Ep. 570: "Oregon Grapes"
Hello.
Hi, John.
Hi, Merlin.
How's it going?
Good.
It's been a long time since I talked to you.
I think it has.
I think it's been one of the longer times.
It's as long as it should ever be.
Mm-hmm.
I can hear your coffee.
I agree.
Oh, my delicious coffee.
Why'd you leave it in the yard?
What was up with that?
We out there this morning?
You were touring your grounds this morning and left your coffee cup out there?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so for our viewers, I had to text Merlin and say that I had lost my coffee and then I was wandering around the house looking for it.
I had, it had to be here.
Yeah.
And then I remembered that I left it in the garden.
So I sent you a picture of it in the garden.
Yeah.
So a tree fell in the forest and I didn't hear it.
So it didn't make a sound.
And, um, but it fell and my mom didn't,
was like oh no it fell the tree fell on top of these little plants that i'd planted oh no yeah oh yeah big big tragedy and so i went out there and sure enough
And it's not a small matter.
It's a big guy.
So over, like, did you have wind or something?
Knocked a tree over, you had some beauty.
You know, sometimes it starts to feel like nature just doesn't want to cooperate, even with itself.
And you start to wonder, what's my role in this?
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, it was a big windstorm and I thought I'd gotten off easy, but no.
And the thing is, this tree, it's not only has it crushed like four Oregon grapes that my mom planted, but it's blocked up like a crucial artery, a crucial path.
And in order to do something with this tree, boy, I got to get a chainsaw.
There's a lot of work I have to do today.
Oh, no, really?
And as a consequence, I left my coffee in the garden.
Uh, but now here I am, I'm back in the saddle and I got some fresh Levi's on and I'm just, you know, feeling real good other than all this work.
Yeah.
Does it feel like something you, um, do you feel equipped and able to take care of this today?
Right.
Yes, I do.
I do.
I'm in health and my back is strong and it's cold and wet outside, which is, you know, what we prefer here.
That's where you draw a lot of your strength.
It is.
So I'm going to be alone in the cold, wet woods, which is, yeah, that's my power.
That's my power place.
So, yeah, I mean, I think there's a 40% chance I'll hurt myself, but, you know...
Every time you walk out the door, am I right?
You know, if you start calculating that way, everything starts looking risky.
Yeah.
That's why I've opted out of a lot of life.
Oh.
Well, I mean, you know, why introduce, well, why introduce an extra risk, John?
You know what I'm saying?
I was on one of those airplane situations where you have to take a bus out to the gate.
Any chance it was in New Jersey?
Yeah.
No, it was in Paris.
Sorry to be that guy.
Well, pardon my dust.
This was last week.
Last week I was on an airplane in Paris.
And I got on the bus...
And, uh, I sat down and then more people got on the bus and there was a lady, uh, that looked like she could use my seat more than me.
So I stood up and I said, you know, here's, here's a seat for you.
My, my, my friend, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom.
He sat down and then the gal next to her.
So the woman that I offered the seat to was older than me, gray hair.
Um, and yet I also have gray hair.
True.
And so the woman sitting next to her, a blonde lady who was younger than us both, but not by that much.
Then said to me, do you want my seat?
Oh, that's so nice, John.
It was so nice.
Monsieur.
But I said, then looking, you know, now they're both looking at me.
And I said, you know what?
It's not going to be easier to stand up on this bus next year.
So I might as well do it now.
Oh, for you, for you physically.
For me, yeah.
And they both were like, hmm.
And then we rode across the airport together, all sort of in silence looking at them.
See, I was imagining you falling slowly forward, landing on the deck, and then doing one-arm push-ups until the end of the trip, just to show your virility.
Yeah, do a wonk, a flip.
Yeah, the virility de l'escalier, yeah.
Nope.
Well, I just, and the thing was, it was one of those, as it came out, it felt a little bit like, is this your first day?
Like the kind of statement that as I made it, I was like, is that the statement I was trying to make?
Is that, am I really, is that what I was trying to say?
But, uh, but I let it hang.
So what can, you know.
It was nice of her to offer me the seat, but by God, when people, when young women start offering me a seat on a bus.
I don't know, man.
It's kind of hot.
I'm going to start dying my mustache.
Oh, no.
Come on, John.
Don't be like that.
I don't want to be like that.
It's just a hakuna matata situation.
Don't you think?
Like a pay it forward type situation.
Pretty soon everybody in the bus.
That's how, I mean, I, listen, I've already made numerous errors in this implying that every person on that bus was from the country of France, which I realized is a long shot.
Is this Charles de Gaulle?
Uh, it is Charles de Gaulle.
Yeah.
So like it was, it was a pretty silly thing to just randomly guess that everybody on the bus is French.
Although a lot of people in Europe are French, whether they mean to be or not.
It's true.
The woman I offered the seat to, it turned out was African American.
And the woman that offered her seat to me was blonde American.
So we were all three Americans in Paris.
What?
Just trading seats.
What?
Really?
Yeah.
It was just like, hey.
You mean a black-complexed person or an American who's a black person?
It was an American who was a black person.
It was a lady who kind of looked like Maya Angelou.
Oh, my God.
I love this story.
Yeah.
She had, like, scarves.
It's kind of like a Gift of the Magi type situation.
Everybody's passing along, one American to the next, thinking they don't want to be the ugly American, they want to be the pretty American.
Hey, we're all here to, you know, we're all Americans in Paris.
Great American melting pot.
We're American werewolves in Paris.
You were a free man in Paris, yeah.
I was.
I was.
And the lady I offered the seat to had marvelous scarves and sort of things, garments.
uh tapestries around her neck and then i also i think i was wearing this is i just all i need to know is the neck gear what was the neck gear because you know i know you were wearing like an ascot or a scarf i was on this most recent set of of uh of travels i just decided i was just going to take suits and i was going to wear shirts with cufflinks and those are not the best
outfits to carry in like a small filson duffel as you travel kind of around but i just i was tired of walking around looking like a guy in cargo pants so i was like you know what i'm going to these nice places i'm going to just dress like a nice person and so yeah i was wearing cufflinks and a tie oh cravat french bus yeah cravat that's right that's right pierre cardin
Anyway, so the whole thing, you know, it all works out.
That's fun.
That's fun.
Yeah, a lot of fun.
We have a lot of fun.
Christian Dior, my butt.
Wow, that sounds awesome.
I needed to make a point visually on the internet, as I so often do.
I think last calendar week.
And I wanted to make a point about the great actor Jack Cassidy and his many appearances on the NBC TV show Columbo.
And so I was able to fairly quickly put my hand to four different screenshots of him.
And I mean, off the dome, I can think of two classic Columbos that he's in that at least are two of my favorites.
What is he doing?
What is who?
What is Jack Cassidy doing on those?
