Ep. 539: "God Made the Rat"
Hi, John.
Hi, Merlin.
How's it going?
Well, super good.
You know, Zoom likes to mute me at the start, and then it wants me to understand that this is being recorded.
And if I don't click on the OK, I accept.
It won't unmute me.
I'll look into it.
It's a set of things I have to do.
Did you also have to be in the waiting room?
No, in this case, I was already here, so you didn't need to wait to get in, right?
That's right.
But I did have to click a box that said, I would like every time...
uh this program to have access to some gibbity jorp yep yep yep but every time i have to click the box it says would you like to do it every time and i say yes and then i have to do it every time you see what i mean lobby yeah so i'm like i i click the box already i do it every time i want it to i want what i want is what i want
It's for... They got me waiting in the lobby.
I want this program to understand.
It means he sleeps with the fishes.
What I want...
Is I want the thing to remember me.
It's not too much to ask.
I do it every time.
Remember me, you say.
Remember me.
Remember me.
You know what I mean?
I do.
You know, like witness me and then...
witness me no i'm making the sign at you i got my four fingers from my two hands making a v8 yeah the thing about this mediocre roderick is zoom has a lot to think about you know that that's trying to remember people all around the world oh you know that's a good i never thought of that i mean how many people do you think use zoom probably at least hundreds
Hundreds of people use Zoom.
And they need to remember all of that.
So you need a, yeah, you need a caching hash or something, right?
Caching hash, yeah.
And I'm like, hey, remember me.
I'm not nobody.
Oh, I hate that feeling.
You know, it's one of the terrible feelings in life is feeling like you've been left behind.
left behind that's right left behind it's like hey wait a minute i was i was already here i was already doing this you know and now you won't remember my boxes left behind yeah yeah my boxes at once and i think it might be a sex thing which i think zoom is like click my boxes oh you think it's predatory
Well, or just like sneak it in there like the old dick in the popcorn trick.
Yes, I do.
Also, you know, I don't want to trigger anybody, but, you know, come on in here.
I'm just going to take a shower and I want you to rub my neck, says Zoom.
Do you want to click the box?
Do it.
I mean, you can't unmute until you do.
Click my box.
Like, come on, man.
Come on.
It's weird.
Like, if you're that powerful, it shouldn't be that hard to get laid.
If you're that powerful.
Right.
Use your power.
You know, it's not privilege if you don't use it.
Like, what's the point?
Oh, oh, oh, interesting.
Interesting theory.
Oh, that's sorry.
That's an old joke of mine, which is what's the point of all my white privilege if I don't use it?
if i don't use it yeah see what is the point what is the point no i can probably work with you on that there's some things i can't change they're all terrible apps there's something not your box no i just mean with the zoom thing like i want to help however i can and we already like i used to love the running start that we would get with the hello everybody welcome to a podcast on the internet i liked that too
With the Skype protocol, say what you will or don't, but we could just jump right in and we'd always know what to say.
And now it's all this, ha, ha, who's muted?
I don't like that.
I like a running start.
Yeah, you would say hello.
I would say hi, Merlin.
That sounds like us.
We had a thing, right?
It was the way we did it.
And now, who knows?
Let me put devil's advocate here.
Isn't it also valuable to change?
Yeah.
I do believe it's valuable to change.
Isn't it valuable to be forced to change?
Are we changing because we want change or are we changing to accommodate a machine?
Oh, should we only accept the changes that we think we want?
Oh, well, you make a good point there.
I don't.
I don't.
I'm just being that particular internet guy.
But I do feel like you and I, you and I are at a point in life where we should be seeking change, but it should be change for the better, not change for the worse.
Right.
It should be a change that supports my priors, you know, my rich history with all of these things.
The muting at the beginning is interesting.
I don't want to go into it right now.
Maybe this should be a very special episode for the Patreon.
But, you know, we could walk through it together.
You could share your screen with me.
You know, people are always asking me to do that.
And I always never do it.
Never do it.
Never do it.
Never do it.
Just, you know what you say?
You know, it's like when you're in a store and I know some people say this doesn't work, but if a salesperson says, you know, can I show you anything?
You just say to them, I don't have any money.
And I will never have any money.
So I'll leave if you want me to.
I don't have any money.
I'll leave if you want me to, but I don't have any money and I will never have any money.
Any money.
Right?
The people that, you know, I used to, anybody that came to the door and knocked, I'd open the door first of all.
You love talking to people.
Yeah, if they wanted to talk about Jehovah, or they wanted to talk about my aunt problem, or they wanted to look at my windows, my roof, I would say, sure, let's talk about it.
I feel like I want you to have a good day.
I want to point out to our listeners, I'm sorry to interrupt you, I want to point out to our listeners, this just shows the plasticity of your mind.
You're not against new experiences.
no i want to hear about my windows or my roof you're going to want to talk to somebody like the bosnian cab driver or whatever you want to find out what what's that person's lived experience yeah i want to hear their pitch too but lately i've been opening the door there's a there's a kid standing there with a clipboard i go no thanks and they go and there was some kid the other day that was like bugs and i was like no bugs and i just am like let me just because he's trying to get you know he's like
I'm not here to sell windows.
I'm here to kill bugs.
And I'm like, nope, I don't want any of those.
It's a door-to-door bug assassin?
Here in the suburbs.
Okay.
Oh, you got spiders, right?
It's the spiders?
Well, no, it's ants is the one that most people in the Northwest don't like because the little ants, the tiny little sugar ants, they come in and they get, although last night I was sitting in my studio playing the guitar and
And, you know, because I'm a certain age, I keep seeing things out of the corner of my eye.
I'm like, what was that?
That could be macular degeneration.
So just keep an eye on that, so to speak.
I think it is.
I think it's like ghosts.
It's a Don Nott's disease.
You don't want that.
But I looked over.
I was like, what's that?
And I looked over and it was a mouse.
a mouse in your house it was a fat little mouse oh not to body shame the mouse no thank you and it was just sitting there looking at me in the middle of the room now my not a lick not a lick of fear no no shame at all and i said what the and i was playing loud guitar almost too loud for a person my age and uh and so i got my scott ears
yeah did you hit an a chord really hard well yeah i was like and the mouse just didn't care at all just sat there didn't didn't scoot and i said hey mouse i'm gonna put a wastebasket over you how do you like that and then i got the wastebasket and the mouse did it shrug well no it hit it it headed for the wall and i was like right right it's hard to get a wastebasket over you now but but a mouse and the thing is my house is not impermeable to mice
My garage door doesn't shuttle.
Your OPSEC is pretty good.
It is, but you know, the mice are also, they're living their lives.
Can I tell you something about mice?
Yeah, go ahead.
This is a fact I've shared on other things recently, because it's a fact that I learned once, and I don't care if it's true, it seems true.
A hole of some kind, irregular or regular, the size of a dime, a mouse can get through.
size of a quarter a rat can get through.
So if you have anything in your, and I don't want you to talk about it because that's bad OPSEC, but if you have anything in your house that's bigger than a dime, that's how mousies get in.
Yeah, well, that's right.
