Judge John Hodgman - I Want My nth TV

Episode Date: August 5, 2015

  Caroline brings the case against her husband Steve. They cannot agree -- how many TVs is TOO many? Caroline thinks it's best to minimize TV watching, and that a single TV is most appropriate. Steve says it can't hurt to have a few extra screens as long as you don't go overboard. Who's right? Who's wrong? Only one man can decide.

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm your good time, summer sunshine bailiff, Monty Belmonte from WRSI in Northampton, Massachusetts, in for Jesse Thorne. This week, I want my nth TV. Caroline brings the case against her husband, Steve. They cannot agree. How many TVs is too many? Caroline thinks it's best to minimize TV watching and that a single TV is most appropriate. Steve says it can't hurt to have a few extra screens as long as you don't go overboard. Who's right?

Who's wrong? Only one man can decide. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and issues the obscure cultural reference. I'm serious. enters the courtroom and issues the obscure cultural reference. on me. I'm kicking. I'm calm. I'm kicking. Podcasting. Podcasting. Okay, Summer Bale of Monty Belmonti, swear them in. Caroline and Steve, please rise and raise your right hands and then put them down on your remote control. DVR, whatever show you could be watching right now. Now raise both your hands like rabbit ear antennae. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth like you've seen on Law and Order, Hill Street Blues and and Night Court, so help you, Mr. Television, Milton Berle, or whomever?

I do. I do. Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he is on TV all the time and would likely love to be on multiple screens in your home? I do. I very much do. Thank you. Judge John Hodgman, you may proceed.

Caroline and Stephen, you may be seated. Holy moly, Monty Belmonte, that was quite an elaborate oath. Very, very detailed. A lot of body work. I try. Yeah, that was good. And also- You're going to swear in. You're going to use your whole body. Yeah. And more obscure cultural references than I think I've ever made on the podcast. You know, Night Court and Hill Street Blues, children don't know what those things are. That's when I stopped watching television. I know. That's, you know, oh my goodness.

But no, I have only one obscure cultural reference that needs to be answered for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors caroline or steven can you name the piece of culture that i referenced when i entered the courtroom caroline you brought i might say caroline or carolyn caroline or caroline caroline like sweet caroline sweet caroline that's another one so if you're getting that one you probably do get the night court reference.

Can you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom? I don't recognize it, but it sounded to me like Frank Zappa. You know, you're within a ballpark, I would say. Zappa Stadium. Yes. Well, it used to be called Zappa Stadium. Now it's known as Bank America. Bank of America, Zappa Stadium. What about you, Stephen?

Well, I was hoping for a little black flag TV party as an option. But no, I'm afraid I don't know it unless it is the band television okay it's not the band television i didn't think so tv tv party tonight was my first the first one i was gonna do when i i used my internet to cross that out i used my computer to cross it off the list because then i remembered there is a great song by the band Wilco called Kicking Television. And it is one of the weirdly Zappa-y songs that Wilco does. And of course, both Monty and I both spent some time with the great band of Wilco in Western Massachusetts, where Monty Belmonte hosts his radio show at WRSI The River. I, meanwhile, am in my summer residence up here in Blue Hill, Maine at WERU,

available to your internet at WERU.org, with Joel Mann producing, to my left, The Silent Man. That's what I call him. And so I thought it would be, oh, The Third Man, exactly. I thought it would be fun for me and me alone if I did a terrible acapella version of kicking television because I didn't have time to learn it on the ukulele. And so all guesses are wrong. And we have to hear this case about television. Caroline, you bring this case before this court. You have you moved or are you going to move? We have moved. We moved about two weeks ago. When you wrote your petition to this court, my understanding was that your husband, Stephen, had already moved ahead of time to Florida and was buying TVs left and right without your permission or foreknowledge. And now you have arrived at your new home in Florida.

Where in Florida, Caroline? We're in Gainesville. Gainesville, Florida, in your new home. And how many televisions do you have in the home? We have three televisions in this home right now, I think. All right. And how many, Caroline, would you like to have in the home? One.

