The Sponge Leaver's Wife

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 barbecue king of Brooklyn, New York, Judge John Hodgman.

That's not anywhere near, well, maybe, no, not anywhere near true.

There's a lot of barbecue.

As soon as I said that out loud, I remembered that the food trend of Brooklyn eight years ago was barbecue restaurants.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They realized

that if you put a brisket in a smoker for a day, it becomes money.

Like it's just

like people in Brooklyn will line up for days to eat Texas-style smoked brisket.

And it's not, there are so many places now.

There is no barbecue king.

This is a barbecue game of thrones over here.

There's just so many kings.

As we record this, we can see each other from across the nation thanks to the magic of internet.

And you're wearing a Fox barbecue hat from Atlanta, Georgia, that was a gift to us when we performed in Atlanta.

That's right.

Our friend Chuck Bryant from the Stuff You Should Know podcast dropped by with some really nice barbecue before our Atlanta show.

This is back during the before times when we could meet each other and eat in front of each other.

Yeah,

and hug Chuck Bryant.

And by the way,

that's one of the top hugs.

Yeah, it's a dream hug.

And he gave us both Fox Brothers barbecue baseball hats.

And I was saying to you before we started recording, I'm quite fond of it, even though it's a low hat.

I like a baseball hat with a lot of height.

A 10-gallon baseball hat.

Yeah, 10-gallon baseball hat.

Because unless I've got a high hat on, my hair is limp.

And it looks painted on.

And then my round Charlie Brown face looks terrible.

unless I have a little height on my hat and a little length in my beard.

And then I finally have a rectangular face.

You're a very handsome guy, Johnny.

Hey, you know what?

You're very handsome.

Jennifer Marmor, I can see you as well.

Look, physical beauty is nothing compared to who we are inside, especially now that I've been eating so much biscuit butter.

You know about biscoff butter, you guys?

That's like a cookie spread.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Remember when we used to be able to fly around the country to go places?

Sure.

Yeah.

And sometimes on the airplane, especially if you flew Delta, which I did, they'd hand you European Biscoff cookies.

Sure, they're tasty cookies.

Yeah.

Turns out they sell it as a butter.

Jennifer Marmor, did you know that?

She's nodding.

She's nodding, yes.

Look, if it weren't for what's going on in the world, I would never have been able to see Jennifer Marmor nod.

So that's a plus.

Anyway, a lot of Biscoff butter in our house right now.

Jesse, it's

so nice to see you and to talk to you because as of this day, this recording,

we, the Judge John Hodgman podcast program, is a Webby award winner.

Congratulations to we.

Congratulations to we, all of us.

And thank you very much to you, the Webbies, and to you listeners and litigants and expert guests and supporters and guest bailiffs and everyone else and sponsors.

I happened to have a different teleconference during the Webby Awards.

So I had to send in Tom Hanks to accept it for me.

Oh, that would have been a great gag.

Why didn't I think about that?

I couldn't get Tom Hanks, but I bet you I could have gotten Nick Offerman to do it.

Yeah.

Shoot.

Well, maybe next year.

But meanwhile, Jesse Thorne, I'm here in my chambers.

I'm crawling out of this huge swag bag that the Webbies sent me.

Did you get one?

I no, I didn't get a swag bag.

I'm so mad at them.

I mean, the Webb, the Webby gift bag, you know, they talk about the Oscar gift bag being pretty luxe,

but the Webby gift bag is amazing because you know, the Webbies are the Internet's Internet's Premier Award, founded in 1996.

So, they sent me this huge bag, and guess what's in it?

Flues, the internet currency.

Good pull.

Good pull.

Thank you.

Courtesy of fogdog.com.

There you go.

Oh, man, that brings me back.

I was going to start with a case of Jolt and a case of Surge, plus a Motorola Star Tech,

an original gold beta CD-ROM of Duke Nukem 3D.

A crate of 200 random...

This is weird that it was random.

Random print edition issues of PC World magazine.

A DVD copy of Sandra Bullock's The Net, delivered by Cosmo.com.

Didn't know they were still around.

Wow.

And this is a, I mean, this thing is collectible.

This is the original pets.com sock puppet.

Wow.

Yeah.

And did it come with Michael Ian Black?

Just his hand.

Yeah.

Wow.

I'm going to send Michael a note letting him know if cauterization is on us.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm really,

it's a little gruesome, honestly.

But

collectible.

I think the fact is, he wouldn't give it up.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

And honestly, knowing Michael Ian Black a little bit, wonderful guy.

Really nice man.

But if he still had that sock puppet and they came for it, I think he wouldn't give it up.

I think he'd fight for it.

They'd have to hold him down, take it off by force.

All I got in mind was just one copy of Computer Currents magazine.

But I've been dialing into BBSs all day.

What was your first email address?

Do you remember?

I don't remember what it was, but I went to this like fancy, very, I was the scholarship kid, I should be clear, at a very fancy private middle school that had internet and email before the web.

So this would be 19, I got my first email address in 1992.

And

we had to use Pine.

Do you remember something called Pine?

I do.

I remember that.

