The Ballad of Silvia, Fernando, and the Cat

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 cleanest man in podcasting, Judge John Hodgman.

You don't know that at all.

You can't see me.

We are not in the same place, as we always record.

I mean, I'm always here in my home office in Brooklyn, but you're now in your home office in Los Angeles.

Quick question: a little bit inside audio baseball.

What are you using to prevent bounce back in your home office there, Jesse?

I have an extra wide monitor.

I don't need all the width

to read the script for this show,

but my microphone faces it, like I face it when I'm speaking into my microphone.

Right.

And so I have draped a down vest over my monitor.

A down vest?

A down vest, yes.

Well, let me tell you how I do it.

Look, you're the master of podcasting.

You brought me into this world.

You raised me up in this world.

I'm not going to be like now the student is the master kind of deal, but I've been doing it from home a lot longer than you have.

You have a nice studio out there at Max Fun HQ, which I hope and trust you'll return to soon.

But over here in Hodge Central, like, I don't have an extra wide monitor.

I've got all kinds of egg crate baffling that I bought in shame after you told me that I sounded like I was recording from a bat cave.

And

I don't have a downed vest.

I don't need it to control the bounce back for my extra wide monitor because I do the show entirely from reading off of my Apple watch.

It's not true.

Not true.

I got a laptop.

It's an Apple, though.

I still stand a legend.

Apple.

Hey, Apple, here's an idea.

Apple,

put me on your commercials again.

Please.

I was going to say sponsor the podcast, but that would would be a waste of my breath.

I don't care about that.

Put me on your commercials, please.

Yeah, I can play your competitor or whatever.

John is now the apple.

This is how it works.

John's the apple, and I'm a Motorola razor or whatever.

I won't do it without Justin Long.

I'm sorry, Jesse Porn.

You can get a part in it for sure.

Justin can't be in it.

Justin Long, who I'm on a first-name basis with, apparently.

Sure.

Justin Long can be one of those Nokias.

You know what I mean?

You're one of those guys you're on a first-name basis with, but you still say his full name.

I gotcha.

Yeah.

I said Justin can originally.

He's one of those Nokias.

You're an Apple phone,

which is what they're called.

That's a brand name.

I'm a Motorola Razor, and he's playing that snake game.

I don't need to reinvent this wheel, Jesse Thorne.

We had a good thing going.

You know how I always say on the podcast that nostalgia is a toxic impulse?

Yeah.

I take it back.

Let's go back.

Let's go back.

Let's go back in time.

10 years, 2009.

Jennifer can be in it too.

I'm putting Jennifer Marma, our producer, in this too.

As long as I'm casting, I'm throwing her in there because she needs some residuals too.

I'm going to make her a Texas Instruments graphing calculator.

Chuck Bryant, co-host of Stuff You Should Know and also host of Movie Crush on another network, but our friend.

Once took me to task for saying nostalgia was a toxic impulse because it had been shown scientifically that looking at old, old, beloved culture from the past, comic books, TV shows, or whatever, makes you feel real good.

And I was like, Yeah, that's fine.

That's why it's so seductive.

It makes you feel good, but you got to move forward.

I take it all back.

Forget it.

You know how I fell asleep last night, Jesse Thorne?

How?

I found a YouTube, which was just a reel of commercials that showed on Channel 56 in 1981.

I just watched them.

Just watched TV commercials for my hometown UHF channel, 1981.

It was pure serotonin.

I loved it.

Everyone, do what you need to do in order to feel calm in these uncertain times.

And we're so glad to be with you here clearing the docket.

That's what we're doing.

Correct, Jesse?

Whatever you need to feel good, whether it's nostalgia or in the case of Ray Parker Jr., busting.

Yeah.

Busting makes him feel good.

That's why he was a volunteer ghostbuster.

He's like, they offered to pay him.

He's like, no, it just makes me feel good.

And I'm like, we got to have you on the books for something or else we're going to get in even more trouble with the DEA.

So he took an, he was a $1 a year man for the Ghostbusters Inc.

Let's get into some justice.

Here's something from Holly.

She says, my husband Ben puts on his socks and shoes in the following manner.

Sock, shoe, sock, shoe.

which he claims is perfectly normal.

He also puts on our two-year-old daughter's shoes in the same manner.

I don't want her future buddies to ridicule her for this bizarre behavior, like when I was a child and had been trained by my parents to eat pizza with a knife and fork.

I would love an injunction that says that my husband must put on his and any future child's socks and shoes in the sock, sock, shoe, shoe order.

Sock, sock, shoe, shoe.

