Moms Are Gonna Mom

Speaker 1 Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
We're in chambers this week, and I'm going to be frank, Judge Hodgman.

Speaker 2 Okay, be frank.

Speaker 1 This docket is all plugged up.

Speaker 2 I know. We got to clear it.
Yeah, got to clear that out. Jesse, my dad joke DNA is firing very hard these days.
And it really, really, I mean, like, it took like

Speaker 2 discipline on a cellular level not to say, Frank, I thought you're Jesse. I mean, honestly, I was going to make that joke.
And it scares me, Jesse. It really does.

Speaker 2 But Jesse, I have something that I need to say before we start clearing this docket. I know that it's plugged.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 But you and I know that this is not, this is not a live show, right?

Speaker 2 We have a live show coming up in Los Angeles very soon, June 6th. If it's not already sold out, go to bit.ly slash JJ H O L A, all capital letters, to see us in Los Angeles.
But this show is recorded.

Speaker 2 And as such, I have a message for the listeners.

Speaker 2 The listeners who are listening to this in my future. Hello.
I am speaking to you from beyond the veil of time with a message for the future.

Speaker 2 Here in the distant past of early May, I am just sitting in my chambers as ush.

Speaker 2 But today, when you hear my message, I will be heading to the Javit Center in New York City for Book Expo America to launch my new book, Medallion Status.

Speaker 2 I'm going there to launch it.

Speaker 2 This is a book of true stories from secret rooms rooms covering my glamorous, dwindling fame of a couple of years ago, plus my perverse quest to achieve diamond medallion status on an airline, which I will not name because they refuse to sponsor this podcast, just like us.

Speaker 2 But it's a book I'm very proud of. It has a whole new cover by Aaron Draplin, and you can judge that book by the cover.

Speaker 2 And you can pre-order it if you want to at bit.ly slash medallion status, all capital letters. I just wanted to, it's a pre-plug.

Speaker 2 This is a big deal for me, and I'm sorry to take over the docket for a second, Jesse, but I needed to send this message to the listeners in the future.

Speaker 2 I'm walking into Book Expo America as you hear this, or maybe I'm leaving my house. So if that's what's happening, would you do me a favor?

Speaker 2 Can you send a message back to me in time and let me know if it's chilly? Will I need a jacket?

Speaker 2 Also, will all my dreams come true? Write me back, listeners of the future. Okay, Jesse, let's do that docket.

Speaker 1 Okay, here's something from Mark. Is a bathrobe ever an appropriate gift for an in-law? My wife and her younger sister have a tradition of declaring it robe o'clock when traveling together.

Speaker 1 They proceed to lounge around in bathrobes provided by the hotel or resort.

Speaker 1 Having heard about this custom many times, I thought a nice Christmas gift for my sister-in-law would be a high-quality plush hotel-style monogrammed bathrobe.

Speaker 1 My wife says that a robe is too intimate a gift for an in-law, and I might as well buy her sister lingerie.

Speaker 1 An informal poll of friends and co-workers has revealed a sharp divide in opinion as to the propriety of such a gift.

Speaker 2 I ended up playing it safe and bought my sister-in-law a fancy water bottle instead but what say you judge hodgman well i'm going to make an initial immediate judgment that that water bottle is a terrible present you really fell down on the job there the gift of hydration john oh no look mark we all agree that hydration is very important and you know a fancy water bottle is a good thing i actually you know here in the past listeners of the future it's not even mother's day yet And I almost bought an insulated water bottle for one of my children to give to my wife, their mother.

Speaker 2 That's how it works. But I stopped myself because I'm like, nope, not a good, I hadn't even read this thing yet.
I was like, nope, that's not a good present. It's a good present for yourself.

Speaker 1 I don't think it would be a nice present even for someone who was like crawling through the desert and having those kind of visions.

Speaker 1 I think given the choice between a nice water bottle and the other thing that they're seeing in the distance, which is a fully dressed turkey of the kind with the little pieces of paper on the ends of the legs.

Speaker 1 Like I think the fully dressed turkey even is a better gift than the water bottle.

Speaker 2 Well, if there were water in it for someone crawling through the desert, that's a good thing, but it's not much of a gift. It's sort of like the least you can do.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and bad news, John. They don't come with water in them.

Speaker 2 Oh, right. Okay.
There you go. So, Mark, we settled that you did a bad job, but let's think back now to the other choice you could have made.
Jesse, what do you think about this?

Speaker 2 As a sartorial expert, what do you think? Is a robe too intimate to give to a sister-in-law?

Speaker 1 So, the question that Mark begins with is, is a bathrobe ever an appropriate gift for an in-law?

Speaker 1 I don't think that is the question that he wants the answer to.

Speaker 1 I think he wants the answer to, would it have been appropriate for me to give a bathrobe to my sister-in-law?

Speaker 1 And I think that the two of them have different answers. So I can certainly imagine situations in which it is entirely appropriate to give an in-law a bathrobe.

