Fight Court

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, fight court.

William brings the case against his wife, Wren.

Wren is a member of an amateur boxing gym.

William wants to join her gym.

Wren is concerned about him overshadowing her hobby.

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.

David was like, there's another downtown artist talking about boxing in New York.

That's my thing.

So he challenged me to a boxing match.

I thought about it and I decided I'm going to call myself the Herring Wonder.

I had this idea that I would be a reincarnated turn-of-the-century Jewish boxer and I would be fueled by herring and I would have herring breath in the ring.

So I accepted the challenge.

It's on.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear them in.

William and Wren, please rise and raise your right hands.

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 has a weak right cross?

I do.

I do.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

The only thing weaker is my left jab.

Yeah, watch for the hook, though.

Yeah, you'll see it coming.

It's very slow.

Cool Breeze taught us that.

William and Ren, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors.

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

William, let's start with you.

I think I'm going to have to go with Mike Tyson in an interview before he got into boxing.

Maybe he did herring fishing.

Okay.

Mike Tyson in an alternate universe and was he fished for herring.

It's a good guess.

Ren, what's your guess?

I'm going to guess the Barbara Streisand film,

the main event.

The Barbara Streisand film, the main event.

Wrong, it was from A Starsborn.

Wrong.

It's called Yentel.

Well, all guesses are wrong.

Jesse, can you name the cultural reference?

You should be able to.

That's from one of my favorite television shows of all time, Bored to Death, starring John Hodgman.

Actually, Jesse, all guesses are wrong.

Yet, really?

Is it not?

That is a quote from Jonathan ames the creator of bored to death uh-huh

in a story about his own real life when he got into a

into a uh meta boxing match with a performance artist called david the impact addict leslie in new york city and he told that story on a little radio show called bullseye on may 21st 2021 never heard of it never heard of it it's an npr show i highly recommend it it's part of a segment called The Craziest Bleeping Day of My Life or something.

Oh, yeah.

The craziest f ⁇ ing day of my entire career.

That's right.

We'll bleep that out.

Craziest Bleeping Day of My Entire Career.

That's a really fun story.

And yes, you're right.

Bored to Death is a terrific show.

Thank you very much.

And a lot of that true life story about Jonathan getting into a boxing match

was used for the plot of Bored to Death Season 1, Episode 8, Take a Dive,

in

which I, John Hodgman, playing the sniveling Lewis Green, I actually had to train to box.

And you know what, Jesse?

Challenging.

The sweet science is not good for a weak asthmatic like me.

But I guess that's what we're going to talk about today.

Who comes to this court seeking justice, please?

I do, Your Honor.

You are William.

What is the nature of your dispute?

Well,

we've both dabbled in boxing for a bit.

She's now part of a gym, and I've been out of- She?

She?

Wren.

Yeah.

Yes.

Wren is part of.

This is your partner, your married partner.

We've been married about six years.

Her name is Ren.

Her name is Wren, yes.

Okay.

And

I've been out of boxing for a bit.

She's...

got back into it.

She?

Ren.

She.

Now it's okay.

Now you can say it.

You've established that Ren is a whole human being in her own right who happens to be married to you there in Salt Lake City.

Okay, dabbled in boxing.

You got out of it.

Wren is getting back into it.

Go on.

Correct.

And giving me the bug again.

And

in October, there's going to be an amateur fight card.

And one of the attractive things about training boxing is you have this goal at the end.

Okay,

now all of the training I've done is culminating in a final event.

And

without that, it's hard to be motivated to engage.

And so

the problem here is she's okay with me going to the gym, but not Ren is not okay with necessarily me being on the same card as her because having an actual fight camp to engage in an actual fight is a different kind of beast.

Ren, tell me about this boxing gym.

Well, this gym is really cool because

it fills a really good niche between like we've trained when we used to live in Vegas, we used to train at a pro gym and that was way too much for us.

Yeah, I would guess a pro gym in Las Vegas is pretty intense, I betcha.

We did work for their website and in exchange, one of the coaches trained us.

I was going to stop you and say for the viewer who hasn't had a chance to check out the photographs, the very charming photographs of William and Wren and the evidence, which we'll we'll be getting to later.

William and Wren look like a couple of people who work on a website, maybe for a boxing, for a pro boxing gym, but more likely for like Ruby Coffee, would be my guess.

I'm already like putting their number into my phone in case I'm having trouble with Windows later.

Yeah.

You look like two lovely, if I may say so, nerds with a kind of, like, with a little bit of like a metal element to your nerddom.

Would that be fair to say?

We've got a big beard on William.

And a mohawk on me.

Oh, you got a mohawk, but I can't see it because you're wearing some kind of black cap right now.

Yeah,

I'm wearing my Las Vegas Golden Knights cap right now because we have a Toronto Cup.

Stanley Cup winning team of hockey, Jesse Thorne.

Hockey, you know how you love baseball so much and talk about it?

I learned who won the Stanley Cup in hockey, so that's kind of my thing now.

Hockey.

Yeah, it's about the same, about the same deal.

Hockey is another form of exercise that culminates in hurting someone.

That's definitely why I started up in hockey.

Well, I've been in a professional boxing gym in New York City when I was forced to train physically for this TV show, Bored to Death.

And

it's not a place where I felt entirely comfortable.

But you don't live in Las Vegas anymore.

You live in Salt Lake City, what I like to call the Azores of the American West, right?

One person will get that joke, and that's all it's for.

In any case, tell me about the boxing gym you go to now.

Is there a

strong beardo, fuzzy mohawk, magic the gathering contingent in this gym?

Is it a little bit more nerd-friendly?

I think it's a bit more everyone-friendly.

Nice.

Yes, I

hang out with all people from all kinds of walks of life there.

We get people who are just there to get a workout.

We've got people who actually want to learn

some like boxing technique.

And

they host these

amateur events a couple of times a year.

And this is the one that's coming up in October.

That's the point of contention at the moment.

But let me go back a little bit.

Now, William said that you both have dabbled in boxing.

Wren, what is your history with boxing?

Well, initially, the first time I went to a boxing gym, well, we

both independently, before before we were together, were interested in watching combat sports.

Okay.

So that's basically, what are we talking about?

MMA, boxing, jousting,

fencing.

I actually did use to fence in high school as well.

Oh, what did what was your, what was your sword?

Epe, foil, or saber?

It was epe.

Nice.

New York Times crosswords favorite.

Yeah.

Okay, so you both independently liked watching combat sports right and then uh the first time either of us went into a boxing gym it was me who went into a very very

more of an aerobics class with boxing you with you know punch bags okay um less of actually trying to teach you anything like a punching zumba exactly

and that really wasn't for me either um what got us both really, really into boxing was that we participated in this comedy boxing event that comedy boxing was hosted

yes it was hosted by a different podcast that we listened to and

a different podcast you say jesse pod sales

they listen to a different podcast okay i think i've heard everything i need to in order to make my decision goodbye forever william and wren you're both out of order and you know what I'm never listening to on the media again now that I found out they host boxing events.

