Sweet Corn Season

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're in chambers this week, clearing the docket.

And joining me from Orland, Maine, is a man wearing a monster, a t-shirt that says monster.

I guess a human monster.

Judge John Hodgman.

It says monster on my t-shirt, which you can see, Jesse, because though you are in Los Angeles, where there be monsters, end of the map, and here I am across the country through the, I guess, miracle of teleconferencing.

I don't know.

The burden of teleconferencing, yes.

The curse blessing, the klessing of teleconferencing, you can see that my t-shirt says monster.

It's an antique brand of fireworks.

The rest of the t-shirt has a picture of a monster on it.

Yeah, that's a cool t-shirt.

But what I realized looking, well, thanks.

I saw an ad on Instagram and just had to have it.

But what I noticed is, because in teleconferencing, I can see myself, which is bad, but I'm reversed also.

And I never realized that.

Do you know what monster spells backwards, Jesse?

What?

Restroom.

Almost.

Yeah, pretty much.

Almost spells restroom.

You know, John, I had a friend in middle school,

still a friendly acquaintance.

Sure.

Patrick Michaels.

Right.

You were also in middle school at the time.

Let's be clear.

Yeah.

Thank you for clarifying that.

No, I was in elementary school.

I was just super cool.

Wow.

You hung with the older kids.

My friend Patrick Michaels

could say any phrase backwards immediately, instantly.

It was the most extraordinary gift, skill, talent that I've ever observed in person.

He can still do it.

I talked to him a couple of years ago.

He works for ProPublica now.

He's a journalist.

And I confirmed he can still do it.

It's amazing.

I mean, honestly, when he went to interview at ProPublica, I imagine that they said, okay, we've taken a look at your investigative reporting, and it looks pretty good.

Can you say phrases backwards instantly?

And he was like, Yitzlini or whatever.

Asssel, bup, orp.

Yeah.

ProPublica backwards.

There you go.

Show me to the backwards monster, please.

I need to use the toilet.

That's a common phrase.

Jesse,

I'm here live in the studios, of course, the solar power studios of WERU.org.

We're going to clear the docket and dispense some justice.

Is that correct?

I believe that is correct.

Let's take a look at what we have from Heather in Selensgrove, Pennsylvania.

It's sweet corn season here in Pennsylvania.

I like to roll my hot corn on the cob directly on a stick of butter for maximum butter coating of the cob.

Can I make an objection already?

Yes.

It's not sweet corn season in Pennsylvania.

It's sweet corn season everywhere in the east of the United States.

Sure.

Don't be so

biased.

Joel, do you eat corn?

Yes, I do.

Sweet corn season here in Maine, right?

Yes, it is.

How do you butter your corn?

I make an herb butter.

Okay.

And then brush it on.

Oh, boy.

I didn't know this was going to get so involved.

Joel and his compound butters.

So sick of Joel's compound butters.

Wow, wow.

Then brush it on.

America's test kitchen over here.

All right.

I overrule my own objection to get back to this case.

Joel, you made me overrule my own objection.

Sorry.

My husband thinks.

No apology is acceptable for compound butter talk.

My husband thinks the only civilized way to butter corn is to place butter on a slice of bread and use the buttered bread to smear butter on the corn.

As our family's sole meal planner, shopper, and cook, I feel I have the final say in butter management.

Please order my husband to stop trying to control my corn buttering.

Hmm.

Interesting.

Jesse, is it sweet corn season in California?

Yeah, I think it is, but I think that's because California is America's fruit basket,

we have plenty of tasty things to eat all year round.

And so it's less of a big deal.

I know that, like,

for example, in visiting my family in Washington, D.C.

as a child,

the height of sweet corn season was a big cultural event.

Whereas for me, I'm like, great.

We can get cheramoyas right now.

Yeah.

You can dip your satsumas in olive oil any old time there.

in Southern California.

I got grapefruits growing in my backyard, John.

Right.

They fruit twice a year.

When you would visit your people in the District of Columbia, would you put butter on your corn?

Yes, of course.

Would you brush it on with a brush?

No,

John, no.

They had a corn set, John.

Tell me what a corn set is.

They had little corn-shaped skewers that you stick into either side of the corn.

Right.

And they had a butter stick holder that had a plunger on one end and a roundy part on the other end that you could use to rub the end of the stick of butter onto the corn.

It was fantastic.

One of my fondest childhood memories.

You would pick up the stick of butter with the stick of it.

The stick of butter was inside.

If you imagine a box,

if you imagine a butterstick-shaped box,

and one end of the box you can push in like a plunger.

Right.

And the other end of the box has a concave shape like the shape of a piece of corn.

Right.

And so you hold the box and you go rip, rip, rip, rip, rip, rip.

You're turning it with your little corn-shaped skewers.

And what do you got at the end?

