Dear Hank & John - 194: Fortunately, They Are Not Carnivores

Episode Date: June 17, 2019

How do I advance past the waving stage of acquaintanceship? What does one do at conferences? My friend based a character off of me but the character sucks? How do I get in my house if I'm locked out? From where does a giant African land snail poop? Can I have only one jacked arm? John and Hank have answers! 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. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. So is that for a think of it, Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you the advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and FC Wimbledon. John, you know how there are a bunch of new, like, meatless meat companies that have been popping up? Sure, impossible burgers. Yeah, impossible burgers. Yeah, and possible burgers. There's others that I've also heard of.

I'm excited about it. I think it's a growth industry. I think it's wonderful. But what I haven't seen and what I want to do is potato list potatoes. Are you ready for my new potato list potato company? It's called imitators. My new potatoless potato company, it's called imitators.

I mean, that was a tortuous path to get to a pretty poor punchline. I think it's not a punchline, John. It's a brand. No, it's not. What is it made out of? I mean, of all, this is one of the worst ideas you've ever had, which is really saying something. It's like made out of something that's like potatoes,

but not quite as good. The lab-grown potatoes. I don't know, what's the problem we're solving here? I don't actually know, because potatoes are pretty wonderful. Yeah. No, they're game-changer. Sure. When I look at human history, what I really see is... Potato history. The rise of the potato and corn.

And chickens. And then humans kind of are an afterthought. Hmm, I think you've got... You've poked a really good hole in my business model, John, which is that potatoes are really great. In news of what I would have tweeted this weekend, I would have tweeted, thank God for the women's world cup.

Because otherwise, I would be absolutely hopeless about absolutely everything. This is what we miss from you on Twitter, John. I miss it. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm loving the women's world cup. The rest of the human experiment already this year in the women's world cup, We've had some stunning come from behind victories. We've had upsets. We've had really just wonderful. The speed of play, the quality, the competition

has never been better. I am loving it. I'm very excited for you, John. Both the women's world cup is happening and that you're enjoying it. And that you have created a new time to talk about sports on the podcast. Well, Hank, as I get older, I find that the only things

I'm really interested in are gardening and sports. Okay, I'm looking forward to that happening to me. As I also approach your advanced age. Let's answer some questions from our listeners. This first one comes from Orrin, who writes, dear John and Hank, I'm six foot two. For those of you who don't live in the United States, that's three meters tall.

And today I was at a play when the woman behind me tapped my shoulder and said, I'm sorry to say this, but you're rather tall. I mumbled and said, I'm sorry, and then turned around. And then I vaguely heard her say some stuff behind me, but too quietly for me to make it out. Should I have been like ducking down for the entire play? Also, note that I'm probably not yet done growing, so I anticipate facing this problem many times over.

Any dubious advice is appreciated, Orrin. I mean, I'm sorry to say this, but you're rather tall. Come on, this is not the correct thing to do. Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry to say this, but your rather tall, come on. This is not the correct thing to do. Yeah, I mean, I understand that it's an inconvenience to be seated behind a rather tall person at a play, but you don't solve for the problem by pointing out to the tall person that they are tall. Hello, I just want, I'm sorry to say this, but you are the problem. Yes. Is what I just want I just I'm sorry to say this, but you are the problem. Yes, is what I've heard. Yes, you are in the way of my enjoyment of this play, and I wish that you didn't exist. Oh,

okay. Well, thank you. You're welcome. I still I have to sit here, or I can't see the play. You want to you want to swap seas? You want like you want to come sit next to my girlfriend? Like, what's happening? Or in the only solution to this is that you have to sit in the back row of everything for the rest of your life. And that's what Andre the Giant did. Did he really? Actually, that's true. He talked about this in interviews

that he would always sit in the back row in theaters. Are you making that up? No, I'm not. He is a beautiful man. A beautiful and tragic figure. Yeah. Wow. I was in a similar situation and unlike Andre the giant,

here's what I did. I was at a concert and the man who's standing behind me pushed me. Yeah. And then I turned around, I didn't say this, but I looked and I was like, did you just push me? Like that's not something that happens. And then I went back and stood where I was standing. And then he pushed me again, sort of gently, but forcefully.

And then I turned around, as it rock show, some little amped up and I like, come at him and I sort of lean down to him because I am obviously taller than him. And as I'm approaching his ear, I'm like, I don't actually want to go to the police station today. And I whisper into his ear,

I'm very sorry, I inconvenienced you. And then I walked away. That's my story, John. What a great story. At least it was short. No, it wasn't. So Orren, what I'm trying to say is slump. Because this comes from anyway.