Well, my favorite is the one where he's a magician at a magician show, like a dinner theater magician show.
Right.
He did have a mustache of distinction.
Oh, he sure.
Well, let me find this for you if I can.
The other one, I feel like I'm pretty sure he's in the classic where somebody's stabbed, you know, with an icicle and it melts at the pool.
I'm pretty sure that was him, too.
What?
It melts at the pool?
Oh, my God.
I haven't thought of that plot twist in years.
You've never had a high school teacher say to you, do you know what the perfect murder weapon is?
And you say, what?
And they go, an icicle because you can stab someone.
And then the evidence melts.
Yeah.
The evidence melts.
I don't even remember which, how many of my high school teachers told me that.
It seemed like it was really on people's minds at the time.
Yeah, well, you went to military school, so they're thinking about it.
And there wasn't that much to watch.
I mean, you're gonna watch Columbo.
It was on A&E every afternoon.
Grow up.
You know what I'm saying?
I'm looking now that Jack Cassidy died in 76, so he really got, he got it all, he got a lot in there.
He sure did.
And including Shirley Jones.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
Yeah, because that's David Cassidy.
Yeah, sure.
That's David Cassidy's father.
David Cassidy's father.
And you know what?
He is John Joseph Edward Cassidy, still six years younger than my dad.
Wait, who?
Wait, Jack Cassidy?
Jack Cassidy, six years younger than my dad.
Criminy, really?
Yeah, David Cassidy is almost exactly the same age as my brother David.
You know, a lot of people, a lot of those people that back in 2015 were replying to my super good tweets by saying, okay, boomer.
They weren't actually that far off because I have four siblings that are full boomers, like deep boomers, old boomers.
So I'm like, I am boomer adjacent, even though.
Yeah, but like, what if it didn't bother me when people said things like that?
And you just sound like you only have a handful of lines.
Okay, boomer.
Yeah.
That's funny the way you had that.
No, no, I mean, it is postulated by some people in the mind industry that the only things that bother us are the things we know are true.
I think the things that bother us are the things we regard as unfair.
Not that they're untrue.
I think unfair.
Unfair.
Yeah.
I have the privilege, and if you have the privilege, why wouldn't you use it?
I have the privilege to mainly be bugged when I'm misunderstood.
That's what bothers me.
Me too.
You know, Merlin, that's one way in which our attention deficit disorder is.
Here we go.
Yeah, we should just start getting one prescription.
Just get it, you know.
That's all we need.
Yeah, like those toilets or those bathtubs where couples can be together.
We should just get, yeah, for our ADHD we have.
The thing about us is that neither of us want to be misunderstood.
I used to want to be a little misunderstood by some people and then deeply understood by other people, but I'm realizing you don't get that much say in the matter.
No, back when you were a ceramicist.
I remember that.
You really wanted some people to not understand.
And other people did super understood.
I guess.
I don't know what I think anymore.
Here's Merlin the ceramicist.
I woke up this morning and I realized I'm always like, hmm, March, March 1st, March 3rd, March 1st, March 3rd.
Because I have a collection of dates in my head about March 1st and March 3rd.
I never remember which is which.
And please don't email me because I'll never get it.
But one of them is the day that Ohio was brought into the Union.
Another is the day that my friend Sam, my best friend from high school, was born.
And the other one is the day my best friend from childhood was born.
And I'm pretty sure May 3rd is the day my best friend from childhood was born, which means that, you know, I imagine he's still alive.
But my best friend from childhood is 60 today.
Now, you know, I'm just saying, like, I do that thing where I think everybody I went to college with is still 19.
And, of course, I still think.
And then I'm 19.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The average age of a comeback.
I think, yeah, but, like, in my head, John's still, you know, 12 or 13 in my head.
He's, like, a year and a half older than me.
That's weird.
That's weird.
Your best friend's 60.
Hi.
How are you doing?
Having a good day?
Oh, great.
Thanks.
Tree fell.
Did you know that the Volkswagen Cabriolet commercial that used pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon was 25 years ago?
Is that right?
Yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
That checks out.
That's around the... Yeah.
Oh, my God.
Oh, boy.
Are we going to do this game?
Because I got a new one, too.
You're right.
Okay.
What's your new one?
What's your new one?
First of all, just in the interest of my brand, I'm not married to this name, but for a few years now, I've struggled for years to come up with a name for what this thing with which I am obsessed should be called.
I call it a Kron analogy.
A cron analogy.
Yeah, putting together two Latinate words.
I like that.
Yeah, it's an analogy involving time.
So I've been re-watching the Beatles anthology series, which you're probably familiar with.
I am.
It wasn't a re-release.
It was when they put out the anthology, you know, CD sets with all the, like, the version of Anya Burke and Sing where they sound really high and, like, all those wonderful things we got.
That was in 1995, which means, get ready.
You already feel it coming and you're already sad.
The time from, say... Oh, no.
The time from... Oh, no.
Not a chronology.
Chrononology.
Chrononology.
Chrononology.
It's not a very pretty word.
Not a very pretty word, is it?
It's saying that it's been longer since the anthologies came out than between the anthologies.
The time from Rubber Soul to the anthology series is 30 years.
Wait, Rubber Soul?
65 to 95, 30 years.
Oh, God.
Rubber soul.
Not even heavy road.
So that means the time from the anthology series to now is, you guessed it, 30 years.
Oh, come on.
Yeah, I know, right?
Doesn't that seem unjust?
Imagine John Patton being 60.
I'm dealing with that.
Now what you're doing is you're making me feel misunderstood.
Oh, God.
I'm just a soul.
His intentions are good.
I know.
I know you are.
I'm so sorry.
No, it's okay.
It's okay.
I don't mean to be an Eric Burden on you.
Come on.
Somebody will get it.
Yeah, no, they're out there.
Go ahead.
No.
And the only other thing I want to say, which I don't really even want to say, is I've been trying, as always, I'm always working on my sleep in a very gentle, mindful, easygoing way.
But I'm trying to go to sleep a little bit earlier.
And so when I get tired at night, I go to sleep.
And I was a good boy.
I went to sleep last night.
I turned everything off, and the lights were off, and I'm in my underpants and the whole nine.
And, you know, it's how your body learns it's time for bed, is you're in underpants, you know?
Yeah, for sure.
And I'll keep this short, but...
It's very different.
My wife, whom I love, you've met her.
She refuses to understand, I think, this aspect of my personality that I've been fucking working on for years and years and years, which is getting to a point where I'm not emotionally involved with how well or poorly I slept.
It's been a real long way.
It's been... A lot of you people, you go out and you run around a track or something to get in shape or you buy a boat.
Well, I've tried to have... They watch the sunrise.
They watch the... Some of them, they watch the sunrise.
They do.
They watch the sunrise.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like in that Big Star song.
