Dear Hank & John - 203: Joy, Attention, Justice, Hips Don't Lie

Episode Date: August 19, 2019

What do I do with 15 pounds of cornbread? Where do song lyrics live in our brains? Why are we here? How did people get answers before Google? How often should I vacuum? Do wedding pianists get anxious? When are my vegetable plants ready? Can I skip the parts about farming in Anna Karenina? John Green and Hank Green answer your questions! Invest in AFC Wimbledon: https://www.seedrs.com/ 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 Haken John. I'm always happy for thinking with Dear John and Haken. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions. Give you to be a advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and FC Wimbledon. John, I've been going on a lot of hikes lately. Yeah. I love it. I love getting out there in nature.

Weather's been really nice. In Montana, a little hot, but like it's, you know, it's been cool and off too. It's been beautiful here. And so I've decided that I would make a mix for me to listen to while I'm going on my hikes. Yeah. Does this sound like a good idea to you? It sounds like a reasonable idea. If you want to drown out the natural sounds of bird song

and joy and nature. Right? Just listen to Drake. No, nope, I've been listening to just three songs over and over again. The theme song from Peanuts TV show, zombie by the cranberries and without me from Eminem, I call it my trail mix.

It's so tortured. So our cousin Braxton started listening to the podcast. He sent us a great email because he's not familiar with the opening bit, right? Like he's a new listener and he doesn't know that there's an opening bit where you tell a like the longest most torture joke possible for the least least money punch line you can deliver. And so in every episode of the podcast, because your jokes are so barely jokes, Braxton has been thinking that this is a real thing that you've really been doing, because he didn't recognize that it was a joke, and he keeps waiting for the payoff. So he's like, why did they stop talking about handkiking? It doesn't, why did they start with the handkiking

and then it just abandoned it completely? This moved right along. I mean, I have never, ever received a single piece of positive feedback on the dad joke segment. No one has ever told me that they like it. You maybe one time liked one of the jokes and I've never, that's the only piece of positive feedback. I'm gonna keep doing it, but like not because it's wanted.

Yeah, I mean, one of the great things about you Hank is that while you do thrive off of external validation, you don't need it. Like, you keep going with whatever hair brain scheme you believe in because like you have this intense amount of I'm gonna say this as generously as I can Self-belief Get you someone who looks at you the way that hey, don't say oh god that hurt Oh God, that hurt. Oh, oh, oh, oh.

Oh, oh, oh. All right, Hank, in news of what I would have tweeted this week, I would have tweeted about the death of Tony Morrison, which made me incredibly sad. As you know, Hank, she's one of my favorite writers, one of my first favorite writers when I was a high school student. And the only one of that crop of favorite writers who remained a favorite throughout my adult life so far. And the world is just a lot poorer without her voice in it.

But what a gift she gave us in books like Beloved and Jazz and Song of Solomon and the Blue A Sty. And they're still out there to enjoy, to be enjoyed in all of the different book formats. I believe that is correct. Also, I just heard that Ketchan the Rai is coming out as an e-book for the first time. So congratulations to the Sounder family

on jumping on this hot, hot train that is e-books. Still not available as an audio book. You know, don't wanna go too far. Wow. Don't wanna head too far down the road of digitization. Geez, that's wild. And well, yeah. I mean, let's answer some questions from our listeners.

This person comes from Emma who writes, Dear John and Hank, last night I made some extreme mistakes. I've been there Emma. Oh yeah, yeah. I told my grandmother, I thought the cornbread she made was really good. I have actually been there too, but I don't usually associate. That was a mistake, yeah.

Those two experience. Yeah. This morning, my grandma showed up at my house with three entire trays of cornbread just for me. Oh. I now have 15 pounds of cornbread in my possession. I weighed it. I really hate wasting any food, but how in the name of God

am I supposed to eat all of this before it goes bad? What do I do with all this cornbread? Emma. Well, whatever you do, get ready to do it once a week at least. This is now your life. No, no, no, no. You think it?

No, okay, no. I think you call your grandma and you say, I, you know, it's funny, because I liked it the first time. But I hate your cornbread now? No, I think Emma, what you gotta do is you gotta call your grandma up and tell her that you liked the cornbread now? No. I think Emma, what you got to do is you got to call your grandma up and tell her that you liked the cornbread and you weren't lying.

But now you hate it because you had tongue surgery. And it's just, it's really upsetting. It's too coarse for your tongue. Yeah, they just moved all your taste buds around and now things that used to taste good taste bad. And suddenly you love the taste of that sea anemone at the sushi restaurants. It's weird.

