Dear Hank & John - 13: John and Hank and Wheezy Waiter!

Episode Date: August 31, 2015

How do you make friends? What's your favorite planet? What would happen if you fell into Jupiter? Is it all downhill from 30? What sports did you play? If you could be a prodigy at any one thing what would it be?Edited by Nicholas Jenkins.Theme music by Gunnarolla.If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Thor, as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where my brother and I, we answer your questions, give you to be a advice and bring you all the weeks used from both Mars and F.C. Embelled. And this week's Dear Hank and John is a little bit different. How's it different, John? Well, we are actually sitting across from each other in my office here in Indianapolis because

you have been kind enough to fly here just so we can do some IRL podcasting. Eye to eye, face to face. Yes. Head to head. Yes. How do we prove to them that we're actually sitting here together? Mmm, we could make a high five. High five.

Did you hear that? It was legit. What about this one? Oh, you're right. It's so easy to fake. I was just clapping that time. I think people would just be able to tell because the vibe is gonna be different.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll be more frustrated with each other, more angry, and more, I think, despondent. Hank, that reminds me of what a funny podcast, this comedy podcast is. Hank, would you like a short poem for today? I, it doesn't matter.

Because you're gonna get one. Uh, this is a very short poem, uh, to make up for the longest short poem I read a couple weeks ago. This is called You Fit Into Me by Margaret Atwood. Are you familiar with this poem? No. Oh, it's a good one. You ready?

You fit into me, like a hook into an eye, a fish hook, an open eye. That was a short poem. Very short. I like Margaret Atwood. That's my kind of poem. Yeah, well, that's Margaret Atwood, your kind of writer for sure. She's great.

And I've always liked that poem, because there's so much you complete me and you fit into me and we complement each other. Poetry out there that she sets your expectations up pretty carefully and you're just picturing this, you know, this needle and this thread and then, and then you're not. Yep. All right. How are you Hank? What's going on? What's new? Well, I just flew to Indianapolis. Yeah.

So boy are my arms tired. Oh, God. And cancel the podcast. Yeah, which it's a lovely place. It's a, I will say that you are office is a place where I will never let my employees go. Because they will see how poorly I treat them in our not very nice office.

That's very nice here. And your house is lovely, your famines lovely, and your town is lovely. It is Indianapolis. The airport is amazing. We have an amazing airport. And you have good cookies, I've heard, but I haven't been able to try them yet.

Great cookies. I'm looking forward to these great cookies. My parents are here and my wife is here. It's just family. It's a good family time. Yeah. It's enjoyable. No, it's beautiful.

And we're very happy to have you here. Thanks for coming. We've been here because it's the annual meeting or semi-annual meeting for dftba.com, the web store where you can find merch. We don't have any deerhank and John merch. We don't have deerhank and John merch. We don't have dear Hank and John merch. What a disaster for this particular moment

where we're talking about. It would be great to have something to advertise. However, you can go and buy Hank and John stuff from phone cases to jewelry to t-shirts to posters. Check it out at dftba.com. Today's podcast actually sponsored by DFTBA.com. Um, so, uh, you wanna answer some questions? I think that's probably a good idea.

Since it's what we do. Can I ask the first one? Sure. Dear John in Hank, this question is from Brooke. She writes, I'm a freshman starting high school this year. I'm also starting in a completely new school. What are some ways to make new friends? I feel like this question

was designed for me, Hank, because as you know, I have made one friend in the last 12 years of my friend, Chris Waters, my best friend. If a person who you made friends with completely outside of the environment of school. Yes, but I made the one. I made one friend. Yeah. Yes, but so I made the one I made one friend. Yeah That's the first time I've made a friend since school So I'm pretty proud of myself and then I'm also very good friends with his wife Marina Waters, but I met her through him. Right in fact all of my other friends are either people I work with or people I met through Chris So my first recommendation would be Brooke to make friends with Chris. I mean, he's amazing. He will introduce you to tons of people.

No, none of your fellow freshmen in high school. They'll all be adults, so that would probably be weird. Let's try to find some better advice than that because I don't think that's good. I- What's your advice? It's hard. It is hard. And in my experience, it is also, I know it was never something that I did intentionally until I was an adult.

It was always something that just sort of happened to me. And I think that's that's okay. But I definitely found myself hanging out for a long time with people. I didn't really dig that much. And then I would find like one person who would actually get along with and then latch onto them and spend all my time with them, which is fine. And that's, you know, your quintessential best friend. And then finally it took me, you know, into like senior year of high school until I had like a group of friends who I felt like I would have been friends with them even if I hadn't just been thrown into a situation

with them that sort of like created the friendship. Right. I mean, there's a lot of like friendships of convenience, not just in high school or college, but also in adulthood. But my main recommendation is to try to be nice. Yeah. There is a great line in the movie Harvey. In this world, L. Wood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.

For years, I was smart. I recommend pleasant. I, it can be very hard to be nice, especially when people are mean to you. But I believe that if you are, if you try to be a good friend, if you try to be a good listener, if you try to ask questions

and become genuinely interested in the lives of the people around you, some of them, not all of them, unfortunately, but some of them will in turn, treat you the way that you are treating them. And I believe that good friendships can come out of that. But it is not easy. And I think the main thing that I would say is that,

it's also, you also have to remember that, it's not easy for anybody else either. Even the people who maybe seem like they're popular seem like they're comfortable or confident. Probably aren't nearly as comfortable and confident as they appear to be. But it isn't easy and I think that you should, you know, it's okay to be scared,

but also bear in mind that like it will get easier, it will get better. Like in the same way as, you know, your first day doing anything is not as easy as your hundredth day. You know, once you're settled in that new school and things will get, things will get easier. But I wish you well, and certainly listeners of Dear Hank and John, if you happen across Brooke at your school, be nice to her.

She seems like a very sweet person. We have another question. This one is from Chris who asks, dear Hank and John, I understand respect your passion for the planet Mars. I've got to stop you right there, Hank. I am not at all passionate about the planet Mars. Chris, this question is for Hank.

He said that. He says that this question is for Hank. It's for Hank, just for Hank. Yeah, but I just, I feel like I'm being excluded from the podcast. So I just want to establish right now that I have no passion for Mars. There are very few cold dead rocks I care less about. As our closest neighbor in space, Chris says, it is hard not to be fascinated by Mars unless you are John Green. However, I wonder if it isn't becoming just slightly passe to care so much about the inner planets

with the huge amounts of data streaming from New Horizons, Cassini, and other explorers in the outer solar system. Would you consider focusing some of your attention on that great beyond capitalized, by the way? The data will be coming in for years and years, so there will be lots of new things to study, discover, and learn about.

What do you think? No, that's a great idea. Chris, anything to get us to stop talking about Mars would be welcome, even if it means having to talk about Jupiter. There are lots of really fascinating things going on past Mars, I agree. There are nice things about Mars. It is a fairly hospitable place. It went in terms of the rest of the solar system.

Yes, Earth is definitely, but if you're not going to like, it's very difficult to send a probe to the surface of Venus where it rains sulfuric acid. Not a good place to hang out, and it's the hottest place in the solar system. You don't want to go back. What about Mercury? Mercury is also in a hospital. Isn't it hotter than Venus? Because it's closer to the sun? Hotter on Venus because of the greenhouse effect of Venus.

Because Mercury doesn't have an atmosphere. And so it actually gets hotter on Venus. Hank, I don't like to disagree with you when it comes to hard science stuff. But I read something on the internet about how the greenhouse, the gas stuff, that's not even true. We're gonna get back to Chris' question. Where were we?

I'm not gonna, okay. John is joking, by the way. This is all I- I became visibly anxious when I said that. Oh my goodness, we have a guest. Oh, a very special guest. Oh, hello. It's a woo-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee You hear him over there? Yeah, you have to be on this side. Okay. Yeah. So Craig Benzine, Wisi Wetter has just joined us. We're talking about which planets are the most fascinating.

Which planets are the most fascinating? What's your favorite planet in our solar system? Let's just go around and say it. You can't pick Earth. Saturn. Saturn. Yep, Mars. You know, if I can't pick Earth in a way they're seven equally dead and

meaningless rocks. Well several of them aren't in fact rocks. Don't they have rock cores somewhere? No. You're telling me that there are planets that have no solidity. Just us. I did not say that. I said that they didn't have rock course. What do they have? Liquid or solid hydrogen and helium? Is that Venus? Wait, so you're telling me there are planets that are just liquid helium? No, I'm saying that Jupiter and Saturn and Neptune are just gassy things and so we're not sure what's in the middle because they're awful big, but we think that it's probably just really,

really tightly compressed things that would be gas if they weren't so tightly compressed. So you're telling me that I couldn't stand on Jupiter, it would be like standing on a cloud. Uh, no. Standing on Jupiter would be like falling into a cloud that became so dense that it crushed you. It doesn't sound like fun.

Don't do that. Once again, Earth, the number one place to live in the solar system. Are you saying Saturn's like that, too? Yeah, yeah, all the gas trans. All right, no, okay. So in that case, my favorite non-Earth planet is gonna have to be the moon. It's close. It's very close to Earth, which is great.

And then also, it's relatively hospitable because we had astronauts on it. But it's also not a planet. This is a thing that we could, we could play semantics and say, you know, by the definition, any definition. All right, then my favorite non-earth. No, actually, there are people who argue

that the Earth Moon system is actually a binary planet system. Like, two planets. Yeah. The Earth is one and the Moon is the other. Yeah. All right, if the Moon is a planet, I'm gonna pick the Moon. If the Moon is not a planet, I'm gonna stun everyone and pick Mars, but only because the others,

only because the others are so useless. Like, would the solar system or any aspect of human experience be in any way different if we eliminated all seven of the other planets? Yes, very, very different. Tell me. Just the fact that we would have had no planets in the sky would have made it much more difficult to figure out how our place in the universe. Having those other planets be these weird things that were moving around, that was the impetus for

the scientific revolution. That's how we figured out how gravity works. That's how Newton determined many of the things Newton figured out. Pretty sure an apple fell on his head, and that's how he discovered gravity. I do love your question though. How would science have proceeded differently if we hadn't have had these objects in the sky behaving so strangely that would have allowed us to figure out the rules of gravity and motion?

That's great. Let's move on to another question. Ha ha ha ha. How long are you here for, Craig? of gravity and motion. That's great. Let's move on to another question. How long are you here for, Craig? I'm leaving as soon as you guys are done with me here. Okay. So this question is from... You're not going to a plane.

You can drive home. I can drive. But I do have to be somewhere. This question is from Stephen, who asks, dear John and Hank, and apparently Craig, I've just turned 30. As demonstrated that I listen to your podcast and watch your videos, I'm still clinging to some semblance of youth,

but my wife tells me it's all downhill from here. Is she right? First off, Stephen, there's lots of adults who watch our videos and listen to the podcast. Thank you for being one of them. Secondly, I can report as a 37 year old that in fact it's not all downhill between 30 and 37 because I've found my 30s and I'm not just saying this because I've had this like a strange good fortune of professional success.

I found my 30s to be an A plus number one decade. If I had to rank my personal decades, completely forget about strip away like all professional successes or failures. Just like relationships and personal experiences, relationship with the world feeling of comfort and satisfaction with the experience of being alive. I'm gonna rank them. Ready? 30s. 10 to 20.

20 to 30. Zero to 10. Zero to 10s last. Because I didn't know what the heck was going on. I was just like, this is terrifying. I was pretty much until I was 10 years old. I essentially never had an emotion other than fear. That's, I don't remember that about you, but I was very, very young.

Uh, you, I sometimes, like, it's interesting sitting here across from you because I realize how much you talk. You can just go on. Greg, crank your decades. I have to actually agree pretty much exactly with, with, with, with, John. I actually, exactly. I think, I think my 30s are my favorite because all of the social anxiety that I felt in my 20s and all of the uncertainty of where my life was headed is kind of gone. And not just because my career, again, not just because my career is really, I've had good fortune in my 30s, but because I feel more, I guess I feel more certain, like, or

the things that used to bother me don't bother me as much anymore. Like if I say something stupid in a conversation, like yeah, whatever, there'll be other conversations. Like stuff that annoy you when you're younger, I think just kind of are glossed over when you get older. To me anyway, it feels like I feel more comfortable in my own skin.

I have, so being a third person who has experienced success in their 30s, I'm going to try and come up from a different angle and say that I feel like most of my friends are also that way. They feel like they've found more of their place and more of what they feel comfortable with and like who they are. And it really, I think it's strange. And I'm interested to see what my forties are like, because maybe it'll be even better.

And I should ask some 48 year olds and be like, hey, how is the forties going? And see, maybe it just keeps getting better from like every until you get to be the time when you're dying and then it might be a little painful and sad. I expect that it'll be more of like the 30s. It'll just be older. That's when it has this 30s but older until you know until you

tell them go on. I mean I will have kids eventually with tool change things quite a bit. Yes. There is a drastic drastic drop-off in quality of life around 90. Yeah yeah, that sounds about right. I've never spoken to someone who said, all right, I'm going to rank my decades, best my 90s. They've been amazing. I just want to say that I find it interesting

that I've forgotten his name. Stephen. Stephen has said that he's holding under some vestige of his youth which is which is Evidence by his listening to our podcast. Are we Away for people to hold on to their youths. Are we just for young people John? I feel quite not young I feel like a 35-year-old guys are a bunch of old men You know what I'm like you guys you mean the three of us. Yes, You know what I've just noticed. Thank you. What? You can just talk and talk and talk. We got another question. This one comes from Alex who writes, Dear John in Hank, what clubs or sports did you

participate in high school and or college? Let's ask Craig as well. You go first. I'm from a very small town, so I was able, there wasn't a lot to do other than sports. So I was able to participate in a lot. I participated in basketball, football, and track. Mainly. Were you good at any of these?

I was pretty good at basketball. Yeah. But then by junior year I wasn't tall compared to everyone else so I quit. Oh, so you didn't you didn't play in college or anything? No, I did track all the way up through senior year, but of high school, but then But everything else I didn't make it past junior year. Yeah, hey I played hockey in a high school a roller hockey. Right, I remember that. And that was the only sport I have ever played, except for like Ultimate Frisbee in college, which was not organized in any way. It was a excuse to, it was a thing you could do while

drinking beer. Yeah, you can kind of play Ultimate Frisbee in drink beer at the same time. Great sport. Not at a professional level. No, certainly not. And as far as clubs, I was like in an art club in high school. I was in the AIDS Awareness Club in high school. In college, I was in like an activism activist club that was sort of just angry about the way that America treats the rest of the world and also the institution of capitalism. So I was sort of like, that was my main thing in college, which is an interesting, I've had an interesting progression from that. I wouldn't say you've completely abandoned that.

No. I said it you're wedding and I would stand by this, that of all the communists I know Hank loves money the most. LAUGHTER Um... I, uh... I also would like to point out that you were in the marching band. Oh, yes, I was. I didn't actually march, though, because the first year of marching band, I broke my foot. And so I was, I was behind. And so I was in the pit.

I played the pit percussion. And I also was for a while the high school mascot, Willie the Wildcat. Which is wonderful. I mean, I can only imagine how good of a Willie the Wildcat you must have been. You're very... You know, looking back, I could have been better.

I feel it's one of the things that I regret that I had this opportunity and I was wearing, but I was very self-conscious, which is strange because I was wearing a costume, no one knew it was me. Yeah. But I was very self-conscious, which is strange, because I was wearing a costume, no one knew it was me. I was very self-conscious and I feel like I could have been a better Willie. What would you have done differently?

I think I should have danced more. I should have played with the children in the audience and just been more energetic, and I mostly just walked around and was like, hey, you know, I'm also surprised that you didn't dance more because I happened to know that in 1998, you were voted best dancer by your fellow students at Winter Park High School.

But I never did it with a Wildcat costume on. You only did it at prom. No, I did it in the marching band. Like when we were in the stands, I would like totally dance. But when I was wearing the Wildcat costume, I felt self-conscious. It's very strange and I do not understand it. That is fascinating.

I was mostly an ultimate Frisbee player, and I would say ninth best out of the 11 starters. And then I also, I was very involved in academic de-Cathalon, this weird quasi-sport where you participate in 10 different academic events, economics to speech to taking a history test. And you have to have each team has to have three A students with GPAs above 3.5, three B students with GPAs between 3.0 and 3.5 and three C students. And really, of course, the difference between a good academic and a Catholic on team and a great one

is it C students because everyone has smart A students. And I was a C student for our academic catholic team and in fact when I was very close to getting a 3.0 GPA a teacher who will remain anonymous but who also worked with me on the academic catholic team said I can't help but notice that you're doing quite well in physics this year and I said yeah and he said well I just want you to know we don't have a notice that you're doing quite well in physics this year. And I said, yeah. And he said, well, I just want you to know, we don't have a spot for you as a B student on the academic to capital on team.

So I threw physics. You threw it. I threw it. I got a D in physics so that I could maintain my C student status as an academic to capital E and thereby help my school at the National Tournament, which that year was in Newark, New Jersey, where I very briefly but very intensely

over the course of about four hours while drinking six wine coolers, fell in love with a young woman from Oklahoma, who, as it turned out, had a boyfriend. But that is a different story. Fascinating. I had no idea how corrupt the academic de-Cathalon was whatever that was.

I'm sure that that has had, I mean, never mind. This question is from Calvin, who asks, dear Hank and John, do you think it's possible for society to promote a good thing, such as a healthy diet or active lifestyle, without stigmatizing those who don't fit that description. I think this is interesting particularly from the public health standpoint of cigarette smoking, because a lot, I feel like a lot of the way that we dramatically decreased the amount of cigarette smoking in America was by sort of having a negative image of people who smoked cigarettes. And I definitely like room, like, and I guess I still to some extent have that where I'm like, oh, I, you know, like, oh,

you smoked cigarettes, oh, I don't know how to feel about that, which is of course, you know. It's like, well, I think that it's a little different. Like, I mean, I grew up with the, I grew up smoking cigarettes and I quit in 2002. And I grew up with the Marv Romand. I'm like, Joe Cool, the camel, who would smoke cigarettes and magazine ads

and magazines I liked and everything. But I do think that by shifting the image of the smoker from a cool cowboy and or a cartoon camel to people who die of lung cancer in tuberculosis, you certainly, I think that that resulted in less smoking. I think it's very different than when you're talking about obesity or weight that it's stigmatized. I don't think stigmatizing obese people has any which we've been doing for centuries.

I don't think it's a decreased obesity. Right, definitely not. I think with smoking a difference is it's obviously and always a choice to smoke. With obesity sometimes it's genetic, sometimes it's not controllable, so it's a little bit more of an if it's also not a very good reflector of health like BMI the ratio between your body weight and your height like is not actually that good a predictor of health outcomes like What is considered people people who live the longest are actually

People who are what is considered to be overweight, at least in many countries. So I don't, I think it's like this whole idea that somehow stigmatizing fatness is going to lead to a healthier, confused ridiculous. Yes, the other thing is feeling bad about yourself does not tend to lead to less poor decision-making?

Yeah, I mean, I quit bad health choices. Feeling bad about yourself leads to more bad health choices. Right. When I quit smoking, I quit smoking not because smokers were being stigmatized. I quit smoking because people were telling me I could do it. Right. Right. And the other thing is that with smoking, it is a thing that is addictive and the goal is to not have people start because once you start it is difficult to stop.

Whereas food is something that all people need to be eating. I will say as far as an active lifestyle goes that I do think that we should promote activity in people who are able to be physically active because that is at least according to Dr. Aaron Carroll, the host of healthcare triage, who is the only person I know who is a healthcare economist. Aaron certainly feels like exercise is the by far the biggest thing that we can do for public health today. I will say personally, I just recently, when the past year or two, started jogging a lot, and exercising a lot more, and I feel way better than I have most of my life. You look real good too.

Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. I think that's just mostly your eyes though. Well, beautiful eyes. I exercise my eyes. So do tell me about your eye exercises. Well, I watch the vlog brothers. We always pop across the screen. I always like moving from one side to the other.

A lot of jump cuts going on in there. Yeah. On a giant screen. I watch you on a wall projection. Yeah, every day. You lift eye weights? Yes, I do. With fish hooks, like very sticky contact lenses.

You know after my orbital cellulitis, I did have to do eye exercises. Yeah, I couldn't see it at my left eye for the longest time and yeah, I didn't, it wasn't muscle exercises but it was focusing exercises where I would be like, well I guess they can't really see what I'm doing. Right. That's the downside of the in-person podcast, Hank.

Yeah. Is that I forget that they're not seeing what I'm seeing. Which by the way, what I'm seeing right now is Hank. And Craig, Hank wearing a pink shirt, Craig wearing a PBS Digital Studio shirt, always wrapping the brand. And I just realized now that Hank and I are wearing nearly identical gray jeans. Correct. Okay, I think we got time for one last question before we get to the news

from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. This question is from Joanna, who asks, dear John and Hank, if you could have been a child prodigy at any one thing, what would it have been? Oh, can I keep that skill throughout life? I assume so that's how child prodigy usually works, right? You don't forget how to play the piano Yeah, I feel like it would probably be some kind of musical instrument which one? accordion Are there child prodigies in the accordion? Maybe not yet yet? Was weirdo Yankevik a an accordion prodigy?

You know, I doubt that Weirdo Yankevic could ever, like he's a good accordion player. But I don't know how good he is. Maybe he's very, very good. He's just one of the only famous ones. Right. And this is a genuine question for the members of the Dear Hank and John community

who are well connected to the world of professional accordionists. Is accordion something where you can achieve an acute level of excellence, or is it more about like style? You know? I think it's something you could achieve at an acute level of excellence. I mean, you look at the accordion, it looks very complicated. It's got like 80,000 buttons on one side. I think that's an exaggeration.

On the other side. I think it's an exaggeration. On the other side. I think it's in the, I think you can have one with up to 92 or 108 buttons. Okay. And it's so, that's a lot of buttons. And if you want to be able to use all those buttons, I can't imagine. How it's what's going on in your brain to even know

where all those buttons are and what they do. Sure. So, yeah, I think that, I think that, I think you can continue becoming a better accordionist every single day for the rest of your life if you wanted to Craig Do I think that you can become No, what would your child prodigy skill be? I've been thinking about it. I guess either Storytelling like writing

Storytelling? Like writing. Writing, I think. There are a ton of writing prodigies. There are some like Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was 19. John Keats was a very good poet by the time he was 17 or 18. But yeah, I mean, it's not something that people tend to be particularly precocious at when they're kids. Yeah, I think I was, I liked it.

I think English classes were my favorite, especially when the teacher had us write short stories. And I think I was pretty good at making the other students laugh with my short story. Yeah. But they weren't, they weren't keys. Right. Yeah, well, I mean, I recently reread one of my stories from college thinking that I could use it to write just as a framework for writing a new book instead of having to write a whole book which

seems like a lot of work. And I remember this story as being pretty close to Brilliant. And I reread it and I was like, sadly, there is not even a salvageable dependent clause in this entire 60 pages. So I certainly was no writing prodigy. I guess like if I could be prodigious at anything as a child it would have been math because I find math to be such an interesting language but it's also a language that I feel like I speak or can use only little bits of, you know, like I speak math at a five-year-old level. But I'm fascinated by the beauty of it, and I think it would help me to appreciate Mars better, and the vast, vast, vast

majority of the universe, which is outside of direct human experience. I feel like being able to speak math helps you to interact with that universe as well as the human universe a lot better. And I regret not having a better sort of facility with mathematics even in adulthood, but it is something that I spent a lot of time trying to

learn about as an adult, but I wish that I just picked it up when I was eight. I would have said math, but I was a proud of you at math. Oh right, you already had that one. Hank, you were kind of a math prodigy. No, not at all. I remember you knew you could do your multiplication tables in like third grade. Yeah sure, that kind of math. But that's not the kind of math I want to be prodigious at. No, you want to do the like calculus. Yeah, yeah. The interesting stuff. Yeah, the stuff like my

friend Daniel Bis does where you eat proof that a triangle is really just a kind of circle. That stuff is amazing. Mine blowing. Or like understanding why, you know, trees have symmetrical leaves and stuff. I don't know. There's so much beauty out there that you don't get to appreciate if you aren't aware of it.

Hank, speaking of beauty that often goes unappreciated, what is the news from Mars this week? Do we want to say goodbye to Craig first? I probably have to go, but I really appreciate you guys having me on this podcast. Yeah, so thank you to Craig Weezy-Water for joining us youtube.com slash Weezy-Water, also the host of the Good Stuff, youtube.com slash The Good Stuff, also the host of Crash Course World Government, Crash Course, regular government and politics on YouTube.com slash crash course. Regular government mostly being American.

American government. That's yeah normal like like like American cheese is the regular kind. Regular kind of cheese. Yeah. Yeah. Our global our global listeners have no idea what American cheese is but let me assure you friends you also don't want to find out. No, no. It's only gonna disappoint you. Oh Craig thank you very much for joining us. Thank you for having me.

Enjoy and go home to your lady. I will. Oh, we're hugging. Okay, we're gonna hug it out. Good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks, you're out of town. Happy podcasting.

Thank you. All right. Hank, yes. What ising. Thank you. All right. Hank, yes. What is the news from Mars this week? This week in Mars news, John, have you ever wanted to have your name on the surface of Mars?

Yes. Because you can have that. You can do that right now. NASA sending a mission to Mars soon. And included on that mission will be a very small silicon chip that they will be etching people's names into and I just signed up and had them etch my name into this chip that they're going to send to Mars. How much is it cost? It's free. What? It's free. Where can you go to sign up? You have to go to Mars.nasa.gov. Go to Mars.nasa.gov and you can have your name etched

onto a silicon chip that will be on Mars. Will it stay on Mars? Yeah. Forever? Nope. Incorrect, because in forever, the universe will die. Okay, for at least a billion years. Yeah, well, I mean, unless Mars gets hit by a gigantic comet

and that silicon chip comes flying and hits Earth and kills somebody. Oh, yeah, then it would be on Earth. And a person's head. Your name. I want to sign up for that. Yeah, you can do that. It's totally free. Yeah, it's absolutely free.

You're telling me that NASA is just giving away naming rights to Mars. No. Because they have seen Wimbledon charges a lot for them. Absolutely. You're telling me that NASA is just giving away naming rights to Mars. No, because AFC Wimbledon charges a lot for them. That's great. Congratulations. In AFC Wimbledon news, AFC Wimbledon just had an evening of paper towns where the manager and several of the players and lots and lots of AFC Wimbledon fans decked out in their AFC Wimbledon gear and went to a theater in South London and all watched the paper towns movie together and then made me the sweetest, most awesome video about the experience, which you can find on my Twitter, twitter.com slash john green. And it was really wonderful. Also Hank, Calum Kennedy, you know Calum Kennedy, AFC Wimbledon left back, hero of the AFC Wimbledon Wimbledon Wimbledon

Wimbledon's the fictional version of AFC Wimbledon. I play FIFA with um, Calum Kennedy scored a goal against Cambridge United. Only three points from three games so far. Worries and Lee, but Calum Kennedy scored a goal for against Cambridge,

and he did a celebration that has gone viral in which he attempted to recreate the velociraptor run from the movie Jurassic World and if you have not had a chance to see that You should because it is a thing of true beauty. That sounds that sounds enjoyable to me John I have a question. It's there's one goal from Calum Kennedy in this game I'm assuming that it was not the only goal scored in that game. Indeed, it was not. Sadly, there were two goals scored by Cambridge. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha three games, not where we'd like to be, but the season is young, hope is the thing with feathers.

What did we learn today, Hank? We learned that, John, when he's sitting across from you, it really does hit home how much he talks. Today's podcast is brought to you by Hank. Hank, making fun of me for talking too much, even though I bet if we did the math, he talks more onto your Hank and John than I do. Today's podcast is brought to you by the person who is actually going to do the math. Person who's actually going to do the math, you are an amazing fan of this podcast

and I can't wait, put it on Twitter. Today's podcast is brought to you by your 30s. Your 30s! Underrated! Today's podcast is brought to you by Weezy Wader. We also learned that both Hank and I played Ultimate Frisbee as children. Yeah, we learned that John intentionally threw his physics game so that he could participate in

another game. I wouldn't really call the study of physics in high school in game. You know your game though. You mean my grade? Yeah, like your game like this is my like it's all like it's all like it's a phrase. Like my physics game is strong. Yeah. Oh, okay. I didn't know that we were speaking so colloquially. Yeah, okay. I didn't know that we were speaking so colloquially And of course we also learned that Hank if he just had the chance would have been a brilliant young accordionist Not no, no, probably wouldn't have been but that's what I want to have been and then I couldn't then man Wouldn't it be amazing with the perfect strangers? But like I was like a rock and a accordionist for those those of you who don't know Hank, in addition to being a vlog brother,

the host of Crash Course, the co-creator of VidCon and DFTV Records, is Rockstar, and his band is called Hank Green, and the Perfect Strangers. And then, fortunately, are not headed by Elid Singer who also plays the accordion. Tragically, Hank is unable to play the accordion, which is the reason that Hank Green

and the Perfect Strangers will always be a bit of a niche band. That's really holding us back. If only you could play the accordion, you guys would really break out on the Billboard charts. I think so. You can participate in Dear Hank and John by sending us questions to hank and John at gmail.com. This podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins.

The theme music is by Gunnarola, and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.