Stop Podcasting Yourself - Episode 396 - John Hodgman and John Roderick

Episode Date: October 19, 2015

The hilarious and charming John Hodgman and the charming and hilarious John Roderick join us to talk about print magazines, fashion risks, and one another's prized possessions.

Hi, he's Dave Shumka. And he's Graham Clark. And together we host Stop Podcasting Yourself. Woo! Hello everybody and welcome to episode number 396 of Stop Podcasting Yourself. My name is Graham Clark and with me as always is a man. Oh, what a man. What a mighty fine man.

He's a man who invented the term Netflix and grill. I did that? Yeah. Yeah. In response to netflix and chill yeah yeah i know because look it's a transparent sexual advance but netflix and grill it's like hey there might be you bring over some lobster tails you really have to uh yeah you know you're upping the the we might have dinner yeah um and our guests today two guests for the price of one, which the price is...

Zero. Both here in Vancouver for one night only. Well, you were here last night, right? One night left. One night left. Mr. John Hodgman and Mr. John Roderick. Welcome, gentlemen. How do you do? i do all right how about you i do pretty good thank you thank you for joining us here on the podcast it is our pleasure to do so this is this voice sounds kind of robotic wait a minute don't speak for me yeah all right that's fine it is my pleasure to do so I am a robot who has been sent around the country by John Hodgman to perform his version of... Well, I can't remember.

Was it Margaret Atwood? Some author devised a remote signing pen. It was Margaret Atwood. It was, right? Yeah. And what she would do is she would ship her invention all over the country so that people could line up in front of the robot and it kind of looked like a 3d printer i think okay and that she could in in the sense that you would put your book into a into a slot and there is an auto pen

in there and then you would see margaret atwood on a tablet of some kind. And you would say, can you make it out to Tony? Right. And Margaret Atwood would go, okay. Okay. Okay, we'll do. But she was, it was not a time saver for her. She was sitting somewhere and inciting them in real time. That is my understanding.

It was when she was in a biodome. She couldn't, she had so much to science that she couldn't go out see now that's right because she became infected with that alien parasite and we needed to quarantine her for four years yeah that was a weird thing that happened to margaret atwood everybody we got the handmaid's tale that's right if you guys chose to do something like that it would be out of pure laziness and and like desire not to touch other people. Well, that's what podcasting is. Yeah. Something,

something, some comedy done out of pure laziness and desire to not touch other humans. But, uh, isn't it Alton Brown, the, the food network host. He,

he sent out a mass, uh, kind of email thing to all these places. He was going to do book signings and said, these are the things I will and will not. Sure. Like I will not shake hands. I will not.

Yeah. I will not pose for phone photos. Camera photos are fine, but phone photos, it takes forever. And it's, it creates this huge long line. Not like the old timey camera photo.

Well, he would have a camera person there. He has Richard Avedon with a large camera. Exactly right, yeah. And I will only sit for daguerreotypes. So if you have one, great, it'll take 40 minutes. But if you don't, then we're moving on. But it's a great filtering device.

There aren't going to be that many he has to do. But Graham, you are telling the story as though Alton Brown is a monster. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly. Is that what you're saying? That's my take. Unfortunately, someone in the room actually knows Alton Brown.

Is that you? Do you know him? Sure. Wait, before we get to know that, let's get to know us. Yay. Get to know us. So you know Alton Brown. Everybody take a sip of your coffee.

From television circles? Or from just around? Glasses circles? Yeah. I had been a viewer of his show back when I was a professional magazine writer. Okay. Before I went on television. So so this is what are we talking the late late 90s the early early the early aughts okay yeah so from from around 2000 to 2006

my job was writing articles for magazines which was a thing that still existed at the time that's a lot of friends of mine to dream job still is to write for magazines well i feel very sad for your friends because they are essentially they are essentially dreaming of becoming civil war reenactors well i have friends who dream of that as well sure well i mean if they enjoy old-timey it's like professional larping at this point yeah like it is a completely antique antiquated and non-existent profession for the most part yeah now come on i am a i'm almost exclusively a magazine reader right and if there aren't magazine writers who's writing these

magazines well no you're you're absolutely right there are there are still magazines that are read both online and in print. And on toilets. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Or in the bathtub by you. Yes. Do you have your magazines laminated before you? No, I am prepared.

When I take a magazine into the bathtub, I am prepared to consume it utterly. Oh, okay. So it's done. The magazine itself is destroyed. I read it and each page becomes, yeah, becomes wetted and more. And you wake up with a bunch of letters on you and that's. The information goes into me and then its corporeal essence dissolves. What is, what would you read in the, what's your first choice?

When you're excited, when you get in the mail, your print magazines and you're like, I can't wait to get into the bathroom to read this one. Do you have subscriptions? Okay. I do. So yeah, I'll get a stack. I get,

uh, I get the New Yorker obviously in the Atlantic, right? New York magazine, which is a great magazine. Okay. Terrific. Is it not a lot of crossover with the New Yorker?

No, no, it's quite, it's, I mean, the New York magazine does a lot of long features, but they all, it's also, it's, there's a lot of candy, no. It's quite, I mean, the New York Magazine does a lot of long features, but it's also, there's a lot of candy in it.

Yeah. It's kind of like you. They've got that matrix. Yeah, you take a little, it's like a bowl of Chex Mix and you kind of, oh yeah, this is. You pick out the M&Ms.

Easy to digest and then there's a 70 page thing. 70 page hunk of fiber. Yeah. Big fiber in the middle. And then, you know i get martha stewart's living because i love her ideas i don't know if he's joking no i don't think he's joking and uh and i get uh i have a well let's see i get like old house journal

right which is like a magazine about restoring your old house. Oh, okay. Do you get a wooden boat magazine? I don't. That's good. I just make a note. Christmas is coming. Savour magazine. Oh, edited by Adam Sachs.

That's right. Adam Sachs is my friend who got me into magazine writing in the 1990s. And he's still doing it. So you're right. It's still possible. One year for Christmas, Graham got me a subscription to Flex magazine, the bodybuilding magazine. What a thoughtful guy.

I know, right? How is Flex's editorial mission different from Muscle & Fitness? Oh, it is. It's not your granddad's muscle magazine? Yeah, it's a vanity. It's more about getting veins a-popping. Yeah, it's more. It's not your granddad's awesome magazine? Yeah, it's about, it's a vanity. Yeah. It's more about getting veins a-popping.

Yeah. It's all candy. It's not about fitness. It's about flexing. It's flexing. It's about peacocking. Right.

Yes. Yeah. And apparently, if you eat a peacock, all protein. Oh, yeah. Very little gristle on a peacock.

Especially the feathers of all things. Well, the peacock is like the third bird in a turducken, right little gristle on a peacock. Especially the feathers of all things. Well, the peacock is like the third bird in a turducken, right? It's like a proper one. Well, on that turd bird. No, that's the third bird

in a turkaken. Oh, sure. Wait, which is the first? Or maybe it's a cockturden. I can't remember. Do you count from the inside out? Do you count from the inside out or the outside in?

Outside in. Turducken. Sure. Chicken inside a duck inside a turkey. Yeah. And that chicken's got to be a small chicken. You know what I mean? It's more of a Cornish game.

And apparently in England, they also do a pigeon in there as well. Tur-duck-nage. Yeah. Like they throw in a couple extra. They would call it a squab i bet so it'd be a they said pigeon to me and i was like gross you haven't had you haven't ever eaten such a thing have you john roberts sure no no no a turducken or a animal i've never eaten a turducken i've eaten a turkey that's been deep fried in a 50 gallon drum oh how was that well this is the

day after canadian thanksgiving by the way that we? Well, this is the day after Canadian Thanksgiving, by the way, that we are recording this. Yes. And the day of my fantastic Vancouver debut, which you all missed because you're listening to this on a podcast. Yeah. But like Canadian Thanksgiving, they just eat flan,

right? I mean, yeah. Or, uh, yeah. Well, it depends if you can get flan.

