Ep. 473: "A Turducken of Delusion"
Hello.
Hi, John.
Oh, hi, Merlin.
How's it going?
Oh, it's good.
It's really good.
I needed to find the knob.
Yeah, it...
I don't like talking about the show on the show, but sometimes, you know, I try to be mindful.
It's a thing I'm working on.
And I take a little beat.
And I think, hey, I'm just here.
I'm being in the moment.
I'm waiting for what happens.
And then you answer and you sound pretty much any way.
Yeah.
However, and it always makes me laugh because I'm always just imagining what it's like there.
And that's what happens, I guess, when you get mindful is you laugh when it sounds like John's inside a couch.
Here he is.
Yeah, there he is.
Yeah, Chris Walla once said, we were making a record.
He said, every time you walk in the door, I have no idea whether you're going to be dressed like a rhinestone cowboy or like a ninja or like a banker.
I don't know.
I hear the door open behind me, and I'm just like, what's it going to be?
And it's kind of, I would have to guess, just knowing how people are and knowing to some extent how Chris Walla is, I imagine it's a combination of excitement, exhilaration, and abject feeling.
Wow.
Well, because... Because he doesn't know what the uniform of the day is yet.
He doesn't know what he's in for.
Is he wearing a scimitar?
Is he wearing a wizard's hat?
If he is a ninja, will I see him?
And you know, Chris Walla wears a red Converse every day.
And when Converse announced... His mom got him for it.
He did.
He started wearing them when he was seven.
And when Converse stopped making shoes in America, he went out and bought 22 pairs of red Converse and stacked them in a closet somewhere.
Oh, wow.
So he would never run out, you know?
And so he just couldn't understand how I owned one piece of clothing with fringe on it, let alone enough to put together three or four outfits.
Oh, you're saying in the card catalog that is your closet, there might be an area that's just for fringe-related apparel.
Absolutely.
A friend the other day said, I'm going to this 70s party, and I need some white shoes.
And I said, what size are you?
Because I have...
You know, between 11 and 13, I have four or five pairs of white bucks and whatnot.
You know, I don't usually give free advertising.
Uh-oh.
Oh, that's okay.
Well, we haven't talked about this.
But the other day, I was doing a thing.
I was searching around.
Oh, this happened today.
In fact, uh, this is a different searching around, but, but maybe you, you're the one that would know about this.
Oh, okay.
So, so I was, you know, I was doing a deep dive as you do deep dive as you do deep.
And, uh,
And I came upon a British artist by the name of Stephen Duffy.
Are you familiar with this artist?
He had a band called Lilac Time.
Oh, I thought it was the singer from the cult.
Lilac Time.
Yeah, I remember them.
Circa mid to late 80s.
Yeah, this guy.
They were 120 minutes.
That's right.
He was the original singer of Duran Duran.
And I don't know how I found him.
He preceded Sir Simon Lebon?
Yeah, he did.
He did.
He was like, he met John Taylor at art college or something.
And so I'm like, who is this guy?
So I started reading about him this morning.
And then it gets down to the bottom and it's like, Stephen Page of the Barenaked Ladies sent this guy a demo tape when Stephen Page was 17.
And they co-wrote a bunch of songs together that were on the first Barenaked Ladies record.
Is that the Canadian one-week band?
Yeah, yeah.
Chicken to China, Chinese Chicken.
Oh, the Chinese Chicken.
Chinese Chicken.
And so I regularly text with Stephen Page.
So I texted him and said, you worked with this guy that used to be the singer of Duran Duran, and he's in England right now.
And he texted me and said, I'm working with him right this minute.
See, I love to hear things like this.
Isn't this crazy?
You know, they're breaking down walls.
It didn't stop in 1989, John.
There's still so many walls, Mr. Gorbachev, RIP.
Somebody needs to tear down.
And I like it when we see unconventional pairings.
You know, I think golf is a thing that does this.
I feel like golf, that's where you, well, that's where you might run into Mr. Alice Cooper.
Who apparently love... But you know what I mean?
We don't get that as non-golfers.
Obviously, I'm not a golfer.
But I feel like I love to see these pairings, and it makes me happy.
So let me just... There was a lot for me to follow.
You're friends with Lilac Time Guy.
No, I'm friends with Bare Naked Ladies Guy.
Really?
Well, yeah.
Don't you remember?
Did you know they're really big in Canada?
Well, I know, but he got kicked out of the band because he got...
there was some drug scandal and so he he was the guy he was the one i thought that was like was oh he's like the uh like the terry kath of the band is that the guy's name the guy who started chicago and was totally his band until it wasn't anymore there's peter's terrorist band yeah that kind of thing he was the he was the starter of of the thing
Yeah, I think.
And he was like the one that had like, you know, he's a little, he's kind of a little Chubbs, you know, he's a little bit Zafdig.
But he was the one that you always look to.
He was the face.
And the other guy was in the Duran Duran before Duran Duran.
Right, right, right.
So what we're talking about here is we're talking about a flight of Pete's best.
Yes, right.
Well, and the thing about Stephen Page is he was the singer of the band all through all of their hits and all of their stuff.
And now that Barenaked Ladies is doing, they can still play the festival circuit.
So now they're doing the, every year they go out, they make a ton of cash.
But he got kicked out of the band right at the moment they were pivoting to like, now we're going to get all the money.
For our fame.
And it was a thing.
He got an American girlfriend.
He was at her house in Buffalo.
She had tattoos.
Oh, dear.
The police came in the back door because they were looking for an escaped rhinoceros.
Okay.
And they were like, what's this on the counter?
It looks like one and a half dollars worth of cocaine.
Okay.
Oh, it's one of those cop jam ups.
And the problem was that the Barenaked Ladies were just then doing They Might Be Giants where they were trying to get like a Disney deal where they were doing kids music and they were going to try and win a Grammy that way.
And then, so the other guys in the band were like, well, we can't have this guy with this cocaine and tattooed girlfriend.
And so he's the founder of the band.
He's the ostensibly the singer on half of the songs.
He's out.
He's out.
So they keep going around people.
Every time they come to town, people are like, oh, you're friends with those guys.
And I'm like, no, I'm just friends with the one guy.
I don't know if this is an unkind thing to say.
Is it like going to see Van Halen, but it's like Nino Betancourt singing?
