Willy and Nilly

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

And with me, as always,

is the man who judges all other men, as well as women, non-binary people, and gender-fluid people, Judge John Hodgman.

Once again, I'm coming to you live on podcast tape from the solar-powered studios of WERU in Orland, Maine, 89.9 on your frequency modulation dial.

If you're in Blue Hill or the area.

If not, go to WERU.org.

Across the glass from me,

our local Maine guest producer, engineer, operations manager of the station, Joel Mann.

How are you, Joel?

Good judge.

I almost called you Mole Jan.

I apologize.

My old name in high school was Mole Man.

Yeah, that's fun.

You know what?

I'm learning something new every day.

That's incredible.

How many years have I done this in Maine with you, Joel?

Five?

Yeah, five years.

Hard to believe.

I didn't know you were Mole Man before this.

Well, you know.

Why is that not your DJ name?

That's never mind.

We're going to be listening to some more Joel Bird and the Field Hippies.

I'm Mole Man.

Bringing you all the underground hits.

That's right.

We have a very special guest.

I want to get to him right away, but I got to give Joel the market report.

Joel?

Yes, sir.

I was up at the Trade Winds.

They don't have smoked ham hocks.

I called the Shaws in Ellsworth.

No kidding.

No smoked ham hocks.

I called the Hannaford in Ellsworth.

No smoked ham hocks.

I got these beans that I want to make with smoked ham hocks.

Can't get them.

Then I called John Edwards Market, the very unfortunately named market in Ellsworth, upscale.

Went through a down period.

It had a completely neutral period.

I go there for my haircuts, John.

Yeah, right, exactly.

Ham hocks come to Castine.

They don't have ham hocks at Joel Edwards, but I'm supposed to call Sheila tomorrow to order them.

Sheila will get it done.

You're going to call Father's Country Hams.

Will they have some smoked ham hocks for me?

Yeah, Father's Country Hams is nothing but smoked ham hocks.

Well, I mean, smoked ham hocks and,

you know, chicharrones and

man, father's country hams.

And of course, country hams.

Well, look, if they want to sponsor this podcast, that's great.

If not, let's stop talking about them.

Anyone who's got a...

And to those of you in the audience who don't eat smoked ham hocks, I apologize.

Let's move on.

Yeah.

We have a guest on this week's program.

Who is this person?

This person is a stand-up comedian.

This person is a comedy writer on Deceas and Marrow.

This person is the host of the podcast, Make My Day.

This person is the author of the essay collection Nice Try.

This person

is well known across the globe.

for his well-earned reputation as the nicest man in comedy, as evidenced by some of the three out of 10 jokes that he laughed at before we hit record.

Josh Gondelman.

Hey, thank you for having me.

It's such a pleasure to be here.

I am such a fan of the show, so this is a real treat.

Josh, let me tell you this right now.

Yeah.

This is a total delight.

Thank you.

You know why?

Why?

Because you are a total delight.

If you are hearing my voice right now, that means you're probably a listener to this podcast.

If you don't know who Josh Gondelman is,

you've made a horrible mistake in your life.

Yeah, Josh Gondelman is the Judge John Hodgman of stand-up comedians, but funny.

Well, okay.

And successful.

Yeah.

Really?

Really turning this into a roast of the judge.

No, no, I meant for that to be a roast of our podcast together.

I apologize that your name, John, is the name of the podcast.

And so it became very unclear.

Speaking of roast,

I am personally endorsed by a different ham brand than Jesse made than Jesse mentioned earlier.

Yeah, so I've, I've got to, you can't see it, listeners, but I'm wearing a full ham jumpsuit.

Yeah.

Oh, that's right.

You're not sponsored by father's hams.

You're sponsored by stepdad's hams.

Stepdad's hams, yeah.

Yep.

The hams you don't call dad.

Their famous slogan: I'm not here to replace your father's country hams.

I just love your mother's hams.

Maybe if I make a hamsteak for you on a Sunday morning, I'll earn your love.

You can feel free to call me Bill.

You don't have to call me father's country hands.

Well, I think listeners now know a sense of just how funny and delightful Josh Connell made.

This podcast, I dare say, has a reputation for being one of the nicer podcasts.

You know, we try to be nice to people.

We try to find the crux of their dispute, to listen and empathize as much as we can.

When we we get something wrong, we try to address it and learn from it.

You know, Jesse and I have reputations as nice guys, but the truth is, compared to you, Josh, we're monsters.

We're human, evil monsters.

Josh is genuinely one of the nicest and most generous people.

You know, like,

he has been on Twitter.

What's your Twitter handle, Josh?

Everyone should know this.

Write it down right now, everybody.

It's at Josh Josh Gondelman.

G-O-N-D-E-L man, as Method Man would spell it.

At Josh Gondelman, your name, J-O-S-H-G-O-N-D-E-L,

M-A-N.

Like, you'll get up on a Sunday morning and say, who needs a pep talk?

And someone will say, yeah, it's been going bad for me.

And you'll say, it's going to be great.

And this gets me so steamed up when I see it happening.

I love it because then you're like, who's feeling too, like they've been riding too high lately and needs to be taken down a peg.

Yeah, that's right.

And you'll just.

You'll just put people in their place, which is also important.

If people need to be unpepped, I will tell them, yeah, you know what?

You're right to be nervous that no one loves you.

No, I don't ever say that.

I would never say that.

And Josh, you say you're a fan of this podcast.

Thank you.

I am a fan of your podcast, Make My Day, on which I have been a guest.

You were a terrific guest.

We talked a lot about abandoned malls and secret societies.

It was so much fun.

And tell the listeners a little bit about your podcast, Make My Day, before we get into the justice that we need to serve.

My podcast is a one-on-one game show, or sometimes there's a team of contestants that are playing collaboratively.

So the guests always win.

There's no tension, there's no stress.

You don't have to worry about who's going to win.

