Ep. 550: "Telephone Club"
You hear that?
I do.
What is that?
What do you think it is?
Let me hear it.
Was it a turn signal?
Is that your answer?
No.
It's not a turn signal.
You get three guesses.
You heard a sound, and I was talking over some of it, and we were trying to... Hi, everybody.
So it's not a turn signal.
What do you think it was?
Was it your digital printer?
Very close.
You want to just tell you?
You can do it.
Wait a minute.
You said I get three guesses.
Okay.
Imagine.
Oh, God.
I was going to say imagine the most embarrassing thing about me, but that doesn't help.
Imagine one of the things that's embarrassing about me.
Well, that's not the sound of you peeing into a milk carton while we're recording.
You know, you can't prove a negative.
And it's a bleach bottle.
It's a bleach bottle with a lid.
Oh, a bleach bottle actually neutralizes the, well, there's nothing to neutralize in pee.
It's perfectly drinkable.
As far as I know, the bleach is out.
right let's see i get i get one more guess and it's not your i'm happy to give you clues because i feel like you didn't really get a proper a proper no no okay see this is a this is a dispute that i have in my in my own home oh where people are always trying to help other people solve quizzes and that's not the point of a quiz
You don't take your phone into a classroom because it helps you solve the quiz.
Oh, that's interesting.
It's like the band That Dog says, by definition, a crush must hurt.
And what you're saying here is... Yes, it's crushing you.
It's literally crushing you.
Yeah, it's crushing you.
That's why it's called a crush and not like an uplift.
Yeah, right.
Not called like a healthy end.
No, Dream Academy.
Oh, Salvation Army band play.
Yeah.
So I said turn signal, but did that count as a guess?
Kind of.
I want to herd you just a little bit.
So would you agree, counselor, that that is like an electronically produced beeping noise?
No, it could have been mechanical.
It could have been like a machine.
That's what I was guessing.
Do you want to use your lifeline?
No, I don't.
I'm not at the end of my guesses.
Ken in Utah, I guess you're on.
No, I feel like this is something that I've got to work out myself.
How do I get around?
It's something in your office.
It's in your office.
How do I get around?
How do I get around?
How do I get around?
It can't be like a... It's not something that you... I mean, it could be something that you bought surplus from NASA, but I don't think it is.
Yeah.
How do I... When I've got to go somewhere, do I drive?
Do I have a chopper?
Do I have another kind of chopper?
How do I get around?
No, you don't have those.
No, you don't have those.
Oh, it's something to do with your scooter.
God damn it.
Your little electrical scooter.
Say it again.
It's your electrical scooter.
But was it a turn signal?
No, as I said earlier, it's not.
So it's some kind of a charging sound?
I can't get super into it, but I'll leave it at this.
It's a great scooter.
I got a thousand miles on it.
It's good.
But the thing is, and those are sunset miles.
Sure, sure, sure.
How far can you even go out there?
Two miles?
No, you can, you know, Jason was texting me about the Great Highway yesterday.
It's really fun to be friends with him.
No, it's my scooter.
And the thing is, when it has some sounds, you can't shut off.
And one of the sounds, it makes a lot of really annoying sounds.
I won't get into it.
But one of the sounds, actually one of the kind of less objectionable sounds, is it tries to warn you when it's turning off.
Because it's currently, it balances, right?
It's a balancing scooter.
That's why I don't fall off it.
So it's about to say, hey, buddy, hey, buddy, you know, I'm going to, you know, shut down the main reactor in a minute.
So when it does that, if you were on a hill and it shut down, you would continue to scoot, but it would be gravity scooting.
The wheels don't lock up.
It's not that.
It's that when it's still for a certain period of time and balancing itself, it wants to warn you.
It's going to tip over.
Doesn't it have a kickstand?
Not this one.
My other one does.
It doesn't have a kickstand, so you have to lean it against a wall?
Or do you do like all the kids do and just drop it right in the middle of the sidewalk?
John, do you understand one big thing in life?
I feel like you do.
One big thing in life.
Maybe.
Adulthood, if you like, is trade-offs.
You make trade-offs.
And I made a lot of trade-offs for this one.
This is something that happened with Dubai Friday, right?
They dared you to drive one of these, and then you got addicted to it, and then you were like, I know I look ridiculous.
Are you taking the Mickey right now?
I can't even tell anymore.
Yeah, it's because of Dubai Friday.
Yeah, right.
Kind of.
I had a Scoot Scoot, and then I convinced the other two to get a Scoot Scoot and try it out.
It's just I still ride mine.
You were the one that did it.
Kind of.
To me, this is the most famous Dubai Friday thing, was the scooters.
Alex fell off real hard.
Ooh.
Yeah.
And Alex did not get back up on it after?
No, nothing's ever going to get them down.
You can't land on a fraction.
And I think that's potentially what Alex tried to do when they ran into a desk at full speed.
In the office.
Ran into a who?
A desk, like you'd have in an office.
Ran into a desk.
I think so, yeah.
Alex was doing it inside?
The good part is Alex was also, because Alex is terminally online, was also making a movie of it at the time.
Oh, yeah.
Concentrating on making a movie.
Sure.
And then ate it, as they say.
Sure, sure, sure.
But you know, it's trade-offs.
Adult life is trade-offs, is what I'm saying.
In this one, I got a lot of power.
I got distance.
The batteries.
Power and distance.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't torque.
Yeah.
Torque.
Sure.
Sure.
Torque.
Yeah.
You could pull a stump out with that thing.
Well, I sure could just get into a low gear.
You know, one thing about your friend, Jason Finn.
Yes.
Is that Jason is not afraid to invest in new technologies around getting around the city and
He's always got a new electric bike.
He's always on some kind of scooter or hovercraft or something.
He's describing himself to me as a, I think he said, a transit advocate or a transit enthusiast, something like that, he said.
Well, you know, transit, I've never seen it.
No, no, no, but I mean like how we get from a... The way I've tried to phrase it is that part of what defines a great city, in my opinion, is the ability...
the number of options you have for getting from A to B, but then also the number of ways you have of exploring between A and B and then getting places beyond B. Exactly.
Once you get to B, then you get on to C or B. But like if all you ever do is like get in your, you live in your car's house, you know, and you go into the part where your car sleeps, the biggest room in your house is where your car sleeps.
And then like you go somewhere into another car house and get out.
I mean, it's fine, whatever.
People are busy.
Sure, they're busy.
Oh, my God, so busy.
Oh, you know busy people.
How often do you like, now, John, why am I asking you this?
Obviously, I'm just asking.
Ride a horse.
Ride a horse.
Oh, my God, if you're not getting a horse, let's table that.
I'm going to write down horse.
I'm writing down horse.
You know, I've only ever ridden a horse once.
Um, I, I see why people like it having seen many people ride on horses, but I've only done it a couple of times and I was not relaxed while it was.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I was aware of it too.
I could see myself.
I felt like, oh yeah, this is how you are intimidating.
Yeah.
I mean, you think I'm intimidating.
Put me on a horse.
But then I was like, what do I want to bring you down to earth a little bit.
Well, the horse certainly had its own will, which a motorcycle kind of does, but you can't like whisper to a motorcycle.
I mean, people do.
People do.
They lean down and they're like, come on, babe.
Come on.
Come on.
Do they still call it an Indian?
Who, the motorcycle?
There are those.
Yeah, there are.
But we don't know if we call it that.
That's what PG Honeycat had.
I think they do.
I feel like if you have a motorcycle, you're not like, like probably at the forefront of what do we call this?
Harley Davidson has stopped their DEI programs because of woke.
What is DEI?
Diversity, equity and inclusion.
Oh, so Harley had that and then they stopped it?
It went too far.
They stopped it because they were putting off their hogs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, you got to know your market.
