There Will Be French Toast With Nick Offerman

Speaker 1 Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
We're in chambers this week, clearing the docket with me, the great Judge John Hodgman. Hello, Judge Hodgman.
Hello, Jesse.

Speaker 1 I am here at the Technica house in New York City because we have a very special friend of the court with us today.

Speaker 1 You can see him seated to my right, probably your left viewer on the YouTube at Judge John Hodgman pod. He's a very affectionate and handsome man, and I've forgotten his name.

Speaker 1 Jesse Thorne, Thorne, can you help me out, please? John, he's a beloved friend of the court. He's starred in critically acclaimed films like Civil War and Sovereign.

Speaker 1 You know him as Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation. He's also a best-selling author.
His new book is called Little Woodchucks, Offerman Woodshop's Guide to Tools and Tomfoolery.

Speaker 1 It's available in stores right now. Let's welcome back to the court Mr.
Nick Offerman. Mr.
Nick Offerman, hello. Hello, you're on.
Thank you for being here with us again. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 And you're on tour with your book, Little Woodchucks, which we're going to talk about a little bit later on. That's right.
But today we're going to dispense some justice.

Speaker 1 We have had people sending in disputes, cases, conundrums, if you will, that only the wisdom of Nick Offerman can help solve.

Speaker 2 I doubt that.

Speaker 1 Can I say something earnest real quick?

Speaker 1 Okay. I'll tell you what.
I'll leave the room briefly. Okay.
Go ahead.

Speaker 2 Okay, he's gone.

Speaker 2 It is a great comfort and pleasure to be here on this program because I've actually learned a great deal about how I navigate my own relationships, specifically under the auspices of we all must be allowed to like what we like.

Speaker 2 I quote that from this program with great regularity because it really has made me a much nicer person when I realize there's no sense in

Speaker 2 giving anybody a hard time because they prefer a condiment that is distasteful or perhaps a musical genre that is a foolish choice, that is their prerogative.

Speaker 2 And they may feel the same way about my use of horseradish sauce. And so I'm very grateful to be here.
And that is the end of my earnest statement.

Speaker 1 We have a thumbs up from Judge John Hodgman. And I'm back.
Thank you very much. Nick, that's very kind of you to say.
And guess what? We have some disgusting condiment deployment coming up. Oh,

Speaker 1 But that's a little later here in our docket.

Speaker 2 We may finally be able to cut that out.

Speaker 1 No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was

Speaker 1 a perfect unconscious tease for the content we are creating right now called the Judge John Odgman podcast with Jesse Thorne, guest bailiff and co-creator.

Speaker 1 Why don't you read our first letter for Nick Offerman? Primary bailiff, Jesse Thorne. Here's a case from Anders in Seattle, Washington.

Speaker 1 My friend Jonah brought a whole uncut watermelon to a party I was hosting. They then expected me to cut it.
To me, the point of bringing a dish to a party is to minimize work for the host.

Speaker 1 Jonah says they were acting reasonably. They were also mad the watermelon sat on my counter until it was rotten.

Speaker 1 Long party. Who's right?

Speaker 1 Who's right? Who's wrong? Man. Nick Hoffman will help decide.
Before we get into it, Nick, when you are arriving at a party,

Speaker 1 dinner party, cocktail party, whatever it might be,

Speaker 1 you bring a gift for the host if you're gracious. That's right.
What's your go-to? Go-to gift. Usually G.

Speaker 2 Usually a beverage. I mean,

Speaker 2 if it's somebody who I know, I will sincerely reach out. They know the things I like to cook or that Megan likes to cook.

Speaker 2 For me, it's meat items.

Speaker 2 And for Megan, she's become an incredible baker.

Speaker 2 megan you're talking is the your incredible uh and talented wife who's a whole human being in her own right megan malali megan malally that's right right uh among her many other talents she's become a master of pies and she makes even her crust from scratch wow so you know we'll see if there's something we can bring but generally you know uh

Speaker 2 adults like us including us we like to put on a spread for our guests and we don't want them to go to any trouble right so then invariably i stop and pick up a very nice bottle of wine or

Speaker 2 a whiskey product, depending on what I know the host to like.

Speaker 1 Right, of course.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, a bottle of wine, Jesse, wouldn't you say that's that's pretty much the standard, not a whole watermelon? Yeah, a watermelon is

Speaker 1 quite a hunk of fruit. I mean, I think this was a situation where

Speaker 1 Let's see, it's Anders and Jonah in Seattle. Anders is the host.
Jonah, they are the guest. And I think Jonah was asked to bring something for the

Speaker 1 meal or a dessert or something. Like, I don't think that they were just sort of like, I know what's fun.
Watermelon under my arm. I was supposed to bring a mane, so I let a cow in on a rope.

Speaker 1 Okay. So you're starting to lean toward Anders, it sounds like, Jesse Karn.
That's my explanation.

Speaker 1 I will say that, speaking of cutting things up, I cut Anders' letter down a little bit for length, but Anders goes on to explain that he was in the midst of getting a, I think, a charcuterie board ready, and they were serving, he was serving a

Speaker 1 signature cocktail that he had to make for everybody. So he didn't have time, he felt, to cut up a watermelon on Jonah's behalf in this case.

Speaker 2 That makes a lot of sense. I mean, on one hand, I think, and you got to see the context.
You got to see

Speaker 2 the household and the kind of party it is.

Speaker 2 Is it a fancy party?

Speaker 2 Is it a cookout? I think a watermelon is a wonderful idea.

Speaker 2 But I think where where I would draw the line for Jonah is that they should bring the watermelon and simply then say, Can I get a knife and a cutting board?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like, I've brought this

Speaker 1 part of the contribution. And

Speaker 2 because what did you have in mind? Do you want this melon bald?

Speaker 1 Do you want it

Speaker 2 segmented?

Speaker 2 Do you want it juiced?

Speaker 2 I do think that Anders is somewhat correct to expect Jonah to finish the creation of that dish.

Speaker 1 Nick, you say it depends what kind of party it is. I guess the distinction you're making is between a standard party and a make-work party, like during the Great Depression,

Speaker 1 a government program designed to gain to achieve full employment

Speaker 1 through hosting parties and cutting watermelons.

Speaker 1 You're right. That's right.
That's right. It was part of the Works Progress Administration back in the day.
And you're right. I mean, you make

Speaker 1 some very talented watermelon carvers and sculpturalists.

Speaker 1 Thank you for having me at your party. I brought you some uncut trails.

Speaker 1 Thank you for having me at your party. I've brought you an unelectrified Tennessee.

Speaker 1 That's a deep cut for the TVA heads out there. I brought you a post office to muralize.

Speaker 2 But depending on the sort of picnic it might be, you can drill a hole in a watermelon and turn a bottle of Tito's upside down

Speaker 2 and let it glug in there. And that is, and then you can actually poke some straws into the watermelon.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's one way to consume a watermelon.

Speaker 1 Look, there are a lot of things you can do with a watermelon. And I think we all agree it's among the top melons, if not the top melon.
No offense, honeydew.

Speaker 2 For sure.

Speaker 1 But yeah,

Speaker 1 if you are bringing a watermelon to a a party and you see that your friend Anders is busy creating a signature cocktail. Now, I'll tell you what my favorite

Speaker 1 host and hostess gift is.

Speaker 1 When we're up in Maine and friends get together, you bring whatever you want to drink and you drink it.

Speaker 1 And in fact, free the host from having to create that signature cocktail or even have something on hand to serve you. Like that's the gift of doing less work.

Speaker 2 Basically, it is brilliant. And it guarantees that that you will be pleased with the beverage.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. So, yeah, I mean, you know, Jonah, you probably should have cut up that watermelon.

Speaker 1 I love the fact that Anders, seeing that Jonah would not going to cut up the watermelon, left it on the counter to rot.

Speaker 2 In a very silent protest.

Speaker 1 That's exactly so. I mean,

Speaker 1 so in that sense, Jonah's refusal to do the most obviously gracious thing and Anders' reprisal by letting it rot,

Speaker 1 Anders is right in this case, but you are friends who deserve one another, and I hope you remain friends forever. Amen.

Speaker 1 I brought in my big wooden gavel that Matt Howie gave us years ago because I thought Nick Offerman might like it.

Speaker 2 I do, I do. Because he loves wood.
I love it. It reminds me of your beautiful baritone ukulele.

