Judge John Hodgman - The Ballad of Silvia, Fernando, and the Cat

Episode Date: April 8, 2020

Judge John Hodgman and Bailiff Jesse Thorn are in chambers this week to clear the docket. They talk about putting on one's socks and shoes, speaking with family members in another room, cupcakes, the phrase "bull in a china shop," cat napping, and doctoral tams.

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. We're in chambers this week, clearing the docket. And with me, as always, is the your home office in Los Angeles. Quick question, a little bit inside audio baseball, what are you using to prevent bounce back in your home office there, Jesse? I have an extra wide monitor. I don't need all the width to read the script for this show, but my microphone faces it. Like I face it when I'm speaking into my microphone. And so I have draped a down vest over my monitor. A down vest? A down vest, yes. Well, let me tell you how I do it. Look, you're the master of podcasting. You brought me into this world. You raised me up in this world. I'm not going to be like like now the student is the master kind of deal, but I've been doing it from home a lot longer than you have. You have a nice studio out there at MaxFunHQ, which I hope and trust

you'll return to soon. But over here in Hodge Central, like I don't have an extra wide monitor. I've got all kinds of egg crate baffling that I bought in shame after you told me that I sounded like I was recording from a bat cave. And I don't have a down vest. I don't need it to control the bounce back for my extra wide monitor because I do this show entirely from reading off of my Apple watch. It's not true. Not true. I got a laptop. It's an Apple, though. I still stand. I still stand a legend. Apple. Hey, Apple, here's not true. Not true. I got a laptop. It's an Apple, though. I still stand.

I still stand a legend. Apple. Hey, Apple, here's an idea. Apple, put me on your commercials again. Please. I was going to say sponsor the podcast, but that would be a waste of my breath. I don't care about that. Put me on your commercials, please.

Yeah, i can play your uh competitor or whatever john is now the apple this is how it works no john's the apple and i'm a motorola razor or whatever i won't do it without justin long i'm sorry jesse thorn you can get a you can get a part in it for sure justin can be in it justin long who i'm on first a first name basis with apparently sure uh justin long can be one of those nok Long, who I'm on a first name basis with apparently. Sure. Justin Long can be one of those Nokias. He's one of those guys you're on a first name basis with, but you still say his full name. I gotcha.

I said Justin can originally. He's one of those Nokias. You're an Apple phone, which is what they're called. That's a brand name. I'm a Motorola'm a motorola razor and he's playing uh that snake game i don't need to reinvent this wheel jesse thorn we had a good thing going you know how i always say on the podcast that nostalgia is a toxic impulse yeah i take it back let's go back let's go back let's go back in time 10 years 2009 jennifer can be in it too i'm putting jennifer, our producer, in this too.

As long as I'm casting, I'm throwing her in there because she needs some residuals too. I'm going to make her a Texas Instruments graphing calculator. Chuck Bryant, co-host of Stuff You Should Know and also host of Movie Crush on another network. But our friend once took me to task for saying nostalgia was a toxic impulse because it had been shown scientifically that looking at old beloved culture from the past, comic books, TV shows, or whatever, makes you feel real good. And I was like, yeah, that's fine.

That's why it's so seductive. It makes you feel good, but you got to move forward. I take it all back. Forget it. You know how I fell asleep last night, Jesse Thorne? How? I found a YouTube, which was just a reel of commercials that showed on channel 56 in 1981. And I just watched them. Just watched TV commercials from my hometown UHF channel, 1981. It was pure serotonin. I loved it.

Everyone do what you need to do in order to feel calm in these uncertain times. And we're so glad to be with you here clearing the docket. That's what we're doing, correct, Jesse? Whatever you need to feel good, whether it's nostalgia or, in the case of Ray Parker Jr., busting. Yeah. Busting makes him feel good. That's why he was a volunteer Ghostbuster.

