Coke or Grain

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
We're in chambers this week, clearing the docket.

And with me is a man who just noticed there's some construction going on on the street outside his house, Judge John Hodgman.

Here in Brooklyn, New York, it has been a quiet moment.

It is lovely to see you, Jesse, there in Los Angeles and you, producer Jennifer Marmord, there in Los Angeles using teleconference technology, which we've become, oh, so fond of the past year.

But Jesse, I see you. You are in a professional setting, are you not?

Yeah, I'm in the studios of MaximumFund.org in the American Cement Building, Los Angeles, California, overlooking beautiful MacArthur Park Lake.

So that means there will be no cameos from Leafy the Leafblower. No.

And what was the pile driver's name?

I don't remember. But I think you, New York Construction is a different breed.

I have a friend who's a professional podcaster named Brian Heater, host of the podcast R-I-Y-L. Recommend it if you like.

And Brian is a New Yorker, and he's had construction outside his window this entire pandemic time. And at one point, he posted a video shot out of the window that he faces when he's podcasting.

And the construction is on this very narrow row house, and the construction was just one man throwing things out of a window.

Like a third-story window.

That's the definition of New York construction. Like 30% of a toilet out the window.
Sure.

When my wife, who was a whole human being in her own right, moved to New York before I did, with our dear friend Christine, they shared an apartment together. And

they moved into this apartment and the person before them had left behind a sofa.

And the question was, what do we do with the sofa? How do we throw the sofa away? And between

my wife, who was a whole human being, and Christine, they realized, well, we're in New York now. You just throw it out the window.

It was truly. And this made perfect sense to me because coming from Brookline, Massachusetts, New York felt like a totally lawless place.
I mean, I was raised on the Warriors and Escape from New York.

Of course, there are no rules. You just throw the stuff out the window.
And they had.

You just light it on fire. Yeah.
And they had the sofa halfway out the window before they stopped themselves. When they appreciated, I may have told this story before.

They looked down and they appreciated they were going to take out about five different air conditioning units if they let that thing drop.

And that was what stopped them. And finally they were like, let's, they couldn't get it out the door was the problem.

That was why they were trying to get it out the window. They couldn't get it out the door because of

logistical issues, the size of the sofa and stuff. So finally, they called the superintendent of the building and asked him what he should do.
And he said, let me take a look at it.

And he came up to their apartment and he kicked the legs off the sofa with his foot.

If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere, John. Exactly, exactly.
All of which is to say that construction in New York is a little different than it is in Los Angeles.

If I am hearing this correctly, and you might hear it on this recording, or you might not, apologies if you do. I'm here in my home studio in my office here in Brooklyn, New York.

If I hear this correctly, it sounds to me like someone bought a gigantic model set of human teeth from the put this on shop and is now drilling it for cavities very loudly.

Or they might be drilling into concrete wall. I don't know what they're doing.
But if you hear drilly in the background, that's what that is.

And then I have a neighbor on my left side now who's a very very good neighbor, but they have a dog. And through the windows ahead of me, in the yard below, lives another dog with another human.

And sometimes when these two dogs see each other, oh, it gets to be a really growly situation.

So my fingers are crossed that we're going to hear those dogs growl at each other in friendly, doggy, you know.

They're not mad at each other. They're just natural rivals.
You know what I mean? Sure. Yeah.

It's like you and Jonathan Colton. That's right.
That's right.

We nip at each other's other's heels.

Okay.

We've got a lot of justice to dispense on this episode, so let's get into it. Here's something from Greg in Califon, New Jersey.
You're Hodgness.

My wife's college friend. I will accept that.
I will accept that. My wife's college friend is getting married this year.
Due to COVID, she's opting out of both the ceremony and the reception. Sure.

My wife wants to send, quote, a really nice gift, unquote, i.e., more money than our usual wedding gift, for two reasons.

One, it will provide extra cheer to the friend who is missing out on her wedding. Two, the money we save by not attending can be added into our normal gift.
I argue our usual amount is a fine gift.

Also, the money the friend saved by not having a reception more than makes up the difference. I ask you to order my wife to stay the course and give our typical wedding gift adjusted for inflation.

Adjusted for inflation?

When was the last time they gave a wedding gift? 1979?

You have to index your wedding gifts, but the problem is the Democrats want the victory once every few years of raising the minimum wedding gift standard. So nobody wants to index it.
Right.

No, I understand. Look, and I also understand that inflation is ticking up right now due to some post-COVID supply chain shortages, so you don't have to write write me.

But yeah, it does sound like,

do you ever use?

One of the things I love to do, of course, is to read Travis McGee novels by John D. McDonald.
And one of my very favorite things, these were all written in the 60s and 70s, into the early 80s.

And they're crime novels, and they often involve amounts of money that were stolen or recovered.

And

I'm a big fan of the internet inflation calculator to see how much something, how much buying power a dollar had, say, in 1969 1969 in Travis McKee time. But yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I don't know when the last time they went to a wedding was that they need to adjust their minimum gift for inflation. But okay, I accept it.

