Judge John Hodgman - A New Gavel For Judge Hodgman

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

It's time to clear the docket! And we have a BRAND NEW GAVEL to help! Thanks to Nick Offerman, Offerman Woodshop, and project Manager Maddy Morrison for our beautiful new gavel. This Court has never been more ready to dispense justice! What do you do with your mother-in-law’s bag of mangoes? Is it okay to talk trash while playing video games, as long as it’s to internet strangers? Plus, disputes about gavels and woodworking!We’re still looking for all your turn-of-the-season disputes! Are you excited for football, and your housemates aren’t? Do you love going apple picking, but your family thinks it’s boring? And what about school? We’re here to solve your problems, be they small or… smaller. Submit yours at maximumfun.org/jjho.Become a member at just $5 a month for exclusive bonus content, or join us at $10 a month for access to an AD-FREE Feed! Thank you so much for continuing to make our show possible. Join us directly here: maximumfun.org/joinjjhoThere’s a chill in the air, which means more opportunities to wear your Judge John Hodgman branded sweatpants! Get your hats, mugs, clothing, and more, at: maxfunstore.com ---Judge John Hodgman is member-supported! Become a member to unlock special bonus episodes and more. Memberships start at just $5 a month. Just tap here!

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I am bailiff, Jesse Thorne. We're in chambers clearing the docket. And with me is the legendary Judge John Hodgman. Hi, John. Hi, Jesse. I was just looking up a word. Do you know what word I was looking up? No, I don't. Sapili. What now? Sapili, Jesse. Gazentai, John. You know, that's endantra phragma cylindricum. It is a tree of the genus Entandrafragma, of course, of the family Malblu, commonly known as Sepili.

How can you know just an entragmrophily for Soprenner? I would have known if that is. It comes from the name of the city Sapili in Nigeria, where this tree flourishes. Now, I love trees, Jesse, don't you? Sure. Big green leafy. Yeah, don't get him started. on big juicy trees.

No. But I love trees in all forms, including when they are turned into things. And do you know what one thing you can turn a tree into, Jesse? Wow. My first thought is a salad bowl. Sure. You can turn a tree into a beautiful salad bowl. You could turn a tree into a, I don't know, a table or a chair.

Or a finial. That's true. Or a balustrade. But I'm talking about turning a tree into something that has been missing from the Judge Sean Hodgman podcast. Lo these many months. And if you're watching us on YouTube right now, you see my hands are completely empty. Because normally, in one of these hands, I hold a gavel. But as many people will recall, way back in January.

January of this year when we were coming back from SketchFest. Stay tuned for news about next year's sketchfest, by the way. Details forthcoming. Way back at SketchFest, I was coming home from San Francisco and they took away my giant gavel because they said, you can't bring this in your carry-on, because you might balk someone over the head with it. And I'm like, you know what? I'm not a bonker, but respect. I got you. Gave it up. Thank you, Matt Howie, for the dedication. and the gift of that gavel so many years ago, it served us so well. I hope someone in San Francisco Airport Security

is enjoying bonging people with it now. It would be cool if it's Sketchfest, Jesse, we went back and when we arrive, or when we're leaving this time, the security guy at the airport has the gavel and is just brandishing it to keep people in line. I'd like to imagine that the TSA staff at the airport have a kangaroo court back in the break room.

Yes. If somebody, you know, farts at work, they get taken to court in that, 20 bucks in the jar. That's right. They have a 20 bucks in the fart jar if they're found guilty with the Judge John Hodgman gavel. In any case, over the past several months, I've been using books as gavels. I've been banging the table with my hand.

It's been real amateur hour here in the courtroom. But I did have this thought. Well, we both did. Let's turn to friend of the court, Nick Offerman, proprietor and founder of the wonderful Offerman Woodshop, a genuine studio making beautiful things out of wood, turning trees into delightful canoes and such. He's our wood friend.

Yes, he's not just our good friend. He's our wood friend. John, this is, I, when I moved into my house in Los Angeles, yeah, I wanted built-in shelving for my LPs and books. And you know who I turned to? Mr. Nick Offerman. If it weren't for Nick Offerman, I never would have met Max. That's the guy that made the shelves. Yeah. If it weren't for Nick Offerman, you never would have met Max.

And so, oh, I turned to Nick Offerman, and he put me in touch with the wonderful project manager there, Maddie Morrison. And we started talking about what a new gavel for Judge John Hodgman should look like. And we had long conversations back and forth regarding the size of the gavel, which I wanted to be very large. And she sent me photos of all different kinds of woods, birds' eye maples, and striped whatever's and knotty pines and so many different woods.

I picked one out at one point. And then we lost the wood. Someone else took it. So we had to start from scratch. And we finally settled on a beautiful, large, handcrafted gavel made of sapele, that beautiful wood that we're going to see because we're going to unbox the gavel today.

This is what I received. Now, everyone's going to get excited because they're watching on the YouTube. They think that I just doxed myself, but don't worry about it, everybody. I don't live at a UPS pickup center at a hardware store on the road to the dump in Surrey, Maine. That's just where I got it from.

It's packaged very well. It doesn't shake around very much. And over the course of this wonderful docket where we're going to be hearing some cases about at least one gavel, I'm going to be taking my beloved Ulfa touch knife. This is a little knife that I used to open packages, and I'm going to open it up.

