Dear Hank & John - 459: Electric Meat (w/ Kal McRaven!)

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

Has poop always been funny? Why does my cake mix have high altitude instructions? What breakfast foods won’t you get sick of? What percent of my car should be computer? …Hank and Kal have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohnProduced for Hank and John Green by ComplexlySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to a Complexly podcast. And welcome to dear Hank and John. Or as I like to think about it, Hank and Cal. It's a comedy podcast where two brothers and sometimes two friends, answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon, but don't always do that either. Cal, I just found out Canada isn't real. No way.

What are you talking about? They say that it's all Maple Leaf. Oh, that one's really bad. Oh, man. Oh, wow. I mean, it's bad enough that I'm worried a hit to the chest. A solid 30% of people have no idea why that's even a joke. But, man, that's.

I apologize. Thank you for joining. I'm sorry that you cannot see your wonderful situation that you have, including what appears to be a full-on arcade game, claw machine. Yeah, it sounds like a whole claw machine. I am addicted to claw machines. so I thought, why not bring the addiction a little closer to home? That's what they always tell you in the meetings.

After all, that's what you're supposed to do. So, yeah, and now what this is done is it now allows me to basically have no limit to the amount of small plastic plushes that I can buy. So that's great. Because you can always put them into the claw machine. I can always just throw them in there into just like this growing pile. This is amazing. Something that I don't need, which is awesome. Have you gotten very good at...

at claw machine, can you get better? Yes, actually, especially if you're going to the same place over and over again and you kind of get a feel for their machine. Yeah, exactly. So, like, the machine that I regularly go to is that a boba tea shop that's super close to my house. And so I've done it enough times to know. Yeah, yeah, just because they're obviously not overpricing the drinks enough. So they got to get their margins in somehow. And it's really great because I've learned that the claw actually,

jerks forward when it goes down. And so now, like, I'll be coaching the kids that are over there. Like, hey, hey, move it back just a little bit, just a little bit. There have been a few times where a doe-eyed two-year-old has watched me win something that I worked really hard to get. And I've had to relinquish the prize just because they are just so mournful, those mournful eyes watching you win. It's like you caught the ball at the big.

baseball stadium. You got to give it to the kid, except that you paid. It's like if you paid to catch the ball at the baseball stadium and then you have to give it to the kid. It's rough. It's rough, but you got to do it. You got to do it. Do you know what a two-year-old looks like? A two-year-old? Oh, I guess it's been a while. Well, no, this was definitely a two-year-old, barely talking. Okay. Barely talking. Barely talking. Still enough dexterity to reach out grabby hands and look very sad. Absolutely not going to play the claw machine game by themselves. I applaud you for, but I will say having seen. Well, don't applaud me. I'm writing it off on my taxes.

So it ultimately benefits me. I see. I don't know that that is. I'm not a tax advisor, but don't do that. That seems. I guess it's a piece of content you're going to make in the future. I mean, technically now it is. You've done it.

Success. And now I'm locking off. Hank, thank you so much for being a part of this. This is all I needed. Three minutes and 42 seconds in. This is all I needed. Thanks. I appreciate it. Thank you for coming on this show. We wildly enough just recorded another podcast together. And I was like, hey, can you do yet another thing? And you said yes. I'm very grateful. I always enjoy another appearance in the Hank Green extended cinematic universe. I'm kind of like that can. meo that pops in. Everyone's like, oh, that was such a cash grab. I can't believe did that. Oh, man. I'm paying you so much for this. If you all don't know who Cal is on YouTube, Funky Frog Vait makes videos about the videos largely. You're making videos about the videos, which I also do quite a lot. I'll be honest. We're looking at... There's just so many of them. We're looking at the way people are acting on this here internet.

And having a couple of things to say to them. Yeah. Yep. Some sternly worded things sometimes, maybe even a finger wag occasionally. But all in good faith, all in good fun. Yeah. So thank you for coming on humans. That was a really good time.

And thank you for coming on Dear Hank of John. I have so many questions. Cal, thank you so much for going through and finding the ones that you like the most. I'm going to ask some of your favorites. This one is from Becca, who asks. dear Hank and Cal. Has poop always been funny? This might sound like a joke question, but it's serious. Have humans always found potty humor and everything that goes along with it funny? How has humor evolved through history? What about human sexuality? Have we always found humor and bodily

functions? If so, why? Thank you for your answers, Becca. Man, I did a little deep dive. My favorite question that was asked, which is great. We're starting off really strong. I think, I think from what I know and from the reading that I've done, absolutely the short answer is a resounding yes. Yeah. Seems like. Seems like there's like the first joke that we have written down was like a Sumerian fart joke. Which is not entirely clear from reading it what the joke is, but it's it basically says like since time immemorial.

Oh, God, I got to read it actually. Sumerian, fur joke. I had to write notes because I was like, oh, I'm finding too much stuff. There's no way I'm going to remember everything. Do you, did you discover this as well? So I actually kept my research a little bit closer to texts that I was already pretty familiar with. So I actually focused on something not going back quite as far, kind of around 1300s, 1400s, so kind of medieval. Oh, yeah, Chaucer was all about the fart joke.

