Ep. 292: “The Bottom Shelf of Somewhere”
Hello.
Hi John.
Hi Merlin.
How's it going?
Pretty good.
Yeah.
You have a good morning?
Pretty good.
Yeah.
Today's the big computer show in San Jose.
How could you be doing this show, too?
I give and I give and I give.
What?
I'm missing the computer show.
You're missing the big show.
I'm missing the big computer show.
It's down in San Jose.
Is this the one that's next to the porno show?
Yes.
Yeah.
This is the one, the computer show for computer programmers.
Yeah.
Is it the one where the guy with the black turtleneck marches up and down?
Well, it sure used to be.
Sure.
Ooh, too soon.
Sorry.
Yeah, I was just watching the live stream of the computer show.
It's just starting as we record this.
So this is exciting.
What's going to happen?
Oh, my goodness.
Well, what are they going to show us?
Like, is it a new tablet or, you know, a lot of people say it's like Christmas for nerds, but I think it's more like Christmas for adults.
Oh, sure.
Sure.
It's definitely going to be inconvenient and you'll probably, yeah, no, no.
You're saying it's going to cost a lot of money and it's going to be ultimately very disappointing.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, it's exciting.
It's the computer show.
They're going to probably have some software for computers.
Are there drinks?
Will there be drinks at the show?
Yes.
They serve Odwalla juice beverages, and they have boxed lunches at the computer show.
Everybody goes to Dave & Buster's afterward.
Oh, Dave & Buster's.
Yeah, you guys want to play Galaga after the computer show?
This is here at your... This is in your town.
No, no, no.
No, no.
It's now at St.
Joe's.
It's no longer in St.
Francis.
They took it all the way down.
We, as you know, San Francisco is the glands.
We are the head of the penis peninsula.
This is further down the shaft.
This is much near the taint.
This is the taint of the peninsula.
This is the part that you tickle.
If you like that.
You tickle it.
Just don't do it in the morning.
I'm still waking up.
I really feel that way.
I know.
I'm glad you brought it up.
Well, I think you've made it real clear.
Go, go.
Make some coffee.
It's a computer show.
Yeah.
So how many computers are represented?
Oh, my goodness.
Let's see.
Well, I mean, there's the one that they haven't updated in a while.
And this is the other one they haven't updated in a while.
But it's a computer show, but it's a computer show for computer programmers.
So we talk a lot about computer programs.
And then you can go into classes with people who work for the computer company.
And you can get a class from somebody to learn about the new code and how you can implement it on your computer program.
See, now I have had a couple of, as you know, a couple of tweet ups.
A couple of tweet-ups I've had, and I've had some virtual tweet-ups online, which is called just tweeting and people tweeting at you.
But if you say something outrageous enough... I'm not sure if that qualifies as an eat-up.
Just people talking to you on the internet.
Yeah, it feels like a tweet-up to me.
Because every once in a while I'll say something like... We have office hours, John?
It's something we're like, I'm going to be here for an hour, ask me anything, AMA.
I think it's more like I say, you know, like whipperdoodles are the best dog.
Don't at me.
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
And then people at you.
A bunch of people at me.
You told them not to do that.
You said that right on the internet.
And it feels like a tweet up, right?
Because we're all there at the same time.
Sure.
100% focus.
But what I've realized is that there are a lot of computer programmers.
Yes.
Yeah.
Right?
Oh, there's so many.
There's a lot of computer programs, and somebody's got to program them.
And, you know, didn't I used to mock them?
I used to.
You used to say it was a vocation.
But now I feel differently because I've met so many of them, and they're all very nice people.
Are they?
Yeah.
And I don't understand what they do.
And that doesn't mean that it's not important.
Well, you've got frameworks.
Yeah.
And you've got APIs.
You've got line numbers, callbacks.
You've got an IDE.
And then you do all that, and you make a computer program.
You put it on the program store.
Do you still have if-then statements?
I imagine in some form or fashion.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
You can have a Ray or a Switch or a GoTo.
Uh-huh.
Oh, GoTo.
I always thought that was Gato.
Gato.
Yeah, Gato.
Yeah.
Is that somebody I used to love song?
Is that that guy?
Is that who I'm thinking of?
Is that his name?
Gatia?
Don Gagne?
Who am I thinking of?
That was a girl.
Is that the guy from public radio?
Gatia.
Gatia.
Gatia.
Gatia.
Do people in programming say goto instead of goto, or is that not funny?
I think they probably use the Portuguese.
They say goto.
Goto.
Goto.
Goto.
Goto.
Goto.
Because you always say ten.
You'd say ten in English.
That's part of being a programmer.
What does ten do?
Ten do?
Ten do?
Ten do anything.
Ten do.
It depends.
It might be a variable.
That's my favorite thing to get in a bento box is ten do.
You can get anything you want in a program.
You can gamble.
You can have weather.
Yeah.
I have six sleep trackers that track my sleep.
I now have a hardware device that tracks my sleep.
That all requires computer programmers.
You can do the ROM or the RAM.
Right.
Right?
Do you have a thing that sings to your cat in the middle of the night that keeps him from meowing?
Oh, dear.
I wish.
She is...
She's a tough nut to crack because she's got the PTSD and she's a Persian.
She's got a lot of problems.
So she can't breathe and she's sad.
Like a lot of programmers.
Does she mention 1979 a lot in conversation?
It just like brings it up.
Yeah.
Just finds a way to talk about what it was like before.
Everybody talk about pop music.
New York, London, Paris, Munich.
We try to figure out how to, you know, I think you need to figure out how to surprise and delight people.
It's true, children.
If you can learn to surprise and delight people, you can have success in life.
I think Dale Carnegie said that.
Yeah.
And so we try to find things that delight her, but nothing delights her.
She doesn't really like food.
She's missing like five teeth.
Yeah.
She doesn't like the iPad programming app where you can bat at fish.
We tried to get her to bat at fish.
Doesn't like it.
She's feeling real Randy around like 845 at night.
Sometimes she'll chase the little point from the laser pointer.
For how long?
She gets pretty bored in like five minutes.
She's very old and she has the PTSD.
Yeah.
And so she's not motivated by the things that normal cats are motivated by.
Does she want to kill?
I think if she had the chance, she would take a crack.
We are blessedly rodent-free, but I'll bet you if we had a little rodent buddy in the house, I bet she'd go after it.
What about if you got her like a cricket?
Got her a cricket.
Like a test cricket.
Like one cricket, a neutered critic.
Excuse me.
A critic.
Get her a critic.
Yeah.
I have a list here.
Floyd and Slip, everybody out of the pool.