Yeah, Brooke Gladstone runs a tight promotion.

A tight boxing promotion for sure.

Comedy boxing only though.

What is comedy boxing, Ren?

Well, this event, it has a bunch of different

themes for the different fights.

Some of them are more serious, some of them are more silly.

The one that I did was musical chairs.

So you would start with about maybe eight ladies in the boxing ring.

Right.

With six chairs.

And whoever does it get a chair, those two have to fight each other to stay in the next round.

Okay, gotcha.

So there are two people get locked out of the chairs.

So it's real boxing with some comedy.

With comedy elements.

Comedy elements, exactly.

And do you have, did you box under a hilarious nom de box, a pseudonym or something?

I hadn't been going by any name

yet, the last couple that I did, but I have since adopted the name Renegade.

Nice.

And

your name is Ren spelled like the bird.

Spelled like the bird.

So renegade spelled with a W.

That's pretty, that's pretty good, I have to say.

That's really good.

William, are you into comedy boxing?

Yeah, my fights were a little more serious.

So I did one's called Biggest Loser.

So listen to this guy, comedy boxing gatekeeping over here.

It's a little bit more serious.

It's okay, William.

You did serious comedy boxing.

I get it.

Yeah.

What was different about yours?

It was,

you know, three rounds, and it was the two people who lost the most weight uh in the time frame given so uh for me i lost about 60 70 pounds and wow he's out dead in there against somebody else who lost a similar amount so two people who weren't very fit and then got very fit very fast very fit very fast that that's not comedy that feels pretty like serious biz that's it's not a joke it's not neither of these are a joke

even though you're starting with musical chairs you are still getting up and boxing

So, is this how you two met in the comedy boxing world of Salt Lake City?

No, we met because she showed up to my work one day where I was a manager of a company that works on websites.

Right.

And so

she showed up because her friend worked there and they had lunch together and that's where we first met.

Oh, okay.

But you had already, then you discovered that you had blood sport in common.

How did that come up?

So

one of the reasons that we started hanging out a lot more is because, you know, I had this interest in watching combat sports, but I didn't have access to the pay-per-views and such.

But I knew this handsome guy who did watch them all.

And if I went over to his house, I could get the fights for free.

Fights for free.

You were a free fighting freeloader with a romantic angle as well.

Nice.

That's the sweet science right there.

I can't imagine anything more romantic.

So who boxed first, comedy or otherwise?

The first event that we did together, he was signed up.

He had, you know, was in all the paperwork for the event.

And I kind of, I trained with him a bit just because I thought it was cool.

I wanted to join, hang out at the gym.

You were dating together at this point.

Yeah, I think we were dating.

I don't think we were married yet.

I think we were dating.

Okay.

And there ended up being an opening for me to hop into this musical chair event.

Got it.

At the last minute.

So we were both in the same event together, but

he knew and was training for it.

And I was a little bit more spontaneous.

So, but this event was the first event either of you had done.

Correct.

And you were doing musical chairs, whereas William, you were doing this physical challenge, get in shape fast deal.

Correct.

All right.

And then, so basically your, your history is kind of matched.

You know, different style of events, but it was the same deal.

And this was in Salt Lake City.

That was in Vegas.

That was in Vegas, comedy boxing center of the world.

Is there comedy boxing in Salt Lake City?

I don't think so.

I would guess not.

Okay.

All right.

And now you've been married for six years.

Do you have any

other hobbies besides watching and participating in physical combat?

So, yeah, I'm kind of a hobby addict.

So I jump

and go very hard for a while and then stop.

I think you sent in some evidence of your hobby addictions.

So I'm going to take a look now.

All these photos, of course, will be available on the show page at maximumfund.org, as well as our Instagram account, which is at judgejohnhodgman on Instagram.

And I'm going in order.

Here's a picture of you, William, in a boxing ring with arms aloft.

What event was this?

This was the second event I was in.

And

it was part of the same kind of comedy boxing.

And yeah,

I won that time.

The first time I didn't, so I had to try again.

And

what was the gimmick on this?

on this competition?

It was a biggest loser again because you get very fit very fast.

It's easy to get very unfit very fast.

Got it, got it, got it.

So you did it again.

This time you won.

And then now, are these in chronological order?

Then did you give up boxing to take up steampunk?

Because I see a picture of you with a bunch of knobs and dials on a bowler hat.

Yeah, my steampunk and metalworking adventure was before boxing.

Okay, gotcha.

So these are not in any particular order.

I see now

a human hand holding a bunch of glossy rocks, blue and azure and pearly glossy rocks.

What am I looking at?

Yeah, currently, one of my big hobbies is opal cutting.

I get rough from Australia and have a shop in my garage and turn rough into gems.

I like that William's lifestyle is what I would call gigantic Travis McElroy.

Is that your comedy boxing name, Gigantic Travis McElroy, or is it Rough Cutting William, the Opal Killer?

He doesn't have a nickname.

He doesn't have a nickname.

My last name rhymes with Hammer, so some people call me the Hammer.

Fair enough.

And then there's a picture of, I presume, you,

William,

Smoochin, is that you, Ren, in this photo?

Yeah.

Through the ropes, like Rocky Balboa style.

What's the story here?

Plus, you're on the jumbotron behind.

That's incredible.

Yeah, that was incredible.

Same event where I won.

She was in my corner.

So she's the one that gets the stool out, gives me water,

kind of coaches me and makes sure I'm doing what I train to do.

So

what kind of coaching did you offer, Ren?

Oh, well, one of the big things that my job was to remind him was to be gentle.

He doesn't need to just go all out in the first round.

He needs to pace himself and

wear the other guy out a little bit, find his mark,

not just go in with heavy hands, just wait for the timing.

So So that was the big coaching thing.

And beating of the water is very important.

Did you do any blood spitting?

I did, actually.

I did start bleeding in the first round.

The first punch

my nose.

And so the whole fight, it was

some blood spitting.

That's because you go hard, because you go hard.

is what I'm hearing.

You go hard

and then you burn out.

Yeah.

And that's why she literally in my corner is yelling at me to be nice while I'm punching somebody because

I didn't gas myself out.

Be nice when you're punching someone.

That's good advice.

And then finally, there's a photo of you with those big, heavy hands plucking a banjo while looking a dog straight in the eye.

You see this dog picture, Jesse?

Yeah,

this is a great dog.

Who's this dog that you're playing banjo to?

Her name is Banjo.

Pretty good.

We should note here that William is locked in on Banjo the dog.

Banjo the dog is locked in on banjo the banjo.

That's true.