A perfectly buttered piece of corn.

There's no butter on your hands.

You didn't have to mess with a butter knife.

You didn't have to ruin a perfectly good piece of bread.

I don't know.

I grew up in a roll the corn in the butter family.

And I would say, I will not recuse myself simply because that is the best way to butter corn.

What I'm going to say is the best way to butter corn, corn until i heard about this bread mechanism the best way to butter corn is roll it in the butter

second best way brush it on third best way use some weird box i don't even understand that thing i don't believe in it and i don't understand it sorry fantastic fantastic device but where does the bread does the bread overtake rolling it in the butter now here's one of the things about rolling the corn in the butter this was fine for me and my mom and dad we were a small group of of corn rollers.

We were all on board for it.

We didn't, we didn't mind.

It was not gross to any one of us.

But in mixed company, you got to be sure that everyone is on board with rolling that corn in the butter.

Oh, it's so, it's such, because it is a very, it is a very wonderful sensation to just feel that butter melt under that hot corn.

And it leaves a very satisfying impression.

reverse impression of the corn cob in the butter.

But that could be gross to some people.

So I kind of admire heather's husband's solution here

because you are getting full if you don't have the special box the magic butter box that jesse thorne had in the district of columbia northern virginia but continue sorry northern virginia you might as well be saying uh vermont now northern virginia and central virginia yeah forget about it blue state fairfax But if you have that piece of bread and butter, that is self-contained.

That is at your plate.

You are not sharing that butter.

You're not grossing anybody else out necessarily by dipping your food directly into a shared condiment.

Now, I thought that this guy had just made this thing up, Jesse.

I thought this guy made it up and he thought it was the best.

But you know where he got it from?

Where?

A movie called War Games.

They do that in War Games?

Yes.

I looked it up on the internet.

Using the internet, I found out.

That Matthew Broderick's pretend dad in the movie, the actor William Bogart, there's a dinner table scene where he does exactly this.

He butters a piece of white bread,

rolls the corn in the bread,

and then takes a bite of it and goes, oh, this corn is raw.

And his wife goes, can't you just taste all the vitamins and minerals?

It's a weird moment of comedic relief.

But if you look at the video of him buttering this corn, John Badham, who directed this movie, must have been really excited about this corn buttering technology because as much as he was was excited about a modem, because there's so much screen time is given to this guy slathering butter on his bread.

I want to get to the bottom of this.

If you have access to John Battam, or you worked on the movie War Games, or you know where this came from, get in touch with me.

I also had remembered this exact scene, except I remembered it from Breaking Away, but it was War Games, it turns out.

So, this goes back to 1983 at least.

We're taking this podcast to DEF CON 5.

Now that I've heard the technology described and I've seen it in action, I have to say there's something appealingly daddish about it for sure.

But in order to slather that butter on that bread, that butter would have to be so soft that if you were to roll corn in that butter, the butter itself would immediately liquefy and spill all over the table.

I don't like to split the baby in half, but I'm going to say there is no one way to enjoy your corn.

And in times past, When I have served guests corn, I give them a stick of butter to do with as they will.

And I take my own stick of butter, and that one's just for rolling.

Will I go through the whole stick of butter?

Probably.

It's not wasteful.

But I would rank, now that I've seen this technology, I would rank rolling in butter, basting it with a brush.

You're welcome, Joel.

Thank you.

Moving a box over it.

And then

butter on bread.

Also good.

And a great callback to War Games and to the very accomplished working actor William Bogart, who appeared in many, many TV shows and movies until until he passed away last year at the age of 84.

And who also,

by the way, it turns out, was married to a woman named Erin Osker, who was the only woman Muppeteer on the Muppet show.

For the first season, she performed Janice.

And basically, that character, because there are no other female characters in the Muppets, sorry.

They got to do something about that.

Heather can do it her way, and her husband can do it his way, and neither of them need to control the other.

Do it the Hodgman way.

Just get as much butter on the table as possible to use in as many ways as possible.

Next time sweet corn season rolls around in Pennsylvania, why don't you have one stick of butter for rolling, one stick of butter for brushing, one stick of butter for breading, and one stick of butter for boxing?

Have a corn buttering party.

The worst of all is taking a knife and trying to butter your corn with a knife.

It's the stupidest way of buttering corn in existence.

You know, it is corn season here in Southern California, and I had a a corn disaster this past weekend.

Oh, no, what happened?

My mother-in-law and I took my two younger children, Frankie and Oscar, to the California Science Center, an exposition park here in Los Angeles.

We visited the Space Shuttle.

Yes.

They have a real space shuttle there.

And

they have bad food at the California Science Center.

Astronaut ice cream, I presume?

They do have astronaut ice cream, which is there's no more consistent disappointment than astronaut ice cream.

Space pen, pretty good.

Right.