And the winner always gets a $100

donation to the charity or aid cause of their choice.

It's very silly, very light.

And the premise of all the games are for the guests to cheer me up and make me feel delighted.

Oh.

I had to say something, Josh.

You make so many good jokes,

and I laugh hard at a lot of your jokes on Twitter, but it's such a delight to make you laugh, too.

Yeah, it's just fun.

Also, Josh, you are a Commonwealthium of Massachusetts.

I am by birth.

Yeah, where are you from in Massachusetts?

I grew up in Stoneham, Massachusetts.

Stoneham, Massachusetts.

And you're a fan of Dunkin' Donuts?

Big Dunkin' Donuts fan.

I will, however, I feel like it's a big corporation.

They probably do some bad stuff.

I love their iced coffee.

I love their Beyond Sausage sandwich.

I love their blueberry.

They changed the name.

It used to be the Blueberry Cake Donut, but I think now it's Blueberry Glazed.

But if it turns out, if someone's like, oh, Dunkin' Donuts, you know, they put

every

donut has one child's fingernail in it.

I'd be like, well, I disavow them immediately.

So I don't want to get caught on the record via gotcha loving a big donut.

I'm not trying to put you on.

No, not yet.

You love how much you love Dunkin' Donuts.

I have a Dunkin' Donuts robe.

Yeah, and sneakers.

You have a lot of Dunkin' Donuts swag.

And sneakers.

Yes, I do.

The sneakers were given to me by a friend who works at Saucony, where the collaboration was.

And it was, I love them.

They're so comfortable.

Josh, I have a recommendation for you.

You already have a robe.

You already have sneakers.

If you get a giant bejeweled donut wrist piece, you can go full Dunkin' Donuts ghost face killer.

I would love.

Yeah, like not just donut flat to the wrist, but a big donut coming out in 3D.

It comes all about eight inches.

Yeah.

Yeah, I want that.

I want that so bad.

I said to my wife, Maris, at one point last year,

I said.

Sorry, everyone, Josh is married.

The apologies have been mostly to my wife.

Joel was just signaling to me that he wanted your number.

Sorry, Joel.

Josh is married.

Okay.

Joel, you can still have my phone number, but we can't get married or have any kind of romantic relationship.

But my phone number is good for other stuff.

That sounds like what I said

to every young woman I ever met in high school or college.

The moment they went.

Hey, whatever.

This is your, this is up to you.

And phone numbers, honestly, they're good for more than ever.

Right?

Back in the day, you could only make a phone call or leave an answering machine message.

Now you can text, send them a text note.

The sky's the limit.

Send pictures.

Send pictures.

Right?

You want pictures of my dog?

That's what my phone number is for.

But no romance.

I forgot that the Make My Day podcast is sponsored primarily by phones.

Any of them.

Good for more than ever.

It's phone numbers.

Call your stepdad.

Tell him you'll never love him, no matter how many hams he makes you.

No, you can love your stepdad.

I don't want to make it sound like stepdads are unlovable.

We encourage you.

We encourage you to love your stepdad if that's what you feel in your heart.

Yeah.

i mean if he's got the right country hams you might as well

the point is josh you're nicer than me and anyone who follows us both on twitter knows that you and i sometimes get into a little game where where where i insinuate like you know you love dunkin donuts but i will often insinuate that you're a particular fan of powdered donuts if you know what i mean

You love that sugar.

You love that sugar on the donuts.

I will say, that is not my preference.

I stay away from the powder.

I'm going to say for the record, I know this.

Josh is not addicted to powdered donuts.

Thank you.

It's just a game.

And sometimes, Josh, people get mad at me for bullying you

about your fictional powdered donut obsession.

So I apologize for that.

I hope that that has never made you feel bullied.

It has never made me feel bullied or hurt.

I also kind of live in a zone where

someone I like and admire and am friendly with and friends with, being bullied by them is such a like a comedy treat to me.

And I never like it happens, it occasionally happens on Showtimes Deesus and Merrow, where they'll bully me and it's always a good time.

They'll on their podcast sometimes and I'll find out secondhand.

We were just, someone will text me like, hey, you know, Dezus and Merrow said on their podcast that you were screaming racial epithets at Yankee Stadium.

And it's like, that's a joke.

You know, I would never go to Yankee Stadium as a as a Red Sox fan.

Well, I appreciate that, Josh.

Of course,

you know, that permission structure is useless because this is

an asymmetrical power structure.

You're on my podcast.

Maybe you felt gullied to say that.

I apologize.

But in any case, shut up now.

It's my podcast.

Let's go.

Okay, here's something from Matthew.

He says, as a former bus boy, I get uneasy when dirty plates are sitting on the table while my girlfriend and I continue our evening conversation.

I usually initiate clearing the table, and I do so by stacking one plate on top of another.

If there are scraps of food, I scrape the scrap from them onto one plate and stack that scrap plate on top of the others.

My girlfriend insists that stacking dirty plates is a breach of etiquette.

She says it makes the bottoms of the plates dirty.

I think it's just common sense.

I would like a ruling that allows me to stack the dirty plates without being made to feel weird about it.

Okay.

Josh, Jesse, listeners, Joel, Jennifer, Marmor.

Whoa.

Whoa, it's all Jays.

I never knew that before.

I'm looking from top to bottom, from the glass to the Zoom.

Joel, Jennifer, John Hodgman, Josh, Jesse.

We got to get some other alphabet letters in here.

We're missing some diversity of opinion.

Anyway, the point is, I'm going to have to recuse myself from this one because this is exactly how I do it.

If it's not clear, clear, what Matthew is saying is at the dinner table with his girlfriend, and they're all done,

he will start stacking the plates and setting them aside on the dinner table, not necessarily bringing them to the sink.

And he will scrape the food onto all the food onto one plate and then stack them up with that scrap plate on top.

That's how I do it.