I'm...
pleased with myself i'm quietly because nobody else would care proud of myself for how i've been able to go i told my shrink this on friday morning that i have this list of um just in passing i have a list of things i think it's valuable to say to yourself from time to time that would be happy to share with you what are some of those things i'll share that i'll share that with you if you continue to be interested but i said i said to myself he says you get it next time
What really get it next time and it's no big deal you just have you ever successfully yelled yourself to sleep, right?
That's that's the no that's the tentpole of my position when everybody's like yeah, but like I sleep bad and I always sleep bad I'm like well, yeah, do you hear the way you sound right now because you've created this entire This world of emotional tumult that turns on how good your day is allowed to be depending on how you feel about how you slept I know it's not always like that but
In my experience in life, working towards not having a non-optional emotional valence, especially a negative emotional valence attached to anything that didn't go flawlessly.
Well, you know, that'll work when you're three, but eventually it's nice to kind of, you know, wean yourself off of that.
Now, I know you've put some thought into this.
Is there anything you can yell yourself into?
Anxiety.
Why aren't you more upset, you piece of shit?
Is there anything that is good that you can yell yourself into?
I'm going to write that down, because that's a good question.
I need to think about that for a minute.
So anyways, all I want to say is I'm almost done with this, and then I'd be happy to reach my list, because it is really good stuff.
But I just, you know, I'm going to sleep, whatever.
Now, here's the thing.
Sometimes you wake up, sometimes you go to sleep.
Now, this is going to sound like anathema to the strict interpretation constitutional monarchs who think that there's only one way to feel about sleep, and that's always behind and mad.
But when I wake up, I get up.
I get up.
You know, do the thing, right?
I went to bed last night.
I know it was around 10, which feels pretty good for me.
When you went to bed, 10?
Yeah, yeah.
I so enjoyed the Oscars last night.
Had a wonderful time watching the Academy Awards.
Went to bed around 10, and I woke up.
Now, here's the thing.
Do you ever wake up and you have a pretty good sense of what time it is based on factors?
All the time.
When I open my eyes, I generally, because it's the first thing I do.
Do you feel a sense of dread before you look at the clock where you're like, oh, I know it's 3.50?
Okay.
You know what?
You'll get it next time.
It's my number one thing when I wake up, before I open my eyes, I go...
And I guess the time.
And then I look at the clock.
I'm tempted to write it down or yell it into a device to make sure I get credit.
Yeah.
And I'm always like, wow, yeah, you know, I was seven minutes off, like right on.
How does that happen?
That's so extraordinary.
Now, I'm not as good as you are at that, but I combine a couple things.
And again, it's cheating to look at the clock.
Oh, gosh.
Also, nobody asked.
But quit looking at the clock when you wake up, guys.
Look at the clock.
Well, does it help?
Because, you know, on the one hand, you're like, well, my alarm hasn't gone off.
I'll look at the clock.
And you're like, of course, if it's 3.30, you fucking hate yourself so much.
Oh, I see.
Yeah.
But anyway, so everybody has their own trip for that stuff.
But I thought, okay, before I look at the clock, I'm going to say, hmm, hey, I feel pretty fucking awake.
I feel like I've had sleep.
I've had at least – here's the thing, John.
I know the difference in the way my body is and how crunchy my eyes are between, for example, 2, 4, 6, and 18 hours of sleep.
I'm aware of differences in how that feels.
And I had the feeling of you just had not –
long night of sleep but you did okay on a night of sleep and i was excited i'm saying to myself i'll get up i'll prep for my show with my pal john i'll do some writing i'll be good it's because it's got to be somewhere between 3 30 and 5 30 which is totally cromulent as a time for me to get up and start the day because guess what i say to myself you get it next time or you could nap later or whatever but don't ruin your day with bad thinking you know
But you've had that feeling, right, where you wake up and you're like, oh, I have a pretty good idea that I'm in this range.
Or in some cases, like you've stipulated, you know roughly exactly what time it is.
Right.
You know what time it was?
What?
11.45 p.m.
No!
No!
Now, let's go back.
Let's go back two minutes.
I woke up.
Did you feel like you had gotten sleep?
Oh, yeah.
I was like, I'm ready.
I wasn't sad before, but then I was like, hmm.
I was all excited.
Like, I got to wait six more hours to go to Disney or something.
You had jet lag in your own home.
Where my children play with their toys.
How do you account for this?
How do you account for this madness?
Well, I don't know, and I wouldn't want to cover myself with glory about overstating this position I've taken about the Sleep Project.
But, I mean, if you're not...
Sometimes we decide how we feel based on how we feel.
Sometimes we decide, like, what's our comportment?
Like, what's our whole vision for the day, for the future, for the whatever, based on, like, these emotions that we feel?
And then I think it's valuable.
Those are useful, and you have those, and that's good.
Or not.
But you also have to weigh other kinds of factors and introduce sometimes a little bit of, if you like, rationality to it.
But I was still a little bit bummed, because, like, hmm, I was all excited to get up and...
Take ADHD medicine and start my day.
And so what did you do?
Well, may I say?
I'd love to hear.
One thing you do is you immediately stand up and get out of bed.
Even after an hour and 45 minutes of sleep, you fell awake and so get up.
There's nothing about standing up and getting out of bed that says you can't go back to sleep in two minutes or whatever.
But you need a little bit of a break.
You maybe go urinate.
You have a drink of water.
You walk around.
You think a little bit.
You go.
Think about like, you know, what all's going on?
But again, a la la yelling, trying to yell yourself to sleep.
The only thing less useful than you trying to yell yourself to sleep is probably trying to yell yourself back to sleep.
So anyway, long story short, I chilled.
What did I read?
I read something pretty good.
I didn't watch TV, but I read something pretty good.
Oh, you know what I did?
I did my puzzles.
I did my three New York Times puzzles.
You only do three of them.
Well, I have a very special way I do them, too.
I invented the best way to do the spelling bee.
It saved me a lot of time in life.
Well, now wait a minute.
All I do is if I get the spangram, I don't have to do the rest of the words.
You're kidding.
You have one guest.
You have one guest to get the spangram.
If you get the spangram, you don't have to do the rest.
You're clapped out.
So lately, I've been sitting and saying the spangram.
Today's is vegetable.
That's a freebie for you guys.
Yeah, no, I got it already.
But my goal is to do it first.
First word.
I'm not even.
That's what I'm saying.
That's what I'm saying.
No, no.
Like right now you will see the word vegetable and the number 16 and that's it.
And that's it.
You just do the one.
Okay.
Here's the, here's the one that somebody said to me the other day that's been torturing me, which is, uh, a guy said that down, you know, the one that's like crosswords or letterboxed letterboxed, which is very frustrating.
I still, I have tried and I still don't understand how letterbox works.
He said.
You do the first letter to the last letter.
