Ep. 604: "Unintentional Curator"
Merlin:Hello?
Merlin:Hi, John.
Merlin:Hey, Merlin.
Merlin:Hey, rabbit rabbit.
Merlin:Ooh, it's early.
Merlin:Top of the month.
John:Top of the month?
John:Oh my God, I hadn't even thought about that.
John:You hadn't?
John:It's... Sneaks up on you, don't it?
John:It does.
John:It's the new month.
John:It's December.
John:We can start all over again.
John:All of our past sins are gone and it's a fresh month.
Merlin:Yeah, it seems like that sometimes.
Merlin:I'm not so sure, you know?
Merlin:I feel like you enter every month with a lot of chronological debt.
John:Oh, you bring your past sins with you?
John:Did I just bring it down?
John:No, no, no, not at all.
John:I mean, you know me.
John:I don't have any sense of the future or the past.
John:I have a sense of the past.
John:I brood on the past.
Merlin:But no sense of the future.
Merlin:Well, is that a resource that you could shift?
Merlin:Like, reallocate those resources?
Merlin:Could you take some of your interest in the past and put it into the future?
Merlin:I don't know.
Merlin:You probably could, but would you want to?
Merlin:I wouldn't want to.
John:No, I don't think I... I'm not even sure I could.
John:It's like I'm not sure about those resources.
John:I don't even know if they're resources.
Hmm.
John:They burn cycles probably, right?
John:They seem like electrons.
Merlin:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin:They're each trying to find their own state.
Merlin:They're trying to find their own state.
Merlin:Aren't we all really?
Merlin:We're all just electrons.
Merlin:All just electrons.
Merlin:Yeah.
Merlin:It snuck up on me last night because I noticed there's things that bill me monthly and it's always on like one of the last days of the month.
Merlin:And I was like, ah, I guess it's December.
Merlin:And I should know that because I've had a whole lot of Thanksgivings in life.
Merlin:yeah yeah so it seems like at this point i should be acclimated to the fact that december follows closely on the heels do you want to know the funny thing i do it's hilarious but i had a bunch of bills come in the last few days that also took me by surprise
John:And my bank said, you're out of money.
Merlin:Oh, no, no, no.
Merlin:That's no good.
Merlin:You know what?
Merlin:That's one of the last things you want to hear from your bank.
Merlin:It is.
John:And I was like, what?
John:What?
John:I thought I had plenty of money.
John:And they were like, nope.
John:In fact, we had to use overdraft protection.
John:Is that something you get for free?
Merlin:Well, now, in the old days, they used to charge me for it.
Merlin:That's very much how they would get you.
Merlin:I always had the impression that there was somebody, probably somebody who was coded as a gay waiter in the 50s.
Merlin:Yes, that guy.
Merlin:I imagine a guy standing there and he's got a check coming in and a check going out, like a check I've deposited and a check.
Merlin:And I always imagine looking at both and let's go, let's go ahead and cash this one before we deposit this one.
Merlin:Oh, waiter guy, if you'd done it in a slightly different order, we wouldn't have this problem.
Merlin:That is 100% how it works.
John:They're like, oh, these incoming checks go in this pile.
Merlin:It almost feels like they've kind of planned it that way.
John:in some ways.
John:Yeah.
Merlin:Oh, they used to do it to me all the time.
John:Oh, originally.
Merlin:And it's each one of them.
Merlin:That's the thing.
Merlin:What's his name?
Merlin:Is it the Great Gildersleeve?
Merlin:Is that that guy's name?
Merlin:I've got to figure out who that guy is.
Merlin:Great Gildersleeve.
Merlin:Well, it could be, but there was a character actor who, you know, he was in Love American style and stuff.
Merlin:Yeah, it's that guy.
Merlin:Uh, here's the thing that I got to, you know, when you, when you work such as it is like, like me and you do, it's, you know, uh, it's, it's famine and less famine.
Merlin:And you are really kind of like want to make sure everything goes through.
Merlin:So let's say you put in, you want to deposit a check for 10 units and there's outstanding checks.
Merlin:for like, I don't know, like six units.
Merlin:Six units.
Merlin:They run the six unit checks first, but then first union anyway, I don't want to drag any particular bank from the 80s and 90s, but they would give you like, oh, $12, $12, $12 for each one of those.
Merlin:Cheap burger, cheap burger, cheap burger, if you know what I mean.
John:Here's what U.S.
John:Bank did to me back in the day.
John:I'm going to name them.
John:I'm going to out them.
John:I'm going to shame them.
Merlin:Is it time to name and shame, John?
John:It's name and shame U.S.
John:Bank.
John:They did that.
John:And then they put the money that they had overdraft protected me
John:they called it a loan and they put it in a separate pile so that when i put a bunch of money back in the bank it didn't cover the loan i was paying interest on the overdraft money and it was in a separate place that's dark that is really like bits aside that is dark it's dark and they had to stop doing it i think because it probably violated 50 laws
John:Nowadays, my bank is just like, oopsie daisy, had to do it again.
John:And I'm like, but, but, but, but, but just a few weeks ago, I get the feeling they've got enough to cover it.
John:Like, can't you just cover me?
John:Well, now they do.
John:Now they know.
John:Like, this guy's good for it, I guess.
John:But I'm sure I'm getting dinged somehow.
John:I don't know how, but I'm sure I'm getting dinged.
John:Oh, you're getting the Scrooge.
John:You don't worry about that.
John:Yeah, I don't know how it, I should look more deeply into that, but I'm sure I'm getting double, I'm getting double dipped.
Merlin:But I mean, if you did look into it, like how much more could you do?
Merlin:Then pretty soon you're one of those like watches their finances person.
Merlin:Well, yeah, it's almost as bad as being a sky miles person.
John:What I could be is somebody that knows that on November 27th or 26th, the bills come that are for the December
John:And then I should know that I should look at least once, at least once on December or on November 26th or on the 26th of the month.
John:I should look just one time.
John:John, you're shitting all over yourself.
John:I know I am shitting.
Merlin:It's the holiday of lights and you're shitting on yourself.
Merlin:I got to stop doing that.
Merlin:Have you decorated?
Merlin:Do you guys decorate right after Thanksgiving?
Merlin:It's complicated, but yeah, some decoration has begun.
Merlin:It's complicated because Madeline's also been doing some DIY around the house.
Merlin:And she landed that bird.
Merlin:Is she replacing all the windows?
Merlin:No.
Merlin:Okay, good.
Merlin:That's a big job.
Merlin:She did a bunch of stuff with part of our ceiling and spackling and painting and did a really wonderful job with it.
Merlin:But yeah, no, that's all going out.
Merlin:I had another thought about this madness.
Merlin:About banking?
Merlin:I'm trying to parse whether there's any way in which this is dumb for me to say, but I pay rent for two things.
Merlin:And it's the only two things in my life that are still seemingly completely immune to every modern part of the way that money is sent from one place to another.
Merlin:Which means that every month there's still two, I send them through the website.
Merlin:I don't have a checkbook.
John:You don't write checks.
Merlin:Okay, okay, okay.
Okay, okay, okay.
Merlin:Yeah, I'm with my quill pen.
Merlin:You deliver the check.
Merlin:Hello.
Merlin:You hand the check to the man.
Merlin:Be it known, I bequeath unto thee residential rental fees.
Merlin:My squire.
John:Affair not to.
Merlin:Yeah, right.
Merlin:Bank of Bartleby.
Merlin:I would be into that.
Merlin:Bartleby the Scrivener.
Merlin:And I hate it.
Merlin:I hate it.
Merlin:I hate that basically, because it seems like if the robot knows I've sent the check, why don't you just take the money out now?
Merlin:The robot.
Merlin:It just freaks me out, man.
Merlin:I don't like having pieces of paper hanging out in the universe that represent, you know, money that hasn't moved yet.
Merlin:It's so weird.
Merlin:It's like so from another generation.
John:This money over here, it could be over there, but it's in some intermediary place where somebody's taking 0.02%.
Merlin:I don't think it's – well, I mean, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I do really – I like the ability through banks or fintech or whatever.
Merlin:I do like the ability to say, okay, send this money to that person.
Merlin:On the one hand, I don't love that these certain institutions still seem to want a paper check.
Merlin:Oh, sure.
Merlin:You know, like I'm handing them a stock certificate for Coca-Cola Corporation or something.
Merlin:But also, I use that term fintech.
Merlin:All this other junk.
Merlin:People are like, just Venmo it to me.
Merlin:I'm like, I don't want to Venmo it to you.
Merlin:That's weird.
Merlin:I mean, it's so weird.
Merlin:People use all these weird apps for things.
Merlin:And it's like, I don't know.
Merlin:I'm unhappy about everything, John.
Merlin:But I'm at peace with myself.
Merlin:Yeah, I don't know.
John:I don't know what the solution is.
John:I used to get a monthly check for a thing where the money came in on the third of the month.
John:But then the people that sent me the check, for some reason, oh, it was because they were using a bank that couldn't interact with my bank because their bank wasn't really a bank.
John:It was a credit union.
John:And so their bank couldn't do what banks do.
John:It's one of the only things that banks should be able to do, which is send money to another bank.
John:It's a bank.
John:It's just digits on a piece of paper, and they've got the money.
John:It's electrons.
John:Just trying to find a state.
John:Yeah.
John:But this credit union could not interact with my bank, which is one of the banks that if you list all the banks, my bank is on that list of banks.
John:This credit union couldn't do it.
John:So they had to make a check, send it to me in the mail.
John:Well, routinely this money that arrived in someone's bank on the third of the month would get to me on the 23rd of the month.
John:And I would spend those 20 days going, where is that money?
John:I know I have some money coming.
John:And it was floating.
John:It was just like, I don't know where it was.
John:And everybody I talked to was like, oh, I can't get it to you any faster than that.
Merlin:That's as soon as it can get there.
Merlin:Our listeners are not as steeped in natural sciences as we are.
Merlin:So I don't like to bring up too much stuff involving physics.
Merlin:But I do feel like there's something there where, what's the one where it's not Heisenberg or it's not quantum physics, but there's one where we don't know what state this thing's spinning at.
Merlin:And it seems like the bank or the credit union or whoever shouldn't be having such a problem with that.
John:No, no.
John:It does seem like that, and I was always confused.
John:Is my spin unknowable, John?
John:No, no.
John:I think it's knowable.
John:I feel like I don't know what a credit union is, maybe.
John:Is it like REI?
John:Do you get a check back?
Merlin:Oh, that's so interesting.
Merlin:You should say that.
Merlin:That was part of our weekend was visiting some, you know, of potential future schools.
Merlin:And I realized that we were in Sacramento and I was realizing like, oh, because we're visiting family and blah, blah.
Merlin:It's a long story.
Merlin:But I kept, I'm real stupid.
Merlin:It takes me a long time to put things together.
Merlin:And the place that we happened to be staying in Sacramento was right near a place called, I think, the Golden One Stadium or something.
Merlin:Golden One Stadium.
Merlin:Yeah.
Merlin:Well, and it turns out you used to go everywhere in SACTO.
Merlin:I call it SACTO or the SAC.
Merlin:I know.
Merlin:That's what we call it.
Merlin:Just read my tattoo slowly.
Merlin:We know stuff.
Merlin:Yeah.
Merlin:But they're everywhere there with the ATMs.
Merlin:And I said, ha.
Merlin:And there's no point saying anything to my family because they think everything's a competition.
Merlin:Sometimes I just want to make an observation.
Merlin:I go, oh, I get it.
Merlin:Golden won.
Merlin:I'll bet that is a credit.
Merlin:Because, you know, the Golden State.
Merlin:I bet that's a credit union for people who work in government.
Merlin:of which I bet there are tons
Merlin:In the sack.
Merlin:You were putting this all together just inside your brain.
Merlin:And their response was, I'm not going to give any credit to any one person.
Merlin:One was to ignore me because they were listening to a podcast.
Merlin:And the other one, I think, made a noise like a cracking duck to dismissively say, well, obviously that's what that is.
Merlin:The noise was like, quack, quack, quack.
Merlin:Maybe more like a gunter.
Merlin:My gunter was the first, quack, quack.
John:You're stinky Gunther.
John:Is that how it turned out?
John:Is the golden one?
Merlin:Yeah, that's the golden one.
Merlin:I think credit, you know what?
Merlin:It's not interesting and we'll get letters about it.
Merlin:Credit unions are different, I guess.
Merlin:The whole thing seems like a terrible jam up to me.
Merlin:I watch a lot of YouTube videos about history and, you know, the banks are involved in a lot of what goes wrong with things.
Merlin:You know, I'm no expert.
John:I'm no historian.
Merlin:You love the past, John.
Merlin:It takes your resources.
John:I just love thinking about high school.
John:I feel like the banks are behind a lot of troubles.
John:You know, my first bank account was in some Washington bank, but my second bank account was a credit union.
John:It was the Alaska Railroad Federal Credit Union.
John:My kid's bank account is with a credit union.
John:And I don't remember getting any money back, but maybe I did.
John:Would have been pennies on the dollar.
John:REI is what they call a co-op, right?
John:It's a cooperative.
John:That's right.
John:That's right.
John:You do get money back at REI.
Merlin:We also got lunch for the road from a really nice co-op industry.
Merlin:in um wherever we were and uh it's one of those co-ops it's been around forever and it's like pretty nice you know like a co-op grocery store i should say sorry but it's really it's nice i mean it's it's they've done a nice job with the place over since 1972 or whatever now my understanding is a co-op because we had a co-op in sarasota i think it's called the granary there's all different co-ops whole didn't whole food start out as a co-op
Merlin:Yeah.
Merlin:That's a co-op, John.
Merlin:And how can we be applying it to things that would benefit us?
John:I think the idea is that the business, here's the problem, capitalism.
John:And capitalism, boo, boo.
John:And so one way around it is that the people own the means of production.
Yeah.
John:And in the case of like the city of Seattle or San Francisco, it's very hard for the people to own the means of production.
John:So they start small and they say these people.
Merlin:Oh, is this like when you buy somebody in Africa a goat?
Merlin:Is it kind of like that?
Merlin:You're staking somebody?
Merlin:So capitalism, boo, but the idea then is if the people, the power and the people, you've got to throw yourself upon the gears, right?
Merlin:You get in there, and now you start owning the apparatus in part.
Merlin:It's like, oh, your money's in his house, in his house.
Merlin:That's what it sounds like if Edward G. Robinson was in.
Merlin:It's a wonderful life.
John:It usually starts with a guy named Bill who's got a black beard and Bill finds a way to bring in some unsprouted wheat that's like really good.
John:And he buys some and then his friend is like, man, I got to get some of that.
John:So Bill gets some for his friend.
John:Big beard Bill's sprouted wheat.
John:Bill sprouted wheat.
John:That's right.
John:So then he's got, but Bill's not a capitalist, right?
John:Bill just wants to help people get this delicious sprouted wheat.
John:And so pretty soon Bill's getting sprouted wheat for everybody he knows.
John:And he's talking to the sprouted wheat, uh, or unsprouted wheat people.
John:And they're like, Hey man, you're buying enough sprouted wheat here that we're going to give this to you at cost, or we're going to give it to you for a lot cheaper.
John:And then Bill's like, you know what?
John:If we just all go in on this, we could all get sprouted wheat for way less than we would pay to the capitalists.
Merlin:Okay, and suddenly you're benefiting, you the little guy and all your other little guy, you're going to benefit from economies of scale in a way that formerly the only the fat cats got to do.
John:So then Bill's friend Jerry, who has a red beard, a big red beard,
John:jerry's like well hey man you know this is going to work if we you know for like unfiltered honey this is going to work for unpasteurized milk and cheese and then they're like well hey you know if we can get enough people man we can get like all this stuff we just have to it's like economy is a scale like you say yeah yeah and everybody can just be
John:It can just be part of it.
John:And we're all going to just like live off the, off the, not off the grid or off the fat of the land.
John:We're just going to live better and more equitably.
Merlin:And we're going to live off the sweat of our fellow laborers.
Merlin:We're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to put all of our sweat into one big, this is probably not a good analogy, but, but, but you get all your, all your, all your sweat in one Bastic.
Merlin:And then suddenly you're achieving economies of scales on sprouted and unsprouted wheat to where you can maybe even get somebody to cross the aisle.
John:And then Jerry's wife, Brenda.
Merlin:What kind of beard does she have, John?
John:Well, she wears her hair with a big handkerchief.
Merlin:Oh, I love that look.
John:Is she red-haired?
John:Well, let's see.
John:She can be red-haired.
John:What's her name?
Merlin:Brenda.
John:Can it be Jane?
Merlin:I think Brenda's friend Jean is definitely involved.
Merlin:Okay, now let's come back to Jean.
Merlin:If there's a red-haired Jean, I'd like to come back to it.
John:Okay.
John:Brenda's got no beard, but she's interested in sprouting.
John:She is interested in taking this and putting it into a brick-and-mortar store.
John:Okay.
John:Brenda's like, you know, let's get this.
John:We got so much stuff coming in, we can't just keep sorting this in our living room.
John:There's a warehouse, you know, and this is, of course, $50 a month rent times.
John:But they introduce a little bit of infrastructure.
John:They get some infrastructure, and then somebody, I think it's probably Jean, says, you know what we should have?
John:We should have membership cards.
John:Everybody should get- Jean's a minx.
John:She doesn't mean to be how she is, but she is.
John:Everybody should get a membership card.
John:Yes.
John:And then they're like, you know, okay, Bill is member number one and Jerry's member number two and Brenda's member number three.
John:And then pretty soon everybody wants a membership card.
John:They all have membership numbers.
Merlin:People who previously maybe had no interest in unsprouted wheat suddenly want Gene to give them a card.
Merlin:Yeah, and you're walking around the store now.
Merlin:I think Gene might be Rita Hayworth in my head.
Merlin:I think that's the problem.
Merlin:I think for some reason I started imagining that Gene is Rita Hayworth, and I think that's what's clouding my vision about the co-op.
John:I feel like Gene is Rita Hayworth, except she's wearing a scarf or a hanky on her head.
John:Absolutely.
John:All that hair?
John:All that hair, and they're wearing dungarees, and some of them have overalls, like baggy overalls too big for them.
John:And now they're shoveling stuff.
John:You know, they just got so much unsprotted wheat.
Merlin:Nothing succeeds like success.
Merlin:So now all of a sudden the farmer and the cowman must be friends like out in the field and on the on the Glen, the Dale, the Ford, all those things.
Merlin:They say, hey, what's going on over there?
Merlin:What's this new building I see going up with Rita Hayworth is out there laying bricks, if you know what I mean.
Merlin:That's exactly right.
John:And think about the fat cat grocers who are chewing on their cigars with their greasy slicked back hair and their polyester suits.
John:That's unpleasant.
Merlin:That's what the Great Gildersleeve looks like.
Merlin:Oh my God.
Merlin:I'm going to save the photos of this guy.
Merlin:His name's Willard Waterman played the Great Gildersleeve.
Merlin:Oh, Wildered Waterman.
Merlin:Yes!
Merlin:He died in Burlingame, not too far from here.
Merlin:R.I.P.
Merlin:to a real one.
John:Oh, or as we call it, the game, or the burl.
John:That's what my tattoo says.
John:Well, so here's, I think, I've got this, now I'm remembering how it goes.
Merlin:then merlin and this is what this is it always turns this corner the normies yeah the snorks start to want to get their bulgur wheat at the bulgur wheat store at the new co-op but they maybe specifically want to go to this new place called a co-op rather than the place with the i mean i don't want to be racist they don't want to go to the place that the great gildersleeve runs that guy will hold your check as long as it suits him
Merlin:I'm interested in what's going on over here.
Merlin:I'm not that interested in a bulger weed or whitey bulger, but I'll go over there and unsprout it because I might get a card from, you know, one of the great.
John:There are a lot of people out there who want to wear the scarf in their hair, but they don't want a membership number.
John:Okay.
John:And so they started buying stuff.
John:And at the end of the year, I guess what happens is there's profits.
John:Oh, yes.
Merlin:Yes.
John:This is just basically John Hodgman, and John Hodgman makes that sound sometimes.
Merlin:Okay.
Merlin:Yes.
Merlin:I can send you a really depressing picture of him at a celebrity appearance in the 90s.
John:Willard Waterman.
John:Well, yeah.
John:I mean, you know, and the thing is, in some of these pictures where he's got his mustache and his cigar, he's probably 32.
John:Oh, absolutely.
Merlin:And we look at him, and he looks like 80.
Merlin:It's mind-boggling.
Merlin:Yeah.
Merlin:It's like the way that everybody in my mom's yearbook looks 50.
Oh.
John:There's a picture of him when he was young.
John:I mean, he looks like Hodgman in every one of these pictures, even young Hodgman.
John:Anyway, so then there's profit.
John:And you know, profit is the problem.
Merlin:Is there some buzz about this place going around, John?
Merlin:Because now they're here and they got Wheat, they got Rita Hayworth, and they're paying something.
Merlin:We wouldn't call it a dividend because boo capitalism.
Merlin:But there could be a thing.
Merlin:Or it could be like, well, you know, I didn't know Aria.
Merlin:I was a co-op.
Merlin:I just went there because I like the store.
John:That's the thing.
John:So then all of a sudden the place is flooded with normies.
John:Sometimes they open a second location.
John:Now they're making more money.
John:Never go with a snork to a second location.
John:Yeah, that's exactly right.
John:Don't go with a snork to a second location, but you can open a second location for the snorks, closer to the snorks.
John:Yes.
John:And so they actually do call it a dividend.
Yes.
John:because at the end of the year there's a pile of money and they don't feel good about giving it to jerry or to bill because jerry and bill are like hey man we just started this thing but we're not here to like get rich off of it man we're just here for everybody to benefit right and so they give the money back to everybody that's got a number they all split up the money because that's fair and equitable it's not capitalism
John:Mm-hmm.
John:Although those people are making money.
John:Whole foods did pretty well in the end.
John:Oh, sure.
John:Well, so, and this is the thing about REI, right?
John:Now, REI, although still a co-op, they just sent me a message.
John:They were like, you've got $35 in REI bucks.
John:And I'm like, well, I wish that could have been in my bank so I wouldn't have gotten overdraft protection.
John:Yes.
John:Yes.
Merlin:But everybody I know.
Merlin:Because the thing is, nobody's going to know.
Merlin:Nobody here's 60.
Merlin:Nobody's going to remember that guy from being on like, I don't know, probably like I Love Lucy or something.
John:But they can look up Willard Waterman as much as the next person.
John:Yeah.
John:And then, oh, they still won't know is what you're saying.
John:They're going to look at that and it's going to be meaningless.
John:They're going to go, he does kind of look like Hodgman, but I don't know how the user is.
John:Check out Rita Hayworth.
John:So, everybody I know that worked at REI, or I hear this a lot when I talk about REI in any kind of public forum.
John:I don't know if this happens to you when you talk about things online and then you hear from people about it.
John:Oh, you hear like from an insider or something?
John:An insider.
John:And people write and they say, REI is a union-busting...
John:like conglomerate that hates the worker and uh is part of the you know and they're sitting back there with their slick back hair and their cigar chompers oh so they're saying i meet the new beard same as the old beard well except it's still a co-op that's true and when you go in there there's all these signs about how they're it's sustainable unfiltered bee honey and it's all you know but when i walk around in rei now
John:I don't understand the place at all.
John:I'm not sure who's buying this stuff.
John:I don't know what any of this stuff is for.
Merlin:It seems to be approximately one-third yeti coolers.
Merlin:Yeti coolers.
John:There's a lot of brands.
John:I don't know anymore.
Merlin:Yeti cooler sounds like a Jewish girl I would have had a crush on in college.
John:Oh, Yeti cooler.
John:She's so little.
John:I mean, but she was kind of mean.
John:She was mean, but I kept talking.
John:She was mean.
John:I don't think there are any natural fabrics left in REI.
Merlin:What's that one brand?
Merlin:It's called Arcteryx?
Merlin:Arcteryx?
Merlin:Yeah, but aren't they?
Merlin:Isn't that like... It's like $600 jackets.
Merlin:That's what I was going to say.
Merlin:And I'm not trying to, you know, whatever, make fun of anybody.
Merlin:But you see those around.
Merlin:You see people wearing those.
Merlin:And in the times that I have gone, when I need a foul-weather outerwear thing, I do tend to go to REI.
Merlin:And I've looked at their stuff.
Merlin:And each time I've been like, is this an error?
Merlin:Is the price tag an error?
Merlin:Well, because like, I don't know about $600, but I feel like they are twice to three times as much as comparable items.
Merlin:Oh, they're $600.
Merlin:So what we're saying also is... As Kramer would say, oh, $600.
John:Oh, a pig man.
John:Yeah, well, and the thing about Arcteryx, this is the thing.
John:When we were young, Les Pauls, the guitars...
John:were heavy they were heavier than stratocasters they were the heaviest the heaviest guitar and everybody said that the heaviness of them made them sustain longer and it made them sound better true yep yep yep and then sometime in the last 15 years
John:And it might be a lot of people like Doug Gillard from your favorite band, Guided by Voices.
John:Doug Gillard, who played a Les Paul for years and years, and then he was like, my shoulder is broken from carrying this motherfucker, as he would have said, I don't swear.
John:Mm-mm.
John:But then people realized, oh, the heaviness of the Les Paul is not what made it sound good.
John:And now what we want is light Les Paul.
Merlin:My Epiphone is, you know, a single cutaway.
Merlin:My Epiphone weighs, it's like an eighth of a Les Paul in weight.
John:Well, the new Les Pauls, when they sell them, actually any guitar, when they sell them now, expensive guitar, they weigh it.
John:And they tell you the weight of the guitar as part of what makes the guitar like a premium item.
Merlin:This one's only 7.4 pounds.
Merlin:That's funny.
Merlin:There's a YouTube channel I watch where just in passing for each item this guy is reviewing, he'll say, you know, weight is sometimes an indicator of quality.
Merlin:So you weigh different ones.
Merlin:But the thing is, they could put in birdshot or something.
John:right well and I think yeah that's right but I think like I have some guitars from the 1970s that way yeah like they're basically made of melted birdshot
John:And they're harder to schlep around.
Merlin:Can I give you my, this is going to be very, very random.
Merlin:And I don't know why I'm even saying this, except that you enjoyed the past as well as I do.
Merlin:There's only one brand of guitar-like instrument that in my experience, pound for pound, so to speak, weighs more than Les Paul's Peaveys.
Merlin:You ever hold a Peavey bass?
John:Well, because Peaveys are a solid block of wood.
John:But do you know what I'm talking about, though?
John:You ever pick up a Peavey bass?
John:It's asinine.
Mm-hmm.
John:And that's, you know, those guitars, American made solid piece of wood.
John:They are still so cheap.
John:You can get them for $400.
Merlin:Well, thank God for PV amps, as I'm going to say, because you could pick up a used PV amp in the 1980s for the kind of money that some of us had.
Merlin:And you had a guitar amp.
Merlin:Thank God.
John:And right now, I'm not kidding you at all.
John:Right this very minute.
John:Yeah.
John:we are seeing finally after decades those little pv practice amps that are always called bandits and buckaroos and oh my god they are becoming hip and cool and they're going it's that handsome logotype with the triangular handsome p
John:$30 at thrift stores for my adult, my entire adult life.
John:Then they were $60 at thrift stores.
John:And when that happened, I was like, Hmm, yeah.
John:Okay.
John:I get that.
John:And then they started reappearing in music shops.
John:And the idea is, Oh, you know, that built in distortion that we always used to totally think was terrible.
John:Yeah.
John:Yeah.
John:That's like basically a dip switch.
John:You push it in and it's like, Oh, it turns out that's actually rad.
Yeah.
John:And I tell you it wasn't very metal.
John:It wasn't very metal was it was kind of it was kind of fuzzy Yeah, I'm telling you in three years those things are gonna be four hundred dollars And you're not gonna be able to find them anywhere and it's just like it's so hilarious to me But the thing about Arc'teryx jackets, huh is that they are lighter
John:than other very lightweight, rainproof, expensive San Francisco weather jackets and like ski jackets or something.
Merlin:Implication being that that's if you're going like, you know, you're packing lighter, that's the idea.
John:You're packing lighter, exactly.
John:But when I'm going through the REI Cooperative and I'm running my fingers over the top of a jacket that I'm gonna wear in winter in the rain,
John:maybe i'm old i'm certainly an old i was born in the 1900s like you yeah i feel that and it feels
Merlin:flimsy insubstantial yes you you like something you you you if you had your druthers you would wear waxed woolen pants exactly or something like that right don't you have some ideas about old timey things made with wax i do and my daughter is like you would make a you'd wear a jacket made out of wood if you could and i'm like well
John:Oh, that's actually really funny.
John:Because you would.
John:I would.
John:And I have all these wool jackets, but they keep me warm in winter, cool in summer, and they shed the rain off.
John:You don't need to get defensive about it.
John:And they smell like a wet dog, which is how people in the Northwest were meant to smell.
John:And so I got it.
John:Gore-Tex, I got it.
John:When it came out, it was like, okay, sure, it's an improvement.
John:Although Gore-Tex, A, delaminated, and B, didn't breathe.
John:So you would turn into a sweaty sweater.
Merlin:Wait, I think I know what you mean.
Merlin:Is that that thing where it gets all weird and peely?
Merlin:Yeah, peely.
Merlin:I've had that.
John:Yeah.
Merlin:Well, so they fixed that.
John:But yeah, all those gray jackets that we all bought in 1979 that were like, Gore-Tex, the new thing.
John:Then they all bubbled up and fell apart.
Merlin:So that right there makes you feel like, hmm, I don't know about this.
John:Yeah.
John:So this is the thing about coolers.
John:They ain't cheap.
John:There you go.
John:That's right.
John:They're $600 for it's a box.
John:It's a box.
John:It's a thick box.
John:I feel like recreational equipment incorporated cooperative has stuff in it.
John:that maybe maybe arcteryx gives back 10 to the people maybe arcteryx is made sustainably out of uh recycled bamboo maybe maybe maybe maybe it's all made out of unpasteurized bee honey
John:But I don't think so.
John:I mean, Patagonia goes to great lengths to explain to us how sustainable and hippie they are.
John:Okay.
John:And they give money.
John:Oh, I don't know.
John:They hate money, Merlin.
John:They hate it.
John:It's sort of like carbon offset credits.
John:Yeah.
John:Yeah, they have $400 jackets, not $600 jackets.
John:But that money, when it gets into the hands of the people at Patagonia, it burns their fingers.
John:And they want to give it, they want to give it, give it, give it.
John:And I guess some of them probably drive Porsches, but that's only because they're a quality car that are very lightweight and it's got nothing to do with them being like... Supporting German industry.
Merlin:Yeah, or like hot or rad or anything like that.
Merlin:They drive an AG Farben if they could.
Merlin:Ooh.
Merlin:No, not those guys.
Merlin:No.
Merlin:Or Crops.
Merlin:They drive a Crops.
Merlin:Or... Wait a minute.
Merlin:There's got to be a German company I can think of.
Merlin:VW.
Merlin:No.
Merlin:Bayer.
Merlin:Bayer.
Merlin:No.
Merlin:Bayer.
Merlin:Sure.
Merlin:Bayer.
Merlin:Yeah.
John:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John:So I do feel walking around that store that I don't understand...
John:And the thing is, if you look at a Filson catalog, every guy in there seems so mad and so just unhappy.
John:They're standing on the deck of a fishing boat, or they're one of these cowmen that you talk about who have cows.
John:But they all seem just, their brows are furrowed.
John:They just seem mean and mad.
Merlin:So the Filson wearer in the catalogs of today, you can see that the way of the world is upon them.
Merlin:They are working for a living, if you like.
Merlin:That's right.
John:Whereas Patagonia catalogs, everybody's doing some kind of action and they all have sunglasses on.
John:They're all like...
John:fly fishing or they're doing sports right um and uh and they and they and their clothes are lightweight and they shed water and they give money back
John:They give money back to many, many, and so you can feel good about it because you're $400.
John:It's not filthy lucre.
Merlin:It doesn't, like, go to— Yeah, it's like giving your leftover lobster to a homeless person, an unhoused lobster to a homeless person.
Merlin:That's right.
Merlin:Hey, buddy.
Merlin:You there, wake up.
Merlin:Wake up.
John:Eat this.
John:I don't have a dollar for you because you'll just waste it on drugs or cigarettes.
Merlin:I know.
Merlin:It looks like an aluminum foil swan, but it's got a lobster.
Okay.
John:Some of a lobster.
Merlin:God damn it.
Merlin:Beggars can't be choosers and you're literally a beggar, sir.
John:Listen, I just looked it up.
John:There's a whole site on the Patagonia website called Patagonia Action Works.
John:Thank you.
John:It says since 1972 and it's superimposed over a black and white photo of what appear to be indigenous people and their white allies who are protesting about fracking and
John:It says Patagonia Action Works since 1972 Patagonia has supported grassroots activists working to find solutions to the environmental crisis Now I'm not mocking Patagonia Action Works.
John:I I got I bought my first Patagonia last year.
John:I don't know if I told you that I don't think you did I hadn't heard about it anyway when I was getting ready to go skiing
John:this this friend of mine was like hey i know somebody at patagonia you know this is how i work he said i know somebody at patagonia i can get you patagonia stuff for like half off and i had never bought it because it was expensive
John:I always admired it, though.
Merlin:But that changes the formula a little bit.
Merlin:It changes the equation, if you like, the balance sheet.
Merlin:When you go like, oh, yeah, but could I feel good about this if I got 20% off?
John:Well, and the problem is, of course, the 20% or the 50% you're getting off is probably the money they were going to send to Patagonia Action Works to prevent fracking.
Merlin:Yeah, or, yeah, they could have sent it directly to the First Nations peoples.
John:yeah and i don't know how they i'm sorry about manhattan yeah oops we're not actually going to give you any land back ever but no that's what an that's what a land acknowledgement is it's a it's it's a rote and respectful flex right sorry about the land we will be keeping it so we'll we're going to be keeping it first item also no dividends zero dividends
John:But the thing is, I give 50% off of Filson stuff because I'm part of their pro program that I'm not supposed to talk about.
John:Oh, is that right?
John:Just for podcasters.
John:So apparently, so if you go into a Filson store...
John:You're not supposed to mention to them, to the people that work there, the Filson Pro program.
John:It's online only.
John:And the people, I guess, who work there at the store don't get a discount.
John:This is complicated business, John.
John:At the level that if you're a pro and to be a pro, you just have to be somebody that uses Filson in a public way where you're, where just by virtue of you being there in it, you're advertising it because like you're a rad dude.
Merlin:Yeah, you're like the Dua Lipa of getting wet outside.
John:That's right.
John:I'm outside, I'm getting wet, and my picture's getting taken with me, or in my case, you know, I talk about it.
John:Yes.
John:But even then, at 50% off, it's still expensive as good God.
John:Yes, yes, yes.
John:You know, like, this is just a jacket.
Merlin:It's like, you know, there's a distinction I make a lot that is probably not a distinction.
Merlin:Costly things versus expensive things.
Merlin:There are things that cost a lot of money and are worth it.
Merlin:And then there are things that cost a lot of money and whether or not it's worth it is kind of in the eye of the beholder.
Merlin:And then you get this third level of what I'm going to just slightly fancily call a Veblen good, which is the kind of thing that you buy because it's expensive.
Merlin:You buy you buy the reason you buy I mean, I'm sure there are people who genuinely love the shape and construction of Birkin bags But people buy Birkin bags because they're almost impossible to get and that's what it you know That this the guys that comments Thurston Veblen right came up with this idea of he what was he?
Merlin:Yeah, what's his famous book?
Merlin:He had a famous book about I have it right here.
John:It is It's called or something
John:No, it's the it's it's it's the words that describe his come on.
John:Where is it?
John:Oh, you know the problem with it was I the cover fell off of it And it's one of those books where you can't see you treat yourself to a nicer copy like a seven dollar copy the People are yelling at us right now something of the leisure class
John:Yeah, well, there's that one, but then there's the other one.
Merlin:But he identified that as something where, and it's very interesting, turns out, of the last 25 years for me.
Merlin:I didn't know about that, something like that as a kid.
Merlin:You would know, like, oh, well, there are people that we would look down our nose at, well, look up our nose at, rich people who would spend lots of money.
Merlin:Well, but they would spend lots of money because they could.
Merlin:Yeah, I think he coined the phrase conspicuous consumption.
Merlin:I feel I think so I think he did that was when I first heard about that But that's what Arcturix feels like to me.
Merlin:It's like this little logo this little picture on my clothes lets you know Like that's that is meant to tell you things about me when I first met a Millennium girlfriend.
John:She was wearing a very small black dress But when I second met her
John:She was wearing an Arcteryx jacket.
John:And that was at a time when Arcteryx, although when I first became aware of them, it was all like rock climbers that were wearing them.
John:Somewhere along the way, it became a thing that everyone in San Francisco, specifically San Francisco, was wearing.
John:You saw them everywhere down there.
John:And I felt like...
Merlin:This has become a tech thing like people in Patagonia Patagonia became like to the point where it's like a bit on Silicon Valley But to me Arcturix was like rich programmers would get them.
John:Yeah rich programmers exactly Well, the other thing was with Filson for a long long time the extra money that you paid is
John:was because they made it in Seattle.
John:Oh.
John:And so when you put that extra money into it.
Merlin:Interesting.
Merlin:Well, you know, Timbuktu bags, the messenger bags.
Merlin:My first two Timbuktu bags were made by ladies on Third Street.
Merlin:Like, you know, at the cannery.
Merlin:And now, I mean, like, even my, like, these Blundstone boots that I wear every day now, I checked, and they're from the Thailand era.
Merlin:They don't even make these in Australia anymore.
John:Well, Patagonia now is, I don't remember the last Patagonia I saw that had a made in America logo, but now they're made in Vietnam.
John:Yeah.
John:And the thing about Filson was they actually, the building that they were made in was also the store and they had a big wall of windows that you could look back and see all of the sewing machines and all of the.
Merlin:Dozens of worried looking farmers with the weight of the world on their shoulders.
John:Well, no, it was, of course, the, you know, it was ladies.
John:Yeah.
John:That was, that was the Timbuktu place too.
John:Yeah.
John:Cranking out these bags and they all seemed really happy because they were a being paid, I think.
John:And they lived in Seattle, which at the time was an affordable place to live.
John:And they were making a thing that everybody loved.
John:Everybody loved.
John:But then the company got purchased by some slicked back hair capitalist hippies.
John:Okay.
John:Yes.
John:Who used to work at J. Crew, and then they worked at Patagonia, and now they work at Filson.
John:And they were like, you know, these are expensive to make in Seattle.
Merlin:We could make more money if we built these someplace else.
Merlin:That happened everywhere.
Merlin:I mean, it happened in, there was in the Carolinas.
Merlin:There used to be so much, I think in the Carolinas and in Rhode Island, both, there used to be so much textile manufacturing.
Merlin:Oh, yeah.
Merlin:Like right outside where my wife grew up, there was the American tourister factory where they made luggage.
Merlin:There's all that stuff.
Merlin:I don't mean to be turning this into some Ken Burns thing, but it was a long slide from, well, obviously triangle shirtwaist factory, probably not the best example, but manufacturing in Manhattan to manufacturing outside of cities to, hey, let's move that down to have these mills in the south.
Merlin:You know, in these other coastal areas, somewhere near a river where you could get the goods out.
Merlin:Well, it was close to the cotton.
Merlin:Furniture was another one.
John:Close to the cotton.
John:When I first started going to Manhattan, you'd go through the garment district, and all those buildings were full of people making garments.
John:They were still pushing around carts like in a Woody Allen movie.
John:Yeah, and in the summertime, they'd all have the doors open because there was no air conditioning.
John:And you could just look right in and you'd see rows and rows and rows of people.
John:Temperatures too dang high, Mom Donnie says.
John:Temperatures too damn high.
John:Well, so now I'm in a conflicted place, right?
John:Because part of this, like, well, certainly like anything made at Filson now, you can't.
John:You can't justify paying $550 for it if it's also made in Madagascar.
John:Because part of the reason we paid that much money was that we felt like it was keeping it in the town.
Merlin:It does kind of force you to confront the... I'm not saying you did this or anybody in particular does, but I've done this, where you kind of gloss over the like, oh, you know...
Merlin:Oh, like the line in Mr. Show.
Merlin:It's made of spider sugar.
Merlin:It's good for the spiders.
Merlin:Like you come up, you come up with these reasons why you do stuff and you can hand wave and it's, and, and like, there's times where you're like, oh, there's actually three or four reasons I do this.
Merlin:Like it's a local place.
Merlin:It's a local, you know, it employs local people, which constant, you know, um, consequently means they're, it's an American, they're manufacturing in the U S and the quality is better.
Merlin:Hmm.
Merlin:But it sounds like you're saying even if the quality were better, which I'm just speculating, it's probably not.
John:I mean, well, it's still it's still heavier stuff.
John:And this is the difference between it and Arc'teryx, right?
John:When you when you when you touch it, when you lift it up, you're like, oh, yeah, this is real.
John:Like this isn't some stuff that's just glued together with a hot glue gun like this has been sewed by these.
John:You can you can feel the sheep.
John:that went into making this.
John:And that's still true-ish.
John:I mean, I don't want to risk my Filson Pro account to anybody listening who's like, God damn this guy.
Merlin:I think it's going to make people admire you even more, including if I could say the people at Filson.
Merlin:This is not news to them.
Merlin:They don't need a propagandist.
Merlin:They need somebody speaking the truth to power and to weakness, which is something you can do.
John:Well, and there's all those guys with furrowed brows and cowboy hats who are online because they're on Facebook.
John:And when they're not arguing about immigration, they're like,
John:Filson stuff isn't as good as it used to be.
Merlin:Yeah.
John:Trans people in sports.
John:Yeah.
John:And then there's somebody on the site that's like, well, if you don't like it, don't buy it.
John:And then they're back and forth.
John:And it's like the name of the Facebook group is called Filson stuff.
John:Yeah.
John:And it's just like, what are we doing?
John:You know, like I just go by there sometimes.
John:Yeah.
John:But part of this like, oh, made in America is better.
John:Now it feels like so many of these issues.
John:Now, wait a minute.
John:Is this a conservative talking point?
John:Should I be?
John:Because like NAFTA and global garments were supposed to be like agents of freedom.
Merlin:That's a point that's missed on a lot of people is that sometimes even stuff that everybody agrees is a good idea.
Merlin:People can't get on board with because it feels more allied with what they perceive as the other side.
John:Yeah.
John:Even, and you, and we see it all the time now where it's like, well, this used to be our talking point, but now it's their talking point.
John:It's the same sheep.
John:It's the same unfiltered honey, but now they like it and we don't.
John:And we used to think it was good and nothing's changed about it or its relationship to the world.
John:It's just we decided that No, and they decided yes, and then it's the other way and so I've always been like if it's made in America, it's better sure and and This is just for the younger people just so you know and this is gonna sound racist and I don't mean it to be It's not racist.
Merlin:It's true.
Merlin:It's historical which is that when I was coming up I'll give you two big threads one was made in Japan or made in Taiwan was synonymous with shit
Merlin:If you said something was made in Japan, I mean, there was a time, obviously, then when, you know, oh, what does Mandrake say in Dr. Strangelove?
Merlin:But they make such bloody good cameras.
Merlin:Were you tortured, Mandrake?
Merlin:worst part is i think they enjoyed it but you get you get that kind of thing that's one one thread of that the other one was like i'm from ohio and like there was only one person in my family who would ever consider my my my uh my my interesting and slightly unconventional uncle would buy japanese and german cars
Merlin:as in VWs or whatever.
Merlin:He had a Jag in the sixties cause he was a car guy.
Merlin:But like in my family, everybody bought GM, GM or AMC.
Merlin:Like, because if you were driving around, the thing is there's a lot of people at the, I mean, not that it matters, but just for context, I'll put this in a way that isn't too overly dramatic.
Merlin:I hope when you're idling at the light, you're sitting in a BMW and there's a, let's say 70 year old man in the next car and,
Merlin:Who fought the goddamn Nazis.
Merlin:Well, who watched his buddies die face down in the mud so you could drive around in a fucking BMW.
John:Well, and what's nuts is that nowadays the people that are like things that are made places are better than things that are made in other places.
John:Not only do they say things that are made in Japan are the highest quality.
John:But they retcon that whole conversation and they say things that were made back when we thought stuff that was made in Japan was cheap.
John:Those things actually were good the whole time and really nice, in fact, and they're so much better than that.
Merlin:yeah it's a kind of it's a kind of orientalism or not if not orientalism at least just kind of casual racism to just be like well the thing is a lot of stuff that was made in taiwan well let's look at what it was the kind of shit you'd get out of a gumball machine or like toys and stuff like that because and then it would only be like 10 years later that like your towels don't come from south carolina anymore well and now we can't even run computers without taiwan because they're the only ones that know how to make chips oh
John:But, so lately, you know, I... Sorry, was that too aggressive of a grunt?
John:No, no, no.
John:I think those were exactly the right level of grunt.
John:That was an honest grunt.
John:But lately, so I've got too much stuff, as you know, and I'm always trying to get rid of stuff because I've been thrifting.
John:Are you?
John:Kind of.
Merlin:I've been thrifting since 1982.
John:I think you're always thinking about getting rid of stuff.
John:I'm trying, though.
John:Right now, I'm really trying.
John:And I remember, I probably told this story where I was like, everybody was wearing IZOD shirts when I was first in high school.
Merlin:Oh, can we do something here to close out the show?
Merlin:Can we each tell an old anecdote again?
Merlin:Because I have one I want to retell also.
Merlin:Yeah, old anecdotes are the best.
Merlin:See, here's the thing.
Merlin:You get that Arcturx.
Merlin:Just for context, you get that Arcturx.
Merlin:Go ahead.
Merlin:Oh, I'm so sorry.
Merlin:I apologize.
Merlin:I was trying to give context to give you a layup.
Merlin:Sorry.
John:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John:Give it some context.
Merlin:Well, you go out and you buy the Arcterix.
Merlin:Yeah.
Merlin:It's held together with hot glue.
Merlin:Hot glue.
Merlin:And whatnot.
Merlin:And you go, oh, look at me.
Merlin:Is it a bird?
Merlin:What is an Arcterix?
Merlin:Is it like a penguin or something?
John:It's a skeleton of a... It's a hairless bird or a hairy bird with wingless feathers.
Merlin:What did they say in BC?
John:Hairy bird with wingless feathers?
Merlin:A hairy bird with... Pair pimples for hairy fish nuts?
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Merlin:Just cough up some dough, Mac.
Merlin:Mac.
Merlin:But what if the world was actually a little bit fakakta and maybe there's people out there, oh, like I just saw that movie Roof Man with the very charming Shannon Tatum.
Merlin:And to escape from jail, he sews a Dr. Zog sex wax logo onto his prison uniform so he can get out.
Merlin:It's a pretty good movie.
Merlin:Smart.
Merlin:That kind of thing, right?
Merlin:Okay, but now the thing is,
Merlin:I don't want to get all Derrida on you, but what makes it Arcteric's?
Merlin:Is it the logo?
Merlin:Is it the tag?
Merlin:It's the glue.
John:They make the best glue, yeah.
Merlin:So anyway.
John:So I went to my mom and I said, hey, everybody's got these alligators on their shirt.
John:I want a shirt with an alligator.
John:And she said the alligator shirt is $75.
John:So you can get one of, because your budget for new school clothes is $100.
John:So you can get one $75 shirt and then have $25 left over to get everything else.
John:Or I can give you $100 and you can go to the Goodwill and...
John:And you can buy 40 things.
John:And I understood.
John:Her preference was emerging about what you should do here.
John:I understood because she had my whole life been taking me to Goodwill and forced me to sit there while she went through the aisles.
John:And so I was like, well, I'm going to be there anyway.
John:And then I realized $100 at Goodwill, you were a rich, rich person.
John:You could buy a leather jacket for $16.
John:And so since that time, I've been going to thrift stores.
John:So I have so much stuff that I paid no money for, and that's part of why I like it.
John:But the problem is it's too much stuff.
John:So the other day, based on this exact, this exact concept, I said, now, wait a minute.
John:Nothing's made in America anymore.
John:Nobody I know has a single shirt that's made in America.
John:All their shirts are made in China or Vietnam or Sri Lanka.
John:And I said, but I have closets of stuff made in America.
John:Oh.
John:Because I bought it at a time when made in America stuff was getting given away.
John:You're the unintentional curator.
John:Right.
John:And so I said, what if my new theme was that everything that I wore was made in America?
Right.
John:And all of a sudden my closets looked completely different to me.
John:I started going through and I was like, I love this shirt, but it was made in Madagascar.
Merlin:That's at the very least a fascinating exercise.
Merlin:Yes, right?
Merlin:Just because it gives you anything that gives you an angle.
Merlin:I mean, you're not committed, but anything that gives you an angle into seeing something differently can be very useful to you.
Merlin:Cause if forces, it's like when somebody says, it's like the thing like, Oh, what do you want for dinner?
Merlin:And they go, you know, I don't care.
Merlin:And you say, well, in that case, you know, I want goat and they go, actually, I really want a taco bell.
Merlin:Like nothing.
Merlin:It's like when you flip a coin is when you find out what you really think about something.
John:Exactly.
John:Do you want Ben liver pockets?
John:so I'm going through the closets and I'm first of all astonished at how many things I have that were made in America and they were paid for by somebody they were paid for by this guy back in 1960 he wore it for 20 years and then it sat in his closet for 15 years and the stitching on those old Montgomery Ward shirts they last forever these shirts are still they still look like brand new
John:And they're 70 years old.
John:And I've been wearing them for 30 years.
John:And so I'm going through and I'm just pulling everything out that wasn't made in America.
John:And I get to a couple of things that I'm like, well, okay, now it's getting weird because this was made in Hong Kong, but it was British Hong Kong.
John:And I know those were good though because they had, they had real science of making garments back there.
John:And I was like, ah, I'm kind of on the fence about this.
John:And then you're like, well, this is made in Italy, which is renowned for, but now am I just like, it's gotta be made.
John:by Pete, by places where white people are, are making the electricity.
John:Like that seems like a weird thing.
John:Anyway, I'm going through and I pull everything out.
John:That's not made in America.
John:And I look at it and I'm like, well, I still have an entire wardrobe.
John:The difference is that all of the clothes that were made since 1990, since NAFTA, like that's kind of the fun stuff.
John:Like my made in America clothes are, they're kind of like
John:um not colorful they're not there's no colorful you know interesting well yeah they're not just no no they're very extremely interesting they just don't have bright colors there there's no orange in any of them there's no there's nothing zippy about them
John:They're made from a time when people weren't zippy.
John:When if you were like, this is, this thing is yellow.
John:They're like yellow.
John:What are you some kind of like fancy pants?
John:Right.
John:Yeah.
John:And so I had to sit with that and be like, okay, so it's a different kind of thing.
John:And it actually is going to change the way I get dressed.
John:It's going to change the, what I'm looking for.
John:And then I had all the clothes that were not made in America altogether.
John:And I was like, look at them.
John:It's like a rainbow of fun.
John:And so I'm still like, ah, I'm like, ah.
Merlin:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Merlin:I thought you were going to tell the story about when you used to put alligators on your shirts.
John:Oh, yeah.
John:But that was like, I was punk, but I wasn't punk.
John:And I was like, ha, ha, ha, two alligators humping.
John:that i got from alligator shirts that i found at the thrift store lacoste is a french company right lacoste where do you think their stuff's made vietnam 100 it's got to be oh because it's got to be because of the colonialism because well because nafta used to own that you know they called it french indo china they used to call they did they did i think you know it was bill clinton who was like if we open up all of the trade and
John:it's going to bring democracy and freedom to the world and it's going to make things cheaper for us but it's going to up it's going to bring up the standard of living and it's going to be the new american century where instead of going out and overthrowing lawful governments with cia poison umbrellas we're going to take american values out in the form of having people make cheap garments that happens on the americans by the way in the first or second
Merlin:Kerry Russell stabs a guy with a poison-tipped umbrella, and I was beside myself.
Merlin:You were jumping up and down.
Merlin:Yes!
Merlin:Oh, my God.
Merlin:If only that were Alec Guinness doing that.
John:Do you watch The Diplomat?
John:Mm-hmm.
John:Kerry Russell.
Merlin:Yeah.
Merlin:I really like that shit.
Merlin:Yeah, you do watch it.
Merlin:That Rufus Sewell, man.
Merlin:That guy's trouble.
Merlin:What's his name?
Merlin:What's the husband?
Merlin:You know that guy?
Merlin:Yeah.
Merlin:He's trouble.
Merlin:He's trouble, that guy.
Merlin:He's trouble.
Merlin:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John:He gets into it.
John:He gets into a lot of stuff.
Merlin:So your story, though, so you've got, you literally took this stuff out of closet stores, whatever.
Merlin:You've got a pile over here and a pile over there, right?
Merlin:These are all the, what you feel comfortable saying, are made in the United States clothes, and over here are not made in the United States clothes.
Merlin:But they're more colorful, like popping with colors.
Merlin:What are other things you notice, like staring across the room at your two different collections?
John:Well, I think that the stuff made in America fits better.
John:Okay.
John:Because it's just better.
John:It's just made.
John:I think the stuff that's made overseas, like they take an eighth of an inch off of everything to make it one eighth of an inch cheaper to manufacture.
Merlin:And so it all still sell all that stuff together.
Merlin:It's wild.
Merlin:I mean, like I used to, I didn't have a ton of money in junior high and high school.
Merlin:And we'd go to the flea market in Pinellas Park, the wagon wheel flea market.
Merlin:And that's where I buy my martial arts supplies and my incense and my, not pirated, what would you call it?
Merlin:Fake Nike shirts.
Merlin:And these are the kind of, so, you know, I don't know if you ever bought like super off-brand clothing, fake clothing.
Merlin:Oh, sure.
Merlin:Stadia.
Merlin:But this is, yeah, but I mean, this would be like Stadia.
Merlin:Is that the whale?
Oh, oh.
Merlin:Yeah, the whale instead of the swoop.
Merlin:Oh, Jesus.
Merlin:These, though, like, the second time you wore is, like, buying something from H&M or something.
Merlin:Like, the armpit would tear out after the second time.
Merlin:You know, that kind of stuff.
Merlin:Or, like, if you've ever put on, like, a T-shirt...
Merlin:like an undershirt that fits well versus one that does not.
Merlin:And, you know, the thing is almost all undershirts are uncomfortable.
Merlin:And then some are like really well-made.
Merlin:They're, you know, they're well-built, if you like, well-constructed.
Merlin:And a lot of that, I bet because I'm just, and this is, I don't know, this isn't mean, but, you know, maybe they're going a little bit faster.
Merlin:Maybe it's a triangle shirtwaist type situation.
Merlin:Yeah, they got to get it made.
John:They're putting it on a ship.
John:Well, the thing is that that stuff's got to be so cheap that putting it on a giant ship and bringing it across the ocean and then putting it on a train and driving it across the country and then putting it on a truck, that has to be still cheaper than paying somebody in the United States to make it.
John:Yeah.
John:And the problem is then I was like, well, I'm only going to get shoes made in America.
John:Or I'm getting rid of all my shoes that weren't made in America.
John:Good luck.
John:And I'm looking at my shoes and I've got a bunch.
John:I've got old Aldens and old, you know, Red Wings that were made in America.
John:But boy, you're not going running anytime soon.
John:Oh, hell no.
John:Except, what are those dad shoes?
John:I have a pair of them that have an N on the side.
John:No, they're like New Balance.
John:New Balance actually makes some shoes still.
John:No kidding.
Merlin:That's a Total Grandpa shoe.
John:It's Total Grandpa, but you can find them.
John:And I found a pair at the Nordstrom Rack that were like made in the USA.
John:I mean, I'm sure it's made by Vietnamese people in the USA.
John:Where are Rockport's made?
John:Oh, I don't know, Vietnam.
John:Yeah.
John:Huh.
John:But so, yeah.
John:Anyway, so that's the new, oh, oh, and the, so the crazy thing is.
John:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John:I was up on 15th Avenue here in Seattle, which is part, well, used to be my neighborhood, and now it's totally not my neighborhood.
John:Like, I walk around up there, and I'm like, I used to do everything up here.
John:I used to go in here.
John:Capitol Hill.
John:I used to, my girlfriend lived there, and my other girlfriend lived there.
John:And the people that now live on Capitol Hill...
John:are like, hey, old man, go back to the home because we're busy being young.
John:And I was like... You don't have a porn stache.
John:But there was a... Yeah, you don't have a mullet.
John:What is with that mustache?
John:I don't know.
John:They act like it's normal.
John:So bad.
John:But there was a consignment store.
John:And 98% of the time... It's new.
John:And 98% of the time, consignment stores are all women's clothes.
John:And then in the back, there's like three dude things.
John:But I walked in because I was with my ladies and they were like, we want to go in here and find some stuff from Madewell.
John:And I walked to the back and there's a fully functioning men's department and B, everything in there has clearly been curated by somebody and it looks like the younger person's version of me.
Merlin:And this happens amidst, just to bring our listeners up to date, this is happening amidst a feeling you've had for some time that, in fact, you need to get rid of stuff.
John:Exactly.
John:Okay.
John:So I go up to the counter, and there are two people working at the counter, two they-thems, and I said, hey, let's talk for a second about what your consignment policy is.
John:Oh...
John:Okay.
John:And one of the, one of the people who is currently sorting goods is a person of color and they are not looking at me.
John:They are looking away.
John:And the other person is a person of blue hair who is, who is very engaged.
John:And they say, well, here's our deal.
John:If you bring it in and you want store credit, we give you 50%, which is already good.
John:That's good.
John:and if you want cash we give you 40 and i was like whoa that's really good that seems like that wouldn't even be a question i know and i looked at all the stuff and it's basically all my stuff that i'm trying to give away john and it's and it's priced really high like weirdly high yeah like
John:That shirt, you're seriously selling that shirt for $50?
Merlin:So you take the cash, you bring your Filson's or your whatnots.
Merlin:This slots in real well with what you're trying to do as long as you don't walk home with some other clothes.
Merlin:It's the whole game, right?
Merlin:But can you do that?
John:Can you do that, do you think?
John:So I said to the person that was interacting with me, I said, so how do you feel about 90s Ralph Lauren?
John:And the person who was not looking at me started to nod, kind of like, mm-hmm.
Merlin:I could move that.
John:Yeah, and the person that's looking at me was like, oh, yes.
John:And I said, how do you feel about Filson?
John:And then the person that wasn't looking at me nodded extremely vigorously, like, mm-hmm.
Merlin:Yes.
John:The person talking to me said,
John:Yes.
John:And I said, how do you feel about, and I'm not saying like, this is the Filson stuff that's made in Indonesia.
John:And I'm not saying these are the red wing boots that are made in Vietnam.
John:I'm saying this is all from the nineties.
John:So, you know, as well as I know, or if you don't know, then that's not my problem.
John:You know that this is like, and I was like, what about, you know, Chippewa?
John:And they were like, yes.
John:And I said, I'm going to bring a pallet of shit down here.
John:And they said, great.
John:You have to make an appointment.
John:Because we don't just let anybody come in here.
John:You have to make an appointment.
John:And our next available appointment is January 28th, 2026.
John:Which at the time was two months away.
John:And normally I would say, I would say quack.
John:Yeah.
John:But in this case, I said, I want in.
John:We are going to partner.
John:You two and I are going to partner.
John:And I made an appointment for January 26th.
John:And I've been putting stuff in bags.
John:all my stuff that isn't that's like not the the gray shirt that was made in america in 1960 but like is the pink shirt that was made in vietnam in 2001 i'm putting it all in bags and i'm gonna schlep it down there and those two and i are gonna
John:get rich together.
Merlin:Oh my God.
Merlin:What an opportunity for everybody because I wouldn't bring them a pallet though.
Merlin:I think you got to keep it special.
Merlin:I think you should bring, well, they said 50 items only.
Merlin:Well, but okay.
Merlin:And you only get one opportunity because if it were me, I would go in there with your hero items.
Merlin:I would go in with four or five, six of the like of them get that second person excited items.
Merlin:And then now you've been jumped in.
John:See, that's a good idea.
John:That is a good idea.
Merlin:Don't show them that like you're not you're not just trying to buy pawn off all a bunch of dead man's clothes on them But that you've got you've got pieces that they want.
John:Oh, see, that's very nice So then they're like they then it's respect on a hanger and make it nice You know what I mean?
John:I think that the I think that the porn mustache mullet young people.
John:Yes
John:also are like h&m stuff is garbage i can't keep wearing this target stuff and then there then they say although they don't have any money and can't afford rent and affordability and banks and capital capitals and boo yeah they say 40 for a shirt i'd pay for i'd pay that i read that young people they can only afford the best is what i read
John:See, that's the thing, because they've got 42 subscriptions, and that just is necessary.
John:But then I'm going to go up to this neighborhood I'm not welcome in anymore, and I'm going to see porn mustaches walking around in my old dad shirts, and the cycle is complete.
John:The circle is unbroken.
John:You've returned them to where they belong.
John:To where they belong, which is in cool looking kids.
John:That's where all this stuff should go.
John:Yeah.
John:Oh, the next generation.
John:You're almost like a mentor in some ways.
John:A clothing mentor.
John:And then I'm going to be the old man in gray colored clothes that were made in America.
John:And nobody's going to know that.
John:How do we get our hands on those?
John:Well, that's the thing.
John:Yeah.
Yeah.
John:I mean, that shit's under glass.
John:That's Roderick Reserve.
John:That's not just for everybody.
John:That's for when I die, and my daughter's like, God, get this stuff out of here.
Merlin:Your legacy, your sartorial legacy.
Merlin:Yeah, yeah.
Merlin:I've been the curator.
Merlin:You are the unintentional curator.
Merlin:Can I retell my one story?
Merlin:It takes less than a minute.
Merlin:Absolutely.
Merlin:We moved to California for a job, and one day, my boss and I were- This is back when you still used IBM PCs.
Merlin:See, you have this idea.
Merlin:Sure.
Merlin:Yes, I used IBM PCs.
Merlin:That's almost exclusively what I used.
Merlin:No, but we got to lunch one day and it was my first trip ever to REI.
Merlin:And we go into REI and I go upstairs to where the shoes are.
Merlin:And I wanted like a new pair of like, you know, walking around hiking boots shoes.
Merlin:And I remember at the time thinking it was kind of funny that they have something there.
Merlin:Like it's almost like a little rock.
Merlin:that you could walk on to like get, get a sense of like how, how, how rugged these will be for different kinds of rocks and test your boots, test your boots.
Merlin:And, uh, I was, I was trying, and this fella came out.
Merlin:I always remember this fella came out and he said, Oh, that's a, that's a good choice.
Merlin:Those are really good for torsion control.
Merlin:And, uh, those are, uh, lacetron technology.
Merlin:And, uh, what kind of, uh, what kind of hiking are you going to be doing?
Merlin:And I said, um, I said, these are webpage making shoes.
Merlin:He looked deeply crestfallen.
Merlin:I felt like a little bit like I'd betrayed the whole co-op.
Merlin:Yeah.
John:Although you're the punkest person in there with that kind of humor.
Merlin:Oh, my alligators are in a throuple.