Astronaut ice cream, pretty bad.

So how would you feel about an astronaut it's it?

A freeze-dried it's it?

You know, they have mini it's it's now.

What?

Yeah.

Min it's it's pretty excited about that.

Yeah.

It's a new development.

So anyway, we decide we're not going to eat inside the California Science Center and pay science museum food court prices for science museum food.

Right.

Because right outside the California Science Center, there are a number of vendors set up selling the street foods typical of Southern California.

Sure.

So my kids got hot dogs,

you know, Southern California style hot dogs wrapped in bacon.

That's right.

Very tasty.

And I got esquites.

which is, you know, corn off the cob and it's typically with

it's the off-the-cob equivalent of elotes, which are barbecued with mayonnaise and cheese, and usually chili and lime.

And off-the-cob, there's usually also cilantro and

sometimes there's fresh chilies in there.

Nice.

And

so far, no disaster.

No disaster to the story.

A favorite food of mine.

Love to get it.

Feeling a bit peckish, walking around in Los Angeles, stop and

buy some from somebody that's pushing a special cart.

Right.

And

my esquites came with corn and mayonnaise so far, all good.

I love it.

And a little bit of nacho cheese sauce, and that's it.

And it was intensely gummy.

And

to say it lacked flavor contrasts, really.

Mayonnaise and nacho cheese sauce?

That was not a winner for you?

Just a little nacho cheese sauce.

You know what?

You need to fix that disaster.

What's that?

Well, you know, you can't take nacho cheese sauce away.

You can't take those ingredients away.

You have to add something.

You know what you have to add?

What?

Compound butter.

What's in your compound butter, Joel?

Please say cilantro and jalapenos.

A little hot sauce.

Okay.

A little

celery salt, maybe.

Whoa, Whoa, what's going on?

Joel, keep going.

And melted butter.

I microwave it and make a liquid out of it.

Right.

So you melt the butter and you infuse it with hot sauce and celery salt.

Right.

And then you baste it on with a brush.

It's pretty hot, Joel, I got to tell you.

It's pretty good.

I would have thought up in Maine, it would have just been all mayonnaise and nacho cheese sauce.

Well, I'm from the District of Columbia, too, just like Jesse.

Everything's getting very confused.

Let's move on with the justice.

Here's something from Helen in Boulder, Colorado.

I bring suit against my wife, Chelsea.

We've been living in several different basement apartments during the COVID pandemic uncertainties with varying levels of dampness and, worse, spiders.

Oh, boy.

I believe that spiders have no place in the home.

Personally, I squish them.

Chelsea believes there's no harm in having them scurry about doing their business as long as they're not crawling on on her.

This leads to spider scares, finding them behind the toilet, in the shower, and most upsettingly, in a coffee cup I was about to use.

Chelsea says, I should just get used to it.

Judge, please order Chelsea to either kill or trap and transport outside every spider she sees to save my poor nerves.

Jesse, what's your spider protocol?

Kill or catch and release?

I'm not bothered by spiders personally.

Right.

However, my wife is.

Yeah.

And I will kill whatever bug my wife asks me to kill because we share a great love.

Right.

I am bothered by spiders personally.

And by personally, I mean very personally.

Like they prank call me.

Right.

You know, like

they're constantly ordering pizzas sent to your address.

Yeah.

Somehow

it's a number that I recognize, and I answer the phone like a dope.

And it's a spider, and he goes, mid-tier comedian.

That's what he says to me.

Mid-tier comedian.

John Hodgman has answered the phone.

I'm sorry, but it's hard not to take that personally.

Jim Gaffigan didn't answer.

How dare, don't put Jim Gaffigan in mid-tier with me.

Jim Gaffigan is diamond medallion.

No, they had to move down a tier from the Gaffigan tier.

No, they're like, hey, John.

Hey, John, mid-tier comedian.

I'm like, oh, you spiders.

Why are you?

They're like, don't take it personally, man.

It's just a prank call.

It's hard not to take that personally.

Yeah.

But I don't squish them.

One day, my dad said, don't, spiders are your friends.

They eat the other bugs.

If you don't want them in your room, pick them up with a little piece of paper, put them outside.

And to this day, it is hard for me to squish a spider.

Jennifer Marmor, what do you do with spiders?

When I lived alone, I would usually try to pick them up with a piece of paper and put them outside.

Right.

Because squishing it it is just gross to me, even though

it can stain your wall.

Yeah, it's disgusting.

Now

I just say, Shane, there's a spider.

And my husband gets it.

And what does he do with it?

He usually squishes it because he doesn't care.

And I don't care as long as it's dealt with.

Shane's a real macho dude.

That's why.

Really?

He's one of those big, tough cartoonist types.

Let's go around the J-Squad, around the horn with Joel.

What do you do with spiders?

Squash them.

Squash them.

