Ep. 569: "The Legend of Numb Foot"
Beep, boop.
Beep, boop, boop, boop.
Hello.
Hello.
Hello, you have reached Merlin.
Hello.
Hello, Melren.
It sounds like you might be a little confused right now.
Would you like some help?
Yes.
I do too.
I want help.
I want help.
I want all the help.
Where do they keep all the help?
That's what I need.
Oh, that's what I need.
The help is kept out of our reach.
Oh, dang it.
Again.
Well, there's more.
Oh, no.
I have some other bad news.
Oh, no.
The help...
Yeah.
Such as it is.
Sure.
Has gatekeepers.
Gatekeepers.
Aren't you so sick of gatekeepers?
Gatekeepers.
Did you ever do that last doctor appointment I recommended?
Jesus try hard get a blog you know just just fix me you know hell you what yeah yeah yeah it's it's you know I've got a numb foot no numb foot numb foot
That sounds like somebody that Led Zeppelin would steal a song from.
Yeah, right.
Or like a fox trapper.
Old Numbfoot came in this morning, wanted two pounds of grits.
So like a local character.
Yeah, Numbfoot.
So Numbfoot might be kind of like a community boo-radley.
Yeah, exactly.
He's got more to say.
I don't know what that guy gets up to, but I imagine it ain't no good.
Oh, numb foot.
He only comes to church for the dinners.
He sneaks into the house and makes the toilet sheets cold.
Oh, numb foot.
Now y'all go easy on numb foot.
He can't feel nothing in his foot.
Shut up, woman.
Biscuit me.
Biscuit me.
Yeah, I got a foot thing.
Well, do you want to talk about it?
Well, I don't know what else to do.
Just the thing is, I don't know.
See, sometimes I like to check with people because I'm starting to realize that I don't communicate the way others do, and I'm trying to allow for that.
But I would be happy to talk.
What do you think some of the differences are between the way used communicates and these communicates?
Come on.
Jeez.
What do you think some of those are?
If you could give me 11 or 15 reasons you don't think authority is a bad idea, go ahead.
I've got time.
Now, is this a numb foot from the usual quotidian things of like sitting on it while you're reading a book?
Oh, no, no.
It's not like that.
Do you think he has sugar diabetes?
Well, I hope not.
Yeah.
Well, you're not going to find out today, buddy.
You have reached the first gatekeeper on your quest to keep your foot.
I have a question.
What is your quest?
Some call him Dr. Tim.
Because first I need to settle this issue here.
It's a rather dog-eared old piece of paper in case you never had that doctor's appointment I told you to schedule.
Do you want me to send you the number?
That's what the world sounds like to me.
Is that right?
Well, sure.
They just need to get you the phone number, and then you'll make the appointment.
Oh, the appointment and the phone number and the appointment.
I need an appointment.
I need an appointment to get the appointment.
Am I right?
Oh.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
You want to get an appointment?
You're saying first you got to have an appointment to get the... You know what that's called in medicine, John?
A referral.
A referral.
Can I put gas in my car?
Let me get you a referral.
I need to hire an assistant to get an assistant.
I need an assistant to hire me an assistant.
I need a referral to get an assistant to hire me.
Before we can invent the universe, you must first schedule an appointment.
I think that was either Richard Dawkins or Carl Sagan that never said that.
Or maybe Richard Feynman.
Surely he must be joking.
He was cracking safes.
What if it was Christopher Hitchens?
Does that change anything?
I think it does.
I think it does.
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
Now, John, when did you first notice your foot was doing or being some way different than the manner to which you had become accustomed?
Doctor, it was two weeks ago...
I am an osteopath, so.
And a ceramicist.
You have a doctor of ceramicy.
Oh, I'm a DC.
I was on a ski trip, and my boot was too tight, and then my foot was numb the next day, and it has been numb.
Now, boots need to be tight for skiing.
Is that right?
Yeah, but not in the wrong way.
They have to be tight in one place.
It's a nuanced kind of tight.
Yeah, and mine was tight in the wrong place.
And now, two weeks have gone by.
Well, because I'm a man of a certain age, my thing that I did when I woke up with a numb foot was I looked briefly on the internet.
What happens if you have a numb foot?
And I read like three lines.
One of them said, maybe you have diabetes.
Sometimes my wife does the same thing.
And I feel like sometimes she reads as much as two lines before arriving at a rash decision.
We have to throw out all of our silverware.
And I said, it's unlikely that total coincidence that I was.
So I'm sorry, real quick.
This is the show now.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
So what happened?
Did you Google numb foot?
What was the first thing you did?
Yeah, I think I said, got a numb foot and it said, you have diabetes.
And I said, okay, I should put ski.
I should put ski in the, in the Googs.
So I said numb foot ski.
Oh, which becomes, it's not a second opinion, but it's a secondary opinion.
Yeah.
And then there were a bunch of people that were like, oh, sounds like your ski boots were too tight.
And I was like, that checks out.
I Googled for that one time when I had a numb foot and it said that I should read the FAQ before posting here.
So.
Yeah.
Well, I had to definitely sign up for the newsletter just to get in there.
Yeah.
A login link has been sent to your email address.
Then I read like one more line down.
Okay.
And it said, ah, it'll probably go away on its own.
And I was like, yeah, right, exactly.
Or somebody maybe said like, oh, yeah, that happened to me once and my foot was numb for two weeks.
And I was like, right, okay.
So that's how it happens.
Your foot goes numb and then it's numb for some time.
But now it has been two weeks.
like it's not like constantly numb it I mean but by which I mean not that it's sometimes not numb because it is always numb but it's numb in different ways is it a pins and needles or I know I know can feel sometimes like it's like all over the foot different things are happening sometimes it's like ow and then other times it's when you're walking in different you're walking in different places
Well, when I walk around, I look like Numfoot from the village.
It's like, why is old Numfoot walking like that?
It's like, well, because he's got one foot he can kind of half feel.
The legend of Numfoot.
Well, a man came to town.
So Numfoot's got, you know, one shoe is like got an inch, the sole is an inch thicker than the other shoe.
But so I'm walking around.
Like a spy, you want to disrupt your gait.
I tried on a pair of shoes I hadn't worn in a long time, and I was like, I don't know if he's fit or not, because one of my feet, I can't feel one of my feet.
Which makes you realize that your foot is sending you information you hadn't even thought about so much before.
It's so true.
You notice the difference.
A lot of information I'm not asking for.
Like right now, sitting here talking to you, I don't feel the one foot, the normal foot, not to normalize, not to be like...
But, like, I don't feel my right foot, but my left foot is sending me signals right now, and I'm not doing anything.
I'm just sitting here.
If the two seemingly equivalent sides of your body are sending you different messages, you're probably over 40.
And it happens a lot, and it sucks, but it's difficult to avoid because something's got to give.
