Ep. 516: "Gambling Pocket"
Hello.
Hi, John.
Hi, Merlin.
How's it going?
It's good.
I still have my same problem of not being able to hear myself in my headphones, but I can hear you loud and clear.
Oh, should we try and run that down?
No, no.
It's just one of those American problems.
One of those American problems.
Yeah, you know, in Europe, they don't have these problems.
Really?
Oh, I'm probably sure.
Because of the oldness of the land?
Well, the old ways, but also, you know, they're early adopters of new technologies.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm just out here in the West, the Wild West, just sort of suffering through, just muddling through.
well yeah yeah that's it i feel bad for you man you can't even i mean our listeners get to hear what you sound like but but you don't you know it's funny the lack of feedback in terms of being able to hear yourself amplified even though i can hear myself fine i'm here in the room with myself yes um it's just it's a little bit uh it's it just makes you wonder you know am i doing a good job is this
Is this good enough?
Am I good enough?
Am I good enough?
Am I good enough?
I was thinking more of the inconvenience.
I have a very low tolerance for inconvenience.
I don't like to talk about it publicly, but.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
You know.
Am I Boris Goodenoff?
You're Goodenoff for me.
Thank you.
Wait, which one's he?
Is that the guy in Die Hard?
I think so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Long, blondish, you know.
He's also in Witness.
Oh, yes, right.
And he's an Amish.
I think he's an Amish, and he's a Mennonite.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
What's going on down there?
How are you?
Your headphones are working?
Everything's working?
Well, you know, I'd complain, but who'd listen?
From your mouth to my ears.
If you could hear me, you'd hear me, right?
I hear you.
Great.
But I don't know how much of that is just psionics.
Does that depend on your character class?
It does, but I'm, you know, I'm a mage, so.
I'm trying to remember who has good psionics.
What do you need for psionics?
Magic users.
Magic users.
Maybe do clerics have psionics?
I bet they do.
You know, a lot's changed now, John.
That's true.
Mages and bishops might have had psionics in our day, but nowadays?
Oh, I think a lot has changed.
I don't follow the trades.
No.
But I have a 16-year-old son who plays D&D.
Oh, that's exciting.
Yeah.
I mean, it's a gateway drug, of course.
Yeah, I think everything's a gateway drug if you like drugs enough.
Yeah.
No, he, yeah, but I mean, it's, I'm just, you know, it's all I can do to stay out of the way, of course.
But, you know, everything's different.
They've got a whole different D&D now.
There's a lot of things have changed.
And a lot of the strictures under which you and I dwelt, I think those strictures have been, they had some mix-em-ups.
They moved some things around.
We dwelted under different strictures.
We paradise in our wake.
Yes, we do.
Yes, we do.
Yeah, he's a cleric.
Sorry, go ahead.
No, no.
No, no, I was just going to say that I was taking the metaphor even further.
Oh, sorry.
Looking out the window at the leaves changing, everything's changing.
Merlin, it's another season.
It's a time to every purpose.
Turn, turn, turn.
Mm-hmm.
What is that, Ecclesiastes?
Mm-hmm.
yes okay and pete sieger yes and the monster manual volume one yeah they did the manual they did the monster manual we're getting older we're getting older yeah i mean there's a lot that's changed they call it fifth edition it's all different i don't want to talk about this but my kid's a cleric and i just i don't would never say this to his face but his uh his numbers are shit
oh did he just roll bad character numbers or is it something else well there's a thing i don't know if this is like official and it depends a lot on the dm you know but like like time was because you wanted to have good characters you'd let people do stuff like roll four and roll you know uh 4d d6 and throw out the low one was one of the low one did you ever do that
You know, it became quite clear to us pretty early, I think, that you just throw away anything that doesn't work.
And then everybody's got a 17 or 18 everything with a couple of 21s.
Yeah, it's like 20 levels on that person.
Pretty soon you're out there exploring a spaceship.
And then you're having fun.
Then you're not the one that's like limping along.
Oh, I got no...
John Roderick, we can't talk about this whole episode, but I'm prepared to tell you that based on what I have gleaned about these numerous changes, one that I think is a salutary change is it's more about having fun in storytelling.
Oh, fun in storytelling.
It's just like our show.
It's all about having fun in storytelling.
Fun in storytelling.
I'm going to write that down.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You threw out all the dice you want.
I mean, you know, and I go around.
You know what?
I can't get into it.
What's your constitution?
It's got to be, well, you've got a low constitution, but you've got a high dexterity.
I rolled four.
I threw out the lowest and I still got three.
I found out something interesting at a swim meet yesterday, which is that, you know, every swim meet has three timers per lane.
So each swimmer has three timers standing there with stopwatches.
Oh, and a timer is a sensate person with a watch.
Yeah, exactly.
Oh, I'm fascinated by stuff like this.
Tell me about this.
They're like, ready, go.
And then the swimmers all jump in.
And all three people click their stopwatches at the same time.
And then they're all leaning over the end of the lane as the swimmer arrives.
And as soon as they touch the wall, they all three click their clickers.
And according to a person I know who scores the meets, almost never do any two timers have the same time.
Which gets us to an interesting question then, which is how do you operationalize that?
Do you pick?
Do you average them?
Do you pick the middle one?
They pick the middle.
But, okay.
All right.
There's no arithmetic.
Yeah.
No.
The swimmers are beating each other by tenths of a second, but they're just taking the middle of three timers.
So when two swimmers touch the wall at the exact same moment, I don't know, tenth of a second here, tenth of a second there.
Pretty soon that adds up to real money.
It really does.
And I was astonished by that.
No two of the three ever are just like...
Dead on the money?
No.
And that's just with the clock, right?
They're not like hitting some kind of like cyber disk that sends a signal to the watch.
It's a person with eyes who says click.
Eyes and ears.
Is when they start and then they touch the wall and that's when it ends.
So you have to have both eyes and ears to do it.
This might be outside of your pay grade or above it or beside it.
But does that compound to mean bigger differences over numerous laps?
Yeah.
Oh, well, they only do the race.
I don't think they count the laps.
Well, but I mean like, okay, so like you go in, you're gonna do so many meters, but don't you have to do like, you got to get to the end, you got to touch base, you go back the other way, you might do four of those, right?
If you're gonna do a 100 in a 25 pool, yeah, four of them.
Sure.
Yes, yes.
And you're satisfied with that?
No.
Well, I guess you don't get a vote.
I mean, in the Olympics, I guess they do it with laser beams.
Yes.
But here at the club level, you just do what you do.
And it felt like that was a useful piece of information for me, too.
I walked away from that going, huh, three timers.
You take the middle one, and that goes on your permanent record.
I'm fascinated.
Yes.
And I think this stuff is crazy interesting.
Well, there's another thing that feels like it's been happening for years.
