The Most Beautiful Man in Jurisprudence

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

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

With me, as always,

the most beautiful man in jurisprudence, Judge John Hodgman.

Well, now, wait a minute.

That

Merrick Garland is quite a looker.

That's true.

Still technically a judge.

They didn't take it away from him.

Fair point.

Also, joining us this week to help clear the docket, a friend of mine and an enemy of John's.

Fair.

You know what, though?

I've called him my enemy many times, so I guess it's a fair assumption.

Go ahead, Jesse.

I'll

the head writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and one of the triumvirate of hosts of the Smash Hit podcast, the flop house, Mr.

Elliot Kalen.

Thank you.

Elliot Kalen.

You know, Elliot, here's the thing.

I know you don't listen to my podcast because it's not as popular as the Flophouse.

I only listen to podcasts as popular or more popular

than my podcast because that's how I learn and get better.

That's right.

If you listen to my podcast, you might be taking a risk that you'd get worse.

You'd learn some of the wrong lessons.

But I know that you don't listen, so you don't hear me maligning you all the time on the Judge John Odgman podcast out of the sheer bitterness that I harbor for the fact that you guys the flop house podcast is more popular than this one

and we put so much less work into it that's the rub that's the real part that stings so I will say

that also that is salt in the wound for sure

when you say that's the rub you're talking about the Cajun spice rub that is mostly salt that you are rubbing in my wounds

but the truth is I love the flop I've guested on the Flophouse.

I'm a fan of the Flopsies.

And of all the Flopsies, I don't like to play favorite Flopsy, but you're much better than the other two guys.

No, you're

not.

No, you're a friend, and I'm very glad that you're here.

I love talking to my friends, and today I get to talk to two of my friends, Jesse Thorne and Elliot Kalen.

My favorite Flopsy is Cottontail.

Mopsy is a close second.

Mopsy Flopsy.

Well, she's got a goofy name for sure, but Cottontail is a better name for a rabbit.

Yeah.

Right after Hambone.

If we're done discussing whose podcast is more popular,

I could talk about that for hours.

I don't know if I'm ever really done discussing it.

But, Jesse, this is for you, Jesse, because I know how much you love baseball.

And I know how much our listeners enjoy you talking about the things that you love, baseball being one of them.

So why not have a little conversation about my favorite sport inside baseball?

That was an extremely long walk

to a very, very moderate sportsy punchline.

You went all around the bases on that one.

That was an intentional walk.

It was a long and arduous road, Judge Hodgman.

But we all made it and we made it together.

Here is something from Kristen.

My husband Marty won't accept my friend request on the mobile Find My Friend app.

I respect his privacy, but there are times when it would be helpful to locate him.

Marty travels for work and cannot always answer the phone when driving.

If I could check the app, I could see how long before he arrives home.

Another example is happening right now.

Marty should have been home two hours ago.

He is not answering my texts or phone calls.

Is he dead?

That's probably what she wants a ruling on.

Is he dead?

Is he still out with his friends?

Did he get in an accident?

Who's to say?

I respectfully ask the judge to to order that Marty accept my friend request.

I agree to respect his boundaries and only use it when knowing his location would make our family life run smoother.

I promise not to stalk him.

Well, first of all, Kristen, let me just reassure you that Marty is alive and well and currently at the Buffalo Wild Wings at the Hadley Mall in Hadley, Massachusetts, which is weird because that Buffalo Wild Wings closed about two years ago.

So I don't know what he's doing in that shell of a Buffalo Wild Wings, but I know that he's there because he definitely accepted my find my friend request.

I don't know why he's avoiding you, but I got Marty lighting up my FMF all the time.

Not true, obviously.

Is it true that that Buffalo Wild Wings is not there anymore?

I think so.

Do you know the one I'm talking about?

Oh, yeah.

Hadley?

Oh, yeah.

Well, that's, it just, it made me wonder if he's having the classic ghost scenario of being at a Buffalo Wild Wings, having an amazing time, and then then coming back the next night to repeat that and finding nothing there but broken glass and one old man.

And the old man is like, Oh, that Buffalo Wild Wings closed years ago.

What?

It's a classic ghost story: the Buffalo Wild Wings that wasn't there anymore.

That is definitely a real Buffalo Wild Wings.

I have been to the Buffalo Wild Wings in Hadley, Massachusetts.

Large March sent me.

No!

Eyes popping.

What?

I don't know whether it's open or closed, and I don't care.

All I know is that Marty is going there, searching, he's drawn to that place,

searching for the bachelorhood that he enjoyed there while eating wings and watching sports when his wife wasn't trying to put a chip in his neck and track him.

That's not how I feel at all.

But let me ask you this: since we have Elliot Kalen here, and obviously my good bailiff, Jesse Thorne.

Do you guys share your location with your spouses using phones?

Elliot?

I, well, I do, but in the way of if I'm going somewhere, I'll let her know, hey, I'm going to this place.

And if I'm coming home, I'll be like, hey, I'm coming home now.

But we don't track each other that way.

And to be honest, my wife very rarely has her phone on her.

And if she does, she often doesn't hear it ring or buzz or anything like that.

So what usually happens is I'm looking for her and I'm calling her phone and can't get a hold of her.

