Miami Memories
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Transcript
Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.
I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
This week, we're clearing the docket.
I'm in chambers with Judge Hodgman.
Hi, Judge Hodgman.
Happy New Year, Jesse.
Happy New Year.
It's January 27th, 2016.
Happy New Year.
I kiss you on the mouth.
Have you, wait, have you been singing Auld Land Sign for 28 days?
No, no, no.
It's just, this is New Year's.
It's Canadian New Year.
This is when they celebrate it in Canada.
And we have a lot of Canadian listeners, and I respect them, and their weird alternate holidays as well.
This is the day that the three kings celebrate New Year's.
Exactly so.
Exactly so.
How's your new year going so far, Jesse Thornton?
My new year.
You know what?
I got no complaints about 2016.
We don't like how legendary entertainers, legendary and beloved entertainers, keep dying, but the truth is that we all die.
Yes, today is the day that we learned that not only David Bowie and Lenny, excuse me,
Lenny and Squiggy, but also Lemmy from Motorhead and, of course, Alan Rickman.
The news broke this morning.
Not this morning, the morning of this recording.
And it was very, very sobering and sad to hear as he is one of my favorite actors.
Yeah, and he was a wonderful guest on Bullseye, as was Lemmy, actually.
I've heard Lemmy, but I haven't heard Alan Rickman.
I will go back into the archives and listen to it.
How can I get there?
Oh, you just go to maximumfund.org or go into iTunes, your favorite podcasting application, or search on SoundCloud.
There's a variety of different ways to find my interview with Alan Rickman, in which we do funny French accents to each other.
May we?
I honestly have never heard that, and I am going to go listen to it right now.
And I'm glad we got a completely organic plug in for the great interview, podcast, and radio show, Bullseye with Jesse Thorne.
What's going on?
As long as we're getting plugs in, let's get a case settled.
Okay.
Here's something from Matt.
During a recent mid-morning flight from New York to Miami, I witnessed an incident across the aisle.
It was a two-seat row, both seats occupied.
The person at the window was snoozing and had closed the shade.
The person in the aisle seat asked them to open the shade.
Window seat said no.
Aisle Seat again asked more insistently and was told no again.
In the next 120 seconds, the situation ramped up into raised voices, loud sighs, accusations of rudeness from both parties, and finally the frantic ding-ding of the flight attendant bell.
Aisle Seat then demanded a new seat.
Accommodations were made, and Aisle Seat left, but not before calling Window Seat a piece of swear word.
Window Seat just turned away and pretended to sleep.
Who gets the final say on airplane window shades?
The window seat, who might have to endure the sunlight, or does a daylight flight default to shades open unless all parties agree?
This is a flight from New York City to Miami.
Yeah.
Yeah, I could see how it could turn contentious.
Probably either elderly people who have
set in their ways or Pitbull.
Do you think this might have been a dispute between Pit Bull and DJ Khaled?
But all he does is win.
It could have been, it could have been.
Oh, what about this?
It was a dispute between 50 Cent and Rick Ross.
Ricky Rose wants that window open.
Look,
I put in a pretty good DJ Khaled reference, and that's as far as I can do with Jesse.
This is a tough one to call.
Let me see.
Window seat!
Obviously.
Come on.
Window seat gets to decide.
Window shade.
It's in the word.
They both have the same word in it for a reason.
Look, all airplane seats have their probs, but each airplane seat has its consolation.
The window seat gets the...
The window seat...
Person is trapped at the whim of whatever creep sits next to them.
But the consolation is they can stare out the window and enjoy people looking like ants or closing it, taking a nap, doing whatever they want.
Isle Seat
gets freedom to go to the bathroom five times a flight, but doesn't get to say what happens with the window.
In this case, Aisle Seat was trying to have as easy access to the bathroom and eat it too.
He should eat it.
Plus, the window seat person was sleeping.
So already, it's a huge, rude maneuver to tap a sleeping person on the shoulder and say, open that window shade.
It's like you're waking up a sleeping person who has closed the window shade for an obvious person to get some sleep.
Oh, Matt, I wish you had merely witnessed this and in fact had been the aisle seat person.
Because then I could say, you, sir, are a piece of swear word.
My new favorite epithet.
Of course, the only seat without consolation of any kind is the middle seat.
But that seat is for children, either the actual human children you're traveling with or adult people who have the mind of a child and therefore do not plan ahead properly and pick their seats.
Last-minute planners.
If you didn't plan ahead because someone in your family died, I apologize.
If it's an emergency and you get stuck in a middle seat, that's bad.
And I apologize.
But, you know, everybody grow up.
Go to the websites.
You can fine-tune
everything about...
I mean, you're talking to a Delta Diamond Medallion.
You think I got Diamond Medallion by not using the website and picking my seats?
No, I'm pretty sure you got Diamond Medallion by being cast on a television show in Los Angeles when you lived in New York.
Details!
But, you know, here's what, here's, that's absolutely true.
But what I learned was the tricks of the frequent flyer trade.
And one of the things is you want to plan ahead and buy your tickets as soon as you're thinking about making the trip, go ahead and buy those tickets and you can get the seat that you want.
And here's a thing.
Do, listen, everybody.
If you've ever seen me on an airplane, say hello.
