DNA NDA

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, DNA NDA.

Zander brings the case against his twin brother, Brendan.

They don't know for certain if they're fraternal or identical twins.

Zander wants to take a zygosity test to find the answer.

Brendan is opposed.

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 open on Judge John Hodgman, fat, old, repulsive, sitting in a Hollywood restaurant across from Jesse Thorne, a lovely, statuesque bailiff.

Hodgman, trying to get a judging assignment, wanting to impress him, sweats profusely.

Fat, repulsive Hodgman paces furiously in his bedroom.

He speaks into his handheld tape recorder and he says, Judge John Hodgman, fat, repulsive, old, sits at a Hollywood restaurant with Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, swear them in.

Please rise and raise your right hands.

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

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he himself,

I don't know, let's say

murdered his twin brother in cold blood?

I do.

I do.

I don't have any evidence for that.

It's just an assertion I'm making.

I'm tired.

I just had a baby three days ago.

I'm so confused.

Congratulations.

Congrats.

Thank you, guys.

Very well.

Judge Hodgman.

Brandon and Xander, you may be seated.

Congratulations, Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

You have now had a third child.

Yep, three human beings.

Will you mention your child's name on the air or would you prefer to keep your child's name secret like I do?

I don't mind mentioning my children's name.

My wife hosts a parenting podcast, so it's in the public domain.

Yeah, our new son is named Curtis Francis.

Welcome, Curtis Francis.

It is an interesting time to be here in the world.

My children are named Hajmina and Hajmanillo.

That's all you'll ever know.

By an interesting time to be here in the world, you mean that my colleague Nick Liao just brought a virtual boy into the office, right?

That's right.

Yeah.

Xander and Bren, you are twins.

You do not dispute that, correct?

No.

Correct.

I just want to tell you, Jesse's got three kids.

I've got two kids.

You guys are twins.

I did not murder my identical twin to become an only child.

What about maybe in the womb?

No, no, not even in the womb.

Oh, okay.

I was born this way, like Lady Gaga.

So, let's get this thing going.

For an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors, can either of you, Xander or Brendan, twins,

name the piece of culture that I referenced referenced when I entered the courtroom.

Brendan, you are the defendant in this case, so you may guess first or force your brother Xander to guess first.

Which shall it be?

I think I know, so I'm going to guess first.

I think it's a film noir, but I can't remember if twins play into the Maltese Falcon, but I'm going to go with it anyways.

Okay, I'm going to enter that into the guest book.

I can't remember if the Maltese Falcon plays into the movie Twins.

No, what you're thinking of is that movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger gets pregnant and he gives birth to the Maltese Falcon.

Got it.

Yeah.

Wait.

What about that genie movie that stars Sinbad?

Yeah, Under His Turban, The Maltese Falcon.

Wait a minute, Sinbad is the genie?

No, you're thinking about Shaq.

There's definitely a movie that stars Sinbad as a genie.

All right, let's go back to where we were before.

I got to put this in the guest book.

Brandon, you say The Maltese Falcon, huh?

Yes.

You sure you want that to be your answer?

I don't have a better one.

All right.

We'll put it in, and we'll find out in a minute.

Xander, what is your guess?

So, okay, so my guess, and I don't know because you already referenced the movie, if that means it couldn't possibly be it, but I feel like you are somehow trying to combine twins and twin peaks in some, because it's sounding like twins.

The handheld tape recorder, right?

The handheld tape recorder, and and then the fat

judge and the statuesque bailiff sounds like the idea of twins and the two of them.

So a mashup of twins and twin peaks.

Correct.

So

I'll count that twin peaks as a third guess so that I may grammatically say correctly, all guesses are wrong.

I was trying to do the game, Brendan.

I was trying to act.

as though you had gotten it right and I was mad.

But I'm a terrible actor.

So

didn't work.

You are both wrong in all of your guesses.

And because this is a twins themed episode, you want a double cultural reference?

This one's real short.

See if you can get this one.

All right.

All right, you guys ready?

And take it away.

Double jeopardy.

I hear all sorts of bull roar.

That's not what it says in the movie, you understand.

Oh, I give it away.

It's a movie.

It says a bad word, but this is a family podcast.

I hear all sorts of bull roar every day, pal.