But we don't, I've like the whole the I'm torn because on the one hand, if she it's very frustrating to not know where your spouse is when you need to coordinate, but the whole idea of the find my friend app is very strange to me.

Yeah, because you know, I'm an old-fashioned guy who I don't even like the fact that I have to carry a telephone with me, even though it helps me in every way every day.

Yeah, you're currently podcasting through one of those old-time candlestick telephones.

Exactly, yeah.

It's very difficult to make the modifications, but I did it, and that's what I want to do.

I only like telephones where there's two pieces, and one goes to your ear, and one goes to your mouth, and they're connected by a wire, and you have to go through a switchboard, and the switchboard woman's name is probably Ruby, you know, or Sadie, something like that.

And she has to take a plug out of one hole and then stick it in another hole, and then take another plug out of another hole and stick it in another hole to physically connect you, and she can hear everything you're saying.

And she's like commenting on it to the other telephone operators, like, oh, well, listen to to this.

She's such a gossip.

Exactly.

Oh, she's the motherhand of the town.

But if you want to know where Marty is, you call her.

That's the only way.

What is her name again in your scenario?

Sadie or Ruby or Eudora or Hortense or something.

I just think you should learn her name by now.

I mean, she's basically the center of town.

Here's some listener engagement.

If someone out there wants to do this, we'll post it, I guess, somewhere on the maximumfund.org Judge John Hodgman page or on our Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Take the audio of of Elliot Kalen describing the kind of phone he likes to use and overdub it to a loop of George Bailey from It's Wonderful Life when he's talking to Sam in the hallway of

what's her name, the girlfriend at the time.

Who is it?

Come on, Flopsy.

You know the name of George Bailey's wife.

Donna Reed?

Yeah, Donna Reed, yeah, the actor, but what's the character?

I don't remember the character's name.

Let's call her Sadie or Ruby or Flopsy.

Come on, Elliot Kalen.

We can't go.

It's probably, I want to say it's...

Mary.

Mary.

Mary.

Mary.

Yeah.

That's right.

That's right.

Because he's talking on one of those candlestick phones.

So take Elliot's voice and overdub that scene and then just put underneath it dramatic reenactment.

Jesse Thorne, do you and Teresa have the FMF activated on your phone?

I didn't even know that was something you could do on your phone, and I would never do it in a million years.

Right.

So it's possible that people don't don't know this, but on Apple-branded phone products, and I presume that there's an equivalent feature on other phone products that I will never name because I'm still here, Apple.

I'm still ready to pitch for you.

Just call me.

But there's a thing, so there's a find my iPhone feature where it uses your phone's GPS to show its location on another device, say your computer or what have you, if you can't find your phone.

And there's a thing now where you can authorize, say, your spouse to have 100% of the time access to your GPS location.

It's called find my friend.

All of those words, except for maybe my, feel inaccurate in some way.

It really is surveill my target.

And you can see where I'm leaning in terms of my judgment.

I don't know how the word friend is transformed by a feature which is essentially all about mistrusting the other person and not allowing them their freedom.

I will say that I track my children's phones all the time because they're not adults.

And while this is a point of contention

with our older child and will eventually be a point of contention with our younger child when he gets older, the reality is, you know, we live in a big city.

I need to know where they are.

I don't track them frequently.

And when I do, it's merely just to make sure that they're okay.

And also, I own the phones and my wife and I pay the bills.

So there.

So really, you're tracking your phone.

You're keeping track of your property.

I'm tracking some of my extra phones.

That's what I'm really concerned about.

It doesn't really matter to me which meat body is carrying them around.

I just want to make sure they're coming back to me eventually.

I would say that, Kristen,

the difference between my behavior and your desired behavior is that

I am treating my children like children and you are treating your husband like a child.

That said, Marty has committed a crime, and that is, you got to respond to texts, dude.

It is a responsibility of a spouse to keep the other spouse apprised voluntarily of their location and life-death situation.

That's part of the deal.

And so, if Marty is routinely not responding to messages like a teenager, then this court censors him with the highest authority.

And

I'm going to say, Marty, you got to get better on this right away.

And if you do not correct your behavior within three months, then I not only authorize, but order you to share your location with Kristen, because that's not cool to not respond.

And let people know where you are in the world, especially if that person is your wife.

That's my ruling.

Anyone disagree with me?

We have a tribunal here.

No, that sounds great to me.

I mean, the other option would be to say that she should page him 911.

Right.

And presumably they're married, 911 and 143.

Yeah.

Here's something from Mari.

My friend Todd and I have come to a disagreement about farts and the level of intimacy in a relationship.

I think that farts are a symbol of a relationship's closeness.

You can't reach the maximum amount of romantic closeness without being able to fart around the other person.

Todd disagrees.

He thinks farts have nothing to do with romantic intimacy.

Please help us settle this dispute.

We've been in disagreement for over a year.

Can I just say what I think about this question?

Yes, I encourage you to.

Oh,

you took the right out of my mouth, Jesse Thorne.

Sorry.

Elliot Kalen, question for you.

Ellie Kalen, yes.

Ready to answer.

When you make a fart sound, how do you do it?

Usually through the butt.

Oh,

that was kind of a callback to that famous, what is it, the newlywed game or the dating game question?

