Barbecuties

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

And with me is the King of the Cats, Judge John Hodgman.

Oh, I haven't been King of the Cats for some time.

I'm barely an Earl of Cats.

A viceroy, perhaps?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like on Naboo, my royal title is actually ceremonial and elected.

And I've given up my term of office as king of cats, and now I'm chamberlain of cats.

Is Naboo, is that Star Wars?

Yeah, that's a Star Wars.

Which, who's on Naboo?

Princess Amidallah was the queen of Naboo, and then she wasn't.

She became the senator of Naboo.

Is that one of the prequel characters?

That's from the Phantom Menace.

20 years ago.

We were disappointed by that film.

The Great Trauma was visited on.

No, 20 years ago, we saw what happens when someone is able to make their vision with unlimited resources and no one willing to tell them that's not a good idea?

And I think that the Phantom Menace, it gave us Darth Maul, it gave us a double-bladed lightsaber, it gave us some cool stuff.

I remember thinking there was a lot of cool-looking stuff in that movie.

Yeah, and Princess Amidala's costuming was tremendous, incredible.

Also gave us some extremely bad alien ethnic stereotypes that should not have flown.

Never mind at light speed, even even on impulse drive, should not have flown.

But did, weirdly.

Hadn't he not made a movie for like 20 years before that?

I think the last movie that he had a hand in was the Radioland Murders.

But I don't know that he was credited as a director on anything since Star Wars.

And he had a producer.

on Star Wars A New Hope and Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back named Gary Kurtzman, I want to say.

We'll get letters, who was kind of like a counterforce to George Lucas's vision.

Not his vision, but a counterforce to George's impulses, right?

And then he left after Return of the Jedi or before Return of the Jedi.

And then George Lucas stewed in his ideas.

And the world wanted to know what happens if you can make your art with unlimited resources and zero pushback on any level.

And the Phantom Menace is a very important object lesson in why art needs a little bit of friction, a little bit of push and pull, a little bit of restriction in order to kind of hone itself.

That said, it gave rise to a lot of really good stuff, like Darth Maul.

It gave rise to that

This American Life episode that I did in which I rewrote The Phantom Menace and talked about my nightly attempt to fix that screenplay pointlessly because the movie had been made, but I couldn't stop it.

And it gave us, of course, the character of Watto, one of the most egregious space ethnic stereotypes, which is terrible, but that role is now essayed by the great Griffin Newman, my co-star in the late Lamented the Tick, hashtag save the tick, who is the co-host of the George Lucas talk show, along with Connor Raitliffe, which is one of the funniest things I've ever had the pleasure to see or take part in.

Jesse, you're coming to New York sometime this fall, right?

We're going to do a podcast panel.

Yeah, we're doing something at Barnard College.

Barnard College, it's one of the great ones, uptown.

Yeah.

But if the dates work out, we can go to the George Lucas Talk Show at the UCB where Connor plays George Lucas and Griffin plays Watto and George Lucas has a talk show and he's in character as George Lucas.

It is never for laughs.

He just occasionally makes references to how much he likes hot rod cars and otherwise interviews people very thoughtfully.

It's really fun.

So check that out.

The George Lucas Talk Show in New York City at the UCB.

John, this isn't a Star Wars podcast.

You can tell because it's less successful than it would be if it was a Star Wars podcast.

Let's get into some justice.

I'm open to some changes because this has cheered me up.

Listener, when you hear this, it's in my far future.

The dog days of summer, as they say.

But where I'm recording this, it's still springtime in Brooklyn, New York, and I had to shave my beard to audition for a beardless role.

And I scare myself when I look in the mirror.

I'm like, ugh.

Who's that creepy, preppy murderer?

All right, let's go.

John, if we wanted to make a podcast about the Star Wars prequels, we would be named Mitch and Nick, and this show would be called The Doughboys.

How could we do a podcast that combines Star Wars, fast food, and true crime?

Like, if we could do a true crime podcast in the Star Wars universe, and we review like Blue Milk, then we may have a new sinecure at Galaxy's Edge in Disneyland.

But right now, we do the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

And what's going to happen is Jesse's going to read some cases that are lingering on our docket, some injustices and some fights and disputes, and we're going to talk about them.

