The Gentleman Leaf Thief

November 11, 2020 1h 4m

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This week we have Friends of the Court Chuck Bryant and Josh Clark in chambers to help clear the docket! They talk about distances, leaf collecting, consuming blood, and snacking on leftovers. Plus a letter from a Gen Z listener about books!

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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 first member of the expanded Supreme Court, Judge John Hodgman.

Hello, my Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This episode is being released on 11-11, 2020, but it's being recorded because of time before then, but still 11-11.

Make a wish, everybody.

Okay, I just made my wish.

All right.

Anyway.

You have to kiss your watch.

Is that true?

Is that a super.

That's how it worked in my middle school.

You had to kiss your watch.

You had to kiss your swatch?

Hey, look, that's what Debbie Sue told me.

I had a, when I was when I was in early high school, I had a Keith Herring swatch, Keith Herring Limited Edition swatch.

It made me the coolest guy working in the stockroom at Conran's on Exeter Street.

Then I took it off because

it was too sweaty and and I left it on the loading dock and I never saw it again.

Hey, normally I start these things by thinking I have nothing to say at the top and then all of a sudden I'll talk for 30 minutes about a Keith Herring swatch or whatever.

But we don't have time for that because we have two incredible special guests here to clear the docket with us.

I'll introduce them individually and then I'll describe the thing they're known for working on together.

Josh Clark is a former Judge John Hodgman expert witness who reminded me today that he already told the story of his tattoo on this podcast, which is one of my favorite tattoo stories of all time.

So too bad for you new listeners, go into the archives.

Thank you for having me.

You're welcome.

He's also, as you can tell, a super lovely, funny guy who chose to do a 10-part podcast series on the end of the world

called The End of the World with Josh Clark.

located above him randomly in my Zoom gallery.

Charles W.

Chuck Bryant, of course, is my partner in hosting the Max FunCon pub trivia quiz, whether in Lake Arrowhead or on the internet, as well as the co-host with me on my award-winning All Avengers movies run of episodes on Chuck's own podcast, Movie Crush, which is Chuck's podcast.

It's a great podcast where he talks to people and himself about his favorite movies.

But And you should subscribe to both of those podcasts, The End of the World, and Movie Crush, depending on how you feel that day.

But you might know them much,

much, much, much better for their podcast called Stuff You Should Know.

Josh and Chuck, welcome.

Thanks.

Thank you, John.

Thanks for joining us here on the Judge John Hodgman podcast,

an old podcast.

We've been around for almost a decade, but you've been around for a dozen years, right?

Easy.

Maybe two, three decades by this time.

Yeah, I think it was 2008.

April of 2008 when we started.

April of 2008.

Holy moly.

Yeah.

And you guys were one of the original super duper popular podcasts.

And Jesse Thorne always explained it to me that it was because you had the best title for a podcast.

You know, that's actually Jesse's quoted on our Wikipedia page, I think, explaining that we have the best title for a podcast.

Is he really?

Yeah, it's on our, I believe.

I mean, I read it once or twice a month.

It was the last time it was still on there, last time I looked.

Oh, wow.

And Jesse, explain why it's the best title for a podcast.

Well, because when you hear stuff you should know, it's like a challenge to listen to it.

So, especially in the olden days when there were no famous podcasts and no famous people with podcasts, and all you saw was a little tiny graphic on your iTunes, on your desktop iTunes.

Say, stuff you should know.

I already know stuff.

And you click on it.

It's a hook.

You fell into the spider web.

That's right.

And I have happily never climbed out.

I mean, this does go back, you know, at least a decade before Conan O'Brien invented podcasting.

So it's pretty amazing that you guys have.

And, you know, Chuck and Josh, you know, Wyatt Sanak was the one who turned me on to Stuff You Should Know.

He's like, this is a podcast you should know.

It's called Stuff You Should Know.

I was like, I get it.

I want to listen.

Did.

I'm I'm not sure

how you're going to feel about this.

But I was like, I was immediately hooked.

And it's because I like to learn about stuff.

I think one of the earliest episodes I listened to was about catapults and pumpkin catapult competitions.

Oh, punk and chunken.

Punk and chunkin', punk and chunken, punk and chunkin.

I remember that.

One of our worst episodes.

But it was

even at, let me say this, Chuck, Josh, even at your worst, you're so great.

Because it doesn't need to be about anything.

You guys just have this great report.

And I was like, and

I remember turning to my family in the car going,

this is the new car talk right here.

This is the new car talk.

And my family was like, speaking of the car, will you please keep your eyes on the road and stop talking about podcasts?

I tried to talk a public radio network into making a public radio show out of Stuff You Should Know.

I better

rue the day that they failed to say yes to that plan.

I told them the same thing.

I remember that.

Now, look, I'm going to say this.

Stuff You Should Know is one of the most downloaded podcasts in history.

How do I know that?

Because it's on the back of this book I am holding, which is called Stuff You Should Know, an incomplete compendium of very slash mostly interesting things.

And this book is coming out November 24th, 2020, in just a couple of weeks.

And also on November 24th, I would be remiss if I did not point out

that I will be hosting Josh and Chuck on an amazing VTE.

That's a virtual ticketed event.

That

everyone knows what a VTE is at this point.

It's an amazing book event organized by Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Georgia.

Georgia, of course, where stuff you should know is headquartered.

And each ticket includes a book, a signed book plate.

So you guys are going to sign a bunch of book plates.

I already did.

And you already did it.

That's a lot of fun.

I'm sure you know.

I'll tell you a story about that after the break.

That's a tease.

I don't know if you do podcasts, but that's how you keep people listening.