I guess it was the newlywed game question.

It was the newlywed game.

Where's the weirdest place you've ever had sex?

Yeah.

It made whoopee, I think is what they said.

Yeah, this is a family-friendly podcast.

Just like that was a family-friendly show about people saying embarrassing things about their new spouses.

But anyway,

I don't enjoy the act of making fart sounds with my mouth, despite finding them hilarious.

So I prefer to let the professionals handle it.

So you stay out of the fake fart game altogether.

I mean, I'll say, like, oh, you know what, actually?

You know, that's not true.

I'll do the kind where it's like,

like, out of the side of my mouth, where it sounds like a real, real wet fart, and my family just does not like that sound.

No, it's a terrible sound.

Yeah.

People are writing us letters right now.

We might have to bleep it out.

Yeah.

Dear Honorable Judge Judge John Hodgman, as a sufferer of mesophonia,

I was just trying to do a classic raspberry.

Yeah.

Oh, no, no, that was good.

Yeah, you might have been watching the Bronx bombers, you know, lose another game, and that's the sound you make.

Can you do the thing with an under-your-armpit deal, Elliot?

Oh, yeah.

I've never been able to do that properly.

I can do it kind of with my hands.

Here, if I can get it to work.

Like that kind of the kind of thing, hand fart that like Weird Al used to use on his songs in the very first time.

Calling a small dog.

Yeah, it's also the kind of fart you'd use to call a small dog.

Because it's at a frequency only dogs and most people can hear.

And what do you do?

Do you cup your palms together?

We're not in the same place.

So describe yourself.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I push my palms together as much as I can.

Not a cupping so much as a pressing together as if, like

at the end of Time Cop, when Ron Silver touches the other Ron Silver and they merge together.

It's like that with my palms.

And then I just, and I just pull it apart.

All right, let me just try it here.

Put the palms as close as possible together.

Yeah, until they literally

stick together of their own accord.

Okay, and I'm holding them up to the microphone and then I just pull them apart.

Yes.

All right, let me see if I can do this.

Quite a sound.

Yeah,

close enough.

All right.

This episode of the John Hodgman podcast has been made especially for you, 12-year-old listeners.

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The usual gang of idiots.

Now, meanwhile, Mari and Todd are having this fart fight.

And I'm unclear.

Do you get the impression, Bailiff Jesse Thorne, that Mari and Todd are in a romantic relationship?

No, I think they're in a friendly relationship, but they like to participate in romantic relationships outside of their friendship.

First of all, if that's the case, then Mari's opinion on the level of intimacy that is connoted by farting in front of your romantic partner is between Mari and her romantic partner.

And that is none of Todd's business.

But I do agree with Todd.

Farting in front of your your beloved is an act of aggression.

I can tell that Mari is a spirited person who likes to let it all hang out there and shatter social norms.

And you know what?

If she finds someone who enjoys that kind of thing, then she has found a match.

But in general, I would say, Mari,

if the person you are around, whether it is your romantic partner or just your friend Todd, says,

please don't fart in front of me, you have to honor that.

That is part of the social contract.

You need affirmative consent for farting.

Disagree or agree to disagree, Bailiff Jesse Thorin.

I agree entirely.

My wife and I have been romantically involved for

about 20 years now.

Yeah.

And

I have never

voluntarily, audibly farted in her presence, nor has she in mine, to my awareness.

Speaking of which, Jesse Thorne, I don't remember where I saw it on social media, but you posted the most adorable photo of you and Teresa from when you were but children.

Not children, children, but how old were you in that photo?

We were 17.

That picture was one that my childhood best friend, Peter, texted me on the occasion of my 37th birthday, and it was a prom picture of my wife and I when we were in high school.

Can we put that up on the Judge John Hodgman Instagram page?

Yeah, sure.

It is a truly adorable photo.

If I could,

no, thank you.

What?

I have a thing I'd like to say on the merits of the case before us, just what it makes me think of, and also on the merits of that picture.

It is a truly adorable picture, and Jesse has the smuggest smile on his face.

Just like, oh yeah, I figured it out.

I found the right one.

You know, sucks for everybody else at the prom who's barely going to talk to their date ever again.

It was like,

there was a.

I looked at it and I was like, oh, that's really sweet.

And then I turned into the 17-year-old mate and was like, ugh.

Ugh.

People who are happy, I hate it.

You know what?

Ellie and Kalen, I say fart noise to that conclusion because I saw the same photo and I saw nothing but

delight in young Bailiff's twinkly eyes.

I saw no smugness.

Don't project your smug onto his mug.

Oh,

I'm really becoming a dad, you guys.

Fart noise to that.

Can we get out of here with a break?

Yeah, let's take a quick break.

My wife just paged me 911143.

We'll be back in just a second on Jordan Jessica.

Oh, Judge John Hodgman, how dare you?

Leave it in.

Don't edit it out.

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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Just go to maximumfun.org/slash join.

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

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You sure it's the Judge John Hodgman podcast, Jesse?

Is it?

What show are we on?

We're clearing the docket with our friend, special guest, Elliot Kalin, who, of course, is one of the hosts of the wonderful and hilarious Flophouse podcast about terrible movies and disastrous movies and the occasional good, bad movie or movie they secretly liked.