Speaker 1 Oh, thank you very much. That was made by Maya Moe.
Ukulele's in Seattle, Washington, no less. But let's move on, Jesse Thorne, before we plug more obscure things.

Speaker 1 Okay, we've got something from Catherine in London, Ontario. I like to eat.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Here we go. I like to eat half my French toast with ketchup as the main course, then the other half with syrup as dessert.

Speaker 1 My husband Adam says eating French toast with ketchup is gross. Please order him to stop making faces and try it.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 I just noticed that Catherine is from Ontario,

Speaker 1 and Canada is the home to the ketchup potato chip, of course, which maybe this is a Canadian thing to add ketchup to French toast.

Speaker 1 I eat my French toast with Doner sauce.

Speaker 1 Nick, I sensed a certain immediate visceral reaction to this concept.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 2 it's immediately putting the idea to the test of

Speaker 2 no matter how strange the proclivity of gravy upon the meat,

Speaker 2 as it were,

Speaker 2 it has to be allowed to fly.

Speaker 2 And so I immediately say, whew, that rubs me the wrong way. But if you like it, go nuts.

Speaker 2 If you like a bowl of ketchup with a little French toast as a garnish.

Speaker 1 Oh, right. A little French toast dipper.

Speaker 2 I mean, that is your prerogative. And by all means, you should be allowed to like what you like.

Speaker 2 And I would, and I, so I was on board with the idea and say, great, that sounds like you've made a little bit of fun out of your meal as well. You've turned it into a fantasy two-course offering.

Speaker 2 That's true.

Speaker 1 You've been given it a narrative element.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. Every meal is a story.
Speaking of which, would you like to start a story with me where we eat some French toast with ketchup, Nick?

Speaker 2 I would not.

Speaker 1 Too bad. Uh-oh.

Speaker 1 So, yes, Jesse, I have here some French toast. I actually have two items that I want to try.
Some French toast. Wait a minute.
That's

Speaker 1 those are fried eggs. I wanted scrambled eggs, but okay.

Speaker 1 And these are fried eggs too. So no French toast.

Speaker 1 Congratulations, John.

Speaker 1 Look,

Speaker 1 my inadvertent plug for the landmark diner here in Lower Manhattan remains. I'm sure they've had a very busy day.

Speaker 1 We all have difficult ones, but I guess we'll send Carla out for some French toast, which we'll try try later in the program. In the meantime, I do have a question for you.

Speaker 1 You are aficionado of breakfast foods. Okay, yes.

Speaker 2 Right? Yeah, and this, I mean, receiving the wrong breakfast foods, I would say, is a great injustice.

Speaker 1 It's a great injustice, but at the same time, it's still breakfast food. Sure.

Speaker 1 What is your go-to? I got some bacon and some sausage with these two different meals.

Speaker 2 You know, I tour a lot, and so quite often I will order a breakfast with a breakfast meat. and just to keep things fun for myself, I alternate.

Speaker 1 Oh, really? I love them both very much.

Speaker 2 I know Ron Swanson's brand leans a little more towards bacon. Right.
He's known for his love of bacon. And he's right.
He's not wrong. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But I love a pork sausage as well, especially in the UK, a Cumberland sausage.

Speaker 1 I just had it. Well, we both flew from the UK yesterday separately.
That's right. And I enjoyed a Cumberland sausage for breakfast.
Jesse Thorne, what about you?

Speaker 1 Here, just so that Jesse Jesse can see, I'll hold up a sausage, you hold up some bacon. Thanks.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you're talking about, so one of those is sausage, and one of those is bacon. Yes, that's right.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 I love both as well.

Speaker 1 I'm a little bit hesitant sometimes with sausage because I'm worried that I'm going to accidentally get one of those chicken apple sausages from like 1998.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Not that they haven't made it recently, but like

Speaker 1 a

Speaker 1 sun-dried tomato in 1989.

Speaker 1 Like to me, the food of 1998 is a chicken apple sausage, and I don't want that. I want pork, and if anything, put some cheese in there.
But the heavier, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and nothing against people who prefer chicken sausage. There are very delicious ones, and obviously nice job these days.
People who don't eat meat at all. I mean, I find there are lots of great

Speaker 1 non-meat sausages that I enjoy in a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich. Gimme lean does one that I think is quite good.
But yeah, that chicken apple thing, that's a bad news for me.

Speaker 1 It's not my favorite, but people like what they like. They sure do.
Let me ask you this real quick before we move on, since we have some bacon here. How would you,

Speaker 1 I don't want to touch bacon that you might put in your mouth.

Speaker 2 You can.

Speaker 2 I will eat bacon that you've rubbed on the bottom of your foot.

Speaker 1 Oh, terrific. Well, let me have this.
You can have this piece of sausage that I've been eating.

Speaker 2 All right. There you go.
That's fair.

Speaker 1 What about smoked sausage? That's kind of like the best of bacon and sausage. I used to get smoked sausage in a giant tube from Father's Country Hams in Arkansas.
That's some salty sausage.

Speaker 1 You sent me some of that once. But Father's Country Hams is closed now, so I don't know where I'm going to get my smoked sausage.
Hit me up with your sources, listeners and viewers. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Now, this is what Jonathan Colton's children, when they came to my house, would call waggy bacon,

Speaker 1 which is to say, not crispy, which is to say, they weren't merely calling it waggy bacon. They were criticizing me for making my bacon not waggy enough because I'm not a waggy bacon guy.

Speaker 2 It was an admonition.

Speaker 1 That's right. Do you like crispy bacon or waggy bacon?

Speaker 2 I sure do.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 I mean, if I nail it when I'm making bacon for myself, I go right down the middle.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 But I've never sent, I've never had crispy or waggy that I sent back.

Speaker 1 Let me change some lives real quick before we move on to our next letter. And Carlo is rushing out.
We're, you know, we're drawing it out to get that French toast.

Speaker 1 Maybe we'll do that in another segment of the show.

Speaker 2 Do you mind if I finish eating the meats that you've given me?

Speaker 1 No, please. And here's some more.

Speaker 2 Why, thank you.

Speaker 1 But I'm going to change some lives. I discovered something.
If you get some thick, relatively thick cut bacon, obviously people do oven cook all the time.

Speaker 1 Put it in the oven at 250 degrees in a cold pan, cold cast iron pan or a baking sheet for 30 minutes. Then turn it up to 450.
Set your timer for 15 minutes. You're going to like the way you look.

Speaker 1 I guarantee it. Let's take a quick break.
When we come back, we will have more on the docket, including some woodworking content, and

Speaker 1 the arrival of the French toast or possibly two more bowls full of fried eggs. Who knows? We'll see what we get

Speaker 1 when we come back in just a second.

Speaker 3 You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
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Speaker 1 Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Speaker 1 This week, we're clearing the docket with our friend Nick Offerman, who has a brand new book called Little Woodchucks: Offerman Woodshop's Guide to Tools and Tom Foolery.

Speaker 1 I've read and enjoyed this book because Nick was a guest on my public radio program, Bullseye, and gave me a massage

Speaker 1 on camera,

Speaker 1 much to the delight of internet users.

Speaker 1 What a treat. People who use the internet for certain specific things.

Speaker 1 Nick,

Speaker 1 how do you choose wood projects that are appropriate for, as you put it, little woodchucks?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 my co-author, Lee, who ran my wood shop for 10 years, she has two little boys and she lives up in Berkeley. And so she's a built-in laboratory.

Speaker 2 And so the two of us curated these 12 12 projects together. And basically,

Speaker 2 it comes down to what can we do without using electricity and with using minimal hand tools.

Speaker 2 So for example, one project is a set of toast tongs that requires a couple of easy cuts through thin wood and then just some wood glue and some clamping.

Speaker 2 Or there's a box kite that's just long thin dowels with wine corks and glue and paper to make a kite.

Speaker 1 So these are. How many bottles of wine do the children need to drink in order to get the materials for this?

Speaker 2 I believe there are eight corks. Okay, got it.

Speaker 1 Fair enough.

Speaker 2 And you can use conventional size or magnum.

Speaker 2 Both corks are good.

Speaker 2 But, you know, and so these are, I think, great gateway projects because once you see the power of wood glue, for example, in these tongs, you'll be astonished at all the, you can then build a house using properly cut lumber and wood glue.

