Ep. 294: “Steely Dan Fogelberg”
Hello.
Hi John.
Hi Merlin.
How's it going?
Been awake for eight minutes.
Feeling super awake right now.
Feeling super awake, awake, awake.
I'm thinking my thoughts and they're coming so fast.
So fast, so fast.
Yeah.
Wishing well, kissing tongue.
Wishing well, kissing tongue.
Wishing well.
Hey.
The thing is, I don't know if there's a better day to do this or a better time.
Oh, this is the time and place.
Yeah.
That's the thing.
This kicks off my week, you know?
Yeah, me too.
This is the jam.
I'm in the chair.
This is my public step into the public sphere every week.
Every morning you wake up and you say, good morning, week.
Good morning.
You walk out on the steps.
I got pants.
I'm wearing pants.
I got some coffee.
I got some pepperoni.
I got no pants.
Got no pants.
I got no pepperoni, but I do have coffee.
No pepperoni required.
No pepperoni required.
My favorite Phil Collins record.
Oh, man.
Wait, should we stick with it?
The only way out is through.
Stick with it?
You mean America?
Yeah.
You think so?
I think so.
This discourse has gotten very unkind.
Double down.
Double down.
Double down.
I'm so into you.
Did you watch any videos I sent you?
Yes.
You have any thoughts on any of them?
Sent you that Made in Heaven song with the guys playing rock music.
What else did I recommend?
I've got to go back to our super secret private channel here and see what I said.
You know, your taste has always influenced me quite a bit, I have to say.
No, you... Yeah, sure.
Huh.
Huh.
Sure, yeah.
No kidding.
Yeah, it's, you know, it's one of those things where, like, I razz you.
I give you the business about some things.
Give me a little bit of stick, yeah.
I do, a little bit.
I got that coming, I got that coming.
Power pop and stuff.
Too much.
But, you know, you've got eclectic taste.
Touch two guitar licks.
You've taught me a couple of guitar licks I still play to this day.
That's pretty much, those two licks are pretty much all I play on a guitar.
You know, I did.
I bought a guitar.
Just recently?
I ordered it.
It arrives tomorrow.
The hell you say.
Yeah, I've been sitting on it.
My acoustic guitar was purchased in 1988 for $200 American.
I know it well.
I know it well.
I know that guitar.
It's seen some things.
Yeah.
And the last the last actual grown man guitar I bought was probably 1997.
I bought an Epiphone and then I have that guitar.
I hate saying guitar lately.
It's so ugly.
I have a guitar, a uke size six string guitar that I like a lot.
Oh, those are cute.
Yeah.
They're great.
Oh, man, that'll be the best $200 you ever spent.
Just have it around.
Just have it around.
It's just sitting there.
You can just pick it up any time.
Anybody can pick up the guitar.
And it's not as looming in the room as a full man-sized acoustic guitar.
If you can draw this turtle, you can be a professional turtle drawer.
Hi, I'm Norman Rockwell.
We're always looking for new rockers and folkers.
so i ordered it i i because i've been sitting i've been hovering over two guitars that were way way way out of my price range yeah and uh i had i would just i mean i i don't like to use this phrase because i think it's an ugly phrase but i could not afford the guitars that i was thinking about so i bought a different one but i was looking at that i think it's called a j45
Oh.
Because I realized that a lot of people I like play that guitar and I like that sound, but no way am I going to spend that much money on a guitar.
No, they're not inexpensive.
It's true.
Yeah.
I mean, if I was, you know, Evan Dando,
Sure.
I love his sound.
And he plays that guitar.
If you're an Evan Dando, you can do that.
Or then I thought, oh, you know, the other one that's really nice is that J200.
Oh, Doctor.
That's even more costly.
It's a nice one.
So I got one made by, I ordered one by a company called Seagull.
Yes.
Now, are you going to make me feel bad that I got this?
Did I buy a dumb guitar?
No.
It sounds like it's going to be good, and I'm pretty pumped.
So one thing I'm doing, I'll save it for another show, but I have a series of projects that I'm working on over the summer, and one of my summer projects is to play guitar a lot more.
I support that 100%.
I really like it.
I really genuinely enjoy it.
And it's a nice thing that I can do with no purpose for public consumption.
A lot of what I want to do is do fewer things for public consumption.
Just do things for me and mine.
Yeah, that's one of them.
Play Frisbee with my daughter more.
There's stuff like that that I want to do more of.
You know, the thing about your guitar, and I'm never somebody to say a bad word about someone else's guitar.
You can talk about the action.
It's like that time when my cousin came in here and said, your piano sounds sick.
Oh, wow.
I was like, take your story and hit the bricks.
Well, I mean, that's like making fun of something on somebody's face.
It's like, what am I going to do about a piano?
It's here in my house.
Oh, just go pick up another one.
I'll Amazon Prime another piano.
That's my sound!
Yeah.
Sounds sick?
Yeah, she's just... My family is all full of ass.
John, I think she didn't think before she spoke in that instance.
That's not uncommon in my people.
But, you know, what I have found about your guitar is that you have to...
You have to expend a little bit more effort playing your guitar currently, your current guitar.
The last time I played it.
The Yamaha.
The Yamaha.
Yeah.
And if you had a guitar that kind of worked with you a little bit more.
Yes.
You would enjoy playing more.
I think you're right.
Something that'll play with me in the space.
Now, see, I got that when I was in college, and I was very happy to spend $200 on it.
I don't know how old that guitar was when I got it, but it's worked fine.
And the thing is, when I was...
playing in front of people by myself with an acoustic guitar, it worked out great because everything below the fifth fret, which is mostly what I was playing, was fine.
I was playing a lot of open chords and jingly-jangly up the neck kind of things.
You know what I mean?
Like a jingly-jangly up the neck kind of thing where you're doing a basic C-ish or an F-ish thing where you're letting a lot of strings ring.
Yeah.
worked fine but you're right i was not going to be doing any brian may on the 11th fret it gets you could drive a tesla under those strings around the 12th fret here's the tricky thing about an acoustic guitar is that if the neck is a little bit bowed so that it's hard to play up the neck a little bit yeah it actually sounds pretty good when you play your root chords because you've got like a lot of
Well, it gives it a lot of jingle jangle.
Your strings are just singing out.
It's got a little bit of flop.
Yeah, they're not rattling against the frets.
They're just out there just ringing in the wind.
And it makes you strong like bull.
It makes you strong like bull.
Yeah.
But the thing about a seagull is it's like, you know who's good at making guitars these days?
Who?
are you even kidding me no canadians are uh they have there's several brands now of great acoustic guitars made in canadia oh things the times they are a changing yeah they are so you know back in the old days you would have gone canada canada yeah what is it made of maple syrup
Nice thing is, if you hit the wrong note, it apologizes for you.