Here's the thing about the inflation calculator, John. Yeah.
You know that thing where your parents say when I was a kid, a Coke cost a quarter? Yeah.

That was the only thing you could buy. It was Coke or grain.
Like

that was what was available. We could get computers and stuff.

Like, they didn't even have Sega Genesis, much less PlayStation 4.

Coke or grain. Yeah.
That's what I'm talking about. That's a t-shirt right there.
Yeah, absolutely.

So in any case,

this one confused me a little bit because I'm not clear on this.

Do you take from this that they are planning to give their friends who are getting married cash as a gift? I think it may be that they're describing the amount of money they will spend on the gift.

Although there certainly are weddings where

the request is to

give cash often towards, I mean,

in American weddings anyway,

often towards a house down payment or a honeymoon. Right, right, right, right.
Well, as always, the ruling of this court is help in the way you are asked to help. And so the first rule, Greg,

is to check in with the spouses to be, your college friend who's getting married, and make sure that they're not already registered somewhere or asking for a specific kind of gift.

And then the question is: do you give

a little boost, right? Do you give

a little extra money or a little extra,

you know, maybe go up a level on the registry, maybe get the sateen sheets that they asked for?

Those can be clammy.

Yeah,

maybe get the,

what is it, the heathered linen sheets that you can get at Brooklyn? It's a little mention of a company that I know. Yeah, that's supposed to be very nice.
That's a good bonus for you, Brooklyn.

Yeah, exactly. Because you know what? Generosity feels good.
You know, we were just generous to Brooklyn in there. We gave away something.
And why? Because they've been a good partner for us.

I don't think that gift giving, whether it's for a wedding or anything, is really the time to be doing year-over-year spending comparisons.

And And I'm not talking, I mean, obviously, look,

we all have issues affording the things that we want to afford. But there's a difference, I think, between frugality and kind of cheapness, you know?

Like

giving a gift, especially for a wedding, is a time for generosity. It's a time

to be a little bit bigger than you might normally be. And that may mean spending no money at all.

Like it may mean doing a favor or creating something really special and heartfelt for the person that you care about and love.

Or it could mean just giving them cold hard cash if you know that that's what they

need.

Being cheap does not just mean spending less money to save a little.

Being cheap also means just being cheap of spirit, being cheap of gesture.

And look, they don't know it. They don't know until they hear this podcast that you were thinking about going the extra mile.
And then Greg, you're like, no, pull it back.

You could get away with this, of this sort of like, this moment of saying like, well, we could give more, but let's not.

Until this podcast comes out, you're in the clear. When the podcast comes out, everyone in the world listens to it.
It's bigger than the Super Bowl football contest.

And your college friend will know.

But in general, if you have the impulse to give more of yourself,

Financially, sure, but just in general, if you have a moment in your life and an impulse to feel like, I should give more. This has been a hard time.

They're not having the wedding that they want to have necessarily. And because I'm not going, I do have some extra resources to give.

When you have that impulse, there really is no virtue in tamping it down. I don't think you will be remembered or will you remember yourself very fondly.

for taking that generous impulse and pulling it back into yourself. I think you'll think back on yourself going like, why didn't I,

I had this extra time or this extra energy or maybe a little extra money and I thought about giving it to them, but I didn't. I don't think that's a moment when you pat yourself on the back.

So I would just say that, you know, as with all gifts, you know,

you don't have to go overboard to the detriment of yourself.

Obviously stay within whatever budget you are able to afford. And I mean that financially, obviously, but also

emotionally and time and energy. Like don't overextend yourself but if you can afford a little bit more and you think of it usually you feel better to just follow through with that impulse rather than

bury it in a hole i have to say john when my wife and i were married

We already lived together, had a full complement of household stuff, and lived in a tiny apartment in San Francisco where we couldn't have held more household stuff if we wanted to.

Although I should mention that I'm very grateful to Brent Weinbach, comedian Brent Weinbach for giving us that ice cream maker.

And I'm just a very

Brent gift.

I'm grateful to comedian Brent Weinbach for being comedian Brent Weinbach. Bless that man.
Gift to the world. Yeah, but because we

had a full complement of household goods, but were super broke at the time, like really didn't have two pennies to rub together, we asked for people to make contributions to our honeymoon fund. Sure.

We wanted to go to Hawaii for our honeymoon, and we were hoping that people would give us enough money to cover the cost of that. And I found that there were really a broad range of

levels of generosity among our family, our family and close friends.

And, you know, it ranged from folks who we knew didn't have much money giving us really generous gifts and people who we knew did who never gave us a gift at all.

I'm sitting right here.

Oh my gosh. Well, you didn't, you weren't able to come.
You lived 3,000 miles away. It was a perfectly reasonable decision.
I know. Oh, I know.
I know. It's fine.
It's fine, John.

But

I also like learned in doing that that even the most economical wedding, and we had a very economical wedding because as I said we we didn't have two pennies to rub together is a very expensive proposition so nobody is getting ahead by right by receiving gifts at their wedding you know like unless you have rich parents your ledger is not coming out in the black

and the lesson that I took from that experience is that within the context of my means which is varied within my life I really try to be generous with a wedding wedding gift because when else do you get to give a gift that celebrates something so beautiful in such a sensitive time of life

when someone is already doing something that is really kind for you, which is, as I said, spending a lot of money for you to be there and celebrate with your community.