If you got her a neutered critic in the house that we knew would not make other critics, that would help a lot.
Zip it, zip it.
They rub their little legs together, don't they?
Yeah.
You can tell the temperature by counting the leg rubs.
I used to think I had strong legs.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
I had a nice moment this morning where there's a light next to me.
That never goes out?
Don't you dare.
Don't you.
Shame on you.
You're not allowed.
That's our word.
You're not allowed to use that.
And it's an Internet of Things light, so it's got a special plug where I could say, hey, dingus, turn off the light.
And I realized that I could just bend over, just literally bend over and tap the little switch.
But I was both too lazy to bend over and tap the switch and too lazy to say it to the dingus.
Whoa, too lazy to say it.
Well, I was listening to something on the radio at the time.
Right.
So what happened?
So it didn't go off?
Well, I might still be on.
I'm not sure.
I'll have to check on my phone.
Now that's another kind of computer program.
You get a computer program for controlling your, like Matt Howie's got one for his garage door.
I know he does.
I know he does.
I just did a, I did a, I guested on a podcast with Matt Howie.
What?
No, no, no.
Are you on his fan thing?
Yeah.
Where we talked about Alaska.
No way.
I like that program.
Well, and then the, well, here's the confusing thing.
I got tweets from people like, ha ha, that was great.
But Matt never tweeted me and said, hey, the show is going up, or hey, you're on it.
You know why?
Why?
Matt Howey's not needy.
Matt Howey gives a lot more than he takes.
Well, I know that's true.
I'm telling you, I get the DMs from Matt, and it's often something, sometimes it's a nice compliment, but often it's a thing he's working on that would help me out.
He's not needy.
No, he doesn't have an assistant that sends you something in the Gmail to say, here's five ways you can promote the podcast you never wanted to be on.
How he doesn't do that.
He's not needy.
No, he doesn't do that.
Oh, no.
You know, I went to a real estate agent.
Well, not an agent.
I went to a real estate event.
Hmm.
The other day.
Okay.
All right.
And somebody managed to get, oh, well, so, oh, no, it's even worse than that.
I was on the internet.
Oh, did you have to e-register for it, John?
And somebody said, oh, you like that house, huh?
What?
And I was like, well, I mean, I put a star next to it.
This house I saw on the line.
What?
What?
And they said, oh, we'll just put in your email address.
And now I get 40 emails an hour from real estate agents.
You people are a plague.
All I did was fill out a form one time.
This is why democracy doesn't work.
So are you having a primary or any kind of a race tomorrow?
This is what democracy looks like.
9-1-1's a joke in your town.
I'm not racing tomorrow.
Shit, dog.
I get so many fucking texts from people.
Hey, Merlin, it's Michelle.
Hey, Michelle.
Hi, Michelle.
I volunteer with London Breed for mayor.
Her name is London Breed.
a show dog right okay that's one here's another one it feels like a kind of like uh like heritage quinoa no that boils up nice here's one from the democratic party thank you very much oh and because i used to have my this phone number used to be my wife's phone number a million years ago and she's a total commie oh i'm henry a volunteer with the public defenders for judge i support solace evangelista and streets
Will you be voting?
And I always just type stop.
You type stop and you have to stop sending to you.
Solus evangelist in the streets.
Yes.
Attorneys at law.
And London Bridge in the sheets.
London Bridge is falling down.
So that's a thing that I get a lot of.
Wait a minute.
I can't believe you allow that to happen.
I don't allow that to happen.
I never invited this.
But can't you block those things?
You know, here's the problem.
And part of the problem is, is that my wife cares about the world.
So she doesn't want people to kill each other with guns.
Nope.
That's the thing she feels very strongly about.
I'm still on the fence a little bit.
She does not want people to kill each other with guns.
So she has the orange t-shirt and she's got, she gets a lot of mail and,
You know, you give money to a Hillary Clinton or, God forbid, to a Jill Stein.
Wish I had that money back.
Oh, boy.
No, no.
No, I gave her recount money.
I gave her recount money.
But now they got my information.
Now I'm on the sucker list.
What the hell is recount money?
Oh, Google.
To Jill Stein.
Google this.
Jill Stein had a whole thing after the election where she said, hey, we're going to raise enough money to do a recount and we're going to win this thing.
And I was so desperate.
I sent her some three figures of money.
Woo!
Woo!
Hot tamales.
Now, flash forward, Shot and Chaser, now you've got a bunch of months later, and apparently, I don't know, she's like Eddie Murphy on the beach, just sipping drinks.
She's doing all kinds of stuff.
She's paying staff with it.
She's doing all kinds of stuff.
And I'm sitting here like a sucker, getting emails from... Oh, here's a text from Susan.
I don't know if it's yours, Susan.
This is Susan with Nancy Pelosi's campaign.
We have a big election coming up.
We need your support to show Trump and the Republicans that Nancy's leading the charge to take back the House.
Can you count on your vote?
And I said, stop!
Stop!
And then Susan personally wrote me to say, you have successfully been unsubscribed.
You will not receive any more messages.
And then it says you can reply start to resubscribe.
In case I typed stop accidentally.
Whoops-a-daisy!
Oh, my God!
Susan!
Sweet Jesus, Susan, I'm sorry.
What have I done?
I ghosted you.
All these all these communications that you're talking about arrive at my house in the snail mail.
Oh, no.
My mailbox is full of things from Nancy Pelosi and from all the different people who are like.
Hey, old person.
Yeah.
Put some dollar bills in an envelope.
You're an idiot.
You open your mail.
And I sit out at the mailbox and I open them and I read them.
Yeah.
Because I know I'm not bringing them in the house.
No.
And, you know, my neighbors drive by.
The milkman drives by and says, good morning, John.
And I say, just reading my mail from the Democrats.
Got a letter from the government the other day.
Yeah, opened it in Reddit.
It's Jen from No on E. Prop E bans, menthol, cigarettes, most vaping products, and something called shisha.
And shisha, I'm not going to find out what shisha is.
Only in California can you ban those things.
I don't even know what shisha is and they want to ban it.
This is Alex from Prop 68.
Remember to vote yes for clean drinking water.
It's the stuff that they put in those little bags of like powdered flowers.
The gel that you don't eat.
Yeah, the stuff that's in the eye masks that you wear on an airplane.
Oh, lavender.
Lavender.
Okay.
Hi, Merlin.
I'm Sophie, a volunteer with Gavin Newsom's campaign for governor.
You should be receiving your ballot for the June 5th primary election.
You should be.
Everything is coming up in Milhouse.
Do you guys get ballots there?
