Dear Hank & John - 317: The Sleepy Holler Hanna Banjo Band

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

Where should I practice the banjo? Why am I allowed to walk up to Starry Night? What do I do with unwanted books? Why doesn't gum stick to teeth? How does one order the next round on themself? How do booster shots work? Hank and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Doors I prefer to think of it dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you to be a advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon John. What do Christmas and a cat in the desert have in common? I don't know. Sandy Claws? No.

No. No. No. First off, first off, we're recording this as a bonus episode that's not supposed to be season right. Oh right, oh right, I forgot. Secondly, if you're going, I forgot about that. If you're going to make it seasonal,

make the joke good. I love that joke. It was one of my favorites. I think I used to call on, Sandy calls. Anyway, Sandy calls. Which dog? No, no, no, I didn't mean I did not mean I want a second joke. Which dog is always going to win the race? Which one?

It's the one with the most comfortable lead? No, no. Because that's what they call liches in England. I refuse to, I get the joke. I refuse to accept it. Okay. All right. Well, I have received it. Well, then now I can use the Sandy Clause joke. When we record for the actual Christmas time. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah, yeah, no, I can say it. It's my favorite joke. One of my favorites. I don't accept that and why did the cowboy get a docksend? I think the solution to having to get a long little doggie.

I do like that joke, but I you've told it to be 500 times. I know it's so good. Not that good, man. It's just as good as the moth. And I've heard the moth more than you've heard that law and also the moth is way longer than the long doggy. It is nowhere near as good as like what is the metaphorical resonance of the Get a Long Little Doggy joke? What is the part of it where we have to grapple with the reality that so much of our lives is spent flying toward a light that we neither understand or consider? It's because we make decisions not based on what we actually want, but based on what society expects of us, which is that cowboys get a long little doggy.

I'm sorry, man. I say this as somebody who makes metaphorical reaches for a living. That is a reach. Yeah, and then he's like, why do I have this dog? It's terrible for cowboy stuff. It doesn't have nothing good. I love that you've taken our timeless, who knows when it will come out bonus episode and somehow managed to insert three dad jokes. Yeah, well, this is what the people want, John.

And especially it's what they want when we had something go wrong. And so we couldn't record enough this out of the podcast. And so we had to use, we had to dig into the archive and took out this one, which we might not even ever release because maybe things will go perfectly forever. Let me just go ahead and release some time specific AFC Wimbledon news just now while we were recording this while listening to this joke. AFC Wimbledon drew their third round FA Cup opponent. It could have been Arsenal.

It could have been Manchester City. It could have been Liverpool. Instead, it's Borham Wood. Yeah, I was gonna go with trip basin. Let's make up, let's make up some potential English place names that could be fifth or sixth year English soccer teams. Trip tracing is good. What about what about Ipsmouth quarantine? Yeah. Ipsmouth quarantine FC, the wanderers. I'm going to go with hardmouth, Bramblethrough, and there's his, there's his, they play as the fighting bees. There's of course the smash mouth F.C. All stars. Now this is the thing I think we could make happen, John. What about broad tooth united?

I want a song for Broad Tooth United. Like, they're better on the pitch, but they can't bite as hard as these. We're Broad Tooth United. We've got higher SATs. We don't have SATs there. Aren't they the fighting bees? I mean, you've just got your... We're Broad Tooth United. England's fighting bees.

Yeah. Okay. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz I got to say the first part and you say the second word. The first name of this football team is Nipple Switch. Sure, yeah, the Nipple Switch town. Millotters. Why does it sound right? It sounds right. It would not surprise me in the least if there's a team somewhere in the seventh year. That's the Nipple Switch town, Marauders. And, you know,

they've got their own culture. You know, they got like a 25 season ticket holders. And for those 25 people, being a nipple switch town, Marauder supporter is at the center of their identity. It's really big. It's who they are. Yeah, it's a really big deal for them. And for the town of nipple switch, of course, it's amazing to have a football team. You know, how old are we going to get through this this cold hard life? John, I don't know why we decided to make our best episode in the ball. It's all down here, friends. As good as it gets.

