The Duality of Jean

Speaker 1 Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I am your judge, John Hodgman.
What am I doing? Why isn't Jesse Thorne talking?

Speaker 1 Well, because today we have a very special guest bailiff, our friend Gene Gray. Hi, Jean.

Speaker 2 Hello. I am also,

Speaker 2 I'm everyone else's judge, not just yours.

Speaker 1 You are the judge. You're the all-seen judge of all.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 you're not a bailiff.

Speaker 1 You are an equal in this tribunal of judgments.

Speaker 2 Well, no, no, no. I can be a bailiff.
I'm just saying

Speaker 2 I am also judge of all. It has nothing to do with the show.
I'm just very judgy.

Speaker 1 You are. Absolutely.
I hope that I can live up to your judgment.

Speaker 2 Oh, you always do. You do.
I try. I would let you know if you didn't.

Speaker 1 I was like, how does Jean feel about the? I wonder how Jean would judge me making this delicious broth.

Speaker 2 What's the broth?

Speaker 1 I'm having my afternoon broth. Boy, we are old, huh?

Speaker 2 Let's just.

Speaker 1 I need a little nourishing broth in the afternoons.

Speaker 2 That's what I said. I said we're old.

Speaker 1 I've been really into this Handashi.

Speaker 2 Oh, it's very, it's really, yeah, it's great.

Speaker 1 Good for you. You know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 I do. I have it in the cabinet.

Speaker 1 It comes in a little. So, dashi, of course, is kind of catch-all term for any Japanese nourishing broth.
You can make it with kombu seaweed. Yep.
You can make it with bonito flakes. Bonito flakes.

Speaker 1 Bonito flakes. Handashi is like the Nescafe moments of dashi.

Speaker 2 Do you have the little the little tear open packet that you don't have?

Speaker 1 I don't have it in packets. I have it in a little jar.
It comes in a very satisfying little jar.

Speaker 2 Oh, good for you.

Speaker 1 When you're working through as much powdered dashi as I am, you need the jar.

Speaker 2 Did you get this dashi at H Mart? Do you go to H Mart?

Speaker 1 I did not get it at H Mart. Do you know where I got it, Gene? Where? It's funny because I

Speaker 2 just was called. Park Slope, a small store?

Speaker 1 I live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and Mr. and Mrs.
Lee run a store, which is terrific, right across across 7th Avenue. And it used to be called BH Groceries.
I don't know what those initials were for.

Speaker 1 And fur. That's how I talk now.
Fur. I talk like

Speaker 1 a character.

Speaker 1 I talk like a character from Oklahoma. I don't know what they were for.

Speaker 1 I know that.

Speaker 1 I know that's as high as a building ought to go. Everything's up to date in Kansas City.
They've gone about as fur as they can go. No, boy.
God's a skyscraper, seven stories high.

Speaker 1 No, let me stop you right there. Let me stop.
Is there a building ought to go? No,

Speaker 1 I've been judged lacking?

Speaker 2 No, it's not you. It's just musicals.

Speaker 1 No, on all musicals.

Speaker 2 You know what?

Speaker 2 I simultaneously love musicals and hate musicals.

Speaker 1 But because that's your whole human being. That's what a human being does.
Loves and hates musicals.

Speaker 2 The duality of gene. But what about the dashi at the store? What?

Speaker 1 B ⁇ H Groceries, where they have wonderful products from around the world.

Speaker 1 Many years ago, they

Speaker 1 redid the entire place. They bought the next storefront.
They expanded. Good for you.
They renovated. They put up a new

Speaker 1 awning with a brand new name. What's the name? And I've mentioned it on the podcast before, but I'll say it again.
It's called the Bad Wife.

Speaker 1 And people said, Mr. Lee, why is it called The Bad Wife? And he kind of shrugged.
He's like, I don't know. It's for like if a husband or wife has forgotten something for dinner, they can stop by

Speaker 1 and get and get their dashi at the last minute.

Speaker 1 And now it's something that you don't see, you don't even see in the neighborhood anymore because everyone loves the bad wife, but it is called the bad wife.

Speaker 1 And every now and then you remember, oh, this store is called the bad wife. That's weird.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 you know, in 2022, um,

Speaker 2 and just my feelings in general and my body and my brain and my experience, I'm supposed to be like, that's not cool. But honestly, that's very funny.

Speaker 2 It's a great name. They sell teachers.
I think it's hilarious.

Speaker 1 Good for teaching.

Speaker 2 It's their business.

Speaker 2 They've been with each other. They thought it was funny and they went that far.
And I love anyone who's like, yep, that's it.

Speaker 1 That's what I'm doing. As I say, you stop seeing it after a while, such that over the holidays, when they start to get it.
Like racism.

Speaker 2 Like racism.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 I told you it was going to get dark today.

Speaker 1 Fair hit. Fair hit.

Speaker 2 You just stop

Speaker 2 saying it. It's just, you're like, that's normal.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they have t-shirts that say the bad wife on them. And I was like, I'm going to get those for my whole family.
And I'm like, wait a minute.

Speaker 1 Like the whole family.

Speaker 2 Do they have children's sizes?

Speaker 1 Of course they do.

Speaker 2 No. Okay.
Of course they do. They have hats.

Speaker 1 But I can't send what they don't have hats. Like tote.

Speaker 2 I'd park slope. They got tote bags.

Speaker 1 I'm sure they have totes.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm sure they have totes.

Speaker 2 I'm sure the t-shirts are like made out of the tote bags.

Speaker 1 But they have Hondashi. Yeah.
They've got sardine, powdered sardine dashi there.

Speaker 2 I do an anchovy broth, but I do that for my steamed eggs in my stone pot.

Speaker 1 Whoa.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I've gone very far into some great cooking.

Speaker 1 You've gone down the salty water route.

Speaker 2 Yes, I have. And it's been a great time.

Speaker 1 I pep my dashi. If it's not salty enough, I add a little soy sauce and a little sriracha.

Speaker 2 I'm going to send you a list of all the condiments that are currently in my kitchen. There's a lot going on and a lot that you can put in that dashi.

Speaker 2 Any dried chilies? Any fresh chilies you put in there?

Speaker 1 No, but I'll try that.

Speaker 2 Just cutting up some fresh ginger, like slices of ginger, and just let it cook a little longer than normal is so lovely.

Speaker 1 That's very nourishing and

Speaker 1 good for the tum-tum, I would imagine. Settling to the stomach.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And ginger is just good for you.

Speaker 1 Before we get into the docket, I'll tell you another story.

Speaker 1 Speaking of settling the stomach and racism, I went to Boston.

Speaker 2 You know what?

Speaker 2 When I think of Boston, I'm like, if you can stomach racism, other places you think you can stomach, and if it's like, if you're like, I'm okay with that, Boston is a good place to go to feel like upset in your stomach about racism.

Speaker 1 Well, did we encounter some casual racism in Boston? Of course we did.

Speaker 1 Does every cab driver in Boston presume that you're a racist and therefore you want to talk about it? Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. No, but I got a stomach bug.
This is just a genuine stomach bug.

Speaker 2 Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 Not COVID or nothing. And I was there with this young man that lives in our house touring a local college.

Speaker 1 And I was like on the tour. And

Speaker 1 this is an urban campus.

Speaker 1 So there's no, it was not like that we were walking around on beautiful. Well, that's racist.
That's racist. Do you mean black? Do you mean a black campus?

Speaker 2 Because that's the word. That's the word that people.

Speaker 1 I know that's a code. That is a code word.

Speaker 2 Oh, you just meant the city. Oh, you just meant the city.
I just meant that

Speaker 1 this is a college. This is a college.

