Ep. 319: "Cop Pants"
Hello.
Hi, John.
Oh, hi Merlin.
How's it going?
super super duper super friday friday pie day i know it's so weird to do our show on friday we had a you know scheduling things we did we scheduled we scheduled and then we rescheduled and now uh everything's happening the resched as we say that's what we have fun don't we that's one of our phrases oh gosh so many all the great catchphrases yeah yeah how you doing having a little coffee um
I'm just, you know, I'm sitting here at my computer.
I've got a little blankie.
You got a blankie?
Why?
Is it cold?
Yeah, it's a little cold.
I got a blankie over my knees.
Weather, Seattle.
Okay.
What does it say?
47.
Well, I don't know if it's where you are.
It says 47.
That's pretty cold.
47.
Yeah, well, it's, you know, it's temperate.
It's a temperate zone, right?
There's no ice fields.
There's no...
There's no big storms.
It's just kind of a... Just a little chilly.
Now, is this spider season for you?
No.
No?
I thought it was winter.
Nope, there are some little spiders, but for the most part, no, spider season is fall.
Okay.
That's when the big... Did they get horny then?
No.
Well, you know what spider horniness looks like.
All right.
Yes.
And the boy, the boy spiders do a little dance and then the girl spiders eat them, kill them and eat them.
And every once in a while of crossing these four legs over these four legs.
Step into my web.
Every once in a while, a boy spider does such a good job of dancing and playing the electric web that he manages to get in there and have, I don't know how long it lasts.
I've watched and watched.
I don't know how long spider intercourse actually lasts, but then she kills him and eats him.
Always.
As far as I can tell, I've watched the spider courtship ritual pretty avidly, and everything
single instance it ends with her killing him and eating him so i don't know if i don't know how many of those were like successful john i don't want to be controversial it's a friday yep yep yep i know is there a chance that you could be a replicant because i think i think rachel had that same memory implanted in her oh really didn't rachel didn't rachel look out her window and see an insect eating another insect she watched her build the web all summer
But I can barely play the piano.
Oh, that's true.
Do you like our owl?
Home again, home again, jiggity jig.
Oh, what do I got?
I got nothing.
I adjusted my microphone.
I'm excited about that.
I cleaned my office.
I'm looking at new ad blockers.
I got a lot going on here.
A new ad blocker?
I'm looking at new ad blockers.
Tell me more.
Is this a service that you pay for?
um usually not you got to be canny about what you pick but for some reason my safari ad blocking has uh lost its foo a little bit and the new york times is giving me giving me some the new york times for which i pay money every month is giving me giant giant giant ads for i don't know keychain dildos i don't know just like giant fucking ads oh here's the very best here's the very best umbrella very best umbrella 25 insanely cool gadgets
God, how do people live with this?
This is so bad.
And normally you just let Safari do the dirty work.
Okay, think about this.
It's 47 degrees.
Let Safari do the dirty work.
Here's one.
Wayfair, you get just what I need.
It's got Wayfair.
Wayfair, you get just what I need.
Wayfair is that furniture company that is ubiquitous now.
Let's put it this way.
If it's 47 degrees in Seattle and you get on a train.
Now, if it's 47 degrees in Seattle, you're going to know pretty quickly if you left the front door open.
Right?
Fairly quickly?
Yeah.
Just in the sense that you're going to feel, I think in England they call it a draft.
You feel a draft.
A draft.
They pronounce it drift.
Drift.
Drift.
Drift.
That's how they do it in Australia.
I don't know if that's a good analogy.
Drift.
Maybe another one is, let's say your electric power went off.
It wouldn't take you three days to notice that.
What if my nest wouldn't allow my garage door to open?
If your nest does not, you might need to do a reconnection inside a if this, then that.
Okay.
All right.
So I'm having some struggles with my internet of things, things, too.
But all I'm trying to say is there are things in life where things work, things work, things work, things work.
And then you suddenly realize things don't work.
In this case, judging by the size of this Wayfair ad on the website that I'm paying for.
So what happens if I turn off all blockers?
Do you use Safari as your browser?
turn off all blockers you could say yeah i use safari and google chrome depending on what i'm browsing i know i that's i used to be all in on chrome and now i i only open it with great rue because because something's not working like i expected on safari i'm off i'm off chrome i'm done what happened what happened
Oh, I don't know.
Off the top of my head, they've constantly continued to redesign it to look stupider and stupider, and the tabs are ridiculous now, and they make weird colors when it's in the background.
I also hate the thing where, like, the Chrome really wants to be your default browser, and now you can't hit Command-Q anymore.
You have to hit a different key combination to quit it, and it goes, did you really want to quit this?
Don't you want to leave this open?
And they also did a real ding-a-ling thing a few weeks ago.
It involves logging in and privacy security stuff, and it's just dumb, and, like, I don't know.
It became annoying, and I like the idea of my Safari activity being synced up between all of my devices.
I have very, very, very few bookmarks, and the bookmarks I have are almost all in my favorite bar, and I deploy those tactically.
Yeah, you've got to deploy them tactically.
Have you noticed in America today that if you put the word tactical on anything...
Uh, like it automatically becomes, uh, make America great again.
God, that's such a good point.
My first, okay.
So if you're giving me a Rorschach test and you said, uh, tactical over the years, I instantly think of like cop pants that you can buy from a website.
Cop pants, fake cop badge, cop belt.
People love to dress like cops.
I call it stealing valor.
I do too.
I was at the thrift store the other day.
There was a vest.
It had so many pockets and loops on it.
Yes.
And I was like, I want to get this just, I mean, and it wasn't, the thing is it wasn't a Lebowski, what's the John Goodman character?
It's not a Sobchak vest because it was also black, which is, as you know, the most tactical of all colors.
But I was like, I was holding it up and I was like, I could just fucking put this on.
I could just rock this.
Like super duper, I mean, it actually had like ammo mag compartments in it.
Right.
Well, you could also put extra flip phones in there.
Oh, for sure.
I could have six little gigas.
You could deploy your Nikias.
I could have so many Nokia's.
Like Chewbacca?
Get a band player of feature phones?
I could have them chained together, so it's like daisy chain and Nokia's.
I don't know how you would do that.