All I wanted to say was, and I'm just, that's a backdoor brag, is that like, I think that's a pretty smart way to look at it.
And there's a lot in that statement.
Like starting with, people go, well, there's plenty of ways to get around.
You could take 280 or 101.
And you're like, round, round, get around.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
See, and that's why, you know, you got to watch out for the ones Mike Love sings.
That's where the ideology comes from.
But, and so Jason, see, that's another neat thing, though, is then what if I buy something for myself, I don't feel as bad because I'm like, man, I don't have a car.
Well, now, this is the thing that I'm always curious about because I feel like you are like this, Thiracusa is like this.
He loves cars.
God, he's gay bones for cars.
I know he is.
And the thing is, you guys invest in new technology without...
Worrying about its longevity without like is this the right one like I mean you do a certainly early in the adoption curve it hasn't maybe been Proven or as people on TV say it hasn't been proven out Proven out right right right so like you take a swing on like think about those people I don't remember this when the Apple watch for example first came out they had a version of it that was five figures and
and was made out of gold.
But the guts were not upgradable.
So basically, you were buying a gold bracelet with old software.
Yeah, old software.
Old software, we called them.
See, you know, me, I'm like, hold your breath for a minute.
In 1957, I'm not sure it's been tested enough to validate, you know, purchasing it.
Is this the one?
And you guys are like, oh, the new...
Zippity zap.
I swear to you, I have lunch with Jason all the time, although we're a little behind every single time he seems to show up with a new electric powered vehicle and I admire him for it, but I have never bought an electric anything because I look at him and I go, Oh, I've made the mistake buying a thing.
You know, you buy a thing.
I absolutely, I absolutely take your point.
And the number of examples of this on the side that you're talking about, it's,
Too innumerable to mention, but my only mini note on that as somebody who does enjoy the occasional technology thing is that beep boop.
I feel like, first of all, what you said is the big part, which is like, is this really done?
Is this, I mean, like, is this, for example, you could say, yeah, right.
Does it need another 10 minutes, but like, does this, you know, is this baked?
And, you know, which you could just say, put it, put it plainly, which is like, is this safe?
If you go through the Eric's, is it Erickson?
Who's the pyramid guy?
If you go through the hierarchy of needs, you know, you've got like, you know, is this safe?
Is this reliable?
And then you get into stuff like, is it, is that marathon man?
Is it safe?
I've got, I'm writing that down under horse.
I've written down horse and now I'm writing down marathon, man.
Is it safe?
He says to him, he says, Dusty, Dusty, my dear boy, have you tried just acting?
He said to him.
Yes.
Marathon man.
Marathon man.
But I think that is very real.
And that goes for all kinds of stuff where like, you know, when these hoverboards first got really popular, there were a lot of really poorly made ones that caught on fire and stuff.
like that.
So is it safe?
Does it work?
Or in the case of somebody, and this becomes a transition for the second part of this that I think is the actually interesting part.
You've got all the stuff of like, yeah, is this just going to be another gold Apple watch?
But then you kind of get into this weird gray area where you're into like, well...
I think a lot of the place that new stuff falls down for people is that it's either presented, perceived, or both as a replacement for an old thing.
Oh, yeah.
Now, in the case of a good example of that might be, like, I don't know if you have an Apple phone called an iPhone, but when the iPhone first came along, you know, they called it an iPhone.
Right.
Because you couldn't, if you call it a pocket computer, it would seem weird.
You had to sell it to the public as like, this does more than the phone you have now.
And the truth of the matter is, if you're like me, I mean, I very rarely use the phone part of my phone.
It's become like a cliche to say that.
But it depends on what it's replacing.
So in my case, this is, if it's replacing anything, it's the idea of like, our stupid three person, two driver house needs two cars.
No, no.
She's got a car and she uses it.
And like, she's the family car.
Yeah.
I'm going to write that down too.
Right here.
Family car.
Marathon.
What did I say?
That Madeline's the family car?
Yeah, she's the family car.
Don't call her that.
Family car.
But for me, it's what it's really replacing is, or what, not replacing, what it's doing, rather than trying to replace, like, what is a car?
What it wants.
What it wants is you get in a car, you drive to Florida, you crank up the air conditioning, you stop for gas when you need to, right?
Is a Rivian or a Tesla a good replacement for that?
Well, in one way, absolutely not.
And it depends on, ask me in a different month, because it depends on how many charging stations are out there.
I've been following along with Marco's journey with these vehicles and learning a lot about how that continues to evolve.
There's fewer of those Tesla ones, and the Tesla ones don't work with this one, and this place is really poorly run, and there's no one working there.
So you show up at the Walmart, and you're supposed to be able to plug in your car, and none of them are working.
You know me.
I like to drive eight hours.
Eight hours.
But I don't think and, you know, you stop.
So the scooter is not a good replacement for that usage.
Right.
Right.
But that doesn't mean like, well, let's just imagine some kind of a very odd person who mainly did stuff in the same neighborhood and mainly wanted a way to, like, get around from A to B within a two mile.
Two and a half mile radius?
Sure, sure, sure.
Well, let me tell you a story.
Oh my God, I love this.
Yes, I was in Fort Greene in New York, and it was kind of late at night, and I needed to get to Park Slope, and normally I would just walk.
Where's Fort Greene?
Oh, it's over there in Brooklyn and Park Slope's over there in Brooklyn.
And you think, eh, it's all in Brooklyn, but it's like, mm, not really.
According to the beginning of Welcome Back Cotter, Brooklyn is the second largest city in America.
It's big.
I heard it's big.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm over in the, and the thing is, it's not like all the way across, but I'm not in Williamsburg, but I'm in Fort Greene.
And I got to get to the far end of Park Slope, Slope.
And I say, you know what?
You know what?
It's two o'clock in the morning.
Yeah.
I keep walking past these e-bikes.
Yeah.
Oh, like a little city bank you can hop on and go somewhere.
Yeah, and this is like early on.
That's how I got started with the e-bikes, honestly.
You just grab it and go.
So I go up to the thing, and it's like, well, you got to download the app.
And I'm like, okay, all right, let's see here.
And I work my way through all the different- I like other people in New York that night, you're not drunk and looking for a way to get from A to B. Right, and I wasn't drunk.
I'm just like, and I'm looking at the thing, and I spend the time.
You know, I spend the time to get the-
finally get the money in there bleep bleep bleep and bloop and the bike comes alive the bike is like i see you friend and i go awesome look at us and i get on the bike and i start huckleberry bucking across brooklyn and i'm like this is the most brilliant thing i ever saw and i get all the way to where i'm going and i'm looking around because over in fort green there were these bikes everywhere
I'm looking around in park slope.
I don't see any of these bike places.
I'm like, okay, I got to find like a place to park this bike, like a charging bike station.
I'm looking around and I'm like, well, I don't see him anywhere.
So I go on the app.
And I boop, boop, boop.
And the app tells me that the nearest charging station is in Fort Green.
They don't have them.
That feels like an important moment for something.
They don't have them where I was going.
And it seemed to me, if you were in Fort Greene... It's not that you can't get there from here.
It's that if you do... Well, you kind of won't get there from here.
I mean, because then you've got to go back and plug in your bike again.
That's so weird.
It occurred to me to look at after I had already spent 20 minutes... Well, you see them everywhere.
I bet in Seattle...
And San Francisco is true.
Like, you'll see the random scooter or bike, you know, at a certain place.
But downtown, there's just racks.
Well, yeah, racks and racks and racks of those, like whatever your version of that is.
But to me, it seemed like in Fort Greene, where do you want to take one of these?
There aren't that many places unless you're going four blocks.
Why would you have a bike?
The only place you'd want to go.
And so at this late, late now, late hour, I had to turn around because there's a big thing that's like, well, if you don't put it in a charger, there's a fine or whatever.
