1140 – Knocks in a Bottle | Trending Tuesday

  • Notable Notes

    Notable Language:

    • Steeped in Mediocrity
    • Door-Enthusiast Intellectual
    • Gadfly

    Notable Culture:

    • Little Bo Beep
    • Bartlett’s Book of Quotations
    • Sir Mix-a-Lot

    Notable Talking Points:

    • Imaginary Grandma, you rock!
    • Knocks have a heavy European audience
    • A Knock Sculpture Garden
  • For Transcript of Episode Click Here

    Episode 1140 – Knocks in a Bottle | Trending Tuesday

     

    [START OF RECORDING]

     

    SCOOTER: Friends beyond the binary, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, oh boy, I hope you’re comfortable or getting comfortable or, as I say when I’m in most situations by myself or with other people…there’s usually a long pause like that while I try to decide what the degree of comfortability…realistic comfortability; that’s what we’re all…yeah, that’s what I’ve been searching for. So, realistically, I hope you have a realistic level of comfort. But more than that; I’d like to increase that just a little bit on that dial. You might say, who and the what are you…are you qualified to comfort anything? I’d say, I think I am, as somebody who sat in a…I said well, I’m a bit uncomfortable here. If I take that tone with myself and I say okay, I see you’re a bit uncomfortable here, I think it’s gonna be okay.

     

    I’m talking about out in the world, right? But I said…it’s using that same intention, not just tone. The tone comes from the intention. I say yeah, I hope you’re getting a little bit more comfortable as I ramble on and on and on. So, that’s where I’m coming from. Where am I going? No idea, ‘cause it’s time for Sleep With Me, the podcast that’s here to put you to sleep and keep you company while you fall asleep…or that’s here to keep you company while you fall asleep. That’s how you get to sleep, ideally. Now, if you’re new to this show, it is very different and you probably already noticed that. It is very strange, but it’s friendly. It does take a few tries to get used to the podcast. I make the show, one, ‘cause I can relate to not being able…trouble staying asleep or falling asleep or waking up too early.

     

    But also, you deserve a good night’s sleep. That’s why I make the show. So, even if this podcast doesn’t work, I hope you find something else. I’ll give you some resources at sleepwithmepodcast.com/nothankyou to check out, but I hope this podcast does…hundreds of thousands, maybe a million people, have said give it two or three tries. That’s how long it takes to realize oh, this makes perfect sense now. This podcast never made any sense. You could call…it’s almost like the spare…I’m like the spare change jar. The Forgotten Spare Change Jar, I think could be an…that could be another episode of Sleep With Me. Somebody remind me of that. But I’m glad you’re here. Coming up we’ll have support, that’s how we get to be free twice a week, then there will be a long, meandering intro which is a show within a show meant to ease you into bedtime, and then a bedtime story. So, I’m so glad you’re here, and thanks for making it possible, my patron peeps.

     

    INTRO: [INTRO MUSIC] Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing? Trouble getting to sleep? Trouble staying asleep? Well, welcome. This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep. We do it with a bedtime story. Alls you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press Play. I’m gonna do the rest. What I’m going to attempt to do is create a safe place where you could set aside whatever’s keeping you awake, whether that’s thoughts on your mind about the past, the present, or the future. So, thoughts you’re thinking about, it could be feelings, anything coming up for you emotionally related to those thoughts or to…they’re just there that are leftover. Oh boy, those feelings. Feelings; at bedtime, I have them, particularly.

     

    It could be physical sensations, it could be changes in your time, your temperature, your routine. You could be going somewhere, you could be visiting somewhere, you could have a guest coming. Or you know what? It could just be…it’s just like that for a lot of us. There’s a percentage of listeners who come in and you got something coming up and you’re looking for some relief. Then there’s people that come in for one of the seasons of their lives and they move on. But there’s a lot of us, and that’s how I’ve made 1,100 episodes…that it’s kind of a ongoing situation that for me, I manage. I hope Sleep With Me…whatever it is, I hope it can help you fall asleep. Now, this show is a bit different. I’ll just give you a heads-up right away. Hopefully I gave you one earlier, too, because you say, this is right away?

     

    I say well, this is a meandering show. This show does not work for everybody, but for the people it works for, it takes two or three tries to get used to, for most people. Some people get it right away, but for a lot of people, you have a expectation, you’ve been having trouble sleeping, you’ve tried a lot of other stuff, and then someone either told you about the podcast or you searched and you found it. I’m glad you’re here, but just give it a few tries ‘cause the show…it’s just different than expectations, and I’ll tell you more about it. But there’s two reasons I make the show. One I’ve kind of explained; I’ve been there and not only do I know how it feels, there’s hundreds of thousands of people listening right now that know how it feels in the deep, dark night.

     

    They might not know exactly what you’re going through, but there’s a lot of people out there nodding their head saying yeah, it’s tough. I know how it feels or I could relate or I can imagine what that would be like. They mean it. The people nodding their heads that are awake, they mean it and I mean it because I’ve been there; tossing, turning, mind racing, trouble getting to sleep, trouble staying asleep. Also the one that doesn’t fit…I guess it fits with trouble staying asleep; waking up way too early. So, whatever it is, that’s one reason we make the show. The other reason is way simpler. You deserve a good night’s sleep. You deserve a place you can get some rest, get comfortable, take your mind off of stuff, and have a bedtime you can feel neutral about or look forward to. So, I’m glad to be able to help if I can.

     

    It really means a lot to me because if you get the rest you need, your life’s gonna be more manageable tomorrow. That really means if you’re getting the rest you need, you could be a little bit…your best. Or, I don’t know if I’ve ever been at my best, but at my pretty good. Like, flourishing is what I really mean, and that means the world we live in is a better place if your world is a better place. So, that’s important. The way I do it is I send my voice across the deep, dark night. I’m gonna use lulling, soothing, creaky, dulcet tones, pointless meanders, superfluous tangents. So, that means I’ll get mixed up, I’ll go off…oh, creaky, dulcet tones is my voice. It’s not traditionally soothing. It’s creaky, dulcet. It’s distracting and you say, it’s mildly okay. It’s mediocre in a way that isn’t an insult, but it’s a factual statement.

