Sole Benefishiary

Speaker 1 Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
This week, sole beneficiary,

Speaker 1 Greg brings the case against his wife, Melinda. Greg and Melinda live on a sailing catamaran, but life at sea isn't busy enough for Melinda.

Speaker 2 She says they need a new hobby.

Speaker 1 She wants that hobby to be fishing. Greg thinks it's a bad idea.
He says says fishing is boring and gross. Live aboard sailing involves a lot of upkeep and chores.

Speaker 1 Greg doesn't want to add cleaning fish to that list. Who's right, who's wrong? Only one can decide.
Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

Speaker 2 This day, after we were committed to go around the islands, the fog rolled back in thick.

Speaker 2 Typically, after rounding the second Babson Island, the course back home is a straight line, heading off ninety degrees. But now the breeze was right on the nose.

Speaker 2 I took the lead, told the others to follow close behind. We had to make five tacks to get back, and for each tack, I used the ledges as my guide.
Felt very lucky it was low tide and they were visible.

Speaker 2 Those ledges were like bases on a baseball field, guiding me back home. through these familiar waters.
The other two boats followed me like ducklings, and we found our moorings with no problem.

Speaker 2 Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigants in.

Speaker 1 Please rise and raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you, God, or whatever.

Speaker 2 I do. I do.

Speaker 1 Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he insists on doing that voice?

Speaker 2 I do. I do.

Speaker 1 Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

Speaker 2 The voice insists on itself. Greg and Melinda, you may be seated.
Where are you anyway?

Speaker 2 We are just outside Boston, Massachusetts. Just outside

Speaker 2 Boston, Massachusetts, at the PRX studios. Well, hello.
And those of you watching on YouTube know that Greg and Melinda are already seated.

Speaker 2 So remain seated, if you will. And for an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors, can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I also sat in the courtroom.

Speaker 2 I entered the courtroom, but I was already here, seated. Go ahead, Greg.
You guessed first. Well, I'm not sure.
I'm not sure. You want to hear it again? No, that's okay.
Okay.

Speaker 2 No, please. We're done hearing that voice.

Speaker 2 I'm going to guess it's from one of your Substack readings of Moby Dick.

Speaker 2 I'm not sure which one. So I'm just going to guess my favorite week that I've got from you, which was May 10th, 2024.
Well, you really had this prepared. Scrapple and Scrabble.

Speaker 2 It's one of my favorite one of your Substacks. I'm going to guess that one.
You're referring to hodgman.substack.com, my newsletter, which also has a secret room in it.

Speaker 2 And if you enter the secret room, you get to hear me reading the entirety of the text of the novel, Moby Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville in a terrible main accent, just like the one I used when I entered this courtroom.

Speaker 2 That is correct. And now, Melinda, you have heard Greg's guess.

Speaker 3 My guess.

Speaker 2 What is your guess?

Speaker 3 Was

Speaker 3 Captain Dave Marciano of Wicked Tuna?

Speaker 2 Oh, that's very flattering.

Speaker 2 Wicked Tuna is one of the

Speaker 2 reality show about tuna fishers in Boston, correct? Or

Speaker 2 in Massachusetts. Yes.
I don't watch it.

Speaker 2 It's no Jacob Knowles' YouTube page.

Speaker 2 You guys know who Jacob Knowles is? I don't. No.

Speaker 2 Boy, this guy's blowing up. Fifth Generation Lobsterman.
And YouTuber. Guys, blowing up.

Speaker 2 I was doing my terrible imitation of a main accent, but the person who I was quoting does not have such an accent.

Speaker 2 I was just putting a little extra sea salty sauce on it because I enjoy talking that way.

Speaker 2 And I enjoy how much it annoys my friend Jesse. But that's an affectionate annoyance, I hope.
Indeed. Point is

Speaker 2 that quote was from.

Speaker 2 a short essay called My Biggest Disaster and What It Taught Me by Jane Alfeld. Now,

Speaker 2 Greg, Melinda, you know who Jane Alfeld is? I do not. No.
That was my sailing teacher in Maine. Uh-oh.
Well, really, my wife was a whole human being in her own right, sailing teacher.

Speaker 2 I did not actually get to take the course with Jane, but all I ever heard about when my wife was taking the course, who's a whole human being on her right,

Speaker 2 was Jane, Jane, Jane, and Gretchen, both of them wonderful, wonderful sailors and incredible teachers.

Speaker 2 And I've gotten to know both of them. And I did take the course and I've learned a lot from Jane since.
Actually, I did study directly with Jane because we went out on the Merry Day together.

Speaker 2 But that's a different story. Jane's an incredible sailing teacher.
And

Speaker 2 in summertime life, in regular life, she is a computer programmer and consultant. But every summer, she goes up to our town in coastal Maine to teach at the Wooden Boat School.

Speaker 2 And she's truly one of the most.

Speaker 2 I'm going to say something to you. I hate sailing.
Hate it.

Speaker 2 I learned it out of obligation to the the world that I lived in

Speaker 2 and to my wife, who's a whole human being in her own right, who wanted to learn and I wanted to learn with her.

Speaker 2 And lots of anxiety and one catastrophically destroyed shin later, because sailing is very painful. Things are bobbing up and hitting you in the shins all the time.
Bad news.

Speaker 2 Also, I don't like healing. I don't like feeling like I'm going to go into the ocean.

Speaker 2 But I loved learning sailing from Jane because Jane was so calm, is so calm.

Speaker 2 And I highly recommend that you look into her work on a website called offcenterharbor.com.

Speaker 2 She wrote a couple of short essays about sailing there that are really lovely and that whole website, offcenterharbor.com. If you want to understand

Speaker 2 the world that has

Speaker 2 kidnapped me and turned me into the weirdo that I am today, the guy who's going to fake a main accent for no reason other than my own enjoyment and other things, you should go to offcenderharbor.com.

Speaker 2 Can't recommend it more highly. Essays and videos about boats.
It's just boat. It's just boat stuff.
Hate sailing. I hate sailing, Greg and Melinda.

Speaker 2 But I do like boats. I'm a little bit boat mad.
And I want to hear all about this boat you're living on. Since neither of you got it right, we're going to hear this case.

Speaker 2 Who brings the case to my court? I do. Maritime justice today on Judge John Hodgman.

Speaker 2 I do, says Greg. Greg,

Speaker 2 you and your wife, who's a whole human right, Melinda, live on a sailing catamaran. Is that correct? That's correct.

Speaker 2 And right now you're on land outside of Boston at PRX and outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

Speaker 2 But normally, that's because

Speaker 2 you live at sea. We do.
We rented a car so we could drive up here and be in the studio. Well, do not think we're going to reimburse you for that expense.

Speaker 2 Right. Right now, other than today, you normally don't have to worry about anything on land, which just our two children.

Speaker 2 They're sophomores and seniors in college, which is why we're doing this now again. Yeah, but let's be honest.

Speaker 2 When you're out there in international waters, those kids don't even exist anymore to you, right?

Speaker 2 They can take care of themselves. They're doing well.
Let's be serious. You forgot all about them.

Speaker 2 When you're out there, how far out do you go into the Atlantic?

Speaker 2 We've been across the Atlantic twice. What the heck? Yeah, we've been across the Caribbean twice.
We've been up and down the Caribbean.

Speaker 3 We've circumnavigated the Mediterranean. Mediterranean.

Speaker 2 Went up and down the East Coast now.

Speaker 2 And we're planning on early next year going through the Panama Canal and trying the South Pacific.

Speaker 1 What are you running from?

Speaker 2 Yeah, really.

Speaker 2 Corporate medicine. The political climate.

Speaker 2 Corporate medicine and the political climate are both

Speaker 2 worth fleeing.

Speaker 2 I would advise staying north of Venezuela, however. Yes.
Yes, we will.

Speaker 2 All right. So, first of all, for folks who are listening, I call them landlubbers.