Oh, what a relief it is.

That was one of the commercials I watched.

First of all, you can eat pizza with a knife and fork.

Everybody, stop it.

It's fine.

Lots of pizzas are traditionally eaten with a knife and fork.

I came across this huge list of regional pizzas.

I don't have it at my fingertips now.

I'll find it during the break and I'll give it to everybody because it was incredible to read the list of regional pizzas.

St.

Louis regional pizza is like served on matzah bread.

Who knew?

Anyway.

Prevelle.

Isn't St.

Louis pizza made with Prevel cheese?

Prevelle, which is like provolone and mozzarella and cheddar blend of some kind.

We'll get to it after the break.

I'll find it and we'll go through a few pizzas.

That's another thing that's pure serotonin.

Just even thinking about pizza.

It's good feeling.

But let's get to this sock, sock, shoe, shoe.

So there was an episode, speaking of nostalgia, I believe that there was an episode of All in the Family

where

Carol O'Connor, aka Archie Bunker, finds Rob Reiner, Meathead, putting his shoes on, quote unquote, the wrong way.

And I think it was that Meathead

was putting on a sock and a shoe and a sock and a shoe.

I think Archie Bunker was correct in this one, or at least on the side of Holly.

And the argument was, Archie Bunker's argument was, if you get interrupted, and this is all from memory, this is all off the dome.

I could be wrong here.

If you only get your socks, you can put your socks on first, because if that's all you have time to do, at least your feet are partly covered.

like if an emergency happens, at least you have both socks on.

And I remember that made a lot of sense to me.

And then later on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, a show I used to be on, I watched Rob Wriggle do a thing that I had never seen before in my life.

He was getting dressed to go on camera, so he was putting on his, you know, his nice suit, his correspondence suit and shoes.

Head to toe, even though you would never see those feet.

Rob Wriggle isn't going to wear sneakers out there.

And he put on a sock and a sock and a shoe and a shoe and then he put on his

pants

what

what yeah

and he's not a

slenderman rob wriggle is a beefy boy he's a big beefy boy very muscular former marine

and he very delicately and expertly pointed his toe and pulled his suit pants up over one shoe and then the next.

And I seem to recall saying to Rob, that's amazing.

He said, that's what I learned in the Marines.

That can't be true, though.

All of my memories must be false.

How could that possibly be so?

And it must be Marine-specific.

My father is a Navy veteran.

Well, yeah.

I don't remember him doing this nonsense.

And also, you know, unless you are in dress uniform, you're not going to be wearing dress shoes in the Marine.

You're going to be wearing boots.

You can't get fatigues on over boots, or maybe you can.

But I feel like I remember him saying that it was the same argument, like that it was like, if there's an emergency, you want to have your feet covered first so you can jump out of that tent and start scrambling in your underwear.

I don't know.

This could all be wrong.

I should have looked all of this up, but I figured I would go off of my perfect memory and take us on a little nostalgia trip into the back recesses of my adult mind.

Write me if you know the all-in-the-family episode I'm talking about and know what was really happening in that episode, or if you're Rob Wriggle and I'm wrong.

Hodgman at maximumfund.org.

Well, let's get back to this.

Jesse Thorne, you seem to be under the, the, not an impression, but conviction that it should be sock, sock, shoe, shoe, correct?

Does Ben have a leg to stand on, so to speak?

I mean,

far be it from me to disagree with Rob Reiner.

I didn't direct The Princess Bride.

And, you know, far be it from me to agree with Archie Punker on something.

Right.

But

yeah, seems pretty bonkers to me.

I mean, what,

do you just glump around if something happens in the middle?

It really does come down to the sense of an emergency could happen as I'm putting on my shoes.

I also have cold toes, and I would hate to go through the whole process of putting a shoe on while my other foot's toes were completely exposed to the elements.

Yeah, it seems very uncomfortable

to, you know, go because basically

putting on clothes is an act of civilization.

You are civilizing, for good or for ill, your feet as you put on socks and shoes.

You are moving from a natural state to an unnatural state of clothedness.

No offense.

You don't have to explain it to me.

I've read Babar.

I don't think he...

Oh, he wore shoes over those big elephant feet, didn't he?

Yeah, he wears a beautiful suit.

He goes and gets it in town.

It's a very colonialist story.

I know, but it's not just a beautiful green three-piece suit that he buys, but he also

has elephantine shoes.

Yeah.

But yes, it is an act for good or for ill of moving away from nature.

And therefore, it feels to me,

well, it's complicated to say it, but it feels more natural.

to make that transition more gradual.

In other words, I civilize this foot part way with one sock.