And,

you know, that's true of a, like I had my wedding in a public park.

Shout out to Fort Mason in San Francisco, California. I, you know, The ceremony was in the church that I grew up going to and had not been to in 15 years

because

they said we could use it for free.

And

like I said, nobody's coming out ahead and you'll feel great if you're being generous in this special time. Totally.
You never regret being generous.

You never regret. You never regret it.
And it's, as I say, it's not just about the amount of money you spend. You know, you want to help in the way you are asked to help.

And that might be saying, hey,

I can't afford to give you a present. Or, you know, but is there some other help you need in your wedding?

Can I get up at five o'clock in the morning to go to the flower market and buy the flowers?

Can I pick up anything for you? Do you have a sofa that you can't get out of your apartment that I can kick the legs off of for you?

And contrary to that, Greg,

you know,

you do, even if no one, even if no one ever finds out that you had a generous impulse that you, that you pulled back on, you will remember it, you know.

And look, Greg, I didn't go to Jesse Thorne's wedding. You know, I really regret it.
I really wish I could have been there for you guys. I mean, I was, as you say, 3,000 miles away.

I have a family of my own. You know, I had other obligations.
But I think back and I'm like, did I get him a present? I don't think I did. So I feel really bad about that.

I think about it fairly frequently, and I don't usually need Jesse's reminder to think about it, but I got the message.

So Greg, you and I, we're going to both do penance for our lack of generous impulse. You and I are both going to get Jesse an ice cream maker.
That is, each.

Jesse and Teresa each get their own ice cream maker on top of the Brent Weinbach one. And I mean literally on top.
I want a tower of ice cream makers.

Here's a case from Jim from Ann Arbor, Michigan. The other day I heard my wife ask a question from the other room.
I put down what I was doing and went in to ask her to repeat herself.

She said, never mind, I was talking to Siri. This is not the first time I was tricked into thinking she was talking to her phone and not me.
So I suggested we use a different voice when we talk.

Always love it. I always love the moments when I realize Jesse has not read the letter yet and

hits the turn. It's that wild turn into

left field. You got to keep it fresh.

So I suggested that we use a different voice when we talk to our phones to prevent this confusion.

I can always tell when she's talking to her friends or a dog or a baby, why don't we make up our own unique computer voices? She just gave me a look.

I now use a robot voice when I talk to my phone whenever she's nearby. Please order my wife to reciprocate this simple and courteous practice.
So

when Jim from Ann Arbor said computer voices, initially I thought he meant some kind of distinct voice just for the computer. Right.
That's what would be

only moderately bananas.

I didn't know that he was going to go full-on robot voice.

Which is,

I mean, I understand using a voice for the computer because

I have a smart speaker, as they say, and I'm not going to trigger anyone's smart speakers right now. But the smart speaker and the voice

of the virtual assistant has a certain cadence to it.

So I find myself imitating the cadence of the speaker because I feel that the speaker can understand me better.

And I'll get get better outcomes by saying, I won't say, I won't trigger anyone's speakers. I'll just say,

hey, Jesse, play You Make My Dreams Come True by Daryl Hall and John Oates.

That's how I get the speaker to go. But I never thought to do a robot voice.
So, of course, Jesse, I had to get Jim to do his robot voice. I had to write to Jim and say, do the robot voice for us.

Jennifer Marmor, do you have that audio recording?

Hey, Siri, play sports by Huey Lewis and Dunnews.

All right.

Something to unpack here. First of all, Jim, I love your spirit.
Your human spirit.

That robot voice sounds too human to be a robot voice. Yeah, that's just you talking slow.
That was just talking slow. You need to really robot it up if you're going to commit to this.

And I urge you to do it.

And I also urge listeners to get Jim's voice into a remix as quickly as possible. Remix that and send it.

Remix it with

a track from Huey Lewis in the news's album Sports. It doesn't matter to me which one it is.
If this is it,

I want a new drug.

but not the Back to the Future song. That's not on sports.

I like this idea a lot. But Jesse, after I received this, Jim also wrote, note,

while recording this clip on my phone, my home pod started playing the song you requested. I must admit, never that one heard that song.
Now I don't know what to believe.

Because sports is an album, Jim, not a song. Yeah.

And second of all, never that one heard that song.

Jim, are you an AI? Yeah, I think we thought that it was Jim doing a bad job of a robot voice. I think Jim is a robot doing a bad job of a human voice.
Maybe Jim's wife is the only human in the house.

Maybe Jim, quote unquote, is an Alexa that has come to life and become self-aware and believes that they are Jim's wife's...

husband, Jim, which is a personality they invented. For some reason, Jim's wife has both an Alexa and a Siri, and every time Jim's wife is talking to Siri,

Alexa Jim is getting jealous and doesn't understand.

Alexa, Play Sports by Huey Lewis and the News. That's how she says it.