He's like, they offered to pay him. He's like, no, it just makes me feel good. And I'm like, we got to have you on the books for something or else we're going to get in even more trouble with the DEA. So he took an, he was a $1 a year man for the Ghostbusters Inc. Let's get into some justice here's something from holly she says my husband ben puts on his socks and shoes in the following manner sock shoe sock shoe which he claims is perfectly normal he also puts on our two-year-old daughter's shoes in the same manner i don't want her future buddies to ridicule her for this bizarre behavior. Like when I was a child and had been trained by my parents to eat pizza with a knife and fork. I would love

an injunction that says that my husband must put on his and any future child's socks and shoes in the sock, sock, shoe, shoe order. Sock, sock, shoe, shoe. Oh, what a relief it is. That was one of the commercials I watched. First first of all you can eat pizza with a knife and fork everybody stop it it's fine lots of pizzas are traditionally eaten with a knife and fork i came across this huge list of regional pizzas i don't have it at my fingertips now i'll find during the break and i'll give it to everybody because it was incredible to read the list of regional pizzas. St. Louis regional pizza is like served on matzo bread.

Who knew? Anyway. Prevel. Isn't St. Louis pizza made with Prevel cheese? Prevel, which is like provolone and mozzarella and cheddar blend of some kind. We'll get to it after the break. I'll find it and we'll go through a few pizzas.

That's another thing that's pure serotonin. Just even thinking about pizza. It's a good feeling. But let's get to this sock, sock, shoe, shoe. So there was an episode, speaking of nostalgia, I believe that there was an episode of All in the Family where Carol O'Connor, a.k.a. Archie Bunker, finds Rob Reiner, Meat Meathead putting his shoes on quote

unquote the wrong way and I think it was that Meathead uh uh was putting on a sock and a shoe and a sock and a shoe I think Archie Bunker was correct in this one or at least on the side of Holly and the argument was Archie Bunker's argument was, if you get interrupted, and this is all from memory, this is all off the dome, I could be wrong here. If you get, if you only get your,

you can put your socks on first, because if that's all you have time to do, at least your feet are partly covered. Like, like if some, if an emergency happens, at least you have both socks on. And I remember that made a lot of sense to me.

And then later on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, a show I used to be on, I watched Rob Riggle do a thing that I had never seen before in my life. He was getting dressed to go on camera. So he was putting on his, you know, his nice suit, his correspondent's suit and shoes. Head to toe. Even though you would never see those feet, Rob Riggle isn't going to wear sneakers out there. And he put on a sock and a sock and a shoe and a shoe.

And then he put on his pants. What? What? Yeah. And he's not a Slenderman. Rob Riggle is a beefy boy. He's a big, beefy boy, very muscular, former Marine. And he very delicately and expertly pointed his toe and pulled his suit pants up over

one shoe and then the next. And I seem to recall saying to Rob, that's amazing. He said, that's what I learned in the Marines. That can't be true, though. All of my memories must be false. How could that possibly be so? And it must be Marine-specific. My father is a Navy veteran.

Well, yeah. I don't remember him doing this nonsense. And also, you know, unless you are in dress uniform, you're not going to be wearing dress shoes in the Marine. You're going to be wearing boots. You can't get fatigues on over boots, or maybe you can. But I feel like I remember him saying that it was the same argument, like that it was like, if there's an emergency, you want to have your feet covered first. So you can jump out of that tent and start scrambling in your underwear. I don't know. This could all be wrong. I should have looked all of this up, but I figured I would go off

of my perfect memory and take us on a little nostalgia trip into the back recesses of my addled mind. Write me if you know the All in the Family episode I'm talking about and know what was really happening in that episode, or if you're Rob Riggle and I'm wrong. Hodgman at MaximumFun.org. Well, let's get back to this. Jesse Thorne, you seem to be under the, not an impression, but conviction that it should be sock sock shoe shoe correct does ben have a leg to stand on so to speak i mean far be it for me to disagree with rob reiner i didn't direct the princess bride uh and you know far be it for me to agree with archie bunker on something. Right. But yeah, it seems pretty bonkers to me. I mean, do you just galumph around if something happens in the middle? It really does come down to the sense of an emergency could

happen as I'm putting on my shoes. I also have cold toes and I would hate to go through the whole process of putting a shoe on while my other foot's toes were completely exposed to the elements. Yeah, it seems very uncomfortable to, you know, go because basically putting on clothes is an act of civilization. You are civilizing for good or for ill, your feet as you put on socks and shoes. You are moving from a natural state to an unnatural state of clothedness. No offense. You don't have to explain it to me.