I don't follow sports.
But my sense is, even since I was a little kid, you remember at the bottom of the screen, it would say, like, Longines time.
It's this many seconds.
And, like, over the years, it felt like the grouping would get tighter and tighter and tighter.
Right.
Yeah?
So it matters more and more, those portions of a second.
Well, there's less and less time all the time because we keep using it up.
There's less time because we're using it up.
And where does it go?
That's what Michael Stipe asks.
When you throw time away, where's away?
I think where it goes is back into the quantum pool.
You know, it's quantum is just a hopper.
It's a time hopper.
Uh-huh.
Quantum is a time hopper.
You can't look at it because if you look at it, that screws up the time.
Well, yeah, I think.
Is that Max Planck?
Who said that?
Looking at it makes it change its nature from time to alt-time.
Because of light.
Mm-hmm.
And so when you use a pool for the pool.
Well.
It's a time pool for swimming pool.
Listen, I'm not a scientist.
Well, you do all right.
You do pretty well.
Your reckons are pretty strong a lot of the time.
As we move through time, the used up time goes back into the time pool.
But that only means for us that there's less and less time up ahead.
Oh, that I think is true.
Yeah.
Well, and so that's why sports time keeps getting shorter and shorter.
That's why they had to put in the time clock, the pitch clock in baseball.
I'm not asking you to explain it yet, but would you be able to explain to me what those changes are in baseball?
Do you understand those changes?
Oh.
Oh, I mean, they're not that complicated.
It's just that in the old days... It's like a shot clock in basketball.
You've got to throw your pitch this long after we're back in play.
Yeah.
You've got to throw your pitch thus and such many seconds, right?
In old baseball, both the pitcher and the batter...
Had to adjust their underwear three or four times.
And the batter would step out of the batter's box and walk around.
A lot of ritual.
A lot of ritual.
Yeah, people patting their hair and touching their wallets and stuff.
And now it's got to get done in a...
in a tight handful of seconds.
And everybody was talking about how it was going to ruin baseball.
Oh, it ruins baseball.
Because all that wallet touching is like key to the game.
Right, because baseball is really ultimately about family.
It's about family and storytelling.
Storytelling, yes.
It's about having fun and storytelling.
How would your stories do if somebody started putting a clock on you?
we'd have a lot more 15-minute episodes.
That pool's not going to fill itself.
But as far as I can tell, every single person I know or hear talk about baseball, nobody's got a problem with the shot clock.
They all think it's great.
Now that it's happening, they got used to it.
Not only did they get used to it, but they're like, why weren't we doing this all along?
Baseball games are really fun now.
When I was a kid, when I was a youngster, baseball games were shorter.
Oh, you think so?
I do.
I do.
Well, okay, so at least in my head, I didn't follow football any more than I followed all sports, which was a little, but I followed baseball.
All sports, that's what you put in Chinese food.
Yes, exactly.
Okay.
Promise you want to play again an hour later.
No, that was you.
You said that.
I just teed it up.
I remember as a kid, it seemed like
Football games felt like they were three hours long They were usually like three hours long and I think the baseball game is being about an hour and a half two hours Whoa, you have a different memory than I do.
I thought baseball games were seven hours long.
I guess it depends It depends on on whether or not you want to go back to talking to your wife or not.
You know what I mean?
Mmm three hour long football game here.
You don't have to talk to the wife for three hours.
Mm-hmm
Seven hour long baseball game.
If we're being honest, she's probably a little relieved too.
Oh, she couldn't be happy.
Hates that pitch clock.
She's in the kitchen with the other wives and they're talking about soufflés.
Chicken in the bread pan, picking out dough.
Making those totinos for their hungry boys.
Did I ever tell you?
I was a member of a little gang here that would meet at somebody's house for watch football games.
And they were all just the most
you know progressive forward thinking hipster people you know uh and they were all touching upon indie rock friends touching upon indie rock friends they were all uh married and married to like you know the the rockers were married to artists and intellectuals and vice versa and uh we would start would start watching the game and
It would segregate instantly.
Like, boys on the couch screaming at the TV and the women in the kitchen all talking.
You know, talking about stuff.
Oh, believe me.
That one I know.
Talking and talking.
Oh, my God.
They're always talking.
And I only wanted to be in the kitchen.
Of course.
I wanted to be in the kitchen.
That's where the food is.
Well, it's where the food is and where the talking is.
I don't want to be – I got nothing to say to a television.
I'm not going to yell at it.
But you can't get in the way of it.
I was this guy most of my life because I'm how I am.
But I eventually learned don't yuck on somebody's yum.
Just at least keep moving and get out of the way.
You've got to stay out of the way of the enjoyment of the game.
If you can't go along, then you should probably bounce.
But I would bounce to that kitchen.
But you know how it is when even a group of friends...
when you get in that situation and you're sitting next to him on the couch and you're like, and you're like jostling elbows and, and, and you're the one that's, you're the one that says, what's the offsides rule again?
And you're just a wet, you're just a cup of wet coffee in the lap of everybody around you.
Cause they, whether they know what the offsides rule is or not, they're not gonna, that this isn't the time to talk about it.
Yeah.
And I'm always like, how many, how, wait a minute.
Why?
I thought it was a first down.
Like I'm just, I eventually they just squeeze me off the couch and,
I know just enough to ask the questions that I think are salient.
Do they say stuff like, why don't you see if the girls need some help?
So close.
So close.
Like, hey, fill this up for me, you know?
And I'm like, I'm happier in the kitchen.
I really am.
It's interesting in there.
Me too.
I'm a mama's boy.
I mean, I always, well, two things to know about me.
I was a mama's boy, but also, I mean, within normal parameters, but also I always would prefer to go like where the adult conversations were.
Well, but then, but then of course in the kitchen, I'm the one that's like, did you notice that all the boys are there and all of us, all of us gals are in here.
Isn't that funny?
And then that's not a welcome comment either.
You know, that's not a, you need a third location.
I do.
And the third location was in my car, in my car on the way home.
You know, eventually I just was not, it's like, Oh, football on Sundays is not where I belong.
I have a gander, a reckon, a question.
Don't people bet on sports?
Oh, they sure do.
A lot now?
They even bet on pretend sports.
Because you take a team, you take players— Like a proposition bet, right?
Well, no, you put them together in fake teams that don't really exist.
And then you bet on your fake team against other people's fake teams.
It's like D&D for baseball, right?
Because you could say, like, I picked up—I don't know.
I don't know any current players.
I got Pete Rose this week.
He performed thus and such.
And then, because you're not just, you're playing players, not a team, right?
And that's the nature of the- Stats.
Yeah.
Stats.
It's a game of numbers, they say.
It's a game of numbers.
And when those numbers get used up, they go back into the quantum pool.
