The Cradle of Pizza Civilization

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne, with me, as always, the great Judge John Hodgman.

How are you, Judge?

Hi.

Wait, what does that voice mean?

Are we

starting off all our episodes with a confusing voice from here on out?

I just realized that I did that.

That's the voice of Morris.

Well, close.

I actually kind of, yes, I hadn't thought about it that way.

It's the voice of Moriarty from the Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock.

Oh, sure.

When he introduced, when you first see him at the pool, and now I have to, I forget who that actor is, so I have to look it up.

Sherlock.

Andrew Scott.

And he goes, hoy.

It was one of the most hilarious and creepy moments in television history.

Hoy.

But we were just talking about some of the greatest detectives of literature before

we started this podcast proper.

Were we not, Jesse?

You confess that you have read over 15 Hardy Boys?

I've read probably,

I think a solid 20 Hardy Boys and five Nancy Drews.

And I'm going to throw on top of that five to seven Tom Swift and his Flying Labs.

Really?

Now you're going into that's a deep cut in American Jupiter.

I sometimes, I don't know if this is allowed, but I sometimes would go to Aardvark Books, which is actually still there on church street in san francisco uh not far from my childhood home and uh i would just sit in the children's section and read an entire hardy boys book

and as you walked out of there you would just lean over to the person behind the counter probably a grad student or government just i just stole from you

and you'll never prove it

Because the Hardy Boys are made up, and you can't prove that you stole words because you read them.

Well, Judge Hodgman, we've got a ton of docket cases to

that's why I'm here in these chambers.

Okay, great.

Megan writes, my husband and I have an intractable dispute.

Hopefully we'll be able to detract it for you too.

He falsely claims that pizza must have a red tomato-based sauce.

Without red sauce, he argues, it is not a pizza, but merely gourmet flatbread.

I say, consider the pizza Bianca or the noble barbecue chicken pizza.

Are they not pizzas?

Well,

that said, we're Midwesterners, so what the heck do we know about pizza?

Can a pizza be considered a pizza if it does not have tomato sauce on it?

Jesse, I have strong feelings about this.

Can you guess what I am going to rule?

Don't be a dope.

Not you.

That's right.

That's your rule.

I presume that's your ruling.

Yeah, of course, don't be a dope.

It is true

that the classic a pizza pie has a red sauce.

And in fact, sometimes you can have a red sauce above the cheese, and that makes it a tomato pie.

That's what my uncle Jim told me in Philadelphia.

And while things are subject to regionalism, because right now there's probably some pet ant going, that's not a tomato pie out there.

Maybe that's Moriarty.

That's not a tomato pie.

That's why he's.

That's not a tomato pie.

That's not a tomato pie.

You're hurting me again.

Well, many nemeses out there are probably saying, that's not a tomato pie.

And And I believe these things are regional and regionally defined.

But

the cradle of pizza civilization, as far as I am concerned, is New Haven, Connecticut, where I went to college.

I think everyone agrees on that point.

Continue.

Are you being sarcastic or are you being?

The cradle of pizza civilization is New Haven, Connecticut.

When I went to college?

American pizza.

Some of the earliest Italian-American pizza parlors in the United States were in New Haven, Connecticut.

Frank Pepi's and Sally's are iconic American apiz parlors,

and they make brilliant pizza pies still in coal-fired ovens that are.

There's a line around the block 24 hours a day, even when they're closed.

And they're spectacular.

And one of the signature pizza pies in the New Haven pizza canon, which is very influential to all the East Coast pies,

is the white clam pizza, which is a clam pizza without a single hint of tomato near it.

And that is without doubt a pizza.

It is,

I'm going to give you the ingredients now.

According to Frank Pepe's, where I've actually never been to Sally's.

They're next door to each other in New Haven, Connecticut.

But I've only ever been to Pepe's.

And I liked it.

It is white clam pizza is number one in America.

All All right, see, there you go.

A website said it made with fresh chucked clams, garlic, olive oil, and grated cheese on a charcoal-colored crust.

And it's an amazing thing to have.

And there are many, many different kinds of what are called white pizzas that don't have any tomato sauce on them at all.

And there's no question that they are pizzas.

They come from the same Italian-American pizza parlor tradition.

So,

your boyfriend is a boyfriend, husband, husband is wrong,

husband is wrong.

Consider your dispute tracted.

Darla writes,

This is a docket question because honestly, I don't know who the defendant is.