I civilize this foot part part way with one sock.

And then I add this shoe and then I add this shoe.

And then if I'm Rob Wriggle, then I go ahead and add pants.

Maybe he just doesn't like wearing pants.

That actually makes a lot more sense.

Like he'll wait to the very last second to put on pants.

That feels like a Wriggle thing to me.

There is something a little unnerving to me as I sit here and think about it.

of like having a sock and a shoe on one foot and just a bare foot and then looking down and seeing the fully denaturalized foot, the fully man's world foot, and on the one hand, or actually on the one foot, literally, on the left-hand side, that's what I'm picturing.

And then the bare proto-foot on the other side.

That just feels like a poster that shows evolution.

I don't like one foot being that far behind the other.

It's unnatural or uncivilized or both.

I guess I should rule in favor of preference because

even though there does seem to be this species-wide sense of like, I got to get these shoes and socks on as quickly and efficiently as possible because an emergency could happen at any moment.

That

rarely does.

So, really, I should rule in favor of Ben's preference.

But I feel like Kali is right.

That's just weird.

It's just weird.

Am I wrong to rule against a person's preference in this regard, Jesse?

I don't think so.

Yeah.

Ben.

We're protecting the children.

Ben, you're doing it wrong.

By the way, that two-year-old's never going to have more than one suck on at any time anyway, so it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter for now.

But Holly, you can eat pizza with a knife and fork.

Ben, don't let one foot freeze in the past of pre-civilization while the other foot is fully shod.

That's my ruling.

Like it or leave it.

Drew says, my wife Samantha begins conversations with me while I am engaged in another activity, such as doing the dishes or changing a diaper.

Oh, what a brag.

Go on, Drew.

She often does this from across the room, or facing away from me, or while she's actually in another room.

I often miss the first line and ask her to repeat herself.

She finds this irritating.

I've suggested she get my attention by saying my name first, but she finds this irritating.

I request that Judge John Hodgman order my wife to only initiate conversations from within 15 feet of me while physically facing me and from within the same room as me.

Or she should be prepared to repeat herself without being annoyed.

And I, Jesse, interject to ask you issue the same order to my six-year-old and my eight-year-old.

My wife, Samantha, begins conversations with me while I'm engaged in other activity, such as doing the dishes or changing changing a diaper or emptying the dishwasher or making a home-cooked meal or rehabilitating a wounded swan.

Yeah, we get it, Drew.

You're enlightened.

Good for you.

CPR on one of those pandas at the National Zoo that everyone loves so much.

Yeah.

Yeah, we have a real problem in our house, though, Jesse, also with people yelling from room to room.

There's a really, I mean, and it's,

I mean, I, you, you've always lived in homes as opposed to apartments, so, but it sounds like you have the same deal.

Well, I haven't always lived my entire life in homes as opposed to apartments.

I mean,

of course, yeah.

But with, but since I've had children, uh, we've lived in homes or what you might call flats, multi-unit buildings that aren't apartments.

Right.

Do you have a problem with a lot of yelling from room to room?

People starting conversations?

Makes me feel completely insane, but to be fair, so does all communication with other people while I'm in my home.

I understand.

As someone who grew up without peer-aged siblings,

I see as an unbearable invasion of my at-home privacy.

As far as I'm concerned, as soon as I walk through the door of my home, no one should speak to me until I leave my home again later.

Well, your whole career is so communication-based.

When you get home, you want to leave work behind, and therefore you want to be silent.

That's how I would feel.

Thank you.

That's a generous way of looking at it.

I would also add to that that I'm probably a bad person.

No, you're not a bad person.

Come on.

We all have to go easy on ourselves.

But that doesn't mean I have to go easy on Drew's wife, Samantha.

Samantha, I don't know what you're doing when Drew is in there churning butter or writing thank you cards to all of your friends and relatives for all the holiday gifts or wrapping presents or mending a bat's wing

and guided through the hole in the wall of your bathroom.

Shout out to Bat Brothers, one of the great Judge and Hodgman episodes.

Samantha's probably in there with her friends having a beer or watching the game or like, I don't know what, digging a ditch, whatever.

Starting conversations from other rooms and expecting to be listened to is NG.

At this point, you're probably

really extra sick of each other because you're probably all living very close quarters together.

But absolutely.

That's all the more reason to be a little bit more respectful of what people need in order to get through this period of time where we're all stuck with each other.

I grant Drew his request that Samantha only initiate conversations from within 15 feet of him.

I will add that it should be within a boundary of 15 to 6 feet, a maximum to a minimum, while physically facing you and from the same room.

