Ep. 535: "All the Whys"
Uh, uh, hi.
You're nine minutes early?
Guten Abend.
Huh.
I can't hear my printer.
I'm still printing.
This is, I'm not really sure how to, okay.
I guess I'm going to turn off my printer.
What are you going to do now?
What am I going to do now, Mr. Smart Guy?
Um, I guess I'll turn off my printer.
If you turn off your printer, doesn't that interrupt the whole queue?
Oh, you wouldn't believe how often I have to interrupt my queue.
This is a big part of, well, I think people show up on time for things because they have character.
It also affects what I can print.
You understand?
I can't undertake a job that's complex and is going to take many hours if I need to pause it in the middle.
You understand?
I can turn this off if you want.
I'm just checking my fluids right now.
Let me turn it off.
I can hear it.
That's ABS.
It's testing the ABS.
All right.
I'm going to hit stop.
Yeah.
ABS.
You mean your automatic braking system or your auto?
Don't pump.
Don't pump.
It's hard to unlearn.
All right, hang on.
My hot end is homing.
Just a second.
Okay, sure.
Don't hot plug it.
Well, you can probably still hear the chamber fan.
So I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to turn off my machine.
This is exciting.
I was not anticipating this.
Okay, stand by.
I'm going to walk over here.
I'm walking to the printer.
You should get into 3D printing.
Wouldn't that be fun for you?
You know, I wonder.
I sometimes wonder, but I feel like the 3D stuff I would want printed, the printer would have to be as big as a car.
I don't want a little shit around the house.
I want to 3D print something like... Very large stuff.
Yeah, this is 256 cubic millimeters.
Wait, millimeters?
Millimeters?
Anyway, it's, you know, you've seen.
And you can print it in parts, but, you know, I see what you're saying, though.
It'd be nice to be able to just say, you know, like some kind of Harry Potter spell, like I really wanted to print a replacement, some stuff for my wife's car.
Yeah, right.
Like what?
Like little switches and stuff that fell off.
Precisely.
There's a whole like cottage industry, by which I mean people who are really sweaty and don't make any money off it, of like, hey, here's a thing you can attach to your air conditioning vent and make sure, you know, make sure Uber cars smell like mint julep or whatever.
But then there is actual like a lot of practical stuff.
You know, this is really boring.
This doesn't need to be the show.
Well, here's the thing.
I've got knobs missing everywhere.
Really?
I've got so many missing knobs.
Yeah.
Because I use things with knobs, and then I take them places, and knobs fall off, and knobs get them loose, and then... So how do you drop a knob?
I do, and I put the knob in a drawer of knobs.
Oh, John.
And then I'm like, wow, where was the knob...
And if I could just 3D print knobs, I'd be so ahead of the game.
It's nice to have it in your pocket, you know, to know that you could.
You know, it's like, you know, being able to start a fire or something.
You know, it's nice to know it's there.
Yeah, well, we didn't start the fire.
The thing about us.
Yeah.
Now, you don't like Billy Joel, right?
You're a Phil Collins man.
No, it's not that I don't like him.
You know, I'm always trying to defend that.
Yeah, it's just, you know, it's just, I was thinking about this earlier today.
You know, the ways that I use language versus the way that you use language or Ken uses language or Sean Nelson uses language.
And although all four of us are articulate.
On the face of it, it seems like we're using the same language in the same way, right?
That's the problem.
We're not, we're not at all.
Absolutely not.
Not at all.
And I think that when Ken uses language, like he scans words because he's looking for precision.
And when Sean uses language, he's scanning words because he's looking for fluidity or fluoridity.
Oh, and also I think emotional impact.
And that's it.
Exactly.
He is using language to respond to things in motion.
Oh, boy.
I'm using language because what I'm really using is ideas and the languages are how the ideas are coded and shaped, right?
Like ideas are in chunks.
The only way we can fit them together is with words.
And so I'm looking for clarity rather than precision.
Whereas how would you describe how you use language?
What are you employing today?
Boy, there may not be a topic in the world that I'm more currently super into.
And because it's really a racking of topics, as you're already kind of getting at.
If you take two people... Well, to spoil the ending... Go right to the end.
Well, no matter how any two or more people, if you, like, use language or deploy language or think about language... Deploy.
Exactly.
That's a good one.
Is that, like, we...
We're using the same language, but we're not talking about the same thing.
And there's not really an easy way to talk about that, to have a sort of meta conversation about how we talk, what we talk about when we talk about talking.
Okay.
That is the best and worst Raymond Carver joke we've ever made, which is saying something.
Yeah.
What we talk about when we talk about talking.
We've used a lot.
We've used a lot of Raymond Carver.
I was like his other story where I'm talking from.
Always drunk.
Always Raymond.
I love that show.
One of the ways that this comes up is that Ken uses puns all the time.
And Sean uses puns.
And I do not use puns.
Ken uses puns, I think, because as he scans words, he sees multiple layers of words, including their shapes and their sounds.
Sometimes, I mean, I'm going to spoil another ending, which is, oh boy, am I ever like this.
I don't even know I'm doing it.
But I have a Terminator heads up display that, and I wouldn't put it this way, except you brought it up and the seven people who listen might enjoy hearing this or not.
But like, I'm also thinking about, unconsciously thinking about things like word origin.
Right.
Because the thing is, if you, you know, for example, like, oh, we should get back to puns in a minute.
I'm sorry, John.
Just talk because I have so, so, so much to say about this.
I have nowhere to say it.
And having a meta conversation about language annoys a lot of people, understandably, because they think words are a thing that are like, remember the...
refrigerator magnet poetry where you just like you can grab a bunch of words and we all start with the same set of words and then we just magnet them together yeah i combine them in order well you i mean that's one of the things that's fascinating about talking to you and listening to you is the level of um connection between the words that you choose you're sometimes making three or four different
comments or observations in just a single sort of use of a phrase.
Do you really feel that?
If you think that's true, I would consider that a compliment.
Well, obviously it's very damning because it's one of the numerous reasons I'm so disliked.
But I also appreciate you saying that because...
I see it.
To me, it's like right there.
And like, for example, with puns, this is a running bit, but it's not.
I kind of dislike puns.
I dislike puns most as an automatic reaction to something like.
