Judge John Hodgman - Big Chomp

Episode Date: August 10, 2016

Judge John Hodgman and Bailiff Jesse Thorn clear the docket on this week's episode. They rule on dish washing, unusual names, roommate parking disputes and more!   

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. We're clearing the docket this week in chambers. Sitting alongside me, the great Judge John Hodgman. How are you, Judge Hodgman? Well, I'm fine, but I will not play along with your lie that I'm sitting beside you. I wish I were, Jesse, because I always enjoy sitting beside you. It's not a lie.

It's a metaphor. Okay, that's fair enough. All metaphors are lies, not a lie. It's a metaphor. Okay. That's fair enough. All metaphors are lies, by the way. That's why they're illegal. And Judge Hodgman, you know, when there was one set of footprints, that's when you were carrying me. Yes. And you know what?

You're a tall fella, but surprisingly light. Yeah. I'm actually in my summertime chambers here. surprisingly light. Yeah. I'm actually in my summertime chambers here at WERU FM 89.9 on your FM dial in Blue Hill, Maine. Technically, we're in Orland, Maine. I'm here with our fantastic guest engineer, Joel. Joel, how are you? Great. Great to be back with you, Judge. I know. Well, I had to go down to New York and I did some summertime courts down there. But it's better to be back here in the WERU community radio and community supported radio. Is that not so? That is very much so.

All right, Joel. And one last question, Joel. You're going to be playing some jazz down in Stonington this year? We'll be down in Castine at the Pentagoet Inn every Tuesday from 5 to 8. All through the summer? Through September. Oh, OK. so plenty of time if you're in within driving distance of castine and if you're in north america you are uh go check out joel joel what instrument you play again bass bass and the name of the group is night and day a jazz trio a jazz trio sax guitar bass oh and vocals oh okay well great bass do you

do the vocals backup you do backup is there a lot of scat. Do you do the vocals? Backup. You do backup? Is there a lot of scat singing? Do you do a lot of scat songs? The guitar player does. Okay. Let me know when he's sick and I'll come down and see the show. Okay, good. Man, I got a question for Joel. You know, I worked for years in community radio. So my question is, how many DJs at your station bring their dog? Well, we have a rule against that.

Ah, what a terrible rule. Actually, but to set your mind at ease, there is a cat in the building. Yeah, believe me, it is the talk of WERU today as I'm walking in. Don't let, a stray cat is being, is in the building. Don't let it out. And her name is DJ.

Oh, well, why didn't you name her on the nose? Well, we've got a lot of great cases to talk about, and I think we should do just that. What do you say, Jesse? I say, yes. Here's something from Lilia. My husband has a habit of leaving his dirty dishes piled up on the counter next to the sink. It irritates me to no end as it creates unnecessary clutter and takes up valuable counter space. I believe dirty dishes should be placed in the sink if they can't be washed immediately. My husband's a bit of a germaphobe.

He thinks that washing our hands over a sink full of dishes is icky and will somehow contaminate the dishes. What? As an infectious disease epidemiologist, I maintain this is ridiculous. I thoroughly wash all of the dishes either by hand or in the dishwasher by the end of the day. And to my knowledge, I have never poisoned my husband with unsanitary tableware. As an alternative to the sink, I've suggested that he should put his dishes directly in the dishwasher if he first empties it of the clean dishes. However, he continues to litter the counters with his plates, silverware, and mugs. As the person who does the majority of the cooking and dishwashing,

I think it's only fair that my husband abide by my wishes. Therefore, I respectfully request that the honorable judge issue an order against my husband to cease and desist with his annoying habit of placing dirty dishes on the counter and instead put them directly in the sink. Jesse, in your household, what's your dishes washes policy? Well, you know, this is always, I feel like this is always a culture clash. Like every household, my parents were divorced and did it different ways. And if I messed up and did it the other house's way, it was like a constant source of stress and terror.

Sure. And you were revealing which parent you loved more. Yeah, exactly. So in my house now, we do it my wife's way, which is dirty dishes go in the sink. And then in the evening, we run the dishwasher. So every night after dinner, I clear the dishwasher and fill the dishwasher and then run it. And it runs, you know, it runs overnight, basically. Yeah. You want to run it overnight when the sun is down because it saves energy.

Right. But there, yeah, but there's a reason, like I can understand not wanting to, so in one of my houses growing up, it was a put your dishes next to the sink situation. Right. And there's a reason. It's so that you can use the sink for dishes. Correct. For to do the dishes. Yeah.

But this idea that the germs are floating upward like bad air in 18th century London is pretty questionable. London is pretty questionable. I got the impression that he felt that if he washed his hands, the germs were going to flow through hot soapy water down off his hands onto the dishes, which were going to still be washed anyway. But I want to put a pin in this germophobia argument for one second just to Joel, what's your dishes washing? Oh, wait a minute. Do you have a policy

i do okay now let me guess you're you're a jazz bassist in maine and a and a radio dj so you just throw away the microwave popcorn bag and that's it uh it's all paper plates is it really the only rule is if you cook you don't have to clean up. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that works. That's why you're Vice Judge Joel today, because the precedent of the court of Judge Sean Hodgman is the person who does the work gets to decide. And in this case, Lilia, is that how we're pronouncing her name? Sure. Lilia. Yeah.

