Maine's Holiday Boy

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're in chambers this week to clear the docket.

And with me, as always, is Maine's holiday boy, Judge John Hodgman.

Me, me, me.

We're off to outer space.

We're leaving Mother Earth.

You know this song, Jesse?

No, I only know that

That one that Tracy Morgan sings on Saturday.

Rocket.

I'm taking it, Rocket.

Do Saturday.

Oh, Tracy Morgan's funny.

Jesse Thorne, what this is right now is the theme to Star Blazers, the American translation of the very famous 1970s Japanese anime space adventure

space battleship Yamato.

You know, I promised.

I promised.

It's been a rollicking couple of weeks here in the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm broadcasting to you now live on tape, digital tape, from the solar-powered studios of WERU,

89.9 FM in Orland, Maine.

Did you know that?

The studios are entirely solar-powered, Joel?

Entirely.

Entirely solar-powered.

Electricity from the warmth of the sun.

Yeah, in Maine.

And you know, we're getting sun up here in Maine up to four hours a day.

So

we're really getting, I mean,

I think we have one Edison bulb running, basically, for illumination.

But it's been rollicking.

I've made some promises.

I promised that I would sing the Star Blazers theme.

And then we ran out of time, and I said I'll do it next time.

And then I didn't.

I don't know what happened.

All I know was I was planning to open the show by singing the Star Blazers theme.

It was going to be great.

It was going to be very rollicking.

You know Star Blazers, Joel?

No.

All right.

Well, you would have loved it.

I'm sure.

But it's not going to happen.

It's not going to happen.

Why?

Look,

we've had a lot of listener engagement over the past couple weeks.

It's been a delight.

Reading your letters, your toddler questions, your Vicks Vapo Rub memories.

Love it.

But then Matthew had to write in.

Listener Matthew.

On the submission form page, Joel, taking me to court.

My dispute is with none other than the Honorable Judge John Odgman himself.

That is normally a cause for automatic deletion.

Don't take me to my own court.

That's not, it's against the Constitution.

There's still some norms.

Right.

In the recent episode, Grocery Store Quilts, I was excited to get to hear John sing the theme to Starblazers, of course.

But after it being teased several times, I was disappointed not only to not get to hear his rendition, but also that John taunted those of us looking forward to it with his closing words for the episode, putting it off.

That's what's called a complaint.

A complaint against this court because I didn't follow through the way he wanted it to.

And I said, I will sing the Star Blazers song eventually, Matthew, but I do not take requests and I am not bullied in my own court.

So you're not going to hear it today.

Go face all of the listeners over on Reddit who are mad now because they thought they were going to hear Star Blazers.

You got in my craw, friend.

You got right in my craw.

You're still in there.

I will sing the Star Blazers theme

in a future episode,

a very exciting episode that we're planning called the Festival of the Bailiffs, a new wintertime holiday, Jesse.

And that's when you'll hear it.

But if you, Matthew, if you send me a letter about Star Blazers and you try to rush me into a thing again,

what happens, Jesse?

You get punished, right?

Yeah.

I mean, you do the crime, you got to do the time.

Yeah.

You got to wait.

I will thank Matthew, though, for sending me a YouTube link to the original Japanese language version of Space Battleship Yamato, which I've never seen, with subtitles.

And I'm looking forward to watching that.

Thank you, Matthew.

I will not sing the theme in Japanese as you challenged me to do, because that would be inappropriate.

Jesse, it's a new year.

Happy New Year.

Thank you.

Happy New Year to you.

Did you have a rollicking new year I mean

it can only get better from here on out right that's right Jennifer Marmer happy new year to you happy new year judge Joel did they tell you that it's a new year yet no yeah I'm here to tell you thanks 2021 it can only be better

it's gonna be right and we're gonna have a rollicking good time today Jesse we've got some justice to dispense And we also have a lot more listener engagement.

There's kind of a mail bag.

Speaking of of bags, one last thing before we get into it, Jesse.

Obviously,

we're recording this before 2021.

I mean, I'm presuming that the new year happens.

In fact,

it's still the height of the end of 2020 holiday season.

And I walked into the studio here at WERU,

and by the flickering light of the single Edison bulb, I noticed a bag of cookies that Joel Mann gave to me.

Merry Christmas, Judge.

Thank you very much.

Joel, did you make these yourself?

I did.

I'm going to have to have one.

There's sugar cookies, there are peanut butter cookies, and oatmeal cookies.

Hmm, I have an allergy to cookies.

Those are three of the top categories of cookies, Joel.

You really nailed it.

Christmas cookies.

Look at that.

Oh, crispy?

Sorry about this, people who have mesophonia.

Turn down your radio.

I'll let you know when you can turn it up again.

Hmm.

After peanut butter.

Hmm.

That's a great savory cookie, Joel.

I'm glad you like it, Jesse.

You know what?

I can barely taste the scallop.

That's just a hint.

John, you should know that's a dog biscuit.