Speaker 2 What is a catamaran?

Speaker 2 A catamaran is a newer type of sailboat, at least in the West, that has two hulls,

Speaker 2 H-U-L-L-S, H-U-L-L-S,

Speaker 2 that are skinnier and more narrow than a regular sailing monoholes

Speaker 2 hole. And then it's connected.

Speaker 2 Yes. And then it's connected by a bridge between the two holes with a with a cabin on top called a saloon.
That's sort of the main living area where your galley and your eating areas,

Speaker 2 your bridge and everything. And then the holes are where the berths, the bedrooms, and the heads, the bathrooms are located.

Speaker 2 So they don't heal, which means means you might like them because now explain what healing is for folks healing is for a model hull just as a single hull there's a weight underneath the main hull that helps balance the ship so when when the winds are blowing hard and the sails are generating a lot of lift the the boat will lean one heals over it's not not even when it's not even when the winds are blowing hard even a little bit yeah it heals over and it can be 20 30 degrees sometimes i mean and it's kind of disconcerting i'm

Speaker 2 And everyone is telling John Hodgman as he white knuckles grips the gunnels, it's not going to go under. I mean, probably.
You're not going to capsize, but it's like, how do you know?

Speaker 2 So a catamaran has the two holes so that when it starts to lean, one hole gets pushed more into the water, which increases the lift. Then the other hole acts as a counterbalance to keep it from.

Speaker 2 So we might heal three or four degrees, even with pretty strong winds.

Speaker 2 and it's and then catamarans are faster than monoholes because we have less hydrodynamic drag because of the smaller holes.

Speaker 2 Because we got to be careful here, Jesse, because before you joined us, I got in on a tail end of a conversation that Greg and Melinda were having with Jennifer Marmor, explaining how cold it's been and how both their holes have been very cold.

Speaker 2 They're like, Yeah, our holes have been like 60 degrees lately. It gets right.

Speaker 2 I'm like, What your hole? The hulls, holes, holes, your holes are cold, Cold hulls over there.

Speaker 2 And so, right, healing means. All right.
So there are going to be some nautical terms and we'll work. Do not be alarmed, listener and viewer at YouTube, Judge John Advanced Pott.

Speaker 2 We'll work through all the maritime vocab as we get through it.

Speaker 2 Okay. And so

Speaker 2 you have lived at sea before, correct? Yes. Yes.

Speaker 2 2015 to 2017, we took our nine and 11-year-old kids with us and sailed to sea.

Speaker 2 And that's when we sailed the Caribbean, went across the Atlantic, the Med, and then crossed back to the Caribbean in those two years. Then they wanted to go to high school on land, which we get.

Speaker 2 So we put them through high school. We moved on to, as

Speaker 2 land gets, we moved to Nebraska and

Speaker 2 got our kids through high school, got them in college. And then now we're back on the sea.

Speaker 2 As soon as you were empty nest, you're like, it was fun sailing. It would be better without kids.
Let's go.

Speaker 2 That is correct. Same boat both times, same model.
Okay, we did sell the boat belts, they require a lot of maintenance when they live on the ocean.

Speaker 2 So, we sold our first boat and then we bought another one recently. And

Speaker 3 the exact same kind of boat, same kind, just a little bit newer, but the same thing.

Speaker 2 Tell me about the exact same what kind of what's the make and model of this nice. Is it a Nissan Sentra? It's a Leopard 48.

Speaker 2 And so, 48 means it's 48 feet long. It's 48 sails.

Speaker 2 It's a sailing catamaran and it is named Jerry. The Intrepid Jerry.
Oh, excuse me. The Intrepid Jerry.
Yes.

Speaker 3 He's very brave.

Speaker 2 And there's only one of him.

Speaker 2 And your previous boat was named The Amazing Marvin. Marvin.

Speaker 2 So if you want to see a picture of it, and Jesse, you can also look at the evidence right here. All of the evidence is available on our show page as well as on our social media.

Speaker 2 Show page is maximumfun.org, of course, and our social media is judgejohnhodgman on Instagram.

Speaker 2 And if you're watching right now, now, you are seeing it right now on our YouTube at judgejohnhodgman pod.

Speaker 2 There's the intrepid Jerry right there. And here's another photo of the aft deck, it looks like to me.

Speaker 3 That's actually the front cockpit. That's the front of the boat.
And not all catamarans have a seating area there.

Speaker 3 Usually it's more angled, and you can't get a nice seating area.

Speaker 3 But that's one of the reasons we bought this particular kind of boat is that you can just sit out there in the evenings and watch your sunset

Speaker 3 when you're at anchor, and it's a really nice area.

Speaker 2 So that's the front of the boat, and

Speaker 2 I called it the back of the boat because I'm an idiot is what you're saying. I don't know, my aft from my four is what you're saying.

Speaker 2 It's an unusual feature, one that we really like in the leopard family. Yeah, normally when you see a sitting area like that,

Speaker 2 it's to the rear of the boat. That's the hangout area.
Correct. Exactly.
Because the front of the boat, the aft, usually it's just one point on a single-hulled boat. Yes.

Speaker 4 You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
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Speaker 2 All right, so we know what a catamaran is. Can you tell me what a, what a sloop is?

Speaker 3 So a sloop is the rig that we have. So

Speaker 3 our kind of set up in terms of how many masts and giant poles sticking out of the boat. And so a sloop is a single masted sailing boat.

Speaker 3 So we have a big 75-foot mast or 75 feet above the water. And then we have a jib or a Genoa, a smaller sail that goes on the front of the boat.

Speaker 1 How do you like the cut of that?

Speaker 2 Is it well cut?

Speaker 3 It's well cut. I call it jibby.

Speaker 2 And a jib would be a staysail, right? Because it's not affixed to a mast, but a line?

Speaker 2 Correct.

Speaker 2 It's a furling jib, so it furls around. Oh, I mean, obviously it's a furling jib.
Yeah, I do remember.

Speaker 1 You don't have to explain to us that it was a furling.

Speaker 2 Everybody says, yeah, I mean, come on. Most people.
It's not a hanked jib. No,

Speaker 2 I'm looking at this right now.

Speaker 2 Which school would say that was a hanked jib. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Only a real dullard would say that was a hanked jib.

Speaker 2 All right. Well, okay.
So thank you very much for allowing me to quiz myself. and revive my trust in my ability to remember things.

Speaker 2 But one thing I remember is that you said that you are rather late in life, sailors. How How did this begin for you?

Speaker 2 This began. So I'm a pilot as well.
I fly just my own small airplanes. So when we were younger, before kids, we flew our small four-seat airplane over to the Bahamas.
It was a

Speaker 2 common place, like the first place to fly out of the country. Well, obviously, whenever I'm flying my four-seat airplane, I'm going to the Bahamas.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's a great place to get a six-seater, but I get it.

Speaker 2 So we flew over to the Bahamas and we met these crazy people that live on their boats. And they let us stay on their boat and took us for a sail and we took them for a flight.
And we

Speaker 2 we had never, we both grew up in the Midwest. So we weren't cognizant of the fact that people lived on sailboats and sailed around.

Speaker 3 And there's toilets on them.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that was. And kitchens.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So we found out about it and that sort of planted a seed.
So the next time we went back, we went our plane.

Speaker 2 We also met with some more cruisers and we decided to charter a catamaran in the Bahamas. We had sailed with my stepfather on his small lake catamaran before.

Speaker 2 So we kind of knew the basics of sailing, but we wanted to see if we could live. Greg, may I interrupt you for a moment? Yes.
I don't want to hear anything about lake catamaraning again. I agreed.

Speaker 2 Thank you. Jesse Thorne gives two thumbs down.

Speaker 2 Lake catamaraning. So we chartered this boat with a skip.
Where do you want to go? The other side of the lake?

Speaker 2 It's usually

Speaker 2 tacking. Usually they just come back to where they left.

Speaker 1 Yeah, let's go to the middle of the lake and then come back.

Speaker 2 Look, look, if you want to be on a lake, and I'm not necessarily talking about a great lake here. I'm just talking about a regular one.
Yeah, just a small lake. You want to be on a lake? That's great.

Speaker 2 Go on either a canoe. or a pontoon party boat.
That's what belongs on a lake. Yes.
Okay, so you met all these, you met all these cruisers.

Speaker 2 You were thinking, and you decided this would be a great time for us to drop out of society with our kids. Well, so my wife is a neurologist and she was pretty burned out.

Speaker 2 And we went on this charter for 10 days and loved it, really had a great time. The kids loved it.
We loved it. So we thought we could do this.

Speaker 2 So we started taking sailing lessons at the American Sailing Association School in Minnesota. We were living in Minnesota at the time.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So Lake Minnetonka.

Speaker 2 I know. I know.
I know. know.

Speaker 2 I know geography. I know what you're sailing on.
Lake Superior is a big lake. We did try to take our advanced monohull and cruising catamaran classes on Lake Superior

Speaker 2 in October when it was 33 degrees. Yeah.
I mean, if you want some cold holes, go to Lake Superior. Yeah.
So many, so many cold holes. So I'm going to get to the case already.
Okay.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 ask you what the topic at hand is fishing. Melinda, you want to go fishing yes greg you hate fishing melinda why do you want to go fishing on your boat

Speaker 3 so um uh on the boat it works best when you live in a small space um in a place that requires a lot of maintenance is that everybody has their own assigned tasks and duties And Greg is far more multi-talented at handling all of the tasks on the boat than I am.

Speaker 3 Like he's more capable of doing the plumbing, the sail planning, the electrical work, fixing all the stuff that breaks. So my role

Speaker 3 has been designated as quartermaster or provisioner. I'm the one that plans the meals, figures out what we have to freeze in the freezer, how often we go to the grocery store.
So I'm kind of

Speaker 3 the

Speaker 3 hunter-gatherer of the couple.

Speaker 2 And the ship's doctor.

Speaker 3 And ship's doctor. That's right.

Speaker 2 Which is mostly.

Speaker 2 You're a neurologist, right? So I presume you have Apple's CAT scan machine on board.

Speaker 3 Exactly. Actually, ship's doctoring ends up being a lot of ear, nose, and throat

Speaker 3 and a lot less neurology. But so

Speaker 3 as the person who is in charge of bringing food onto the boat, fishing is something that a lot of other cruisers do and enjoy.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I feel a little inadequate in my crowd

Speaker 3 not being able to do that.

Speaker 2 What kind of fishing? What kind of fishing are these other cruisers doing that you're trying to keep up with?

Speaker 3 So a lot of them will troll a line behind the boat or have a rod on the back of their boat.

Speaker 3 And so when they're underway offshore, they do deep sea fishing and they hope to catch tunas and mahis and and big ol' fish.

Speaker 2 Yeah, those are, look, I don't know. I'm not a fisher person myself, but the tuna, a big, a tuna is a big fish.

Speaker 3 It can be. So you let those go

Speaker 3 and you bring on this.

Speaker 2 Maybe they let you go. Yes.

Speaker 3 The small to medium size fishes to eat. And I like sushi.
He does not.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 fish would be a nice protein to have because we're planning to go to the Pacific.

Speaker 3 And there's a gajillion islands out there.

Speaker 3 Not all have a big old grocery store on them. And so you have to be a little bit scrappy in finding food.
And if we could provide our own food for ourselves, that would

Speaker 3 be more,

Speaker 3 you know,

Speaker 2 culturally

Speaker 3 acceptable too. Yes, economical and

Speaker 3 more just acceptable. Like we're not coming, you know, from America and going somewhere and taking.

Speaker 3 We're actually being part of the culture.

Speaker 2 That all sounds reasonable to me, Greg. Why don't you want Melinda to be happy?

Speaker 2 I don't know if we have enough time for all the reasons. I don't want her to be happy.

Speaker 2 I just, I grew up in a rural part of Missouri where everyone fishes. My brother is a big fisherman, and I just found it.

Speaker 2 I've always found it tedious and gross, and I don't particularly like eating fish. Tell me more.
I would always bring a book with me when I go fishing. So I would read my book instead of fish.
And

Speaker 2 so I got made fun of a lot.

Speaker 2 What would your kin fish for in the Chumi State? Oh, catfish. Catfish a lot.

Speaker 2 Okay, so that is gross. Those are disgusting fish.
Oh, yeah. I mean, they're bottom feeders.
And

Speaker 2 would they noodle for them? Yes.

Speaker 2 My brother-in-law is a champion catfish noodler. Do you know what catfish noodling is, Jesse?

Speaker 1 That's where you stick your hand in a hole and hope the catfish chomps onto it.

Speaker 2 Is that correct? Well, and then you pull out the catfish and throw it in a bucket and then eat it later.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 No, I left out the bucket part.

Speaker 2 You use your hand and forearm as both bait and pole. Yes.
You shove your hand into a hole, and I mean hole here, not hull,

Speaker 2 into a cold hole and hope that a cat or maybe a maybe a maybe a probably a warm hole

Speaker 2 it's definitely dark

Speaker 2 like a mouth temperature hole and then get a mouth on your ugh

Speaker 2 yeah but that's not what melinda wants to do melinda wants to be out on the open sea yeah fishing fishing for leaping beautiful sparkling

Speaker 2 marlins and such that's heroic

Speaker 2 and and expensive it's not like you're noodling weird cousins in missouri this is this is ocean stuff here. Good stuff, heroic stuff.
This is glamour and river stuff. Glamour fishing.

Speaker 2 Which one might argue is much more difficult than sticking your hand in a hole and pulling up a fish. What do you mean?

Speaker 2 Deep sea fishing to me seems more like the grad school of fishing. Like you would start on a pond or a lake getting small fish.

Speaker 2 And then once you're good at that, you could go up and start doing it on. You're saying Melinda isn't strong enough to haul up an ocean-going fish herself? That's a a big part of it because.

Speaker 2 And you don't want to help.

Speaker 3 He doesn't want to help.

Speaker 3 He doesn't want to help.

Speaker 2 Melinda could do whatever hobbies she wants to do. She can learn

Speaker 2 whatever she wants, but

Speaker 2 except for this one, because she can't do this one by herself. These are big fish.
So these are fish that I would have to haul up on deck and beat to death.

Speaker 2 No, you don't have to beat to death.

Speaker 3 You, you, you, Iwajima it or whatever it's called.

Speaker 2 You don't have to. I would like to know

Speaker 2 small scale nuclear weapons

Speaker 3 it's it's it's uh ikajima okay it's it's a way that you just take an all

Speaker 3 and you poke it through its brain okay very little guts come out i don't want to do that either and then the the fish immediately seizes up and it relaxes all its muscles so that the meat is nice and tender and then you take a long wire and you you punch it through through its spinal cord

Speaker 2 to

Speaker 3 paralyze it more

Speaker 3 to keep the meat tender

Speaker 3 before you bleed it out.

Speaker 2 Please continue.

Speaker 3 And before you bleed it out,

Speaker 2 this is a family pot. Well, it's a family tolerant podcast.

Speaker 2 But I'm going to need to talk about some grown-up stuff right now.

Speaker 2 Greg, why don't you want to have sex with your wife right now in the studio? Because this is incredible.

Speaker 1 See, I just don't, that does not sound fun to me.

Speaker 2 I don't want to stick an awl in a fish's brain. And I don't want to.
Well, it doesn't sound like you have to. It sounds like Melinda's ready to do it right now.

Speaker 3 Yeah, see, I would do this part.

Speaker 2 I know the anatomy. I got a GMA method.
Ika Gime method is indeed, as Melinda describes.

