The Thank You Light

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne, and we're in chambers this week, clearing the docket.

With me, as always, is the king of Italian college radio, Judge John Hodgman.

Oh, everybody, everybody should find an extremely, to me, esoteric podcatcher called Spreaker.

Do you know about that one?

Spreaker?

That's a classic.

Spreaker.

Is it a classic?

Okay, I'd never heard of it before.

So, As far as I can tell, that is the only place that you can listen to Radio Cafoscari, which is the college radio station of the University of Cafoscari in Venice, Italy.

That all night long, they play

music that sounds like

it sounds like

chase scenes from European spy movies.

Yeah.

I love it.

And then a lot of different kinds of jazz, and then a lot of cuts by the American novelty lounge act Richard Cheese.

That's what we're just talking about.

That's quite a bouillabase.

You know what?

I don't know what they call a bouilla base in Italian, but that's what it is.

Bouilla base.

That's quite a ragu.

I'm updating it to a ragu.

That's quite a ragu.

I can't wait to get back to Venice, Italy.

Ever been to Venice, Italy?

No, I'd love to go.

I understand they have

canals there.

I have been to the false Venice Italy in Las Vegas, Nevada, which is not that cool unless, as I I was, you're there with Robert Krulwich.

Who loves it?

Oh, wow.

Who loves it and wants to tell you all about it?

And it's really fun because right there is Robert Krulwich, and he's just as fun in real life as he seems like he would be on the radio.

Well, one thing that Venice, Italy of Italy, and Venice, Italy of Nevada have in common, two things actually.

One, they both have canal monsters, right?

Little known cryptids, canal monsters, canale.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Canaly and little canaly

um and then two you know they had to they had to breed a second canal monster off of uh some some cloned cells from the original canalie to put in las vegas yeah otherwise

how could the simulacrum progress

and the other thing is honestly both places shouldn't exist like it's they're both impossible places

But I would say that Venice, Italy, I think, has the slight advantage because

when you're walking through Venice, Italy, you feel more like in a Miyazaki movie than any other place on earth, I would venture to guess.

Certain Miyazaki movies.

Here's a case from David.

I'm writing as the mayor of Port Townsend, Washington, on behalf of our neighboring jurisdiction, Sequam.

It's true.

I really am the mayor.

Check out bit.ly slash Dicktown WA.

I don't think Port Washington's nickname is Dicktown.

I think that must be a

fond reference to the TV show that David Reese and I made, which you can check out at bit.ly slash Dick Town.

Period.

But yes, I've checked it out.

He is the mayor.

David is the mayor.

I followed the link.

And unless it's an elaborate oax, Mayor David is truly the mayor of Port Townsend, Washington, north of Seattle.

There was his problem.

I am seeking damages against Jesse Thorne.

Hold on.

That's me.

For his violent, albeit reasonable, mispronunciation of sequim.

The E is silent.

It's effectively a one-syllable word and is pronounced squim.

He can pronounce the town of Puyalup however he wants.

David J.

Faber, Mayor, City of Point Townsend.

Squim?

I don't know.

Are you playing a joke on us, Mayor David?

I guess I have to believe him.

He's the mayor.

Yeah.

I don't know anything about

Puyalup at all.

I will will say this, we're in for a few corrections.

Here's another thing that I never would have guessed, in accordance with the pronunciation of Squim.

After all those years of listening to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and loving those songs so much and offering probably what's been confirmed to me via email, a fairly good rendition of New San Antonio Rose

on an

earlier episode of this podcast.

I sort of mused, like, I don't know who the woman is in the band who's always going, aha.

This woman is always going, yee-ha, in the middle of the song, all, over and over again.

That's Bob Wills, it turns out.

A number of listeners very kindly wrote in to recommend lots of different Western swing bands, and I appreciate all your recommendations, including Asleep at the Wheel.

But a number of them also pointed out that Bob Wills had a very high voice.

And all these years, I misunderstood who that was.

So these mistakes happen, and I can take them in good humor.

But Mayor David, I appreciate your writing in for defending the honor of Squim.

Port Townsend seems like a pretty cool town, Jesse.

It's known as a Victorian seaport and arts community up there in northern Washington.

And I'll tell you what, Mayor David, Jesse and I will come to your town of Port Townsend if you'll guarantee a sellout at the Rose Theater for live Judge John Hodgman, live justice.

And also, Mayor David, I want the entire council there.

That's right.

I want Deputy Mayor Amy.

I want Council Member Aislin.

I want Council Member Ben.

Ben, you look like my kind of guy.

Councilmember Libby Erner.

Councilmember Monica.

Councilmember Owen.

You all have to be there.

And I want a proclamation that it's Judge John Hodgman Day in Port Townsend.

Then and only then can we put this beef behind us.

Is that fair to you, Jesse?

I want to meet Sean Kemp.

Who's that?

Former Seattle Supersonic star, Sean Kemp.

Yeah, we have to have that guy, too.

He has his own marijuana brand.

That's our rider.

That's our rider for the Rose Theater, Mayor David.

I know you can make this happen.

We will also offer in a public apology to Squim, but I don't know that I want to go to Squim.

