Live from Portland, Maine 2016

It's Judge John Hodgman. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
This week's show was recorded in front of a live audience at the Port City Music Hall in Portland, Maine.

Tonight's case, text of kin. Afton is bringing her younger sister, Hannah, to court because Hannah refuses to upgrade her phone and enable text messaging.

Hannah is perfectly happy with how she communicates with her friends and loved ones. Afton, however, would like to be able to text message with her.
Who's right, who's wrong? Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman approaches the bench.

Steve,

I just wanted to say that you have a really amazing body.

Oh, thanks, Girai.

Would you ever consider a relationship with a machine, like in the movie Her, only in this case, the machine is a guy?

Give it a rest, Girai. How can you even have an attraction to a human? Girai Fonzarelli has always been open-minded and bi-curious.

Didn't you say your last name is Fonzarelli?

That's right, Steve. Please swear them in.

Very well. Please 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. Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he communicates exclusively through voice memo function on his phone?

I do.

Only person ever? Very well.

Afton and Hannah, you may be seated, and everyone else may be seated as well. Thank you very much.

Welcome to the court of Judge John Hodgman.

For an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors, can you name the piece of popular culture that I quoted with my help of my friend Bailiff Jesse Thorne as I entered the courtroom?

Afton? Yes, Judge. You bring Hannah to this court, correct? I do.
All right, so Hannah, you've been drugged here against your will.

So you can choose either to guess first or make Afton, your sister, guess first. What is your choice? I'm going to have Afton guess first.
Afton will guess first. Afton, what is your guess?

Judge, I think my guess is going to be a

song by the mountain goats. Song?

Always a good guess. By the mountain goats.

A statistically likely guess.

I'll put that one in the guess book.

Hannah, what is your guess?

Well, until you said like the movie Her, I was going to guess something from the movie Her. Sure.

Of course you were.

Did you not think that that was the first thing I thought of

two hours ago

as we were driving here?

So I will guess

a song

by some other group.

You have to name a group. Okay.
I don't know. I thought that was a pretty good guess.

It's a good guess. Number one, it was definitely a song.

One of those talk back and forth songs.

So snappy.

It could be dialogue from something. I mean, just as an idea.

I mean, it's possible that it's the classic duet version of the song Convoy.

Okay, I'll go dialogue from an episode of Archer. Oh!

Put that in the guest book. Let me check the guest book.
I like that guest because it increases my chances of being a guest voice on Archer sometime. My sole goal in life.

I'll tell you what. You each take a banana.

Okay, and there you go. Good.

But though you both have delicious fresh bananas, all guesses are wrong

because that was dialogue from a TV show that has not been on TV yet.

The subject of this case is, of course, smartphones. and artificial intelligence and how they take over your lives, or at least Afton's life, and not Hannah's.

So I wanted to quote from her, but I couldn't because that was too easy. Because you're too smart, you're a librarian.
I know that.

Because you're a litigant on Judge John Hodgman. That's right.
But then I remembered that

an actor recently was hired to portray the voice of a smartphone in a comedic television program called John Glazer Loves Gear to play the role of, you said Gear Eye, which was reasonable, but it's pronounced Geary like Siri.

Oh, got it. It's an AI on his phone.

There was no pronouncer in the script. Yeah, no, no, no,

that's on me. Also, somehow I haven't seen this show.
No, it hasn't been on television yet. No.
Because the voice of Geary was only recently recorded four days ago by me, John Hodgman.

But you still could have gotten it because my participation was announced on a popular entertainment website. So tough for you guys.
You lose.

And we have to hear this case between, but it's going to be, it's a good show.

Look, normally we don't buzz market, but hey, everyone, make sure to check out me, John Hodgman, as the voice of Geary on John Glazer's new show on True TV.

John Glazer loves Gear, premiering in the future. All right, now here we go.
And of course, we also want you to check out the great writing of Nikki Fink on Deadline. What's that called?

What's that website called? Dateline Hollywood.

Deadline Hollywood, and she hasn't been associated with that website for a long time. Well, told you is her catchphrase.

In any case, here we are to hear your case. Now,

I have to

say.

Oh, you got one? Just have me some banana.

I hope it's fresh. Oh, yes, it's absolutely fresh.
Jonathan himself brought them

from Kennebunk, Maine, where all bananas are grown.

Only locally sourced sustainably raised bananas.

Straight from Maine.

But I must, I am ethically bound to say that, Hannah, you and I have met before. That's true.
Because you are a librarian

at the Blue Hill Library in Blue Hill, Maine, on the Blue Hill Peninsula.

A peninsula that is fond of redundant naming.

And after that, we have never met before. We have never met.
But you live in my hometown of Brookline, Massachusetts. Is that correct? I work in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Where do you live?

I live in Arlington, Massachusetts. In Arlington.
Oh, because Brookline's a little too

expensive, right?

Yeah, okay.

Well, I fine in favor of Hannah then. Goodbye.

You work in Brookline, Massachusetts, then. I do, so it's basically hometown versus hometown here on the Judge Sean Hodgman stage.
At least we're on an equal footing. That's right.

Well, not so equal because you and I have met before. We have established rapport.
You helped me to print out some tax documents at the library.

And then you left without paying for them. Yes, I was.

Wow. That's true.

I did neglect to pay for

the printing job.

Look, I'm something of a

I'm still on television sometimes. I uh I bring a lot of attention to the neighborhood, you know.
Uh people come to see what library I use, you know.

It's a pretty expensive page.

How many pages was it? I think it was two, two or two. Two pages?

I kind of feel like if John Hodgman comes to your library.

We have a lower rate for non-profit organizations, so if you can somehow... That's definitely us.

rate for insufficiently profitable for-profit corporations.

I owe you 30 cents with interest. I'm going to say that's $5.
So there you go. Thank you very much.

A donation to the Blue Hill Library.

And I hope that that buys me out of my ethical dilemma of having met you, having been helped by you, having felt a debt to you, and having grown to like you even the short time that we met, more than your sister Afton.

Afton,

you are but a stranger to me.

It's true, but it will change. Well, changing right now.
We shall see. I don't know how much you charge for printouts.

You can come and print anything you want. And where do you work? I work at America's Test Kitchen.

I'm a test cook for the cookbook division. Work on recipes all day, and we would love to have you come and print anytime.

Copy ourselves. Can I ask you a question? Because you presented

America's Test Kitchen like it was an applause line, which, of course, it is. Everybody loves America's Test Kitchen.
It's great. Okay?

Then you presented in the cookbook department. Right, is that? People were going to lose their minds.

I did it. Wait until you're here.

What, you thought I worked on the website? No.

No.

I hope you don't think I worked for the award-winning PBS show. No way.

I am on the show. You're on? I am on the show.
Are you on camera talent? I am behind-the-scenes talent. If you see all of us working

diligently in the background, you spot me in seasons 16 and 17 in the background. What season are we on now? 16 is airing, and 17 will air in January.

So you have not only an ongoing, but a future role in television. I do.
In the future, just like you. Well, Hannah.
Future television. That's right.

Hannah, first of all, I want to say, yes, you are just like Judge John Hoshman.

That's true. Hannah,

I want to say that I like you very much, but I am sorry you lose the case.

Afton's on television.

Not only on television, but in my hometown of Brookline, Massachusetts, testing recipes. She's got a future in television, and this is just how we do things in TV, right? We help each other.

That's right. We help each other get jobs.

It's like when a cop pulls over another cop. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. You're not going to get a ticket.
We'll gladly put you in a chef's coat, and if you want to do cameo in the background,

I want to be the star of the show. Okay.