I still understand what the strategy for it is, though.
Oh, you know who said this?
Who?
You know who said this?
Who?
You've met him.
You've met this guy.
Yeah.
Do you remember when the long winters came through and stayed at your house?
And we had a guitar player named Darren Lucas.
Oh, of course.
Oh, he was so pleasant.
He's a very nice guy.
Is that who I'm thinking of?
The guy with the facial hair who's really super nice and, like, normal?
Oh, I liked him a lot.
No, he's not normal at all.
It's your band.
Yeah, he might have been wearing, like, a hat with a feather in it.
But he wrote me and said...
He said, guess what?
Supposably, you can solve Letterboxd in two moves.
And I was like, no, you can't.
So essentially two words?
Two words.
He said, the way it is designed, it's designed so that you can solve it in two words.
So only snorks are doing all those words.
Well, including me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But what I'm trying to say is that's kind of like, maybe this is why you brought it up.
It's kind of like the life hack for spelling bee, which is like, you know, if you're playing at this level.
Now, the thing is, I always, never mind, I'm covering way too much, way too fast.
I didn't sleep all that well last night and I'm not mad about it.
But like, for example, like with, I always try to get the word, the common word first was strands.
Oh, right.
And the way I used to play it, Billy and I used to play hard mode to be able to compete fairly, which is you're not allowed to do any clues.
And I've given up on that because life's too short.
So I'll do a clue sometimes to start.
Well, you know, Ken Jennings, America's Sweetheart, he tries to get Queen Bee every week or every day.
What does that mean?
That means you got every word?
Every word in spelling bee.
I've gotten that.
I've just never known that.
So I've heard that name.
So that's when you've gotten everyone.
But there's that thing you get at the end where it's like, okay, easy text.
You've got enough.
You win.
But you can keep pushing if you want, right?
Yeah.
And Ken tries to go all the way.
But the problem with that is the last three words are always something like snurge, which is like some word that is only used in surgery or is only used if you're an arborist.
And the only way he word like keys and I'll be like, wait, how did I miss the word keys?
You know what?
You know what I mean?
Right.
Where you're like, yeah.
Because I'll do the, for that one, well, depending on the era that I'm in, I will do the clues thing.
There's a clues thing on the New York Times site.
Yeah, that tells you, like, how many of different size words are left.
Yeah, like, you found this many that start with O-N or whatever.
And I realize that's a little cheaty, but it is a game, and games should be fun.
It's a little cheaty.
But I think that's your name.
A little cheaty.
I think that what Ken does at the end is he just starts throwing vowels at the thing until these words pop up because he couldn't possibly, nobody could know these words.
And so that feels a little cheaty too, just in the sense of like, where's the victory there?
It's just like the last three words are just, are just gibberish, but you're, you're sitting and typing in combinations that seem plausible.
Not into it.
I don't play video games, but that sounds like a form of grinding where you're trying to get all of the stuff.
I think these young people today who claim to like games so much, they claim very much to like games and gaming culture and all those sorts of things, but games are supposed to be fun.
I have a very old-fashioned attitude about thinking games should be fun.
If the games aren't fun, then it's not a very good game.
Right.
I agree with that.
I'm going to send you my list.
I agree with that 100%.
Now, tell me the list of things that you say to yourself that make you not mad at yourself.
Well, okay.
So here, I just sent it to you.
Here's my list.
And this is just in the order that I wrote them down.
That's not meaningful.
Useful things to say to yourself.
Not now.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Oh, not now.
Yeah.
What?
I should go cut up the tree.
Not now.
Not now.
Or you could talk to yourself like you're a baby and you could say, that's not what we're doing right now.
This is a very ADHD thing to say to yourself.
Not now or that's not what we're doing right now.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
To quote the great movie Star Wars, stay on target.
Sometimes you just got to say to yourself, stay on target.
And now another one related to down from that, keep doing the thing, just do the thing.
But wait a minute, doesn't the guy that says stay on target end up getting destroyed by some kind of... His name's Porkins and he's dead, man.
Yeah, isn't Dark Vader the one that kills Porkins?
Yeah, Darth Vader ends up killing almost everybody.
It's part of why he has such a bad reputation.
Pray he doesn't alter it further.
Stay on target unless you're being pursued by darkly.
I don't know.
I mean, these are just things I've typed.
It doesn't mean anything.
I get it.
I get it.
But keep doing the thing is a very ADHD thing, which is I just need to do the thing.
I don't need to do everything about the thing.
I don't need to know everything related to the thing.
I got to go just go do the thing, whether that's booking an appointment or like finishing a draft or something.
Just go do the thing.
Oh, I can't do that.
I can't say that.
I know.
It's fine.
It's fine.
We have the same ADHD.
Well, sometimes.
Brothers of a different brother or something.
Uh, whatever you'll get it next time.
I like that one.
I don't know.
These are all boring, but like, um, what are you saving this for?
Uh, that's one that I ask myself a lot.
What exactly are you saving things or do you mean that about experiences or do you mean that about like milk in the fridge?
Well, especially milk in the fridge and especially things.
Um,
Um, like if you've saved leftover chicken, like I have, I've lived this life of probation where I always feel like I have to eat, you know, do the equivalent of, as they say, eating your vegetables first, where you're like, okay, well we saved, we saved, there were four pieces of leftover chicken and there's like, there's this one weird ass wing and three gorgeous breasts.
Well, eat the fucking breast if you want the breast.
Food is for eating, stickers are for sticking, do the thing.
Like, what are you saving this for?
The Pope is not fucking coming to your house.
Relax.
Let me, let me ask you this.
Yes, you there.
Do you, do you have shirts that,
that are special shirts that you only wear on special occasions, and then eventually you don't even wear them, you just look at them in your closet and go, that's my special shirt.
Not as much as I used to, but 100%.
I mean, like, for a very long time.
No, there were things where it's just, this is a very sort of Ohio thing.
To me, it's like putting plastic on the furniture.
You never get to actually enjoy your furniture.
You just live in a museum.
Yeah.
Like the Catholics, let's be honest.
And Catholics love covering things.
They do?
Oh, yikes.
Come on.
Come on.
You could have left that alone.
Boston Globe, Boston Schlobe.
What?
But, yeah, I mean, and again, these are things that I find useful, that other people might find useful, but I'm not a minister.
Like, I'm not going to throw you out of the church if you don't believe these.
But what are you saving this for is, I think, really, it's a very muscular thing to ask yourself.
Because first of all, it could be like, well, what the fuck are you saving this for?
And forgive me, I'm always referring to myself like some kind of a...
priest or something but yeah this was a wisdom document thing which is why would you ever organize anything you should discard yeah do you alphabetize your recycling yeah muchata muchata um another one i say to myself i said this for years i've decided not to let it bother me i said that to myself that would be nice and then one that's kind of silly but it works is remember your toolbox
Remember that you've got ways of dealing with stuff in life and chasing, whether that's the clown car of politics or the exploding, you know, the materiel of the exploding pinata of pain in some other part of your life.