Speaker 2 Your son is going to go to an HBCU

Speaker 1 in Boston?

Speaker 1 It's a very 2022.

Speaker 1 He's going to a historic black college and or university that is in Boston.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 1 A lot lot going on. I'm so proud.

Speaker 1 No, I just, I got a stomach bug and during the middle of the college tour, I had to throw up.

Speaker 1 And it's like, you know, when you're, when you're raising a human to replace you, which is what parenting is.

Speaker 2 That's why I don't have kids. I don't want anybody replacing.

Speaker 1 You're out of here. You're out of here.
Get out of here. Like, there are two things that you hope for.

Speaker 1 One, you hope that they become self-sufficient.

Speaker 1 And two, you hope that you don't vomit in front of them during their college tour. And one of those dreams came true.

Speaker 1 Did you exit? Yes.

Speaker 2 Okay, so you vomited on your own. It wasn't like.

Speaker 1 Well, we were up in this building, like on the eighth story of this building

Speaker 1 on this city campus.

Speaker 1 And I was like, when are we going to another building so I can go find a quiet garbage can or an alleyway or something? Because

Speaker 1 I wasn't allowed to use the facilities in there. Because of black?

Speaker 1 Because of COVID. Oh, no, that makes sense.
That's the other thing. Yeah, yeah.
One thing you definitely do not want to do is vomit in front of your child on a college tour during COVID.

Speaker 1 Because even though,

Speaker 1 even though tummy trouble is not a common

Speaker 1 symptom of COVID, it doesn't look good.

Speaker 2 It does not.

Speaker 2 Any ounce of slight

Speaker 2 show of weakness. Yeah.
And people are like, what's that?

Speaker 2 what's wrong with you?

Speaker 1 No, I would have. So anyway, your dream is that your child becomes self-sufficient and that you don't vomit in front of them on their college tour.

Speaker 1 One of those dreams came true because as we were moving from one building to another, I just said, I gotta, I gotta go. I gotta go.
You have to do this on your own.

Speaker 1 And to his credit, he was like, yep, no problem. And he turned right and I turned left and immediately yakked on the streets of Boston, which is frankly what the streets of Boston deserve.

Speaker 2 I mean, yeah. Streets of Boston.
I love love Boston.

Speaker 1 Sorry about that. It's my hometown.
Then you got to throw up in your hometown. You just left a little bit of you.

Speaker 2 You got to hear like, here, here's a little bit of me.

Speaker 1 What I did was I spring-cleaned myself. Because it is spring.
Spring has sprung, Gene. Has it? Not really.

Speaker 1 Am I allowed to reveal where you are?

Speaker 2 In the depths of hell.

Speaker 1 Baltimore, Maryland.

Speaker 2 Oh, nothing against you, Baltimore. Just my own personal hell.
But yes, Baltimore. I'm sorry to hear that.

Speaker 1 Well, and Baltimore is this, is the city that reads the charm city.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I read lots. I've bought a lot of books since I've been in a lot of bookstores, too.

Speaker 1 Is it springtime in Baltimore? Is anything blooming?

Speaker 2 Well, yeah. See, the issue is that the earth is confused.

Speaker 2 So, like, our grass is coming up, and like the trees are sprouting, and there's like a couple of little blooms. And then I feel like they all come out and they're like, Hey, everybody, what's

Speaker 1 I'm a little cold?

Speaker 2 Does anybody have some small jackets?

Speaker 1 Little tiny jackets. Are we early? I feel like we're on time.
Should we drive around the block a few times? No, we'll go. We'll go.
Okay. We'll just wait.
Okay.

Speaker 2 So things are blooming, but it's still, you know, it's up and down. And New York and Baltimore basically have the same weather until we start to get a little bit deeper into the summer.

Speaker 1 But this year in particular, it does feel that the earth is confused. It's like it does not want spring to happen, does not want to get warm, does not want to wake up.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 And I think it's going to go, you know, hard and fast. We're going to delve into

Speaker 2 our the tropical monsoon summer that we're going to live on the northeast.

Speaker 1 Well, Gene, in times past, there was a time when when trees would bud and birds would come around and tweet. And maybe you take a carpet out and you'd beat it.
I did. Beat a carpet.

Speaker 1 Have you ever beat a carpet?

Speaker 2 I do. I have rugs that I have to do that with because I like a good rug.
So I got to take them outside.

Speaker 1 Is that part of your spring cleaning routine?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 Maybe like every

Speaker 1 four months. Oh, wow.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 I was like, this should be part of the spring thing. So I did do that.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I took my rug outside. When I was in college and I lived on Edgewood Avenue in New Haven, 16 Edgewood Avenue.

Speaker 1 Hey, everybody, if there's anyone who knows who lives there at 16 Edgewood Avenue, I want back in. I want to see my old room.
And it was terrifying. There's so much stuff came off of that rug.

Speaker 2 It's, yeah. Also, because I, you know, grew up in New York and it was always like, you got to take the rug outside and beat the rug.
And I was like, where am I, where do you want me to do that?

Speaker 1 Out the window. Out the window, right? What?

Speaker 2 So it's nice to finally be able to do that. And I'm like, oh, there's been so much stuff.
just settled in there.

Speaker 2 So as part of spring cleaning, it's a great effort.

Speaker 2 If you can take, if the place that you live in allows you the ability to take your rug outside and you know what that does you know what that dust is right

Speaker 1 people it's people it is people

Speaker 1 yeah when our neighbors in our building left for a long period of time because of world events and went to a different place

Speaker 1 they asked us if we would look in from time to time and make sure everything was not burning or whatever. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And when they and they finally said, we're going to come back and the woman who I'm married to, who's a whole human being in her own right, said, I'll go and clean it up.

Speaker 1 And she went over there, and it had been months and months. There was nothing to clean.

Speaker 1 There was zero dust. Do you know why? No humans.

Speaker 2 No people.

Speaker 1 It's just dust is humans, everybody.

Speaker 2 You got to exfoliate.

Speaker 1 Well, I don't have a choice, do I? Anyway, this is the time of year when we get our human residue. out of our carpets and we hope, you know,

Speaker 1 knock the dust out of our minds a little bit. I hope so.

Speaker 2 That would be nice.

Speaker 1 That would be nice. One last thing.
I just love talking to you, Gene Gray. I know that we've got some justice to dispense here, but one more thing I wanted to ask you about.

Speaker 1 Because I was just saying, I want to go back to the house I lived in in the early 90s. I know.
I behave in Connecticut. You just went back to where you grew up.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Which is where. Tell the people.

Speaker 2 I grew up in the Chelsea Hotel, which

Speaker 2 just reopened.

Speaker 2 And I've been keeping

Speaker 2 an eye on them.

Speaker 1 Are you haunting this hotel gene?

Speaker 2 Yeah, no. I like a live haunting.
And

Speaker 2 I like, you know, haunting my old neighborhood and

Speaker 2 the old place that I grew up in.

Speaker 2 So they were under renovations for a very long time.

Speaker 2 Some people stayed. I was not one of those people.

Speaker 2 I left in

Speaker 2 2012. So I guess it was like 10 years since I'd actually been in the building.

Speaker 2 Yeah, my mom was still there.

Speaker 1 So that's right around the time when you and I met.

Speaker 1 You had just, must have just moved out. Yep.

Speaker 2 I didn't realize that. It was a bit, it was a because I knew you grew up to it.

Speaker 1 I just didn't realize you still had.

Speaker 2 No, my mom, my mom and my brother stayed there. Like that, you know.
You know, you leave your childhood home and then your parents like are still there.

Speaker 2 But yeah, I got to.

