Scaritime Law

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, Scary Time Law.

Ethan brings the case against his girlfriend, Jaina.

Ethan would like to spend one night on the Queen Mary Ocean liner, but reports of ghosts aboard the ship have made Jaina apprehensive about being there at night.

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.

We found a friend, friend, friend in Judge John Hodgman.

He'll pop right in just when you need him most.

And Jesse will too, and you can't do without him.

That bailiff and that judge, John Hodgman ghost, it's Judge John Hodgman time.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, swear them in even.

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 died in that crash, and you've been talking to his gaga-gagga ghost?

I do.

I do.

Very well, Judge Hodgman.

Ethan and Jaina, you may be seated.

For an immediate summary, judgment in one of yours' favors, can either of you guess the piece of popular culture, arguably, that I paraphrased on my way into this court.

Jaina, you're the defendant, so you may guess first what is your guess?

Give you a hint.

It's a theme song to something.

Is it to the show Casper the Ghost?

Is it to the show Casper the Ghost?

I am writing that question on a piece of parchment and putting that into the guess book now.

Ethan, what is your guess?

Well, that was going to be my guess as well, but instead I'll guess

the theme song to the animated movie, Titanic, The Legend Goes On.

Titanic, The Legend Goes On.

Yes.

And I am consulting the Magic Ouija board, and it is saying,

all guesses are wrong.

It was, of course, the theme song to the Hanna-Barbera cartoon from 1971, Funky Phantom.

Funky Phantom.

That's a real show and not just a Mr.

Show sketch.

No, it is absolutely a a real show, but it truly is.

It was the final stretching.

Even in 1971, it was the final stretching of the premise of teenagers who may or may not be in a band travel around in a Dune Buggy or other fun kind of vehicle, solving vaguely supernatural crimes with some unnatural abomination.

The model of this, of course, would be Scooby-Doo, that horrifying talking dog and the mystery machine.

But then that was emulated by Speed Buggy, which had the talking Dune Buggy as their friend, Goober, and the Ghost Chasers, which had another dog that turned invisible when it saw ghosts.

And then Fang Face,

some kids had a werewolf with them who sounded like Hunts Hall from the Bowery Boys.

Jabber Jaw, which sounded like Curly from the Three Stooges.

For some reason,

everyone making cartoons in the 70s thought that what kids wanted were homages to the Bowery boys.

The Funky Phantom was a ghost of a revolutionary war soldier that that three kids unexpectedly awoken from a grandfather.

He was trapped in a grandfather clock in a creepy mansion.

And when they set the time correctly on the grandfather clock, the funky phantom came out.

And he was voiced, as so many great characters were, by Dawes Butler, basically reusing his Snagglepuss voice.

Snagglepuss was based on Bert Lahr, who, of course, is a Jewish-American entertainer from New York City, not a Revolutionary War soldier.

So he's talking like this all the time.

Anyway, how do you know, John, that that's not how Revolutionary War soldiers talked?

Have you listened to the tapes?

That's true.

You're absolutely right.

Fake news.

I apologize, everyone.

Oh, by the way, according to Wikipedia, and this may or may not be true, but Wikipedia said it, the backstory for the funky phantom was during the Revolutionary War, him and his cat

hid in this clock.

They were cowards.

They heard red coats.

They hid in this clock.

They got trapped in there and they died there.

They starved to death.

Look, we had a staff meeting at Judge John Hodgman in which I was sternly upbraided for picking cult refs where the explanation was half the show.

And I apologize,

but I just had to share this piece of extremely obscure culture with you, Jaina and Ethan.

But now let's get down to brass tacks.

Ethan, you bring the case against Jaina, who is your girlfriend.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Yes, correct.

All right.

And you want to go spend a night on a haunted cruise ship, and for some reason, she does not.

Name the ship and tell us a little bit about it.

It's the Queen Mary.

It's located in Long Beach.

Long Beach, right?

I think it's Long Beach.

Long Beach, California.

That's correct.

That's where it was last sighted.

Yes.

Out in the distance.

It's a permanently cemented ship in the harbor, and it's like

Bart.

Never mind.

But I want to spend a night there because it just looks like kind of a cool, kitschy thing to do.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

You want to spend a night on this haunted cruise, this haunted love boat?

I don't believe it's explicitly haunted.

And when I say to you, tell me about the Queen Mary, you're like, I don't know, it's somewhere.

Never mind.

It doesn't matter.

I just want to go.

You didn't do the research into the vessel you want to sleep on?

I thought.

All right,

now I got to navigate away from the funky phantom page and go look at this thing because I can tell you more about the Queen Mary than you can.

The Queen Mary may be Long Beach's most legendary attraction.

Yeah.

It certainly isn't that Long Beach.

Although, Judge Hodgman, part of that Long Beach, the famous titular Long Beach of Long Beach,

is a dog beach where just dogs are allowed to play off-leash, and it's literally the most amazing place in the world.

It'll show you what the world will be like after all the humans have fallen to the dogs.