Yeah, calling from room to room is bad for people's nerves and bad for people's communication.

And this is a time when we need to be a little bit more forgiving and a little bit more communicative.

And won't you help Drew change a diaper once, Samantha?

Get in there.

Come on, it's nappy time.

Let's take a quick break.

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

I'm going to look up that list of pizzas and forget about what a braggy gus Drew is.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is brought to you every week by you, our members, of course.

Thank you so so much for your support of this podcast and all of your favorite podcasts at maximumfund.org, and they are all your favorites.

If you want to join the many member supporters of this podcast and this network, boy, oh boy, that would be fantastic.

Just go to maximumfund.org/slash join.

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

Now, Jesse Thorne, did you see me a couple weeks ago on

Have I Got News For You on CNN with Roy Wood Jr., Amber Ruffin, Aquila Hughes, and Michael Ian Black?

No, that was a murderous row.

Of course, I watched that.

I love topical humor.

I was on that show, and you know, the first thing that happened when

I got on set was people said to me, what a great outfit.

And you know how I knew they weren't buying?

Because I was wearing quints.

I was wearing my brand new, most beloved wide whale royal blue denim style jacket.

Denim, like a denim jacket cut, but it was made out of this soft wide whale corduroy.

I love it so much.

And that's not to mention the 100% record I have getting compliments on my cotton PK over shirts.

That's not to mention that I just got a notification on my phone that the pants that I ordered from Quince are on their way.

Yes, I'm going head to toe, Quince.

You know why?

Because I like getting compliments and I get compliments every time I wear their wonderful clothes, especially now that it's getting a little chillier outside.

These are warm, wonderful, soft, and yet sharp and snazzy clothes that I can wear in the fall and then later in the winter.

Then later I'll do something for the spring.

Quince delivers every time with wardrobe staples that are designed to carry you from this end every season.

And the best part is that by working with top artisans and cutting out the middleman, Quince gives you this luxury clothing experience at about half the cost of similar brands.

And I'm not just hearing this from my own dun head.

My wife is a whole human being in her own right shops at Quince now.

Our daughter does, and it's a great way.

And I'm going to get

a bunch of clothes for our son for the the holidays.

And maybe you should too.

Layer up this fall with pieces that feel as good as they look.

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

Now available in Canada as well.

That's q-u-in-ce-e.com slash jjh-o, free shipping, 365-day returns, quince.com/slash jjh-o.

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

John, have you been eating off your made-in

plates and bowls lately?

Are you talking about my world-famous entree bowls?

Yeah, I'm talking about entree bowls, but you know what?

It's okay to put a more voluminous

appetizer into those bowls.

I'm going to tell you what.

I've got made-in regular plates.

I've got made-in salad plates.

I've got made-in regular bowls.

And then I got these entree bowls.

And you you know, I got the entree bowls.

I specifically asked for them for the holidays, for my wife who's a whole human being in her own right because our children grew up and moved away.

And that means all we do is eat dinner in front of the television.

And if you're sitting on a couch, there's no better way to eat your meal than out of an entree bowl.

It's like a big dinner plate, but it's curved on the sides.

So you have some protection.

It's the ultimate eating festival, particularly in soup season.

And for all of that, it also looks really good.

Like all the made-in cookware, tableware, glassware.

It's made to look good and it's made to work good for both the pros, like Tom Calicio and Brooke Williamson and all the other professional chefs who use it in their professional kitchens and for home cooks like me, like Jesse, like Jennifer, and all of you.

And of course, it's sold online and delivered to your door.

So you get the premium stuff at a shockingly reasonable price.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

I will never go to another kitchen retailer for any piece of equipment, be it knives, tableware, glassware, cookware, everything that I've ever touched from Made In.

Not only does it work great, but I want to touch it again and again.

For full details, visit madeincookware.com.

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

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

This week, we're clearing the docket and listing pizzas.

Detroit style.

It's square.

Maybe you don't need a list of pizzas like I did, but I did.

Oh, and of course it's from our friends at Sirius Eats, one of our favorite websites, SiriusEats.com.

Just type in Sirius Eats.

Gallery, colon.

Do you know these regional pizza styles?

Neapolitan.

Philadelphia tomato pie.

Roman pizza taglio.

Sciacciata.

Swiscioni.

Pizza di sfrioli.

Pizza bianca.

French bread pizza.

Oh, it's so good.

I just read this all day long.

New Haven style, grilled pizza, bar pizza, Trenton tomato pies, old forge pies, Detroit style.

There you go.

You already knew about Detroit style.