No, I slump on. I slump on down. I think that all you can say in that situation is, I'm sorry, there's not a lot I can do about my height. Yeah. And so you throw it back on them and you make it clear to them that like, this isn't really up to you, you know? Right. You didn't ask at the age of 12 to be six foot two, right?

Maybe you did. Maybe you like blew out your birthday candles and you were like, I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish it was a baller. And, That's a reference that a tiny sliver of our audience is going to get. But, I think there's nothing wrong with slurping.

If you're a tall person in a theater, I slump, and I'm not ashamed. What is slurping? So like, you know what, when you slump, you're like leaning forward. Yeah. Slurping is like when you're leaning backward but slumping. You're just like sliding your butt forward and like your lower back becomes the joint.

Yeah. Between your like top half and bottom half. Yeah, I'm doing that right now. Yeah, me too. I didn't know there was a word for that. I made it up on my other podcast to lead this. Oh, I should listen. This next one comes from Shoshana who asks,

dear John and Hank, our friend of mine recently wrote a book. Most of the characters in the book are pretty clearly based on real life people. The thing is, most of the characters, including the one based on me, are not very likeable. I know that my friend doesn't mean to insult me, but I still feel weird and self-conscious reading about a version of myself who's worst qualities, at least what my friend feels are my worst qualities have been exaggerated as people who know people who have written books and so have possibly been in a similar situation how do you think I should react to this best wishes Shoshana.

Oh boy. Oh boy. I think, I've had this happen to me. This has happened to you. Kind of. A friend of mine wrote a book about like the young adult literature scene. And oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've read this book. I mean, it's not exactly me, but it's pretty narrowly based on me. Yep. I remember reading it and being like, this

is weird. Yeah. Well, my friend sent it to me. And he was like, you know, you're going to recognize this one character. And I just want to give you a heads up and if you have any concerns, let me know kind of thing. And I mean, I thought it was hilarious. Yeah, it didn't really run the wrong way. It was just strange. Yeah, I didn't come off that badly. And when I did come off badly, I was like, yeah, I mean, burn accepted. So it's in this situation, this is a person who's written a lot and like also they talk to you about it beforehand, which is nice. Yeah, I mean, and this does not seem to happen with Shashana.

No, this character was broadly likeable or at least sympathetic. Here's the thing, if you're gonna write a novel, you need to love your characters and you need to see their essential humanity. They don't have to always be likeable. In fact, I think if they're realistic, they won't always be likeable. But if you write characters that are just exaggerated versions of the things you don't like about

your friends, it feels really passive aggressive to me. It lacks a certain amount of emotional intelligence. And then to be like, here, read my book, in which you clearly are and not in a nice way. Woof! I mean, I wrote about this in turtles all the way down because I think it's something that young people do sometimes to try to communicate their frustrations

or to try to express their frustrations. It's not a good way. Yeah, I don't know what to do about that. Like, I don't know how you have a conversation with someone about like, you did, like you did a dumb here. It was, this was silly and it was, it hurt. Yeah, maybe just give them turtles all the way down, which by the way is out in paperback today

in the United States and tell them, you know how Aiza feels about Daisy's fanfiction. Dot, dot, dot. Oh, this is why I based off my characters on me. Yeah, it's a hard thing to navigate because as a writer, you're always going to be borrowing from your experience and from people you know, you're always going to be writing, you know, some kind of code into autobiography. I didn't always handle that well, and I wish that I'd handled it differently early

in my career, but I don't think that you should be showing your work to people it's going to hurt. Yeah, it seems weirdly passive aggressive. Like, hey, can you fix these things about yourself? Thanks. This next question comes from Avery who asks, dear Hank and John, I have an acquaintance at school

and our primary method of interaction is waving. The waves happen once or twice each day, usually in the morning and another when we both leave school. We've been doing this for months now. We've only talked to each other once or twice. How can I advance this tentative relationship or should our waves just continue indefinitely? Rhymes with wavory, avery. I think you just got to go in our two directions here. You either

have to cease the wave. Just don't reciproo wave one day and then they can be left thinking, what did I do to avery? How did I, how have I lost our special bond? Or you need to like, hang. You need to hang. I don't think that not waving is an option. I think Avery, this ends one of two ways. Oh gosh. Best friends or married. Or could it be mortal enemies? Oh, I hadn't thought of that.