I think we're looking at Lilia. Could be Lelia, but I'm going to say Lilia. I'm just going to go la, la, la, la, la, la, la. La, la, la, la, la. Do you know how a not so very young human who lives with me used to say bananas when this human was very young? No, but I'm excited to learn. He would say la, la, la, la, la, la. And sometimes he would ask for fresh la-la-la-la. You have to admit, it's a ridiculous word to learn how to pronounce.

Somebody in my family adds F-L to the beginning, substitutes F-L for almost any consonant beginning a word so like uh like when uh when our grocery delivery comes he says uh here comes the uh here comes the fluck and it's the most wonderful thing in the world i just hope he i hope that he is i mean i guess he probably couldn't get through middle school with that speech impediment without trouble but like if he has it until he's 11 i'm happy for right now that's an incredible thing but let's get back to the flawed guest yeah all right lilia first of all points out that she does most of the the dishwashing and i believe her she wouldn't lie

just to just to win this case but if that is true then obviously she should be able to determine what to do uh the arguments over whether to put the dishes outside of the sink or into the sink are there are merits to both sides uh i prefer to have them on the counter next to the sink anyway because it makes it easier to uh rinse them off and then put them into the dishwasher rather than have to dig them out of the sink but it is much more sightly to have them out of sight in the sink i think it's easy it's there's a reason either way but there is one reason that does not exist that germs are going to fall off your hands in hot soapy water and infect the dishes and what's more if i had to anyone to turn to to confirm that point of view, it would be an epidemiologist. And luckily, there is one.

he needs serious behavioral therapy or he is a manipulative monster who is using germophobia as an excuse to lazily shove his dishes wherever he wants and not care about it. But without question, no one's getting sick off of these dishes that have their hands washed over them. And for sure, just based on settled law and principle of the courtroom, she who does the dishes chooses the method. And that's what's going to happen from now on in your home, Lelia, I find in your favor. I'm having a great time imagining this guy getting the dishes to the side of the sink without touching them, like he's got a set of dish tongs or something so that none of his hand germs rub off on them. Let me just say that I have,

I have known people who had that kind of germophobia and it, it was a hindrance in their life. And insofar as it was enabled by their life partner, a real drag for that person until that person got a little help and now they're okay. Yeah. I know somebody that had some specific OCD challenges, somebody in my family. And yeah, he got some CBT and worked them out almost completely. And he's a grown man, you know, like a middle-aged man, but really got some help and sorted it out, you know, so quickly that he was surprised. Yeah, that's been my experience too, third hand, that actually CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy,

is effective for a lot of people. And I am reminded of the story that was told to me my fresh person year at Yale University, an accredited four year college that I attended, went about his friend who had OCD tendencies. And his his friend's thing was always to go around the house smelling appliances and whispering to himself pure wow yeah and it was torturous to himself and his parents and and he sought help but one time let me actually roll that back i don't know if he sought any help at all because it's it sounded like it was a real problem one time he and the friend who was telling me this said yeah and then we were going to go out to the movies this time. And he said, I can't go out to the movies. I'm grounded.

And I was like, why? What happened? He said, I got caught sniffing the VCR. So it was really a sad situation. I don't think that he got the help that he needed, but you can get help now. Unless you're just lying about your germophobia to be lazy about the dishes, dude, in which case, don't be a monster. Here's something from Esther. I live with my parents over the summer when university is not in session, and I have an issue to take

up with my mom, Rachel. She always refers to our evening meal as supper, which I find disgusting. Supper is my moist. I think it sounds unpleasant, and to some extent, I lose my appetite when I hear it. I vastly prefer the Durham dinner, or if I'm feeling whimsical, din-din. For 20 years, I've been explaining my revulsion to her, but I don't think she's fully internalized

my sensitivity to that word. I only ask that she use the less controversial terminology around me. You've read about this controversy in Time magazine, right? Absolutely. Or at least give her a fair trigger warning. The rest of the time, she's free to say supper. Am I being insensitive and ungrateful,

or is it within reason to ask her to respect my taste in phrasing? When you grew up, the evening meal was called what, Jesse Thorne? Dinner. Dinner. But also also maybe supper sometimes. I mean, I grew up in San Francisco where all regional accents are combined into one super accent. Right. And was this also a divorce thing?

One household said dinner, one household said supper. And if you said the wrong one, you would get in trouble. You know, one time my dad screamed at me for talking like my mom, really. That's a really sad story that I'm laughing at because I'm a happy adult now. But man, that was terrible. Yeah. You know what? Divorce is hard on everyone. Yeah. But there's a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. Divorce is hard on everyone, but there's a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. Yeah. My parents did a lot of experimentation.

Yeah, well, you know, we're all fallible and hurtling towards death. I love my parents. They're good parents. I just want to throw that in there. Joel, you grew up in Maine or where did you grow up? Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., our nation's capital. That's right.

And what did you call the evening meal? Taxation without representation? Domino's. Well done joel thank you okay i was with esther all the way because supper is a disgusting word not as disgusting as moist which is one of the words that i hate to hear really you're one of those moist haters oh stop, stop. Yeah, but you know what? I can handle it. You're not going to write the letters to podcasts that people are composing right now that are going to come to me and not you. I get my share of those letters. But I was with Esther until she said din-din. Like, no way.