Speaker 1 And then they shut down your childhood home and moved into a boutique hotel. Into a boutique hotel.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, I stayed and it was.

Speaker 1 For listeners who don't know, the Chelsea Hotel, when you were living there, sorry to interrupt. Yes, no problem.
The Chelsea Hotel is in New York City.

Speaker 1 That was a residential hotel where it was primarily known for the artists and writers who lived there, the counterculture.

Speaker 1 Your mom, who is no longer living, was an incredible jazz singer and performer. Um,

Speaker 1 uh, and then Sid Vicious, also, I guess.

Speaker 2 And also Sid Vicious.

Speaker 1 And also Sid Vicious.

Speaker 2 Also, Sid Vicious and Janice Joplin, and um,

Speaker 2 you know, Andy Warhol and

Speaker 2 and and all, and yeah, and we moved in in 1977, so it was full-on swing the Chelsea Hotel.

Speaker 2 Um, uh, kids that grew up there, like my mom's friend, Viva, her daughter, uh, is Gabby Hoffman. Um, so

Speaker 2 we're the same age, so there was a lot of like kids growing up there. I keep an eye on it because I'm actually writing something

Speaker 2 that's going to, that takes place in 1977 at the Chelsea.

Speaker 2 So going

Speaker 2 back there and wanting to be like, I'm trying to really claim all of my New York stuff that my rap history has sort of taken away from me.

Speaker 2 For some reason, everyone thinks I'm from Brooklyn and I never said I was from Brooklyn. And I think the idea that

Speaker 2 because I happen to look like me and do that music, that the assumption, even though I've always said I'm from Manhattan,

Speaker 2 is this weird idea to be like, right, Brooklyn.

Speaker 1 You had to have been from Brooklyn.

Speaker 1 There's no way. There's no way.
There's no way that you grew up in the Chelsea Hotel. Right.
In Manhattan.

Speaker 2 So yeah,

Speaker 2 it's weird to go to your childhood home.

Speaker 1 Well, Gene, we do have a lot of spring cleaning and springtime and cleaning and floral related uh disputes to here starting uh with a case i believe from mike is that correct this is there is a case from mike

Speaker 2 i'm looking for an injunction on my wife mallory for leaving chapsticks in her pockets this has ruined multiple pieces of clothing over the years anytime i remove a clean load from the dryer and see a chapstick i know we've just avoided disaster her argument is that I should be checking pockets of all clothing before each load of laundry.

Speaker 2 My argument is that the burden of chapstick removal should fall on the user of the chapstick.

Speaker 2 Thank you for considering my case.

Speaker 1 Gene, you know our friend Paul F. Tompkins.

Speaker 2 I do.

Speaker 1 All right, I'm going to make reference to a Paul F. Tompkins bit.
This is a Paul F. Tompkins bit.
Alert, alert. This is a Paul F.
Tompkins bit.

Speaker 1 You know how he has this bit?

Speaker 1 Where anytime,

Speaker 1 where anytime he reads a phrase that tracks to the song Girlfriend in a Coma by the Smiths, he has to sing it. In other words, chapstick in her pockets, I know, I know it's serious.
That's a Paul F.

Speaker 1 Tompkins, but everybody, go check out Paul F. Tompkins and all his things.
That's an homage to Paul F. Tompkins.
That's a good friend plug. Oh, well,

Speaker 1 I also don't want Paul F. Tompkins to get mad at me.
That's no fun. But this is Chapsticks in Your Pockets in the Laundry.
This seems fairly serious to me. To you too, Gene?

Speaker 2 I'll tell you what. I need something to happen once

Speaker 2 until I am like, all right, that's a problem. And

Speaker 1 yeah,

Speaker 2 I haven't left a thing like chapsticks as I'm putting the emphasis on the second syllable.

Speaker 2 Like chapsticks, but a long time ago I left a lipstick and it was an expensive lipstick and that was terrible. And paper, I hate leaving paper in pockets.
So I am a turn out all the pockets.

Speaker 2 You know why? Because I'm the one doing the laundry.

Speaker 1 Right. Okay.

Speaker 1 And you're doing your own laundry.

Speaker 2 And others.

Speaker 1 And others. Because that's what this

Speaker 1 comes down to: is that Mike feels that Mallory should be responsible for taking those chapsticks out, even when Mike is himself doing the laundry.

Speaker 2 Sure. You're just double-checking.
Just double-checking. Just double-check.

Speaker 1 That's it. Sure, Mallory, sure, sure.

Speaker 2 Mallory should do it, but she might not have.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this comes down to a very

Speaker 1 highly contested issue on Judge John Hodgman a few months ago with regard to cleaning the lint screen or the lint trap or the lint filter.

Speaker 1 First of all, everyone wanted to have a fight over whether it was called the lint screen, the lint trap, or the lint filter. The lint filter.
I call the lint thing.

Speaker 1 And whose responsibility is it to clean that lint thing, given that it will start a fire if you don't clean it regularly? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And some people felt very strongly you have to clean it immediately after you have finished your laundry

Speaker 1 so that the next person doesn't have to do it, especially in a shared laundry room situation.

Speaker 2 I guess so, yeah.

Speaker 1 And then other people, including your judge, felt, no, you got to. You got to clean it yourself.
You got to clean it before every load. As the screen itself says, clean before every load.

Speaker 2 Oh, I feel like that's the end to that argument. I'd be like, the instructions, I mean, but also, first off, is it that

Speaker 1 big of a deal to just

Speaker 2 like, how much work are you against doing?

Speaker 2 That you're like, oh,

Speaker 1 ah,

Speaker 1 oh,

Speaker 2 oh, my, this.

Speaker 2 If you are physically unable to do it, not just like unwilling, then I understand. But just like just to take it out, to peel off the lint and put it back in.

Speaker 1 My argument.

Speaker 1 My argument was like,

Speaker 1 why would I want someone to rob me the weird ASMR pleasure I take in sharing that lint away?

Speaker 2 Also that? Very satisfying.

Speaker 1 Even though that's also probably mostly humans,

Speaker 1 human cells.

Speaker 1 Human dust.

Speaker 2 It is.

Speaker 2 I'm collecting them and I'm going to sew them all together and make a nice little leather jacket.

Speaker 1 Little dusty leather jacket.

Speaker 1 A little linty springtime jacket. Little Linty Jackie.
Little Linty Jackie.

Speaker 2 Linty Jacks. That's my new store.
It's right next to the bad wife in Park Slope. Come see us.

Speaker 1 Linty Jacks.

Speaker 2 Linty Jack's Windbreakers.

Speaker 1 I would go in that store no matter what. I don't even want to know what it's about.

Speaker 2 You don't want to know what it's about. And then it says that in parentheses under Linty Jacks.

Speaker 1 You don't want to know

Speaker 1 what it's about. No.
Oh, I love that idea.

Speaker 2 All the windbreakers are free. They're free.
Just take them.

Speaker 1 On the Judge Sean Hodgman podcast, we have settled law, which is be mindful of the work you leave for others.

Speaker 1 And a lot of people threw that in my face. It's like they cleaned off that lint screen of that judgment and threw it in my face.
Because by me saying, no, the person who is.

Speaker 1 doing the laundry now should clean the lint screen, not the, you know, do it, do it for yourself. Don't do it for the next person.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And they were really, they're like, but you're you're leaving work for others. Shouldn't you be mindful of it?

Speaker 1 It's like, yes, being mindful doesn't mean you never leave work for others because the fact is the only responsible way to run the dryer is to make sure that the lint screen is clear. It's your job.

Speaker 2 You just, it's your stuff. It's your clothes.