I remember that.

Pine and then you could dial into the school

and connect with your modem.

Yeah.

And then

you could get on Pine and then you could send messages to the other sixth graders.

That was the only people you knew that had email addresses at the time was your fellow sixth graders.

Yeah.

My first email address was was assigned to me in college, and I think it was a series of numbers.

It looks like an auto-generated password that Google would make for you now.

It's like random numbers.

Some of our listeners don't know where you went to college, but you went to the University of Prodigy.

That's right.

At dear old CompuServe You.

And the only person I knew who had an address was my oldest friend in the world, Damon Graff, who I've known since we were three.

So I sent him two messages and got two back.

But then I got internet in my room in college at the dorm, and I've told the story before.

I was just sitting in my room quietly hunting and pecking at my Macintosh SE,

and I heard a faint scratching, not even a knock, a scratching on my door.

And I opened it,

and the tall, impossibly skinny wraith of a dude who I knew was the computer guy, the computer enthusiast in the dorm, said, Would you like to have the internet in your room?

I'm like, yeah, okay.

And he ran a cord in and he put it into my computer and he showed me how to dial up bulletin boards and stuff.

And it was all print, obviously.

No.

This would have been 1992, right?

It was all print, no visuals whatsoever.

And the first two things I found were a group having a heated discussion as to whether or not

Harrison Ford's character in Blade Runner was an android or a human.

Fights about that.

Sure.

Right.

And then the other thing I just found was just people trading prose erotica.

I was like, oh, and the internet has never changed.

It's exactly that.

So

people fighting over nerd stuff

and hugging and kissing.

But thank you, the Webbies.

Thank you, Webby Awards.

I mean, it's just, you know, this is a,

I was quite surprised.

I mean, I was surprised to learn we were nominated and very surprised to learn we won.

And in particular, in this context of where we are in the world today, just every little bit helps.

It really

lightened my day.

And

it's always good to know that you beat Will Farrell at something.

Yeah.

And thanks, obviously, to all of the listeners who expressed their support on the Webbies website.

Did you know that the Webbies have a website?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Website.com, I think.

Website.

What do you think is on website.com?

We'll talk about it.

We'll get to justice in one second, but I gotta know.

Website.com.

Yeah, guess what?

You can create a website.

That's all.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The only website our listeners should be visiting besides maximumfund.org is zombo.com.

That's advice from me in 1999 to you now, 21 years later.

It's still rolling.

ZomboCom.

Let's get into some justice, John.

Here's something from Brian.

He says, my wife Samantha never caps pens or clicks them closed.

This dries them out, and then I have to throw them away.

She claims it makes them easier to access.

I feel uncapping a pen takes milliseconds at most.

I would like you to order an injunction stipulating my wife is only allowed to leave her pens uncapped and for my pens to be left capped when not in use.

Can we go back to talking about zombo.com?

This guy's upset because his pens are dry.

All right.

His pens are dry.

He's probably got some stray marks to deal with as well.

This is clearly a felt tip sitch, right?

It must be because I don't think the roller balls are drying out to an appreciable extent.

Certainly not to the extent that they have to be discarded.

Right.

Are these like dry erase markers?

That's the ones that really dry out.

They do.

That's right there in the name.

What kind of pen do you use

around

the house or in the office?

When you're writing by hand, what do you use?

It doesn't have to be a pen, it could be a crayon, a pencil.

I have a couple of

nice pens that I like to use.

Go on.

I like a Koico Sport,

which is

an affordable, compact fountain pen.

I like that a lot.

I have a fancy fountain pen, too, that I got through menswear connections long ago.

But the main,

and the Koico Sport is great, is a great pen, a cartridge fountain pen.

There's plastic ones that cost like $20, and then I think mine is brass, and it costs a little more than that, but not much more.

But the pen that I use on a day-to-day basis is the one that was recommended to me by Vol, you know, as we've talked about many, many times on Judge John Hodgman, Wirecutter, which is a Uniball Cygno.

Oh.

And

it's a very nice pen.

It writes beautifully and very affordable.

My wife, who is a high school teacher,

likes a fountain pen.

I find them to be too scratchy.

But that's just a matter of taste.

And then she also likes those pens that are like really

fine-tipped.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, I don't know if there's felt up there.

I don't think a ball could be that small.

It's like writing with

the end of a needle.

Do you know that kind of thing?

I know exactly that kind of pen you're talking about.

Also, very scratchy to me.

I like a smooth thing.

So I treated myself recently to a box of Pilot G2's one millimeters, which are the bold.

And those were always my go-to, but I think I got a dud box because these are not good enough.

These aren't laying down the ink I like.

I like a nice bold thing.

Yeah, well, you're a bold man.

Yeah, I am bold.

Right, so in any case, this, uh, yeah.

Um,

Samantha doesn't cap the pens.

They dry out.

He has to throw them away.

She doesn't cap them because she claims this makes them easier to access.

I don't know, Samantha, come on.

I mean

that's kind of a crummy excuse.

Like

it's hard to justify not capping a pen.

It's a pretty easy thing to do.

