Jordan, Jesse, GO! - Nemesis Heads, with John August (and the Stankus Boys)

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

This week, we are joined by writer John August  to talk about Fire Island, ice cream etiquette, and a special appearance from the Stankus boys!  *Check out John on Instagram *Order Wolf's Belly  *Get the JJGo X Stankus merch! *Check out the official Wolfson Bros website *Preorder The Amazing Venom *Check out more Amazing Spiderman content from Jordan. *Order Jordan’s new Web of Venom comic. *Check out Jordan’s comic Predator: Bloodshed. * Order Jordan’s new Predator comic: Black, White & Blood! * Order Jordan’s new Venom comic! * Donate to Al Otro Lado. * Purchase signed copies of *Youth Group* and *Bubble* from Mission: Comics And Art!   ~ NEW JJGo MERCH ~ Get  Bronto Dino-Merch! Get our ‘Ack Tuah’ shirt in the Max Fun store. Grab an ‘Ack Tuah’ mug! The Maximum Fun Bookshop! Follow the podcast on Instagram and send us your dank memes! Check out Jesse’s thrifted clothing store, Put This On. Produced by Christian Dueñas Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjjgo Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjjgo

Give a little time for the child within you. Don't be afraid to be young and free. Under the locks and throw away the keys and take off your shoes and sex and run you. It's Jordan Jesse Go. I'm Jesse Thorne America's Radio Sweetheart. Jordan Morris, boy, detective. You know what, Jordan? It's not the 4th of July anymore.

But I would say this is better than the 4th of July. Oh, yeah. Because what's so great that happened on the 4th of July? Fireworks. Hot Dogs, America. Big whoop. We discovered freedom. Big whoop-de-do.

We decided to elect our own representatives in a Republican government. Touchup and mustard go on hot dogs. Yes, our representatives decide the laws, not us directly or a divinely ordained king. Yeah. Honk shoe. Honkshoe indeed. Honk shoe says this sleepy guy. Cartoons snore to the 4th of July.

And you know what else? Sorry Christmas. Oh, coming after Christmas. Oh, I personally don't need a light in the dark of winter. No matter what faith it may adhere to. Sure, because you got those tap lights. So I'm out on all solstice celebrations. Okay.

Because today is a more special day. It's a very special day. I don't know if I could join you on better than Christmas, but I will agree with you a very special day. Okay, I'll tell you why. Yes. For roughly over a year, we've been on a quest. Right.

This quest has been like Indiana Jones searching for the artifacts of civilizations that he can appropriate. Right. Frodo taking the ring to Mount Doom, there and back again we go. Indeed. We are heroes. We've been heroes on a journey. Yes. But heroes on a journey not to find a grail or a golden chalice.

Yes. Yes, this is all making sense. Go ahead. But instead, heroes on a quest to find other heroes. Heroes who have created the greatest hero of them all. Right. So here is the story for folks who are new to Jordan Jesse Go or just missed the three to four episodes where we've discussed this. Some time ago, I, Jesse, was at the Pasadena City College Flea Market.

And I was pulling my wagon, shopping for the Put This On Shop. and I happened upon two young children who were selling comic books. I thought, these comic books look fun. I want to support these children in their lemonade stand-type endeavor. And my friend Jordan likes comic books. True. Plus, I have the show to do tonight. Maybe they'll be good to talk about on the show.

So I bought a few. And it turned out they were about a farting rat named Stankus. Right, who descends into the sewers when his, it's been a while since I've read it, and I might not be caught up on the latest issue. you, but if I remember correctly, he descends into the sewers because his mother has become corrupted. I got so excited about this. Jordan, you were similarly excited.

I was freaking out. I was flipping my wig over here. We were losing our minds that we thought we got to get in touch with these guys. We have to. But you know what? There's no email address in these comic books. There's no URL in these comic books. So that's when the search began.

Right. Why? I had met these children before and actually knew them reasonably well, had bought toys from them, but they were in a different place in the flea market when I bought the comic books from them. So there's no reason for me to feel bad about the fact that I didn't recognize them when I bought the comic books from them. None at all. And our listeners went on a quest. Finally, one of our listeners found one of their parents on LinkedIn. We do not know why.

We do not know how. It's special for a lot of reasons. One, it helped us to get in contact with him. Two, it's the first time anyone has used LinkedIn for anything. Yeah, for anything. It's the first time it was useful. To fill email inbox. Sure.

With notification. And to be excited about AI. Yeah. A place to publicly be stoked about AI. And so today is the special, extraordinary, auspicious day that we welcome onto our program, Nigel and Julian, aka the stankest boys. Hi guys, welcome to the show.

Hello. Maybe just so we can get your voice. Nigel, why don't you say hello? Hello. Now Julian. Hello. Okay, good. After the races.

Yeah, so Nigel's the one with the English accent. What? Right. And Julian's the one with the whooping cough. What a thrill it is to have the two of you here on the program. It really is. Tell us first and foremost. Well, first of all, what are your ages?

Nigel. I'm 10. And Julian? I'm 13. Okay. Well, welcome to the program. Those are fun ages. Tell us Nigel and Julian, where did Stankus come from?

What was the birth, the seed that blossomed into Stankis the rat? So basically, so we were kind of like sitting at our kitchen table and I just kind of thought, oh yeah, Stankis the rat. And I told him. Great story. You should make this comic. Stancis the Rat. It's about a rat who farts a lot. And he kind of like took that idea into his own hands and made the character.

We actually have here a, like we have the original drawing. Oh, wow, wow. Original concept art. Yeah, like the first drawing of Stangas that was ever made. That's incredible. I mean, that's something that I think one day, look, I'm not a museum curator. No. And from what I understand, all of the curators have been fired.

But I think that one day that could end up in the Smithsonian Museum of American history. Or, you know, in the George Lucas Museum of Popular Arts. Narrative, something? Narrative arts, popular, any something like that. The big, the big space building. Yeah. The George Lucas Museum of Star Wars Stuff and other things he owns. Right.

And Norman Rockwell paintings, I think. I think there's a lot of Norman Rockwell paintings. Oh, I can't wait to go. Can you tell us about some of your favorite characters that might have inspired Stankis? Like, what do you guys like to watch? What do you guys like to read? For me, Ratatouille inspired Stangis. Sure.

I can see that. I mean, that's sort of a sweet-smelling rat, I would say. But, like, the fact that he went into the sewers was inspired by one of the scenes in it. Oh. Nice. All right. Have you ever been to sewers yourself? No.

Kids Media has a lot of sewers. It really does. I think what these guys need is there's some kind of karate mentor, and then they can get down in there. So let's talk about the story of Stancis. Just for people who haven't read it yet, can you just tell us a little bit about his adventures? Where does he start? Where does he end up? That kind of thing. Basically, he started out instead of a water fountain, because I don't know why. And then there was like the grate that opened up and he fell into the sewers. and he was in there for a while, and then he saw his mom, and his mom was corrupted. That's basically the basis of the first story. Okay.

Julian, tell me what your role in all of this was. You were just sort of like you were a muse, you were just inspiring your sibling. Yes. Basically, I just kind of came up with the name and I'll let him do the rest. Yeah. Did you help with any of the dialogue?

Not really. Ratatoui did. You're mostly... So you've borrowed some dialogue from Ratatouille. We've remixed it. Julian, you're mostly just exploiting your younger brother. Possibly. Yay.

It's fair. That's what younger brothers are for. I will say that, you know, it seems like, you know, Julian, you've contributed a lot of great stuff to this. But I will say that I think a big part of the Stankis appeal is the name Stankis. Yeah. Which is one of the best. of the best names for anything. Yeah, I've ever heard.

I have four rats at my house. Oh my gosh. I love rats. They're the best, right? Rats is my favorite animal. Other than, frankly, they smell terrible. They really smell awful. Well, if they're hanging out in the sewers all day, of course they're going to smell

kind of bad. Or if they're hanging out in a cage full of rats also. There's another place that they smell. But they're the best. They're so, they want to be your friend. Yeah. They're fluffy. I can't wait for.

you guys to meet my daughter's rat galactic annihilator. My goodness. Do you guys have any rats or other pets? We have a cat. I want to get a rat. Okay. That would not be a good combination. Yeah, I'm a little concerned about that combo.

We did have a hamster. When I'm older, I want to get a rat. We did have a hamster, but I bet you can guess how that ended. Oh, no. Did nature take its course? My guess is based on my experience with my hamster when I was a child, which is, did your hamster get out of the cage and then your dad stepped on it?

Oh. No. No? Sounds like that. That only happened to me. That must have only happened to me. R. IP to my hamster. Oh, my gosh.

Our hamster crawled and I haven't drawn to her door and wouldn't come out once. Really? It was like a little crack in the wall and it climbed up and she was in there for like two days. And they kept feeding her carrots through the hole. Pretty good. I mean, I don't, maybe this is a stankas adventure. I don't know.

this is, you gotta use, you know, you can use real life. So who is in charge of the entrepreneurial side of Stankis? Who's sort of the business manager? Because I definitely bought this comic from both of you, and it definitely is signed by both of you. I made the comic. Whose idea was it to like, let's, not just to make the comic, but like, let's sell these? My brother's idea.