Because that is something that people say when they're having long conversations with cats. That's not for me. I don't like that word at all. I was a dinner person growing up, although there was a certain, a certain branches of my family in Massachusetts who would say supper. And it's interesting. I looked up the Harvard dialect survey, and a lot of people feel that using supper as the evening, describing the evening meal as supper is a southern thing. You hear that quite a bit, that it's more of a southern thing and that the lunchtime meal might be dinner. Joel, you're nodding along to that. That makes sense to you in Washington, D.C., gateway to the American South. The farmers. That's right. Farmers, right? Farmers. Yeah. And I think that, but according to the Harvard dialect surveys, it's not particularly regionally

tied, and it might be tied closer to generational and demographic and occupational, that farmers would call it supper instead of dinner. What was really interesting to me is that a full 4% of the survey, of the people surveyed in the Harvard Dialect Study, did not describe the evening meal as supper or dinner and i don't know what they're calling that thing maybe night munch maybe night night moist munch big chomp oh big big chomp late chomp well that was a thing because like was dinner dinner was the big meal and supper was the light meals i don't it's hard it's hard to. And I don't I don't know that there's a definitive answer to who and when and where people would use supper or if it even matters. I'm guessing that the that Esther is up in Canada because she referred to university instead of college or perhaps the UK. Perhaps we'll never know.

But in any case, don't worry, Esther. But in any case, don't worry, Esther, you are on the right side of history, because what the Harvard dialect study pointed out is that supper is definitely dying out. And guess what? So is your mom. Slowly but surely, you'll never have to hear that again one day. So I would say enjoy your mom while she lasts and eat her suppers, especially while she is feeding you at home. Deadbeat. Her generosity in providing you your night moisties is more important than your weird word preferences. You can get over it. You can learn to stop sniffing the VCR and rejoin society. Munch, munch, munch.

So I want to take this opportunity to throw in a book recommendation. Do you mind? No, not at all. So I think probably a lot of Judge John Hodgman listeners enjoy the work of Bill Bryson, the charming and funny, often travel writer. Recently, he's been writing more about history and stuff like that, but, you know, made his name as a as a an American expatriate living in Britain. And Bill Bryson wrote a book called At Home that came out maybe five years ago. That is a history of essentially domestic life. I have not read this one. And it is my absolute favorite of his. I mean, it's just like right in my wheelhouse of books where it's about something and it's well-written and fun,

but it's not an actual real history book. And there are these amazing discussions in there of how and when people ate through time. And, you know, you don't even think of the way that you eat as being a social construct, but of course it is. And there's this one chapter where he basically, I mean, this chapter amounts to functionally just a list of weird birds that people ate in the middle ages. Yeah. And it is just the greatest. Like just hearing about like what a feast was in 1352 or whatever for a king. And like mostly it was about the number of different animals you ate. Yeah.

Like who could provide the greatest variety of animals. And how many of them you could stuff into a single swan. Yeah. And how many of them would still be into a single swan. Yeah. And how many of them would still be alive when you cut the swan open. And you realize like how much of our eating habits are really just a function of the industrialization of food. Like the fact that we think of meat as being chickens, pigs, and cows essentially. Right. Is really just about the fact that at some point in 1875, somebody was like, hey, if we made giant cow farms

and put them on trains, then everyone could just eat this one meat and it would be a lot easier. Anyway, we wouldn't have to stuff this gopher into a quail. Exactly, but it is a really fun book. You've never read a more fun book where one chapter is about what cutlery people used through Western history. I don't care what I eat as long as it's moist.

As long as my supper is moist, Esther. Oh, by the way, I found in favor of your mom. And by the way, Jesse, I'll read that book after I finish the 9,000 or so pages of Stephen King's It I have left. Here's some serious summer reading. Here's something from Greg. My beautiful wife and I have a three-year-old daughter. We're trying for our second child, and the naming of this child is the point of contention.

My name is Greg, capital A, capital A, S-U-M, pronounced awesome. Wait a minute. Capital A, capital A, S-U-M, pronounced awesome. Wait a minute. Capital A, capital A? Capital A, capital A, lowercase S-U-M. Okay. And it's pronounced awesome? Yeah, or Alcoholics Anonymous some. You got a big laugh out of Joel on that one. Maybe there's some sad story behind that, Joel. Sorry about that. Yeah, he's nodding. Growing up, I received mostly positive attention for my name, but there were countless times that kids would say, so what's your middle name? Isn't? Get it? Oh, I get it. Yeah. Isn't awesome. Oh. Yeah. I mean,

this is a real problem for you not to be that awesome. Anyway, my solution and lifelong dream is to name my child with the middle name F-in or anything that closely resembles F-N. For example, John F-in Awesome. Right. My wife is having none of it. I feel she doesn't know what it was like growing up with this name and therefore doesn't grasp this unique opportunity to shut down future mild emotional pain for our child. Please find in my favor and order my wife to use effin in the naming of our next child. Wow. I can't believe that this whole thing is, this is precedent setting in its I can't believe

this could possibly be real, but it's so specific that it couldn't possibly not be real. Well, here's the thing. I've suddenly gone down an internet hole, which I arguably could have done before sitting down to record to figure out what the origin of the name Awesome is with two capital A's. It does exist, so he's not lying there.