Journey's got that new guy.
Well, you know, this happens.
You get the Julio guy.
You get the guy in Metallica who's always going to be the George Harrison of that band, apparently.
The new guy.
But, like, is it, like, do people, I don't know.
You think about going to see Queen with that one guy who wears the gloves.
I did.
I saw them.
I saw them.
He's a really good singer, right?
That guy's a crazy good singer.
It's not the same as seeing literally the greatest rock singer of all time.
Right.
But that's still okay.
I saw them two times.
I saw Queen with the bad company guy.
What's his name?
Adam something?
And then, yeah, the guy from You Can Be a Millionaire or whatever, Adam something.
But I also saw him with the guy from Bad Company.
Wait, Paul, the guy from Free and Bad Company?
Yeah, the guy from Free.
Yeah, he did a tour with Queen singing lead.
I think he was like John of Memories.
Why he was also in The Firm.
Why do I remember this, John?
What you know about Les Pauls is what I know about people who were already old in the 80s.
Yes.
God damn it.
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And here's what's crazy about that tour.
They were doing all the Queen stuff.
Paul Rogers, he was wearing pants that had flames on them, like embroidered flames.
He moves that fast.
And Queen felt either excited to or obligated to also play Bad Company, Free, and The Firm songs.
So it was like a greatest hits, you know, they would do.
I don't know, man.
Like, if you go see ACDC at any time since 1980, and Brian Johnson's out there.
Brian Johnson, is that his name?
Yeah.
He's an old soul.
Like, he's a guy, like, I just saw him during the Taylor Hawkins thing.
And, like, he's still kicking.
By the way, I watched most of the six-hour show.
It's really good.
But, like, he's still kicking.
But he's always been kind of an old guy.
But, like, when you're doing a Queen song...
And you think, because, and listen, listen, I'm not trying to be anything-ist at this point.
No, you're not trying to be anything-ist.
You know me, but like, I think, you know, I don't know if you know this about me, John, but I love music.
I watch YouTube, and I'll watch the video for Somebody to Love, the original.
I'll watch Somebody to Love.
Somebody!
Somebody!
Somebody!
Somebody find me.
You know, Roger, what's the name?
Roger Taylor, the other one, the one that's not in Duran Duran.
The I'm in love with my car guy.
Yes.
That fucker can sing.
Oh, yes.
He still can sing.
Oh, yes.
And I went to, so I went to see them with Adam Lambert.
Adam Lambert.
He had the flame pants.
He, no, he was the other one.
He was the guy.
Paul Free, Paul Free, Paul Firm had flame pants.
Yeah, Paul Firm had flame pants.
Adam Lambert had like a whole, he's very flamboyant.
He had a whole costume.
He like took the stage.
Yeah, my family from Kentucky would say he's very creative.
He was very creative.
And that show, wow, I really came away from it feeling like the guys in Queen are very good at that.
Yeah.
And that, you know, it's another one of these, like, well, it's not Freddie Mercury, but that was fun.
Well, see, that's the thing, though.
But, like, I think, I don't mean to change the topic.
I think I'm not changing the topic.
But the thing that happens sometimes is, you know, you get a little, like, side thing where you get a guy and you bring somebody in who's dyed his hair and grown it longer, gotten extensions, and you're supposed to kind of, like, if you're doing, like, the state fair circuit, you could probably replace...
At least one member of Night Ranger and no one would notice.
Oh, you could replace four members of Night Ranger.
I don't know about that.
I don't know.
Did you know, you know, Sister Christian was sung by the drummer.
Yeah, Kelly Keighy.
He was on the right side of the stage and he faced the middle in a very unconventional setup.
I saw Night Ranger twice.
Oh, okay.
So, so when.
Next question.
Ha ha.
When you watch the video.
Guitar for the practicing musician taught me how to play the riff from Don't Tell Me You Love Me.
Is this really something you want to do?
No, no, no.
It ain't the way you shake.
I was in a bar in the East Bay and played pool with Brad Gillis one time.
Oh, I bet he's cool.
Did you ask me any Aussie questions?
Extremely cool.
No, I don't know.
I was just very intent.
But there was a whole, you know, it was a very small.
Yeah, he seemed big and wore a vest, or as they say in England, a waistcoat.
He would wear a vest, and I had the Speak of the Devil record.
I sat there translating the runes on the cover of the album.
I've done that.
He was a tall man.
You're not wrong.
Did you have a preference between Brad and Jeff?
I was kind of a Jeff man.
I like Jeff's tapping.
Me too.
Me too.
It's not a terrific song, but the tapping, like eight-finger tapping he does on You Can Still Rock in America is pretty great.
Yeah, you know, I was partial to the bass player, honestly.
Don't tell me, don't tell me, don't tell me.
Don't tell me you love me?
Well, can I tell you another thing?
Don't tell me you love me.
Music video includes railroad tracks.
Also, the video for the live version of Crazy Train, railroad tracks.
Brent Gillis.
Is this some anti-vax theory?
Or should we call Dan Benjamin?
Oh, boy.
Oh, boy.
He just wanted his food delivered.
So you've met Brent Gillis.
Okay, so I should probably get a diagram.
I confuse Canadian bands.
That's the problem.
See, we're not Canadian.
See, I confuse them with the rheostatics, which is a totally different band.
That's completely different.
We're not Canadian, so we have no idea what it is like to lose the singer of the Bare Naked Ladies.
Obscure bands, obscure bands from Halifax, I can pick up.
The problem is the mainstream bands, there's these three bands I really like, well, apart from Sloan, who's, you know, you know how I feel about Sloan.
I do.
Yeah.
Eric and I both like Sloan, right?
If one guy was replaced in Sloan, you would know, but not everybody would.
Not everybody would.
But I think here's the comparison.
Pink Floyd lost their singer, didn't even slow him down.
Their next record was even bigger.
In the world of Git and source code management, we'd say they branched or they forked.
The band kind of broke into two streams.
But wasn't there for some time
Well, you know what?
I don't want to say anything to me, but Roger Waters seems like kind of a piece of shit.
And we both have strong feelings, I hope, positive feelings about Dave Gilmore, who might be one of the greatest soloists of the rock era.
I think about David Gilmore all the time.
Literally all the time.
He's so handsome and he's so... What's the slow one I like from the wall one?
Bah!