And, you know,

maybe when we lived in an age of true

abundance,

when

we could go out to the stationery store or press a button on the internet we were talking about earlier, head over to zombo.com and get a pen delivered to your door within five seconds, you might be able to justify just like rolling through pens.

The sheer wasteful materialism of rolling through pens that you can't bother to recap.

But there's nothing good about the situation we're in, except a moment of reflection to say, oh, I should be more mindful of the resources that I use.

Don't let your pens dry out, Samantha.

That's what I say.

Keep them closed.

Preserve what you got.

Don't let it slip through your fingers.

Am I right or am I wrong, Jesse Thorne?

You're absolutely right.

And frankly, I don't think they're probably drying out all that much, but I do think that they almost certainly are leaving stray marks.

And I came out of bye-bye stray marks.

Do you know in the original draft of Edward Scissor Hands, it was Edward felt-tip hands?

No, I did not know that.

Because in the actual movie, he's a rollerball.

Is that correct?

I was right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Leaving stray marks.

Stray marks.

I don't like Cynthia.

I don't like felt tips.

By the way, I'm just going to say this.

I don't like felt-tip pens either.

Wow.

How do you feel about it?

You've got a permanent marker.

I love a sharpie.

Yeah.

I do love a sharpie.

It's very satisfying to be able to write on anything.

You feel like a king.

That's right.

Or a monarch.

I feel like a barbecue king of Brooklyn.

All right, what does Cynthia have to say?

I'd like to have the judge preside over a pressing household issue regarding wearing shorts during winter inside the house.

My husband starts wearing them in January.

We live in New York.

Jesse, sartorial claxon.

You know about how men dress up.

Yeah, I do.

Shorts in the house.

When is it okay, in your opinion?

John.

Yeah.

Everyone has their own path through the world.

Each one among us makes our own choices.

What have you done with my bailiff?

We each live with the consequences of those choices.

Yes.

And some people love to wear shorts.

My college roommate Mike

did not own pants.

Now he was

and is

a powerfully built,

relatively short Filipino man

and had spectacular calves.

I know you're quite proud of your calves, John, and rightly so.

I'm arguably the calf king of Brooklyn, that I could say for sure.

Mike

Manuel, the calf king of Hayward, California,

had beautiful calves and wore his shorts well.

And his mom had to buy him a pair of pants when he went home for a wedding or something.

But through the winter of Santa Cruz, California, he wore shorts, even in the rain.

But he was a, he was.

I mean, John, what do you think I think about this?

I think, put some pants on.

It's not so bad to wear pants.

It's fine to wear pants.

It's perfectly fine to wear pants.

I do not understand this compulsive need to this, like, oh, if I wear pants, oh, oh, oh, my calves will be too hot.

Look, if it's really hot outside and you're walking around outside, wear shorts.

I have shorts.

I live in Los Angeles.

It's hot in the summer.

I hate the heat.

I wear shorts.

I'm not nuts about it, but I do it.

But it's not going to kill you to wear pants.

Listening to you work really hard at being

tolerant and accepting of other people's

leg covering when this is truly your area of expertise.

It was fun.

It was a little upsetting, as I said.

I don't know whether that was Coco or Sissy in the background barking, but clearly your dogs were upset about this.

Like,

what has happened to my master?

Who is this pod person who has replaced him?

Here's what happened.

I'm thinking about the cargo shortsmen in my life.

Yes.

And how much I love them.

I'm thinking about Chuck Bryant.

Chuck Bryant.

A cargo shorts enthusiast.

I'm thinking about Justin McElroy,

who I'm sure Justin McElroy's worn cargo shorts in the snow.

And God bless him.

I love Justin McElroy.

A brilliant man, a wonderful talent, a handsome guy, a charmer, a delight, and at home in his cargo shorts.

And I don't want to prevent anyone from living their life their way, but I can say it's not a choice that I would make, John.

It's not a choice that I would make.

I have feelings about this because,

you know, we're living in a difficult time.

I am currently

wearing track pants.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I can only see you from the waist up.

I'd like to see you in a, in a full track suit.

Mandelbaum, Mandelbaum, Mandelbaum.

I mean, there is a time on this podcast that I said, if, you know, if you are wearing

elastic waist

pants in a non-athletic situation, that you are committing a crime against your adulthood because you are

devolving into baby form.

I had a pair of track pants when this started,

and I realized that I was going to be eating a lot of biscoff butter.

And I also realized I needed some, what Paul F.

Tompkins and Janie Hadded Tompkins, co-hosts of the great Stay F.

Homkins podcast, what they call soft clothes,

what others call loungewear or at-leisure,

because I was just going to be around the house a lot.

And

I needed to build in a lot of napping to cope with this.

So not only did I start wearing track pants more,

I bought extra pairs of them.

For the first time in my life, I bought sweatpants, and I'll wear them around the house.

I'll tell you what, though, they're not shorts.

Drew the line.

Drew the line.

John, I own sweatpants.

I wear them around the house.

Yeah.

Soft clothes.

Soft clothes around the house.

Oh, it's just so nice.