I turned around and rode back to where I had taken this thing from parked it and then had to walk the, I didn't have to, I could have called a car, but I had to walk the distance and you know, I got to where I was going at four 30 in the morning.
And after that, I just felt burned, of course.
And I never touched the things again.
Right.
Now that's my own personal problem.
I don't think, I mean, that's a pretty good anecdote that, and to me, oh, you're welcome.
I generally like your stories.
Yeah, I feel like I can get a story in there.
No, but that's good because it shows you that infrastructure can be hard.
You ever try and get a U-Haul and let's just spoil the joke.
You're in a college town and want to get a U-Haul.
The long time of year last week of May or whatever get it and like I my my ex and I ran into at one time where we're like We'll just pop in and you know get a van or a small truck and they're like, yeah, no vans Yeah, no small trucks.
Yeah, no big trucks.
Yeah, you know what we can get you in two days
I swear to Christ, John, it was like something out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
What they got us is the most janky, like wooden, like slats on the side, like a radio flyer wagon.
What they got us was an uncovered trailer that we could attach to an automobile.
But that wasn't even that day you could get it.
Because that's how that supply and demand works.
That's how you get this with cars at the car places.
And now every one of these goddamn businesses is running as you see this in planes, you see this in cars, you see this in planes, trains, automobiles.
It's like they're running right at the edge all the time.
There's no excess capacity of anything anymore, including humanity.
And you can't just walk into places and expect the thing you want.
And that makes the infrastructure dodgy.
In the sense that, are you going to trust that a second time?
In your case, can I just point out again, you were not drunk and you did all of that.
Well, that infrastructure doesn't work if there's not a place at point B to leave that bike.
And like, who do you write about that?
Yeah, well, that's the other thing.
I ask myself that question every two days.
Who do I write about this?
Who do I write about this?
If you wanted to write a letter to somebody, who would you write?
The first time I ever had that experience was with Millennium Girlfriend.
I had some Snapchat issue.
I don't remember what it was.
You know, she was in Snapchat.
And I was like, oh, Snapchat.
And it was a serious issue.
You having trouble with their vending machine?
I don't remember what it was.
Didn't they have a vending machine that sold glasses?
Yeah, yeah.
I was there at the rollout.
And Kanye paid somebody to stand in line for him.
Oh.
And then the woman from, what's that kind of shoe?
It's not John Vervatos.
John Fluvog?
No, it's more common.
John Galliano.
No, I'm not even sure it's a John.
It's some guy.
Oh no, it's Cole hand.
Oh, I know those.
Yeah.
Those are, those are men's men slip on shoes.
Yeah.
And so Kanye's got, so then people start hiring people to stand in line.
I guess that's a thing in New York.
That's payback for, that's payback for the civil war.
i understand completely well i mean although i'm sure it was somebody from asia that that that did the job right no you know no but anyway this woman walks up and she's like let me in clip and send to all your friends she's like let me let me in i'm uh mary flute or mary colhan
And my, my husband is John Cole and, and, uh, the people at the door were like, huh?
I love Supreme.
No, no, no, not that one.
She, uh, she, she ended up making a big.
And we're all standing around like, I don't know.
You know, I was like, I know what a Cole hand is, but it was very funny to see her think that that ranked.
Because whatever world she lives in that ranks, she's like, I at the door of the country club or whatever.
She's like, I'm Mrs. Cole hand.
And they're like, oh my goodness, you know, here to the front of the line.
Yeah.
But at the Snapchat glasses vending machine, you know, that was not, that was not up there.
Those things were trash.
But anyway, I, I remember what it was.
It was not anything to do with their product line.
It was after it was like millennium girlfriend.
said, I want you on my corporate insurance.
Okay.
And I was like, I'm not sure that I want that.
And she was like, she was kind of a, I mean, we oughtn't say much, but she was, she wasn't just a rank and file person.
She was fairly high up in the executive.
Yeah.
She was a heehaw, but she was all, she was constantly like, are you in this relationship?
And I was like, you were often confronted with these, um, I won't call them tests, but I would say pop quizzes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
and i was like of course you know yes and she was like then you're gonna be my spouse on my corporate insurance aren't you and i was like i guess yes and so i was and then uh she broke up with me and took all my filson bags and left it in your underpants my german underpants and then i was like well now what do i do because i'm all i'm all in all this
And then I found out there's this program called Cobra for people whose spouses leave them out in the cold without their, without their insurance, their corporate insurance.
And I was like, and so then, you know, what's best for me, right?
To navigate, to navigate like seven different layers of insurance, right?
That's what I'm really.
This anecdote takes place at the, at the pop quiz era stage where she's saying, let's get you on this.
Yes.
Yeah, that's right.
And, and so then I'm like, well, in order to activate this Cobra, I have to get in touch with someone at Snapchat in the HR insurance office.
and that's when i learned there is no phone number for snapchat none there's not a single one like you can't get an operator if they have if they have a phone it doesn't even have a number you know it's like you ever heard stories about people trying to get in touch with craftwork and craftwork would say just don't don't don't talk to us at all but then if they if somebody really wanted to this this happened with uh bowie trying to get not clustering or trying to get one of the guys florian i think to play on low
So anyway, and so like, you've heard these stories where it's like, you will call, you get the code from Janine.
You will call us at exactly 617 GMT.
The phone will ring once.
We will pick.
Have you heard these stories?
This is apparently a true thing.
No, this is awesome.
I never wrote about it because I was done doing my website at this point, but there was something I found so invigorating.
about being in a position to say to people, yes, we will talk to you.
You have exactly one chance at this time.
We'll turn the phone on for one minute.
Right?
We will let it ring once.
Yeah, you are through to Florian.
Talk fast.
The Zeit ist geisting.
But I did.
I reached out through seven different channels, kind of like that eBay thing where I was like, we're not talking about trying to get like, I just had some crud cutter must for rust sent to me.
And for the second time in a row, this for whatever reason, I don't want to blame the vendor, but it got screwed up.
There was no way for me to ask for a refund.
Like it was $80 worth of bottled degreaser.
And like I said, both of these times that this happened, they're like, well, contact the seller.
Later.
And I go, uh... So it's my job that, like, through no fault of my own, I said, please send me $80 worth of degreaser.
The day it shipped, I got a thing that said it was lost forever.
I got one of those, this is lost forever.
Come back in three weeks.
And I was like, well, wait a minute.
So it's not even that.
It's not even like I want my money back for my Delta flight that was canceled.
This is to, like, do something as a person...
allied with the company yeah yeah you're allied with the company are you just supposed to send them an email what do you do oh do you snapchat them you snapchat them and then the hr disappears after one hour they want you to to send them a uh like a message to their bot and i was like hi i'm looking for the insurance guy and they were like are you trying to use a snapchat uh you know like uh emojis it sounds like you're trying to avoid a long-term relationship
Okay, okay, okay.
I ended up, you know, like blank, just shotgunning.
Operator, operator, fuck, fuck.
And finally, somebody who knew somebody, you know, because I hadn't made a ton of friends at Snapchat.
You gotta know a guy.
When it comes to Snapchat, everybody says that you gotta know a guy.
Yeah, and all of her co-workers all called me Peepaw.
So, you know, yeah, that was their joke to her.
They were teasing her because she was going out with some Peepaw that had a jingle stick, and they were all 30 years old and, like, working at a stand-up desk.
Does he even snap?
Ending on a hoverboard.
Does he even snap?
yeah and i'm like so finally somebody from snapchat called me oh dear and they were like hi this is brandon uh how can i help you and i was like oh my god brandon it's so great this is brandon i'm obviously 24.
24 years old and they ended up being extremely helpful and i got this and i had snapchat insurance for like three years
And I was like, yeah, take that.
Who's in the relationship now?