Here's the thing, John, and we're going to take a quick break to hear from this week's partner.

But

honestly, my upset with Jim is not that he's a robot, not that he's got a scheme,

not that he's making this weird request of his wife. It's that he's not up on the latest stuff from Judge John Hodgman, which is we don't even request Huey Lewis in the news anymore.

So let me correct Jim and say,

Hey, Siri, play Square Biz by Tina Marie. What's great is she does her robot voice in the song.

I'm talking Square Biz.

Okay.

Well, what happened to my human co-host, Jesse Thorne? Replaced by an AI? We'll clear some more cases in just a minute.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is brought to you every week by you, our members, of course.

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We're clearing the docket.

We're just a couple of human people. Here's a case from Dan in Columbus, Ohio.
Dear Judge Hodgman, recently my wife and I made burritos for dinner.

We prepare these buffet style, where the burrito maker has all the various fixings at their disposal and can fill them as they see fit.

You know, can I tell you, John, since I watched the television show Eastbound and Down,

there's a storyline where they open a baked potato kiosk in the mall. Sure.
And basically, the whole, the only thing that happens in this storyline is that they say to each other, fixins?

And I can't even think of the word. It's been like five years since that show was on television.
I still can't think of that word without thinking, Fixens.

Fixens. Fixins.
Fixans.

Fixons.

How do I present Fixons?

Buffet style or no?

I asked my wife if she'd like to split a burrito and she agreed. Much to my surprise, she proceeded to tear the unfilled tortilla in half, leaving a sad, useless half moon on my plate.

My wife insists this is totally reasonable and a logical way to divide a burrito, but I contend it defeats the purpose and design of the tortilla. Please order my wife to cease this strange practice.

Thank you in advance for your sound judgment. So first of all, Jesse.

Just so you know, it's Daryl Hall and John Oates. Yeah, they don't.
The name of the band is not Hall and Oates. No, and Daryl Hall will will correct you on that, as I know from first-hand experience.

Daryl Hall is a lovely, fascinating guy who will tell you stories about hanging out in nightclubs with Gamble and Huff in Philadelphia before Hall and Oates was even enacted.

But he will point out to you that the name of the band is Daryl Hall and John Oates. That's something I just recently learned.

Because my smart speaker started playing one of their songs, and I'm like, oh, it's a Holland Oates song. And SmartSpeaker was like, no, you are wrong.
John Hodgman, it is Daryl Hall and John Oates.

And then I looked it up, and it was like my memory of every Daryl Hall and John Oates album cover changed as I was looking at it.

They all said Holland Oates, and then I looked at them, and they changed before my eyes into Daryl Hall and John Oates.

Whew, but you should listen to Daryl Hall and John Oates because Daryl Hall can sing songs, right? Great. I'll say,

I don't know what your jam is, but rich girl is like a top 10 all-time song for me you make my dreams come true is great yeah i had never got into abandoned luncheonette i didn't even know these that's a great album guys went back to 1973 yeah but she's gone is an incredible song in there abandoned luncheonette i think is probably my favorite hollow notes album and that was all downhill from there No, they made so many great records.

Incredible act. Dan and Columbus, Let It Be Known.
Daryl Hall and John Oates is is the name of the band.

Now, Mike, this, again, I feel like I don't understand what's going on here.

You're making

a burrito buffet.

They've got their fillings, not their fixings, but their fillings in front of them.

They've got their beans, they've got their, depending on regional preference, their rice, they've got their meat, and then they've got their salsas and guacamoles and sour creams and so forth

in front of them.

Smarty sword.

The region is Columbus, Ohio.

Yes. Well, I don't know what's in a classic Columbus burrito.
Spaghetti, maybe?

I think it's a Coney Island hot dog and spaghetti. Yeah.

So they've got their stuff in front of them. And normally you would take a full tortilla, fill it,

close it, and eat it. Right.

He said,

let's share one. And she tore an empty tortilla in half, and they each had half a tortilla.
Yeah, no,

I'm able to read the language, but the problem I'm having is picturing Dan and his wife, who is a whole human being in her own right, at home in Columbus, Ohio.

And they're like, all right, let's make burritos. First of all,

it's implicit in the letter, burritos, plural.

We're going to light, let me light this Sterno can, put this little,

you know, warming tray of the tortillas up. And then this is for the beans, and this is for the spaghetti, and this is for the big jar of cinnamon that I'm going to put on it.

And this is for the casserole and this part's for the shredded lettuce. And here's a little tray of

rice and everything. Hold on, John.
You've listed a lot of great things to put on a burrito, but shredded lettuce, get out of here.

Whoa, I've been fired. I draw the line at shredded lettuce.
Go ahead, John. The point is, after all of that buffet is laid, that's when Dan turns to his wife and goes, you want to split one?

I hope they have other people over. Do you you know what I mean? It's like you go through all that trouble to make a single burrito.
Yeah, you could have just done it straight out of the pan.

Yeah, just do it straight out of the pan. But

yeah, I mean,

I think the point here is you don't share a burrito. You know, it was a mistake, Dan, to even suggest it.