I love to feel my shapely muscular calves comforted and consoled by the soft heather gray of some Adidas trackpants.

I don't want them flopping around.

That said, we're all doing the best we can.

I appreciate that this is not a new habit for Cynthia's partner.

This is something that probably goes back years and years back when,

before we're at home all the time, if we're lucky enough to be able to do so.

So I will say that as long as we are safer at home, observing stay-at-home recommendations, orders, regulations, whatever they are in whatever state or county you live in.

I'll give anybody a pass for anything that they want to wear at home.

I put on shirts the other day, and I was so, I was so, so surprised and grateful that I could still fit into them.

Boy, oh boy.

Because it was hot.

But yeah,

I think I share a baseline

dislike,

I think, of grown men wearing shorts

as basic wardrobe, unless they are living in a tropical environment like Atlanta, Georgia.

I'll give Chuck a pass on that.

Atlanta Summers, you don't want to mess with those.

Huntington, West Virginia, home of Justin McElroy.

Yeah.

Hayward, California.

Culturally, there are different places where you can wear shorts all the time inside and out.

Yeah.

All Filipinos get a pass from me.

Shorts and flip-flops.

Yeah, I would not wear shorts to a cocktail party unless it was summertime and outside and hot.

Otherwise, I would wear pants.

The thing of it is, the thing I'm getting hung up on here, Jesse, I realize, is that there is a certain kind of guy

in the Northeast and in New England,

a region of five states and one Commonwealth

in southeastern Canada,

where guys will wear shorts inside during the winter and outside during the winter.

And that is something I do not care to see.

The guys who are wandering around Greenfield, Massachusetts in December or February in shorts,

they tend to seem to be at the end of a long, sad story.

Walking down the middle of a,

not the middle of the road, but walking down a sidewalk in a...

in a car travel town like Greenfield, walking and wearing shorts out of a bar, that's what I associate wearing shorts in the winter with.

And it's not, I don't know what these guys are going through.

I don't know why they like it,

but it tends to be guys that I think are going to dislike me

and say mean things to me in my historic growing up in New England.

So I don't want to put that on Cynthia's husband.

If he needs to wear shorts inside, during the winter, especially now, I'm going to grant him a stay of judgment.

But if he's wearing those shorts outside during the winter, no, come on, dude.

Dress appropriately for the weather.

Let's take a quick break.

A dispute with song is coming up 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 Quince.

Jesse, the reviews are in.

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

People cannot stop touching me and going, that is a soft sweatshirt.

And I agree with them.

And it goes so well with my Quince overshirts that I'm wearing right now, my beautiful cotton Piquet overshirts and all the other stuff that I've gotten from Quince.

Why drop a fortune on basics when you don't have to?

Quince has the good stuff.

High quality fabrics, classic fits, lightweight layers for warm weather and increasingly chilly leather.

all at prices that make sense.

Everything I've ordered from Quince has been nothing but solid, and I will go back there there again and buy that stuff with my own money.

John, you know what I got from Quince?

I got this beautiful linen double flap pocket shirt that's sort of like an adventure shirt.

And I also got a merino wool polo shirt.

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

Because with merino wool, it like, it basically rejects your stink.

You know what I mean?

It's a stink-rejecting technology, John.

It says, get thee behind me, stink.

Yeah, exactly.

And, you know, honestly, even if I do need to wash it, I can just wear it in the shower when I'm traveling and then

roll it in a towel and it's pretty much ready to go.

Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes.

Quince has wonderful clothes for women, men, kids, babies.

They have travel stuff.

They have gifts.

They have quilts and bedspreads.

They've got everything.

Go over there and find out for yourself.

Keep it classic and cool with long-lasting staples from Quince.

Go to quince.com slash JJHO for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

That's q-u-i-n-ce-e.com slash jjh-o to get free shipping and 365-day returns.

Quince.com slash jjho.

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

Let me ask you a question.

Did you know that most of the dishes served at Tom Clicchio's craft restaurant are made in, made in pots and pans?

It's true.

The Brace Short Ribs, Made In, Made In.

The Rohan Duck Riders of Rohan, Made In, Made In.

That heritage pork chop that you love so much, you got it.

It was made in, made in.

But Made In isn't just for professional chefs.

It's for home cooks too.

And even some of your favorite celebratory dishes can be amplified with made-in cookware.

It's the stuff that professional chefs use, but because it is sold directly to you, it's a lot more affordable than some of the other high-end brands.

We're both big fans of the carbon steel.

I have a little carbon steel skillet that my mother-in-law loves to use because cast iron is too heavy for her.

But she wants that non-stick.

And I know that she can, you know, she can heat that thing up hot if she she wants to use it hot.

She can use it to braise if she wants to use it to braise.

It's an immensely useful piece of kitchen toolery.

And it will last a long time.

And whether it's

griddles or pots and pans or knives or glassware or tableware, I mean, you know, Jesse, I'm sad to be leaving Maine soon, but I am very, very happy to be getting back to my beloved made-in entree bowls.

All of it is incredibly solid, beautiful, functional, and as you point out, a lot more affordable because they sell it directly to you.