I've read Babar. I don't think he... Oh, he wore shoes over those big elephant feet, didn't he? Yeah, he wears a beautiful suit. He goes and gets it in town. It's a very colonialized story. I know, but it's not just a beautiful green three-piece suit that he buys, but he also has elephantine shoes. Yeah.

But yes, it is an act for good or for ill of moving away from nature. ill of moving away from nature. And therefore it feels to me, well, it's complicated to say it, but it feels more natural to make that transition more gradual. In other words, I civilize this foot partway with one sock. I civilize this foot partway with one sock. And then I add this shoe and then I add this shoe and then if i'm rob wriggle then i go ahead and add pants maybe he just doesn't like wearing pants that actually makes a lot more sense like you'll wait to the very last second to put on pants that feels like a wriggle thing to me there is something a little unnerving to me as i sit here and think about it of like having a sock and a shoe on one foot and just a bare foot and then

looking down and seeing the the fully denaturalized foot the fully man's world foot and then on the one hand or actually on the one foot literally on the left hand side that's what i'm picturing and then the bare proto foot on the other side that just feels like a poster that shows evolution i don't i don't like one foot being that far behind the other it's unnatural or uncivilized or both i guess i should rule in favor of preference because even though there does seem to be this species-wide sense of like i gotta get these shoes and socks on as quickly and efficiently as possible because an emergency could happen at any moment. That's rarely does. So really I should rule in favor of Ben's preference, but I feel like Kali is right.

That's just weird. It's just weird. Am I wrong to rule against a person's preference in this regard, Jesse? I don't think so. Yeah. Ben. We're protecting the children. Ben, you're doing it wrong. By the way, that two-year-old's never going to have more than one sock on at any time anyway, so it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter for now. But Holly, you can eat pizza with a knife and fork. Ben, don't let one foot freeze in the past of pre-civilization while the other foot is fully shod. That's my ruling.

Like it or leave it. Drew says, my wife, Samantha, begins conversations with me while I am engaged in another activity, such as doing the dishes or changing a diaper. Oh, what a brag. Go on, Drew. She often does this from across the room or facing away from me or while she's actually in another room. I often miss the first line and ask her to repeat herself. She finds this irritating. I've suggested she get my attention by saying my name first, but she finds this irritating. I request that Judge John Hodgman order my wife to only initiate conversations from within 15 feet of me while physically facing me and from within the same room as me. Or she should be prepared to repeat herself without being annoyed.

And I, Jesse, interject to ask you, issue the same order to my six-year-old and my eight-year-old. My wife, Samantha, begins conversations with me while I'm engaged in other activity, such as doing the dishes or changing a diaper or emptying the dishwasher or making a home cooked meal or rehabilitating a wounded Swan.

Yeah, we get it. Drew, you're enlightened. Good for you. CPR on one of those pandas at the national zoo that everyone loves so much. Yeah. Yeah.

We have a real problem in our house though jesse also with people yelling from room to room is a really i mean and it's i mean i you you've always lived in in homes as opposed to apartments so but it sounds like you have the same same deal well i haven't always lived my entire life in homes as opposed to apartments no I grew up in apartments. Of course. Yeah. But since I've had children, we've lived in homes or what you might call flats, multi-unit buildings that aren't apartments. Right. Do you have a problem with a lot of yelling from room to room? People starting conversations?

