Dear Hank & John - 176: The Celebrity Life Coaches of Your Dreams

Episode Date: February 11, 2019

Should penguins go to Mars? Why do we chew rubber? Is this frantic, indecisive squirrel okay? And more! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail]! Join us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. So where is I first think of it Dear John and Hank? It's a comedy podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you the abuse advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon John. Did you hear that they're doing a new Netflix documentary on Flat Earthers? Oh yeah? That actually seems completely plausible to me in the 2019 media landscape but what's the dad joke? I hear that the end is a real cliffhanger.

You remember how like TLC used to have shows that were about learning because it was the learning channel. And now they have shows where like people hunt for ghosts. Don't go chasing waterfalls. I thought that the TLC that you were talking about. Wow, I mean, it's different TLC than the one you were talking about, but it's the other TLC. For a second, there Hank, I thought you really were T-Boss Watkins, but no, it's just Hank Green.

Did you just look up a member of TLC very quickly on Google because there's no way you know who T-Boss Watkins is? I do know who T-Boss Watkins is. I can tell you everything about her work. Well, I look forward to learning more during this weekend riots. No, there's no way we're talking about T. Boss Watkins during this weekend riots. I know exactly who we're talking about. And in fact, that brings me to our first question.

All right, let's do it then. Hank, I want to share with you what I would have tweeted this week. Oh, okay, you're gonna, I like it. Bring this thing back. I'm off the Twitter, but I still sometimes have thoughts that come in the form of 240 characters.

The other day, there was a Canadian judge who was presiding over a horrible case. I don't want to get into the details of it, but it was absolutely horrible. And the judge said to the assembled crowd, ask yourself if you need to be here. And I thought that's a great thing for a judge to say in that situation, in that courtroom. It's also a great thing for pretty much every human to say pretty much every moment of the day. Like the next time you're on Twitter or Reddit or Facebook or you're like way deep down a Ted Bundy rabbit hole or wherever you find yourself, just remember that Canadian judge and

ask yourself if you need to be here. But where else am I going to be? The coffee shop? That's expensive. They want you to buy things. Maybe you could be in conversation with your beautiful child. That is actually good. He is a very good conversationalist. He told me to go get him a ball. It was downstairs. He said, Dad, go get Orrin ball downstairs, please. And I was like, that's a full on sentence, man. That was the whole thing. You got it. Hank, we've got to get to questions

from our listeners, especially this first question. We've been making this podcast for, I don't know exactly how long, but it feels like 755,000 years. And this, this question from Emily, is the single greatest question I have ever read. And admittedly, I am biased because Emily and I share certain experiences, but I'm just going to read it. Dear John and Hank, I recently started having fairly intense dreams about Keanu Reeves, who I previously hadn't given a second thought beyond enjoying some of his movies. Some of his movies.

Some of his movies. You have to stop already. Okay. Because you said you share certain experiences with Emily, and now I am definitely sure that you have recurrent dreams about Keanu Reeves. I don't have recurrent dreams about Keanu Reeves. I don't have recurrent dreams about Keanu Reeves. I have recurrent dreams about John Cena.

We'll get there in a second. But I do think a lot about Keanu Reeves during our waking hours, as you know, hey, because all right. Then I will stop interrupting you. I'm so sorry. This is great. Right, back to the question. Well, the dreams about Keanu aren't bad, per se.

They're actually great. They won't stop, and they're becoming fairly annoying because they're taking up so much of my mental energy when I've got other things to do. What I think is happening is that I'm having trouble grieving my grandmother who recently passed away. Well, that took a turn. And my brain has decided that Keanu Reeves is the solution. Emily, I think your brain is right, but we'll get there. I'm not sure I agree. that Keanu Reeves is the solution. Emily, I think your brain is right, but we'll get there. I'm not sure I agree.

I work really long hours and the whole experience around her death has left me feeling exhausted and I'm having trouble initiating the greeting process. Any suggestion on how I can help myself grieve and stop Keanu Reeves from trying to help? I feel like if Keanu Reeves is trying to help, you gotta let him.

Yeah. Emily, Keanu Reeves is trying to help, you gotta let him. Yeah, Emily, Keanu Reeves is not the person on Earth who is the closest to achieving enlightenment, but he is the closest famous person on Earth to achieving enlightenment. Keanu Reeves, as you know Hank, I spent a lot of time thinking about Keanu Reeves. Keanu Reeves is a fascinating person.

He has lived with terrible instability. He's lived with terrible loss. And I don't like believe in supernatural stuff except when it comes to Keanu Reeves. And Keanu Reeves is reaching out a hand to you and telling you that you are gonna be okay, that this won't be easy, that this won't be painless, that this won't be easy, that this won't be painless, that

this won't be immediate, but that you will be okay. And you need to take Keanu's hand and you need to follow him where he takes you. And, and I mean, I think it's interesting to say that you're having trouble initiating the grieving process. Because of course, what grief looks like isn't the same in every situation and for every person. And if your brain is hiding from grief through Keanu Reeves, maybe that's something to address, but also maybe the process of grief in this case