If you want to take your cooking to the next level, remember what so many great dishes on menus all around the world have in common.

They're made in, made in.

For full details, visit madeincookwear.com.

That's M-A-D-E-I-N Cookware.com.

Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket this week, and we have something from Sylvie.

Dear Judge Hodgman, please help me.

My husband, Trevor, is a sponge leaver.

We live in an apartment with no dishwasher, and we love to cook, so we generate a lot of dishes.

When my husband washes the dishes, he inevitably leaves the wet, sudsy sponge in the sink where it festers, mildews, and mingles with whatever bits of food get rinsed off of incoming dishes.

It's intolerably disgusting to go to wash up and find a cold, wet, smelly, dirty sponge in the sink.

Jesse, Jesse, let me just pause you there for one second to point out.

This is the part of the letter.

You know, you send in your submissions to maximumfund.org slash JJ H O

or simply write to hodgman at maximumfund.org.

I get all the submissions, I get all the letters, and I read them all.

I try to respond to all of them.

And chances are, if you have not heard back from me, it's because I have filed it over to Jennifer Marmor to consider for the docket or for the live litigant cases or whatever.

And you'll hear back from us that way.

But I have been getting disputes from people

fighting about how to do the dishes

for every week for 10 years.

It is such a common dispute and one that I vowed privately that I would never hear again on the Judge Shanhandra podcast in any form.

Docket, Swift Justice, Live Litigant, whatever it is.

It's settled.

It's dumb.

But

then I read this next sentence, and I decided we had to hear this one.

Please continue.

I have begged and pleaded, and even composed a shaming song about the travails of being a sponge leaver's wife.

Having observed my father-in-law's treatment of sponges, I suspected his behavior might be genetic, but I beg for intervention nonetheless.

I would like you to order my husband to wring out the sponge and put it on the side of the sink to dry after each use.

A shaming song must be heard, I decided.

Yeah, I think that's reasonable.

So I asked Sylvie, well, I'll hear your case if you record the shaming song and send it in.

And I believe she did.

Is that correct?

Jennifer Marmor says yes from her home in Los Angeles.

All right.

You want to play that song for us, Jen?

Thumbs up from Jennifer Marmor.

Oh,

hard

is the life

of a sponge leaver's wife

when he leaves the sponge in the sink.

It never

will dry, and she always

will cry.

For a sponge lever's sponge always stings.

Yes, say sponge leaver, sponge, always

sting.

Holy cow, Jack.

Wow.

Somebody's got some pipes.

I had not listened to it until that moment.

I refused to listen to it.

She can really sing.

Did I add some major like may the circle be unbroken vibes?

Yeah, yeah.

She can really sing.

Boy, oh boy.

If I were Trevor, I wouldn't only be be extremely excited to have this person in my life and listen to what they have to say about basic sink hygiene.

I'd be a little scared.

Be a little scared that if I don't do the right thing,

I'm going to be thrown out of a pickup truck or something.

You know?

The hay wagon, maybe?

Yeah, maybe a hay wagon.

Something, I'm thinking something little house on the prairie-ish.

Yeah.

Sylvie also shared a photo.

She made a reference to how her father-in-law, Trevor's father, also is a gross spongeman.

And she sent a photo that I will never allow to be posted on the Judge John Hodgman Instagram.

Because it is a real-time photo from her father-in-law's house of a sponge

sitting on top of the sink

with a raw turkey neck on it.

On the sponge.

Oh.

Like he was taking the giblets out of a turkey for a holiday dinner and just sort of like randomly placed the turkey neck and the bag of giblets onto the sponge.

And later, Trevor, at the same meal, brushed his teeth and spat into the sink

and spat on the sponge too, on the turkey neck sponge.

Turkey neck sponge, by the way, being one of my favorite bands from the 90s.

So yeah,

Trevor and his dad have problems understanding.

We have enough contagion in this world right now.

You don't need to be spitting on or necking up a sponge.

Rinse it out with hot water and put it on something that will allow air circulation underneath it and listen to your wife when she sings to you.

I don't understand, Trevor.

Just get a brush.

How about that?

What's your dish cleaning implement of choice, Jesse Thorne?

I use a brush.

I use a brush with a handle on it so that I don't have to get my hands all up.

Something imported from Japan, I presume.

Yeah, it's a good one.

It's the one the wirecutter recommends.

Yeah, right.

It works great.

I'm not joking.

It really is.

You know, you can run it through the dishwasher once in a while.

If you have a dishwasher, I do that.

That's a good thing.

I like the plastic bristle brush.

You know, this reminds me of the wonderful comedian

Todd Glass.

I don't know if you've ever met Todd Glass.

I have met Todd Glass, and I'll tell you what, he's wonderful.

One of the great comedians here in the great city of Los Angeles,

a delight of a man with many strong and carefully observed convictions.

And in his most recent special, or perhaps the one that preceded it,

he had these theories about how he grew up very lower middle class, and he has these theories about what poor people and rich people do.

And the ones that I think about all the time are

poor people back into parking spaces, which I don't even know if that's true.