I'm going to start at this edge. And that's as far as I'm going, because we're going to reveal the whole thing at the end of this episode. But before we get into it, Jesse, I've got to give some details. Maddie Morrison walked me through the whole thing as we were designing and executing this gavel. Of course, I had nothing to do with it except I replied to a bunch of emails,

and then I had to give the address of the UPS pickup spot on the way to the dump. But Maddie sent some information about the gavel itself. Before we look at it, let me tell you. The gavel head is not just made out of sapoli or sapele, sorry, it's made of blistered sepele, and the handle is non-blistered sepele. This is where Sapele has to wear sunscreen. That's right. Exactly. You can't also, by the way, if you want to avoid blistering your sepele,

don't let it make margaritas for you in the sunshine. Because there's a photo effect. If you get lime juice on your hands in the sunshine, it'll blister up. I watch the pit. I learned that from one of Jimmy Buffett's more physically explicit songs. Blistered in paradise. Drinking and Pussin. It's from the album Drinking and a music.

and pussin. Dricken and pusson. Stepped on a pop top, blistered my ding-dong. I think that's a line from Jimmy Buffett. RIP, Jimmy Buffett. Sorry about that. So the gavelheads made out of blistered sepele.

The handle is made out of reg sepele. And Maddie Morrison designed the gavel and did a wonderful job doing so. And says here, helped a small amount with the shaping. But, Jesse, when I say that wood can be turned into a gavel, I mean,

literally turned. Diane Gomez in the wood shop put the wood blank of the blistered Sapili onto a lathe and it spins around real fast and then Diane used chisels to create the shape and the contours that make it look like a beautiful ceremonial hammer called a gavel. And then Maddie wrote this. The only tricky part of the process was finding interesting turning blanks thick and long enough for the gavel head because this is a jumbo-sized gavel. Most thick blanks are intended for bowls, and therefore they're shorter. By blank, we mean a big hunk of wood. We had not done a turning project in a while, so we spent some time getting the chisels and gouges back in shape. Otherwise, the rest of the process was relatively

smooth, as indeed I imagine this gavel is exquisitely smooth and probably finished to a fine sheen so that I don't get blisters on my ding-dongs, I mean my fingers, when I'm using it. So anyway, I open this one side, and just to give you guys a little tease, I'll take out my touch knife, I'll open this side to about half of it. That's as far as I'm going to go. We'll reveal the whole thing at the end of the episode, because we've got some justice to dispense in the docket, don't we, Jesse? Of course, Jesse, for every time there is a season, anecdote, anecdote, anecdote. Let's hear it. That's the way the song goes. I mentioned that Offerman referred me to this guy called Max to build in built-in shelves in my home.

I live in a Victorian house, and it has finials on the stair posts. So as the entrance stairway goes around a curve, at the curving points, it has finials, round finials on top of the posts. They're very beautiful, but one of them was clearly a replacement because it looked different from the other ones. Like maybe there's four total, and one of them was like a wonky shape. And I thought, if I'm going to live in this house for a long time, this is going to make me feel crazy the entire time. Like the fact that three of them match and one of them is slightly different. Yeah, you can't have a wonky finial. It's going to drive you to distraction. Like, they clearly just went to a finial graveyard or a finial recycling center and just grabbed the

first finial they saw and jammed it on top and, you know, stained it to match. And, you know, Yeah. And so Max was building my shelves. He was doing a beautiful job. Shout on to Max Wilson Millworks here in Los Angeles. Good job, Max Wilson. And I said to him, hey, Max, can I ask you a question? Would it be like stupid expensive or like complicated for you to make me a new finial and replace this one that's slightly different from the other ones? And he's like, uh, I can do that, which is the answer that any carpenter will give you to any carpentry question, no matter what it is. They'll be like, yeah, of course. I mean, I might have to buy four new pieces of equipment, but it's probably worth it, right? Then I'll have those pieces of equipment. The next time I need to make a finity,

you know what I mean? Right. Just like Maddie had to get the gouges and chisels into shape. Yeah, exactly. So he brought in this thing that was like, you know how when they test how high you can jump? There's like a pole, and at the top of the pole, there's, uh, there's, There's like horizontal bars that spin. And so when you slap the bars, the ones that spin are how high you jumped. Have you ever seen those before? Well, first of all, no. Never.

You've never, you've never participated in the NFL draft combine, John? Not that I recall. I remember I took part in the president's physical fitness challenge at Heath School in Brooklyn, Massachusetts. but mostly that was me falling down onto a mat. Go on. So, okay, John, imagine yourself going to the Nature Company. If the year is 1988, you're going to the Nature Company in Berkeley, California.

You're turning away from the section that sells glow in the dark things and the section that sells rain sticks. Yeah. You're turning towards those rectangular pin cushion things that you push onto your face and then you have a picture of your face comes out from the pins. You know what I'm talking about that thing? Of course I know that thing. Yeah, I always wanted one of those. Okay. First of all, you should get one because they're fantastic. But why would I get, I always wanted to get one, but then I realized, why would I, why would I want to bring one home when any time I wanted to, I could go into the store and put my face into a dirty bed of pins and stick my tongue out and leave an impression for

it all to see? So, Max brought essentially the like two-dimensional version of that. And he pushed it into the finials that matched, the side of the finials that matched, to make a special outline picture of the edge of the finial. Nice. And then locked it in place and brought it. And he was able to translate that and use that as a guide for the lathe as it's as it went down the spinning piece of wood to make an exact copy of the finial, which I thought

was like the coolest move in this. He just like the next day brought in a finial that was exactly, he didn't have to bring any of mine home, like cut them off to, you know, make a plaster cast or something. He just shoved this thing into it that was like a two-dimensional version of those pin cushions and then locked it in place, brought it home, the lathe. followed that line, and then all of a sudden I had a new matching finial, and now all the finials on my staircase match. Making things with your hands out of wood is magical. There are all kinds of problems you get to solve, all kinds of puzzles that your brain gets to engage in. Matching finials is just the

tip of the woodberg. That's why I recommend checking out Nick Offerman's book Little Woodchuts about some simple woodworking projects that will activate your brain. It's not just making finials and gavels. You can make all kinds of things. It's incredible. Speaking of gavels, John, dancing spring on R slash maximum fun, that's the maximum fun subreddit says at my old job, we gave a co-worker a gavel as a gag gift because he was in charge of keeping order in meetings. It turns out, gavels are very loud. So we ended up getting mad when he actually used it. Can a gift giver ever forbid a gift receiver from using a gift? Or were we in the wrong? Can a gift giver prohibit a gift receiver from using the gift? Great question. Little distracted.

