Peter Piper's Prerogative

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

And with me is the pride of Salem College, Judge John Hodgman.

Hi, John.

Hi, Jesse Thorne.

Thank you for continuing the tradition of commenting on what I wear.

Even though this is an audio medium, we can see each other through Zoom.

I can see you there.

Are you in Maximum Fun HQ, correct?

Yeah, I am right there in the American Cement Building.

Very proud and happy to be here.

Eating tacos for lunch today, baby.

When I learned that that building that I love so much,

it looks like the cover of a 1970s science fiction novel.

Yes.

You know what I mean?

Yes, it does.

It looks like, is it B.F.

Skinner who designed the geodesic dome and all those monumental urban living structures?

That Buckminster Fuller.

Buckminster Fuller's Jennifer.

I always get BF and Bucky confused.

Anyway, when I learned that building was called the American Cement Building, I almost drove off the road because of course it was Google Maps that told me as

I was trying to find it to drive over there to do the show with you in person as we used to do.

It never occurred to us before

these recent events, the pandemic, that we could see each other through teleconferencing.

And now we're all sick of it.

But I'm still glad that you're able to point out that I'm wearing the Salem College shirt for two reasons.

One, it reminds me I have to get dressed.

That's a part of life.

I do have to get dressed.

That's the slogan for Jordan Jesse Go this year.

Get dressed every day.

I have to get dressed every day.

I'm wearing track pants today because both of my pairs of pants are in the wash.

That is the two pairs that fit me.

What if Coach tells you to hit the court and you got to get off your pants real quick?

Get down to your shorts.

I may pull some extra laps for sure.

And also, it's a reminder of a very nice time that I spent at Salem College many, many years ago.

Salem College is a traditionally women's college in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

And I went and did a book event there, I think, for more information than you require.

So now, you know, more than a decade ago.

And yep, shirt still fits.

Yeah, they got you.

I got to wear more royal blue, I think, is what I'm doing.

2020.

Warriors colors.

You play for the Warriors.

That's why you're wearing the track pants.

Sure.

Jennifer Marmer, I'm sure you know what Jesse is talking about.

You're doing well over there in your part of Los Angeles.

Yeah, doing all right.

Good.

I wanted to say to you guys that I had a very exciting day the other day because, you know, social media is fun.

I mean, it's unbridled fun.

It's just fun to be on social media and get to hear what people say about what you think, you know?

Yeah.

Unbridled and unadulterated.

Exclusively fun.

It's just a good time for everybody and helpful also.

Good feedback.

But

I actually had a great time on social media recently because

if you follow me on Instagram at John Hodgman, you'll know I saw a Christian Slater car in the wild.

Remember a few episodes ago, the woman said that the back of a Subaru Impreza of a certain era in the 90s to her reminded her of Christian Slater.

And once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it.

Sure.

Well, we were dropping off a casserole for my sister-in-law.

over there in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.

And I'm walking back and I saw this Christian Slater's car just grinning at me with that Christian Slater grin.

That signature Subaru smirk.

Signature Subaru Smirk, a Christian Slater Rubaroo.

So I took a picture of it and I said, I didn't want to talk about what cars, what celebrities' cars look like anymore because we covered it already.

But I did wonder if anyone had a good story about seeing a celebrity in a car.

Like while you were driving and you turn, you look to your, like that time that I was driving on the West Side Highway and I looked left and Jon Stewart was right next to me and he saw me and he said, I will race you.

And I said, okay, all the way to the Renaissance Fair, which is where I was going.

And

I beat him.

I don't even think he was going to the Renaissance Fair.

I think he was probably going somewhere else.

It's not really a fair race.

And one of them wrote in, one person wrote in and shared one that I thought you might enjoy, Jesse.

There are a lot of great stories over there on instagram.com/slash at John Hodgman.

But user, the brother Doug wrote in, said, I saw Paul Schaefer in his car outside the Ed Sullivan Theater.

He was sleeping

before a taping.

And I just felt, I don't know why I love that.

I just felt that so,

so deeply that Paul Schaefer just needed a rest.

And he's like, I'm just going to sit in my car.

And also, he's parked on the street, presumably.

They don't have parking for Paul Schaefer.

What I like about imagining Paul Schaefer taking a nap in his car is that Paul Schaefer, who has been on Bullseye, my NPR show, and is a lovely, charming, true, delightful person who,

among many other things, among many other extraordinary career highlights, co-wrote It's Reigning Men.

I forgot about that.

Yeah, it's great.

Good for him.

But Paul Schaefer

is a celebrity who I could imagine taking a nap in his Rolls-Royce

or his 1989 Tercel.

Like, either way, I would believe it 100% from Paul Schaefer.

For me, I had a Celica in mind, but Tercell is right.

That's, yeah, no.

Those car naps, I've taken a few car naps outside of WERU before going into record when we're up there in Maine.

Sometimes those car naps.

Jennifer Marm, you ever take a good car nap?

Yeah,

I used to take regular car naps before my therapy sessions.

Yeah.

Cool.

In between my former job and my late afternoon, early evening therapy.

That's called self-care.

That's a great place for a nap because, yeah, there's something inherently therapeutic about a car nap because it means that you got to your destination with so much time, you can take a nap.

Like you are not in a rush.