That's a wonderful rendition of it.
He has two of the greatest solos of all time.
Now, see, he's like a Mark Knopfler, where he's not afraid to go there and do two of the greatest, as Mark Knopfler did with Solon's The Swing.
I think that Dave Gilmour does, uncomfortably known, two of the greatest guitar solos of all time.
Well, but what's crazy is Mark Knopfler is kind of a soloist like me, if you'll allow it, where he never misses a chance to put a note somewhere, whereas David Gilmour passes up 15 notes.
All the notes he didn't play.
That's right.
I would put in so many notes, and he just lets it ring.
He lets it ring.
And Knopfler, you know, he's got all those fingers.
He's got like 15.
Yeah.
Oh, he's got so many fingers, he knows where all the notes are.
And he's playing a lot of pretty straight up pentatonics, except, or like, you know, like pentatonic boxes, except when he's not.
That's when he gets all fucking Chet Atkins in your face.
And boy, does that ever, that guy, give that horse some line.
Give that horse some line.
I got you off your topic.
We've got rheostatics.
We've got your friend, the drugs.
That's a bummer.
You know, I bet a lot of times it comes down to how do you feel about working with this person?
I mean, I don't want to bring up the Beatles here.
But, you know, there's all kinds of reasons we can come up with.
Like, I don't want to spend time with anybody.
I can't imagine spending that much time all the time, especially in a van, with people that, you know, maybe you don't have a...
That you aren't aligned with.
Like, at a certain point, you must go, I'm getting too old for this shit.
Well, it's one of those things, right?
Yeah, it is one of those things.
That's a good way to put it.
It's one of those things.
It's just one of those things.
It's one of those things.
And then it's one of those things.
And it's like, you know, what can you say?
Flight to the moon on Gossamer wings.
Totally agree.
No, the other thing I was going to say was the deep dive.
I did a different deep dive.
Oh, sorry.
You had an advertisement you wanted to share.
An advertisement, which is that I discovered a company that makes welding shirts.
And this is only for our listeners that care about beefy clothes.
Right?
There's a small segment.
It's all a small segment of our listenership that's like, where are the beefy clothes?
You guys don't talk about beefy clothes like you used to.
60 seconds ago, I didn't know what a welding shirt was, and now I want one.
Exactly.
And this company, so this is a free ad for these Ding Dongs because they only have, they're a company that only has four products.
And if you find a company that only has four products, you know you're on to something, right?
Yeah.
They make one shirt.
They make some gloves.
Yeah.
And they make a hat.
Maybe they only have three products.
But this shirt, it's a welding shirt.
Welding shirt.
And I found it.
The company's called Western Welders.
Some are car hardy.
Some are Western.
They have a pearl button sort of affectation.
And I'm loving it.
This company's called Western Welders.
Western Welders.
They got this shirt.
It comes in like 15 colors.
And I ordered one because I was like, all right, a welding shirt.
Never heard of it before.
I don't personally weld.
Yet.
It sounds right.
Just for the welding you want is what they say.
So the welding shirt shows up, and it's so beefy, and it's so reasonably priced.
It's beefy and reasonably priced, two things that you've never seen.
Okay, can I make this?
You tell me if I'm wrong.
I'm looking at the hero image.
I'm on the homepage here.
And look at this kind of Latino looking guy wearing a shirt with a cool medallion.
First thing that comes to mind for me, do you remember that phase, especially during gangster rap in the 90s, when guys would wear the sort of jackets you would get when you're incarcerated?
Yeah.
Remember that, like, very, very heavy denim jacket.
Yeah, jean jackets, but we're like car.
Yeah, denim jacket, though.
I mean, it's not even a shirt jacket, but this looks like it has, it's triple stitched.
Yes.
Which is a good sign.
Yes.
And this looks very, very heavy.
Now, John, the welding point, it says WW on it, which I kind of love.
And we're, oh, it's got a pen hole.
When did we stop doing pen holes?
It's got a pen hole.
And the pocket in the front is big enough for a phone.
It's big enough for like a Michael Douglas phone.
It's big enough for, yeah, it's got the whole business.
Triple stitched.
It all looks very reinforced.
Now, John, my question for you, and I'm not going to click.
It's a cowboy shirt.
It's a cowboy shirt.
It's got Western styling.
And so the welding part of this is that, I know we don't say this anymore, but does it retard spark?
There are two.
Okay, so that's the fourth product.
There's the shirt, and then you can also get the same shirt except flame resistant.
And I decided I didn't want the flame resistance because I do not.
Well, like what if you want to perish in a fire?
Well, that's the thing.
You're sure it's going to be working at cross purposes.
God damn it.
I picked the wrong day to wear my dub dub.
Okay.
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I like soldiers that don't catch on fire.
You know what I'm saying?
And so anyway, I'm so excited about it.
And it's one of those things.
It's kind of like Mack Weldon where the more you order, the less it costs.
Oh, I can't afford not to buy it.
I got three of my best right now.
Yeah.
When you're ordering from Mack Weldon, you're like, oh shit, if I get one more, it costs me $20 less than not to buy it.
No, no, no.
I buy Mack Weldon the way we used to get milk for our toddler.
Like, I'm just wondering, next time I get paid, I'm getting three more Mack Welkin shirts.
Do they have a 10-gallon bottle?
Why don't they have a 10-gallon bottle?
They should have a 10-gallon bottle, yeah.
Anyway, it was one of these things where I order, you know, it's just like, I can't not buy this next one.
Yeah, that's true.
So anyway, that was all I wanted to say.
No, well, okay.
Does that have something to do with Canada?
No, advertisement.
Well, no, it's my fault.
I'm just trying.
I got a lot going on today, John.
I got a lot going on.
And I'm probably missing something.
Yeah, well, the thing is not all threads connect to all threads.
I think that's an important thing for an adult to embrace.
Some threads stay loose.
I'm going to do the thing today where I just, I'm just going to drop threads.
I'm just going to leave them hanging.
Should I get more coffee?
I'd never do that.
Maybe you should.
I ran into a guy.
I was at a picnic and a guy comes up and I was wearing a mask because this is fire season here.
right and fire fire season is only lasting three days this time uh because it started late but but so i don't like i don't like to i don't like to breathe forest fire so i'm out there's a huge one up on my in-laws right now is it burning oh my god well the smoke is just nuts and they may have to evacuate but like you know where we are they're out uh in what we call gold country like east of sacramento sure sacramento valley
Grass Valley Greg.