is just going to be different, and that doesn't mean that it's bad or that you're bad. The other thing that I want to add to this, John, is it possible that Keanu Reeves is such a like genuinely good guy giving up his seat on the subway to people, sharing all of his royalties from the Matrix 2 with the crew because he felt like they did all the hard work and such because he was in Bill and Ted's excellent adventure and he really took the message, be excellent to each other to his heart and that that was it like a, though a very silly movie ended up being an extremely

formative, like self philosophy that he has stuck to for his entire career. Because if you're gonna pick one, I wouldn't go with John Wick. I would go with Bill and Ted's excellent adventure. Although I would argue that John Wick is a film about a person of tremendous principles who just feels extremely strongly about his dog. You could sure, it just still seems a little self-destructive. Like even if the things he's doing is good, he's putting himself in tremendous danger constantly. The odds that it goes

as well as it has gone, for as long as it has gone, seem quite low to me. He's highly skilled professional, of course, but there's a lot of bullets flying around and sometimes things don't go your way. Emily, Hank's point here, and I'll admit that he's drifted away from it, is that Keanu Reeves is amazing, and Keanu Reeves is trying to help you, and you need to accept that help, even if it only lives inside of your dreamscape. John, yeah, tell me about John Cena. Okay, so yeah, I have a lot of recurring dreams, but I would say that my recurring dreams about John Cena are probably in my top like two or three recurring dreams. And basically, every dream what's happened is that I've had nervous

breakdown, which, you know, so far, very plausible. And I end up in a kind of inpatient... You know, nervous breakdowns in your dreams? Yeah, of course. Yeah. And I end up in an inpatient kind of treatment facility. But the cool thing is I'm the only patient. And the only doctor is John Cena.

Now I don't know anything about John Cena. Like I know a lot about Keanu Reeves. I know nothing about John Cena. Now, I don't know anything about John Cena. Like, I know a lot about Keanu Reeves. I know nothing about John Cena. I know he is a professional wrestler. I know that he is an actor. I know that he is a strong person physically. I know that he is a meme. I don't even know that he's a meme.

I'm not on, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I'm not on the social internet. Anyway. What happens is that John Cena, who is my doctor, my personal trainer, my mentor, everything in my life, he just lifts me up both literally and figuratively. So we're doing like high ropes courses together and he's telling me like, you can do this, John,

like you're ready for this and we're getting stronger together so that I can finally do a pull-up on my own, like an entire pull-up. And John Cena is like, yeah, you did it. You got to the pull-up stage. Or we're learning how to do things that I've never learned how to do that. I've always made me feel a little bit like I'm incompetent in the world. Like, how do I do basic carpentry? Or how do I change the oil in my car? And John Cena is like, here's how you change the oil in your car, man. And I start to just feel built up and built up

and stronger and more confident and like a person who can go back out into the world and survive out there. This is a surprisingly healthy John Cena dream. John Cena is such a gift to my dreams. That's actually why I don't know anything about him. Like I'm scared to Google him and find out something negative about him because I need the John Cena of my imagination to hang around and keep like

building me up. Don't tank do not tell me anything negative about John Cena. I heard that pause and I don't know what was coming but it better not be anything bad about John Cena. I was just yawning. I'm sorry I have nothing bad to say about John Cena. I know nothing about John Cena, which is also fine with me, but I'm glad that he is in your dreams helping you out. John, do you wanna hear another question? Very much so. All right, dear Hagen John,

I've recently learned that penguins have brains adapted to functioning on very low or limited oxygen levels, given their acclimatization to extreme environments, temperatures, and living conditions, they seem well suited to space life Shouldn't the first terrestrial colonists to Mars be penguins instead of people? Shouldn't the first terrestrial colonists to Mars be penguins instead of people? Planet and penguins, Christina

Maybe not the first. I see a big problem with them being the first which is that First, I see a big problem with them being the first, which is that nothing against penguins, but they're not gonna be able to solve all the problems that early Martians are gonna need to solve. I mean, maybe we can solve all the problems for them, but set up a habitat, just a lot of fish. Gotta bring a lot of fish along for a full penguin life cycle. Don't let them breed, because that would be sad when their babies run out of fish.

But other than that, the one penguin, just one penguin in a box and with a bunch of fish, they can work out. You know, John, I think that no, they won't be the first, but Christina, you make a great point that eventually, you know, this will happen.

We will start to bring other life from planet Earth to planet Mars, and won't just be humans. And early on, those definitely gonna be things that are good for like food. But also, once we terraform the planet, it's important to remember that, like, Earth like doesn't mean like pleasant. So even a nice Mars, if we get some stuff in the atmosphere, if we get a little bit of warmth going on, it's still not like not like Florida.