You can go ahead and take a nap.

They're very, very restful.

I encourage you if you're getting out there in the world

in your cars, take a car nap.

Also, happy Earth Month.

Whoops.

Okay, let's do the docket.

John, I saw a famous person in a famous car the other day.

You did?

Yeah.

The car is probably more famous than the person, but my college friend was.

Was it Kit from Knight Rider?

Yeah, it was Kit from Knight Rider.

It was the famous monster truck Bigfoot.

Oh, I love this.

I saw the other day driving in Pasadena, California, my old college pal, artist Brandon Bird.

Sure.

And Brandon, some years ago, ran a crowdfunding campaign, a successful crowdfunding campaign, to buy a Ford Crown Victoria, you know, an old cop car,

and transform it into a lowrider tribute to Jerry Orbach from Law and Order.

I've seen photos of this online.

And then, like, immediately after he transformed this car into a tribute to Jerry Orbach, and it's spectacularly beautiful.

He was driving, I think it was a Toyota Matrix or something, and going into his driveway just scraped the whole bottom of his car and totaled it.

Oh, no.

And so he just switched to driving the Auerbach car on a daily basis.

Yeah.

And I saw him out there on the road.

It was a real thrill to see the Auerbach car in all its flake-painted glory.

Spectacular motor vehicle, wonderful man, the great pilot bird.

Why would you have a Jerry Orbach car if that were not going to be your daily driver?

That's what I have to say.

That's a good point.

Now let's get into the docket here.

Here's a case from Sarah from Minneapolis.

We have a hugger.

in a group of my friends.

She thinks she should get carte blanche to hug as much as she wants after the pandemic.

She's even taunting me in our group chat with things like, I'll come come for you too when you're vaccinated.

I love her very much.

I can't wait to see her in person.

But even this terrible year has not turned me into a hugger.

Should I just let it go and let her bear hug me?

Or can I stick with my principles and continue to be annoyed even post-pandemic when people say, sorry, I'm a hugger.

Hmm.

Hmm.

That's one of the sorry, not sorriest sorries you can get.

Well,

I think you can guess how I'm going to rule on this one, Jesse, for that very reason.

Because I was just going to say, now more than ever, Sarah, never stop being annoyed at people who say, sorry, I'm a hugger.

That's the worst, one of the worst sentences of all time.

Sorry, I'm a hugger does not give you permission to touch another person's body.

without their consent.

You might as well be saying, sorry, I'm a face hugger from the movie Alien.

Like, sorry, sorry, but I'm going to attach to your face and send a probe into your stomach to lay an alien egg.

Sorry.

That's just me.

I love to do it.

Sorry.

No, that's an invasion.

It was even before the pandemic.

And now the pandemic has given us the

perhaps an excuse that we didn't need to be able to say, no, thank you.

It's look,

now more than ever, we need human contact, but we don't need necessarily to have full body contact.

We need to,

we can express affection for each other, and hugging is a beautiful way of doing so.

But that does not mean that everyone is comfortable with it.

And your self-identification as a hugger does not outweigh other people's self-identification as a whole human being who can decide what they do with their bodies.

Sorry.

Sorry, Sarah's friend.

Now, the problem

here is

when people come in for hugs, there is an awkward social moment.

If this is not discussed in advance and you see your friend,

someone I know came in for a hug, and I know that they were vaccinated, and I was vaccinated.

But

it took me by surprise.

I'm not there yet.

I'm not ready yet to come out entirely into the hugging world again.

I'm not sure I ever will be.

But I had to do, but I went for it.

I did it.

You know what I mean?

Because there was no, otherwise I was going to have to shove this person away.

So I would just say, Sarah, to affirm to your friend in the same way, just text her right now.

Do it right now.

As long as you're not driving, your Jerry Orbach car or whatever.

Text her and say, sorry, I am not a hugger.

Do not come in for a hug for me.

Do not try to ask me for one.

Do not try to sneak one.

Don't do it.

And that's a reasonable boundary to set that your friend should understand if they are indeed your friend.

And maybe we'll give your friend something to reflect upon before they impose their hugging on someone else.

May I hug you?

That is a thing you say.

At this point, you say, May I shake your hand?

You know, like, how do you feel about this?

Those are things to say.

I feel bad for Sarah from Minneapolis.

Is it so hard to say, would you like a hug?

Or even just

leave some interpersonal distance, stretch your arms out, and do that eyebrow raise that says, hug.

Huh?

Yeah, that's too much, though.

I mean, because then

you just have to say, no,

I'm not going to, like,

then you seem like a killjoy.

And I think that the sorry, I'm a hugger thing comes from a different,

an older mindset in which

not hugging was considered to be, I don't know, killjoy-ish and anti-affectionate or something.

Somehow lesser than, you know, that you're not truly emotional.

I don't want to downplay hugging.

Hugging is an incredible thing.

Kissing is great too,

you know, but we have to agree that not everybody likes it.

Not everybody likes it.

I'm just going to put out there: anybody out there who's listening who's my friend, who's fully vaccinated, we see each other in real life.

Not only am I open to hugging, pretty much whatever.

Let's rub butts together.

That's actually probably one of the most responsible things you can do.

Let's hold our cheeks against each other intimately.

