Diss Bard

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Disbard,

Howie brings the case against Mark.

Years ago, Howie and Mark were counselors at rival summer camps.

When the camps came together for a sports festival at Howie's camp, it was Howie's job to sing a sit-down song to help corral the campers.

When they heard the song, Mark's campers sat down, but Mark didn't.

Howie called out Mark in song, embarrassing him in front of everyone.

Howie and Mark have since become friends, but they say this incident has colored their relationship since.

Mark says he shouldn't have been embarrassed by a fellow adult.

Howie says he was just helping Mark lead by example.

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.

Just like you would to your Isod shirt, be true to four winds now.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in.

Howie and Mark, 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.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he probably went to the bad kids' camp across the lake?

I do.

I do too.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

Howie and Mark, you may be seated, or, as I have heard it said, sit down, sit on down, everybody, let's sit down.

Sit down, you two, for an immediate summary judgment on one of your favors.

Can either of you name the piece of culture I referenced when I entered the courtroom.

Howie,

let's start with you.

What is your guess?

I'm going to guess Wet, Hot American Summer.

Wet, Hot American Summer, a very, very funny movie about summer camp.

If you haven't watched it, everyone watch it and then watch the sequel that came out, what, 20 years later or something, right, Jesse?

Yeah, something like that.

Really funny stuff.

Really funny stuff.

Great guess, Howie.

Great summer camp-themed guests.

What about you, Mark?

Boy, I'm really stumped.

I'm trying to place four winds.

And IZodge.

I don't know.

It must be like an 80s camp movie, like like Meatballs or something like that.

Just like you would to your Isodge shirt, be true to Four Winds Now.

Meatballs is a good guess.

That's a good summer camp movie.

I'll put both of those guesses in.

Any other guesses?

No, because both guesses are wrong.

All guesses are wrong.

Between the two of you, Mark was the least wrong.

Because it is a reference to a particular summer camp.

But where you got tripped up and, for heaven or whatever's sake, why wouldn't you be?

You presumed that I was quoting a piece of popular culture from a movie when, in fact, I was actually quoting a camp song.

So only people who had ever gone to this camp, this specific camp, Four Winds Camp,

would know this song.

And they are not you, because this is a defunct all-girls camp.

that used to grace the shores of Walker Pond and Sargentville, Maine.

Now, I did not go to this camp either, and neither did either of you, obviously.

But one listener of ours, Mary, did.

And some time ago, she sent a letter that I will read after the credits describing her time at Four Winds Camp, as well as her larcenous encounter with the actual Bad Kids Camp across the lake, the Rich Kids' Camp, the notorious and incredibly ironically named Robin Hood Camp, which we have discussed before on the program.

But now,

let's proceed to this case, the case of your two summer camps at feud.

Who seeks justice in this fake internet court?

I do, Your Honor.

That would be Howie?

That's right.

Howie, please state the nature of your complaint or sing it, if you will.

So Mark and I have known each other for 20 plus years now.

And

it feels to me like our very first interaction, which he experienced negatively, has remained in the background of all of our subsequent interactions.

And so I'm here today to clear it up.

What happened?

It was during a time when when I was the song leader at my summer camp, which was a Jewish summer camp in the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec.

And there are a surprising number of Jewish summer camps in that area.

Enough so that every summer

one camp would host a sports festival with all of the other Jewish summer camps in the area, and each camp would send a delegation.

and they'd have a day of sports

among the campers.

Would this be outside of Montreal?

That's right.

Yes.

Well, there's a very big, very historic Jewish population in Montreal.

That's right.

So did your camp have a name, Howie?

My camp was called Why Country Camp.

Why Country Camp?

Very existential.

Why?

Why Country Camp?

That's right.

By the end of the session, you will have an answer.

It won't be the same answer as anyone else.

We called it YCC.

That was how

we normally referred to it.

And it's named for the Jewish Community Center in Montreal because that's where it was based out of.

Got it.

Got it.

So you're having a sports fest, and YCC is hosting the sports fest?

That's right.

And another camp is joining, and that's Mark's Camp, correct?

Mark's camp and probably three other camps from the region each sent a delegation.

Got it.

And so Mark was visiting in the capacity of a counselor at this other camp.

Is that right, Mark?

Yes, that's right.

I was the program director

of the other camp.

So the peer is sort of questionable.

Technically,

perhaps I was do a little more.

You outranked Howie.

It's immaterial, but probably yes.

I don't know.

It sounds pretty material to me.

Sounds like the first thing you brought up, so it must be important.

Yeah, I mean, I'd like to get the hierarchy clear here.

Where does a song leader stand relative to a program director?

Yeah, exactly.

So who stays on the boat longer when it's sinking?

Well, somebody has to play while it goes down.

Right.

Okay, so Mark comes over as a program director of what is the name of your camp, Mark?

It was called Camp Kinneret.

Camp Kinneart, okay.

And how you noticed that Mark doesn't like to sit down and follow the rules when the songmaster's singing?

Well, so for some reason,

every camp activity in my experience at a Jewish summer camp ends with singing.

And so even if you've gathered all of the most athletic campers

from the various camps, they will be forced to sing together at the end of the day in some kind of group song.

Sure.

Often for points so that the judges can adjust the scores so that everything is a lot closer than it might have been.

Before

we get to the point of the case, so singing becomes a competition to even out the obvious athletic advantage that, say, Camp Kinneart had over YCC, I'm presuming.

That's right, except that as Mark will tell you, in his view, his campers were outmatched at every turn during the

festival.

Gotcha.

Mark's camp was much smaller than my camp, so

the delegation that he sent was effectively the entire camp.

I see.

Okay, so let's get to the actual complaint.

What I understand is you're wrapping up the day.

You as songmaster in the host camp, Howie, are singing a little song, which we're going to hear in a minute.

Don't worry about it.

Everyone's going to be excited.

And the song is encouraging people to sit down, and Mark isn't sitting down.

That's right.

So, somehow, in that summer,

in the weeks leading up to that day, the sit-down song had become that summer's tradition.

And it was totally by accident.

I was sound checking to make sure the sound equipment worked one day, and I was trying to get everybody seated, and it just slipped out of my mouth.

But as sometimes things do in these small communities of people, the campers got very excited about this song, and they would ask for it every time we would get together as a group.

And I think part of what was funny is-you don't have to justify singing to me, Howie.

I'm pro-singing.

