Transcendental Irritation

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Transcendental Irritation.

Liz brings a case against her coworker, John.

John likes to meditate in their department's workspace.

Liz thinks he needs to find a new place.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

Hodgman completed his meditation and opened his eyes.

His pale, flame-savaged face stared back at him from out of the reflective, black, transparis steel of his pressurized meditation chamber.

Without the neural connection to his armor, he was conscious of the stumps of his legs, the ruin of his arms, the perpetual pain in his flesh.

He welcomed it.

Pain fed his hate, and hate fed his strength.

Once, as a minor television personality, he had meditated to find peace.

But now, as a podcaster, he meditated to sharpen the edges of his anger.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, you may swear the litigants in.

Please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God, or whatever?

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he only pretended to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?

I do.

Yes.

Very well.

Judge Hodgman.

That's right.

I pretended to read it by staring at all of the pages one by one

for hours and hours on end, but refusing to read any words.

Liz and John, you may be seated.

For an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors, can either of you please name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom?

Liz, we'll start with you.

How about?

I'll probably just guess that it might be a Star Wars reference.

Might be a Star Wars reference.

Sounded like Darth Vader, maybe.

All right.

Not very specific.

Do you want to be more specific as I open the guest book?

I don't really know how to be more specific.

That's fair.

That's quite fair.

We'll just put in something about Darth Vader, maybe.

John, what is your guess?

Paul Atreides

from Dune?

Paul Atreides from Dune.

Boy, I have to say, these are two good guesses that are right

in my wheelhouse.

If there were any wheels in Star Wars, there are wheels, I believe there are wheels in Dune.

On those big spice collectors, a spice harvester has wheels, or at least treads.

It's right in my spice harvester treadhouse.

But one guess is wrong.

And one guess is very, very, very, very,

very good and close to right, but also wrong.

In that it was not specific enough.

Guess what, Liz?

Yes, of course it had something to do with Darth Vader.

Good job, Liz.

Thank you.

If you had said, is that a passage from the Star Wars novel Lords of the Sith

by Paul S.

Kemp?

I would have said,

yes, but what year was it published?

And if you had said 2015, I would have said, oh, also correct, But what page?

And if you had said page five, then I would have found

in your favor immediately without any further arguments.

But you were not quite specific enough.

Yes, it was describing.

This is a novel in the new extended universe.

Some nerds will know what I'm talking about.

Other nerds are busy gnashing their teeth over this.

From this novel, Lords of the Sith by Paul S.

Kemp, describing, of course,

Darth Vader's meditation chamber, which was only seen on screen once in The Empire Strikes Back.

There was that big geodesic dome he sat in.

It wasn't a dome.

I don't know.

Don't yell at me, everybody.

You know what I'm talking about.

It was a pod.

That's where he could take his helmet off and just chill.

I love that aspect.

We learned a lot about Darth Vader in Empire Strikes Back.

One is that dude makes time for meditation at work, much like John, the defendant in this case.

Yes.

Second, we also learned that Darth Vader enjoyed lunch on Cloud City.

Even though he was going to torture Hanselo just to provide psychic bait for Luke Skywalker, he was still going to have a nice meal with him.

When they walk in and Darth Vader steals his gun and says, now, will you please sit down to lunch with me?

I was just recently learned from my own son that there is a whole page of dialogue that is lunch with Darth Vader.

that was never shot for obvious reasons.

Dumb.

But it was an awkward lunch.

I like to see him just constantly trying over and over to eat a maple bar.

He hits the helmet.

Oh.

Hits the helmet.

That's the thing about that scene.

They go into this room.

Lando walks them into this beautiful dining room.

And Darth Vader and Boba Fett come out.

And he's like, won't you join us for lunch?

Like, you can't have lunch when two guys are wearing helmets the whole time.

All right, Liz and John, back to you.

John, first of all, I notice here in some of the evidence that Liz presented that she refers to you as Johnny.

Do you have a preference as to how I address you in this courtroom?

I'd prefer John.

All right.

Is it okay that I call you Johnny?

Of course.

Okay.

My mom used to call me Johnny.

Oh, this is, you guys are not fighting at all.

At work, we call him Sweet Johnny.

At work, you're at Johnny.

We call him Sweet Johnny at work.

Well,

he must be very sweet.

I'm not surprised at all that he's sweet because he's taken time out.

to get in touch with his body and his breathing and to be mindful.

Isn't that so, John?

Very true.

I want to be be clear that I am pretty sure his work name is Sweet Johnny at Work, sort of like the hip-hop producer Mike Will made it.

Yeah, it's not just Sweet Johnny, it's Sweet Johnny at Work.