Guys, put your spiders outside.

I'm not shy of killing a bug.

It's not uncommon after my wife, who is a whole human being in her own right, falls asleep before me and the lights are out in the bed.

And I'm going down a deep Wikipedia hole.

about this actor, William Bogart, and his wife, the Muppeteer,

and it's in the dark.

And, you know, the screens are not very good in our bedroom.

And all of a sudden, I got all kinds of bugs flying onto my phone screen.

They love that phone screen.

And I squash them with my thumb on the screen.

Not shy about it.

Not shy about it.

I don't mind killing a moth, especially a brown-tailed moth, right, Joel?

Absolutely.

Yeah, those guys, worst.

They're worse than spiders.

A brown-tailed moth comes from a caterpillar called a brown-tailed moth caterpillar, invasive to this area of Maine.

And if you get, if you touch one of these things, you get a rash for a week.

If you inhale its little, its little fur, you could have respiratory problems that send you to the hospital.

Brown-tailed moth caterpillar.

Get out of here.

I'll kill a brown-tailed moth any day.

One that I will not kill, rosy maple moth.

I found the most beautiful moth hanging around my kitchen.

It was drinking a cup of coffee and having a cigarette.

And I'm like, do I got a squash a moth tonight?

And he said, no, look at me.

And I looked at him.

I was like, this beautiful moth with these like fuzzy, fuzzy pink legs and fuzzy pink wings and beautiful,

you know, peeps, the yellow marshmallow

ducks or chicks or whatever they are.

The antennae, the color of peeps, so cute.

Took a picture of him, put him up on John Hodgman's Instagram account.

Everyone's going, that is a rosy maple moth.

You're the luckiest guy in the world to see one.

It's not fair, bugs.

I'm sorry.

Some of you get up on my screen and you get squashed.

Some of you show up up sporting some fuzzy pink wings and I save you.

Some of you are not insects.

You're arachnids.

And my dad told me you are my friend.

And so I don't squash you.

The baseline is how, whatever your policy for dealing with spiders, everybody in your basement apartment has got to get on board with it.

If Helen is not feeling the spiders in her life,

well then, Chelsea, you got to take care of your wife, who is a whole human being in her own right, and get rid of the spiders when you see them.

Take them outside.

Do what I do.

Take them outside.

Get them on a little piece of paper.

Climb up the ladder to the tiny window just under the ceiling in your basement apartment.

Open it.

It's probably painted shut.

I'm painting a very sad picture here of your lives together in Boulder.

Let it out.

And I hope, Helen, for your sake, that you eventually enjoy the non-subterranean life that you would obviously prefer.

Jesse, what were the bugs that came out of the walls when you were sleeping in the basement?

Mongolian bloodworms?

Yeah,

I told my therapist about that the other day.

I lived in a basement room at my dad's house.

And sometimes when I was asleep, they would have to go through my room to get from the garage to the rest of the house just because of how the house was built.

It was not a legal room.

And they would leave my door open and slugs would come in.

That's what it was.

And then there would be slug tracks in my room.

Yeah.

And then a couple of times there was this this bug called a Jerusalem cricket that's genuinely terrifying.

Oh, I don't know that one.

Don't Google it.

I'm going to.

And it's so gross.

And I told my therapist about this.

This is a different conversation.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, it's awful.

It's so, so gross.

Why did you tell me to Google it?

I told you.

Jennifer just Googled it too, dang it.

I had to.

I had to see what we were talking about.

I know.

And you should have used DuckDuckGo.

Now all you're going to get is targeted ads for Jerusalem cricket.

Google.

So anyway.

Joel, I'm texting you this thing.

Okay.

This is terrible.

My therapist says to me, you know, they should have just gone the other way or closed the door behind them.

Joel just flinched.

Yikes.

I'm sorry.

What were you saying?

I'm all about a Jerusalem cricket right now.

My therapist told me they could have just gone the other way or closed the door behind them or done something about it.

And I was like, yeah, now that you mention it, I guess they could have done those things.

You're talking about the Jerusalem cricket could close the door behind it.

Like it would wander into your room and just like, creep shut.

And it's like, hello, Jesse.

It's big enough.

I mean, that guy's like, that guy's like four inches long.

I don't care for it.

Terrifying.

Don't care.

Terrifying creature.

Anyway,

we're going to take a quick break to hear from this week's partner, Jerusalem Crickets Inc.

You might have seen them in your Google searches.

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

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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

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Just go to maximumfund.org/slash join.

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

Let me ask you a question.

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It's true.

The Brace Short Ribs, Made In, Made In.

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You got it.

It was made in, made in.

But made in isn't just for professional chefs.

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

It's the stuff that professional chefs use, but because it is sold directly to you, it's a lot more affordable.

uh than some of the other high-end brands we're both big fans of the carbon steel steel.