William, you're plucking a banjo, and I don't know whether this is a banjole or you're just a gigantic human because this banjo looks pretty small in your hands.

That's actually a larger-than-average banjo.

That's a long neck banjo, a Pete Seeger style.

Whoa.

That's actually a guitarone.

Did you play the banjo currently, or is this something you gave up?

No, I still play.

That's another one of my hobbies.

Right.

So when you say you're addicted to hobbies, is it the case that

you do go hard and give them up or that you go hard and you keep going hard?

You keep cutting those opals hard?

Banjo was one where I'll go hard for a couple months and then not play for a couple months and then pick it up again.

Some hobbies are like that and some are one and done.

Steampunk was like more of a one and done.

Yeah, good, good call there.

Good call.

Keep it up with the banjo.

Steampunk, everyone can put it down.

Everyone can put it down at at this point uh did you name banjo the dog after banjo the banjo or did banjo the dog give you the idea to start banjoing well uh

we named her after the instrument but there's a little more to it because our other dog is um uh our other dog is named ukulele and

and i play the ukulele we do in fact owned own a vangelale um okay so our older dog is named ukulele and she's a big Labrador.

And so I always thought it would be funny if we ever got a second dog to get a smaller one and name it Banjo.

And so we have Lely and Joe.

Oh, Lali and Joe.

That's terrific.

Great dog names, great nicknames.

Speaking as someone who plays ukulele sometimes, even on stage, I like that the theme of your dog names is

musical instruments universally considered to be unpleasant.

That's looking forward to your cat bagpipe.

Lely and Joe and and Pipey.

But you know what?

You know,

I think these are perfect names for these dogs because I bet you these dogs are plucky.

Right.

Now we're talking.

Plucky.

I like that in this picture of Banjo, Banjo the dog, is clearly trying to figure out what the heck Banjo the instrument is.

Like, really,

the little dog brain marbles in there are rattling around.

Like, what type of opossum is this?

Definitely get over to our Instagram page if you want to see a dog getting freaked out by a banjo.

That's terrific.

And then you sent in some evidence as well, Ren.

And this is some of your comedy, your comedy boxing.

Your last, in fact, it says here, my last comedy fight.

Tell me the story of your last comedy fight.

I was pretty embarrassed by how it went.

I,

like I said, the first time it was very spontaneous.

And so, and I was very new to boxing still.

So I went in all gung-ho and just had a good time.

And the second time, I was, I wanted to really train, but I was kind of in denial about how out of shape I was.

And so I got in there and I just got hit in the face a whole bunch.

I barely remembered to get my hands up and protect my face.

I just got hit a bunch, lost my one round, and that was how it went.

Yeah, so this is you.

This is you getting punched here.

Yes, I'm the one with the green hair getting punched.

Oof.

And when was this?

That was, I want to say 2019, maybe?

Maybe 28.

2019.

Somewhere around there.

Yeah.

And then Spitty Contact Sports kind of took a pause for a couple of years.

Sure did.

Now, obviously, in Salt Lake City, at least, it's roaring back with a vengeance, like

a Jean-Claude Van Damme wheelhouse kick.

It's coming back around

and

coming back around.

But you say this was your last one.

This was your last fight, your second and last fight.

When I say my last, it was the most recent one that occurred.

Right.

Most recent.

That's what I mean to say.

You're not retired.

In fact, you're trying to get back into it.

So let's go back in time for a second, William.

You're getting ready for your big match that you've been training and training and training for.

And all of a sudden, Wren, who's never done this before,

on a whim,

signs up.

How did that make you feel that this person, maybe you weren't even dating at that point?

You were still just acquainted.

I think we were dating.

You were dating.

And so your date shows up to this thing that you've been training for, getting fit fast, and just on a whim, on a joke, signs up for this comedy boxing.

How did that make you feel?

At first, I was excited.

And then I quickly realized once the bell rang and I saw her getting hit that it's very,

it made me very anxious to see my significant other in the ring getting hit.

And it's almost as difficult to watch as when you're in the ring yourself.

So it can be distracting when you have a significant other on the same card.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, that may be germane to this case, William.

Maybe germane to this case, maybe.

Because this is what we're talking about.

This is exactly what we're talking about.

But Ren, when did this start?

So you started, first of all, you moved to Salt Lake City for some reason, which is your own personal reason.

I mean, it's the Azores of the American West.

It wouldn't go there.

Access to those stores that sell different soda pops mixed together.

Let the record show big nods from William and a slow shake of the head from Wren with regard to the big stores.

I don't know what you're referring to, Jesse.

What are those all about?

In Utah, in large parts of the American West, but especially Utah, there are a lot of stores that sell giant styrofoam cups full of pebble ice and different sodas mixed together.

And you get them from a drive-thru, like a drive-through coffee place.

So, Ren, you move to Salt Lake City, the land of dirty soda, and you decide to start getting into boxing.

What motivated you to start getting into non-comedy boxing?

Well, it started because there was going to be one more final event of this comedy during the lockdown times.

There was a lot of talk about

once things, you know, once things open back up again, we're going to get in and have one last event, seal up the whole thing.

We, I think it was going to be the 20th one,

it was gonna just, you know, be the capstone.

And I started training around November of 2021.

Okay.

In anticipation of this final comedy boxing event.

Now, did that event happen, or is this the one we're talking about that's going to happen in October?

No, that one was supposed to happen in April.

And

three weeks before it happened, I, like I said, I started off just training in my garage.

And then

February of this year, I decided I needed a real coach if I was going to do this right.

And that was the big thing.

I wanted to do this one right, even though it was comedy.

I wanted to train as hard as I could, do the very best I could.

Cause like I said, I was embarrassed by the previous performance.

And so I wanted to get a real coach, go to a real gym, and train as hard as I could.

And then three weeks before the event happened, it got canceled.

Why?

What happened?

The Nevada State Athletic Commission decided that we needed some more licenses.

They wanted us to do some blood tests.

We couldn't get everything done in time and it got shut down.

See, Jesse, this is why I don't mess around with the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

Yeah, me too.

I would be boxing in Nevada right now if it weren't for the blood tests.

I know.

It's just, it's, it's, come on.

It's no,

have a sense of humor, you guys.

It's comedy boxing.

You know what?

One time I went to have a boxing fight in Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada, and I went and I took the blood test, and they said I was too powerful.

One time I took the blood test, and they said, your lipids are too high.

You need to stop eating sticks of butter.

It just gave you some statins.

So obviously they rescheduled and relocated the comedy boxing final event to Salt Lake City, the land of no rules.

Famously Libertine Salt Lake City.

Well, no, the

comedy event was canceled.

It's almost certain that it's not going to come back again.

Oh, no.

But you did get some sweet shorts out of it, according to this photograph.

I had custom shorts made in anticipation of that fight that are now,

I guess, lounge shorts around the house because they're not going to be in a fight.