So I'm obviously biased.

So I'm going to recuse myself.

Josh, I don't know how often you and Maris,

your wife, are are sitting down to dinner these days,

now that we're months and months into a pandemic stay-at-home situation.

But what do you do about the dishes when you sit down to dinner with

your wife, Maris?

So dinner together is like one of the few things that has made this situation.

Like it's one of the few comfortable things that we do with intent and to take pleasure in during this pandemic that it's very nice to do.

So we do it, we eat dinner dinner together almost every night at the table.

Usually we clear plates independently.

We have a dishwasher, so that might change the calculus a little bit because if you are doing the dishes and there's now

scraps, if you do the

scrap scrape and there's now gunk on the top of the, a little gunk on the top of the plate residually and on the bottom, that does create a little more work for someone who's washing dishes by hand.

So I understand if he's putting that on her, I understand her discomfort.

Otherwise,

I am not put off by this.

We usually clear plates independently, though.

And then,

yeah, we take care of putting them in the dishwasher.

And then I'll do the

pots and pan dishes after that.

One quick follow-up question, but first I want to thank you for

saying scrap, scrape, like that's a normal thing to say.

Thanks for endorsing that new phrase.

The scrap, scrape, and stack.

Do you mean

yeah, scrap scrape before you make your

scraped stack?

Never mind.

Yep.

What did you have for dinner last night?

What did we have for dinner?

Oh, we had ordered chicken parm the night before, and it was two meals worth.

So we had chicken parm, and I sauteed some broccoli to accompany it.

So we would have a venture.

Yeah, very nice.

You would have to scrape that scrap, though, because you can't put a dish with half a chicken parm into the dishwasher.

You got to throw that away.

No.

Right, okay.

Yeah, certainly not.

Jesse Thorne, how do you deal with your scrap scrapes situation?

I also have a dishwasher, but we've been working on trying to get our kids to clear their places.

So we will ask them to clear their places individually.

But in the event that we have failed in that mission, I will scrap scrape.

And

I think that I understand the argument if you don't have a dishwasher because

you then have to do extra cleaning on the bottoms of the plates.

But But I will also say

that

back when I did not have a dishwasher and I failed to wash sufficiently the bottom of the plates, I believe Judge Sean Hodgman listeners wrote in to call me a monster for insufficiently cleaning the bottoms of plates that had not had food on them and would never have food on them unless you were using the plate upside down.

Well, I suppose I should have asked if they had a dishwasher.

That was information I probably could have used.

But I did ask for some more information because I wasn't quite sure I understood everything.

I asked Matthew for more information about what his girlfriend finds objectionable, aside from just dirtying the bottom of the plates.

And he wrote, she also thinks, and I'm quoting here, she also thinks it's distasteful to scrape one's plate scraps onto another plate in view of your companion.

I think that's gross, I guess.

And finally, she thinks it a little odd that I need to remove the dirty plates so quickly.

She takes that as a signal that I am not interested in the conversation, which isn't true at all.

I just get distracted by the dirty plates, and I keep imagining I'll set my elbow down in it or something.

Does that change your mind about anything?

Give you any further food for scraping thought?

It's pretty weird to leave them there.

That is pretty weird.

Like, he really has found a way to make a pile of uneaten food more weird and gross.

You think that that's okay, because, you know, I already,

I already said that I do what Matthew does.

I don't feel like getting up from the table.

And sometimes my family and I,

we've finished eating and we want to play Monopoly Deal or something.

We need some room in the middle of the table.

So you just keep a pile of mixed food waste at your dinner table on top of a pile of plates off to the side.

In case one of my human children ever feels like getting up and doing a thing,

just clear it.

What's

sitting on the bench?

Okay, go on, Josh.

My concern here is not so much the detritus, the shipwreck of plates and gristle that adorns their table.

But I do think if you have a dining companion who is worried that you're signaling, like, all right, time to go watch Seinfeld and syndication.

Let's leave this table by your actions.

That to me is paramount.

Making sure that they know, I love this conversation.

I'm just going to get these out of the way, right?

I think like the social thing

that I don't necessarily share her opinion that

it's uncouth to undress a plate in front of your loved one, but I do think if she's like, oh,

are you ready to get up?

I think you need to go a little, it is nice to go a little extra mile to go, hey,

let's keep hanging out.

Like, I'm just trying to make a space more comfortable for myself.

So you're saying that somehow communication between two people who love each other will help this situation?

Like, I've got kind of an unorthodox style.

I'm kind of the old dirty bastard of podcasting.

No father to my style.

One stepfather, and that's stepfather's betams.

Joel, what do you do?

I mean, you're here in Maine.

You can call me Mole Man.

Oh, right.

Mole Man.

What do you do?

I mean, you're here in Maine.

You just throw your leftover food and your plate into the wood stove, right?

Right.

paper plates.

Right.

Figured as much.

I got to say, thank you for your input, Jesse and Josh and Moleman.

Josh is correct.

Now I've come around.

I feel shame

for keeping those dirty plates on the table.

It's just I want to clean.

I'm like Matthew in the sense I don't want to rush from the table, but it looks and feels untidy to me to have, you know, leftover dead plates in front of everyone as they're sitting, I don't know, talking about the issues of the day or having a stimulating conversation or playing apples to apples or whatever.

It gets in the way of

my enjoyment because it feels messy.

More messy than a stack of dirty plates with food waste at the end of the table.

But I get it.

I appreciate that Matthew's girlfriend finds that to be gross.

I think that he needs to hear her.

I think she needs to respect his level of comfort that he would not like to have plates in front of them as they continue their evening.

But I mean, she also needs to appreciate that it's beyond his comfort level to just sit with plates in front of them.

I guess the way she was raised in a family that did that.

But that he, as a bus boy, has been trained to clear the plates.

And it does not mean the dinner is over.

It means let the coffee course begin or what have you.