Speaker 1 I'd love a tong house if you wouldn't mind constructing one for me. Or maybe I'll read the book and learn how to do it myself.
There are also advanced tongs in here called cowboy tongs. That's right.

Speaker 1 What's that?

Speaker 2 They're super cool. I was staying in a bunkhouse in West Texas out on a ranch, and it had this cool cowboy kitchen.
And I was making breakfast for Megan and I.

Speaker 2 And I opened a drawer, and it's a pair of tongs that are connected at their butt ends with a nail, so like they're hinged. And the way

Speaker 2 two tongs are cut, they lever against each other. So it's just two cleverly arranged

Speaker 2 tong halves that when you squeeze them, they create a spring action. And so, and I said, I've got to, I've got to replicate this.

Speaker 1 Do you remember the first thing that you made out of wood when you were a young un?

Speaker 2 I do. I remember my dad was an amateur furniture maker, and he made incredible things for our house.
And so I was always around him in his workshop in the basement.

Speaker 2 And the first thing that I remember making was a little, just a little box, a wooden box for me to stand on so that I could pee in the big boy toilet. Oh, wonderful.
We called it the tinkle box.

Speaker 1 Why are there no tinkle boxes in this book?

Speaker 2 Well, because it's in my first woodworking book, Good, Clean Fun, which

Speaker 2 is what you should get after you make everything in this book. Then you graduate to good, clean, fun and a tinkle box of your own.

Speaker 1 And in the meantime, just pee on the bathroom floor.

Speaker 2 Just learn to arc it is the trick.

Speaker 1 There's no more arcing in my stream, Nick. My 54-year-old mechanisms are not that powerful anymore.
Maybe we should move on to some woodworking questions. Perhaps.

Speaker 2 I mean, with strategically placed fans, you can get anything into a bucket or bowl.

Speaker 1 Good to know.

Speaker 1 Jesse, I believe we have some woodworking-related disputes and letters and conundrums for Nick Offerman to hear. This one is from Sean in Fairfax, Virginia.

Speaker 1 He says, I'm building a bench for our mudroom. I want to use an oil finish on it, but my wife, Allie, wants to use polyurethane.
I think oil finishes feel softer and warmer.

Speaker 1 It will give the piece character. Allie says polyurethane is more durable and easier to clean.
Who's right? Nick, we have this question here from Sean, who's created a mudroom bench.

Speaker 1 Jennifer Marmor, I believe we have a photo of the mudroom bench to look at. Ooh.
Nick, can you see it from where you are?

Speaker 2 I can. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I have a concern. Yeah, me too.

Speaker 1 Can you spot what we're talking about, Nick Offerman?

Speaker 2 I think so. I mean, from this angle, it looks like you can't open the door.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Or if the door opens out,

Speaker 2 you're going to catch your thigh on that piece of trim.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, I think that if the door is going, I mean, it could be that Sean isn't just building a mudroom bench, but also a barrier to an ancient evil in the house.

Speaker 2 It is a little confusing, and I

Speaker 2 can't, it's, it's, I'm baffled.

Speaker 2 But setting aside, perhaps, some

Speaker 2 question of perspective or

Speaker 1 for those of you who are just listening and not watching us on the YouTube channel at Judge John Hodgman Pod, there's a big chunk of

Speaker 1 built-in, very handsome-looking mudroom bench that seems to be blocking the doorway at a sort of wainscoting level. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I had imagined when it was described that this was a freestanding bench, but this is actually built into the wall.

Speaker 1 And the walls are covered in boards of various lengths, I'm going to be frank. And

Speaker 1 one of the boards near the door of the entrance to the mud room

Speaker 1 seems to just extend out an additional 10 inches or so across the door opening.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 this is Sean is asking the question.

Speaker 1 Sean is asking the question from Fairfax.

Speaker 2 Virginia. From Virginia.
Now,

Speaker 2 without getting

Speaker 2 some more angles of the piece,

Speaker 2 I don't want to give any sort of critique. It looks quite interesting and like an original design, which generally I give a thumbs up to.

Speaker 2 And as far as the piece of bench crossing into the doorway, I definitely would like to ask why is that happening?

Speaker 1 It's original design by Marcel Duchamp.

Speaker 1 I'm sure Sean has a very plausible explanation and plan. And Sean, take a vertical video and send it in for our social media.
But in the meantime, otherwise, I think it looks quite handsome.

Speaker 1 I can't tell from this distance if it has been finished yet or not. But could you maybe you could tell us in general the difference between a polyurethane finish and an oil finish?

Speaker 2 I will. And from here, again,

Speaker 2 it's some distance away, but from the sort of light

Speaker 2 peach color of the wood, I'm going to guess it could be anything from maple to cherry to a couple different kinds of oak or alder, perhaps.

Speaker 1 Uh,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 so, so to, to get to the question, it's kind of an age-old battle in woodworking. Uh,

Speaker 2 polyurethane is an incredibly durable finish, but you're sort of encasing your beautiful organic material in plastic.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So it doesn't feel like it doesn't feel nice and warm like a piece of wood.

Speaker 2 It feels like a countertop right might as well be for mica or something but uh allie is correct that it is much easier to keep clean and it does have a much greater durability so if you want to preserve the the sort of brand new look of your wood then that is a a better utility choice however i do everything i can with everything i make to avoid using a finish like that like polyurethane like polyurethane

Speaker 1 or or a lacquer it makes it shiny, too, which is not.

Speaker 2 You can get it in gloss or mask

Speaker 2 or semi-gloss. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 just for me,

Speaker 2 I love the, as he said,

Speaker 2 it does give it character. If you use an oil finish, it's going to stain more easily.
It's going to get dinged more easily.

Speaker 2 But when I deliver a table to a client that's a beautiful work of art, I say,

Speaker 2 if you show signs of life on this, if you get coffee cup rings or dings in it, that's, you know, I want your grandkids to see that and see the evidence that you lived with this table.

Speaker 2 I don't want it to stay pristine. You know, this is not something in a museum.
This is the table that you live on. And so in a mudroom, me personally, I would rather see an oil finish and see,

Speaker 2 you know, the sort of damage or the evidence of life that's enacted upon this bench from this family.

Speaker 2 Because I just, I think it feels much nicer. When you come in and sit on it and you put your hands on it,

Speaker 2 I think it feels more like what Gandalf would prefer.

Speaker 1 That's true. If Gandalf was walking into a hobbit hole, well, maybe this is designed to keep Gandalf out.
Maybe this guy doesn't want to go on any more adventures. I don't know.

Speaker 2 Perhaps.

Speaker 1 But yeah, he would.

Speaker 1 And, you know, as you point out, you know, even in a museum, certainly among collectors, I've learned, as you have, Jesse, from the road show, the antiques roadshow, what we're talking about here is patina.

Speaker 1 That's right, the evidence of life, as you say. So I think we're all coming down on the side of oil finish.
You know, the motto in Virginia,

Speaker 1 the state slogan in Virginia, Virginia is for finishers.

Speaker 1 Coffee is for closers. What's our next one, Jesse Thorne?

Speaker 1 Okay, is walnut overused in woodworking, particularly on YouTube? And the signature on this, John. Yeah.
Michael, historian at large. Michael, historian at large.

Speaker 1 That feels like somebody that's writing into a public radio show. I'm going to be honest with you.
I think I've probably gotten a few emails over the years from Michael historian at large.

Speaker 2 I mean, I can't speak to that. I don't watch a lot of woodworking on YouTube.

Speaker 1 There's a lot out there, Nick.

Speaker 2 I imagine so.

Speaker 2 And if anyone is looking for some, I would send them to see my friend Jimmy D'Aresta. He's my favorite maker to watch make anything on YouTube.

Speaker 2 But I would say in general, the question, what that elicits in me is

Speaker 2 to make the analogy, is sourdough overused in sandwich making? Right.

Speaker 1 Or on YouTube.

Speaker 2 Yes, or on YouTube. It's like.
Sure, quite possibly.

Speaker 2 But it's because it's the best bread or it's

Speaker 2 walnut is arguably the most beautiful and easy to work with of the cabinet woods. Oh, so it's it's not like it's not like it's a fashion thing.

Speaker 2 It's um it's it's the most gorgeous, deep, lush coloration, and it's really easy to work with, but with with a very high strength.

Speaker 1 I was going to ask, what makes it easy to work with? Why is it preferred?