It's not the beach, it's gonna be Siberia up in there, which is a lot more hospitable than Mars right now, because Siberia has like air and stuff. So we are gonna wanna bring life forms, if we terraform the planet, that are gonna be used to a more rugged lifestyle. And as far as vertebrates go, like complex vertebrates,

I think penguins might be a good place to start because they do not mind living in extreme environments. Hank, what does terraforming mean? Well, John, what do you think? It's got those two words, Tara. What is Tara? Oh, God, you know what I hated most of all in science class when I was in my school. We've talked about this before. I'll just tell you. I'm sorry. I did it to you again. I like to do it. They made me feel like an idiot before they told me the answer. That was my favorite thing

about science class. All right. Well, we're all we all do in our own way, but yeah, it's just turning another planet into something that is more Earth-like. So, like, is it like adding soil? Yeah, soil is important, but more like adding the ability to go outside without a spacesuit is like your first step in terraforming, and that's like, oh, it's like doing some chemistry. You gotta warm it up, yeah,

and you gotta have a lot more stuff in theforming. And that's like, Oh, so doing some chemistry. You got to warm it up. Yeah. And you got to have a lot more stuff in the atmosphere. Ideally, nitrogen and oxygen, which is what Earth's atmosphere is almost entirely, but also potentially other mixes, if you can get whatever you can get going on as long as there is a fair percentage of oxygen, but just a higher level of pressure so that you can go outside without dying immediately. Well, we're doing a pretty good job of changing the that you can go outside without dying immediately. Well, we're doing a pretty good job

of changing the atmosphere here on Earth, so. It's true. That's pretty cool, so it's definitely possible. It's a pretty large-scale project that we embarked upon in order to substantially change the composition of, you know, particularly carbon dioxide, which turns out to be a relatively small portion

of the total gas in the planet, but a very important percentage. Yeah, no question. Actually, I guess there is still sort of a question, right? Uh, according to... I was just trying to get your goat, because you made me do that thing where you have me try to define something I don't know how to define. This next question comes from Emma, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I was just on the bus

chewing a piece of gum, and I realized I had no idea what chewing gum is made out of, so I googled it. Oh, Emma, never, ever, Google. Don't Google. And it turns out that gum is made of the same material as what's used in tubes, like rubber. Literally, I'm chewing rubber. What?

What else did you think you would be chewing? Why? Why on earth would I be chewing rubber? How did we get here? And just so we're clear, I'm still chewing the gum. No shame. If what we are is what we eat, then I'm a tire. Emma.

Yeah, it's some of the, there's like a specific polymer that's in chewing gum that is also in like the inner tubes of tires. It's not just the tire tube. There's a lot more in a tire tube and there's a lot more in chewing gum, but they do share an ingredient. Emma, I would actually argue that rubber is in some ways the least offensive ingredient in chewing gum. Like rubber, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here Hank, but rubber comes from a tree. It's basically a vegetable. I- you could look at it that way. I will also correct you because you're wrong. This- this

particular polymer is not... from a tree. It's made in probably industrial facilities where they make polymers for various reasons and one of the reasons is for chewing gum, I guess. And that polymer is both in chewing gum and in inner tubes. Inner tubes also have other stuff. You might have noticed that your chewing gum doesn't taste like a tire, which is great.

But yeah, they just share that ingredient and it's pretty important ingredients, the thing that makes it chewy. I mean, you got to recognize that, like you're chewing on something that is not food, like it's definitely not food, because it never goes away. No, it's food, like, it's definitely not food.

I mean, you can swallow it. I mean, it's amazing that we created this thing. Like, isn't that amazing? Like, we were like, hey, you know what we should do? We should make rubber candy. That's great. Who thought of this idea? I just love how we process foods.

I just think it's phenomenal. People are always criticizing processed foods. You shouldn't eat processed foods. And of course, I know that they're bad for you in a lot, but processed food, if you draw a line, Hank, of how processed a food is, and you draw another line of how much I enjoy that food, you've got one line because the more processed a food, the more I love it.

This is like, this is going to make me feel bad because I know that our mom is going to hate this if she hears it, but like, same. And it, like, is it just genetic? Is it how we were raised? Cause we don't have that much in common. You would me, like some things, sure. But we both love, like, food that is barely food. I just went vegetarian for a month

and after the month was over, the first thing, like the thing I missed the most, the whole time, was freaking chicken McNuggets. Mmm. I love a nug. I love a good nug. I don't know about chicken McNuggets because that would imply that the nuggets are from McDonald's. Yeah.

So you like a nicer nugget, like Wendy's nugget? No. God, Hank. How, why, why were you allowed to become successful when you have no ability to enjoy luxury whatsoever? Like, how can you come back to me and ask me if I like a Wendy's nugget? No, I like a good nugget. I like a chicken nugget, Hank.

I like a high quality, next level chicken nugget. $100, $200 a piece kind of chicken nuggets. It's like wrapped in gold foil, like the kind you see on the websites of people who want to eat the rich, those kinds of nugs, like the really bougie nugs. The bougiest nugs available. That's actually the brand name. Bougie nugs. Bougie nugs is like 600 bucks for a six back.

If it's not, we're gonna make a lot of money with our new business. Yeah, I mean, people have successfully convinced Americans to buy like $90,000 watches when their cell phones are also watches, so maybe we could convince people to spend 600 bucks on six nugs. We can find out. Sometimes people just wanna show off their six nugs. We can find out. Sometimes people just want to show off their Instagram nugs.