What do you got on Detroit-style pizza, Jesse?

I'd never heard of it before.

Well, it's very close to the Sicilian-style pizzas, or is also known in other places as Italian bakery-style pizza.

It's square with a thick, deep-dish crust, sometimes twice-baked, and with sauce put on the pizza last.

Wikipedia says some parlors will apply melted butter with a soft brush to the dough prior to baking.

Sounds delicious.

Yeah, that sounds great.

I see the sauce is kind of drizzled on top.

Oh, I'll have to give that a try.

And St.

Louis style pizza, this is the Prevelle that we were talking about earlier.

And I quote the author of this article, Adam Cuban, or Cuban, K-U-B-A-N.

I apologize if I'm mispronouncing it, but

he writes,

this style's very thin cracker-like crust is unleavened, like matzah.

And it's topped with a special three-cheese blend, Provolone.

Oh.

This is the Provel.

What do you think the three cheeses in Provel are, according to this article?

Provolone is one of them.

What's another?

Cheddar.

You got it.

White cheddar.

And there's a third out there.

I'm going to give you a hint.

It's not mozzarella.

This is a wild card, a real wild card.

American?

Swiss.

Weird.

Oh, wow.

St.

Louis style pizza.

Well, there you go, everybody.

Go to seriouseats.com.

This is probably a time when you're having to cook for yourself more than you might have if you live in an urban area

and you're not able to support your local restaurants by taking in all the time.

You're probably

stoking the home fires and cooking some new recipes.

And we get nothing from saying this, but our friend Jake Henji Lopez-Alt has helped us out with so many episodes of Judge John Hodgman.

And he and the team at Serious Eats put together some good recipes.

Seriouseats.com, we get no money for it.

End of break.

Let's go on.

Isao says, I hope I got that right.

My significant other and I love to cook and bake.

I believe cupcakes are just small personal versions of cake.

She disagrees.

She says cupcakes are their own separate things from cake and do not have any similarities to cakes other than the fact that they share similar ingredients.

Can you help make a ruling on this?

Yeah.

Isao, your wife is wrong, I think.

Yeah.

They're literally just cakes and cups.

I am someone who believes

that distinctions have meaning.

That because a hot dog in many structural senses resembles a sandwich, that does not mean that it is a sandwich, and it is okay for it to be its own thing.

So I was inclined

before judging to maybe lean towards the side of Esau's wife.

But I am not a baker.

And so I consulted Better Homes and Gardens.

And I consulted King Arthur Flower, which is one of the great baking resources on the website.

The website called the internet.

There's more than one website, but you know what I mean.

And

looking for some distinction, some chemical or structural distinction that would invalidate my basic feeling that, like, yeah, it's just a small version of a cake.

And the truth is, there's no difference between the batter.

Usually, according to King Arthur, you would use a creamed butter batter, which is sort of your basic white cake or chocolate cake style crumb batter.

A pound cake batter would not work quite properly in a cupcake form.

It doesn't raise the same way.

But in making cupcakes between a classic birthday cake and a cupcake, same batter, the only difference is cupcakes cook faster.

Now, obviously, a cupcake is a personal cake.

A birthday cake, a regular size cake, is something to be shared and enjoyed with a group of people, whereas a cupcake is something to be hoarded and enjoyed privately in a corner somewhere by yourself.

But they are essentially physically the same thing.

And I can't,

I think the name says it all.

One is a cake and one is a cupcake.

And that is all the distinction they need.

They need no further distinction.

I think he saw his right in this one.

Jesse, have you been doing any baking?

Do you bake?

I do.

I don't bake bread.

I don't bake cake because I don't like cake.

But I do bake a fair amount of cookies, particularly chocolate chip cookies, which are my favorite type of cookie.

Right.

Because they're the best cookie by a very wide margin.

Yeah, I can't think of a better cookie than a chocolate chip cookie.

There's other kinds of cookies that are good and even very good, but the reason chocolate chip cookies are so popular is because they're spectacularly good.

Yeah, there's a certain alchemy there that can't be beat, certainly not by a peanut butter cookie.

I'm trying to think of any other cookie that is as good as a chocolate chip cookie.

And I don't eat a lot of cookies, you know?

Yeah.

I like a shortbread, but that's not a cookie.

There are distinctions, but that's my feeling.

Cupcakes, they're just little cakes in cups.

That's why they're called that.

Here's something from John.

My wife says the phrase, bull in a china closet, a habit that she may have inherited from her family.

The correct form, bull in a china shop, is attested in many sources, notably the lyrics to radio heads punch up at a wedding.