I'd love to say hello to you.
I had a guy.
I had a guy come on the plane the other week and just go touch my arm and and whispered in my ear as he was passing me.
I was sitting down already, and he was going to seat behind me somewhere.
And he just touched my shoulder and he said, I'm in Book and Snake, which is a Yale secret society that I'm fascinated with.
And he said, Nothing else.
Just a whispered taunt.
Yeah.
He just said, I'm in Book and Snake.
And then he just kept walking.
It was the greatest thing to ever happen to me on an airplane.
But one thing I would ask you not to do is don't ask to make me move my seat so you can sit with your friend because you didn't plan to sit together.
You can,
this happens all the times on airplanes.
People who
make their travel arrangements a little bit later and they're traveling together sometimes don't get seats together.
And then they work out this huge game of airplane chess to move people around so that they can sit together.
And sometimes they ask the flight attendant to do it, and the flight attendant will do it.
It's like, will you switch places with this person so he can sit together with his wife or whoever.
And, you know, I'm always amenable to do it, but the rule has to be
that you're asking, if you're asking someone to move and switch seats with you, you have to trade an aisle seat for an aisle seat or a window seat for a window seat.
You can't ask them to sit in a window
when they're currently sitting in an aisle because chances are they have a strong preference and they chose it and they did their work and they did it.
And all of this, by the way, is just my revenge for when my wife and i left our wedding to go to our honeymoon in new orleans and they didn't seat us together because i was a child and i didn't know how to pick seats yet and there was the internet then
and i asked someone could you move so that we could sit together we just got married we're on our honeymoon and the person said uh no i picked the seat for a reason and i was like you know what?
I'll hate you forever, and I'll get back at you on a podcast sometime in the future.
But game, respect, game.
How do you feel about Miami?
Can I tell you the two things that I think of when I think of Miami?
Yeah.
I've been to Miami twice because Max Fun Cruise left from Miami.
Yeah.
And I also once went to an event.
I've been to Miami actually a few times.
Yeah.
And it didn't make too much of an impression on me as a city.
I haven't had a chance to spend days there.
But the two things I think of are:
one, I went to Ramon Puig, which is a,
he's now passed on, but his family continues his tradition of being the Guayabera Tailor to the Stars.
You know,
a Cuban family that makes custom Guayaberas in the Cuban style
that are comically expensive, but they also make ready-to-wear ones in long sizes.
And so
I was able to buy a very beautiful Guayavera there.
And what was great about it was I felt as though I had stepped into my own little Cuba because not only did I have a wonderful Cuban lunch right next door,
but there was also a dead dog and some roosters walking around.
The dead dog was walking around?
No, no, the dead dog was dead, and the the roosters were walking around.
Right there in Miami.
For those of you who don't know what a guayabeta is, a guayabeta is a kind of pressed sandwich with roast pork and pickles and ham and Swiss cheese.
It's very popular in Miami.
No, a guayabeta, how would you describe it, Jesse?
Because you're the sartorialist.
Well,
it's a type of shirt that is popular, especially throughout the Caribbean world, but also throughout the tropical world in one form or another,
which features
the Cuban version also often features folds.
It has four pockets on the front and short sleeves and a square hem.
Some people might have, you might have heard the Mexican version referred to as a Mexican wedding shirt.
Look up.
And in the Philippines, there's a version that's called a barong tagalog.
And in very hot and humid climates, such as much of Central and Northern Latin America,
it's a very comfortable shirt to wear, and
it has a formal look to it, even though it's good for heat regulation.
And if you want to see what it looks like, just Google any picture of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Dude, dude, rocked it.
But una pregunta por favor, Senor Jesse.
Yeah, I got an answer for you, bud.
Thank you.
We've talked about wearing t-shirts under button-down shirts before, and we have agreed that it is dumb and not necessary.
And it ruins the look of the shirt to have a little peak of white t-shirt underneath,
peeking out above your collar.
Yeah, certainly a crewneck t-shirt, yeah.
Right.
What is your opinion?
Is a guayabera to be worn with a
a sleeveless t-shirt, for example, or a t-shirt of any kind, an undershirt of any kind?
I think that often it can be worn with an A-frame undershirt, the type of undershirt that I am uncomfortable referring to as a wife beater.
Right, yeah.
No, thank you.
A-frame undershirt.
And, you know, I think, you know, if you went to Cuba right now, you would see Yabera, it's mostly on old guys,
and they would probably be wearing A-frame undershirts underneath.
But
as long as it's
translucent, it really depends on
what it's made of and and what type it is.
As long as it's not translucent, I would not have a problem with someone not wearing an undershirt underneath it.
But I don't want to see your nurples through it.
Right, exactly.
Well, thank you for solving that because I have a glaibeta that I would always wear an undershirt underneath because it is a very thin fabric and you could see through it.
But the pockets are arrayed such that they cover my male nipples.
My nipples aren't gendered.
I happen to be male, or my nipples self-identify as male.
I like to think that nipple gender is a spectrum.
spectrum.
I began to wonder if
maybe that's exactly why those pockets are there and you weren't supposed to be wearing a t-shirt under there.
I feel secure now in the knowledge that Jesse Thornton says I can wear an A-frame t-shirt under my Guadabera while eating my Guadabera sandwich.