That's where I'm at, physical touch-wise.

Let's do that thing where we each grab each other's shoulders and we just stare deeply into each other's eyes.

Yeah.

I mean, this is.

I mean, it's really important to connect with people.

And sometimes physical touch

can be really, really beautiful, you know?

But you both got to be into it.

I remember a producer that I was working with at the time and I left me.

In California, it's like really weird.

I mean, here's the, by the way, here's the other thing.

I was going to talk about how in California, there seems to be more hugging than in New York.

And there are definitely regional and cultural differences.

But there are also

a true gender unfairness to this that has been pointed out to me by my wife and the women in my life constantly, which is that particularly in family situations

and even professional ones, women are expected to hug and men are not.

And that's terrible, you know?

And it's often like someone in my family or an acquaintance will shake my hand and then attempt to hug my wife.

And my wife doesn't.

She's not, sorry, she's not a hugger.

You know?

So this producer, I was saying this story very quickly.

This producer and I had come out of this meeting and we were walking out into the hot LA sun to our respective cars because why would we carpool the earthwood forever?

And we were parting and we had hugged in the office, just sort of like, and we both were surprised that we had done it.

And I kind of looked at him and go, are we hugging now?

Is that what's happening?

Like, are we doing, is that where we are?

And he's like, ah, yeah, okay.

And we hugged in our shirts, in the sun, in the sweat.

And it was just like, and it was like this unrelenting glare of a judgmental God or whatever that was that sun in that moment.

And we parted and we're like, that was no good.

No, let's not do that again.

Here's something from Ethan in Mesa, Arizona.

Can my girlfriend and I, two adults in our 20s, use an all-you-can-eat coupon for a children's pizza chain.

She argues a coupon is a coupon.

I argue a children's-themed pizza and games place requires a child present to avoid stares.

The chain in question is Peter Piper.

Yeah, I had never heard of this chain.

Are you familiar with this chain, Peter Piper, pizza?

I had not heard of it as a pizza chain.

I know that Peter Piper picked peppers and run rocks rhymes.

Right.

Apparently Peter, Peter, Peter.

You know what?

Sorry, Jesse, I tripped over that one.

I would argue that it's tricky.

You know what I mean?

It's tricky.

Yeah, I mean, it's tricky to rock a rhyme.

Just as tricky, just as it is tricky to rock a rhyme.

It's tricky to rock a rhyme right on time.

It's tricky.

Yeah.

That's tricky.

Yeah.

No, Peter Piper Pizza apparently.

Oh, I'm still

making up tongue twisters here.

Peter Piper Pizza apparently

presents pizza to children in the Chuck E.

Cheese style because it is owned now by Chuck E.

Cheese.

Sure.

Ethan is from Arizona, apparently, and I guess it's a sort of southwestern.

I did check their menu.

No pickled peppers at all on their menu, which just seems dumb.

Get it together, Peter Piper.

This is not a buzz market for you.

This is me blaming you.

It's a buzz blame.

So what do you think about being in child-geared-themed places, Jesse, without a child?

I think

that a coupon is a coupon.

Right.

Peter Piper Pizza, it's their prerogative to offer coupons to whoever it pleases.

Peter Piper Pizza's prerogative is to present people.

Yes.

they can have any, they can give coupons to anyone they want, and they can limit those coupons however they please.

So

it is a coupon is a coupon.

They can use it.

However, I believe it is a separate issue

whether Ethan and Ethan's girlfriend should take advantage of this pizza.

Whether it's right or reasonable for them to do, it's fine.

I think morally, legally, they're fine.

And while people might raise an eyebrow, I don't think it's especially creepy or anything for adults to do it.

It doesn't bother me that much in that department.

I would just say that as a person who has three young children and in better times, sometimes had to go to birthday parties at

Chuck E.

Cheese,

the equivalent chain,

I cannot imagine what coupon would lead me to voluntarily go to that place.

Like if the coupon said, all you can eat pizza, we'll give you 20 bucks.

Right.

I would say, thank you, but I'm going to Foliaros.

Right.

Yeah.

It may be the worst food I have ever eaten in my life.

Yeah.

Look,

they're two adults in their 20s.

Times are tough.

They just may need the calories.

But I hope they're not under the illusion that they're going to have good food if they go to Peter Piper.

Probably

the best part about the experience will be people staring at them.

Yeah.

Because then it's a story

to go along with this terrible pizza.

Plus, I mean, they can play some skeeball.

Skeetball is fun.

Yeah, I mean,

I think you should go ahead and do it,

Ethan.

I'm sorry if you feel uncomfortable, but

the fact is that no, it may be that no one stares at you

at all and no one cares because they've got their own young people to tend to.

And most people, I know that you're in your 20s, so this will be hard for you to believe, but most people don't care about you and aren't paying attention to you anyway.

Yeah.

So that you may be spared that discomfort.

And then the only discomfort you will feel is the diarrhea you will have.

Yeah.

We're going to take a quick break, even if you just order salad.

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

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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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 a case from Cassidy.

Jesse, let me just jump in right now.

Yeah.

Social media is so much fun.

Yeah.

It's only fun.

It's only fun.

I don't know what you use.

Twitter, Facebook, TikTok,

WhatsApp, whatever it is.

I don't even know if that's social.