You're evading the point of contention here.

You're giving a lot of background.

Okay, so I didn't know Mark's name, but I knew he was the program director at Camp Kinner at

and I knew he wasn't sitting.

So, in the context of my sit-down song, I called him out and I said, Captain Keener, sit on down,

sit on down on the ground, or words to that effect.

Yeah, no, we have the song, and we're going to listen to it right now.

Sit down, sit on down, everybody, let's sit down.

Sit down, sit on down, everybody, let's sit down.

Grab a seat on the floor, or else I'm gonna sing some more.

Let's sit down, sit on down, everybody.

Let's sit down.

Take a seat on your butt, then I'm gonna tell you what.

You gotta sit down, sit on down, everybody.

Let's sit down.

Captain Kinner, sit on down.

You sit right down upon the ground.

You gotta sit down, sit on down,

everybody.

Let's sit down.

You have to.

Judge Hodgman, before we continue, we should credit the producer of that that recording, legendary ethnomusicologist Alan Lomek.

I'm not sure, Jesse, because I don't think that that's an archival recording, is it, Howie?

That's something that you worked up in your studio today

or lazily?

Yeah.

Yeah, recorded on wax cylinder.

Okay, it was beautiful.

That's not tape from the camp.

That's a dramatic recreation of the song that you sang loads many years ago.

That's right.

I don't remember the exact words I used, but this was something I would do regularly

when we didn't have visitors.

I would call people out by name if they weren't sitting to sit with their campers because that was the leadership philosophy at the camp.

Sure.

No, I mean, every camp has its own sort of vibe and style, and YCC was the camp of musical bullies.

Finally.

I think in all situations, the man with the acoustic guitar is king, especially with a microphone on top of it.

Yeah, you had a PA system.

You sent along with that song some evidence, including a photo of you, Howie,

really rocking out at YCC camp.

This is archival footage, is it not?

This is a photo from around this time.

That's right.

Yeah, and we'll share this, obviously, on our show page at maximumfund.org, as well as our Instagram account at judgejohodgman.

On Instagram, I quote, this is me, Howie, performing song leader duties and displaying my questionable late 90s facial hair.

Goatee aside, how could anyone deny that punnim?

Howie, you're hot in this photo.

It was a good moment for me.

Mark, wouldn't you agree?

Hot.

Yes, look at those guns.

Look at those guns.

You've really...

Everyone seems to be wearing a white t-shirt in this photo, including the campers or counselors in the background behind you.

Was this a theme night?

White t-shirt night?

On Friday nights, we all would wear a white t-shirt to welcome the Sabbath.

You rolled up your sleeve, and we can see your arm.

You rolled up your sleeves to welcome your biceps.

Exactly.

Everybody sits down at the gun show.

But while this is evidence that you submitted, Howie,

of your incredible style and song-leading charisma,

it also is evidence for Mark's contention that you were obviously amplified.

and

had the power of amplification

when you called out Mark, Captain Kinneart, sit on down.

Captain Kinnert's a pretty cool name, Mark.

Is that something that you went by, or is that just an improvisation on Howie's part?

No, that's not something I went by.

It was definitely an improvisation on Howie's part and was obviously intended as a bit of a slight

objection, Your Honor.

I'll allow it.

What's your objection?

I don't think Mark can know my intention.

He may argue that it was my intention, but really,

my intention was to lovingly, jokingly ask him to sit so that we could proceed in the way that we were accustomed to at the host camp.

Right.

Because here at YCC, when I'm singing, you sit down.

Well.

Or I'm going to roast you musically.

More that it's my job to get everybody seated.

And this was the way that had worked all summer.

So to me, I was just.

Had you roasted anyone else in this way?

Yes.

It was a complicated.

Fellow counselors or

campers.

Fellow counselors as well?

I would only roast the counselors.

I wouldn't roast the campers.

Oh, okay.

And all of the counselors understood that it was meant as a loving joke and reminder that

this is what's expected of them when we're trying to get it.

Yeah, but I need not point out to you, Songleader howie that captain kineart was a guest from a far-off land that's right mark how far away is kinneret camp well there's two types of far away there's the distance

why are all these summer camps in montreal existential

well i think i think it's it's worth mentioning like

I would say perhaps Mary and I would see really eye to eye in some ways.

And so, yeah, they weren't far away from each other in terms of a drive.

It was about 45 minutes or something like that.

They were far away from each other in that

spirit.

In the space, and size.

And, you know, camps like Howie's hosted the sports festival.

Our camp couldn't host the sports festival because

there was basically like a road running through our sports field, and we didn't really have

those types of facilities

or that kind of space to host a camp like that.

So

you were the one who brought up meatballs.

In the meatball scenario, your camp is the small, rickety underdog camp, and YCC is the rich kids' camp, the Robin Hood camp across the lake, the ones that have the matching track suits.

And

they travel around Maine in a luxury bus and so forth.

That's Camp Broadway.

Wearing white t-shirts and shaming counselors across the state.

In this case, province.

You You know, we didn't have a budget for a song leader or a PA system for that matter.

So, you know,

it was all feeling, you know,

foreign.

And so

that basically what the other camps would do to prepare for the sports festival is they would have tryouts where their best athletes would try to make the teams that would compete in the sports festival.

We didn't have tryouts because we didn't really even have enough kids, you know, for all the teams.

And so that year, basically, if you were that age, you played on that team.

And so that year,

I advocated to try something different, which was instead of taking

the majority of the camp to the sports festival, we'll just take everybody because

nobody's trying out anyway.

So we're going to take the entire camp.

to the to the sports festival.

And so

it was a bit of a conversation with the director to convince him that that was reasonable and that I'd be able to keep track of everybody

and that

it wouldn't get chaotic and

all that kind of stuff.

And so that was weighing sort of heavily on me,

I guess, as we were arriving in the sit-down situation.

Tell me how you felt in that moment when you realized you were being sung about by Howie.

In that exact moment,

it was humiliating.

Humiliation,

an embarrassment.

I was trying to set an example for my kids who were intimidated.

And they're discovering things at this camp that we would never, you know, indoor basketball and all these things.

And they're all sitting there.

Indoor basketball?

Discovering indoor basketball.

No, no, no.

This is,

they thought it was Chrutzbo when Columbus suggested he discovered discovered America.

But

what I'm trying to get our kids to have discovered indoor basketball.

This is a level of facilities

that we were just not familiar with.