Absolutely. That's exactly what I brought up. The Canterbury Tales? Oh, my God. Can I please relay my favorite story from the Canterbury Tales to your audience? We'll get back to the Sumerian fart joke. Of course, yes. It's quite related, actually. It's also fart related. So the Canterbury Tales is considered a very foundational piece of English literature. There's a lot of scholarly debate on whether the work is complete, what order the work. work should be, you know, organized in. But the basic story that we have is that a bunch of pilgrims gather in and in. There are a bunch of people of very different social classes and backgrounds. And the innkeeper proposes a storytelling competition because back then people didn't have TikTok, couldn't just pull out their phones and avoid eye contact. So that's what they had to resort to. That's what TikTok was. It was telling tales and ins. Exactly. It's the perfect start of a D&D campaign, by the way. Canterbury Tales is basically the beginning of a D&D campaign. It's so great. Absolutely. No, it's so great. So the stories range so much in their subject matter, but also in their rating from PG to rated R. All the way out. All the way out. So the first tale, I believe, or first, if you are going to go by the

most scholarly assumed, which story should go first, was The Knight's Tale. It's a very pious story. But immediately after that, we get The Miller's Tale, which has everything. It has cuckoldry. It has farts. It has so, it has pranks, pitfalls. It is basically like the medieval equivalent of like a car crash compilation or like a people falling down compilation. Yeah. This is like exactly what happened to YouTube. Everybody was like, we're going to use this for good. And people are going to learn from each other and become more empathetic. And then immediately it was like, I'm going to do this prank and you're not going to believe it.

I'm going to fill this mayonnaise jar with yogurt and buy it at the store and then eat directly out of the top of it in front of the cashier, which actually is one of my favorite prank videos of all time. Nobody gets hurt when you fill a mayonnaise jar with yogurt and then eat it in front of them. Everybody's happy. Confusion is the best result of a prank. Confusion. Just pure confusion. The Miller's tale, if I could just give a brief rundown, because so many things happen in it. Basically, you've got old guy, young wife, young hot wife.

Everybody really wants to get their move in on this young hot wife. And so what happens is one of these men, I believe his name, Nicholas, yes, Nicholas, he does convince her to have an affair. And so they're sneaking her out a little bit. And then, of course, he wants to have a big bedtime. He wants to be able to sleep in the house. He doesn't want to just sneak around. He really wants to feel like the guy. And so in order to do this, he tricks the old husband into,

because he studies the start. He's a very scholarly person. So he convinces the husband that there is a massive flood coming, a deadly flood. And so in order for him to be safe, all three of them need to suspend tubs from the ceiling of their barn, put supplies in these tubs, and then themselves sleep in these tubs

so that when the flood comes, they can cut the ropes and float away. So he convinces that this is the case. And so the husband does that. And then the two affair partners, they sneak down from the barn loft, they go do their thing in the house while the older husband is asleep.

And while this is happening, another man. Because, man, she, the aura she must have had, the men that, that we're just so enamored with her. In the middle of having an affair, another man climbs up to the windowsill, also begging for her attention. And she says, I'll only give you a kiss.

And what does she do? She sticks her ass out the window. And he kisses that instead. It is like the most, like, you would never, it's so easy for us to assume that, like, medieval people were so very, really tiny, toy-y and pious. It is, like, literally the lowest brow humor you can possibly think of. He's upset.

He goes and he says that he's going to go get like a hot poker. So he goes to the blacksmith and literally gets a hot poker to stab her with. He goes up again. I can't believe you made me kiss your ass nowadays. That's great. Yes. I know. It's like they weren't quite at that level yet.

Okay. At least not in polite conversation perhaps. Sure. So this time, Nicholas sticks his ass out of the window. And like a Tommy, Tom and Jerry episode. he gets poked with the poker, but not before farting in the other guy's face. And so the story ends with the husband, the old husband, hearing the scream, freaking out thinking that the flood has come, he cuts the rope and falls to the ground and breaks

his arm, and the whole town comes out and laughs at him. And that's the end of the story. So if you want to know how low brow and sexual and dirty that humor used to be, Fart jokes, jokes about body parts. It's been around for... The whole time. The whole time. The whole time.

So the Sumerian joke, joke, in quotation marks, is something which has never occurred since time immemorial, a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap. I'm a little confused by the double negative in this. But I do get that it is funny when a young woman farts in her husband's lap or that she's working very hard to not. Like, it's funny. to think, okay, here's this young wife. She's perfect and she, like, everybody's, like, happy and they're trying to be perfect

for each other. And she has to fart so bad. And she's just trying to be, like, playful and fun in her husband's laugh, in her husband's lap, in ancient sumer. And she's just like, God, I need to fart so bad. Wait, so it's a double negative as in, like. I just, I'm a little confused. So, like, something which has never occurred since time immemorial, a young woman did not

fart in her husband's lap, I guess indicating that the young woman have out. always been farting in their husband's laps. Yeah, they just, they, they do be farting, apparently. I think, I think, I think, I think, I think that's cute because it's like, there's kind of just like an acknowledgement of human nature that crosses. And it's also kind of interesting because that statement kind of is, is circling the same conversation that we're having, which is, you know, how long have we been farting? And how long have we been finding that funny in doing that?

My God, yeah, farting has been funny. the whole time. We've always been asking that. The question in particular was about poop and we spent all of our time talking about farts, but I will say a well-known Hank take is that farts are just thin poop. I mean, I feel like a fart is just like the appetizer to a poop. I feel like there's the the precursor, the announcement, you know, etc. Yeah, yeah.