But I will, there's one carve-out, though, to this rule.

Don't mess around with Peter Piper Pizza Twitter because you will get roasted.

I mean, this episode hasn't even come out yet, and I am being destroyed on Twitter.

over what I said about Peter Piper pizza causing diarrhea.

It was a joke, everybody.

It was a joke.

If you like Peter Piper pizza, I don't know what it tastes like.

I was making a joke.

And you're right.

It's not fair for me.

I am a horrible, immoral hypocrite for making a judgment about Peter Piper pizza without having enjoyed its food first.

And I don't know whether I would love it or not.

But you're right.

I am a subhuman hypocrite.

And I do apologize not only to Peter Piper, but to all of its fans.

It could actually be very, very good.

I don't know.

But you can go to the next one.

Peter Piper, send us some coupons.

Yeah, I guarantee you, Peter Piper, send us some coupons.

And then, Jesse, you'd have to get a babysitter.

Yeah.

I guarantee you, Peter Piper, that once I can travel to L.A.

safely, you will have two bearded men come in and eat your pizza alone at a table

and play some ski ball.

Sure.

Cassidy in Yellow Springs, Ohio says, my wife and I live in an eccentric house.

One of its eccentricities is a central vacuum system.

This means our vacuum is essentially just a 20-foot long corrugated plastic tube that plugs into a hole in the wall, which provides suction.

There's one hole in every room.

Another of our house's eccentricities is that it is perennially disputed territory with with an endless army of stink bugs.

All right, that's big.

That's big.

But I have to say, I have to express some disappointment that the house's other eccentricity wasn't that it wears a monocle.

I would have loved that.

Okay, stink bugs.

Got it.

Has a mountain unicycle.

My wife argues.

I knew a guy like that at UC Santa Cruz.

Arguably, that's why you go to UC Santa Cruz.

My wife argues she needs the vacuum ready at a moment's notice for surgical strikes against those stink bugs.

I argue she's been vacuuming the stink bugs for years with no discernible difference in their population.

I suspect we only see them after they've completed their reproductive cycle and come out to be

vacuumed to death in a Logan's Run style ritual.

Also, the vacuum is an unparalleled tripping hazard.

Mostly, though, I just like to put things away where they go.

Well, first of all,

thank you, Cassidy, for a sweet Logan's Run reference.

Those stink bugs are not going to renew.

Jesse,

have you ever used a central vacuum cleaning system that is described here?

No, but it sounds like the best of 1959.

Yeah, it's a very,

what did we say it was?

Jennifer Marmor, Buckminster Fuller?

Yeah.

Buckminster Fuller.

It's a very sort of like,

yeah,

that period in architecture and social planning and urban planning where it was like a guy in a marriage.

Like, hey, here's a thing that we've all been doing for a million years, particularly

the woman in this heterosexual marriage.

She knows what she's doing.

I've got a better idea.

I'm going to put a hole in every wall.

Put a vacuum cleaner, stationary vacuum cleaner in the basement that leads to every hole in the wall.

And then you have a hose that you put into the hole in the wall.

And it was installed in a lot of suburban homes with the idea that this was somehow more convenient.

And indeed, I was sort of amused and excited when

we learned when we bought our house in Maine that it has one of these things.

And

it is dumb.

We have used it three times.

One of the dumbest things about it is you just have this big hose to store.

And I think it's supposed to hang over this device on the back of a closet door.

Now, Jesse, I asked Cassidy to photograph the current storage solution for the vacuum hose in their eccentric house.

And I have a photo here, and I'm going to show it to you.

Now, we'll put this photo, obviously, on the JudgeJohnHodgman page at maximumfund.org and as well.

On our show Instagram page, which is at judgejohnhodgman, which is also a delight.

And Cassidy swears up, down, and all around town that this is not staged.

This is just where they found the hose after its last

stink bug sucking sesh on the carpet in front of the wood stove where you are going to trip over it and fall directly into a hot stove.

This is no good.

It really, not only is it sitting on

the

rug, which it looks in this picture like this rug is the kind of rug that you put in front of a sofa to identify a sort of social space in your living room.

Right.

But it appears that in order for it to be in a big pile on that rug, the coffee table has been moved up against the sofa.

So you can't sit on the sofa or use the coffee table to make room for this giant vacuum hose.

Yeah, looks like a giant silvery stink bug eaten snake.

And I'm just going to give, I'm,

look,

I agree with, first of all, obviously I'm really in Cassidy's favor.

This thing should be put, things should go where they are supposed to go.

Put things away.

I feel exactly the same way you do.

You took it out, put it away.

It's what we try to teach our children.

Why can't we do it as adults?

But...

I would even go farther as to say, throw this garbage away completely.

I know it's hard.

You're invested.

You're invested in the fact that your house has a system in it that was put in place before you, presumably, and you want to use it.

It feels

maybe

wasteful to not use it and to just get a regular vacuum cleaner.

But we have a family member in our extended family who is extremely thrifty.

to the point and frugal to the point of playing mind games with us.

Like when

she once asked, can I get anything from you from the grocery store

because your children might be hungry?

We said, a loaf of bread so that we can make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

And

she came back with a half loaf of bread.

I didn't know you could get sliced bread in half loaves.

It was like

four slices of bread.