Because if you want to split a burrito, you can make a burrito and cut it in half and each have a half, but then you have to be completely on board with the ingredients in that burrito.

And then what's the point of having the fixions bar to begin with? Fix. Unless each person can pick their own fix.

Fix.

So there's no, so there's no point in that.

And most especially there's no point because listeners to judge John Hodgman know, you want to make your own burrito, get your own burrito the way you like it.

cut it in half, eat half, and then marinate the stump overnight and have the other half the next day. You got to marinate that stump.
So yeah, you know, Dan,

your wife and partner and a whole human being who lives with you,

that was an unusual move to tear that tortilla in half. There's no structural way to create a burrito out of half of a tortilla.
That's not how a burrito can't roll.

That's like,

I don't even know what that would be. Just kind of a floppy...

large taco. It would be like a burrito.

It would be like a floppy burrito bowl. Yeah.

But don't ask in the first place. I'm going to say that your sin is the original sin, Dan.
Don't ask to split a burrito, especially not if you go to the trouble of making a buffet.

I have to imagine they had friends over or something.

Here's the thing, John. Okay.

As you know, I'm a native of San Francisco's Mission District.

But here we go. The home of the burrito.
Yeah. San Francisco is a city?

Yeah.

And I think that while

and there is a national chain

of

fast casual restaurants

that was founded by a man who, under false auspices, got a job in a San Francisco taqueria to learn how to copy their burritos and make them into a national chain of fast casual restaurants.

And

that chain is fine.

It's better than some other fast food, worse than other fast food. I'm not.
sure.

I would argue, not to buzz market a brand or anything, but I would argue that they do make better burritos than Brooklinen, for example. Yeah, I think that's fair.

But

having eaten those burritos or other burritos in

other parts of the country that sometimes ape the style of the San Francisco burrito, there are many styles of burrito, all of which are perfectly legitimate, but sometimes they are presented as though they are a San Francisco-style burrito.

One of the biggest problems that I see out there, and this is something that I think burrito makers should really be working on,

is the tuck and roll.

I think that one of the fundamental things that makes a San Francisco burrito a San Francisco burrito is that you start with a tortilla, often a steamed and griddled tortilla, to make it both stretchy and have contrast and texture.

Then you layer the ingredients on top of that open tortilla such that when the burrito is complete, each bite will have a variety of ingredients contained therein. Correct.

Then there is a tuck-and-roll process involving both the tortilla and

the aluminum foil

that creates a tight, compact log.

That is what creates the stump that can be marinated. When you slice a burrito in half, a good burrito in half, almost nothing comes out of it.
Right. It's so dense.

Yes, because it is packed tightly by an effective tuck and roll. And if you're making one of these flappy-floppy

fast food burritos. Yeah, if you're making flippy-floppy talking head style.
It's not the worst burrito you could ever eat. It's not the worst food you could ever eat in the world, but it's.

David Byrne's a genius, but I don't know that he knows how to roll a burrito. I don't think.
In fact, I'm going to go so far as to say I don't think he does. Yeah.

His burrito tortilla would be too large. This is my guess.
This is truly my greatest passionate life. Jennifer Marmer got that one.
Jennifer Marmer got that one. Thank you, Jennifer.
Got a reaction.

Jesse's still thinking about burritos.

I'm going to be thinking about this the rest of the record. Circa 1991 big suit joke.

I'm going to be thinking about, you know, I'm just going to be this whole time just stewing about shredded lettuce.

That you suggested in jest and a list of joke ingredients you suggested shredded lettuce. That was enough to upset me for the rest of our recording.

I hate to say this to you, but that one wasn't a joke. I don't know.

I don't.

I didn't occur to me not to.

Here's something from Karen in Bolton, Massachusetts. I have a dispute with my husband, Dave.
Dave is obsessed with the movie The Godfather.

I'm going to stop reading there. That's fine.
I find in your favor, Karen.

Love that movie. Love that movie.
But it's time to

move on from guys being obsessed with The Godfather. Dave wants to put posters for the usual suspects on our dorm room walls.

Okay.

Every time Dave hears the word Italy, sees something Italian, talks about traveling to Italy, which country we both love, don't get me wrong, or eats Italian food, he starts singing, humming, or whistling the theme to the godfather, and proceeds to shush us all until he gets enough of the song out to satisfy his weird compulsion.

I'm sick of that song. Please order my husband refrain from doo-doo-dooing so we can all go back to enjoying all things Italy in peace and quiet.
Well, first of all, look, I love The Godfather.

I don't need you to write me any letters. I've seen it many times.
It's a beautiful work of art.

I have to correct you, Karen. I'm sorry.
It is not do-do-doing.

The song, the love theme from The Godfather that I presume Dave is singing is meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow.

Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. I started in too low a register.
Meow, meow, meow, meow. Are we going to get sued at this point? Yeah.
Can I keep going or stop?

No, we're really. Is this too far? Yeah, we're probably far.
All right, we'll stop there. We'll stop there.
Gonna get sued by Francis Ford Coppola and Meow Mix.