It's the first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary.

That's right.

I ask you to order her to revert to the correct form.

Sure.

These are easy ones.

Look, I did a little poking around and I've not been able to find

a definitive origin of the term or a first citation of the term bull in a china shop, but it is definitely the saying.

Whereas bull in a china closet is completely alien to my ears.

And when I Google that phrase, it only leads to people fighting about

why is anyone saying bull in a china closet?

It's called bull in a china shop.

Bull in a china shop makes sense.

It is how you describe a boorish, undelicate person smashing their way through a situation that requires delicacy, that is, navigating a china shop.

Bull in a China closet is a metaphor for what?

An imprisoned bull?

I don't get it.

Well,

in the closet that people have, specifically for their China.

Yeah, a China cabinet, you would say, right?

Yeah.

Right.

You know, it wouldn't have a, it's not like you fill your pantry with China.

There's enough fighting about this on the internet that I am not going to say

that John's wife is alone in the world

who has started to use this evolution of the term.

But the term is clearly bull in a China shop, and that is the original term.

And if you know or can cite where that term was first used in print, it should be easy to find out.

I'm a bit of a failure for not finding out myself.

Let us know.

Write us at hodgman at maximumfun.org.

I don't think it was Radiohead's punch-up at a wedding.

But at least John offers some textual support for his argument, as opposed to John's wife, who just probably heard it through a game of telephone over the years.

Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, we'll hear a case about catnapping and a letter about hat types.

Hi, I'm Amber Nash, the voice of Pam Poovy on the groundbreaking FX animated comedy Archer.

Remember Archer?

I sure don't.

That's why I started rephrasing an Archer rewatch podcast on maximumfun.org.

Join me and a bevy of special guests as we discuss every episode of Archer starting from the very beginning.

Archer executive producer Casey Willis and editor Christian Danley will provide insight and fun and help me remember everything I've forgotten about Archer, which is a lot.

So join me on rephrasing an Archer rewatch podcast on maximumfun.org because I can't wait to watch Archer again for the very first time.

The Wizards answer eight by eight.

The conclave's call to demonstrate their arcane gift, their single spell.

They number 64

until

a conflagration

63

and 62 they soon shall be, as one by one the wizards die.

Till one remains to reign on high

Join us for Taz Royale, an oops all-wizards battle royale season of the adventure zone every other Thursday on maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket.

Here's something from Gabriella.

I just want this pizza so bad.

Look at all these pizzas.

I know.

I'd take any of them.

I'd take any pizza right now.

Right?

It's like pizza is the chocolate chip cookie of

pizza.

It really is.

I would say pizza is the chocolate chip cookie of overall.

Oh, wow.

Pizza is the chocolate chip cookie of foods?

I think pizza is the greatest food that the most people agree on.

I mean, it's basically perfect.

And there's no doubt about it in my mind.

I love lots of fancy foods.

I love

steaks.

I love

all kinds of things.

I love cheeseburgers.

These are all really great foods, but nothing beats pizza.

Yeah.

I think I got to go with you.

Let's put it this way.

There is no dispute in the world of round foods,

chocolate chip cookies are the best cookies.

And pizza is the best of all food that is round.

You know what I mean?

Like, that's easy.

Tip of the hat to pies.

Tip of the hat to pies.

Yeah, close runner-up.

But yeah, I think you're absolutely right.

Yeah.

Pizza may be the chocolate chip cookie of all savory foods.

I look forward to your letters.

Boy, oh boy, I've got nothing else to do.

Send them in.

Hodgman at maximumfun.org.

Tell me why I'm wrong.

I always enjoy it.

Let's go on.

Here's something from Gabriela.

My My friends Sylvia and Fernando have a neighbor with a cat that likes to roam onto their terrace.

They've started welcoming it into their home and buying cat food to encourage it to come over.

More recently, Sylvia took her neighbor's cat to the vet without her neighbor's permission.

Are my friends' catnappers?

What?

Sylvia, Fernando, how dare you?

First of all, this sounds like a romantic ballad of Silvia and Fernando and the cat.

Just incorporate a Spanish guitar and we're in business.

Yeah.

And Silvia Fernando il El Gato

Estrano.

You know what?

I say we move it to Mexico and make this a guitaron.

I think so too.

I mean, it's just, there's something of a fable to this.

John, I saw a guitar on at the thrift store back when thrift stores were still open.

Yeah.

And, you know, I've recently learned to play some chords on the ukulele.

Yeah, quite a few, and you do a good job.

Thank you.