Is it a dog biscuit?

That's what savory cookies are otherwise called.

Jesse, I want to ask you a question.

You own dogs, right?

You got dog biscuits in your house?

Yeah, sure, of course.

You ever eat one?

Not since childhood.

They look so good.

I really want to eat one.

I have vivid sense memories of wandering into my mother's pantry where there was a big red plastic trash can

full of dog food for our dog, Sonoma.

What?

I never heard about this dog named Sonoma.

Well, she went to live with my mom's dental hygienist.

All right, that's a story for another time.

But I would absolutely would sneak into the pantry and sit there and pull pieces of dog food out of there and eat them.

It's interesting.

I've eaten cat food when I was a youth

on a dare

with myself because I was an only child, I dared myself to do it alone.

It was just late at night, and you were watching that guy who used to go on Letterman.

Which guy do you mean?

There was a guy who used to go on Letterman whose job it was to taste-test pet food.

And so they would invite him on and have him eat pet food on camera.

Never knew that.

I never knew that.

I never saw that.

You would offer it to Dave.

Dave would not want to eat it.

Very funny.

That's a good bit.

But I never had a dog.

I still think, even though I don't, and you know,

you'll forgive me, Joel, I normally don't go for a cookie.

I don't eat a lot of sweets.

That was delicious, though.

But even though I don't normally go for a cookie, when I see a dog biscuit, I want to eat it.

I want to eat it.

I also want to gnaw on a rod.

Maybe that's why New Year's.

Yeah.

It's part of me that really wants to gnaw on a rod.

What about one of those desiccated penises that they give to dogs?

No, that's weirdly that hasn't.

Those ones smell really bad.

They really smell bad.

Dogs love them, but they smell horrible.

Well, mesophonics, you may now turn your radio back up.

We've got justice to dispense.

Wait, hold on.

I have to tell you something.

Oh, yeah.

Sorry.

My dog takes

pills for her heart.

She has a heart condition, slightly enlarged heart.

Yeah, or she's got a big heart.

I've heard about it.

Yeah.

She takes beef-flavored pills.

That sounds good.

I call them her beefies.

It's all.

Just wanted to share.

Well, we've got some.

Come over here, Coco.

It's time for your beefies.

Look, the Chet Shen Hodgman podcast is drifted onto an obviously different planet

in which it's

a very popular style of podcast, which is friends talking, which is great.

There are still

some listeners out there who have beefies with each other.

Segue.

Jennifer Marmor liked that one.

Let's get to the, where's the beef, Jesse?

Here's something from Reed.

They say, I have a dispute that comes from an old game of scattergories.

Under the category trees and the letter A, my friend wrote artificial.

I argued her entry was invalid because an artificial tree is not a real tree.

She says it counts since it has tree right there in the name.

As a judge of so many many disputes about artificial trees, I seek your ruling on this scoring dispute.

Oh, people are not going to like it when we go back to hearing regular cases.

They're going to take me to court.

You're like, keep talking about beefies.

We move on.

We change.

We shift with the wind.

That's how we survive.

Yeah, shift with the availability of studio book games.

We shift with the winds of pandemic.

Right.

Now, Now, question, Jesse, you know the game's categories?

Yeah, in this game, I think you get a category and a letter, and you have to write down as many things that fit the category and start with that letter as possible.

Right.

So, like,

dog pills would be the category, and their letter is B.

Beefies would be perfect.

Yeah, you'd write beefies.

Right.

And then, I guess, also beefies plus.

I don't know.

That's where I got stuck.

Trees, you would write if the category is trees and it's an A, you would write aspen.

That's a tree.

That's all I got.

Jennifer Marmor, you got a tree that begins with A?

Ash.

Oh, wow.

Ash.

Wow.

Out of nowhere.

You win the game.

That's incredible.

Apple.

Oh, Joe.

Yeah.

Oh, left out of left field.

Of course.

Apple tree.

That's all I got.

Jesse, do you got one?

Aardvark.

That would not be a winner.

Starts with two A's.

Well, true.

Among the first words in the dictionary.

Cannot wait to get the letters of trees that start with A.

Listen, does artificial tree count?

Jesse Thorne, what say you?

John, I think I'm going to put this one into the category of games and gaming,

which is a category of we've discussed this on the show before.

I do not qualify in this category because all games make me feel bad.

Oh, no.

I'll tell you, I had a bad feeling once playing Scategories in particular.

Our good friend, Jean Gray,

was doing a show in New York back when that happened.

and invited me on the show to play a game of Scategories with her on the show.

And I had never played the game before.

And,

you know, in the category of Fs, Gene has none to give.

So we were just sitting around having fun, F for fun,

being silly about it.

And someone off stage started yelling at us, side stage.

Very angry because we were insulting the game of scategories.

This person takes the game very seriously,

and he was very upset that we were messing around with it.

And that person was the comedian and actor, David Cross,

an A for avid Scategory fan.