This is Enrique with corporate-free Delane Easton, the only California governor candidate that will ban fracking and all-new oil drilling.
Will you vote Delane?
Will you do?
It's another Susan.
I'm Susan from the Yes on G campaign.
Is it the same Susan?
You'll never know.
I bet it's got to be.
How many Susans can there be?
There are a lot of Susans.
At least there are a lot of Susans up until a few years ago when all children started to be named something else.
There used to be so many Susans.
Definitely.
There was always like a murder of Susans.
I have a couple of them in my own family.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
Okay, so I think I'm done with that.
I'll close that window.
I don't know.
Why do you let this be?
How can I not?
I don't have... I never said, text me, Susan.
I never said that.
I should see what that's going to.
Is it going to my email address or my text number?
I can trace this back to one magazine that I, like, sadly...
Filled out a form in the back of it, and now there are old men showing up in rainstorms to sit on my couch and talk to me about this great opportunity for real estate.
Oh.
So, it's such a... So, anyway, I was at another real estate event yesterday.
Let me rewind just a little bit here.
You put a star on a house, and then you put in your email address.
Was it an e-tour that you were doing?
Nope.
Nope.
In IRL, you went to a house and put a star on it.
Nope.
Okay.
I... So...
Big changes around here.
Big changes.
Okay.
My daughter's mother is selling her downtown apartment and has bought a house in the suburbs.
Okay.
And by suburbs, I mean not only are they suburban to the city of Seattle...
But they are the suburbs.
She's bought a house in 1978, basically.
Oh.
She bought a house in a neighborhood.
Okay.
Where people go out.
It's not in like the Seattle, per se, area.
No.
Without saying too much, does it have a different city when you send a letter there?
Yeah.
Shit dog.
This is big.
It has its own police department.
Its own police department from 1978.
Yes, because it is not one of those towns that you've ever heard of.
It's some little town that...
That's back in time.
I met a teenager there who was working in a job in some capacity there, and I was chatting to the teenager and was like, so, you know, this is a nice shop.
And the teenager said, yeah, I used to come here when I was three and four, and now I work here.
And I was like, is this 1978?
Right.
It must be.
Where do those things still happen?
Where a teenager goes to a place and then gets a job there when they're a teenager.
Nobody lives in the same place anymore.
I know.
Nobody's like, oh, yeah, I grew up here.
And this is by, you know, and this is where I now I now I used to come here and now I work here like that.
And when the sun is going down and it's kind of dusk, everybody's out walking around the neighborhood.
It's really.
You can walk to school in this neighborhood, Merlin.
You walk from your house to the school.
You do that at your house.
Yeah, but I live in a suburb.
I mean, they call it San Francisco, but it might as well be, I don't know, somewhere else.
Well, I know, but you have a ding-ding trolley that goes by.
Oh, well, and this has light rail to the city.
I mean, it's not so far out that there's not light rail to the city.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
But yeah, so anyway, she's out there.
Okay, so just to stipulate, this sounds like there's a lot of changes afoot.
A lot of changes, right?
Because this means all of a sudden now I am no longer oriented toward this two-bedroom apartment that's in the center of the city where my daughter is often to be found or needs to go back to.
Now I am suddenly, like my compass is turned 180 degrees to the suburban house of
On a third of an acre.
Oh, my.
Three blocks from an elementary school.
Is it further away for you to drive there than now?
No.
This is the conundrum.
This is the paradox.
It's closer.
It's closer to me.
What a strange city.
And weirdly, she lives in the center of the city, you know.
But to get to her job requires that she go through cross-town trips.
uh whereas this suburb is straight shot on the straight shot from the from the down low you know like like it's a shoopty it's a swoopty
And so I don't think it's that much longer for her to get into work.
Even though from her old apartment, she could stand on the roof with a pair of binoculars and see her office.
See into her office.
But she had to get across town.
This sounds like a four-quadrant move for her.
This fixes a lot of little dings.
It's very crazy.
However, so anyway, so I'm walking around this neighborhood down there.
Let's be honest.
I'm driving around this neighborhood.
Yeah.
Because it's a suburb.
What year is your truck from?
1979.
Okay.
Same year as your cat.
Yeah, but you can always buy the model year the year before.
So technically, that would totally fit.
Oh, it's a 78.
You're right.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, so, uh, anyway, I'm, I'm cruising around out there and I'm like, now this is different.
This is different down here.
This is like a whole different, it never would have been a million years occurred to me to live in a place like this.
Uh, this is like, um, this is just like normal town, USA.
Yeah.
This is not what I ever thought I was looking for.
I just want to be clear for you and the listeners.
I have no fucking idea where this is going.
I don't know anything about this.
This is the first thing here.
I'm riveted.
I'm riveted that you're driving around in 1978 looking at houses.
I'm just looking around.
You're just looking.
It doesn't cost anything to look.
Doesn't cost.
That's right.
It doesn't cost anything.
And, you know, my aesthetic has always been like, oh, ramshackle farm on the edge of town with the
You know, with a coat rack full of swords.
That's been discussed.
This neighborhood is full of, like, the one Frank Lloyd Wright home in all of Western Washington is in this neighborhood.
It's a...
It's a weird little house that would be too small for me to live in because all Frank Lloyd Wright houses are built for people that are five feet tall.
I don't know if you've ever been in one.
I haven't, but I've seen pictures.
They don't seem very livable.
They're not.
They're small and cramped.
Do you really want to have a body of water in your house?
They're really attractive to look at in photographs in Sunset Magazine.
But they also look hard to clean.
Yeah, right.
Well, because they're made out of rubby brick and stuff.
Well, and rubby woods.
Like the great bluesman.
Oh, rubby woods.
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So I'm walking, I'm walk driving around this place and I'm like, huh, look at that, an open house.
So I'm by myself.
Right.
Because because this is I helped I helped midwife this house purchase because, you know, as soon as she she's been looking for houses for a long time.
Real estate doula.
Oh, I'm just you know, I'm like, all right, if we're going to if we're serious about this house, let me go in there because, you know, I've got let me let me roll up my sleeves here and get into this house and see what's going to see what the what is, because.
You know, a lot of people like she's got a friend that's a real estate agent.
The real estate agent is a great lady, but and knows a lot about real estate.
But, you know, like when I said, oh, you know, this house was built during the Eisenhower administration.
She was like Eisenhower.
What does that have to do with anything?
And I was like, see, this is why you need me.
Right?
Because I'm the only guy that knows that Nixon was vice president when this house was built.
You can decode that.
That's code.
Yeah.
So let me walk around here and see what there is to be seen.
Most people know that when you say cozy, it means small.
But you also understand the political ramifications.