Speaker 1 And I think the connection with lingerie may be that it is colored in part, for example, by the fact that it, I guess, would have been from Mark and not from Mark and his wife.

Speaker 1 And, you know, there are many other factors that could have been different than they were in this situation that could lead me to think that it is appropriate to give a bathrobe to an in-law.

Speaker 1 Like, I think that if I gave a beautiful plush terrycloth monogrammed bathrobe to my father-in-law, Steve, Shout out to Steve.

Speaker 1 I think that would be entirely appropriate. And honestly, in the context of my wife's family, I think it would be perfectly appropriate for me to do the same for my mother-in-law, Beth.

Speaker 1 Shout out to Beth.

Speaker 2 Do you know, Jesse, your words pre-echoed my very notes to myself in this, that there is one, at least, completely appropriate robe gifting among in-laws, and that is to give an ugly dad robe to your dad-in-law.

Speaker 1 That's guaranteed in the Constitution.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's perfectly acceptable.

Speaker 2 And, you know, an appropriately frumpy mom robe to a mom-in-law. I would allow that as well.
But, you know, there are two kinds of robes.

Speaker 2 There are frumpy, daddish robes, and then there are robes that kind of get toward the more personal kind of loungewear kind of style, a little bit sexy, you know? There are definitely some sexy robes.

Speaker 2 You don't want to give that to your sister-in-law. But you don't want to give her a dad robe either.
So it gets very iffy very quickly.

Speaker 1 Can I just clarify, don't give a sexy robe to your sister-in-law because I'm already giving her one. She doesn't need to.

Speaker 2 Good point.

Speaker 2 Especially if you're giving it, as you say, from Bro-in-Law, here is a piece of loungewear. It is

Speaker 2 a little on the iffy side, I think. A solution would have been to go to the bathwear's...

Speaker 2 and linen's website that advertises on every other podcast in the world but ours, And you could buy them a gift card to get matching robes that they could select. That would be less creepy.

Speaker 2 And you would want to do it to the two of them because, you know, like they're sisters. This is roboclock is their sister tradition.

Speaker 1 Here's the key piece of information that is contained in this email that I want to highlight.

Speaker 1 He suggested it to his wife and she thought it was a bad idea. Right.
The end. The end.

Speaker 1 She knows her sister better. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Mark, every time she put on that robe that you you thought about buying for her, she would have been creeped out. It's like, oh, this is that robe from Creepy Mark.

Speaker 1 Thanks for writing, Creepy Mark.

Speaker 1 Emily says, my 60-ish spouse equivalent, Mark, owns a collection of about 20 red baseball caps that he bought from Red Hat, the enterprise software company with an open source development model.

Speaker 1 It makes me mad when he wears these hats. Unless you're standing close to Mark, it looks very much like he's wearing a Make America Great Again hat.

Speaker 1 Furthermore, due to our advanced age and whiteness, we fit the stereotype of Trump-supporting baby boomers. Mark thinks Trump should not be permitted to destroy red baseball caps for everybody else.

Speaker 1 I would like the judge to enjoin Mark from wearing a red baseball cap when we are out walking together so I can enjoy a stroll without worrying that our neighbors think we are weird, fox-loving old people.

Speaker 2 20

Speaker 2 red baseball caps. 20 that he

Speaker 2 that he didn't get as giveaways, that he bought from Red Hat, a software company, 20.

Speaker 2 There's a lot in that sentence alone that raises a lot of red flags. Forget red hats.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 Jesse, you have a fondness for haberdashery, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I particularly have a fondness for baseball caps.

Speaker 2 How many baseball caps do you think you own?

Speaker 1 Probably about 20.

Speaker 2 But are they identical?

Speaker 1 Certainly not. And I did not purchase them from a Linux company.

Speaker 2 And by the way, Jesse, is Red Hat a company that sponsors us?

Speaker 2 No. No? Good.
I hope their business fails.

Speaker 2 I hope their business fails because they're not sponsoring us and also because of their association,

Speaker 2 like it or not, with the classic MAGA hat. So I have just a wee story here, a little tiny story.
I was driving back from Maine, which is in New England, Jesse.

Speaker 2 That's the northeastern region of the country.

Speaker 2 Five states, and then sometimes Connecticut.

Speaker 2 And I was driving back, and I stopped at my favorite old rest stop, the Kennebunk Service Plaza on I-95 South, the place where I encountered the glory of the fresh banana man,

Speaker 2 Jonathan. But Jonathan isn't there anymore.
They have replaced the fresh banana man's banana stand with a bunch of massage chairs, which are actually pretty awesome.

Speaker 2 As I was going into the bathroom, I did not see a wonderful man selling bananas. I saw a big, strapping,

Speaker 2 probably 60-year-old bald man with one of those shiny bald heads and a very tight shirt that said, make America great again.

Speaker 2 And he was walking out of the bathroom. I was walking into the bathroom and that shirt had its intended effect, which was to own this lib.