Right. So you are petitioning this court for me to order your husband to smash two televisions. Well, that would be funny, and my son would love that, but I'm happy with just giving them away. So three televisions to you, Stephen, is a good idea. Such a good idea that you would go ahead and buy them without your wife's knowledge or approval, correct? Incorrect. Okay, tell me how I'm incorrect. Okay, well, so the main TV that we had in our previous home and is now installed in the family room in our new home, we bought together at the same time going to the same store all at once.

How many in the household? How many people? Two children. And a dog. All right. And the dog had a say in this as well? No. The dog is almost as new as the house.

Good decision, by the way. You know why? Because dogs buy the worst TVs because they don't see in color. You moved to Florida ahead of time to set up a household. Why did you move to Florida? My new job started earlier than we were ready to move. What are your respective jobs? I'm a professor.

You're a professor. I'm retired. You're retired? I retired and moved to Florida. What was your job before your husband broke the terrible news to you that he was taking you from a civilized state to an apocalyptic wasteland? I was a financial executive. All right. Hang on a second. You were a financial executive. All right, hang on a second. You're a financial executive? I was. At a bank? No, I worked for a startup software company. Okay, all right. So

when you say you retired, you mean the thing folded? No, actually, we raised our Series A financing. And at that point, I was moving to Florida, so I turned it over to somebody else. So you gave up your job in the technology of the future, your executive position, to move to Florida with your professor husband? I did. What are you a professor of, sir? Pharmacology. Oh, now wait a minute. It's the ecology of farms. uh pharmacology oh now wait a minute no wonder you're offered a job in florida it's actually because i study taste and smell what

would you say that again for these disbelieving ears i study taste and smell you study taste and smell of methamphetamine is that what you're saying because i'm not sure that those are the things that people prize in methamphetamine it's k and mouthfeel feel more food related yes but yeah but so you're in the field of pharmacology but you study the smell and taste of food well i study how we detect odors and tastes and tongues and noses coming from foods yes yeah tongues and noses is the answer. Tongues and noses. I just got you out of a job. You're the head of the smell and taste department? Incoming, yes.

Give me something interesting, some little-known fact about smell and taste that would justify having a Ph.D. in this field. Well, nowadays I'm not sure anything justifies having a Phd in anything but that's a that's a side issue the um you and elon musk what you know what a lot of people don't recognize is that when they are thinking of the taste of things they're actually thinking of something we call flavor which your brain puts together the, the, your sense of taste. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Could you, I'm, I'm getting, I'm getting all wrapped up in these academic terms. Did you say flavor? What is that? Flavor flavor is,

is the overall perception you would have of a food that you're eating. And that includes the taste, the salty, sour, bitter, sweet, umami and, and, uh, umami, and... Fat. They're adding fat. Fat. Fat. Yeah. There's still a debate in the field whether that's a distinct taste or not.

As to whether that counts as a separate taste. Trust me. It certainly influences flavor, though, because it influences solubility and texture. You also have the smell of foods, the odor is something that goes to what we call retronasal olfaction where it goes the odors that from the foods that you are chewing or drinking go through the back of your mouth into your nose and that's important component of how you have flavor so so when you have a head cold and things don't taste right it's actually because you're not smelling those odors. From the back of my mouth.

From the back, coming from the back of your mouth. Like milk coming through your nose when you laugh. Joel Mann and I were just talking about how there's a terrible summer cold working its way through New England right now, and I have it. Can you hear me? So when I lick this microphone, it does not taste the way it normally does. So let me just boil it let me just boil this down it tastes the same the flavor is different oh i see my

perception of it yes right it tastes the same but at my percept my yeah are you sure that that's that's a pretty groovy statement are you sure there's not some other pharmacology going on? I see a key academic paper and they have written already on that. You and I, we lick the same microphone, but we're tasting different cosmoses. This microphone's flavor is different to you and me, but the taste is the same. We just can't perceive it the same way. This is heavy. This is heavy. This is heavy. And the fact that you're,

you're telling me that a lot of my taste is me regurgitating my food up into the back from the back of my mouth into my nose. I'm like, yeah, no wonder they have endowed a chair for you at the university of Florida. I'm going to move my family down there just to, just to, just to study in your seminar.