Yes.
Yes.
Cozy is a code word for the coz.
He had a heart attack in office and Crohn's disease.
Anyway, the inspector was there.
I climbed up on the roof with them.
We're down.
We figured out that the house has two furnaces.
I'm in there with the white gloves.
I'm looking around.
I'm like, seriously, what's it going to take?
What's it going to take to get me?
How many lag bolts do I have to put into this porch so that it won't fall off if we have a party?
You know, that kind of question.
The big stuff.
And so I'm so now I'm down in this neighborhood by myself, right?
I'm coming back to it.
I'm drawn back to this neighborhood.
I'm driving around.
I'm like, what am I going to do this afternoon?
You know, I'm going to go drive around that neighborhood.
Just at a high level, did it give you a tickle when you were there?
You're like, hmm.
Well, so this is what I this is what I can't.
This is what I'm trying hard to parse.
So I'm talking to my mom about it.
I'm like, hey, that neighborhood.
It's really strange.
Like I didn't I would have until pretty recently.
I think I would have felt a lot of scorn about it.
living there uh and and recently i would have been like huh well you know i guess if that's your thing but now i'm driving around this neighborhood on my own looking in looking in uh looking up driveways and stuff and she said here's the thing that you forget which is that you were raised in the suburbs like until you've moved to seattle and when in 1991 as a as a young adult you always lived in suburbs
Like, you're a suburbanite.
And I was like, I'm not, though.
She was like, well, are you not?
Because I went to suburban schools.
I lived in the suburbs in 1978, literally in 1978, the actual 1978.
Yes.
So I'm walking around, you know, and I'm like, oh, what do you know about this?
There are no old ramshackle farmhouses.
If you had a coat rack full of swords in any one of these houses, it would really stand out.
Not that it doesn't stand out in an old farmhouse, but there wouldn't be any room aesthetically for it in one of these Frank Lloyd Wrighty houses.
Sure would be a different situation.
People yelling at dogs.
Well, or, you know, like there's a lot of things around here.
There would be no Gary.
Yeah.
So, so I'm walking around down there and I'm like, would I be lonely down here?
I mean, would I be any lonelier?
It's just, it's not that far out of town.
Like I still don't.
It takes me – when I bought my house, it took me 12 minutes to get to town.
In the intervening 10 years, 200,000 people moved here, and now it takes me 35 minutes to get to town.
Not because it got any further away, but because 200,000 extra people got in my way.
But if I lived over in this little place, it's going to take the same amount of time to get to town.
It would be no different because of –
Crosstown.
Ow!
So, but I made the mistake of putting my phone number somewhere in response to like, oh, look at that.
Because what I want is a house that hasn't been monkeyed with.
I want a house that the owner just died.
The owner walked out on the porch.
You want a clean one owner?
Yeah.
Broom still in hand and said...
That's it.
Let's finally clean.
Yeah.
And then his like 65 year old kids are living in Arizona and they're like, just sell the place.
They say to someone, I'm someone I'm imagining.
And that's someone I'm imagining.
I hoped I gave my phone number to so that that person's like, you know, this one owner place that has a bunch of hidey holes.
And the guy actually built it on top of a bomb shelter because it was built in during the Eisenhower administration.
And so, you know, you'll have your own bomb shelter and there's a tunnel that goes into a cave.
And also it's, you know, it's really livable, open plan kitchen.
It's for sale for next to nothing.
And I'm the only real estate agent that knows it.
You know, that's what I'm trying.
You're thinking this while you're driving around or while you're at the house?
Yeah, when I'm driving around.
Okay.
That's what I'm trying to accomplish.
Technically, it's the first part of negotiating.
Yes.
Is imagining how it could turn out.
Is knowing how deep your fantasy is.
about everything.
It's not a fantasy, John.
You're manifesting.
You're saying, here's the thing I want from the universe.
I want this from the universe.
It's like, show me how many other homeowners today have successfully called a passport back to them.
Thank you, Merlin.
You could conjure an orb.
Well, I'm trying.
I'm constantly trying.
What I was hoping also was that the guy was like a, he was a Porsche mechanic and his kids were just like, just sell the whole house.
Whatever's in the garage goes with it.
Okay.
That's good.
That's good negotiation.
You know what I mean?
Like I'm manifesting.
If I'm going to manifest.
Yes.
Why don't you put something stupid and shitty into the universe?
Why don't you think big?
Yeah, why not have a 66 911 S in the garage?
It's not the secret if everybody knows it.
There's a bunch of fucking snorks walking around just thinking, oh gosh, you know, I hope they have meatloaf at the cafeteria today.
And you're saying no.
Porsche house.
No, I'm hoping that this guy has a killer set of tools and then it comes to the house.
Porch house.
A porch house.
Porch house.
Porch house.
A schloss?
Would that be a porch schloss?
No, that's too hard to say.
Porch schloss.
Porch schloss.
No, that's at the buffet today at the computer show.
Okay.
Windjammer.
Just come on up to the windjammer and get a porch schloss.
No.
Can I get this without schloss, please?
Can I get my schloss on the side?
Okay, anyway, you're conjuring a house orb.
Yeah, but the thing is, 10 days ago, I was not walking around my house thinking, huh, what would it take for me to put everything into a box and sell my house and go buy another house?
None of that was... God, I have so many questions.
That was not what I was thinking at all.
No.
Um, but now that I'm getting 400 real estate emails an hour, um,
um and texts i ended up blocking some phone number because it texted me 16 times like hey it's me marty no really never heard of before and i'm texting you again just to see if you need any help it's me martin real estate but but i did so yesterday i went you better call marty call marty hey it's me marty marty real estate marty real estate i met a guy i so i was at another open house yesterday
I went with my little partner in crime, my daughter.
And she's wonderful because she does that wonderful thing that you absolutely want to have happen when you walk into an open house.
She runs away.
So I'm standing there in the entryway and it's that awkward kind of environment where there are other people there.
And so everyone in there is kind of looking at each other like, get out of my house.
This is my house.
But nobody's, you haven't even looked at it yet.
You don't know if you like this house.
And then there's a real estate agent that's trying to cultivate that.
This guy had homemade cookies that he had there.
Homemade cookies and little packages.
And if you turn the package over, it had his business card.
well done marty but so i'm walking around and then my daughter will come screaming out of some back bedroom and she'll be like i found my room i found my room yep it's like oh geez sweetie that's see honey you gotta talk to her after that's not that's not how daddy negotiates you know i found my room i found my room we have to live here we have to live here
You say, how many lug nuts am I going to need on this porch?
That's what you say.
