A Chime For All Seasons

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
We're in chambers this week, clearing the docket. And with me is the man they call the chamois king, Judge John Hodgman.

I'm a chamois king because of this comfy overshirt that I'm wearing. Yeah, and also because you're so good at drying off cars without leaving water spots.
That's true. That's true.

I don't leave a mark. I don't leave a mark.
No one will ever know that I existed on this earth.

That's absolutely true. You're leaving a mark on our hearts, John.
A dark mark on our hearts. I came and I smoothed some things over.

And in generations to come, no one will know what happened. This is the part of the show, by the way, that in our script says Hodgman and then in brackets, talks, period.
Close brackets.

Which will be Hodgman and Jesse Thorne talk. Yeah.
Period. I don't know where the brackets go in that.
Because after all, Jesse, you are my friend and bailiff. We missed you very much.
I missed you.

Over the past couple of weeks, of course, last week, we all took a break as everyone needs you from time to time. And the week before that, you weren't feeling so good migraine-wise.

I hope your head is feeling as okay as possible today. Nope.
No, no. I'm sorry.
Let's go. Let's do it.
Let's power through.

Well, I'm very, very glad you're here, along with Jennifer Marmor. Thank you, John.
Here's a case from Robert. I recently discovered my foot odor has become more putrid.

I attempted to address this situation by changing my socks on a daily basis.

But to know of what?

Wait, wait, wait. Roll that, roll that, roll that feet back.

So, first sentence, first sentence, I recently discovered my foot odor has become more putrid. I don't know if you discovered this as part of an archaeological dig.

I don't know if.

Already there are more questions than answers in that sentence, in that statement. I attempted to address the situation by changing my socks on a daily basis,

but to no avail. I mean, if that was a change, I have concerns, but I'm going to keep reading.
So wait a minute. So he recently discovered his foot odor has become more putrid.

There's a whole story there of this discovery that I need to hear. Yeah.
And then there's the situation. What was going on with his socks before? Was he trying to get sick fades?

Obviously, he was not changing his socks every day. So this leads me to believe that this is actually a case for juvenile court and Robert is some

child, a youth of some kind. Probably not someone who's old enough to be married.
My wife is recommending that I use foot powder, but I want to avoid another indication that I'm becoming an old-timer.

How do I escape this conundrum? Well, all right, I stand corrected. You are old enough to be married legally wherever you live.

Your worry about becoming an old-timer is undermined a little bit by your willingness to use the word conundrum. Seems like there is some old-timerness in you to begin with, Robert.

Yeah, plus I can hear you whittling from here. Jesse,

you ever use a foot powder?

I've never had occasion to use a foot powder. I've occasionally used a powder on other parts of my body that are

relatively humid. You don't suffer from bromodosis? No, I don't have bromodosis.
Foot stink. Yeah.
Powders for men, I can understand why they're a little divisive. They're a little old-timey.

I love powdering. You got a powder? You got a powder to wreck? Here's the thing.
Yeah. My co-host on Jordan Jesse Go, Jordan Morris,

is a big powder advocate. Really? Absolutely.
He loves to talc up. Oh.
And

he'll use a medicated powder. Right, like a gold bond.
I wasn't going to say the brand name, but yes, he uses a gold bond, medicated powder for the tingle. Wait a minute.
What's the tingle?

It comes from the medication, which I think is just like menthol or something. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, I got you.

And

I thought the tingle was

an intimate problem that Jordan had. You know, Jesse, I got the tingle this week, so I got to get the gold bond medicated powder.
Yeah, that's possible too. And I gave it a try.

Coming from a moist and cool climate in the San Francisco Bay Area,

I had never needed it. Okay.
But I gave it a try since I live here in the hot and occasionally swampy Southern California region. Right.
And I found that I liked it a lot.

The only problem was I realized that it, no matter what I did, it got in my nose and made me sneeze. And then also it probably like causes cancer if it gets in your nose.

So I just, I went ahead and stopped. Look, years ago, I stood at an empty intersection in the city of New Haven counting traffic.
That was my college job. I was counting traffic.

You can read all about it in my book, Medallion Status or Vacation Land. It's in one of them.
You know why I was counting traffic, Jesse? Why? I don't know either.

Trying to decide whether to put a big box retailer on that corner.

I saw an ad in the Yale Station Post Office saying traffic counter needed. And guess how much they were paying in 1989? $5.75 an hour.
$12 an hour. Holy mad.
I know, right?

Look, Jennifer Marmor looked right up. No wonder they went Ivy League with that kind of pay.
$12 an hour is just roughly $10,000 an hour in today's money.

I mean, if you've got a $12 an hour traffic counting job, you're only going to the Yale and Harvard post offices. You're not even going to the Penn post office.

I felt that work was a requirement for an ethical life, and I liked the idea of $12 an hour because I knew where they would sell me bourbon underage. Don't listen to that, kids.

Anyway, I would get up at like five or six o'clock in the morning, count traffic for two hours, Then I'd go to class, then in the middle of the day, count traffic for another two hours.

Then in the evening, go count traffic for another two hours. And it was in November, and it was cold and lonely work.
And I'd count how many cars went left, right, and what's the other one? Forward.

And then

I would go give my sheet of information that I could have easily just made up while sitting by my fire in the common room of my suite. We didn't have a fire.
not a legal one.

I could easily make the data up, but of course I was there clicking it away, wearing five pairs of pants, freezing in the Connecticut morning as the sun came up and went down, et cetera.