I know if you're a upper crust. Yeah. Then it's flan. Well, if you're lower crust, you just get crust. Yeah. If you're middle, you get flan. And then if you're get flan. I know. If you're upper crust. Yeah, then it's flan. Well, if you're lower crust, you just get crust. Yeah. If you're middle,

you get flan. And then if you're way low, pollock. Pollock. I know. I know. What happens on Canadian, what did you do for your,

how did you honor Canadian Thanksgiving Day? Well, most people, the Thanksgiving Day itself is on a Monday. Right. I voted in advanced polls in our election that's right uh but for for which party did you vote oh it's a secret really is it uh well

no i mean he wrote in turkey on the ballot yeah you're starving no i don't want to look if you if you prefer it's a private because you don't want to you don't want to alienate well i mean you're many many tory listeners i voted for the good guys i voted with my conscience um uh but yeah i voted look i voted it took an hour and a half oh really yeah why because the advanced poll maybe i won't vote after no on voting day they're they're they have way more people working but there's advance polls all week, apparently. So you physically went in. You didn't fill out something and drop it in the mail.

No. I went in. I waited. So was the hour and a half, how much of that was waiting? An hour and a half. Oh, okay. Right. Because, I mean, you didn't have to write. There wasn't like an essay question.

No, yeah. Whether they can validate your opinion. Yeah. Tell us. What is your idea? validate your opinion. Yeah, tell us, what is your idea? Show your work. Yeah, but on the actual, the day before, we just all went over to my parents' house, my siblings and I, and all of our kids and their kids and cousins,

and it was the first, like, big family dinner that was too big for the table. So it was, like, buffet style. And what was the main course? Turkey. It was turkey. Canadian Turkey. We don't have in Canada, like in the States, the big tradition or one of the big traditions is the president like pardons a turkey, right? Right.

We don't have anything like that. Well, you don't have as many turkey criminals as well. We believe in rehabilitation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. You know, I'm willing to admit that Canada gets a few things right. And our turkey detention system. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. You know, I'm willing to admit that Canada gets a few things right. And our turkey detention system.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They privatize it. The low statistics of turkey recidivism from violent crimes. And you can't argue with it. I wouldn't say that was one of the... I wouldn't consider that

one of our big traditions, I think. Yeah, it's one guy. That's a treasury tradition. But we don't have any. Like, we don't have, there's no parade. Yeah, how does it feel celebrating a holiday that is meaningless and made up?

I mean, all holidays are to some degree. To some degree, yeah. But I believe Canadian Thanksgiving was only federally recognized in 1957 that makes sense well it's only because of proximity i think but i don't know why we didn't just do it on the same day thanksgiving right i think it's early harvest well sure because the winter comes earlier if you wait till november you guys are all snowbound as you guys can tell from the parkas you're wearing that's true that's. That's true.

That's true. That's true. And thank you for loaning me this toque, by the way. My pleasure. I love it. He's getting it. Nice.

How did you feel sitting down to your family? Do you all look at each other and go, this is pointless, right? This is dumb. No, you... No.

No. No. Well, we have plenty to be thankful for, don't we? Sure. Of course you do. I love Canada very much and I'm thankful for, don't we? Sure, of course you do. I love Canada very much and I'm thankful for it.

It's a, you know, it's never dumb. But it is a meaningful, like, is meaningful in your life? No, no. And there's no, like, you know, pilgrims and parades and football. You don't have a delightful mythology that erases a history of genocide. Oh, they have theirs. They have theirs. Yeah.

Yeah. But yours, yeah, but our Thanksgiving, I don't know if it's every year, but it falls on Columbus Day, which is, it's problematic.

It's a salute to genocide. That's our own genocide holiday. And is that a day off in the States? It is. Wow.

Well, they have two of everything. They have Veterans Day and Memorial Day and Columbus Day and Thanksgiving for two genocides. But what about Christmas? Only one Christmas. But probably someone's working on it. Well, we have a whole week for Christmas. Yeah, they have 12 days of it.

Oh, right. Yeah. The thing about Canada, of course- But you guys don't have Boxing Day. No, we don't have Boxing Day. No, we do not. And we don't have Guy Fawkes Day either. Neither do we.

No, we don't have that. What do we have that- Oh. And we don't have Guy Fawkes Day either. Neither do we. No, we don't have that. What do we have that, oh, Canada Day. Canada Day. That's the only thing that we have. And that's July something, right? First. July 1st is Canada Day. Mm-hmm.

It seems like you guys are trying to rip off some of our holidays. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Definitely. That we haven't, well, we get Victoria Day. That's the other one that's Canada. Do you have anything in honor of Queen Victoria? I think we have some steampunk festivals.

Oh, yeah. But you know, all of these were Roman holidays. Of course, they were all pagan. Sure. Saturnalia. The Romans celebrated Queen Victoria. Of course. And we just have adopted their policies.

And I mean, the ancient Roman Canadian Thanksgiving was a crazy orgy. I wish you guys would honor that old tradition. But I think Canada is having a very nostalgic sense of itself, right? You're sort of your Mounties and your snowshoes and your Hudson Bay blankets and furs and so forth. So you're always kind of thinking yeah back in canada we're trying to grasp onto something because we're not we're only because it's a bummer how much of our national identity is associated with a donut shop yeah it's a sandwich shop too every time there's soup too in fairness every time i come to canada

i look around and i'm like this is pretty great this is a a model for the future a model nation for the future because you are a multicultural nation doesn't seem to be too hung up about it i don't know maybe you got your weirdos we definitely have our weirdos you have free health care we have jet packs you have jet packs And then you go around Vancouver, of course, and this is a space city. This is the city of the future. Yeah, it's very all- It's all glass. All buildings made out of glass.

Yeah. All biodomes. Yeah, exactly. I saw, I think, three geodesic globes on the way over here. There's definitely one. But you know what? I can think of a second. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. Everyone in Vancouver can think of a second yeah yeah that's right everyone in everyone in vancouver can think of a second geodesic sphere yeah yeah are you thinking up in the park yeah yeah yeah well there's the one and then there's the one that got turned into a keg the keg yeah the geodesic keg yeah there are we we noticed more the keg restaurants than there were like yeah what are the other chain love the keg restaurants than there were any other chain. Love the keg here. What is it? It's a steakhouse chain, yeah.

But is it Canadian? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. There are, I feel like when we- Is Cactus Club also Canadian? Yeah. Oh, really? There are no cacti in Canada.

When we have American guests here, we talk way more about Canada. I'm sorry to have gone down this route it feels a little cliche but there are certain things john uh roderick will know that are only western things that haven't made it to other parts of either canada or the states like uh where you live in new york you don't have safeway or red robin no i've heard of those things but the first time i ever saw if new york wanted them they could have i have to say i have to interject that red robin is a seattle company right but we have it here it's a western it's a western it's very western you know what i am obsessed with

and i don't know if you have it over in this part of canada but i imagine you probably do uh no name brand. Yeah. Yeah. Grocery products. Yeah. I saw you were taking pictures of the condensed milk with that cow on it. Yeah. I love that cow. I did a show, I did a show about a year and a half ago in Winnipeg and in their green room,

they had this, this yellow. Do you know the product I'm talking about? I do. And I think I just have to say winnipeg one of the great cities of the world it really it was the coldest they're gonna love to hear that i had a great i had a great time in winnipeg the people there were fantastic it was in it was in february oh the best time to be there very cold but i was i was warmed deeply to my core i achieved

core warmth by examining this can of evaporated milk in the green room that was this no-name brand which has this stark yellow label and then this unsuriffed font that just says evaporated milk and then has this cow looking at you in a judgmental way and then on the other side of course it says it has it in french as well because it's a bilingualism it looks like prison packaging but then they put a like a cow right which they wouldn't do so when i was in toronto they want you to know that it's cow milk yeah exactly as opposed to cat when i was in toronto a week a week ago for a show that i did there at the juste pour here festival i walked I was walking around with nothing to do, and I saw a supermarket.

I'm like, I'm going to go look at that can of evaporated milk. I bet they have it in there. Oh, yeah. And not only did they have that in there, but they had everything else. Everything you could imagine also had stark yellow label with non-serif. You thought it was just that condensed milk brand condensed milk i hadn't thought that far no i didn't know i didn't know that i was going to be staring directly into the yellow abyss of waffles and lard and pumpkin filling

it just really it's just it's so disorienting because you feel like you are living in a future yeah bilingual dystopia when you're buying those labels when you open up the can it's just really, it's so disorienting because you feel like you are living in a future bilingual dystopia when you're buying those labels. And when you open up the can, it's just pills. Just like pumpkin pills. I love it so much. And so I came away from Toronto with a dream. And the dream is to rent a storefront in Brooklyn. Oh. And the dream is to rent a storefront in Brooklyn and just import those products and line the shelves with these yellow graphic.

People go bananas. People would go bananas. And what color are bananas? Yellow. This is why they would go that way. This sounds like an 826 project, though. This sounds like. Yeah, well, you know what?

