Ep. 450: "The Dawn and the Dusk"
Hello?
Hi, John.
Hi, Merlin.
How's it going?
Hey there.
Hey there, tiger.
Buddy.
Buddy.
Hey, little pal.
Pal, ranger.
Hey, ranger.
I've never said that in my life.
Hey, ranger.
Oh, boy.
I used to think that I liked learning things about myself.
It's taken a while for me to realize I do not like learning things about myself.
Self-knowledge is for suckers.
Oh, yeah.
Why have it?
What's the point?
It's not helping me.
It's not helping me at all.
No, no, no, no.
But I think to myself, you know, like a thing I realized in the last year.
This has been documented in the Wisdom Project.
You should one out and say that you've fixed a problem if you don't understand what caused the problem and you don't – or you don't understand what you did to make it better.
Because there's a lot of times in life where I thought I fixed something, right?
And because I didn't really understand what I was doing.
Basically, I just tried different things until it stopped being broken mostly.
Yeah.
Now, related to that, another thing I don't like learning about myself is I'm not good at things.
Oh.
No, no, that's not.
I'm not fishing for compliments, although that would be a good show for me to host.
Fishing for compliments.
What a great podcast.
I'll put it on the list.
I got a running list.
I got a running list.
Okay.
Fishing for – that's good.
Fishing for compliments, yeah.
Like bowling for dollars, right?
Yeah.
Hey, boy, I'm really not good at stuff.
No, Merlin.
Oh, John, you're so good at stuff.
You're amazing.
Oh, what are you talking about?
That's crazy.
Think about all the stuff you've done.
You're so pretty.
Fishing for compliments.
Well, so – Yeah.
Let me ask you.
Yeah, please.
What was the last time you learned something about yourself that you were pleasantly surprised at?
Well, that would not be four and a half minutes ago.
Okay.
For sure.
Okay.
Oh, no, no.
I mean, you know, it's weird.
Life's not all beer and Skittles, John.
Hmm.
Beer and Skittles.
I don't know what it means either.
I think it's probably English.
But it's like a torture or a lorry.
But, you know, I've liked to think for a lot of my life, especially as a white man, that, like, I get a lot.
Yeah.
And the older I get, the less I get.
But what I get is how much I don't get, which I guess is a form of self-knowledge, but I don't prefer it.
What did you just learn recently about yourself four minutes ago?
Why, for example, did I delay the show for 15 minutes, then 20 minutes, and then 30 minutes?
For example?
Yeah.
I'm talking about the show on the show.
Fuck it.
I'm an open wound at this point.
I was reading a blog about all of the unexploded ordinance in no man's land in France and how they've closed off big stretches of it because it's –
toxic and explosive and uh and it got to be like the internet it got to but none of those spots are closed off it got to the point where we were about to record the show and i was like oh but i'm right in the middle of this blog post about all the old trenches that are filled with bombs and you were like hey can we delay 10 minutes and i was like absolutely in fact i said be in sir you did you did say be in sir i couldn't even tell if that was spelled right i was so busy being wrong over here with my audio
I like that question, though, because you're being encouraging and you're being positive.
And something I wouldn't say – what does one say?
It's not that you're a negative person.
I mean, are you a great man?
Yes.
You are.
See?
I love this new direction we're taking.
I just gave myself one.
That's so interesting.
Unexploded in Ordnance.
Because right before I broke all my audio, trying to fix my audio –
QED.
I was watching.
I decided to go on a little bit of a Ken Burns kick.
I was watching.
It's called The War, which is his World War Two documentary.
Everybody's got one.
Yep.
What?
Opinions, assholes.
World War Two documentaries.
Sudetenland Scoob.
So what did you just discover?
You just discovered, I mean, broken audio is one thing, but you discovered something about yourself.
I did.
I mean, it's discovered.
You know, you can pick.
You don't get to pick what happens to you.
Sometimes you may get to have some input on how you feel about it.
Yeah.
But you don't.
If you stay in the bath, Merlin, nothing's going to happen to you.
That's why I take such long baths.
I should take more baths.
We have a lot of lead.
You know what it is?
It's that – I don't know.
I'm kidding, but I'm not kidding, but I'm kidding, but I'm not kidding.
Sometimes it is funny as you get older and maybe become a little bit more vulnerable or open to the idea that you're not perfect.
You know, like I say, related to the whole, I think I understand things.
I was saying to a friend of mine yesterday, this weekend, I've been working on this audio thing.
It's a long story, but yeah, you know, it's funny to me.
I was saying this to a friend of mine who makes a lot of the...
And software applications that we podcasters use.
And I was saying it's so funny to me that, like, I love so much about what I do.
Like, who wouldn't?
Like, it's great.
I get to talk and it's not difficult, but it is funny how much of the actual...
I guess I'll say technology.
There's a better word for it.
But the stuff behind the stuff that lets me do what I do, how much of it I either – I just simply don't understand or I find to be such a black art, right?
Right.
Think about it.
You, obviously, have had to learn stuff about how a recording studio works or whatever, but it's just funny how much I'm just staring at things about how to record audio, don't understand why I'm getting bleed, all this stuff that most people spend a year learning before they...
release a single episode and i just keep using my busted setup until i go i put on my big boy big boy pants and go oh you know what i'm gonna fix my setup and then i try to fix my setup and i have no idea what is happening and that's that's a kind of self-knowledge i could do without you're muted you're still muted did you quit the show oh this is a good spot for an ad from from our friends at mac weldon
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We're back!
Yes, hello!
John, you were muted.
I didn't intentionally mute.
That was a thing.
That was a ghost in the machine.
Well, or Zenyatta Mandata.
My thing is, I know if I can talk... But you were talking about the machine, and then the machine...
Heard you.
It was an Alexa moment.
Alexa.
Oh, John.
Stop turning off my microphone.
That's another example is the smart home stuff.
But I don't know.
I feel like, yeah, I talk a lot.
But I don't understand how it gets recorded.
Yeah.
When I record with Ken, I have a setup, you know, on a setup.
Now, right now, I don't have – I mean, I have a setup right now.
I'm sitting on my couch.
Yeah.
I moved – I came into the room, and I saw that where I sit on the couch, which is the same place every day, which is to the right end of the couch –
I saw that the cushion is starting to have a John-shaped hole.
It's got a John-shaped divot.
John-shaped divot.
And I was like, oh, no, that is not – I am not going to go through this life leaving divots where I sit all the time.
That's not – It's nice that you have that kind of optimism for no reason.
I'm not RG Bunker.
You're a divot-making machine.
No, no, no.
So I moved down to the other end of the couch.
I'm on the left-hand side of the couch right now.
Oh, it's like rotating your tires but with your butt.
Exactly.
And I've got my laptop on the couch and then I've got my Apogee Quartet on the coffee table and right next to my copy of David Copperfield.
And I am living large.
But when I record with Ken, I sit at a table in a proper room and
And for the last four months, Ken has been saying, I hear a buzz.
And then I go.
I got a buzz.
I got a buzz.
I play back the audio.
Ken says, is the buzz on the audio?
And I go, yes.
And then I, here's what I do.
I wiggle everything.
I gently hit a couple things.
And then Ken says, the buzz went away.
And I go, good.
Oh, like almost like you've got – like I know I've got – see, now I'm going to do it, John.
Listen to me.
Okay, my guitar does the thing where it sounds like the beginning of somebody who thinks they're Sonic Youth where you include the sound of plugging in your quarter-inch jack.
But then I have to go – and I've got to jangle with it because I've got to get the broken weld or whatever in the right place of the solder.
I've got to fix my solder.
That's probably what that is, right?
I should go to a solderman.
Yeah, it's a solder.
