Into The Ralphaverse

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're in chambers this week to clear the docket.

And with me, as always, is the bell of the ball, Judge John Hodgman.

The bell of the ball,

the prom jester, I would say, in prom season.

In the prom court, I am the only one who can speak the truth to the prom monarch,

the prom motley fool,

and your judge, John Hodgman.

This is our prom docket that we promised.

Wow.

Appropriately.

And that is the laughter of one Jordan Morris, prom monarch himself.

Hello, Judge

Bailiff.

Great to be here.

Great to be in the courtroom.

How are you?

I'm doing swell.

Loved that prom

promise joke.

So if we can kind of just

keep this pace for the rest of the episode, we're going to have a classic on our hands.

Jordan is, of of course, a comic and comedy writer.

You might have seen him on Good Mythical Morning.

You might have heard him on the Jordan Jesse Go podcast, of which I am the co-host.

And you might, of course, know him from the commercial he did with NBC4's Fritz Coleman,

local legendary weatherman in Southern California.

And Eisner Award nominee.

Isn't that correct?

It's almost correct, John.

It's actually two Eisner nominations for the graphic novel Bubble, based on the MaxFun podcast, in which you appear, John.

That's right.

So where's my Eisner?

I get a little piece of it, right?

I get a little tiny piece.

I'll chip off a piece of this comic book award and mail it to you in Brooklyn.

That'd be great.

I'll mention I co-wrote that with Sarah Morgan, The Arts by the Great Tony Cliff,

available wherever you get your books and comics.

I want to ask, because this is our prom docket, Baylor Jesse Thorne, how many proms have you been to in your your life?

I went to three proms.

Break it down.

All at School of the Arts in San Francisco.

We had a junior-senior combined prom because it was a small school.

Right.

My sophomore year of high school, I went with Trinity.

My junior year of high school, that was all about me and Jennifer.

Senior year, my soon-to-be beautiful wife, Teresa Thorne.

And by soon-to-be, I mean...

Roughly 15 years later.

Roughly 15 years later.

I went to two.

We had no junior prom at Brookline High School, unless I'm forgetting something.

And I was not particularly interested in prom because of my counterculture, long-hair, fedora, hat-wearing ways.

Couldn't put public television watching Friday night.

Yeah, it couldn't put me in style.

Couldn't put me in a box.

I'm not a prom goer.

Also, I had no one to go with.

Put you in a phone box.

Put me out.

Watching Doctor Who.

Put me in an emergency police telephone call box.

That's where I would promenade or promissory under the stars.

Yeah, you didn't have time for proms.

You had poetry readings to go to and lectures.

No, no.

I was busy with rehearsals with my own theatrical troop that went nowhere.

Right.

But I did go to two proms.

The first one, I was invited by my friend Aliza Shapiro, who was a senior at the time.

I was a junior.

And then the next year, I went with the person who is now my wife and is a whole human being on her own own right, just like Jesse Thorne.

I went with Teresa Thorne.

No, I went with this other person.

Even though she was also older than me, she had already gone to college.

She came back from my prom, if I remember correctly.

But Eliza Shapiro, who invited me, one of the coolest people on earth, and you will see, she wore a pillbox hat to the prom, her prom that I went with.

And she just posted on a popular social networking platform photos of us.

I'm going to share it in the chat and I'm going to get permission from her to put this up.

Because it has to be, you know, you have to enjoy embarrassing photos, right?

See if this goes in the chat.

Wow.

You weren't kidding about the hair.

Oh yeah, that's right.

I had my long hair then.

I was a junior in high school.

Yeah.

Were you in Dinosaur Junior at the time?

I was in Lil Dinosaur Junior.

This is Jay Mascus's prom photo.

Wow.

Here's a close-up.

Let's see if this will go through.

I think she took this photo.

That's a really sweet picture.

You're wearing a swatch.

I think that that's my Keith Herring swatch.

but that was those were the two proms that i went to jordan morris how many proms you been to uh i so i went to four proms four proms four proms and i think we have identified why jordan is our guest on this program i was i was but also every other like lesser high school dance your homecomings your winters formals

um i was just a big high school dance enthusiast wow um

And I think you could chalk it up to this.

So I was also, it will shock everyone to know, very into the drama club in high school.

Right.

I know.

Everyone's jaws are on the floor.

Move over, baby.

There's a new number one stunna.

Yes, that's exactly.

Yes, that's me.

So, and I think part of being in drama club and kind of like, you know, finding your, finding your artistic voice, part of that is a phase where I

prided myself on being

kind of random.

A little

random.

Is this guy random?

I kind of had it in my head that I wanted to be like a funny guy.

Right.

And I expressed that by being

kind of random.

A little random.

A little random.

And a school dancing.

People would be expecting you to to zig and you'd zag.

Yeah, I would zag.

I would zorg.

Who's ever heard of Zorging?

No, that's even more random.

That was random.

Well, you guys zig, you guys zag.

I'm over here.

I'm going to zomp.

Yeah, sure.

Watch me zomp.

So, and a school dance was just a great place to like goof off in public and get a lot of attention, which I loved.

So

I would love to go to a school dance and wear something a little weird.

I did a like a Ren Fair outfit one year.

I did like the powder blue Dumb and Dumber tuxedo one year.

I know.

I know.

Listen, I'm embarrassed, and it's.

Why would you be embarrassed?

I mean, I understand.

I guess we're all a little embarrassed.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

It's high school.

I mean, you look at those photos of me.

I'm not zomping.

You know what I mean?

No, no, you're not zomping in those.

I mean, I'm trying to be an oddball, but only because I had high pretensions to my specialness in this world.