Speaker 2 Just check it. Yeah.
And you know what? Just do it.

Speaker 1 The imperative of disaster, both in the lint screen and the lipsticks and the chapsticks. Yeah.

Speaker 1 overrides that it's more fair if they if the person with the chapstick takes the the chapstick out. It's like fairness isn't important here.
Safety is. It's not.

Speaker 2 I enjoy it. No, no, you're, you're 100% right.
That was it. Just, thank you.
Just be mindful. It's not, it's, just do it.
Yeah. Does it really matter? Does it really matter who it is?

Speaker 2 As long as it gets done.

Speaker 1 Mallory, you should. take the chapsticks out of your pockets.
By the way, I'm glad, like, there's a lot of things you can put on your lips these days.

Speaker 1 I'm glad there's still some people living in 1981 putting on chapsticks.

Speaker 2 I tell you what,

Speaker 2 I'm glad we got to talk about it because I'm excited that she has chapstick and I'm excited that she has multiple chapsticks. I miss chapstick.

Speaker 1 It's out there. You can see it.
I could buy it. I could.
I don't. To keep it next to the clove and lavender flavored chewing gum.

Speaker 2 Like it's all that immediately you buy it because that that uh that product packaging looks amazing. And you're like, I like cloves.

Speaker 2 And then you put it in your mouth and you chew it and you pretend like you love this. And it is horrible.

Speaker 1 It is horrible. And the gum is hard to chew.

Speaker 1 Do you think maybe that, I mean, I know that I'm not supposed to know what it's about, but do you think Linty Jacks is all about selling

Speaker 1 products like chapsticks and clove-flavored gum? No. And old, like Zagnuts and old weird stuff.

Speaker 2 I think that's your store that's next door to Linty Jacks.

Speaker 1 Linty Jill's. It's called Linty Jills.

Speaker 2 It's kind of a spite store because it has nothing to do with the...

Speaker 1 There's no Linty Jills. I never want to take away from Linty Jacks.

Speaker 2 I would want, I listen, if we are going to be friends and we are going to make money and we don't open spite stores next to each other, then what have we done, John?

Speaker 1 I'll tell you something, Gene. There are many, many unrented storefronts

Speaker 1 throughout the city of New York.

Speaker 1 There are many, many storefronts that are empty.

Speaker 1 And there's a reason for it because landlords are greedy.

Speaker 1 And they would rather not rent to someone for a fair price than hold it open for a bank that will eventually come in and pay them too much. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But in a perfect world, if we had a run down 7th Avenue, the bad wife, Linty Jacks, and Spite Store, that's the name of my store. Just spite store?

Speaker 1 Oh, side-by-side storefronts? I've always wanted a storefront.

Speaker 2 Let me tell you, I'm making good money. There's going to be some more.

Speaker 1 I don't have children.

Speaker 2 Where is this? I'm not going to take the money with me.

Speaker 1 What else am I doing with it? Open Linty Jacks.

Speaker 2 I'll pay for the Spite Store. I'll pay pay for both stores.

Speaker 1 No, you don't.

Speaker 1 I can pay my own way. Your own Spite store.
All right. Out of Spite.
Oh, oh.

Speaker 1 Cut off my nose to spite my face.

Speaker 1 I wanted a storefront for so long when there was an old school laundry on 7th Avenue called Laundry Center.

Speaker 2 I know. I know.

Speaker 1 It had a beautiful, beautiful sign, and they closed. And this is before I knew you.
So I said to Jonathan Colton, we should rent Laundry Center and turn that into our office.

Speaker 1 We just sit there and make our stuff and do our things.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's so good. Do you not change? Just do you keep adding.

Speaker 1 Just leave a sign. I love it.
And the motto would be, and this is Jonathan's joke. Now I'm going to steal another joke from a funnier friend.

Speaker 1 Jonathan's like, yeah, and our motto will be the center will not fold.

Speaker 1 Let's move on.

Speaker 1 Mark, take those chapsticks out of the pockets. If you're doing the laundry, just do it.
Just do it. Just make sure.
Mike. Got to make sure mike sorry

Speaker 2 but also if if mark is there you could do it too yeah i don't know what's going on with your relationship do whatever you want um you want to do the second one yeah let's do it okay we got a case from hunter hunter says i live with three roommates in portland oregon where cans have a 10 cent deposit we use a lot of cans Enough that we can redeem them for $15 to $20 every few weeks.

Speaker 2 My roommates, yeah, generally throw their, I don't know what they're, what's in those cans,

Speaker 2 what you got in those cans.

Speaker 1 Also,

Speaker 1 Hunter isn't saying we, we have a lot of beverages in cans. He just says we use a lot of beverages.

Speaker 2 We use,

Speaker 1 I don't know what that means.

Speaker 2 I don't know what is vague.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 it's Portland, too. My roommates generally throw their cans in the trash, but they will occasionally use the can return bin I made because they're in Portland.
So he might.

Speaker 2 Come on, this is not surprising. It's probably made out of cans.
This leaves me to pick the recyclables out of the trash and return the cans myself. And here's where it gets sticky.

Speaker 1 That's not what he said. That's what I said.

Speaker 2 My roommates claim that they are entitled to some portion of the deposit money or even items purchased with the deposit money such as pizza as they paid the deposit initially.

Speaker 2 But I feel that they have no right to the money as they rarely put cans in the bin. They also never never assist with returning them.
Help me, Judge. What should be done with our collective can fund?

Speaker 2 So much to unpack.

Speaker 1 Where do you want to start, Gene?

Speaker 1 Hunter made his own recycling bin.

Speaker 2 I want to know if he's just saying that he made,

Speaker 2 he designated a bin or that he made the bin.

Speaker 1 Or he crafted it. Or he crafted out of reclaimed wood.

Speaker 2 And lint. And copper brad and chapsticks.

Speaker 1 And chapsticks. $15 to $20 a week.
I don't.

Speaker 1 At 10 cents a can. What? Look, I don't do math.
Do that math.

Speaker 2 Someone do that math.

Speaker 1 That's 200,000 cans a week.

Speaker 2 You know what I love?

Speaker 2 When you get to a certain age, you're just like, yeah, no, I mean, that sounds about right. Right.

Speaker 1 That's a lot. That's a lot of can through.
And I mean, let's just keep, let's just, let's just look. Maybe they live in the apocalypse?

Speaker 1 We could poke, we can, we can speculate as to their lifestyle in so many ways, but ultimately, this does come down to simple fairness. Yes.

Speaker 1 If Hunter's the one returning the cans, shouldn't he get to keep the money? Yes or no, Gene?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 Right. If they took turns returning the cans, then what?

Speaker 2 Then

Speaker 2 we talk about splitting it, but

Speaker 2 as the actual work to retrieve the money and also the whole setting up of the thing. Like they could do it themselves.

Speaker 2 They could make their own bins and put their own cans in that and then get their own money.

Speaker 1 Like, why do you...

Speaker 2 that's not his problem.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, there could be a situation. I'll give, I'll give you this, Hunter's roommates.
It could be that every one of you is drinking 2,000 cans of LaCroix a week.

Speaker 1 Or maybe, you know what, Gene, I bet, you know what I bet it is?

Speaker 1 I don't want to be scandalous here, but because it's Portland, could be beers.

Speaker 1 Could be four roommates drinking beers.

Speaker 1 In Portland, Oregon, like it's 1999 or something.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you guys need to talk to someone.

Speaker 1 It's a lot. You could all be returning your own cans and getting your own money.

Speaker 1 If you're just, if you're not even throwing it in the bin, or even if you are, it takes work to go and return those recyclables.