And I think it's also true that if you see one mouse, you've got more than one mouse.
I know it's true of roaches.
Well, I don't have roaches.
You know, Seattle... No, you've got water bugs.
No, no, no.
We don't even really have... No, that's what we see in Florida, though.
You're like, Mom, I saw a roach.
We don't have roaches.
We have water bugs.
Water bugs.
No, you remember, I had that... White people don't have roaches.
There were roaches, and then there was a rat under the refrigerator.
And I said, I have a rat.
And the guy said...
I didn't make the rat.
But in this case— Whoa, whoa, whoa.
He said, I didn't make the rat.
God made the rat.
God made the rat.
I didn't make the rat.
God made the rat.
He was from—he's an immigrant to our country, and he had a religious tradition—
that it sounded to me like he was somewhat exploiting his Eastern mysticism.
Because he knew you wouldn't look it up.
Well, because he was like, hey, you know, in olden times, 15 years ago, as I was telling this story, I would have done an accent, because he said it in an accent.
Nowadays, you know, you don't do accents.
But at the time, I would have done an accent.
You can emulate the broken English, but did it begin with the phrase, my people?
No, he did not do that.
I mean, he was a very, he was a slumlord and he knew it and he was not, it's not like he was wearing a turban.
This is a pretty rich stereotype you've got going here.
Yeah, he was wearing a Levi's jacket like the rest of us, right?
Had been in America for a long time.
You can buy those anywhere.
And he understood.
He was passing, passing strange, you say, yeah.
He understood that when a tenant says, there's a rat under my refrigerator, that he should step into action in some way.
No rat, no rat.
But in this case, he said, I did not make the rat.
God made the rat.
You know, that's pretty good.
It reminds me of a line I like from Game of Thrones that I'm going to try to find right now.
You know that guy where Stannis cut his fingers off?
Is that the onion?
Oh, yeah.
Is that his name?
Yeah.
And he says at one point to Khaleesi, he says, I can't make promises for the wind, your grace.
I cannot make promises for the wind.
Your grace.
That's very nice.
Isn't that kind of similar?
No rat.
In a little bit, you know, he was hoping that the smell of incense would waft in and there would be a light tinkling of chimes and that I would be bamboozled by this and say, oh, right, of course, it's me.
This is between me and God.
I'm sorry to have bothered you.
And, you know, and then he would ride off.
But in this case, I said, well, no, no.
feel like god let's leave god out of this for a moment yeah like a strategy they can get in through a hole the size of a quarter sir oh for sure for sure i don't know if it was orwell who came up with this term but there's a term i like a lot of thought terminating cliche you know thought terminating cliche yeah and i mean like in this case you can also be an immigrant deflating cliche
Where you say something like, in my country, potatoes are like wine.
And you go, oh, that's very interesting.
Because then you're not going to ask a follow-up question, right?
Well, no, it's like people in the South do that all the time.
Oh, well, that sounds like too many boots for my hat.
And you're like, I don't know.
You can rub corn against your silo all day, but that don't make a biscuit.
See, now that's an accent we can do and rejoice in it.
Them and the Irish, the only ones that we can still just make fun of anytime.
Well, no, a little bit Italians.
We can do Italians because, you know, they're borderline white.
Well, they didn't used to be.
They didn't used to be.
No, they sure didn't.
Like the Jewry and the Irish, you know.
Yeah.
I think over time, they've kind of been grandfathered into America.
I think that's right.
And my mom, you know, growing up in Ohio, I think I probably said before they didn't have any races that they could discern there.
And the one that they really didn't want in town were the Italians.
They were like so, so much more racist against the Italians than anybody else.
Only because, you know, Italians were, I guess, knocking on the door to get into Western Ohio.
I can't imagine that's where they'd want to be.
Hey, I'm going to come in and destroy your bugs.
But you know, they're Catholics.
And so the Italians are.
Yeah.
All you have to do is let one Catholic in and then pretty soon they're having mass and they're in their Italian hutch.
Yeah.
And they're doing that thing where they they they bow to the pope or whatever that's against God.
I don't know.
That's what happened in 1960 with John Kennedy.
Well, sure.
He was answering to the Pope instead of the people.
That's right.
That's right.
I mean, Irish and Catholic.
I mean, there's Irish all around.
You can't even tell them apart.
So what can you do?
What can you do?
Kind of like invasive vermin, you think.
I mean, if you let them in, then you got to let in dogs.
And then pretty soon the whole.
Oh, I see.
Pretty soon you'll be able to marry your Italian.
Is that the world?
What happens?
That would happen.
They can't even have children together.
Anarchy.
They couldn't carry a rat.
No.
El Raton.
The thing is, the story, the part of this story that I didn't tell, the landlord was Irish.
My landlord's totally Irish, and he totally fits.
God didn't make that up.
Oh, John.
With Irish accent?
No, I would love...
Oh, my God.
The anecdotes.
I think I've told you this, but we just we're such easy tenants.
We put up with so much.
But you've known him for so long.
You've been tenants of his for what?
Twenty five years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I mean, like I can't do the voice, but like there's been just been times where like he'll tell these these anecdotes about other tenants, which I feel like is a little bit.
of you know uh a passive way to sort of like preemptively say don't ask for too much oh i see because the other tenants asked for too much and now i'm telling you about oh she had the mattress was down in the garage and it was leaned up against the furnace and then they stood they sued me they sued me oh can you imagine another one i came in lately when he does he does he shake his he just hits me hits me with a bottle of jameson he has them in a holster
and this one here she had she had the cat and the cat would the cat would get get onto the oven you know because a gas oven it's hot with the pilot light and then the cat was on fire and she sued me well sued him they had the extension card the card goes under the carpet he's getting sued a lot
As somebody who's recently had some law issues with people, it's expensive to sue somebody.
It sounds like they didn't really sue him.
No.
I mean, I don't have a way to prove that.
What am I going to do?
I'm going to say, give me the name of one of the people in your tenements, and I'll check in on them.
You know what?
I looked this up the other day on LexisNexis, and I didn't see any lawsuits directed at
i was checking out i searched i searched for leprechaun shillelagh furnace mattress sue the card the card didn't see anything no but it's fine you know that's it's you know the only true wealth is property boy ain't that the truth can i ask you a question about roman oh yeah go ahead um
Just easy, real easy one.
Like, how upset do you get when you see a vermin in your domicile?
And has it changed over time?
A bug...
Like an ant is just a pain in the ass.
Because the ants here, I don't know about the ants where you are.
You know we get sugar ants, too.
Yeah, you do.
You know about the park with the Confederate soldiers.
And so basically when it, I mean, just to remind people, if you haven't read the work of E.O.
Wilson, it rains.
And when it rains, especially the rainy time of year when it rains, the ants and the snails get driven out of their domiciles.
Well, here's what people don't know.
Ants can drown.
Ants can drown?
You can drown ants.
Transitively, on purpose.
Yeah, you can go out and pour water down their ant hole, which is not a sex thing.
And it'll drown them.
I've watched videos where people pour hot metal into those and make what they call castings.
Oh, yeah.
Have you ever gotten into anthill castings?