Speaker 2 And I spent my bathroom time really shaken up and mad and sad because, you know, if you voted for Trump, I wish you hadn't, because you made me sad and mad.

Speaker 2 And a lot of people feel very truly scared because nothing's going to happen to me. But stuff is happening to other people who do not look like me.

Speaker 2 The MAGA hat is incredibly blunt. This is a MAGA shirt, by the way.
If it were a hat, I don't even know what I would have done.

Speaker 2 I would have jumped into the lobster tank.

Speaker 2 The MAGA hat is incredibly blunt, dumb, and effective branding. It has become a very powerful totem of where you stand in this world.
And it is an act of purposeful aggression,

Speaker 2 just like voting for Donald Trump was for a lot of people, an act of grieved vengeance.

Speaker 2 So if you're a Trump voter, I'm surprised you're listening to my podcast. Welcome.
You're my neighbor. You're my fellow citizen.
I wish you would reconsider in 2020. I got some things to say.

Speaker 2 But you can wear it. Go ahead, wear it.
Wear your hat. That's what you voted for.
But if you're not a Trump voter, stay away from it. Stay away from anything you think might resemble a MAGA hat.

Speaker 2 It's not just your rep on the line. It's not just your neighbors thinking that maybe you voted for Trump.

Speaker 2 You might be making people who are purposefully excluded from the fictional, non-great 1950s white patriarchal America that that phrase is talking about.

Speaker 2 It might make your neighbors feel sad or mad or unsafe. If you're wearing that hat.

Speaker 2 If they look at you and they don't see that it's not a MAGA hat, they might feel like, oh, this person doesn't want me to exist.

Speaker 2 Okay?

Speaker 2 So, yeah.

Speaker 2 Emily, tell Mark, another Mark, get rid of those hats. By the way, Mark,

Speaker 2 stop it with the 20 red hat hats.

Speaker 2 Stop giving free advertising to software companies. They didn't sponsor your head, dude.
Get a new hat.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's take a quick break. More items on the docket coming up in just a minute on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Speaker 1 You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
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Speaker 1 Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfun.org slash join. And you can join them by going to maximumfun.org slash join.

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Speaker 1 Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We're clearing the docket this week.
Here's something from Ryan. I'd like to file a cease and desist against my mom.

Speaker 1 She regularly asks strangers to take our family's photo while we're out, sometimes wait staff. I haven't known a single person to say no, but I think that it's because no one wants to seem rude.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry, Jesse,

Speaker 2 I got distracted there for a minute.

Speaker 2 For me? Oh, thank you.

Speaker 2 Sorry, Jesse. I was just a little distracted there.
It was a very strange thing just happened. A very old man.

Speaker 2 Version of Chris Evans, the actor who plays Captain American Avengers Endgame, just mysteriously appeared here in my chambers and handed me a letter that says, return address from the future.

Speaker 2 And then he disappeared again. Let me open this thing.

Speaker 2 He says,

Speaker 2 weather for the Javits Center on May 29th is going to be overcast. And in the low 60s, no jacket, perfect sweater weather.

Speaker 2 Wow. Thank you, time-traveling old man, Chris Evans.
That was weird.

Speaker 2 Actually, I was listening and

Speaker 2 I understand Ryan's complaint with his mom.

Speaker 2 My mom is no longer with us, but I dine with some moms and I'm not going to name

Speaker 2 which

Speaker 2 mother-in-law of mine

Speaker 2 insists upon taking pictures

Speaker 2 in every restaurant where we dine together. It is very

Speaker 2 embarrassing. It's very awkward.

Speaker 2 But, you know, my feeling on this, Jesse, is moms are going to mom. And this is just what's going to happen.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I bet we're going to get letters.

Speaker 2 But I kind of feel like the weight person being asked to take a picture of a group at a big family dinner, it's kind of part of the system. Do you disagree? What do you think?

Speaker 1 I agree entirely. I think the only disappointment is that invariably that picture will not come out.
Even with

Speaker 1 the relatively high quality of cell phone and digital cameras cameras these days and the relative ease of use. The honest truth is that the lighting inside of a restaurant is essentially never

Speaker 1 suitable for photography, except for professional photography or semi-professional photography.

Speaker 1 And beyond that, almost never does a restaurant seat the members of the party in what I would call the last supper style,

Speaker 1 which allows them to all be captured in one frame.

Speaker 2 You have to insist on it. That's the thing.
You have to insist they move all the chairs to one side of the table.

Speaker 1 I demand the Judas seat.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I absolutely agree. Photos are terrible.
Photos commemorating get-togethers.

Speaker 2 This is a precedent in the court that, you know, if I see you and you want to take a picture with me, I'd rather have a conversation with you.

Speaker 2 And how often are you going to look back at that photo of everyone together? and think, oh, what a good time. You probably remember the time better.

Speaker 2 But moms are going to mom, and that's the way it is. And servers are going to take those bad pictures.