And

each ticket includes a book, a signed book plate for you to put into the book, plus,

I don't know if you guys know this, but I'm adding this on, a coupon for one free look at Josh Clark's tattoo.

If you ever see him in this, oh my.

One free peek.

So get your tickets at bit.ly

slash

JJ Sisco.

That's JJ S Y S K O.

It's just a combo of JJ O and Cisk.

It's not a very good one.

Bit.ly slash JJ Sisko, all capital letters.

Weirdly, bit.ly slash V Task, V T E Y S K

virtual ticketed events, you should know, was taken.

So I had to do the other one.

Anyway.

I don't even have a book yet, John.

It looks great.

They had to send me one.

It does.

I'm holding a physical copy of the book.

I have not even seen that.

This is what it sounds like.

You still haven't gotten yours?

I still don't have my books.

That is weird, Chuck.

I think they're lost in the mail or something.

No, that's all right.

Yeah, well, you know.

Yeah, the mail is busy with other stuff.

That's true.

But by the time November 24th rolls around, shipping is going to be speedy.

And I think you're going to want this physical book because it's beautifully laid out with fantastic illustrations, and it's just

something you want to browse through.

You know, you pick it up off a side table and browse through it at any moment, as I was doing earlier, but we'll talk more about that later.

In the meantime, we have some justice to dispense.

Are you guys willing to weigh in with your well-informed decades of information researching informed opinions on these matters of dispute?

I've spent the last several weeks perusing

American case history just randomly picking cases,

looking for precedents to rule through or buy.

So, So yes, I feel pretty qualified right now.

All right.

Josh is on board.

What about you, Cheb?

Yeah, I mean, I've been waiting for this.

I want to pull off the trifecta, the J.J.

Hoe trifecta.

I've been a litigant.

Yeah.

I've been waiting on this moment.

Right.

And very secretly, when

Monte Belmonte, I want him to catch a cold one summer so I can fill in as guest bailiff.

That would be the triple.

That's right.

I apologize because, of course, you and Emily were litigants on the podcast.

That's right.

As to whether or not you would be allowed to personally widen a doorway in your home.

I remember some unlicensed contracting.

Yeah.

Yeah, Jesse had one of the great Jesse lines of all time was on that episode, which was that I subscribed to the old carpenter's rule of thumb, which is measure nunce cut twice.

Well, I've seen that doorway in person and it looks great.

And I know that you had a professional and a friend come in in and do it.

What was that gentleman's name again?

It's Isaac.

Because he made you a gavel, too.

He made me a wonderful gavel.

Isaac, we're thinking of you.

But look, Isaac, you're in the past now.

Nostalgia is a toxic impulse.

All this stuff is in the past.

Now we must move forward in the future.

Jesse, do we have any dockets to clear?

Here's a dispute from Tom.

My friend Dana and I are journalists at the local newspaper.

I've always used a straight line distance to explain how far apart two places are because that's the literal definition of distance.

Dana argues driving distance makes more sense because that's how people think about how far away something is.

If you find in my favor, I'd like you to order Dana to use straight-line distances in her stories and petition to have an entry about measuring distances added to our newspaper's style book.

This has some real ramifications.

Yeah, this goes far beyond the Daily Bugle.

That's right.

We don't know the name of the newspaper, right?

The local newspaper?

No, we don't.

I'm going to presume it's Le Monde.

Yeah.

The locality in that case is Le Monde.

Le Monde.

What do you say, Josh and Chuck?

Should this local newspaper describe distance by driving mileage as opposed to

what

Corvid enthusiasts call as the crow flies?

Josh is a bit of an expert.

Are you going to tell them about your newspaper history?

Yeah, that's right.

I mean,

I don't know how relevant that is because I think this person who describes distance by driving distance might be the only person in the world who does that.

I think it's, I don't know if I've ever met anybody who said it's like X number of miles away, unless you're getting in the car, tapping in like wherever you're going on ways, and then go by that.

Right.

Otherwise, it seems to be like as the crow flies when you're just talking about how far away, say, like the next town over is.

So you're a crow flyer.

Yeah, what is it?

I'm a

corvidite.

You're a corvidite.

Corvids are

the ravens and the crows, right?

Corvids.

I don't know.

That sounds like a separate case entirely.

No, I got to look it up now.

I feel really embarrassed.

I thought I was so smart.

Yeah, the corvidi is

a cosmopolitan family of osine passerine birds that contains.

All right,

which ones am I not listing?

There's one I'm going to leave out.

Crows, ravens, jackdaws, jays, rooks,

tree pies,

chaws.

I don't know what that is.

Did you say tree pies?

Tree pies.

That sounds delicious.

Shut your tree pie hole.

And nutcrackers.

There's one.

There's one Corvid that I left out of the list that's in the Wikipedia page.

I'm going to say seagulls.

Incorrect.

I'm going to say swallow.

Incorrect.

I'll give you a case.

I'm going to say finch.

Oh, interesting.

No.

There are a lot of birds.

Let's narrow it down.

I'm going to say parrots.

Okay, you know what?

Do I get to guess?

No, it's magpies.

That's what Jesse was going to say.

I was going to say marmot.

Because

the corvids are super smart and they display remarkable intelligence.

Have you ever seen a seagull walk around?

It's smart.

No, they're dumb.

I've seen a lot of seagulls and they're dumb.

You can trick a seagull so easy.

We're talking here about birds that are known to scientists as the scheming birds.

Yeah.

Birds that are always making a plan against us.

Well, that's not a joke because crows, it's been scientifically proven that crows hold grudges.

They do.

It's true.