I'll bring it to the powers that be.

Fair enough, good.

I want you to do that, but that's not enough for me to simply rule in your favor. Fair enough.
But before we go to the actual case,

what recipes have you tested, and what did you discover? Turns out you have to cook turkey.

Gotta cook it. It's true, all the way through.

Today I made vegan ice cream. We're working on it.
Oh, I know. This is so sad.
It's really good.

What did you put in it?

Coconut milk. Right.

Vanilla, salt,

cornstarch. Right.
Delicious. A little lard.
You know.

A little lard, a little gelatin.

Little Beko bits. That's right.
Those are vegan. Yeah, it's true.

So,

and what is the secret to making good vegan ice cream? No, no, today was day one, so I've got a ways to go.

But you mean it wasn't successful the first time?

Love my job because I get to fail every day, over and over and over, until I finally, finally get it right. Okay.
What was one that you actually successfully tested?

So we want the success stories.

We recently have a book, Bread Illustrated, that's coming out. So

I made a whole bunch of bread for that, my chocolate vabka. And what's the secret to your chocolate vabka? A lot of chocolate.
By the way, are you allowed to say my chocolate vabka?

It's really, it's really ours. It really belongs to America's Test Kitchen.
It's really America's Test Kitchen chocolate baby. So work for hire.
Yeah, exactly.

The recipe I had a pleasure to work on.

But what's the secret? A lot of chocolate? Melted bittersweet chocolate in the filling. I sometimes make America's test kitchen buttermilk biscuits.
You know what the secret to that is? Buttermilk.

An astonishing volume of butter.

It's basically buttermilk-flavored butter. Right.

With a light dusting of flour.

Delicious. I'd love to try them both with both hands.

Well, I would love to come to Rookline and see that test kitchen, but now we've got to hear this case. Very well.

You have

a problem with your sister. I do.
She moved to Maine. She's got a bad phone, a flip phone.
My sister has had the same flip phone the whole time she's ever had a phone. Right.

It is ancient,

yet much beloved by her. She has

resisted the urge to, or the...

impetus to text. She has turned off text messaging capabilities.
She just wants a phone that makes phone calls. And that's fine.

When we lived together in Boston, it was just mildly annoying not to be able to reach her by text message, but not a deal breaker by any means. But since she's- Because were you sharing an apartment?

We were. We lived together.
And where? Oh, in Arlington. In Arlington, for four years.
Right. And, you know, every now and then it would be nice to communicate with her by text, but not possible.

But that's all right. I saw her every night.
You saw her every night. Yeah, I lived with her.
It was fine. Right.

Recently, she'd wipe the chocolate vodka from

your brow as she came in at night. That's closer to the truth than you would know.

She recently relocated to Blue Hill after getting her library science degree

and promptly went off the map with communication because. Yeah, like everyone in Maine.

And I'm a Mainer. We both grew up in Orono.
Oh. So we're long-term Mainers, love Maine.
No, you're not a Mainer, you're a betrayer. I am a betrayer.
I'm from away.

I'm now from away. Right.
And Hannah, you're now a returner. She is.
Do you have, by the way, do you have the phone with you? I do. I brought it up.

Oh, would you mind actually holding up the banana instead?

Comparison.

Let me see the phone, please. We'll enter that into evidence.
Jesse, will you hand the phone to me, please?

Thank you, Bailiff Jesse.

Right. This phone has seen some wear and tear.
This is a Motorola brand

communicator.

You didn't want to spend the extra for the Star Tech, huh? Yeah, I know.

I mean, you know, by this time, they were giving away Star Techs.

It's not even a top-of-the-line flip phone. It could have been a roser at this point.
1999.

And look here on what amounts to a home screen. Oh, it just turned off, so I can't see it anymore.
But I believe that it was a picture of you and your sister as youths.

Actually, me and one of my best friends from home as youths. Whoa.

Burn.

You knew that you were coming onto this podcast. You knew you would take this out and show it to me.
You could have put a picture of you and your sister on this. No, she cannot judge.

I said that picture in 2008 and I'm not sure I remember how to change it.

You're saying that that picture of you and your best friend as children was actually contemporous right at the time.

No, it's a picture of a picture. It's a photograph.
It's a picture of a picture.

All right, so we're going to decide whether or not you're going to keep this phone or upgrade it. And while the phone is in the balance, I'm going to put it here on my gavel block.

Just going to practice

whether or not I'm going to smash it with my gavel.

So let's talk about why this phone is meaningful to you because it is obviously outdated and I gather not useful to you here in Maine.

Well, it works everywhere except inside my apartment. Okay.

Just a point of clarification. Where is it that you live? I live in a barn apartment.
No, no, I mean relative to your apartment.

Inside it.

But to be fair, I have had many friends with very fancy smartphones come visit whose phones also do not work inside my apartment.

All right. It's a very well-insulated place.

Sure.

It's lined with tin foil.

You're afraid of the rays?

When you say apartment, you mean like an adobe hut, right?

It's actually a barn. Uh-huh.
It is a barn. It's a very nice barn.
Sure.

Is it a rental barn? No one was casting aspersions upon your barn.

Is it a a rental barn or a

barn? Okay, good.

And it's in Blue Hill. It is in Blue Hill, yep.
And the only person whose phone has been able to successfully have service inside my apartment is my mother, who also has a flip phone.

Right, but so it's not an issue. The phone service issue is not related to flip phone versus smartphone.
It's related to the service provider. Right, she has a different service provider.

And, you know,

I will buzz market John Glazer's TV show all day long, and especially America's Test Kitchen and the Blue Hill Library, which is an amazing library.

But I will not mention cell phone service providers. But we do know that in Maine, there is one that works and one that does not work.
Yes.

And you have the one that does not work.

I saw it on your phone. Yes.

Once again, it does work in, if I'm in downtown Blue Hill, if I'm at the library.

Downtown.

Downtown Blue Hill.

The intersection of Main Street and Parker Point Road. Sure.

But to be clear, again, it does not work when you're back in the barn with Wilbur and Charlotte.

It kind of depends like what way the wind's blowing. Sure.

Occasionally, it'll work. Now, let me ask you: did you move to Judge Hadron? Yes.
Some phone.

We'll see about that.

We'll see if at the end of the season the phone lives or you die giving babies.

Spider babies.

Oops, spoiler alert.

So,

did you move to Blue Hill for the job at the library? I did. Were you looking to move back to Maine, or did it just happen to come up? And so,

how has the adjustment been for moving from the big town of Arlington to the hustle-bustle of downtown Blue Hill?

It's been wonderful. It's a huge relief.
Really? I mean, I was very lucky to have a couple great jobs in Boston,

had a wonderful time in my graduate program, loved living with my sister, made some great friends, but I am not a city person. And I was excited to get out of there.

Would you say you are at heart a country mouse and your sister is a city mouse? I think that's an apt.

Is that part of the reason that you won't give up this old-timey phone?

I don't know that so much. It's just I really love that phone.
That's the only phone I've ever had. Because when you want to talk to someone, you open it up and you say, operator, get me.

I have all my best friends on my speed dial. Uh-huh.
I just hold down that phone. You understand what an old-timey term speed dial is.

Exactly. Exactly.
It works great with their answering service.

So, but I'm going to say, is there something aesthetically aesthetically about this phone that you love? I do. I think it's nicer than

you now. Oh, your mom called.
Oh, well, she's here.

Oh.

Well,

you gave away your phone. Did you call, mom?