Right.

Right?

You know what I mean?

I I wanted to be taken seriously.

It didn't occur to me that I could have fun, that I could go to a dance and see it as a chance to have fun attention instead of skulk up in the bleachers of the gym, complaining to myself that people don't understand the political implications of this Frankie Goes to Hollywood song.

They're all just dancing to it.

So, yes, but I loved wearing something weird, getting out on the dance floor, and doing like a silly dance to come on ride the train and ride it.

Four proms.

How many homecoming dances would you guess?

You know, I think I

filled the card.

I think I did four proms, four homecomings, four winner formals.

It's a total of 16 dances, 16 weird outfits,

and 16 embarrassed dates.

What do they call that in baseball, Jesse Thorne?

A grand load?

Yeah, that's called.

Comes with two sausage links,

two pieces of bacon, your choice of toast.

You did every dance that was available to you.

I think so, yes.

Yeah.

And did you have dates?

Did you go with dates or did you go with friends?

I did have, these were, yeah, these were friends.

So I was a little bit of a late, also, this will shock people.

I was a little bit of a late bloomer when it came to dating.

Sure.

So I think the only time I went with a date was with my senior year with my

first girlfriend.

That's appropriate.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

But everybody else was a friend.

Yeah, which

was very, very fun.

A fine way to go to a dance, I think.

But yes, no one.

Was that the best one that you went on?

I mean, I don't want you to hurt anybody's feelings, but what was the best prom?

Oof, best prom.

Top prom.

I think.

Yo, you know what?

I'm going to shout out one in particular that I thought was really, really fun because on social media, I saw a...

Someone posted a Throwback Thursday type photo of this.

My date was Paula Gluzman,

a great friend.

We went as friends.

It was on the Queen Mary.

So I grew up in Southern California and our date was on the Queen Mary, which was really, really fun, very cool.

And

yeah.

The Queen Mary, of course, is a decommissioned ocean liner.

Yes.

From the glorious days of cross-Atlantic travel that now sits forever in

at Dock

and Long Beach, right?

Yeah.

So yeah, very, very fun, a very, very fun place to visit.

Haunted, I hear.

A little spooky, yeah, definitely.

I don't know if there's any legitimate haunting.

That wouldn't surprise me, though.

The only thing spooky about my prom experience was how much making out I was doing.

Holy wow.

To a supernatural degree, is what I heard.

Oh, yeah.

Legend has it that in the bogs of San Francisco, there still exists a cryptid known as the smooching man.

Right?

You can hear him smooching if you listen carefully.

Yeah.

Listen over the fog of foggy San Francisco.

You can hear, still hear the ASMR triggering smacks

of the smooching man.

Hear that, kids?

That's the sound of second bass.

Wherever the theme may be, a night to remember, there goes the smooching man.

So let's hear some of these

cases for the docket, and

you will dispense the king's justice.

I will advise you as best I can as the hand of the king.

Thank you.

But you will be king.

Yes,

I have a line to.

I prefer God king, actually, because I do have a direct line to the divinity.

Direct line to the divinity.

Yeah.

Here's something from Emily A.

My grandmother was a florist when I was in high school, and she offered to make me and my friends corsages for our senior prom.

However, my friend Carly said it would be weird to wear them if we didn't have dates.

I contend that the corsage is a staple piece of prom wear and can be worn even if one does not have a, quote, date, unquote, so-called.

We were already going against prom standards by going as a group of friends.

I ended up wearing my corsage, but only my friends with dates got corsages from my grandmother.

I request you to order that my friend Carly admit it is not weird to wear a corsage if one has no date.

P.S.

I would like to note that Carly is a very kind friend who in college encouraged my now-boyfriend to ask me out to the strange college prom event that occurred during our freshman year.

All right.

A corsage, for any of our listeners who might not know, is a floral arrangement you wear on your wrist, right, Jesse Thorne?

Wear it on your wrist?

Yeah, it usually comes with like an elastic band.

It's like a halberd.

Right.

Jesse Thorne, for our listeners who may not know,

and for me who's still a little confused, what is a corsage?

A corsage is a flower arrangement that is worn on the body,

often on the wrist, like a gauntlet,

a floral gauntlet.

It's traditionally, you know, in the kind of

imaginary, I guess, early 20th century, all these things are so made up and so regional.

Right.

But in the imaginary early 20th century, kind of the music man version of a prom,

it would be given by a boy date to his girl date, and she would reciprocate by giving him a boutonnier to wear in his lapel, which is a, you know, a flower or a flower arrangement.

So it's a spray of spring blooms that you would wear on your wrist, typically.

Typically, yeah.

And that's how they know that you are the May Queen.

I guess.

Ends in you being burned inside a lodge.

No, the boyfriend gets burned inside a bear's lodge.

Spoilers.

Sorry.

Anyway, all right.

What do you think about this,

oh, king, my king, Jordan Morris?

Well, I think, as I mentioned earlier, I

was known to fly in the face of prom tradition when it came to wear.

Right.

I thought of another one of my weird outfits, like

1800s Explorer.

So I had a pith helmet and like those

baggy riding pants.

Yeah, yeah.

I I happen to be wearing that outfit right now, Jordan.

Anyway, so I am, I am very much in favor of tradition be danged.

Wear what you want.

Wear what you think feels good.

If you want to wear the corsage, great, awesome.

Who doesn't love a lovely flower?

If you don't want to,

yeah, who cares?

Like,

it should be fun.

And I think as embarrassed as I am about my,

you know, goofiness back in those days, I think I always had fun and I had fun prom memories.

And I think a big part of that was just I got to wear something that I thought was fun.