Speaker 2 And if you do ask them to take those pictures, make sure that it's a pretty good time, that things aren't too busy in the restaurant. Make sure that they're not too harried.

Speaker 2 Make sure that you've been really good to them all the way up until that ask.

Speaker 2 And then obviously tip them lots more than the automatic 20% minimum after tax that you are going to tip anyway. Do not, I would advise, ask other diners to do do this, mom.

Speaker 2 It's not their job. They're trying to enjoy their meals.
You're not at the Eiffel Tower taking pictures of each other there. Just leave them alone.

Speaker 2 You may ask your server politely, but please read the room.

Speaker 2 Other diners are not your social media team, mom.

Speaker 1 What about passers-by in public places?

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that seems okay to me, too.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's you know, if they're passing by and you have a number of people to choose from, or if they're all milling about outside the Louvre or whatever,

Speaker 2 yeah, that's that's a neighborly thing to do. And it's not terrible.
If someone asked me at a restaurant, I probably wouldn't mind. But like, what if I'm being broken up with? You know, like, what

Speaker 2 people go to restaurants for a lot of different reasons, and sometimes they're happy, sometimes they're sad, and sometimes they're personal, and you just don't bother other diners to take your picture.

Speaker 2 Mom,

Speaker 1 John, I was on an airplane the other day.

Speaker 2 Oh, wow,

Speaker 1 it was It was an international flight.

Speaker 2 You mean flying above the earth?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 It was an international flight. Again, not to brag.
I'm just describing my situation. Sure.

Speaker 2 It happens.

Speaker 1 I was seated across the aisle. This is on the subject of bothering people.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was seated across the aisle from one Alice Cooper.

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 1 Rock and roll star Alice Cooper was seated across the aisle immediately across the aisle from me.

Speaker 1 this

Speaker 1 discount airline that had sort of an economy plus type of situation, but no further higher classes.

Speaker 1 So he and I were both in essentially the like extra legroom seats rather than being in first class or second class.

Speaker 2 All right. I was going to, it's not, it's not that I doubted that you, but you're a thrifty individual.
I am. It would have made me sad to learn that Alice Cooper was flying, you know, coach.

Speaker 2 So Alice Cooper, you were in the coach.

Speaker 1 So I texted my wife,

Speaker 1 Mila Wauke,

Speaker 1 his famous quote from her favorite film, Wayne's World,

Speaker 1 which as a millennial is how I know Alice Cooper.

Speaker 1 And I just want to take this opportunity for congratulating myself on not bothering

Speaker 1 Alice Cooper even one time and keeping it purely, beautifully, pristinely classy until now when I'm telling the story on my podcast. And Alice Cooper was chilled too, to his credit.
I do not doubt it.

Speaker 1 Kept it classy. A couple people bothered him.
He was very nice to me.

Speaker 2 Oh, brother. Oh, brother.
Did they ask for a picture?

Speaker 1 Nobody asked for a picture, but I heard him say, I'm going to say three times, yeah, we had a show down there this week.

Speaker 2 You don't need context clues for Alice Cooper, everybody. Yeah.
Good for everyone for not taking a picture with Alice Cooper. Doesn't show up on film anyway.

Speaker 2 He's animated in Wayne's World. You don't know that, but it was early CGI.

Speaker 1 I did volunteer to be his Frankenstein. Good.
Here's something from Allison.

Speaker 1 I've just discovered that my boyfriend of seven years believes it's cheating to reference the picture that a puzzle is based on while putting the puzzle together.

Speaker 1 He claims the honest way to complete a puzzle is to group the pieces by color or design and infer from there without looking at the lid of the box.

Speaker 1 Clearly, this is lunacy, especially when working on a puzzle with more than 750 pieces. Not only is he wrong, but he's full of it.

Speaker 1 This misguided belief creates a weird, valued hierarchy between people who reference the lid of the box and people who love puzzle pain.

Speaker 1 I want him to admit that he's incorrect and apologize for calling me a cheater. I am a very honest person.

Speaker 2 Wow. So it's funny because I, by the time this comes out, listeners may or may not know that I ruled on essentially this topic in the New York Times magazine.
And it was a different letter writer.

Speaker 2 In fact, it was from a man in a heterosexual couple who believed that using the box while putting together a jigsaw puzzle was cheating.

Speaker 2 And it was from his point of view. And maybe it was this man.
It was a different letter. And I remember, I was like, I feel like I've heard this one before.
So maybe this is this couple.

Speaker 2 Write in if this is the same couple or if this is two different couples, let me know.

Speaker 2 But before I tell you and the world what i ruled in the newspaper jesse thorne what do you think about this are you do you do jigsaw puzzles and and and how do you like to do them some listeners may know that i have a cabin in sequoia national monument uh in central california oh okay

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 We have a closet with some games in it. And I've often detailed on this program my discomfort with playing games that I've struggled to overcome simply because it's the only thing to do in a cabin.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And I haven't necessarily successfully done so.
But the other day, I bought a small puzzle at the thrift store. It was sealed.
I bought it at the thrift store.