So, Matthew, I think Josh is correct.

You should communicate to your girlfriend how you feel and hear what she has to say and come to what seems like a reasonable resolution, which is when dinner is over, say, I'd love to keep talking, but I'm just going to clear our plates.

I'll bring them into the kitchen and take care of that business there, and I'll come right back.

I do recommend that you do that.

And if you aren't capable of communicating with your girlfriend, I just told her for you.

You're welcome.

Judgment made.

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

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

And later, the return of scary words from creepy children.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast, always brought to you by you,

the members of maximumfun.org.

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

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

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

Jesse, the reviews are in.

My new super soft hoodie from Quince that I got at the beginning of the summer is indeed super soft.

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John, you know what I got from Quince?

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Oh.

It's like a it's like a mid-gray, looks good underneath anything, perfect for traveling.

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You know what I mean?

It's a stink rejecting technology, John.

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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 with our friend Josh Gondelman.

Josh and Jesse, excuse me, just really quickly before we get going,

I received all the photographs of your dishwashers.

Josh Gondelman, last time I made a knowing error by inviting people to send photographs of their dishwashers because one of the very, very common disputes that comes up on the Judge John Hodgman podcast is how to load the dishwasher.

And I offered the first five people to send me photos of their dishwashers.

I offered essentially a John Hodgman masterclass in

how to do it better than they're doing it currently.

But I realized this is a terrible, I got them.

Thank you for the photos.

I'm going to respond.

It's not a good segment for the podcast because these are visual.

I don't want to describe these.

And also a lot of them, people sent them to me empty.

Like, how can I know?

How can I know what you're doing?

You're right or wrong.

Like, but, you know, some of you sent in dishwashers that were loaded extremely poorly.

I'm going to happily evaluate those on the Judge John Hodgman Instagram Instagram account.

I'll grab some of them and

I'll critique them on the Judge John Hodgman Instagram account.

And we can all learn there while we're looking at the photos.

And

luckily, no one sent in any joke.

Like, I was expecting someone to send in a dishwasher that was just full of smoked ham hocks.

Am I doing it right?

You know, didn't happen.

Okay, so.

Thank you for your patience, and let's move.

Oh, one other thing.

Josh Gonleman, you grew up in Massachusetts.

Did you have Channel 25?

It was Fox 25.

It was Fox 25 by the time.

Yeah.

And you're younger than me.

So you never watched the show Star Blazers, did you?

The Japanese dubbed anime Star Blazers?

No.

Do you recommend it?

I do.

And I highly recommend the theme song.

Have you ever heard it?

No.

Well, be patient because you're not going to hear it today.

Okay, Jesse, let's go.

Oh,

I'm on the edge of my seat.

Keep listening.

Here's something from Celeste.

She says, my friend Mike and I are on a board game review podcast.

We play a lot of lengthy, involved, European-style games together, along with our other two panelists.

During these games, it sometimes becomes evident that one of us will not be able to win the game, as they are too far behind, but that they still have a chance to influence who will win by throwing their resources behind another player of their choice.

In the world of board games, this action is called kingmaking.

I believe kingmaking to be a legitimate strategy, allowing the losing player to feel useful and engaged in play until the end of the game.

Mike disagrees and believes it is not in the spirit of the game's design and undermines the hard work and planning of other players who may have gone on to win if the kingmaker had stayed out of it.

He wishes to ban kingmaking from our play.

This issue often leads to the other two panelists sitting idly by while Mike and I debate it heatedly during gameplay, which is recorded for the podcast.

All four panelists have agreed to abide by your ruling.

Wow.

This sounds definitely like a long and involved podcast.

They don't keep it tight like us.

No, right.

Papa pow.

Dunkin' donuts, scallops.

All right, now you got me.

You got me.

I'm going to go on a tangent.

You opened the door, counselor, When David Rees and I were writing out plot ideas for Dick Town, the only idea that we scrapped, the only episode we scrapped,

was David Reese and I having to mediate between two groups of rival podcasters

who were in competition with each other for having the world's longest podcast.

Like one podcast was like 14 hours long, which sounds like this board game podcast that Celeste and her friends are hosting.

Now, Gonelman,

here's a little peek behind the scenes of the Judge Sean Hodgman Ways and Means,

the process.

I'll get a lot of letters from people saying,

I would like to take, I have a podcast about X, Y, Z, and I'd like to take my co-host

to task for doing...

ZYX

on our podcast.

And you know what I do with those letters?

What do you do?

I dump them immediately.

I print them out and throw them in a fire.

A friend did that to me when I asked them to blurb my book.

Sent me a video.

It was, I don't know why I said a friend.

It was Eugene Merman who just printed out my email and threw it in his fireplace and then sent me a video.

I think your book is lovely.

Thank you.

I don't even think there was text in the reply.

I think it it was just the video.

The book Nice Try by Josh Gondelman is

a wonderful book of funny essays that you should check out immediately.

Signed, John Odglan.

No, but when people write in and they say, I've got a podcast and I want to take my podcast co-host to the court, I usually look at them with a somewhat jaded eye because most of the time, 99 out of 100 times, it's someone who's trying to stealth buzz market their podcast.

They don't really have a fight.

I was going to throw Celeste's letter into the garbage right away.

Eugene Merman style.

I was going to throw it in the fire.

But I let Celeste off the hook because she did not name her podcast in the letter and clearly was not intending to plug her podcast.

And for those reasons,

And also because I think this podcast sounds so long that I'm not worried about too many people listening to it, I searched it up and I will plug it now.

It's called Which Game First

and it's co-hosted by Celeste,

Evan, Mikey G,

Edward P., and Joe.

I think his name is Unfried, but it's spelled Unfried.

And I just, this, it seems like a fun, fun group of people playing some fun games, and their bios are terrific.

Joe Unfried, his bio is, Joe Unfried has always loved the alphabet.

