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Roderick on the Line

Ep. 120: "The Frog Leg King"

 

00:00:00   this episode of rock on the line is [TS]

00:00:01   sponsored by Squarespace the only one [TS]

00:00:03   platform makes it fast and easy to [TS]

00:00:06   create your own professional website [TS]

00:00:07   portfolio and online store for your free [TS]

00:00:10   trial plus ten percent off anything you [TS]

00:00:12   by visit squarespace.com and enter the [TS]

00:00:14   offer code supertrain at checkout a [TS]

00:00:17   better web starts with your website [TS]

00:00:19   hello hey John [TS]

00:00:26   hi Merlin how's it going pretty good and [TS]

00:00:30   everything's different [TS]

00:00:31   yeah always a change i don't so [TS]

00:00:36   different right now everything's [TS]

00:00:37   different yeah you know it's like [TS]

00:00:39   Heraclitus says you can never dip your [TS]

00:00:41   foot into the same skype [TS]

00:00:43   mm-hmm if you sit on the bridge and [TS]

00:00:46   watch the skype go buy it will always be [TS]

00:00:48   a new skype well and yet it's and yet [TS]

00:00:51   it's always the same skype [TS]

00:00:53   by the time I see a cloud that looks [TS]

00:00:54   like something and I call my daughter [TS]

00:00:56   over it doesn't look like that anymore [TS]

00:00:57   you know that it's been so long since I [TS]

00:01:00   looked up at a cloud and saw a dog or [TS]

00:01:03   talk or whatever it is like I don't I [TS]

00:01:06   had that i have not had that experience [TS]

00:01:07   in a long time and I think it might be [TS]

00:01:08   that the clouds in Seattle first of all [TS]

00:01:11   these guys are always blue and see all [TS]

00:01:12   the bliss guys ever seen if memory [TS]

00:01:14   serves our internet that's right that's [TS]

00:01:15   right but the living room / actually [TS]

00:01:17   into seattle who carried along [TS]

00:01:20   yeah I'm sure period comma been to [TS]

00:01:22   everywhere he traveled a lot [TS]

00:01:24   you know those guys that generation of [TS]

00:01:25   guys there banging showgirls to a time [TS]

00:01:28   what time what do i wear but uh but when [TS]

00:01:32   there are clouds here they don't look [TS]

00:01:34   like anything they just look like they [TS]

00:01:35   look like film on a soup [TS]

00:01:38   yeah this is the time of year the really [TS]

00:01:41   depressing time here in San Francisco [TS]

00:01:42   where we just have one continuous cloud [TS]

00:01:44   that's called the weather [TS]

00:01:45   yeah and as far as you know it goes to [TS]

00:01:48   japan yeah as far as you know it just it [TS]

00:01:50   starts at your house and it goes to [TS]

00:01:51   japan [TS]

00:01:52   yeah it's a super SuperDuper weird innit [TS]

00:01:57   we haven't talked again it's been a [TS]

00:01:58   while we had a little love little by [TS]

00:02:00   period you've been traveling a lot and [TS]

00:02:02   and I got some things on a card here i [TS]

00:02:04   want to ask you about I want to go for [TS]

00:02:07   things on a car was gonna toss these out [TS]

00:02:08   and it's a little bit old school like [TS]

00:02:10   that fever [TS]

00:02:11   I've got your office on about your fever [TS]

00:02:13   your office your assistance if you want [TS]

00:02:14   to talk about it and all the President's [TS]

00:02:16   Men okay in that order [TS]

00:02:19   todd you know you can ask the last one [TS]

00:02:21   first if you want how you were you were [TS]

00:02:23   you were down so I had a very strange [TS]

00:02:25   fever so you know a fever that uh that I [TS]

00:02:29   could not account for and now in [TS]

00:02:33   retrospect i do feel like i had i do [TS]

00:02:36   feel like i had an unusual um illness [TS]

00:02:38   but it coincided with four very hot days [TS]

00:02:42   know so i was i was tossing around [TS]

00:02:45   feverish and you know just the like that [TS]

00:02:48   thing you get in the night where you [TS]

00:02:50   wake up and you just your whole bed is [TS]

00:02:52   just a us a puddle [TS]

00:02:54   yeah you're like there's no way I could [TS]

00:02:56   get comfortable but I don't want to go [TS]

00:02:57   anywhere else because I'm just gonna [TS]

00:02:58   ruin whatever that is [TS]

00:03:00   yeah but then of course it's also like [TS]

00:03:02   85 degrees at night and a and so that [TS]

00:03:06   explains some of it but what what the [TS]

00:03:10   problem is is that since I stopped [TS]

00:03:12   eating gluten uh all of my normal like [TS]

00:03:18   like measurements of illness have to [TS]

00:03:23   change because i used to get you know [TS]

00:03:27   these terrible sinus infections and [TS]

00:03:29   since I stopped eating gluten i have not [TS]

00:03:31   had a single sinus infection Wow [TS]

00:03:33   and so I'm i have that i have this flu [TS]

00:03:36   basically is probably what it was some [TS]

00:03:38   kind of you know some mild bird flew [TS]

00:03:41   over small bird a small breasts yeah [TS]

00:03:44   just like actually chickadee birdie or [TS]

00:03:47   yeah a goldfinch you know your [TS]

00:03:50   adventures are the washington state bird [TS]

00:03:51   goldfinch writing that down it didn't [TS]

00:03:53   have that goldfinch um but but but so i [TS]

00:03:56   have this sickness and i'm waiting for [TS]

00:03:58   it to develop secondary symptoms i'm [TS]

00:04:00   waiting to sit with my head all clogged [TS]

00:04:03   and coughing up big you know Esther's [TS]

00:04:05   and just like terrible cold and it and [TS]

00:04:08   it never met estate sizes into my normal [TS]

00:04:12   cold [TS]

00:04:14   and so you know i know from colds i know [TS]

00:04:18   a lot of cold the and so I sit there and [TS]

00:04:21   I'm like what kind of illness is this [TS]

00:04:23   this isn't it this is this is like in [TS]

00:04:25   one sense terrible it hurts but in [TS]

00:04:28   another sense it's not it's not [TS]

00:04:29   producing any of the the next level like [TS]

00:04:32   stuff where I'm really uncomfortable [TS]

00:04:34   right and so anyway it's gone now and I [TS]

00:04:38   and I did it [TS]

00:04:39   vaya con Dios on to the next person but [TS]

00:04:42   but you know you have to recalibrate [TS]

00:04:46   it's a different bar now you you had [TS]

00:04:48   just gotten used to this long slog of [TS]

00:04:51   co-leaders used to get em fair amount of [TS]

00:04:53   coals right i did i had a lot of colds [TS]

00:04:55   yeah you know you you drive yourself [TS]

00:04:56   pretty hard it's true but but [TS]

00:05:00   so normally what would happen is i would [TS]

00:05:01   have a I would have a five-day fever [TS]

00:05:03   like that and then no matter what I did [TS]

00:05:07   if I spent five days if I spent five [TS]

00:05:10   days curled up in a rag toast and [TS]

00:05:13   antibiotics at the end of five days [TS]

00:05:17   no matter what happens no matter what [TS]

00:05:19   else I could have I could spend 15 days [TS]

00:05:22   sick and then at the end of that period [TS]

00:05:26   then i would get a sinus infection and [TS]

00:05:29   and a lung infection out and I would and [TS]

00:05:32   then I would have to spend another you [TS]

00:05:33   know eight to ten days clearing that out [TS]

00:05:35   it just it just happened like clockwork [TS]

00:05:37   so that so that it almost felt like when [TS]

00:05:39   I got a cold [TS]

00:05:40   I should just go run in the rain because [TS]

00:05:43   no matter what i did i was going to get [TS]

00:05:45   this next level of of illness as you get [TS]

00:05:48   older you get used to that rhythm it's [TS]

00:05:50   like when you realize you're getting [TS]

00:05:51   stressed bump and you like bring it on [TS]

00:05:52   yeah you know I don't want to wait you [TS]

00:05:53   know I'm gonna pop this i'm not going to [TS]

00:05:55   wait six days but this thing to be more [TS]

00:05:57   lingering on my mouth covered my face [TS]

00:05:59   with sores covered let's do this thing [TS]

00:06:02   let's do it let's go but so now [TS]

00:06:05   mmm he said that you sounded you sound [TS]

00:06:08   very healthy inhale you know I my vital [TS]

00:06:11   young guy in his in his early middle age [TS]

00:06:13   now I mean I sometimes i have to get up [TS]

00:06:16   five times at night to pee [TS]

00:06:17   yeah but I was complaining about that [TS]

00:06:19   the other day to my mom I was like I [TS]

00:06:20   don't know i need i think i need to see [TS]

00:06:22   a doctor haven't been to a doctor and a [TS]

00:06:23   couple of years I think I should go and [TS]

00:06:24   she's like why do you need to see a [TS]

00:06:26   doctor [TS]

00:06:27   that's exactly the kind of innovation [TS]

00:06:28   and I like and I said you know what mom [TS]

00:06:31   I'm a middle-aged guy middle-aged guys [TS]

00:06:33   have to go to the doctor sometimes [TS]

00:06:35   because because things happen to them [TS]

00:06:36   and she was like a doctors are all back [TS]

00:06:38   wax and I said seriously I you know I [TS]

00:06:42   have to get up a lot of times in the [TS]

00:06:43   night to pee and she said welcome to [TS]

00:06:46   middle a shit and I was like oh god the [TS]

00:06:52   process is started talking about health [TS]

00:06:53   with people it's certainly talking about [TS]

00:06:55   birth or like bad relationships [TS]

00:06:58   everybody's got their like horror story [TS]

00:07:00   about the person you know if he hadn't [TS]

00:07:02   uh if I hadn't blown my boyfriend found [TS]

00:07:04   his funny ball he never would have [TS]

00:07:06   discovered he had cancer when he was 27 [TS]

00:07:08   that late and like first of all I do not [TS]

00:07:10   want to feel my balls i had two friends [TS]

00:07:12   that totally got to stick you lurk [TS]

00:07:14   answer in their twenties [TS]

00:07:15   really oh yeah big day did they have [TS]

00:07:18   their balls taking em well I think [TS]

00:07:20   that's part of the process i think i was [TS]

00:07:23   only one ball [TS]

00:07:24   yeah that house that Hitler I'm not I've [TS]

00:07:26   never said I don't know [TS]

00:07:28   sure I'll have one more he and I don't [TS]

00:07:30   go like to the locker rooms or anything [TS]

00:07:32   the Sinai Hitler had only one big o [TS]

00:07:34   Himmler had to but they were small no [TS]

00:07:37   killer had something similar i need to [TS]

00:07:40   go back to school but i'm gonna figure [TS]

00:07:41   about you that I need more people like [TS]

00:07:43   your mom around me just say listen leave [TS]

00:07:46   it you do not need to go to those people [TS]

00:07:50   well because you know i i'm also prone [TS]

00:07:52   to I mean I don't Adam I don't want this [TS]

00:07:55   show to turn into just some kind of show [TS]

00:07:56   for the ladies but I am prone to moles [TS]

00:07:59   to moles [TS]

00:08:01   oh you know people tell you to worry [TS]

00:08:02   about moles I got a little more over [TS]

00:08:04   here I got a little moreover they watch [TS]

00:08:06   your moles you get a chart you can [TS]

00:08:07   measure them see if they have an uneven [TS]

00:08:09   surface [TS]

00:08:10   mhm so enjoy and we're supposed to worry [TS]

00:08:12   about I've been getting moles my old [TS]

00:08:14   life and every new girlfriend I would [TS]

00:08:17   have would be like you didn't used to [TS]

00:08:19   have this mole and i would say a pretty [TS]

00:08:22   sure there was something there pretty [TS]

00:08:24   sure was some kind of mobile a rapport [TS]

00:08:26   and she was like yeah but it never [TS]

00:08:27   looked like this before [TS]

00:08:29   yeah I'd be like [TS]

00:08:31   I'm pretty sure it looked like something [TS]

00:08:33   like that before and she's like exactly [TS]

00:08:35   that's the problem [TS]

00:08:36   they're not supposed to change and so [TS]

00:08:38   they would hustle me off to some doctor [TS]

00:08:40   and I'd go sit in his lot of his office [TS]

00:08:43   with my shirt off and he would look at [TS]

00:08:45   the moles and go dad that's not a [TS]

00:08:47   problem that's not a bad mole and i [TS]

00:08:49   would say why don't you tell me what the [TS]

00:08:51   bad balls look like so that I can [TS]

00:08:53   reassure people and he would say well [TS]

00:08:59   you know it's more it's kind of like [TS]

00:09:01   it's kind of like Supreme Court [TS]

00:09:02   definition of porn you know when you see [TS]

00:09:04   it right and I'm like that's no no you [TS]

00:09:07   know it when you see it so tell me what [TS]

00:09:10   it is that this isn't some likes this [TS]

00:09:12   isn't some Masonic ritual that you have [TS]

00:09:15   to keep concealed from people [TS]

00:09:17   he's going to get the business either [TS]

00:09:18   way yeah give me the five points that i [TS]

00:09:21   should be looking for his listicle on is [TS]

00:09:24   77 surprising moles yeah you're not [TS]

00:09:27   going to believe what metastasize next [TS]

00:09:29   and he says well you don't you know if [TS]

00:09:32   they change and I'm like well they don't [TS]

00:09:34   they all change this one changed and you [TS]

00:09:36   didn't have a problem he's like well [TS]

00:09:38   they're uneven and I'm like there aren't [TS]

00:09:40   even there there there moles can cut out [TS]

00:09:43   there not fucking pie plates they're [TS]

00:09:45   moles exchanged a change the change [TS]

00:09:49   he's like well if there be if they're [TS]

00:09:50   black you know these are dark enough and [TS]

00:09:53   I was like oh I see it's a it's a [TS]

00:09:55   pigment scale and then you know what I [TS]

00:09:59   did then I just stopped giving a shit [TS]

00:10:00   about it every one of my moles takes [TS]

00:10:02   over then that will be my superpower [TS]

00:10:06   yes i'll be the mole will be the man is [TS]

00:10:08   already a moment but you came down [TS]

00:10:10   here's the thing with doctors you know I [TS]

00:10:13   feel like you're describing is perfectly [TS]

00:10:15   because I feel like whatever sentence [TS]

00:10:17   comes out of a doctor's mouth tacitly [TS]

00:10:20   always ends with comma dummy that's not [TS]

00:10:23   a mole dummy you get your moles checked [TS]

00:10:26   dummy in bed in bed haha i feel this way [TS]

00:10:33   about doctors and lawyers and that hall [TS]

00:10:35   and make an appointment you gotta find [TS]

00:10:37   parking [TS]

00:10:38   there John there's always forms to fill [TS]

00:10:40   out there was no many forms [TS]

00:10:41   you don't have the time they send you to [TS]

00:10:43   a different doctor it's like you know [TS]

00:10:46   the story tell me the stories like well [TS]

00:10:48   you should go see this guy ear nose and [TS]

00:10:50   throat guy like ah now i gotta make [TS]

00:10:52   another appointment [TS]

00:10:53   it's like going to bestbuy and you think [TS]

00:10:55   I fuck I gotta buy a USB cord and you go [TS]

00:10:59   there like hmm yeah I could be USB cord [TS]

00:11:02   but you should probably go to the apple [TS]

00:11:03   store and you know they got to sing to [TS]

00:11:05   the specialist and that's a whole thing [TS]

00:11:07   and there and that this may be a part of [TS]

00:11:11   this maybe part of the problem of who we [TS]

00:11:14   are and our unchecked white privilege [TS]

00:11:16   but i have never heard a thing come out [TS]

00:11:19   of a doctor or a lawyer mouth but I [TS]

00:11:22   didn't feel like yeah I knew that [TS]

00:11:24   already [TS]

00:11:25   and also I could have figured that out [TS]

00:11:29   and about in about 20 minutes if I [TS]

00:11:32   didn't if I hadn't come in here thinking [TS]

00:11:35   that you were a magic source of her you [TS]

00:11:38   know I mean like what's the answer to [TS]

00:11:40   this problem [TS]

00:11:41   oh hmm it's it's pretty much what I [TS]

00:11:43   thought and we you know we imbue these [TS]

00:11:48   people with magic powers because of [TS]

00:11:50   their what three years in school I have [TS]

00:11:52   fucking sandwiches in my refrigerator [TS]

00:11:54   that are older than three years or less [TS]

00:11:55   and three years in school as i get older [TS]

00:11:58   as and I know you know this already i do [TS]

00:12:02   not think that three years in school is [TS]

00:12:04   that big of a deal [TS]

00:12:05   they're also very young a lot of them so [TS]

00:12:08   yeah I think of a doctor is being an [TS]

00:12:10   old-ass man no privilege involved but [TS]

00:12:12   I'm just saying when you meet people who [TS]

00:12:14   are really young and they still and [TS]

00:12:16   their sentences with a question [TS]

00:12:18   myocardial infarction I had a doctor [TS]

00:12:23   like that a doctor hulu get looked at me [TS]

00:12:25   like well here's what the first thing I [TS]

00:12:28   had a doctor who looked at me like he [TS]

00:12:29   was afraid of me that's just setting a [TS]

00:12:33   tone [TS]

00:12:34   this episode of Roderick on the line is [TS]

00:12:35   sponsored by our very good friends over [TS]

00:12:37   at Squarespace you know Squarespace you [TS]

00:12:40   should [TS]

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00:12:41   it fast and easy to create your own [TS]

00:12:43   professional website portfolio or online [TS]

00:12:46   store guys they make it all so simple [TS]

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00:12:52   you can tweak anyway you like all the [TS]

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00:12:58   Squarespace also offers free 24 x seven [TS]

00:13:01   support through live email and shot with [TS]

00:13:03   dedicated teams in New York City dublin [TS]

00:13:06   and Portland here's the thing you gotta [TS]

00:13:07   know John and I have used square space [TS]

00:13:09   to host Roderick online for three years [TS]

00:13:11   now hundred and twenty episodes and [TS]

00:13:13   they're still just as great to work with [TS]

00:13:14   as they were on day one we love working [TS]

00:13:16   with them and we really hope you'll give [TS]

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00:13:27   do please remember to tell Squarespace [TS]

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00:13:30   that Roderick on the line because [TS]

00:13:32   listeners of this particular program get [TS]

00:13:34   a free trial plus ten percent off any [TS]

00:13:36   package they choose by using the very [TS]

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00:13:40   checkout our thanks to squarespace for [TS]

00:13:42   supporting Roderick online we could not [TS]

00:13:44   do without i do not want my doctor to be [TS]

00:13:47   afraid of me and this guy with he was [TS]

00:13:49   young he was small he had you know he [TS]

00:13:52   had been to he i think he went to [TS]

00:13:54   medical school in Guiana like I didn't [TS]

00:13:57   there was nothing about it [TS]

00:13:59   nothing went down there for a couple [TS]

00:14:00   weeks and decided to just get an MD [TS]

00:14:01   while he was there [TS]

00:14:02   I'm sure he got I'm sure his MD is from [TS]

00:14:05   a reputable school like the University [TS]

00:14:06   of Pennsylvania mm but whatever it was [TS]

00:14:08   it would they did not teach him in [TS]

00:14:11   medical school not to like be visibly [TS]

00:14:14   afraid of of your patients and so [TS]

00:14:17   probably smaller they're the people you [TS]

00:14:19   know what if they are not smaller in [TS]

00:14:21   Pennsylvania out like down in Guyana if [TS]

00:14:23   he was in the guyanese they're probably [TS]

00:14:26   you know they're probably smaller they [TS]

00:14:27   probably have more interesting [TS]

00:14:28   constellations of moles they're not used [TS]

00:14:30   to have a pair of a man like you [TS]

00:14:32   that's right they're not used to submit [TS]

00:14:33   and I mean honestly I did have a bowie [TS]

00:14:35   knife sticking out of my side when I [TS]

00:14:36   walked in so that was that me maybe [TS]

00:14:39   intimidated him at first [TS]

00:14:42   painting again st.martin arrow yeah yeah [TS]

00:14:45   I got into I've got into a little little [TS]

00:14:48   disagreement little fisticuffs with a [TS]

00:14:49   guy down in front of the toyota [TS]

00:14:50   dealership should've seen the other guy [TS]

00:14:55   i can activate at my oil changed here so [TS]

00:14:59   I was not like i would get my oil [TS]

00:15:00   changed the toyota dealership that's [TS]

00:15:02   another example of something you know [TS]

00:15:04   you never take that part of the deal and [TS]

00:15:05   you have changed here dummy [TS]

00:15:07   my wife needs oil changed on our car and [TS]

00:15:09   she's supposed to take it to the [TS]

00:15:11   dealership right because they have the [TS]

00:15:13   tension bored so they have the 10w30 [TS]

00:15:16   point five or whatever up and everything [TS]

00:15:19   done mounted by the way warranty if you [TS]

00:15:22   don't fix the viscosity did you know [TS]

00:15:24   that Volkswagens have a special [TS]

00:15:27   quote-unquote auntie theft a nut on [TS]

00:15:35   there on their wheels so you know you've [TS]

00:15:38   got your you got your five or six bolts [TS]

00:15:40   that hold your wheel on one of them you [TS]

00:15:43   know the five of them are are a normal [TS]

00:15:46   both that you can remove with a with a [TS]

00:15:49   tire iron and one of them is a special [TS]

00:15:52   star bolt and in order to remove it you [TS]

00:15:56   have to have a special star a adapter [TS]

00:16:00   what [TS]

00:16:01   yeah and so I borrowed a Volkswagen [TS]

00:16:04   actually a long time ago and you get a [TS]

00:16:08   flat tire on one of these things nobody [TS]

00:16:10   can change it even triple they can't [TS]

00:16:12   help you [TS]

00:16:13   wow if you don't have the star bolt [TS]

00:16:16   which of course is the first thing that [TS]

00:16:17   every box wagon owner loses right i mean [TS]

00:16:21   how are you going to keep ahold of this [TS]

00:16:23   little thing [TS]

00:16:23   gosh and how it must be very very [TS]

00:16:25   difficult to find a star bolt wrench [TS]

00:16:27   well you can put a normal wrench into [TS]

00:16:29   the star bolt just saying if you're if [TS]

00:16:31   you're somebody who's really into [TS]

00:16:32   stealing tires off of Volkswagens that [TS]

00:16:34   sounds like something you'd want to get [TS]

00:16:35   for your kit [TS]

00:16:36   well oh ho here's the deal [TS]

00:16:40   they make me this is why it's not so [TS]

00:16:42   simple they make multiple different [TS]

00:16:44   kinds of star bolt that's how they get [TS]

00:16:46   you [TS]

00:16:46   exactly so you is so if you go to the [TS]

00:16:48   books by a dealership and say I need a [TS]

00:16:50   star bolt wrench [TS]

00:16:51   they're like what kind of startled you [TS]

00:16:53   got [TS]

00:16:54   and there's no way to know that you have [TS]

00:16:56   to bring it into the place and show them [TS]

00:16:59   and then they can go into their enormous [TS]

00:17:00   been parts bit of startled fuck thinks [TS]

00:17:03   that is a good idea is that really that [TS]

00:17:05   much of a problem that you would [TS]

00:17:06   introduce that much deliberate [TS]

00:17:08   inconvenience to the consumer experience [TS]

00:17:09   because I just say John clear mind our [TS]

00:17:11   cars volkswagen it's a recent volkswagen [TS]

00:17:14   so we probably have a star bolt that you [TS]

00:17:15   have a star bolt or maybe they may be [TS]

00:17:17   star bolts were only thing that they [TS]

00:17:19   used from 90 to 99 or so I'm sure hope [TS]

00:17:22   so but star bolts [TS]

00:17:24   uh yeah yeah that's exactly the question [TS]

00:17:27   I was like is this [TS]

00:17:28   are we the Griswolds like off the road [TS]

00:17:31   somewhere in Baltimore like who steals [TS]

00:17:33   tires [TS]

00:17:34   whoo-hoo anymore steals a wheel of a car [TS]

00:17:38   that was the last time you saw a car up [TS]

00:17:41   on blocks used to see them all the time [TS]

00:17:45   well you know I'm not a physician John [TS]

00:17:46   but and I don't have the demographic [TS]

00:17:47   data in front of me but i would have to [TS]

00:17:49   say i would rather have the prospect of [TS]

00:17:51   some diligent persons potentially [TS]

00:17:54   stealing a wheel than knowing that if [TS]

00:17:56   we're on the side of freezing road we [TS]

00:17:57   can't change my goddamn can change our [TS]

00:17:58   got them tires are you know that was one [TS]

00:18:01   of the major plot points not guess not [TS]

00:18:02   major plot point but it was a minor plot [TS]

00:18:04   point of Smokey and the Bandit right [TS]

00:18:06   oh yeah i was just reading about smoking [TS]

00:18:08   ban the other day [TS]

00:18:09   yeah those kids pull over and they're [TS]

00:18:11   they're taking the they're taking my [TS]

00:18:12   wheels off of up the car they got left [TS]

00:18:15   behind by after what happened something [TS]

00:18:19   happened and they're stealing the wheels [TS]

00:18:20   and then sheriff a p40 justice justice [TS]

00:18:23   pulls up and give them and give them a [TS]

00:18:26   good talking-to it was a real satisfying [TS]

00:18:27   moment sumbitch up you're seeing that [TS]

00:18:32   movie down like 40 v 0 where they take [TS]

00:18:35   the squares out huh [TS]

00:18:37   it's one of those ones like the big [TS]

00:18:38   lebowski or glengarry glen ross the [TS]

00:18:41   really is a joy to see on TBS is because [TS]

00:18:44   it really it big lebowski I think they [TS]

00:18:46   deliberately put in you know they change [TS]

00:18:49   stuff like you know [TS]

00:18:50   yeah this is what that this is what [TS]

00:18:53   happens you know when you fuck someone [TS]

00:18:54   the ass into this is what happens when [TS]

00:18:56   you fuck a stranger in the alps haha i [TS]

00:18:59   think that's the color is having a [TS]

00:19:01   little fun with us but uh I was a you [TS]

00:19:05   know our our good friend David Rees has [TS]

00:19:07   at all right now God my daughter and I [TS]

00:19:09   now argue over who has a bigger crush on [TS]

00:19:11   him [TS]

00:19:12   yeah that's 4sho I don't like to talk [TS]

00:19:14   about media and media but I'm just [TS]

00:19:16   telling you that that is a goddamn gift [TS]

00:19:18   from heaven that show it's an amazing [TS]

00:19:19   show [TS]

00:19:20   I when he came he seemed like a perfect [TS]

00:19:22   delight he is that he's the best and he [TS]

00:19:24   appears on the show exactly as as he is [TS]

00:19:27   that is how he is in normal times like [TS]

00:19:30   it's clear it's clear from watching him [TS]

00:19:32   that he's not putting on a thing like [TS]

00:19:34   that so he really wants a better [TS]

00:19:35   shoelace [TS]

00:19:36   yes he does like a live but I spent last [TS]

00:19:39   night looking at the internet at all of [TS]

00:19:41   the people complaining that David said [TS]

00:19:44   god damn there's nothing man you yeah I [TS]

00:19:47   can't even believe if you've ever read [TS]

00:19:49   get your war on I can't even believe how [TS]

00:19:50   that guy's holding back on that show [TS]

00:19:52   oh absolutely he is abby is with puppy [TS]

00:19:54   is a profane motherfuckers like the [TS]

00:19:56   father from Christmas Story I mean he he [TS]

00:19:58   paints in rich tapestries of cursing but [TS]

00:20:00   as the thumb as the as he was doing the [TS]

00:20:03   paper airplane episode and he was like [TS]

00:20:04   god damn he said something like that [TS]

00:20:06   yeah [TS]

00:20:07   and I and I swear to you there are [TS]

00:20:08   dozens and dozens of people who are like [TS]

00:20:10   I will never watch this program again i [TS]

00:20:12   will know you know my kids I had to take [TS]

00:20:15   my kids down into the basement and spray [TS]

00:20:17   them with a fire hose for a half an hour [TS]

00:20:19   to wash god damn out of their ears [TS]

00:20:21   that's I'm kind of surprised because [TS]

00:20:26   that is one that's one of those weird [TS]

00:20:28   like corner cases that's one that really [TS]

00:20:30   gets some people who could stand even [TS]

00:20:32   some you know poopy vagina talk like and [TS]

00:20:35   would not do not like to hear that one [TS]

00:20:37   that one really grind some people skiers [TS]

00:20:39   yeah it's a tough but it's it's it's [TS]

00:20:41   their line in the sand right i mean you [TS]

00:20:42   can say shit all day [TS]

00:20:43   yeah but you take the Lord's name in [TS]

00:20:46   vain that is one of the things that it [TS]

00:20:50   says in the book noticing them but not [TS]

00:20:52   did all the musical point as the musical [TS]

00:20:54   you see the party whole see the party [TS]

00:20:56   whole episode you know i miss the party [TS]

00:20:57   whole episode I was a little bit you [TS]

00:20:59   know whenever somebody has a party whole [TS]

00:21:00   yeah and I'm not in it [TS]

00:21:02   yeah I feel a little bit like oh okie [TS]

00:21:04   dokie i watch your show right up to the [TS]

00:21:07   party whole park [TS]

00:21:08   ya know he designed himself it's it's [TS]

00:21:10   it's quite a mission have you met him [TS]

00:21:12   for I feel like I move in his circles [TS]

00:21:13   somewhat but i don't think i've ever met [TS]

00:21:15   him you see he's like why our friend mr. [TS]

00:21:18   Hodgman you must have met him at some [TS]

00:21:19   point well not only have i met him but [TS]

00:21:22   he is so on the first jonathan coulton [TS]

00:21:26   Cruz david and i had already met the [TS]

00:21:29   first time we met was upstate [TS]

00:21:31   Massachusetts somewhere in a undisclosed [TS]

00:21:36   location but on the first on the first [TS]

00:21:38   jonathan coulton Cruz David and I were [TS]

00:21:40   both on the boat solo I had no I didn't [TS]

00:21:45   bring anybody was pregnant and couldn't [TS]

00:21:47   go on the boat [TS]

00:21:48   oh my god I just I just I just said her [TS]

00:21:51   name [TS]

00:21:52   yeah i think yet we've done 200 episodes [TS]

00:21:54   yeah um anyway so David and I get on the [TS]

00:22:00   boat and he comes over he's like well I [TS]

00:22:02   guess where crews wives and I was like [TS]

00:22:05   Cruz wives and he's like yeah you gotta [TS]

00:22:07   cruise wife or even aware at the time [TS]

00:22:09   how much smarter it was to not bring [TS]

00:22:11   anybody because I understand talking [TS]

00:22:13   about numerous people that it's hard to [TS]

00:22:15   know how much it's a good idea to not [TS]

00:22:16   bring anybody see is no we were thrilled [TS]

00:22:18   we were thrilled and we had the first [TS]

00:22:20   cruise was a magical time for us because [TS]

00:22:22   we went to Jamaica together we were like [TS]

00:22:25   we're not going on the normal tour and [TS]

00:22:27   we went off into the town and we like [TS]

00:22:30   decided that we were going to find a [TS]

00:22:32   restaurant that served like barbecued [TS]

00:22:35   goat and we found some go and we had and [TS]

00:22:37   we you know we like we we had a big [TS]

00:22:40   adventure but and we went snorkeling [TS]

00:22:42   both of us kind of for the first time in [TS]

00:22:45   a long time and we're out snorkeling on [TS]

00:22:46   and we went not in the area that were [TS]

00:22:49   supposed to but in the off-limits area [TS]

00:22:51   and then I look over at one point and [TS]

00:22:53   david has taken off his swimsuit because [TS]

00:22:56   he wanted to snorkel like a like his [TS]

00:22:59   natural like fish self and so he's naked [TS]

00:23:02   snorkeling around and I was like well I [TS]

00:23:03   guess that's what we're doing so then I [TS]

00:23:05   was naked snorkeling and we're just like [TS]

00:23:07   this is the best how could how can we [TS]

00:23:09   ever go back to the real world so so the [TS]

00:23:13   first Joe Cruz was a was we were very [TS]

00:23:16   close [TS]

00:23:16   and then on subsequent Joe Cruz i [TS]

00:23:20   started bringing my family and David [TS]

00:23:22   started doing a thing which amazes me to [TS]

00:23:24   this day each cruise he's brought one [TS]

00:23:28   old friend from high school and each [TS]

00:23:33   Cruz has been a different guy and every [TS]

00:23:36   one of those guys has been an amazing [TS]

00:23:38   weird Southern gothic and just sort of [TS]

00:23:43   like nutcase but they're all amazing [TS]

00:23:47   smart incredible sort of David rician [TS]

00:23:50   type of people I've never met a guy who [TS]

00:23:53   who knew as many nutty people as David [TS]

00:23:56   Rees does although I guess that makes [TS]

00:23:58   sense [TS]

00:23:58   wow yeah you'd have to really think [TS]

00:24:00   ahead plan ahead to do that I i'm still [TS]

00:24:03   be like flustered over like trying to [TS]

00:24:05   get the right tickets and the right [TS]

00:24:06   luggage and stuff he's thinking ahead [TS]

00:24:08   he's bringing people along he's bringing [TS]

00:24:10   people from his past and the thing is [TS]

00:24:11   that for me to bring five people that i [TS]

00:24:13   knew from high school could you get five [TS]

00:24:15   people answer the phone [TS]

00:24:17   well and the thing what it implies is [TS]

00:24:18   that he's still in close contact with [TS]

00:24:20   all five of those guys they're all still [TS]

00:24:21   is like type Rose that's either seems [TS]

00:24:25   dishonest or sickening [TS]

00:24:26   it's whatever it is it's unique in my [TS]

00:24:29   experience yeah that that whole scene [TS]

00:24:31   you know it's a little bit of a North [TS]

00:24:33   Carolina think maybe okay yeah you know [TS]

00:24:35   what I mean like a little bit of a [TS]

00:24:36   minute mint julep type of NASCAR thing [TS]

00:24:39   sure i can see you guys having a real [TS]

00:24:41   like like I like crazy eighties montage [TS]

00:24:43   because you both.you both like you know [TS]

00:24:45   we're curious guys like trying out new [TS]

00:24:47   stuff so on the last cruise we went [TS]

00:24:50   again to jamaica and we decided we were [TS]

00:24:52   going to find I we're going to scour the [TS]

00:24:55   island until we found a record store [TS]

00:24:57   that had super old weird reggae help [TS]

00:25:01   ease and we spent a very hot long weird [TS]

00:25:06   exhausting day and we did find a guy who [TS]

00:25:08   had some cardboard boxes of old reggae [TS]

00:25:12   albums which david probably overpaid for [TS]

00:25:16   but we did buy a bunch of help ease some [TS]

00:25:20   of them had to be washed off because [TS]

00:25:23   they were covered with dirt and resin [TS]

00:25:25   but they uh but he's you know that's [TS]

00:25:27   part of that's part of his record [TS]

00:25:29   collection now [TS]

00:25:30   many props I like that guy is my god is [TS]

00:25:34   good i'll make sure that you meet each [TS]

00:25:36   other [TS]

00:25:36   yeah he resembles something I made me [TS]

00:25:38   feel really good you know whether one of [TS]

00:25:40   these shows [TS]

00:25:41   not very long ago we talked about some [TS]

00:25:43   famous people and then there was a [TS]

00:25:44   there's a little bit of like oh now [TS]

00:25:46   Roderick on the line is just dropping [TS]

00:25:48   names what you said that out some kid on [TS]

00:25:51   the internet now we're dropping names [TS]

00:25:53   now after always usually yeah talking [TS]

00:25:56   about Pete Rose yeah after all after all [TS]

00:25:58   this time there are still we can still [TS]

00:26:01   surprise people John a you know I don't [TS]

00:26:04   even like to address these kinds of [TS]

00:26:05   things but you are you move in the [TS]

00:26:07   corridors of power at many many levels [TS]

00:26:09   in many many corridors and i just can't [TS]

00:26:12   believe the restraint restraint that you [TS]

00:26:13   show you know well imagine if you had [TS]

00:26:16   not told us about that that that that [TS]

00:26:19   dinner you want to with your dad [TS]

00:26:21   yeah we're doing the can-can yeah and [TS]

00:26:23   take some name-dropping the boy that's [TS]

00:26:24   real memorable to me [TS]

00:26:26   yeah you wouldn't you wouldn't know that [TS]

00:26:27   such a thing existed until he also [TS]

00:26:29   talked a lot about people that nobody [TS]

00:26:30   knows so I think you balance it out [TS]

00:26:32   yeah yeah well the thing is I could have [TS]

00:26:34   we could have done to show two months [TS]

00:26:36   ago I could have talked about David Rees [TS]

00:26:38   nobody would have known who the fuck [TS]

00:26:39   you're talking about now talking about [TS]

00:26:40   to go noble now he's a famous guy and [TS]

00:26:43   he's right he's just finally famous [TS]

00:26:45   uh-huh [TS]

00:26:46   because he's one of the people this is a [TS]

00:26:47   rare example of somebody who got famous [TS]

00:26:50   who should have been famous all along [TS]

00:26:53   yeah fucking people you know I mean I [TS]

00:26:57   don't know exactly what you're saying [TS]

00:26:59   it's exhausting John fucking people try [TS]

00:27:02   to keep an open mind [TS]

00:27:03   also your fever is doing better David [TS]

00:27:06   reason should watch the party whole [TS]

00:27:08   party whole one is interesting because I [TS]

00:27:11   mean obviously it's like edited and [TS]

00:27:12   stuff out of sequence but you know what [TS]

00:27:14   i'm talking about this who cares but if [TS]

00:27:16   I think it's the first one was something [TS]

00:27:17   genuinely went tits up with the [TS]

00:27:19   operation and it makes it even funnier [TS]

00:27:21   you can get is a cameo from jonathan [TS]

00:27:24   coulton is so that's right for someone [TS]

00:27:26   that we now our good friend Joe code [TS]

00:27:28   that we talked about we talked about [TS]

00:27:29   quite a bit i think it proper children I [TS]

00:27:31   think that'll look there's some children [TS]

00:27:33   he has with him but i think they may be [TS]

00:27:34   loners was right he think they're they [TS]

00:27:36   came from most likely to protect his [TS]

00:27:38   kids from the the harsh i have the [TS]

00:27:40   public he does and yet as [TS]

00:27:43   all know the the uh you know the [TS]

00:27:47   whatever that little piece of gauze is [TS]

00:27:49   between our private lives in our public [TS]

00:27:50   lives yeah that God is on fire Merlin oh [TS]

00:27:53   what happened oh the gods is on fire is [TS]

00:27:56   all that's happening we are not going to [TS]

00:27:57   be able to write separate our public and [TS]

00:28:00   private lives for very much longer [TS]

00:28:02   yeah yeah I it's all just an Amazon [TS]

00:28:07   algorithm for for how for what we want [TS]

00:28:10   to buy em my kid is going to be just [TS]

00:28:12   another thing it's just me another face [TS]

00:28:14   that pops up on my computer sometimes [TS]

00:28:17   saying hey your kid would like some food [TS]

00:28:19   today [TS]

00:28:19   fuck you computer have you fed have you [TS]

00:28:24   fed this darling child today we think [TS]

00:28:26   you may like the bars tidy bars would [TS]

00:28:31   you like to friend would you like to [TS]

00:28:33   frenzy bars [TS]

00:28:35   hello would you like to increase your [TS]

00:28:37   level of engagement with Z bars [TS]

00:28:40   ok so we're doing when I go to look at I [TS]

00:28:45   think this is the thing you do I think I [TS]

00:28:47   don't know I i sometimes if somebody [TS]

00:28:49   says something really awful or something [TS]

00:28:50   I gotta talk to you about sometimes [TS]

00:28:52   somebody will say something really [TS]

00:28:54   bananas to me on Twitter it doesn't [TS]

00:28:56   happen that much but I'll go and so what [TS]

00:28:58   do i do I don't get mad I go I go and I [TS]

00:29:00   just I think I think I always assume i [TS]

00:29:02   don't get the reference is my fresh [TS]

00:29:04   think so you search the person you like [TS]

00:29:06   cause the people that I engage with on [TS]

00:29:08   Twitter actually like pretty nice pretty [TS]

00:29:10   nice people and occasionally i'll get [TS]

00:29:12   one from real out of left field and then [TS]

00:29:15   i'll go and look at the thing and i'll [TS]

00:29:17   see if there's URL i'll see if there's a [TS]

00:29:19   picture that's not something from the OC [TS]

00:29:21   or something and and yeah and then I [TS]

00:29:25   realized that they do things like follow [TS]

00:29:27   airlines they follow they follow like [TS]

00:29:31   celebrities like people who obviously [TS]

00:29:35   like have somebody there on their behalf [TS]

00:29:37   tuning for them i shouldn't say this I [TS]

00:29:40   you know what I really shouldn't say [TS]

00:29:41   this and I got don't say this i got a [TS]

00:29:44   weird at response [TS]

00:29:46   to a tooth that's probably two or three [TS]

00:29:48   years old haha so big but usually once I [TS]

00:29:52   guess I'm they're going back in the [TS]

00:29:54   archives i think the only reason i don't [TS]

00:29:56   even know this person knows that they [TS]

00:29:57   kind of know me but it was in response [TS]

00:29:59   to something that your friend Sean said [TS]

00:30:01   okay and it's a certain superfan from [TS]

00:30:04   the seatac area that you remember from [TS]

00:30:06   the long winters board days [TS]

00:30:08   ok alright ma i'm with you and I read [TS]

00:30:13   her entire timeline for the last two [TS]

00:30:14   years [TS]

00:30:15   what does each one nice i woke up I saw [TS]

00:30:18   that I followed through the ever do that [TS]

00:30:19   you ever go back and just read like two [TS]

00:30:20   years of bananas [TS]

00:30:21   I i have done man I have to say I I you [TS]

00:30:25   know because i like i love people the [TS]

00:30:28   same whether you do your kind of gentle [TS]

00:30:29   anthropologist something and I want to [TS]

00:30:31   see what is making people talk i want to [TS]

00:30:33   see you know sometimes you learn a lot [TS]

00:30:35   about the center by looking at the wings [TS]

00:30:37   absolutely Heraclitus said you can never [TS]

00:30:39   never dip your toe into the same crazy [TS]

00:30:40   person twice [TS]

00:30:41   that's exactly right I'll and the thing [TS]

00:30:43   is that you know it's not a coincidence [TS]

00:30:45   i was just recently reading her clients [TS]

00:30:47   is that right yeah but it but not to not [TS]

00:30:50   to digress i love to go back into and a [TS]

00:30:54   lot of times before I follow somebody [TS]

00:30:55   i'll just go read their last year just I [TS]

00:30:58   wish I started doing that a very long [TS]

00:31:00   time ago [TS]

00:31:00   yeah yeah just a really good idea to do [TS]

00:31:03   that you had a couple of funny tweets [TS]

00:31:04   there and then you go back and you're [TS]

00:31:05   like all you tweet about doritos all the [TS]

00:31:07   time [TS]

00:31:08   no well broken hard drives and Fox News [TS]

00:31:10   and you're like that [TS]

00:31:11   yeah so anyway so you have this you you [TS]

00:31:14   want you deep dive on a deep dive on a [TS]

00:31:18   dingaling tell you any more about it [TS]

00:31:23   later better really brought back some [TS]

00:31:25   memories of the old days and and the [TS]

00:31:27   thing is if you go back and re-read [TS]

00:31:29   somebody's monkey balls timeline you get [TS]

00:31:30   a sense how this path and pretty much [TS]

00:31:35   this person goes them all every day and [TS]

00:31:37   takes a picture of him or herself [TS]

00:31:39   yes that isn't that you know what and [TS]

00:31:41   and when they are 60 and we are 60 [TS]

00:31:44   they're going to have those pictures of [TS]

00:31:45   themselves and we're not [TS]

00:31:46   it's so true i take like i take i used [TS]

00:31:49   to take 150 photos of my daughter a day [TS]

00:31:51   and I get like one a quarter [TS]

00:31:53   yeah we'll look at the camera so it's [TS]

00:31:55   her like in motion turning away on a [TS]

00:31:57   swing set or something [TS]

00:31:58   well but this is the did this is the [TS]

00:32:00   thing in our culture the people who do [TS]

00:32:03   the same thing every day for a long time [TS]

00:32:06   sometimes r plucked out by the culture [TS]

00:32:08   and identified as like the the true [TS]

00:32:11   geniuses of our time you know that the [TS]

00:32:14   people better like I've been cooking [TS]

00:32:15   frog legs every day for 25 years and you [TS]

00:32:18   know and then around their head [TS]

00:32:21   this graphic appears the frog leg King [TS]

00:32:23   ba and you know and all of a sudden he's [TS]

00:32:26   the frog leg king and people are flying [TS]

00:32:29   in from around the world to taste his [TS]

00:32:31   amazing frog legs and it's like well [TS]

00:32:32   really that we should be concerned about [TS]

00:32:34   this guy he's been doing nothing but [TS]

00:32:37   cooking products for 25 years like that [TS]

00:32:40   seems like a failure of the imagination [TS]

00:32:41   but no he's the fucking frog late king [TS]

00:32:44   he gotta walk spot account yeah he [TS]

00:32:47   almost got on jimmy kimmel yeah so you [TS]

00:32:49   know so you go to the mall every day you [TS]

00:32:51   take a picture yourself in the in the in [TS]

00:32:53   your reflection in the front window of a [TS]

00:32:54   hot topic 25 years from now it seems [TS]

00:32:58   like you are [TS]

00:32:59   I mean you're the terry richardson of [TS]

00:33:00   your time whenever you're some genius [TS]

00:33:02   like art photographer that had a weird [TS]

00:33:04   picadillo I did you used to seem so much [TS]

00:33:07   weirder and not something people do all [TS]

00:33:09   the time thinking of I think i read this [TS]

00:33:11   in Harper's man heard on this american [TS]

00:33:15   life but it's probably 10 years ago [TS]

00:33:16   remember the story about the guy who [TS]

00:33:19   documented everything that happens an [TS]

00:33:21   old guy don't you and everything he [TS]

00:33:23   weighed the paper the newspaper every [TS]

00:33:24   day he comes all the stickers from the [TS]

00:33:26   meat that he bought the started this is [TS]

00:33:28   talking about [TS]

00:33:28   yes it does a fascinating story and now [TS]

00:33:30   basically that's what everybody does [TS]

00:33:31   that's pinterest yeah that's like you [TS]

00:33:33   know am I i had a great p.m. here is [TS]

00:33:36   what's hot topic around a doctor who [TS]

00:33:39   shirts I got an orange julius here's a [TS]

00:33:41   photo of me having more choices [TS]

00:33:42   well you know and I prevision this [TS]

00:33:45   Merlin all the way back in the early [TS]

00:33:48   nineties when i said when i say when i [TS]

00:33:51   saw the I saw the storm clouds on the [TS]

00:33:53   horizon and a little Mexican boy came [TS]

00:33:56   and took a thoughtful photograph a [TS]

00:33:58   Polaroid of me and handed it to me and [TS]

00:34:00   that is how my son the leader of the [TS]

00:34:03   revolution is able to identify me when [TS]

00:34:06   he comes back in time [TS]

00:34:08   oh that's so smart i know but leaving [TS]

00:34:12   that aside [TS]

00:34:13   yeah I remember thinking that there was [TS]

00:34:17   going to be step is going to be some [TS]

00:34:19   that that in effect the sum total of [TS]

00:34:23   human knowledge was only going to be [TS]

00:34:26   valuable [TS]

00:34:27   insofar as we were able to collect it [TS]

00:34:30   and sort of and so we have had this [TS]

00:34:34   sense in the in the nineteen eighties [TS]

00:34:35   are in the early nineties that there was [TS]

00:34:38   this it was it was kind of a comparative [TS]

00:34:40   religion a notion that like well if we [TS]

00:34:44   could if we put all the religious texts [TS]

00:34:47   throughout history next to each other [TS]

00:34:49   and were able to look at them in three [TS]

00:34:50   dimensions and we just pick out all the [TS]

00:34:52   similarities and we figure out what the [TS]

00:34:55   differences are and how they relate to [TS]

00:34:57   one another then there should be some [TS]

00:35:00   like some herb body of knowledge is it [TS]

00:35:04   there would be patterns that clearly [TS]

00:35:05   emerged like hey here's a here's being [TS]

00:35:07   nice to each other that tends to work [TS]

00:35:08   out right and so and maybe we would have [TS]

00:35:11   maybe then we would have another [TS]

00:35:13   dimension of insight into religion or [TS]

00:35:16   what it's that out where it comes from [TS]

00:35:17   why it's there [TS]

00:35:18   what it means maybe there's a maybe [TS]

00:35:21   there's a a tenth religion out there [TS]

00:35:24   that is actually the the combined [TS]

00:35:27   tenants of all religions and and you [TS]

00:35:31   know that comparative religion impulse [TS]

00:35:33   extends to like that the idea that well [TS]

00:35:37   we have a tremendous body of knowledge [TS]

00:35:39   all the libraries of the world all of [TS]

00:35:42   the all of the oral accounts all of the [TS]

00:35:45   other novels and this sum total of human [TS]

00:35:50   knowledge and experience if there was a [TS]

00:35:52   way to collect it and sort it [TS]

00:35:56   what would we know what would we know [TS]

00:35:58   net what we know better and what would [TS]

00:36:01   we do with that information I remember [TS]

00:36:03   in the early nineties thinking that this [TS]

00:36:05   was the in some ways the future it was [TS]

00:36:08   going to be [TS]

00:36:10   we just needed to develop the technology [TS]

00:36:11   to bind and sort this you know this kind [TS]

00:36:18   of like a dimensionless cloud of [TS]

00:36:21   information and we're doing it now and [TS]

00:36:23   what it turns out is its digital [TS]

00:36:25   scrapbooks of how much the newspaper [TS]

00:36:27   ways and and every collected meet [TS]

00:36:31   sticker from every piece in every [TS]

00:36:33   package of hamburger you buy and it [TS]

00:36:35   turns out that the collected some of all [TS]

00:36:38   human knowledge is just like a busy [TS]

00:36:41   signal [TS]

00:36:41   it's just it's just it's just [TS]

00:36:46   oh man thats dark because because all [TS]

00:36:49   the meat stickers [TS]

00:36:50   there are a lot more people collecting [TS]

00:36:51   meet stickers then there are comparing [TS]

00:36:54   Heraclitus to a to Augustine and the [TS]

00:36:59   very few people who are comparing [TS]

00:37:01   Heraclitus to Augustine are sewed are so [TS]

00:37:04   drowned out by the meat stickers that [TS]

00:37:06   that ultimately there there is no I I [TS]

00:37:09   feel like maybe maybe the the high [TS]

00:37:12   knowledge and the low knowledge do [TS]

00:37:14   actually cancel each other out there is [TS]

00:37:16   no well I do not prefer anymore [TS]

00:37:19   the PM the high knowledge because [TS]

00:37:23   because I just him but like them to meet [TS]

00:37:26   sticker scrapbooks are just rising up in [TS]

00:37:29   the room i feel like i'm in the trash [TS]

00:37:31   compactor and star wars and it's just [TS]

00:37:33   it's just it needs to sell everything [TS]

00:37:36   meatstick her login and then then then [TS]

00:37:39   here floats by this little you know this [TS]

00:37:41   little bottle cap and inside the bottle [TS]

00:37:44   cap is like Oh have you ever noticed [TS]

00:37:45   that that that Augustine Aristotle and [TS]

00:37:48   Heraclitus all said this and my cough [TS]

00:37:50   what I'm and it just floats by its eaten [TS]

00:37:53   by a it's eaten by a compactor monster [TS]

00:37:56   the yeah that's good because it seems [TS]

00:37:59   like there's so much stuff not to harp [TS]

00:38:02   on them the medical stuff that it seems [TS]

00:38:04   like at this point you should be able to [TS]

00:38:05   like walk into a box like kind of almost [TS]

00:38:08   like an MRI or a tsa scanner it seems [TS]

00:38:10   like we should be at the point now where [TS]

00:38:11   you walk into a little box with your [TS]

00:38:13   clothes on even and in like three [TS]

00:38:15   seconds it tells you probably what's [TS]

00:38:16   wrong with you and a couple things that [TS]

00:38:18   might be and then you do a couple [TS]

00:38:19   testing you now is that not the case [TS]

00:38:22   it's really feels like that kit with [TS]

00:38:24   would be how it works so you're talking [TS]

00:38:26   about religion but you think about [TS]

00:38:27   anything over the past however many [TS]

00:38:29   centuries or millennia like if you had [TS]

00:38:30   enough data over time in context with [TS]

00:38:33   trendlines it seems like they're so [TS]

00:38:35   much interesting stuff that you could [TS]

00:38:37   figure out about it sometimes that [TS]

00:38:38   surfaces as like an infographic on [TS]

00:38:40   somebody's blog or something but you're [TS]

00:38:42   absolutely right it reminds me directly [TS]

00:38:43   of like the days after 911 when they're [TS]

00:38:48   saying let you know the problem is not [TS]

00:38:50   collecting this intelligence we've got a [TS]

00:38:52   lot of intelligence we just don't have [TS]

00:38:53   any way to analyze right the the huge [TS]

00:38:55   with her so much noise and all of this [TS]

00:38:58   it's even been missing it a little stuff [TS]

00:38:59   that comes along so what we do we got [TS]

00:39:01   more and more information now but this [TS]

00:39:02   is why this is why do you remember in [TS]

00:39:06   the movie russia house starring sean [TS]

00:39:09   connery no i don't have you seen the [TS]

00:39:11   movie russia house starring sean connery [TS]

00:39:12   in out the movie russia house Connery [TS]

00:39:16   with Sean Connery and michelle pfeiffer [TS]

00:39:19   king and roy scheider um is one of those [TS]

00:39:24   what would it be early nineties [TS]

00:39:27   meditations on the end of the Soviet [TS]

00:39:31   Union's a cold war thriller [TS]

00:39:33   it's a cold war thriller that's exactly [TS]

00:39:34   right circa hunt for red october in [TS]

00:39:38   which sean connery plays a reluctant [TS]

00:39:41   alcoholic book editor consider myself [TS]

00:39:44   for like an alcoholic [TS]

00:39:46   yeah well he's a reluctant alcohol he's [TS]

00:39:48   a he's enthusiastic alcoholic a [TS]

00:39:49   reluctant spy let's call him a [TS]

00:39:52   reluctance by anyway not to give too [TS]

00:39:55   much of the point away but there is [TS]

00:39:56   there's a there's a scene in the film [TS]

00:39:58   for several scenes I guess where Roy [TS]

00:40:01   Scheider as a sort of CIA up you know [TS]

00:40:04   high mucky-muck is running an operation [TS]

00:40:06   from a clean room within some CIA [TS]

00:40:11   operational headquarters and they are [TS]

00:40:13   you know they're they're monitoring the [TS]

00:40:15   situation and there's a guy in that's [TS]

00:40:18   kind of a cold war trope who is a sort [TS]

00:40:23   of great wild-haired gray-haired older [TS]

00:40:27   clearly homosexual but not but but [TS]

00:40:31   everybody is pretending that he's not [TS]

00:40:33   because he's such a genius a kind of [TS]

00:40:35   Benchley park [TS]

00:40:37   CIA g like flamboyant genius you know [TS]

00:40:42   what I mean this is like that this is [TS]

00:40:44   this is one of these ideas that you have [TS]

00:40:46   about the CIA that's somewhere somewhere [TS]

00:40:49   deep in there there are these guys who [TS]

00:40:51   are kind of a who are so far off the [TS]

00:40:54   reservation but so genius right you get [TS]

00:40:56   your like John Nash Glenn Gould misfits [TS]

00:41:00   of science mutant types exactly super [TS]

00:41:03   super interesting to keep in the [TS]

00:41:05   basement though you know PR reasons [TS]

00:41:07   yeah keep them in the basement but but [TS]

00:41:09   like the day and they're allowed to walk [TS]

00:41:11   around the CIA in a kimono with like a [TS]

00:41:14   with the like a Indian headdress on look [TS]

00:41:17   like because like the boyfriend Chris [TS]

00:41:19   Sarandon in a dog day afternoon [TS]

00:41:21   yes because because when it's time to [TS]

00:41:25   process the reams and reams of [TS]

00:41:28   information they have what amounts to an [TS]

00:41:31   artistic insight that cuts through the [TS]

00:41:34   cuts through the noise right and the [TS]

00:41:37   problem that I see with the American [TS]

00:41:39   intelligence community and the problem [TS]

00:41:41   that we have in all of these like [TS]

00:41:43   massive data dump scenarios is that we [TS]

00:41:48   have simultaneously culturally [TS]

00:41:51   eliminated the the Hiawatha's from the [TS]

00:41:57   process right the CIA no longer hires [TS]

00:42:00   presumably people who are Hiawatha's [TS]

00:42:04   they are only looking for the kind of [TS]

00:42:08   like middlebrow best and brightest the [TS]

00:42:11   people that can get into Yale the people [TS]

00:42:13   that that score off the chart people's [TS]

00:42:15   good great good credit who aren't gonna [TS]

00:42:17   be compromised right and so so they're [TS]

00:42:21   trying to they're like we had all this [TS]

00:42:22   information we just didn't have the [TS]

00:42:25   people to process it and what they're [TS]

00:42:26   missing and what all what all of [TS]

00:42:28   data-driven culture is missing are the [TS]

00:42:31   the key people who do not who are able [TS]

00:42:36   to see artistically they're able to look [TS]

00:42:38   at data artistically and say you know [TS]

00:42:42   what you have all this data but we can [TS]

00:42:43   eliminate eighty-five percent of it [TS]

00:42:44   right now because it doesn't apply [TS]

00:42:47   and everybody goes we'll wait a minute [TS]

00:42:49   wait a minute wait a minute we got a [TS]

00:42:50   filter and we gotta winch and that's [TS]

00:42:51   just like nope you know what I can see [TS]

00:42:53   this i can just take it easy patterns [TS]

00:42:55   they can just see patterns they see [TS]

00:42:56   through the clouds and they're like [TS]

00:42:58   eighty-five percent of it doesn't matter [TS]

00:43:00   because you know it's the it's the [TS]

00:43:02   Hannibal Lecter thing it's like is this [TS]

00:43:04   guy who's your killer is he going to be [TS]

00:43:07   somebody that that you know that works a [TS]

00:43:10   straight job or whatever you know just [TS]

00:43:11   like sees the pattern and eliminates [TS]

00:43:14   eighty-five percent of the data because [TS]

00:43:16   it's because they know it's irrelevant i [TS]

00:43:19   love that character and the and the and [TS]

00:43:21   what we are not doing somehow in our [TS]

00:43:23   culture and and in business and in in [TS]

00:43:26   these like we have we have salt mines [TS]

00:43:29   full of information and we're trying to [TS]

00:43:31   we're trying to grind it you know we're [TS]

00:43:34   trying to process it through this like [TS]

00:43:36   this increasing granularity and oh my [TS]

00:43:39   god week the only place that patterns [TS]

00:43:41   are going to exist is in the most [TS]

00:43:43   granular at the most granular level and [TS]

00:43:45   we're not hiring Hiawatha's we're not [TS]

00:43:49   hiring people that are just like flying [TS]

00:43:51   over the top in a kimono for like making [TS]

00:43:55   of a swoosh it and they say you know [TS]

00:43:57   what here's the answer it was right here [TS]

00:44:00   in front of you the whole time like I [TS]

00:44:01   don't think that 911 was that hard to [TS]

00:44:04   figure out if you just had I mean in the [TS]

00:44:07   end it and even through retrospect it's [TS]

00:44:10   not it [TS]

00:44:11   he you can imagine one person sitting at [TS]

00:44:14   their desk and saying you know what I [TS]

00:44:17   think I see a pattern emerging and and [TS]

00:44:21   yet that person was just like just [TS]

00:44:24   shunted off into some storeroom [TS]

00:44:26   somewhere because he didn't have the he [TS]

00:44:28   didn't have the clearance to talk to the [TS]

00:44:29   guy who had the other and other half of [TS]

00:44:31   the information right now that's good if [TS]

00:44:34   they want to do you want to keep it you [TS]

00:44:35   know compartmentalised and I do not want [TS]

00:44:38   to keep it compartmentalised United [TS]

00:44:39   kimono floating over that i do and i [TS]

00:44:41   think the secret i think the secret like [TS]

00:44:44   the secret ghost squad of all of this is [TS]

00:44:47   some and this is the this is the problem [TS]

00:44:50   again with general ism like how do we [TS]

00:44:51   train [TS]

00:44:52   how do you train generalists in a way [TS]

00:44:55   you don't but how do you recognize them [TS]

00:44:58   and write and raise them up right right [TS]

00:45:01   if your if your culture is designed to [TS]

00:45:04   to celebrate the Frog Lake king and it's [TS]

00:45:08   like well this guy's got seven phd's in [TS]

00:45:10   frog legs [TS]

00:45:11   how are you going to say that this guy [TS]

00:45:13   over here who never even graduated from [TS]

00:45:15   college has got more insight into the [TS]

00:45:17   situation than the Frog Lake king and [TS]

00:45:19   it's like well you know what the front [TS]

00:45:21   like King is a fucking retard and and [TS]

00:45:25   the fact that he has seven phd's is [TS]

00:45:27   Islam is ludicrous and you should [TS]

00:45:29   recognize that that mean that is a sign [TS]

00:45:31   of his mental illness not a sign of his [TS]

00:45:34   greatness but on the other hand think [TS]

00:45:36   about it I feel like I heard something [TS]

00:45:37   not too long on the radio about how [TS]

00:45:39   people on the autism spectrum are I not [TS]

00:45:43   having an easier time getting jobs of [TS]

00:45:45   people are realizing that there are [TS]

00:45:46   certain very special skills and people [TS]

00:45:48   on the spectrum that are not as common [TS]

00:45:51   you know in those generalists with right [TS]

00:45:53   with the ties and that you know with a [TS]

00:45:54   little bit of care and individual [TS]

00:45:56   attention you can actually find jobs [TS]

00:45:58   these folks are created when I went to [TS]

00:45:59   mcdonalds everybody who worked breakfast [TS]

00:46:01   in the morning at mcdonalds was an old [TS]

00:46:03   lady it was not an old man it was not a [TS]

00:46:05   young lady [TS]

00:46:06   they're all old ladies and they had all [TS]

00:46:07   been there for like ten years and you [TS]

00:46:10   know what they showed up on time they [TS]

00:46:12   did their shit their shit was tight and [TS]

00:46:14   every morning breakfast ran like a top [TS]

00:46:16   and McDonald's because there is this [TS]

00:46:17   culture of all old ladies working [TS]

00:46:19   mcdonalds and they all interacted well [TS]

00:46:20   that sounds like a really like insipid [TS]

00:46:22   example but you need the right person [TS]

00:46:24   for the right job you know what somebody [TS]

00:46:26   is going to be all low in there and if [TS]

00:46:28   there is sometimes you know maybe you [TS]

00:46:29   need somebody maybe not quite as John [TS]

00:46:31   Nash but like but you need people who [TS]

00:46:33   are able to come in and see patterns or [TS]

00:46:35   have a drive toward a certain kind of [TS]

00:46:38   curiosity that's a little bit outside [TS]

00:46:39   the spectrum is a whole you know [TS]

00:46:41   Einstein misquote about trying to solve [TS]

00:46:43   the same problem by doing the same thing [TS]

00:46:44   who's he you know that some folks like [TS]

00:46:46   that somewhere like in maybe in Virginia [TS]

00:46:48   I i feel like the I feel like the [TS]

00:46:52   bureaucratic the cult of the cult of [TS]

00:46:56   bureaucracy and the and the the miss [TS]

00:46:59   identification of our culture now as a [TS]

00:47:02   meritocracy hat as in a way smoked all [TS]

00:47:08   those people out right because because [TS]

00:47:11   what you're because what we're trying to [TS]

00:47:13   do now where we're everywhere in America [TS]

00:47:16   there is a there's an admissions process [TS]

00:47:19   right everywhere there are more [TS]

00:47:22   applications for any job than there are [TS]

00:47:25   I'm sorry yeah they're way more [TS]

00:47:27   potential applicants for any job then [TS]

00:47:29   there are positions right and so [TS]

00:47:31   everything in plenty and plenty of very [TS]

00:47:33   generic blunt instrument metrics that [TS]

00:47:37   allow you to put people through this [TS]

00:47:38   rock tumbler so it only pebbles larger [TS]

00:47:40   than this and smaller than that will fit [TS]

00:47:42   the screen right so for instance I have [TS]

00:47:44   a good friend who just went through just [TS]

00:47:47   did 25 interviews for a job and the job [TS]

00:47:50   was one of your computer mass jobs right [TS]

00:47:55   webmaster chief web marketing Bob Bob [TS]

00:48:02   some kind of web maths and like I know [TS]

00:48:08   the job you know the job it's a job it's [TS]

00:48:11   a it's a it's an actual job that has [TS]

00:48:13   things that need to get done a certain [TS]

00:48:15   amount of imagination needs to be [TS]

00:48:17   employed to do the job well but that [TS]

00:48:21   imagination is like this is this isn't a [TS]

00:48:25   job where you're at Bletchley Park in [TS]

00:48:28   you're trying to you're trying to crack [TS]

00:48:31   the Enigma code [TS]

00:48:33   this is a job or it's like here's here's [TS]

00:48:34   what's going to happen pretty much we [TS]

00:48:36   know this is the type of thing that's [TS]

00:48:38   going to come in [TS]

00:48:39   these are the types of ways that we're [TS]

00:48:40   going to solve this problem here are the [TS]

00:48:42   you know like with we're not going to [TS]

00:48:45   we're not going to invent it with a [TS]

00:48:47   medical scanner at this business because [TS]

00:48:49   all we're trying to do is cellphone [TS]

00:48:51   trees to banks and hospitals right but [TS]

00:48:55   but in the 25 interviews that my friend [TS]

00:48:58   went to she described innumerable [TS]

00:49:02   examples of people coming in and sitting [TS]

00:49:04   down and saying [TS]

00:49:06   let's say you're in a sinking ship and [TS]

00:49:10   all you have is an is a is one American [TS]

00:49:13   nickel and a na uncooked bag of pasta [TS]

00:49:18   and a drinking straw [TS]

00:49:19   yeah how do you get out of the how do [TS]

00:49:22   you get out of this situation and then [TS]

00:49:24   that lean forward the guys like that [TS]

00:49:28   this whole google influenced version of [TS]

00:49:33   interviewing people and it's kinda like [TS]

00:49:34   it's like an intellectual ropes course [TS]

00:49:36   or something right where the question is [TS]

00:49:38   meant to more than anything conveyed to [TS]

00:49:41   the interviewee that the interviewer is [TS]

00:49:43   a really smart hotshot person right and [TS]

00:49:47   over and over and over again she's she's [TS]

00:49:50   trying to fill these interview questions [TS]

00:49:51   and at a certain point I had I you know [TS]

00:49:55   she's talking to me and I I advised her [TS]

00:49:57   like the way to answer that question is [TS]

00:49:59   too lean equally forward and say this [TS]

00:50:02   question is irrelevant to the [TS]

00:50:04   performance of this job and in fact what [TS]

00:50:07   the person that you want in this [TS]

00:50:08   position is somebody who is going to [TS]

00:50:10   consider all the evidence in in any [TS]

00:50:13   given situation weight over time and [TS]

00:50:15   make the best reasoned choice [TS]

00:50:18   you do not want someone who is going to [TS]

00:50:21   off-the-cuff shoot you some kind of [TS]

00:50:25   answer that ties together the the nickel [TS]

00:50:28   and the and the bag of pasta like you r [TS]

00:50:30   into e by asking this question you are [TS]

00:50:32   interviewing for a different job and in [TS]

00:50:34   fact for a job that does not exist at [TS]

00:50:36   your company you think you are in a [TS]

00:50:38   different world then you're in and if [TS]

00:50:41   you know and I I advised her probably [TS]

00:50:44   probably that is the baby the wrong [TS]

00:50:48   thing to say to somebody who's [TS]

00:50:49   interviewing you for a job but but it's [TS]

00:50:51   something that I felt very very [TS]

00:50:53   passionately that in business culture [TS]

00:50:56   now that's an example of people not [TS]

00:51:00   recognizing where they are and thinking [TS]

00:51:02   that they are somewhere very else and [TS]

00:51:05   asking you know asking basically like [TS]

00:51:07   stupid s80 questions because what they [TS]

00:51:10   wish they were doing is working for [TS]

00:51:13   google or they wish that you know they [TS]

00:51:15   hope that by asking [TS]

00:51:17   by trying to find a hiawatha everywhere [TS]

00:51:22   all the time and yet only choosing a [TS]

00:51:27   about then ending up only choosing the [TS]

00:51:31   people that went to Princeton anyway [TS]

00:51:33   because nobody can even that that person [TS]

00:51:35   couldn't pick a good answer to that [TS]

00:51:37   question if they tried you know what I [TS]

00:51:38   mean like they asked the question and [TS]

00:51:40   they don't even have the they don't even [TS]

00:51:41   have the mental resources to know what a [TS]

00:51:44   good answer to it is so no I don't feel [TS]

00:51:47   like there are those geniuses anymore i [TS]

00:51:49   feel like we all want those jeans I mean [TS]

00:51:51   we are we're interviewing people as [TS]

00:51:54   though you need to be that genius just [TS]

00:51:57   to work at attachmate and you don't need [TS]

00:52:02   to be that genius to work an attachment [TS]

00:52:03   if that genius is working at attachment [TS]

00:52:06   it's a net loss for everybody [TS]

00:52:08   I got a very simple probably over simple [TS]

00:52:12   theory that's your favorite TV show I [TS]

00:52:15   think it's Kobayashi Maru I think you [TS]

00:52:18   know the Kobayashi Maru scenario i have [TS]

00:52:20   learned it from my several visits to [TS]

00:52:23   comic-con but you know if you know the [TS]

00:52:24   basic idea Curt cut through its a skull [TS]

00:52:27   its a big spoiler it basically in your I [TS]

00:52:30   don't quite understand how this works [TS]

00:52:31   because it seems like as if they would [TS]

00:52:32   tell other people about this but you go [TS]

00:52:34   into a simulator to be the captain of [TS]

00:52:36   the ship and you have a situation where [TS]

00:52:38   you get a distress call from the ship [TS]

00:52:40   called the Kobayashi Maru and you have [TS]

00:52:42   to go through forgive me nerds out that [TS]

00:52:44   Klingons but uh but you got basically in [TS]

00:52:47   order to get to that stranded ship [TS]

00:52:49   you're gonna have to go through like a [TS]

00:52:50   dmz that you're pretty sure will provoke [TS]

00:52:52   the baddies and so the question is you [TS]

00:52:55   know what you decide to do and this [TS]

00:52:58   spoiler of course is that no matter what [TS]

00:53:00   you do the Kobayashi Maru will be [TS]

00:53:02   destroyed your ship will be destroyed [TS]

00:53:04   everybody no matter what you choose to [TS]

00:53:07   do the Kobayashi Maru scenario dies ends [TS]

00:53:10   with you dying your ship being destroyed [TS]

00:53:12   and and so first of all what you learn [TS]

00:53:16   is that the Kobayashi Maru is a test of [TS]

00:53:18   your character [TS]

00:53:19   it seems like it's a test of your [TS]

00:53:20   decision making but it's really a test [TS]

00:53:22   of your character to see how you react [TS]

00:53:24   in an impossible situation and then of [TS]

00:53:26   course as you know he's the apple we [TS]

00:53:28   know that [TS]

00:53:29   Kirk is the only one has ever passed [TS]

00:53:31   because he cheated right he rewrites the [TS]

00:53:33   encryption somehow that's right that's [TS]

00:53:35   the way you be kobayashi memories by [TS]

00:53:36   cheating and then of course you know us [TS]

00:53:37   to go to go to space trial and stuff [TS]

00:53:39   like that right because it revealed his [TS]

00:53:41   character [TS]

00:53:41   well I don't doubt that there are [TS]

00:53:43   answers that that person has on a piece [TS]

00:53:45   of paper but i think part of it is just [TS]

00:53:46   seeing how you react to stuff like that [TS]

00:53:48   don't you think that you think part of [TS]

00:53:49   it would be like well here's the real [TS]

00:53:51   wackadoodle situation show me your [TS]

00:53:52   creativity and cool yeah but this is the [TS]

00:53:55   but this is the problem [TS]

00:53:56   how many of these jobs are creativity [TS]

00:54:00   and cool needed [TS]

00:54:02   okay i would say we maybe point zero one [TS]

00:54:05   percent like you flatter yourselves [TS]

00:54:08   interviewers to think that creativity [TS]

00:54:09   and cool is the thing that you're [TS]

00:54:11   looking for when in fact you're looking [TS]

00:54:13   for someone who is like thoughtful [TS]

00:54:17   confident [TS]

00:54:19   uh but but you know but that this is [TS]

00:54:22   that this is another thing like there [TS]

00:54:23   are so many people out there who need a [TS]

00:54:25   few minutes to think about it before [TS]

00:54:27   they're going to come up with the [TS]

00:54:28   solution right and we have eliminated a [TS]

00:54:31   lot of those people from contention [TS]

00:54:33   because for whatever reason we prize [TS]

00:54:36   somebody's cool under fire internet [TS]

00:54:39   maybe they just don't present well you [TS]

00:54:40   know what it wasn't really that if they [TS]

00:54:43   if they went home and spent the evening [TS]

00:54:45   thinking about it they'd come back with [TS]

00:54:47   an elegant solution that required you [TS]

00:54:49   know in a way neither creativity nor a [TS]

00:54:52   cool but like intelligence and a little [TS]

00:54:55   work intelligence and work exactly like [TS]

00:54:57   work and processing that does not fall [TS]

00:55:00   into this magical like this is that this [TS]

00:55:02   is this problem of like everybody's a [TS]

00:55:04   fucking artist now because everybody's [TS]

00:55:06   mom told them that they were an artist [TS]

00:55:08   all the way through grade school and so [TS]

00:55:10   we think that creativity is this thing [TS]

00:55:11   that like that we need even in the [TS]

00:55:15   business class and the reality is of a [TS]

00:55:19   thousand people working at a company you [TS]

00:55:21   need two of them to be creative and the [TS]

00:55:23   rest of them need to be diligent only [TS]

00:55:25   need to be they need to be able to get [TS]

00:55:27   along with other people which is very [TS]

00:55:28   hard to gauge right but what's on latex [TS]

00:55:31   overlooks kill we're populating people [TS]

00:55:34   were populated places with people who [TS]

00:55:35   pass these dumb creativity tests and the [TS]

00:55:38   reality is that most of them are [TS]

00:55:39   creative so the dumb creativity test [TS]

00:55:42   gets [TS]

00:55:42   slightly you know gets mutated until [TS]

00:55:46   enough people pass that's right the test [TS]

00:55:49   the test up mutates to fulfill the curve [TS]

00:55:53   and so now all of a sudden we have a [TS]

00:55:56   different definition of creativity [TS]

00:55:57   because well you know we needed we want [TS]

00:55:59   forty percent of the people working here [TS]

00:56:01   to be creative [TS]

00:56:02   well guess what forty percent of the [TS]

00:56:03   people in the world are creative and [TS]

00:56:05   you're probably not going to get you're [TS]

00:56:07   not going to cook skim the top forty [TS]

00:56:10   percent off to come work at your at your [TS]

00:56:13   software company that deals with a [TS]

00:56:16   cellphone chase payphone trees right so [TS]

00:56:20   so if you think that forty percent of [TS]

00:56:22   the people working there creative you [TS]

00:56:23   have gamed your own tests to think that [TS]

00:56:26   that you're getting creative answers out [TS]

00:56:28   of people when people is just giving you [TS]

00:56:30   whatever fucking it you know like you [TS]

00:56:32   you're not you are not actually [TS]

00:56:34   measuring what you think you're [TS]

00:56:36   measuring and the and this is the [TS]

00:56:40   problem i think nationwide there is no [TS]

00:56:42   in in a in a in a country that values [TS]

00:56:45   creativity as highly as we do as we [TS]

00:56:48   claim to do there actually is very [TS]

00:56:51   there's maybe even less room for [TS]

00:56:53   creative people now because creativity [TS]

00:56:56   has been co-opted and systematized what [TS]

00:57:02   we have what we call creativity [TS]

00:57:04   this is yeah and so here I'm going to [TS]

00:57:06   toss out a word i'm gonna use this word [TS]

00:57:07   i think correctly for the first time its [TS]

00:57:09   normative because if you think about [TS]

00:57:11   remember when I very i think i have [TS]

00:57:12   snapshots of this from my life feeling [TS]

00:57:14   like somebody who what was a somewhat [TS]

00:57:16   creative person who needed a chance and [TS]

00:57:18   a little time to explain who didn't do [TS]

00:57:20   well in those kinds of things but i [TS]

00:57:22   remember hearing you know you remember [TS]

00:57:23   all the stuff but you know the PSAT the [TS]

00:57:26   s80 the acct like it was just even in [TS]

00:57:29   nineteen eighty i graduated five it was [TS]

00:57:31   so drilled into your head how critical [TS]

00:57:33   those are and it was until a few years [TS]

00:57:35   later that please [TS]

00:57:37   this version i've heard is that the [TS]

00:57:38   reason those tests are really important [TS]

00:57:40   is that they look at those tests they [TS]

00:57:43   look at your grades and you are going to [TS]

00:57:45   look at stuff like you know you're at SA [TS]

00:57:47   and things like that but there's a [TS]

00:57:49   single reason that those test scores [TS]

00:57:50   amount so much which is incredibly [TS]

00:57:52   sensible but also incredibly depressing [TS]

00:57:54   which is that there is [TS]

00:57:56   of all the measurements that are out [TS]

00:57:57   there there is one correlation that [TS]

00:58:00   matters the correlation between people [TS]

00:58:02   who do well on standardized College [TS]

00:58:05   Admission Test and people who finished [TS]

00:58:07   college in less than four years that [TS]

00:58:09   correlation is extremely high sounds so [TS]

00:58:13   obvious but think about that for just a [TS]

00:58:14   second [TS]

00:58:15   right like talk about fucking normative [TS]

00:58:17   what that means is to like why you know [TS]

00:58:19   what we just don't have the time and [TS]

00:58:21   inclination or the resources to really [TS]

00:58:23   find out who would blow the doors off of [TS]

00:58:25   this place and what we've got here is we [TS]

00:58:26   need to find people who are going to [TS]

00:58:27   fail spectacularly in some ways that's [TS]

00:58:30   what it means [TS]

00:58:30   so like my nutty balls school like I had [TS]

00:58:33   good acct scores i had a good essay but [TS]

00:58:35   mostly they were like you know what [TS]

00:58:36   youre five percenter you're like one of [TS]

00:58:38   those people who were pretty sure it's [TS]

00:58:40   going to bomb out before the end of the [TS]

00:58:41   first semester but what the hell we have [TS]

00:58:43   a certain amount in our budget to let in [TS]

00:58:45   crazy people who might not work out in [TS]

00:58:46   the end it did work out but it was I [TS]

00:58:48   should not have been got I should not [TS]

00:58:50   have gotten into the college that I got [TS]

00:58:51   into because that's what that's what is [TS]

00:58:54   there i got it again just quickly i got [TS]

00:58:56   it again when I think was when i first [TS]

00:58:58   went on unemployment in Florida like 95 [TS]

00:59:01   I got fired from a job and I remember [TS]

00:59:04   filling out that form or was I did [TS]

00:59:06   something in California later but going [TS]

00:59:08   through and filling out those forms is [TS]

00:59:10   so depressing because it's so digital it [TS]

00:59:13   really is like 15 stars write down your [TS]

00:59:16   skill your skill does not match one of [TS]

00:59:17   the things that you mean Microsoft Word [TS]

00:59:19   ok microsoft word how many years have [TS]

00:59:20   you done this how good are you is that [TS]

00:59:22   you don't have to explain anything about [TS]

00:59:23   like how you learn things fast you can [TS]

00:59:25   take explain anything about like how you [TS]

00:59:27   are sometimes good at figuring out a [TS]

00:59:29   problem before it is a problem it's just [TS]

00:59:31   I mean I know that's out there somewhere [TS]

00:59:32   maybe that's what those kobayashi [TS]

00:59:34   memories or four but it's so frustrating [TS]

00:59:35   to me that like that data that we're [TS]

00:59:37   talking about ends up getting used to [TS]

00:59:39   get more no more more normative bell [TS]

00:59:41   curve of of people who are unlikely to [TS]

00:59:44   flame out spectacularly but may not even [TS]

00:59:46   be the greatest that what they're doing [TS]

00:59:48   and if you believe if you believed in a [TS]

00:59:51   world where the world was being run by [TS]

00:59:53   people who knew what they were what they [TS]

00:59:55   were going for you could say like Oh [TS]

00:59:55   were going for you could say like Oh [TS]

01:00:00   ok this is one of of a hundred potential [TS]

01:00:02   ways that you could run the world and [TS]

01:00:04   it's i guess one that is equally valid [TS]

01:00:07   like let's let's just let's just make a [TS]

01:00:10   bell curve [TS]

01:00:11   let's let's admit people into the most [TS]

01:00:13   prestigious colleges that based on [TS]

01:00:16   whether or not they're going to finish [TS]

01:00:17   rather than whether or not they're [TS]

01:00:19   really smart and then let's sort of a [TS]

01:00:24   let's wait [TS]

01:00:25   everything that happens in the culture [TS]

01:00:27   according to this same sort of [TS]

01:00:30   methodology so like if you go to [TS]

01:00:32   Princeton then the doors are going to [TS]

01:00:35   open for you the rest of your life and [TS]

01:00:37   then work and you're going to keep [TS]

01:00:40   getting things done so we're going to [TS]

01:00:42   prise people who get things done and [TS]

01:00:46   etcetera etcetera like if if if we [TS]

01:00:48   believe that there were people up on top [TS]

01:00:49   of the of the the space needle of our [TS]

01:00:52   culture looking down and saying like [TS]

01:00:54   here's how it is how it's designed and [TS]

01:00:57   we know that we're losing people out of [TS]

01:00:59   both ends of this machine but you have [TS]

01:01:02   to pick away and so this is the way that [TS]

01:01:04   we pick I would maybe even thinking this [TS]

01:01:07   is the least destructive method we know [TS]

01:01:09   of coming up with something not even [TS]

01:01:12   efficient but something that's [TS]

01:01:13   sustainable and doable [TS]

01:01:15   yeah because ultimately people who get [TS]

01:01:17   things done are more valuable than [TS]

01:01:19   people who don't get things done so [TS]

01:01:21   let's just say that you know but in fact [TS]

01:01:24   there really aren't people sitting up on [TS]

01:01:26   top of managing the system from the top [TS]

01:01:30   down who know what they're doing like [TS]

01:01:32   every one of these systems has kind of [TS]

01:01:34   evolved just haphazardly and it is it is [TS]

01:01:39   an accidental kind of hive up that has [TS]

01:01:43   built where this is the byproduct of it [TS]

01:01:46   and a lot of that is I think because [TS]

01:01:50   prior to now we didn't have the [TS]

01:01:52   technology to do it a different way [TS]

01:01:54   really are i mean you know this is the [TS]

01:01:56   technology has evolved at the same time [TS]

01:01:59   that these systems have evolved and so [TS]

01:02:02   it's all you know it's it's like a big [TS]

01:02:03   ant hill that just keeps getting built [TS]

01:02:06   and falling down and built and falling [TS]

01:02:07   down but but [TS]

01:02:09   we have now the ability to at least [TS]

01:02:13   recognize that and and draw correlation [TS]

01:02:18   between the fact that ok on the one hand [TS]

01:02:20   we are increasingly producing a world of [TS]

01:02:23   senior frogs and a world of like a frog [TS]

01:02:28   they came [TS]

01:02:28   well not only frog-leg kings but like [TS]

01:02:31   everywhere you go now in America there's [TS]

01:02:34   a senior frogs is that how you [TS]

01:02:36   envisioned America evolving like in 1950 [TS]

01:02:39   when you were thinking of flying cars [TS]

01:02:41   did you really think that there would [TS]

01:02:43   also be a senior frogs every in every [TS]

01:02:44   beach town like was that the plan is [TS]

01:02:47   this a plan like we are getting our [TS]

01:02:50   culture is getting Dumber we are getting [TS]

01:02:53   less interesting at an exponential rate [TS]

01:02:57   we are privileged engaging we are [TS]

01:03:00   privileged nging meas we are we are just [TS]

01:03:03   sucking from the from the firehose of of [TS]

01:03:07   idiocracy and it's because we have not [TS]

01:03:11   adjusted or recalibrated our systems and [TS]

01:03:15   this anthill is like our anthill is is [TS]

01:03:19   starting to fall and the and the and [TS]

01:03:22   part of that has to be the [TS]

01:03:24   responsibility of the people that we've [TS]

01:03:26   been sending to Princeton for the last [TS]

01:03:27   20 30 40 years [TS]

01:03:29   totally you know what I mean like we [TS]

01:03:31   have been we have been choosing who goes [TS]

01:03:33   to the next level and those people have [TS]

01:03:36   been producing a an increasingly garbage [TS]

01:03:40   culture it isn't just that we've emptied [TS]

01:03:44   the asylums it is that the people who [TS]

01:03:46   have the opportunity to make good [TS]

01:03:48   choices are making bad choices because [TS]

01:03:50   they are cogs or because what we're [TS]

01:03:54   calling imagination is not imagination [TS]

01:03:56   and we need to I think recalibrate and [TS]

01:04:00   fun and start saying like you know what [TS]

01:04:02   maybe we need you know maybe the [TS]

01:04:05   universities and this is the thing i [TS]

01:04:07   don't think we can reform the [TS]

01:04:08   university's I think we [TS]

01:04:10   who are outside of this culture need to [TS]

01:04:13   start saying the universities are not [TS]

01:04:15   where we need to look and the like if [TS]

01:04:21   you want an education you can now get [TS]

01:04:23   one on your own [TS]

01:04:26   we can we can start building educational [TS]

01:04:29   models that are outside of this whole um [TS]

01:04:34   like a cattle chute that we have spent [TS]

01:04:39   the last hundred years designing to to [TS]

01:04:43   find the the smartest people and outside [TS]

01:04:47   of that cattle chute we can teach [TS]

01:04:48   ourselves and we can start to prize and [TS]

01:04:52   value other qualities and [TS]

01:04:54   characteristics because when i was 19 [TS]

01:04:57   years old maybe there was a chance that [TS]

01:04:59   I could have kicked down the door into [TS]

01:05:03   that world still just by sheer force of [TS]

01:05:06   will and like good essay and [TS]

01:05:09   interpretive dance or whatever but those [TS]

01:05:12   days are gone there's no way a person [TS]

01:05:14   like me could make it to it could make [TS]

01:05:20   it through that system now [TS]

01:05:22   no it's just starting to think that you [TS]

01:05:24   know it's just all with all the the [TS]

01:05:26   high-stakes testing that goes on [TS]

01:05:28   throughout a public school education now [TS]

01:05:30   and having to like more and more find [TS]

01:05:32   yourself through this funnel of getting [TS]

01:05:34   more and more to be the kind of person [TS]

01:05:36   that a college would be interested or [TS]

01:05:38   for that matter to a preschooler that a [TS]

01:05:40   private elementary school would one and [TS]

01:05:42   that makes you something then you get [TS]

01:05:43   out you gotta be a feeder elementary [TS]

01:05:45   school to get to a good middle school [TS]

01:05:46   and so on and so forth until eventually [TS]

01:05:48   you know your edges have been sanded off [TS]

01:05:51   to where you fit into I don't / / say it [TS]

01:05:54   but it's kind of crazy to me like that [TS]

01:05:56   really feels kind of real you've got to [TS]

01:05:58   have this number of extracurricular [TS]

01:06:00   activities [TS]

01:06:00   you gotta have this many things going on [TS]

01:06:02   and that is for the privilege of paying [TS]

01:06:03   40 thousand dollars a year to go to [TS]

01:06:05   college rights to me work it's a little [TS]

01:06:07   bit crazy [TS]

01:06:07   well and and just look at like look who [TS]

01:06:11   are heroes are um if you if you want to [TS]

01:06:17   look at I mean Bill Gates or [TS]

01:06:22   or Mark Zuckerberg and say like well you [TS]

01:06:28   know these guys they went to Harvard [TS]

01:06:30   they dropped out they started these [TS]

01:06:32   billion-dollar companies like these are [TS]

01:06:34   our heroes and if you look at Mark [TS]

01:06:38   Zuckerberg and Bill Gates these guys are [TS]

01:06:41   not my hero [TS]

01:06:43   they are not our heroes they are not [TS]

01:06:45   heroes at all like these are these are [TS]

01:06:48   not um you know maybe bill gates has [TS]

01:06:51   become a likeable guy and maybe heat [TS]

01:06:54   through a combination of PR like devoted [TS]

01:06:58   millions and millions of dollars of [TS]

01:07:00   people working on him to make him appear [TS]

01:07:05   in public as a pleasant person who has a [TS]

01:07:08   good heart who is giving his money away [TS]

01:07:10   for clean water like Bill Gates has has [TS]

01:07:14   become a honorable character in the [TS]

01:07:19   world but Bill Gates is a fucking frog [TS]

01:07:22   leg king and so as Zuckerberg like [TS]

01:07:26   neither one of these guys are are like [TS]

01:07:28   heroic humans they aren't even full [TS]

01:07:32   humans they're just guys who like had [TS]

01:07:36   one idea and and did it to the exclusion [TS]

01:07:40   of all other human activity all about do [TS]

01:07:44   some combination of I don't wanna play [TS]

01:07:45   negatively but like psychosis or grit [TS]

01:07:47   was able to stick with it so long that [TS]

01:07:50   they pushed it through to become what [TS]

01:07:52   they wanted and then it evolved yeah [TS]

01:07:54   they pushed it through and what is it [TS]

01:07:55   exactly when bill gets his case it was [TS]

01:07:57   some it was some word processing [TS]

01:07:59   programs that ran on a fucking little [TS]

01:08:02   game box that everybody decided we all [TS]

01:08:06   needed to have at home because the [TS]

01:08:09   typewriter wasn't good enough for [TS]

01:08:11   whatever I mean it took it took 15 years [TS]

01:08:13   of personal computers being pretty much [TS]

01:08:16   boat anchors before they were really [TS]

01:08:20   better than a typewriter and mimeograph [TS]

01:08:22   machine you know it wasn't that long ago [TS]

01:08:25   that we were I mean I'm still being [TS]

01:08:26   asked to fact shit to people like the [TS]

01:08:30   training wheels are still on [TS]

01:08:32   and Zuckerberg did what he built the [TS]

01:08:34   thing that that does what that we all go [TS]

01:08:38   and placed our time on sending baby [TS]

01:08:40   pictures back and forth like okay [TS]

01:08:42   pioneers sure [TS]

01:08:44   ok they've made a thing fine this is [TS]

01:08:47   where we are now we're in a post [TS]

01:08:51   facebook world but are we happy about it [TS]

01:08:54   was that really good [TS]

01:08:56   was that really the best we could have [TS]

01:08:58   come up with facebook was the bus tub [TS]

01:09:00   was the next thing that human beings [TS]

01:09:03   devised point out there you know that it [TS]

01:09:06   even that set the mark [TS]

01:09:08   yeah like it is now there's no denying [TS]

01:09:11   it [TS]

01:09:11   it did happen it is a thing and it is an [TS]

01:09:13   enormous thing and it has it has [TS]

01:09:15   adjusted our course for the future we [TS]

01:09:18   will always now live in a world that is [TS]

01:09:20   post facebook but I do not see it as [TS]

01:09:22   heroic or Google or even good and [TS]

01:09:26   zuckerberg is not a she is no fucking [TS]

01:09:29   Lancelot he's just up [TS]

01:09:32   he's a guy who got where he is because [TS]

01:09:34   we decided a certain type of person was [TS]

01:09:37   going to succeed in schools and he got [TS]

01:09:40   to a place and now he produced a thing [TS]

01:09:42   that is the direct result of of how we [TS]

01:09:45   decide who goes to college and we're [TS]

01:09:48   living in a in a world where all the all [TS]

01:09:51   the restaurants that used to have [TS]

01:09:52   hand-carved turkey sandwiches have been [TS]

01:09:55   torn down and turned into senior frogs [TS]

01:09:57   and I don't fucking like it i think it's [TS]

01:10:02   a bad world magnets and certainly it's [TS]

01:10:05   bad on a cultural social level better it [TS]

01:10:07   seems like a live is affecting the kind [TS]

01:10:09   of food that you have available that the [TS]

01:10:11   kind of food and the kind of brain food [TS]

01:10:14   yes you know i like I realized the other [TS]

01:10:16   day this is a crazy thing but you know [TS]

01:10:19   Merlin I was never bored in my life when [TS]

01:10:22   I was a kid I was never bored when I was [TS]

01:10:24   a teenager I was never bored you know [TS]

01:10:26   you never ever ever would have heard [TS]

01:10:28   from me i'm bored because if I was left [TS]

01:10:32   alone and I had anything if I was left [TS]

01:10:35   alone and I had two pebbles I would [TS]

01:10:37   devise a little thing with two pebbles [TS]

01:10:39   that would keep me interested not just [TS]

01:10:41   occupied [TS]

01:10:43   but interested I wasn't bored when I was [TS]

01:10:46   a drunk I wasn't bored at any you know [TS]

01:10:49   really at any job I had because once i [TS]

01:10:51   got how to do the job then I could let [TS]

01:10:54   my mind Rome and it was just like doing [TS]

01:10:58   to a road job and let your mind be free [TS]

01:11:00   but lately i have discovered i have [TS]

01:11:04   found myself being bored and why because [TS]

01:11:08   i look at my phone all the fucking time [TS]

01:11:10   and I'm looking at my phone all the time [TS]

01:11:12   and it's extended its exciting and I [TS]

01:11:14   like the internet and i'm on the Twitter [TS]

01:11:16   and I'm floating around and im looking [TS]

01:11:17   at stuff and I'm looking stuff up but [TS]

01:11:20   all of a sudden in the afternoon [TS]

01:11:22   sometimes I'll be like oh god I'm just [TS]

01:11:24   so fucking bored and I realize it's [TS]

01:11:29   because i'm looking at my phone all the [TS]

01:11:33   time and it has the collected world [TS]

01:11:35   knowledge on it and yet the interface [TS]

01:11:40   with it and the and what I'm how I'm [TS]

01:11:43   using it what I'm seeking out there and [TS]

01:11:45   I don't think I'm any different from [TS]

01:11:46   anybody else [TS]

01:11:47   it's producing this novel sensation me [TS]

01:11:52   which is like the boredom of access to [TS]

01:11:54   everything and the boredom of you know [TS]

01:11:58   of navigating a world that was created [TS]

01:12:01   you know in a way with no imagination [TS]

01:12:06   the architecture of this this phone [TS]

01:12:10   based internet world has a decided lack [TS]

01:12:13   of imagination be like built into the [TS]

01:12:16   fabric of it it's just you know it's [TS]

01:12:19   what people who were told they had [TS]

01:12:22   imagination built and everybody [TS]

01:12:26   congratulated them and they were like [TS]

01:12:27   thanks a lot you know if did you notice [TS]

01:12:29   that the back button takes you back and [TS]

01:12:33   the forward button takes you forward and [TS]

01:12:35   did you notice also you can scroll over [TS]

01:12:37   here and you can look at that and you [TS]

01:12:39   click on the add and it goes to the next [TS]

01:12:41   thing it's just like you know what yeah [TS]

01:12:42   i did notice that and fuck you guy it's [TS]

01:12:44   not that great [TS]

01:12:46   let's talk about all the president's men [TS]

01:12:55   haha ok yeah I I side another girl haha [TS]