And I would give it to my supervisor at a different location every week. We would meet at a different coffee, like it was very suspicious.
And I would give it to her.

And after several weeks of this, I said, why am I doing this? What are we counting the traffic for? And she said, I don't know.

It goes all the way to the top, John. All the way to the top.

But the reason I bring it up is that that was my introduction to AM radio because every shift I would borrow slash steal Steve Kahn's walkman to listen to my Billy Bragg tape.

And the batteries lasted about seven minutes.

And when they died and I heard the last of the Billy Bragg songs, I had nothing to listen to but AM radio and the strongest signal was WAMC-77 in New York City, flagship talk station of a lot of different, then it was a mix.

of liberal and conservative talk hosts, but it was growing conservative. That's where I first heard Rush Limbaugh alone on a New Haven intersection counting traffic.
I heard Rush Limbaugh.

So even in 1989, I knew what was coming. This potent stew of grievance and bully talk and giddy revisionism.
And, you know, frankly, and Jesse, I hope this doesn't offend you.

Frankly, good broadcast, like Rush Limbaugh was a broadcaster. That guy knew how to talk about it.
That doesn't offend me at all.

He used to be on in the mid-days on the sports talk station when I was a teen. Yeah.
And the reason he became famous was because he was good at his job. He was really good.

He connected. He could be funny.
It was scary to hear, God or whatever, damn it.

Because after listening to Billy Bragg's singing of the sin of private property, all of a sudden I heard this great, energized, right-wing alternative reality taking shape that I would know nothing about if I didn't decide to count traffic for $12 an hour.

It was one of the best lessons that I got while I was at Yale, and I got it for free. I was paid to get it.
I mean, I heard the word feminazi in 1989. I heard it all then, and I did nothing about it.

And now we live in it.

This is a tangent. Took a break from political engagement last year because, well, for reasons, obvious, but it's a new year.
I got to get back to my phone banks.

While we must all do the best we can to take care of ourselves, whatever you can do in the world to reflect and promote your values, whatever they may be, I encourage you to do it.

But during this time, listening to AM Radio, I also listened to a lot of ads for gold bond medicated powder.

I heard a lot of, a lot of ads for people who were not me, homeowners, for example. I heard a lot of ads for natural gas.
There's one I remember very distinctly. It goes like this.

Oil heats a dinosaur. Dinosaur, dinosaur, oil heats a dinosaur.
Oil heats a dinosaur. Gas is how we heat today.

Wow.

Gold bond medicated powder. I heard those words for the first time.
I felt like I was getting a psychic telegram from like 1893.

They might as well be like the Ovalteen Magic Decoder Ring, but it's a real product. And they would not, they would never talk about it.
They would be like, Do you, gentlemen, do you have the tingle?

Try gold bond medicated powder. Remember, it's medicated and it's a powder.
Like, I was like, ooh, I knew it was not for me. I knew it was for only for the people who knew what it was, you know.

And it was not for me because I was young then, but I am old now.

I know what gold bond medicated powder is and what it is for.

I am so old that my son has said to me,

you smell like your father, his grandfather. Terrifying thing to hear.
I mean, my dad smells fine, but he smells like an older gentleman. Robert, I'm talking to you now.
I'm an older man.

I use ointments for fingernail ailments before I go to bed. That's how old I am.
You are also old, Robert. Your body is changing.
Your sweat and bacteria profile is more robust.

I don't know where you live, but if you move to an area like Jesse Thorne moved to, the hot swamps of Southern California, you probably sweat more. And you know what else makes you sweat? Stress.

The stress that you engage in to deny that you are aging, that will make you age faster, emotionally, if not physically. Embrace who you are.
You, Robert, have bromodosis. You're a bromo bro.

You got moist feet. And the bacteria that process the sweat cannot keep up and so it stinks.
Changing your socks once a day is something you should have been doing since you were a child. Yeah.

That's astonishing. It's the dampness of your feet that causes this problem, you see.
And similarly, if you don't allow your shoes to air out properly and dry before you put them on again,

that bromidosis is going to become bromoworsis. So you can take those measures.
Keep your feet dry. Make sure you air out your shoes, switch them up, but they may not do it.

Robert, I think you need powders. And I'm going to tell you what AM radio wouldn't tell me in 1989.
Gold bond medicated powder, foot powder, maximum strength, active ingredients, menthol.

That's what gives you that cooling feeling. Also, talc, sodium bicarbonate, acacia, benzothonium chloride.
Don't know what that one is. Eucalysis oil, peppermint oil, we know what those are.

It's that talc and that baking soda that absorbs odors and absorbs moisture. That's what it's doing for you.
The idea is to absorb moisture. Now, some people don't like talc for various reasons.

And if you don't want to go gold bond because you feel it's like it makes you feel like a dinosaur, like oil heat, there are plenty of fancy foot powders out there with tasteful labels designed by thoughtful people in Oregon who will take your extra money to sell you foot powder that makes you feel like a cool guy and not an old guy.

Just literally Google fancy foot powder and pick the first brand with the coolest label from a company that definitely has an ampersand in the name. So it's like foot and pit or branch and

Hulk figurine is what I, the first thing I could think of. All the labels are just going to have a shirtless guy doing that old-timey boxing stance.
Yeah, exactly. Go give a powder a try.