I got there first. We have the opposite here since we don't have trader joe's right there's a store here called pirate joe's and someone drives to bellingham washington picks up a load of stuff from trader joe's and brings it back and sells it i have heard of this phenomenon oh this can't be legal uh they've been sued by pirate by trader joe and they're called pirate jo Joe's because it's grocery piracy. Yeah, and they know what they're doing. Whoa. How do you fight that?

Because people love Trader Joe's so much. And they have to, like, what? They have to mark it up. But Trader Joe's stuff is still fairly affordable. Yeah. Why doesn't Trader Joe's just open a Trader Joe's here? That's why they're suing Pirate Joe's, because they have plans. John Robert, why don't you and I

just become grocery smugglers? I love this idea because the same store would work in Seattle and Portland. People would lose their mind. You get the rights

to the west of the Mississippi. I get the rights to the east of the Mississippi. See, I don't think this would play in L.A. They don't have time for this kind of baloney

in L.A. I think they have time for baloney down there. Do they? Do they have time for no-name baloney? I bet you they do. Not as expensive. Silver Lake baloney. They wouldn but... I think they have time for baloney down there, don't you think? I think they have time for no-name baloney. I bet you they do. Not as expensive. Silver Lake baloney. They wouldn't get out of their cars.

This is the type of store that you would have to have some walk-up customers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People would have to walk by and say, what the... No, you just get one... You fly a big enough pirate flag. You plant an article in one of the few remaining magazines.

You get something in New York Magazine. Right. And all of a sudden. Everyone has to have it. Everyone has to have it. Condensed milk. Well, yeah. Les Evaporés.

You get your friend Alton Brown to do some, like a whole condensed milk. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Alton Brown, we never got to the bottom of it. Different kinds of flan or whatever. Oh, before we get there, I had to notice that you guys have a Nordstrom now. Yes. Oh, brother.

That's a big deal. Well, apparently. That's a really big deal. If you saw the posters and billboards, they really made us look small time. The way that we got into this Nordstrom nonsense. Oh, boy. You know, I hear Nordstrom Day is the newest Canadian holiday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all mandated that you take a day off from work.

Go to Nordstrom. And go to Nordstrom. Oh, but then when do the Nordstrom workers get a day off? They feel like every year they have to work on Nordstrom. No, working at Nordstrom's is like taking a yearly vacation. All year. I don't even know what it is. I know that it's a huge store in downtown.

It's like Hudson Bay, except they don't sell axes. Sure. Yeah, I haven't been to it either. It's been open a month or so. Yeah. It's a department store. I don't over a month or so yeah but it's like a department store i don't know why he's so excited about it because it's also a seattle company and it's only the third one in canada or something like that it's a it's it's a big deal what was the other

seattle oh uh there's the bon marche seattle thing yeah what was the other one there was like something and something or something frederick and nelson that's gone yeah we lost frederick and nelson to the to the department store wars. Well, this is the thing. I mean, you know, it's also an interesting and a celebratory thing because the department stores shouldn't exist anymore. It's true. Frederick and Nelson, you could buy an axe. That was a classic department store. Where it was the actual, like, all sorts of crazy stuff.

And a restaurant on the top floor where ladies lunched wearing white gloves. And you could go in there a little more yeah speaking of speaking of axes and and beloved seattle-based brands john roderick you are uh an uh a brand ambassador for philson's yeah a minor brand ambassador but but i mean they don't have a bag bag with my name embroidered on it. Right, but you maybe get a free bag. They pitch me some free stuff. And what is Filson's? They're like a canvas and leather company. Yeah, it's like-

Bags and- Bags and out- Luggage and outerwear. Wool clothes. Oh, that's right, yeah. There's actually a Filson bag in this house. Yeah. That doesn't belong to me yeah it's mine john gets a daily printout before all the products i saw it on our way i know we were getting ready to go and john said hang on i gotta get my fax

from filson's to see where all the products are they're still faxing yeah they have the technology to track every good because it's old-timey it's old-timey. It's old-timey. Yeah, you guys are way... It has a CR code. Yeah. It's brought to him in a diplomatic bag. But, you know, but to turn it back to Canada, there's also... Thank you.

It's been too long. There's also a Cowichan sweater in this house, which I have... which I learned on our way in. I'd been mistakenly pronouncing as Cowichan. Well, that's a regional. That's a Seattle pronunciation. It does, but it been mistakenly pronouncing as Cowichan. Well, that's a regional, that's a Seattle pronunciation. It does,

but it feels like, but it's a Canadian, it's a Canadian product. They, and it's tribe. They get to call, they pronounce it how they want. Tell that to the people of Washington,

DC. Well, we will. But my whole life I've been saying Cowichan. Yeah. And I said Cowichan. And then everybody kind of just looked into their coffee and mumbled on their breath sorry i'm sorry sorry sorry i hate to be the bearer of bad news but i was in uh charlotte north carolina on a research trip uh with my friend phil morrison because we're working on a a script of a thing that is set

in south carolina and you know who better than to document the inner life of the north carolinian oh i said i said south i mean north carolinians this story this story's got a lot of incongruities than me then then me a man from uh boston northern new england but in this store so we want this this store was called the the dapper gent or something and i like it already and and phil said phil said that looks like a place that has been selling young men their prom suits for 60 years let's go into it seersucker seersucker tuxedos. And it was not that store, but rather a brand new boutique of curated masculine and southern masculine, especially items. Ah.

So not suits at all? Not suits. Basically, frat boy wear. Oh, okay. Various kinds of shirts that you would not tuck in and various kinds of shorts that are salmon colored what was it called again i think the dapper gent the dapper gent let me see i you know i want to give them there are so many ways you can go on this because it could be all sort of lumber sexual uh mustache wax right but you're describing a kind of Abercrombie and Fitch like frat prep

asshole store. Right. Right. The roofie room. What about a store called frat prep? Would you go, that would take out

any misconceptions about what type of store you're going into? Collar poppers. Sorry, it's called the sporting gent. Excuse me, the sporting gent.

Charlotte. That sounds like a like north carolina code for a kind of uh sex act yeah sex and so they had a lot of athletic shoes do you do the do you do this sporting sport and gent and then they featured some some products from around the world that spoke to the the douche aesthetic uh Uh-huh. Ooh. Including Yeti brand coolers, which are about to have a huge moment. Mark my words, you guys. So what is it?

Is it just like for beer at a festival type of deal? Yeah, but a Yeti brand is, this is the new thing. The new Herschel backpack. Exactly. It's just like everyone is talking about the Yeti brand cooler. It's a sort of semi,

they play it as a semi-industrial. Do you know what I mean? Not industrial, but like this thing is going to keep your beer so cold for so long. Is it made in America? Does it at least have that or North America, pardon me? I believe that it is made in the United States. And then they had some Filson's items as well. And that's I Thought of You.

I see. And then there was a young man there named Mark who was wearing an untucked shirt and some shorts. Mark with a C. Yes, it was. You got it. And I can't attempt to do a Charlotte accent. But you will. But he had one.

He's like, hey, guys, you want to come in and have a glass of bourbon with us? And he's sitting around there with some of his friends. And he can't be more than 26. Do you know what I mean? Getting drunk at work. And his mom is there also because, and she's a lady who lunches in Charlotte and he's got his other little frat friends

and they're all just sitting around and leather things going, yeah, these are some of the things I've collected. I just love it so much. What are you guys doing today? You having a good day? I know you are.

And all this sort of thing. Oh, well, why'd you ask that? Yeah. Like, he's like, yeah,

you know, I just came down here and I just realized this was the way to live. And I wanted to create a store that would reflect my belief in that this is the best way to live. And I said, where did, what do you mean you just came down here? Where did you come from? He said, well, I'm from Quebec. Oh, well. Oh, well.

It was the greatest. So if you guys want to see what the American mid-Atlantic South looks like through the drunken haze of a Quebecois frat guy, go to the Sporting Gent in Charlotte. What do you think it was? I really enjoyed him a lot, actually. Yeah. He went to college there, and. Yeah. Like, did he... He went to college there, and he's just like, this is... Oh, this is the way.

This is the way to live. And it's hard, you know, if you're an affluent white person living in Charlotte, North Carolina, it's hard not to imagine this is the right way to live. Yeah. Yeah. Lemonade and croquet. Juleps all day long. Oh, yeah.

