Ep. 601: "The Milk Problem"
Check, check.
Choo, choo, choo, choo.
Hi, John.
How are you?
I'm good, Michael.
How are you?
You know, can I be honest with you?
Yeah, please do.
Oh, my God.
I'm a little bit chastened.
Oh, no.
John, you've got to be grateful to be humbled sometimes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've been having trouble.
It doesn't matter.
It's fine.
It's fine.
No, no.
It's fine.
It's fine.
It's fine.
It's fine.
It's fine.
Okay.
Listen.
Listen.
It's Monday.
Hi.
Monday.
Every Monday, I...
Every Monday, boy, these headphones are weird.
Every Monday, I do at the very least a light cleaning of my desk.
I clean everything with, not everything, I'm not weird, but I clean all the gross stuff with 91% isopropyl alcohol.
Same stuff you use for a stress pump, Lance.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
So, so it's not a cleaner.
You're just sterilizing it with alcohol.
Well, like the desk that I stole from my college, I clean that.
I clean, I clean my, uh, my, my little track pad and I clean my, um, keyboard and stuff like that.
Anyways.
Cause what you're getting rid of there is what?
Skin flakes, sweat.
Certainly skin flakes.
Definitely.
There's no bacteria.
Of course.
Well, you mean like evidentiary, like exculpatory.
But I mean, you're not afraid of the germs.
Oh.
A, I don't think I am.
And B, if I were, I'm not sure this would be.
But anyway, I did all you need.
You know what?
Nobody cares.
We're starting the show over.
No, no, I like this so far.
Really?
You do?
Top 10 show?
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay.
So you clean it once.
Sounds so weird.
How often?
I'm using different headphones and it's really throwing me.
Okay, so at least I do.
Oh, this sounds terrible.
I got no high mids.
What happened to your headphones?
I've lost the range of the human voice, John.
I'm like Pete Townsend.
I can't hear people or women.
So what are you going to do about that?
You got to turn it up.
Okay.
You got to at least hear people.
Is that Freedom Rock?
Is that Freedom Rock?
What'd you call me?
Turn it up.
You think you're better than me?
You think you're better than me?
You...
You come over here.
Anyways, I did a big clean.
I've been moving some stuff around.
And I did a big clean.
So I'm doing a full clean on my desk.
So that's bigger.
That's more than just 90% isopropyl alcohol on your keyboard.
If you want to commit to this, I would be totally into this.
And we'll keep it under 25 minutes.
100% down to hear your cleaning regimen.
Okay.
So before, and as you know, sometimes, you know, we run late for one reason or another, but I try to be here on time.
I try to get it done.
And what I do is I clean off, I clean off my keyboard.
Here's what I do.
I'm going to turn off the switch.
I take my keyboard and there's my keyboard right here.
And I do this.
And, and, and.
And you bang it upside down while it's turned off, and that gets out some of the kipple.
Oh, you turn it upside down and bang it.
You can also do compressed air things, and I clean off my trackpad.
No, wait, you can also do compressed air, but do you also do compressed air?
Do I do?
No.
I sound like a Sylvia Plath poem.
You do not do, you do not do, brown shoe, in which I live like a can of compressed air.
I have actually a thing that I bought based on a YouTube thing I saw, which is instead of buying those cans that are hurting the universe like a cuck, I bought this thing and you charge it with USB-C and it's got like 30,000 RPMs of wind that you blow at things.
And so you never need to buy another can of that shit.
And that only improves the universe.
I like to think so.
It certainly gets some of the microbes off my evidentiary hearing.
Well, sure.
And USB contributes to it takes greenhouse gases.
It takes a village and USB A and B are both.
Yeah.
What about a USB C?
Because I have to do everything now with an adapter.
Yeah.
Are you fully committed to the USBC lifestyle?
Almost?
No, because there are still things that don't use it.
And so I have to get adapters.
They say the chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
And that's whatever still needs lightning.
That's right.
That's right.
And now I've got it.
I've got things daisy chained all over the house.
It looks like a freaking Christmas tree.
Sorry.
I also took off my desk pad.
I have a desk pad.
So you remember how you used to write Big Man on Campus on your blotter?
I do very well, yes.
Okay, I have a thing that's some kind of, I don't know, plastic-y, roll-y thing that you put, and it gives you a nice little slightly padded thing to have on your desk.
I took that off.
Anyways, I'm doing all this cleaning.
It's not like a calendar.
It's not like a month-long calendar blotter.
It's calendar in the sense that just the solid color yellow would be a calendar.
Okay.
Or you can flip it over the next year and it can be solid color blue.
Every day is yellow or blue.
Yeah, it's like that Coldplay song you like.
Well, so let me ask you this, and this might be too personal.
We might need to summarize.
We've covered a lot at this point, and we still haven't gotten to my audio chain.
In the areas of your expertise, but in the areas of your yellow desk pad.
Do you want a photo of my desk, John?
Do you secretly want a photo of my desk?
I kind of do.
Okay.
Do the areas where you touch it more, do they have visible wear?
No, the thing is, I stole this desk from the cafeteria at my college in about 1988.
The New College of Florida.
From New College in about 1988, and I've been using it since.
I took it to my dorm room.
I think it was my dorm room, maybe off campus.
It's where I've done everything I've ever done.
I sat at this with you.
I've sat at that desk.
And Sean, I sat at this with Charles to make their website.
Like, this is the desk.
And let me see if I can get a photo that doesn't have... Does this have any porn or anything in it?
I don't think so.
And the thing is, I'm probably not comfortable sharing this with the public, but we'll see.
Yeah, well, I mean, this could be the show art, but maybe not.
You're not under any obligation.
People on the internet are so goddamn weird.
Do you think people would look at your desk and then they would have things to say about it?
Almost certainly.
I'm going to take something I learned.
I learned this a long time ago and it only became truly important and significant in the last few years.
Whatever you take a photo of, nobody looks at that thing.
They look at everything in that photo except the thing.
And to quote, I don't know if it was the Buddha or one of his acolytes, I'm trying to show you the moon and you just keep asking questions about my finger.
Right?
I just want you to look at the moon.
Go look at the moon.
You're like, wow, where'd you get that finger?
I would have done that differently.
That's the internet.
But I'll send this.
Let's see here.
I think this is probably okay.
Now listen, and I'm not saying this is like nice.
I'm not saying this is clean.
This is what I got to at the point when my audio chain was falling apart.
So that's my desk I just sent you.
So anyways, I'm getting it all cleaned up.
I'm getting it all nice.
I got some new, I've been rotating in and out some new toys from my area.
I've cleaned up my Q-tips.
I've located, because you know, you ever need to reset things and you can't find a paperclip?
Oh, I never do that.
Okay.
Well, I've officially got an official paperclip area now.
Okay.
Now I'm looking at the desk.
Okay.
It's very, it's, it's, I have to say it's.
Does it look stolen?
Does it look stolen?
The desk looks a little stolen.
It definitely looks like the sort of walnut veneer covered with a layer of protective coating.
Yeah.
The thing is you would expect somebody to overdose on.
You know what I mean, right?
I don't want to be insensitive, but I'm saying people do overdose in college, and you need a table that can sustain that.
That's right.
That's right.
I'm surprised to see that you're using an RE20.
An RE... Oh, the microphone?
Oh, because you were expecting an SM7B?
I was.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
I like that you're using that.
I used that on the first long winner's record.
This is a little difficult to see.
I'm also going to send you...
Okay, this is the bottom.
What I see here is I see a fizzy water.
I see the neighboring can of fizzy water.
And then is that an iced coffee?
Yeah, it's an iced coffee.
And you've got no, you don't have any coasters.
This is all cleaned off.
It's all cleaned off.
Well, you see, I'm using these blue disposable shop towels.
The blue shop towels as coasters.
Very interesting.
Are those the self-same blue shop towels that you use to clean the desk?
Today it is.
Sometimes I use a microfiber cloth.
In this case, I just like these.
They're kind of like what you'd expect.
I'm going to look at this later and see if it's terrible.
I can probably post this.
These are the kinds of things you'd see like if your dad's a fake mechanic guy.
You get rolls of these or boxes of these and they're sturdy and reusable.
And in that case, yeah.
So, okay, let me let you run this.
John, I'm going to put this, I'll put this into show notes, but it's not that interesting.
And if anybody says anything mean about it,
I'm going to be very frustrated.
All right, what's going on here with this other photo here?
Okay, so you can see.
Okay, oh, you want to do the other photo?
The other photo is just for your benefit.
You can slightly make out the spray-painted letters HCT.
I can.
That stands for, yes, exactly, with the brother's property.
You know, one of the brother's properties is now married to Zoo Deschanel.
Oh, I do know that.
I learned that from SNL this weekend.
And HCT stands for Hamilton Center, which is the building from which I stole it.
Oh, this is under the desk.
Yes.
Oh, Hamilton Center.
Hamilton Center, yeah.
There's a lot going on in that place.
Anyway, back to the picture.
I would be happy to answer more questions about my desk area, and eventually we'll get to my signal chain.
What is this green thing in the middle?
That's a very good question.
This is a 3D printed object that is gorilla taped to the desk, and what you see in there is called a MagSafe charger.
So I can put my phone on there, either tall or wide.
And then it gets to be like a little periscope.
Like a little periscope.
But it's also charging.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I'm thinking about maybe getting rid of the grill tape part because it's a little bit of a gating factor with how I can push things up.
But yeah, that's what that is.
Well, now here's another thing that I know that you may be reluctant to talk about, but I did not know that you could 3D print a thing that also had electricity.
Wow.
Oh, of course.
No, no, no, that's perfect.
Okay, so do you ever use MagSafe or key charging, it's called?
Do you ever use that, like a contact charger to charge your phone, or do you always plug it in?
Well, so the other day, I bought one of those, what are they called?
It's not a boom.
It's not a selfie stick.
It's a gimbal.
I bought a gimbal.
Yeah.
Like a DJI?
Yeah.
I don't know.
Maybe.
One of the things, you hold it like a pistol, and it keeps your thing steady, and you shoot it like a gun to take photos and videos, and it keeps it from wobbling around.
Exactly like that.
It's got a gyroscope type situation.
Like it's got a gyroscope on it, right.
And it has one of these mag safes.
And I've been struggling to learn how to do all the moves because it's got moves.
Like, oh, you want to flip it around?
Oh, you want to do it like this?
You want to do it like that?
But they're all like... It's all like a video game cheat code.
And so I don't yet... I haven't read the manual.
It's tricky to... It takes a while.
My wife...
Well, I love her so much.
But she comes and yells at me because her phone didn't charge.
And I say, well, did you plug it in?
She goes, no, I put it on the thing.
I'm like, well, did you make sure that the little lightning bolt came on when you put it on the thing?
Because she used to, time was, she had the one that didn't have a magnet on it where it can just float around.
Now, if you look, so look, look, look at my screen below my screen, behind my coffee.
Do you see like a silver box and then a black circle?
I do.
That black circle is one of those chargers that doesn't have magnets.
So it's easy to not know if it's seated right.
And if it hasn't gone dong, you don't know that it's on there.
Okay.
So here's some other questions.
Are you taking videos?
Are you taking videos with your gimbal?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm trying to.
Yeah.
It's fun.
I've had a couple of those and I loved it.
Yeah.
It's really fun.
Because it's basically the technology of a Steadicam.
It's a technology of a Steadicam.
Precisely.
Precisely.
So behind the iced coffee, there is a little screen that looks like a smart home device.
You see little buttons on a thing.
Little buttons on a screen.
Is that a smart home device?
Yeah, kind of.
It's called a Stream Deck made by a company called Internet of Things.
Kind of.
It's very popular with people who stream or do YouTube videos.
And each of those is a button that you can assign a task to to do things.
And I mostly use it to turn lights on and off because I don't stream.
I stream a couple three times a night, but it's nothing I want to put on Twitch, whatever that is.
Oh, you don't stream out.
You stream in?
Well, like the buttons you can see, like the top right is turn off all my overhead lights I got on.
You can see switch the audio between this and that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's real popular with YouTubers because you can like imagine like being able to like launch automations that do stuff.
So you can say, thank you for tipping my stream or, you know, lol, lol by hitting a button.
But you don't just to clarify, you're not actually doing any live streams like on OnlyFans or something.
What would it take?
What crazy thing in the world would it take for you to do video content?
Oh, I thought you were going to say to do OnlyFans specifically.
Well, no, but what would it take for you to do on-demand?
The answer to all of them might be the same.
And I think it, in different ways, is equally depressing, no matter how you apply it.
I would like to know that people I admire watch it and like it.
That would be all it took.
I mean, with OnlyFans, I'd probably pay them.
I mean... Hey, it's something I would have... Hey, guys.
Hey, Scott.
Hey, Lonely Sandwich, you're here.
Oh, okay.
It looks like I can hit the stream deck whenever my friends leave.
Fuck you.
Bye.
You have received Fuck You from Merlin.
And now, on the... So...
So on the left of the green magnet, there's a thing that might be a hard disk drive or it might be a... Well, you got a good eye, John.
That is the USB Pre 2 by sound devices through which all sound passes.
And that is the crux of what we will eventually get to as my signal chain problem today.
but and and your your headphone jack is actually going over your bell i see well well yeah yeah understanding this now listen is you uh well this book's called not you choose the adventure like you solved you solved the mystery here okay i took this photo and i will i will stipulate i took this photo while i was talking to you on a podcast in which case what is weird or interesting about the lower left of this image
Well, it's Baby Yoda.
Well, yeah.
Grogu.
But then there's another set of headphones.
Why would I need two headphones?
Well.
Oh, wait a minute.
There's another set of headphones.
No spoilers.
No spoilers.
Right.
But are you demoing different headphones, or is there a friend in the studio?
I don't want to spoil the ending, but I've had a signal chain problem, and I think it had to do with my headphones, and I think it's going to teach me something about life.
Oh, okay.
Because really, if you think the problem is other people's signal and you don't know it's your headphones.
Oh, that's deep.
Yeah.
Hey, hey.
And now that we've covered that, we can just shuck and jive about my desk.
I have a problem with your signal.
Oh, wait, it's my headphones.
Uh-huh.
What if it turns out that all that everybody else's bullshit you're mad about is really your bullshit?
But because your headphones are broken, you can't detect it.
That's every time.
A drunk person is in no position to decide if they should drive.
A person who's had two drinks is the greatest person in the world to decide if they should drive because I can just tell you a person who's had two drinks more than almost anybody in the entire world will say I probably shouldn't drive somebody who's had 90 drinks thinks they're the best driver in the world and and and more is the pity yeah yeah well you know as I've always said a person with with deep depression is the last person you should ask about whether or not they should seek help for deep depression be careful
Be careful what kind of advice you seek from which persons.
Uh-huh.
Consider the source.
Uh-huh.
Do you find?
Uh-huh.
I think that's true, and that's also why you shouldn't go to a therapist, because they're all fucking crazy.
They're all psych majors.
If you ask somebody whether or not they want to go on a trip overseas at Christmastime, you should not ask your 14-year-old daughter.
Uh-huh.
You should ask someone who has a say in the matter.
Oh, should we put a pin in that or should we pursue that?
Actually, mine's just about done.
We're at, oh, we still got six minutes.
So basically- There's a ton left on your desk here that I need to know about.
I just, I realized I do have signal chain problems and I am terrified.
This thing is called a USB Pre 2.
You can look it up.
And it's got dip switches.
And this thing, I'm so scared of this thing because I don't really understand how it works.
And I know that making any change has an impact.
D2.
USB D2.
Pre.
Oh, pre-2.
USB pre, one word.
Number two.
USB pre-2.
Sound devices.
Yeah.
Oh, there it is.
Look at that.
Oh, sound devices.
Oh, you can get them at B&H so you know they're good.
You know they're good.
They have so many dip switches.
See, I wanted to look at it more closely, but now fullcompass.com has to verify that I'm a human, which is going to take a couple of seconds.
Sure.
You got to slide the tiles.
You got to put the crosswalk onto the motorcycle.
Carry the three.
These days it just, I don't know, something else happens.
It detects how your mouse is moving a lot of the time.
Oh, this thing's got a lot of inputs and outputs, Merle.
Oh, yeah.
So right now all I've got is I've got an XLR.
To it, I've got a USB-B, or sorry, USB, yeah, USB-B to the Mac, and I got the headphones.
That's it.
Well, now let me ask you just a simple question.
This is an audio guy question, or an audio dude question.
If I could get an erection, I'd have one right now.
But most ding-a-lings, and I'm not saying you're a ding-a-ling, I'm saying the opposite.
Yes.
But most ding-a-lings use these little Focusrite $200 or like two XLRs in with a big silver knob.
I have a Focusrite.
I worry about the Catholic experience of the Focusrite.
Yeah.
Because as much as I fear the Protestant experience of the USB Pre-2,
when we start getting into the software components and things and we're functionalities on the computer it freaks me out i'd like things to be in my hardware like my god so this has no app is that what you're telling me no app it's all in the it's all in the sound devices well i mean
It's a piece of audio gear, you're saying.
This is like an old-fashioned piece of audio gear.
Yes.
This is what I've used.
When I moved from... Hey, everybody.
When I moved from using a Rode Podcaster USB mic to this stuff, I eventually bit the bullet, whatever it was, 20 years ago and bought this for over $500.
I think it's actually a lot more than that.
It's a lot more.
It's $1,200 now.
But it amortizes.
I just feel bad talking about money.
Your $500 investment's probably doubled.
You should have bought all USB Pre-2s back then.
Yeah.
And now you'd be a rich man.
Yep.
And Beanie Babies.
And this then presents to your Mac a signal that says, hello, USB Pre-2 in, USB Pre-2 out, and Bob's your uncle.
Now, I've got a Scarlet Focusrite, and I am very tempted to use it sometimes, but every time I hook it up, I feel like I'm a goddamn Catholic.
Mm-hmm.
You know, there's a lot of business with it, and it's got things, and it's got modalities.
I don't love modalities.
You know what I'm talking about, where you've got to be in this mode or that mode?
You know, you can deal with this, or you can deal with that, that kind of thing.
I know.
You can deal with this, or you can deal with that.
Oh, you can deal with that.
Yeah.
Mr. Dobblina, Mr. Bob Dobblina.
But what I want to know is, I think what our listeners want to know is, does this sound device USB Pre 2 that you bought 11D 12 years ago, it does not have USB-C?
No, this is pre-USB-C.
It has USB-B, which is that one you're... If you've got an audio device that's over 10 or 15 years old, there's a pretty good chance it'll have that weird square USB.
You have a square one.
Yeah.
That's my problem.
So I have a thing downstairs that has the square USB.
And because John Circusa keeps telling me to buy new computers when I ask him every six years, and I'm like, hey, John Circusa, should I buy a new computer?
And he goes, you should.
The last time he said that, I got one with USB-C, and it's all it has.
It has two USB-Cs.
It is a funny, ironic something.
Long story short, I used to have what was at the time a pretty powerful Mac Pro, like those big cheese grater boxes.
But it didn't have... It had...
old Thunderbolt, but it didn't have anything recent.
And it drove me crazy because I couldn't do, really, the move to USB-C had been happening for years.
And then finally, I bought a computer that had USB-C so that I could benefit from all those things.
And the truth is, the thing that I use for what's arguably primarily my job is still on USB-B.
So bad on me.
I want to commit to something, but I also just, you know what it is they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
And when it comes to this stuff,
I honestly, I'm so not that concerned with a lot of the stuff other people are concerned about with all the audio quality stuff.
I just want to make sure that I can avoid things like this morning where I'm about to talk to my friend in two minutes and my signal chain is fucked up.
And so what was happening, you know, I love signal chain issues that are happening to someone else.
Okay.
Well, this is where it all comes together.
I don't like my own, but you tell me what happened.
Well, I think this is where the story really all comes together.
And hey, everybody.
Here's where the story ends.
Wait, I know this.
Sundays.
Yes.
Reading, writing, arithmetic.
Here's where the story ends.
You ever get back into shoegaze again?
You ever go back?
Or dream pop?
You ever go back a little bit?
Not a lot.
I love it.
Besides MVV.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was listening to some of those other ones.
I listen to Lush.
I like Lush.
I like Chapter House.
I think people are hard on Chapter House.
And I think people are hard on Slow Dive.
I'm just going to say that.
I really like Slow Dive.
I like Slow Dive, too.
And I think Lush, they had a very interesting pivot in their career.
So here's where it all comes together.
Here's where the story ends.
Boy, that girl's pretty, isn't she?
You know what I'm talking about?
It's a little souvenir of a terrible year.
It's a little souvenir.
Sue, I'm cleaning.
I'm moving stuff off.
I'm moving things around.
I'm getting ready to talk to my friend John.
I say, listen, stop.
Leave it.
Put the stuff down.
And you can see over here, you can't really see, but I've got some of my kids' old toys that I like to rotate in and out.
But anyway, I'm ready to go.
I got a little, yeah, a little Sylvainian family, little critters.
I got a bear.
I got a Grogu.
Oh, I have a, oh, I got a shipping container from the island of Sodor.
Okay, yeah.
Causing confusion and delay.
And you've got like an orange ball that's probably a speaker of some kind?
Yeah, that's called a HomePod Mini.
I have two of those on my desk for stereo purposes.
Oh, sure.
So...
I'm getting ready to talk to my friend John, and I'm thinking, you know how it sneaks up on you?
You wouldn't know this.
But sometimes it sneaks up on you, and you're like, I thought I had more time.
At 10.52, I was like, I should get out of bed.
And so I'm getting ready, and I do my thing, and I turn it on, and I go like this.
I go, which is what I say to the mic.
Or I go, or I go, or obviously, but usually, I make a chicha sound.
And I'm seeing the little lights move, but I'm not hearing anything.
And then there's no crackling.
I want to be clear about this.
There's no crackling.
If there were crackling, I would have dealt with this differently and gotten to the solution faster.
But I didn't hear any crackling.
How many things could it be?
Well, here's the thing.
I have a table from a college that I went to.
I'm smart.
So I says to myself, I says, huh, this problem you've had that now is seemingly being very bad this morning.
What other things have changed this morning?
I says to myself, well, you cleaned your desk and you move stuff around.
Maybe, you know, it's like Cindy Brady says about Greg's car.
The rest is all that's holding it together.
Maybe something I did.
change this you think you jiggled something i thought i jiggled something and you know what i was so racist i thought it's got to be the usbb i always assume it's going to be the usbb and it might it doesn't seat in there very also look at you can't see this but like you know how things get when they're in a place long enough the wires get the cables get sort of like you know stretched or pulled or like the pins could be maladjusted like me or whatever anyway i got to get this over with
you know what it turned out this is so I'm seeing the lights jumping I'm finally like first principles Clarice why would I see the lights jumping and not hearing anything and then I had a moment of self it seems that way and I could see it in my dingus on the screen that everything seems fine and then I start noodling I start noodling with my headphone cable and I unplug and I plug it back in
And it's still not being right.
And then I unplug it from the Fat Dongus and just do Skinny Dongus straight in.
You're going to take off the Adapter and go straight in?
You have Skinny Dongus in?
Is there a best practice for that?