Makes me feel completely insane. But to be fair, so does all communication with other people while I'm in my home. I understand. As someone who grew up without peer-aged siblings, I see it as an unbearable invasion of my at-home privacy. unbearable invasion of my at-home privacy. As far as I'm concerned, as soon as I walk through the door of my home, no one should speak to me until I leave my home again later. Well, your whole career is so communication-based. When you get home, you want to leave work behind,

and therefore you want to be silent, is how I would feel. Thank you. That's a generous way of looking at it. I would also add to that, that I'm probably a bad person. No, you're not a bad person. Come on. We all have to go easy on ourselves,

but that doesn't mean I have to go easy on Drew's wife, Samantha. Samantha, I don't know what you're doing when Drew is in there churning butter or writing thank you cards to all of your friends and relatives for all the holiday gifts or wrapping presents or mending a bat's wing and got it through the hole in the wall of your bathroom. Shout out to Bat Brothers, one of the great Judgment Hodgman episodes. Samantha's probably in there with her friends having a beer or watching the game or like, I don't know what,

digging a ditch, whatever. Starting conversations from other rooms and expecting to be listened to is NG. At this point, you're probably, you're probably really extra sick of each other because you're probably all living very close quarters together, but absolutely. That's all the more reason to be a little bit more respectful of what people need in order to get through this period of time where we're all stuck with each other. I grant Drew his request that Samantha only initiate conversations from within 15 feet of him.

I will add that it should be within a boundary of 15 to 6 feet, a maximum to a minimum, while physically facing you and from the same room. Yeah, calling from room to room is bad for people's nerves and bad for people's communication. nerves and bad for people's communication. And this is a time when we need to be a little bit more forgiving and a little bit more communicative. And won't you help drew change a diaper once, Samantha, get in there. Come on.

It's nappy time. Let's take a quick break. More items on the docket coming up in just a minute on the judge, John Hodgman podcast. I'm going to look up that list of pizzas and forget about what a braggy Gus Drew is. 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. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S-T-O-P-P-O-D-C-A-S-T-I-H. Were you trying to put the name of the podcast there? Yeah, I'm trying to spell it, but it's tricky. Let me give it a try.

Okay. 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. Ah, we are so close. Stop podcasting yourself.

A podcast from MaximumFun.org. If you need a laugh, then you're on the go. Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. This week, we're clearing the docket and listing pizzas. Detroit style. It's square. Maybe you don't need a list of pizzas like I did, but I did. Oh, and of course it's from our friends at Serious Eats, one of our favorite websites,

SeriousEats.com. Just type in Serious Eats gallery colon. Do you know these regional pizza styles? Neapolitan, Philadelphia tomato pie, Roman pizza ataglio, sciacchiata Sfischoni Pizza di Sfrioli Pizza Bianca French Bread Pizza Oh, it's so good. I just read this all day long. New Haven style Grilled pizza, bar pizza

Trenton tomato pies Old Forge pies, Detroit style There you go. You already knew about Detroit style What do you got on Detroit style pizza, Jesse? I'd never heard of it before. Well, it's very close to the Sicilian style pizzas, or is also known in other places as Italian bakery style pizza. It's square with a thick, deep dish crust, sometimes twice baked,

and with sauce put on the pizza last. Oh. Wikipedia says some parlors will apply melted butter with a soft brush to the dough prior to baking. Mm, sounds delicious. Yeah, that sounds great. But I see the sauce is kind of drizzled on top. Oh, I'll have to give that a try.

And St. Louis-style pizza, this is the Prevel that we were talking about earlier, and I quote the author of this article, Adam Cuban or Cuban, K-U-B-A-N. I apologize if I'm mispronouncing it. But he writes, this style's very thin cracker-like crust is unleavened like matzah. And it's topped with a special three cheese blend provolone. Oh, this is the Provel. What do you think the three cheeses in Provel are, according to this article?

Provolone is one of them. What's another? Cheddar. You got it. White cheddar. And there's a third out there. I'm going to give you a hint. It's not mozzarella.