Yeah, that by Sacto, and they call it the Mosquito Fire, and it's real bad.
You need a mask, boy.
If you can taste the air.
That's right.
Well, what happened here is this fire's on the west side of the mountains, and we don't allow that.
Over on the east side of the mountains, they burn all the time, but this one's on the west side and that's a bad sign.
That never happens.
So anyway, we're not very thrilled about this because that just means it's going to come down and, you know, Seattle's all full of trees.
It could just burn the whole, it could burn us out.
But so isn't it moist there?
Yeah.
That's the problem, right?
It shouldn't be on the west side.
That's where the rain falls.
It's on the rain side.
And that's not cool.
But so I'm at this picnic and I've got a mask on.
Nobody else does because apparently they don't, you know.
Everything's fine.
They just love breathing particles.
That's great.
Yeah.
And this guy's standing and talking to me for a while.
And then somebody else points at him and he goes, oh, this guy's indie.
Which in this suburban neighborhood is like, they're trying to like say, oh, you two both have ever heard of bands.
And I go, oh, you've heard of bands?
Hmm.
Because everybody else out here.
Is this at a picnic?
It's at a picnic.
And everybody else is like, oh, no.
Someone says, oh, this guy's indie.
Is it someone with whom you're acquainted?
Well, no.
I never met him before.
But then he does the thing.
He does the Northwest thing or the West Coast thing.
where he reveals that he knew who I was the whole time.
And we were just having a nice chat.
It's a very Northwest thing.
Yeah, you can stand and talk to Eddie Vedder all afternoon.
If you know, which you did he know?
Well, this is the thing.
That makes me nervous.
He says, I went to college in Tallahassee, Florida.
Oh, I used to live there.
And I went, oh, do tell.
Mm-hmm.
And did you guys tour there?
And then he revealed that he was a promoter in Tallahassee.
Shut your mouth.
And booked Bacon Ray.
Was he named Alex?
No, his name was Carl.
Carl?
Carl?
Did he have curly black hair?
No.
Carl had curly black hair.
Oh, my fucking God.
I love Carl.
He was a DJ at the radio station.
No, no, I hope he didn't say anything mean.
He played in bands.
He was in a band.
I was in a band.
Oh, my God.
Carl and I did.
Oh, my God.
I love Carl.
So Carl starts regaling me with stories.
Carl didn't want you to know, but Carl was studying interesting things at a time when you weren't supposed to be studying.
He was a music guy.
Well, that's what he's doing now.
He's studying music.
No shit.
He's living up here in Seattle.
He's got a whole life.
What was he studying?
Was he studying not, was it shape notes singing?
No, what was it?
He was studying something really fun.
That's so cool.
I love Carl.
Well, here's the thing that our listeners will be interested in.
Oh my God.
Which is that he was regaling me with stories of talent.
a Tallahassee era Merlin man.
Okay.
Well, I normally, I like, he said, he was like, oh, one of the best songs you've never heard is a song by Merlin called Sundays in a row.
And I was like, oh, really?
And then he said, then he said that you hosted a show.
This is where I dressed as an ape?
Where you dressed in an ape costume and you freestyle rapped.
Yep, yep.
Over a DJ Shadow 12-inch.
After I drank a 12-pack at Bacon Ray practice, I would go to my friend's bar, Waterworks, and I would dress in a gorilla suit, and I would call out bingo numbers in a game that was called Jungo.
And the story was that Jungo had escaped from a zoo and lived in the wild.
And the thing is, he was so used to life in civilization that he was very, very angry was the problem.
Jungo was very angry because he really couldn't get it back.
He had a wild side, but he also loved indie rock and bars.
Yeah.
And so then I would take suggestions from the audience and do a rap.
And it was one of my favorite things.
He said, because I said, wait a minute, Merlin freestyled?
And he said, think about it for a second.
It's as good as you're thinking right now.
He said Merlin could freestyle.
Oh, he's so nice.
I want to talk to Carl now.
What I want to hear is Merlin man in a gorilla suit freestyling over audience suggestions.
After he's had some natural light.
How did I not know this?
Oh.
Then he goes on to say, oh, Merlin was a bright light in Tallahassee.
Everybody loved him.
He was a big star.
That is such a nice thing to say.
Oh, my God.
I knew that was your reaction.
Oh, shit.
Now you're making me uncomfortable because we're just on your program.
He was telling a story about what a rock star you were in college.
And I was like, oh, Merlin.
Do you remember what Carl's—
You've had friends in college radio, right?
Everybody gets a fake name, right?
Because you're always encouraged when you come in, at least at WVFS.
He hosted the Hootenanny, right?
Hootenanny was the Monday night local music show.
Oh, that was the local music show.
Yeah, different people.
That might have been Carl.
What was his name?
It was Carl the something.
Everybody gets a fake name, and what people normally do is use their middle name.
A lot of people.
Yeah.
Like my friend David Simmons, who was a big shot there when I first, his middle name was Lee, and so he became David Lee.
And this is a radio thing, apparently.
In Anchorage, we used our first name and then the street you lived on.
So I was John Stanford.
Your DJ name is your pole dancer name and your dog's name.
Oh.
That's why I'm Tootsie Shorty.
Yeah.
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Oh, Carl.
Anyway, I don't want to talk about myself.
I loved it.
I loved it.
Because, you know, you're a big star talking into your shoe and your wallet and all this stuff.
But I had never heard that you were always a star.
Success in life is to have a slice of pie.
Back in the Air Force jacket days.
Okay.
So success in life is about getting a slice of pie that is impossibly thin and impossibly deep.
That is what success in life is.
Write it down.
Actually, I want to put that in the wisdom document.
That's pretty good.
This is back when you looked like the Dread Pirate Roberts.
Well, I know at this time I had more of like a floppy French boy haircut.
This would be 1995.
There was a time where the local, I don't remember how this happened.
It was something involving cable access.
But my band and Carl's band both played on a soundstage at the local PBS station.
And, like, so we got to, like, we weren't supposed to.
But, of course, we explored it, like somebody on The Fucking Walking Dead.
We went through everything.