Another new thing in my life is I am now in my autumn chambers here in Maine. Still love W-E-R-U with Joel, but as I'm spending a longer period of time in Maine, decided to set up some autumn chambers here in the room above the garage. And a fun fact, as I'm getting it all sorted out, I forgot that there's a generator outside the window, and I guess there's a power outage in town, and it just came on. In any case, yeah, can you forbid someone from using a gavel if it's given to you? I have a thought on this, but, Jesse, I have a question for you. Have you ever given a gift to someone and thought, oh, they're using it wrong or they're wearing it wrong. You know, I will occasionally get clothes for my wife.

Mm-hmm. And my wife, as you know, John, both a wonderful person and a very beautiful, attractive person who wears clothes very well. Yes. I've often said to you, your wife is a beautiful, attractive person who wears clothes very well. I know.

In fact, I'm getting sick of you saying that to me. It was nice the first time. I was experimenting with it being my catchphrase for a while. Yeah, that seemed like a bit much. Yeah. Go back to, I'm the judge. I'll go back to my famous catchphrase,

give me to cookies. No, that's Jennifer Marmer's catchphrase. The firm armors catch raise. Hey. Yeah. Sorry, Jennifer. Sorry, Jennifer. I think of the courtroom.

Can I sue you? Yeah. Go ahead. File a lawsuit. Get your cookies ready. I'm going to give them to you. But I will occasionally give a really cool, carefully selected vintage t-shirt to my wife. Yeah.

Or once in a while, I will buy something new for her. Like I went to the Ruth Asawa exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. My wife and I went to the. Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts when Ruth was still alive and she was around a lot. And it's been really amazing to see her go from a locally beloved artist to an internationally famous artist. Yeah. And Ruth Issa was amazing.

Totally amazing. And she was an amazing person as well. And they had gorgeous, gorgeous merch at this show featuring Ruth's work, which is itself gorgeous. So I bought my wife a T-shirt. and she immediately cut the neck out of it with scissors. And my wife doesn't like the necks of her t-shirts to be close to her neck, neck. And I love my wife. And it's her t-shirt.

And she can do whatever she wants with it. And I also respect her sensory needs. Yeah. If there's anything I've learned, having three neurodivergent children's, I've got to respect their sensory needs. Yeah. But, John, every time I have to bite my lip and recoil a little bit. And, like, I want to, like, take it and be like, I'll take it to my tailor.

I'll take it to my tailor. He'll finish the neck. He'll turn it into a boatneck or something. She just hacks at it with, like, paper scissors, John. Yeah, the hacked-up t-shirt with paper scissors or sometimes dull lefty scissors from second grade, 1989, that's a look, that's a real look. I understand where Teresa's coming from because this is a sensitive area

and for those of you who are only listening not watching the YouTube, I'm talking about my collar area. And you know, for a long time in New York City there was a very famous piece of immersive theater called Sleep No More. My friend Martin Gero was like, you've got to go see this Sleep No More. You walk through this old hotel

and you're wearing a mask and these actors move all around you and they're acting out a version of the story of Macbeth by Shakespeare, and you follow them around and they come up and they whisper in your ear. It's like, I cannot imagine anything more upsetting to me and distracting. And I'm like, I'm not going to go. And he says, why aren't you going to go? I'm like, there is the possibility that one of those actors will touch my neck.

And that's all I need to cannot handle that. Do not want anybody touching my neck. It just felt like that was the transgression that would have sent me over the edge. So I didn't. You're not a violent man, but I could see a reflexive punch to an unsuspecting. Yeah. I mean, if I were walking through there with my giant Sepili Offerman gavel, I might bonk him, you know, reflexively bonk. So, well, speaking of gifts, Jesse, you're a wonderful gift giver, but you're aware of a mystery gift.

I received a package in the mail here in Maine that I picked up on the way to the dump one day. And I got home and I was like, oh, Jesse must have sent me this and you didn't. So the best of your knowledge, I received two caps in the mail, both of which identical, both of which say beans on the front. Wow, that's even better than I imagined when you texted me about it. Yeah. And I was like, oh, well, you know, Jesse loves beans. Don't get him started on big fat, juicy beans.

Back in June, when you visited me here in Maine, we went out on a little boat, a little power launch called Beans. I thought for sure you sent me this Beans Hat. I said to Jesse, thanks for the Beans Hat. And Jesse said, wasn't me. And the words of Shaggy wasn't me. So I don't know who sent me this Beans Hat. And they know where I live.

So if you're my friend or foe and you want to own up, to having sent me not one but two promotional hats from Bush's best beans company, just say beans on the front. Let me know so I can at least send you a thank you card and stop worrying about who's going to come invade my home and watch me sleep sometime. But I hope I'm wearing it the right way. As far as this gavel gift goes, I think that once it's out of your hands, it's out of your hands.

I don't think, you know, I don't believe in takes these backsies. if you've given the guy a gavel, you knew what you were getting into. I judge you out of luck because if you get a gavel, you got to use it. I'm not going to use this gavel just yet because I haven't unboxed it, but this is the sound of a gavel in a box. Go for gavel is what I say to your co-worker. John, those are good beans, too. I like those beans.