Like, you've got tools for dealing with stuff.
And if you don't immediately collapse into the emotion that wants to take over, you have a toolbox that you can use for things.
That is a very helpful phrase for Marlo.
She recently... She knows it, but she doesn't know she knows it.
Yeah.
In the last year, she's decided that she cannot do math unless I'm sitting in her room on her bed.
And the reason is that... You're going to have to eat out together from now on unless she has a tip calculator.
Is that right?
Well, you know, we work on math together.
We always did.
And now it's like I'm her comfort pillow.
And if I'm not sitting on the bed... Her comfort mathematician.
Yeah.
And, you know, and I try, you know, I've never done her math for her.
I'm always like, well, what does that mean?
Well, what do you think it means?
Well, what do you think your teacher's asking?
You know, just that kind of thing.
Yeah.
But without me there, she just, you know, what happens is that the panic, the math panic rises up in her and she's like, I'm never going to get this done.
I'm never going to understand it.
It's never possible.
It's always, I mean, now I'm going to end up living on a boat.
Yeah.
And, um, and I, and I, I have been saying to her versions of remember your toolbox.
And the first thing, the first thing in the toolbox is calm your body.
It's not, don't even try and calm your mind.
Just calm your body.
Like, like.
Get your heart rate.
I think that's why my people, when they're beginning things like meditation, are encouraged to don't, yeah, it may be nice to calm your mind, but good luck.
Calming your body is something we actually can get our hands around in a way that calming our mind, maybe not so much.
Yeah, right.
Calming your body, there's like four things you do.
It has knock-on effects.
Yeah.
Breathe.
I totally agree.
I was thinking about, you know, yesterday I was in Big Sur, which is this area just close to you.
It's just not very far from you.
I mean, you would have to go outside, but it is.
That whole area, Monterey and Big Sur is one of my favorite places in the world.
It's insane.
And when you get down.
It looks like movies.
It is.
It's movies.
Yeah.
But when you look at it from the car, you're like, oh, this is beautiful.
But there are a lot of beautiful places.
But when you get out of your car and you go down, it's one of those things like going to a Bob Dylan concert, where the closer you get to the stage, the more it goes from like, oh, yeah, this is cool, to like, whoa.
Well, like walking where you can park.
Actually, we camped at this secret camping spot one time.
Saddle Rock, is that what it's called?
But it's like where you can park your car and go out and look at the ocean and that big rock.
And it's like, oh, yeah, this is why people like nature.
This is really moving.
yeah and what it does is it being there with that mist and the pacific ocean which is just like the pacific ocean just comes right up to you and is like hi it you cannot think i cannot have any thoughts there like it just erases all thinking because the ocean is so big
And so mighty.
Like, what the fuck are you thinking about?
You know?
Like, what thoughts are you having?
None of it matters.
Mr. Special with his personal bespoke concerns about the world.
Yeah.
You had some problem?
Somebody said something weird to you at the last cash register?
Wow, that must be so difficult for you.
The ocean is... Sorry, that's me talking to me.
That's me talking to me.
oh no oh no they didn't have the flavor of coke that you liked oh you must be so sad well you know i've spent like half my life staring at the pacific ocean from various vantage points right i mean there's nothing i'd like your lighthouse keeper for a while i would be except all the lighthouses for sale are either in san francisco bay where that's
No, thanks.
Or, like in northern Scotland, where, what are you going to do?
You're going to live on toast up there.
Yeah, it's going to be beans on toast.
Which is nice for a while, but... You'll eat all your ham in the first week, and then it's like, well, the next boat doesn't come for a month.
Oh, my ham's gone.
Oh, no.
I ate all the ham and cheese.
I got no cream for my coffee.
Goddammit, next time I'm bringing more ham.
Fuck.
Nothing grows up here.
Shit.
Shit.
So I don't want to be that kind of lighthouse keeper.
I don't want to be one in France where it's like every day you take your life into your own hands.
Why France?
What happens in France?
Well, I don't know.
Oh, because of the French boats.
Yeah, the Portuguese waves that come in and they're just like, 200 feet tall.
Fuck you.
Oh, that's the one Portuguese word that I know because I eat at steakhouses, Brazilian in style.
It sounds so much like the Spanish word for lawyer, too.
That's what's so confusing.
Let's see.
Attorney.
No, that would be Italian.
Obrigado.
Obrigado.
Obrigado.
So I think the main takeaway this week, if I'm hearing correctly, and we're just catching up.
John and I haven't been together in a couple, three weeks.
It's been a long time.
It's been a long time.
I've been to Paris.
I've been to Big Sur.
It's like crazy times.
I saw Wayne Newton in Las Vegas.
Was he on the run or something?
No, no, he has a show.
You saw him doing his entertainment program.
Yeah, he has a little theater, like an intimate-sized theater, and he does a Wayne Newton style review.
Because he has an intimate-sized talent.
He has an intimate-sized audience, I'll tell you.
And he does, you know, it was a big hit for him.
And he actually, a lot of his show now is just video of him when he was on the Jack Parr show.
Like when he was a little fat kid.
Yeah, a little fat kid.
But at one point in the show, he actually shows Ferris Bueller doing Donka Shane.
And he's like taking credit for it.
He's like heaping praise upon himself because of Ferris.
Who, as we recall, jumped up on that float, really confusing the master of ceremonies.
I did not find that surpassingly respectful to the community.
I didn't either.
It was nice of those girls to play along and keep dancing, but the guy in the vest should not be taking over the parade.
Well, and wasn't this a St.
Patrick's Day parade?
Why the hell are they singing Dunkish on it?
I feel like it wasn't Oktoberfest.
Why do I think it was Polish?
Oh, Polish.
I think you're right.
Abe Froman.
He's the sausage king of Chicago.
You're the sausage king of Chicago, John.
You got to bring ham to the lighthouse.
That's the big thing.
That's what I'm saying.
What the fuck?
You know, you can only put so much ham on the boat and then, you know, the first three days.
You can't put so much ham on the boat.
Ham on the boat.
That's pretty good.
I'm going to remember that.
You should only put so much ham on the boat.
But the thing is, you're in there and you're saying, what are you saving it for?
Oh, shit, yeah.
You're like, I should save this ham.
I don't want to eat it all in the first three days.
And then you're like, what am I saving it for?
Gobble, gobble, gobble.
Right.
Then you're like, fuck, beans on toast again.
Beans on toast.
You could only put so much ham on the boat.
And the thing is, okay, okay, okay.
I'm going to abstract this.
Okay.
But it is my belief that a refrigerator is not a museum.
Right.