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She didn't even work at Snapchat after a while.
I was like, still getting my band-aids from Snapchat.
But you know what I have right now?
No.
Instagram shut down my Instagram because it wasn't safe because I didn't have two-factor authentication.
And I Instagram, Instagram shut down your Instagram because you didn't have two factor authentic.
Okay.
So it's not, it wasn't because of like harmful C Sam weird stuff.
It was like, just because like you, did you feel like you maybe missed a heads up from them or something?
Nope.
They gave me 10 heads ups.
They said two weeks from now, we're going to shut down your Instagram.
If you don't get two factor authentication.
And I said, okay, great.
Safe.
Yeah, it's not safe.
And I said, okay, text me the code.
And then it didn't come.
And it said at the bottom, a little hot link.
Did the code not come?
Click here.
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Didn't come.
And I said, okay, so there's some setting where between, because they had my right number, between them and my phone, some setting is toggled where I'm not receiving their text.
It's going into junk.
It's going somewhere.
And so I went and I looked in junk.
Pause there for a second, though, because I would love to talk about this for an hour.
I mean, this goes for so many things nowadays, John.
And you could write it down to VC-funded, hedge fund-funded services or whatever.
But I think there's generally two states of almost everything customer-facing nowadays, which either goes as well as could be expected or you have to completely start over.
That could be the Arby's that you're having delivered.
That could be a part that you ordered.
It could be your crud cutter.
Look at the crud cutter.
Consider the crud cutter.
Right?
Consider the crud cutter.
What am I going to do?
I'm going to go like, there's not a bot.
There's not even a stupid bot for this.
It's just like, just the Frenchman's wave of like, just go find these people who apparently sent you crud cutter that can't be delivered.
And like, you go deal with it now.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Food service delivery, Instacarts, all these things.
Or in your case,
like customer service or whatever it's like it'll either go as well as can be expected or it's complete fucking trash fire and if it's trash fire it might be over forever or you at the very least have to start over and you have to tell somebody your story all over again so of course you know at a certain point of like okay i've gone and looked all these places i don't even know why i'm looking in junk mail you don't know why
it didn't work in a phone thing no indication of why it didn't work so you've just officially gone off as well as can be expected and have fallen well into the depths of start completely over or just die exactly the thing that i least want to do which is try and solve this problem that you company are creating i didn't have i don't feel unsafe i you know who's gonna unsafe me i'm not connecting anything to my instagram just leave me be yeah so of course i drop it because i'm like okay fuck it you know they said i made a time okay
And then it happens again.
They're like, you only have one more week and send it to the thing.
And so then I went into the phone settings on my phone and I was like, do I have it somehow set so that meta can't talk to me?
I don't know.
I mean, for sure.
I don't want Facebook talking to me at all.
And it's part of the same company, but they're not sending me this about Facebook.
That seems less safe.
And I spent another.
hour and so I was like it's not like you can go in like I run into this with like something for some reason went wrong somewhere with one of my accounts with PG&E and it stopped understanding who I was and like it's just like there's not a way to just go in and say actually use a different phone number because they're like oh easy text you can't just walk around like change
If you don't know how to get in here, if you can't get in with your phone number, we're sure not going to let you change the phone number.
I'm like, well, I'd hate to seem quite this simple about it.
But if you want money for the gas and electric that comes to my office, we need to find a way for me to be able to get into this account.
And I finally gave up and just allocated a quarter of a day.
It took much less.
But I said, I'm just going to call and I'm going to get on.
I'm going to...
apply my case.
I'm walking up to Khaleesi.
I'm saying, your dragon set my goat on fire.
What can we do about this?
I'm very sorry.
You are the mother of dragons.
Please help me out.
That's because that's the only thing you can do sometimes and hope you get somebody who can help you.
Well, in this situation, so there's an added complication, which is that the messages that they're sending me...
is download an app that manages your two-factor authentication.
And that's the real safe way.
And I look online.
So they're saying go get like, oh, they probably have their own.
I was going to say like Google Authenticator or Authy or 1Password.
You're saying, do they have their own meta?
But this is what I don't trust.
Absolutely.
They're like, we can recommend you these.
And I'm like, this is some kind of scam.
I saw an ad last night for one of those services, and some of them are good, I guess, but those services where you're like, you know, you're on the dark web, and we take all your information down for you.
And it's like, I understand that, and I get that, and they've been a sponsor on shows.
I've done places like that.
But my thought every time is, yeah, but, like, if you really wanted to megafuck somebody, wouldn't you tell them that you're a company that will take care of their...
It's like, it's like VPNs that you can't trust or like, and you're like, well, wait a minute.
So you want me to go, I'm just sending, you can't send me this thing.
You can't get that straight, but you're going to send me a link to go download something and put my, I don't know, man, that gives me a little bit of the willies.
Well, and so then I'm online and I'm looking like, what do the neckbeards say?
And they all say, oh, you can't use your text phone.
That's easy to spoof.
You got to use this other thing, the VPN scoobladers.
It's another thing you got to download.
And I'm like, I was at the supermarket the other day.
You know what it is, John?
It's an E-Eel.
It's an E-Eel.
It's an E-Eel.
We might need to workshop that.
I've been a member of E-Eel.
If you lowercase the E and then uppercase the next E-Eel.
Yeah, I like it.
E-Eel.
I was at the supermarket.
I've been a member of their telephone friends.
Telephone club?
Where it's like, well, this is normally $7, but we'll give it to you for five if you're a telephone friend.
You're in the telephone club.
And I go, and my sister, my mother, and I have all used my mother's phone number since the advent of telephone friends, however long ago that was.
We just all put it on the same account because I think I tried to put my phone number in it once, and it wouldn't.
It didn't work.
And I was like, okay, fine.
I know my mom's number.
We'll just put it.
It's all in there.
It's like, it's like 867-309.
I mean, have you ever been to like, like, I don't like you go to Safeway and I haven't had a Safeway card in years, but you go to Safeway and they're like, are you, are you in the Friends Club?
And I go, no, I'm not.
It's fine.
It's fine.
It's fine.
I just want to get out of here.
I want the next person to check out.
I want to like, just be done and be out of here.
And like, oh, that's okay.
And, and the checker will go tick, tick, tick, tick, and put in like a number that they always use.
Yeah.
8-6-7-5-3-0-9.
8-6-7-5-3-0-9.
I mean, it's not national security.
No.
All you're looking to do is get the money back.
And they try and pepper it with, like, you know, this gives you gas points.
And I'm like, just stop it.
Leave me alone.
But now, if you go to the Safeway, it's like, well, it's normally $7.
We'll give it to you for $5.
It's normally $6.99.
We'll give it to you for $5.99.
But...
If you download the app and point your QR code reader at it, it's a T for $4.99.
This is how it begins.
This is how it begins, John.
Just scan the code.
I'm already your fucking phone friend.
Why do I also have to be your app friend?
Why does everyone keep giving me homework?
It's not just businesses.
It definitely includes doctors.
It includes fucking everybody.
One reason I am so avoidant about almost everything is that people are almost always giving me homework that is easy for them to even automatically give me.
It requires no effort on their part and an unknown amount of figuring everything out on my part.
And it almost always touches like another part of my life where it's like, well, okay, so it's not like I can just go and tick a box.
Like in that case, you're going to have to do it.
You have to get it on there.
You have to find out if it's okay.
You got to get your passwords in there.
Then if you have any sense, you'll test it.
Most two-factor things will test it immediately to make sure that it worked.
But I guess what I'm saying is this is not without a cost existentially.
Well, because line at the supermarket and I'm downloading their app and it's in a supermarket.
So the apps slow to load.
And then I realized once I'm in it, that what it wants me to do is to put a virtual shopping cart together where I QR code, all these things.