This is a wild card, a real wild card. American? Swiss. Weird. Oh, wow. St. Louis style pizza. mozzarella this is the this is a wild card a real wild card american swiss weird oh wow st louis style pizza well there you go everybody go to serious eats.com this is probably a time when you're having to cook for yourself more than you than you might have if you live in an urban area uh and and you're and you're not able to support your local restaurants by taking in all the time you're probably um you know stoking the home fires and cooking some new recipes. And we get nothing from saying this, but our friend J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

has helped us out with so many episodes of Judge John Hodgman, and he and the team at Serious Eats put together some good recipes. SeriousEats.com. We get no money for it. End of break. Let's go on. Isao says, I hope I got that right, my significant

other and I love to cook and bake. I believe cupcakes are just small personal versions of cake. She disagrees. She says cupcakes are their own separate things from cake and do not have any similarities to cakes other than the fact that they share similar

ingredients. Can you help make a ruling on this? Yeah. Isao, your wife is wrong, I think. Yeah. They're literally just cakes and cups. I am someone who believes that distinctions have meaning. That because a hot dog, in many structural senses, resembles a sandwich, that does not mean that it is a sandwich.

And it is okay for it to be its own thing. So I was inclined, before judging, to maybe lean towards the side of Esau's wife. But I am not a baker. And so I consulted Better Homes and Gardens, and I consulted King Arthur Flour, which is one of the great baking resources on the website, the website called the Internet. There's more than one website, but you know what I mean.

And looking for some distinction, some chemical or structural distinction that would invalidate my basic feeling that like, yeah, it's just a small version of a cake. And the truth is there's no difference between the batter. Usually, according to King Arthur, you would use a creamed butter batter, which is sort of your basic white cake or chocolate cake style crumb batter. A pound cake batter would not work quite properly in a cupcake form. Doesn't raise the same way. But in making cupcakes between a classic birthday cake and a cupcake, same batter. The only difference is cupcakes cook faster. Now, obviously, a cupcake is a personal cake. A birthday cake, a regular size cake is something to be shared and enjoyed with a group of people. Whereas a cupcake is something to be hoarded and enjoyed privately in a corner somewhere

by yourself. But they are essentially physically the same thing. And I can't, I think, I think the name says it all. One is a cake and one is a cupcake. And that is all the distinction they need. They need no further distinction. I think he saw us right in this one. Jesse, have you been doing any baking? Do you bake? I do. I don't bake bread. I don't bake cake because I don't like cake. But I do bake a fair amount of cookies, particularly chocolate chip cookies, which are my favorite type of cookie. Right. Because they're the best cookie by a very wide margin. Yeah, I can't think of a better cookie than a chocolate chip cookie. There's other kinds

of cookies that are good and even very good. But the reason chocolate chip cookies are so popular is because they're spectacularly good. Yeah, there's a certain alchemy there that can't be beat. Certainly not by a peanut butter cookie. I'm trying to think of any other cookie that is as good as chocolate chip cookie. And I don't eat a lot of cookies, you know? Yeah. I like a shortbread, but that's not a cookie. There are distinctions, but that's my feeling. Cup There are distinctions. That's my feeling. Cupcakes, they're just little cakes in cups. That's why they're called that.

Here's something from John. My wife says the phrase bull in a china closet, a habit that she may have inherited from her family. The correct form, bull in a china shop, is attested in many sources, notably the lyrics to Radio heads punch up at a wedding it's the first it's the first citation in the oxford english dictionary that's right i ask you to order her to revert to the correct form uh sure these are easy ones look i did a little poking around and i've not been able to find

a definitive origin of the term or a first citation of the term bull in a china shop but it is definitely the saying whereas bull in a china closet is completely alien to my ears. And when I Google that phrase, it only leads to people fighting about why is anyone saying bull in a china closet? It's called bull in a china shop. Bull in a china shop makes sense. It is how you describe a boorish, undelicate person smashing their way through a situation that requires delicacy, that is, navigating a china shop. Bull in a china closet is a metaphor for what? An imprisoned bull? I don't get it. Well, in the closet that people have, specifically for their china. Yeah, china cabinet, you would say, right?