This is why I would take up boxing 100% for the outfits.

I would want a special robe and special shorts.

I wanted to get the sleeveless hoodie thing with my name put across the back, but I didn't have time to get it.

made before the fight.

I mean, I could have because it got canceled, but when I thought it was happening, I couldn't get it done in time.

Special shoes also, special super tall shoes.

I'd ride a horse just to wear those special shoes.

Jesse, when you get a moment sometime before your next birthday or the holidays, get me your

custom silk embroidered robe size so

we can spangle something up for you real good.

Absolutely.

You know, I'm covered with robe, so let's do silk shorts.

Silk shorts.

All right.

Well, Red on her shorts has her fighting name Renegade, which looks super cool.

Jesse,

let me know

what you want what your comedy boxing name is going to be, okay?

First thought, bald bruiser, but we can work on it.

Yeah, yeah, we'll workshop it.

Whatever you set along is fine with me.

So, Renegade, you say you can't be hanging up these shorts for good.

You're training for a fight right now in October.

Well, these fights in October are not through the comedy channel.

They are through the gym that I started training at.

And these ones, they have proper uniforms, so everybody matches.

It's not just, oh, you're not allowed to wear your flare.

Right.

So this is real, this is real, real boxing.

Quote on dramatic, not comedy boxing, drama boxing.

Yeah, it's drama boxing.

It's it's definitely more

suited towards that mindset that I was trying to get into with my last fight of the goal is to train as hard as you can and do the best that you can.

And actually, I would actually be fighting somebody in my weight class, which never happened in the common circuit,

and somebody who they think is paired well for me.

So it would actually be a fair fight.

And I wanted to actually

show what I could do.

Why do you keep speaking about this in the past tense?

Isn't it going to happen?

Yes or no?

Yes, the event is definitely happening.

I am waiting for the judgment to find out whether I will be participating.

Because your point of view is if William participates, you're not going to.

I might.

I might.

I might wait for the next one.

I'm not sure.

I

was about to fill out the application when

he brought me to court.

So

it's not sentenced to done yet.

I just assumed the problem was she couldn't wear the shorts.

If it's just her husband's wishes.

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.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast, always brought to you by you, the members of maximumfun.org.

Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfun.org/slash join.

And you can join them by going to maximumfun.org/slash join.

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

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

So, Ren, you're training for this real boxing match.

You're taking it seriously.

All of a sudden, William looks up from polishing his opals

and says, Yeah, I want to do the same thing.

When did this happen?

How did that happen?

Well,

I went to

the last fight that my gym hosted

as a spectator.

I went and hung out with some of my gym mates.

We had a good time, watched some fights.

It was a lot of fun.

A bunch of us sitting there were like, ooh, we should get in the next one, right?

And I, you know, William stayed home and I texted him from the event and was like, hey, they're streaming this online.

You can check it out and see what it's all about.

And when I got home, I told him that I wanted to sign up for it.

And he said, you know, it got me itching to do a fight again too.

I want to sign up for it as well.

That's called a little thunderstealing, wouldn't you say?

How did that make you feel, Ren?

Yeah, it made me feel like I was going to not get the glory of this fight that I was hoping for, or I would have to share the glory and share all the stress as well.

That's kind of the bigger deal for me.

William, what happened from your point of view?

You're at home with your opals and your banjo and your banjo.

And you get this text saying from Wren saying,

I think I'm going to sign up for this boxing match, train for it.

What happened from your point of view?

You just decided to go ahead and do it too?

Yeah,

it sounds bad on paper.

I can admit that, but

also sounds bad on a puzzle.

So the fact that we, you know, I've done boxing before and it is the only kind of physical fitness I've ever stuck with for enough time to be fit.

And now there is a goal again.

And of course, during lockdown, wasn't as active.

And so wanting to figure out how to kind of get back on the horse there and then learning about this event in October really kind of, you know, got my juices flowing.

But,

you know, it's, it's tough.

You had not been training for boxing already.

No.

At the point that you got this text message and decided you were going to.

Correct.

This is kind of like the first event where I did all the training and she jumped in.

Now

I'm jumping in.

William,

this is the sweet science of being a litigant on Judge John Hodgman.

You just did the Ropa dope.

You were sitting back there taking

all these body blows from Wren and frankly from me too.

And all of a sudden, all that coaching that Wren gave you back in your comedy boxing days to not go hard from the beginning, now you're coming out with some really sweet jabs.

Well, a little move we call turnabout is fair play.

Because after all, Ren, did you not do exactly the same thing to William a ways back when in old Las Vegas?

I did do exactly this thing, which is why I know that it would be a bad idea for us to fight on the same card together.

Because,

well, wait a minute.

In your first round of comedy boxing, when you went in on Wim, you won.

No, I did not.

Okay.

And I know that you lost, William.

Because you were distracted watching your loved one get punched.

Yeah, it was all her fault.

And I, by the way, this is not a right, this is not a correct term,

comedy boxing.

Because it's not, first of all, the names aren't funny enough.

Second of all, there's no comedy.

It's still boxing.

It's still dangerous contact sport that is terrifying to the person in the ring and people

watching if they're of a certain disposition as I am.

It's just like there's just a gimmick wrapped around it.

Still scary stuff to me, but it's cool.

What do you like about boxing, William?

It distracts me from the fact that I'm exercising because there's something more important going on, you know, like dodging punches.

And so that's part of it is it's easier for me to get engaged in exercise.

Also, it's, I don't know, there's something animalistic and instinctual of going toe-to-toe with somebody like that that's appealing.

So why, so why not just train?

Why do you have to fight on this particular card?

And what is a card, honestly?

So a card is just the lineup of people who are fighting in the map.

Okay.

And so,

but in order for me to stay motivated in the training, I need the carrot.

And

the fight and culminating in

realizing why I did all that training is a very important part to stay motivated.

How could anyone exercise if at the end of the exercise, there isn't the opportunity to physically hurt a friend or acquaintance?

Or be hurt.

Yeah.

Yeah, but I, William also said there was a carrot at the end, too.

So maybe he gets to eat a nice carrot.

The reward is terror and adrenaline and triumph over adversity and triumph over the face of your opponent.

It's like me at the prom.

So let me ask you this, Ren, is there another match that William could train for that isn't the one that you had already set your sights on?

There should be one coming up next April of 2024.

And if not then, there will almost definitely be one again in the fall of 2024.

And William, that's too long to wait.

Yeah, just

because of the nature of me and how I engage with hobbies,

need to go hard and fast.

Rand, how does he engage in hobbies?

He gobbles them up.

He gets into something and he just will obsess over it 100% for a while.

And then some things like with the banjo, like you mentioned, like when he first got into the banjo, it was every day, all the time.

He bought four of them in within like a month.

You know, that's how he goes with things.