Probably avoid using a Dongus if you don't need it.
Yeah, I think if it's Skinny Dongus in, then put Skinny Dongus in.
Skinny Dongus in, Skinny Dongus out.
I have to use Fat Dongus because my Sonos Focusrite only has Fat Dongus.
Sonos Focusrite, the new Collabo.
Or as we say, quarter inch or eighth inch.
That's what we say in the professional business.
Oh, quarter mile, quarter mile.
You're going to go for pink slips.
That's right.
You're going to play for pinks.
Is that sexist?
I don't think.
I don't know.
You're asking the wrong guy.
Yeah.
And then Pinky Tuscadero comes out there with a scarf.
Remember the Malachi Brothers?
Of course.
How do you not remember the Malachi Brothers?
Love those guys.
And then I would see them.
You know, I have a picture of her around here somewhere.
Oh, you're talking about Leather Tuscadero?
Leather Tuscadero made an impact on me.
I got to tell you.
Oh, for sure.
I instantly realized that she was coded in a way that I didn't understand, that seemed coded in a similar way that I didn't understand with Jodie Foster.
But I really like the way she carried herself.
And I still remember the song.
Because it wasn't one of her hits.
But remember, on the Happy Days song, it was like...
It was like a very Gary Glitter kind of song.
Yeah, because it was glam.
It was glam times.
It was glammy.
Glam times.
So anyway, I finally thought, okay, I hate to think, and at this point now, I texted you on my texting machine and said that I apologize.
I'm having, what did I say?
A weird audio problem.
I think I said my audio is being weird.
So I went and I grabbed these other headphones, and I put them in, and here I am, and I think it worked.
So I got a lot to figure out here, but the takeaway from all of this, apart from talking about my desk, which we can do, is that you've got to consider, is it their input or my output that's causing the problem?
Yeah.
Is it me or is it you?
Is it a me headphone problem?
Right.
Am I just not hearing you right?
Do you think that would be useful for our listeners to think about and try to apply in different situations?
Rather than just being snarky about it?
No, I think it is.
I think it is useful.
I mean, because everything is a signal chain.
Am I right?
Everything's a signal chain.
One of the weirdest ones I've got in the wisdom document that I often consider taking out or rethinking, but I really like it, so I can't quite get rid of it.
And I know it frustrates people.
I suspect it frustrates people.
It's something like any time you move to having two of something, great change is underfoot.
Okay.
And I'll tell you why.
Okay.
Okay.
Imagine having one of something.
I can do that.
You could have, let's say you've got one automobile, one job, or one girlfriend.
Mm-hmm.
If you add a second automobile, a second job, or a second girlfriend, doesn't that complicate things more than double?
Isn't there an outsized synergistic, like you have two girlfriends, buddy, that's more, that's a lot to do.
Two jobs, the more jobs you have, the more overhead you have.
The more cars you got, the more garage you need.
If you go from one to two of something, now you're dealing with a different kind of situation.
Well, this is, this is what my mom has always said about having a vacation home.
She said, I never had a vacation home.
And then one day your father and I had two houses.
It wasn't a vacation home.
We just moved to a new house and we, we kept the old house and rented it.
But she said, as soon as you have two houses, the thing you're looking for is at the other house.
Always.
Oh, man.
You know what?
Cognitively, that would absolutely—no, just as somebody who has an office and a house three minutes apart, I absolutely grokked up.
Now, let me take it from the other direction, and I'm not asking you to agree with me, and I'm not asking you to like me.
If you go from one of something to two of something—
Yes.
You're experiencing more change than you probably realize.
Then let's be, as everything in the document, don't take it for just what it is.
Fucking think about it.
Well, then does that mean you should have three or you should have four or you should have eight?
Now, here's where it gets good.
Let's take it from the other direction.
Let's say...
you have more than two of something.
And then, let's say you got an amount of thing, and then you got less of thing, and less of thing, and less of thing.
If you go from, at the point where you go from more than two of thing to two of thing,
That's complicated.
That is.
Let's think about this.
And as we do, I'll quote the great CGP Grey.
I think this is an army term, actually.
Three is two, two is one, and one is none.
Are you familiar with that phrase?
Well, that's also like how much work does a boy do?
One boy does the work of one boy, two boys does the work of half a boy, and three boys does no work.
Is that Oscar Wilde?
That was what Dr. Horning used to say when Kevin and I would start to try and mow the lawn.
So the problem is you get two boys.
For some reason, I'm thinking of the freshman.
Carmen says there was one boy here.
There are two.
So you, because you're shucking and jiving.
Yeah, as soon as two boys are doing it.
All I want, I just want somebody to paint my fence, and I have these boys in my yard, and the more boys I get, the more complicated it becomes.
Exactly.
One boy does the work of one boy.
Set him loose.
Two boys, forget about it.
And also, we're talking about potentially quite different kinds of things, because really, we're just talking about numerals.
And yet, ask yourself, if you go from having more than two of something to two of something, the trend line indicates you're heading toward one or zero of something.
Think about money.
Bye.
Right?
Think about all kinds of options and choices in life.
When you go from having 10 to 5 to 2 and you have 2 choices left, I'm just saying 2 is when things get complicated.
When you go up from 1, you're adding probably levels of complication you didn't anticipate.
And when you're dealing with going from greater than 2 to 2 or less, you're probably closer to the edge on...
not poverty necessarily, but the lacking of something.
Um, and what was, wait, what, what did this have to do with my signal chain?
Oh, well you were going,
from two to you were going from three is two two is one one is none it's called it's called bouncing well you know i i went through this 100 with guitars when i first started off with the bun family players and then in the very early days of the well all through the western state hurricanes and into the long winters i only had one guitar
uh uh uh semi sorry semi-solid body kind of blonde yeah the blonde uh rickenbacker was a 67 660 330 it was 330. fucking a well hey what's the guitar you're talking about oh so imagine every cool guitar you've ever when tom when tom petty slices through uh that paper in the waiting uh
Or letting you go.
That's a Rickenbacker.
They wouldn't know Roger McGuinn.
John Lennon.
Did you ever see the active wiring, Rick?
They made a Roger McGuinn version that had coil tapping and all kinds of active wiring shit.
Did you ever see the crazy Roger McGuinn Rickenbacker they made?
No.
Really expensive.
I bet it is.
And all of that stuff you don't want.
Well, you know what that is?
It's like my dad used to say.
You fly in first class, it just means you hit the ground first.
oof oof my dad used to say because this we didn't have a lot of money and he had a lot of my father's wisdom came out of poverty uh-huh please remember that um that's really good no i just want to make sure i write that down later um no that uh that dad would say and that's kind of true i mean think about your ac delco radio with the five buttons or six buttons or whatever
Talk about the ultimate in an age we live in now where people can't be fucked to put a stalk on the car for a turn directional indicator Think about how easily you knew exactly rich which radio station you were switching to with your thumb funk When I change it change to a different one you pull it out put it where you go push it back in Bob's your uncle you're done Is your car one where how old is your car right now your current car?
My wife's car is I think it's about 10 years old
Well, so this truck outside that gives me nothing but fits, instead of having a lever that tells you that you're going into drive or reverse, it has a knob, and you spin the knob.
to change the gears.
And I don't prefer that.
We've had rental cars like that, like BMW crossover SUVs where I'm like, who the fuck thought this was cool and fancy?
This is the most janky ass, annoying, fake interactive kind of car.
Like those cars where they try to make it feel like you're doing something.
Yeah.
But then also there's no readouts.
I mean, whatever.
This is an old bit and they talk about this a lot on Syracuse's show, but like in the age of Tesla and the lack of stocks, the lack of switches.
Sometimes I just watch old car videos.
I just watched an old car video about $175,000 Alfa Romeo from 1987.
That's like the craziest looking fucking car you've ever seen.
And it's got this whole array of switches and panels.