Perfect.

Love them all.

Love them all.

Now,

on to the meat of the matter.

Do you play long European-style board games, Josh Condelman?

No.

We play quick word games usually.

We do a Scrabble, a boggle, bananograms, code names.

That's what our speed is at our home.

You also have a podcast, Make My Day.

Yes.

And you and your wife, Maris, have no children.

You have a wonderful little pug.

right?

So you have time to play long European-style board games.

I don't understand why you're messing with Boggle, the insult to good games.

We don't.

Well, I thought European-style board games means you play with someone who isn't your wife and everyone just kind of lets it go.

They're just like, here's what the men are like.

No, I think that these are like big, big involved

like settlers of Catan, right?

That's sort of the Ur European board game.

What do you think about this?

That's what it sounds like.

This kingmaking technique, Josh.

So it feels to me like if that were to be prohibited in the intricate rules of the game, it would be specified within the game.

And especially when you're reviewing a podcast, whether kingmaking is allowed for within the rules and makes the game unfun, right?

Like if you can lose and then immediately dictate who wins by allocating your resources, that seems like a flaw in the game and is worth noting in the review.

But if kingmaking

allows the game to go on with like a twist and a wrinkle, then that also seems notable to the gameplay and should be thought of in the review as well.

A twist and a rink.

What do you think, Jesse Thorne?

I'm terrified to play any board games for reasons that I've listed many times on this program, specifically that if I win, I will feel bad for beating everyone.

And if I lose, I will feel bad because I lost.

And while I'm trying to win, I will feel bad for trying to win.

And if I don't try and win, I will feel bad for selling myself short.

It's a real win-lose-lose-lose situation.

Yeah.

Oh, sorry.

I was just

listening to you, Jesse, but I was also looking at Joe Unfried's bio.

Continues, he can swim.

Sometimes he wears glasses.

And sometimes he wears socks.

It sounds like a game of like one of those games where you have to guess a celebrity, but you can't say any of the movies they've been in or something.

I think we've all played that and we've all chosen the celebrity, Joe Unfried.

Joe Unfried.

Never fried.

You draw the card and you're just like, too easy.

All right.

Loves the alphabet.

Sometimes wears glasses, can swim, and everybody in Unison is like, unfried.

It's the backing vocals to girls, what's my weakness?

Men.

Like with that level of confident enthusiasm.

Like salt and pepper are there playing celebrity with you.

One guy just goes, Anthony Edwards.

Oh, close.

For me, Anthony Edwards.

Get out.

Joe Unfried.

It's unfried.

Celeste, you wrote in, I'm sorry that I'm making Joe Unfried the star of your podcast.

It's not fair.

You put in the effort.

And I will reward your effort

by

ruling in your favor.

Kingmaking.

Look, everyone knows the law.

It doesn't say anywhere in the rule book that a dog can't play basketball.

Right, Josh?

It does not.

If it did, the Airbud would be such a flawed movie.

That's right.

It wouldn't go anywhere.

It wouldn't even have a first act.

No.

No way.

They'd be like, we want the dog to play.

And someone would point to the rule book and be like, nuh, weirdos.

I guess we'll go back to being losers.

Like, I feel that it seems like a really nice twist in a rink to have a situation where someone who is effectively eliminated from the game

through attrition can now yet influence the game and have fun rather than sit around and do nothing on your podcast.

And if it's not officially prohibited by the game itself, to me it seems fair play.

I'd much rather be in a hours-long

European-style board game where even if I've lost, I still get to play Mitch McConnell-style mind games with people behind the scenes.

And I appreciate, I understand why Mike might disagree.

Probably this guy doesn't know how to do it.

He's not a kingmaker.

You know what I mean, Josh?

Oh, yeah.

He's just like, I just want to play by the rules and do a good job.

And Celeste's like, that's not what's happening.

Enjoy sitting on the sidelines of history while kings get made without your consent.

Yeah, exactly.

Celeste is sitting on the side going, like, no, I'm still a power broker in this land of Catan or whatever.

So, you know, I rule in Celeste's favor.

If there's, if kingmaking is not prohibited by the rules, then it's fine.

I think it makes it more interesting and more fun.

Here's something from Liz.

My boyfriend has a sharpie stealing problem.

Every single day, he accidentally steals at least one or two Sharpies from work, just sticks them into his pockets and brings them home, then dumps them on some surface.

We are overrun.

The pencil drawers and cups are full to bursting.

Every time I do laundry, pocket sharpies come tumbling out of the dryer.

He reaches into his pocket to pull out keys and boom, sharpies flying.

Our dresser, sharpies, my car, sharpies.

When I close my eyes, sharpies.

His bosses even ask that if someone has taken the sharpies home by accident for them to be returned, but since he doesn't like his job, for good reason, he doesn't think he ought to return them.

He says that they're useful, so he doesn't doesn't think he should stop.

Please order him to return at least most of the sharpies and stop bringing home new ones.

I don't mind a few, as they do have some utility, but this is just excessive.

This is why I like this case, Josh and Jesse.

Liz tells one story that turns into another story.

You think that this is just like, my

boyfriend loves Sharpies so much, and I don't like them as much.

And sometimes I'm doing the wash, and

they fly out of his pockets and hit me in the eye.

But that's not the story.

Like one of those prank cans of

mixed nuts.

Yeah, peanut brittle.

Oh, I'd love some peanut brittle.

Ah, sharpies in my eye.

So dangerous.

The fine-point ones, the worst sharpies.

Look, there's one kind of sharpie, the regular sharpie.

Fine-point sharpies, get out of town.

Don't want you.

I rule against you.

No one wants you.

Sorry.

I hurt their feelings.

What about Chiseltip?

Chiseltip's fine.

If you're a fan of calligraphy, you know who's a fan of calligraphy?

Joe Unfried.

My middle school girlfriend, Jennifer Tananga.