Be who you are, a growing older person. Do not fight age.
Embrace it. Fighting age will make you age faster.
Take it from a guy who's wearing a snapback vintage hockey hat.

You don't want to look like me trying to deny my own age.

Here's something from Poppy in Cross River, New York. My husband keeps a plunger in the shower, which I find disgusting, even though it is a quote dedicated shower tool, unquote.

He insists he has to use it every other day to unclog what he assumes is my hair clogging the drain. What I haven't told him is that I hardly ever shampoo my hair.
Therefore, it cannot be my fault.

Please end this dispute and determine which one of us is more disgusting.

So, Jesse Thorne, dedicated shower tool. Am I to take from this that...
This is not a multi-appliance plunger.

He's got one plunger for the shower and one plunger for the toilet and never the twing shell need. Okay.
Exactly.

Wow.

Jennifer Marmer, what's your initial take on this? My initial take is

that I don't think Poppy is disgusting for not washing her hair a lot.

That is a thing that is becoming more and more common. We talk about you don't necessarily have to wash your hair every day or, you know, a lot of

different ethnicities have different hair care regimens and, you know, that's great.

I also

shampoo my hair sparingly. Right.
I

shampoo my hair every day with a single pea-sized drop of Johnson and Johnson's baby shampoo.

And then

I have my son whisper on it, a single secret phrase that takes two seconds to say, and then it is dry as a bone because I have wispy fine hair.

So I think the implication that I took from this is that Poppy's husband is accusing her hair of clogging the drain, but it can't be her hair because she rarely ever washes it. Right.

And she doesn't want to admit that because she's, I guess, worried about judgment. I haven't told him, right.
Which is why she's submitting this. to a podcast where everyone will hear.

Everyone will hear

her hair. Thank you for catching that, Jennifer.
There are a lot of vectors here. Yeah, I had missed that nuance.
What I haven't told him is I hardly ever shampoo my hair.

Therefore, it cannot be my fault.

So, Poppy, you are forced to shower with a plunger in the corner, essentially as a symbol of shame on you from your husband because he believes that your hair is clogging the drain to the extent that he needs a dedicated plunger in the shower.

And while you know that it is not likely your hair that is clogging the shower, but presumably his, you won't tell him this because of perhaps a shame that you don't want to admit that you don't wash your hair very often.

Woo. Can we break it down here, please? First issue.
Is it disgusting to have a shower plunger in the shower? Yes.

Huh. I don't care.
I don't want a shower next to a plunger, even though I know that it's only in the shower. Get it out of there.
Okay. Find a home for that thing.

You think that's a poop tool, fundamentally. Yeah.

That's what it's meant for. And I also just don't want anything in the shower that doesn't need to be in the shower.
Oh, you want that to be a clean space. Yeah.

And also, I mean, my shower is a bathtub shower situation. It's a claw foot tub.

Not to brag.

They could walk away at any moment.

Exactly. That's what's so scary about those claw foot tubs.
Exactly. I had my tub declawed.
That's a whole other conversation, Jesse. I'm not ready to go there.
Very controversial choice.

I don't even want to look at the Reddit after you admitted that.

You know, so the floor space is at a premium.

I don't want to kick a plunger over while I'm trying to shave my legs or whatever. Okay, so number two question.

It's all a number two question when you think about it, because that's what the plunger is for. Wait a minute.
Can I just say something? Also, the plunger is the wrong tool for this job. Yeah.

That is a great point. You want him to keep an auger in there?

You can put a hair trap in the drain easily. Yep.
You could, if you don't want to pour a caustic chemical down the drain, as many, many people do to clear those clogs, you could snake it.

What could be more exciting than to snake your own drain? You can get drain snakes, both single-use or, you know, long-term use drain snakes on various websites for very little amounts of dollars.

There are no fancy pants brands of drain snakes. That disappointed me, I have to say.
Like if you go, if you could get like an artisanal drain and snake brand drain snake, that would be cool.

Did you Google Drain Snake plus Portland? I will next time. Okay.
All right. So that's my film.
Wrong tool and it's gross. Yeah.

Question number three here is, is it gross to rarely shampoo one's hair? I think Jennifer answered that very capably, which is no, not at all. Not in most situations.

The amount of oil in people's hair varies very widely, but for most people,

the amount of oil sort of manages itself as long as you rinse it out every once in a while.

And maybe you have to wash it every once in a while because you might get something in it or it might absorb a little stank. Right.

What if you're powdering your feet and you get some fancy pants foot powder in your hair? You might want to wash it. That could only help.
Yeah, that's situational. And,

you know, often when we shampoo our hair, we're washing away the hair's natural oil and taking away some of its luster. Yeah, don't take away your luster, everybody.
Don't hide your luster.

don't hide your luster under a plunger. So we've addressed it's it's not disgusting to only occasionally wash your hair.

We've addressed that obviously the answer to this is a drain trap or drain filter, if you prefer.

Oh boy.

And

we've addressed that at least two out of the three of us think it is gross to have a plunger in the shower.

I don't care, but I'm comfortable with someone thinking it's gross and everyone in the household deferring to them. There's one final unanswered question here, John,

which is

her premise that because she doesn't wash her hair that often, it's not her hair going down the drain and causing clogs.

I'm going to assume that her husband has very short hair and she has long hair. I think that is implied in the question here.

It's possible that's not the case, but I don't think that this question would come up in this way were it not the case. And

I think it's a little goofy to suggest that the only way your hair might go down the drain is if you're shampooing your hair.