It's super, obviously, super...
super sadistic and genocidal, but at the same time, it makes a cool thing.
But no, but they're making art.
They're making art.
So they pour molten metal, and I've watched a lot of these.
You pour molten metal into a hole, and it goes down into all the little invaginations, and then you wait a while for it to cool, and then you dig out around it, and when you take it out, it kind of looks like an upside-down tree.
Yeah, it's a rad thing I've seen, though.
You know what I watch a lot is cow hoof trimming videos.
I've heard about this.
It's not a thing I wanted.
I've never seen, well, no, but tell me about it.
Is it engrossing?
Well, there are some people.
There's one guy in England, and there's one guy with a hee-haw accent.
And they both have YouTube shows, and I'm sure they started it just because... I'm sorry, our younger listeners would appreciate how funny that was.
With a hee-haw accent.
Hey, Grandpa!
That's got too many hats for my cattle!
Oh, junior samples!
BR549...
Doom, despair, and hack me on me Where, where are you tonight?
Why did you leave me here all alone?
I searched the world over and I thought I found true love You met another and you was gone You were gone
You know I'm a big bucko in this case.
In this case, what happens, I guess, if you've got cattle, if you've got cows, you look at them sometimes, and every once in a while you get a cow and it's limping.
A limping cow.
Limping around.
And if you're raising cows, you don't want them to start limping.
It's a bad sign.
Oh, because you might get a downer, they call it.
That's right.
And here's what I learned.
Someone's called a downer when they like the ones to lay down and that's not good?
They can't get back up?
Yeah, they need a life call.
So in this situation, somebody explained to me, cow are prey animals.
And so it's baked into them to not show when they're ailing.
They have a high pain threshold because you don't want to limp in the wild because then... Makes you a target.
Yeah, it makes you a target.
So by the time a cow... I think that when I see some... I mean, I know this sounds ridiculous, but this just shows you how my brain works.
But in a suburban environment where you can put things like boxes out on the street, broken down boxes, like if you see that somebody has a box for like a really nice 65-inch TV...
I feel like that's kind of like a limping cow.
Because this basically turns your house into a pinata.
Oh, wow.
It never occurred to me that you put the box out and then people know what you've got.
Yeah.
Whoa.
Is it weird that I think about things like that?
Well, no, but that's very interesting.
I think that's smart.
Yeah.
That didn't occur to me.
You know, I put boxes out all the time.
But of course, all my boxes are like, well, somebody sent him a bunch of patches on eBay.
Like, what are those worth to you?
Yeah.
And for whatever reason, they added a big box.
Right.
Okay.
So anyway, you got to make sure.
So cows, you got to look at your cow occasionally.
If you're an agrarian, they, you got to look at your cow occasionally, make sure it's not a downer.
And then you need to look at its hoof.
Well, so cows, this is another thing.
Cows can't bite their toenails, either can horses.
That's so interesting.
Is that how some animals can't look up?
Similar thing, huh?
Yeah, you can't bite your toenails.
And I guess in the wild, I don't know, they walk on rocks or something and it keeps their toenails down.
But if you have these aminals in your own care, you have to trim their toenails just like you have to trim a cat's nails or they'll scratch the furniture.
Yeah.
It's just a cow doesn't have any furniture to scratch.
Not yet.
The hooves get too long.
Only in Farsight cartoons.
And so you have to car.
You have to grab.
a cow and bring it in and these this is a job for these guys they have a they have a big metal cage they put the cow in one end of the cage then they seal it off then the cow's like what the fuck and then it has it actually has a thing that grabs their leg in a clam you can't reason with a cow
Well, and the problem is they go into any box you give a cow.
It'll go right in it.
I watched that Temple Grandin movie.
I know about this.
If you make the right kind of box, you can have a relaxed cow that happily goes right into it.
Right into the box.
And then the machine grabs them and it puts their leg up in a way that they can't do anything about it.
And then the hoof trimmer guy comes.
And the guy with the hee-haw accent is very laconic about it.
The guy in England is a younger guy.
And he, as soon as his YouTube channel took off, boy, he started doing whole presentations about it.
I know exactly.
Because I'm very into pressure washing videos.
I like pressure.
Oh, sure.
There's an English guy that pressure washes, as we say.
Does your mom say wash?
She would be so mad if she knew you asked that question.
Is that a Southern Ohio thing?
Well, she's just like, so because I think my dad used to tease her about saying Warsh and she's like, I do not say Warsh.
That is like a. My spouse, John Syracuse, bugs me about it or Warsh and Major, I think are two that I do that are very Ohio.
Just a roof or roof.
See, now when you ask me, I don't know how to say it.
I know.
How do you say it?
Roof.
Up on the roof.
So they're like toenails.
And cat's claws, also, I've heard.
This is why it's mean to cut them off.
They need them for their cat things.
But also, that's like cutting off a toenail when you cut off a claw.
If I understand what you're saying here, a hoof.
A hoof.
How do you say it?
How do you say it?
A hoof.
Hoof.
Hoof.
Roof.
A hoof.
If you've got a hoof, so you need to trim that down but not hurt it.
We do this with our lizard.
Madeline cuts his nails.
Cuts his nails.
And he doesn't need it to do lizard stuff.
Talk about laconic.
Oh, but they use the tongue.
They don't need to grab a bug.
They just zap it.
When he's walking around on the floor.
As I said, this is now a bit for me, is that our lizard...
led me to an understanding of animals that always seem to make a certain face and the face of most animals is this hmm oh you'll start noticing it now like when you look at our lizard it just his face is going hmm and like she'll cut his nails and his face just goes hmm because she's very careful about it but we can see but he'll go up to something and when he's on the ground he's walking around he goes hmm and he'll walk up to the coffee table because his largest natural enemy is translucence or transparency
So I just keep running into the loose side coffee table and just confused.
But you see him walk up to something and he kind of stops and goes, hmm.
And he goes, huh.
And he gives it a quick taste.
Has he ever gotten a bug on the hoof?
That sounds like Irish slang.
He's coming here with the card and he's got the bug on the hoof.
Has he ever found a bug in the wild in the nature of his apartment?
Can I answer this question?
Yes, please.
Our lizard, I've learned this is true of pretty much all domesticated animals.
bearded dragons in particular, but like lots of lizards, but they get real, real lazy.
One of the first photos, I will send this to you in a second.
One of the first, this might be show art, one of the very first photos of Bando I took, because we learned as much as we could, but still, we don't want to kill this thing.
I mean, he was full-grown and everything, so we didn't have to worry about the same kind of stuff you worry about with a juvenile.
But we were getting him different foods, and Madeline was like, oh, I'm going to get him crickets.
I heard they like crickets.
I'm like, oh, God, please...
Dubia roaches and crickets, because we'd maybe not have those in the house because, you know, QED bugs.
But we didn't realize exactly how uninterested he was in doing any kind of hunting.
Because I will send you a photo in a second of a cricket.
on his head, basically right between his eyes.
And it was not a one second thing.
And his face is going, his face makes this.
He goes, hmm.
And there's a cricket.
But like, I've got lots of videos.
I won't send them to you because you're busy.