Dark, dark, dark.
But no, now that's like it's one of the things that, you know, Canada also makes good men's suits.
What is happening?
If you pick up a men's suit and you look inside and it says made in Canada, your first instinct.
You're right, Siegel is a Canadian company.
I did not even see this.
They are Canadian.
It's this guy named, I think his name is Godin, who had made guitars, I guess, starting back in the 80s.
And then they did like pretty.
There were Godin guitars.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Keep going.
You were, you were in the middle.
I mean, I read a little bit about it.
I watched some, you know, whenever I want to find something out increasingly, I try to read some things and then I try to look at some YouTube.
The nice thing about YouTube, such as it is, you still, you still see sales jobs on YouTube, but you also get a little bit of like, you know, a little bit of real stuff in there.
When you're just reading the first two pages of Google are all sales jobs.
Yeah.
And so I went and I read around and I looked around and I thought about what my budget for this was.
And it seemed like it was in the wheelhouse.
The headstock is a little bit.
In another time, we would have said this headstock looks fruity.
But supposedly it's pointy and it makes it look pinheaded.
You get a Gibson headstock and it's got like a hypercephalic head.
You get a nice big head on it.
Fat head.
Yeah, it's a little more tapered.
But supposedly that helps it stay in tune better, they say.
Is that right?
Well, because you think about it, usually you get the keys going outward, like a fat parallelogram.
But this one, I don't know.
We'll see.
The strings just go straight into the tuner.
But it's kind of what I want, which is one problem I've had with the guitar ukulele is I like playing those little licks, and that's real hard to do with man fingers on those little tightly grouped strings.
And I like the fact that this has a slightly wider...
uh neck yeah so i'll be able to like do a big ringy you know you know me i love a g i love the one you taught me i love the c with the added g which is maybe next to the g is probably the great chord that's one you can really go oh you do that and it sounds so good you do that on uh you did on a bunch of songs and it really works
It's like trying to figure out a recipe.
That's the cumin on your chords or something.
It's hard to detect.
Jonathan Colton, when he makes his G chord, he mutes the A string.
He doesn't he does not play the ace, you know, because in an A in a G chord, you fret a B note on the A string.
A B natural.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But he thinks the B is a cuck.
He does.
He thinks it's just it all does clog it up.
Mm hmm.
And so his G chord, he leaves that B out of it.
Does he add a D on the B string?
Because that's kind of a baller move.
So what he says is without using up his first finger, making that B on his G chord...
It frees it up to do all of his freaking Dan Fogelberg hippie-ass chords.
Oh, yeah, he loves that shit.
So he's all, strivity-stram, strivity-stram, strivity-stram, strivity-stram.
And he's putting all these other, like, G diminished 7 minor 9 augmented 4 G things.
He slips it right in on a nice, simple little G chord.
And you're like, why bother?
Why are you doing all that?
Let the bass player do those notes.
Uh, but no, he's got to have them.
He's got to put them all in there, but it's, it's a, it's a source of a lot of controversy.
I started a thread among the musicians, uh, about a year ago, a text thread.
You were calling him out.
Well, no, it was like, uh, what, how do you make your G let's, let's hear it.
Everybody make your G chord.
It turned out my G, my old cowboy G, uh,
was in the minority people had three fingers three fingers on the fretboard classic g classic g g b g with the open but you're you're hanging out with the steely dan steely dan fogleberg crowd yes steely dan foglebergs
And so they're all like, oh, here's how I make my G. And a lot of it is, you know, like what your fingering is and so forth.
But yeah, no cowboy Gs are very few.
Everybody's throwing in a little extra ring finger here or there.
Super frustrating.
Yeah, I can see it.
I can see it.
You're playing by yourself.
Have we talked about guitar chords much?
I can't think of you and I having talked about guitar chords very much.
You got a favorite?
Well, I'm frustrated by the infinite amount of learning I still have to do on the guitar.
With that said.
And I invented a couple of shapes here.
that i could move around i didn't invent them other people play them but i don't hear them played by other people very often i don't see them played by other people and part of it was that listening to other indie rockers of my era hang on just a second yeah john's stepping away for a minute oh i bet he's gonna get a guitar oh boy this is gonna be good oh it sounds like john's got a guitar
Okay, here's the... All right, yes, yes, yes.
So listening to the other indie rockers, they were doing all these chords where looking at the shape they were playing, I couldn't figure out like how in the hell... You know, there were these chords that kind of were up the neck and they had a sort of... Some of this stuff that...
Stuff that I couldn't... It sounded better than that, but that's what it looked like.
And so I started messing around, and I came up with... That's some very John Roderick stuff right there.
That is right in your wheelhouse.
Those are chords that I didn't know... Those were the first chords that no one taught me.
Right.
Chords you discovered.
That's right.
And so the song Stupid is made up completely out of those chords.
You know, all those chords.
The song that...
is our theme music.
That always struck me as like an open... It always sounds in my head like a Mayor of Simpleton.
Like you're playing a C figure at the third fret and doing like a D-D-C, D-D-C.
It sort of always sounds like in my head.
That's the C chord moved around, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, so, like, Mare of Simpleton is, like, you play a C open.
Dun-dun-dun.
Yeah, and then you slide up.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's it.
Oh, that's so satisfying.
And then you go up to the, you know, you go up to the 7 fret 9, and that...
That guy keeps ringing.
But this chord, the... Is that a D boy?
Is that a D?
What is that?
No, so it's kind of a G form.
It's like your middle finger is on the G on the E string.
Uh-huh.
And then you kind of mute the A string.
And then on the D string, you have your finger on the second fret.
Almost like an E. So it's on the E there.
Uh-huh.
And then your pinky is way out up on the fifth fret.
Oof.
of the G string.
Pinky's keeping you honest.
I like that.
So you got... And you're... You're muting the A so it's not a 7.
Yeah, so the fat of your finger is kind of muting the A. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.
And then you've got basically an octave of the... Well, no, but it's not.
It's like a... It would be an octave of the A...
Oh, wait a minute.
So that is a B. Yeah, so that... So it's an octave of the B. So it's kind of an E. Yeah, right.
But then you can move it.
And then if you move the pinky down one fret, you get...
Like a suspended.
And so when I discovered that, I didn't know what to do with myself.
I wanted to do that all the time.
I can't wait to do this all the time.
Right?
That's all I cared about.
And then I figured out a way to get the... The pinky went down one and the E string went up one.
And then I had that chord...
And that was something that none of my indie rock contemporaries had.
They all had their own chords that they had invented.
And those are ways of playing that sound cool and interesting when you're by yourself, but would be really interesting in a band, like against what everybody else was doing.
Now the bass could do all kinds of wackadoo stuff.
Because it's not a it's not a new chord.
It's a it's just a new inversion.