He might be very well related to the Awesome Dufour Funeral Home in albany oregon maybe that's a potential new sponsor for the show if you'd like awesome dufour get in touch with the maximum fun dot org home office and uh and we'll uh we'll help you out um or maybe sarah awesome holtberg pastry chef based in sweden it sounds scandinavian right jesse? Yeah, I guess. In any case, if anyone wants to enlighten us on the history and meaning of the name Awesome and can use the Internet better than I can right now, I'd appreciate it. What it sounds like is something that a guy who works at a board game store makes you call him. Yeah, exactly. So that's a good it's a good D&D name.

That's for sure. Yeah. Exactly so. That's a good it's a good D&D name, that's for sure. Yeah. But it was important, at least for me, to verify that Greg wasn't lying about his last name, because everything else about his letter makes me think he's a creep and monster. Let me say for the record, if I've if I've not said it before and I think I have, your child is a human being. not said it before and i think i have uh your child is a human being your child's name is not an opportunity to make a joke or a pun or a gimmick or a protest or design an accessory or a chance to make an obscure cultural reference although if you wanted to name your child judge john hodgman that would be fine judge john hodgman awesome that's pretty much pretty much about right actually now i think about it but don't do that And also don't use your child to and the raising of your child to get over your old problems or fears to express your taste or make yourself feel interesting.

This is a human being for a long time. baby and, you know, then toddler and then young person will be essentially an extension of yourself. And you can pour all kinds of culture and ideas and, and, um, and philosophies and into, into that child. And that's a beautiful part of raising a child, but they're not there for you to work out some funny joke that you had in mind back when you were a teenager. And the reason for this is suddenly that person will no longer be an extension of your life. That person will grow to be 13 or 14 and utterly reject you in age-appropriate individuation and start to become his or her own person. And you will realize then very swiftly that you are unnecessary and that only loneliness

and death await you. So my feeling about naming a child is you do whatever you like, but the job is basically to get in there and give your child the most respectable, reasonable name that you can and get out of the way, right? It's not your job to make your child interesting with an interesting name. It's your job to help your child interesting with an interesting name it's your job to help your child learn to become interesting in and of him or herself um i i was recently told that a friend uh who i've not seen in a long time who had given his son a very unusual name uh i said well how is unusual name child and they said oh you mean tom i'm like what what happened it's like the minute tom learned to speak he said please don't call me

that unusual name anymore i i just had this image of tom being called unusual name unusual name and still not being able to speak and just suffering and in furious silence until Tom got his words and said, no, I want to be Tom. Thank you. My middle name is fine. Tom. Like a guy in a coma who's like trying to blink. Yeah. Like a diving bell on the butterfly type of situation. Like this kid is trying to arrange fruit that says Tom, but no one's picking up on the message. Yeah. Every tower he builds with his blocks is just in the shape of, please don't call me unusual name. Yes.

So, you know, look, you're going to name your child what you want, but don't name your child as a joke. Obviously, Greg, I'm finding in favor of your beautiful wife. name your child as a joke. Obviously, Greg, I'm finding in favor of your beautiful wife. And I would say that if your joke is so effing great, why don't you change your own effing middle name to effing? Greg effing awesome. You know, our mutual friend, Mr. Jonathan Colton. Yes. Of NPR's Ask Me Another and of course, recording fame fame touring and recording musician fame and i had this conversation one time at his place in brooklyn shortly before my first child was born i think it was and i was talking to him and i was i was whinging about how i how i felt it was like it was going to be so weird to raise my kid in los angeles this place that was so culturally different from the cultural

values of where I grew up. And, you know, I was like, I don't know whether this kid's going to like, you know, have a kid that like rides a skateboard. What is that? And I'm not morally opposed to it, just confused by it. Right. And Jonathan Colton said to me, and Jonathan Colton is a wonderful father himself and a kind and wise man.

He said to me, you know, I sort of thought the same thing before I had kids. And then at some point I realized, oh yeah, my kids are going to have a completely different childhood than me, no matter what. And he just kind of left it at that. And I was like, oh yeah, right. Okay. All children, even if I grew, even if I raised my child on the farm that I grew up on, their childhood is going to be completely different than mine. And me trying to change things to match my childhood or not match my childhood aren't going to work because the context is different. Yeah. And I think this guy is trying to do something about when he was a kid to his kid, and it's just different. And he just needs to accept that

it's different. I mean, that's sage advice from Jonathan Colton, obviously. And that's why when my younger child, who is a male human, said to me, Father, I have chosen a life for myself. father uh i i have chosen a life for myself i would like to finish my childhood not living with you but instead uh living in england with the uh multi-millionaire incredibly successful let's play youtuber dan the diamond minecart i said go for it And now he doesn't live with us anymore. We just send him a care package of lalala's from time to time. Hopefully green lalala's because the fresh lalala's, like they're going to, you know, they're going to ripen on their way across the Atlantic.

Yeah. Do you know, a story for another time, I have stood in the Victorian era greenhouse in England where the first edible banana that we would recognize as a banana the Cavendish banana was cultivated that sounds like that's like it sounds like a story from Bill Bryson's best-selling book at home I was at I never realized this, but I was at Fresh Banana Ground Zero. Joel, what's your middle name? Thomas. That's effing awesome. Simple and believable. I love it. We've got more stuff on the docket, plus a listener's story, an amazing listener's story about a vape pen. I'm not going to give you any spoilers, but it's really something.