Speaker 1 I thought, I'm going to try being a puzzle guy.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Took this up to the cabin, set it up on my table. Yeah.
100% referenced the photograph.

Speaker 1 Worked very hard for about 15, 20 minutes.

Speaker 1 Remembered that I am definitely not a puzzle guy and went and read a book.

Speaker 2 Two questions. What was the picture on the puzzle and what was the book that you read?

Speaker 1 The book that I read was the autobiography of Barack Obama, which is called Dreams of My Father.

Speaker 2 Yep.

Speaker 1 Which is

Speaker 1 basically the Starbucks latte of books and also 10 years too late, but I'm going to be frank. Pretty darn good book.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that guy can write. He can write.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, he writes like Barack Obama. You can, like, you're like, wow, this Dorcas is really writing this book the entire time.

Speaker 1 But you're also like, oh, what a sweet Dorcas. Yeah.
He's a pretty good writer.

Speaker 1 What an amazing life.

Speaker 2 Even though that's all self-evident, not everyone had the same opinion of him, strangely. But there you go.

Speaker 1 And the puzzle was of...

Speaker 1 some kind of purple flower garden in upstate New York. I'm going to say Hudson, New York or something.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it had words at the bottom and I put the words together

Speaker 1 and I put the edge together. Yep.
Then I was like, oh crap, the rest of this is just a bunch of purple flowers.

Speaker 2 I quit.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. You were all the way there, though.
You were all the way there.

Speaker 1 All the way to the main subject of the puzzle.

Speaker 1 which I basically didn't even start because I was so mad.

Speaker 2 It can be fairly meditative once you get into the zone of making of,

Speaker 2 as Patrick Stewart once said, making a puzzle. That was how he called solving jigsaw puzzles.
I make puzzles. I talked to him once.
We talked about jigsaw puzzles.

Speaker 2 I have to ask Sir Patrick Stewart whether he looks at the box because it never occurred to me to ask him then, because I always look at the box. Of course you look at the box.

Speaker 2 I've never heard until I received these two letters from perhaps two sides of the same couple that looking at the box was bad news or somehow lesser.

Speaker 2 I mean, people puzzle the way they want to puzzle, as far as I'm concerned. Hats off to the guy for not using the box.
Hats off to his girlfriend for using the box. That's two of my 20

Speaker 2 red hats that I've taken off so far. Right now they're all piled on my head.
I refuse to accept it and I am not a cheater and I would not be called a cheater by this guy.

Speaker 2 to my face because I am not a woman and I am not his girlfriend.

Speaker 2 Guys, in heterosexual relationships, stop teasing, quote-unquote, the women in your life this way and call them cheaters and tell them they're doing things wrong.

Speaker 2 Allison, your boyfriend can puzzle his way and you can puzzle your way and you shouldn't puzzle together.

Speaker 1 This feels like one of those classic situations where a puzzler is just desperate for puzzling to be a competitive activity.

Speaker 1 They need, they cannot allow it to be an internal single person or cooperative activity. They need benchmarks so that they can know that they won.

Speaker 2 Puzzling is about meditation. And I'm talking about making jigsaw puzzles, Patrick Stewart style.
It's about meditation. It's about collaboration.

Speaker 2 It's about chilling out in a room with a fireplace if you can manage it. That's the best thing.
And you know what? I've thrown a lot of shade at Red Hat and Utz

Speaker 2 for not sponsoring this podcast.

Speaker 2 I don't want any any of that Red Hat dollars. I want them to go down.
Utz,

Speaker 2 I still love you, but I am going to throw an endorsement out to this company, Liberty Puzzles, at libertypuzzles.com.

Speaker 2 These are high-quality wooden jigsaw puzzles that are ingeniously jigsawed such that the puzzle pieces themselves have shapes that relate to the overall picture.

Speaker 2 We did one of a sailboat, and they're all kinds of nautical-shaped puzzle pieces. It's incredibly

Speaker 2 beautiful works of art and they're really, really hard. And Jesse Thorne, there's one here that I'm looking at on their website right now.
San Francisco Bay Map.

Speaker 2 This is a beautiful wooden puzzle with 664 pieces.

Speaker 2 I think given your hatred of puzzles, it would be an act of aggression for me to send it to you.

Speaker 2 So I'm not going to.

Speaker 2 But I'm telling you, everybody, no matter how you puzzle, these Liberty puzzles are works of art. They're beautiful.
They're expensive. So they might not be within your means.

Speaker 2 But if they are within your means, I'd say give them a try. And Liberty Puzzles, maybe take a page from the book that Utz hasn't read.
Sponsor us. Just for fun.
Just for fun.

Speaker 1 The Judge John Hodgman Podcast brought to you by Liberty Puzzles. Make puzzling great again.