And so they're all walking in nervous because they're about to have their...

What's that?

Hey, hey, hey, Mr.

Mark, what's that?

It's like, oh, that's a swimming pool that's full of water, not rocks.

That's right.

That's right.

This is

a rollerblading hockey rink where they have instructors to show you, you know, those types of things.

Wow.

Wait, hold on.

Did the Howie, did your camp have a rollerblading hockey rink?

We had a paved asphalt hockey rink.

It was not really well suited to rollerblading because it didn't get repaved that often.

So we mostly played ball hockey in the hockey rink.

You have to understand.

I mean, I know that I felt the same way, Jesse, but then I remembered this is Canada.

There's got to be some form of of hockey.

Got it.

But

they had fancier facilities.

You were feeling like a real country mouse at wide country camp.

And I was feeling that same thing from the kids who are all wide-eyed and they're ushered into this giant

rec hall with more, you know.

Now, did they have white t-shirts too, or are they just dressed in rags?

That's right.

No,

we sprung for fresh camp t-shirts

because

we had to represent.

Because I had sold this thing to the director as this is going to be

great.

It's going to be a bonding thing.

It's going to be a character-building experience.

We're going to go there.

We're going to be proud of who we are.

We're going to show our spirit.

And I'm seeing the kids now,

eyes like saucers,

looking around, knowing that they're all about to get their asses handed to them, their butts handed to them

in whatever sport

they're about to play.

They're feeling overmatched, they're feeling intimidated.

And so

I'm standing up and I'm trying to catch their eyes.

And I'm trying also to make sure that I don't lose any of them and, you know, make sure that I have a count of them.

But I'm trying to catch their eyes and roll my eyes or

show them like, this is no big deal.

Don't worry about this, guys.

It's not, it's nothing.

And then, so as I'm doing this, you know, imagine I am, you know, I've caught the eyes of

one of the Newcomb ball players, right?

Right.

And what I'm doing is trying to show, yeah, yeah, you got nothing to worry about.

Yes, they got tons of people.

Sure, there's 500 people here.

Yeah, this is a big, you know, this is no big deal.

We got it.

Right.

And I'm trying to, you know, make that connection.

Captain can hear it.

Sit on down.

Captain can hear it.

Sit on down.

Hey, you big dummy.

Sit on down.

We're going to whoop your butts in Newcomb Ball.

That's how it's going to be.

Exactly.

Right.

So now the looks of

the faces of the kids are mouths covered.

Oh my God.

Mouths agape.

Did that just happen?

And I was, I kind of like wheeled around and like

looking at this guy, you could see obviously what Howie looked like at the time.

Hot as hell.

Right.

Hot as hell in an amplified way.

Yeah.

And

I was just like,

how is this possibly happening right now?

And so I guess the other part of the world is not...

How is this happening?

Howie is it happening?

Howie is it happening?

Who does that?

From the stage.

Right.

From the stage.

Because

you guys didn't know each other at the time.

We knew each other.

I only knew Howie.

That's right.

I knew Howie a bit.

I knew of Howie because he played

the long bubbling rivalry of the Laurentian Mountains.

Howie v.

Mark.

That's right.

Howie.

We both also, we went to

college together.

We both went to McGill, University of Montreal.

And I knew Howie in a kind of like a bit of a removed way.

He played in a band that I would see sometimes

at the famous Yellow Door coffee house.

And so I guess that added, you know, to my level of, I don't know, prejudgment of who i thought you know he was like what i mean he was kind of he was like a he was like a a rock star exactly of a kind of has a has a very high opinion of himself and his talents and howie what was the name of your band the name of the band at the time was bare left

bare left i like it right frog

wowie zowie

howie zowie wowie howie zowie it's true let's take a quick recess and hear about this week's Judge John Hodgman sponsor.

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

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is brought to you every week by you, our members, of course.

Thank you so much for your support of this podcast and all of your favorite podcasts at maximumfun.org, and they are all your favorites.

If you want to join the many member supporters of this podcast and this network, boy, oh boy, that would be fantastic.

Just go to maximumfund.org/slash join.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Quince.

Jesse, the reviews are in.

My new super soft hoodie from Quince that I got at the beginning of the summer is indeed super soft.

People cannot stop touching me and going, That is a soft sweatshirt.

And I agree with them.

And it goes so well with my Quince overshirts that I'm wearing right now, my beautiful cotton Piquet overshirts and all the other stuff that I've gotten from Quince.

Why drop a fortune on basics when you don't have to?

Quince has the good stuff.

High quality fabrics, classic fits, lightweight layers for warm weather and increasingly chilly leather, all at prices that make sense.

Everything I've ordered from Quince has been nothing.

but solid and I will go back there again and buy that stuff with my own money.

John, you you know what I got from Quince?

I got this beautiful linen double flap pocket shirt that's sort of like an adventure shirt.

And I also got a merino wool polo shirt.

Oh.

It's like a it's like a mid-gray, looks good underneath anything, perfect for traveling.

Cause with merino wool, it like, it basically rejects your stink.

You know what I mean?

It's a stink rejecting technology, John.

It says, get thee behind me, stink.

Yeah, exactly.

And, you know, honestly, even even if I do need to wash it, I can just wear it in the shower when I'm traveling and then

roll it in a towel and it's pretty much ready to go.

Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes.

Quince has wonderful clothes for women, men, kids, babies.

They have travel stuff.

They have gifts.

They have quilts and bedspreads.

They've got everything.

Go over there and find out for yourself.

Keep it classic and cool with long-lasting staples from Quince.

Go to quince.com slash JJHO for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

That's q-u-i-n-ce-e dot com slash jjho to get free shipping and 365-day returns.

Quince.com slash jjo.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Made In.

Let me ask you a question.

Did you know that most of the dishes served at Tom Clicchio's craft restaurant are made in, made in pots and pans?

It's true.

The braised short ribs, made in, made in.

The Rohan Duck Riders of Rohan, made in, made in.

That heritage pork chop that you love so much, you got it.

It was made in, made in.

But made-in isn't just for professional chefs.

It's for home cooks too.

And even some of your favorite celebratory dishes can be amplified with made-in cookware.

It's the stuff that professional chefs use, but because it is sold directly to you, it's a lot more affordable than some of the other high-end brands.

We're both big fans of the carbon steel.

I have a little carbon steel skillet that my mother-in-law loves to use because cast iron is too heavy for her, but she wants that non-stick.