And I'm going to adjudicate them.

And I was going to start right about.

Does that sound like a spaceship?

Now.

This is my UFO noise.

I can hum and whistle at the same time.

Okay, now I have to cough.

I'll mute it while you read the question.

He also does tube and throat singing.

Here's something from Hope.

My boyfriend Travis and I have a dispute about barbecue and coleslaw.

We both agree that barbecue and coleslaw are friends.

But he doesn't think that they should be mixed, like for example, coleslaw on top of a barbecue sandwich.

He thinks they should be separate with adequate space so they don't combine.

I think you can't have one without the other.

Help!

He thinks that they should not touch because my boyfriend is seven years old.

He thinks they shouldn't touch, but she thinks that they're necessary companions.

The coleslaw and the barbecue are friends.

That's from Oklahoma.

Oh, wow.

Oklahoma, that's like mustard style, right?

Yeah, that's right.

Well, so you, you, you seem to know a little bit about the world of Q, as it is sometimes unbearably called.

And my question for you is: are smoked meats a migraine trigger?

No, thank goodness.

Preserved deli meats with nitrates and nitrites are a

migraine trigger for some people.

It's not the smoking of the meat, it is the

preservation of the meat.

But they are not, in my experience, a trigger for me.

There are also those kinds of meats like salamis that have red wine in them, which is a trigger for some people as well.

So you can enjoy some barbecue from time to time.

I can, and I do.

Well, tell me, what kind of barbecue do you like, and what do you think about Coleslaw?

I like pork.

That's my favorite barbecue.

I mean, I will not turn down almost any style of barbecue or anything that has been barbecued.

Right.

And when we talk about barbecue here, I presume that we're talking about slow-cooked, smoked foods rather than, as some people use the word barbecue, grilled foods.

But

yeah, there's pretty much nothing I'll turn down.

I would say maybe

pork ribs and pork shoulder are my favorite.

And I've got one of those ceramic grill smokers.

Oh, sure.

And it does a wonderful job of holding temperature.

And I use it to make pulled pork from pork shoulder and ribs and sometimes bacon as well.

So do you enjoy coleslaw with your pork barbecue?

Because a pulled pork sandwich with some coleslaw on it, that is a classic combo.

Well, I

am a coleslaw fan.

I know some people are made ill by the prospect of any mayonnaise-based food, but I like mayonnaise-based foods.

And there are, of course, many types of coleslaw.

There are non-mayonnaise coleslaws as well.

Yep.

My mom makes a nice coleslaw with

a yogurt base.

Oh, interesting.

That's really good.

But I like coleslaw.

I just had some with my lunch today.

Went to Ho Ho Chicken.

Shout out to to Hoho Chicken, Korean-style fried chicken place near our office.

Really great one.

They serve a passable coleslaw.

Coleslaw is very, coleslaw and potato salad are both pretty popular in Korea.

They're both like side dishes that you will get with many Korean foods.

I can see that.

And I love coleslaw on a sandwich.

My favorite sandwich, probably in the world, is right across the park from Maxun HQ.

There is a legendary pastrami restaurant named Langer's.

Yep.

And Langer's most legendary dish is the number 19, which is pastrami, Swiss cheese, and coleslaw on rye.

And that sandwich is as good as a sandwich could be in the history of the world.

Yeah, that's an incredible sandwich.

And what the coleslaw adds, and before we go any further, you know,

you mentioned the Doughboys, and I've been thinking, we started this conversation about whether smoked meats are triggers, because we talk a lot about migraine triggers on this podcast.

And then we started talking about barbecue.

So if we're not going to turn this into a Star Wars podcast, we can go in two directions here.

By the end of this podcast, this is either going to be a barbecue podcast for the rest of time or a migraine trigger discussion podcast for the rest of time.

Whichever you want.

If you want us to be a barbecue podcast, hit us up on Twitter at hashtag barbecuties.

And if you want this to be a full migraine discussion podcast from now on, hashtag migraine your grain.

You know what?

As long as we're stealing bits from other shows, let's steal one from Jimmy Pardo.

Call us up, 591 Rock, 591 Roll.