I don't mess around with solder because I'm the world's worst solderer.
Huh.
You know, the thing about soldering is— I'm the world's worst supergluer, so maybe we should start a shop.
You know, that's another podcast, the world's worst supergluer.
I'm writing it down.
Fishing for compliments.
Oh, yeah, world's worst supergluer.
Why do you have a lot of topics this week?
I've got a broken lamp, and all it needs to be is superglued, and I look at it every day, and I go, not today, superglue.
Oh, I made some magnets.
I had the presence of mind when I had too many keyboards, especially keyboards didn't work.
But I had the presence of mind to pry off a bunch of keys from my old keyboard and I wanted to make magnets.
So I got some tiny rare earth magnets to put on the back of my keys and a little dollop of, you know, super style glue.
Super style glue.
It's everywhere.
everywhere it's on my fingers it's on it's on yeah luckily again because i know i know enough to know what i don't know i know huh i put down one of those pads i have those hobby pads hobby pad you know it's like when you see a douchebag youtube video somebody's painting their miniatures or they're cutting it's basically a cutting mat yeah they got a cutting mat hobby pad
Hobby bed.
About $100.
I did that, but I get it everywhere.
You don't like to glue, huh?
You got the letter six glued to your head now?
It's like my daughter.
I'm like, how did you get yogurt on your eyelash?
Why does your eyelid say escape?
Okay.
Shut up.
I cannot.
The thing about soldering is, and I've been told this a thousand times, it's all about economy.
You use the least amount of solder you can to finish the job.
Oh, that's smart.
It's like cornstarch.
That's so smart.
And I think that's true of super glue, too.
Yeah.
And I am a more is more guy.
You're using more than you think is the thing.
I put way more solder on there than I need, and then it's like it actually is worse.
At this point, it's more solder than pot.
That's right.
More solder than pot.
And it's worse.
It works worse, Lee.
Not pot.
Not pot.
Not a potentiominator.
But I guess like a jack.
A jack receiver.
All that stuff.
I can't solder it.
Which is a gel?
You know what?
I throw it away.
And a lot of that stuff comes... When you buy it at Guitar Center, they say, this has a lifetime guarantee.
And you're like, I know it doesn't.
And they're like, no, no, no.
I swear it does.
And I'm like...
I know for a fact this cable does not.
And if you take it back to Guitar Center, they're like, oh, you have to send that back to the company yourself.
Like, you can't bring it back here.
And I'm like, so here's your lifetime guarantee.
Everything's a jam up.
Right up your butt is what it is.
That's where it goes.
That's the jack holder.
Yeah.
Solder, podcast names.
Wait.
Oh, so yeah.
Yeah.
More solder than man.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I'm learning stuff about myself right now that feels not bad.
Well, see, it's a funny feeling.
It's an uncomfortable feeling.
Because, like, I usually hate – well, I don't love being wrong.
I would say in a lot of instances I hate being wrong.
And what do they call it, the blowback effect?
Like sometimes the more wrong I am, the more mad I am that you told me I'm wrong.
But there is something to going like, oh, that's kind of actually a good feeling.
I might be less fucked up if I learn from this rather than being mad that I have to change a little bit.
Just recently, I have been experiencing the sensation of I was wrong.
I was wrong.
You were wrong?
I was wrong.
About elections in Georgia?
I was wrong about elections in Georgia.
I was wrong about things.
Right.
And if you do that a lot, it hurts less.
Well, yeah.
And recently, I don't know, there's something that's changed in me where I am willing to have been wrong about things.
Right.
What the fuck are you talking?
Are you okay?
Who is this?
Well, I know I was wrong about certain things.
And a lot of those things I was wrong about myself.
Wow.
I'm so proud of you.
I mean, it sounds condescending, but like that takes a, that takes a lot of, I don't know.
Remember one time you said you think you might have a surplus of dignity?
Like it takes a different kind of dignity to go like, I still have, I still have integrity.
Yeah.
As a person, mostly.
And it's like I'm not diminished by not always being right.
Well, and having been wrong about things.
You don't ask me what the thing you realize you're wrong about is.
Well, yeah.
Having been wrong about myself is something because I'm so hard on myself.
That it's weird to have been wrong about yourself and have that be actually like a lightning, a lifting of a weight.
Because I was wrong about myself.
I thought that I needed this or I thought I was this way and that way I felt was immutable and I could never – there was nothing I could do about that.
And to have that – to have it actually be like you were wrong, which is a thing I say to myself all the time as a cut down –
but to have it be a revelation in terms of like, oh, wait a minute, I'm doing this thing right now that I didn't think I could do, that I thought I would never do.
I'm doing it.
How recently do you feel like this, I mean, was there a particular thing that made you realize this and then realize it?
Or like, this is recent?
Oh, it's all happening just very recently.
The hardest one has always been
I am just a man, a simple life form.
Just as God made you, sir.
I'm just as God made me, sir.
But habits, sitting and making a divot on the couch, doing the same thing every day, having dinner at six, being regular is not bad.
It's not negative.
It's not a failure.
Because at a time in life, that really feels like – remember the terrible thing people used to say all the time?
Like, you know, if you can't be good or successful, there's one thing, you know – well, I think the phrase is people say, those who can do, those who can't teach.
Which is, I think, the older I get, the more awful that sounds to me.
Because whether or not it's true, it's a ridiculous disservice to the majority of people who are working their ass off for almost no money being teachers.
But you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It doesn't feel like a fallback position.
It doesn't feel like a safety school.
I don't know if that makes sense.
Yeah, but I always, always, always thought that if I did something once, it was a mistake.
If I did it twice, it was jazz.
If I did it three times, it was the new melody.
Right?
And if I did it four times, it was starting to get stale.
And five times, it was a cliché.
And so I never did anything five times.
You order different.
Let me just review for our listeners off the dome.
You and your mom like taking different routes to go places.
You rarely take the same route twice to go anywhere.
I don't even say it the same way twice.
Route route?
Route route, Reggie.
Or you like to order something different.
Even if it's a restaurant you like, you tend to get, if you have a favorite food, like the green noodle place, I'll bet you'd still try different things there.
This is part of your thing.
Cranberry sauce.
It's no, I buried Paul.
Cranberry sauce.
Cranberry sauce.
Miss and miss.
And you see, there's a grandfather left you.
What is that, King Lear?
What do they do in Revolution No.
9?
They do like – it's King Lear, I think.
King Lear, yeah.
Uh-huh.
Turn me on, Dead Man.
This is a good show.
It's a good episode.
But the problem is that also extended to relationships, right?
Like when I was dating somebody and I went over to her house on Tuesday –
And I went over to her house on Wednesday, even if we were even if I would go over there and we would kiss different disguises.
No, no.
By Thursday, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
I've been over to your house two days.
Like I got to like have a day where I where I don't go over to your house.
And she would go, why is that true?
Why wouldn't you come to my house three days in a row?
And I would go, well, the third day, I mean, the second day, it's jazz.
The third day, I mean, we're starting to write a melody.
I think you're making a jazz reference.
You're making like a Louis Armstrong reference.
The third one is it's the new sound?
It's the new melody.
Oh, it's the new melody.
Okay.
And I'm improv-ing, right?
You don't repeat the same melody.
And this was an idea I had about myself.
Oh, no, no, no.
As far as you know, you've had that for a real long time.
Through adult life, right?
Through adult life.
And I developed it at some point as a kid or a teenager.
Like, wait a minute, you can't walk the same way to school every day because even if it's the fastest way, even if you've determined it's the fastest way, at least when you come to that tree, you have to go around the other side of it today because what's over there?
What if you go around the other side of it and there's a leprechaun with a pot of gold?
A question quickly.
I think I know the answer to this.