Something's got to give.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
So last night, I put into the Googs, Numbfoot, two weeks.
Okay.
And they were like, Numbfoot, two weeks?
They called it the sophomore slump.
It wasn't as good as his premiere.
Numbfoot's playing the sphere in two weeks.
Do you want tickets?
This is not your daddy's Numbfoot show.
There were a bunch of people there that said like, wow, if your foot's been numb for two weeks, you really have diabetes.
And I said, I don't, I mean, it's not out of the realm of possibility that I had a ski injury and got diabetes on the same weekend.
I can tell you what I've got for a differential diagnosis.
I've got five possible answers according to my differential diagnosis, and I wonder how it overlaps with yours.
I'll just do this quickly.
The five things I've got here, and there's more detail, but I've got nerve compression or injury.
So anyway, what I said was to my...
What did you say to your Googs?
Oh, you're talking to Chatty G. I said, why would your foot be numb two weeks after skiing?
And it said.
That's a good way of phrasing it.
See, you got it.
That's a good way.
You know, this is something that Ian Kershaw says in his book about Hitler.
He says there's a term that he coined.
It's such a good term.
Working towards the Fuhrer.
You know what I'm saying?
You've got to always be executing on what Hitler would want.
So you have to ask yourself, what would Chaddy G think?
Here's the five things.
Nerve compression or injury, trauma-related injury, frostbite, circulation issues, or compartment syndrome or overuse injury.
Now, I have more on all of these, but I just wanted to get... I did not get a diabetes on the first one out.
Okay, good.
Because you phrased it better.
You know, I'm just like, boo.
See, it's so funny you should say that because as ignorant as I certainly seem to most people, I do learn from the dingus.
And one of the things I've learned from the dingus, which is a little bit of an insider life hack, is don't tell it what you think something is.
because it gets very attached to pleasing you and giving you an answer.
Sometimes I'll have a typo, and it keeps repeating my typo, and I'm like, oh, dude, you're not a good friend.
But it helps to just really be a dumb fucking monkey and just type in the question that you actually have.
Whereas in Google, I might be more inclined to say, I skied and now I think I have diabetes.
Links?
Yeah.
Because now it's going to look for the diabetes.
And this is another problem with the medical system.
We don't have time for this.
You've got nerve compression or injury.
Tight ski boots, number one.
Differential diagnosis, number one.
Nerve compression or injury.
Tight ski boots or a specific impact could compress nerves in your foot.
Number two, trauma-related injury.
A fall or twist while skiing might have led to nerve damage.
Three, frostbite, which is interesting because I think it's nice that it's incorporating weather.
Prolonged exposure to cold can cause nerve damage.
That's no good.
You don't want that.
Sometimes resulting in numbness.
Number four of five, circulation issues.
Reduced blood flow due to the cold or an injury might contribute to ongoing numbness.
Number five, compartment syndrome or overuse injury.
In some cases, swelling or repetitive stress can cause nerve compression.
Now, the thing is, I don't love any of these.
The closest I, the one, as an osteopath or as an aspiring osteopath, I kind of like nerve compression or injury.
I got to tell you something, John, I got a nerve thing right now, too.
You do?
I'm two and a half weeks into a nerve thing that I can't fix or make go away.
Merlin, what's your nerve thing?
I moved my arm a few weeks ago.
Oh, don't do that.
Boy, if you listen to the comedy of Nate Bargatze, he'll tell you don't move your arm.
Well, if there's anything that we learned from Chef in Apocalypse Now, it's that you should never get out of the boat.
And the same goes for your arm.
I mean, you're going to have that forever.
You know, or well, you know, must be nice, but check your privilege.
But, but I started having this weird thing.
I won't go into it too much, but like I started noticing, you know, how like a nerve thing feels different.
Right.
Like a nerve thing feels different than it hits different.
Doesn't it?
Yes.
It gives nerve.
It does give nerve.
But I started having this weird thing that was kind of in my shoulder and kind of in my arm.
And now it's kind of been moving around.
And because on the left side of my body, I assume it's a heart attack.
But I don't.
But like it's moved around a little bit.
And I use my wife's Theragun on it, which I have to say does not seem smart because I don't know what a Theragun is.
It really kind of looks like a gun.
You hold it.
And it goes... On the face of it, it just looks like a regular little vibrator, but it's not.
It's closer to like a... It makes a sound?
Yeah, go look up Theragun.
It's like a pile driver for your nerves.
And it comes with a Bluetooth app that I don't use where it can tell you, like, now, put this on your perineum and think of the queen or whatever.
Are you sure that's not a sex toy?
Well, I don't know if it's a sex toy.
It's probably a sex... sex munition.
A sex munition.
Well, that's what... Fire in the hole!
Ah!
I'm going to light up this tree line.
This is the end.
Ow!
God, why am I pounding my nerves on purpose?
Now let me ask you this thing you're using this On your on your own it's okay trying to fix my nerves with Theragun is kind of like trying to fix my anxiety with meditation Which is it doesn't really work if you only use it when it's already too late And it certainly doesn't help when it's too late and it's the wrong tool for the job.
I see I see with that with that said anyways um now
You tell me this is I'm writing all this down.
This is all gonna be in the report Of course, I'll send a copy that to your my chart.
Do you have the login for that?
Send it to my send it to my assistant.
She has my my chart login The thing is every time I go to a doctor of any kind they give me a new
My chart room.
It's like you've got the worst staff in the world.
Like, I've been this person.
I've been this worst staff in the world.
The kind of person who, in the 90s, for example, would send you unnecessary emails at 2 in the morning to show that you're working hard or appear to be working hard, which you could schedule with Eudora anyway.
But the point is, their main thing is to ask me if I've done something.
This is a person who went to theoretically went to, I don't think osteopaths go to medical school.
I mean, they go to probably like a Central American version of medical school.
And they are osteopaths, which I think means they remove your bones.
The osteopaths, right.
I've looked this medicine up before.
Osteopaths.
But all I get is homework.
I don't get medical care, I get homework.
That's all I get.
Yeah, osteopath.
Okay, okay.
So, back on topic here.
We've got a lot to cover.
So, two weeks, is it bothering you?
Sorry, in what ways is it potentially, at this two-ish week mark, in what ways is your numb foot bothering you?
Well, let me say, let me see when I look at it and when I poke it, uh, with the, with like any kind of tool.
Yes.
Um, it doesn't seem swollen.
It's not discolored.
It's not actually painful really.
And I've walked several miles on it, you know, kind of like fwap, fwap, fwap kind of walking, but walking.
Oh, like you have one clown shoe.
A little bit.
Okay, in the legend of Numbfoot, I think it would be kind of fun if we realized it was all just because he always wore one clown shoe.
He just had a clown shoe.
He could change if he wanted to.