I'm kind of, like, the boss of that kind of stuff. You kind of, you are kind of like a Stan Lee type character. He's the businessman. The businessman. man. We are honored to have you here on the program. Right. Yay. We're so excited about Stankus. We're so excited about Stankus's past and future adventures. And one of the adventures that Stankis is going on, Jordan, is Stankis X. J.J. Goh. Well, some say the greatest adventure. You know, a lot of people think that, like, the greatest collaboes in streetwear history would be like off-white ex-Nike

or something like that. But I would argue it's probably Jordan, Jesse go ex stankus boys. It's true. So y'all have used all of the powers of your creativity and imagination to create some, I'll say, stunning stankist logos. And we have put them onto T-shirts, hoodies, and hats. T-shirt. They're holding it up now. If you're just listening to this, Maxfundstore.com, Jesse.

Is that where people go to check it out? Maxfundstore.com is where you get this. Get the Stankus. You got to get the Stankis. This is beautiful merch. Nigel, something that I really like about the T-shirt in particular. I'm wearing the cap right now. But something I like about the T-shirt in particular is that it is printed in full color.

And, you know, it features some awesome lettering. It features Stankis. The stink waves are coming off of him. You know this guy's stinky. The stink is, the stink is, you know, you can really see the fart. Right. The fart's coming out of his butthole. But also, I think, one of the nice touches that you've put on this, Nigel,

is that you've really given him a pink to red butthole. Yeah. You've really colored the butthole. You've given the butthole vivid colors. Now, I've never seen the buttholes of my daughter's rats. Again, four rats live in my house. I've never seen their buttholes. but it seems like it was important to you

to really capture the essence of butthole when you are drawing Stangis here. Yeah, I don't know why basically the original drawing of Stangis doesn't have the star butthole, but then I just drew it and it became a thing. Yeah, wonderful.

It's totally a thing, Jordan. It's a thing. Stankis looks super cool. The logo featuring his name has bites, like radioactive bites, taken out of it. That's kind of what he does. He takes bites.

Yeah. Yeah. And also the S and Stankis, that's this cool S I've been hearing so much about. That is. The S and Stankis is the cool S. The cool S. Is that what they call it at your school? Do they call that S the cool S?

Yes. Yes. The cool S is the S of the coolness. I had never heard of the cool S. And just the other day on Judge John Hodgman, Jennifer Marmer, like, tutted me for not knowing how to make the cool ass. And then I found out that people all over the country in Elisional. elementary school and middle school learn to make the cool ass. Yeah, I can make the cool ass.

I can't make Stankus. I'm the only one here who can't make comic books or the cool ass. Sorry. Can't make the cool ass. The shirt is genuinely so cool. I hope that if people aren't watching this, then they will go to maxfundstore.com and check it out. And the hoodies feature the Stankis logo X. Jordan Jesse go.

I have a question. Yeah. We've talked a little bit about exploitation here. Will you two be getting rich from selling these t-shirts? Is that the plan right now? I have no idea. Yeah, I think you're... That's the plan.

This is why Julian is the older brother. Nigel immediately says, I have no idea. He's just an artist. He's in it for the art. He's an artist. This guy just follows his heart. Just give him a pen and a colored pencil. He's...

Just following his... dreams, making something beautiful, you know, expressing the music of the soul through the music of the paper. Meanwhile, speaking of paper, Julian's all about getting his. Yeah. And Julian knows that for every single one of these t-shirts, sweatshirts, and hats that get sold, they're getting paid. They're getting paid babies.

I mean, how much money, Jordan, is the most money that you had ever made before age 13? Boy, I did some lemonade stands. Of course, you get a little birthday money from Aunt DeSandra. Oh, you know Sandra's going to come through. You know, Antisandra's going to come through. You know Sandra's going to come through. In that birthday card. Yeah, my godfather, Michael, used to give me 20 silver dollars.

Oh, nice. Yeah, it was pretty good. So, yeah, I would say, you know, I would say, you know, 50 bucks was a fortune. Just what? What? I think if Jordan Jesse Go listeners come through, they go to Maxfundsword.com and buy these shirts. these are going to be the two richest kids in the world. Yeah.

We want to put these kids through college. You know what? Elon Musk, his fortune is divided amongst too many children. They're going to have more money than his children. I think so. Yeah. Let's do this. Let's make these deserving children into millionaires.

Do you think we should read the Stankas comic now? Let's see. So I think that you want to grab it and do you want to read like a favorite line from it or something? Or tell us about like what? your favorite. I think there's a great time. I don't think we want to read the whole thing because then, you know, people are not a ton of words.

If people are getting it for free, they're not going to buy it. Yeah. Yes. Let's do it. Julian's like, yeah, that's going to move some units. Okay. So what are you, what is your, what is your favorite part? My favorite part is probably when Stangis falls into the sewers.

Yeah, it's pretty good. Okay. So how does he end up falling into the sewers? Because he was in the water fountain. He was in the water fountain. And he had fresh water, and then he was looking down the little pipe thing, I don't know. And then he fell down into the sewers. And I think like all great tales and like a lot of comic books, this is a morality play.

Okay. And I feel like the moral here is you can drink from the fountain. Just don't go in it. That is a great moral. Don't get in there. Just because you can drink from the fountain doesn't mean that you should get into the fountain. metaphorically, of course. Yeah, you shouldn't bathe in it.

You can't just bathe in the fountain. Bathe in a bath. My brother bathed in the fountain and he was looking for coins. Uh-huh. We do not talk about that. Yeah, we do. We're talking about it right now. Julian, I think Nigel just brought it up.

This is inspiration for the comic, clearly. Again, look at me telling you to pull stuff from your life. You're already doing it. Where were you guys, the Bellagio in Las Vegas? We were at the, there was like a movie theater that's, I think it's I have no idea where it is it's somewhere near where we live

and it has like a bunch of these little fountains that people just throw coins into and I was looking in one and I was probably like five years old and some kid was looking at me he was looking at me weird and I like ran away and started crying okay

I mean I mean listen there's a lot of weird kids out there Jordan I grew up in the hood I used that same survival strategy some kids looking at you weird run away some kids trying to start something

Start crying and run. Run away. That was my only strategy I ever used, my entire childhood. Well, guys, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing your beautiful talents with us. Yeah, is there anything you could tease for future Stankas adventures? Like, is there like something you hope Stankis does at some point or something people can look forward to? We're hoping for a stankus slipper.

A slipper? This is our idea right here. Oh. Wow. Okay, so you're to lean it into consumer products. Yes. So you're like, we wrote the comics. That's done.

It's time to get that slipper money. Can I tell you? Those are gorgeous, though. He's showing us some diagrams for the slippers and they really do look cool. Jordan, can I tell you? This is the original stankist drawing right here. Oh, wow. O.G. Stankish.

That is really cool. It is labeled O.G. Stankis. Yeah. Jordan, before we go. Yes. First of all, I hope everyone will get a t-shirt, get a hat, get a sweatshirt, at maxfundstore.com. I hope everyone will go purchase.

You guys have a website for Stankus as well where people can buy the comics. Yes, it's Wolfsonbrose.com. Wolfsonbrose.com. We'll link that in the episode of description. Oh, of course, yeah. I know there's a lot of artists out there in the audience.

And with you guys' permission, I was thinking it might be fun to have a stankist fan art competition. Because I know there's a lot of stankist fans out there. Yes. Yes. So send us at JJ go at maximum fun.org or post them on the Reddit at our slash maximum fun. Your stankus fan art.

I love this. I will purchase the stankest item of your choice for our ultimate stankus champion. Wow. But I think it's fair to say that especially if you post it on Instagram, hashtag stankus, If you share it on Reddit R slash Maximum Fun or you send it to us at JJ go at maximum fun.org

I think this is something that Nigel would know about the satisfaction of the art is in some ways its own reward of course. Now Julian of course knows that what you're really trying to do is make the best one

so you get a free switch. Of course. But that's why families have different members. Each has a different job. You know? in my family I was a bricklayer so send us

in my family I was the pants pooper I started pooping my pants send us your fan art at JJGo at maximum fund.org R slash maximum fund or hashtag it's stankus on Instagram hit up maxfundstore.com to cop that stankus XJGO

merch go to wolfsonbrose.com and buy stankus comics and stankis bros the dream of a lifetime to have you on our program. It really is. Thank you for coming. Yes, thank you. Are we leaving now?

Yeah, I think so. It's not like right now. We'll be back in just a second with our friend John August. Before we do leave, I would like to say one more thing about where you can buy Stankis. There is this place called the Pasadena Antique Center. We do sell a lot of our comics that you can't find on the website there. We haven't posted them on a website yet. You can find them there for four bucks, which is like a dollar less than the website.

Wow. That's an excellent value, and that's a great place to visit anywhere. It's a nice, nice energy center center. Get some lunch at the yardhouse afterwards. Please don't just grab them and read them. Don't grab them and read them. Pay for them. You're going to want to reread them.

That did happen to us. Some people started stealing them because we didn't have a sign that said them how much they were. Okay, well, this is more reason to go to the website, go to maxfundstore.com. These guys lost some income. Can I say one more thing? Yeah. You know how all our listeners are librarians with tattoos? I do know that.

I want Stankus to be in a library. Let's do it. If you're a librarian, I will pay for a stankist to be shipped to your library. As long as you stick it in. You got to stick it in there, though. The rest of you got to buy it with your library. You have to. You have to.