I was going to say it's like the canine equivalent of that place in Monterey where all the butterflies land on you, but I guess your metaphor is good too.

Well, Monterey was the home of the TED conference when I was invited to speak in it long before any of you were born.

And then I went back when it moved to Long Beach.

There's a little story from me.

And I was wondering where I should stay.

And I saw that permanently moored,

not cemented, the nautical term is moored.

Okay.

At the pier in Long Beach is the RMS Queen Mary, a retired ocean liner that traversed the waves through the 30s and 40s into the 60s.

And it was a Cunard ship, just like the Titanic,

until it got replaced.

And so they permanently moored it there.

And over the years, it has been refitted into a hotel.

And this sounded wonderful.

And then I thought about sleeping on this creepy ship all by myself, and I decided too scary.

So I kind of have a dog in this hunt.

You, Ethan, would like to spend a night on the ship, but Jaina, you do not.

Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct.

All right.

Have you been on the ship at all, Jaina?

Yes,

I have multiple times, and Ethan and I both have gone together a couple times to visit the ship.

When Ethan was on the ship,

for some reason, did he have a burlap sack over his head so that he could not observe it or describe it in any way?

No, he did not have a sack over his head.

He was very present.

Can you tell me, since you have been there multiple times, what do you like about the ship and what has attracted you back to it multiple times, if not a ghostly beckoning?

I honestly, I'm going to say that I've never

once, well, when I was younger, I was almost like pretty much forced to go because the whole family was going.

So I would just have to go by default.

And then when Ethan and I went last time, it was because we were in Long Beach and it is the Long Beach is one of its most premier attractions.

So by default, you just end up at the Queen Mary.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, especially if tickets to the aquarium are sold out.

Yeah, exactly.

And what do you do if you're not spending the night there?

You just walk around the ship?

They offer some tours, like a historical tour, which I think last time we ditched.

And then

they also offer a ghost tour.

And also, I did forget that the last time we went was in October, and they do kind of a horror nights event at the Queen Mary as well, where, you know, those actors come out and they're dressed really scarily and they'll come and come out and surprise you.

And they have like different mazes around the ship and inside the ship, which is actually kind of cool.

So we did that event too last time.

The Queen Mary seems to be playing up a reputation for being haunted.

And in fact, we have, speaking of hauntings and reputations,

we have an expert witness with an extremely good reputation when it comes to investigating hauntings, the supernatural,

questionable science, and other unproven claims.

She is the co-host of the very popular, for good reason, podcast on the Maximum Fund Network, Ono, Ross and Carrie.

Carrie Poppy is with us.

Welcome, co-host Carrie Poppy.

Oh, hello.

I consider myself more of a co-ghost, but thank you.

What is it?

The haunted mansion up in here?

You riding around in your doombuggy.

I was just on that ride, and it was great, and I consider that a compliment.

Thank you.

It is pretty great.

You know who does the voice of the ghost host?

No, who?

Thurl Ravenscroft.

Who's that?

He's the voice of Tony the Tiger and

Cher Khan in the jungle book animated film.

Oh, oh, yeah, that checks out.

Famous voice actor.

Yeah, he's practically the voice.

Famous wobbly voice guy.

He's practically the Dawes Butler of the Haunted Mansion.

But anyway.

Yeah, I've been to the Queen Mary as well, like you guys.

So have you guys been on the ghost tour?

No, we have not.

No.

Okay.

I have.

So, case closed.

carrie wins again how about case reopen for a moment

carrie uh oh no ross and carry is premised on uh exploring and investigating unprovable claims uh pseudoscience uh new religious uh movement spirituality

you went on the ghost tour can you tell us and the listeners a little bit about the legend of the Queen Mary.

What's supposedly going on there?

Sure.

So there are a bunch of legends attached to the Queen Mary.

So obviously the Queen Mary's been around for a very long time.

And the legends attached to it go back as far as the ship when it was sailing.

And also since it's been docked, people say that there have been people who worked there who fell into the water even as it's been moored, not cemented, moored.

that

that even people who've gone to visit have fallen in the water, just like there's one story about some drunk women who fell overboard and they haunt the ship.

Do they haunt drunkenly?

Yes, yes,

as we all do.

Just wandering around lifting their tops and stuff like that.

It's the best kind of haunting.

Ghost barfing.

And there's a famous little girl who apparently haunts the pool area.

Her name's Jackie, and she wanders around the pool and calls for her kitty cat.

And supposedly, if you go into the pool area, you can hear her calling for her cat.

What's the name of her cat?

What's the name of her cat?

I'm trying to remember the name of her cat.

Snowflake?

Sure.

Maybe Snowflake.

But people will go in with their recording devices and say that you don't necessarily hear it in the room, but later when you take your recording device back and replay it, you can hear it on your recorder.

You can hear this little girl.

That's called EVP electric

electronic voice phenomenons.

That's right.

I don't want to show off, Carrie, but I've watched some reality television about haunted places.

Oh, very impressive.

You get TV.