Do you think, hmm, do you agree that, well, hmm, hmm.
See, I'm not trying to get anybody in trouble here.
But my sense is a lot of people bet on sports.
One reason I say that is I see a lot of commercials and various kinds of advertisements for things that let you bet on sports.
Oh.
Oh.
I'm not seeing those commercials.
Okay.
Well, like, if you watch a baseball game, or you watch a football game, or in my case, I wouldn't talk about it, but I watch basketball games, and you'll just see endless ads for these different things.
And there's like, oh, and come and join up, and you give this much money down, and, like, we're going to give you free bet money.
And, like, I wonder if people have gotten more serious about it now that there's a lot more people who even semi-publicly have money riding on it.
Okay.
Well, you know, it used to be illegal to gamble.
That's true.
Do you remember in America when it was illegal to gamble most places?
I remember when bingo was about the only betting thing that was legal.
And that's because of the papal sea.
Exactly, right?
It's for Jesus, but it was until very recently you could only gamble in Las Vegas and then Atlantic City.
And then at some point during our lifetimes, they decided that on the reservations they could have casinos.
And then that took off.
And there's some parimutuel, like I think in New York, like you can go to like a bedding window.
Go to the horse track.
Yeah.
And then they had that funny thing where they realized that if they put a boat in the Mississippi and it was only connected with a causeway or something, they could claim it was...
That was in some sort of uncharted waters?
I think as long as you're wearing a straw boater.
A straw boater?
If you're wearing a straw hat, I think you're allowed to bet.
And now it just seems like you can bet anywhere.
Isn't it a lot of wink-nudge kind of stuff?
Maybe.
I don't know.
When the internet first started, there was all that like, wait a minute, wait a minute, this is betting, we can't have this.
And I think that all just...
I don't know.
It's one of those where everybody's using different rules all the time.
Well, there's also, I mean, I don't want to get us into topics that are going to get us in trouble, but I don't know.
I feel really fortunate that I'm not addicted to needle drugs and I'm not into gambling.
I mean, I can play basic strategy, blackjack.
Uh, you know, I, I, I've done that.
Uh, I know how to like, that's the only thing I would ever play like for money is blackjack.
Cause it's the only one where you, one of the few ones where you have a chance.
And also, I mean, like, I don't chase my money.
One thing I was taught when, well, first time we went to Las Vegas, my lady friend and I, I learned a trick at the time.
And this is back when people used money for things and you would have your, your regular money in one pocket and then you're gambling money in the other pocket.
And the idea was, if you've got $100 in your gambling pocket, title, if you've got $100 in your gambling pocket, when that $100 is gone, you're donezo.
You don't touch the – your right pocket – I sound like Howard Hughes.
But the right pocket has got your gambling money in it.
When you're out of that, you're done.
You've set aside that much money for this gambling session.
And then you don't go to the ATM.
You certainly don't go into your left pocket, right?
And then you stop at that point.
Because otherwise, you know the phrase, chasing your money, right?
Like where you're –
Good money after bad.
Yeah.
Yeah, this happened on a recent 20-year-old episode of Six Feet Under I was watching, where the mom is kind of chasing her money at the track, and she ends up losing several thousand dollars.
You get a little wild when you're... If you're a gambling person, woof.
Woof.
I think I've told this story before, but in Anchorage, there were like...
What would you call them?
Speakeasies.
Back alley gambling parlors.
And they would throw them up into, you know, they'd take over some house.
They'd bring in a bunch of machines and, you know, one-armed bandits and blackjack tables.
I'm imagining they've got like a ticker tape.
Somebody's making a sound with bats.
It's very much like that except Anchorage in the 80s, which is pretty sleazy and, you know, in a house like in Spenard.
Yeah.
And it was it really was a thing where you had to knock on the door three times.
And I wasn't a person that went to those things or really even, you know, I mean, in Alaska.
At that point in time, everything was happening.
And so it seemed like, oh, sure, there are gambling parlors and there's also – like there's the street prostitution, but there's also the nicer prostitution.
And then there's the real nice prostitution.
And I was always like, I don't know.
I just kind of want to ride my bike.
But one night –
i was with a group of people and one of the people was just slightly more into the into the uh let's go find the illegal gambling parlor and we went up a flight of stairs and knocked on a door three times and it opened and it was a full-on casino in there in a house oh wow and you know ding ding ding ding ding ding ding like rows and rows of uh they brought in one-armed bandits they did they had all the the slot machines and they had poker tables
And there was, you know, like a big guy at the door that said, what's the password?
All this stuff.
And so I'm in there and I'm just way out of my depth.
Like, wow, I don't want to do any of this.
I'm not even sure how to have fun someplace like that.
But, you know, my fun is lean against the wall and watch everybody go.
Yeah, right.
And so I was having a good time leaning against the wall, watching everybody go.
And I'm with my sister.
And this is pretty early on in a time when she and I, we were getting used to socializing with each other in a larger group.
Outside of a family context?
Well, she'd always been younger.
And my friends, in her estimation, my friends were totally square, just lame.
And in my estimation, her friends were like greasy skaters and losers.
But then our worlds collided.
At a certain point, I think because I started using drugs.
And so then it was like, oh, now I'm hanging out with these skaters because they've got all the cheap drugs.
And here's my sister.
And she wasn't really into drugs, but she liked the skater boys.
Anyway, we're getting used to being at parties with one another.
I remember the first time we got stoned with one another.
The joint was going around the circle.
And when it got to my sister, I couldn't bear to watch.
I looked away when she smoked pot.
And then it came back to me and I smoked some pot.
And then later on, we bumped into each other somewhere in the house.
And we went into the bathroom together and sat in there just stoned laughing.
That's kind of nice.
It was sweet.
It was a little bit of a like, oh, my God, we're at the same party and we're stoned.
We had fun.
And after that, it was easy.
OK.
But I walked over and she's at this slot machine.
And she is just zoned in.
And she's pulling that arm and the thing's going ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
And she's got a bucket.
They all have buckets, you know, like paint buckets.
Yeah.
When we went to Las Vegas in the year 2000, we went downtown because the slots are looser downtown.
Oh, looser.
I don't know if you remember the comedian Marty Allen.
We went to see the comedian.
You can Google him.
You'll immediately recognize him from laughing and stuff.
We went to see a live show with Marty Allen.
My wife, she got a big old bucket full of nickels.
A bucket full of nickels?
She started calling her nickels.
I called her nickels as recently as yesterday.
Ha!
Ha!
Nickel.
Isn't that a sweet name?
That's a cute name.
Yeah.
Well, so, so Susan was, she was winning and the machine was just kicking out quarters like crazy, just crazy.
And so I go over to where some big guy is standing by the door and I say, give me a bucket.