Okay. We'll be back in just a second on Jordan, Jesse Go. It's Jordan Jesse Go. I'm Jesse Thorne America's radio sweetheart. Jordan Morris, boy, detective. Jordan. Yep. Every single episode of Jordan Jesse Go, supported by,

the members of Maximum Fun. Folks who go to maximum fun.org and sign up. In fact, if you go to maximum fund.org slash join JJ Go, it is like a 75 second sign up process. You're directly supporting George Jessica. A rocket to a super highway,

to a bullet train, to another super highway. To a gun. To a gun that shoots you out and shoots the you bullet. There you go. And a bullet mold that molds you into a bullet. It's fast.

Maximumfund. org slash join. and you get to hear our bonus episodes. Yeah, we got a new episode of TBW coming up. What's that about, Jordan? To be watched, this is where Jesse Thorne and I, Jesse, that's you. Oh, yeah. We watch stuff that's been in our cues for far too long, and we review it for you.

It's a bold new experiment where we watch stuff for bonus episodes that we want to watch. And next up is Star Trek 3. Star Trek 3. With our friend Andy Secunda. Yeah, we're going to have a real Star Trek podcaster and comedy writer. but I think in this case he'll be on as a Star Trek expert to kind of walk us through the world of Star Trek 3. Can I also say if people are in Southern California,

this week, August 21st, Friday, 1 o'clock in the afternoon at the Las Felas 3, American Cinematheatac is putting on this festival for podcasters to host films, and they asked me in my capacity as the host of NPR's Bullseye, and they found for me a print of my favorite movie A Thousand Clowns starring Jason Robards and Barbara Harris and Barry Gordon

and we're going to have this special screening in L.A. I hope that everybody who is listening to this and lives in Southern California will take half a day off work. Come join me at the Las Fulas 3. It's an incredible, amazing movie. It's real hard to watch otherwise. Yeah, I'm getting to watch it on film with the crowd.

What a treat. Maybe I'll bring my Oscar nomination letter that a guy I met on the internet founded a thrift store. Okay, for the movie? Yeah. Incredible. I texted with Barry Gordon.

He can't come, but he gives everyone his best. That's nice. Yeah. And hey, if you're in Northern California on August 30th, you can come see me at Cape and Cowell Con. That is a free comic book con

at a real live beer brewery. Can I tell you something? Yeah. You know who's excited about that con? Who? My daughter, Scarlet. Oh, yeah. It's going to be her first comic book con.

She's going to it. It's great. I do think it is a great first con if you're kind of curious about the things. If you're maybe a little nervous, listen, it's free. They got beer, which Scarlet will love. This is at faction brewing. Faction brewing in beautiful Alameda. You can come there on August 30th.

Come see me. Get some comics signed. And if you're in the Atlanta area, I will be at DragonCon for the whole dang thing. Check out social media for where I will be and win. Is DragonCon just for? For dragons, or can people go? Humans, orcs, minotors. Really?

Darth Vader. Wow. Anybody. Sounds like a real clash of cultures to me. I'm going to be honest with you. Jesse. And let me tell you this. Jesus Christ himself will be there.

Oh, really? Yes. I thought he died on the cross. Oh, he's back. And he has a really sexy Sailor Moon outfit. Yes. He's bad to the bone, much like Sailor Moon. We'll be back in just a second on Jordan.

go. It's Jordan Jesse Go. I'm Jesse Thorne America's radio sweetheart. Jordan Morris boy detective. I mean, it's just a beautiful day, Jordan. It just feels good to meet the stankest boys. It was really nice. It just feels good.

It feels good to be alive. It sure does. I watched Meryly We Roller Along twice. Oh, yeah? Why twice? Because I'm a sort of slightly pretentious 17-year-old girl in theater class. Okay. That maybe doesn't explain. So like back over the course of a couple days? I watched it in the movie theater.

Okay. And then, which already, to go to a movie theater to watch a video of a stage performance. Okay. Is already like 10 out of 10, 17-year-old girl who's obsessed with rent. But then I was so fucking into it. And I was so mad that my wife hadn't seen it. I mean, I wasn't mad at her. I was just mad that she had missed,

she didn't have that joy in her life. Sure. That I made her watch it with me. Check it out. Yeah, and I cried again the second time as well. Look at you. Because they, Jordan, at the end, they're full of the possibility and the power of creation.

But you know that it's bittersweet because you know that ultimately life breaks you down, even if it doesn't break you down fully, even though it is worth doing still in the end. I can't believe wives don't understand this. Yeah. Anyway, my... What's with wives?

The moral of the story is that is a guy who's been doing the same thing with his best friend from college for 25 years. I did not relate to the story at all. Should we introduce our guest on the show? Yeah. Our guest on the show is one of America's most celebrated screenwriting podcasters.

It's true. He's one of America's most celebrated screenwriters. he's also the author of a brand new comic novel, not comic novel like Port Noise Complaint. A graphic novel, some might call it, yes. Graphic novel called Wolf's Belly John August. Hi, John. Hello, it's so nice to be back with you.

Welcome back to the program. It is a joy to have you here. When you watch film and television shows, do you just obsess over their narrative structure? I ask you this because merrily we roll along goes backwards. It's fantastic. I saw it merely on Broadway, and it is just one of the best things you can possibly see. So I'm glad you

loved it. I do notice structural problems when a story is not working. If a movie's working great, if a show is working great, you don't even notice that it's written. It's like, oh my God, this is amazing. What is this thing that I'm seeing? But if something goes wrong, if you're not loving it, yeah, you start to notice things.

You start to notice like, oh, that doesn't work and it probably couldn't have worked. Is there something like a movie or TV show that you recognize has screenwriting problems, but you love it anyway? Oh, yeah. Like some of the things you revisit from your youth, when you're like, oh, man, I loved that thing.

And then you went, go back and watch it's like, oh, no, that was, I loved who I was at that time, but it's not, the thing itself isn't good. Movies didn't start making sense until 1997. Oh, 100%. Yeah. They discovered the formula, and since 1997, all movies have been good. But you look at anything before then, I went back and watched Citizen Kane, like, what a piece of dog shit, that is.

Thank you. Oh, my God. Shoe. A sled with a nudge. name? What were they smoking? I know. Who names their sled? What kind of random? Hey guys, you dropped your camera on the ground. Bring it up to eye level. I'm going to say, we don't need to see the ceilings on all these rooms. Come on, nuts. Thank you. Totally bananas. John, I have to ask you about your trophy husband t-shirt. Fantastic. I hoped you would ask you about the trophy husband.

It's a conversation piece. It is definitely a conversation piece. Your teacher's a trophy husband. Well, so I want to make sure that people know that I recognize my role and my function, that I'm, basically just arm candy. And most of my success has really just been like kind of being the hot guy in the room. And so I think I've just become to really accept that and really embrace it. No, I bought this shirt because we just got back from Provincetown. And so Provincetown is gay Cape Cod for folks right now. This is like the second Provincetown discussion we've had on the show recently. But please take us there to your visit. So Provincetown is a lovely little village on the very fingertip of Cape Cod. And so I went there with my husband, and what you do at Cape Cod is you can go to all the little touristy shops and good restaurants. Fudge, taffy, all those things.

I think you want to have. Around the corner, they got lemonade. Jesse. Come now. None of that talk. This is a very clean, wholesome place to go. And one of the clean, wholesome things you do in Provincetown is you go to tea. And so start at 4 o'clock, like 4 to 7 at the boat slip.

Would you call it high tea? There's low tea and high tea at, um, Fire Island, but at Provincetown, there's just tea. It's just like one thing which is tea, which is 47 at the boat slip. I mean, in all these cities, tea is being spilled. Sure. Tea is ubiquitous. But this is like a big open, like a big open area.

There's a pool, but it's mostly just a bunch of gay men standing around drinking and just chatting. And so if you go there and you don't know people, if you're not there with a house of other friends, you sort of need to strike up conversations, but it's sometimes hard to strike up conversations. And so you want to have some conversations. conversation opener. And so my trophy husband t-shirt is a conversation opener. Give somebody a thing to ask me about or acknowledge. You're telling us that you're peacocking. I was peacocking a bit. That's what it was.

That's also why you're wearing that Merlin the magician hat. Yeah. You got it. You got to have your little gizmo. And so I bought the t-shirt specifically for that, but then it didn't come in time. So this was waiting for me as I got back from Provincetown. And so now I have a trophy husband t-shirt that I could only really wear on. a podcast. What did you do instead? I mean, can I guess? I think, Jordan, I'm going to ask you to make a guess in a moment. I'm guessing like early red hot chili peppers sock over dick, otherwise naked. Yeah. I mean, that wouldn't have attracted enough attention. Like,

that's not going to get, that's not going to get you there. Is my guess is set little fires. As I was coming down to your new studios, I saw a man setting a fire downtown here, which is great. Yeah, we are. He's peacocking in his way. We are in the setting tiny fires for various brain reasons. You say that the, you say for various brain reasons, Jordan, yeah. You say that Brett on Chili Peppers, Sock on Cock, wouldn't. You know what? I feel like you just explained why we do this podcast.