Well, but see, this is the thing about.
There can be different kinds of puns other than people use.
sean sees language as musical and so when he he when he makes a pun he's he's doing it because he hears it and he you know and it's a it's some kind it's poetic right he's using it as prosy whereas ken is using it because he because because he's looking for precision he's scanning words for at all these different levels and he also does what you do which is he's aware of the latin
Behind it.
Well, and just to be clear, it's not to say that I'm a linguist.
Linguist is the wrong word for that.
It's not that I know a lot about etymology per se.
But it's there.
Well, there's, I mean, the most dumb kind of, the most dumb kind of pun that does amuse me sometimes, especially if I can make it extremely stupid, is like one off the dome would be something like, you know, HBO Max, more like HBO Min.
No, no, which is really stupid.
But the thing is, I still, all those answering 10 questions at the end of the chapter in fifth grade really did stick in my head about things like word roots and learning little tricks.
Like when you see Y as a vowel, it's almost always a Greek word.
You can tell romance words.
And I'm not processing it at that level.
And I'm not saying it's smart.
It's just that in the same way that your brain barfs out upon...
you know, or an anecdote or something.
I think we're all kind of like that.
It's just some, I think there are people who are less interested in others in talking about what the results of that can mean and how we actually communicate.
Well, so this is why it got me thinking because my brain does not see puns.
Even dumb puns?
No, but especially not dumb puns.
And a lot of the time when I'm listening to you or Ken or Sean and you guys pun, my reaction is, uh, or my reaction is to ignore it.
Understandably.
And a lot of people online are always frustrated with me because they're like, that was hilarious.
And he didn't even say anything.
He didn't even ring the bell or like even groan.
But my brain is never funny and never seeing puns.
I don't, whenever I hear you or any, uh, or my friends use a pun, I'm always like, whoa, like it takes me out of, I'm like, huh?
Well,
It reminds me of something Corey Doctor said a long time ago that I think is super smart, talking about just the nature of the structure, the physical, if you like, infrastructure of the internet.
And he used to say that something like, the internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it.
Which is a way of saying, well, the whole point of the internet is it's redundant.
Is it ever?
But, like, the whole point of the internet is that, like, you know, it stays up and finds other ways to get from A to B, if you like.
See, you just used redundant.
Sorry.
Oh, shit.
Do I pun?
You know, and you do it all the time.
Yeah.
In England, they say laid off.
I am because I'm using language as just idea chunks idea thinking out loud.
Yeah, right.
Well, because what I do is I establish an architecture of an idea and then I use different words to kind of probe the idea.
See if I can find, you know, the shape of it where its weaknesses are like that's the that's how I am employing words and none of that work.
is aware of puns you know puns aren't aren't part of that that job and so i often feel although you know we we talk about pun being the lowest form of humor and and i and i use that as a way to kind of get out from the criticism of that i don't get them i really don't see them and i feel like it is a i i feel like it's a place that my brain isn't it's just like not having a musical ear or not having a
um you know or being dyslexical right because i'm using like but the thing is you and i are using the same language we have the same you know or we have a lot of overlap in our vocabulary but but this is the thing that i think you love talking about which is that all these words it's not even that they have different meaning they're just they're tools for you they're tools for me but we see them fitting into the way we think in different ways
and i'm just i do not see the color of words i don't see the sound of words i'm never thinking of them that way i'm always thinking of them strictly as like how does this word convey an idea combined with this word and and it's and i'm so this was the difference ken uses words for precision and i use them for clarity
And I think you and Sean use words musically.
I think I understand.
And would you also accept that perhaps for emotional, like in a more, if you like, poetic way?
Well, and that's the thing.
Poetry and music, I think, are indistinguishable from emotion, right?
Those are emotional languages.
And so, you know, you are, you're painting with words.
And whereas I'm building with them.
And Ken is describing them.
Interesting.
That's a boner of a distinction.
I mean, as in boner-inducing.
But you and Sean are painting with them completely differently.
Absolutely.
Maybe so.
It's just that the more you... This has been credited all the way back to Aristotle, but the idea of you are what you frequently do, it's not a matter of what you think or whom you've decided that you are.
It's a question of your actions are sort of the...
the sum of your uh existence also and i think of you and sean as both using words to respond you respond to input you respond to emotion you respond interrupt and interrupt no respond like you have a a reaction and that's why i often say that i'm not a fan or whatever because i'm because i'm not i'm not having that response
i'm i'm generating you know i'm trying to whatever i mean it's not that i'm not responding but but you know i'm trying to like make you're trying to figure out how things are and how you are it seems to me sometimes when you're when you're thinking out loud with talking which again is another thing that i do obviously but like isn't that part of it is you're you don't know what it is you think until you've heard yourself say it and then fix it
Like, as in, not fix it, but as in, like, go, oh, I have a better way I can put this, and I'm going to keep... For some reason, I keep thinking of, like, when somebody, you know, you're going to house-sit for somebody, and they're like, oh, if you're lucky, they'll say, hey, be careful with the front door, because the key's kind of weird.
You need to, like...
And, like, you try all these different ways to make the key work.
And ultimately, the easiest thing might be just stop thinking about it and just use the key.
Kind of like Mr. Miyagi kind of stuff.
But that's what it feels like sometimes, is we're trying to find the right fit.
And, like, because you'll know, you know when it sounds wrong or feels wrong or thinks wrong.
It's like when Tom Kaliki says, this dish eats salty.
But, like, when your word is thinking wrong on your behalf, you make a correction.
But that also then has an impact on what it is that you're saying as you find a better way of putting it.
And so call it just a word.
It's not a question of word choice.
Although I care a lot about word choice in a way that I think is probably pretty annoying to a lot of people.
But isn't that part of it also?
It's like we're communicating, we're trying to communicate with others.
We're trying to say in the case of Ken, it might be to unambiguously say, to describe something.
Is that what you said?
Well, or just, you know, to find the precise explanation, definition, you know, to, it's a measurement tool almost.
I mean, I think one of the ways in which I'm misunderstood is that I use myself and my autobiographical stories only as a test case, right?
I'm not actually particularly interested in myself.
It's just my best way of describing what I'm looking for.
So you don't begin with speculating about strangers for one thing.