You could have mined Bitcoin while you're biking around.
You put a baseball card in your spokes.
Look at me.
I'm a cop.
I'm a cop.
Warming up.
This thing is really hot.
Oh, shit.
It's on fire.
But listen, listen, we need to have an ad break at some point.
You need to not curse for 30 seconds.
Oh, Roger that.
It's one of those.
It's one of those weeks.
So starting from right now, in the next 30 seconds, I want you to say something funny, but not curse for the next minute.
Okay, good.
So you're a gosh darn dang it, ding dong, diggity, wookie cop.
It's not a Sobchak you're saying.
Sobchak, he wears the... It's khaki.
Yeah, but he also wears those eyeglasses that you wear to shoot people, right?
I do wear those.
I will wear shooting glasses.
And I would wear them with this vest.
But the label, the actual label on it said something like, you know...
Johnsville Tactical Vest Company.
I bet they're in Tennessee.
That sounds like Tennessee.
Oh, it sure does.
Doesn't it sound like Burfreesboro, Tennessee?
It sounds like they make sausage and vests.
Okay.
Okay.
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There's going to be no more searching through emails for that one follow-up or looking through multiple systems to find what you're looking for.
Nuh-uh, it's all in the Slack.
Just go to the Slack.
No more switching across multiple tabs and platforms to keep updated at work.
Yuck.
No, thank you.
Give me the Slack.
I'm a huge fan of Slack.
I use it all the time.
I'm regularly on three Slacks.
I'm a member of at least five, but there's three that I use every day.
I'll tell you my favorite is the one we use to produce another podcast that I do.
It has streamlined our work and make it so easy for the business people, for the suits,
the producers, the editors, and even your ding-a-ling hosts to be able to put together a good show every week.
And you know what?
We don't bother anybody else on the network because we're on our own little channel.
It is just the best.
So I really want you to go.
I want you to go to Slack.com because Slack is where work happens.
Once again, you go to Slack.com.
Our thanks to Slack for supporting Roderick on the Line and all the great shows.
Don't curse for another 30 seconds.
Keep going.
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
You have no idea what a hedge maze my life is.
It's like I live in a tile puzzle.
So anyway, tactical to me.
Tell me what I do here in Safari so that I can block my ad blockers, turn my ad blockers off to see what life is really like.
Well, I have to tell you, before we connected on the internet to have our weekly call, I was using a search engine, and I said, what did I search for?
I searched for macOS Safari ad blocker.
And one of the first things that came up came up was slideshow.
It's a slideshow.
Oh, that's not too much.
Hey, here's the best options of 2018 for Safari macOS ad blockers.
Just click to continue.
So, I mean, you know.
It's a click farm.
Yeah.
it's a it is a kind of a click farm sure that tactical click farm so i'm slowly and here's my favorite part my favorite part of this and it's a site that i my friends write for and i i don't dislike the site but when you know it's so a gallery makes sense like if you're saying like a favorite nip slips of 2002 i can understand why you put that in a gallery sure click on that
Unfortunately, most of them are Walter's soft check.
Queen Elizabeth, what?
No, no, no.
Put a corgi on that.
Put a corgi on it.
We have to go another 30 seconds.
Another 30 seconds.
Did we make it?
I think we made it.
No, Nick, that's not a profanity, is it?
I don't know.
Done.
I'm out of this maze.
It's a collaboration hub for work.
Moving on.
So what I was going to say was when I think tactical in the past, I think of cop pants.
Yes.
And so cops are first responders.
You don't steal their valor.
But yeah, you're tactical today.
You know what I think of a little bit?
And boy, this is a broad brush.
I think a little bit like the Proud Boys.
I think of those guys that wear like hockey pads to go and pick fights with millennials.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, I feel, when I think of tactical, I think of, I think a lot of people, I think of people in West Texas.
I think of, generally I think of those girls from the University of Tennessee that proudly show their concealed carry.
Oh, that one girl, that one girl with a gun.
Yeah, the girl with the gun, whose Twitter handle is girlwithagun or whatever.
I blocked her.
I just can't see her anymore.
Oh, you used to see her?
She used to appear in your world?
I do a thing that is just for me.
It's like I say to my daughter.
A lot of people think you brush your teeth for other people, but really you brush teeth for yourself.
Even if nobody notices that you brushed your teeth, you're doing your job because you're brushing.
I block people for me.
I don't block them for them.
If I see a ding-a-ling, I learned this from John Syracuse.
If you see a ding-a-ling, block them the first time you see them.
Oh, never see it again.
Well, I mean, also, I have this idea that in the future, when somebody responsible buys Twitter, they will comb through everybody's block list and make an overarching ding-a-ling block list that everybody can use.
Right, because if more than 5,000 people have blocked people, if you've been blocked by more than 5,000 people, there's a chance you're a problem.
Yeah.
Yes, yes.
You might be a Jeff Foxworthy joke.
Be fat in your gun, ding-a-ling.
There are a lot of people out there who've been blocked by a lot of people, and that would be your go-to, right?
That would be the first thing you did.
They're trying to use machine learning to figure out if I want to buy a jockstrap.
Why don't you figure out, based on machine learning, who the ding-a-lings are?
Talk about deployment.
Why is someone not rapidly deploying a master ding-a-ling?
Master Ding-a-ling list.
If I had the technology, if I had access, I would be, that Master Ding-a-ling list, oh, I would cherish access to it.
You could make it smart.
You could make it say, hello, governor, we think, this is Master Ding-a-ling speaking, we think we may have detected a new Ding-a-ling in your midst.
Click here to unblock.
Oh, wait a minute.
Wouldn't it be amazing if Clippy made a reappearance?
Oh, it looks like you're trying to have a healthy mental life.
Yeah, right.
Right.
We think that you would like autofills for you, like block this person.
Hey, buddy, guy.
Hey, there's a new guy who's obsessed with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's feet.
Do you want to block him?
Now, here's a question for you.
I know that you early on in the Internet knew a lot of people.
Yeah, I used to know.
2004, I knew everybody.
You knew a lot of people, right?
I knew a lot of people, yeah.
I remember I would meet people out in the wilderness.
They don't remember me now, but I knew them 14 years ago.