And now, now he picks up the banjo every few months and plucks around.

And, but that tends to be how he goes with hobbies is he'll go really, really hard for a while and then he'll kind of fade off.

What about you, Ren?

I'm more of like, I'll find something I like and I'll stick to it kind of slow and steady.

Like, what kind of hobbies are we talking about?

What do you pluck with?

Well, I did mention that I do play the ukulele, and that's something that I pick up and put down all the time as well.

I have, I like to play tabletop role-playing games.

I started playing Dungeons and Dragons in the early 90s when I was like five years old, and I continue to play that pretty much weekly today.

Very famous

tabletop role-playing game, Jesse.

Dungeons and Dragons.

Wouldn't know.

I'm Artsy.

Right.

It said in the initial petition

that you had some concern, Ren, that William

William's hobbies tend to overshadow yours or take up space.

Do you have a concern about that?

When William focuses and obsesses about something, he tends to be very good at it because of the amount of effort and

just, I don't know, he tends to be very good at things that he tries.

Yeah, these are some pretty shiny opals, I must say, William.

They look really good.

And

also just the bare nature that he's a great big, strong man, and I'm a very small, petite, not very strong woman.

But you wouldn't be fighting each other.

No, no, but he, you know, bigger fighters tend to be more dynamic than the little ones.

I mean, it's that you can still get very, very fights out of smaller fighters, but they tend to be the showier ones that get the standing ovations at the events.

William said that he felt distracted when you fought in the same card together back in Las Vegas because it was hard for him to see you get hurt.

Is that your concern, or is your concern that he's going to get more, he's going to overshadow you at this

event because of how hard he goes and how good he gets at it, and et cetera, et cetera?

Um, I mean, it's a bit of both of those things, but really,

it could be a third thing that I didn't even ask about.

Why don't you tell me?

One of the biggest things for me is just that when you are training for a fight, uh,

you know a bit about yourself of training for an imaginary fight,

it takes a lot of effort.

It puts a lot of stress on your life and your lifestyle.

And

it's a lot easier for one of us to be doing that at a time and the other person to be available to kind of pick up the slack around the house.

than for both of us to be going at the same time.

Whoa, you're saying that Banjo the dog won't get fed and Lely will, well, someone was going to leave the door open because you're both going so hard and Lely and Joe are going to wander off into the hills outside of Utah.

You'll never see them again and the bills won't get paid and stuff.

Hey, if yesterday at the boxing gym, I ran a mile and then did 100 squats, like maybe it's hard for me to get up off the couch to feed those poor puppies.

Yeah, William, your dogs are going to starve if you're both training.

I think I can probably manage still.

But she brings up a good point.

What is the point?

What is resonating for you in what she brings up?

There's a difference between going to a boxing gym and training in a fight camp.

Diet changes, your body changes.

your sleep changes everything is different because you're you know a switch is flipped in your head and you're doing

you're really going hard at the hobby now and um

that's really what's there's a, there's a mental difference in what you prioritize.

Do you,

I don't understand, and either one of you can answer this.

Why can't, I mean, aside from the dogs not getting fed, I know they're going to get fed.

It would seem to me that it would be, it would, it could, there could be a benefit to training together.

You could amp each other up.

You could feed each other.

milkshakes made of raw eggs.

That's some real dirty soda right there.

And I have been trying to think, you know, put myself in that mindset of, yeah, we can support each other and, you know, commiserate with each other and help each other out that way.

But just remembering how it was when we both fought and then I wasn't even training.

It was just suddenly we're both fighting on the same card together that one time that we fought together.

It's, there's a lot of like mental stress and emotional stress to it.

Like, I just, I want him there in the way that I was in his corner, the fight that he won.

I I want him to be in my corner, not worried about his own fight that's about to come up, but worried about me.

Yeah, William, why can't you be in her corner right now?

I could do both, I think.

I can be in her corner and then warm up and do my own fight.

But I think there's, you know, she's been very clear about me going to the gym isn't the problem.

It's the event.

and

being overshadowed.

And

I don't want to put words in her mouth because Ren is a, you know, her own person in her own right.

But there's also, I think, a big brother kind of thing.

I'm a big brother and she has a big brother and he always has overshadowed her too.

Oh.

And so

there's a lot of sense, you know, I want to be sensitive to that, but

it's very strange because we work very well together as a married couple.

We're great partners.

And this is a situation where we both want to be a little bit selfish and we're not very selfish a lot.

And so,

I noticed that you raised a finger you wanted to interject, Rand.

What did you want to say?

So, you'll notice that

when we talk about us both being on the same card, he talks about watching my fight, then warming up and having his own fight.

And when we were talking earlier about fight cards and about how some fighters are more dynamic and more likely to get that kind of special attention,

The way that they set up fight cards is the later fights, you know, the earlier ones tend to be less exciting.

The later ones tend to be more exciting.

And he straight up, just off the bat, assumes I'm going to be fighting first, then he's going to warm up and have his fight.

I don't know how they do it in comedy boxing, but in comedy comedy, you have the opener and then the feature act and then the headliner.

And your suspicion is that William, because he's about 30 feet tall and is going to get in totally ripped,

you're concerned he's going to be the headliner and you're going to feel like the opener.

Yeah, I will feel

a little bit down if I end up lower on the card than him.

But even

just to the fact that every time he talks about it, he just assumes he's going to be higher on the card than me.

Wow, William.

Is that true?

You just assume it?

Yeah,

and it is just the nature of our physicality uh

heavy weights get the headlines

wow

william it says here that your ideal ruling should i rule in your favor is to reach some sort of compromise

where you can both participate in the october event is that correct

yeah

normally a compromise would be

each person is giving up something they want.

And in this case, Ren

has ideal ruling is that you shouldn't fight in the same card.

So that's the 100% of what she wants that is being given up.

So where is the compromise?

What are you offering in return for getting what you want and her giving up what she wants?

I guess I didn't.

The compromise sounded good when

I was.

It usually does, but that's why this is a court of no compromise.

He spent all his planning points on that Robadope dope thing.

That was good.

You came out with that Robodope.

That was really good.

Let me ask you one question.

Well, actually, I'll ask you two questions.

How long does it take to train

to do the fight?

And corollary, why not delay your training and shoot for next April?

A couple of reasons.

One is I have the motivation and the itch right now, and I feel like I need to engage in some sort of physical exercise now that after lockdown, I'm fully 100% working from home and just not very active.

And so

some of it is just,

I feel like I'm withering away a bit.

And this, I know that this is a hobby, a physical hobby that I will stick with for longer than a month.

A training camp is usually about three months if you're going to do a full one.

And so,

and then if we wait until April, I might not be motivated anymore or she might want to do another one.

Well, not if I order her not to.

But your concern is that the itch will go away and you'll move on to

another hobby like did you do playing or I don't know.

What are some hobbies, Jesse?

I mean, primarily did redo playing.

Digirido.

Yeah.

Sorry, I said it wrong.

I mean, there's unicycling or hacky sack.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I went to UC Santa Cruz, so I only know a certain band of hobbies.

There's devil sticks.

Collecting psychedelic mushrooms in the woods.

Right.

Stay quarters.

That's a hobby.

Yeah.

Shoelessness.

Ren, do you think that William will lose the itch?

I hope that he wouldn't.

I don't think that training super hard for a fight for three months and having the fight

and then

just,

you know, putting boxing behind him again, I don't think think that's a very sustainable

exercise regime.

And ideally, I would like for him to start coming to the gym with me and just get in the habit of coming to the gym with me, which I'm already in that habit, whether I have a fight or not.

I'm going to, I love going to my gym.

I'm going to keep going.

And I would love if he came along.

And then

once we're in the habit of doing that, then hop on the fight in April.

If let's say, for the sake of argument, across the street, what's the name of the gym?

We might as well say it.

Legends Boxing.

Legends Boxing.

So let's say across the street from the gym there in Salt Lake City, there's another gym called Dirty Soda Boxing Gym or Brigham Young Boxadrome.

Let's call it that.

And they have

a fight coming up in, like, say, November.

How would you feel if William just walked across the street and did his thing over there and then fought in that one?

If it was a separate event, I would be more amenable to that.

If we're not just like, even if it's just a few weeks later, if we're not training for the same thing on the same night and I have to be worried about his fight the same night as mine, I would be, that would be easier.

So just to be clear, so it's you're more averse to him fighting on the same card as you than being in training at the same time as you, even if the training is pretty intense.

Yeah,

I think it would mean a lot to me to know that my event is separate and like tonight is my night.

I want to just be able to focus on myself on that fight night.

There are other hobbies of hers that I haven't, I've consciously not stepped on her toes on.

And so I did think of a compromise.

Oh, good.

I was to say you made a ruling that I could start playing the ukulele.

So you're saying your idea for a compromise is for you to step on her hobbies?

When she does things, I get interested in them because I see her doing them.

And you want to play ukulele and so far, Wren has asked you not to and you've observed that

embargo.

So the compromise would be if Wren is okay with you playing the ukulele,

then you're okay with not fighting in this October card that she's because I could just get really good for the next three months in a ukulele type fight camp instead of a box.

And then I could move on to boxing afterwards for the next part.

William, William, we're not supposed to talk about Yuke Fight Club.

Okay, so that is a real compromise, and I will take it into consideration as I ponder my verdict.

I am now going to go into my private Thunderdome,

and I'm going to hit the heavy bag to some pump-up music and try to punch a verdict out of that thing.

I'll be back in a moment with my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Wren, how are you feeling right now?

I'm feeling pretty good.

I think that I got most of the points that I wanted to make.

I think they're

pretty reasonable.

How do you feel, William?

Yeah.

It sounds different when people start saying it out loud and asking the questions, and my confidence has slowly dwindled throughout this podcast, I think.

As it should have.

I think that's fair.

It's a fair reaction to your weird compromise plan that you came up with after not having a compromise plan.

You're like, well, what if the compromise is Wren takes up cooking and then I put too much salt in there?

Well, 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 Long.

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.

Judge Hodgman, we're taking a quick break from the case.

First and foremost, solidarity forever.

Yes, thank you, Jesse.

As of this recording, the WGA continues to be on strike.

And in a few days, we'll know the outcome of the Screen Actors Guild negotiation with the American Motion Picture and Television Producers Trade Organization, the ones that

simply did not respond to many of the WGA's very reasonable demands for a predictable living wage and to put guardrails guardrails on the use of artificial intelligence and the creation of human stories.

The SAG is in the midst of negotiations right now, and within a few days, they may even be on strike as well.

Why is this happening?

Why are all your favorite late night shows dark at the moment?

Why has Daredevil stopped production?

That's because Josh Gommelman picketed the kingpin's house until they got out of town, along with all the other all the other incredible WGA members who have been picketing and bringing attention to this fight.

Soon, SAG might be on strike as well.

John, if only there were operations, companies doing creative work that were owned by the workers who did the work.

And if only people could support those organizations directly by going to maximumfund.org slash join.

It's not an if only, Jesse, it's true.

Maximum Fund is an employee-owned cooperative.

But most, I dare say, of the big media companies, you know who you are, are not employee-owned cooperatives.

and a lot of money is going to some big executives, and not a lot of money is going to the creative people both behind and in front of the cameras who make these shows possible.

If you want to know more about the strike and why it's happening, you can go to linktree slash hodgman.

That's linktra.ee slash hodgman.

There's a link on it in my bio and

in my Instagram account.

And in the meantime, there is some other work that we can do that is outside of the purview of of the WGA, and that's hit the road, right, Jesse?

Well, we're going to have, look, spoiler alert, there will at some point be some exciting announcements in that department.

But right now, right now, we have a very particular exciting announcement to share, which is we're headed back to London, England, September 15th and September 16th as part of the London Podcast Festival.

I will also be there doing Jordan Jesse Go with my colleague Jordan.

So if you live in London or environs, get your tickets right now.

It is going to be a blast.

It always is.

I always love going out there.

I know Ben Partridge is going to be doing Beef and Dairy Network that weekend as well.

It's going to be a good old time at the London Podcast Festival.

It always is there at King's Place.

So number one, get your tickets.

Number two, if you or someone you know lives anywhere near London, England and has beef to share with us, we are going to need beeves.

That's right.

Speaking of beef and dairy, we don't need your dairy.

We need your beef.

Yeah, we're going to get out there and start picking fights if we need to, but we need cases from London, England.

So if you live in London, you know somebody who does, send them an email, drop them a line,

call them on WhatsApp for tickets and more information about the London Podcast Festival.

Our events page is at maximumfund.org slash events.

That's maximumfund.org slash events.

Let's get back to the case.

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

You may be seated.

So as I say, William,

you are a deceptively crafty combatant.

You have a very quiet demeanor.

And you laid back for a long time.

And then you came out with that big move.

And you pointed out, why shouldn't you jump onto Wren's card bout?

That's exactly what she did early on in your relationship.

And you lost your match probably because of that.

It wasn't just that she overshadowed you.

She got in your head.

And when you're in the ring, there's one thing I learned while training for fake boxing on Board to Death.

You can't have romance in your mind when you're in the ring.

Doesn't work.

That's when you get fake hit and have to fake fall down.

Watch that episode of Bored to Death, everybody.

It's really good.

Watch all of Bored to Death.

Boy, oh boy, was that a good time?

But I think it's a very, very fair point.

You are owed one.

This is a good thing, you know, potentially, you have an argument for a real grudge match here.

You are owed one.