Speaker 2 Dispatching fish involves inserting a spike into the brain to cause immediate death, rupturing the spinal cord with a wire, shilling the fish immediately to maintain high quality, and prevents stress-induced hormone release and muscle contractions, thus leading to improved flavor, texture, and a significantly longer shelf life.

Speaker 2 In case you want to sell your fish. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, honestly, Greg, this sounds pretty good, even if you just develop sea enemies of any kind.

Speaker 2 Not to be confused with sea enemies. Talking about sea enemies.
You have a wife that really nose her way around a long wire through the spinal cord. Yeah, for sure.
Right.

Speaker 2 That's another thing is when we're out in the ocean, then we do scuba dive as well.

Speaker 2 I kind of have a relationship with the ocean where I don't take anything from it and it doesn't take anything from me. And that's worked out for me so far.

Speaker 2 Except your leavings.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, what are you doing with your

Speaker 2 head? Not the top of your body. I'm talking about

Speaker 2 the toilet. That's how things are going on there.
poop deck.

Speaker 2 Jesse's got the

Speaker 3 nitrogen

Speaker 3 and urea to the ocean.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we're contributing fertilizer to the ocean. Well, so you are if you are killing a fish and then filleting it and throwing the guts back.
That's going to feed fish.

Speaker 3 It's the natural cycle.

Speaker 2 And I want to explore with you for a moment: what about fishing when you were growing up? Was particularly gross to you? I mean, just all, I don't like eating fish.

Speaker 2 I like some white fish, like a halibut or a mai mai, but like a catfish or a trout or a bass, it's just the whole thing's gross. Lake scales lake fish, lake fish, halibut, ocean fish, good fish.

Speaker 2 And lionfish is pretty good. And I have fished lionfish in the past when because they're an invasive species and I don't mind with a spear.

Speaker 3 He poked it with a spear and then I made tacos out of it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't mind that. So, you know, like your whole whole argument that this is too gross to handle it doesn't seem like that's if i may say in this nautical themed case holding water because you

Speaker 2 you you you you don't mind fishing when it is at on your terms and it's not so gross that you won't do it so lion fishing is is different because the lionfish you have a spear the spear goes out spears into lionfish and then you take the spear and you shove the lionfish inside of a pvc pipe and then you pull the spear back out so the fish stay inside the pipe and then i give the pipe to melinda and she cleans the fish and cooks it we're talking about a lion fish like a lionfish yeah with a spikes highly decorative and spikes and everything aquarium yep that's why isn't that what captain picard had in his ready room on the uss enterprise yes yes A lionfish.

Speaker 2 You want to eat Captain Picard's fish and you're cool with that, but you want to eat a tuna that your wife catches and spikes? Hold on, John.

Speaker 1 He's cool with shoving it in a tube. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Right. That's as far as it goes.

Speaker 2 After that, I don't know what happens. It goes in a tube.

Speaker 1 A psychopath would go past tube shoving.

Speaker 2 Are you a, when you say you're a neurologist, have you done brain surgery?

Speaker 3 No, myself, no.

Speaker 3 I do the medical part of the brain medicine.

Speaker 2 But clearly, the idea of stabbing a fish in the brain and then running a wire through

Speaker 2 its

Speaker 2 vertebrae does not gross you out. You're okay with that muck.

Speaker 3 I call up the same things I called up when I was learning medicine in medical school and dissecting cadavers.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 3 I am primarily grossed out by it, but I get over it because I know there's a goal to be attained by getting through it.

Speaker 2 You say you call up the same skill that you called up when you had to dissect cadavers so what is the what's your technique for getting over

Speaker 3 nausea and aversion and gross out uh thinking about how good the food will taste but i didn't think about that with human beings

Speaker 2 okay

Speaker 2 with human beings that was a very important correction at the last minute there i like that because uh muscle does look a little bit like roast beef but do you think that melinda can't learn how to fish i'm certain she could learn how to fish.

Speaker 2 You want to get back on a boat with this guy?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 3 I mean, this is part of why we're doing this now in the empty nester is

Speaker 3 being a doctor takes a lot of training, takes a lot of skill.

Speaker 3 And I was getting kind of stuck in a rut. And as I'm aging, I'm wondering, can I learn anything else?

Speaker 3 Am I capable of doing something new and different and cool? And so, being on the boat, you have to call up and learn all these new skills and all these new vocabulary words.

Speaker 3 And fishing is something, a skill that I could learn as somebody who really doesn't know how the world works at all, except for the human body.

Speaker 3 It would be a practical skill that I could have.

Speaker 1 Greg, what are the expenses involved?

Speaker 2 So, I'm not the best person to ask about this, but I did go on a major sports retailing website and I put together a list of two rods and reels, lures, all the things that it looked like you would need, including a fish bat to beat them to death.

Speaker 2 You're not going to use the fish bat, Greg. I mean, you can eat the wire and the ice pick.
All right. And then a gaff.
A gaff is just a big hook that you use to hook in the fish to pull them on board.

Speaker 2 You're telling me you don't already have a gaff on your bag? I don't have a gaff. No.
No, I don't have a gaff. Well, that's just an oversight on your your part, but go on.

Speaker 3 You have to have a gaff to keep the orcas away anyway.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's not a bad idea.

Speaker 1 But it was about $2,000 at the end of the day.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 that's my best guess in terms of what it would cost. And for $2,000, I mean, MREs are about $50 for a dozen.

Speaker 2 So I could buy, you know, four and a half months of MREs for that much money if we ate them three times a day every day.

Speaker 2 Oh my God. God.
What kind of thing? It's a lot of money. I am not getting back.
Feel your argument breaking down as it comes out of your mouth. Well,

Speaker 2 we would never buy that many, but that's a lot of money to spend on an alternate food source when we could just use that money to buy food or to buy

Speaker 2 rations as a backup. But I mean, I'm going back to that parable.
You give a man a fish he eats for a day. You teach man a fish.
He fishes for a lifetime. The point is,

Speaker 2 and woman too, and non-binary people, et cetera, sorry to be gendered there in the parable department.

Speaker 2 But the point is that, like, if you, if someone learns a skill and invests in the tool, that is a skill that will service them in a sustainable way for a lifetime, or at least for the lifetime of those.

Speaker 2 I mean, I understand that you would have probably a century's worth of MREs if you put enough money into it, but that is not a sustainable, I mean, literally it's plastic and freeze-dried food.

Speaker 2 I'm not sure it's not a quality of life that I would want. And it's also developing a lot of waste.
Well, that's primarily a backup. I mean,

Speaker 2 my original plan is still to buy food from the people who fish on the islands if we want to buy fish.

Speaker 3 But there's no skills required to do that, to buy food from people on the island or make an MRE.

Speaker 3 There's skill in the fish, and that's partly why it tastes so good, is because you made it yourself, like growing your own vegetables, killing your own meat.

Speaker 3 There's some satisfaction that you get from that that I don't have a lot of outlets for on the boat because I'm not skilled at fixing all the things that are broken.

Speaker 2 Well, you're welcome to fish all you want to on the boat. I just, you need me to help get the fish on board.
Well, now, wait a minute. There is another crew member on board that we haven't discussed.

Speaker 2 There is a third crew member. She's not very useful.
This is exhibit B.

Speaker 2 She's Penelope, the morale officer, who happens to be a cat. Yes.

Speaker 2 If you scroll down, Jesse, you can see a photo of Penelope, the morale officer, keeping morale alive.

Speaker 2 Do you agree with Greg's premise that you would need his help to land the fish and spike it?

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 I would need his help if it was really big, but if it's going to be the kind of fish that I would select to bring on board a medium or small one probably not what the help would come from like why he would feel compelled to help me is I am clumsy

Speaker 2 and falling off the boat just what I've always wanted a clumsy neurologist exactly

Speaker 2 just

Speaker 3 he's not a virgin I walk around people with a hammer and you never know where it's going to go but um uh he would probably if I'm fishing I'm sure he's going to be hovering, making sure I don't fall off the boat because you have to be on the very back of the boat.

Speaker 3 It's called the transom, where one step back, you'd be in the drink. So

Speaker 3 being there to help me. And if the fish got away from me, like preventing me from just following it

Speaker 2 into the ocean.

Speaker 2 I'm no deep sea fisher person, but I've seen Jaws.

Speaker 2 And I remember that on the back of his boat the orca he had a special a special fishing chair where you strap yourself in ah we do not have that no we don't have that but we could get it think about how many mres they could buy with strap chairs oh my gosh strap chair strap chair would buy a lot of mres

Speaker 2 how has it been like living together on a boat again after some years on land

Speaker 2 there's definitely a period of adaptation there's the first time we went out we had we did this after melinda went through medical school, residency, fellowship, and then having kids to where, and then working her first job.

Speaker 2 So I would see quality awake Melinda maybe six hours a week

Speaker 2 while that was going on. And then when she burned out and we decided to go on our first sale, all of a sudden I was with Melinda 24-7,

Speaker 2 no farther away than 30 feet. And that.
That was tough on both of us. Not just me.

Speaker 2 That's just hard when you go from living parallel, but still attached lives to just being completely around each other all the time.

Speaker 2 Parallel but still attached is a pretty good

Speaker 2 definition of a catamaran.

Speaker 2 Yeah, actually, it is.

Speaker 2 It's a perfect one. Have you tried sleeping in separate hulls?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Why are you bothering with this kitchen and everything?

Speaker 1 Why not just have a reflecting pool?

Speaker 2 Exactly. The world is, if you're in a catamaran, you have two separate bedrooms and the world is your reflecting It's so true.
Melinda, tell me about the transition from your point of view.

Speaker 3 It was difficult

Speaker 3 because not only was I spending a lot of time with my husband, whom, you know, I love and I admire a lot of his qualities, but

Speaker 3 all the little

Speaker 3 daily life things, the trivialities

Speaker 3 can add up when you're just six feet away from somebody. And so, so it was difficult

Speaker 3 just having him watch me do something every hour and having an opinion about what I was doing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, this isn't the first time that you have mentioned Greg's hovering. Hovering.
Yes.

Speaker 2 When Melinda works, I'm the primary caregiver for the kids. So I make most of the time.
Not anymore. Not anymore.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 2 And so I had, you know, the kitchen was sort of my area. Melinda would cook on the weekends, but I would cook during the week.
So it's been tough to give that up.

Speaker 2 We've kind of switched roles when we did that. And so that it is, it's just hard.
There's, it happens a lot where a couple will buy a boat and they'll sail off.

Speaker 2 And then six months later, the boat will be at anchor in a foreign country and there'll be two flights home to different cities.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's, it's living on a boat with someone will fracture a relationship or strengthen it.

Speaker 2 And we were, I mean, ours has certainly been strengthened, which has been nice, but it is, there's a period where it is an adjustment.

Speaker 3 And part of the difficulty also is your relationship has to change a little bit because you are on a boat and you do have designations, duties on that boat.

Speaker 3 It's like your work is your home because he's the captain. I'm first mate.

Speaker 3 Sometimes things are happening very quickly on the boat. And, you know, he's like, you know, take down the

Speaker 3 main or whatever and flake the halyard and doing all this stuff. And I'm just supposed to, as first mate, it works best.
Okay, I'll go do that.

Speaker 3 Not argue or should we, should we not flake the halyard just yet? Maybe we need to do this, like have a discussion like you would with your spouse. I just have to say, yes, sir, and go do that.

Speaker 2 Look, I mean, when you, this is something that I learned very much from Jane and Gretchen in sailing is that like,

Speaker 2 There is a reason that everything has a very specific name, even if it's a silly sounding name, like like

Speaker 2 mainsaw mizzen mast whatever halyard the reef the thing and flake the dub

Speaker 2 yes the reason for it is that you don't want there to be any confusion about what's happening because yeah things could go wrong very quickly

Speaker 2 you know like so you need very specific terminology so that everyone knows even though it's a little bit hard to learn it's not like You don't want to be say, no, I meant that rope for you to pull, not this rope.

Speaker 2 Halyard is a single, does a single job, which which is to rain raise the mainsail correct correct yes i got it right again okay good very good

Speaker 2 and similarly there is a reason to really divide chores or or or work requirements on a boat because people need to focus on their own department and not be sort of litigating every decision because things have to happen swiftly and securely as you go forward, right?

Speaker 2 It's like it's dangerous out there. It can be.
Yes.

Speaker 2 So what I but what I keep hearing is that like, okay, so now you're in a new phase of your life where you're on the boat together and Greg gets to be the captain who tells you to flake the halyard and you say, yes, sir.

Speaker 2 And you, your job, your department, as it were, as they would say on below deck, is, you know, galley. And that Greg isn't letting you do your job without hovering over you and commenting on it.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 2 Which I appreciate is probably hard for you, Greg, because you used to run the galley in your land home. I have, and I'm happy to give it up to her.
I think I've been better this time out. Are you?

Speaker 2 Yes, yes, I am. I'm happy to give it up.
Melinda, it says here

Speaker 2 in your petition that you need a sphere that you are in charge of.

Speaker 2 Tell me more about that.

Speaker 3 Well, as a doctor,

Speaker 3 I

Speaker 2 highly trained professional.

Speaker 3 Highly trained professional. I was in a hard time.
Clumsy.

Speaker 2 Clumsy.

Speaker 2 But highly trained professional.

Speaker 3 My people are like that, though. Neurologists are a bit of a clumsy group.

Speaker 2 Not reassuring to hear.

Speaker 3 But not neurosurgeons.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's different.

Speaker 3 I refer to them to go do the coordinated stuff. Okay.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 so as a doctor, I was in a very strong hierarchy and I was in charge. I had people answering to me, nurses.
I was an associate professor. I taught medical students.

Speaker 3 And so I had a very nice nice

Speaker 3 set of

Speaker 3 things that I had power to control and change. On the boat,

Speaker 3 because I am the least skilled worker, let's just say in the boat world, I don't have

Speaker 3 something that I can make my own

Speaker 3 and develop my skills there without any feedback.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 3 And I just, I'm missing that kind of,

Speaker 3 I don't want to say power, but I'm missing that role for me in the world.

Speaker 1 You want to have like a

Speaker 1 just some sort of space where you can drive a spike through something.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 3 Exactly. Localize the brain.

Speaker 2 Melissa,

Speaker 2 you mentioned over and over again that like this would be a great way for you guys to eat food sustainably. I mean, except for the fact that Greg doesn't want to eat your stinky's stinky's fish.

Speaker 2 I know. He's sushi.

Speaker 2 But that's set that aside. Is this something you really need or do you or something you really want?

Speaker 3 It's more of a want.

Speaker 2 Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because do you have any other hobbies in this new chapter of your life?

Speaker 3 Um, uh, I have some, some hobbies, uh, some writing hobbies.

Speaker 2 And uh, I'm just saying, you know, you're at sea. Scrimshaw is right there if you're

Speaker 2 waiting for you.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm supposed to be painting at some point, learning how to paint. And there are some other hobbies that I could get involved with.

Speaker 3 We have a giant sewing machine on our boat that is ready to be deployed if our sail rips. And in the past, I made courtesy flags.

Speaker 3 So the flags of the countries that we're visiting, I made them myself with a sewing machine. So I could get into sewing again.

Speaker 2 And what's so you mentioned these hobbies, but you're kind of like, I should start painting. And I did some sewing, but none of them seem to have really caught on with you.
Correct. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Lynn has started quite a few hobbies with a lot of enthusiasm, but most of them peter out pretty quickly. I'm a little worried that this might be one of them.

Speaker 2 And then we've got a bunch of smelly fishing equipment on board that we don't know what to do with.