You look like Dr. Shrinker or something.
Like you're going to really do some crazy shit with all of this stuff.
The three is two, two is one.
I think it's interesting to think about it that way.
And what did that have to do with my signal chain, Dr. Shrinker?
Are you going up or down in your signal chain is, I think, what everybody's wondering?
I don't know.
I'll come back to it.
You know what?
I'll listen back to this later, and if I think of it, I'll say it next week.
Okay.
Yeah, I don't know.
There's so much wisdom on the table.
Well, I'm in this state of affairs that you're describing.
I'm in it all the time.
I'm constantly right where you are describing, which is, do I need one more of these?
Will that solve my problem?
Or do I need one fewer of these?
And will that solve my problem?
And accepting that in life, I'm going to misuse a term here, life is a rally, not a race.
You will not solve the problem of needing to buy a quart of milk every week by buying 600 gallons of milk today.
It's a rally, not a race.
You cannot beat the milk problem with one big purchase.
You can't.
That's just one example.
There's so much stuff where you have to drip, drip, drip, have a steady drip of dealing with a thing.
And sometimes in our attempts to route around the inconvenience or frustration of that, you find yourself on the horns of a dilemma.
Give me an example of your one, two, threes.
Well, this is why you go to Costco, because you're like, I'll never buy toilet paper again.
I'm just going to fill the car with toilet paper.
And then sure enough, you have to buy it again.
Do you like the toilet paper?
Because I've been looking at making a change.
I just, at one point, I don't know.
You criticized my toilet paper once and it made me realize how I was living.
See, I had the same thing where I was like... I had Scott shitty ass, the kind you get from your RA toilet paper.
You did.
And you were like, what is this?
You had the kind of toilet paper that you steal from a public bathroom.
Right, and then throw a column in the white house.
And then at some point, you get to a state of adulthood where you're like, I have enough money now to get soft toilet paper.
And I wasn't saving that much money before.
Not saving that much money.
It's not saving the earth.
It's just all it's doing is it's making something that happens every day that's already kind of tough.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're just making it harder.
More unpleasant than it needs to be.
More unpleasant than it needs to be.
Like, why give yourself an additional challenge?
Oh, my God, I was talking to my... So my sister just moved into an apartment, Merlin, a mile from my house.
And I set it up.
I said, hey, there's an apartment available in that building that's a mile from my house.
Well, ain't that a twist?
Ain't it?
Because, like, forgive my saying, isn't that usually... I mean, not that she would find you a house, but isn't that more of a Susan kind of thing?
Like, find a place for somebody to live, set it up?
For sure, it is not the normal signal chain of me saying there's a place.
And if you move here, it's going to change all of our lives.
We went by that very quickly.
One mile away from you is where your sister lives.
As of today.
That's kind of like a going from one to two situation.
It is.
I mean, in a sense that there's more of something than you had before in a different way than you would have expected, much like having two girlfriends.
Well, and this is what everybody in the family doesn't know, which is what happens if Susan is, instead of three hours away, what if Susan is three minutes away?
You need to get a bell on her like a kitty.
We talked about this.
Get her on Find My.
Get her on Find My so you can at least get some warning.
Do we all have the thing where we can see each other on the phones?
And my mom said, you can see where I am on our phones.
And Susan said, you can see where I am.
And then and Ariella and Marla were there and then they all looked at me and they said, but we can't see where you are.
And I said, like hell, you're ever going to see where I am on the phone.
And they were like, that's the thing about you.
And I said, I don't know what you're talking about.
The last thing I'm ever going to do is turn on fine.
Interesting.
So you're not going to participate in that pilot program.
It's for personal reasons.
Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to know where they are.
Do we underscore this by saying you did not ask them to make themselves available to you?
No, no.
They're like, oh, look at this option.
I'm just going to click on this so now everybody can see where I am.
Billy and his friends.
They all know where they are?
It's really weird.
Like, Billy still knows.
Did I tell you we ran into Billy's childhood best friend at the protest?
oh no like they were walking in front of us i was it was fucking great but no it's like it's like a little kid who was like the canonical canonical best friend for a few years and they were literally walking in front of us at a rally with tens of thousands of people anyways um and we texted billy and we're like oh my god you know uh you know anna and you know they're here and billy goes yeah i saw i could see them i could see nora on fine by right next to you and i'm like what
They still had Find My for a friend that they hadn't seen in years.
But I'm going to give you... This is going to be the big cliffhanger for the end of Act 2.
Billy is you when it comes to Find My.
Because although for now, I can see my 18-year-old.
Billy's friends... Billy can see a ton of his friends, but Billy does not share his location with that many of his friends.
That's you.
You do that.
100%.
100%.
Because... I mean, if I could take the option of the toggle...
completely off of my phone so that i didn't i i actually feel nervous that it gets switched accidentally like make me make me so i how can i put this make me assertively unfindable don't make me accidentally unfindable or findable i want to i want to stipulate no finding no finding and and the thing is they all know it about me my my whole family knows it about me because of operational security john
It is something deep, deep inside me.
You like being the last person to board a plane.
You like being the last person to jump off of a streetcar.
I've seen it.
I've seen you in the seat as the doors were starting to close and only then leaping through and causing great inconvenience for the driver.
No, no.
No, you don't like people knowing your movements.
You can't.
You can't.
You never take the same route twice.
You can't.
try not to you don't order the same thing in restaurants just in case they're like oh he gets the he gets the chili verde but the vietcong can smell the soap exactly it's just it's i just feel like it's very normal except when i open my phone i can see where all of my people are and now i can see that my sister is one mile is it really a double standard if it works for both of us
I don't think... I mean, what do they need to know about where I am?
And you could say something like, if you need to know, ask me, and I might tell you.
We used to have paper maps.
By God, this used to be... Time was, you had a gazetteer and an atlas.
Remember gazetteers?
For sure.
Boy, when I delivered flowers, I think I'm using the right term, atlas.
An atlas I think of as larger maps, but I'm thinking of the one where, not a plat book, but like, you know, the thing you have in your car where you can get- It was called the Thomas Guide out here.
The Thomas Guide.
But like when I was delivering flowers and I had to find which orange street or lemon avenue in Pasco County to deliver to, I could go to that and like flip through it and almost like a triptych, get a map by map, you know.
Yeah.
That was called the Thomas Guide.
Time was.
That's how you learned where you were.
Don't worry about other people.
Worry about yourself.
Well, yeah.
Where are you?
Exactly.
Exactly.
I mean, when I was walking across Europe, I don't know if I ever told you that I walked across Europe.
You walked across Europe?
All the way across it.
Huh.
But, you know, maps vary a lot depending on country because... If they were all the same map, it wouldn't be useful.
Yeah, well, there's that.
It would just be Tomorrowland.
But in Romania, they're like, map, map.
What do we need a map for?
Nobody ever goes more than 15 miles.
Their English is better than my name.
In Germany, they have maps that are down to the level of detail where it has fire hydrants on it.
Like, they have maps upon maps.
Germans love to know where things are located.
Oh, my God, they do.
And their maps are things of absolute beauty.
And no one else.
But, like, seriously, it's like a slightly cultural thing.
Oh, yes, absolutely.
Like, because...
Well, time is like that.
Think about all the years where time was like that, where it's like, is it dark out or is it light out?
All the way down to like, you know, what do you mean I'm late for a meeting at 10 a.m.?
What is 10 a.m.?
Like your understanding of time changes over time with technology and your understanding of location must vary widely depending on where you are.
And also, you know, the Germans, they got a real engineering kind of mind, a lot of them.
They do.
They do.
And I long for a time when I had to look at a map.
This is the crazy thing.
We were never late, or at least I was never any later than I am now, without knowing how to get places.
Somehow, I got places.
Places I'd never been.
I got all the time.
You had everything you needed.
In my case, I would keep it in the seat behind me.