As far as the eye can see juleps. Juleps. You can wear a bow tie every day there and not have it considered an affectation. No one would say. Yeah, is it still

considered an affectation? Bow tie? Because I know it was for a long time. It was like, oh, look at the guy wearing the bow tie. Bow tie guy.

But I see them pretty often now. Yeah, I can't get inside a millennial's head enough to know what they know about what they're doing yeah they're so i see them i see them all in the bow ties and i'm like do you do you know what it meant or do you only know what it means now yeah and if so i think it's not an affectation wait how i don't want to be personal but how old are you guys i'm 35

i will be 35 in december 34 and so what generation we're we're in between kind of x and y the point is that none of us here is relevant and yeah oh yeah no but i think that a lot of young uh people would wear a bow tie because somebody like kanye west a bow tie. I see. For a long time, as opposed to, I don't think they were looking at like old photos and like, Hey, that looks like a good one. Well,

sure. But, but, but recalling the thing that you're referencing, which is my whole life. If you wore a bow, my whole young life, if you wore a bow tie,

it was like, what's up bow tie guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like check out. Yeah. What are you trying to pull?

I don't think those things have have sort of narrative significance for the millennials the way they did for us because this is the generation that just accesses culture on demand at whim so they get whatever they want from wherever they want whatever era they're taking it from there's no like we we learned the story of how depeche mode came to be. Do you know what I mean? I actually have it written down in a molesky. It was understood in a context of

a particular time and a particular musical and fashion movement and you associated yourself with that or you didn't. Whereas these children today they just sample from whatever they want. I think it's great. To sort of wrap a bow tie around everything we've been talking about.

Oh, okay, go ahead, bow tie guy. I follow GQ on Twitter. Must be nice. What have I been missing? When did you get the invitation? Also a magazine. Yeah, exactly. That's what I mean by wrapping a bow tie around it all.

Is that they now have links. They had a link to a story that was, can you wear your Timberland boots with a suit? Obviously, yes. George Costanza did it. You can do whatever you want. But the one I liked the most was uh finding the right hoodie for your body type oh yeah there are different kinds of hoodies well i'm sure by now they're very different hoodie fits but a hoodie is the thing you can wear with any regardless of

your body type but see they hoodies have gone through a pretty monumental, because it used to be just the hood on the back. You could get one that had a zipper or one without a zipper. Those were the two choices. But I mean, it's like a blued jeans.

Do you know what I mean? Once a purely functional piece of work wear. Oh, it's got through. Now, of course, is a very fashionable item with a lot of different cuts and styles. But as a point of order, I would like to say that a hoodie, in my understanding, requires a zipper.

Because without it, it's just a sweatshirt, a hooded sweatshirt. Ooh, this could really... The cardigan. It's the cardigan aspect of it that makes it a makes it a hoodie i always just thought it was the hood that made it well see that you know who doesn't can i swear on this podcast oh you bet you know you know who doesn't give a shit about these distinctions millennials they just wear whatever they want call whatever i think we may be the last generation to make distinctions and get into fights over them i feel like because one of the

best reviews i ever received uh early on in my rock and roll career a uh right about the time when all the young writers were saying like oh we don't know what kind of music this is we're not sure whether this is good or not right some uh young uh female writer pop writer described me as bob dylan in a hoodie. Well, that's, and I, I was like, oh,

I walked on air for a week, Bob Dylan in a hoodie. And I was wearing a hoodie. Right. And then I went through a thing where I was like, no, I have to wear a hoodie. Oh yeah.

Bob Dylan. That's your brand. I'm just Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan in a hoodie. You don't walk out of that. VDIH. Yeah. And then I, then I realized that no one no one else

thought that I was Bob Dylan in a hoodie it was just this one girl and this thought of Bob Dylan in a hoodie is actually kind of sad no but I could picture Bob Dylan's pretty sad and I was super sad so yeah I could picture Bob Dylan wearing a hoodie yeah but you don't have to picture him he's right here but Dylan I'm picturing him with like pajama pants. Yeah, I'm picturing Bob Dylan in a tracksuit. Well, Bob Dylan in a wet hoodie is what you guys are picturing. And I was like a much bigger, heartier, younger, firmer Bob Dylan in a new hoodie. Firmer?

A dry hoodie. Like a firmer Bob Dylan. Oh, my. firmer driver like a firmer bob dylan oh my but you know like it's like mark with a c down there in north carolina he's a millennial he doesn't he chooses his identity but he's a quail you can't say anything about them because they are a complete breed apart no but i'm just saying that his generation is one i think that is in a way that we, they're not preoccupied with authenticity the way we are. This comes from a certain, you can't rep this unless you have this background. Or you can't be this unless you understand this music. Or you can't wear a hoodie that doesn't have a zipper.

When we found out the White Stripes were lying to us about their relationship, everything went out the window. So dismayed. How can I still like their music? their relationship everything went out the window so dismayed how can i still like their music i remember like and that's i wonder if there's less uh people just making fun of each other's clothing in the millennial set well you're not allowed to make fun of anybody now because i remember wearing a green jacket that i loved i was wearing it and i only wore it once because literally the first person i encountered was like, where's your pot of gold? And I was like, well, that's the end of this jacket.

Boo. Yeah. When was this? This was like I was 19, and I found it at a vintage store, and I loved it, and it fit just perfectly. And I was like, this is going to be my cool, like, all-time jacket. And did you throw it away? Yeah, I gave it away. I gave it to,

you know, Goodwill. You know what? Canadian Christmas is coming. I'm making another, putting another note on my list. Green jacket for gray. Green leprechaun jacket.

But it was, it's just the fastest, like, that was the fastest turnaround. And I love this too. Sorry, buddy. We're going to go

our separate ways did do you have a similar story was there ever a moment where you tried a fashion yeah something exciting out and it didn't didn't land in high school i was well i should say going back to maybe fifth or sixth grade i i was and still am friends with a a dude named peter rosenmeier who is four years older than me. Fake name. No, no, real name. Cool name.

Real name, real human being. And maybe he's listening. I hope so. And Peter, so when, you know, he was like in eighth grade when I was in fourth grade. Oh, yeah. And we would hang. Sure.

I was a little mature and he was a little immature and we would play and hang and do stuff together. But he was always like very fashion forward and he one thing that he would rock would be uh uh a a kind of a jumpsuit like a not a not even a military jumpsuit but like a dystopian member of a hive mind community jumpsuit yeah like the jumpsuits that the that the police wore in their first photo shoot yeah exactly but not not white like that but like gray or navy blue and clogs that's what he would rock around and he would get away with it because he was six foot two and uh

he was just this force of nature he was this blonde sasquatch who just wandered around and i remember going into an army navy store when I hit high school and he had graduated and went off to college. And I saw this thing and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to try a gym suit. I'm a freshman in high school now. I've got to branch out a little bit. I'm going to try a Peter Rosenmeier

style gym suit. And I bought that thing and I wore it and I just knew this was not going to happen. You look like Bob Hoskins in Brazil. Yeah. That's what I was looking for. That's what I was looking for. Yeah.

Bob Hoskins in Brazil, but with a ponytail because I had long hair at the time. And it was just not a work. I did not, maybe because I didn't get the clogs. It didn't come together for me, but it did not work at all. And I just remember the profound discomfort of realizing the middle of English class,

like, this jumpsuit is not sized correctly for me. It is riding up painfully. Right. Oh, wow. I think that thing got. But you had the rest of the day you had to get through. Yeah, I did. I got through it.

No one openly mocked me. I think they had realized that. There was a jumpsuit guy in my high school yeah uh and he was made fun of mercilessly but he still wore the jumpsuit and over time he became like the stuff of legend came around but he had like it was like a red like 1970s style like those leisure suit type jumpsuits. Oh, right. Whoa, that's a cut above. And he wore I think he had maybe two or three of them because they weren't the same one.

Leisure suits. But he would wear this one piece 70s style thing and then gray New Balance sneakers and but like everybody made fun of Bud Byte just he stuck with it so long. He became like that.

That became of the look. Right. I admire him a lot. Yeah. I was actually jumpsuit guy in my high school. Yeah. But mine was a bright orange 1950s fighter pilot suit. So it had zippered pockets all over it and zippers and stuff.

You're a ghostbuster basically. I was a ghostbuster. Yeah. I mean, you owned one recently. Yeah. Yeah. Oh,

I bought a beautiful denim one that I found at a vintage store that was a dead stock. So it still had the tag on it and everything. Was it a belted one? Did it have a not belted, but big brass buttons. Ooh, I used to have this...