Let me know, Squim, if the Mayor of Squim is out there, A, why aren't you standing up for yourself?

Why are you letting Mayor Dave take all this heat?

You should stand up for yourself, Squim.

Don't let Port Townsend do all your work for you.

And B, if you've got a counteroffer...

Who's the name of the player you want?

Sean Kemp.

Yeah, if you can get Sean Kemp and Mayor David can't make that happen, I'm sorry.

That's how it goes.

You know what?

Who knows?

Maybe Schoolhouse Point or Discovery Bay or Chimacum

will come through with Sean Kemp and Detlef Shrimp.

Whatever it takes,

we're itching to get back on the road again, and we will come to these lovely cities by the bay.

Whoever can produce the entire city council, the proclamation of Judge John Hodgman and Bailiff Jesse Thornday in your town or city and produced Detlef Schrimf and the other guy.

That's the writer.

Don't worry, Jesse.

You're not the only one who got picked on this time.

Read this next letter.

You'll see.

I get some heat too.

Here's something from Dave in New Jersey.

Dear Judge Hodgman, I'm responding to your recent call for food-related disputes, and I'm sorry to report that my dispute is with you.

On February 21st, 2021, in response to a mention of grape nuts on the podcast, I rode in with a grape nuts and poached eggs recipe that I enjoy.

In a subsequent show, you ruled against me and sided with my family who feel that poached eggs and grape nuts is gross.

This ruling delighted my son and daughter, but has stuck in my craw for months.

How could Judge Hodgman dismiss the principle of you like what you like so easily?

Not just for months.

Not just for months, Dave.

You've been carrying a grape nuts grudge for more than a year.

More than a year, Dave has been carrying, you know, it's in your craw, Dave?

Grape nuts.

They're hard and crumbly and they're all, they're all crunching up there in your craw.

Maybe that's, maybe the problem is grape nuts and not me.

I love grape nuts.

I love grape nuts too, but let me tell you what this is all about.

Guess what I had for breakfast this morning?

Grape nuts.

Yeah, no poached egg, though.

That's a lot.

Let me tell you,

yeah, just in case you don't know, this was on, on, indeed, in February of 2021, Dave wrote in first mention of grape nuts that he heard.

He's like, he ran to the keyboard and he suggested this recipe.

This is his favorite.

A small, I'm quoting now, a small bowl of grape nuts with two poached eggs and hot sauce of your choice is wonderful.

The egg to grape nut ratio must be balanced to ensure thorough coating of the grape nuts without saturating them completely.

I recommend Cholula hot sauce, but understand that this is a deeply personal decision.

Now, that's what he wrote in February.

I let that pass.

Then Dave wrote again, December 9th, for our weird holiday food episode.

Not content, not content.

He wasn't done yet.

Saying he wanted it to be considered for a weird holiday food episode.

I believe it was on that episode where I said, grape nuts with poached eggs sounds gross to me.

And then I agreed with his son and daughter that it was gross and he should stop it.

Then he wrote again on February the 2nd of this year, saying that if I didn't reconsider my opinion, he hopes I wake up some morning in an alternate universe in which milk doesn't exist, and I'm forced to eat grape nuts with egg yolks instead.

And when I didn't respond to that in a timely enough manner, he wrote again on February 17th of this year over the objections of his own daughter, he said, asking to include it in our upcoming episode with Kenji Lopez-Alt about food.

Now,

we have gotten a lot of your fantastic disputes surrounding food and kitchenware and kitchen etiquette that we're going to talk about with Kenji Lopez-Alt in a future episode.

We got so many that we have a little bit of overflow, and we're going to be dealing with another one of those overflow cases today.

But here's what I'm going to say: I got to say this to Dave, because this has been coming up a lot.

The principle of you like what you like.

Because I've gotten other letters from listeners who say, Why are you guys picking on Frolf?

Isn't the tenant of your podcast you like what you like?

Let the audience note that I am already nodding broadly and emphatically upon this point.

Continue, Judge Hodgman.

Right.

A listener wrote in saying, hey, you like what you like.

Why are you having a laugh at my

toe sneakers?

The sneakers that have toes in them.

Okay, listen.

I love that you have sneakers with toes in them.

So does Jesse.

We love froth.

Dave?

Eggnuts.

Sorry, Dave.

Eggnuts.

That's what I call them.

Leave it in.

Grape nuts with eggs.

It's heart.

It's a heart.

Those two things, those are two weird tastes that maybe don't go together, or maybe they do.

Only you can know for sure, Dave.

I love that you love it.

Like what you like as a principle is certainly meant to honor your likes, but it is primarily meant to say to people, you can't change other people's likes if you don't like what they like.

If you think they have bad taste, that's too bad for you.

This is not to suggest that like what you like is all empowering.

Liking what you like is like free speech.

And like free speech, it doesn't mean that there aren't going to be reactions to what you say or what you like.

Liking what you like is a principle that says it is not your job to correct someone else's taste.

Not all likes, though, are equally laudable.

Some people like to do horrible things.

Some people like to be cruel.

I can't stop them.

But that doesn't mean that I yuck their yum by speaking out against cruelty.