It seems related. There is a theory in humor, the sort of, the sort of, but the benign transgression is what it's called. So like a true transgression is something that's going to aggravate you. And like, but finding a way to do a transgression in which everyone is aware that there's like no harm was actually done. The response we have to that is this weird. Like how did this evolve evolutionarily? Like lots of, lots of animals have benign transgressions and don't think anything of them.

It's just like, oh, yes. people or the other animals poop and fart and I poop and fart and that's not like a part of my like inner life. I'm not thinking about the pooping and farting. I'm just like existing. But with us, there's this benign transgression thing where it's like it seems like it may be a kind of thing that we evolved in order to have a way to to display intelligence to potential mates or to our social group to like build status by being like, I can. can do something very clever. I can do something that is transgressive, but it is not harmful. And we had like a little evolutionary arms race about it because it's like growing antlers except for, so growing

antlers is a way of like displaying how strong and tough and successful you are. But this is a way of displaying, you know, humor is a way of displaying how like clever and smart you are with true social proof. Like you can't do good humor unless you're pretty clever. Yeah, no, 100%. there's also like the thing of like, you know, it takes a smart person to play dumb really well when it comes to like the acting side of that. Yeah. The people that can, you know, in improv, like, movies or whatever the medium might be, it takes generally a pretty smart person to kind of interact with stupid humor in a way that

kind of walks the line of offensiveness, but also is, I mean, I think of Patrick from SpongeBob, for example. the early, the first season of Patrick's character, especially, most of the time the joke is funny because the joke is clever, it's just the stupid character delivering on that joke. I also think, too, about, like, how with that question of, like, how these things evolved and stuff, I do wonder if cultural differences play a role in this? Like, my understanding is that certain cultures don't, in certain cultures, sarcasm, for example, or like irony or exaggeration are not perceived to be quite as innocuous as they may be in our culture where it's kind of just a flippant thing we do. In other cultures, there might be a little bit of a disconnect there if like an

American's like, you know, tries to engage with that level of like sarcasm or irony or, you know, like, you know, exaggerating something that might not mesh as well in a different culture. So that's also something that's really interesting to me. Yeah. Yeah. But also interesting that like ancient Sumer, which is like presumably pretty different from the year 2026 in America, farts were still funny. Yeah. The fart remained despite all the differences.

Farts were still funny. The fart is the is the key similarity. Yeah. So it seems like we've been up to it for a while. Okay. Cow, we got a question from Katarina who asks dear Hank and Cal. I'm making carrot cake from a box as box. cakes are the best. And the box says high altitude, 3,500 to 6,500 feet, stir one tablespoon of all-purpose

flour into dry cake mix. Why does my altitude matter when making a cake? I know things like change at altitude, but how? Also, what if I'm above 6,500 feet? Can I make a cake? Is there a limit? Thanks. Baking a cake on a mountain, Katerina. Katerina, it matters so much. It matters so much. Are you a baker or did you just look this up? I literally, when I read this question, I also became so fascinated by this because I was like, oh, yeah. Like I understand that baking changes at different altitudes. But I have like no clear cut way of explaining why or how to into another person. And that kind of revealed a gap in my own knowledge that, of course, made me deeply uncomfortable because that's how my brain is.

Do you have anything to add? Because I could just go through some of the stuff that I was able to pull up. Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, the big thing is to remember is that, like, air is around and it's, it could be different from place to place. And it matters. Like, the amount of air, it seems like it's constant, but indeed it is not. Yeah. No, from what I could tell, like, it affects so many different steps of the baking process.

It does. Let's see. It does. I live a high elevation. I was going to ask, are you affected by this? Yeah. It's a pain. Like, making beans, you can't pay it.

attention to the instructions on the beans bag. It's going to be like two hours longer because water boils at a lower temperature. Right. Right. And isn't, I think I was looking up too and it's like evaporation is, it goes at a faster rate. I think for baking specifically, some of the tips I saw, which were really interesting. So the biggest changes is because of the air pressure. Yes.

And that affects the leavening a lot. Yeah, the little bubbles that form in the in the cake. So what you want is cake that has like a good spongy texture. And so they have like through centuries of hard work and experimentation, we have found the right ratios of everything. But one of the things that's in the ratio that you don't realize is the air pressure around. So if you've ever like seen the experiment where somebody takes a balloon like a deflated but with a not tight in it balloon and put it in a vacuum chamber? Oh, I haven't. that has that like has no air in it or it doesn't appear to have any air in it you put in a vacuum

chamber but you tie it not in it as the air gets pumped out of the chamber the balloon inflates the balloon has not have more air in it it is just that the air around it is pushing on it less and so it is the air that's in there expands and pushes the balloon out in that same way if you are at a higher elevation it's closer to a vacuum you can think of as a spectrum toward a vacuum and those little bubbles the air that gets created by the yeast or by the baking soda, the gas in those bubbles, there's less air pushing down on it. And so the bubbles will form too fast and too big.

And they'll break the structure of the cake and the cake will collapse. Yeah, that's a lot of what I saw was like the issue with like the structure of the cakes collapsing. If you don't make those adjustments, even things like because of the increased evaporation, it like causes the sugar concentration to be higher. And then if the sugar concentration is higher. You know, it's going to weaken the structure of the cake. A lot of other tips I saw, you need less baking powder, less baking soda.

Yeah. Because things rise way quicker. And so you don't need as much. And yet, from what I saw, it's just basically you have to do a little bit of science. You just have to do a lot of trial and error because one thing I didn't know, it's not a clean cut at this elevation, do it this way, at this elevation, do it this way. From what I was able to see, I was like looking at King Arr. High King Arthur baking.com.