And then I go up to the cash register and I have to pull out the app and bleep.
Every one of these things to get my one.
Is it in the service of, okay, good job.
Let's get started now with your first items.
Was it that kind of thing where they're like, let's get started with your Safeway adventure.
It's not even that easy.
It's just like, oh, well, now you have a limit of four of these and you clipped on it.
And it's not, but it doesn't come up as like, you've clipped on all of these things.
But you didn't zag back.
And then if you're going to scan it, it needs to go into the defibrillator.
So when you get to the self-checkout, which is its own indignity.
Sir, I will ask you one more time.
Are you in the telephone club?
Turn your key, sir.
And then you draw your service revolver.
Yeah, it's just like, turn it.
And so I was like, fuck you.
I don't want that.
And the first person I dealt with was a kindly old checker who was like, let me do that for you, honey.
Bleep, bleep, bleep.
But then the next time I went there, there was some 24 year old who was like, do you have the app?
And I said, no.
And they really seem either mad disappointed or something if you're not.
And I just go, no, I like because I'm like I have learned that in life.
you have to be careful not to accept the frames that other people give to things.
And so when somebody, I normally, I try to answer, when somebody asks me a question, for example, I answer it properly.
I use the right tense, I use the right pronouns, I use the right everything to just very, with total clarity, answer the question that they ask for, and often only the question that they ask for.
I've watched enough Law in order to know.
When somebody says, are you a member of the phone club?
And I don't just say no.
I say, no, thank you.
Meaning, I'm not interested in this.
It's like, it's so much more important.
Charge me $2 more for each item, but let me get out of here.
And have this woman who's behind me giving me the stink eye.
Let me just get out of here.
Don't waste time complimenting me on my groceries.
Like, don't do any of that stuff.
Just get me.
You know what I mean, though?
And it's like, you get this feeling.
And like, of course, there's some places where I guess they get bonus bucks for signing people up for phone club.
Oh, I didn't realize.
I don't know.
That could be it.
But then a lot of times they just want to get it done, too.
Right.
You get super checker.
Super checkers.
Just punch, punch, punch.
Yeah.
Super checkers.
She's seen this shit before.
This is not her first day.
No, she's been in the shit.
Well, so the thing about the thing about my Instagram then is that I don't want to download the thing.
And so that's my problem.
Right.
All that's not one of the options, though.
Right.
They don't give you an option of I'm just not into it.
Well, no, the option is we'll send you a text message, a thing that you don't like or a thing that isn't safe.
Receiving it via SMS is not ideal, but it would get you to where you're mostly probably compliant.
Because I don't feel unsafe in the first place.
In fact, I wouldn't feel unsafe if it was just open and anybody could go in there and post in.
That's how units used to be.
Just go check anybody's email.
Yeah.
Bleep, blue, bleep.
And so then it comes down to the lat.
They're like, we're going to do this tomorrow.
And I'm at that point.
I'm like, sure you are like, this is all a bunch of nothing.
And then tomorrow I'm just going to use my account because you've, you've given up and no, in fact, the next day I can't, um, my account is locked.
It shows me the same, the same picture.
Every time I go onto the Instagram app, it shows me the same picture of Eric Hawk, which is the last thing I looked at before they shut my thing down.
And now I can't use Instagram.
So, but their co-company, Facebook, I'm still an honored member.
Huh.
And so I'm over on Facebook.
I thought that was part of what made Threads so attractive.
Oh, I'm still on Threads, too.
Because, okay, but, okay, I thought Threads was based on an Instagram account.
It is.
Okay.
but i did but i did download the threads app at some point because they were like well you gotta download it i love hearing it but i hate it i hate this john i i fucking hate this this is so and so then i'm in a situation where it's like and i've been in facebook three times with this like trying to figure out oh go to your permissions and settings and i'm like okay i'm over there is this the problem with instagram no it's not i mean i i i did every toggle
And so I go on Facebook and I do the old man thing, which is, I don't know how to talk to anybody.
Here I am.
Uh, maybe I'll just stop using Instagram.
I don't know.
It's, it's late at night.
I'm, you know, I'm sitting here steamed on bourbon and smoking a cigar and I don't even want anything anymore.
mm-hmm and i get a bunch of replies and of course predictably a bunch of replies that are like yo actually and then somebody dms me and is like i work at meta what how can i help and i said here's my is it somebody you recognized my parents went away on a week's vacation okay and no it's not anybody that i that i communicated with before but they're like you know i work at meta and i said and he said i want you to know
that I'm not a scammer, and here's how I'm going to prove that to you.
I was at your West Seattle show.
Give me $1,000, and I'll give it right back to you.
Yeah, exactly.
I don't know if he went as far as putting Long Winter's lyrics into his reply, but he was clearly somebody that was here.
Oh, I see what you're saying.
He was like, I was at your West Seattle show.
I bought your first record in 2003.
That would be, you know, if it was a long enough con for that to be what it seems like good for them,
yeah that'd be a tricky con and all of it let them have it man they've earned it that's a long ass grammar was fine you know it was there wasn't any kind of like hello my good friend but the but the m is capital hello i am single for you so i say so he says all i need is your email and i'll get it set up for you and i was like okay great he said i'll put you on the friends and family meta
the list i was like okay great to go on a list of all the special boys well this is the thing what happened with me with ebay where i got somebody calling me who was like my boss uh told me that i have to solve this problem i really don't want i don't want my boss to be mad at me so let me do this as fast as i can and be very nice to you and i was like this is this is the service i'm accustomed to
So I give him the thing and he's like, and then wait, the story changes.
Cause he's like, well, I put it in.
Uh, that's the best I can do.
Hope it works.
And I'm like, oh, that's a little different, but okay.
Yeah.
I'm standing by and nothing.
No, nothing changes.
The meta, whatever problem.
Just because I'm a little out of this ecosystem.
So you go to Instagram, into which you are usually, you're usually logged into Instagram.
You go to Instagram this one day, and it's a picture of your friend Eric that you've seen before.
And did it say, when you try to log in, it says your account is locked?
Is that what happened?
That's the thing with the app.
I'm always logged in.
I don't log in.
I don't even know how I would do that.
Nothing you could see.
And I'm sorry.
You don't care, but I'm going to get yelled at if I haven't asked you decent questions.
Yeah, go ahead.
I don't really care.
I believe in this.
I'm also going to get yelled at if I don't say to you, hey, look, just because somebody said they work there, don't give them your information.
I know.
I know.
I know.
I know.
But you don't understand what I live with.
You don't understand.
It doesn't matter.
I'm just just pulling.
No, he's just he's only one, but he is mainly the one.
But like I'm going to get I'm the one that's going to get yelled at because I'm not the I'm not the right.
I'm not the proper vessel for everyone else's concerns about everything.
yeah and i only accept phone calls for one minute one time so you know even though the gates the gates you're through to florian you know he actually has my phone number he's not here right now but he for some reason he calls you to complain about me he has my number he could call me anytime he could touch
Maybe he could fix it for you.
But then the other one.
So the other thing I'm trying to figure out is like, so when you go in, it says your account is locked.
And what is it suggesting that you do when you go, you're in your app on your telephone and you log into Instagram, it says, no, no, no.
Your account is locked.
What is the option that it gives you at that point?
well this is the thing it gives me no option if i i've got eric hawk who is the guitar player of portugal the man he's got a picture of himself in the mount shasta rest area 20 years ago you better learn to love it because that's your instagram now and then i slide down and there's one other thing so i have two posts the other thing is stuff on goodwill which is a but like you don't have a link to like click here to blah blah do this thing
Nothing.
If I go to my guy here, it says nothing.
I get nothing.
Complete your profile, it says.
And then it says, add your name, find people to follow.
So having done that thing with your email address, it would appear to you, that person didn't know if it would make a difference.