Oh, they remember you?
Because when I meet them now, they check up on you.
They're like, how's Merlin?
I leave a mark.
Why'd Merlin leave the party so early?
What happened?
Hey, how's Merlin?
Hey, what's, what, what?
I haven't seen him in a while.
Oh, he used to be Merlin.
But you used to know all the Twitter people or some of them.
Did you know Jack?
Yes.
And did he always wear muumus?
No, no, he was just very quiet.
He worked like everybody.
This is before Twitter, when it was a different company.
And I did know those guys, and they were really cool and nice.
And yeah, Jack, I need Jack from an open source Mac...
uh service that he had made years before i was a huge fan of this service that he made and uh i and i talked about it a lot on a website that i used to do and i went to the office one day and he came up and he introduced himself and he was very quiet and he said i'm i'm thus and such his code name on the internet i was like oh my god it's so nice to meet you yeah he's a really nice guy oh yeah you say he wears moomoo's now uh i i saw a picture of him in a moomoo and it seemed like uh he had bangs
Bangs is a baller move.
It was a little unusual, yeah.
I was looking at it.
Bangs.
You should get bangs.
I'm pretty sure he did.
Baby bangs, yeah.
I was looking at a video of the Western State Hurricanes the other day playing on 29 Live, and I had bangs.
I had bangs to the point of having a bowl haircut.
I had a bowl haircut in 1998.
This is into the era where you had begun cutting your own hair.
I was cutting my own hair.
I was wearing a puka shell necklace, and I had a bowl haircut.
I see photos of you where you look like a jock that I would avoid.
yeah yeah yeah this was 1998 nobody was wearing puka shell necklaces you had polo shirts and when i met you you were still heavily into like the polo shirts and like stan smith sneakers yeah you you look like you look like the the antagonist of a john hughes movie yeah yeah and i don't know what i mean there was a period where i would wear two polo shirts i don't know what the hell i was doing yeah on purpose yeah yeah well i guess i mean i had one on then i put another one on yeah did you pop the collar up
Oh, no, not on a polo shirt.
God, no, I'm not one of those.
Well, I don't want to get in the weeds here, but you have two polo shirts with collars.
I'm guessing the bottom collar is down and the upper collar is down.
Are they over each other?
Like a cuff?
No, you would want to see both collars, but you wouldn't put the lower collar up over the top collar.
No, they're just two separate collars, both doing a collar thing.
Okay, so not a full Steve Bannon.
I don't even know what the Steve Bannon... Steve Bannon wears three shirts.
Well, he's, you know, I think Steve Bannon may have body image issues.
You think he has that dysmorphia, like the Michael Jackson disease?
I think he probably, when he looks himself in the mirror, he probably says, oh, I should put on another shirt.
I think he probably thinks he looks like a character from Dune, but not the one that he thinks.
Right, not the good one.
He thinks he looks like Colin McLaughlin, but he's actually Baron Harkonnen.
Yeah, well, is Baron Harkonnen the one that has like a breathing apparatus?
Yeah, he floats around and he sucks blood out of the boy's plug hole.
Yeah, I don't think anybody thinks that that's who they are.
When they look at themselves in the morning, they don't think, like, I'm the gross character.
He's very web-savvy.
He might have taken a personality quiz at BuzzFeed that said, which Dune character are you?
And it said, you are the crazy, etc.
Well, this is a really dumb, dumb episode.
You know, I've never seen Dune.
I've never read Dune.
I bought a copy for my daughter, but I haven't read it.
Yeah, I don't know a thing about the Dune universe.
The Duniverse.
The Duniverse, I think it's very large.
I think it's large.
And I know the spice must flow.
I know the fear is the mind killer.
I didn't know that much.
I knew about the spice.
Yeah, I know Laura Palmer is dead, wrapped in plastic.
I know that at the end of Quadrophenia, Sting is revealed to be just a bellhop.
Ace Face.
yeah what the heck see his face you know that was my mom's favorite record for the longest time quadrophenia yeah really that's that's a somewhat challenging album and i was like that's a somewhat challenging album mom why why four is of all the records of all the records i would go with me big and bouncy me to be big and bouncy goes down easy
Well, that's the thing.
Quaterfinia, she wanted a certain complexity, and Quaterfinia had just the lack of melody she desired.
I don't know.
She's so cool.
What's that got?
That's got that song.
It's got, what is it, Rumble and Brighten Tonight?
Is that the one?
No, that's Straight Cats.
But there's rumbling in Brighton.
Isn't that the point of the movie?
You got a bellhop who's starting fights.
Am I thinking of the Warriors?
What am I thinking of?
Yeah, don't fuck with the Wongs.
Don't fuck with the Wongs.
Oh, Warriors.
I'm sitting here.
I'm wearing a shirt I got the other day that I pulled off the rack because it was... I'm always looking for... I like Hawaiian shirts.
Is this the one you posted a photograph of the label?
No.
Okay.
Did I post a photograph of a label?
I could be thinking of someone else.
That might have been your address in the background.
I don't know.
Sorry, go ahead.
You're wearing a shirt.
You're wrapped in a blanket.
You got a computer you're going to replace soon.
There's a lot going on at your house right now.
There's a lot going on.
A long time ago, I decided that I... There's a certain kind of Hawaiian shirt that I like.
There are a lot of Hawaiian shirts in the world, and some of them are very collectible.
I don't like any of those, but there's a certain kind I do like.
It's the kind... It's kind of batiki.
It's reverse...
The print is reversed so that the – When you said batiki, I knew exactly what you mean, where it looks inside out.
Yeah, it looks inside out.
The bold colors are facing in and the washed out colors are facing out.
And I like them to only have like – I like them to be pullovers, right, where the buttons only go halfway down.
oh cool and uh it's a certain kind of shirt it's just a it's i don't want to i don't want a flashy one i don't want a shirt that has guitars on it i mean every hawaiian shirt is flashy right but i don't want it to be you know i don't want it to be rayon i want to be all kind anyway so i went through you know i've always been a fan of these shirts and then when i broke up with millennium girlfriend she stole all my hawaiian shirts in addition to in addition to your filson bags
Yeah, in addition to Phil Spector.
And your underpants.