Yeah, I do.

I do.

Oh, wow.

Carrie, please refrain from sassing the judge.

Never stop sassing, Carrie.

I love it.

NSS.

A lot of these people who supposedly died are not on the rosters for the ship.

There's no record of death for them.

So it really appears that they never even existed, that these tales are apocryphal.

One question,

you mentioned that even in contemporary times, some visitors are rumored to have died.

How many of them died because they went on the haunted Halloween tour where people were jumping out at them all the time and they got so scared they fell off?

Zero.

Yeah, so

you'd think that would be like the explanation.

But as far as we can tell, there have been no deaths aboard the Queen Mary.

None of these actually appear to be corroborated.

It all appears to be legend.

But so my co-host Ross and I, my co-ghost Ross and I

went and

went on board and we took our recorders and it was really cool.

The guy who leads the ghost tour, who was a really cool guy, he let us stay on after everyone for a few hours and record as many EVPs as we wanted.

And

we stayed and went in the back areas where they usually don't let anybody and kept really quiet for hours and hours and tried to take EVPs.

And we did get one weird voice that we replayed for a bunch of people and tried to ask them, like, what do you think it said?

And everyone agreed that it said something like, go eat French fries.

But that's about all we could get.

The haunted buzz marketing of the Queen Mary

cafeteria.

Yep.

That's from when Grimace fell overboard.

Who's Grimis?

He's the purple guy.

Come on.

I'm sorry.

Wait a minute.

What?

Who's Grimis?

Grimace from McDonald's.

Oh, CNET Market.

The purple McDonald's guy.

Oh, the purple guy.

Well, you should have said the purple guy.

Okay.

That's when the purple guy fell overboard.

Let's see how that joke goes over.

So, Carrie, I take it by the fact that you are not the most famous person in the world.

Whoa.

That you offended.

Well, you're pretty famous.

Thank you.

But judges sass back.

And I take it by the fact that you are not on the cover of every newspaper and magazine that you did not discover ghosts.

You did not discover hard evidence of haunting on your visit to the Queen Mary's.

I write?

That's so far true.

Okay.

But may I ask you, were it spooky?

There was one moment where I entered a dark corridor and I thought, this is it.

This is the feeling.

Something's going to happen.

And this sort of like dark

feeling overcame me.

And I felt this like cold,

I don't know, breeze blow through me.

I was like, this is what people are talking about.

And then you realized you just had to pee.

No, I just like felt it count down in me like three,

two,

one.

And then nothing happened.

Well, you peed your pants.

Nothing ghost-related.

I bet you, Carrie, that was pretty creepy, though.

I mean, I peed my pants a little bit.

I think you can tell a pretty good, scary story around a campfire.

But this is a courtroom.

We'll take a quick break.

We'll be back with more Judge John Hodgman in just a second.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Welcome back to Judge John Hodgman.

This week's case, a battle over ghosts on the Queen Mary.

Jaina, you have heard from Carrie Poppy.

No such thing as ghosts.

Do you believe in ghosts, Jaina?

I

don't believe in

the traditional sense of ghosts, as Carrie was talking about, you know, dead people who came back alive as like spirits, I guess.

Because of unfinished business.

Yeah, I don't believe in that definition.

What definition of ghosts do you believe in?

I believe that when people do, let's say, experience these types of phenomenon

and label them as ghosts, I think they're really experiencing, I don't know, like demons or like evil spirits, but not necessarily from

like these spirits weren't necessarily dead people in a time.

So you believe in, you believe in disembodied spirits that are not dead people come back from beyond, but could be imps or demons or some other supernatural visitors.

Yes.

Do you believe that they mean you harm?

Most times, yes.

Okay.

Have they harmed you in the past?

No, and I'd like to keep it that way.

Have you had an experience

with your definition of a ghost that you

that haunts you still to this day?

No,

thankfully no.

What is the reason that you believe in supernatural entities of this kind?

Were you raised religiously to believe this?

Yes, I was.

i see

um so ethan you just heard uh on the subject of ghosts spirits spooks and haunts and haints as they're sometimes called you just heard uh jana say in the voice of burt law via snagglepus via dawes butler via the funky fandom i do believe in spooks i do believe in spooks i do i do i do i do

that's from the wizard of oz y'all

burt law is a cowardly lion all right i had to got that in.

Wobbly voice.

That's right.

Well, it's all the same.

It's all the same.

Ethan,

do you believe in ghosts?

I do not know.

You do not.

Did you know that Jaina had these feelings about supernatural bad actors?

It's been a wavering definition ever since I brought up wanting to stay on the Queen Mary.

So I didn't know that she thought they were demons.

It started as that she didn't want to go because there were ghosts.

Then she didn't want to go because she didn't believe in ghosts, but she didn't want to tempt the ghosts that she didn't believe in.

And then she now is saying that she thinks they're demons, which I guess is

to me that's what I'm saying.

She's changing her watch.

She's changing her story.

Yes.

It's like she's a different person to you now.