And it sounds like what you're saying is from what you can see, it has not made a difference.
You're still where you were.
Well, you're neither friends nor family.
And if I go into friends or family, if I go into Facebook friends or Facebook settings, it says, welcome to Facebook, our good friend.
And then where it says your thing is connected to Instagram under the Instagram logo, it says locked.
And there's a little picture of a lock.
Okay.
And I go, okay.
All right.
But then I get another DM and
And the other DM says, hi, I was in the Chid department with you.
The comparative history of ideas.
At UW?
Back in the 90s in University of Washington.
Wow.
You wouldn't remember me, but I was friends with Jim Klaus's wife.
I'm like, all right, checks out so far.
That was your dude, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then they talk, this person talks to me about a little bit of chid talk.
And she says, I can help you.
And I said, well, I'm talking to somebody at Meta.
And she did something, you know, this is all by text.
She was like, oh, well, you can give that a try.
This is so awesome.
This is like you've been, you've been visited by some kind of like, I don't know, I'm thinking of Hela in the Thor movies or like some kind of like a Grisha, like some kind of witch character appears and go, yes, you could try those channels or you could do this one, which will actually work, but be very strange.
That's exactly what I thought.
I'm going to need to kill your daughter.
like how how is the red it's the red woman i was talking to the real company just the first dumb thing it's robert de niro from brazil yeah right we're all in this together we're all in this together it's the fixer from pulp fiction he's like all right first thing i need you to do is clear all the blood out of the car maybe some decent coffee
so when the meta thing doesn't work i write her back and i'm like so the meta thing didn't work and she's like look and i said so i said i said to her i said yeah um what do you do
And she said she wrote back some cryptic, like, well, I'm in, you know, a variety of businesses in the tech security field.
Okay, this could be a deranged person.
Well, this is what... This is what Chid does to you.
But she checks out at a lot of other levels.
And so I'm like, okay, all right, well...
so so so i say well okay can you help me and she said i'll be in seattle in three days oh god you're gonna be a netflix special in like a year
I was like, Seattle in three days?
Wait a minute.
What is happening?
Oh, my God.
You guys have all got to get off the internet.
And so she says, send me your number.
Oh.
And 99.9% of the time.
And at this point, I've seen Eric Hawk's face so many times because I reflexively click on the Instagram app.
It's one of the things when I pick up my phone, I just do it as a hack.
I know.
When I got off Twitter, that was the strangest thing.
Especially at work, where I used to look at Twitter on a browser instead of an app, just typing the letters TW had become... You know what I mean?
You just do it without even thinking about it.
And you're like, wait, why did I do what I just did?
And what did I expect?
And is this really who I want to be?
Yeah, that's right.
And every time I did it, I was like, oh, see?
You should delete that app and never go back.
But I, but I couldn't quite bring myself to do it.
You know, I'm married to Instagram.
It's the one social media place that I go all the time.
And I know that's dumb.
I know I should just be putting that content on my Patreon for people that, you know, that care.
But I still have that thing that we used to have about Twitter, which is like, if I don't have social media, then how am I going to grow?
That's also just really addictive to, I mean, it hits a lot of the dopamine hotspots.
Yes, for better or for worse.
So then I give her my number, a thing I never, ever do.
I'm resorting to vocal fry to communicate how I'd never do this.
I got that from you.
Yeah, you'd never do that.
You get their number, you do that.
She was triangulating three or four different ways at me.
She was like, look, I'm coming at you.
Could you tell how many proxies she was behind?
She's at least behind seven proxies.
At least seven, okay, okay.
But, you know, she's like, I'm good friends with Aaron Coles.
I'm hanging out with her this weekend.
Also, you know, can you imagine the effect that Plato had on the U.S.
Constitution?
You know, all this stuff where I'm like, oh, this is, you know, are we talking about this now?
You want to symposium me?
Is that what we're doing here?
Is that what we're doing here?
You want to lay on a chaise and talk about symposium with me?
Is that what you want to do?
Yeah, that's right.
No, but it works.
I've got to say, John, so far, this is very much how they get you.
Well, okay.
All right.
No, no, no, no.
If it gets you back in, you know, that's all that matters.
Well, so she texts me this morning.
You're going to end up married to this person.
Well, this is what I'm wondering.
Well, no, I'm not.
Because the little bit down in the story, she texts me this morning and she says, I'm on my way.
And I go, oh, wait a minute.
Oh, then you'll be dead.
I see.
Okay.
I didn't consider that this was a thing where we were, I mean, I know that you said you were coming to Seattle, but I didn't think you meant that we were going to meet in person.
Is that really what we have to do?
Do we have to meet?
I have to, I have to tell you just because I, you know, as, uh, as the great Pete Townsend said, you know, about getting fooled again, is this going to be Chris Cornelia all over again?
Cause I can't take another one of these.
Okay.
No, no, you know that's the reason.
Do you know how much the pest sprang, man?
Do you know how much that took out?
Everybody else is like, because they listen to the podcast.
They weren't there when it was recording.
They all say, oh, yeah, John, it was a funny story.
I was like, you guys, you have no sympathy at all for me sitting there.
Now I'm sitting here listening to you.
You're giving your phone number to people who say they know you on the internet and they say, I'll be right over.
I know.
I remember telling that story to you and there was, you know, toward the end you were like, should you be saying this?
And I knew what you meant.
John commits assault but has his reasons.
That's the headline.
I know.
I know because you and I have been through so many times when you were like, please don't say one more thing.
You've heard all the episodes that never aired.
You know.
You know of this.
Stop it.
Stop it.
Please don't go there.
And I was like, no, no, no.
Let's talk about religion.
Listen to me.
Listen to me.
I threw this guy into a fucking snowplow.
So.
Oh, so I texted her back and I was like, hey, I talked to Merlin this morning.
So, you know, I can't meet you at the whatever in the middle of the day.
Please, please don't get my name out of your mouth.
But that's the thing.
Then after I did it, I was like, wait a minute.
I have no idea if she even knows who Merlin is.
She's from the chid department.
She might be talking to me because there used to be a poster of me behind the desk in the in the main office.
Don't serve this man.
Yeah, she does.
She doesn't know.
Maybe she doesn't listen to podcasts.
This is going to be one of those, like, I listen to, I talk to Merlin.
I think you're safe there.
And she's like, what kind of video game are you talking about?
But anyway.
Okay.
All right.
And so as I'm sitting here recording the show, I get a text from her.
While I'm recording the show and here's what the text says.
Oh God.
The text says, uh, hope the recording sesh went well.
We're in the middle of the show.
My partner was just in a nasty bike accident and it looks like I have to go back to Portland.
But I can check tomorrow and we can diagnose this phantom two factor.
Was this person coming from Portland to help you with your computer?
From Portland.
Portland.
Probably at the XOXO Fest.
But that person came from Portland, was coming, driving, that person has a partner on a bike.
They came from Portland to help you?
Yeah.
Well, and the thing is, I didn't get invited to the XOXO Fest.
Do you get a lot of people?
Do you remember when we used to be treasured members, XOXO?
We were treasured.
I like the people there a lot.
I think they don't like me anymore.
I think I'm on the list of dads.
Well, they don't know what they like.
But you know what this morning?
I like whatever people tell them to like for a certain period of time.
I got an email this morning from a guy named David Gill who said, Hi, John.
Pax is happening.
And I was like, is this an ad for Pax?
It doesn't look like.
Oh, Pax, P-A-X.
P-A-X.
Penny Arcade thing.
Yeah.
And I was like, I know Pax is happening.
It happens every year at the same time.
But I haven't been invited to Pax in a long time.
And Jason Finn and I, one time, got issued journalist credentials
And we walked around PAX and every booth we walked up to, the people looked at the credentials and they were like, it's gaming journalism.