Speaker 2 I mean, it generally

Speaker 2 has a straight grain. Um, and so the you

Speaker 2 woodworkers for centuries have sort of weeded out the,

Speaker 2 for example, red eucalyptus or the gum trees. Don't even tell me about red eucalyptus.
Those have grain patterns that are really difficult. They can be really ornery.

Speaker 2 They're quite beautiful, but they're much harder to work with.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Talking about like saw-through? Yes. Sand down.

Speaker 2 To use bladed tools with.

Speaker 2 And so the cabinet woods that are domestically generally considered walnut, oak, cherry, maple, and then mahogany is an import that is very popular. Part of it is because they're straight-grained.

Speaker 2 And so if you can imagine, you know, trying to take a cheese grater and cut something that has a straight grain versus a crooked grain, the crooked grain is going to beat up your blades.

Speaker 2 It's going to just be a lot harder.

Speaker 2 There are other woods like teak. comes to mind that has a lot of silica in it and that it's actual sand growing in the wood.
So when you use saw blades on it, it dulls your steel much faster.

Speaker 2 Osage Orange is a domestic wood that does that. Wangay is an import that is like that.
And so basically walnut.

Speaker 1 Could we just change this podcast to Nick Offerman Catalog's woods?

Speaker 2 I would love that.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think we would like to be successful.

Speaker 2 There are many beautiful woods that aren't talked about nearly enough.

Speaker 2 But walnut, just just it's really lovely to work with. You know, if you're

Speaker 2 for those of you that love to

Speaker 2 carve meat, you know, if you get a beautiful wagyu rib roast, you understand or a piece of waggy bacon, even. That's right.

Speaker 2 You can tell the difference between the good stuff and the ornery stuff.

Speaker 1 I guess a kind of a trendy wood. I mean, you mentioned the sour, sourdough is a delicious dough

Speaker 1 from San Francisco.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 is walnut too trendy or should people not care about trends?

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 I don't care about trends. And I also, but I feel I can't speak to it because I don't have an awareness of what woods are popular in design at the moment.

Speaker 2 But,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 if you have to pick a wood, I'd pick walnut.

Speaker 1 There you go. I'll use wood to rule on that one.

Speaker 1 Okay, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to tear open that French toast.

Speaker 2 When we come back, there will be French toast.

Speaker 4 Wonderful is a podcast where we talk about things we like.

Speaker 4 That's hard to sell in a promo like this, so we've enlisted the help of piano rock superstar Billy Joel to tell you about some of the topics we've covered. Take it away, real Billy Joel!

Speaker 5 Diddy Rock's been on Lake Sign, Worlson Shire, Circle Time, Sega Drink Castes, Hour Tower of Annoy.

Speaker 5 Keep me up, big time capsules, Wayne's World Cheese Bulls, Bulls, Wallace, Stephen's Donkey Gone, Fun Size Alman.

Speaker 5 They didn't start the podcast.

Speaker 5 Except that's not true. They did in 22.

Speaker 5 They didn't start the podcast. No, they actually did.
That was in fact a fib.

Speaker 4 Listen to Wonderful every Wednesday on maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks, Real Billy Joel.

Speaker 6 No problem, Griffin.

Speaker 7 What's more action-packed than prestige television?

Speaker 8 With more continuity than comic books?

Speaker 9 And more reality than reality television?

Speaker 6 It's professional wrestling.

Speaker 7 And to better understand wrestling as the ultimate form of entertainment, you need the Tites and Fights podcast.

Speaker 8 This is the perfect wrestling show with a lot of love, a lack of toxic masculinity, and just the right amount of butts, cats, and spandex.

Speaker 8 Listen to Tites and Fights every Saturday on maximum fun.

Speaker 1 Judge Hodgman, we're taking a quick break from clearing the docket. Nick Offerman, of course, has a brand new book called Littlewood Chucks.
You should go check it out.

Speaker 1 And while you're checking it out, why not check out Nick's interview with me about the book on Bullseye with Jesse Thorne, which you can find on the Bullseye YouTube page, including footage of Nick offering me a spontaneous massage.

Speaker 1 I've seen it and it's glorious.

Speaker 1 It's the 25th anniversary of Bullseye this autumn, and I just got back from Santa Cruz, California, where I talked with our friend, the great Adam Scott, also one of the stars of Parks and Recreation.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you knew that, John. I did know that.
I watched television. And I also spoke with the great Boots Riley from the coup and the filmmaker behind Sorry to Bother You.

Speaker 1 But I'm a Virgo on Amazon Prime. He has a new film coming out called I Love Boosters in the spring.
And

Speaker 1 in addition to those, Glenn Washington from Public Radio Snap Judgment and the Spooked podcast.

Speaker 1 Glenn, one of the best, plus music from The Mermin and comedy from our friend

Speaker 1 stand-up comedian Scott Simpson. All of that is going to be on the Bullseye YouTube page if it's not up there now already.
But Jesse, I'm curious about something.

Speaker 1 When am I going to get to see you in person celebrating Bullseye's 25th anniversary? Maybe somewhere in New York.

Speaker 1 Well, you are going to get to see Bullseye's 25th anniversary show on November 15th with Jad Abamrod, H. John Benjamin, Kristen Anderson, Lopez, Bobby Lopez, Josh Gondelman, and Tony Shaloube.

Speaker 1 But if folks who are listening to this right now don't already have tickets, they're out of luck. Unless unless

Speaker 1 they subscribe to the Bullseye podcast and listen to the show there. I will also mention, John, it's the middle of November.
Go hit up the put this on shop for your holiday shopping. Now is the time.

Speaker 1 John, we also have some brand new merchandise for the holidays at maxfunstore.com. That's right.
My favorite is our new corduroy caps. I always say at the beginning of every show,

Speaker 1 who's right, who is wrong, only one can decide.

Speaker 1 We've decided for limited time only and only for MaxFundStore.com shoppers to open that up to whoever can decide because we are offering one hat design that says right and one hat design that says wrong.

Speaker 1 You can purchase it for a friend.

Speaker 1 You can purchase it for yourself. That's right.
They're very cool.

Speaker 1 They're like vintage 80s style corduroy baseball caps. I just saw a 49ers cap that reminded me of my best friend Petey's dad, Mark Fraunfelder,

Speaker 1 in a vintage shop the other day in Santa Cruz. That's the style of cap that we're talking about.
We're talking about embroidered corduroy. They look awesome.
They say right and wrong. They're so cool.

Speaker 1 Plus, we got all that cozy goth stuff. You're absolutely right, Jesse.
We've got an incredibly cozy and gothy sweatshirt and sweatpant matching set.

Speaker 1 Something you can put on and sit around the fire and get cozy and gothy with your favorite cuddly partner or just by yourself drinking some, I don't know, eggnog that's been food dyed black for fun.

Speaker 1 Cozy goth. You can go check out this incredible illustration of two gozy goths snuggling by the fire that was created for us by the wonderful Tom DJ of Bossman Graphics.

Speaker 1 You can preview it over at maxfunstore.com. You can also check out our holiday-only limited edition scented candle.
What scent? Well, it's obviously justice smell.

Speaker 1 This is the scent of a candle. Justice Smell is available for you right now with a label designed by the amazing Aaron Draplin of Draplin Design Co.

Speaker 1 It is actually a very light, refreshing.

Speaker 1 How would you describe the smell of this candle, Jesse? It's a fresh cotton scent. A fresh cotton scent.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 you can use it in any room of your house, and you can always have the smell of Judge John Hodgman with you wherever you might have a match handy. It's a really beautiful little item.

Speaker 1 And all of our holiday merch is available now for you. They make great gifts.
I really encourage you to get those right and wrong hats and shove them in some stockings because I'll tell you something.

Speaker 1 Who's right? Who's wrong?

Speaker 1 Only I can decide. You'd make it a lot easier if you wore a hat that said you were wrong.
That would make it easy for me.

Speaker 1 Go check it out at maxfundstore.com and also go where I'm going to go to do some of my holiday shopping at the Put This On Shop, where you've got some wonderful vintage items and real finds.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so many treasures at putthisonshop.com for gentlemen, ladies, everything within those boundaries and without at putthisonshop.com.

Speaker 1 Seriously, if you have someone in your life who is like, I just don't know what to get for this person, that's when you go to putthisonshop.com because you're going to find something one of a kind for everyone in your life.