Like maybe she's possessed by a demon.

Yes, that's entirely possible.

Has this issue come up with any other local Southern California attractions, such as Knott's Berry Farm?

No.

Like, it's only been this one thing.

When she doesn't want to see a movie, is she like, that movie is possessed by a demon.

Have you ever been to the haunted mansion, Jaina?

Which one?

The one in Disneyland.

The only one.

I have been to that haunted mansion.

Was that a bad feeling for you?

No, because I know it's in Disneyland and Disneyland is basically heaven on earth.

So I don't think there would be demons there.

So no, I don't think it's haunted.

And when you say heaven on earth, do you mean God literally put it there and constructed a special demon-proof dome?

Oh, it's a metaphor, John.

What she means is that if we're good, after we die,

we get to stand in line a lot and sweat.

Also, churros.

Yeah.

I don't know, but you know, with all due respect, truly, Jaina, I don't know know that I've ever spoken to someone who would say openly on a podcast, and I admire you and respect you for this, that she or he believes in supernatural entities, demons that mean them harm, that are not allowed to enter Disneyland, but otherwise

might reach into your soul.

And so I don't know what's a metaphor for you or not anymore.

Can I ask you what your religious background is?

Probably just like Christian.

Not Catholic.

No, the Protestant kind.

Right, right.

But a more demon-centric form of Protestantism.

Yeah, I guess.

Spooky ghost demons.

Yeah.

Is that in Leviticus or Deuteronomy?

Probably in John something.

Yeah.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in LA.

Okay.

And

is your concern about demons, for lack of a better term?

Something that, like, When you say it, when you say it to Judge John Hodgman, I believe in demons.

Are you saying, like, hey, I really believe in demons?

Or I know that probably there aren't demons, but it's just hard to shake the feeling.

And either answer is obviously acceptable.

I'm not trying to push you one way or the other.

I'm just trying to get a sense of the depth of your belief here.

I think the second one,

it's, I think Ethan mentioned something about Temp the Ghosts.

It's more like, I don't want to provoke them.

Yeah, I'm an agnostic.

Carrie Poppy, would you say that you are an atheist?

I'm kind of both.

So I guess like I'm

agnostic philosophically, but like I live my life as an atheist

because I feel like the evidence leans toward there aren't those things.

But I'm philosophically agnostic in that like I don't think that I'll ever have the answer.

Right.

And

like me, in my case,

I

always self-described as agnostic because I believed from an early age that there is in the possibility of

things

existing outside our ability to perceive them and complexity that we are not capable of perceiving at this time,

that there might be something else beyond what I could perceive.

And also, I knew that when I died, I'd figure it out one way or the other, I guess.

But, you know, over time, as the evidence in my own life has mounted, that is to say, I feel

the cold breath of my death on my neck every day.

Oh, that's me.

I also lean toward practical atheism, but philosophical agnosticism.

But there is that feeling still in me of, like, I feel you on that, Jaina, that.

that you kind of don't want to tempt what you don't know.

Jaina, how else does this affect your life?

I mean, besides this cruise ship moored in Long Beach, are there other places where you feel like you might be

taunting

demons if you travel to them or things that you don't do for that reason?

It hasn't really come up in my life where, like this before necessarily, where I

that's I've had to react in this way, but I think just thinking in the future, future, like if I had the opportunity to, let's say, move into an old house that could possibly be haunted in a way, like maybe someone died there, like I would hesitate a little bit to move in there.

So when you say someone died there, so now I'm thinking, oh, well, that's kind of the old definition of ghost, right?

Because if someone died there, that suggests...

sort of the original definition of ghost we were talking about where a ghost is connected to a spirit with unfinished business, right?

Yeah.

Can I add that maybe they died there because of a demon?

Okay, wow.

That's a really intricate little theology you have going on here.

The demon who is currently possessing the person known as Jaina

is a trickster.

Don't listen.

Don't listen to that demon.

Don't listen to that entity.

It's a liar and a changer.

Change it up on you.

Change the whole story.

And Jaina, I wonder if perhaps you are a trickster.

I don't mean to accuse you of lying, but maybe you're lying, right?

Because you know that

you have to know coming into the court of Judge John Hodgman that for the most part, I would be inclined to rule in favor of a person conquering their fears, especially if those fears are unsubstantiated, supernatural, superstitious.

And not even substantiated in their own lives, you know, not connected to any particular trial.

Like I asked you, have you had scary moments with demons before?

And you're like, nah, but you never know.

And,

you know, I even ordered a dude into making a virtual reality palace in his basement where I knew there were centipedes and he was scared of them.

And centipedes are real things.

And that guy might be dead in a basement now

because the centipedes gnawed him to his bones.

And I may have to order you to move into his house.

But you also know coming into the court of Judge John Hodgman that I would be loath to order someone to do something against their own

sincerely held religious or quasi-religious beliefs.

So which Jaina am I speaking to now?

Are you manipulating this courtroom by saying you truly believe in demons in order to get essentially a religious exemption from a night in a spooky ship?

