267: Crumbs and Soldiers

Hey, listen. Woo. Hey. Hey. John. John Sarkeza. Woo. Hey. No, sorry. Are you listening? Does my room sound more live than usual? What does live mean in this context? Like I clean my desk. Oh, I don't think I can hear that. No, I'm not going to be able to pick that up over Zoom. Come on. I was listening to Helicopter by XTC. over headphones with my mic faced away for security reasons, and I could still hear the slightly more echoey sound of me typing away on my typewriter keyboard here.

Hmm. So the, you had, it was kind of like load bearing clutter you had there, huh? It was like, it really important for the, uh, you know, it's like the rug that really, uh, pulls the room together. The clutter really, uh. I don't know, pulls the acoustics together? Can you hear that? Can you hear that clacking on the keyboard? That's me writing down load-bearing clutter. Zoom cancels all that noise. I can't hear you clacking. Oh, okay.

Load-bearing poster. I think that is a very funny line. Remember that? Hurricane Nettie? Yeah, The Simpsons, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Welcome to your new master suite. They redo Ned's house. Oh, man. He has a tough time. Do you remember how his wife died on the program? Uh, she was hit by a t-shirt fired from a t-shirt cannon and she fell over the bleachers at a stadium. Yep. I believe. And I think it was, it wasn't it shot by Homer? Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, well, it seems important to the story. I was listening to Fleetwood Mac while I was bathing earlier today. My grandmother always used to say, you got to take a bath once a week whether you need it or not. That's one of the things she said. One of the less strictly racist. things that she said. And I was listening to some Fleetwood Mac and I was thinking, I wonder if they would ever have a scarf cannon.

At a Stevie Nicks concert. Wouldn't that be kind of fun? A Stevie Nicks concert or an Aerosmith concert, right? Yes! Oh my God. The problem is, you know, do you ever do this one that you did like circus arts in school, which is a thing people did in the seventies for some reason. And they would do juggling and you juggle with beanbags and you juggle with balls. You know what are the other things you could juggle with? Circus art.

Scarves. It's a totally different approach. Because they fall really slowly. You know what you do, John? You've got to make my gymnast hands. Think about the gymnast hand. That's what it looks like. I'm taking the scarves and I'm not kind of throwing them. You're kind of pinching them and lifting them into the air and then they slowly float down. Am I doing it with a heavy hand or a very delicate hand?

What I'm getting at is that I don't think scarves, uh, in the Stevie Nicks slash Steven Tyler fashion would travel very well when fired from a cannon as evidenced by. Have you ever seen a t-shirt? You ever seen a t-shirt cannon?

I have. You wad them up into the little cylinders, but I don't think you could make... It's your belief you can't wad a scarf. They would unwad. It's the whole thing with juggling scarves. You pinch it into a little wad, you lift it up, but then it spreads out again and it floats slowly. But don't they wrap it in something?

I thought they wrapped... I always assume the t-shirts are just like rolled like a burrito and have a band around them. Maybe because a t-shirt is more amenable to folding than something made of... for example, lace or tool. Yeah, or if you did compress that lace scarf into a fireable thing, now you've basically got a, quote unquote, less than lethal bullet.

Because it would be so small. You know, it's so funny you say that because I was just mentally trying to figure out if there was a funny joke in less lethal or not, you know, because we say non-lethal. Less than lethal, I believe it is. Oh, you're talking about LTL? Yeah. Yeah. We don't call them rubber bolts anymore.

No, no, no, no, no. We called them latex invitations. You might hear the sound of typing. Did you see how many titles we had last week? There were many. But really, it really is only one title. There's a lot of title candidates, but only one is chosen. See, this is what Alex does. Alex says potential titles. Titles and waiting. No, I mean, like titles apparent. Versus title actual. No, I think that's different. You ever just want to have an episode where we just talk like this the whole time?

Wouldn't it be fun to just like act like we're friends and just, and just basically the conceit would be, maybe it's another show. That's a different show. I'm going to say, you already have that show. It's called. Well, I already have a second show about you, a show about you that I've been working on. Yeah.

the show i was thinking about it i just i just mostly finished cleaning off my desk and i was removing something from the 3d printer you should send me photos of that by the way i'm fascinated to see a decluttered anything nope and um

I was removing that and I was thinking, because I write a lot of things down about you. Not in a creepy way. Well, in a less than lethal creepy way. Yeah, right. No, but I think about you, how I'm trying to figure you out. Because I said, from the very first days that I became aware that...

That you were more than, you know. What would a gym teacher say to that? To what? That you're writing things down about me. If I was a gym teacher, what would I say? You worry about yourself, Merlin. Oh, keep your hands to yourself. Shower down. You worry about yourself. Don't you worry about me. You worry about yourself. There's no money in me. Title. No, it's going to be something like Inside John or Inside John Syracuse. Yeah. I don't like that. Yeah. I thought they smelled bad.

On the outside. Yeah. Don't go in there. No. What does he say? He says, no, that was rough. What does he say with the fart? What was his fart? Just the famous fart joke. His famous fart joke. I was doing a Star Wars reference. Oh, you're doing a Han Solo. I thought you were doing a Jim Carrey. Don't go in there. There's that one. I have so many things I want to discuss that have come up in the last eight minutes.

can we just make this the whole show we can just talk about stuff like no you got important stuff to look at what about the logistics of shooting scarves from the first item and follow-up is from you so you you know what i said you wanted out of the top of the show the top of the show is rapidly diminishing Stevie Nicks and Don Henley had a song. Her first, I think amongst her three earliest hits, at least two of them were duets.

I stopped dragging my heart around. I didn't prepare for this. I'm not looking at anything. You know, I don't look at the internet when I record. I just look at a picture of you the whole time. And then Don Henley, the drummer from the Eagles, who in the documentaries refers to the guitar player from that band as Mr. Fry. And he made a song called Leather and Lace.

Now, here's the thing. Here's something I know about the Eagles and Stevie Nicks is that they both love cocaine. More specifically, I think they like snorting cocaine. If memory serves, and I don't mean this to be ableist, I apologize to the whole scarf, the broader scarf community. But I'm pretty sure she did so much cocaine, she lost some of her nose, and it made like a super hole through her septum. That's how much cocaine she did. Did you want to take a minute, as we say, and...

you know, across the pond in your own time. What about a concert that's all cocaine-based artists, including maybe headlined by Mr. Henley and Stevie Nicks? You got all the people from my cocaine list. What would you think about shooting little bags of cocaine in the audience? Maybe not a can, more like a wrist rocket.

No, that's too dense. It's too heavy. No, that could be lethal. That might be more than lethal. It would be like, no, it would be as those, not paintballs, but they have like the chalky powder things and like military exercises. Bath bomb.

I think it's called bath bomb. No, no. You ever seen a bath bomb from Lush? It kind of looks like a piece of styrofoam and it's wrapped in plastic. And the idea is you drop that into the water. The plastic, I think the plastic disintegrates. And then, well, does it, you know, where's away? And then that expels your lush into the bath. Right? That's kind of what you're talking about, right?

No, I'm talking about what a drug mule would put up. Maybe in one of the James Bond movies, I think maybe in the living daylights, they're doing a military exercise with James Bond. You think it's real, but then people get shot. And instead of them getting shot with bullets, you see a little chalky. little squibs go off so it's like paintball but instead of a paint splatter it's a dusty chalky splatter but then it turns out that the training exercise turns real

And James Bond has to escape from it. I think Living Delights is my favorite opening to a Bond movie ever with the best capital line before the credits appear. And no one remembers it because no one likes Timothy Dalton. Well, I, I like. those actors from those eighties and I guess nineties movies. And I hope to shout, I, I always forget that Michelle Yao was in a James Bond movie and did a really, Oh, the bad one. Yeah.

Yeah, but she did a really good job in the role with what they gave her. There's a good, who is in that? No small parts? No, Be Kind Rewind. Notes, notes, notes. Be Kind Rewind has a great thing on mine. I think it was her. maybe criterion had that series on her. Um, I don't think I have, and I'm not saying this, you know, for, for bits, but like the last James Bond movie, I can say with certainty that I, in terms of chronology.

um was probably moon ray no sorry um for your eyes only no no because then i saw the one with where he came back in that one never mind but i don't think i've ever seen a timothy dalton or whatever his name is, Rex Harrison. Who's the other guy? Who's that other guy that's in? George Leisenby. No, no. No, no. That's 69. Are you talking about Roger Moore?

Nope. Sorry. Um, so George Lazenby is in Paris Brosnan. Yes. The non broccoli, uh, 69 with, um, with Emma Peel, who you might also know as Lady Elena. in Game of Thrones. You know what she says to Jamie? She says, tell Cersei. I want her to know it was me. And I think at that point, Jamie as a character has super evolved. And certainly has made a baby face turn from being a heel at that point. So I enjoyed, I wonder if I can do this. I enjoyed Timothy Dalton.

in The World's End. I think I've got that right. And I enjoyed Pierce Brosnan in Hot Fuzz. And... Like, so much of my favorite British casting. Boy, I'm really going through this right now with this rat king of English programs where, like, I'm just learning more and more about, like, you know.

who somebody else thinks is a comedy legend, you know? And I think Edgar Wright felt that way. Like, he loves, what's he doing? He loves, obviously, without making a James Bond movie, wouldn't you say, it's probably fair to guess Edgar Wright probably really liked James Bond movies at some point. And so the heavy...

and two of his different movies is one of those bonds I've never seen. Do you like Edgar Wright? I do. Okay, I thought you did. Favorite openings? I mean... I am so gay bones for Skyfall, and it kind of gets bigger each time. I still have huge nostalgia for Goldfinger and the opening of Goldfinger.

I thought you said you never saw Pierce Brosnan. Isn't he Goldfinger? Oh, no, not Goldfinger. Sorry. GoldenEye, Pierce Brosnan, not Goldfinger. Sorry, wrong Gold. And you know what? You're not allowed to play as Oddjob because then you can turtle. Did I get that right at all? Why is it considered bad form to play as Oddjob? I think because he's OP. Oh, Ocean Pacific. Yeah. I heard it was because it's like, what am I missing? There's something I'm really missing right here.

Is turtling a term? Isn't there a term for where you're hiding? Probably, but probably in some context. Isn't there a term for where your main offensive strategy is to hide? As a camper. That's not a thing. That's what they call it, camping. I think it's turtling. You're a camper if you just sit in the corner of the map with a sniper rifle and wait for someone to come by and you shoot them. That's camping. That also seems like bad form to me. Well, you know...

Let me tell you something about war. No, that's the game. You know what? You know what, man? A pier where the enemy does not expect you. Oh, is that Lao Tzu? Yeah. Oh, no. Nice try, Lao Tzu. John Carpenter movie? No. I might have got the name wrong. Was that that Ching Chong Bing Bong one with Kim Cattrall? Temple of Doom. Oh. Oh, Temple of Doom. That's a scary one, right? Is that the one with the guy from Every Which Way But Loose? Yeah. That's got...

That's got Little Job in it, right? Who's the guy that was in that? Short Round. Short Round is in the Michelle Yao movie. Speaking of good openings, Temple of Doom, not a very good movie. Really good opening. See, I love the 81 or whatever movie. And I love the one with Sean Connery. And then that's the one in the middle with Short Job and that blonde lady. And Spielberg's wife, isn't it? That's the main function of that movie is to get Spielberg a wife. Oh, I enjoy her.

I enjoy her. So, and that was the scary one. That's the really scary one, right? I don't know if it's scary. I mean. Says you. They eat monkey brains. Someone gets their heart torn out. You won't watch a submarine movie. You're the biggest chicken in the world.

You won't even watch the submersible. Not for scariness, it's for upsetness. It's a different thing. Upsettedness? Yeah, upsetness. Is that what they call it at Cambridge? Mm-hmm. I mean, the thing is, they call it the Mona Lisa effect. I'm not going to look it up. I'm pretty sure that's what you call it when you've seen something so many times and you're so tired of hearing, oh, you've got to watch The Wire.

You know, you got it a blah, blah, blah. I'm just saying a lot of this 1970s music is very, very strong on its own terms. It's in my rotation. I listened to a lot of it on my recent car trips. I have a boyfriend named Jason, and he's my only friend at this point. I have one friend, and his name is Jason. Title. And we...

um, do this really cool thing that Spotify does. Uh, I don't have, I guess a lot of my friends just don't use Spotify, which is fine. But like the only reason I wish they used Spotify or I wish Apple would, well, I'm not getting into that. is you can say, hi, I'm Merlin. You say, hi, I'm John. And you say like, okay, we agree. We turned our keys. And now Spotify has an updating playlist of what it thinks the both of us would like based on what we favorited and liked. And you learn.

Wouldn't that be, I'd do it with Billy and I'd do it with Jason. Billy's not my friend, but it's a long time ago and he hasn't figured out how to turn it off. Jason's my only friend. And you don't use Spotify, so it wouldn't even work for us, right? Yeah, I don't use Spotify, sorry.

And yours is probably mostly, it's probably like drier sounds and like the edge tuning is guitar. Like what do you listen to me? My Spotify? No, just your music when you're sitting around. I've told you several wonderful bands that I listen to.

You listen to what I'd expect. You listen to churches. You like YouTube. Did you listen? You know what? I'm going to save it. We've got so much to talk about, John. We don't have time for faffing about. Can I get into this? Can you just please let me move on? Please. Please do.

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It's Vitally. Our thanks to Vitally for supporting Reconcilable Differences and all of RelayFM. Hey, everybody. I just wanted to say to everybody, thank you.

I want to send a big thank you. Last week on the member portion of our episode, John, well, it's a really fun episode. And I'm not going to do the Alex thing here and talk like John's not here, but if you like the idea of our relationship, which I also do, theoretically.

check out the member episode. In a second, I'll tell you how you can get it for free. Here's what happened. John very kindly indulged me and let me talk about my wisdom project book, but really just the wisdom project. And I listened back to it, John, and I'm very satisfied.

with how I took the things in my head and put them out into the world in a way somebody can understand. And I couldn't have done it if you weren't so nice and so indulgent. I also liked that we played 20 questions. I thought that was really fun. I thought that was a very fun after show. And you're not going to say anything anyway, so I'll accept your silence as a you're welcome. But here's the thing. We talked about this and this project of mine.

It's one of its potential futures. It's not a fixed point in time as a book. And I had tossed out more than... more than subtly, I would take all the help I could get on ways to automate things. I just wanted to say for the member folks, first of all, people who listen to the show, people who...

support the show and like it enough to listen to the after show. Inside of that, you introduced me to this concept, John, the changing size of the pie. You know what I'm talking about? You take a pretty big pie, which is everybody that has a computer.

And then you get down to people who can manage to listen to an hour and a half of this. Then you'll probably get smaller once you get to people who pay for it. Do you follow? Mark Cuban says, do you want to have 100% of a grape or 1% of a watermelon?

And that's a denominator problem. Ask Kieran about it. Tell him I said hi. You can also, slicing the pie is also a video game term, by the way. I know you were dying to know that, but it is. Wait, wait, stop, stop, stop, stop. And the obvious one would be like your party finished a quest. Do you divvy up the stuff? Huh? Maybe slicing the pie is a real life thing. Cause I just Googled for it. And I, and I found like a thing from like, uh, I, I, I slice you pick.

I love that. Interesting. It's like Prisoner's Dilemma for Children title. Yeah, I found a thing from SWAT Training Tactics, slicing the pie. It's the same thing in video games. Oh. Anyway, I didn't want to distract you, but it's funny. Is it one of those things like it's a euphemism for something horrible like kettling? No, it's like literally it's a way to.

A way to get line of sight on people without them being able to see you as easily. It's basically, don't run out and expose your entire body and then aim your gun at somebody in a video game because you'll get shot. Oh my God. You gotta slice the pie.

John, I'm so grateful that you, I don't even need to ask. I just, I know that you are not currently watching a program on Netflix. called the hunting wives and i'm so relieved i've never heard of that i'm so well i needed something to watch oh it's got to be like the hunting wives they're wives of men who hunt you see the art for it

And it's got Malin Ackerman and her boobs. Oh, haha, Merlin, don't be sexist. Okay, this is basically high-budget Cinemax after dark, is what I'm watching. Malin Ackerman, who I love. from Children's Hospital and Watchmen. Oh, the star is Brittany Snow. If you like mean, you like them pitch-perfect movies, you know how there's the really mean girl, and then there's the one who's the less mean girl who loses her voice? That's Brittany Snow.

She was born during the year I was off from college, my year off. And now she's 39. She's in that and she's wonderful. You see her boobs. It's got a woman called Callie. Who is my girlfriend? Is this fiction or reality? It's totally fiction. It's Texas. It's terrible. And I'm watching it voraciously. It's just terrible. But the big theme of the show is that everybody's got guns.

Like you get a purse that holds the gun. What kind of gun are you going to get? This is just the ladies we're talking about here. Boobs and guns all the way down. Guns, guns, guns, guns, guns. Now you see Brittany Snow, she's what you call a fish out of water because she went to Cambridge.

It is funny that people do that enough that it's a joke. Oh, didn't you go to school in Boston? Yeah, actually, Cambridge. God, I hate when people do that. Producer Quinn did that, but she would do it in a really fun way. And so, John, there's so many guns. And the guns are always out. And now we have to instruct. Brittany Snow ends up being the companion. Like, things have to be explained to her. And so Maylene Ackerman, who is at this point wearing one of her many terrible outfits.

You see her boobs and some terrible outfits. Just a lot of areolas for streaming. And John, when I got gun instruction, I've had gun instruction on many occasions. uh, informal rifle instruction a lot of times. And like, there is a thing that you learn. There's several things where you're like, you're not even allowed on the property.

Until you learn a few of these things. I'm so glad I did this. You know, my dad was in the NRA before they sucked. My dad used to teach gun safety classes because that's what NRA used to be. NRA before they were nut jobs in the 60s. After the 60s, they were cool when my dad was in the NRA.

And he would teach classes on firearm handling. Like, what are the things that you know? What are the two things you know from every movie? I mean, there's the basic one of, like, never point a gun at someone unless you intend to pull the trigger. And every gun is loaded.

And number two, every gun is loaded. And then I guess it gets a little more subtle after that. You have, I mean, where I was, they call it the line. Where like, you know, you've got everybody on this side of the line are people with guns. Everything on that side of the line is not people and not stuff we wouldn't want to shoot. Now, let me explain that entire broad theater.

Let's say from that zero axis to about 30% either way, that's target-y stuff. But beyond that, a couple miles away, you might have a cargo van. That's just to worry about cargo vans two miles away, let alone people. Now, here's the thing. You never pick up a gun until it's time to use the gun. You never point the gun anywhere but across the line down range. Right? You're always checking to see if it's loaded. Yes, it's okay to over... That's how I came up.

You know what I'm saying? Maybe like sort of like when you and I talk about the things, the like nails down a chalkboard thing of like. I don't know, somebody touching your iPhone screen with a pen or something. You know what I mean? One of those things where you're like, no, whoa, that is not a thing. Like walking into the stall while somebody else is in the restroom. Just one of those things where like...

And when you see it, you have a very visceral, do you know what I mean? I know you have these. You have like a very visceral reaction. John, they're just grabbing guns and waving them around. They're having fun with it. They're doing twirly finger stuff. But like they're in, they're around a kitchen island with like six ladies with giant boobs in Texas. And the guns are just everywhere. And it drives me completely insane.

But this is fiction, though, so everybody's safe. It's not like one of those Alec Baldwin sets. Do you have gun people in your life? No. And here's the other thing. What I said to John was, and thank you, John. That was a very cool episode. I appreciate you doing that. And I ask people for help with doing something with this. And it doesn't matter except to say it matters to me to say thank you all for listening. Thank you to John and all of you for hearing me out.

on my rapidly dilapidating emotional state. But also now, thank you to several people. I would say at least, I don't bring in ATP numbers, but... Three, four, five people have sent me links or pull jobs. Or something where they're like, hey, I just made a thing that did this. Go check this out. Here's the thing. And like several of them appear to be like plug and play. But in any case, even if you just did some BS with vibe coding.

I don't care. Thank you so much for sending it to me. And this is a sentence I was thinking about earlier that I wanted to say this a certain way. I'm not ignoring you. And I'm definitely, I'm not ignoring your work. And I'm not ignoring you, but I am deliberately ignoring my tendency to get distracted with things. Does that make sense?

sort of are you trying to uh make people not feel bad if they sent you something nice and you didn't respond to them no it's just in the spirit of what i said last week about being proud of myself for having this project and keeping it pure without finding some way to screw it up for nothing. You know what I'm saying? Like the part of that was to avoid the attractive nuisances.

your inbox thing like you mentioned that like one of the beauties of this project is that you get to work on the parts that you feel like working on when you feel like working on them in the way that you feel like it and

By asking for help, you've essentially created a little inbox where people can put a bunch of, I made this for you, I made this for you. But if you're not in the mood to look at the thing that they made. As it turns out, I have a pretty healthy relationship with inboxes at this point, mostly.

while that sits there and I'm, I don't, I don't have the, I'm not going to look at it right now. So I just wanted to say to everybody, I hope you get how much it touches my heart that you all listen to that. And then. Wanted to contribute something. It means so much to me. And the fact that I have not responded to you is about me and not about you at all. And I'm not mad you sent it or anything. I'm very, very grateful that y'all sent it. Yeah, the...

Yeah, if I had to summarize it, I think there's always two things with me. I kind of feel like there's two reasons I don't want it to be, quote, a book. And you know what I mean? We work this out. That doesn't mean it can't become a paper thing people hold, but I don't want it to be a book project. And like, there's kind of two reasons. Well, it's just that if once you call it a book, you've constrained it's.

primary uh product so i think about what i'm doing as a process and i hope you can see that whatever i see it as a process and i i know enough to know at this point that if you focus too heavily on the product, when you really benefit from focusing on the process, you... Well, let me go further. I'm not going to be cute about this. I'm not going to be a college professor. People screw themselves up.

because they get obsessed about products. And I've done that before, QED. But I feel no shame about obsessing about process, especially when I'm doing it in a way here that I feel is very generative and useful. to me and hopefully somebody else. So part one is if you call it a book, you know,

I joke about Marco's use of the word priorities. Well, priority means that you decided the one thing that's allowed to live and everything else that could potentially die. And like, to me, once you call something a book, so much other good stuff is allowed to die.

including the process. So number one, I don't want to constrain to one product. And number two, I don't want the mind virus that makes me think that this is only one kind of product and I should feel bad about myself if I don't make a third non-book.

um i really liked it and i asked john and i didn't ask the suits but um i haven't put it anywhere permanent but we i would love for y'all to listen to it for free so you can listen to last week's regular episode

the public episode followed by the member episode. If nothing else, it'll also give you a taste of what it's like to be, to be a member. You get to hear that. It was probably my favorite of the guitar riffs is the ones that's only in the, you know, did you just extract the after show into an individual file? Is that what you did?

Nope. I reposted. So the member episode that you're going to presumably tell people how to find in a moment is the full regular episode concatenated with the after show. I can do this so fast. You know, we have two Libsyn accounts. You haven't spent that much time. Anyway, we have two Libsyn accounts, one for member and one for regular. The file that I upload to member every month has those two things on it.

And the public one only has the one. All I did was additionally take the one I uploaded to the member feed or member bucket and put it into the, um, uh, I saw. I was just asking whether that was the full member episode or just the after show part of it. Did you figure out the reasons why I did that? All the smart reasons why I did that? It doesn't expose the phony baloney URL. Yeah, no, no, I get it. But it's like... Jeez. But all I'm saying is that...

If people listen to the regular episode and then they go listen to the one that you're going to link to, they're going to be like, wait, I already heard this. But I understand. It's the entire thing. It's the regular episode. And additionally, then let me give. Thank you for pointing that out. That's absolutely true. And forewarned is forearmed. But here's another thing is our friend and producer and lifeblood, Jim Metzendorf. Hi, Jim.

Jim puts in a chapter marker that lets you then jump from... There's only really two chapter markers. There's the main episode and then the member part. So you can utilize that. Where do you think... Because I don't want to go through a whole thing with the feed. Do you think it's okay to just keep it informal like this and say where it is? We'll put a link in the show notes. Why don't we just do that? Oh, to the MP3 file. Yeah.

Oh, that's a really good idea. You can do that with a link. It's kind of weird to click a link to an MP3 file as opposed to having it show up in your podcast player. Some people yell at you and they're like, I'm confused. Never link to a PDF.

it's look if you want to get the member episode become a member this is a freebie that you can get and you can get it in the form of an mp3 that you can download and you're like wait like but if i download mp3 how do i play to my podcast player how do i get to the chapter so on and so forth you know sometimes you gotta work for free stuff No, you're right. I'm really glad you said it because that's also a technique. There's a TV Tropes page about this. A good nerd, bad nerd.

or true friend, contrary friend. And that's a tactic where one guy comes in and is extremely sincere and vulnerable about what he puts out there to the public about his internal world in a very vulnerable way. Uh, and then the other one yells at the audience about paying for it. I'm not yelling. I'm just saying like you're giving, we're giving away a free thing. Well, see, look, if you wanted to make it easier, you would have found some way to put the member version. That's why I'm thanking you.

into the regular version feed. But we didn't do that because it was a late-breaking idea. You got this idea after we had already published it. I just want to staunch the flow of blood. Thank you, everybody. You'll find that in notes. Latex Invitations is very good. I see the cursor blinking. Load-bearing clutter is good, but for some reason... Is it pronounced LaTeX? I don't know. If you mute, if you mute, you can't get into the rhythm of my bits, John.

I'm trying to put a note in the, that we have to link the thing in the link section. You know what's a valuable thing to say to yourself sometimes? I got a list of these, you know, I got a whole list of things. I think it's sometimes valuable. Say it to yourself. And you know, one of the things that's valuable to say, this has absolutely nothing to do with serenity now. You say serenity now. There's a comma. No, you say the same way that you would to a pre-verbal child. You say...

Um, no, that's not what we're doing right now. I find that very helpful and I hope you will too. You done typing? Can we go back to having an audio podcast? Anything else? Do you need to be like looking at your stonks or something? You just got done saying that you were typing stuff and now I'm typing stuff. But see how this keeps it lively? It keeps it lively with this friscian that we have. You know what keeps it lively is the lack of clutter on your desk.

Can you hear the difference? Do you hear how much more? Don't hear it at all. Listen, listen, listen. Maybe Jim will hear it because you'll have like the high fidelity recording with you. No, I know why. Bouncing off your clean desk. It's the proximity effect. Well, you declutter your desk. Is it clean? It's minimal. Is that clean to you? It's minimal-ish. It's minimal-ish. I can't even get it out. It's a minimal-ish test. You only include the food crumbs that spark joy.

Thank you for your service. You know, I heard they hate it when you say that. Oh. Oh, crumbs and soldiers. I always heard the first responders don't like it when you say thank you for your service, that it seems dismissive.

Okay. And they always say that. They always say, this will be my second, I believe my second reference to Shark Tank tonight. They're always saying that to people. Because a lot of those chodes that come in, they're like, I've invented a deodorant for veterans. And they're like, thank you for your service. You ever watch Shark Tank, John?

I try not to. I think the only episodes I've watched is ones that you've compelled me to watch. Oh, for me, it started as a hotel room show, but it's so bad. And now... I'm not going to say his funny name, but Kevin, whatever his name is, he gets interviewed on cable news sometimes now. Anyways, it's been a heck of a day.

And then I think that was it, right? This episode of Reconcilable Differences is brought to you in part by Factor. You can learn more about Factor right now by visiting factormeals.com slash diffs50off. Hmm. You know... Summer often means having a fun but busy schedule. So when it comes to eating before heading out again, you might only have two minutes. Oh no. So this is where Factor can help you out. You can eat smarter with tasty chef prep meals that are dietician approved.

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um moving on we've got oh we're already in follow-up you have follow-up on um bands yeah i did this i did this in real life to somebody and I was corrected, probably by my wife. And then when I was listening back to the previous episode, I realized I did it in the episode as well. I was trying to give an example of a older sibling.

music influence for people who were born in the mid seventies, but are into music that they shouldn't be into because they're too young, but their older siblings or older siblings of friends are into it. So then they get into it because I think it's cool because whatever is, you know, interesting to older siblings. yourself or your friend becomes cool. And I said Def Leppard, but I meant Led Zeppelin. And for whatever reason, those two bands in my mind are like, they get mixed up.

And looking at them, I realize it's not that. I mean, there's an L in Leopard and L in Lead, but there's not a Z in both of them. So why do I get Def Leppard and Led Zeppelin mixed up? They're very different. I think you are. First of all, that's a good thing to catch. That's a good one. Hang on. Anyway, and it's also another good example, like me with my cousins and the Beatles, right? I mean, let's be honest. Well, first of all, I want to come back to this name.

thing i'm gonna write it down i got plenty of space and i'm using a4 paper john so i have so much more space it's too tall is it too tall it's sideways then it's too wide stinky I wrote down A4 for some reason, and I want to come back. What are we going to talk about? Oh, names. Okay. Do you get Led Zeppelin and Def Leppard mixed up? No, but I'm going to come back to that. I have a pin in that right here where I wrote down names right under A4.

It's a perfect size piece of paper. It's like if you were being handed an order by a Nazi, it would be on A4. It's that cool size. We'll put that in notes. Somebody will put that in notes. But with somebody like Led Zeppelin, it's like me with the Beatles through my cousins, right? Where it's like, it's an introduction to something where you're like, oh, oh, that term that we all, sometimes I overuse, shibboleth.

where you're like, oh, you just learned about a cool thing. The people in your group, in a pre-MTV era especially, people in your group...

they might have heard Stairway to Heaven, but they, like, don't know about, like, Led Zeppelin 3, right? And, like, that's a pretty big deal for somebody to introduce that. So I just want to say I totally get that. Oh, my God. Please write down Led Zeppelin and Billy Joel, a.k.a. Attila. Please write that down. Led Zeppelin and Def Leppard look a lot alike.

and they sound a lot alike, and I think you're being difficult on yourself. I'm not going to understand this to you at all. But one of them is definitely an older brother band, and the other one is not. I don't know where... Here's the thing. Led Zeppelin purportedly comes from...

it might've been John Bonham who said this, but, but basically blah, blah, blah. This is the super group. Like cream did it. We can do it. Like it's going to be, you know, people from the yard birds and blah, blah. And somebody said, yeah, that'll go over like a lead balloon.

And that's how they came up with, purportedly, that's how they came up with the name Led Zeppelin. Number two, I'm not going to look this up right now, but I would, you can't bet money. We could call it like a proposition bet. I would bet you... that there's an interview somewhere where Joe Elliott says, yeah, Def Leppard, because it kind of sounds like Led Zeppelin. I would bet you, you know, if we did an over-under on that, I think there's like a 70% chance that that's correct.

I just realized I wrote it. So little do I know about Def Leppard that I wrote the name of the band wrong in our notes. Did you write it as an unhearing jungle cat? Yeah, I wrote it as the Mac OS version. Right, 10.5. Well, there was also then, there was the rap response record where they interpolated some of that, and that was called...

It's no Def Leppard. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What was a really cool one? Tiger. Was that around 2003? I don't remember the year, but it was 10.4. I was worked. working, contracting, I would say working, which makes me exaggerates my importance, but it's not, it's not the names that are that important, except for how cool it was. But like one Saturday.

Let's see. I'm trying to remember. This is probably back. What was it at that point? Probably 30 bucks or however you would get the discount. I think it wasn't like 30 bucks. 129 still, I think then. Was it? Okay. But in any case, like, um, it was me or Jesse.

or peter or veen but i was at the adaptive path office and somebody had gotten a copy of it and this is i don't know i hope you'd appreciate it and like those are all like pretty to me very very interesting people that was super honored to work with But you, do you remember that though? Like installation parties? Like that was not the first time I had ever sat around with my friends in turn installing software. And it was really fun because it was Tiger and like, it looked great.

Like the disc looked great. The art was, to me, still, to me, it's still the most distinctive OS X look. Like, I like Leopard, but it's a little busy. It gives me a little bit of that, you know how people are scared of those flowers that have holes? I don't like that look of a deaf leopard. How do we say deaf now? What do we say? Hearing impaired? Hearing impaired carnivore. Do you remember that, though?

I mean, I always remember this as the first time I ever installed Aldous PageMaker on, which was stolen. I lifted, not stole the copy. I mean, I didn't steal the discs. Move the disc. Don't copy that floppy. The weather's choppy. Warnings of Gales and Trafalgar. And I had an SE.

with two 800k I think 800k yeah that wouldn't be 1.4 would it no it was two 800k drives and um so one of them had to be my system and I think there was at least five floppies for page maker plus at one point maybe i'm thinking of freehand later on but i remember having like auxiliary discs where like if you hit the wrong thing at the beginning and accidentally installed that third tick box you ended up getting like

six folders of stock art or something did you ever did you ever do that though sit around with your pals and install software well not from the os 10 era because i was writing the reviews then so I had my own little install parties, way too many, and they weren't really parties. And ours worked with Apple to get you copies early? Oh, no, no, no. No. It's too early in ours' history.

for us to be getting anything from apple that only happened much later i'm guessing there's probably obviously there must be an episode of hypercritical but is there a canonical audio like what's your favorite of the times you've gotten to say what you wanted to say about the os 10 reviews because i know a lot of people know that blah blah obviously but some of you don't know that and like i still meet people and honestly when i meet people who are especially mac enthusiasts

John, on more than one occasion, I'm not doing this to brag. I'm just doing this for context, right? Somebody goes, what are you doing? I do blah. I'm a ceramicist. No, really. I do podcasts. What about Mac? Oh, I've been using Mac since 19. And I say, oh, I do this show called Reconcilable Differences.

And with John Syracuse, I'm like, oh my God, I feel like I really know that name. I'm like, do you remember the guy who used to write 40,000 word reviews of OS X for Ars Technica? And they're like, that guy? And they're like, is he still alive? That's incredible. That's nice to hear. Yeah. No, I felt the same way. And I said, I'll pass that along.

you know if i do what i say i do a podcast with merlin man and they say i don't know who's that i said do you remember inbox zero that what you just the story you just told me is like if i did that to you no it's atp i've done that No, come on. Oh, you're, you're big. The thing you're well known for is a podcast. Oh, you know, it's more current anyway. It's again, it's like citing inbox zero. It's a long time ago. No, I understand. I learned, um, I learned the name.

Wondery last month. Alex keeps saying Wondery. I should know what that means. Alex is all about scaffolding and not about having a place to sleep. I'm all about building. Alex is all about scaffolding. And, and, uh, sometimes, sometimes it benefits me, but mostly Alex just sleeps neuro scaffolding and they don't sleep all that much. It's not a thing I can help. It's not, I can't intervene on that. Um, uh, but, um, what was I going to say?

I think you're talking about buildings. Yeah. Yeah, more songs about buildings and food. You're thinking about the big picture, not the scaffolding. I like to think in a broader context about things. I don't want to live in a scaffolding. Oh, I hear you. We went from... Did you write down A4? We went from misspelling Def Leppard to the Leppard operating system to the Tiger operating system to install parties.

Did I mention it was an SE with two floppy drives? Install parties to Elvis Pagemaker to the Mac SE to ticking the wrong box and installing too much stuff. That's all the stock art.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that. I remember that. Okay. And then somehow you got on to, then you were asking me about my iOS 10 reviews and how you introduced me to people as the iOS 10 guy. Then I did inbox zero. And then you talked about Alex. Oh, right. And then we were, then we were kind of mean to each other. Try, try close nose parens.

Just lean on close, close, close, close, close, close, close, close, close, close. Wow. Wow. John, ain't that ironical for you to say that to me right now? Ain't that ironical? Why? Because you're programming Lisp right now? No. If I were, the joke would work better for me with Python. You know how I describe Lisp by quoting either Larry Wall or some other pearl luminary? The difference between null and zero?

Are you familiar with Lisp? Yes. Have you seen Lisp code? I mean, Lisp and Tickle are like these two things you always hear about. that like are their own thing. And like in what's her name's, uh, the, the German woman who does the Sunday night newsletter, uh, she just wrote a thing about a new, a new list that came out. And I, I didn't know what that meant.

Yeah, well, if you've never seen it, this is not going to... How do you describe list of people using Larry Wall? Yeah, let me... You haven't seen this, it's not going to land for you. But anyway, it's fingernail clippings in oatmeal. Say it again? Which is a very evocative image. What kind of clippings? Fingernail clippings in oatmeal. That sounds like Stallman.

Didn't he gnaw on his toes? Didn't he eat his toes? That wasn't a nail here. If you want to look at some Lisp code samples that are on this page, it involves a lot of parentheses. There's a lot of parentheses and then a bunch of lowercase strings. I was thinking about folding. was the reason i was jostling with you was um it's ironical because you're always uh unfolding the things that i've fixed in here like like i can't believe membership is still closed

Because you tend to go in here. I didn't close that. I'm not the closer. You're the closer. No, no, no. No, I do this. You're the one for whom coffee is for. I closed it. Put that coffee down. And here's the thing. It's still folded. And so I guess that's another mitzvah for me.

Inshallah. Latex. Latex invitations. I really super want to get to Billy Joel. So let me get through this. I got A4 names. Hey, John. If people wanted to remind themselves how much they enjoyed your journey with those OS X reviews, do you have an audio? Is there an audio thing we could link to where people could hear you? Maybe you were a guest on like an engineering show or something.

No. You're right that I've talked about it a lot of times in the past, but I don't remember. Probably hypercritical. It's spread over my whole history. I don't know where it is. Good job. Professional communicator, best known for his podcasts. Yeah. That was John C. Curse, everybody. Best known for the podcast that you should listen to right now, starting with the current episode. Don't worry about the past. This show, you mean? Every show.

Except for hypercritical, which you can just keep listening to over and over and over again. You will be.

Latex invitations. Last week, we closed out the main portion of the episode with me making a pitch to John. John had said to me, you might remember I was using Theory of Mind. to try and figure out John's question. John was saying, do you think I should see this Billy Joel thing? And I made a pitch to John about why I thought it was a good idea for him to see it. John, did you have an opportunity to watch the Billy Joel thing on HBO? I did.

I watched it while I was on vacation. Um, it was only two episodes, right? Just the two, the long episodes, but just two or maybe three. Whatever it was, it wasn't. You caught me walking away to get a seltzer. I was listening the whole time. Um, you left off at, um, sorry. How many episodes was documentary?

Yeah, that's the thing. There's only two episodes to the documentary. They're each, yeah, here's the thing. And I wrote this down. I sound like Greg Davis. I wrote this down here. One of the things I wanted to say was, I love the way they did this. I love that this was not 10 episodes.

on netflix it was two really strong two and a half hour episodes i'll stop there and so yeah it's funny so you texted me uh i could see that you were from what you texted me i could tell that you were at least a third of the way into the second of the two. So, implying you had seen the first, because that's usually how you roll. Yeah. No, I watched it all. Here's what I have to say about it. After watching it, I had a lot of time to think about it. While I was watching it, I thought it was fine.

you know, middle of the road documentary. But then after, after I finished watching, I was thinking on it a little bit more. And I'll have a story about my watching experience in a second, because there's one thing in it that was really weird and interesting from personally, but looking back on this.

It's kind of, I don't know. I didn't read up on any of the details of how this was made. I didn't read up on like who paid for it, who agreed to be in it and why, who has creative control. I don't know any of this. All I know is I just watched it and here's what I think about. And.

It seems to me that any kind of documentary about a famous person's life is going to be difficult if the famous person whose life it's about... is in it willingly i know that sounds bad you're like well should every documentary be like i'll spoil the ending i can think of a biography that you enjoy that kind of found that to be true that you need to

the condition, the conditions for making a very memorable biography do not often come from total compliance with the subject. And I don't, I'm not saying that Billy Joel had final. He had to prove everything that was in it or whatever. But what I am saying is that this doc. documentary was very careful to put the subject of documentary in the best possible light at all times. And it's not, it's plenty of bad things in it. It's not like they avoid issues. Well, on one level, on one level.

I mean, is it, can I put that another way? If Billy Joel had done some, had legitimately done some really crappy stuff, like really like bad stuff. I didn't learn about it in this. Isn't that a more fair way to put it? Because he does not portray himself as an angel. You did learn about a lot of bad things in his life. He told you them himself often.

It's the frame. It's the entire frame for the show, John. When he's talking, when he's doing his great Gatsby, I described it to my wife. He's at the piano and his thing, yeah. Yeah, well, it's – and basically – and I think I asked – I don't know. I don't know who you are. I don't know which one you are. But it's basically like if you've ever read The Great Gatsby or if you've ever seen The Kid Stays in the Picture.

the wonderful biography, you know, based on Robert Evans's book. Now that, first of all, A, Robert Evans. I first heard about it, Bob Odenkirk used to talk about it. It's basically Robert Evans, the famous producer of The Godfather, et al., had written a biography, and the audiobook was... narrated by him so if you ever heard espn commercials with robert evans in it it's because of his audiobook and then that became the basis for a movie that is

I think, I don't know if you ever saw it, but very similar in the same way. So it opens up like that great Gatsby. I used to pick oysters off the beach here and now I bought the mansion and it's still being built. But then I am too. You know, the biggest thing I ever learned was being a dangling. So the entire frame for this is, yes, I'm very successful, but B, I'm really troubled because C, I'm a discontent work in progress.

yeah so but it's his frame you're absolutely right though he picks the the phrase that or the adjective that kept coming to mind when i was thinking back on it was bloodless that it was a bloodless documentary and again not because he doesn't say Essentially, I was an alcoholic. Yeah, I definitely want to know more about that kid. Like, Madeline and I were both, like, bouncing off the walls with, like, wait a minute. Obviously, I love Elizabeth in this, as anybody would. But, like, when...

They were all the four of them were living together. And like, it's like, hey, you know, hey, hey, guys, tour kids moving houses. Can we talk more about this extremely young child that's in the middle of all of this? That felt like a big blank spot. Which one, Alexa? No, no, no, no. So, was it John? The guy who was married to Elizabeth and had the son. Oh, yeah. His first wife's first husband. And the kid, yeah. His first wife's first husband.

and and the kid they had and her son yeah and so basically he just uh i mean it was like it was like a george costanza bit with the switch or something like they basically it's like she and like so this poor man has his best, Billy Joel lives with this family of three people. They live together in this, they call it the Little Stone House or something. And they're very...

good friends and very like intimate, not a creepy way, but in the old fashioned sense of like, they're familiar with each other. And I think Billy Joel like has a role in the kid's life as a pal and stuff. Yeah. And basically this guy gets the news. Hey dad, uh, quick update. Uh, it's Elizabeth. Um, I'm going to get with Billy. So, and Billy's like, Hey, just so you know, I'm your best friend and we're in a band together. I'm getting with your wife later. Yeah. That was.

I mean, I felt like they dealt with that as frankly as they could for something that was so long ago that some of them don't remember. Yeah, but they fridged him because then it just got used to show why Billy did self-harm. Yeah. He got fridged.

again, I'm sure it would like that, but that was so long ago. It's difficult, but I feel like the more recent thing, like here, here's the thing. One of the, what kind of person is Billy Joel? I think one of the most, uh, illustrative, uh, illustrative, um, examples in the documentary is how he handles a situation where he's not going to use his longtime band for a particular album. You remember that bit? Absolutely.

He handled it like a jerk. The producer, so first of all, he's assigned this terrible producer. He kept getting these awful producers. But basically, George Martin. who um produced i think all of the beatles albums and lots of other stuff was going to produce billy joel but his condition was you've got to use studio players like there's no way i'm going into i'm george martin and like i need to be able to like have

dependable results with this kind of thing. I mean, he needs them more to be like exquisite machines than interesting people with names like Liberty DeVito. And the story, as Billy tells it... And with a little bit of a wink, but the story is that now it's got to be, if you want me, you've got to take my band. Right. But then later, when he does a later album, Billy decides, actually, I don't want to use my band for this.

And the way the band finds out about it is that they hear rumors that Billy has been recording songs with a different band. So he doesn't even tell them. He just starts doing it. He cuts them out. That's lame. And then the guy calls him on the phone and says, hey, Billy, I hear you're recording songs. Why aren't you? recording them with us and billy says oh it's just for one song which was also a lie because it ended up being the whole album

That's a jerk move for somebody you've been playing music with for years and years. We don't get to see that side of Billy Joel much. And I bet a lot of people who are not Billy Joel would have had stories and things to say about Billy Joel in that vein, especially when he was a raging alcoholic and doing terrible things.

And you hear very limited amounts of those. Have you ever seen the Eagles documentary? No. Do you know it's kind of legendary? It's legendary for how well made it is that you get all of these. insanely mercurial characters together and like three of them have died that i can think of like since that documentary eagles documentary i'm gonna send that to you um but but yeah and then that's meaty like when you get that the thing with somebody like uh

like the Robert Evans is the reason that became such a hilarious bit. And people have a Robert Evans. If you've never heard Patton Oswalt.

notes uh patten oswalt's uh bit about robert evans is really funny but it's so salacious and he gets in trouble with the police for uh selling cocaine and he gets to talk about getting henry kissing there come to the godfather francisco and like it's and like he's just such a caricature he favored one of my tweets once my friend dan had it framed um at fracture they're not a sponsor

Uh, you're absolutely right. And it, it does that thing. Oh boy, this sounds so mean. I don't mean it to be, but it does that thing that a lot of men do. It's a very passive aggressive thing. I mean, an extreme aversion of it is what I would used to say to people through into my early 20s. Hey, you know what I'm like. You know that like how I am. Right. And so like.

Guys will excuse themselves from all kinds of behavior by framing it as, A, that's how they are, and B, you knew that, and C, you continue to participate in that. based on this apparently binding agreement to take me for how I am. I don't even think he offers that excuse. I think he just matter-of-factly says, well, this is just the way it is. Maybe how it is, but it's also how I am.

the one thing you learn about him from this because he's on screen so much is that again you don't know if this is true but like he doesn't seem very in touch with his own inner world on this documentary. Maybe he is in real life. Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, you didn't feel like that was a note through it? Was something like Vienna and afterward? But when he's talking to the camera...

He has things to say about these dramatic events, but he says it in such a matter of fact. He says it kind of like Forrest Gump, and that's all I have to say about that kind of thing. It's a little rehearsed. I don't know if it's rehearsed, but it's like that he's not. It sounds rehearsed. He's not interested in dwelling, in digging out his feelings. He's living the unexamined life in many ways. He examines it a tiny, tiny little bit. But again, this is not fair because he's on camera.

so who knows maybe internally he's got all this stuff worked out but when he's on camera he says very little which is why you need other people in his life to tell you what he was really like at that time and this documentary doesn't want to do that i got an angle i got an angle

I figured it out. This is, we're going to probably do a whole episode about this on, do you like inside John or how do you call it? I think John's so generic though. I've already got like five, four or five inside Llewyn Davis. Was that a, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. With Oscar Isaacs, who everybody in the house agrees.

Looks like the guy on the Gilded Age. How far behind are you? Because you need to catch up. You need to catch up real fast. I believe I'm now caught up on the Gilded Age. No spoilers, but I saw the dramatic ending of the episode. Damn it. God damn it. That's what I was trying to say. you from i was just about oh and did you see the episode before that i saw all the episodes before that that's what i'm up to i believe that is the most recent episode so i'm caught the way what's funny is john

You were seeing three bubbles because I was about to send something to you. I'm glad you didn't. That's the point I'm trying to make you. The episode ends with my favorite character, Nay, the best character from the show, Oscar. The wastrel. Oscar and Pumpkin. And Gladys. Oh, and Aurora Fain.

Also, I have a list. I've started a list of who my girlfriends on that show are. And I'll share it with you on the next after show. It's not just Carrie Coons? Coon. One Coon. Coon. Carrie Coon, singular. I get it wrong, too. It's okay. Yeah. No, she's, I mean, she's up there. But, I mean, if you want to know, the disgraced daughter, Mrs. Esther's daughter. Yeah. Right? Like, look at that pronoun. That face. Obviously, Gladys. I just want to take...

Not take care of Gladys. I don't want to be a creep. I'm not going to keep her in a well. Gladys in a well. That was a great Morrissey song. 1989. I love doing this show. And then you got to Aurora Fain. And you know, a lot of these people are on Broadway. Did you know like so many people have been on Broadway? I believe it. Um, and then, and then also Meryl Streep's daughter, but I liked the way her hair is in real life. Not the, not the color it is in the show.

What's her name? What's her name? She's with Mr. Larry. The one who was being unreasonably mean to her fiance. What is wrong with her? What hair does she have up her ass? Sorry, brief spoilers for Gilded Age. What's the deal with Jack? Jack is such good friends with what's her name that she goes with him when they're looking at houses. Are you talking about the Irish girl, Bridget or whatever? No, no, no, no. The one you were just talking about. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What is her name?

They're Ada and Agnes's niece. Her name is Maybelline. Come on. And you know that's Meryl Streep's daughter. Did you know that? Did you know that her mother is Meryl Streep? Yeah, you've told me that before. And then I saw the...

Is it Barbarella? I hate it. The way Wikipedia does casting drives me nuts. Gosh, I wish I could use that tool. I think her name is Grizabella. Speaking of which, did you know, I'm going to keep talking until you find it. I think her name is Maybelline. Did you know Christine Baranski, A, Christine Baranski was played on stage in Cats. I don't know the name of her character, and I literally don't care. But I've seen a photograph.

of Christine Baranski performing on stage in Cats, in the little outfit, with the whiskers, with the face paint, the whole nine, and she's doing this, you know, like the Cats thing? Is it Grizabella, John? I can't believe I can't look this up. Why does it take me so long? All right. Let's see what we got here. Marion Brooke. Jeez Louise. Marion Brooke. Her name is Marion. Marion and Jack are such good friends.

The two of them, who does Jack choose to go looking for a house with? He chooses to marry him. Jack is new to a lot of these different worlds. This is all new to him. The two of them are such good friends that that's who he chooses to look at houses with him. Yes. And he knows that she just...

broke off an engagement for stupid reasons. And he offhandedly mentions, by the way, Larry was fine. He went there. I was with him the whole time. Anyway, later. You don't even try to convince or say Marion. What are you doing? You're throwing your life away. He's so not engaged in her life. If you had a friend who broke off an engagement for a reason you knew was illegitimate, would you like leave it to the end of a scene and go, by the way, I'll bet you you're right.

pointed out two things which is with me um first of all you just pointed out the incredibly awkward like okay let's just cut the storyline right here like this but to me then that implies an earlier Maybe error they realized. I wonder if they couldn't get a guest or something. Not a guest, but you know, maybe did they have to change? No.

That wouldn't change at that point. Why would Mary? It was unnecessary. That entire thing where she became, I'm sorry, a little bit irrational, like based on minimal facts. And I see the character point they're going for. What they're going for is that she's. nice, but she's also smart. She wouldn't do that dumb thing. Here's what they were going for and failed to get. In past seasons, she had been unlucky in love and gotten together with guys who turned out to be bad news.

and so now it's like every guy she says it she voices on the show every guy in my life like uh lets me down but it's like the guy isn't letting you down in this case you're self-sabotaging and and i'm not even blaming her for that fine that's what the character does

Jack, who's supposed to be her friend, if you had a friend who was that close a friend who broke off an engagement, you would tell her much more forcefully, you're doing the wrong thing. Larry is a cool guy. He didn't do anything. I first heard this. probably a name for this that i'd love to find and i think i first heard this credited to gene siskel um and i and i it's one of those things where like once you once you hear this you can't unthink it um but like you know

You could call this like a drawing room. There's like the drawing room things. There's the French, the French, but like there's, there's all those kinds of story plots that are entirely based. This is probably in that Pixar. slide deck but like don't like first of all it's okay it's okay that something happens by coincidence but nothing should ever be like resolved you know by coincidence um well uh the minds

Wait, I could be getting that wrong. I'm probably putting that wrong. But if you're going to set it up, you've got to follow through with it. And I wonder if there was something about what they wanted to do. But it just doesn't make sense for her character.

Yeah, I mean, again, they wanted to say that she keeps being let down by men. That she's like, it looks like it's going to work out, but then it doesn't. Looks like it's going to work out, but then it doesn't. And they wanted to do that one last time to show how embittered she is and how her past experience is causing her to sort of self-sabotage. doesn't make me like the character more, but fine, kind of makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that no one else in Marion's life tries to...

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Ebert says, don't have a plot where it's basically based on something that could be settled with a short conversation or a phone call. Yeah, and they had the short conversation in the house, but Jack was so limp and unforceful in saving... who's supposedly good friend from a terrible mistake. He's like, you know, at least he could change. I mean, obviously he's very.

aware of their difference in class, even as they are being kind of almost antisocially familiar with. It just doesn't seem like they're friends, though. Like, like, why would she? It's one of those scenes where it's like, but he would, you know, he would at least change tone a little bit. Like he would code switch.

Or, like, not stop the conversation until she agreed. I guess you're right. Did he do it while he was standing on the stairs and she was standing? Like, wasn't it kind of informal? No, they were in the house. He's like, I guess I'll take it anyway. But it's like after the realtor. He talked to the realtor. But it was like, it really was just in passing.

Yeah, they showed her face to see that she realized, oh, I guess I got it wrong and Larry didn't do anything there. But then she's like, but why was she even at that place? And it's like, oh, she's very naive. But that's what bugs me. And that's why I kept saying screaming about it. It's not just nice. When I say nice, I mean, also, it's not simply that.

that she is... I'm trying to think of the right word that's not negative. If you're a woman on this show of almost any status, you have to be very ingratiating. would be one way to put it, right? Even if you're Mrs. Astor or Mrs. Fish and you've got a very acidic thing to say, you have to put it. When you throw Nathan Lane out of your house, you tell the butler,

Mr. McAllister is leaving. You don't say throw this piece of on the lawn. Well, she needs different help because he just walked past that mean looking butler. So obviously that butler is she needs a different kind of help. She wants to keep. Yeah, you kind of remember the guard in Monty. Python and the Holy Grail. There's the guard posted outside and, um, and the prince, you know, goes running by and he just watches him go by and he goes, Hey.

Do you remember that? Do you remember when the guy's galloping toward the castle and he's really far away and he keeps being really... And then he's suddenly right there. Yep. What do you mean the curtains? i'm sending you photos of women um so far i've sent you here's mod beaten what do you think i'm not beaten what do you think of her

I think her and Oscar should have teamed up to find the real scandal. I thought it could be a spinoff. Like the most unlikely. You know, we're not so different, you and I. Right, because they've both been wrong. I know, they got a reason. They're going to find the real criminal. I would love it, though, to be set in the Deadwood universe. Imagine the two- Hang on. It would just be filthy. Huh? Everyone's just filthy. I may have screwed my life up flatter than hammered dung.

But I stand before you today, a man beholding to no mother scratcher. Did you like Deadwood? I did. Yeah, it's one of my favorite shows. Hey, y'all, if you guys listen to podcasts and you like to laugh.

I'm a big fan of the Conan O'Brien podcast. Conan O'Brien needs a friend. I think it's a lot of fun. Not least because the people around him are funny. Today, Conan's assistant brought his new dog in and it was really fun. But there's certain people that when they're on the show... if you're a Conan fan are unmissable maybe most infamously Kevin Nealon those are absolutely unmissable Larry David unbelievable but another one is his very good friend and

Agent of chaos, Timothy Oliphant. Like, based on whatever his name is, Jeb Magruder, or whatever his name is on Deadwood, Sheriff Jeb, whatever his name is, that guy? The way he walks with his arms straight and ramrod straight and the way he's so seething with anger all the time. Timothy Oliphant is a nut. He's a kook. Timothy Oliphant is a goof.

And he's fast. And he just, it's one of those famous ones. Like Kevin Nealon, they just hand him an empty page with no notes when Timothy Oliphant is on. Their interactions are very funny. And he's not at all like Jeb McGruder. What's his name on Deadwood? Sheriff Bob. You're making me look of another character. Sheriff Bob. Hey, John, while we're at it, I have something I want to, this is a headline. I want to pull this up from the headlines. I apologize for that. Seth Bullock.

Seth Bullock. And you know they're based on real characters. Did you know that? It's like you got that guy, what's his name? Who's Buffalo Bob? Buffalo Bill? What's his name? Who's the guy who drinks with Clamity Jane? What's his name? Wild Bill Hickok. Yeah, there you go. Wild Bill Hickok. calamity jane calamity jane's terrific and when you see her in different things it'll blow your mind she's like an and out like she could do anything um i had a i had a thing oh did you write down attila

I guess we don't have time to talk about Attila. I don't know. Actually, one last thing on the ability. Yeah, please. One last thing for me at least on the ability of the documentary. Yes, I'm sorry. Again, I don't know when this was made, but it's two episodes. The first one is sort of like the first half of his life and career, and the second one is the second half of his life and career. Fine.

Um, and then I got, actually I've got one more thing. I got my story, but anyway, please, I could not believe that this documentary did not end with an explanation of, and a complete playing of the turn the lights back on. Music video. Because the whole thing was like, he made songs, he did a residency, he retired from songwriting. But then he came back and made his other song and video.

Hey, you know what, John, please briefly describe that very interesting video to our listeners. Well, first, let me describe the song. After this documentary, in 2024... like after the time period it covered in this documentary in 2024, he made another essentially pop song, which I guess was just released as like a, well, I don't know how to release things, whatever it is.

It was released. It's a YouTube video. It's on every streaming service. It's a new Billy Joel song that sounds like all the old Billy Joel songs. It just popped up one day and there's a Billy Joel song out of nowhere. And the video for it has a computer graphics simulated slash DH. versions of Billy Joel singing various portions of it, which fits perfectly with the documentary. Okay, you're being a little... Basically, it's broken up into sections where there's like what Billy Joel looks like.

But like it's one song played through. Played and sung by the current day 2024 Billy Joel. But it's cut at strategic places like along verses where it makes sense to basically start with Piano Man, go through. I would say tell her about it probably or Allentown. And then, but like, but it's, we didn't start the fire and then the current day, but. As somebody who today watched a Patrick H. Willems video about de-aging, I'm not going to say a single thing about it, except that I did watch it.

I don't think these were DH. I think these were pure CG mapped onto people. I'm not sure how they did it. They did a pretty good job. The company Lola, I think, is doing that now. But all I'm saying is I think the bodies, I think the young Billy Joel bodies are not the current Billy Joel bodies. It doesn't have the Irishman effect. It's not the current Billy Joel bodies. Yeah. But anyway, it's a good video and it's a good song. But it's not Louie's body.

How do you do a documentary about him, his life and career and him leaving behind pop music and then just end without saying, oh, and by the way. He came back and did a song and it's about all his, it's a song. You think it might be too on the nose? It's a backward looking song. It's like he's singing about his past lives and mistakes. And the only thing I think of is, well, this documentary was just finished before this song came out.

Which, fair enough, but did the documentary, people make the documentary, not know that he was in the process of making the song? The documentary is a very strange thing. Like, you need the real documentary who talks to all the people and lets them, like, I think Elizabeth had way more to say than was put in this documentary, for example. Like she stops being allowed to say things. She comes off. I mean, like when I say she comes off well, she seems cool.

But then she disappears. When she says Billy Joel picked her brother to be a manager, she gets two and a half words about that decision, and I'm sure she had paragraphs to say about it. Before you tell your story, can I just say one thing?

Please. Quickly, I see this in the inverse in some ways from the way you see it. I hear you. I'm really glad you have a place to bring up these excellent, true points. But here's the... I'm excited about this. To me, I think you and I see different bricks and mortar. I think you seem to see the performances as mortar, and I see the performances...

And like old photos. And I see that as the bricks. Like you've almost everything you've talked about here involves just talking heads. And like what I think of that as the mortar that makes me enjoy the music more. Like I could give a fig about these people's lives if I'm being honest.

Really, like when it comes down to it, they might as well be fictional characters to me. But the songs move the hell out of me. But I already know all the songs. I don't need to see the documentaries. But you've never seen those performances look so good and sound so good.

Did you listen to the seven hours of music that they put out? Have you listened to any of it? I did not listen to the seven hours. It's amazing. Like the quality. First of all, it's seven hours long. It's basically almost the entire movie presented.

Imagine putting the entire movie cut up into logical sections. For example, if you listen to an Edgar Wright... soundtrack they're very strategic about cutting in dialogue not like not like skits but like cutting in dialogue ditto here it opens with the opening it cuts into the bot and then it goes and it goes through but it's got the hassles

It's got Attila. It's got Wonder Woman by Attila, John. But they sound, just so you know, they sound extraordinary. If you ever want to go back and listen to this, the Hassles sound like a very cool band. And that's the last thing to say about that before your story.

They say, they talk about how into Led Zeppelin, he and everybody else, and John, I want to say, I'm sorry I'm forgetting his name, his partner. I think you're getting it right. Everybody's into Led Zeppelin. And what's hilarious, if you listen to that song, Wonder Woman, by Attila. You've got to please see the album cover. It's truly extraordinary. But that song, you can hear how much he sounds like, honestly, Geddy Lee. And there's a reason for that. Because...

Rush and Geddy Lee were into the absolutely a thousand percent into the same band as Billy Joel. They both arrived at Geddy, Geddy Lee like vocals because of how much they both liked the specifically the vocals of Robert Plant. in Led Zeppelin, right? This is mind-boggling. And each time he thinks there's this thing that's going to be his key to getting it. You know, he reminds me also, I always think of that Don Cheadle character in Boogie Nights.

who's always doing different outfits to try and like figure out who he is in the midst of this very colorful time. And Billy Joel, like, you know, at least in the presentation of it. So that's just all I wanted to point out. Bricks and mortar. I, I'm mainly so thrilled. about the music. And I think the pacing of this is actually really good too. I would, I'd love to watch five hours just on the stranger personally, but that's it. I think you're, you're at least the points you're making here.

suggests that you take this more as a documentary about Billy Joel's life, whereas I look at it as a collection about Billy Joel's music. Yeah, I'm not viewing it as a concert.

a movie or, or, or that I'm literally looking for a documentary that tells me more about the person and the lives and the relationships and that it, it gives more of a service. That does make sense. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I enjoyed the music parts too, but I already like Billy Joel. You watched it on vacation, presumably with your Long Island family? No, when everyone else is asleep. That's when I do all my watching. Then what's your story? I was trying to give you a good setup.

yeah now so my story is i'm watching it on my ipad in bed when everyone else is asleep as you do um that's actually one of my one of my favorite things about vacation free sidebar qualifying this to be what I believe John universally calls an iPad show. Is that right? Is that your term? Yeah, yeah. No, but I mean, like, it sounds, I just want to let you know, I hear you when you talk about, oh, that's an iPad show.

Many things are. Love Island? Is Love Island an iPad show? Oh, for sure. I don't think I've ever watched it on the television. You don't even know if you can get it in there. I don't know, but whatever it displays on the TV. When I'm on my Long Island vacations and everyone else is asleep.

And I'm in my bed in the dark with my iPad. I often watch shows that either other people aren't interested in or that I'm auditioning for them or whatever. And one of my best memories is watching like season one of Stranger Things on Netflix. at all entirely at night, like absorbing the entire series at night when everyone else is asleep on my long vacation. Not to say you'd be unfocused otherwise, but like when you're doing it almost totally at your leisure.

And you can just like, just take it in. It's such a good experience. And it's a vacation type thing where you're like, It's your little screen and everything. It's kind of intimate. Yeah. Anyway, so I'm watching the Billy Joel documentary in this way.

And they get to the part where he finds out his crappy manager is stealing from him because this is a thing that happens a lot in the 70s and 80s. He really hit all the bullet points, by the way, in terms of bad record deal, bad manager, drugs, divorce. infidelity um um sort of like um being too credulous about some people and then like being a piece of crap about other people like having sort of bad being maybe a bad judge of character

Yeah, you know, he's... No, I'm not criticizing him. I'm a bad judge of character, too. Because people are always announcing that they're good at that. Quite a speedrun of the music business. But anyway, so they're talking about his bad manager. Then they cut to what I assume is like archival footage of his bad manager. Great photo. His bad manager is standing on the driveway of his house, the bad manager's house. And it's an asphalt driveway.

And he's standing in front of two brown garage doors in a brown house. And that scene comes on and I go, I know those garage doors. No. I know that house. Then the camera rotates, and now we're looking at the back of the band manager. He's facing his street, so I can see his back, his mailbox, the street, and I can see a little piece of the lawn of the house that's across the street from him.

And this is a photo, this would be a photo from after you had lived there, right? Probably it would be a photo. I mean, if it's something you'd seen before. In other words, if it's something you'd seen before. I recognize the little piece of the lawn across the street. That is so insane. You couldn't even see the driveway across the street. You couldn't see the house across the street. All you could see was a little strip of the lawn and some trees. So I recognize.

his garage doors, and I recognized the grass across the street, and I immediately... wanted to take a screenshot, but couldn't because the world sucks. So I took out my iPhone and took a photo of my iPad screen and then used markup tool to circle the little strip of grass and emailed it to my childhood friend and said, hey.

This is a part of your front lawn is in the Billy Joel documentary, because at that moment, I remembered a fact that I knew for most of my life that one of my best friends growing up across the street from his house was Billy Joel's former manager.

And I had forgotten that fact until I saw this. Oh, that's right. His former man lived across the street from him. What's crazy, though, is the house has got to be indelible, like childhood memories are. Otherwise, of course, you wouldn't have noticed that.

But what's interesting is that the part that makes it crazy now is that's just one of those facts where you're like, oh, yeah, whatever. Somebody goes like, oh, yeah. Right, because we never saw him. We never saw him. He had dinner with Richard Nixon once. And you're like, oh, you know, whatever. Of course, that's Billy Joel. And if we showed you, if we showed you a photo.

of the house that was across the street from your childhood home, you'd recognize it too, even if you didn't know who lived there. Because you'd be like, well, I've looked at that house my whole life. I went to his house all the time. I know the face that those windows make.

yeah it was just his garage door so i'm like i know that like and then this strip of all it was unbelievable so anyway yeah that that that's incredible i lived about a block away from billy joel's former manager his house was right across the street

One of my best friends growing up. I think you said you used to ride your bike there. All the time. I could walk there. It was not far away. I went there all the time. The question I couldn't get you to answer was, I think this was, well, we don't need to tell my friends about it, but I was working on a project. with some input help from John to try and like figure out the locations of a bunch of the Billy Joel averse.

in Long Island. And to some extent, like places John was familiar with near there. Not to be creepy about it, but like, I just think that's fun to do and like try to figure out where the lemon twigs lived. And, and I was like, I think I asked you if you had a girlfriend. in that area, how often would you see her? To me, that's a good indication of a distance. Spoken like someone who expects to have a girlfriend as a child.

Just always throw them to my face. Well, you know, when you're kissing all your girlfriends, like during your childhood with all your girlfriends, right? Right. And the problem is Long Island is big, but like, is it big enough that if you were kissing a girl, you might be seen? by other girls that you've kissed. And if you live and you go down to, what is it, Original Pizza Joe's? Isn't that your place? You go to Original Pizza Joe's and maybe Maybelline is working at the counter.

And, you know, and then you go in with, um, geez, I need a really good, uh, uh, wait, what's, um, no, wait, no, no, the godfather, the mother and the godfather, she doesn't have a name, does she? Is it Carmela? What's her name? Does she have a name? I heard she doesn't have a name. Let's say, Maybelline is working down at Famous Original Pizza. They do party cuts. And you go in there with, what was her name, Carmella? What did you say her name was? Mama.

You and mama go for a slice of our original pepperoni Jimmy. You don't want to go, you don't want to go to, you don't want to go to that other place. What's the famous one in New York that people are always making a big deal about? It's like Joe's in original. Rays in original. And it's like a famous original Rays, right? That's right, yeah. It's almost like, you know, A. Aaron Aardvark plumbing.

You know what I mean? I should say it is, but the yellow pages. People don't know about the yellow pages. The funny pages. Remember the, I used to love the lawyer ads.

I can't believe I can't find this photo. I already sent it to you. I was just trying to play it along to make the bit better. If we're talking about it, I was thrilled. when you sent that because it was right in the midst of me working with

some technology to try and put this together as something we could collaborate on. Cause I, I don't know. I had this idea also just cause you know, we're pals and I was thinking like maybe you could have, and as always, I'm not trying to make this factually correct. I'm trying to make it structurally.

integral so like if i could come up with a spreadsheet for example that's how spreadsheets are my love language so maybe that's the way i could show my love for you by giving you a spreadsheet of long island I don't need a spreadsheet of it, Donnie. I lived it. All my friends have big butts. There's a whole array of ladies' names, names of women, women's names, assigned name at birth, where I'm bummed I never had a girlfriend with that name.

Do you ever get that? So many girlfriends that you're upset that certain names are not represented among them. And I don't want to sound gross because some of these are like people I know or like family members, but like, you know, I was never with a Maggie, which is also a good dog name. Except for your girlfriend from...

What do you call it? Which was The Girl I Kissed? The Walking Dead, yeah. Oh, Maggie from The Walking Dead. She's also on a very funny episode of Tim and Eric's Bedtime Stories with the two of them and Zach Galifianakis. Oh yeah, so I should also write down my... This is still the show, so just hang on a minute. Gilded Age Girlfriends. I'll send you a list of those. But it's possible that this is a way that I show love.

And what year do you think that's from? I'm going to say... 80s? Early 90s. Okay. Yeah, but it's after you were... Late 80s, early 90s. I was still living there. Okay. Gilded Age Girlfriends, we're going to come back to. I never had a Maggie. I never had a Molly. Now, there's some...

There's some that I, I like the girls, but I regret the names. You ever been with a Kirsten? Cause that thing needs to be a thing. When I was a kid, your name was Christine. Yeah. Your name was Christine and you liked it. Yeah. I know about the Kirstens. We have Kirstens. And what about a Tiffany?

I held hands with a Tiffany once. She had a, I think she had a home haircut, Tiffany. This is like the billionaire's problem. Why didn't you have any girlfriends? Well, because Merlin had them all. Are you saying I was a form of hoarding? Yeah. These judges, you keep in your pockets. You have to share. I can't do that. I can't tell you how many times I've seen the scene around the big table.

where they're passing the phone around amongst the fruit and all that stuff. And it's being translated live, you know, but I'm always just struck by the, by that. I don't know what it's called, but where it's like panning.

No, probably a dolly. But anyway, it's just a shot of them passing that gold telephone around the table. And how each one of them, the way each one of them acts like it is, is different. Like Hyman Roth kind of acts like, you know Hyman Roth's not like a strong guy. But the way...

Lee Strasberg handles it implies that it's lighter than that other guy who previously gone. Remember the guy before him goes, Ooh, he kind of goes, Ooh, a little bit like, Ooh, that's a heavy gold. They didn't meet ahead of time to decide how much the phone weighed. Every actor gets to give their interpretation. Finally, a country that knows how to do business. Smaller slice.