That's what I was going to guess, but I didn't want to sound stupid if I was wrong.

Jennifer Tananga and also Joe Unfried.

Who is either that or Anthony Edwards?

Everyone knows his grandfather was a master painter and calligrapher, and it's where Joe Unfried got his excellent handwriting.

Yeah.

Wow.

True story.

But what's interesting,

there's another narrative embedded in here.

There's a twist to this, which is that

it's not just that her boyfriend is bringing home sharpies from work.

He's bringing home sharpies from work in vast quantities after he has been told not to.

He is having a sharpie fight with his work.

He's trying to de-sharpify his office.

And I guess invite them to fire him or something.

I don't know.

There's a level of malevolence and

what's the term of a disgruntlement that's going on that is unaddressed here in this thing.

Yeah, they're suffering from what in business is called sharpie shrinkage.

And he goes back to the office, or once he leaves the office for the day, everything anyone writes down is just temporary.

That's a problem.

Absolutely.

Things are getting erased, Willie and Millie.

Both.

Josh, is Deesus and Merrow the Showtime television show starring the great Deezus and Merrow?

Yes.

Probably the best show on television starring guys I know from an internet message board 20 years ago.

True.

I would say almost definitely.

Yeah.

That's true.

Until Jay Smooth gets a television show.

Everyone should check out the Deezus and Merrow show on Showtime.

I was a guest on the show when it was on Another Network.

And I can vouch, those two guys are two of the nicest and funniest people in the world.

Wonderful, incredible.

Wonderful, hilarious guys.

Incredible.

And it's just, I presume that they know that I'm in Maine right now, so that's the only reason I've never been asked back.

In any case, because it's hard.

It takes a long drive to get there.

In any case,

you're not in an office now with them.

You're not making the show.

There's no production.

No, we production remotely.

But there was a time when you went into the production office, correct?

Correct.

What's your title title at the show?

I'm a writer and co-executive producer.

That's up there.

It's been exciting.

It's nice to be able to participate in the show at that level.

It's very thrilling to me, and I like my job very much.

So what office supplies would you steal when you were working there in the office?

What would you take home?

So there was never intentional theft, but I would occasionally take a ballpoint pen, put it in my pocket as I walked through the office, bring it home.

But then I would usually put it back in my pocket the next morning and bring it back to work to continue writing.

You just didn't want to break writing continuity.

Yeah, just if you switch pens, I feel like the work suffers.

You're telling me you never stole a pad of post-its knowingly?

You never looked into the office supply cabinet and go, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, what will I take home today?

I love these green-tinted steno notebooks.

No,

I'm very particular

about little things like that.

So I feel like stealing a notebook is not only, look, I wouldn't do that to my work.

But second of all, I would just have a notebook that I would resent until I filled it up.

When you say you're particular, though, you mean you're particular about being a virtuous person or you're particular about

your office supply.

Particular about my office supply.

What's the office supply you love?

I have the, I'm not going to, I don't want to buzz market a big brand.

Don't go for it, but I like a day planner that is thin and easy to carry in a bag and that the layout of the day planner is just like a month calendar with the squares.

So I can write in the squares instead of lined.

Yeah.

I'm not worried about you buzz marketing a big company.

I'm worried about you losing your top sponsor, phones, by advocating for paper calendars.

You know that can be done on phones now.

I do.

And honestly, on my podcast, I have to pretend like I use the phone calendar.

I have to be like, wow, phones, what a, what is, I mean, some phones don't have calendars.

They're plugged into a wall still.

And I love those, but the new ones, they've got a calendar I can use.

Jesse, you're very virtuous too.

You probably never stole any office supplies from your place of work, right?

No.

And besides that,

I am the owner of my place of work.

Yeah, yeah, no.

I was talking about before then.

Oh, like back when I worked at the Trust for Public Land, that was the last time I had a real office job.

No, I wouldn't because

they trusted you.

Yeah, exactly.

That those office supplies were designed to

make conservation easements and public parks for the people of this great nation.

All right, you both are making me feel like a horrible person.

So I guess now

I gotta go return all of those green-tinted steno notebooks that I stole from Writer's House from 1995 to 1999.

And Joel

Mole Man likes a good paper clip.

Yeah, okay.

I Don't think I have.

You are waiting on that one.

You are loaded.

I know you,

and I know WERU has some good paper clips here because don't think I haven't looked at the office supply cabinet.

We've been keeping an eye on you, Judge.

Chasing the joint, you call it.

All right, Liz.

Here's what I'm going to say.

Liz, your boyfriend is stealing.

He's stealing from his office.

There is a self-destructive streak in what is going on here.

He is either looking to hurt his office or he's looking to hurt himself by getting reprimanded or fired from his office.

The Sharpies, as we always know,

Sharpie hoarding is just a symptom of a deeper problem.

And in this case, you need to get to the bottom with your boyfriend as to what message he's trying to send to you and the world and his office by hoarding all these sharpies.

As much as I love sharpies, P.S., this is too many Sharpies, Liz's boyfriend.

Deal with the underlying issue and stop sabotaging your office and stop leaving Sharpie booby traps for Liz to find.

One Sharpie that slips through Liz's careful eye and gets into the laundry, that'll screw up a lot of your clothes, too.

Yeah, I was going to say they're going through the laundry.

That's messed up.

You can't do that.

Get it together, Liz's boyfriend.

Look inside.

Talk to Liz, figure out what's going on in your life, and stop hoarding these sharpies.

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

The return of our smash hit segment, Creepy Cool Babies.

We'll be back with more soon on Judge John Hodgman.

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 and goes rotten.

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

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

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

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

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

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

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no.

It's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper.

And on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

John, it's time for perhaps the most beloved and only recurring segment on Judge John Hodgman.

Creepy Cool Babies.

That's right, Josh Gonelin.

It's our proprietary segment that we started a couple of weeks ago called Creepy Cool Babies.