You want some advice?

Take your fancy clothes and your black silk underwear and go back to Disneyland.

Brandon, got a guess?

No.

Xander, guess?

I'm totally stumped.

All stumps are wrong.

So that one that I just did was, of course, Jean-Claude Van Damme from his, I think, 1991 movie, Double Impact.

in which he plays his own identical twin, Alex and I think Chad Wagner.

I'm not going to look it up again.

Spent enough time on that Wikipedia page for the rest of my life.

I'm not going back there.

I'm trying to imagine how good at acting Jean-Claude Van Damme must be to convincingly be named Chad.

Well,

better than me pretending to be mad at Brendan.

And then the one that I opened with

is from the Spike Jones movie Adaptation, in which Nicholas Cage

plays Charlie Kaufman and his identical twin brother Donald Kaufman.

And of course, Adaptation is itself a rather loose and meta-adaptation of The Orchid Thief by friend of maximum fun and

personal hero of mine, Susan Orling.

So there you go.

You guys blew it.

Now we got to talk about your fight.

So you guys do not dispute that you are A brothers and B twins, correct?

Correct.

What is your age, Xander?

Oh, at that age where I don't quite remember.

35?

35?

Yeah.

And Brendan, what is your age?

I am also 35 and three minutes older than his.

Or younger than him.

Yeah.

So Brendan, you are the younger, and Xander is the older.

Correct.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so Xander and Brendan, you're the same age.

You're 35.

And for these 35 years that you have shared and journeyed in life, you were raised to believe that you are identical twins.

Is that correct?

That is not the story I know.

All right.

Brendan, were you raised to believe that you and Xander were identical twins?

I mean,

it never featured heavily into our being raised.

It was just one of those things where they said, we think we're identical, but

maybe you're not because you can't always tell 100%

sure.

And that's all we knew growing up.

I'm picturing ways that it could feature heavily into your growing up.

Like you do special rituals, or all your punishments are themed based on being identical and not fraternal twins.

But yeah, it was just casually said.

Like every time you do something wrong, you're marked in some way to distinguish you from your identical twin.

Brendan,

you're saying to me

that your status as either identical identical or fraternal twins was ambiguous throughout your life?

I would say that it was not

ambiguous to me, but it appears that it is more ambiguous to Xander.

Wait a minute.

Xander is not the question here.

Okay.

Growing up, you know, whenever the...

we talked to our parents about our birth and being twins and stuff, my mother would say that when you were born, there was one placenta,

which means that you're identical, although sometimes the two placentas fuse and you become, it looks like one placenta

when it's really two.

Okay, so just a point of information for the young people listening in the audience.

Twin stuff is gross.

Now it's on me all of a sudden for me to have to explain what the fusing of a placenta is to the many, many kindergartners who listen to this program.

But let's just go over the basics for those who don't know.

Twins

are babies that grow together in their mom's womb and are birthed at the same time, more or less, one after the other, sequentially, same day.

They can be brother and brother, brother and sister, sister and sister.

They're two different kinds of twins, identical, which means it is an egg, a fertilized egg that split into two beings that are essentially genetically identical.

And then there is fraternal, or sororal.

I'll get Merriam-Webster to tell me that someday.

But in our patriarchal language, we just generally say fraternal, meaning there are two different eggs that were fertilized by two different sperms.

And

they just happen to be hanging out together.

And so they are genetically not identical.

And that's why you could have a brother and a sister who are twins, right?

And children who are listening to this while driving,

if you don't know what is what a sperms is or what an egg is, go have a talk with your mom and dad because this is as far as I go.

And a placenta, you can look up yourself.

Judge Hodgman, my daughter Grace, who's five years old, specifically requested photographs of the placenta because she's so interested in placentas.

Placenta is nutrition for a baby.

And if there are two placentas, I guess that's a signal that twins are fraternal.

But I guess, according to what I just learned, sometimes those two placentas just love each other so much.

A placenta and a placenta

love each other very much.

They might fuse and thus confuse

these twins.

And there's another.

Xander.

Sorry.

Oh, you are such an older brother.

Go ahead, Sander.

One other clue makes this more difficult to tell: that there were two amniotic sacs within that one placenta, which is what makes it rare.