That song is

called Speak Softly Love.

which I did not know until I used the Wikipedia to research this. It is composed, as all of the Godfather music score was composed by Nino Rota,

published in 1972. It was, I believe, a number one hit or a big hit in his vocal version, Andy Williams.

Fair to say, the least Italian-American singer of the time that I could think of. Yeah, I think that's fair.
Andy Williams. I could be wrong there.
I could be wrong there.

But Andy Williams, there are words to it. It's like the Star Trek theme.
It's got words. It's like the odd couple.
It's got words to it.

Go listen to it. It's wild.
I never knew this. Speak Softly Love is the name of that song.
And here's the thing.

I'm going to apologize to Andy Williams and Andy Williams' family because Andy Williams could very well be

Italian.

No one thinks of John Hodgman as having any Italian ancestry, but my father's family are all from northern Italy, at least his maternal family.

Northern Italy, a town called Udine.

But I don't look like I'm in the Godfather, because guess what? Italy's a whole region.

People who are listening right now, I don't know when you're listening to this podcast. It could be years from now.

Could be years in the future. But when we're recording this today, on May 18th, 2021, we live in an era where Elon Musk

had not yet

become president of the country of Dogecoinia XK925, which is what he renamed to the United States, I'm sure, in your future timeline, because he was legitimized by being on Saturday Night Live.

Much like previous presidents in our history were legitimized by being on Saturday Night Live. You know who you are, Taft.

Although Taft was really good

when he was one of those bumblebees with John Belushi. That was pretty good.
He was funny. He was funny.
For a non-comedian. Yeah.
Doing a non-joke. Yeah.
Taft was funny.

He fit the suit.

No, we live in a timeline where Elon Musk just appeared on Saturday Night Live. We don't even know what's going to happen yet.

And in our timeline, the worst thing that's happened is that Elon Musk was on Saturday Night Live pretending to be Wario, the evil Mario, the long-celebrated Italian-American stereotype Mario,

talking in

classic Mario phony baloney Italian accent,

you know, like like that Daryl Hall and John Oates song, you make my dreams come true. You know what I'm saying? Yes.

It's you, you make my dreams come true. That's actually how Daryl Hall sings it in that song.

Anyway, and there's all this phony outrage over like

a lot of it, I think, kind of bad faith criticism, if you can imagine that on the internet, of people saying, well, if he can do a phony baloney Italian accent, then why can't we use words we shouldn't?

You know, like that kind of thing. Yeah.
Like, why is it okay to make fun of Italian Americans in this way? And you know what? It's not. Not because,

not because,

you know, in contemporary American society, Italian Americans

are particularly harmed by these stereotypes. Stereotypes are cheap and lazy and dehumanizing, yes.

But mostly because it's unfair to the vast regional differences that are Italy.

And you, you go, you, you know, Nino Rota is from Milan.

The Godfather is from Sicily. Those two places are not the same at all, at all.
They're not Italian.

And as you probably well know, the whole idea of Italy only goes back, you know, a couple hundred years.

It's a fake idea. It's phony baloney.
I went to Milan and was stunned to see people walking around in Tyrolean capes. And you're like, oh, right.
This is

the song that goes with it. Yeah.

And very specifically, The Godfather is not about Italy.

The movie does not start with

the guy going to the Godfather looking for a favor saying, I believe in Italy.

I believe in America. It's about the Italian-American experience of America.
And that is what the movie is about.

So, look, Dave

of massachusetts a commonwealthium my

my paison

in the commonwealth you're wrong dave for all kinds of reasons first of all stop singing that song don't do don't do that like if you got to do it i understand you get a song you get an earworm it's a beautiful song you get a little earworm every time you every you know from time to time you have to sing it but if you've got a song in your heart that you got to get out you can't and you can't shush other people if you're just sitting down to some

spaghetti and gravy or whatever. You can't shush other people so you can get your little thing out.

Like

if this were your adult child writing to me, Dave, I might catch you some weird dad leeway on this one because maybe you were doing this on purpose to embarrass your child, which is usually you get a get out of jail free card.

But

this is your part, your life partner, Karen in Bolton, Massachusetts. You don't shush your life partner so you can get your little song out.

And second of all, like,

to equate the Godfather with anything about Italy is just, that is, that is ignorant. I think that you deserve to

learn a little bit more about the history and the regions of Italy.

It's a very, very interesting place.

John, I can't really sit in judgment on this one. I can't participate because

anytime anyone mentions Austria,

I just go, I bust out my zither.

The third man theme,

third man.

Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. Let's take a quick break.

When we come back,

we'll have an audio letter from a child complaining.

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

It's a multi-award-winning podcast featuring guests such as Ted Danson, Nick Offerman, Josie Long.

I don't know what a Josie Long is, and anyway, I'm about to take my mother into town to see Phantom of the Opera at last. You are wasting my time, and even worse, my mother's time.

She only has so much time left. She's 98 years old.
She's only expected to live for another 20 or 30 years. Mother, get your shoes on.
Yes, the orthopaedic ones.