My husband and I live in a building that has three units.

We inhabit the lower level, another family lives upstairs, and another group lives in an apartment attached by a breezeway.

What's a breezeway?

A breezeway.

That sounds like a part of a ship.

No,

it's like a walkway between buildings.

Are you sure it's not where the bosun lives?

We inhabit the lower level.

Another family lives upstairs.

Another group lives in an apartment attached by a breezeway.

So my guess would be that there's a walkway to an outbuilding of some kind.

My association of Breezeway is and shall always be with the Grand Union Motel in Saratoga Springs, New York, where my wife and I and then my wife and young daughter and I spent a couple of long weekends with our other friends going to go to see the horses race around.

But mainly we went to the Grand Union Hotel

because

Jeffrey MacDonald and his wife,

whose name I should remember, but of whom he is accused of and imprisoned for murdering

and was the subject of the sort of seminal true crime book, Fatal Vision, that we were very into at that time in the 1990s,

stayed there with his wife.

That couple stayed there at one point on vacation, was mentioned in the book.

So it was a weird true crime pilgrimage, and they had

a spring, a natural spring.

That's why they call it Saratoga Springs.

Right in the middle of the courtyard of this motel.

And it was a true motor hotel.

Like

you drive in, check in one office and then walk around to the door.

You know, there were a bunch of doors like in the Bates Motel.

You would go into your room that led directly onto this courtyard.

In the middle of the courtyard, it was one of many natural springs in Saratoga Hotel that just burped up fart water 24 hours a day.

You were expected to get your plastic pitcher from your room and fill it up with this natural, highly mineralized water and bring it back to your hotel and room.

And then you would go to bed watching

the late late show with Craig Kilbourne, as I remember doing one time.

This really dates me.

And then in the middle of the night, you would wake up and you're like,

why does my room smell like rotten eggs?

I guess I'll never solve that mystery.

I guess I'll have a glass of this delicious, fresh spring water that has now turned weirdly and uncannily brown.

It was a good time.

But between, so some rooms, this is a long story, but it's a great, and it's a great motel, Grand Union Motel, Saratoga Springs, and

there would be

a line of rooms and then a break, and you could walk between two buildings to get to the other side of the building to go to the line of rooms on the other side of the building.

And that walkway between the two buildings that was covered was called a breezeway.

So there.

Well, I think that is how Saratoga Springs, Florida came to be known as the cradle of the American Breezeway and the cradle of American fart water.

I'm talking about Saratoga Springs, New York, just so you know.

New York, excuse me.

And also, birthplace of the pizza.

Okay, so anyway, Breezeway.

All of us in this apartment.

Oh, is Darla still talking?

I apologize.

Hi.

All of us have separate entrances, but we share garbage cans, and the garbage situation is a hot mess.

One, somebody is not using garbage bags, but rather putting household trash straight in the can.

This is disgusting.

If it's windy and the can blows over, pieces of soggy, gross garbage and coffee crowns end up all over.

I am the only person who cleans it up.

And

we do know it gets windy because they got breezeways all over the place.

Yeah, you got to put those breezes somewhere.

Yeah.

Two, someone else keeps putting their garbage bags straight out to the curb.

Sands can.

3.

I am the only person to put the garbage cans out through an unwieldy passage.

I could make my husband do it too, but to me this is beside the point because that won't address my neighbor's behavior.

Judge Hodgman, is there a way to address this that doesn't involve potential false accusations about who's doing what, or leave me feeling like a passive aggressive jerk?

Seems impossible to me.

I can't come up with a single solution that doesn't involve accusing people of things, Judge Hodgman.

That's why I have to defer to your wisdom on this one.

Here's what you do:

take a sharp knife,

go through the breezeway,

carve into their door.

I know it's you.

Then go upstairs, carve into their door.

I also know it's you.

And then do an Al Madrigal special.

Get a pound each of peeled Deveined shrimp and

hide the raw shrimp.

Just shove the raw shrimp under their door.

I think that's probably the best solution.

Or maybe you could leave a note out by the garbage cans.

The thing is,

what is the

threshold

for intervention?

So let's walk through here.

Does this deserve intervention at all?

Does this cause a problem that can and should be resolved for Darla and her husband?

Or is Darla and her husband just up in everybody else's business?

So here's number one.

Someone's not using garbage bags, putting household trash straight in the can.

It's disgusting.

I agree with you.

If it's windy and the cans blow over pieces of soggy gross garbage and concrete, and she's the only one.