Coming up after the break. Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is brought to you every week by you, our members, of course. Thank you so much for your support of this podcast and all of your favorite podcasts at MaximumFun.org. And they are all your favorites. If you want to join the many member supporters of this podcast and this network, boy, oh boy, that would be fantastic. Just go to MaximumFun.org slash join. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by our pals over at Made In. Jesse, you've heard of Tom Colicchio, the famous chef, right? Yeah, from the restaurant Kraft. And did you know that most of

the dishes at that very same restaurant are made with Made In pots and pans? Really? What's an example? The braised short ribs, they're made in, made in. The Rohan duck. Made in, made in. Riders of Rohan, duck. What about the Heritage Pork Shop? You got it. Made in, made in. Made in has been supplying top chefs and restaurants with high-end cookware for years.

They make the stuff that chefs need. Their carbon steel cookware is the best of cast iron, the best of stainless clad. It gets super hot. It's rugged enough for grills or an open flame. One of the most useful pans you can own. And like we said, good enough for real professional chefs, the best professional chefs. Oh, so I have to go all the way down to the restaurant district in restaurant town? Just buy it online. This is professional-grade cookware that is available online directly to you, the consumer, at a very reasonable price. Yeah.

If you want to take your cooking to the next level, remember what so many great dishes on menus all around the world have in common. They're made in Made In. Save up to 25% this Memorial Day from the 18th until the 27th. Visit madeincookware.com. That's M-A-D-E-I-N cookware.com. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week

by the folks over there at Babbel. Did you know that learning, the experience of learning causes a sound to happen? Let's hear the sound. Yep, that's the sound of you learning a new language with Babbel. We're talking about quick 10-minute lessons crafted by over 200 language experts that can help you start speaking a new language in as little as one, two, three weeks. Let's hear that sound. Babbel's tips and tools are approachable, accessible, rooted in real-life situations,

and delivered with conversation-based teaching. So you're ready to practice what you've learned in the real world, and you get to hear this sound. It's not just like a game that pretends to teach you a language. It's also not a rigid, weird, hyper-academic chore. It is an actually productive app that actually teaches you while you are actually having a nice time. And you get to hear this sound.

Here's a special limited time deal for our listeners. Right now, get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription, but only for our listeners at babbel.com slash Hodgman. Get up to 60%, at babbel.com slash Hodgman. Get up to 60% off at babbel.com slash Hodgman, spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash Hodgman. Rules and restrictions apply. Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. With me, the good judge himself, John Hodgman. We're clearing the docket. Here is a case from Kelly. My husband, Kevin, and I both take fantasy football very seriously. We play in three different leagues, one of which is just the two of us playing head to head. in the fall involve very meticulous planning. We spent a lot of time doing research and making player spreadsheets, which could be one of the only things in our marriage that we don't share.

Part of this research involves listening to fantasy football podcasts, which allow us to help formulate our strategy. Kevin has only in the past few months started downloading and listening to podcasts. One of these podcasts is my fantasy football podcast. There are dozens of fantasy football podcasts, but I've been listening to the same show for the past three years. So I guess when she says hers, she means the one she listens to along with thousands of others. That's right.

The one that is free to download to all humans. Yes. He finds it hilarious to have me catch him listening to my podcast, and he's only doing it because he knows it makes me crazy. One of his favorite things to do is ask what I think about a specific player that was being highly touted on the podcast, knowing he would have the opportunity to add that player to his team before I would. Just like any other game, it's detrimental to both of us if we're using the same strategy to try and win, especially when he's only doing this to push my buttons. I request that you hand Kevin a cease and desist regarding listening to my podcast and order him to find and subscribe to a different fantasy football podcast. Please help us with our marital strife. So Kelly is asking me to prohibit her husband from listening to a different,

a podcast. Yes, because she found it first. A gag order in effect, except it's his ears that get gagged. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I'm, I'm censoring culture from his life. I guess. Let me back up for a second here. What is fantasy football? I guess. Let me back up for a second here. What is fantasy football?

Do you really need an explanation of fantasy football, Judge Hodgman? Okay, you pick. Here are my guesses. Okay. Before you tell me. It's either LARPy football, where people play football but dressed up as fantasy characters, elves, orcs, sword maidens, and such. Or it's football fan fiction where people write stories about their favorite football players and they ship them.

You know what I'm talking about? That's a fan fiction term. They ship. They ship two players. Yeah, it's like Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski involved in a romantic relationship. Are you shipping them? I'm going to say, in fact, I'm going to kick it up a notch and say involved in a sensual

relationship. You're shipping them in your head cannon? Exactly. Do you know what? I have a Tumblr account. That's why I know things. But you were saying? Fantasy football is a form of gambling in which it's like a community-oriented gambling, though.

You don't usually play against the house, although things have changed in the last few years. It's basically a game of skill in which you draft in some way, either a rotation draft or an auction draft, players onto your team representing all of the various positions in football. And then over the course of a season, as these players play, their actions earn you points. So, you know, a touchdown earns you 10 points. A field goal earns you five points. You know, a yard rushed gains you a point, whatever.

There are just different systems. And you can trade players throughout the season and sign and release players. And especially in fantasy football where it happens only once a week, a big part of it is deciding which of your players you will have play that week based on that player's real-life circumstances that week. So, you know, if you have two great quarterbacks, one of them might be facing a weak defense that week. And so that's the kind of thing that she might be learning from her fantasy football podcast, that kind of tip.

