This week, Merlin and John talk about
- The epic nature of modern pop music (Music)
- John seeing the Scorpions on their World Wide Live tour (Music)
- Blending music by genre ignoring context (Music)
- Weird album covers (Music)
- Run for Office
The Problem: "What about a space station that has waterfalls?", referring to having too many pie-in-the-sky ideas when running for city council.
The show title refers to the butterfly effect where a small action somewhere in the universe can have a huge effect somewhere else, seemingly unrelated.
John starts by singing ”I’m finding my way back to you, Merlin!” and Merlin says he likes the version by Frankie Valli best and chimes in to hum the song. That made John think of a marching band which they both agree they love. The unifying characteristic of all marching bands is that they have ”fun”. Back when Merlin was in a stage band, they mostly played Standard, like for example a terrible version of Night Train. Merlin loves the drums and the Glockenspiel in marching bands. John’s friend Ariella (his daughter’s mother) and also Merlin’s mother had previously been the Glockenspiel-player in a marching band.
John has a black Jetta sedan which is ridiculous. Merlin calls it the web developer car from 1999. The tabs recently expired and John would have to get an emissions test to get it renewed, so for a while he was driving a borrowed Passat wagon, but that has gone away and now he is driving the truck again.
They banter a while about Bob Odenkirk’s bad Southern accent and about the TV-series Better Call Saul.
Merlin: ”Lobsters don’t think of themselves primarily as food.”