It was a co-worker dubbed that as my blues name,

and it stuck.

So, speaking of blues, Liz, tell us a little bit about where you work.

We work at the Blue Man Group Theater here in Chicago.

I am the makeup and wardrobe supervisor, and Johnny here is the sound supervisor.

Oh, wow.

Those are big jobs in the Blue Man's organization.

Yeah,

I think so.

And we're important.

Yeah, but

by now, Liz, I would presume makeup, you kind of got it down.

Yeah.

Not a lot of variation.

They just have replaced the people who used to work under her with one automotive spray painting booth.

Not yet.

Hopefully that doesn't happen.

So if you're listening and you don't know, Blue Man Group is a long-running

musical comedy, mime

performance piece troupe consisting of three characters who are the blue men who are dudes.

I believe they're all dudes.

I don't know if a woman has ever played a blue man.

Has that ever happened to your knowledge, Liz?

I think there's been there's been a woman.

There have been.

Yeah, there's been women, but currently I don't think there are any women.

Gender is unimportant because they're these sort of funny, naive creatures who are entirely blue-like smurfs, but they have the stature of human beings.

And they're bald.

Yeah.

Sure.

And they interact and they do skits and they do musics and stuff.

Exactly.

I'm going to be honest with you.

I've only ever seen them on TV.

I've never even been to the thing.

And I live here in New York City.

Well,

we'll change that.

We'll get you in.

Well, I appreciate it.

I'll go.

Yeah, you too.

Have you been to Blue Man's, Jesse?

No, but my former colleague Mariel Reyes used to work there for years and was very fond of it.

Oh, that's right.

I remember that.

Mariel's so wonderful.

Hi, Mariel.

So let me ask you this question, Liz, before we even go on to your beef with Sweet Johnny at work.

Is it a trade secret, or can you tell me how long does it take to get that blue man

bald cap on and makeup and everything else?

Is there a bald cap or are these just men and women who have been shaved bald and they get blue put all over them?

Well, some of them have been shaved bald, but

that's not a requirement.

There is the bald cap and the blue makeup.

I mean, we've been doing it for so long that we can kind of bang it out in sometimes 20 minutes, but you know, we allow about 30, 35 minutes.

Remember, your job is makeup and wardrobe supervisor.

You can't reveal that they don't need you anymore.

Don't say that on this very popular podcast.

Like, yeah, I'm sorry.

Yeah, we're totally coasting.

We just spray some blue paint on them and

put some dark-colored tunics on, and then we're done.

How long have you been working there?

I started there part-time in 2010, and then I became the supervisor in 2012.

So it's been five, six years.

Yeah, five to six years as of this recording.

Yes.

And Sweet Johnny at work,

you also,

you were the sound supervisor there.

How long have you been with Blue Man in Chicago?

I've been with him for 19 years.

Boy, oh, boy.

Have you got seniority over Liz?

Yeah.

Wow.

Seems to me like you should be be able to do Lotus position any damn place you want.

But Liz takes issue because you have a practice of meditating at work.

And specifically where, Liz?

What is the

crux of your dispute with Johnny?

Well,

we have a kind of a joined workspace, sort of in the attic area of the theater.

And it's probably about a maybe 16 by 12 space.

Don't you think it's about that size?

Anyway, it's a bigger space.

And maybe I take up probably over half of it, and he has about three-fourths of it.

Three-fourths of it.

But

yes, but you don't need any more than three hours.

Are you saying, Liz, that you take half and sweet Johnny at work takes three-fourths of it?

Because that doesn't add up.

I take more than half.

Oh, you have three-quarters of it.

Yes.

Sweet Johnny was just correcting you in his sweet, sweet way.

Well, okay, so our combined workspace, he has, yeah, maybe about a quarter of it, and I have three-quarters of it.

But it's because I have a nice big sewing table, a nice cutting table.

I keep all my kind of, all the inventory of all the consumable stuff we use.

See,

this is the Liz I need.

The Liz who justifies her do-nothing job.

Fantastic.

Lay it all out there.

Machinery, equipment.

I do.

I have a sewing machine.

I have

my ironing board.

I have all the costumes that we're working on, all of the backstock of the costumes, all of the boots,

gloves, all sorts of stuff.

Yeah.

And vats and vats and vats of blue goo to dump people in.

Yeah.

Let's pause there for a moment.

Quick question.

Sweet Johnny at work.

Yeah.

Do you have any problem with the amount of space that Liz takes up in this shared workspace?

Well, I've been pretty accommodating, but the space, originally it was just me up there and storage.

And she was at a different end of the attic, as she calls it.

And then she needed more space.

So

management just moved her in there.