Because it's normally one placenta and one amniotic sac, or two placentas and two amniotic sacs.

We had one placenta and two amniotic sacs.

So that's why there's an extra level of ambiguity around our potential zygosity.

Is this what the two of you talk about at bars?

Yes.

I have had to explain my placenta upon first meeting someone so many times because we get in a conversation.

They ask me, do I have any brothers or sisters?

I say I have an older sister and a twin brother.

They say, oh, fraternal are identical.

And then I say, and this is the part in the evening where after just meeting someone, I explain the story of my placenta.

And so, yeah, this, it's a very common conversation I have to have with strangers.

Yeah, but Xander doesn't have to be.

You don't have to tell him about your placenta.

Yeah, I would say it's a very common conversation you choose to have with strangers.

I mean, I appreciate that everyone's going to ask you, like, oh, you're twins.

What flavor of twins are you, normal or weird?

And you're going to be like, well, guess what?

It's even weirder than you thought.

Here comes my boss Placenta story.

But you could just say, you know, it's funny,

we don't know for sure.

Because that's true.

So what you're saying is that your mom and dad, Xander,

do do not know scientifically themselves whether or not you are fraternal or identical, but they were of the mind that you were

leaned identical.

Correct.

Yeah.

So

at the time, there was no zygosity test.

So the doctor himself told my mother, there is no way we can tell.

We had the same blood type, too, which makes it ambiguous.

So, yeah, the doctor said there's no way of knowing.

It is only with the recent advent of zygosity tests that Brennan and I would be able to finally get to the bottom of this.

And a zygosity test is a genetic test to determine whether or not you're identical or fraternal.

Correct.

And I know that you buy motor oil to protect against zygosity and thermal breakdown.

All right.

So let me send in some evidence of pictures of you guys, I hope,

dressed in matching later hose and both eating large lollipops.

Nope.

Boo.

Boo.

Boo.

Here you guys are on a beach.

You both live in California, is that correct?

Yes.

I'm in LA and Xander's in San Francisco.

And where is

this brotherly beachy photo taken?

It's in San Francisco.

San Francisco.

So you're standing on a beach.

You're both having a canned beverage.

One of you is dressed like a lumberjack.

The other one's dressed like the lead singer of the national.

So which one of you is lumberjack?

I am assuming that I'm the lumberjack in that photo.

Okay.

Who sent this in?

Brendan, you said that?

Brendan.

Yeah, I sent that in.

So, Brendan, you're the black jean jacket guy or whatever?

Yep.

Okay.

Yeah, I can't tell you guys apart.

You look the same.

Although he was also wearing a black jean jacket that day.

Oh, was it by coincidence?

Do you often show up at beaches in San Francisco wearing the exact same thing?

Very rarely.

You have very similar haircuts and ambiguous beards.

A few years ago, his beard is much less ambiguous these days.

Okay.

You're bearding out now, Xander?

Yes.

And Brennan's Harris much less there at all today.

Oh, rough.

Wow.

Seriously, threw your brother under the podcast bus there.

Yeah.

Just as it was leaving the station.

There have been stories of one twin being dominant in the womb and one being

less dominant.

and the dominant twin coming out stronger or even absorbing the other twin.

And it sounds like you're doing this on a rather slow plan.

You are siphoning off his head hair and attaching it to your chin.

When was this photo taken then, Brendan?

How long ago?

God, that must have been like

five, six years ago.

Okay, got it.

You guys look a lot alike in this photo.

And then you have two more

that you sent in.

Now, this one is much older.

You guys are totally mid-90s in this one.

You guys are sitting at a picnic table outside of what looks like a high school.

When is this taken?

It was in high school, so that was 92, 3.

Something.

I totally called it.

And which were in this case,

okay, it doesn't matter.

No.

So what we have here is a picnic table outside of high school, and we have one dude wearing all black.

in a very gothy kind of way, and he's got a little bit of a Robert Smith vibe to him.

And then we have this other dude who's wearing glasses and then wearing a red like polo or t-shirt it seems to me

which one is you brendan i'm always going to be the one in black so you're telling me 1993 you're all in black 1993 xander's wearing red flash forward to a beach in san francisco black and red all over again

is that coincidence didn't play it that way although but i'll tell you something you guys don't look as much alike in this photo xander i think you maybe had a few extra cheeseburgers that year.