Do you have any questions? No, I don't have any questions from our listeners. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that one, John. Ha, ha, ha. It's Mick Lover football club in Derby. Mick Lover FC. Oh, it might be, uh, Mick Lover, which is a real disappointment. I might have misread it. All right, Hank, before we descend into a full hour of discussing fictional English place names, here's a question from Hannah who writes, dear John and Hank, is it socially acceptable to practice the banjo in my dorm room? There is no stated rule against playing the banjo in my dorm room, but I do not want to have a conversation about it. If any of my

dorm neighbors hear me and get annoyed, I can't ask the RA because I am the RA. Oh wow. Twist.-huh. Yeah. If I shouldn't play the banjo in my dorm room, where should I play it? That's the better question. Spelled backwards. Hannah. Boy, Hannah, first of all, I feel like you should know the answer to this question. I was assumed that RA is new about all proper dorm room.

Yeah, they knew everything. There was no higher authority. Second, I didn't understand your question initially because of course, no, you cannot play Banjo in your dorm room unless your roommate isn't there, but it appears that having become an R.A. you've got a single. You have a single. In that case, first off, I think you can play the banjo if your roommate is there as long as they are playing the harmonica.

That's the only way you can play a banjo in a room with a person who is, who is not like actually paying to watch you. Yeah. So that's the, they have to, they have to also be playing a harmonica or a watch. I don't, I don't have direct experience of having neighbors play the banjo, although I love banjo music. So I think I would be happy. But when I lived in New York City, we lived directly, I probably talked about this before, because it had a huge impact on my life. We lived directly beneath a professional opera singer. Yes.

And when you're a professional opera singer, you have to sing every day. Like that's how you make music. I'm going to do your job. Yeah. It's like being a writer, you have to sing every day. Like that's how you mean. You're gonna do your job. Yeah, it's like being a writer, you got to write. And so she had to opera sing. And at first I was like, man, this is super annoying because this person really goes to the scales. You know, it's like five or six octaves

several times a day and booming. I mean, no microphone for this opera singer. As a voice made for the Roman Colosseum. And but then I slowly grew to really love it. So what I'm wondering is if Hannah's neighbors might become banjo fans through the process. I think you can't expect it, but you also have to recognize that like we live in a society. And one time I was in a hotel room and my neighbor did call hotel security to tell me to stop practicing the questions that I was about to ask the president of the United States.

So we're all, we're all in our moments. And I'm probably as good to, to, to, to do it until you're told that it might cause a problem. But the thing is like, if you're in a position of authority, yeah, that's right. Feel like they can cut you and say, like, I don't love this banjo playing. Yeah. Well, don't do it in the middle of the night. But look, if you have a good, but the question, where is a better place to play the banjo? Is it great? Right. Because of course, I think the best place to play the banjo is in the holler. Does your job have a holler? Yeah. Not sure where you can find one, but that is where you got to play the banjo.

Alternately, if it doesn't have a holler, is there some kind of veil that you might be able to visit? I think a veil is just a holler, but like a fancy one. And if there is no veil or holler, can you at least go down by the river? Yeah, if you can go down by the river or even a pond. Like, yeah, everybody's gonna look over at that and be like, well, that makes sense.