Is it that feeling the need to do different things feels right or is it more that, my guess, repeating yourself is wrong?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's that.
Part of it is a quest for novelty or for new experiences because you're a seeker.
You seek.
But part of it is like – and then what is the negative feeling that you associate with in your mind repeating yourself?
You feel like you're played?
Like you're kind of lame?
How do you feel?
No, that it's soft.
Uh-huh.
That – Oh, you're not testing yourself.
Yeah, that digging a rut –
That making a trail.
You're making a divot.
You know, it's right there in, you know, two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by Merlin.
It's right there in the poem.
And in the end, that has made all the difference.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
That's right.
That's right.
So it's right.
There's nothing in the world.
Neil Peart is a great drummer, but he might be the smartest dumb guy in the world.
Neil Peart has said it all.
He's said it all already.
I've been listening to a lot of Peter Tosh recently.
Peter Tosh has said it all, but he only uses like 11 words in any song.
yeah oh yeah it's like that's that and there's the chorus but that's a lot of our best music that's also that's kind of like it's andrew wk in some ways that's the ramones you know so so recently the last two weeks i have been at 10 o'clock looking at my time piece and
You pull out your waistcoat.
I put my timepiece out of my waistcoat.
Like a cartoon frog.
I put my monocle in.
And I say, hmm, it's 10 o'clock.
I should be getting ready for bed.
As previously referenced, previously on Roderick on the Line, you mentioned that you were going to bed earlier and more regularly, I think as recently as last week.
Yes.
Now, one month ago, at 4 o'clock in the morning...
I would look at my timepiece.
That's your timepiece with your monocle.
And I would say, oh, boy.
Do I really have to go to bed?
It's 4 in the morning.
I'll do this again.
You have to get up at 10.
And every second you stay awake now is eating away at your precious sleep, which you need to live.
And then at 5 in the morning, I would be like, you have to get up at 10 a.m.
What are you doing to your – every night I would say this for years.
It's 4.30 in the morning.
My God, man.
Have some self-love.
And now for the last, what, three weeks maybe at 10 o'clock p.m., I pull my timepiece out and I go, ugh.
time for bed.
And what that means is I've been waking up between seven and eight in the morning of my, you just wake up your eyes open and you look around and you go, huh, I'm awake.
And that,
And then you look at your timepiece, which is there on your nightstand next to your pitcher of water.
You put it in your morning monocle next to your wash bowl with your flannel that you use.
And I take my sleeping cap off.
Pull out your hurricane lamp.
And I go, ah, I have slept for eight hours.
And it is morning.
And I get up and I pad in my stocking feet my little pointy-toed slippers with the little tassel on the end of the toe.
A visit from St.
John.
And I pad my little jewel-encrusted tortoise.
And I walk and I go – I have my morning ablutions and I call them that out loud.
Ah, my morning ablutions.
Do you sometimes take a morning constitutional?
I don't.
I don't.
Because that will help you avoid the grip and dropsy and rickets.
It does.
It does.
I go into the kitchen.
I make a coffee and it doesn't feel like one of those – it doesn't feel like that kind of labor where it's like –
If I could say, it sounds like you're not waking up with fearful dread, guilt, and self-loathing as much.
None of those.
And this particular thing, not only have I...
have I believed for decades was impossible for me to do, but I've also equated it with everything that I don't want in life.
I've equated it with being regular.
I've equated it with mid-century modern architecture.
I've equated it with Republican Party politics.
New Yorker tote bag.
When I wake up, when on those many, many, many, many, many thousands of times that I have been awake at six in the morning,
Or 7 in the morning and out in the streets trying to find my way back home.
And I've seen the people bustling.
Those bustlers.
They bustle.
And I look at them and I go... And they don't seem to mind it.
I mean, they're not always happy.
But, like, I don't know how you have a necktie on and you're on public transportation at 8 a.m.
Like, I can do it, like, for jury duty or the occasional job.
But, boy, I don't know.
I mean, now, this sounds unkind.
Maybe it's one of the reasons I don't like neckties and necktie culture.
But it's that I'm like, man, I really don't want that.
I don't want to be stuck in that...
Like you're up because you're trying to find your way home.
But like this, I mean, it's like, I don't know.
I think of that Jackson Brown lawyers in love video.
You just imagine lines of people, almost like something from a Monty Python sketch, just all people with the same briefcase and bowler hat, like walking in lockstep, you know, Pink Floyd style.
Back on the chain gang.
I've written that song on three different occasions.
You can see that and go like, oh, that's not for me.
Not for me.
Yeah, you're reinventing yourself every day.
But it's all about all the things that I didn't want to be, all the ways that I couldn't.
And the thing is that that's what happened.
It became I couldn't.
I couldn't do that.
I could never do it.
And as time went on – It seemed impossible, you say.
Yeah, and I was broken by the lack of sleep.
I was broken by all of my –
Ways that I couldn't – it wasn't just conform, that I couldn't even conform to my own needs, my bodily needs.
I was fighting myself every day, fighting, fighting, fighting every need.
And I trained myself to –
believe it about myself so that i felt cursed but you weren't but you weren't happy or i don't know if happy is the right word but it seems to me that you had an ongoing you still had friction in your life because some it sounds like some voice in your head would say when you when you put on your night monocle and pick up your timepiece you go oh it's 10 o'clock or whatever or more likely it's 3 30 yeah and then but like you still felt a sense of like
I mean, this is a question.
You didn't feel like, oh, well, this is just how I am and what I do.
Never.
You still felt a sense of like, I should and do feel bad about this, right?
Yeah, because I wanted to live in a 27-hour day.
I wanted to stay up until four, sleep eight hours, and wake up in time to be part of the world.
You basically wanted to be like 16 on summer vacation.
Yeah.
No, I mean in the sense of like your body can take anything and each day is a nearly full reset, which for me is absolutely not the case anymore.
There's too much continuity in my life.
There is a dawn that is made by God.
And there is a dusk.
And in Seattle, the dawn and dusk in January, it's pretty tight.
You know, it's like 8.30 in the morning is the dawn and 4.45 at night is the dusk.
And it's just, and it's not, the dawn and the dusk are not social constructs.
The bowler hat people did not put the dawn, I mean, daylight savings time notwithstanding, they did not put the dawn where they wanted it.
to try and frustrate me oh they've just learned to accommodate the dawn and the dusk like most adults yeah the dawn the dawn is there the dusk is there you choose you get to they don't get they don't get mad at either they don't get mad or i mean there are disappointed in themselves about the relationship with exactly there are billions of people where the dawn and the dust have no bearing on how they feel about themselves
Oh, my God.
That would be amazing.
I mean, insert Don or Dusk with like a million things.
Oh, my God.
Imagine if I were not affected by things.
Oh, my God.
If I were not affected by things, right?
The fact that the Earth is there and holds us up every day is not a personal attack or affront.
And every day for my entire adult life, I have opened my eyes and my first thought is, where am I in relation to Dawn?
How much have I used already?
How much have I squandered?
How much do I have left?
I have so much less left than others before the dark.
So you're kind of always behind in some ways.
Always.
Is that fair to say?
Always.
Because you know how it is when you sleep.
Your paper is constantly overdue even though there's not really a paper.
Your paper is overdue.
You got to get to the bank.
You get there.
Oh, it closed 10 minutes ago.
You got to get to the – oh, the model train store closes at 4 because those guys are in bed by 8.
Yeah.
How are you ever going to get a model – how are you ever even going to start building your model train?
You can't get – also, they're closed Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.
How are you ever going to make it?
How do you make it?
And I always – How do you keep it all straight?
I mean – And I live in the dark.
I live in this dark world full of vampires.
There's nobody else there.