These bushes baked beans? In Maine, yeah, I really like a bush's baked bean. A canned baked bean is a tasty food. Yeah. Okay, here is something from Raccoon grabby hands on the Maximum Fun subreddit, R-slash Maximum Fun. A lot of fun being had there. I'm not going to characterize exactly how much fun, but go to R-slash Maximum Fun and find out. Yeah, you'll figure it out.

My husband and I have a dispute with his mother. Every time we visit his family, his mother tries to send us home with a bag of mangoes. We do not eat mangoes often. They usually go bad and end up in the garbage before we can eat them. We know that if the mangoes were to stay with his family, they would get eaten. We have explained this to her. I hate the food waste, but his mother is so pushy with the mangoes. She's trying to hide them in our things when we leave.

We seek an injunction against my husband's mother to cut it out with the mangoes. Well, first of all, let me give credit to a husband's mother. What a great way to give fruit. What a great way to give a perishable object as a gift. Hide it. Hide it in their luggage until it can be found later when it's extra juicy. Jesse, you like mangoes, right? No, I do not like mangoes.

I love mangoes. Oh! I got sharp-linked. Got genuinely tricked there. Mangoes are not something that tend to reach the Hannafords or in Maine or the union market in Brooklyn, New York, where I live. I don't get to see a lot of mangoes. I don't really make the scene in my regular shopping rotation. So tell me all what you love about the mango.

I love the taste of a mango. I think a ripe mango is the best tasting fruit available at an American supermarket. Now, I will say that what are sometimes called honey mangoes or at Tuolfo or something, Alfonso mangoes, the littler yellow ones are a lot better than the style of mangoes that we, in a safe way, a generic grocery store when I was growing up, the big guys. The big guys are also very tasty, but they can get stringy. Yeah. And they're not the most tasty. Like, the context for this that I'm missing is why is she doing this with mangoes? And I feel like implied in this, and I may be reading too much into it, is that this mom comes from a mango culture. Right.

For whom mangoes are very important. Like when I want to talk, when I want to talk goes or mangs. Yeah. I text with Hariconda Baloo. I was going to say, one of the great comedians and thinkers of our time and one of the great mango lovers of our time. Exactly. And Hary comes from an Indian family. Yeah. And so I have- Mango season is a big part of the tapestry of their annual lives. It's really important when those mangoes start coming in. I mean, Harry, and also another Indian American, Anil Dash, who's a

pal of mine, have both discussed with me that in New York City, they're both New Yorkers. In New York City, there are many Indian grocery stores where you put in an advance order for mangoes. Right. And you get a case of mangoes delivered to you from India when it is mango season in India. Because that mangoes are better there. This is also true to some extent in parts of Central America and especially the Caribbean. Yeah. And of course, mangoes are huge.

huge in the Pacific Islands. And, you know, we think of Hawaii as probably the American mango capital, right? The United States mango capital. Certainly every morning I wake up and I think, where is the American mango capital again? That's right, the big island. Hawaii. I mean, no, no shade to Puerto Rico, right? But Hawaii is mango country. Everyone knows. And I wonder if this mom is coming from one of these cultural contexts where mangoes are a really important expression of identity. And I also wonder, I'm moving, John. Yeah. And a few years ago at the farmer's market, I bought a mango tree from the mango company.

There's these mangoes, there's a mango farm that's. shows up at the farmer's market for about a month a year because the mango season's pretty narrow in Southern California. They're based in like Santa Barbara or something like that, but there's a few places where it's both hot and wet enough to get mangoes going really good in Southern California, and certain kinds of mangoes grow pretty well in Southern California. And one day, they just had some mango trees. And I said, what are those mango trees cost? They said, they said, they said, said 60 bucks or whatever. Yeah. And I said, I'll take one. And I thought, how many mangoes do I have to, over the life of the tree, how many mangoes do I have to pick from that tree to amortize that $60?

You didn't even haggle. You didn't even haggle. You were sold. If I get a hundred mangoes off that tree in a lifetime, I'm way ahead of the game, right? Right. This year is the first year that there are real mangoes growing on the tree. We had a false, a couple years ago, but there's like big, big fences in my backyard, like a, there's like a fence that's maybe 15 or 18 feet tall. And so it took a while for the tree to get big enough that it was really getting the sun it wanted to grow mangoes. This year, there are green mangoes on that tree right now that I know are coming around. This is a tragedy. And in two freaking weeks, I'm moving. They're not going to be ready. They're not going to be ready. They're not

going to be big enough. I'm never going to taste these mangoes of this mango tree that I've been tending for four years. So anyway, what I'm saying is, mangoes are the greatest fruit. There are many kinds of mangoes. And I think that either this mom comes from a mango specific culture and is trying to share her culture with her children and potentially grandchildren. Right. Or this mom has access to special mangoes that she knows are special, and that's why she's pushing mangoes. I don't think she's just going to Costco, buying a flat of mangoes, and then giving half of them to her kids because it's too many for one person to eat. Yeah, here's what I have to say about it, Jesse. I, a lot of people say, Hodgman, you don't like fruit. You never eat fruit. You don't like fruit. And that's not true.

I like fruit when it is perfect. A perfectly ripe. peach, pear, or plum, a perfectly crisp apple, and I would imagine a perfectly ripe mango. Sublime. Sublime, even for someone who doesn't have a sweet tooth and only has an alcohol muller, sublime. The problem is, most fruit is bad. Said the guy who lives in Maine. Now, wait a minute. Who brought this on himself.

Now, wait one, wait one second. I know you've got access to all the cranberry. you want or whatever. Cranberries are a noble berry, and of course, wild main blueberries are spectacular. And when they're in season, they're undeniable. Each one you eat is going to be delicious.