They hold grudges.

They recognize faces.

And they pass their grudges down to their young.

Like, there are people in town that the crows hate who are hated by generations of crows, and they'll run, they make a run at you.

And magpies, of course, are notorious thieves.

Well, Heckle and Jekyll were magpies, they were pretty smart, and they could hold a grudge too.

I always thought they were crows.

You know what?

You know, one of the ways they're smart,

ow.

Thank you, Chuck.

That's really wow.

Sorry, I quit my job as sidekick briefly and then side back up.

Chuck finally got to live his dream of being a guest.

So there you go.

That was it.

That's the hat trick.

You know one of the ways they're smart, Chuck?

How?

They fly real straight.

That's why they fly straight from point A to point B as the crow flies.

That is the measurement over land without impediment of curves or natural terrain.

Chuck, what do you think?

Josh says as the crow flies is the normal and should be newspaper standard style.

Yeah, so I guess I'm a little confused.

Is this person saying in the newspaper, if they're referring to

two towns, that they should refer to them as the crowflies or, you know, actual mileage in a car?

So.

Yeah, exactly.

She wants to count up the road miles.

He wants to measure the distance between them on a map and check it against the...

the key.

Yeah.

I think it's got to be crowflies then.

That'd be weird because there are different ways to get places.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, okay.

It would be great if she was calculating it by circuitous routes,

like unnecessarily circuitous routes.

She's like, well, I would go through Duluth just because I got to get some of those maple candies I love.

Or she only uses historic highways.

Right.

Everything.

She believes all distances should be counted by distance on Route 66.

So let me produce a counter argument to this because actually I'm not sure.

Crow flies felt right to me, but then I thought about it.

Because you both know that I spend some time

every year as much as possible up on the coast of Maine.

And the coast of Maine, the shoreline is so shattered and twisty and broken and haunted that distances that are very close as the crow flies are actually quite long drives.

And it's not about circuitous routes.

It's the only way to get there unless you're a crow.

So for example, the distance, and you may want to jot this down, the distance between Bass Harborhead Lighthouse on Mount Desert Island, historic lighthouse,

and say, some random other point in Maine at roughly 44 degrees, 15 minutes, 57 seconds, north by 68 degrees, 34 minutes, and 9 seconds west, as the crow flies, that distance is only 11.82 miles.

We can round up to 11.83.

Whereas by car, the shortest and only route between those random coordinates and the famous Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse is in fact

more than 50 miles.

Hang on.

I wrote it down and I threw it away.

Nope.

I made all these notes about this.

That one says Chuck equals one with beard.

That's right.

Which one is it?

So the distance between these two points in Maine is 11.82

miles as the crow flies, but 51.3 miles as the car drives.

And that's about an hour and 15-minute drive.

And when you get there, all the crows, obviously they beat you.

They're already there.

And they're circling in a terrifying mockery of a halo around the waiting figure of Randall Flagg, a.k.a.

the dark man, a.k.a.

the walking dude, aka Walter O'Dim, that ancient, smiling, charismatic embodiment of chaos, tyranny, and self-destruction, who has always been in Bass Harbor, Maine, waiting for you, and now you are his pawn.

You ever read The Stand, you guys?

The Stand?

I'm familiar with Randall Flagg from the Dark Tower series more than the stand.

Yeah, yeah, he was a major bad guy.

The major bad guy in The Dark Tower.

Yeah.

I don't think that Stephen King listens to this podcast, but I love Stephen King novels so much.

And I don't normally curse on this podcast, but I don't f ⁇ the Dark Tower.

That's not on my list.

May I make a counter-argument to your counter-argument?

Please.

Counter on a counter.

It seems to me that very few people turn to their local newspaper for driving directions to, you know, the town that's two towns over or up the coast.

So no one's expecting how many car miles it takes to get from point A to point B.

I think they're already expecting as the crow flies.

But since you do make a good argument, I would propose that these guys compromise

and give and give, bear with me, and give the miles or kilometers, depending on where you are, here we are as the crow flies from point A to point B, and then just simply put in parentheses after that further by car.

If they're going to write a style guide, why don't they just indicate in the style guide that you should say by what method you're calculating the distance it would take like two words you can say let's say you're you're talking about lefton and you say

meanwhile a 30 mile drive away in rightton

or you say meanwhile in rightton just 20 miles away as the crow flies

that is both clarity is what we are after here

Yeah,

and I will extend that to say that my personal preference, clarity-wise, is that if there is no clarification, you're talking about the literal distance.

Is that as the crow flies?

That's as the flies.

As the crowd is

as the crow flies.

So, Jesse Thorne, you're also weighing in, saying the default should be as the crow flies.

Absolutely, though I would prefer, in most situations, clarity, especially if you're talking about traveling.

It's interesting because my initial thought I shared with all of you, which is that as the crow flies is for sort of gross general estimates of distance between two towns or whatever,

obviously we are talking about as the crow flies, right?

Yes.

And that therefore that should be the default.

And saying as the crow flies should be unnecessary.

And the reason that I initially thought that is that that's just the way we've always done it.

But take my extremely compelling exception of Maine aside,

the entire coast of Maine that you're willing to write off,

goddamn, inland elites,

leave to confused wandering.

If you set that aside, though, I think that we're in a different time because

I know all that stuff because I used a computer program.

And I think it's important to think a little bit about how Google Maps and Apple Maps and other maps programs have changed our thinking because it is much, much easier and common now to find driving distances between two points at a highly precise level than ever before.

And it's actually hard to figure out how the distance between two points as the crow flies on a map program.

That's true.

MapQuest doesn't do that.