Well, I mean, I think that's... I'm not saying you get a ribbon for that, but I think there are a lot of people who are totally unaware how much... Well, see, and what I thought you were saying is, I was speculating about strangers, meaning I am the stranger to myself.
Well, so that's the second part, was that you're also in conversation with yourself.
Right.
But only because I'm interested in discovering the...
the center i'm describing the cube in the middle i'm just i'm trying to describe reality or i'm trying to describe what i perceive to be not objective truth but you know but the center and i'm the only test case i have you know i'm the i'm the doesn't pass that sniff test there's not a ton of sense in proceeding exactly so i can test ideas against myself
And then I have to account, and this is the thing about depression and all these other things, you have to account for the ways in which you are not objective and feed your flaws as you know them into trying to use yourself as a test case.
So controlling, it's a... Hey, guess what, John?
They're doing real work.
I think they're almost done.
But it's also... It's a way of controlling for things, like in an experiment, right?
Trying to, yeah.
Yeah, trying to, but like...
Just making pronouncements about how the world is doesn't really help that many people.
There's ways in which you kind of want to prod at it and test it and see if that felt right and then go do another pass at it.
Almost like you're editing what you're thinking in real time.
I mean, I've noticed it with my daughter.
If I say, hey, why don't you do this instead of that?
She goes, you know, she just her eyes glaze.
But if I say, you know, when I did this in my life, here's what happened to me.
And I decided to start doing this because that wasn't working.
And then she is paying attention.
I'm not telling her what to do.
I'm just describing something that happened to me a long time ago.
And if she hears the temperature of the conversation, at least a little bit from like, I'm, I'm the smart dad and you're the vessel that needs to be filled.
Well, yeah, and in that case, it's just like I was talking about this with a friend.
Tina Fey says all kinds of shit on 30 Rock, but a lot of the ugly shit she puts on herself.
The character of Liz Lemon has all these flaws.
Yeah, she's, you know, and she... And then the second time she says, it's so brilliant.
And then a scene later, she still has a different piece of lettuce in her hair.
Yeah.
But, you know, she's also the one that says... I have $11,000 in checking.
You know, she has... Yeah, exactly.
She's the butt of a lot of the jokes.
And I also try to make myself... As much as I make myself the hero, I also am always trying to make myself the goat of a lot of my stories.
Like, well, there he goes again.
And partly it's because I believe all this stuff is...
hopefully useful to other people and i see it with my kid because she has a very instead of thinking i'm uh smart or telling her how to live in in fact she sees me as a flawed character who has tried everything
So, you know, I go, look, I haven't figured anything out, but I tried this, I tried that, here's what happened.
In this case, I set my pants on fire.
In that case, I never got married.
And so somewhere between never getting married and having your pants on fire, probably there's a course, I still haven't found it.
And she hears it and she's a different person, right?
But where she sees those similarities,
Then, and I think these are the, you know, what I hear from people that whatever, um, they get to, it's like, well, it's basically an AA meeting, right?
In AA, when somebody gets done talking, well, and so when somebody gets done talking in an AA meeting, no one in the room is, and it isn't structurally true.
No one in the room is allowed even really by the culture to address that person directly.
Is it talkback?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's talkback.
You don't raise your hand and then go, I'd like to say a few things to the person over there.
Or you get a chance to almost cross-examine the witness to verify the things that you think didn't sound true, accurate, et cetera.
Yeah, or accuse them of being full of shit, which is the number one thing you want to do in an AME.
The person talks and you're like, you know what?
You're full of shit.
But you don't.
You can't.
All you can do is talk about yourself.
Like that's baked into the culture.
So if you want to address somebody across the room, the only way you can do it according to the, you know, the byways or the culture is to say, you know, in my own life,
And if you don't have a fucking story that's applicable, everybody in the room is going to go, uh-huh.
You know, like you're just going to feel, and there are always people that don't feel.
But that is something that I don't know whether I always would have been that way or just spending a lot of time in those rooms and realizing.
Seems like good training.
Yeah.
Nobody gives a shit what you think, but we all want to hear what you've done.
And...
And I guess that's certainly how I use light.
And again, the distinction between precision and clarity, I think a lot of people might mistake those two words as synonyms, and sometimes they are.
But clarity is, I think, philosophical rather than technical.
Can I throw out a word here that I think, because precision and clarity, the word I use a lot is ambiguous versus unambiguous.
I lost you.
Can you hear me?
Merle, can you still hear me?
I can hear you.
Can you hear me?
Now I can.
I'm here.
I'm here.
Can you hear me?
I am.
Do you hear me?
Yeah.
I don't know what's going on.
Can you hear me, Merlin?
No, I'm sorry.
Let me type you.
Ah, fuck.
Hang on.
I can hear you.
I can hear.
Now I can hear you.
Okay.
Okay.
It did that thing where I couldn't hear you for a while and then all of a sudden you were talking super fast.
Oh, that's weird.
Yeah.
Okay.
Anyway, you were about to say.
uh are we cool i mean are we cool to record because like it's super fucking erratically loud they're beginning a new week of work that they have claimed is you know they're getting in the home stretch so it's probably going to be a lot of buzzing and booming see i don't hear any of it okay it sounds just like great audio okay all right well shit okay so should we just keep doing what we're doing yeah
Okay.
Oh, fuck.
I'm not going to fix this.
Okay.
So precision versus clarity.
I'm not completely clear on which is which, but rather than ask you to disambiguate, I'm going to toss out this word, jargon.
Here's a funny thing.
Is the jargon...
I think jargon is an interesting, uh, area of the language that I'll have to say very often does drive me extremely crazy.
It's, it's such an sort of an inflection point or such an attractive nuisance for people who are lazy thinkers.
But the truth is the jargon does have its meanings.
So like if I say in jargon, so there's a jargon we joke about, we talked about this just, I think last week, right?
This is sort of jargon, like open the kimonos type stuff or, Oh God, I forgot to tell you one of my favorites.
I think we're talking about inside of cultures, there's certain words and phrases that catch on.
And one time I did a talk somewhere and a phrase that came up more than once.
You hear people say that we really need someone who's going to move the needle.
But then I kept hearing this adjective that they'd invented.
I'd never heard before.
They say needle moving.
We need something that's really needle moving.