I have a little

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It's an immensely useful piece of kitchen toolery.

And it will last a long time.

And whether it's griddles or pots and pans or knives or glassware or tableware, I mean, you know, Jesse, I'm sad to be leaving Maine soon, but I am very, very happy to be getting back to my beloved Made In Entree Bowls.

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

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket this week, and we have something here from Cheryl in Bellevue, Washington.

These aren't even true crickets, it turns out.

They're not true crickets, nor true bugs, because they're not part of the order of hemipots.

What are they?

Lobsters?

They're only native to Jerusalem.

Yeah, I know.

They're land lobsters.

A delicacy.

Oh, no.

I'll stick with a bucket of scallops, please.

Their highly adapted feet are used for burrowing beneath moist soil

to feed on decaying root plants and tubers.

They are not.

I shouldn't have left those tubers around.

They are not venomous, but they can emit a foul smell and are capable of inflicting a painful bite.

Guess what?

Jerusalem crickets, you're banned from listening to the show.

If I see you crawling on my screen, I'm going to smush you with my thumb.

And it's going to be gross because you're huge, but I'll do it.

You're no rosy maple moth, nor are you my friend the spider.

Get out of here.

Banned.

Hi, says Cheryl.

My name is Cheryl Crow.

You might recognize my name from my infamous I Make My Sun Baskets at Night song and video.

Oh, it is Cheryl,

the famous Cheryl Crowe.

Yeah, the one from the Sun Baskets at Night video on Instagram.

Yeah, she posted on the, she posted her video on the Maximum Fun subreddit of her singing, I make my sun baskets at night.

So I can't even remember the rest of it.

I was so excited to see that.

Is there another Cheryl Crowe?

I honestly couldn't tell you.

There is one other song with that melody.

What is it?

It was during the hyphi era of bay area hip-hop it went i wear my stunna glasses at night big part of hyphi was wearing stunna shades oh

it's also the tune of the alphabet and

uh

twinkle twinkle little star same tune well there you go yeah anyway cheryl says i've been a longtime fan of the show and i have a dispute with my husband regarding our microwave he thinks i should give him a grace period of around a minute or less after his item has been microwaved before I take his item out and put mine in.

I contend it's the job of the original microwaver to time their presence accurately if they want the option to further heat their item.

Please order that he stop complaining when I take his items out of the microwave.

P.S.

This may or may not relate to the fact that I warm up my coffee in the microwave approximately 35 times a morning.

I didn't realize that Cheryl Crowe is also my mother-in-law when she visits.

I have a confession to make, Jesse.

What's that?

I let Cheryl Crowe slip through on this one because she's adorable and she made that song.

Right.

This is a nothing case.

It's an obvious solution.

Get your stuff out of the microwave, Cheryl's husband.

There's nothing really to discuss here.

I just like Cheryl Crowe.

I love her song.

What's her famous song again?

I make my sunbaskets at night.

So I hope that you're happy, Cheryl, that I ruled in your favor.

I was biased in your favor to begin with because you're adorable and you did a great job with that song.

Get your stuff out of the microwave.

I sent it to my friend Tyler from college and he liked it a lot.

Yeah.

If you leave your stuff in the microwave, then it might as well be garbage.

Get it out of there.

Wait.

Wait until it's done.

Unless you're defrosting a roast, in which case you're defrosting things wrong.

The only thing you should be using your microwave for is softening butter, making compound butter, making popcorn, heating up rice.

that's good.

Heating up water if you don't have a kettle handy.

That's about it, right?

That's all you need.

That's all you can really use a microwave for.

Heating up coffee if you don't care about how coffee tastes.

You know, John, I have a friend who has a podcast, my friend Adam Lissagore.

Yeah, of course.

Has a podcast called All Consuming, where

he and his co-host try products from social media advertisements.

Very fun podcast.

And he and his co-host reviewed this mug with a chip and a heater inside it.

Ooh.

And the mug itself keeps your beverage at a certain temperature, sort of like a sous vide.

Oh, it has a little heating element inside of it.

Yeah, and you recharge, it's a rechargeable battery.

That sounds pretty good.

I thought.

I thought that's a ridiculous idea.

But you know what?

They used it.

They said it works great.

They loved it.

Maybe they could be a just saying, Cheryl Crow.

I could see why your husband and you might be having some of a standoff over this 35 times a morning.

Hyperbolly.

But yeah.

Cheryl's husband, get your stuff out of the microwave.

Jesse,

I just got some, speaking of food, I just got some news that's really bumming me out.

What's that?

I just got a letter from a listener in Japan named Craig.

And Craig, remember how I have two secret ingredients to this new high concept burger that i'm trying to put out into the world and one of them is secret and the other one is a hash brown yeah well guess what they put hash browns on hamburgers in japan all the time holy cow all he sent me pictures pictures of hamburgers with uh hash browns on them including the mcdonald's idaho burger and then jan wrote to me saying,

yeah, they put hash browns on burgers in Germany as well.