Apparently, even like micro environments on the same mountain can require different adjustments to the baking. And so I think to answer their other question, like, can you bake over 6,500 feet? I think it would just involve a lot more of those trial and error adjustments as you continue to go higher and higher. Yeah, yeah. There's a point at which, like, it'd be very hard to bake a cake in a pure vacuum. Right, right.

I'm up to being convinced that it's possible. That sounds like a cool YouTube video I'd watch a 3 a.m. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was interesting to try to make a vacuum chamber that could handle the baking temperature of a cake. Seems possible, though making one that you could see it to would be very hard. Anyway, that's me trying to now think of how I'll make this video. Well, now that's your next video. That's your next video.

But yeah, the, it's, so the thing that they say, the easy thing to do is just like toss a little more flour in because that's going to create more potential structure. But yeah, all these things, like less gas, more structure, like some changes in the sugar, more water because the water's going to evaporate faster. I think you also need to bake at a higher temperature, I believe, in order so that structures don't have as much time to sink. Right. But then that also creates a cascading domino effect of other changes you have to make because of that. It just reminds you how hard we've worked to get to where we are. Baking seems very simple because they just put it in a box. But it's complicated.

And we've been working on it for a long time. We didn't used to have baking powder. We used to have to enlist the yeast in this process. It's very tricky. Now we're dealing with microbes. We didn't even know what they were. I think if you were just like a random, like, peasant some time ago, like, trying to bake goods. You either had to do whatever your grandma said worked for her the thousands of times that she figured it out.

Or you kind of just had to trial and error it. I think it was. You had word of, you had word of mouth to go off of. But you didn't have like these neat exact instructions. I'm sure it was a lot more kind of figuring things out. Yeah. Well, it was more figuring things out. but people talked all the time.

They were telling each other stories about farts. And they were telling each other recipes about cake. Speaking of gas. There was a lot of, like, I just, you know, that, that, the sort of, like, recipe book that we have now is an interesting thought. Like, when was the first recipe book? Probably not that long after the first printed book or maybe before. I would imagine it would have been one of the most important things to start writing down. But then again, sometimes humans' order of priority does not make a ton of sense.

For example, we have a super ancient fart joke. We do. We have a similarly ancient, though not quite as ancient recipe. I've just looked it up. Oh, cool. How old? Yeah. A 1700 BC.

So pretty long. That's sick. What is it written on? Is it? Clay tablet. I was about to ask, is it clay? That makes a ton of sense. Yeah.

I can't figure out what it is for, though. I'm looking. There's no way someone hasn't tried it. There's 25 recipes of stews or broths with brief directions. Of course the stew. Stew has anchored humanity through some of the darkest times. Are you up to date on the perpetual stew? Oh, I know of perpetual stews.

Yeah, there are people on Instagram that are doing it. There's one called Stuthius. It has a name. Stuthius has been black for a long time. Black is not a color I want for a stew. No. Is Stuthius okay? I hope Stuthius is not giving people any incurable diseases.

My understanding, though, is that the concept of a perpetual stew was a real thing potentially that ends and taverns would have. So it just would be something that if a traveler randomly came in, you know, you just spoon up what's been continuously cooking. Yeah, it's just always hot forever, which like that keeps it safe. Right. I mean, if it's, if it's boiling or simmering, then that's not going to be dangerous to eat. At the same time, there's an amount that you can boil a chicken that's too much.

I've made stock. I love, this is a thing that I do. I'm a big stock boy. I rue the day when I wander into the tavern and I get that one piece of chicken that's been sitting at the bottom of the perpetual stew for a week. you don't want to be that guy. I mean, like, eating in other countries is always a little surprise. Not always. Can often be a little surprising with regards to the amount of bones I'm dealing with.

American food, we're really like, let's make sure that none of those bones are in there. We're going to have, we're going to make boneless wings, which is not a possible thing. That's a chicken nugget. I love my adult chicken nuggets. And I need you to back off. I need you to back. No, but I actually, okay, here's. Here's my kind of controversial take on that, like the American obsession with bonelessness.

I actually feel like it's more dangerous because the amount of times I have been served something that is provided under the conditions that it has no bones. And I therefore have eaten it with reckless abandon and then quickly discovered that it did in fact have bones. I feel like if you already know that the food has bones in it, you will eat the food more carefully and not get stuff lodged in your throat and not. like have a really scary moment in the middle of a sushi restaurant and debate whether or not you have to immediately call 911. Tell you what, man. Hypothetically.

Fish bones are no joke. They're scary. Oh my God. It's literally like a little tiny razor blade. And you kind of just, I'm like, okay, did it get down far enough where the stomach acid is going to take care of it? Or am I going to be in the ER for a while? It's a bad moment.

It's a bad moment. Yeah. Yeah. I had a friend who had like a giant abscess in his intestines and he didn't know what it was, thought it might be cancer and it was like a whole process. And then finally they figured out and they were like, we don't know what happened, but maybe like a fish bone. And I'm like, what? That can happen?

Wow. Wait, so it was just like the body becoming irritated and kind of building a wall around the. And then there was an infection and then it kept like walling off the infection and the infection kept growing inside of the walled off area. Wow. That is so cool from like the fact. that like that whole time he didn't realize that his body was protecting him. Oh yeah, he was like fine. A life-threatening infection for so long before it finally like it just couldn't keep building.