Yeah. Right. It's not like you fill your pantry with China. There's enough fighting about this on the internet that I am not going to say that John's wife is alone in the world who has started to use this evolution of the term. But the term is clearly bull in a China shop. And that is the original term. And if you know or can cite where that term was first used in print, should be easy to find out. I'm a bit of a failure for not finding out myself.

Let us know, right? It's at Hodgman at MaximumFun.org. I don't think it was Radiohead's punch up at a wedding. But at least John offers some textual support for his argument, as opposed to John's wife, who just probably heard it through a game of telephone over the years. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll hear a case about catnapping and a letter about hat types. You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast always brought to you by you, the members of MaximumFun.org. Thanks to everybody who's gone to MaximumFun.org slash join, and you can join them by going to MaximumFun.org slash join.

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% off at babbel.com slash Hodgman spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash Hodgman. Rules and restrictions apply. 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. Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We're clearing the docket.

Here's something from Gabriela. I just want this pizza so bad. Look at all these pizzas. I know. Any of them. I'd take any pizza right now. Right? It's like pizza is the chocolate chip cookie of

pizza it really is I would say pizza is the chocolate chip cookie of overall oh wow pizza is the chocolate chip cookie of foods I think pizza is the greatest food that the

most people agree on I think it is the greatest food that the most people agree on. I think it's basically perfect. And there's no doubt about it in my mind. I love lots of fancy foods. I love steaks. I love all kinds of things. I love cheeseburgers.

These are all really great foods, but nothing beats pizza. Yeah. I think I've got to go with you. Let's put it this way. There is no dispute in the world of round foods. Chocolate chip cookies are the best cookies, and pizza is the best of all food that is round. You know what I mean?

Like, that's easy. Tip of the hat to pies. Tip of the hat to pies. Yeah. Close runner up. But yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Yeah. Pizza may be the chocolate chip cookie of all savory foods.

Well, I look forward to your letters. Boy, oh boy, I've got nothing else to do. Send them in. Hodgmanatmaximumfun.org. Tell me why I'm wrong. I always enjoy it. Let's go on. Here's something from Gabriela. My friends, Silvia and Fernando, have a neighbor with a cat that likes to roam onto their terrace.

They've started welcoming it into their home and buying cat food to encourage it to come over. More recently, Sylvia took her neighbor's cat to the vet without her neighbor's permission. What? Are my friends catnappers? What? Sylvia? Fernando? How dare you?

First of all, this sounds like a romantic ballad of Silvia and Fernando and the cat. Incorporate a Spanish guitar and we're in business. Yeah. Silvia y Fernando y el gato. Estranho. You know what? I say we move it to Mexico and make this a guitar-on. I think so, too.

I mean, it's just there's something of a fable to this. John, I saw a guitar-on at I think so too. I mean, it's just, there's something of a fable to this. John, I saw a guitar-one at the thrift store back when thrift stores were still open. Yeah. And you know, I've recently learned to play some chords on the ukulele. Yeah, quite a few and you do a good job. Thank you. And my desire to buy and learn to play a guitarone was so overwhelming that I had to just leave the store immediately. I purchased a 12 foot beast of a musical instrument. For those who may be listening and who do not know what a guitarone is, or for those who are listening and don't know what a guitarone is, but don't want to pretend like they do know what a guitaron is like me, will you explain what one is? A guitaron is a giant guitar. It's the type of guitar that is typically played in a mariachi ensemble, among other types of, I've mostly seen them in Mexican music, but I'm sure they, yeahgies yeah they're big the big giant ones with the big

bellies on them yeah uh those things are real monsters uh and i just thought man i'd love to alternate between a ukulele and one of these beasts i'll tell you something i don't know when we're going to be able to get back on the road to do live Judge John Hodgman shows. But when that happens, it's going to happen because we all stayed home. We were prudent. We practiced social distancing. We supported our healthcare workers. We waited it out. We hopefully minimized the real life damage and got through this. And Jesse, I make this promise to you and the listeners of Judge John Hodgman. The next time we are live and can be together again in person, I'm getting you a guitarone and you're going to play it on stage.