Yeah, I mean, obviously. No, that's such like a plot author thing to do. The character author thing to do is best friends are married, Avery. You do definitely need to talk to this person, and I think a pretty good way to break the ice might be to say, Hey, I notice that we wave at each other every single day. Have you noticed that?

Yeah. What do you like? Yeah. Hey, are you interested in books? Do you know John Green's new book, Tortels All the Way Down? Wow. Just came out and paid for that. Are you interested in stickers?

Have you ever gone to dftba.com to shop for stickers? We have a lot of great stickers. Do you like educational video? Yeah. Because you should really check out Crash stickers. Do you like educational video? Yeah. Because you should really check out Crash Course. Do you like marbles? Hank, we don't. I know that you wish that we did, but we do not own the marble limpicks. I don't look. I feel a certain amount of ownership over the marble limpicks. I don't need to profit from the marble limpicks to want to promote it.

In that case, Avery, why don't you pitch your new best friend on a third-tier English soccer team that's currently looking for ground funding investment? Do you like English football? Do you want to see the 72nd Best Club in England, five-air trade every Saturday afternoon? Avery, you have to become friends with this person, and also in five years, you have to invite us to your wedding and or best friends forever ceremony. Speaking of which Hank, I think that we as a culture need to develop a best friends forever ceremony,

like an actual way of cementing BFF-ness semi-permanently. Right, where the whole community is involved and everyone recognizes your bond. Yes, that's a big commitment. Oh, where the whole community is involved and everyone recognizes your bond. Yes, that's a big commitment. Oh, I would love to do that with Chris. There's no way Chris would do it with me, but I would love to do it with Chris. But what about Marina?

I would have a best friend forever ceremony with Chris and Marina. Okay. And Sarah and me would be on the other side. And we would like exchange vows about how we're always gonna be best friends no matter what until death. I vow to watch silly movies with you on Netflix

and raise our children together nearby. Yeah, it's more the second thing than the first thing. You don't watch silly movies together on Netflix. That's how I know that your kids are young. Our kids stay up almost as late as we do. Oh, right. Ah, that sounds rough. It's all coming for you and don't worry

this next question comes from sarah who writes dear john and hank i think my sister locked the back door with both locks my parents are sleeping in their phones are off its dark outside the mosquitoes are eating me what should i do there's no way in there's no key to the second lock should i stay with the neighbors there's a mouth on my leg wait like a mosquito's mouth. I assume so. And then five minutes later, Sarah sent a follow-up email

that read, in its entirety, I am shining a light on their window. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Which by the way, Sarah, if I'd gotten that email in any other context, right, you would have been the scariest email I've ever received. Yeah, just like, we're done.

We're done, we're out. We're no longer public figures. Yeah. I knew my retirement was coming. I just didn't know it was coming this soon. Goodbye, cruel world. It's all Sarah's fault. Hank, is this ever happened to you?

Locked out with no way to get in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It happened to me several times when I was a child and I knew ways to get into my own house. Yeah, I think you always need a secret. Obviously, this isn't going to help Sarah now, but you always need a secret, secret way. There's the straight, forwardly secret way.

There's the hidden key, whatever, whatever. But you need a backup, secret way. Like, some window in the basement or something that's somehow accessible that only you know about. I had an experience like this that could have resulted in, I'm laughing, but it seriously could have resulted in my death. I was finishing turtles all the way down,

alone in a rented cabin in Michigan in the winter. Nice. And there was a beautiful full moon over Lake Michigan. So I walked outside, heard the door slam behind me. I was barefoot, I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. It was probably 45 degrees, and I immediately recognized that I was locked out. And normally, as I locked out, when I looked around, there were no lights on, because it's a very seasonal community, and the season is not like January 8th. So what I did Hank was I got in the hot tub.

That's the worst thing you can do. You got wet. I got in the hot tub. You can't stay in the hot tub forever. No, I got in the hot tub just to have myself a think. You know, like, okay. But you're absolutely right. Don't obviously, Sarah, whatever you do, don't get in the hot tub because then in addition to being cold and outside, you're wet, which is a disaster.

I'm not mayor grills, okay? That's definitely not a survivalist as evidenced by the fact that I was renting a cabin with a hot tub. I got the hot tub at a long, warm sink about what I should do. And I was like, I mean, I guess I could just like run along the road until I see someone. Where?

But then I realized that I had my Apple Watch. Okay. And so I called Sarah on my watch. Then I realized that I had my Apple Watch. Okay. And so I called Sarah on my watch. And I said, Sarah, I'm locked out of the house. And I think I might die here in the hot tub. I don't know if I can spend the night in the hot tub. I don't know if I can make it to dawn.