He seems happy.
Nobody said, hey, hey, hey.
Flopper.
Flopper.
You know, there's a guy here making shoes.
Here he comes.
I can hear him coming.
So, but it is, I think more than anything, and this is so true of so many things, I just want to be assured that it's fine.
And if someone assured me that it was fine, then I wouldn't be bothered.
The obvious thing for me here, I am going to quote Seinfeld, and I'm sorry in advance, but there's the wonderful thing where George Costanza has the white slight discoloration on his lip, and he goes to a doctor because he thinks it's cancer, but the doctor won't say to him, it's not cancer.
And the phrase that he uses, a classic Larry David phrase, he just wants to get out of here.
You come in, is it cancer?
Get out of here!
That's what you want.
You just want someone to say, it's not foot cancer or sin.
It's not sin.
It's not diabetes.
Yeah.
And I think...
You know like I have not been skiing in the last two weeks partly because I don't know if I should go up onto the mountain with a numb foot that seems Maybe not a question and back in the day when you would date Israeli women with frizzy hair who were combat boots Yeah, if you knew that your that's your spy partner Inside of her combat boots had one numb foot.
Would you take her on an important mission?
Oh, see, I wouldn't.
I would say, hey, you need to sit this one out.
Well, I think you can put it in a nice way as a manager and say, look, I need you.
I can't afford to lose you.
And I don't want you to be careless about your numb foot.
See, this is why you are married and I'm not, because you know how to talk.
You said, I can't afford to lose you.
Whereas I said, you need to sit this one out.
And that's our relationship history in a nutshell.
But the thing is, I'm fine with it all.
It's just when I do go onto the Googs and I type in foot, numb, two-week ski or whatever and get a bunch of garbage returns, the ones that talk about going to the doctor do that thing where they're like, you should see a doctor who's going to tell you there's nothing you can do about this.
There's nobody, there's no, it does not appear that there's a cure for any of the things it might be.
There are seven things it could be, but other than curing diabetes, all the other things are just like, well.
They've been trying to do that for a while now.
Yeah, they have.
But it's like, if it's nerve damage, well, you fucked up.
If it's frostbite, well, you fucked up.
If it's this, well, you fucked up.
Like, I don't see any... And this happens so often where it's like, why would I go to the doctor?
Like, I broke my hand.
What's he gonna do?
Put my hand in a cast?
No, he's not.
He's gonna...
Or she.
Yeah, thank you.
They're going to break my hand again?
No.
You know, like it's so many of the things that have happened to me, it's just like the first return should just be like too late.
Too late to do anything about it.
There's a thing that happens that I think happens in a lot of different movies and TV shows, especially like spy stuff or like crime stuff, where somebody gets, let's say, shot or stabbed by their opponent.
But you know what they can't do?
They can't go to the emergency room because if they go to the emergency room, it's going to get reported as a GSW.
Right, a GSW.
And that goes, so now there's going to be somebody exploring exactly how it is that you got shot.
So you know what you do?
You go to a veterinarian who works for the mob.
Record.
Can I just say, that is extremely appealing to me, and I'll tell you why.
I'm going to say this quickly.
I'm going to say this in a way that will not be findable by people, but I'm going to say this because we're pals, and this is an important thought technology.
We think that doctors, we think that medical...
the medical industry, is there to help us stay healthy and then to restore us to health when we fall ill for whatever reason, which I think is a very optimistic way to look at that industry.
I tend to look at it from a slightly more H.L.
Mencken way.
I don't know if this was in the, no, who wrote the Devil's Dictionary?
Was that Mencken?
No.
Ambrose Bierce?
The Devil.
Whoever, okay, sorry.
It's the clues in the name.
It's right there in the title.
But it's like the Devil said it in his or her,
dictionary, in the version I'm making in my head right now, it's really more like asking, what is your tolerance for entering into an unnecessarily complex process that may or may not benefit your health?
Another way I put this recently that I'm sure frustrates a lot of people is
Do I look like I care?
Doctors fix the thing they feel like fixing about you.
And sometimes what they feel like fixing about you, well, here's another clue.
You ever call someplace?
You ever call a doctor?
You ever call a Google?
You ever call?
When my lizard died, and so I'd had to call
What?
Yeah.
I had to call an animal hospital.
I had to call an animal hospital.
That's a long story.
And what happens when you call anywhere because you're worried about the health of a thing?
What's the one thing they always say often at the top of the call?
If this is an emergency, hang up the phone and dial 911.
Right.
Which I'm sure the 911 people love.
Oh, my lizard's sleepy.
What?
But why do they do that?
Because... Insurance.
Well, also, I mean, to go back to the vet for a minute, they were booking appointments like a week out for this stuff.
And if I wanted to get emergency care for Bando, I was supposed to drive him to call somewhere in, I think it was in, not even San Mateo, I think it was San Ramon, and call this emergency doctor place, which I'm sure is very reasonably priced.
Yeah.
The thing is, I'm pretty sure my lizards, at this point, when Billy and I, he drove me in.
He drove me.
He's got a driver's license now.
Drove us to the lizard doctor.
And, you know, whatever.
They took my $400 and put him under a lamp for 10 minutes before they told us he was dead.
It's a long story.
But they...
But their job is to fix animals.
I'm sure they got into the racket for a good reason.
I mean, every veterinarian starts as a failed osteopath.
But it's mainly about that office, in my own little Ambrose Bierce way, is I think it's a machine for accepting money and making appointments.
The care is important, but...
The other stuff is super important.
The way we hire out and scale up is so that we can accept more money and schedule more things, which is how a business works.
I get that.
But if you think going to a fucking human medical doctor is all that different, you have not gone to a doctor lately.
It's just a machine for processing things that has become very efficient.
It's got German efficiency in a lot of ways.
It's not like it's run by the fucking Italians.
I
You know what I mean?
You know what I mean?
You know, John, the way I look at it is that in heaven... Yeah.
How does this go?
I always get this wrong.
The French... The French are the chefs.
Wait, wait, wait.
Let me get this.
The French are the chefs, the Italians are the lovers, and the Germans are... Germans are the engineers, and the English are the bureaucrats.
In hell, the English are the chefs, the Italians are the bureaucrats, the French are the engineers...
And the Germans are the lovers.
That's such a good joke.
It's a really good joke.
Fix it again, Tony.
A lot of variations.
It's very good, every one of them.
That's my quick side rail on this, and I'm sorry, I don't want to go on about it, but I'm really, maybe I'm touchy about this, but I'm pretty sensitive to how much people tell me I misapprehend how the world works because they've accepted some idea of authority that is completely fucking deranged.
You've been to the doctor a lot in your life, is that right?
No.
I would say, honestly, even if you include stuff like dentists, I'm not an anti-dentite, but even if you include stuff like that, no, not that much.