Let us know how you feel.

What a joy.

What a joy.

Okay.

So anyway, back to what we were talking about.

Yes, bat sandwich is amazing.

Pulled pork with coleslaw is amazing.

What makes it amazing is that added to texture.

That said, I also am not afraid of mayonnaise-y foods.

And the way I like to enjoy coleslaw, I can see why you might take it to the side and just enjoy it on its own.

I could even see taking that coleslaw off to the side and just straining the cabbage out and getting that mayonnaise back, just recovering that mayonnaise and enjoying it.

Like with a cheesecloth?

Yeah, you don't go to your local cue hut without some cheesecloth?

Here's my concern about the question.

So as I said, I love coleslaw and I'm glad to eat coleslaw on a barbecue pulled pork sandwich.

I'd be glad to eat it probably on a brisket sandwich, although I've never done it before.

I'm thinking about how it would be right now, and I'm approving of it.

But if you dropped me off at a barbecue restaurant, a generic broad-based barbecue restaurant and said, you can order any sides you want, I wouldn't order coleslaw.

I would order collard greens

and some kind of beans and maybe macaroni and cheese.

Those are some of my favorite barbecue sides, perhaps a buttermilk biscuit.

And so the question is,

even though I personally disagree with Travis and think that barbecue and coleslaw are friends, I disagree with Hope when she suggests that you can't have one without the other.

Yeah, I see your point.

You're right that for a traditional American food way that invites a lot of contention

and contempt for wrong kinds of barbecue sauce, depending on what part of the country you come from, and a lot of snobby fighting.

over what kind of barbecue is best, it actually offers a lot of varieties of ways and means in which to enjoy your barbecue.

Now, you know that I am a self-appointed expert, and I hate to tell people Bailiff Jesse did not go to bailiff school, even though I asked him to.

So I thought we could turn to a friend of the court, and so I texted my, I dare say friend, acquaintance, hero for sure, Aaron Franklin of the great Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Texas, and I said, do you have an opinion on this little fight between Hope and Trav?

That's what I call them, Trav.

And he said, and I am quoting, I think they are both wrong.

There's a time and place for everything.

For example, a whole hog pork sandwich can really use some extra fat to offset a drier pig with creamy slaw and or acid to bring out the flavor with vinegar slaw or any combination of creamy vinegar slaw.

And also slaw can be a great way to add texture to barbecue, see, like Langer's.

On the other hand, both should be able to stand on its own.

I like slaw as a side and as an accompaniment.

Sometimes the barbecue need the crunch and balance of slaw for a better overall experience, and other types are rich rich and balanced enough to be eaten by themselves.

We're not making it to Maine this year.

Hope again to one day.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

Aaron Franklin came to Maine one year, and he brought a brisket with him, and that was fun.

John, when you were talking, I sort of spaced out because I was thinking about this Coshon de lais sandwich that I like at this New Orleans-style restaurant in Chinatown here in Los Angeles that is

slow-cooked pork topped with coleslaw.

Yeah.

It's really good.

Coleslaw is wonderful, and anyone who says different can get out of my fake court.

But since Aaron Franklin also kind of wishy-washed his way through this one saying sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not good, because barbecue is about nothing if not nuance, I have to agree with my bail's very logical breakdown.

Barbecue with coleslaw?

Lovely.

Barbecue without coleslaw?

Lovely.

Can't have one without the other?

Get out of town, Hope.

You can have barbecue on its own.

It happens all the time.

Sometimes you like it, sometimes you don't, but coleslaw is a side and a condiment.

Oh no, now I'm going to have so many letters about whether coleslaw is a condiment.

Yeah, it's a condiment and a side.

It's a soup.

It's a soup.

It's a mayonnaise stew.

Deal with the ambiguity.

Here's something from Lisa.

Hello, Judge.

I'd like to issue an order to my husband that he's not allowed to remotely control our house while he is away on business, especially the thermostat.

Lisa and her husband live in a smart home.

Yeah, probably Bill Gates' house, the one that he built in the 90s.

It's the smartest house on earth.

Still is.

You can dim the lights using a touchpad, I hear.

I can't believe it's real, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Invite me over, Bill.