All right. Look, first of all, there is no shame in shedding hair.
Nope. No matter the length of hair, no matter the frequency.
It happens. You deal with it.

Now, Jesse, I appreciate your theory that Poppy's husband might have short hair. Poppy might have long hair that might be clogging the drain, even though she's not shampooing it very often.

But let me offer a counter theory. There is a problem.
The guy presumes it can't be his fault. It must be the woman's fault.
Here's a new system I came up with in order to solve this problem.

Why are you upset about this? It's just a plunger. I don't use it for poop.
This is a classic.

It's not a good system. Right.
So let me say yes, Poppy. There is a distinction that this is a job-specific plunger.
It is not used for anything other than the shower.

But plungers themselves, just by their nature, are divisive. Indeed, I had a letter this morning.
It was really weird because I was like, this guy wrote me a long time ago about plungers.

I got to check on his letter. It turns out he didn't write me a long time ago.
He wrote me at 3.55 a.m. this morning.

And somehow I read it and it got in my mind that I've been sitting on this letter for a long time.

This letter comes from Ben L, who's in a different dispute with his partner as to whether or not a plunger can be used more than once. Ben's position, as it's been his entire life,

that you use a plunger once and then throw it away. Wow.

What's his plunger budget? Well, I guess probably Ben doesn't have a lot of clogs.

Like if he has a yearly clog and that's a $9 plunger, that's not a big deal. That's true.
I don't want to make it sound like I'm always clogging up the place. Hey, well, look, whatever.

There's no shame in clogs.

There's no, Poppy, Jennifer, Jesse, there's no shame in clogs. They happen.
There should be no shame involved. But yeah, a plunger is something you are associated with clearing out a poop clog.

This is such a strong association for Ben L that he wrote me a 17-paragraph letter trying to explain why his partner was wrong and it should only be used once. That's not true.

Rinse it off, put it back in its little house. Or if you live in a house, put it in a basement or whatever until you need it the next time.

I have no problem with a shower plunger per se, so long as it is specifically a shower plunger and not a poop plunger, a separate plunger.

I don't think it's the best tool for the job, but if you want one, fine, but don't store it in the shower. And Poppy, don't feel self-conscious about how often you shampoo your hair or not.

We covered a lot of different clogs there. And clogged a lot.
I feel very cleaned out. John, I have a vision board for 2022, the year 2022.
Let's see it. Well, it's not real.

It's just the premise of this. Okay.
Yeah. Every vision board begins with the premise of a vision board.

I just put a picture of this plunger that I saw when I was driving from Marin County to Los Angeles after the holidays, driving home from visiting my wife's family for Christmas.

I went in to use a gas station bathroom, and behind the toilet was a plunger that, without hyperbole, was over three feet in length. Wow.
Perhaps the longest plunger I've ever seen in my life. Wow.

A significant portion of the center of this plunger

was wrapped in what I would say was a Central American textile. Okay.
I'm not enough of a, look, my mother is a former textile docent at the Mexican Museum.

She could tell you whether it's southern Mexican, Salvadoran, Honduran, Guatemalan. I couldn't tell you.
Okay. But it was Central American textile.

And then above it on the portion of the handle that was not covered with the textile, was stylishly written Dank 420.

So

that's my vision board for 2022: just to live my life like that plunger, just do it to the fullest.

I'm really hoping that when we take a break to hear from this week's partner, it's going to be Dank 420 Plungers. We'll be back in just a second 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.

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We're clearing the docket this week, and we have a case from Darcy in Powell River, British Columbia.

A few seasons ago, I received some wind chimes from my mother-in-law. By the way, I like that in British Columbia, they mark the passage of time by the changing of the seasons.

Yeah.

I really really love them. They produce a lovely soundscape during the summer, and our neighbors who live closest to the chimes even commented on how nice they sound.

As it gets colder, however, the wind has picked up and the chimes are almost non-stop. Though we have not heard any complaints, I'm concerned the constant noise may become irritating.

I'm inclined to take down the wind chimes in the winter out of neighborly consideration. Darcy really needed to put neighborly in there twice, spelled that way.
Really had to bring it home to Canada.

Okay, I got you. My husband, Jordy, thinks they should stay up all year round.
Are wind chimes a year-round decoration? Interesting. Is it a chime for all seasons?

My mom got some wind chimes and put them out in front of the house that we used to have in Western Massachusetts. And they were made out of old silverware that had been beaten down flat, old forks.

And they were up year-round. But now I'm trying to think, like, were they up year-round because my mom chose to keep them up year-round or

because

my mom passed away, and then I never knew what to do with them, and I just left them up all year round to hear them tingle-tankling in the wintertime.

John, the thing that Darcy isn't clear about here is how she feels about them being up during the winter. She's describing this situation like it bothered, like the sound bothers her.
Right.

And then she's pinning it on her neighbor's presumed discomfort with it. I think, Bailiff Jesse Jesse Thorne,

you have found the crux of this dispute. Wind chimes in winter are not bad.
That's how we know that the horror movie is starting.

But as Bailiff Jesse Thorne points out, it doesn't matter, Darcy, what your neighbors think.

First of all, your neighbors are kilometers away, I'm going to guess. Many seasons and kilometers.
You're in Canada.

They're too far. I mean, they hear them in the summer, sure, but it doesn't, even if they were annoyed by it, it doesn't matter what they think.
And it certainly doesn't matter what Geordie thinks.