     

    I guess you could say mediocrity…it feels like mediocrity, most of the time, is so judgmental. In this case, it’s more…I guess I’ve used this metaphor a lot on the podcast, but I forget what the person’s name is. It’s not Little Bo Peep and not…that goes…she goes to the place where the bears live and she tests out all their stuff. She says oh, this one’s just right. Too warm, too cold, too big, too small, too soft, too hard, just right. Sleep With Me, you’re more like, it’s not…I mean, you wouldn’t say it’s just…well, you say…you would after two or three tries. You say, this is just right ‘cause I don’t need to listen to it. It’s bare…it’s mediocre, so I kind of just barely listen. Other thing could be…this is usually the correct answer; I might not know what mediocre means.

     

    Talk about mediocre…you say, talk about…what do they call…what was on my…some of my report cards? Something in mediocrity. At some point, glorious, or…not glorious, but steeped in mediocrity. I’d say, maybe that’s how I got mediocre. Maybe you should have steeped me in something that’s a little bit better quality. But you can’t…if I’m steeped in mediocrity, put me in some fresh water then, or something. What do they call that? I’m having trouble with words today, but…takes pride in his mediocrity; that was definitely on one of my report cards at some point. Prideful and mediocre but at the same…pridefully mediocre. Mediocre…I’m probably mediocre in my pride. So, whatever…what was I talking about? Oh, I’m gonna send my voice across the…oh, my voice. Yeah, that’s the voice. It’s a voice you just barely listen to.

     

    I’ll explain a little bit more about that. But I send it across the deep, dark night, use lulling, soothing tones, creaky, dulcet tones…lulling, soothing, creaky, dulcet tones, pointless meanders, and superfluous tangents. Those other two are what we’ve kinda already seen, is I go off topic and then I double back, then I get mixed up, and I say what was that? It’s not bad. Goldilocks; okay. See, there, that was a point…that was where I say, Goldilocks…but what was I talking about that made me think about Goldilocks and mediocre, where you said it’s just not bad…not barely listenable, but you don’t have to listen to it. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I was just trying to remember. But so, I go off topic, I get mixed up, all to keep you company so that you could fall asleep.

     

    This show, believe it or not, does not…is not here to put you to sleep. This is the only sleep podcast…I started making this show back in 2013, and it’s not here to put you to sleep. It’s here to keep you company while you fall asleep. I’m here to be your bore-friend, your bore-bae, your bore-bud, your bore-sib, your bore-bestie, your bore-bor, your neigh-bore, your bore-bud, your bore-bruh, whatever term you’re comfortable with. Bore-guy; that’s another one people call me, or that boring guy. I’m here to keep you company whether you’re awake or asleep. There’s no pressure to fall asleep ‘cause I’m here for an hour to keep you company. There’s people that listen all night long, and there’s other people out there. If you can’t sleep, you’re not alone, either.

     

    There’s people listening along that are dealing with something or dealing with a kind of insomnia…that they’re looking for company in the deep, dark night, a distraction that puts some people to sleep and keeps some people company, and that’s kinda what works about the show. I’m keeping you company even if you’re not listening to me and you’re not awake. Like, kinda…this is rarely…there’s rarely a idealized version of this in my mind, but imagining a grandmotherly figure sitting by a fireplace in a rocking chair, knitting. She says, I’ll be knitting…I’ll be here keeping you…I’ll be here knitting as a presence, a loving, warm presence, all night long. That’s my own personal issues…why I struggle with that as a archetype. But you say, I’ll be here just knitting and rocking. Is my rocking okay? Oh boy, is it.

     

    Grandma, do you mind…imaginary grandma, do you mind if I say you rock? Or, you rocked. You rocked to that song. You rocked so far today. If your rocker had a distance meter, Peloton would probably call you. Oh, stop. Yeah, you’re…well, don’t stop rocking. But can you put that on a…? Oh, you’re knitting. You’re not…whatever that’s called, stitching or whatever, pointillizing pillows. But yeah, maybe you could say grandma, don’t stop rocking. I mean, I’m…that’s probably already a shirt out there, I would assume. Is there rocking chair clubs? Here’s an idea…never done it at Sleep With Me, but there’s a couple places…I think there’s one restaurant that has rocking chairs on its front. I don’t know, let’s…if anybody’s actually listening right now, let’s kinda start to create a database of places with multiple rocking chairs.

     

    There used to be some place in Disneyland or Disney World but then it became a smoking area, so it’s not really good for rocking anymore. I wouldn’t want…grandma, I wouldn’t want you rocking there. But maybe they changed their policy recently so you could get back to…we could go back there and rock. How do we get here? I don’t know, grandma, but I’m glad you’re here symbolically to be rocking and keeping me company and soothing me, just like…that’s my job for the listeners. So, this is a podcast you don’t listen to, either. I’m here to keep you company with my rocking. You can listen. I’ll be here, like I said, for an hour, but you don’t need to. You could just kinda barely listen. So, it doesn’t put you to sleep, you don’t really need to listen to it. Those are two hard things.

     

    Also the fact that most people are like, when does the show get started? I say oh boy, it already started. It’s already been broughten, but it’s not been brought…I’m always…been…I’m always…been broughten because I’m bringing it somewhere. They say, where was…what am I bringing? Let me check my pockets again. What was I…where was I bringing it? Oh, it’s already been broughten? No, but I’m supposed to bring it somewhere. You say, what are you combining…that cheerleading movie whose title…You Can’t Set It Off or whatever with Abbott and Cost…if Abbott and Costello were in a cheerleading movie, that’s what they’d say; has it been brung? It is bring, brung, brung? No, probably not. Okay. Is that…? Anyway, okay. Wow, we’ve covered a lot of ground here.