There's nothing about that that seems weird, honestly. It's odd that there wasn't a person playing a banjo there before. Exactly. This river valley was incomplete. Pre-Banjo. I just read a history of the Orthodox church, you know, Casper Terkyle of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text and lots of other things. Yeah. He did this thing this year where he read a book every couple weeks with a different person and the book that we picked was this history of the Orthodox Church, which was a book I never, ever would have read if it hadn't been for this two-person book club. Of which was Richard? Richard Orthodox Church. Like, well, funny, you should ask, that is itself a whole whole blue that believe you

may, I'm not looking to get into. But the Orthodox tradition that is today present in Russia and Romania and Greece and other places as separate from what the book calls the Latin Church or the Roman Catholic Church. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that while reading this book, I learned that in the Orthodox tradition, there were valleys that would contain hermits, like monks who were hermits. And if they were really good hermits, who were really popular and Sino's really holy and sacred, they're really popular hermits. Yeah, you could be a popular hermit.

This is a different time. Whereas now, I guess you could still be a popular hermit, just as JD Challenger. So what would happen is that other hermitages would pop up in the same valley. It would almost be like a community of hermits would develop because they were all inspired by this one great hermit. And I just, I thought that was lovely. Well, are they hermits anymore? Are they just a bunch of buds now?

Exactly. And so that made me think, if you start playing your banjo in the hauler, maybe lesser banjo players will come with you. And then you will be a community of banjo players and no longer will you be alone Hannah in your banjo playing. Yeah. And you'll be now you'll be in a band that's called the sleepy holler Hannah banjo band I

I think actually it would be known Hank as a broad tooth Fc in the bluegrass boys We're back Back I wasn't I wasn't gonna let it go. I I require a call back I was like, I wasn't going to let it go. I require a call back. Okay. John, this question I think is for you. It's from Tahani who asks, do you rank and John? I recently went to New York City for the first time, which has been a dream trip for me

for a long time. One of the biggest items I'm going to do list was to visit the Museum of Modern Art, where Starry Night by Van Gogh is on display. Now, I've been to the National Archives in DC before, so I've seen the amount of security that a significant physical piece of history can receive. So imagine my surprise, when I was just able to casually waltz up to the starry night painting that is everyone's default favorite painting. Obviously there were cameras somewhere in the room, but there weren't any guards, no barriers, not even a written notice, not to touch it. How is this allowed? How am I, a random

teenager, just able to be near it without supervision? How has no one ruined it by now? Is it even the original? Are the art people lying to us concerned about the culture? Tahani. This is a great question. And I love the, I love the kind of conspiratorial thinking. Is this even, is this is, is this really it? It seems wrong. If I can spit on the starry night, this must not be the starry night. It is just a starry night. And indeed you, you can't spit on it for the record. But yeah, so there are a bunch of things at work here.

And it's a really interesting question. Because when I look at starry night, my thought is also, this doesn't really look like starry night. Now, when I've gone to MoMA to see starry night, it was always pre-pandemic. So you weren't looking at the painting so much as you were looking at other people looking at the painting. Like, as is the case for most really famous paintings and really crowded museums. But it was a similar experience in the sense that it's as I recall, it was not roped off. There were no visible security guards and it did feel like you were there with the paint or all these people were there with the painting. And now because of the pandemic, you have like

timed entry and MoMA is much less crowded. And you probably can sit alone with starry night for a little bit, which is a really cool experience. Or I guess I should say, would be a really cool experience, except for the thing that kind of, kind of, kind of bums it out for me, which is that Tony, you may not have been able to notice this because the glass is very, very, very clear, but there is glass. It's called museum glass. And it, I know for a fact, it's over starry night, it's over most of the most valuable paintings in most museums because they're almost impossible to ensure otherwise.

Right, because you don't want somebody to just go up there with a carkey and be like, ha ha! Yeah, or just spit on it for that matter. And so this museum glass, which is really clear and it's really obviously it's really good glass, but it is glass. And for me, what makes Van Gogh, and by the way, we're saying Van Gogh and I know, I know Dutch people. We know.