Or are you just the eternal liar, Lucifer?

Because, Jaina, I can tell you from a childhood spent at Episcopalian Sunday school, there was not a lot of demon ghost talk, certainly not connected to cruise ships.

Well, oh, this is the real Jaina.

The unpossessed one, hopefully.

They have to tell you.

It's like undercover police officers.

I,

well, I honestly will say I did feel really creeped out when we visited the Queen Mary in the past.

I can't lie about that.

There was this one time where we were kind of like in the lower levels of the ship and I could just see like this long hallway.

We were in this long hallway and there were all these like little rooms off to the side, but there was no one there or it felt like there's literally it's just me and Ethan.

And I did feel really creeped out at that point because I felt very alone.

And yeah, I don't know.

Maybe it's not just demons.

Maybe it's just like the feeling of being like kind of alone in a space where there's no one there.

And yeah, that really creeps me out.

And I don't really know if I want to experience that in the name of brunch.

I'd like to propose another option that could be going on here.

May I?

The court allows it.

Judge, thank you.

So I was brought up, well, no, I wasn't even brought up religious.

I voluntarily took on religiosity at a young age in a secular family when I was 13.

And I went to like a very mainstream church.

It was a Presbyterian church.

And like you, Jesse, I wasn't taught like this sort of demon-laden language, but I still strongly believed in demons because they're in the Bible.

There's no denying that.

And so I saw demons everywhere.

Like I believed in these spirits.

And I mean, I didn't physically see them.

Let me clarify that.

But I thought like, oh, if I feel a creepy feeling, like maybe that's a demon.

And

at one point I even believed that I lived in a house that was haunted.

And so I can totally believe that someone with a religious background feels these creepy feelings, attributes them to demons.

That's not a crazy thought to me.

That's just like, I feel something weird here.

Maybe those are malevolent spirits.

And I wonder if

Jaina's higher cognition is saying, ah, this might be like a fun thing to do with my boyfriend.

And if I go to Judge John Hodgman and he says, yes, you must go, then

my

agency is being taken out of the equation and it's no longer my fault if I go.

Now God can't blame me.

Right.

Now I just get to go.

I get to have fun

and

like the demons can't get me because

I'm just doing what John said.

Yeah, so Jaina, how about that?

What if I stared deeply into your eyes and took over control of your body and I possessed you?

And forced and forced you to walk onto this?

If I forced you to go on to this thing,

what are you afraid will happen?

That you'll get scared or that you'll like it?

I think I'll probably like the brunch part if I even make it to the next morning.

Right.

But you'll be the first person to die on the Queen Mountains.

Specifically, Ethan, you want to go spend a night on the cruise and then go to brunch the next morning.

Yes, and get dinner the night before on the boat as well.

Two meals.

Yeah.

All right.

Will you also be sleeping in some sort of bed in between?

Hopefully.

Yeah, cool.

What are the accommodations like?

It's just like typical guest rooms.

Steerage is a term.

I don't know any boating terms, so I'll be shown up there.

Well, you sure are a great advocate for yourself.

The ship is run as a hotel, and the hotel is something like a three or four star

hotel, roughly.

So it's pretty nice, but not extraordinarily nice.

Have you slept overnight on the ship?

I haven't, but I have been to the ship.

Ethan has the brunch.

Janus has actually been to it before.

I have not, but she has talked it up to me quite a lot in the past.

Jaina, why are you talking up haunted brunch?

I didn't know.

Yeah, I love brunch.

We both love brunch.

How's the brunch?

How's the brunch?

What do they got?

Is it a buffet?

Is it a buffet?

Yes, it is.

It is a buffet.

Oh, boy.

Tell me.

Tell me more.

So they have made-to-order eggs, like anything that you would expect from.

An omelette station?

An omelette station?

That's what I remember.

And I remember when I went, this is when I was very young.

But from what I do remember, there was an omelette station.

And there was also like, you know, those places where they have all these little tiny like cakes and desserts.

Skip that, skip that.

I don't want to hear about that.

I have one question for you.

Sausage, links or patties?

Oh, gosh.

Everything hinges on this.

Or, Jaina, links and patties.

I'm hoping there'll be both because it was a very big buffet from what I remember.

Or maybe it's because I was small.

But yeah, I'm assuming they'll have both and bacon probably.

Ethan,

why not just stay at a nearby hotel and go to brunch?

Jaina did bring that up recently, but like I thought that that's a fine idea if we had to compromise, but I like the kind of kitschiness of hanging out on a boat for the night.

And it would be like less walking overall.

Yeah, I mean, Ethan, you wouldn't even have to stay at a nearby hotel.

Long Beach is probably close enough to where you live that you could just go to brunch there.

Yeah.

But driving like 45 minutes for just food, in my opinion, especially the first meal of the day, would be not arduous, but like, like, I can get food closer if I really wanted to.

You could even set up your own omelette station.

I could.

With links and patties.

I have the answer to the sausage question.

I looked it up.