It's a promise. A Judge John Hodgman promise an oath i dare say as long as you're flying it in and out yeah i'm gonna have to buy an extra seat on the airplane it's gonna be a mess i'm not saying on every show let's say at the los angeles show at a bare minimum the los angeles show and i'll get it to you in time so that you can practice a few guitar-on songs. You know, I have a friend named Camilo Landau, a good buddy of mine from high school who plays in a Latin rock band called Carne Cruda. And I'm sure that Camilo Landau owns and knows how to play a guitarone. So we'll get him to come down from the Bay Area and he can show me a few sweet licks.

Give you some lessons? Yeah, of course. But meanwhile, we have the fable of Sylvia and Fernando, who I imagine, there's so much about this that feels fabulistic. Like they have a terrace I imagine them as a childless couple wondering when they will have a child if they will have a child and then a cat

wanders on to the terrace and the cat becomes their special friend and they start feeding the cat and imagining that they are building this little family with this little strange cat el gato extraño I don't know if my Spanish is correct there but leave me alone and then imagining that they are building this little family with this little strange cat, El Gato Estranho. I don't know if my Spanish is correct there, but leave me alone. And then they care so much for this little kitty that they decide to get a little checkup from the vet.

And they go there as a little family. And the vet gives little fake baby, that's the name of the cat now, fake baby, a clean bill of health and they go home as a good family and what they don't see is the cat's actual person crying at home because she or he or they doesn't know where their cat is you can't take a stranger's cat to the vet sylvia and fernando i mean i guess if there was clear and obvious evidence of abuse or horrible neglect there might be a moral imperative but nothing in here from gabriella and you know sylvia and fernando defend yourselves if you want to write us a letter. But nothing in here suggests anything that,

other than Sylvia and Fernando just like this cat and want to make it theirs. They're catnappers. They napped a cat. That makes them catnappers. Words have meaning. You nap a cat, you're a catnapper. That's how it goes. A listener named Michael wrote in with some feedback on the episode Tattoos of Limitation.

Here's what he had to say. As it happens, one of my little weirdsies, copyright Linda Holmes, pop culture happy hour, is that I like to be very precise about hat types. I'm annoyed when someone says fedora when they mean trilby or top hat instead of pork pie hat. Can you just be annoyed when someone says fedora when they mean trilby or top hat instead of pork pie hat. Can you just be annoyed when someone says fedora? Sorry. Your bailiff is something of a fashion expert and as a fake legal professional, I'm sure you can appreciate the importance of precise language. You can imagine my dismay then when your honor referred to the photo of Scott's doctoral hooding as a mortarboard,

because it is, in fact, a doctoral tam. I also have a PhD, and I'd be lying if I said getting to wear a tam instead of a mortarboard didn't factor into my decision to spend all that time in school. The square academic cap, graduate cap, cap, mortarboard, or Oxford cap is an item of academic dress consisting of a horizontal square board fixed upon a skull cap with a tassel attached to the center. In the UK and the US, it is commonly referred to informally in conjunction with an academic gown as cap and gown. It is also sometimes termed a square, a trencher, or corner cap. The adjective academical is also used. Doctorate holders of some universities wear

the mortarboard, although the round Tudor bonnet is more common in Britain. The four, six, or eight cornered tam is getting popularity in the U.S. and in general a soft square tam is some acceptance for women. Look, it's Wikipedia. I know this is all crowdsourced by, well, frankly, know-it-alls like you, Michael. But you're not doing your job as a know-it-all if you're letting this Wikipedia article contradict every statement that you made in your letter. I don't see anything about a doctoral tam here. And mortarboard is common sense and common usage description of academic squared pie hat or whatever the heck you want to call it. Don't come at me and premise this by saying it's not a fedora, it's a trilby.