And this is the public radio station that was built in the 60s or 70s and full of studios and stuff.
Tallahassee was the first place I ever lived that had two full-on public radio stations, and they were both really good.
One, of course, was classical with the occasional twice-a-day NPR news updates at the top.
But then there was a full-on kind of what I think of as NPR.
KEXP, yeah.
Yeah, right, right, right.
So this was, I think it was WUSF, and there were two.
And yeah, and you do see the TV, they had TV, you could, you know, give money to Fawlty Towers during the pledge breaks, that kind of thing.
Anyway, but what both of our bands performed there was shot on video, and that was around the time, that was our Annis Mirabilis.
That was the year our first single came out, which is, that included the song he mentioned, and was the song of the year, according to our friend who worked at the
Local newspaper.
Oh, my God.
I benefited so much from nepotism and friendship.
Yeah, friendship is the key.
But yeah, Carlsbad was the other band there, and they shot us there.
There's a video of me playing bass on Tomfoolery.
So now wait, is that video available online?
I've seen it.
I saw it somewhere.
No, I don't think it's really around.
I've scoured for what I could find.
I can't even find the thing of me singing with Kevin from the Wrens and doing 80s covers.
Everything, it's like Tears in Rain, John.
Everything just disappears.
I know.
It's absolutely true.
I got a fun thing.
Back when we did the Bacon Ray reunion, one last anecdote, 2005, we opened for the Wrens.
Well, let me put it this way.
They were coming through town, and we decided to, quote, unquote, do a Bacon Ray reunion in 2005.
And Charles and the guys let us open for them.
And, of course, it was sublime.
But the... Wait, what was I going to say about that, Carl?
What was I talking about?
Oh, you were... This was... Bacon Ray.
Yeah, you were getting together with the... Oh, no.
Is it available online?
Right.
And backstage...
And Kevin, who's now doing his own thing with a really good new album, Kevin from the Wrens, the bass and tall guy, handsome guy with the Oxfords, he was playing piano.
And we did a bit.
And I wish you could see it.
I wish Sean Nelson could see it.
Because we were doing 80s covers.
And I was singing everything as a Morrissey song.
And my friend caught like four minutes of it.
And it's really stupid and funny.
Because I'm standing there, walking around, making up fake Cure lyrics.
And Kevin from the Wrens is playing piano.
It's all gone, John.
Tears and rain.
You want to find stuff from the 60s and 70s, you're fine.
I think we are particularly beggared by the absence of a lot of things from the 90s and on.
If it was on video, people got it.
But then, like, I don't know.
I feel like there's a hole in YouTube.
I was standing in the shower thinking this morning.
Yeah.
And I was thinking that I stan for Generation X. I do.
I'm sorry.
Is there a D on that?
Do you stan or stand?
I stan.
I don't stan, although I also stan.
You stan in the place where you live.
I don't even actually know what stanning means.
I don't either.
It started with that Eminem song, and then it just went from there.
Oh, okay.
So I stand for them, and it's also based.
Oh, are you based?
I think that Gen X is based.
This is like living with my kid.
New terminology is constantly coming into my life.
And my kid uses aesthetic as an adjective.
Go on.
It's a very aesthetic look.
I'm like, I don't think that's what that means.
There's a lot of things where my... Well, it's because of TikTok, let's be honest.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Anyway, anyway, you stand.
I stand, too.
I think we are an overlooked generation, as we should be.
Yes.
I think we screwed a lot of stuff up, but not as bad as the baby boomers are like... Baby boomers are like whom?
Baby boomers are like, I want to say, maybe George...
not maybe a Bush or a Reagan, and we're more like a Trump.
Like, if Generation... Well, if Generation X had been more competent, we would have fucked up more things.
We just didn't have the infrastructure or, let's be honest, Dick Cheney to, like, really operationalize a lot of bullshit.
Well, think about what YouTube would be right now if our lives were actually available to look at now.
Think about that.
Life we had there, life we have now.
No, that's what I'm saying.
If you, with a gorilla suit, freestyle rapping with the sound of Robert Smith from The Cure, if that was available, if every minute of it could be real.
reviewed on YouTube.
Now, what would that be like?
I'm kind of, you know, if I got to take, like they used to say, you got to take the bitter with the sweet.
I think on balance, I continue to be grateful that there's not that much footage of me.
Think about that.
Think about that.
That's where I have a lot of gratitude for the rain that washes away the tears.
I stood on the bar at the Comet Tavern and performed not one, not two, but three separate weddings in the bar while people were throwing beer and popcorn.
Wait, performed as in officiated?
I officiated because my college— I thought you meant you were saying them from memory.
No, no, no.
My college—that's right.
Ah, everyone, everyone, stand around while I perform the wedding of Charles and Diana.
I've done three weddings, and now I'm going to do a funeral.
No, when I was in college, my guidance counselor, the woman that allowed me to get into the University of Washington from Gonzaga with more than the number of credits rather than fewer than the number of credits, who then— This is more of your anti-social promotion.
She was 38, and I was 22, and then she initiated an affair with me.
Of course she did.
Yeah.
And then we were having this May, September moment.
Are you that guy that does the coyote ugly weddings?
Are you the guy that does the boot scoot on a bar to bring two lovers together for eternity?
So what she did was she ordained me, because she was already in the Church of the Living.
That's a great term for it.
Jesus or whatever.
She ordained me, and then, oh, I know, it is a great term.
She ordained me multiple times.
That sounds German.
We would go to the supermarket together, and I had never experienced it before.
Yeah, like we're going to go get something sexy.
And we're there together, and other women...
were glaring at her and i'd never seen it before and i was like why is everybody looking at you and she was like they're jealous they know that we're sleeping together oh come on wow i'm like a toy i'm like a young i'm like the young sexy oh that's like a turducken of delusion it was crazy well i don't know did you i mean you you bought it because it was flattering but you think it was real
I noticed it, and I asked her about it, and she was like, everybody's staring at us for a reason, and it's because we don't belong together, according to them.
Wait, is she implying somebody's too good for somebody else?
No, no, no.
She was just saying, you're young, I'm old.
Like, they all...
Oh, I see.
It's a suburban, like a suburban side eye.
Yes, exactly.
Like this noise.
Yeah, they're like, oh, he's not your son or your, this isn't a piano lesson.
So he's 38, she's 38, you're in your early 20s.