I tend to avoid it.
I tend to think that, I said this recently on another program, and I wouldn't even say this to you, it's so embarrassing to say, but I think going to the doctor is almost always a form of punishment from someone.
Oh, well, I mean, there's, there's, well, there's the high level of like you, like in a medieval sense of like you have sinned and you wouldn't have this problem if you hadn't.
Now I mentioned an array of smoke had taken better care of yourself, you know, put a hamster up your butt.
Well, you know, medically like all that stuff.
If you hadn't, if you hadn't been a bad person, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
And also why weren't you here earlier?
How often does that come up?
Cause so now the thing is though, I arrived there with,
with a bunch of red on the ledger.
Like, I arrive in arrears to the medical industry because I'm such a bad patient, and I ask so many fucking unacceptable questions, and I accept so little advice
of the the authority that everybody else so happily grants them for absolutely no reason um so no i would say i go less there have been times you know like when i was having when i first got when i first got diagnosed with my chronic um you know intestinal disorder
No.
No, no, no.
Oh, it's Uck.
Not Ibs.
Oh, Uck.
Yeah.
Not Ibs.
Uck.
Oh, no, I have an inflammatory bowel disease called Crenn's disease.
Excuse me.
I know the one.
Called ulcerative colitis.
And it's very similar in some ways to the slightly more bad, not slightly more, the worst.
The one Eisenhower had was Crenn's disease.
Anyways, there was that.
Do you follow a FODMAP?
Oh, are you kidding me?
Oh, this is, I mean, in terms of my intermittent fasting or my meditation practice.
Okay.
You and my mom should sit down and talk about FODMAPs.
I would enjoy that.
Between an hour and four hours.
I'm going to look up what a FODMAP is.
I've written it down here on a piece of paper.
FODMAP.
F-O-D-M-A-P, one word?
Yeah.
Oh, wait.
That sounds like an acronym.
Oh.
Is it?
Oh, is it an acronym?
Foods of duty.
They did it again.
Flesh of denial.
Friends of Diana.
What does it mean?
And why is it a map?
It's in Australian.
Oh, I see.
It's maps.
They don't love you like I love you.
I see.
Yeah, and it's got words in it like aglio disarides.
Oh, fuck, really?
Oh, man.
I have so much to learn.
I don't learn about FOD maps.
Anyway, that was all I wanted to say about that.
But I think, you know, here in our little world,
Yours and mine.
Yes.
You could be forgiven by me in particular for being a little bit reluctant to go straight into the doctor.
Unlike some people I know who just can't get enough of doctor's appointments.
And every new piece of information is turned over and we decide what that means about our life.
I'm not thinking of anyone in particular here.
It's just something that a lot of people do.
And I'm not like that.
I would rather wait for it to go to wait to see to see if I stop shitting blood or do eventually feel my foot again.
Because what like QED?
What did you just say 15 minutes ago?
You're going to go in there and there's going to be a whole thing and they're not going to fix your hand.
And all you're gonna do is walk away with like, even setting aside the very real problem of how much this all costs, you're gonna walk away with a very unsatisfying solution to your problem.
And in my case, like a lot of frustration and resentment about how that system works and why this 29-year-old person who happened to be good at biology in the 1990s
2000s it is now is now somebody who wears a stethoscope around their neck and a little white jacket with the FACS certification on it and like that's supposed to like really fucking blow me away and I shouldn't ask a bunch of damn full questions about all these other sorts of things that actually do have a an immediate impact on my quality of life Yeah, so what are you gonna do?
Okay.
Well, I think I'm going to keep doing nothing.
Good.
I think that's, you know, I'm not an osteopath, but I have to say.
Yeah.
There's worse things you could do.
You didn't try to just like, you didn't try to do like home surgery or anything or psychic surgery, you know?
Nope.
Yeah.
Remember psychic surgery?
The amazing Randy used to reveal how people did psychic surgery.
Yeah, psychic surgery.
That was where they said you could go to the Philippines and they take out your tumors.
But it turns out it's just, I'm sorry, a osteopath never reveals his tricks.
But what James Randi showed was that you could have a chicken liver.
You could palm it because, you know, James Randi.
Palm a chicken liver.
We've all done that.
I mean, Philippines.
Philip Roth talked about an important noise complaint.
But you palm a chicken liver and you go, look at me.
So I'm doing that thing where your hand looks kind of weird because you're a magician and you think it looks normal.
And then you go, oh, look at this.
Now imagine, forgive me, do I have consent to examine you?
Uh, uh, yes.
Okay.
Now imagine I'm standing near you and let's say you're, you're, you're topless and I've got my hand here and I'm saying, okay, I'm going to go into your abdomen.
And then I do that thing.
This is, this is great for like messing with a toddler because they, they just don't get this because I don't object permanence, uh, poor math scores, but you do that thing where you act like your hand is going into the abdomen, but you're really just curling your fingers and
Yeah.
And going in, remember now you're pulling a chicken liver and, but then you bust up, you bust a blood pack and you act like you're pulling the chicken liver out of the person's abdomen.
Now, James Randi says that's what psychic surgery is.
And I don't think it's really that different from a lot of osteopaths, let alone chiropractors.
And you literally don't want to get me started on chiropractors.
I'll tell you what.
They can also give you a horoscope, which is nice.
Dedicated listeners to this show and to Omnibus may find that in a month they are hearing an Omnibus episode about psychic healing.
Fuck you.
Are you kidding me?
Did you already record it?
I just pick stuff up out of the ether and just carry it around with me.
Well, then you tell me, knowing that you and your co-host are such thorough researchers, did I get, as Rachel Maddow would say, did I get that right?
That's what I remember.
I remember him.
James Randi fucked with so many dumbasses when I was a kid, and I'll tell you about three.
The most famous one is Uri Geller.
Yuri Geller and the Spoonbending, and he just spanked that ass right on Johnny Carson, because he could prove what he was doing.
There's the psychic surgery, and then there was one on That's Incredible, where there was a guy who claimed that he could move things with his mind.
And to prove it, we said, okay, James Randi says, okay, well, here's what we're going to do.
Here's the yellow pages.
And on top of this yellow pages, remember styrofoam peanuts back in the day?
I'm going to put some styrofoam peanuts.
Back in the day, they're all over my house.
I'm going to put some styrofoam peanuts onto these yellow pages.
Now you go ahead and make those move.
Well, guess what?
The fact that he was almost like a breatharian version of, he would blow on it, a breatharian version of ventriloquism, where he's able to throw his breath.
So the way he was making shit move was by blowing on it a little bit and then doing a bunch of fancy hand gestures.
And you'd see the pages of the yellow, or something like this, would move.
And then that guy goes, wait a minute, all these hot lights and the static caused by the styrofoam of throwing off my mind.
Fucking James Randi.