I often hear people say in conversation, mostly rich people say this, that the reason rich people are rich is because they save better and they're smarter with money. And that is the stupidest BS I've ever heard. Because inevitably those people are wearing like $70,000 watches and drinking $200 bottles of wine that they literally cannot differentiate from

two-buck chuck. Yes, it is concerning. I am worried about the state of the minds of the rich, John. They do not seem to. That said, I do enjoy a pretty high quality, somewhat more expensive than chicken McNuggets McNug. Yeah, I do realize though that I'm gonna have a hard time selling expensive nuggets now that we've talked about it,

because I do not know how to make nuggets Instagram worthy. Not that they can't be, I just just like, I don't understand the platform well enough. Yeah, yeah, no, I think you just started an Instagram account called Boogie Nugs and then you have your nugs going adventures. You know, you've got like your nugs on a yacht. You got your nugs like hanging out with beautiful people with like highly sculpted bodies on the beach.

Yeah, they're in the coral reef getting all soaked up with that saltwater. That's right. Where? Nugs are scuba diving. We got six pack abs. Yeah. I don't know. I don't think you want to anthropomorphize the nugs too much because then people are going to feel weird eating them. Ah, no, no, no. I think that's part of the, that's part of the thing. You're like, this nug gave its life for me.

Oh. Which is actually also already true. About the actual nugs. Just for clear. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what are chicken nuggets made out of? A rubber, John. Oh, thank God. All right, let's move on.

John, let's get to a more important question. It's from Ryan, who is actually apparently really a Ryan. Dear Hank and John, I've been riding my bike around central Florida for years now without any issues with the local wildlife. However, this morning, I was riding my bike down a bike path in the squirrel, runs past my bike, and then does an immediate, you turn and goes right under my front tire. Is there a chance that the squirrel is okay? My wife says that there is no chance it survived, seeing as the combined weight

of me and my bike is close to 200 pounds. But I saw him get up and dart off into the bushes right afterwards. That means he survived, right? Exercise is not extermination, Ryan. Hey, this reminds me of my all-time favorite headline from the onion. Final moments of Squirrel's life, frantic comma, indecisive. That's that's a that's an oldie John that's from it it was a print paper. Oh man. Oh man. Oh God. Wow. I remember those those days when I was when I was young that was like before I was in college. That's when fun things. It's just such a dumb joke, but it's so true.

And every time I see a squirrel in the middle of the street, I think like, this is it, man, you've got a choice here. You can either make a decision because all decisions will be good. Or you can make no decision and die. Yeah, I just stop myself. I just stop in the middle of the road and wait for the squirrel to make the decision.

Yeah, and just wait for somebody to hit my car in the back. I can't do it. I can't be a squirrel murderer despite the fact that I am a consumer of nugs, which is. I was gonna say, I mean, if they could turn squirrel meat into delicious nugs, which is. I was gonna say, I mean, if they could turn squirrel meat into delicious nugs, Hank would be like running all over all over town.

Run around the Billy Club. Ryan, I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is that you live in Central Florida. Sorry, is that okay? Can I make that joke? You can apologize immediately, in Central Florida. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I knew how happy it would make my brother. No, the squirrel has a chance of survival for sure. I know this because I once rode over my brother's face. Oh yeah! In a bike, it wasn't on purpose, Hank fell, and I was right behind him,

and I guess rode over his face. I didn't notice it, but then it was screaming. You noticed that something happened, because like, yeah, I noticed a little bump or something, but I didn't know what had happened. It was just like a highly dramatic, lots of screaming. I was a little confusing. Anyway, I turned my bike around and Hank screaming at me.

So mad. He's probably like seven or eight or something. You ran over my face. That's what he's saying. He's screaming and crying. You ran over my face. You ran over my face and I was like, no I didn't and then I looked at him and the bike tire. There was like a tire mark that went all the way across his face and I was like, oh, oh I did. And look, I survived and then I assumed that we hid that from mom somehow. Well, you were like, you were like, I gotta tell mom, I gotta tell mom,

and I was like, listen, if we've got no serious symptoms, no kind of lasting confusion, I'll wake you up a couple times tonight just to make sure you're good. Let's just wash your face and be done with this. So I survived. I would guess that I have sturdy your bones than a squirrel.

But look, if you like ride a, like, so a bike, it depends maybe to mention the kind of bike. Which is have a big fat tire, or is like a big skinny tire, because that's gonna change your pressure situation. Like if it's a road bike, that's bad news. That's like a knife on wheels. If it's a road bike, that's bad news. That's like a knife on wheels. If it's a mountain bike.

Yeah, but if it's like an under inflated tire in like a mountain bike, I think the squirrels got a good chance. Yeah, if you got shocks on the front, that's gonna give them a little more protection. And it did run away. And look, the other thing to remember Ryan is that, like, look, every squirrel eventually dies a sad and painful death.

It's just the nature of squirrels. And honestly, the only way, the only, like, possibly potentially not, like, sad and painful way for a squirrel to go, is to, like, slowly fall asleep in the cold and freeze to death, which is an option for central Florida squirrels. Do you remember when I was in the hospital in Titusville, Florida, and you came very kindly and visited me and stayed with me? Yeah. And the doctor, I kept saying that I didn't want to die in the floor. I don't want to die in Titusville.

I'm not gonna die in Titusville. Well, you kept saying. Well, I mean, I, I don't, I'll be honest. Like, I don't wanna die in Florida. I grew up there. It's a lovely place. I have wonderful friends there, and I wanna die somewhere else.