Yeah, and we're buying wine and the makings for a pasta dinner, and they're like.
Oh, and sensual or sensuous vegetables.
But so I used to, so then all the alternative people who wanted to get married but didn't want to do it the normal way,
They found out I was a minister.
And so the Comet Tavern was like the center of the universe then.
You're like that childbirth lady that has the cowgirls get the blues farm where you can go and have natural childbirth.
And I think it's entirely populated by RN lesbians or something like you represent like you are a fresh face on an old idea.
Yes, that's right.
Not an old idea, but like, you know, kind of a creaky idea.
But if you get married by a guy who doesn't even drink, but he's on a bar and he's doing a boot scoot while he reads from the Commonplace book.
That was wasted.
And they were wasted.
And that was...
But these days, that would have been videotaped by 40 phones, and it would be up online.
No, thank you.
You'd have to be able to see me do that.
I got a video of me falling off my bike, and it is not online.
It was the most comical, the most hilarious way to fall off a bike.
Like, if you thought about how Monty Python would make falling off a bike funny, that was it.
where somebody's going really, really fast, and then they go really, really slow, and then they stop and it just falls over.
Maybe not Monty Python, more like Laugh-In.
Imagine a Laugh-In, like somebody falling off that tricycle.
And then a guy with a Nazi helmet pokes his head up out of the bush.
Oh, I fell on my keys.
Oh, you want to hear about TikTok.
I also want to hear about how this came up with Carl, but we can save that for after the show.
TikTok, my kid learns a lot or thinks they learn a lot from TikTok.
This is like three nights ago.
Yeah.
I'm laying on my couch.
It's one o'clock in the morning.
And I'm texting with Mike Squires, who right now is playing bass in Peter Hook's band.
What the fuck?
Yeah.
Are you shitting?
Do they do New Order cover?
Sorry.
They do New Order songs?
He's playing the Barney parts?
Yeah.
They're playing three-hour shows.
They just played the Warfield.
I'm sorry.
I didn't tell you in advance.
They're playing three-hour shows where Squires is playing the bass any time Hookie isn't.
And then when Hookie plays the bass, of course, he's playing way up the neck.
So then Mike is laying it down on the backside.
And they're doing all Joy Division and New Order.
Oh, my God.
It's like albums all the way through that type of thing.
I'm not happy that they had a rift, but I am happy.
Now, what are we talking about here, John?
Let's talk about something important.
We're talking about, in some instances here, we're talking about a Waters versus Gilmore type situation.
Yes, that's right.
Peter Hook's not in that band anymore, but he's still, and he was the defining sound of Joy Division.
And if you think about it, no one in any of those bands could actually sing.
So it kind of doesn't matter.
It's not like, oh, they lost their vocalist.
It's like, no, the vocalist couldn't sing, and this guy can't sing.
People like to talk about Leonard Cohen now, but I grew up loving Leonard Cohen.
He was somebody, my best friend's dad had Leonard Cohen records I grew up with, but the man could not sing.
Like we all love his hallelujah song.
Well, we used to love his hallelujah.
Well, there was a month where we loved his hallelujah song.
Now there's a documentary coming out about the hallelujahs.
But like the thing is at the heart of it, the man could not sing.
He was Canadian.
Suzanne takes you down.
I mean, like he's like at a Marie Osmond level of intonation.
Well, so anyway, so I'm laying on the couch.
They covered a lot of ground.
I'm texting with Mike Squires, and he's saying, oh, yeah, I'm playing with Hooky.
It's really fun.
It's really great.
Oh, my God.
And we're in L.A.
tonight, and I'm at some, you know, studio in Hollywood.
Good for him, man.
That used to be owned by somebody.
Peter Hook's not yelling at him to do this solo for the 40th time.
And so I'm texting with him, and it's 1 in the morning, and I'm, like, thinking to myself.
Okay.
Oh man, Mike Squires is out doing all this cool stuff and I'm just laying here on a couch, you know, on a, just doing nothing.
It's a Saturday night and I'm just sitting here texting with him and life is so, you know, my life has become boring and terrible and not terrible, but like boring and boring is terrible.
Cause I'm generation X. You feel like, I mean like John, you must feel a little bit like you're out of the stream.
I'm out of the stream, Merlin.
You know what I mean?
It's not that it's good or bad or whatever, but there's a stream, and it's passing you by.
There's a stream, and I'm out of it.
And I haven't gotten into a new stream yet.
Let alone being in a band with somebody who was, let's be honest, one of Merlin's all-time favorite bands.
Yeah, there he is.
And Squires is out there.
He's living the life.
He played on ceremony.
He played on several different versions of ceremony.
And everybody's at the shows, and they're all loving it, and he's just up there soaking up all that reflective glory.
And at that moment,
There's a tiny wrap on my door.
Wrap, wrap, wrapping on my door.
Uh-huh.
Is it a Raven?
And I'm like, I'm like, what the fuck is that?
And there's this little...
Okay.
On the door, tiny little wrapping.
All right.
And I'm like, okay, knocking on the door at one o'clock in the morning is never good.
There's no version of it that's good.
Yeah, no, it's true.
Yeah.
And so I get up and I open the door and here's this little teenage girl.
Wait, what time?
1 a.m.
Oh, shit.
Standing there, she's in her pajamas and she's bawling.
And I'm like, what is going on?
Are you okay?
What's happening?
And she says, through her tears, my mom kicked me out.
Oh.
And can I use your phone to call my cousin?
Hmm.
And of course.
A teen without a phone.
Of course, I'm looking around because I'm like, okay, who's going to jump out of the bushes?
Oh, you know who's there?
It's going to be the swim guys.
Yeah.
It's the swim guys or it's somebody.
Yeah.
And so I'm looking around and I'm like... She's what they used to call a lot of Dalton Trumbo.
A front.
Oh, except... Except for her up.
She's Latina, so I know she's not part of the swim guys.
Wow.
And so I'm looking around... She might have been hired in the parking lot of Home Depot or whatever.
Well, but in her pajamas?
Okay, okay.
Yeah, well, maybe they provided those.
I'm looking around.
There's nobody in the bushes as far as I can see.
And I go, yeah, of course you can use my phone to call your cousin.
Why did your mom kick you out?
And she goes, you know, through the tears and she's like...