I'm going to go for extra cultural competency points.
I'm going to go to my engineer, Abadian X, on this, who's Dominican.
In the Dominican, I'm sure they also wear some version of the Guayavera, right?
How do you feel about this?
Am I right, or
you got your own theory he gives me the thumbs up okay thank you ibadion x uh the other by the way thank you by the way greatest name in podcasting ibadion x i know i know listen to his show the candid frame about photography anyway we're working plugs in all the way through this like it's product placement i the other thing that i think of when i think of miami is this amazing moment on 106 in park which i don't know if you know this judge hodgman it was sort of the
show on bet right exactly it was a video show on b et sort of the BET equivalent of TRL, Total Request Live, a countdown show.
And at the time.
It was a live studio audience.
The artist would come in and talk to a host, and they'd show videos.
Exactly.
And
it was a New Year show, if I recall.
I'm going to put it around 2002.
A.J.
and Free were the hosts of the show at the time.
AJ and Free had, I'm going to say, three different guests on.
I don't remember who they were, but they were from the urban music community.
And they got into a
conversation.
What's the greatest city in the world?
Every single person on stage said Miami as though it was the most self-evident thing in the history of the universe.
Like as though I was asking what's better, Cheez-Its or Cheese Nips, and everyone was like, Cheez-Its.
Of course, Cheez-Its are better than Cheese Nips.
Five people just instant unanimous agreement.
Well, Miami's the greatest city in the world.
Una pregunta por favor, senor Jesse.
Were they all from Miami?
No, none of them were from Miami.
I think that Miami is not the greatest city.
It's not the delusion of hometown pride.
I think that Miami is specifically the greatest city in the world in a very narrow context, and that is it's the greatest city in the world if you're friends with Pitbull and DJ Khaled.
Right.
In that context, nothing could ever beat getting on the back of DJ Khaled's jet ski and riding over to Ricky Rose's house for lunch, and it's lunch number three.
Yeah, and it's and it's lunch of champagne.
Yeah.
Yeah, being poured through an ice sculpture of yourself or something.
Yeah.
Well, I've had some, I've been to Miami a handful of times.
I've had some wonderful times there.
You know, it was always in context.
For one, I went there with Daily Show now former field producer Miles Kahn to do my one field piece, and that was in Miami.
And I got to ride in a cop car on the beach because the cop offered us a ride on the beach, and they can drive on the beach.
Cool.
And I had a good time doing that.
And it seemed like a profoundly fun place to party if you were young and attractive, neither of which I am.
But we had a very nice time.
Spent some time there with Al Madrigal.
We were doing a show around there, and we discovered
an old
sort of esoterica nostalgia store that sold some weird old lunch boxes from the 70s.
I liked that a lot.
And then, of course, I went there on the same Max Fun cruise and we stayed in that hotel that I loved.
What was that hotel where we stayed, Jesse?
That was like the it
had a huge courtyard in the middle of it with like these weird
hanging gardens.
I felt like I was in the Blade Runner sequel.
It was fantastic.
Anyway, we'll look it up.
Well, maybe we'll put it on the website.
Here we go.
Plug the website, maximumfund.org
slash
Judge John Hodgman.
No.
What does that mean?
No.
I don't know.
Just go to maximumfund.org and click on Judge John Hodgman.
There's a pull-down menu for shows.
Right.
In the show notes, we'll put it in there.
And then you can go stay there.
Maybe you'll even stay in the room that I stayed in.
You know what was one of the things that I went to Miami for?
No.
To judge a grant competition at the Knight Foundation for libraries.
I also went to the Miami Book Fair.
I've been to Miami a lot of times.
I went to the Miami Book Fair.
I had a great conversation on stage with Larry Wilmore, now of The Knightly Show, and we ate some food after.
And it was nice.
It seems weird that we're not friends with Gloria Estefan, right?
Oh, see.
Okay, here's something from Ray.
Well, you know what I'm saying is?
Miami is the greatest city on earth.
Here's something from Ray.
A very dear friend of mine and I have been in the same sketch comedy group for a long time, about eight years, starting when we were undergrads at UC Berkeley.
As the years pass, we prefer to do work that's more absurd, challenging, and unique.
My friend Evan and I recently got into a a civil but heated conversation about a theater tradition.
Evan and the rest of our sketch group think that we should not tamper with the curtain call.
They say the audience wants and needs a moment to clap for us at the end, and we should take the time to thank them.
I'd like to do without it.
I don't think anyone in the audience will be left wanting if we skip it.
Since we've thrown all other ritual out the window, why keep the stale old tradition of the bow?
I think it would be very powerful to leave the audience with nothing but the creative work itself.
Please make Evan admit that it's possible to conceive of a theater show, play, or sketch comedy that would be better and more impactful without a curtain call.
I'm sure if I get this far, I can convince everyone else in our group to leave the curtain call behind.
So let me understand this.
Ray and his friend Evan and some other friends have been doing, they've been in the same sketch comedy group for eight years.
Yep.
So starting when they were undergrad.
So let's say first year, fresh person year, and then they went four years of undergrad, presumably, because UC Berkeley, that's an accredited four-year institution, right?
Or is that a
two-year associate's degree?