Did she steal your underpants too?
Some of those Mack Weldens I lost for good, yeah.
Oh, Jesus.
Anyway, so after that, I felt, you know, I did a little bit of shopping therapy, I have to confess.
I tried to make, I tried to fill the hole in my heart by buying some additional Hawaiian shirts.
Old ones that I found on eBay.
And for cheap, you know, that's my game, right?
Cheap, old.
Cheap and old.
If it's cheap and old, give me a call.
So now I have a bunch of them.
I have too many of them.
But what I'm always looking for is long-sleeve Hawaiian shirts.
Not because they exist.
They don't.
And if you do see one, it's wrong.
but i'm but i'm look it's like a it's like a thing it's like a thing that doesn't exist that i want to find okay and i found one the other day and i bought it and guess uh guess who the the label was guess who the brand was you'll never guess so i won't make you guess um it was uh it was andre the giant has a posse oh the guy from rhode island yeah yeah shepherd fairy yeah who's got a guess a clothing label now man
And he made a long sleeve Hawaiian shirt and I bought it.
That's cool.
He's got his hands in a lot of honeypots.
I mean, do you remember the first time you saw Andre the Giant has a posse?
The sticker.
Yeah, the sticker.
Yeah, I feel like I do.
I feel like I was in college because there was a local guy who had kind of stolen the concept for his own art project.
But I was aware at the time that it was a rip off because I was already familiar with Andre Giant.
Andre Giant, right.
And then it said, obey.
Yeah, sure did.
Yeah, it said obey at a certain point.
So it started in 1989, Andre the Giant has a posse.
And those stickers, boy, I remember those stickers.
They were everywhere, yeah.
They really were.
All the way back, all the way back.
Well, anyway, now I'm wearing that shirt.
And I'm feeling pretty, this is the first day I've worn it.
I'm feeling pretty comfortable in it.
I feel like it's... Is it an extra large?
It's an extra large, yeah.
I stopped pretending that I wasn't an extra large.
I went through a little phase there where I was buying larges.
I still feel like we're having lots of fun with what a size really is.
You're a straight medium, right?
Right up the middle?
No.
Well, it depends.
I mean, with my Mack Weldon shirts, after they've washed a couple times, a large fits me like I'm a European man.
Like when I get a sweatshirt, like my Bastic Ball sweatshirt that I got, I get an extra large because it's nice to have a little roomy plus.
You know that's going to shrink when you wash it.
Yeah.
But you get large Mack Weldon shirts?
I get large, yeah.
Yeah, so I'm 5'9", 158.
You're in good shape, Merlin, 5'9", 158.
No, I could do better.
I'm off wheat right now, but that's a different story.
What do you shoot for, 148?
Well, I mean, when I'm real nervous, I get down to 155.
I've been as high as 190.
I'm pretty much a straight 160 most of the time.
I see.
Well, so 158 is good.
You're right in the zone.
No, but you know everything moves.
You know, so like my ankles are getting skinnier and hairless, but like my middle section is getting more bulbous.
Are you wearing the hair off your ankles somehow?
Well, you never noticed that old men don't have as much hair on their legs.
It wears off.
I think the socks pull them down.
They wear those tight World War II socks that pull them down.
I guess so.
Those socks, they wear those on airplanes, right?
They wear the tight socks on airplanes to keep the blood up in their brain?
So you don't get a pulmonary episode.
Eminephanism.
Yeah.
A pulmonary epiphanism.
Pulmonary episode.
Yeah.
You don't want that.
No.
No, I don't.
I don't want to.
Here's what I don't want.
I don't want a stroke.
I don't want to have a stroke.
Oh, yeah.
I saw an MSNBC ad for getting stroke testing.
It's $150, and it's five different sessions.
And at the end, they tell you, okay, you're not stroking.
You're good.
Oh, but at the end, they might tell you, like, you're at risk for a stroke.
See, that's the thing.
To me, if you ask, there's a chance they're going to tell you, and I don't want that.
Are you somebody that would not want to know how you were going to die if some UFO had the technology?
If they were like, Merlin, we'll tell you the day you die.
Do you want to know or not?
Oh, that one's easy.
No.
No, I don't want to think about that.
But, for example, on the watch that you and I currently own, made by the Apple company, they have a functionality.
Now, I forget what the name of it is, heart something.
But it's a thing now where you turn this thing on, you touch the digital crown with your finger, and it does a test for a fibrillation.
What?
Really?
And even after the... Yeah, even after... Don't check.
Is that built in?
I think so.
Let me find it.
Let's learn about a fibrillation.
Sure you don't want to find out?
Well, this is my concern.
If I'm fibrillating.
Okay, you're looking for one.
It looks like...
I don't know where it'll be on your watch, but it's a white circle with a red bloop, like heartbeat-looking thing in it.
White circle with a red bloop.
Oh, wait a minute.
Somebody just sent me a text.
Don't send me a text.
It's not the one that looks like a heart.
It's the one that looks like a single heartbeat.
Stop it, you guys.
Stop sending me things.
Oh, okay.
I found it.
All right.
Red heartbeat.
No, no.
Yeah, okay.
Oh, yeah.
You got to set it up in the phone, too.
Set up ECG.
Open the house.
Oh, house.
Come on.
Now with special offers.
Do your job.
Do your job, sir.
You had one job.
I had that on my watch for, you know me, I'm an early adopter.
And I got it the day that it was available.
And then I didn't open it for probably five days because I thought, what if it tells me I'm going to die?
Now, wait, let me ask you this.
Is the app on the phone also a heart bleep, or is it some other thing that now I have to go find some other looking app?
Apple Watch.
PCG.
Oh, you still do?
You can't let go, huh?
Well, you know.
Stock's not as up as it used to be.
I know.
I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad.
I know.
I feel the same way.
EECG.
It brought up Etsy.
And then eventually what's going to happen is when you go in, I'm guessing you haven't opened the Apple Health app in a while.
Because I think when you open the Apple Health app on your iPhone, it will say to you, do you want this EECG dingus?
Apple Health.
Okay.
Oh, health.
It's a heart.
That's a heart.
Set up ECG app.
It doesn't put a question mark on it.
It just says.
No, that's the thing you're doing.