I skipped school and she said, you know, that I was bad and that.
Did she look local?
Well, yeah.
I mean, this is a, this neighborhood that I'm living in.
I'm sorry, this is not meant in any way to be anything.
I mean, she's in her pajamas.
She's in her pajamas, but she also, she looked like somebody who like kind of would or could or did live in the neighborhood.
It's an extremely Hispanic neighborhood all around.
One in the morning, why your house?
Like that's, to me, like there is a lot of, lots of questions.
But anyway, you said, yes, you can use my phone.
Why'd she throw you out?
Yes.
I asked that question too.
And she, I said, why, why did you stop here?
And she said, you have a friendly looking house.
I tried a couple of places in the door.
They, they didn't come to the door.
And so you had a friendly house and you know, the lights are on.
I'm in here.
Yeah.
So I go, okay, here's my phone.
And you know, and I, I was, I was fumbling with the phone and she was giving me that, like, just give it to me.
I know how to use it.
And I was like,
okay is she just going to take my phone that seems weird but you know and it's just like what kind of what what's the deal here you know because whatever and so she takes my phone and she and then she says i don't know anybody's phone number can you download snapchat so i can snap my cousin and i said
Well, you know, coincidentally, I have Snapchat on my phone already, even though I'm 55.
You didn't tell her why.
For reasons I won't get into right now.
Yeah.
Let's just say I don't have German underwear anymore.
So I try to get Snapchat going.
I haven't been on there in four years.
And it comes up with some avatar that I made.
And she's like, just give it to me.
Just give it to me.
And she logs out.
And then she sits there and can't remember her Snapchat password because she's never been logged out of it on her own phone, which is at her mom's house or whatever.
And if this is as it seems a true thing, she's probably pretty flustered.
So she's flustered.
And watching her try to put the password into Snapchat three or three, four times and it doesn't work.
i now believe her totally because she is so frustrated yeah that a she does she said at one point the only phone number i know is my mom's and that's not going to help and i was like you don't know anybody's phone number of course you don't you snapchat with them and that's the way i remember phone numbers from when i was 10 but i apart from my wife i don't think i know anybody's phone number anymore so so i'm like
So your cousin is going to respond to a snap at one o'clock in the morning?
I don't even know how Snapchat, but obviously— We talked about this years ago when there was a rift you didn't even know about with somebody because they'd sent you an invitation to something through Facebook.
And you were like, why would you send that to—remember that?
Yeah, yeah.
That feeling of like, wait, that's not what this is for.
This is weird.
It's like storing your cucumbers in your glove box.
Like, what are you doing?
Yeah.
So they must all have notifications turned on.
So they're lying in bed asleep and snapped.
Somebody snaps them and they're like, dang, oh shit, I got to wake up and deal with it.
That's gross.
So she can't get into Snapchat and she's sitting there and she is melting down because she doesn't, she, you know, that feeling you've been, I know panic and it's just like, I don't know.
I don't know where to go.
Like there's no, I'm at, I'm at empty and so empty that I'm standing at, that I had to knock on a stranger's door.
yeah and i said all right all right all right where does your cousin live and she said he lives over in the next town and i said all right all right i'll drive you to your cousin's house and so we so i get my keys we go out we get in the truck
Oh, really?
We're driving along.
And she's crying, and she's just like, ah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I'm like, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay.
I know what it's like to panic.
I know what it's like.
I know somewhat of where you're going.
You feel so alone.
I know what it's like to get kicked out of the house.
Her mom's from Honduras, and her mom is real traditional, and she skipped school, and she's 17, although she looked about 13.
And so, of course, her cousin lives on the...
freaking far end of the town.
So we're just driving and driving and driving.
Well, we get there and I said, okay, you know, he lives in some apartment.
I'm like, you go up to the floor and then you wave to me so I know you're okay.
So she goes up, she waves and it's all fine.
But it really put me – two things.
It reminded me of all the times when I was her age or a little bit older where I had arrived at a place – I had arrived at a junction in my life where there was nothing to do but knock on a stranger's door.
Yeah.
And I, I did that enough times where it was just like, I'm at the end.
Like, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna walk over to a stranger and just say, can you help?
And every single time, every single time a stranger helped.
You know, like middle of the night.
Right.
But also that we.
It's a little bit of, I mean, you are how you are, but there must be some element of like a little bit of pay it forward.
Well, or just like what else are you going to do?
What are you going to call the cops?
I mean, in terms of being open to helping this person at one in the morning.
I don't know what else, I don't know how you would not, you know, none of it is a thing that I would have said, I hope this happens.
You've never been to Florida then.
I mean, that's the kind of thing that's like, yeah, I'm just saying like, it was cool that you did that.
Anyway, go ahead.
Yeah.
I mean, there's, it was a, it was a, it was a cascading series of, well, there's nothing else to do but this, right?
I mean, you can't.
Nothing else that this young woman can do and there's nothing else really you could or should do.
Yeah.
There's, you can't, you can't say not my problem.
And I don't, and I don't think, I don't think 99% of the people in the world would ever say not my problem.
I mean, if they did, you know, like a pox on their house.
And also understanding that this is a very young person.
Well, and yeah.
And so that was what was astonishing was like their, their only option, they had options, right?
There, there, there was, they had family in the town, but they could not access them.
Because they were technology dependent.
Normally you, in our day, you, I mean, and in fact, I mean, you wore a key around your neck.
I always had, I think at the time it was still a dime, a dime in my pocket.
I always kept a dime for a phone call.
Well, you kept it in your penny loafers, right?
You kept it in your penny loafers or in my case in my, you know, when I got into Levi's the watch pocket.
But the point being, of course you knew.
I mean, I knew all the phone numbers.
Right.
What are you going to do now?
Well, and I think in her case, when I was 17, I would have just walked whatever in the rain all night until I got to the place, which she obviously couldn't do.
Just because you don't want to be walking in your pajamas across the town.
I can't believe her parents let her leave like that.
Well, it just felt like a tough love situation where her mom was like, that's it.
Because she's 17, right?
She's right on the cusp.
She's a senior in high school.
And there are those parents that are just like, this is going to teach you a lesson.
I'm going to call the cops on you.
It's like there's queer kids that face that every single day somewhere.
Exactly.
And who knows?
You're just not going to live here anymore.