So if you like the corsage, do it.

If not, who cares?

I'm inclined to agree with you.

I mean, I feel as though since you're already going on a group friend date,

Why wouldn't you all celebrate each other by wearing those cool corsages that were made by your grandmom?

And why is Carly so mad at your grandmother, Emily A?

That probably hurt her feelings, don't you think?

That's what I was wondering.

So I wrote to Emily A and I said, is there anything more to this story?

And it turns out there is.

Turns out Emily A's grandmother is a witch.

And these corsages,

these corsages were cursed.

And all of the friend group who wore the corsages became

the evil grandmother's thralls.

And what happened was years before the evil grandmother had been teased at prom and made to feel not part of the group.

And so this was her revenge.

Tale is old as time.

A tale is old as time.

So all of these thralls, and Carly knew this and was just trying to protect the friend group, but all the ones who wore the corsages dumped buckets of pig blood on everybody's head.

Tale is old as time.

Song is old as rhyme.

My grandma is so witch.

No, that's not true.

I think Emily A's grandmother grandmother was just being nice and should have been allowed, should have been allowed to make flowers for everybody, especially if your grandmother, I mean, this is the thing, right?

It's like, this is like a great story.

It's like, there's all this pressure to be normie at the prom, and your grandmother is saying, fudge that, which she's probably saying because she probably doesn't like to swear.

Everyone wears flowers.

Everyone has a good time.

When your cool grandmom is making you flowers for everybody and telling you blow off tradition, that's when you listen.

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.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket this week with podcaster and Eisner Award nominee Jordan Morris.

Here's a case from Kurt.

Although my wife will testify that I'm quite a catch now, when I was in high school in the late 80s, I never had a girlfriend.

Senior prom carried with it a lot of pressure to attend, and to do so with a date.

You can probably sense my anxiety through this letter, even after all these years.

There were many girls I wanted to ask, but when the time came to ask them, they were already committed.

But, as luck would have it, one of my classmates, Chris, broke up with his longtime girlfriend, Kathy, just a week before prom.

I summoned up the courage to ask her, and she said yes.

But at prom, Chris pulled Kathy aside, and when they returned, they were a couple again.

And there I was, alone at my senior prom.

I ask that you award damages equaling one week's pain and suffering, emotional toil, and embarrassment.

What does Kurt say what he wants in damages?

Money?

He wants them to suffer for a week.

He wants them to suffer for a week.

Yeah, Chris and Kathy.

For rekindling their love.

The crime of love rekindlement.

Because he was alone at a senior prom for one night.

There wasn't anyone else at the prom.

That was the big.

Oh, it was just the three of them?

It was just the three of them.

So he just had to dance alone to come on ride the train.

Just sadly shuffling back and forth.

Okay, I get you now.

It was just a tiny little prom.

I don't know.

Jordan Morris, what do you think about this one?

Yeah, boy, I think I had something kind of similar at one of my dances.

I can remember going with Jamie Tansy.

Should I be saying people's full names on the show?

The answer is yes.

It's fun.

They love it.

Yeah.

And this was the year that I went in Ren Fair stuff.

This is the year I went in

kind of a.

What was the garb?

The garb was like, I think my vibe was barred.

So it was like one of those flat hats with a giant feather.

Sure.

And a kind of a cinched rope bag around my tunic.

And did you carry a loot around?

No, no loot, but I think maybe that was against the rules.

Wait, you couldn't bring a loot to school to the prom?

To prom, I mean?

No, I think it could be used as a weapon.

Whoa.

Okay.

Yeah, that's true.

So, yes, I think at this particular dance, we agreed to go as friends, but I think I was hoping it would turn into something more, that it would evolve.

Right.

And I think sometime in between

agreeing to go with me and the dance, Jamie had either gotten back together with a boyfriend or found a new boyfriend.

So it was a thing where we went to the prom together, but then there was a little like after-prom party, and then he kind of like joined her there.

Right.

And you were left out in the cold.

Were you heartbroken?

Yeah, you know, I think I was a little bit, but I think i i

you know i i'm maybe giving myself some credit retroactively but i i think i

you know my philosophy at these things is just to like

have fun be with your friends manage expectations so i i do still remember it being fun although i do remember that kind of twinge of uh rejection

so Yeah, I, you know, obviously these are, these are very loaded events, and no matter how casual you want to be about them, there's still,

you know, there's still baggage that comes with them.

So, yeah, but I still, I still remember it being fun.

I guess my question is: Kurt is asking for damages here.

Right.

Do you feel that it was inappropriate for Chris

to get back together with Kathy

at prom,

thus hurting Kurt's feelings by not going along with Kurt's fairly obvious desire

to steal his girlfriend from him.

Right.

I mean, obviously, I want Kathy to do what's best for Kathy.

Right.

Kathy.

I don't see a lot of consideration for Kathy in any of this.

I'm looking out for Kathy here.

I just want her to be happy, as I think we all do.

So, yeah, I mean,

could...

Could she have been a little more tactful, I guess, whatever.

But no kid in high school is tactful.

It's a highly charged.

It's highly charged.

I've seen Riverdale.

I know what it's like.

Right.

Oh my gosh, exactly, right?

It's a highly charged emotional time.

You don't know how to do anything.

Honed to

a singularity of anxiety and yearning.

Kurt, look, I'm sorry your plan to steal your friend's girlfriend did not work out.

I'm sorry that your friend's true feelings and Kathy's true feelings obviously got the better of them in this highly charged emotional moment of prom,

and they decided to reunite.

I'm sorry that you felt lonely as a result.

Although, I mean, it's either you were just going as a friend, in which case, who cares?