It's like when it says, do you want to update to the new operating system?
And you don't get to hit cancel.
It's just do it now or learn more.
And then it just keeps bugging.
Don't you hate that?
Oh, I hate it so much.
Oh, now it wants my birth date.
Okay.
All right.
I'm doing it.
I feel like I know this.
I know it's 1968.
I know it's in the fall.
That's right.
And it's got a two-digit number, I feel like.
Okay, how does it work?
ECG records an electrocardiogram also called an ECG or an EKG, which represents the electrical pulses that make your heart beat.
The app checks these pulses to get your heart rate and see if the upper and lower chambers of your heart are in rhythm.
And now you've got to read through all the things it's not going to do.
This will not tell you if you had a heart attack.
This is not.
This is just purely for entertainment purposes.
It's not a gambling device.
Okay.
Sinus rhythm.
Sinus rhythm you want.
Sinus rhythm is good.
It means the heart is beating in a uniform pattern.
Yeah.
Atrial fibrillation is hardest beating in an irregular pattern.
That's the most common form of serious arrhythmia.
Low or high heart rate.
Well...
Mm-hmm.
That's under 50 or over 120...
And then here's the best one, inconclusive.
When I get that, I get real nervous.
I bet 99% of the time, okay, cannot detect a heart attack, cannot detect blood clots or a stroke, cannot detect other heart-related conditions.
If you're not feeling well, talk to your doctor.
Okay, take your first EEG CG.
First opened app on your Apple Watch.
Here we go.
I just did one.
I got sinus rhythm, 87 BPM, which is higher than I'd like, but that's life.
That's nice.
I get excited talking to you.
I have a very high heart rate.
Oh, I know.
It zips right up.
We've talked about this.
Okay.
Apple Watch needs to be snug on the wrist.
Now get a phone.
Get another phone and dial the nine and the one just so you're ready.
Oh, right.
Okay.
Just have it standing by on your landline that you have.
Here it goes.
It's fudged.
Hold your finger on the crown.
My thumb or my finger?
Your finger finger.
You can do your forefinger.
You can do your middle finger.
So right now, oh, hang on one second.
John is checking to see if he's going to die.
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That was pretty good.
All right, 13, 12, 11.
Okay, so the problem is I switched my watch over to the left-hand side.
Yeah.
I passed the duchy, but I also...
made it flip around so it thinks it's on the right-hand side.
Oh, yeah.
My daughter did a similar thing with hers.
Her digital crown is on the outside lower right.
It's very confusing to me.
Yeah, that's me too.
Okay.
Although, no, mine is on the downside left.
It's on my left arm.
Are you sure you're not having it on their upside down?
Why won't this work?
I can't see the time.
It says I have a sinus rhythm.
That's good!
And it...
Well, I know, but it says I have 79 BPM.
I got higher than that.
That's nothing.
That's kid stuff.
Don't worry, you're fine.
This ECG does not show signs of atrial fibrillation.
Yeah.
Apple Watch cannot check for signs of a heart attack.
I know, I know.
All right.
Are you not feeling well?
Add symptoms.
Okay.
Well, now, whoo.
All right.
Where do I begin?
Well, you know, I do have an irregular – Could it be anhedonia?
I do have an irregular heartbeat.
Says who?
I have – well, so I have a thing called prebeat.
Prebeat.
Which is – it's a Dre thing.
Dr. Dre prebeat.
Oh, right, right, right.
And no, what it is is that every once in a while – It's a little – that's right.
It's a little –
That's warm, but punchy.
What happens is my heart is going boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
And, you know, because I'm like a big guy.
I think that's what a heart sounds like mostly.
Yeah.
I'm pretty cool.
It's like boom, boom.
Yeah.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
and then it goes like this oh you know what you've got you've got syncopation
You're jamming on the one.
I'm jamming.
So yeah, so it leads the one a little bit.
It's like a punk rock drummer.
Yeah.
It's like a little ahead of the beat.
I used to get that when I took a lot of ephedrine.
Oh, prebeat.
I told you about that.
It was that feeling where you go, oh boy, my heart's about to do a thing.
And then it would do a thing.
I go, that was kind of fun.
Yeah.
And I went to the doctor and the doctor was like...
I went to the doctor and the doctor said, he said.
A little portrait of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee?
Yeah, that's the same guy.
That's the same guy.
And the doctor was like, no, no, no, that's totally normal.
That's just one of those things.
Some people have it, some people don't.
You get a little beat before the beat, it's fine.
And I was like, well, it feels kind of weird when it happens.
And he was like, oh, you don't.
He made it this far.
Yeah, you're not even in the top 50 of the things that feel weird when they happen.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
I hate doctors.
So fucking stupid.
They have stupid coats and their dumb degree on the wall.
Excuse me, diploma on the wall.
Well, I used to think that, but she didn't come to see me.
You know what I'm saying?
No, she said that to you.
She's the one who got you all fixed up with everything, right?
I didn't come to see you.
Yeah.
I don't go where you work and knock the stethoscope out of your mouth.
What's funny is I don't get to see her anymore for some reason.
When I go to the doctor now, there's always a nurse that does the things.
I guess they've decided that I don't warrant the doctor's time.
Uh-huh.
Now you get the intern.
Yeah, they measure my height, and they measure my weight, and they sit me in a chair.
They listen to me bitch about whatever it is.
They give me some thing.
I don't know.
They go laugh about me in the coffee room.
You know they do.
And I'm like, stop it.
Yeah, don't do that.
First of all, stop telling me I lost an inch in height.
And second of all, when we talk to the doctor, it's really enjoyable.
Yeah.
Because, you know, oh, here's the thing I like about talking to doctors.
Doctors, when I was growing up, doctors were like...
What the social peak?
Oh, absolutely.
Right.
If you would like if your dad was a doctor, intelligence, influence, income, respect.
They were up even maybe arguably at that time over the first responders.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, thank you.
Thank them for their service.
Thank you for your service.
But but yeah, right.
Like we were middle class people, so we didn't understand.
We didn't I didn't know anybody that was at the sea level of any kind of company.
Those were weird people from out of state.
Yeah.
It was just like doctors and lawyers, middle class aristocracy.
And so.