No, what you do in this situation, Hank, maybe instead of thinking about the future, just think about the that you love the taste of that sea anemone at the sushi restaurants, it's weird. Yeah. No, what you do in this situation, Hank, maybe instead of thinking about the future, just think about the, let's just think about this 15 pounds of cornbread. You have your friends over for a flippin' cornbread party, and if you don't have any friends, what an occasion to make some,

like everybody loves a cornbread party. It just put fires up. Emma, on the telephone poles? Cornbread loves a cornbread party. It just put flyers up on the on like telephone poles, cornbread, free cornbread, come over to my house. I'm Emma. I was gonna suggest like a Facebook event. You know, just create the Emma's cornbread extravaganza 2019 and just, I don't know how Facebook works.

See where it goes. I also haven't been on Facebook in like five years. Do they still? Yeah. Do they still have the thing where your second cousin has a lot of very strong opinions, but also is involved in multi-level marketing. It's just go to meetup.com. Is that still a thing? Yeah, okay, here's another idea. Emma, just go door to door with 15 pounds of cornbread. The nice thing about cornbread is that it goes well with lots of other things.

So you'd say to your friends, I've got a bunch of cornbread, bring compliment to redishes, and then you get fed other things. Right. You get corn, and you get bread. Yeah, what? the two major things? Yeah, with corn bread. Yeah, I don't know quite how to make the pot look work, but I feel like we've given Emma the idea and now we can move on. The next question comes from Charlotte. It's going to be a quick one. Says, dear Hank and John, where do song lyrics live in our brains? I'm on a car journey with my boyfriend and we are both

flawlessly singing along to a playlist titled Feel Goods hits of the Outs. How do we do this? Look, I do not know why I know all the lyrics to call me maybe. I do not know why you know all the lyrics to hips don't lie by Shakira. You do? And we don't know how Brains work. It's a marvelous mystery, and we're really far away from understanding it at all. Where do we put lyrics in our brains? I don't know, but it doesn't seem to have an adverse effect on our lives.

So just love it, just like sing along to Maroon 5 in your car with your boyfriend and love every moment of it. That our brains are marvelous. And so is that, I can't remember the guy from Maroon Fies name. Johnny Lake. Adam Levine. Adam Levine. Adam Levine. We did it together. Are you sure it's not Adam Lambert? Is that a different fellow?

That's a different fellow. Okay, great. I also do not understand the neuroscience of the earworm. The only thing I want to add to it is that hips don't lie is a really good song. And I think because it became very popular, sometimes people maybe overlooked it and failed to recognize what a great song it was. But it is a great song. And like at its core is an observation that I think is deep and real and super true.

Okay, we're gonna move on. Wait, John. Can't wait. No. Can't hips. Can't do a can a hips lie? You do. Are you making the case that hips cannot lie? I'm making the case that hips don't lie. They don't. This next question comes from Asher who writes, dear John and Hank, I was at my sister's volleyball game recently and a stranger came up to me. This woman claimed to be my second grade math teacher. I had no memory of her being my math teacher. Oh gosh. Wait, do second graders have math teachers? Yeah. My second grader just has one teacher who teaches math and everything else. But I don't know. It's possible that this person was your second grade math teacher, not all schools are the same.

I didn't want to be rude, so I just pretended to remember her. Well, Asher, welcome to adulthood. That is actually the definition of being an adult. You just roll with it. You just play along. That's like, I think from what I can gather about adulthood, Hank, that it's mostly just playing along. Yeah, Hank, that like, it's mostly just playing along.

Yeah, no, we do what is expected of us. I don't know that that's even an adulthood thing. I think that's just a human thing. No, but like when we're in a business meeting and somebody's talking to us about the integration of multiple verticals into a single vertical, like I am 100% just playing along. I have no idea what anyone is talking about. I was in one of those this weekend with a guy who works in the video game industry

and I was just like, look, I've played video games. That's all I know. Everything else that we are gonna talk about, re-video games is going to be me guessing a lot about what you might be meeting. Oh yeah, I mean, at a minimum. I feel like I'm in meetings about my area of expertise, like about educational video.

And the whole time I'm like, uh-huh, yeah. Oh, absolutely, yeah, of course. I guess, yes, let's do that. That's a priority for our future investment integration strategy. Investment integration strategies are really important, John. Those good IISs as they call them. God, that's the other thing is that everybody has, everybody has these shortcuts that I've never heard of.

Like, I was in a meeting last week where at least 400 times, people talked about OTT and DTC. And I was just like, what? OTT means over the top. Which also doesn't mean anything. Exactly. So I'm literally in the meeting, I'm googling OTT. And it says OTT means over the top.