Speaker 2 Is there a way to start this hobby out without

Speaker 3 the two thousand dollar investment that greg thinks is necessary there is actually there are kits that are two hundred dollars where you just get a fishing line and a lure and a bungee cord and you just strap it to your boat and and drag it behind the boat and pull the fish in that way you don't have to get a rod and a reel and all of the fancy stuff And this is this is rated for the kind of fishing that you hope to do in the middle of the Pacific?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Okay. A lot of cruisers do it.

Speaker 2 What would be wrong with something starting out small like that, Greg?

Speaker 2 I mean, it leads back to the same problem. If it's a big fish, I got to bring it in and hold it while she kills it.

Speaker 2 And I don't know of the efficacy of these types of things. I mean, well, there's no, I guess there's no way to find out.
Certainly not by trying.

Speaker 1 Look, a lot of cruisers do it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, a lot of cruisers do it, Greg.

Speaker 2 You want to be part of this lifestyle or not?

Speaker 2 I have seen no evidence that cruisers do this.

Speaker 3 We bought fish from other cruisers.

Speaker 2 Someone's doing it. Otherwise,

Speaker 2 where are you going to get the fish?

Speaker 2 I would suggest, if she does want to try it, I would suggest something that's more of a local

Speaker 2 fish where we are.

Speaker 2 So if we get to an atoll, you can take a kid out in a small boat, in the dinghy, or off of the boat, off of our boat, and fish off of the boat and then catch fish there and see once the boat has already stopped.

Speaker 2 Yes, once we are where we are, and we could go out even just for the day and

Speaker 2 heave to, and she could fish off the side. Then that would be fine, too.
What is this? We, though, this isn't something that she wants to do with you.

Speaker 2 This is something she wants to do on her own, right, Melinda?

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 3 our boat is too big to sail single-handed.

Speaker 3 You need two people on board at all times. So, if we were going to use our Jerry, the intrepid Jerry, to do this,

Speaker 3 and it's best to catch fish by having the lure move through the water. So you'd want to be sailing.
If we're going to use it, he needs to be there and participating

Speaker 2 with me.

Speaker 1 But here's the thing, Judge Hodgman, and something that you may have missed.

Speaker 1 He doesn't want to stop the boat. Stopping the boat is fine.
He's glad to stop the boat, but he doesn't want to stop the boat. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 Stopping the boat is fine, but he doesn't want to stop the boat.

Speaker 1 He's not going to stop the boat, but it would be fine to stop the boat, but he's not going to. He's not going anywhere, but he's not going to do it.
He's not going to stop the boat.

Speaker 2 I think what Greg is suggesting is that when you pull into an anchorage and you pick up a mooring or you anchor or whatever and you're down for the night, then maybe Melinda can get up early in the morning and fish off the side of the boat when you're already stopped because of necessity.

Speaker 2 When we are at a place. Yes.
Or she could, or take the dinghy out and fish off the dinghy.

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 3 the stopping the boat and fishing would require a rod and reel.

Speaker 2 Correct. Yeah.
Melinda, do you think it's possible? The kind of fishing you want to do is off the, off, over the transom, off the

Speaker 2 aft of the boat. Yeah.

Speaker 2 While it is in motion. Yes.

Speaker 2 Trolling, which means you're just connecting a line that floats behind you. You're not standing there with a fishing pole.
Correct.

Speaker 2 It's, it's, the line is connected it it's it's trolling behind you fish will either get it or it won't right and at a certain point if you if you've hooked some fish you want to pull them in yes but how do you pull them in uh you wear gloves and and if the boat's not not going 12 knots you can just pull it in when it's time to pull when it's time to pull the fish

Speaker 2 uh greg would have to stop we would have to heave two yeah you would have to heave two

Speaker 2 and then you would pull them in do you feel that you could do the kind of fishing that you want to do without Greg ever?

Speaker 2 He said that he would stop the boat, but without having Greg's aid in landing and spiking the fish.

Speaker 3 I would have to

Speaker 3 test that out and practice first.

Speaker 2 All right. I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

Speaker 2 I'm going to go below decks and into my private captain's cabin where I will contemplate my decision and I'll be back in a moment with my verdict. Ahoy hoy.

Speaker 1 Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Speaker 1 Melinda, how are you feeling about your chances in the case right now?

Speaker 3 I'm feeling very good.

Speaker 3 Surprising to me, because I thought I would totally lose this one.

Speaker 1 Greg, how are you feeling?

Speaker 2 Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 2 Melinda can learn whatever she wants to, and she can do whatever hobbies she wants to, but it's, it's, I think it's reasonable for her to at least try this and for me me to, you know, give it a shot.

Speaker 2 But I don't know how it's going to go at this point.

Speaker 1 Melinda, is it possible that I don't know much about this cruising lifestyle that you guys are involved in, but do you think you could get like a temporary shore husband to haul in

Speaker 2 the bigger fish? Is that part of it? I'm sure she could.

Speaker 3 I could get on the VHF.

Speaker 2 It gets cold in those hulls.

Speaker 3 I could get on the radio and ask for a fisherman to come on the boat.

Speaker 2 She'd have a dozen there in 10 minutes.

Speaker 3 I would. That's a great idea.

Speaker 1 Well, we'll see what Judge Hoshman has to say about all this when we come back in just a second.

Speaker 6 Wonderful is a podcast where we talk about things we like.

Speaker 6 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.

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Speaker 7 No, they actually did. That was in fact a film.

Speaker 6 Listen to Wonderful every Wednesday on maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks, Real Billy Joel.

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Speaker 1 Judge John Hodgman, we are about to go on some thrilling adventures on the road.

Speaker 2 Separately, not together, but you're headed to London, England. That's right, Jesse.

Speaker 2 I'm as surprised as pretty much anyone to be joining my friends at the Thrilling Adventure Hour and your friends at their big two shows, November 1st at the Leicester Square Theater in London, England.

Speaker 2 They just asked me if I could run over there with them and I'm so happy to join them. We're talking about Paul F.

Speaker 2 Tompkins, Mark Evan Jackson, Mark Gagliarti, all your friends and favorites from the Thrilling Adventure celebrating their 20th anniversary. up there in London, England.

Speaker 2 I wish that I was traveling across the Irish Sea with my friend Jesse Thorne. Like the last time I went to the UK, maybe that will happen in the future.

Speaker 2 But in the meantime, there are only a few tickets left for the late show and a waiting list for the early show. I hope that you can join us.
Go to thrillingadventure.live for tickets.

Speaker 2 That's thrillingadventure.live for those last few tickets. And if you're a Judge John Hodgman fan in London, please let me know at hodgman at maximumfund.org.

Speaker 2 It'll be great to connect with some fans while I'm over there.

Speaker 1 You know what, John? You know what I have to say to 20th anniversaries?

Speaker 1 Because I'm having my 25th anniversary, baby.

Speaker 1 That's 25% more anniversary.

Speaker 1 Bullseye is having its 25th anniversary, my public radio program, Bullseye with Jesse Thorne, which I started as a 19-year-old at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Speaker 1 And to Santa Cruz, shall I return on November 1st?

Speaker 1 I will be at the Kumbua Jazz Center in Santa Cruz, California for the Bullseye 25th anniversary spectacular. I will have Santa Cruz's own, Mr.
Adam Scott.

Speaker 1 I will have Boots Riley, the legendary legendary rapper and filmmaker, our friend stand-up comedians Scott Simpson and Glenn Washington from Snap Judgment on public radio.

Speaker 1 And beyond all that, I will also have Santa Cruz's greatest rock band of all time, The Merman. You can also come see Bullseye at the People's Improv Theater in New York City on November 15th.

Speaker 1 That show will have Jad Abamrod, H. John Benjamin, Kristen Anderson Lopez, and Bobby Lopez, and stand-up comedy from Josh Gondelman.