I went once to a literary festival held in Las Vegas, and it actually made sense because Las Vegas is off the strip, a cool town where a lot of young people are moving to because they can't afford anywhere else.

And there's a great bookstore there called Writer's Block.

And the Believer magazine is now headquartered there.

And they run a festival every year called the Believer Festival.

And we were lodged in the El Cortez, which is one of the oldest casinos in Las Vegas.

And my friend Heidi was staying.

She was one of the organizers.

The organizers are staying up in the suite, and I can't remember the name of it.

Someone will and can put it in the Reddit or whatever.

But it was the top floor suite that had belonged to the owner.

And I went into this thing.

You can go deep into my Instagram from a couple years ago, or about one year ago, and find all the photos that I took of what was not merely the height of luxury for 1981, but the height of smart home technology for 1981.

I'm talking about a phone in the pink marble bathroom that had a tiny little like watchman sized black and white screen that would show you the living room.

I'm talking about avocado-colored radar ranges with digital readouts.

The whole thing had been locked in amber from 1981 and barely used, or thereabouts, because the fellow died.

And I couldn't even be at this party.

All I could do was take pictures of all this old technology, like eight-track cassette players in the walls built into wired-in speakers.

And it was amazing.

Smart home.

He lived in a smart home atop a tower in Las Vegas.

But let's get back to Lisa and her husband.

So these smart home appliances are very common now.

You got

your Wi-Fi thermostats and you got your lights that go on when you tell them to.

Do you have any of these smart home appliances, Jesse Thorne?

Nope, my home's as dumb as I am.

Oh, no.

So everyone knows what I'm talking about.

We had, in our home in Western Massachusetts that has just been sold,

we have a Nest brand thermostat.

That's a common brand.

I'm not trying to sell it to you or whatever.

And you can control it remotely from your phone or whatever and turn it on.

And if you're ever curious about what the temperature is in a place in western Massachusetts, you can just a screen glance away.

But I guess Lisa is here saying that her husband changes not merely the thermostat, but other elements like lighting or maybe he turns on music.

Maybe he's secretly trying to scare her by making her think that a ghost is living in the house.

Let's be frank.

What's going on is he's making it too cold whenever he's around.

She's cold.

She turns it up a little bit when he's gone, and he thinks that she's wasting electricity or something and punishes her by remotely changing it.

If it were that mundane, it would just be, this complaint would just be about the thermostat.

But Lisa is talking about other things, and I'm just, you know, this is one I think that I put in the docket because I didn't want to put them on the air just so I could yell at another husband because that's getting a little dull because clearly what he's doing is wrong.

She should be able to control her house while she's there and he's not.

But I am kind of curious about these stories.

Like what is going on that prompted her to write besides just remotely changing the temperature of the house?

And it made me think she could be living in a reboot of the movie Gaslight.

Why isn't anyone rebooted Gaslight with smart home technology?

Because if you don't know, the term to gaslight someone, which is to suggest that the reality they are perceiving is not true, comes from the 1944 movie Gaslight, where Charles Boyer tries to convince his new wife Ingrid Birdman that she is going mad by dimming and flickering the gaslights in the house and then claiming he doesn't see what she sees.

And she gradually begins to think that she's losing touch with reality.

And that's one of the biggest terms of the political scene today.

And I don't know why that bloom house isn't out there rebooting gaslight in a smart home.

And if you do it, then you know you got the idea from me and Bailiff Jesse, and you have to give us how much money, Jesse?

$20.

Cash.

Yeah, $20 cash.

No compromises.

Okay, Bloomhouse, that's a deal.

Sawbuck.

That's what we call sold in the room.

Anyway, Lisa's a husband.

Stop trying to scare her by pretending there are ghosts and creepy warm spots in the house or whatever it is you're trying to do.

Let your wife control her environment for however briefly you are outside of the house.

I remembered that I do have smart home technology, John.

Oh, you do?

Right here in this studio where I'm sitting in Los Angeles, we have one of those LED bulbs that you buy, I'm going to say,

at the dollar store, possibly on one of those direct from China import websites.

where there's a little tiny remote control and you can change what color the LEDs are inside.

Right now it's a sickly green.