Especially if she's playing head to head with only two teams, they probably have half the NFL to choose from in some way. And so, you know, they're really looking for what players in the best what's the best player in the best circumstances that week. So it's like a dopey stock market? Yeah, it's like a fun— Like you buy shares in a player and you choose when to play that player based on the likelihood that that player is going to do well and earn you points and or money and or bragging rights with your husband or wife? Yeah, the fantasy here is that you have your own football team. And so it's like being in charge of your own football team. That's always been my fantasy.

Yes. Well, you're talking to a guy who basically spent his entire college experience not studying but instead playing a computer game called Baseball Mogul in which you own a baseball team and you set the hot dog prices in addition to drafting and trading players. So you know exactly what kind of nerd you're dealing with here. I've never played fantasy football, though. First of all, I would love to see the graphics on Baseball Mogul. Oh, there were no graphics, Judge Hodgman.

Oh, no? No, sir. It was a text adventure pure text adventure yeah i mean there was menus this was the windows era but um yeah you're looking at you're looking at a lot of basically slightly colorful spreadsheets well everyone likes what they like i would love to play a game where i just determine the hot dog prices at a at a baseball stadium and don't care about the sports at all but i okay i understand now and there are podcasts about this and this is

and so she is feeling see the prop my problem here with kelly is that she's making two different arguments uh one which is this argument that both players suffer if their strategy is the same, which I've never. Does that make does that ring true to you as a sports follower? Yeah, well, because it's sort of a zero sum game. So if one player has if one team has one player, the other one doesn't. So especially in a head to head league, if they've got the same information, neither of them is able to take advantage of that information. But it sounds like her, at the same time, she's saying that her husband is using the podcast to get tips before she does and take advantage of them before she can, right?

It sounds like her husband is listening to this podcast specifically because it bothers her. Sure. But this is also part of sports, right? Getting in your opponent's head. Of course. Yes. And, and even, even if he is merely getting in her head, he has found a competitive advantage that is, that is clearly has put her on tilt,

as we say in the sedentary sports world of poker. And, and that is a competitive advantage that i do not feel he should be robbed of because he figured out a way to really annoy her yeah which is every spouse's right to learn how to annoy their spouse so unfortunately no not not only on a simple non no censorship grounds but also on i'm rooting for this guy grounds you you know, I'm sorry, Kelly, you got to, you got to find another podcast. You got to listen harder. You got to play faster, whatever the, whatever the metaphor might be for an imaginary football game and podcasts thereof. This is why I see there is no, there is no, this is why metaphors are illegal, but there you go. Sorry about that.

Here's a gavel for you, Kevin. Here's something from Brian. My roommate and I live in a downtown Austin condo that only comes with one parking spot. We've decided against buying another parking spot in the building because we can just barely afford rent and because we have free parking at our respective offices, which are about six blocks from our home. We alternate the parking spot by week. One week he has it, the next week I have it. The person who does not have the spot in any given week must keep his car at work and walk to and from the office.

The system has worked relatively well, but my roommate believes the person who has the parking spot has total rights to it for the week and does not have any obligation to accommodate the other person. For example, he recently took a four-day work trip in a week during which he had the spot. Instead of leaving his car at his office for those four days, he left it in our parking spot, depriving me of any use of the spot, even though he was out of town. He also often chooses to walk to work, leaving his car in our parking spot, depriving me of the ability to run home to grab

something in the middle of the day. I believe that in situations such as these, the person who has the parking spot should be required to accommodate the other person despite our system. I would like the court to order my roommate move his car to his office when he goes out of town, even if it's his turn to have our parking spot. I would also like the court to order my roommate to drive to work on weeks in which he has the parking spot. Did you follow all that, Joel? No, Joel says no. I think I get the gist. The gist is this. You know how there's a rule on this podcast that married or cohabitating couples who are romantically involved and sleep together in the same bed should always have a king size bed. Yeah.

So there's a new rule. Everyone should live alone. Everyone should stop sharing things. And also everyone should live alone and sleep in a king size bed and just share nothing. Because it's just maybe you guys can't handle the sharing all right you're sharing this parking spot you both have cars you live six blocks from work why you're ever driving to work to begin with i do not know and you're alternating dibs on the parking spot week by week. And you're having trouble because your roommate sometimes uses the parking spot in a way that you don't like. Yeah, that's what having a

roommate is all about. I'm sorry, but the point of establishing a rule about sharing. The point of having this system is designed to free up your mind space, to not have to worry about it, to give you the peace of mind that, say, a parking spot offers you. When you have a parking spot in life, it's a great thing because you know that that's where your car is or that's where your car goes and no one can interfere with it. And the reality and what you have chosen to do is to alternate that peace of mind in your living relationship. Therefore, your roommate can do whatever he likes with that spot when it's his spot for that week. He can leave his car there.

He can go park somewhere else. He can park backwards or forwards in there. He can sell his car and fill it up with crates of fresh lalala's. As long as they're out of there by the time it's your turn to pull into that spot, then it's his business. It's your turn to pull into that spot. Then it's his business. Because what you do not want to have in your life is this constant micro negotiation about like, well, here's the 55 exceptions that I think are fair to the simple rule that we established.