And I'm like, okay, that's super helpful. And then eventually I find out that OTT basically means TV that isn't like transmitted via TV. It's like everyone's TV in 2019 is OTT. They should just say like regular TV, you know Netflix, Hulu, etc. They should stop calling it OTT and just call it RTV, regular television. All right, this has gotten way out of control. Look, we're a business, we're a professional business people and we know all about FTP and DCC and GWH, we got it all, that's games with Hank. GWHB, yeah, GWHB, he was a big, he was a president. No, it's GHWB. I think, I even, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I can handle any shortening except for that one. And I, Hondo P, like so many brief flashes

in the linguistic pan only lasted for about an hour. And you're still using it, which is even, I can't. It's levels of cringy that I can't help myself, John. I'm a Hondo P, Hondo P, man. All right, we have a breaking pressing question that we need to get to immediately. It's from anonymous and they went to great lengths

to actually anonymize their email address so that they could send us the following email which I will read in its entirety. Dear John and Hank, why do you think we're here like on earth? Bye. Ah. Ah.

Anonymous, I have good news for you. We, you don't need to anonymize that message Anonymous, I have good news for you. We, you don't need to anonymize that message because of how everybody, everybody is thinking about that. They're thinking of it. And if they're not, they're hiding from it. Yeah. Anonymous, we used to have these great stories about why we were, that we relied on very deeply and that informed our understanding

of not just like the big universal questions, but also of like how to orient every day life, and which days to work, and which days to rest, and so on. And for a lot of people, those stories are not working as well as maybe they did 500 years ago. Now, that's not to say that those stories had no downsides. They had considerable downsides. But I think we are, in a lot of cases,

a lot of us are living in a world without stories that work as well for us when it comes to human meaning. Yeah, I think that we also used to be able to sort of look to something to tell us the answer to this question. And there's a lot of value in that. And now, I think society in general asks us each to answer that question for ourselves. And that is very freeing and that's sort of a wonderful thing. But it is also like, who am I to know the answer to that question?

Right. And because of that, I feel like I don't have the ability to answer this question for you anonymous. Like, I think that to some extent, now is the time in history where we all get to figure that out for ourselves, not to say that you can't look to other people for guidance on that, but I think every person figures that out a little bit differently for themselves. Yeah, I mean, my answer to that question may be different from yours, but my answer to that

question is that I feel like I'm here to pay attention, to try to pay attention, to try to understand the universe and my place in it, and then I also feel like I'm here to participate in this big, to participate in this big, you know, 250,000-year-old project of our species around how do we alleviate suffering, how do we address systemic injustice and individual injustice that we see in our communities and also in our individual lives. And like those are the things that motivate me and those are the things that give me meaning and structure to my life. But I think I'm not sure that either of those is universal, you know? Yeah, and the thing I'd add to that, and I think that you would agree with is that like there's also a component of just like being joyful about

the things that we get to do while we're here. Yeah. And so part of that joy is helping other people, and there is joy in that. And part of that joy is doing fun things with people you love, and part of that joy is listening to hips don't lie, because it's a very good song. Totally. And it's ruffling in the sort of marvel of human creation and of just the natural world and the physics and what we know about things now.

There's all kinds of sources of joy, but then there's also, I think, that there's a bigger bit of to it, that not the non-hiddenistic stuff of like, how do we continue this story and what is the trajectory of like what is the trajectory and the sort of understandable story of the human condition and how do we add to that in a way that, you know, aligns with how we imagine the way that the world should be. All right, so I'm going to summarize it Hank. Our meaning of life, the reason we think we're here is joy. Okay. That's hip-stop lie. Attention to the lyrics of hip-stop lie. And justice for the song hip-stop lie, which has long been unjustly aligned. Right. And also making sure that the

hip-stop lie is spread equally across the world than everyone has access. Right. That's part of justice. But, but no, I think actually that's a pretty good summary of what we think. And then the last thing is that we are in a moment in human history where we are deciding together whether we will be able to have species-wide goals and what those species-wide goals will be. Like the Millennium Development Goals that the UN created were a first step in that direction.

And then I think the global goals that we have now are another step, but we have a lot of other decisions to make collectively about are we going to be able to work together as a species to achieve our goals, whether that's going to Mars or limiting climate change to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But the latter seeming less likely than the former. This next question comes from Stephanie, you're right, George, on a tank. Before the internet, how did you settle an argument about something easily Googleable today? I mean, yeah. It's kind of wild, but there are all these times that our lives and we just didn't know the answers to things. Yeah. No, usually the argument just wouldn't get settled. It used to happen all the time. And those moments where you're like, oh, God, is it Adam Lambert

or Adam Levine? You just be like, well, I guess we don't know. So there were reference books, like even back in our ancient days of the 1980s, there were libraries that contained lots and lots of reference books. So if you really needed to know what the all time record was for touchdowns in a playoff game in the NFL, you could go and look at out up at the library.