We're just not doing it. We are who we are. I mean, we can't pronounce anything. We certainly can't pronounce Ben Goff. So for me, like what makes those paintings so extraordinary is the brushwork and the texture to the painting. And under museum glass, it really does flatten it out a lot. Like it flattens your visual perception of it a lot. And so I think that's maybe why in that moment

Tahani felt like is this even the original? Because it does feel more poster like when it's under glass. Yeah. When it's under glass than like a normal Van Gogh painting would. Even in that same room, there are Van Gogh paintings that aren't under glass where you're like, wow. Interesting.

Rushwork is really weird and has some real texture to it. And you don't see that as much when you look at Starry Night, although it isn't incorrect. I mean, obviously, probably the most famous painting of the last 200 years is good painting. I won't take anything away from it. But it does, it does suffer a little for me under the glass. Yeah. And obviously it has to have the glass because you got to protect the painting and also you have to ensure the painting. Right, right.

And one of the sad things about humanity is that we all kind of know what would probably happen eventually if it weren't protected in a way. Yeah. You know, somebody wants to, or somebody's, yeah. Yeah. And like, is that a sad thing about humanity,

or is it just like there are outliers? And that is a part of how humanity has to be. And so like, we, and like the weird thing, is that we have to choose certain paintings to be these icons. And, you know, story in the night is very good, but it kind of suffers from being an icon, which is a true of actual human icons as well.

You know, we have to center, as, you know, members of a culture, we center our attention on certain things, and that is sometimes to the detriment of the thing. Yeah, like when you look at that painting, it's very hard to see that painting as anything other than this iconic painting that's very famous. And so part of what you're feeling when you look at it is, oh my gosh, this is the famous

thing in the flesh, or at least like in so far as I'll ever see it in the flesh. And then you turn around and in the same room, there's another van Gogh painting or a painting by another artist that isn't under glass, that isn't famous. And maybe because it isn't famous, it's able to move you or it's able to connect with you in a way that this image, because it's been so repeated in your mind, just can't. And I've always felt like there's something to me quite sad about that. But you're right, it's an inevitable feature of,

as you put it earlier, living in a society. I've never heard somebody say, unironically, we live in a society. We do. I mean, I think that, I think that all the time. I'm like, oh, why is this hard? Because we live in a society. I'm sorry.

Yeah, yeah, things are hard. No, no, no, I agree. It's just like it's a me to say we live in a society. I'm used to the meme. In fact, that phrase has become iconic in my mind so much that I struggle to engage with it without that level of irony inside my mind. But of course, we do live in a society and that is the root of the meme.

That's where they come from. All right, Hank, we got another question from Laura who writes, Dear John and Hank, I recently moved to my grandparents' home to help take care of my 90 year old grandmother and the house that she and my grandpa have lived in for the last 40 years. They've held on to a lot of things over the years and I've been working on decluttering and cleaning things up. They have tons of books that no one in our family wants anymore, but I'm also pretty sure no one else in the world would want them. Plus, there are some religious books that I would

rather not go into circulation, to be honest. My question is, what do we do with old books that no one wants? I don't want to give them to Goodwill if they'll just be a burden to Goodwill, but I also am not sure that I am ready to go so far as book burning. What do we do? I don't have a quirky sign off, Laura. Oh, I'm really interested to hear your thoughts on this, but I will say that there's a wide gulf of difference

between burning a book and throwing one away. Lots of books get recycled, and that's a very different vibe than like, we must celebrate the destruction of this book in a party time atmosphere, where we all say down with the ideas, and these are thoughts that should never have existed in the world. And we are celebrating the destruction of these thoughts, which is... Booth. Yeah, exactly.

Like, there's nothing wrong with throwing a book away. I will say though, that there's a pretty good chance that somebody does want those books. Yeah. And that somebody may really, really want them. I'll give you an example. My great uncle, my great great also had his grandfather's brother wrote a novel in like 1932. And this was always part of our family war growing up that my great-grand

uncle had written this novel and it had been a big issue in their hometown and yada yada yada but that the book was out of print and nobody had a copy and nobody knew where you could ever find a copy. And then I found a copy. Yeah, because the internet and then you could start to search for stuff. Yeah, that said, I still think there are only two or three copies of the book in the war. Wow. So it may be that there is somebody out there who really wants that book and doesn't know. And maybe giving it to Goodwill is a reasonably good way of doing that because I don't know how Goodwill works.