No, you're thinking of UC Santa Cruz.
Okay.
Go banana slugs.
So now they're four years out of college in the same troop.
So, you know, I would just say give it up.
But let's say you decide to keep going.
That's how I encourage the
young comedians of today.
How about you give up?
It's been eight years.
No.
I don't know if your revolutionary no-taking a bow is going to change the trajectory of this thing.
No, Ray, I bet it's really funny, and I'd love to hear more about your group, and I'm just being mean to amuse myself.
I apologize.
But if I understand correctly, what Ray wants to have happen
is during the performances, they'll do their sketches, and then the final sketch will be the final sketch, and then they will leave the stage, and then that's it.
House music comes up.
Is that what you understand it to be?
Yeah,
I think that's what they're talking about.
That sounds weird to me.
That feels weird.
That sounds weird, too.
The curtain call
after a show, particularly in a show
that is non-narrative or several small narratives linked together,
it is a moment to thank the audience, and it also provides a crucial service.
It lets the audience know the show is done.
And audiences need to know the show is done because they're dumb-dumbs.
All audiences are dumb-dums, especially if they're seeing something new and they don't understand the context or if you're doing particularly experimental comedy.
They want to know.
You know, it's like everyone claps in between movements at the symphony.
It happens.
We all make that mistake because we don't know when it ends.
We need to know when something is done.
Audiences are so stupid.
Jesse, you know that I'm going through a very heavy Hamilton phase in my life right now, along with the rest of culture.
And
the show was created by.
Well, that's not true.
Lynn Manuel Miranda is going through a very heavy My Brother, My Brother, and Me phase.
Everyone besides him is going through a very heavy Hamilton phase.
I think he's going through his own very special heavy Hamilton phase.
And he, of course, is the creator of the musical Hamilton and the star of the musical Hamilton, in which he plays Hamilton.
And the creator of the short film in which Carly Ray Jepson wishes Griffin McElroy of My Brother, My Brother, and Me
that tells him that he's done a good job.
See, and that's a natural organic plug for another great podcast in the Maximum Fun family, My Brother, My Brother, and Me.
One of my favorites as well.
But I did not create the musical Hamilton.
Lin-Manuel Miranda did.
Now that I'm going around on the internet...
Trying to find out things about this show that I've only listened to because I will never get to see it because it is
crazily popular and I'm so thrilled for it.
And I'll see it eventually.
I discovered a video of Lynn Menel Miranda singing an early version of the opening song back when it was called Hamilton Mixtape at the White House for a big gala event at the White House.
And
this was in 2009.
Just to give you a sense of how long these projects go on for.
And
no one had ever heard, this is one of the earliest performances from this musical, which is a musical about Alexander Hamilton that is largely played out in rap music.
And in fact, he was talking about it as a rap album about the, and he made the joke.
He said, I'm actually working on a rap album, a rap concept album about one of the person who, to me, embodies hip-hop the most,
Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.
Big laugh, right?
And then he explains why this makes sense and everything else.
But because he opened with a joke,
people in the audience suddenly didn't know what it was, didn't know what was happening.
And
they thought the whole thing was a joke for the first half of the performance, including, I dare say, the president.
So here he is performing now this, if you know the musical at all, this iconic piece of music.
The opening, you know, it's very, it's very heavy and cool and it gets you energized and it's amazing.
But everyone's looking for the laugh line and they
think he's weird owing it.
Do you know what I mean?
They think he's writing, like,
what if we took this, but it was now rap, like a terrible, dumb novelty song idea.
Do you know what I mean?
And so they're looking for the laugh lines, and they find them
in places that it's not funny.
And it was this amazing, including the president.
And it's just this amazing, and then there's an amazing moment in the middle where it turns and people, he's been doing the song long enough that you can feel the audience, even in this web video off of whitehouse.gov, you know, that's, you know, the size of a postcard, you can feel the moment in that room when the audience goes, oh, wait a minute, I get it.
It's not a joke.
He's serious.
And it's awesome.
And
those moments are amazing when an audience figures it out.
But it takes them a lot of time to figure a thing out.
And sometimes they need real help from you, the performer to get there now you're doing experimental sketch comedy where you're playing with forms maybe you're trying to andy kauffman it a little bit maybe you're trying to be antagonistic to the audience if that's your idea then i would say absolutely
Don't do it.
Don't do a curtain call.
Walk off the stage.
Never look back.
Move to another city.
Leave them there confused and angry at you.
That's fine for you.
But Evan and your other friends understand this is not fun for them.
And therefore, I don't think you should try to force this issue.
Evan has already said no.
The other group members have already said no.
I don't think if you convince Evan that
you guys are going to form such a quorum that the others will go for it.
If everyone was unanimous in this weird idea that this is purely antagonistic toward the audience, then go for it.
But it's only you.
So go do a one-man show of your own.
and walk off the stage and never look back and move to another state and keep doing that, angering audiences state by state across this great land of ours.
You might get somewhere.
I don't know.
Here's something from Carolyn.
Like so many others, I recently fell in love with the smash-hit Broadway musical Hamilton.
What?
It's like it's in the Zeitgeist or something.
Written by a friend of Max Fun, and I would add supporter of Max Fun, Lynn Manuel Miranda.