Occasionally ones we enjoy, and we got a bunch of live events coming up.

I'll tell you about those some other time probably.

I'm interested to hear where you're going to be when you're performing live.

I see no reason to walk this back now.

Let's go.

All this information is on flophousepodcast.com slash events.

We got three shows coming up in the next two months.

We got in on May 26th, we're going to be in Washington, D.C., our nation's capital.

We're gonna talk about that most nation's capital of movies, Geostorm.

Then, June 7th, Brooklyn, back to our old house, the Bellhouse.

And what better place than a bellhouse to talk about the Dark Tower?

That's right, architecture things.

And then on June 30th, we're gonna be in Seattle, Washington.

That's right, the other Washington.

We're gonna be there, Seattle.

And we're gonna talk about that most Seattleist of movies, The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise.

It's Washington to Washington.

It's our Washington to Washington tour with a stop in the geographic middle, Brooklyn, New York.

Ellie, Kalen, before we move on to finish clearing the docket, I also want to point out you have a children's book coming out.

Is that not so?

That is true.

I'd love to talk about that, too.

I have a book coming out this fall called Horse Meets Dog.

It's a children's picture book with art by the great kids artist Tim Miller, who you may know from the Snapsee, the Alligator books.

And it's coming out from HarperCollins Kids/slash Balzer and Bray.

The imprint is called Balzer and Bray.

And it's the story of a horse that meets a dog, and the horse assumes that the dog is a tiny horse, and the dog assumes the horse is a very large dog, and they argue about it.

Which ones are they?

And the blurbs on the cover feature one from our own judge John Hodgman, outside of his robes, not in his office as a judge.

It's true.

You guilted me into giving you a blurb for the book.

But then, guess what?

I read it, and I'm like,

this is no chore at all.

Because,

first of all, it's a picture book.

It took me three minutes to read.

Second of all,

it's a charming, funny picture book about the silly little prejudices we bring to new encounters and how it must get beyond them, especially when meeting horses.

So it's a great, great book, and it's a lot of fun.

And the art is really delightful.

And the words, for which Elliot Kalen is particularly responsible for, insofar as he wrote them, are great.

Thank you very much.

And And I'm very excited about it.

This is my first picture book, and it comes out this fall just in time for holiday gift-giving season.

Well, that's great.

Here's something from Thomas.

My wife, Melissa, always sets all of our clocks ahead 10 minutes.

She claims it helps her to be on time for things.

It doesn't.

It inconveniences our twin eight-year-old daughters and me because we always have to do math in our minds whenever we check the time.

I'd like to request an injunction to compel my wife to set all clocks clocks to real time.

It is time for her to adjust to the real world and real time.

Okay, before we address this case, I just have an instruction for super producer Jennifer Marmor.

Jennifer, I know you can hear me.

This is what I would ask you to do.

Please call world-famous director Ron Howard, who also did the narration for Arrested Development, and just have him record the lines, it doesn't,

so that we can just drop him in there to maximize the hilarity of that turnaround there.

She claims that it helps her to be on time for things.

It doesn't.

So good.

It doesn't.

It doesn't help her.

Or so claims Thomas.

Ellie Kalin, what do you think about this case?

Look, I'm the kind of person who likes their clock set a little bit ahead for that reason, but 10 minutes is too much minutes.

Like, there's, it seems like,

especially if it's not having the effectiveness that's supposed to, but if you set a clock like three minutes ahead,

then you're, you're close enough, and you don't have to, you don't have to do the math, and you're always a little bit ahead of things.

Oh,

but I can tell that you agree with me.

Oh, my skin is crawling.

Like, I'm not great at reading signals from other people, but I think you're on board with this.

I spent like three hours doing smiling practice to gin myself up into pretending that I'm your friend and not your enemy.

I just was all blown right there.

Oh my god.

Oh my gosh, Elliot.

No, I mean, all right, I'll reserve my opinion for a moment, but Jesse Thorne.

Well, I understand Elliot's theory, and I actually kind of appreciate its elegance, which is that if you are only setting your clock ahead three minutes, it is not so much that you will bother to do the math in your head.

You will just treat it as though it is three minutes in the future.

However, as a timely person,

I would

much rather trust my clock

so that I can know when I should actually leave my house in order to go somewhere

than

do some weird trickery.

I mean, my recommendation to this man's wife is to do what my wife does, which is not really care that much.

Well, I think that that is sound advice.

As I've grown older and come to appreciate that much of right-on-the-minute promptness is a problem I have that the world does not care about.

It is better to care a little bit less.

Within a five to ten minute window, you're fine.

Beyond that, no good.

I would say.

Beyond 15, rude.

Five to ten, you're okay.

Unless your boss insists on it, and you got to do what your boss says.

What's interesting about what you just said, also, though, Jesse Thorne, is that when you restated restated Elliot's thesis about setting the clock ahead three minutes, it made sense to me.

When Elliot said it, I was like, that's disgusting.

Because I was so wrapped up in the idea, like, I appreciate the logic behind setting a clock ahead.

And to trick you, I mean, I understand what that theory is.

But I would say in that case, 10 minutes is the perfect amount of time to set it ahead because that really does give you a reasonable cushion.

Three minutes, why even bother?

