Dear Hank & John - 149: Let's Be Mermaids

Episode Date: August 6, 2018

Where would you put an extra eye? How do I survive at home alone? Why is underwear a pair? And more! Email us: [e-mail] patreon.com/dearhankandjohn Thanks to HelloFresh for sponsoring this episode! For $30 off your first week of HelloFresh, go to hellofresh.com/dearhank or hellofresh.com/dearjohn and enter code dearhank or dearjohn.

Listener supported WNYC Studios. Cold open for you today, because recently I had to reinstall my operating system. When I did that, it secretly switched audio inputs on me, so I recorded this entire episode with a terrible microphone accidentally. John's going to sound lovely lovely and I will sound terrible, but I just wanted to let you know that that was gonna happen, and I'll be sure to attend some audio production workshops at PodCon, so it happens less,

which, by the way, is in the middle of its crowdfunding campaign. See, the Linky, I admit, a transition there. There were so many cool people will be at PodCon, Hannah Hart, Kathy and Tobin of Nancy, Demi and Mielle, as punch up the jams, Aaron Manky of lore, the McAroy brothers, Ono Ross and Carrie, hello from the Magic Tavern, the Bright Sessions, and so many more. So check it out, podcon.com. And now get ready for some terrible audio.

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. No, it's up for the Think of a Dear John and Hank. It's a comedy podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give me a Diviou advice and bring you all the weeks news from Mars and AFC Limaldon John. What is the elephant in the room? Alright, Hank, are you ready on 3, 1, 2, 3, the elephant in the room? Oh, really? I think that so last week, John, we simultaneously elephanted for the first time.

And I feel like maybe we should just end the elephant in the room there and that the elephant in the room is the elephant in the room needs to be done with. Hank, that is exactly what I was going to propose. What a shock. What a wonderful moment of mind-milding between brothers. I agree with you. The elephant of the room has been beautiful and it's been wonderful and it's been a great opening bit and it has also ended.

Yeah, and I mean, I think that you like this level of adjustment is really what our audience is here for. They don't want the same podcast every week, John. They want to know that the opening bit is going to be different. And that from now on, we're going to be doing reviews of ChapStick in just various kinds of lit bombs. I like the ChapStick review idea. I don't love it.

What I would suggest is that we have our listeners email in suggestions for opening bits at Hank and John at gmail.com and we will use one of them as the new opening bit unless none of them are good in which case we will use the chapstick idea. Or we can, or we could have a different one. I just had chapstick here in front of me. That's all that happened. I do want to put some on my lips now though, because it's always a little bit dry here in Montana. Oh yeah, Ash, good. John, you want to do some questions for our listeners?

No, I want to turn this into an ASMR podcast where you do nothing but put Chap stick on your lips. Yes, I want to answer questions from our listeners. All right, John, this first book comes from Tim. And Tim asks, dear Hank and John, I know that Hank has mentioned that his book, an absolutely remarkable thing, comes out on Tuesday, September 25th, and it's available for pre-order now. I know that he has mentioned that not all pre-orders will be signed, however,

I couldn't, could Hank's publisher just copy a page of Hank's signature equal to the amount of all the books that are pre-ordered, and then pre-orders will be signed? I mean, it's just one extra piece of paper that needs to be copied and bound in the beginning of all the books that are pre-ordered and then pre-orders will be assigned. I mean it's just one extra piece of paper that needs to be copied and bound in the beginning of the book. Is this not a thing? No. Tim is of the essence. Tim. Oh, Tim is of the essence is a pretty good name specific sign off. If I were named Tim every time I met people I would be like, hey my name's Tim is of the essence. No, no. I please don't give that advice to Tim, I feel very bad. That seems like the kind of thing that like,

that like high school John would totally have done, and it was not a good idea. It's so true, high school John wearing his FAO shorts beanie with little propeller on top would have absolutely introduced himself as Tim is of the essence essence despite not being named Tim. I used to think that Tim was so cool John. I used to think you were the coolest person that you were confident enough to wear that dumb FAO short-spiny and I want everyone to know

that that's not a thing we made up for that was not like a bit that's actually a thing that John did. I wore it all the time in high school. I mean, it was so dirty. Pictures of there's pictures of me wearing it in the flip and yearbook anyway. Tim, we need to move past my beanie immediately before it becomes like a recurring bit. We've got to, we've got to move on Tim. The reason that Hank's publisher can't put What a move on Tim, the reason that Hank's publisher can't put digitally rendered copies of his signature in every copy of an absolutely remarkable thing is that that is not a signature. For something to be a signature, the human hand has to have made it or the human foot.

Yeah, well, I did sign three or four with the foot but it turned out that was pretty inefficient. The, it makes me think that like it's just didn't think that like I didn't actually sign the books. Does Tim think that this is just like a like a picture of my signature? It's spent, I've spent a lot of time signing books for people to think that. I spent a lot of time thinking about this because I've signed my name around 450,000 times in the last seven years around 450,000 times in the last seven years. And that's given me ample time to think about signing. The thing that I've come around to when thinking about signing is that I'm trying to physicalize a very weird thing.

I'm trying to like give it form and structure and explain it to my brain, because brains are bad at big numbers. And I'm trying to tell my brain a lot of people have put their trust in you with this book, and this is how you're going to acknowledge it and recognize it, and kind of come to terms with what it is. And so I think that for a signature to work, at least for me, it still has to be a real signature made with a marker, preferably

a Sharpie, etc. It's sharpie wants to call in with a sponsorship that would totally be acceptable. Hi, I don't want to get to, I don't want to get to sidetracked here, but Sharpie just launched a huge ad campaign with Aaron Judge, who's on the New York Yankees, and at least from watching the commercials on Twitter does not seem to be a particularly passionate Sharpie user, whereas you've got me waiting in the wings, somebody who's used thousands of Sharpies over the last 10 years, somebody who has incredibly strong feelings about Sharpies and why they are far and away the greatest permanent marker in the history of our entire

Civilization and we got Aaron Judge talking about like how Sharpies can send positive messages come on Well, he has had 82 home runs. I don't know if he did any of those with Sharpies, but that's more than you And he's only 26 years old. 6 foot 7 handsome man. There's there are things that he has that you don't have. Let's just all admit it. Oh yeah no he is he is a pleasure to look at. What was the question? Not really sure but I signed all the things that I only had so much enough time to sign 40,000. And thank you so much, people who have purchased my book, pre-ordered it, there will be signed copies available, at bookstores, and at places that sell books that aren't bookstores, but they have sold out on Amazon,

but you can still get them at BarnesandNoble.com if you want to check that out. John, do you want to hit us with another question? Yeah, I kind of want to wax poetic on how much I like your book, but we, it's fine. We'll just move on to the next question. I do really love your book, though, and I'm so excited for everybody to read it. This question comes from Ashlyn, who writes, Do your John and Hank, I'm 16 years old, and I am home alone for the next few days, while my mother is on a camping trip.

It's nighttime now, and I am extremely fearful of home invasions at the best of times, let alone when I am alone. How do I survive these next few days on my own? Any and all dubious advice is welcome and appreciated. Don't harsh on my yums, Ashlyn. I got to admit I don't have a lot of anxiety about this kind of thing, even though of course bad things do occur. Statistically they occur less often than we might think, but that doesn't mean that they don't happen. Is it possible that you can't go home alone on this and just put like bacon grease all over the door knob so that this can't, like, you could, if they could pick the lock, they could, but they can't even, which was the knob. Or, or, or, hear me out, get a doxant, because as far as I can tell, it's scarier than a German Shepherd. Like, these little things that are full of little mouth raisers, and I don't, like, can you get a doxin real fast?

Like a temporary lone doxin? No, I'm sure there are lots of people with doxins out there who would be more than happy to loan their doxin to Ashland for a week. When I was a kid, possibly permanently, just like, there's enough doxin in my life, it turns out. I thought that this was cute, but it turns out it's a doxin. Well doxins are very cute, they're great dogs, don't get me wrong. But when I was a kid, I had a doxin, and I also had an experience similar to this, Ashland,

because my parents and Hank went to England for like a week when I was a senior in high school, and they left me behind. There's no need to get into the details of why this happened, but I ended up spending a week at home by myself in a very similar situation. I am also a fairly anxious person so I can totally relate to what you're going through Ashlyn, and I did find it very helpful to have our dog Red Green there, although I mean Red Green, who was a beautiful dox and was also a very difficult dog, and my primary memory of that week is that every morning, I was working the graveyard shift at stake and shake,

and every morning I would come home, go to sleep, red green would jump up on my bed, scratch at my face to wake me up, and then you would look at me, we'd make eye contact. I'd be like, good morning, Red, how are you? And then you would jump down onto the carpet and then still staring at me, he would pee. Yeah, he did have a defiant pee streak. He really liked you to know that he was doing it.

It was extremely important for him to be making eye contact with you when he peed on the carpet. This next question comes from Scotty. I think we helped. Yeah, no, we've solved another problem. If you could have one extra eye on your body, where would you decide to put it? Obviously, it would be nice to see things behind you, but it may come with lots of added sensitivity that would get in the way of an active and productive lifestyle. Would it be better just to put it on the forehead and continue living a regular lifestyle?

I'll be it with a strangely placed eye patch? Why would you cover it up? Scotty doesn't know, but wants to. Wait, Scotty, does this hypothetical third eye not blink? Like am I not allowed to close it? Well, that's the thing. Can you just have it closed most of the time and then only open it sometimes? Is that be good? But I assume, I assume that it's a fully functioning eye, it can blink,

it can close, it can squint, it has tear ducts, all of this stuff. Okay, in that case, I don't even think there's a competition, there's only one possible answer I assume you agree with me. Okay, I have my answer. My answer is the inside of the wrist. Oh, interesting, I was thinking the palm of my left hand. Well, but then you're gonna like cover it up with your fingers sometimes. Yeah, yeah. I've been thinking that it'd be cooler,

a little bit to have an eye on the palm of the hand. Like that's a very like a good visual, but I think that it's definitely a more. Yeah, but then every time you shake hands with somebody, your eye is gonna get like up real close to their skin flesh. Yeah, it's probably gonna get a thigh. Definitely gonna get a thigh.

If it's on the hands, it's just always very dirty. Yeah. No, the inside of the wrist is the obvious place. And that way you can swivel so you can look forward, you can look backward. You can also do the sort of periscope thing where you just reach your arm around a doorway And then yeah, that was my first all quick. Yeah, so like last night I actually just for fun the great thing about kids and as your son gets older You'll learn this the great thing about kids is that they're pretty suggestible and

They're not totally sure of reality right because everything's so new and there's a lot of weird things that are true So who knows? So I was reading these questions last night going through them and I said to Alice, hey, Alice, I can see you with my foot eye. She was kind of standing in the doorway and I couldn't really see her, but I could see her reflection. And she said, no, you can't. You don't have a foot eye. And I was like, no, yeah, I can. You're wearing your jean shorts and your t-shirt that says, let's be mermaids. And Alice was like, you can see me with a third eye? And I was like, no, yeah, I can. You're wearing your gene shorts and your t-shirt that says, let's be mermaids. And Alice was like, you can see me with a third eye? And I was like, yeah, with my foot eye, the eye in my foot. That's good.

And then they spent a solid hour trying to test the hypothesis that dad had a foot eye. That's good, I like it. I just, in general, I like, you know, harmless child pranks. So very good, very good on you. But maybe there would be something to it being a foot eye. People maybe on it maybe won't see it as easily if it's down there and you just sort of like thumb, like just like toe your sock off and then it's just like, whoop whoop whoop

looking around with my foot eye. Yeah, I don't know. Then you guys will get to call it a foot eye. So that's good. I mean, I probably would, I honestly, I probably stick it in the back of my head so that it'd be covered with my hair most of the time so people wouldn't have to know about it and then I could have just lift up the hair if I wanted to see behind me. That'd be cool. All I know for sure is that I want a t-shirt that says let's be mermaids. It doesn't seem fair that Alice gets to have that t-shirt and I don't.

You know, John, you're the kind of guy who can make something like that happen if you really want to. There's like the internet is designed for people like that. I feel like you're the kind of guy who can make something like that happen. And I'm the kind of guy who's going to end up having to pay for half the manufacturing costs.

Or you're the guy who's just gonna get a really nice birthday present from your brother. Oh man, that would be awesome. I mean, if that's what you're getting me from my birthday, I'll be absolutely thrilled. Um, alright, I think we'll go a little bit off the rails here, Green. Alright, well, hit me with another question then, boy. Okay, Hank, this next question comes from Kim, who writes, Do your John and Hank, I have a problem. I stayed overnight at a friend's place last night, and she's gone to work today leaving me alone in her apartment for a few hours. from Kim who writes, life as I have been accused of passive aggressive cleaning. What should I do? Kim.

Good Kim. Oh gosh, what a good problem to have. I guess you got to make that bathroom dirty again. You just got to go like, like, cut some hairs, leave them around. Leave some hair. Just around, uh, I don't know. Yeah, just put some toothpaste, on some stuff and rub it in, I guess. I need to get some friends who passive aggressively clean. Right! Yeah, I know, I came in all honesty. I know that you've probably fixed this problem by now, but I think that you did a good. I think that you helped, and that no one will see that it is anything but you being nice and saying. And you could, if you wanted to, be like, thanks for letting me stay at your place. To say thanks, I cleaned up your bathroom, not because it was gross, but because I like you.

I think that's great, great advice, Hank. And hopefully the kind of advice that's going to make Kim like us enough to stop by for cocktail sometime. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like, Kim's been at the bathroom for a while, huh? What should do it in there? Kim's been at the bathroom for a while, huh?

What's she doing in there? How many times do you think I'd have to have Kim over on consecutive Wednesdays before she noticed? That there was an ulterior motive, you mean? Yeah, we're just like man He invites us over every Wednesday afternoon. It's crazy And I clean the bathroom for an hour after we hang out and then I head home I have a friend who Invariably if you invite invite him over and you have food. He will do all the dishes He does it every single time To the point where I like like, you're too good.

You're too good of a person. I don't understand what it's like to be you. I would never. And now I've started to try and be this. Like in modeling of my friend Brian, to be the kind of person who like, while everybody else is off doing something like sneak real quick in the kitchen,

start to do some dishes and they come in and go, you do the dishes. I just thought it'd be a nice help. I thought and I never would have that idea on my own, but Brian every time he's doing the dishes, so great, I want to hug him right now. I will say this, I usually do the dishes at parties that I attend And it is a slightly selfless act, but it is mostly selfish. Mostly, at that point in the party, there's been so much like talking among humans

and social contact and everything that what I really want is I want to be alone for 45 minutes and there is no place more alone at a party than the dish washing station. You just pop out your Bluetooth headphones, and you're like, it's gonna be really, I literally will put on a podcast

and do the dishes very happily for 45 minutes and feel restored and able to return to the party. I got another question, John. It's an important one. It's one that I've been wondering about for a long time myself, and I did research to answer it. So we'll see what you think, and then you'll find out what I know. It's for Matt who asks, dear Hank and John, big fan of the pod.

My question to you is simple, why do we call underwear? A pair of underwear. Last I recalled my undergarments were a single unit, not a pair of units. Keep it things brief, Matt. Yes, yes, great. Well done. Very good question. So here's what I know, Hank.

You know the phrase, everybody puts their pants on one leg at a time, or you'll hear someone say, like, well, Elon Musk puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us. Mm-hmm. I've never understood that phrase, because I have always put my pants on both legs at the same time to save time. Do you just like jump in? Like, is it like a dangerous acrobatic maneuver?

No, I mean, it's going to surprise you to learn that it's not a particularly athletic maneuver, unlike Sharpie Spokesman, Aaron Judge, I'm not a professional athlete. No, I lie down on my bed, on my back, and I pull my pants on both legs at the same time. I've done this as far back as I can remember. And so whenever anybody's like, oh, everybody puts their pants on one leg at a time, I always think to myself, I don't.

Not me, man. My guess is that people used to put their pant legs on one at a time because they were actually separate pant legs and that is why they are called a pair of pants or a pair of underwear is that it used to actually be a pair. That is correct, John. You got it correct. And there's all kinds of, all kinds of these like breaches, shorts, panties, knickers, trousers, all plural.

Because once upon a time, we would put each pant, like there would be, basically like a skirt for each leg kind of, and then you'd tie them up like chaps, like cowboy chaps. And you would tie them up at the top. Whereas a shirt would be like a single unit of cloth, and pants would be two different separate units of cloth.

Weird. To me, it feels like one of those things where our words remember things that we have forgotten. And I think that's so cool when that happens. That's a lovely way of saying it, Hank, and a great reminder that even after we're gone, little parts of us survive, like pants. Like pants. I don't know why I had to take your lovely sentiment and then turn it into a really bad metaphor, but I mean, I guess that's sort of my stock and trade. I'm happy with it.

I think it all turned out well. Okay. Alright, Hank, we got another question. This one's from Lou who writes, Dear John and Hank, my coworker just emailed me a question, even though we sit five feet away from each other. There are no walls or dividers between us, as in we're not in cubicles or separate offices or whatever. Totally a shared space. Do I answer the question by responding to the email or simply by answering out loud in my regular voice because I don't need to shout? Skip to my... Lou.

I think that there is a... how I would do this and a how office etiquette should be answer to this question. Which one should I give, Joe? How would you do this Hank? I would say it's 630. The meeting is at 630. Is how I would do it. Oh see I would I would be even more passive-aggressive than that. I would be like I think if you look in your calendar you'll see when the meeting is. Why don't you go to the calendar Jeremy? There should be, you should have to do some kind of challenging physical activity before you're allowed to write an email. You should have to do like 25 push-ups and then at the end of the 25 push-ups you can write one the end of the 25 push-ups, you can write one email.

And then the next time you wanna write an email, you can be like, do I wanna do 25 more push-ups? Or do I wanna talk to the person who's five feet away from me? Or, I mean, this is like legitimate like workplace frustrations I have. Like I need you to be thinking, how can I make this the last email in this thread?

Like, is there a probability that I can answer all of the questions with this one email? And if you got to do 25 pushups before you send another one, you're going to be thinking real hard about making this one perfect. And making it like solving all the problems as fast as possible. I'm not trying to acquire pen pals. I'm trying to get my inbox to zero. Yeah, I mean, like, well, glue, my situation here is like, is this person need a paper trail? Or can they try and make sure that they can prove

that they did this? That is what I assume. They have to have a paper trail so that they can show their supervisor, oh no, look, I did email Lu about this at 3.13 p.m. on Tuesday or whatever. But how horrifying is that to have that much of your life exist only for the purpose of bureaucracy? That is frustrating in those situations.

But is it also like in the sort of office etiquette? It may be that we're just trying to keep the noise level down. Like we're not trying to distract. We're in an open office floor plan. This is not the best way for the best system for productivity. And so we're trying to keep the talking to a minimum. I don't want to have a conversation right now. I just need to know when we're meeting with our new client, ChapStick.

It's at 6.30 pm and also I think it's actually Sharpie. It reminds me that the sponsor of this podcast is of course Sharpie Stick. It's a new collaboration between ChapStick and Sharpie where you can just, it's like a really fine point ChapStick. And you can really draw it on there perfectly. What? Hank? What?

It's a sharpie on one end and chapsdick on the other. Okay, that was it. You've just made the most important innovation in the actual history of chapsdick. Hank, after so many consecutive, terrible ideas, you've had a great idea. This idea is as good as Dorito Tacos. This is an idea that is going to reshape

the history of humanity. I don't know if we need to call Chapstick first or Sharpie first. Are they owned by the same company? Hank, I cannot believe that you just had that idea. Holy cow. All right, well, I'm glad you like it. I don't, but I believe you.

I believe in you, John. I believe in your passion for my bad idea. That wasn't even actually my idea. Chapstick is owned by Pothizer. I am. I'm sure, of course. You know, they're in the, they make Viagra and Chapstick. I think those are their two big products.

And Sharpie. It's owned by, it's owned by Nuel Brands, which is a bunch of, a bunch of things, but I think Rubbermaid is their biggest brand. Okay. Nuel Brands. They got any Chapstick? Do they own like Blistex or something? I don't think so.

I'm, I am about to change the history of Newell Brands and take it from a struggling producer of pens and sharpies to the largest, oh they own, actually they are a very large company. They seem very doing fine. I'm not sure that they necessarily need us. Oh, they own a fishing pole company, John. They could make Sharpie fishing poles, though. I can't, they own a candle company., John. They could make Sharpie fishing poles though. I can't they own a candle company. Why don't they make Sharpie candles? You know, yeah, it lights what it lights while you're right. Wow John right. We were talking about the sponsors today's podcast is also brought to you by Aaron

Judge Aaron Judge. I think he plays for the Yankees. I'm pretty sure that's correct. And also this podcast is brought to you by John's 1992 FAO Shorts Beanie. Acquired and worn a lot! Mmm. Boy, as much as I wish it had been 1992, I regret to inform you that it was 1994 when I was 16. And lastly, today's podcast is brought to you by plural pants plural pants because there used to be two of them And finally we have our actual sponsor John we got a real sponsor our sponsor today is hello fresh It's a meal kit delivery service that shops and plans and delivers

Step-by-step recipes and pre-measured ingredients so that you can cook eat and enjoy John wait are you up with the Hello Fresh these days? Oh yeah, we just had a Hello Fresh meal like last night. How good for you. What was it? Last night we had Hawaiian chicken poke bowls, which it was so good. And also they give you all the nutrition information, so I was able to make sure that it was well inside the nutritional needs that I have at the moment because I'm trying to just just a little bit.

Just a little bit. Katherine and I recently we do the vegetarian hello freshers for the most part though we will occasionally switch over to the meat just for for an exciting week. They have these like this pita pocket recipe where it's like a pita and then there's sweet potatoes and avocado and pine nuts in it. It's so good. We had that last week and I'm a big big fan. Hello Fresh has three different points you could choose from. You got classic veggie and family and each box is made up of fresh, responsibly obtained ingredients from carefully selected farms and high rated trusted sources. It's like fuss-free, easy to figure out how to make food.

Cleanup is actually really, really quick generally, which is good, because that's mostly what I'm responsible for. And for $30 off your first week of HelloFresh, you can go to hellofresh.com and enter Dear John or Dear Hank in the offer code. They.com and enter Dear John or DearHank in the offer code. They both work, but Dear John is better. DearHank is so good. It's going to get you the exact same discount, but like, I don't know. I've always found that a hank is just easier to type.

John is easier to type. You can do it all with one hand. It's all right-handed. It's good to mix it up the hands,, so that your hand gets a little chance to recover in the middle of the word. Once again, that's HelloFresh.com, enter the offer code DearJohn or DearHank. This next question, this is real one, Johnny, ready for a real one? Yeah, let's get real. Hey, he asks, DearHank, good John, my name is Haley, and I'm very connected to my Norwegian heritage. Most folks where I'm from are all good Norse's, which is signified by my last name. I've always loved my

family and heritage and my name. However, on November 3rd I'm getting married and have agreed to change my name to green. Haley, you're gonna be a green. This is exciting. Oh, oh, never mind. No offense, but I don't really like this name. It's very common. Fair enough. As Verishie says, it's very common, which I don't really like this name. It's very common. Fair enough. As Verish says, it's very common, which I don't know if I agree with that. And I already have a very common first name. My fiance has an Irish heritage

but has no connection to it. I've had my name my whole life, and it's part of who I am. I have a signature and everything. I don't really want to change my name, but I've agreed to do it. I will change it, but I want to do it joyfully. This feels like a loss.

The two of you have had your name for a while now, and I was wondering if you have some advice on how to love being a green. Best regards, the future, Haley Green. Haley, I don't know that you're going to like my advice, but it's pretty clear from your email that you don't really want to change your name. I know that's a little bit of a leap for me to make, but the part of the email that I'm thinking about is the part where you say, and I'm quoting directly here, I don't really want to change my name. I don't think you should change your name.

I think that you should continue to be Haley with the Norwegian last name that makes you feel connected to your heritage. And I don't think that's going to have a negative impact on your marriage. As you say, I've had my name my whole life and it's part of who I am. I know you may have agreed to change it, but now's the time.

It gets much harder after you change it to change it back. So I think you have a series of conversations with the person you're marrying. And as part of that say, I like my name. It connects me to my heritage. And I don't really want to change it. And if they really, really want you to change it, that's a little bit of a red flag for me. I feel the same.

And when you say that this is something you've agreed to, I think it's really important when you're especially going to have like a very long-term relationship that you recognize that sometimes you agree to things that you don't realize how much you were asking of yourself and you need to change that expectations and you need to, you know, like correct that and that's something that, you you know it's not like you make one decision and that decision stands forever. Like these things have to be conversations and they have to be part of you know what you know and also like part of the forgiveness of a relationship. That said Hank and I completely agree with you what are some of the awesome things about having

the last name green? It's green like the color. You don't have to explain to people how to spell it. I occasionally will say it's green like the color and then someone will say back to me with an E on the end and I say no, no, just GRE and... Like the color. But it is usually pretty easy to get people to spell your last name, which is a big upside. There's no, uh, another big advantage of it, Haley, is that sometimes you'll meet someone and you'll tell them your name and they'll say, your last name is a color and you'll say yes. And then they won't really have a follow up. So that's always a fun conversation. This one sometimes is a me too about that. Like, oh, I also have my last name, there's also a color. That's, we have that in common.

Or there'll be like, my last name is also a noun, and I'll be like, is it Forester? And they're like, yeah, the Subaru Forester. Well, a Forester is a noun, it's a person, a Forester is a person who does Forester. No. Yes. A Forester is a person, a forestry is a person who does forestry. No. Yes. A forestry is a car made by Subaru. What is a... Well, what would it be besides a noun?

You're right, it's just the Subaru. You're right. Oh, actually, a forestry is a person who practices forestry. You're right. I was right the whole time. That is exactly what the Wikipedia page says. Okay. You want me to read you a list of notable foresters? I was right the whole time! And that is exactly what the Wikipedia page says. Okay! You want me to read you a list of notable foresters?

Look at this photo of foresters! Or should we save that for this week in Ryan's? Ah! Ah! Oh man, this is a pretty long list of notable foresters, John! I mean, I will say this. I've heard of exactly one of these purportedly notable foresters. I've heard of two of them.

Who, Jeffrey Chauser and John Meer? A John Meer, of course. Yeah, I guess I'm raising them. Oh, also Aldo Leopold. There's some good notable foresters on them. And did Aldo Leopold write a San County Almanac? It's some good notable foresters on it. Didn't Alda Leopold write a sand county almanac? It's possible. Did you know that there was a notable forester named Carl von Carlowitz? So Haley, I mean at least it's not that bad, right? I mean at least you're not changing your name

to like Haley von Carlowitz. I mean Haley von Haley ofughn, Carl Whits. Oh, H. It should be Von Haleywitz. Yeah. I think I'm... Well, you changed his name to Von Haleywitz, so you changed your name to Von whatever his name is. Von Greenwitz. Right. I was thinking the first name, but okay.

Well, I think their name probably is Green Green, although we don't have direct evidence of that. John? What do you think is the furthest that Aaron Judge could hit a baseball with a sharpie? Yeah. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. You're not leaving it behind there. I'm trying to get over here.

I'm trying to get over my feelings about Aaron Judge being the new spokesperson for Sharpie, but I mean, the guy really did take my dream job right out from under me. I mean, you've been trying to cultivate that relationship for years and what did he do? Nothing. You know what, you think that he like has been talking up

sharpie on social media for the last five years? No, no. No, he's just been hitting home runs. He's got a good agent, is all he did. And hit home runs and was handsome in 6'7. Which to be fair is a major accomplishment. Hey, you're gonna be just fine, no matter what, Godspeed, whether you're a green or anything else, we are excited for you and for your future.

Absolutely, John. You wanna hit me with some of that AFC Wimbledon news? Oh, Hank, it's been a devastating week for AFC Wimbledon. Oh, no, I thought the things were looking up. Devastating. So, John Meads are left back at the age of just 26. One of the best players for AFC Wimbledon over the last several years and a wonderful person. When he received the Man of the Match Award, when Henry and I went to a game together and he spent so much time

with Henry during the ceremony after the after the game. You know the players are often in the bar area after the game but Meads he spent so much time with Henry and was so kind to him and Henry still says that John Meads is his favorite soccer player. But after signing a new contract with AFC Wimbledon in June, unfortunately John Meads has decided that he has to retire from professional football at the age of just 26 because of his persistent ankle injuries. So it's a really sad thing because he's such a great guy and such a wonderful player. The kind of professional that any team would want to have, but he's had these ankle problems

for a long time. He's had several surgeries and unfortunately, he just doesn't feel like he's able to go on playing at a professional level. So John Mead said, retire just a few days before the beginning of the League One season. Wimbledon have signed a replacement, a guy named Ben Purington, which is pretty great name. Haley, have you considered the last name Pyrrington? He's 22 and he's on loan from Roth or Ham United who were promoted up from the third tier to the second tier this season So good luck to Ben Pyrrington, but I'm just absolutely devastated for Meensy What a great guy and what a great player and I wish him all the best in the future

Well, John as you probably have heard the news from Mars is big, and it's good, and it's exciting, and it's really big. Big, really big. As big as it gets. It's a, well, it could get bigger. We're still working on our way to the biggest news, John. All right, Hank, which is just like surprise, surprise humans landing on the planet before 2028.

That's the big news that we're't know what we're waiting for. Just without anybody knowing it happened. It just happened. You know what I must look super focused on getting humans to Mars right now. The big news is that there is a European space agency instrument that has been doing a bunch of work on and taking readings from Mars basically with ground penetrating radar.

So they hit Mars with a high energy sound wave basically. And that bounces back to the craft and it can measure when different echoes come back. So of course the big one comes back right when it hits the surface, but then some of that stuff goes down and then when it hits changes in the kinds of materials it's passing through, it bounces like certain amounts bounces back and based on how much bounces back you can tell what those transitions are between areas. And it is very clear after a lot of looking and a lot of remeasuring of this area that there is a subsurface lake that's way down, like it's more than a kilometer down under the surface.

So it's not like it's easily accessible or anything, but a subsurface lake of liquid water. And the way that this water is liquid, because this is at the pole, it's very cold, it's cold all the way down, it doesn't seem to be being heated by geothermal, energy sources are something which would be the most exciting way that this could be warm. It seems to be, they're or liquid. It seems to be liquid because it is really, really briny,

so it has a lot of perchlorate salts, which help the water not turn into ice because it prevents the crystals from forming. And there's also some thought that it might be pretty slushy like a lot of like mixed around with mud and dirt and particles and stuff. But it is liquid water, we're almost entirely sure. And though that percentage of percolarate salts that would make it like the highest the high percentage that would be necessary for it to stay liquid would be the kind of amount of percolarate salts that would make it like the highest the high percentage that would be necessary for it to stay liquid would be the kind of amount of perchlorate salts that would make it pretty difficult for life to live there.

Perchlorates are toxic to us. You certainly don't want to consume any of them, but there are organisms on earth that actually consume perchlorates, but this level of this level of perchlorateate saturation would not be something that would make those organisms happy. So we're not sure what it means. It probably is that it's very briny and very full of percolate salts, which is not great for life, but it's certainly better for life than no liquid water at all. And then I've actually was able to talk a little bit with some people who at the ESA and at the Planetary Society about this, like how likely it is that it might be some combination of geothermal heat and percoloreates, they can actually tell pretty well that, you know,

looking at the surface temperatures there and sort of modeling how heat gets passed around, it seems like there's probably not a lot of heat down there. That's keeping it liquid. It's just the chemical composition of the water. So that's cool, that's good, that's big, it's weird, but in general like Mars turns about to be a pretty wet place. Definitely was a very wet place, even on its surface billions of years ago. So it could be the kind of place where, you know, life existed once and has maybe even held on in some places. The question being, if we could even figure out what life looks like, if it's that different from us where it can survive in that kind of

environment. But wet water allows for a lot of interesting chemistry to happen, and that is a very cool thing to know is there on Mars. So we know the waters wet. We know that it's kept liquid probably not by being super warm, but instead because it's so briny. Yeah. And we know that it's brininess is probably not great for life. Correct. Correct, yes, probably not. But maybe not a deal breaker for life. You know, life finds a way. I mean, the thing that I keep coming back to,

and this is something I will follow with great interest for the rest of my life, but the thing I keep coming back to is that even on Earth, life isn't really a dichotomy. This is alive, That is not alive It's much more like a continuum. This is more alive than that and I wonder if when we Go to Mars or know more about Mars if that continuum is gonna become even

Weirder and less certain and more problematic because Then we'll have to decide, well, is this life when it's so different from the life that we know and experience here? And not only that, we'll have to figure out, do we have to protect that life? Like, do we have to stay off of that planet

because our life probably is gonna be better at being life than that life? And if we start changing the surface chemistry of Mars, changing the atmosphere composition, do we basically say, well, not only are we gonna like extinct some species right now, if this is an entirely different lineage of life, are we going to extinct an entire new kind of,

kind of like, you know, sort of chemical sustainability for lack of a different term. Right. And then our human's going to have to make the difficult decision not to go, which humans are so bad at, right? Like humans are so bad at resisting the urge to explore something. I just made an episode of the Anthropocene review about the caves at Los Angeles, in part because humans have done a pretty good

job over the last 70 years of stopping going when it became unsustainable for them to be there. But I feel like with something as big and exciting and full of possibility as life on another planet, we're gonna have a really hard time not going. Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. I don't know how to hold that back myself, because I certainly want to go. I mean, not personally. I love it in my chair. Oh yeah, God no, not personally. But I would like some other people to go and report back to me on what it was like.

We've got a project for awesome message this week from Frederique Garzont, from Paris, France, who contributed to the project for awesome. Thank you, Frederique. I apologize, by the way, if I'm mispronouncing your name, it's been a number of years since my high school French classes, and as my high school French teacher would be happy to point out, I was also a terrible student. A quick cuckoo to the French speaking nerdfighters out there. Hank and John, Merci for everything you do with the project for awesome Crash Course and SciShow. You prove every day that the internet is a great place to bring positive change to society. Oh God, Frederic, I'm glad you believe that. I hope that I still can. Oh boy. By the way, when will VidCon come to France? Great question.

And that's more of a question for Hank than for me. I don't, I have no plans currently to bring VidCon to France. But VidCon is coming across the English channel to England. It is. It is, that's very close by. Yeah, so long in England. So long in England. We're able to see you at VidCon UK, if not VidCon, François.

Yes, very good, John, very good. Hank, what did we learn today? John, we learned that Karl von Kallowicz forested. We also learned that signed books are, or at least should be, actually signed. And we learned that you should do the dishes when you're at a party, because everybody will think you're doing that everybody's such a nice thing, but in fact, you're just trying to not for a second. And lastly, we learned that if you want to protect your home,

always get a doxant. That's... No, no one will burgle. That doxant will trouble. It's trouble. Yeah, I mean, that rover's gonna get their ankles bitten off. No, you won't have all your eye-bought ankle. We'll just get that doxantooth right in it.

You're gonna lose your foot eye for sure. Alright John, thank you for podcasting with me. It's an absolute pleasure. If anybody has any suggestions for opening bits or of course questions you can send us to hankinjohnatgmail.com. If you want to put in the subject to an opening bit so we know that that's an opening bit and not a question that will help us when we're organizing things. This podcast is produced by Rosanna Halsey and Sheridan Gibson.

It's edited by the great Nicholas Jenkins. Our head of community and communications is Victoria Bonzorno. The music that you're listening to right now and also the music at the beginning of the podcast was written by Gunnarola. You can follow us on Twitter at Hank Green or at John Green. We also have a Patreon for Dear Hank and John at patreon.com slash Dear Hank and John, where we are about to record our patrons' only terrible podcast this week in Ryan's. Thank you again for listening,

and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. you