And the doctor was like, you know, I think just to err on the side of caution, we'd like to keep you for the night. And I was like, mm, nope, no sir. Put me in an ambulance and drive me to the state line. I am not spending tonight in Florida. Oh, it's true. And he got out of there.

And you were like looking back, I thought that you were a little bit overexadriding the situation, but looking back, that was like not great. And also it was not a great hospital. It was not a great hospital, and it was not a great situation. It was not a great hospital and it was not a great situation. The weird thing about my hypokondria, Hank, of course, is that I do sometimes get weird diseases.

So it's very hard for me to tell myself, like, oh no, you're probably fine. When I've had orbital cellulitis and I've had laparinitis and I've had meningitis. I've had a lot of theitis. Yeah, you have ESSA feel like a soft and I've had meninjitis. I've had a lot of theitis. Yeah, you have eason if you like a soft-adjitis. It's anotheritis. I forgot about thatitis that I have.

I got so manyitis as I can't even keep track of all this. Then it's not like you don't have them. Like real hard. So it's hard like when you're a hypochondriac and sickly, it's a terrible mix. Yeah. All right, I was like, there's no way that John has a giant eye infection behind his eye.

He's making that up. And you know the first time I called you and I was telling you about my ulcerative colitis symptoms like before I knew I had UC, you were like, boy, I hope you don't have ulcerative colitis. That's literally what you said to me. I know it's where the first word's out of my mouth. Yeah.

It sounds like, yeah. It sounds like ulcerative colitis. I hope it's not that, because that's not good. And I went to the doctor and he was like, I think it might be ulcerative colitis. And I was like, I've heard that's bad. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. So that my brother who's an amateur Google doctor

says, that's terrible. It's not great. Sometimes I've wondered how long I could make it in private practice as a family practitioner. Like, is it hours? Is it days? Oh, it's definitely days. I wouldn't be found out on the first day

unless there was something super weird. Oh, okay. So, like, oh, I hear what you mean. I thought you went to school, you did the whole thing, unless there was something super weird. Oh, okay, so like, oh, I hear what you mean. I thought you meant like you went to school, you did the whole thing, and then you had your first day at family practice, and like, John, no bedside manner, green has to see how long he lasts before he loses his job.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah, there's a reason that like all the productive work I've done in my life has exactly one thing in common, which is that I'm alone in a basement. That's pretty true. Oh, boy. Reason why I'm your boss and not the other way around. That's right.

That's right. Alright, let's see it to another question. This one comes from Rebecca who writes, Dear John and Hank, I work in retail and as such, I ask the question credit or debit quite often. Sometimes people respond, whatever, just choose one. When I do this, what do I do in this situation? Which one do I choose?

I don't care. It's too much responsibility for me. P and P, Rebecca. It is, it's of course too much responsibility for you because it's not, it's literally not your choice. If these, like I think what's happening, if that this person thinks they're making it easier for you, like just do whatever is easy, no, no,

no, they're equally easy. What's easy for me as being told what to do right now. This is not a perfect analogy, Rebecca, but when I was filling out my will, the lawyer guy was like, what do you want done with your body when you die? And I said, whatever, whatever they feel like is fine.

I have no preference, just let them do whatever they want. Yeah, whatever is what you feel. Which is how I feel. I was like, I was like like but I do want a headstone You know whatever they do with my body, but I do want there to be a place where people go and the cry And they're sad and I want there and I want their tears to water and Indiana sick of more that slowly grows to be 300 feet tall But what what happens with my body is a relic and lawyer said to me, and I found this very helpful. He said, it doesn't matter what you choose,

but you should choose something because what the people who are left behind are going to want is a guide. They are going to want to have one fewer decision to make. Yeah, that person's already in a pretty stressful situation and you want to make it as easy for them as you can. Exactly, Rebecca, which is why whenever someone says whatever, just choose one, you should respond by saying, credit or debit. Yeah, it's not your choice.

This is actually, there's a functional difference here and the person should be able to make this choice. Otherwise, you just need to push whatever button as close as to your finger. Like, this is how I do fortune cookies, John. I have a problem. This was a significant difficulty I had in my life. The fortune cookies were delivered to the table and then you're like, but which fortune is my fortune?

Which one do I take? And so, I have a system that has rules that tells you exactly which, like once the server stops touching the fortune cookie, exactly which fortune cookie goes to which person, because I can't make that choice too much pressure. And how have you found the fortunes to change in the years since you've used the strategy?

Like, they're, you know, not particularly accurate, but fun. And like, it's not about like having my fortune predicted. The numbers on the back also are not the lottery numbers. This next question comes from not Orion, an anonymous caller, or I guess not really. Dear John and Hank, y'all, John especially, are really adamant about increasing the number of active voters in the United States. If you knew for a fact that a majority of non-voters

would vote against your values, would you still promote this so much? I'd be lying if I said I was Ryan. Not a Ryan, first of all, John especially, are you for real? I am adamant. I'm so adamant. How are you, real? I am adamant. I'm so adamant. How are you?

That was John more adamant. What have you done that I haven't done? I need to do it. I started a whole series called How to Vote in Every State. It tells you how to get registered, how to get your sample ballot, how to find your polling place, how to vote absentee if you can.