And she said, have you tried the front door? And I said, no. And it opened. Oh my God. Wow, what a great twist there at the end. That's like once again, John was just being doofus. Like that time you lost your hat and you were so freaking out about your hat

and then it was just like, you were sitting on it or something? Yeah, I was sitting on it the whole flight across Europe. I did a similar thing except it was at a hotel in Amsterdam. I went outside to take a time lapse photo. I snuck out of the hotel through a side door, and the door didn't even have a handle on the outside. It was like, you are not allowed to come in this way.

Wow. And so I had to like scale the side of the hotel a little bit to get to a public area. Oh God, that's scary. Don't do that. Yeah, I was. Sarah, in addition to not doing what I did, don't do what Hank did. God, both of us are disastrous.

Well, that's what I had to do when I was in high school, is I had to climb up a wall, and from there I could jump to the roof, and from there I could walk to my window and get in through my window. Yeah, I remember that strategy for getting back into the house. I also used it. It was also how I got out of the house.

Exactly. You never want your house to be a prison. Don't sneak out of your house, kids. Don't sneak out of your house. Don't get in the hot tub when you're lost. And don't try to scale a wall unless you have a lot of experience scaling it. It's three o'clock in the morning.

And you really need to get back inside of your parents going to be super mad at you. John, we got another question. It's important to get to. It's from Ellie who asks, at you. John, we got another question. It's important to get to. It's from Ellie who asks, Dear Hank and John, I recently brought home my first giant African land snail. And after about a day,

it has pooped a few times. Where does the poop come from? Does it come out of their mouth? I'm so confused. I bet I could Google this, but it's more fun to ask you, DFTBA Ellie. First of all, I love that you recently brought home a giant African land snail,

and I love that you mentioned that it is just your first. Yeah, there are many more to come. Oh yeah. John, have you seen what a giant African land snail looks like? Only because of Google images. Okay, good. I guess my initial feeling having Googled it is that when I was promised that it was gonna be giant,

a giant African land snail. Yeah. I was a little suspicious. Yeah. You know, like, what's a giant snail? And the answer is that there's no way that what you're imagining is as big as an actual giant African land snail.

They are huge. They are dare I say it dog-sized. There are dogs that are smaller than this. For sure. It's a big snail. I feel like you've taken on a great deal of responsibility here, Ellie. How long do these things live?

Probably forever. I don't know. Yes, they were all around at the birth of the earth and they're still here. Actually, the first Google autofill after giant African land snail is lifespan. The second is care. The third is for sale.

Okay. 10 years, they live for 10 years. 10 years, John. Like a dog. Yeah. In both form and lifespan. Oh, and they're dangerous. Oh, what? They're dangerous?

Yeah, they're illegal in the continental US because they're highly invasive, can cause extensive damage to important food crops and other agricultural and natural resources and they pose a risk to human health. Congratulations on your land snail. Ellie, where are you? Do you know you have an illegal snail?

Hahaha. This, you're a snail criminal. Ellie, like, you need to write us back and let us know if you're a criminal. But first, I guess we'll just say. Oh my God, it can cause a form of meningitis. Ellie, I don't like this purchase at all. Keep your snail clean and also your self and keep that snail poop away from you.

You should know where the poop comes from so you can avoid it. You know a sentence that I never want to see when it comes to my pets. Sure. And this is from the sprucepets.com America's leading resource for pet-related information. Unfortunately, they are not carnivores. Because if they were, they would eat your arm. They would eat your arm while you slept. Hank, what are these things poop?

Where do they poop out of? So snail anatomy is different from how we imagine the whole thing works. So the digestive system, weirdly enough, empties into their respiratory cavity, which means that a snail poops out its breathing hole. It's mouth. So which, no. So its mouth is what it eats with.

We just happen to share a breathing and eating hole. So now that I think about it, that is weird. Yeah, well, it's not quite as weird as sharing a pooping and breathing hole, but like, you know, different strokes. And so a snail eats with it's like thing at the end of its head. And then it has a breathing hole on the back of its neck. And I know it sounds like I'm making that up,

but I'm not. It's got a breathing hole on the back of its neck. It has to stick its body out to breathe. I actually think that they can breathe with their head stuck in, but like you can see it when it's got its head hole on the back of its neck. It has to stick its body out to breathe. I actually think that they can breathe with their head stuck in, but like you can see it when it's got its head sticking out of its shell. And then the poop will come out of that breathing hole, which is wild, because like I don't think,

I guess they can't breathe while they're pooping, which it's nice that I can do that. I'm like, that's great. Be uncomfortable otherwise. Yeah. All things being equal, I prefer being a person. Ideally. I'm just gonna throw this out there.