I don't know if it's true, but the specificity of it is dazzling to me.

Rich people never leave their dish soap on top of the sink.

They just leave it in the sink?

They put it on, no, they put it under the sink.

Oh, I see what you mean.

Right, right, right.

It's never out.

Right, you got it, right?

Unless dishes are being done.

Right.

I would say I'm Adobe Spongeman myself.

I like Adobe.

Not Adobe Flash,

the web add-on.

Not Larry Dobe, the first African-American player in the American league.

No.

I'm talking about Adobe Sponge.

It's a scrub sponge.

I like that one the best.

And you know what?

I have a pump on my sink.

Oh, sure.

So I fill it up with the dawn or palm olive or whatever.

I'm moving between the worlds that Todd Glass has outlined.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, well, that's our lot as entertainers.

That's right.

Travel between worlds.

Even though we are, let's face it, probably the biggest celebrities in the world now that we are Webby award-winning podcasters.

We are zombo.com level celebs.

Right.

We still have to be approachable, relatable, and convince people we're just like them.

All right, here's something from Mike.

I'm writing to request an immediate injunction against my friends Mitch, Brendan, Matt, and Rebecca.

They're quarantined separately, but play the video game StarCraft with each other online.

I should clarify here, this is just me interjecting something, they're quarantined in the year 2004.

I've never played the game and have no desire to play, but they've included me in a group text that they use exclusively to talk about and set up games.

I've tried replying with gross pictures of rotten food and Pete Rose's underwear ads.

I did not know the hit king made underwear ads.

That is not appealing.

He's not known for his grace and beauty, more for his pugnacious tenacity and

betting on his own team.

But they still won't remove me from the text.

I would like to petition the court to order them to remove me from the text chain.

I'm sorry, Jesse.

My attention was diverted for a moment while I looked up Pete Rose underwear ads And boy, oh boy,

this is an image that we are definitely

posting to the Instagram.

Wait.

To look at Steve Carlton.

Yes.

Look at what he's wearing.

Oh, my goodness.

This is an ad from 1977.

Is this like a singlet?

that Steve Carlton is wearing?

Yeah, well, it's a nylon A-shirt and brief.

Okay, so it's a combo there's a there's a scene there's like a wrestling jockey international the the under the underwear brand from kenosha wisconsin did an ad campaign in magazines in 1977 called take away their uniforms and who are they

and they have a bunch of famous athletes of 1977 wearing just their underwear and it is alarming both in the in the un the sort of unapologetic lumpy manness of all of these athletes in this beautiful 70s style way of hairiness and weirdness and asymmetry, and also the underwear styles.

Jim Hart of the St.

Louis Cardinals wearing a life A-shirt and a slim guy boxer.

JoJo White of the Boston Celtics wearing an Elance brief.

But this is the best part.

Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds.

Do you know what his style of jockey underwear is called?

You see it there?

Yeah, I do.

International scants.

S-K-A-N-T-S.

International scants.

Ken Anderson of the Cincinnati Bengals is just wearing like exercise type stuff.

Yeah.

A low-rise sports short.

He looks pretty good.

And Jim Palmer is a gorgeous man.

I mean, you can see looking, even though he's wearing the International Scamp Tropex brief.

Wait, Trope brief.

T R-O-P-E-Z.

Sorry, it's small on the screen here.

Even though he's wearing a ridiculous, like, string bikini,

Jim Palmer looks pretty good, but that's because Jim Palmer is a remarkably handsome man.

Almost none of the other, outside of being professional athletes, none of these other men were selected for their good looks.

And you can see why Jim Palmer was an underwear spokesperson for like a decade after this.

And all the rest of these guys just went back to

playing guard for the Boston Celtics.

Right.

Being incredible athletes.

Yeah.

Betting on baseball.

Jennifer Marmer, I'm texting you this image now for you to post on the Instagram until we receive a cease and desist order from Jockey, Pete Rose, or All of Culture.

And for some reason, we have set up the precedent that we can now see you, but we cannot hear you.

So,

I would just like to watch your face as you open this file.

Steve Carlton has a look on his face, like, what, underwear?

I'm a dang pitcher.

Jennifer Marmor is looking at the image now, and I would just say that

a look of

sort of

despair has crossed her face.

It's not disgust.

It's just like

a deep sigh,

an exhalation of resignation.

I think the most interesting thing about Pete Rose is that this is, you know, this has to be the late 70s.

77.

And Pete Rose appears to have a quarantine haircut.

He seems to have given himself that haircut.

Yeah, he is a true.

The Pete Rose.

I don't know a lot about sports, but I knew enough about Pete Rose to know that

I would not be surprised by seeing his odd bowl cut.

I am surprised to see every other part of his body in significant detail.

Well, anyway, back to the case.

If this Pete Rose underwear ad has not gotten them to take you off the text thread yet, they will never do it, Mike.

They're obviously trying to annoy you at this point.

And there must be a technological solution.

You have to be able to block that thread, I would think, without blocking all the individual persons.

I will do what you ask.