Oh, needle moving.
It's needle moving.
Which is, I would say, pretty, in my book, pretty clearly counts as jargon.
And I was mentioning again last week, talking about George Orwell, his wonderful essay on language in the 40s.
But here's the thing.
Jargon, so you've mentioned precision and clarity.
And precision is Ken, right?
And clarity is you?
Yeah, okay.
Well think about jargon like and jargon on the one hand There's the kind of jargon that can be the George Orwell style and I say George Orwell I'm not talking about 1984 animal forum I'm talking about an essay he wrote about how one way the fascism sneaks into your culture is through shitty language but
I think about jargon.
Jargon can be something.
I said, for example, function versus functionality.
Like when I first got a job and people were using the word functionality, and it bugged me because it sounded like the kind of jargon where you're just adding syllables to sound fancy.
Well, the thing is, though, to a computer programmer, at least in 1999, I do see that distinction.
I understand it better now.
Why?
Because I know more than I did then.
Back then, I was coming out mostly as an English major type and thinking like, oh, well, why do you say functionality?
Why don't you just say function?
And I'll try to use it in a sentence.
The personalization aspect of our web portal, we're adding functionality for that.
Well, the thing is, there is probably a distinction.
There's a reason somebody started saying that, which is probably not just to sound smart and meaning.
And now, if you said function versus functionality, I still don't love functionality, but I think I get the distinction.
You might say a function, and I'm sorry, Syracuse, I'm probably going to just make you real mad again, but you might say a function of our web portal is letting people personalize things.
But in order for people to personalize things, we need to add some new functionality.
That sounds subtle, but like... How is it different, though, from usability?
Real different.
Like, you might say, like, we would use function, setting aside the noun, which might mean Met Gala, but we say function, well, what is, like, using that as a noun, or, you know, what is the function of this thing?
Well, the function of this is to enable people to go to a polling location and legally vote, right?
Oh, I see.
Versus the functionality of the voting machine.
Right.
So that's different from usability.
Yeah, you got user experience and user interface, which are different things.
But but like what I'm trying to get at, though, that's so stupid and so over subtle that only you would appreciate it.
Maybe is that the thing that's funny about jargon is that sometimes you're going for precision.
Sometimes you're going for clarity.
Sometimes you're going for sounding like a little bit smarter.
But the thing about jargon is in the same way that it can be very off-putting and an in-group thing that we say to each other to show that we're part of the in-group, but it can also be about a certain kind of specificity in jargon.
And is that kind of sort of getting with what you're talking about with you versus Ken?
Like for me, it works on so many different levels that, you know, really coalesces and stuff like trying to arrange a meeting with somebody or a call with somebody.
Which sounds silly, but as I talked about ad nauseum in other places, I use a lot of specificity and disambiguation when I communicate with people about time.
And I do stuff that I think to a layperson seems very silly, and like I'm trying to be Merlin Mann or something.
But when I contact somebody and I want to say, are you, you know...
Like, are you available to, would you be available to talk tomorrow at, you know, 11, 15 a.m.
Pacific time?
You know, I'll call you via Skype or whatever.
There's so much culture bound up in that.
First of all, I'm assuming that the person has any interest in wanting to talk to me.
Sure, there's that.
I'm assuming the person knows what Skype or Zoom or all those different things mean and would know, like, how to follow up with that.
But we're not even close to that yet.
We haven't even gotten to what tomorrow is yet.
because but i think what i think the difference is that all of that is is oh go ahead no no you're good go oh i'm sorry you you dropped out exactly at a moment that seemed like a pause that's so funny i'm trying i'm trying it's okay it's so fucking loud here and i'm really trying to stop interrupting people as much
Oh, well, I think this is actually a computer problem, right?
There's some level of noise reduction or something.
We should look into ways to fully, if you like, leverage your home internet by perhaps the addition of, I want to say like a cable device.
that you could plug into the computer so you would have better... I'm probably being ambiguous about that.
Well, see, so what I'm saying is... I know you sit there with the thing on your gut or whatever, but I'm imagining you just wandering around your attic, like turning things over in your hand as you hold a 15-inch laptop in your left hand and just walk around.
Absolutely true.
I was just thinking as I was sitting here, I was like, you know, I could just go to the bathroom.
Not to go to the bathroom, but just to go there because I have some things I want to look at.
You might want to trim your hair.
But no, the difference between precision and clarity, I think, has a lot to do with, is it about the temporal world or is it about the spiritual world in a way?
Or the world of ideas.
Yeah, right.
So, like, Ken, I don't think...
really typically sits, stares out the window and says, why?
Why is it like this?
Why are things like this?
So he's using language to describe things in the world, right?
And everything you're describing about technical language and jargon and a sense of time, those are all about the world.
I still don't know what dew point is.
And please don't try to teach me.
It's just more funny for me to have it as a bit.
But every time I start to try to understand dew point, and this is just to give...
Good they brought back the jackhammer just to give you my dumb guy bona fides every time I start to think a little bit about dew point I end up with relative humidity I can't understand how it's different and I'm guessing there's like another factor I don't know about but when I say jargon for example Like obviously dew point means something to somebody it doesn't it isn't meaningful to me But that doesn't mean here's the thing here's the thing though my in curiosity about learning what dew point is in order to keep this bit going is
That's part of it.
But the other part of that is I haven't found a place.
I don't... I'm not aware of the place that Dewpoint fills in my life.
Right?
So from... Now I'm being the dumb guy, right?
From a practical standpoint, you say to somebody like, are you mad at me?
No, I'm not mad.
I'm just disappointed.
Well, okay, that's... Okay, well...
okay, well, that seems worse in a way.
Should we talk about that?
No.
And then you say, oh, no, I'm actually not disappointed in you.
I'm disappointed in myself for having trusted you or whatever.
And like you get into these layers of what the word means, which you don't have a problem with when you talk to a dumb guy because they don't know what the words mean and they don't know what they're just repeating things that they've heard on TV.
I'm sorry.
I think this is true and I'm not actually sorry.
I think a lot of people just do that.
I think people just repeat things they've heard on TV or somewhere else and
have very little interest in interrogating the place that that actually has in other people's lives, you know, let alone their own.