They call them roasty burgers.

And you know where Jan is writing from specifically?

Where?

Hamburg.

For real.

Wow.

Wow.

But I still got my secret weapon, that other secret ingredient.

I revealed it to Chuck Bryant the other day.

He seemed to appreciate it.

I have two big secrets.

One is the secret ingredient to my special hamburger concept.

And the other is what I did in the urinal next to Harold Bloom.

when we were on a break from the class that I took with him at Yale.

Famous

Shakespeare scholar and author of the Western Canon, the book about the Western Canon.

I will reveal one of those secrets after the credits, so listen to the rest of the show.

Here's something from Bethany in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

After a long, isolated winter spent entirely indoors,

I made plans with my BFFs Sarah and Kate to regularly visit local beer gardens in our hometown.

We agreed to take turns picking the location.

When it was Kate's turn to pick, she insisted on going to a lakefront beach with cabanas instead of an actual beer garden.

I protested, as a beach is clearly not a beer garden.

A proper beer garden should be reminiscent of the original type of German Bielgarten.

Just doing my best there.

I don't know if I got that right.

Yeah.

With outdoor communal seating and an atmosphere of

gamutraskeit.

That means geniality.

Geniality.

Friendliness and geniality.

Yes.

That's why I said it with typical German friendliness and geniality.

Gemutlischke.

A beach with cabanas evokes an entirely different vibe.

I would agree.

She wants something that's more like a

classic dirigible hanger.

Kate believes that the beach can also be considered a beer garden as it is an outdoor seasonal space in which to drink.

It just has, quote, sand instead of grass.

Wow.

Period.

End quote.

I'm requesting an injunction against Kate.

I ask that she desist in picking a non-beer garden establishment for our beer garden hangouts.

Wow.

And where do they live?

Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Oh, okay.

So this is Lake Beach.

This is a Lake Michigan beach.

Yeah.

I don't like that.

I don't like that at all.

I know that these great lakes have beaches.

I know that they have tides.

I get it.

But you know me, I don't like lakes.

They make me nervous.

Where's that water coming from?

Where's it going?

It's just sitting there.

Just things are rotting at the bottom.

That's where the Jerusalem cricket comes from is my bet.

Yeah.

I feel like it's impossible to know a lake's plans.

Yeah.

You don't, it's just, it's, it's plotting is what a lake is doing.

It's just sitting there scheming.

The ocean's rolling all over the place.

It doesn't care about you, it doesn't care whether you live or die.

It's going to roll in, it's going to roll out.

It takes its trash with it.

The lake is just sitting there staring at you on the beach.

Beach.

Come on.

But even so, even though a Milwaukee lake beach is not precisely the Caribbean vibe, it is certainly not a beer garden.

It is not filled with

gemudlichkeit geniality.

A beach bar is filled more with what they call Felander Sausstroergeist.

That's the feeling of not being able to find your lost shaker of salt.

Did you know that?

I did not know that.

I'm sorry that I translated that poorly, Jan.

Jan and Homburg, I apologize.

I translated it and probably pronounced it poorly, but that's what Google told me to do after it got tired of sending me pictures of Jerusalem crickets, which is all I see now.

Thanks, algorithms.

Inside your eyelids.

A beach bar is different than a beer garden.

So

if you've made an agreement to go to a beer garden, go to a beer garden.

There's nothing wrong.

I mean, it's not, look, it's not for me.

I don't want to go to a beach in Milwaukee and have a lake stare at me.

That's not fun for me.

I mean, no matter how thoroughly it embraces Jimmy Buffett-style Margaret Waukeeville, but you can go to it if you want to do that.

If you live in Milwaukee, it's great.

But what is Milwaukee known for?

Dark and stormies?

No, beer.

Haas and Pfeffer Incorporated, for heaven's sakes, go to a beer garden if you're in Milwaukee.

What a great thing to do.

Don't pretend that you're somewhere else.

Be where you are.

But if you have to go to that beach, that lake beach, just admit what it is.

It's a lake beach, not a beer garden.

Don't like them.

Don't like lakes.

Toddy Pond isn't bad.

You like Toddy Pond, Joel?

Don't like lakes or spiders.

Really?

Nope.

What about Craig Pond?

No ponds.

Ocean.

All right.

I take it back.

I was going to give Toddy Pond a pass.

I take it back for Joel.

No lakes.

I'm going to take a vacation in Milwaukee, do some snorkeling.

You know what?

Milwaukee is terrific.

One time I did a show in Milwaukee with our friends Kristen Schall and Eugene Merman at the Pabst Theater, a beautiful theater.