So, all right, that's...

If she's not misrepresenting and the garbage cans are occasionally being blown around in the breeze breezeway

then that is a hardship for her someone else keeps putting their garbage bags straight out to the curb sands can number two we're just that's not an issue as long as they're being collected i don't see why that's you're a problem for you darla three i'm the only person to put the garbage cans out through an unwieldy passage maybe that's the breezeway we're talking about i betcha it is

it could be some kind of uh like underground route

That's true.

Like a tunnel.

Yeah, maybe she lives in Disneyland where they have a network of underground tunnels where cast members move from place to place.

I was thinking more like a Zeta drug gang type tunnel, like an El Chapo situation.

Oh, yeah.

Maybe she lives in a bolt hole.

Yeah, and she's got a motorcycle on tracks.

Sounds like an exciting life that Darla is living with her gross roommates or breezewaymates.

It's dangerous to traffic drugs across the

Minnesota can't wait now.

Where does she live?

She doesn't say.

I'm going to assume it's the like the maybe Minnesota-Canada border.

So it sounds as though she is the only person who actually drags the garbage cans out through the breezeway

and puts them out on the street.

And then occasionally when it's windy, they blow over.

And the person who's putting raw eggshells and

their rotting shrimps directly into the can goes all over the place.

And she's the only one who cares to clean it up.

So it sounds like she's living with horrible

garbage people in every sense of the word or young people who don't know any better.

So let's just presume for the sake of argument that these are young people who haven't yet lived in an apartment out in the world long enough and that they know how to do it properly.

I think that it would be perfectly reasonable to just write a kind note saying, dear neighbors above the trash cans,

if you are going to put trash in the trash can,

please put it in a plastic bag for the reason that is obvious.

We live in Hurricane Alley, and

three to five times a week, the lawn gets covered with shrimps from your unbagged garbage.

Signed

me, the one who knows what you did.

I mean, one, I mean, my presumption is that maybe our neighbors think, like,

oh, yeah, you know,

Darlene takes the trash out and I trim the hedges.

Like, they think there's some kind of unstated understanding of how the whole building works that involves Darlene's job being doing this stuff because Darlene has always done it.

And I'm not saying that's fair or just.

But I think it's hard to say that

her doing this stuff every week is grounds for her complaining that no one else does it.

Well, I mean, the thing is, we don't know.

Does she live in a co-op of some kind where they all own the buildings and then

they

split up household chores and building-wide chores among the three of them?

Or are they tenants and there's a landlord who should be hiring a superintendent to take care of the garbage or whatever?

None of this is clear, and we could speculate all day long, but

they're just going their door and say, hey, maybe we could figure out a a plan for the garbage.

How about that?

She does not appear to have taken that step.

She has not stated what steps

she has taken at all.

And the only reason that I suggest a note rather than knocking on the door is

knocking on doors is scary.

In a three-unit building, she's got to know these people.

It's not like it's a 50-unit building

and there's 500 people to know.

I defer, you know what?

I defer to the bailiff.

You should probably speak to your neighbors and say, there's a problem with your disgusting garbage.

That's why I that's why I carved that threat into your door last week.

You're really coming up with Al Madrigal solutions to this.

We know that our friend, Daily Show contributor, and brilliant stand-up comic Al Madrigal would come up with a complicated and vindictive scheme to solve this and all other domestic problems.

Okay, here's something from Hunter.

My name is Hunter.

I'm 13 and I live in Minatrista, Minnesota.

I'm in the midst of writing my first fantasy novel.

The title is Alex Venenzuela, the Lost Treaty.

It's a story about a prince of a kingdom in a faraway nation whose father had vanquished the evil humanoid halatrone that attempted to defeat the people of

Selexilaire.

Selexilsair.

Magicer.

I know you have some more to go here, but if the question is,

will you adopt me, John Hodgman?

The answer is yes.

Go on.

I also want to apologize to Hunter if I mispronounced any of the words that he's made up.

He did not include a pronunciation key.

Oh, okay.

I just did my best.

Selexer.

Selexer.

I spent many days typing out my

one reason I hesitate to adopt you, Hunter, is that you did not include a pronunciation guide, glossary, and map.

So I'm not sure that you're my kind of son, but let's go on and maybe I'll change my mind.

I'd like to read the Alex Venenzuela source book and encyclopedia,

a guide to the world of Alex Venenzuela, including the Lost Treaty, but not limited to The Lost Treaty.