Still have it. This white jumpsuit that had jewels on it in my Vegas days. And a little cape. Yeah. But did you ever have a moment where you tried something fashion out and it didn't fly? I've had... I wouldn't make it out of the house. My family, we love each other very much but we're mean

to each other so you wouldn't have even got out the front that's how they that's how they they mold you for the rest yeah yeah yeah so your mom would cut you down to size before you made it up well my siblings oh i say yeah um but as an adult the only thing I remember, and I still wear the coat. It's like a waxed cotton raincoat that it's waterproof. It's great. But it's like sort of it's blue and it's kind of shapeless. And I wore it once just in the rain going to a comedy show. And two comedian friends were just made fun of me for looking like, I think they said I looked like a European mechanic. I don't see why that's a,

why that's awesome. It was like a point of pride. But just the like specificity of it is like, well, that does hurt. I do seem like I would hate to be the guy who has to fix the siren on a European ambulance. I remember one time,

one time when I was in high school in in the outskirts of in boston and environs massachusetts that's a state in the united states technically a commonwealth uh i was in a vintage clothes store and i saw a gendarmes cape a french police gendarmes cape oh wow a short cape a short cape and i was like i'm gonna get that thing i'm gonna wear it because i don't know my jumpsuit maybe because i had already gone through the jumpsuit experience i'm like i talked myself out of it and i and i and i didn't get it and i've regretted it every day yeah no that seems like something to have in your arsenal right and you pull it out once a decade right when you do you destroy everyone i have

yeah i think it might be um defcon 5 uh han solo and the stripe down the pants that he had that has attracted me to pants with a stripe down the side sure yeah and yet i probably own maybe just two pairs uh three maybe maybe. That is 300% more pairs than I own. That's fantastic. Are they in regular rotation? No. Because every time I wear them, I'm like, this comes off a little cop-ish. Yeah.

What's the color scheme? Two of them are both gray with one's sort of a black and one's a dark green stripe. And then there's one that is pink seersucker with a blue. are both like gray with with like a one's sort of a black and one's a dark green stripe and then there's one that is pink seersucker uh with a blue stripe that doesn't that doesn't seem coppish that seems like a coppish if you're if you're a cop in candy land yeah it's like a some kind of flamingo nurse hey let's just do a quick uh quick station id you're listening to stop podcasting

yourself the number one podcast about print magazines and pants. We're really getting to the bottom of these issues. Well, I feel like you're a very stylish guy. You could pull off that one element of flair, that one outsider kind of like striped pants. Yeah. Do you have these striped pants here in this building? I think they're on the way out, but I believe they're still...

You put them in the thrift store pile? Oh, come on. Let's turn this around. We can have a look at them in the break. Maybe I'll put them on. That'd be fun. Yeah, a little fashion show. It's a good idea for non-visual media. But I think you can

feel it. And it actually is the most visual media, because you have to use your... It's the theater of the mind. Well, what now? What's Alton Brown up to? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. We never got to...

Circle back to Alton Brown. Let me say this to you. Sock it to me. So when I was a magazine writer, I was writing for Men's writing for men's journal magazine i had a column monthly column on food just to interrupt a men's journal at this point was or was not a lad mag a bikini mag it was it was and i think continues to be a magazine seeking for some purpose in life because it is the it is the the outdoorsy men's magazine of jan wenner's rolling stone empire which is rolling stone us and men's journal and it was always sort of the the weird stepchild of the three that didn't really know what it was doing and it was modeled to be like outside

magazine right but then during the the 90s and well into the 2000s the lad the british lad magazines really disrupted the men's magazine field and no one really knew what they were all scrambling for a purpose in life because those magazines were actually selling copies and now i think they've all just now no magazines are selling copies no offense to subscribers who get print and also playboy announced today no more no more nudes what just the articles the articles now? Just the articles. Also today, Pitchfork was acquired by Condé Nast. Wow. Are those both true news stories?

Yes. Holy moly. This has upended my life. This is what happens when you have your roaming turned on. People say they're big news for the day after Canadian Thanksgiving. What, Playboy is no longer nudes? No more nudes. They're trying to mainstream well they their

ceo is a woman yeah and somebody like the interview said that somebody came to them and said kind of they were under like a rebranding they do have great interviews yeah and they said they just said it's we did it we we were the magazine that did that we did it and now the internet uh that we don't need to do it anymore so still gonna have ladies you know ladies you know in uh pencil skirts doing yeah i suppose pursuing their careers i suppose that if you're the last if you're the last purveyor of porn or, you know, if you're the last purveyor of nudie content. Yeah, there we go. Do you know what I mean? And you are in a position where you're not for sale in a lot of stores.

And if you are for sale in a lot of parts of the country, you're in a plain brown wrapper in the back and you have to ask behind the counter. And meanwhile, everyone on earth is putting up pictures of their junk on the internet which you can get for free yeah like you're not in a guilty yeah you're not you're not in a competitive environment anymore you can't if you have to sell paper with pictures of boobs on it my junk is behind a paywall except we're we're we're we're we're you guys should make a t-shirt that says that my junk is behind a paywall we're... You guys should make a t-shirt that says that. My junk is behind a paywall. We're entering a world where people are like hand crafting nails and like carpentry nails.

People are hand building all the shit that we thought was obsolete and selling it to us at a premium. So artisanal... Artisanal newbies. Artisanal playboy, playboys getting out just as some disruptor group of millennials is going to be like, you know what we're going to do? We're going to go back to it. Right. Yeah. Back to like nudie content. That's that way.

You don't see any pink. Right. Sorry, ladies. And, uh, and, uh, you know, and it's going to be an expensive lingerie i think the sporting gentleman is the kind of place you sit down you have a bourbon they offer you an assortment of i would say that if he were if he were a wise fella this quebecois southernman he would have on his old repurposed steamer trunk that he uses as a coffee table. And is a stack of playboys from 1977. Oh yeah.

I have to be honest with you right now. Here it goes. Three days, not three days ago. I was in the woods. I found a stack. I found a stash under, under a board.

In the forest. Under a board. And, and I, and I never want to go home again. No, I went on the forest and I, and I never want to go home again. No, I went on the internet and, and,

uh, on the eBay and I said, what would it cost to get every issue of playboy from the year I was born? And I discovered that you can, there, you guys could all go on eBay and say, I was born in 1980 or whatever year you were born. Sure.

And say, give me every issue of playboy from that year, and it would come in a collection. Huh. There are people selling old Playboys, and I really wanted to have all the Playboys from the year I was born. I don't know why. Did you buy it? I didn't. Why? I got shot.

Canadian Christmas is coming. I had that. This is a French policeman cape all over again. Oh, boy. I do have a very prominently displayed Playboy item in my home. That's true. One of my favorite things that you own. So I wasn't sure that I could have two. I didn't think then also a separate shelf.

What's the difference? You have two floors in your house. You can have one on the ground floor and one on the ground floor. What is the item and what is the favorite thing that everyone owns of each other's all right oh well john will describe the favorite thing that he has that he owns my favorite thing that he has that he owns and that is oh i have a i have a an issue of playboy in braille which because braille is is a language that takes up a lot of space. It extends to four volumes. Oh, wow.

One issue. I didn't realize I like it even more now. Cause I always thought that you had four issues of. No, that is one issue. One out of four, two out of four, three out of four.

It says on the cover. And, and so it, it's a, it's a, it makes a square about a, it's a, it's a,

what would you say? A third of a meter. Square. I certainly would you say a third of a meter square I certainly would not say that a foot? you don't describe things in you can't divide a meter into thirds can you I guess 33.3 centimeters

33.3333 repeating it's this beautiful it's it's uh this beautiful item that you can sit and uh you know and everyone's first question is like do they describe the girls or or or is it that was my last question i never heard to me yeah because i thought it would be textured uh like a topographical map that's what i thought it was gonna be i was more interested in the dirty jokes. Yeah, I don't read Braille,

so it remains a mystery to me, but it's a beautiful... But you can go on eBay and find the corresponding issue. Yeah, that's right. You could. And also, I'm sure that if... It never occurred to me,

but I bet you could go on eBay and find Braille Playboys up the wuz. John Roderick, I am a happily married man, as you know, and I am not one to craft erotic fantasies for others. But may I suggest at some point in your life, you hire a very beautiful woman who is either blind or just knows Braille to come over and read the Playboys to you. That does sound all right. In Seattle, there is a Braille library where they have like a staff of trained Braille librarians.