You are owed a chance to jump in

and do a heel turn and jump in on

Wren's

title bout

and potentially mess up her fighting brain.

I really want to get to Salt Lake City and see both of you fight in separate boxing matches.

I would go and see that because you're both so sweet and I want to see how you transform werewolf style into that killer instinct, what that's like

in the ring.

And, you know,

I want to see how, like, you know, I have a picture of you both in time.

When is this happening in October, Ren?

It's the second weekend in October.

I can't remember the date off the top of my head.

Second weekend in October, okay.

So are we talking like Friday the 13th in October?

That looks pretty good.

I'm going to circle that.

Okay, this is what this case is about now.

I'm coming to the fights.

And the question is,

where are I going to see Wren fight or both of you fight?

Or just William.

Who am I going to see in these fights?

I'm deciding because I'm the commissioner now.

I'm the commissioner of Judge John Hodgman Boxing League.

You two are the only members of this promotion.

You're the only two in the league so far.

Welcome aboard.

You're our marquee stars.

And we're going to have a big, we're going to get silk robes for everybody.

William, you've got, as I say, you've got an argument to settle this grudge match.

But on the other hand, something else happened.

You didn't just lose that one time, William.

You also won.

Remember that time when you won at boxing?

That's what it's called, Jesse, officially, winning at boxing.

Wouldn't know, Artsy.

Yeah.

You won.

And why did you win?

Because you had someone in your corner.

Ren, it was in your corner telling you, don't go hard and burn out like you do with all your other hobbies.

Be nice while you punch, which is the motto of the Judge John Hodgman Boxing League.

It was really good advice, and you won, and it felt great, right?

I don't think I even asked you, how great did it feel it it is a great feeling when you win in the the ring with the crowd watching yeah when you win at boxing it feels great

feels like maybe you couldn't have done it without her support right

i mean you trained so hard but wouldn't you say that that was an important part of it yes she was definitely the the biggest support i had Look, the only boxing I ever know is I know from the few movies that I've seen.

And here's what I got to say.

When you see a Rocky training, it's not like you have two Rockies both cracking eggs into each other's mouths and supporting each other.

You have a Rocky, and then you have a Burgess Meredith in a car behind him going, faster, faster.

And then behind Burgess Meredith is that robot that he's in love with.

The robot that he's in love with, exactly.

And then behind that robot is Frank Gorshin, because he's confused because he thinks he's the Riddler and Burgess Meredith is the penguin.

And he wants to get back on camera.

We're talking about human beings, some of whom are in love, who live on this mortal plane but for a moment, and they bleed real blood out of their noses.

We're talking about a sport that has high physical stakes, but also high emotional stakes.

And the reason why you can't have two Rockies is when you're in training, one of you's got to be the Rocky and one of you's got to be the coach.

Or at least the other one of you can't get in the way of the Rocky.

You know what I mean?

You can't be like, I'm going to run up those stairs too.

I love the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

I'm going to run up those stairs.

I'm not going to try to beat you at it.

William, if you had started running up the stairs first in this case,

I'd be ruling in your favor.

But you didn't.

Wren was already running up those stairs.

Wren was already running up those stairs.

And she's texted you.

She said, I'm so excited to be running up these stairs.

And that's when you get the idea to start running up up the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, listening to pump-up music.

She was already there.

She was already in training.

This is her thing.

It's got to be her thing.

It's just got to be her thing.

The October fight has got to be her thing.

So I think you got to, you, at the very least, can't trip her while she's running up the stairs.

You got to support her in this case.

I give you tremendous credit.

You offered a compromise and said you'd be willing to walk away from the October fight if you're allowed to play the ukulele.

And I'm going to say, yes.

You can play the ukulele.

And Ren, I don't know whether this is part of your acting out, your ferocious acting out, but you should never deny a person the right to play the ukulele.

He can play that ukulele.

He can play that banjole.

Just don't make a mistake and pick up the dog and start plucking the dog.

You know what I mean?

Get a real ukulele, the musical instrument I'm about.

At the same time, though, William, I don't think that you necessarily have to be just Burgess Meredith in the car.

I think that you need to get out of this particular fight and offer her emotional support for her to shine on this night.

But if you want to get in training, if you want to get in shape, if you want to listen to pump-up music, and you want to go for something, you need

a motivating thing to do, and you don't want to wait until April, Renaissance said that it it is okay for you to train for something else.

Now,

I was curious,

is there another boxing gym in Salt Lake City that you could go to?

Or for that matter, any other kind of contact sport?

Because you've already talked about doing bare knuckle.

So I did a simple Google search, which I'm surprised you folks haven't done already, which is Salt Lake City Blood Sport Opportunities.

I didn't get very far.

It turned up the fact, I think the University of Utah entered a battle robot into the TV show Battle Bots called Bloodsport in 2019.

That wasn't very helpful.

So then I did a simple search.

I looked up Legends

boxing gym.

And I don't want to blow up your spot, but it's in Trolley Square, right?

I actually go to the one in Bountiful.

Oh, you go to the one in bountiful.

Wait, there are two of them?

There are several.

In Salt Lake City?

Well, that tracks because

when I looked up Salt Lake City MMA gyms, I was surprised to see there are like 30 of them.

Salt Lake City has a lot of mixed martial arts.

For a town that has a reputation where the only thing dirty in it is its soda, I mean, we're looking at, we got Ultimate Combat Training Center, Snake Pit MMA, Combat Arts Strength and Conditioning,

Gracie Barra, Salt Lake City, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

There's a lot of ways to get your fight on.

in SLC.

There are probably more MMA training facilities and other combat sport training facilities in Salt Lake City alone than in all of the Azores, would be my guess.

I think that's a good guess.

In fact, when I spoke about combat art strength and conditioning, remember when I, so now I was, I was thinking that you were at the Trolley Square because I was like, maybe there is a boxing gym right across the street.

And there almost is.

Combat arts strength and conditioning is a 16-minute walk away from the Trolley Square legends.

I don't know about the one in Bountiful.

But I would go ahead and encourage you, William, to check out some of these alternate, whether it's a boxing gym or jiu-jitsu or MMA or something, something,

they've got to have a big fight coming up.

There's always a big fight coming up.

There wouldn't be movies if they didn't have a big fight coming up.

Get into your own zone, get into your own lane.

I don't mind if you train simultaneously.

I don't mind, as long as the fight isn't on October 13th or whenever Wren's fight is, you can train right right now for that.

Or you can even go, you could even go sooner, honestly.

Like, you said you need three months to get into shape.

We're recording this in June, July, August, September.

You could go September.

It's not about that.

It's not about keeping you from doing this thing.

It's about letting Wren

have her night,

her big match.

Wren's big match.

And I will come and see Wren, you fight on October 13th.

If you can set something up for October 14th, I'll probably still be in town, William.