That was what I was feeling.

That just feels like, first of all, it's a, you know, it's a prime number.

No, thank you.

That's just, uh,

prime?

You mean another word for the best?

It's inelegant.

But if you said it ahead 10 minutes, the reality is that you will adjust it in your head.

It's just introducing a new step.

Now, because you said it, be quiet, Elliot.

But now you said it, Jesse.

I understand.

That makes a lot of sense.

And I apologize to you, Elliot, for shutting you down just then and also expressing revulsion at you as you describe your theory.

It was a bit extreme.

But because here's the other thing, I think it dovetails with what you guys are saying, which is that the rest of the world doesn't usually really care that much about doing things on time.

Even like when I was younger, I used to be like, got to get to the movies.

I'm going to miss it.

The movies don't usually start on time.

Like, nothing starts exactly on time.

So, like, it's almost more like if you're anxious about not being late to things, just give yourself like a couple minutes to like give you that little bit of cushion that you feel like you need because the rest of the world doesn't really care that much.

And if you're 10 minutes ahead of everything, the person you're meeting somewhere or doing something with is going to be a little late.

Suddenly, you've got more time to kill and you're going to get more frustrated at them than you should be because, in your mind, they're even later than they actually are or something like that.

The thing that I'm thinking about and honestly can't stop thinking about, however, is the image of Elliot Kalen at his house in front of his, because he loves old-timey things, in front of his old-timey mantelpiece wind-up clock.

I have

a glass bulb over it.

Right.

I was going to say opening the crystal face, but I like taking off the crystal.

Oh, both.

And then, oh, sure, right.

And then just, and then just quietly saying to himself as he adjusts the hands, there we are.

Three minutes precisely.

And I must have some kind of like saying that I do that was drilled into me when I was a child.

Sure.

It was like, it's like three minutes good and tidy or something like that.

Oh, I don't like it, Elliot.

Go to sleep, need a nighty.

And I'm imagining you wearing a kind of brocade vest.

In any case, Melissa, I think both Bailiff Jesse Thorne and Flopsy Elliott Kalen have offered good advice, which is punctuality can cause anxiety.

And it is often anxiety that only you have to deal with.

And learning to manage that anxiety and not worrying so much about being precisely on time will redound to your benefit in larger ways than simply being on time.

And I would say in this country, in this civilization, in this culture, whenever we have the opportunity to share a mutual objective reality, we need to embrace that.

We can't all be living on our own time, right?

We have to share some facts, and the facts of the matter are, this is the time that it is.

So set your clock appropriately for the time that it is.

And I would say, get up half an hour earlier, and I think you'll find yourself on top of everything you need to do during the day.

I think that's very good advice, John, but it made it.

I want to just cue you in on the dumb mental movements I had to do while you were saying that.

I was like, that's a good point.

What if things get so divided that we can't even agree on what time it is?

And in some places, people are like, it's daytime.

And in some places, people are like, it's nighttime.

And then I had to remind myself, oh, that is kind of how time works, though.

Like, it is different times at different places.

And so in my head, I built up a problem that is actually just how the universe works.

Yeah.

The other idea, Melissa, is move several hundred miles west of your house.

And then you'll always have at least an hour jump on things.

Although I think most businesses in the United States run on EMT or Elliott Mean Time.

Oh yeah.

They either run on EMT or Duncan.

America runs on both Duncan and my personal time.

Here's something from Joseph.

I'd like to bring a case against my fiancé, Stephanie.

Oftentimes I will ship off to bed around 8.30 p.m.

after spending time with her after work.

Stephanie will wake me up as long as two hours later so she can spend more time with me.

I argue that if I'm sleepy, it's because my body is sending me signals that I need to get more rest.

I'd like the judge to order Stephanie to allow me my sleep for the sake of my well-being throughout our future married years.

If my body speaks, I should listen.

That could also be said about that fart case.

Elliot Kalen, what time do you go to bed?

Okay, so this issue is one that strikes at my very core.

Just answer the question, please, Mr.

Kalen.

All right, I intend to.

I will allow your digression.

Go on, please.

Well, my wife and I, our sleep schedules are not exactly the same.

Sometimes I will fall asleep very early just out of sheer tiredness, and other times she will fall asleep very early, and I won't be able to get to bed till later.

We usually end up going to sleep at the same time in bed by like 11.30, you know, which is later than we should.

It used to be, before we had kids,

we wouldn't go to bed before midnight.

Why bother?

We were young.

We didn't need sleep.

Right.

But now we kind of take turns falling asleep in front of the television, and then the other one has to get us up and make us move to bed, which is not easy.

But for a long time, we had trouble trying to sync our sleeping schedules because we'd be watching TV and I'd fall asleep and she'd get frustrated, or we'd be watching TV and she'd fall asleep and I'd find myself kind of like losing track of time and staying up too late because I didn't have somebody else to remind me that I should go to bed and get rest.

And eventually, we not through doing any deliberate things, we just kind of, our schedules started merging closer together, like in the movie Persona, when those two women kind of merge and exchange personalities just by being around each other.

Or, if you want to Americanize that reference, three women, which is a similar movie.

And

now we have those times where one of us will fall asleep before the other one.

And it kind of like, those are such relatively drastic

differences from the regular meme that it doesn't bother us.

It just kind of happens.

And that's it.

It doesn't bother us anymore.

Great.

We can edit all of that out.

Jesse Thorne, what time do you go to bed?

I mean, you probably should, but still.

No.

I'm sorry.

It's just.

Those of you who have read my book, Vacation Land, know that I had a bad habit when we both worked at the Daily Show of what I considered to be hilariously bullying and being mean to Elliot.

Then I realized that's not nice at all.

It's just being mean.

Just because it's meta-bullying doesn't make it not bullying.

And I do apologize, Elliot.

It's a hard habit to break, but I was just, I saw a moment and I took it and I apologize.

But honestly, Elliot, like, so what time

you said you used to stay up to midnight before you had kids.

Now, what are we talking about?

10.30?

Now it's, I wish it was 10.30.

Now it's usually between 11 and 11.30 because there's just too much stuff to do.

Too much stuff to do, right?

To get done in the evening.

All the things that I couldn't get done because we were busy either working or parenting.

But then you really got it started again here, Bailiff Joseph.

So let's say 11:30.

How about 11 or 11:30?

Bailiff Jesse, what time do you usually go to sleep?

Or ship off to bed, as Joseph puts it.

I'm already done responding.

Around 10.

Thank you very much.

Here's the thing: bedtime routine does become complicated

when you're in a relationship because, and it's something that comes up again and again on Judge John Hodgman.

It took me a long time to appreciate that just because you are,

let's say, married to and living with a person that you love very much and with whom you are happy to spend any amount of time,

all of those things

amount to a very prevalent fiction that your lives should be totally synced up, and you forget you're different human beings that are on different

biological tracks, that have different schedules, that fart at different times, that have to do stuff that the other person shouldn't know about.

Farting, that's what I'm talking about.

And there should not be this pressure to sync your lives together,

especially around

sleep, which is

the most solitary thing

that your body does to repair itself.

That said,

you're going to sleep around 11:30, 11, Elliot.

Jesse, you're going to sleep around 10.

I also go to sleep around between, you know, like 10 and 11.

I try to get into bed.

We're all older than 35.

We all have children.

We have every right in the world to be exhausted.

And we're still not going to bed at 8.30 p.m.

Joseph, it's too early.

Now, maybe, Joseph, you have extenuating circumstances.

Maybe you

start work at 4 a.m.

Maybe you have another kind of job that is just utterly exhausting.

And I don't even know what your age is.

I mean, if you're over 50 years old, go for it.

But what I glean from your petition to this court, Joseph, is that you and your fiancé, Stephanie, are childless.

That did not come up in your petition.

I probably imagine that you are younger than 50 years old.

And also, you come home and spend time with her after work.

So you're at least spending an hour, I would presume probably two hours.

So that means you're getting home at about 5.30, which to me suggests you have a reasonable workday.

If it is the case that you're over 50 or you start work at 4 a.m.

or you have some kind of incredibly strenuous job or high pressure job and you just are falling asleep at 8.30, okay.

But if it's the case that you are a childless person in your 30s or early 40s or so, and you have a reasonable work schedule, live your life, my friend.

You gotta live it up.

Like, watch more than half an hour of primetime television.

Stay awake a little bit later.

I do think, just as a rule of thumb, I'm sure you've got all these reasons, but as a rule of thumb, I think 8:30 is you're wasting your life at that point.

Well, it makes me worry that

maybe there's some kind of of like, I want to know now how well he sleeps because it's possible that he's just not getting good sleep.

It's a medical problem that needs to be looked at.

Like, I've known a number of people who they'd be like, oh, I'm always tired.

I got to go to bed so early.

And it turned out that they needed help with their actual sleeping because it wasn't good enough for them.

It is suspiciously early to be so exhausted.

Unless, like you're saying, this is an older person or someone who wakes up very early for their work or like their job is like operating like a power loader all day, like an alien.

Like an alien?

That's sure.

It seems very strenuous.

And

well, it's high stress because not only do you have to operate that huge piece of machinery, but you also have to fight an alien queen with it every day.

And they say that the coastal comedy elite isn't in touch with the working class.

It is really sad.

I was like, what's a really strenuous job?

And the first thing that comes into my mind is a science fiction job.

I completely understand, Joseph.

There may be every good reason in the world that you're exhausted by 8:30.

And you're right.

If your body speaks, you should listen.

But I think you're sacrificing time with the person in your life.

I would say seize the moment.

And if you truly just like are going unconscious at 8:30, and there's no schedule or health issue that is apparent that is the cause of it, you know, take Elliot Kalen's advice and go to the doctor.

Yeah, that's another way to listen to your body.

Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, more docket to clear and letters from listeners.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while, maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up.

But no.

No, you would be wrong.

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

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

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

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

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

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

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

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

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

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

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Law.

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

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

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

This week, we're clearing the docket.

We've got with us Elliot Kalin from the Flop House, and we've got a note from Sean.

My wife is a registered nurse and sometimes picks up shifts that begin at 7 a.m.

On these these mornings, I wake up early enough to get the kids up and ready for school.

I usually wait until work to have my coffee, but if I have coffee when I wake up, I'll have the energy kick to get me through the crazy morning.