And she's so frugal that we started to get very anxious.

And like, if she made us dinner, we'd be coming up to her and going, like,

should I put these three remaining peas into a Tupperware?

And sometimes she would say, thank you.

And then sometimes she'd flip it around 180 and just yell at us, throw it away.

And it was scary.

And like all scary things, it stuck with us.

And it's our catchphrase now whenever we're deliberating whether to hold on to something out of thrift or a weird sense of loyalty to an object when that thing like old food may be literally rotten or like your central vacuum cleaning system,

just plain rotten at what it does.

It's certainly not helping you with the stink bug problem after all these years.

You have to consult a professional about your stink bug problem, a pest control professional, a PCP.

And meanwhile, go get yourself.

I'm telling you.

They have cordless vacuum cleaners, and I'm not going to name a brand, but they're incredible how good these cordless vacuum cleaners are, these recharging cordless vacuum cleaners.

You want to get at a stink bug fast if you need to.

Go get yourself a cordless.

You don't want to be plugging in the bug snake.

You want to grab your cordless.

And for day-to-day, everyday use, a cordless recharging vacuum cleaner is a really good deal.

That's my recommendation to you, Cassidy.

Throw it away.

Here's something from Jackson in Minneapolis.

My friend and I have a dispute about islands.

You're already loving this one, aren't you, Jesse?

My friend Maui says.

I should point out that

Jackson was one half of the case that we heard in episode 320, Might As Well Judge, where it was Jackson and a different friend arguing over

whether the basis from Van Halen, Michael Anthony was the best basis in the world or the bestest basis in the world.

Now, Jackson's in a different fight with a different friend about islands.

Let's hear what he has to say.

I say any piece of land that's surrounded by waterways on all sides is an island, whether that waterway is man-made or not.

Thus, a peninsula or isthmus could become an island if the appropriate canals or ditches were created.

My friend says a man-made waterway cannot create an island, as man-made waterways typically cannot exist without perpetual human intervention.

And therefore, nature would inevitably turn any artificial island back into a peninsula or isthmus.

On an unrelated note, we also have a friendly wager about the outcome of your life.

My life?

Yeah, apparently your life, John.

Oh, boy.

Specifically, when and if you will live in Maine full-time.

We have no stakes on this bet at present, and my friend suggested you come up with the stakes.

Or if you find the idea of us betting on your life events distasteful,

we will cut it off.

That wasn't an entire Judge John Hodgman case.

All right, I'll answer the second part first.

Yeah.

Thank you both for

speculating about my private life, including some fairly specific details that I chose to edit out of your letter that you revealed to me that you knew about my life ways and patterns.

While also not only sort of

probing my private life, but also giving me homework to do, like coming up for the stakes of your bet.

Sadly, Jackson, I cannot suggest stakes for your bet because I want you both to lose.

It is distasteful.

Yes.

Please.

You're tracking tracking my life too closely for my comfort, but as long as you don't tell me about it, it's between you and your friend.

Just don't bring it up to me.

And please, don't, don't break into my house and look at me while I'm sleeping in my wonderful Brooklyn and sheets.

That's a plug.

Now, as for this island thing, first of all, Jackson, you can't make an island by surrounding a landmass with ditches.

That's not going to happen.

Canals?

Okay.

Jesse, have you ever heard of the, and I'm going to mispronounce this, I'm sure, because I'm not studying Dutch on Babel.

That's a plug.

I'm instead studying Spanish.

The Veluvomir Aqueduct, the Veluvomir Aqueduct in the Netherlands?

No, but it sounds great.

It's pretty amazing.

For two reasons.

One, the Veluvomir Aqueduct

is an aqueduct in a middle.

I don't even know.

Look,

we'll have to post a photo of it, Jennifer Marmer, on the Judge John Hodgman Instagram,

because it connects the mainland to an island

through this lake, the Vluvomir Lake.

But the road to the island is a causeway,

a low road just above the surface of the lake, and then it dips down below the lake.

and then comes back up so that ships may pass over the road.

And when you look at this, especially from the sky, you look like you're seeing something impossible.

Go look it up at the Judge John Hodgman Instagram page.

It'll also be on the show page at maximumfund.org.

The Veluvomir Aqueduct.

And the other amazing thing about it was it led me to Flivo Land.

That's right.

Dutch road.

Dutch interprovincial roads.

Thank you for confirming that I'm right.

in thinking that it led you to Flivo land.

It not only led me to Flivo Land, it leads everyone to Flivo Land.

Because if I remember the name of the road correctly, it's Dutch Interprovincial Road 302 that connects to Flivo Land, which is the largest artificial island in the world.

And along with

the

Nordostepolder and a couple of other islands, it makes up...

It is a whole province of the Netherlands.

It's the 12th and youngest province.

And this whole province is made up of reclaimed land

in the former Zwerdese,

I think I'm saying that correctly, which is an inland sea in the Netherlands.

And they built up this land.

I don't know why they did it.

Sometimes they make islands to reduce the risk of flooding, particularly for countries that are, like the Netherlands, below sea level.

In Austria, for example, there's a big, long, artificial island in the Danube that was created in order to reduce the risk of flooding of the mainland when the Danube floods.

