This is the first week of our four-week holiday break. Today we’re featuring one of Carter’s favorite shows: Truthless. In this episode of Truthless, host Brian Phillips talks to The Kid Mero about the time he landed a job in the mail room at one of New York’s biggest investment banks, as a teenager. After deciding he was ready for a promotion, Mero talked his way into a new job in the IT department. The only problem? He knew nothing about computers. Truthless is out now on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes of Conspiracy Theories will resume December 25th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Full Episode
Hey, Conspiracy Theories listeners, if you missed my holiday break update, this is the first week of our four-week hiatus, but we're still bringing you something I am sure you'll love. Today, I'm sharing an episode from one of my favorite podcasts, Truthless. On our show, sometimes we discover the official story isn't always the truth.
And on Truthless, bestselling author Brian Phillips interviews fascinating people about the outlandish lies they've told. Be sure to subscribe to Truthless wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll share a link in the show notes. New episodes of Conspiracy Theories will resume December 25th.
All right, let me tell you a story. So a long time ago on the island of Crete, there was this guy called Daedalus. Daedalus was an inventor. If he lived today, he'd have one of those social media bios that just says like, I make things, you know, the kind that, like, web designers love to have. I make things.
Daedalus actually did make things, and one of the things he made was this unbelievable maze, this labyrinth so complicated no one could find their way through it. He made this labyrinth for the king of Crete who needed a way to imprison his own stepson. This stepson, you see, well, not a bad kid, but he had a complicated medical condition that unfortunately made him about 50% malevolent bovine.
That's right, the Minotaur. the original cowboy. So long story short, a hero called Theseus comes along, solves the maze, kills the Minotaur. The king's upset and he gets suspicious. Did Daedalus tell Theseus how to get through the labyrinth? Daedalus didn't, but the king doesn't believe him. So he takes Daedalus and Daedalus's son, who is 0% cow, and locks them both in a tower.
Daedalus is like, well, this sucks. I don't want to live in a tower. Fortunately, Daedalus is a genius, so he figures out a way to escape. What he does is he invents wings, just casually builds some wings. He and his kid, a boy called Icarus, are going to fly right out of the tower. So Daedalus straps the wings on Icarus and he's like, okay, flying is easy.
You've just got to remember this one weird trick. Don't go too high because if you get too close to the sun, it'll melt the wax on your wings and you will fall. So Icarus takes off and it's so fun. He's got puffy white clothes. clouds all around him, and the blue sea down below, and he's just so happy. He's so happy, in fact, that he keeps flying higher. And, well, you know how this goes.
He gets way too high. And just like his dad warned him, the sun melts the wax on his wings, and his story ends with a little cartoon slide whistle like...
I lighted my resume verbally to get a promotion. I started working at Lehman Brothers pre-9-11. This is a young Merrill. So I'm in the mailroom and I'm not making any money. And I was like, yo, there's an opening in the IT department. Young Merrill knows how to use computers to download pornography and use LimeWire. Young Merrill does not know how to fix a broken monitor.
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