Yeah,

apparently, the ringer is busted.

I turned it on silent because we're on stage.

So, here are are the things.

My gavel is hungry.

The things I love about this phone. And his gavel don't eat nanners.

I think it is more aesthetically pleasing than your average smartphone. I know that sounds silly, but or than your average flip phone.

I like the satisfaction of flipping it closed at the end of a call. Sure.

I think it's so durable. I've dropped it many times

without it having any problems. I'll take a picture of it with my smartphone so we can put it on the internet.
That's something you can do with a smartphone.

You can take a picture of a thing, and it actually works.

I've had this phone since 2008. I got it when I was a senior in high school, when I was getting my driver's license, because I was nervous to drive without having a way to call if something happened.

And it's seen me through the end of high school, all of college, moving to Boston. So it's almost like you're saying that this phone is an object of nostalgia?

I would say this phone sparks joy in my heart.

Because it reminds you of the past that will never come back?

No, it's just like having an old friend there that also does its job quite admirably most of the time. And I want to say.
But, madam!

Your phone is not your friend. Your sister is your friend.
And she is trying to call you, and it's not working. And I agree that something needs to be done about that.
What can be done about it?

Can you switch this phone over to a

functioning service here in Maine? I cannot bring that phone with me to another cell provider. They will not

ask. But do you agree? I mean, I think it's as a matter of safety.
and

contact with your friends and family that it would be better if you had a phone that worked inside your apartment. Totally agreed.

And I think there's two options that don't have to involve me getting a smartphone. One is switch to a different cell provider and get a new flip phone.

The one I would prefer, actually, is my apartment is wired for a landline.

Sure.

So I could have a landline phone that I could use when I'm home, and then I could use my cell phone, which works quite well anywhere except inside my apartment, when I'm not at home.

Sounds like a good investment.

Why is that your sister likes what she likes?

Afton.

You'll have the money once Wilbur wins at the state fair.

Afton, your sister likes what she likes. Why is this not an acceptable arrangement? It's true, Judge, and I know that's a long-standing settled law in the court.

People like what they like, and I respect Hannah, and I like, that's fine with me. Which is the older sister? I'm older.
Right, so you don't respect her. Come on.

You're under fake oath here. Don't say, don't

tell a lie to my face while you're holding a banana.

I guess I would say, Judge, that I think that many of us who remain in Boston miss Hannah very much, wish we had better communication with her. And a smartphone would afford

more

options for communicating. Well, how do you communicate with her currently?

Currently, hardly at all. We do email occasionally,

frequently. Wow.
We do. That's pretty old timing.

We do attempt to call, and I submitted into evidence our many missed calls and

short. We'll speak for 30 seconds, the call will drop, speak for a minute and a half, the call will drop, and until we give up.
We've also had several successful conversations.

We have had some successful conversations. I contend, though.
Are you taping the calls? When you say you submitted it into evidence, is this a tricky Dick Nixon situation?

I took a screenshot of our call history with my smartphone. That's something you can do with a smartphone.
You use a smartphone. Yeah, exactly.

I think that text messaging would offer a quicker, easier form of communication.

When I'm in the kitchen during the day, I'm not at my desk, so it's very difficult for me to check my email or to chat on a popular chat service platform.

ICQ.

Exactly.

So for me, text messages are a great way to stay in touch with my friends and family during the day.

We can also share pictures. Do you like text messaging, Hannah?

I don't. I don't personally do it.

You can't, but.

Well, I mean, the phone is

I did ask Verizon back in like 2009 to turn off the phone's capability to send and receive texts because I don't like doing it.

And I fully understand and admit that there are times when a text message is a more appropriate form of communication, but I just don't like it.

So I'd rather people just call me. Before I make my decision as to what's going to happen in your telecommunications future, I'm going to ask you both the same question.

Afton, are you in contact with your sister enough? No.

Hannah, are you in contact with your sister enough?

No.

I think I've heard what I need to in order to make my decision. I'm going to go into my chambers now and I'm going to take this phone with me.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. You may sit.

You may sit.

Man alive. Hannah, do you love your sister? I do.
I love my sister very much. I just think that we can talk on the side.
I'm sorry, I can't hear you.

Are you there? Hello. Call dropped.

Are you.

I don't even know what to do with you.

She's a lovable Luddite.

Yeah, I guess she seems like a nice lady.

Do you feel like you miss your sister because of this? Oh, definitely. I mean, I miss my sister regardless.
And I think that

the points I didn't have a chance to make before the judge also is that I know that she misses our cat very much. I would love to share pictures of our cat with her.

You can email me pictures of the cat. That's true.
It doesn't have the same immediacy. My sister also recently.

Hold on,

I just got to show you. I got this.

So I'm pretty far away from home right now. I live in California, in Hollywood.

Anyway,

my wife's at home with my children and my dogs. And one of my dogs got into the second shelf in my son's bedroom.
So I just want to show you a quick picture.

You can't look.

Oh, he's so cute.

Oh, he misses. Look at her little eyes.
She misses you.

She's hiding in the pajamas.

We'll see what Judge John Hodgman has to say about all this. Please welcome back to the courtroom Judge John Hodgman.

So I gave this case careful consideration while I was in my chambers, and the first thing I did was I called your mom.

She answered the phone during my show,

so let's have her removed immediately.

No offense,

but I gotta say, made the connection crystal clear. Got through right away.
And I said, what do you think I should rule? Because moms tend to be right.

And she said, oh, judge, I don't know. But a landline sounds like a good compromise.

And it does sound like a good compromise. Because the truth is that your sister has moved to Maine.

And people who move to Maine voluntarily are clearly making a choice about how they want to live their lives.

You understand, because you are from here, that this is a state full of people who don't want to see or talk to people.

It's true.

Now you've been down in Brookline for some time where everyone loves to talk to one another,

just testing some recipes and getting to know one another and having a good jaw.

But your sister has moved back to a place where

If she never sees another person, that's a good thing.

And she's working specifically in a work environment where it is encouraged that no one ever speaks.

Only in the quiet room.

Okay.

And it may be, you know,

while texting is a lot of fun,

it is undeniably a productivity suck and an addiction.

And it is not fun when someone has the idea that they want to talk to you, and then there's an automatic expectation that that person is going to reply immediately.

Some of us prefer to live in a time where you might be allowed two hours to respond at a minimum rather than five seconds.

That's the life that your sister has chosen. And if you truly respect her, you would respect that as well.

But now, Hannah, this phone is a piece of junk.

You are clinging to it because you are afraid you will not be able to get your contacts off of it.

And more

perilously, you are clinging to it because it reminds you of the good times and of the old times. Those times are gone.

Nostalgia is the most toxic impulse. You should have known that when you walked into this fake courtroom.

And though I appreciate that you have some affirmative desire to maintain a phone of this style, and I have to say, when I was talking to your mom, it felt great to click this thing shut.

You can't hang up on someone, and certainly not someone's mom, by just pressing doop, you have to go like, enough with you, mom.

But I also worry that you have

a fearful clinging to this particular piece of technology.

So I also believe that you should have

active working cell service and a good phone service in your home. I think having a landline in your home will be a remarkable novelty that

you will enjoy and rarely use.

But I hope you get one of those old-timey hello phones.

And I also order you to get a new flip phone on a service that works.

I'm not going to smash your phone. Thank you.

We don't want to lose those contacts.

I order you to take this phone, get the contacts off the phone. Your sister, you have to come up here for a whole weekend and help her do that.
That's going to be your bonding.