You got to say, oh, I got to think about how much it would cost me to get this to fit my very special needs.
I have to account for that in your inflated price.
Yeah, you say, has anybody opened to the garage yet?
Do you know what's in there?
And if they say, no, we're just selling this house with the garage sealed.
You can even say, how old's the roof?
How old's the roof?
Yeah.
This mortar looks like it needs repointing.
Do you have any... I'm just writing that down.
Is that caulk up to code?
Marlo, would you write that down?
Honey, would you capture that?
So I'm walking around.
I talked to this guy.
It's a nice house.
This house was built in 1949.
Like...
This is an old house.
One of the original of this style, this new modern style.
I like it.
I like it.
It's nice.
I'm not going to get it.
This is not the house for me.
I'm just looking.
I'm not even here.
But he sends me.
So he gets my email address.
And I make it sound like he got it out.
He snuck it out of my pocket.
I gave it to him.
But he sent me, you're going to love this.
He sent me an email that had a video that he just made holding up a sign that says, hey, John, thanks.
And the video, it's like a 45-second loop of him just going like, it was great to meet you, man.
Is it a hostage note or an AMA sign?
It's just like, I think he holds up the sign so that when you see the little, when you see the, it's like Bob Dylan, like, you know.
Automotive Cinerary.
Marty's in the basement.
Yeah, right.
Step down, step down.
Turn a minute, turn a minute, turn a minute.
Vandal took the handles.
He holds up the sign so that I recognize.
That would be funny.
That would be very funny.
So that I see from the thumbnail that it's not just some anonymous video where he's like, hey, it's Marty real estate.
That was like an automated AI type situation.
No, you can see personal video from Marty.
He did it with a Sharpie on a thing.
And then he was like, hey, man, I really loved meeting you and talking to you.
And he's thirsty.
He is.
And the thing is, it's great.
What's what's what's crazy about it is I did like talking to that guy.
I don't normally like talking to real estate agents.
They have a tone, a kind of tone, a greedy tone.
But he I liked him.
He seemed knowledgeable.
He was about my age from the region, had some interesting things to say.
I was like, I can hang out with you.
And then he sent me this thing and I was like, oh, he's really using technology now.
You know, there are other real estate agents could take a page from this guy.
He's making vids.
He talks to somebody.
He makes a vid, sends him a personal vid.
What a pro.
Wow.
So anyway, that's where I am.
I got an email this morning talking about speaking of computer show.
Here's my email this morning.
Good morning.
Not good morning, John.
Not good morning, your majesty.
Good morning.
Okay.
Traditionally, the knighting of the incoming king and queen of Seafair has taken place at our kickoff event.
This is where it happened for me.
It happened at their kickoff event.
But this year, we are taking things digital and not having a physical event at Westlake Park.
On June 21st, the official first day of summer, we will be...
sunglassing the city with a giant pair of the Seafair sunglasses on the free, the Seafair sunglasses BTW are those little,
Like they look like Ray-Ban Wayfarers, except they're in bright colors, like the kind that you get at a bank.
They must cost two cents to manufacture somewhere.
You know, the ones that you get, the free ones.
And somehow the Coachella generation decided that that was their cheap sunglasses.
And so they used to be the thing that you just threw away, but you could get them at a thrift store for a dime.
Yeah.
So young people wear them.
And there are even expensive ones now that look like cheap sunglasses you get in a bank.
What's happening?
So, anyway, we're going to be sunglassing the city with a giant pair of the Seafair sunglasses on the Fremont Troll.
Now, you visited the Fremont Troll.
I think you took me there.
Me?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a big troll under a bridge.
Big troll.
They're going to put some sunglasses on it.
And other landmarks as well as participation on social media.
Mm-hmm.
From sports teams and celebrities.
And, you know, I'm, I'm still king of this thing.
Yeah.
So then second paragraph, are you available on the morning of Thursday, June 21st?
That's coming up tonight, the incoming king and queen and officially hand the reins over.
Now, this is something that I've been, uh,
I was a stickler about a year ago when this happened to me.
You're not knighting a king and queen.
Right?
No.
I mean, that doesn't make any sense.
No.
You knight a knight.
Well, you knight somebody who's going to be a knight.
Right.
Yeah.
You don't.
I think you have a coronation for royalty.
They're not a knight when they walk in.
No.
But they're a knight when they walk out.
But you can king somebody in checkers.
Yeah, you king them.
You king and queen them.
What about rooking?
That's when you steal money from somebody.
Yeah, you don't want to rook somebody, not at one of my events.
Okay.
But yeah, so at the time they were like, all right, well, you're knighting ceremony.
And I was like, ah, ah, ah, I'm the king of this.
I'm not a knight.
I'm not getting knighted.
You're not knighting me.
No, no, I will do some knighting, perhaps.
We'll see.
Well, if I'm the king, I'm going to be deciding a lot of things.
Anyway, um, and so I, and then, and then she says, we don't have the location confirmed just yet, but it will be in Seattle, which is like, yeah, it's, I would hope it would be in Seattle.
It sounds like they didn't really think this out.
It's amateur night in Dixie.
We should know more by the end of the week.
And here's what I'm, here's what I'm desperately afraid of.
I'm desperately afraid that I'm going to be asked to go to some, like, I'm going to be asked to do this at a Starbucks.
or at a or at a like clam chowder restaurant or something okay well i mean i'll do it because believe me you know it's these are my final duties it's no no bus oblige yes well isn't it's a noble obligation i do have i do have this obligation as a noble this is you know this is the this is king neptune's burden what
Which is that I hand this off to somebody.
But the thing is, as you can tell, they have not consulted me about who it's going to be.
Seems very presumptuous to me.
They never asked.
They never asked if I wanted to be a part of figuring out who the next people were.
So I'm just supposed to show up at a place.
They're not having the normal event.
I'm so glad that I was the last king to be...
to be elevated at Westlake Center at a big event.
What has changed?
Well, because they're going digital with it.
Isn't that kind of just like saying we give up?
I don't know.
No, I think it, I think it feels, it's like if you went to the, if you were watching the computer show right now, there would be people on there, I'm sure talking about how take, how they were taking things digital that had formerly not been digital.
That's a big part of digital, right?
Yes.
Like, Oh, you used to do it this way, but now we're taking it digital.
Okay.
Yes.
And so that I think that it just feels really contemporary.
It's like my real estate agent sending me a video.
Did that help me find a house or help him find me a house?
No, it just had just I don't know what it was just took a bit digital.
It took an actual conversation that we just had like 30 seconds before he made this video.
Okay.
And it took a bit digital.
So now it's clogging up my inbox somewhere.