Okay. Glad to. All right so okay now i understand the whole the whole thing that basically you had to tell your kids we gotta we gotta give up the life that you know to move to florida because dr smell and taste has got a good job but there is compensation daddy's gonna buy a bunch of new tvs so you've always had one tv you move down ahead of time and suddenly there are three tvs how did this happen well that's not not exactly the case we'd had previously had two tvs so there's the the the main tv that sat in the family, which we always refer to as the TV room, that's a large-ish flat panel TV. And then many years ago, Caroline had bought another TV specifically for me to use in the kitchen. It was a small, about five-inch TV radio combination.

Sure. Because I do a large amount of the cooking and so it'd be in the kitchen and could have that on to watch something while yeah cooking dinner or right obviously and obviously you're going to do most of the cooking because you're the smell and taste expert uh so anyway so she bought me this small tv small TV, and this was before the digital conversion, when you could have broadcast TV over satellite tv and switch to only streaming various things over the internet yeah because you're because you're people of the future you looked at the landscape and you're like streaming and stealing that's where it's at stealing that's where it's at that you've got us pegged okay um so at that point the sense it was there was no longer a digital broadcast signal available um i purchased a small 19 inch tv to

replace the little one in the back uh in the kitchen and then on the wall so yes i did buy that one to replace the one that she had given me that can no longer work yeah the set the five inch one or whatever the sony watchman that she bought for you back in 1992 is garbage so you replaced it and you upgraded it by a factor of three and a half. But 19 inches is a small TV these days. Yeah. It was a small TV. So where did the third TV come into play? The third TV is that when I came down to Florida

ahead of them, I rented an apartment for a while before we all purchased the house down here. Mm-hmm. And so my parents had a small TV, I think it's a 20 inch, maybe 21 that they were no longer using and, uh, let me have to use in the apartment. Got it. So I did not buy that TV. And did you have any other furniture in the apartment or was it just you and your beloved parental television? It was a, there was a, um, a table,

a borrowed couch and a mattress on the floor and a chair. And did you have the time of your life or what? Uh, no, actually it was not, not particularly fun. And I would, and I would fly back to Baltimore just about every weekend. Good for you. Um, but now you're not in your weird bachelor pad anymore. No, now you've all moved into your home. It's very simple. You have three TVs. Caroline wants you to have one. Why do you not want to get rid of two TVs? One TV, I think, would be appropriate to have in the guest room. I think that as a courtesy to guests, I think having an additional TV to the main TV is important because,

uh, there are a number of times where I, or perhaps even Caroline would like to watch a show or a movie that is not appropriate for our kids at their ages. Um, for the, at the moment I'm sort of working my way through Boardwalk Empire. Sure.

That is not appropriate for 10 or 13-year-olds in my Carolina degree. I watched it with my nine-year-old and it was great. I would have to know what it was to know whether it was appropriate or not. Let me explain to you, Caroline. Boardwalk Empire is a TV show that is set during Prohibition. And you may not recall that Prohibition was that weird time in American history where we all decided we wanted to see Steve Buscemi naked. to see Steve Buscemi naked. It's hard to understand now, but back then in the 1920s,

everyone thought Steve Buscemi was extremely sexy and we wanted to see him have a lot of love scenes. I told my wife that Boardwalk Empire was appropriate for my 10-year-old because it was the live-action version of Monopoly. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Which, that game itself is not appropriate for 10 year olds no definitely not yeah i like that show quite a bit and i love steve buscemi and i would love to

i would love to hug and kiss him just put that put it out there so therefore your perfect tv setup steven would be three tvs one in the guest room, one in the kitchen, and one in the kitchen. How do you first, what's your dream setup here? I think having at least two TVs is appropriate. The one in the main, in the family room, the kitchen sort of is open to that. So a large TV that can be viewed both from the kitchen and from the family room is appropriate there. I would argue that the one that we have is a little small for that, but that's a separate point. I think having a second TV where adults can go to

watch something that is not if they want to watch something, or someone can just go if if someone's watching some of the main tv that don't want to say um yeah i get it a documentary about long distance running for example that would be inappropriate for children or husbands yes steven i want you to tell me the three rooms that you want to put the three TVs in. The family room? Yeah, which is visible from the kitchen, or the kitchen can... Correct. Right, got it. Good. How big is that TV? It is 52 inches.