Brain reasons. So, Jordan, I think you're asking, why is Sock on Cock not enough to attract attention? That's what I was getting at. Thank you. Two of the other events we went to in Provincetown, which were not these, you know, was not tea, but it started at 10 p.m. It's a pretty early to bed kind of town. But at 10 p.m., there was a jockstrap party and an underwear party.

So, honestly, like, and there's also a nude beach. So, like, sock and cock isn't going to get you that much attention. Because I would have guessed. I would have guessed. I would have guessed. Yeah. Fire Island, everybody's got a sock on our cock. Uh-huh.

But in Provincetown, I'm imagining an entire city of, I mean, now I know you're there, John. So it's an entire city of plus John O. I guess. But I'm imagining an entire city of comic character actor Mark Evan Jackson. I'm just imagining just a sea of Mark Evan Jackson's and like crew sweaters with buttoned down collar shirts. Mark Evan Jackson, I'm trying to make sure I'm thinking of the right actor. He's the one who played like the husband of lieutenant in Brooklyn Nine-Nine. You nailed it exactly. But you nailed that description because he is very well represented among the gay men of Provincetown. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can't speak. I can't speak to his interests and romance, and I don't wish to.

However, that would be untoward. That's the kind of carefully put together fella who looks comfortable in a L.L. Bean sweater that I'm imagining having some clam strips in Provincetown. So how do you decide whether to go to the underwear party or the jockstrap party? Unfortunately, they're on two different nights, so you don't have to choose. Few. Because there's really one place called purgatory that you go to that is. Pergatory.

Pergatory, which is a fire trap that is underneath what it's called, there's an upper level, which is kind of blanking on the name of it, but the lower level is purgatory. And it is just a very warm, crowded, dark basement. And so perfect for that. There's also an outdoor area. Sure. I mean, there's a fire trap.

Perfect place to start a little fires. See, exactly. It all comes back around. Is there any, do you do any boating or fishing or aqua activities? Aquarobics. Aquabics. I didn't know aqua activities.

I will say that is an economic delimiter. And so people talk about like, oh, we went on the boat. Like, oh, you're a person with a boat, a person with access to a boat. I've never been that person. I went on John Hodgman's

boat when we were in Maine this last time. It was called beans. The boat's called beans? It came. It was named beans before he bought it. I just said, I can't imagine a better name for a boat than beans.

Right. It's like when you have a rescue dog that has like the perfect name already. Like you're not going to change that name. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you will change it to handbone. Right.

That is 90% of rescue dog names though. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. You're in America's New England Northeast. Yes. You're on the coast. You sit down at a restaurant. They'll fry anything for you.

Yeah, they're good. What's your top food of the sea? Well, on this trip, but we want to get some lobster because there's lobster there. So like the lobster roll, got two. two lobster rolls over the course of this. Other, I'm not a huge fried food person. Like, you mentioned fried clams. I grew up with, like, fried clams at Sea Galley in Boulder, Colorado.

Delicious. But I don't need a much fried food these days. And once you've had a Boulder fried clam, what would you mess with a New England fried clam? Come on. Useless. So I'm not a huge, I'm not a huge fried food person. So I didn't go too much of that. We did do like the ice cream, like the homemade ice creams every night.

You wait in the long line for that. Lovely. Do you have grape nuts ice cream? I've not had grape nuts ice cream, but it sounds great. I love it. I had it when I was in New England. And I ate it because, obviously, everybody was like, oh, Jesse, I know you eat grape nuts for breakfast. You've got to eat grape nuts ice cream. Is it grape nuts on ice cream or a co-branded product?

There are some places that will put grape nuts on top of ice cream, but this is an unbranded independent ice cream stores and a particular local grocery store brand. sell grape nuts flavored ice cream in the way that you might get Oreo cookie ice cream that's not Oreo cookie branded. And yeah, it's a real fucking good. I was in on it 100%. Loved it.

I'm glad you had a good experience. I had mostly good ice cream experiences, but I want to tell you about one, which is jelly donut ice cream. Can you describe it? Yeah, as I was I, like, that is a great name for an ice cream, but what should that taste like?

Okay, I'm imagining, I guess I'm imagining something with like a jelly donut ground up in it. I'm thinking, you know, I'm thinking of the cake shake. Like with a mortar and pestle? Yeah, yeah, like table side guac. You scoop a little ice cream in there. I am thinking of like, yeah, an ice cream where the jelly donuts, you know, maybe from like a local bakery,

and it's like, oh, we get the donuts from this place. They shrut them up in a lot. Yeah, and you have little bits of donuts. But the donut pieces are not going to survive the ice cream. That's the problem. They're two eggs. Airy. Yeah.

And you'll lose the chew. Is this what it is, or is this something else? So, if I'd read the description at all before ordering it, I would have known not to order it. But cinnamon is the main taste of it. And you can imagine like a cinnamon donut, sure, but I don't think of a jelly donut as being particularly cinnamony. Cinnamon is the main taste? My main taste might as well be peanut butter. Yeah.

Peanut butter, by the way, delicious. Like a chocolate peanut butter ice cream, fantastic. Of course. This was a little, like, you could taste kind of the flour in it too much. It had the wrong texture because of it. It was not a successful thing while being a very good name for something. Because, like, who wouldn't try that? You know what?

I'm going to be honest with you guys. Yeah. I like that. I would offer you nothing less, John. Than full honesty? Then full honesty, an open heart. Yeah. Jesse's going to tell you what he thinks.

And that's what he says because he's mean. Yeah. Jesse, you're not mean. You know how mean people say that? Yeah. I'm going to tell you what I think. You're mean people say that. No, I moved to Austin to avoid taxes.

Right, sure. It's a coincidence that I mean. Right. And to do your one person's shoe show, y'all are the R word. Yeah, exactly. So I love, I fucking love ice cream. Yeah, like, I love ice cream so much. It's my absolute favorite.

And there was a time when I was thrilled by the latest new flavor innovation from Mitchell's ice cream down the street from my house where I grew up or from my good friends out there in Vermont, Ben and Jerry. I would... I was doing the Lord's work.

I mean, they made some really good choices, but I don't want to stop you because I think I agree with where you're headed. I would say, what hippie with whom I am otherwise unfamiliar will you name a new ice cream flavor after this year, Ben and Jerry? They will say, wavy gravy. It's weird they moved on to Jimmy Fallon.

Yeah, it's very weird. Jimmy Fallon is the one that really catches you out the wrong foot. Stephen Colbert kind of tracks. I'm like, okay, okay, yeah, I can see that right. That's kind of a lefty. I, and you're like, Jimmy Fallon, is it problem drinker flavor? Allegedly. Allege.

Satire, of course. Yeah, we don't know. But it is 2026 now. I think they've gone too far. Wow. Do they think Ben and Jerry or ice cream makers in general? Ben and Jerry have not gone far enough, I would argue. I would say Ben and Jerry have been left behind.

They've been left behind. They started making those core ice creams and that just makes your scooping inconvenient. It's not a improved product in any way. Ben and Jerry is still fine. Like, I don't know. Look, I'll eat Cherry's Garcia ice cream anytime. You know, it's great ice cream. But in general, they've been kind of calcified.

And I think, you know, I think Fallon is a great place to draw the line there. I think that was sort of, that's that for them. Across the Fallon line. Yeah, exactly. And I think, but I think that like a lot of the new ice creams, like there's a salt and straw ice cream in Old Town Pasadena near my house. I hope we would talk about salt and straw. And there's people that want to, this is a Portland-based chain, I believe. And it brings a real Portland spirit to the affair.

does. And scooping your ice cream might be a member of gang of four. I just don't want blue cheese in my ice cream. Like, call me crazy, but that sounds gross to me. John, do you have a take? You do, I think. Yeah, I think they've found ways to

like, well, what if ice cream tastes like sadness? Sure. It's just like, there was no joy left. It's like, I you combine things, like, you made like wood smoke into an ice cream, but like, I don't want that. I think, now I would My, Christian has the salt and straw menu pulled up to where we can see it.

What's the weird flavor du jour? Grier and tomato. Tomato custard tart. I think my feeling. Don't feed it to me. My thought about these is that no one orders them. Are they just there to be like, oh, my God. Oh, well, I'll all get salted caramel.

Yeah, so maybe you get like the tiny little tasting spin of it. And then you go like, no, no, I'm going to go back to my safe choice. Sure. I was brave and had a taste of it. But it tasted bad. It tasted bad. It tasted bad. It tasted like dinner.

rather than like dessert. Dinner, I know. Yeah. What about you? What's the dream scoop of ice cream or two scoops? All right. So there's times from in a chocolate mood. And so in a chocolate mood, you can go for just pure chocolate.

But that's an opportunity for the chocolate with fudge in it or the chocolate brownie bits in it. Like those can be delicious choices. I kind of always want a strawberry ice cream, but I'm generally always disappointed by the strawberry ice creams. They're not quite strong enough, sweet enough. It's not quite to where I'm at. There's not a zip in them. Yeah. I understand.

I mean, look, I love a Tillamook strawberry, but go ahead. Yeah, see, great choice, but I'm not going to get a Tillamook strawberry at one of these stores. And sometimes, like, it's just disappointing. Weirdly, like, the Stephen Colbert, Ben and Jerry's delicious. And that will be an easy choice for me. What do we got in there? Yeah. So it's got some cone bits.

I think it's a white chocolate. It's like a vanilla, but with a lot of stuff mixed into it. And so that's mixed into it is delicious. It's all, it's like, it's your Halloween candy. but chopped up it into the... Jordan, you're a big texture guy. Do you like mix-ins? I do.

Yeah, I think I... You know, the stuff with all the stuff in it is fun. I think so I like a chocolate peanut butter ice cream where the chunks of peanut butter get real hard. I like it when they get real... Like, you could maybe chip a tooth on the chunks. Oh, really? The Baskin-Robbins chocolate and peanut butter

has some real hard chunks in it. I mean, they haven't a lot of problems with their freezes. Yeah. Yeah, it might just be the freezers turned up too high. I like it frostbitten. And I, so I like that. And as far as the like, yeah, and the stuff can be fun, but I, something about me. And this is embarrassing. And I'm, I'm prepared to be razzed about this for years to come. Hold on, Jordan. Yeah. Are you really ready? I'm ready to be razzed. Listen. Because when I razz, I bring the razz. Oh, he brings the razz. um hyphen ummataz this guy uh excuse me old dazzle and think yes whatever razz hyphen whatever this guy's doing it all ghoul um sure yes batman's enemy who lives forever of course oh he could he'll rash yeah um um it'll and then he'll send his army of ninjas after you um so i have learned

about myself, and I think I've danced around this a little bit on the show, but I'm ready to fully admit it here. If there's an annoying food trend that food hipsters are annoyed with, I love it. Yeah. My one now,

Ube. Anything with Ube. And I can feel the rolling of the eyes from the people who consider themselves food taste, like fucking Ube and everything. I'm like, Yeah, put it in everything.

Put it on some red velvet. Ooh, salted caramel. Give me, yeah. If there's an annoying, Soracha. I want to speak up for listeners who might want to wonder, what the fuck are you talking about. I don't know what Ube is.

Oh, really? Oh, okay, okay. Oh, my gosh. I thought this was, this was annoying at this point. Not of it. It was at Starbucks. I will point out it was at Starbucks for a while. Oh, Jesus.

All right. Ube is a Japanese sweet potato that's very purple and beautiful. All right. And it has kind of a chocolatey taste, too. it. Sure. And so there's ice cream, there's cold foam at Starbucks.

Yeah, there's probably, you know, Reese's Pieces, Oreo. I promise you, Oreo has it. Yeah, I've seen it. Yeah. The ice cream store that I grew up going to was sort of Lee most all, Mitchells in San Francisco, was like the most all-American ice cream store you could imagine. Just like, just if you just imagine ice cream store, That's what it was like.

Like the walls just had a bunch of blue ribbons on them from state fairs and like all this stuff. But it had Ube and Hollow Hollow flavors because just at some point in the 70s just Filipino started working there. Oh, yeah. Okay. And so they just like, because I read a magazine article or something about it. And Mr. Mitchell, who was not Filipino, was just like, yeah, guys, go crazy. And yeah, that was a very popular. because that purple is really striking in addition to the wonderful flavor.

And yeah, it's like it's kind of a subtle sweetness, which I really like. I like a chocolate flavor. I want, and I can't, I mean, for your benefit, John, because I get migraine headaches and chocolate as a trigger for me, I have to really avoid chocolate. And so I will fuck with something that has some chocolate in it once in a while just because I deserve it. Yeah, you deserve to live. In the same way that all, you know, all alcoholics should let themselves.

drink a little bit. You know, like if they're having big feelings that they can't deal with. Birthday, New Year's Fourth of July, and that's it. But like I will like, I will like have like a small amount of like a peanut butter cup.

Like something with little bits of chocolate, like a Cherry Garcia. Cherry Garcia, the chocolate's a little on the dark side. And that makes it a little worse. Oh, okay. Something that... You know, I don't love dark chocolate,

but in that context, I love it. Those little chocolate flakes In the in the Cherry Garcia. Man, the Tillamook, the Tillamook mint chip has like real dark chocolatey, velvety. They're just like the right kind of fake chocolate

to be frozen and not turn into the thing that Jordan likes. Oh yeah. Get them hard. Oh, I love them. I love them so much. Don't try and make that sexual kind of. Please don't. I have to. I think he just got back from Providence. Don't make him change gears so fast.

a province this might be a silly question Provincetown Provincetown Which is a very frequent mistake Can I just say Yeah In Provincetown

Everybody at low tea He's high tea Sure A lot of high tea man walking around Yeah Yeah I don't know if this is a dumb question But can you bring the family

So there are family weeks Okay So the first time I went to Provincetown Was with my daughter When she was like six years old Okay And so it was us

in like two other two dad families. And we all had like six-year-old girls. And it was the summer that Katie Perry's firework came out. And so it was a bunch of six-year-old girls like singing firework at the top of their lungs the whole week. And a bunch of adult men singing that song. Exactly. What better interface could you possibly have?

So it was a very different experience sort of going back as a, you know, a grown man whose daughter was, you know, home watching our dogs, which is great. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. I want to go on a grown-up vacation with my wife. Yeah. But who will watch the dogs, Jesse? Yeah, not my children.

Come back and half are dead, not of dogs overall. There'll be five at the house and half is dead. Well, let's, how about this? Let's take a break. We'll find somebody to watch the dogs. We'll come back for some more. Back in just a second on, George, Jessica. Hey, it's John Moe. I host a show called Depression Mode with John Moe. And you might think,

oh yeah, depression mode, that's the show for people struggling with mental health. And it is. But it's more than that. It's a show for anyone and everyone living in the world today. A world that can be a pretty rough place sometimes. Our show is about how to keep your mind on your side, working for you and with you instead of making stuff worse. We get stories from famous people, We talk to experts and researchers, and there are jokes. So I'm John Moe. The show is Depresh Mode with John Moe. I hope you'll give us a listen on maximum fun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's Jordan Jesse Goh. I'm Jesse Thorne, America's Radio, sweetheart. Jordan Morris, boy, detective. John August trophy has been as established. John, so... It's beautiful shirt. I may be very much. wrong. I might be making presumptions.

But my presumption is that you heard Jordan was writing comic books and decided to beat him at his own game? Really, that's accurate because I listened to the bubble podcast and then Jordan was doing the bubble graphic novel and he did a fantastic job of both.

And as... I mean, I disagree, but go ahead. As a longtime nemesis, who doesn't not think even realize he's a nemesis, I was like, well, I have to defeat him. I have to to show him that it's something that he can be surpassed. You're like, I have a foot. He has jewels that can catch it.

I mean, what a thrill to have a nemesis. This is great. And you do have a little bit of a Lexluthor vibe. Yeah, you got a shaved head. It's a shaved head. Nothing else. I'm not far off. We have nemesis heads.

We have definitely nemesis heads. I wrote Wolfspelli originally as a very short prose novel, just like a normal little book. And I gave it to my editor who had done my Arlo Finch books, and because I didn't owe her a book, but I was like, I want to do another book with with you. And she's like, this little short book is lovely, but it's not a thing. This is not a thing we can publish.

This is not anything. You've done nothing. And she said, you failed. She said, this is probably a graphic novel. And I said, shit, you're right. She's like, what is this? An undergraduate thesis? Yes.

This is the story of what happened to Little Red Riding Hood when she was swallowed by the wolf. Exactly. So one of the things that has always frustrated me about the, classic story of the Red Riding Hood is that she and her grandmother gets swallowed by the wolf, and then a woodcutter comes along and cuts them out, and they're fine? How the fuck are they fine? They're not fine. Again, I mean, this is an example, Jordan. This is an example of John hearing a story that doesn't work. Yes. No one has ever liked that story. It's why it's a failure and correcting its structure. So wolf's belly is the extradimensional space that holds all the

things that the wolf has eaten. So it includes Little Riding Hood, the grandmother, but also the boy who cried wolf, the fourth little pig, and a bunch of other fairy tale characters who have all been swallowed about wolves. And like, there's a lot. Like, the wolf is up here, wolf has appeared in a lot of different fairy tales.

It is a kind of, to call back to something we were talking about earlier, a kind of a purgatory. It is, absolutely. And what was important to me is that so many of, most of the storytelling we do in the Western world,

it's always like a character has a quest, and they go on their quest, and they might have to want things a lot, and that's what it gets some places. But really want, its own kind of trap. And so these are characters who were so blinded by the things they wanted

that they got trapped in this place. So you're saying this is a Buddhist parable. It is indeed a Buddhist parable about wanting things too much and it being its own kind of trap. And so I consulted with a very smart moral philosopher about some of the like sort of like what are the issues here?

What do I? You sort of like you reach out and you feel like someone must have thought about this thing and I'm going to not invent new stuff. Tell me what other smart people have thought about this. Should I have been consulting with a smart moral philosopher? I was just asking the whee's, Polly Shore's character.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's a good choice. A good starting place. But like, don't, you know... I think he was the weas-all. Yeah. I thought he was the wheeze. Well, that's what he did to the juice. He was wheezing the juice, Jesse. Okay. Thanks, Jordan. No problem.

Well, I guess I'm in the army now. Yes. We're all a bunch of son-in-law. This is her Polly Shore. As Jordan can tell you, the hard thing about writing graphic novel is you have to, like, write a graphic novel. And it's just, it's a weird format. It's almost a screenplay because you have characters with dialogue, but you're like, you're describing every panel of things. And you're thinking about what's a left page versus the right page because you want the page turn to be meaningful. There's a maximum action on the page turn.

Yeah, because, and I loved doing all that, but man, it's just really exhausting. So you have to completely visualize every frame of the page, every panel. throughout the whole process. But I had a great artist who I worked with on the whole thing. Yeah, the art's gorgeous in this thing. So Simone Estrada could not get enough credit for it. It's so good. When you write for the screen,

how much of the shit that, how much of the shit are you describing? Because I know different people do different amounts of describing. For a lot of my screenplays are up at johnogs.com in the library. So you can read sort of what's there on the page versus what's on the screen. They're pretty close. Like you get a pretty good visual sense of what it's all.

The real director. Exactly. Absolutely. I'm saying, no, Tim Burton, this is definitely a 75. Like, don't, like, what are you doing with it?

Timmy, please. Come on. You really shoot this by the 50? Like, this is clearly a 75. Serve this royalty, you say. No, you want the reader to get the experience

of having, of watching the film. And so you're giving as much description as you can, so it evokes the feeling of watching the film sitting in a theater, watching it on a screen.

And so simultaneously, the screen, has to be the audience and the storyteller. And that's why you're often using We Hear and We See on the page. Just to give a sense like, we're all in this together. Oh, you know what? Now that John is describing this sort of like all these things about wanting stuff, I'm starting to feel like in a way we're all storytellers.

I mean, not us, but others are. I don't know. I'm like a caveman. It's scribbling on walls. scribbling on balls, peeing on campfires. That's what we do. They pee on campfires for effect.

John, you were saying pre-tape that you, despite having this beautiful graphic novel, you're not doing Comic-Conn's. I'm not doing Comic-Con. I'm not doing really any big promo pushes for it. I have a trilogy of books called Arlo Finch, which were sort of Harry Potter Age, middle grade fiction.

And I did the school book tours, and I did the European tours, and all that stuff. And I don't know that it made a damn bit of difference. It was great talking to kids about it, but I don't know that it was worth my time to do it. So I'm really happy with a book. It's out there. It's getting all the attention it needs to do.

I mean, you're doing our show. I'm doing your show. You're doing our show. I'm only hitting the highlights. You're doing Stephen Colbert's ice cream. Yeah, exactly. But John, if you don't go to Comic-Con, how will you hear other people's ideas for comics that they want to talk to you about? That's so crucial. So you went to Comic Con. Do you do all this?

I've done a bunch of them. Yeah, I've really like become con guy since diving into writing comics. And it's mostly really, really fun, but there are hazards that I've talked about on this show. One of them is people coming up to your table and not being interested in your book, but wanting to pitch you their book. Which is always a delight. And as I've said before on this show, nine out of ten times, that idea is what if Superman was bad? Yeah, a weirdly a popular idea. Sure. No one's ever thought about that. Yeah, I know. Someone should do... You know, Amazon should do two or three shows about that. I like that.

Wouldn't that be need of Amazon did two or three shows about that? Good. You guys saying that... Because Seth Roker would be involved in multiple ones with them. Yeah. Weird. Yeah, yeah. What if they all had Seth Roke get involved somehow?

Can I answer you guys a question? Yeah. How come Bizarro is not in anything on TVs and movies? Good question. Yeah. That guy's great. He lives on an opposite planet. I would say that guy's terrible because that's...

No, because... Do you think they have opposite day on Bizarro World? Oh, man. Everything's, like, just totally normal. Yeah. But it's so weird that it's normal today. Yeah. But wouldn't that be weird?

Oh, boy. Oh, guys. It's like a Dungeons and Dragons world, but like they start playing like office. Like, we go to the office. Also, on this day, me talk like this or me talk more complicatedly? Full Shakespeare received pronunciation. Right, yes. Everybody talks like Morgan Freeman.

Guys. On Bizarro world. We just broke the story. James Gunn's been listening in this whole time. I had Christian patch him in. He loves it. Amazon's on board. Seth Rogen is producing.

Seth Rogen is on board. And yes, James, your brother can be in it. And Steve Age. And Steve Age can also be. You know, Steve Agee wouldn't be a bad bazaar. That's pretty good casting, honestly. Now I feel like we're starting to get rich. We're attaching people.

It's always that dangerous moment where it's like, You have a parody of an idea and you're like, oh, wait, that's actually got hot. This is good. No, damn it. You're like, he goes making fun of now. I have a kind of love. You're like, oh, right. Most things that are successful are parodies of themselves.

Yeah. There have been a couple times where people have come to me with like toy based projects for like, let's take this. Like, sorry. Stretch Armstrong. Strong. Sorry the board game. And it's like, well, I'm never going to do that. And then, of course, like, some part of your brain is like, but what if it's actually about this?

And what if it's about this? Or what if it's like it's the, you know. what if the sliding is really this? And it's like, what am I doing? What am I doing? There's a, I mean, there is, I think not just from being a screenwriter, but having spent many years as a screenwriting podcaster, there is a part of your brain that is so broken that you have to find a story solution

to anything that presents itself in front of you. It's the same as like when our friend Jim, Jim Riel, the master of Would You Rather, our buddy from college, he got really upset. with rock climbing when we were in college. And every once in a while, he'd just be standing there, staring into space, apparently to us. And I would say, Jim, what's going on, buddy? Come back here.

What are you thinking about? And I'd realize he was looking at a wall, and he'd just go, problems. Yeah. And that meant paths up the wall. Like, that was all he was just thinking about how he would climb up any wall that was in front of him. Yeah.

My husband knows to recognize where I'm just like staring in the middle of this just, It's like I'm working some story things. You're thinking of a GoBots movie. He's looking over my shoulder for what I'm Googling. I'm like, this is bad. What is something that you have been asked to pitch? Whether you pitched or not, whether it became something or not.

Yeah. Let's see. I went pretty far down the road on little people. So if you remember little people are, so it's like a play school and these little wooden figures and they have the big round heads. and little bases. And they have round, they have round legs? Yeah.

Like a round leg with a hole in it? Yeah, absolutely. Oh my God. And they have like a little screw in there. And so like, and so I was like, well,

of course this is an idiotic idea, but like, wait, they actually have faces and actually, they are people. Right. There's a thing.

It's like, there's a whole thing you can do. So I did up a full pitch and we pitched around I could never find it home for it. You pitch him this thing about divorce. Absolutely. It's about generational trauma.

Yeah, absolutely. And it didn't happen. But like, one of the things that's actually the hardest about this gig is that you have to like deeply, deeply love a thing

and then also accept that like it's not going to get made. And when you get the call that it's not going to happen, you just like, you gotta just move on and it's a friend you made it. You love it, but you have no relationship to it anymore. I mean, that's home to Michigan

or wherever they live. That's when you take it to the Hollywood fringe. Unauthorized. Absolutely. Speaking of unauthorized, we have some people who have not authorized us to play their calls, right? They've authorized.

They've implicitly authorized. Yeah, their consent is complicit by it. They know they're being recorded. Yeah, absolutely. This is a two-party state. They know what they're doing. When something momentous happens to you, give us a call 206-9844 Fun or just record a voice memo

and send it to us at JJGo at maximum fun.org. As is this person. Hey, guys, this is Allie in St. Louis. So here in St. Louis, we have a big municipal outdoor theater called the Muni in Forest Park. and they put on professional shows throughout the summer, and this week they're opening up hairspray, and I was already going to go see it,

but then I just found out that Richard Kind is playing Edmund Dernblad, so that'll be extra fun to go see, and we will be kinded with kindness. Love you guys. Ali, love you, too. Where is this? Can we go? This is in St. Louis. The Muni is a big public outdoor theater.

A lot of Broadway people come through. there and we'll go into a show. Richard Kine just travels the world bringing people the magic of entertainment. Yeah. He's like, I'll tell you, John, you've met him. I not only have met him, but I once saw him riding down the sidewalk on a city bike. Come on. That's great. It was the highlight of my entire life. John, you've met Kind? I met Kind very briefly. He came in when we were doing the Big Fish musical. He just had a

conversation. We were on a lunch break. It came in to see Susan Strom. and you love meeting a famous person who is exactly who you hope they will be, 100% himself. Yeah. I mean, speaking of pitches, the best pitch I've ever had in my life is one year, Hodgman and I were trying to come up with some member exclusive content for the Max Fund Drive, and I said to Hodgman, can we just have people call in and ask for advice from Richard Kind and make a show called kinding them with kindness. And he texted Richard Kind, Richard Kind agreed. I mean, that's just like to be able to text Richard Kind.

I mean, this is why we go into entertainment is to be able to text Richard Kind. But that show did not happen. It did happen, Jordan. Oh, my God. Yeah, if you're a Max Fund member, if you go to Maximumfund.org slash join. I'm not. I'm more into Theo Vaughn. Okay, well, that's fine. Fair enough. You should watch his new movie that co-stars David Spade.

I think so, yes. He was like, isn't David Spade like 60 years old, 65 years old? He's got his same color hair from before. What's pop culture? The same wig from before, I guess. I was like, did Adam Sandler make this with Theo Vaughn? Don't know. Yeah, I don't know either.

It's called Bus Boys, apparently. Christian put a photo of it on screen. Don't they look to be the same age? I mean, I know that Theo Vaughn is. 50. Sure. Yes, I think they've both lived hard. Yeah.

Anyway. What were we talking about? Oh, we were just... The Muni. Oh, yeah. Sure. I would love to see Richard Kind in drag yelling John Waters stuff. I bet that's so fucking funny.

So the Muni is fantastic, but we also have here, the Hollywood Bowl, and they'll do, like, weekend shows. Oh, yeah. Put on the other rod with things. It's great. I love it. I like an outdoor theater. Yeah. I like what I...

There's the kind of theater I like. I was trying to think of how to describe it. It's sort of like a sort of kindy. Yeah. Sure. Like it's got a kind of Richard Kind vibe where Richard Kind is in it. Kind of, yeah. Right.

Yeah. That's your kind. Go for a drink afterwards at a kind bar. Yeah. And you can have it when you've skipped lunch. You can have a kind bar at the kind bar. You can have a kind bar at the kind bar. Yeah.

Let's take one more call. Yeah. Hi, Jordan. Jesse Gio. This is Mike calling with a momentous occasion. I am holding in my hands issues one and two of Stankis the rat. I found the boy's website. I found the buy button.

He clicked it. That takes you to a mail-to form. So I asked to write a comic. A week later, they got back to me, and they said, will you give us money for it? And I said, yes, and then they gave me a bell, and I sent them money. And then a week later, I have two crisp copies of Stankets throughout one and two. And included is a little handwritten note in drawing a Stankus with a little butthole and stink lines.

that says thank you for being our first customer and I cannot believe that I'm the only listener that bought these comics immediately. Anyways, I'm going to read these. Goodbye. You know how he found him? You know Mike found those things? How?

LinkedIn. Sure. Yeah. Absolutely, because most kids have LinkedIn. Kids love LinkedIn. Yeah. They're off TikTok. That's gone.

Threads, they don't even know what that is. I mean, it's all training like Minecraft and LinkedIn. Those are the two central things. Yeah, kids love to rise and grind. They have a grind set. The Chase Modern Teton has a grind set. John, you've had the Stankis ordeal explain to you, right? I know a little bit.

I see the T-shirts. They're fantastic, and I met the boys downstairs as they were headed out. I mean, you can tell. Those are good, clean American boys. Yes, 100%. These guys, what I love about their dynamic, and this is maybe something that you got a sense of them, is there's a younger brother, this younger brother,

he's a dreamer. He's the one who apparently wrote the entire comic. I figured maybe one of them wrote it, one of them illustrated it, or they collaborated on both or whatever. But no, the 10-year-old, the younger brother, he did all the work. And then the older brother was like, we should sell this. Listen, Steve Ditko needs Stanley, okay? It's true. Okay, can I just say, I was excited because I was listening to one of, oh, Maxfundsort.com.

Maxfundstore.com. I was excited because I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts this week. Stop podcasting yourself. And listen to this. Oh, my gosh. Listen to this. Chris James from the guys podcast is their guest. This last one is a boring dream, which we accept as in the overheard department.

This is I had a dream last night that I was in a restaurant and recognized podcaster Jordan Morris at another table. I decided not to bother him. It was nice. It's nice to be polite in your dream. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure he wouldn't have been bothered. Oh, he would have been thrilled. Yeah, if you just come up and say hello, you know, and just say, hey, I'm a big fan.

I think he would like that. Hey, we have a really great time listening to you. Hey, I love watching your podcast out there. I feel like I did, I ran into him. Jordan Morris? Jordan Morris, yeah, at our live show in Toronto. In Toronto. And I did have quite a nice conversation with him.

He's a lovely guy. And I think that, yeah, he feels very personal. Lovely guy confirmed. Lovely guy. Chris says he's a lovely guy, folks. Now, Jordan, someone has a dream about you, but it does not turn sexual. Are you disappointed? Good question, John.

Yes, I'm insulted. I'm going to, I'll be up at night stewing about this. You know, on stop. Listen, I'm showing up in your dreams. The least you could do is fuck me. Here's the thing. So on stop podcasting yourself. Yeah.

This segment is, this segment on stop podcasting yourself is where listeners call in and they share their boring dreams. And this is because Dave Schumka, one of the hosts of the show, only has boring dreams, including once when he had a dream that his travel agent retired. And it didn't cause any major problems in his life. He was just sorry that she had retired. He didn't get to see her. We, of course, have our segment momentous occasions. Right. And we did famously have a call once of someone who had a dream about Jordan. That dream was that they had gone skinny dipping with Jordan and Jordan had a huge dick. So that is kind of canon.

That's more kind of what we're looking for. Yeah, I see that. It's more what we're looking for, I think, in these types of segments. I would say that not even knowing that story, I would, that's, I had a sense that that's really where this podcast wanted to live. Sure. Yeah, thank you. Honestly, I would be satisfied if somebody called in and said they had a dream that I was

skinny dipping with them and I had a normal dick. Not weird at all. It was just no like a girl. growths or like sideways shit. Just like, whoo! Could tell it was a penis. Nothing broken. Sure.

Didn't disappear into my bush. That's funny that they called the other show. Yeah, well, because this is a segment on the other show. Oh, they had the one about the boring. They got the boring dreams segments. They were talking about. But I think. I was to say when I was in Toronto for a Comic-Con

where I did hear about many ideas for bad Superman comics. I should say evil Superman. not poorly made sure, because he would be very good. Yeah. Oh, because of the talent of the people involved. I was in town and I did see the guys podcast live show, and I laughed my ass off. Those guys are real funny. Yeah.

Very funny guy. Those guys are great. Chris on, Chris, and you're in Los Angeles. We'll have you on the show. Come by. I have to say this. John, you're a celebrated podcaster now. I'm sure no one recognized you on the street from your career as a screenwriter.

Rarely was it recognized as a screenwriter. Like, if I was doing enough to press for a given movie, people would have kind of recognize me, but I'm now mostly recognized by voice. So I'll be at like a Trader Joe's or something and I'll say something and like, oh wait, are you done August? Which is just weird. Has that like literal thing happened to you? Yes, like literally that.

And I would say where I'm recognized by face was at the arc light. And so now that the arc light was closed, soon to reopen, but like arc light was the ground zero where people were going to recognize me out in public. Yeah. And did you say when you were like looking for a place to go to move here, you're like, we should do the arc light. Yeah, totally. I need a little hit.

I did a little little. That's why I would go to Park Slope, Brooklyn. It's the only place where public radio hosts are celebrities. Let it be known that when John was talking about getting a fix from somebody recognizing him, he made the heroin shooting motion. I did. I did, yeah. Good space work, John. Thank you very much.

Yeah, it's important on an audio first podcast. To do little visual. A lot of the visual stuff, it's important. Do people do something to try and impress you when they recognize you, John? No, people are lovely. They're fantastic. They're great. sometimes they will try to buy me breakfast

or they'll try to do a waiter thing like well they'll tell the waiter to buy my breakfast but just like you don't need to do that it's always when you're eating breakfast it's breakfast is usually the time that happens and there'll be times where like I'll be seated or husband and I will be out to breakfast and he'll say like

I could see the person's head swivel when you started talking and they recognize who you were that's tremendous the only time I think that I've ever actually been recognized by voice because like I will usually get recognized from, you know, now there's video, the show in different places, but in the olden days, I used to get recognized from my menswear site because there was video there.

But so I'd get recognized in the thrift store. But the one time that we got recognized by voice, and hopefully it's been years since I've shared the story on Jordan, Jessica, but Jordan and Gene, our college radio co-host and I were on the bus in Santa Cruz, taking the bus that went from campus to downtown. And we were chatting amongst each other and having a good time. And a guy behind us, like, tapped us on the shoulder or whatever and said, excuse me, are you guys the Sound of Young America, which was the name of our college radio show. And we were like, oh, my God, yes. And he's like, I listen to your show every week. And we were like, that was a total thrill for us because, you know, you're doing

college radio. You don't know if anyone is listening. We were like, wow, are you like a big KZSC fan or college TV? radio station and he said, I'm homeless and my radio only gets one station. Incredible. Nice. That's good. Fame is weird.

And so I'm lucky that I could not have actual fame. But the moments where it does happen, you realize people who can't turn it off, it would suck. And so I do have sympathy for actually genuinely famous people who are. Yeah. Because I remember once we were out with, so we had our daughter by surrogacy and we were out with our surrogate while she was like, like seven months pregnant with our daughter. And we were at a restaurant and somebody did recognize me and came over and said, hey, I really love what you do.

I think this was before, but podcast, David. And then another woman in the restaurant, it's like, came over and it's like, are you somebody? And it's like, I just love that because it's like, no, I'm not. I'm not anybody. I'm just weird that that happened. It is, I have had that happen to me for a couple of times where someone has legitimately recognize me, asked for a picture, and then someone else who is just standing nearby will get the picture just in case to find out later who I was. Was that Zachal Panaccas? Who was that?

Yeah, it happens. It happens. I can understand that. The, my worst, the thing that I would fear probably the worst, and also the thing I would like the most, are both probably embodied by, I think past Jordan Jesse Go-guessed, Brian Possein, in that Possein, has the type of celebrity that you would most want in the world which is like if you're a metal dude which Possein is a metal dude he is the number one

non-musician celebrity in the entire world of metal like he's the metal stand-up comedian so if you're like a if you're as passionate about metal as Brian Possein is you're like oh fuck fucking Brian Possein the metal comedian I'm metal too

we're both metal so he is like a hero to those people And then also Brian Possein was just on a lot of sitcoms in the 90s where just fucking random people are going to be like, what are you? Yeah. Yeah, what do I know you from? They're going to get so many sitcom names before they get to just shoot me.

Yeah. Well, hey, let's do this. Let's take a little break. Let's become more metal so that we can usurp Brian Possein's position is the most metal comedian. Come back and finish it up. We'll be back in just a second on Jordan, Jessica. La, la, la, la, la, la.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show. Let's learn everything. So let's do a quick progress tech. Have we learned about quantum physics? Yes, episode 59. We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we? Yes, we have. Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters? Episode 64. So how close are we to learning everything? Bad news, we still haven't learned everything yet. Oh, we're ruined! No, no, no, it's good news as well. There is still a lot to learn. Woo!

I'm Dr. Ella Hubber. I'm regular Tom Lum. I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else, too. And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode. Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun. It's Jordan Jesse Go. I'm Jesse Thorne America's Radio, sweetheart.

Jordan Morris, boy detective. I'm still, John August. I'm still a trophy husband, apparently. It's true. I'm recognized as a trophy husband. Yeah. John, did you already know all of the wolf-eaten characters, or did you Google? I googled. I googled. Just make sure there weren't, like, interesting ones. And there are more in, like, the expanded universe of, like, Grimm's fairy tales.

But if no one kind of knows of them, it's not really useful. You want to recognizeable ones. So there's characters in there who are not strictly fairy tale characters. And so like Ahab from Moby Dick is in there. Because they had a similar kind of vibe. But I also... If you've been driven mad by ambition. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Jepetto's in there. Plus, I mean, I think that's just like an easy selling point for kids, middle grade kids, is they love Ahab. No, they love A-Cab. Oh, thank you. They do, yeah. And then there's a Spanish knight who's sort of Don Quixote-ish and sort of references that.

That's not really a fairytale, but it feels like in that bright space, anyone who's driven a little too far by wanting a thing that gets trapped into this thing, it felt right. Isn't Gilgamesh's friend Part Wolf? I don't know. It's been a minute since I've read the epic of Gilgamesh. I don't know. There's not enough Gilgamesh movies. It feels like underutilized IP. Yeah.

The G. G.C.U. GILGMesh Cinematic Universe. You know what? Let's take a meeting tomorrow. Bring me some pitches. I like it. Amazon, by the way, they're doing a lot of biblical epics. So I think Gilgamesch could be like the next thing. I think this could be good. This could work. Peacock.

Peacock's going to love this. Ooh, I'm already doing a lot's wife thing with them. And I mean, with this T-shirt, John's already the Peacock screenwriter. That's they. We're having fun. We are having fun. Call it stuff back. What a show. Have you ever read Grub's fairy tale? like the translated

like the old-timey books? Not really. I should have, but no, I've not. Because it's just, it's a bunch of, it's, because oral histories

that they're sort of putting together. Nothing has ever more powerfully spoken to the extent to which we only figured out what a thing was 15 years ago than Grimm's fairy tales.

Because some of Grim's fairy tales are like, tip to tail, make sense, fucking excited. thrilling, some of the classics you know, you know, the wolf's eating people or whatever. And some of them are just like a salamander showed up in town

and he stole all the violins the end. Well, so here's, I will say about fairy tales is that they tend to just be like, little bit of writing hood, like she's wearing a red cloak, but you know nothing about her. Like you know nothing, who is she? Does she have a name? And so for this, I gave her a name

and like took away everybody else's names. And so everyone else is just their function. But like, she has a name and she actually has a thing. She was trying to do a thing. She wasn't, like, randomly eaten by the wolf. She went out to hunt the wolf because her brothers and her sisters were all famous for other things. Her parents were, her mom was a famous.

I don't know why. We need to know the backstory of every superhero. Come on. They should just start. Just give us a literary riding hood adventure that we expect. Exactly. From little red riding. We don't need an arc.

We don't need anything. Her taking on her arch nemesis. Yeah. Doc. Doc. Doc. Doc Hawk. Right.

Yes. There really aren't enough like mad scientists with multiple arms. Yeah. That's what we need. Red Riding Hood had the best Rokes Gallery, right?

She really did have a great Robes Gallery. That's the different bad guys of a superhero, I think. Yeah. The book really is gorgeous. Thank you so much. I read it today.

There's a lot of like really fun surprising art choices in it. Sometimes you'll be reading it. Boom, new art style. It's so cool. Thank you. Yeah.

And there's a call out to Little Golden Books, which I just loved. Yeah, me too. So it's weird because a graphic novel should be kind of, you know, you have a sense of what things are supposed to be. And it's a little bit more halfway between the graphic novel and a picture book at times.

It was fun to make. You know what, John, I know we got this meeting set up for tomorrow. I'm going to have my secretary set up another meeting for Wednesday. I'm going to take some pitches from you for Scuffy the tugboat. So I could not be more excited about the tugboat. Because why is scuffy pulling? What are they pulling towards? Is he running from something?

What's his wound? Yeah, exactly. What is he trying to heal? What is he fundamentally trying to heal? It turns out his wound is an anal fissure. I think we could all agree that the pokey little puppy is about generational trauma. Generational trauma. Yeah.

Is he really pokey or is he just being held back by systemic chains? I'm making the mind exploding hand motion. You know that one? I'm going to say this. Not only is the new book a beautiful book. It is. But you might think I'm being hyperbolic when I say our guest, John August, is one of the world's most acclaimed and beloved screenwriters and screenwriting podcasters. That's true.

But both of those things are true. Totally true. Right now, our friend, sometime guest, and regular listener and screenwriter Sarah Morgan is in England crying with excitement that her friends met her favorite podcaster. I mean, I mean. Oh, Sarah, come on. I'm excited to hear us talk about ice cream that you get to really dive into. Why is Jordan a texture guy? Yep.

And now we know. Now we know. Yes. John, it's been a delay to have you on the program again. Thank you so much for taking the top. I'm going to be here with us. On video. Our producer on Jordan Jesse Go, of course, is the great Christian Duenas.

Wait, can I come in real quick? Oh, yeah, sure. Christian got something to add? I was looking up some stuff that you guys were referencing today in this wonderful conversation. Oh, this is great. It's a little, yeah, like a little post. script or something. Yeah.

And it turns out there's a JJ Go fandom wiki. Yeah. And there's a total of six characters that have been made that have been present in Jordan Jesse Goh history. I feel like there's been way more than that. I'm just. Many more characters. A shout out to the wiki people already, but like, yeah, we got to fill these out.

We got contrarian character, Dr. Fauci, Morris, Morris, Chip Dipson, and Dipson, eyes and nose light and Jocktoberfest Toyotan. I feel like we got, we got way more. Just just just just yeah start up getting that. Come on fans. Come on fans. I'm disappointed. But you know what?

I think I encourage fans with no interest in art or creation to work on the wiki. Thank you. Bless you. Honestly, if we had another pandemic and we had another COVID that everything got locked down and people didn't need it a thing to do, that would be a thing that could do. It's like fill out like the characters in Jordan just again. That would be great. Hey, if this bird flu thing gets. off the ground.

Fingers crossed it does. By the way, what a disappointing pandemic this has been. Bird flu should have been much bigger. It should have. Thank you. If the bird flu thing has wings, then I think it's going to be a perfect time for us to bring back our favorite topic other than, of course, Tooth versus Baleen whales, which of course is the cloaca.

Yes, sure. Yeah. The cloaca. So, yeah, we're disappointed in you, update the wiki. But no, no. But listen, what I'm trying to say here, Jordan. is so many of our listeners do have artistic skill. And look, I think our contest

that we're asking people to send in Stankas fan art, it's in the spirit of Stankas. It could be photorealistic. It could be impressionistic. It could be, if you'll allow me, an adjective that is, you know, a term of art in the world of fine arts. It could be naive.

in style. I'm not going to tell you who's going to win it. This is going to be me talking with the Stankas boys, talking with Jordan, talking with Christian, and deciding who's going to end up getting free Stankis merch from MaxFundStore.com. But you can post your Stankis fan art on Reddit, R.Sash Maximum Fun.

Yep. You can hashtag it Stankis on Instagram. And you can email it to us at JJGo at Maximumfund.org. All those things. Because I think there is going to be some, I think there is going to be some pretty. inspired stuff coming from the Jordan Jesse Goh community. Honestly, I can't wait.

Yeah. And, you know, maybe Stankas will meet Chip Dipson at Dippedoffs. Oh, the crossover we've all been waiting for. Maybe one day. Anyway, Love You by the Free Design is our theme music. Thank you to the free design. Thank you to Light in the Attic Records for letting us use that. And you can find us on Reddit, our slash maximum fun.

You can find us on Instagram, on Blue Sky, on Facebook. and we will talk to you next time on Jordan Jesse Go. I'll hug you and kiss you and love you. Love you. Love you. Love you. Love you. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.