I think if you and Sean had started this podcast and try you and me, you know, I think that it would be, uh, I mean, you guys would be making narrower and narrower distinctions between insufferable for two guys who don't like, like, like, like, I mean, it would be, it would be so dumb and ugly to,
Two insufferable English majors at a cafeteria table no one wants to be near.
Yeah, just like down and down and down and down.
He's so smart.
He's really a smart guy.
He's very smart.
But for me, even when I'm in the practical world, even when I have my hands in the dirt...
At a basic level, I'm asking why.
Always why.
Why, why, why.
And I'm never, you know... Just why in general or why you, why now?
Or is it Santa Slaughterhouse-Five by anybody?
Like, what is the why you're thinking about?
Just all the why.
And the thing about Sean is that he's always asking why me.
But the thing about me is that I'm always...
wondering why?
Why are we here?
Why is everything?
Why are things?
Why am I thinking this?
Why?
So causality in some ways or predicate?
Like, how do we get to this?
I think it's just philosophical.
It's just always trying to say, how are we using language and why?
How much is our reality created?
How much created in our minds?
How much is, I mean, if I was a million miles tall, how would the world look?
If I was a million increments smaller than an atom, how would the world look?
Could I afford an apartment in Brooklyn?
If I were nano-sized?
If I were a nano-New Yorker?
Could I live inside of an anthill?
Would the ants kill me?
But all of that is game, right?
It's game, but it's not game within language.
It's game that I only have language to, it's the only tool I have.
yeah yeah yeah and so and and i think a lot of the time like you and sean and merlin are using are also gaming in length you're gamifying and you're describing the world it's hard not to once you get into it it's hard not to it really is and i know yeah i know because i talk to you all and i'm always kind of amazed
but but everything i do is just is just driven by this um and it's very childlike i think and and in a way its own kind of dumb which is just like what's under what's under there and if i get under there does it hurt me or does it make does it make me happy and what what are those things you know it's just like it's just what what talking to me is like is like i'm like i'm i'm
For what it's worth, I mean, I know to a certainty that I am the same way, but probably about different things.
Right.
And the different things part, I'm not committed to, but I do know that, for example, my family is so... They're not interested.
They're not disinterested.
That means something else, by the way.
They're not interested in my reckons about things.
And I have so many reckons about things.
They usually start out with something like this.
Huh.
You know, when you hear that sound, you know you're in trouble.
Where you're like, huh, this company put this sign up, and they're saying they're doing this for this reason, but that's interesting.
I wonder how it led to that.
And you notice that sign is actually, it's a sign that somebody printed out.
I've always said you can, if you really want to learn how a building works, look to the ad hoc signage, because that will show you all the things where somebody had to make a sign because the building didn't explain itself well enough.
Right, or the thing, yes, exactly.
Door pushes out.
Why is this not easy?
I should plug the printer in.
I should click on the print button.
I took a picture.
I've taken so many pictures of toilets, just as shows you and I have done, that say, don't flush anything down the toilet.
Don't flush during shows.
I got one from when we did Sketchfest a few years ago, and it says something like, I don't know, it was just a really funny one, and it was the right aspect ratio for a Twitter header, so I kept it.
Might be short this week.
I don't know but it was from you know, you've been you you're a performer How many bathrooms have you been in where they had to add a sign about flushing don't flush?
You know lady products don't Well in tour buses, there's a big sign the first tour bus I was ever in there was a big sign by the bathroom that said no mud pickles
And, you know, I really, it took me a moment, whereas it probably wouldn't have taken you or Sean a moment, or Ken.
But honestly, no, that's the kind of thing I would talk to my family about for a week, because I would be like, well, wait a minute, are you saying, it sounds like what you mean to say is
Don't shit while we're driving somewhere because it makes the bus stink.
I think that's what that means.
I believe that's what it means.
But instead, it's in this cute way.
And here's the thing, though.
You know, like, oh, you know, there's no PNR pool.
Don't make me yellow in your toilet or those kind of jokey signs people put up, you know, about peeing in their pool and that kind of thing.
Well, it depends.
But that gets us to this deeper issue we're on time for today, which is like, well, what is your intent?
Yeah.
If I say pin number, I don't say pin number to John Syracuse because it drives both.
It's got number in it.
It's got number in it.
I normally don't say ATM machine.
Do you say shrimp scampi?
I say military intelligence, that kind of thing.
You say it's a fettuccine-based stuff?
I don't think it's a matter of being smarter, not smarter, or anything else.
It's just that if you want to explain to somebody that there's this machine over there where you put your plastic card in, and if it's working well and you have money in the account associated with that little rectangle of plastic, you'll be able to take out money.
And I just think that's a dumb example, but I think it makes the point.
Sometimes it is easier and less ambiguous to just say ATM machine.
That's kind of a silly example, but that's me trying to... I want to be as clear as I can be, but at the end of the language day, I want to communicate well with somebody.
So I feel like I want to try to communicate in a way, but of course then, because I'm me, this gets to know a million things about word order, and what adjective is used, and do you want the punchline at the end, and all this kind of stuff to be effective, where it's like...
Well, do you want people to not shit on your bus, or do you want to be clever?
Because what you really might want to do is just not have a bathroom.
Right.
If you don't want mud pickles, you shouldn't have a bathroom.
Well, no, you want to pee in the bathroom is why it's there.
But what you're describing is all particular.
Just say urine only.
Pee only.
I think talking to John Syracuse, again, he is very precision-oriented.
Because you know because of all this stuff all this language that you're talking about is all trying to be more and more that puts him if I have my Document right that puts him in the Ken category Yeah, I think so because he's not John is very seldom You know, I I don't listen to podcasts as you know, but I just catch you up on the I think at this point 12 13 years of podcasts all you know about him is he's never been wrong
Well, and that's the thing, but he's not using it as prosy, right?
He's not waxing lyrical.
No, no, no.
And you see this, a bit that's been running on our show for five years, I would interrupt you except to say, when I say, John says, well, it's like they say about, he did one three months ago where he goes, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And he's speaking in shorthand like we all do, like you and I do, like all the time.
And he goes, you know, it's like the monkey in the house.
And I go, did you just say monkey in the hose?
Because that sounds like a square dance move.
And he's like, no, you know, the monkey in the hose.
Monkey in the hose.