You should be happy for your friends, Chris and Kathy, for getting back together, or you truly were just scheming, scheming up on Kathy.

And Chris and Kathy weren't part of your scheme.

I'm sorry that all happened to you.

I don't blame anyone.

As one of my great writing teachers who passed away a few years, Lee K.

Abbott wrote, it was the title of his book of short stories, The Heart Never Fits Its Wanting.

It was a bad night for you.

It was a good night for them.

I see no reason to punish them.

It is now time to put it in your past, to forgive them and forgive yourself.

Heart never fits its wanting.

Check it out, Lee K.

Abbott, very good writer.

Here's something from Michael.

30 years ago in high school, I had an agreement with a female friend whom I will call Ralph.

By the way, any ladies out there whose name is Ralph, you rule?

Right.

I want to be friends with you right now.

That's the coolest lady name I've ever heard in my life.

This is the deal I made with Ralph.

If we were both still single, by the time prom rolled around, she and I would go together as friends.

Then I met Jennifer.

She went to a different high school, and we started dating at the beginning of our respective senior years, thus nullifying the prom agreement I had with Ralph.

But as prom loomed closer, no one had asked Ralph to go.

I worried she would miss out on prom altogether, so I apologized to Jennifer and went to my prom with Ralph.

Jennifer went to her prom with a platonic male friend we both knew.

All prom goers had fun.

Jennifer and I got married a few months later

and have had a pretty good 30 years since.

Pretty good.

B-Pretty.

But to this day, Jennifer states, I made the wrong decision.

I should not have taken Ralph to prom.

But I say, had I left Ralph at home, I wouldn't have been the kind of person Jennifer ended up marrying.

Instead, I would have been a jerk.

Who's right?

We got some alternate timeline consideration here, some multiversal considerations.

Jordan, in the universe in which Michael took Jennifer to prom.

It's kind of an into-the-Ralphiverse that we're dealing with here.

Yes, exactly.

Would Michael have been a jerk?

This is presuming, I suppose, that Ralph didn't go to prom at all because Ralph didn't have a date.

I think,

I mean, it sounds like.

By the way, this is, I did check in with Michael to verify.

No one in this situation is a sorcerer or a witch, but

Jennifer's prom and Michael's prom

separate high schools same night.

Oh, okay.

So a choice was made.

So,

again, just kudos to Michael for scoring.

a girlfriend who goes to a different high school.

That is always the like coolest thing you can do in high school.

Right.

Dating someone

who goes to a different school.

Throughout middle school, I had a girlfriend who lived up in Canada.

We just didn't,

she didn't get a lot of money.

She wrote a lot of letters.

She wrote you a lot of letters in your handwriting, right?

And Canadian promised for some weird reason in October.

Like, so there was no way you could get up there for that.

No possible.

She was a cheerleader in a ska group.

Cool.

Named Ralph.

You had a Canadian girlfriend named Ralph who's a cheerleader in a ska group.

No, the ska group was named Ralph.

Oh, right.

Okay, right.

After her?

No, after Ralph Malf from Happy Group.

Hey, you know what, Jesse?

You still got it.

Thank you.

I mean, it sounds, I mean, I don't think anyone did anything wrong here.

But I do think that the parameters that Michael laid out with Ralph is that if it seems pretty clear, if we're not dating anybody, we'll go with each other.

And

I think Michael was within the parameters of the deal deal to go with his girlfriend, later wife.

And I think it's a nice thing that he did with Ralph.

But,

I mean, I think something

like an important lesson you can learn at that point in your life, an important lesson you can learn at any point in life, is that, you know,

you can't spend all of your energy looking out for other people's feelings.

Like,

you do kind of have to look out for yourself.

So I think that, like, like, there's a lot of things that Ralph could have done.

You know, they could have all gone together as a group.

And again, I think, John, I think you're right that, that, um,

you know, depending on where and when you went to high school, there is a lot of pressure to be normie.

But this was 30 years ago.

Yeah.

It probably would have been less common then

for

a a a thrupple to show up at prom.

Right.

But I mean, who cares?

Yeah.

If that were the right solution emotionally for all of them,

damn the haters and go.

But yeah, I mean, I think clearly Michael was working within the stricter, sadder confines of what was imaginable to him at that time.

So I think it would have been fine for Michael to honor the deal and go with his girlfriend.

I think he was doing, I do think he was genuinely doing a nice thing, and it was nice.

And I hope he and Ralph had a good time.

And I hope it's a great memory for Ralph.

But yeah, but I think just, you know, in general, you know, to do what you want to do, take who you want to take.

Well,

you're a very kind and generous sovereign.

But I ask you this:

what's up with Jennifer holding this grudge for 30 years?

Yeah, sure.

Okay.

Yep.

There's something there.

You're right.

On the one hand, Michael says she went with a friend of hers to her prom.

He went with a friend of his to his prom.

Everyone had quote-unquote fun.

How does that reconcile with the fact that Jennifer is still mad about it?

And I asked Michael this as well, and he said, well, she was mostly upset about the letter of the law being violated.

Right.

That the agreement was null and void, and therefore I was no under obligation to Ralph and I should have taken her.

And it was the letter of the law.

And I do not believe him, nor do I believe Jennifer.

I said, do you think she had any other feeling about it?

No, it was the letter of the law being violated.

I don't believe that, Michael, Jennifer.

I don't know where where Ralph is in this situation, but I feel like you've got some owning up to do to each other about how you actually felt about what happened 30 years ago.

I mean, I'm glad that you got married and you've had a pretty good 30 years.

I'm willing to bet that you're lying about that too.

I bet there have been a great 30 years.