Speaker 1 You can get tickets for all of those shows at maximumfun.org slash events. And by the way, John, if you have a podcast that people listen to,

Speaker 1 this is the arbitrary line that I'm drawing. It's 100 reviews in Apple podcasts.
If you have 100 reviews in Apple Podcasts, that signifies to me that you have a podcast people listen to.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 I'll go on your podcast. I cleared out a bunch of time to talk about the 25th anniversary of Bullseye Go on People's Podcasts.

Speaker 1 Drop us a line at hodgman at maximumfund.org. We'll connect you with my publicist, Emily.

Speaker 1 Look, if you're just looking for Emily Erskine's, the name of my publicist, you can drop her a line directly.

Speaker 2 Well, you could, or why not send me an email first?

Speaker 1 I'll go on your freaking podcast. Look, it's the only email.
It's the only public email address.

Speaker 2 Hodgman at maximumfund.org. No.

Speaker 2 If you got a podcast, you got 100 reviews on Apple, Jess Thorne's going to go on your podcast, talk about the 25th anniversary of Bullseye. You're going to enjoy talking to him.

Speaker 2 Send an email to me at hodgman at maximumfun.org. I will forward that email to the appropriate parties and get that booking done.

Speaker 2 Two big shows on November 1st on opposite sides, more or less, of the world. Santa Cruz for the 25th anniversary of Bullseye.

Speaker 2 London for the 20th anniversary of Thrilling Adventure Hour.

Speaker 2 See one. You can't see both of us, but please choose to see one of us.

Speaker 2 And if you want to see both of us, I'll be there at the People's Improv Theater in New York City on November 15th, sitting in the back row.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there's a John Hodgman on that guest list.

Speaker 2 Maximumfund.org/slash events for your tickets to Bullseye. And of course, thrillingadventure.live for your tickets to thrilling adventure.

Speaker 2 Let's get back to the case, shall we?

Speaker 1 Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

Speaker 2 You may be seated. So

Speaker 2 when we were learning sailing in Maine, it was at the wooden boat school where weird older men go to learn how to build canoes because they've wanted to do it their whole lives.

Speaker 2 But they also had these sailing classes. And the sailing classes were often mostly populated by the wives and partners.
of these old guys who had made this pilgrimage to build a wooden boat.

Speaker 2 And that's how my wife is a whole human owner,

Speaker 2 took elements of sale for women parts one and two with Jane and Gretchen.

Speaker 2 And even when I took the class, which was a co-educational class, there were quite a few spouses, female spouses in this case.

Speaker 2 And we realized in thinking it over and talking about it, is that

Speaker 2 these women who are often older, and there weren't always women spouses too, but these partners who are often older were taking the sailing class because they realized that they were sailing around a lot with their partners, just like you two are later in life, a second chapter in life, maybe third chapter in life.

Speaker 2 And that as they get older, usually one person takes over the role of captain and knows how to run the ship.

Speaker 2 And then this other person doesn't necessarily.

Speaker 2 And then one day they wake up in their stateroom or whatever, and they realize, oh, if my my partner keels over and dies, I better know how to run this ship.

Speaker 2 And so they come and they take sailing lessons.

Speaker 2 The other thing that they might be thinking about is

Speaker 2 now that I live at sea much of the time with my partner, I want to murder that person. And if I do, I better know how to run the ship.

Speaker 2 Because it's very, very challenging.

Speaker 2 This is part of the reason why sailing is no longer something that my wife is a whole human in her own right and I do, at least not together, which is that it is very hard to avoid conflict

Speaker 2 when you are a married or otherwise devoted couple who have suddenly taken to sea. It's very romantic.
It's very beautiful. You had an extremely wonderful experience

Speaker 2 with your children or your tweens when they're on board. But then you had some very, very defined parental roles.

Speaker 2 that kept you so occupied that you didn't have to stop and think about how it's challenging for a married or otherwise committed couple who have developed, who are both whole human beings in their own right, who are adults with responsibility, to suddenly have one person giving the other person orders.

Speaker 2 It's really hard. It's really challenging both to let go of your ego and allow yourself to be bossed around, because after all, who is Greg to boss Melinda around? Or vice versa for that matter?

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 Greg, you used to be the guy who ran the galley your, for your household

Speaker 2 when, uh, when Melinda was working much more than she is now. And I bet you did a great job.

Speaker 2 And seeding that role in this new two-handed job that you have of moving this catamaran around the world, I'm sure is challenging for you that you want to sort of, you know, hover is the term that Melinda used for certain tasks that she undertakes.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 similarly, Melinda, I really very much feel

Speaker 2 your need to find some sphere in which you have the full authority to stab something in the head.

Speaker 2 And I think that defining those roles, no matter how deeply Melinda gets into fishing, is going to be really important

Speaker 2 as you continue your journey.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 one of the things we don't want is for Melinda to get so deeply into fishing that she then goes deeply into the ocean as a 9,000-pound orca pulls her down or whatever.

Speaker 2 So safety first and foremost, right?

Speaker 2 But I mean, I do feel like if you're going to be the captain of this boat and Melinda is going to be in charge of provisioning and Melinda wants to do some fishing, I see that that falls into her department, Greg, not your department.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 keeping part of being on a boat is dividing responsibility and respecting those divisions.

Speaker 2 I mean, obviously, a captain is,

Speaker 2 I mean, look, no one, when you fill out your tax return, you, you don't say like boat captain as your primary occupation, right? You're not getting paid to boat captain. Nobody pays me to do this.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you're getting, you're getting paid to do whatever you're doing with acoustical equipment or whatever. You know what I mean? But still.

Speaker 2 If the way you divide the work on the boat is that you are going to make the boat go and you have the responsibility to tell Melinda to flake the halyard and Melinda's department is to, is to make you go and her too by feeding you and provisioning properly, then this falls within her department.

Speaker 2 But I think that, you know, Melinda has said that she would be willing to start

Speaker 2 small with a smaller investment of money than you think is necessary.

Speaker 2 And to start by trolling and to experiment. And I think there's no, there's nothing wrong with that.
So long as you, I mean, the number one rule of being on a boat, right, is don't go in the water.

Speaker 2 So I would say, yeah, Melinda, you should,

Speaker 2 you should start small. But of course, being in charge of your own department means not letting your department's problems become shipwide problems.

Speaker 2 I've watched enough of Below Deck to know that at least.

Speaker 2 You know, I think that you need to respect. the boundary and the departmental difference that Greg wants nothing to do with your fish.
Nothing.

Speaker 2 Doesn't want to see it until it is a filet presented to him. And that's part of your job, I think, to find out a way to do that because Greg has a squeamishness,

Speaker 2 a dislike,

Speaker 2 a generational trauma around fishing. He does not want to spike the head of any fish.
He does not want to run a wire through any spines.

Speaker 2 It needs to be something that you can do and do

Speaker 2 on your own. Anyway, Melinda, you're going to go fishing.
This is the sound of of a gavel.

Speaker 2 What are you doing on this boat?

Speaker 1 We're going fishing.

Speaker 2 Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Speaker 1 Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Greg, how are you feeling about these fish tacos you're going to be eating?

Speaker 2 Oh, man.

Speaker 2 You know, as long as I don't have to be a part of it,

Speaker 2 I am happy with whatever

Speaker 2 Melinda makes and cooks.

Speaker 1 Melinda, how do you feel about your husband having wiped his hands with this decision?

Speaker 3 I think that was a good judgment.

Speaker 3 I accept the challenge of doing it only if I can

Speaker 3 do the whole thing myself. I can use technology to

Speaker 3 help me

Speaker 3 get accomplished things like lifting the fish out. I can use a winch.
on the line.

Speaker 3 I can figure it out.

Speaker 3 I think that it's going to be

Speaker 3 exciting.

Speaker 1 Greg Melinda, thanks so much for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Speaker 2 We had a great time. A wonderful time.
Thank you for having us. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books. We'll have Swift Justice in just a second.
Our thanks to Redditor Acon419 for naming this week's episode Soul Beneficiary.