Yeah.
Bow to your partner.
Bow to your son.
No, but monkey.
And he goes, and then, but he does this thing where anecdotes, including jokes, he tells in bullet points.
Like, one of my all-time favorite jokes, which is also an insight about life, is about the, let's just say it's a drunk guy on a bridge, and he's down on his hands and knees, and he's trying to find his car keys.
A cop sees him and says, what are you doing?
He says, no soup.
Not me, not me.
Anyway, I could tell this to you in bullets because you know it, but that's not the best way to first hear the joke, right?
The punchline of this joke, which is a very meaningful punchline in my life is, no, I dropped him in the river last week.
Then why are you looking here?
The light's better here.
The light's better here.
The light's better here is such a valuable insight in my life.
And every time I realize about other people, it makes me titter to myself.
And every time I realize it about myself, John, every time I realize I lost my keys in a river last week, but I'm just here because the light's better.
Like, don't act, you the listener and you the John, don't act like you've never done that.
But for me, I just told you that in bullets.
I didn't tell you the joke right.
If I go blah, blah, blah, Jesus on the cross, Paul comes up three times, gets beat up by Romans, Jesus says, Paul, I can see your house from up here.
That's a terrible way to tell the single greatest joke about Christianity that's ever been told.
But that's what John does because he's chunking to like, just he knows I know what he means.
He just needs to remind me what it means.
That's a terrible way to tell a joke.
And I'm not making fun of him here, but I'm saying, like, that's... No, he's wonderful.
And every time we talk about him, of course, it's with the greatest affection and admiration.
No matter how much I like him, he won't like me back, and it breaks my heart.
He's a very bad person.
Precision versus clarity.
Do you find yourself coming back around, then, to... Because it strikes me that you're not...
I'm gonna leave this aside for a minute.
You don't seem like the sort of person who goes, well, I made up my mind about that.
I know that from now on.
But do you find yourself arriving at something that feels more rather than less clear or more rather than less accurate?
Or even precise?
Do you find yourself then going like, okay, I'm gonna work with that for a while.
See how that goes.
The cube is always moving through time The cube is always moving through time.
The cube is moving through time So there's no way you can go back to exactly where you were approaching the cube before You know, you're trying to describe the elephant, but you don't have nine blind men You just have yourself and you're blind and that's not even accounting for Zeno's elephant We're like every step the elephant takes toward the wall You know, he's actually a one anecdote half an anecdote further than he was before
Then you get the blind guys over here, and they're touching the candle.
No soup.
No soup.
When you think about the cube.
You know, 24 is the highest number.
You think about four dimensions, right?
The cube is moving.
You can't land on a fraction.
You can't land on a fraction.
The scuttling claws.
Is he a great man?
I'm always coming back to it from where I am, which is always somewhere further down in time.
And so where I'm standing at any given moment.
So you're right.
I never decide on anything.
I never say, this is it done.
I don't have to think of it.
But it's like being lost without a map where you're like, well, I feel like even though I don't know where I am and I don't understand precisely what I need to go.
I don't precisely understand where I am.
I don't precisely understand what I need to change to get where I want to go.
I know that this one feels less wrong than the other one.
Well, there's that, but there's something in my soul that A, isn't trying to go anywhere, and B, is inexorably drawn to describe this cube, which I don't know why.
Nobody else seems to be so drawn to, I mean, I know there are plenty of people that are octuating carrots.
What's the cube mean?
I know it's moving, and you can't get back to it.
The cube is meaning.
You know, in this way, I'm the silver surfer.
A character that I don't even understand or know if I'm referring to correctly.
But the cube is... You're very lonely and you're just trying to find planets for Galactus to hear.
Yeah, lonely and I'm silver and I'm lying through Galactus.
Yeah.
But no, the cube is everything I don't understand, which seems key.
And the more I whittle away at it, the more I wonder whether any of it matters at all.
But I am just... It sure isn't helping.
I'm always...
My rumination never.
My thinking doesn't help.
My reading doesn't help.
My trying doesn't help.
Nothing helps.
I'm just, at this point, I really am just trying to get through the day.
But for me, that's why I don't listen to music.
It's why I don't consume media.
Because I sit and stare.
out the window and what am i doing what the fuck am i doing i'm thinking so hard like you can smell the smoke and it sounds like a million steam engines steam and jumping yeah i'm never just sitting here blank my mind is never off always going but staring in circus music
john's brain calliope and the cube is there yeah i am there and i'm taunting you the cube we're moving through time the space that i'm sitting the couch that i'm on is also i'm surfing it through time and the cube is surfing through time eric leidus says you can never sit on the same couch twice
That's right.
Parmenides says everything's a couch.
The river is always the same and it's never the same.
It's a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is another.
That's a Donovan song when you got tied up by his daughter.
So it really is all super connected.
Oh my God, I did a show with her.
I got a couch now.
I did a show with her last summer and we were on stage with each other.
Talking about the actress Ioni Sky.
We were on stage with each other and her husband, Ben Lee, for an entire hour.
We're talking, we're talking, talking, talking, talking, talking.
And I never got to the anecdote.
Hey, Ione, can I take you back 25 years ago?
Because the fun way to do it would be like, 25 years ago, you know, we had an encounter you probably don't remember.
And, you know, and then at first she'd be like, oh, you know, or whatever.
And I'd be like, do you ever remember tying up a cowboy, but that was dressed in a polyester short sleeve shirt with a clip on tie in an office?
Do you remember anything about that?
But I never got to it because we were talking about all this other stuff.
And, you know, Ben was kind of.
You know, doing an interview style thing.
And I think about that a surprising amount.
Like, huh, there's going to be a next time, presumably, because life is long, that I meet Ioni Sky.
And then we're going to have more history.
We spend an hour talking.
Two hours, if you count the backstage.
Oh, boy, the cube is moving.
And I never mentioned the story.
Is that what you're talking about?
This is it?
That's it, right?
The cube just moved.
Or like, what was your phrase?
I wrote it down earlier.
You said something about the cube is always something and I'll find that later.
But that's what you're talking about because now you literally can't land on a fraction because now there's been other things since then
Some ways it'll make it it'll make it.
Well, you know, here's an here's an example from Merlin's dumb life.
I don't remember names very well I try I try pretty hard.