But they may check it against a database to say, are there people asking for this book? Maybe going to a use bookstore could do the same thing. I don't, I don't know the exact right way to deal with it, but like I agree that there's nothing wrong with throwing away books, but there might be an audience for that book that has nothing to do with the content of the book, but instead it's like a personal connection or it's a book that they remember from childhood or I, who knows? I don't know. Right.

Yeah, I think that like the main thing is like you shouldn't become a rare book dealer suddenly because you're in charge of some of your grandparents belongings. What you should potentially do is look into somebody who could give them a one-sover and knows the space well enough to know what is a book that like there's a thousand copies of it out there and nobody wants them and what is a book that actually might have somebody somewhere who really is missing this from their life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and there's a lot of ways to do that. I mean, so that's what I would do if it were me, but I do think that we are a little precious about books, sometimes physical books, in ways that we aren't precious about other physical

goods that get this to be. Yes, well, we all have to read Fahrenheit 451 one where I'm in high school. So we get we get we get in our heads that this is. Well, no, I think I think it is appropriate to be afraid of exactly the kind of bookburning that you refer to. Yeah. But it's interesting because people also don't really throw away records in my experience. There's something about physical art that it's really hard to throw away. I do not want to throw away any of the art that Sarah made, even the stuff that she made in high school. And she's like, it's fine to throw this away. I made it in high school. I don't like it. Yeah, it's like, would you, do you want to keep around

the copies of like Rosenthal Square that you wrote when you were in high school? I'd forgotten that that was the title of that story, Rosenthal Square. It's so weird that that book that that story was called Rosenthal Square. And then I became very good friends with somebody named Amy Krause Rosenthal. That is such a, that is such an Amy Krause Rosenthal Square. And then I became very good friends with somebody named Amy Krauss Rosenthal.

That is such an, that is such an Amy Krauss Rosenthal detail. Like she would love that coincidence. She would love that. I'm asked to mention that to her at some point. I hope. Well, the good news is John, that's not on the internet.

So no one can go find it. Because you sound like you didn't want me to say the words. I will. So the backstory there, this is a story I wrote when I was in high school. And I liked it. It came in the third place in my high schools, like story contest. Yeah. But first place went to Daniel Outerkond, who went on to become a very, very successful. He just won a MacArthur genius grant. So it was a weird moment in high schools. I didn't know it at the time, but first place shouldn't have even counted.

You got to say it. So I have fond memories of that story because it was really the first story that I completed and it was, you know, the first story that I wrote for fun, you know, that wasn't for an assignment or anything. And I recently reread it and I was like, it's not great. It's not as good as I remember. I'm surprised you had it handy to read. Dad found it. No, yeah, of course. I liked the read. I was like, wow, John, my older brother is amazing. He is so cool.

Well, to read it now, you're like, boy, was this guy in love with Kurt Vonnegut. And it just reads sort of like a sort of echo, Shano, the kind of vana-get sense of humor, where it reads like I had good taste, but not yet good execution. Sure, well, and that's a lot of, that's a lot of early people's work.

And also, it's hard when you read a lot of somebody who has a really powerful voice to get outside of that frame. Yeah, and I think maybe it's helpful to be imitative when you're a young writer or musician or artist or whatever, because part of it is learning what you like about what you like. For sure. Well, John, this podcast, as it happens, is actually brought to you by Rosenthal Square.

The John Green was called Juvenileia, that you cannot and should not get emphasis on the juvenile in Juvenileia. And of course, this podcast is also brought to you by banjo in the holler, the new album by the sleepy holler Hannah banjo band. This podcast is also brought to you by nipple switch down FC nipple switch down FC playing of just they just pulled Manchester United and the FC cup is huge. The FC cup. Never change.