But I've got a lot of videos of feeding Bando different things.
And like sometimes he can't be fucked to even try to like get it off of the tweezers.
Like, there's these poor bastards, these hornworms and superworms and mealworms.
Like, we've got a special bespoke death dish, like an oubliette.
It's like an oubliette for small animals where he could, any time, waltz over.
Like, you've had a dog.
You've had a cat.
The cat hears the can opening, tears ass from a county away.
The dog is like, okay, come on, guys.
It's 5.15.
Where's my dinner?
Eat the other dog's dinner.
Yeah.
he can't be fucked to get off his rock and go like eat a dying worm but you feed it to him with the tweezers and if he misses it on the first shot he's like whatever it sounds like me last night i was sitting in this chair when you were in the tub somebody has to come and spoon the chili right into your well you know i got i got a bag of fritos out of the out of thing and you know you can only eat so many fritos so i had a handful of fritos they're better if you
Don't eat too many.
You'll enjoy them more the next time.
Yeah.
That's right.
So I was sitting there and I was like, well, I haven't had any food in many hours.
I should eat food, but God.
Yeah.
Oh, believe me.
Who's got the time?
Believe me.
I know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And somebody on the internet is going to be like, oh, that's attention deficit disorder.
And I'm like, I don't know, man.
Well, no, it just proves you have liver disease or something else that someone has randomly diagnosed you with.
Macular degeneration.
Macular degeneration is the worst.
Do you know what that is?
Do you know what happens?
Your eyeball runs out of eyeball glue?
So you remember when Don Knotts would always be photographed in those large glasses?
Yeah.
In the late in the life.
And by the way, I just want to say, I love Don Knotts.
I think he's the greatest.
Macular degeneration is, I don't know the physiology of this, but you lose your sight from the center out.
So you can see out the sides, but not in the middle.
For a while.
No, but think about looking at something.
Right now, I'm looking at pictures of a lizard to find you on with the cricket on his head.
But you can see everywhere except what you're looking at.
And it gets worse and worse.
I see.
Isn't that terrible?
That does sound bad.
Now, isn't modern medicine going to solve that?
I remember 15 years ago, I went into an audiologist.
What a racket.
What a fucking racket.
And he said, oh, you got a big divot here from rock and roll music.
And I was like, yeah.
What?
And he said, yeah.
And he said...
But the thing is, in just a few years, we'll be able to solve this with science.
Oh, like a Lasix-type situation?
Well, I was like, really?
And he said, yeah, you know, it's your hairs, your ear hairs, and they're laying down in this one place.
But we're going to fix it all with science.
In just a few years.
And I was like, a few years?
Because I know people that have bad tinnitus, and they suffer.
They really suffer.
I'll bet you know a lot.
I mean, this is not a bit.
No, no, no.
I mean, I have.
pretty profound loss in a certain range.
It's something I first heard Pete Townsend talk about was like that what you lose is generally speaking, if you listen, if you play in front of a high watt amp, like for years, literally a high watt amp, literally a high watt.
Yeah.
Amp for in at a hundred decibels or whatever, even 80 decibels, whatever that what you lose generally speaking is the range of the human voice.
Did you know that?
Sure.
Well, I was saying this to my daughter.
But especially the range of the theme.
Think about all that soloing.
Just last night.
We were at a street fair.
Yeah.
And she said, why does everybody play guitar?
And I was like, oh, one of the great questions.
One of the eternal questions.
Why does everybody play guitar?
It's a really good question.
There's a lot of answers, but it's a really good question.
Guitar, guitar, guitar, she says.
She's sweeping her hand across this festival.
Everybody, guitar.
And I said, because guitar, like the saxophone, is basically in the range of the human voice.
It can do all the things, low to high, human voice range.
And she really was like, oh.
And I said, exactly.
Tuba, no.
Flute, no.
But guitar, right in the middle.
She was like, oh, the human voice.
I thought you were going to say it's because, I'm not going to use the word that you used a long time ago, but it is a musical instrument that is very well suited for people who like a certain kind of music and also aren't very bright.
Oh, there's that.
There's that.
I mean, accordion.
Accordion, you've got to learn to use.
Like, your hands are doing different things, and you're playing chords on.
It's like, what are you, Steve Howe?
You know, with guitar.
You have to learn the waltz.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
But anyway, you were saying.
Was she satisfied?
No, no, I'm not saying.
Was she satisfied with your answer?
Oh, yeah, I think so.
I mean, we're going through a phase, she and I, where she's still pretty much satisfied with my answers.
Oh, interesting.
I'm sure there will come a day when she says, well, that's not what I heard.
And then I'll be in a position where I'm like, okay, all right, let's hear your thoughts.
All right, let's hear it, yeah.
Yeah, you were in school and somebody said something or you read this in a book.
Let's hear it.
But for now, she's like, she doesn't know enough about Bonaparte to argue with me about it.
Especially don't get started with Meemaw about it.
And I'm like, oh.
You don't want to get Marcia started about Bone Apart.
No.
She'll be like, no.
Sit and listen.
Listen to the wisdom.
He never should have gone up against.
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
Okay.
No, no, no.
No, no, no.
It was, it was.
But he's a pimp.
He never could have fought Santino.
I do feel, you know, I know enough people with tinnitus and I, if you call it tinnitus, I'm going to kick you in the knee.
Ooh.
Uh, but, uh, but people, I, I know enough people where it's something that you ask when you haven't seen somebody for a little bit.
How's the tinnitus?
Oh, yeah.
Sort of like the way I don't, not that I don't want to see my friends, but like I always worry, like, am I going to have to talk about, did you get married?
Are you divorced?
Or like, is somebody who I knew was always in terrible health anyway, is that person dead?
In this case, you got to ask, like, no, the question is like, how bad is your hearing, right?
Yeah.
And most of them have a, you know, most of them are able to say like, oh, it's pretty good.
I've got a white noise machine that helps me sleep.
And, you know, it's not so bad anymore.
Um, which is maybe that science.
I don't know.
Maybe there's science at work here, but yeah, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, I, the thing about the marriages is I just will, I'll just waltz right into those and just be like, how's the wife?
Well, you're telling me you're fearless.
Well, because I feel like it's a, it's a thing where they want to talk about it.
I mean, although
I feel like people who are on their way to a divorce don't want to talk about it.
It's like nuclear war.
Remember what they used to say in the 80s?
It's when people stop talking about nuclear war that you know things are bad.
That's right.
You know what I mean, though?
Seriously.
It's like you can joke about stuff.
We all like to, like so many people who do TED Talks, it's fun to talk about failure if we feel like we're no longer a failure.
But it's whilst you're becoming more of a failure that things are especially tricky to talk about, I think.
Yeah.
When people, when people answer that question by saying like, oh yeah, everything's great.
I go, okay.
And usually two years later, then they're like, it was always awful.
I'm so glad I can talk about it now.
Every minute of the last two years has been a nightmare.
And I'm like, wow, because I've talked to you through the whole two years and you never said a thing.
Well, sometimes like the Hemingway line about bankruptcy or going broke, right?
It's like, well, it can go real slow for a very long time.