And it just kind of her space, my space keeps shrinking as she says, I need more space.

It doesn't keep shrinking.

It's been the same size since I moved up there a few years ago.

No, I mean, like shelving space.

You know, you were like, can you move this stuff and can you move that away?

So I just, you know, I consolidate consolidate and you know,

do what I can.

Liz, do you dispute these facts?

Have you been taking advantage of Sweet Johnny at Work Sweetness and taking up extra shelves?

I don't believe I've been taking advantage of his sweetness.

Liz, could you interpret this noise

that you just made?

Yes, I okay.

So when I moved up there, there were some shelving areas that were just full of some junk.

So I was, I kind of initiated it all.

I was like, let's clear out all the stuff.

Let's get this space that was just kind of not being used.

And I'm going to use it.

Because when I became the full-timer, there wasn't a place for the wardrobe person to work.

And I found this empty kind of wasteland and

I made it happen.

This wasteland was Sweet Johnny at Work's home.

Sweet Johnny at Work, how long have you inhabited this space with whatever equipment you need and then mostly storage, like a phantom in the rafters of this theater?

How long was it just you and only you?

How many years?

And follow-up question, how many mice did you know by name?

I don't think I was up there in the very beginning, but it it was soon afterwards.

And it was so I probably been up there 15 years at least, I would estimate.

15 years total.

Yeah, it was just me and storage from the theater manager.

He had stuff up there, which was just lockers of stuff.

So it really was not Johnny's.

Liz?

Well, Liz?

It's not yours either.

Guess what?

It belongs to the theater.

How many years ago did Liz begin her encroaching?

I believe it was 2014.

So this is now almost three.

This is like three, four years ago.

Three or four years ago.

And the problem is that from time to time,

Sweet Johnny at work meditates in this space.

Is that correct?

Yes, that's correct.

How often do you meditate, sweet Johnny, at work?

At work?

At work.

How often do you meditate, sweet Johnny at work?

At work.

Thank you for clarifying that.

It's,

let's say,

are you doing it right now?

Five, six times.

I'm sorry.

I had to go to the astral plane to think about it.

About six times.

Six times

a week.

Oh, okay.

So Monday through Friday, but twice on Fridays?

Well, it's theater, so it's like Wednesday through Sunday.

Yeah.

Right.

With a matinee on Sunday, yeah.

Got it.

I often will meditate between shows.

We have a lot of downtime.

So three shows on Saturday.

Right.

Yeah, I know you do have a lot of downtime because this whole show is totally locked in.

It's 20 years old.

Sorry, didn't mean to insult your craft.

No comment.

So, how long will you meditate for in a session?

And is there a particular practice of meditation that you follow?

I've done many techniques, but the main technique I do is the transcendental meditation.

So it's a mantra.

It's 20 minutes long, but with

sort of the beginning and end of it, it takes

about 25 minutes.

25 minutes, and there is a mantra that you are chanting silently to yourself or vocally?

Silently, yes.

Look, I don't know how it's done.

I've never did it.

You know what kind of meditation I practice?

A nap.

Well, that's good, too.

Sometimes I nap when I meditate.

Where do you draw the line?

How do you stop from napping?

The little meditation timer will go off and I'm up.

Oh, okay.

Are you in a seated position, like a classic Buddha with snails crawling in his head position?

I sit in a chair.

I've had a couple knee meniscus surgeries, so sitting in a lotus is not

really, doesn't really work for me.

Not for you.

No.

Not for sweet Johnny.

Yeah, and I think the most important thing is to be comfortable and

straight back.

Right.

If you have three shows on a Saturday, will you do it twice in a day?

Yeah,

even three times, but that's rare, usually twice.

And have you always

meditated in this particular space, in this

attic garret that you now share with Liz?

Yes.

Let's take a quick recess and hear about this week's sponsor.

When we come back, you'll hear more about Sweet Johnny at Work's mindfulness journey and why Liz has a problem with it.

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Court is back in session.

Let's get back into the courtroom for more Transcendental Irritation.

Sweet Johnny, at work, tell me about your journey to mindfulness.

You learned transcendental meditation.

What drew you to meditation, and what did Transcendental Meditation offer compared to whatever you were doing beforehand, if anything?

Well, I've always been interested in

different

religions and techniques and

meditation.

And I just, with transcendent meditation, it was the one that kept me doing it

more often, more daily, because it's simple and effective.

Well, were you doing some kind of wacky, wacky, complicated meditation before that one?

Some of them?

I just don't know.

I don't mean to be crude, but I don't know the different practices of meditation.

So describe what you were doing before compared to what you're doing now.