And he was not joking, in this case, a person of renowned humor, was not joking around when he looked us in the eyes and said, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Scategories is a noble game.

You should play it correctly.

And you know what?

I suddenly remembered I am ashamed of myself all the time.

That's my superpower, like the Hulk.

My secret cap is I'm always ashamed.

So I decided, I've got David Cross's email.

Why don't I put it to him?

He's the scategory judge.

And Jesse Thorne, you know what he wrote back?

What did he say?

Artificial tree?

Fair game.

Wow.

Quoting David Cross.

It absolutely counts.

The mistake here is the presupposition that what is required in the answer is supposed to be quote-unquote real, which is itself open to interpretation.

Pretty metaphysical.

Nobody said anything about real.

If it was a description that was never used before, the person just tried to add a tree to it, then sure, like Aardvark tree, I guess he means.

But artificial trees are commonly known, they are described as such by the people who sell Christmas trees all over the English-speaking world.

Sorry.

But artificial trees are commonly known, they are described as such by the people who sell Christmas trees all over the English-speaking world world.

I can't, I'm not, apparently, I'm not part of the English-speaking world.

Anyway, I can't, says David Cross.

That one comes down with the hammer.

Reed.

David Cross starred in a wonderful film this year called The Dark Divide.

I don't know that one.

It was about, he was a

lepidopterist.

It's a butterfly scientist, right?

That's in the category of butterfly scientists.

Whose wife, played by Deborah Messing, passes away.

And

before she dies, she applies for a grant on his behalf, which he receives to travel through the forests of Oregon and

look for rare

butterflies and moths.

And he kind of

goes mad and finds redemption in the forests of Oregon and occasionally maybe sees a Sasquatch.

Oh, this sounds exactly like the kind of movie I should be watching.

Yeah.

The great, I mean, you should have heard about it in his conversation.

with me on Bullseye with Jesse Thorne.

Oh,

yeah,

an in-depth conversation

that I recommend to all our listeners.

Once again, I am a creature of pure shame.

Oh, my goodness.

I apologize, Jesse.

Here we go.

Let's take a quick break.

More items on the docket coming up in just a minute on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

Thanks to everybody who's gone to 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 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've got something here from Lorraine.

Every evening, my husband loads dishes in the dishwasher, which is awesome.

I usually wake up earlier in the morning and find that our drain catcher in the sink is filled with what I referred to as grotesque drain salad.

But when I mention this term to my husband, he becomes very scared, saying naming things gives them power.

Will you tell him that grotesque drain salad is appropriate?

That is exactly what it is.

Well, this one's obvious to me, John.

You let the drain salad wait until it turns 13 and then it chooses its own name.

You just got to give it a milk name, they call it.

This went in a very different direction.

I mean, I presume that there was going to be a dispute about how to load the dishwasher.

Which is the source of all domestic disputes.

Like, it is the essential.

Just as all matter is composed of atoms, all domestic disputes are composed of disputes over how exactly you load load the dishwasher.

Yeah, there is a perfect way to do it and

it's different for every dishwasher.

And if you would like to know the correct way to load your individual dishwasher,

send me a picture.

Oh boy.

And now I've done it, Joel.

Watch out.

Send me a picture of your dishwasher.

I'll reply to the first five people.

After that, you're out of luck.

And I'll tell you how to load it properly.

I recently, John, bought a new dishwasher

and

I opened it up

to load it for the first time

and I had an existential crisis.

Oh no.

Because I realized how much of my identity had been wrapped up in an exact system for loading my previous dishwasher.

It's a puzzle.

It's a puzzle that is worth solving.

And it's hard.

It's basically like

you completed a beautiful jigsaw puzzle, maybe one made by our friends at Liberty Puzzles.

And you're very proud of figuring it out.

And now you've taken it apart, put it in a box, put it away, and gotten a new one, and it's a whole new thing.

What kind of silverware

caddy do you have in there?

Do you put them in like up and down, or do you lie them down in a tray?

Forks and spoons.

It's an up and down caddy.

It's a classic up and down caddy.

And

I put the business end down

on the theory that it puts it closer to the jets.

You're talking about

the tip of the blade of a knife or the tines of a fork.

Exactly.

But I want to be clear that don't at me.

It's fine if you do it the other way.

It's not a big deal.

It's going to be okay.

No, I'm the one who invited the pictures of dishwashers.

I will take the heat.

I will take all the heat for this one.

I'm like Batman at the end of Dark Knight.

I'll take all the heat.

All right.

So what are we calling this drain salad?

Yeah, so there are two great things about Lorraine's husband.

One is he loves a dishwasher, which is incredible.

Good job.

Two, he's got this incredible imagination,

this fear that by giving the thing the name, it will have power over him.

And the thing in question is the gross food detritus that is collect in the drain catcher.

That shouldn't be there.

That needs to be cleaned out.

You can't just let that sit there, even though it's scary and slimy and disgusting, and lovecrafty in its awfulness.