I don't know.
I'm sorry.
I'm taking off your topic.
No, no, no.
And then it goes really fast for a brief amount of time?
Well, I don't get it right because it's the telling of it.
My kid told me last night that F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway used to bone down, and I did not know that.
Oh, you mean kiss him?
Yeah.
And apparently once they compared penises in a men's room in Paris.
Because my kid is very deep, has just read The Great Gatsby and is now watching all of the movies and knows everything about Great Gatsby that I always forgot.
Now, where's the green light again?
And that's Tobey Maguire.
And how does Nick Carraway have all that money?
And I haven't read the book in years.
I enjoyed it when I read it.
But I mean, showing penises in a bathroom and boning down are two different degrees.
No, I think they also had sex things.
But apparently Zelda, Zelda specifically had talked about
See, I feel very bad talking about this.
These people can't defend themselves.
I know Zelda had her own problems from a cognitive basis.
For sure.
You don't put a lady like that in the attic for no reason, am I right?
Up here.
And so, supposedly, Zelda had remarked aloud that Scott had a small penis.
And so, Ernie and Scott, Scotty, went in the bathroom.
And, you know, the famous line about Milton Berle, I'll just take out enough to beat you.
They whipped him out.
And then when they came back to the table, so to speak, Ernie Ernie said to Zelda, no, that's that's average sized.
That's average size.
And I don't know how that made if that made if that could make anyone feel any better about the entire enterprise.
Well, the problem is, you know, Zelda, there was a phase there 25 years ago where there were a lot of people invested in reassessing Zelda.
Like, oh, misunderstood.
Oh, actually the genius.
And I read all of her stuff.
Like Ray Davies' wife co-wrote most of his songs and nobody talks about it.
Well, you know, Doug Marsh of Built the Spill, his wife, played not a small role in his lyric writing.
And I have that on very good authority.
Christmas Twin Falls, I have the oldest memory.
That song in particular.
Shut your whore mouth.
I'm afraid so.
It's the first time she felt blue.
You know, that's one of my favorite built to spill songs.
Well, you know, they were, I don't know whether they were sitting at the kitchen table or whether she was going over his.
Was she from Idaho too?
Yeah.
Okay.
Whether she was going over with a red pencil.
I'm not sure how they worked.
Well, that's the thing in this episode.
I know a few people in that band.
You might like this.
There's a podcast I like that's called something like, what's it called?
Like history of rock music and 500 songs.
And it's this English guy that does these wonderful long episodes.
And each episode he talks.
So that was... I'm talking about here about the episode about Waterloo Sunset, which you should listen to.
Like, I don't know how much you followed the drama over the years between Ray and Dave.
Oh, enough.
I didn't know how...
And also Mick, like I had not followed how bad, how violent their relationships were.
I'd heard about the like having a fight on stage sometimes and stuff like that.
Sure.
You know, Oasis modeled their whole thing on the Davies.
Except for being good.
thank you yeah i like dave i love dave's harmonies i mean dave's harmonies like i've emulated tried to emulate what dave dave's part on songs because yeah blah blah blah everly brothers you know brothers sing together it's cool but no seriously like the the harmonies that he does think about a song victoria like the part that he sings on victoria
So there's like the Victoria, but he's like, Victoria.
Like it worked.
I'm no Dave Davis.
It's actually Davis, by the way.
I just learned that too.
But anyways, I won't send that to you because I'm always sending you stuff.
I just sent you a lizard.
The English do that thing where there's like, oh, there's an E in there, but we're not going to pronounce it.
But then there's an E in this word and we're going to double pronounce it.
Fuck that.
Pick a lane.
I know.
I know.
That's why you can trust the Irish, because they pronounce the words.
That's hard.
She sold me.
But the thing about the hoof trimming guy is that every once in a while, they're trimming hooves all the time.
They get a limper.
They get a downer.
They put the cow in the thing.
They start to trim the hoof just like a normal hoof.
They can't bite through on toenails.
No, but it'll have a little spot.
The hoof will have a spot, and the yeehaw guy will go, well, you see, it's a problem in the white line.
And then the British kid.
Oh, the wisdom of the agrarian.
The British kid will talk for 20 minutes about it, like, and it's just like, get to the hoof trim.
We don't want to hear your story.
Oh, I agree.
And then they cut into it with these special knives.
And it's just like... They're kind of hooky, right?
Yeah, they got hooky knives.
And then it's just like Dr. Pimple Popper.
All of a sudden, they'll cut through the hoof and it'll just be like terrible things in there.
Oh, no, no.
Wait, is there a discharge?
Yes.
Oh, you get a pussy hoof.
Yeah, you get an infection inside the hoof.
You can't see it from the outside, but you start trimming.
Oh, I feel bad for the cow.
Well, yeah, it hurts.
But then the hoof trimmer...
fixes it by cutting away the bad part and then by either spraying some stuff on it or sprinkling some powder and then they give them a band-aid, they wrap it and they put a little rubber pad on the side of the hoof that isn't hurt and then the cow can walk out of there taking the pressure off the hurt part.
And off they go.
It's like a cyber cow.
And that way you can offset it.
It's like a crutch.
It's like a cow crutch.
I'm sorry.
We don't use that word anymore.
It's a cow support structure.
Yeah.
And you're absolutely right.
The cow becomes a cyber cow.
And then everybody's very happy.
And the thing is a month later, because cow hooves grow fast, a month later they come back and they say, and they unwrap it and they go, oh, look, it's much better now.
So it's this whole tension and release thing, watching cow hoof videos, where you're like, oh, man, that was so gross.
But everybody likes watching something a little gross.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then a month later, you're like, oh, the cow is better.
That's nice.
Is it Ari who watches the pimple popper?
No, Ari hates the pimple popper, but my daughter discovered pimple popper and pretty much left.
I'm going to ask you an impossibly basic question that I probably don't actually want to know the answer to.
I've seen it appear in channel guides for things that I don't generally watch, and I'm not to throw shade, but it's just one of those things like the amazing Dr. Pole or ridiculousness where I'm like, oh my God, is this all this channel shows?
Where you'll see the pimple popper, and is it a dermatologist-
It's a dermatologist who deals with people who have bad acne.
Is that it?
Yes.
She is.
And does the doctor literally pop the pimples on the show?
Yes.
That's the whole point.
She has little tools, little, little tiny tools.
And people come in with terrible acne or boils.
I was always told not to pop.
And there's a word I learned a few years ago, aesthetician.
It's like a beauty parlor type situation, but you go in there and one thing they do is pop your pimples for you.
And then do they put alcohol on after, like our method?
I don't watch it, but I think probably something like that.
But they have some things on them that are just really bummers for them.
like big gnarly things and often like growths that she has the technology to get in and get out.
Like a Half-Life War Boy where you got like a lymphoma type situation.
She's got the tools where she can go in there.
She's the organic pimple popper.
I'm sorry, I just watched Fury Road and did a podcast about it.
But she's able to go in and alleviate that hoof pain for the person.
And then she probably puts a rubber edge on the other side and in a month everything's drained.
I'm not exactly sure how it is a month later.