A voice from, yeah.

Please.

The answer is links.

Now that's a thrill.

You know, there's nothing I like better than a steam tray full of sausage links in a hotel lobby.

They might also have patties.

I don't know.

I just found a picture of sausage links at the.

Either I just got goosebumps from your investigative reporting, Carrie, or there's a demon in here.

Either way, what a thrill.

Glad to be a part of it.

I spent most of my time questioning Jaina

because

she's more interesting.

And

when I ask her simple questions, she has answers that are accurate to herself emotionally and is descriptive of the world around her.

Whereas, Ethan,

you have been

troublingly vague about everything.

I asked you to describe Mary.

He turned into a cloud of bats.

You describe the Queen Mary as

a boat that might be somewhere and cemented to a thing, and you couldn't describe the brunch, and you couldn't really describe why you wanted to spend the night other than kitschy and less walking.

I am presuming that the reason that you want to bring Jaina onto this is the pretty standard boyfriend reason of like pushing her buttons and making her uncomfortable.

Now that you have heard the depth of her

belief

in the other side and the sense of feeling creeped out by it

and have taken that into your understanding of your girlfriend.

How long have you been going out, by the way, Ethan?

A little over a year now.

All right.

I want you to go deep inside and try to be as candid as Jaina has been with us.

Why do you want to take her on on to a haunted ship overnight?

What is it?

What's the fun part?

What does it mean to you to do this with her?

It's kind of the oldest thing in the area, and I grew up on the East Coast where buildings were old.

And

it, one, so I'm like a little homesick in a way, but it's like not a great parallel to home, but it's close enough in my brain, I guess.

And as well as like it would just be a fun little kitschy thing to do.

And also, it's slightly to annoy her.

Okay.

Anything you want to add that you think might be persuasive to me?

Oh.

It did look fairly inexpensive.

I didn't look at other places nearby, but like it did look inexpensive.

They have a spa on the boat as well, which we could get a massage there or something.

Because Jaina's always having shoulder problems and stuff like that.

A gentleman does not talk about his girlfriend's shoulder problems, sir.

Sorry.

That's very steerage of you.

I will say this, Ethan, you're a charming young person.

What is your age?

I'm 25.

Yeah, you're a charming young person.

And

I don't know what Jaina sees in you, but I know what I see in you, which is you're a simple man with simple tastes.

I want to spend the night on this ship because it's an old thing cemented to a thing.

It doesn't cost too much and it means less walking.

I mean, you know, your motives are very simple.

Complete this sentence before I go into my chambers to consider my verdict.

I would really love to spend the night with Jaina on this boat

because.

Because it would be strangely romantic.

And even if there is a ghost, I could protect her.

Oh.

Oh.

Jaina is shaking her head emphatically.

Jaina, do you doubt Ethan's credentials as a ghostbuster?

Yes.

Why do you feel that he would be unable to protect you from the demons?

I don't think it's necessarily Ethan himself.

I think it's more that like, no one but God can protect me from the demons.

Ethan, how does it make you feel to hear Jaina say that only God can protect her, that you can't protect her from ghosts?

She's never been religious up until we've entered this sound booth.

Interesting.

What do you think about that?

I mean, I'm fine with it.

Very, very open-minded of you.

And, of course, a very short sentence that ended without further explanation.

Good.

She just has never really attributed anything to God.

or anything like that.

She hangs out with her church friends from when she was little.

So I knew that she used to be religious, but I didn't know she was still or like actively attributed anything to higher powers, which it doesn't bother me that it does, but it's just a mild shock to my system.

Atheist, agnostic,

or other, Ethan?

Agnostic by the literal definition of unsure if there's anything similar to Carrie.

Yeah, you don't know whether it's mort or cemented.

No one can tell.

No one can tell.

All right.

I know what you want, Ethan.

Jaina, is there anything you would ask of me if I were defined in your favor other than simply saying you don't have to do this?

No, I think that's good enough.

All right.

I am now.

You don't want like a night at the Madonna Inn or something like that?

Well, I'd like to have brunch there.

I don't want that as well.

Yeah, like a trip to Hearst Castle.

Yeah, that sounds great.

Would you ever go to the Winchester Mystery House?

Maybe.

Wait a minute.

What?

You know why that house exists, right?

Yes, but I don't have to sleep there.

I've been to the Queen Mary, but I don't have to sleep there.

Her concern is that while she sleeps, she's more vulnerable to demon ghosts.

Yes, that's, you know what?

When I come back from considering this in chambers, I will provide you with some compelling personal testimony to that very subject.

So now I am going back to my bedroom that I had when I was 11 years old, and I will go on top of that bunk bed, and I will consider that my chambers as I consider my verdict.

I'll be back in a moment with my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Ethan, why do you want to do this to your girlfriend?

I just feel like it'll be less travel in the morning because she never wakes up on time for anything.

If we scheduled to work out in the morning, she'll just be like, go without me.

Or if literally anything before like 11, she would not be able to get out of bed for.