Eventually, I hope in life that you will be in a position where you can have your own parking spot and your own house and your own apartment or whatever it is. But seriously, if you guys can't figure out how to share stuff, don't do it. Go move to Maine. You can probably live here pretty cheaply by yourself. I mean, 98% of the state is parking spots. Isn't that right, Joel? That's right, Judge.

Yeah. What's the longest you ever looked for a parking spot in Maine? I never have. Yeah, you never have. Never have, exactly. That's right. Never has. So I find in favor of Brian's roommate.

What do you think, Jesse? Was I right or wrong on that one? Oh, you're dead right. I mean, this is ridiculous. Look, it's one thing to ask for an accommodation. It's another thing to... No. It's not an accommodation

if you're making a weird demand for it. Yeah, and you can't ask. You can't ask, dude. You can't ask to use a parking spot when it's not your week. Ugh.

Ugh. Hey, do you mind if I have the podcast when you're out of town? Actually, I don't mind. I could be swimming in uncomfortably cold water right now if you had it. it but i would miss so much talking to you my friend in bailiff jesse thorne and getting a chance to see joel here at weru 89.9 in blue hill webcasting at www.weru.org true community freeform radio joel freeform totally so you get in you play whatever you want well you have a genre that you stick to but you get to pick out what music you want to play.

We don't, no playlists, nothing. What was that band you were playing that you were telling me about that I had never heard of? Ultimate Spinach. Ultimate Spinach. Yeah. Funky Freak Parade. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah.

So if you ever have a chance on the internet there, and you're not in Maine, go over to WERU.org, take a listen. And obviously you can donate to this fine station if you feel like it what else is going on uh in our podcast now jesse oh man i'm just i'm just i'm just geeking out on the spinach i'm a real spinach head joel so jesse honestly between you and me have you ever heard of a band called ultimate spinach or is joel gaslighting me i'm pretty sure joel's gaslighting you. Either Joel's gaslighting you, or he's been following the spaghetti incident around on tour or whatever.

No, no, no, no. No, it's a psychedelic band called Ultimate Spinach, and their hit was the Funky Freak Parade. Their hit. Yeah. Sounds like a real smash. I hear that one on the oldies station all the time. That's a real classic golden oldie.

I have the internet, Joel. Here in Maine, I get the internet half an hour every day. And when that comes around again, I'm going to look it up. Ultimate Spinach. And if I like it, maybe that'll be the new theme song. Hello, teachers

and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace because yes, listening is mandatory.

The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. No running in the halls. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, call S-T-O-P-P-P-A-D-I. It'll never fit. No, it will. Let me try. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S-T-O-P-P-P-D-C-O-O.

We are so close. Stop podcasting yourself. A podcast from MaximumFun.org. If you need a laugh and you're on the go. Judge Hodgman, we've got a letter here about vape pens. This is important stuff here. You may remember

episode 258 in Modo Parentis in which a very sweet-tempered but very teenager-y teen was demanding that his mother obtain for him a vape pen. Yeah, not only let him have one, but buy it for him. Yeah. So here's something from Rebecca. Rebecca says, I'm an experimental theater artist in

Providence, Rhode Island. And I teach- All right. I will marry you. What? Sorry. And I teach acting classes. I'm surprised. I would have thought that her experimental theater career in Providence would have been supporting her, but she's doing a little work on the side. She says, I was starting a new intro to performance adult acting class last winter with 15 or so very kind adults who wanted to try out acting for the first time in a formal setting. Sounds great. We were sitting in a circle in chairs in a basement studio, and I was going through my standard first-day chat about expectations for the class. After about 20 minutes of that, I asked everyone to scoot their chairs back and stand up.

It was time to play a name game. Judge Hodgman, have you ever studied acting formally? I have taken some classes, yes. It's basically theater training, and I did four years of it. Theater training is basically a process by which you are broken down. Yes. Sort of like how they play metal songs really loud so prisoners can't sleep. That's right.

But it's based on shame. So they just make you do more and more embarrassing things over the course of time until you no longer have any shame or self-consciousness and you can just go on stage and feel any feeling immediately. My limited experience with acting instruction was terrifying and extremely productive for me as a performer and human being. Yeah, I mean, basically they- But it is hard. It's very hard. I mean, they really put you through the wringer. You have to act like a tree until you no longer have a sense of self or any shame.

And then you can access everything about yourself immediately when called to in a performance context. It's a remarkable and terrifying thing that I really- Yeah, but for me, tree acting just came naturally. That's true. I was just playing myself, basically. Well, you've always been very leafy. Excuse me, did you say I've always been very leafy? Yes, I did.

No, dude, I'm a conifer. I am needly. Oh, got it. Okay, so everyone scooted their chairs back and stood up. Then out of nowhere, the young man to my left's pants caught on fire, exploded from the pocket. Burst into flames. Because of his acting?

He ran from the room. We all followed. He beat the fire out with his hand and his pants were burnt off his leg. I called 911 and the other students took care of the now calmer burn victim student. The rest of the story is pretty good and includes the power of theater games for community healing. But the moral of the story is the battery from a vape in his pocket exploded, unprovoked. He ended up with third-degree burns on his thigh and hand. That's very serious.