That's 52, and that's the one you think is a little small? For the space, yes. Cathedral ceilings. In contemporary American culture culture that is considered to be portable all right family room got it next uh the guest room guest room which one is that uh one of the small tvs one of the small tvs the the one from your former kitchen or the one from your mom and dad's house i I think from my parents' house. All right, good. And then?

And then the other one, we, like a lot of modern houses, ours is, our master bedroom is way too big. Okay, master bedroom. And so there'll be plenty of room to place small TV to the side. To not watch while people are going to sleep, but just because that's a room where someone can go away from the other people during the day. Now I understand why you had to build up this whole long thing about how things have to be, you need to have a separate space so you can watch your Boardwalk Empire and other inappropriate content because you want to put a TV in the bedroom.

I think that's the most appropriate room in our house. I would do not have to have it in the bedroom. The office would be another option. I think it'd be the most comfortable place to have it. The bedroom would be the most comfortable place to have it. Yeah. All right. I'm not judging you yet.

I'm just trying to get all the information. Caroline. Yes. We live in what everyone has been saying for a long time is a golden age of television. being produced truly great drama and comedy and, and almost novelistic stories that are far more interesting and mature and sometimes mature than movies are allowed to be. Cause they're just made for kids who want to get out of the house and hug each other.

But also it's available as you, as you guys well know through so through so many new and interesting venues. It's not just broadcast and cable. You've got your Netflix and your Hulu and your Amazon. And I think Chipotle's got a channel now and LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn is commissioning original content. Airbnb. Have you watched that Airbnb channel? It's just, it's just,

I think it's just, yeah, I think exactly. It's just, it's just nanny cams from various Airbnbs. Best of spy cams. So why, why do you hate TV so much that you don't want your husband to put a television in your bedroom. Interestingly enough, I don't hate TV. I tend to think that television is overused. I think they're great television programs, and I have very fond memories watching Neutral of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, followed by the Disney, the Wild, whatever the Disney show was when I was a kid every Sunday night. Well, the Disney, World of Disney or whatever. Right.

And roll that into the Hardy Boys. Yeah, I didn't get that far. My parents didn't like TV. Oh, all right. Okay. Yeah. You're suffering. There you go.

You're working through shame issues. Right. All right. And so, but I don't think that we need three TVs to entertain us. movie, TV show streaming through those devices in any room at any time that it's allowed.

How old are your kids? The older one is 13 and is a boy and the younger one is 10 and is a girl. Yeah, they can watch Boardwalk Empire themselves in their rooms. Except for I don't let them watch through their... They're not allowed to watch their devices in their rooms. Except for I don't let them watch through there.

They're not allowed to watch their devices in their rooms. You're a good parent. I try my best. Yeah. But we don't really watch network television. And in the cases that we do, like Olympics or sporting events, we watch it all together. Right. You know, one of the things that's happened when we've moved down here is,

despite the fact this house is slightly larger, we seem to have much less room to sort of keep and display the art and treasures or whatever it is that we have that I would like to put out. So I really don't want to waste desk or counter or table space with televisions that aren't going to be used very often because normally somebody's watching whatever they're going to watch on their personal internet connected device. I am the primary house cleaner, especially when it comes to dusting. I think electronics attract a huge amount of dust and it's annoying to have to clean a TV that we do use. So I don't really want to clean two more that we don't use. In the 12 years that we were in the other house in Baltimore, we did not have a TV in the bedroom. So it's not like I'm taking something away.