Speaker 1 Hunter gets that money.

Speaker 1 Right, Gene?

Speaker 2 Get that beautiful bean money. Roll that beautiful bean footage.

Speaker 1 We're going to take a break

Speaker 1 to hear from this week's partners. We'll be back with more cases to clear from the docket.
I'm here with Gene Gray on the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

Speaker 3 You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
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Speaker 1 Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. This week we are clearing the docket and hearing springtime cases.

Speaker 1 Jean, we have some disputes about flowers. Jean, will you read the first one to me, please?

Speaker 2 Yes, I will. It's very close to my heart.
And it's an alliteration. It's a case from Andrew in Anchorage.

Speaker 1 I don't know that we've ever had a case from Anchorage, Alaska. Hello up there.

Speaker 2 Andrew from Anchorage, Alaska.

Speaker 2 Very nice. Well, Andrew says, my wife likes to grow flowers from bulbs indoors in pots.
I love having live flowers grow in our house.

Speaker 2 She will either grow lilies or paper whites on our kitchen counter. The lilies are colorful, pretty, and interesting to look at.
The paper whites are boring and they smell terrible.

Speaker 2 There have been many times I've gone into the kitchen and smelled something gross, and after looking around to see if there was spoiled food in the fridge or if the garbage needs to be taken out, I remember it is the boring stinky white flowers.

Speaker 2 Please make my wife stop growing gross, stinky, boring flowers in our kitchen.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 We

Speaker 1 we do not have a lot of plants in our home.

Speaker 1 My wife who's a whole human being in her own right has an oxalis plant.

Speaker 2 Oh nice.

Speaker 1 Which I find to be creepy because the leaves close during the night and then they open during the day and that's a little bit more

Speaker 2 plant movement than you want.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But we don't have any flowers. Do you know anything about these paper whites, Gene? Or do you grow flowers in your house or in your garden?

Speaker 2 I did. I have grown flowers in an outside garden to varying degrees of success, but that is because it was New York and New York soil, and I was doing my best.

Speaker 2 Plants and herbs, I do inside.

Speaker 1 You know what New York soil is primarily made out of?

Speaker 2 Paple.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 poop. Pizza.

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 2 This is true. It's It's a fact.
It's on New York's Wikipedia. You can look it up.

Speaker 2 I like a fresh cut flower in the house. I normally have a lot of white tulips.
I do white hydrangeas. If they're out of everything, I'll do roses, but I'm not a huge roses fan.

Speaker 2 And the things that

Speaker 2 I thoroughly enjoy tulips, just white tulips and lilies, but lilies are very toxic to cats. So I am very limited because of littles

Speaker 2 on the amount of, yeah,

Speaker 2 on the kinds of plants that we can keep in the house. I have a lot of plants.
They have to go up high. Only some of them can stay lower down because he does like to chew a plant.

Speaker 2 So my flower

Speaker 2 growing indoors is limited because I do not want littles to die.

Speaker 1 No, you want littles to live. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 1 Paper whites are terrible. Well, how come?

Speaker 2 Well, they're actually very divisive.

Speaker 1 I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 It's the scent of them, which I, as, and I'll talk about scents for a second afterwards. Please.

Speaker 2 But it can kind of sort of be like a cilantro issue where they're not really, they don't really smell like that to everyone, but the people that they do, it does smell like a stinky plant and it's not something.

Speaker 2 that you want around, but it doesn't affect everyone in the same way. Interesting.
And I think you know why.

Speaker 1 i think you know why why i think i don't know why wait a minute i thought i knew why

Speaker 2 yes

Speaker 1 here is all right look i did some research

Speaker 1 i went to a a website a blog that is for some place called longfield gardens

Speaker 1 i hope they're a good company this blog was written december 3rd 2019 by kath la liberte just pretty cool name sounds like a fake name headline paper white narcissus, sweet or smelly. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And Cathla Libertae, if that is indeed their name, writes that the naturally produced biochemical that gives paper white narcissists their

Speaker 1 distinctive fragrance is called Indole, I-N-D-L-L. Indole Indole.
Yeah. Indole.
Is that what it is?

Speaker 2 I think it's Indole. I think.

Speaker 1 Indole. Let's say I trust you.

Speaker 2 Y'all are going to tell us if we're right or wrong.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they're all going to write us letters that are saying it's pronounced, and then they'll just spell out Indole.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 Other plants that also produce indole include gardenias, which definitely have a very distinctive smell, jasmine, and orange flowers. Yep.

Speaker 1 The biochemical compound Indole, Cathola Liberté, writes, is found throughout the natural world in various things.

Speaker 1 Cathola Liberte gives a list.

Speaker 2 I'm going to read the list in reverse order because I know where this is going already.

Speaker 1 Kale,

Speaker 1 Indole is found in broccoli, indole is found in body odor, indole is found in decaying animals.

Speaker 1 And then feces.

Speaker 1 Yeah, poop. Smells like poop.

Speaker 2 Now listen, the issue is

Speaker 2 poop or things that smell animalistic or funky or just have that or earthy, but very specifically, like when someone's like, oh, that's stinky.

Speaker 2 It normally falls in like that, um, that animal or poop range. But

Speaker 2 even in the perfume world, as I'm a person who likes a little bit of funk in their perfume, I like something animalistic and it makes things when surviving within everything else, when it becomes part of a big smell song, you know, part of that orchestra, it makes it more complex.

Speaker 2 And that's things like civet, like ambergris, like castorium.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 And, but those are also very polarizing perfumes, you know.

Speaker 1 Right. But yeah, indole is used in perfume.

Speaker 2 It's that very kind of stinky, funky, let's get down sort of smell. If you ever want to smell anything that really takes you to that place,

Speaker 2 you can try the night. I advise you get a sample of it because you're probably going to spend about a thousand dollars to buy the bottle.

Speaker 1 It's called the night.

Speaker 2 It's called the night. It's a Frederick Moll fragrance, but it's made by Dominic Ropillon, who makes some of my favorite things.

Speaker 2 He makes one of my favorite perfumes, La Vie Belle, but he also did a portrait of a lady, Flower Bomb.

Speaker 2 You guys might know what I'm talking about, but it's called The Night. And it was the one

Speaker 2 I had to buy a sample of it because the reviews of it were like, this smells

Speaker 2 people.

Speaker 2 The adjectives, it was like

Speaker 2 barnyard. A lot of it was barnyard.
And then a lot of it was

Speaker 2 goat,

Speaker 2 like inside of a goat's butt.

Speaker 2 It's just like

Speaker 2 a dead cow being dragged through a marketplace at 3 a.m.

Speaker 1 Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 And I was like, I need to know.

Speaker 2 And as someone who loves like that, I love a little bit of civet in a fragrance. I think it makes it beautiful.
Man.

Speaker 2 You got to smell this.

Speaker 2 You got to smell this. Watch any review.
Watch anyone on YouTube just trying it. Okay.
Like,

Speaker 2 it's not the aversion that someone would have to paper whites, but I think smell is so delicate for everyone.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 yeah,

Speaker 1 it can be a big deal.

Speaker 2 There's other good flowers. There's other good white flowers she could grow in the house by bulb.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I think I feel you leaning towards judgment in Andrew's favor that Andrew's wife should stop growing the paper whites because they smell like poop to him. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What would you recommend as a, as another,

Speaker 1 as an alternative if you were? Gardenia and Jasmine is off.

Speaker 2 Maybe not. Maybe I don't, I think

Speaker 1 where people find no.

Speaker 2 Not necessarily. I think sometimes people find paper whites

Speaker 2 divisive and jasmine not so much. Jasmine's a lot sweeter.

Speaker 2 So and it but it it's definitely going to make the whole house smell.

Speaker 2 Try a little bit.

Speaker 1 Try a little jasmine. All right, get some other flowers, Andrew's wife.

Speaker 2 Okay, we got another one from Josh. Before my now wife Eliza and I were dating, we corresponded over AOL Instant Messenger.
Remember that? As friends.

Speaker 2 I lived in New Jersey and she lived in Washington, D.C. After many months of messaging on a regular basis, we agreed that it would be nice for me to visit for a weekend and hang out in person.

Speaker 2 Being relatively poor young people, it seemed most reasonable for me to stay on her couch during the visit.

Speaker 2 Not wanting to be rude, I wanted to bring a small gift to her to thank her for her hospitality.

Speaker 2 I decided that the most reasonable gift would be some platonic flowers, which I was bringing as a friend.

Speaker 2 Eliza says that these were not platonic flowers, and indeed that there is no such thing as friend flowers.

Speaker 2 I've gotten this far and now realize that requesting the judge to order that these were indeed always platonic flowers could create time-space issues with my current relationship.

Speaker 2 Oh, I see what happened there at the end of the message. That's funny.

Speaker 1 Because they were just friends then, and now they're married. If I rule that those flowers were indeed platonic,

Speaker 1 even though Eliza took them as unconsciously or consciously romantic overtures,

Speaker 1 maybe it will destroy their relationship.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I'm willing to do that.

Speaker 1 I'm willing to do it. I'm messy.
As long as the judgment is true. What do you think, Gene Gray? Is there such a thing as platonic flowers?

Speaker 2 100%.

Speaker 2 You can give. I think Eliza just doesn't have friends that are giving her flowers.
I have friends who give me flowers all the time for anything, for just saying congratulations.

Speaker 1 Yellow roses. Yellow roses.

Speaker 1 No, you shut.

Speaker 2 You haven't done that, and it's been a thing, but I haven't brought it up.

Speaker 1 I don't think I ever have. I don't think I ever have.

Speaker 2 Yellow roses are specifically for friendship. I don't want yellow roses because I don't like yellow roses.

Speaker 1 But I'm just saying.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 Maeve sent me flowers.

Speaker 1 Of course, Maeve sent you flowers. Maeve Higgins is the sweetest person in the world, not a monster like me.

Speaker 1 What kind of flowers did Maeve send you?

Speaker 2 Good ones. All right.
There are so many good, like great Brooklyn-based florists also.

Speaker 1 Send Gene good flowers.

Speaker 2 I like sending flowers.

Speaker 2 You should be getting and sending flowers to your friends, even if you just decide, and it's it's for nothing and it just happens to be a Wednesday, and you're like, everyone likes to get flowers if they're not allergic to flowers and it's the flowers they like.

Speaker 1 They're always

Speaker 1 not poop flowers, not poop flowers, right? Ask first.

Speaker 1 Valerie Moffat, guest producer and guest editor, not guest editor, always editor this week and every week. Platonic flowers, yay or nay?

Speaker 5 I think, I think, yay.

Speaker 1 I think it's yay, yay, like it's possible, or yay, like, yay.

Speaker 1 I think both.

Speaker 5 I'm not much of like a flower person, I guess.

Speaker 5 But yeah, I think it's a I think it's a nice gesture.

Speaker 5 And I think like, you know, as long as you have a good enough relationship with your friends that you know that, you know, like that that's all that you mean by it, then yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Thank you. I agree with you.
Platonic flowers are great, but now I'm going to put it to you both of you. I'm going to give you a very specific context.

Speaker 1 You have been corresponding with a person that you've never met via AOL instant messenger or the texting channel of your choice for a period of time.

Speaker 1 You are just friends. It is established that you are friends.
This person, in this case, this man named Josh, whom you've never met before in your life,

Speaker 1 is coming to your house to crash on the couch.

Speaker 1 I'm putting air quotes around all of those things because that's a weird decision. I like Eliza very brave.

Speaker 1 Eliza, girl.

Speaker 2 But it worked out. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I know. So far, Eliza.

Speaker 1 So far.

Speaker 1 I know, but Josh shows up with flowers to your house. Does that feel platonic to you? Or does that feel like

Speaker 1 I would like to take things to a different level? Valerie?

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 it

Speaker 5 depends on like what your friendship has been like up to that point.

Speaker 1 You've been instant messaging with a person, you've never met them before. Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
Not in a dating context. Right.

Speaker 5 If this is the first hint of, you know, like if either of them had been even a little bit flirty in their previous correspondence,

Speaker 5 there's no way to.

Speaker 1 It's got to be flirty. Yeah.
Exactly.

Speaker 5 There's no way that it's not.

Speaker 5 If it, if it's purely a friendship thing, then

Speaker 5 I think it's entirely, entirely reasonable. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay. Gene, what do you think? Josh shows up at your house after you've been texting him for a while.

Speaker 1 He's got a bunch of flowers. Sure.

Speaker 2 I'm going to say again, the issue is that Eliza and her friends have not been giving flowers to each other.

Speaker 2 Because whether Josh and I have or haven't been flirting, I also don't read much into other things. I'm also the person who would be like, oh, thank you for the flowers.
Is this flirty?

Speaker 2 Like, I just, I, I ask outright, I wouldn't because I'm like, oh, you're staying here. So this is a hospitality gift.

Speaker 2 Just like when you're going to stay at someone's house, that's a normal thing to do.

Speaker 2 So maybe it's because they were young and like this isn't an experience that you have a lot, but it would read as strictly platonic.

Speaker 2 What would read as flirty is if he was flirting with me.

Speaker 1 I definitely feel that because of the AOL Instant Messenger, this dates this to a time

Speaker 1 in the late 90s

Speaker 1 where

Speaker 1 just being open about your desires was not acceptable.

Speaker 2 I was very open about my, you know, you know what? I was not an acceptable person at the time. So I get it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you were very open.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I would just be like, what's these flowers about? The kids these days aren't on AOL Messenger saying, oh, we're just friends. Remember, we're just friends.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 They're going to say, Do you want to hug and kiss or not?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I was there. Like, yeah.

Speaker 1 That's not where

Speaker 1 Josh and Eliza were.

Speaker 2 Well, I'm sorry for that.

Speaker 1 I'm going to say, this is my judgment. Sorry, finish your thought.

Speaker 2 Oh, I was just going to say my AOL Messenger name.

Speaker 1 Please.

Speaker 2 It was Papa Cap Lock in You.

Speaker 1 You're welcome.

Speaker 1 Papa Cap Lock in You.

Speaker 1 It was so good.

Speaker 1 Josh, there is such a thing as platonic flowers.

Speaker 1 Search yourself. I think you knew that you were giving those flowers.
You were trying to impress that Eliza. I think you knew what you were doing.
But

Speaker 1 the more flowers you give, the less charged they are. So everybody give each other flowers.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back

Speaker 1 after a quick break. When we come back, the return of our segment, Justice Delayed.

Speaker 6 If you like too many podcasts, you'll love SoundTeap with John Lick Roberts. It's got clips from all your favorite podcasts, such as Diary of a Tiny CEO, Leonard Sprague.

Speaker 1 Tell me how you make your money.

Speaker 6 I go to the beach and I steal people's towels. Remember Armour.

Speaker 2 Do you remember the trend of everyone whacking themselves on the head with hammers and mallets when they wanted to lose weight?

Speaker 6 And LT John's lobbily songs. I'm here here today with Kiki D.

Speaker 1 Hello Kiki D.

Speaker 2 Hello Elton.

Speaker 6 There's dozens of episodes to catch up on and brand new episodes going out right now. So if you want far, far, far too many podcasts, then look for Sound Teap on maximum fun.

Speaker 1 Boop boop.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 1 Episode 64.

Speaker 2 So how close are we to learning everything?

Speaker 2 Bad news. We still haven't learned everything yet.

Speaker 1 Oh, we're ruined!

Speaker 2 No, no, no, it's good news as well. There is still a lot to learn.
Woo! I'm Dr. Ella Hubber.

Speaker 1 I'm regular Tom Long.

Speaker 2 I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

Speaker 2 And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Speaker 1 Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Speaker 1 Hey, we're taking a break from the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I would just like to remind everybody, we are in April, the cruelest month.

Speaker 1 And I think

Speaker 1 what comes next, Gene, is May, the second cruelest month.

Speaker 2 It is.

Speaker 1 But May shall be redeemed because Memorial Day weekend in May, Gene Gray and I will be returning to the Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, Massachusetts. What's that, you say?

Speaker 1 Why, it's only the incredible two-day arts and music festival hosted by Wilco, the band. All the Wilkins will be there, as well as incredible guests such as

Speaker 1 Mike Watt from the Minutemen and the Sun Ra Orchestra. Yeah.
Also, me and Gene hosting the comedy stage along with our friends, Nick Hofferman. My cousin.
Yeah, your cousin Nick.

Speaker 1 Actual cousin Nick Cofferman, as well as Josh Gondelman, Naguin Farsad,

Speaker 1 and other fun guests to be announced yet. So please, won't you consider checking us out at Solid Sound Festival on your Google or whatever search engine you use? Alta Vista it, find out about it.

Speaker 1 It's going to be fun. Bring me flowers.
See you there. Yeah, bring Gene some flowers, will you? And also, you've all been so wonderful in supporting Dick Town, the TV show that David Reese and I made.

Speaker 1 starring Gene Gray, by the way, as Monica cosplay expert. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 This Thursday, April the 14th at 8 p.m., David Reese and I are going to watch all of season two of Dick Town together, and we're inviting you to watch with us. How you say?

Speaker 1 Simply go to twitch.tv slash John Hodgman, all one word, twitch.tv slash John Hodgman, 8 p.m. Thursday, April 14th.
That's Eastern Standard Time. David and I will be watching each episode.

Speaker 1 Now, you're going to be watching us watch the episodes. It's that kind of meta.
I'm on Twitch now. I'm like a young person.

Speaker 1 We're going to be watching the episodes and we're going to be commenting on them, recording a kind of director's commentary.

Speaker 1 And between the episodes and during breaks, we'll be responding to your comments. We'll be talking to you and answering your questions.
And maybe we'll even have some other surprises for you.

Speaker 1 Twitch.tv slash John Hodgman, 8 p.m., April the 14th, season two of Dick Town. Watch along.
Please watch along with us.

Speaker 1 If you're not interested in going to Twitch because you're some kind of a stick in the mud

Speaker 1 old person, unlike me, John Hodgman, you can watch on a legacy social media platform like Twitter.

Speaker 1 We'll be broadcasting live to Twitter as well there, but we won't be able to see your comments if you have any.

Speaker 1 It's going to be a lot of fun, so I'll just say it one more time: Dick Town, season two, watch along Thursday, April 14th at 8 p.m. Please join us, won't you?

Speaker 1 If you haven't yet, or you'd like to tell a friend, bit.ly slash Dick Town is where you find the TV show. You don't have to watch it, just press play and walk away.
All right, let's get back.

Speaker 1 Let's get back to the show.

Speaker 1 Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm your judge, Judge John Hodgman here with my dear friend, our dear friend, friend of the court, Supreme, Gene Gray, aka Papa Kaplock in you.

Speaker 1 We're clearing the docket this week and talking about spring. It's time for our popular segment, Justice Delayed.

Speaker 1 Gene, this is a segment we've been doing on the show lately because I realized that there are hundreds of emails that I received five to 10 years ago that I never responded to.

Speaker 2 Humble brags.

Speaker 1 So every now and then, well,

Speaker 1 it's not people sending me flowers. It's people saying, I would like to, I have a dispute for your show, and me failing to respond to them.
And I'm a bad person.

Speaker 1 So every now and then, I go deep, deep into the, deep into the pile

Speaker 1 and pick one from the olden days. This one actually doesn't go back that far.
This dispute goes all the way back to spring of only 2016. Jean, would you read it for me, please?

Speaker 2 I absolutely will.

Speaker 2 I have a co-worker who, whenever she sneezes, will literally and somewhat daintily say the words

Speaker 2 on each sneeze, even if she sneezes more than once. She has allergies, and it being spring, this is happening with more frequency as of late.
I say, it can't possibly be a real sneeze.

Speaker 2 An actual sneeze is an involuntary physical response to an unexpected irritation of the nasal passages, resulting in a sudden, forceful expulsion of air and aeralyze mucus. You sound fun at a party.

Speaker 2 She, however.

Speaker 1 this guy's name is Matt, by the way. I forgot to mention.
This comes from Matt.

Speaker 2 Matt's a party.

Speaker 2 So fun. He is.
It says fun Matt. She, however, insists that she's not faking it and that this is just how she sneezed her whole life.

Speaker 2 I ask that you order her to either cease and desist from such theatrical outbursts or else replace all body-emitted sounds with your appropriate words, such as

Speaker 2 cough, fart, sniff. You can't,

Speaker 2 and so on. That's what what he's asking for you to do,

Speaker 2 John Hodgman.

Speaker 1 Go ahead.

Speaker 1 Well, first of all, on the second part, I absolutely order everyone to say cough and fart and sniffle when they're doing those things from now on.

Speaker 1 That should be part of human life.

Speaker 1 Cough, cough, cough.

Speaker 2 It's hard.

Speaker 1 Fart.

Speaker 2 Fart's easy. Sniffle.

Speaker 1 Fart's difficult. Fart.
Coughs. It's very hard.

Speaker 1 Cough is hard because coughs just sound sound like coughs.

Speaker 1 But here is the issue. There are many different kinds of sneezes.

Speaker 2 Listen. Talk about it.

Speaker 1 And in fact, this goes back, Matt,

Speaker 1 to settled law. Of course,

Speaker 1 you wrote in 2016. Settled law

Speaker 1 was settled in spring of 2019 on our episode called Gazund Feight. Becca wanted their wife Bridget to, quote, sneeze normal because Bridget was sneezing too loudly.

Speaker 1 But what we determined there, there is no normal sneeze.

Speaker 1 There are many different kinds of sneezes, and we can modulate our sneezes because as I pointed out in that episode, when I really let go, when I'm on my own, I will sneeze.

Speaker 1 It sounds like someone has hit me in the stomach with a cement pole.

Speaker 2 With a giant chapstick.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like a jumbo-sized chapstick that they got from duty-free in Heathrow Airport.

Speaker 1 Massive chapstick. I could not get it.
I was saving on the taxes.

Speaker 1 Those chap taxes are very expensive.

Speaker 2 Chap taxes.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 when I'm in company, I won't do that. And I'll go,

Speaker 1 I'll swallow my sneeze.

Speaker 1 How do you sneeze, Gene?

Speaker 2 Well, my mom had a very huge sneeze. She was big on the sneeze.
Like, it was very disruptive. And I always thought that she hated it.

Speaker 1 And I thought, I was like, I think that's cool that a woman has like a

Speaker 2 big

Speaker 2 present sneeze.

Speaker 2 Mine are generally more in the.