Truly befitting the name grotesque drain salad, which is as gross as it sounds.

It is up to you to depower it, Lorraine's husband,

by tossing it in the bin.

And until you do so,

Lorraine's husband,

I curse thee.

I curse thee with the grotesque drain salad.

Because what you don't know is that now that it is named, it is sentient.

Or perhaps you do know that.

But what you don't know is until you throw it away, if you leave it there after loading the dishwasher, it will slip out of its little cup in the bottom of your sink

and slither into your bedroom and watch you as you sleep.

And it's going to want to get in your nose.

Terrifying.

And you'll wake up, like, is it there?

And you won't see it because it's gone.

Because grotesque drain salad is fast.

A lot of people don't know that about it.

It's fast like Mercury.

It's out.

So finish the job, throw it away.

Here's a dispute from Nicole.

She writes: My husband and I are proud parents of an only child.

Our boy is 10 years old and loves listening to age-appropriate podcasts.

He's picked up the habit of listening to podcasts on earbuds while eating dinner or breakfast, something he's seen me do many times.

My husband, Ted, feels this is inappropriate and that he should not have any distractions while eating.

I say it's fine if we're not all sitting down together for dinner like we do on the weekends.

Ted is at his office all day while my son and I are at home together doing online schooling, homework, practicing piano, trying to stay sane and entertained.

By the time Ted gets home, our quality time is all used up, and we want to have our own space for a bit.

I would like the judge to order a ruling that mealtime podcast listening is okay during our long slog of a week, with the understanding that weekend dinners are sacred and without distraction.

Sane and entertained.

Those are the two missions.

Jesse Thorne,

what are you guys doing for mealtime in your house?

I mean, you got all of your kids are under 10.

So

my children don't eat any adult food.

Okay.

And so for that reason, I would say we all have dinner together

40% of the time.

That's a high percentage, I would say.

Well, it's just because it's, you know, there are times when I am not up to cooking a nice dinner for Teresa and me

at the same time that I'm cooking dinner for the kids.

And I don't always also want to eat dinner at 5 or 5.30.

Right.

I mean, I don't love eating dinner at 8.30 or 9 either, but those are my choices.

But dinner would mean sitting around a table.

When you sit to, that 40%, that would mean sitting at your table, everyone eating.

Yeah.

No one's listening to podcasts.

No, I mean, at most, we might have some music playing,

some dinner music playing.

Yeah.

You know, Sarah Vaughan or something.

Not age-appropriate podcasts?

Dr.

Game Show is not playing while we're having dinner.

I might try that tonight.

I have, you know, I feel,

obviously, I feel for Nicole, and I feel for Ted, too.

I don't feel for that only child, that 10-year-old, only child.

I'm jealous of him.

I want to be a 10-year-old, only child again.

That's the life.

Boy, oh, boy.

Got to go, guys.

I'm going to go read in my room for as long as I want.

I know, right?

Listening.

Listen, if you're, child, if you're listening, this child has not been named, so

they have no power over me.

They are depowered.

So I can say, if this is the age-appropriate podcast you're listening to, child.

You don't know how while you eat your,

I don't know what your beef Wellington or whatever you made for yourself, precocious only child.

You don't know how good it is.

You don't know how good it is because someday you're going to have

maybe it, maybe you'll have a family of your own who you love very much.

Maybe you'll have more than one child.

A lot of different tastes to wrangle, a lot of different bodies to wrangle to get to the dinner table.

Maybe you'll be in Maine.

A place that you love very much.

And you're with your family, but you're also with an older relative.

And that older relative, who you love very much,

makes dinner time by necessity a more formal affair than it would be if you were just hanging out

on a Tuesday night with your mom and dad.

You know what I mean?

A more formal affair.

We're talking about great aunt Agatha here.

I'm talking about Governor Janet Mills of Maine is living with me.

It's not true.

Sure.

She demands a state state dinner every night.

That's not true.

Same with me and Diane Feinstein.

I know, right?

87 years old.

I tell her, here's what happens.

I tell her, we can't have a state dinner tonight, Diane.

I usually call her Senator Feinstein or Mayor Feinstein as a native San Francisco.

And she says, okay, okay, okay.

But then her aides have to explain that to her over and over, and she will not resign.

That's some topical humor, John.

I didn't know.

I didn't know that you're pushing the envelope there from the national public radio perspective.

No, I'm just talking about a New York Times article I read.

We may need to put this behind the paywall.

Joel,

who's in your household?

You and your wife, right?

Yeah, my kid's gone.

She's in Paris.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

So of an evening,

dinner time is what?

I usually cook.

Yep.

And we sit at the bar and watch watch TV, the news, and eat.

Oh, my God.

I'm so jealous of you.

TV, the news.

I love to cook Nicole and Ted's child.

I love it.

And Ted, I understand why you want to have time with your family and that you want to protect, to a certain degree, the sanctity of the dinner table as being a traditional point of human communion.