This is something that we've lived with almost the whole time we've been married. We've never had a TV in our bedroom. I don't particularly think TVs belong in bedrooms. Explain to me and your husband why. I tend to think of the bedroom as being, it should be a quiet and peaceful sanctuary. We don't really need to have a television in there. If Steve wants to watch TV in there, he'll do what he does right now, which is watch TV on his iPad. Yeah, why not just watch your Boardwalk Empire on your

iPad in the bedroom instead of spending time with your wife? Which I do. I mean, I'm thinking of not so... something more during the day, when we can sit, see on a larger screen,

that's a very small screen. And for some things that's, that's just not as, uh, it's just not as enjoyable. I've always been one who's really like, you know, the movie theater experience and the sort of the, the breadth and spectacle of, of things. And so larger screens, I think convey that better. Do you have a room in your house that could conceivably just be a screening room? No. How many, how many rooms do you have in the house? Let's see. Three bedrooms, or four bedrooms, including ours, an office, the kitchen, family room, sort of overall,

and then dining room and living room. And is this a relatively recent construction? May I presume that the kitchen and living room and dining room all sort of flow together in what they call open concept living? Yes, the kitchen and the family room do. The dining room and the living room are separate. They flow together. But yes, it is a one-floor 20-year-old house, very different than the 100-year-old one that we

just moved out of. So you have a formal living room and then a family room that abuts the kitchen, is that right? Correct. And that TV right now is in the family room, your 52-incher? Yes. All right. So I just wanted to get sort of a picture in my head. Now, Caroline has expressed that she would prefer not to have a TV in the bedroom. And I think she makes a fairly strong case. How do you respond to it? I think we see sanctuary a little bit differently. I would see the bedroom as, because it is this ridiculously large size, as is the tendency to make houses nowadays in master bedrooms just being way too big.

But we have a couch in there now and a significant amount of room where it's almost like there's a separate sitting room and bedroom all in one. Is the TV in that room right now? No, the two other TVs are not hooked up. They're in boxes. Right, okay. And do you propose that the TV in the bedroom would be visible from the bed or would it be sort of in a separate sitting area it could stay in the box I'd be I just want to hear what Steve's dream is

it's not a dream is probably not the right I think it would be I'd be happy with it as long as it was visible from the sofa and be happy to have it to arrange the room such that it was not visible from the bed. Caroline, do you think that that's a possible solution? No. Why?

Steve married me almost 16 years ago knowing that I did not like televisions and knowing that I did not want a television in our bedroom. And to this point, we have never had one in the bedroom. So I feel like. Did you write it into your vows? I secretly wrote it into the vows, but he didn't repeat that part. Yeah. You have to realize that lots of times the other spouse, when you get married, writes secret vows that they never tell you about. It's like a signing statement for the president.

Exactly. All right. Go on. using this opportunity of the fact that all of a sudden we have two extra TVs to slip them into places just because we have them. Not like if we didn't have them at all, like for some reason, they both fell off the truck, the moving truck on the way down here. He would not run out and insist on purchasing televisions to put in these rooms. Well, he knows that he would never get away with it. Well, but that's not fair for him to say, all right, now I think I can get away with it. So I'm going to slip the TV in the bedroom.

Well, no, but it was a situation where in the maelstrom of moving, he ended up with an extra television. And it may as well just fallen off the truck into his bachelor pad and now he's got it in a box you know what I mean once you get once you buy a gun you want to shoot something you know what I mean like that's why that's why guns and televisions are dangerous you know you don't want to have it unless you can turn it on. Steve, how do you respond to this idea that you are breaking your marital vows? For either our entirety of our marriage or nearly the entirety of our marriage, we've had two or three TVs set up in the house.

When we were first living in the house previous to the one we just moved out of, we had a TV in the living room. It was a row house, so it was not big. We had a small TV, the one that Caroline purchased for me, in the kitchen, which was physically separated, so they couldn't see the two. And then we had another small TV that Caroline had up in our son's bedroom so that she could watch things while she was nursing or otherwise dealing with him at odd hours. And now you want your own nursing television. Pardon me?

Now you want your own nursing television. What would you watch when you were nursing your son? What's your television jams? Well, really, to tell you the truth, I don't remember. The only thing I actually remember watching when I was nursing my son was the September 11th newscast all right which is I know sorry that's a bummer but that's the only thing I actually remember watching on that television right yeah yeah I don't remember what she watched either and it was not regular but when we moved to the house

that we just moved out of we all had two TVs for the entire time. If the architecture of the current house was such that this kitchen was separate from the family room, I would have no problem with keeping that same arrangement, second TV in the kitchen, but that's not the way it is now. Now that you can see the family room TV from the kitchen, you feel you're owed an extra television. I think everyone would object if there were two TVs going on and playing different things in basically the same room. All right. What do you watch when you cook? I mean, lately I've been sort of working my way through a bunch of the very high quality ones that have become available for free streaming lately.