At least this photo doesn't flatter you.

Most don't.

I am definitely girthier than my brother.

Well, I'm just saying that though you might be genetically identical, the fact that you look a little different here is not evidence that you are necessarily fraternal because you might have had a lot of cheeseburgers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And bear in mind, I just came back from a mini-tour with David Reese and the Boston Pops through Florida.

You think I don't get fat?

I'm a monster right now.

Well, I felt bad about the bald crack, so I thought that I would like to stress that I am not

a gorgeous physical specimen myself.

All right, let's just get to the third picture here.

Look,

you know what?

We're all beautiful humans.

I should clarify, I'm not a beautiful human, but I am a gorgeous physical specimen.

Yeah, you are a lovely statuesque bailiff.

Now, I'm going to ask this question, and I know what the answer is going to be.

The answer is going to be yes.

Is this third and final photo, all of which are available on the Judge Shen Hodgman page at maximumfun.org, a picture of you, Brendan, and you, Xander, at Burning Man?

Yes.

Yes!

See?

I can swear.

Well, you're standing in the desert and there's a weird RV and Toyota Selica behind you, and you're wearing...

Like, Xander, which one are you now?

Let's see if I can tell.

Which one are you?

Are you on the right or on the left?

Are you on the right or on the left?

Xander, you're on the left in this photo wearing goggles and a Santa Claus hat.

And

Brandon, you're on the

right in this photograph, facing me, on my right, wearing a pink and white sparkly fleece

and some animal pelt on your head.

Did I get it right?

No, I'm actually the one in the red Santa Claus suit, and Xander is the one in the white Santa Claus suit.

Well, forget it.

Okay, you're fraternal twins then.

I mean, on the one hand, the evidence is strong that you might be identical because I got you wrong.

I thought I was picking up on the subtle differences.

But if you're saying that, Brendan, you're the one in the motorcycle goggles and the red Santa Claus hat, how can that be?

Red is Xander's thing.

Well, dressing up like Santa Claus is Brendan's thing, definitely.

Brendan is frequently, if he's not in black, it's a Santa suit that he's wearing.

Okay.

Gonna need an explanation on that one, Ace.

He's a die-hard fan of Santa Con.

Well, not just, well, my bicycling club enjoys dressing up like Santa Claus.

Right.

Because people like Santa Claus and they like 10 Santa Claus' riding bikes.

Yeah.

But, you know, Xander is trying to put the Santa Claus fetish on you as though it's proof that you guys are fraternal and non-identical, because Xander hates Santa Claus.

But these sorts of preferences are all about acculturation.

It has nothing to do with your genetics, Xander.

That's false evidence.

That's fake news.

We'll have more of this case in just a second, but first, we're going to head to the chambers because it's Max Fun Drive time.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast, always brought to you by you, the members of maximumfun.org.

Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfund.org/slash join.

And you can join them by going to maximumfun.org slash join.

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

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

What other differences are there?

Xander, what do you do for a living?

So I'm a teacher, a public school teacher.

Brendan, what do you do?

I just bike around as Santa all the time.

I work in technology at a sort of a startup company.

Oh, and you're in LA?

Yes.

Okay, good.

Now ask us what our significant others do.

No,

it's not your court.

What are you talking about?

Okay.

Significant others.

You know what?

I'll make a note of it.

And if I feel like asking that later,

how dare you?

Withdrawn.

And you know what?

I'm about to say, maybe you're not identical because Brendan is a nice guy who's got manners.

And you try to take over podcasts and you hate Santa Claus.

So there you go.

Let me ask you a few questions based on my knowledge of identical twins from movies.

Are you creepy ghosts in a hallway of a hotel?

Yes or no?

Answer at the same time, please.

No.

No?

No.

Answer honestly at the same time.

Okay.

Okay.

No.

Did you guys grow up talking a weird, creepy twin language of your own making to each other?

Yes.

Really?

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

We're very little.

I'll make a note of that.

After that, I'm crossing out significant others others now in my comeback to list.

Brendan.

Yes.

As the younger twin, do you ever get the feeling that Xander is looking at you and he sees like

a hot dog or

a giant chicken leg that he wants to devour?