But I don't think that someone hangs on to something for 30 years saying, yeah, you shouldn't have done that when there was ostensibly no harm done.

Do you know what I mean?

According to Michael's recollection, there was no harm done.

But Jennifer felt there was was some harm done or else she wouldn't be saying this.

That said, the fact that the agreement was null and void does not enforce a counter-agreement that Michael was then obliged to take Jennifer to his prom.

It's true that having a significant other suddenly freed him from his obligation to Ralph, the compact they had made together, but

this does not automatically write a new contract that Ralph must be thrown over in favor of Jennifer.

And as to what was the correct decision, I don't know that Michael even has enough awareness to appreciate that Jennifer was hurt by his actions because he still says, Yeah, she's still mad at me for some reason that I didn't take her to prom.

This is something you need to explore.

But I don't, I certainly don't have the full scope of the emotions.

Like, did Ralph feel like she should be taken to prom by Michael?

Did they have a connection that made Jennifer feel

left out more than just friendship?

Did one of them have stronger feelings for the other?

These things are rarely symmetrical.

You know, maybe Jennifer felt and Michael thought that

something was going to happen between him and Ralph, or Ralph thought, or maybe it was simply patronizing for Michael to be like, oh,

sad little spinster friend, I shall take you to prom.

And Ralph felt too polite to say, it's okay, dude.

I'm going to go by myself.

My name is Ralph and I'm awesome.

You know what I mean?

These are all all things that it's missing information.

Right.

Here's some information we do have, John.

Yeah.

Michael and Jennifer got married a few months later.

Yeah.

Wow.

If Jennifer was uncomfortable with this situation, it may be that the feelings of the person he married a few months later are paramount here.

Yeah, no,

I agree.

And, you know, Michael, I know that you're a, I enjoyed my correspondence with you.

I know that you're a longtime Judge John Hodgman listener.

I appreciate your listening and you seem like a very nice guy.

But what I was driving at in my conversation with you off mic was

it's hard for me to really buy the idea that Jennifer just has held on to this feeling for 30 years for legal reasons.

I think that there is emotions here that are worth exploring even down the road.

At least so you don't have to write me about them anymore.

But

on basis,

I have to say, based on my fake legal reading of your case as you put it to me, you had an agreement with Ralph that was no longer in effect.

That did not mean that you had an automatic agreement with Jennifer.

Sorry, Jennifer, problem isn't that important.

And maybe, maybe this has been a source of productive friction through your marriage, where you can fight about it for a while and then, you know, get to make up

the smoochin' man

and do some over-the-clothes over-the-clothes stuff with the old wife.

Maybe it's a productive friction in your marriage.

I don't know.

But, you know, explore it a little bit, Michael.

Let's take a quick break when we come back.

Prom posals and prom conventions to challenge.

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 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.

Judge Hodgman, we're taking a break from Clearing the Docket.

We're headed to Lincoln Center, so if you're in the tri-state area, you've probably already heard about this, but it's a free show,

a free outdoor show at Lincoln Center this month.

It's going to be awesome.

Our friend Gene Gray is going to be there.

Yeah, let me put it in perspective for everybody.

It has been a long time since Judge John Hodgman has been on the road to delivering live justice to any audiences anywhere.

We had a close call.

We were almost at that beautiful San Francisco Sketch Fest, but for obvious reasons, it did not happen.

We look forward to that happening again in the future.

But now it's happening.

Now it's happening.

Live justice is returning.

And not just returning in a shabby style, but in a grand style.

At Lincoln Center, New York City, Manhattan, the center of the universe, arguably.

And

not just in a theater, outdoors under the stars, where there is a lot of fresh air and circulation.

And not just at Lincoln Center, outdoors under the stars, where there's a lot of fresh air and circulation, but it's free.

Zero cost to you.

Look, it's June 29th.

Lincoln Center Damrosh Park under the stars.

Free and open to all.

And I'm asking you, the Judge John Hodgman listener, bring a crew.

Get a crew together.

This is a free show.

I don't, you know, this isn't a high-stakes operation.

You're not having to buy $40 tickets to convince your friend to like the podcast that you like.

This is just a nice summer evening.

To top it all off, our friend Gene Gray will be there.

You know Gene.

You love Gene.

We know Gene.

We love Gene.

We're lucky to know and love her.

It's going to be so much fun.

June 29th, bit.ly slash JJ Ho Lincoln or anywhere you search up Judge John Hodgman Lincoln Center, you will find a way to reserve your tickets.

I have some cool guests coming up on Bullseye this week.

We just had a great interview with Michael Stipe last week, Michael Stipe of REM.

That was a really good one.

This week, two really awesome shows for

people of very broad interests.

One is with Adam Scott, the legendary Santa Cruzian, Parks and Recreation, and stepbrothers star.

I did not know he was a Santa Cruzian.

What is that?

He is a Santa Cruzian.

He's perhaps the greatest of them all, depending on how you feel about former Major League Baseball outfielder Glenn Allen Hill.

Wow.

Neutral.

But Adam is on the show.

He tells me about how his dad could get him in early to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

I ask him if he could introduce me to some otters.

It's a really wonderful, both deep and silly interview.

And also Dan Charnis, who has an amazing new book called Dilla Time, that is about how the hip-hop producer J.D., or J.

Dilla, changed the world of music and changed the world of hip-hop.

He has become a very large-scale cult figure

in the years since he died about a decade ago.

But JD is one of the most important producers in hip-hop history, and Dan is an incredible writer and an incredible storyteller about this really important figure.

There's a lot of music in that interview, and he'll really break down how and why Jay Dilla did what he did.

And it's such a cool conversation.