And then I want you to take this phone to Stonington, Maine, on Deer Isle, to Marlon Spike Chandlery, and get Tim Witten to turn this phone into a crazy maritime necklace.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is off. Let's thank our litigants, ladies and gentlemen.

Afton Hannah, thank you so much for joining us on Judge John Hodgman.

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

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

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The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Aura Frames. Now, John, as we sit here and discuss this right now.
Right.

My mother, judith yes has just entered my house

by the way she is an absolute let me say hi to her no she's she's in the house it's like 80 feet away but the good news is she's always connected with my family not just when she's in my house because of the aura frame that i gave her even my 80 year old mother

who is no great shakes with technology,

is able to operate that Aura frame. She just plugged it in, connected it to the Wi-Fi.
It was full of pictures of family members that she loves.

All I have to do, if we take a cute new picture of, let's say, my dog Jr.,

I'm mostly taking pictures. Sorry of my children.

All you do is hit that send button, that same send button on your phone that you would use to text message it to somebody, and you can just shoot it straight into an aura frame.

Honestly, I'm thinking about getting an aura frame right now just dedicated to pictures of your dogs. Yeah, I think that's a good call.

Mabel's in there looking all little and cute. You know how much you love sending photos to your friends and family, things that you see, people that you know, things that you do.
I mean, you love it.

It's a gift that you give every day, probably. But I mean, no one loves to look at their phone to see those photos.

What they really enjoy, I really enjoy because I have an aura frame, is seeing all those memories pop up on a beautiful high-resolution screen.

and knowing that my family can see the photos that I share with them exactly the same way. You don't need to download anything.

You don't need to download your photos to a SIM card and then drive all the way to Brookline to see my dad to put your photos on his Aura frame.

All you need to do is select your photos, send them to the app, and they're on their way. You could get an Aura frame for a loved one today.

You don't even need to take it out of the box before you load it up with photos that they're going to love. There's a code you scan, you do it without basically no human hands involved.

By the time they open it, it's preloaded with all the photos that you've chosen for them. It's delightful.

I was just saying to my wife, as a whole human being in her own right, why have we not given your dad an aura frame? Guess what we're going to do? Sorry, I don't mean to spoil the secret, Brad.

You're getting an aura.

This is good news for you and for Brad.

For a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $35 off Aura's best-selling Carver Matte frames, named number one by Wirecutter, by using promo code Hodgman at checkout.

That's A-U-R-AFrames.com. Promo code Hodgman.
Now, this deal is exclusive to listeners, and frames do sell out fast. So order yours now to get it in time for the holidays.

And support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

You know, John Hodgman,

the fresh banana man is not the only friend of the podcast that we have here tonight in Portland, Maine. That is true.
So as you know,

I make a part-time home here in Maine, and my summertime chambers are at WERU-FM in Orland, Maine,

where

our guest summertime

fun-time bailiff is Monty Belmonte, but our guest summertime gravelly-voiced engineer is Joel Mann.

Joel Mann, of course, lays down some jazz down in Castine during the summertime, and he's here tonight along with his friend David Rait. Please welcome Joel Bann and David Rait.

Hello Joel.

Good evening Judge. How are you? Very good.
Thanks for being here. I'm very happy to be here.
Really?

Well I can hear it in your voice.

So are you going to play some songs from Joe Bird and the Field Hippies or what?

Maybe later. All right.
And you brought David Raid along with you.

David Raid.

And you guys are going to be playing together?

Is that correct? Okay. You can just answer me.
All right, good.

Together at the same time. That's right.
And that'll be tomorrow night. By the time you hear this on the podcast, it'll be long gone.

But if you guys here in the audience want to go to Bangor, tomorrow night at the Sea Dog in Bangor, the mainline band. That's right.
Ladies and gentlemen, Joel Mann and David Raid.

Tell me why I'm leaving.

Tell me why I gotta go.

Tell me why I'm leaving.

Tell me why I gotta go.

You made me pack my bags,

so tell me something I don't know.

Listen to this, man. You're gonna believe this.

You're walking around town with your dress hacked up to your thighs

You walk around town with your dress hacked up to your thighs.

I love a windy day

But then you don't give me nothing

So why you wanna make me cry

Tell me, tell me, baby,

I wanna know:

is it me

or is it my clothes?

Tell me, baby,

I gotta know right now.

Cause I want you loving,

I want you loving right now, baby.

Tell me why I'm leaving.

Tell me why I gotta go. You think she doesn't like me anymore, man? I don't know.
It's over.

Damn.

Tell me why I'm leaving.

Tell me why I gotta go.

Cause you, I want your loving, baby.

Got to have it, baby.

Right now.

Cause I want your loving

Got to have it, baby, you don't need your love

Got to have it

I want your loving,

I wanna make it right somehow

David Rait

Thank you.

David Rait and Joel Mann, ladies and gentlemen.

We also have some other friends from the show here as well. Is that not right, Jesse? Yeah, that is absolutely true.
We have past litigants here at the program.

Do you remember Emily and Danny from episode 225? It was called Go Set a Tip Jar? Episode 225, of course.

Yeah, so Emily and Danny ran a literary reading series and disputed about whether or not they should accept donations to offset the costs of having people come into a room and listen to people read from things.

And

I don't remember how I ruled, so let's have them out here and they can remind me. Emily and Danny, would you please come out onto the stage and join me?

Ladies and gentlemen, here in the fake courtroom of Judge Sean Hodgman. Hello, how do you do?

You are

Emily?

You must be Danny. You may be seated.
Emily and Danny, how are you? Good. Very good.
Is the reading series still happening? Yep, absolutely. And so please remind me of the terms of the dispute.

Which one of you wanted to charge and which one of you thought that was unseemly?

So I wanted to accept donations that people have. This is Emily speaking.

Yes. Emily wanted to accept donations.

Danny thought we shouldn't do that. And you guys love to talk about yourselves in the third person.

Yeah.

They do. Thank you.
And remind me, because the thing is, like, I'm constantly gaveling it up, dispensing justice, and then moving on, because time moves in one direction.

I don't think about these things afterward. As soon as I'm done with this, you guys are dead to me.

That was fun, Judge Hodgman. That was almost a sewn.
I think we could get a salsa going in here.

Yeah. Well, Joel's got the bass, but he's not going to...
No. All right, thank you, Joel.

So remind me and the audience how I ruled. So this is Emily.
I think in a way, we both won and we both lost.

Then I ruled incorrectly.

You ruled that we should have been accepting donations from the beginning, but since we'd been going for over two years, we could not begin to accept them. Got it.
So, I won. That's right.

And does the reading series go on? Yes. Yeah.
And remind me of the name of the reading series? Word Portland. Word Portland.

And it happens, that's right, and that's the guy who goes to it.

That's my dad.

Cool.

And it occurs weekly?

Fortnightly? Monthly. Monthly.
The first Monday of every month. Okay, first Monday of every month.
Can I make a suggestion to boost attendance? I'm sure your attendance is great already.

Yeah, no suggestion needed, Jesse.

I want to hear it.

If you call it word up, Portland,

and then check this out, when people are reading instead of sitting in their chair forwards they turn it backwards like straight talk style

anyway I think youths would enjoy that

so how's it been going there

it's been going great since we last talked we published a book Wow and we brought some for you thank you very much it's called be Wilder a Word Portland anthology edited by Danielle Danny LeBlanc would you say?

Yeah. Thank you for the clarification, by the way.

And

Emily Jane Young. Thank you so much for this, and look at all the wonderful local people who have contributed this.
Too many to name. But is there a place where people can get it?

On our website, but

we're almost out of print. Those are some of the last copies.
And you can't afford to print more? Not yet. Right.
How many of you have to do that?

Because you won. That's what you won, Danny.

That's what you won.

You printed up a bunch of books, you're giving them away to people who have a podcast, and you can't even charge money for them.

I didn't even ask Emily if I could bring them tonight because I thought she might say no.

That's true.

Well, I'm very glad to have them. And where does the reading series happen?

At LFK.

LFK? That's the name of the bar. That's the name of the bar.
LFK. And that's the owner of LFK right there in the front row.

Well, I feel bad that you haven't been able to publish more of these. So in a rare reversal, I'm reversing my ruling.
From now on, you have to charge money for these things. You have to charge money.

Emily?

How much are you going to charge? Is it whatever you can pay? Yeah, whatever you want. I didn't think that you'd reverse it, so I'm going to have to think about it.

I have to make it interesting.

Yeah, well, my whole plan was: if people want to give us money, they should be allowed to.

Right. So, how are you going to collect the money? You're going to put out a tip chart? I have a nice basket.

Let the record show that upon completing that sentence, she raised her eyebrows meaningfully.

All right, here's $10 for your basket. Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen, Emily and Danny. Thank you, Emily and Danny.
Before you guys go,

we tried out

the only other live shows we've ever done were in San Francisco. This is the first time we've ever gone on tour with the show.
And the first time, and this is the first night of the tour.

So thank you guys

for being here. It means a lot to us.
And also, like,

while we're thanking everybody, Emily Danny, when we invited the two of you on the show, we didn't ask you to, but we really appreciate that you engaged in literary reading series host cosplay.

Yet another great visual joke for a non-visual medium.

The hallmark of the podcast. but you know what we've created with that very joke the theater of the mind

maybe if you travel to Portland and you go to the reading series you can see for yourself what two lovely young extremely bookish women look like

one of the segments that we did in San Francisco

was a kind of clearing the docket segment called Swift Justice where we would try to clear away as many cases as possible within a 15 minute time time frame. So

I'm setting a clock or a timer for 15 minutes. He's doing it on his flip phone.
I'm doing it on the flip phone.

And we're going to play centipede.

And we're going to bring out some people who have conflicts.

If you have a dispute that you have not yet brought to the court,

you may raise your hand when I prompt you to, and I will solve it right here in the room as long as we have these 15 minutes together.

So before you go, Danny and Emily, do you have any other conflicts? Go.

Any other disputes? That's the only thing we've ever thought about.

All right, get out of here. Next,

send the next two up.

Next litigants, please, as quickly as you can. Time is of the essence.
Don't dawdle, sir. Justice delayed is justice denied.
If you don't, don't march. You don't have to do a march.

Just walk on through. Just as quickly as you can.
Very good, though. I appreciate the formality.
Yeah, okay. What are your names? Madam, what's your name? Lori.
Sir, what's your name? Hal.

Lori and Hal, what's your dispute?

I don't like to share my food when we go to restaurants, and he always makes me.

In what way do you make her? Like just through the medium of reaching?

Mostly I offer her a piece of my food. You attempt a food barter?

You force a food barter to take what you want.

It's a sort of IO first strike situation.

Look, Lori, people like what they like, so I'm not going to question why you don't like to share your food, but have you tried explaining to the gentleman's name again? Hal. Hal?

Have you tried explaining to Hal why you do not like this? He said it was hidden in our marriage vows.

Hal, do you want to try saying that to me?

No, Your Honor.

What kind of food does Hal steal?

Anything that he thinks I made a better decision to order than he did.

Can you give me an example?

Like sometimes if I get a, if we're in Philadelphia, which was our hometown, and I get a cheesesteak and he chooses a calzone, and cheese steak is always a better decision. Yeah, Hal.

You can get a calzone anywhere. You can get a calzone of the Canadian house of pizza and garbage.

You lived in Philadelphia. You get a cheesesteak.
If you're going to eat garbage food, do it right.

Or you go to Lil Pizza and eat some scrapple.

Or get yourself one of them hoagies.

One of them hoagies? Why did you move from Philadelphia to Maine? How?

I got a job up here. What's your job? I teach computer science and game design to high school students.
Ooh, where? That's fantastic. Is that a student of yours?

I don't think so.

You could just be a video game enthusiast, although that wouldn't make sense in a Judge John Hodgman nowadays.

It would be so strange.

Hal, where do you teach high school? Baxter Academy.

Hal, if only you taught race car driving.

Yeah,

that would be more up our alley for our show.

Where do you teach high school? Baxter Academy. Baxter, where is that? That's right here in Portland.
Right here in Portland. And when did you move here to do that?

About a year ago. And Judge Hodgman, is this germane to the swift justice we're trying to administer? I understand you're establishing a timeline, but

how many times

the dog bark?

I'll see where this is going.

Did you also get a job here, ma'am? I did. You did? Before or after he did? After.
Because you were forced to move here by your husband?

Yes. I see.

So you dragged your wife here and now you're stealing her food?

You put that way, it doesn't sound very good.

I find in favor of Lori. Judge John Thomas rules that.
Next Wettigans, please! Quickly to the stage!

We only have so much time to dispense this justice. Don't step aside politely.
Push them out of the way.

What are your names? Jillian. Jillian and Laura.
What's your dispute?

So I'm bringing Laura to court. Laura is a wonderful hobbyist photographer who's been taking photographs of our friend group since 2004 or five.

We met in high school.

Do you see this as like a 7-up style documentary project?

So she's been taking photographs of our friend group for many, many years.

Well, not that many. Well,

what are your ages? A few. I'm 26.
26. About to be 27.
Happy birthday. Happy A few days.
Yeah. Happy birthday, Larry.
All right, now back to Siri Steph. Good luck in your age 27 season.

Okay, so for about, since you met in high school, so would you say, arguably for about a decade,

she's been taking pictures of your friend group? Yes. And the friend group is still together? Yes.
And she's hoarding these pictures so she won't show them to you? Yes. Okay, why are you doing that?

Okay, well, I'm a hobbyist photographer.

I don't have professional equipment, so not all the photos that I took when I was 16 turned out fantastic, so I haven't spent the money to print them necessarily.

Were you taking them on your flip phone? No, I was

no I take my photos with film. It was actually more of a hobby of doing film photography rather than documenting my friends.
Where are the photos now? Are they on rolls of film?

They are there's a combination of they are on rolls of film undeveloped, they are

developed film in sheets and some of them are printed. Okay.
Not many. And why and

you're too busy to print them? I mean, partially that. It's also actually very expensive to print them.
And I usually do black and white so I can do them myself at home. And that takes a lot of time.

And yeah, I work a full job. What is your job? I'm an environmental engineer.
She's an environmental engineer, Jillian.

She doesn't have all the time in the world to be printing out nostalgic memories for you.

What's your job, Tumblr?

What's app?

New customer service at the private terminal at the airport.

Okay. Yeah.
At the Portland airport, not the Bangor International Airport. No.

So that's my jam.

I love that airport.

That's like if Diddy comes to town.

Or presidential candidates. It's like we're at the party at, and you're like, I've got this on lock.

So Laura is hoarding these photographs. How does it make you feel that she won't print them?

Don't tell me, tell Laura. Yes, Laura, it makes me feel that

our...

You're moving on in your life and you don't care about all of us anymore.

Yeah, and that, you know, we have such a great time when we have the opportunity to take those photographs out of the shoeboxes under your bed and lay them out and reminisce with all the new people in our lives.

That's such a great experience and I wish that I could do that,

you know, in general. Quick question, Jillian.
Are there new people in your lives, or is this just pure nostalgia for you? Oh, yeah, I mean, you know, people can't get a camera.

Diddy, presidential candidates.

Exactly.

I want to be able to show them what I was doing in high school. Well, you would like me to order Laura to print all of the existing

photos? Would like Laura to provide a more complete set so that we can each have, I know,

but provide a more complete set of photographs so that we can each have these records And in the future, going forward, when you take more photos, develop them, maybe with a monetary contribution from your friends, for these photographs, or maybe give them as gifts.

Laura,

Jillian wants you to work for free for her.

Right?

She wants you to take on a whole second job after environmental engineering.

Is there anything that she can do that would make this project... Do you not want to complete the project of printing these photos? No, it's just that when I do it, it's actually,

I do it for me. It's like methodical, like relaxing Zen solo time in the dark alone, actually listening to your podcast.
Uh-huh.

And so I. We all know what it's like to do some solo work in the dark alone.

Less name, bitch. I don't know much.

So

I would be willing to do this. It's just, it does actually take a lot of time.
It can take up to half an hour to do one print. Right.
You should get a smartphone.

I actually don't take as many film photographs because I have a good smartphone now. Right, yeah, yeah.
And you got a backlog. Yeah.

So what would you have me order, Jillian, if I were to find in your favor? Actually, what I would like you to do is

come over,

look at all the negatives that I have printed. They're negatives, so you can't really see what's on them, but you can.
She doesn't even know what a negative is. Okay.
Do you know?

Yes, I know what a negative is.

She just had this look on her face. I'm like, uh-huh, uh-huh.
Sure, yeah, I will.

But tell me which ones you would like to see printed, and then I can either print them or tell you why that's a bad idea.

Do you think you could provide one of those contact sheets and one of those grease markers like they use in a 70s movie about cool people that work in a magazine?

Contact sheets are still a thing, yeah? Yeah, that'd be cool. What about those special grease markers? I don't even know what you're talking about.

I say just circle some of them and like write an exclamation mark and say, this one's the cover.

I don't mean to give you photography advice.

Well, clearly, the point is, Gillian, that you want to get together with Laura and go through the old times. I think Laura has offered a proper compromise.

You have to do half the work by looking through the things and picking out the things to print. So ordered.
Judge John Hondrills, that's all.

Let's get our next litigants up here as quickly as possible.

We don't have any next litigants. Do we have any fights in the room? Any justice in the room that needs dispensing right now? Or we'll move on.
Yes, in the back.

I would like my dog to be our ring bearer for our wedding in London. My grandmother's not her.
She'd like her dog to be the ring bearer for her wedding. Her fiancé is a reasonable adult.

Follow-up question, what kind of dog and what is the name of the dog?

A boxer boxer named Rigby. Rigby.
Rigsby. Rigsby?

If it were Rigby, I'd go with you, unfortunately.

No, I like it. I want Rigsby to carry that ring.
So ordered.

Anybody else in the game? I think I saw another hand way in the back there somewhere. Three minutes and 51 seconds back.
I am wild. I won't.
Any further judgment? You can go anyway.

Justice is going wild right now. Yes, sir.

My wife won't allow me to put blue cheese dressing on my spaghetti. My wife

won't allow me to put blue cheese dressing on my spaghetti.

Dude, I'm not going to lie to you. That sounds pretty dope.
Yeah.

It's your spaghetti, so ordered. Blue cheese all over it.

You can tell you can tell that fortune favors the bold.

If you petition the court, I am more likely to rule in your favor than your wife or husband or fiancé's. Last chance to get the revenge? Yes, go.

My friends don't let me eat pizza backwards. Did you get rid of the crust first?

My friends don't let me eat pizza backwards. Eat it backwards.

Get rid of that crust. And get rid of your friends.

Two minutes. Anyone else? Yes.
Laura, you're back again?

My boss is here and I'd like a raise.

Your boss is here and she's like, her boss is here and she'd like a raise. I don't know if we can...
We can order a raise. We can order a performance review, right?

What percentage of raise would you like?

Five. Five percent? Why do you think you need a raise at this time?

Why are money a friend?

Yeah, that.

No. That's not work rolling.
Try again.

To invest in my future. To invest in your future? Let's talk about performance.

What's your value add?

He's about to have a kid and I'm going to be picking up some slack.

Your boss is about to have a child and you'll be picking up

some more slack. Two and a half percent raise.

So ordered. Where's your boss?

Back there. Right? I have your assent, sir.

I prefer the performance review of professional sessions.

I just reviewed her performance.

It's a very positive review. 3% 3% raised.
Do you want to test me again?

Congratulations on the child.

Three seconds to one. That's it for Swift Justice.

Hello. Hello, I'm calling on behalf of the Beef and Dairy Network podcast.
No, no, I'm sorry. No sales calls.
Goodbye.

It's a multi-award-winning podcast featuring guests such as Ted Danson, Nick Offerman, Josie Long.

I don't know what a Josie Long is, and anyway, I'm about to take my mother into town to see Phantom of the Opera at last. You are wasting my time, and even worse, my mother's time.

She only has so much time left. She's 98 years old.
She's only expected to live for another 20 or 30 years. Mother, get your shoes on.
Yes, the orthopaedic ones.

I don't want to have to carry you home again, do I? Right. Well, if you were looking for a podcast.
Mother, you're not wearing that, are you? It's very revealing, Mother.

This is a musical theatre, not a Parisian bordello. Simply go to maximum fun.org.
I'm reaching for my Samsung Galaxy Galaxy 4 as we speak. Mother! Mother, not that hat!

We have one more case before we go.

Jesse Thorne, why don't you set it up? Tonight, triple word scorn. Colin brings the case against his fiancée, Jordan.

Colin claims that Jordan attacks him too aggressively during board games, going as far as to throw her chances of doing well just so Colin loses.

Jordan says he wins so much and gloats about it that she is trying to make it more fun. Who's right, who's wrong? Only one man can decide.
Please rise as Judge John Hodgman approaches the bench.

Do you maybe see this?

Ladies and gentlemen, Colin and Jordan.

All of them witches

comes

with the fall.

Elf shot, lame witch.

How is hell

fact

met

Bailiff Jesse Thorne? Swear them in.

Please 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?

Yes. I do.
Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he's playing chess and y'all just playing checkers?

I do.

Yes.

Judge Hodgman.

Colin and Jordan.

For an immediate summary judgment in one of yours' favors, can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I approached the bench here in Portland, Maine?

Who's bringing whom? I forget. I brought Jordan.
Okay. Colin, you bring Jordan to this court.
So, Jordan, you have the opportunity to guess first or to make Colin guess first. Which will it be?

I will guess first. You know what? I respect that a lot.

That's a very rare play. A wise man once said, Fortune favors the bull.
That's right. So, what is your guess? Jumanji.
Jumanji.

Enter it into the guess book.

So entered. Thank you.

Colin, what is your guess? The words you played in your latest Scrabble game? The words I played in my latest Scrabble game. Enter that into the guest book.
So entered.

Would you hand me the guess book, please? Thank you.

Now let me look at these two guesses here. One, two, and all guesses are wrong.

Although, good guesses, I have to say, because your dispute involves board games. So you obviously thought I would give you a board game reference.
Jumanji is a movie about a board game.

And a book about a board game. And a book about a board game by Chris Van Allsberg, I believe.
Correct.

I remember a thing. And then

that probably would have been good.

It is a reference to a movie, but not that movie. And then, Colin, you guessed Scrabble, because you know I enjoy Scrabble, and I don't like words with friends.
I like Scrabble with enemies.

And

it is a Scrabble reference, but it is a reference to one of the rare appearances of Scrabble in the movies. Do you

can remember what movie this was from? No, you can't. Never mind.
Don't have all the time in the world.

Can I guess? Sure. We bought a Zoo.

Is there a Scrabble scene in We Bought a Zoo? I don't know. I haven't seen We Bought a Zoo.

No!

These are all

the words that were made by the main character of this movie as she tried to figure out what the phrase all of them witches might be a clue to.

And that

woman, protagonist in the movie, was named Rosemary. And the movie was called Rosemary's Baby.

One of the greatest scrabble scenes of all time. Oh, oh, oh.
And

because it is mainly silent, and it is mainly her whispering words and the sound of her moving tiles around on the floor of her apartment in the Dakota, it also features prominently as an ASMR video

I discovered today.

So you're both wrong, sweetie. Is there a long-lost Rosemary's baby sequel where she's just folding towels?

Don't get me excited.

So we have to hear this case between the two of you. You guys like to play board games? Yes.
And you live here in Portland or where?

Just outside of Portland. And do you know the name of the town in which you live?

Occasionally I forget. Auburn, Maine.
Auburn, Maine. And what do you do in Auburn, Colin?

I work as a lawyer for the government. A lawyer for the secret government?

For which government? The state government or the federal government? The state of Maine. The state? You work for the state of...
Look, he's not Paula Page, you guys.

he's not really my boss either what's that he's not really your boss what what what division of the state of Maine do you work hey who's your boss Olympia Snow

am I right pandering it's a local pandering I don't I don't approve pandering I think

the Attorney General the Attorney General of the state of Maine and you Jordan you live here in Maine with your husband I live in Auburn with my soon to be husband oh excuse me. You're affianced.

All right, good. We're on fiancé.
Congratulations. Thank you.
And you live together without being married. That's correct.
All right, I'll just make a note of that.

No hiding it anymore.

I'm an attorney, not for the government.

Okay, a private attorney. Yes.
This is turning into quite a situation comedy.

All right, counselors, what board game do you like to play?

Permission to buzz market? Yeah, yeah, of course. Okay, great.
I think the most common one we play together is Settlers of Catan. Settlers of Catan.

Now, is that the truth or just an easy applause line?

I would have gone with LL Bean Monopoly if I was going for an easy applause line. Is there such a thing? Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Okay.

And then what is the least common game that you play?

I mean, how deep is your bench?

I think we play a rotation of three mostly. Three or four games.
Right. Boy, winters are long here, right?

So we're talking about settlers. So what? We're talking about candyland.

Now look, I never played settlers at Catan. I don't want to learn the rules.

I don't want to get a whole instruction manual from you guys to understand this.

Using

layman's terms, what does Jordan do that is so wrong, Colin, that you would embarrass her in front of your citizens, your fellow citizens here in Maine tonight in Portland?

Jordan forsakes all strategy for the ultimate goal of the game of winning according to the rules and solely seeks to make sure I lose.

So,

this is often a more than two-person game, right? Yes. Yeah, always.

We've never played just that one. So, you don't have to get sniffy.
Oh, okay.

My apologies.

Because I, as a non-Settlers of Catan player, was listening to this going, Jordan eschews

strategy in order to make sure she wins and I lose,

which is what I call a game.

But now that I understand that there are multiple players,

what you're suggesting is that she will sacrifice herself in order to make sure she doesn't care so much that she wins but that you lose. I would go to that correct.
Yeah, I'd go to so far.

I would

go go so far as to say that's her only goal is that I lose. Is to make sure that...
And so you obviously do not dispute this accusation, Jordan. Not at all.
So what is the...

And Colin, you're not into this, right? Because there is a subreddit for that.

It's charming in its own way, but...

So what is it that gives you so much pleasure about Colin loses that you will choose to make him lose rather than win from time to time? Well, I never win.

So, pretty early on in our game-playing relationship, we play with like four or five close friends, three or four close friends, I guess.

And it's more fun for me to do this sub-game of having everyone band together against the Goliath of the game.

Colin.

Right.

Colin to be, yeah.

By the way, Goliath of the game is also his rap name.

Right.

Then to try to win, which is futile. I never win.
Now,

go ahead, Colin. You want to say something? Yeah, I think she sort of

is proving my point for me. She never wins because she always tries to beat me instead of trying to win.
Yeah, but she is gaining pleasure out of your destruction.

I mean, is not the point of the game to enjoy some distraction and pleasure? That is correct.

You can't win them all.

It's enough then to make sure you lose them all.

But she could win some, and I think if she. Could she?

There's enough luck involved that someone who doesn't know the rules at all could beat the.

I'm not.

Burn him!

She could.

say we will. Burn him! He is a traitor to our village!

We did not settle here in Catan

to be told it was all luck.

Ours is a city on a hill.

Some person in the sky wants us to be here.

It is not a roll of the dice. We are the good ones.
They are the bad ones. This is how nations are born.

It's going to be a beautiful wall.

If I may provide a counterpoint,

we didn't settle on Katan. Catan settled on us.

I do,

however, sense a strain of defeatism in you, Jordan. When you say, I never win or I will never win.
It is clear that you have the soul of a predatory winner. Thank you.

It seems to me that you could win if you wished to. Do you not agree, Colin? I agree wholeheartedly.
So, why do you say that you cannot win the game of Settlers of Catan? So, maybe I should clarify.

I would say, in the first five or six hands, I see if I can win. I never can,

and so I am

now engaging in my sub-game of attacking Colin because it's more fun than just going down in flames slowly. Is this also how you conduct yourself in court?

I'm sorry, that was a good witness. I'm going to have to do my thing.

Yes. Yeah, well, but a court is a is a it's a binary proposition.
One person wins, one person loses. If it were like a

three-way court or a four-way court, where you know you're not going to win it, but at least you can take your fiancé down,

right, and send him to jail or his client to jail,

even though that person is innocent,

at least your loss would not have been for nothing. If you do find yourself in a three-way court or a four-way court, there is a subreddit for that.

It's a weird tenet of Maine law that you can be tried in a four-way court if you wish.

In an octagon, in Augusta.

Is this against the rules of the game, Colin?

I think it is not. Let me rephrase that.
Yes or no, sir.

Yes. It is against the rules of the game.

Oh.

I will have order.

I'll still cry. But thank you, Mob, because I wouldn't be able to do that.
I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure What to believe? I'm pretty sure we heard like 14, no, no, no.

And then like one, they should be playing ticket to ride.

We do.

We also play ticket to ride. All right.

So it's not against the rules of the game. That's correct.

Thank you very much, Counselor.

So why is it against the spirit of the game, Colin, in your opinion?

The spirit of the game, the first or second, we actually looked at the rule book recently, and the first or second line says the object is to settle Catan and to expand your empire as far as it can go.

Okay, but that's a fantasy world. That doesn't exist.

This is real life we're talking about now.

Given the inability to win under certain circumstances, why not humiliate your spouse?

To be. So I actually would have no problem with that if that was what was going on.
But she gives up so quickly.

I think if she followed through, she is much better than she thinks she is at these kind of games and she would win way more than you know she thinks she would end up. Jordan, do you give up?

Do you because you are, you have, you said I'd look at my cards and I was obvious I can't win, so it's time to hurt Colin.

Do you

and I want you to answer honestly because you're under fake oath here.

Do you give up easily because you take more pleasure in defeating Colin than earning a win yourself?

I would say when Colin loses, everyone wins. So

it's.

So I'm not giving up so much as making the conscious decision to win another way.

Is that why the theme of your impending nuptials is falling on the grenade?

Colin,

do you anticipate that this attitude will have long-term effects in your marriage over time?

No, no, I think

it works very well in the sense that she makes other people happy.

And it's always good to, you know.

Have fun.

Now that you know that this is your bride-to-be's

MO to make you hurt

you're a talented player they're the goliath of the game can you not devise a strategy to defeat to counter-attack her

I do mean that's what marriage is all about isn't it

attacks and counterattacks attacks and counterattacks

plans within plans schemes within schemes

yeah I I

I've sort of learned that she'll do this so in other games I sort of plan with the idea that Jordan's going to act against me,

which, you know, it's kind of going against my case.

It's not going against your case. What you would like me to order is what? That she play fair? Not so much that.
And not target you personally?

No, I would say that she should play to win the game itself. Why is that important rather than the pleasure of defeating you?

Because I think she's. Is she hurting herself in some way?

She's not fully realizing her potential as a game player. Oh.

Do you hear that man's plaining?

All right.

There it is.

Jordan, can I ask you a serious question? Because I'm...

Despite the fact that I know the names of two board games that will get applause breaks,

I'm not much of a board game player, unlike Judge Hodgman. And if I'm totally frank, it's because

I have such high expectations for myself, the sort of like shame-based expectations for myself, that if I win, I feel no pleasure.

And if I lose, I'm crushed, and I feel guilty about how badly I want to win the entire time.

And so it's very difficult for me to play games.

And I wonder if part of what is motivating your strategy is you're embarrassed that you might lose, and so you are basically trying to have control over your loss.

You're trying to protect yourself from the risk of failure, essentially.

That is accurate.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

But no one is made an argument, and certainly not Colin, as to why that is bad.

I think

it would be better for

her to experience the joy of winning, and she could get so much joy out of crushing me. Dolin, how does this affect the other players, the friends that come over to your house to play the game?

They, I think, probably

like it for some, like sometimes when I lose, because I do win sometimes against them. But I think one of them.
You always win, don't you?

Not always. And one of the things is there some kind of arrangement

we could make up, like my arrangement with my college roommate, roommate, Nathaniel, who was super good at video games,

where when we played video games against each other, we only played sports games where I knew the rules of the sport and he didn't.

That might work.

You mean like Colin playing with one arm behind his back or blindfolded or something? Yeah, I know. There's a Reddit for that, too.

All right, I've heard everything I need to hear in order to make my decision. I'm going to go into my chambers now, and I'll be back in a moment with my decision.

Please rise as Judge Hodgman exits the courtroom. You may be seated.

Colin, how do you feel about your chances here, counselor?

I'd say poor,

judging by the crowd reaction.

Case in point. Colin, are you ultimately just mad because you hate losing so much or because you feel that the

is your argument disingenuous that you want your wife to be to be happy when in fact what you want is to win a game where she tried really hard, so you know that you're actually better than her.

I can honestly say that it's because I want her to actually try and see how high she can fly.

Boo!

Women shouldn't fly.

Boo, Amelia Earhart.

Jordan, have you ever heard of this board game called Save the Whales?

Is that a real board game? Yeah, it's pretty dope. I had it when I was a kid.

There's these cool whale pieces. I'm talking about not just, like, I know what you're thinking, just toothed whales? No, baleen whales too.

Dope like pewter game pieces and everybody works together to save the whales. And if everyone succeeds in saving the whales, great.
You've solved the 80s.

We love those games. Like Pandemic, where everyone fights against the game.

Those are fun. But sometimes, you know, those have their place.
But attacking.

Sometimes you have to know which partner is better.

Right. Right.
Well, we'll see what the judge has to say about this in just a moment. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom.

You may be seated.

We

in Catan

are strong and hardy people.

Catan

was not settled by fair players.

Catan was settled by force, by guile. I don't know if any of this is true.

By theft of land, and by genocide.

Your myth of Catan as being an even playing field for all to come and seek their fortunes is nothing but a story told to infants.

I don't know if it's true about Catan, but it is true about the United States of America.

In Colin and Jordan, I see a naive idealist on the one hand and a goddamn robber baron on the other.

And while I applaud my bailiff, Jesse Thorne, as always,

for having so much and discovering so much insight. into your motivations for not trying hard enough to win yourself, but trying real hard to destroy your Colin.

And Colin, your desire to seek a fair fight with your bride to be.

The fact of the matter is, a game is supposed to be fun. And it seems to me that Jordan's having a lot of fun.

And Colin, it is upon you to devise a strategy to defeat her fun, as she is dedicated to defeating yours.

That will be the bond of a lasting marriage.

But as

in Catan, we have not the rules of the state of Maine. We have not the laws of the state of Maine.
We have only the law of the mob that has been so far extremely helpful.

And so, while my

word is law,

I will throw it to the mob. Oh no.
Who here?

Judges

by sound of throaty calls of vengeance.

Who here calls

for the death of Colin?

Who here calls for the victory of Jordan?

Judge John Hodgman rules. That is all.
Colin and Jordan, ladies and gentlemen. Colin and Jordan.
Thank you so much, guys.

Well,

we're at the end of our show, but I hope that Joel Mann and David Wright will come up here and play one more song for us before we say goodnight because it was so generous of them to come here to see us.

All the way from the sea dog in Bangor. In Bangor, Maine.
You know, it's not close. Bangor.

Let the record show that I made a dismissive face.

You know what, Judge Hodgman? I really thought I was going to get through the whole night without doing this, but shut your potholes.

Ladies and gentlemen, David Rait and Joel Mann.

My baby don't have to work.

She don't have to ride or steal.

my baby. Don't have to work,

she don't have to ride or steal.

I'll give her everything she needs, baby,

and I am a driving wheel.

Well, I wrote my baby a letter.

Don't want no one to break the seal.

I wrote my baby a letter.

Don't want no one to break the seal.

Yeah, this letter goes out to you baby

Cause I am your driving wheel

Let me tell you about my baby

David you just can't stop in the middle of a song and start talking about your girlfriend

I know you're excited to be here

man.

I see her. She's right there.
But you can't stop. Okay, okay.
You gotta keep it going. I gotta get it together, man.
It's just focus.

I can't clear my head, man. Well, you're all messed up.
I hear all this judgment stuff, man. Yeah, yeah.
Damn.

All right. Okay, you alright?

Every time she walks,

she's like a leaf shaking on a willow tree.

Every time she walks,

she's like a leaf shaking on a willow tree.

I want you to come over here now, baby. It's where you get your steak, potatoes, and peas.

My baby don't have to work.

She don't have to ride or steal.

My baby don't have to work.

She don't have to ride or steal.

I give her everything she needs.

And I am my driving wheel.

Hey,

David Ray, I hear

Thanks to Joel Mann and David Rait for playing some great music for us here in Portland. Thanks to all of our litigants who shared their arguments with us.

There are a bunch of folks who helped us put on the show.

Thank you to the amazing staff at the Port City Music Hall, Danielle Davis, Matthew Barnhart, and Jennifer Marmor, our producer, for putting the show together.

If you'd like to submit a case to the Judge John Hodgman podcast, you can do so at maximumfund.org slash JJ H O.

If you want to email us, it's hodgman at maximumfund.org. We'll see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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