What do you think?

We have in Maine a single chime. It's not even chimes.
It's a chime. It's like a

big bell. It sounds like a buoy bell.
And it only sounds when the wind is hard. It has been blowing hard.
So in the summertime, we barely ever hear it. We keep it up.

And in the winter, however, the wind comes in fast and that bell goes boong, boom, peeling mournfully, like counting the last heartbeats until my death. I love it.

Now, if you don't love that sound, you don't love it. But if you do love that sound, leave them up.
Don't put your feelings and your preference onto your neighbors.

Tune into your own feelings and act on them. If you like them, great.
If you don't, take them down.

Mother-in-law is another telling detail. It's a lovely gift from a mother-in-law.
She'll live. If you don't like the sound in the winter, your mother-in-law will live.

No, do you think that the mother-suggesting that the mother-in-law gave her this gift because she knows secretly Jordi hates the sounds of wind chimes in the winter?

No, I'm suggesting that Jordy is concerned that if she takes down the chimes during the winter, it will upset her mother-in-law. Oh, wow.

Boy, oh, boy. You're sitting over there in Los Angeles suffering through a migraine headache and seeing around corners that I didn't even think about.
Thank you, Jesse, for being here.

Here's something from Steve in San Francisco, California.

This is a battle amongst my friends with my friend Jess leading the charge.

I love the pop-punk band Blink 182.

They feature heavily in my home decor, a bit of my wardrobe, and my music collection. Jess says that I should ease up on Blink 182-related art and potentially expand my musical taste.

You know, this one's a heartbreaker, Jesse, because I don't know if we've, we've, I don't think we've yet revealed, we will later in this episode, the very sad fact that San Francisco Sketchfest has been postponed to an undefined future date because of everything that's happening in the world.

It's very disappointing. We're really looking forward to seeing everyone in San Francisco, and particularly Steve, who is in San Francisco.

I would have loved to have him up on stage when he professed his love for Blink 182 and hear what the San Francisco crowd had to say about that.

Because I don't have anything against Blink 182. I don't know.
It's not my era. You know what I mean? Like, they're all the small things, right? Jennifer Marma, can you name another Blink 182 song?

Oh, yeah, sure.

Josie,

Damn It. Oh, okay.

You definitely.

What's my age again? Ask me in eighth grade, and I might have more answers for you. Whoa.

Whoa.

Oh, Steve.

I don't know. What's the book on Blink 182, Jesse Thorne? Just so I understand.
It's just not just not my thing. At the time, I think the

cool kids regarded them as a sort of fourth-generation photocopy of punk rock.

That they were sort of like

a take on Green Day, who in turn were a take on those Gilmore Street, you know, rancid or whatever, who in turn were like too tuneful to be real punk rock, which is just only unpleasantness made by people who don't know how to play their instruments.

Gotcha.

I think that in the years since

their reputation has been rehabilitated somewhat, if only because of a combination of nostalgia and what they call in criticism, music criticism, poptimism, which is to say an embrace of

things that are easy to like.

Whereas previously, I think a lot of music critics had had a sort of natural resistance to anything that was easy to like. If you could write a fun song, that is now more likely to be celebrated.

I watched a video for all the small things after I got this letter from Steve,

and I found the song to be very catchy and the video to be a lot of fun. I think they should write a sequel song.
called guess what i found some more small things it wasn't all of them after all

uh There's an interesting corollary with Blink 182 in particular, which is that Travis Barker, who was the drummer of Blink 182, among other things,

but

rose to fame as the drummer of Blink 182, has spent the last 20-ish years becoming a more and more important figure in hip-hop. Oh.

As a drummer, but also just as kind of a producer, collaborator,

songwriter type.

And because there's this part of the world of hip-hop now that is like young, skinny guys with face tattoos

and like rainbow dreadlocks

who sort of mumble sing into an auto-tune sad songs about how sad they are and about,

you know, Xanax. Right.

That world

is very unabashedly influenced by and sort of like lives in the world of pop punk and emo. Right.

And Travis Barker is important in that world

to a shocking extent. You're talking about.

He has worked on many hit records in hip-hop as featuring Travis Barker. And it'll just be a 19-year-old rapper and then just this.

45-year-old,

you know, punk rock guy playing drums. Did he work with Lil Blurp?

He worked with them all, John. You mean Lil Blurp, the fictional mumble rapper from Dick Town, season one? That least like.

The hit TV show Dick Town. Papa Zani haters get weighted by my nine.

I'll say, all right, I'll say this. Obviously, Steve, you like what you like.
It is one of the founding

settled pieces of legislation here on this fake judge podcast. You like what you like.
Don't let any snobs tell you not to like your Blink 182.

I do say, I think you should know that presenting an overall consuming love for one band

is a pretty strong social signal. You know, whether it's Blink 182 or Insane Clown Posse or Huey Lewis in the News, if you're one of those newsies

at the gathering of the newsy Lowe's. Or me with my obsession with Tina Marie.
Exactly.

But if you're one of those people who are like really into one band, you will find your own people within the culture of people who are really into that one band.

But I would also say that that kind of single focus

and intense dedication to one cultural worldview,

you know,

sometimes it advertises a certain incuriosity

about other

cultural worldviews.

And I don't, you know, like, I really enjoyed hearing from all the fans of fish when we talked about fish last year on this podcast.

You know, people who find their community within the love of a band or a style, it's fantastic.