And I know that she can...

you know, she can heat that thing up hot if she wants to use it hot.

She can use it to braise if she wants to use it to braise.

It's an immensely useful piece of kitchen toolery.

And it will last a long time.

And whether it's griddles or pots and pans or knives or glassware or tableware, I mean, you know, Jesse, I'm sad to be leaving Maine soon, but I am very, very happy to be getting back.

to my beloved made-in entree bowls.

All of it is incredibly solid, beautiful, functional, and as you point out, a lot more affordable because they sell it directly to you.

If you want to take your cooking to the next level, remember what so many great dishes on menus all around the world have in common.

They're made in, made in.

For full details, visit madeincookware.com.

That's M-A-D-E-I-N Cookware.com.

Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

So Howie was kind of a rock star to you when he calls you out from the stage.

And was there a stage, Howie?

Was there a stage?

It's possible.

Mark is nodding.

It's possible there was a stage.

My memory is that this was outside

and there wasn't a stage, but it's possible.

So

the indoor basketball courts that Mark is talking about.

Bragged, bragged, bragged about this indoor basketball.

Like, it's possible there was a stage.

I remember we were at the Grand Coliseum.

Because it was something of an amphitheater

and I was in the green room at the time.

I can't recall.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know whether that was before we had the new lighting rig put in or not.

I remember the night before Stevie Nix had asked to perform in the round.

Yeah, it was a revolving.

Was that when we had the revolving stage or the stage within the stage?

Yeah, right.

Your memory is hazy.

I'll defer to Mark.

Mark, was there a stage yes or no?

There was a stage, yes.

Yeah.

Howie was in an elevated position.

That's right.

Playing a guitar, also known as an axe.

And as they say, the tree remembers, the axe forgets.

If Mark remembers being humiliated by a guy named Howie on stage, I believe him.

So did the kids, you say the kids covered their mouths, Mark.

Were they laughing at you or were they just astonished?

They were astonished.

They weren't weren't laughing at me,

but they

were maybe embarrassed for me.

But they were sitting down.

They were sitting down, of course.

All the kids sit down.

What happened after Captain Kinnear at Sit on Down was issued

from the microphone?

Did you sit down then?

Yeah.

I mean, I'm faced with the choice.

I could have continued to stand in protest and risk another perhaps escalated you know, shout out from the stage.

Well, why were people sitting down in the first place, Howie?

What was going to happen?

This was going to be the, my memory is, this was going to be the musical presentation portion.

And so we were trying to get all of the attendees seated so that each delegation could come to the stage and share their song.

Got it.

And they were sitting in like,

was it an amphitheater or was it like, were they sitting on logs or were they sitting on

tables or what?

If it's as Mark remembers, they were sitting on the floor of the basketball court.

Oh, what kind of basketball court was it?

Like, could you see the stars or no?

No.

Like, if it rained, what would happen in the basketball court?

Would you get wet?

No,

it was an indoor basketball court.

Oh, indoor basketball.

Wow.

Sorry, I forgot about that detail.

Pretty fancy.

Did you express your frustration to Howie after this happened?

We have never really talked about it like this.

I told today.

I don't think I ever owned up to having actually been embarrassed

about it.

It's something that was, I just sort of at first passive-aggressively dealt with, and then we swept it under the rug.

But you're friends now, right?

Yes or no?

Yes.

How did you become friends after Howie humiliated you in this way?

Well,

Howie was friendly with a lot of the people that I was friendly with.

Okay.

And our paths would continue to cross and continue to cross.

He actually

was roommates following that summer.

He was roommates with

a friend.

a friend of ours, somebody who one of my roommates was also in a band with.

And so, you know, we found ourselves spending time there um and you know the the edge sort of began to wear off a little bit and then there was this kind of moment I guess I found myself over there

and

over there at camp now or are we talking excuse me I'm sorry over at over at Howie and Zach's apartment with a bunch of names

yeah Zach will you know he'll be fine

you know a bunch of people connect with us we're all sort of over there and

there was I understand you're all hanging around in Montreal or where are you living?

That's right.

We're in Montreal.

So

you're all in the yellow door scene, friends of friends.

Your age is like what, early 20s at this point.

Yeah.

You're not doing the camp thing anymore.

Maybe you are.

But it's adult life now, and you're over at Zach's because Zach's.

You're drinking beers, you're playing roller hockey, you're eating bagels, you're

making out with Yupi.

Just

young adult Montreal stuff.

Just young adult Montreal stuff.

Yeah,

just a

classic fet of some kind, a house fet.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Because Zach's got the cool apartment or whatever, and there's Howie across the room.

And tell me what happened.

Right.

So Zach and Howie were sharing this apartment.

They lived in this apartment.

And I can't remember exactly what the details were, but

in Montreal, in what was affectionately at that time known as the student ghetto,

there was some kind of sketchy landlord

behavior or whatever.

So

there was an appliance.

It was like a fridge or the freezer stopped working.

And instead of fixing it, the landlord just left it there and then brought in like a chest freezer basically into this little apartment to be like, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, you still have a freezer.

And then so Zach and Howie started using the surface of this freezer, you know, with a whiteboard marker

to record the results of this contest that Howie would run for people, which was

the Premium Plus Challenge.

It is.

Is it appropriate to continue into the Premium Plus Challenge?

I insist.

No, I've been told to be on alert for any mention of the Premium Plus Challenge, so I'm very curious to know what it is.

Premium Plus was the brand of saltine crackers.

I think they have them in the U.S.

But they're not.

We just call them Premium.

Ah.

Right.

Yeah, exactly.

And that's a much reality, it would have been Plus.

Premium Plus.

Okay.

And so, you know, the contest was simple.

How quickly can a person eat 10 Premium Plus saltine crackers?

And then, you know, you would be timed, and then your score and name would be immortalized in a whiteboard marker on the side of this freezer.

So, yes, this is a classic young dudes in their 20s hanging around with each other, don't want to talk about feelings

or past recrimination, instead of just going to shove their mouths full of saltines.

And

that's how they bond.

I'm right.

You know, there's a lot of people, mixed company,

and how he introduces the game or the contest.

And

he's cleverly talking about it and offering tips for new people on how you might be able to come close to his record with his name in big letters at the top.

Howie was

not only killing it at the yellow door, he was also killing at a Premium Plus.

What I'm hearing is that Howie was not only an acoustic guitar bully, he was also a saltine bully.