I figured it would be like, like, like, like, like, like, like Shark Tank, where occasionally they come back and they're like, oh, the Lobster Brothers are really successful.
Yay for me.
I figured they'd come back and say, oh, Bessie's walking just fine now.
She's no downer.
I wonder, not being a regular viewer, I wonder if she has success stories who come back and they're like,
Look at me, I look amazing, even six months later.
You have to assume for a show like that, like most, we used to call it reality TV, I guess now they just call it unscripted TV, but like, for reality TV, there's always gonna be like, I'm a fan of Survivor, for better or for worse, and Top Chef, and like, you can probably find, for example, this won't mean a lot to you, I don't think, but like, times people made risotto on Top Chef.
Oh my God, what are you thinking making risotto?
The latest one, somebody made risotto and literally served it on a table, as in like, served it on a table, it was horrible.
So I'm guessing there must be compilations.
And if you go to Dr. Mrs. Popper, her best ofs, is it probably like the sploogiest, explodiest, or life's changed.
Like when you give a kid a cochlear implant type situation.
I dated a lady for a long time and she and her best girlfriend would, the best girlfriend would come down to her apartment because they lived in the same building and they would just sit all of an afternoon and
You know, gossiping and squeezing each other's little bits on there.
I'm very reluctant to say I feel like I have or had heard of this before, and I think I just rejected it as a possibility.
But the gals come over, they hang out in their PJs, listen to Bobby Sherman, and pop zits.
That's it.
That's it.
I can confirm that that it was a real thing.
I think it's called a book club.
Book club.
I was adjacent to it.
Yeah.
And, you know, it was at the time I was always like, oh, you girls with your with your pimple popping.
We think about sex, too.
Anytime I was around, you know, they were like all over me and I was like, get away, get away, get away.
Would you ever treat it to someone saying something like, ooh, that's a good one?
Can I have it?
Yeah.
Can I have it?
Yeah, right.
Can I have it?
They would say.
I'll have it.
But the problem is my daughter now is that person.
She comes in, I'm sitting in a chair reading a book and she comes in and she just like, Oh, Oh, you know, can I have that?
And I'm like, get off.
But she's my little girl.
What can I say?
I can't say get off.
Oh, you can't take that away from your little girl.
Nope.
Nope.
And so, and then her mother will come in and she's like going at me.
Now you're going to hear it.
Now you're going to hear about it.
Yeah.
And I don't have, it's not like I have pimples.
It's just the normal amount of shaving, that kind of thing.
Yeah.
Just a little thing.
Yeah.
I used to get what I would call white heads, occasionally what I used to call black heads.
I did not, I mean, I don't say this.
These are terms that you came up with, white heads and black heads.
Well, we don't say that now.
No.
We say pimple American.
That's right.
Pants of brown.
We say, yeah, just heads, you know.
But I did not have, and I've had some very dear friends who suffered from, what's the name for it?
There's the name for the bad acne.
Like the Edward James on this type thing, you know, where like you get the bad scarring and stuff.
I never had any of that, but yeah, I would pop and I did clear.
So now John, I'm not going to, this is going to be, there would be Patreon only content to explain once again, how John and I have learned how to lance a stress bump.
But I would say, I wish I had hoped a shout.
I wish I had known about the 91% isopropyl alcohol situation.
Cause I probably did get more infection than I needed.
It dries it right out.
It dries it right out.
I bet it does it too.
Now I want to zit just to see if I can do it.
Her mom will come into the room and she'll be like monkeying around with me and she's like, get off of him.
Stop it.
And you know, it's like a rolled up newspaper situation.
Stop it.
At least she's not carving your hoof.
Well, now I'm going to get Child Protective Services called on.
Hello, I have information about the former musician John Roderick.
He encourages his daughter to pop his pimples.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I read, I read, uh, you know, that there was, uh, with Kathy, there was a whole, uh, there was a whole era talking about, you know, talking about reevaluating Zelda.
There was a whole era where Kathy was derided for being anti-feminist.
And then there was a feminist reassessment of Kathy realizing that in fact it was profoundly feminist and
And, you know, I've read all the papers.
And, boy, I just – you know what, Merlin?
I'm here to listen.
I think you – you know what?
First of all, thank you.
I get that from you.
But you get nature.
You get science.
You get JAMA, Bad Mamma JAMA, our journal.
And you get all of those because you like to read magazines and books.
You keep up with the trades.
I used to, yeah.
Yeah, but I mean, you also get like, gosh, I used to be smart, like Granta.
You probably also get some perfect... I did.
I had a subscription to Granta.
You get perfect bound books that explain the cultural situation.
Oh, I was so smart once.
Oh, you know, if you do not have the child the permission to pop the, you say, shaving zits of the father, you know, they become very cold and distant.
Also, Bonaparte was the greatest of leaders.
You're killing me.
Go ahead before I taunt you a second time.
It's your lavash.
Oh, God, I'm so sorry.
What do you do for a living?
Well, I have a friend whose music I like, and sometimes we do Monty Python bits on the internet.
Oh, I had this the other day.
I'm talking to some guy, and he's like, he said something about like...
He's my age, right?
And he said something to the effect of, kids today, they got all these music programs that are trying to encourage them to be in rock bands.
But you know, when we were growing up, you had to just go rent a rec hall or play in somebody's basement.
And I was like, you sing it, sister.
And he said, these kids with all their guitar programs...
And I said something like, oh, well, you know, I used to be part of this city thing where we would, we would talk about how to make music and a part of the economy.
And then it all turned into guitar programs.
And he said, how are you in a thing like that?
And I said, oh, you know, I have band and this band, band, band, band.
And he was like, what band?
And I said, uh, we had a band called the long winters and family players and his, his, you know, jaw hit the floor and he was like the long winters.
And he started singing unsalted.
New York.
Oh shit.
Really?
And I was like, yep.
Yep.
And he was like, whoa, what did you do in the long winters?
And I said, I said, well, it was my band.
Yeah.
And then he went, let's put it this way.
I'm the only one who hasn't been thrown out.
That's right.
Exactly.
I'm the only one who hasn't quit for now.
The only one that's still in the band.
And he said, John.
And I was like, yeah, you didn't we haven't we met?
I mean, we were sitting, we were talking.
We had kids in the same school.
And now you're interested.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I was like, wow.
Okay.
Trivia night.
No, it wasn't.
Although he had been at the trivia night.
He had been at the trivia night and still hadn't put two and two together.
And then he said, oh, well, now things are going to get uncomfortable for a little bit while I stare at the ground.
And he actually said it out loud.
I admire that.
I totally admire that.
Well, you know, I gotta say like, you know, me, right?
Like if you're gonna do an invasive pseudo celebrity encounter, well, first of all, don't.
This is why I say the canonical example for me that I will share again, because you people all fucking need to learn.
I was on a flight with Tom Hulse.
We land in Orlando.
We both go.
He was in first class.
I was in coach.
We go to the restroom.
I'm in...
I'm at the urinal next to Tom Hulse, who at this point I know mainly from Animal House and of course Amadeus.
Turns out he'd been in town shooting Parenthood.
