Phantom Stereo Repair Shop

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 man, the myth, the legend, the hardest working man in pod business, Judge John Hodgman.

Hi, Jesse.

Yeah.

You do not swear yourself to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help you God, or whatever.

And that's why you are able to get away with such a blatant lie.

Because whereas normally we are in chambers, a sort of metaphysical VR chambers that has been imagined in the mind of a man wearing a helmet in his centipede-infested basement somewhere, we are in a real room together

at Maximum Fun Headquarters.

Or so you claim.

Am I allowed to say where it is?

Yeah, sure.

The American Cement Building

at MacArthur Park.

Someone left the cake out in the rain.

The good news is, Judge Hodgman, that people can know that we're in the American Cement Building, but even if they wanted to

cause trouble, mischief, like

light a paper bag full of doo-doo on fire on our doorstep,

we recently had someone come to the front door

and ask

the security guard, the doorman,

hey, where is maximumfund.org?

And he told them, I don't know.

Well, now you know.

Yeah.

The American Cement Building.

So, for those of you who are writing the next big home invasion movie and are willing to go door to door in a pretty sizable building.

You ever seen the movie Strangers?

The Strangers?

It's one of my number one scary movies.

And the sequel has been a long time coming because I think they don't have a good idea.

I think the idea now is: guess what the Strangers are invading this time?

What's that?

Not Scott Speedman's Country House,

a wonderful podcast network.

We have a docket to clear.

No, I just want to talk to you, my friend.

Here's something from Victoria.

No, all the justice has been dispensed.

Shut it down.

Judge Hodgman, wait until you hear what this is about.

Okay.

It's about

vacuum collecting.

I'll allow it.

This is one, now usually, I want to be clear.

Sure.

Usually when I can't make it through the first sentence or the topic of one of these emails,

it's out of a general sense of smug contempt.

You know, the two qualities most associated with my on-air persona.

Lean into your brand.

However, in this case,

it was sheer delight.

I am so excited to talk about vacuum collecting and learn about vacuum collecting.

Okay.

My boyfriend feels the need to pick up any and all vacuums he sees on the street corner in order to, quote, repair, end quote, and resell them.

However, they end up just taking up room in our living room.

Our apartment's small now, but in a month we're moving to an even tinier apartment.

Please rule that collecting vacuums as a quote-unquote side hustle is silly, and he should focus his tiny amount of free time towards his college classes.

You know, Jesse, occasionally the time arises where I think to myself, Judge John Hodgman,

you are wrong.

You made a mistake.

You committed an error.

Sometimes I'll see a case case come through on the email or on the overnight, as my friend Christine's dad likes to call it, based on some old telex terminology from the 60s.

I'll see what comes through on the overnight.

I'll see a case.

I'm like, that one feels right for the docket.

And then it shows up on the docket, and I realize I have so many questions, so many questions to ask.

What's going on?

What street corner are you living on where people are throwing vacuum cleaners out the window all the time?

That's something that I've never seen in my life.

Baylife, Jesse, don't you ever see a vacuum cleaner on the street?

I live in things abandoned on the street country, which is to say the eastern part of Los Angeles.

And while astonishing volumes of stuff are abandoned on my street

very regularly, like give me some examples: beds, right?

Clothing, sure,

pets,

sad.

Yep.

They get on, they get on okay.

Okay.

I think.

All right.

Unless the coyotes get them.

Well, it's real sad.

Yeah.

But it's real, you know.

But it's also, I still wonder why you keep all those pet coyotes.

Yeah.

Dressers.

Right.

I mean, like, full-scale furniture.

Right.

I'm talking about like queen beds.

I'm not talking about doll-size furniture.

I'm talking about fully assembled queen beds that you're like, how do they even get that through a door, much less out onto the sidewalk to abandon and not call the phone number that the city of Los Angeles provides to get people people to pick up that thing kind of thing for free.

Quick question.

Yeah.

You ever see any king beds out there?

Probably not.

They're too beloved.

You're right, of course.

The answer had been yes, I was going to say we ought to get some kind of street team together in eastern Los Angeles to service the many, many listeners of Judge John Hodgman who agree with me that all married couples should sleep in king beds if they're going to sleep together at all, but can't afford them and feel that they need to write me about it.

Then in the future, I can just free cycle them a free king bed.

Right.

Maybe I'll create a marital happiness king bed fund or something.

But until then, we have to talk about these vacuums.

So, Victoria, if you are not lying

and you are living in some community

where more than one vacuum in the past year has been abandoned, such that your boyfriend has amassed a collection of them,

I would say this:

if he is not routinely

fixing these things and selling them, then it is not a side hustle of any kind.