We don't like each other.
Semi-permanent dusk.
It's like alcoholics.
They don't – you get done drinking.
You say, I'm not going to drink anymore because –
Alcoholics are assholes.
And then you get out into the world of alcoholics – or you get out into the world of normals.
And you're like, I'm a normal now.
It's clear right away you're not a normal.
I can't hang with these normals.
You end up only –
finding solace with other alcoholics who have stopped drinking, and they're the worst people.
That's how you end up with a George W. Bush.
They're the worst.
I mean, that guy.
Forget it.
Forget about it.
I bet he's nice.
Anyway, I wake up in the morning, and...
The first conflict of every day, which is how much have I squandered?
How mad should I be?
How disappointed should I be in myself?
How disappointed should I be in myself?
Isn't that fair, though?
Isn't that kind of how you feel?
Absolutely.
And it's off the table.
It's gone.
Because I wake up and I look out and the sun is coming up and I go, what am I, a farmer?
Yes.
I am a farmer.
You're a farmer of the mind.
I'm a farmer.
The farmer has already had pancakes by this hour, but leaves him aside.
He's already had two different kinds of biscuits and he's not mad at the sun.
No, he's out there.
He's out there.
He's out there turning his ochre or whatever.
He's feeding the whatevers.
He's out in his corn.
There's people – there's little critters out there that are also getting up because – and getting up uncomplicatedly.
The little things that are waking up at dawn.
Let's summarize it.
It doesn't seem this hard for anybody else.
So I look out, and I go, oh.
And I get up, and the coffee doesn't feel like, oh, I got to get this coffee in me before I talk to Merlin.
So halfway through the show, I start to be able to think.
Like, instead, the coffee...
It's a little bit of a joy, a treat.
It's like, oh, it's morning.
I can have a coffee.
Hey, what do you know about them apples?
It's interesting.
It's almost like you don't feel – I don't know if this is fair or accurate or anything, but it seems to apply to a lot of things.
I remember at one point in life, probably in the 90s, when ADHD was first becoming a big topic.
And they described kids who have this, unlike me, how the H part is a primary struggle for them, the hyperactivity, if you like.
And they say, you know, it's like you're being driven by a motor.
And like you don't know there's a motor and you don't know how to turn it off and it's not making you happy.
And sometimes that's very valuable for me to realize.
It's like right now I'm acting like a person who's being driven by a motor and it's not making me happy.
Do you know what I mean?
Is it kind of that feeling of, like, there's something pushing me, like, all the time?
Like, go, go, push, push, go, go.
And, like, who is this asshole and why does he keep pushing me?
What's his deal?
What's this guy's deal?
Yeah, fucking chill out, man.
So there are 30 things in a day that I still chastise myself about.
Like, yesterday at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, I was like, hey, you haven't had any food today.
Why don't you have some food?
Yeah.
And I was like, huh, what do you know?
How did you get this number?
Who are you?
Yeah, what the fuck?
I went and I pulled out some Trader Joe's chicken parmesan out of the freezer.
And I cooked it.
And I plated it.
Oh, you plated it?
I plated it.
I went out to my dining room table.
Aren't you a fancy Dutchess?
I sure am.
I am a fancy Dutchess.
Your time pieces and your plating.
And I plated my food and I went out and I sat alone at my dining room table that seats six.
And I started to eat it.
And about halfway through, I said, oh, wait, this is one of those miserable bachelor meals.
I'm sitting at an empty dining room table.
eating a frozen parmesan and it's not very good and i had oh it was one of those where i microwaved it and then i went and sat down and i took a bite and the and the middle of it was cold and i had to get up and re-microwave it it's parchment food and i was like that's what i felt i felt like oh this is
This is bad.
And it's not the worst.
I've eaten way worse.
I've been way sadder.
I've sat at much larger tables alone.
You're totally at liberty, not totally, but you're largely at liberty to make a whole host of decisions about your life.
especially at that given time, maybe less so when you're like eight or nine years old.
But you're a grown-ass man that has a freezer.
You probably got chili in there somewhere.
You could have whatever, but what you've chosen for yourself – but it sounds like the important part is you caught it.
You noticed it and went, what is this?
What was this decision?
I noticed it, and I still feel like, hmm, it is true that there are no fresh vegetables in this meal or anything fresh.
It is true that I have chosen this because it's the path of least resistance.
Am I capable – if I'm capable of getting up at 8 o'clock in the morning or 7.30 even, am I capable of –
Eating better than this on my own where I'm not performing for someone by eating a vegetable.
I love the tone of this, John.
This is so different from the tone that you've – this isn't too personal, but it strikes me that for years the tone has been much more –
of your what do you want to call it the voice the monologue whatever the tone has been much more like what the fuck is your problem why are you so bad at everything why have you disappointed your family and like why do you think you deserve anything better than than cold frozen food yeah that combined with resignation like slumped shoulders over the over the parmesan like as with the sleep stuff well i guess this is just how i am
This is me.
This is, this is as good as I deserve and as, and as much as I'm capable of.
Yeah.
And so I don't know, like a couple of times in the last, well, a couple, three, four times in the last three weeks, I have gotten derailed.
I've looked at the, I've looked at my time piece and it's been one o'clock in the morning and I'm like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa.
How did I get here?
How did I get to one o'clock in the morning?
And in every instance, the answer is my phone.
My phone has taken me here.
Yeah.
My phone has brought me here because I was looking at world war one unexploded ordinance, or I was, you know, who knows what following some dumb ass thing.
I made the mistake of reading the news and the news.
Every time you read the news, it's like this white girl went missing and
Or listen to what Trump said today.
I know.
Or... Just constantly keeping you off balance.
It's awful.
And then for some reason... Here's your update on the thing you didn't know to be more scared of today.
I must have clicked on something that was like, did you know how Eddie Van Halen tuned his guitar?
And now my phone...
Through the through the portal of Google News thinks that every day I want to hear what Ted Nugent said about Eric Clapton.
That same thing happened to me where Google News thinks I always want to know updates on what to eat and how to attend Disney theme parks.
And I keep clicking the dongest that says show fewer articles like this.
That's how – that's my only source of exercise at this point is muting people on Twitter and saying – but today, for example, I got one that's like – I think it was the New York Times maybe.
It was like, here's why I finally broke up with the Beatles.
Or like, here's why everybody should hate John Mulaney.
And it's like, oh, I know.
You're doing a turns out.
And you're doing the thing.
You're doing the classic BuzzFeed gawker blog thing of like, look at me.
I'm a contrarian.
Or am I?
Fuck off.
Just keep hitting that dongus.
I just don't know.
But then whose fault is that?
That I'm even there and seeing the dongus?
It's like, what the fuck am I doing reading Google News?
What am I going to do differently today when I learn about Eric Clapton's vaccine stamps?
Yeah.
Thank you.
Right?
Like, I have gone 40 years of my life not caring what Ted Nugent thinks.
And I saw Ted Nugent one time.
My friend and I were downtown, and we were baked.
And we were walking around.
It was the middle of the day.
Oh, you mean you literally saw him?
We're stoned.
It's the middle of winter.
We're walking downtown in Anchorage.
I don't know doing what.
There's nothing to do walking around in Anchorage.
But when you're stoned, everything is amazing.
It's a journey.
Yeah.
We're walking along.
We go past the convention center, which at the time was newly built on Fifth Avenue in Anchorage.
We're walking past it, and there are a bunch of dudes, and it's very clearly a bunch of
It's like some kind of sober event.
And the way you can tell a sober event in Alaska is all these dudes that look so haggard.
But they're not presently – they look so haggard that they look always drunk.
Yeah, and I've heard – one phrase for that I've heard – I sometimes find myself thinking it.