But I do think that it's a pretty strong flavor to present to the world outside of that community.

And maybe that's all that Jess is trying to tell you. Like, maybe

she's just trying to tell you, hey, just try Blink 183. It's one number over.

Try a couple of other things. Blanc 182.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with your love for Blink 182.

And if you decide to keep your love and devotion true to 182 for the rest of your life, that's your biz, not Jess's biz.

But it does, it does, you do present as, you know, a blinky.

Not Tina Marie's square biz. No.
Smart speaker, play Tina Marie's Square Biz. Oh, that's a smart speaker.
Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we have a letter from Rudy on Big Toad Road.

Oh, boy. Get that Rudy's Place theme song ready, Jennifer Marmor.

Hello. Hello, I'm calling on behalf of the Beef and Dairy Network podcast.
Oh, no, I'm sorry. No sales calls.
Goodbye.

It's a multi-award-winning podcast featuring guests such as Ted Danson, Nick Offerman, Josie Long. I don't know what a Josie Long is.

And anyway, I'm about to take my mother into town to see Phantom of the Opera at last. You are wasting my time, and even worse, my mother's time.
She only has so much time left. She's 98 years old.

She's only expected to live for another 20 or 30 years. Mother, get your shoes on.
Yes, the orthopaedic ones. I don't want to have to carry you home again, do I?

Right, well, if you were looking for a podcast, Mother, you're not wearing that, are you? It's very revealing, Mother. This is musical theatre, not a Parisian bordello.
Simply go to maximum fun.org.

I'm reaching for my Samson Galaxy 4 as we speak. Mother! Mother, not that hat!

Judge Hodgeman, we're taking a break from clearing the docket. We've got some stuff to talk about.

One of those stuffs is that due to circumstances in the world, SF Sketch Fest has been postponed indefinitely. They will hopefully have an update at some point.
Hang on to your tickets.

They are going to reschedule the festival,

but it won't be for January of 2022. So we will miss you, San Francisco Bay Area.
Sorry about that. Yeah, it's a super drag.

We were really looking forward to meeting with you again and seeing at least the top half of your faces out there in the audience at the Sydney Goldstein Theater.

I have every confidence that it will happen as soon as is safely possible. And obviously, this is part of why Sketchfest is one of the best fests.
because they take this stuff really seriously.

And as soon as everything is okay as possible, we will get out there and we'll see you. So please hang on to your tickets if you have questions or thoughts or concerns.

sfsketchfest.com has got all the answers that they can provide for you right now. I would say my top three fests.
Yeah. Number one, San Francisco Sketchfest.
Sure. Number two, New Orleans Jazz Fest.

Sure. Number three, Red Lobster Lobster Fest.
I can't even think of another fest. Number four, Toyota-thon.

That's a thon more than a fest. Okay.
It's a real Honda Days. It's a real foot race.
Probably happy Honda Days. Anyway, San Francisco, yeah, we're sorry.

We agree with Sketchfest's decision. We totally understand it.
We hope you will support Sketchfest when they come back because this is the second year in a row that they've had to postpone.

It's a very special festival run by really good folks. And

we hope you will have their back. Well, look, we're going to look into other ways we can reach you, maybe even with Sketchfest.
But in the meantime, that is postponed.

There's a note here that says, chore jacket, John. Yeah.
So.

Remember I bought that chore jacket online? Yeah. And I was wearing it.
I'm not wearing it today. I'm wearing a different soft jacket today, wearing my chamois.

But I've become such a fan of this chore jacket. Yeah.
This vintage chore jacket from, I think the brand is Universal. It's just a work jacket that I found on Etsy.

Well, I got a message from the person who sells these things saying, thank you for the positive review. Because I did give a positive review because I'm a gentle person.
Sure.

Also, another buyer messaged me that you mentioned this coat on your podcast.

And I was like, yeah, I did. Thank you, 80s vintage shop, et cetera.

And she, her name is Heather, says,

I said, I'm sorry I have the only one. She said, it's not the only one.
She said, this jacket is a dead stock item. My company is the manufacturer of it.

It will unfortunately never be restocked, but it is truly a vintage item from the 80s. I'm so glad you're happy with it.

And I said, oh, well, do you have any more of them in case I or maybe a listener to Judge John Hodgman would like to engage in some very weird cosplay of me.

And it says, as of now, the following is all that is left of the Fisher Herringbone Chore coat slash overall jacket. In size 44, which is the size that I wear, 29 pieces.
In size 50, 21 pieces.

But hey, to my big guys out there, size 54, there are only eight jackets left. So I really like them.
Go on, check out 80s vintage shop, et cetera. They're good chore jackets from a nice person.

We've had some cool episodes of my NPR show, Bullseye with Jesse Thorne, lately that I wanted to mention. One is an interview with Benedict Cumberbatch,

who is, of course, a major movie star who folks might have heard of. It's a really interesting interview.
We did it a while ago, but this is a new cut with some stuff that people haven't heard.

Among other things, he discusses a situation where he was kidnapped, which is not something he's talked about a ton.

And he talked about it very frankly. So take a listen to that on Bullseye.

And we also just just recently released our Best Comedy of the Year special, which every year is our most popular episode because it contains the least me of any episode.

But lots and lots of great stand-up comics on that episode. Our entire MaxFun staff ends up filtering.
comedy albums for that special.