Lin Manuel Miranda, not the only
celebrity who supports maximumfun.org.
If you're listening to this show and you you don't support maximumfun.org, just know that that makes you very different from celebrities such as Lynn Manuel Miranda, Elizabeth Gilbert, Bill Hayter,
and even John Hodgman before Judge John Hodgman existed, and I think still now, right, Judge Hodgman?
Of course, always.
I always support the MaxFun drive, and I apologize for mispronouncing Miranda.
I take great joy in the clever references to both revolutionary and American hip-hop history and can often be found in tears at the mere thought of Aaron Burr.
My girlfriend Aaron has refused to listen to the cast recording, although she knows it is extremely important to me, and I've repeatedly asked that she give it a try.
She has no specific reason not to listen.
Bearing in mind the precedent that one should get halfway through a book or movie before abandoning it, please order Aaron to listen to at least Act One of Hamilton.
Oh,
this makes me so mad, Jesse.
Aaron?
You seem like a real- you know, you seem like a a real piece of swear word, Aaron.
You know what I mean?
A real aisle sitter.
Ugh.
Oh, Hamilton is good.
Look, I'm not going to get mad.
I will say Hamilton is good and has become a big part of my life in recent weeks.
I've not seen the show yet, though I hope to.
But I have listened to the original cast recording, and that alone has become non-stop listening in my entire household.
It's a piece of work that's fun and enjoyable, and
it's very rare that
everyone in my house from the age of 10 to the age of 40,
soon to be 45, which is me,
have engaged with a piece of culture
on so many different levels.
And to be able to have a talk with my son about Marquis Lafayette is one of the great things in my life.
And it's cool songs, too.
Okay, anyway, but here's the thing.
To quote Alec Baldwin, there is a long-standing fake legal precedent on the show, which I'm sure you know, if you've ever listened to it.
People like what they like.
People like what they like, and they just like it for whatever reason.
And some people don't like certain things, and you can't really do much about it if they don't like it.
And you can't make people like a thing you love, and indeed you can only go so far in trying to even introduce culture that you love to your friends.
And that's not just for the protection of the person who's getting this stuff foisted on them.
It's also for your protection, the person who who loves the thing.
Because when you recommend something that you love to a friend and the friend doesn't like it, it can be very painful.
I was asked by my wife to watch Mad Max Fury Road with her.
I had already seen it.
And
I certainly consider it
one of the best movies I've ever seen.
I would never in a million years have recommended it to my wife or suggested that we watch it together because on an instinctive level,
an instinct honed over many years of marriage and friendship, I had guessed it would not be her cup of tea.
I wished that she would like it because it has feminist themes that I knew that she would engage in, but
it's what it is, and it's not really her thing.
So imagine my surprise when she said, let's watch this, because some friends of hers had said, it was really great.
And I was like, yeah, okay, absolutely.
Let's, you're asking me?
Okay, yeah, let's watch.
I'll get the Blu-ray and we'll set it up and make some popcorn.
We'll sit down and watch it.
She was asleep within 10 minutes.
Asleep.
Asleep.
Could not connect with the visual kineticism, the storytelling.
Just could not understand what was happening.
Could not connect.
She's not, she's an incredibly intelligent person, but it's just, it wasn't her thing, and I knew it wasn't.
10 minutes, she was asleep, and I am still hurting.
Still hurting.
I didn't ask for that pain.
Imagine if I had forced her to watch it.
It would be even worse.
Precisely because it makes everyone feel bad.
Even my wife felt bad she fell asleep during Mad Max Fury Road because she knew that it caused me pain.
And that's why lots of times when you recommend something to a friend, the friend, that might be a disqualifier.
Because maybe Erin doesn't want to listen to Hamilton precisely because she knows you love it so much and she fears she won't.
And then she'll be letting you down, just the way my wife let me down about Mad Max Fury Road.
Or maybe she fears that she will hate what you love.
She'll think it's dumb.
Maybe she fears that she's going to hate it.
And then once she hates it, she won't like you anymore because it'll change the way she sees and understands you and she likes you the way you are now.
But here's the thing.
Again, Alec Baldwin quoting.
Aaron Hamilton is good.
I've already said it's really good.
I'm not going to say it again.
It's really good.
I highly, highly recommend it.
Many people recommended it to me before I listened.
And for that reason, I even listened with some skepticism.
It took me a while.
I was like, it can't be that good.
Within five minutes, I couldn't stop listening.
And for several days now, I still haven't stopped.
And that is true of everyone I know who has encountered this piece of culture.
And I would say, I would even go so far as to say that it's almost a matter of simple cultural literacy.
It's part of being in this culture that you listen to just a little bit of Hamilton at least so that you know what everyone is talking about, because it's influential and it's important and it's real.
Okay,
so
that aside, I would say Caroline asking Erin to listen to the first half of this thing is perfectly reasonable for all the reasons that I stated.
But as Erin refuses even this, she is obviously perfectly unreasonable.
And so, Caroline, I would steal yourself for the possibility that if you force this on her, she
it'll color her perception of it.
And she might say that she dislikes it just out of spite.
So, Caroline, you have to come up with some trade.
I've mentioned on this podcast before
that my wife fell in love with a TV show about football in Texas and humans called Friday Night Lights.