So So, Jaina, this whole thing is sort of your fault, right?

Because you won't get up early and have other character deficiencies.

I did say that

if he did just want to go for the brunch in the morning, I would offer to drive.

And it does not take 45 minutes to Long Beach from,

like, let's say my house.

If you went on a Sunday morning, I feel like it would actually take like 25 minutes to 30 minutes.

I wonder what freeways you're thinking about taking.

The 400,000.

Oh, let's get our Angelino on, guys.

The 405 style.

Let's

list numbers.

Where do you live, Jaina?

I live in San Francisco.

Okay.

Yeah.

So it's just a straight shoot, probably to the 710.

Is that right?

I'm not sure.

Ethan, you think you got a shot in this thing?

I hope so.

I did concede earlier that if it came to it, I would be fine staying at a hotel nearby or like an Airbnb or something.

I just like the idea of the old boat a lot.

It might just be entirely silly, though.

Jaina, do you think you've got a shot at winning this thing?

Maybe.

I hope so.

Well, we'll see what Judge John Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a second.

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 and offers his verdict.

So, 11-year-old only child John Hodgman, of course, had a bunk bed because all only children have bunk beds.

It's how we literalize our material excesses to our little friends.

And I would sleep on that thing.

And the problem was that I had discovered, I was not raised in religion.

Both of my parents were raised Catholic, but they did not take me to church particularly.

And yet I found a certain, I didn't find God so much as the devil when I discovered discovered a paperback of The Exorcist in my parents'

bookcase.

And I think I just read the back cover.

And then I read the Mad Magazine parody of it.

And I knew enough to get mortally terrified of devil possession.

Because as an only child, it is important to me

to know what the rules are and follow the rules so that I will be loved and approved of by every human on earth.

But the devil didn't care about that.

And the thing about being possessed by a demon is that there are no rules you can follow to stop it from happening.

It could just happen.

It's just going to happen.

If it was going to happen, if the devil wanted in, that's it.

Devil's in.

And I would lie awake at night terrified of demon possession and losing myself because as an only child, myself was the most important thing in the world.

It still is.

And I knew from the book in the Mad Magazine parody that the preface to the devil possession would be the shaking of the bed.

And I would wait for the bed to start shaking.

And guess what?

It would shake.

It would shake because

the bunk bed

was not very sturdy.

And my heart was beating so hard that it would shake.

And then I got out of bed one time.

And I went in.

My dad was asleep.

My mom was awake.

And I said, Mom, I got to tell you, I think I'm getting possessed by the devil in there.

And she said, there is no devil.

And I said, oh, no?

And she said, no.

She said,

I haven't mentioned to you, but I am an atheist.

So there can be no devil because there is no God.

Now go back to bed.

Somehow that was not a comfort, or at least it wasn't for a number of years, and I worried about it for a long time after.

It's hard to shake that feeling that something can come in and get you.

And it is unusual, I have to confess, Jaina, to meet someone, an adult,

who is not actively

religious.

Look, in my world,

you're a challenge to me because in my world, I live in an elite liberal bubble.

And I don't meet a lot of people who believe in demons.

And I thank you for your sincerity, unless you are a trickster demon who is messing with my head,

for bringing

that confession to my courtroom and for allowing Ethan to hear it for the first time.

Because I realized that,

you know, you guys have been going out for a year, and unless Ethan is really dumb, he never knew that you sort of believed in this stuff for real before now.

It does not seem to have changed his mind, though, about what he wants to do.

You know, I would like, I don't know what to say.

I don't want you to turn your back on your religious beliefs, but I'm going to tell you what my mom told me.

There ain't no demon.

This is Mama John Hodgman talking to you right now.

You sleep on that ship.

Nothing's going to happen.

Nothing's going to happen.

You're going to be fine.

There are no demons, no ghosts.

It's fine.

It's fine.

But since you sincerely believe

in

bad actors that are invisible, who are going to get into you, the 11-year-old inside me says, you know what?

I'm not going to force you to do that.

Instead, I'm going to say to Ethan,

congratulations.

You're going on a haunted ship by yourself.

I really think this is for the best because you want to go on this thing.

You were unable to articulate any particular strong reason why it would be meaningful to you to have Jaina along anyway.

I mean, you threw the idea of a massage out there.

Like,

you know, frankly, it was a little offensive.

It's like, I know what I'll say.

All women love massages.

I'll say it.

It's a massage.

That's what I want.

That'll make it seem like I care about Jaina in this situation.

Forget it.

This haunted ship is your haunted journey to take.

I think what's going to happen is this.

Jaina is going to drive down there.

You're going to pay for her to stay in one of the

many

anodyne two to three star hotels that line Long Beach.

I think I stayed at the Renaissance.

It was fine.

Frankly, that time I stayed at the Renaissance, no offense, Renaissance, but that was scarier than any haunted ship.

You know, it's just like staring up at that dropped popcorn ceiling as the sun went down.

That was scary.

But you're going to stay in a nice hotel.