I received as a gift three smart bulbs from a person we both know who is very into smart bulbs.

And I enjoy them a lot, but I have not figured out to get as creative as this person we both know is with his smart bulbs because he's really gone deep with these.

And all the bulbs in the home that he shares with his wife are super smart.

and can change colors.

And he's figured out how to give the electronic device code phrases phrases to trigger certain color profiles.

So if he says, dive below the surface, the whole house turns blue like we just went underwater.

John, you can say who this mutual friend is who has the bulbs.

It's President Barack Obama.

Jesse is not President Barack Obama.

If you think you know who this is I'm talking about, hashtag is it Paul F.

Tompkins?

Question mark?

Hit us up on Twitter and I'll say, yep.

Now people are going to be sneaking up to the windows of his house

and changing his lights by voice.

Don't do that.

Don't sneak up on Paul F.

Tompkins.

Trust me.

The screaming is unbearable.

Let's take a quick break.

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

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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

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

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

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I love topical humor.

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

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John, have you been eating off your made-in

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

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket.

Here's something from Andrew.

My wife routinely uses my deodorant.

I don't mind sharing.

It's the fact that we now smell the same.

It's a smell I like, but when I snuggle up to bed with her at night, it smells like I'm snuggling up to me.

I seek an injunction that she must use her own distinct brand of deodorant.

Sorry, I wasn't listening because I was just thinking that I've decided that at some point during the rest of this podcast, I am going to say the phrase that is Paul F.

Tompkins' Wi-Fi password.

And will anyone be able to figure it out?

Was that it just then?

Or is this the phrase that you should be listening for?

Or deodorant problems.

Could be any of these.

It's encoded in this podcast.

Jesse Thorne, here's a question that I've never asked you before.

Do you use a deodorant or do you use an antiperspirant?

And if so, which do you use and what brand?

And what are you looking for in your pit profile?

I use an antiperspirant deodorant, generally speaking.

I'm not an extraordinarily heavy sweater, so

I don't use it without exception every day.

I do think of you as kind of a thick cable-knit sweater kind of guy, though.

That's true.

Or like a chunky hand-woven sweater of a guy.

Made with care and comforting to the touch.

And occasionally scratchy.

I am certainly the kind of guy who is perpetually overdressed for the nearly tropical city in which he lives.

And yet you say you do not perspire tremendously.

No,

I'm not a big sweater.

I don't have problems with armpit stains in shirts, which is a big reason to wear deodorant instead of antiperspirant.

Tell me what you mean, because I'm not sure I ever understood that.

Well, part of what causes pit stains in shirts, yellowing in shirts, particularly, is the aluminum in antiperspirant,

which there's not a ton of evidence that suggests it causes Alzheimer's or whatever the old wives' tales say.

But it is the part of sweat when it

interacts with your laundry and so on and so forth that turns your shirt armpits yellow, purportedly.

I got you.

But I don't sweat enough to cause any problems in that department.

And, you know, one key thing to remember with antiperspirant is it does not get more effective if you use more of it.

If it's covering the surface, you're set.

And for me, I prefer to use

a bargain brand,

Arm and Hammer.

Oh, yeah.

Because I like the idea of it being made out of baking soda, even though it probably isn't at all.

That's because you love baking soda so much.

Everyone knows that.

Yeah.

It's the cheapest kind at the drugstore, and they have an unscented version.

And I prefer to wear the unscented version.

Yeah.

Sometimes it smells real bad.

I can't wear strong smells because they are in fact a migraine trigger.

So

I have never had a problem with scented deodorant, but generally I will go for the unscented version of a product whenever possible.

Hashtag migraine your grain.

If you want this to be a migraine trigger podcast from now on, remember to vote.

Yeah, I used to rock a degree

deodorant, and maybe that was an anti-persprint as well.

In its powder fresh edition, which smelled like baby powder.

I liked that because

my armpits are big babies.

Right.

But I couldn't use the antiperspirant anymore because what I discovered was my armpits hurt after a while.

It started to sting.

I might have been using too much.

And then I went with Speed Stick Pie Men,

right?

Because I remember my dad using that.

And I felt like that smell was very comforting to me.