But even if it's another time when I can't come to Salt Lake City, I'll be rooting for you.

You're both members of the Judge John Hodgman Blood Sport Squad.

And remember, when you're punching, remember to punch nice.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

William, how are you doing?

I'm doing okay.

Kind of saw the writing on the wall as the

you know we were talking things through, and I might uh

take

Judge John Hodgman up on that and see you know what else is around.

Ren, how are you doing?

I'm feeling pretty good.

That was uh pretty much exactly what I was hoping for.

You're gonna take down this other chump, yes, absolutely.

All you need is the one, two.

I have a mean six as well.

Heck yeah,

no idea what this this means.

Well,

Ren William, thank you so much for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thank you for having us.

Thank you so much.

Another Judge John Hodgman cases in the books.

We'll have Swift Justice in just a second.

Our thanks to Reddit user Irony Maiden, that's a pun name, for naming this week's episode Fight Court.

How come we didn't order anyone to come into the ring to the night court theme?

Seems like a natural now.

Yeah, well, when we get down there at Salt Lake City, you know that as co-commissioners of the league, we're going to be laying down a lot of rules.

One, two, six.

Don't, don't.

One, two, six.

Yeah, it's going to be great.

We're going to have a nightmare.

Okay.

Join the conversation at maximumfund.reddit.com.

We ask for our title suggestions there.

So if you contribute a title, you might end up on the air.

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

And on Facebook at facebook.com slash judgejohnhodgman, you're definitely going to want to see this dog trying to figure out what a banjo is.

Yeah, it's like you look at this, you feel like this dog has never seen a banjo before.

His dog's a little ding-dong dog, like my dog Sissy, just like just a couple little rocks in there

splattering around, knocking around where a brain should be.

Just a little jingle bell for a brain.

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

Our producers, Valerie Moffat, and Jennifer Marmer.

Welcome back, Jennifer Marmer.

Congratulations on creating human life again.

Our litigants this week were recorded by Toby Ali at Rocket Skates Recording in Salt Lake City.

Now, Swift Justice, where we answer small disputes with quick judgment, Peggy writes, Several times a year, at random intervals, my husband rearranges the silverware silverware drawer he says he's doing this to keep us from getting complacent and set in our ways it's mildly annoying but lately he's been talking about doing this while visiting our friends when they aren't looking

please order him to stop being great

I added the last part.

One time I reorganized Jonathan Colton's kitchen for him because I thought he had done it all wrong.

And I had the consent.

I had the consent.

In fact, I feel like I was invited to do this by

his life partner and whole human being in his own right, my old high school friend Christine.

But he was not happy about it.

It's very personal how you organize your kitchen.

You should not be messing with other people's silverware drawers.

I love the idea of you, though, in somebody's kitchen with a stopwatch, like

the boss at a factory in 1905 inventing the assembly line

here's the thing this is the most important thing if anyone is organizing a kitchen for the first time or has this opportunity you need two garbage areas need two garbages in in different parts of the kitchen because if you get that one garbage that's always just to the left of the sink

Someone's going to be getting in your way when you're doing the dishes or prepping those veg or whatever it is.

Need an extra garbage, an extra garbage bin if you can hack it.

My second garbage bin was an absolute revelation.

Put a skinny garbage can.

I went onto an e-commerce website, typed in the dimensions of the tiny space between my counter and my stove, got a skinny garbage can that fit right in there.

When I'm chopping, I got some trimmings I don't want.

Off they go just

right into the garbage.

I don't have to pick them up and carry them across the room.

Right.

And oh, by the way, Peggy, speaking of garbage, your husband's garbage.

I love this.

This is the best.

This is my, by far, I think this might literally be my favorite husband scheme in the history of Judge John Hodgman.

This is like, you know, how when you open your browser, at least in my browser, I use Firefox in my browser, it suggests articles for me to read.

100%.

Opportunities in Salt Lake City?

Yeah, 100%.

One of these articles is how to prevent aging.

Rearrange your silverware drawer to keep keep yourself from getting complacent.

Complacent.

All right.

You know what, Jesse Thorne?

You're right.

I take it back.

Peggy, your husband is not garbage.

There is something.

He should not do this to other people outside of your marriage.

But inside your marriage,

this is some feisty stuff.

I could see a little bit of play there.

But then again, as we've just learned, turn about his fair play.

If he messes with the silverware drawer, you get to mess with his sock drawer or whatever, hide his underwear.

Yeah.

As I'm pretty sure someone has been doing in my house.

As long as he's willing to be messed around with as much as he's messing around with your brain, then you can have some fun in that marriage.

But keep it in the marriage.

Keep it in the home.

Don't take it outside.

Hey, speaking of confrontation, my favorite topic.

We have a podcast,

very surprisingly for a people-pleasing only child like myself, that is based on confrontation.

Confrontation is at the center of the podcast.

It's people having disputes with each other and trusting me and Jesse to figure out who's right and who's wrong.

So to do this show, we need disputes.

Send them in, won't you?

And how about this for a particular case request?

Anything to do with wrestling?

We talked about boxing today.

If you have a dispute surrounding wrestling, who is the best professional wrestler in

athletic wrestling or, you know, wrestling entertainment?

It's Colt Cabana.

He's my friend.

Yeah, if it's Colt Cabana, well, but about the, is that the Luchador you met down in Mexico City?

No, Colt Cabana introduced me to the Luchador.

The Luchador is El Guerrero Maya.

Yeah.

Who would win in a fight?

El Guerrero Maya or Colt Cabana?

Are you a wrestler?

Did you lose a match that you should have won?

What if you are Perry von Vicious,

friend of the show, and is an independent wrestler up there in New England?

You have a grudge against one of the wrestlers in

your fun

Western Massachusetts independent promotion.

Maybe we can do some crossover with our friends over at Tights and Fights podcast.

Wrestling, wrestling fights is what we're talking about of all kinds.

If you've got them, send them in at maximumfun.org slash JJ H O.

And we don't just want wrestling fights, do we, Jesse?

No, we want fights of all kinds.

If there is a dispute between you and someone in your life, or

if you note that someone in your life is complaining about a dispute in their life that doesn't involve you, suggest to them to go to maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho and have it settled in the court of Judge John Hodgman, the only court that matters.

I mean, approximately, right?

I will just say it.

The only court that matters.

Why not?

What matters?

Nothing matters.

It's 2023.

Ever since Chrissy Teigen's Quibby judge show.

Remember?

came to a natural end, one time they announced that Snoop Doggy Dog was going to have a show with this format.

It was like, uh-oh.

But it never happened.

You know why?

I think he knew that we were there first and we've been doing it right for a long time.

The only court that matters, maximumfun.org/slash JJHO.

What are we going to do?

Talk to you next time?

I guess so.

Say it, Jesse.

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

Boom, catchphrase.

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