Speaker 2 No, no. I'm a little worried, actually, that Liberty Puzzles might have a little bit of MAGA in them.
I don't know their

Speaker 2 political affiliate. They're called Liberty Puzzles, and they have some Americana on here.

Speaker 2 but they also have some beautiful beautiful puzzles and also some psychedelic ones so maybe they're all over the map

Speaker 1 let's take a quick break when we come back we've got a dispute about ghosts and a letter about a throwback topic from the podcast korean fan death

Speaker 5 If you like too many podcasts, you'll love SoundTeep with John Lick Roberts. It's got clips from all your favorite podcasts, such as Diary of a Tiny CEO.

Speaker 2 Leonard Sprague, tell me how you make your money.

Speaker 1 I go to the beach and I steal people's towels.

Speaker 5 Remember Armour.

Speaker 1 Don't remember the trend of everyone whacking themselves on the head with hammers and mallets when they wanted to lose weight.

Speaker 5 And LT Jom's lobbily songs. I'm here today with Kiki D.
Hello Kiki D.

Speaker 6 Hello Elton.

Speaker 5 There's dozens of episodes to catch up on and brand new episodes going out right now. So if you want far, far, far too many podcasts, then look for Sound Teap on maximum fun.

Speaker 2 Boop, boop.

Speaker 6 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?

Speaker 1 Yes, episode 59.

Speaker 6 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?

Speaker 2 Episode 64.

Speaker 6 So, how close are we to learning everything?

Speaker 6 Bad news. We still haven't learned everything yet.

Speaker 2 Oh, we're ruined.

Speaker 6 No, no, no. It's good news as well.
There is still a lot to learn.

Speaker 1 Woo!

Speaker 6 I'm Dr. Ella Hubber.

Speaker 2 I'm regular Tom Long.

Speaker 6 I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else, too.

Speaker 6 And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Speaker 1 Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Speaker 1 Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We're clearing the docket this week.
Here's something from Galen: My wife Ashley believes if ghosts exist, they must be naked.

Speaker 1 Ashley rules!

Speaker 2 Ashley rules!

Speaker 1 She posits that the part of the soul that lingers after death is attached to the body and therefore only the body can be present when someone comes back to haunt.

Speaker 1 In her view, any other opinion on the subject is both wrong and stupid.

Speaker 1 This position, to be frank, is whack.

Speaker 2 Wait a minute, wait a minute. I thought his name was Galen.

Speaker 2 Oh, no.

Speaker 2 Dad Joe Callback.

Speaker 1 The human soul is far more complex than a simple recreation of a person's body.

Speaker 1 I believe that a ghost is a projection of a person's soul and is subject to change in accordance with the ghost's view of itself.

Speaker 1 In any case, there's no way to know for sure, but I'm confident at the very least a ghost is not fixed to one appearance without exception. I'm not a theologian.

Speaker 1 Just a simple Dracula-hating man with no weird systems. Now he's pantering to me.

Speaker 2 I like this. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Everybody knows how I feel about Dracula's.

Speaker 2 Not positively.

Speaker 1 My wife refuses to see reason. She's done damage to me in the form of embarrassment in front of my friends and family who awkwardly look away when confronted by the vehemence of my wife's argument.

Speaker 1 I ask the court to rule that my position is correct and order my wife to say so in a Facebook post approved by me and visible to our mutual friends and family.

Speaker 1 Help me put this argument to rest, never to haunt us again.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 Galen, Frank, whatever your name is,

Speaker 2 get Ashley to sit in front of your podcast player. I'll tell you guys a hard truth.

Speaker 2 No such things as ghosts. Not real.
They're not real. Not in any way that we understand them.
I'm going to say not at all. Draculas are real, and they're a real problem.

Speaker 1 And they're allowed to have any job.

Speaker 2 They can have any job that they want. But ghosts equal nope.
And probably

Speaker 2 death is the end of everything. So the sooner you make peace with that, the sooner you'll stop wasting your very limited time on Earth with stuff like this.

Speaker 2 Which is to say, even though every cultural concept of ghosts goes against your wife, she can still think whatever she likes about ghosts, being naked, which is great.

Speaker 2 And she can be just as right as you. So no way am I going to ask her to write a Facebook post calling calling herself a puzzle cheater except for ghosts.
And also, don't use Facebook.

Speaker 2 This is anti-buzz marketing.

Speaker 2 The only thing you're going to get out of Facebook is Russian propaganda, reminders that your relatives are racist, and news that your favorite writing teacher has passed away. R.I.P.
Lee K. Abbott.

Speaker 2 Some of you have heard me mention him on this program before. I don't use Facebook, so I didn't know that he passed away.
But a woman on Twitter named Jessica, who was also his student, let me know.

Speaker 2 He passed away. He had lived a long, good life and he had cancer and he went into hospice last week and he passed away.

Speaker 2 And I send all of my love and condolences to his family and really as well to all of his former students who are also his family. Lee was the one who,

Speaker 2 when I called him one time, the first question out of his mouth was not, how are you doing? It was, what did you do today?