This is an interesting question, and I understand where it comes from. But it's important to remember that, like, Hank and I are not political pundits. In fact, we have aggressively avoided opportunities to become that rear path opened to us, and we were like, there is, that is, we could do, and then we were like, actually, that's awful.

We walked down it a little bit, and, oh, it's a bad thing. Yeah, we didn't want to do that that and we don't want to do that. So we're not political bandits. We are, if anything, civic boosters in the sense of trying to boost civics. I know for a fact that a majority of Americans disagree with me about issues that are extremely important to me. And that if all Americans voted, the United States would look different in ways that wouldn't be necessarily good for me, and certainly in some ways that I wouldn't agree with.

But I really do believe that when all people in a country participate in the governance of that country, the governance of the country is stronger. People have more faith in the political institutions of the country, and that allows for a level of stability that we otherwise don't have. And so I think even though it might not be like good for me in a narrow sense, it is really good for me in a macro sense to live in a country where people are deeply civically engaged. Yeah, and I think that voting is sort of the gateway

to civic engagement into caring about your local community, to caring about your state and caring about your country, and that gateway leads not just to like voting and like, you know, having your voice heard Which is part of it But it also leads to paying more attention to what's going on where you live Actually looking like like reading your like the pamphlet that they give you to learn about the different ballot measures that are going on give you to learn about the different ballot measures that are going on researching your candidates and like spending more time understanding that we do have a say in how decisions are made. And that, like if the more people who understand that, the more people who are engaging and the more

people who are making decisions feel obligated to listen to the people that they represent. Yeah, exactly. I think if everyone voted the big benefit that we would see, even though there would be lots of changes to laws and regulations and tax structure and whatnot that I might disagree with, and certainly that might be non-beneficial to me. The big difference we would see is that people would be at the center of US political life instead of corporations being at the center of US political life. And I think that would be a positive development. Yeah, I think there are other ways for us to handle that problem, but a lot of them rely on voting.

Which reminds me, actually actually that today's podcast is brought to you by voting because it doesn't actually have like a large corporate sponsorship behind it. Yeah, that really. It never really gets any marketing traction, but it's still a good idea. Super good idea.

This podcast is also brought to you by John Wick's dog. Sorry, it went that way, buddy. And today's podcast is also brought to you by John Wick's dog. Sorry, it went that way, buddy. And today's podcast is also brought to you by surprisingly healthy John Cena dreams. Surprisingly healthy John Cena dreams. He just wants you to be your best self and he knows that you can arrive there. And finally, this podcast is brought to you by

Buzzy Nugs. Buzzy Nugs. They got abs and they're on the insta. Alright, this is from Anna who asks, Dear Hank and John. My brother got me a poster for the very popular Netflix show Stranger Things for Christmas. But the trouble is that I don't really love Stranger Things. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was alright, but I wouldn't put up a poster of it in my bedroom.

I know it would be cool to have the poster in my room because the show is very popular, but I don't particularly enjoy it as much as my peers do, and I don't want to seem like a fake fan. Also, I don't want to hurt my brother's feelings by not putting it up. What do I do? I'm an imposter! Anna.

Oh, that's amazing. That's amazing. Wow, wow. This is a tough one, because in a way it's on the brother. This is why you don't get someone art or jewelry unless you're positive they want. Wow. This is a tough one because in a way it's on the brother. This is why you don't get someone art or jewelry unless you're positive they want. Yeah.

Like years ago, Sarah and I instituted a rule that like, we couldn't get each other art for Christmas because when we did, I would open the art that Sarah got me and I would be like, this looks a lot like art that Sarah likes. Yeah. And vice versa would be true as well. And I suspect that your brother is a pretty big stranger thing, Sam.

Or just, or just was like last minute Amazon panic, you know. Right, right. Yeah. Or he went to like the local like, or he went to like the local Spencer's gifts and he was going through all the posters and he was like, well, she doesn't like the local, like, where we went to like the local Spencer's gifts and he was going through all the posters and he was like, well, she doesn't like the grateful dead fish or not particularly clever marijuana jokes.

That leaves only this stranger thing's poster. That sounds about right. I, John, it's almost, it's, you have captured Spencer's gifts at least at a certain moment, extremely accurately. I'm not sure I've ever been in a Spencer's gifts in half my life. I can't. It was fully half my life ago, the last time I visited. That I did, I was recently in the mall

and it was still there. The point is, Anna, your brother probably didn't think too hard about this gift, right right or he wouldn't have gotten it for you That said I do think you have to put it up on your wall Yeah, I mean you don't have to keep it there forever, but like maybe maybe for a little bit of time I just found out something very weird John. Okay. Spencer's gifts is owned by the same company that owns Universal Music Group. Oh, it seems like a conflict of interest. I mean, Hank, if you're going to start drilling down into corporations that have overlapping

interests, you're going to get pretty depressed pretty quickly. Let's just focus on Anna's question, not on the deep web of underlying corporate structures that this whole house of sand is built on. Okay. All right, that's probably for the best. The nice thing about a poster is that you can put it up for like two months and then me like, oh, it turns out I really like the bangles.

