So Help Me Goth or Whatever

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, so help me, goth or whatever.

Charlotte brings the case against her friend Summer.

Which holiday is more goth?

Halloween or Christmas?

Summer says the answer is Christmas.

Charlotte disagrees.

She says Summer isn't even living her gothic Christmas truth.

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.

Often in the middle of the night, Mother would decide that we had to talk to the Ouija board.

So we'd all sit around the board with her, our fingers poised lightly on the planchette.

And when Mother was on the board, the planchette would fly around wildly, and the board would say things like tonight is the night of the killer

and

the board would say he's coming get out now

so we would all go dash downstairs and jump in the car and go check into the travel motor lodge on Bay Street which Helen and I always loved because we loved staying in motels but the man at the reception desk always found it rather odd because he knew that we lived in Savannah.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear them in.

Charlotte Summer, 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.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he seems to believe that Flag Day is the most gothic holiday?

I do.

I do.

Very well, Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

Charlotte, in summary, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors.

Can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered this fake courtroom?

Charlotte, let's start with you.

Do you have a guest, Charlotte?

I do.

That is your Edgar Oliver impression.

Uh-oh.

I think that's the first thing he released on Moth.

I don't know the title of it.

I don't think it's the one on 36th Street.

I think it's the one prior to something about his mother.

Hey, Edgar Oliver.

I'm writing this down in appropriately gothic black gel ink.

Edgar Oliver on the Moth.

Yeah, that's a pretty good guess, I got to tell you, Charlotte.

Yeah, you're guessing pretty good.

Summer, what's your guess?

I did not know.

Charlotte is speaking speaking with so much authority that I think she's probably right.

She could be playing a game with you, Summer.

This could be a head game.

When you began speaking, I thought it was

part of the Austin Powers sort of strange monologue about the mother, but then it went in a different direction.

So, Austin Powers.

That was a very good Austin Powers, Judge Hodgman.

But oh, I was saying to myself,

Yeah, baby.

So, is that your guess, Austin Powers?

That would be my guess.

You don't want to guess Edgar Oliver on the moth?

I don't know if I can guess the same thing that she did.

But in that case, I guess, yes.

I will agree with Charlotte and confirm her guess.

I guess it's Dan Kennedy on the moth.

Well,

not all guesses are wrong.

Charlotte is absolutely correct that that is my impersonation of Edgar Oliver.

I should have guessed that someone would remember that.

But now I know who I'm dealing with.

Charlotte is a listener.

I got you.

I don't feel like I've done Edgar Oliver on this podcast for at least 18 months or two years.

But

Edgar Oliver is a legendary downtown artist and storyteller here in New York City.

He's not legendary.

He's a real person.

And

he recorded a story, one of my favorite stories that he later put on as a one-person show.

about his growing up with a strange mother in a

very gothic house in a very gothic city called savannah georgia so in all of those guesses you are absolutely right charlotte and this is an episode about gothic stuff and i believe savannah makes a cameo appearance later in the evidence because i've looked ahead for once but charlotte do you you you say you don't remember the title of the story that he told correct

I don't.

I did introduce my mother to Edgar Oliver not too long ago.

And

the first thing she did was look up where his house was on 36th Street, which she couldn't do, but she did find,

I suppose, his family's grave plots in Bonaventure Cemetery.

You know more about Edgar Oliver than even I do.

I was like, there's no way they're going to know that he lived on 36th Street, but of course you've listened to the story.

And here's the thing, Charlotte.

I don't know the title of the story either.

I was just realizing that I was going to read it.

I don't know what the, I don't know what the answer is.

Let's use this ambiguity to go ahead and hear the case.

But very, very well guessed.

I mean, it wasn't a guess you knew.

And I'm, you have caught me out.

So well done.

Summer, you're on borrowed time now.

Charlotte has essentially won the case.

That's fair.

So which of the two of you is bringing this case to my court?

Who seeks justice?

I do, Your Honor.

Well, Charlotte, you know you're my favorite.

Why should I even hide my bias at this point?

You are here, it says, because your friend Summer believes Christmas is the most goth holiday.

Wow.

It also says here in my affidavit, quote, Charlotte is more goth than Summer.

Is that true, Charlotte?

That's arguable.

I don't think so.

I think Summer has more goth

or goth adjacent.

pastimes than I do.

I'm not sure who

made

this claim or how it showed up in my briefing.

I certainly didn't.

And I don't think Summer did either.

I don't remember if I made the claim in the briefing, Your Honor, but I do believe that Charlotte is more goth than I am.

Yeah, well, I mean, anyone who can, who knows Edgar Oliver by heart, I mean, this guy's a living Edward Gorey portrait.

I gotta, I gotta, I'm gonna throw to Charlotte for the expertise here because I want for the listeners who maybe don't know Charlotte or Summer, I suppose.

But let's start with you, Charlotte.

Will you define what is goth?

I would say that goth

now refers to a predominantly youth subculture oriented around music, but also with

a

morbid and

melancholic self-dramatization.

Right.

With a, with a, with a, with the graveyard overtones a little bit.

Right, right.

Cause I think without the morbidity, it becomes camp.

So it's an aesthetic movement, fashion, art, music, etc.

Black lipstick,

dark clothes, lots of fondness for clove cigarettes.

Clove cigarettes.

And a certain amount of

drama.

Would that be about right, would you say?

Right.

Right.

I think that touches a lot of the key aspects.

Okay.

And I mean, when we talk about morbidity, when we're thinking about

holidays, you got to think about Halloween, don't you, Summer?

That's true.

That's true.

So what would you say?

You're out here saying that Christmas is more goth than Halloween.

I am.

I do think Halloween is goth, but I think Christmas is more so.

What are the top three goth holidays summer?

From least to most goth, if you please.

Easter,

Halloween, Christmas.