Speaker 2 And it's the greatest way to start a conversation because everyone has a story about what they did today. And he found stories and and wrote stories.
You should check out his work.

Speaker 2 He wrote short stories only, so you're not in for a lot. Just look him up.
And I can say it publicly that Lee K.

Speaker 2 Abbott was my favorite writing teacher because I also learned that my second favorite writing teacher has died a year ago, in fact. I didn't even know because I don't use Facebook.
Donald Faulkner.

Speaker 2 When I say second favorite writing teacher, I think Don would understand that Lee and I had a special bond, but I learned so much from Don.

Speaker 2 And he was the one who showed me the movie, The Third Man, and introduced me to so many great writers and was such an incredible teacher myself. So I hope that death is not the end for these two.

Speaker 2 I hope that there's still something out there. And I hope, Don and Lee, if you come back as ghosts, just put some clothes on first before you visit me.

Speaker 1 Do you know who believes in ghosts and ghouls?

Speaker 2 Who?

Speaker 1 Our friend Mike Mitchell from the Doughboys.

Speaker 2 He also believes in the devil.

Speaker 1 In the literal corporeal form of the devil.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Mike had a roommate who worked on the Jimmy Kimmel show. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 as you know, Jimmy Kimmel is,

Speaker 1 of course, a talented broadcaster and a cruel trickster.

Speaker 1 And Jimmy Kimmel and Mike's roommate some years ago, I'm going to say this is maybe coming up on 10 years ago, I might guess.

Speaker 1 set Mike up to believe there was a ghost in their apartment

Speaker 1 by like putting men into the walls to knock on them.

Speaker 2 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 And videotaping everything.

Speaker 1 And I have to say, I hate pranks.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they're mean.

Speaker 1 As a rule, because they're mean. And I hate people being mean to my friend Mike Mitchell of the Doughboys, who's one of the best guys.

Speaker 2 Anti-mean.

Speaker 1 Yeah, a very kind guy and a very talented guy and a very fun guy. But I will say that there is no one who is funnier when they are flustered than Mike Mitchell.
And it was really, really funny.

Speaker 1 That's really true.

Speaker 1 Even maybe my friend Chris Fairbanks, probably the other funniest flustered person in the world,

Speaker 1 may not be able to match up to the funniness of a flustered and genuinely afraid of ghosts, Mike Mitchell.

Speaker 1 And so, Mike, I want to take this opportunity to apologize for laughing at a YouTube video of you being very scared in actual real life for the benefit of the cruel Jimmy Jimmy Kimmel,

Speaker 1 uh, because it was really funny, but I felt bad when I was doing it because I think you're a great guy.

Speaker 2 Maybe we need to be sponsored by that YouTube video.

Speaker 2 Hey, Jesse Thorne, Jimmy Kimmel, is he the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live? Yeah, that's the one, the one with that great segment, Judge Jimmy Kimmel.

Speaker 1 Is that really a segment on that show?

Speaker 2 Yeah, where he hears disputes between ordinary people. Oh, wow.
Maybe they want to throw us a little money, too.

Speaker 2 Wait, is that a legal threat?

Speaker 2 I'm just saying, Jimmy Kimmel, you're not the only one who can install live men in another person's walls.

Speaker 2 I have resources.

Speaker 1 I have wall men.

Speaker 2 I have wallmen.

Speaker 1 Six wallmen and one walrus.

Speaker 2 Oh, no.

Speaker 1 I have no problem with Jimmy Kimmel. Seems like a decent guy, and he's a very talented broadcaster.

Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. And ideas just happen.

Speaker 1 Johnny wrote in about a popular belief that is known as Korean fan death. You may remember that this came up on the program some years ago.

Speaker 2 Yeah. It's a superstition, widely held superstition, on the Korean peninsula, certainly in South Korea.

Speaker 2 I don't know a lot about North Korea, but the superstition is that it is dangerous for your health to be in a closed room with a fan running.

Speaker 2 So in a room with no doors or windows open and just having a box fan or a table fan running, there is a fear that that's somehow going to make the air unbreathable by cutting it up into small pieces or something.

Speaker 2 And there are warnings on South Korean manufactured fans that you go that say, do not operate in a closed room. So what does Johnny have to say about that?

Speaker 1 Greetings from Augusta, Maine. I've been listening to old episodes of your podcast and you've mentioned Korean fan death a few times.

Speaker 1 My dad was stationed there in the 70s, so I asked if he'd heard of it. He said he hadn't heard of it, but he does have a theory.
Woohoo!

Speaker 2 Sometimes dads do.

Speaker 1 I do not require understanding of this phenomenon to explain it.

Speaker 2 Well, let's hear what Johnny's dad has to say.

Speaker 1 Korean houses are often heated by burning coal in a fireplace under the house, and then the heat is distributed through ceramic pipes under the floorboards.