But boy, would I not give for just a dinner where it's like, everybody make your own soup and I'm going to listen to this podcast.

You got to have a balanced diet.

Everybody make your own soup.

Oh, I'm thinking maybe that's dinner tonight.

I'm going to

my

every now and then pilgrimage to stock up at the grocery store.

And I truly was thinking, like, can I just get canned soup and make everyone

make your own soup night?

Problem is, we don't have enough burners.

We don't have enough burners because we have this extra.

You ever go to one of those M-Y-O-S restaurants?

Make your own soup?

Yeah.

I think you just came up with an incredible franchise chain restaurant concept.

There is a cannage fee.

A flitage fee?

It's just a series of hot plates.

It's like a Korean barbecue, but with hot plates in the middle of the table.

And that one guy from last week eating cold, chunky soup out of a can in a booth.

I don't know why we put him in a booth.

Go sit in the Vichy Sua's booth if you want to eat cold soup.

Anyway.

John, I eat my Vichy Soise warm.

You know, look, Ted, you eat your Vichy Swais warm?

Wait a minute.

I was about to go on, but what?

I do, yeah.

Room temper warmed up.

Warmed up with stuff in it.

You're making your own soup?

Yeah.

What stuff are you adding?

Sometimes I'll add some like crumbled bacon or

last time I added some blue cheese.

That was nice.

Sometimes I'll add some nice olive oil on top or some

of those fried onion pieces.

That's nice.

Look, we're all trying, that's fantastic.

We're all trying to stay

sane and entertained.

And if that means you've got to

sort of reach the traditional social contract from time to time

and

warm up your Vichy Soise,

not just warm up, but doctor it up, go for it.

If that means you need to just sort of like, I mean, Ted, I get you.

You're at the office all day.

You want to be with your family, but

Nicole and your child have, they've,

they're all burned out by the time it's dinner time.

Dinner can be very casual

on a weeknight, and sometimes it needs to be.

You can't force your son to make beef Wellington every night and sit down at a white tablecloth table.

Yeah, that's more of a Dan McCoy thing.

Yeah.

I'm of the flop ass.

But I'll say this.

I'm a very fine podcast.

But I'll say this.

I don't like the idea.

And maybe I'm just saying this out of spite because I'm jealous of this kid.

I don't like this kid eating dinner with his headphones in.

Don't care for it.

I think that there's something almost too antisocial about wearing headphones at dinner.

Sitting at the bar watching TV, at least you and your wife are side by side, right, Joel?

That's right.

Yeah.

You make a little comment to each other.

Yeah.

You say, how about that Mark Shields?

Yeah.

You say.

You go, I didn't, did you see on the news that Governor Janet Mills is living with John Hodgman

and his family?

I appreciate, Nicole, that

you have modeled this behavior to your son of listening to podcasts while eating,

but I don't think that it's a good behavior to model.

I'm sorry.

I'm twisting this around.

I'm going back the other way.

I think if your son wants to have a book or a comic book, if you guys want to watch a movie together, if you want to be, someone's at the table, someone's over there, that's fine.

But I think you kind of want to be in earshot, unless he's going to go into his room once a week just to eat dinner and listen to an age-appropriate podcast.

But then you're setting up a dangerous precedent because he's not going to be 10 forever.

Eventually he'll be 13, 14, and you know what he'll be doing in his room all by himself, listening to age-inappropriate podcasts.

I would say

lunch, breakfast, earbuds, fine.

Dinner, Ted's home, take him out.

Don't all have to be together informal.

And as I say, have a comic book.

Play a game.

Play a game of Monopoly deal during dinner.

Keep it light.

Keep it easy.

Everyone make their own soup.

Asynchronous dining is fine.

But I think you wouldn't want your son wearing a virtual reality headset while eating his chunky soup, right?

I think the headphones in is a little too antisocial.

Ted wants to be heard by you guys.

So there.

Now I'm thinking about all the different things my chunky soup could become if I were wearing a virtual reality headset while I ate it.

You could be eating chunky soup, but in virtual reality, you're eating something good.

Yeah.

I'm not a fan.

Look, maybe it's better than it was the last time I had it, but on principle, I'm against chunky soup because of the name chunky soup.

It does not appeal.

I do like all those television commercials where

a football player's mom tells him to eat it.

And it's his real mom.

Yeah.

Oh, that's cute.

I mean, it's cute.

It's cute.

Look, it's a storied brand at this point.

Probably the most famous.

What would you say is the most famous flavor of chunky soup?

Wow.

I mean, my initial instinct is to say minestrone.

Yeah, no, it's actually, it's interesting.

That is the most famous.

I asked the wrong question.

Do you know what the most popular

brand of chunky soup is?

I don't.

Well, it's it's grotesque drain salad.

Really?

Yep.

Chunkies, grotesque sales.

Just drain.

Sales-wise.

Just by sheer sales.

Yep.

Just by sales.

Can't keep them in stock.