And I get a bucket and I go over and I start scooping quarters out of her machine into a second bucket and
And she's trying to bat my hand away with her hand, like, stop it.
Get out of there.
That's my bucket.
But she's so zoned in on the machine that she's just feeding quarters.
She's got no time to get up and fight me.
And I'm scooping quarters.
And she keeps winning.
This machine's just pouring money out.
And so I fill up a bucket with quarters.
She keeps playing the game.
I am scray.
I'm like, I'm out.
Take the bucket of quarters with me.
She stayed with her friends, played until all her quarters were gone.
She put all those quarters back into the machine, lost them all in the end.
And then she came home, and the next day I went into her room, and I was like, here's your bucket of quarters.
And it was a lot of money.
Wow.
And she said... So wait, it's like that poem Footprints.
You scooped away her quarters to save her a little bit.
Yes, because... You kept her stake going the way that Charlie Etter does with Wild Bill in Deadwood.
Sure.
Yes.
Sure.
Just like what you say.
Sweeping away the quarters so Susan has something for a stake.
So the next day she had all this money, whereas if I had left those quarters in her bucket, she would have just put them all in the machine and they all would have been gone.
It's a bad bucket.
So you have to just take half of the money or whatever, put it in your right pocket.
or in this case, in a bucket that your brother got.
Yes.
But you have to let your brother do it.
My system assumes two pockets.
There might be more pockets.
But I think the main thing is that this is the gambling pocket, and then this is everything else.
But boy, you're a good friend.
Oh, I don't know about that.
I mean, you can judge whether or not I'm a good friend because I've been your friend for all these years.
Let's keep the thread open for now.
Yeah, okay.
Good-ish friend.
I mean, you haven't harmed me as actively as you could, and I'm grateful for that.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
I'm just glad you let me in.
You know what I'm saying?
I've never taken a bucket and filled, or have I?
Have I taken a bucket and filled it from your slots?
I wouldn't know.
And I wouldn't check because I don't want to know.
That's, I mean, in a 20-year friendship, if you haven't taken some coin and then poured it out on your bed the next day, at some point, probably we have.
Probably we've each done it for one another.
And because at the time you're like, hey, what are you doing?
Yeah.
And then later on you go, oh, but maybe you don't.
You become like a designated pocket or designated bucket.
My sister doesn't call me quarters.
She's probably forgotten entirely that I made her 100 bucks that night.
But she could easily call me quarters as an affectionate thing.
Hey, quarters.
Nicholas is cute.
I see.
But the thing is, sometimes I'll get a big gulp or I'll go to the ATM at the 7-Eleven.
And there's a fella.
There's several fellas who are pretty much just always there.
So have you been to Las Vegas, right?
You've been to Las Vegas or Atlantic City, right?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
So what do they call it there?
They got Keno.
You know, right?
Where you could be anywhere.
You could be eating a meal and playing Kino.
It's like scratch and sniff.
Kind of like scratch and sniff tickets.
But like, yeah, there's a guy who's there all day.
Like, he's just always there staring up at the screen.
And like, I wonder how he does at that.
Because he's doing, okay, so what I'm trying to say without saying it is like, I don't know, I've heard some stuff about the way lotteries work, you know?
Yeah, it's a tax on the poor.
Well, and that, I don't know if this is accurate, but I've heard it said that, well, it's not like you're getting extra money because of the gambling.
You're getting that money to basically just break even.
Yeah.
It's not like there's some great windfall coming into the school system because of that.
It's basically how you top off the glass with regard to education budget.
I don't know if that's accurate, but I'm not a fan of that stuff.
I don't think it's a good idea, and I hate to seem like I'm being a scold, but I think if it hadn't been for all of these lotteries, we wouldn't have normalized gambling as much as we have.
Oh, you're saying it's the public lotteries.
It's the state lotteries.
I mean, you put an 800 number on there and say, well, if you have a problem, call this number, but like... Do you ever, when it gets up to be three billion or whatever, do you ever buy one of the tickets?
Never.
Never?
Well, ask me if anybody else in the house does.
Oh, what about Nichols?
Sometimes, when it gets high enough... Nichols goes out and buys a ticket.
I'll notice a couple of yellow tickets on the fridge because Nichols thought, well, why not?
Nichols bought a tickles.
But many more problems.
Yeah, well, but, you know, for a while there when it got up, you know, it didn't ever used to be.
See, but you thought about this, right?
Doesn't this go back to a conversation from a few weeks ago?
What were we talking about?
What would you do with, what was your figure, a billion dollars?
Yeah.
Was that you?
Yeah.
Didn't you say you were surprised I never think about what I would do with that?
Is that right?
Absolutely.
Is that this show?
That was this show, right?
Earlier today, I started looking up how they constructed the Great Pyramid of Giza, and I'm not sure why, but I was like, now, wait a minute.
Hasn't modern technology given us some insight?
They're not still thinking that they— I feel like I've seen specials on that.
Yeah, it's not ancient aliens.
Nobody was pulling those things up with mules.
Like, how is this really done?
And I'm reading about it, and I'm realizing they still don't know.
A lot of theories.
You get enough Judeans, and you can pull some stone.
That's right.
Well, it's the Judeans people front.
No, the people from Judeans.
I can never remember which is which.
Splitters.
Splitters.
Bloody splitter.
Anyway, but I realized this morning, thinking back, hearkening back to our conversation, if I had a billion dollars, I'd build myself a great pyramid.
Yeah.
Wait a minute.
Think about that for a second.
We're not talking about the Luxor Pyramid in Las Vegas.
No, we're talking about go out to the playa where they have their Burning Man, but build yourself a giant pyramid.
They're only there for like a week a year.
Yeah, think about what happened when they came the following year and there was a limestone pyramid.
The size of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
How the fuck would that?
I mean, talk about like tripping balls, right?
It'd be a lot of questions.
I mean, a lot of questions.
And doesn't that seem like 2,000 years from now, they're not going to be talking about Jeff Bezos, but they're still going to be wondering how that pyramid got out there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you just scratch your little Kilroy's here at the top and let them worry about it.
Would you, I mean, the problem, this is a leading question, but like, would you then be there for the Burning Man event?
What's it called?
Rock City?
What do they call it?
No, I don't think so.
You wouldn't be there to like, see, I imagine you in the same way that you would, remember your old idea for selling your clothes on eBay and having a card for each one about the story?
Would you be there to describe the pyramid?
Or do you say, as Iris DeMint says, let the mystery be?
It's all about having fun and telling stories.
And I feel like,
People have a lot again stories stories stories stories You know when we talk about content creation now, which we do every minute of every day.
It's really about stories and having fun I've been thinking about this I don't want to I've managed to avoid Burning Man, and it's not that I intentionally avoided it I just really I just I just managed to avoid it by not seeking it out.