Yeah, that information was there somewhere. This next question comes from Ellie, who asks, dear Hank and John, I am ashamed and disgusted. I am a millennial home for summer break. And it is vacuumed in my room for the first time since I've been home, which is also the first time I've been home

for an extended amount of time since last year. I emptied the vacuum and it was so full that I insisted on immediately vacuuming again as a 20 year old learning to be a functioning adult. How often do I need to vacuum? I don't live in like a dusty region and I don't have pets. Please don't judge me based on my carpet, Ellie.

John, I asking this question to you because I do not know the answer. I mean, Ellie seems embarrassed about only vacuuming once a year, but I don't think I vacuumed between the ages of 22 and 28. Hahaha. Yeah, I've recently vacuumed my office

and it was definitely the first time in a year. It was the first time since the governor of Montana visited my office, which was the vacuum blast before that. Because the governor was... Oh, a little brag. Who wait, who was visiting to cause you to vacuum for a second time? Well, Katherine came into my office, and then she stood in the doorway, and then she turned around and left and later asked her that she was like, I can't go in there anymore.

Yeah. And I was like, okay, well, I guess probably I should have an office that my spouse can enter. That is a reasonable pass. Katherine is more important than my governor, ultimately, no offense. Wow. All right. Bold, bold take.

What was Ellie's question? Oh, just vacuum every couple of months and you'll be fine. And also, dust is natural. And unless you have an allergy, it's not that bad. Yeah, yeah. I mostly did it because there was a lot of like propellers, you know what I'm saying? Little, you know what I'm talking about?

Like, like, propevers from the trees. They had all gotten in over the fall and I'd left them and I wanted them to be gone. Sarah came into my office the other day and she said, why are all these dead flies on the ground? And I said, because they died. That's funny because my answer to that question, Katherine can confirm this would be, what dead flies?

I don't see anything in here. I have the same problem. Actually, when I was at my 20s, my roommate, my amazing roommate, Shannon, she would stand with me in the living room of our apartment and she would put her arm around me and she would say, I have, well, whatever, it's new to Braxton. And she would say, she would say, now I want

you to point at all of the trashiness for me. Yeah. John, I have trash blindness. Some people have face blindness. It's very rare, but it's super real. It's totally, I mean, like, I just don't see things and I'll be like, where's this and should be like, you walked by it four times this morning. And I was like, I was,

I was looking at where it was going. I don't look around. Yeah. I'm just trying not to trip. No, this must be genetic. That's genetic because I have it too. All right, this next question comes from Sarah, who writes,

Dear John and Hank, do you think wedding pianists ever get anxious about playing Here Comes the Bride? Because if they mess up, like everyone is gonna know Sarah. I thought this was a great question. It's not like when I'm singing one of my songs. Yeah.

And like I mess up nobody knows. No one knows my songs. Like that I mess up nobody knows. No one knows my songs. Like that's the great thing about being a pianist is that you can mess up and nobody knows that you messed up except when you're playing here comes the bride. And everyone's like hyper attuned to it. And also you just messed up the most important moment of this person's life.

At my wedding, John, speaking of like a thing like this happened where the guy who was like running the, like the DJ session, who's a friend of mine, I don't know why he just called it the DJ session. He was playing the music at the wedding and he's a friend of mine. And we were, Catherine and I were having our first dance and he tripped over a chord and unplugged it while we were having our very first dance together as a couple. And I imagine he will never forget that and like, never will I either, but I like, you know, it's a thing to remember. I probably wouldn't remember anything about the first dance otherwise.

I remember nothing about my first dance because it went smoothly. Yeah. Yeah. You want something to go wrong. So at least you can implant a memory somewhere. That's right. What is it about humans and only remembering mortification? I don't know, John, but I stomped on a chocolate milk

and middle school. Yeah, I mean, I remember every single mortification of my entire life with a clarity that I cannot remember like what I had for breakfast. Oh yeah. What did you have for breakfast? I had a bagel. Yeah.

Because I had to get ready for a workout and I was like, oh, if I eat 400 calories, I'll feel so much better during the workout, even though I will negate the workout. Let's move on. Yes, I'm sure they feel anxious. Everybody feels anxious at a wedding That's what makes it such a heightened weird thing. Yeah, I wouldn't be special if everyone felt calm and relaxed

That's I did not that's just watching TV. I did not have a moment. I did not have a moment of calm on my wedding day Maybe driving out Oh, it's stressful. No, yeah. John, I've got a question that maybe you could answer. It's from Frederiko who asks, dear Hank and John, I recently moved departments and now I have a balcony for the first time. So naturally, I bought a bunch of vegetable plants and they're doing amazing.