Like everyone listens to a few from a huge list of suggestions from the audience, and we boil it down to an hour or so of comedy.

I know Jackie Cation, our colleague from the Laurie and Jackie show, is on there. My pal Chris Fairbanks, one of the funniest guys around, he's on there.
Jackie is also my pal.

Lots of great comics,

some you've heard of, some you haven't heard of on the Bullseye End of the Year comedy special. So go check that out.
Check it out. Let's get back to the docket.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Here's a case from Mary in Detroit.

When my partner and I go out to dinner, I prefer for him to order for us, as he is the more gregarious one and I am the more socially anxious one.

But when he does order, he begins by explaining to our server that we typically follow a vegan diet, but we do eat some shellfish. And we will sometimes eat fish if we are traveling in a coastal area.

Sure, like New England. In the past, he has even gone so far as to explain that bivalves don't have a central nervous system, system, which makes it ethically sound to consume them.

I balk at the thought of a busy server being presented with this confusing and morally weighty information before they've even poured us some water.

I would prefer if he just asked if the linguine with clams contains dairy.

Please, Your Honor, issue an injunction against my partner's detailed explanations of our dietary ethics to wait staff, who I suspect are just trying to get the food from the kitchen to the table.

I was having a conversation with James Francis Don, who is still a producer on The Daily Show, now with Trevor Noah.

We had lunch together safely a few weeks ago. And I was like, if you had to eat only one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? Like, you have to give up everything.

And by the way, this one food that you eat for the rest of your life, it would be perfectly in this magical scenario. It would be perfectly nutritious.
You would get all the nutrients you needed.

Your body would be unaffected by only eating this one thing, right? You'd be,

you'd be okay,

but to do this, you would be saving the world from some horrible calamity. And it would be a sacrifice that you were making.
Like,

what would you eat? And I think that Jimmy said corned beef hash.

And I said, you know what, Jimmy? I'm going to give you one. It can be any kind of hash.
It can be roast beef hash. It could just be any kind of hash.
He said, okay.

And for me, it was breakfast sandwiches. What would it be for you, Jesse Thorne? Gonna go with ice cream.
Yeah.

I'm gonna give you both regular cone ice cream and it's it's for that one. Wow.
Jennifer Marmor, do you got one?

No. You don't? It's hard of a question.

It can be a sandwich. It could be pizza.
My initial thought was cheeseburger. Cheese was my initial.
Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger.

Because the thing is, it has to be something that you will just feel you can never get sick of. Like, you'll get sick of it eventually, but you want to maximize the amount of time.

And the deal is, I feel like I could eat a breakfast sandwich, breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day pretty handily. And guess what? I've been putting that to the test in 2021.
And I did it.

Did not get sick of a sausage, egg, and cheese. Didn't get sick of it.
Bacon, egg, and cheese, I love you. But I'm still a sausage, egg, and cheese person.
And yet.

There is a moral component to this because eating meat is not a great thing to do.

And I just want to say they're not a sponsor of the show, but I tried the Impossible Brand plant-based sausage iteration. Fantastic.
I'll never go back.

And I've been pretty neutral on all these Paniwani meats, you know, Beyonds and Impossibles or whatever, but I'll tell you this much at least. Impossible brand breakfast sausage.

In a sandwich, you would never know the difference. And it's the only moral thing for me to do is to eat it that way from now on.
Plant-based diet is good.

Good for you, Mary in Detroit and her partner. Now let's get down to this dispute.
Jesse Thorne, this doesn't feel like the kung pow chicken to me.

This doesn't feel like, this doesn't feel like Mary's partner has a captive audience in which to tell a joke and the server has to laugh. That's just wrong.

Do you think that the partner in this case is doing something wrong? Yes. Go on.
All he needs to say is what his dietary requirements are. His dietary requirements are his business.

He needs to have them addressed. The server is the intermediary between him and the kitchen.
It's appropriate for him to say, I'm vegan, but I do eat bivalves.

Does this dish I'm considering ordering fit that description?

Why is he getting involved in explaining that bivalves don't have a central? That's just all the only outcomes of that are that he's wasting someone else's time

and or trying to make them feel bad for their own choices. Or for choices that the chef or the restaurant owner made that they're not even party to.

I'm going to go a little bit easier on Mary's partner here and suggest a third possibility, which is that Mary's partner begins the conversation by saying, here is what we eat and what we don't eat,

and then commits the error of thinking that the waiter is interested in learning more.

So if the server is a good server, first of all, they want to know what Mary and her partner don't want to eat because they want this to go smoothly without any upset with grace and a lack of anaphylactic shock if possible.

Yeah, no send backs. Yeah, no setbacks.
A good server is gracious. So I'm Mary's partner and I say,

yeah, so here's the thing. We are

vegan for the most part, but we do eat some shellfish and some bivalves. And the waiter goes, oh, okay, that's interesting.

That's where Mary's partner might make the mistake of going, like, it is interesting, isn't it? The thing is, bivalves

don't have central nervous systems. That's why we work them in.

And the waiter, of course, has to do the exact same thing that the server must do when told a joke, which is respond, laugh if it's, I'll have the kung pao chicken, or, oh yeah, you're right.

I never thought about that, about oysters not having central nervous systems.

It's challenging to read the room in a serving situation, especially if it's a pretty nice restaurant that gives a hoot as to what you're eating and what they're serving.

You know, like the waiter, the server will be trained to be as gracious as possible.

And it is possible for people of good intent to abuse that graciousness without meaning to, particularly if you are an extroverted person like Mary's partner seems to be compared to Mary in any case.

But that said, Mary is introverted, which I respect. She is relying on her partner to do this interaction with the outside world for her.

And if he takes a little bit farther than she would like, you know, those are the trade-offs a little bit, you know?

That's kind of the trade-off of having a great partner who's going to go out there in the world and do those interactions that make you uncomfortable.

He might start talking about the central nervous system of an oyster. And he might not be wrong.
The waiter might be interested.

I do think that that's like finding a pearl in an oyster, one in a million. But it could happen.
Could happen. So I might actually find that kung pao joke funny.

I will say this: while I'm uncomfortable with him putting servers through listening to all of the reasoning behind his dietary preferences,

I am also uncomfortable with

her

having him speak for her and then not liking what he says. I have to say that I don't like making phone calls.

And once in a while, my wife will make a phone call that I don't want to make on my behalf. I don't know why I don't like making phone calls, but I don't.
I can do it, but it's not a task I relish.

And my wife is kind enough to do it for me sometimes. I can't imagine being like, honey, you did that wrong.

Like, I think there are situations where it's wonderful that in a romantic partnership, skills, interests, and,

you know, temperamental differences and neurological differences can be complementary.

But I also think that if you want someone else to be responsible for your communication, you have to let them be responsible for it.

Based on the evidence we have here, I think Mary and her partner have a pretty good operation going here.

And I would only caution her partner to be mindful of the server's time, which is always really important, and to be

and to own their preferences.

There may be a situation in which the partner feels that he has to explain what they eat and what they don't eat because he feels self-conscious about the fact that he doesn't eat those things or whatever it is.

Don't feel self-conscious about it. The waiter doesn't care.
This is your choice in the world, just like you might like wind chimes in the winter or not.

But you don't need to explain why you're not eating what you're not eating. And Mary, you can go easy on your partner.
He's doing the heavy lifting in this case for you.

Judge Hotchman, we got a letter from Rudy on Big Toad Road. Ah, just when I thought I was out, Rudy drags me back in to Rudy's Place.
Play the Rudy's Place theme, Jennifer Marmor. Rudy's Place.

It's a virtual hangout where you go to buy friends, see beers.

Rudy's place.

No internet, no yachts, no sharks invited, so have no fears.

I'm gonna

ride my horse down Big Toad Road.

I'm gonna

ride my horse down Big Toad Road.

I'm gonna

ride till I can't ride no more to Rudy's place.

Okay, for those who don't know or don't remember, Rudy is one of the rare litigants to appear twice and now thrice on the show.

He first appeared in the Judge John Hodgman universe when Patrick, his son, brought him to court because Rudy had an idea for a virtual saloon app called Rudy's Place that Rudy wanted Patrick to develop, and Patrick didn't want his dad to make him do it.

Rudy also hates yachts and sharks, and he especially hates glitter, as we learned when Rudy came back to the show to sue his wife, Mary, his own wife, for bringing glitter into the house via cards and such, glitter that gets stuck in the carpet, and when Rudy walks through the room, the glitter stabs him in the eyes with light, and he doesn't remember what he was thinking about.

Anyway, we ordered Mary to keep the glitter contained in a kind of mudroom hard surface area of the house, and recently Rudy wrote to give us an update, and here is the update.

Dear Judge John Hodgman, I thought you might be interested in an update on Mary's compliance with your order.

Until very recently, the reduction of glitter in the carpets was remarkable and greatly appreciated.

Mary is even keeping a separate box for items that are too precious to be thrown away, but too glittery to be left at large.

Last night, though, Mary was... It was an anklet or something.

Last night, though, Mary was going through last year's Christmas card envelopes looking for addresses, and she stumbled upon the second cousin glitter bomb, which exploded again.

That's right, I forgot the second cousin had sent a glitter bomb. Apparently, this is some unexploded ordinance in last year's Christmas cards.

It had happened in a trafficked area where other people move around. So the glitter wasted no time spreading and insinuating itself into crevices all over the house.

Right now, I am picking up glitter an average of once every 15 minutes. And that is while sitting still.
I guarantee you, Rudy has a spreadsheet to determine this average. He concludes, it's okay.

I adore her anyway. Thanks for the update, Rudy.
Always enjoy joining you at Rudy's Place.

It's the play.

Well, Jonathan Scolton can sing the song better than me. The docket is clear.
That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman. Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.
Our editor is Valerie Moffat.

Follow us on Twitter. John is at Hodgman.
I am at Jesse Thorne. We are also on Instagram at JudgeJohnHodgman.
We post pictures from the cases there.

Make sure to hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets. You can hashtag them JJ Ho.
I look look at that hashtag John. Let's see what people have to say about the show this week.

It's always fun to check out the hashtag JJHO. And you can talk about the episode in our subreddit, maximumfun.reddit.com.
Always an interesting conversation there.

And just like on Twitter, who knows, me and Jen and John might join in. Drop in, and I might throw around some gold.
I bought some real gold at the flea market the other day.

You know, the kind where it's like a little tiny jug of water from like Knott's Berry Farm and there's a flake of gold floating around inside it.

I've never heard of that before. That definitely sounds like a Knott's Berry Farm thing, which is definitely a thing that is outside of my cultural sphere.
But I can picture it perfectly.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ Ho or email Hodgman at maximumfun.org. We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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