Suing For Soul Custody

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, suing for soul custody.

Alina brings the case against her husband, Jason.

Jason would like to sell his soul on a blockchain.

Alina thinks, This is a terrible idea.

Who's right, who's wrong, only one can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

Hmm, that Adam.

He was a tough proposition.

I tried him with everything, you know.

Grapefruit, bananas, nectarines, nothing.

But finally,

that apple.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigant's in.

Alina, Jason, please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God, or whatever?

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he has invested his life savings in something called sassy donkeys?

Absolutely.

We do.

It's a virtual good.

Yeah.

I'm telling you, Jess, sassy donks, that's the way to go.

Now, all the donks I've purchased to this point have been entirely fungible.

Get in on the ground floor of them, sassy donks.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

Alina and Jason, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment.

And one of yours favors, can either of you name the piece piece of culture that I referenced as I entered this court of fake internet international law.

As we speak to you now, you are in Sydney, Australia.

Alina, what is your guess?

Oh,

it wasn't quite what I expected.

Okay.

What were you expecting?

Maybe something slightly less biblical.

We're talking about the sale of a soul here.

Where did you think I was going to go?

I was going the blockchain angle.

The blockchain angle.

Well, see, you miscalculated because I don't know what that is.

And many people have tried to explain it to me.

And maybe Jason will succeed this time.

What was going to be your guess for the blockchain angle, which is, by the way, a terrible 90s band?

Maybe an Elon Musk Twitter thread.

An Elon Musk Twitter thread.

That's not impossible.

I'll put that guess into the guest book.

That Adam, he was a tough proposition.

I tried him with everything, you know, grapefruit, bananas, nectarines.

But finally, that apple, Jason of Sydney, Australia.

What is your guess, if I may ask?

Is it a line from the 2000 remake of the 1967 classic Bedazzle?

Bedazzled?

No, I thought someone would think I would go there, but no, I zigged when you zagged.

I've seen no bedazzles.

Such a shame.

Missing out.

Great films.

Which is the one that I should see?

The Oridge?

No.

Definitely not.

It's a little bit too from the past.

Oh, okay.

Is it problematic?

Yeah, a little bit.

Oh.

Is one of the main problems that it doesn't have enough Brendan Fraser in it?

Correct.

And Liz Hurley, let's face it.

Really?

I should see the remake of Bedazzled, but does that one have Peter Cook in it as the devil?

It does not.

It has Liz Hurley in it as the devil.

All right, that's pretty good.

She was known as the Peter Cook of her generation.

Definitely.

I was definitely leaning older school to your newer school because I was quoting from a film, a 1973 television movie that was a backdoor pilot for a television comedy that never got made.

It was a workplace comedy set in hell called Poor Devil, co-starring Christopher Lee as Mr.

Lucifer, the boss, whom I was quoting, and starring, Jesse Thorne, do you know this one?

No, you don't know.

The poor devil who just can't,

he's just a klutz.

My goodness, and he just can't get people to sell their souls.

And this whole TV movie is about this character trying to get Jack Klugman to sell his soul.

And the poor devil is Sammy Davis Jr.

It's an incredible document.

You can find it on YouTube.

Sammy Davis Jr., of course, never was a confirmed member of the Church of Satan in San Francisco, but he did apparently attend some parties there at the Black House.

Anton LeVay's Black House, which was the headquarters of the Church of Satan in San Francisco, which, of course, was a secular organization.

It was not actual Satan worshipers, but just sort of libertines with the kind of do what thou will be the whole of the law.

I know, I know.

It's Alistair Crowley.

Don't get down on me.

It was basically like Ayn Rand fanatics with goat masks.

That was the Church of Satan.

Great movie, which you didn't guess.

So now we must hear the case, which is about blockchain and about your eternal soul.

Alina, you come to seek justice in this court.

Tell me the justice that you seek.

Well,

late last year, Jason, who I describe as a bit of a wantrepreneur, he's always coming up with business ideas.

Hold on, I'm writing that one down.

Do you have that trademarked globally or just in Australia?

Because I'm about to make a fortune.

Wantrepreneur.

All right.

Go on.

He's a Wantrepreneur.

So he's been coming up with business ideas, I'd imagine well before we got together, but for the entirety of our relationship.

How long have you been together, if I may ask?

We've been together for eight years, married for for three.

Congratulations.

Okay.

And late last year, he was in the process of pitching me quite a good business idea, I think.

And he added onto that while we were on a walk one day the fact that he would like to sell his soul on the blockchain.

All right.

First of all, what was the good business idea he was pitching you?

Are we allowed to, can we shark tank this?

I don't think he wants me to share that because it's still one he's

considering.

It's proprietary.

It's an app that's a sort of virtual

hangout.

Yeah, virtual watering hole, Jason's place, that kind of thing.

It's a bit metaverse, you know?

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely fantastic.

All right.

You know what?

I'll make it happen for you if you sell me your soul.

We'll talk about it later.

Point is, I'm not the devil.

No one can prove it.

Second point is, Jason, before we get into whether or not you should sell your soul on

the blockchain, a blockchain, I don't know.

I need you to explain to me what is a blockchain and i want you to understand i'm not coming at this from like an old geezer like what are these blockchains anyway i think they're dumb because i don't understand them

i'm coming at it like my brain cannot absorb this information i want to know smart people including jonathan colton my dear friend who has been explaining things to my dumb head for a long time even back when my dumb head was functioning properly couldn't get it through to me can you explain what a blockchain is is and then we'll talk about how you sell your soul on it?

Happy to.

So I think the best way I've understood it is it is a digital ownership certificate application done with lots of different computers in lots of different places.

But basically all it does is work really, really hard and use a lot of energy to figure out who owns what.

This certificate is a bit of code somewhere?

It is.

I think it's an entry into a ledger.

Okay.

A virtual ledger.

A virtual ledger which no one person, so it's not like your spreadsheet, say, or my spreadsheet or the bank spreadsheet.

Instead, it's a spreadsheet which lots of different people, independent and all incentivized to get it right, work to get it right.

Okay.

And so essentially you are, and, you know, cryptocurrency works because it is tied to or connected to blockchain.

Is that correct?

Each coin.

It exists on it.

So

now you're talking.

How can a cryptocurrency be on a blockchain?

It's all floating around in the virtual world.

It's the ether, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, the other piece is reflecting on your own, say, banking.

Your money exists on the banks.

What do you know about my money?

What is going on here?