One problem, how do I know when they're ready? Like my chili plant has a lot of chilies on it, and they're huge. But are they done? This sounds like a great problem. Are they going to turn red? Or do I have green chilies? Are they going to fall off by themselves? Are green chilies just red chilies

that were harvested too soon? What about bell peppers? Hungryly, Frederica. Ha-ha-ha-ha. Yeah, this is a little bit difficult. There should have been a little bit difficult. There should have been a little sign that came with your, with your peppers.

Yeah, there should have been, like, there should have been a little sign that came with your peppers that tells you how many days until they're done or that came with the seeds if you planted them from seed. But it is actually pretty difficult

to tell with peppers sometimes because the fruit forms and for a while the skin is quite thin and when the skin is thin, they're totally edible, they're delicious, but you don't get as much like bang for your pepper buck as if you wait for a little while, but then if you wait too long, they get eaten or they rot from the bottom or lots of bad things can happen. As far as hot peppers, at least from what I know, like a serrano or a jalapeno is great when it's green

and eventually it'll turn red and it'll still be really good. And there, if there's a flavor difference, I don't have the sophistication to taste it. Just pick your peppers, do not wait, do not wait. I didn't even know that jalapenos turn red. They will, yeah, I mean, my jalapenos at least too. Yeah. No, I just looked it up. It's true. I will say this though, Frederica, do not wait for your peppers to fall off the plant. This is not, yeah, not an apple situation. Well, also, don't wait for your apples to fall

off the tree. I guess that's a good point. Yeah. It can be hard to learn when to harvest something, but after it has fallen off the plant is too late, at least when it comes to peppers. Okay. John, you know so much about gardening. I love it. Well, you need to have a gardening podcast. I mean, I don't.

I don't. I don't need a gardening podcast. And also, I don't know anything about gardening. It's just that I know much more than you don't know. All right. Well, I know nothing. Which reminds me, John, that this podcast is brought to you by Red jalapenos.

They exist. They're just green jalapenos, but a little bit older. They're just a little wiser for the time. Today's podcast is also brought to you by Adam Lambert. Adam Lambert, I believe he is a musician. Yeah, I think so too. Spotcast is also brought to you by Hundo P. No, it's strying so hard to hold on

that it bought a sponsorship in a podcast. Oh God. I mean, if it had bought a sponsorship, I probably would have turned down the sponsorship opportunity. Today's podcast is additionally brought to you by Dust Blindness, Dust Blindness. I mean, if it had bought a sponsorship, I probably would have turned down the sponsorship opportunity. Today's podcast is additionally brought to you by Dust Blindness. Dust Blindness. It's a, it's a green brothers. It's, it's an inherited trait. Hank Adam Lambert rose to fame after American Idol.

And he is now the lead singer of Queen, which I should have known. And the, and the moment now that I'm looking at pictures of him, I get it. I get it. Wow. Adam Lambert's eyebrows are definitely the lead singer of Queen. Yeah. He's got good eyebrows, but he has really good eye makeup, which I think is, I think is very impressive. Yeah. All right. Let's move on to another question from our listeners. This next one comes from Adam Lambert's eyebrows. Dear Hank and John, you will keep talking about me, and I'm just a normal body part. Why does everybody talk about me all the time? Gosh dang it.

It's a compliment. It's hard to just feel that way sometimes because sometimes like any attention doesn't feel like a compliment because it just feels like a lot. It feels like a lot of sensory input, which starts to feel kind of scary and overwhelming, and I totally get that Adam Lambert's eyebrows.

But people really do like them. Yeah, they like you. This isn't ironic, and they're not being mean. There's no malice in any of this. People just like you, which is awesome. And you're great, and keep doing what you're doing, preventing Dan Driff from falling into Adam Lambert's eyes. And emoting.

This next question. Oh, that's the main thing. Yeah, I always forget that eyebrows have a secondary function. This next question comes from Liberty who asks, dear Angon and John, but again, mostly John, because I need help with this. Okay.