So right before we left Baltimore, I got to see all of The Wire and The Sopranos. You're watching those with your kids, I presume? I mean, obviously you're able to watch these adult shows. Well, one thing that has certainly changed over the last couple of years is that as the kids are older and staying up later there is no longer that opportunity we used to have as it used to be a situation where you know the kids would be asleep by eight o'clock and then the two of us would come down fix dinner and watch something together and make our way through. I mean, we watched the whole series of Lost that way over a period of years.

Battlestar Galactica, I can imagine, is another one, a series that we watched together over time. Hang on a second. Caroline? Yeah. Did you guys watch Battlestar Galactica together? Oh, yeah. It was awesome.

I loved it. You watched all of it? Every single episode? Yeah. Even the one with Judge John Hodgman in it? I'm sure we watched the one with Judge John Hodgman, but I don't remember which one that was. Now, that's the thing. It's like either you're lying or you're saying something that's very plausible that it was not very memorable. Not very memorable.

What TV shows, aside from watching September 11th coverage, what TV shows do you love? I love The Simpsons. I really haven't watched much television recently. Probably in the last two or three years. recently probably in the last probably two or three years I did watch the agents of shield with the kids but just the first season the second season started to get a little too gritty for them and they didn't want to watch it anymore 13 and say again 10 10 mm-hmm she's with the adventures all right that's fair fair just wanted to get a sense. I would say that Carolyn's absolutely right.

She has changed how much TV she watches in the last couple years. She still watches TV, but just not nearly as much. And we do not we really haven't watched anything together other than we do a family movie night on

typical Fridays and maybe another movie between just the two of us occasionally, but not very often anymore. Right. Caroline, it's clear television is not important to her life. Steve, tell me why television is important to your life. I've always been a big fan of movies and of a lot of television shows as well but sometimes you know i do a lot of you know my my work is is uh requires a lot of attention to detail and and thought and way too much paperwork um it's nice to unwind with something where the entertainment is being presented it's nice to unwind with something it's nice to unwind with something where the entertainment is being presented.

It's nice to unwind with something you can't smell or taste for once. Well, that is true. Just see and hear for once. Okay. I think I've heard everything that I need to. In order to make my decision, I'm going to go into my quadraphonic geodesic television no dome and uh and lie back and think this over and i'll get back to you uh with my decision in a moment please rise as judge john hodgman exits the courtroom caroline steve the debate between the number of tvs in your house caroline you move your loss is his gainesville you got three tvs now

in your household uh do you caroline view tv as a bonding time so you know just to you know interject my own personal family situation into this you know my wife and i we use tv time as a kind of a bonding time. We get a show and watch it together. You don't you don't have that, I'm assuming, with Steve. We have in the past, and I do view it that way. Actually, that's something that I enjoy when we do the family movie night. And actually, one of the things that Steve and I watch together is our sports team from Baltimore. And we enjoy that.

We enjoyed watching the World Cup with the U.S. women. That was fantastic. So, you know, I do see that as a bonding experience. But as a family, it seems like. As a family. Not as you and Steven. Like bedroom, from what I hear, sounds like bedroom equals sleepy time, not TV time and maybe not sexy time. Whoa.

Maybe I'm just reading too much into it, but I'm just I'm you know, is there a show that you two watch together as a couple? Battlestar Galactica. We did Battlestar Galactica. And we watch sexy like Hodgman on one episode. We watched Downton Abbey. Very sexy. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Okay, all right.

Slightly more sexy than Downton Abbey. Now, Stephen, three TVs, your holy Trinit TV thing going on in your household. Do you view TV time as couple bonding time? Is that part of the reason and your logic, but why you want to have a TV in the bedroom as opposed to just in sort of the family areas? Having the TV in the bedroom is really more just of the practicality of where it fits in the current house. But yes, I do. I actually do miss the time we used to when we would have a show or something that we would watch through sequentially and we would talk about.