Who knows her story, right?
Who knows what her mom kicked her out for?
But according to her, at this moment, it was because she skipped class.
It's the first week of school, senior year.
And, you know, and I was resisting the fatherly impulse to say, like, no, stay in school.
Drink your milk.
I was just, like, listening to her, you know, and just kind of like, don't worry.
Because the thing is, I know in a panic situation, having somebody be like, don't worry, don't worry, it's all going to be fine.
Yeah.
Well, and I mean, this is true for way more than panic people, but panic people don't need advice.
It's the last thing they need right now.
Exactly.
So I was just like, here's what's going to happen.
The basic thing we're going to solve.
And then after that, you got to work it out with your mom or whatever.
I still have to work it out with my mom for that matter.
Fair.
But I couldn't figure out how...
Well, to how you could be, I mean, I understand exactly how you could be technology dependent because you had never, it had just never, she'd never lived in a world where she didn't have her phone in front of her in her hand.
And I don't know how your mom would kick you out of the house and not, and you couldn't take your phone.
It just seems crazy.
But then the fact that she couldn't even log in to the things that she needed because she had, because it was all facial recognition.
And I realized in myself, oh shit, I don't know if I could log in.
I don't know.
What phone numbers do I actually know?
I mean, I can be high and mighty about this, but if I were denied access to my password manager, the whole point of me having that password manager is I don't want to know my passwords.
I don't know what I would do apart from reset password.
But if I reset password, now I need the credentials to get into my mail account.
Right, you would have to be in your, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, you don't think about this.
What happens if you lose your Bitcoin wallet, Merlin?
You're not going to be able to buy toilet paper on Amazon.
I'll have to make it up in Ethereum.
Whatever that is.
All right, so where are we now?
Well, this was the show where I was not going to tie up.
No.
No.
Where are we with?
Oh, where are we with?
Wait.
So how did that end?
Well, that's how it ended.
I dropped her off.
There was no situation where she showed up the next day.
Did she wave?
And it turned out she was an FBI agent or something.
It was just like, it wasn't a hidden camp.
Did she wave?
Did she look like she arrived?
She did.
She came up and she waved.
And what was weird is I was watching the building and no light came on in any apartment.
So I don't know whether.
i don't actually know i have no idea whether she was an fbi agent or whether the whole thing was you'll find out or not but she she didn't she a light didn't go on but she came to the balcony and waved okay and i was like okay well she'll remember you forever yeah or maybe not no i mean there there are all those people that where i knocked on the door and i've got a vague sense of what state i was in i think i was in minnesota i knocked on that guy's door
I was having trouble remembering the name of Carl's band.
I kept wanting to say Flipper, which of course is... It wasn't Flipper.
It was a skate punk band from back... No, The Reason Why.
Flipper's from out here.
Flipper's from out there.
They were called The Reason Why?
That's a great band name.
No, no.
That is a good name.
No, but I was confusing it because it was both Sea Creatures.
His band was called Bottlenose.
Bottlenose.
It's a dolphin reference.
Yeah, we're both on the same compilation of our little indie record label.
Did you ever go down to the Suwannee River?
Did you go way down?
I mean— It's right there.
It's right by Tallinn.
I've driven over it, but I've never brought a manjo or anything.
So I was driving around Florida one time, and I drove— Is that where the old folks are at home, John?
I think.
Well, so—
I can tell you whether they're at home or not.
Suwanee, by the way.
Suwanee.
When you see it on a sign, you're like, well, that's not as catchy.
It's like when people say, you know, Louisville.
Do they actually pronounce it Suwanee?
I don't know, man.
My fucking in-laws are from New England and they pronounce everything's like a trick pronunciation.
No, it's Pawtucket, not Pawtucket.
Really?
Okay, sorry.
I just read what was on the sign.
I'm going based on the song.
But I drove across it.
Everybody's fucking Boo Radley up there.
And I said, wait a minute, that's the Sewanee River.
And I just drove across it.
I need to go way down on it.
Whoa.
So I turned around.
Oh, boy.
I turned around and I found a dirt road that went off to the right.
And I drove down the dirt road, and then I'm driving along this road next to a swampy river, and it gets swampier and swampier.
Oh, you're probably about to get down on it.
Well, and that's when all those houses on stilts started showing up.
And I drove, drove, drove down this river past all these houses on stilts.
And I got way down on it.
You got way down on the Titula River.
I went way down on the Swanee River.
And I got down there as far as the road could go.
And it seemed like if I kept going, I would be unwelcomed.
Is that feeling?
You know that feeling when you're on a road and you're like, I feel unwelcome.
A phrase that's become important to me in life, this is not for me.
Yeah.
It could be like, that could be a lot of times I'm referring to media, but like part of my mindfulness practice being 55, and by the way, happy almost birthday.
Is when I go, you know, it's okay.
No one needs my opinion on this.
No one needs it.
This is not for me.
And sometimes, and I'm not just talking about going to a place that feels quote unquote dangerous.
I'm saying there's places where you pull in.
It happens to me here in San Francisco.
I go into that Robin Williams neighborhood way up north here where all the fancy houses are.
And I go like, oh, that's not for, Seacliff, I think it's called.
That's not for me.
Right.
And you felt like once you got legitimately way down on that shit, you felt like it wasn't maybe for you.
Well, I had two advantages, and one of them was I was driving a convertible Mustang, and the other one— A late model Mustang?
A late model Mustang.
Okay.
A rental Mustang.
Oh, okay.
Which, of course, I got as a convertible because, come on.
Well, you always get the convertible.
Just get the insurance.
The other one was I had this song.
If anybody was like, what the hell are you doing down here?
I would say, I'm way down on the Suwannee River, and who's going to fight me?
Right?
Who's not going to go, uh— Definitely Mark Shizzolocal.
Yeah.
So I got down as far as I felt a convertible and that story would take me.
And I got right down to a place where there probably would have been propeller boats and people eating raw crawdads or whatever.
And I was like, this is far enough.
I'm way down.
A lot of swamp shacks.
swamp shacks yeah i got down and i was like this is as far as a man can go with those two stories because past this point i think oh yeah i think both of those things are going to end up being disadvantages because somebody's going to say why don't you give me that why don't you give me that ford and also why don't you why don't we keep the top because everybody everybody that lives near water is in deliverance