Never learn. Never learn. I wonder if it would be completely out of place to create merch for one of these fictional soccer teams. But anyway, we're moving on. The broadcast isn't coming out. We don't know what it's coming out. It's all wasted on a bonus episode anyway. This this unmitigated gold. It's just going to be on a random Monday when one of us has COVID or something. Also, this podcast is brought to you by living in a society, living in a society. It's not just an ironic statement.

It is also a fact. That's really real. It's so real. So we should We should go with Google nipples, switch down and make sure it's not a fact. It's really real. It's so real. We should do it. John, the next question comes. So, I wish I could do a Google Nipple switch down and make sure it's not a real place before we. It's not, I already did.

Oh great, okay. It sounded so real, I looked it up. It. It. It. It. It. This next question comes from Caitlin who asks,

Steer, Hank, and John, this question is from my husband who introduced it by saying, I have a question for those green boys. Hmm. I thought it would only be polite to pass it on. Why does gum stick to everything except my teeth? Hmm. Do you know why, John? I would assume because your teeth are kind of wet.

Yeah, it's because they're the wet, they're all just like all the rest of your bones, They're wet. Oh, no, not don't say that. Don't tell me the rest of my bones are wet. Oh, no, no, God. Oh, God. Are you telling me that if I was chewing gum with my ulna, it wouldn't stick to my ulna? Yeah, there's a wet ulna. Oh, God. Also, it might stick. I can feel every one of them. They're all inside of me. Your teeth are also very hard and have very, so they're not porous at all. So there's nothing for the gum to like sort of get into. That's one of the things that like, but gum will regardless stick to a very hard, non-porous, dry surface.

And they would gum would stick to your teeth if you dry them out first. And you can dry your teeth out. It doesn't, not something you want to do like permanently or anything, but it doesn't hurt them to dry the matches. So, to stick them out there and breathe on them a bunch. Just blow a hair dryer into your mouth and stick some gum to them. That'll absolutely work. How can you still be talking after revealing that all my bones are wet? It's a meme, John, it's a whole thing. I've never heard people have even been through the process that you're going through, right? I've never heard this before. This is deeply upset. I cannot tell you the extent to which I am feeling the existence of my bones, which I have never felt before. I am having a physical and intense, physical reaction to that news.

I am aware of having a pelvis. I feel my finger bones. I didn't like that. You didn't mind me about my pelvis and I have all of these bones that are holding me together. I have all of these, I have all of these bones that are holding me together. Pog has brought you by wet skeletons. Is red Skellington's brother.

That got me out, that got me out. I pulled me right out. I'm good now. You know, that guy's name is not really red skeleton, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. That's that's key. That's key to being able to enjoy the joke. Oh, that pulled me right out. Thank you. All right. Let's move on quickly.

This question comes from Andrew who writes, dear John and Hank, I am someone who doesn't go to bars very often, but I always see someone on TV shouting, the next round is on me. Is that a real thing? Is the next round of predetermined amount and type of alcohol? What happens? And this is gold. I like the idea that you shout.

The next round's on me, but you can only take you as light. Holy tiki-la-shots. That's too much. Well, something, but you can say that. Tito's only Tito's. You can say that. You can say shots on me for the whole bar. And then everybody

in the bar gets a tequila shot and you have to pay for X number of tequila shots. Yeah. So, Andrew, there's a couple things to remember. One is that I would, I would say most times, somebody says the next round's on me, they are at a bar with between three and five people. Right. And they are not going to for the whole bar. Or they're at a bar that only contains three to five people, which is often the case. Yeah. Yeah. For a lot of bars. I have said the next rounds on me who once in my life. And that's cool. John, that's pretty cool. That makes me feel like you're pretty cool. Thank you. Like Andrew, I did not fully understand the commitment that I was making. I've seen something on TV and I thought, I'm feeling good. I've had an amazing

day. The next round is on me. And good, this gracious, that, that was an expensive announcement. What is your job, John, John, John, you skipped the most important part. Did they, at the, at the moment that you said this, did everyone go, hey! Because it wasn't fairly significant. Okay, because my, my like horrible fear would be, I'd be like, next round's on me and everybody be like, cool, cool. And they just like sort of walk up quietly to the bar and be like, ah, that guy, what a sucker.

I feel like I don't know the bartender experience of this, but I feel like it'd be kind of a bummer for the bartender because they've got to decide like what constitutes the next round over. Yeah. Has this, am I sure that this person has only had one drink in this so-called round. Right. And then also is the person tipping issue? Is the person who said next round on me actually good for this?

Yeah. Right. Right. Sure. So I would argue, take on that responsibility with care, it is not a predetermined type of alcohol usually. So you don't know what you're buying when you announce next rounds on me.

Next comes only the only cheap beers. Like, gotta go to the well friends. I'm not getting you a long island iced tea with top shelf liquors. PBR for the whole family. I love that you think the nicest mixed drink is a long island iced tea. It's the most expensive one.

It has like six shots in it. Oh god, never change. It's just expensive. It's not the most expensive one. It has like six shots in it. Oh God, never change. It's just expensive. I'm not saying it's nice. I love long islands. I don't like it. I genuinely don't think anyone has said the sentence, I love long island ice teas in 10 years.

I think it has been, I think the last time it was uttered was 2011. Nobody, and I mean nobody likes a Long Island iced tea. I do. I think they're very good. I like them a lot. They're amazing. Wow. I just looked up how many beers a long Island iced tea is equivalent to. It's not good. Yeah. Four beers. Oh, that's all. That's a lot

of beers, Hank. No, I know. I know you. I can't drink them. If I had four beers, I don't have to see probably since 2011. Oh my God. Before that, I bet. All right. Let's move on. It's Hank and John are too old to. Next round's on me. And by next round, I mean, I'm the only person here. And round is boba tea. All right, before we get to the all important, but not time sensitive news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, here's a question from G who writes, do you, John, and Hank, but mostly Hank, I'm getting a little offended here. How slash why do booster shots work?

Does our immune system just forget how to recognize certain pathogens after some amount of time? G. G, our immune system is amazing and complicated and we do not understand all of how it works. What we, so a lot of this isn't like, how does this work? It does work. Right. And that is, that's a lot of how we unfortunately, like it'd be nice if we understood all of the sort of amazing variables of our immune system. Right. And that is that's a lot of how we unfortunately, like it'd be nice if we understood all of the sort of amazing variables of our immune system. But, but what we can do is study really effectively,

especially in a circumstance where we have a lot of people who are sick and a lot of people getting vaccines. We can study the efficacy of those vaccines and how it changes over time. And once you do that, you start to say, ah, maybe we need to do additional shots. Whereas for some diseases, you don't need to do additional shots. Now why this is, we don't know, especially because there are multiple ways that our body remembers, basically, different pathogens. So there are, you know, so there are like antibodies which can stick around for a certain amount of time, but do tend to wane, but then are always present in some amount, but sometimes

that level is higher than other times. There are also like these cells themselves that can remember and become like specific to the pathogen and they replicate themselves and remain there all of the time. Do they hang out in like certain parts of your body? Do we have a good way of testing whether or not they're there, not really? So we can, we just do studies to see how long the immunity to a disease lasts. And then you sort of bump up the immunity. And oftentimes what happens is with a second shot, you get sort of a lasting immunity where your body, the first time is like, oh, this is a disease, and I probably won't see

it again, but if it sees it again, it's like, oh, this is one that I'm going to have to watch out for a long time. How the mechanism about that works is very complicated. People know some things about it, but we don't sort of have the full story. If you're interested, though, I really recommend Philip Debtmer's book Immune, which talks about in a lot more detail, though ways that vaccines work and why some vaccines are multidos in addition to being a really fascinating introduction to the immune system, which I have to say I knew something about, but I had no sense of the astonishing complexity and really beauty of the

human immune system. So yeah, I mean, it's the idea that we have a class of cells that are responsible for killing other cells. And, but like, their biggest job isn't just to kill the bad folk. It's to not kill the body, which is a difficult thing to do. Like, how does it tell us apart? Yeah, very hard.

It's pretty amazing. It's a great book. And if you don't know who Philip is, he's the founder and head writer of the YouTube channel Kurtz Kuzat, which you've probably seen and is one of our favorite educational YouTube channels. So it's just, it's just a really great book. I loved it. Let's move on to the news from Mars and AFC Wilburden Hink. I'll go first. AFC Wilburden have, have

done something really cool that makes me really happy, which is that they have resigned one of my favorite youth players whose name is Eglikasha. And so Eglikasha was a really promising youth player for Wimbledon. And it often happens that really promising youth players, like just don't get a foothold in the game for a variety of reasons, just like any other career. And after going on loan a couple of times and then ending up at North Hampton town, which only sounds fictional, he was out of the game for a little while and then resigned for Wimbledon quite recently. Of course, our current manager, Mark Robinson, coached him when he was a little kid. And so it's really, it's really great to have him back at the club.

He's, I just, I'm rooting so much for him. He has been at Wimbledon since he was like 10 years old. And he's just a great kid. Well, I should say now a great young man. And I'm really excited that he's back with the team. What's the, what's what's what's the evergreen news from Mars? I've been on trying so hard. Mars is so good. It's a good brock. Do you like almost all the news from Mars is evergreen news from Mars?

It is. Yeah, it is. I guess. And news from Mars, John. So you know how we have heard that the crater that the perseverance rover is in is an ancient lake bed that was a long term, old lake where lots of layers of sediment got laid down over over a very long period of time, potentially millions or even tens or hundreds of millions of years. Yes. Well, a group of scientists, and I can't tell you where they're from because I'm doing

this off the top of my head, have proposed a counterclaim, a potential other way that these layers could have been formed. And oftentimes this can be sort of pitched by the scientific press as like, ah, we were wrong or maybe we were wrong. But like really what it is, is it saying, this is one way, a long period of time, a lake existing on the surface of Mars is one way this could have happened. Another way is like a series of many years of rainstorms followed by the evaporation of the lake over and over and over again, but it would have been more sort of like a puddle vibe where the lake wouldn't have been a long-lasting lake. It would have been puddles for, you know,

puddle, puddle, puddle, puddle, puddle. It fills, it emtives, it emtives, it emtives, it emtives. Yeah. And that's just sort of like, like, so the, the clearest, most basic explanation would be, this was a lake bed. But there are other ways that this, that at least the layers that we're looking at right now could be explained and there, and as we look deeper at the layers, there are even some clues that might lead us to believe that it would have been more of a transient water type place. Now, that's still liquid water

sticking around and probably still just subsurface a lot of liquid water sticking around for a long time, like it might have been kind of a muddy place. But what do we know? It was billions of years ago. So we will continue to do the research and we will have a lot better idea once we just get our little feet there and get to poke around with our own human pokers. So, that's maybe not the best way to say that. In 2028 or later. In 2028 or later.

In 2027 or sooner. And so that's you can probably with that information, I just gave you a look up the story, which I read and then couldn't find. I longed. Well, Hank, thank you for following with me. Thanks to everybody for listening. I hope that you're having a nice season. What? What? We are as well. Up the, what a great season it is. Up the Broad Toots.

Up the Broad Toots. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tune of Medicines for Juice, Fred Rosie on a Halserohas. Our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom. Our editorial assistant is the Book of Drug Revarti. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great gun of rola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.