I spend many days typing out my story.

I find it easier to get it out directly into my computer, not copying it from a notebook.

But I've I've got one problem.

When I have my creative juices flowing at night and I'm typing like crazy, my dad comes in and tells me to turn it off at 10.

I'm homeschooled with no real need to get up early.

I might be an author or a screenwriter when I grow up, and my dad doesn't seem to care.

Please tell him to let me stay up until 11 for Alex Venanzuela's sake.

P.S.

On April 1st, not a joke, keep your eye out for Alex Venenzuela, the lost treaty, at amazon.com.

I think that's a permissible instance of buzz marketing.

He snug it in there.

He snug it in there.

Yes, I think that that's permissible.

I allow it.

What do you think?

11 o'clock?

Um,

well,

I am not your dad yet, Hunter.

Not until you've been emancipated, then unemancipated.

I, uh, I think that that, you know, but I have a 14-year-old child,

and I would not like

it

if she were were staying up to 11 o'clock routinely.

Now, I know

that

she is doing this anyway, even though I don't like it.

I know she routinely stays up to 11 o'clock watching parks and recreation on her computer.

That's a pretty good thing to be doing.

Well, you know, and it's one of these things where...

If there had been computers in 1994 when I was 13 years old, you know I would have stayed up till 11 o'clock watching news radio on my computer.

Of course.

The Parks and Recreation of the 90s is its new slogan.

Oh,

news radio is spectacular television.

It's so great.

It's one of the best.

Yeah, it's just wonderful.

I have to say I'm grateful to my daughter for watching all seven seasons of Parks and Recreation well into the late at night times because obviously I was a fan of Parks and Rec when it was on, but I was by no means a completist, and I had not seen, there were so many episodes I had not seen until my daughter said, oh, no, we have to sit down and watch them all together in order.

And it's just been such a spectacular experience for the both of us.

It's a really great show, and it has some adult themes, but its heart is in the right place, of course.

So, but this is one of those things where, as a dad, I have to side with the dad.

I think that 13 years old, you should not be staying up until 11 o'clock.

Well,

I just remembered that you're homeschooled, so it doesn't matter what time you wake up in the morning.

Yeah,

I don't know.

I think that even if you're homeschooled,

you ought to try to keep regular hours

until you're 16 and your brain goes insane.

What about 11?

He goes to bed at 11.

He gets up at 8 or 7.30.

That seems reasonable to me.

That's 8.5 to 9 hours of sleep.

That's probably more in tune with his natural body clock as a teen.

The beauty of homeschooling, and this is why homeschooled kids are always so

smart.

You know, but I mean,

why in my experience, homeschooled kids tend to be, and both of my kids go to regular school, you know, regular state schools, good state schools here in the region.

And they're very smart and inquisitive and curious and lovely in their own ways.

But it's like homeschooled kids,

they almost vibrate and shine with precocious intellectual energy.

And one of the nice things about being homeschooled is

your teachers, who are your parents,

love you

and are very inclined to tolerate whatever your eccentricities might be,

rather than force you into a kind of social norm, which by necessity

regular schools with other humans and teachers who maybe appreciate you but do not love you because they did not give birth to you don't allow.

And so I think that while on the one hand,

tolerating and encouraging the independent

passions of every individual student is lovely, tolerating every eccentricity is disruptive and not necessarily a good

preparation for a broader world

full of people who are not your parents, who don't care about you.

My brothers were homeschooled.

My youngest brother, who was homeschooled from kindergarten through middle school and then went to public arts high school for high school, which led him to zero additional conformity, he lives in Chicago, and I'm pretty sure what he does is he just sits around the house listening to sparks and petting his hairless cats.

Ha!

I didn't know how that sentence could get any better or come to a grander conclusion.

But when you brought in Sphinx cats, it's a Sphinx cat, right, that has no hairs.

Sure, I don't know.

Not a single hair?

I've seen some Facebook pictures of them sitting on top of his head.

Yeah.

I love you, Brendan.

I love you too, Brendan.

I love you too, Hunter.

Maybe just out of a kind of mean-spirited dadness,

I'm going to have to side with dad on this one and say, you know what,

you're a wonderful kid,

but you don't get everything you want just yet, and you really should be in bed by 11.

Don't be typing out your story, and don't have screens after 10 p.m.

I mean, this is something that I say is true for all grown-ups and adults, because those screens shine and lights in your eyes,

it's different than if you're writing in a notebook.