Also, I'm reading Anna Karenina. Yeah. Is it okay to skip the bits about farming? Say yes. The book is really good, but Crop yields are so boring. The statue of Liberty. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, of course, like the book belongs to you

and how you read it is up to you. And I think sometimes we do get so caught up in, I don't know, treating books as like sacred objects that we forget that they are entertainment, even great novels like Anacronina, maybe especially great novels like Anacronina. Right, yeah, that's totally true. I do think that the farming stuff in Anna Krynna

or the whaling, the other famous example of this is the whaling stuff in Mobey Dick. I think that stuff serves a purpose. Like it's not just creating atmosphere, it's also helping us to understand like the daily lives, the daily work lives of the people at the center of these stories. But yeah, at some point,

like it may not feel relevant to you and you also may feel like you've had enough of it. And then I think you can scan absolutely. I don't think that like if you skip a few paragraphs of Anna Karinana, that means that when you finished it, you haven't really read Anna Karin, you know? It does account, you can't market down, but don't really read Anna Karin, you know? It does account, you can't mark it down, but don't put it on good reads, you're a liar.

Right, like these are all like such stupid things that we've gotten caught up in with books. And I just, I wish I could just like free people from all of the expectation that comes with reading. Yeah, it's so true when it comes to books like Anna Karenina that going in, I have a very different level of expectation that it's almost like I'm reading this

because I should or I need to or like it's academic or like because I need to, like this is how I sort of express my identity or like become a more sophisticated human when it's a book. And sometimes I'm really surprised when I read a book like that. And it's just really fun and good. And you forget that like, oh, it's really fun to read these books because of how they're good books.

That's why they're so famous. Yeah, MT Anderson has talked before about how in literature, sometimes we create this idea that the opposite of a hard book is a fun book. And that means that like hard books can't be fun. Yeah. Because they are the difficult challenging brilliant books. And a lot of times those books are really, really fun. And also, by the way, a lot of times the books that are dismissed as being merely fun are really, really fun. And also, by the way, a lot of times the books that are dismissed as being merely fun are really, really good. And can it help, you know, be a balm and a comfort in this world and can help us to feel less alone and use figurative language

in all kinds of interesting ways. And I just wish we could kind of put that aside. And I know that those categories have evolved over the decades for a reason. But I also think that, man, it makes people's reading experiences such a bummer. Like it makes them think about reading as a chore instead of a joy. Yeah. And I oftentimes pick up books that I have heard the name of over and over again and think that it's going to be like an academic reading experience. And then it's just a fun, it's just a great story. And that makes me think and I enjoy it.

There are parts of Moby Dick that are so flipping fun and good, but you do have to work. There's also work. I, for fair, I'm not talking about Moby Dick, which I have never read and probably won't. Oh, I mean, the window hasn't closed, man. I for fairies. I'm not talking about movie dick, which I have never read and I mean the window hasn't closed man. It's true. I have many many years to go. I have a lot of decades left in this body, John Let's hope this next question comes from Teresa reds dear John and Hank I have a simple question which has been bothering me for some time and it is only your fault What is Le Croix? I have no idea how to spell it. Terease spelled LeCroix LEC R O Y, which makes total sense. That sort of an expansion of the name LeRoy. I am from Norway. Drabaugh, if I want to Google it. And I have never heard of

LeCroix before. Thanks, Terease, by the way, Terease, you're welcome for my excellent Norwegian pronunciation. I'm not gonna, I don't even want to type it in because as soon as I'm looking at Google Earth, I'm completely incapable of podcasting. Oh, they have an aquarium. Well, there's definitely no Le Croix. That's the one thing that we don't for sure.

You know what, I was gonna make fun of Drobock and now I just desperately want to move there because I'm looking at the Google Earth images and it looks so lovely and also I can't make fun of any place that has health care for all of its citizens. Also, you live in Indianapolis so you can't make fun of any place. Oh, that's not true. I can still make fun of my hometown of Orlando Florida. Yeah, now Drobock looks like a lovely place that I would love to visit, especially this weird island for Triss. Yeah, Hank and I went there on Google Earth and I have to say that after spending five minutes in Drobock on Google Earth, I was like, I think I could spend the rest of my life

in Drobock, but don't quote me on that. Anyway, Triss, I'm moving to Drobock and I'm bringing a croix with me. That's my big plan for resettlement in Norway is that I'm going to introduce y'all to the fine, fine world of zero calorie, slightly flavored bubbly waters, emphasis on the slightly. Yeah. So, John, this is, he's going to be a La Croix magnate for the Fjordlands. Yes. And that is, that is your life now.

That is what I do. It's like southern Norway, so it's probably night, it's probably warm most of the year, right? Yeah, yeah. What's the weather like in Drobock in February? It's cool. It's lovely today. Yeah, it is very nice today. Okay, okay, right.