Easter is the least goth.

of the but is easter at all goth is easter the number three most goth holiday I think or can you only think of three holidays?

I think you can make a case for Easter.

I mean, Easter definitely has a different color palette than most than goth typically explores.

That's true.

I think you can make a case for Easter having goth elements.

Because what could be more morbid than resurrection?

Well, it's definitely

morbidity.

I don't know.

Are zombies goth?

That's an interesting question.

Charlotte, are zombies goth?

Yes or no?

I would say

zombies are more goth-adjacent.

I think zombies are more punk than goth.

Yeah, I feel you.

I don't know why.

That's a real vibes ruling on my part, but yeah.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

I'm going to say it so that you don't have to, but I can eat poop in the comments.

Zombies are not goth.

Get out of here, zombies.

You're not goth.

Go hang out with Frankenstein.

No, Frankenstein's Frankenstein's pretty goth.

Castle.

Right?

Dark Castle, Lightning.

Yeah, there's

definitely some gothic black and whites.

Sure.

Yeah, zombies, not goth.

All right.

So I'm going to let you defend yourself in a minute here, Summer.

But Charlotte, how did you react when you first heard Summer say Christmas is the most goth holiday?

What were your thoughts, feelings, reactions?

It's an intriguing idea.

I didn't react violently.

You weren't so freaked out that you drove your hearse into a ditch or something?

No.

It's the sort of thing that because it sounds so controversial at first hearing, you know,

you mull it over in your head and you want to give it some credence.

And then after I thought about it for a while, I just don't, I just don't think it's true.

You're a good friend to even give it that amount of thought, I must say.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Well, I mean, it just doesn't, it just doesn't seem very goth to me, but some are, here's your chance.

Hold on, before we get into the

justifications here, how did this come up?

I don't recall how it came up, actually.

It came up, it was prior to your party.

Oh, that's right.

I don't know if your goth holidays party.

Well, yeah, kind of, because you do have a, you held a Victorian Christmas party.

And goth wasn't part of it.

It was just we're going to celebrate as the Victorians do.

And it either came up at the party, but I think it came up before the party.

You are right.

I think it was the party.

So I like to throw big parties for both Halloween and Christmas, but I threw a Halloween party last Christmas.

Sorry, last Halloween.

Sorry.

Last Christmas, I threw a Halloween.

I would love it if you threw a Halloween party last Christmas.

That would be fun.

I threw a Christmas party that was a Victorian Christmas party.

So we did everything that people did in Victorian Christmas parties, which includes a lot of goth elements.

Right.

Employed children for pennies.

You know, Victorian Christmas parties involve ghost storytelling, fortune telling, a lot of things that are goth.

And I think, and we did those at the party.

And so I think that's how it came up.

I made that argument.

That's where you started to make that argument.

And you sent in a fair amount of evidence here, Summer,

to support your claim.

Obviously, all these images will be available.

on the Judge John Hodgman show page at maximumfund.org, as well as our Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Exhibit A, submitted by Summer, a Victorian Christmas card featuring the very goth phrase, sweet messenger of calm decay, and looks to me an image of a dead bird.

Is this going to be my Christmas card this year, Summer?

I did give out some of these types of cards at the Victorian Christmas party.

There's a lot of really morbid, dark, kind of creepy Christmas cards of the past that used to be more common than it obviously is now.

We're talking about the Victorian era in England.

They would make these cards with, I mean, this is literally just a bird on its back with its toes comically curled, like straight up in the air, and then the toes drooping down.

Can you explain any of this imagery to me?

Do you know the history of this symbol?

Not entirely, Your Honor, but I know that there is a

idea that part of my argument is that because Christmas is at the end of the year, the darkest time of year, the coldest time of year, the year when the year is ending, that there had been a lot of association between that and death and kind of morbid things, that it was kind of a goth time of year.

It's dark, it's cold, everything is kind of winding down.

Certainly one of our earliest litigants, Jason Sims of Huntsville, Alabama,

who crafted the famous Sadsmith's tree, would agree with you that it is a period of literal darkness and time for dark reflection.

And I think to some extent the Victorians took every opportunity for darkness and dark reflection.

All All Victorian jewelry is made out of the clipped toenails of dead loved ones and so on.

All right.

Okay, exhibit B, an illustration from the Wikipedia page for Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

This is a very goth-looking black and white print by an unknown

illustrator of death, or excuse me, the ghost of Christmas future pointing at Scrooge's gravestone.

Pretty self-explanatory, right, Summer?

Yes, Your Honor.

And as I mentioned earlier, traditionally, ghost ghost stories were told at Christmas, at Christmas parties.

Dickens, The Christmas Carol, was obviously the most famous example, but you can get lots of books of

Victorian era Christmas ghost stories.

We read some out loud at the party,

and they have this very goth illustrations.

Was Halloween celebrated in the Victorian era in England the way we understand Halloween to be acknowledged now, do you happen to know?

It was, and it obviously, of course, also had goth elements, but it also was a little bit different.

It had a lot of, it was more for teenagers and also had kind of a romantic, kind of a Valentine's feel.

There are a lot of fortune-telling games that were sort of.

Wait a minute.

Now you're saying that Halloween was the most romantic holiday?

I'm not going that far.

But yes, Halloween was celebrated, but I think in a somewhat different way than it is now.

I'll say this, John.

It was at a Halloween party that my wife and I first made out.

Really?

Yeah.

Pretty goth.

I know.

We're super goth.

We're basically in Skinny Puppy.

Summer, what's your background?

How come you know about so much of this stuff?

Well, I'm a big Halloween fan, even though I'm not making that case today.

You're trying to trash it right now.

I love Halloween.

I go all out, decorate the house, usually start building and getting stuff ready in the summer.

You put up red crepe paper, a lot of hearts.

You listen to a Spirit Halloween store podcast.

Yeah.