And in my opinion, an observation based on factors, I think there are people who think that refrigerators are a combination of a future trophy case and a museum.
It's a trophy case because we buy a lot of food that we don't have any specific plan for.
Some of it's aspirational food.
Thank you.
You said it, not me.
Aspirational food is when you buy the shit that fucking nobody wants, but you feel like you should have in the house.
That's right.
That's aspirational food, and it's not unrelated from having a food museum.
We're going to start eating bok choy.
This is the week we're buying our own bok choy.
We have so much kale.
You can't even open the crispers.
It's just teeming with kale right now.
Because everybody loves kale, I guess.
Actually, Billy does make a good kale salad with sauteed garbanzo beans.
That's pretty banging.
But what was my point about that?
Oh, okay.
So, like, for example, and this is the kind of thing that makes my family love me.
They don't do this, but I do.
I think...
I have a strong feeling about this.
And I know you're the sort of person, I believe, who's like, oh, whatever's in the fridge, I'll eat it.
I'll just put my two giant ape arms in there and shove it all in my mouth.
I think if you save food, you need to have a plan for the food.
If your plan is to have it again later that night, you don't even need to put it away, probably, unless you live in a hot climate.
What are you, Lawrence of Arabia?
But if you're going to save it, you need a plan.
Are you going to eat it for lunch tomorrow?
I don't know.
Okay, well, if you're going to eat it for lunch tomorrow, why don't you put it into a format that will be conducive to eating for lunch tomorrow?
As opposed to say, yes, act like you're making lunch for a person.
Instead of just having a bag of wet food of no particular provenance that then just gets thrown into that big middle part.
This is not my family.
You're a bag of wet food.
I'm a bag of wet laundry, and I'll own that.
You know what I write on there?
I write the day of the week.
Of the food?
Oh, yeah.
Wow.
Let's say you come on over to my house.
We have a spaghetti vampire party, and we have leftovers, or as you say, leftovers.
What do you do?
Well, you know what you do?
Before you put the stuff in the bag, you write M-O-N on the bag, and then you put the spaghetti in the bag.
Put the spaghetti in the bag.
Do you see the value of this?
Because there's value, and then there's double value, if you really think about it.
The first value is, well, let's just say what it is.
Let's just cut to the chase.
This is a public podcast, and you guys are already getting more than you deserve.
You pull that piece, you pull that shit out, and you got some fucking whatever in a bag that says Thurs.
Thurs.
Thurs.
But you don't know which thurs.
Exactly.
And do you know what the answer is if you don't know which thurs?
It's too many thurs ago.
Yes.
No, you don't put a date on there.
You put a day of the week.
Because how many times have you wanted leftovers from more than one Thursday ago?
And yet, if you fucking people try this for one week, you will, in the fullness of time, discover there are bags of wet food in your museum that are more than one thurs old.
This I can promise you.
And it will be a learning experience.
You won't learn anything from it, and I'll be the only one who learns anything from that.
Because I'm the one, and oh, by the way, I'm the one who has to go through and comb through the museum, return all the Nazi gold and everything.
You know what I'm saying?
Well, you know, a longtime listener of our show, Don Schaffner, who is a Rutgers food scientist, you know, I always...
I always refer to the comment he made to me when I asked him, how long can spaghetti sauce sit under your bed before it's not good anymore?
And just to be clear here, you're giving a fairly limited set of criteria for this.
You're not saying you're Lawrence of Arabia, but you're also not saying you're Chef Paschetti from Curious George.
You're saying just all the things being equal, you got spaghetti sauce under your bed.
The question is, like, is it right to keep it there, or how long is it safe?
What's your exact question to Dr. Don?
Well, this is kind of like a chrononology.
Yes.
A chrononology, which is spaghetti sauce under the bed is a chrononology for all foods that are not where they ostensibly belong.
Okay.
Like, I bought a piece of... That belongs in a museum.
Yeah.
I bought a slice of pizza at the truck or at the, at the nearby truck stop to where James Dean ran his Porsche into the, into the whatever.
There's no trees out there.
There's a gas station out there by where James Dean crashed.
That's like a James Dean.
themed gas station.
Yeah.
And maybe the last place he got gas, maybe it was something like that.
You know, that picture where they're, they're towing the wrecked Porsche.
I think it's like, it's there.
Anyway, I got a piece of pizza there and then I left it on the seat of the rental car.
Okay.
And then I drove to Carmel and I parked the rental car on the street and I, and I didn't remember the pizza for three days.
Can I ask what the ambient temperature was in Fahrenheit?
Oh, well, you know, it's not, it's not, uh, it's not Lawrence of Arabia there.
Yeah.
What do you, yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
50s or 60s, but it is sitting in the sun.
And I thought about his answer to my question of how long can this spaghetti sauce sit under the bed was, he said, every time you put anything in your mouth, anytime you eat any food, you're taking a risk.
Because any food, brand new food, I mean, I had a fish stew the other day in Pacific Grove, and I wasn't good for six hours from some fish stew.
Well, the clue's in the name.
It's the stew part.
It's like when Anthony Bourdain explains CDOs in the big short, remember?
And you have all these different kinds of fish, and some of the fish is not as good as the other fish, and you've got to use all the fish.
Sort of like the mad cow stuff.
It only takes a little bit of bad fish to make stew bad.
Yeah.
And also you shouldn't keep it on your seat unless you have a plan.
That's a Merlin Man original.
Keep it in a bag and it says sat.
My plan was to eat that slice of pizza somewhere in Paso Robles.
Oh, nice.
And I didn't do it because I was busy driving.
No life happens.
Yeah, stay on target.
Yeah, the roads are curvy there and I was like, let's stay on target.
Anyway, so Don Schaffner said, every time you eat something, it's a risk.
What you're asking is calculated risk.
How, what are the, as the risk factor goes up, your choice gets easier and easier, right?
If you don't remember which thurs it is, it's too many thurs ago.
Or, like, can I just say, like, because I actually talked to my shrink about this on Friday, too.
In your case, yeah, but, like, it depends on how you ask the question.
Because if the question was, if I James Dean'd off the side of a canyon and I'm at the bottom and I only have one piece of food until I get discovered, that changes the risk to reward calculation, right?
You're going to risk the bad pizza in order to not die of... Which is really different from, like, I've got a brand new yummy slice of fresh pizza versus seat pizza.
Yeah, I'm sitting here basically across the street from a seafood stew restaurant, and I got a piece of three-day-old pizza.
Don't trust that guy.
I met Seafood Stew.
I went to college with him.
Don't trust him.
Are you talking about Stewart?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Did you know him?
Fucking Seafood Stew?
Sure.
I don't trust that guy at all.
Yeah, he was the drummer in Alien Crime Syndicate.
I remember that.
He was the guy who played with that Fish Heads, Fish Heads, Roly Poly.