But your gazetteer, your Thomas Guide, your maps, they don't love you like I love you.
You...
You could find out where you are and consequently find out how to get from where you are.
Because, you know, John, you can't get where you want to go until you know where you are.
If you think about it.
Well, and isn't this an example of I now on my dingus have every map and all I need was one map.
I have Google and Apple competing to tell me how to get to a place I've been a thousand times.
Yes.
And I don't feel like any of it has improved my life.
If I want less, not more.
I want one, not five.
I really should just have one guitar and it should be a Telecaster.
But I have 25.
Come on.
Every, well.
Come on.
Yeah, okay.
No, I love a Telecaster, but that's a separate, let's have a separate episode on that.
And not a Strat either, probably.
No, no, I've never owned a Strat.
The Tele and the Strat, I think are a little bit, I like the sound.
If you like Big Star and Merle Haggard, you're good to go.
Yeah.
But you know, and, but the problem is sometimes you get a Les Paul and it's a little too humbucky.
Now, if you get coil tapping on that Roger McGuinn model... That's not what you want, though.
Did you know I have a Jay Mascus Jazzmaster in my Amazon wishlist right now?
Those are very nice, I think.
Oh, you've seen them?
Oh, I have, for sure.
There's nothing in guitar that I haven't seen.
This is maybe a thing that people don't own.
You don't need a map for that?
Still, this is still your area of expertise.
In every aspect of guitar...
I have seen it all.
Okay.
Everything that came out two days ago, I've already seen it.
You're like Lily von Stupp, you know?
You're so tired.
It doesn't help me.
It doesn't make it easier.
I woke up this morning.
15's my limit on Stitzengrub.
But yeah, so this morning, one of the reasons I wasn't out of bed before 10.52 was I was having this, I couldn't tell whether it was a dream or a nightmare.
It was one of these sort of like road trip in the apocalypse sort of dreams where you're out and the wind is blowing.
Where it's not exciting enough to feel like a dream, and you find yourself like, they say this is one step toward lucid dreaming, is to get better at remembering to ask yourself, how would I know if this is a dream?
Is this a dream?
That kind of stuff.
But sometimes they're so boring but upsetting and long, those kind of dreams.
Well, and the thing was, it never got quite to the level of upsetting, but here's the crazy thing.
It felt like a future dream.
And the future was, and I was not, I was watching this wasn't happening to me, but what I was seeing was a future where, for instance, us podcasters who have small, but devoted audiences of friends.
they the technology falls apart and they're no longer able to broadcast i'm seeing this as i'm traveling through the desert i see i'm with a group of people we're nomads and we're going from place to place and every person is my name is max my world is blood and fire
Every person is like a former podcaster who's trying to connect with their fans in little deserted towns.
From far away, you hear this skittering sound, almost like when you get closer and closer and closer, you can start making out individual voices.
Like and subscribe.
Like and subscribe.
Like and subscribe.
But it was people that were like, hey, are you familiar with my Disney unwrapping videos?
And everybody in the town's like, no, I've never heard of it.
John, I watched three videos yesterday.
Speaking of Google Earth, I watched three videos yesterday from a guy who does almost nothing except talk about places that are hard to get to using Google Earth.
That's his whole bit.
His whole bit is to find the most obscure, faraway, difficult places to get to.
You need an angle, right?
But in the apocalypse, when we're living in the dirt, when we're living in Cormac McCarthy's The Road, or Mad Max Fury Road, and we're pushing around a shopping cart, you know, full of Nicholas Holt, things are going to be complicated, and it's not going to be hard to build your audience organically, because there are no more podcasts.
There are no more podcasts.
And your audience is just like, hey, I'm here.
And people are like, so?
You know, we don't have enough food for you.
And it's like, I know, but do you remember my podcast, The Dollop?
Have you ever considered looking into Factor?
You can learn more about Factor right now by visiting.
Would you like to know about Factor?
That's right.
Have you used HIMS?
Have you tried row.hims.uk?
If you would like to grow hair on your tiny shrively dick and also build your tea,
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But I was like, is this the future?
Is this actually?
Chillingly, very much.
Sounds like you said it felt like a, what did you call it?
I wrote it down here.
It felt like a future dream.
A dream of the future in the future.
Is this just 10 years from now?
Am I just going to be one in the desert?
I hate it.
I can't go back to working, John.
Anybody in the Roderickverse in this town?
And people are like, nope.
Never heard of you.
But then Joel McHale rides up on a white horse and everybody's like, oh my God, it's the guy from Community.
Like, I don't know.
It doesn't sound, well, but at the same time, this dream wasn't a nightmare.
And you were watching it, you weren't like, you didn't feel, am I saying that correctly?
You didn't feel like it was like, you were observing it.
Can I ask how it made you feel?
I'd well in the moment in the moment like not if you remember it can also tell me how major fix feel right now I imagine it makes you feel Confused and scared about your future dreams But also how to make you feel in the in the dream as an observer thing is, you know, I'm somebody that likes novelty That's true And and so the idea of going from town to town up and down the line or up and down the dial
And just like trying to find somebody that's heard of you, it felt kind of like fun.
You're kind of almost like you're a podcast ronin.
A podcast ronin.
Like you used to be a samurai who had a master.
But now, isn't that what that means?
Isn't a ronin somebody who used to be a samurai?
A samurai who lost their master.
Yeah.
And now you wander the wasteland trying to discover if anybody likes your joke.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, you remember when you used to be Merlin, man.
I do.
Yeah.
And do you remember when you used to be Merlin, man, that there would be those times when you would have an interaction with somebody, a stranger in a bar, for instance, where you would suddenly get the feeling of like, oh, do you know who I am?
Well, rarely, but yes, absolutely.
And then you're like, now what do we do?
Which is fine.
It's normal.
It's fine and normal.
But, like, what if that was all you had left?
What if you had to do that in order to get food credits and guzzoline?
Yeah, what if that was the only thing that was going to get you right into the gate?
Once again!
Once again, I send my podcaster, John Roderick!
Once again.
Hello, mighty I. It is I. I used to have a podcast with my sister.
about road rage.
I believe you know me.
Go away, you.
Be gone.
Witness me.
I'm awaited in Valhalla.
Oh, no.
Oh, but it's fine, too.
It felt okay.
It did.
I bet you do all right, because the thing is, you would do
Boy, I hate the sound of this.
I'm going to fix this right after this.
I hate the way this sounds.
You, of anybody, would thrive in that environment, because you like talking to people.
You like visiting with people.
You like finding out, without regard to whether or not they quote, unquote, know you, unquote.
But like you, because there's other ways in which, if I could say, John, you probably wouldn't want people to recognize you.
No, I don't want them to know where I am.
Because you know what kind of food they throw at you in a can.
I'm fine if people don't recognize me.
But then once they do, then you have to kick it into a different gear.
Well, and you could pretend to be a more successful podcaster.
But that's not you.
That's not you.
I think you've got to find your people.
And maybe it's sort of like Walking Dead, where there's like, I don't know, maybe do you find affinity groups inside?
Was it really like a Mad Max?
I'm seeing, obviously, for obvious reasons, and also it's one of my favorite movies, I'm saying that a lot.
Did it feel like a Wasteland-type situation?
Yeah, it did.
It felt like a wasteland, but I'm not somebody that's like waiting for the, waiting for the, the pocky lips.
Um, but at the same time, you know, what do you do?
You got to be ready.
I mean, part of it, it might just be a metaphor for like the fact that you and I are never going to retire.
What the hell does retirement look like?
I mean, you might, cause you've got a, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Please stop.
Please stop.
Yes.
No, no, no, no, no.
I'm not mad.
I'm just saying, stop saying words because that's something everybody has.
And people who think they can retire probably can't.
Yeah.
But I know I can't.
I know I can't.
I know I'm going to be wandering the pod wilderness, maybe pushing you around in a cart.
