Motion to Adorn

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
This week, Motion to Adorn. Brannon brings the case against his friend Anna.
Anna says that Brandon's apartment is boring.

She wants to help him create a decorative vision for his home. But Brannon is content.
He wants Anna to accept the way his home looks and to stop buying knickknacks for him.

Who's right, who's wrong, only one can decide. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

I remember years ago, I got a set of Rhinox riders, and these are like hairy rhinoceros being ridden by ogres.

And the Rhinoxes had very well sculpted butts. They were really fun to paint.
Also, it's true, nipples on armor is always cool. Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in.

Brandon and Anna, please rise and raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you, God or whatever? Yes.
Yes.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that if you're watching on YouTube, you can see that his office has been decorated by Ken Plume, who sent him an Indian movie poster that he just put up on the wall and has had there ever since.

Yes. Yes.
Judge Hodgman, you may proceed. I think I brought that one up again recently.
But just to be, just to be clear, the movie poster, which has now become a treasured part of my office life,

that Ken Plume donated without asking to my wall body

is now

I love it.

And it is the only thing that Ken Plume has put into this office, aside from a copy of DuckTales, The Art of DuckTales that he wrote, available wherever you can get your books now, and you should get it.

The rest of this mishmash of knickknacks is mine. It's not Ken Plume.
It's blame me. Go look over on the YouTube.
You can check out my brand new camera. Hi, everybody.
And look at this.

When I bang my desk, the camera doesn't move because we made some adjustments. Anyway, Anna and Brannon, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of your spheres.

Can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered this courtroom? Why don't we start with Anna?

I have no idea.

But you must guess, Anna. I must.

Dolly Parton.

Dolly Parton.

dolly parton and i'll stick with it which song jolene i will always love you nine to five or all of the above i think it was from an obscure interview she did uh it's not found online it's recorded in newspaper clippings and you just really scoured through

you know judge hodgman loves micro fiche

I love microfiche and I love a montage in a movie of me scrolling through microfiche in a library.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, I used to love it.
All right, Brandon, you've heard Anna's guess. What's yours?

You know, it sounds kind of like the writing style of the Glenn Weldon book, The Caped Crusade, is a book about the history of Batman.

Glenn Weldon, friend of the show, and

that's a wonderful book by him about the history of Batman. I love that book.
True. Not just Batman, but fan culture broadly.
It really is a wonderful book.

Yes, but speaking of fan culture, all guesses are wrong. Dang.

You picked the wrong fandom. I really, really wish that Dolly Parton had a Twitch stream

where she would paint Warhammer figurines from time to time. That would be really exciting to me.
That would be so good.

But I did pick a Warhammer reference for reasons that should become clear over the course of this podcast episode.

And it was not Dolly Parton that I was quoting, but the Warhammer painter extraordinaire

and

the Flophouse cat himself, Stuart Wellington of the Flophouse, on his Twitch stream.

Now, we all know Stuart Wellington is the co-host of the Flophouse podcast here on Maximum Fun, along with our friends Dan McCoy and Elliot Kalen.

Everyone take a listen if you haven't yet, but he is also an avid Warhammer player and Warhammer figurine assembler and painter. And from time to time, you will go on his Twitch stream and paint some

rhinoxes or whatever, some ogres or space junk or what have you. And it's a lot of fun.

If you had guessed correctly that this was Stuart Wellington, I would have said, well, which particular Twitch stream was it? Was it twitch.tv slash videos slash 2279-199587 from October 17, 2024?

And you probably wouldn't have been able to guess that. But as it is, we're going to do the case anyway.

By the way, I should mention that Stuart has a wife who is a whole human being in her her own right named Charlene.

They own a couple of wonderful bars together here in Brooklyn, and they are opening, and Charlene in particular is opening an alternative fitness studio focused on movement, joy, and community called Jiggle.

And they're raising money for this wonderful new fitness studio. And if you want to support that cause, which I think is wonderful and learn more about it, go to bit.ly slash jiggle.

Did you, can you believe, Jesse, that the bit.ly was available, jiggle? I can't believe it. J-I-G-G-L-E, all caps.

All right. Anyway, go jiggle over there at bit.ly slash jiggle.
Meanwhile, we're going to dispend some justice. Who seeks justice in this court of fake law? I suppose that's me.
I brought

the case here. And you're here because you want your friend Anna to stop buying you knickknacks for your home.
You want a ness on knacks, correct? Correct. Yes.
What's the problem?

So basically what happened is when my last former roommate moved out, now I'm alone in this apartment. And

Anna is definitely the most prominent, but certainly not the only person who insists that I decorate more and have a much more cohesive decorative vision for my house and

has attempted to

enforce this by buying me things that she wants me to decorate with.

What kind of things, well, I mean, we're going to go into the details, but give me one example of a thing that Anna has bought without your request or permission.

A little bamboo plant was one. A little bamboo plant.
It's like medium height. Yeah, it's beautiful, lovely, adds to the space.

And how did she get it in there without your permission? Did you sneak in, Anna? She

dropped off a bunch of things on my doorstep and said, Your stuff is outside and left. Actually, I left it in your garage.
I opened your garage

and I thought I left it in there.

No, that's that might have been a separate item. No, you left my drill in the garage.
You left the stuff on the doorstep. That is true.

There has been some amount of perhaps breaking and entering somebody's stuff in the apartment. There is some physical trespass as well as perhaps emotional trespass going on.
Okay.

Now, Anna, it says here that

you and Brandon live in Colorado. Yes.
And that you've known each other for a long time. You're friends, but you started as frenemies in middle school, Anna.

Can you explain so i don't even say frenemies i would say full enemies in begin in the beginning oh phenomies phlemies

and even better middle school enemies phenomies if you will middle school phlemies yes um tell me more what happened i did not care for his energy he brought a very chaotic energy to the classroom and in middle school it's really important that you don't mess with the energy of the room.

And he really, he threw off the mojo of every room I was in.

You fought with teachers? Yeah. All the time.

What would you fight with teachers about in middle school, Brandon? Do you remember? So the problem was, is that my mom taught at this middle school. So I knew a lot of them.

And they had like been to my house. They had been over to your house, right? They had been to my house and such.

You had collateral on them. Yes.
And so they had, they had,

you know, I am much more familiar with a lot of these people and I would push back a lot because, again, I was in middle school. And I think, you know, it's fair to say that you can,

you don't have to be 100% on it in middle school.

No, but I mean, it's also not worth fighting about to some degree, too.

And I guess you don't know that in middle school, particularly if you're bringing chaos energy wherever you go. Yeah, exactly.
And I think the big tipping point was for similar reasons.

My mom put all of my friends in not her class because she didn't want to have to deal with that.

And so what happened was, and I think Anna was in this English class, this like critical mass of everyone that I had known. And it kind of got a little bit out of hand.

And Anna was, you know, stuck in there being like, I need you to not be disrupted. I basically lived in an environment where the class was taken over by the Brandon friend group.
And I was a victim.

I was a citizen in a town that was overrun by intruders. And the king of my town could not teach.
And that really upset me.

You are a prisoner of the Brannon gang. Yes.

This is a truly convoluted metaphor that I am really enjoying. This town has a king whose job it is to teach.

The free city state of Mr. Wilson's sixth grade English class.
And you took over like the resources. Yeah.

The gum economy was in shambles. And that's so important in middle school.
Had to stand in line for lip smackers.

So, I mean, that was some time ago.

You're in your 20s now. How do two Phlenemies become Flennes?

That's Full Friends, by the way.

Was it the Fried Pickles at Good Times? It could have been that. No, because it was before.
That was definitely.

I think it had to be the Fred Pickles at Good Times. I just sort of assumed it was the Fred Pickles at Good Times.

Are you saying Fred Pickles or Fried Pickles? Fried pickles. And there's a chain in Colorado, very good.
If you're in Colorado, go called Good Times.

Okay.

It is tough because if you tell people, I want to go to Good Times, they assume that you mean certain things by that.

But it is

like romantic or amorous things. Yeah.

Yes. But it is a real restaurant and not a code word.
It is a real place.

You know, if somebody said to me that they wanted to go to Good Times, you know what I would say, Judge Hodgman? I don't know. What? Dino Might.
Dino Might.

Jimmy J.J. Walker says, Dino Might.

Shout out to the elderly.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is brought to you every week by you, our members, of course.

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You went to get some fried pickles at good times and suddenly you were able to bury the hatchet. That could have been it.
I think it was that. And then honestly, I think it was

no, because we were friends a little bit in high school before. So it must have been that.
I have honestly no idea at the exact flip moment.

With all due respect, if you thought we were friends in high school, that was just you. No, like very close to the end, I feel like it was, well, it was enough to invite you to my house, right?

We became friends because we went to the same college. And so we reconnected because most of my friends from high school had moved out, but I did know my enemy, my Flenemy.

So it was somewhere around that.

Hang on.

What change happened in Brannon? Because he still seems to be bringing the same chaos energy and King Hodgman is not able to teach right now.

You are pretty similar.

So maybe I just, I accepted change. In fact, it says here that at one point, this home that Brannon is currently not decorating properly, according to you, was also your home, Anna.

Were you a roommate there at one point as well? That is correct. And that's also why I feel like I have somewhat of a claim to the house because I did live there for a year.

How would you describe Brandon's terrible, terrible taste in home decor? I'm so glad you asked.

Me too. It's like if you walked into a hotel, but then took out all the classic hotel decoration.

and then replaced all the furniture in the hotel with furniture that people left outside their house for free.

That's also an accurate origin story for most of my furniture. You did collect it off the street.
Yeah.

But primarily you're concerned with wall decoration and you send in some evidence

of Brannon's taste here. Well, who sent in this evidence? Brannon, you sent in this evidence.
I had to presume that this was Anna who sent in the evidence because it

does not really favor your side. No, and

that's fair.

I sent it in because I lived there and I figured it was only fair to have

the pictures. Well, the photos obviously will be available on our show page at maximumfund.org, as well as on our Instagram account and other socials.

Tell me what we're seeing here. Exhibit A, downstairs, main room, south wall.
There's a Warhammer poster here. That's why I did the Warhammer thing earlier.
Yes. That's something you enjoy.

Yeah, that is something I enjoy. And that's definitely something that we have.

I have, I got Anna into, actually. We're both painting now,

and which is why I'm embarrassed that I didn't catch the stream reference earlier, but there you have it.

Yeah, we're both painting. We paint together sometimes.
So, yeah, there's a Warhammer. Painting Warhammer figurines.
Yes, correct. Yes.
Rhinox butts all the way. Yeah.
No,

those figures have some good butts. I'll be the first to admit that.

Well, you're the second, actually.

That's true. You know what? That's on me.

But yeah, so yeah, there's a nice little poster there that I thought was fun. And this is a poster for a

Warhammer comic book or something. Yeah, a a video game.
I got it in the white dwarf magazine that I'm subscribed. All right.
You got to say the name.

Fair enough.

And now, for those who can't see the image right this moment, there are some diagonal wooden planks.

Is this a wall or a floor? So I want to actually bring up Anna started this. This particular thing.
Anna started. So we were living together in 2020.

The particular thing being papers taped to the wall. Papers taped to the wall.
No frames. That's right.
Because what I wanted to say is, so

the slatting on the wall is diagonal, which is strange. That's why.
And also it does, aside from this poster, it looks like you dumped a bunch of papers onto a floor. Yes.
Like printouts and stuff.

So what are we looking at here, Anna? What did you start back in 2020? Okay. So I was in school, in college during COVID, and I was, I can't remember what class I was in.

There was some sort of class I was in where we talked about the importance of

a certain case where a company was trying to like boost the cost of like a what HIV drug? A lot of drugs. A lot of drugs.

And what's very interesting is that the court, they could not find a jury for this case because everyone hated the defendant. And so Skrelly, we're talking about.
Yes.

The entrepreneur who bought that drug company and then jacked up all the prices because he's a creep. Exactly.

And he also famously bought that secret Wu-Tang clan album. I'm then trying to forgot about that.
And they mentioned that. They mentioned that in the transcripts.

So you're following this case and you're looking at the transcripts and you're like, this would look great on the wall. It was during COVID.
I must say, my brain wasn't all there. I accept that.

I accept that. I don't know why you were putting up transcripts of the Martin Shkrelli trial up on your wall.

I'm a little confused as to why you're not connecting certain sentences with pieces of yarn as though it's some sort of conspiracy

map because it does, this does scream

isolated from society right now. Yeah, it's missing a few Polaroids and some string, but other than that, you're there.

But you don't live there anymore, Anna. Brannon, you've chosen to keep this up as a tribute to your old remains.
I've kept it up and expanded. Yes.
So, yes,

the Martin Shkrelli, which is the big on the right-hand side with the highlighted sections, that's the Martin Shkrelli.

Jury selection thing right next to it, the sort of yellow, red, gold thing, that is the funniest political ad I've ever received.

And so it gets to go up on the wall because it's a comical exercise in bad judgment, in my opinion.

What is contained on these pieces of paper clearly has personal interest to you.

But what strikes me more than anything is that it looks like

you just

threw them up there with tape on the back. Yeah.
It appears to be a spill. Yes.
Yeah.

Less of an arrangement than

a vertical spill. Yes.

And that's correct. Brandon, what are you putting these up with? Is it like scotch tape or painter's tape or command strips or what?

I don't know why this is so important to me, but it's really important to me. Yes, it's command strips.
I have an objection.

Yeah, there are a few of those that are just put up with scotch tape. Yes.
Command strips would be a step up. Yeah, well, that goes back to you, Anna.
That's your fault.

You could have framed and mounted the Martin Scurley transcripts personally more artfully, you know, but you chose to tape him up there and he just followed your lead all the way down the hallway to exhibit B, downstairs mainly

north wall. And what we're looking at here is two walls on either side of a hallway.
There's a small table. On that, there are a few items on the wall.
We don't have to go through all of them. Sure.

Yeah. Unless there's something you really want to draw your attention.
There's a Halo

3 poster, I want to say.

It's taped up at something of a non-perfect angle. There's a very tiny little thing.
There's a monitor. And on the table in front of the monitor is a book that is highlighted here.

What is the name of that book? That book is Kicking Techniques for Competition and Self-Defense by Roy Kerbin. And this is my signed copy.
Kicking Techniques.

And we're talking about martial arts. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kicking techniques for competition and self-defense. And did you go to a signing and a dojo to get the signed or what?

Was this just signed at a kicking competition? This was actually signed at my fourth degree black belt promotion. Oh, wow.
Congratulations. Thank you.

It was at the, so the owners of the studio that I attended, it was their respectively seventh and eighth degree promotions.

And so Grandmaster Kerbin came down or came up, I suppose, from Texas to Colorado to promote them. What degree of black belt are you now? This is my, this was very recent.

I just got my fourth degree in August. Oh, so you're at you're at fourth now.
Yep. When will you be, when will you kick it up, if I may, to fifth? The thing is, I don't know if I ever will.

Fifth is kind of a higher rank. That's when, at least in the system that we use, that's when you get the master title.
And I don't know if I'll ever be at that point. So that's something

known as master chaos.

I mean, so yes, because that's awesome. But I don't know.
I don't know if that's that. That decision is not up to me.
That's up to the people who will decide if I'm worthy of it. Because you are

seated right now at the wonderful Ponderosa studio in Fort Collins, thank you, Ponderosa, and there's lots of expensive equipment and you have headphones on and everything else, I'm not going to ask you to do this till the end.

But at the end, will you please give a kicking demonstration for ours? Yeah, yeah, sure, sure.

I'll do anything. Yeah.
Don't let them leave Jennifer Marmor till he kicks. You don't have to ask Brandon twice to kick.

That's his whole deal.

I wish I'd worn different pants, but yeah,

I'll do it. So, this is sort of a coffee table book that has pride of place in your home.

And like all decorative books, you've put it as close to the edge of the circular table as possible to make it seem like it's going to fall off at any moment. Correct.
Correct. Gotcha.

Okay, good, good. Judge Hodgman, I feel like I need to take an opportunity to speak to what I'm seeing in these photographs and the feeling that it's engendering within me,

which is that based on this and and previous Judge John Hodgman cases, I have a profound concern that all Judge John Hodgman listeners have giant walls with tiny things on them.

I'm not even sure that the walls are that giant.

The things might be very small. The things are quite small, I will admit.

As we go now to the west-facing wall, exhibit C, we are seeing exactly what Jesse is trying to describe: a big expanse of wall, and then a bunch of small postcard size things and posters that, again, are not framed, but sort of taped up haphazardly.

You know, in the old days, we would have used a blue tack. Remember that stuff? That little like bluey stuff that you put on there that makes your walls and your posters greasy? Yeah.
It's crazy.

You got some kind of like

some kind of ancient warrior and plate mail down here and some maps of some fantasy lands, I presume. Tell me what we got.
Okay, yeah.

So lower right, that is actually the mascot of White Dwarf magazine.

They got a thing out for their, I put it up because it was their 500th issue, and this is, this is Grombrindahl, the white dwarf. The mascot of the magazine.
The mascot of White Dwarf Magazine.

Yeah, yeah, of course. Sorry, I wasn't listening.
What's this down here? Grombrindahl? Grombrindahl, of course. Okay, just wanted to confirm it.
Yeah.

Grombrindahl. Yeah, yeah.

And I'm definitely mispronouncing that. And I'm going to get some mail from some angry individuals.
But yeah.

Brennan do you have anything framed in your whole apartment no I find framing to be unnecessarily ostentatious yep okay just gonna note that

continue yeah yeah yeah yeah so um well other than things people have purchased for me but we'll get to that so so right right above uh our best friend Grombendahl is actually a piece that her sister made um that was in her first uh little art show in in

Anna's sister yes and

sister Naomi

at her first art show. Personal art.
That's very nice. And I wanted that.
That was something I wanted commemorated.

To the right of that, we have a very useful flowchart in my personal life, which is a which Shakespeare play should you see flowchart

that my mom got for me. Yeah, my mom has one in her house and in her English classroom.
I think all middle school English teachers are issued one of these posters. Yeah, yeah.

Just as all middle school science teachers are issued one of those posters of Einstein that says imagination is more important than knowledge or whatever.

And if they're not, they should be. Yeah, so right below that, we have the fantasy map of the Silmarillion,

which is my preferred Tolkien work. And my main reason that I prefer the Silmarillion is the elvish heroes do not have the support of God, and that makes their struggles more interesting to me.
Whoa.

I'm just going to absorb that while you explain

the three postcards. Yes, so the three postcards, I actually got.
And J.R.R. Tolkien cosmology, what's the name of the god, the super god? Einu? Eru Eluvatar.
Eru Aluvar. Eru Aluvatar.
Yeah.

All right.

I'm going to get some letters too. I just figured we ought to both care

letters. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
We love letters. We love the posters.
You're saying in Silmarillion, the elves were doing it on their own. There was no God?

Well, no, they were just actively acting against God's will and God's plan. Okay.
They were fourth-degree black belt chaos engines as well, is what you're saying. That's what you felt.

So the next thing we have some little art cards from,

and I am going to mangle this pronunciation, so I apologize to French people. But artist Philippe Drier,

a couple of the lone Sloan. This is some wild, yeah, this is like very 1960s French comic book stuff.
Very intricate, very

Baroque, not very demure. I like it.
Okay, cool. I'm learning things.
Go on. Is that what you based your Warhammer paint scheme on? Yes, yes.
Yeah, so I did base my Warhammer paint schemes off of his

coloring.

So, all right.

What

you used to live here, Anna.

Yes. What did it look like when you were in charge of the walls? So I will be honest, it looked kind of similar.
Okay. And I...
And you did put up the Martin Shkrelli stuff to begin with.

I did put up the Martin Shkrelli stuff.

However, after I moved out, I

experienced the joy of decorating. It changed my life.
And I want Brandon to also experience that joy. And it is probably physically painful for me to go back into that house and I go,

I see what it could be. And I've left this behind and you're still stuck there.
What is he doing wrong to your mind? I mean, I've got my opinions, but what is your vision for this apartment?

So I knew that I ran the risk of being biased because

I want to be right here.

So I put it up to a survey and I asked the collective people what we thought could happen.

And I did get some responses back. And I did ask, I said,

if we could decorate Brandon's apartment and like fit his vibe, like what would, what would the look be? I noticed you're ducking out of giving your own opinion, though.

Okay.

We're starting broad. We'll pull it up.
Okay. Okay.
Okay. Okay.
I see. I see.
Okay. So this is a good, this is good.
So you, you, you created a focus group of your friends. I did.

And, and people who know you and who know Brandon. Yes.
And these people include, it seems here, Taryn, Clarissa, Eli, and Jocelyn. And three others not named.

Yes, there are more people who responded. However, I forgot to ask for their names.
So they just didn't say their name.

That's fine. Do you know them? Do you know their names? Yes.

Taryn, Clarissa, Eli, Jocelyn, Naomi. Naomi, Malcolm Clare.
Malcolm Clare.

Okay. I did get Omi's friends who live in a different state, but visited Brandon's apartment once also give their opinion.
They didn't. Well, you can't.
We have to throw out those responses.

Yeah, they're not. I'm not in the responses.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I mean, if you don't live in Colorado, you wouldn't understand the decorative motif known as Colorado mid-century bleak.

So the first question in your survey

is, in one word, how would you describe the atmosphere of Brandon's apartment? And would you read the responses, the seven responses, in order, please? The first one is sad.

Second one is nerdchiller. And then in parentheses, bachelor nerd.
Nerdchalor, bachelor nerd.

College dormy.

Dry,

minimal. Someone just said, meh.

Yeah. And then liminal, which I thought was crazy because liminal is not a place you want to sit down and hang out.
It is for me.

Now, liminal, as we know from discussions of the liminal space subreddit that I frequent, there's a lot of debate over what liminal is what is and is not liminal, but it means a transitional space

where humans do not normally expect to spend time, but instead move through and get past.

I mean, to be fair, this does have the look of a liminal space that sits between elementary school and middle school. God bless.

It looks like

a waiting room in purgatory.

I was also going to say purgatory. They're really selling me on my own design choice.

That's crazy that you would say that. I can't get worked up about this.
I, years ago, when I was in college, I had, and indeed still have this friend named Dan.

And my friend Dan is, you know, he spent most of his sophomore, my freshman year of college as my neighbor in the dorms.

He was just in there playing guitar with his headphones on next to a giant like fabric flag of the Pink Floyd prism. You know what I mean? He was just having that classic lifestyle.

Sure.

I believe it was his junior year of college. He announced to us that the new Dan was here.

Yeah. And the new Dan had a single dorm room, still in the dorms, but it had a single.
Sure. And out went all of the

Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin memorabilia, even frankly, all of the pavement memorabilia, which was a new addition to his life. And it was replaced by tasteful lighting

not just the brutal overhead lights of the dorm and those kind of

posters for French apertifs that you might see

in a Fort Collins cafe

oh gun wood

like a like a belle paque compari uh painting exactly and and a few and a few of Dan's original paintings which are quite lovely Dan started his painting career painting Warhammer figurines, which I know because he had a little tiny single or like three-hair brush for painting figurines that he used to change my ID card so I could get into clubs.

God bless Dan.

And I'll tell you this about

my friend Dan. The new Dan worked.

The new Dan was

inviting to others, including those, and particularly those in whom he might have romantic interest, in a way that the old Dan was not.

And the new Dan had a more rewarding life, not just because of the interest of others in his aesthetics, but because he had invested in the aesthetics of his own life and lived now in a more beautiful and comfortable environment, even though he was doing it on a college student's budget, shopping at the poster stand at the student union.

Well, that's a wonderful story, Jesse, but I honestly don't see what it has anything to do with Brannon wanting to live on a bench in an airport hallway with a picture of an elf above him.

Yeah, I want to be honest.

You say that, you know,

it sounds disparagingly. This is, you're talking, this is my ideal.

Honestly, Anna, he enjoys it. What possible standing could you have to tell him to change the way he wants to live? I have what I've outlined as a three-part argument for why he needs to change.

I will hear all three parts. The first part I call the hostly duty.
The hostly duty, because

even though you live in your space, would you say that other people sometimes exist also in that space? Yeah.

And would you say that you want to give them a good experience?

Yeah.

This is why I want you to try it, because I think I can change your mind once you give it like a good honest shot. I didn't try decorating until I lived with someone who did super decorate.

And when she took her stuff off the wall, I felt in my being different.

And there is a, there is like a primal part of the back of your brain that is unlocked when you decorate because it, it's like probably the same thing that like big cats feel when they like find a good cave.

You feel safe. You feel like this is your cave.
I like book two. I like book two a lot.
What's book three?

Okay, book three is, and I, I'm sorry to say this, but the incel factor. The incel factor.
The incel factor.

Your favorite Robert Ludlam novel.

I want you to find success in your love life.

That's a nicer way of putting that one to what you told me earlier. I want the best for you.
Yes. I put it in different, perhaps more harsh words earlier earlier before we were recording.

And you're suggesting that his love life might suffer because

his home is decorated with taped-up posters of fantasy dwarves. Yeah, this big beard guy makes me pretty horny.
He's pretty hot. I gotta say, Gromdingball or whatever his name is.

I think if I were a girl and I was going to someone's place and I see

a couch with no cushions, no throw blankets,

Things taped on the wall.

The factor of the things that are taped on the wall are Warhammer, which as much as I love Warhammer.

There's a connotation. There's a connotation.

And I don't think that a girl would see that and go, I would like more of this, please. Now, Anna, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Let me be Grom Brindahl's advocate here for a moment. Grom Brindahl's advocate, by the way, is Rum Tum Tugger.

You and I agree that walking through this gallery of depressing pieces of paper stuck to the wall,

I wouldn't want to hug and kiss Brannon. No offense, Brannon.
You seem cool. This wouldn't be for me, right? But

don't you think that Brandon deserves to be with someone who shares his aesthetic, who might be excited about the art of kicking or whatever?

Kicking techniques for competition and self-defense? Excuse me. Kicking techniques for competition and self-defense?

I think

no, because I know what kind of. You're saying there's no one out there for Brandon? Well, I'm saying the women that Brandon wants are the artsy girls.

And the artsy girls definitely care about what's on the wall. Well, how does that make you feel? I mean, is Anna, is what Anna's saying with you resonating with you at all?

In a sense, yes.

In the sense that I have heard this before

from

a previous long-term romantic partner who would agree very heartily with Anna.

But, you know, as I said to her at the time, is I have to have some barriers somewhere for being a Freakazoid human being because, you know,

I have to, you know, not be a deeply unsettling gremlin of a man for 90% of my life. And I would like to be able to acknowledge that part of my true self while I'm at home.

You consider yourself to be a gremlin?

A little bit, yeah.

I don't know. Pretty hot.
Gremlin seems maybe a little too complimentary, but it kind of works for where we are right now.

Let me understand your argument here. You have to pretend to be someone else outside in the world.
And when you get home, you don't want to have to pretend anymore. Yes.

And not pretending means.

living exactly the way that you've decorated this apartment. Yes, living in a poorly maintained airport terminal.

That's your, I mean, you, you brightened up. You brightened up when Anna's survey said liminal.
You liked it. Yeah, yeah.

I don't think Jocelyn knew that he was going to get that response out of me, but yeah. Anna, what did you get? What did you give to, what did you give to Brannon?

There's a picture here of some, what, what Brannon calls, the term he uses here is aggressively intentional decor. Yes.
I think frames is like the easiest thing to check off the list.

Like, try framing stuff, it'll change your life. And so, I got him some what I had intended to just be frames just from the ARC.
It was like $2.

Have you

is like a thrift store or something? Yes. Oh, a great thrift store.
It's an amazing thrift store.

I got him frames. I thought you could put some of the art that you already have and already cherish in the frames.
I'm going to be honest. I did not know that was the intention until just now.
Okay.

So that's excellent.

I really appreciate this clarification

because the photo is of three

frames two of which have identical photos in them of something or another it's a little hard to see and i don't hate

whatever whatever's in the photos looks like a metaphor for death yeah of some kind and then the third photo is some christmas trees and it says joy to the world and i was like if this is anna's idea of an upgrade i might not be able to make a ruin today but i will thank you in any case for submitting this photo because in case there was any concern about the walls of the apartment being extra depressing, I now can see the full beige wall-to-wall carpeting upon which you trod every day.

I love it. I'm sorry.

I mean, it's so aggressively institutional

feeling and like.

And anonymous and like, you know, as, you know, like bad therapist waiting room feel. It's, it's really something.

I admire you for a lot of reasons, Anna, not least because you submitted two pie charts to the court

representing findings from your survey.

The first chart represents,

you asked your respondents if decorating factors into making guests feel comfortable. That is book one, the hostly duty.
Yes.

What percentage of people responded? Yes, decorating makes guests feel comfortable. 100%.

100%. A perfect pie.

Next, you asked your friends if they feel comfortable in Brannon's apartment. What percentage answered, yes? 100%.

Very interesting.

Very interesting. A perfect pie

of people said that they feel comfortable in Brannon's apartment. How do you explain this discrepancy?

I will say, in Anna's defense, I'm 99% sure her sister abstained because there's only six responses on that piece.

So six out of seven feel comfortable in this apartment.

How do you explain this? I deny the results. I think people got confused.
And I think they got confused about the wording.

And I think people thought I was asking, would you feel comfortable if it was decorated? You had time to clarify. I did.
Yeah, you're saying that you bungled your leading questions.

You're bad at push surveys. I don't like this unskewing the points that you're trying to do.
It just 100% seems really high.

Brandon, you told our producer, Jennifer Marmor, that creating the kind of coherent decorative vision that Anna is hoping for you would be a lie. Yes.

What do you mean by that? Why would making your apartment look less depressing be a lie? Because

it feels like presenting a false front to me because because I would never do that.

Like, I would never do that without outside influence. And also, you know, to your point of saying, like, would anyone look at this and be like, I want more of this?

If the answer is no, I want that answer to be no, because then they know what they're getting into. I mean, let me ask you this question.
If, let's say,

Anna or someone else were to say, hey, what if I were to take these posters and get them framed nicely for you?

You would say say no yeah got it interesting and if i were to rule in one in your favor what would be one representative change that you would want me to order brandon to do to make

i would like brandon to go

i think into a thrift store so it's affordable it's easy find one thing that speaks to you that you would decorate your house with and like earnestly not as a bit, actually care about it.

Earnestly buy a thing and present it in your house.

That could be a throw pillow. That could be like a blanket, but like you gotta mean it.

Brannon,

the argument has been made that

you are missing the primal instinct of joy in your home. Yes.

Do you deserve joy?

The breath is because I want to say no, but I feel like that's going to play poorly. Not that I deserve to be unhappy either.
I appreciate your honesty.

Yeah. Yeah.
The answer is no, I think. I think.
You seem like a joyful person in a way, but

what I'm getting from this is that

spareness of your lodging is a reflection of a certain despair that you feel in your, in yourself. Yeah.
And if I were to rule in your favor, what would you have me rule?

Except that I am also a very bleak person and that means the decor, as is, and whatever random documents. I thought about adding the

this is this is a real story that Anna doesn't know because it happened entirely in my own head, but I thought about adding the agenda from my first ever board of adjustment meeting to the wall of documents, and then I felt that that was too uh too much of a brag, so I decided not to and I recycled it.

I don't know what the board of adjusters are. It's a board, a quasi-judicial board adjudicating setback variances in unincorporated Larimer County land that I was appointed to in August.

Congratulations. Thanks.

A hobby of yours, a civic duty. Yeah, no,

I enjoy governance boards, and I think more people should participate in them. It's funny because I don't get the impression that you, you know, you have your interests and you enjoy.

hanging them on the wall. Yes.
Right? I mean, it's not, it's not as though you have completely bare walls. Right.

Because you, because any expression of interest or delight that you might hang on the wall would seem to be selfish or self-aggrandizing. You have stuff that you like on the wall.

So what about the Board of Adjustment agenda letters seem to braggy to you?

It's a position of genuine power that I have. And that feels.

like I not again, I'm not, you know, I'm not Robert Mosesing it all over and like crushing people's neighborhoods, but I do vote on whether or not certain building proposals can get approved.

And that felt different than just my own personal interest.

I think this is the first time I've heard you refer to the wall of documents.

This is the wall with the Martin Shkrelly stuff on it. Yes.
Yeah. The wall of documents.
The wall of documents. Interesting.
All right.

I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I'm going to go stand in the doorway between the bathroom and the hallway and try to channel some real liminal energy and come back to you

in a moment with my verdict. please rise as judge john hodgman exits the courtroom

uh brandon how are you feeling about your chances i mean you know bleak or just keep with the theme i i understand that this is not a very commonly held position um i do not expect that i will be allowed to make decisions that may be actively worse for me how do you feel anna

I understand I have an uphill battle. I am basically telling someone what to do with their own space in their own time.
But my desire to be right outweighs my moral compass here.

We'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say when we come back in just a moment.

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Let's get back to the case.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

So first of all, let me say what a pleasure it's been to get to know both of you. And I really have to lay down my first ruling very severely right up top, which is to say that,

Brannon, you deserve to feel joy. I hate to say that.
You're a very, you're a very, I think that Anna would agree with me in saying that you're a very special person.

You're a very special, high-kicking gremlin. You obviously devote a lot of yourself to your friends and maintaining those friendships.
You have full friendships, flanships, as we say.

And also, that you devote yourself to civic enterprise, I think, is very admirable.

And I think that despite what you're trying to convey, in fact, you do have an aesthetic.

You know, I think that it's,

I mean, mean, I'm, I have never met Clarissa, but I will say that Clarissa is wrong when she says the apartment that he has so much color in his life, his apartment needs more of that.

Everything in this apartment is chosen and curated

to

Brannon's

strange point of view in life, shall we say?

Yeah, I'll sign off on that.

His interests are are being reflected here, honestly.

And,

you know, not only his interests in

the more obscure footnotes to the Lord of the Rings

cosmology,

but as well, you know, art that he likes by people that he likes, including, you know, Anna, your sister, and so forth.

His devotion to martial arts is represented by this signed book. What is it? You have a good attitude, right? You have a good attitude.
A great attitude is what was said to me. I think

that what is missing and that what I'm responding to, and I'll say it plainly, negatively, right, is not that the work that's on the walls itself, but the seeming lack of intentionality.

It is that impermanence that the scotch tape conveys, right?

As well as the sort of slapdashery of the way stuff has been tacked to the wall, not even lined up with itself.

Not to mention what Jesse has diagnosed in episodes before and now, that walls don't have to be covered with art, but at the same time, you don't want the art to emphasize the lack of other stuff on the wall, if you see what I mean.

Like too small for big walls, that kind of thing.

It is, it speaks to what Anna identifies as a book two of the trilogy uh which is the primal instinct I do think that the the way your space is arranged does whisper to your unconscious you know

and you present as someone who seems very cheerful And you have a lot of joy in your life, and yet you keep talking about this lack of joy and the sense of despair,

which to a degree we all struggle with it. And I hope that you're getting the support that you need, right? But I mean, I think that

when I ask, do you deserve joy? It's always, it feels very selfish to say yes. Do you know what I mean?

I can understand why you backed off of that a little bit. But I mean, you do, you do, you do.
And if you're not feeling it, I might suggest not necessarily adding

to your decorative

vibe because you do have one. It's not a lie.
It is absolutely true. When people look at those walls, they are seeing you and your interests and

your point of view in life, right? But if you were to look at it and to make, not add to it, but make some adjustments in display

and then step back, I wonder if it isn't worth the experiment to see if maybe you feel a little bit differently wandering through your own space.

It's a suggestion more than a ruling, right?

I I think that you deserve to have your own space. Anna has no standing

other than the standing of friendship. And I trust agreeing with me that you deserve to feel joy.
Yes.

And perhaps that's not what brought her to the courtroom is the fear that you don't feel that way.

But there is an expression, unconscious though it may be, in I'll use the term again because there's no better one, slapdashery of the decor that feels impermanent and liminal and depressing and so forth.

And it makes your friends concerned for you, perhaps. That's what's going on here.
I don't know. Maybe she just wants a throw pillow to sit on.

I don't know that a throw pillow is going to make you feel better. And I'm not sure exactly how much better you need to feel, but I would encourage you to

explore book two a little bit in your mind and wonder if not perhaps.

I mean, for me, it's like, just get rid of the empty cardboard boxes on the floor. I just, that to me, just, I can't,

abide it me personally, but try taking it away and seeing if it feels a little bit better. I mean, there is an aesthetic that is spare.

I think that if you have an, if you have and are attracted to the airport aesthetic of impermanence

and

security theater and so forth, all I do is encourage you to explore that further, right?

Rather than say this is it.

Because even if you take a moment and and make some small adjustments, it might add to the feeling of intentionality, even to eyes that are not your own, but most important to you, you might feel more at home, even in your own home.

Because the fact of the matter is you don't live in an airport terminal. You live in a home in a community that you have made a commitment to by serving on this board of adjusters or whatever.

I mean, And I can't rule in your favor. You have no standing, but I think that it's really important that you created this trilogy.

But you should focus on the things that make you,

to quote John Darnell, focus on the parts that make you feel good and figure out

what makes that work for you and double in and double down on that and give it the intentionality so that your friends will walk through the place and go,

I don't know, I don't know what he gets out of this, but he's going for something here as opposed to,

is Brandon okay?

So that's my recommendation. It's not a ruling.
I do rule in your favor, Brandon. This is the sound of a gavel.
Let this be a wake-up call about the way you present yourself to the world.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Anna, how are you feeling about this judgment?

I can grit my teeth and accept it.

Brandon, this is your house. How do you feel? Yeah, I mean, look, I'll try.

We'll see if the bleakness is external or internal. I mean, I understand why you could try.
It's hard to get rid of empty cardboard boxes sometimes. Yeah, yeah.

Especially if they're not actually empty. What if I need them for something? Well, we appreciate both of you coming on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.
Thank you. Thank you.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books. We'll have Swift Justice in just a moment.
First, our thanks to Redditor GTS underscore 84 for naming this week's episode Motion to Adorn.

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Now, Swift Justice, where we answer small disputes with quick judgment, an anonymous person has asked, my husband says that coyotes are about the size of a German shepherd.

I think they're closer to the size of a red fox. What? Please tell my husband he's wrong and coyotes are not that big.
Now, I don't live in Los Angeles, but I have seen some coyotes in my life.

You've seen some coyotes out there, right, Jesse, in Los Angeles? I live in Los Angeles. I see coyotes.
I wouldn't say all the time, but certainly regularly.

They're certainly not as big as a German Shepherd, but nor is they as small as a red fox, wouldn't you say? I don't know what size a red fox is. I would say that

they're little. I'm not quite full Glowrilla on this one.
I don't know if you've seen the video of, are you familiar with the Memphis rapper Glow Rilla? Absolutely not.

Okay, well, you got a lot of fun ahead of you because she totally rules. She's totally, absolutely my hero.
Thank you for the recommendation.

But Glorilla went on British, a British radio program maybe a year ago. And in talking to the host there, it was revealed that Glorilla was not sure that foxes were a real animal.

That she thought maybe they were like a mythical beast like a unicorn or something that only came up in stories. Yeah.
But I'm not quite there. Like I'm no foxes are real.

I don't know exactly how big they are.

In my imagination, they're definitely smaller than coyotes, which can get pretty big, although I would guess by weight, they're still maybe half the size of a German shepherd.

Yeah, they're not as big as a German shepherd. They're not as small as a red fox.
They're right in the middle. And that's fine.
You know what they are? Coyote size.

Yeah, they're big enough to scare me. Like a red fox, I don't think, is big enough to scare me.
A German shepherd is definitely big enough to scare me. I mean, I love German shepherds.

They don't scare me, but

I would be scared if I saw a coyote for sure. Sometimes you see one of these coyotes and you're like, ooh, that's a big boy.
He could really get at me. Yeah.

Well, anyway, I want to hear more animal disputes. We're still in the process of looking for any dogs that are actually weirder than cats over there in the membo mailbag.

But what are more disputes that you might have about animals? Do you want to adopt a cat that comes to your house every day, even though you know that your neighbor already owns it?

Because you'll be

a better fur parent to that cat. Does your partner or significant other love to give the dog Arby's big beef and cheddar? Dog farts be damned.

Does your birding group also look for lizards, but you want to keep your eye on the birds? Submit your animal cases at maximumfun.org slash JJHO.

I mean, birds are just former dinosaurs, so why not look for lizards? I don't know. We are, of course, also eager to hear your disputes on any subject at at maximumfun.org slash JJHO.

No case is too big or too small. We judges them all.

And hey, I just want to emphasize, you, person with headphones in your ears, who's listened all the way through the credits of this episode of Judge John Hodgman, we are talking to you right now.

We actually do want you. to submit disputes at maximumfund.org slash JJHO.
Don't leave it to be the responsibility of others. We need your disputes to keep the wheels of this show turning.

So please go to maximumfund.org slash JJHO.

The absolute worst thing that can happen is that it's not perfect for the show.

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It's a ton of fun to come on the show, a ton of fun to have the judge decide your disputes. And it's fun, honestly, just thinking about your dispute when you're typing it into that form.

So, maximumfun.org slash JJHO. We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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