I'm writing down Seafood 2.
Okay, thank you.
So anyway, so Don's words echo in my head.
It's true.
It's true.
It comes across sometimes as a little bit of a turns out thing, but he's really smart about, I think, that calculation.
Because his job, at least last time I was spending time with him, was he was an adjunct professor who could be hired out for industries and help me understand how to keep my place safe.
He's not just in the trenches showing people how to pull a blizzard at Dairy Queen.
It's more like at a higher level, he's talking about practices.
And at the time, I was just, when I first was hanging with him, I was first into sous vide.
And, you know, I think we talked about sous vide for an hour when I was on the show with him and Professor Ben.
Yeah, Jason Finn spent three years throwing bags of meat at me, and I was like, I'm not, and I still have never had one.
He's like, I'm going to make you a sous vide.
I don't know.
But, you know, I mean, it is, in some ways, it's counterintuitive is probably the wrong word.
But to me, yeah, counterintuitive.
It's a little bit counterintuitive sometimes, the way that we weigh risks.
And we need to look no further than the millions of podcasts.
Turns out podcasts that say stuff like, you know, you're more likely to die in your bathtub than on an airplane, a commercial airplane, and stuff like that.
It's just that our ideas about what poses a risk changes with all kinds of things, including if I believe, I'm not a...
scientist but um familiarity like when people say shit like oh you know most accidents happen within five miles of your house well it's like well yeah because that's where you are that's where you are that's right it's an availability heuristic thank you i don't know now here's a life hack here's a life yeah yeah you anything that's in the refrigerator that's within two thirds yeah if you put it in a skillet
And I'm talking about any kind of food, Mexican food, Thai food, Chinese food, American food.
It was an ad hoc goulash.
Ad hoc goulash.
You put it in a skillet and you crack two eggs on it.
Oh, I did that.
I did that two nights ago.
Because, you know, I make a thing called, well, I can only say it one way, unfortunately.
And forgive me, this is racist.
Dirty rice.
I make a dirty rice.
I make it a dirty rice.
I make it dirty rice.
I make it a dirty rice.
And I make my own little kind of busted ass way where I do a pound and a half of ground beef, long grain and wild rice.
I'll usually saute some mushrooms before.
And then I'll add all kinds of things my family doesn't like, like secret salt.
so i'll put some accent in there because they claim not to like it liars secret salt is something you got from a steak restaurant secret salt is msg yeah it's msg which makes food scientifically taste better and people who claim it causes them problems are confused a lot of the time that's fine
Anyway, I do that.
I do that.
And then, you know what I did?
You know what I did?
I had leftovers.
You know what I did?
You know what I did?
I had two eggs on it.
In a minute, first, I put it in a bag because I had leftover ales.
And my leftovers said fry on it.
Fry.
And then when I reheated it, you know what I did?
I very, very lightly, sunny-sided up, did two eggs, put it on top, ate it up, yum.
Oh, it's the best.
It's so good on Doity Rice.
Eggs go with anything.
Eggs are part of pretty much every culture, right?
I mean, the Vietnamese don't eat a ton of eggs.
The Viennese?
Well, no, the Viennese eat the shit out of eggs.
But when I think about Vietnamese food, I don't think of them putting an egg in anything.
But maybe I'm wrong.
So as far as the Asian foods, and Asia's a pretty big continent as continents go.
They get eggs in like ramen.
Sometimes we've got a place here that's called Makafukuruku, Mufumu.
There's a really good ramen place here, something like that, where they put an egg in that.
If you like it, you should have put an egg on it.
With these prices?
In this economy?
I mean, a lot of Chinese food has eggs in it.
That's how they fry the rice.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's right.
That's right.
Wow.
Touches on so much, John.
So fresh.
Does Thai food have eggs?
Thai food has eggs, yes.
I've had eggs.
I think there's eggs in... What's the noodle dish?
What's the noodle dish called?
Yeah, Podsen Lucas.
Okay, Podsen Lucas das Robles.
But what I do is put Thai food in a skillet and put two eggs on it and it's like... Try and stop him.
It's like Ellis Island for your mouth.
Ellis Island for your mouth.
Put it all in there.
I think chickens are from Vietnam.
Vito Corleone from Andolini.
Six weeks.
Quarantine.
His little legs are swinging.
We have fun, don't we?
Yeah, it's fun.
It is fun.
These are fun times.
Well, we're getting near the end.
I can feel it already.
So is there anything we want to like?
We've touched on a lot of things.
You had your visit?
overseas and in-seas here.
Let's see what else.
I saw Wayne Newton.
You saw Wayne Newton.
Yeah, I'm going to try and stop yelling at myself and tell myself to stay on target.
Yeah, but you also, you know, you got to give yourself a break.
But that doesn't come naturally for you, if I could say.
You're not a big...
giver of breaks to self it's true it's true you know lately i i'm missing my tooth again have been for several months because i don't have a boss and i who i'm not responsible to anybody and and nobody thinks i'm cute anymore yeah but i keep forgetting that i don't have a tooth and when you interact with other people like yes in paris or on a bus at the airport or
Or in Carmel or whatever.
And you don't remember that you're missing a tooth.
You know, it always conveys just a little extra.
It's like, oh, here's a guy.
Because, like, you don't have a tooth.
And you know you don't have a tooth.
And yet you keep walking around acting like that's normal.
It says something.
It's not like you go, oh gosh, I'm sorry, I feel really bad.
I bit an apple so I don't have a tooth this morning.
It's like, hey, this guy's just walking around without a tooth.
It seems to say something about you.
Yeah, especially when you're also wearing cufflinks.
It's like, I don't know where to put this guy.
How old is your hair right now, John?
Oh, I'm letting it go.
I'm letting it go.
Can I get more specificity?
Like, what length are we talking about?
Well, the thing is, the last time I cut it over your ears, you know, every time you roll the dice on cutting your own hair and it's like, oh, I fucked it up and now I got to let it grow out or, oh, that was a good one.
And the last time I just kind of got it, I nailed it.
And now as it grows out, it's over the ears now.
Okay.
And I don't want to mess with it because every day I look at it and I'm like, well, it still is.
It's like picking in a cold sore.
You just got to leave it alone.
Just leave it alone.
So I say, so that's one of my phrases, leave it, leave it.
Yeah.
And so I look in the mirror and I go, leave it.
And then I say, oh, but what if I, no, leave it.
I feel like this is, I'm not trying to do a bit here, but I feel like this is a pretty, this has been around for a while where you would talk about going into the bathroom, maybe like a guest bathroom or something, but talk about you going to the bathroom and you look in the mirror and you think the three in the morning haircut is what we're talking about, right?
Where you would go like, if I just, if I just,
Just this one, right?
Isn't that how it goes?
Right now, I have a sideburn on the right side that I'm very upset about.