Speaker 2 Because Soul is a fish, too. Soul is a fish.
It's S-O-L-E.

Speaker 1 I tried to pronounce it S-O-L-E. I don't know if it read.

Speaker 1 The maximum fun subreddit is where we name the episodes reddit.com slash r slash maximum fun.

Speaker 2 Rolls right off the tongue.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we look for our title suggestions there too. So keep an eye out for those.
Evidence and photos from the show posted on our Instagram account at instagram.com slash judgejohnhodgman.

Speaker 1 We're also on TikTok and YouTube at judgejohnhodgman pod.

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

Speaker 2 Speaking of video, our YouTube comment of the week comes to us from user at JSW92009.

Speaker 2 Pertaining to our episode Pro Beta Max Court, featuring guest bailiff Monty Belmonte offering a truly epic string of puns and obscure references in his intro.

Speaker 2 JSW92009 writes, quote, as someone who has no native sense of humor and only steals pop culture and movie references, Monty's intro completed me. Unquote.

Speaker 2 First of all, I'm sure you do have a native sense of humor. JSW92009.
And thank you for that wonderful YouTube comment.

Speaker 2 Guess Paleovo if Monty Belmonte really outdid himself with his punny introduction in that particular episode.

Speaker 2 And if you want to see my face as I have to listen to all these puns, make sure to watch the episode on our YouTube channel, JudgeJohn Hodgman Pod, and make sure to subscribe to our channel and tap the bell.

Speaker 2 So you get notifications when we post a new video, which reminds me of an old sea shanty. Jesse, you know this one.
Tap the the bell, second mate, let us go below.

Speaker 2 Look off to windward, you can see it's gonna blow. Look at the glass, you can see that it is fell.
We wish that you would hurry up and tap. Tap the bell.

Speaker 2 The end of song.

Speaker 1 Judge John Hodgman was created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman. This episode engineered by Chris Kalafarski at the PRX Podcast Garage in Boston, Massachusetts.
The podcast is edited by A.J. McKeon.

Speaker 1 Our video editor is Daniel Spear. Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Speaker 1 If you're watching on video, you might have noticed I am not wearing my bailiff uniform and I am appearing from my home shed in Los Angeles, California. That's because Maximum Fun is moving, John.

Speaker 1 Did you know that?

Speaker 2 I did not know that. I mean, I did know that, but I'm going to let you explain it to me.

Speaker 1 The week that we record this, Maximum Fun is moving our studio and our office from MacArthur Park to downtown Los Angeles after nearly 15 years on MacArthur Park. We love you, Westlake.

Speaker 1 We'll miss you so much.

Speaker 1 But our office, we needed an office where everyone could come to work

Speaker 1 so that we could have an office. If you, by the way,

Speaker 1 if you go to the website, maximumfun.org slash moving day,

Speaker 1 you can not only buy like packs of our old crap.

Speaker 2 We found so much old crap.

Speaker 2 You're having like a moving day sale? You're having like a tag sale?

Speaker 1 Yeah, if you want to get a mystery pack of maximum fun pins or patches or t-shirts, all kinds of stuff. We had so much cool different stuff.
And everything is a deal. Like,

Speaker 1 you don't get to pick what you get other than a broad category, but it's a total deal.

Speaker 1 And then also, Maximum Fun is selling the naming rights for basically everything in our office to cover the cost of moving.

Speaker 2 This is the right to name doorknobs, to name light fixtures, to name power outlets, for example, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, and we will be using a label maker, apparently.

Speaker 2 Okay, there you go.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think our colleague, uh, our colleague KT will you take any opportunity to use a labor label maker. It's her greatest pleasure in life.

Speaker 2 Well, congratulations to Maximum Fund for moving. I cannot wait to visit the new headquarters as soon as I'm back out there in Los Angeles.
Where do you go to

Speaker 2 buy stuff and to name stuff? MaximumFund.org/slash moving day.

Speaker 1 Yep, that's exactly right. Okay, you ready for Swift Justice, John? I'm very ready.
Okay, on the topic of life on the sea, we have something from a redditor in the maritime province of Nova Scotia.

Speaker 1 Nova Scotia, Canada.

Speaker 2 Nova Scotia, Canada.

Speaker 1 Beechtronic, who posted this on the maximum phone subreddit, writes, We've been having an argument about whether garlic fingers should have Denair sauce, but I feel like this would be gibberish to anyone outside Nova Scotia.

Speaker 2 Wow. You don't know what I know.
You don't know what I know.

Speaker 2 What is garlic fingers? For reference. What is this person talking about?

Speaker 1 Garlic fingers are pizza with garlic and butter instead of tomato sauce.

Speaker 2 Okay, here we go.

Speaker 1 Typically cut into rectangular fingers. So I guess that would mean cheese, garlic.

Speaker 1 It's like garlic sticks, but with cheese on top.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like, it's like, yeah, okay, I got you.

Speaker 2 That sounds good.

Speaker 1 Donair sauce is usually a milky sauce that many people find to be sweet.

Speaker 2 So donair is a reference to what we would call shawma, probably in the United States. Yeah, or a kebab sandwich or kebab, a kebab, like a Mediterranean Middle Eastern kebab meat sandwich.

Speaker 2 And the donaire sauce is that, is that what they call white sauce?

Speaker 2 I would think of it be a garlicky, but I've not had it in Nova Scotia because, unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to get back to Nova Scotia in now almost 25 years.

Speaker 2 And I'm hoping beyond hope, Jesse Thorne, that pretty soon we'll be announcing some tour dates

Speaker 2 and that someday those tour dates will include a trip from Bar Harbor to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia on the Cat Fast Ferry and do a show in Halifax at some point.

Speaker 2 I don't know when we're going to get to do it, but it's something that we've dreamed about doing.

Speaker 2 And I'll tell you what, when I get up there, not only am I going to have Donair sauce on my garlic fingers, because that sounds delicious, but I might even have some on my Lunenburg pudding. John,

Speaker 2 you think I don't know about some Nova Scotia stuff

Speaker 1 hold on because i have just looked up donair sauce uh oh donair sauce is not white sauce i mean it is white and it is a sauce but it is not

Speaker 1 it is not like if you want a if you want to make a white sauce bowl like you would have in a fast food truck in new york city kenji lopez alt has a great recipe for that But that is not what this is.

Speaker 1 This is made out of sweetened condensed milk.

Speaker 2 Whoa,

Speaker 1 vinegar and garlic, but the main ingredient is condensed milk, which is very sweet.

Speaker 2 That's very sweet. And I don't really have a sweet tooth.
I have an alcohol molar, and I do, and I also have

Speaker 2 a

Speaker 2 schwarma-impacted wisdom tooth, but I will try it. I will try it for Halifax.
I will try it for all of Nova Scotia. And I stand by, I would even put it on my Lindenberg pudding.

Speaker 2 All right, as this episode comes out, we are just days away from Halloween. I'm sure you're maybe getting ready to go out to a Halloween party.

Speaker 2 And as we lead into the holiday season, there are going to be a lot of parties. Love to hear about your party fouls.
What is the worst party foul you've ever witnessed, experienced, or committed?

Speaker 2 Did a friend ever ruin a surprise party that you were planning?

Speaker 2 Meanwhile, just in terms of Halloween, I know that we'll be past it by the time you write in, but if you go to some Halloween parties, tell me about the best Halloween costume you've ever seen in your life or the best one you've ever worn.

Speaker 2 Send all of your disputes, comments, thoughts, and questions to maximumfund.org/slash JJHO. If you're a member, make sure to let us know.
You can also email me directly, hodgman at maximumfund.org.

Speaker 1 And of course, any dispute you have is very welcome here at Maximum Fund. Go to maximumfund.org/slash JJHO to submit them.
We need them.

Speaker 2 It's the air that we breathe.

Speaker 1 We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Speaker 5 Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artists-owned shows.

Speaker 3 Supported directly by you.