I've done a lot of different things I'm just not really particularly good at associating a name with a person and you remember faces I am well, I you know That seems like such an obvious thing to say but actually I'm pretty good at faces Yeah in a way that upsets a lot of people people are can't recognize faces at all.
My mom says she cannot
One of the biggest problems in her life is that she doesn't see... I remember she remembers the faces that have crossed her.
I bet she's got a mental post office bulletin board full of wanted posters.
She zooms in on their mole.
You should get that checked out.
But... Wait, what was I saying?
I was saying your mom... Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
But the thing is... The problem is...
If you've encountered somebody over, say, two years or several years, like, let's say you've, like, this has happened to me, where I've been, like, I've met somebody at an event or something, and I really liked the person.
I remember the person.
Like, I have associations I could do.
A little kind of like, you know, little jivey thing where I could give you all kinds of associates.
I met you talking about the hardcover volume one of Hawkeye at 320 West Portal Avenue this particular year.
But I don't know your name.
We've talked on social media.
What I'm getting at is the sixth time you meet somebody is not the day to ask them, by the way, what's your name?
Right.
Right.
And in this, I know it's different with the actress I only sky, but it's kind of the thing here where like if she did eventually, I don't know if she did eventually like kind of put together who you are and what your deal is.
I don't know if she, like she, she knows kind of of you.
Oh, she knows me.
Yeah.
She knows me just pretty well from social media.
I really like Ben Lee's first record.
He was like 14.
He and I are, he and I are actually pretty good friends.
The thing about this story is I don't want to tell it to Ione Skye I want to tell it to Ione Skye in front of an audience and there aren't that many times in our past because she'll probably have a funny thing to add to like she might say I don't remember that whole day I don't remember that day at all I've never seen that video but she might it might also be something where she's like yeah I tried to talk to Jeff and he was really inscrutable or like Aaron seemed nice
Later that day, I had a custody battle with Ad Rock and some blah, blah, blah.
Oh, sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But the thing about it is that in trying to figure out the cube,
I do not consider my, for instance, let's say social embarrassment or social humiliation.
I don't consider that not relevant to figuring out the cube.
It's perfectly relevant.
Because why do I have it?
You don't consider it not relevant.
So it figures, if I'm getting the math right, you're saying it figures into the mix.
How you respond to things in pursuing the cube.
Absolutely.
Or being pursued by the cube.
Social humiliation is not, oh, pursued by the cube.
Social humiliation is not something anomalous that I want to erase because the cube represents perfection.
It's the opposite.
I think humiliation is a better route to understanding the cube than anything practical that I could do
in the world right like the the cube i'm trying to discover or the or any kind of insight into it whittling away at it putting a shape on it i think you know humiliation rage are just as useful as bliss or uh you know i'm not striving for happiness in other words uh because it doesn't seem useful
Or at least if it is useful, it's not any more useful than shame.
Which I think is not maybe typical.
So in a way, I'm hoping to tell that story to Ioni Sky in a way that's embarrassing.
To you.
To me.
Right.
But I think that would be very entertaining.
To tell that to I Only Sky Over Dinner, where the only audience is Ben Lee.
Yeah.
You could also tell her I wrote a song about a character she did in a movie.
Well, why?
Why would I do that?
I don't want to glorify you.
I want to glorify myself.
That's true.
I think I might have taken your cube away.
I wrote a song called Diane Court.
It was about a character named Diane Court that she played.
Did you ever see the movie Say Anything?
Let's see.
Have I ever seen Say Anything?
You're not a fan.
Say Anything.
Say Anything.
Are you kidding me?
Say Anything was one of our generational... Kickboxing.
Sport of the Future.
Defining movie.
Defining.
Joe lies.
Joe lies when he cries.
All of the junk.
I celebrate his entire catalog, John Cusack.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, like chicks can't hold the smoke.
You know what I'm saying?
Eric Stoltz is good in that, too.
There's a lot of people who are good in that.
John Mahoney's good in that.
It's good.
And you know, there's that comedian I like.
He's in it.
He's really good.
How do you feel about Judah Friedlander?
Oh, I've enjoyed what I've seen.
I don't know a ton.
You're talking about the guy with the hat in 30 Rock?
The guy with the hat, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I've enjoyed what I've seen.
I don't know a ton.
I like the times when I've seen him play against character as well.
Yes.
See, that's the thing.
As far as 30 Rock characters go, he's funny in a very small role, but you splink and you miss him maybe.
But he's in a really good movie called Zoolander.
Oh, is that right?
So Zoolander, the Ben Stiller character, the titular Zoolander.
That's a really funny movie, by the way.
He decides to go back to his roots in Pennsylvania coal country.
And let's see.
Let me see if I can do this off the dome without looking.
All I remember is his father is John Voight.
The older brother is Vince Vaughn.
And the younger brother is Judah Freelander.
Oh.
You know, he was in American Splendor.
He did a wonderful job in American Splendor.
I've never seen that movie.
Really?
The Harvey P. Carmen?
Is it?
Is Paul G. Money in that?
Yes.
He should be.
Yes, I think he is.
Absolutely, yes.
I mean, I haven't seen it since it came out.
I know him from Letterman.
That's all I really know.
I was a great fan of Harvey Pekar comic books.
Of course.
What an interesting guy.
Yes, very interesting.
Because he would write them and different people would illustrate them.
It might be Jaime Hernandez or something.
Not enough Jaime Hernandez.
But he would get different people to illustrate.
Yeah, right, right, right, your boy.
Some did a lot of them, that's right.
All the women had very large thighs.
Even though I was not at the time a hippie or even old enough to have tried cough syrup, I for some reason was digesting the...
like gritty comic art of the 70s instead of superheroes which i should have i know did you like love and rockets i'm trying to figure out if i should try to get my kid at love and rockets i did not ever get into love and rockets it was big when i was in college
It was, but it was a part of the scene.
And by scene, I mean all of alternative culture at the time that I wasn't a part of.
I was not.
I was not in at the time at the time that that stuff was big.
I wasn't into any of that stuff.
I wasn't into Dark Knight.
I wasn't into Watchmen.
I wasn't into any of those independents we've been talking about.
Later, I did really super enjoy stuff like Chris Ware.
other novelty company.