And I probably could go down there and find exactly the person that you're describing. I don't even know why I said hire, just invite. Yeah. Throw a party. Throw a party. Throw a party. Right. Say,

wear your best pencil skirt and come read this playboy to me. And you know, what you do is you leave it out in a conspicuous location and eventually the person who reads braille

is going to be drawn to it. Sure, of course. And you would put on your nature takes its course. Put on your velvet jumpsuit and lie down on the couch and just listen. On the circle rotating bed.

That's the thing about somebody who reads Braille. They're not going to fail to mention it if they see a Braille Playboy. What year is it from? Well, this is the thing. It's not so, you know, I'm an aficionado of the classic Playboys. Sure. What are we talking, the 60s? Is that what you mean, classic Playboys? 60s into 70s, sure. The great years. Sure. Sure. This is the, what are we talking, the 60s? Is that what you mean, classic Playboys?

60s into 70s, sure. The great years. Yeah. But then by the time. Not our years. By the time you fade. Well, nobody says the 90s is the best Playboy time. When you were saying you could buy one from your birth year, I would be like, that would

be just like all tan lines. Yeah, that was the era, right? 1980, all tan lines, very much Princess Diana haircuts. A lot of lace neckline dresses. I'm just trying to think of what would be an interview with the guy who created All in the Family or something. It would be an interview with that really fast-talking guy from the Micro Machines commercial. The longest interview ever. But I think My Braille Playboy is from 1997.

Oh, wow. Which is like really, I mean, that would have been peak years for you guys 17 an interview with Kurt Loder you were trying to get your hands on a Playboy at that point but this is not

it's not a Playboy that would interest me really it would be it would be a Playboy I would just go for because it's called Playboy but it has no word it has no printed word

I have no idea what's in it but I do know that you have to decode this issue of Playboy. I do know it's from about 1997 because the person that gave it to me, it was a contemporary magazine at the time. And that was the year they were blind. What is an item that John Hodgman has that you would consider your favorite of his?

Oh, my favorite item of John Hodgman has that you would consider your favorite of his. Oh, my favorite item of John Hodgman's. He has a pretty well done home. So I covet his entire home, including his family. Thank you. Wife and two kids. Yeah, that's pretty good. Just his worldly possessions. That's cool.

Yeah. Well, my family is not my worldly possessions. They're humans. But if we could just eliminate John Hodgman and I could occupy that space, I think I'd be very happy. There you go. I think that's been the plan for a long time. Except I'd get rid of the geriatric cat. Oh, wait.

Fate has taken care of that already. Oh, no. Oh, wait. That's, that's, fate has taken care of that already. Oh, no. Oh, no. It was almost, well, a little bit more than a year ago that my 19-year-old cat, Petey, passed away. 19. Gone too soon. By specifically, he passed away by me bringing him to a place to have him professionally

poisoned. You don't want to go halfway on that. No amateur. It's Brooklyn, so it's like an artisanal poisoning place. Storefront. My mouse hovered over the Amazon page for the

do-it-yourself home remedy. Do-it-yourself pet euthanasia kit. You know what? You know what? Petey deserves better. Yeah. It's just a hammer. Yeah.

I'd have to buy gloves. Why? Why are you trying to do it so that you don't get caught? Petey was on his last legs for many years and you just kept hoping that he would do it himself by just laying down and dying. Yeah, I think I have a feeling that he actually died about a year before he was poisoned. Yeah, I have a feeling that he actually died about a year before he was poisoned. I think he was a Nosferatu cat for the last year of his existence because I never saw him eat a food. He'd just wander around the house yowling at ghosts and eating moonlight.

Strict moonlight. But now he's out of the way John so begin your begin your colonization process the problem is that your kids are I said process for you guys your kids are starting to like trend into their teen years

and that that seems less fun and you have a family of your own yeah it's trev and sing well I'm glad you don't covet any of the stuff that I have in my house

in there right what about you guys you don't want another stuff, but you have very different aesthetics. Yeah, Graham travels light. Yeah, I don't have

a lot of stuff. There's, I don't know, maybe a poster? Yeah, I might have some poster you might like. I don't, I really don't have much stuff. It's all, and I moved

into this one place a year ago. It's still all my stuff's in boxes. Right. Never unboxed any of it. So I'm thinking of getting rid of them. You should do one place a year ago. Still, all my stuff's in boxes. Right. Never unboxed any of it. I'm thinking of getting rid of them. You should do one of those unboxing videos of all your stuff.

Yeah, that's what I do. No, I just watch them online, and that fulfills the need. That scratches the itch. On unboxing day. Yes. Which is six months from December 26th. Which is six months from December 26th. I really like, you have upstairs a bunch of stuff that your friend who is an artist, Chris Von Zombathy, did these beautiful glasses that have like cartoon characters on them.

I think those are really nice. They're bottles. Oh, yeah, bottles. Yeah, but they're like, they're all hand done. And I like the style of them He'll sell you seven of them Oh I know But you know I don't

It doesn't mean anything Just put them in a box Somewhere on the museum Exactly I mean Well let's all Let's all Say what the elephant

In the room is Which is in this house There is a beautiful Little two year old baby That we all want And she's only one She's only one That's a one year old baby

Yeah Wow No I would take that baby in a second. Oh, boy. I got a great Filson bag. Yeah. That's true. They require less care and feeding, but I have that one.

You should send your baby down to the sporting gent to be raised by Mark. Oh, sure. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Become an artisan. She could be a debutante at some point. Hell, yeah. Do you guys want to move on to the

overheard segment? Sure. Ty is a pedantic person. I think when he pronounces these words it's in a very show-offy way. Gyro. Gyro. Sacrebleu. Sacrebleu. Ayers Rock.

Uluru. Uluru. What you are witnessing is real. The participants are not actors. They are actual litigants with real cases. They call in via Skype to Judge John Hodgman's court, the real people's court. Now I call you to Judge John Hodgman's internet court. Find it at MaximumFun.org or wherever you

download podcasts. Hey, this is Pop Rocket. We're your source for all pop culture information. It's an intellectual and incredibly snark-filled discussion about pop culture by five Frankie Hollywood 30-somethings. No name calling, no rudeness, just straight talk and a lot of role play. I'm only 30-something for another year. Me too. And I don't. I'm only 30-something for another year. Me too.

And I don't tell anybody I'm 30-something. Pawpocket comes out every week from MaximumFun.org. Overheard. Overheard. It's a segment in which we, the podcast host, and the podcast guests, and the podcast listeners all share things that they have overheard or overseen out there in the world. Hey, John Roderick, are you hearing this? Mm-hmm.

Hearing what these two dummies are talking about? Pretty much. I'm still trying to grok their whole, the vibe of this podcast. I can't wait to tell a story about what I just heard. Oh, boy. I just heard a guy say grok. I can't wait to tell a story about what I just heard. Oh, boy.

I just heard a guy say grok. Now, we usually start with the guest. Is that all right? Are you good to go? It's fine with me. All right. John, you are also the guest. You want to flip for it? You want to flip a toonie?

I think that... I got a toonie right here. They're going to flip for it. On the spot with this overheard thing, just i came up with the thing and now my brain is is stuck on it i can't think of more interesting we'll see if the toonie favors you it's plenty call it in the air heads or bears bears bears wins all right so you choose uh no i'll go first all right um overheard so many years ago i had a a band practice space in seattle which was one of those sort of hive uh practice

spaces bands over here bands over there the drums stay but you bring your own cymbals no it wasn't that that is a new york style uh band practice space which i could never oh just the worst like you have to pack your stuff up at the end of every practice no couldn't do it okay we had our own spaces that you would sometimes share with another band sure all right but you were allowed to put up christmas lights and and make it your own so cool black light posters you know on a big british flag or a picture of of that that big cure poster with the where it was just the the just just the other guys from The Cure? Yeah. Anyway, and this practice space had a fairly good grunge history.

This is even in the mid-90s, the story I'm describing. A fresh grunge. It was fresh grunge. The Murder City Devils were across the hall from us. Right. And we had a, you know, there were various bands in there trying to reinvent rock as we did in Seattle at the time. But I remember walking. Thank you, by the way. Yeah.

Well, you know what? Seattle has sacrificed itself for you. Yeah. Many, many times. That's true. Anyway, walking through. Thank you, Seattle. Yeah, again.