Right.
But the inversions, they suggest different combinations because unlike unlike a musically trained or knowledgeable person, like I have no idea what those chords are or why they go together.
And so even you were like, oh, that's an inversion or no.
It sounds like, I don't know.
It's all the same thing.
It's all the same thing.
But somebody that, like I've sat and taught some of those songs to people that are musically knowledgeable.
Oh, you show that to a Paul or a Storm, and they're going to tell you what you're playing probably.
Well, I mean, yeah.
They would be able to explain kind of why...
Certain chords had a relationship with one another.
That's the part that befuddles me.
You feel like a rube because you just like the way it feels and consequently the way it sounds.
Have you ever watched Donald Fagan sit at the piano?
There are some videos on YouTube that are absolutely worth watching.
I love watching him play piano.
He sits at the piano, but he's describing what he's doing.
And he's like, so...
you know, so anyway, man, you know, here we, we were trying to, I just thought like, wouldn't it be hilarious if we, if we just like inverted the, the, the tonality and, you know, and he's like sitting in and, and he's showing you on the piano and,
The interviewer, I guess, is knowledgeable enough about music that they're having a little laugh together.
They're like, wouldn't that be crazy if you just flip that around?
But then we did it.
But he's not even saying like, I did something and I was amazed by the result.
Because he knew what the result would be already.
He's just like...
thwarting expectation or whatever by going against what music suggested.
The conventional way of playing something like that.
And I'm like, wow, I hope that I'm doing that sometimes.
Yeah.
I mean, I think what people find difficult about my songs is where the accents are.
Oh, that's for sure true.
This is like when you play stuff and I couldn't even count a lot of stuff that you're doing.
It's not complicated, but it's definitely unconventional.
Sometimes it's a little complicated, but yeah, it's very unconventional.
And that is completely native to me.
Like that isn't something I try to do.
I put the accents where I think that they belong, where they feel right.
And I'm always surprised when that is the part that's hard for people to figure out.
What I've always wanted to be is like chord...
chord george and just throwing down all these these tapestries of chords i can i'm not comfortable telling you how many hours a week i spend watching music and music theory videos where people are explaining stuff that i don't really understand but i really really enjoy it
And like I said, there's this one guy like Adam Neely who mainly does bass, but he talks a lot about theory.
And he did this whole, I think I told you, he did this whole eight minutes of one of his videos is explaining this one chord change in Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder and how unconventional this one, I forget what it was, not an F major seventh.
But some chord that he chose, how strange it was.
And he plays all the different things you could have chosen to play that would have fit theoretically better there.
And they all sound so cliched.
You can feel it all over.
That chord that he hits, you don't realize how weird that chord is.
And he explains it in relationship to all the other things.
And everything else he plays sounds like a Mel Bay, first day of ukulele kind of chord.
It's so much more interesting what he chose instead.
I could watch that stuff all day long.
I, I need to start watching that stuff more.
It's really, it's really, it's really exciting.
I mean, cause the music nerds now also they have all these, these apps where they can like, like things like Ableton or what is the thing they use for composing that everybody uses.
But like, it's so amazing cause they can illustrate things very quickly and then you can hear it and see it.
And it's, it's, uh, it's really nerdy, but I love it.
I don't claim to understand it, but it's like, I don't know.
It's like watching a raccoon and get into a bird feeder.
Like I understand how he did it, but I'll watch it all day.
Oh, my God.
Are there videos of raccoons getting into bird feeders?
Oh, shit, dog.
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You know, the raccoons have been on my roof lately because the cherries are coming in.
Oh.
And the other night, I'm laying in bed.
It's the middle of the night.
Yeah.
And I basically hear...
Uh, what sounds like, like a couple of hockey players going at it right above me on my roof.
Those boys are heavy.
And I'm like, come on.
And it's four in the morning.
And so I'm like, well, they're going to figure it out.
And then, and then it keeps going.
So I'm like, fuck this.
So I go downstairs and,
And I put on my bathrobe and I'm about to head out the door and I'm like, you know, I don't get a chance that often to also take a sword.
And this is a great opportunity.
It's not always appropriate.
Yeah.
I mean, like back when we first started doing this program before I had a child, you know, like I had spent a lot more time out in my yard with a sword lately.
I'm just trying to get I'm just trying to get a good night's sleep.
Anyway, I grabbed my sword out of my – or I grabbed a sword out of my sword basket, and I went outside, and I walk around the house, and there he is.
He's sitting up on the house, and he does – he's like – just straight up in the center of the roof.
But he does that raccoon thing where he's like, maybe he doesn't see me.
Kind of like hunkers down a little bit.
I'm like, I see you, guy –
One reason I knew where you were is because you're right over my bedroom and you need to take it on the lamb.
And he's like, you're talking to me?
And we're looking at each other, you know?
So then he comes down the roof a little bit in a way that suggests like tameness.
He like inches down toward me.
Like, are you talking to me?
I'd like to come closer and hear what you're saying.
And I'm like, you can hear me fine.
Okay.
Go, go home now.
Like you got all the cherries you need.
Get gone.
And then, then he's like, I'm okay.
Now I'm going to scamper over the other side of the roof where he can't see me.
And so he did that.
And then I walked around the house and I came around the side and he's over there.
And I was like, see how this is going to work.
I go all the way around the house too.
So you go over there.
I'm going to just come over here.
And he tried that a couple of times and I went around the front and I was like, here I am again.
And eventually he made his way.
He made his way onto the fence and down into the hovel.
You're just kind of politely telling him, take it somewhere else.
I was like, you know, it's one of those things where a lot of times if somebody pulls up out in front of my house and they've got a loud stereo in their car and they want to just park in front of my house for a while and look at their phone or or yell at their.
significant other in the car i like to just kind of go out and stand there just be present just be present and just kind of and and eventually you know i don't have to say like turn your stereo down doesn't take long for them to just not want to be there anymore because it seems like they could go somewhere where there isn't someone staring at them and maybe i'm kicking the can down the road it's somebody else's problem now the loud the loud arguing people now are in front of someone else's home
But yeah, it's the same with the record.
I mean, I don't take a sword out typically when someone's got parked in front of my house.
That seems a little bit, that seems a little aggressive.
They know you mean business.
I like the way they give you the side eye, though.
They're mad at you because you're looking at them.
Yeah, what are you looking at?
Yeah, I'm just here in the car yelling at my partner.
Yeah, it's really hard not to be brought out by your awesome music.
I'm just dancing inside.
Inside, I'm dancing.
Outside, I'm just kind of standing here staring at you.
I used to do that, and my daughter made me stop because it embarrassed her.
Oh, really?
Somebody came by juking and jiving, and I'd kind of give them finger guns and do a little dance.
Your music is so cool.
It's moving to dance.
I love your music.