Jeez, I don't know.
I just don't know.
It's sucking up some memory that's in a in a salt mine in Salt Lake City.
Yeah.
One million years from now, it will still exist somewhere as as like imprinted bits on something.
This guy going like, hey, John, it was great to meet you.
Come on down.
It's Marty McRealEstate.
So anyway, they're taking it digital.
I'm going to go.
Oh, and then the final sentence.
We would also love to give you sunglasses on site.
For your participation in sunglassing the city.
If you'd like.
To give me cheap sunglasses?
Well, so what I'm confused about is... What a mess.
If I show up at this unconfirmed location to hand this title over to the incoming king and queen...
And the reason it's happening there is because they're they've taken it digital and they're actually just sunglassing the city.
I would expect if it was just like a cheap sunglass.
That they would just hand me a pair or not or whatever.
There's going to be like garbage bags full of these things.
Is this still digital?
I'm so confused.
Me too.
But then she says in this thing, we would also love to give you sunglasses on site for your participation in Sunglassing the City.
If you'd like!
Exclamation point.
Exclamation point.
Yeah.
So this isn't... So then here's the thing.
You and I think the same way.
I'm suddenly thinking, well, in order...
to to justify a sentence like that they must be nice sunglasses yeah otherwise why would she mention it otherwise digital sunglasses something something more interesting than digging into a plastic bag full of identical sunglasses and handing me a pair are they i mean are they trying to say that this is the fish food that's going to draw you in is they're going to put sunglasses cheap sunglasses on your face for digital so that's what makes that's what makes me think like oh did they did they get me a special pair of sunglasses
But in fact, no, almost certainly they're just going to dig into a plastic bag and pull out a pair of sunglasses, which I will immediately throw into the nearest garbage receptacle.
Who knows who's worn that?
Well, nobody.
The last human hands it touched were some 11-year-old child in China who was pulling them off of an assembly line.
Right, right.
Hoping that Elvis would wear them, like thinking.
The only thing that keeps them alive is, but now knowing it landed on royalty...
You know?
Yeah.
John, this is all very confusing.
I'm not sure what it has to do with the house.
I have a huge bin of these cheap sunglasses in my daughter's room because I hand them to her and she puts them on.
You do sunglasses at the house.
Well, we do.
We sunglass all the time here.
Mm-hmm.
But we've never taken it digital.
That would be a hell of a pivot.
They say Seafair on the side or they say Washington Mutual Bank.
Please return when you're finished.
They say flotation device.
They say a lot of things.
They say pull tab to open.
But I don't want any more of them.
But anyway, so according to this email, I have the option to
of refusing these sunglasses on site for my participation.
Okay.
That's all happening.
That's all happening.
We know that this is happening.
Is that going to turn into some kind of a Wallace Simpson type situation?
I mean, is that going to be off-putting to your polity, to your people?
The thing is, I can't keep this crown.
If they tune in for digital and you're not there having cheap sunglasses put on your face, what's that going to do for the monarchy?
How, how, how.
It's going to cheapen them.
I'm so fucking confused.
I have to abdicate, right?
And it's not just because I fell in love with a divorced woman.
I have to abdicate because this is one of these Trianon problems.
This is like the death of the empire problem.
Oh, it's a George Washington type situation.
The only way that I can make this job good for the future is to quit it.
Every year the king has to quit.
I have to be the bigger the bigger agent here to be the bigger king.
I cannot cling to this crown.
And I have to just be like, you know, I am now the I am the former king.
I am the Duke of Windsor.
Now I'm living in France.
When I come to town, it's still a big deal because we once were kings.
But the thing is, the king before me was a member of the Seattle Seahawks.
That's football.
That's a football team.
So who is the king after me going to be?
Who?
Who?
There's something basically troubling to me about this, which is all of this stuff about royalty is maintained except for the fucking point of royalty, which is to kind of ask you what you want to do and how you would run it.
Instead, they're coming at you with a bunch of half-baked ideas that don't sound very well thought through.
You might want to become the King Neptune at Avignon.
You might want to keep your seat just because you don't like the direction things are going.
Hello, where's my Constantinople?
It's going to be down in one of these Frank Lloyd Wright houses.
No shit, Sherlock.
You know what?
I'm not ready to yet.
I'm not saying I won't ever, but I am not satisfied with my predecessor or with my, what do you call the next one?
The new king.
Successor.
The successor, which you have not even fucking told me about at this point.
I mean, how do you know?
It could be a labradoodle.
It could.
That would be adorable.
You know what?
I could have a kingdom in the north.
Oh, you could be king of the north.
Yeah.
Huh.
Yeah, what about that?
How do you like them apples?
I love it.
Actually, I think you'd be king of the south, wouldn't you?
I'd be king of the south, yeah.
Okay.
And the king of the south is, I would argue, better.
It's warmer in the south.
You don't have as many dire wolves.
There's a lot of poisonings down there.
In the South, there are a lot of poisonings.
It's one of the things they do.
You want to take a nice little boat ride, boom, poison.
Boom, poison.
You want to have a nice wedding.
You're just a regular government-issue asshole, and you want to get married, and you happen to be the fucking king.
Boom, poison.
Now you've got red eyes.
You look LeBron James.
That's very upsetting.
John, I got a lot of fucking questions, and I'm not even in your court.
Well, lay some questions on me.
Okay.
I mean, like, sync it up.
Okay, well, there's this whole thing of, like, what the fuck are we doing with King Neptune with all this stuff?
I mean, let's start with an easy one.
What is the digital thing?
What does that mean?
It means they're not going to do live events anymore?
It's going to be staged in some kind of a green screen studio?
Like, what is the event for?
Who will watch it?
The thing is that Seafair is...
It's 100% entirely, entirely a live event operation.
Right.
That seems like why you would have something like this is to get people to come to a thing.
Well, and that's... I mean, all throughout the summer, there is no...
theory of seafair there is no digital seafail seafail seafail oh that's a good one there no that's what see there you just you just got the rebranding right when you when you're the king of the south at avignon you start calling the other one seafail that's really stupid look at these seahorses these are my seahorses
Seahorse, sea hell.
That lady, that pretty lady, was she the queen of Seafair?
She was Queen Alcyon of Seafair, yeah.
Queen Alcyon.
Have you conferred with your queen on this at all?
Well, so she and I are going to have to talk, but you know, she... You need a royal parlay at this point.
During the course, when she and I met...
Uh, she was, uh, she was living in the suburbs, uh, married with two kids.
She had a, she had a business, um, yeah, like a downtown business.
And that was what put her in the public eye enough that she was, uh, that she was the queen of seafarers.