It is a side hoard, and it should be stopped and disposed of.

Do you disagree, Jesse?

No, not at all.

I think that vacuum repair,

like

shoe repair and key making, are one of the great retail crafts

of our time.

I admire vacuum repair to the end of the earth.

The only thing I could possibly admire more is business machine repair.

Sure.

Such as repairing telex machines specifically.

Yeah.

Typewriters, sure, but telex machines particularly.

Remember stereo repair shops?

I've been trying to find.

A stereo repair shop opened a couple of blocks here from the office, and I got so excited because I love stereo repair shops.

And my stereo repair shop was recently gentrified out of business.

Oh, no.

And I sent an employee there with a piece of equipment that needed repair as a sort of test case.

Right.

And he went there several times confused, and we finally decided that it had never really existed.

That the sign was possibly like maybe left over from a production or because it was a sign that was new and announced that this store had just opened, but the store was closed.

It was always

a phantom stereo repair shop.

Yeah, it was just something that I created out of my own dreams and desires.

It was the, going back to a very early case, it was the greyhouse

that existed and didn't exist at the same time in your imagination of stereo repair shops.

And also, as someone whose entire career is composed of side hustles, I have never managed to generate a primary hustle.

Tell me what a side hustle is, Jesse.

What's your side hustle?

Oh, for me personally?

Right.

Well, I have a menswear blog.

Tell me about it.

My side hustle.

My side hustle of owning a popular menswear blog has itself a side hustle of vintage clothing store, which in and of itself, and home goods store and gift store, which in and of itself is a side hustle of the subscription service for Pocket Squares that I so it goes, it goes me, and the blog is a side hustle of the videos.

Right.

Made some menswear videos, side hustle of that, let's do a blog.

Side hustle of that, let's sell Pocket Square subscriptions.

Side hustle of that,

Vintage store.

That's like a fifth-level side hustle.

Now, tell me, and I'm not just asking you because I want you to plug

it together constitutes 20% of my income tops.

That's fine, but I want to hear, I would like to hear your definition of a successful side hustle, what you get out of it versus what you put into it.

And it doesn't have to be,

I'm willing to accept that a side hustle

has emotional rewards that are greater than its financial rewards, but I don't want to foreguess what you're going to say.

What is your definition of a successful side hustle so that I can apply it to this guy's vacuum mania?

Well, I think that what a successful side hustle does

is generate sufficient income to make the time spent on it worthwhile and also to enable you to carve the room out of your life in order to spend that time on it.

Right.

So I know in my case, because

nothing I've ever done has actually been successful,

they've also

limped along.

This is something you've done, John.

And like, because everything has been like,

we're getting by, in order to do a new thing, I have to generate a certain amount of money from it because otherwise there's no breathing room anywhere in my life.

That was the worst maximum fund shareholders speech I've ever heard in

So,

so, ladies and gentlemen, for me, like, so for me to want to spend my Sunday mornings at the flea market,

you know, which I do want to, because I love going to the flea market, I have to be able to generate some income from that.

It doesn't have to be huge, but enough that I can justify leaving my family or only taking one child with me or one dog and going to the flea market every Sunday morning.

And

the question for me about this boyfriend is: first of all, I love the passion.

Sure.

Second of all, I love the specifics.

I love that he wants to repair vacuum cleaners.

I'm not sure if it's economically efficient.

I don't know how much time it takes to repair a vacuum cleaner relative to the amount, the increase in marginal value of that vacuum cleaner.

And I certainly know that it's

almost without question,

it takes a lot of effort to sell vacuum cleaners.

Secondhand vacuum cleaner sales, presumably on,

I know we hate to buzz market, but given that the founder of this website is a fan of our podcast, presumably on Craigslist.

Craigslist.

Shout out to Craig.

Hey, Craig.

Craig Newmark, nice to have you.

Yeah, we're always grateful.

But like selling secondhand vacuum cleaners on Craigslist, I know from having, you know, my mom's a furniture dealer.

Right.

It's a lot of work in and of itself.

Yeah.

So what I'm concerned about here is that he's imagining that by doing two hours of work and increasing the value of a vacuum cleaner from zero to $100,

he is making $50 an hour when in fact he is not considering the cost of storing them, the cost to his social life of having them in his living room, the cost of posting them and reposting them on Craigslist, of

not selling them to people who come over and he skipped a...

you know, he skipped dinner with his in-laws.

Right.

Never mind fulfillment.

Yeah.

I would imagine shipping a vacuum cleaner even to a nearby zip code.

Right.

It's going to be a little bit time consuming, if nothing else.