So, I would like to invest in single cup coffee machines to place on our nightstands.

We could start the coffee machine and have coffee at the ready as soon as we wake up.

Think of the cupboard space we could save if we kept our mugs in a nightstand drawer.

My wife worries the machines won't get cleaned.

She says it's mixing the kitchen and bedroom too much.

And next, we'll have a fridge and pantry up there.

I think otherwise.

Oh, do you, Sean?

Do you stand by your ridiculous new scheme?

How unlike every other husband who has ever written into this program?

When it comes to mixing bedroom and kitchen, I think we'd better ask a rabbi.

Here's the thing.

Sean played a little dirty pool here because

when he first proposed a nightstand single cup coffee maker, nay, two of them, I was appalled because not only is that incredibly wasteful and it reaches the very serious kitchen-bedroom divide that I think is very important in an adult life.

The moment that you can...

reach a point where you're no longer sleeping in the same room as a refrigerator is a huge milestone.

was at least for me, a huge milestone moment of onset of adulthood.

But then he said, think of the cupboard space we would save.

And I was like, that guy knows I love covered space.

You almost got me, Sean, but I don't think so.

Elliot, what do you think of Sean's scheme?

This sounds like, I think anytime you can describe something as a scheme, right off the bat, it's like, I don't think this even reaches plan level or strategy.

It's just kind of a scheme.

It's a, I would say it seems kind of nuts to me and also incredibly lazy.

Like, I, you know, I have my days when I'm having trouble getting out of bed, but not so much that I can't even, like, literally step over to the kitchen to get coffee.

But here's the other thing this reminds me of.

There's an episode of The Office where

Steve Carell's character, Michael Scott of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

Anyway, it ran on NBC for years.

It was a very popular sitcom.

He burns his foot because he has this routine where he sets up bacon on his George Foreman grill, then gets back into bed so that he can wake up to the smell of freshly cooked bacon.

And because he's an idiot, he leaves the George Foreman grill on the floor and steps on it and burns his foot.

But it's like, this is different enough in that, and that he's not saying we'll put the coffee machine on the floor, but it is similar enough to it that I'm like, this is too close to a sitcom person's obviously dumb, ludicrous scheme for me to think it's going to work properly in real life.

It seems fictional.

I would prefer this scheme if it were a ludicrous scheme that involved getting ludicrous to get up a little earlier than you and make some coffee for you.

Ludacris Scheme is.

I too am a dad.

I'm just saying, I don't think, you know, if Ludacris wanted to do a sitcom, he would have done it and could do it tomorrow.

But if he decides that he does want to do one, Ludacris Scheme is a great name for that sitcom.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Elliot could get a meeting.

Yeah, so Sean, no go on this.

I'm presuming that this is the single-cup coffee maker you're thinking of is like a K-cup, single-cup coffee maker that you find in a hotel room, which is the universal symbol of depression and alienation, as far as I'm concerned.

You don't want any of that hotel room conveniences, quote unquote, in your actual bedroom.

Let your bedroom be your bedroom and just go and get a coffee maker.

Like, you can be pretty fancy about coffee, but honestly, those coffee makers where you program it the night before and you have a fresh cup of coffee, that's what Paul and Janie have at their house.

And I stayed over there when I was filming TV in Los Angeles, and that coffee was good, and it was ready right in the morning.

You just walked over to it and got it.

Get one of those, Sean.

Here's something from Robert.

He wrote in about episode 354, Undisclosed Financial Settlement of Catan.

In that episode,

you may recall Judge Hodgman.

And Elliot, I presume you don't waste your time listening to this podcast.

Your valuable show business time.

You certainly didn't waste your time coming the 10 minutes from your house to the studio.

It's at least 15 minutes.

And

I have extenuating circumstances.

And also, I have a lot of stuff to do today.

It was a question of how many board games were too many to keep in a couple's home.

The defendant had multiple copies of the game Skrimmish,

which defendant was constantly calling Skirmish, as I recall.

Judge Hodgman, part of your ruling stipulated that she get rid of the duplicates.

Here's what Robert says about that decision.

Skrimmish is a modular card game where the number of potential players is limited only by the number of decks you own.

This discrepancy going undisputed by the litigants might say something about the validity of your judgment, namely that it is a hoard and not a proper board game collection.

But the act of removing all but one deck of Scrimmish renders it nearly unplayable, save some sad, newly invented solitaire variant.

Elliot Kaylin, have you heard of this card game Scrimmish?

I'm actually not familiar with it at all.

When I became a parent, I put away childish things, by which I mean I picked up specific childish things that my son liked, and I had to put away the kinds of things I like, such as complicated card games and board games.

So I'm not familiar with it.

Skrimmish is what the sailors would do when they were on long whaling voyages.

That's right.

Wait a minute.

Yep.

The original cards were made out of

whale eardrums.

And they were shaped like eggs.

Robert, I thank you for your writing.

I think that I was the one who was calling skrimmish skirmish.

So that's on me too.

And I did not understand the dynamics of the game that it is a multi-deck game and an expandable game.

And so I allow three decks of skirmish

or whatever the playable minimum is.

The whole point was to not have duplicate stuff.

But I get your point.

Thank you, Robert.

And I amend my ruling thusly.