She owned, she owned her own business in the tourism sphere during the course of our year.
This is more like game of Thrones than I expected.
Yeah.
During the course of our year, she, uh, she, she, uh, she wrapped up her marriage, uh,
Put a bow on it.
Okay.
So she was done with that chapter?
Yeah.
Got herself an apartment.
Okay.
Had some photo shoots.
Okay.
Started cross-training.
And now is living her best life.
She and her lady friends often go to parties where everybody's dressed all in white.
Oh, they have a girls night.
Yeah, they drink drinks that have wild colors.
Do they ever shout woo?
They do.
They do.
I've heard it.
I've heard it.
I've seen it firsthand.
They go to places like Palm Springs in Vegas.
She's making finger guns.
She's spending a lot of time in swimsuits now when she's not doing exercise.
She's primarily a business person.
She is a very successful business person.
But she's in a sphere of business.
where if you are having fun, it's a better look.
Okay.
It's an Instagram lifestyle type situation.
Yeah.
So if you were a business person who was like, say, investing other people's money or
or a business person who was like... Trying to become a bishop.
Yeah, right.
Like shots of you in a bikini holding a blue drink.
Yeah, drinking a yard of beer while you get a Hummer.
Yeah, with huge sunglasses on and seven other women who are also similarly attired.
All yelling woo.
All going woo.
That would be a bad look if you were trying to be an Episcopal bishop.
But if you are trying to run a tourism country that focuses on food and alcohol, it's a pretty good look.
In fact, I got an invitation from her assistant the other day.
She sent me an email like, hey, John, we haven't heard back from you about this thing.
We would really love you to come to our All Things Wine event where there are going to be 700 kinds of wine and people are going to be like running wine into their nose through a tube.
And wine, wine, whiny, wine, wine, wine.
And I wrote back and I was like, this probably, you know, there's an asterisk next to my name that should be in your file, which is that I'm not going to attend events where it doesn't sound even like there's going to be any social version of a DNR.
Right.
Where you say, like, do not resuscitate.
We want to say, you know what?
You don't need to invite me to those things.
Yeah, that's right.
Just put it, you know, like if wine is the basis, if wine is there, we're probably good.
But if wine is the basis of the event, I may not be your king.
Right.
If the whole if the and the invitation basically says, like, you can drink as much wine as you want.
uh and no one will look askance because that's what we're all free sunglasses um if that's more about who's attracted to free sunglasses it's so strange it seems made up does you clear your schedule there's free sunglasses coming to you i need so i need to reach out to my queen and see uh who we because we you know
So early on in our tenure together, she was like, wow, you know, like this being Queen Alcyon with you as the king of the Neptune, like this is the most interesting thing in my life right now.
This is really fun.
Let's talk about this all the time.
Let's like show up to things and it'll be super fun because, you know, she was like.
Oh, you're saying you give them a little bit of culture jamming.
But now she's like.
She's replying to these Seafair emails a lot more slowly because she's like, hi, I can't hear you over the music.
I'll get back to you as soon as I get this wine stain out of my white jeans.
And I'm like, OK, baby, you know, I'm here when you need me.
Yeah.
But so I haven't heard word one from her about this event that's that that that appears to not even be an event.
This is real suspicious.
This sounds like some kind of jam up.
I do need to reach out to her and see like what, because we, you know, we often did things where we were a, you know, we coordinated beforehand, like, what are we really going to do here?
What are we going to, how much BS are we going to take here?
Yeah.
You commiserate on this, on what was tolerable.
Yeah.
Can I just point out, though, if you were, just going to toss this out, I know she's very busy and the music is very loud, but one thing you can think about, if they're pivoting to digital, it would not be difficult for you guys to pivot to digital, too.
But the thing is, I have an actual crown.
Yes, but you have the crown.
They do not have the crown.
You could say, I will relinquish the throne when you guys are ready to decide who to put in it.
Right now, this is such a fucking clown show that me and my queen are going to continue to hold digital events that will hold C-Fail in our own area.
You know what?
C-Fail is ours now.
And if you're going to digital, what are they going to do?
Over digital you?
Is it usually at a mall?
Where is it?
You can't over digital me.
No, it was in the center of town.
Okay.
Are they still doing anything in the center of town?
Well, that's what we cannot know because they have not said.
You've got to forward me this email.
I won't share it, but you've got to send me this.
This is very upsetting to me.
It is to me, too.
But I just realized that having not consulted with my queen, I cannot know what to do.
The other problem is when they originally gave me the crown, they put the crown on my head.
And then after I walked off stage, they handed me a giant lucite case, like clear on all sides with a weird pillow in it.
And this was the case where the crown lived.
And they were like, keep the crown in the case.
And I was like, oh, why don't you guys just keep the crown and bring it when you want me to wear it?
And they were like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
The king keeps the crown.
It's like the Stanley Cup or something.
Yeah.
And I felt like, all right, I approve of that.
Right.
You guys have a tradition.
I'm all about traditions.
Right.
The king keeps the crown.
That's a big part of what holds a monarchy together is tradition.
That's right.
Tradition.
Tradition.
Tradition.
And I'm all about it.
You know, like I'm not one of these guys that dresses prep but acts soc.
Right.
Oh, right.
I dress prep and I act prep.
You're not a greaser.
I'm not a greaser who's dressing like a townie or whatever.
You're not a mod who's actually a rocker.
No, I'm not a cutter who dresses like a college kid.
Well, I see.
Okay, all right.
You're not affecting this.
This is one reason that you are so good at royalty.
is that you are invested in your investiture.
Yeah, I'm the fucking king, so here's how kings are.
And as time went on throughout the summer, I realized... They're the ones that wanted you to be king.
You can't go changing the rules and just futzing around and sending fucking emails about digital pivots.
That's not what you do to a king.
No, you don't send a thing that says, we'd like you to be the king, and here's how we envision the king.
We'd like to tell you what we've been thinking about that would please you when it's convenient for you.
You don't just announce a pivot to digital.
No.
But somewhere along the line in the summer, last summer, I realized, oh, wait, you know who doesn't wear their crown all the time?
The king.
The king wears the crown at, like, state events.
Not a farmer.
It's not even going to just show up in a tux all the time.
Yeah.
If the king is going to a thing in the hot summer sun where people are racing loud boats or everyone else is in a fucking bathing suit, the king's not going to wear his freaking crown.
The king's going to leave the crown at home because it's heavy and it's hot.
The king is going to wear a sash or some medals or a scepter or a sword.
And a lot of the time I had, you know, I would make uniforms for myself.
So I'd have like a like a shirt with some epaulets.
And that was not a demand per se.
