Episode 50: Check Your Six

* John broke his tooth off again. His Achilles tooth.
	+ “Do you need to cast someone who looks like he’s not thriving right now?” -JR
	+ “The decisions I made during my youth, when I felt like I was gonna live forever and that nothing could ever hurt me, all those things were saving up their consequences for right about the time I turned 40. And basically the day I turned 40, everything within me that was held together with baling wire and toothpaste, it all broke at once. My tooth fell out, and, you know, my knees gave out. And... it was a catastrophe. Now I’m living in the post-consequences world where I realize that everything you do in your youth just lights a fuse. All the scars, they just wait kinda dormant until there just comes that one moment when all your connective tissue stops working and you’re just a pile of bones.” -JR
	+ There was nothing left of John’s tooth to cap.
	+ “If someone was running their hands over my head trying to discern my character, it would be like… Running your hands through my hair is like running your hands over a model train set. I mean, there are so many criss-crossing scars on my scalp.” -JR
		- “Did I ever tell you about the time I got jumped by three guys with ax handles?” -JR
* 15:30- The ax incident:
	+ 22 year old John, heavily intoxicated on a cocktail of intoxicants, was standing on the street with a lighter lighting posters on a phone pole on fire.
		- Some cops pull up and tell him to knock it off.
	+ Three guys arrive with bats and tell him to knock it off.
		- This was a challenge that needed to be addressed.
			* “This was important work I was doing, and who are these three guys to tell me to knock anything off?” -JR
				+ “Why don’t you guys knock off telling people what to do? And I noticed that they had bats. I mean, I am acutely aware. But I also feel like I’m in command of the situation.” -JR
		- “I start to  lecture them on how cities work. And how phone poles are covered with creosote and so are inherently not flammable. And at a certain point they are no longer interested.” -JR
		- They already knew what they were going to do. John hadn’t yet learned to protect his six.
	+ Aftermath:
		- The cops came back and the aid car came.
		- “Are you on any kind of drugs?”
			* “Mmm, no. I just had a beer."
		- John won’t admit to what drugs he was on.
			* “I still had it in my mind that my permanent record was something I needed to be worried about.”
			* They sew up his head and hands without anesthesia. Not even a topical.
		- “It was a helluva night. I learned a lot that night. Certainly about mortality. But that was definitely when I started checking my six.” -JR
		- “That’s not even how I lost my tooth.”
* John’s friend Howard bailed him out under his own name. So John couldn’t pick up his bail money, and Howard dodged John on getting the money.
	+ John went down to the court to explain that it was his money and not Howard’s. They weren’t impressed, but they found another warrant, so they slyly sent him across the street where he was promptly arrested.
* John was supposed to be Joe Jr.
* 43:00- John’s primary problem with being elected to the US Senate:
	+ "The primary problem with me being elected to the United States Senate is I have gone on record a thousand times saying ‘Seattle is a dumpy little shithole. And people who believe in God are dumbasses. And everybody that doesn’t know how to drive in snow should be lined up against a wall and shot, et cetera, et cetera.’”-JR
		- “There are numerous closets with numerous bones.” -MM
	+ Opposition researchers and vetters would be rolling on the floor laughing within 30 seconds of trying to dig up research.
* 49:00 “It’s too late to make this a funny show.” -MM
* Thoughts on government.
	+ 52:30- "Zoning is a way that you can really get inside your neighbors’ heads. And zoning is a way that you can start to understand why stupid people are so mad all the time.” -JR
	+ 56:30- The nature of all conservatism: “Why am *I* the one that has to make the sacrifice?” -JR
	+ “It’s about as valuable to follow politics as it is to follow pro wrestling.” -MM
		- "What did you give up?” -MM
	+ The sports fan nature of political consciousness.
	+ “How are those ‘Hope' posters working out for you?” -MM
		- “I would never have a picture of a lawyer with the word love on it. Because that’s not why I hire a lawyer.” -MM
	+ They took punches in the nose away from *us.*
* 1:16:30- The idea of John running for office.
	+ Merlin thinks the idea of John even conceding that he needs to be elected for something is a goddamn holocaust.
	+ “I don’t want to say that being Mayor of Seattle is a dead-end job, but…” -JR
* “Boy, we make it look so easy don’t we? You show up, you’ve got a broken fucking tooth, you’re eating a sandwich. You talk about getting your ass kicked with an ass-handle.” -MM