It's like a lot actively avoid
It's like converting to Judaism.
If you don't seek it out, it's not going to come find you.
Burning Man's not frantically trying to sell tickets.
There's a dearth of evangelists actively trying to bring you into the tribe, so to speak.
I have Burning Man-adjacent people all around me, but they have never identified me as Burning Man-curious.
Right.
And I dated, you know, when I was going out with Shanti, Shanti, Shanti in 2000, in the year 2000, Shanti said, ah, Burning Man has jumped the shark.
And I said, really?
And she was like, yeah, I went like six years in a row.
I bet people were saying that in 1988.
Well, or whenever, yeah.
Yeah, it was better when it was on Baker Beach.
She was like, in 1996 it was killer, but now it's just a bunch of tourists.
And that was, whatever, 23 years ago.
But what I'm realizing is once I build my pyramid, the stories beget stories.
And now you've got a place to put them.
They go into the quantum pool.
Was there a quantum pool inside the pyramid as you're planning it?
Well, that's one of the theories.
That's one of the theories that the way they got those stones up there was a series of internal quantum pools.
They'd raise up the stone within the pools.
There's another theory.
Bootstrap paradox.
Yeah, there's another theory.
This is my new favorite theory.
Okay.
That the limestone blocks are actually ground up limestone that were reconstituted as limestone concrete.
So the blocks...
aren't blocks they're they're they're made they were there's like a slurry taken up there poured into a mold and they're building more modern sort of concrete concrete in a concrete fashion and ground up concrete slurry made into blocks apparently is indistinguishable from limestone unless you use a micro spectrometer or something
But then, of course, all the haters are like, no, boo.
So anyway, inconclusive, inconclusive.
I'm not done unless you want to be done.
I'm going to tell you, I watched a, what did I watch?
It might have been James Burke.
I'm so gay bones for James Burke.
But I was watching something about the pyramids in the last year or so.
And apparently it's,
Pretty remarkable how the dimensions work.
As in, like, this... I remember in particular, like, one side of this, one face of this is, like, exactly this particular... Like, all four sides of this.
It's not as simple.
I think this is back when they would, like, have rope with knots in it to figure out how long something was.
But, like, there are still some things about the pyramids, I think, that are considered...
Fairly unique for the time.
Somebody said in one of these things I was reading that they are accurate to a tolerance that we are just now achieving with lasers.
Okay, that's similar to what I heard.
I remember just being like one side of this is like, if you pull this out in knots, you would be like blown away that like these four sides are all...
I don't know.
I don't know how to put together a Ravel model at this point.
But you know what I mean?
There was something to it.
Now, if you're out there, would you be utilizing modern means?
Would you be doing it all on your own or would you get Jason to help?
What would you do?
No, that's the thing about having a billion dollars.
You would try to build a limestone pyramid on the playa using ancient methods.
Ancient methods, which I think we'd reverse engineer.
We would discover how to do it by doing it.
So first you build it and then figure out how it got built.
And now you know what to make.
I think what you'd have is a bunch of people out there and they'd be like, oh, there's got to be a better way.
And then human ingenuity would rediscover things.
the ancient ways.
And then we would be able, then we'd go, we'd see the tool marks, we'd go, oh, it was this all along.
That's what I think would happen.
And then not only would I be building a pyramid to myself to last 2,000 years, but I would also be doing science.
That's twice as long as Hitler.
Well, or 4,000 years.
Those things are 5,000 years old, those great pyramids.
Yeah.
Would you do it all between two Burning's men?
Or would it be something where people would come there?
Because I don't know a lot about it.
I've seen the layout.
There's a man.
And there's all that kind of stuff.
And people on bikes with steampunk goggles.
Hakuna Matata.
That's all fine.
But do you see they show up year one and you've laid down the footprint?
Or would you think you could get it done stem to stern?
You got a billion dollars, so you could just throw drachmas at it.
I think one of my core competencies is to Tom Sawyer people into painting my fence.
Worked on me.
Yeah, well, the other day,
I got a text message from Megan Jasper, the CEO of Sub Pop.
She is the person who coined swinging on the flippity flop back when she was the receptionist at Sub Pop.
You remember the wax slacks and all that grunge slang that the New York Times wrote an article about?
And then it turned out she was just sitting at her desk.
Oh, that is really, is that true?
Have you ever heard that story?
No, I haven't.
She's the one who came up with, Oh wait, hang on.
This is a very old story.
Yes.
And like, and, but it turned out it was all like, you know, like the way people make up like fake names for street drugs to try and like scare grownups.
That's what it was.
She was sitting at her desk.
The phone rang.
I've heard you say that.
Yeah.
Swinging on the flippity flop.
Somebody, uh, somebody was like, uh, yeah, I'm calling from the New York times.
We're doing an article on grunge.
can you tell us any of the grunge slang terms?
And she said, oh yeah, there's lots of grunge slang terms.
Like when somebody's got on really lame pants, we call them wax slacks.
But like trying to just touch on that sort of white guy, hipster jazz bow.
Hipster jazz bows, yeah.
Right, not exactly like a, but like an early 60s guy in a sweater vest playing bongos kind of shit.
Exactly.
And the New York Times writer did not do their fact checking.
And they published this article.
And I think Meghan, as she was doing it, just thought,
Because that was the idea of grunge and of our entire generation.
Culture jamming.
Yeah, which was just like, go fuck yourself, right?
Yes.
And so, let's see.
Some of the other ones were like Harsh Realm.
Oh, that's good.
Right?
A loser was a cob-nobbler.
Yeah.
Lame stain, you know, all these things.
And we ended up during that period, we ended up just using all these terms because it was so hilarious.
Why wouldn't you?
They're beautiful.
We were rolling in the aisles.
But anyway, Megan then went from subpop receptionist to now CEO of subpop.
Wow.
And so she texted me and said, hey, we're having this benefit show for...
the Children's Hospital here, what would you think about the Long Winters play?
And I said, well, there's no Long Winters anymore.
uh not that the band isn't still a band but just that none of them live in seattle it would be very hard for me to get a band together to play and this is like a month away right i mean it's one thing for you to show up and do three or four like like like your mall opening that's one thing but to like try and get like a four piece with parts together would be a trick it'd be really hard right yeah yeah and so i was like that's sweet of you to ask and she did the thing where she was like i'm just you know what
I want to do it for the kids, but I'm also just saying this as a fan.
I just really loved it.
And I was like,
Oh, really?
As a fan, I don't remember Sub Pop being massively enthralled by the long winters back in 2002, but okay.
What's the guy's name, Jonathan?
Jonathan Poneman, yeah.
And you put your feet on his desk.
Yeah, the old feet on the desk.
That was in that Stranger article, right?
Yeah.
So I was like, okay, all right.
Well, about two hours later, I get another text message.