He looks like he's been rode hard and hung up wet.
Rode hard and hung up wet.
But when you see a group of 50 people that look always drunk but clearly none of them are drunk, you have to say, well, this has got to be a sober event because this group of guys – There's my people.
You know what I mean?
Like the only time you would see this many guys – Yeah, but you've got a special eye for that probably.
I do.
I do.
Yeah.
And so I walk up to this group and I'm – what am I?
I'm in high school.
And I say to this little gaggle of guys at the – oh, and also these guys would never be at the convention center.
Like the two worlds never collide.
Even though they would all be on Fourth Avenue, this is Fifth Avenue.
And in Anchorage – Oh, as in like in town for a convention?
Yeah, that kind of place.
Okay.
Okay.
But like the difference between 4th Avenue and 5th Avenue in Anchorage is like the difference between Washington, D.C.
and Baltimore.
It couldn't be – they couldn't be further apart.
One block.
And I say to a guy, what's going on?
And he says, Ted Nugent is playing.
And so my friend Peter and I were like, well.
And we walked – marched right in.
Marched into one of those big convention rooms, which is like all the folding chairs, all facing what today would be a PowerPoint demonstration.
Wait a minute.
So he was like the entertainment for a corporate event?
For a sober event.
Oh, because he famously is against one way that he's like Frank Zappa.
I think he's kind of famously against drugs, correct?
Against drugs.
He's in favor.
Why do they call it dope anyway?
He's in favor of marrying 13 year olds, but he's against drugs.
Well, you've got to make an honest girl of her.
And it's a thing where the stage is two feet high.
Oh, no.
Right?
So this is what you're talking about in the 80s or 90s?
This is 1987.
Oh, Theodore.
The stage is two feet high.
The room is lit with fluorescent light.
Oh, no.
And this was meant for somebody to stand up there and go, employee of the month is.
Yeah, we want to talk about some of our needle moving new projects.
So we walk in and there are hundreds of dudes in big overcoats that they got for free from the pipeline.
Uh, and just like, and they're all kind of sitting on these chairs.
Yeah.
But nobody's really looking at the stage.
They're all kind of just like, and so we, we, these two high school kids, we walk all the way up to the front row.
We walk right to the stage.
He just waltzed in high?
Because there's, and we're fucking stoned.
And there's nobody in the first couple of rows because it's, because every single one of these 600 dudes were the guys that never sat in the front row of class, right?
Tango, I'm getting wet today.
They walk into a room like this and they're like, I can't – you know, I'm not going to sit in the front.
They're all the people that hang in the back.
They've been to meetings.
They know out of nowhere somebody might ask them some questions or share their learnings.
So we sit down in the front seat, the front row, and –
The backing band is already there.
And they're clearly – This sounds like a dream.
This sounds so much like a dream.
And it's totally a dream.
And I wouldn't believe it either.
But there was a bar out in Spenard in Anchorage called Mr. White Keys Flying Circus or something.
And Mr. White Keys was a guy in Anchorage who was like a –
He was like a Weird Al.
Who was the guy that Weird Al learned all his tricks from?
Alan Sherman.
He had a radio show.
Oh, like Dr. Demento?
Dr. Demento.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mr. White Keys was a Dr. Demento.
Mr. White Keys, huh?
Mr. White Keys.
So he plays only major key songs.
He's a little more complicated than that.
Okay, fair.
He would write a show and he had a cast of like- Did he do parody songs or like- Absolutely.
And they were all about Alaska.
Oh, John.
And it was a big thing in Anchorage.
You would go out to see Mr. White Keys.
Mr. White Keys, okay.
And his shows would be like contemporary.
Like he'd talk about-
Well, last week in the legislature, a guy said he— Oh, so it's a little bit with that Mark What's-His-Name guy, the PBS music comedian who does topical songs, you know, Debt Limit, Debt Limit, or whatever, right?
Right.
And then the improv comics would come out and do, like, a show—
Uh, where they're singing along to like, I'm in the legislature and you can't have any gold.
And then, you know, the other person would be like, I don't even remember.
And they would dress sometimes like salmon.
They, you know, they had like a, like I have somebody slipped something in my seltzer.
Um,
Are you shitting me?
Big sunglasses and costumes and feather boas.
And people like it?
In the 80s, there was no hotter ticket in Anchorage.
No hotter ticket.
You know, like you hear that term, that disparaging term.
I've used this about myself.
We've heard of women here, but we say, oh, she's like a Sarasota 7.
Oh, yeah, Sarasota 7.
You know what I mean?
Or whatever.
So he's like an Alaska 8.
In LA, maybe not so much.
He's not going to be at the whiskey.
But Mr. White Keys is killing it on the Alaska circuit, right?
This was a big show.
It was a review because it was contemporary.
It felt like it was teasing.
Sure.
That is some effort.
Yeah, he seemed smart, even though he was wearing a top hat and a bow tie that squirted
that squirted water out of it.
You can't get rid of those cars.
He had a top hat and tails, except maybe they had Christmas lights sewed into them.
And people ate this shit up.
So we sit down in the front row, and we look up, and the backing band that's already on stage is Mr. White Keys and his band.
You instantly recognize it's Mr. White Keys.
Oh, yeah.
I've seen Mr. White Keys' show several times because – and never with my own parents because my own parents were like Mr. White Keys.
But my girlfriend's parents would take me to Mr. White Keys and they would laugh themselves stupid –
watching this show.
Oh my gosh.
So I'd seen it and I'm like, holy shit, it's Mr. White Keys in his game.
Rubbing your hands together like, here we go.
But Mr. White Keys is not in his tucks and tails.
He's dressed as a, like a rock person.
which I had never seen before, and it was like seeing Captain Kangaroo.
Like a Halloween rock and roll dad?
Yeah.
It was like seeing Captain Kangaroo on the street wearing jeans.
It was just like, who the fuck are you?
That's wild.
He doesn't have the suit.
But you could tell.
You could tell it was Mr. Wykey's.
And then out a side door, up onto the two-foot-tall stage, comes Nugent with his guitar, his real guitar, and the band launches into Great White Buffalo.
Wow.
Wow.
And it was the most searing great white buffalo I'd ever seen.
It was eight minutes long.
Nugent's all over the place.
Mr. White Keys and his band are killing it.
And I mean, we're baked, but we are just like head blown back.
You're very brave to sit there in the front row, in this room, lit the way.
There's so much about this that would be a red flag for me, setting aside the nuge.
I really admire, I'm not kidding, I admire your ability to do this.
This was the, Peter and I used to sneak into strip clubs by pulling our hat.
This is where you saw Lola, right?
Yeah, that's right.
By pulling, and I was with Peter.
Pulling our hats down low and drawing a little ink pen mustache on.
This was like not even in the top 10 how did you get there kind of things.
But it was just the fact of it.
Nugent in the middle of the day in a convention center sober party with Mr. White Keys' band –
And then at the end of Great White Buffalo.
The fabulous spam tones?
Yeah, the spam.
Yeah.
Oh, that was the other thing.
John, he's got a Wikipedia entry.
And I didn't want to look because I didn't know if he was real.
But I'm learning about the Fly By Night Club.
Oh, the Fly By Night Club.
There it is.
And they sang about spam.
They had like a big hit.
John did not make this up.
No, no, no.
They had spam and salmon and all these things.
It was a whole universe.
Spam and salmon.
Spam and salmon.
And then Nugent got done with this tune and we were just like, we just saw the greatest thing in our lives.
And then he gave a five minute long speech about how he never once in his life used drugs because drugs are for losers.
And he's saying this to a bunch of guys who have only not been on drugs for 16 hours.
And it's the he does not get it.
He does not read the room.