You'd want like four or five different holes. You'd want a breathing hole, you'd want an eating hole, you'd want a pooping hole. Yeah, I would like to separate out all of these activities from each other. We kind of do. You have a separate breathing hole for just breathing. But it's like the mouth is like a backup breathing hole.

Oh, I forgot about the nose. That's a great point, Hank. We do have two breathing holes. Yeah, we've got three. Oh, I know. Evolution. What a great job it's done. With everything except for the giant African land snail.

I will say, John, that all of the things you said about giant African land snails are true of humans. Like totally invasive species, definitely agricultural pests also can give you men and gaites. It's true. So like, we're the most invasive species.

Oh yes, we're everywhere. But also the most interesting. I don't wanna be overly speciesist, but I just don't think that the giant African land snail can compete with us in terms of taking the materials of the universe and creating beauty which did not exist before. Absolutely. I will say that they create beauty, but just their own selves, they're very pretty.

I would not want one. So Ellie, I hope that you've considered this purchase wisely and that you're not a snail criminal, which reminds me that this podcast is brought to you by the Federal Bureau of Snail Crime Investigations. Watch out, Ellie, they're coming. Today's podcast is also brought to you by Turtles all the way down, available in bookstores everywhere, now in a delightful paperback. I also have a book.

The podcast is additionally brought to you by John being a doofus. It's, you know, every podcast we get a little bit, and it's a great little snack. And finally, today's podcast is brought to you by the BFF ceremony, the BFF ceremony. Why not commit yourself to your best friend for life? Yeah, and have a party too, where there's probably

gonna be barbecue. Or at least cake and invite me. We also have a project for awesome message from Emmy to Eisler in Ohio. Eisler, I'm impossibly thankful and grateful for your friendship. And I can't express how much it has meant to me over the past few months, especially you've been a voice of reason and a million other invaluable things, including my hockey godmother.

You've been patient with my lack of knowledge and appreciative of my very helpful, puff love of the refs. I must visit you again soon. Love you, hun. Thank you, Emmy, for donating to the project for awesome. Oh, John, hey, I just got back, I had to run out for a sec to have some imitators. They're so good.

It was just like a tater tot except not a tater tot. On the inside, there was something that wasn't potatoes. Who knows what it was? Science did it, but they were like a little less good than tater tots. Gretchen, stop trying to make fetch happen. It is not going to happen. My amateurs are so fetch.

Oh, Grechin. It's next question comes from Molly who writes Dear John and Hank. My dad's taking me to an all day conference with movie industry people in August. It was a choice between that and an eight day bike trip. Molly, your dad is trying to like do you a favor and offer you like two cool

opportunities and it's pretty clear to me that you chose the one that you found less onerous but still quite onerous. My question is what does one do at conferences? Is it okay to doodle in a notebook? Is it okay to hide my phone in a notebook and watch a movie? Is it okay to ask questions? Any dubious advice? Welcome. Good golly, Miss Molly. Oh man, I'm so jealous. I have done this several times for a variety of reasons. I've gone to conferences on topics. I know nothing about and I haven't veryably found it fascinating. I don't know how this keeps happening to me, but I get sucked in and I have to spend all day at the thing. And I'm just like, I'm like, look at these people

who are so into this thing, I know nothing about. And you see sort of the inside of how they think and talk and work problems out and they're frustrated by stuff and their problems are way different than the problems you thought that they had. And it might be invasive species was one of the ones that I went to. I don't know how I got at this event, or it might be like, you know, a space exploration, or it might just be like weird, corporate boring stuff.

Like I guess I sometimes get invited these things to speak. And then I'm sort of like, I guess I'll go to the events too. And I find it fascinating. I found it really weird. I think if you keep an open mind and you're like, I want to try to understand what these people's problems are, then it's like, gives you a weird insight on the world that you would never ever have any other way. And sometimes like those places like aren't really open to the public, or if they are, they're really expensive.