Yeah, you might say, look, you know, I didn't necessarily feel bullied, but it was triggering.

It had the familiar hallmarks of what had transpired, you know, a summer ago.

Let me just, all right, let's pause for a second.

So this is like a year later, is what you're saying, that this happened.

Let me go back a year then, Howie,

to that fateful evening in the indoor basketball court.

You said that when you

sang told Mark to sit down, you didn't know his name.

So you sang Captain Kinneart.

Whereas Mark says from the floor of the indoor basketball that he already knew you from the Montreal music scene.

From Mark's point of view, there's a power differential there.

Did you really not know at all who Mark was?

I knew who he was, but I didn't know his name.

I knew he was a friend of a friend, but we hadn't yet been introduced.

Now,

I also felt the power differential.

So, Mark said earlier that he was a program director at his camp, and I was unaware of the relative size of his camp.

I hadn't yet visited it.

And when Mark got off the bus from Camp Kinneret, he was carrying a walkie-talkie,

a clipboard,

and a set of keys.

Those are some pretty big power signifiers, Mark.

In the summer camp universe, there is no more powerful trio of symbols so to my mind

mark who was my age or seemed about my age but had attained this high rank of program director in some speedy fashion yeah he wasn't sitting down because he didn't feel like he had to sit down he was too good to sit down that was your that was your

read on mark that that was my read of the situation and

From my perspective, I have a job to do, which is to get everybody who's in this beautiful indoor basketball court sitting on the dirty basketball floor.

And the way that I do that, instead of yelling at them, is singing at them.

Yeah, you gently nudge them down with song.

I understand.

I understand.

But now that you know Mark,

is your assessment of him as a high-status,

walkie-talkie-carrying power figure the same or different?

No, it's different.

How would you describe your friend, Mark?

I would describe Mark as a kind, generous, and funny friend.

Mark, when did you reveal that you still had feelings about being told to sit down?

I think

it was

when I actually verbalized it, it was actually

at Howie's bachelor party.

Oh, really?

Like, so that's probably even, what, 10 years even after that fact, where I actually said, I think I sort of half-jokingly said, you know, you were my nemesis for a long time, and I'm happy to, you know, be standing here with you.

And so that was the first time that I had ever outwardly, you know, mentioned that, you know, I had been thinking about it or have continued to think about it.

So you had become close enough friends via the Premium Plus Challenge, which we'll talk about in a second,

that you'd be invited to his bachelor party roughly a decade later.

And now

here it is.

How long has it been since you went to that bachelor party, Howie?

Roughly speaking.

About 15 years.

About 15 years.

So when Mark said to you, I feel, you know, you were my nemesis, you told me to sit down and make me feel bad.

How did you feel at your bachelor party?

Well, I said, you know, I have still carried around the time that you destroyed my record in the Premium Plus challenge, and I still feel a little bit ashamed about that.

Oh,

turnabout was fair play.

So now, in the saga of Mark and Howie, we roll back another

nine years or so to Zach's apartment when Howie is describing the Premium Plus Challenge.

He was given some tips because he was the Premium Plus Challenge Champ.

How many

Premium Plus saltines were you able to eat, Howie?

What was the record?

Well, it was, you had to eat 10

crackers as fast as possible.

As quickly as possible.

Okay, so what was your time record?

I feel like it was like a minute and a half.

A minute and a half.

And what were your tips that

you were bragging on when you were introducing these noobs to this incredible Zach's kitchen game?

I think it was, you know, don't take it slow because your mouth is going to dry up.

So you got to get as much in as you can right away.

And so what would that mean?

Like you preload five?

You just don't take a break between crackers.

Like, don't.

Do you have to eat them one at a time or can you do like two, four, six, eight?

Yeah, I think there were no rules beyond you have to eat 10.

Okay, 10, and so it was in a minute and change, right?

Is that what you said?

Yeah, maybe 90 seconds.

All right.

And then Mark stood up and said, I shall take the challenge.

Yeah, and he did it in like 26 seconds.

It was not close.

Mark, do you remember that time when you ate all those crackers in 26 seconds?

Sort of.

Because

I feel like I kind of blacked out

when I was doing it.

I felt

I'm not competitive

at all, but

I just felt like

I saw red basically, and

I'm going to destroy this guy.

I don't know.

I didn't even think about it.

I just decided that

my name was going to be on the fridge.

You hadn't been training for the Premium Plus Challenge or anything.

You had no background in fast cracker eating.

It was just a moment where you saw Howie again.

You felt that wound from camp YCC and you're like, I'm going to go, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to get this guy now.

Not so much in a vindictive way, but I, yeah.

I basically said, you know, who's Captain Kinnear at now?

He eats these crackers.

Did that, I mean, obviously you became friends after that, such that a decade later you'd be at his bachelor party, correct?

Yes.

And he was incredibly gracious about having, you know, been destroyed

in the challenge.

He shook my hand and congratulated me and said how amazing, you know, how he couldn't believe the time.

And, you know, it sort of, I saw a side of him which was,

you know,

he was happy to put somebody else on the stage or the spotlight and and and so I felt a warmth from him that I that I hadn't and I I guess that was sort of a...

Now we had a shared thing because we were both very good Premium Plus eaters and we were both former champions.

We had never really had a shared thing before other than being humiliated.

It evened the polished indoor basketball playing surface.

In a matter of speaking.

Yeah, and

it set the stage for a stage that you could share and be friends at that point okay

so uh

why

why were you still dwelling on it nine years later why are we still talking about it today mark i mean it seems like why didn't why didn't eating ten saltines as quickly as possible heal your wound

do you know sometimes when let's say you're you're going to sleep or you're going to bed and you close your eyes sometimes right it flashes into your mind or right flashes into your mind

something really embarrassing that you've done or a moment that you have that that just makes you cringe.

And so like

that's a thing.

I have that

right

being called out in front of 500 people and then

meekly having to decide,

Should I protest this or make a scene about it or or or do I sit down?

So all these kids looking at me as an example and then I

have to prostrate myself in front of the rock star and sit down.

Do you think that I can give you what you want?

If the saltines and the bachelor party conversation and the 25 years of friendship hasn't been able to heal this wound,

how can I help?