I'm gonna put one of their posters up. Or you just like, it gets a convenient rip, you know? Oh yeah, I was playing volleyball in the room and I ripped the poster. You know how I am with my volleyball? You should have gotten me a volleyball poster. Anyway, this next question comes from Stephanie, who writes,

I share a house with my roommate and her two cats, and I love her cats. They are fluffy and cuddly and cute. There's just one problem. My roommate talks to me through her cats. They are fluffy and cuddly and cute. There's just one problem. My roommate talks to me through her cats. So we'll be having a mobile conversation and then the moment a cat enters the room, I am now continuing that conversation with my roommate talking as the cat. I don't mind a small pause in the conversation to acknowledge their presence because cats are adorable, but I don't mind a small pause in the conversation to acknowledge their presence because cats are adorable,

but I don't need to have a conversation with a cat about rent because among other things, the cats aren't chipping in financially. It's a communication cat-tastrophe, Stephanie. That, I mean, as soon as you said, my roommate talks me through my cat, so I was like, oh boy, I know exactly what this situation isn't I don't like it.

It's so passive-aggressive to be like, manhole thinks you need to pay the rent on time. I mean, if you're not paying the rent on time, manhole has a point. Listen, Stephanie, I personally have no problem with it. The thing is, manhole here really doesn't like it when you don't do the dishes. Yeah, well, and then you could be like, well, I heard manhole say that he's actually never seen the dishes because he's frickin' a foot like half a foot tall. Furthermore, hey, Manhole, remind me, do you pay rent? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Exactly. Yeah. I'm interested in listening to what you think manhole is thinking once manhole begins contributing to this household in a financial way. I'm interested in learning more about the

the like passive aggressive upbringing of this roommate who clearly their parents talked to in this way and it became a thing like there's no other way's happens. Yeah. So Stephanie, if you are able to like overcome the awkwardness that seems to be infused in this relationship, I would sit down with your roommate, ideally, while Manhole was not in the room. And I would say, hey, listen, this is not a big deal. It's just a silly thing, but I notice that every time the cat comes into the room, you start talking as the cat.

And then sometimes you bring up things that you kind of like want me to do or need me to do. And I get what's happening. And it's not a big deal, but just talk to me. It's a lot easier for me if you talk to me. And then we can just talk to the cats as cats instead of pretending that they are humans. Yeah, and Stephanie, I think that this situation is like, your roommate is having a hard time dealing with conflict

and is so as like creating a vector through which the conflict flows. And it's ultimately not a good communication strategy. Figuring out how to get around it is not super easy, but that's part of being a roommate, and part of maintaining a relationship that you must maintain, or else your life will start to be worse. Yeah, it's so true that you get into these spirals of not talking, and then it just gets worse and worse and worse, and it's really hard to get out of, and the main way to not get, like, deep down into that spiral is to notice

it when it starts to happen. Like my great brilliant amazing roommate Shannon, she was a genius at that. Like she would be like, hold on, I am beginning to resent the fact that you never put away your Coke Zero cans. And I would be like, I wouldn't say never. And she would be like, as exhibit A, I would like to point you to any surface in this apartment. Ha ha ha ha. Hold up, I have discovered a resentment. Yeah, exactly.

The minute she discovered it, she'd be like, oh, that's what I've been feeling. John, pick up your cans. That's so important. It's so important to, in any relationship, that we want to maintain for a long term, that's so important. One time, Shannon discovered a chewed piece of

Nicaret gum on the night stand next to her bed. And she brought it into my room, and she held it up to my face and she said in a very sweet caring, loving voice, if I ever find a chewed piece of Nicarat gum in my room ever again, I'm going to cut out your throat. And that was very helpful to me, but expressed the level of anger that she felt. I'm so like, it's just that we should do a show about being a roommate with John so that everybody feels better about their roommates.

Jesus. John is the time to get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. It might be just because the news from AFC Wimbledon is going to take a minute. Oh no, okay. Let me know what's going on, John. Hank, you may recall that I made a video about AFC Wimbledon's astonishing beautiful fourth round FA Cup victory over Premier League West Ham United, and then the English Football Association claimed some of the content

in that video and had it taken down off of YouTube. You recall this? Yes. I do remember. I would insist that my video falls under the definition of fair use, but in the end, you were able to talk me out of suing the English football association, although I would like to point out for the record that the English football association has been screwing Wimbledon for 20 years now.

It's the English FAs fault that Wimbledon had their league play stolen and sold the Milton Keynes in the first place so that the rich people in Milton Keynes could build a flip in Walmart. And that's not even an exaggeration. That's exactly what happened. And then the English FA had the gall to say that starting a new club in Wimbledon would be, quote, not in the wider interests of football. And then, and I realized this is not quite as big of a tragedy, they took down my video.

And I also scheduled the fifth round FA Cup Wimbledon game during my meet and greet at VidCon London. Truly, the worst thing that the English FA has done to me in the last two weeks, which is really saying something, is that they scheduled the Millwall Wimbledon game during Hank's meet and greet. Hank is going to be in London. He could have gone to the fifth round of the FA Cup, but no. No. The FA had to schedule the game. I am 100% sure that they looked at Hank's VidCon schedule and they were like, well, we know when Wimbledon will be playing. Okay, John.

So is that the news? Is there anything else? Oh, there is, there is. AFC Wimbledon are in the fifth round of the FA Cup. We might be absolutely locked to the bottom of League One, but we are on the greatest FA Cup run by far since the club's reformation in 2002. It's a beautiful story. We're playing Millwall February 16th at 3 p.m.

That's 10 a.m. Eastern time. It's gonna be on ESPN plus, I think, in America. And in England, it will be live inside of AFC Wimbledon Stadium. And I will be there without Hank. So if you see me, please say hi. If you don't see me, that's fine. We'll just enjoy the game together, but I'm so excited. It is such an accomplishment to get to the last 16 of the FA Cup.

And best of all, Hank, by rule, a member of the English FA has to be at the game. So I will have the opportunity to confront that person and give them a piece of the English FA has to be at the game, so I will have the opportunity to confront that person and give them a piece of the who's what's. Alright, so you can get your video back up. I don't know about that, but I will be able to unleash some of my frustration. In fact, the previous time I saw England, in fact, the previous time I saw Wimbledon play in the FA Cup, I was happy to be seated next to the FA official

Right before the game and I said to him this must be quite awkward for you And he said well that's all in the past isn't it? And then the person who was on the other side turned to him and said oh no Well, I hope that you get the same experience and you can give them the what for and et cetera. Oh, man, I'm so excited to see AFC Wimbledon in the fifth round of the FA Cup. I know that we can't win that game. I know that there are a league ahead of us. I know that it's impossible, but still I cannot help but hope. It's possible you beat a championship league team.

Premier League. Premier League team. I don't know. You're getting there Hank and I really appreciate your effort. What's the news from Mars? The news from Mars, so I'll try to do this quickly because there was a lot of news from AFC Wilmilton, but it's pretty weird.

So there is a thing called a grivimiter that you use to study the density of objects on a planet. And that's because density objects have more gravity, and you can actually tell that with an instrument, and that tells you what certain things are more likely to be made of. It's a very useful tool, but we did not put one of them on the Curiosity Rover,

which is a problem, because we really want to know what mount sharp is made of. It's this three mile high mountain in the middle of the crater that Curiosity is in right now, and it's sort of climbing up the side of this mountain. It's still very low on the mountain. But we wanna know what it's made out of because we wanna know if it's formed like more like

sort of how mountains are formed on Earth, which is like there are up thrusts of tectonic force or volcanoes and then, or in this case, maybe it's something to do with that. The crater was formed and then they or in this case, maybe it's something to do with that, the crater was formed, and then they are rode away as water and wind do erosion on them. Or is it done like a sort of a unique Martian way where wind blows dust and just due to the geological features like the dust piles up in a certain place,

and then over time that dust sort of grabs onto itself and becomes a sedimentary rock. And that would be a totally new, weird way for mountains to form, and we want to know whether that is how something like Mount Sharp could have formed. But in order to do that, we'd need to know the density of the mountain, and in order to know that, we would need a grivimiter on the surface of Mars. Well, it turns out that curiosity has accelerometers on it, just like your phone has accelerometers in it that tells it how much things are moving

and what orientation it's in. And you can actually use those accelerometers because gravity is an acceleration. It's 9.8 meters per second per second, that on Earth anyway, not on Mars, that you can use the accelerometers on the Curiosity Rover and turn them into a gravimeter, and they did that, and they did the study,

and they figured out that probably Mount Sharp is made of this coalesced dust, rather than a bedrock that has been thrust up, which is really neat. It's like a massive 15,000 foot high sand dune. Basically, yeah, that has over, you know, built literally billions of years, like cool less and turned into rock.

So it's not like a sand dune in that, like you could dig through it with your hands, but it is like a sand dune in that it is made of particles of sand. That's just amazing. It's so cool to me that we have a chance to learn how geology happens elsewhere. Right. Like the way that geology happens on Earth feels so natural and normal to us and kind

of inevitable, that it's really mind-blowing to hear about ideas that mountains formed in completely different ways, the nearest rock to us other than the moon. Yeah, it's super cool, very exciting. And I love me some Mars, John. I'm getting pretty into Mars too these days. It's great. I'm also very excited about it.

It's you, Wimbledon, that game, that fourth round FA Cup game was something else, man. And I know that you're not even talking about the game that they lost in the normal league, but I'm sorry about that. Yeah, it's okay. It's okay. It's part of life. It's happening. You've given up. It's fine. I haven it's okay. It's just, you know, it's part of life. It's happening. You've given up. It's fine. I haven't given up. I understand, however, that we need to win 10 out of our last

17 games after winning four of our first, like, 25. So, yeah, I haven't given up. John, thank you for patting with me today. How do people send us their questions? They can email us at hankinjohnatgmail.com, and we really appreciate all your questions. We're sorry for all the ones we don't answer. Also, we're off now to record our Patreon only podcast at patreon.com slash DearHankinjohn. It's called This Week in Rhymes, and it's terrible. This podcast and that podcast are edited by Nicholas Jenkins. The producers are Rosiana Halsey andRohas and Sheridan Gibson.

Our head of community and communications is Victoria Bon Giorno. The music that you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola and as they say in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome. you