Stop that.
So full of swears.
Dad, don't do that.
Stop doing that.
Stop it.
So much shame.
Did you just send me a raccoon getting into a bird feeder?
La, la, la.
Yeah, click that.
Let me see.
Raccoon in a feeder, I know.
Give that a look.
How do they do it?
They can't be stopped.
Look at him.
Look at him go.
He's thinking.
He's thinking, too.
He's not blindly trying things.
They've got an anti-raccoon solution here.
It's a bespoke anti-raccoon solution.
And he says, you know what?
Who cares?
He's like, let me just get around this here.
I want to unhook that thing.
Get me some seed.
And he's, he knows he's being watched.
Oh, yes, you do.
Yes, you do.
I could watch it all day.
Yeah.
And now what is, now what is he going to do?
What's he going to do now?
Oh, he's not satisfied.
He's using technology.
wow and then he's like and dismount that's right perfect dismount pwned oh my goodness that's good that's good you still got your guitar there yeah play that uh play a regular c
Is that a symbol?
Yeah.
You got a lot going on there.
I do.
I do.
All right, what am I doing?
Play a regular C, open C. Now add that low G. You add the low G on the E string?
Yeah.
Now give it a Kong.
Oh, the king has arrived.
Oh.
That's it without the G. Yeah, when you're strumming, boy.
I love, as I think I previously stipulated, so on an acoustic guitar, a G is my favorite chord because it is the perfect acoustic guitar chord.
Well, I should play for people the first lick you ever taught me.
Okay.
That's good.
I got that from Big Star.
I got that from The Replacements.
I got that from Neil Young.
It's a good little lick.
I still can't play the beginning of Tell Me Why properly, but it's always the first thing I play on a guitar.
And then play the Rolling Stones one.
Remember that one?
A slidey.
Are you talking about the... Do you have a guitar?
Hang on, you work on it, I'll go get a second.
It's not this one.
Is it that one?
Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is my Rolling Stones lick.
You know, Keith Richard said that he didn't want Start Me Up made into a Rolling Stones song because he thought it sounded too Rolling Stones.
I can't find a guitar.
But it's a little bit of the rock soft lick.
You hit an open A, then fret the B and slide up to C sharp.
To C sharp.
And then the octave on the G.
Or not the octave, but the... Hit an A. Hit an A on the G. Is that right?
Hit an A on the G. A. Up one.
Up one.
No, maybe it's not a G. Shit, this is so hard to do without a guitar.
Fuck, where's my guitar?
Where's my busted ass... That's it.
Oh, is that it?
That's it.
That's the one.
Oh, that's a nice lick.
The sunshine bores the daylights out of me.
Boy, this is a hell of a show.
We're helping a lot of people today.
Next week's going to be different, buddy.
Woo!
I just learned this thing, which I don't know.
All these things – like I have a lot of friends that are really good guitar players, and I wish that they would just teach me how to play the guitar, but they never do.
They always laugh.
I say, teach me to play the guitar, and they go, ha, ha, ha, you know how to play the guitar.
And I say, no, I'm serious.
Tell me some tricks.
Tell me some licks.
Yeah.
We used to do that in high school.
That's all we did.
Yeah, my friend Rick Garnett taught me.
That's a good one.
That was, I think, one he stole from Eric Clapton.
It's got a little bit of Ace Frehley, too.
Yeah, probably.
He's got that bow down, down, down, down, that kind of, yeah.
He's really probably got it from Jimmy Page, who never could play it right, because he's Jimmy Page.
Yeah, I think there's a little bit of backwards in there.
But the other day I came, I was doing this, and I was like, what was it?
Ooh, that's a pentatonic journey.
And I started doing it over and over.
I was like, you know, the way that people get good at playing guitar is they do things over and over.
You just got to do it over and over.
Yeah, they don't just do it.
That's how Edward did it.
Exactly.
They don't just do it a couple of times and go, well, I got that master.
Close enough.
So I sit around and I've been doing that.
Now, you can practice that on your acoustic guitar.
Next time you step over onto your electric guitar, it's going to be like ringing a bell.
Well, what I'm hoping is that something will happen.
Something will come along.
An opportunity will come along where I will be required to do something like that, which is like, oh, you're at a show.
You're in a show.
You're playing a rock show.
And then somebody points at you.
Take a solo.
I'm like, I'm ready.
You'll have some prepared remarks.
I'm ready.
Give that horse some line.
So I'm getting a guitar and I don't know.
I'll have it.
I don't know where I would get it like set up.
So I'll probably just play it however it comes.
But they say they say it is said that when you get a new acoustic guitar, you should go and have somebody set it up for you.
Yeah.
Now, what does that entail?
That's you're messing.
We're messing with the tailpiece a little bit.
You're making sure it's the way you want intonation rod, all that kind of stuff.
I feel like a setup on an acoustic guitar like that, which is going to be a good... It's going to come from the factory in pretty good condition.
And it comes with a case.
But I think what you do is you go in and... Yeah, it's maybe a little bit of a truss rod adjustment.
It depends.
Oh, the truss, yes.
It might play great out of the box.
But...
But, you know, season to taste.
They might want to dress the frets a little.
I don't know.
What's that mean?
What's that mean?
Dress the frets.
You know, the frets, the fret wire gets put in there.
And if the if and I'm not sure if the neck is if your neck is going to be bound or not.
Let me look.
Let me see.
Now I'm getting worried.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
These are not things to worry about.
Okay.
It doesn't look typically like seagull guitars have bound necks.
And so what it means is the edges of the frets that stick out on the top and bottom of the neck, you know, where your hand is going to go rubbing on down them, rub on down the line, they can be a little sharp if they're not.
Oh, and your strings are going to be sticking on there when you do your big bends.
That, but also it won't feel nice on your fingers.
I don't want that.
I mean, if they're really sharp, they can even cut you.
Oh, I don't want that.
Well, you know, I'll try riding raw for a while, see how it goes.
I can't even have my eyes examined.
I got to do more things.
I got to make more appointments.
I hate making appointments.
Do you feel like your glasses aren't working anymore?
Well, my glasses broke like two years ago and I gorilla glued them back together.
But I still, I need to get, I even have a set of Warby Parker's, not a sponsor this week.
I even have a pair set aside that I would like to get, but I need to, and now my wife is bugging me.
You got to go get your eyes examined.
So I got to do that.
But then I got to make an appointment.
I got to call Kaiser and like, nobody wants to call Kaiser.
You know, it's a whole thing.
I've been trying to talk to Anthem.
Mm-hmm.
Finally got through.
Is that right?
Who'd you get?
Who'd you talk to there?
Laney.
Oh, you got Laney.
I've been talking to Laney about it.
You can always ask to speak with Arliss.
You can always escalate it.
Laney has been super helpful.