Screens shining in your eyes wake up parts of your brain, and especially if you are doing any kind of surfing of any kind,

they sort of trigger

predator instincts in your brain where you're awake and you're trying to find the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.

But even just typing into a screen, I think it's not good for your sleep cycle to be doing that late at night.

I'm trying to not do it myself, Hunter.

And

I think in that case, I would say if you talk to your dad about maybe staying up till 10.30, so long as you're writing in a notebook with a flashlight or whatever, maybe he'll relent.

But

as I have not adopted you, did his dad have anything to say about this?

Yeah, he said, I love this kid's passion, though the passion also comes out verbally when I hold to what I think is an already pretty gracious bedtime.

I trust your judgment.

Yeah, I got to side with dad.

10,

10 o'clock,

shut off the computer.

Doesn't matter what fantasy novel you're working on.

I think that's a reasonable thing to ask of a 13-year-old.

And then, of course, you just sneak out a flashlight and a patent pencil or whatever, and you just do it the old-fashioned way under the covers.

I'm talking about,

when I say do it the old-fashioned way under the covers, I am talking about writing your fantasy novel specifically.

Alex Van Inzula, The Lost Treaty, available April 1st at Amazon.com.

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 maximumfun.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.

Let me ask you a question.

Did you know that most of the dishes served at Tom Clicchio's craft restaurant are made in, made in pots and pans.

It's true.

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The Rohan Duck Riders of Rohan, made in, made in.

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And I know that she can, you know, she can heat that thing up hot if she wants to use it hot.

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It's an immensely useful piece of kitchen toolery.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

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 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 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, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

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.

Here's something from Richard.

In a few cases, you've expressed your views on tipping at restaurants.

There's a restaurant I often call to place an order for takeout.

When I pick up my order, I assume the receipt I'm given is the same as the one given to dine-in guests, in that there is a line at the bottom of the receipt to add a tip when I pay with a credit card.

I'd never thought of tipping when getting takeout until I was presented with this receipt.

How do you rule on tipping for takeout?

I do not tip for takeout.

How about that?

And I am a very generous tipper, as you know, and I guess I suppose if there were a tip jar there, I might want to put a dollar in there or whatever.

I certainly tip for delivery, because as far as I'm concerned, driving around on a bicycle or a moped,

no matter what the conditions are, whether wet or cold or sleet or hail,

all night long bringing food to people is a pretty awful job and certainly as deserving as serving a party of four in a nice restaurant.

But

tipping is for service.

Well,

if they have a line there for tipping, and I'm confident that they're pooling those tips and tipping them out to the bus staff and the wait staff, I might add, I might add, you know what?

I might add 10% in that case.

But I wouldn't, but that's where I think I would draw the line.

Well, there's a couple of considerations.

I think you hit on the fact that

tips partly go to wait staff for table service, but they partly also go to other service employees in the restaurant, including behind-the-scenes ones whose work is exactly the same with takeout and

with table service.

And

also, a server often does a significant amount of work preparing a takeout order.

And so

the general consensus that I've heard seems to be you're totally not required to tip for takeout.

It's not an absolute social obligation, but a 10% tip would be a nice thing to do.

And I have personally found, you know, there's a pizzeria, and I don't eat a lot of takeout, but there's a pizzeria in my neighborhood called Fulieros.

And

we occasionally order pizza from there.

They don't deliver.

So I go pick it up.

And

I found that if I tip 10%,

they're just very grateful.

And I'm like, oh, right, I like these people

and I'm a regular customer here.

And

I would like to recognize what a nice job they do and how nice they are to me.

And if it's a neighborhood place and you're a regular customer, I mean, it's not just, it's not altruism.

Tipping

ensures that they remember that you are part of their world and you are glad to be.

And you you are glad that they are part of your world as well.

And it's a, it's a, you know, it's a gesture that makes everyone feel good, so why not do it?

And I'm, I'm glad you gave me that chance to come around to the correct answer, Bailiff Jesse.

Sometimes I don't get it 100% right out of the gate.

And also, I changed my mind.

Hunter, you can now stay up till 2 a.m.

2 a.m.

It's helping people remember that you're part of their world is a really important,

really important etiquette issue.

It's what I call the little Mermaid principle.

Wow.

There's so far to go.

For what amounted to an allusion from a song

from the Little Mermaid.

That truly was a journey.

Here's something from Liz.

My husband and I disagree about toilet seat etiquette.

I say he should put the seat down.

It's courteous.

It prevents me from sitting on the bare rim in the middle of the night.

And it's used that way the majority of the time, since I always sit, and he does at least part of the time.

You mean sometimes he he poops standing up?

Sometimes he poops standing up.

Since our daughter was born, he's now outnumbered by sitters.

My husband says this is sexist, and if he has to put the seat down, then everyone in the house should be required to put the full lid down after every use.

I request that the judge issue an injunction requiring my husband to lower the toilet seat.

If we have really made it through the five years or whatever of Judge John Hodgman that we've done without addressing this question, it is sincerely a miracle, and I think we should consider never addressing it.

You mean just

leaving it a lost treasure just beyond our audience's grasp.

I think everyone knows what the correct answer is in this case.

Yeah, take out your toilets.

Replace them.

Dig a hole outside.

No, take out your traditional northern European toilets and replace them with traditional Italian poopholes.

Do you know what I'm talking about, Jesse?

Have you traveled through Italy?

I've not traveled through Italy, but I encountered one or two poopholes in Japan.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, but there they're heated, right?

They are.

Oh, man, Judge Hodgman.

My wife got me one of those special Japanese toilet seats.

What a luxury.

Oh, right?

Because is it heated and does it play music?

Does it play little dome-made songs?

It doesn't play music, but it's heated and it squirts warm water.

Uh-oh.

oh, where does it squirt it?

Wherever you need to be clean, Judge Hodges.

Whoa, what?

And it has a blow dryer.

And this is an addition.

You know, the Japanese culture, bathroom culture is legendary for incredibly elaborate electronic doodads on the toilet.

But in any case, we all know what the answer is with regard to putting the seat down on the toilet, and it is quite a far stretch to bring sexism into it.

And this sounds to me like one of the parties in this marriage is being purposely provocative.

And I, in order to honor your desire, Jesse, that we never answer this question, I will leave it there.

I'm sure all right-thinking people understand what I'm saying.

Here's something in the follow-up department.

Somebody who had previously sent in a docket clearing question.

Dan.

Last year, I asked if I was allowed to continue to do my fart art projects.

Dan, I remember you.

Go on.

Did you say these are fart art projects or fart art projects?

I'm trying to remember exactly what form his fart art took.

I think it was a little lame, and I asked him to kick it up a notch.

That's right.

Wasn't he

leaving posters around or something?

He had a rubber stamp of some kind that said fart on it, and he was just stamping fart on stuff.

Oh, okay, yeah.

So he was just defacing things

with the word fart.

Gotcha.

And you said you should up his game.

Yeah, like if he really wants to claim to be an artist, maybe he should try making art instead of just stamping the word fart on stuff.

Okay.

An interesting approach in the 21st century.

Not a lot of people think of art as something you make, more of something you steal and repurpose.

But go on.

Fair enough.

Okay, so Dan says, I took what you and and Jesse said to heart about upping my fart artwork game and wanted to share some of my new pieces.

I've created a vinyl decal of an Icelandic aphorism that translates to, every man loves the smell of his own farts.

He's shared a picture of it with us that we'll post on the website.

I also made a stencil to be used with spray chalk to indicate no fart zones on the sidewalk.

I replaced my bathroom exhaust fan cover with one that reads, farts this way.

And although unintentional, I believe that my fart masterpiece is that I got you and Jesse to say the word fart a combined total of 19 times.

I hope that you find my new works have merit and I am the world's greatest fart-themed artist.

I've attached photos.

It is a pretty good stencil.

Well, here's what I like about what he's doing.

He's gone from...

He has a commitment to theme.

Yes.

And he's gone from defacing property that is not his and public property that other people want to enjoy without his dumb ideas stamped all over them

to doing the same but in an impermanent, easy-to-clean manner.

I've never heard of spray chalk before.

I find it to be a very interesting product, if it is what I imagine it to be, which is essentially chalk in a spray can so that it could be washed away with water, for example.

And so he made this stencil that says

fart zone with spray chalk, and it kind of looks like graffiti art, but it's not going to bother anybody.

They'll just wash it away because there is absolutely no need for it to be permanent because it's not beautiful or interesting.

It's dumb.

And I am a little bit more.

I am a little bit more impressed by the Icelandic aphorism, every man loves the smell of his own farts.

As usual, the Icelanders are wrong.

I know from personal experience.

But this decal that he has made, made,

which I don't speak Icelandic, but I'm going to guess it's pronounced Ullum Munum Finst sin eigen prumpruutiger gercht

is

with all due apologies to longtime Max Funster, Ari from Iceland.

Oh, I'm sorry, Ari.

And if you're listening to this,

would you please call

and let us know how to pronounce this Icelandic phrase, every man loves his own farts, and I'd love to include it in the podcast.

I'm just taking a guess.

And

I like his choice of font.

There's no serif.

It looks pretty cool.

And it's a provocative little bit of weird text.

And I think that it tempts you to look it up or to

hold up your phone with that app that automatically translates foreign languages in real time.

And then you would learn that what it says is, every man loves the smell of his own farts, and you would feel like a real dummy for wasting that time.

I guess what I'm saying is that while your execution has absolutely improved and shows real imagination,

I don't think this is interesting to humans.

And

I don't like that you measure your success by how many times you trick us into saying fart, because that kind of mischief is designed solely to draw attention to yourself rather than to provoke a thought or an idea or a moment moment of beauty in a world that needs those things.

This seems to me like an intention-getting technique more than a work of true, even whimsy.

And so, Dan, aka Fartsy, I am glad that you filled us in, and I like your stencil making, and I think you've got some interesting applications of your idea, but your idea at its heart is dumb.

That is what I say as a judge of your artwork.

You may disagree.

You know what it is?

I don't know fart, but I know what I like.

That was a long, long road to get to that line.

It's a whole new world.

Is that

the Aladdin principle, a corollary principle to the little mermaid principle?

A whole new world.

A whole new world.

Ladies and gentlemen, Morrissey.

That's been this week's episode of the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Our producer is Julia Smith.

Editor is Mark McConville.

How soon is it?

Which is now,

how can you say?

I go about things the wrong way.

I am human and I need to be loved

just like everybody else does.

You know, that's a terrible Morrissey impersonation, but still one of my favorite songs.

And it's like, you know,

how could they have been making songs for teenagers for so long

and not gotten that one out the first year?

Because

that is the definition of a song for teenage boys or girls.

So amazing.

It took them so long to get to that piece of teenage brain crack.

Love it.

I think we should have Dana Gould of the Dana Gould Gould Hour podcast on the show sometime.

You guys can have a Morrissey off, and we can have it judged by Morrissey Superfan and brilliant stand-up comedian April Richardson, who I think follows Morrissey on tour when he's in the United States.

I cede victory automatically to Dana Gould.

There are very few

impressionists who are as good as Dana at everything.

Hey, Judge Hodgman, guess what?

Wait, wait, no, let me guess.

The Max Fun Drive is just around the corner?

Yeah, you got it, buddy.

Yay!

It's the best two weeks in podcasting.

We're pulling out all of the stops.

You can support Judge John Hodgman and all of Maximum Fund shows directly starting March 14th.

There are going to be amazing prizes.

All you have to do is go to maximumfund.org/slash donate.

It is that simple.

And once again, for donors at the leadership level,

I will personally mispronounce your name on my Instagram account.

So keep that in mind as we go into Max Fun Drive.

It all starts March 14th, runs for two weeks, and we're going to have a good time together.

You know, somebody posted on the Flophouse.

You know, the Flop House, our sister program, has a wonderful

Facebook.

The Flop House is our sister program now?

I know you have some problems with Elliot Kalen.

Our sister program now.

The same.

Like, we're the same.

We're the same.

Like sister cities.

Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, sure.

Maybe, maybe they're.

Like Bakersfield and Kyoto.

Maybe they're, I would say, they're our despised younger brother program.

Get out of my room, flop house.

Anyway, somebody posted really generously to remember that the Max Fun Drive was coming up and that you should donate to support Maximum Fun.

And I was so grateful to them.

And I also added, and to support your favorite podcasters specifically.

Like one of the special things about Max Fun is that your donations really do go directly to support the shows.

You know, this isn't something where

all the money comes into a big slush fund for me, and then I decide to give it out as according to my whims.

It really goes straight to the shows that you listen to.

We ask you what shows you listen to and send them the money.

Yeah,

it's not like

when you donate to public radio and

95 cents of every dollar goes to Silvia Pagoli's Scarf Fund.

Anyway,

March 14th is when the Max Fund Drive starts.

We hope you'll support us on social media, in real life, and by donating at maximumfund.org/slash donate.

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

This is Alex Benenzula.

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