I've got a signed copy of one of his very large books.
Um, fancy.
Oh yeah.
He was, he, boy, he, he looks and acts pretty much exactly like you'd expect.
It was very, very rewarding.
Not to try and, uh, you know, like, uh, dump on you.
but hodgman has a this isn't this doesn't glorify me at all except that i once knew a guy named john hodgman but he has a chris ware like comic book page oh wow signs i have a this american life poster that's signed by all the people from the show including i think john
Designed by Chris Ware.
But the other one I was going to say was, though, you know, because I was basically, you know, I don't want to talk out of school, but I was talking to a mutual friend of ours.
Famous person?
Go ahead and name him.
No, not at all famous.
Oh, not a famous person?
It's a famous Seattle art collector named Jason Finn.
And we were talking about comics.
And I was talking about, we were suggesting things to each other like we do.
And I was recommending these two guys that are now at Image Comics.
They used to be
You know what?
I'm not going anywhere with this.
I'm just bragging about, you know, knowing Jason.
That's one of the best things about being our age is just bragging about stupid shit that we talked to.
I was like, you know, Roderick introduced me to Kurt Block once.
He's like, yeah, Kurt Block produced one of our records.
I'm like, fuck.
No, no, no.
But think about, I mean, I think about this all the time.
You never.
Yeah, Weird Al directed one of their videos.
Yes, I did.
Jesus Christ.
He didn't appreciate it at all.
He's so broken inside.
He's such a bitter man.
Weird Al?
No, the other one.
Oh, the other one.
I've become very affectionate about Jason.
You guys talk all the time now.
Well, sometimes.
Yeah, we talk.
We don't talk about you that much.
I think it makes both of us uncomfortable.
You don't want to talk about me.
I'm just, yeah.
Don't put an idea.
Don't tell me.
You know what?
I take the cubes where I find it, my friend.
You drop a cube, I pick up a cube.
One of the things you never talk about, and, you know, I don't understand your mind.
It's a fascinating place.
That makes all of us.
I only visit there, you know, and.
I know.
It's like Las Vegas.
You think you want to go there.
Then at first, you're a little excited.
And then within hours, you're like, not only do I need to leave here immediately, but I don't ever want to come back here.
Well, the thing is, I come back over and over.
And I feel like there's a room there.
You're always welcome here.
We'll comp you everything every time.
I like to call it my room.
But it's got a lumpy mattress, and it's not- Remember the taco mattress?
Do you remember when we made you sleep on that inflatable mattress that turned into a taco?
Of course.
Of course.
We've treated you.
We always would try.
You know, Madeline tries so hard to be a good host.
I think in a lot of ways, you got a pretty bum deal a lot of times you've stayed with us.
Well, no, because- Remember the baby with the ball upstairs?
Well, that baby, yeah, was bad.
You know, you always would disappear and come back with enough dim sum to feed an arm, and you and I would eat it all?
Eat it all.
What are you going to do with all that dim sum?
Ask me in 20 minutes.
Yeah, we're going to eat it all.
But anyway.
But anyway, what you never do is brag about having been at ground zero of the San Francisco tech revolution.
You knew all those ding-dongs.
I was at maybe ground three.
About that.
Do you remember when Dan... I don't know if you listened to this, but when Dan was like, well, John, you're not one of the first generation of podcasts.
Yeah, that's one of those things you remember.
You know, we did talk about... I talked about... This is such a great example of how we are.
We were talking about... I was just saying there's a whole bunch of stuff I just didn't know.
I was not a huge...
Love Battery fan.
I like what I've heard.
He sent me an amazing compilation of Seattle bands covering Damned songs.
Because, of course, I said to Jason, you know what I've been really getting into is Machine Gun Etiquette by The Damned.
In the last year, it has become one of my favorite albums.
Two things happened in the last year.
Two and only two things.
The Thing has become one of my all-time favorite movies in the last year by John Carpenter.
And the other thing is... It's really terrible.
Huh?
It's really terrible, but yes.
The movie The Thing.
Yeah, I can understand why.
I think you're thinking about a different thing here.
It's very terrible, though.
You're talking about the movie The Thing with Wilford Brimley.
The Thing with Kirk... Kirk... Kirk... Kirk... Kirk is in it.
Yeah.
Kirk... Kirk... Goldie Hawn's husband.
Anyway, and I said, the other thing is I realized that Machine Gun Etiquette by The Damned is one of the great albums.
And he sends me a YouTube link to, it's called Another Damned Compilation, and it's a bunch of Seattle people covering The Damned.
And he did his, and Love Battery did like a real, one of the really good Damned songs.
I just can't be happy today.
I just can't be happy today.
I know you're not a fan.
I am a fan.
I'm a huge fan of The Damned in particular.
I know you are.
The thing is, I was in Seattle when Love Battery was really at their peak.
And you know what else was at its peak?
Two things.
Mudhoney.
Two things.
Mudhoney was at their peak too.
But here are two things that were at their peak.
Yeah.
Being super drunk on stage and not having electronic tuners.
Yeah.
That is so goddamn funny that you would say.
And being super fucked up on stage.
And so you get a lot of this.
You just hear the E and the B, like slightly.
E and the B, right?
And both guitar players were tuning on stage, but not to each other.
Yeah.
It's probably the G. The B and the G is when things really go south.
So I've told you the story.
You really need a Bixby tremolo?
Couldn't you just be happy with some larger gauge strings that would actually hold a tuning?
Couldn't you do that, guys?
I've told you the story.
Walking down the street in the university district, and there was Jason Finn at the bus stop, and he was waiting for a bus, and I was walking, which still describes our personalities.
And I said, hey, look at you.
You're the guy from Love Battery.
He was like, yeah, how's it going, kid?
You know, stay in school.
He's like six months older than me.
And I was like, wow, you know, I really love your drumming.
And he was like, keep moving.
Keep moving, jerk off.
And I was like, oh, yeah, I met the guy from Love Battery.
And yet, I mean, the reason I was so excited is I thought he was the only good thing about Love Battery.
And that's really saying something.
Well, another thing, I mean, it's not my... Wait a minute!
Whoa!
That one took me a minute!
I think I know somebody with an unusual drum set who just got hit in the head by a fucking cube.