You're never taken a risk. When you know that you're getting a main blueberry in season because you know it's for Maine and you know it's the season for them, oh, cannot do, cannot do better. And I'll say this. Right now, even though by the time you're listening to this, It's the dead of winter in Maine, that is to say, mid-September. We just came out of peach season here in coastal Maine.

There are orchards that grow peaches, and these Maine peaches, they're very delicious. And if you're worried about being too hungry, don't worry about it. They're all the size of a walnut. They're all the size of a blueberry, basically. The wild Maine blueberries are quite small compared to New Jersey blueberries or Chilean blueberries, which are quite big. When they grade them, they look at one of those big Chilean blueberries

or New Jersey high bush blueberry. And they're like, oh, yeah, it's about the size of a main peach. That's how big those peaches are. They're little tiny guys, but they're really delicious. And I've, you know, Hardy's told many a tale both on stage

and to me personally about his love for mangoes. And you love mangoes. And we are in a period of transition. I'm here in my summer chambers. you are making a big move from one part of California to the other. You're leaving your mango tree behind. I've got a solution that's very simple for grabby hands, raccoon, or raccoon grabby hands or whatever your handle is.

Get your grabby hands on those extra mangoes and send them to us. We'll take them off your hands. Yeah. You know? There's other people in your life. Share the mango wealth. Yeah, share them. Share them with people you love.

This is an expression of your mother-in-law's love for you and for mangoes, and those two things are perhaps problematically entwined, but it's still an expression of love. And you have to accept them and accept them graciously, and it's okay to share that love with others, especially if they're named Jesse Thorne or John Hodgman. John, the other day I did a screening, hosted a screening of a thousand clowns at American Cinemathech was kind enough to host me for their... friend of the fest film festival. Yeah. And they said, what movie do you want to screen?

And I said, a thousand clowns. And the main character in this movie is a comedy writer. And his brother is his agent. And every day, his brother, who is his agent, stops by the house to bring him some fruit. And what could be better? What could be better than to have? have someone stop by your house and bring you some fruit. It's incredible. Yeah, I mean, I'm, I love, I love getting fruit in the mail at holiday

time, but don't wait, raccoon grabby hands. I don't want those mangoes to go bad. You know, you can send mangoes to Jesse at Maximum Fun HQ. There's probably an address somewhere. I'm just going to hold up my gavel again so you can get a good look at the address, at the UPS pickup spot, at the Surrey General Store on the road to the dump here. Maine. I honestly challenge you, Raccoon Grabby Hands, to send me some mangoes to this address. Make sure to email me at Hodgman and Maximumfund.org to let me know that they're coming so they don't just rot there. And I'll eat them. I'll eat them on camera. I bet they'll be delicious, unless they've gone bad from which case. And who knows Raccoon Graby Hands? You might end up

with an Oscar like Martin Balsam, who played the protagonist's brother in the movie A Thousand Clowns. You never know what magic a mango might reek. All right. So I got this thing in my hand. Let's take us to a break, Jesse. And when we come back, I'll open another side of this wonderful gavel. Let's take a quick break. We'll be back in just a second on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We are clearing the docket. But first, we are clearing one more corner. One more piece of tape. I'm going to go about, what I'm going to do? is I'm going to take my Ulfa touch knife, and I'm going to go just halfway down here, right, through this fragile label. That's all you get for now. I'm here in my autumn chambers, Jesse. I'm fine-tuning the lighting in here because I was feeling it was looking a little

a little spooky at first. I don't know. We'll get it together. It's a time of transitions. You're moving. I'm spending more time in Maine for now. I'm not moving, but I'm hanging out here as long as I can, hiding out in the woods of Maine. And I'm also another skill. I'm trying out a new thing, which is eating mangoes. It's one of my new hobbies. And I'm also doing cinematic impressions. Cinematic impressions.

Jesse, did you know that? Okay. This is not impressions of actors. This is impressions of whole movies. Oh, okay. I mean, I would love to get a sense of that. So I'm going to do, this is my impression of a very famous movie. See if you can guess what it is.

Can you guess? Well, you went to the corner behind you, stood backwards facing the corner. Yeah. You were out of focus. So if you were doing anything else besides that. No, in fact, it's even better that it was a little out of focus. In fact, video editor Daniel Speer, I'll do it again. But this time, make it in black and white.

See if you get it this time, Jesse. You get it yet? No, I don't got it. I don't. I'm the Blair Witch Project. Oh. Blair Witch, because it's spooky up here. It's a little scary up here.

Okay, here is a case from Listen, y'all. This is also on R-Slas Maximum Fun. My dad's a woodworker, so I gave him a piece of art that was a hammer with nails driven into the wooden handle. Now, he and my mom have an ongoing dispute about it. Is an ironic hammer and nail sculpture appropriate to display? anywhere, or must it remain in the wood shop? Now, it says here we're hoping to source a photo of this object because it's very hard to picture. It is a hammer, which is very similar to a gavel, by the way, nicely themed docket case.

Thank you very much, Jennifer Marmer. It is a hammer, and like a lot of hammers, has a wooden handle, but there are nails driven into the handle. And does it, is it supposed to suggest a paradox? Like, how'd they get the nails in there? If they only had one hammer, right? Is that the deal? Sort of like, yeah, hey, I'll give you, I'll give you a Rolex with a Domino's pizza logo on it. If you can kiss your own elbow, can't do it.

Yeah, I'm trying right now. Can't do it. No, there's someone out there. I'm kissing you through the microphone. Okay, so it's a novelty gift. And the question is, can it be displayed? in the home. I mean, I don't know that I need to see a photo of this to imagine. Like a lot of Billy Big Mouth singing basses and other novelty gifts, probably better suited for the

workshop or the podcast studio above the garage rather than as a showpiece in a properly decorated home. What do you think, Jesse? I'm not opposed to it being in the home. Whoa. It depends on, look, I got some weird art in my house, you know? Yeah. I got my entire dining room is full of paintings by this painter named Annie Truxel, who was friends with my mom. She's passed away now, Annie has.

But her paintings are very strange and surreal. And people come in and they say, why do you have this painting of two giant snails, one of which his shell is the nighttime sky and one of which his shell is the daytime sky? Right. And it's much stranger than that name suggests. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

So I'm a supporter of art in the home, and I would not be opposed to it being in the home. That said, if I was this dad, I think that I would want it in my woodshop. Yeah, in the wood shop. I think I would want it in the woodshop. Like, I don't think it would be inappropriate in another place in the home, especially if it had a suitable display. You know, I wouldn't just want it sitting on the sofa or whatever, but if it had a pedestal or a, you know, or a little light on a shelf,

I would support that. But honestly, if it was me, I would think it would be the perfect thing to have in my woodshop and remind me of an art thing to think about while I'm working, on wood. We're in agreement there. I got the impression that listen, y'all, dad wanted to bring the hammer with the hammer and nail sculpture into the shared home. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, what I'm saying is, I'm with the dad in that I think it is

appropriate to have this in the house. That said, if I had it, it is so well suited to the wood shop that I would want to have it in the wood shop. I'm going to say this. I think that I will reserve judgment. I'm not going to drop the boxed gavel down on it yet. I need to see the photo of it. My instinct is, unless it's much more beautiful than I think of,

it probably is more suited for the wood shop. I mean, thematically, it certainly is, than for the general home. And, you know, like, we all have. different tastes in art, but as with all cohabitation schemes, what you hang on the wall and display as art, there has to be some mutual agreement to it. You can't have something that you love, such as the oil-painted portrait of a sad child of divorce from 1977 with a bowl cut that is a seven-by-eight-foot portrait that we found in a barn here in Maine that now hangs over the sofa in the living room here in Maine, even though it gives me the profound creeps.

It is beloved by my wife who's a whole human being in our own right. And it's not my choice for it, but I'm willing to let it hang, as it were. That's a strange oil painting, and maybe here's a photo of it. We can take a look of it right now. I've shared it before with members of our live audiences. And his name is Charles. You know, that's, was a, that was a, that was more than a compromise on my part to let Charles hang there and freak me out every day. That was a surrender. But I was willing to do it because there are other pieces of art that I love that other people in my life don't love as much. But for the most part, if your spouse says, I don't want this hammer and nail sculpture in my house that we share,

but it's fine for your wood shop. In fact, it's thematically appropriate. I would put it in there. I'm just going to reach in. That's my verdict, and I'm not going to bang the gavel, but I'm going to open this a little bit more. I just want to reach in to see if I can feel the handle and see if it has any nails in it. Open it a little bit more. Reach inside while you're prepping another case, Jesse.

Okay. Oh. Okay, something from the way we speak, also on R-Slas Maximum Fun. My wife and I play a lot of competitive video. games together against strangers on the internet. Her trash talking is out of control. She says trash talk is part of the culture. She's also been on the receiving end of some truly offensive video game trash talk that is way worse than anything she says. I think someone on the other side of the internet is getting their feelings hurt. Does trash talking come with the territory? Am I too

sensitive. Hmm. You know what they call trash talking in Canadian hockey? What's that? Shurping. Shurping. I learned that from Shorzy. You know, I used to play, and still do from time to time,

though, let's regularly in a home poker game among some very dear friends, including our friend Jonathan Colton and some others. We had a weekly game home for a decade, and then we still get together from time to time. And very rarely, I'd had opportunity to go to a casino and play poker in a casino, which is a terrifying experience. But, you know, it's always fine. You can always fold. And one time, I decided to sort of chirp, because people talk some trash around the poker table. And we would have fun among friends. I'd have a good time telling people they were bad players or whatever. But one time in a casino, I tried something. I looked at my hand and I go, look around the table,

I go, guess what, everybody? I have the winning hand. And I'm not blood. And I think I won. I think I got him. But I remember correctly many years ago. I don't like to go to casino. So it's scary to me. That's about as rough as the trash talking I could get. It's like, I think I have the best hand. That was my trash doll.

In video game, like, so when you play video games with strangers, usually you have a headset on, right? And then you spawn onto a battlefield, and then you shoot at all kinds of things and monsters and you try to capture a flag. That's what that is, right? I think that that's what most collaborative video game games are like, I think.

I'm basing it on what I saw my son doing when he would play Fortnite and such with other people. Yeah, Fortnite's still pretty popular and similar games. And then I would say a lot of people are playing sports games, playing NBA 2K or Madden online together. And occasionally there is a large-scale online game like a Grand Theft Auto or something. But I don't know what the more successful of those have been lately. I haven't heard a lot about new ones of those.

You know, the way we speak points out that not only does their spouse dish it out, they also are able to, on the receiving end of a lot of trash talk. So she can take it and dish it out. I guess it seems like fair game to me. So long as she is not using slurs, right? Like truly offensive slurs, I think trash talking in a creative way can be a lot of fun. I don't know exactly what she's saying or what she's hearing.