     

    Just like if…how come there’s…this is a honest question — Apple, you can check my activities — is there a rocking chair setting for Apple activities? You say, ‘cause it does take energy. You say, you’ve rocked, grandma. I would love to say that. Grandma, let me check your health stats. Grandma, you rocked forty miles this week. I would get a shirt; My Grandma Rocked Forty Miles This…My Grandma Rocks Forty Miles A Week. That would probably be good, ‘cause then people would…that’d be probably a good shirt for a introvert to have ‘cause people would say, what does that mean? I’d say well, I have an…one…well, a couple of things. Let start off with some facts. Any grandmas I have are living within my imagination. Two, I created an imaginary invention or add-on to…my grandma’s a…what do you call that where someone’s…?

     

    A prolific rocker in a rocking chair. She prolifically rocks, so much so that we started monitoring her rocking for distance. You’d say, how do you…? Well, imagine you were rocking somewhere…trying to go somewhere. Probably go about four inches per rock, maybe two. Okay, we’ll do three inches. Each rock covers three inches, depending…you’re right, depending on the speed and the frequency, of course. Of course, of course. So anyway, we got…we’ve got some sort of sports scientist coming in from another part of my imagination. Say, are you sure it’s…? Should we do in…? Of course we should do it in Metric. I love that idea. I’ve gotta put these listeners to sleep, though. Oh, the thing is, the podcast takes getting used to ‘cause it’s so different and it never gets started.

     

    I just went off topic about that for five minutes, and that can be frustrating if you’re new, but just see how it goes. So, I’ll tell you the structure of the show. What was my point, though? Oh, this…if you don’t like the show, sleepwithmepodcast.com/nothankyou has other stuff to check out and listen, like other podcasts and sleepy stuff. So, structurally, the show’s structured in a very intentional way to hit some intentional purposes. But the great thing about podcasts, between playlists and settings, you can kinda — as you become a regular listener — control it in whatever app you use. But the show’s…follows a very set structure because one, it starts off with a greeting. Friends beyond the binary, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, then I say something else so hopefully you feel seen and welcomed in and you get the tone of the show.

     

    Okay, this person’s a little bit mediocre…funny and med…yeah, he doesn’t…he can’t…there you go; that summed it up. He’s mediocre at describing his mediocre humor. It has some mediocre humor. Room-temperature humor. That sounds like something they’d say in a old movie or something, that Watson would say to Holmes. So, oh, what was I talk…? Oh, that’s the greeting, then there’s support for the show ‘cause the goal of the show is to come out twice a week for free and that paying for it or supporting it is optional, which empowers some people but gives most people the freedom to say hey, I’m not in a position to do so or I’m tired, and…so, it comes out free. You don’t even have to do anything. But that’s thanks to the listeners who support the show directly and the listeners who support our sponsors.

     

    Then there’s support for listeners who are having a tough time, then there’s support for communities around the show, then there’s the intro, which we’re in. Sometimes people lump the support and the intro together, and I feel bad…I mean, I guess maybe they wouldn’t…not gonna like the show anyway, but I feel like people miss out on the intro at least at first because the intro, you get to know me in a way where you say oh boy, I got to know you, know you well enough to say yeah, I could sleep to this person’s rambling. So, that’s one of the goals of the intro. But the other one is that it’s a part of the wind down for a lot of listeners. So, there’s 2% of listeners that skimp the…skip the intro.

     

    There’s probably a couple percentage of listeners that fall asleep during it, but for most people, they’re either getting comfortable in bed or they’re getting ready for bed or they’re doing some sort of other relaxing activity. That’s just part of what I’ve found, like I said, how I manage my sleep is having a wind-down routine. The more I kinda stick to it or find things or say oh, let me go back to that, the more likely I am to have success most nights, but not all nights. So, that’s the intro, then there’s support after the intro, again, so the show could be free twice a week.

     

    Then there’s our story. Tonight it’ll be me talking about…it’ll be Knocks In A Bottle, I think, talking about my dog Koa and I and an adventure we had and our hobby, listening to knocks, which I’ll explain more later. But you could sleep through it. You won't miss out on much. Then there’s thank-yous at the end. So, that’s the structure of the show, that’s why I make the show. I’m really glad you’re here. I really appreciate you coming by, and I really hope I can help you get some sleep. Here’s a couple ways I’m able to do it for free twice a week.

     

    Alright everybody, it’s time for tales rarely told. This will be a knocks…I don’t think we’ve done a…I always hate saying this ‘cause I say, I don’t think we’ve done a knocks episode in a while. That’s K-N-O-N…K-N…K-N-O-C-K-S. So, not K-N-O-X or knox, K-N-O-X, or N-O-X or N-O-C-K-S. Holy cow. This is a knocks episode, which is…takes a little bit of setting up. But this one’s a little bit of an adventure my dog Koa and I went on. So, Koa…’cause a lot of people say Scoots, how do you unwind? Not how do I fall asleep, but what do you do to relax? What are your hobbies? Are your hobbies imaginary or real, like all the fanfiction you write about who…I don’t even…that you don’t rem…like that episode of…the imaginary Office with Michael Scott and Bartlett’s Book of Quotations, which was probably a real Office episode.

     

    But he wrote a fanfiction…you didn’t…you intended to. I say yeah, me and…my dog Koa and I, we do have a hobby. Oh boy, do we, which is listening to knocks. Some people are giggling; those are regular listeners, because it’s just something I only talk about every couple of years because it’s obscure. Actually, it’s been years since I think…that I can remember talking about it. So, I could have been talking about it yesterday. I think I referred to it recently but didn’t get into it. So, I have a dog named Koa. Koa is…I adopted her as an adult, though a long time ago. She’s somewhere around thirteen years old. But since I’ve had Koa, we got…we have a hobby we do together. You say oh, running and playing…? No, no, this is a relaxing hobby. Oh, fetch?

     

    No, no, this is a hobby for both humans and dogs, and it’s a niche hobby. It predates the internet, but only made possible by the internet. A lot of people are gonna ask themselves, wait a second, are you serious? I say well, yeah. I’d say, there’s a person…was…I’d say, Yahoo serious. They say, is this really your hobby, Scoots? I say well, I don’t know. It is a bit of a secret hobby, so don’t go out there Googling this stuff just because…I don’t know. Just like every other hobby, I’m not the best…I’m not…people think I’m joking. I say well, I’m not…I’m just doing the best I can as a human being. I haven’t been a good person…you know, and I make my human choices. So, a lot of people in the community, the knocks community, they say why you gotta go mess it up for…talk about it? I say well, maybe more people will like it.

     

    But people get…people have their routine and they like it. So, to answer the main question, what, what, what; Koa, my dog, and I listen to recorded knocks. That is, people knocking on doors. That is our hobby. I will explain it more, but that’s the simplest thing. We listen to people knocking on doors. Are they talking? No. But yeah, we listen to people knocking on doors. Our hobby is listening to knocks. You’d say, I’m…you may…you wouldn’t actually say you’re flabbergasted, but you might be…you say, is there anything subtextual to this? I’d say of course there is, of course. The knocks run deep, you know? Yeah, I have written Knocks Aft…they did have my own in-print within Gingerbread Press. It was a sub-print because it wasn’t directly connected to Gingerbread Press, which is my imaginary publishing house.

     

    But yeah, that was Knocks After Dark, the Knocks After Dark series. One, we never were able to even imaginarily release Knocking on Heaven’s Door for so many reasons. There was a…so, I said okay, we won't release that. Hollywood Knocks; that was the most…least…the most famous never-made piece of knock fiction. Professor Knocks…and that was…but anyway, so, let’s not get into my sub-hobbies, you know? Postman Knocks Twice…that wasn’t one of them, but I was just thinking out loud. Where was I? Okay, so yeah, we listen to recorded knocks. That’s the important part, not the other stuff. You say wait, wait…say, how? I say well, okay, for us, we…now, you can listen to waves…these are different recorded…people record knocking.

     

    Now, you say okay, intentionally or in-intent…and I’d say well, one…I say I think, to be honest, we’re on the cusp of another great time to be a knock enthusiast. I forgot that’s the polite way of saying what we do. We’re knock enthusiasts. We have an enthusiasm for knocking or listening to knocks, but you don’t need to put the listening in there. Because I don’t think all these doorbell things…one, you can split the audio track from the video track depending on what encoding they’re using, but I think with the advancements in microphone technology and encoders and storage space that it won't be long ‘til we’re getting…not…I wouldn’t say high-fidelity audio, but we’re…I mean, we’re already getting some of that. That’s what I mean, because knocks are trade…knocks aren’t bought.

     

    You trade knocks, and now knocks get traded karmically. Now, before I got into knocks, it was a bit like once upon a time with Phish or Grateful Dead or other jam bands like that, or even non-jam bands…I mean, I bought…you could buy them, like REM or other stuff…Neil Young…people would…they had…where people were allowed to tape their concerts, The Grateful Dead and Phish, and then they would trade. They’d say well, if you have a show, I’ll trade you. Like, we don’t have…I mean, a lot of tapers, they’d say just send me blank tapes and I’ll send it to you…or with postage or whatever. But so, you would just trade the tapes. They called them…I think…I don’t know. But now it’s more of a karmic thing where there’d be a bulletin-board-type website or a forum or a Discord and people just post links where you can download the knocks.

     

    You’re supposed to…and sometimes they say hey, I’m looking for this particular knock; can someone record it? You’d get good karma if you posted a knock. People are very specific, Koa and I included, because part of the knock is…everything…’cause you say well, why would anyone in their right mind listen to someone…? Someone knocking on a door; I can hear some…the newer listeners saying, can you go through this again, even…? This makes no sense to…and I say, yeah. Okay, picture this. I’ll give you an idealized…there I am, my dog and I, and it’s an evening. I’ve had a rough day of recording shows and telling people to go to sleepwithmepodcast.com/nothankyou over and over again and I’m tuckered out but not ready for bed, not ready to start my wind-down routine.

     

    I’m ready to kick back, man. I got my PJs, Koa’s had her dinner, we’ve taken…we haven’t taken our last trip outside, but…and we’re lying there. Maybe I already gave her some good pets and we’re looking to do something relaxing. So, on…we’ll fire up some knocks and I’ll play a knock. Again, we could get into more…I could get into more of the details, but…I don’t know. Basically you’d play the knock and Koa and I would look…either Koa…I can…what I like to do…one of the things I like to do is form my own reaction to it but also watch Koa’s reaction. Then it’s like another ripple in the pond where then I’m having…then I can kind of read into Koa’s reaction ‘cause she may look at the speaker, she may look outside. She may look down, she might put her her head down, she might put her head up.

     

    Her ears might move, her nose might move. She might audibly react to the knock. The same thing; I can…and this really is a practice in mindfulness, too. I can feel how I feel…does it remind me of something? Am I tasting any…am I having any sense memories? What am I feeling in my body? What am I hearing? But it is a lot of it…for me, particularly, is imagination because you either know what this person is knocking…and there’s like…you could get…you could go through a knock tour. I don’t know what episodes we’ve done before. Here’s the thing; this was the person that probably had the most…it used to be, for a while, people would…I don’t know if it was in college or in your twenties…people would put up a poster with doors of, whatever; doors of Dublin, doors of Amsterdam.

     

    It would just be cool pictures of doors of Amsterdam. That’s where I feel like the societal acceptance of knocking, knock enthusiasm…you say well, you gotta…what do you mean it’s weird? You got a poster of doors up on your wall. I mean, that’s kinda like being…having a curiosity about the human body and then saying well, yeah, no…but not…I’m not curious  of…you know what I’m saying. Nevermind. But someone did do that. They went to those doors and knocked on them. So, that is one of the things…to go back to the doorbell…the camera doorbells and stuff. So, there are people, knock enthusiasts, probably…I’m not one of those, but that have…their door is constantly…no one’s…for my door, I say I prefer if no one ever knocks on my door, as a introvert and a overthinker.

     

    But a lot of knock enthusiasts are more well-adjusted than me, so they may be…you say, they’re so well-adjusted, they’re recording their doors. But yeah, they record when…so they can catch knocks on their door, or they might go around and they may…here’s the thing; don’t record somebody’s door without their permission because that’s gonna be…but you could ask. You could record from the inside or the outside. But then there’s also people…and you could do that in an improv way; be like hey, do you mind if I hang out and record your door? Or you could…this is a little bit more complicated, but it’s done, is following a delivery person around. Probably not in the US. For some reason…and I mean, I don’t want to brag, but most of the knock enthusiasts are living across the globe.

     

    So, this is…I don’t want to make myself sound like…French, but I’d say…of all the cool French pastimes for me to follow…yeah, whatever. It’s not particularly French. I was just making light of myself and trying to humble-brag. But so…yeah, so people, they would follow delivery people around, and I mean…and then record them knocking on the door. It’s just different…but so, whatever. But there’s also people that…at this point, you intentionally get knocks and then you just ask…you knock on the door and then you say, do you mind if I record…you have a beautiful…I mean, this is the easiest way to say it; you have a beautiful front door. Do you mind me recording audio of me knocking on your door? I realize it sounds strange, but it’s just…I’m into record…you don’t have to explain the knock enthusiasm ‘cause that’ll be…the door will close.

     

    You say, it’d just take me two minutes. If you want me to e-mail you a copy of it, I can, but it’s just…I’m into recording field audio and I just want to get a recording of this beautiful door. If you’re doing it in a…home-to-home, and most people are pretty…more than happy to allow it. I mean, you could say your door is interesting, you could pick…oh, I just noticed these panels here. Or people that are more…have better recall than me, they’d say, that…did you know you have a Thomson Zafini front door? These were only made…those are the people that are really into it, and I can read…again, that’s where the beauty of the internet is. I’m not even into that.

     

    I say okay, I want to know how a Thomson Zafini door makes me feel and where it brings me or where it is and can it take me there, versus…and that’s not to take away from the person that is like well, this has a particular resonance and it’s part of an era. I say okay, well, I want to feel that in my bones, but I’m not a door enthusiast, intellectual, or…that’s a whole different thing. I don’t know. What’s different than a…? Would that be a gadfly or a wonk? A door enthusiast wonk, maybe, is someone that’s…they’re looking at…they’re listening to door recordings and fact-based…their pleasure is fact-based. I don’t know. So, there’s a lot of different ways to enjoy recorded knocks. That’s what I’m saying. Yeah, it could be intentional or unintentional, planned, unplanned, recorded on the fly, recorded intentionally.

     

    Now let me just say this; if you’re gonna un-intent…if you’re gonna record…there is a way to do it without permission and here’s the thing; you should get a job, maybe as a independent contractor…‘cause you gotta decide your own ethics, right? But if you’re using a lav mic that’s inconspicuous and you’re also editing it…so if you accidentally catch anybody talking or singing or something, you just…no one wants any knocks, anyway. We’re not into…we’re not here…we’re not listening to knocks to listen to people. We’re listening to hear how the person knocks. Who’s knocking, you know? I don’t know. It’s more about the knocking. Anyway, so…I’m trying to think of what else is important. But you could do that.

     

    A lav mic, it’s…the downside is it’s kinda omnidirectional, so it picks up all the ambient noise, but usually if you’re knocking, your body is blocking the street noise. So, I don’t know. I just want to say that ‘cause it’s not like it’s…it’s a gray area. But don’t be recording people…like, don’t grab a boom mic and be recording people’s doors. But with the internet, it’s like…almost like you have more knocks than you can handle, right? So…okay, so that’s a little bit about Koa and I’s hobby, right? Again, are you kidding me? I say, Koa and I have…we’re knock enthusiasts, so every once in a while on a evening, we’ll be lying around…but we hadn’t done it in a while, and that’s why I wanted to tell you this story. It’s not like I haven’t talked about it…you know, everybody’s…has passing fancies with hobbies and they come and they go, or your time for them comes and goes.

     

    So, here’s a thing, though; so, this one point, Koa and I were out. Instead of listening to knocks, we were sitting outside and I was reading and Koa was sitting around and I saw this…off of my dock that I was sitting on, reading, I see a bottle bobbing in the water, right? It’s just drifting by me on the tide. It bumps up against the…I say, oh…I said, is that a message in that bottle? I pull out the bottle and lo and behold, a scroll was inside it. If you listen…if you know me from listening to the podcast, you know that just like I’m not a intellectual knock enthusiast or a knock…I mean, maybe gadfly just means you talk about it nonstop, so I probably am a gadfly, but I’m probably not a knock wonk, though I’d like to be. Knock policy wonk…I mean, I did do some knock policy wonk talk there, though it’s not actually a policy; just probably best practices.

     

    Or, again, there’s probably…someone probably graduated from grad school and they did their thingamajig, their…what is that called? Not a syllabus, but the thing you need to submit to graduate…thesis paper or whatever on the morality of knocks in the 18th century, or Analog to Digital: The Changing Morality and Ethics of Knock Enthusiasts. Now, don’t come to me for interviews or stuff like that, ‘cause I can’t do it. Then two, they…the people said can you give me…anyone else a interview? I say no, it’s kinda like a secret society. So, I can’t give you any other…and they say, is it a secret society that lives within you? I say it could be, it could be, if it’s…but it’s secret. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.

     

    The only way you could tell a knock enthusiast…and you can’t be 100% sure…well, you can be, is if you’re somewhere with someone you don’t know and someone knocks on the door, and you watch…you react visibly, physically, with keen interest — it would be usually a door you’re not involved in — and they react with a visible, keen interest. Then you lock eyes, then you savor the knock because your keen interest, it does take…you’re…it’s not something you process instantly. Then you lock eyes again and then you probably laugh. That’s how you know. It’s never happened to me, and I don’t think I would…to answer the next question of the knock rom-con I may make one day…it would be a rom-con. I don’t think…I don’t know, maybe one loves this and one loves that, but they both love knocks.

     

    Will that be enough for them to find their way? I mean, I found my partner listening to knocks, which is Koa. But I mean, not that I haven’t fantasized about that. I’ll be honest, that it’s like oh boy, our eyes meet and we laugh, and I say wait a second, you’re into knocks, I’m into…and…well, you know, we could be friends. I say great, just…even in my knock-related fantasies. Okay, so I pull this bottle out of the water — that was my point — and I fumbled with it. Then I said, how do you even get a scroll out of a bottle? ‘Cause I tried sticking my finger in there; that got caught. Koa’s just looking at me, you know. She gives me a look, which she does on a…here we go again, another adventure of being a dog and watching my human trying to…oh, the humanity, Koa would say if she could put it to words, but she would mean the surplus that I have.

     

    So, once I got the bottle off my finger, then I tried shaking it. That made the scroll unscroll a little bit, so I could…definitely couldn’t get it out of the bottle. Then I didn’t want to rip it. I did not want to break the bottle because I have a dog and anybody knows, especially with me, if…be like, okay, if I could go somewhere 600 miles away where there’s not gonna be any dogs, I’ll break the glass. But otherwise I can’t effectively break glass without there being a tiny bit…that one of us would step on. More likely me. So, event…and then I tried a pencil, then I tried…what do they call that? Melody Beattie’s like, I tried reasoning with the bottle. I’ll be honest, a little…I did try…I washed it a little bit with Purell. I thought some suction would get that thing out. That didn’t work.

     

    Then I pretended I was in a jug band for like, fifteen minutes. That was unrelated to that. Just passing the time. Actually, no, I think it was helping me think of a solution. Eventually what I used was a pencil with the eraser end, and the eraser was able to have…maintain the friction I needed to get this scroll out and kinda re-scroll it, get it up out of the bottle. Then I was ready for bed, holy cow, after that. But then on top of it, it was a picture, and…of a door. But it wasn’t just any door; it was this door that was absolutely these shades of twilight. Starting at the top…I guess what you would call indigo, and then different lavenders and purples and dark blues and navy, even blacks and grays, and…a cosmic-level door with a matte…kind of like a matte look to it, which is just my thing, man.

     

    I mean, I like shiny doors and actually, I love the sound of shiny doors, because gloss…just to go on another tangent…a gloss door or a matte door, but it would be a matte door with a little sheen to it, like…but a glossy door, it could be a hard gloss or a soft gloss. Paint, you know. I don’t know anything about paint. Again, that’s for the knock…whatever, knock expert. Knock-‘splaining. I can’t even knock-‘splain successfully, but I just…but I guess that’s…we’re not enthusiasts who ‘splain anyways. Because, you know what I’m saying? Just like a…you know what I’m saying. It could be an acrylicy paint. I don’t know if acrylic's the hard or the soft one. So, when I see a shiny door, it does excite me, but I’m also into matte, man, matte doors. So, this was…it looked like a matte.

     

    Again, it was only a picture and it looked like it was cut out of something. I kept it, to be honest. I put it in a frame. I put it up…well, I put it…just…let’s be real; first I put it somewhere where I…of my pile of things I may one day frame, then I realized I was cleaning out my pile of frames that I was holding for the things that would one day be framed. Then I framed it and then I put it in the pile of things which would one day be…I mean, never be hung, but one day maybe they’ll be hung. But you know where I was hung with…and prominently was on my…not on my heart…your enthusiasm heart, your love…what you’re a fan of, right? So, I thought about the door, I wondered what the knock would sound like, and then eventually…this is where you get into…this is no accident, obviously. This is something more.

     

    But some time passed and then Koa and I were out there again, and this bottle bobbed by. It was another bottle and I said oh, there’s a bottle. Then that one had…what is that thing called? A USB stick in there, inside of a plastic bag. So, it was kinda double-protected and the plastic bag, it was taped, too. I said well, that’s interesting. That thing…if I had five hours to ex…that would be the…how long it took me to get that thing outta there. It’s interesting how you could get something wedged in the neck of a bottle, but it doesn’t always want to come out. But it was a silicone spray. That probably added two hours. I think it eventually enabled me to get it out. You know what? Actually, I’ll just be honest with you.

     

    What enabled me to get it out was someone said fill the whole thing up with…I said, what are you, the bird and the jar with the stones? They said fill it up with olive oil. I said, huh. It didn’t work at…well, that worked because once it was jammed in the neck…’cause it was only…I don’t know. It made it…so, I didn’t…wasn’t able to get it out myself but I was able to get to a solution with help from somebody else. Part of me, I guess, hoped what was gonna be on that SD card…but mostly I was like huh, I wonder if this will be…what is this? I said, maybe…and then the person that helped me said can I borrow your computer? They said, why? I said, well…and they said well, I got a old computer, ‘cause I said I’m not gonna stick a USB stick in the podcast computer.

     

    So, we went to somewhere where we had public Wi-Fi from a…you know, and started up their computer and opened it up, and of course there was only one thing on there, and it said thedoor.wav. I said oh boy, uncompressed audio. So, I played it and it was a…and then the person I was with said what is that? They thought it was…what do you call that? They said is that some sort of deep-sea…? I said no, no, no, that’s a…someone’s knocking on a door. They said, who? I said…they said it sounds like a child. I said if I’m guessing, a young female child. I don’t…I’m not good at ages, but somewhere between four and twelve. I said their hand’s closed like a fist but they’re using their…whatever you call it, those four knuckles. I was like, that’s a triple rap; rap, rap, rap, then a pause, rap, rap, rap.

     

    Then another pause and then a palm. They said, what do you think it means? I said, I don’t know. They said well, what do you…I said, my gut reaction? They said, yeah. I said, the palm…I said, in this moment, my…I said, is that…maybe they have to pee a little bit, but not…I said, the first two raps were very official. I said…but I said it’s a young person knocking, so either they’re by themselves or they’re taking the lead. They said, how do you know? I said well, you could…I said you can do some general estimates of size and weight and height and stuff, ‘cause I’ve been doing this a while. They said what are you, a knock detective? I said right…I think right now, yes. Then I went and I obviously took out the pic…I found the picture of the door and I looked at it and I listened to this knock.

     

    I said okay, this…now, there’s no way to know, right, ‘cause I’m not with that door, but at least in my mind, I fused those two things together. I did have a mystery on my hands. The other person got over it. They said okay, it didn’t download anything on my computer, right? I said no, no, it doesn’t look like it. I said, it does look like there was some swamp water. I said, I’m just kidding, I’m just kidding. So, I went home…or, well, I guess I was already home in the other part of this story. I knew I needed help, which of course, like I said, the knock community…now, it’s anonymous…I mean, not 100% anonymous. Not like…it’s more secretive but not in a secret…in a way of…for fun and for privacy.

     

    I don’t want to call it a knock quorum, ‘cause I’m not exactly sure what quorum means, but I needed the help of…I started posting…Sir Knocksalot…that’s not my handle, but I just thought of that one. That would be someone that…a delivery person would be a good Sir Knocksalot. Or if Sir Mix-a-Lot was into knocks, I guess that would be good for Sir Mix-a-Lot. But so, I posted; I said hey, I got this knock mystery, knock conundrum, and people…I told the story and people said…of course, people that I don’t get along with, they said well, how do you know they’re the same…? I said, thanks anyway. Now, the first piece of feedback I got, which was…should have been obvious but it wasn’t to me, was do you still have the bottles that the things came in?

     

    ‘Cause I posted it; I said listen, I got a knock, one recorded knock. Not one knock. But that’s what we call it; one knock, like one knock session, like a single…know what I’m saying? That’s one knock. Or, you’d say a set of knocks is like a group of recordings of knocks. A single knock in a knock is what you might be thinking when I say a knock. But this person knocking on the door, that was a knock even though it was knock, knock…rap, rap, rap, splat, or splot or whatever you want to say. Okay, so I explained all that, searched the door…people did a image search; they couldn’t find the door but they said okay, what about the bottles? The second bottle…in order to fit, I think the USB cord was a bust. It was a local bottle from TJs of all places, ‘cause it had that…the…whatever, where you can put…you can plug your own jug.

     

    But the first bottle, it had…it was clean so we didn’t have anything on it, and it didn’t…it had a couple ridges around the bottom but no writing or anything that I could find. So, people said okay, don’t worry, there’s bottle enthusiasts. So, then we had to reach out to another community, so we…it was kinda fun. This was 2020, so people were comfortable with Zoom now, so people were into it, man. So, we were…I was posting the bottle, I had take…then people said take a picture of it during the day with sunlight filtering. Eventually people said okay, we have a idea of where the bottles are from. Then imagine the community coming together on this.

     

    I would assume there’s a lot of librarians and researchers into these different hobbies, because the power of the people…and so, they figured out that…where the bottle was made, where the bottle was distributed, what it…was in there, and where it was sold, the most likely areas. Now, this did create a bit of a goose chase because then everybody said okay, these are the biggest urban areas. I don’t want to give away anything…and even the people that knew me only by my knock pro…by my KnockLife, they knew me well enough to be like, are you sure this isn’t a doorway to a Northern European institute they want to study you at because of my takes on knocks? I said, could be. I said, but it’d be nicer if they sent me a plane ticket or whatever, you know.

     

    But they did have trouble…again, the door, because it was not a high-quality photo, there was a lot of dis…back and forth on…there was these four panels on the door, like a four-paneled front door. Clearly it was that, to a home or a flat or an apartment…that it was that. I said oh boy, this is exciting. Then they said okay…and eventually someone’s…figured out okay, let’s just look at…maybe the bottle…maybe there’s something else about the bottle that we’re missing, because everywhere that people were guesstimating what the doors were, there was no Venn diagram crossover. Like, they were in two different parts of the world, even their distributions. So, they said okay, this is…the bottle is…everybody believed the bottle was intentional. They said well, maybe the second bottle was intentional, too.

     

    They said okay, so, the only places…the person obviously bought a bottle at Trader Joe’s. They had this other bottle, but…and you know, some people were like, maybe you’re jumping too far. They said, have you been sitting out there…then someone said well, they must know, because then people looked up the tides where I was and they said those tides are moving too fast for it to be random. I said, is…any chance that somebody…have a crush on from Trader Joe’s in the past? They said, probably not. I said okay, well…okay, that’s…but they said, they must know you’re there when you were. They said, have you been sit…? I said yeah, I’ve been sitting out there waiting for another clue. Then people were like well, they know you’re looking. They’re probably in this community right now. I said, really? That’s interesting.

     

    So, I said okay, so we, again, went on a…like, where is this door? Oh, that was the goal. I guess the goal was for me to find this door. I don’t know why. I don’t know why it took me so long to explain that. I think it was obvious. I felt like I was being called to knock on this door, right, or I wanted to see the door. Again, I said okay, so, we have a general idea of…okay, places with Trader Joe’s, places this door could have been sold, and maybe that we have to assume that the person traveled and held this bottle, but there is some clue in the bottle, maybe. Then I said, what about the…? This was me; I’m not…I don’t want to brag, but…’cause maybe everybody knew it already and they were waiting for me to come to it so that I would have some control over my fate. But I said, what about this painting style?

     

    Can we find anything else? Is this the signature painting style of anyone? So, then everybody started looking for that and then we did…again, the cross-referencing. Now, one thing we figured out and that we were saying is like, towns or cities in the United States with the Trader Joe’s with the name or street or prominent thing of the city the bottle was from…either the bottle was made in or one of the cities the bottle was bought in. Oh, also, we did figure out that both of them contained ginger ale. I don’t think that was…other than it would be something I would drink, right? Root beer or ginger ale. Okay, so eventually…this is where we had our breakthrough, right, was that we did find the painter, right? That fit; we found someone that painted not doors in that style, but had that painting style.