And I started using that for a while.

It worked real good until my son started saying, You smell like my grandfather.

And I was, that's not where I wanted to be in my life either.

The smell profile was described as must

just like grand, it smells like granddad's.

And he was right.

And I could never smell iPits again.

All that speed stick went in the garbage.

And now I'm really, the reason I'm asking is I'm really on the fence about, I never, I was just in the CVS there at when we were in LA doing our show in June.

I was just in the CVS there on La Cienega and my favorite CVS in the world, and I just could not decide.

I think I settled on a dove for men thing, which sage and minerals smell.

And I just, I smelled like a New Age store all afternoon.

I didn't care for it.

If I learned anything from the deodorant, antiperspirant television commercials of the 1980s is that it must be pH-balanced for your gender.

Yeah.

Like, we don't need to have gendered pit wash, do do we?

Absolutely not.

It's a load of hooey.

Which speaks to this case.

So I guess it's cool that they're comfortable sharing antiperspirant deodorant.

I have no problem with that between couples.

But yeah, I could see how nuzzling up to your loved one's armpit and smelling yourself might not be exactly ideal.

I'm going to find in this guy's favor.

I think that he should have a frank conversation.

as one should when talking about intimate things and just be blunt and say it's not wrong, but I don't like it.

And would you consider not using my underarm deodorant and getting your own?

Or alternately, I mean, I think he could share the burden by offering to switch his brand.

Yeah, I mean, sure, if that works for him, that's fine.

But I suspect that he is bonded with that smell internally as the smell of his own armpits.

And that's not something he wants to hug and kiss with.

And I think that that's fairly reasonable.

To be clear, though, I'm not endorsing him controlling how his wife smells by forcing a scent or a brand upon her, but simply to say, I'm going to keep my deodorant to myself if you don't mind, for this very plain reason that I'm sure you will understand.

And that is why I have bought this special biometric safe to keep my deodorant in from now on, along with my three other cell phones that you never get to see.

Brittany says, my husband and I both work in medical fields, but on different schedules.

He's a psychologist and has a sweet 7 a.m.

to 4 p.m.

Monday through through Friday job.

I, on the other hand, am a pharmacist and work two jobs with different shifts depending on the week, often working very late and sometimes overnight.

We're often not on the same sleep schedule.

My issue is that he refuses to silence his cell phone at night.

This is a problem because sometimes I want to text him and he complains I wake him.

He says he needs to have his phone on sound mode because he wants me to be able to call him if something were to happen.

I've told him the iPhone has a setting where if someone calls you two two times in quick succession, it will unsilence the call.

Sometimes I want to share thoughts or funny memes in the moment.

Please order my husband to silence his cell phone at night so I can tell him I'm thinking about him whenever I want.

That's interesting.

First of all, why is Brittany such a slacker?

You know, when I was working the overnight shift in a pharmacy and my manager caught me texting my husband, which, let's face it, it happened a few times, I would get in trouble.

I'd be told, if you've got time to text, you've got time to mix up medicine powders, which is what we do in a pharmacy.

Mix them up.

Yeah, the old mortar and pestle.

Yeah, that's right.

You should be gathering willow bark like a real pharmacist.

Yeah, you should be mixing up a poultice of sage and minerals to put on someone's underarms.

But that's fine.

She wants to be in touch with her husband.

I don't understand why he does not silence his phone.

Jesse Thorne, do you have a special ring for any members of your family?

I don't, but I do plug my phone in in a different room from the room in which I sleep.

Well, that's good.

Sleep hygiene to begin with.

Yeah, I mean,

it's a matter of habit.

It comes from the days when you had to plug your phone into your computer to get your podcasts onto it.

Right.

And you still do that, right?

I'm glad to keep it.

Yeah, I don't have the phone in the room with me.

Right.

I have separate phone ringtones for my various family members, but I mainly set it up so that I could have my phone silenced, but if they needed to reach me, their ring would come through.

Their ring would break the silence.

And so I would know that they needed to be in touch with me.

And similarly, I mean, I didn't know about this life hack that Brittany just laid down, that if someone calls you two times in quick succession, it will unsilence the call.