So, what happens is they built this long island with

a lock on either end of the island, and they can shift overflow water into the space between the island and the mainland.

But in the meantime, they've created this almost artificial lake between this long island and the Danube.

This artificial lake is called the New Danube, which is this beautiful bit of recreational water, and

it's known as the swimmer's Audubon because apparently people in Vienna swim to work in it.

I don't know how that works.

That's amazing.

I like that it's the swimmer's Audubon in the sense that I'm sick and tired living here in Los Angeles of getting speeding tickets when I swim.

Exactly so.

You can tell that I've spent a lot of time on Wikipedia looking up artificial islands.

And there's no way I'm going to have Jackson's friend erasing Fleevo Land, aka, where we make cities arise,

or Roko Island in Kobe, Japan, or Port Island in Kobe, Japan, or Wellington Island in Kochi, India, or here it is.

This is where it's called.

I'm not going to pronounce this correctly.

Don Aunsel,

which is the long island

in the Danube River that was artificially made.

They're making these islands for a reason, particularly due to climate change and the climate emergency.

The Maldive islands are going to get swamped.

They got to move people.

So they're building new islands.

And yeah,

I'm not going to erase these islands, which are awesome, just because Jackson's friend got into an argument with him at a bar over what constitutes an island or not.

I'm not going to erase them because nature is going to erase these islands soon enough.

Sure, nature will eventually return canals and artificial islands into mainlands, I guess, or destroy them completely.

It's going to erase everything soon enough.

There's no reason.

But I do appreciate your sending this in, Jackson, because as much as I hate the idea of you and your friends sitting there betting on my life outcomes, I do miss arguments like this between people over whether or not what constitutes an island, for example.

I do sort of enjoy them.

So keep them coming, everybody.

Nothing about sandwiches, though.

Shout out Treasure Island.

Big ups to the Pan Pacific International Exposition for which it was built.

That's an artificial island?

Treasure Island?

Yeah.

Oh.

Why do you think there's two spans to the Bay Bridge, baby?

They had to build an island in the middle.

I thought pirates made it.

That's a good point.

Let's take a quick break when we come back.

A dispute about Philadelphia accents.

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

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 Law.

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 John Hodgman podcast.

We have a case here from Claire in Philadelphia.

Dear Judge, I seek an injunction against my husband, William.

We have two young sons and live in my hometown, Philadelphia.

Our very talkative two-year-old ward has recently developed the beginnings of a strong Philadelphia accent.

This is surprising since I've lost most of my accent over the years except for a few words like water for water and tail for towel and Philly accents are rare in our neighborhood.

I find Ward's accent adorable and I'll admit I've encouraged it by also hamming up my own accent around him.

My husband, a native of North Jersey, hates it and will correct my son constantly.

He thinks it's important to teach our son to speak correctly.

I say he's being classist as it's mostly working class folks who have strong accents.

And also, he's just bothering our son.

He also doesn't correct him when he says opa meal for oatmeal.

So he clearly is singling out the fillyisms.

Please tell my husband to let my son be the filly rat that he is and stop correcting his accent.

So I don't know.

I like

opa- opa meal?

I didn't know what that was.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So apparently that's a North Jersey thing.

It's oatmeal with cubes of Taylor ham in it.

No, I think it's just a two-year-old mispronouncing oatmeal, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's not a specific accent thing.

That's just a funny thing that a two-year-old said.

Yeah.

What do you think about this, Jesse?

I mean...

I don't know.

I'm just concerned

if the kid will get made fun of when he goes to the Wawa to pick up Nim Hoagies.

They got that ring baloney at the Wawa go-to.

Shout out to John Worcester, Philly Boy Roy.

I think that Claire knew what Claire was doing when Claire wrote in because the Philly accent is one of my favorite accents.

And I was just trying to do it, and I can't.

You know, I've mentioned this before.

My mom is a native of Philadelphia.

She lost her Philadelphia accent when she moved to New England, which is a region in the northeastern part of the United States.

My dad grew up in central Massachusetts and had

a Massachusetts accent, which is what you know, we've talked about it before in the podcast, how he says draw instead of drawer.

But he mostly lost most of his, what you would think about as your affleckian Massachusetts accent as well when he went to college in middle-aged.

Because Claire's not wrong that a lot of these urban accents tend to be

you know, working-class accents, working-middle-class accents.

And my mom grew up in what you would call a working-middle-class neighborhood of Philadelphia.

My grandfather worked in the printing press of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Most of my

aunts still have a Philadelphia accent.

Some of their kids still have a Philadelphia accent.

But it is identified like the Boston accent

with a kind kind of a working-class tradition.

And I love both accents.

I take it back.

I don't like the Boston accent.

It reminds me of kids who played hockey in high school who wanted to be mean to me.

But the Philly accent, I have a really deep affection for.

The tragedy is because both my parents lost their accents.

I can't do either accent at all.

You know, I try and try and try.

I say wardrobe as much as I can, but it just sounds fake.

I love that Philadelphia accent.

It's so strange and beautiful and weird and melodic and

also, you know,

rough.

I mean, it's great.

It's a great accent.

So obviously, I'm going to find in favor of Claire.

And it should be obvious because unlike, say, a college first-year student who's trying to trick people into thinking is British,

your two-year-old Ward is not trying to fool anyone.