Now, these are all questions that we could have had answers to had I made the right decision and had these people call in.

But I think that there's enough here in the description of the case that we can come to some reasonable conclusion.

And specifically the words, they end up taking up room in our living room.

Specifically, the word they,

that means there is more than one.

That means that they are not getting repaired in a a timely fashion, and or they are being repaired in a timely fashion, but not being moved out in a timely fashion.

Right.

So I, especially since they're moving to a smaller apartment, I'm going to say one vacuum cleaner at a time is allowed.

Can I suggest a slightly gentler ruling?

You may suggest it.

I know you're the judge here.

Two vacuum cleaners at a time.

The reason being that it kind of softens

the ebbs and flows

of the income

and the vacuum cleaners appearing and having the time to work on them.

It's like you kind of want to have like a little, and you could be using one of these.

I just want for those of you who can't see this, and I can because I am actually in front of Bailiff Jesse for once.

He's doing this weird jazzy sway, as he says, softens the blow of the income.

Like you're trying to sell this judge on something with your weird snake dance.

But then that said, I would also say

if it was my house i wouldn't allow even a vacuum cleaner in the living room when it wasn't actively being repaired even small apartments have closets and vacuum cleaners fit in closets if you can't fit these vacuum cleaners in the closet that's a whole other situation you've got to reevaluate your whole situation no i agree with you there and let me say to this boyfriend boyfriend You know there's nothing I want more for you than to have your own vacuum cleaner workshop out back somewhere

and where you can keep all your vacuums up to 15.

I don't care.

But I think that if you're going to be keeping them in your residence and it's small,

I have been swayed by the seductive snake dance of my bailiff.

I will allow two, but they got to be in a closet.

Do you know what a pelican case is?

I know what a pelican brief is.

A pretty good Denzel Washington movie.

Like all Denzel Washington movies.

That's one of the best qualities of a Denzel Washington movie.

You know it's going to be.

The mere presence of Denzel Washington ensures that it will at least be all right.

It'll be all right.

Yeah, because

you get to watch Denzel one way or another.

Exactly so.

A pelican case is like the kind of hard plastic case that often expensive camera equipment or recording equipment, filming equipment is carried around in with pick and pluck foam inside.

Ah, foam.

And it's waterproof and shark-proof.

It's also advertised as shark-proof.

Sure, well, you never know.

I once bought a pelican case, which I still have here in the office in use

on Craigslist.

And when I lived in Koreatown, a guy couldn't find, I ended up having to go around the corner.

I just went up to this guy's van.

This guy just has a van full of pelican cases, and his side hustle is filling his van with pelican cases like an itinerant shoe peddler of the late 19th century, like a like a fruit man on the streets of Philadelphia.

Pelican case.

Yeah.

Here comes that pelican case, man.

Let's run down there.

Get your nickels.

I don't know if that's an argument in favor of this guy going into pelican case repair.

I just, it's always stuck with me.

You know, but I think what you suggest, I have no idea where they are or where they live or why these dead vacuums are lining every street corner.

But if he can, he should invest in a truck.

Yeah.

In an old...

You know what I mean?

He could do the repair in the truck.

This is...

This is what I have always wanted my entire life.

The only thing I've ever wanted.

Forget podcasting.

Yeah.

Forget rubbing elbows with celebrities.

I just want a utility van.

Yeah.

Just like a nice,

like a Ford Transit Connect.

Like one of those square.

Ooh, I would love one of those.

That's a good reason to

get a jar.

And each time you sell one of the two allowed

vacuum cleaners, put half your profit, half your profits go to rent or whatever.

Right.

Half go into that jar.

That's that Ford Transit Connect jar.

19 cents every time.

It adds up.

Man.

Emily says, I'm curious about your opinion on a self-improvement technique suggested by podcast personalities like James Altucher.

I don't know this podcast personality.

I'm not familiar with what is a podcast.

It's hang on.

I'm going to look it up.

It's like a radio show.

Oh, you mean like cereal?

Oh, yeah.

Very popular podcast.

I remember that.

He suggests pushing oneself.

Hang on.

James Altucher

is an American hedge fund manager, entrepreneur, best-selling author, venture capitalist, and podcaster.

Well, I feel I could be reading my own Wikipedia entry.

Yeah.

He has founded or co-founded.

Boy, this guy's getting a lot of buzz marketing, but it's fine.

I have a feeling my verdict is going to

balance out

any benefit he gets from this.

All right.

He's founded more than 20 companies, including Reset Inc.

and Stockpicker, and said he failed at 17 of them.

Published many books.

Okay, got it.

Okay.

You keep talking.

He suggests pushing oneself outside a comfort zone by behaving in an unexpected way.