So he looked like a little bit rough.
He was great in that too.
But this is our exchange.
Hey.
And he goes, hey, I go, I really enjoy your work.
And he goes, thanks.
And then we washed our hands and left.
It's all true, except for the washing our hands part.
He might have.
I didn't.
And he didn't say, what exactly do you like about my work?
Well, that's part B. Part A is generally don't, especially if you're in New York, because, you know, that's the thing they're really proud of there is how they never notice anybody who's talented in New York.
If you're going to say hi, this goes for Jeffrey Jones.
This goes for Oscar from The Office.
This goes for almost anybody famous who I actually legit really do enjoy and admire.
I just say, I really enjoy your work.
Because also that telegraphs, I've cleared this with Hodgman.
I don't think he fully approves, but like that is a great way to let someone know that you are not a creep and you're not going to follow them around and try to get them to come to your room.
and like watch videos or something right well yeah unless you're at xoxo and you say something like that to to that ding dong who's like well so which which ding dong sit down in a chair and tell me what exactly you like about my work well that's part b part b is if you are going to and this does not always work because a lot of people don't know their catalog okay like you have the photo of me and james urbaniak
Yes, I do.
I took it.
You took that photo.
I listened to who I, gosh, it was so nice meeting him.
He's such a wonderful guy.
He's a very nice guy.
He was just on this week.
He's on an episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Blank Check.
And I was, I was, he's so goddamn smart and so like articulate talking about acting.
And he's just a really interesting guy, but I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know Venture Brothers.
Like, but I was like, oh man, you know, I was like, this is probably pretty random, but just so you know, I really, the first thing I ever saw you when I loved you was Henry Fool.
He's like, oh, thank you very much, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So if you're going to do it, you don't want to get super weird.
But in that case, singing Unsalted Butter Was My Punishment, that's a good way, and then walk away.
That's the key.
Don't go further.
Don't get all Bob Fosse-y and...
Do jazz hands while you sing all of Pretend to Fall.
Two, three, four.
Blue diamonds, you understand?
The best part of it was that it was an ejaculation, right?
It just came out of it.
He didn't even realize it just came out.
No, it was just like, I think that's cool.
Long winters, unsalted butter is my... But you weren't mad, right?
Isn't it kind of nice when somebody does that?
Totally the opposite of mad.
And to make things even better, my daughter was standing right there and she loves that stuff.
She's just like.
Did she say the corollary to a couple of weeks ago?
I think that person remembers who you are.
She said, I don't think that person remembers you is what she said about Feist.
yeah feist she was like i don't think she i don't think she recognized you and i was like you know what why don't you just keep uh why don't you just call you an uber you're not gonna you're not gonna pop my medical zits anymore yeah tell you what tell you what here's what here's your area and then i'll handle one can of beans in here and like like lucy ricardo i'm putting tape across the floor
I'm going to handle the talking to feist part of our conversation here.
And you're going to handle these sit there and be quiet.
Yeah.
You can single handedly handle the, the, the shut the fuck up because you're a kid.
Nobody cares part, but you're really, you should be good at that.
Also, you could tell that she remembered me because of the way she said, Oh yeah.
You can't fake that.
Even Canadians can't fake that.
It's a really good point.
She's too young.
She's still learning.
Yeah, that's the thing.
And I do it all the time, right?
Where I know somebody really well and I go, oh, hi.
Hey.
That guy from The Thing.
Great to see you.
Of course I remember the time 15 years ago that you opened for my band twice.
Yeah, I keep hoping I'll run into John Langford from the Mekons and I can say, hey, remember one time my terrible, terrible drunk band opened for you guys and I handed you a four by three piece of foam core with a poster on it that I've made?
And I thought maybe you could put that in your luggage and take it home?
I've embarrassed myself in front of so many people I admire.
This happened to me just three days ago.
I went to see Elvis Costello.
Open, open.
for Daryl Hall at a new venue called Remlinger Farms, which is a berry farm.
Did they play together?
Not at all.
Because Daryl does a really good YouTube series where he has people come out to his barn and play.
Well, he didn't do it here.
I love to hear Elvis do Sarah's smile.
Oh, that guy!
That guy's lanky as fuck.
I remember him.
He's tall.
Or he's not tall.
He's just lanky.
He's lanky.
John Lankford.
And he was playing guitar in Elvis' band.
wow and uh and my friend ian moore who is responsible for me damaging my knee when we were trying to escape the zoo still feels so bad about it that he's like always uh right because he's a he was a famous uh guitar player and you still have to wear a prosthetic a rubber prosthetic on your other foot just so you won't count the foot that's exactly what that's exactly the problem
Yep.
But so he, he said, Hey, um, uh, Charlie Sexton is my brother-in-law.
Uh, do you want to go to see Elvis and Daryl hall?
And I said, well, of course.
So we went out there and you know, we had Elvis played an amazing show.
And I know the promoters, so I was like, hey, what's going on with this Elvis opening for Daryl Hall thing?
Because it feels like Elvis could have filled this venue on his own.
And they all said, you know what?
We can't figure it out either.
What the hell is he thinking?
But this is a whole tour they're doing where it's not like a co-headline.
See, I think that's smart because if it was – like, for example, if it were – in my fantasy, you were about to say –
it was like Elvis Costello opening for Nick Lowe, because that's so impossibly in my particular wheelhouse.
Like, I think you know that I'm like a, just an unrepentantly huge fan of the whole rock pile enterprise.
But the thing is then that the Venn diagram of that kind of narrows.
Whereas with Daryl Hall, you're also going to bring, you can bring in, you know what I'm saying?
It's like, because they're not the same Venn diagram, I bet you bring in, it's enough crossover because everybody's old and likes the same music.
But don't you think?
Well, you know, and what I was thinking is he doesn't like Oates, so he's not touring with Oates.
I've heard that has become a very complicated relationship.
Yeah, he's really not into Oates.
But I said, why doesn't he just hire a guy and give him the nickname Oates, but O-A-T-S?
Hey, it's Bill Oates Williamson.
And then he could still bill it as Hall.
Oh, yeah.
It's like Hall.
And then the bass player's name is like Jim Oates Johnson.
And people would be like, oh, Hall.
I'm sorry.
Are you making little quotes?
With quotes around Oates like Jim Johnson.
And then people would, you know, if it was.
That's not legally actionable.
They'd play 20,000.
They'd play for 20,000 people.
When the morning comes.
Yeah, that would be amazing.
but uh but so so we're we're obviously fake mustache maybe he's played by us by a little person maybe he's like two and a half feet tall that would be amazing with like a regular size mustache that would be so cute what if it's a baby what if it's a baby named baby little baby oats oh i'm backstage later because we're back there talking to uh charlie sexton
And Charlie's a very nice guy.
Oh, that's nice to hear.
I'm so glad.
Remember that album cover?
Remember how handsome he was on that album cover?
Well, he actually said somebody told him when he was 17.
They were like, some music star met him.
And they were like, oh, yeah, you're the guy on MTV right now with that song, Beats So Lonely.
Yeah, I remember.
They said, yeah, you're like a rock and roll skeleton.