Well, some of just sitting quietly, following your breath, you know, some more general mindfulness,

some like Gurdjieff techniques where you sense different parts of your body, where you move through and sense each toe and move your legs and your fingers and

things like that.

You know, that's a lot more complicated than just reciting a mantra.

So,

right.

You don't want to have to count every toe every time.

You want to just kind of zone out for a little bit.

Kind of.

And what does meditation do for you in your life, professional, personal, otherwise?

What does it feel like to go into that state, and how do you feel when you come out of it?

There's a few different

things that can happen.

I mean, one is often a deep rest.

So I get a lot of rest and feel revived.

And I do, like I said, sometimes fall asleep during it.

But since I'm seated up, you know, I'll nod off, but I don't stay asleep.

So,

but just nodding off for, you know, a second

kind of resets myself.

And

I find it really good during when I'm working because then I'm sort of refreshed and

feel like I have more positive energy to bring to the space and everything.

And then there's more profound levels where

you get to that timely.

Yeah.

Get to just a quiet place where you don't have thoughts.

And if you go deeper, you don't even

kind of have a sense of yourself.

Those are more rare moments.

And in the deeper stage, you can have more profound insights and just more of a different relationship to

life when you can get to those places.

Aaron Powell,

you might get into some deep, profound insight.

Is it something you could share with us, an insight that you may have had about your life or the universe?

If it's private or you can't think of anything, that's fine.

Well, one thing that I can share is that often I'll go to a space that feels

the same no matter what point in my life

I can reflect upon.

So I feel like you go to that space, it's the same place that I was when I was eight years old, the same place I will be when I'm 90 years old.

It's like a constant

sort of

psychic space.

Yeah.

There's some deep stuff going on in this attic.

Yeah.

And how is this better exactly than simply scrolling maniacally through Twitter, getting angry at the world with your free time?

Do I have to answer that?

It's self-obvious.

Maybe the question answers itself.

Maybe it was rhetorical.

Maybe it was a kind of Buddhist koan that requires no answer, just contemplation.

Now, when you go into these deep states, do you derive some insight about how to deal with anger points in your life, such as the intrusion of people named Liz into your meditation attic?

For sure.

Now, when you're in this deep state and Liz taps you on the shoulder and says,

can you move your stuff?

I've got more blue goop to store.

Is that a problem for you?

Well, I don't ever interrupt him.

Okay.

I don't interrupt his meditation because that's not

when they're in the deep, the deep zone, you can't just, you know, say, hey, wake up.

You have to

ease out of it.

So I would never do that.

But Liz, that's when you can hypnotize them and get them to do whatever you want.

You can whisper in their ear and get them to rob a bank for you or something.

I guess I haven't learned those techniques yet.

Well, I'm just trying to get a clear sense.

I mean, Liz, you have an issue with John doing this meditation because you hate people finding inner peace or something.

Definitely not.

We're going to get to your problems in a minute.

Okay.

But, John, they call you sweet Johnny at work.

You're a very sweet dude.

You've obviously found some deep insight and you've been able to go to an eternal place within yourself.

But at the same time, I noticed that meditation has not exactly relieved you of some pretty high-level passive aggression when you were talking about Liz stealing shelf space from you.

How much of this dispute is two ways?

Are you mad at Liz

for interrupting does she interrupt your meditation whether she means to or not

no she doesn't interrupt because we we have come to an agreement uh how it works which is that because i don't want to interrupt her work or make her uncomfortable so what what i do is if i plan to meditate i'll seek her out i'll find her whether she's in the laundry room or wait till she comes back from walking her dog or something and i'll say you know now are you physically going around the theater or are you sending your astral self around?

I wish I could do that, but she probably wouldn't recognize me.

Okay.

Physically, yes.

Physically, I have to use my body.

It's frustrating.

But I do find her.

For me, too.

It has been since I've been nine.

And I'll say, Liz, hey, I want to meditate.

Is this a good time?

And she'll say, either, oh, I was going to go up there and do something.

Can you do it later?

Or yes, it's okay.

So she knows I'm up there.

And then

the worst would happen is if she forgot maybe she needs to grab some costume or whatever.

And she'll come up with...

Some blue makeup.

Some blue makeup, some goop or something.

And at that point, you know, I'll just continue meditating and she'll grab it and be on her way.

Right.

But you seem to be at some form of peace with this arrangement.

And you seem to have some agreement.

So I'm not sure even why we're here unless Liz, you want to break the agreement and make a new one.

We have this, yeah, this compromise, but I kind of just don't want him to be there anymore at all.

I want him to find somewhere else.

Mostly because, you know, it's my workspace, and I feel like I should be able to go there anytime I want to.

It's your shared workspace.