So like getting a chance to get in and have that perspective is unusual to get. Yeah, I went to an RV trade show once, like the nation's largest recreational vehicle trade show. Yes, oh God. And I loved every second of it. And by the way, by the end of it, I was pretty close to purchasing a recreational vehicle. Yeah, I bet, geez. It was only due to the, I would say,

stringent intervention of my spouse that I did not purchase an RV on that day. Is that what happened because like two, three years ago, maybe a little more than that? You got really into, you were like, we needed a tour and a class C RV. And I was like, what's happening? That's exactly it.

I wanna get a class C RV. Yes, I wanna tour the country with you in a class C recreational vehicle. We would have so much fun. But that's not the point with you. Oh, God, they were so into it. Class C recreational vehicle. We would have so much fun. But that's not the point, Molly. The point here is that you are going to a Hollywood conference and based on what I can gather about you from your email, you are a young person.

And so when you ask, like, can I ask questions? Oh, it's more than OK if you ask questions because the people at this conference, all they want in the world is to understand what you want. Like the thing that drives them day in and day out, 100% of this conference's content is going to be geared around trying to understand you, Molly. And so if you, Molly are actually there, it's like if an alien showed up to the

alien studies UFO convention, I mean, you're gonna be wildly popular. You gotta say, every time anybody finishes an Q and A starts, you gotta get up to the mic and be like, just say, it's like you guys have never even seen TikTok. And then just walk out. I was gonna say that every time you have a chance

to offer an opinion, Molly, it would really be helpful to Hank and me if you could be like, have you guys seen the vlog brothers because I think that they're the most influential people among my demographic? Who cares about Logan Paul? Like, Hank Green is the future.

That's right, that's why I've worked so hard to build this body. Is Logan Paul still famous? Yeah, I saw him the other day on the internet. One of the side effects of not being on the social internet and also being middle-aged is that I no longer know who is and is not famous. And so all of my references are just like painfully dated where I'll be like, you know who we should get to VidCon, the Baja men.

Yeah. I mean, we still don't really know who let the dogs out. I mean, how are the Baja men doing? How are they doing it? Are they still in Baja? And the second sentence of their Wikipedia page is they are best known for their Grammy award winning hit song, who let the dogs out, which I would argue is a poorly written sentence of their Wikipedia page is they are best known for their Grammy award-winning hit song, Who Let The Dogs Out, which I would argue is a poorly written sentence because

it should be they are known exclusively for their Grammy award-winning hit song. Wait, I'm sorry. Hold up. Who Let The Dogs Out Want a Grammy? Which Grammy? Yeah, this is the bigger question that has been introduced by this sentence. What? How?

Like, this is de-legitimized the Grammys so much in my eyes that I no longer consider them a real award. Oh, it's one sentence. Just that one sentence. It won a Grammy Award in 2000 for best dance recording, which surely it wasn't. Yeah, I can't imagine that it was, but people did dance to it. You want to know something I have in common with the Bahamian? Oh, yes.

Both winners of the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award. Wow. You guys should hang out. I would like to hang out. I don't know if they're alive. They don't know if you're alive, so that would be no. Oh, wait, there's an update in April 2019. This doesn't sound at all like this Wikipedia edit

was written by a PR person. In April 2019, the Baja Men surprised fans with an electrifying new anthem. Let's go dedicated to the teams playing in the final four. The upbeat song was available via Sony Music Entertainment. I mean, wow, that is not a Wikipedia edit. That is a public relations move. Fans were shocked.

People fell over. It was like the Beatles reunited, including back from the grave, George Harrison and John Lennon. It was that big to record an anthem for the teams playing in the final four. Of a sport match. Is that basketball?

Let's go is full of so much energy and spirit said, Baham and band leader Isaiah Taylor. I don't want to make fun of the Baham and Hank because we are also on the other side of the mountain. Yeah, absolutely. I am so interested in the Baham and this week and Ryan is such a great opportunity to just like think and talk about people who are like in the public eye

Some but not so much anymore and mostly because I'm just looking for I'm just looking for people to give me some perspective on this situation Yeah, Hank and I just want to know how to descend the other side of the mountain gracefully Yeah, you got to draw your hot air balloon as you fall like Harold does and Harold and his Purple crayon. It's very beautiful, Hank. It's a good book. I like it a lot. If you don't know Harold and the purple crayon, you should really get the new paperback turtles all the way down.

And seriously, Hank, most of the people who this is a podcast have not read my hit fifth novel turtles all the way down. And it's available in paperback now for less than $14. Might be less than 15. All right. One more question, John. Before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

This is from Mark who asks, dear, Hank a John, I've always wondered whether or not it's possible to get one of my arms really ripped. I'm talking extremely jacked, noticeably jacked, Dwayne the Rock, Johnson jacked. All the other is just like average sized arm. If so, how do I go about making this dream a reality?