I'm certain that there is a way

for Brittany's husband to have the phone nearby and know that she can reach him in an emergency, but also can text him silently at the same time.

There must be a setting, or at least some accommodation that he can make to her, because it's lonely in the middle of the night when you're working at a pharmacy.

You know what I mean?

You don't have George Bailey coming around all the time to liven things up.

Brittany's a sad old Mr.

Gower.

2 a.m.

She wants to send a pile of poo to her hubby.

She should be able to.

So take your wife's life hack to heart and sleep well, knowing that in silence, all is well.

And your wife did not accidentally poison that little girl by mixing the medicine wrong because she was sad and lonely.

Too much willow bark.

It's a classic mistake.

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

A case about TV watching from another room and a letter about etiquette when it comes to service workers in your home.

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welcome back to the judge john hodgman podcast where clearing the docket hears something from greta I'm a semi-recent graduate of a small art college in Portland, Maine.

I'm living with my parents in Massachusetts for a couple of months before starting a short design program in Boston.

Jesse,

these are all areas in New England, just in case you didn't know that.

Maine is in New England and Massachusetts is a Commonwealth and Boston is its capital.

I'm familiar with England, London, Manchester.

I got it.

Well, a little different, but go on.

I wish to bring a case against my dad, Bob.

He's a great and weird man, a man of many high-stakes hobbies, and a busy orthopedic surgeon with very little free time.

He has one habit, though, that makes me uneasy.

When we're watching TV as a family, unless he's picked or pre-approved the show, usually either a World War II drama or a Bogart and Bacall feature, he will stand in the foyer for the entire program.

He is essentially leaning against the coat closet and watching from around the corner, which places him behind my back while I sit on the couch to watch the show.

He is clearly pretending not to enjoy.

This is because our shows make him nervous, as he says, and he feels that he can't commit to sitting down for the whole show.

Still, he watches the entire program from this vantage point.

If you were to rule in my favor, I would ask that he either sit down with us or go into the other room when we're watching TV.

Can we get back to high-stakes hobbies?

I know.

I wish we could have gotten some more detail there.

I should have asked Greta about this.

I'm going to go ahead and say organ smuggling.

Sure.

Orthopedic surgeon by day, blindfold free solo by night.

I'm also curious what shows Greta is watching that are making her dad nervous.

Is she just watching the Japanese movie Audition?

That one makes me nervous.

She's just watching the most psychologically intense body horror movies of all time.

And her dad is cowering in the foyer?

Because he makes him scared?

That's a wonderful vision.

Is she maybe watching that incredibly intense Bloomhouse reboot of Gaslight set in the modern age in a modern smart home?

That could be fun.

So, Greta, this is a provisional ruling because I want you to write back in.

This is our fault.

Here we are recording.

I could have reached out to you earlier, but I didn't think about it until just now.

It happens.

Sometimes I have a thought.

So there's a provisional ruling until I get some more information from you.

So right now I'm going to say, your dad should sit down with you because that would drive me to profound distraction to have my dad creeping behind me, especially when I'm trying to watch Hostel or whatever.

Eli Roth's Hostel.

When you're watching Crash, the Cronenberg one.

Yeah, right.

And you know what I'm going to say right now?

Eli Roth's Hostel is a movie that has some stuff going for it.

Hard movie to watch.

And he does not always have the best reputation among sineasts.

But I think that's a real movie.

So let me know what movies you are watching.

because if they're truly too much for a dad, Jesse and I will know and then we'll rule differently.

But until then, your dad should sit right down on the couch with you and deal with it.

And I also want to know what his high-stakes hobbies are.

So get me that information, Greta, and we'll read it on another podcast.

I mean, this podcast, but once it turns into a migraine trigger podcast or a barbecue podcast, whichever one it becomes.

I would love it if the show Greta wanted to watch was all creatures great and small.

And he just couldn't deal with the possibility that those animals were really undergoing medical treatments.

That's interesting.

Did you say all creatures great and small or all things bright and beautiful?

All things bright and beautiful is the book sequel.

It's not the name of a show, right?

Oh, you said all creatures great and small.

We often talk on the program about tipping.

A listener named Amy works as an internet and cable installer and has some further thoughts on etiquette related to this matter.