     

    So, we found someone that had a connection…so, all the stars were aligned, I guess is what I’m saying. I said okay, well, maybe I’ll…I said maybe I’ll stop making the podcast. I mean, this…in my head, and I’ll take a sabbatical and go there and be a gumshoe and just start…’cause the plan was to interview the person who did the door, and I contacted them and I said, have…is this…and they said oh yeah, I probably painted that door. As a matter of fact, I can remember painting that door. I painted two of them. They told me that the first one they painted…now, this is even more interesting, and they said it’s kind of ironic; it was used in a…what do you call that? A place where you go to stay when you’re traveling in the same city that the bottle of ginger ale was sold, outside of the US.

     

    But they said that place doesn’t exist anymore and the door doesn’t exist anymore with it, and it was lost. Then I…they said I painted another one, and it was weird; the person came in and they said, can you paint this door? They said, that’s all the information I had. They said well, I can’t disclose…it’s professional, whatever, a compact. I said, could you tell me if they were local? They said, I think the door was being used locally. This is somewhere in the part of the US I wasn’t in but that I could get to. So, I said okay, well, I guess…I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I figured I could go there.

     

    My initial plan…a lot of the times what happens to solve problems in Sleep With Me, whether it’s a character or me as a character, is like…my plan was just go there to where the person worked, painting, and spend time with them and be like, until you tell me who you sold this door to, I get it, but I’ll be your…I’m gonna be at your side 24/7. Or, you know, except when I’m asleep. Eventually you’ll tell…you’ll…eventually you’ll want me to…that there’s only so much Scoots you can handle in IRL. So, I said let me go out there and just meet the person, ask them politely before I annoy them. But I also was…I kinda felt a little strange about it. But then what happened but another bottle came when Koa and I were sitting outside.

     

    It was a map that eventually…now, with the internet, it wasn’t too hard to figure out, using landmarks, that it was in this area and it was out…the rural area outside of this small city where this person was based, this painter…that it also had a overlap of all these doors and stuff, or the bottles and whatever, and that this was a map, like somewhere out of town. It had a code on the bottom. So, whatever, I flew there. This is the kind of area where I feel like…I start to get really excited. Everybody was excited about it. I didn’t tell anybody the code, obviously. I hid that ‘cause I said, I don’t want anybody going there first. But so, I went to this town, rented a car, drove the following…I mean, now we had made a map based on the map. But then there was part of the map that went beyond this fence, which is private property.

     

    I drove to the fence and the fence said Only…Private Property: Only People That Hold the Code. So, I put the code in; gate opened up. I drived through this gate, then there’s a parking area. I brought everything I needed; water, food, phone, all that kinda stuff. People knew where I was. I put a Air Pod in my shoe. So, I had all the bases covered. So, then there was a hike, and I hiked, and then it went to a cave. Then I went into this cave and then in the middle of the cave, not that far back…and the cave was already…had these purples and stuff. There was a well, and the well had a bucket and whatever. I said okay, well…and I…luckily I had loose change on me because I didn’t like the way my breath smelled at some point during the drive and I only…I bought gum with money, which was a rare…the odds, all that.

     

    So, then I threw some money down in the well, and then I heard somebody…I heard them hit the ground, you know? Then I sent the well…thing down, and then I tugged. Someone tugged it. So I said holy cow, this is…and then I pulled it up and there was a key in the bucket. I said oh, okay. Then I said Andy, you Goonie. There was no answer to that ‘cause probably no one got the reference ‘cause it’s a dated one. Then I said okay, well, what do I do next? I have a key and it was a old-fashioned key. I said hopefully there’s a secret door somewhere. Eventually I found one. It wasn’t that complicated, but there was…as I started looking around — I had a flashlight — I saw something that kinda looked like a door and there was something like a lever near it, like a rock, but if you pushed it down, the door slid open like out of the movies.

     

    Behind that fake stone door was this purple door. It had the key thing, and so, then I put the…first I got carried away; I put the key in and then I said whoa, whoa, whoa. Then I took my phone out and I knocked on the door, just out of excitement. Then I said oh, wait a second, then I knocked…and then actually, it was funny because I actually had to…I had had a Coke Zero and stuff, so I said oh, wait a second, I kinda gotta pee. I didn’t want to pee…I said, what if somebody’s watching me in this cave, you know? So, I was holding it ‘cause I was trying to figure out…oh, someone has a code and whatever. So then I knocked on the door like in the recording. Then this was the greatest surprise ever; the door opened and behind the door was all these listeners of the podcast and people from the knock community who had organized it, and my daughter.

     

    Oh, you’re the one that was knocking. They said, surprise! I said, holy cow. It was actually a birthday surprise. They said, we read your pitch to [inaudible]. Then I said well, yeah, this doesn’t seem super-exciting. But they said so, we decided to do it for you. Then they said, but it gets better than that, and we went out of the cave. I mean, we had a party in there with kinds of pizza and desserts and stuff. But then…it turns out there’s a secret billionaire that listens to Sleep With Me and is a knock enthusiast, obviously, and they had a knock sculpture garden which is tough to kinda explain because some of it was structures, so it was like indoor and outdoor gardens and stuff, but with all these doors that had meaning to them or that they had commissioned artists to do.

     

    We walked through there and I was like oh, this is kinda my idea of the Dream Door Society, which hopefully now that I’ve recorded this, you’ll hear more about it…you’ll have heard more about it. We would knock on the door…we just had fun going through and looking at art. A lot of people said, is any of this even real, Scoots? I say well, if it makes…then we all lied down together and listened to every…someone was going around knocking on the doors. Instead of campfire tales, we just listened to campfire knocks in the distance. We all fell asleep together and it was wonderful. Goodnight, everybody.

     

    [END OF RECORDING]

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