Speaker 1 And it's, uh, I always go there every holiday season and find some really cool stuff for my dads and grads and friends and moms and dads and the people in my life that I care about.

Speaker 1 Put the songshot.com, maxfunstore.com, and of course, Bullseye is where you can hear and celebrate the 25th anniversary of the incredible interviewing stylings of Jesse Thorne, one of the best in the biz, if not the best in the biz, as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 1 And you get to see Jesse get a massage from Nick Offerman on the YouTube channel. Come on, that's a gift in itself.
Let's get back to the docket.

Speaker 1 Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast with our pal, Nick Offerman. John, Nick, you've got a bag full of French toast there.
Are you ready to ketchup it?

Speaker 1 Let's see what happens.

Speaker 2 I'm going to start doing deep breathing.

Speaker 1 This is syrup.

Speaker 1 This is syrup.

Speaker 2 That's for the dessert course.

Speaker 1 This is an omelette. I don't know how this got in there.

Speaker 1 It's like, it's like, are you, are you the subject of a curse? curse?

Speaker 1 You run afoul of a breakfast witch.

Speaker 1 Anytime you order breakfast, extra breakfast comes at you?

Speaker 1 I mean, I would think run a fare of a breakfast witch in that case.

Speaker 2 I can't explain this. I mean, people do, if they're fans of Parks and Rec and I'm in a restaurant, quite often my meal will arrive with a lot of extra bacon on the meal.

Speaker 2 And I'll look around and a chef will be poking his head out from the kitchen and give me a furtive thumbs up. That's wonderful.

Speaker 2 And I loved that until my cardiologist showed me some numbers and I said, okay,

Speaker 2 now I say thumbs up back and then I put the bacon in my pocket. For later.
And I give it to someone

Speaker 2 on the bus. Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. Let me open this up.

Speaker 1 Nick, we're old pals, so I'm going to use my fingers to.

Speaker 2 parse this out. By all means,

Speaker 2 I'm like that.

Speaker 1 I'm going to give you this plate that already has, that's been pre-linked with sausage.

Speaker 2 I have a very robust immune system, and I think it's because I

Speaker 2 eat a lot of soil,

Speaker 2 the soil of the world.

Speaker 2 I don't worry about germs, and I think it serves me very well.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's right. Nick Hofferman says, eat dirt, America.
That's right. Not bad.
All right. Now, there's some French toast.

Speaker 1 You have a little knife and fork there, unless you want to eat with your fingers.

Speaker 1 And we have an extra, you have an extra option too, Nick, because I was concerned, rightly, it turns out, that Landmark might forget the ketchup.

Speaker 1 So I picked up some packets of ketchup from my home diner, which

Speaker 1 Nick,

Speaker 1 the owner of the diner, begged me not to reveal the name of it because he's too busy already. Sorry, little purity in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
But anyway, I got some ketchup packets from there.

Speaker 1 Landmark sent in this off-brand ketchup, chef's quality, it's called. But I've got some good old Heinz ketchup for you.

Speaker 1 Wow. I mean, this French toast with ketchup.

Speaker 2 To me, now, again, I'm down for this experiment, but I'm going in feeling like this is a desecration.

Speaker 1 Are you a French toast person, a pin-per-dugat kind of guy?

Speaker 2 Am I a human being with taste buds? Yes, I am. Okay.

Speaker 2 I mean, French toast is an undeniably

Speaker 2 gorgeous breakfast delectation.

Speaker 1 And, Jesse, I'm sorry that we don't have any French toast for you over there.

Speaker 1 I actually don't really like French toast. Oh, really?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't hate it or anything. I just am not really into it.
I'll just take all the sausages and bacons that are left over. Maybe Carla could bring those over.

Speaker 1 Carla's showing off the French toast. Thank you, Carla.

Speaker 2 The thing about French toast is what it's great for is

Speaker 2 it's one of the many syrup delivery systems. It exists to deliver maple syrup

Speaker 2 into your mouth.

Speaker 1 Well, cheers. Cheers.

Speaker 2 Been nice knowing you.

Speaker 1 Not terrible.

Speaker 1 Have you ever eaten ketchup on scrambled eggs? That's something that I used to do. I experimented with it during my teen years.

Speaker 2 I've tried

Speaker 2 because I was with people who used it, and I said, let me try that.

Speaker 2 This is not dissimilar.

Speaker 1 I automatically went in for another bite. So that tells you something.
That was a completely

Speaker 1 reflex-second bite.

Speaker 1 And I like ketchup, too. That's one of the things they give you when you get a neurological exam.

Speaker 1 That's right. At least my doctor is kind enough to do that for me.

Speaker 2 I will say the sugar content in the ketchup is playing an important role

Speaker 2 in my acceptance of this dish.

Speaker 1 I see, yeah.

Speaker 2 It still feels somewhat like a treat.

Speaker 2 It's sweeter. Like when I hear put ketchup on something, I think, well, it's not a hot dog

Speaker 1 or a sandwich. Right.
I mean, at this point, I would not be putting any powdered sugar on top. No.
It's enough.

Speaker 2 But I do feel like to cleanse my palate, now I'm going to need to put some syrup on this other dish. Yeah, please do.

Speaker 1 And I have a nude piece of French toast here if you'd like to start over. And some drawn butter in case we're going to have some lobsters later, apparently.

Speaker 1 Gosh. Thank you.
You want to go again?

Speaker 2 I'll just hit this one.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, I won't burden you with this, but I will try this chef's quality to see if this is a secret ketchup that we shouldn't be sleeping on.

Speaker 1 I'm pretty much a Heinz purist, but I will try some chef's quality and see what that's like. Well, I wouldn't eat it with a spoon, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I wouldn't eat it again, actually, is the answer. It's so much, it's so much considered.
I was going to say, but it's not meaningfully different. It is meaningfully different.
Heinz all the way.

Speaker 1 Heinz wins again. We know this.
Anyone who listened to our Seattle episode where we had the ketchup taste test knows Heinz is the best. Meanwhile, Nick Offerman is continuing.

Speaker 2 I mean, this is my kind of podcast.

Speaker 1 Do you like maple syrup on your sausage?

Speaker 2 Sure. I mean, I like maple syrup on anything.

Speaker 1 I do like maple syrup, but I don't want it to interfere with my enjoyment of sausage, I'm afraid to say.

Speaker 2 Given my drothers, I need nothing on my sausage.

Speaker 1 Yeah, given, yeah, I'm a droths man myself in that regard, but yeah.

Speaker 2 To sort of wrap up Catherine's question,

Speaker 2 I would say

Speaker 2 surprisingly,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 three-quarters of a thumbs up.

Speaker 1 Yes, I agree. Three-quarters of a thumbs up.

Speaker 2 But at the end of her plea, she asked that her husband be made to try it.

Speaker 2 And that, I mean,

Speaker 2 you know, I would say to any husband or any spouse, generally, if it's a question of trying something, try it.

Speaker 2 Then you've made a compromise. You've made a positive step.
And you can then say, oh, no, thank you. I don't like it.
You may find you love it.

Speaker 2 But at the same time, I also don't think we should be made to have to try things.

Speaker 1 You know, the like what you like settled law came out of

Speaker 1 one of our earliest cases and one of many times husbands have asked their spouses to watch a movie that they like.

Speaker 1 And in that regard, I don't think you should be, ever force someone to watch a movie because it's just as it's a first of all, people like what they like. If they don't like the movie, that's fine.

Speaker 1 Second of all, you just feel terrible because you've foisted a your favorite thing on someone who's may or may not be enjoying it. It's just, it feels like a bad pop quiz, essentially.

Speaker 1 But if you're talking about a bite of French toast with ketchup on it, well, I mean,

Speaker 1 Catherine's husband's name, Adam, I believe, and in Ontario.

Speaker 1 Adam, if Nick Offerman and I can eat some French toast with ketchup on it, surely you can eat some French toast with ketchup on it one bite in order to honor your wife as a whole human being in her own right and a person that you claim to love.

Speaker 1 So give it a try. And certainly if you don't like it, that's fine, but you should stop making faces because who knows? Amen.

Speaker 1 And by the way, if it is a thing in Canada to eat ketchup on French toast, let us know in the comments or wherever you know how to get at us because I'm be very curious to know.

Speaker 1 We have a case from Rocky in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

Speaker 1 I live in Wisconsin, but I am a Chicago Cubs fan. I love their history, players, and the lore of the Billy Goat curse.
And I've used the Cubbies team song to convert two of our three children.

Speaker 1 But now that the curse is broken, should I become a Milwaukee Brewers fan? I like the idea of going to a Brewers game with my family and cheering on our local team.

Speaker 1 Nick,

Speaker 1 how do you feel about the city of Chicago?

Speaker 2 I feel a very strong affection for the greatest city in the nation.

Speaker 2 I lived there for a time. It's easily the best theater community in the country.

Speaker 2 And that's not an exaggeration because

Speaker 2 it doesn't have Broadway and it doesn't have Hollywood as ulterior motives. So a lot of the theater you see in New York or LA, people don't want, aren't interested in doing a good Ibsen.

Speaker 2 They're trying to get on friends. Right.
In Chicago, there's no friends. That's right.

Speaker 1 It's just classic old-fashioned go-nowhere theater,

Speaker 1 which makes

Speaker 2 the greatest. Yeah.

Speaker 2 This is, I have a lot of feelings about this question. I really love this question because the older I get, you know, when I was younger,

Speaker 2 our main rivals these days for the Chicago Cubs are the St. Louis Cardinals and the Milwaukee Brewers.

Speaker 2 And I used to get into shaking my fist at the rival teams and saying, you guys can go scratch yourselves, you know.

Speaker 2 And these days, I uh

Speaker 2 I did a commercial with Craig Robinson some years ago where they had him in a Chicago White Sox hat and me in a Cubs hat. Uh-oh.
And I said, you know what?

Speaker 2 I don't want, I no longer feel enmity toward rivals.

Speaker 2 I'm glad we all get to enjoy baseball. Right.
And so I'll absolutely, and the reason I would get mad at the Cardinals is usually because they're good.

Speaker 2 It's usually complimentary where I'm like, you son of a whore,

Speaker 2 you do so good at hitting home runs. That makes you a villain in my house.
And it's a backhanded compliment. But recently,

Speaker 2 the Brewers have been in this pattern where they unremarkably win the division over the Cubs.

Speaker 2 And it's really frustrating because this year it came down to the final game in a playoff series between the Cubs and the Brewers.

Speaker 2 And the Cubs were so lackluster that a slightly less lackluster Brewers team beat them. Like they petered out to the end.
And it was like, God, that was so disappointing for everybody.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 And the Brewers then,

Speaker 2 their catcher, a guy named William Contreras, went on the news and did some really extreme bragging. It was some really unfortunate, like, uh, braggadocio.

Speaker 1 They call it brewer bragging. That's right.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Some brew brags.
And

Speaker 2 the Cubs have a tradition where they hold up a W flag when they win.

Speaker 1 It's just a thing. It's just a thing.

Speaker 2 So when the Brewers beat them in that last game, they took a big team photo out on the diamond and they held up a big L flag.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 Which I call being a sore winner.

Speaker 1 A sore winner.

Speaker 2 You've won the thing. Yeah.
And then they made fun of something about the Cubs. And then they learned the Greek lessons of hubris and were just immediately.

Speaker 2 spanked into embarrassing submission in the shortest time possible by the Dodgers, who the Cubs had been beating all year.

Speaker 1 Like

Speaker 2 it was, it was clearly just a case of, like, don't, don't brag, don't make fun of the other team, don't, don't be a sore winner.

Speaker 2 And so, I was at least glad that the Justice of the Universe said, you have learned the wages of hubris is embarrassment and defeat.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 I'm following most of what you're saying. I'm not known for being a follower of sports.

Speaker 2 This is a sport ball.

Speaker 1 That's not

Speaker 1 due to a prejudice on my part, but due to trauma.

Speaker 1 The one time that I thought as a teenager that I would try to follow the Boston Red Sox was in 1986 as they marched towards ignominy and the loss of the World Series to the New York Mets.

Speaker 1 And that was a hard thing to deal with.

Speaker 1 It also goes back even further to my brief attempt at playing youth soccer when I was perhaps eight or nine years old.

Speaker 1 I was very on the fence about it, but I was assigned to a team called The Force, which I liked very much.

Speaker 1 And perhaps because of that,

Speaker 1 I turned off, I put the blast shield down over my face and I scored a goal because I just allowed the Force to guide me. My God.

Speaker 1 And I so, this was so unexpected, even to me as a eight or nine-year-old, that I delighted and perhaps too much because as we were walking, you know, past the other players going, good game, good game, good game.

Speaker 1 I said, ha ha, we won.

Speaker 1 And my own coach, who was the terrifying actual Irish person in Boston, not an American Irish person, but an actual Irishman, yelled at me for like right at the peak of my triumph, my one little triumph, appropriately scolded me for being a sore winner.

Speaker 2 You went too far.

Speaker 1 And I've never kicked a soccer ball again. Actually, I take it back.
Some kids in the courtyard of our building kicked a soccer ball out of the, you know,

Speaker 1 it went foul. And they were just playing in the courtyard.
And I attempted to stop it with my foot, and I did. And then I immediately jammed my toe and got gout in that foot.

Speaker 1 So I don't know what to say about it.

Speaker 1 But Jesse, you're obviously a baseball person, and you're someone who grew up loving the San Francisco Giants. And now you live in a different city, Los Angeles.
And I have some news for you, Jesse.

Speaker 1 The Los Angeles Dodgers, I believe, just won the World Series. Did you hear about that?

Speaker 1 Jesse?

Speaker 1 I'm fine. Jesse? Okay.
No, it's fine. I'm fine.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Giants fans don't like the Dodgers.

Speaker 1 No, I know. I know what I'm doing.
There's no

Speaker 1 conceivable world

Speaker 1 where I become a Dodgers fan for convenience reasons. I don't even like you, John,

Speaker 1 implying the implication that it could be conceivable.

Speaker 1 I hate the Dodgers so deeply. It's the only conviction I hold in life.

Speaker 1 It's not based on anything. I understand.

Speaker 1 I don't even intellectually believe in the arguments against the Dodgers for being sneaky or a super team or too much money or whatever.

Speaker 1 Actually, intellectually, I think it's mostly just that they did everything right.

Speaker 1 And also, many of the Dodgers,

Speaker 1 there's a few real heels that I try and focus on, Blake Trinan.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 for the most part, they seem like nice. I mean, who hates Shohei Otani, the greatest baseball player of all time, who also seems to be having a great time and be really fun and nice?

Speaker 1 Who hates Mookie Betts, who bowls 300s on his off day? He's a professional level bowler when he is not switching from right field to shortstop at age 31 or whatever.

Speaker 2 I feel like

Speaker 2 the Cardinals are our traditional rival. The Brewers, up until recently, were an American league team.
And

Speaker 2 when the league expanded, they switched the Brewers to the National League. So they're a newer rival.
They're only 90 minutes up the road.

Speaker 2 And so it doesn't feel that it has the teeth that the Cardinals rivalry has.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 they've certainly been pesky because they keep winning the division unremarkably. And so, you know,

Speaker 2 I would just, I just wish if they're going to win the division that they would do it in an impressive way and say, well, I got to give it up to these guys. They were great, but they're never great.

Speaker 2 And it makes it disappointing. But

Speaker 2 I feel like

Speaker 2 to answer her question,

Speaker 2 I, you know, I live in Los Angeles and I love going to see Dodgers games.

Speaker 2 But no matter who's playing, I'll just wear my Cubs stuff. Right.
I just love going to watch baseball.

Speaker 2 I could never feel a fealty toward the Dodgers. They don't feel the same as other teams.

Speaker 2 And maybe

Speaker 2 I liken it to the Yankees. They also don't, they feel like too, too much more.

Speaker 1 I don't know. You liken it to what?

Speaker 2 I'm sorry. The New York Yankees.
I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 There's a problem with headphones, maybe?

Speaker 2 There's an American League team.

Speaker 1 Jacob, what's going on? For folks who... Every time he speaks, I just hear this horrible screeching of insects from a netherworld that I'd rather not peer into.

Speaker 1 For folks who are listening at home and can't see John, normally John wears the judge's robes to do the show. Right now, he's wearing a backwards Bruins baseball cap and a Tom Brady jersey.

Speaker 1 Now, wait a minute. Now, let's not go too far.
I mean, look, Jesse, you expressed, I'm sorry, did you finish your point, Nick?

Speaker 1 You were mentioning something, and then you turned into the horrible screech of the underworld.