Dan is an amazing guy, and it's such an amazing topic.

So there's two great bullseye interviews this week to check out.

And Jesse Thorne, if you're listening to this on the day that this podcast has been released, it's June the 1st.

So rabbit rabbit.

That means in two days, I will be doing, speaking of animals, my final get-your-pets of this cycle.

As you know, I have an afternoon talk show.

I, a person who used to be on actual television, now goes on the internet from time to time to interview people's cats, dogs, rabbits, and other pets, including some really cool bearded dragons of late, a leaping crested gecko, among others.

I do this online streaming.

I do it on my Twitch channel, which is twitch.tv slash john hodgman.

You can also watch it on the Facebook page or on my Twitter, which is at Hodgman or on my YouTube, which you can find by Googling.

It's a lot of fun.

I did it all throughout our Max FunDrive.

And since we did such a great job on Max FunDrive and we were having such a good time, I've been doing it on Fridays, Friday afternoon weekly since then, with this one, June 3rd, being the last for the foreseeable future.

I'm going to take a break.

I will come back, but this is going to be the farewell to this season of Get Your Pets.

And if you've not been following along, don't worry about it.

There's nothing you need to know.

It's just

people watching me talk to cats and dogs and other pets.

And it's a lot of fun.

And we learn a lot about each other and our cats and dogs and other pets.

It's a lot of fun.

So this is on June 3rd at 3 p.m.

Eastern.

You can follow me on twitch.tv slash John Hodgman, or you can follow along on Twitter.

You can follow along on YouTube, the Facebook page, the Judge John Hodgman Facebook page, I should say.

So see you on Get Your Pets, 3 p.m., June the 3rd, on all those streaming platforms, wherever you get your streams.

You'll find it.

And yeah, see you at Lincoln Center.

Let's get back to the show.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're here with Eisner Award-nominated comic book writer Jordan Morris, also the co-host of Jordan Jesse Go with some other guy.

Here is a case from Amanda.

Are you aware of the cultural phenomenon known as the promposal?

I'm a high school teacher in Massachusetts.

I don't know if this is a New England regionalism or just something relatively new, but boy is it strange.

As if going to prom isn't awkward enough, kids in my school believe you can't just ask someone to the prom.

You must create and deliver an elaborate prom posal, the likes of which rival any actual marriage proposal.

We're talking about schemes, surprises, songs, scavenger hunts, you name it.

And here's the kicker.

They're usually prom posing either the person they're already dating or someone they have never spoken to in their lives.

Not a friend or a crush, they go through the school roster using some mysterious algorithm to find the just right stranger.

Whoa.

Anyway, I would never ask you to rule against the practice that they're clearly taking some pleasure in, but perhaps you could agree, the whole thing's a little weird?

Just so that I'm not the only older person passing judgment on these teens.

It's rare that we have a case where there are not two distinct litigants.

But I did feel like I wanted to take this case.

This is a class action lawsuit by olds against teens.

Olds against teens.

In the case of old man v.

Cloud, what find you?

Get out of my sky, Cloud.

You don't look like an elephant.

You just look like mush.

I hate it when clouds don't look like things.

I think we all do, John.

How dare you?

It's an insult to my own imagination.

I'm lying on my back in a field.

Come on, look like something.

Amanda says, I would ask you, I would never ask you to rule against the practice that they are clearly taking some pleasure in, but perhaps I would agree the whole thing is a little weird.

I will not agree that the whole thing is a little weird.

It actually sounds fun, potentially.

But I will agree to rule against the practice they are taking pleasure in.

How can I do this?

How can I defy both of your expectations, Amanda?

Well, here's why.

I think, and Jesse and Jordan, you can step in if you disagree, I think doing an elaborate proposal to someone that you are dating

and have a relationship with in a way that is fun

for you, fun for the person you are proposing to, fun for everyone.

If it's fun for everyone, I consider that to be fun.

I don't see a problem with that.

That's fun.

Promposing to a perfect stranger, now I'm getting carry vibes.

Now that sounds like a joke.

Yep.

That seems like a mean prank.

Yeah, I'm loving this so far, John.

Right?

That just seems

could be very confusing and no fun at all for the person who's getting

a prank call.

It's like tricking some theater nerd into thinking that he's the homecoming king.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And I'm not saying that this is necessarily in bad taste every time or mean spirited or in bad faith every time.

But I think that surprising someone who you do not know with a promptal, I'm like, Doctor Strange, that goes right in one in four billion possible futures.

That doesn't seem right to me.

So I agree with you there.

Yeah.

And I think there's an element too of like,

these are, these seem like these are for the benefit of social media a lot of times people are doing this for the likes doing it for the gram doing it for um

you know whatever app these young people are on these days yeah they're doing it for the likes not for the loves thank you yeah and and this is about love not linkedin exactly

That's a t-shirt right there.

So, yeah, so I think I think there's an element too of like, I understand how this could be fun.

And if I was in, if this was a trend when I was in in high school, I would have been all over this in the most embarrassing way possible.

I would have,

yeah, I would have wanted to do dances and flash mobs and things like this.

You would prom pose to another.

I probably would, yeah, if I was, if this was what you're saying.

Yes, I think I would have.

If you could have figured out

how to prom pose to yourself in the most embarrassing way possible,

you wouldn't be homecoming king right now.

You'd be homecoming deity.

Right.

Homecoming lord.

Homecoming lord of lords.

Host of hosts.

So yeah, I mean,

I think there's just maybe a general, this is a, it would be, this is a good time to encourage the young people who I know listen to this show in droves.

They do.

They do.

In droves.

So

I think this is a good, just maybe a good opportunity to tell the youngs, hey.