These guys are professional gaming journalists.
And we got the deluxe treatment everywhere we went.
People are like, oh, do you want to come in?
You know, cosplay isn't consent, but for you guys, we'll make an exception.
And it was the craziest PAX I ever went to.
Maybe they would dress you up in cosplay.
Yeah.
And then you would get to decide what consent is.
They call it the transverse Oberlin.
Our video game shocks you in the balls.
You know, sit here.
That sounds like something you might like.
I was like, well, Jason Finn certainly liked it.
Oh, boy.
But so I wrote him back, and I was like, hey, if you give me a couple of journalism passes, I'll talk about PACs all day and night.
I haven't heard back from David, but that's, you know, I'm so, I'm so, I'm so adrift.
Um, I, so it's like, wait, I don't want to ruin the bit, but are you, are you going to sit here and try to have me believe you were content contacted by somebody who's some kind of like super state security ninja and doesn't work at meta.
Oh no, it's better than that.
This person who's been a feed days consists of going to the same college you did says, I'll be right down there.
And I'll fix your problem.
Why do they need to be in Seattle to fix the problem?
Well, and what my suspicion is.
Here's my suspicion.
You know I've got a lot of suspicions.
Here's my suspicion.
I think, John, if I could say, we've been friends for a while now.
I think in this instance, you might not have enough suspicions.
He still had that umbrella stand by the door with a sword in it.
I wonder whether she is just like, she's one of the people and they're, you know, no shortage of them.
You don't get them anymore because you don't accept messages, but I still accept messages.
I can't receive them.
And there's always someone that's like, let's get together for lunch.
And I'm like, who are you again?
Oh, I'm a fan who's coming in from somewhere on my way on an Alaska cruise.
You're going to eat dog food by nighttime.
And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
I wish I could.
I love you to death.
No, sure.
And thank you for all your contributions.
But I can't, you know, I can't meet you for lunch.
I really have other things, like a whole life, a daughter, all these things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I was afraid she was going to show up here.
We were going to meet in person.
We were going to talk about our college experiences.
And then she was going to go, well, what you need to do is download an app that does two factor authentication for you.
Did she at all say why she needed to come see you?
Well, no, because it's unclear why anything.
And I think there may be people out there.
There are people who are like, listen, we've heard you talk about how difficult things are for you.
So we're going to hold your hand.
How long a drive is that?
Oh, it's three hours.
Three hours.
I'm writing that down.
It's a long way to come help somebody download an app.
I mean, I even have the supermarket app now.
I mean, I could do it.
You tell me, what's the best app for an app?
The supermarket.
Just keep it all in the supermarket app.
Somewhere in the supermarket app, you'll have like a notes field.
Just put all your passwords in there.
It'll be fun.
You can get around this by just not, by only having one password and having it be supermarket.
Because then you just remember it.
The thing is, my password is 1, 2, 3, 4, A, B, C, D. And it works for a plus sign, and it works for everything.
You know, I would swap the three and the C. Swap the three and the C, and you've got a military-grade password.
Oh, wait, but I use the number four for A. So it's one, two, three, four, four.
Oh, I see.
B, C, D. So you have an elite method.
Yeah, that's, you know, I learned that from you back in 2003, and it's worked for me all these years.
This all started before we started recording.
We're recording our program.
We started late because I was conditioning my floor.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, now what does that even mean?
Don't change this up, John.
I can't have the last conversation we ever had before you get turned into...
lady sausage.
I can't have that be about my floor.
I would love to talk about my floor, but now you've precluded that by introducing this new character to the chat, which is that there's a person that you claim is a woman.
You don't think this is going to be like six Navy SEALs with zip ties and a bag, a bag, John, you know where the bag goes.
You know, the number of times that I hear a car outside and I'm like, is this it?
Is this three black Suburban?
Is this kids from the swim team again?
Probably.
But no, I wonder sometimes if three black Suburbans pulled into my drive, because I have a little bit of a semicircular driveway, you can pull into my driveway.
Boy, you're just putting it all right out there for people right now.
They already know the sight lines.
They already know the color of the chair.
Oh, my God.
So, you know, a friend of the podcast sent me an aerial view of my house and said, is this where your garden is going to go?
That's hilarious.
That's really funny.
It's really funny the way you did that completely fucking psycho thing.
Holy fucking shit.
Just because you can does not make it right.
Well, you know, but friend, they're a friend.
So if three black Suburbans pulled into my driveway, would I go out assuming that they were here to take me to meet the president?
Would I go out in a bathrobe with a cup of coffee and say, welcome, friend?
I'm sorry.
I just got to make a reference.
I got to make one reference to a song from Portland.
And I think it's a song by Heavenly called Sea is the Heavenly Option.
And Calvin sings on it with them.
Mm-hmm.
And the song is structured as this.
If something does this person to you, A, meet the people in your driveway, or B, contact the authorities.
I just imagine you having this array in your head of like, well, I guess she's on her way.
It's too late to cancel.
She has my number.
Yeah.
This is, I think, C is the heavenly option is what I'm saying.
Yeah, I'm serious.
This might turn out great.
This might, you never know.
This could be like a combination of Mrs. Doubtfire and Pretty Woman and John Syracuse.
Somebody who could come in and just set everything straight for you.
You don't know what it could be.
Oh, and this is the other thing I didn't tell you.
I met a pixie dream hacker.
i went on to her to her meta profile in order to see if i remembered her from chid and all of the pictures uh it's not like they were ai pictures but they were they were vaguely pictures of a woman whose appearance changed over time and she was she was somebody where you look at her picture and you go
know her i think maybe i mean she looks some people have a face like that yeah she looks enough like like 30 women i know and maybe if i see her in person you know who loves hearing that is women i know you should tell you should tell her when she comes there with the zip ties and the seals you should sit her you know
I've known like 30 different women who have your face, but she's very, she's pretty and you're older.
But you know, these are, these are pictures from 2012.
You know, it's like, do I have you changed?
I mean, I don't know.
And so even now that you're bringing it up now, I feel like even more that this could be some account.
No, I'm probably overreacting.
I'm almost certainly overreacting.
But I do feel like sometimes when I imagine the three Suburbans coming in, that the first thing they do is come in the door and take my laptop and put it in a plastic bag and go, all right, we're taking this.
And it's from 2014 and your password is ABC123.
Well, by then it'll be too late.
It'll be too late because you're already signed out.
Now we're back.
We've locked our keys into a succession of CHID students.
Yeah.
Jesus Christ, John, this is complicated.
I mean, do they take me out?
Does she take me out?
Is she working for my neighbors?
I don't know.
CCCCC is the heavenly option.
Do you get a bag on your head and thrown in the back of a suburban?
No, no, no, I don't want that.
I'm not even sure I want back on Instagram.
I think I don't.
I think I don't, I think September 1st, I'm going to get a, I'm going to get a flip phone and I'm going to start and I'm going to start eating yogurt.
You'll probably have to sign up for a new plan.
Is that okay?
Well, Oh, Oh, well there's a, there's some company that's trying to give an omnibus free cell phone service.
You know, those will be nice.
Well, that's what I'm wondering.
Is it Mint Mobile?
Is that going to work in a supermarket?
Is it Mint Mobile?
Yeah, it's that.
Mint Mobile sent me a few years ago when they did ads on one of my things.
I said, you know what?
They said, can we send you a chip so we'll give you free internet for a year?
And I said, you know, actually I'm pretty happy with my
iphone i don't need that i said but the thing is if you send me one of those would it work in an ipad and they say no it and this is not this is not you know future results are not based on past successes i have to say that for legal reasons sure i and i said no it absolutely will not work in an ipad i said okay well send it anyway arrived boom chink boom put it in worked great i had a year of free internet on my ipad plus a coffee cup and some socks
See, that's wonderful.