Well, it's a room that we share.

We don't share each other.

I don't go into his workspace ever.

Sure, you walk

through it.

I have to turn the

light to turn on our room is on his desk, so I have to lean over and turn the light on.

That's the only time I'm in his workspace.

Have you thought about annexing that part of the workspace so that you never have to enter his workspace?

I don't think we can.

No.

We have to share where we walk through it.

We have to walk through it.

It's a little bit of a tight squeeze.

But, you know, it's like maybe he'll come up to me and he'll say, hey,

can I go?

I'm going to go sit down upstairs for a while.

And I'll be like, okay, but then maybe something will come up and an unexpected thing will come up.

And I'll just have to, you know, run upstairs and like use the sewing machine for a second or just grab something.

And then I'll be like, oh, he's up there.

And then

I'll have to wait.

And it's, you know.

Well, is it the arrangement currently that if he is meditating, you have agreed not to go into the space at all?

I personally just don't like to go up there while he's up there because, you know, it's dark and it's quiet.

And usually what I'm going to do up there is going to be kind of like invasive and loud.

So I just don't bother going up there when he's up there.

John, do you turn the lights out when you meditate?

I turn one of the lights out, so it's not fully bright.

All right.

If she were to come in while you were meditating to sew a blue baldwig together or whatever, would that ruin it for you?

Well, what I've told her from the very beginning is if if you need to work,

just tell me and I'll stop.

Like if you need to, if you have to do something, I'll stop.

So

if there was a point where she had to show, I would prefer she said, I really have to do this, I'm sorry.

And I'll say, okay, you know, and I'll stop my meditation.

As long as she doesn't care about your happiness, it's fine for you.

Well, that's the thing.

I do care.

And I wouldn't, I guess I would never interrupt the

meditation and process because I know that that can screw it up.

So I don't even, even if I do have to go up there, I don't because I don't want to interrupt.

I just wait it out.

So that's,

you know, that's kind of my, maybe that's my fault, but I don't know.

I just don't, I don't want to bother him while he's up there.

I understand that feeling.

I grew up in a family with a father with severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

And

if you disrupted him reading the newspaper, he might yell.

Not like yell out of anger, but yell out of PTSD terror.

So I can understand the feeling of not wanting to tap someone on the shoulder while they're in a reverie.

Yeah, and it's, you know, I respect Johnny.

We're old friends and, you know, we care about each other.

So I'm not going to just do that.

You know, I feel like

I give him his thing.

Is there an alternative space for him to go?

Well, it's a big theater, but he has a sound console in the kind of side balcony where he, while the show is going on, that's where he works.

And nobody goes there but him.

I've explored and actually meditated in different areas in the theater.

And this is

definitely the best place and really the only

viable place.

Because otherwise I'd be using other people's spaces.

which and they're not as good and other places like in my sound console it's out in the open, so people are coming by all the time, cleaning crew, and people are walking through.

This space is kind of tucked away in the corner, so

I don't bother anyone beyond Liz.

Well, beyond me and

the other

people that work in my department, they also cannot go up there while he's up there.

Should it be a busy day, and we're all there.

Liz, you sent in some evidence, which are photos of the space that you and John share.

And these are going to be available at the Instagram account called JudgeJohn Hodgman if people want to take a look at them and also on the show page at maximumfund.org.

Let me just say that this meditation attic looks like dreadful squalor.

It looks like a working theater space.

Got a lot of equipment, a lot of workspaces.

Here you have one photo.

which shows Sweet Johnny at workspace, which is lit up very brightly with fluorescent lights, which is what I want from a meditation pod for sure.

And then you have some photos of your workspace, which is a lot of sewing equipment and tunics on racks and so forth.

It's all a lot of delightful theatrical clutter.

And then there's a picture of a cute little dog, which I always appreciate.

I always appreciate.

And you got yourself in a little selfie here, too.

I'm not sure if that was your plan.

Oh, no, that wasn't no, that wasn't intentional, but it was a good picture of my dog, Sherry.

Is she a yappy little dog?

One who might wake up someone from the midst of meditation?

No, she only yaps when it's time to go and she gets excited, but she's very quiet.

She's older.

She's real chill.

Oh, well, I have to say thank you for giving us a dog to post on the Judge John Hodgman Instagram page because we're going to get so many more hits now.

You're very welcome.

Anytime.

Sweet Johnny, at work, you've been using this space for a long time, hiding in the rafters, and all of a sudden you have a new colleague who also has a dog.

Were there any other difficulties in adjusting to this invasion of your space?

Does the dog bother you?

A dog is rarely in the space upstairs when I'm meditating.

She's only up there really when Liz is up there.