It is. He couldn't take the rest of the acting class, and I think his family is suing the vape company. So she says, no vapes and definitely no motorcycle vaping. That's an amazing story and we've got quite a few letters from people talking about, aside from

whatever physical harm the vaping may or may not do to your lungs, and it's really not been shown or studied very closely yet. You're basically inhaling some perfumed mystery substance. Also, we made the point on the podcast that any coolness that accrues to you from owning and riding a motorcycle, which is considerable coolness, is immediately evaporated, so to speak, by having a vape pen in your life. Sorry, vapors. But also people were a lot of people wrote in saying, yeah, they explode. And there's a lot of controversy about these things, reliability and causing of fires.

They're basically the hoverboard of nicotine replacement. the hoverboard of nicotine replacement. We got a lot of letters, but we only read the one from the experimental theater performer in Providence, Rhode Island, because I accept her proposal of marriage. Even though I am married, we will find a way to work it out because you sound like 17-year-old me's perfect woman, aside from my wife. I feel like I want to acknowledge the other side of the vape letters that we received. And I certainly got more than a few tweets about this, which is as much as we mock vapes because they are completely and profoundly embarrassing, like the dorkiest,

most embarrassing thing on earth, and also because their safety is untested and so on and so forth. All of those things being true. It does seem almost certain that they are healthier for you than smoking. And they're certainly less unpleasant to non-smokers than smoking. Unpleasant though they are. So a tip of the cap to everyone who is quitting smoking by vaping. We acknowledge you and... Don't get burned. Yeah. So try not to let that vape explode.

Thanks this week to our engineer, Joel Mann at WERU, our producer, Jennifer Marmer. Hey, Judge Hodgman, I want to mention before we go something really cool. I want to hear about something really cool. Well, you know our friend Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of numerous books, including the international mega bestseller Eat, Pray, Love. Stern Men. What? Which one did you mention? I mentioned Stern Men, her novel about Maine.

I will also mention her most recent book, which is fresh in paperback or about to appear in paperback called Big Magic, which is about creativity. And it's like totally funny and inspirational and a joy to read. And I really loved. She's a wonder and an inspiration. Yeah. If you got some weird idea about what Elizabeth Gilbert is because of Julia Roberts and the movie Eat, Pray, Love and the preview that you saw of that movie, just know like Elizabeth Gilbert is just one of the coolest MFers that exists on the earth. Anyway, her middle name is F and awesome. Yeah. So Liz Gilbert has a brand new Maximum Fun podcast called Magic Lessons. And it is so great that I'm just like want to throw in a plug for it. We're so proud to be associated with it.

Basically, what she does is, you know, she has this huge community of readers, many of whom are creative people themselves. And she basically asked that community, what are your creative challenges? Like, what's keeping you from making stuff? And whatever it is that you make. And they responded to her. And so on each episode of this podcast, she talks to one of those people, finds out about what their creative challenges are, then brings in like a heavy hitter creative person. We're talking about like Neil Gaiman. You know, we're talking about serious people. And then- Name creatives. Big name creatives. Yeah, you want to know what Cheryl Strayed thinks about it? She'll tell you. So those folks come in, talk about their challenges and how they recommend this person deal with their challenges. And then Liz helps that person.

And we bring that person back and hear about how they address these things that we're standing between them and being creative. And it is so fun and funny and sweary and inspirational. Like I know that I said inspirational like four times, but I am very rarely inspired by anything, certainly by anything other than talking to George Saunders. So like it is genuinely awesome show. Like it's so cool. And I'm so proud that Maximum Fun is part of it. There's 10 episodes from the first season and the second season is just coming out now. So run out and grab it.

And if you happen to be listening to it, the first season, here's a weird thing. You have to unsubscribe, find it again and resubscribe because the RSS feed changed. But Big Magic with Elizabeth, excuse me, Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert is what the show is called. Big Magic is the book, which I also love.

So I just wanted to throw in that mention because that show's great. You know she is my hero and you know what I hear about this podcast. What's that? It will really help your fantasy football game. Yeah, absolutely. If you're creatively blocked in thinking about what kicker you should play this week, holler at Elizabeth Gilbert. She'll fix you up. Okay. If you have a case for Judge John Hodgman, MaximumFun.org slash JJHO. We're especially, of course, looking for cases in the places where we will be performing live

along the Eastern Seaboard and in London, England. So make sure to mention where you are physically. and in London, England. So make sure to mention where you are physically. We're going to be getting people in who have great cases. That is Brooklyn, Washington, D.C., Portland, Maine, Turner's Falls, Boston, and Philadelphia, plus London, England. But of course, we are always taking your cases big and small from all over the world

at MaximumFun.org slash JJHO. Jesse, I just remembered something. What's that? Do you remember how on this podcast I told a story about Elizabeth Gilbert and how her dog chewed up my sunglasses 10 or 15 years ago and I was mad at her because she stole me 200 bucks? Yeah, she was stricken about it. She emailed me about it.

Well, it was a joke, right? I mean, it was true, but it was a true story, but I didn't care. Yeah. No? Yeah. No. Yeah. But I got a letter in the mail from Liz and she said, oh, I can't believe that I just found this cleaning out some 10 or 15 year old files. It's a letter that I meant to send to you. I don't even remember what I wrote. And inside was this purposefully aged, bogus old letter apologizing for her dog chewing up my sunglasses and including $200. So everybody, debt has been paid in the most hilarious way.

And maybe if I remember it next time, Joel, I'll bring it in with me to WRU and I'll read it on the air or the fake Internet air, as it were. Okay, we'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Joel, take us out on some ultimate spinach. Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported.