Cuddle Formation

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're in chambers this week, clearing the docket with anonymous local man, Judge John Hodgman.

You're dressed like an undercover cop today, John.

I'm just wearing my black sweatshirt.

You're just wearing a black hoodie.

I can't rob a vintage 80s chore coat every day.

Sometimes I just got to wear my cozy sweatshirt.

You look very cozy, and you also look like you're hanging out on a street corner trying to observe something.

And I would probably, I would really blend in too.

They're like, weren't you on board to death?

I'm like,

can't talk right now.

I'm undercover.

I'm a private investigator now.

I'm a private investigator.

No, I'm very cozy.

And also, Jesse, I have to say, I'm very excited.

Why is that?

Because I have finished.

all of my holiday shopping.

As we record this, it is not even December yet.

Wow.

It's the last day of November.

And I have finished all of it.

And do you know why?

Why?

Because I was so anxious about shipping and delays in shipping that I mostly shopped locally.

And when I shopped and things needed to be shipped from place to place, I started very early and I got it done.

Thanks, global supply chain problems.

Well, I thank you, John, for my San Francisco Shamrocks sweatshirt.

Jesse, Jesse, you have been visited by but one spirit this holiday season, but one ghost of a hockey team.

I am here to tell you, wearing the chains I forged in life

to my favorite sport, Extinct Hockey, you are about to get visited by two more ghosts of extinct hockey before this is over.

And one of them I almost threw away on my way over here today.

I had to throw away some boxes in the recycling and I threw away your present.

It's because it's in card, it's in cardboard saying, do not bend.

And I had to go back over to the recycling room and fish it out.

Another holiday miracle.

Well, I feel like I'm in San Francisco's cow palace right now.

That's where the Shamrocks would play.

There you go.

In the cow palace.

Let's get into the docket.

Here's a case from Christian.

Max Funster and former litigant Christian, by the way, a litigant on episode 188, I pledge a grievance uh Christian has a dispute with uh his co-workers okay let's hear it Christian I'm an aging Gen Xer this year two wonderful women in their early 20s moved into my office suite as often happens they quickly became part of an office group text thread However, I soon found myself accused of being rude and confrontational because I use periods at the end of my texts.

Apparently, among Zoomers, periods are a sign of anger or disapproval.

I ask you, Rule, that proper punctuation is a vital part of written communication and not some passive-aggressive way to tell someone you're upset with them.

Wow.

Christian, you ended every sentence in your letter with a period.

Why are you so angry, dude?

I feel attacked.

Yeah, come on, Christian, ease off the punctuation, dude.

Too many mad periods.

God, put in an ellipses once in a while.

Yeah, maybe an M-dash.

I've learned so much about using ellipses from writing for radio.

There's a lot of ellipses in writing for radio.

What's the radio style guide for ellipsis use?

I think that because radio is

generally intended to roughly replicate speech rather than writing.

Right.

And because it is so linear and you thus need to really present one idea at a time, you can't have sentences that have multiple ideas embedded in them.

You can't have subclauses and so on and so forth.

But you don't always just want to end with a period, end with a period, end with a period with these short little sentences.

So sometimes that ellipsis serves the purpose of separating the ideas without getting into the rhythm of a bunch of tiny sentences in a row.

So when you're using your podcast voice and you're telling a story about something happening, and then

turns out a different thing happened.

Are you telling me that this narrative has a counterintuitive lesson?

What is this?

A podcast?

Jennifer Marmer, you text, right?

Oh, yeah.

You are both younger than me.

I don't know which one of you is younger than the other.

Jen's a little younger than I.

Yes.

Jen's the closest that we have to a Zoomer.

You are the closest.

Not that close, but yeah.

You're the youngest on the timeline of the J squad, which, by the way, a listener wrote in.

I'll have to figure out who this is and thank them next time.

A listener wrote in and

they weren't referring to the J squad.

They were referring to, and I should have thought of this, the J crew.

The J crew.

Genius.

I know, right?

Genius listener, you know who you are, and I'll let the rest of the world know who you are next time.

Remind me, Jennifer Marmor.

But meantime.

Jennifer Marmor, you're the furthest to the left on the timeline.

Sure.

If we are timing time from left to right, as we do often in the Western hemisphere.

hemisphere um texting you do you use periods i mean if you have to think about it the answer is no right i mean i know that i do i mean i do if i'm typing like more than one sentence at a time i don't just let it run on but i do the last sentence what i i tend to not use a period i kind of just send it you just right but i mean i think what i think what christian is talking about here is literally run on run-on sentences where whole ideas are expressed and you just move on with a space rather than a period could Could be.

Or even a comma, I think.

Well, Christian says that he was accused of being rude and confrontational for periods at the end of texts.

So, like, if they're like, hey, Christian, we're going to have lunch at 12:30.

And then he responds, okay, period, instead of just okay.

That's what I'm imagining.

That, you know what?

That would feel harsh to me.

Right.

I have to say.

Yeah.

I have to say this, though.

This is my perspective on it.

This is obviously Christian is describing a cultural difference difference here.

And I think that Christian's request for accommodation of that cultural difference feels pretty reasonable to me, which is to say that I feel like if Christian was asking his co-workers to use proper punctuation, quote-unquote proper punctuation in their texts, that would be a lot.

In fact, I think that would be too much.

I think it's reasonable for him to make,

the, do the modest amount of work to understand where they're coming from and how they're writing their texts.

But I also

don't think it's unreasonable to ask for reciprocality in that.

And, you know, if he's taken the time to gently say to them, hey, this is how I communicate, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask them.

to do the small amount of work to understand that's how he communicates.

Okay.

Good point.

Because my dad, speaking of ellipses,

shout out to Bob, who's probably listening to this, but he uses ellipses all the time at the end of sentences, but he uses like

way more periods than just the dot, dot, dot.

And he'll say, okay, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.

And then it looks like he's going, okay.

It's like that's a, that's okay when you, when when you're being uh when you're falling off a cliff.

Well, it looks like he's saying okay, like really passive-aggressively, like, hey, I'll be there at five.

Okay,

dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.

We'll see.

But, like, I know he's just going, okay.

Yeah.

I got to say, first of all, okay.

Jesse, I understand your point.

But Jennifer Marmor's okay, period, which is my least favorite Radiohead album.

It's my favorite Gen X Cola brand.

Really hit home.

And I went and I reviewed texts that I have received from the youngest person that I know in my family, or second youngest, I should be clear.

And not a single one of them ends with a period.

And some of them end with one or more exclamation points.

Certainly,

some of them end with question marks,

but none of them end with a period.

And I texted this person, do you use periods at the end of text messages, question mark?

And she has not written back and probably never will, even though she's my daughter.

Because this, I think, is the new text etiquette.

And I would go so far as to say, I absolutely, Christian, you should go ahead and put a period at the end of a sentence if you like it.

But I have to tell you, Christian, you're stepping onto a slippery slope when you start saying to younger people things like like proper punctuation as a vital part of written communication.

And then you start sliding down that slope.

Okay.

Because

these women, they're in your office suite.

They're accomplished.

They're as accomplished as any junior peer of yours.

They know what punctuation is.

And what's more, there's a lot of policing of the way women express themselves by men in the way they speak, this whole issue around vocal fry.

And there is, it often hinges, and I'm not sure, I'm sure you probably didn't mean it this way, Christian, but it often hinges on: if you want the world, that is to say, me and men, to take you seriously, you have to express yourself in a certain way.

Okay.

Like, that's

not a cool look.

I don't think that's what you're necessarily going for.

But the fact is, I think your younger colleagues are out here doing you a service.

English is a living language.

Text is

a different way.

In the same way that

spoken English on public radio has its own cadence and sort of vocabulary of silences, similarly, texting has a kind of intimate, familiar kind of mood to it that gets a little warped by putting a period at the end of the sentence.

You think I use as many exclamation points in real life or in written communication as I do when I'm on text?

Of course not.

I feel dumb every time I put those exclamation points in, but I have to because it seems more friendly than when I'm saying, okay.

Like it's just, it's just a very dad way of doing things, Christian.

So you can go ahead and end them on a period and tell your coworkers, I am not doing this to be passive aggressive, period.

You know?

You can do that and tell them, but maybe take a lesson from these younger people rather than just presume that you know the best way of doing it.

John, talking about writing for radio versus writing for the page, and as a, you know, also in comparison to speaking extemporaneously on the radio, which I think is a third form,

it reminds me of an analogous situation, which is, as you know, I'm a big rap fan, and there is this canard,

this argument.

That's for duck.

Yeah, this argument that is often made that I think is false, which is the rap is poetry

argument.

Right.

Now,

writing rap lyrics and writing poetry have things in common.

Sure.

They're both expressions of the English language that are often non-literal and highly emotive.

Sometimes there's rhyming.

Sometimes there's rhyming and cleverness involved, like play with language.

Right.

But when I hear rapist poetry,

what I hear is that in order for it to be serious, in order for it to be worth considering, in order to be for it to be meritorious, it has to be a version of this other form, when in fact it is its own form.

Right.

And specifically, another

form which is highly coded as educated,

worldly, and predominantly historically white, at least in terms of published poetry.

Yeah.

Historically.

Obviously, there are many, many poets from all different backgrounds throughout history.

I don't mean it that way, but in terms of 17th, 18th, 19th, into early 20th century published poetry.

What they're relating it to is your man Harold Bloom in the Western canon.

Like,

that's what they're directly saying it is comparable to.

And no one ever says, well, sometimes people say Shakespeare is like rap, but that's also to diminish rap.

So

the question is: is it appropriate to use different modes of communication in different contexts?

And is it okay for those, you know, for those modes of communication to be different in those different contexts?

And the answer to that is yes, right?

It's the same.

Period.

Yes.

The answer to that is yes in Terra Bang.

Yeah.

And I think that's that is at the heart of this.

I don't know that Christians'

means of expression here is just

a generational difference, a cultural difference, to what extent it is a resistance to the idea that communication could be different in text message form

or intergenerationally.

But I do think it is important to note that it is okay to communicate in different ways and different forms.

Absolutely.

And, you know, as you, as you said, like writing for the page is different from writing for text.

It's just a different, it's a different medium.

And, you know, rap is not poetry

because that would in many ways erase its origin and its inventor, Meredith Wilson, who wrote The Music Man,

which has the first, the first example of rap in recorded history.

And probably still the most important.

The patter song at the beginning of the music man.

Yeah.

An argument I have seen online from dopes in the past.

That's not my point of view.

Let's move on.

It's a great song, though.

Here's something from Beth.

My friend John threatened to bring me to your court over the naming of my cats.

Our family has two kittens we adopted in the last few months.

A black kitten named Toaster Oven Dave Jackson.

and a black and white kitten named Can of Beans Beans Finn.

Jackson and Finn are their original pre-adoption names that we kept as their surnames.

Please rule that our cats' names are absolutely adorable and that John can no longer disparage my kittens' names.

Toaster Oven, quote-unquote, Dave Jackson.

Dave is the nickname here.

Right.

Toaster Oven, the given name, Dave, the nickname.

And Can of Beans, quote unquote, beans Finn.

Got it.

You know, Jesse, I initially thought that Beth's letter was a despicable and naked ploy to hype her own cats on the show and basically give a shout out to them for nothing and to make me show you photos of these cats.

Yeah, classic branding move.

I did a little investigation and I was absolutely correct.

I'm going to show you these cats anyway.

Okay, cool.

I was worried I wasn't going to get to see the cats after all that.

I'm texting you these cats.

Okay.

I'm going to add a little message to it

which is okay

a little charles burns illustration on there it's okay cola humor yeah okay cola

oh my gosh

is there really look at the cats weird

they're doing this weird

weird form cuddle formation not to be confused with the go-to Team album, cuddle formation.

This is a cuddle formation.

They each have their little cat arms extended, pushing each other to the edges of a very small cat bed.

Yeah.

And it's almost like it kind of looks like when you see people on Instagram make a heart shape with their fingers.

Yeah.

That's what these cats are doing.

And they're both looking at really good pictures.

As you know, I'm much more, I'm much weaker in the face of dogs than I am in the face of cats.

Right.

Because dogs are often silly looking.

Cats are often not so silly looking.

And as you know, I've asked people if they're going to send me pet pictures to make sure that the pets are doing something funny, that it's not just that they love their pets and I'm expected to.

Yeah.

This is great.

These are great pictures.

This one, they're climbing on top of each other and licking each other in a weird way is really premium too.

I don't know

whether the fully black one is Toaster Oven Dave Jackson or whether that's can of beans beans fin, but one of them is really planting the other one with a big old lick on the on the top of the head.

So

I wrote to Beth and I said, is this just a naked ploy to get your cats on the podcast?

Because I don't care what John thinks about the names of your cats.

He has no standing here.

It's not his cats.

They're your cats.

Why are you?

And she's like, yeah, I guess you're right.

But she did send me.

the text exchange that they had where she had posted some pictures, some of these pictures on a popular social media website.

And John said, one's name is Beans and the other's name is Dave.

And Beth said, yep.

And then she said, actually, Dave's name is Toaster of them, but we call him Dave for short.

And beans is short for can of beans.

And John said, I'm taking you on to Judge John Hodgman for your animal naming scheme.

And Beth said, well, Jesse Thorne, hang on to it, grab something, Jesse.

Jesse Thorne thinks Tugboat is the best dog name.

So I think I would win.

Whoa.

Whoa, Beth.

It's a matter of settled law.

Tugboat is not the best dog name.

What's the best dog name, Jesse?

Hambone.

Hambone might be the best dog.

Tugboat's a great dog.

A very close friend of Paul F.

Tompkins.

Talk about Tugboat all the time.

Hambone, get your J.J.

Ho Lore straight.

And also, do you know what?

It's interesting because John's text messages with Beth brought something into relief here.

Toaster Oven Dave Jackson, that's a great name.

Can of Beans Beans Finn, also a great name.

But if you're referring to them as Dave and Beans, I don't like that.

I think John's onto something here.

This is like when I do Get Your Pets, Jesse, my Instagram afternoon talk show where I interview cats and dogs and other pets.

And I was talking to Nancy in Pittsburgh.

She has two cats.

One is a cat named Mouse, and the other is a cat named Simon.

Doesn't go together.

You got to name one cat mouse and the other cat cat.

So you have cat and mouse.

That's good.

It's similarly beans.

And Dave, you got one human name and one food name.

That doesn't work for me.

That doesn't, that doesn't fit.

Now, if you, and you got it sitting right there, toast and beans.

There you go.

Done.

I've been staring at this, pulling what little, the little tiny number zero on

the electric razor.

hairs that remain on my head.

I've been

tearing them out over the fact that this one cat is named Beans and the other one is named Toast, but it's not called Toast.

It's called Dave.

Dave.

I mean, it's beautiful, but it is.

It's just like, it's like when Hercule Poirot steps in that big old camel poop or whatever at the beginning of the latest movie of Murder on the Orient Express.

He steps in the camel poop with one foot and everyone's like, oh, Hercule Poirot, he's such a fastidious little creep.

He's going to be so upset that he's got poop on his shoe.

He takes his shoe out and steps in it again with his other shoe.

He's like, it's the imbalance that bothers me.

Whew, Kenneth Brann, I saw Kirkuel Poirot for a new time, for a first time then.

Oh,

I can't stop thinking about it.

He's the best Kirkuel Poirot ever.

Cannot wait for Murder on the Nile.

I'm old.

Look, we all got to see a movie with our mom at Christmas.

Look.

I agree.

I agree.

This release date is December 8th.

Is that right, Jennifer Marmor?

I'm getting a nod.

Thank you very much, J.

Crew.

December 8th, I'm going to say Monday, December 13th, 2021.

I'm going to have a holiday-themed get your pets on Instagram.

I'm going to announce the time that morning.

It'll probably be 3 o'clock.

That's usually when I do it after lunch.

And Beth, I want you and Toaster Oven Dave Jackson and Can of Beans, Beans, Finn.

I want you to be on there so I can see Toast and Beans because that's what I call them.

But at the end of the day, as difficult as it is for me to accept accept Dave and Beans, because you want it to be Dave and Buster's then, which you don't want.

100%.

I also wanted

the other cat to be named Buster.

I was staring at beans, wishing it was Buster.

Yeah, it's, yeah.

It gives us the itches a little bit, but they're still great names.

They look like great cats.

I want to see their faces and I want to call them Toast and Beans just once so I can put this behind me.

But in the meantime, I rule in your favor.

John has to get over it the same way this John has to get over

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

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

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast, always brought to you by you, the members of maximumfun.org.

Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfund.org/slash join.

And you can join them by going to fun.org slash join.

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

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket and we have a case from friend of the court, Llama.

You remember Llama, John?

You know, Llama, not least from Get Your Pets.

Yeah, they're on Get Your Pets a fair amount with their

cockatiel cocky.

And their two dogs, Coco and Chloe, who are cockadoodles.

No, cocka, poos, cocka, poos, right?

Yeah.

Chloe, Coco,

Chloe.

Yeah, exactly.

And, you know, llama's out there in the ding, Jesse.

That's what I call Reading, England, the ding, the ring-a-ding-ding.

You know where Reading is?

Northern California?

No, it's just, it's in the UK.

It's just between Whistley Green and Tidmarsh.

Oh, sure.

Whistley Green is to the east.

Tidmarsh is to the left.

Judge, my friends are having an argument you may be able to settle.

If you had to describe where the straps of a backpack are located, would you say they're attached to the front or the back?

I say back, as does my friend Laura.

Her husband, Fraser, says the straps are on the front.

He insists that if asked to put something in the front pocket, he would place it in the pocket closest to the straps.

This is wild to me.

Please help.

Jesse and and Jennifer, I'm going to seek your counsel.

I ask you for a one-word answer only, a one-word answer only, gut reaction.

The answer is front or back.

The straps of the backpack are on which part of the backpack, the front or the back.

Jennifer Marmor, what is your answer?

Back.

Back.

All right.

Thank you.

Two backs.

The Beast with Two Backs, Shakespeare, the original rapper.

My name's Billy Shakes, and I'm here to say that I've written y'all an awesome play.

Llama, thank you for listening.

Thank you for

your heart out, juice.

Sorry, SuperNat.

Jesse's in town.

It's right off the dome, right off the micro hairs of his dome.

Thank you, Llama, for everything for laser printing cool swords and stuff.

Thank you for introducing.

me via Instagram to not only Coco, Chloe, and Cocky the Cockatiel, but also at that UK-based raptor preservation

retreat, that incredible raven named Loki.

Loki, the raven, low-key, the best bird of all time.

Sorry, Cocky.

Loki's got you covered.

Incredible bird.

I like you a lot.

Thank you, Llama, for sending me that time-lapse video that only shows the stuff that happens outside the window and rear window.

That was incredible.

You're great, Llama.

You're great, Jennifer Marmor.

You're great, Jesse Thorne.

I love you both.

Thank you for everything, but you're all wrong.

Straps are on the front.

It's the direction the backpack's going in when you're walking.

Straps are on the front.

The most exterior pocket opposite the straps is the back pocket.

Sorry, everybody.

Here's something from Michaela of Missoula, Montana.

Have you ever been to Missoula, Montana, John?

I've never been anywhere in Montana.

I got to get out there because that's where our friend Sarah Vowell lives now, her home state.

Yeah, our Montana.

The home ESV.

Man, Missoula, Montana is an incredibly beautiful place.

Incredibly beautiful.

I want to go out there.

Big sky country.

I recently went, you know, comedian Chris Fairbanks, one of the funniest guys around.

He's

good.

One of the funniest guys.

The only person I've ever seen rock a couch and sweater better than my own son.

When he rocked a couch and sweater, I brought for him from Vancouver and I paid him $10 to wear it because it was scratchy and itchy.

But I said, you can have $10 to wear it.

And then we went to go see Hamilton, and then Jonathan Groff, King George himself, said, Cool sweater.

Now my son watches him on Mindhunter, where he hunts down serial killers.

It's just a world of connections, Jesse.

Montana, Missoula, Montana.

Can I tell you a Chris Fairbanks joke that I think about all the time?

Like all the time.

Please do.

It's about those owls that are always wearing graduation mortar boards.

I'm already laughing.

And

Fairranks goes, huh, haven't seen you on campus all year.

Okay, anyway.

I recently went on a road trip with my father and my husband to the small town of Chester, Montana.

My dad invited us to tag along while he changed out an ATM.

He's the vice president for a rural credit union, and he has to perform this task frequently and all alone, so he was excited for the company.

He lured us by suggesting that we visit Spencer's Highway Bar and Grill on the way back.

Wanting both beer and scenery, we obliged.

Chester and Spencer's were all we could have hoped for.

We discussed almost everything we could think of on the drive when on my way home, my dad said that Jimmy Fallon is the most talented performer to have ever come out of Saturday Night Live.

Wow.

This independent film of a road trip letter suddenly took a weird left turn.

My husband and I were, to be honest, aghast.

There are dozens of other people better than Jimmy Fallon, right?

Please affirm that my dad is just taking a wildly unpopular opinion to be fun and contrary.

Well, first of all, Mikaela, I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly.

M-I-K-Y-L-A.

Seriously, Mikaela, you and your husband, who I know is named Robert, need to write this up as a screenplay.

Adult children way, way back.

Yeah, adult children driving around Montana with their dad as he changes out ATMs in rural outposts is a great...

That's a great, the beginning of a, and middle of a great movie.

And I hope Spencer's Highway Bar and Grill is maybe the good third act.

I don't know.

It sounds like a pretty good place.

But oh, well, look, I thought about putting this one in the New York Times magazine because I just love this letter so much.

It's just a nicely written letter.

But then I realized Jimmy Fallon might read it.

Yeah.

I love Jimmy Fallon.

I love Jimmy Fallon.

I love you, Jimmy Fallon.

I know you must be a listener.

Certainly so.

You must be.

You must be.

Very, very funny person.

It takes an incredible amount of skill to host a show night after night after night like that.

And just a champion broadcaster.

I loved it that time back when I used to be on television and I got to go to a party at the Emmys and you were there and we pretended to laser sword fight like in Star Wars.

I love your energy and everything else.

And I

don't, I want you to know

we are not judging you.

Your skilled impressions.

Skilled impressions.

We are judging Mikhaila's dad.

Yeah.

But Jesse Thorne.

I put it to you.

One word word answer only.

Front or back.

Is Jimmy Fallon the most talented performer to have ever come out of Saturday Night Live?

Front or back?

Can I please say some nice stuff about Jimmy Fallon, too, so he doesn't get mad at me if he listens to this?

I was giving you an out.

You could have said back and it could have meant anything, but okay.

The answer is front, not back.

I'm sorry, Mikhaila's dad.

You like who you like, and you're entitled to your opinion.

I guess I'm actually ruling for Mikaela's dad because I think that he is being sincere and I bet he's got some interesting arguments to make as to why he's right and you're wrong, Mikaela.

I think you just ought to hash it out on another incredible road trip.

Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, we hear from past litigants about raisins, lint traps, and lakes.

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 leave it out back and goes rotten.

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

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

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

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

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

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

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

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

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

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

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

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

We are headed to San Francisco and the Sydney Goldstein Theater at San Francisco Sketch Fest.

This is going to be an extraordinary night, Judge Hodgman.

An extraordinary night.

Yeah, you have no idea how extraordinary it's going to be.

Listen to the end of this episode to learn just how extraordinary it's going to be.

Because at the end of this episode, I add an element to this show that is going to bring the Sydney Goldstein Theater down.

It's not going to bring the house down.

It's a very beautiful, structurally sound theater.

We're so excited to get back out there and see your covered faces in January, especially at the San Francisco Sketchfest.

If you can get thee to the Sketchfest, do it.

I would encourage you to go to sfsketchfest.com and buy tickets for our show and then any other or all of the other shows.

It's such a spectacular event across the city of San Francisco.

And of course, we couldn't do Sketchfest last year.

No one could for reasons that are obvious.

I think this year is going to be really, really special.

But you know, there cannot be live justice unless there is injustice.

If you are in the Bay Area or planning to be there on January 22nd, 2022, and you have a case for the show, submit it now, please, at maximumfund.org/slash JJHO.

Let us know you have a case you'd like to hear heard live on stage at the Sketchfest Live Justice Program of Judge John Hodgman 12222 at the Sydney Goldstein Theater, sfsketchfest.com, maximumfund.org/slash JJHO.

Hey, I've got another request, Jesse, real quick.

The holidays are coming up, and we're going to have a Judge John Hodgman holiday office party.

Oh.

Yeah.

You and me and the J crew are going to get together

and we're going to sample a beverage, a beverage combo that I just heard about this week.

Matt and Dan have a dispute.

I think I saw this.

Yeah.

Dan wants to take Matt to court

because Matt likes

a

traditional holiday beverage.

He likes to have eggnog mixed with sprite.

Wowie, Zowie.

Yeah.

And there's only one way to find out who's right.

Gracious.

We're all going to drink some eggnog and sprite.

Bless my stars.

And I would ask you, the listeners, who are not Dan and Matt, or at least not this Dan and Matt, because they already got their thing.

Do you have a holiday beverage, cocktail, mocktail

that's a little bit odd or weird?

Maybe some mulled Dr.

Pepper.

That's a traditional thing, some hot lemony Dr.

Pepper at the holidays.

That's an old southern thing.

Or maybe you've got a little appetizer or a weird holiday food that you just have to have at the holidays that is a little bit in the eggnog and sprite category of eccentric or peculiar that that you'd like me and Jesse and Jennifer Marmor to taste live on microphone,

we won't do the munching on the mics.

We're not going to

mess with our mesophonic audience.

We'll munch off mic, but we'll get some live reactions.

Hey, send it in, won't you?

Write to me, hodgman at maximumfund.org.

And it doesn't matter what holiday it is, by the way.

It doesn't have to even be a winter-based holiday.

If you've got a holiday tradition, a traditional food appetizer, something that's fairly like,

I don't need to roast a goose for this podcast.

You know what I'm saying?

Something that's a little bit easier to put together.

Even a fine fat goose?

No,

not even a fine fat one.

If you've got a little, if you've got a holiday tradition that you want to share with us, even maybe this not food or drink, but something else that

we can try on air, hey, send it to us, won't you?

Hodgman at maximumfun.org.

And of course, don't forget to go to Sketchfest, sfsketchfest.com for tickets tickets to our show.

Jesse Thornton, what do you have coming up?

Well, it's almost the holidays, as you mentioned.

We're getting close to the end of the time when I can ask people to buy their holiday gifts from the Put This On shop, but there are so many wonderful things waiting for you there.

A lot of folks bought those

hundred-ish-year-old football, college football charms.

Yeah, those are great.

A lot of folks, I guess, went to those universities and ordered them for folks who went to those universities.

So thank you.

There There are still a fair number available.

I got a pretty big collection of them.

I don't know.

I thought I would mention, you know,

I have this

jersey from the Mexican Professional Baseball League, the Mexican League,

the Liga Mexicana, for a team that played in Mexico City called the Electresistas.

And I bought it in Mexico City.

I looked it up and this team only played in the Mexican League for like two years in the 30s.

So this jersey is from the 30s.

It's an original jersey from the 1930s.

It's vest style and it's one of the coolest things I've ever had.

We also have, there's a Victorian tug of war medal made of silver.

I just put that in my shopping cart.

Hang on, let me check it out here.

I literally just put that in my shopping cart.

I'm removing it.

I'm going to let one of the listeners get it.

It's such a cool, you can have, you can order it with or without chain.

That's how you know I'm really telling the truth.

I was looking at the options.

That's a great gift for somebody.

I didn't even know who I was going to buy it for.

I was just like, someone's going to love this tug of war metal.

I'm going to put it in my shopping cart.

You should put it in your shopping cart, someone out there.

I've made a section of the store that's called Jesse's Picks, and it's a few of the things that I love the most among the things that are currently available in our shop.

You can find it just by clicking on Jesse's Picks at putthisonshop.com.

There are many wonderful and beautiful things.

And I also just put a bunch of stuff on sale.

So if you're looking for a bargain on a bargain, I'm going to be honest,

everything in our store is a bargain.

Totally.

It's all better and less expensive than what you'd buy in a store, a store store.

But yeah, there's a big sales section with a lot of things on sale.

So go to putthisonshop.com for your holiday shopping and get something special.

Don't buy some baloney at the department store.

Yeah, don't get department store baloney.

Go to a deli.

You want a belt buckle for the state of Montana to buy for your dad, Michaela, Go to putthisonshop.com.

These Montana and Oklahoma state belt buckles are fantastic.

PutThisonshop.com.

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

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Here's something from Allison.

Oh, Jennifer Marmer, we're going to need to bleep some words in this one.

Noted.

Allison writes, Jimmy Spilter, that son of a

in a drunken stupor, my best friend Jimmy gave me a fuzzy coat that was meant to be mine.

We traded jackets, we shook on it.

Days later, he told me he needed his jacket back because a random woman he isn't talking to anymore gave it to him.

It's bullshit.

It was given to me fair and square, and now he is assuming custody of said jacket, and I want my full rights reinstated.

Help me, Judge Hodgman.

This is also a movie.

This is a whole character piece for like Kristen Wig, I feel like.

I would love it.

Jimmy, that son of a Jimmy Spilter.

We don't use last names very often on this show, but I'm going to say something.

Spilter,

you son of a bids, if you're listening, we were obviously bleeping out a word, a word that I choose not to use in real life.

As far as you're concerned, you can know that what I'm actually saying is son of a young Frankenstein.

Jimmy Spilter, you son of a young Frankenstein!

I hate you.

All right.

Jesse Thorne.

We all agree that Jimmy Spilter is a son of a young Frankenstein.

No question about that.

He's always coming around doing, pulling stuff like this.

No,

one jacket.

That's like how a Frankenstein talks, pretty much.

That's how a Frankenstein talks, exactly.

And this is a baby Frankenstein.

Yeah.

Because he's the son of a young Frankenstein.

Right.

Like, man, when Jackie

hate fire.

Make friend with Hermit.

Yeah.

It's from Bride of Frankenstein.

Throw flower in lake.

Exactly.

Jimmy Spilter.

But...

Here's the deal.

Here's the thing.

Obviously, Jimmy Spilter has gone back on his word.

This was a handshake, fair and square.

But I think it hinges on whether or not this woman he's not talking to anymore has asked him back for this coat, whether he had permission to give it.

Because Allison says he gave her the jacket, but there were reciprocal considerations.

She gave him her jacket.

This was a trade.

This was not a contract with no considerations on one side, which contract is legally void.

Each party received something in this exchange.

Right.

Well, this is another question.

Is Jimmy Spilter, that son of a b ⁇ ?

He has now taken back the fuzzy jacket.

Has he returned Allison's jacket?

Has he even offered?

Or did Allison, I mean, this is what we in the Reddit A-I-T-A, M-I-T, A-Hole community call more info needed.

So here are the contingencies, Allison.

If this third party did not give Jimmy Spilter permission to trade the fuzzy jacket, you're in receipt of stolen goods.

You got to give it back and get your jacket back, fair and square.

If Jimmy Spilter and this person had been out of contact and the person had never asked for this jacket back until now for, let's say, over

six months,

then it's abandoned property.

It's fair and square.

You keep the fuzzy jacket.

So I don't know which of those, which part of that decision tree you fall off, but I'll tell you one thing that I do know.

Jimmy Spilter is a son of a.

we have a letter here uh we actually received a number of letters about our recent episode the veil of honor there were two things that were very controversial extraordinarily controversial yeah yeah

a lot of people actually love raisins they were very upset that i don't like raisins i'm sorry everybody you like what you like

You like Jimmy Fallon?

Great.

I like Jimmy Fallon too.

You like raisins?

Go for it.

You like sultanas?

Great.

You like figs?

Enjoy.

You don't have to write me a letter about every raisin you ever ate.

And the other thing that people were just like slamming at me was it's called a lint trap, Jesse.

Apparently.

Lint trap.

It's not a lint screen.

It's not a lint filter, lint trap.

I was wondering whether that was a regionalism.

Turns out the region of the United States mostly says lint trap.

I don't know.

Lint screen is what I always called it.

Then people were really mad that I was suggested that you go ahead and leave the lint screen full of lint, and then the next person or you, the next person to use it, cleans it off.

People are like,

you're leaving work for others.

You should be mindful of that.

You're going back on your own word, Judge John Hodgman.

Your own ruling.

Be mindful of the work you leave for others.

Fact is, I approached that dryer.

I approached that dryer.

I am presuming that it is a loaded weapon.

I got to clean that screen no matter what.

I'm going to check that screen no matter what.

If I pull up a screen that's clean, then I've wasted my time be mindful of the work you leave for me leave that lint on for me to clear it out so i know that it's not going to catch fire because one of the listeners sent in a picture of their next door neighbor's house burning down and it happened the night before everyone's okay

but this listener said they determined it was a dryer fire they call it a dryer because it rhymes with fire be careful Presume that that dryer is loaded up with lint and clear it out.

John, be mindful of the work you leave for others.

What greater pleasure is there than taking the lint out of the lint trap?

I know.

That is the greatest, most satisfying activity of all chores.

The way it peels out.

A lot of the comments on the Instagram account were saying that if you're in a communal laundry room, people don't want to peel out other, like the previous laundry doers' lint, because it could have their

underpants in it?

Pubic hair.

Am I allowed to say that on this show?

I guess it could.

You know whose pubic hair it probably is.

Jimmy Spilters.

That's

pubes.

Communal laundry situation.

Okay.

I mean,

if you want to go the extra mile and clear it out so that the next person doesn't have to touch Jimmy Spilters

pubes.

That's nice of you, I guess.

But the fact is, you still got to clean it out.

You got to clean, check it every time.

Check it every time.

Check it every time.

But as I say,

there's some weird things that were mentioned in passing that we didn't have details for, and I got the details because I get what I want.

For one thing, Teresa had told us that her mother clears the lint

trap, and forcing myself to say it, in the middle of the cycle.

And I didn't even know how you could possibly do that.

So she wrote to her mother, and her mother wrote, I bend down, put the clothes in the dryer, straighten up, close the dryer, adjust the settings, and then start it.

Then Then I pull the lint screen out of the top of the dryer, clean it quickly, and push it back in.

Just habit, I guess.

And of course, it wouldn't work with all dryers.

I'd forgotten.

There is, that's the, that's the, on certain dryers, the, the lint trap is a little thing you pull out of the top rather than inside the door of the drum.

I get it.

That makes sense now.

I understand.

Brian, meanwhile, who likes raisins, he was the one who started off this whole raisin debate, saying, who doesn't like raisins?

And his wife, Laura, said, a lot of people, Judge John Hodgman, especially.

He had said that Laura had a funny childhood raisin story, but he didn't tell us what it was.

What are you doing, Brian?

So I wrote them, and Laura wrote back with the story.

It turns out Laura's mom is in the food industry, and when she was four years old, she got an enormous amount of raisins as a promotion or something.

Laura, specifically to the solo narrative, I would have asked your mom, how much is an enormous amount?

Like a peck, two pecks, a bushel?

A bushel and a peck?

A bushel and a peck?

And a hook around the neck?

Yay.

I was going to say two giant scoops of raisins.

And Laura wrote, quote, Because everyone assumes kids love raisins, my mom sent them in with me to my daycare class.

So I entered the room holding up these two huge plastic bags of plain raisins and I yelled, Raisins for the people.

It's a pretty good story.

Cute, cute kid.

Finally, we heard from Amy,

who wrote to the show 10 years ago.

You will recall Amy and her ex-boyfriend, now roommate, Charles,

had a long dispute, a long-standing dispute, between which is the least great lake, which is the smallest great lake, Lake Erie or Lake Ontario.

And I, and I, because Lake Ontario is the smallest by surface area, whereas Lake Erie is the smallest by volume.

It's the shallowest of the Great Lakes.

A little shallowy, I called it.

So that dispute was submitted to us 10 years ago, and we didn't even know what was going on with these people at all.

Well, guess what?

They wrote us.

And Amy writes in saying

four things.

One, Charles and I are indeed no longer neighbors.

I'm sorry, they weren't roommates.

They were neighbors.

And I'm like, I bet they're not neighbors anymore.

And she says, right, Charles and I are indeed no longer neighbors.

We got back together shortly after I wrote you 10 years ago and then got married in Rochester, New York in 2018.

Congratulations.

You stuck it out, even through this debate.

Two, at our wedding, we revived the still unsettled debate at the time by asking our wedding guests to vote, which is the least great lake, Lake Ontario, Lake Erie.

My maid of honor made topographic maps of each lake out of construction paper.

Wow.

Wow.

I hope you didn't ask her to do that.

That's not that.

If she volunteered, fine, but that's not, a bride should never ask their maid of honor to make topographic maps under any circumstances.

And the guests voted by thumbtack,

which is.

This is my day, and I want maps, topographic maps.

And I want voting by thumbtack,

not ballots, not marbles, thumbtacks.

You're not the princess I am.

I just figured out now what voting by thumbtack means because I was about to say this is an election election is rigged, but it means

there were two topographic maps.

You didn't make one for every member of the wedding party.

Right.

And you walked by and you put a thumbtack in whichever one you thought was the least great.

And the debate was fierce,

predictably based on the number of Clevelanders and Rochesterians in attendance.

And guess what?

It ended in a tie, a dead heat.

They had to wait another three years before we, the J crew, would finally resolve this issue.

Lake Erie is the smallest lake.

We still live in the same neighborhood in San Francisco that we did when I wrote you 10 years ago, now plus a cat.

And finally, four, Charles accepted the defeat of little shallowy with grace and rounded up to $1.25.

That was their bet.

$1.25 is a dollar in 2010 money, it turns out.

A little bit more.

Congratulations, you guys.

Thanks.

I'm sorry that you had to wait so long for justice.

I hope that you are now able to

finally move in together.

I'm sure you were waiting for this ruling.

Even though you've been married for three years, you were waiting on this ruling as to whether or not you could actually move in together.

You can.

You have my blessing.

You may cohabitate as a married couple.

I thought of a good slogan, set of bywords for Judge John Hodgman moving forward.

Yes.

It sort of harkens back to the dawn of rap.

Sure.

Whose woods these are, I think I know.

His house is in the village, though.

You can talk, you can talk, you can bicker, you can talk, you can bicker, bicker, bicker, you can talk, you can talk, you can talk, talk, talk, bicker, bicker, bicker, you can talk all you want, but it's different than it was.

Wow.

Wow.

That, of course, is the opening pattern song from the Music Man.

Rock Island.

You got to know the territory.

You got to know the territory.

It's different than it was.

That's right.

It only keeps getting more different.

That's why you look forward and not back.

Nostalgia is the most toxic impulse.

Be mindful of the work you leave for others.

People like what they like.

We have touched on all of those laws.

And many other new ones here on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Cash for the merchandise, cash for the button hooks, cash for the cotton goods, cash for the hard goods, cash for the fancy goods, cash for the noggins and the piggins and the frickins, cash for the hogshead cask and the demijohn,

cash for the crackers and the pickles and the fly paper.

Look, what do you talk?

What do you talk?

What do you talk?

I'm just going to do the whole song.

Come on, I'm not going to do the whole song.

It makes me feel like you're on a train.

I'm going to draw me any point in the rest of my entire life, in which case I will definitely do the entire.

Hey, guess what?

What's that?

You and I are going to to do that song on stage at the San Francisco Sketch Fair.

That song has like seven parts in it.

We're going to do three and a half parts each.

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 at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Hashtag your judgejohnhodgman tweets.

Hashtag JJ Ho.

And if you want to talk about this episode, maximumfund.reddit.com.

If you have a case, maximumfund.org slash JJ HO or email it to hodgman at maximumfun.org.

We are looking for your cases.

We're particularly looking for cases in the San Francisco Bay Area.

So if you are in the Bay Area and might want to join us at Sketchfest or might be willing to join us at Sketchfest, make sure to mention that when you submit your case because

we are always excited to get great cases for our live shows.

Otherwise, we'll probably end up just doing the whole Music Man top to bottom.

And,

you know, John's probably going to want to play Professor Harold Hill, which is Jennifer, beep this.

Bullshit.

Harold Hill, that son of a b ⁇ .

That was the original first line.

We'll talk to you next time.

on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Hey, everybody, it's Judge John Hodgman here at the end of the credits.

No longer very secret post-credit sequence.

I just wanted to come back here to acknowledge a couple of listeners who I made reference to earlier in the program,

whose names I couldn't remember.

And luckily, I have the institutional memory of my email program.

I just want to thank listener Angela.

of Kansas City, A, for sending me these pictures of this corn buttering mechanism that Jesse referenced a long time ago here on the podcast.

And also for referring to John, Jesse, and Jennifer, that's us as the J crew, something that I should have thought of a full year ago when we first started talking about the J squad, along with our friend Joel Mann up there in Maine, who I will be seeing soon, although I'm not sure that we're going to be recording while I'm up there.

So we'll see what happens.

Anyway, shout out to the J crew.

And finally, I also want to thank listener Rich.

Rich has got a great last name, but I'm not going to read last names because I don't want to get in trouble.

But Rich is the one who wrote in pointing out that his neighbor's house burned down.

He says everyone is fine, but it's a disaster emotionally and financially, as I can only imagine.

And the presumption is that it was a dryer fire, honest to God, or whatever.

So

my condolences to Rich's family for the loss of their home.

I hope that they,

well, it's a terrible thing to happen to a person and it's a bad time right now.

So I hope that they are okay, and I'm glad that they're all safe and sound.

So thank you, Angela and Rich.

And if there's someone else whose name I forgot to mention and then forgot just now again, write and remind me.

Hodgman at maximumfund.org.

Please send in your cases for the Bay Area and for wherever you may live.

And thanks again for listening.

Bye-bye.

MaximumFund.org.

Comedy and culture.

Artist-owned.

Audience supported.