This time...
from pete nordstrom president of the nordstrom uh store which you may have heard of and pete is your age he's my age he's our age but he's um he's running the family business and he loves rock and roll wow and pete writes and he says hey what about uh the long winters playing the smoosh benefit for the children's hospital and i said yeah megan asked
already and there's no band but it's really sweet of you guys to ask and he said you know i would love i'm doing it for the kids but i really am doing it as a fan i'm really i'm really a fan he should have to tell you how many people turned him down before he got well and i was like i was like all the great shows hey name one name one show um
You know, I find being confrontational with people who claim to like me can be a very effective strategy.
It's great.
It's great.
You find out real quickly how much they really like you.
And he writes back and says, oh, you need a band?
Why don't I play bass?
And I said... Can he sing?
Oh, I don't know.
I've seen him play bass, and he's a good bass player.
Okay.
And I said, this is like, I don't know, I'm still in bed at this point.
And I said, perhaps ill-advisedly, hey, Pete Nordstrom, if you want to put a band together and learn all the Long Winters songs, I will show up in a cape and sunglasses and sing the shit out of it.
But they would go and put all that together.
You would say, okay, this one's car parts is in C. You would give them all the basics.
I don't even know if I'd do that.
I'd say, you can find our music on Spotify.
Yeah, but you don't want to have to use a capo.
You're not a monster.
What I said to him was, I don't want to touch a guitar at all.
That's right.
You have a cape.
So you would come out there.
I'm going to come out with a cape, a cigarette, and a cigarette holder, sunglasses, and I'm going to say, Hello, Children's Hospital.
Hello, Children's Hospital.
Hello, Sponge?
What's it called?
Splurge?
Splurge.
Go ahead.
Hit it, boys.
Two, three, four.
And so I'm thinking, you know, because I'm at this point at, you know, at peak fuck you.
Like I said, I didn't want to do it or I said I couldn't do it.
I want to do it for the kids.
And also I'm a huge fan.
But but but no, I don't want to do any work here.
That seems crazy.
But if you're willing to do the work, I mean, it's basically like saying, yeah, I'll do it for twenty thousand dollars.
Well, he writes me back, and he's like, I'm putting the band together.
And I was like, all right, okay, fine.
Do you give first ride a refusal for people you have a grudge with?
Well, that's exactly right.
There's probably a lot of drummers you don't want up there.
I'm thinking, I'm thinking.
Mostly Seattle drummers or, I mean, there's only like three drummers in Seattle, right?
And I've been in bands with all of them.
What was the guy, Rusty?
Who's the guy that was in everything?
Yeah, Smokey.
Smokey, Rusty.
Yeah.
Who am I thinking of?
Wasn't there a guy that was in like the Posies and the Fastbacks?
Yeah, Musburger.
Musburger.
And like when you look at the, I haven't looked at this in 20 years probably, but there used to be, I think on a website possibly conducted by Fastbacks, there was a pie graph of how long people had been drummers in the band.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Musburger's been in every band, right?
He's played a show with the Longwinners.
He played with us at Dobe, but he's also a good friend.
Was it Brian somebody that played drums for you?
Uh, we've had a lot of... Like on the first two records.
Wasn't there somebody from Posies playing drums?
Oh, no.
Brian was in the Posies, but he's also the drummer of Fountains of Wayne, and he played on half of the first record.
Woof.
Fountains of Wayne drummer, and he's amazing, Brian.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
But so... I might come to this, or at least I'd watch a live stream of it.
See you in a cape.
The next thing I get is a text message from Mike Squires.
Okay.
And Mike Squires says... I'm sorry for our listeners.
Mike Squires played on, what, Putting the Days to Bed?
Mike Squires played the guitar on our first record on one song, The Scent of Lime.
He's the guitar player that goes, boom, boom, boom, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
That's a great bit.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
And then he also played on, I think, I don't know, Sky's Open, maybe.
A couple of songs on that.
I've seen some footage of that where it got a little rocky at times.
Well... It happens.
He's also... I used to credit this to Jason, and Jason reminds me.
It's not Jason.
It's Mike, who's a current former Marine, right?
Yeah, he was in the Marines.
And he's the one who says feelings are real.
That's Mike Squires.
Mike Squires says feelings are real.
Mike Squires is the one who told me that I deserve unenjoyment.
Mike Squires texts me.
He says, I just got a text from Pete Nordstrom...
They shouldn't involve you in this.
They should be able to just conduct this among themselves and you just show up with your cape wrangler.
Well, so what Mike says is, why the hell did you go to Pete Nordstrom?
I would have done all this and I would have put this band together out of real parts instead of out of...
out of department store magnates, I would have gotten Mike Musburger.
And I said, look, I'm not putting this together.
I'm still in bed, for Christ's sake.
I'm playing solitaire.
This is why you should never take calls from people.
I should not.
I should have my phone on.
This is what happens.
Calls just lead to more calls.
So Mike says, Pete called me, and he wants me to be the music director of putting The New Long Winters
Together, except Pete's already chosen the drummer and himself and a guy who's just going to sing the Sean Nelson parts.
Okay.
Uh, but now he wants me to, to be the Paul Schaefer to do all the stuff.
Right.
And I was like, huh?
Do you find at this juncture you're suddenly starting to notice you may have opinions about elements of this?
No, because I'm doing the other thing.
Are you able to do that?
Well, these days, right?
I'm just moonwalking out of the room like, you guys, listen, my name's Paul and this is between y'all.
You tell me when it's done.
And so...
Within two hours, Mike sent me a set list.
He's got a list of songs we're going to cover.
He's like, here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to get all those guys in a room.
I'm going to practice them until they get the stuff.
You're going to have to show up at one point.
I was like, meh.
This is when I knew the bullshit level had reached the apogee.
He said, look, man, the way you play guitar, it's just not
duplicatable no one can play guitar like you and so it's not going to sound right if you don't play guitar and i was like nobody can play guitar like me this is the ultimate like i'm a huge fan i've also seen footage of you giving him extremely specific details on how to make his part some more like if memory serves acdc
I seem to remember very specifically.
Which one is it?
Is it Departure?
I think it was Departure, where you were trying to explain that, no, you were like, no, this needs to sound more like Angus Young.
More.
More like Angus Young, not less.
And he's just hating.
I'm Malcolm.
I'm Malcolm.
You're Angus.
He's hating my gut so bad at that point.
But now it's the opposite.
Now I'm like, I don't want anything to do with it.
And he's like, the problem is where you think the one is and where you write all your songs, where the one is, doesn't make any sense to anybody else in the world.
And so if you're not standing there going, here's the one, we're never going to know where it is.
And the song is going to sound like a bunch of people throwing cardboard boxes down a recycling chute.
And so he's got it all figured out now so that I have to be there for the last three practices or something.