Now, I never presume that anyone is up to date with all the episodes of Judge John Hodgman.

So if I'm repeating information that you already know, forgive me, but this will help listeners get up to speed.

Josh, a couple of weeks ago, someone sent in a dispute between a friend and a friend.

The question was, is butt leg?

Is butt leg?

That is to say, is the butt part of the leg or is the butt just butt?

Quick answer on your part, if I may.

But's just butt.

Butt's just butt.

Obviously, butt's just butt, butt's not leg.

But Jesse pointed out that is butt leg sounds like the sort of question a two or three year old would ask that would get you thinking for most of the day.

So we asked listeners to send in questions that a two or three year old or a toddler might

pose that would be real head scratchers.

And that was wonderful.

People sent in all sorts of deep questions that their toddlers had asked.

But it feared, if I may say, and this is why you're the nicest person in comedy and I'm the grumpiest person in humorist circles.

It veered on the cutesy.

It veered on the cutesy.

Wouldn't you say, Joel, veered on the cutesy?

Cutesy.

Yeah.

Those kids were saying the darndest things.

They were saying the darndest things.

It was very, very cute.

But luckily, the moment was saved by one

dad who wrote in that his son, I believe it was,

had asked him if he knew, if he personally knew the Soul Harvester,

which is a reference,

still kills it every time.

The Soul Harvester, this is a whole story that I won't get into, but the Soul Harvester is a reference to a very scary animatronic Halloween decoration sold by Spirit Halloween that the child had discovered online somewhere.

And so the next mission to our listeners, and one that I hope will continue, is we don't want to hear any cutesy stuff from your toddlers.

I'm sure they're all adorable.

Believe me, I agree with you.

You can send me the cutesy stuff too.

But for the podcast, we no longer want stuff from cool babies, but specifically creepy cool babies, toddlers, two, three, four, five-year-olds, a little bit older, young kids saying things that are scary.

So, let's get into it, Jesse.

Here's something from Erica about her six-year-old daughter.

She says, my eldest child is six now, but threw off some wonderful creepy vibes from a very young age.

One night when she was about three, we were talking about our dog, and I told her one of my co-workers had a dog of the same breed.

I mentioned that the dog's name was Stewie, but left out the fact that Stewie had recently died.

She replied, Stewie is a ghost.

She went on to tell me that he was with a little girl who was wearing all pink.

Genuinely creepy.

Very creepy.

Yeah.

This kid brought in a second creepy baby from the spectral realm.

This creepy baby tag-teamed it with a creepy baby that died years ago, I imagine.

Yeah, this all-seeing creepy baby saw through the planes of existence.

Stewie is a ghost.

Very scary.

Here's something from Daniel.

I took a neighborhood walk this holiday season with my six-year-old, and he earnestly warned me that the street we were on had a Jesus family statue, which is what he calls a nativity scene.

He also warned me that I shouldn't look at the baby Jesus's eyes, or I would, quote, feel like I had to fall down,

unquote.

We walked by and he told me when to avert my gaze and when it was safe.

Feel like I had to fall down.

Something happened between Daniel's child and that

and that Jesus baby.

Very, very unnerving.

Also, Jesus and the Family Statue is my favorite Christian soul cover band.

You ever get creeped out in Massachusetts by Catholic iconography Josh Gondelman?

Yeah, I guess it eventually got so that I was just like, oh, this is just like normal everywhere stuff.

But I think before I was anesthetized to it, I was like, whoa, this is a lot.

Yeah, no, I mean, there were some paintings.

My dad had two aunts

who, and they were obviously sisters of each other.

And one of them had never married, and one was a widow.

And they lived together for years in the same house in Frankfurt Street in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

And there were a lot of scary Catholic paintings, including a lot of gore and

a lot of staring baby Jesuses.

And they haunt me to this day.

I feel like I need to fall down thinking of them.

I understand.

I wish Daniel had been there to tell me, avert your eyes.

Avert your eyes.

They have no power over you if you don't make eye contact.

That's right.

Baby Jesus can't see you as long as you don't move.

You're just standing there, the water is rippling in the glass.

Okay, Sean writes, when my son was four, he told us that he was a bad kid.

I want someone in the audience to remix that.

I mean, maybe it's too much, but to like drop in a baby Jesus where the T-Rex is in Jurassic Park.

When my son was four, he told us he was a bad kid.

We told him he wasn't, and that he was, in fact, a very good kid.

He smiled and said he was kidding.

Then he looked at us and said, Actually, I do crime and I don't tell you.

So, this is this, I think, was mistakenly sent in for creepy, cool babies.

As a son of Massachusetts, I can tell you this should go on your second proprietary segment, Wicked Cool Babies.

Just babies ripping butts behind a 7-Eleven.

I do crime and I don't tell you.

Do you guys think this is street crime or white-collar crime?

I can't tell which I would be more impressed, right?

Because a four-year-old is not physically imposing enough to do street crime, you would think.

But also, to have a sophisticated knowledge of financial systems and computing would really blow me away at a kid this age.

Yeah, I feel like we need more information to make that determination.

Like, does this kid have a green translucent visor?

Sean, let us know.

I'll read this last one if you don't mind, Jesse.

Sure.

This one comes from Nicholas.

My four-year-old came down in the middle of the night with her stuffed owl that plays music.

That alone sounds like a weird dream.

That's not possible.

Sure.

She said, owl is dead.

I went to change the batteries, but they were fully charged.

And the owl was not dead, but working.

I handed it back to her, and she happily went back to bed.

The next morning, when I went out for a morning run, all right, that's a brag.

The next morning, when I went out for a morning run, I saw a dead owl in front of my driveway.

We live in a big city, so dead wildlife is not something I run into.

Due to this incident, my wife and I were freaked out when a few months later, she came downstairs a couple hours after she went to sleep.