And

Ethan, you're going to go sleep on a haunted ship.

I want you to record on your device.

As much of your stay,

I want you to keep a log of what happens.

If you wake wake up in the middle of the night, I want you to reach for that device and describe how you're feeling, what's happening.

If anything scary or creepy happens, I want a full Blair Witch found footage account of what goes down on this thing so that we can play some excerpts on the Judge John Hodgman podcast in case you survive, and especially if you don't survive.

Then you guys are going to sit down to an amazing brunch of sausage links together, and everything will be great.

But while you are apart, I want you to think about each other.

And Jaina, I want you to think about whether it's better to have not gone on this adventure with Ethan.

You may decide, yeah, it is.

I'm glad those demons didn't get me.

But I want, when you're alone in that Renaissance hotel or whatever it is,

you know, don't just

order a chicken Caesar salad and watch pay movies all night, although that's a great time.

But also think about Ethan over there by himself and whether it was worth it to not go on a haunted ship.

Whatever you decide, that's for you.

But in the meantime, that is my order.

This is the sound of a gabble.

The power of Judge John Hodgman compels you.

That is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Jane, are you looking forward to brunch?

Yes, I am.

How are you feeling right now in general?

Hungry.

Ethan, how do you feel?

I'm shocked, but I do see where the verdict came from.

I'm getting a lot of eyes on me.

Jesse, sorry to break in, but you have to understand.

I understand Ethan now.

Ethan is a man of few words.

I also need to point out

that there is actually, for the first time in the history of my having this office, a truly creepy spider crawling across my desk.

That

can't be a coincidence.

No, there's no such thing as coincidence, Carrie Poppy.

Would you say that it's a truly creepy spider or a demon who's taken the form of a truly creepy spider?

The latter.

Your mother eats brunch in hell.

Wait, did we just hear the spider through the microphone?

Holy cow, the diaphragm on that thing is astonishing.

John Hodgman is gone now.

I shall be your judge.

Oh, boy, I would rather not do a show with a spider.

So,

Ethan, Jana, thanks so much for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Well, another case is in the books.

Before we dispense some swift justice, we want to thank Maggie Colvett for naming this week's episode Scary Time Law.

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

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

You can hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ Ho.

And you can check out the Maximum Fund subreddit at maximumfund.reddit.com to discuss this week's episode.

Always a good discussion there.

You can talk about the great insights that Carrie Poppy brought to the table.

And I'm not just saying that because she's still sitting here in the studio.

Our producer on the show is Jennifer Marmer.

Let's get to Swift Justice.

Well, let me just jump in and just say thank you to Carrie Poppy.

What a pleasure to have you here.

Thank you.

Where can we follow you on social meets?

I have a Twitter, if you heard of it, handles Carrie PoppyYes.

All right.

And is that the primary point of contact for you on the social media landscape?

Yeah, it's all about a a Swarm account.

One time, someone asked me what my Instagram was while I was doing an interview, and I just made one up because I was so embarrassed that I didn't have an Instagram.

So I won't do that here.

Never stopped sassing.

All right, I'm ready to go to Swift Justice.

And Carrie Papa, you listen to these questions too.

And if you have an opinion, weigh on in.

Here's a question from Megan W.

She asks, I call it bread and butter.

My boyfriend calls it buttered bread.

We'd love a definitive answer.

Well, here's the thing.

thing.

When you are walking with your boyfriend, Megan,

and the two of you walk on either side of a lamppost or a street sign such that it separates you, what do you say in order to prevent catastrophe from happening to you when you turn the next corner?

You say, bread and butter.

That's a superstition.

That's what this show apparently is founded on today.

Superstition and erroneous belief.

If you were to say buttered bread after you walked on either side of a lamppost or a street sign, either you or your boyfriend's going to get hit by a falling piano.

That's science.

Also, buttered bread is wrong and bread and butter is correct.

Carrie Poppy, do you disagree?

I have never heard that superstition.

You've never heard bread and butter?

No.

I wonder if it's a...

Where did you grow up again?

Los Angeles.

And Jesse, you've never heard...

You say bread and butter when you are walking with someone and you walk on either side of a street lamp or a post or something like that?

I've heard of that superstition.

I learned it from my grandmother who was from Iola, Kansas.

I wonder whether it's a regional thing.

It sounds vaguely familiar, but it might be forming the memory as I'm listening to it.

Yeah, that's right.

I'm putting it into your mind via telepathy.

Another thing that this show believes in.

I think if you...

Okay, so it sounds like the disagreement is once you've buttered the bread, what do we call it now?

Yeah.

yeah oh if you want to talk about it culinarily speaking yeah right right what do you call it bread and butter or buttered bread I I think now we've got to call it buttered bread because if you call that bread and butter now we've got a real confusion if you say I've got this this basket of bread and butter and I'm thinking that you've got a basket of bread that's already got butter on it I appreciate you, Carrie Poppy, and I enjoy your sass, but you're wrong.

It's bread and butter.

It will always be bread and butter.

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

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