Let's take a quick break when we come back to our hit proprietary podcast segment, Cool Babies, plus more about the child who ate Vic's Vapo Rub with his Thanksgiving meal.

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 Lawrence.

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

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Welcome back to the Judge Sean Hodgman podcast.

This week we're clearing the docket.

Ooh, a lot of listener engagement this week and it was lovely to hear from everybody.

Jesse, as you know, a week or so ago we introduced a new, a brand new segment of what used to be a Judge show and is now this.

And that segment is called Cool Babies.

That is our intellectual property.

The McElroy brothers don't get to use it.

And the Cool Babies segment consisted of reports from parents about what their toddlers said.

Profound and unsettling questions posed to those parents by their children in the spirit of, is but leg?

Like real stumpers.

I received a lot of great letters.

They were all terrific letters.

Some of them confused stumpers with cute things or funny things, but I loved all the funny things.

I'm sorry that I couldn't read all of them on the air.

There were just too many and it was very fast.

It was very flattering and exciting that you were all out there listening.

It's nice to make the connection with you during these times of disconnection.

But I do think that we covered all of the profound questions.

And instead, I'd like to pivot to a couple of letters that I got since the last episode aired that do not contain profound questions but rather ominous statements in a new segment we call creepy cool babies.

May I share a couple of these with you, Jesse?

May you.

I insist you do.

All right.

So Glenn wrote in to say:

quote, my two-year-old asked me yesterday,

you scared?

And I asked her why, and she said,

storm's coming.

According to Glenn, she tells him storm's coming probably five times a week.

John, do you think?

Do you think Glenn's two-year-old is Joel?

Joel, she's a budding meteorologist.

Joel, say storm's coming.

Storm's coming.

That one goes out to Glenn's daughter.

And

I don't think that,

unless Glenn's daughter is a big follower of the QAnon theory,

the storm is a big metaphor in there.

I hope not.

But I'll tell you, by the way, that Glenn,

I normally like to keep listeners.

I don't know what their privacy level is, but Glenn, I know, well, this is the comedian and storyteller

Glenn Tickle,

who's got an incredible comedy.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Glenn Tickle is an incredibly funny, smart friend of the show, really great performer.

He's got

a great comedy special called Good Grief, a comedy about loss and being bad at it.

He's one of the loveliest people.

And the best, I mean, look, the best thing about Glenn Tickle is his comedy, his parenting.

There are about seven other best things.

Probably the ninth best thing about Glenn Tickle is that he briefly worked as a substitute teacher and was addressed in class as Mr.

Tickle.

That's, I mean,

if you had a substitute teacher and your name was Mr.

Tickle.

Can I tell you something about Glenn Tickle?

Yeah, please.

Years ago on his comedy album,

he,

as a bonus track, having been challenged by my Jordan Jesse Goh co-host and myself to do so,

got his entire audience to say that your slogan for Jordan Jesse Go, which was, get him, get him, get him.

And then he called in

live while he was doing this to our listener hotline, Momentous Occasions, and recorded the audience saying, get him, get him, get him.

And he said that, you know, that was the end of that.

And he hung up.

He didn't explain.

We couldn't tell that they were saying, get him, get him, get him.

It sort of runs together when an entire audience in a comedy club is saying that.

Sure.

So we thought that they had said garabba.

Really?

Yeah, we thought they had said garabba, but we didn't know what garabba meant until Jordan realized that it's an acronym reminding you what to do in an emergency situation.

G, get help.

A,

assess the situation.

R,

read up on it.

A,

assess the situation again.

B,

be kind to yourself.

Sure.

And finally, A,

abstinence.

I have enjoyed Karaba and laughed at that joke for years, and I never knew that Glenn Tickle was the source of that joke.

Yeah.

Thank you, Glenn.

Thank you.

Glenn's two-year-old.

Please keep us safe from the storm.

I'm scared.

I am scared.

We also heard from Sarah.

who has a three and a half year old child named Leander, which is one of the,

that's up there with Thaddeus Diamond as one of the best names.

Sure.

The question is, Mommy, do you wish Izzy was a real boy?

And for context, Izzy is Leander's baby brother.

Well, I mean, it's sort of Sarah's fault for giving birth to a Pinocchio.

And finally, we have one from Josh who says, this isn't grammatically speaking a question, but the spirit of it is close enough.

One time during dinner, I excused myself from the table to use the bathroom.

My then four-year-old son beamed, okay, daddy.

And then he leaned close to my ear and whispered, and when you come back, we can talk about blood.

My youngest, Frankie, was ill the other day and

had some emetic issues.

And so I bought some Gatorade at the store, some red Gatorade at the store, and I served it to the kids with dinner in the interest of replenishing their electrolyte.

Sure, of course.

They're a little light in the electrolyte department.

Yeah, and Frankie said to me, He says,

Daddy, this is bud?

And I said, and I said, No, sweetie, it's just Gatorade.

It's a drink.

It's like a soda with no bubbles in it.

And he says,

I think it's bud.

I'm going to dink it.

Speaking of drinking blood, Jesse, I know that it's a topic that is not close to your heart.

Don't care for it.

I mean, I expelled my own son from my home for potentially being a Dracula.

What?

You disowned Frankie?

Yeah.

He's now a wandering creature.

And I'm not even, it's not even confirmed.

Right.

That Frankie is a Dracula.

He showed the willingness to drink,

or as he would say, dink bud.

Yeah.

And when offered, it was like, yeah, it's fine.

It's not fine, kids.

It's not.

Two things I want you to take away from this podcast.

Do not eat fixed vapor rub.

Do not do it.

Nope.

And do not drink blood or seem open to it.

Or at the very least, if you're going to drink blood, also have a glass of water.

A body needs two dinks.

It's science.

One of the creepy questions that was asked was by a child was: do Draculas poop?

And we had said probably not because they're just drinking blood.

But I heard from a registered dietitian and nutritionist named Katie.

And she wrote that she spends a lot of time talking about poop.

And while she hasn't consulted a Dracula on it, she can say that as they are on a fully liquid diet containing no natural or added fiber, it's quite likely that Draculas actually do poop a lot

because fully liquid diets tend to run right through you.

And I think, and she says, quote, I'm thinking that a Dracula on an all-blood diet, just like a human on a liquid diet without fiber, will poo more frequently than your average human

or other mortal on a diet that contains solid stuff and fiber in it, since those things slow down intestinal transit time.

Gross.

ITT.

Dracula's pooping.

Don't like it.

You know who has a lot of fiber in their diets, though?

Who's that?

Frankensteins.

Really?

Yeah.

I don't want to eat it.

Do they eat bran muffins?

Yep.

Yep.

Yeah.

They love them.

They drink a lot of whole grains.

Frankensteins love.

Frankensteins love bran muffins.

Frankensteins love millet.

Frankensteins love ancient grains in particular.

So that's it.

for our proprietary podcast segment called Creepy, Cool Babies.

You don't have to send in any more creepy stuff from kids.

Don't feel a blind.

Oh, boy.

Definitely should.

This is the best segment we've ever had on the show.

This is awesome.

Remember, it can be cute and creepy, but if it's just cute, enjoy your baby.

But that's it for the segment, unless there's something else.

We have a very spooky update.

Which is, you may remember that this segment really grew out of a child asking his father, Daddy, do you know the Harvester of Souls?

Now, we googled Harvester of Souls, and it turns out that this was a spirit Halloween store branded Halloween animatronic creature that was horrifying.

Far too horrifying for any child to be familiar with.

It was too horrifying for me to see.

Very, very scary.

Kind of like a tall, creepy Grim Reaper figure holding a robot child and raising it up and sucking its life force fog from its mouth in a very terrifying way.

Yeah.

And we found this terrifying

device

on the wiki for the Spirit Halloween store.

Spirit Halloween store, a chain of seasonal costume shops

that

go into defunct Woolworths across this nation.

It's a pop-up shop.

September 1st.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's a,

I guess you could call it a pop-up shop.

It certainly predates the term pop-up shop.

Right, right, right.

I mean, it's not like it's some kind of like

exclusive fancy sneaker boutique.

No, this isn't, these are artisanal harvesters of souls.

No, it's a a bunch of Halloween junk that sneaks into an old storefront and abandoned mall around Halloween time, sells that junk, and then gets out of town.

Yeah.

So we got a letter about that from a listener named Aiden,

specifically about the wiki.

My name is Aiden, and I'm a 16-year-old student residing just outside Philadelphia.

I wanted to thank you for featuring this Spirit Halloween wiki on your podcast, as I happen to be a co-owner of said wiki.

What?

I also happen to be be the author of the Harvester of Souls article, as well as the proud owner of a Harvester of Souls.

So I was pretty stunned to hear my writings being talked about.

So Aiden, wait a minute, Aiden

is a creator of this wiki.

He wrote the article and he has a harvester of souls.

And he's 16 years old.

Correct, correct, and correct.

And he's 16 years old.

16 years old.

I presume that he is the only one who is writing.

I mean, it's like,

who else would he say?

This is a real doogie hazard situation.

The wiki is a major project that I and over 50 consistent editors are incredibly proud of, and it has become a seminal part of the Spirit Halloween fan community.

What is happening?

50 editors?

And why is this?

Last year, we peaked at 220,000 viewers a a week in August, and we expect to blow that number out of the water in this upcoming season.

I'm interested to hear that the peak is in August when people are just working themselves into that Halloween lather.

Yeah.

Thank you so much again for talking about it.

We really take pride in our work.

Aiden, that's incredible that you heard that and you wrote into us.

Thank you.

Now,

I know that you and your 50 co-editors created the Spirit Halloween store wiki.

I regret to tell you that I have

written on a piece of paper and mailed to myself the intellectual property, which is

a horror movie based on Spirit Halloween store wiki.

That's my idea now.

Sorry.

Writers Guild of America, WGA, copyright.

Nothing you can do.

That's the.

Sorry, McElroy's.

Yep, sorry.

Nothing you can do.

I'm definitely going to pitch a...

I don't know what the horror movie is going to be, but it's going to involve a haunted wiki.

Scary wiki.

Maybe we'll call it that.

Well, we should make the theme music, Haunted House of Rock, by Houdini, which prominently features Wiki Wiki Wiki.

There we go.

Jesse Thorne, your co-creator on this.

Aiden, I'm sorry that we're going to freeze you out of this incredible IP, but you have created something amazing.

I would love to interview you at some time, learn more about what's going on over there.

I do want to note, Jesse, that I checked it out.

As of this afternoon, I did not do this.

One of the 50 editors, maybe Aiden themself,

has added, I'm very proud to say, added,

are discussing the Harvester of Souls into the Harvester of Souls trivia section on the page.

Just below the piece of trivia that says the arms with girls slip down after numerous activations.

Not really trivia,

more of a service request.

Yeah.

I'm glad to be there.

Thank you, Aiden.

I'm glad you made this thing.

Please stay in touch.

Keep me updated.

Let me know how I can edit this thing because I really feel like we should be mentioned

above the arms slipping down.

We should be at the top of the trivial list.

Finally, Jesse, the letters keep pouring in at a much higher rate than I would have ever expected about people eating Vicks Vaporub.

Yeah.

Which is to say any rate.

Yeah.

If you don't remember, my mom had told me once that my grandmother, her mother, would feed her Vicks Vapo Rub by the spoonful as a cold cure.

My mother is no longer living.

Her passing was not Vicksvapo Rub related, I'm glad to say.

However, she's lucky to have lived as long as she did, given she was eating Vicks Vapo Rub, which is poisonous.

Don't do it.

But lots and lots of people had memories of their grandparents or uncles or whatever, either, you know, telling stories of themselves eating Vicks Vapo Rub or their own parents eating is very, very common, apparently.

And one letter we got about someone who did not eat Vicks vapor rub as a cold cure, but just for the pure pleasure of eating it, you will recall listener Matthew had a friend who ate it as a child as a dinner side dish.

Matthew's friend said eating Vicks vapor rub was like, quote, eating pure light.

Matthew's friend is still alive.

I don't know how that happened.

And

per our instructions,

Matthew went to his friend and got the photograph he referred to of his friend eating Vicks Vaporub as a child at the Thanksgiving dinner.

Jesse, if you will scroll down, you will see a very authentic looking photo.

I have to believe this is real.

I mean,

this couldn't possibly be a computer-generated hairstyle.

No.

Matthew's friend, as a child, in around 1972, he's got a clean Thanksgiving Day plate and a big and a jar of Vicks Vapor, clearly a jar of Vicks Vaporub on the plate, as though it were

a little side dish.

Now, the friend, we'll post this obviously on the show page at maximumfund.org, as well as our Instagram account at judgejohnhodgman.

Matthew's friend would like to remain anonymous, but he did okay the inclusion of a photo of his cat, Marilyn.

Jesse Thorne, would you scroll down to look at Marilyn the cat?

Look at this cat.

While Jesse laughs, I'd just like to thank everyone who wrote in with stories of Vic's Vaporub,

starting with John, Thaddeus Diamond, Rebecca,

Matthew, Trish,

Michael S., Jillian L., Greg C., Sarah I, Cindy L,

someone with the name of Bam Bammerson.

That's incredible.

Damian F.

Chris Ortiz.

It's like if Job of the Hutt was a cat.

It'll be on the thing.

I've got some more people to thank for the Vicks Brigade here.

Kelly Leffler, not the senator, I don't think.

Ethan S.

Taney or Tanny, Jamie, Matthew, Marlowe, and Camille.

It's just like lean.

I mean,

it's a husky cat.

Yeah.

But by which I mean it's a cat-husky hybrid.

And it's leaning back.

It's leaning back with its arm on a stair like, like, yeah, what's up?

And it's got its legs open.

And it's maybe wearing a necklace.

Like a surfer necklace.

It's a little hard to tell.

The necklace, it seems to

have letters on it.

It says Garabba.

Oh,

so it's just for...

A reminder for what to do in emergencies.

The docket is clear.

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

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Our engineer here 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,

M-A-I-N-E-M-A-N-N.

You can follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman, where that picture of that cat will almost certainly be located.

This is not, I don't usually don't, the cats are less funny to me than dogs because they just are classier.

Yeah, but

whereas dogs are always doing dumb stuff, you know, they're dumb idiots.

Right.

That's what's so great about them.

But that was a really premium cat picture.

Blah, blah, blah.

Instagram.

John is also at John Hodgman, and I am at put.this.on.

Make sure to hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ H.

O, and you can find us on Reddit at maximumfun.reddit.com, where there is always a friendly conversation about the latest Judge John Hodgman episode.

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

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

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