That's because it's starting to turn into a real jam up, isn't it?
I know.
And I also have to play guitar at the show otherwise.
But he said, don't worry about it.
I'll get everybody else up to speed.
We'll all know all the parts and stuff.
That's good.
Well, then about a day after that, this is yesterday, I guess, he texts me and he says, how the fuck did you –
tom sawyer me into doing all this and i said i didn't do anything no that's that's not entirely fair i said i'm still in bed it's been four days i haven't gotten out of bed this whole time i just keep getting door dash donuts i haven't done anything i didn't tom sawyer anybody and he's like i'm sitting over here thinking about the long winter show
And I'm like, I'm not.
This is very stressful.
Well, but so December 2nd in Seattle.
What?
Yeah, December 2nd in Seattle, Long Winters Live with Pete Nordstrom on bass and Mike Squires on guitar and some other people that are kind of yet to be
Exactly firmed up, I think.
Okay.
I'm not sure if I know the names of all the other people in the band.
But they're all going to be really good.
And then at some point, I'm going to have to find a guitar lying around here somewhere that has... Now, Kane, now you're just saying silly things.
You still got that Rick, right?
Yeah, there are guitars all over.
All right.
They're thick on the ground.
But that's the... I think the key is the less...
control i try to exert over things the more i can just sort of stare out the window and think and think happy thoughts that would represent a shift from the past yes yes
I mean, I'm not trying to pick a fight here, but it's your band.
It's always been your band.
That's whatever it's called.
It's your stuff.
It's your music.
You're the, as President Bush used to say, the decider.
But you really do have to, like, jokes are leaving the room for just a second.
You really would have to sort of let go and let God or let go and let Mike.
It does feel at a certain point that when...
after your band is 20 years old that the music belongs to the public domain and you know if i were in the if i were in it feels that way in residuals if i were in the aquabats okay it wouldn't matter it wouldn't matter if i was on stage or not you just put another guy up there with the aquabats hat on
If I was in the upper crust, you just put another.
I think you're just making these up at this point.
I think.
I think.
Are these all bands that dress the same?
Yeah.
Like the Bo Brummel's?
Yeah, the Bo Brummel's.
They all put on the outfits.
You franchise them.
You get like six Aquabats going at a time.
That's what they did with the Temptations.
Mm-hmm.
Temptations East, Temptations West.
I think that's how ZZ Top got started.
Oh, oh, oh.
So, but you know, the music belongs to the people.
Yes, that's true.
It's not, it's not up to me.
It lives in our heart.
It lives in our heart.
When I, when I met the, the woman from the Beths, she said, oh yeah, you did the song from my brother, my brother and me.
And I was like, but you know, but, but, but it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't belong to me anymore.
She was nice.
Oh, she was, well, you know, they were tired, but they were all very nice.
I really like him too.
I think, I think they might be dating now.
We all spent a lot of time.
They were very nice to my daughter.
Oh, that's so nice.
You know, that's my son's favorite band.
I do know that.
Okay, good.
And so we were all in line at the buffet.
So we're all standing there with trays that have little milk cartons on them.
And we're getting, you know, like some hot buns.
And we're talking about rock and roll.
So that's the kind of best – that's the best kind of situation where you're meeting somebody you admire is like in line at like a grade school buffet.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you're not forgotten.
Well, and the thing is – You're remembered in Auckland, New Zealand, which is saying something.
I feel like if I show up and this band sounds even remotely like the Long Winters, that's way better than no Long Winters.
It's way better than this show where – and honestly, I think better than me standing there with an acoustic guitar going, hey, everybody, if you like the show, rattle your paddle and donate some money to the children.
There will be auctioning during?
Like people have like a little ping pong paddle?
I think there's – I think the point is to raise money.
And I said – because a couple of people –
Have asked like, well, are they paying you?
And I was like, no, it's for the kids.
And I thought back to that article I wrote for the Seattle Weekly where I was like, benefit shows are just situations where you have the band pay.
their money to the charity.
No one else is giving any money.
The people that are buying tickets to it are just spending ticket money to see a show.
Yeah.
It's just the band that's giving... It's like how when people are running a race for charity, they never let you just give them money.
You still gotta go through the whole thing and sponsor miles.
And it's like, are you sure that's why we're doing this?
No, just let me give you $400.
You trust this guy.
You trust this Nordstrom fellow, right?
Well, so then somebody else said, actually...
Last year at the smoosh benefit, because I'm sitting there like, no, they're not paying us.
I would never ask.
But it's just like they're going to raise 15 grand for the kids.
And that's fine.
And somebody said, actually, last year at the smoosh benefit, smoosh benefit, they raised like two and a half million dollars.
Oh, man.
And I said, what?
That'd be nice to be part of.
They said it's a paddle raise and it's a room full of rich people.
Sure.
And I said, oh, the paddle raise.
And I think the Nordstrom family matches donations or something like that.
It's a big money event.
And so, you know what, Merlin?
I'm just happy to be invited.
I'm happy to be there.
I'm just happy to be a part of this.
Maybe you are now.
That's – you got two – wait, what is this?
Oh, so it's about a month?
What is this, November?
Oh, Jiminy.
It's less than a month now.
It sure is.
Oh, my goodness.
Will you keep us up to date if you choose to?
Will you keep us up to date on how this is going?
Oh, for sure.
See, I find it a little hard to believe you're just going to roll up and –
you know with a cape that's the that's well i can't i have i have to have a cape and a guitar now because apparently my guitar style cannot be duplicated but other than that and oh and then and here's what mike said he was like if you had let me set this up i would have repaired all the bridges between you and all let you let you this is not your project and i said it's nothing to do with me you could still do that i said you could still repair all those bridges if you really think you can do so
And he was like, what if there were three different groups of long winners and you guys just all let them fight it out?
Like you could perform with each one of them.
Oh, cage match.
Well, but think about this.
Think about this.
Oh, I'm going to go see like, you remember Beatlemania, which by the way, you know, Marshall Crenshaw was in Beatlemania.
Did you know that?
The movie Beatlemania.
No, no.
In the touring group in the 70s.
There was a group called Beatlemania.
And yeah, Marshall Crenshaw played John Lennon in Beatlemania on stage.
I did not know that.
Yeah, yeah.
But like the idea was you go and you see, or like, you know, famously like Crystal Ship.
Like does Doors covers or whatever.
But it would be kind of interesting.
For some reason, this is also reminding me of a story from Spin Magazine in 1986 where Sterling Morrison had gone to a...
for people doing covers of Sweet Jane, and he left after an hour because he couldn't stand it anymore.
He just couldn't be around that much Sweet Jane.
He had to go.
Sweet Jane!
Oh, but Sterling was still in the band for Sweet Jane.
He was.
Well, Sterling was, and they had the Yules probably at that point.