For example, asking a coffee shop cashier for a free coffee or lying down in a crowded public area.

The idea is that you'll be less risk-averse in other areas of your life.

I recognize this sort of behavior might benefit you by, say, developing the comfort to negotiate for a raise at work.

But each example that I've heard from the podcasts that endorse this behavior seemed to hinge on inconveniencing others.

Really, a hedge fund manager would suggest that.

Seems weird.

For example, one suggestion was to bring $100 to a craft fair and leave with $300 worth of goods, thereby sharpening your negotiating skills.

It sickens me to imagine taking advantage of the independent artists at such a fair.

I seek an order from the judge.

Should I take James L.

Tuter's advice and expand confrontation skills?

John, I'm going to let you answer this because we are at 359.55, 56, 57, 58, 59, and my four-hour work week is over.

Well, let me say, James Altucher.

You know,

every human being is his own person.

I've never met this person.

Every human being is her own person, too.

I don't know James Altucher's soul, and I hesitate to judge him simply because he is a hedge fund manager,

a sector of the financial services that is notorious for its macho bravado, and it's tending to underperform

even the most basic indexes.

That said,

do I suspect that there might be some statistical corollary between hedge fund managers, worldviews in general, and the kind of guy who thinks that other human beings only exist for his own personal betterment, that the regular human beings in the world are mere faceless mannequins and props for him to carry out his dumb social experiments in order to make him feel like he's gained something?

Maybe.

Stephen Colbert,

an incredibly talented, wonderful human being.

A kind man, in my experience.

Well, I've relatively limited to you, but my experience was he's notably kind.

You've interviewed him on stage, and you did a wonderful job, and he was kind to you.

He's always been kind to me.

A brilliant comedian and beyond, a commentator, actor, and just a wonderful, well-rounded human being who seems fearless.

And he is fearless for a reason.

Now, this is apocryphal.

This story may not be true.

I don't remember where I heard it.

I've told it many times.

It might be false, but it feels a right to me.

Stephen Colbert, when he was in Chicago, trained himself to never feel embarrassment by doing things like walking across a Chicago street, not an interstate, but a regular city street, in slow motion,

stopping cars in traffic and refusing to acknowledge them as they honked, but walking in slow motion like a kind of mime until he reached the other side of the street.

That may or may not be true.

Let's say for the moment that it is true.

What Stephen Colbert did at that time, for the sake sake of his own professional enrichment, was probably very annoying to the regular human being who needed to be someplace while this dude did his mime in front of them.

However, if it is true, Stephen Colbert did that in service of something greater, creating art and insight that we benefit from every day.

I'm willing to give Stephen Colbert a pass.

I am not willing to give this hedge fund manager a pass on gaslighting regular coffee shop employees simply to self-enrich for no other purpose than to pat himself or his listeners' selves on their loathsome backs.

No.

And if you're wondering why I'm really mad now, and I no longer hesitate to say that this dude is a demon and a monster, it is because I went further down in his Wikipedia page and I saw that among the people that he interviewed on the James Altuter show is Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert and now legendary crepezoid, semi-right-wing, MRA

doofus.

Oh, Jennifer Marmer, I thought, was holding up a sign to say, wrap it up, but no, she's saying, go on, go on.

Anyone who gives Scott Adams, and look, I grew up loving Dilbert.

I even take a look at it from time to time.

It's still kind of funny.

But anyone who gives Scott Adams' ideas air is not going to get any love from my podcast.

Do you disagree?

I guess my question is: of these examples, and I don't know further examples, but I'm willing to believe Emily's characterizations of the nature of the further examples.

Why isn't any of them like,

I've trained myself to feel no shame by walking into a coffee shop,

ordering a small coffee, and giving the man $1,000.

Good point.

You know, all of these.

It's not just risk-taking.

It's

all of these describe a kind of shamelessness in taking advantage of others.

It's ways to train yourself not to feel bad as your boot steps on someone's neck.

This is like an evil desensitization program.

I've just realized that Emily wrote this in, and the first line was, I'm curious about your opinion.

And normally that would be a cause for immediate delete because this is not a case.

She has no dispute with anyone.

But Emily, I'm glad that once again, I made an error while sorting through the emails and your non-dispute got through because at least I am now introduced to something new to dislike.

Well, I'm just glad that we finally, on Judge John Hodgman, got to hear about a white guy's system for how the world should work.

I knew we would get around to it eventually.

Let's take a break.

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

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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

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

Just go to maximumfund.org/slash join.

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

Let me ask you a question.

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My new super soft hoodie from Quince that I got at the beginning of the summer is indeed super soft.