This is not about how cool Ted Nugent is for never having done drugs.
This is about all these dudes just fresh off the street.
And he's like, drugs, man.
Am I right?
Drugs are for losers.
Because, you know, I never did drugs.
Drugs fucking suck.
And I can tell you what.
And so we watched this whole show.
He knew where he was.
And was he giving what he perceived to be like a pep talk or almost like an award ceremony?
Like each of you was the best vacuum cleaner salesman in your district.
Like he's giving a congratulatory speech.
It's a congratulatory speech because they're not on – these guys are sober now and so, you know, they're – like today is the dawn of a brand new day except that his whole take on it, it's like, you know, one of – I stopped seeing my psychiatrist recently because my psychiatrist – he's a medical doctor as is true of all psychiatrists.
But he met his wife when they were –
interns you know when they were internists or whatever when they were i know what you mean when they were uh like residents residents and my wife works with residents that's the only reason i know the word there you go and she was a doctor and they fell in love what are they 24 maybe and they got married and they had three kids and they live in a beautiful house and they ski on the weekends and they're very healthy
But his practice of talk therapy involved him replying to me when I would say, yeah, you know, I stay up all night and I never go to my girlfriend's house more than three days in a row because it feels like I'm getting into – it feels like I'm making a divot on her couch and who wants to do that?
And he would say –
Well, you know, one thing you might try is marrying your high school sweetheart when you're 24.
Because that really worked for me.
He's like the guy who runs a place and only makes food the way he likes it.
Yeah.
And then charges you like $400 an hour.
He doesn't have any idea of another universe.
Yeah.
Oh, gross.
Because that's the one he lived in, and that's the one.
John, I don't blame you.
Oh, no.
The thing is, he's a nice guy, and he was the one that treated my bipolar, but it's the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist.
I trust you're the lady doctor, the one who got you all fixed up with all your things.
Oh, well, she was my MD, but she said very unceremoniously one day, I was sitting in there,
Saying like, well, here's another thing that I want to argue with you about.
And then you can tell me what the real thing is because I trust you now.
And she said, I am leaving private.
I'm leaving my practice.
Whoa.
Because I've been appointed to head up the Swedish hospital.
What?
Weight clinic.
So not weight loss, but... It's about becoming patient?
It's about weight.
W-E-I-G-H-T in some way.
Oh, I see.
I thought it was a different kind of weight, different kind of patience.
No, it's like being weighed.
I don't know.
She's heading up a department and she's... That sounds made up, John.
I would say, why don't you give that another try and just tell me the truth.
Just say you don't like me.
Just tell me the truth.
Just tell me the truth.
But all of a sudden, I was without a doctor again.
And I was like, I don't want to be out.
You know, you're in your 50s.
You should be my doctor until we're both in our 80s.
And she was like, no, man.
They shouldn't be allowed to quit like that.
That's not cool.
I got other shit to do.
And I was like, I've been abandoned by so many doctors.
If your mechanic retires, when our mechanic retired, you know, because we finally found a mechanic that we liked.
And I told you about this guy.
The guy's amazing.
And he's very much the model for what I want in a doctor.
Yeah.
Right?
This is the guy who famously says stuff like, well, he has like three classes of things.
He's like, here's the stuff that I will not let you drive away without fixing.
Here's the stuff that you're definitely going to want to replace, like that timing belt.
And then here's some nice to haves, you know?
Yeah, there you go.
But we never got a lecture.
We never got a lecture.
And then, you know, he got eye surgery and then he retired and he sold the place.
But I said, Hakuna Matata.
Good for you, Jerry.
Hakuna Matata.
Also, our mechanic was a gay man, which I thought was kind of cool.
Yeah.
That is nice.
It's nice to meet like a 65-year-old gay man who gets his eyes fixed and then retires.
I'm all about that.
And he's your mechanic.
See, that's wonderful.
But a doctor, especially when they're going to the pun clinic, that's no good.
My mechanic was a grunge rock bass player who also fixed Eddie Vedder's car.
And he one day retired on me.
And I was like, you can't retire.
And he said, I'm going to open a bar.
And I said, but I have a suburban that needs a guy like your guy who says, don't replace the fan belt and you should fix the radio.
But really what you need is me to rebuild the top end.
And then one day he retired, and I said, well, surely you have to know somebody else that still works.
You're not allowed to leave without setting me up with somebody better.
And he said, I don't know anyone.
Oh, he's like a lone wolf, huh?
He's a lone wolf, and now I'm screwed.
Now I'm screwed, blued, and tattooed.
Oh, dear.
That's no good.
But I'm seeing a psychologist now, and he just sits there for an hour and listens.
And the first time I went in, I said, look, I podcast for a living.
I'm used to talking.
I talk to my friends about my problems.
So I have no idea what I'm going to say to you that's any different.
And I don't know why I'm here, frankly, except that I need to get my bipolar medicine and I've outgrown my psychiatrist.
My shrink and I still Zoom once a month because the medicine, the prescription that I have, like, you're required to have, like, monthly check-ins.
Yes.
You know what I mean?
But we mostly end up talking about home automation.
Yeah.
I went into him and I was like, I can set you up with him.
I don't know if he's taking new people, but my guy will just sit there and he's pretty cool.
But then sometimes his nuttiness comes out a little bit in a way that I find really gratifying.
But he doesn't even say, how do you feel about that?
He's not a therapist.
I think my guy is a therapist.
I've been going to him every week and I sit down in the – because I go in person.
And I sit down on the couch and he goes, what's been going on?
And I start to go, well, this and that and I'm a little bit about this and I'm a little insecure about that and this thing has been bothering me and this is like a win on my mind.
And he goes, hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
And then it's been an hour.
Do you ever feel like he's doing or thinking about something else?
Maybe doing a crossword or something?
No, no, no.
He's engaged.
He's like...
He's totally there.
Does he get your jokes?
He does.
That's important.
He's a nerd.
I couldn't see anybody who didn't get my jokes.
And I can tell.
I can tell.
He's a nerd.
And so it's a little bit like talking to somebody from the Joko Cruise that's smart, but also not 100%.
Like on my wavelength.
Like going to see Amy Mann every month.
Yeah, a little bit.
But Amy Mann will actually say, oh, well, that's because of this about your childhood, and she's almost always wrong.
Maybe it's more like going to see Storm once a month.
It's exactly like going to see Storm.
Storm would be really good at that.
Because you can tell he's smart, and he could say more, but he doesn't.
He's good at listening.
That's right.
Mm-hmm.
And, but when I say something like, well, you know, this would not be popular to say, but I believe that it's true.
He goes, and he doesn't, he doesn't recoil.
Like he doesn't go, well, you can't say that.
No, no, no.
He can't, he's got no, there's no element.
And I know it's not that he's pretending he's there and he's like,
Yeah, I'm a 59-year-old guy, and believe you me.
I also would periodically like to hear something like, eh, I've heard worse.
Oh, he says that to me all the time.
No shit.
I might want to get a second psychiatrist or psychologist in this case.
As I get up from the office, he said to me not very long ago, he was like, it's really great to talk to somebody who doesn't feel like they're on the absolute verge of exploding.
Yeah.
And I'm like, wow, thank you.
That's actually a wonderful compliment.
And he was like, yeah, I mean, you know, it's just a pleasure to sit and talk to you.
That must be so stressful.
I mean, as professional as you would need to be or he would need to be, that still just must be so stressful to go, oh, no, my 915 is that person.
Yeah.
Oh, I feel that for him.
I hope they're here, but I kind of hope they're not here.
But if they're not here, I'll be worried why they're not here.
And like, ugh.
Yeah, like I walk out and the next guy is balancing a switchblade on the tip of his finger and I'm like, oh, man.