You don't have to be so online.

That's something I should tell myself as well.

Something to remind myself.

Hey, let's all try and be a little less online and not all of you.

All right.

This isn't your therapy, Jordan.

Let's move on.

John, okay.

So, my dad,

he was kind of withholding.

He was, and he and my mom didn't have a great relationship, so he wasn't around a lot.

Listen, my sovereign.

Prom Lord, please.

I kind of like prom lords.

Prom lord.

Listen, prom lord.

Yeah.

While Jesse and I take care of this last case in the docket, you don't even listen to this one.

Okay?

We can handle it.

Take out my earbuds.

If you could go back in time and figure out the best way to propose to yourself how Jordan Morris of old, informed by the comedic sense of Jordan Morris of today,

will be the best self-promposal,

then you can let us know.

Take your time.

Think about it.

Do you have some scratch paper and a pencil or something?

Right here.

Always do.

Let's put a bow on this case, John.

I think public promposals

are coercive and weird.

They do strike me as reasonable if you're in a relationship and it is self-evident that you will be going to prom with the person with whom you are in

the relationship.

I think that's true of a prom invitation in a way that it might not be for, say, a public wedding proposal.

But

yes, for strangers, big-time carry vibes.

And by the way, Jesse, you raise a good point.

Like, if this is a high school couple who are obviously going to prom

together, a prom posal is kind of a funny bit of theater, which can be very enjoyable.

Probably let

a lot of other kids feel left out, but okay, but for you and your friends, fun.

Proposing to someone this way for marriage, no.

Don't do that.

No way, Jose.

No way, Jose.

No, don't do that.

This is a serious private moment that you should enjoy together.

And also, you don't propose in public and spring it on somebody unless the both of you are theater kids and you have decided to get married and you're going to do a weird public

bit

for your parents or your friends or your families or everyone at the sports game or whatever.

Like, if you're both in on it, I think that's ultimately what it comes down to.

You have to be both in on it.

But people who are proposing to their spouses by like surprising them in public, no, don't do it.

Bad news.

Here's a case from Celeste.

I'm a professor of gender and sexuality studies.

A handful of my first year U.S.-based students have told me that their school's rules were that only a gender-assigned at birth boy or man and gender-assigned at birth girl or woman can attend prom together.

One student also noted that if someone wanted to go with the same gender friend, or one could just say friend, they needed to provide proof that they asked people of the quote opposite unquote gender to go with them and were rejected.

I ask you to declare an injunction on these schools and urge educators and those with power in places like these institutions to oppose these queer phobic policies, if, of course, they feel safe to do so.

Love the show.

Also, I listened to Jordan Jesse go too.

So I love you, Jesse.

Thanks for playing my momentous occasions.

Thanks for calling in momentous occasions.

I'm going to presume that they also love Jordan.

Hey, thanks.

But I do like that I have been highlighted and Jordan left out.

That does feel good.

I don't think they even knew that Jordan was going to be on the case.

There's no way that Celeste knew.

The thing that, I mean, there's a lot that's so upsetting about this letter,

one of which is that it, I'm sure it's not uncommon in lots of parts of this country.

Even parts of this country where you don't think it would happen, it probably is true.

But the thing that, one of the things that gets me is this last bit about I would urge educators and those with power in places like these institutions to oppose these queer phobic policies if they feel safe to do so.

For indeed, a lot of these educators and school board members probably don't feel safe to do so because there is a coordinated right-wing attack on public school boards right now to replace genuine, hard-working citizens of all different political spectrums trying to do the best for students and replace them instead with hard, right-wing, anti-queer, anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ plus

activists who will do this kind of thing and make it worse and make students feel more ashamed, more isolated, more unsafe than they probably already do do within a lot of their communities and ban more books and more conversations about being simple humanity.

And it's really, really, obviously very upsetting.

And I hope that you think about this when you go forward into

this midterms and into the next election cycles, not merely in terms of who you vote for on state and local and then obviously national elections, but I hope that you think it too, if you consider maybe running for school board or being aware of the school board races that are going on in your community so that you can find out where these school boards are being targeted by coordinated right-wing activism, anti, you know, transphobic and homophobic and all kinds of other phobic activism.

And we can push back against this in your own communities.

Because this is really, really, really gross and dehumanizing and awful.

I don't know.

I don't know what else to say about it.

That's my injunction.

Jesse Thorne,

you want to add something to this?

I do.

Yeah.

As a semi-journalist, I'm obliged not to speak on anything involving elections, but I can say that my wife wrote a beautiful book for elementary school-aged kids and preschool-aged kids called It Feels Good to Be Yourself

that is about

gender.

And it is a beautiful and inclusive, positive book.

There's nothing weird or bad or gross in this book.

It is a moving and lovely book about all kinds of kids.

And it's been on some of these banned book lists.

Yeah.

You know, it's been pulled from schools and libraries

and so forth.

And

it is very distressing and upsetting to me to think about kids who are

not being recognized, not being seen, not being supported,

and kids who are

who

would love to see and recognize and support themselves and their peers and are not getting the tools to do so.

So, yeah, I'm also upset about some of these things.

In general, I have been on this show, I think, a few times supportive of the

if you're alternative or you're a nerd or a geek or you're otherwise different,

still go to prom and do your thing.

And I think we've heard that on this show with

me, a weirdo who went to a weirdo high school, and Jordan, a Theodore Dork, who went to a pretty normal high school or pretty classic American high school.

I think we've heard two versions of like

alternative-y type people who went and participated in their own way and had a nice time and we're glad they did that.

And in general, I've, you know, spoken out on behalf of that.