It's one of those things where, I mean, for months I've been trying to find a single helpful person.
And I've found some people that seemed helpful.
You're like a man with a lantern.
Looking for an honest man.
You're just wandering around.
Just like, can I get one helpful person?
Yeah.
And I've gotten a lot of people that have been willing to transfer me to somebody.
Okay.
I've gotten a lot of people who've told me, yeah, that's, we're not, you see, we're not the ones that handle that.
The other people are the ones that handle that.
Oh, so they're being helpful by taking you somebody who could be more helpful.
Uh-huh.
Oh, that's nice.
Uh-huh.
And finally, and the thing is, Laney isn't in charge.
Laney's just, somebody was like, let me get you to Laney.
Somebody was passing the buck, and finally this buck, which had been passed all over, this is one of these bucks that if you test it, it's got cocaine on it.
It's been in the potty with people.
At least, yes, yes.
They pass and pass and pass and pass and this buck, and it finally got to Lainey.
She was like, let me see if I can figure this out, and figured it out.
Sometimes you just get an angel.
You get a hero.
Lainey.
Somebody who's there to help.
Come on, girl.
And Lainey was game for it.
Yeah.
And Lainey's and the thing about Lainey is even though her email address is info, you know, help service at company dot com.
And I keep in I keep emailing her at this email and it's just like info at the company.
Yeah, I don't think she's going to get that.
But she keeps replying to those.
That's weird.
It's incredible.
It's incredibly weird.
It's not a small company.
I'm replying to this just like, what is the actual email?
It's youradvocate at company.com.
Is that right?
Your advocate.
It knows something about, there's an AI.
There's something in there that knows something about John.
Yeah.
We're going to help John.
Yeah.
We're going to get this to Laney.
Uh-huh.
You think it's always the same Laney?
You know, because you know how I am.
I'm my father's son.
Even over email, I like to be a little flirtatious.
I like to say, Laney, can I just tell you, you're being very helpful here.
I'd like to thank you for your help.
Do you find yourself spying the name of your person that you're giving money to at a register and then using their name?
I do that.
I say, thank you, Rachel.
I say, thank you.
If someone is being, if somebody's being good, I do that.
I do not.
If somebody's being bad, I do not say like, oh, no, but I just mean to go to the other day.
I said, thank you, Ms.
Simmons.
Cause that's what it said on her name tag.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
You know, call people by their name.
It's a Dale Carnegie thing.
I do.
I do do that.
Not, not, not, uh, not every time, but, but, um, you're telling Laney and Anthem that she did a good job.
Yeah, and it feels like she's replying as a unified person rather than as a community of people.
Oh, wow.
That's nice.
You feel taken care of.
The last thing she wrote was, hello, John, you are very welcome.
Happy to help!
And that was exactly the reply to what I wrote before.
It was exactly the right reply.
It makes me feel like, yes, there's a Laney there.
I don't want this to be that Microsoft bot that turned racist in 14 minutes because 14.
Oh, right.
Garbage in, garbage out, right?
Yeah, right.
They had to shut it off, didn't they?
They had to shut it off because it kept being racist?
Yeah, they shut it down because it started to be a Holocaust denier.
I'm just asking the question.
I don't know.
I'm just asking the question.
It just seems like that would be very difficult to do from a logistics standpoint.
It's pretty great.
Anybody can get a tattoo, John.
Lots of people have tattoos.
Oh, my God.
So many people have tattoos.
Oh, my God.
So many people have tattoos.
They're being on the TV, and they're 23, and they're just covered with tattoos.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm finding this...
As someone who typically finds himself in romantic entanglements with people in their early 30s, it's increasingly difficult.
um, to not, uh, have to confront tattoos.
Do you feel like you should remark on it?
No, no, no, no, no, no.
This is one of those things.
Well, it is because it's a, this is their, it's their body.
It's like saying again, now we're back to the face and the piano.
they say here's what they say they say they say that if you if you feel the need to uh to um compliment someone first of all think about whether it's really about you or about them but if you're going to compliment someone they say it is said that you should compliment them on something that they have control over i think that's a that's a think about that for a minute that's pretty good i like i like i like the socks you chose i like what you do with their hair yeah i will i will often say uh when i notice someone has changed their hair i will say
Oh, wow.
I really like your hair like that.
I think when you encounter someone's tattoos, it is polite to ask about them.
It is, you know, like I think my strategy is to say like, wow, tell me about that tattoo.
Yeah.
And then they can tell the story.
And you'd be surprised how often the story is.
Oh, I don't know.
I just got that one.
One time.
It's the kanji symbol for gullibility.
And it's like, all right.
That's really cool.
You know what?
That's a good response to almost every tattoo.
Oh, right on.
Right on.
Why'd you get the ninth one?
You about done?
Do you have a sense of when you'll be done with this project?
Some, some, I mean, I think most people that have multiple tattoos have at least one that's really meaningful to them.
You know, this is the one that, this is the... You think they're chasing the dragon?
Oh, I don't know.
I don't know.
I want everybody to be happy, John.
That's all I care about.
I feel like it's a different relationship to like corporeal permanence.
Oh, sing it, sister.
You know, like I just always felt like my body was something not to mess around with.
I mean, my organs have had enough damage as it is.
I mean, this tapestry that I have, my largest organ, like this, I'm going to have enough trouble with this thing over the years.
There's going to be a lot of fucking miles on these tires.
The last thing I need is the cover of Into the Gap by the Thompson Twins on my back.
And, you know, my thing is like, oh, what if I regret it?
And if I got a tattoo, I would regret it instantly.
Absolutely.
Oh, no, that's not.
That's why you got to get one that says no regerts.
No regerts.
Well, maybe if I drew it on myself.
Yes.
Did I ever tell you, I was walking in New York City with my good friend, Kristen, who has been my muse many times.
I've written several songs about her.
She's also like my, for a long time, she was my best gal pal.
She's also been like my
absolute best gal enemy my frenemy my real enemy your girl enemy my girl enemy she's been my roommate she's been my collaborator just a real she's a real force real powerhouse and we were walking down the street in new york one time and she was like i want a tattoo and i said what are you talking about like like the way you would say i want a quesadilla yeah oh boy and i was like we're in our 30s yeah
Um, what do you mean you want a tattoo?
You don't have any tattoos.
And she was like, I'm ready.
I want one.
And I said, ah, this is exactly the kind of problem that you get us into.
This is the kind of scrape you're always getting us into.
And then she, then we're walking along and because she's made out of magic, she's like, oh, there's a tattoo parlor.
And I'm like, this isn't even a neighborhood where there are tattoo parlors.
How did you do that?
And she manifested it.
She did.
She marches across the street without even looking back and I'm running after her and we get into the tattoo parlor and
And there's a person behind the counter, some scrungy, scroungy little, some terrier dog that chases rats down holes, except it's a human.