He walked around with a check in his pocket.
He'd give you a check for, he had a check for, what's it, $100,000?
He'd give you $100,000 if you could prove that psychic phenomena was real.
And he carried around a check.
Unmade out check.
I would not.
I mean, yeah, because I think what I would personally what I would do is I don't miss checks.
But if you're going to do that, oh, boy, two things.
I would obviously leave.
Don't make it out to cash and sign it.
You know, I would leave the robe.
I would say this is where I would write.
This is where I would write Uri Geller.
Yeah, and leave the date because the bank's probably going to get confused about that.
But they call him the Amazing Randy, which is a cool name.
I remember all these things.
These were our times.
Tell me about your psychic surgery.
What have you learned?
Oh, sorry.
You know what?
Save it for the show.
Never mind.
Never mind.
Save it for the show.
We all have shows.
Shows and shows and shows.
I watched your co-host on the Celebrity Game Show the other night.
Was he doing a good job?
Yeah, he does a really good job.
I think he does a very, very good job.
But also, it had some celebrities, you know, and that's always nice.
Any celebrities that you know?
Yes.
They usually do have some celebrities.
Well, there's some that do really well.
Mike Barinholtz, a comedian that I like a lot, he's...
He's amazing.
This one had, who was it?
It was an actor, a woman from a show, maybe from, it wasn't Rosa from Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
But it was, anyways, but your friend's doing a good job.
I know he doesn't really know me, but please tell him I said hello and I enjoy his work.
I don't need to do that publicly and make a big thing about it, but just if it matters.
Here's the thing, John.
Sometimes it matters when somebody tells you that they like what you do.
Oh, yeah.
Even the people, or especially the people.
The bigger up you go.
The bigger up.
The bigger up you go.
The bigger up you go.
Boy, I had a question about a Mormon last night.
I should write this down.
I'm the guy to ask.
Okay.
But I thought the Manning brothers, I think their names are like Eli and Jose.
But the Manning brothers, I thought that they were...
they're not mormons right they're just normal christians is that right oh boy you follow football oh oh the football ones yeah i think they're just a regular two football men who were doing one of those commercials for gambling and i wasn't trying to be like jacuz or whatever but like uh could you please um ask your co-host what i should know about mormons and gambling
I think Mormons are pretty down on gambling.
You know what the biggest gamble is?
Thinking you should have more than one woman in your life.
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
I'm exhausted, John.
I'm exhausted.
I've put so much effort into this program today.
I'm exhausted.
Are you feeling okay?
Are you all right?
How's your foot?
It's a it's a little numb, you know, I did do you feel I you know you consume a lot of Contemporary media and you also have over the years been adjacent to a lot of celebrity type people
Do you now, when you're looking up something or something's on or there's a show or some kind of thing or it's another thing or one of those things that you're looking at and it's people, do you ever go...
I'm going to bet that I know two people in the production of this thing and then read the names and be like, oh, there's one.
Oh, you know, like know them personally, not like just like know who they are.
Do you ever do that?
Do you ever play that game?
I don't think I do.
I'm always delighted to learn.
And this is not about my personal acquaintance.
But I'm always delighted to learn that somebody I know from another thing is doing a thing separately that I find really interesting.
There's a woman named Emily Yoshida.
who is, doesn't matter, but there's a podcast I like called Blank Check, and she is the person who's been guest on the show most often, and she's my favorite guest.
I mean, I love them all, but she's really, really good.
And I found out that she worked on Shogun, which was one of my favorite TV shows.
Well, what do you know about them?
She wrote.
She wrote for, with the team, you know, she wrote for Shogun.
I think we talked about Shogun and the way that show was made and how fucking incredible the production of that show was, but...
As far as the people I know stuff, sometimes I like to, so I, I don't know if you know about Patreon.
I utilize Patreon to support the work of several people whose work I enjoy.
And I have to admit that sometimes at the end of the YouTube video, because it's one of those videos where they show the names of the people who donate, I think I wait and I wait to see my name.
And as long as I pause it, I call my son into the room.
I said, you see your daddy's name there?
Me and Marco, me and Marco Orman, we both support this program.
Oh, that's wonderful.
I love that.
I think that's the personal part of it.
Um, I don't think so.
Um, but you know, here's a neat thing.
And I feel like you get, I'm trying, I'm sort of not inverting this, but I'm definitely twisting it.
I think one thing that's really exciting.
I feel like you get a lot.
I mean, on half a dozen occasions you've said, Oh, I was contacted by somebody who blah.
is like a lieutenant colonel in the army who listens to this show or somebody who, for that matter, is the... God fucking damn it.
I woke up this morning again, da-da-da-da-da, with fucking the KEXP performance of Iron Lung in my head again.
Again, John.
I posted this on the internet over the weekend.
I post this video.
The video for Not Too Soon by Throwing Muses and the KEXP live performance of Iron Long by King Gizzard and Lizard Wizard are two videos I will always post two or three times a week.
And if you don't like it, I can't help you.
It's just so important that...
Impotent it's so important talking like a baby like a fucking millennial But no seriously, here's the thing I used to think a quick one by the pool by the police a quick one by the who from the Rolling Stones rock and roll circus was the greatest live rock performance of all time Which is a pretty good one pretty good one good one the KEXP performance of iron lung and here's the thing if you've ever been in a band and
If you've ever been in, especially a loud band, or a guitar boy band, or a metal band, and you watch the video, the KEX, I don't want to oversell it, except it is, at this point, my favorite rock and roll performance, love.
What they do in that 10 minutes
is stunning.
As somebody who's tried to be in bands that sound good, what they can do with three guitar players all soloing at the same time and still supporting each other is... Have you watched that particular performance?
No, but I'm going to go do it.
Oh, John, that's so great.
Okay.
Well, and, you know, as usual, give it six listens.
Oh, sure.
I mean, the version on the record is good, but this version is really special.
And what was my point?
My point was the Rolling Stones and this.
Oh, you're talking about people that you know that make things.
And you might be contacted.
I still don't understand this and I don't need to know, but you were contacted by somebody affiliated with that band, which is, for practical purposes...
In the abstract, my favorite band right now.
My favorite band producing new stuff right now.
They're up there.
And you were contacted by that person.
And as we discussed for, I believe, three episodes in a row, you not only got to go to that show and meet the band, but you had a really, really positive experience that I think continues, it sounds like, to have a positive impact on you.
That's the stuff I love.
That's the stuff I love.
I posted, there's a singer-songwriter woman named Sara Bareilles that I really like.
She's almost like, I hope this is a compliment to everyone, but it's almost like the way Carole King was in 1971, where you're like, wait a minute, you can just have this like...
normal looking person come out but perform these incredible songs and like they have a career where they write songs and release them but she you know she also was on girls 5 eva which is great she uh made a new wrote a music for a new version of waitress anyway you guys all know this but sarah barellis is incredible i i posted this amazing video of sarah barellis doing
a stunning version of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road with an orchestra.