That's something you decided to do just on your own.
This is what a king.
This is what the king looks like.
Mm hmm.
yep yep so you know you know if a king didn't want to do that for himself they might just they should drum him out there should be a double secret test well yeah you can come king develop his own traditions don't come at the king unless you're ready to i don't know the other half of that don't come at the king unless you're ready to get ready to really get a good wardrobe yeah get the king coming at you yeah okay so somewhere along the line the lucite box that the crown was in fell off a thing and broke and
And it's just a Lucite box.
But when I went to youstoreit.org.ru, I could not...
find one that wasn't expensive, because even though things are cheaply made now, it doesn't keep them from being expensive.
Oh, but can't you talk to your exchequer about it?
There should be something in the royal budget for that kind of thing.
One of the things that changed between the time that I was king and ye olden kings of Bjor was that in the 60s, the king and queen of Seafair had an entourage of dozens.
But that all got paired away because as we digitalize things, the consensus seems to be that we'd like everything to be more casual.
We'd like dockers first, pleated pants, and then eventually it's casual Friday every day.
And then eventually you can just come to work in flip-flops and a Punisher T-shirt.
And no one cares anymore because computers, because we've digitalized it.
And if you're a computer programmer, it's the answer to a million questions that no one has asked.
Yeah, right.
You can dress like Borat on the beach if you are good at writing go-to statements.
If you can write a if-then statement really well, it doesn't matter anymore if you behave like a human being.
And one of the things that went away with that is the royal court of King Neptune.
Because who wants to wear a uniform on a hot summer day?
Shouldn't we just all be sitting around naked and just pour it?
That's exactly the kind of question that gets you up in the guillotine.
Right, right?
You know, there's no fucking casual Friday for the king.
No.
Anybody can have casual Friday.
You can get your chips and nugs and you can just hang out and have a pint.
That's not how it goes for the king.
The crown weighs heavy on the head of the king.
Yes.
Even on Fridays.
It's not idiocracy.
The king isn't covered with sticky Faygo.
The king is like, you know, proper.
The king is clean as fuck.
And I so I went around to my people and I was like, who wants to be part of my entourage?
Right.
And everybody said, oh, that sounds like a lot of responsibility.
I was like, it is.
It is.
It is a lot of responsibility.
And they were like, oh, well, you know, summer and I've got other stuff to do.
And I was like, who who among us doesn't have other stuff to do?
But this is, you know, stand up for your city, for your time, for our time.
All gave little, but some gave none.
Yeah.
What about us?
We marry band of brothers.
And they were like, not us.
So I don't need my fucking condition.
Yeah.
They were like, oh, so what?
We march around behind you and you're the king.
And I was like, yes, precisely.
And they were like, that doesn't sound fun for us.
Anyway, Jason would Jason Finn be doing that, you think?
So Jason was very instrumental in my political campaign.
He could be very good at that.
But he did not because he knew that I would put a jester cap on him and I would call him Nave.
And he said, I do not want to be Nave.
Anyway, so somewhere along the line in the summer, I broke my crown box.
And no one ever asked for the crown box except on this day.
So all summer long and all winter long, I've been thinking, oh, shit, I broke that crown box.
It's not going to come up until the day.
So they remembered you've got it.
Well, yeah, it's where the crown lives because most people don't have their crown like I do sitting in their living room displayed for all to wear.
Okay.
They figure it might be in a guest closet somewhere in the clear box.
Yeah, it's on the bottom shelf of somewhere where all summer long they're like, oh, God, I got to put that crown on again.
Not only did I not wear the crown most of the time, but I also display it prominently in my house because it's, yeah, it's my crown.
However, I was, so I've been super worried about this event because here I am at Westlake Center.
I'm going to crown the new king and then someone's going to say, well, where's the crown box?
Oh, boy.
Now, even though there's no institutional memory in Seafair, because everybody that worked there a year ago is gone, and everyone that's working there now has, you know, just got out of college.
Okay.
But this is my thing.
I'm worried about this crown box, because I don't want to replace it.
It was a stupid box in the first place.
Yeah.
You should just keep the crease.
You should just have the crown.
But anyway, now it turns out they're going digital with it.
I might just put the, you know, like, this might be a thing where I take...
Yeah, or maybe they never want the crown again.
She's not going to need it in digital.
Yeah, maybe they're like, we're going to Mac paint a crown on the guy.
You could hire a computer programmer.
Yeah, just make him look like he's wearing a crown.
Give him an e-crown.
It'll be a Snapchat filter.
Okay.
I totally agree.
You get a puppy nose and a crown.
Yeah, Seafair crown.
Anyone who's within the area of Seattle during Seafair can go on that filter, and it'll put a crown and a puppy nose on it.
Sunglasses.
Sunglasses.
Sunglasses.
Yes.
What a fucking mess.
What a fucking mess.
So now I got two things I need to follow up with next week.
I got to find out what the hell is happening with your royalty.
And you sure as shit better come at me with a part two on this real estate situation.
Well, this is, this is part of the reason why all of a sudden it seems so appealing to me to live in the suburbs.
It's all the peace.
In the suburbs, King Neptune is still a thing.
There's still a parade.
He wears a cape, and he's got friends, and his friends want to be in the parade.
Interesting.
It's not like you're trouncing around Northern Ireland trying to knight people.
You're back home where this shit matters.
You're in the city of London inside the city of London.
Yeah, I'm riding around in a powder blue Cadillac convertible, and it's 1978, and I'm not in the city where they're like, ah, we're just digitalizing that now, and we're sunglassing the city.
But, you know, like like the final for my mom to say, like, oh, yeah, you're coming full circle back to the suburbs after having lived decades and decades in rock and roll where like suburb is synonymous.
It's a punchline.
It's just like you're all suburbs.
But it's like I say picturing myself there walking around with like my my my King Neptune medals on sort of like a like a veteran of the Great War in the Soviet Union where I'm just sort of wandering around like, yeah, I respect Seattle all the way back when they had the.
parade before it was digital.
And then my neighbors are like, good on ya!
Hey!
I would have been your jester.
You know what you get?
You get respect.
A little bit of respect.
Respect for you, respect for the position, respect for this fucking community of which I am the king.
You know, the Corleones, they didn't keep living on the Lower East Side, did they?
No.
No!
They moved out to the suburbs, and then they moved all the way to freaking Lake Tahoe.
Go to Nevada.
Take the family's operations out there.
Yeah, they go out there with their silk suits and their oily hair.
I appreciate it if you pay the fee out of your own pocket.
They go out there to the clean country.
That's what they do.
She was laughing.
I'm winded.