Speaker 2 I think to just try and wrap up that point, I would suggest you can go enjoy games at the Brewers Ballpark without having to switch your loyalty to that team, which historically has been a disappointing team.

Speaker 2 And I say that without disparaging.

Speaker 1 The Cubs, you mean, specifically?

Speaker 1 No, the Brewers. The Brewers.
Right.

Speaker 2 The Cubs have historically been a lot more fun. They're more charming.

Speaker 2 And I think that's inarguable. It's not my subjective opinion.
And I don't want to disparage the Brewers, our rivals.

Speaker 2 I have friends that live in Milwaukee, and they have a great experience.

Speaker 2 Every baseball team, I want everyone to love their team.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 I don't think

Speaker 2 it's a move of positivity to switch from the Cubs to the Brewers. I don't think that's going to be.

Speaker 1 So you don't think Rocky should make the move, even though Rocky is kind of... Brewers curious.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I feel like go enjoy the ballpark, but we're your Cubs stuff.

Speaker 1 The Billy Goat Curse of the Cubs was the same style of curse. We had the Curse of the Bambino in Boston, which was the never-winner World Series curse for a long, long, long time.

Speaker 1 Longer, I think, for the Cubs, right? Yeah. Because finally, thanks to Theo Epstein of Brookline, general manager of the Red Sox,

Speaker 1 the Red Sox won the World Series in 2000 or whatever and broke the curse.

Speaker 1 And suddenly I didn't understand sports even more than I already didn't understand it because the Red Sox are always supposed to be underdogs. Right.

Speaker 1 The Billy Goat curse was broken when?

Speaker 2 2016.

Speaker 1 So very recently, right? But what is the Cubbies song that she refers to?

Speaker 2 It's a song written by Steve Goodman, who is a contemporary of John Pryan

Speaker 2 in the 70s in Chicago. And it's called Go Cubs Go.

Speaker 1 How does it go exactly?

Speaker 2 Baseball season's underway, so you better get ready for a brand new day.

Speaker 1 I put you on the spot.

Speaker 2 The Cubs are going to win today. Hey, Chicago, what do you say? The Cubs are going to win today.
Go, Cubs, go.

Speaker 1 Go, Cubs, go.

Speaker 2 Hey, Chicago, what do you say? The Cubs are going to win today. And people do argue that it's not necessarily a great song, but the good feeling that it engenders is no joke.

Speaker 2 We'd love to hear that song play at the end of the game.

Speaker 1 I really enjoyed hearing it, particularly in your William Shatner Speak Singer edition that you gave it. That was very moving.

Speaker 1 And I will point out that there is a way to convert enemies, baseball enemies only, of course, to

Speaker 1 joining your team, even. And that's by winning.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, you can't become in love with losing on principle over and over again. Then

Speaker 1 your team affiliation will die and wither and become toxic and so forth. But if you win the World Series in 2003, guess what? You start seeing Boston Red Sox hats in New York City.

Speaker 1 And that's a very interesting thing that has nothing to do with anything else other than coming together and supporting the team.

Speaker 1 And by the way, the love of baseball, I think that that's where I'm going to leave it for you, Rocky. Only you know what's in your heart.

Speaker 1 And I think we should all just feel grateful that, and you should feel grateful that you get to watch baseball, because unfortunately, I cannot because I.

Speaker 1 My, our daughter, who's a whole human being in her own right, who now lives in San Francisco, took us to a baseball game in Oracle Park to watch the Giants play the Cardinals.

Speaker 1 And it was a wonderful evening in one of the most beautiful ballparks I've ever been in, Jesse.

Speaker 1 And what a good time I had eating those garlic fries and those crazy crab sandwiches. But of course, the Giants lost by one

Speaker 1 baseball score hole or whatever to the Cardinals. And I remembered something that's very true.
And it's absolutely talking about the curse of the billy goat.

Speaker 1 I have never been to a sports game of any kind

Speaker 1 where the team that I was rooting for won,

Speaker 1 and I'm beginning to think that I am the problem,

Speaker 1 and I will not ever go again because I don't want to make anyone upset.

Speaker 2 I mean, I take that as a challenge. We have to disprove this.

Speaker 1 Well, Nick Hofferman, thank you. We've got one more case for you, and this is a controversial one.
Jesse, you want to talk about it for us?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 this is from Leah.

Speaker 1 My husband's been wearing a specific cutoff sleeveless shirt for more than a decade. I really think it's time for it to go.
He says he'll only wear it at home, but then I still have to see it.

Speaker 1 Can you and Nick Offerman please order him to retire the shirt?

Speaker 1 I believe we have a photo of the shirt. Oh, hell yeah.
Which we're looking at now.

Speaker 2 Oh, no.

Speaker 1 Yes, it's

Speaker 2 the twist.

Speaker 2 What does it say, please?

Speaker 1 It says, you had me at Meet Tornado and features a one-color print of Mr. Nick Offerman.
I presume that's as Ron Swanson.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's right. Well, as soon as I heard a cut-off sleeve t-shirt,

Speaker 2 I drew a deep inhalation

Speaker 1 because the sort of like ketchup on French toast to you.

Speaker 2 I mean, well, it

Speaker 2 touches me very close to home

Speaker 2 because this is,

Speaker 2 you know, this is something that my wife, Megan Malally, and I may have brought on your show had we ever gotten around to it.

Speaker 2 Especially

Speaker 2 mine is a Nick Cave in the Bad Seeds t-shirt.

Speaker 1 Sleeveless.

Speaker 2 Sleeveless. Oh, yeah.
Black t-shirt, red lettering from like 92.

Speaker 1 Sounds great.

Speaker 2 And it, I have to say,

Speaker 2 I don't know. Can I say this on this channel?

Speaker 1 I looked sick as f ⁇ ing in this t-shirt.

Speaker 2 I'm pretty masculine.

Speaker 2 And when I had that sleeveless t-shirt on, that's exactly what I was going for.

Speaker 2 I was my own platonic ideal of a badass, like motorcycle riding, Fonzie wannabe.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 And it turns out I've, you know, I've learned over the years that

Speaker 2 the women in my life usually don't agree with that aesthetic ideal that it's something that is performative on my own part, like wanting to look cool kind of for the other guys. Right.

Speaker 2 Because Megan would say, What in the world are you doing? Why don't you wear something that I like to see you in?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I have to say, so by now.

Speaker 1 Is Megan's objection to the sleevelessness, to the nick cave and the bad seedsness, or to the overall sort of like youthful, cringy rock and roll-ness as it is stretched across your body as a mature man.

Speaker 2 She and I both wear a lot, still wear a lot of like rock and roll t-shirts. So it's not that, and it's not Nick Cave by any stretch.
We both love the heart attack out of Nick Cave.

Speaker 1 It's a lot of Nick Cave, yeah.

Speaker 2 It's the cutoff sleeves. It's like the cool, tough guy, you know, like performative college age sensibility.

Speaker 2 And we've been together for 25 years. So by now,

Speaker 2 my closet has been curated to basically a collection of garments that Megan has either chosen or that I know she loves. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I've, you know, for example, I just have a rack of button-down flannels, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I will bring one home from a great company like Filson or Pendleton. And maybe they gave it to me on a TV show.
Right. And I say, oh, I love this new flannel.

Speaker 2 And I'll bring it home and Megan will say, I don't like that. I don't like the color.
I don't like the, for whatever reason. And I'll say, well,

Speaker 2 it's interesting because I don't want to wear things ultimately. And I had to learn this over the years of marriage.

Speaker 2 Why should I wear things that I like more than the person who I want to find me attractive likes?

Speaker 2 And I really started on one end of the argument where

Speaker 2 I was defiant and I said the same thing. I was like, well, all right, if we're going out in public, if I'm where you have to countenance me, then I want to wear something that you condone.
Right.

Speaker 2 I don't want to wear something that you dislike. Right.
I want you to like what I look like. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But if I'm going to my wood shop or I'm, you know, I'm working out or any of the realms in which I'm the master

Speaker 2 in the 3% of my life where I'm the boss.

Speaker 1 Well, and, you know, it's important to have a percentage of your life. And

Speaker 1 if you're sharing your life with someone uh as a life partner you both need percentages of your life where you can just be alone and on your own and make your own

Speaker 2 make your own stuff in your own woodshop metaphorically speaking sure or not even not even necessarily alone but just not in in megan's sphere right uh so i i can go hang out with other cool dudes and we can flex our muscles for each other right and like roll cigars i'm i'm guessing but

Speaker 2 that's probably what's going to happen but i think the thing I want to impart that I came to, because it also goes for haircuts and just all matters of personal appearance.