And he was like, rock and roll skeleton.
I'll take it.
Oh.
Somebody called me a rock and roll skeleton?
Well, especially when you're younger.
I guess when you're older, it takes on a different meaning.
Well, he's a thin guy.
So, you know, that's the thing about thin guys.
They're self-conscious about the thinness, whereas us fat guys are self-conscious about the fatness.
Everybody's self-conscious about something.
People with curly hair want straight hair.
People with straight hair want curly hair.
There you go.
you go he told a very weird story about a night he uh he was at kathy valentine's house from the go-go's bass player and yeah and there was uh and then they had a they had a break-in like a like a crazy person he kept saying see this is that this has got to be los angeles
It is lost.
He was telling this story, although she's from Texas, too.
That's how they knew each other.
But he was saying, oh, this guy that was strung out came in.
And I was like, strung out.
They don't usually do like home invasions.
You can testify directly to this, that people who are strung out generally do not have the executive function enthusiasm.
They don't have the enthusiasm.
Yeah, and the energy to kind of keep it all straight.
As Dave Chappelle says, you know, I wish I had the ambition of a crackhead, right?
Or the, like, stick to it.
Gives you a lot of focus.
But I realized, oh, he's been, you know, Charlie Sexton's been out of street life.
Maybe he never had street life because he got famous when he was 17.
He probably doesn't know the difference between...
tweaking and being strung out so i'm not i'm not going to be the guy backstage that's like i think you mean tweaker actually uh but you know so we were just like yeah okay so we're and i and i had a i had one of these stories for charlie like i used to work at a 24-hour music video station in anchorage alaska and he's like huh i'm like i know i know i know it said it doesn't make any sense when you say it out loud but video station
but uh we used to play beat so lonely all the time so i feel like i know you and he was like right right right but i got up from the table i went over to the uh to the concession table because they had a very nice spread because it's daryl hall and and uh and you know uh elvis costello they got they got a chef on tour with them they got nice food so i go make myself a plate going over the craft services and i'm standing there a plate i'm pouring myself a cup of coffee
And up walks Steve Naive.
Steve Naive, the famous keyboard player from the attraction.
Oh, he's the guy with the glasses and the Vox?
The Farfisa or whatever, or the Vox.
and i say to him i was always a fan of their drummer i always loved the drummer in the you know that's the great thing about elvis his band is like an r&b band they're also the bass lines are incredible in all his music oh absolutely i'm standing there and i say hey steve a big fan and he's like mm-hmm
Because if you approach somebody at a chef-catered craft services table backstage at a concert with Daryl Hall and Elvis Costello and Charlie Sexton, there's a pretty good chance that whoever you talk to might have been famous at one time.
Oh, for sure.
Oh, for sure.
There's famouses all around.
He thinks it's in all the great shows.
And I had this wonderful experience standing backstage where, you know, there's all these famouses walking around.
And a couple of people turn the corner.
And the first thing they say is, John Roderick?
Oh, boy.
Did you pay them?
That's crazy.
And they're like famous guitar merchants, guitar sellers, who were there because they had given Elvis like a 62 Jazzmaster the day before that he played at the show.
And they're like, oh, yeah, we got Elvis's guitar.
And I was like, awesome.
But then, of course, my bona fides were like through the roof.
Like, yeah, that's right.
Hey, look around, Charlie Sexton.
Who's getting their name shouted out?
Yeah, it's me.
That's right.
I have an army of luthiers at my disposal.
But so I'm standing there with Steve Naive, and I'm like, you're not going to remember this.
But...
Do you remember the time that I came drunkenly and gave you a cardboard whatever?
I have the same story.
15 years ago, you and I were in the same car for 20 minutes.
And he was like, you know what?
You know what?
I don't remember anything.
That's one of my problems.
That's a really good response.
It implies that it's not just you.
Yeah, no, no.
And he and he has he's practiced that line.
He's been saying it for 30 years.
Yeah.
You know, my problem is I don't remember anything.
And I said, absolutely.
I, you know, thank you for all.
Thank you for your service.
And he was like, right, right, right.
And he took his craft services over to a different table.
And I was like, that was a very that was a successful encounter.
I said all the great shows and he said, I don't remember anything.
And I'm, you know, I'm going to remember that.
That's good.
That's going to be my, even though I remember everything, I'm going to start saying to people, Oh, you know, just our listeners, our listeners know, John, um, used to drink and drink a fair amount, but you're not a blackout guy.
You wouldn't forget things, which is your blessing.
I'm going to, I'm going to start forgetting things because it's so much easier than going, uh,
Yeah, hey, hi.
You can also offer a contemporaneous fact that feels like insider information, right?
So like, you know, Tom Hulse, like if I had pursued him at the urinal, which I did not, and that's why it's such a canonical story, he might have said, oh yeah, you know, F. Murray Abraham, he's more funny and down to earth than you might think.
And I feel like I really got a special moment with him.
I might even have washed my hands, who's to say?
Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.
I think that stuff is complicated.
Did he have a big peepee or no?
He was wearing like an army jacket and had pretty big hair.
This is the Henderson period.
This is when I had the Henderson coat.
This was coming back from New York City.
New York City?
Get a rope.
Get a rope.
That Henderson coat, oh man.
It's a good coat.
You know, it made more than one person look cool.
It made at least three people look cool.
Do you think you want to give it to your kid?
Do you still have it?
If you still have it, you can give it to your kid.
I have it.
Because it's real nice.
It's a very, I can't believe you, it was big on me.
It's Vietnam.
It's Vietnam.
It was a different time.
What it looked like on me was it looked very tailored because it had fit you.
It was probably a conventional large.
It was a large.
And so it looked, you know, it looked very, it was slimming on me.
But it made you look cool back in the New York City subway when you were just a young guy with a blonde mustache.
And then one must only assume it made Henderson look cool.
When Henderson was Henderson.
You know what?
This could be one of those documentaries that I don't watch and don't really like.
But maybe you and I should get some kind of, I don't know, a grant or some VC money.
Follow Henderson?
It's called Where's Henderson?
Where's Henderson?
And we try to find out who Henderson was.
We'll start at an Army surplus store in Sarasota in 1988 and just take it from there.
Well, there's got to be something in the jacket that would enable us to... That we haven't discovered in many years.
Yeah, some sign, some serial number that'll take us to a time and place where Henderson was a man.
Well, first of all, I think one of the twists is it'll turn out, of course, that he was probably a war criminal.
But also, I like the idea of us then doing that thing.
They do a documentary where then we just, obviously, we just make the entire movie ultimately about us.
oh sure sure would you be into that at all i mean i think what we need is a primer corvette we're going to drive across the country you and me i mean this is going to require that you get out of your body work well yeah right like it's you know the car is painted primer because we haven't gotten around to the cherry flake that we're going to put on it right and we drive from place to place
And we're looking for Henderson.
And probably we would find him in the first two days.
Looking for Henderson.
Yes, but we'd still.
What if we got a bell helicopter?
I don't want to trigger anything.
What if we got, you know.
I love the smell of Henderson in the morning.
One day this war is going to end.