Do the little knife game?
Yeah, the little – I'm like, oh, no.
Bishop.
I would go see Bishop.
I think he'd be a good listener.
What about Ted Nugent?
Are you done with Ted Nugent?
Is that it?
I don't – this is why I stay –
up at night to to read google news tell me that ted nugent thinks that eric clapton's take eric clapton's song with van morrison didn't go far enough in in being against vaxes or whatever and i'm like i stayed up to 1 a.m for this yes right but what's crazy is over the last three weeks i've gotten to that 1 a.m place i've turned off the light and i've gone to sleep
I've woken up at 7 anyway, and I've gotten up out of bed, and I've had a coffee, and I've sat down, and I've started to work on something.
John, that's amazing.
That night, I go to bed at 10 or 10.30.
And you don't despise the dusk?
No, and I have not.
I don't toast the day before the twilight, and I don't despise the dusk.
I don't ask the dust.
And I get back.
I can't tell if that's you or T.S.
Eliot or someone else.
Ask of the Dust is John Fonte.
Don't curse the day before the twilight is a Hungarian proverb.
Oh, that's a good one.
What about, you know, like that Polish one, Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys?
That's a good one, too.
That is a really good one.
Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys.
I know another good one.
My friend Marcus says, sometimes in life, it's not your fault, but it's still your problem.
I love that one.
Oh, that happens all the time.
All the time.
The thing is, I have never had a problem where I didn't think it was my fault.
Of course.
Now, you're losing some of the tidiness of that terrible broken logic.
But on the other hand, you're also not, you know, the show art this week is going to be an owl with a clock.
Because every time you talk about your timepiece, I think of you looking like an owl.
But that's good stuff to give up.
One, two, three.
Mr. Al.
Boy, that used to be on a lot.
But you sound – I don't want to curse the darkness with the sun or whatever.
There's thrice the sun's done salutation.
You sound good.
Maybe the sleep is not bad for you.
Maybe the timepiece, the change of mind, attitude is not bad.
Maybe this is not bad.
Yeah.
But there's a voice still that as I look out the window right now and go, do I sound good?
There's the voice that's like, yeah, you sound good because you sound like someone who has surrendered unto the middle.
Oh, and now you're the necktie guy.
I've surrendered unto the comfortable middle.
Now I own a piece of property and I'm sitting somewhere and I'm like, boy, taxes are sure high.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And what's that?
I hear the voice of Jochen saying, well, you used to do interesting things, but now it seems like you watch a lot of television.
And I'm like, ah, I can't.
Yeah, but again, I'm going to quote myself.
It's nice and it's laudable in life to get better.
And feel free to disagree, but I do honestly feel that before you can get better, you have to stop getting worse.
And it sounds like you stopped getting worse.
Right?
Are you there?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, I thought I lost you or you maybe had done some self-harm.
I just mean in the sense of, like, you don't even want the white ribbon.
You don't want a ribbon.
You don't want to open the diploma because it might be a diploma.
What I'm saying to you is that, like, hey, just because you're not a thousand percent exactly how you have decided you need to be, if you're less the way you prefer not to be, that's still, forgive my saying, a little bit of a victory.
I know you won't savor it, but I will.
I think what's influencing it is I've been writing every morning in my book about my walk, which has been an albatross around my neck now for 22 years.
This book that I wanted to finish in 2001 that I should have finished in 2006 or whatever, all the shoulds.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm still working on it after almost everybody in my life has told me, you know what?
Just move on.
Write a new book.
Write something else.
Like get away from this thing because it's a drag.
It's a 450-page drag.
It's a millstone.
And it isn't like you hadn't made progress.
You had made projects.
It wasn't, as they say, done.
Yeah.
And wasn't that part of it?
It's 450 pages long.
But like 15 years ago, you were like, I just need to finish this one section on Romania.
Yeah, that's right.
I don't know if that's accurate or not, but you've made progress on this.
A ton.
Okay.
And I'm working on it again, and I'm enjoying it very much.
But what I'm realizing is that all of these...
these attitudes and these like polemics that i've felt like have been new in my life in the last seven years like in 2015 something changed 2016 you remember when twitter went from being really fun to really awful yeah in the space of all the times he did that yeah in the space of nine months it was just like wait a minute i don't have that strong a feeling about bernie sanders that i want to scream at you about
It took years for reality to catch up with how I wanted it to be in the sense of like, yeah, well, I want this to be the way I used to feel about where this is a source of lightness and friendship.
And like, then why am I still here?
Well, because I haven't caught up with the idea that this is a pit.
But all of the things that I've been saying, all the, you know, all of the screeds that I've been rehearsing as I drive in and out of town where I'm like, you know what the thing is there?
Oh, the problem is.
Mm hmm.
How does that feel?
Well, at first – I would think that's kind of cool.
I think that would feel good to me.
But does it feel good to you?
Well, it was a shock.
It was a shock because I had – You thought it was a different world and so you had a different feeling about it, you guessed?
Yeah.
Four months ago, I wrote a 15-page thing about whatever, life.
And, you know, and, and a lot of it is, is, is a knock on effects of being dad.
I'm always processing like I'm out now.
I'm, I've been rejected.
I'll never be invited back.
And how, and now what does that mean?
Am I free to just say whatever I want?
No, it doesn't feel like that.
Am I, what am I?
Am I at one, at one key level, I feel that I am liberated and,
But in a big way, I'm still in exile.
I'm ostracized.
And I write this 15-page thing that's influenced by that.
Whether or not you want to be at a given place, knowing you're not allowed to go there feels weird.
You know what I mean?
That you're not welcome there.
But also, you know, like, it's not just that.
It's like,
Well, what if I wanted to go to a benefit auction for a local cause?
Is somebody going to come up to me and say something?
I don't know.
I have zero idea how canceled I am.
I have no idea because I'm not in a world where I would know.
I don't put a thing on Twitter and then get replies of any kind.
If I put something up there every once in a while, somebody's like, welcome back.
And I'm like, what?
No.
But so I write this 15-page thing, and then a month later, I start working on this book.
I get three days into it, and I read a four-page thing that's almost in the same language, the same words about how
Alienated, I feel, from the world of 1999.
And Merlin, it did.
It felt weird at first, but then it did feel kind of spooky.
I mean, talk about integrity.
And when I use that word, I don't mean in terms of your brand and your consistency.
I mean in terms of your wholeness.
Integrity in the sense of like this glass has integrity because it's not broken.
It wasn't broken in 1999.
It's not broken now.
Eventually it will break and it won't have that same integrity.
I think there's something really rewarding about going, wow, I've been me for a long time and that's not terrible.
Yeah.
That's right.
I've been me for a long time.
I've lived 22 more years after having written that and unaware that my attitudes and perceptions are constant or consistent.
Yeah.
And what do I do with that?
Should I be worried about this?
Well, in a way, maybe I can take these things and put them to bed.
Yeah.
maybe I don't have to keep making this argument because maybe I, and I mean, argument to myself, maybe I can go, yes, this is, these are my feelings.
I no longer have to,
come up with a justification for them all the time, every day.
Right.
But I still can't say them aloud.
I still can't write them down and publish them anywhere.
I mean, I can't decide what – I feel the same way, and I'm not sure what part of that I should feel bad about.
if any, but like, you know, it's not like I really want to use that.
I've been writing again too.
And I, yeah, this, the, the thing I told you about the wisdom project is writing down all the good advice I've ever heard.
Um, um, but like, even though it's a different kind of thing than I've done a lot in the past, I'm sorry to mean that as a plug, but just in the sense of like, it's so nice to disappear into something for a little while.