Thank you, Seattle, for doing all the heavy lifting. Where would, yeah, flannel, that's us. Yeah. If you want to go check out the Jimi Hendrix Shrine while you're here. Is there one here in Mount Pleasant? Yeah. No, down, it's not far from here, but it's on the border of China. But there is no connection between Jimi Hendrix and Vancouver.

There is, apparently. Ten years. Ten years. Apparently. Was he in a band with Tommy Chong? Maybe. Is Tommy Chong from Vancouver? I met Tommy Chong one time.

Tommy Chong, I think, either is, I think he's from Alberta, originally. Oh, right. We can derail him with a basketball. Yeah, yeah. Anyways, you were telling a story from time. So I was walking through this practice space, and at the time, all the guys in Pearl Jam had gone on. They were all living in Hawaii, or they were living on like a silver surfboard in space. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or whatever it was that they were doing. Those were the two. That's what they could come up with as rock stars. Those were the things. I mean, you know. Hawaii or outer space. They have all the money in the two. That's what they could come up with as rock stars. Those are the things. I mean, you know. Hawaii or outer space. They have all the money in the world. Yeah.

But the one guy that never really left, not only like left Seattle, but just left like his little community was Jeff Ament, the bass player of Pearl Jam. And he's still there to this day? I haven't seen him in a while, but he continued. He hung around. He hung around and he continued to get breakfast at the Green Cat Cafe, and he continued to just be a presence in the, you know, and you'd go into the Green Cat, and it's a very small little breakfast,

vegetarian breakfast place. And there's Jeff Amant sitting in the corner. It was just like they were the biggest band in the world at the time, but he still was, like, local guy. Cool. And I don't know if you remember jeff immense costume but it was high top tennis shoes shorts uh basketball shorts over long john bottom oh yeah and then some kind of basketball shirt and then a gigantic toque floppy

like mushroom cap of a hat. This is giving me very heavy flashbacks to the 90s. Right? Yeah. And the hat

probably had like a Guatemalan fabric pattern. Yeah. Maybe some ear flaps. Some ear flaps. Big floppy you know

like Guatemalan uh and a different hat every day that guy needed a jumpsuit yeah oh yeah the hat was his paul schaefer's glasses right so omnipresent like always the high tops might have been the same but the hat was different okay and so and and in seattle at the time grunge fashion encompassed a lot of different things but the hat was all that was always yeah his alone right or i mean when you'd see yeah you'd see people then rocking a hat like that you'd be like no yeah right that's that's his thing that's his jumpsuit. Sure. Leave it. Leave it. Anyway, so walking through this practice space,

which had, you know, there were bands there that had connections to Pearl Jam and those grungiers. And there was a lot of graffiti on the walls. And I remember seeing, just walking past, the tiny little writing. And it just said, bring me the hat of Jeff Amant. Oh, that's great and it it just it collapsed me with joy at the time and then it it lodged itself in my brain and has become one of my catchphrases yeah bring me the hat of jeff there it is uh Which has never,

ever registered with a single person I've said it to. Yeah. In now approaching like 15 or more years, 20 years almost, of saying,

bring me the hat of Jeff Amint to people around the world. But when it works, instant friendship. One of these days. Yeah. But this is the first time I've ever told the story.

I've been saying it for 20 years. Bring me the hat of Jeff. I love it. Never. No, I haven't even gotten a raised eyebrow. And so I just feel like that's a story that I needed to tell just for me. Well, and thank you for sharing. Yeah.

And those of you listening along at home, I advise you now to do exactly what I did, which is Google Jeff Ament and see the array of hats that he wore. And this quote from Jeff Ament, perfect for the overheard segment of this podcast. I don't know what he's referring to. I didn't write this song. Someone else was talking in a room. I

just wrote down everything they said. Ah, wow. Overheard by Jeff A said. Oh, wow. Classic event by Jeff and Matt. The green rooms and band practice spaces are just covered in like undecipherable graffiti. So much inside baseball happening in graffiti in green rooms there's a green room i'm trying to think of it it's in europe somewhere um france no definitely not in france i would say that it was in germany has anyone guessed franced franced no it's not in

france but there's a green room where the graffiti is on the ceilings and down the walls where it's obvious that it's graffiti. This is like the graffiti room. It might even be in Rotterdam. Rotterdam. It might be the green room at the Rotown Club in Rotterdam. Wow. And there's graffiti up on the ceiling. There's graffiti everywhere.

If you're ever in the Rotown Green Room. Well, I could have been there, but you know. You just missed it. I just missed it. Graham just came back from Rotterdam. Search the Rotown Green Room

because I have added some great graffiti to that. I was this close to being on the hat. See if you can find the saying, bring me the hat of Jeff Amint.

Written in the eves of the Rotown Green Room. Do you have an overheard yeah so uh i would uh sometimes i go to los angeles to work and sometimes i get to stay in a very glamorous hotel and this is a hotel where there's some very glamorous parties and there was one particular party that was very glamorous and i and i and i knew and i knew that it was happening because i could hear it from my window and i was not invited that's why you were hearing it from your window yeah this is the golden globes party from

january of this year 2015 wow so stars galore and i show and I was in town to do some work, and I was staying at the Chateau Marmont, which is a very fancy hotel and a place that John and I both love to be around whenever we can get someone to pay for us to do it. It's a storied place. It's a storied place. What's the Sofia Coppola movie? Somewhere. Somewhere, yeah. So when you're not there, you're just,

you watch that on a loop. I've refused to watch it because I don't want to believe that anyone else has ever been there. Except for me. This is the hotel that Jim Morrison climbed around the, this outside of the balcony on the top floor. Led Zeppelin rode their motorcycles into the lobby. So many adventures were had here.

And I showed up that day and they said, yeah, you should know that it's the Golden Globes tonight. I'm like, yeah, I know. And we have a television. We are closing the lobby and the courtyard for a private party. Right. And normally when they do this, because it happens, hotel guests are invited to also go to the party. So I'm very excited when I hear this. Can I go to the party?

They're like, you know what? It's weird. They're not being very clear with us about whether that will be okay or not. Oh, okay. So I said, whose party is it? And they said, it's Amy Poehler's party for the Golden Globes. She was co-hosting it, I believe, that year, right? This year. This year, right? Wasn't this the last year they

hosted this year? I don't know. It's all a blur. Let's say yes. Anyway, so, I'm like, well, you know, I've met her once or twice, and I know... You were in Baby Mama. I was in Baby Mama. Yeah. So I don't know where my invitation is. But, you know,

and I know, you know, I'm acquainted with a number of the people who are going to be there and I'm staying in the hotel. So my hopes are high that I'm going to get invited. And so I send out some emails to some people I know saying, can you see if I can attend this party? It's in my hotel. And if it's if it's if the answer is no, that's no problem. By which I mean, that will be the worst problem. This is a huge problem. Because I am profoundly status conscious and anxious about whether or not I'm invited to a party ever.

And I went through the day just waiting to hear back, waiting to hear back. I'll look into it and I just nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. And finally, at the end of the day, I had to conclude that I was not invited to this party, and I went upstairs to my room after coming home from dinner, and the Golden Globes were wrapping up, and I was sitting in my room just thinking to myself, what should I do? And I really, I went rock bottom,

and I called the manager, and I'm like, can I go to this party or not? I'm staying here. Come on. Right. I don't think anyone, if you go downstairs, I don't think anyone would stop you. Oh, boy. Which is like, that's not acceptable at all.

Let me ask, had you packed a tuxedo just in case? No, I didn't know that this party was going to be happening, but I had clothes that I could wear to this party. A jumpsuit. If I got the call, I had my clogs in my jumpsuit yeah right on my french policeman's cape i could go down a green blazer a bat pole and put on my speed suit and my clogs and my gendarmes cape and be and be ready to go but god i don't think anyone will stop you is not an acceptable answer for obvious reasons because he was right i mean i would go down and no one would stop me. Yeah. But I would be in this party as an interloper and Amy Poehler might see me there and she knows who she invited to this party.

Of course. And I don't want to be the guy who shows up and goes, hey, Amy, how you doing? Nobody, you can't stop me. I was told nobody could stop me. Right, exactly. I don't remember Hand delivering an invitation to you. Yeah, she goes through a Rolodex. Wait a minute.

And, you know, fame is a weird thing that kind of comes upon you and then disappears at all kinds of levels. And you get used to it and then you have to get unused to it. And this was one of those moments where you just realize, you know, sometimes you're not on the list. And you have to make peace with that. So I did. So I took a Xanax and I consoled myself with a bunch of screeners, a bunch of award screeners, which are, you know, during the award season. Yeah, yeah. You may not know this, but every year Hollywood makes a bunch of good movies in secret.