So doctors, right?
And my friends' parents were all doctors.
And I knew I didn't want to be a doctor.
They all did.
They wanted to follow in their fathers.
Your parents' friends were doctors or lawyers?
My parents, my, no, no, my friends' parents were all doctors.
I see.
My parents' friends were all lawyers.
Okay, I see.
My friends' parents were lawyers.
Like the Hatfields and the McCoys.
Yeah, right.
Oh, and doctors and lawyers don't.
I mean, there's a little professional courtesy, like they tip their hat, but they don't want to see each other.
Yeah, I mean, that's all that keeps them from killing each other on the golf course.
Yeah, there's a certain amount of mutual respect.
Mutual respect.
But so when I got to be a little bit grown up and I could go sit in the doctor's office and crack wise with them or talk to them like I was a peer,
Like, Doc, because my dad always, my dad was like that.
He was like, Doc, you know, like, just call him Doc.
Already you're off on a good footing with him.
Yeah.
And so I like talking to my doctor because we sit and we play the dozens.
Sure.
And I'm like, what's going on?
That's a nice relationship.
That's a really nice relationship.
Yeah, what's going on in your life?
And she giggles.
You know, it's like, it feels like a peer relationship.
You got a giggly doctor?
No, not giggle, but, I mean, she's from New Jersey.
People don't giggle.
But she has a certain amount of bone of meat.
She's got bonhomie.
Precisement.
Precisement.
Bonfemnie.
Bonfemnie.
Bonfemnie.
Bonfemnie.
Oui.
C'est ça.
I should go.
I'm taking too much of your time already.
Thanks, Doc.
And now I don't get it.
Now I have to go out.
I like a little bit of professional courtesy with everybody.
When I sit and talk to a bus driver, I want that bus driver to know, hey, I'm just like other bus drivers.
I could drive a bus.
I probably should have.
That would have been a good job for me.
Driving a bus, plenty of time to think about stuff.
Steady work.
You're helping people.
You get the hum of the highway.
You love to drive.
I do.
You know, my grandfather was a bus driver.
That's cool.
During World War II, and he was not required to join the military.
He wasn't subject to the draft because a bus driver was considered crucial to the national welfare.
That's so interesting.
Yeah.
Because all those people making bombs got to get to work.
That's right.
And he was the long distance bus driver.
He drove, I think, from Columbus to Lima or something every day back and forth.
And and so, yeah, you know, oh, and also postal workers.
Sure.
You know, they're vital to the national.
You got to you got to set the hope diamond.
Yeah.
I remember learning with the Smithsonian Institute back when the museums would be open.
We went there when I was 13.
They said, you know what?
They saw the Hope Diamond.
They said, you know what?
They want the safest way to get this from, I guess, Africa.
And they were like, you know what?
U.S.
Postal Service.
Oh, isn't that good?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't think that's true anymore.
I don't think that's true anymore.
Yeah.
I mean, God bless the U.S.
Postal Service.
Well, yeah.
So, tactical pants, grandfather bus, computer.
I don't want tactical stuff, because I think it reveals too much about yourself.
I totally agree.
It's like on Survivor, letting them know you got the hidden immunity idol.
It kind of blows your game.
You don't want people to know you're a kung fu master.
No, if you're a concealed carry person, the number one, the first word...
is concealed and if you're wearing a tactical vest it doesn't matter if your gun is hidden what about ed brubaker no ed brubaker doesn't wear a tactical vest he wears a jean jacket i thought he wore a vest with no shirt and he had a gun well he did he did it was a he claims he claims he didn't do that he does claim that but he claims that in good humor have you noticed that he says ha ha ha i didn't do that
which is very different from, hey, I didn't do that.
Oh, he didn't say that's not cool.
Like if he said that's not cool, that would be a whole different thing.
He did a really good Captain America.
He did.
I think, you know, Ed was going through a lot of things in the 90s, just like we all were.
Sure.
And one of them was that he thought that he would carry a pistol under his vest, under his sleeveless vest.
I guess all vests are sleeveless.
Yeah.
It's like assless chaps.
But, you know, it was fun.
If they had an ass, they wouldn't be chaps.
They'd be pants.
We're real thoughtful homespun types, aren't we?
We're like the Will Rogers of our time.
The stuff that we come up with.
Did you ever notice people say assless chaps?
You know what?
We'll leave the light on for you.
it's a sleeveless vest you know there were a lot of comic book artists at the cafe roma in 1991 a lot of them it was uh you know seattle had a lot of comic book uh people at the time and cafe roma was one of the uh was one of the hangouts and so i was privy
To the ins and outs, to the social chemistry between comic book artists.
And some of those... That's even more interesting than monobos.
Like, watching those folks in a group, woo!
A lot going on.
So we had Peter Baggie.
Jim Woodring was there.
uh ellen forney of course uh we had uh megan kelso we had a lot of but there were other there were other artists that ended up becoming pencilers or colorists for uh the big uh the big the big guys the big guys the big two the big two especially what they call them do they call them the big two i think sometimes they extend to the big three and include image but yes
That's interesting.
So you've got, is there a name for that?
Like a murder of crows?
What do you call a group of Seattle comic book creators?
You know, that's a good question.
For me, it was a... A depression of sad?
A group of comic book artists was like an unbearable lightness of being.
Oh, really?
Like where you have to wear a hat to have intercourse?
Yeah, that's right.
Same thing.
All right.
And the thing is, they didn't all get along with each other.
They were catty.
They were catty about each other.
And Ed Brubaker was a was a controversial figure because he was he's bold.
He has a bolder personality than a comic book artist is supposed to have.
They're supposed to work in quiet.
Oh, he's uppity.
And well, not so uppity, but he was just like out there.
You know what I mean?
Like he had a he had a loud voice.
He was like he was making the scene.
OK, OK.
And so so, you know, in a way he was like.
edging into like what musicians were trying to do and other comic book artists were like tsk tsk tsk about stuff right jason lutes you know tsk tsk a little bit of tsk tsk
And so I still remember all that.
But at the time, I thought, you guys are nerds.
You know, they were all doing comic books.
Sure, I thought the same thing.
Yeah, nerds.
Was it, you say this in the 90s?
Yeah, early 90s.
Early 90s.
In the mid-90s, yeah.
Okay, so the comic thing was still like a, because the 90s began.
The 90s are going to make the 70s a little bit.
The 90s, there's kind of a boom time, like a crazy boom time in comics.
I'm sorry, I've asked you this before.
Did you guys sell comics at the newsstand?
Boom.
We did not sell comics.
No, no, no, no.
But we did sell, you know, graphic.
Okay, okay.
But, like, what's funny is, like, it started out as this incredible, not started, but, like, you know, the, for example, Uncanny X-Men number one, the reboot in 1990, 91, I think is still the single best-selling single issue of all time.
They had The Death of Superman and The Black Bag, all that stuff.
I remember all.
Then you had the speculation.
Then you had the speculation beginning.
And I think it wasn't, I mean, definitely by the end of the 90s, though, it was all tanking so hard.
Like, the comics as investment had been like a real tulip kind of situation.
Oh, I remember that.
I remember that.
Yeah, where everybody had like all their money tied up in Beanie Babies.
Beanie Babies, yeah.
You ever seen that picture of the couple in the courtroom getting divorced?
Where they were cutting up their beanie babies.
Cutting up their beanie babies in the courtroom.
Cut the baby in two.
Oh, wait.
Avett Brothers.
Well, Joe Pernice.
Shit.
Yeah.
Right.
Beanie babies court divorce.
Well, the thing is in Seattle in the early 90s, all the comic books were about like awkward sex.
They were all about like, oh, you know, like hate comics really set the tone for a lot of people.
The stuff I'm aware of from that, I think from that time, I think of stuff like 8-Ball.
Yep.
You know, those kind of alternate comics where everybody's sweaty and pimply.
You know, I don't know if you know this, but Seattle was alternative.
Yeah.
Well, it was alternative in the late 80s, right?
Well, it was alternative all the way into the mid-90s.
Oh, look at them.
They're there and they're like, I want this beanie baby.
You get that one.
Squeezy Panda Bobo is mine.
And there's a lawyer there.
I'm going to retire on this.
There's a lawyer behind a desk just pretending to read.
He's got a pen in his hand.
He's just pretending to make notes.
It's like watching two people scrape shit out of their pants and divide it up.
But the thing is, these people look...
Semi-normal.
I mean, he looks like American Dad, but she kind of looks like... He looks like a JV basketball coach.
Yeah, she looks like Margot Kidder.
I think she looks like Olivia Colman.
Nothing wrong with that.
A little bit like Olivia Colman.
It seems to me like maybe she decided that she's attracted to women and that's why they're getting a divorce.
That is the shoe of a woman who's made some decisions.
Yeah, but she still cares about where the beanie babies go.
Well, you know, I mean, you may not like the picture of Benjamin Franklin, but you sure do like what you can spend with it.
Oh, I get you.
This is more of the homespun wisdom that people come here for.
You know who's on the penny?
Abraham Lincoln.
You know who's on the five?
Abraham Lincoln.
Coincidence?
You know what I know?
Washington's on the one.
The horn section I'm so glad you got those horn boys in there god damn it the horns on that are so good I was playing that song in Spain one time and I got to the end and I got to the end of the show and I went backstage and somebody some manager or something was like
You know, if you took your music more seriously, I think it would be more popular.
Wow, that's quite a note, John.
Is that common in España for people?
No, first of all, is it a Castilian person or a standard Spaniard?
It was a... Toy Spaniard?
You're talking about a Catalan person or a standard Spaniard.
I'm thinking of someone who speaks like this.
Because those are Castilian people.
That's Catilian.
Yeah, the Catalonians.
Because it would be even funny if you said it like this.
I think it would be better if you took it more seriously.
Yeah.
He had enough of that in there.
Somewhere between, say, Picasso and Mike Tyson.
In Europe, they are less afraid to tell you the bad news.
The Germans are real good at that.
Germans will just shoot real straight at you, and they wear sandals.
But all of them, the thing is, they shoot so straight...
That it's like, I'm not so sure.
I had a German girlfriend, and she was very candid.
My German girlfriend was very candid.
About you?
Oh, just about everything.
She told you what your problems were?
Well, she's from East Germany, and she was very, very... So I saw a thing today, and it was basically about saying, okay, we're going to tell you something.
We're going to give you a phrase, and you tell me, is it positive, negative?
And it's things like...
Oh, God.
Is this electrochemistry?
Kind of.
It's basically like if an English person says, yeah, we must have you over soon.
And like an American would go, gosh, that sounds great.
When do I get the invite?
And in England, that just means now we won't be seeing each other.
Well, you know, that's what it means in Seattle, too.
Let's hang out sometime.
Oh, that's my gal.
Means let's never talk about this again.
or so this we have stipulated that the spaniards and uh the the germans the aldimans are uh they're very frank and so somebody says to you they come up backstage and they say what was it if you took your music more seriously well because sometimes you know when i was playing scared straight in the middle of the song uh sometimes you know i would do an extended jam where i would talk to the audience and just be like is everybody having a good time uh what's your problem
Are you looking at me?
You think you're better than me?
And there's always been a lot of there's always been a slice of the people that are in the record buying or concert going public that want me to just shut up and play the song like it is on the record.
Yes.
And and then I have this thing where it's like, A, I'm not going to shut up and B, I'm not going to play the song necessarily like it is on the record.
You get what you get and you don't get upset.
Yeah, I don't know what to tell you.
I mean, I'm sorry if you think that what the money that you paid to see me here was to get some version of that you don't that you think is the version.
My version is, you know, I do like 40 minutes of just free association.
And every once in a while I play a song and it's not like it is on the record.
Yeah.
So, but in Europe I would get, you know, I actually had a guy in Germany tell me that I should write more songs about soccer.
But, you know, this is one reason why Mudhoney didn't play in Europe for 20 years.
I was talking to Steve Turner, and I was like, you guys are huge in Europe.
And he was like, oh, we never go to Europe.
I was like, what?
You must – I mean, Europe, you would sell out – and he's like, yeah, but we just hate it there.
Keep it out of my face.
That's right.
That's right.
Don't touch me.
I'm safe.