We also heard from Emily regarding a case we heard in the docket episode, Judges Court, Judges Rules.

So the case was about whether or not a couple should give their twins different last names.

And this is what Emily says.

This has essentially become a recap podcast for Elliot Kalen.

We just recap episodes of Judge John Hodgman because he didn't get around to listening to them.

Oh, you're saving me so much time.

If you could release a podcast that was called the Judge John Hodgman Summary Podcast, and it's like you can't do that.

Summary judge episode and you just, yeah, yeah, and yeah, summary and just condense it down to like 35 seconds.

I would listen to that easy.

Okay.

We'll do it.

You'd probably listen to it on two times speed as well.

Oh, I would.

So it only takes me 17 seconds.

That would be ideal.

But in Elliott's meantime, it would be 17 seconds minus three minutes.

Let's go, Jesse Thorne.

What does this letter say?

Emily says, My twin brother and I have different last names.

My parents were interested in fighting the patriarchy.

So my mom passed her name on to me, while my dad passed his last name on to my brother.

They had planned to do this, even though they expected that we would both be boys, as was the case in the episode.

I'm intersex, so the amniocentesis showed two babies with XY chromosomes.

We just weren't both boys.

Having different last names did lead to a tiny bit of weirdness growing up.

Sometimes kids at school thought that our parents had gone through a messy side-choosing divorce, but we were always able to easily dispel the confusion.

Despite its seeming strangeness, it worked well for us and could work well for the litigants in question.

So this is a situation where a couple were having twins and they were

weighing the idea of giving them different last names.

And I've come around on this thanks to further thought, other letters, and Emily's letter in particular.

I realize now any opportunity that twins have to confuse their teachers must be taken.

And having different last names, obviously it is the parents' choice no matter what, but having different different last names really does make it extra confusing for teachers.

And that's what twins should be doing all the time at school.

Do you disagree, Elliot Kalen?

I don't really disagree.

I am myself a twin, but unfortunately, I have a twin sister, and so we couldn't take each other's place and pretend to be each other.

And we had the same last name.

But I would say, I think whatever anyone does,

names are a funny thing.

And whatever anybody does, as long as it's clear in such a way that it's not going to create legal trouble later on, like an example I'm going to give you,

is totally fine with me, because who makes the rules about names?

You do.

It's your name.

You know, it could be called whatever you want.

And if the kids want to change their names at a future date, I think that's fine too.

But, so my wife has a relative who, when he got married,

he said to his fiancée, he said, oh, I think it's unfair that you are going to take my last name when we get married.

The idea of her not taking his last name apparently didn't enter into the thinking.

So she said, well, if you take my life, I take your last name, you should take my first name.

And so he did.

And so legally, they both have the same exact name.

And all I can think about is the headaches that are going to happen many years from now when their estates have to be dealt with.

And it bothers me so much.

So I would say, that's too far.

Different people who are in the same family should not have the same exact name.

Like, it's a George Foreman situation.

But they...

You really are getting some money from that grill company.

You know what?

As much as I don't like that he named all of his sons his name, it's a great grill.

It really, the fat just drips right off things.

It's a healthy way to eat.

And burn your foot.

It's a good foot warmer, too, when you get out of bed.

I would say that another solution is to give them both last names, which is the one that

I think is a good one until I guess eventually it becomes unwieldy because people have all their names in a row.

But anything you can do to

keep those names as part of the name, you know, so that there's an equality between sides or, I don't know, you know what?

There's so many different solutions to it.

I kind of want to live in an exciting world where people figure out different naming rules for themselves and then see what comes of it.

You know, that's exciting to me.

You're the guy who's losing sleep over the estate planning of a distant

cousin by marriage, Elliot.

Oh, yeah, well, but that's crazy.

Because that's, because that's a real,

If two different people have the same exact name and they're in the same family and they're married,

they're going to be fine, Elliot.

You don't need to worry about that.

I'm just worried one of them is going to end up on the no-fly list, and then the other one's going to get stopped at the airport.

That's not okay.

One of them's a criminal now?

Well, not necessarily.

There's a lot of ways to get on the no-fly list.

Some fair, some not fair.

I'm glad you're playing the scenario out as far as it can.

Here's the solution, everybody.

All children born in this calendar year to listeners of Judge John Hodgman, last name, Hodgman Thorne.

All children, first name for all children, Corn Cob Guy.

Done.

See you at the family reunion.

Our docket is clear.

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

Our thanks to the great Elliot Kalen for joining us today.

You can listen to the Flop House wherever you get your podcasts.

I am an avid Flop listener.

I can't recommend the program enough.

You can also find it, of course, on the web at maximumfun.org.

You won't want to miss these guys live if they are coming to your city.

All the information is at flophousepodcast.com slash events.

And you can also look out for Elliott's children's book, which is called Horse Meats Dog and is due out this fall.

The show is produced by Jennifer Marmer.

You can follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Make sure to hashtag your judgejohnhodgman tweets, hashtag jjho, and check out the maximum fun subreddit to discuss this episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfun.org slash jjho or email hodgman at maximumfun.org.

John and I are headed to Chicago, and there are still tickets available for our second show at the Onion Comedy Festival.

You can find the link at maximumfun.org, and we will see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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