No, I have not gotten that impression.

Okay.

Have you ever played a crazy prank and tricked your parents or your teacher saying, hey, I'm not Xander, I'm Brendan.

Once we played a prank on my girlfriend in high school.

Wow.

Let's skip over that.

It was.

It was a family show.

It was a harmless prank.

What was the nature of the prank?

I used to have long shoulder-length hair, and she went away, and I got a cut.

So I put on his clothes.

He put on my clothes.

She came in, said, it's so good to see you.

And then I said, no, it's me.

I'm Brendan.

She thought that was.

So she got tricked.

She thought that was dot dot dot awful.

She thought that was dot dot dot her worst nightmare.

It was.

She was not pleased.

Really?

She thought that was dot dot dot her ex-boyfriend.

Next question.

What do significant others do?

It's just something I'm curious about.

My wife is a teacher.

My significant other works in technology.

Oh, his wife is a teacher and your wife is in tech?

It's crisscross?

My fiancé who's male.

Oh, your fiancé who's male.

Oh, interesting.

And Brendan, you are married?

Yes.

To a man or a woman?

A woman.

Oh, interesting.

Is this something behind your desire to check your genetic similarity to your brothers, Andre?

Yeah, I think it definitely is one of the academic reasons that I would find this very interesting.

I'm an anthropology major, so like I was really interested in these questions.

So I know that there isn't like a one-to-one correspondence with like fraternal twins, don't share it.

There is a lot of ambiguity and that's it's what's interesting is that twins aren't always the same orientation.

Even identical twins.

No, identical twins, I think the last time,

if I'm remembering this right,

it's about 50%,

which is kind of this weird.

It's like too high to not be genetically related, but it's too low to be genetically related.

So it's actually one of these really interesting questions about the genetic component of homosexuality.

Yeah, I can appreciate your curiosity, for sure.

What other aspects made you curious?

And when did you start...

Did you start thinking about this the moment that the zygosity test came up?

You know, I would say that there

it began a lot with thinking about when I was coming out, you know, as a like kind of in late high school, early college,

and I was very interested in these questions about the genetic component of homosexuality, it became very interesting to me.

Yeah.

But it wasn't really anything I thought about too much until

I learned about the zygote test.

And then I thought, oh, well, that would be a really interesting thing to find out.

And so my brother and I were coming up on our 30th birthday.

And I thought, oh, this would be a really fun, cute thing to do.

Is we'll take the zygote test and then we'll hold on to the results.

And at our 30th birthday, we have a late December birthday, so we're always with our family on our birthday.

I was like, oh, we could like open it around dinner and we could like take bets and it'd be a really fun thing to do.

And I got really into this idea and I called my mom, she thought it was cool.

I called my sister, she thought it was cool.

And then I called my brother and he was like, just, no, I don't want to do it.

Why not, Brendan?

Why don't you want to, A, no, and B, help your brother in his quest for knowledge?

Is hating knowledge knowledge and fun genetically predisposed in you?

Well,

I would argue that sitting around the Christmas table and discussing our zygosity is the opposite of fun to me.

Yeah, well, everyone's already heard Xander's placenta stories.

Yeah, apparently you've never been to a bar with Xander because it is a real hoot.

Okay, set aside the venue in which the information would be revealed.

Why don't you want to know the information at all?

I would say that it's

to me, it's not an aversion to knowing the information.

It is more about the fact that,

one,

you know, we look identical, you know, we've grown up, we do the same things, you know, we're both into sci-fi and all that and

not into sports.

We're both loud extroverts.

You know, we're we're functionally identical, right?

And I don't believe that this will change anything by knowing it.

So it's not that I'm against knowing it, if like we could just ask somebody and get it for free, but the problem is, you know, I don't know exactly how much this test costs, but I think that there's better ways that we could

use the money to have like a change, not to change a relationship, but to do something together that we enjoy or go on a trip or, you know, just go see a movie together or something like that.

And making this big production over this test, I just think is is silly.

Are you afraid that if you get it on the record that you are not identical twins, let's say if that's true, that you're you're not going to be able to get one of those cool jobs like working in a weird novelty restaurant where all the waiters are identical twins?