Oh, you got in your plug from MapQuest finally.

I don't know how much.

Still making that MapQuest money.

I am going to, with great respect, I'm going to overrule all of you.

I think the default should now be driving distance.

Boo.

What if it's pollution?

What if there's a a power station and you say

the pollution extends all the way to Wrightton, 20 miles away?

Well, you say a radius of 20 miles, I think you would say.

Not necessarily.

It could just be by the way the wind blows.

It's not like pollution spreads out in a perfect circle around the epicenter.

It just moves around with the wind.

There are plenty of times when you're talking about distance that you're not talking about transportation.

And there's plenty of times you're talking about transportation that you're not talking about driving on roads.

Now we're getting as the wind blows and as the crow flies.

What if I take the subway?

Why?

We have science now.

Why do we need crows and winds?

But I think that's why I like it.

And I think I agree with Jesse here that like specificity really helps and you could go with both.

as long as you're specific.

But I think I like specificity because as the crow flies is a very pleasant, earthy phrase that I don't want to phase out thanks to the big map quest.

Also, if you were in Maine, you would say, you don't want to go over there.

The pollution's terrible there.

Yeah.

Yeah, John.

That's how people in Maine talk exactly.

It's a perfect impression of how Mainers talk to each other.

Thank you.

Jennifer, we can cut all of Chuck out of this.

In the backwards, can we have someone else record his lines?

No, I'm just as guilty of occasionally talking in a downeast accent.

If you were to tell someone how to get to one place or another, Bass Head, Harbour, Lighthead, House,

from those coordinates I gave you, and you didn't say

as the crow flies, they'd be mighty mad at you.

Wait, are you from Lenoir?

Yeah, there was, I think that was the Midlands.

Well, you know.

Hello, Governor.

It's me, the lighthouse man, the mayor of Maine.

I'm here to catch some lobsters, I am.

All right.

Here's the deal.

I think obviously that you have some common sense understanding of when distance as the crow flies

is more apt and helpful and useful than distance as the car drives.

And if you are talking about the relative distance between Paris and Calais,

then you might as well give as the crow flies as the default.

Basically, I think that's a straight drive anyway.

But if you're talking about the relative distance between

Bar Harbor and Callas, Maine, which is spelled like Calais but is different, you'd best give the driving miles unless you specifically say as the crow flies.

And I like what Josh Chuck says.

I'm willing to accept the as the crow flies as the default so long as it is specific that you say as the crow flies.

If you are giving driving instructions, then you have to make sure that you are clear that that is driving mileage.

And if you are in a place like Maine where the as-the-crow flies distance is stupid and makes no sense because no one would ever fly on the back of a crow from those two places, between those two places, then you should just be clear.

It is 51 point, now I have to find my note again, 51.3

miles by road to the Bass Head Harbor Lighthouse.

Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse.

That's what it's called.

That does sound like a compromise, but I think clarity has to rule the day here.

Clarity is more important than either Tom or Dana being correct.

As the crow flies should be used when you are describing measuring distances that way, especially if it's going to be confusing otherwise.

Let's take a quick break.

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

I'll tell you what, though, if you do drive from those coordinates and take that long drive to Bass Harbor, it's not as fast, but you do get to pass by Acadia Provisions

on High Street in Ellsworth, and that's the only place in Maine where they have Taylor Pork Roll.

That's just a life act for you.

Goodbye.

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 maximumfund.org/slash join.

And you can join them by going to maximumfund.org/slash join.

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

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

This week, we're clearing the docket with Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant, the hosts of the podcast, Stuff You Should Know, and the authors of the forthcoming book of the same name.

Here's something from Jeremiah.

He says, I am a gardener and I make my own compost and mulch.

One of the best ingredients for them is shredded autumn leaves.

We don't have have any large trees, so I have been acquiring leaves from the area.

When neighbors take their yard waste out for pickup, I will briefly open their bags just to make sure it's leaves or mostly leaves.

Then I put them in my car and take them home.

Hold on one second, there you go.

Speaking of shredded autumn leaves.

Leave it in.

That is thematically appropriate.

There's a leaf blower out there.

We are in.

We are in the midst of autumn.

Shredded autumn leaves sounds, frankly, delicious.

Yeah.

And this is an important.

It looks like a good emo band too.

Right?

Opening for the promise ring.

It's shredded autumn leaves.

My partner, Liz, says this is stealing.

The residents are paying for the city to take them.

She also says it's weird and makes me look like a foliage perv.

But I don't disturb the residents or trespass onto private property.

Liz would like you to rule that I stop picking up leaves from the curb.

I would like you to rule that I be allowed to continue.

All right.

Well, so this issue goes all the way back into the past.

Judge John Hodgman verdict number 38, Pepperoni Pauper,

in which we discussed the inherent indignity of going through the trash bin at a Canadian pizza parlor for coupons, or really going through anyone's trash, your own or someone else's.

Josh, Chuck, you live in communities where people put out trash bins and trash bags for collection, correct?

Yes.

All right.

What do you think about Jeremiah's leaf peeping and taking scheme?

Well, I'm actually split on the two because if you'll notice, there's two things in there.

One is that

he's bothering the neighbors or that he's a perv,

a leaf perv, foliage perv, I think is how Liz put it, or Jeremiah put, how Liz put it.

And then the first is that he's stealing.

I disagree with the idea that he's stealing

the very evidence that Liz uses, which is that people are paying for this to be taken away.

I would say that people aren't paying for someone specific to take it away.

So long as it's taken away, I think they're okay with it.

If he were bringing his leaves and putting them with somebody else's leaves and not paying for somebody to take it away, that's actually more theft than what he's doing.