Speaker 1 As you may know, burning coal gives off carbon monoxide. I do know.

Speaker 1 If the ceramic pipes were old and had cracks in them, a carbon monoxide leak would probably go undetected because it is a dense gas and it would stay under the house.

Speaker 1 However, if a fan was turned on in the house and all the doors and windows are closed, the carbon monoxide would be drawn up into the house between the floorboards and could easily cause carbon monoxide poisoning.

Speaker 1 My dad had heard of several people dying of carbon monoxide poisoning while he was stationed there. Korean fan death may, in fact, be based in science and not some silly supernatural superstition.

Speaker 1 I love the podcast. Thanks for being awesome.
That last sentence is just me editorial.

Speaker 2 No, Johnny wrote that. And hey, thank you, Johnny.
I also love the podcast, and I love you, and I love your dad. Because this doesn't not make sense to me.
There's something to this.

Speaker 2 I think that that sounds kind of plausible.

Speaker 2 I mean, I don't know all the thermodynamics of carbon monoxide and whether a fan would actually trigger carbon monoxide to seep up through the floorboards, but it sounds pretty plausible to me.

Speaker 2 Something's definitely happening. You know, it's not naked ghosts, although, you know, Korean ghost movies are great.

Speaker 1 We're going to have to speak to a Korean HVAC installer. Or Inspector?

Speaker 2 Either way, if you're out there listening and you're in South Korea, or even if you're in North Korea, I would like to talk to you if you're in North Korea and wondering how you get this podcast.

Speaker 2 And you know something about thermodynamics and heating and air conditioning in Korea that might shed some more light on Johnny's dad's theory? Please write into us.

Speaker 2 You can always reach me with your disputes and your illuminations at maximumfun.org slash JJ H.O. Hey, Jesse Thorne.
Something weird happened here.

Speaker 2 I just got a voicemail, but the date of the voicemail

Speaker 2 is... From the future.
It's May 29th. It's a voicemail that was sent to me from the future.
Here, let me play it for you, Jesse.

Speaker 1 John, this is Paul Rudd calling you from the future. To answer your question, yes, all of your dreams come true.
And I mean all of them.

Speaker 1 Every dream you ever had in your life is going to literally come true on May 29th. All the nude ones and the back in high school ones, and also the nightmare where you have to untangle those earbuds.

Speaker 1 It's going to be a real roller coaster.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 Good luck, John. Also, Utz sucks.

Speaker 2 Oh, my gosh. It's time-traveling Paul Rudd from Avengers Endgame sending you a message from the future.

Speaker 1 You know how I could tell it was Paul Rudd from the far future?

Speaker 2 How could you tell? Because he looks exactly the same. He looked exactly the same.

Speaker 2 Even though it was a voicemail, you could tell.

Speaker 2 He looks better. Looks better then.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So, look, that's pretty amazing. Thank you, Paul.

Speaker 2 Let this just be a lesson

Speaker 2 to all of us.

Speaker 1 Always listen to the whole show.

Speaker 2 Always listen to the show. Yeah, but mostly let this be a lesson to us.

Speaker 2 Uts. You see what kind of power I wield? I turned pullrud against you.

Speaker 1 Pull rudd from friends.

Speaker 2 Yeah, look, we have very, very, I'm grateful to say, very, very generous donors that keep this show afloat. Not looking for a lot of money here.
Looking for support.

Speaker 1 Hey, Uts. Let me ask you this.

Speaker 2 were you in clueless yeah we love we love these things and it would be nice if you wanted to throw us a dollar a dollar so we can say brought to you by us

Speaker 1 hey us are you good at everything because paul rudd is yeah

Speaker 2 and guess what us

Speaker 2 until you sponsor us paul rudd says and i agree utz sucks but i'm still gonna buy your crab chips

Speaker 1 Okay, the docket is clear. That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman.
Our producer is Jennifer Marmor. You can follow us all on Twitter.

Speaker 1 I am at Jesse Thorne, J-E-S-E-T-H-O-R-N. John is at Hodgman, H-O-D-G-E-M-A-N.
We're on Instagram at Judge JohnHodgman. Make sure to hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag J-J-H-O.

Speaker 1 You can chat about this week's episode in the warm confines of maximumfund.reddit.com if you're a redditor. Or, of course, you can chat about it in the Judge John Hodgman Facebook page.

Speaker 1 We'll post this episode.

Speaker 2 You can go there and say, oh, I like this episode.

Speaker 1 I liked when Paul Rudd called in. He's good at everything.
Submit your cases at maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho or email hodgman at maximumfun.org. We will see you in Los Angeles in June and

Speaker 1 May 29th at the realization of John's dreams.

Speaker 2 I can't wait. There's so many good dreams of me untangling cords.

Speaker 1 We'll see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Speaker 1 MaximumFun.org.

Speaker 2 Comedy and culture.

Speaker 1 Artist-owned, audience-supported.