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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

This week, we're clearing the docket.

Here's a dispute from Gus.

My wife, Susan, eats scrambled eggs for breakfast most days of the week.

After cooking, the pan will sit on the stovetop until I clean it with the after-dinner dishes.

I love my wife, but this makes me feel like a house elf.

What's a house elf?

That's a thing from the Harry Potter books.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

When I raise the issue with Susan, she tells me that she leaves the pan there to cool and that I should go pound sand.

Oh, an expression I have not heard enough of.

I haven't heard that in a long time.

What does that even mean?

I love the sound of it, but it's utterly nonsensical to my ear.

It just means go buzz off.

Okay, stick it in your ear.

Stick it on a lemon.

Yeah, soup to nuts.

That's not what that means.

I'm asking the court to order Susan to clean, dry, and replace her own pan before she leaves her work.

Susan would like me to shut my piehole with regards to this subject.

Well, Jesse, what I would like to say is this.

The origin of the expression, go pound sand, is from a longer expression,

which is not to know or have enough sense to pound sand down a rat hole.

Filling rat holes with sand is menial work, and telling someone to pound sand down a hole is like telling them to go fly a kite.

The expression dates to at least 1912 and is common in the Midwestern United States.

Submitted by anonymous anonymous to Urban Dictionary, October 31, 2003.

Happy Halloween the past.

And by the way, congratulations, Urban Dictionary.

Congratulations, Urban Dictionary, for providing me.

I can't figure out if Happy Halloween the Past is a new high or a new low for this podcast.

And congratulations to Urban Dictionary for providing one entry that does not describe a sex act that makes me profoundly uncomfortable.

Now, what were we talking about?

Oh, right.

Susan's eating scrambled eggs for breakfast most days of the week.

Again,

it's hard for me to believe that this one could have passed through the mailbox without my immediately flagging it for serious consideration for the podcast with litigants on the line, because all I want to know is, what kind of pan are you using for your scrambled eggs?

Well, you are a real scrambled eggs fanatic.

I love making scrambled eggs.

I love talking about making scrambled eggs.

I love hearing about scrambled eggs techniques.

And I think the kind of pan this is.

Whereas I love tossed salad.

Again, new high or new low?

Well,

for a moment, it took me a second to realize that you were making a reference to the

term Fraser and not the urban dictionary.

Not the urban dictionary definition for tossed salad, which, as this is a family podcast, I urge the children driving their cars right now, don't pull over and look that up.

Yes, and the kind of pan.

I'm very interested in the kind of pan one uses to make scrambled ice because it would affect my decision in this case.

Is

Susan using an aluminum core stainless steel pan,

which are your kind of your common upscale pans that you might use?

Or is she using a cast iron pan?

which is the kind of pan I use for now almost everything in my life.

I do the same.

Yeah.

And I will say that, you you know, once you get a cast iron pan well seasoned, you're going to have those eggs never stick.

And all you need to do is rinse them out with hot water, maybe a wipe of the paper towel, as we've determined on the podcast, maybe the tiniest drop of dishwashing liquid is fine.

And yet that is one that does need to cool down before you handle it and clean, unless you're using a potholder or whatever.

I like to use a potholder to do it because then it comes right off so easily.

That's true when it's still hot.

Yeah, yeah.

You don't even have to dry it because the water evaporates as it cools.

That's a good point.

Again, Jesse Thorne, cast iron expert of the show.

Now, she's using an aluminum core stainless steel pan.

That's one that probably has a stay-cool handle anyway.

And that's one that you can leave resting in water if the egg has come to stick to it, as it might, because those pans are, even if you add oil, those pans can be sticky from time to time.

But you can leave that resting in water to get something that's baked on, loosened up so you can wash it later.

But both systems

are designed best for immediate cleaning of pan.

Using a potholder if you're using cast iron or using that nice, stay-cool handle, let it.

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 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.

Cool for just a second.

Don't splash cold water into a hot pan.

Give it a couple seconds and then you can start cleaning it out.

Maybe just wipe out the inside with a paper towel before you actually wash it.

But the main reason for doing this has nothing to do with the physics of the pan or the stickiness of the eggs.

It is the principal or one of the principal watchwords of this podcast.

Be mindful of the work you leave for others.

Susan is lazy and she's just leaving this behind.

You know what a house elf is, Jesse?

Is it something from Star Trek?

No, I told you already it was something from Harry Potter's.

Right, right, right.

Specifically, it is a slave.

A house elf

is a...

It's not an elf like in the Lord of the Rings.

Or like in Star Trek.

It's not like one of those elves that are mystical beings that walk on top of the snowflakes

and stare at the future in a bird bath.