Do you require a tattoo?
And she says, give me a piece of paper and a red pen.
And the guy has one.
Oh, God.
And then she pushes it over to me and she says, draw a star.
And I was like, all right.
So I drew a star and she was like, no, not like that.
Draw it more like some, she gave me some instructions.
Like a star in the sky or a five point?
Like a five point star, like just a, like a, like a classic, like a star.
Right.
And I drew the star and the guy's looking at me and she's looking at me and I'm, I draw like five or six stars and she's like, no, no, no.
And then she takes the piece of paper and she draws a star on it, which admittedly is charming.
It's charming.
It's more charming than my stars.
And it's not one of those nautical stars that everybody was getting for a while.
Nope.
It's just a star that she drew.
It's just a star that she drew.
Zip, zip, zip.
Boy, I would want a straight edge for that, buddy.
I want a straight edge, a compass, and a protractor.
Well, because she... You've got to give it to Gollum.
I mean, how do you know how that's going to go when you give it to that guy?
Her star was super charming.
It was not... It was like... It was lopsided.
It looked like a star that she drew in exactly one second.
This is making me so uncomfortable.
By way of trying to tell me that I was drawing the star that she wanted wrong.
Okay.
Okay.
And I was like, all right, that's super cute.
She said, all right, I want that on the back of my neck.
Oh, my God.
And I said, stop this.
You just loaded a gun.
You loaded a gun for that lady.
What is this madness?
And she was like, hush, shush.
And so she sits down in the chair and the guy takes the star that she drew.
The tattooier.
The tattooier.
He puts on his, like, elbow-length kid leather gloves.
He lowers this one monocle down and then... Takes a swick from a jug.
Yeah.
He turns up the nitrous oxide in his mix a little bit.
Oh.
and all of a sudden and oh and she gets it done in red ink like the like like the the thing she drew all of a sudden she has this charming little like like naif uh it's because she's made of magic john she's made of magic she's mad oh and she has oh so she has red hair right and she has she's wearing it in a pixie bob cut so it's not like put it on the back of my neck
where no one's going to see it.
It's like, I'm a fucking manic pixie dream girl.
Yes.
Before that was even a thing.
And now I have a, now I have a homemade star on the back of my neck and I'm never going to refer to it again or even think about it again.
It's on the back of my neck.
I don't have to look at it.
She makes it look so easy.
And she fucking skips out into traffic, and I'm like, what the fuck?
This isn't how it should have been done.
You're supposed to be full of regerts.
This should have taken you months.
Aren't you regertful?
Yeah.
Where's your regerts?
And she's like, da-da-da-da-da.
Half an hour later, she's like, I hate you.
You're my worst enemy.
I never want to talk to you again.
I'm like, fuck, come on.
Ah.
so i mean so it happens sometimes it works sometimes but the other day i saw i saw some a young person and their entire thigh was a three-masted sailing ship on the high seas like breaking cresting over the waves with the you know with like a whaler on the bow with the you know and i'm just like what is that like why don't it's beautiful it's
it's a beautiful piece of work yeah but i but i can't get a poster or a shirt i cannot imagine the significance to you uh like personally or professionally but also like i don't know i don't know i'm not the target market for it no fortunately it was this this sailing ship was not on someone that i was like so tell me about your tattoos it was just somebody who'd like mosey and buy describe your clipper ship
Tell me, was that your father's clipper ship?
Those are some tall masts.
Is that where you made your bones?
That's some very detailed rigging.
Were you ever a whaler?
Did you whale?
Is that where I know you from?
Well, it's kind of a long story.
Did we whale?
Did we whale?
Anything new on the house front?
House Front, they are a terrible band.
Nothing new?
No.
Last time we were talking, you were feeling anxious because you're on the horns of a dilemma about what to do with the whole housing situation.
A lot of moving parts.
Yeah, and what I've been doing is I've been driving down to the neighborhood and driving around.
Whenever I get free time, whenever I'm on the highway, I'm like, I wonder how long it would take to get from here to this neighborhood.
And I just redirect the
and drive down to this neighborhood and then once i'm down there i'm just driving around and so i've stopped a couple of people i've rolled up on them and i've said hey how's it going and they go hello i say i'm new to this area i'm not a cat burglar
Don't look in the back.
I'm not going to ask any information of you that will direct me specifically to your home.
I'm just trying to get a general layout of the area.
And normally in a suburban context, someone like me who's friendly and flirty and doesn't have a homemade red star on the back of his neck.
I can I can convince somebody I can engage someone pretty quickly in a way that makes them feel like, oh, sure, I'll sit and I'll shoot the shit with you for 15 minutes.
And so I've learned some things about the neighborhood, even in this neighborhood, which is really pretty sheltered.
One guy said, well, I wouldn't look for any place up there between first and fourth.
I was like, why not?
It's like one of the nicer neighborhoods I've ever been in.
He's like, well, there have been a lot of mailbox thefts up there.
Oh, boy.
I'm like, wow, there's a bad side of the tracks out here on the good side of the tracks.
You guys even still have a bad side of the tracks?
Is there still in the whole mailbox?
No, just... Oh, they're going through, picking through, getting packages.
It's a next door type situation.
Yeah, according to this old man.
Oh, and somebody mentioned next door.
Oh, boy, next door.
So I thought that's where it came from.
I bet that's what it came from.
Somebody on Nextdoor was like, they're stealing my mail.
Nextdoor.
Nextdoor is really quite a journey.
One of the people I stopped and talked to said, oh, you should join Nextdoor.
And I was like, I don't know, man.
You can find out when there's a black.
I don't know if I want to join Nextdoor.
It'll definitely give you a feel for the neighborhood, for a certain aspect of the neighborhood.
Yeah.
The people that are on the internet that have too much time on their hands.
Oh, brother.
Too much time on my hands.
There's a lot going on.
I've watched our next door enough that I can now like suss out the different personalities.
I have a couple of favorites that I like to follow.
They're very concerned about a lot of things.
If I went on to the Nextdoor in my neighborhood, would I be able to hear?
Would people be talking about the Mad Bomber?
Don't think I haven't thought about it.
I've searched for myself on Nextdoor, see if I show up.
Who's that guy?
Oh, really?
Who's that homeless guy with the little girl?
Oh, really?
No, I haven't seen it.
But no, I mean, Nextdoor is kind of famous for this.
I've talked about this a lot on another show.
But the feeling on the Nextdoor that I'm on, which is my neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods, is...
Is a lot of xenophobia is a little strong, but there's definitely a lot of suspicion of otherness and like what doesn't doesn't belong here and what doesn't add up and whether that person really works for PG&E, even though they're in a PG&E truck with a PG&E badge.
I call PG&E.