But I do agree that he could be considered weird or odd or foliage pervert

by people who have hang-ups about things like that.

I don't think that there's anything inherently wrong with it.

I think he's definitely not stealing.

If he doesn't have leaves of his own, I say help yourself to your neighbor's leaf because they're not going to care.

Chuck, did you have you ever gone through your neighbor's trash?

No, but I got to say,

as a weekly listener to this show for years and years, this case is like the Venn diagram of this case is, I feel like the JJ Ho universe is collapsing on itself or something because I immediately

keep up with the times.

I'm immediately thinking of the mom who would

steal plant clippings from neighbors and shopping malls.

Yeah, from shopping malls, not neighbors.

Okay.

She would go to

shopping malls and take clippings from the potted plants there and replant them at the south.

Yeah, and I'm also recalling the guy sort of recently who would move his neighbor's trash cans back to his house from the street.

Right, right.

And I think there's been a dog poop in trash can thing.

Like, this is

a very common theme here.

Yeah.

I mean,

basically, Chuck, you live in a suburban neighborhood.

My question to you is this.

It's not suburban.

Yeah, no.

All right.

I stand correct and we'll leave all of this in.

The point I'm making is that you have a house on a street and you take your garbage out to the curb, correct?

That's not what happens in my apartment building.

Right.

Yeah, we've got two, like a big recycling bin, a big trash bin.

Right.

One goes in one, one goes to the other, goes out to the street.

And I have seen people put stuff in these trash cans.

I don't think it's nice to put dog poop in there.

No.

But I do think it's okay to

crib some fall foliage.

Sure.

So if you saw someone taking some leaves out of your garbage bag or took the whole garbage, like opened the garbage bag, looked at it, ascertained leaves, and then left with it.

You would be, that's cool.

Great.

At least he didn't put Jesse's dog's poop in my

trash can.

Yeah, I think that's totally fine.

Because I would assume some non-nefarious usage.

Because that's what Jesse's doing now.

He's mailing his dog's poops all over the country to put in other people's properties.

Did you get money for that, Jesse?

It's just not money.

It's just spite.

He just likes it.

Oh, yeah.

Look, I'm with you both.

Jeremiah is right and Liz is wrong.

Garbage that is on the curb is abandoned property.

I would check with your local

town hall or whatever, but I would be extremely surprised if you didn't learn that stuff that is left out on the curb is free for people to grab.

It's also free for private detectives to go through to learn stuff about you.

That turned up in a lot of the case law that I looked over, John.

Really, did it?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that's why you have to shred your autumn leaves rather than put them out whole, because otherwise

they'll see the notes that you took on those.

That's a problem.

And I think that it's, and I think he's doing a nice thing.

I would say this.

Chuck, thank you for

giving us a history of garbagey disputes that have occurred on this podcast.

And minor theft.

In the case of the woman who was clipping

fronds from

ferns at the mall or whatever it was,

that's private property, that's theft.

You're not supposed to be.

Categorical imperative would say, don't do something you wouldn't be comfortable with everyone doing.

And if everyone was cutting off a frond, that would be bad.

You wouldn't have any fronds left.

You'd be frondless.

And then they'd have to shut them all because that's the only thing keeping malls open.

So that, right?

And then moving the trash cans, that's also interfering with someone's personal property, which those trash cans are.

Yeah.

And personal space and perhaps literal property boundaries, you know, as you're walking them back up to their own house.

Put the garbage in there, that's fair gain.

You want to grab some shredded autumn leaves?

Go for it.

You will look like a weirdo to the people in that house as you go through their trash.

That's what it comes down to.

Some people go through other people's trash for treasures as part of a lifestyle of radical recycling and freeganism.

Some people go through people's trash because they have no choice.

They have to find food to eat or things to turn in to recycle to make some extra money.

All are fair game.

But if you want to be a, I think, good neighbor, part of being a good neighbor means not giving your neighbors something to worry about with you.

Not giving them a sense like, well, if he's going to go through our trash, what else is he going to do?

Pee in our windows?

Yeah, totally.

When's he going to show up without pants?

Right, exactly.

Exactly.

I just wish there was some way to communicate with neighbors.

No, it's impossible.

Unfortunately, that's what we've heard time and time again.

At your point.

Yeah, there's no way.

He could leave.

He could create like a little...

a little card or note or something that he left, almost like a calling card that said something like, just using the leaves for mulch.

Thank you for them.

And then maybe his trademark could be like he leaves a score bar or something behind, too.

It's like, thank you.

You know, you get known for that.

Wow.

That.

Yeah.

I think all Judge Sean Hodgman questions should come with the standard proviso that, you know, maybe we just say it out loud once and then everyone knows from here on that that's appended to the end of every question.

It says blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Question mark,

P.S.

I am not willing to talk to anyone who is not already my intimate.

I am really into this idea of leaving behind a scorebar or something.

Like, and you leave it, right?

And you leave.

I mean, this would now get expensive.

It would kind of, but, like, I was like, just leave it atop a velvet glove.

And a letterpress printed card that says, you have been visited by Jeremiah, the gentleman leaf thief.

Yeah.

I think at the end of the day,

you're looking to be called the something bandit.

It doesn't really matter.

Just the something bandit.

That's right.

Yeah, I would go, if there are neighbors who are routinely giving these things away, I would knock on their door, leave them a note,

leave your number or an email address in case they don't want you to do this.

I love the idea of leaving a card.

You've been visited by the leaf bandit of Jeremiah's block.

or whatever.

I think that's part of being neighborly.

It's letting people know why you're going through their trash.

What if they don't want to

think that you're some kind of private eye, like some kind of former teen detective who's now a grown-up middle-aged man trying to solve mysteries for teenagers in North Carolina, bit.ly slash dicktown.

They want to know that you're their neighbor.

It's just a plug.

Always be plugging.

Okay, here's something from Darcy.

Does consuming blood count as cannibalism?

The squad has been debating it since January, and I'm not even sure what side I'm on anymore.

First of all, I just want to say, John,

I'm impressed that the squad found time to be re-elected to Congress and debate this question.

Yeah.

The squad, of course, is how we refer to four members of Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilon Omar, and Ayana Presley, right?

Those are the four.

Those are the squads, right?

And the idea that they're sitting around debating whether or not drinking blood counts technically as cannibalism really does sound like the worst Facebook conspiracy theory of all time.

Yeah,

yeah.

I'm sure it's out there, though.

It's the new internet rule.

Yeah, plus when you're doing all that Twitch streaming, you've got to have something to talk about.

That's right.

It's like the squad are going to hold a press conference.

Yeah, we drink blood, but

we've talked about it.

It's technically not cannibalism.

The podcast told us.

That's what the stakes are here.

Speaking of stakes, Jesse Thorne, we are talking about drinking human blood, so there will be some discussion of Draculas in this.

Yeah, I was about to say that.

Thank you for the trigger warning.

Elephant in the room.

Some content warning for you.

It's a Dracula in the room.

I wonder if you could turn an elephant into a Dracula.

Any animal can be a Dracula.

A lot of people think that only bats can be Draculas, but any animal can be a Dracula if they get bit by another Dracula.

With their bonicula.

Their banicula, of course.

That's a perfect example.

Celery stocks at midnight.

Read it.

Important book.

Well, that was a writer's house author book when I was my first job at the literary agency.

Benicula put a,

gave me a paycheck in my 20s.

Thanks, Benicula.

I'm going to tell you something, though.

A Dracula elephant would be hard to deal with because they already have tusks.

You know what I mean?

Are those going to get longer and pointier?

Well, I mean, one of the problems for the Dracula elephant is the tusks kind of get in the way.

No, but they got

that hose nose.

What do you call it?

A trunk?

Yeah.

I like hose nose from now on.

Yeah.

Elephants are one of the only Draculas with hose noses.

It's also a great put-down for an elephant, too.

Like, out of the way, hose nose.

Elephants and elephants get so sick of being called that in middle school.

Yeah.

On 80 sitcoms.

Elephants are the most decent, amazing, wonderful, compassionate, empathetic, long-lived, and intelligent creatures on Earth.

They're basically the crows of the mammals, but less schemy.

Yeah.

And they take circuitous routes that they only they understand.

And I don't know why anyone would put down an elephant.

Don't call an elephant a hoe's nose unless he's a Dracula, in which case it's self-defense.

So, all right, first of all, Chuck and Josh, I got to ask you each, and this is for real now.

Chuck, are you a Dracula or no?

Am I a Dracula or no?

Well, no, I was about to say I can't be because I'm a podcaster, but as we all know, Draculas can have any job.

It's true.

That's true.

Josh?

Am I a Dracula?

Or no.

Are you a Dracula or no?

And you have to tell the truth, even if you're undercover.

That's right.

Even though Draculas are notorious liars.

Is that enforceable, though?

Yes, you're under fire.

I'll enforce it.

I have the equipment.

All right.

Well, then I can neither confirm nor deny that.

Too close.

Do you know what that's called?

That particular phrase?

Killing the bit.

I think you just saved it, cha.

It's a classic no-air.

Oh, boy.

What is it?

Where did it go?

It's called a Glomar response.

Oh, what?

A Glomar response.

It came from the CIA in the 70s, where they were asked if they were trying to get their hands on a Russian sub that had sunk in the CIA.

He said, we can neither confirm nor deny that.

But what is the origin of the word?

The Glomar was the name of the ship that they were actually using to get their hands on that Russian sub.

Oh, the Gomar.

The Glomar Explorer.

Well, let me tell you.

Sorry about killing the Dracula thing.

No, you did great.

I just needed to affirm that you guys were not Draculas.

But it's interesting, you know,

I looked up a thing one could learn.

My new podcast, things you can learn.

The clinical term,

some people do drink blood.

Yes.

And those who have a pathological obsession with the idea of drinking blood or who actually do it as a habit, that's clinical vampirism,

also known officially as Renfield syndrome

after the character from Bram Stoker's Dracula, which frankly, Renfield, of course, was Dracula's little helper.

And it's not to be confused with Renfair syndrome, which is where you're always making your own chain mask.

We've all drank our own blood, though, right?

I mean, that's a weird human response to

put your finger in your mouth and drink a little bit of that sweet irony goodness.

I think the difference is if you do that and you're like, this is pretty great, or you're like, what do other people's blood tastes like?

That is actually a condition called auto vampirism, where you are you become addicted psychologically to drinking your own blood on purpose.

So, here, let's break it down.

Would you be a cannibal, Chuck,

if you accidentally drank some of your own blood from like a cut on your finger or a bruised lip or whatever?

No, I don't think so.

I think a cannibal is, and I might not be correct, but in my view, a cannibal is someone who actually consumes flesh.

So?

You're saying that even someone who drinks blood on purpose, num numny,

that's not a cannibal, even if it's someone else's blood?

You would not say that num-nummy is the cry of a cannibal.

No, I would say no, unless they're, you know, little, little tiny bits of flesh in there.

It's a cannibal on a liquid diet.

You're gaining sustenance from a human tissue.

I don't know.

Gee, boy, oh boy.

Chuck, what do you, I mean.

It's not tissue, though.

Josh, it's blood tissue.

Oh, man.

This is just a horrible rabbit hole.

Yes,

I think blood is tissue.

I think.

Yeah, an ensemble of similar cells that together carry out a specific function, which is, in this case, bleed.

I think you would be a cannibal if you drank other people's blood, but not necessarily if you drink your own blood, unless you are

drinking it specifically for the purpose of drinking it.

Yeah, then yes, if you drink blood to drink blood, then you may be a cannibal.

If you've got four four cars on your lawn and don't none of them work, you might be a cannibal.

Well, first of all, I just want everyone to know, don't drink blood.

Don't do it.

I can understand why you'd be interested.

It is 93% protein and only 1%

carb.

it's good if you're keto.

It might be attractive.

But no, human blood, don't drink it.

Never mind the violation of someone else's body that might be involved.

Never mind the possibility of contagion.

The fact is, based on some science and health websites that are designed well enough for me to trust them, and I looked at a lot of them, the consensus is that beyond just a little bit of your own blood or someone else's blood, our bodies are not really set up to digest it.

And

drinking a fair amount,

if such a thing can be described, of blood can actually cause a condition, an overload of iron called hemochromatosis

because our bodies are not great at getting rid of iron.

And you get hemochromatosis, that actually could be a fatal situation.

So don't do it.

But I'm going to say, based on this illuminating discussion, here's my judgment.

If you ingest a little bit of blood from your own cut lip or your own cut finger or whatever,

or like you're chewing your fingernails or whatever, you accidentally swallow some fingernail or some of that fingernail meat around it.

That's tissue.

Tissue, right?

If that just happens unintentionally,

you are not a cannibal.

If you accidentally drink someone else's blood or their fingernail tissue by accident, a small amount, I don't know how you can figure out a scenario, I'm sure.

If it happens by accident a small amount, you are not a cannibal.

But if you eat or ingest

any amount of that on purpose for the purpose of doing it.

As Josh said, to drink blood as blood.

That is an act of cannibalism.

And then if you cook any of it, then you're definitely a cannibal.

Then you just get a capital C, cannibal, which is awful.

But at least you're not a Dracula.

Do you think they named him Hannibal because it rhymes with cannibal?

Yes.

I think that is true.

Let's take a quick break.

A dispute about leftover snacking and a letter from a member of Gen Z when we return.

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're here with the hosts of Stuff You Should Know, the authors of the new book, Stuff You Should Know.

Here is something from Catherine.

I'm requesting an injunction against my husband, Brax.

He's a dear and sweet man.

However, he has one irritating habit.

He's also an alien insect.

Yeah.

He's not a...

All husbands should be named after adult swim characters.

All right, what's Brax's deal?

He's a dear and sweet man.

However, he has one irritating habit.

He's not a big snacker, but sometimes wants just a little nibble of a leftover.

The problem is he'll take a bite of said leftover, then put it back in the refrigerator, bite mark and all.

This happens most with pizza, but today I found that he did it with some leftover crepes.

Pictures of this mayhem are attached.

Will you please order that Brax stop this gross habit, and if he wants just a taste of something, he has to cut off a piece with a knife.

Okay, so Catherine sent in two pieces of evidence, two photographs that will be available on the show page at maximumfund.org.

And of course, at our Instagram account, where you can see all the evidence each and every week and has a fun little comment community as well of its own.

I encourage you to sign in and follow at Judge John Hodgman.

Two photos.

What we see, John, in these two pictures are a piece of pizza and a crepe, which have clearly been visited by the munching bandit.

Did he leave a scorecard?

Yeah, he left no card.

Well, you know what?

His bite marks are his signature because these bite marks are very, very clear.

You could probably create a perfect plastered dental mold of Brax's teeth.

Yeah, these are what I would call cartoon munch holes.

That's right.

I tell you this, though, Catherine.

Good news.

Brax, not a Drax.

I can tell from looking at this.

Your husband's not a Dracula.

No fang holes.

That's how you know.

Josh and Chuck, we've all been stuck inside with our loved ones for a long time.

And a lot of,

you know,

whatever we feel about civilization outside our homes, definitely civilization inside our homes has been collapsing

and descending into sheer chaos as the as the veneer of

humanity gets stripped away and we're just weird farting creatures who live with each other.

What have you,

I'll pose this question to both of you and you can answer if you have one.

What is the thing that you feel like you've really let slip

during this time of staying home safely and responsibly?

Whether or not it affects your partner.

For me, I've really gotten into wearing the exact same outfit for three days in a row.

And that outfit is frequently

my favorite pair of workout shorts that I haven't worked out in in many months now.

And I have a pretty good-sized hole in an unfortunate place.

that's kind of how I've let myself go, which seems to be kind of like a pretty big way of letting yourself go now that I say it out loud on record.

That's okay.

We're all doing the best we can in this situation.

Chuck, is there anything that's kind of falling apart in your household?

Yeah, you know, I think the with delivery increased to homes for various things.

i think the uh

the inside like nine-foot radius around our front door is

is that as the crow flies or or driving as the crow flies it's been pretty cluttered with uh boxes and packing uh not packing peanuts but the little uh poppy poppy things that you can pop yeah uh so yeah that gets a little little messy your tolerance for visual pollution and clutter is maybe a little bit higher yeah breaking down those boxes for recycling is something that's happening like once a week instead of it as it comes in.

Plus, Jeremiah, the gentleman box thief, is waiting for you to put those outside.

Why can't we get going on this?