Live long and prosper.

Exactly.

A house elf in the Harry Potter verse is this small withered thing that is enslaved to a wizarding family to be its servant

forever until such time as a wizard decides to free it by giving it a piece of clothing.

That's how you free a house elf.

Is it nude the rest of the time?

They're allowed to wear like, I think in the first time Dobby the house elf appears, he's wearing a pillowcase.

but I'm not sure how he got it or else he'd be free.

Are they allowed to wear like a tiny barrel with shoulder straps?

Sure.

A weird side thing.

Uh-huh.

A weird side hustle.

Uh-huh.

A wizarding exception is they're allowed to subscribe to Pocket Square of the Month Clubs.

Got it.

Only if the edges are hand-rolled.

House elves are the darker elements of the Harry Potter verse that raise some of the biggest moral questions, which are answered in the books, but it takes a little while to get there.

You know who I love?

Spock, the famous elf from Star Trek.

He's a good one.

J.K.

Rowling.

Really?

Yeah.

She's really doing a good job on Twitter these days.

She seems like a nice woman.

And I really dig her.

And I, and it took, you know, when those books came out, I'm going to be real here for a second.

When those books came out, and I was a snob person in my late 20s.

Catherine and I had no children.

We both gave that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, aka Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone a chance.

We were like, I see where this is going.

I read Narnia.

I read some of those other fantasy books.

There's no way this is going to be as good as that.

We put it aside.

Sniff, sniff, we said, and we went to sleep.

I immediately turned to my Dorling Kinderly books of highly detailed cutaway illustrations of vehicles from Star Wars because I felt that that's where I was at at that time.

Yeah, you were good grown-ups.

I was 28 years old.

Yeah.

Once we had children and I started reading the books to my children, I discovered that they really grow.

They grew on me.

And this sounds condescending, but I only mean this in deepest appreciation.

She grows as a writer as it goes on.

And it became a huge part, as with every other parent who ever shared these books with their children, a big part of our...

parent-child relationship.

And as I watched parents and kids going out on Halloween, dressed as professors and students from Hogwarts and everything else.

I began to realize,

in particular, when the later books came out and they're like 800 pages long, a thousand pages long, and she understood that A, not only do kids like to read, which was certainly not the common wisdom when I worked in book publishing, when she started this thing, that B, they craved emotionally hard stories and craved them at length.

I was like, this is a true force for good.

I was a jerk when I was young, and I took my kids to Harry Potter Wizarding World in Universal Studios when I was here in the fall, and we went on that thing, and I broke down crying because she created this amazing thing.

And it's not just because they serve alcohol at Universal Studios, unlike Disneyland.

Nothing enhances the experience of walking through Hogsmeade and building the fantasy of it than carrying around a tall boy of Modello that you got at the three broomsticks.

What are we doing?

Oh, right.

Yeah, clean your eggs off, Susan.

Geez.

Okay, here's something from Kevin.

My girlfriend and I are going on a trip to Italy for 10 days.

I thought it would be fun to have a going-away party with some of our friends before we leave, but she says 10 days isn't long enough to have a going-away party.

It's only appropriate when leaving for at least three months.

Complicating our disagreement is that I made a Facebook event on her account for the party.

She's mad now because it looks like she's throwing the party.

She also feels embarrassed answering to people who think it's weird to throw a party for a short trip.

I admit admit that wasn't the smartest thing to do with her account.

It's not about smarts.

All right, go on.

Yeah, but I thought I could get more buy-in from guests if we were both hosting the event.

More buy-in.

How?

Kevin.

You're not building a public-private partnership.

He's been reading a lot of Altucher books.

Yeah.

How long does a trip have to be in order to throw a going-away party, and why in the world would we put restrictions on fun and good times?

Oh, fun and good times, Kev.

Who throws themselves a going-away party?

Oh, is that the first thing you want to yell about?

There's so many things I want to yell about.

I would have yelled about who takes their girlfriend's Facebook account without her permission and posts under her name.

That's a profound violation of privacy.

I've posted under your name on Facebook.

I know, but we have an arrangement.

That's true.

Also, Facebook is impossible to use and it's impossible to switch identities when you need to.

It is.

No.

And, you know, and not, but this guy stole his girlfriend's identity in order to pass off on their friends that this was her idea.

I presume because their friends already know that Kev's ideas are bad.

Yeah.

And do not deserve buy-in.

Right.

If anything, they deserve buyout.

Now, Jesse, you yell about your thing because that's equally as valid.

The point of a going away party is it's other people celebrating you.

Birthday parties,

even birthday parties for adults come with some measure of shame because there are parties you are throwing to celebrate yourself.