All of our monies exists on banks' IT systems.

Effectively, you know, they've got

a line which has the Venerable Judge John Hodgman and money.

And you can then move that money to other people, or you can keep it or you can earn some interest on it uh but it is it is sort of

like a blockchain uh without the whole nobody owns it i'm not that i know how

money works i know how money works well it's it's the same deal so so it just as money is kind of the same if it were the same it would be the same it's different by the way thank you for using my full legal name the venerable john hodgman i'm a little worried that you have access to my birth certificate apparently he can tell that you're wearing your mortar board

Here's what I got out of this, Jason, and you can tell me if I'm on target or off target.

Blockchain refers to

a computer code that is unique and identified with a thing, an asset that you own in the virtual world.

And that could be a coin or that could be a non-fungible token.

But this blockchain is the thing that indicates it is yours and yours alone, and it is unique.

Is that more or less correct?

Sounds good to me.

I think, yeah, it goes to the idea of like

there can only be one or there can only be the set number and it figures out who is owning that nominal

thing.

The Highlander production.

I think you did it much better than I did.

Thank you.

There can only be one.

Yeah.

Okay.

So here you are having a stroll along the promenade of Sydney, Australia with your wife.

And you are pitching this incredible business idea.

What was it again?

It's not even that good, but because Alina doesn't want to share it, I feel like I shouldn't share it.

Oh, okay.

All right.

No, I understand.

So apropos of nothing, you bring up this idea of you want to sell your song.

Jason, I want to hear about this idea.

Why don't I buy you a virtual drink?

Why don't you play a virtual round of golf?

I don't know if you're dropping us a hint, but if you were talking about Frolf in the metaverse.

Metafrolf.

We just got rich, John.

We just got rich.

Okay, so you're pitching virtual frolf, but too bad that Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman already, the venerable John Hodgman already trademarked that.

So then you're like, what am I going to do to make money?

I know I'll sell my soul on blockchain.

How's this going to work?

What does this involve?

This is a very good question.

So part of the genesis of the idea is I have some technical friends who like doing the spooky stuff on the blockchain, which frankly is, as probably my articulation of how it all works, technically beyond me, but they assure me it works in various ways and they want to do something.

And are you talking about

wizards?

What do you mean, the spooky stuff on the blockchain?

You know, they do

the black magic.

You're talking about inter-necromancers?

Exactly.

Yes.

They're very spooky.

And then they pass as regular software engineers by day, but at night they do all sorts of weird things on the line.

Oh my goodness.

This is the new Church of Satan.

Samuel Davis Jr.

would be glad to join your club.

It's quite a party.

Tell me about the spooky stuff they're doing online after hours.

Are you joking me?

No, no.

One fellow has created a marketplace for NFTs,

which tacks onto

the marketplace and the NFT platform of an Australian Web3 business called Immutable.

And so he's done that, and he's quite into the whole thing.

None of this sounds spooky yet.

What are you talking about?

The spooky stuff they do?

Well, I think

it's legitimately spooky, like toil, toil.

No, no,

I mean like digital spoilers.

Spooky in the sense that it's destabilizing the governmental and financial systems of our world.

Okay.

Sorry.

And facilitating the ownership of digital goods, which kind of feel a little ethereal and not quite real.

And the ownership you get through the blockchain feels a little spooky as well, in the sense of getting

an ownership certificate.

pointing to a thing which anyone can download.

So it's kind of this

social fact of ownership rather than any practical exclusive rights to the thing you own right jason you don't have to explain it to us we got seven stars named after us baby we have certificates to prove it yeah i just urge you to choose your words very carefully because technical wizardry should be distinguished from black magic soul metaphysical wizardry right well yeah first of all because that's scary yeah yeah And when you say, like, I mean, all of these words, like when you say, oh, technically a Bitcoin is on a blockchain, these words have no meaning.

I need to, they're all, they're purely metaphorical.

So when you say something is spooky, I have to ask myself, is that a metaphor?

Or are you talking about a G-ga-googa ghost?

And I don't want to have to, I'm trying to, I'm trying to help you figure this out.

So don't send me down blind alleys, metaphorical ones or literal ones.

with the enchanting idea that there are literal blockchain enchanters who claim to be able to tag souls to blockchain, which is what you, that's your innovation.

All right, so you have some friends who are messing around on the blockchain, going, they're going out to parks late at night, drinking some Jaegermeister, doing some pentagram graffiti, maybe doing some weird secret rituals on blockchain, but they're just kids hanging out and having a good time.

No need for a satanic panic.

Got it.

How do you put your soul on a blockchain?

Why are we even talking about this?

It seems impossible.

So it's the same as putting any physical artwork or digital artwork kind of on the blockchain.

You basically create the ownership certificates on the blockchain,

pointing to it.

And you can, you know, you've got all sorts of interesting design choices, like, do I want to sell my whole soul in one unit?

Or do I want to chop it up into a lot of little pieces and sell each of those?

It's the promise of a soul.

Like, a dollar bill is the promise of a money.

Or like, when you're too cheap to get your parents a proper Christmas gift, you send them a card saying this entitles you to one free back rub.

That's right.

And and just in instead of kind of the current NFTs with the digital art kind of attached to it, all they do is have a link which points to a non-blockchain

part of the web where this digital file is stored.

Yeah.

It would instead just be kind of Jason's soul or one ten thousandth of Jason Sol or whatever unit I want to sell.

So, yeah, I can see a world in which this could work.

If NFTs, which are just like a bad digital image of a

raccoon wearing a pork pie hat or whatever is selling for 3 million Australian dollars or whatever.

You go out there with Jason's soul, buy a piece of Jason's soul.

I've got the digital certificate to prove you own it.

There are probably some people who would speculate in that market.

That would be a big market innovation, right?

I've never heard of it before.

Have you?

No.

He shakes his head, no.

Alina, may I ask why you don't like this idea?

Well, I've got two main problems with the idea of Jason selling his soul.

Sure.

One of them comes perhaps from a bit of Simpsons-related trauma.

All right.

From the episode of The Simpsons, where Bart sells his soul

and

has suddenly not the ability for automatic doors to open and has no breath.

And when all of the other kids are rowing to the island in the afterlife, he's on his own without his soul to help him row.

So he just goes around in circles.

Right.

And although I'm not a religious person, I am a little bit superstitious and I like to hedge my bets.

Sure.

And as a married couple,

we make no claims.

We take no risks.

Exactly.