And and then they finally just recently I think with that and when I say recently I mean within the last ten years They were like, okay, we'll go back to Europe Europeans.
This is again a little broad.
I know this is true.
I feel like this is true in France It's probably true in England a lot of Europe likes music that used to be more popular in America They like they like cowboys.
They like jazz, right?
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
They still like cowboys
And they still like jazz.
And they still like jazz.
Folk music, folk music.
They love the folk music.
Love the folk music.
So my people, my entertainment business people in Belgium used to tell me that I should play more folky style because it was more authentic.
than whatever the pop rock authentic yeah they were like you know whom about what to it would be more american oh i see i should focus on my americans in a dead man's town yeah right but do it real real grindy do it like let on the scarecrow yes except it's not but they don't want it to be like her they don't want like a like a fake like a lightning hopkins like a tom waits kind of voice
No, they want that thing that was popular in the 2000s, which was like... It was good living with you all.
Yeah, but just like... Is that kind of a Counting Crows?
Yeah.
I think it was more Barney Prince Billy.
Oh, I am a cinematographer.
Yeah, whatever.
They wanted that, right?
Yeah, warbly.
More warbly.
Warble.
They wanted you to sound fragile and backwards because backwards was America.
Now, would that be a Mumford kind of thing?
Yeah, that's right.
And that's what happened to it, right?
Somebody decided, or Mumford it was, that decided to do, boom,
boom, boom, boom, behind it.
And then all of a sudden... That's a clappy, clappy, snappy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I think the guys in Mumford and Sons were like rich people from the Midlands who all believed in Jesus.
But they were more backwards than me.
That's a good line for a song.
That's good.
They were way more Backwoods American than I was because I was up there going, you know, there's not a single Long Winters live performance that didn't involve.
Oh, like Pete Townsend.
That was our sound live.
Now, we didn't always get that on record.
Because on record, there was always some trumpets or something.
You had to give people special notes.
This part sounds, you had to tell Mike Squires, this part should sound like ACDC.
Yeah.
And he was like, is that departure?
Is departure the one that has the ACDC part?
I just remember you saying at one point, and it's in Adam's abortive video, I think, where you're trying to say to Mike, there's one part that should sound like an ACDC riff.
Yeah.
Well, and Mike is is eminently qualified to play ACDC riffs.
Yeah.
And Def Leppard.
Somebody wrote somebody wrote a thing on the early Internet, an early version of the Internet that said, I went to a Long Winter's concert and they sounded like the who.
So I really loved it and I bought the record.
But the record sounds like.
uh a bunch of grandmas putting doilies on the back of their couches what happened a line my butt and i was like well because there are keyboards in the studio and um hello did you notice the gate we put on the high hat did you need to remind you of david bowie's album low yeah put your headphones on you gotta really listen man you're gonna hear the gate it just stops just stops man goes tinkle tinkle
Yeah, right I mean we play like the who when we're live because yeah Fuck you Bob O'Reilly and smoke it because I don't have 11 keyboarders on tour So the last week that's why you don't go to Europe anymore
No, it's not.
I would go to Europe in a second if somebody invited me, but no, I'd stop.
Oh, the other thing that they don't like, they don't like touring bands that are coasting on their laurels.
They want to know what you've done lately.
Oh, really?
Jazz Odyssey, yeah?
Yeah, that's another thing about Europe.
You could put out a record a year.
They could all be shite, but Europeans would come to see you every year.
But if you're coming back around...
uh they're like i already saw that what have you done for me lately as janet jackson says that's right whereas here in america you can just tour and tour and tour oh yeah and just be like here we are again this is still not a rebel song yeah yeah we're gonna play those same songs again but with longer so like you know if you go to the county fair and crisscross is there
And they don't play the jumping song.
People are going to be mad, right?
Jump around.
Jump up, jump up, jump down.
Jump around.
Would you go to see that?
I don't know.
That video upset me.
The guy gets a bloody nose in it and gets punched.
It makes me very uncomfortable.
That is a good song, though.
Irish rapper from Boston.
Yes.
He came to drop bombs.
What is he there for?
It was pre-Juggalo, but it was definitely Juggalo.
Boy, they had tattoos before it was a thing.
Well, yeah, a lot of people had tattoos before it was a thing.
Then it became a thing.
Then a lot more people got it.
You know, I went to a 90s concert this last summer.
It was just billed as the 90s.
Oh, okay.
And it had Vanilla Ice at the headlining slot.
Okay.
It had Salt-N-Pepa.
Salt-N-Pepa!
It didn't have UB-40.
That would have been an 80s concert.
But it had like a group.
It had like nine or ten artists that all came out and played...
For 20 minutes.
And they did a lot of... Like a showcase.
It's the kind of thing like Alex Chilton used to do.
You come out and you play the letter and get paid.
Yeah, right.
They do a lot of jamming.
They had some dancers on stage.
The dancers danced.
And then they would hit...
the high notes it was even a medley they would just hit the high notes of their three big songs and then they yeah then they'd kind of dance off the stage somebody else would dance on do 20 minutes and it was amazing first of all to look at the crowd which was you know like 100 white the audience the bands on stage were with the exception of vanilla ice 100 black wow and the audience 100 northwest whiteys
And they were somehow satisfied by this like 20 minute set that had a medley of the top songs and a bunch of it's not you don't want to hear the super deep cuts from their fourth album.
Nope.
And there was a lot of like living color dancers.
Oh, you know what I mean?
Yes, I do.
Living color dances.
and it was like okay all right this was uh the 90s a version of it wasn't it wasn't my 90s but it was somebody's 90s it was their 90s only 90s kids will get this i know i know that's and then vanilla ice was the headliner i was like wow that's because he's got the one song and then doesn't he have the other song he's got the one song and then what was the other song he had another song i think he had two songs
vanilla ice yeah but i mean he was constantly having to go out there and like explain the difference between that and under pressure yeah yeah yeah well and he also got held upside down by his ankles by uh suge with suge suge suge knitt suge suge knitt held him upside down out a window and shook him until his wallet fell out of his pants
Because apparently he lives in a Coen Brothers movie.
Yeah, well, that's how it was.
That's how it was back then.
Suge could do whatever he wanted.
Suge, goodnight.