That's right.

That's why so few adults have regular birthday parties, and the ones who have really regular birthday parties are often the least shameful ones slash most shameless.

Or it's a spouse throwing a birthday party for a spouse or something.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And I think, you know, it is reasonable to have a carve-out in the social contract that suggests this is one occasion when you can say, why don't you guys celebrate me?

However.

I'm not even convinced on that, but I agree with you that that is the social norm.

Okay.

So, however, a going-away party is an acknowledgement by others of how much you mean in their life and thus that they will miss that part of

their lives that you are part of.

That they will miss having you, the piece of their lives that is you being gone will affect them in some way.

So they want to celebrate that piece while they can.

Right.

You have identified, Kevin, number one, that none of your friends will miss you over the course of 10 days.

No one will notice that had you not told them, they just would have been confused as to why all the replies to your texts came late at night.

Right.

But number two,

it is you insisting that others tell you how great you are.

Yes.

And how important you are.

And so extraordinarily important you're suggesting you are to your friends that 10 days without you

is going to leave an irreparable hole in their experience.

Exactly.

Look,

the gentleman

is obviously of a younger generation, perhaps with

fewer responsibilities.

If he's in his 20s, he's in a time in his life where he's supposed to seem important to himself.

He's also supposed to feel that it all should be fun and good times all the time.

And I appreciate that he is approaching life with certain

the blinders of lack of experience.

And he only sees him.

No, that's not even a good method.

You know what I'm saying?

He's an egotist.

That's what he's supposed to be at this time.

I understand.

I get it.

He's one of Generation X's famous slackers.

But in spite of the two crimes that are here already identified, identity theft

and pathetic self-involvement, there is a third crime, which I will articulate as, why do you get to go to Italy for 10 days and I don't?

I'm a grown man.

I can't just go to Italy for 10 days.

I got responsibilities.

So I will say this.

The only party that should be thrown for you shouldn't, you know, you know, those alphabet letter signs you can get that say happy birthday?

Yeah, your friends should chip in to get a custom-made banner that says, Why do you get to go to Italy and I don't?

That's your party.

Good timed, Kevs.

Sort of good riddance party.

Yeah, you know what you can do, Kev?

If you feel you're going to miss your friends, invite them to a bar or restaurant and buy them all dinner.

That's a fair thing to do.

Don't make them celebrate your jet-setty lifestyle.

Let's throw to a break.

Okay, we're going to take a quick break when we come back.

Letters from listeners.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We're clearing the docket this week.

We've got something here from Jamie.

I recently asked a co-worker, is there ever a point where it's acceptable to tell someone you're seeing that his facial hair is absurd?

Uh-oh,

you may have come to the wrong people.

This is an audio podcast, however, dot, dot, dot.

She says there's never a time and that even asking the question is shallow and cruel.

I say you shouldn't let a guy walk around with the equivalent of spinach in his teeth or on his chin, as it were, and say nothing.

Judge what's your call.

Jamie, when you and your coworkers say, is it acceptable to tell someone that you're seeing that his facial hair is absurd?

Does that mean someone you're dating or someone that you just view?

Someone you're seeing in that moment?

Man, if we get permission to tell someone that we're seeing, just passing through our field of vision, that their facial hair is absurd, that is a dangerous precedent to set for me personally.

I honestly would say.

Both giving and receiving.

I want to be absolutely clear.

Suddenly, waves of people will be accosting me and I accosting waves of others.

Yeah, I honestly would say that it is more appropriate to tell someone that is passing through your field of vision to whom you have no connection, dude, that beard or mustache looks terrible.

That's called Twitter.

I've been there, and that's fair.

It is fair for a stranger to have an opinion about someone else's facial hair, and it is fair for them to say their words.

I know what I'm doing when I grow my stuff out, and I know that the world isn't always going to like it, and maybe I need to hear what they have to say, because

I'm wrong.

It's hard.

It's hard for people to think of a reality in which they are wrong, especially for dudes.

So that's fair.

But if you're invested in a relationship with someone, a partner can say to his or her bearded companion, I'm going to tell you something that's real.

That hurts me when I kiss you.

That's fair.

It's even okay to say,

I think you're more handsome

when you are are

clean-shaven or you just have a pencil mustache or something.

Right, or in my wife's case, when you just have a Fidel Castro beard rather than an insane mountain man beard.

Sure.

It is okay for you to express your opinion to a person that you love, just as it's okay for the person with facial hair to take that into consideration and make a change if they feel like it or not, because this is

our bodies all the same as well.

But to say that someone you are seeing that their facial hair is absurd is cruelle.

That is mean.