Some likes are wrong, right?

Now, there are vast differences between someone who is broken enough to think being cruel is fun and you, Dave, eating your grape nuts with poached eggs.

I love that you do that.

That is not for me, but I get that you like them and I applaud your like.

So I hope that that makes it a little bit clearer.

Jesse has the right and I have the right to say,

that sounds gross.

And you have the right to enjoy it.

And the reason that I banned that in your house is that I think that they probably there are

just in the same way I apologize whenever I eat food on the mic.

People have some sensory issues with regards to how food looks and smells when it's being eaten near them.

So

go ahead and enjoy those grape nuts with poached eggs, Dave.

Go ahead and enjoy them.

But I think that if you're if your people find it gross, you have to appreciate what they like, which is not, they like not watching you eat grape nuts with yolk saturated all in it.

You got to go do that on your own time in your own little room or whatever.

Now,

out of fairness to you, Dave, because this is meaningful to you, you've written me several times, I will bring this up with Kenji Lopez-Alt.

I will listen to what he has to say, and I will eat this concoction, and I will do it on mic.

I will do it on mic.

I will warn people, but I will do it live with Kenji Lopez often.

If I'm wrong, and this is God or whatever damn delicious,

I will apologize to you.

But until then, please, everybody, go ahead and like what you like.

We like that you like what you like, unless you like something that is not likable.

Hey, you want a little palette cleanser for people to think about as we go to the break?

A different question, besides whether or not greg nuts are good or whatever they're called.

Yeah.

This is something that just came across.

I don't even know where I saw this.

I guess it's something that's being discussed all the time everywhere on the internet.

Which do you think there are more of in the world?

Wheels or doors?

Wheels or doors?

Yeah.

There's no right answer.

There's no way to know for sure.

Wow.

There's only a gut feeling.

My first thought is wheels.

So more essential invention.

I mean, does doors include all passageways?

Doors have to open and closed.

Wheels have to turn.

That's what they say on Reddit anyway.

And what really blew my mind was I realized that with every car that is on the road, for the most part, it's equal.

So almost all cars are basically a wash.

And if you have a hatchback, forget it.

That's more doors than wheels.

So once you take all cars out of the equation, then what are you thinking about?

I don't know.

Mull it over.

Mull it over, everybody.

Let me know your theories.

That would be something I'll be interested to hear.

Let me know your theories.

I didn't come up with this.

This is from the internet, by the way.

We're going to take a quick break to hear from this week's partners.

We'll be back with more cases to clear from the docket on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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

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

and they are all your favorites.

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

Just go to maximumfund.org slash join.

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

Let me ask you a question.

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

It's true.

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But made in isn't just for professional chefs.

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

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

We're both big fans of the carbon steel.

I have a little

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

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

It's an immensely useful piece of kitchen toolery.

And it will last a long time.

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

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

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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, and we have something from Veronica.

My husband Dustin and I disagree over which basic communication feature should be added to all cars.

Dustin believes that cars should have a rear horn for honking at people behind you.

I think the front horn is usable for all directions of honking.

And I believe that cars should instead have a U-turn indicator in addition to the right and left turn signals.

Okay.

Speaking of wheels and doors, you know, we put out a call for vehicle-related disputes and they are coming in.

Thank you.

Keep them coming.

I don't think we need any more food or kitchen-related disputes.

I think we're full up on those.

Sated, you might say.

But we are still getting some of those car and vehicle-related disputes that we asked for.

I'm holding that episode till we can get at least one funicular dispute.

I'm really solid on this.

I really want to have one dispute taking place on or involving a funicular.

Listeners in Europe, you probably have a few more of them than we do.

A gondola would be fine.

And I'm talking about any kind of gondola, Venice gondola or a dangle gondola.

You You know what I mean.

But

I did want to bring this one up because

this is another mind bender.

Jesse, if you were to add one and only one new feature to all cars starting tomorrow, magically and retroactively to all cars, and your choices were a rear horn to honk at the person behind you or a U-turn indicator, what do you think your choice would be?

Given the choice between those two communication features, I would choose a U-turn indicator, in particular

because

here in Los Angeles, where I live, where I think in general the driving culture is pretty reasonable,

one

unreasonable element

is that people really flip out if you make a U-turn

because I see producer Jennifer Marmor now nodding emphatically yeah there is very little aggression in los angeles driving culture there isn't a lot of i haven't noticed a lot of excessive speeding um you know people generally

uh generally are reasonably respectful on the roads compared to other places in the united states where i've driven um but i will say that people on the road in los angeles do tend to drive as though there is no one else around

um and also it really takes a lot for them to stop.

They really just tend to continue on their given path, no matter what other inputs exist, which leads to a lot of red light running and a lot of people who are very confused and upset if it takes an extra second for you to make your turn.

So a U-turn signal would be good in your opinion.

I think it would be useful to clarify that point.

Yeah.