And my desire to buy and learn to play a Guitaron

was so overwhelming that I had to just leave the store immediately, lest I purchase

a 12-foot beast of a musical instrument.

For those who may be listening and who do not know what a Guitaron is, or for those who are listening and don't know what a Guitaron is, but don't want to pretend like they do know what a guitaron is, like me, will you explain what one is?

A guitaron is a giant guitar.

It's the type of guitar that is typically played in a mariachi ensemble, among other types of.

I've mostly seen them in Mexican music.

But

sure,

yeah, the big giant ones with the big bellies on them.

Yeah.

Those things are real monsters.

And I just thought, man, I'd love to alternate between a ukulele and one of these beasts.

I'll tell you something.

I don't know when we're going to be able to get back on the road to do live Judge Sean Hodgman shows.

But when that happens, it's going to happen because we all stayed home.

We were prudent.

We practiced social distancing.

We supported our healthcare workers.

We waited it out.

We hopefully minimized

the real-life damage and got through this.

And, Jesse,

I make this promise to you and the listeners of Judge John Hodgman.

The next time we are live and can be together again in person,

I'm getting you a guitar on, and you're going to play it on stage.

It's a promise.

A Judge John Hodgman promise.

An oath, I dare say.

As long as you're flying it in and out.

Yeah, I'm going to have to buy an extra seat on the airplane.

It's going to be a mess.

I'm not saying on every show.

Let's say at the Los Angeles show.

At a bare minimum, at the Los Angeles show.

And I'll get it to you in time so that you can practice a few Guitaron songs.

You know, I have a friend named Camilo Landau, a good buddy of mine from high school, who plays in a Latin rock band called Carne Cruda.

And

I'm sure that Camilo Landau owns and knows how to play a Guitaron.

So we'll get him to come down from the Bay Area and he can show me a few sweet licks.

Give you some lessons.

Yeah, of course.

But meanwhile, we have the fable of Silvia and Fernando, who I imagine

there's so much about this that feels fabulistic.

Like, they have a terrace.

I imagine them as a childless couple wondering when they will have a child, if they will have a child, and then a cat wanders onto the terrace, and the cat becomes their special friend, and they start feeding the cat and imagining that they are building this little family with this little strange cat, El Gato Estano.

I don't know if my Spanish is correct there, but leave me alone.

And then they care so much for this little kitty that they decide to get a little checkup from the vet, and they go there as a little family.

And the vet gives little fake baby, that's the name of the cat now, fake baby,

A clean bill of health, and they go home as a good family.

And what they don't see is the cat's actual person

crying at home because she or he or they doesn't know where their cat is.

You can't take a stranger's cat to the vet, Sylvia and Fernando.

I mean, I guess if there was clear and obvious evidence of abuse or horrible neglect, there might be a moral imperative.

But

nothing in here from Gabriella, and, you know, Sylvia and Fernando, defend yourselves if you want to write us a letter.

But nothing in here suggests anything that

other than Sylvia and Fernando just like this cat and want to make it theirs.

They're catnappers.

They napped a cat.

That makes them catnappers.

You know, words have meaning.

You nap a cat, you're a catnapper.

That's how it goes.

A listener named Michael wrote in with some feedback on the episode Tattoos of Limitation.

Here's what he had to say.

As it happens, one of my little weirdsies, copyright Linda Holmes, Pop Culture Happy Hour, is that I like to be very precise about hat types.

I'm annoyed when someone says fedora when they mean Trilby or Top Hat instead of pork pie hat.

Can you just be annoyed when someone says fedora?

Sorry.

Your bailiff is something of a fashion expert, and as a fake legal professional, I'm sure you can appreciate the importance of precise language.

You can imagine my dismay, then, when your honor referred to the photo of Scott's doctoral hooding as a mortarboard, because it is, in fact, a doctoral tam.

I also have a PhD, and I'd be lying if I said getting to wear a tam instead of a mortarboard didn't factor into my decision to spend all that time in school.

The square academic cap, graduate cap, cap, mortarboard, or Oxford cap is an item of academic dress consisting of a horizontal square board

fixed upon a skull cap with a tassel attached to the center.

In the UK and the US, it is commonly referred to informally in conjunction with an academic gown as cap and gown.

It is also sometimes termed a square, a trencher, or corner cap.

The adjective academical is also used.

Doctorate holders of some universities wear the mortarboard, although the round tutor tutor bonnet is more common in Britain, the four, six, or eight cornered Tam is getting popularity in the U.S.

And in general, a soft square Tam is some acceptance for women.

Look, it's Wikipedia.

I know this is all crowdsourced by,

well, frankly, know-it-alls like you.