He's not trying to impress anyone.

He's not trying to put on an act or be interesting.

Two years old.

Where can I find me, wee Binky?

Mother, dearest.

Ward's just picking it up naturally.

And yeah,

it's not just because I love the Philadelphia accent that I'm rooting for him to take this one on.

It's also that I don't think his dad should be hyper-correcting him all the time about what he says.

Because,

look, I'm no parenting expert, but that can't be good.

I don't think that can be good.

I don't think that leads to good feelings of support.

But

guess what, Claire?

You know, in Philadelphia, they call it Taylor pork roll.

In North Jersey, they call it Taylor ham.

And in the spirit of North Jersey, I'm going to order you to not ham it up, as you put it.

Do not ham up your accent.

Just be yourself.

Don't try to trick him into having this accent.

You're not putting him in a...

You're not raising this kid scientifically to be exactly the way you want them to be by putting them in a, aha, B.F.

Skinner box.

That's the correct reference.

Trying to just coexist with a whole human being and be a good role model to them.

And being a good role model means, A, not hyper-correcting them, and B, just being yourself and talking the way you talk.

Let Ward be whoever Ward is.

Can I give a special regional accent shout-out?

Yeah, please.

One that I don't think, one that I think needs its own Philly boy Roy to champion it.

Yeah.

That's the Baltimore accent.

Baltimore?

Baltimore, Maryland.

My mother is from Washington, D.C., spent a lot of time there, and would kind of make occasional reference to that accent to me, which involves a lot of

truly amazing invented diphthongs, like adding vowels to vowels that weren't there previously.

And I think the most vivid illustration of the Baltimore accent, one that is absolutely remarkable, is if you watch the television show The Wire.

Yes, I was going to bring this.

You can watch the greatest television show of all time, The Wire, and you will see a variety of accents.

They clearly

dialect coaching, not a priority on this program.

You have Idris Elba, a Briton who is doing a

very credible, generic American accent.

You have Dominic West, another Briton, whose character I thought must be from Ireland or something

until I finally realized that he was just doing an American accent not that well.

And you have a lot of actors from,

especially from New York, who are just doing kind of generic, hey, type of accents.

And then you have a few actors who were cast locally.

Yeah.

One of my favorites of them is Robert Chu, who played Prop Joe on the show.

And not only was he a spectacular actor, I mean, he is just an absolutely compelling performer.

He is an acting teacher in Baltimore, which is how they found him.

I think he was helping them cast kids.

and they just thought he was such an amazing man that he needed to have a part in the show.

That's my memory.

But not only is he a gifted actor, but he has a heavy and beautiful.

Baltimore accent.

And the minute he starts talking, the credibility of how everyone else on screen talks just melts away.

And you're like, oh, this is how an actual Baltimore person, a Baltimorean, talks like this.

Felicia Pearson, who played Snoop on the show, is also a Baltimorean.

And she also has that beautiful accent.

And it's so remarkable and so, I mean, it is like looking at a flower that you don't understand if you're not actually from Baltimore or the, you know, the mid-Atlantic and you're not familiar with it.

It's just really incredible.

And those two are just, it's just a joy to hear them talk.

That's, I mean, I re-watched The Wire during the parts of the pandemic, and it was pretty much, I was just waiting to hear the Baltimore accent because it's close to the Philadelphia accent, but distinct as well.

And it's equally odd and melodic and counterintuitive and cool.

And, you know, I was going to shout out to

the character Marcia Donnelly, who's the assistant principal in season four, who has got a great,

it's much more in the vein of the white working class Baltimore accent.

She's got an amazing Baltimore accent, and I didn't know that she was played by an actor named Tootsie Duval, which is a great name.

Bravo.

And then Jay Landsman, of course,

who wrote the book

Homicide Life on the Street was based on and collaborated with David Simon a lot in terms of the background of how police forces operate, shows up as an actor in the show.

And he's always saying, don't get captured.

I just love him so much.

Every time I'd see him on screen, I'm like, please say, please have a line.

Please have a line.

Because he's not a professional actor, you know.

But But yeah, no, it's such, it's such, you know, regionalism is something that's getting, you know,

seems like it's getting erased a lot.

And I don't want to blame social media because social media is so much fun.

I mean, it's worth it.

An unalloyed good.

That's definitely worth doing.

It's absolutely worth it.

Yeah.

It only makes me feel good.

Yeah.

But, you know, the internet would have you believe, is its own culture, and you would have you believe that

it's erasing all of these small regional cultures, but they're real.

They still exist and they deserve to be celebrated.

And if I had a kid who naturally had a Philly accent, boy, I'd just be, I'd call him Roy Jr.

You know what I mean?

I'd rename my child Philly boy Roy Jr.

That's what I would rename my child.

John, I do have to say, I understand your rule against hamming it up, but just as I have worked very hard to raise my three children in Los Angeles as San Francisco Giants fans rather than Los Angeles Dodgers fans.

Right.

The only other thing that I'm really putting work into in shaping their identities is trying to get them to say hella.

Judge, we have anything in the mailbag this week?

We did receive a letter.

Remember how I was talking about that Christian Slater car, the Christian Slater Roo Baru?

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

The one that Paul Schaefer sleeps in.

Exactly.