Speaker 1 It's more of a

Speaker 1 have you ever heard anyone sneeze and actually go a chew. I have done a

Speaker 2 yeah. And not

Speaker 2 like as a joke, just because I felt like it was going to be small. Right.
And it was like a

Speaker 2 more of a hitch

Speaker 2 where you close the end of it.

Speaker 1 But yeah. Valerie Moffat, how do you sneeze, if I may ask? Well,

Speaker 5 like you said, there's degrees of it. Like if there's no one else around, I'll sneeze like there's a bomb going off.

Speaker 5 But if I'm, you know, in polite company, I will, you know, do my best to like,

Speaker 5 you know, like into the shoulder, into the elbow.

Speaker 1 Into the elbow classic. Into the elbow.
Yeah. This is.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 My mom's a preschool teacher. I can't not, you know.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, you learned, I mean, Matt, how dare you try to gaslick this lady and say that she sneezes wrong you don't know how she's sneezing at all

Speaker 2 this is gaslighting

Speaker 1 you're saying you're literally saying i say it can't possibly be real you think she's faking it no i mean there's a reason an achoo is achoo there's a reason a meow is meow you know it's an onomatopoeia talk about it it's a word that sounds like uh the sound that it is out here making hodgeman say the words it's a wild coincidence of grammar yeah it's so weird that a meow sounds like a meow

Speaker 1 The word, who knew?

Speaker 2 Sneezes should be called achus.

Speaker 1 They should be called achus.

Speaker 2 Or kableks.

Speaker 1 And probably, did you ever consider, Matt, of 2016

Speaker 1 that maybe your co-worker is sneezing this way because she is at work?

Speaker 2 Maybe that's her small sneeze. Her small work sneeze.

Speaker 1 Her small work sneeze? Sounds right. Because maybe she doesn't presume that she has all the space in the world to just go

Speaker 1 the way you you do matt because then that would be a real problem i feel for matt matt would not like that at all and he would explain it yeah but you know that's matt's feeling that there is there is one kind of sneeze and it's blah

Speaker 1 comes from a person who feels very comfortable taking up space oh you mean men i'm saying a person

Speaker 1 sure oh you mean white men naturally very comfortable taking up space and being loud in ways that other people might not feel as comfortable

Speaker 1 and have maybe been culturally trained to not take up space.

Speaker 2 Oh, a lot is being said without it being said.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 God or whatever do not bless you, Matt.

Speaker 1 I hope God or whatever blesses you. I hope God or whatever blesses everyone if there is a God out there to bless.
Oh, thanks.

Speaker 2 I hope they bless my

Speaker 2 new my new lint store, Linty Jacks.

Speaker 1 I hope we prosper.

Speaker 2 Oh, I forgot.

Speaker 1 We're not selling anything, but I hope we prosper in popularity.

Speaker 1 Everything's prosperous. That's why I don't understand what's going on at Linty Jacks.
Nothing's for sale.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's right, because we don't want to be linked back to the murders.

Speaker 1 Whoa, whoa. What?

Speaker 1 I don't know. Linty Jacks.

Speaker 2 It's real vague.

Speaker 1 Gene Gray, thank you for being our guest bailiff. The docket's clear.
I'm going to read the credits, but let me just say, first of all, check out linty jacks

Speaker 1 when it comes up it's gonna it's gonna be a pop-up store on seventh avenue

Speaker 1 and i don't know if i can get the store the storefront next door maybe i'll just do a pop-up within your pop-up called spite store yeah we can put up a curtain anything else you want to tell people about that they should be looking out for for stuff from gene gray

Speaker 2 um it's so it's so much stuff that's coming out at the end of the year but i guess like don't forget about it um i am the musical director and composer of uh did i do that to the holidays a steve urkel story coming out uh out in the holidays at the end of this year this year a steve urkel holiday special yeah that's right did i do that to the holidays it is jalil white he's he's doing it you're the musical director whyat sonak is our friend wyatt sonak is involved um he wrote and um it's got an amazing cast uh that i don't think i can talk about yet but um right really really cool um i've got a book that's coming out in like two years and then i got a show that's coming out like next year called that's not how you do that so um and where is this working will be on this is a a a

Speaker 1 televised show of some kind a streamed it's not a live show it's a no it's not a live show

Speaker 1 can find on their devices yeah i'll i'll let you i'll let y'all know just you know keep up with me and since we spoke so fondly of your mom who i never had the yeah honor to meet we should say her name sathima b benjamin satima benjamin you can go look at any any of her things, listen to any of her stuff.

Speaker 2 What I did, the most recent thing that I listened to when I went to the Chelsea, I thought it would be nice for her to be there.

Speaker 2 So I poured her a glass of wine and I played from her album with Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. That is correct.
That sounds wild, but it is what it is.

Speaker 2 Solitude is one of my favorite pieces.

Speaker 2 So maybe because.

Speaker 1 Sathima, I mispronounced your name, didn't I?

Speaker 2 Yeah, you did a soft T-H. It's just a hard T.

Speaker 1 Satima. It's spelled S-A-T-H-I-M-A-B-B-E-A Benjamin

Speaker 1 in the fairly traditional spelling. Just Google it

Speaker 1 and enjoy. That's the docket.
It is now clear.

Speaker 1 Thank you for joining us for another episode of Judge John Hodgman. Our producer is Jennifer Marmer on break this week.
Our bailiff is Jesse Thorne on break this week.

Speaker 1 Our editor, who never takes a break, is Valerie Moffat. Thanks for

Speaker 1 guest producing this week, Valerie. As you know, photo evidence from all our episodes can be found on Instagram at JudgeJohnHodgman.

Speaker 1 We don't have any specific photo evidence, but you can follow me on Twitter at Hodgman. Gene, you are no longer on Twitter.
And good for you.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I'm trying to live my life.

Speaker 1 But do you still post Instagram from time to time?

Speaker 2 I am on Instagram. It's Genie Grigio, J-E-A-N-N-I-E Grigio.

Speaker 1 Like the wine. Jean Tino Grigio.
And I am at John Hodgman. That's my personal account.
Our show account, as I say again, is at Sean Hodgman. Make sure to hashtag your judge John Hodgman tweets.

Speaker 1 Hashtag JJ Ho.

Speaker 1 And check out the Maximum Funds subreddit to discuss this episode. We are still looking for your beekeeping disputes.
Gene, do you have any beekeeping disputes? Any apiology disputes with anybody?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 1 Trying to get this expert witness on the show, this woman

Speaker 1 who clears

Speaker 1 bee swarms on Instagram and puts them into hives.

Speaker 2 That's a wonderful job.

Speaker 2 There are a couple of people I follow on TikTok that do that because I really enjoy watching people save some bees. Just because it's such a thing I would be so terrified of doing.

Speaker 2 And they're just so beautiful.

Speaker 1 Anything relating to bees,

Speaker 1 honey. If you have a dispute revolving around how much honey someone puts in their tea.

Speaker 1 If you have a dispute about a bee puppet that is in Gene Gray's office.

Speaker 2 If you want to dispute anything about my mom with me, her middle name is B.

Speaker 1 That's true. There you go.
I wouldn't pick a phone with Gene Gray. I shouldn't do that, but

Speaker 1 if you know someone in your life who's, or maybe

Speaker 1 is B. Arthur

Speaker 1 a great actress or the greatest actress, for example, B. That's a one too.
Any beekeeping disputes you might have, buzz us

Speaker 1 at maximumfund.org slash JJHO. And of course, we're going to hear all of your disputes on any subject.
No case is too small. So once again, submit your cases at maximumfund.org slash JJHO.

Speaker 1 We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Speaker 5 MaximumFund.org.

Speaker 2 Comedy and culture. Artist owned.
Audience supported.