And I, and she really wanted me to watch this thing.
And as you know, I am indifferent
to sports and its culture, unless it involves defunct hockey teams.
And I trusted my wife's good taste that this was a great drama.
And I trusted her when she, as everyone else, said, that Friday Night Lights is barely about football at all, or it's not just about football.
You'll love it, even though the footballness isn't the football, you know, all that stuff.
But it was still about football.
So I said, look, I will do this.
I'll watch this thing, and
I will give it a fair
shake.
But you got to do something for me.
I will watch
not just the first season, but all of the seasons of Friday Night Lights if you, my beloved wife, will read
Bullseye guest George R.
R.
Martin's first book in his epic song
of Ice and Fire, A Game of Thrones.
Just the first book.
Which is, to my mind, one of the most readable books in the world and offered the exact same cultural compromise.
Yes,
it has dragons in it.
Yes, it is a fantasy world that
it takes place in a fantasy world
in some other universe, which for some reason mimics the precise level of technology and culture of feudal England during the War of the Roses, but they spell the word sir differently.
Yes, you will feel as I felt,
and I say this now as a huge fan and admirer, and I dare say, a friendly acquaintance of George R.
Martin.
I felt a little dumb when I was like,
this wasn't Dune.
You know what I mean?
This was something else.
This was a fantasy novel written as a fantasy novel.
It was not a huge ecological allegory.
It wasn't
a parable about rabbits that was itself an allegory for something.
This was just a story set in Magic Land with dragons.
And I felt a little bit silly about it because I'm a snob, I guess, at heart.
But then I read it and I realized, oh, yeah, it's about dragons.
But this is some of the most incredible characterization that I've ever read.
And also an incredibly page-turning, amazing story about
being told through multiple points of view that feel very distinct and human, even though it's all coming from this one guy.
And I'm like, you will love it.
You will love it.
All humans do.
And I will watch Friday Night Lights if you read the first book.
And she said, and I will, and I was like, if you get through the half i'll start watching or whatever and she couldn't get through half she was like no way can't do it and the upside is i've never had to watch that dumb football show if you really want aaron to do this you have to come up with some trade so ask her aaron what would you have me do
if you listen to the first half of hamilton what will i have to do what movie will you have me watch what book will you have me read if there's anything you want me to engage with culturally, listen to the first half of Hamilton and I will do it.
And if she still says no at that point, then I think that's about as far as you can go.
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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We're both big fans of the carbon steel.
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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.
The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Quince.
Jesse, the reviews are in.
My new super soft hoodie from Quince that I got at the beginning of the summer is indeed super soft.
People cannot stop touching me and going, that is a soft sweatshirt.
And I agree with them.
And it goes so well with my.
uh Quince overshirts that I'm wearing right now, my beautiful cotton Piquet overshirts and all the other stuff that I've gotten from Quince.
Why drop a fortune on basics when you don't have to?
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John, you know what I got from Quince?
I got this beautiful linen double flap pocket shirt.
It's sort of like an adventure shirt.
And I also got a merino wool polo shirt.
Oh, it's like a
mid-gray, looks good underneath anything, perfect for traveling.
Because with merino wool, it like it basically rejects your stink.
You know what I mean?
It's a stink-rejecting technology, John.
It says, get thee behind me, stink.
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You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.
And
maybe you stopped listening for a while.
Maybe you never listened.
And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up.
But no, no, you would be wrong.
We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.
Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.
The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.
We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.
And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.
So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show, Let's Learn Everything.
So let's do a quick progress check.
Have we learned about quantum physics?
Yes, episode 59.
We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?
Yes, we have.
Same episode, actually.
Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?
Episode 64.
So, how close are we to learning everything?
Bad news.
We still haven't learned everything yet.
Oh, we're ruined.
No, no, no, it's good news as well.
There is still a lot to learn.
Woo!
I'm Dr.
Ella Hubber.
I'm regular Tom Long.
I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.
And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.
Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.
Brian writes, I seek an order from the judge that mandates that if a restaurant claims that its baked potatoes come with chives, they should serve chives and not green onions.
This is specifically in reference to a certain fast food chain with a freckled redhead as its namesake.
Oh, I wonder which one.
Hmm.
Chives and green onions have different flavor profiles and textures, and you don't have to be a food snob to appreciate the difference.
Even though chives and green onions are of the same genus, you'd never serve one when a patron ordered and expected the other.
These establishments print chives on their menus, but only ever stock and serve green onions, a standard practice.
I understand that saying green onions on a menu sounds cheap and that the substitution has been normalized.
But why not say baked potato with all the fixins?
First of all,
very nice solution.
That was generous of you, Brian, to provide a solution to this chain of fast food restaurants.
And look, let's stop joking around.
We all know that he's talking about Esau's.
That's the...
The fast food chain name for Esau, the biblical younger son of Isaac, who was born covered all over in thick mats of red hair.
Famous.
Are you like
100% certain
that's the chain?
What else?
Which other chain could it be?
I just assumed that he was talking about Michael Rapaport's.
Oh, right.
Oh, you know what?
Good point.
It could also be
David Caruso's pizza.
David Caruso's.
What would David Caruso serve at his chain of fast food restaurants?
Do you think it's called
Shade Tippers?
Oh, man.
Talk about Miami.
NYPD Chew.
New York Pizza Delivery.
I think he's much better known now for CSI Miami, so it would probably be David Caruso's
Guayabera Sandwiches.
No, that's not a type of sandwich.
It's a type of sandwich.
No, it is is not.
No, Esau's, though, is famous for its birthright pottage and red-hot hairy hot dog sandwiches.
What about Chives versus Creen Edmonds, Judge Hodgkin?
All right.
Well, you know, I looked up the Esau's website, and I'm looking at it right now, and sure enough, there it is.
And
everyone knows
which chain restaurant we're talking about in real life, but I'm going to keep calling it Esau's.
So as to not accidentally buzz market something that is not part of the Bank's Fun network.
And I'm looking at this here: it says sour cream and chive baked potato.
And they have slow baked in an oven, not zapped in a microwave.
Need we say more?
Apparently, they do need to, because they then go on to say, Our sour cream and chive baked potato is perfect by itself or paired with a sandwich, like a hot dog, perhaps.
Great taste, great value.
And they have a picture of the baked potato as got a sour cream on it, and definitely got chives on it, which are not green onions or spring onions, as they say in the UK, and perhaps in Australia, they call them barungo-goos.
If it's true what Brian reports, and that at all the Esau's chains that he's been to, 100% of the time, they are putting chopped up green onions while advertising chais.
I think that's bogus.
Yeah, that may even be illegal.
I would say that you should go report them to the Federal Trade Commission.
And you can actually go to a website that I found that looks pretty good.
I really haven't explored it in any depth, but it's called truthinadvertising.org.
It is a legit 5013C or whatever nonprofit organization that is trying to basically be a watchdog group for false advertising.
And they have a big long thing about how you can submit a complaint to the FTC.
And I would do it because I don't think that's cool if that's actually happening.
They are different things, and they do have different flavor profiles.
Here's something from Jessica.
I know spoilers are trodden ground in the court, but I would like to know your ruling on spoilers when it comes to movies based on or inspired by real-life events.
I was talking to my cousin about the movie The Imitation Game.
I thought that Alan Turing's accomplishments and tragic death were generally known, so when my cousin asked what the movie was about, I said Alan Turing.
You know, he invented the computer.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, Jesse.
Yeah.
Let's just for our listeners, spoiler alert.
If you don't want to know what the imitation game is about,
turn off your podcast radio and wait a few seconds and then turn it back up again.
All right, go ahead, Jesse.
What do you know?
Alan Turing, you know, he invented the computer, was credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives, and then was persecuted for being gay and ended up killing himself.
To which my cousin replied, spoiler alert.
Yeah, stupid.
Your cousin's stupid because that's a spoiler.
That's what he should be saying.
Spoiler alert comes before the spoiler.
Yeah, I think anybody who yells spoiler alert in response to anything is a.
Well, let's get before we get to the verdict, finish reading the case.
Judge Hodgman, while I grant you that the life and times of Mr.
Turing aren't the same as saying that, say, America won the Revolutionary War, are there spoiler alerts for historic events?
So
I'm impressed by the incredibly long sentence you chose to say in order to ruin your cousin's enjoyment of that movie.
Alan Turing, you know, he invented the computer, was credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives, then was persecuted for being gay, and ended up killing himself.
It's not polite to say the entire plot of a movie to somebody.
And that is the plot.
I mean, a biopic has no other plot than the life of the subject and the major points of a subject's life.
What else were they going to tell about Alan Turing?
Now,
so yeah,
you spoiled the movie for him,
and that's not cool, even though he's a dum-dum who says spoiler instead of spoiler.
And I mean, it all depends on how far the biopic all depends on how far they fictionalize it.
I haven't seen the imitation game, but I remember the news reports of the time that it's one of those biopics that actually took a lot of liberties with the historical record and with the life of Alan Turing, such as the idea is like,
yes,
he did invent a machine that cracked the Enigma code, but he was also apparently a sorcerer who didn't actually live in England, but in Greenwich Village, Village.
And he fought various pan-dimensional demons as Earth's sorcerer supreme.
That, I don't think, was true about the real Alan Turing.
But in this case, you really did spoil the movie for your cousin.
And so next time, like, we wouldn't do that.
Like, if someone said, what's Star Wars about?
You wouldn't do like a beat-by-beat plot of Star Wars up until, spoiler, alert, the destruction of the Death Star.
You know?
So, yeah, sorry, your cousin, I mean, Jesse, you were were going to say you hate people who do that, and I think that it is something that people have become overly sensitive to.
He probably can handle and enjoy the imitation game.
But in this case, I do find in favor of his dumb cousin.
Do you disagree with me, Jesse?
I think a central issue here is that this is a person
who
does not
know who Alan Turing is, and so...
presumably does not know the events of Alan Turing's life.
And so really the only reason to list the events of Alan Turing's life is in an effort to ruin the movie for him.
Well, you don't, I mean, I guess you could say, because anyone who knows a hoot of anything about Alan Turing knows those details of his life, for in that sense, it's pre-spoiled.
So why are you going to see the movie?
to enjoy, presumably, another great performance by Benedict Cumberbatch and the other fine actors in that movie.
But you notice, I find Alan Turing to be an incredibly fascinating figure, and I was not particularly intrigued to see that movie because biopics are biopics.
They just tell the events of the life.
Yeah, they're terrible.
They're the worst.
It may literally be the worst genre of film.
So, in this case,
you agree with me, but you also agree that the cousin shouldn't be so sensitive and is dumb.
Yeah, I mean, I agree that I agree the cousin definitely shouldn't yell spoiler alert.
That's something only a real so-and-so would yell.
Right.
And
I mean,
look, I don't like anybody in this story.
That's the truth.
I don't like the person who likes biopics.
I don't like the person who ruins them on purpose.
I don't like the person who yells spoiler alert.
Can I suggest something?
You know who I do like?
Who's that?
The author Neil Stevenson.
And Neil Stevens, if you want to learn about Alan Turing,
this is probably not the best place to go.
Probably a good biography of Alan Turing is a place to go.
But if you want to learn about cryptography and code cracking during World War II, Neil Stevenson, the novelist, and perhaps Max Fun supporter, I'm going to say he is.
Sure.
I'll donate something to this Max Fun drive in his name when it starts up.
I mean, I think William Gibson probably supports Max Fun, and they probably just do whatever the other one does just to keep pace, you know, keeping up with the Joneses type situation.
Exactly.
Neil Stevenson is a science and speculative and historical fiction author with an emphasis on science
and
technology.
He has many, many, many preoccupations, including medieval swordcraft, about everything in the world that a nerd could be interested in.
He's interested in it.
And he wrote a book called Cryptonomicon, big long book that came out in 1999 or so.
And a huge portion of it takes place right there at Bletchley Park.
And it really helps you to understand the work that they were doing.
And Turing is a character in there as well.
And it really helps you, even though it's fictionalized and
the main character is pure fiction.
You have a new appreciation for what it is they accomplished there.
And it's just an and even though that might sound dry to you, it's just an amazing book.
And the reason that I especially point it out is that this was a book, and this was an author that was recommended to me for years by my best friend, Jonathan Colton.
It's his favorite author.
And even though Jonathan Colton has tremendous taste and has never steered me wrong, his recommendation of Neil Stevenson meant to me that automatically I will never read a Neil Stevenson book.
I don't know why.
It just felt like homework when Jonathan suggested it to me.
And this is for Caroline's friend who doesn't want to listen to Hamilton.
I lost years of my life of enjoying Neil Stevenson because
I felt like my friend was giving me homework to do and I didn't want to do it.
And one day I just started reading it, and I was like, oh, right, it's great.
It's the greatest thing.
I didn't say that this was his favorite.
I hope I didn't say that the Kryptonomicon, though, was Jonathan's favorite Neil Stevenson book.
His favorite Neil Stevenson book is Anathem.
And that's one he really wants me to read, and I will never do it just on principle at this point.
But go read that book
and enjoy culture, everybody.
Here's one final case, and this one isn't appropriate for younger listeners.
So
if you got kids in the car, you might want to turn it off now.
Yeah, kids immediately scramble out of the back seat and turn off the internet radio and cause your dad or mom to swerve around on the road.
Here's something from Sean.
My girlfriend uses the phrase effing a man,
the full form, of course, as a curse when bad things happen.
Fornicating, eh?
Yeah, I've only ever heard it used as a celebratory statement.
Who's right, who's wrong?
So if she gets like, if someone, if she gets a puncture wound from a barn door, just something I happen to know about, in her arm, and she's mad and hurt, she'll go, fornicating A.
Yeah.
No, that's wrong.
She's a swear word.
She's a real piece of swear word, that one.
You know,
effing A is when something's great, effing A.
At least that...
That was how it was originally used in the 80s when I think the term was coined.
A, of course, standing for awesome.
But
English, even vulgar English, is a living language, and maybe she can start a new usage where it is the opposite.
It means both what it means and the opposite of what it means.
Like the word cleave.
Look it up.
But I highly I don't I think she's the only one using it in this way.
And unless she can provide evidence to the contrary, I would say her usage is effing incorrect.
What swear word, Judge Hodgman,
can't also be used.
The whole point of swear words is that their meaning is completely
just
emphatic.
What swear word can't be used just to mean basically the opposite of what its actual meaning is?
Don't give me actual examples, Judge Hodgman, or nerds on the internet.
So you're taking me to task.
You think that she can, that it's fine.
Yeah,
I had no idea what the A in
fornicating A stood for.
And while I generally would use it
in a positive context, I think that's one of the great things about swears is that you can use them whenever anything needs a little juicing up.
You know what, Jesse?
Fuck it.
You made me change my mind.
All right.
That's it for this week's Judge John Hodgman.
Barry Nex Perello on the boards this week.
Our producer is Julia Smith.
Our editor is Mark McConville.
You can find us on Twitter at Hodgman and at Jesse Thorne and in our lively Facebook group, both the maximumfund.org Facebook group and the Judge John Hodgman Facebook page, and on Reddit at maximumfund.reddit.com.
All of these places, wonderful places to go and discuss the latest Judge John Hodgman rulings.
F-ing A, right?
F-ing A, indeed.
And in that case, I was expressing disappointment that the podcast is over.
We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.
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