And I would not call myself a goth, but as Charlotte had mentioned, I am interested in a lot of sort of goth-adjacent things.

Charlotte, would you consider yourself a goth?

As you sit before me, well, your short shorts are black.

From the waist up, you are dressed like Stevie Nicks if Stevie Nicks had a Kate Bush t-shirt.

I don't consider myself goth.

I think.

You're merely standing up for words having meaning.

Right.

Well,

I think in middle school, maybe I would have, but by the time I hit high school, you get it in your head where you don't want to label yourself.

And so you kind of distance yourself from any kind of subcultural.

Yeah, you were doing your own thing.

Yeah, I was doing my own thing.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, you're a whole human being in your own right.

It's not defined by your aesthetic principles.

But that said, Charlotte, can someone named Summer ever be goth for real?

I mean, let's be honest, Charlotte.

I mean, I never said she was goth.

I never said I was goth.

I think she's more goth than I am.

Really?

It's on a continuum.

You two are friends, correct, Charlotte?

We are friends.

Not enemies.

No.

How long have you known each other?

I don't know.

Maybe about 10 years or so.

Quite a while.

Yeah.

And how did you meet Summer?

Charlotte went to college with my husband.

And so I think I met that, or actually I may have even met you before I met him.

I don't recall, but there's a group of friends that we're in.

And my husband and Charlotte and some other friends went to college together.

I think I met you prior, very briefly because I knew who you were.

Yeah, but through a group of friends and my husband being part of that group.

Yeah, she's that person who celebrates Valentine's Day on Halloween.

Charlotte, even though you contain multitudes and you are your own human being,

Summer thinks that you're more goth than she, you think that Summer is more, whatever.

You have stated, it says here that gothness runs in your family, Charlotte?

It does.

And I've submitted a picture of my mother to share that.

I do wear a lot more black than I'm wearing today.

This is just what I pulled out of the moment.

Look, it's summertime.

I'm not saying that it's summer's day.

Summer, you may not win the day, but this is your time.

It's hot.

I'm not wearing shoes or socks, but I am wearing black and it's uncomfortable.

But you sent in this wonderful photo of your mom, who is looking pretty goth, I gotta say.

Can you describe this photo of your mom?

From memory, let's see.

It is, she's a quiz.

If you don't get it right,

I'm gonna rule against you.

Well, she's standing in downtown Savannah

with mostly black, kind of drapey clothing.

I believe she has on some, I believe she has on fingerless gloves.

She does, Charlotte.

And that is the thing that to me defines this, brings this whole outfit together.

The gloves.

Oh, it's definitely a goth thing.

She has on a hat.

um with a with a brim like a like a sun hat kind of thing i believe And she's got on, she has a lot of coral necklaces, like Victorian hands and stuff made out of coral.

I'm pretty sure that's what she's wearing.

And she's carrying a black cane.

She is carrying a cane.

I know that cane well.

Yeah.

She also looks like an Edward Gorey illustration.

And that is a high compliment from this court.

She shares a name with one of the gasly chrome tinies.

Really?

She has a framed picture of that page in her kitchen, I believe.

Is that her given name or did she change it?

No, that's her given name.

That's wonderful.

So, which one is she, if I may be so?

S is for Susan.

And S is also for Savannah, which you obviously know a lot about.

I know you had submitted some other evidence that we're going to talk about shortly, but what is your connection to Savannah, you and Susan's?

My parents moved there in the

70s, and I was born and I was raised there.

I came out to Pasadena at the age of 17.

And you both live in Pasadena now.

And before we started recording, you both acknowledged Pasadena as the most goth of the Los Angeles adjacent neighborhoods, right?

Now,

now our bailiff laughs, but it's got some haunts in it, doesn't it, Charlotte in Summer?

It

does.

It doesn't have an official goth club,

but I would say that there's no goth float in the rose parade?

There could be, um,

it does

they've recently held an event called Cruel World, which is a music festival that's headlined by

usually headlined by a goth band.

Um, okay, Bauhaus, Morrissey, and Susie Sue, I think were the first three in no particular order.

This year, they got Duran Duran because I think they were running out of headliners.

And it has a goth history.

Jack Parsons was here.

Aleister Crowley did some stuff here.

It's pretty goth.

Pretty goth.

That's right.

So Jack Parsons was the jelt propulsion labs guy who was also into Alistair Crowley Dark Magic.

Yes.

And Alistair Crowley, I don't think, was alive by the time Parsons was hosting

sex magic parties at his home there in Pasadena.

But he and L.

Ron Hubbard were hanging out together trying to summon the spirit of Talema, I believe, if my memory serves.

I think the spirit of Babylon.

Well, it was a bunch of spirits.

They had a lot.

And he exploded himself.

Yeah, that's pretty, pretty goth.

Exploding yourself in Pasadena is pretty goth, I got to say.

They were seeking to summon the spirit of Babel, and they ended up just teaching the Yale football team Indonesian.

Whoa, that's a deep-cut, obscure cultural reference to one of our own advertisers.

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I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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So, I look, I think Pasadena is pretty goth.

And my question to you is: would you mind if we made a t-shirt that said Pasadena Goth Club?

Oh, I would love it.

I would also love that.

That rules.

All right, we're going to get on that right away.

But meanwhile, let's return back to Savannah.

Mother always said Savannah was a trap, but it wasn't for you because you got out.

That was another reference to Edgar Oliver.

But Savannah is absolutely goth.

Wouldn't we

all agree?

I agree.

I would agree.

I mean,

it's a historically very haunted city.

Was your mom dressed in this photo for an event or is this just normal goth for her?

I asked her if I could submit the photo.

I wouldn't put it past her to dress like that, although she would normally just wear jeans and maybe a...

like a black t-shirt or something.

She,

when I described the photo to her, because I have it on my computer, she said, oh, that's

my

alt persona or something.

She said her name was Evil Incarnate, which I've never heard of before.