Like, hey, it's us.
Do you remember us?
Marceline.
You know,
I'm like, I lost my legs to diabetes.
Making your way in the world today takes everything you got.
Merlin's blind.
He's blind, but he can push the cart.
And I got no legs, but I can tell him which way to go.
He's blind, but he's very wise.
He used to have a wellness podcast.
That's right.
Have you ever heard the legend of Merlin?
You should read his 54 folders.
He added one.
Oh, 5440 or die.
That's right.
Tippy Canoe and Tyler, too.
I explained 5440 or die or fight.
Oh, sorry.
5440 or fight.
And that's different than OU812 and 5150.
yes 90125 is different there's 90125 and what was the beverly hills one 90210 90210 was not the one with trevor horn and uh jeffrey downs right because you know you know you know the guys that became the buggles met when trevor horn was producing yes yeah yeah and he was briefly in yes and then this is all before owner of a lonely heart
Yes.
Isn't that crazy?
I think a lot of people don't know that.
A lot of things came out of those old collaborations before there were maps.
They don't love you like I love you.
Right.
Right.
Or Gazetteer.
Gasoline.
I was trying to explain 5440 or fight to a carload of 14 year olds.
And you have never seen a more bored group of people.
And you know, a lot of times when I'm starting to bore a group of 14 year olds, I really just double down on it.
Absolutely.
Well, it all started with the pig war.
And they're just like staring out the window.
You ever really think about the difference between costly and expensive?
No, I haven't.
Stop talking.
Oh, Merlin.
Merlin, I've got so many things I need to get rid of.
I had this idea the other day.
Ideas?
Ideas are physical objects.
Well, both.
Yeah.
But I have the idea.
Susan's only a mile away.
She could come over and tidy up for you.
Well, that's what I don't need.
But what I was going to do is take some of the things I need to get rid of.
Yeah.
And I was just going to put them in paper bags and I was going to drive around Seattle and everywhere I went, I was have a car full of these paper bags with things I need to get rid of.
And I would just put them under park benches.
Oh my God.
And then I would take pictures of them and put them on the internet and go, this is a bag of things I don't need anymore.
It's under this park bench.
You, if you want it, you find it.
That is so funny.
God damn it.
It's so funny.
We should go soon.
That is so fucking funny.
And it's actually weirdly close to things that have been on my mind too.
Okay.
So like San Francisco is a town that is famous for you put something on the sidewalk and what's understood.
Like it is known.
If you put something on the sidewalk, somebody will probably grab it.
And that's the idea.
Like it's within minutes.
Oh man.
And like almost anything.
The thing you want to be careful of though is like that you don't put out stuff where somebody could want just a little of it or part of it.
Because sometimes people come and just take the good part or whatever the thing is, and then now it's just lonely garbage.
But I would just have one thing per bag.
One thing per bag?
I walked by one the other day.
Because you'll see ones.
There's a running bit with my friend.
We call it Want to Take a Nap?
We send each other photos of mattresses on the street.
Want to Take a Nap?
But there was one, and so I saw, and it had the typical, like, sometimes there'll be a sign on it that has a little code on it that means, please, this is White Goods Day or whatever, pick this up.
There's other ones that are like, I'm donating this to the veterans or blah, blah, blah.
But you'll see a sign, it'll say free, whatever, right?
And it was, like, you know, like a little dish you'd put out, like, with cream in it for a cat?
Yeah, I like that.
There's a dish, and it's on, just a dish on a piece of paper, and it said free.
Uh-huh.
Just one dish.
Yeah.
So there's no bottom to this, but also, you know what I love about yours is I love the kind of the mystery component and how, like, if you wrap anything up, it becomes a present.
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
And...
A long time ago, I started getting rid of stuff that was garbage.
Good for you.
Yeah, it's all stuff that's not garbage, but I still need to keep getting rid of it because there's just too much of it.
There's a phrase Syracuse uses for this.
It's a phrase he's used internally at his house for years, and he's mentioned it on the show, and I'd like to pass it on to you.
And this is what John Syracuse says.
To himself, to his family, to the world, things need to leave my house.
Ha, ha, ha.
Now, I know that doesn't sound that clever or smart or like it would cover that many situations.
But as you start moving about your world, find yourself saying things need to leave my house.
And I think that's kind of what you're describing right now.
Like you're finding a clever, fun, entertaining, pre-apocalypse way to have fun with people.
But have you not accepted that things need to leave your house?
No.
Things need to leave my house.
Yeah.
Can you give me an example?
Is there one you'd be comfortable giving an example of?
Like, maybe not the most interesting and maybe not the most tricky.
What's the kind of thing, if I went and tracked down one of your bags, what kind of thing would I find in it?
Oh, God, there are so many things that need to leave my house.
But right now, I think that the things that need to leave my house are shirts and neckties.
And there's just a lot of shirts and there are a lot of neckties.
Are they your size?
They're all extra large shirts, and they're all, like, pretty nice neckties.
What kind of collar are you guys?
What kind of collar are you guys?
Like a 35-inch collar?
What's your collar?
Well, I have a 17-and-a-half or 18-inch neck, depending on the size.
Jesus Christ!
You're like an Easter Island statue.
But the thing is, these are great boyfriend shirts.
They look great on small people because they're, like, the big guys.
So maybe Instagram girls will come and pick it up because then they'd look cute.
It's so cute.
It's like a night shirt.
You could sleep in my shirts.
They're all just the perfect kind of- You could sleep in my shirts, Rave John Roderick.
You could sleep in my shirts, says John.
Would you put it under a bench?
Would you hide it?
You wouldn't want it to look like a bomb or anything?
No.
And it's damp here, so I wouldn't want to put it somewhere where it would get rained on.
But I bet you-
If I just put it out there, either somebody who didn't know anything about it would be like, huh, look at this bag.
I wonder what's in it.
But, you know, it could also be a lunch bag.
And it could be how some people like getting stuff that walks right up to the edge of stealing, like where somebody's left something behind and they grab it.
Like if I find anything and I, I, this is okay.
I'm going to be honest.
This is partly because I used to have a little child.
If I see like a little shoe or a little sock or a little stuffy, um, I will make an in the moment decision and the combined several different elements.
I go into heads up mode, you know, Terminator heads up, fuck you asshole mode where I'm like, okay, little sock.
Little bear, little shoe, little something.
That's somebody's precious thing.
Yeah.
Does this need to be found again?
And so what I do is, and I think this should be a universal dad logic, is if it's someplace that it's not going to get run over or picked up or thrown away, like leave it almost exactly where it is because that's where they will come and look for it.
right but like in the same way you'd want to move a dying robin off the sidewalk like if it's if you could move the sock a little bit to the side you know what i'm saying it but that's a balance and you're doing that though except you're saying you don't even know you you this is like a soccer a bear for a child except this could be for a lady you've turned it into a game and can i say john you're also making it fun for yourself it's motivating you to for things need to leave your house
Is there a what?
Does it motivate you knowing that things need to leave your house?
Does it motivate you to know that you could turn it into a little funny game where you hide your clothes around town?
Well, you know, originally I thought that the game was going to be that I would put things on eBay, but that's a lot of work.
John, you said that a pretty long time ago.
In maybe the first year of this podcast, you talked about there was going to be a room dedicated to your house with all of your racks of clothing, and you were writing a story for each of the things.
And I think people had to agree to read the story if they wanted the dinner jacket.
Well, one of the problems with that was that a pretty long time ago.
eBay is not a social media site, but you can DM people.
And people started DMing me randos who were like, we don't want to know this whole story about your thing.
You know, just put the thing up there.
And I'm like, why would you take the time to DM me?
Here's how I phrased that particular one, John.
Yeah.
I hope you didn't cancel anything important to do that.
Because that's how I really feel sometimes.
Last night, my wife and I, I'm going to ding us out after this.
Last night, my wife and I were talking about chicken.