If you're, for example, let's say you don't have a stop sign, you're making a U-turn in front of someone who is moving perpendicular to you and stopped at a stop sign right that would be helpful yeah jennifer marmer you agree i see you nodding emphatically over there also in los angeles yeah i totally agree it would be so much more helpful than a rear honking system probably not in somewhere like portland oregon or wherever where you it's illegal to make a u-turn i got a weird look once in portland oregon for making a u-turn and then a friend later explained to me that was illegal that could have been for any number of things

maybe

They're throwing weird looks of judgment all the time.

They were probably looking at you that way because you bought a Shins album one time.

Could have been anything, but maybe a U-turn.

I'll tell you what, as a spoiler alert, I'm agreeing with you both.

I picked the U-turn, but I come at this decision from a different angle, which is that I want people to live.

I want that rear horn so bad, just like you, Dustin.

Oh my God, or whatever.

Would it give me such momentary pleasure to honk my horn in all directions at all of the injustice that I see on the roads, at all of the terrible driving that I see on the roads.

But the people behind me who are tailgating me, of course I would love to honk at them.

But if that person's tailgating you, you already know they don't know.

You already know they're aggro creeps, right?

Or they're just dummies.

The people who don't know to keep distance between cars, like the distance, keeping a distance between

you and another person isn't like

surrendering to something.

It's acknowledging that you're driving a very, very heavy piece of machinery that the faster you go, the longer it takes to stop.

How irresponsible do you have to be to think that

being right up on someone's bumper is somehow going to get you any place any faster.

It's just going to increase the possibility that you're going to hurt each other.

And

you throw a rear horn in there, though.

Those aggro dummies who don't know how the conservation of momentum works, they're just going to get angrier.

And the next thing you know, they're going to try to get closer to you or try to pass you in an irresponsible way.

I'm glad to hear that driving in LA is not particularly aggressive because driving in New York, it's aggressive.

Yeah, it's in, it's bananas.

And not just in Manhattan, on the freeway too.

On the freeway, on I-95, on the parkways.

I don't even want to know what it's like to drive in New Jersey.

I don't even want to go over there

because I, I mean, I, I see the Jersey drivers on the Merritt Parkway and it scares me.

It really does.

And, you know,

what I say to the young drivers that are in my charge, the young drivers to be that are in my charge, that is to say, they're in my car,

is just like your mission is to keep a steady speed and let everyone else do whatever they want it is not a race they think it's a race let them win let them win someone comes up behind you and flashes their lights behind you because they want you to go faster get out of their way those are monster people get out of their way Don't mess with monsters.

I dislike them almost as much as I dislike people who drive in the passing lane at the speed limit, not understanding that they shouldn't be there.

And I want to flash my lights at them too.

But do you know what I don't do?

I don't get up behind them and flash my lights.

I want to honk at all directions.

I want to honk at the sky.

I want to horn.

As Cheryl Crowe once sang.

I want to horn, not just on the back and on both sides.

And I mean both sides, like front two quarters and back and rear two quarters.

But also, I want a horn on the roof of the car that goes straight to God or whatever.

And I want a horn on the bottom of the car that goes straight to Satan.

But we can't have those things

because we have to live.

We have to live.

And while I have no particular interest in a U-turn light, because I don't make a lot of U-turns.

And when I do, they're usually in lanes, but whatever.

It's not, it's, not as exciting.

Let's just put it that way.

Any information you can give other drivers as to how you're moving and where you're going is good information.

I would absolutely love a U-turn line.

Put it in there.

Judge Hodgman,

I have to tell you something.

I cannot wait to hear it.

I made my choice among those two choices, but I have a third choice to offer.

A third way?

A third way.

One of my best friends from college is my friend Maria Calpito.

She's just at her house this weekend for her daughter, Celestia's eighth birthday, Celestia aka Chippy.

And

once when we were still in college, I traveled to Southern California with my friend Maria.

We went to her home in Baldwin Park, California, home of the original In-N-Out.

And I met her delightful.

and eccentric parents.

Maria is an only child, which is unusual in the Filipino community.

There's a lot of Catholics, a lot of big families.

Sure.

And they really poured all their energy into Maria.

There was a gargantuan, when I got in the house, there was a gargantuan.

You know, that kind of 1970s portrait photography where everything is yellow and orange?

Sure, of course.

Everything looks like it's bathed in the light of a sunset reflecting off a shag carpet.

I can picture it as you speak.

There was a four-foot-wide photographic portrait of Maria in like a wedding-type dress as a five-year-old that dominated their entire living room.

It was amazing.

Absolutely.

Absolutely amazing.

So I'm hanging out with Maria's dad, whose name is Manuel,

and he's telling me about his radio career in the Philippines.

He's telling me he was the king of the cab drivers.

That's pretty awesome.

Yeah.

He said that he basically, he basically suggested to me that he commanded them like a loyal army.

And he's a very creative and wild-eyed man.

And his proudest achievement was that he once had a meeting with Ford.

Oh, by the way,

his personality name, as Maria put it to me, is Kuya Manny, which is like Big Brother Manny.

Yeah.

It's like calling somebody uncle or something.

Yeah.

So Kuya Manny is talking to me about his proudest achievement, which is he had a meeting with Ford Motors about his patented idea, which is a light that goes in the back window of your car where like your car club plate would go or your sign that says baby on board or whatever.

Right.

That says thank you.

And there's a switch.

that you can press on the dashboard that turns on your thank you light.

And when someone lets you into a lane, you can press your thank you light so you don't have to wave out the window or

up out of the sunroof.

Kuya Manny came through big time on that one.

Wow.

That, I mean, that should be mandatory.

That should be mandatory.

Wow.

Love it.

Yeah.

Sorry.

I'm overruling both.

I'm overruling even you, Veronica.

No U-turn indicator if we can get a thank you light.

Please give me a gracious light.

Because thanking other drivers when

they see you is such a gracious thing to do when they see what you need to do and they let you do it.

But waving your hand out the window, which is a really nice way to say thank you, right?

It's still like you're taking your hand off the wheel.

Have you even pressed a little button that just says, I see you, you're also a human being.

I appreciate that.

And let me say this about

a little bit of teasing.

Dave,

with the Greg nuts, I'm going to call them from now on, I was teasing you a little bit there.

I wasn't really upset that you were emailing me that much.

I was making a little meal out of it, so to speak.

I was adding a little chalula to the Greg Nuts, if you will.

But, you know,

I'm teasing you, and

I'm always teasing with affection on this show.

Because when we go back to last week, we were talking about Brian and Kyle and the line between kind of inadvertent or advertising, like cruel teasing or mean teasing versus affectionate teasing.

Affectionate teasing, like Kyle dressing up like Brian for Halloween, that lets Brian know that Kyle sees him.

He knows how he dresses.

Like

when I tease listeners on the show a little bit, I try not to ever be mean or cruel.

I'm trying to let you know, I see you and I appreciate you out there.

It's a form of affection, I hope.

And if I ever cross a line, by all means, write to me.

But yeah, showing a little light on a car that says, I see you, I mean, I think that's valuable just for humanity.

Jesse, you know,

I had photos taken of me when I was

an eighth grader, ninth grader, tenth grader.

You know, we all did.

And the options that we had was a standard blue background, and then we had like a nature background.

And then we had something called reflections, and that was a black studio background, right?

And they would take two pictures of you.

One would be you sitting there, and then they would take a three-quarter portrait of you.

And then they would superimpose that image floating over your right shoulder.

Like you're considering the thought of yourself.

Yes, like it's a movie poster about you and you're the only person in the movie, which was pretty much how I experienced my childhood emotionally.

And I just want to say,

I got this one photo.

I wonder if my dad has it.

I'm sure he does.

Whether I'd be willing to make it public, I do not know.

Where I'm sitting there with my long hair.

This is like seventh or eighth grade.

I had very long hair at the time.

And then I chose the reflections, of course, and the three-quarter portrait of me, the big ghost portrait of me, was wearing a black fedora like the shadow.

Amazing.

We're sharing two pictures on the Judge John Hodgman Instagram account.

Number one, John's going to talk to his dad about that picture.

Number two, we're going to share the picture.

We're going to share the picture from when the Max Fun staff on Slack

was doing

a Taskmaster challenge.

And the Taskmaster challenge was

dress up like Jesse, and Jennifer Marmor killed it.

She just destroyed.

I look forward to seeing that very much, but I'm going to tell you right now, I'm withholding my reflections picture.

Oh, cruel.

I'm going to save it for this year's Max Fun Drive.

Okay.

We're going to set that as a stretch goal.

You know, we're moving into Max Fun Drive season.

There's going to be some stretch goal that will trigger the release of that photo.

Here's a case from Caitlin in Newburgh, Oregon.

When my husband makes a sandwich, he insists on layering the bread first with meat before adding dollops of mayonnaise.

He insists that without a barrier, mayonnaise makes the bread soggy.

Despite the fact that nearly every sandwich he's ever eaten at a restaurant has mayonnaise directly on the bread.

I argue mayonnaise does not lead to sogginess.

Please order my husband to refrain from making this slanderous claim.

All right,

I'm going to say this.

I think we just lost 10,000 listeners.

Because we only had 3,000 to begin with.

I think we lost 10,000 listeners at a minimum

because of, just because of the words mayonnaise, soggy, sogginess,

and

I think we took, I think I edited out moistness,

which was in the, in the full letter, because I had to cut it down a little bit because it was even grossing me out.

And I love mayonnaise.

I love mayonnaise a lot.

But even I draw the line at dollops.

I don't like that word.

I don't want to hear about dollops of mayonnaise.

And,

you know, she wrote in saying, I have a picture of my husband's sandwich making method.

Ask and she will send it.

First of all, I'm a little mad, Caitlin, you even made me ask.

Of course, I want to look at photos of mayonnaise all the time.

But then I got the photo and I'm like, oh my goodness, what are you doing to my most precious of condiments?

You see this photo, Jesse?

It's bananas.

It would be less bananas if there were bananas on this meat.

First of all, I think that this meat is not meat.

This meat to me looks like an imitation of meat, which is great.

plant-based meat.

It's on a very, very nice whole grain bread.

And then there's a slice of cheese.

And this photo will be up on the Judge John Hodgman Instagram page

as well as the show page on maximumfund.org, but with a trigger warning.

Because, I mean,

it's hard.