It was fine until it literally got too big. It started to block stuff. And then it was he was not fine anymore. That's so cool. When your food can't get through you, it's not pleasant. But yeah, I am fascinated by being made of meat. Yes. Hey, can I tell you something?

I've never felt more. of meat than the past few months. I have felt so strongly how meat-like I really am at the end of the day. It's surgery. Surgery will do that to you. It really makes you realize that you are just electric meat. You're going to go in there and take parts out of me. Me parts.

Which is the name of a punk band that I'm starting. By the way, no one can take electric meat. That one is fine. Yeah. This is what's all we. It's, yeah, it's overwhelming. I feel very much that way after having gone through cancer. Oh, of course.

I'm just a bunch of freaking cells, man. And they're all thinking, we're not all of them or some of them, or they're all working together to create some kind of consistent theory of mind. And very, very, very much more, I feel much more like a, like biology than I did before. Yeah, I think I've spent, I think in ways it's good. I think I've spent a lot of my life very disconnected from my body and very cerebral and up here all the time. And I think going through, you know, any number of different kinds of health issues that someone might go through. In some ways, it's terrifying and existential.

But in other ways, it does really connect you, I think, to this, oh, I'm an animal. Like, this clothes and these plastics and these, if you drop me naked in the forest somewhere, like I am basically no different than any other living. organism in that environment. This is all just trappings of intelligence at the end of the day. It's scary, but it's cool. I love the thought of an alien coming to Earth and being like, look at all these animals. And then like, but this one with the headphones is interesting.

The rest of them don't have headphones. I don't know about this one. Yeah. Like immediately, like if you're wearing the clothes, if you got the eye, like I feel like eyeglasses, you're like, oh, those ones. ones are special. Those ones are like, those ones are doing some weird stuff. They can't see anymore, but they're making it so that they still can. Yeah, there's, there's something wrong with that. Yeah, exactly. What's going on there? Why are they, why are they trying so hard? Uh,

they seem like very well fed, but still very anxious. Yeah, it seems like these ones with the glasses seem to be overcompensating for something. I don't, why are they behaving that way? Why are they some stressed out when they have enough food? Exactly. All right. Molly asks, Dear Hank a cow, I'm running out of breakfast foods to eat. Nothing sounds good to me. I have gone through all of the generic breakfast food options.

I'm in need of creative options. What are some of your favorite things to eat for breakfast that you don't get sick of after two weeks? Pumpkins and penguins, Molly. Molly, I'm so opinionated about this. I'm so opinionated about this. Do you have, do you have? have like regulars or? There is only one correct

answer to this question. And it is the bagel sandwich. Ooh, a bagel sandwich. Because a bagel sandwich can be anything. It's literally impossible to get tired of it. You can do sweet bagel, savory cream cheese. You can do

savory bagel with sweet cream cheese. You can do any number of different combinations of proteins, vegetables, smears, sauces, Anything. And we have funny names for all these different types of combination of bagel and other stuff. And it's really, and sometimes we put all of the stuff on it and we call them everything bagel. It's so, it's so great. Molly, you'll never get bored.

I like this because what you're saying to me right now is as long as it's bagel, it's breakfast. I do think. So bagel, bagel protects you from executive. dysfunction during meal times for half of the day. And then sandwich carries the torch until evening. Because sandwiches, it then becomes non-breakings. What I'm hearing is that you're probably a pretty big fan of sandwiches. Yes, yes. And it's great.

The bagel allows me to consume sandwiches at a time that is generally not considered as appropriate to consume sandwiches. Yeah. That's why I'm passionate about this. I like that because you can, you don't have to get tired of it because like a, like a blueberry bagel with cream cheese is very different from like a spinach herb bagel with turkey and cheese.

But they could both be breakfast. Exactly. Because they're bagels. And they're so holdable. Totally different things. And they're so good for, um, eat a dietary restrictions as well. Like I've had really slapping gluten free bagels, which I have not been as impressed with other gluten free offerings, but a gluten free bagel.

But a glue-free bagel, and then you can go super vegan with it as well. There's just, even Molly, I don't know what's going on in your life. Maybe the options are limited. The bagel sandwich can be there for you, I promise. So my breakfast situation is a little embarrassing because I don't know. Look, I shouldn't prejudge. Let me know if this is embarrassing. Okay, okay.

yogurt and milk protein powder maple syrup and chiroos into a bowl and then i stir it up and it is my favorite thing in the world that's you see you primed me for it to be embarrassing but then it you didn't need to prime me like it was still like it wait so sorry so it's it's yogurt chiroos is it shirios he said and then maple syrup uh-huh and then milk and protein powder and protein powder so it's like you're basically just making really thick cereal. Why do you need your cereal to be so thick, Hank? I like it. I like it thick.

I don't know what to say. Wait, but no, I will say, Hank, I have never heard of anyone doing that before. It's like, I really, I mean, you are a very special guy in that respect. It's evolved over the years, you know? Okay. What's the process? What's the evolution? Well, it was at first, it was just yogurt, and then I was like, eh, and then I

was like, you know, somebody like one time was like, you can put maple syrup in yogurt. And I did that. And I was like, oh, this would be good with Cheerios. And then I was like, oh, like, it's a little too thick. And so I started adding, adding milk. And then I was like, oh, everybody says you should eat protein now. So I put the protein powder in there. I was like, actually, that makes it better. It makes it like thicker. It's like more, my, my breakfast cereal is now. So it was too thick. And then it was. Yeah. And then it needs to be more thick. I feel like it was a different thick. Okay. I'm going to have to take your word for it.

There's a wide, there's like different varieties of thickness, you know. It's not all the same. So you're on that protein powder thing. I do, I do tend to have some, some protein powder every day because I feel like it's very hard otherwise to get to the amount that I feel I should be getting to,

which is probably, probably made up. What type of, what type of protein powder? Just whatever. This is how we tee up our next sponsorship. They sell it at the store. It's time to tee up our protein powder sponsorship.

That we have. I have so much money on the line. It is brought to you by the cheapest protein powder at the grocery store. The cheapest protein out are at the grocery store. It's the one that Hank gets. Now with 15% less lead, which is great. This podcast is brought to you by perpetual stew. The stew is so old.

The stew is so old and black. And the aroma emitting from it is frankly disturbing. Somebody, can stews live? Should it die? Should we kill it? Perpetual stew. This podcast is also brought to you by vacuum cake. The vacuum cake is made in a vacuum in my oven, maybe for a future YouTube video.

And we might see Hank explode on camera. That's the pull. That's the draw. That's how we can watch the video. That's a good point. I am now less excited about making this video. Leave that one up to William Osmond or something. There's going to be so many views.

That thumbnail is going to go crazy. Yeah, me with like fingers missing. Yeah. This podcast is brought to you by kissing. You ever, you ever try to, you ever try to kiss a woman who's actively having a fair with another man while her man is sleeping in a barn? This, this product is great for you. It's, it's a poker with lips on the end of it so that you can potentially field away kiss. kisses of surprising nature.

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So it's a dual purpose. Right. It's a dual purpose thing. Yeah, no, I mean, I don't know if this is going to be a successful product, but they bought a sponsorship, so we read it. They're paying us money, So we're saying what they told us to say.

Wait, so do you eat that breakfast every day? Are you like a this is my breakfast kind of person? I'd say that is on the days when I eat breakfast, which is not every day. Like sometimes I'll just have a banana. But on the days when I eat breakfast, I'd say that's like 60% to 70%. Okay. That's pretty consistent. And then like the other days are when I'm going fancy and having eggs.

Which I love. Yeah. I love eggs and toast. I kind of like. like breakfast and lunch are always in matrimony in brunch for me. Because I usually, if I eat breakfast, it's really late. And it's basically a lunch. And it has lunch like qualities to it, usually.

And also, I've often found that if I put off, don't tell, don't tell the doctors about this one. You know, because I know that breakfast is most poor meal the day. I sometimes will not eat until noon. Yeah. Because I find that I do some of my best writing when my stomach. is as hungry as my brain is for getting things done. I don't know. Maybe it's like when my body is breaking down food.

Maybe it's like distracted by that process. I don't know. But sometimes when I have food, I'm just too full and happy. And I can't, I can't write and be happy. Yeah, the blood's down there digesting food.

I need it up here. Yeah. Yeah. I need as much as I can get. I need to digest my thoughts. That's interesting. I used to not eat before noon. But then I had a chucked.

and everything changed. Oh, that changes. Yeah. Because now, like, I'm up at seven. Like, I can't, I can't not eat before noon if I'm up at seven. Yeah. I used to wake up at 10. And I'd be like, I didn't eat before noon.

It's like, yeah, you were, you woke up at 10.15. Unconscious. So I don't know what you're bragging about. Yeah. All right. This next question, Cubs from David, who asks, dear Hank and Kel, I recently saw some debate on the internet's worst corner, the Hellscape formerly known as Twitter. The debate was around wanting a car to be zero percent.

computer. I was curious, what is the appropriate amount of percent computer for my car to be, not on a space odyssey, David? I do think the cars are too much computer now. I agree. I, there are certain features that I think are kind of controversial. Like, some people love them, some people hate them. I personally cannot stand the push to start. I know a lot of people love the push to start. Here's my story about why I don't like the push to start. So at some point, I had, I was using, you know, you get two sets of car keys, right? And so at one point, I put my car in the garage, did not bring my car keys, or left my car keys in the cup holder and left one in the house, did not realize. And then later on, I accidentally grabbed my other set of car keys to go out to my car.

and because it's a push to start operation or everything, as long as the keys are in the vehicle, the car will push to start and that's how that works. So for a while, I am not to my knowledge, but I am using, quote unquote, a set of keys while another set of keys is actively the cup holder. So I have two sets of car keys in the car. At some point, I forget my car keys,

but I go into my car, which has a set of car keys that I have forgotten about, and I start my car, I drive all the way to the store, come back, but I don't have my car keys. And so I am freaking out later. This story is so convoluted, but I'm getting to the point. I promise, we can cut this out. I need to share this story because it's so insanely embarrassing and stupid. So I freak out.

I eventually find the other set of car keys. And I'm like, okay, I didn't lose my car keys. But all the while, the push to start is feeding this delusion because it only requires. The only requirement for the push to start is that the keys are in the vehicle. Yeah. Fast forward, I at some point come out to my car and it has been rummaged through. Oh, no. And I'm like, oh my God, how is that possible?

My keys are in the house. It's because the keys were sitting in the car holders. The person was able to yank it. Yeah. And that person could have easily driven off with my car because the keys were sitting right there in the cup holder. I could have easily had someone take my car for a joy ride. All this to say, sometimes I think the things that make these newer software-based cars more convenient also make us dumber and badder about being drivers, I think is my concern. Yeah, yeah.

Because I felt dumb and bad, Hank. I felt dumb and bad. Yeah, I love my car. He's in my car. My car was basically unlocked for months is what you're telling me. Yes. Yes. So, I mean, so this is a, this blows my mind.

There are now cars that you don't have. to start. They just, so some EVs, you just get in them and they're on, which I can, I'm, I'm kind of like, okay, I guess. Like, if I don't have to, like, think about the fact that I'm going to, like, get the engine revving. You just get in and you just put it in driver reverse and you just drive away. You don't have to start the car or stop the car. It knows you got in, which is because there's a computer connected to the door, also connected to the keys. And so they know the keys are in the car. It's a lot. My car, so here's one thing I know for sure.

There shouldn't be a motor in the door handle. Oh, absolutely not. That's just like way too much stuff could go wrong there. Yeah, that makes me deeply uncomfortable. And I've got my car right now has motors in the door handles. Like you walk up to it and the door handles like, and I'm like, I feel like that's entirely to be impressive in the year 2022. And it's 2026 now and it's already like, God, I do not want that.

Like now the door is just more expensive. You've made the door more expensive. And if I, like, hurt the door somehow, that's going to, like, I don't want to total my car by getting a ding in the door, you know, and like breaking the motor that's in the door handle. No, I just want to pull on a door handle like a man, like a human. Hank reveals toxic masculinity on the Hank and John podcast. I was a witness. I was there. I don't want it to, I want the door to be so heavy, only a strong man.

Man can't let a woman into a car. It's only for men. Because I'm opening the door for her. Because I love women too much to let them open doors by themselves. Yeah. You're taking away. It makes it worth being a man. What are we even for anymore?

So that's not the concern that I have. There's just there is, there's too much that's controlled inside of the screen. There's a button in my car, and I don't know why this button exists. But if it's a physical button and you can accidentally hit it and it limits the top speed you can go. Which is horrible because I accidentally hit it and I'm like, why can't I suddenly go faster than 20? That's dangerous. Oh, wait. It's that.

I was going to ask, so what is the threshold about that button? No, it's like wherever you are at the time. Like, I think that's how it works. It happened a couple of times. And I'm just like, ah, and I have to like stop and be like, what the heck is going on to my car? The one thing that made me feel like, ooh, my car definitely has too much percent of computer is when the big screen in the front of it will suddenly be like, oh, there's an update or something. Yeah. And like certain things will be suddenly unavailable to me without warning.

And it's like, uh, like I, I never. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I need you to do car now. Yeah, just do car unless there is a problem, do car. Yeah. I also think too, like, I sometimes make myself, like, physically look back when I back up and things like that, even though I have the big screen there. Just because I'm worried about, like, not knowing how to do that. I also, too, I think the big problem that I, I like tactile buttons.

I like physical things where I touch them and it make it make the good sound and it's great. I like having a big, like I love actually being able to pull a car into drive. My partner has a car where that is a series of buttons. You don't actually have the stick. It is a series. Yeah. I hate. I like it's changing and modifying things that we're not.

Yeah. If it ain't broke, don't fix it is kind of my mindset. Can I tell you. So like, I find that people think that they took away the buttons. buttons because it makes because it's like fancier to have the buttons not be there or like people like the designers were like we need to make it look sleeker and so we're going to take away the buttons. In fact, minimalism kind of push.

That might that might be the reason why they got away with it. But it's actually cheaper to make a car without the buttons. Oh, 100%. The buttons are expensive. And so they don't want the buttons in there. That makes so much sense. So they like found a way to just not let to be like, oh, the car is. like minimalist and we're and also it's also cheaper like also we have these like fewer

we're gonna sell you less for more and you're gonna like it do injection molding for yeah yeah I need I need the buttons I need the stick I need the and I really I so I guess getting to the what is the appropriate percentage I would say I think that's gonna depend on the person obviously if you have any kind of yeah you know disabilities or something like that maybe there's um these more more smart cars are going to be a little bit more comfortable for you and your lifestyle. I think this is a person-to-person thing for me. I feel like my percentage is quite low, lower than what I have now. It's definitely lower than what I am currently dealing with. And I think I've not owned that many cars in my life. I think this has been like my

biggest, like, this is the smartest car I've ever had. And that was very much like, okay, no, that's too smart for me. So I now know what my limit of smart is or computer is in the car, for Sure. So like my car will tell me if I'm maybe going to rearend somebody, which like has never happened when I might actually rearend somebody. At the same time, it only has to save me from mirror ending somebody like once in a thousand times for it to be very worth it, you know? Yeah. But so I've gotten this like alarm several times and I'm like, I am driving completely normally and I'm well aware of how close that car is in front of me. But the, there's also, it has like lane keep, you know, or. it's like if you start, if you don't turn on your turn signal and you start to go into another lane, it will physically not allow you to do that. And I'm like, ah, I guess I should have turned my turn signal on. But geez, that's a, that feels like an overreaction car. I think like, yeah, aside from like the breaking, like before like immediate impact.

Yeah. I think, um, I, I am worried about the direct intervention. Yeah. I'm so like, like I get it. I get that the cars will be safer in the future. But they are so much computer. And there is a piece of me that, like, thinks that somebody will come up with a car, particularly, like, maybe even an EV that's just like very minimalist. And there will be like a big market for that.

It'll like do one thing, which is drive, you know? It's just going to be like a drive car. I think there's companies working on cars like this that are just like, look, maybe it's going to be cheaper if there's like a lot less going on in this car. That too. but I'm also seeing like this, in my generation and younger specifically, I'm definitely seeing a pull towards maximalism and a romanticization of aesthetics from the 70s and 80s.

So I do wonder if there would be a market for basically re-skinned modern cars to look like how cars use, because I feel like there's a lot of people in my generation and younger that are definitely like pulling away from minimalism and getting very tired of minimalism and have started really romanticizing,

the way older vehicles looked, the color, the shapes, the individuality. So I do wonder if there's going to be a bit of an interesting push and pull there, perhaps, which I think would be very cool. I'll be down with that 100%. If you could see the video that's happening right now, you might notice that neither of us seem particularly interested in minimalism. No. Certainly.

Certainly not. But there's maximalists of every generation. I do think, I do think, though, I am seeing more of a larger, pull away, which I think happens every like 10 years or so. There's like minimalism, maximalism. And they kind of just trade turns. Whatever your mom did is not cool. Do the opposite. Yeah, a little bit of that for sure going on. I, there was that, I don't know if you were culturally aware at the Marie Kondo moment. I have no idea how old you are. Do you know who Marie Kondo is? The name kind of sounds familiar. She was like a minimalism influencer. And she wrote

this book that I don't remember the name of. But the, idea was you should like take objects and you should like hold them to yourself and be like, just this spark joy. Oh, just a spark joy. Yes. Yes. Yes. I do know who she is. Why would I have this in my life? And I'm like literally, I do that and I'm like yeah, it does. It like super does. Yeah. I think that's that's how I generally feel. I think it depends. I think for for some people like my background and like your background, that amount of like clutter and color and little tiny dusty objects would be a source of stress. Whereas for me, I look at that and I'm like, oh, that's my stuff.

I like my stuff. I can see my stuff. My stuff's there. Nobody else has my stuff. It's right there because I put on the shelf that that's where the stuff is. But for other people, it's like, oh, like this thing is slightly dusty or this thing is slightly out of position. And that can be kind of a source of stress.

My wife definitely finds the office to be stressful. She's like, she's like, I can't really spend time happily in there. There's a lot of people in my life that feel very similarly. I think it really just depends on whether stuff is a source of stressed or. Right. Especially with like, is it, is it all right? You know, Catherine Kahn has like the vibe of like, is everything like in its proper spot right now? And that's not a thing that happens in this office.

Things aren't in their proper spot. I mean, I do have like labels on my drawers at least to tell me what goes in what drawer. But other than that, I would love a label maker. That would be great. I mean, mine's just masking tape with Sharpie on it, Cal. Oh, that's great. That's great.

My handwriting is terrible, though. I feel like I would bother me to have to see examples of my own handwriting around me at all times. I think that I would find that upsetting. Again, another problem I do not have. Cal, we usually end this podcast with news from Mars and AFC Wimbled, but we're simply not going to do that today because I have no idea when this episode is going to come out. I think early July, probably. If you would like more of Hank and Cal, well, there will be an episode of humans with the two of us where we get into what you do. Yeah.

I appreciate you coming on to dear Hank and John and just chatting and hanging out. What else do you have going on? Okay. So I have a Funky Frog Bay channel where I post commentary content. I do media analysis. I also do analysis of social media trends and controversial slash interesting internet figures. I also have a channel called Funky Frog plays where I stream video games and post edited videos. of those streams.

And I have a really exciting announcement, which I believe if this is coming out in early July, it will be officially announced. But I'm going on tour. My tour is called the Internet Kid. If you are someone that can in any way relate to the experience or find interest in the experience of being a incredibly sheltered child that also simultaneously has completely unrestricted access to the internet

and everything within it and how that can have effects on you as you grow into adulthood. please come. If you also just find that idea amusing and want to gawk and point and laugh, also please come, your money tastes the same to me. And also, if you just enjoy it, it's going to be a weird fun show. We're going to be doing some musical stuff. I'm going to be singing. I'm going to be doing a bunch of crazy stuff on stage.

It's going to be some stand-up. Variety show? Is it stand-up? Yeah, a little bit of stand-up, a little bit of variety, a little bit of music. It's going to be very, very fun. It's the most experimental thing I've ever worked. on and I'm super, super excited. That's awesome.

Where can we go to find out about that? Information will be all over my Instagram and my YouTube channels. And yeah, you should look for a city near you over there. Well, thank you for coming on. I'm excited. The stand-up is such an interesting thing to go from what we do to doing the thing on the stage. And I really enjoyed that.

And I'm like, I'm really like glad that you are doing it also. Oh, yeah. No, I think I'm coming from a little bit of a different direction where as I, a lot of content creators in my position are moving from screen to stage. My experience has kind of been stage screen and then back to the stage. So it feels a lot like kind of coming home a little bit. And that makes me really, really happy. That's awesome.

Thank you for everybody who's sent it your questions. You could send them to Hank and John at gmail.com. That's where we, that's without that. What do we even have? There's a bunch of good ones that we didn't get to, but we'll put them in the next week. This podcast was edited by Linus Obenhouse. It was mixed by Andrew Smith. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Hals, Rojas, and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chukravardi.

The music you're hearing now, and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.