I mean, it certainly was something that we earlier on that we would interact with a lot of times. So we would speculate about what was happening or we would complain about the bad acting or whatever it might be. And that is something that we don't have a chance to do anymore. And I don't think that's a function of the number of TVs. That's more just a function of how our life has gotten busier. Is this really not about the TVs, Stephen and Caroline? Is this about your need to bond? We'll be back in just a moment with Judge John Hodgman's decision.

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Ah, we are so close. Stop podcasting yourself. A podcast from MaximumFun.org. If you need a laugh and you're on the go. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom. Judge John Hodgman reenters the courtroom. Well, because I have tricked out my courtroom with all kinds of Airbnb spy cams, I was able to watch you guys while Monty was asking his very perceptive questions and hear you as well. That's the beauty of audio visual entertainment and and i think monty actually

was a better crux finder than i was uh so far because i think he really found that crux uh in that in that bedroom issue about uh about steven uh wanting to bond and, and to enjoy television in the way that, that he and his wife used to. And you notice the, the shows that they bonded over Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Buffy, all shows,

all shows that have ceased, have not been in existence for 10 years or more when we were nerds yeah well i mean i think there have been some cultural shifts to be sure but there are big cultural shifts in this family because their their their children are about a decade plus old. And so there is something quite, and it's not a surprise that they stopped bonding together over Buffy the Vampire Slayer as much as they used to and started spending more time nursing a child and watching cataclysmic events on television

and doing other things with their lives and watching cataclysmic events on television. And doing other things with their lives, with their increasingly large human children forcing their way into their lives. And, you know, I'm speaking to you now from Maine with a terrible head cold, which I'm afraid is making me sound a little mushy, both physically and emotionally. But my children have gone to sleep away camp

for the very first time just a few days ago. And it has been, my children are 13 and nine, right? And it has been emotionally devastating for my wife and I to not be with them because we actually love our children. But it has been, since the weeping has stopped it has been amazing the stuff that we have gotten done stuff that we've gotten done around the house and stuff that we've gotten done such as just sitting down and having a conversation for an uninterrupted period of 15 minutes or more and i think i might even get my wife to watch The Godfather for the first time in her life. We are listening to record albums. We went out and we bought a turntable and we set it up.

And we listened to not one, but two or three record albums from the ancient past. And it's an amazing reminder of how different life becomes when you have children. And each year that they get older, it gets complicated in more interesting and more time-consuming ways. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't have children, but you should think about it first. People who do not yet have children. I mean, it's a profound change in your life. And obviously, it's a profound change in the lives of two adults who love each other and then have to accommodate two other dumb humans who demand and deserve equal amounts of love from both of you and a feces load of time from both of you. I almost made a mistake and forgot. This is a family podcast. This is not a boardwalk empire podcast, you guys. And so, uh, you know, what Steven, what Steven is proposing,

even though he's completely, it seems unable to articulate his emotional life until that last moment with Monty. I really am grateful to you, Monty, because Stephen, your arguments have basically been, well, we accidentally got three TVs and there's a precedent for having more than one TV. So I don't see why, you know, I'm saying like, tell me why it's important to you to have a TV in the back. Well, it's just the most practical thing to do with this TV that we have.

You don't have to have a TV. You don't have to have it. The most practical thing to do with it is leave it where it is. That's expending the least amount of effort is to leave it in a box in the garage until someone takes it away. Or you sell it. It's like, if you want something, be prepared to explain to your wife why you want to break your de facto marital vows, because it's meaningful to you. And you almost convinced me, and maybe you could even convince your wife still, that it's important to have this TV in the bedroom in order to reconjure some of the cultural moments that you guys got to spend together when your children were younger and not staying up almost as late as regular adult humans. And yet, even if you did convince me, I would have to say, uh, no.

You can't, what you want, that time watching television with your wife, you can't have anymore. You can't have it. Your wife knows this. more. You can't have it. Your wife knows this. She knows that she's not going to leave your kids in the, in the family room to go watch an episode of boardwalk empire with you when they're still awake. Those kids aren't going to allow that to happen. You know, those kids are awake. They're not going to let you sit in your, in your bedroom den. Not, not at age 10 and 13. Now, when they're both 13 or over, guess what? You guys are immediate empty nesters.