I have no idea who that is.

How old were you when you discovered your mom had an alternate goth persona called Evil Incarnate?

I guess three weeks ago.

Wow.

And that was in preparation for this case?

Yes.

Yes.

You discovered something new about her.

So

your mom's got some goth credentials.

Did you ask your mom for her expert opinion on Summer's claim about Christmas being goth?

I did.

I went straight to her.

Not after she made initially the claim, but after I submitted the case.

And my mom

said,

no,

Christmas is not goth at all.

And she said the most goth holiday is Krampus Nacht,

which is...

Right.

Let's hear about that.

I mean, Krampus is having, been having a moment for the past decade or so.

People have been getting into Krampus, but I think there are probably a few people who still don't know about Krampus.

So tell us all about it.

Well, I can't claim to be an expert about Krampus, but Krampus is

a Krampusologist, if you will.

Exactly.

Krampus is a Germanic spirit

which looks like an anthropomorphized goat demon who

abducts children.

I don't know if it's conduct dependent, if they're bad or good children, or but he abducts children into a sack and takes them somewhere.

As I said, I'm not an expert.

That's fine.

He's a sort of German sack god.

Yeah.

And Krampus Nacht is traditionally held on December 5th, not Christmas.

Right.

So Krampus is a half-goat, half-demon who grabs

misbehaving children, puts them in sacks, and takes them away.

And you know what I say, John?

No.

Krampus, you can be a diva.

It's your knocked.

Krampus knocked, or Krampus Night, is on the 6th of December, but it is

right before the feast of St.

Nicholas.

And it says here on a website, the Krampus knocks on the doors of children's home to warn them to be good, or otherwise we'll return on Christmas Eve with St.

Nicholas.

And in this tradition, St.

Nicholas rewards well-behaved well-behaved children with small gifts, while Krampus punishes them with birch rods.

I don't know whether that means he swats them with the birch rods, or that's the gift.

I don't know.

A nice birch rod would be a nice gift, I think.

I think he uses it as a switch.

Yeah, maybe that's what goes on.

I don't know.

Maybe he gives it as a gift in case the kids want to do some switching.

So, I mean, I appreciate that your mom here is saying that the real goths of the 19th century were the Austro-Germans and

Victorian-era Krampus greeting cards, which some of which are provided here in the evidence,

they are goth AF.

But I would say that it is, I mean, Krampus is pretty closely associated with Christmas.

This almost feels like evidence in support of Summer's case.

What do you think, Summer?

I mean, I don't want to risk the wrath of incarnate evil.

Krampus, I don't, I'm also not a Krampus expert, and that was not what I was thinking about when I made the initial claim.

But the fact that there is this kind of anti-Santa Claus evil spirit does seem to be another small point in the favor of Christmas having a creepy kind of undercurrent.

Charlotte's mom also provided some Victorian and some Germanic Christmas cards

that do not feature Krampus.

And these cards are not goth.

I mean, they are very celebratory, very colorful, very featuring a very smiling, non-goth, Gandalf-like St.

Nicholas.

It kind of all falls down in the goth part of Germanic Christmas

once they hit the actual Christmas time.

Yes, there's, there's definitely, I think I would,

I think it would certainly argue that there's a lot of non-goth elements of Christmas and of Halloween.

I mean, there's a lot of cheerful, cute, child-appropriate parts of both Halloween and Christmas.

Well, well, well, well, wait one second.

Halloween is to its very bones about bones, isn't it?

Isn't it, isn't it about scary, spooky stuff that goes

in the night?

It is.

I guess I would say, Your Honor, there's sort of two elements of Halloween.

One Halloween is the goth scary stuff, which I obviously very much love and appreciate.

And the other element is sort of the harvest festival, pumpkin patch, corn maize, that kind of thing, which young kids often do that part of Halloween, you know, the pumpkin pies and that kind of things, which I don't consider to be.

scary, but to be sort of more like a harvest festival.

Sorry, Summer, I got a rule against you right there.

Halloween, as it is understood in almost every iteration, is about scary stuff.

I mean, yeah, there are a lot of pumpkins around,

and it might overlap with certain harvest festivals.

But I mean, we know what the theme of Halloween is.

Not only that, what is a harvest festival if not a celebration of death?

It's a marking of the end of the life season of growing.

I would agree.

I think that is true.

But I think also you could say the same for, you know, winter festivals like Christmas are kind of a celebration of, and again, you know, they're both coming at the end of the year, one after the other, when the year is kind of winding down and everything is dark.

Halloween is kind of the beginning of that season and Christmas is sort of the nadir of that season.

And, you know, actually, Summer, you raise an important point, which is that, you know, Halloween overlaps a bunch of different ideas and concepts and

functional rituals.

And so does Christmas.

I mean, Christmas itself is an overlay onto various pagan holidays that were celebrated at the end of the arbitrary European calendar year,

including the Germanic Yule, which

predates Christmas and

was an early pagan holiday.

And it says here on a website, Charlotte, are you ready for this?

I'm ready.

Grab onto your chair.

Yule is attested early in the history of the Germanic peoples in a a gothic language calendar of the fifth, sixth century CE.

It appears in the month named Fruma Juleis.

Gothic language.

There it is right there.

I don't even know what that means, but you understand what I'm saying.

Yule was one of many pagan holidays, or let's just say pre-Christian holidays

that observed the winter solstice, right?

The darkest and longest night of the year.

where you kindle a light and do a little tree worship.

That's all pretty goth, too, I have to say, Summer, in your defense.

I would agree, Your Honor.

You burn that goat, too.

Yeah, you burn that goat.

Gotta burn that goat.

Burn that goat, baby.

Burn that goat, baby, is the motto of the Pasadema Goth Club.

Charlotte, let's get back to Savannah for a second.

You also submitted some evidence in the form of posters for an event in Savannah called the Slithering.

Tell me what the Slythering is.

Because even though I've been to Savannah a fair amount recently, um, because a young person from our family lives there now, I've never heard of the Slythering.

Your young person should check it out.

The Slythering

is a recent St.

Patrick's Day celebration that's held about a week prior

where

it is a

nocturnal lantern parade where everyone dresses up as snakes

and

parades around.

The imagery provided in those pictures is there's like a Gorgon head,

there's an Ouroboros, Medusa,

and I would say gothic

imagery or spooky imagery, a Jake the Snake Roberts.

And I'm submitting this to show that one can celebrate any holiday in a gothic manner, but that doesn't change the underlying essence of the holiday.

So you're saying that this is an alternate St.

Patrick's Day celebration?

Yes.

Savannah people get up to a lot of fun stuff.

Summer, a little earlier, Charlotte mentioned something about a book you had written.

Do you write?

What are you working on?

I am working on a book that is sort of a history of Halloween, about the holiday, Halloween.

Is the title of your book, Halloween?

It's only about harvesting and lovers.

That is not the title.

Maybe it should be.

It does not touch on Christmas very much, but it does touch on the lover's element a bit.

What is the lover's element of Halloween again?

For a long time, Halloween was sort of a matchmaking holiday for teenagers.

They would play a lot of fortune-telling games to sort of see who you were going to marry.

And it was a way to get young men and women together and play games kind of like spin the bottle, games that were fortune-telling, but not as much in a dark or goth way, but more in a flirty,

oh, you know, who am I going to marry?

Is it going to be you?

Let's sneak off together and play this game kind of an element.

All right.

Well, I stand, and this was in Victorian England or also the United States?

It was in both.

And also even before the Victorians, it goes back to pagan holidays and stuff as well.

But there was definitely kind of a romantic element.

I wouldn't go so far as to say

it was, you know,

Valentine's Day, but there was that element of it for sure.

You say that you're not Goth Summer, but you're goth adjacent.

Do you have any goth hobbies?

I do.

I have never considered myself a goth.

I don't really listen to goth music.

I don't really dress in a goth fashion.

But, you know, I'm interested in some morbid things.

I, you know, collect morning jewelry.

I do taxidermy.

I'm really interested in ghost kind of occult stuff.

This all sounds pretty goth.

You took that demonology class.

I did take a demonology class.

I'm interested in a lot of those.

Things related to death, morbid stuff, occult stuff, things like that.

Where did you take the demonology class at the Learning Annex?

I took the demonology class in graduate school, actually, but I had to pause when Charlotte mentioned that because I've actually taken a couple of things like that.

And when she first said that, I was like, oh, which one is she talking about?

Because I do a lot of stuff like that.

But

yeah, so I think, you know, I have an interest in

dark stuff, spooky stuff, whatever you might want to call it.

You know, Charlotte, you're a second generation goth, and you hear Summer saying, I'm not a goth, I'm not a goth, I'm not a goth.

And then we just learned that she's like a Belial worshiper with multiple demonology courses under her belt.

How do you feel about Summer not owning her own Gothness?

I think it's hard to find a Goth who

will own their own Gothness.

I think that's part of being a Goth.

Charlotte, has this issue percolated through your friend group?

Is there any controversy around Summer's claim?

I don't know what our friends think about it.

And I guess I'm just wondering, you know, like, why is it important to you,

Charlotte, to deny the Gothicness of Christmas?

I'm not denying that it has Gothic elements.

I'm denying that it is more goth than Halloween, which was really the controversial statement.

And as to why that's important to me,

it's just

obvious.

I mean, thank you for getting me back on track again, Charlotte.

You really are running this court a lot better than I've been, I have to say.

I mean, Summer, this really does come down not to does Christmas have some dark elements to it?

Obviously, it does, but how do you make the argument that is more gothic

than Halloween?

More goth, I should say, than Halloween in terms of its aesthetic.

Well, I think my argument,

as we discussed, Your Honor, there's obviously this goth element to Christmas.

The other thing that I had argued initially to Charlotte is that I think part of being goth is being countercultural, sort of opposed to the mainstream.

And Halloween is a holiday where everyone is doing goth things, so to speak.

And I think if you're someone who really is about the gothic lifestyle, the goth lifestyle, every day of the year, Halloween is, it's almost,

it's what drunks call New Year's Eve, amateur night.

To some extent, yes.

You know, if you, if you're someone who is always into goth stuff, I think you're probably less inclined to do that on Halloween because you're not going to go hang out in the cemetery.

You're not going to go to the goth club the one night a year when every normal person is also there.

So I think I admit that when I made the statement, I was being provocative, but I think that part of that goth, you know, aesthetic or idea is being provocative.

Outside of the mainstream.

Exactly.

And I think.

Halloween is mainstream goth.

Exactly.

And the very fact that everyone in Halloween is acting goth would, I think, be off-putting off-putting to real goths.

One person told me when I asked,

why is Halloween the most goth holiday?

This was a self-identified goth.

And he responded,

this is the one day out of the year where I can dress like this and no one will comment.

So, Charlotte, let me understand your argument that people are saying this is the one night of the year where I won't.

get comments on what I'm wearing.

Is this in support of Halloween as a particularly goth holiday?

Yes.

I got you.

Yeah.

And Summer, what do you think about that?

I would say

not to

denigrate what the person you spoke to said, but I think that as we discussed in the beginning of this case, part of the goth subculture is often a kind of theatricality.

And I think many,

I can't speak for all gots, but I think many goths are trying to provoke some amount of attention.

If you were dressed in a goth style, we're not doing that to not get people to look at you.

Like, you're not trying to blend in.

You're saying a true goth on Halloween would dress like a normie.

Yes, yes, they would.

Or some sort of very normie costume, maybe.

Interesting.

Summer, if I were to rule in your favor and make and rule that Christmas is the most goth holiday,

how are you going to be decorating your house this gothsmas?

You know, you'd want to have maybe sort of a Dickens Christmas Carol, cemetery, ghost of Christmas future, black lights instead of red and green lights.

You know, kind of lean into that element of Halloween, of Christmas, rather.

Are you willing to commit to this scheme?

Yes.

Yes, I am.

You mentioned that ghost stories are a big part of Victorian Christmas.

That's not something I'm familiar with.

Can you tell me about that?

Well, I think it's just that because it is cold, because it is dark, it's hard to go outside.

People stay home at night and they tell stories.

And because it's, again, dark, spooky, cold, they're often scary stories.

So there was a long tradition originally of just telling them with your own friends and family, like telling ghost stories at Christmas at home.

And then obviously people like Dickens and others began to publish them.

And there's a whole...

A lot of famous writers, not just Dickens, but other famous writers of the period or periods after,

wrote some really great Christmas ghost stories.

And they they would traditionally be sort of told out loud around the family or at parties or read out loud.

Charlotte, if I were to rule in your favor, what would you have me rule?

What would my sentence be?

I think Summer can believe what she wants to believe.

I don't think that's something

we can change.

It's very gracious and I dare say goth of you.

If she does want to insist that Christmas is more goth than Halloween, I think

she should live the lifestyle.

I think she should proclaim it for all to see

with her house decorations, with the celebration of

the day.

And you've heard that she is committed to

having a very goth Christmas right this very minute.

And do you think that what she's described is sufficient or would you add to her decorative scheme?

That sounds sufficient to me.

I'm not really clear what black lights are in this context, but...

aren't those, I mean, UV lights or something that

make fluorescent colors light up in the dark, like in dark rides, is that what you had in mind summer?

Yeah, like Victorians would get at a head shop.

Right.

Like Spencer's gifts, ye old E.

Spencer's gifts?

I guess I'm thinking not so much like black lights, though one could do that, but more like, I guess it would really be dark purple, but that have a...

a dark color, but don't necessarily like illuminate other things.

Would you commit to having a dead Sad's mistree like Jason Sims has every year?

I don't know.

I might have to run that by the other members of my family.

Yeah, do you have children?

I do.

I do have children.

How do they feel about Gothsmas?

I, you know, I haven't really talked to them about it, but I think maybe.

Do you know them?

Have you met them before?

What are their ages?

Do you know?

Yes, they are 15, 13, 10, 5, and 3.

My goodness.

And if you said to all, if you sat them all down and said, this year, we're going to paint the walls black.

The tree is going to be dead.

and for presents everyone's going to get little mouse skeletons in little coffins how do you think they would think about that because because after all christmas is the gothist holiday i think my oldest child who's 15 and is also very uh has a lot of goth uh goth interest would really enjoy it i think the little kids that are three and five might be a little uh sad or scared well they just get taken away by krampus so then you're all then you're in the clear they're just like oh we wanted ghost rc cars.

Are you still feeling comfortable with this order?

If I were to find in your favor, that I would order you to goth it up for Gothsmas this year?

I am.

I think it'd be fun.

It'd be a fun challenge.

Are you standing by this because you know I'll never come to Pasadena and check?

And you just want to be right?

You just want to win?

No,

I'm willing to try it.

If I were to rule in your favor, what would you have me rule?

I think that I consider Charlotte sort of an expert on goths.

And so if I

if it was ruled in my favor in this case, I would feel like maybe in our friend group, I've, I've become more of an expert on goths.

Maybe I'm the friend group's new goth expert.

You want Charlotte to surrender the bony crown of goth expertness?

Yes.

How do you feel about that, Charlotte?

I don't have any attachment to being the goth expert.

That's fine.

She can be the goth expert.

She's an expert on so many other things.

I have one last question for both of you before I retire to my chambers to consider this.

Nightmare Before Christmas, Christmas movie or Halloween movie?

We get this question all the time.

I need to settle it once and for all.

Individual opinions.

Think about it on your own.

And then I'm going to count to three.

And I'm going to say one, two, three, and you say your answer.

Let me know when you're ready to provide your answer.

I'm ready.

I'm ready.

Nightmare Before Christmas.

Is it a Christmas movie or a Halloween movie?

One, two,

three.

Halloween.

Interesting.

All right.

I'm going to go into my crypt where I shall meditate for a period of time in a grand spider web, and I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge Sean Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Charlotte, how are you feeling about your chances?

I feel pretty good.

I won the cultural reference, or I got the cultural reference, but I would like to hear the judgment independent of that.

I think my arguments stand on their own.

I think it's just blindingly obvious that Halloween is the most goth.

And I think the judge recognizes that.

Summer, how are you feeling?

Well, I think I have an uphill battle because I'm taking a position that's counterintuitive.

So I don't know that I'll win the day, but

I feel like really what we come to in this conversation is the idea that Halloween and Christmas are both very similar to one another and pretty goth.

So I think even if I lose the case, I'll feel like, I feel acknowledged.

And we'll find out what John's decision is when we come back in just a moment.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no.

No, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on My Brother, My Brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper.

And on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

It's the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

If you're on the East Coast, Judge Hodgman has right around the corner a great big comedy and music festival.

That's right, Jesse.

The Solid Sound Festival is on June 29th.

Gene Gray and I are co-hosting the comedy lineup all Saturday afternoon.

We've got some amazing comedians, including your friends Todd Berry, Dave Hill, Eugene Merman, Sidney Washington, Brittany Carney, who knows, maybe some other surprises.

And of course, both Friday night and Saturday night, Wilco is playing among so many other great shows and guests and acts.

And it's all happening in North Adams, Massachusetts at the wonderful Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

Just Google Solid Sound Festival and it'll get you right there.

But Jesse, what I'm thinking about is the Pasadena Goth Club.

All I can think about is the Pasadena Goth Club.

we have two designs uh one is in a classic goth slash metal style right

one is in what we shall call a cheerful local landmarks style and they're both in our store right now at maxfundstore.com for a limited time only and I am excited to see which one pulls ahead.

Your purchase is your vote.

Your purchase is your vote.

Do Judge John Hodgman listeners listeners want intense gothic black t-shirts or cheerful pastel t-shirts?

We'll find out.

And I mean, we literally just had this idea 15 minutes ago when we were recording, and it's already over there in the Max Fun store.

So go check it out.

What's the URL for that Max Fun store, Jesse?

MaxFunStore.com.

And you know what?

I think this is going to be our chance to break through to the Hype Beast market.

Finally, we're going to break through to Hype Beasts.

We're going to get Hype Beasts in here for the latest drops.

666, that's the number of the hype beast.

In the meantime, Jesse Thorne,

you've got something else going on?

To put this on shop, it's Father's Day season.

It's wedding season.

Those are two great times to shop at the Put This On Shop.

First of all, there is all...

kinds of gifts in our store for the weird dad in your life or the elegant dad in your life.

We've done a huge drop recently.

We have several Tiffany pens.

We have sterling silver collar stays.

We have a broad variety of cool bracelets,

all kinds of treasures for the dad in your life, as well as, you know, we still have some dumb trading cards and stuff.

And if you're getting married or someone you know is getting married, well, they probably need a pair of cufflinks.

And the groomsmen in the wedding party probably need cufflinks as well.

And we are going to be your number one source for vintage cufflinks.

If you go to the store and buy cufflinks, they're going to be garbage, I promise you.

But you can buy something that is really special

and

had a real beautiful, incredible life in it in the Put This On Shop starting at $30, $35.

We also have, you know, golden platinum if you'd like, but they're all at putthisonshop.com.

And the code WeirdDad gets you 10% off anything.

If you want a 1934 Chicago World's Fair cuff, where would you get that, Jesse?

That would be at putthisonshop.com, John.

I mean, if you want a 1933 Century of Progress Chicago bookmark, where would you get that?

That would be at putthisonshop.com, John.

If you have a Chicago-style dad, I just gave you two incredible gift ideas for your dad in your life.

Just add sport peppers.

Go over to putthisonshop.com.

Honestly,

if you got a dad in your life and you want to celebrate them, I know, trust me, how hard it is to buy for dads.

And the answer is: put thisonshop.com.

Go on over there and enjoy it.

And probably your dad also wants to be a member of the Pasadena Goth Club.

So go figure that out too.

We'll be back in just a second on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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

Well, first of all,

I must credit Charlotte for guessing guessing the obscure cultural reference.

My hope had been

that

she would be confused and think I was doing the ghost host from the haunted mansion at Disneyland and Disney World, etc., etc.

The haunted mansion, of course, being a

being a scary house that occasionally gets a festive Christmas overlay themed to a nightmare before Christmas around Christmas time.

So is Nightmare Before Christmas?

I can't do it anymore.

I'm going to stop.

Is Nightmare Before Christmas?

I just couldn't, I can't think about your case at all because I keep thinking about this.

Is it a Halloween movie with a Christmas overlay or a Christmas movie with a Halloween overlay?

And it was released around Halloween.

But I think the answer is, why can't it be both?

One thing that I give, I mean, I give Charlotte a lot of credit for knowing the cultural reference.

That was pretty intense.

And it hasn't happened for a long time.

And you deserve a tremendous amount of credit for that.

But I also must credit Summer for reminding this court and our listeners that

these holidays do all kind of bleed together.

They not only is Christmas

a Christian overlay for any number of non-Christian holidays that preceded it, be it Yule or Saturnalia or what have you, that Halloween has

multiple histories of overlaying its meaning as it's been updated and changed through the years, and that all of these holidays blend together, and that the theme of all of them is darkness.

Summer has made an interesting argument.

There is an element of darkness in all of these end of the year northern hemisphere, Western European traditional holidays,

because this is the time of gathering darkness in human experience.

Saturnalia was a celebration of light and the sun.

As the nights got longer, there was also, by the way, a reversal of roles throughout Saturnalia.

There is all kinds of wicked stuff coming out.

in these moments of light, in the darkness, these moments of freedom, sexual expression of identity expression of flirtation of flirtation not only with the other teenagers in town but flirtation with mortality that haunts us all all of this meditation in the darkness and this kindling of light against the darkness and frankly druidic tree worship is all meant to kind of explore

And even into the Christian tradition, right?

Of, you know, Jesus was not born on Christmas.

There's no historical record that it's even possible that there were historical Jesus.

He was not born on December 25th.

This is pretty much accepted, I believe, in history, but you kindle this concept that a light is coming to the world.

And the Christianity grabbed that concept and ascribed it to this chief personality.

So in this sense, there is this interplay between light and darkness that I think is, to a certain degree, very goth throughout the the season.

And I'm grateful to Summer for presenting her research and her fascination with this darkness that sneaks into even what most people consider to be the most joyous and corny and anti-goth, the most normie holiday of all, Christmas.

But I have to ultimately agree

with Evil Incarnate herself.

Krampus is goth, unquestionably.

Christmas is goth, questionably.

Krampus represents one iteration of this fascination of the darkness that surrounds this period of the year, but as does the Victorian fascination with ghost stories and the ghost of Christmas future and everything else.

But the defining element

of your

winter solstice celebration is light, literal light.

Literally lighting lighting candles and putting them on trees and tempting and almost burning your house down because you are kindling light against the darkness.

Whereas Halloween, I mean, people are dressing as skeletons, Summer.

Come on.

People are dressing as skeletons.

Some people are even dressing as zombies.

Not everybody's getting it right.