But that does bring up a good point: is that

Liz and I share a space.

And a lot of the theaters shared space.

We have a big green room, which we all share.

And

Liz brings her dog to work almost every day she's there.

So we all accommodate Liz with her dog.

And Sherry's a cute dog and we all like Sherry, but we do, we still accommodate her.

You know, she's pretty well behaved, but occasionally she'll bring out her beef trachea treat into the green room.

He hates that.

I don't hate it.

I just, you know.

And, you know, when she's getting ready for a walk, she'll yap, yap, yap.

Yeah.

And, you you know, it's but so we accommodate.

If I may interrupt, may I make sure that I heard those three words in order correctly?

Beef trachea treat.

Yep.

It's her her trachea.

She she loves them.

I've been to pet stores, and I've seen all of the weird animal parts.

And this is a trigger warning for anyone who might be a vegan or or just easily grossed out in this audience.

But, you know, pig's ears, other parts of the animal.

And I've wrestled with their strangeness and also my own feeling that they kind of look delicious.

But I've never seen a beef trachea treat.

Jesse, have you ever given Coco or Sissy a beef trachea treat?

I have never had the opportunity to, but I'm sure they would appreciate it if I did.

Sweet Johnny at work, does the beef trachea treat offend you because

you are a vegetarian or vegan, or because it's just gross or both?

No,

it doesn't offend me.

It's just it always reminds me that we are accommodating Liz with her dog,

you know, every day she works.

That,

you know, I just would like the same accommodation

with me because, you know, with the meditation, you know.

Oh, I thought you meant that you'd like her to get you more traits.

She probably would.

Well, okay, I get that.

I get that.

But

we, in general, I would say most of the people that I work with really appreciate having Sherry there.

And I mean, when I walk in, people are like, hey, Sherry.

Oh, hi, Sherry.

No one says hi to me.

Everyone's excited to see Sherry.

And we actually say it's Sherrapee because people have a bad day.

You get some Sherrapee going and people feel better.

So I feel like it's more of a service, if anything, by me having her there for everybody.

Well, did you say most people?

Most people.

So not everyone.

I don't think everybody likes dogs.

Okay.

You're Clarence Darrow in the courtroom.

Oh, believe me, I know that Johnny is not a big fan of my dog.

No, I like Sherry.

She sits on my lap sometimes, but sometimes I go.

We also, she has a wardrobe room down in the green room space, and I have some of my stuff in there too, so I have to.

go in there occasionally.

And sometimes I'll go in and Sherry will nip at my ankles.

She doesn't like the sound guys because they come in there unannounced, and she's like, Who are you?

Why aren't you hanging out with me?

And then she's like, Get out of here, and she bites their ankles.

Everybody's biz is up in everybody's biz.

Oh, yes.

So, before I go into my own meditation pod and take my helmet off and think this over in my chambers,

Johnny,

what will it mean to you if I find in Liz's favor and order you to no longer meditate in this space?

Oh, well, it would be pretty upsetting.

It's a big part of

my routine and my life, and

then I would be,

you know, hard-pressed to find another place

and probably wouldn't be meditating as much.

And frustrating at the same time because the space is often just empty.

So,

you know, if no one's up there and then me not being able to use it would be frustrating.

And how does that make you feel, Liz, when you hear it put that way?

Oh, I mean, I definitely do agree with that.

I'm not going to argue that.

I think that that's very valid.

I guess I think it just comes down to that this is a workspace.

It's not a meditation space.

And I think that's what it comes down to.

This is where I work.

I've made a nice

workspace.

I had a nice custom table built for me.

You know, I want to be able to use it whenever I can.

Do you ever check your phone at work, Liz?

Yeah.

I do.

Yeah.

You ever do Sudoku or something?

Well, when I'm on break, sure.

Uh-huh.

When you're on break, where do you do it?

Outside in the Sudoku zone?

No, I do it down in my office, in the wardrobe room.

Do you have a shared office down there?

No, it's basically the wardrobe room.

It's next to the dressing rooms because we have to be close by.

I think I've heard everything in order to make my decision.

I'm going to go into a trance in my chambers, and when I emerge, pure wisdom shall spout forth from my third eye.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman levitates out of the courtroom.

Liz, how are you feeling about your chances?

I'm not feeling that great about them, but

either way, it's okay.

We have an arrangement, and it's okay.

But yeah, yeah, right now I'm not feeling super good about my chances.

What about you, sweet Johnny?

I feel okay.

Still a little nervous that something so important could be taken away from me.

Okay.

But mostly you're just trying to stay in the present and live the moment.

Yeah.

How'd you know?