Which of course is itself its own disgusting meme on the internet. Go look it up. Not disgusting like gross, but it's just loaded. Let's put it that way. And then come at me and say it's called a doctoral tam. Doctoral tam. Jesse Thorne, what do you think? Did you ever decorate your mortarboard when you were graduating from college or high school?

Doctoral Tam isn't even a mortarboard. That's not even what I'm talking about. Now I'm looking it up. It's this soft, like, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, like, octagonal thing. Different thing. It's not a fedora. It's a doctoral tam. My friend Max Ritzenberg decorated his mortarboard you

know i went to arts high school so everybody decorated their mortarboard he used um uh pipe cleaners yellow pipe cleaners to recreate his spiky hair on top of his mortarboard it looked really great it was really awesome i just took a, you know, like a hunting lure duck and glued it to my hat. Yeah. A doctoral TAM is a soft, it's a TAM. It's like a TAM-O-Shanter. It's like a TAM. It's a soft, flat cap.

It's not a stiff board, mortar board that kids use to create dioramas for their graduations. Now, I get where you're coming from now. I'm glad. Look, I'm going to offer you this olive branch. Well, technically, it was not an olive branch, but an olive leaf, whatever. Offer you this olive branch, Michael. I bet you're right. First of all, thank you for introducing me to a new term, doctoral TAM. Never heard of it before. Glad to know it. Thanks for getting me all riled up. Frankly, it's the best form of exercise I have these days, and I'm inside most of the day.

And probably if I go back and look at the photo of Scott, the person with tattoos and the tattoos of limitation episode, what I would see is not a mortarboard, but a doctoral tam. And I'm looking at it right now and God or whatever, damn it, Michael. You're right. It's a doctoral tam. I see it now. I see the photo. It is that weird octagonal soft thing. There's no way you could put pipe cleaners on there. You couldn't mount anything on there. It's a soft octagonal or septagonal velvety doctoral TAM. The folks at Cole Hardware on Mission Street in San Francisco were kind enough to hook me up with some industrial strength adhesive Velcro to attach it. That was their recommendation. Technically it's not adhesive Velcro. It's duct tape. And technically it's duct tape.

Anyway, look, surely they recommended, yeah, I know. Well, look, I'm flailing here. My, I, I went off on Michael. It's been a real emotional roller coaster. And when I put it together that he was probably referring to that actual photo, I should have done my homework and I didn't. And look, my humiliation is entertainment enough for you. And it is important to admit when we're wrong. Michael, I was wrong. Doctoral Tam is correct.

Let's get out of here,esse and let's eat some pizza you know a trilby is actually kind of a a subtype of fedora it's like a short brimmed fedora typically it's not even really like i i've i have i often have the impulse to correct people talking about fedoras back in the days when when uh every annoying doofus was wearing a 30 mall hat store trilby and then they'd be like oh every then people would be like oh every annoying doofus is wearing a fedora these days and i really wanted to be like well it's actually a trilby but it's sort of a subtype but that was what i'm referring that's what the annoying doofuses would say back to the fedora people online and it became a cliche if you were an annoying doofus

wearing a fedora and someone said you're an annoying doofus wearing a fedora the annoying doofus would say actually madam it's a trilby and so that was going to save them from doofism doofism will consume you it's true hyper correctional doofism. Doofism will consume you. It's true. Hypercorrectional doofism will consume you, but it'll eat me alive first. I look forward to your letters. Hodgman at MaximumFun.org.

I think that's it, right, Jesse? Can we eat some pizza now? The docket's clear. That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman. Our producer is the ever-capable Jennifer Marmer, who right now is wearing a Homburg. She's not really wearing a Homburg. Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman. We're on Instagram at Judge John Hodgman. Make sure to hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJHO, and check out the Maximum Fund subreddit to discuss this episode. Submit your cases at MaximumFun.org slash JJHO or email Hodgman at MaximumFun.org.

We'll see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Send me your memories of Rob Riggle putting his pants on.