Well, I think Howie really

truly, in a genuine way, believes that he was right.

he was right to do that and that was that was the right and so we've never uh we've never addressed or talked about how

that was actually super embarrassing uh and and so that's that's where i feel like the judgment is is important like what was it in fact

but there's a culture there's a cultural thing here mark because

you're both canadian right yeah by birth yeah so mark you should know how difficult it is for a canadian to say sorry

it's the hardest thing.

It's just from birth they are trained never say sorry.

Never ever say sorry.

Howie, you're hearing what Mark is saying.

Do you still think you were right?

And even if you do think you were right in the moment, now that he's explained his feelings, why not say sorry?

I'm happy to say sorry.

And I accept that his feelings are real and legitimate.

And I can understand now that he's told the story in this way why he might have had those feelings.

But what sits with me is that he still thinks that I intended to humiliate him, that it was my goal to make him feel that way

when it wasn't.

And I feel like that

characterization of

of who I am and who I was being in that moment has made it so that I don't think he can fully fully trust me and he and I can't fully trust him because we still have this thing,

this pebble in the shoe of our friendship.

And Mark, do you maintain that you think that Howie set out to humiliate you?

That it wasn't a misunderstanding?

I don't think it was a misunderstanding.

I don't think he set out to

grievously humiliate me, but

the aim of it was to sort of, right, you're naming someone in front of the whole group and essentially shaming them to comply with the rest of what the rest of the group is doing.

So, right, I don't know how else you would describe that.

Was there a rivalry between the two camps such that you could presume sort of

aggression, good-hearted or not?

I mean, yeah,

we were literally rolling in so that we could participate in a sports festival against each other.

Right.

So you felt like

by definition, there had to be a little bit of knife twisting, even if it was good-natured and not meant to truly harm.

But like

you're the opposition in that case.

That's right.

Competitive edge.

And despite seeing my walkie-talkie and my clipboard, he still saw fit to call me out in front of the group.

Which is not a small group.

That's five or six hundred people.

And so,

yes, i maintain that did anyone refer to you as captain can earit after that

i squashed that pretty quickly

so people did so the answer is yes um on the on the bus ride home some of the kids were were we're trying that out it's a very catchy tune captain can hear it sing on sit on down captain can ear it sit on down how do you feel when i sing it captain can earit sit on down how do you feel when i roast you to be honest when you played it earlier in the show yeah

I haven't heard that song since the day.

But when you played it earlier in the show, I knew every word of it.

I sang it in my head along, so

it's with me.

It's with you.

Howie, you covered your mouth when Mark revealed that he had not heard it since then, and it's still,

and he remembers every word.

Were you

covering your mouth to yawn because, oh,

this boring dude?

Or were you stifling a different emotion?

I was, I think I had

a set of mixed emotions.

The first is

a bit of shame on my part that I've wounded my friend so badly, but also a bit of pride on my part that as a songwriter, I wrote a song that's still in his head 20 years later.

Oh, it's a very catchy tune.

You're saying you're proud that your bullying is living in his head rent-free.

Mark, it says here that if I were to rule in your favor, you would like me to compel Howie to acknowledge that you were leading by example, that you did not deserve or need to be singled out and embarrassed musically in front of 500 kids.

And though he has not used those precise words, it does sound like he acknowledges now

that he realizes that he hurt your feelings.

Is that not sufficient?

Yeah, I suppose it's sufficient.

I think

it just, I don't know, it seems like when

after you've done something, you should own it.

But by contrast, Howie, in his request for a ruling, wants me to order every member of your friend group to call you Captain Kinneart once per year in the group chat in the name of quote-unquote humility.

So he's asking for something pretty specific if I were to find in his favor.

So is there, if I were to find in your favor and adjudicate that you were harmed,

is there some concrete damages that I could award you?

Perhaps by that same group chat and that same friend group, Howie could issue

a sincere apology

instead of trying to

get people to continue to do what

he did

in the first place.

Howie, when you ask that I order every member of the friend group to call Mark Captain Kinner at once per year in the, quote, name of humility, end quote,

Mark seems pretty humble.

Do you mean in the name of humility or in the name of re-humiliation?

I guess what I meant was I would like him now, all these years later, to recognize the spirit in which the song was intended.

not as bullying, but as just a gentle, hey, we're all friends here.

We can all laugh together at ourselves.

I see.

Okay, I think I've heard everything I need to.

I am going to go sneak into the tuck shop of my chambers and

eat a lot of whatchamacallit bars and

have some bug juice.

And I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Mark, how are you feeling about your chances?

Truthfully, pretty good.

You could see where the judge was naturally leaning when he asked about humility versus re-humiliation.

Howie, how do you feel?

You know, I've never been called a bully before, so I'm feeling

a little put in my place.

We'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this 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.

The Van Freaks Road Show is about to get in gear.

How many gears does a Mitsubishi Delica Japanese market-only adventure van have?

Six?

Five?

I'm going to put it up to eight.

Why not eight?

Yeah, eight.

Probably.

They probably have some extra gears.

I've only ever driven a Subaru Sambar, which is what I have.

But I'm imagining myself, I've got my left hand on the gearknob right now, right-hand drive vehicle.

Yep.

And I'm putting the Delica up to

eight because we're cruising on the freeway to Belfast, Northern Ireland.

We're taking that transatlantic freeway straight to Belfast, Northern Ireland, and following up with Dublin, Edinburgh, London, Copenhagen, then back over to the United States for a whole bunch of wonderful cities in the United States, some of which we've been to before, like Chicago and St.

Paul, Austin, Texas, some we've never been to, like Lexington, Kentucky, and Charlottesville, Virginia, plus our nation's capital, Washington, D.C.

And of course, the state theater here in Portland, Maine, as well as, of course, our triumphant return to my hometown sort of of Boston, Massachusetts at the Wilbur Theater, and our double triumphant return to Brooklyn at the Murmur Opera House, where not only will we be performing live for you, but also live streaming the show to the entire world.

We love Antiques Roadshow.

We love Mitsubishi Delica vans.

We love shows.

We love the road.

We love you.

We want to see you in all of these places and online.

You can get all the details at vanfreaksroadshow.com.

We have registered the domain.

VanFreaksRoadshow.com for all your tickets and your information.

Go there now.

You can also submit cases for all these places.

We do need cases and places.

Maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho.

You'll find the link there over at Van Freaks Road Show as well.

Let us know if you're in any of these cities and you've got a dispute with anybody.

We might hear your case live on stage.

And finally, justice will be yours.

Van FreaksRoadshow.com.