So my concern is if Jason did successfully sell his soul, that upon our deaths,

that might make the afterlife non-ideal and we might not get to be together.

He might end up in some kind of purgatory.

Right.

I mean, when you consider all of the possible outcomes of death, there is one

that there could be a literal heaven with white robes and liars, bring, bring, bring, and there could be an evil devil down in hell poking Anton LeVay with a fork and making him cry.

And Anton LeVay is going like, I was only joking.

And even if it's not that, we don't know if there is a soul and if it's potentially useful.

So it seems like

could be handy.

It could be handy.

Yeah, you might need it to help canoe, as you learn from The Simpsons.

Absolutely.

You're not willing to risk your beloved soul.

No.

Either for money or

internet spooky cred.

For nothing.

For nothing at all.

Let me just understand what the stakes and the terms are here.

Jason,

I don't want a thousandth of your soul.

I don't want a little bit of it.

I want the whole thing.

What are you charging for the whole soul?

I'm going to hang it on my wall.

I think it's whatever the person who is willing to pay the most is willing to pay.

Yeah, I know, but you've got to have an idea, a hope of what you might be going for here.

Think of the dumbest NFT that you can.

What's the dumbest NFT that you can think of?

I had raccoon with a pork pie hat.

Oh, the wacky whales.

The whale one.

Tell me what a wacky whale is.

Oh, they're just pixelated whales.

So, all right, let me just explain to the other people who are not children in this listenership.

An NFT stands for a non-fungible token.

It's usually an image, which in the digital age normally could be reproduced endlessly.

That's what Walter Benjamin was talking about, art in the age of mechanical reproduction.

There is no authenticity to a digital image because it can be recreated and replicated perfectly endlessly.

Instead, you tag one of them with a little bit of blockchain juice or whatever, and all of a sudden that becomes a non-fungible.

That means it is not tradable for anything else other than itself token.

It is unique and owned by someone, and you can sell it.

These wacky whales, how much did a wacky whale go for?

Oh, I'm not sure.

I think the whole set went for like 500,000 US dollars.

$500,000.

How many wacky whales you get in that pack?

In that wacky pack?

Like a lot.

This is why I thought the sort of a 10,000th might be

a good angle.

I think there was in the thousands.

So, you know.

Thousands of wacky whales.

Thousands of slightly different pixelated wacky whales.

Okay.

Are they different amounts of wacky or all the same?

I think it's thematically wacky.

So I think more like different flavors of wacky rather than degree.

Or just the juxtaposition is wacky of the different types of whales.

Maybe the fact anyone is willing to pay any money for the digital whales is wacky.

So it just sort of comes for free.

Let's take a quick recess.

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

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Here's what I'm going to say, Jason.

As soon as this episode airs, If I have not ruled in your favor and you've not already gone to market with the Jason's Soul NFT,

someone is going to put their soul, they're going to hear this and they're going to be like, good idea.

And there are going to be a lot of souls available.

Maybe the market will be flooded.

But even then, the first person who takes the soul to market is going to make thousands upon thousands of dollars is my guess.

Get a lot of attention.

I believe that Grimes has had her soul for sale for a couple of years and no one has yet purchased it.

Oh, okay.

Well, I did not know that.

I did not realize that.

So did you think this idea was original to you, Jason?

Or have you been misrepresenting yourself this entire time?

I did think it was original to me, particularly at the time I was pitching it.

It was a terrific idea.

Grimes, the pop star.

This is why you were going with that

Elon Musk idea, Alina, right?

Isn't Grimes the pop star?

I may have had an angle.

It says here on the internet, Grimes, the mother of X-A-E-A-X-I-I and girlfriend of Elon Musk is selling her soul, only there's not a blockchain in sight.

It's up for grabs for a cool 10 mil, but she hasn't made an NFT of herself.

Alex Mozmej, who did tokenize himself, is the term here, discusses the proposed sale.

Artist Lincoln Townley says, turning a soul into a token won't work.

This is from decrypt.co.

Looks like one of the leading news sites in the crypto culture of today.

Okay, so it's not the first time.

Grimes is up for 10 million.

Frankly, I think it's overpriced.

I think $1,000 Australian probably would be a starting point.

Would you dispute that, Jason?

What would you be hoping to get?

My best case would be

a moderately priced Australian and Sydney home in particular.

Oh, okay.

But I would settle for a deposit.

A deposit on a house in Sydney, Australia.

Okay.

That's right.

And what would be the amount it's sold for where you were like, this is a terrible idea.

I didn't.

I didn't get enough.

Like, obviously,

$5 would be bad, but less than what?

$100?

Less than $1,000?

$50,000, I think.

If you don't break 50K Australian on your soul,

it's going to be a little embarrassing.

Well, look, I think you put a good price on your immortal being.

So, Alina, you said no.

How did that make you feel, Jason, when Alina said, no, I don't want you to do that?

A little bit hurt and deflated.

I felt like she didn't understand why I wanted to.

Yeah.

And it got conflated as kind of being a bad business idea where I think it's like clearly a scheme rather than a business idea.

It's a one-time arbitrage opportunity.

Doesn't make the world particularly better,

but is fun to think about and potentially do.

Particularly better.

In what infinitesimal way does it make the world better other than I suppose making me have a good time?

I guess that's true.

You're right.

Entertainment value.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And something to do, right?

Like you've got to

striving and

making something.

Anyway, yeah, but it does not make the world particularly better.

But let me investigate that just a second more, because you made a differentiation between scheme and business idea.

Define the difference between those two.

And this would be a scheme, not a business proposal.

Clearly a scheme, yeah.

So a business idea is to create something.

which delivers more value to customers than it costs for the business to create that thing.

And so it is kind of sustainable.

It genuinely makes the world better.

People get a thing they wouldn't have got otherwise, or the flavor of a thing they wouldn't have got otherwise, and they're paying a price they're willing to pay, and the business is doing it in a way which is efficient enough that they make some money and wacko happy days.

Where a scheme is much more

a scheme is a thing you make up to annoy your partner.

Exactly.

And it comes out of the same part of the brain, right?

But sometimes an opportunity is not sustainable and is not kind of wholesome or as wholesome as a business is.

It's a little bit dirty and it's a little bit of a, you know,

it's a scheme.

A little bit, yeah.

Like, how could selling your soul on blockchain not be considered wholesome?

That's ridiculous.

Jason, what is your background?

Are you in business?

I am.

And so professionally, I tend to have to put the sober voice of reason hat on.

when sort of working in a professional capacity.

And so I think I have a lot of leftover business creative energy, which often fuels this constant stream of either business ideas or schemes, which just come out of my mouth, whether I want them to or not, to my trusted confident.

And so you felt deflated when Alina said no.

For those of us who follow the Jason soul market, your soul really took a nosedive that day.

I'm lucky I stayed in because it has slowly recovered value and re-inflated itself.

But you were a husk of a human that day.

I was.

I think I was a little bit hurt that Alina thought it was a business idea rather than a scheme, and that she thought that I thought it was something actually substantial and meaningful rather than, you know, at least a thought exercise and at most, you know, a little side project to do with some friends.

I would like to refute that.

Please refute away.

Because I remember the conversation very vividly.

Yes.

And I initially thought it was a joke and probed further.

And Jason was very insistent that it was a real idea and even had a plan for how he was going to market and enact it.

And that was when I started to panic, realizing that he was potentially actually going to do it and said, no.

Yeah, but I think, Jason, you would say that it is, it was not a joke, nor was it a business plan.

It was simply a scheme.

That's correct.

Of the get-rich-quick varietal.

Very much so.

And so there was a concrete plan.

To Elena's point, there was absolutely a concrete plan.

Yeah.

You didn't spring this on her on your romantic walk without having your deck available to show her your 35 slides.

He did indeed.

Well, I had some pre-thought thinking down, but no.

Wait a minute, Alina,

did he bring out a laptop and show you his presentation?

No, that was part of the problem.

What do you mean?

He should have?

If he'd had a really well thought-through presentation, maybe he would have been able to convince me.

Okay, hit me, Jason.

This is your shot to convince both Alina and me.

Okay, so the technical side.

There's no any blind alleys.

All right.

Don't talk about wizards.

Straight down the middle.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you need two pieces.

You need fulfillment of the soul on the blockchain, and my technical friends can do that, and they might take a cut, but that's okay.

And then on the other side, you need demand.

You need to kind of

do some work to get people aware that the soul is for sale because it's my soul.

Jason, we all know that you can attach a soul to a blockchain simply by putting it on one.

We know that you have secret wizard friends who are able to do it.

But yeah, I'm wondering, where's the market for this?

Who wants to buy Jason's soul?

How do you reach those people?

What is your promotional budget?

Shark tank it for me, my friend.

Tell me how it goes.

Excellent.

So what we would do is, because we have no money to put into it, is go for a PR approach.

And so Australia, and I'm not sure if this is the case in the US, but our morning television in particular,

will put literally anything on the air if there is a half decent media release written.

Sure.

And so the goal would be to hit all of those easily accessible, high content value for them opportunities.

So we'd be getting into the kook circuit on Australian Time TV.

Exactly.

Like the person who married themselves, I would be the guy who was selling his soul on the blockchain and they get to talk about blockchain.

We have listeners, by the way, who have married themselves.

So please tread lightly.

It is a valid life choice.

I apologize.

Hannah did a great job.

Jason, what's the evidence for your claim you can get on these morning shows?

What morning shows have you been on?

This is a very good point.

I have not personally been on the morning shows, but

people I've worked with in a professional capacity have gotten on for various things like digital wheels or

mattresses in a box or...

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

First, you're making fun of people who marry themselves.

Now you're making fun of mattresses in a box.

What do you want to destroy all podcasts?

He's very pro mattress in a box.

I'm actually quite pro.

That's the lifeblood of all podcasts.

The premier Australian mattress in a box business was, in fact, my employer for a number of years.

So I am very pro the mattress in the box.

Did they get to go on morning television?

They did, but I think...

They ended up actually buying an infomercial and doing a comedic take.

You don't have any money.

You have to put yourself on the cookie.

Are you going to break into that

highly competitive circuit it's true it's true send a press release press release you know yeah and i know someone who does do these press releases for other people and i could ask a favor and all right they could kind of dress it up appropriately beyond the television the morning television circuit is that your whole plan it's most of my plan you're putting all your souls in that basket it really is yeah and hopefully from the back of that it's you know vaguely interesting enough any top target any ideal

my my idea and this is also for personal reasons i think if you really boil it down.

I think a lot of this is for personal reasons, yes.

I think most of it's pretty civic-minded.

Making the world just a titsy bit better.

No,

there's a morning show which is hosted by a gentleman called Koshi, and I kind of want to get on to Koshi's morning show.

Now, you sent in some evidence, the two of you, including some samples of David Kosh.

Okay.

And

you send in a photo of him, and he's, you know, he's in that classic TV contrarian pose.

He's got one arm under his elbow with one finger touching his lips whimsically, and some clips from his show.

He's a very spry guy.

You describe him, I believe, Alina, you send in this evidence, as a boomer dad TV presenter that Jason wants to be interviewed by.

Koshi is like a financial commentator, right, on these shows?

Bafflingly, he's also the main anchor host.

So he manages to maintain a portfolio career of, he's got his own internet-only retail investor finance service, media platform, which is his own kind of business.

And he also is the anchor host on, I think it's called Mornings or...

It's Sunrise, Jay.

Sunrise, my mistake.

Oh, my God.

Alina.

He doesn't even know the name of the show that he wants to be on.

That he wants to be on, that he knows he can get on.

That he knows he can get on.

What are you going to do?

Write them a letter saying, hey, I would love to be on your show, whatever it's called.

I know Kashi.

Let's make this happen.

Signed, soul seller, Jason.

I think Jason is hoping that his idea is so enticing and appealing that that will be enough for them to want to have him on.

Hey, first to market, if Grimes weren't already out there for 10 million.

If you could be possibly the first Australian, perhaps, I mean, I could see that could be compelling to a morning TV show.

But you've got no, I mean, are

Elena, do you think that he's secretly hoping that you're going to step in and be the grown-up in this situation and like remind him of the names of the shows that he wants to be on?

I think that

definitely would only happen with my genuine support and help because he's not that great at the administration side of things.

I would say that your presentation so far, and this is not personal, but has been a little lackluster.

This is a very interesting idea,

but you're, but you're telling it in a very sideways kind of way.

And every now and then you bring up an idea, and then you don't remember what the name of the show is going to be.

There's not a lot of pizzazz in this soul-selling scheme.

Yeah, I'd like to see you wearing like an outfit covered in dollar signs or something like that.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, I need to see some props.

Do you know what I mean?

I need you like mopping up a spill with an incredible, with a sham wow or something and going like, this, this mop soaks up dollars because it's made of my soul i don't know something like that

judge hodgman you remember slim goodbody he was an american television personality who wore a spandex suit that had all his organs printed on it what if we got jason one of those

all right

but you can't find the soul on a map of your organs the soul is elusive that's what makes it so sellable you don't even know if it's real jason real talk do you do you believe your soul is real i have to say yes because i I want to sell it, but I don't think I'm going to miss it.

I think it may be gone.

You may have lost it a long time ago.

Alina.

Yes.

I know that you're agnostic on the subject of souls.

He says that he has to say he believes in it.

This is a scheme.

Is he misrepresenting?

I don't believe that Jason believes that he has a soul.

Yeah.

It's going to be a hard sell.

Although he has described himself in the past as a teacup agnostic.

So he probably believes there's like a tiny percent chance that it exists.

But as much as, what did you say, Jason?

A teacup is orbiting Saturn.

That's right.

I see.

I thought that that meant you were neutral on whether or not teacups themselves existed.

Yeah, I mean, look.

We can all agree teacups have souls.

We can all agree that they have souls.

What are some of the other ventures?

that Jason has presented in the past, Alina, and what does his habit of presenting them to you,

how does it bear on this topic?

Well, Jason has presented a range of business ideas and or schemes over the years.

Some of them have been really good.

And the only reason why he hasn't been able to do them has been just a variety of structural issues.

So there was a really good bank idea.

He was going to start a neobank, but somebody else did it first.

He had a business when we first got together called Cash Goat, which I honestly can't remember what it was, but I got behind 100%.

I I was wondering what this tea towel or something that you sent in, a photo of a tea towel or an embroidery?

It's an embroidery of a logo for the business idea that I did to show my full support of his business notary.

Is this your original design, Alina?

This cash goat?

It is, yes.

It's two goats facing each other.

It's beautifully needle-pointed.

It's kind of like they're on a dollar bill.

Oh, yeah, I can see that now.

Cash goat.

That's pretty incredible.

Jason,

what was Cash Goat and why didn't it work when it had one of the greatest needle-pointed logos of all time?

Cash Goat was a way for retail banking clients to turn themselves from cash cows into something much less attractive.

It would aggregate your banking relationship and seek out the best introductory rates for savings accounts across all of the major banks in Australia and automatically move your money about.

so that you could basically get that better rate.

Now, you know what?

That was an incredible presentation.

Didn't understand a word of what you were talking about, but it had obvious knowledge, it had obvious passion, and it had a plan.

And I think you believe that banks are real.

He was working for one at the time when he came up with the idea.

Why didn't you implement Cash Goat and put that

into the world?

Or did you?

And did it fail terribly?

And now I'm making you feel bad.

No, it was technically difficult.

Then it wasn't a big enough market.

There wasn't enough kind of value creation in doing that.

So it kind of went, was put on the back burner.

Right.

And goats don't have that much money traditionally.

That's the point.

You've got to shrink the cow to the goat.

You know, that's the end state.

That's the aspiration.

I understand.

You know, John, they don't need that much money.

I happened to visit some goats at a goat farm recently.

Right.

There were some dried leaves on the floor.

What happened?

Did they buy them?

The woman told me those are their Doritos.

What?

Dried leaves are Doritos for goats, so they don't need money.

They don't need to buy Doritos.

There's dried leaves right there.

That's what the woman told me.

I mean, in our household, that's a big slice of the pie chart.

The Dorito expenditures are very high.

If I were a goat, I could just be eating leaves for free.

Dried leaves, yes.

Elena, is there a business venture aside from Cash Goat that you wish Jason had followed through on that

is not selling his soul?

Oh, that's a good question.

He had a wonderful funeral business idea that he did actually work on for a while.

I would like to know more.

Jason, if you describe it, you should include the aquacremation element.

Yes, please include the aquacremation element.

Okay,

so I was working for the mattress, online mattress, direct-to-consumer mattress business at the time.

Do a tighter, shorter version, Jason.

Okay.

Wait a minute.

Let me just see if I can guess where this ends up.

You've got this mattress in the box.

Now use the box as a coffin, right?

It's not, but...

When do you buy a new mattress?

When someone has passed away in the family.

When your loved one dies, you simply slip them into the plastic sleeve provided, then attach a vacuum nozzle.

Reverse.

Reverse it.

That's a little dark humor.

Okay.

But I suppose the inner box was kind of relevant, at least thematically.

But from a business point of view, what's wonderful about the mattress business is that the amount of money it costs you to acquire a customer is kind of paid up front, and it's much better than other kind of business models on that channel.

Hang on a second, Jason.

This is what I want to hear from you.

Thank you so much for seeing me today, Judge John Hodgman.

You know, people have been dying for a long time.

And what are your choices when you die?

How do you lay your loved ones to rest?

You bury them in the earth or you bury them at sea or maybe you cremate them and sprinkle their ashes around.

Or if you're really fancy, you follow your loved ones' will and taxiderm them so they can be around forever, diaphanized by your mantelpiece.

How about a new fresh choice for a new fresh generation?

Or let's say not so fresh, right?

Because they're corpses.

Anyway, little joke for you.

I'm here with a remarkable new technology, a remarkable new funeral business that's going to change the way you look at funerals for the rest of your natural life.

What is it?

Now I'm listening.

It's called aquamation or aquacremation.

So the problem with regular regular cremations is that they use a lot of energy.

A lot of carbon goes into the atmosphere.

And they also only have one name, cremation.

Why have one?

It can be aquamation or aquacremation.

Exactly.

Sense right there.

You get all of those search terms.

Jason, I just want you to know I love you.

I'm just teasing you.

I apologize.

So the technology is very old and well known,

but I think, frankly, we've just been too squeamish to use it.

So instead of

burning the disposing of a body by putting them into a very hot kiln, one puts the body into an alkaline solution at moderate heat over a period of three or four hours

and create a really nutrient-dense fertilizer, which can then be used to support various wonderful gardens where people can walk to remember their loved ones in a much greener and

almost more natural

question for you.

If my loved one passes away and I have them acrimated or acramated or or acricrimated,

what do I take away from the process at the end?

And can it be poured down a toilet in Disney World?

So

you wouldn't take the fertilizer, but you do get ashes out of the process.

So like cremation.

Yeah, like cremation.

You get the same thing.

Alina, I think maybe selling his soul is all he's got left.

Of all the ideas I've heard pitched, that's the one I barely understand.

What about his Prince-Prince shop?

I believe that was a scheme, not a true business idea, though.

What was the venture?

Prince-Prince?

It was a shop that sold Prince of Prince.

Prince of the artist, formerly and forever known as Prince.

Correct.

Well, I see.

You could extend it, though, and print other princes like Andrew and Philip.

Let's not.

Let's not extend it to them.

That's fair.

I think that's a good choice.

It was a different choice.

You got a great prince.

You got a great prince that everyone can agree is.

What about getting tattoos of Prince the artist at the end of your finger, and then you have Prince, Prince?

Prince, Prince, Prince.

All right.

If I were to rule in your favor, Jason, what would you have me order?

I would like the option to sell my soul, even if I don't use it.

Why would I rule in your favor if you're not going to use it?

I feel like it's a bit of an overstep.

Are you a little scared?

If I rule in your favor, you are clear to sell your soul on blockchain.

Alina is out of the equation.

What else could be holding you back?

Is there some spiritual squeamishness?

No, the bottom of the NFT market has fallen out.

And because as the discussion today has illustrated, I won't be the first globally.

I'm not sure how deep and valuable the market for first Australian soul on the blockchain might be.

So I'm not sure the commercials will add up.

Alina, if I were to rule in your favor, what would you have me order?

Well, I would like an injunction to stop Jason from ever selling his soul while we're married.

And I would also like him to have to find a way to signal to me whether or not something he is pitching to me is a true business idea or a scheme that I don't have to get so involved in.

Well, but the schemes are also legit.

They're not jokes.

If anything, we've finally, in our culture, gotten clarity between what is a business idea and what is a scheme.

Business idea, what creates somewhat more worth for the world, and a scheme is just a goof that genuinely would make money.

Well, I end up having to get quite involved in Jason's business ideas and schemes.

It can take up a lot of my life.

And we have a little baby at the moment.

So I have less capacity.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

But I have less capacity for extended planning for both businesses and schemes.

So he should pick what he wants my energy to go towards.

If I may ask, how old is that baby?

15 months.

Oh, yeah.

That's a nice fresh soul.

That's a good one.

Not Jason with his old soul.

How old are you, Jason, if I may ask?

35.

That soul has gone off.

Throw it in the bin, as they say.

Got a nice, fresh soul in the house.

Don't worry, I'm not going to make you sell your baby soul.

It's not going to be part of my ruling.

Does Jason genuinely put a lot of mental load on you as he's brainstorming his schemes and his ideas?

It depends on which one.

Prince Prince, not so much,

but definitely some of the

more

serious ideas we spend a lot of time thinking about and talking about and exploring.

Do you take pleasure in them?

To a certain extent.

Do you cease taking pleasure in discussing business ideas when it becomes clear that they're simply thought experiments that aren't going to happen?

Yes, particularly if they're things that I don't actually think Jason should do, like selling his soul.

Why is it important to you, Jason, to be an entrepreneur?

Ooh, there's a question.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jason has apparently just passed away.

I've seen his soul leave his body, and they're coming on the Zoom now to aqua cremate him as per his final wishes.

Please.

It's...

I think the creative problem solving at the start of a business venture is very interesting

and fun and enjoyable.

It is like my version of doing the crossword.

As I've come to

know myself more, I realize like this is what I do for fun rather than what I do for money.

So it is the act of thinking what might be and thinking it through it at sometimes a little bit too much detail.

I think more so than the act of genuinely going after a thing.

until I suppose I find the thing where there isn't a reason to stop and that might never come.

But to date, there's always been a reason to stop with the schemes or the business ideas.

Okay.

So it hasn't happened yet, but you enjoy the thought process.

I do.

Is there anyone else in your life that you can talk to about this than Alina?

Maybe someone in a Wantrepreneur club down the road

in the local shrimp and barbie hut or whatever, like you could go to?

This is a very good point.

I do have other people in my life to tell me that things are bad ideas or good ideas.

No bad ideas.

I'm not talking about that.

That's what Alina is for.

I'm talking about friends who also enjoy the thought experiments.

You know, because when you say it's like a crossword puzzle to me, a crossword puzzle tends to be a relatively solo pastime.

I mean, you might chat with your loved one about like, what do you think three down is or whatever, but it's usually an internal monologue, not a monologue you thrust upon your life partner.

Maybe, but there could be a friend that loves to talk about these schemes is there someone alina in in jason's life like that or no jason does have a number of uh business friends true friends that also are business nerds sure and i think jason does already talk to other people about his business ideas particularly maybe less so his schemes um and i think for me that's part of where my

desire for him not to sell his soul comes from because I get asked all the time about his previous business ideas from our friends.

What happened to the funeral business?

What happened to the bank?

And I'm the one who has to talk at length about why it didn't work out.

And I don't want to have to talk to our friends about Jason's failed attempt to sell his soul because it's a bit embarrassing.

If it goes for less than 50,000, it's going to be pretty rough.

Or worse if nobody buys it.

I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I'm going to

I'm going to go into my own personal hell and sit here for a while and stew, and I'll be back in a moment moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Alina, how are you feeling about your chances?

Ooh, I think it could go either way.

So nervous.

What do you think could be the worst thing that could happen?

Well, I'm glad that the judge has ruled out ordering us to sell our baby's soul, because that would definitely be the worst outcome.

But following that, giving Jason permission to sell his soul would be a pretty devastating start to my day here.

Jason, how are you feeling?

Pretty good.

You're still nodding over there.

I've been nodding continuously this whole time.

I feel like the judge understood the gist of the idea and understood the pleasing elements of it.

What's the line between successful and unsuccessful on this sale?

When the sale goes through, what's the number you need to see on the ledger to know that you didn't fail?

A deposit deposit for

a median house in our area, which is, unfortunately, $350,000.

So aim high.

So

if you sold your soul and you got $200,000, Australian,

that would be a failure?

I think so.

It's my soul.

Wow.

All right.

Well,

inflation.

Everything's gotten expensive in Australia.

I just want to put it out there.

I don't know what blockchains are.

I don't know how they work.

But if anybody's got 200 grand on my soul, let's do this.

We'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a second on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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 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 Hubba.

I'm regular Tom Lom.

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

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

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

You have a television show that's about to be on television here.

D-I-C-K-T-O-W-N, that spells Dicktown.

That's what we named our television show.

David Reese and I made a cartoon detective show for adults, juvenile adults, pretty much.

The whole first season is at bit.ly slash Dicktown, D-I-C-K-T-O-W-N.

And the long anticipated, some thought it would never happen, including me, second season of Dick Town premieres on March 3rd, 2022, 10 p.m.

on FXX.

That's 3-3-22, 10 p.m.

FXX, or catch it, and all episodes the next day, Friday, streaming on Hulu.

Every Thursday this March, you're going to get a brand new episode of D-I-C-K-T-O-W-N.

That's Dick Town.

We named that television show Dick Town.

Please check it out.

We're very excited about it.

This first night, you're going to hear guest voices from John Glazer, Kristen Schall, Maximum Funds owned Joe Firestone, and Manolo Moreno from Dr.

Game Show, an incredible Dick Town theme as performed by Weird Al Yankovic.

Tune in with us, won't you?

Dicktown, 10 p.m.

premieres March the 3rd, 2022.

FXX, and then Hulu the next day.

Jesse Thorne, what do you have going on?

Well, I just hired a new shop guy and to put this on shop.

You know, my vintage and antique store.

Yeah, a new shop guy.

Yeah, his name's Brett.

Great guy.

All right.

Yeah, he used to work at a shoe retailer.

They transferred his job over to Louisville, Kentucky.

He said,

I'm staying in LA with my girlfriend in Long Beach.

Yeah.

So I said, you're hired, Brett.

He's doing a great job.

And guess what?

Now that I got Brett there in the office mailing stuff out, I'm going to have an epic sale this week only for judge john hodgman listeners and brett's gonna mail it right to you practically the same day you order it holy moly it's the brett sale only happens once a year go to putthison shop.com use the code brett b-r-e-t-t yeah 35 off anything in the store this week only whoa this week only use the code brett this is in honor of the hiring of brett he's a nice guy he runs a cassette tape label he has a band where he makes growling sounds.

A rock band with growing sound.

This is in honor of Brett.

God bless him.

USA number one.

Put thisonshop.com.

Use the code Brett, B-R-E-T-T, 35% off anything in there.

This is a deal that you're not going to get anywhere else.

Wait one millisecond.

Are you talking about if I go to put this on shop and I pick out the sterling silver and gold-filled eagle ring, 35% off that?

Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to like it, but I'm going to sell it to you.

that's i'm really gonna have to gulp but it's gonna it's gonna go because look i got brett there i gotta keep him busy vintage american air cadet grease monkey pin 35 off that 35 off that right now right here right now if you use the code brett but only this week john

look anybody out there got size 11 shoes because there's some vintage alden calf skin tassel loafers at a good price as is 35 off holy moly these loafs are a steal put this on shop.com and use the code brett this week only ends March 3rd.

It's the most briderful time of the year.

Let's get back to the case.

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

So I don't know who Alex Mazmej is, and I don't know if I'm pronouncing that name correctly, M-A-S-M-A-G, but I was checking out crypticcrypt.co, which is this website.

And apparently, he sold fractional shares of himself as customized tokens on the Ethereum blockchain.

And this is himself, not just his soul, the whole thing.

The tokens allow token holders to vote on aspects of his life and even make a profit from any money he makes.

And he topped out at $20,000.

$20,000, not so great compared to what you were looking for.

But let me tell you this, he didn't include his soul.

It just was his life.

Life is cheap.

But his soul, I mean,

something special about that.

No matter what your belief system or disbelief system is, is obviously a very highly charged metaphor that

runs through a lot of our culture.

And whether it's Bedazzled or

Tommy Johnson or Robert Johnson selling their respective souls to the devil at the crossroads to be able to play blues, whether it's Sammy Davis Jr.

trying to take Jack Klugman's immortal soul, he spoiler alert, he fails at the end.

That's why all Jack Klugmans go to heaven.

It's a very, very compelling idea that you could have, I mean, you could have whatever you want.

You could sell your soul for the most unbelievable wish in the world, which sadly, in this day and age, is the down payment on a house.

The most unimaginable, unattainable thing that you could possibly have is simply a down payment on a place to live.

Late stage capitalism is messed up.

Even I can acknowledge that.

50-year-old man.

It is a highly charged idea.

It does not surprise me, sadly, to learn that Grimes beats you to the punch there.

Although Crimes is just selling a handmade certificate, not a blockchain.

There's no blockchain element to it.

There is no eternal proof of ownership.

And it has to be eternal because we are talking about the eternal soul.

And even though I have to say that your presentation in the shark tank was rather lacklustered, Jason, I find you very charming indeed, very likable.

I can see why anyone would want to marry you and be in a relationship with you and be a co-parent with you.

You're terrific.

I have no business commenting on business, but whatever business opportunity you ever seek to seize,

I think you got to work on your presentation skills.

Make it short, snappy, convincing, particularly if you want to go on

Koshi's show.

He's not going to allow you to dither about talking about your friends who mess around with potions of the exotic crypto web or whatever it is.

He's going to get confused and move on.

This is my business advice to you, my friend.

Tighten it up a little bit.

But that said, it's a great idea.

It was the first time I had ever heard of it.

And even after chatting with you and saying, like, okay, well,

you know, he's not a very natural salesperson for his own soul, but who would be?

Does he even really want to sell it?

Isn't that part of the charge of it?

And you said, I have no promotional budget.

I have no marketing budget.

I have no this.

I was beginning to feel like maybe I should be one of these sharks in the shark tank.

I'm like, okay, I'll invest X amount of dollars and I'll take 5% of every soul share you sell.

Because on the one hand, I was thinking,

that's a funny joke.

And on the other hand, I was like, well, look, if he's really first to market with this thing, I don't know.

He could probably, you know, Jesse Thorne, we could probably help him get booked on some Australian morning shows, right?

I'll call Yahoo Sirius.

Yeah, thank you.

Direct line to Yahoo Sirius over there.

So,

and I was like,

as a joke, it's sort of funny.

It's got a certain charge, a little charge to it.

And then there's a part of me that's like, you know what?

But this thing might go, because I'm seeing these NFTs go through the roof.

I didn't know the bottom had dropped out of the market.

Sorry.

I don't read NFT Daily or whatever.

but you know my jonathan colton's over there messing around with nfts and talking about them all the time i'm like what if i could say to my friend jonathan yeah guess what i'm into souls now trading souls on the market i just have a piece of a piece of a soul it'd be pretty cool to stay around town and maybe it would sell a lot and maybe we'd both get rich

and then alina you would you'd be happy until the devil came to claim what is theirs.

But even if all of those conditions were met, even if I had money to give you, even if I loved your presentation, even if no one had ever thought of this idea, you were the first person in the world and was guaranteed to get you on Koshi first thing in the morning, five days a week, five appearances.

I don't think I could do it because though I am an agnostic, there's just something too schemy about it.

You know what I mean?

Seedy, unseemly.

It's your soul.

It's your soul.

It's who you are.

Even as a metaphor, that's critical.

You don't want to sell yourself.

You want to sell a product like

a casket made out of a mattress box or whatever it is.

I don't think I could get behind it.

So I can't rule in your favor, but, but, but I have a counteroffer for you.

Are you willing to hear it?

I am.

Here in the Judge John Hodgman organization, we pride ourselves in fine podcasts, fine live shows, and also,

from time to time, custom.

what we call t-shirts in America.

We've had some very famous ones.

I'm sure you've seen them around legendary legendary t-shirts like Canadian House of Pizza and Garbage, Kung Pao Finance Factory,

I'm With Claudius.

They're based on things that come up in the show and we'll make them from time to time.

Now, Jesse, Jennifer, and I, the whole J squad, have been talking lately about rebooting our t-shirt biz such that if a really great t-shirt idea pops up on the show, that we'll note it right then, get the word immediately to Adam Coford, who's designed quite a few t-shirts in our past past and has agreed to be on retainer for Emergency T-shirt Club.

Work up a design for that t-shirt, and then we get it out to market and it's available only for how long, Jennifer Marmer?

How long is it available for?

I don't remember what we said.

A week?

I think two weeks.

I think two weeks.

Two weeks.

Artificial scarcity.

Ooh.

A t-shirt comes in, special edition.

Kids line up around the block.

to get into the store one after another.

We've got pop-up shops going, of course.

Not really.

We just sell them on maxfunstore.com.

And I have a t-shirt idea, but it's inspired by you.

And in fact, as much as I love Adam Cofford, there's not a lot for him to do in this because I think we should be selling cash goat t-shirts for sure.

I mean, this is an incredible image.

This is an incredible logo.

It's evocative.

It's mysterious.

It's got the words cash and goat in it.

In what I consider to be the right order, goat cash would never have worked.

I mean, mean, it's a solid name of a company.

Now, Jason, you would retain all ownership of the company.

Elena, you would retain all ownership of the logo.

This would be a license situation.

And Jason,

you can still make that company go if you can get anyone to ever understand what it is.

I'm talking about, we'll come to some terms.

We'll get a cash goat t-shirt up using this image.

as the design.

Get that up on the maxfundstore.com, two-week exclusive, and we'll give you a percentage.

Let's start negotiating.

Come to the table.

What do you say?

I think we're in.

Absolutely.

Well, that's a great, great negotiating tactic.

I thought we were going to talk about a percentage.

I'm just going to put it down.

You're in for anything.

Got it.

Fantastic.

And we'll all be cash goats together.

It was really great talking to you.

I'm glad that you get to keep your soul.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge Sean Hodgman rules, that is all.

Please rise as Judge Sean Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Alina, how do you feel about getting rich?

Elated.

Yeah.

How about you, Jason?

A bit disappointed.

It means I don't have to come up with new schemes.

Well, you know, we'll see how it ends up.

I don't think you could not come up with new schemes if you tried.

Jason Alina, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

You know what else is in the books?

The brand new Judge John Hodgman scheme cash goat t-shirt at maxfundstore.com.

I can't wait.

I'm going to create an incredible bit.ly for this cash goat t-shirt.

Can't people just go to maxfundstore.com for a while.

Yeah, you know what, everybody?

Go to Max.

You know what?

Yeah, that's right.

Save me a step.

I'll pass the savings along to you.

Go to maxfundstore.com.

T-shirt club starts in earnest, reboots with a kick like a kick from a goat.

Cash goat t-shirts available any minute now at maxfundstore.com.

Help Jason fulfill his dream and retain his soul and help Alina help say thanks to Alina for this incredible design.

Cash goat at maxfundstore.com.

We've got swift justice in just a moment.

First, our thanks to Twitter users at Amelia E.

Helmfer

and at Paul Seeger4 for naming this week's episode, Suing for Soul Custody.

If you want to name a future episode, follow us on Twitter for naming opportunities at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

While you're there, you can also hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ Ho.

Jesse,

I just want to say, suing for soul custody, very funny name.

Reserve the right to reuse it, suing for soul custody, S-O-L-E, for any disputes around Dover Soul or any fillet of soul.

Great.

Thank you, John.

I'm glad.

Glad we clarified that.

What if there are bottom of a shoe disputes?

I think it's a little on the nose.

Okay.

Fair enough.

Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets.

Hashtag JJ H.

O.

We're on Reddit, maximumfund.reddit.com.

Evidence and photos from the show posted on our Instagram account at instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman.

I'm going to send this picture that Oscar, my son who was on the show recently, drew of me podcasting.

I'm pretty sure it's me doing the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Yeah.

You mean the Judge Oscar Thorne podcast, as it is now known?

Yeah.

He pretty much stole the show.

Yeah.

I'm going to send that over to you, John, and

Jennifer.

We'll put that up on the Instagram.

I'd like to see it.

I'm saying blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And you're saying, okay, okay, okay.

Okay.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Our editor is Valerie Moffat.

Now, Swift Justice, where we answer small disputes with quick judgment.

James says, my friend doesn't like that I almost always back into parking spaces.

Backing into parking spaces is a real skill.

My guess is your friend is jealous and lazy.

And you, James, are the cash goats.

Cash goat of the week.

Good for you, backing into parking spaces.

Cha-chi!

Matt!

And hey, speaking of backing into parking spaces, if you've got a dispute about vehicles and transportation, you got a driving dispute, you got a car dispute, you got a truck dispute, train dispute, hit us up.

Maximumfund.org slash JJHO.

I would really love some airship disputes would be terrific.

Dirigible or dirigible.

Do you require a frame?

Any airship.

That's why I said any airship, any submarines.

Vehicle disputes, send them to maximumfund.org slash jjho.

Also, take a goat dispute if you got one.

And any dispute, the whole engine of the show are your disputes, personal, philosophical, with your friends, partners, loved ones, liked ones.

No cases too small.

So please remember to submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ H O.

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

MaximumFund.org.

Comedy and culture.

Artist owned.

Audience supported.