They said no one was supposed to be in the area.
Oh, there's paranoia.
There is, but it really manifests as there's these little tendrils of change, even if that's like a Latin American person walking around.
If you don't look like you belong here, yeah, they'll definitely talk about it.
One time, some guys, a woman over by West Portal called the cops on some kids in hoodies.
Oh, yeah, hoodies.
The hoodies, because it turns out they were taking pictures of the eclipse.
But they thought it was real suspicious the kids were out after dark taking photos.
Right.
So that's the kind of thing you get.
And somebody has to explain.
Somebody has to explain.
Like, no, no, that's just a road closure.
It's not an, you know, Ocean's Eleven-style heist to try and get to your Krugerrands and bearer bonds.
Well, kids taking pictures at night—
Ladies and gentlemen, the FBI.
We watched Die Hard the other night.
It's the best Christmas movie.
It's the best Christmas movie and a great movie.
She was not as into it as I hoped, but she was glad that Snape was in it.
That movie has aged, aside from some silly costumes and stuff.
That movie is still really fucking good.
Despite what my kid says, I think Die Hard is still a very good movie.
It's amazing the movies that age well.
It surprises a person.
Yeah, there's some stuff.
I mean, they're obviously there's stuff from the 80s and 90s.
This just like, oh, my God, a lot of it has not aged well.
Well, you know, I have a movie podcast, which I never would have thought.
And so I'm watching movies all the time, which I never would have done.
And some of them are still completely great, valid, awesome movies.
I bet the 70s movies are better than the 90s movies.
I mean, accepting a private, like you get a private Ryan.
That was your first one, right?
Was that the first one you did was private Ryan?
But I mean, like you take something like a big red one or a Navarone or like any of those, like those, uh, post dirty dozen movies, like some of those hold up pretty well, right?
Well, they do, but it's a, it's a question of like, it's a question of tone.
I think later, later on, uh, posts, uh,
Private Ryan.
Everything's trying to be really, really gritty.
Lots of like, bleh.
Yeah.
Bleh.
There's quite a bit of killing in war movies throughout time.
But a lot of it, there was a long, long period there where it was like, bang!
Ow!
And then he falls off the back of a building and you never see him land.
Type of dead people.
But the emotional consequences.
I mean, there are movies from the 50s that are
That deal with gender politics and masculinity and all the things that you think didn't exist then deal with them better than movies now.
So anyway, it's a it's that's been a real eye opener for me that movies that there have been good movies for a long time.
And also bad movies for a long time.
I feel the same way about architecture, where there was a style, particularly in the 80s, of architecture, a kind of lump and proletariat style of architecture that you see a lot in strip malls and restaurants and stuff.
You think about the awnings, you think about the solaria, all these different things that at the time felt very, very modern.
There are a few decades that...
How can I put this?
The 80s tried to do something that seemed very modern and enduring that was not particularly modern and very not enduring in a way that even stuff from the 70s holds up better.
I mean, setting aside the brutalism, which I'm not a fan of.
But you know what I mean?
It is really weird how stuff that there was stuff that felt really modern, felt very current for about two years, 1984 to 1986, that instantly felt very, very old and dirty.
And I think the same is true for movies.
The 80s movies, I think part of it's the cocaine.
There was so much cocaine.
And I think that really left a mark on a lot of the movies.
But they are coarse.
Well, they're certainly what we would today call politically incorrect, which I think doesn't even get at how offensive movies I loved in high school are.
Like really, really quite terrible movies with terrible people doing terrible things.
But there's just all kinds of ways in which you watch and you go like, I can't believe we liked this that much at the time.
Yeah, although Phoebe Cates still makes anything good.
That's true.
She's in Gremlins.
She's, uh, you got, uh, you got the, oh, she was in the Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Yeah, she was.
Phoebe Cates, now she was married, she's married to, uh, Kevin Kline.
Yes, she is.
That's nice.
I like that.
I like that.
He, uh, he is, he's aged quite, uh, quite dramatically in recent years.
She has not.
it's always amazing it's always amazing to see yeah if you look at a picture of them recently uh she does not look like she's aged very much and he looks like he's aged a lot i think he looks great he was in that shakespeare movie he's on bob's burgers he's doing god's work okay if you want your show is called friendly fire over on the max fund podcast network if you were going to pick an episode a first episode on the off chance somebody hadn't heard it yet what's a good episode that you think people should start with
Oh, you know, it's gotten – the show, like all podcasts, I think hit its stride a little bit along the way.
I think – Yeah, figure out what it is.
Yeah.
The way to figure out what it is is to do it.
If you listen to Glory, that was a good one.
The Civil War?
Yeah, the Civil War movie with Denzel Washington.
Denzel Washington.
If you started with Glory, you would understand what we were doing, I think, pretty well.
Mm-hmm.
We watched both Red Dawn movies, the original and the latter.
And I think those are a study in contrasts.
Okay.
You know, one of the things about my... We did Apocalypse Now.
Look at that.
We just did that, yeah.
Oof.
Look at Dirty Dozen.
Look at these.
These are good.
Well, so Dirty Dozen is a good place to start, too, because that's a heck of a movie.
It's got that.
You got Telly Savalas.
You got Trini Lopez.
You do.
You got Trini Lopez.
You got Jim Brown.
You got Donald Sutherland.
Donald Sutherland.
Uh-huh.
Oh, and also Charles Bronson.
Charles Bronson.
Okay.
he's kind of the bad guy oh sorry spoiler oh he is the bad guy yeah he's a bad he's a bad bad guy well i love i love the desperation how it starts out where it's just like you know you guys you're all pretty bad apples you got nothing to lose you're probably gonna die but and who is it's uh it's what's his name lee marvin
uh, the great Lee Marvin, the great Lee Marvin.
And this is the great, this is the Lee Marvin role.
Well, I know, I don't, and I don't want to give away the podcast.
You, you, you, he's great in everything.
He's great in the president's.
He's in the president's.
And no, that's no, I'm thinking of the other guy.
Who's the other guy?
Who's the president's analyst?
Oh, that's the other guy, President Analyst.
Goddammit, I just conflated two 60s actors.
James Coburn.
James Coburn, a completely different character.
I conflated him.
Yeah, well, they're very similar.
Yes, they do a similar thing, but you'll notice...
One of them wears his hat at a much jauntier angle than the other in fact a jauntier angle than anyone And you won't reveal which one it is until you listen to the friendly fire podcast maximum fun org Slash shows slash friendly dash fire.
You can google it on the google sit entirely One of the things about architecture that I have noticed and I don't know if I've if I've gotten into this about or about this house search and
But it has become architecture-based.
Oh, interesting.
I was never a fan of mid-century modern.
I grew up in a suburb that was mid-century when I was a kid.