And I would never say that someone is too sensitive. The way we speak, you're just as sensitive as you are. And that's whatever level of sensitivity you have is natural and appropriate to you. If it is upsetting you, it is reasonable to have that conversation with your wife and say, it makes me uncomfortable to hear these things and to hear you say these things. It makes me anxious or upset or whatever. But I think that your option then is to, you know, war game style. The only way to win is not to play, you know.

let your wife get spicy in the chat and play the way she wants to play, and then ask that when you guys play together, that you go and you try to tone it down a little bit. And I think that that would be reasonable to ask for it. This is all presuming that she's not having to hear or certainly dish out, like horribly offensive slurs. I don't think that that's the way we speak and their wife operate. But yeah, it's okay if your wife wants to get a little bit.

spicy in the chat, get a little feisty. Yeah, brush them back a little bit. That's okay with me. Let's take a break. When we come back, we'll clear more cases from the docket. We're taking a quick break from the case, and I just want to mention, John, just an epic run of guests on Bullseye with Jesse Thorne, the NPR show that I host. This week, you can hear David Letterman. My conversation with David Letterman, John. Yeah. The week before that, Dolly Parton and Elvis Costello. Wow.

Week before that, emo Legends American football, who are also Max Fun fans. It's just banger after banger after banger, Jesse. That's incredible. And, I mean, what a time to re-listen to your conversation with Dolly Parton, of course, and your interview with David Letterman. I also want to say something, which is this. I just moved to Berkeley, California. Yeah. So email us your Berkeley dips. You got a good dentist. I could really use a good dentist, you know, this kind of thing. Jesse, this is a season of transition, and I know that moving is always hard, but I am glad that you're moving to the beloved Bay Area from whence you came. I'm also glad that when we come back for Sketchfest, you'll be able to just take public transportation over to the show. You won't have to fly in an airplane. I'm going to take the part. You're going to take that bart.

I look forward to announcing the details of our return to SketchFest soon. But in the meantime, as we transition from summer to fall, I want to give one more final shout-out to my friend Lola Blake, the young person here in town who makes these hats, not these hats. Excuse me, this is my beans hat. Shout out to Bush's beans for making good beans. But you'll remember, my hat of the summer has been, Oh, ship!

This is Lola Blake's patented handmade a custom decorated hat and t-shirt line called Ship Happens. And if you like beautifully hand-painted portraits of nautical calamity with funny catchphrases on them, get the over to Instagram, go to the account made by Lola 4. That's the number 4. M-A-D-E-B-Y-L-O-L-A, the number 4. and let Lola know the Judge John Hodgman sent you and you'd like to order a custom hat. And of course, it is the season of giving.

So go to Put This On Shop.com and check out all the beautiful antiques, collectibles, home decor items, vintage clothing, and handmade accessories you can find there on my website at Put This Onshop.com. We'll be back in just a second on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We are clearing more cases from the docket. And we have one. Names have been changed, by the way, from Pete in New York City. My wife, Trudy, often realizes that a pair of her underwear has holes while we are on vacation. She throws them in the bathroom trash can at the hotel.

Okay. Used underwear in the trash suggests something. has gone horribly wrong. Sure. I'd like her to hang on to the underwear and throw it away at home so she doesn't traumatize the person who has to empty our trash. Right now, we're staying at a hot spring in the Azores. The hot spring has a really high iron content and stains everything with rust.

When we go home, I'm planning to throw away my swimsuit in the bathroom trash. Trudy thinks that this is the same as throwing away underwear. Obviously, it's different because, number one, it's a swimsuit, not underwear. And number two, this must happen all the time at this particular hotel. The cleaning staff is used to it. Pete sent a photo of his swimsuit, which was originally off-way in navy. And, yeah, it is like a pink with red splotches and purple. situation.

This is very close to home to me, Jesse, because indeed very close to my home, just on the other side of that wall, there is a well that pumps water for us to drink. And there is a high iron content in the well, which is fine. It's actually fortifying for us. But we have discovered over the years that the water, the iron in the water, has a chemical reaction with any brand of sunscreen. such that if you were to wear a t-shirt and like a white t-shirt and spray sunscreen on your arms and your neck or whatever, and then we're to throw that white t-shirt into the wash, any place where that sunscreen touched would become bright orange and would stay that way forever and it could never come out and just have to throw it away.

And so we've had to come up with a new plan with our whites when we're washing our whites, that if they become before they become stained with orange, like if we're wearing sunscreen, we forget and we know that it's going to react with our water and our washing machine, we'll go to a friend's house to wash it or bring it back to New York City or go to a laundromat.

If, on the other hand, we forget, and the white T-shirt does become stained orange with the sunscreen high iron content water combo, well, then we have no choice but to get a hotel reservation and bring all of our ruined laundry to the hotel so we can dump it in the garbage there. That's not true. We don't do that. We just go to the dump and throw it away.

Have you ever had to throw something away embarrassing in a hotel? I mean, the number one thing that I'm thinking of, I usually flush down the toilet. Yeah. I'm going to say the number one thing that I'm thinking of that I had to leave behind in a hotel was actually not a number one thing. It was literally a number two thing. Wink, wink, someone wrong digestively for me. And there was a problem with the toilet. And I had a plane to catch out of Omaha. And I just had to call downstairs and say, it's a bad scene up here. I'm sorry. And I left an enormous tip. So I guess what Trudy says is true. You know,

Housekeepers at hotels certainly have seen it all. That doesn't mean that they need to see it all again, or that you have leave to trash whatever you want and leave behind whatever you want in that hotel room. This goes to the classic, you know, be mindful of the work you leave behind for others. It almost sounds like Trudy is saving up her wrecked underwear to go on vacation with so that she can throw it away in hotels.

Maybe that's her thing. Look, John, I know that you're giving a wise actual answer to this question. Yeah. I cannot highlight enough the first sentence here, which is, my wife, Trudy, often realizes that a pair of her underwear has holes while we're on vacation. Right. Is she too busy with work the rest of the time to notice that there's holes in her underwear? Is that what we're supposed to take from this?