Um,
And to get to do it kind of on my own terms, which I don't know, maybe that sounds weird to even say that because what writing isn't on your terms?
Well, writing that's for a deadline and money you've already accepted, for example.
But I like that I can just say like, oh, it's 4 o'clock.
I'm going home at 5.15.
I'm going to go do that for an hour and see if anything comes out.
But I think you're doing it in a real good way, especially because this is just a bunch of bullets.
But I love that idea.
I used to really enjoy getting up at a decent hour before the family got up and working on it.
I don't know.
There's just something nice about writing in the morning, and then you feel less like a piece of shit mid-morning.
Yeah, that's right.
Halfway through the day, I'm like, well, shit, I earned my... Well, even if you didn't do the greatest work you've ever done, but just having a thing that you're doing, I imagine this is how people feel when they work out.
I don't know, but it's a nice feeling.
I meant to ask you that.
I thought about this two days ago, because I'm writing, and...
And some of my friends that have written – you know, Ken has written 15 books.
But like Hodgman, those guys that have written books – My daughter.
That's how my daughter knows Ken.
It's from his books.
His amazing books.
His kids' books.
But like I don't feel a liberty anymore to write Hodgman and say, what's it like to write?
But –
When you were writing your book, before it became a drag, before it became a thing that you hated, did you enjoy it?
I mean, I don't mean to problematize that question, but I liked writing all the stuff that made people want me to write a book.
Like writing for my website was really fun a lot of the time.
It got stressful.
You can tell because the writing is fun.
You're so fun.
I'll send you this thing.
It's just on GitHub.
Yes, absolutely.
It can be fun.
It's just, you know, I forget whether I said it here.
If I haven't said it here, I should say it here.
I think a lot of, I don't know if I'll say success, but a lot of non-failure in adult life is getting out of your way.
I think it's really true, especially also of adolescents.
Adolescents have no idea how much they are in their own way and how much they are working at cross-purposes with what they think they want, what they think they want to be.
And it's so nice to get out of your own way.
And in my case, I feel fortunate because this is a style of writing that I like and I think I'm good at.
My trouble with the book in just – I mean, I have lots of troubles with writing the book, but one of the biggest ones was –
It would be unfair for me to sort of blame it on my editor, my agent, the publisher, because it wasn't their fault.
They were very cool with, like, whatever you want to do is fine.
Just do it.
You know, we want to put out a Merlin Man book.
Go write a Merlin Man book.
But I kept getting in my own way because –
How do I put this?
Because of what I thought the book needed to be.
And then when I would just scratch a little bit at what I thought it needed to be, it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
And doing anything but that bigger book felt like a disloyalty.
To the reader and to me, we're like, oh, but it's got to be about more than email.
And they'd be like, that's fine.
So yeah, yeah, because email is really about anxiety and indecision and incompletion.
And then I go, oh, wait a minute.
That's a really cool array.
I can work out this thing where your inbox, and I felt really smart to go like, oh, here's the thing.
An inbox, email or otherwise, is about incompletion, about indecision, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
But I kept broadening the scope and the more I would broaden the scope, the more than I'd get frustrated and feel like I had to go start over.
But to answer your question, yeah.
I mean, it's a not that funny bit that lots of people make as a bit, but it's nice.
I think it's fun to have written, but I also think it's really fun to write.
Yeah.
It takes me away from MSNBC and Twitter and like whatever noise is happening outside.
Like it's – writing whatever it is you're writing and one of the pieces of advice in the wisdom document is try to write one paragraph of something every day no matter what it's about.
It could be a journal.
It could be whatever.
It could be the letter to the editor or, you know, I don't know.
You cut letters out of magazines but –
I also like that I like doing it.
If I like the project, I like what I'm doing.
I mean, nobody's putting a gun to my head.
And I think this may reach a stage where I go to the next level of what I want to do with this.
And that does get complicated.
But if anything, I'm really, as I said to Syracuse, we did a whole episode about this.
I'm really proud of myself for rejecting a lot of the...
For noticing and rejecting a lot of the attractive nuisances that have screwed me up in the past.
And just say, nope, this is just about, you know, what Annie Lamont has called in Bird by Bird calls the shitty first draft.
Like, just move your fingers.
Make the clacking noise.
Just get the stuff down.
So, no, I mean, it was all process and stepping on my own dick stuff with the book.
And it was a horrible time.
And I really regret the way that I handled it.
But, yeah, it is fun.
And I, like, I, you know, I think part of it was I had a false sense of progress because I went into it with 45,000 words just about email, mostly.
Right.
Right.
But then it's like, okay, well, that's great.
Like...
You can buy thousands of dollars worth of, you know, dried powdered, you know, spices at like a Whole Foods.
But like that does not guarantee a good meal.
Like no matter how much you've got there, you could even extend that.
I've got all the best ingredients in the world, but I don't know how to make this particular kind of meal.
Right.
In my numerous postmortems about this, one of the things I realized is that when I was writing for the web, I feel like I had my greatest successes and enjoyed the most writing somewhere between –
1500 and like 4000 words.
Yeah.
And if that's the way that I became something like a writer in public, taking that and then becoming 50 60 70,000 words, that's a real different kind of thing.
And required thinking, I don't know, whatever made me think I'd be able to just do that, like it was the same kind of thing.
Sorry, now you're my therapist.
How does that make you feel?
No, I mean, I should enjoy it.
It's fun.
Yeah, I love what you just said.
And I do think that my mental health is so much better writing a little bit every day than it was when I wasn't.
And I credit waking up in the morning because it's giving me time to do it.
But it's the writing every day that's making me feel better.
Like I did something like I'm like proud, you know, like I did a thing, you know, you asked me, what did you do yesterday?
And I go, I ate a Parmesan that sucked.
And I sat in the bath and then I stayed up till five in the morning.
Again, to quote Annie Lamont, it's this jukebox that plays the greatest hits of your personal failure.
Yeah.
Yeah, I wake up now, or I go to sleep now, and somebody says, what did you do today?
And I go, well, I wrote 2,500 words.
And then I ate a Parmesan.
You earned it.
And then I fucking earned that Parmesan.
Are you kidding me?
Yeah, it was cold in the middle.
I don't care.
I'm going to bed.
By the way, by the way, we talked about Richard Winfield Garnett.
The lawyer.
The going places gang lawyer.
Oh, right.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, right.
Who needed to read up on it.
Uh-huh.
Well, apparently he listens to the show.
Oh, shit.
No.
Yeah.
Did you?
Oh, no.
What is it?
Well, shoot.
What do we do?
Do we do any damage control?
Fuck.
Imagine how weird that would be for the council.
Imagine how weird that would be.
Within an hour, he sent an email to all of our friends from high school.
Oh, my God.
And he was like, with a link to the show.
And he was like, guess what?
Oh, shit.
And the only thing that saved me is that Rick has no idea how to link to a podcast.
That's all that saves us from the week.
And also, none of our mutual friends have any idea how to click on a link or have ever listened to a podcast.
So Rick was like, check this out.
And then there were four replies that were like, I clicked on it, but nothing happened.
Good.
And then somebody else was like, my father doesn't love me.
And it was gone.
It was gone.
Tears and rain.
Maybe you should have him on one of your other programs.
Yeah.
Oh, what a good idea, Merlin.
Because you do that.
You do that.
You have people on your other programs.
And maybe, is it Richard, did you say?
Yeah, Richard Winfield Garnett III, as he likes to say, although he's really the second.
Or no, he used to say the fourth.
Well, I'm sure he would be.
I'm sure he would be.
Or he'd be on his podcast.
I don't think he has.
Above the Law.
above the law what a great podcast title merlin it's probably already a podcast above the law yeah it's not gonna say it's no world's worst super gluer