We didn't say how it's spelled. It's spelled L-A-S-B-C-R-O-I-X. It's named after a town in Wisconsin. Yeah, it shouldn't even be pronounced La Croix because it's a French thing, but we've taken French names and made them more American sounding. Yeah, I guess you've never been to

Mylin, Tennessee, or Peru, or Lima, Ohio or I mean, Yeah, Kero. Yeah, the list is endless of Americanized names. Like we can flatten out anything. It's time for a million dollar idea, another million dollar idea. Somewhat on Twitter said that this was a million dollar idea, another million dollar idea. Somewhat on Twitter said that this was a million dollar idea. It's from Joanna who says million dollar idea, workout class on scooter.

Like paddle board yoga, but for those rented scooters, I assume that it's for the rented scooters. The bird's, the lime is lime. One of them away is the suitcase company. That's different. I think Adam Lambert has just started one called the Lambos. The Lamborghini's of electronic scooters because there must be something different about them except that they're all exactly the same.

Right, now this is a high, it's a luxury scooter. Wait till you see it. Yeah, you'll break your ankle exactly the same amount of times. So this is not a million dollar idea? No. It is a solid $8,000 idea. Like I think that you could get people to go to a few of these classes because people will do anything that you call fitness.

But I don't think you're gonna get to like orange theory soul cycle levels of success with this concept. And who needs that level of success though? What I really want is to be able to do my yoga and see the town at the same time. And if that's available and and drove back, nor away, then I will sign up. It looks especially dangerous in drove back where there are lots of hills and very, very curvy roads. I know that I am romanticizing Drobock a little bit, but I want to move there so bad. Like, I just, I really, I know that geographical cures don't work, but maybe this one would work.

All right. Hank, we've got some, a of things to get to in terms of responses and corrections before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. I guess the most important thing and really the only thing is that we have received a lot of responses. For instance, Florence wrote in to say, dear John, as Hank was mostly silent on the issue,

how can you ever support Elsa on the giant stone Abraham Lincoln 2020 ticket? She ran away from the throne and covered her entire country in deep, deep, deep snow. Flabbergasted, flooring. Also Nathaniel wrote it to say, dear John and Hank, I don't, I don't know what's wrong with you. Elsa cannot run for president in 2020 in the movie Frozen, which came out in 2013. Elsa is 21. In 2020, she will be 28. She can run for president in 2028 when she will be 36 or at least she could if she were a natural born United States citizen, which she is not. All right. Obviously, we're going to have to change some rules to allow Elsa to become the vice president

to giant stone Abraham Lincoln in 2020. But I for one, I think that it's the right time to change the United States' constitution because we have the kind of like solid, calm leadership that will only mess with the Constitution in totally acceptable ways like for instance making it legal cartoon characters and giant stone statues to run Yeah, I mean who makes the loss we make the loss who makes the loss we make the loss All right, I can sign for the news from Mars and aFC Wimbledon The most important news from aFC Wimbledon. The most important news from AFC Wimbledon is that right now, especially if you live in the United Kingdom

or elsewhere in the European Union, quick, while that's still true, you can go to S-E-E-D-R-S.com cedars.com slash AFC Wimbledon or just Google AFC Wimbledon crowdfunding. And you can own part of AFC Wimbledon. You can join me in owning part of this magnificent third tier English football team. And in the process, you can get anything named after yourself, a urinal, a stare, a seat in the stadium, or you can get it named after one of your friends or enemies. It is a magnificent crowdfunding campaign. Check it out. And also it is going to be what allows AFC Wimbledon to move back to where they belong in Wimbledon

in their community and write the last great chapter of this incredible story. So check that out. However, there is also a season that is happening. Do you want the good news of the bad news, Hank? Well, the good news, because I know the bad news already. Which is that you lost the good news game is that as you'll recall, there are two teams in League One, and this is a tragedy. It's a real shame. And I don't ever root for anybody to fail that are starting with negative 12 points. Yes, that's great.

Of those two teams, one, Bolton Wanderers are in such bad financial shape that they are playing almost exclusively like 16 and 17 year olds for real. Wow. And yet somehow, they're 16 and 17 year olds managed to eke out a draw in one of their two games of the league one season so far, meaning that Bolton now have negative 11 points. Barry still have negative 12 points and also haven't yet played a game in league one. It's not clear what's going to happen there.