It's hard to,

there's always going to be a base level of grossness with any photo of mayonnaise, I think.

But this really takes the, it really takes the tomato soup cake, if you know what I mean, in terms of pushing it.

And on top of this tofurki or what have you is just like

this weird landscape of mayonnaise.

I mean, it's not even spread.

It's just like, it's a craggy mountainscape of mayonnaise.

You know why his bread is getting soggy?

Why?

He's got 14 ounces of mayonnaise in a pile.

He has like a.

This is like an Axel Rose cocaine pile amount of mayonnaise.

I have no problem with that.

I've had more mayonnaise on a sandwich.

Here's the thing.

I contend that even the same amount of mayonnaise spread on that whole grain bread, the bread would, it would take a long time before that bread were to get, quote unquote, soggy.

It's not like jelly in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that your parent wraps up in plastic and you bring it to school and some other kid sits on your lunch and then it's like jelly is seeping through the bread.

That'll never happen.

So, on that regard, Caitlin, I find in your favor.

I had to ask Caitlin whether she staged this photo because I got to tell you right now, this is gross to look at.

And I'm talking about everything.

It's not just the amount of mayonnaise, it's not just the texture of the mayonnaise.

The rest of the sandwich is uniformly brown in a very unpleasant way.

And even it's put on a red cutting board.

The whole thing looks gross to me.

But do you know what?

Do you know what, husband of Caitlin?

You like what you like.

Eat it up.

Eat it up.

You want to eat a pile of brown and then on top of it is the white caps from a JMW Turner painting of a storm at sea?

Fine.

Eat it up.

And because you know what?

And here's the thing.

Unlike Dave with his greg nuts, I don't get the impression that Caitlin's husband, A, is sitting down at the table,

not just writing letters to podcasters, but bragging to his children about his wonderful, delicious greg nuts

while he moistens the nuts with yolk, another disgusting sentence, and

making them watch as he crunches the yolk-saturated grape nuts.

This is the thing that once that sandwich is closed, no one would know the difference.

No one would know the difference between that and a sandwich with the mayonnaise.

on the bread itself.

So I can't even use the excuse of it's grossing other people out.

Caitlin's Caitlin's husband doesn't seem braggy about this sandwich.

And if he likes it, he likes it.

Like what you like.

But yeah, Caitlin, you are right.

If I'm to order him to stop saying that mayonnaise makes bread soggy, I will make that order because it's not true.

No one has as much experience with putting mayonnaise on bread as me.

I venture to say that's true.

John?

Yes.

He likes what he likes.

That seems gross.

Exactly.

Both things, both things can exist.

Both things are true.

It's not for me, but you like what you like.

That's the principle.

It's not for me, but you like what you like.

And I would say, Caitlin, you are just skirting the violation of the true principle here.

Because Caitlin, you're coming in.

You just skirt it.

You got away with it because you weren't saying, please order him to stop eating this because it's gross.

You were saying, please order him to stop saying that mayonnaise will make the bread soggy.

And I agree with you there.

I think that that is a matter of fact.

Very few people have as much experience with putting mayonnaise on bread as your judge, John Hodgman, I venture to say.

But if you had said he shouldn't eat it this way because it's gross or wrong or whatever, then that would be violating the principle of like what you like because you would be policing his taste.

Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, we finally, finally answer the question, do elves have last names?

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

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while, maybe you never listened, and you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

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

Yeah.

You don't even really know how crypto works.

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

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

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

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

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

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

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

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

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

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

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

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

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

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Judge Hodgman, we're taking a break from clearing the docket.

You have a television show that's running right now on FXX and Hulu, and I hope people are watching it.

Well, I know that a lot of listeners have been.

Thank you so much for sharing your Dick Town enthusiasm by hashtagging Dicktown in all your tweets and social media posts and so on.

It's been really exciting.

You know, season one, it was hard.

I admit it, it was hard to find.

It was part of an anthology show.

A lot of people didn't know where they could go to get it.

Took a while for it to get up on Hulu.

That's when I just started saying bit.ly slash Dicktown all the time.

Hey, good news for folks in Canada.

It's airing live on FXX on Thursday nights, just like it is in the United States.

If you want to know how to watch it in another country beyond that, I don't know the answer yet, but I'll figure it out.

I'll just say three letters that have nothing to do with anything, VPN.

We are closing in on the end of the season.

The big mystery of who is Madame Slingshot, aka motorcycle car lady, and what does she want?

This character portrayed incredibly by Amy Sederis, of course, is coming to a head.

There's some Scooby-Doo type traps in our seventh mystery of the season, debuting tomorrow if you're listening on Wednesday, or today if you're listening on Thursday.

And then it's David Reese's solo episode when David Purefoy

gets a job, a night job, working in a fried pork anus factory owned by Paul F.

Tompkins.

You can check it all out on FXX on Thursday at 10 p.m.,

both West Coast and East Coast, and the next day on Hulu at bit.ly slash dicktown, or just go to Hulu and search Dicktown.

All the episodes so far will be available on 4 a.m.

on Friday morning.

And then one week from now, we'll be gearing up for our big final two mysteries, the big season finale.

I hope you'll take a look and spread the word and drop a review.

Jesse, what do you have going on?

Well, on Bullseye, I've got our friend Kenji Lopez-Alt coming up on the show.

Boy, I've got his cookbook.

Yeah, it's great.

Kenji is a genius.

He's an amazing guy.

Also, Nick Kroll on the show this week as well, the hilarious Nick Kroll, one of the funniest guys around.

One of the funniest guys around, a real talent.

And look,

you know that I've come on this program mentioning put this on shop, my store on the internet.

Right.

I've talked about dark crystal cards, which are currently in stock as we record this.

I've talked about Yo MTV Raps cards and ALF cards and Pee-Wee's Playhouse fun packs,

rad dudes cards, all those available right now at putthisonshop.com.

But John,

I need you to know something.

I want to know things.

I've got dune cards now.

Go to putthisonshop.com.

Buy unopened packs

of David Lynch dune cards.

How dare you.

I love dune cards.

PutthisonShop.com.

I was just looking for dune cards at the stuff and stuff shop over in Cobble Hill.

They had ALF cards there, but they didn't have any Dark Crystal cards, and they sure didn't have any Dune cards.

Yeah, well, I got both at putthisonshop.com.

I made the mistake of going for Tron cards, and that is not even second best.

That is ninth, a hundredth best.

Yeah.

Those are bad cards, but those Dune cards are hot.

I've seen packs of those before.

They are, I mean, it's that movie is so lovably bonkers and beautiful, and so are the cards.

Go to putthisonshop.com and go check out all the other incredibly, look,

you know, ELF cards, dark crystal cards.

These are fun.

These are the money makers, right?

But Jesse Thorne is one of the people who's got the best taste in the world.

Boy, oh, boy, does Jesse Thorne like what he likes and knows what he likes and has curates such an incredible array of beautiful objects and pieces of clothing that I love.

And I encourage you to check out because it's a great place to go get a little gift for someone who you don't,

it gives you inspiration for gifts that you you could never come up with on your own maybe you find an incredible jacket or some vintage college football charms or sterling silver stork bib sweater or sweater clips or some chenille usa and tea letter patches or just any cool thing just to give a little oomph a little oomph to your to your wardrobe your look your style your your life a vintage brio miniature service station What's this, Jesse?

You know, Brio, those wooden trains.

Yeah.

They made this amazing miniature service station.

It's totally mind-blowing.

I don't know exactly when it's from, but it is absolutely incredible.

You can see on the workmanship on this is so beautiful.

And right above the garage door of this service station, it says greasing and washing.

Yeah.

What else do you need?

Can't have one without the other.

Put thisonshop.com.

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

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're finally getting into this elf material.

Here's a case from Jack.

By the way, if you have an elf-related dispute, maximumfund.org/slash JJHO for all elf stuff.

We're doing Bug Bears next week, so hold on that.

You know what?

We were going to make a special call for cases about the spring,

the season,

including flowers, Easter, Eidolfitur, Passover,

any spring holiday, Irish Spring, Spring Water, Saratoga Springs.

Forget it.

DD.

I want all DD.

Oh, no.

Give me an all-DD docket.

A DDD, if you will.

I'd love it.

But this is not DD.

This is Tolkien.

So hit it.

Here's a case from Jack in Augusta, Georgia.

Your Honor, I am a Lord of the Rings fan.

I recently went to a Lord of the Rings trivia night at a brewery and lost due to one question.

What is Legolas'

last name?

The correct answer is,

he has no last name.

That's underlined.

But the host and winning team chose Greenleaf, which is a common misconception.

I lost the game, my honor, and a $25 gift certificate to the brewery.

My poor wife and friends have all had to listen to me explain this situation multiple times.

What hurts most is that even though I am right, and even though no elf even has a last name,

nor do men, only Hobbits, I get the feeling that my friends are just humoring me in acknowledging my stolen valor.

Please, Judge John Hodgman, I seek justice.

All right.

This episode started with a little critique of us, a couple of critiques of us, and they're fair critiques, and I'm happy to hear them.

I do, I'm just going to offer a little critique that technically and typically we do not hear cases that are brought against me or Bailiff Jesse or cases that are brought up between

you and say the universe or all people who like the wrong thing.

or other sort of class action type lawsuits.

And even this one is riding the line, Jack, because really your dispute is with the hosts of this trivia game.

If you wanted to get them on the podcast, I'll allow you to resubmit this one if you are not satisfied with my answer here, or even if you are, because I'd love to hear a whole, I'd love to adjudicate a case between a pub quiz host and a Tolkien fanatic.

That'd be great for me.

But I do have to offer a judgment because this is apparently, Jesse, a problem.

It is not confined to Jack's life.

It is rampant in the pub quiz community.

All I had to do was Google Legolas' last name to see if I could get to the bottom of this.

The first thing that came up was the Lord of the Rings subreddit.

Jiminy Billy Bob wrote four years ago.

I was at a pub quiz a while back and one of the questions was, what is Legolas' last name?

I told my team to write down Greenleaf, as I know that was the answer they were going for, and it was.

But afterwards, I argued with the people hosting the quiz that that's not actually his last name.

And I gave all the reasons that I know of.

All of the many reasons.

In the end, they still gave everyone who wrote Greenleaf a point, and that was it.

Of course, everyone in the comments says, no, he's just Legolas, the son of Thrandwil.

Greenleaf, of course, is just a translation of Legolas.

Legolas is Sylvan, a dialect Sindarin for Greenleaf.

That's what his name means.

And yes, Candalf refers to him as Legolas Greenleaf once.

And yes, Galadril refers to him as Legolas Greenleaf once.

But that's just

nickname stuff.

That's just the fun times they have with names.

That doesn't mean his actual last name is Greenleaf.

Now, was there a Legolas Greenleaf?

Yes, there was a character named Legolas Greenleaf who showed up in some of Tolkien's very early unpublished writings that never made it into Lord of the Rings.

But that Legolas Greenleaf

was a Noldor elf out of Gondolin.

He was a gnome.

Our Legolas, the one you like, the one Orlando Bloom played, that's Legolas, the son of Thrandwill, a Sindarian elf,

son of Thrandwill, the king of the wood elves in Mirkwood.

Come on, you know this.

But the thing of the thing is, Jack, even though I'm defending you here, you know what answer they were looking for.

Look, I am the co-host of many a Max FunCon pub quiz with our friend Chuck Bryant of stuff you should know.

And we always make it clear, and we always make it clear that we're looking for a particular answer.

Because, look, I know who we're dealing with here.

I know who the listeners are.

They're smarts.

They're smarty pantses.

And there are a lot of different ways that you'd be like, well,

well, actually,

there were a number of decommissioned Green Lantern Corps officers who also would be considered members of the Green Lantern Corps in a different timeline.

I know.

You know,

when you do the quiz, you're looking for common sense answers.

And you know that even though they're wrong, Jack, you know, just as well as that person on Twitter, Jiminy Billy Bob, knew they were looking for an answer, and that answer was Greenleaf.

There were no way were they thinking, like, oh, let's, I can't wait till the guy says, writes down a little slip of paper, actually,

elves have no last names, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You know, that wasn't the answer they were looking for.

You knew the answer they were looking for.

They weren't playing riddles in the dark,

as in The Hobbit where Bilbo says, guess what's in my pocket?

A totally unfair trick question

that he only gets away with because Gollum breaks the rules and gives two answers.

You know, the two answers, the two guesses that Gollum gave for Bilbo's question, What's in my pocket?

No, what are they?

He gets so flustered.

It's my favorite part of the book.

Collin gets so flustered because he knows it's a trick.

It's not a fair question in the game of riddles.

It's like it's just random.

It's like, What's in my pocket?

What do I have in my pockets?

Collin guesses,

string or nothing.

So, yeah, Jack, you were robbed, but you should have won that game because you should have known that they wanted to know Greenleaf, even though they were wrong.

That's what you got to do sometimes.

You can be right or you can be happy.

That's another thing that I hear on the internet all the time.

But as a consolation prize, I'm going to get you that gift certificate.

Write me.

Tell me what the name of that brewery is.

I'll buy you a gift certificate.

25 bucks.

No, you know what?

24 bucks.

I'm going to dock you a buck because

you knew what you should have written.

And meanwhile, I invite you,

Jack, and everyone to join the virtual pub quiz that Chuck and I are going to be hosting on April the 30th.

You'll be getting,

if you're a member of MaxFun,

you'll be getting notices about that in your email box.

All the proceeds are going to go to CASA.

It's going to be a great way to raise some money for a great charity and a great way to have some fun.

And you know know, I'm going to be asking what is Legos' last name at this thing.

So go to maximumfund.org.

Make sure that you become a member so you get updates as to when that is happening.

The docket is clear, and that's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Our editor is Valerie Moffat.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Make sure to hashtag your judgejohodgman tweets, hashtag j-j-h-o.

You can check out the maximum fund subreddit to discuss this week's episode that's at maximumfun.reddit.com and i guess now's the time when we talk about dnd cases i've already put out the call if you have any dnd related disputes and i suspect you do please the more esoteric the better please let me know at maximumfund.org slash jjho and we'll get that D and D docket going for you.

But in the meantime, we're always eager to hear about all of your disputes on any subject.

No case is too small.

So please remember, submit your cases D and D or otherwise at maximumfund.org slash JJHO.

Judge Hodgman, I stand ready to answer all Dungeons and Dragons disputes as long as they're about the two Dungeons and Dragons things I know about.

The CGA DOS game, The Secret of the Silver Blades,

and the Dragonlance novels that I read while sitting in the aisles at Aardvark used Books in San Francisco.

You could just knock one out in a single aisle sitting or would you come back and pick up the same one again?

Just sit there and take care of it.

TCB.

Get it done.

You're nine.

What are you doing?

What else are you doing?

Nine years old.

You're sitting there and you're reading all the Dragonlance novels.

I don't remember anything about them, to be frank.

I probably read six of them.

My favorite monster in the monster manual is?

What's that?

Gelatinous Cube.

Yeah, that's a good one.

Okay, we'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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