That is name-calling.

And it is not at all like saying you have spinach in your teeth, because I did not choose to grow spinach in my teeth for a purpose, aesthetic or otherwise.

Comparing someone's beard to bad breath is a mean thing to do.

So, Jamie, don't be mean.

Don't be mean to the people you're dating.

Jesse, what do you think of my beard?

I think it looks quite nice, actually.

Thanks.

Yours looks great, too.

Thank you.

Our wives are wrong.

That's where you're wrong.

My wife likes mine.

Oh, wait, maybe she's just being nice.

We have a follow-up letter here from Mark.

He wrote in about episode 317,

Deep in the Misanthropy Hole.

Do you want to read it?

Sure.

Dear Judge Sean Hodgman, hey, that's me.

The plight of your listener, Carter Carter, I still love that name, brought to mind the wife of an ancestor I recently discovered.

I descend through my maternal line from the Bertha family, who originated in Prussia and settled in Lafayette, Indiana.

In 1916, my first cousin, thrice removed, George Bertha, married Bertha Leffert.

She then, of her own volition, became Mrs.

Bertha Bertha, a name she retained until she expired.

I like to think old Bertha, old Bertha, hey, have some respect, Mark.

I like to think Mrs.

Bertha Bertha embraced her choice and wore her Berthas proudly on her sleeve.

As such, let her be a lesson for us all.

Let us resolve to wear our names, whatever they may be, and not let them wear us.

I think that's fair.

I agree completely, although it fails to take into consideration that Bertha Leffert's given middle name was

is a famous name for cows.

Jesse yeah

can I tell you about it

a joke that I chose a sort of dad joke that I chose not to make yeah all right

I had the opportunity recently to meet one of my heroes the very famous chef and cooking show host Jacques Pepin Oh wow yeah that's exciting it was very exciting I love him very much and by the way the recipes in his books are ironclad, foolproof, perfect.

And they make good flavors happen in your mouth.

And you should watch his shows and read his books.

And he, you know, you know what he was making in this situation?

He was teaching a class.

Scrambled eggs.

Scrambled eggs.

Very special kind of scrambled eggs called omelets.

Jacques Pepin perfectly displays the making of an omelette.

And then he says, and that's how you make an omelette.

And he questions.

And I was going to say, and I stopped myself.

I'm still not sure which was the right thing.

It's like, yeah, I have a question.

Can you make them without breaking eggs or no?

Thank you, Jesse.

I'm glad you enjoyed that.

I have a feeling that I'm, in the context of that class, people would not have laughed, but I'm glad you enjoyed that.

We also have a letter from Amelia responding to episode 315, Scary Time Law.

Did I pronounce it Scaritime or Scary Time at the time?

In a Scary Time.

I'm going through a bit of a Scary Time right now myself.

I think, I don't remember, but

either pronunciation is accepted by the Urban Dictionary.

As a native San Franciscan with a Midwestern and an East Coastern parent,

probably I pronounced it both ways interchangeably, thus ensuring the ire of everyone in the world.

There you are.

We welcome your comments.

So she wrote, Dear Judge John Hodgman, I enjoyed the judge's story of the demons coming to get him in his bunk bed.

Thank you.

You may read more about it in my book, Vacation Land, True Stories from Painful Beaches.

It made me remember with fondness when the devil would come to get me.

What?

Amelia, go on.

When we were young, my older sister and I would often shower together, as sisters do.

When my sister would turn the water off, she would start to panic and urge me to hurry before the devil came to get our souls.

Unbeknownst to me at six years old, it takes a few minutes for the thingy that roots the water to the shower shower head to decompress.

Plumbing terms.

She would leave it up, knowing that the hiss and gurgle it makes right before it decompresses would scare the poop out of me if she said it was the devil.

It was in my 20s before that sound stopped making me shiver and freak out.

I highly recommend this to older siblings

as they look for ways to terrorize their little sisters.

That's what they call a twist ending.

Exactly.

And now I am the devil.

The devil did possess you, Amelia.

You became evil.

If you have a case for Judge John Hodgman, we want to hear it maximumfund.org/slash JJ Ho

or by email at hodgman at maximumfund.org.

You can also talk to us on Twitter.

I'm at Jesse Thorne.

I'm at Hodgman, H-O-D-G-M-A-N.

We're also now on Instagram, where you can find evidence for our cases, as well as miscellaneous photographs, at judgejohnhodgman.

Hashtag your tweets, hashtag JJ H O.

And if you're on Reddit, hit the maximum fun subreddit, maximumfun.reddit.com.

Our producer, the brilliant Jennifer Marmer.

Thanks, Jen.

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

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