Yep, they did, yeah.
But, you know, Cale.
Cale had bounced.
Yes, he had.
I just watched the documentary...
I love John Cale.
You know that Paris 1919 album?
That's a very fucking good record.
You know that one song?
She's a ghost.
You know that song I'm talking about?
I'll send it to you.
He's really an interesting guy, and I think he might be Welsh.
John Cale is Welsh, yes.
Yes, and I think he played the viola.
He did, he did.
He was a very trained musician, which I think Lou Reed was threatened by.
Apparently Lou Reed was a little bit tough to deal with.
I heard he could sometimes be a handful.
I think Laurie Anderson would be the first one to tell you.
You know, the other day I was on Instagram.
I really feel like we should get off the internet, you and I both, and just never go back there.
But I was on the Instagram and I said, what's the deal with hot dog buns and hot dogs?
I said, how come nobody's ever talking about this?
Has anybody else noticed this?
and uh and i got like uh like 50 really sincere replies oh that's worse like are you not aware john that that there this was a plot point in the steve martin film father of the bride yeah and then somebody else was like um i think people are talking about i think i think if anybody said pre-algebra would know you just need to buy 48 of everything and then everything's everything's divisible
Every once in a while, there was someone that said, what's the deal with airplane food?
Am I right?
Like somebody that was at least communicating.
It's on Instagram, you say.
It's in Blue Sky.
You're over on Instagram.
Instagram, and then it went and it poured it over to Facebook where you might expect a few more of these guys.
But I was astonished at the earnestness.
Oh, yeah.
People are earnest on Mastodon, too.
It's really sweet.
It's sweet, but at the same time, like...
Am I so little known in the world?
Is the world so obtuse that I can say, what's the deal with hot dog buns?
Which was just some hack.
I was waiting in line at the DMV, and I was like, oh, maybe I'll post something really dumb, like really dumb.
And, and just realizing like, no, this is, this is authentic engagement.
I got, I got, you know, my usual number.
This happened to me a couple of weeks ago and this is, I'm not going to go on about this forever, but, but sometimes, you know, people like to bring their own joke or they like to bring their own sincerity.
And, and I said something on the internet, which is, I said, I wonder if this is the year that I, that I find out.
I think what I said specifically was maybe this is the year I find out what dew point is.
Oh.
Because I never know what dew point is.
And, you know, actually, I have looked it up, but I thought it'd be a funny joke to say.
And then a couple people made a joke about wet bulb, because wet bulb is a very funny phrase.
But then there were other people who were like, let me Google that for you.
And there was this, of course, because I've grown as a person.
Yeah.
You didn't immediately block them.
I don't know.
I mean, it's different over there.
People are nicer over there.
But, like, no, it is one of those things where it's like, oh, man, like, I must be getting really bad at this because I don't even think people know which part's the joke anymore.
Yeah, right.
I mean, if I just completely, then, well, you know, it happens.
But, of course, my favorite is somebody comes in and plays along with the original joke rather than, you know, kind of bringing their own or talking about their dead grandmother or something.
Oh, dear.
Oh, she loved hot dog buns.
She was such a sweet lady.
What I'm hoping is that this ship of Theseus issue with the long winters, like how much of a long winters does it have to be in a long winters for it to be the long winters?
Right, right.
Is there a long winters that doesn't have me in it that is still the long winters?
okay so now we are getting into maybe not the velvet under well actually yeah i think there was a yeah there was a v i don't know if they called it but like there's ones here can't tell you what i'm thinking of specifically there's a bunch of bands where that's happened where i mean look at your friends in pink floyd
Roger Waters.
There's still some original members of Pink Floyd.
Yeah, but I'll pick.
Seeing somebody live, I'll take Dave Gilmore any day, thank you very much.
Any day.
I do not like Roger Waters.
I think he's bad.
But here's the other thing.
Do you remember this?
There's a band I loved, I learned about in college, and became one of my favorite bands, a band from England called Wire.
And they had three albums in the late 70s that were at once kind of punk, but also kind of the beginnings of post-punk, and Wire was really interesting.
And then in 1986, they had kind of a comeback.
you know, a bell is a cup until it struck.
Kidney Bingo's, that single was out, remember?
Probably on 120 Minutes.
Yep, I remember.
But what was really cool was they're such an interesting band.
For one thing, when the four guys in Wire, one of the guys, I think the drummer,
didn't want to do it anymore.
They changed the name of the band to W-I-R, which I think is kind of cool, where they're like, you know, we're not Wire anymore.
Now we're Weir, or whatever.
But you know what they did?
They hired a band, an opening band, to do, like, note-perfect covers of, you know, Chairs Missing and Pink Flag, and you know what I mean?
So they had an opening band that played their old songs, which then they felt like played them great, that then freed them up to play.
That's brilliant.
The stuff they wanted to play.
And so what I could do is hire a band to play the Long Winters music, and then I get up and play just blues jams.
With a bottleneck slide?
Well, I'm going to make a pyramid in the middle of rock town.
Based on what you just said, Merlin, I hereby will, I am committing now to doing at least one song on the slide guitar.
Hmm, let me think about that.
Does one jump to mind for you?
Well, we'll find out.
It's not your gig.
Nobody can play the guitar like me.
I hope everything goes flawlessly.
I hope there's not equipment problems.
And I hope this doesn't take you off the pyramid, because that's your legacy.
Thanks, Merlin.
Would you be buried at Burning Man?
Well, maybe it's not Burning Man anymore.
Whatever that place is called.
What's it called?
What's it called?
What's it really called?
It's called something city, right?
Slab City.
No, that's a different place.
It's called something.
But anyway.
Mud City.
Mud City.
But yours would be anyway.
Would you be buried in your pyramid?
No, they would burn me.
It's right there in the name.
They would burn you?
On top of my own pyramid.
While you're playing slide guitar.
And, you know, there's also I don't want to get too into it.
Can't say this publicly, but that also really does open the possibility of this becoming a literal pyramid scheme for you.
You could probably use a side hustle at this.
Hello.
Maybe you get to help.
Speaking of Tom Sawyer, maybe you get to help.
Would you like to help?
It's your eye on you.
No, wait.
What was the, yeah.
No, it was Spirit of Radio that you guys used to play at Soundcheck, right?
Yes.
Eric and Nabeel would play?
Eric and Nabeel would play it, yeah.
They would kill it.
I'm just saying.
Oh, wait a minute.
Maybe we'll get an opening band that just plays the Rush songs that my band used to play during soundcheck.
Or it's people dressed up like Rush doing wire covers.
He lies on his side as he's trying to lie.
Who's that big guy in the cape with the cigarette?
I think that used to be John Roderick.
Could you come out on a rascal scooter?
You're going to see it.
You're going to see it all.