She says, my job involves tipping very occasionally, but I'm writing about something more basic that I would like you to instruct the court on.

Basic etiquette when a service person is working for you.

Tipping's great and welcome, but could you inform your listeners to treat those of us who come to work for them in their homes with some simple respect?

An offer of water or coffee is always appreciated, even if declined.

Unfortunately, we're used to being ignored or condescended to because we use tools and wear a uniform.

Especially among younger customers in hip neighborhoods, there seems to be no culture of respect for the skilled work we are doing, or just simply the hospitality of a cold glass of water on a hot day.

We're people.

We're your equals and like to be treated as such.

Some of us even listen to podcasts.

Often, people with the fewest resources are the most generous, pressing a crumpled dollar bill or a Polish candy into our palm.

I've been lucky enough to drink tea with an aging Armenian classical singer, been offered ouzo by cheerful Greek gentlemen, and shared pasta foglioli with a crew of Italian veterans in the back of an auto body shop.

Some days, this job is more wonderful than you can imagine.

Everybody, Amy raises a really good point.

Yeah, if someone is coming into your home, you should offer them a cold drink or a glass of water or a coffee.

Or can I get you anything?

Whether they're in your home as a guest or whether they're in your home to provide a service for you, they are your guest.

If it's a Dracula, don't.

Yeah, that would be a fatal mistake.

Yeah, you might as well be saying, can I offer you some of of my blood from my neck now that I've invited you in?

They love to drink that.

It's their favorite thing to drink.

I mean, almost exclusively do they drink blood.

Isn't that right, Jesse?

They prefer that even to a really nice drink, like a Thai iced tea.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Forget it.

They'll knock that out of your hand and go, no, blah.

Meaning blood.

Right.

So that's an exception to this obvious rule of civilization, which is everyone be nice to one another.

Give Amy some liquids when she comes in.

A glass of water, a cup of coffee, pasta fajul,

or ouzo.

Wait, now are we just singing the Cab Calloway song, Everybody Eats When They Come to My House?

Pasta Fazula if their name is Tallulah.

Pancakes for a man named Mandrake.

Everybody eats when they come to my house.

Pancakes for a man named Mandrake.

Is that Paul F.

Tompkins' Wi-Fi password?

Really sounds plausible.

Yeah, keep a little ouzo by for the people who are offering you service and company in your life.

And, John, while we're on this subject of tipping and service employees,

I want to offer a salute to my NPR colleague, Sam Sanders of It's Been a Minute, who went on an epic Twitter rant about people who don't tip who could tip yesterday on Twitter as we record this.

And I was very grateful.

I'm grateful for all pro-tipping crusaders.

For those of you who don't tip, give me a break.

Hey, it just came up in the news today that the CEO of the Hilton Corporation doesn't tip when he stays in his own hotels.

He's changed his policy.

He now does, but previously his policy was not to because he didn't want some employees to feel they were being favored over others.

He got dragged so hard, it was a delight to see.

I will not name him.

I will only shame him.

Anyway, the docket's clear.

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

Our producer is the ever-capable Jennifer Marmer.

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 JJHO, and check out the Maximum Fund subreddit to discuss this week's episode.

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

John, I have a question for you.

Yes, I have an answer, I'm sure.

Do we judge only big cases or only small cases?

No, we judge them all cases.

Thanks, Sam.

I am.

Seriously, if you have a case that you think might be suitable for Judge John Hodgman, no harm in trying.

Send it to us.

Hodgman at maximumfund.org.

And when you write in and you're talking about how your dad gets all scared from your movies, tell me what movies are scaring him because specificity is the soul of narrative.

Hey, everybody, the internet may not be perfect, but internet justice certainly is.

Judge John Hodgman is over now.

I'm working on a tagline.

Been working on a tagline for nine years.

Here, I'll use my tagline.

Alexa, play Huey Lewis in the news sports.

If this is it,

please let me know.

If this ain't love, you gotta let me go.

If this is it, what badooba doo.

Pasta fajula is tallula.

Bonk.

That could be it.

That could be something.

Hashtag barbecutes.

Hashtag my grain, your grain.

Goodbye.

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