The band Hansen had just passed through the Pabst, and they had left behind their, in the, in their, in the beautiful green room of the Pabst Theater.

Hansen had the three, the three brothers, Hansen,

left behind several cases of their new endeavor, which is a brand, a Hansen-branded beer.

Did you know this?

I had heard about this.

Yeah.

So you know what the name of the beer is.

It's on brand for them.

Yeah.

I don't remember what it is, but it's a pun.

Mm hops.

That's what it is.

Yeah.

Mm hops.

Yeah.

Good for you, Hansen.

And then Eugene Merman took us to a late-night establishment, a bar that was created by some Uber dad at the tail end of the Cold War.

It was like this James Bond-themed bar that you could only enter through a secret door in the back of another bar, in which case you would sit down in a booth and it would rotate you into the secret bar or go through a different side door and you'd have to do a humiliating little dance and then it would let you in through a, they would let you in through a fake bookshelf.

And then at some point, Eugene said, here, sit in this,

sit in this chair.

And I did.

And everyone laughed at me.

I'm like, why are you laughing?

And then I was strapped into the chair and lowered through the floor.

to be deprogrammed.

It was a wild scene.

Place is called Safe House.

It's not a surprise.

People in Milwaukee know about it.

People in Milwaukee will probably roll in their eyes that I went to this dad bar, but I had a great time and it was full of people having a good time.

When I rolled back through Milwaukee again with our friends from Rift Tracks, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, I was like, and we did a performance at Turner's Hall.

I said, let's, I have a place to take you after the show.

And I took them there, and we did the humiliating little dance that we had to do.

We went through the bookshelf, and we were the only ones there.

No, it was a it was a Friday night and it was not early nor was it particularly late.

It was prime time, but it turns out Eddie Vetter was playing in town.

So all the dads went to that instead.

So Murphy and Corbett and I just had a sad beer in this basement.

with this one bartender who is bored out of his mind and his girlfriend was lying in a booth asleep.

Milwaukee!

I can't wait to come back and visit you.

Let's go there and do a show, Jesse.

I'd love to.

Special guest Robin Yount.

Let's take a quick break when we come back, a listener who has married themselves.

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

maybe you stopped listening for a while, maybe you never listened, and you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

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

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

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

And if not, we just leave it out back.

It 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 Lollum.

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.

Welcome back to the Judge Sean Hodgman podcast.

Now, Judge Hodgman, before we went to break, I teased a listener who married themselves.

Right.

I don't know.

I don't know what that means.

I don't have any context on this.

I did not read the script before we started recording.

So what does it mean, a listener who married themself?

Actually, it's a reference back to episode 521, which was the Mighty Eagle of Mid-Tier Comedy Podcasting.

I don't listen to Judge John Hodman.

Mostly listen to this one baseball podcast.

Well, you during this,

we had a dispute over how generous one should be when giving a wedding gift, if you're not attending the wedding.

And in passing, you mentioned the idea of a person marrying oneself.

In other words, having a wedding ceremony just for themselves and not getting married to anybody else.

And I said, well, if we have any listeners who married themselves at any time in history, please write and let us know

because I'm sure that's a thing.

And I meant it sincerely.

And we got a very sincere response back from our friend of the court, Hannah Cyrus.

I don't mind saying her last name.

She's a fixture on the judge John Hodgman.

She and her sister, Afton, were featured in episode 282 when we did our live show in Portland, Maine.

Afton wanted Hannah to get a phone that, a cell phone that worked because she was living here in Blue Hill, Maine, and working at the Blue Hill Public Library, where I would see Hannah quite a bit over the past couple of years because it's a lovely place to work and she's a librarian.

She's since got a new job, by the way.

She left the Blue Hill Library.

Did you know that, Joel?

No, I didn't.

Hannah's up in the Bangor Library now.

Step up.

It's a pretty big job.

She's still commuting.

She's still.

She has the big leagues.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's the one different, whole different county.

But in any case, Hannah wrote in saying that she, in fact, held a wedding for herself, a non-wedding for her 30th birthday, which occurred just before the COVID lockdown.

She said, I invited all my friends from the different parts of my life to come together.

for a big party and dinner and dancing.

I made a wedding-style website.

I rented out the very affordable Central Hall for the purpose of the party.

I got catering from a local restaurant.

I made homemade bunting from old scraps of fabric and hung up twinkle lights.

Boy, oh boy.

Hannah Cyrus is in the neck and neck in the adorable contest with Cheryl Crowe.

The whole thing was very festive.

People gave toasts, including my sister Afton.

Many of my friends had a sleep over at the Blue Hill Public Library.

What?

And everyone had a great time.

It sounds self-indulgent, and it was, but I loved my birthday and I realized by the time I was turning 30 that I had no desire or intent to ever get married, but I still wanted the opportunity of a great party that friends could attend from near and far, meet one another and celebrate.