So that means that like right now, despite the fact that AFC Wimbledon have lost both of their first two games, both by the score of two to one, which if you remember last season is a score line we lost by a lot. We are only in 18th place. We are actually doing better than we were last season at the end of the season when we finished in 20th. So yes, it is true that we have lost our only two games. And in those two games, we have not looked,

I would say terribly convincing as a league one football side. However, I mean, as long as the teams below us lose by more, I am happy. I don't care if we had the season with zero points. As long as there's teams that end with negative points and two other teams that end with zero points and a worse goal difference, I do care a little bit. That would be quite a bummer. But we're doing our best and right now our best is not great. And according to my Google, you're playing the Don's, the franchise currently

playing its trade in Milton Keynes. That is correct. Soon. And that's a big deal game. And they appear to have won their first game. So, yeah, they're in the very middle of the pack right now. Yeah. So that is obviously a highly charged game anytime. Did I make it up that they were going to go down? No, they went down to league two, but then they bounced back up. Oh, they came back, okay.

Unfortunately, I guess I do root against one team. Anyway, they came back up, they're in league one now. We're going to play them twice in the league one season and then also we drew them in the purportedly random draw of the first round of the Carabao Cup, which is like the third time we've drawn them out of eight possible. It's ridiculous. It's obviously, if it's randomized, I'd like to see some statistics. Anyway. So we're going to play them twice in the league one season. And then we also drew them in the first round of the Carabao Cup, which means that we're going to play them.

By the time this podcast goes on the air, that game will be over one way or another. Obviously, it'd be nice to go to the second round of the Carabaugh Cup or whatever it's now called, but it's not the most important thing this season. Well, this week in Mars News, scientists have been trying to figure out just how bad the radiation experienced by future Mars bound astronauts might be in ways that we might not have expected and the results are. Oh, that's great. So this study was funded in part by NASA and carried out by a team of scientists that

you see Irvine. They exposed mice to low doses of radiation over six months to simulate the kind of radiation that someone traveling on a spaceship to Mars would be exposed to. And over those six months, the scientists studied how the mice were behaving, looking at how they socialized and how well they learned new information. And compared to mice that weren't exposed to any radiation, the radiation mice were more stressed. And they also appeared to have a harder

time learning and remembering things. Oh. The mice also showed limited signaling in areas of the brain associated with learning memory and complex cognitive functions. And based on these results, the researchers say that a crew of five Mars bound astronauts in that crew they would expect to have one astronaut at least show these kinds of cognitive issues. But of course, this is a mouse study doing translation from mouse results to human results

isn't straightforward, especially when we're talking about something as complicated as the brain, which is obviously very different in humans than in mice, plus the effects of radiation likely vary from person to person. But even with the challenges of translating mouse brains to human brains, it does give us some more solid ideas of what we might be looking out for with risks

and what we should be concerned about when flying out to Mars. So maybe everybody should just wear their 10 foil hats and that'll, for clarity, that won't help. Is that in just getting to Mars or is that in getting to Mars being there and getting home? That's just getting there. So one of the, yeah, and that's the worst part of it.

So when there's nothing to protect you ever is when you're in interplanetary space, you're never in the shade of the planet, you're like always exposed to cosmic space. You're never in the shade of the planet. You're always exposed to cosmic radiation. That's super not ideal. And once you're on the planet, you can probably live a fair amount of the time underground or have other shielding around.

But there's sort of thoughts about like how could we create places for at least scientists on those missions to sleep in areas that are more shielded. But regardless, you know, there's a lot of radiation out there and it definitely does have an impact on human health. Has it had any kind of impact on the people who've had long-term experiences in space? Like, do we have enough data yet about astronauts who've lived on the space station to know how

seriously they've been affected? Like, I know there was that twin study where one twin stayed on Earth and the other twin went to the space station for a year, but just in general, I would think that we have enough astronauts now to know if there are like big, big health concerns. Yeah, I mean, we definitely see DNA damage. We also see that damage being repaired once they come home. But like repair is not 100% and so like there is a known reality that astronauts just like jet plane pilots are at higher risk from cancer because they spend more time out of the sort of best areas for radiation protection. And that is a risk that those people live with.

But we, this, as far as I know, this understanding of like cognitive impacts is new and not some many have studied in people. Interesting. Yeah. I love Earth. Earth is great, John. Earth is great.

I was just thinking about Leon Muskis week. I tweeted out him and he didn't tweet me back, but. Yeah, I don't know what that guy's been up to anyway. Keith, I do miss him. I like to see him more often. All right, Hank. Well, thank you for potting with me. Thanks to everybody for the questions.

You can always email us at Hank and John at gmail.com. We love your questions. We're sorry for all the ones that we didn't get to, but thank you for emailing them. Hank, you do the credits. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tune a Mettish. It's produced by Rosie on a Halsey Roll Haas and Sheridan Gibson. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chakravarti.

Our head of community and communications is Victoria Bonjourna. And the music you're hearing now, and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Donna Rola. Dear Hank and John is a co-production of Complexly and WNYC Studios. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.