Michael.

But you're not doing your job as a know-it-all if you're letting this Wikipedia article contradict every statement that you made in your letter.

I don't see anything about a doctoral tam here.

And mortarboard is common sense and common usage description of academic square pie hat or whatever the heck you want to call it.

Don't come at me and premise this by saying it's not a fedora, it's a trilby,

which of course is itself its own disgusting meme on the internet.

Go look it up.

Not disgusting, like gross, but it's just

loaded.

Let's put it that way.

And then come at me and say it's called a doctoral tam.

Doctoral Tam.

Jesse Thorne, what do you think?

Did you ever decorate your mortarboard when you were graduating from college or high school?

Doctoral Tam isn't even a mortarboard.

That's not even what I'm talking about.

Now I'm

looking it up.

It's this soft, like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, like octagonal thing.

Different thing.

It's not a fedora.

It's a doctoral tam.

My friend Max Ritzenberg decorated his mortarboard.

You know, I went to arts high school, so everybody decorated their mortarboard.

He used

pipe cleaners, yellow pipe cleaners, to recreate his spiky hair on top of his mortarboard.

It looked really great.

It was really awesome.

I just took a,

you know, like a hunting lure duck

and glued it.

to my hat.

Yeah, a doctoral tam is a soft, it's a tam.

It's like a tam o' shanter.

It's like a tam.

It's a soft flat cap.

It's not a stiff board, a mortar board that kids use to create dioramas

for their graduations.

Now, I get where you're coming from now.

I'm glad.

Look, I'm going to offer you this

olive branch.

Well, technically, it was not an olive branch, but an olive leaf.

Whatever.

Offer you this olive branch, Michael.

I bet you're right.

First of all, thank you for introducing me to a new term, doctoral Tam.

Never heard of it before.

Glad to know it.

Thanks for getting me all riled up.

Frankly, I need to.

It's the best form of exercise I have these days, and I'm inside most of the day.

And probably if I go back and look at the photo of Scott,

the person with tattoos in the tattoos of limitation episode,

what I would see is not a mortar board, but a doctoral tam.

And I'm looking at it right now.

And God

or whatever.

Damn it, Michael.

Oh, you're right.

It's a doctoral tam.

Oh.

I see it now.

I see the photo.

It is that weird octagonal, soft thing.

There's no way you could put pipe cleaners on there.

You couldn't mount anything on there.

It's a soft, octagonal, or septagonal, velvety

doctoral tam.

The folks at Coal Hardware on Mission Street in San Francisco were kind enough to hook me up with some industrial strength adhesive Velcro to attach it.

That was their recommendation.

Technically, it's not adhesive Velcro.

It's duct tape.

And technically, it's duct tape.

Anyway, look.

Surely they recommended.

Dehynawell?

Look, I'm flailing here.

I went off on Michael, who's going to a real emotional roller coaster.

And when I put it together that he was probably referring to that actual photo, I should have done my homework and I didn't.

And

look,

my humiliation is entertainment enough for you.

And it is important to admit when we're wrong.

Michael, I was wrong.

Doctoral Tam is correct.

Ugh.

Let's get out of here, Jesse.

Let's eat some pizza.

You know, a trolby is actually kind of a

subtype of fedora.

It's like a short-brimmed fedora typically.

It's not even really.

Like,

I often have the impulse to correct people talking about fedoras back in the days when

every annoying doofus was wearing a $30 mall hat store trilby.

And then they'd be like, oh, every, and then people would be like, oh, every annoying doofus is wearing a fedora these days.

And I'd be wanted to be like, well, it's actually a trilby, but it's sort of a subtype.

But that was what I'm referring.

That's what the annoying doofuses would say back to the fedora people online.

And it became a cliche.

If you were an annoying doofus wearing a fedora and someone said, you're an annoying doofus wearing a fedora, the annoying doofus would say, actually, madam, it's a trilby.

As though that was going to save them from doofism.

Doofism will consume you.

It's true.

Hyper-correctional doofism will consume you, but it'll eat me alive first.

I look forward to your letters.

Hodgman at maximumfun.org.

I think that's it, right, Jesse?

Can we eat some pizza now?

The docket's clear.

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

Our producer is the ever-capable Jennifer Marmer, who right now is wearing a humburg.

She's not really wearing a humberg.

Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Make sure to hashtag your judgejohn Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ H.

O.

And check out the Maximum Fun subreddit to discuss this episode.

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

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

Send me your memories of Rob Riggle putting his pants on.

MaximumFun.org.

Comedy and culture.

Artist owned, audience supported.