And I was contacted by somebody who I think played double bassoon on that.
It was like, yeah, I was there.
We did that.
And I'm like, oh my God, did you also play to support this other person in this series?
And yes.
And like, that's what I love.
I love being contacted by the soldiers in the field who...
who have made, in the same way that I make these insane pivots of connection that make no sense to anybody else, to find out that somebody who reads what I say on the internet also played a wind instrument on a Sara Bareilles song I love, it makes me so happy.
It makes me feel like there's sense in the world.
That's the ones I really love.
I got a letter the other day from the government.
It said they were suckers.
Okay.
Huh.
No, but I got a letter from my... I don't know if you've heard of Patreon, but it's this place where people can support artists.
Yep.
Give us your fucking money.com.
And I do a show where I reply to viewer mail over at John Roderick.
Letters.
We get letters.
Patreon.com slash Roderick.
We get sacks and stacks of letters.
Sorry, please read the URL again for our listeners.
That's patreon.com slash John Roderick.
And I got a letter there.
a guy who said you know you and merlin joke around all the time i already hate this about uh about how you should be on the board of directors oh boy of a company
And he goes on to say... My name is Robert Company.
When you first mentioned it, back in 2000... I was the CEO of a major bank, and I was looking for a new member of our board.
No, John!
No!
That's so sweet!
You must just take it as a nice compliment and walk away.
What?
But you're not, are you?
You're not.
I'm reading this letter and I'm just like, you know, all of a sudden the feathers because I'm squeezing the couch pillow so hard.
Why didn't I know?
How many of these do I not know about?
He says, I was really, you know, I was looking to diversify our board and get somebody that's outside of the trenches of your typical MBA.
Yeah, think outside the bank.
And your typical, you know, venture capitalists and all these dumb dinglings.
Yeah.
We got plenty of those, John.
We know what those guys think.
We've had enough.
We had a snoot full of those guys.
And he says, he goes on to say, but you know, the decision wasn't entirely up to me.
I was only the CEO.
And we ended up going in a different direction, presumably meaning that they put another venture capitalist or MBA on the board.
I have often, often, often been reminded that someone decided to go in a different direction.
That's not a new thing for me.
And so he's writing me now to tell me that he went in a different direction 10 years ago when he first heard me say that I should be on his board.
And I, and when I said it, that's the thing when I, when we said that, when we, when we started talking about that originally, I was like, I know there's somebody listening to this program right now that has a board of directors that is full of MBAs and venture capitalists.
And they want me, I know they're listening.
And nothing.
Silence.
And now, 10 years later, he's like, actually, but anyway, I'm not the CEO of that bank anymore.
But tell me, why would you be good on a corporate board?
I'm like, feathers everywhere in this house now.
Now we're back to the doctor shit.
Because now you're going to do a job interview for something you can never occupy.
I don't know, though.
But you might learn from you.
You might learn from you.
I don't know if there's a 37-year-old listening who just is recently putting a board together who's like, maybe I should learn from the experience of that banker guy.
And now... That guy blew his shot.
He blew his shot.
They could have netted you.
I don't know.
He might be writing me from the aircraft carrier where he lives off the coast of Sao Paulo because he did so good.
Maybe he's the guy from Tenet.
That would be cool.
Maybe he's the guy from Tenet.
Maybe he's the protagonist.
You know, that's the character's name is the protagonist.
Isn't that right?
Yeah.
The protagonist.
Yeah, you got to watch that movie five times.
I've watched it.
I've watched it.
Did you catch the thing on the backpack?
Did you catch it?
No, I only watched it the one time.
Okay, see, I've been admonished by my friends to stop talking about the backpack.
But the truth is, because I have a friend who says, no, you don't mention the backpack, then you're spoiling it.
And I said, okay, Dunkirk has three different timescales.
Everybody thinks they know that, but they actually don't.
And that's why they're confused.
They're confused about why it's pitch black on the mole while it's bright up in the sky while Tom Brady, whatever his name is, Tom Brady's flying it around.
Tom Brady, yeah.
Because they didn't notice that intercard that said that there's three timescales.
And I think in Tenet, you've got to remind people there's a lot going on.
It's got Elizabeth Debicki.
She's over six feet tall.
I was not forced, but definitely like, you know, like seated.
Gang pressed?
I was seated onto a couch and told to sit still.
Seated onto a couch.
And watch the most recent episode of Severance.
And I was like...
Yes, and there is some kind of thing happening in the last episode of Severance where it's like, now wait a minute.
Who the fuck is Dieter E?
Now wait a minute.
This is not squaring.
This is not in-universe squaring unless there's some secret.
And so after it was over and the person that had pressed me to the couch and told me to watch this show had fallen asleep, I was like, I'm too tired to get up.
I got a numb foot.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's a long way, you know, it's a long way to temporary.
Yeah, a long way to go.
Yeah.
And so I've got the... To do what?
To go, like, the thing is, there's YouTube videos about this and some of them are very well made.
But I tend to avoid those whilst I will watch a recap of season one.
Like, there's several recaps of season one that are really good because I learned so much shit that I missed the first time.
Like the fact that the sexy dancing at the waffle party when he wears the Kear Egan mask, that's the four tempers.
Don't tell me.
No, no, no.
That's from last season.
Yeah, but maybe I one day will want to learn all this stuff.
Okay, see?
I get that.
I honor that.
Yeah, thank you.
And what was it?
Because you're the legend of Mumford.
Mumford.
Mumford and Sons.
You didn't get off the couch to go look it up, or what was it that your lassitude was causing on TV?
No, so I'm sitting in the dark, and I'm like, I don't know.
I don't want to get up.
I don't want to know any more about anything.
Right.
How much was it?
How often?
How far was that woman?
The television said, do you want to watch Moneyball?
Oh, that movie's good.
I'll watch Moneyball.
The movie's fucking good.
I've watched Moneyball a few times.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'll watch it again.
It's one of the best sports movies there is.
Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah.
And so it was already something like in the middle of the night.
So this movie's like the big short where it's like, this is, I don't know if this movie's like perfect for everybody, but it's kind of perfect for me.
Right, exactly.
And so I put it on for no good reason and I watched the whole thing Even though it was late Billy being that his name Billy bean Billy bean and I think you know Jonah Hill and Brad Pitt both doing the best thing that they could just doing their best work and Then I then I was curious Brad Pitt was also in the big short He's in the big short and he was great in that to continue
And so I looked it up, and when I looked up Moneyball, it came up, the Googs call it Ohomem Que Mudujo Ojogo, which is, I think, the name for Moneyball in maybe Portuguese.
I don't know why it...
I don't know why I did that.
I know how to say obrogado.
I know how to say obrogado.
Obrogado.
Which is very close to obrogado, which is like a lawyer.
And kind of close to oblongata.
But I know that from turning the menu at steakhouses.
But what I learned about Moneyball was it was directed by a guy named Ben Miller.
Okay.
Who's only, he's basically your age.
I'm sorry.
And he went to college with Philip Seymour Hoffman.
And he directed only three movies as far as... Oh, no, four movies.
The first movie he did was that one, The Cruise, about the guy who Kramer was based on, who gave tours of New York City.
Yeah, right, right, right.
Remember that guy?
Kenny Kramer.
The first time I ever saw that movie, John Flansburg showed it to me in a hotel room in Austin.
And then he did... Sounds like the beginning of a P. Diddy story.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
And he drank all the wine out of it.
Baby oil, baby oil, down, down, down.
He did Capote and Philip Seymour.
I love Capote.
That's a good Capote.
And then like six years later, he did Moneyball.
Shit.
Three years after that, he did Foxcatcher.
Oh, I like that movie, too.
Steve Carell was also in the big short.
Yeah, he's living in an aircraft carrier now.
No shit.
And I was like, who is this guy, Bennett Miller?
He's just a guy like you and me.
He did four great movies and then disappeared off the face of the earth.
And so I'm going through the credits of the movie, and I'm like, I got to know somebody on this movie.
I got to know somebody.
Some bit player, some writer, somebody didn't know a soul.
Not a living soul.
And that made me feel like it's an alternate universe situation.
You might have aged out.
I might be the Philip Seymour Hoffman in the story of...
Which film?
I bet you're the guy from Boogie Nights.
I'm the guy from Boogie Nights.
You know, Philip Seymour Hoffman is just like, he's basically your age.
He was.
He was in Synecdoche, New York, and that's all you need to know.
I can tell you a lot of other great stuff.
He was in because he's one of my favorite actors, but that's a movie I should watch five times No, that is you know I say the people I got that phrase I came up with I call it a gimme Hey, that's my that's a gimme like don't fucking argue with me about the Smiths like you got to just give me the Smiths like sorry I know you don't like it listener, but I do Synecdoche in New York is not for everybody but it is I said this on the internet to someone probably 18 hours ago and
the synecdoche new york is so much my shit that it's hard for me to imagine that other people can even see it as in like i feel like it's a it's almost like a dream that only i can see because how many times so you watched it once probably
i watched it when it came out and then i think i watched it one more time did you have a kid did you have a kid then no but it was at some point where somebody was explaining to me that i didn't understand oh i like that i like hearing that i know there's a scene at the beginning remember the scene at the beginning where there's all the stuff and it's all the chaos of getting ready you know in the morning and breakfast and they're watching the weird tv show with the lamb can i just point out one thing that might help enjoy increase people's enjoyment of the movie is it a backpack did i have to have noticed a backpack
See, the backpack goes by so fast.
I'm just telling you.
Is it an Easter egg?
We live in a twilight world.
All I have for you is a word.
No, here's the thing.
At the beginning, and you see him flipping through the paper and it's really, really fast.
You know what you probably didn't notice the first time that I want to, not you, but the listener, I want to encourage you to notice the next time you decide to just ruin your entire week and watch the Nick King New York.
The date on the paper changes while he's reading it.
What?
How many timelines are there in this Dunkirk?
It's not different timelines.
Because, I mean, I think one of the things, obviously him staring at hundreds of index cards that, like, foreshortened into the distance was a big moment for me.
But it's the moment of, I didn't, when did my daughter...
go from being a little girl who's worried about blood in her poop to being um who's that actress we like uh from the from the from uh from the breakfast club and other ones no Molly Ringwald no the other one shit anyways becomes her daughter yeah should be but she becomes an artist and you're like wait a minute I don't want to sound like a cornball because only certain people will understand this but I don't understand how the bit that baby is now this
Like, I understand, like, you can explain to me how a person grows on a linear scale and becomes an adult, but how did that happen?
And one of the little clues, it's not a backpack or an akak, is that when he's looking at the paper, the date on the paper keeps getting later as he's reading it.
indicating that time is passing in a way that is, and it's not done as like a montage.
It's just one of those little Charlie Kaufman things that just shows you why Charlie Kaufman's brain is so special to me.
Getting to write and direct that movie.
PSH, sorry, I got off it.
Synecdoche, New York.
Diane Wiest is also great in that movie as is all those women that we liked in the 90s.
They're all great in it, too Do you think that there is a world?
Where you in a world in a where you where you would find yourself on an elevator with Charlie Kaufman
No, I was on an elevator once with Philip Kaufman.
Does that count?
He's only 10 years older than us, Charlie Kaufman.
Yeah, I mean, I bet he's really weird, but in the right situation, I bet I could chat with him.
One time, my mother-in-law, whom I miss dearly, she's an old lady, and she had taken ill at a Giants game.
And so they hustled our family into this little private elevator to take us to where the doctor person was, and I was standing right next to Philip Kaufman.
The guy who wrote, the guy who directed the right stuff.
Really?
And I think I said something like elevators, am I right?
And that's why you work for him to this day.
Him and Philip Roth.
I work for all of them.
I have a phalanx of Jews running my life.
Oh, don't we all?
Oh, you really don't want to get me started on that.
No, don't care for me again.
I'm in a silly mood.
Go ahead.
It's a silly day.
We're living in a silly time.
These are silly times.
Silly times call for silly measure.
Yeah, measures.
I don't know, man.
So what do you think you're... So can we put a pin in it?
Not your foot, but like, should we just see... Too late.
We'll see where you are next week, but also will you just hit me up if you need anything, if you need me to search on any more.
Oh, let me ask you this.
As long as I've got my osteopath app open, are there any other questions that I could answer for you at this time?
They call this the doorknob syndrome, which is not when your boobs get hard.
That's called doorknobbing, which is a gerund.
This is the thing where the phenomenon...
Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo of a doctor leaving the room is when a person finally asks the thing that's really like important or important Oh as the doctors like okay on the doorknob right now.
You can see I'm an osteopath.
Yes, so you can see my acorns Excuse me, uh if you're gonna ask chatty G something find out why I'm so tired I'm so tired all the time Why is my friend John so tired?
Okay.
And I'm using O3 Mini, which is a model that claims to be fast at advanced reasoning.
Okay.
Okay.
Do you want to hear?
Yeah, let's hear.
No, I've got to update my instructions, because in these new models, it gets cute.
I'm not a doctor.
Shut the fuck up.
Okay, it's always five things with them.
Here are the five things that Chatty G thinks you could be.
I'm not a doctor, but here are a few common reasons.
Someone might be tired all the time and doesn't mention you by name, so take that with a chance.
Someone.
I'm somebody.