Like I think your anxieties in most, most of these situations, your anxieties as a teen

are so great that it can prevent you from going and having a nice time and having done a special thing,

especially if you can do it your way.

In this case,

I mean, Valerie, get the bleep button going, but these people can go themselves.

They can truly go themselves.

Up your nose with a rubber hose to people who are making these demands of kids.

These people are in the part of their life where they are discovering who they are.

They are learning about who they are.

And when you do stuff like this, you teach them that the way they are is wrong.

And that is something that takes such extraordinary work to undo.

And every brave person who went through this when they were an adolescent or when they were a kid, whether it's about their gender or their sexuality or any other part of who they are,

and was able to overcome it, you're awesome.

You're a hero.

Everybody who's still struggling with it, you're awesome.

You're a hero.

And everybody who chose to do this to young people in their families, in their communities, in their schools, whatever, go f ⁇ yourself.

Think about the choices that you are making for people who are just trying to learn to live their own lives, to be themselves.

You can't change who someone is.

And you have the choice to accept and support them or not.

I am with Celeste, and I imagine that Celeste is one of these people because they mentioned that they use they, them pronouns.

You know, I don't know where they are on the, you know, I don't know what their gender identity is, but I can imagine that it wouldn't fit very well

with these kinds of policies.

So I'm grateful that you, Celeste, are providing an example to the young adults that you're working with and teaching.

And yeah.

If you're one of these educators or administrators or parents or

school board members or whatever who are imposing these kinds of policies on kids and young adults.

Go f ⁇ yourself.

Yeah, and to these kids, like the idea that

to go with a friend,

you have to prove your rejection.

I mean, it's medieval.

Do something cool.

Speaking of medieval, go to medieval times.

I've heard that is very fun.

Go to the Renfair.

Go to a more accepting place.

I could not more celebrate young people in this position who figure out their own thing to do.

Yeah.

Don't let these f ⁇ ers get you down.

Figure out your own thing to do with your friends, other people from your community, people you've met at the library, whatever.

I don't care if you go to a ball game, have a D ⁇ D game, have

a

wild dance in an abandoned warehouse, Whatever it is,

do your thing in a space that allows you to be yourself.

Just with regard to the abandoned warehouse, be careful of tetanus.

Yeah.

Be careful of rustiness.

And be careful of vampires or blades.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean.

Because that's where they like to party.

That's where they like to

party.

Yeah.

The docket is officially clear, but John, I think we have one more matter to attend to here.

Jordan?

Prom Lord?

Yes.

Thank you.

I was not going to answer unless you said prom lord, so

I'm glad you caught yourself in adding it.

I'm sorry to have put you on the spot.

Prom is an anxiety-producing topic.

Do you have the perfect prom posal for Jordan Moore as prom lord?

Self-promosal.

I think I do.

What would you have done?

What would you do today?

So I think

here's how I would do it.

I think I would take myself, the prom lord,

to one of our favorite spots.

You know, I don't know if this is a soda fountain, a,

you know, a

boardwalk somewhere.

It's probably pie and burger.

Pie and burger

in Pasadena.

If you're ever in Pasadena, hit up Pie and Burger.

You know what's good?

The pies and the burgers.

Yep.

So we'd go to one of my favorite spots, our favorite spots, I should say.

And I think I would just have a sincere moment and I would just say, hey, Jordan, I always have fun when we're together.

I'm looking forward to prom.

I just want to make sure

it's a fun night where we can celebrate with our friends.

I would love it if you would go with me to the prom.

Hit it, Quad City DJs.

Come on, school the dance and school it.

Come on, school the dance and school it.

And then a flash mob comes out.

Right, then it'll be a flash mob of all your friends.

Everybody does ribbon dancing and then a huge loot solo, just a

shredding

eight-minute loot solo.

Sure, sure.

Like

the guy from Mad Max Fury Rose.

Yes, exactly.

Someone's chained to a big rig, shredding on a loot.

I live, I die, I live again.

It's definitely Sting that's shredding on the loot, right?

He's touring with Quad City DJ's big promenade,

prom promposal show.

Exactly.

It's tag team, Quad City DJs, and special guest Sting on featuring Sting.

Yeah.

All right, dockets clear.

That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmor.

Our editor is Valerie Moffat.

You can follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Make sure to hashtag your judgejohnhodgman tweets, hashtag jjho, and check out the maximum funds subreddit to discuss this episode.

Judge, we have a very exciting special docket coming up, and we're going to need a very particular type of case.

That's right, Jesse.

We will be joined by our friend and your friend, Linda Holmes, host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, as well as the author of the great novel, Evie Drake Starts Over, as well as a great forthcoming novel, Check Your Local Listings, and former dorm mate of David Reese at Oberland College, Linda Holmes, will be back to discuss a term that she brought first to us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast, your little weirdsies.

How would you define little weirdsies, Jesse Thorne?

Well, I'm no Linda Holmes, but

as Nika Costa once sang, everybody's got their something.

There are things about which all of us are a little weird.

These are our little weirdsies, and we are looking for cases about your little weirdsies or your partner or friend or colleague's little weirdsies.

We want to know

what are the things about which you are slightly unreasonable.

Send us your little weirdsies disputes at maximumfund.org slash jjho.

And of course, send us all of your disputes.

The whole show is based on disputes.

Maximumfund.org slash JJHO.

Jordan, what a pleasure to have you here.

So wonderful to hear of your royal upbringing through the gauntlet of various proms and homecomings.

And I love your promosal and I accept it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Judge.

Thank you, Bailiff.

Thank you for your wisdom.

And thank you for having fun with me here today.

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

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