She had a big smile on her face and said, We're underwater.

No, I mean, the catch here is that if she was, they don't say whether she was wearing a green visor.

Because it could have just been a mortgage thing.

Yep.

She is, again, very, very knowledgeable.

It's creepy in a different way.

You want to shield kids from

the kids.

Yeah, no,

I just presumed that she was predicting a catastrophic flood, but you're saying that they might be foreclosed upon.

Yeah, the debts outstrip the asset.

I got you.

Okay.

Yeah, these are all very scary children.

Thank you very much for sending them in.

We have a few more that I'll read next week.

If you have some creepy, creepy, cool baby stories that you want to send in or some wicked cool baby stories, if you're in Massachusetts or New England, just write to me at hodgman at maximumfund.org.

Speaking of creepy children, before we close this segment, I just want to thank Aiden Kay.

One of our inspirations for this segment.

Josh, if you don't know, Aiden is 16, going on 17.

And he is one of the editors of the Spirit Halloween wiki it's a wiki devoted to spirit Halloween products and animatronics and he specifically works on the harvester of souls page

and uh and we and we had a letter from him last week he was very excited that we were talking about the harvester of souls and the harvester of souls wiki page that he helps to co-edit i would like to report jesse thorne that i checked today uh uh the mention of judge john hodgman is now the top item in the trivia section of the Harvester of Souls page where it belongs.

This is big.

Yeah, this is big.

Thank you.

Thank you, Aiden.

We're even above what had been the top trivia tidbit of the Harvester of Souls, which, Josh, you may not know this, but the previous top trivia tidbit for the Harvester of Souls animatronic is that its code name within the company is Strawberry.

So

we're doing well.

That kind of takes a little of the menace out of it.

Have you seen The Harvester of Souls, Josh Connellman?

I'm going to look it up right now to make sure I can picture it, but I might be picturing the wrong thing.

They could have at least chosen a menacing berry.

Gooseberry is not unmenacing.

No.

Oh, I see it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very spooky.

But imagine, like, I'm the harvester of souls.

Tremble before strawberry.

You should do voices for these animatronics, Josh.

This could be another area of income for you.

Can you do a a high-pitched gremlin cackle?

Oh, a high-pitched gremlin cackle?

Oh, hell yeah.

I can do that.

Just like,

it's me, Raspberry, the demon from the great beyond.

Wow.

Pack it in, phones.

Josh Gonelman doesn't need you anymore.

The Spirit Halloween store, year-round, is who I'm throwing my chips in with.

Aiden sent in, after he mentioned and read Aiden's letter on the podcast last week, Aiden sent in a video, which he posted to his YouTube channel.

It's a very charming video.

There is, in fact, a harvester of souls right behind him, as well as several other animatronics.

And Aiden mentions in the video that he, the 16-year-old going on 17 years old, owns 29 individual animatronics from the Spirit Collection.

Jesse,

I'm going to give out a bit link

so that listeners can look at this video, but I'm urging you, Jesse.

This is a real content warning for you because

over Aiden's shoulder is an upside-down Dracula that is very scary.

Yeah.

Is there any Wolfmans in there?

There are no Wolfmans.

There is a Creepy Clown,

and there is a Harvester of Souls, and a number of other ones.

John,

I have a comment here about this video.

Yeah.

I'm checking it out on YouTube.

It's a lot of fun.

Aiden is indeed a charmer.

I noticed in the comments this exchange.

So Haunter's Corner asked, did you actually create the Spirit Halloween wiki?

And Aiden replied, I did not create it.

No.

Which I like his honesty.

He's an honest person.

He says, honest person.

Yeah.

I and three other people are the current co-owners.

The person who started it hasn't been heard from in years.

So spooky.

So spooky.

Whoa.

Soul harvested.

Oh, boy.

Aiden made a reference.

Oh, my goodness gracious.

Yeah, Aiden made a reference to the fact that I said we should interview him.

And

before I agreed to do that, I wanted to check out Aiden's other videos on his YouTube channel because my concern was that he was maybe planning to invade a state capital or something.

But nope.

He's just a wonderful person.

I would say, based on his accent, I am the world's greatest accent detective.

He's probably from Philadelphia, South Jersey, or Baltimore area.

Tell me if I'm right, Aiden.

But all of his other videos, if they're not about Spirit Halloween, they're about David Bowie and his favorite David Bowie songs.

Aiden's birthday is coming up on February the 7th.

Happy birthday in advance, Aiden.

I am hereby booking you on Bullseye.

Am I allowed to do that, Jesse?

I don't think so.

I think even I have to run everything through Robert Siegel.

Oh, okay.

Well, then I will do an interview with Aiden

as a members-only special.

And Jesse, you can come on board if you want.

Josh, you can be there too if it's not too scary.

Sure.

The dockets clear.

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

Our thanks to our friend Josh Gondelman for joining us today.

You can follow him at Josh Gondelman on Twitter.

His podcast, Make My Day, is a true delight.

Recent guests include friend of the court, Linda Holmes, our buddy Tom Sharpling, and Judge John Hodgman himself.

And speaking of delightful, Josh's book of essays, Nice Try, Stories of Best Intentions and Mixed Results, is available wherever books are sold.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Our engineer in Maine is Joel Mann, Program and Operations Manager at WERU Community Radio in Orland, Maine.

You can listen to WERU at weru.org.

And you can follow Joel on Instagram.

His handle is the main man.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne.

Hang on, hang on.

Yes.

Joel, you got to make a backup account.

Mole Man, the Mole Man.

I already have one.

You do?

Yeah.

You don't know.

It's private.

I'm not on your finstep.

All right.

Cut his line.

Go ahead, Jesse.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Make sure to hashtag your judgejohnhodgman tweets, hashtag jjho.

And check out the maximum fund subreddit to discuss this episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJHO or email Hodgman at maximumfund.org.

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

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