Sleep issues, stress or mental health, diet and hydration.
Oh, fuck me.
Medical conditions.
Here we go.
Okay.
I think this is written by an osteopath.
Sleep issues.
Number one.
Number two, stress or mental health.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Three diet and hydration.
Four medical conditions.
What the fuck does that mean?
Five medications.
This is the thing.
It's all of that just makes me want to just turn off the computer and stare out the window because there's no.
How about the same results?
Probably.
Yeah.
I knew that.
I have sleep issues.
And I mean, sleep.
Sleep's been going pretty good for me, except I got it.
I got a numb foot.
Yeah.
Does it wake up sometimes?
No kidding.
Is there a way you could leverage this?
Could this either make you more successful or interesting to have a numfoot?
Maybe the legend of Nunfoot... Nunfoot?
Sounds like a New Zealand record label.
No, the legend of Nunfoot ends up being about John Roderick.
Maybe it's like the Dread Pirate Roberts.
Maybe it's your turn to be the Nunfoot.
So this is the thing I'm a little bit worried about.
It was not that long... This is the doorknob.
You saw my hand was on the doorknob.
Now I find out the real problem.
There was never a time, I don't think... I don't think there was ever a time when I was like a rakish...
Rakishly handsome personality in the world right nobody's in type Yeah, nobody's ever subscribed or Tim to a thing that I do or bought a record that I made thinking like wow that guy's really like smooth
It's always been some kind of like, well, he's a pile of dirty clothes.
And he's funny.
And, you know, like, he'll be weird.
He's a bag of wet laundry.
You know, this guy, he's going to get up on stage.
He's going to knock something over.
But that's funny.
And he, like, pulls it off.
But what I really do not want to be.
is numfoot.
Like, I don't want to... You don't want that to be your assignation?
I don't want to be... You don't want to be the guy with the numfoot, is that it?
Well, or just... Or any one of a hundred one of those things where instead of leaning into, oh, he's an elegant older man now who sometimes wears an ascot, and he has, you know, he wears a fedora sort of like Robert De Niro does in The Untouchables in his iconic role of...
Edie Amin or whatever.
He's got a funny flair.
I think his name is Mark Untouchable.
Yeah, I want to be, you know, I definitely want to age into being a guy with some flair.
I don't want to age into a guy who's like numfoot.
Who's got, oh, look out, here he comes.
That's slightly at odds with your own sort of perception of who and how you are.
Yeah, I don't want smoked salmon in my Santa beard.
That's not the guy I want to be.
That's not the guy I want to be.
I want to be the guy who's got, you know, who's got like, who's wearing light green tinted sunglasses and is driving an Italian car.
I mean, like, we don't have,
a language for this as we speak but i think it might be useful honestly to think about this in terms of uh what character or actor role from an 80s movie you would be like would you be more like william atherton or would you be more like xander berkeley like you can have a conception of yourself as like i should mention also a couple weeks ago my kid and i were talking and i i said i was and this is what we call the xy problem right
Where I asked for advice about X, but what I really want is a solution to Y. And I hope to think that I'm getting better at that.
So what I was going to say was, hey, you know, I need a new Segway.
My Segway's getting a little long in the tooth.
The battery's all fucked up.
It's become really annoying.
And so I was searching for Segways.
And I was like, I don't love all this.
And finally, I turned to my kid and I said, you know what?
I wonder what the coolest wheelchair is.
And so I started Googling coolest and then fastest wheelchairs.
Okay.
And I have to be honest.
Look, I'm not trying to talk you out of avoiding the numb foot lifestyle, but I am saying if you broaden your horizons a little, I'm not saying I'm going to buy a wheelchair this week.
Okay.
I'm not trying to steal valor, but I would love to, like, what I probably want is more like a tricked-out, like, pimp-my-ride style, like a bird scooter or a Cushman or something, maybe a meter-made vehicle.
But I would love to be able to haul ass while seated, and I would never have gotten to that realization if I thought only about standing up on a hoverboard while people laugh at me.
You know, life's like that.
It really enhances some funny little zingers, don't it?
Well, what's weird is I just put into the googs here distinguished older actors to see if there was one that I felt like I could model myself on.
Okay.
And of course, the most distinguished older actor is Morgan Freeman, but I don't think I'm going to ever have his gravity.
Okay.
I'm not a James Stewart type.
I don't think Al Pacino or Robert De Niro are guys.
Cary Grant, maybe?
Well, Cary Grant, I would love, but that's the thing.
Cary Grant is slick, and I was never slick.
Yeah, but he also made the beast with two backs with Randolph Scott, so nothing wrong with that.
You know, they were roommates.
Right.
Yeah.
I see.
Ian McKellen.
You know, like Michael Caine.
I don't want to be those guys.
I don't want to be James.
We already have a Michael Caine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Robert Redford's too handsome.
I mean, I'm like settling on Colin Firth, maybe.
Of these actors.
Colin Firth.
He's really good in that Nazi movie conspiracy.
He's great in that.
I'm the closest to Colin Firth, I guess, is what I'm saying.
I don't want to be John Voight.
I don't want to be William Shatner.
What's crazy is none of these distinguished older actors are anything like me at all.
Well, let me just also toss something out here.
It was a great one.
Gretzky, who's reportedly said, you skate toward where the puck's going to be, not where it is.
Can I also just encourage you to think... I think technically it was Michael Scott that said that, but let me just encourage you to think about this thought technology, which is instead of... And I'm not saying you're doing this, but just a thought technology.
Instead of pinning up...
One eight by ten glossy of George Clooney and saying that me like maybe think more about connecting the dots Between several different ones like for example, you could start out with something easy you can start out by saying oh Maybe I want to be let's say Adam Scott.
That's a bad example.
Oh John Turturro you can start out with something that's pretty manageable, but then remember you're gonna get super old and fucked up and
So enjoy an easier get for now, but also be planning toward the future to where you eventually get like Swifty Lazar.
The guy used to throw the Oscar parties, the bald guy with the giant Larry King glasses.
Sure, sure, sure, with the giant glasses.
I mean, giant glasses.
I told Billy, you have three, you used to have anyway, three drugstore racks of eyeglasses frames.
So I'm not saying that should be your only fake interesting thing about you.
I think you add a cravat to that and a really tricked out wheelchair.
And I think you've become a force for people to contend with.
I'm just not sure.
Nobody needs to know your foot's numb.
Just you.
But that's the thing.
Then I'm not capitalizing on numb foot as a way of like, you know.
Just another middle age guy in a fake wheelchair.
Hey, fellow kids.
Oh, would you have a Bluetooth speaker on it?
It's in the way that she used it.
I hear it, but I don't believe it.
All right, I found the photo of him with the index cards.
That's going to be show art.
That was fucking funny.
I'll send you the obituary for my lizard.