Speaker 2 Eventually, I was like, I've made a promise to this person to be her best friend and her spouse forever.

Speaker 2 Why don't I do my best to make choices that strengthen that bond and that honor the marriage?

Speaker 2 And so when it comes to questions like this, that's the ultimate barometer is I would rather please my wife.

Speaker 2 I would rather have her like to look at me

Speaker 2 than me like to look at me.

Speaker 1 And I don't think that this is going to change your mind, but I'll add some context because I did ask Leah, well, what is it that you don't like about the shirt?

Speaker 1 I mean, obviously, who wouldn't want a shirt with your face on it, of course? You know what I mean? And I mean, we could argue back and forth.

Speaker 1 I mean, Jesse, I'm sure you have some opinions on when sleeveless t-shirts look good or look bad. Do they look good? I guess when the sun is out

Speaker 1 and the buns are out.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Do sleeveless t-shirts look good or bad? I don't know. I guess it depends on the arms in question and the spirit with which they're worn.

Speaker 1 I can tell you this. Some years ago, I purchased at the flea market for my friend Mr.
Jordan Morris a tank top featuring one Bart Simpson. Calabunga.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I believe it was, I believe he's saying, don't have a cow, dude.

Speaker 1 It's the classic first season, you know, Simpsons merchandise mania graphic of Bart Simpson. And he didn't wear it for years.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 I believe he went on some sort of trip where there was going to be a pool and he wore it around the pool and he got so many compliments that now he like wears it to signings.

Speaker 1 He's off signing his comics and books.

Speaker 1 He wears the Bart Simpson tank.

Speaker 1 And, you know, Jordan has a swimmer's body because he is a swimmer. He's a

Speaker 1 big, strong chest and arms. But also, I think he has the spirit to carry it off.
I don't think I have ever had that spirit. I, I, uh,

Speaker 1 almost always am wearing long sleeves to cover not my tract marks, but my shame.

Speaker 1 So, in a vacuum, and I'll tell you what Leah said in a minute, but in a vacuum, you're not married to Leah, Jesse, nor am I. I don't believe you are.
No. No.
So, I mean, is

Speaker 1 Leah's husband carrying it off? Let's take a look at the thing again, Jesse. You're a sartorial expert.
Is Leah's husband carrying this off? No.

Speaker 1 Yeah. All right.
So let me give you the context then, which is that I said to Leah, why don't you like it? And Leah provided two reasons.

Speaker 1 One is that Leah works in sustainability. And, you know, we've talked a lot about meat and we are three of us carnivores.
And yet, I am absolutely cognizant of the fact that

Speaker 1 not only are there all kinds of ethical problems with regard to the treatment of animals, but factory farming on its own is an ecological disaster. 100%.
And so the meat tornado element of this.

Speaker 1 bothers Leah, which is, you know, she was like, I'm very happy with Nick Offerman. I wouldn't mind a Nick Hofferman t-shirt.
Sure. But this one bothers me.
And then she also feels that

Speaker 1 her husband knows this

Speaker 1 and is wearing the t-shirt to troll her.

Speaker 1 And that I do think is an anti-marital

Speaker 1 thing to do.

Speaker 2 I will say I do still have the t-shirt, but I also, regardless of Megan's distaste for a sleeveless t-shirt, I've aged out of sleeveless t-shirts. Like I have always been athletic.

Speaker 2 And actually, this year, I put on a bunch of muscle because I'm playing a former pro wrestler in a new David E. Kelly show that's coming out next year.
Listen to this.

Speaker 1 Listen to this expert in the plugging, Jesse.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 I got what they call somewhat jacked. Yeah.
And

Speaker 1 have you to prove it?

Speaker 1 Uh-oh.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 2 Wow. Any questions?

Speaker 1 Just stun silence.

Speaker 2 Would you say that that is proof?

Speaker 1 That is fair proof of

Speaker 1 jackedness.

Speaker 2 I just showed the judge a photograph.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we'll send that to Jennifer Marmor, and when she wakes up in five weeks, she'll put it on the social media page, if you don't mind. I won't.
Okay, fair enough.

Speaker 2 I've chosen not to make that the story.

Speaker 2 I understand. I don't.

Speaker 1 Well, people can, I guess, watch the show and see it for themselves.

Speaker 2 You'll see on the show that I put on a bunch of muscle.

Speaker 1 That's what we call in podcasting, French toast with ketchup, a tease. That's right.
So you put on a bunch of muscle. Sorry.

Speaker 2 With

Speaker 2 a wonderful Hollywood trainer named Grant Roberts, who like, who does,

Speaker 2 he did it with Kumail. He just did it with Sidney Sweeney for her boxing movie.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And so kind of for the first time in my life since my days of football,

Speaker 2 I should be wearing sleeveless t-shirts, like if

Speaker 2 at any time. And I no longer feel like it because now it feels

Speaker 2 like peacocking.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's because it is. It's saying, check out my dope muscles, everybody.
Right. And I'd rather, I found that it's better to cover them up and have people say, whoa, what's under there?

Speaker 1 Well, I appreciate your modesty and I'll feel your dope muscles later when I give you a hug to say thank you for joining us here on the Judge John Hundred podcast to resolve all of these disputes.

Speaker 1 Here is the book. It is called Little Woodchucks by Nick Offerman, featuring 12 projects for kids and adults.
Offerman Woodshop's Guide to Tools and Tom Foolery, co-written with Lee Buchanan.

Speaker 1 That's right. And then I'm going to see you later this evening at a special screening for

Speaker 1 a new TV show that you're a part of, a historical drama, if you will.

Speaker 2 That's right. It's called Death by Lightning on Netflix.

Speaker 2 And it's the story of James Garfield, his unlikely election and subsequent demise.

Speaker 1 And he really hated Mondays, I hear.

Speaker 2 He did.

Speaker 1 Sorry. I apologize.
Jesse, I'm firing myself from the podcast forever. Maybe you want to read the credits before I go.
Sure. The docket's clear.

Speaker 1 Judge John Hodgman created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman. This episode recorded by Jacob Derwin at Technica House in New York City.
The podcast edited by A.J. McKeon.

Speaker 1 Daniel Spear is our video producer. The show is produced by Jennifer Marmor.
Photos from our program are at instagram.com/slash judgejohnhodgman.

Speaker 1 We're on TikTok and YouTube at JudgeJohnHodgman Pod, where you can visually assess Judge Hodgman's reaction to a photograph of Nick's jackedness and thus infer how jacked Nick is using the power of your eyes.

Speaker 1 Follow and subscribe at JudgeJohnHodgmanPod to see our episodes and our video-only content.

Speaker 2 But, P.S., does your audience know about your calves?

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 John brings it up all the time.

Speaker 2 The judge legitimately has insanely gorgeous. You see his calves, and you're like, Were you an Olympic shot putter previously?

Speaker 1 Only my calves. They're, I mean, hey, I don't know what to say.
It's the only part of my body that looks like marble. They're wild.

Speaker 1 Goodbye. Well, Nick Hofferman, thank you so much.
You are indeed one of my favorite snacks in many ways.

Speaker 1 And we enjoyed some snacks today, but we are still looking for some snack disputes for an all-snacks episode we have coming up. Did you grow up in a cheese nips household?

Speaker 1 How are you adjusting to the real world? Is there a bandmate who brings something stinky on the tour bus that he or she or they like to snack on that you simply can't abide?

Speaker 1 You ever eat kimchi out of a jar at two o'clock in the morning? Try adding some mayonnaise. I don't know what that is.
Why would I know?

Speaker 1 In any case, send us all of your snack-related disputes to maximumfund.org/slash J-J-H-O, or you you can email me directly, hodgman at maximumfund.org.

Speaker 1 But we don't want to just hear snack disputes, right, Jesse? Whatever your case is, send it to us at maximumfund.org slash jho. Big or small, we judges them all.

Speaker 1 We can't make our show without you. So please go to maximumfund.org slash jjho.

Speaker 1 Thank you to the great Nick Offerman. Go buy his book, and we'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Speaker 6 Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artists-owned shows supported directly by you.