In Alaska, there was no architecture, let's just be honest.
But in Seattle, in the north end of Seattle, when I was a little kid, we lived in a neighborhood that was – my elementary school was right next to a neighborhood called Innes Arden, which was a completely planned neighborhood built in the early 50s.
But it was the nice version of it, right?
Like big, beautiful, mid-century modern style homes with sliding glass doors and big windows and view out over the water.
And so I just thought of that stuff as those are just the houses that my friends lived in.
And what I imagined was great architecture was like Victorian houses.
I always loved a big old house.
Yeah, I think you're attracted to the thing that you don't already have.
Right.
It's kind of a this is water situation.
And, you know, you and I, we were kids in the 70s.
By that point, mid-century modern houses were 20, 25 years old.
I came up at a time when more what we came to call modern designs were more appealing, what they call contemporary houses.
Yeah, contemporary houses.
Bigger, bigger open plan.
Yeah, like, yeah, yeah, big windows.
Open plan, big windows, big open kitchens.
Yeah.
And they weren't designed around having a bunch of shelves full of antique-y tchotchkes.
They had style.
There was furniture style that went with it.
You were meant to be stylish in those houses.
Mm-hmm.
Anyway, I've never been into it, never cared about it.
When mid-century modern became fashionable in recent years, I've just been, eh, who cares?
You know, that's just hipsters.
People that really liked the movie Swingers.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, they think the vinyl sounds better.
Yeah, no thanks.
But then, I've been driving around this neighborhood.
And this neighborhood is very similar to Innis Arden, except here's one of the key differences, and this is very northwest.
They didn't chop down the big trees.
Now, in Ennis Arden, they chopped down all the big trees.
So everybody's got a beautiful view.
In this neighborhood to the south of the city, it's similar like kind of mid-century planned neighborhood, but they left the big trees.
So you've got these houses that have these sliding glass doors, but then you walk out and you're kind of in the forest.
And all of a sudden, I'm Mr. Mid-Century Modern Curious.
Oh, interesting.
I'm MM Curious.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And so I'm wandering around, and I'm like, because a lot of those houses, when you look at them from the street, they don't look like anything.
They just look like nothing.
Mm-hmm.
But then you go around the backyard, and oh, they got these big, beautiful windows and these big, open living rooms.
Mm-hmm.
something's got in me something's got in me and i'm and and i don't know what i don't know how to explain it i went on amazon and i got a mid-century modern coffee table book a coffee table book about mid-century modern design yeah i've got a friend i've got a friend who is an upholsterer um he um
His name is Bill Herzog, and he is the bass player of Earth and also the bass player of Citizens Utilities.
And he upholsters.
And he's also a mid-century modern upholsterer.
His company is called H.M.
Duke, and he does mid-century modern stuff, furniture.
And I went up to his place the other day, and I was like, what's the deal with all this?
You didn't hate it.
Well, you and I know it both.
It's those wood chairs with the strappy straps.
Yeah, yeah.
But suddenly I was seeing it with new eyes.
I was like, is this stuff good?
Is this comfortable?
I just think of this as, this is just shitty thrift store furniture.
And he's like, not anymore, my friend.
It's very Instagrammable.
Yeah.
It's very Pinterest-y.
Very Pinterest-y.
Yes, yes, yes.
I don't want anything to do with Pinterest.
If I saw Pinterest across the street in a car crash, I wouldn't go over and offer help.
Yeah, you wouldn't piss on it if it was on fire.
That's how I feel about Pinterest.
That's the thing.
That's the thing, is that a lot of this stuff, it looks like it's made to be, like a lot of the food that the Millennium's like.
I think it's mainly made to be photographed.
Oh, yeah.
A chair that's made to be photographed.
But... What's he say?
What's the upholsterer say?
What's his advice?
Oh, well, he's into it.
And and I'm this is something that, you know, you think you're going to get to be my age and you're not malleable anymore.
You're just stuck in your ways.
I've been waiting for it.
When do I get stuck in my ways?
Yeah.
But all of a sudden I'm like, oh, maybe I want to live in a mid century modern environment where I have zero tchotchkes.
What was Bob's house like?
How would you describe Bob's house?
Bob who lived in a bookcase.
Was that Bob with the NPR mom who lived in a bookcase?
Yeah.
So Bob's house was what we would probably, I think, in...
in Anchorage parlance would have called expensive late 70s treehouse.
Okay.
Everything's wood to a fault.
Everything's wood.
It's vaulted ceilings, but with big heavy beams.
And there are rooms like when you're in the living room and you're looking up at the vaulted ceiling, then you see like, oh shit, there's like a window up there.
And there's somebody looking down at you from some treehouse room way up high.
And there were trees all around it.
It was built on the side of a hill.
God, that sounds nice.
My friend Karen Korn, they lived in a house where in order to get to her room, you had to climb a rope.
Whoa.
And they were, you know, these were all like rich people, but Anchorage rich where it was actually a tree house.
You could be up in her room and you could...
She could throw her dirty clothes down and they would just fall forever.
They would fall down all the way to the laundry room in the basement.
That's a beautiful image.
It was incredible.
It was built around a cyclotron or something, except it was made out of birch.
It's almost like living in a guitar.
It was sort of like living in a guitar.
So I feel like, oh, geez, what was I thinking?
I live in a 1912 farmhouse.
And now I just feel really...
I almost feel like it's 1952 again, and I feel out of date, and I need to get hip with the times.
You're not set in your ways.
We've stipulated.
You keep thinking you're going to be set in your ways, but you're not.
You're not crispy.
You're not crunchy.
You're not creased.
I'm looking around, and I'm like, is that bookcase going to come with me into my future life?
No, I don't think so.
You're lousy with fecundity.
You're ready to go in any direction.
And frankly, you know, these encyclopedias here from 1968, they can go into the new house because they would have been new then.
See, that's good.
It'd be in period.
Yeah, right.
My folks bought a set of encyclopedias for me when I was born.
It's pretty ambitious.
Well, because a set of encyclopedias was expensive.
Sure.
A big investment.
And they said, this will be his encyclopedias that follow him through life.
And until 2004...
They were.
A lot of the stuff stayed the same.
Every year you get an update.
You get a, what's it called?
But you get it like you get, oh, the year 1972.
Here's updates.
Yeah.
You know, trouble with Spiro Agnew.
You know, like you'd get the updates on the little changes that it made, but the maps mostly stayed the same.
Well, if you look up Tuvan throat singing, like our knowledge of it hasn't changed that much from 1968 to the present.
Not enough that you couldn't like do a little bit of follow-up research.
If you look up like how did the dinosaurs die, I think that story has changed quite a bit.
Yeah.
How much should you smoke?
Yeah, right.
But a lot of the stuff... Is there another way to service your T-zone?
Ha ha ha ha!