I will order Mitch, Brendan, Matt, and Rebecca to take you off the thread.

I know they will not.

And if they continue to harass you in this way,

I don't know what

solution is there, Jesse Thorne.

Do you have one?

for Mike?

I think they should just loop me in on this.

I'm not really on any group text messages.

I always feel kind of left out when people talk about them.

I just, just my wife's family have one.

Yeah.

It's just them liking pictures of each other's children.

That's a good solution.

Mike, if you hear the sound of my voice now or in the future, write me at hodgman at maximumfund.org.

And

if you can add me to that text thread,

do so.

And then when I hear from them again, I will yell at them directly

And then I will block you all and throw my phone into a lake of fire

Someone push my door open.

Well,

sorry, I didn't see oh

Meanwhile

Sissy the dog has come in to lick Jesse's nose.

I think this is probably a good time for a nose lick break when we come back We'll hear a case from a former litigant about her weird dad, plus a note from my old Daily Show pal Rob Wriggle, about a Daily Show memory that I discussed on a past episode.

So come on back and hear more of Judge Sean Hodgman after this brief nose lick break.

You know, we've been doing My Brother, My Brother, me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah.

You don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on My Brother, My Brother, and Me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

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

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

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

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

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

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

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no.

It's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

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

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

We're back with the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Jesse can't talk right now because now another dog has gotten into his office.

Coco the dog.

Sissy pushed my office door open, and then she came in and sat on my lap.

But then Coco was jealous, so she came in and sat on my lap.

But Coco's not a nose looker.

She's just resting her head on my shoulder.

I'm pretty excited about this case from Melissa.

Let's hear it.

I seek justice against my father, the zero Coke guy

for another issue.

I hadn't thought about the Zero Coke guy in a while.

That was a guy who drank Coke Zero, but always called it Zero Coke.

Yeah.

Like most weird dads on the program, he did this specifically to annoy his child, Melissa in this case.

Now,

apparently he has not learned his lesson.

So Melissa's back.

What's the beef now with Weird Dad?

I'm staying with my parents right now due to the pandemic.

I brought home a bunch of food from my Brooklyn apartment and told them I'm happy to share.

One of the things I brought with me is a jar of Italian pistachio spread, which is a gift my parents parents gave to me.

This stuff is incredibly delicious and I'm slowly making my way through the jar, wanting to savor it as long as possible.

I've noticed my dad eating it on a few occasions in the past couple of weeks and asked him nicely to please not eat it all up since it was a present from him to me.

He argued, all food in the house is now fair game.

And since he paid for it, he's allowed to eat it.

Two classic dad arguments.

Pure classic dad arguments.

Please order my weird dad to stop eating the present he got me before it's all gone.

Do you have something in your pantry currently, Jesse, that because of what's going on in the world or just general scarcity, like

you're enjoying it a little bit at a time, hoping that no one comes in and eats it all?

Yeah, and it's something that I theoretically got as a present for my wife.

Oh.

That you got as a present for Teresa.

I claimed that it was a gift gift for Teresa, but in fact, I knew that it was secretly as much a gift for me as for my wife.

Tell me, what is it?

It's Luxardo cherries.

Oh,

Luxardo cherries.

Luxardo cherries.

They're the fancy kind of maraschino cherry.

And Ben Harrison,

our Max Fun colleague, the host of The Greatest Generation, among other podcasts.

Yes.

He is a a real cocktail nut, very serious cocktail nut.

And one day he told me,

What are you doing eating regular maraschino cherries?

You should be getting the Luxardos.

I said, Luxardos?

Give me a break.

How much better could a Luxardo be?

Maraschino cherries are maraschino cherries.

You had one Shirley Temple, you've had them all.

It turns out, Luxardo cherries are incredible,

but they cost like $20 a jar.

Yep.

So

you really have to plan out your eating.

You can't just sit there and eat them.

Look, we live in a time right now where we are reminded that a lot of the world doesn't have access to whatever they want whenever they want.

It's a good reminder.

Like Brian and his wife Samantha, who just thinks that there's an endless sea of felt tips for her to dry out.

And I don't know how long it's going to take for this jar of

Luxardo cherries that I'm ordering for you, Jesse, right now.

I don't know how long it's going to take to get to you.

It could be weeks.

But I am thrilled to send you some Luxardo cherries as a tribute to our friendship.

And I am also thrilled to offer to Melissa

to send her

a jar, a big old nice jar of pistachio cream.

I don't even know what it is.

I'll look it up.

Melissa, email me.

Let me know the brand of pistachio butter you want.

I'm going to send it to you.

That's going to be for you only.

And your dad,

zero Coke dad, cannot have any of it.

And

my only stipulation,

I'm going to send you two jars.

One for you to hide and have later on your own when you want.

And one for you to only eat in front of him.

Because guess what, zero Coke guy?

This is a great time to be generous.

It's a terrible time to be a weird dad playing mind games so that he can steal stuff from his own daughter.

Be generous of spirit, thought, and action right now if you can help it.

Don't steal people's pistachio mousse or I don't even know what it is.

What would you even have it on?