Liz, have you ever considered the possibility that David Lynch might come to the Blue Man group and he would ask where you do your meditating?

I've never thought of that.

Do you think he would do that?

He's a big TM guy.

He is.

Yeah, he's like the biggest.

I had no idea.

Oh, David Lynch Foundation.

He would probably be disappointed if he knew that I was trying to

put the kibosh on that.

He is cool.

That's like his main thing.

Besides the TM and the filmmaking.

Oprah.

Oprah might come by.

Oprah does it too?

Man, can you imagine how disappointed in you, David Lynch, and Oprah would be?

Very.

They'd be like, what, you eliminated the transcendental meditation area?

They would say.

It's what enabled us to unlock our creative potential.

Yeah.

Well, I would feel very bad, and I'm starting to feel very bad right now.

Hey, that's what the Judge Sean Hodgman show is all about.

We'll be back in just a second to see what Judge John Hodgman has to say about all of this.

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 Long.

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.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom.

Before I give my verdict, I was studying the evidence in my chambers and I just wanted to ask one quick question, Johnny, sweet Johnny,

about your workspace as pictured in the first photo submitted by Liz.

I see

a desk desk space here, and then there seems to be some sort of duct

above your desk terminating in a black cone of some kind.

Yes.

Can you tell me what that is?

It's an air vent

because I do soldering up there, like fixing gear.

Right.

So it sucks up the fumes

because, you know, there's like lead in the solder.

Not good for you.

Sure.

It probably helps your meditation, though, right?

Probably huff a little lead.

You see some crazy stuff, don't you?

Some Doctor Strange style.

I don't know what you're talking about.

That's right.

I'm sure you don't.

So I'm going to tell two very quick anecdotes that might shed some light on the decision that I'm about to render unto you.

One is that when I was in high school,

my first experience with the theater, I was a pirate in Pirates of Penzance.

Not even a featured pirate, pure chorus pirate.

Boy, that was an exciting time

for many reasons.

The camaraderie of being on stage, the camaraderie of being backstage.

And then one time I was getting changed in a dressing room and I was maybe a freshman or a sophomore and a senior girl came in and she said, I'm going to get changed in here.

And I'm like, oh, I'll leave.

She said, you don't have to.

Just don't turn around.

And so it happened.

that a beautiful older woman got undressed behind me in full confidence that I would not turn around.

And of course, this was exciting and terrifying to me, but also an incredible gesture of faith.

And I, of course, did not turn around because I'm a good boy.

And that's when I learned that in the theater, everyone's business is up and everyone else's business all the time.

That is the delight of the theater world, both on stage and behind stage.

It is a massive, ramshackle, constant crisis that is being solved at the last second.

And it is no wonder that your shared attic space is such a delightful mess, because that's what the theater is.

I don't think people work in it because they are drawn to orderly workspaces.

I'll tell you another quick little story.

A long time ago, more recently than high school, I was on a social platform called twitter.com and I discovered that I was one of 41 people who was followed by David Lynch.

David Lynch was following me, only 40 other people and me.

And that was exciting to me.

And then

one day,

I think probably because I endorsed Hillary Clinton, but I'm not sure, David Lynch unfollowed me and has never followed me again.

Oh, Liz,

you don't want to do something to piss off David Lynch.

It is the saddest state of affairs to be unfollowed by David Lynch, actually

or even figuratively.

I think you can tell where I'm going with these two anecdotes and what they will amount to.

Sweet Johnny, oh, sweet, sweet Johnny at work.

Not only

has seniority in this space, not only

had been enjoying the complete, utter privacy of his lonely attic for years before you came in there and disrupted his life, but also makes meditation an important part of his daily life and with good reason.

Because for a guy who...

For a guy who,

you could hear it in his voice, you know, he was not bending like a reed in the wind.

He was basically saying, your dog's a jerk.

For a guy who's meditating six days a week, he's already at the boiling point.

He needs this.

Who knows what kind of monster he would become if he were up there soldering all the time?

Now, Liz, you make a good point that this is a workplace.

That's for sure.

But this is in all workplaces.

We make accommodations, obviously,

for

the people with whom we work in close quarters.

And you would be not surprised, I think, to hear all of the letters I get from people talking about cubicle etiquette.

And in most of those, I will say, yeah, leave your own snot in your own cubicle, figuratively and literally.

Keep reading the New York Times magazine.

You'll see that one soon.

But in this space, in the world of the theater, it attracts weirdos, and I say that with great affection.

You know,

you do stuff in a theatrical workspace you can't do like in regular work, such as close your eyes for a while, take a little nap, go hide in the rafters, put on a mask, try to drop a chandelier on someone.

That's all acceptable.