No, no,

it's just to me, it's it's let's instead of taking this test, let's go do something, you know, share some experience together.

And that would be more meaningful to our relationship and, you know, something that we're you know, can grow our our our brotherly uh

bond or whatever.

So you're saying rather than take a blood test, you'd like to go on a vacation?

With my brother.

Yeah.

Which I haven't done since, you know, f f for a long time, you know, like we don't spend as much time together.

There's many better ways to it improve our

or work on our friendship or whatever.

Xander, you mentioned taking taking bets.

How much of this for you is about your desire to become a freelance bookie?

I would say the bets were going to be of a non-monetary nature, but it was purely an

early Christmas parlor game, like a

strange opening scene in Christmas Carol or something.

What kind of non-monetary bets?

Are we talking like backrops?

I'm just saying.

Did you get it right or not?

And just have like a little chalkboard or something.

I don't know.

I didn't really think about it too much.

Do you already have a chalkboard like picked out?

Do you keep already a mental chalkboard in your mind of when you're right and when your brother's right about pretty much anything?

I'll let Brenton answer that one.

I get the impression that, yes, there is such a mental chalkboard.

But to be fair, there probably is a mental chalkboard in my head, too, and I'm sure they have wildly different.

Yeah, you're brothers.

You're brothers.

It doesn't matter that you're twins.

Of course, you have rivalries and know-it-all status over each other.

That's just what brothers are like.

What's interesting to me is what Bren states, that he'd rather spend the money that we'd spend on his zygosity test, which I think was somewhere between $100 and $200 on a vacation, which would be a piss-poor vacation, you know, and today's economy.

But that picture of Burning Man, we almost stopped talking to each other after Burning Man.

What's so strange to me is that Brenn seems to so over-romanticize how brotherly we can be when normally when we're with each other,

we're fighting tooth and nail all the time.

Did you stop talking to each other at Burning Man because people were so excited to see twins and they kept asking you to be in their art projects?

I was going to say,

did you guys have a fight over your steam-powered penny farthing construction plan?

What was your fight over at Burning Man?

At the time, I had very little money.

I was about to start my master's degree,

and I had been an after-school teacher, so I had very little money.

And I required a significant

monetary advance by my brother to attend Burning Man, which he offered.

And then when we got to Burning Man, I felt that that monetary advance kept coming up repeatedly as a reason

that he would make decisions about what we did with the day.

And I'm going to say here right now, I know that Brendan is going to view this in a very different light.

And also at the time, I was having a very hard time getting over a personal relationship.

And Brennan was as well.

And I felt that we were only allowed to talk about his.

And if I was upset, it would come up that, remember, I paid a bunch of money for you to be here, so I don't want to hear about your sad story, but we were allowed to hear his sad story.

And so for me, I felt very,

I was very uncomfortable that whole trip based on that.

Yeah.

And Brendan seems to remember this trip as like a super happy time together.

Sure, it was happy for him because he got to bully you the whole time about how his older brother needed money from him.

I have some questions that I need answers to, and so I'm going to ask them.

Xander, this thing costs $100, $150.

What else is required in the zygosity test?

Just some sort of, I think it's like even a cheek swab.

I don't think it even requires blood.

It might require just

a blood sample, but I think just, yeah, cheek swab.

If I order that you take this test, is there an outcome that you want more?

I would say

the information will be interesting to me because either we're fraternal and I understand why there's always been these like differences of perception about the world between the two of us or identical.

And then I'm certain we're like two people from parallel universes who are somehow experiencing the same time.

And his completely misunderstanding the way I perceive the world is like evidence that he's experiencing an alternate reality to me.

Is his misunderstanding of how you perceive the world

that he doesn't understand why you're broke all the time and he's got to give you money?

Is that the different way you see the world?

That was a period in my life.

Yeah, I understand.

At the time, you were getting a master's degree and working as an after-school teacher, so you didn't have a lot of money.

Unlike now, where you are a public school teacher and are rolling in it.

Yes.

I'll ask you, Brendan,

are you afraid to find out that you're not identical?

How would you feel if you learned that you weren't?

I would say I'm not exactly like afraid of finding out.

Like I said, I don't know.

Yeah, but you know what?

I just heard, I would say that I'm not exactly afraid.