It's way the wrong length.
I've been cutting my own hair with the cat clippers for years now, mostly.
Good man.
Yeah, my main design is I'm trying to come up with a system that I could explain to somebody.
And what I'm trying to work toward, is there a system that I could call something like 432 or 321?
Well, like imagine doing, like right now, the closest I've got right now is two and a half on the sides.
Yeah.
Um, like three in the kind of like getting up near the top part.
Oh, you're talking about the size of the clipper dingus.
Where I'm trying to get it to where like you could put a blindfold on me and well, you'd have to remove it for me to cut the back.
But you know what I'm saying?
I'm trying to get to where I have an idiot proof haircut that I can live with.
But the thing is, you've got to do the haircut and then wait four weeks to see how weird you look.
Like this last one was not a great success because I think I cut the top a little too short.
The sides are left a little too long.
And now I got this going on over here with this sideburn that I can almost wrap my finger around and I hate it.
But I haven't cut it yet.
Now, are you wearing sideburns again?
Because that's very exciting.
Not like the Argentinian guy.
It's like 2025.
Are you bringing sideburns?
You know, the kids are wearing these big fat legged pants.
Yes, they are.
They are.
They are.
I mean, I'm no Jack Cassidy, mind you.
Right.
No.
Yeah.
The burns.
Well, I mean, you know, it's just that when you cut your hair, then it grows in.
And then I shave like, you know, every once in a while.
But anyway, it's a whole thing.
I took you off your topic.
Oh, no, I don't even.
What was I talking about?
do you feel like dr dawn's observations about seat pizza etc do they have other implications to that kind of thought technology to other parts of life more or less than with food what are what are the risks i mean i think for me like lifting up heavy things like a log you know you got to go out in a minute when you're done here you got to go out and start figuring out how you're going to deal with this tree on your uh on your what are they called organ grapes
And there's a little bit of one of these risk-reward factors where it's like, ah, it's a risk for a guy my age to pick up a log.
But the reward of moving a log is so... That should be an easy one, Sean.
But then the shitty feeling of having your back be out for two and a half weeks.
Sorry, fella.
I'm up here in the peanut gallery.
I got to say, that's an easy one.
You need to not be doing that.
Yeah.
Because then who's going to pick you up?
Who's going to pick you up?
Yeah, who watches the Watchmen?
Who picks up John?
You'll need a crane.
I was taking my laundry down the basement stairs last night.
He's so undignified.
Picking you up like Topsy the Elephant.
Halfway down the stairs with my basket of laundry, I thought, what if my socks slip on the stairs?
Try doing it in Birkenstocks.
Yeah, and I go headfirst down the basement stairs, and let's say I break my neck at the bottom of the stairs.
Yeah.
I live by myself.
Nobody knows I'm here.
Nope.
I'm going to sit here for two days, you know, surrounded by dirty clothes.
There's an actor who I've always enjoyed who passed away recently, he and his wife and his dog, and it was believed that—the last I heard was that his body, they may have been sitting there for, I think, two weeks.
Yeah, yeah.
Is there a chance that you—right.
Right.
Well, and the thing is, there were a couple of other dogs in the house that were still alive.
What were those dogs doing?
If it was a cat, they wouldn't eat your face.
I don't understand how it's not carbon monoxide.
It just doesn't make sense that it's anything else.
It's just too weird.
But still, except for what?
The other dogs.
You think the other dogs did it?
The thing is, the Russians now are everywhere.
It could have been the Russians.
Oh, don't they usually do, what's it called, Polonikoff?
No, what's the stuff, Poloskova?
What's the stuff they poison you with?
What's that called?
Yeah, they stick you with the... Polina Poloskova, what's that called?
The one who's married to, what's his name, Rick James, the guy from Cars.
Yeah, the guy from the Cars.
Yeah, yeah, what's that called?
They hit you with an umbrella, and it's got radon in it, or radiosity in it.
I made a fun joke a couple weeks ago, not about you or against you, but that I involved you.
I was watching, what was I watching?
Oh, I was watching Munich.
Is that the one with Eric Bana?
Yeah.
Yeah, Eric Bana.
Yeah, and the Mance Rayder guy is in it.
And I was like, I said on the internet, I said, I have this extraordinary ability to watch a movie and instantly know who John Roderick should play.
Yeah.
You're so Mance Rayder in that.
He's got a Homburg.
He's got it all.
He's your guy.
He's your David Niven in that movie.
Yes.
Yes.
That would be fun.
And I still, sometimes when I'm cutting my hair at three in the morning, I go, how have I not been cast in a movie as some kind of... Well, do you wonder if it's the hair in particular, John?
No, I'm thinking the hair is an advantage.
You know, Jeff Bridges isn't going to live forever.
I guess that's fair.
I know.
I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right.
And then somebody's going to need to play Bruce Cockburn.
You know, there's going to be an empty space.
Is that a Canadian singer-songwriter?
Bruce Cockburn.
Oh, Bruce Cockburn.
I know what you're talking about from the one with the girl from Pitch Perfect.
I know what you're talking about.
Who else is in that?
Who else is in that?
There's another actor I like in that.
You know, the guy from The Martian is in that, too.
The guy from The Martian.
And Haley Steinfeld and the guy from Matt Groening.
You know who I mean, the guy from Good Will Hunting.
He's in that.
Matt Groening.
Matt Groening.
It rhymes with reigning.
And then you've got, that was also from Portland, right?
That movie with Haley Steinfeld.
That's the one.
And it was a remake of the one with John Wayne.
And you know my friend John Patton.
His full name is John Wayne Patton.
Isn't that fun?
I have an ancestor whose name was Benjamin Franklin Pierce.
Really?
I can do this.
I can do this.
I can do this.
What's it called?
Cobbler's Cove?
Cove's Hollow?
Where's he from?
I know this.
Cobbler's Cove.
What's it called?
Mink Hollow.
No, what's it called?
What's the name of the place?
Mink Mink Hollow.
No, what's the name of the place?
Benjamin Franklin Pierce.
MD, where's he from?
It's called... Now, BJ... I'm sorry, I shouldn't say that.
I don't think we say that anymore.
BJ Honeycutt.
BJ Honeycutt.
That sounds like a cotton of ham you'd bring to your lighthouse.
Have you tried the new BJ Honeycutt ham?
I don't know.
I ate it all.
I ate it all in the first date night.
That's where my lighthouse is.
You ever have a BJ Honeycutt?
Because he's from Sausalito.
Also bring lots of Sausalito with you.
It goes great with BJ Honeycutt.
It tastes great on beans and toast.
It's better than a sharp stick in the eye, I always say.
Can we stop now?
Yes, please.
Good luck with the tree out there.
Thank you.
You're 100% right that I should not lift the laws.
I'm not prescribing.