She's like, look, when you're in management, like me, and you drive a BMW down the street in Beverly Hills in your otherwise, a yuppie from a 1980s movie who's busy, busy, always on the go. You got holes in your underwear and you don't even notice. Yeah, well, when I plan my vacation, I'm making a list, like, I'm going to turn, do not disturb on my phone. I'm going to finally finish that.

book I've been reading, and I'm going to go to the beach and inspect all my underwear for holes so I can throw it away in the hotel trash can. How many whole pairs of underwear can she possibly have? How many vacations is she going on? There's so many questions implicit in that first sentence that are not addressed in the rest of the question. And also, why are we getting disputes from Pete and Trudy in New York City, that is to say, characters from Mad Men? And why aren't we getting more of them? Can I get a dispute from Roger Sterling and Megan's Canadian mom? That would be good. But, yeah, Trudy, throw your underwear away in your own trash.

That's your trash. That's very personal trash. And even though I'm sure you're right that the housekeepers have seen all kinds of things in those trash can before. And they're probably not even going to blink. They're probably not even to notice it. probably when you went on your vacation at the Hot Springs, the Azores, by the way, sounds like an incredible place to go.

I've always wanted to go to the Azores. There may be a housekeeper there. Think of it this way. There may be a housekeeper there, right? Who, you know, he or she went through a huge life change. They used to do housekeeping at the Omni in Omaha, Nebraska, and they were so traumatized by what I left behind in the toilet one time that they had to leave the country to go to the Aesores.

You don't want to re-traumatize them with your holy underwear. Just take care of that stuff yourself. Wait, but John, what about this red and purple swimsuit that looks like he was swimming in baked beans? It's interesting because now that you mention it, Pete said in his letter, what did he say in this letter? Used underwear in the trash suggests something has gone horribly wrong. I would be curious to know what Pete imagines the housekeeper. is going to think went horribly wrong with this underwear because there's a hole in it. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's just worn out. Your swimsuit looks like something has gone horrible, like you've bled

all over it or something. That looks even more upsetting, I think, than some underwear with some holes in it. And I would say that if you want Trudy to pack up her holy underwear and dispose of them on home territory, you ought to do the same thing with your swimsuit, too. It's ruined. It's trash. but if you're throwing it away, take care of your own trash. You know what I mean? I feel like this isn't a decision unless you bang a gavel.

Shall we complete the opening process? The time is here. This is the first that any of us are ever seeing. Jennifer Marmer, you're coming in to take a look at this. I lost an AirPods. All right, the first any of us are ever seen. So, as you know, I undid the whole box. Okay, Jesse, I have it here.

Jennifer Marmer, will you join us, please, for the unveiling and the unboxing? Here I am. Welcome, Jennifer. And welcome Jennifer's dog. I'm sorry. That's okay. It's all part of the fun. Everyone should enjoy this.

This is the first I've ever seen this, and it's the first any of us have ever seen it. And now I've opened up the box, and now I'm taking out one piece of styrofoam. Look at that. Nick Offerman sent me a styrofoam wizard wand. And now another piece. Another piece of styrofoam. I don't dare look. Is it styrofoam?

No, it's paper. It's paper. It's paper. Tell me when I get to a gable. But it's wrapped up. But it's wrapped. Any nails? Oh, it's upside down.

Whoa. This, I can't wait to see this. blistered sepele, I may need my Ulfa touch knife. I get nothing. I get nothing for advertising Ulfa touch knife. I'm going to be very careful so as to not scar the blistered sepele. It's going to gently open that up there a little bit. Look at that grain. Well, it doesn't want to focus on it. Don't worry. We'll do a whole close-up of everything. And now, time to unwrap the blistered sepele heath first the plastic this feels really good this looks substantial it's i mean i'll have to get a final weight on it ta-da wow wow it's so gorgeous offerman woodshop mattie morrison

diane gomez everyone there as well as our good wood friend nick offerman thank you This is more than I could have hoped for. It is so beautiful. It is, I can't wait to show it to everyone in person. There's only one question that remains. What does it sound like? Jennifer, Jesse, this is the sound of a gavel. Judge John Hodgman rules.

That is all. The docket is clear. That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman. The show created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman, our social media specialist, Megan Razani, podcast edited by AJ McKean. Daniel Spear is our video producer, and our producer, of course, is Jennifer, give me to cookies, marmer. Photos from the show are posted on our Instagram account at Instagram.com slash Judge John Hodgman. We're also on TikTok and YouTube at Judge John Hodgman

pod, follow and subscribe to see our episodes and our video-only content. The season has changed, John? Yes, it is, Jesse. I am in my autumnal chambers. That means cozy goth season is upon us. It's fall, and we need some fall disputes to fall from the trees into our laps so we can keep the courtroom going. What is the best fall activity? Apple picking, or go into the pumpkin patch? Which Halloween candy do you go for that's not a Zagnut? Is chocolate candy or gummy candy or sour gummy candy? Is fall the best season? Obviously, yes, but why? Send in all your hot takes, controversial opinions, and disputes you have with friends, family members, foes, and other people at maximumfund.org or email me directly at Hodgman at maximum fund.org. I want to know if anybody out there has a beef with a cornucopia. If you have a problem with a particular cornucopia or cornucopia is in general, this is the season to send it in at maximum Fund.org slash JJHO. And of course, we want to hear all your cases at maximum fun.org

slash jj.H.O. So if you don't have a fight with somebody, pick a fight with somebody. That's what I say. Maximumfund.org slash JJH. I got a question for you. Speaking of underwear, does the label in Fruit of Loom underwear have a cornucopia on it or no? Go check your underwear and get back to me and tell me what you think. We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Thank you, Offerman's. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artists-owned shows.

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