Tickets are going.

Why don't you go get them?

Let's get back to the case.

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

I think for two summers, I did go to Camp Burgess and Cape Cod for two weeks.

One time with Damon, one time I think with John Wolfe.

Maybe both times with Damon.

Anyway, with my friends.

And I did not see the point, and I did not like it.

I did not care for it.

I saw through that pretty quickly that this is a kind of constant low-level trauma.

No one ever bullied me.

I'm just talking about having to shower in public.

No, thank you.

For an only child, this was the worst.

Wait, the showers at your summer camp were public?

Well, I mean, there were stalls.

Do you know what I mean?

You had to down square.

You had to walk through the woods.

You had to walk through the woods in flip-flops and a towel.

Wow.

This was not for a sensitive child of Brookline, Massachusetts.

And I'm talking about, you know, Brookline is suburban, but

it ain't the woods.

And, you know, tests of strength and physical conflict.

The only thing that I,

we had a tick problem in our camp, too.

There was just nature was just

constantly trying to crawl up and into you.

So when we did our capture the flag event, our team was called the Ticks, the Fighting Ticks.

That was my idea.

This is my one happy memory.

What I remember a lot was spending

nights listening to the other kids in my bunk just like cry themselves to sleep because they were so homesick.

And I was too.

No number of Bloom County comic strips can ease the homesickness of an only child.

And yet, for all of this, we sent our kids to a classic summer camp, too.

And I understand that people have a lot of fondness for camp that goes beyond mere Stockholm syndrome.

Because I know that our daughter loved her experience of that camp and went on to become

a counselor in training.

She really lived it up.

Whereas our son sent home a letter which was, I mean,

truly magnificent

in taking the

pain and homesickness he was feeling and forging it into a weapon to hurt us,

insofar as he wrote us a letter saying,

camp is fine.

I have two friends.

Their names are Clown and Opera.

Those aren't real people.

Those are the knots in the pine wood ceiling above my bunk that I talk to at night because I have no actual friends.

Signed, your son.

Boy.

I mean, I...

Oh, Mudda.

Oh, fada.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, he's like, I don't know that he's ever going to forgive us for

going to that camp the second time.

We're like, you came to like it at the end.

He's like, no, I didn't.

You know, people have different experiences.

There is something about summer camp and the collision of people at

those ages, right?

Ages like, let's say,

you know,

eight to 12

or even 15 for campers and then like 16 to 18 or 19 for counselors, like two groups that are at very, very

big emotional moments of transition and change in their lives.

And those collisions can be very memorable and very, very fun, and yet also traumatic.

Or at least, let's say, memorable in a less fun way, right?

And in particular,

you know, when you have kids in charge of other kids,

you know, counselors who are themselves children, in charge of children,

the understanding of the roles of authority and the responsibilities of authority,

it gets very blurry.

Now, I believe Howie.

I believe that Howie did not understand

that Mark

felt so vulnerable already.

And I believe Howie, when he says,

I saw the walkie-talkie, I saw the clipboard, I saw the signifiers of authority, and I saw the title.

And I felt here was a here was

a figure of authority.

And And who am I, if not a goate bard?

A jester, if you will,

whose job, nay, responsibility

is to upset authority at every turn, if possible, and speak truth to the king.

King, Captain Kinneart, sit on down.

Tis I, Howie the Bard.

And plus,

I mean, Howie is a natural performer and rock star.

He played at the door.

As a musician and as a performer, and I can say this because I am also the same, Howie probably had difficulty understanding that people in the audience are human beings,

that he is not the main character of the universe,

that people have feelings besides him, including Mark.

You know, when we are on stage, it is power.

You know, even though Howie misunderstood the power differential and thought he was kind of, you know, thumbing his nose at the man to some degree,

still he was on stage and he was amplified.

And that's a power that you have to wield responsibly.

When you do crowd work and comedy or whatever,

you have to be careful that you are...

roasting responsibly the people in the audience and that they're enjoying it.

And I think that, you know, despite the fact that Howie, I think in good faith, thought that he was just poking at another counselor, the truth is that he made an error of judgment.

He didn't appreciate that being on stage gave him a visibility and

a kind of power of his own that necessarily made it a little bit more of a punch down than a punch up.

Equally so, I think Howie, and this is a perfectly reasonable error of judgment.

Like, I'm not saying that Howie's a bad person.

Like, Howie, how old were you at this time?

21, 22.

Oh, you should have known better.

Never mind.

But I would say it's perfectly reasonable even then, because you're just still, your brain's still developing.

And

you don't know all of the context of what's going on here.

And, you know,

roasting and teasing fellow counselors within your own camp environment, your own camp ecosystem of light hazing and torture, torture.

You know where to push and where not to push.

You know how far to poke until you hit bone.

But because this was a guest from a far-off land, you didn't necessarily know what their conventions were, right?

I don't think you intended to hurt him.

And I'm going to say something, Mark, that you might not like.

If I were in your shoes and someone called me Captain Kinneart, and they

were roasting me from the stage, I'd be so happy.

I remember the first time I ever saw the video on YoMTV raps of hammers they put me in the mix, and that's the one that goes, hammer, hammer, I am, hammer.

And then he goes, they put me in the mix.

Like, yeah, dude, you're in the song.

Of course they put you in the mix.

It's still thrilling for a hammer to hear his own name.

But, you know, that's because Howie and I are...

emotionally stunted performers who want recognition at all times.

Howie didn't know that you weren't going to be flattered flattered by the fact that you got this cool name, Captain Kinneart, which really sounds like a cool Elton John album, actually.

Like,

I think that

you have to acknowledge that Howie acted in good faith, given the information that he had and given the level of judgment that he had.

One thing that Howie has not said in this, really in this conversation, he said, I would be happy to say sorry, but I haven't heard him say sorry.

You know what I'm saying?

So, looking back at your ideal rulings for a moment,

I'm definitely not going to order

your entire friend group to continue to rehaze

Mark by calling him Captain Kinneart once a year in the group chat in the name of humility.

Mark is plenty humble.

So I am going to rule in Mark's favor in this case, even though I feel that what you did, Howie, was not that bad, right?

That you did it with good intentions and in in a way that if Mark had been a more extroverted person who liked to get some attention thrown at him, you might have even enjoyed.

But in this case,

your little barb went awry and

it lodged in his heart and it's still working its way out.

You're asking to be taken at face value, take at face value what Mark has told you, that he was not standing to flout your authority.

He was trying to be empathetic towards his kids.

And your little song dart was misguided and hit him too hard.

I think I do order you to acknowledge that he was, in fact, leading by example.

Do you acknowledge that?

I do.

So acknowledged.

And I do order you to say, I'm sorry,

but in a song.

So producer Jennifer Marmor, how long do we have until this podcast hits the air?

Just under a month, Howie.

So, yeah, so Howie, just write the song in whatever mode or tone you want it to be.

Keep it about 30 seconds and send it to us, and we'll play it next week.

Hello.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Sit down, sit on down.

Everybody, let's sit down.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Mark, how do you feel?

I can't wait.

I can't wait.

Howie,

I hope you get some other musicians in on it.

Make it big.

Howie, how do you feel?

I feel good.

I feel like I've got a project now, and I can channel

my regret into music.

And hopefully, going forward, Mark and I will have smoother seas to sail.

Howie, Mark, thanks for joining us 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 second.

Our thanks to Redditor Mutant Friend for naming this week's episode

Disbard.

Disbarred, because it was a bard who dissed that guy.

Yeah.

That was a good one.

We're asking for those names at maximumfund.reddit.com, where you can also sneak a peek at upcoming topics of Judge John Hodgman cases.

It's a sneaky move.

Sneaky.

Go sneak on over there.

No one ever goes to Reddit to not be sneaky.

Instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman is where you can see this picture.

This picture of

the world's most slash least rockingest man

ripped in out of sweet acoustic guitar solo at summer camp.

Really looking like, you know, really looking like Coop from Wet Hot American Summer, Michael Showalt's director.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Here, I got a music bed for the rest of the credits.

Go ahead.

Judge Sean Hodgman, created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman.

This episode engineered by Max Jewer at Clutch Sound in Madison, Wisconsin.

Marie Barty runs our social media.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Now, Swift Justice.

Redditor Medved801 says,

My husband drinks my drinks if I don't finish them within 30 minutes.

He claims, after 30 minutes, I've given up my right of exclusivity to my drink, and it is up for grabs.

Yeah, no, I mean, you can't, you can't grab, you can't steal someone's drink because then they're only having half a drink.

And we all know a body needs two drinks, right, Jesse?

Body needs two drinks.

It's true.

That's science.

It's science.

Don't steal people's drinks.

So that settles that.

But now we need some new disputes.

How about stranger disputes?

You know, when Howie and Mark met, they didn't, they didn't, when this all happened, they didn't know each other.

This is a grudge that Mark was holding against a stranger until he wandered into Zach's kitchen and saw a chance to redeem himself with the saltine challenge.

Maybe you've gotten into a dispute with a stranger, arguments you've had at the airport with a stranger, in the subway, or online.

You remember that person who was going too slow in the passing lane and you couldn't pass those cars because they wouldn't get over?

Or remember that person at the grocery store who had 16 items in the 15-item or less line?

Remember those teens who guilted your son into switching seats on the airplane such that he had to give up his nice window seat for a middle seat three rows back?

Oh, those teens.

What did you do about it?

Seethe like I did, or did you get justice?

Probably you didn't get justice.

It's hard to get justice against strangers in this world, but I will give it to you.

If you have a dispute against a stranger who cannot speak for themselves, send it in to us at maximumfund.org/slash slash JJ Ho, and Jesse and I will resolve it for you and probably find in your favor.

But we're also looking for all disputes, right, Jesse?

All disputes, and especially disputes in places where we are headed out on tour.

So if you are in one of those places, make sure to let us know when you go to maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho.

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

Everybody, let's sit down.

Boom.

Hey, it's a completely unsurprising and totally promised post-credits sequence where I'm going to read that letter from Mary that I alluded to in the cultural reference.

So you may recall Camp Robin Hood in Maine, the, let's say,

over-resourced camp offering golf and tennis and squash programs along with its, per its website, 95 years of traditional values.

A few months ago, listener Rachel wrote in about being a counselor there, and I read her letter online, and she revealed the instructions that some campers were allowed to ignore all camp rules and do whatever they wanted.

The rumor being they were children of the leaders of a drug cartel.

Camp Robin Hood.

Anyway, here's a letter from listener Mary, who did not attend Camp Robin Hood, but had an interaction with them.

She went to Camp Four Winds.

Here's what she had to say.

Camp Four Winds was an all-girls sailing camp, and even though it was the early aughts, Four Winds was still very much stuck in the heydays of 1960s prep prep/slash preppy culture.

So we sang songs dedicated to pink and green polo shirts, including the classic, just like you would to your Izod shirt, be true to Four Winds Now.

I had no clue what Izod was.

Across the lake was Camp Robinhood.

One night the girls in my bunk caught up to some mischief.

After our counselors fell asleep, we snuck down to the docks.

We stole canoes and quietly paddled toward Camp Robinhood.

It was July, but it was Maine, so it was freezing.

I was in the middle of one canoe, a freeloading non-paddler, desperately hoping we wouldn't capsize and drown.

At Camp Robinhood, they had dark green shirts with a jaunty Robinhood logo embroidered on the chest.

They had a practice at the end of the day of leaving them to dry in the docks.

We wanted those shirts, and we planned to steal them.

But as we were docking, a revolving bright light shone out.

And some kind of alarm started blaring.

We grabbed as many shirts as we could, and we started panic paddling back, and we made it.

When we got back, we shoved the Robinhood shirts deep into the bottom of our camp trunks.

I lived with dread every day afterwards that we would be found out and thrown in jail.

But we got away with it.

Until,

days later, one of our group made a mistake and wore one of the shirts.

It was a dead giveaway, especially as the shirts had been reported missing.

We got a stern talking to, and we were forced to return the shirts to Camp Robin Hood, but I kept one.

I wore it a few times once I got home before I felt too guilty and gave it to Goodwill.

So she ended up stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

Good job, Mary.

She goes on, in a twist of fate and imbalanced budgets, Camp Four Winds closed the year afterwards.

I was sad.

Camp Four Winds was old and run down, but also genuinely fun.

I promptly forgot how to sail, though I think I could still successfully win a game of Jacks if the opportunity arose.

So Mary sent in a recording of her singing that one bit of the Camp Four Winds song that I quoted when I entered this courtroom.

So, we'll close out today

with that.

Just like you would to your eyes on shirt, be true to four winds now.

Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.