Ep. 323: "Stool in the Sky"
Hello.
Hey, John.
Hi, Merlin.
How's it going?
Well, considering I've spent 23 minutes trying to get my computer to be on this phone call, it's fine.
It's fine.
Voice over internet protocol.
Yeah.
You got a lot going on there.
Skype.
You've introduced a lot of factors.
Yeah, there's a lot going on.
Also, we're having a snow emergency.
Tell me about that.
What's happening with the snow emergency?
Well, you know, anytime it snows here in Seattle, it's described as a snow emergency.
Even when it rains hard, people just collapse into like curled up fetal balls because they can't, you know, we have a mild temperate climate here.
It's cold today, it looks like.
It's cold, yeah.
But people forget how to deal with any adversity in Seattle because it's all just sort of bland.
According to the internet, if the high temperature, this is from Twitter, so you know it's correct.
If the high temperature in Seattle doesn't hit, pound sign Seattle, doesn't hit freezing today, it'll be the first sub-freezing high in the city in five years.
Whew.
How about that?
That's pretty cold.
The first sub freezing high.
Well, you know, my mom showed up at my house about a half an hour ago.
I heard her stomping on my porch, stomping the snow off her boots.
But it's a snow emergency.
It's a snow emergency.
It's been declared.
Yeah.
So I said, what the hell are you doing here?
And she said, oh, well, I figured that since the roads are impassable, that I'd better come out to your house because otherwise I won't be able to get anywhere.
Wow.
And I was nodding like, uh-huh.
And she said, but then I got my car stuck.
like down the road.
So I had to walk the rest of the way.
Sounds like some kind of riddle.
I was like, go on.
And she was like, so now I figured you, I figured if I got out here, then you could take me where I needed to go.
I was like, okay.
All right.
So had you any excursions planned for today?
Well, no, but you know, and so I said to her, you know,
i could have come to get you is the thing since we're in a snow emergency and she said oh well i wanted my car down here sure and i was like so when i'm done with the show i'm going to have to go
Yeah, my mom's car unstuck.
Is it stuck near your house?
Well, I mean, not near.
How'd she get from the car to your house?
Did she call like a snow Uber?
No, she walked.
She walked in 25 degree Fahrenheit?
Oh, yeah.
Well, and she was very proud of her coat.
She said, my coat is very warm.
Like, all right, well, that's good.
I'm glad you were prepared at least for the eventuality that you...
Got your car stuck somewhere.
I love getting a car unstuck, frankly.
Oh, that's a project you feel like you can really get your teeth into?
I do, I do.
That's a fun thing for me.
We're having rain.
The ants are back.
You can tell.
You can see the explorers.
You can see the early boys they send out to just the useless ants that are just going to go like, you know, they're like the red shirts.
They just kind of go out.
They're just wandering around on the bathroom wall and not finding anything.
Oh, yeah.
But eventually, you know, E.O.
Wilson tells us their trails will accumulate.
The ants.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
How old is an ant?
Do you know?
Do you ever think about it?
Sometimes when I'm urinating, I see the ants on the wall after the rain.
I think when I say, how old is that ant?
How old do you think an ant is?
I don't know how old an ant is, but you know, I do know how tall the Spice Girls are.
Hmm.
Because this morning...
This morning, I just... I threw out my outline.
As I was sitting here waiting for my computer... As we record this, it is the 4th of February, 2019.
Gong Hai Fat Choi.
And it will be released next Monday.
If you had questions about the Insects and Spice Girls episode, you should have called in during the computer reboot episode.
Just as a note to our fans, it's the crazy season.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Be sure to call in two weeks in advance.
That's right.
If you want to talk about your elderly parents, you should have called in during the pets episode.
But I didn't know.
So the question popped into my head.
Who's the tallest Spice Girl?
I have a record.
You can hear me.
I have not typed.
I have a record.
Yeah, go for it.
Okay, I think Nasty Spice, is that her name?
Scary, scary.
I'm going to say Nasty Spice is the tallest, and I'm going to say Spicy Spice, the red-haired girl, is the least.
Oh, but I forgot about Button.
I forgot about Button Spice.
Don't forget about Button.
Button Spice.
I'm still going to go with, I think her name is Jerry Halliwell.
I'm going to go with her because she always wore a heel.
Ginger Spice.
Ginger Spice and Nasty Spice, I think, are the ends of the continuum.
How did I do?
I think you did very well.
I think that is probably... I would have said, because I'm a ginger spice guy myself... Spice up your life.
I would have put baby spice at the bottom and scary spice at the top.
That's button.
Yeah, cute as a button.
But in fact...
In fact, it's Mel C. Sporty Spice that's the tallest.
What?
Because she was always wearing tennis shoes while the rest of them were in big Gene Simmons boots.
Remember the Gene Simmons boot phase of the late 90s, early 2000s?
I do.
I do.
People wear flip-flops like that.
It was always very upsetting to me.
Big, tall flip-flops.
What's worse than a flip-flop?
Like a platform.
Platform flip.
Flat flop.
Gong-hai fat choy.
Flat flop.
So it's sporty and then scary.
Oh, and then Beckham Spice.
That's right.
Then Posh.
Okay.
Wow, you are good.
Yeah.
And then baby.
And baby.
And then Jerry is the smallest at five foot one.
Baby is 5'2".
Okay.
I think Posh is 5'3".
Scary is 5'4".
And Sporty rounds it out at 5'6".
5'5", maybe.
None of them are big.
You look at a photo of them and they're not distractingly different sized.
Because of the boots.
They calibrated the boots.
That's smart.
They calibrated the boots to make baby looks like the smallest because she's the baby.
She's the baby.
Yeah.
She's wearing a little heel in this one, a little bit of a platform.
Look at this older photo.
I think Nasty Spice always looks tallest.
She does.
Well, and also, you know, she has the biggest hair.
She does have tall hair.
But then you've got, I think Posh Spice never wore the Gene Simmons boots because she was posh.
So she was always in some high heels.
She wore like a spiky Louboutin type situation.
Yeah.
But I think it actually had a platform under the foot part, too.
Oh, gosh.
this is how they get you all these tricks all these tricks in that peter peter jackson forced perspective just just to give us a different viewport into the into the uk amazing look at all these photos of the spice girls but i have no idea how long an ant lives how old is an ant how old is an ant because i think as we learned from eo wilson i think they're they they wake up they they come out of the womb
fully formed and these are the intelligence.
I don't think there's like an ant, uh, remedial program or preschool.
I think they go straight to work.
Is that right?
You don't have a, there's no like learning on the job.
I mean, isn't an ant, a mostly instinctual.
Well, it's an automaton.
You look like a, like an ant bot.
I don't, I don't, I don't know.
I'm going to search for how old is ant.
Um,
Oh, here's a guy.
There's actually an ant wiki.
43.
How old is an ant?
Ants are not 43.
No, I think it's a person from TV.
Ant colonies can be long-lived.
Ants are social instincts or insects.
What?
No way.
This is from the Internet Science site.
It says that worker ants can live from one to three years.
No.
I figured an ant dies in a couple weeks.
It's like the mayfly of insects.
Think about how wise a one-year-old ant is compared to a newborn ant.
They have seen some shit.
Can you imagine?
They've been back and forth to that sugar.
Oh, my God.
They have brought some food back to the queen.
Did that just say that a black garden ant lives 15 years?
What?
Okay, here we go.
This is the nut graph.
Ant colonies can be long-lived.
The queens can live for up to 30 years.
Our queen ant might be older than the time we've lived in our home, and workers live from one to three years.
Males, however, are more transitory.
Yeah, high five up here.
Being quite short-lived and surviving for only a few weeks.
Ant queens are estimated to live 100 times as long as solitary insects of a similar size.
Oh, because they're bringing her stuff.
They're grooming her and stuff.
It's like how they say married men live longer.
Yes.
Right?
Married women, I don't think, live longer.
But married men do because they're constantly groomed.
All women live long.
Well, I mean, there's a lot.
You know, I think it's mostly science.
There's a lot of science.
There's absolutely a lot of science.
I don't want to look at all this ant stuff.
Yeah, but it's sad.
It's in that stage where like, well, I guess we're fucked.
I guess we got to go find a place.
So secretions from the male accessory glands in some species can plug the female genital opening and prevent females from remating.
What?
Wow.
That sounds problematic, John.
It's extremely problematic.
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Oh, no.
Oh, no.
Workers with the ability to reproduce are called gamer gates.
Oh, I had no idea.
Uh-huh.
Forever alone can live as long as three weeks keck.
Huh.
That's right.
Oh, incel ants.
Yeah, you get your proud boy ants.
They got to name cereals while they masturbate in front of the queen.
Oh, dear.
You only can do it once a month.
There has to be a queen there.
It's a lot of science.
Make it hot.
Oh, no.
But now when you are murdering an ant.
Yeah.
Are you now going to be conscious of the fact that this ant may be one to three years old?
And that maybe the queen is 30 years old if you weren't giving all of her other ants poison?
Yeah.
I don't want to say because I don't want to get letters.
But ants do... I mean, listen, straight up.
Guys, so much respect for ants.
They are amazing, majestic creatures who are very industrious.
It's true.
But I love killing the shit out of some ants.
I mean, I just...
Oh, I really, really enjoy it.
Now, here's a question for you.
I remember hearing this about yellow jackets.
I remember one time we made a school trip to the pumpkin farm when my kid was in, not pumpkin farm, but, you know, placed up by the hospital where they sell them on a corner.
Pumpkin patch.
And boy, were there ever some fucking yellow jackets.
Around the ants.
They're attracted to the sweetness of the gourd.
Uh-huh.
The sweetness of the gourd.
And so they swarm around the children.
I, too.
I, too, am attracted to the sweetness of the gourd.
And some of the kids got the shit stung out of them.
And, of course, I'm going, eh, eh, eh.
And they're like, okay, look, two things.
First of all, don't make movements like that.
And then one of the moms, she says to me, she says, don't smash a yellow jacket because that makes the other yellow jackets mad.
True.
Is this true?
Well, Yellow Jackets, in my experience, are meat eaters.
And they swarm around any dead bug.
Because one time... I mean, this used to happen a lot when we would drive across the Middle West of America or Canada...
Where the front of the vehicle, certain times of the year, would become just a bug holocaust.
Because it's whatever, bug season, and we're driving across the middle of nowhere, and it would just be...
Oh, from the bottom of the bumper to the top of the and the back of the the review mirrors and everything.
It was just like it was just a solid.
I'm sorry if you've ever had to experience Florida, but especially if you ever had to experience West Central Florida during September, because that's when the love bugs are doing their thing.
Do you know about the love bugs?
No, I don't these are fuck hungry little flying boys and they copulate in midair and they're just doing their thing They're just they're down on their jammy and it just is smashed all over the copulating bugs all over your windshield love bugs they call them because Well, so the so one time this happened a lot but one time in particular we pulled into a truck stop and
and got out of the van and it was just like it was because the bugs are so thick they're like they're crashing it like they're like atmosphere and they're a layer on the front of the van there's like there's multiple layers of dead bugs so you can't even see the paint it's just like bugs anyway we went inside we had some food at the truck stop and we came out and the front of the van was covered in yellow jackets oh my god
that were eating the dead bugs off the front of the van.
And we could not get in the van because anytime you went close to it, you had this swarm of angry wasps.
Yeah, you're interrupting them during dinner.
And so we had to throw open the door, get inside, and then there were a dozen wasps that got in the van with us that we then had to make sure to kill as fast as we could.
It was terrible.
I mean, not as bad as all the dead bugs.
According to this website, according to a website on the internet, it says, try not to swat or squish a yellow jacket wasp as the wasp can release a chemical alarm that will signal other yellow jacket wasps to the location.
yeah so they could do it at will no i think i think it's like it's a swatting oh my goodness no this is no i don't think i don't think they do it at will i think they do it uh in the form of like uh by dying it's like a it's like a marmorated stink bug okay oh okay
So you have sugar ants, is that correct?
Sugar ants.
They are very innocuous.
They're tiny, tiny, tiny little ants.
They're teeny, teeny, tiny little ants, yeah.
Is that correct?
Yeah, no, 100%.
We're famous for sugar ants.
Yeah.
Yeah, you can get chowder in a bread bowl, and you got ants.
That's what we're famous for.
Do your sugar ants bite?
Mm-mm.
Because my sugar ants bite.
No.
Well, you know what?
I shouldn't say.
I've never stuck my hand in to see.
I should let them try.
You know, fair game.
It's like if you're going to hunt a deer, bring a bow.
You know what I mean?
Make it fair.
Well, so I'm looking at these pictures of sugar ants, but these don't look like my ants.
These look like tiny ants.
What are these tiny ants?
I'm looking for San Francisco sugar ants.
Tiny ants.
Argentine.
They're Argentine.
No offense.
Are they really?
The Argentine ant is what we have.
Little teeny ants.
Black garden ant?
Well, whatever.
If my little ants get on you, they will occasionally bite you.
And it's unpleasant.
It doesn't hurt like, ow!
But it hurts like, what the fuck?
Like less than a mosquito.
Oh, a lot less than a mosquito.
It doesn't itch later.
It just is like you actually feel it in real time.
You're like, what the, what the, what?
And then you look down and there's an ant on you and you're like, oh, now I don't feel bad about killing you, dummy.
No, no.
I mean, you know, I feel like it's kind of like you and the, you know, and your various creatures.
It's like you need to have a meeting of the minds.
a certain kind of uh henry kissinger would say a detente you get this area i get that area let's try not to cross each other yeah yeah yeah don't cross the streams yeah and i love bugs yeah here's a picture i'll send you there's a picture of them copulating right here they go butt to butt odorous ants huh now if you squash your ant does it smell
I've never really gotten in there.
Not like that smell, like you kill a roach in Florida and it smells like amaretto.
You don't get that.
Because you do get a smell if you kill Seattle ants.
I'm learning so much.
Yeah, it's actually a kind of... Does it smell like amaretto?
Yeah.
You know the smell.
I mean, what's that smell?
It's a nut smell.
What's amaretto made of?
uh it's made of the same stuff that licorice is made of whoa that's not one of your ants oh that's a love bug that's love bugs that's florida those are disgusting look at them but i don't want that no yeah they do that in the air oh yeah and then it's all over your windshield i want to try love bug occasional google episodes love bugs windshield wait a minute yeah and you can get this uh like a net that you put over your grill
You can get a net you put over your grill if you don't want to get into your grill.
You mean your gold teeth?
Yes.
It's a picture of bloodbugs on a windshield.
You put a net over them?
Yeah, because look at this.
Here's what you're dealing with.
Copy image.
Yeah.
Oh, no.
Not a dress.
Not a dress.
Actual image.
Oh, I didn't mean to close.
There you go.
There you go.
Look at that.
Look at that.
Look at that Pontiac.
Look at that Pontiac.
That's what it looked like.
That's what the front of our truck looked like.
Except worse.
Except worse.
Oh, this is bad.
This is worse than looking for black mold.
Well, not really.
Because, you know, in the middle west of Canada, they have bugs that are the size of cats.
Really?
Yeah.
Is that because of the educational system?
It's because they're very tolerant.
Medicare for all.
Yeah.
And so a lot of the bugs that would have been eradicated by scorn grow to enormous size.
But they're very polite and they still like April 1.
Hmm.
Who doesn't like April Wine?
I think April Wine's a good band.
I think April Wine, I think a lot of the kids today would not know an April Wine.
April Wine, I think one could argue, I don't want to say they invented the power ballad, but I feel like the kind of, you take a Just Between You and Me, that's a classic power ballad.
Just between you and me.
Just between you and me.
All right.
All right.
April Wine versus Triumph.
Go.
April Wine.
Because Triumph is fine, but it took me only a few months to realize, oh boy, you're going to get letters about this.
Triumph is like a PG rush.
Yeah.
They're like Rush without the interestingness.
And their videos used to be on way too much.
They had a lot of videos for a brief period.
You know how hard it is to find a copy, a full actual copy of Exit Stage Left, the live performance?
Is it hard?
It's pretty hard.
There's some shit ones on YouTube that I have most def watched.
But it's a very good concert.
You'll remember the live album.
Yes, of course.
It's a good live album.
It's a great live performance.
And you see how Bananas running around, and he's doing the Taurus pedals, and he's playing a fucking keyboard, and a long-ass Rickenbacker bass.
They're just running around doing all the stuff.
They were great then.
He's got a lot going on, that Geddy Lee song.
Oh, and it's right.
It's their classic period.
It's pretty much right after moving pictures.
They're so good.
They're so good.
Does he talk like an ordinary guy?
You're my fact-checking cuss.
Did you?
I don't hate Triumph.
You know, okay, can I say, can I just say, real talk, why I hate Triumph?
I don't hate Triumph.
okay i'm disappointed in triumph no no i did the thing in 1980 three four let's say let's say 83 i did the thing i did the nine kiss no albums nine albums for a penny
Now, is this one of those ones where you got nine albums for a penny, but you never, like, you didn't fulfill the rest of the contract?
Nobody ever fulfilled.
I did it all wrong.
First of all, I always forgot to send you the thing.
So they'd send me fucking Phil Collins, Huey Lewis and the News, and I'd go, oh, fuck.
A bunch of stuff you didn't want.
It was like $11 with all the included parts, and one of them was a Triumph record that I'm still mad about.
And it wasn't even a good Triumph.
It wasn't even, like, what, Allied Forces?
Is that Elvis Costello?
What am I thinking of?
What's a Triumph album?
Yeah.
Let's see.
The good Triumph albums were... Was it called like Trilogy or Anthology?
Rick Emmett was the guitar player.
I know that much.
Thunder 7.
Thunder 7.
Thunder 7, 1984.
But no, I think Never Surrender.
Allied Forces, right?
Allied Forces was a good one as it goes.
Yeah.
Yes.
Full for your love.
You got your hot time in the city tonight.
Oh, fight the good fight every moment.
Every minute, every day.
Every day.
But I prefer Rush.
I prefer Rush.
And if you're going to Pepsi challenge me, I'll take a Rush over a Triumph.
I think a Triumph is a very Rush-like.
Now, when was Triumph formed?
Oh, Triumph was formed in, like, the mid-'70s.
Probably 78.
April Wine goes on.
No, they're earlier than 78.
But April Wine goes on back to the 60s.
Did you know that they were from Halifax?
They're barely Canadian.
Well, you know, a band that I like from Halifax originally did do an April Wine cover.
Are you talking about Sloan?
I'm talking about Sloan.
Sloan.
And the clued.
Sloan.
Of course they did.
What's the other song?
What's the other famous April Wine song?
Oh, there's, um, no, what's the one?
What's their, what's their hit?
That's not, um, let's see.
The way that it is, is you write a heap.
That's not them.
Sometimes I get them confused with Aldo Nova.
Oh, what was the album?
Harder, faster nature of the beast.
Oh, that's a good record.
Oh, sign of the gypsy queen.
Oh my God.
Dueling guitars.
That's right.
Uh, you know, you know, uh, an underrated band who, uh,
Zebra.
Who's behind the door?
That's right.
That's the zebra.
And tell me what you want.
Tell me what you want.
Tell me what you want.
Oh, yeah.
As long as we're singing up way high.
Yeah.
Tell me what you want.
That does ring a bell.
I remember them being popular contemporaneous with that time.
I was 84, 85.
That's exactly right.
Did they ever find out who's behind the door?
I don't think they did.
Those were very important songs in a time when it was very difficult to know how to interact with contemporary light metal.
They weren't metal.
They were more like Canadian style pop, but they're from Louisiana.
No telling lies.
yep no telling lies that has that who's behind the door what's the name of the one i'm thinking of zebra zebra zebra so zebra the eponymous record had uh who's behind the door but then there was a record the no telling lies yeah here's the secret you want to know the secret of please no telling lies okay you've got zebra the first record which had those two songs that we just mentioned who's behind the door and tell me what you want
So that's the one to get.
Yeah.
But then No Telling Lies has a little song called Bears.
Bears.
And it's about bears.
It's a song about bears.
It's about bears.
They're from New Orleans.
They're from Nolens.
Okay.
It's a song about bears, and it's a very good song, I think.
Nobody else ever heard it.
No one else ever heard it.
Deep cut.
A deep cut.
The record did not sell very well, but somehow I'm pretty sure that the first rock concert I ever went to, and the problem is it's hard to remember.
This is going to be Alaska.
This is Alaska.
This is at the Ed Sullivan Arena, named after former Anchorage mayor Ed Sullivan.
Oh, that's confusing.
He didn't go by Edward.
Nope.
Ed, actually... I mean, if my name was Jonathan Lennon, I'd make sure to say Jonathan.
Sure.
To be an Ed Sullivan, it seems very confusing.
That's already a theater in New York City.
Oh, wait a minute.
Let me hang on just a second, because... I'm sorry.
I took you off your story.
No, no, no.
I...
I want to make sure that I might be wrong because Ed Sullivan is such a common name, but I actually know this.
I knew this man.
Through your dad?
Well, because my uncle...
was mayor of anchorage and um and he but he was mayor of the anchorage borough oh it's like uh east anchorage right no no it wasn't ed sullivan it was george sullivan what am i talking about george sullivan not george the luckiest man in the world i think his i think his
son maybe was also mayor of Anchorage at one point but that was after I left but George Sullivan see George was mayor of the town and my uncle was mayor of the borough which is like basically the county that's like you know San Francisco does a similar thing there's San Francisco the city and San Francisco the county and to my knowledge they are exactly the same footprint well so what happened sheriffs we got police it's all very confusing here
What had happened was that they decided... So Sullivan was mayor of Anchorage from like 67 to 81.
He was mayor for a long time.
He was the same age as my dad.
But my uncle was mayor of the borough.
And the borough was much bigger than the city.
But then in the mid-70s, they decided that the city and the borough were going to merge.
And so Sullivan and my uncle Jack...
had to run against each other oh man which was you know a little tough because they were pals and uh it was small town and so mayor sullivan beat my uncle in the election and became became big mayor of everything and then when they built an arena
They named it after him.
Now that could be Roderick Arena.
That's a classic Roderick indignity right there.
Right?
Yes.
Could be Roderick Arena.
Every single person in Anchorage could be like, I'm going to the Roderick Arena.
There but for the grace of George.
That's sick.
Can you imagine in high school?
Yes, I can.
You didn't go to the good high school.
You went to the one that didn't get Ozzy Osbourne.
Well, now wait a minute.
I went to the one that Ozzy didn't play because West High had the biggest theater.
This is before the arena.
This is before the arena.
But when they built the arena, now think about this.
So my first concert was Dio.
Whoa.
With Vivian Campbell?
Yeah.
With Dokken opening.
Oh, George Lynch, baby.
And then first of three, Zebra.
Who's behind the door?
So I was like, I got into Zebra.
Sure.
Because I saw him, man.
That's a long way from New Orleans.
And they were a three-piece band, very much like Triumph.
Power Trio, love it.
Anyway, can you imagine if I never even thought about this until just now, if when I went to my first concert when I was a whatever sophomore, if it had been at Roderick Arena?
I think I think it'd be different.
How would my life be different if the whole time I was in high school, everybody was like,
Well, he's a fucking pain in the ass and a dork.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But the arena, you know, the arena.
You know, he's from that.
He's one of those.
I think it's a double edged sword, John.
I have to be honest with you.
I think it's I think it's because I mean, there's all kinds of things.
You could get a disease named after you or a hurricane.
There's all kinds of things where like it's, you know, having your name associated with something is not always fun.
yeah well like uh like the who concert right that was at the well that was just the cincinnati coliseum it wasn't even after a roderick but like you wouldn't want your name to be forever associated with something bad right but a but a but a big fun arena who's behind the door well so here's some here's just a selection of lyrics from the song bears okay uh for in this at the beginning of the song he sets the stage
In the middle of winter, the trees are bare and the bears are hibernating.
You see that?
He did a homonym.
The only sound in the forest is the sound of snow heard crashing to the ground.
So right now, you're in it now.
You can't hear the bears.
No, these are guys from New Orleans, too.
These are very Canadian lyrics.
Hang on.
Ready for this?
Ready for the second turn?
And in the middle of loving, I hope you'll find a place in your heart for them.
So the bears, the titular bears.
Yeah.
This was a triple, a triple term because it's like in the middle of loving, you're thinking, okay, I'm sexing now, but no.
Is it one of those things like imagining a dead puppies?
So you don't ejaculate?
No, I don't think so.
It's okay.
I think it's, I think when he says in the middle of loving, he means the love that's in your heart.
Oh, it's deeper, like a Canadian love.
Yeah.
I think you'll find a place in your heart for them.
They really can't do us any harm.
It is only us who can do harm to them.
Don't hurt the bears while you're boning down.
Think about it.
Yeah.
We're just loving just in a loving in a loving agape Canadian way.
Keep the bears front of mind.
And then switcheroo perspective wise.
But there's an animal that winter won't affect at all.
He sits by fireplaces.
Waiting for the winter's fall.
Oh, it's a real Rod Serling type situation.
He owns guns.
And oh, you know, he's got that gun in his hand.
Yeah.
He's a man.
So this is a song.
He's a man.
And oh, he's got that precious thing in his hand.
He does.
This is a song about shooting bears.
He rhymed hand twice.
He did.
But he's singing it up so high you can barely tell what he's saying.
He's behind the door.
Anyway, I highly recommend it.
Also, he's playing a double-neck BC Rich.
Oh, he sure is.
Look at that.
He looks all cozy.
He looks like Canada from here.
Oh, Bozzy's got that gun in his hand.
I have never been able to hit those notes in that song.
What about Boston?
There's some hard notes to hit.
Brad Delp.
You think you could hit a Boston, you could hit a Delp?
You're telling me you could get on stage, even with a warm-up, you could do more than a feeling?
No, no, at the beginning.
See, I don't think that's how he does it.
No, start with close my eyes and I slip away.
Close my eyes and I slip away.
And then... That's all Tom Scholes.
That's pure Scholes all the way down.
It's much easier to get those notes because you've been practicing them for 40 years.
It's compression.
He's compressing the shit out of that.
He's probably actually going like...
You know, it's all aural exciter and compressor.
It's aural exciter.
It's true.
Yeah, it's very.
He's not singing loud.
Let's let's call it that.
Yeah.
You know, they had a lot of big hits.
Do you remember when the Boston third record came out?
It's a big deal because it had been years.
They've been tied up in litigation.
By the way, don't read the Wikipedia entry for Boston if you can't sleep.
I did it.
I did it a couple of months ago, and it was a bad idea.
There's a lot of sadness in that band.
Tom Scholz does not come off great.
Can I just say that?
Well, he's one of those kind of controlling guys, right?
The Delp estate has beef with Tom Scholz.
Is that right?
Oh, yeah.
Well, I think they think he was, you know, causal.
Well, Delp was a very sensitive person.
Mm-hmm.
He had a rough go of it.
His suicide note was in French.
Oh, let's see.
Oh, let's see.
The third stage, boy, when that record came out.
Was that the hit from that?
Yep.
Well, and Amanda.
It wasn't as good as he wanted.
What was the second one?
You got Boston, which is the city in a dome on an ovation.
And the second one was...
Don't look back.
Don't look back.
That was a pretty good record.
That's when the Guitar City is coming for a landing in a utopian super planet valve somewhere.
Hmm.
Yeah.
As far as I know, my daughter knows one thing about Alaska governance, which I think she discovered via some kind of an exercise.
You know, like in school, every age has the things where you read it and you do reading comprehension.
So she knows about Stubbs the Cat.
Oh, yeah.
Stubbs the Cat.
You know about Stubbs the Cat.
Sure.
Talkeetna.
Stubbs is the mayor of Talkeetna.
Passed in 2007.
Oh, I'm sorry.
He died.
Yeah, that's right.
But I follow Stubbs the Cat on Twitter because Stubbs' wisdom lives on.
Stubbs had a rough life.
The Wikipedia entry under Section 2 injuries.
That's the reason they call him Stubbs.
It's so undignified.
Oh, he was attacked by a dog.
They attacked the mayor.
The mayor was attacked by a dog.
It's Alaska.
Well, you know, it's tough country.
Crowdfunding page.
I think he got shot with BB guns from kids at one point.
Yeah, other perils Stubbs escaped from include being shot by teenagers with BB guns and falling into a restaurant's deep fryer, which was switched off and cool at the time.
You've got to clean stubs after that.
That's going to be one greasy little mayor.
He has to ride to the outskirts of Talkeetna on a garbage truck?
In Talkeetna, the standards are a lot different.
They say it's a historic district, not really a city.
I wouldn't even call it a historic district.
Is it more like a mall?
Oh, no.
There's a bar that used to be a hotel and that famously has a sign on the front that says hippies use side door.
Okay.
And then you go around the side and the door's boarded up.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
This looks picaresque.
There was an airstrip.
See, Talkeetna is where the bush pilots who fly to Mount McKinley slash Denali.
Mm-hmm.
That's where they used.
Well, they still they they used to fly out of a grass strip that was basically in the middle of town.
And then they built a real airstrip over to the side of town.
And by real, I mean a gravel airstrip.
Oh, nice.
And that's where if you're a mountain climber and you want to climb to the top of Denali.
We say Denali now.
Is that right?
Yeah.
OK.
For a long time.
And sadly, for me, we just covered this on an omnibus that's going to be released in a couple of days.
Okay.
Meaning last week.
That's right.
A couple of days of last week from now.
Wasn't tomorrow wonderful?
There are a lot of dead bodies on Mount Everest.
Oh, I've heard about this.
I heard between trash and bodies, it's pretty bad news up there.
Lots and lots of bodies.
So we did an omnibus on them.
But I talked about... And they can't get them because it's too cold?
Well, they freeze to the mountain and they can't get them off.
They become part of the mountain.
Well, and also, it's very hard to get up there.
Even if you're in a space suit, it's very hard.
Can't you get a Nepalese?
You get a Nepalese to help you, right?
Yeah, but they are also... Do we say Sherpa?
Can we still say that?
Oh, Sherpa is what they're called.
Yeah, but they are...
Like a Tenzing Norgate, that's right.
There are some Sherpa who have been to the top of Everest like many, many, many times.
They're the most hardy of all the people in the world.
They're like the guys riding around in the bumper cars.
They're just over it.
They've done this too many fucking times.
But even they have a very difficult time up at those altitudes like schlepping dead people down.
So the formality...
The generally agreed policy is that if you die on Everest, it's like a burial at sea.
You're supposed to find a way to throw a body down in a crevice.
But then some of the people die and they just are just dead on the trail and you have to step over them.
Oh, geez.
It's really terrible.
But Denali is the name of the mountain.
It's beautiful.
McKinley is the name of the park.
Oh, I see.
Okay.
Because they changed it.
It used to be McKinley was the mountain, but they changed it when I was a kid, actually.
And now I think they're even changing the park name.
So it's Mount Denali Park.
Oh, interesting.
From the north with Wonder Lake in the foreground.
Look at that.
It's beautiful.
But in the omnibus, I forgot to mention that the mayor of Talkeetna was a cat.
Oh.
Yeah.
Isn't it Stubbs?
Stubbs.
Stubbs the cat.
Fell into some grease.
It's Stubbs.
He was a wise cat.
Maybe not as wise as a 30-year-old ant.
He lived to be 20.
He was born in the year that doesn't exist.
Imagine that in 97.
Imagine a cat being 10 years younger than an ant.
That changes a lot of stuff for me.
It really does.
You know, anything can die, mostly.
I think anything can die.
Anything that's alive can die.
Yeah.
I mean, you've got to look at it kind of on a continuum.
It doesn't mean you want to kill him any less, though.
Time is a flat circle.
Not the cat.
Not the cat.
What about Marillion?
Did you like Marillion?
Doesn't seem like a cup of tea.
No, I didn't.
I didn't like Striper, either.
Well, Striper.
Pfft.
Well, yeah, they weren't Christian rock.
They had stripes.
That was a bit.
Their bit was stripes.
Because there's a biblical quote about stripes.
Like flaying Jesus on his last day in town?
Or no, like you shall know them by their stripes.
Oh.
Or something.
You know what I mean?
We are Christians by our stripes, by our stripes.
There's a stripe.
You know how when you're looking for a biblical reference, you can find pretty much anything?
Yeah, it's like Shakespeare.
It's like Shakespeare.
It's out there somewhere.
Yeah, like Pedro the Lion.
That was somebody that saved Jesus or something.
I don't know.
Some lion named Pedro.
Oh, is that right?
I'm not sure.
Hmm.
uh striper but i'm pretty sure that the stripes in the bible did not come from or they weren't spelled it wasn't those stripes weren't spelled with a y no no no i think that's an affectation yeah but i was not how did you feel about what am i what am i thinking of um king's x no not a fan you were not maybe maybe i need to go back i i weren't they gimmicky
uh it was highly produced kings were they like uh yes they were like a prog metal early prog metal band okay here's striper uh it's from king james version but he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him
And with his stripes, we are healed.
Some of those folks, God love them.
They are so horny for Jesus's pain.
Oh, and they did a backronym for it.
Salvation through redemption, yielding peace, encouragement, and righteousness.
Oh, God.
They got a heart on for that.
Yep.
Stripe.
But King's X was a very unusual sounding band.
The log line is not doing it for me.
King's X is an American rock band that combines progressive metal, funk, and soul with vocal arrangements influenced by gospel blues and British invasion rock groups.
Let's take out about half those ingredients and then not make it.
There were some interesting, they produced some, again, three-piece band.
Yep, yep, yep, yep.
You know what?
You always get extra points if there are three and only three musicians.
That's right.
And they started way back.
I mean, they're kids and stuff.
Springfield, Missouri, they hail from.
Yeah.
But they came out, it was that late 80s period when Jane's Addiction had thrown a wrench into everything.
Oh, sure.
And we were like, what's metal?
What's alternative?
What's rock?
What's prog?
What is anything?
What is anything anymore?
What is anything?
Shit if I know.
Everything got all turned around.
It was all hilly-piggledy.
Chili peppers.
It's like, what the hell?
Chili peppers.
What are they?
We get the bug-a-bug-da-bug-da-bug guy.
Yeah, are they funk?
What about what's that guy?
What's that guy?
Les Claypool.
Bug-a-bug-a-bug.
Yeah.
Bug-a-bug-a-bug.
Bug-a-bug-a-bug.
Did you ever see them?
Shit, dog.
Are you fucking kidding me?
I was so much cooler than going to see a band like that.
They might accidentally be playing near me, but I would never go see them.
I saw Meat Puppets the same night that Whitesnake was playing on the same campus.
Wow, you went across to the other side of the campus.
I went to Tampa.
Yeah.
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i had a friend i was when i was working at the news got in the car we've gotten gotten my girlfriend's big ford and we uh we went to we went to tamp all the time because if it was in the empty cake we got in for free so you were going to school in saint pete nope sarasota oh sarasota that's right but but we were technically part of the university we're technically part of the university of south florida
University of Tampa.
No, that's a different thing.
They got that big Kremlin dome there, don't they?
I don't know.
University of Tampa.
I think they got an onion dome.
Oh, wait.
Which is the school that has the beautiful architecture that's like, oh, wrought iron?
I'll bet that's Tampa.
I don't know if that's a real school.
I think it is.
I think it's Tampa.
Don't they have an onion dome?
Am I misremembering?
Tampa.
Tampa Onion Dome.
Wrought iron.
Do you know how to spell wrought iron?
W-R-O-U-G-H-T.
That's right.
Tampa Onion Dome.
Tampa Rot Iron College.
Rot Iron College.
Rod Iron College.
And it'd be Plant Museum.
Tampa Bay Hotel.
Oh, I don't know how to say it.
Oh, it's Tampa College.
University of Tampa?
Tampa, well, wait a minute.
Tampa College.
That sounds terrible.
Tampa College.
Is it Tampa College?
I don't know.
It's not Tampa in the name.
It's just, it's already kind of a punchline.
Tampa College.
Tampa.
Tampa's where I saw many of the bands.
St.
Pete is another place that I saw many.
That's where I saw Rem in 1985.
Am I wrong about it being Rod Iron?
Yeah.
Might not be, that could be Nolens.
No, no, no.
They got wrought iron, don't they?
I'm going to say Tampa Fancy College.
Okay.
See what that produces.
Tampa Fancy College.
College Natural and Health Sciences.
Okay.
Oh, College of.
Argosy University.
Let's say that.
Let's say Argosy University.
Let's say, let me see, let me see, let me see.
2019, best colleges in the Tampa Bay area.
Oh, give me a fucking break.
Is this really its website?
Eckerd College.
Jim Morrison went to Eckerd College for a while.
Is he from Florida?
He's a military brat.
Oh, sure.
Pretty sure.
Pretty sure.
Oh, who's coming up with these?
There's not even any new college on here.
What is happening?
I just found a website, the vice.com Proud Boys website.
Yeah.
There's an article here that says, Florida man says he attacked fancy cars that reminded him of college bullies.
Hmm.
that's one of those really makes you think that's one of those Florida man jokes yeah I mean did you follow Florida man yeah I mean I lived it yeah I've known Florida man most of my life I went to high school with Florida man I definitely worked for Florida man yeah I uh I was sitting at the newsstand one day and Bill Patton
This guy, this guitar player, very good guitar player in Seattle who has sort of he was one of the first people I met in Seattle.
He's always been he's always been a guy that I instinctively liked.
Tell me if you know a guy like this instinctively liked him.
but in reality in practice really he was a thorn in my side he really he and i were constantly at odds with one another interesting but so you like the cut of his jib but then you you had some uh some friction i like him he's funny he's smart he's sardonic he's low-key yeah but he's just a he's just a pain in the ass
and he thinks i'm a pain in the ass like we just like a buddy comedy yeah for like 30 years all it's all it would take is that bill and i be thrown together into some sort of uh solve a mystery or broken elevator situation and we would come out the other side i don't know something but the but the but the fact is that
nothing has ever thrown us together and we have desired not to be thrown together so we always are like oh hey hey how's it going and then we stand there and have and shoot the shit and it's funny and fun but then it's like okay well i hope i never see you again yeah you too fuck off okay bye anyway i was at the newsstand one day and bill patton comes in and uh and bill and oh and bill always like wore
earth tone clothes that didn't fit him very well and his look was i haven't showered that was his look he cultivated it he sounds like a frontiersman yeah he drove an rx7 though because i think he i think one of his parents died yeah when he was young and he inherited some money or something he had an rx7 which was incongruous
based on everything else about him.
Anyway, he's a super good musician.
So he came into the newsstand one day and he said, I've got two tickets to Primus tonight.
Do you want to go?
And I said, no.
You didn't have to deliberate on it?
No.
And he said, your mental pachinko ball fell down well into no with very little effort or juking.
There are a lot of reasons I don't want to go.
I don't want to see Primus.
I don't want to go to a second location with you.
And he said, look, I don't want to go either.
But I have two tickets.
I think it's sweet on you.
no no he said i have two tickets and the only person i could think of that would go is you thanks buddy and i was like huh yeah so that makes because this happens to me a lot people have tickets to something and they're like nobody wants these but i bet john he's like uh you know let's ask mikey he won't eat it he hates everything
And then they give me tickets to things, and I'm like, well, I guess, sure, I'll go.
That's how I ended up seeing – what's her name?
Belinda Carlisle.
Oh, I wish.
Joan Baez.
Nope.
The more recent lady that has huge, big, epic songs.
Erykah Badu.
No.
That's hair, not songs.
She's from Inglang.
Oh, is it Joanna Newsome?
Nope.
Nope.
Bigger.
Bigger.
Bigger songs.
Stadium bigness.
Large.
Not Kate Bush.
Nope.
Nope.
Big songs.
Big songs.
Recent big songs.
Big songs.
Let's do this.
Stick with this.
We can do this.
Blonde Lady.
super big oh she has maybe one one word name oh oh oh adele adele thank you you got to see adele so a friend of mine who's in the concert dog i'd see adele i'm not made of stone see this is what i didn't know she's got pipes buddy she's got pipes and she's got a sense of humor and a really cute little chin dimple that's slightly off center
So that's what I'm saying.
He said, I've got these tickets to Adele.
Do you want to go?
And I said, what's Adele?
And he said, she's a singer.
And I've got these tickets.
And you're the only person I can think of in our rock culture that would go to see Adele.
And I said, well, I don't know what Adele is.
And he said, you'll probably know.
You'll know that Hello song for sure.
You'll know one of the songs.
Yeah.
And I said, so the thing is, the friend of mine in the concert business, I like him.
He's a nice guy.
And I was like, yeah, I'll go see Adele.
And he said the tickets are at the box office.
So I went.
I got the tickets.
And then I texted him.
I was like, where are you?
Like, I'll come find you.
And he said, oh, I'm not going.
Oh, that is so West Coast.
Holy shit.
I was like, oh.
He flaked on his own invitation?
Yeah.
So I got my ticket.
Is this the guy whose house I made fun of?
No.
Okay.
I got my ticket.
I went into this giant stadium.
I sat down in my seat, which of course was like third row center, right?
I'm all by myself.
And I'm surrounded by people who are losing their fucking mind.
Absolutely losing it.
And she hasn't taken the stage yet.
They're just sitting there just losing it.
Anticipating Adele.
And it's the type of crowd where they're grabbing me and like, oh my God, can you believe it?
We're actually here.
We're actually here.
I was like, I don't know.
I don't know if I can believe it.
I'm not sure what I'm doing here.
And so then the people right around me.
this is way before this is when the lights are still on yeah they all they were like oh my god he's never seen adele and then no then i've got like 20 people around me who are so excited for me yes and i'm like i wish i could be you i wish i could hear adele for the first time a friend of mine just gave me these tickets i don't know why i'm here and they were like oh my god you got the best tickets in the world like we waited 45 hours for these tickets and i'm like i don't know so then adele takes the stage and immediately
I was transfixed.
And then mind exploded 30 times.
And by the time I left the stadium, I was like, Adele's the greatest rock star of all time.
I'm so glad to hear that.
She's incredible.
She's hilarious.
She made a room of 20,000 people feel like every single person in the room was there.
She seems very down to earth, but she also owns every fucking cubic inch of whatever she sings.
She walked out on the stadium.
So this is a sold out arena.
She walks out on the stage and she says,
in her uh extremely wonderful british accent she says before i start i just want to say that i'm fighting a cold sore and i'm really embarrassed she's got a stress pump i'm really embarrassed and it hurts and i'm super and all all night long my face is going to be up on this giant screen above everybody and
And so I'm really anxious about it.
So I just wanted to get that off the table so I don't have to worry about it the rest of the show.
So you guys all know that I have a cold sore and now I can just sing.
of course the room goes crazy and i'm and i'm sitting in my chair and i'm just like what am i fucking about to see because that's the best that's the best intro i ever saw to a show and then she's like okay one two three and the lights go down and the explosions and the light show she could sing anything that night and then later i realized version of devil went down to george
Later, I realized she doesn't tour that much.
She only plays America once in a blue moon.
And I just happened to stumble into the show and got to see Adele one of the five times she's ever played.
Anyway, it was great.
That's fantastic.
But so Bill Patton says, I'm going to take, you know, do you want to go to Primus?
And I was like, ugh.
And he said, yeah, I don't know.
Somebody gave me these tickets.
I don't want to see them either, but let's go.
And it was it was the type of thing where I could possibly go wrong.
where i said like i get off at seven and he's like great because the show starts at 7 30. and so i got off bill was standing there we smoked like 11 cigarettes on our way down to the show we had they were good tickets i don't know i don't remember how he had them we watched primus but the problem was primus in a venue here's the problem primus shouldn't play in venues um because
if there's any kind of echo or room sound or reverb
what does that sound like it's gonna sound like that plus a slight delay it's gonna sound like yeah and so we sat in this uh theater and for an hour and a half we're just perplexed by the number of notes there were so many notes that happened when i saw aldemiola i after five songs i was just i was so overstimulated
Yeah, it's too many notes for the ear to hear.
So you had cigarettes and you hung out.
The thing about Bill Patton and me is that our inability to be friends honestly was not affected by time together or time apart.
If Bill and I were caught in an elevator or did have a mystery to solve, we would solve the mystery and
And then at the end, it would be like, all right, well, that's fine.
If I never see you again, that's also fine.
Like there's just no – somehow – like I haven't seen Bill in five years.
But if I bumped into him today, he'll be like,
We wouldn't do the thing, the Seattle thing, where it was like where we gave each other a hug or even like a soul brother handshake.
Yeah.
We'd just be like, oh, hey, what's up?
Oh, hey.
It's so funny you said that because the thing that immediately went through my mind is exactly what you're describing literally.
Because you were describing this and you were talking about how you feel about each other.
And my dumb brain was too on the nose.
And I was thinking, you know, I think about my relationship with people –
that i have service relationships with like the lady at the bodega the guy at the sandwich shop right the people at the diner and like i have a perfect and from my point of view i have a fantastic relationship with every one of those people but i don't think i'd want to see less claypool with any of them
Oh, I see what you mean.
It's like, you know, I mean, like are and I'm I'm I'm privileged and fortunate in getting to mostly control the amount and direction of conversation where it's like, hey, how's it going?
Your kid's good.
My kid's good.
Thanks.
Here's my sandwich.
But like we don't delve into anything.
And it's it's.
It's the kind of wonderful relationship you can have in America, which is like it's like there's not really much to it.
I'm a nice guy.
They're a nice person.
And we have that.
We have that back and forth, you know, one to seven times a month.
And it never goes any further.
But if we saw each other at a concert, I don't think we'd hang out, let alone decide to drive there together.
It would just be too much.
Well, so the trick about Bill Patton is he's the same age as me.
He's one of the first people I met in Seattle.
He's a guitar player and a rock musician and a songwriter.
He has his girlfriend and my girlfriend were friends.
In fact, his girlfriend and my girlfriend had the same kind of dog.
So it was some same kind of weird breed of dog.
So they were like and maybe the dogs were related even.
Oh, wait.
Oh, my God.
I'm forgetting the most important thing, which is Bill also worked at the newsstand.
The devil, you say.
And it's possible.
Contemporaneously?
Yes, it's possible now that I think about it that Bill got me the job at the newsstand.
This changes everything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, this is what I'm saying.
So now he's a co-worker.
Not only a coworker, I think I used to go into the newsstand and say that when our roles were reversed and stand there ordering cigarettes, and I would say, God, this is a great job.
How did you get this job?
And Bill would say, they never hire.
I got this job, but everybody else has been working here for 40 years.
You're never going to get a job here.
And I would say, oh, but this job is so great.
You sit there and read all day.
You're sarcastic to people.
and you sell them secrets and gum.
Apart from standing, it doesn't sound physically trying.
You need to make change, but it's not going to bend your brain.
There was a stool.
You had a stool.
You didn't even have to stand.
You didn't even have to stand.
The stool and the cash register were on a riser.
Oh, so you're like a pharmacist.
You're up in the air.
Even when you were sitting on the stool, you were taller than your customers.
Oh, God, yes.
It was so brilliant.
As you should be at a place like that.
And it was right in the heart of everything.
So the cafe was right next door.
The cafe setteam was on the other side.
People would bring me sandwiches and coffee all day.
That's where I met my long-term girlfriend.
She came in every day and bought cigarettes.
No kidding.
The one I met a long time ago?
No, I think before that.
And she had black curly hair and bright red lipstick.
And she'd come in every day.
That's not helping.
I know, that doesn't narrow it down.
But she was the originator.
She has arms with hands on the end, bipedal.
She was the rhyme animal.
But she would come in every day and I would ask her questions, you know, like from your stool in the sky.
But I was super I was super sardonic, super like low affect.
So she would come in and she'd be like, you know, pack of palm oils or whatever.
And I would say, what are you doing today?
She'd say, oh, I'm just on my way to the.
That's good, John.
That is low key.
That is so low key.
And then when she'd say something, I wouldn't follow up.
I'd be like, here's your change.
Whoa.
And so here's the thing.
Here was what was amazing.
She worked at the store that bought and sold used Levi's.
That's all it did.
Oh, she was the seeker of Levi's.
You've talked about it.
She was the seeker of Levi's.
And they didn't sell them.
They sold them to Japan, but they would buy them.
There was a storefront devoted to people coming in and saying, how much can I get for these used jeans?
It was such a different time.
Anyway, so one day she came in and I said, having pieced together from asking her for weeks at a time, like what?
Like one question a day.
And she was always really shy.
She came in and I said, let me ask you.
Oh, and also when I would give her her change, I would place her change in her palm.
She would like put her palm out and I would place her change in her palm.
That's slightly intimate.
It is.
And I would touch her palm with my fingertips as I put the change in her palm.
Did she mind?
Oh, no.
This was part of the ritual that developed.
As far as you know.
what do you mean well she seemed she seemed like she was into it she didn't she didn't tear her hand away and scream you could she could i mean yeah no uh-huh uh so uh so one day she comes in and i know her cigarettes she doesn't have to say what they are yeah oh that's a nice feeling isn't a nice feeling yeah when the guy when the local guy knows and i said let me ask you you live down at the end of broadway and she was like yeah
Because this is all material that I put together over the course of knowing her for a long time as a customer.
And I said, and you work down at the other end of Broadway?
And she said, yeah.
And I said, between where you live and where you work, there are 15 places you could buy cigarettes.
Why do you come in here every day?
Wow.
And she ran out of the store.
Oh, my God.
Turned and ran.
And I was like, oh, she likes me.
Yeah, you crushed the bunny.
And then later on that day, she showed back up with her bag full of Levi's clutched in her hand.
And she said...
She came and I was sitting there on my stool, amazed to see her again.
Yep.
She sneaks in.
She comes up to the counter and she says, do you have a girlfriend?
What the what?
I was like, wow.
I do now.
Yeah.
Anyway, Bill Patton worked at the freaking newsstand with me for years because somebody got fired or died.
Yeah.
And Bill, at some point, even though he didn't like me.
Yeah.
saw me and he was like you should apply to work at the newsstand because there's a job opening and and i did and i got the job and it ended up being the greatest job i ever had greatest job i would kill for that job it was an amazing job i worked there with bill and yet even working together we did not become friends why do you think he asked you why do you think he even offered it to you
Did he see something of himself in you as an opportunity?
Yes.
I think the reason that Bill and I... We're not so different, you and I. That's exactly it.
I think the reason that we don't get along is that Bill feels that I occupy some of the same space that he occupies.
Your two North Poles.
And I think that it's a case where I would be friends with Bill...
But Bill doesn't want to be friends with me.
And I think I would be, like my daughter said the other day, I said, what about that girl, you know, Olympia or Orangina or whatever?
Yeah.
Like, do you want to be friends with her?
And she said, yeah, I'd be friends with Orangina.
And I said, so what's stopping you?
And she said, well, she hasn't asked me.
Huh.
And I said, well, why don't you ask Orangina to be friends?
And she said, I would rather not be friends with her than have to ask her.
That is oddly sophisticated.
And I was like, hmm.
I get that.
I said, okay, so.
Yeah, that's my entire life.
It's like, yeah, I want to eat, but not as much as I just want to sit here.
Yeah, I would happily be friends with her, but I want.
She's cracked something at a very young age.
That's important.
And I think that was maybe the situation with me and Bill, where Bill didn't want to be friends with me.
I wanted to be friends with Bill, but I would rather not be friends with him than ask him.
But Bill asked me if I wanted to work at Steve's, and he took me to see Primus.
And also, oh, very briefly, I forgot this part.
I said, at one point, do you want to join the Long Winters?
And he said, yes.
Yes.
This is after your tenure at the newsstand.
Many years later.
Okay.
Because Bill, I think, played in the Fleet Foxes briefly.
Or recorded on a Fleet Foxes record.
He was Fleet Foxes adjacent.
He flirted with the idea of him being a long winner.
So he started learning the tunes.
Wow.
And then we had an audition for...
And we were auditioning people, various people.
And some people were coming in to play.
John, I just want to point out in passing, you're having a lot of recovered memories right now.
It seems to me that if you keep at this, you might remember even more things that could be very surprising.
It's very weird.
Do you feel it?
Do you feel it?
Something's coming back to you.
I'm not sure.
So Jonathan Rothman came in to audition.
Big fan.
And Jonathan Rothman played the guitar and the keyboard, and he knew the songs.
And so at the end of the audition, I was like... Because I already had anticipated...
bill in the long winters the music would be very good because he's very good but but the idea of me and bill every day waking up in the same hotel and being like okay here we go again and you have to tell bill no you can't pee you should have come before yeah or just like bill you can't wear that hat or bill just be all cool cool jonathan was your getty lee for a little while he was cool cool about everything cool and he was a multi-instrumentalist right right in the middle of a song he had he always had like three things going on
Yeah, he would play the guitar and the keyboard at the same time.
And so I had to call Bill and say, we hired a guy.
Oh, geez.
And Bill was like, I thought when you said, do you want to join the Long Winters, that it was a thing where...
when i said yes that you weren't asking anybody else wasn't a hypothetical question he took it as an offer it wasn't like do you want to audition for the long winters right he heard it as you said do you want to build a snowman and he starts running for the snow right yep and so there was a moment but the thing about bill patten yeah he's very cool so he was like
Okay, well, whatever then.
Wow.
And I was like, sorry about that.
And he was like, whatever, that's fine.
You know, no problem, I guess.
Yeah.
And I was like, well, anyway, high five, long distance over the phone.
See you when I see you.
And he was like, sure.
See you out there in the world.
So, I don't know.
I could see you guys being roommates someday.
Not because you chose to, but that's just how it turned out.
Something where we're in a re-education camp, and it turns out we're both at the same.
I was thinking more of like an old musician's home.
I don't know if they have those.
But somewhere where you guys would, like by accident of happenstance, you guys are in a quad.
Yeah, maybe.
I think Bill may have transitioned to the thing that happens to some gifted musicians when they get to be 50, which is that he's teaching music now.
You better be careful.
He might be in your caress.
You got to treat him right.
You don't know if you're accidentally doing God's will together.
You know what I'm saying?
Oh, yes.
You got to be careful.
Watch your caress.
I am for shizzle, like, a very big booster, right?
bill patent booster yes i've never i would never say a bad word about him except for that he's a pain in the ass yeah no it's not so bad right i mean no not at all but that's not untrue by national terms that's not bad in seattle maybe that's bad but by national terms that's not bad at all well yeah i said phil ec was a pain in the ass at one time and he's still mad about it 25 years later say it all you want he's not gonna hear this
You should tell him.
That's what I thought about the last time I said he was a pain in the ass and somebody told him.
It got back to Phil Eck.
I think what happened was Band of Horses was recording with Phil Eck and I was talking to Ben and I was like, oh, Phil Eck, he's a pain in the ass.
And Ben is one of those guys, Band of Horses, Ben is one of those guys that's like, you know, because there's that school of people that are from the South that are like, don't talk shit about people.
All right.
You just say bless your heart and leave it at that.
Yeah.
I don't belong to that school.
No.
If somebody's a pain in the ass, you got to say it.
Yeah.
You don't want to send a friend into a situation with a pain in the ass.
And then later they're like, why didn't you tell me that guy was a pain in the ass?
In the South, we have code for things like that.
But I take you meaning.
You have a much more New York City idea of things.
Like, I'm going to tell you a thing.
Yeah.
You don't have to bless your heart about a guy.
I don't want to bless his heart.
I don't want to bless his heart.
Bless his heart.
But then I think Ben was like, when they got in the studio, he was like, oh, John Roderick said you're a pain in the ass, which I think qualifies as talking shit about me.
I call that tattling.
He's a tattletale.
But then Phil Eck was like, why did you say what?
So Phil Eck, but what he says is, why are you talking shit about me?
And I'm like, oh, well, there's a reason I was talking shit about you.
Phil, you're a pain in the ass.
Yeah.
Would he rejoinder for that?
He didn't.
He was a little drunk, and he actually put his fists up like an old-style boxer.
What, in a funny Barney Rubble way?
Yeah, he said, I'll punch you in the nose.
Punch you in the nose.
I'll kick you in the head, and I'll kick you in the head.
Let me stop you there.
Let me stop you there.
You've done enough damage.
Okay.
Look at those love bugs.
They're just going at it.