I was so pleased that many of my loved ones made the trip and honestly thinking back on it during the pandemic is one of the things that kept me going.

That's amazing, Hannah.

We miss you at the library.

I go to work there, Jesse.

I sit by Hannah's old desk and people keep coming up going, where's Hannah?

Where's Hannah?

Where's Hannah?

And the and the person who has replaced Hannah, who seems very nice and I'm sure is very competent, says, Hannah's hit the big time.

She's up at Bangor.

Yeah.

Bangor Public Library.

She's a millionaire now.

I know, but this whole thing about now that I know that sleepovers at the Blue Hill Public Library are allowed, Hannah, don't tell them.

I'm going to start Airbnb in the audiobook section.

I'm going to start renting it out.

It's hard to find

rentals in Maine this summer.

Yeah.

Bring your own sleeping bag and you can nestle in underneath the display of Rowan Tree pottery.

It'll be great.

$200, please.

Wow.

Does that come with a bucket of scallops?

It comes with a half gallon of scallops.

Okay.

Fair enough.

They have good Wi-Fi.

Cardboard milk container.

Yeah, they have good Wi-Fi there.

If you're a member, you get access to their high-speed Wi-Fi, which is fantastic.

I happen to know that they have a complete set of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which is great.

And,

you know, if you want to buy a copy of a novel called Chang and Eng for $2, you can get it outside.

It's a bargain at any price.

It is.

I love you, Darren.

Our docket clear.

That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman.

Our producer, Jennifer Marmer.

This week's episode, edited by Valerie Moffat, our engineer in Maine, is Joel Mann, Program and Operations Manager at WERU Community Radio.

In Orland, Maine, you can listen to WERU at weru.org and you can follow Joel on Instagram.

His handle is the Maine Man, M-A-I-N-E-M-A-N-N.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Make sure to hashtag your judgejohnhodgman tweets.

Hashtag J J H O and of course check out the Maximum Fund subreddit to chat about this week's episode at maximumfund.reddit.com.

You can submit your cases, and we ask you to do so at maximumfund.org/slash JJ H O or email them to hodgman at maximumfun.org.

Helpful if you let us know if you've got any recording equipment at the house, but that is not a requirement for you to have access to recording equipment, but useful to know and throw your telephone number in there so Jennifer can give you a call if she wants to talk to you about your submission.

We promise you only Jennifer will call you, not spiders.

MaximumFun.org slash JJ H O or email Hodgman at maximumfun.org.

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

Secret post-credit sequence deploy.

Thank you for hanging around to listen to my secret.

I'm going to reveal one of the two secrets.

And Jesse, normally I encourage you, because you're a busy fellow.

Yeah.

I encourage you to go on about your day.

I'm usually busy projecting executive presence.

That's right.

And athleticism.

That's right.

And I know you've got other podcasts to oversee and

produce and create and so forth.

But thank you for sticking around here in the post-credit sequence to hear my secret.

Now, I have two secrets that I can share with the audience.

One is the non-hash brown secret ingredient to my high-concept burger.

The other is what happened when I stood at a urinal next to Harold Bloom, the famous literary critic, during a break during the Shakespeare Tragedies course I took with him in college.

Which do you think I shall reveal?

I'm going to say that you will reveal what happened when you stood next to Harold Bloom at the urinal, when you took the Shakespearean Tragedies course from him in college.

So I told the story that I had used the urinal next to Harold Bloom, and it was a very scary thing to do because he was a very, very, very big deal on campus, B-D-O-C.

But that's a lie.

I didn't use that urinal because as soon as Harold Bloom came in to use the urinal next to me, I couldn't pee-pee anymore.

Oh, no.

And I was so embarrassed about this that I reached down and I agitated the water to make it sound like I was peeing so that Harold Bloom would think I was peeing.

For some some reason, that was important.

I didn't want Harold Bloom to think that I couldn't pee next to Harold Bloom.

And as far as my second secret ingredient for my high-concept burger, Chuck Bryant knows it.

You know it, Jesse.

You know it, Jennifer.

Joel, you know it, right?

I think so.

Yeah, I told you already.

Right.

Bleep this out.

It's

this thing is going to

go great.

As soon as I get it together, Jesse, I promise you.

John, you know, you weren't the the only one with a celebrity literature professor.

Yeah, who'd you get?

Casey Muhammad.

You know what he said when

he was explaining metonymy to our class?

No.

He said it's when you refer to something

by something with which it is associated.

Like if you have a friend who lives in the swamp and you call him Swampy Swamperson.

Casey Muhammad

is a cool guy.

He's a cool guy.

That's so weird that Harold Bloom used the same explanation.

Well, he was

both quoting from Chaucer, so.

That makes sense.

Now I understand.

Okay, goodbye, everybody.

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