That's the guy who plays Deadpool sent that to me.
I was going to buy a burner phone at the bodega and just like, I don't know what, do drug deals.
You're concerned that somebody's up on the wire.
Well, you know, that's right.
Well, because, you know, I'm just, I'm throwing away every other phone.
But no, then I could prank people all day.
I could text them from a number they didn't know, and I could be like, hey, Mr. Mike.
Hello, this is security for apps you use.
Hello.
It's time to redo your furnace, but I also know some things about you.
You could tell people their car warranty expired?
Yeah, just be like, hi, Jason Finn.
And then, you know, lowercase F. Be like, I saw you on your scooter today.
It is time to, you know, time to consider life insurance.
Oh, because he might hurt himself on his new unproven electric vehicles.
yeah but but have it be just have it be just personal enough like to write him like oh are peaches free lol uh life insurance i see what i understand and then make him go what the what what is happening now i will personally recharge your love battery
Yeah.
Is the monster in the machine now?
Is AI doing more than just answering Google questions now?
I honestly don't know.
At this point, I don't even know how I would know.
I have the basic teleological, empirical.
I have the basic problem of like, I don't know what's what anymore, John.
What is what?
What is what?
What?
I mean, here, if I put into Google.
Now you're doing Captain Sensible songs.
Who is what?
If I put into Google who Jason Finn.
Who Jason Finn?
The first guy that pulls up is Vince Bucci.
Is that a thing?
What is the computer trying to tell me?
I think you might have, to quote a wonderful line from that Wes Anderson movie, I think you might have a third problem we've never seen before.
I think you might be into some serious shit.
I think you're seeing, as they say on YouTube, the tip of the iceberg in the sense of, I can't get, what's your friend's name, Eric Hawk?
I can't see Hawk Picks.
I can't get past that.
I can't get in.
I got a lady coming down here.
I got a lunch scheduled with Jason Finn.
Merlin's vehicle's beeping.
All this stuff.
All this stuff.
Apparently, the ex-world and European motorcycle freestyle stunt champion and brand fitness model is named Jason Finn.
And his Instagram account is Jason Finn 111.
He didn't even have Jason Finn.
He's got 16,000 followers, which is, you know, less than me.
That's rough.
I don't even need it anymore.
I'm not even on it.
I feel bad because I have this young relationship with Jason, but do you feel like he might be in on it a little bit?
No, you know what the worst part of this?
I don't.
The worst part is that Olympian gold medal Olympian, Tommy Moe, who I grew up skiing with, who won the gold medal in the downhill in 90, whatever he put on his Instagram account, which is 99% just pictures of his kids skiing in Jackson hole.
he said hey i've got a friend who's got some taylor swift tickets for um for a show in indianapolis in december uh the first person to reply to this gets the tickets oh jesus christ okay and so i happened to be on instagram at that moment and i wrote him and i said tommy it's me john i want those taylor swift tickets
And Tommy said, I'll get right back to you.
Okay.
And I was like, cool.
And then my Instagram shut down.
So somewhere in my Instagram DMs, who has the Olympic downhill ski champion?
You think you might've been hacked for, hacked for Swift?
I don't think so.
I think that's.
Maybe somebody was trying to close your Swift hole.
I think Tommy Mose in there going, John, I got those swift tickets.
Hey, John, John reply.
Hey, what's going on?
Why courtesy phone, buddy?
Yeah.
And I'm, so I'm finally going to get back in there when my super spy shows up in a black suburban and I'm going to get in and Tommy's going to say, Hey, I had to give those tickets away to Paul Ferrucci.
Or whatever.
Because I was all prepared.
I was all prepared to fly to freaking incident.
Is there anybody there with you, John?
Is there anybody else there that could be, I don't want to say a witness, but somebody who could.
How deep are you rolling right now?
No, there's nobody here.
So you're by yourself and there's a woman who may or may not.
She started driving to your house from Portland and had to go back because her person friend fell off a bike.
yeah i put my daughter in cooking classes for the last week of summer because i was like listen you're making your own lunches this year and you need to go to a cooking class so we almost said john john fucking john we almost had it yeah now you put another thing about your kid and food out there yeah she's so right now she likes it
And somebody's into it.
Also, it was mostly a joke.
I don't know.
I don't know.
She's learning to slice whole wheat tortillas or whatever it is they make over there.
Yeah.
And, you know, so I'm here all by myself.
Hey, roll some rice.
Can you call it fucking sushi?
It's some bullshit.
See,
That's the thing.
Roll some rice, call it sushi.
But you think, I mean, God, I mean, is there going to be a Pete Ham situation?
Is she going to be the one who comes in and finds the body?
What's going to happen?
I don't even know what Pete Ham is.
Oh, well, you should talk, ask Sean Nelson who Pete Ham is.
He'll know.
I don't talk to Sean Nelson.
Okay, pop quiz.
If there's one band and I mentioned, I mentioned Sean, what's that one band?
I remember one time I made you listen to their record in your car and I cried.
Do you remember?
What band is that?
Oh, is it?
Had some bad experiences with the music business.
Oh, you're talking about Badfinger.
Talking about Badfinger.
Oh, yeah.
No, I really ruined it, haven't I?
No, no, no, no, no.
Badfinger?
I remember I sat in your car and cried.
It was outside the 8th Hotel and we were listening to their 1974 album.
You cry a lot, a lot more than people think.
I cry a lot from music.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't cry that much.
You're touched.
I mean, there's some, you've got a, you've got emotions, bro.
I feel, I feel things very deeply and I don't understand why other people don't.
I know.
I know.
It makes it very difficult for me to get along with other people because I can tell other people don't really feel almost anything except anger.
I don't really have a lot of bioavailable anger and don't find it interesting.
So unless I'm willing to play in the space of being angry, I have trouble sometimes increasingly making emotional connections with people because it always comes back to anger and
And perhaps the most obvious thing that could occur to them to say at that time.
And you know, that's not good for me.
That's not good for me.
Some friend asked me the other day, how do you make friends?
I didn't make friends.
The thing is, as soon as you meet somebody and you start talking to them, you immediately start talking.
Uh, bantering and it's a, and it's flirty.
It's a flirty banter.
It's extremely flirty, not in a sex way, but in a like, Hey, let's see where this is going and let's see if I jib, will you jab?
Exactly.
I live for this.
One of the first things I do is I say something that, you know, I say a little Zach Galifianakis where I'm like, uh, you know, here's an outrageous thing and I'm going to say it with a straight face.
What are you going to do with it?
We put up, we put up all this wicker just for you.
And I said, I know, I mean, the hot tub's too hot.
I said, you didn't like the color of your mini golf ball?
I said, as an example of this, I said the first time I talked to Sean Nelson.
I realized that he had a depth of banter that had no bottom.
I could banter with him all the way.
He's so fast.
He's so smart.
He's so charming.
It's what made you two incandescent on stage.
And that's also what I said the first time I met Merlin.
Oh, come on.
I said, I threw out a thing.
And he said exactly the wrong thing back in the smartest possible way.
Really?
So he got what I was saying and then said, and then doubled, he Galifianakis'd me.
But isn't that such a nice feeling?
I feel like I don't get it as much as I used to.
No, we don't.
I miss it.
I just saw the halo around you where I was like, this guy has got it.
He's got the whole package.
And then I don't think we ever reached the bottom of our banter.
I mean, there's still time.
I mean, the thing is that we should probably end soon because if you're going to, I mean, with all respect, if you're going to, you know, be killed today.
Right.
Because the thing is, I'm not persuaded that that person went back to save the bike faller.
I think I got a reprieve because at least she never sent me a map of my house.
I don't know if she knows where I live.
Why don't she come so fast?
Oh my god, imagine if she moved into one of your neighbor's houses.