I need this for the box fort that I'm making.

Yeah, I mean,

I will say the thing that I think about often is how comfortable I have become.

wearing elastic waist pants.

Soft clothes?

I mean, yeah, soft clothes, as Paul F.

Tompkins and Janie Haddad Tomkins would say.

Like, I believe in soft clothes of an evening when you're ready to relax, but there is no evening anymore.

You know, there's all evening.

It's all evening.

And, you know, it's like a decision every day.

Like, am I going to wear fitted pants today, or am I really just going to wear these track pants?

Me wearing track pants.

I mean, I think probably.

The image of me wearing track pants probably just made a lot of our listeners just vomit right now.

And that could be a real problem, but it's true.

I've been wearing track pants.

And listeners to Judge John Hodgman will know from my previous stances of wearing pajamas on an airplane, sorry, Corey Doctorow,

or in general, wearing leisure wear in everyday life, my opinion was very low of that.

But now it's not merely that my...

My moral tolerance has changed for this, for comfort, because I think we deserve comfort when so much of the world around us is trying to make us uncomfortable or is doing so anyway.

But also, I can't fit into my pants anymore.

I can't even fit into pants.

At this point, the only pants I wear are those Jennifer Lopez ones that say juicy on the button.

Yeah, that's right.

Nice.

So, I look, I'm going to admit that I've taken a bite of pizza out of the fridge and put in, put back a BRAC-style chomped slice.

And I've felt bad about myself.

That's a bad thing to do.

That's gross.

That's a visual indicator that you have just saliva on this thing.

Which, by the way, Brax and Catherine, they live together.

They probably share a lot of saliva.

But

there is an

you want to hide the you want to hide the fact that you've slobbered all over this slice of pizza a little bit.

You want to maintain a level of civilization in your house.

This is no good, Brax.

It's no good when I did it.

It's no good when you do it.

And especially when there's such a simple solution.

When you want to eat some of the pizza, but not all of it, just cut off a slice with your pizza shears.

Everyone's got to get pizza shears.

You know that.

We've ruled that on Judge John Hodrin, the best way to cut pizza is scissors.

Just get some dedicated pizza shears.

And the crepes,

just get out your Cisot de Crepes.

That's French for crepes scissors.

You're welcome, Babel.

Free advertising for today.

Cezo de crep.

What do you think, guys?

Am I wrong or am I right?

It couldn't be more right.

Oh, phew.

I mean, that's.

You say I'm wrong?

Yeah, I don't think it's a big deal.

Oh, man.

I think the fact that we have things like forks and pizza shears and that we've had these things for hundreds, thousands, countless years, and that they're so handy.

They're usually right by where the pizza and the crepes are.

Yeah.

That you just open a drawer and pull it out and then you cut it.

And it's just,

that's the, to me, the bare minimum threshold of

civilization.

It's a sign of respect for the people you're living with, which is like, I'm not...

I'm going to...

I know that I'm just...

A farting, sweating, ingesting monster, but I'm going to try to pretend to be something else for you.

Right.

Yeah, I think that is a

loving thing that you can do for somebody.

Nice.

But Chuck is very low-key.

And I, yeah.

And you know something?

If I were in Chuck's house, and I've been in Chuck's house, I had to go over there and inspect the blinding of that door, which good.

And if I opened the fridge, which would be a very intrusive thing to do as a guest, but Chuck wouldn't care.

And I saw a piece of pizza that Chuck had had a bite out of it and put back in there, I would not think ill of my host.

I would be like, you know what?

I admire Chuck's laid-backedness, and I might chomp a bit too.

Because

that's the Chuck way.

Well, Chuck is well known for before guests come over, taking a fork and cutting the bite marks off of the pizza.

Well, he and Emily are wonderful hosts.

I'm with you, Judge Hodgman.

I have a similar thing that happens to me every time I go to my friend

Kool's house.

I'll go for the front door.

Oh, Kool-Aid Man is his full name.

I'll go for the front door

initially.

Then I'm like, he's just laid back about how he enters and exits homes.

To that I say, oh, yeah.

Okay,

we have a letter to read here,

Judge Hodgman, a letter about Generation Z from a listener named Tristan.

That's right, Jesse.

So, Josh Chuck, over the summer, Guest Bailiff David Reese and I heard a dispute about whether or not it's okay okay to burn books if they are written by Tucker Carlson or Bill O'Reilly, and they're ilk.

If you want to know what the verdict was, go back and listen to that episode because I don't remember anything that ever comes out of my mouth anymore.

David and I, though, wondered whether or not Generation Z

has the same visceral reaction that we of Generation X might have to the idea of physical book burnings, given how much of those younger people's schoolwork and reading is now done on screens.

Tristan, an 11-year-old girl, wrote to me about this, and here's what she had to say.

Dear Judge John Hodgman, you implied that Generation Z doesn't read actual paper books, if they read at all.

I think that statement was a bit ignorant, because as I write this, I'm in the middle of reading a paper book entitled,

Jesse, you may want to step out of the room.

Entitled Breaking Dawn.

It's a Dracula book.

Disgusting that they can be in books.

I'm just reading a book about about Dracula's.

Paper Dracula book.

I am not just speaking for myself.

I have friends who love to read just like me.

I hope you understand that not all of Generation Z fits that stereotype of being device addicted.

A lot of us love to read and not on devices.

I know I would be appalled by a book burning, even if the books were written by racist conservatives.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

I'm a big fan of your podcast.

Well, Tristan, I thank you, and I do stand corrected.

In fact,

the younger people

in my life

The Gentleman Leaf Thief

Listen and follow along

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