The Gospel according to Mark. Boy, Mark, don't do it. It's gotta be possible, right? It's definitely possible, right? If you look at punters' right legs, you'll know that it's possible. Hunters? To get one leg.

Yeah, professional NFL punters and kickers have one leg that is really jacked and a second leg that is still much more jacked than I am, but less jacked than the big leg, the kicking leg. Wow. Mark, I'm sure that you could get one arm jacked. And Hank is going to tell you that it's a terrible idea. I think that you should do this and report back to us one year from today. Think about the

difference a year can make in your life, Mark. Think about what you could accomplish in this year in the next 365 days. And then instead of doing any of those things, work out one arm 90 minutes a day, no breaks. I'm not an exercise professional, but I'm pretty sure that you don't need to rest when you're only working out one arm. I am legitimately curious. Like I think it would be interesting science to see if any muscle mask got added to the non-working arm

just because your body is like, this seems weird. Like we're not really 100% clear on how, like the mechanism of muscles getting bigger. But obviously we know that it reacts to use. That's the sort of broadest understanding, but there's a lot of sort of pseudocyancer around this stuff because of course people

want to know how to get jacked. And also because we have a lot of open questions still. So part of me is very curious. Do you add any muscle mass to a non-working arm when like your body is working super hard? Probably not, but maybe. And that would be interesting for science to know. Part of me is curious how the Baham in

want a Grammy award. Like, was there a campaign with something paid off? I don't like, I don't know how the Grammys work. Mostly I'm just glad that people are coming to us for muscle advice. That's one thing that I know a lot about Mark as you can tell from observing me. So I wish you luck.

John and I are in better shape now than we have been in our entire lives. It's true. I mean, I don't know if it's true for you but it's definitely true for me. I just got Zwift. Do you know what Zwift is Hank? Is it like an imitation potato?

No, it's a bicycling video game, but where you have to pedal an actual bicycle to go. I don't you just pedal an actual bicycle. Well, because then I would have to go outside. But anyway, Hank, before we get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, I just have to tell you a couple of things that people wrote in about this week, including Amanda who wrote in to say, dear John and Hank, wait, soccer teams can borrow each other's players. How is that a thing?

Would that be like if the Washington Nationals were down a position and could borrow a player from the Philadelphia Phillies? That seems crazy. Sorry, I'm a baseball fan, Amanda. Yeah, kind of. So I have, like you talk about this all the time, like, loan players. Like getting a, well, on loan and I'm just like, I sort of gloss over and I'm like, sure, you know, I just, I'll talk about this all the time, like, loan players. Like getting a, on loan, and I'm just like, I sort of gloss over and I'm like, sure, you know,

I just, I'll just borrow a human being from you. Well, you're not borrowing the person, you're borrowing their footballing services, but yes, so, yeah. If a player is under contract with a team like Liverpool, but the player isn't good enough or mature enough to play for a big club like Liverpool, that player might be loaned out to a team in a lower league or even to a team in the same league

that's, you know, not as good so that that player can develop and can get some playing experience. Liverpool gets value for this because their player gets better at football and the team that the players on loan at obviously gets a lot of experience and also hopefully like wins games for that team. So it's kind of a win-win. The team that takes on a loan player usually pays at least part of their salary, but of course you don't get like them under contract and so you can't get a transfer fee for selling them to a different team.

So it comes with advantages and disadvantages. However, it's not quite that the Washington Nationals like loan a player to the Philadelphia Phillies, or I guess it is like that, but if and when you play the Philadelphia Phillies, the players that are on loan from the Washington Nationals never play against their own team. Okay, right. It's always in the contract that they get like benched for those games. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Okay, I thought maybe it was just like you had to do it to like a lower league or something. No, usually it is, but not always. You can't, you just can't sit down, sit there while you play this team. That's the rules. And it's said in exactly that voice. That's how all contracts are written to me when I read contracts, that's what they sound like. It's you're not wrong.

And now a response from Andrea, who bought a desk sword a few weeks ago, she says, just to support you and your spur of the moment fundraiser for Partners in Health, it's been decades I've gotten along without any specific envelope cutting device, I thought to myself, surely this will be a cute artifact for my desk and not a significant improvement to my life. How wrong I was!