They will not want to see you at all. But then you won't need to go into your bedroom because they're either going to be out going to see Avengers movies on their own of an evening, or they're going to be in their rooms on the internet talking to their 45-year-old men friends. But right now, the way your life is right now, that TV in that bedroom isn't going to help you get back what you had before, because you know what? You'll never get it back. You know, I said it before, nostalgia is a toxic impulse.

This idea that things were better before is usually wrong. And the idea that we can get back what we had is always wrong. And I not to tie it too closely into 9-11, but that's, you know, the insane evil people who flew that plane and killed thousands of people. and killed thousands of people, that whole jihadist movement is formed on a nostalgic delusion that somehow we can undo progress and go back to a better time, a time which was not better.

And certainly we can't go back at all. You know, and so, look, Caroline, you're the one who brought up 9-11. That's on you. That's why I had to made that metaphor. Sorry. I take it back. to try to turn this sitting room into, or the sitting area in your bedroom into a culture center, then I certainly would have no issue with it. Although I think every sleep expert

and marital expert in the world would agree that TV in the bedroom, in your actual bedroom, is usually not very good for either sleep or romance. But that said, you know, if there were a mutual desire, I couldn stop you but i i there's clearly it's clearly one-sided and it's clearly uh i think uh a doomed proposition and uh the fact is that your wife sees the bedroom as a sanctuary and to her that means quiet time it does not mean looking at Steve Buscemi's naked butt. That is your sanctuary, personally, which you can enjoy yourself, although I do not necessarily advise it, watching on a tablet device in bed by yourself and get the best of all worlds that way. Just having a TV, an extra TV, is not argument enough for putting it in a place where it is not desirable to every member of your household. I think it's fine for you to have that TV in that guest room.

That seemed perfectly gracious. A lot of people like to watch TV. And I think having that TV in that family room is great because you like to watch TV as a family. And that's the way it's going to be for the foreseeable future. And then you've got your computer or your tablet or whatever so you can stream and steal on your own. And just because you have that extra TV does not mean you put it into the bedroom. I would say that having a TV in the bedroom is great if you're in a hotel. That's when married couples really enjoy television in the bedroom.

Because they're by themselves. Because they're by themselves. Because they're by themselves. And they can really watch TV really good in the bedroom. But for now, I don't think that it's right for your life. And I don't think it's right for your marriage. And I don't think just because you have a TV, you should have to use it. So you either keep it in the garage or you give it to a friend or you, I don't know, use it to sled. Oh, you're never going to sled in the winter.

Use it. Use it to paddleboard. Yeah. Use it to paddleboard in a swamp. Welcome. Welcome to Florida. Just because you live in Florida doesn't mean you need nine TVs. This is the sound of a gavel. Judge John Hodgman rules. That's all. Yes. Stephen, how do you feel about that decision? I'm actually perfectly good with that decision

because the bedroom location was not my major concern. So having a second TV in the house in the guest room I think is a good solution. And I think the judge made a lot of sense in the things he in the guest room is, is, uh, I think is a good solution. And I think, uh, the judge made a lot of sense in the things he said. Good strategy. You want two TVs, ask for three TVs. You might come out of it with two TVs. Caroline, how do you feel the judge did in his decision? I think it's fine. I definitely did not want one in the bedroom. Um, I can live with one in the guest room because then I can

set up my bike on the trainer in the guest room and watch workout videos. Thank you to both Stephen and Caroline. And thanks to Nick Warren for suggesting this week's case name. I want my Nth TV to suggest a name for future cases, like us on Facebook. We regularly put out a call for submissions. If you have a case for the judge, submit it at www.maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho. I've been your summer bailiff, Monty Belmonte. Julia Smith produces the show.

Mark McConville is our editor. Special thanks to Joel Mann at WERU for engineering in Blue Hill, Maine. And thanks for joining us for the Judge John Hodgman podcast. JohnHodgman.com slash tour for all my upcoming live dates. Thank you very much, you guys.

Thanks for joining us. For joining us on Monty Belmonte's Sexy Time podcast. Yeah. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported.