisputable fact.
And it didn't last forever.
It's not a piece of paper.
That's a moment.
And you appreciate that the same way you'd appreciate a walk in the park with your kid.
So anyways, I don't know what I would say.
I would say that I've got a bachelor's degree.
I would say I've done thus and such sort of work for thus and such long.
I might say something like I might name drop a phrase or two that I am associated with.
But then what does that buy me?
So I don't know what I would put on that form for the colonel.
Colonel Kaplan, is that right?
Yeah.
Pinbox zero.
If I wanted to say it, I would have said it.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
No, it's all good.
So what did you put on the form?
The good word is not enough.
You've got to fill out the form.
Get them to sign on the line that is dotted.
What did you say?
What are your achievements?
Well, I thought about, like, saying... Sorry, I hijacked your show for a while there.
Sorry about that.
At one point...
In 2006, I think that my album was just under the top 10 of the indie charts.
You know, somewhere around 12.
My band was mentioned once in CMJ.
That made me happy for like two years.
We were on the same page as Archers of Loaf.
Bacon Ray?
Yes.
But I mean, that made me happy for so long.
Well, I can imagine.
I mean, I remember the first time I was in CMJ.
We were really nobody.
It was just luck.
But that's the kind of thing where you're like, there's no name for that award.
But if I put that on a piece of paper, it would be the saddest thing in the world.
That's for me.
It's not for you.
Right.
And the thing is, I couldn't put that there.
But what it occurred to me, I mean, what I realized, you know, because just recently I saw that picture of Barbara Streisand, famous picture of Barbara Streisand sitting in a chair in her room that is full of Grammys and Oscars.
Yeah.
And other awards, you know, like whatever the National Medal of the Arts.
It's a self-esteem sink.
Yeah, like you go in there and you sit in your chair.
Oh, I am good.
I really, really am good.
Look at your 60 Grammys.
I can't be broken inside.
Look at all this shiny metal.
Everybody likes me.
But I'm surprised because we live in a culture where there's been this award inflation where everybody gets an award, right?
That's what they say.
But nobody's ever given me an award.
And I don't want a fake award.
I mean, I would accept a phony because we invented it.
And there should be phony awards.
People keep threatening to do that, but Australia talks a big game.
They sure do.
People threaten all the time to do interesting things and then they don't do them.
That's true.
That's no achievement.
But like, you know, all this business of Seattle, like, oh, Seattle is so nice to me or whatever.
And they keep doing all these things.
But I guess I did get a certificate that said you are King Neptune and had a gold star on it.
But I'm not sure.
So anyway, I did.
All I put was King Neptune.
That's the only thing I could think of.
My only accomplishment.
For somebody who doesn't know, though, you sound like you might have some kind of like Napoleon or as you say Bonaparte complex.
Yeah.
uh i was getting that tune i had to try it well right because that's i mean that doesn't mean anything to them that sounds like some kind of uh that you know they don't realize the full stature of king neptune no and like i say that you're helping to really redefine the role i mean how many how many people can you really say honestly have not only been king but help redefine what we mean by king right right well and and i don't
I'm not the thing is, I'm not sure if you because I submitted this application completely sincerely, but I'm not sure if you work for the army, whether or not you're going to read my resume and think.
This is a joke application.
They might question your judgment a little bit.
What?
Right?
Like, oh, you're a civilian who's been proposed by one of our faculty to come to this thing, and your resume is you're in a band.
It's like pulling out your subway card or something.
It's going to make them question whether you're really material for this particular august occasion.
Yeah, right.
So let me get this straight.
We're going to have people come in here from universities and think tanks around the world.
Somebody's going to have to read that off a card.
Yeah, but also this guy.
When they're introducing you, Colonel Kaplan's going to have to say, this is an old friend of mine, John Roderick.
He has some podcasts.
The podcast is something you listen to.
And also he is recently King Neptune.
Let's bring him up.
Big hand for John Roderick.
That's right.
Seattle's King Neptune.
He once did a series of short films for Visit Seattle.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah.
That guy.
Yeah.
He invented an award called the Phony Award, which he hasn't won.
His father shot a Japanese Zero out of the sky with his .45.
Yeah, that's right.
He once had lunch on the USS Kentucky, but no one there will avow that he was there because it's all top secret.
He's friends with a bunch of middle-aged musicians your kids used to like.
Yeah, that's right.
Have you ever heard of Amy Mayer?
Well, he's friends with her.
There's a guy with the video game, the song at the end of the video game.
That's a close personal friend of mine.
Yeah, that guy.
He's a friend.
I've been on... Oh, yeah, I wanted to say, like... I know three people who've been on The Daily Show.
Seven-time Joko Cruz attendee.
I know lots of people.
Can you just read that off, Colonel?
That was the other thing.
There were a couple of things I tried to put on there, and the only thing I could say about myself was attendee.
LAUGHTER
Ha ha ha.