Having a desk sort of a significant improvement, especially when I get those mylar padded envelopes that are glued shut with some sort of industrial level epoxy situation. I just zipped one open in a mere seconds with no drama or finding scissors at all desk swords forever Andrea John we're making people's lives better all across the board really just in that one way, but yes I agree no also in partners and health. Oh right. You mean through supporting the healthcare system in Sierra Leone That's true that arguably is the bigger deal Hey, what's the news from Mars this week? News from Mars this week, we, they just finished a round of testing of the Mars-based helicopter

that might actually travel with the Mars 2020 rover. They've done the test to show that it can be clamped onto the rover, that it will survive entry, and they've just finished a round of tests to determine if they can actually get a helicopter to fly on the surface of Mars, which is a unique challenge because when a helicopter flies or when any winged thing flies, you're relying on sort of pushing around molecules of air. And there are not as many molecules of air on the surface of Mars. The atmospheric pressure is about 1% of what it is on Earth.

So you just need a lot more wing moving a lot faster to get up off the ground. Now, this is additionally made complicated by the fact that you can't test it easily on Earth. You can create a vacuum chamber that has 1% the atmospheric pressure of Earth, and you can try to fly something there.

But you cannot make a vacuum chamber that has 40% earth gravity on earth. So you can make things heavier, that's fairly easy. It's very hard to make things lighter. You're like, you have the weight that they are, like, how are you going to make something lighter? So they created this whole rigging system that pulls up consistently all the time no matter how much the thing is pulling on itself. It pulls up on the device with a force

that makes the thing way less than it does on Earth. So like functionally, the helicopter that they're testing weighs less than it does using pulleys and stuff. And the thing they tested it in a vacuum chamber and it flew up and it landed and it really works. And maybe they will have a little helicopter that will fly around on Mars and it will scout ahead

so that we can see good paths for the 2020 rover to take across the surface of the red planet. Is it more like a little helicopter or is it more like a drone? or is it more like a drone? Well, it's definitely a drone, but it's not like the drones that we tend to see, like the four bladed ones. So instead, it has two blades that are stacked on top of each other, that spin in opposite directions, which gets rid of the spinning that would happen if you had only one going

in one direction. Normal helicopters solve that problem by having the little blade in the back, which prevents them from starting to spin. So it has that on top, two blades on top, and I think that that's just because it's more weight efficient to have fewer blades. But this isn't like a helicopter

that could transport a person. No, it's gonna weigh like four pounds or something. So only a very small person. Not even a, they could not carry a giant African land snail, John. Well, the last thing we need to do is introduce giant African land sales to Mars, based on what I've learned about them. Yeah, Mars will get men in jettis. Well, the news from AFC Wimbledon is that AFC Wimbledon are in the initial stages of launching

their crowdfunding campaign to support the building of the new stadium, but it's a little different from a typical crowdfunding campaign, Hank, because instead of like getting perks or whatever in exchange for your donation, you do get perks, but more importantly, you own a piece of the club. They are actually selling shares in the club. Now the club will still be more than 75% owned by the fans, by the Don's Trust. But anyone, if you're in the UK, can participate in this by buying what are essentially parts of the club. And if the club makes it up to the championship, the second tier of English football, there will be a dividend paid that's three times the initial investment. If it makes it to the premier league, the dividend

is five times the initial investment. It's a really interesting model. Hank, this is something that we've talked a lot about in private, this idea of having kind of small, closely held organizations that are deeply enmeshed with their communities somehow owned by those communities. And AFC Wimbledon is doing that with their new stadium. And I think it's really interesting. So you actually can get a return on your investment in this situation. Yeah, exactly. It's not guaranteed, certainly.

No investment opportunity is, but it's a really interesting model and it could be profitable. Weird. That's not how it usually works. No, I dig it, though. This is something that we're seeing more of small companies or small organizations raising capital without trying to do kind of mini IPOs through these kind of crowdfunding investment sources. And I don't know, I think it's really interesting. It's a lot of work, and that's the reason why Hank and I have always kind of shied away from it, even though we're attracted to the idea philosophically of nerdfighteria owning

nerdfighteria for lack of a better term. But in the end, the thing that we've kind of transitioned toward is, you know, partners in health owning the economic out of Nerdfighteria. John, thank you for potting with me. It's been a pleasure, thank you. We're off to record our Patreon only podcast this week in Ryan's. You can go to our patreon at patreon.com slash hank and john where we'll post some pictures of some very big snails and also a diagram of how the poop works. I love it. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuna

Mettish. It's produced by Rosiana Halls-Rohassen shared in Gibson, our head of community and communications is Victoria Von Jornow. The music that you're hearing now at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.