Maybe I'll get some too.

Yeah, I kind of want some.

All right, I'm going to send you a gift box.

Maraschino Cherries.

Maraschino Cherries and pistachio

pate.

Jennifer Marmor, anything you need?

She says no.

She says no.

All right.

I got to send her somebody to make up for this.

picture that I sent to her of Pete Rose and his international scants.

So we heard from a few listeners in response to episode 461, The Ballad of Sylvia, Fernando, and the Cat.

We talked about the order of putting on socks and shoes, which led John to talk about a time he noticed that Rob Riggle put on his shoes before putting on his pants.

Rob at the time had said that it was a Marines thing.

Yes, Rob is a

vet.

He's a veteran of the United States Marines.

Well, we asked Rob to elaborate on that, and he sent us this message.

Hey, John Hodgman, my friend, my good friend.

Hey, listen,

I heard you recant the tale of me putting on socks and shoes before I put on my pants during our days at the Daily Show, and somehow this stuck out to you.

I guess I claimed it was a marine thing.

Listen, I claim a lot of things are marine things when I do something unusual, and people generally give me a wide berth with that.

However,

there is some truth to the madness, I guess.

Listen,

it's much easier to go into battle with no pants on than it is with no shoes on.

It's a simple mobility thing.

You know, if you've got to run across rough terrain, rough ground, rocks, glass,

all kinds of metal, scrap metal,

you need to be able to run.

If you get a few cuts on your legs, whatever, big deal.

But you got to be able to move.

Mobility is key.

So that's why when you have to prioritize in dressing, you get on your shoes first,

then the rest, because you never know when you're going to have to move out.

It's just

an old rule.

No big deal.

And

that's what I recall.

I hope you're well, brother.

I guess that makes a lot of sense.

And I remember him sort of of explaining that to me at the time.

And I can't see what Pete Rose is wearing in this photo, but I bet he probably put on his socks and shoes first, too, because you never know when you might have a baseball emergency.

You might be sent out onto the field wearing only your scants.

So you think he's probably wearing some like filed metal cleats.

Yeah, no, I'm sure he's wearing baseball shoes and socks

just in case.

At all times.

At all times.

Now,

I was reassured that my memory was not completely broken when Rob,

my friend, my old friend, as he pointed out so pointedly,

when Rob sent me this message, but I did not discount the possibility that not only did he

lie to me back then when he did it about this being a marine tradition, but that he might be lying to me still just to make fun of me on my own podcast.

Very, very possible.

Love you, Rob.

But he's a joker.

Luckily, a listener named Zach also wrote in independently

claiming that he had also been in the armed services and confirming what Rob had said to me.

And he added another detail regarding dress uniforms.

Jesse, would you read that, please?

It's also worth noting that while wearing dress uniforms, shirt stays were used to keep the dress shirt taut and wrinkle-free while being worn.

These are attached at the the bottom of the shirt and at the top of the socks.

So one had to put their socks and shirt on before their slacks.

That's like an elastic band that attaches to the top of the socks and the bottom of the shirt.

That keeps the socks up and the shirt down.

That's amazing.

I want that.

Yeah, well, it's available to you.

Just go just go to your, what are those called?

CPOs?

What if I wear shorts over them?

Would that be appropriate?

If I wore dress shoes,

dress socks, a dress shirt, and military dress shorts.

And military dress shorts with the shirt stays coming down the side of my beautiful calves.

A bonus note, says Zach, it was common practice among my peers and I that you had both boots on before you tied them, as it's much easier to run to action with two untied boots than it is with only one tied boot.

Well, there you go.

Thank you very much, Zach and Rob, for confirming my faulty memory and providing some insight.

John, I think we've come to the end of this episode of Judge John Hodgman.

You know how I can tell?

Because Coco the dog is sitting on your lap saying it's time to go.

Yeah,

she said it was time to go using a power of a dog's body that, while completely silent, can be heard by all in the room through their nose if you know the power that I'm talking about that dogs have

that symbolizes that you should get in a different chair or go to another room

all right Jesse's got to give his chair up for Coco let's get us out of here

The docket is clear.

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

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Make sure to hashtag your judgejohnhodgman tweets, hashtag jjho.

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

That's at maximumfun.reddit.com.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org slash jjho or email hodgman at maximum fun.org.

Since we won that Webby, I want to offer a special thank you not only to our capable producer Jennifer Marmer,

but our other producers who have worked on the program, Jesus Ambrosio and Hannah Smith, and especially to what I have decided her title is our founding producer, Julia Smith, who put in many years of work to make this show what it is.

And we're very grateful for Julia's efforts here

along with everybody who's worked on our show.

We're very proud.

A lot of the greats, a lot of Mark McConville, Matt Gorley?

Mark McGonville and Matt Gorley, of course.

Yeah, they were

the Pistol Shrimps radio show stars used to

cut tape for Judge John Hodgman.

Yeah.

And yes, I also echo your thanks for everyone who's worked on the show and Julia, especially.

Thank you.

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

MaximumFun.org.

Comedy and culture.

Artist-owned.

Audience supported.