Bring your dog to work.

Play the music of the night.

And it seems to me that you have a fairly workable arrangement here.

And I'm sure, and I trust, that if Johnny, sweet Johnny at work,

could find a place where he could get away from you and your nipping dog that worked just as well for his TM, he would do it.

But out of respect for

seniority,

because you invaded his space, because you share his space, and you have brought a dog into his space, and now that space is shared, you have to let him do his thing in order to be productive and the whole human being that he needs to be.

So I had really thought I was going to go for you with you on this one, Liz, but

sweet Johnny used some kind of weird combination of lead fumes and

hypnosis on me and made me swing around to him.

What I would suggest, though,

is that now that I know there is existing ductwork,

I would suggest perhaps building a soundproof booth with ventilation in this space

so that you can go and sit in the dark in peace and

your friend and co-worker, Liz,

and our little dog, too,

can come in and sew their little hearts out while you're in your booth.

Something like the booth over there at Maximum Fund Headquarters, right, Jesse?

That's a comfortable space to be in when you're allowed to have the air on, right?

John, I literally, particularly when I was taking migraine medication that made me very sleepy in the middle of the day,

will take the pillow from my couch and grab a sleep mask from my desk drawer and go into the studio, lie on the floor and take a nap with my colleague Bikram Chatterjee working,

let's say,

45 inches away from me.

Yep.

And there you go.

And if you have to take

a little room back from Liz to build this, then I authorize that because that's going to make everyone happy, which is rarely the point of this podcast.

But in this case, I do want you both to be happy.

But absent that, and I don't want to hear why that's impossible because I want to believe that there's hope in this world.

Absent that, I find in favor of sweet Johnny at work.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules: that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Johnny, how do you feel in your moment of triumph?

I feel good.

I'm glad we're basically staying where we're at.

I can continue meditating, and I'm going to talk to the carpentry department about building one of those big Darth Vader meditation chambers.

It's probably going to take up half of Liz's space, but I think it could be a win-win situation.

Yeah, I mean, that would only make the whole place like 55, 45 in your favor, right?

Liz, how are you feeling?

I'm fine with it.

It's, you know what, we've been doing it this way for a while, and I'm happy to keep him meditating and doing his thing.

So

it's okay.

You're a woman of the theater.

You probably have a lot of practical skills.

You're ready to pick up a hammer and help build this

isolation chamber?

I'm all for it.

I'll probably do a really horrible job because I'm a terrible carpenter, but I'll help if I can.

Well, Liz, Johnny, I wish you the best of luck, and I hope that David Lynch comes to see you soon.

Me too.

Great.

Thank you.

Another thrilling Judge John Hodgman case in the books.

Before we dispense some swift justice, we want to thank Regan Blanchard for naming this week's episode Transcendental Irritation.

If you'd like to name a future episode like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook, that's where we put out the calls for submissions.

And even if you don't have a heart full of puns, you can always enjoy the puns puns that others have contributed.

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

Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets.

Hashtag JJ Ho.

If you want to talk about the show, a good place to do it is the Maximum Fund subreddit at maximumfund.reddit.com or on Facebook in the Maximum Fund Group.

This week's episode, recorded by Shelly Steffens at Chicago Public Media, our producer, the one, the only Jennifer Marmer.

Now, let's get to Swift Justice, where we answer your small disputes with a quick judgment.

Gunner says, My wife constantly tells me to dress warmer, as it makes her feel cold to look at me.

I'm never cold and hardly ever sick.

Will I catch a cold if I'm dressed too lightly?

PS We live in Iceland.

So, for once and for all,

cold temperature does not cause sickness.

Colds are not caused by cold.

Colds are caused by going to an outdoor hot tub

in Northampton, Massachusetts on New Year's Eve when it's 25 degrees out.

And then I get horribly sick.

But that's not because of the cold temperature.

That's probably because there are a bunch of other people's stuff in that hot tub, and I got sick that way.

Also, my body is not designed to ever be nude.

I made a lot of mistakes.

But even if cold temperature caused colds,

and it doesn't,

that does not mean that Gunner should dress up simply because his wife tells him to, because it's not the point that she's not even making the point that he'll get sick.

She's making the point that seeing him underdressed makes her feel cold.

And that's not fair.

Gunner should be able to dress the way, within reason and within his own safety,

the way he wants to dress.

And that's just the way it is.

And by the way, say hi to James in that greenhouse in the middle of Iceland, Gunner, because I I know you all know each other there.

That's about it for this week's episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ H O.

That's maximumfund.org/slash JJ Ho, or just email Hodgman at maximumfund.org.

No case is too small.

We love them all.

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

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