And we were talking about different kinds of chicken fingers.
And we were watching something on TV, and there was an ad for chicken.
Oh, oh, oh, there's this horrible ad for a place with pretty good chicken.
It's called Raising Cane's.
And the chicken's really good.
My kid really likes it.
They do like fried chicken.
But they do this thing in conjunction with the Gary Sinise Charity for Veterans, which is a very cool group.
They have this guy who's a baseball player who's like the celebrity spokesman.
And I don't know how much I can describe this as looking like something produced by Mike Judge.
where it's this guy in a white t-shirt who looks like he's just sweating tequila from a hangover, having to do an ad for this charity.
And it's such a bad ad.
But what I was saying to Mad was, you know, I like those Raisin Kings.
I said, but here's the thing.
Sometimes I look at Carl's Jr., because Carl's Jr., believe it or not, they have pretty good chicken fingers.
Pretty good chicken.
Good tendies.
But every time I open it on DoorDash, I see the stuff that's on there.
All of those horrible, horrible looking meat sandwiches.
And I think to myself, leave it.
Because if this is the last thing I ever ordered and ate, I would probably feel really bad.
Oh.
You know what I'm saying?
I do.
I think that applies to a lot of stuff.
Do you want this to be the thing that you're doing when you pass?
Is this the last thing you wrote on the internet?
Was, why the hell did you write the big story about your sunglasses when all I needed to know was...
We'll all remember Derek for his daring attempts to challenge people on how they just want the recipe and not the whole story.
For a long time, what I said on social media before I realized that I actually did get canceled for saying this kind of thing.
Uh-huh.
was I would say, did your great-grandfather fight in World War I so that you could do this?
Is this your legacy?
Would he be proud?
Would your great-grandfather be proud?
You go down on your mother with that mouth?
Would he come back from the war?
No!
Absolutely.
Do you know how many of his buddies he watched die face down in the mud so that you could pull that bullshit?
Right, so that you're here sitting behind your computer telling somebody that, well, actually, you don't know the physics of a baseball?
Actually, it was Dick Sargent, not Dick York.
I think you're a dick, York.
That's it.
That's your contribution.
That's your contribution.
Yeah.
All of the people died face down in the mud so that we could sit here with a sock on our dick sitting in front of the computer.
So we could sit here so amiably.
You and Mandrake, we sit here so amiably having this conversation.
Yeah.
I don't know, man.
I think you should do it.
Do you have bags you're happy with?
Because, you know, the thing is, you got to get bags.
I got to get the bags.
I have the kind of bag I like, but it's from a problematic company.
Oh, really?
Uline.
Oh, they are problematic.
Yeah, but their bags fucking rock.
I don't know if you ever watched a video on how craft paper bags are made, but there's a lot that goes into paper bags.
Oh, hey, I'm putting it on the list.
I'm putting it on the list.
Nice bags?
Yeah.
Well, I don't know if you notice, but I occasionally add additions and update the list for you and your young person.
Oh, that's right.
That's right.
Science adjacent engineering.
And I'm going to send you one because I know.
And then, you know, because knowing what I know about your daughter and how she likes to learn about things, she's going to want to learn how paperbacks are made.
I think the video is called The Science of Paperbacks.
I will delight in saying, hey, what we should do right now, you and me, is sit here on the couch and watch The Science of Making Paper Bags.
Maybe wait until there's something she's very motivated about.
Maybe she wants to go out and, I don't know, buy Backstreet Boys tickets or whatever young people do.
And you go, we'll go buy some Backstreet Boys tickets right after we watch the video Daddy found on The Science of Paper Bags.
She'll say, hey, I want to watch this YouTuber discuss the intricacies of the plot of K-pop demon hunters.
Oh, that's a great idea.
But first, the thing is you have to bleach the pulp for food bags.
That's a federal thing.
The guy cites the actual laws for each one of these.
Now, for Kraft, for the K, you're going to want those longer strands.
Yeah, the long strands.
You can't just get those.
There's a limit for how many times paper can be recycled, right?
Because the strands get shorter and shorter with each.
Is that what happens?
I think so.
It's like the opposite of carbon fiber.
It's the opposite of it.
Yeah, it gets less and less, not more and more.
I can't get, there's no high mids in my cans.
I can't hear anything.
Are you going to have to go?
I'm going to go all the way back.
I'm going to fix my signal chain.
I'm going to put this fucking photo of my desk in there.
And if any of you people say anything, I'm going to be a little frustrated.
I think Merlin's desk has got everything you need to know to know everything about Merlin, including his location.
Once again, I'm being a total creep with Merlin.
Wait, hang on.
Ready?
Clink.
Come on, one more time.
Get your cable out of there.
I wonder if I need to clean this.
You know what?
I'll hit it with my K-bar.
You know I got a K-bar knife?
I got one here, too.
Wait, I'm going to show you my K-bar here.
Oh, and you'll enjoy this.
You know why I was using my K-Bar?
I was using my K-Bar to, you will appreciate this, to unlodge the green thing from my desk while we were talking.
Because it was stuck with Gorilla Tape.
Gorilla Tape.
Do you use Gorilla Tape?
I'm a big fan of Gorilla Tape.
I used to have some, but I think I lost it.
Okay, I'm going to hit my K-Bar on the bell.
La, la, la.
Ready?
Oh, man.
It's louder.
Where's the resonance?
Let it sing out.
Okay, well, I've got other ones here.
That's a little better.
Oh, you know what it is?
I bet it's Zoom.
It's compression.
You've got a limiter on it.
And they call it K-Bar because you kill a bear with it?
Oh, yeah.
Kill a bar.
This is great.
This is a terrific knife.
I think it's got a blood gutter.
This is a great knife.
Well, any closing thoughts, John?
I feel like we've covered a lot of ground, and we've, I think, helped a lot of people.
You know, I mean, Pounder Puckets is a lot like IBS.
There's always a constant kind of dance, if you like, between constipation and diarrhea.
and i feel like we've had an ibs episode with this one you know oh that's why i brought up my sister we were going to start over no and she said the toilet seat in my new apartment i can't put my feet up on it and i said what the hell does that mean she said when i'm sitting she's having a wall
No, she said, I can't get my feet up on it.
I can't get my feet up on it.
I said, what the hell are you talking about?
And she said, well, and then she demonstrated.
She sat on a chair in the kitchen and then she just pulled her feet up so that her heels were on the seat along with the rest of her.
And I said, what is that about?
She said, well, she's doing an Indian squat.
Is that it?
She's doing an Indian squat.
She's doing an Indian squat.
Because I've got a squatty potty, but I don't put my feet on the actual toilet.
In some countries, they have footprints where you go over the hole.
They show you, here's where your feet go.
Well, yeah, but this is a toilet.
This isn't a hole.
John, it's an American toilet, if I could say.
It's an American toilet.
It's not an accident that we call it American exceptionalism.
But she said, I'm like a Chinese man.
I like to put my feet up while I'm going to the potty.
And I said, I don't know what that has to do with anything.
But then I, sitting on the chair, put my heels up, and it turns out I'm flexible enough to do it.
Oh, it straightens your colon right out.
That's why I have a squatty potty.
Well, that's the thing.
Then we're both sitting there in the kitchen, sitting with our feet up.
And you both learned something.
Well, I'm not sure what I learned.
I'm not going to go to the bathroom like that.
But now you have an option.
It seems insane.
It does seem, yeah, I mean.
She's only a mile from here.
I keep trying to bring this up with Syracuse, and he won't talk about it.
I've always wondered if I wipe wrong, and I suspect that everybody wonders if they wipe wrong, and I feel like nobody's talking about it.
Doesn't Syracuse love to tell you when you're doing something wrong?
I don't think he loves to do anything.
It comes with a really nice Sleather case.
Sleather?
Sleather.
That's my favorite house in Harry Potter.
All right.