But there is a, at least in the contemporary understanding of Halloween within the past 50 to 100 years,

certainly in the United States,

you are preoccupied with haunted houses and spooky things, and the haunted mansion does not have a Christmas overlay during the Halloween season because it is inherently and far more than Christmas got.

Even if this had not been predetermined by Charlotte getting

the cultural reference correctly,

if you were the one who got it right, Summer, I'd have to sadly take your win away from you because it belonged to Charlotte all along.

This is the sound of a spooky gavel.

I had to make it extra spooky, Jesse.

You've made it very spooky.

I'm all spooked out now.

I don't even know.

I forgot my next lines because I'm so spooked out.

Yeah.

Also, while I was doing that, I realized that today is one of those days when my hair really looks like a toupee.

So check it out over there on the YouTube.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Summer, how are you feeling?

You know, I'm feeling good.

I didn't win the case, but I appreciate

talking about it.

And I'm actually just really excited for Pasadena Goth Club shirt.

So if I got nothing else out of the case, it was worth it for that.

Charlotte, how are you feeling?

I'm feeling great.

And I'm thinking maybe we should have a Krampus knocked party.

Yeah, that would actually be a really good idea.

Hey, this is Judge Hodgman popping in from the crypt.

Once again, Charlotte, you're running my courtroom better than I could.

That's a great idea.

Krampus knocked.

Summer, you and Charlotte are going to host a big Krampus-knock party, right?

Absolutely.

Well, thank you two so much for joining us on Judge John Hodgman.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's a pleasure.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

In just a second, we'll decide on a swift justice question.

First, our thanks to Sasquatch Messiah on Reddit for naming this week's episode, so help me, goth or whatever.

The maximum fun subreddit is at maximumfun.reddit.com.

We encourage you to head there, join, discuss this week's case and every case.

And that's also where we ask for those titles.

So keep an eye out for those.

You can also find us on Instagram at instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman.

Judge Hodgman, you best believe we will have our Pasadena Goth Club t-shirts

on Instagram.

Best be leave.

We're not even done recording this episode.

I have already texted my friend Brian Fernandez to design these t-shirts.

I'm so excited about it.

It's going to be a total delight.

You go over there to Instagram, go over to the Max Fun shop.

You get those t-shirts.

You're going to love them.

Yeah, maxfunstore.com.

We're also on TikTok and YouTube at JudgeJohnHodgman pod.

Follow and subscribe to see our episodes and our video-only content.

People have really been enjoying, by the way, John, the video-only Swift Justice that we have on YouTube Shorts and on TikTok, as well as on Instagram.

Those are a ton of fun.

Yeah, the YouTube channel has become quite its own thing.

We really enjoy it.

So please go over there and subscribe and hit notifications and share it with a friend.

Speaking of sharing things with a friend, I want to say thank you to Timaeus on Apple Podcasts.

He gave us a five-star rating over there.

Timaeus says, quote, even though John Hodgman,

oh boy, even though John Hodgman publicly shamed me in 2014 for bringing my daughter to a grown-up comedy show, I've become obsessed with this podcast.

Judge John Hodgman dispenses real wisdom and has genuine compassion for the litigants.

End quote.

Thank you, Timaeus.

Sorry to Timaeus' daughter, who's probably 35 by now.

I'm sure that was one of my solo comedy shows in which I might have said some swear words.

As you know, the Judge John Hodgman live shows, all ages are welcome.

Indeed, sometimes they happen in the middle of the afternoon.

If you're listening to us on Apple Podcasts, why don't you give us a rating and review?

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Tell a friend, help us get the word out.

It is the absolute number one way people discover the show these days.

So thank you.

Judge John Hodgman was created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman.

This episode recorded at MaxFun HQ by Jennifer Marmor with help from our colleague, KT Wegman.

Our social media manager is Natty Lopez.

The podcast is edited by A.J.

McKeon.

Our video editor is Daniel Speer.

And our producer is the aforementioned ever-capable Jennifer Marmor.

Now Swift Justice, where we answer small disputes with quick judgment, smoking fluffy on the maximum fun subreddit says,

My partner squeezes toothpaste tubes from the middle instead of the end.

Then she complains about how difficult it is to dispense the toothpaste.

Please order her to dispense it efficiently or stop suggesting that the package is to blame.

Amon, Abaddon,

Agaris, Alastor,

obviously Belial, Beelzebub.

These are all demons

in Christian mythology,

but not listed here.

The demon known as the spouse of Smoke and Fluffy, because that is some demonic stuff to do.

Squeezed from the middle of of the tube,

that's pure exorcist territory.

You got to exercise that hobbit right away, smoke and fluffy spouse, because that is not how you do it.

Speaking of Christian mythology, we talked about how Christmas likes to pretend that it's about the birthday of one Jesus H.

Christ.

So let's talk about birthdays.

Do you have a dispute involving a birthday?

I bet you do.

Maybe you have a no gifts please person in your life, but you really want to get them a gift.

What do you do about it?

Are you still bitter about receiving Malibu Barbie instead of ballerina Barbie for your 10th birthday?

Is there a birthday party you should have been invited to, but you weren't?

Send us your birthday beefs at maximumfund.org slash jjho.

And that's where we receive all of our disputes, right, Jesse?

Yes, of course, we are thrilled to get any dispute on any subject at maximumfun.org slash jho.

And don't forget, we have been putting out monthly member mailbag episodes where we promise to answer any question or dispute that is submitted by a maximum fund member.

So if you are a maximum fund member, listen to one of those episodes in your bonus feed and learn the special password to submit with your question.

And then

we will answer it on the membo mailbag.

We will answer it.

We will answer it in the membo mailbag.

We'll get to all of them, I promise you, even if we must do a speed round.

But we're having a lot of of fun over there on the Boco feed, so please join us if you're a member.

It comes free with your membership at maximumfund.org.

And thank you very much for being a member.

Yeah, if you're not a member, just go to maximumfund.org/slash join.

We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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