I don't want to have to carry you home again, do I? Right. Well, if you were looking for a podcast, Mother, you're not wearing that, are you? It's very revealing, Mother.

This is a musical theater, not a Parisian bordello. Simply go to maximumfun.org.
I'm reaching for my Samsung Galaxy 4 as we speak. Mother! Mother, not that hat!

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. John, do you mind if I, by listener request, exploit my children for a moment? Please.

My youngest, Frankie. This whole segment is all about exploiting children, so I'm excited for this.
Thank you.

My youngest, Frankie, asked me to play Batman the other day.

And I was supposed to be a robber.

Sure. And I was supposed to have...

Well, that's the famous duo, Batman and Robber. Yeah.
Yeah. I was supposed to have tied up Batman.
So Frankie was

sitting in a chair, pretending to be be tied up. But then Batman burst forth,

and

I said to Frankie, Batman, how did you escape my trap?

And Frankie said,

Well, too bad. I'm from comic book history.
I'm the first Batman, so I punched out of it. I'm the first Batman, so I have a normal car.
I don't have a Batmobile.

And you know what?

Frankie's right.

Originally, Batman didn't have a Batmobile. That was a later creation.

Frankie knows Frankie's Batman history. I'm from comic book history, so I punched out of it.
Have you been hiring Elliot Kalen to babysit Frankie lately?

That's basically, basically all of my children see Elliot Kalen as a sort of mentor figure.

They have nothing but contempt for me and adoration for Elliot Kalen and his Batman bad guy knowledge.

But then I stopped being a robber. I became the Joker.

Frankie assigned me the role of the joker and Frankie explained to me,

Joker,

you can do jack in the box. That means you get a cube and you just hit it and it does something.

I know exactly what Frankie is trying to describe. That is the classic Joker jack-in-the-box move where the Joker's head comes out of a jacket.
I know exactly what's going on there. Yeah,

ultimately, though, Batman did win the fight. I'll tell you how.

Frankie explained it to me. I toll one of your arms and put a robot one.

And I toll your face and put a robot one on that. And it's making you super hot.

You know what, Jesse? Yeah.

In the future, our arms and our faces will be replaced by robot faces and arms. It's true.
And we will all be super hot. Yeah.
Because of Batman.

But for now, we're still in our meat bodies reproducing biologically, which is weird. Wait, wait, John.
You said that this whole segment is about child exploitation?

I wouldn't say child exploitation, Jesse. I would just say child forward segment.

Because today we received an audio letter from a young person, an 11-year-old listener named Leela. Jennifer Marmor, roll tape.

Judge John Hodgman, my name is Leela and I'm from Maine. I am 11 years old.

My dad and I were listening to episode 510 about it being alright to name a child June, even though they are expected in June. Well, my brother's name is August.

He constantly gets the question:

Are you named August because you are born in August?

He's born in December.

I think you made the wrong decision. That's why from now on, I will call you Judge Rong Hodgman.

Did you catch that laugh laugh at the end? That scary laugh that Leela gave?

Oh, you're so burnt. Oh, my gosh.
I'm so burnt. I'm looking at you in the video conference.
All I see is the charred remains, like Indiana Jones style. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, I'm

like, I'm like, did Pompeii over here? I'm so burnt. Open the arc on you.

Oh, my God.

Yeah. Leela did it.
Judge Wrong, Hodgeman.

How did that where it's been out there for 10 years?

For 10 years. Through the eyes of a child, John.
Through the eyes of a child. Yeah, so this was shared with us via Leela's father, a listener named Waldron, which is a very cool name.

And they're up there in Maine, which is also very cool. Now, now,

I know all of you are now going to start sending me clips of your children telling me I'm wrong over and over and over again. I'm sure you got the voice memo open already.

I cannot stop you from sending these things to me. I will tell you, it will only cause me emotional pain.
And

I will not play them on the podcast. So do what you want to do.

Leela, though, Leela, you and only you get the win this time for coining the term Judge Wrong Hodgman, which is amazing. One more bit of kid news.

I mentioned the other week during the Max Fun Drive that we have a new addition to the extended Judge John Hodgman universe and family.

A listener named Amy had written to me to say that she, like me, enjoys night cheese. It was a reference to Shoot in the Breeze, episode two.

May and our friend Jordan Morris is members only once every three years Max Fun Drive Boco cheese podcast.

And Amy wanted to report that she was currently eating night cheese right then from a mini fridge in a hospital where she was waiting to give birth. Well, guess what? She gave that birth.

Happened on May 10th or 11th. You already know that because I told you, and I made reference to the fact that this child was born, which is amazing,

and that Amy had sent me a picture of that brand new baby. But guess what? Again, everybody, after that, Amy wrote again and revealed that she had been a litigant on the show before.

Specifically, Amy was the plaintiff in verdict number 222, eminent Toe Main,

Toe T-O-E,

in which she sought to prohibit her then-girlfriend, Alexa, play Hulu Lewis in the News Sports, from wearing crocs outside,

the plastic sandals known as Crocs.

Now,

that was five years ago, now Amy and Alexa, play Hulu Lucin the News Sports, they are married to each other. And this is their first child.