So I had a letter from Laurel who had listened to that episode about the Christian Slater resembling Subaru and really identified with it.

Laurel wrote, this is probably the most embarrassing email I will ever write, but the recent case of the Subaru and Prezem resembling Christian Slater struck a chord with me.

And I had to express solidarity with the plaintiff.

When I was a kid, before I fully understood that I liked girls, I knew I liked Kate Winslet

a lot.

One day while running errands with my mom, mom, I saw a car that literally made my knees weak.

It was cool.

It was beautiful.

I could not stop looking at it.

I wanted to be a grown-up so I could buy it.

The car was a black 2007 Jaguar XK.

Should I say Jaguar, Jesse, or Jaguar?

Jaguar.

Okay.

I had, this is Laurel again.

I had, and still retain, zero awareness or interest in cars.

There was just something about this one that made my heart hurt, and I could not explain why until years later, when I read that Ian Callum of Jaguar designed the 2007 Jaguar XK specifically to look like Kate Winslet.

Holy moly.

So there you have it, says Laurel.

It's possible the designer of the Subaru Impressive just loves Heathers.

I had to look this story up.

It is absolutely true.

Ian Callum said he was inspired by Kate Winslet when designing the 2007 Jaguar XK.

And Kate Winslet was told this and on a popular American late-night talk show,

revealed that she was very flattered, but she was annoyed that it didn't have wings like chitty-chitty bang bang.

They should have consulted with her.

Yeah.

And I feel like I also love Kate Winslet even more.

Yep.

You know, John, that's why I drive a Volvo station wagon.

The design is actually based on

you take your time.

Get ready.

I can see you're winding one up.

Yeah.

The design is based on stay-era Lisa Loeb.

That was my

They don't look alike.

Lisa, if you're listening, you don't look like a Volvo station.

You don't look like aloe.

It's just a joke about how I had a crush on Lisa Loeb when I was a 12-year-old or whatever.

That's great.

Lisa Loeb is so nice, by the way.

I've met Lisa Loeb a few times.

She's such a cool lady.

She's so lovely.

I know.

I know.

You know,

I recently

bought a Volvo

inspired partly by you and my need for a different car

than the Molvova.

And your need to more fully inhabit the stereotype of a northeastern public radio listener.

Yeah.

But I was like, well, the thing was, like, you know, when it came time for us to get a new car, I was looking, it wasn't that I was necessarily going to get a Volvo.

I was just going through and saying, which one of these looks the most like Sigourney Weaver and Aliens?

Which one?

Aliens.

We don't want to let that stand, but I really mean Alien.

That's the Sigourney Weaver.

Or do you know what?

The Sigourney Weaver of any era.

Yeah.

Any era.

Shout out to Sigourney Weaver in the TV set.

Underrated movie, underrated Sigourney Weaver performance.

Sigourney Weaver is such a hero.

And

he does not resemble a Volvo in any way.

The docket's 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.

Make sure to hashtag your judgejohodgman tweets, hashtag jjho, and check out the maximum fund subreddit to discuss this episode.

Don't forget, Max Fun Drive starts next week.

Visit maximumfund.org slash join for more information and make sure you are following us on those social medias for max fund drive fun.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org slash jjho or email hodgman at maximumfun.org to do so.

We love to get all of your cases, no case too big or small.

It's maximumfund.org slash JJHO or Hodgman at maximumfund.org.

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

Don't turn off the podcast.

Surprise!

Post-credit sequence.

It's me, Judge John Hodgman with another surprise post-credit sequence, which I am starting to feel is becoming less and less of a surprise.

But I needed to talk to you very briefly before you reach your destination, wherever you're going.

Because you remember the other week when we were with Josh Condelman and we were talking about Dungeons and Dragons and the land of Greyhawk.

And we were talking about how Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons,

broke with that business and left the business after starting the whole Dungeons and Dragons phenomenon.

And we thought that it would be cool if there were a fish song called Gygax Departs.

And I challenged people to write a song called Gygax Departs in the style of fish.

Well, a number of listeners did.

And they're all wonderful.

I don't know if any of them are really in the style of fish.

That was an unfair creative limitation.

I apologize for it.

I want to thank Bradley.

I want to thank J.

Michael.

I want to thank Dave.

You all did wonderful jobs.

But today I'm going to play The Submission by our friend David Merson, who also wrote a song for Garlic on My Flapsteak.

This is David's interpretation of Gygax.

This guy went deep into his Gygax lore to tell the true story of Gary Gygax.

He's uploaded it to SoundCloud if you enjoyed it.

I happen to make a bit.ly for it, which is bit.ly/slash gone, Gygax gone.

All small letters.

Now, here to take us out, David Noble Merson, aka Mersona nongrada with Gygax departs.

Gord

the rogue

drew his magic sword

of plus four prostration

and he slew all those Bigfoot down

the entire infestation

A cry of joy rose from all of

Oarth, earth, oath

in Greyhawk and lands uncharted.

But then Gary put his pencil down.

Guy Gex departed.

You know, Hollywood's calling

Said they wanna make a deal But make a movie and a cartoon show

And call it Dungeons and Dragons

So now I gotta leave ya

My wife and LinkedIn either

We're gonna do a little cookie

And date

gangster party

gangster

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