You really jumped on that one.

No, no, no.

I would just, what I would say, though, is it is a little insulting for him to be like, can we just check to make sure we're not identical?

It'd be like if my daughter asked for a paternity test,

you know, she's like, I'm curious.

It's like, it's still insulting.

Xander, do you hear what your brother is saying, that he feels a little insulted, like you want to break the bond that he's presumed you've had all this time?

Right.

I understand that, and that's kind of what I'm saying, is that I've lived in this parallel world where he and I have not gotten along at all and we didn't really get into this but

what I find so interesting about this is that the way he when he wrote me the email saying

how much he knew like I don't want to take the test because I am I'm so certain that we are twins because we share this great bond on one hand I was like I don't recognize this relationship he's describing and at the other hand

it was such a maudlin piece of horse pucky I I was like, oh, I cannot be related to someone who'd write something so sappy as this.

I also find this a little insulting.

Yeah, you know what, Brendan?

I do too.

It sounded to me like your younger bro was just expressing himself.

And you're like, I cannot be genetically identical to this sap.

Yes.

That's what really pushed the quest to make sure this happened, though.

I would say I was, I was,

you know, I had like an armchair scholar curiosity about it until I received that letter.

And then I said, oh, well, this, this now, now this has to happen.

Was there a line in the letter that you recall that really

made you go, oh, this is not my brother?

It was something along the lines of the way we share so much and we're so on the same level about everything.

I just know deep within our heart, my heart, that we must be identical.

All right.

Brendan, if I rule in your favor, where are you bra is going to go bra out?

I could just visit him in San Francisco and we could just spend the day,

go see a comic book movie, and have a nice dinner and drink some beers.

That's it.

Yeah, you got to get to San Francisco if you want to check out the latest comic book movies.

That's where he lives.

I mean, he could come visit me.

That'd be a lot easier.

He's trying to be accommodating.

I'm just.

All right.

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

I'm going to follow these two ghostly twins and play with them forever and ever in room 237, And I'll think about your case, and then I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Brendan, how are you feeling about your chances here?

I wasn't feeling good until the end.

And then I think that I might get the pity vote.

Because your plan for a vacation is to fly somewhere

and watch a superhero movie.

Because my brother started to...

I just want to spend some time with him apparently he thinks we don't have a good time I think we do but at the end uh when uh Xander was bagging on my writing style I thought I might get the uh the pity the pity vote Xander did you come on this show just so you could bully your ultimate bully oh yeah absolutely absolutely

regardless of where John Hodgman comes down I've had a venue to kind of publicly try and attack my brother which is which is all I was hoping for.

Well, we'll see what Judge John Hodgman has to say about all of 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.

One of the things that struck me in listening to you guys

is that you do look a lot alike.

And you do, I guess, both enjoy sci-fi and steampunk in the desert.

But what's curious is that one of the ways you are definitely not identical

is that one of you

really thinks you have a lot in common, and the other one goes, not so much.

And I do feel a sadness for Brendan.

Xander, if your brother is being sincere with you and clearly wants to

be your bro and love you, and he expresses so in an emotionally vulnerable, poorly written way,

that is not something to take lightly or contem.

And if anything, it should reassure you that there are significant differences between you, such that you may not be identical at all.

This is a hard case because

not only are real feelings involved,

but also

if I were to order in Xander's favor, it would mean an intrusive cheek swab upon the body of another person.

Normally, under almost every circumstance, of course, I would never order an intrusive medical test upon another human being who doesn't want to have it done.

So the question, though, is whether the merits of Xander's case and the needs of Xander outweigh the needs of Brendan.

Xander, I got really mad at you when you told me what question to ask.

And the question being, ask about our significant others.

But I have to say, good question, brah.

That was my imitation of Tom Sharplink, by the way.

You asked me to ask about significant others' occupations,

which was, that was not so great.

But if you just just said, ask about our significant others, this is the turning point of the case:

is the fact that you are gay and your identical or fraternal twin is not.

But here's the thing: Brendan, you said that we are, for all practical purposes, identical.

And yet, you know that that's not true.

In one very, very major way, you are not identical.

And not only that, but you are not identical in a way that has stakes, right?

Because the genetic predisposition to a certain sexual preference versus the other predispositions to it, this is a matter of huge public debate

and of obvious, very personal import to your brother.

Having the knowledge,

let's say that it turned out that you were fraternal,

it might make Xander feel better somewhat because he knows, oh, thank God, I'm not genetically destined to become a terrible writer and a sap.

But it would give him very important data

about who he is in relation to the world that

would be meaningful to him to know

and would be meaningful as a data point in the world of science.

And it adds to the knowledge of the world with regard to differing sexual preferences between twins, identical or otherwise.

And I can appreciate, Brendan, why you would feel

betrayed and insulted

by

your brother

because he feels like he's trying to draw a distinction between you guys.

And it feels that way because he can, we just learned, can be kind of a sanctimonious snob

and mean

to his nice little brother,

even when he's taking his nice little brother's money.

But I have to say that on balance, this court believes in the maxim of Walker Percy

from the moviegoer, I think is the novel this is from,

that on balance it is better to know than not to know.

Brendan, you would lose nothing but ambiguity if you were to take the test and learn the information.

Xander would gain a very powerful and meaningful point of data.

And for that reason, with great respect,

I'm going to violate your cheek, Brendan, and order that this test be taken.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast will pay the expense of the test up to $150.

You're not going to scam us out of any more than that, Xander.

That was your figure.

I will not allow you to open the results of the test at your family dinner at the end of the year because I don't want to wait that long.

And also,

I want to reveal the results of this thing.

So I want you to take the test and have the results forwarded in a sealed diplomatic pouch to Max Fun headquarters at the American Cement Building in Los Angeles, California.

And then we will reconvene, and I will unseal the envelope.

And Brendan, you're going to have to deal with what, you're both going to have to deal with what you have unleashed.

Mad power on my part.

Just to show you what a monster I am,

not only am I co-opting this important moment in your lives to make for some podcast history,

but I will not only reveal the results on the podcast, I will reveal the results on a special donors-only episode.

Donate, then you'll find out.

This is the sound of gavel.

Judge Sean Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Brendan, how are you feeling right now?

I mean,

getting

John Hodgman to call my brother sanctimonious on the internet is pretty awesome.

So I'm pretty cool with how it turned out.

How are you feeling, Xander?

I'm excited to finally put this to rest, and I'm very happy with John Hodgman's ruling.

How do you feel about the fact that John Hodgman has turned this relatively sober affair into a cheap and tawdry live broadcast special?

I would argue that I also wanted to do it in some bizarre public venue for something that should have been private between the two of us.

I just didn't have the publicity that the esteemed John Hodgman has.

Xander, are you headed right now to one of those weird English companies that'll take bets on anything?

I don't know, but I might Google them now that you put the thought in my head.

Well, Xander Brennan, thank you so much for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Another thrilling Judge John Hodgman case coming to its conclusion.

What?

Ah, Jesse, sorry.

I'm sitting on this bed in this hotel room in this bear outfit, and it's just very scratchy.

That one goes out to Lee Unkrich, friend of Maximum Fun.

Bailiff, Jesse, you have done Yo Person's work bailiffing on this podcast as a brand new father.

You should go get some rest.

Okay.

Let's wrap this up, and we'll get you back home.

I'm going to catch some Z's.

I appreciate the consideration.

Our producer, Jennifer Marmer, Brianne Sherman, named this week's episode.

If you want to name an episode of Judge John Hodgman, follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

And join us on Facebook by liking Judge John Hodgman.

You can also chat about the show, both on Facebook and also on the Maximum Fun Reddit at maximumfun.reddit.com.

If you have a case for Judge John Hodgman, go to maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho.

No case is too big or too small.

We judges them all, or at least considers the possibility of judging them all, right?

Well, no, no, I definitely judge them all in my head.

And then some go on the podcast, and some go on the docket, and some go into the New York Times column, which appears every Sunday in the New York Times magazine.

I'll just mention that tickets are going fast for that Wilco Solid Sound Festival, where I am curating the comedy stage.

We're already booking some really excellent comedians, so, and obviously, crazy bands like Wilco there.

So, go check out the Google Solid Sound Wilco and find out about it.

But that's all I got.

Jesse, go get some sleep.

Happy birthday, Curtis.

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

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