You can see a picture of Alexa, play Hulu Lewis in the News Sports, holding this baby on the Judge John Hodgman Instagram page. And And Jesse,

according to Amy,

they've named the child a traditionally male name, because Amy says he's a fellow as far as we know at this time. Do you know what the name of this baby is? What? Croc.

Name the baby Croc.

That's not true. That's not true.
Now I'm going to say what the brand is. What did you say, John, that it's a croc?

No.

No, it's a croc. Like, the kind you wear in your foot in honor of the podcast.
Got it. That's not true.
I'm going to respect this baby's privacy. Hey guys, really quick.
This is a croc.

Yeah.

Wait a minute. Jennifer Marmor's wearing a croc.

Guess what? My youngest baby, who's now 15 years old, just got a pair of crocs in the mail. Crocs are happening again.
I only wear them in the house. It's a good time to name your baby Croc.

So now, listeners, I know it's going to happen.

You're all going to go get pregnant as fast as you can so you can send me pictures of your newborn babies and get your brand new baby baby on the podcast. Well, don't.
Don't do that.

I mean, get pregnant if you want, but don't rush into it and don't do it to be on a podcast.

But thank you and congratulations to Amy, Alexa, Play You Listen to New Sports, Kroc, Leela, and all listeners.

I really appreciate your letters, your feedback, your questions, but especially your good faith disputes. We need them to make the show go, and you know how to send them to me.

Hodgman at maximumfun.org. The docket is clear.
That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman. Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.
Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at JudgeJohnHodgman, where you can go right now and see the photo of a great dog named Jerry Orbach. Oh, look at Jerry Orbach.

He really is a great dog. Look at his dumb face.
The best thing, I mean, Jerry Orbach is known for being in the drama Law and Order. Yeah.

But they captured Jerry Orbach and the dog here as though it's a freeze frame at the end of a 1980s sitcom.

This is like this. Jerry Orbach, the dog just delivered this signature catchphrase.

This is not Jerry Orbach on Law and Order. This is definitely Jerry Orbach starring on Broadway and the Fantastics.
There you go. That's the Jerry.
Is it Jerry or Auerbach as the name of the dog?

Apparently the dog's name is not Jerry, but Orbach. So they refer to the dog as Orbach.
Epic. Yeah.
Pretty tremendous. Thanks to Roman and Emily for sending that in.

Hashtag your judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ H. O.
And check out the Maximum Fund subreddit to discuss this episode. That's at maximumfun.reddit.com.

You can submit your cases at maximumfund.org slash jjho.

That's maximumfund.org slash jjho, or just email them to hodgman at maximumfun.org.

We want to take this opportunity to thank every single person who joined Maximum Fund, upgraded, or boosted their membership during the Max Fund drive. There were over 20,000 of you.

We are so grateful to every single one of you. It means the world to us.
Quite literally, it is how we eat.

So, thank you very much to all of you, Maximum Fund members. You really rule.
And we'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Surprise post-credit sequence.

I don't know when the last time I did this was. I'm losing track of things.
But today begins the March of the Gygaxes. Now, a few weeks ago,

we were talking about Gary Gygax leaving, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons, leaving the Dungeons and Dragons Empire in the context of the band Phish.

And I encouraged listeners to create a fish pastiche of a song called Gygax Departs. And a number of you did.
and they were all wonderful in their own way.

A few weeks ago, I played one by a listener named David. This week, I'd like to play one from a listener named Bradley, Bradley Mellenbacher,

who wrote new lyrics to an old, completely public domain song, which you will recognize as old Joe Clark.

This is his version of Gygax Departs. You're going to enjoy it.
And I have a couple more that I'll be playing over the next couple of weeks. So if you're out there, Dave and Christopher, be patient.

Don't need any more Gygax songs, though. You don't have to do this.
Remember, I already put out a call for a mashup of

Jim's robot voice with I Want a New Drug or something. So that's your new project.
That's the new assignment.

One thing I want to say before I play this from Bradley, I want to really thank Bradley not only for recording this, but also for pointing out an amazing new thing in my life.

Something I didn't know, a piece of culture, an obscure cultural reference that I did not know, which is called Wine is Elegance.

Jennifer Marmor, producer Jennifer Marmor, are you there? Yeah, I'm here. Have you ever heard of Wine is Elegance? No.

If I told you that it was a spoken word record album of Vincent Price talking about wine and throwing dinner parties, would that make you interested? Yeah. Yeah, it's incredible.

You just Google it, everybody. Wine is Elegance.
It's all over the internet. But now,

here is Bradley Mellenbacher. He also said I could pronounce it Mellenbacher with his version of Gygax Departs.

Gary Gygax left his job because of corporate bull crap. He died in 2008 from an abdominal aortic aneurysm.
Gary Gygax, thank you, sir. D and D is awesome.

You taught us all to tell our own stories about dragons. Gary Gygax, thank you, sir, for all your creations.

Though you're gone, they live on in dens across the nation.

MaximumFun.org. Comedy and culture.
Artist owned, audience supported.