Yeah. And then they don't show them to anyone. No one ever sees them. No one ever sees them. They just send them out on DVD. I'm talking about your jazz drums and your fox wrassle and your bird mans. Sure. All those movies that never seem to be in theaters, but they just get mailed to you.

But we all saw them because we're part of the hipster intelligence right well yeah but the thing is they're they're so intent on keeping these movies secret that when you get them they say do not show this to anyone else and when you're done watching it break it in half like those are the instructions that come with these screeners so i so i i just white knuckled myself to sleep as i heard them all partying downstairs having the best night of their life right and in the morning i woke up with these screeners so i so i i just white knuckled myself to sleep as i heard them all partying downstairs having the best night of their life right and in the morning i woke up you're watching american sniper no i felt totally clean and pure like i felt like i had kicked yeah you had done the right thing right i'd done the right thing i'd gotten through it

i'd gotten past my addiction and i went downstairs to have a cup of coffee in the lobby, which was once now available to me. who as I listened to their conversation it became clear that somehow they had gotten rooms in this hotel by accident they had no idea where they were they had no idea they had no idea that Led Zeppelin had rode a motorcycle through there they just went online and got hotel yeah Priceline was like oh good deal for tonight let's go stay here it's like this is a real fancy hotel isn't it like yeah i guess there is and then i i hear a couple of them come down and one of them says to the other hey don did you hear that there was a big fancy hollywood party here last night and don goes yeah in fact we got home late rich and i and we went to the party it's like really you did he's like yeah

we just walked in and grabbed a champagne off the thing no one stopped us and then they just got sat down and started talking about this party they had went to say so who did you meet at the party did you talk to george clooney no i didn't talk to george clinton i did meet bill murray though real nice guy he's got farmer's hands. Wow. And it's just all of the people that I would have loved to have met and seen were witnessed. Like, Bill Murray, I've been waiting my life to meet Bill Murray. And all of a sudden, this doctor from Iowa just goes like, hey, Bill Murray, you were real funny in Caddyshack.

I want to shake your hand. And Bill Murray's like, okay. And the other one's like, what, did you meet anybody? He's like, no, I want to shake your hand. Bill Murray's like, okay. And the other one's like, what, did you meet anybody? He's like, no, I don't know, but I guess I'm going to star in a Wes Anderson movie now because I met him last night in the driveway and he needs someone with glasses and a mustache and I guess I fit the bill.

He needs a normal. And I'm like, oh, I couldn't stand it. I went over to them. I said, well, I hope you guys had a really great night and I'm glad you're doctors because I'm about to slit my wrists open with this Foxcatcher DVD I broke last night. It was the worst.

That's what I overheard. That was pretty great. Yeah. Pretty great. And you know none of them saw any of the awards bait. No. No. They don't play that stuff in Iowa.

And if they do, it's at some grotty theater, right? Iowa City. Iowa City. There's a lot of culture there. You could have caught Foxcatcher in Iowa City. I went and saw Foxcatcher with my family. In the theater. Yeah, at Christmas.

That was not the movie we had set out to see, but that's what was playing. Right. It's become a Canadian Christmas classic. It's very slow. It is very slow. It's slow and also very tense. And also there's a lot of undercurrents. My brother's

girlfriend fell asleep in the first three minutes of the film. Which is not, I was surprised that somebody could fall asleep that fast. But there you go. There's not a lot, not a lot moving parts. So it was restful and relaxing.

Absolutely. It's all, that's why it's a holiday classic. Yeah. Dave, do you have an overheard? I do yesterday. Um,

uh, let me look at my notes. Uh, I voted. Did I mention that? Yeah. And geez, Louise,

whilst in line to vote, uh, there was a couple behind me, I would say in their 20s. Did you say whilst ironically or Canadianly? Is that a thing that would be said? I don't know, but is it correct? I don't know. Isn't it whilst? I would say whilst, but whilst also.

Oh, I don't know. I would accept whilst. But I used it properly. I may have mispronounced it. But is that a thing that is said in Canada when you're trying to buy time

for your alright I would attribute it more to your sort of anachronistic style rather than that it's a Canadian

what's anachronistic about my style there's something about you that seems a little bit out of time am I right but everybody here in this room is a little out of time.

Right. Sure. I'm the only one. What you don't know is that Dave is wearing a steampunk exoskeleton at the moment. Made out of leather and brass. I made all my style choices after I saw Wild Wild West. So there was a girl, a woman behind me in line with her man friend. And they were, she was explaining to him what a cakewalk is.

And I'm not sure I know what a cakewalk is. I'm not sure either. I know what it is. But it's, I mean, it's something you compare an easy. Right. It's an easy thing. Easy thing, yeah. Right.

But you like go around in circles. I've done it once when I was a kid and you land on squares and they have numbers on them and they pull. Yeah. Wait a minute. A cake walk is an actual thing. It's an actual thing. Yeah.

Yeah. And it might be a Canadian thing or an English thing, but it's, it's yeah. I have friends, I have friends who grew up with cake, cake walk. Is cake the reward?

Yeah. You win, you win a cake And there's a bunch of cakes There's many cakes But you have to understand that in England a cake is a biscuit And a walk is a bus And it's all just slang for evaporated milk It's all Cockney rhyming slang And so they're going around

And she's explaining Oh, if you really want to do well at a cake walk, you get there late because there's always cakes left over and fewer people to compete for them. And he was like, well, we didn't have that where I was growing up, but we did have zucchini races. And she said to him, well, what's that? And he was like, or how do you race a zucchini?

And he was like, well, your mother spends the summer growing the biggest zucchini she can, keeping it covered up. And then on the day of the big zucchini race, you bring your zucchini to school, and you have these wheels, and you shove the wheels into the side of them and all the other kids bring their zucchinis from home would the school store the zucchini wheels year over year or maybe it would be something you would buy at like the scout shop keep those at home because the zucchini wheels i mean that you want to customize those a little bit yeah you want to trick out your wheels yeah and uh and all the other kids would do it and he just said

yeah in my day i won many a zucchini race wow i have never heard of that uh no me neither uh but it does sound a lot like the like the cub car yeah races According to the internet, a cakewalk is a competitive dancing game developed in the late 19th century, primarily in the southern United States on plantations. It does sound now like something that you would... That and was incorporated later into minstrel shows because it was traditionally a southern African United Statesian. That's where we get the expression you got served from competitive dancing and you would win it you would win a you would win a cake at the end of it yeah yeah it's not a canadian thing at all for interest but this is we should uh we should go down to mark and say you know one thing you should have in your shop

yeah yeah if you want a real oh i'm sure he'd incorporate minstrelsy into the job absolutely just a little push graham yeah what's your overheard this week uh well i was in uh rotterdam for this comedy festival right and i was doing how long how many days were you there i was there for quick question what's the point of that question well can you just let him tell his story i'd like to know why does it matter i want to know how long he was there i don't remember 24 hours i was there for two days so you it was whirlwind it was whirlwind you flew to europe for two days and flew back a whirlwind also is a different kind of racist plantation dance and at the end you just get somebody blows in your face i apologize i'm sorry dave um so the uh wait how

many days again i don't want to break you i don't want to break your flow but two days so when you fly over there you have no you have no there's no you're not trying to get on their time you just get there and you do your comedy show and then yeah you don't sleep and then you come right i stayed at a friend's for a night before you have a friend in Rotterdam? No, in London. Oh, okay. I flew into London because they were flying me out of London. So I stayed there for the night. And then.

London, Ontario? Yep. Direct flights. London, Ontario to Rotterdam every day. It's a bedroom community. And I did a show called Graham Clark Reads the Phone Book. That's my hour-long show that I've been doing all summer. And I did a show called Graham Clark Reads the Phone Book. That's my hour-long show that I've been doing all summer, and they did it at the Edinburgh Festival.

And the show starts with me literally reading from the phone book for the first couple of minutes to make the audience uneasy. Do you personalize it by reading from the local phone book? I bring out the local phone book near the end of the show and then talk about their local phone book. But I carry around this Vancouver phone book with me. And the opening of the show is supposed to be like, oh, my God, we paid to get into a show where a guy is literally reading the phone book for the whole thing. And most times there will be some like giggles at the beginning where people are like, we get what he's doing. i'll wait until the giggles have completely vanished right uh so that it's making people uncomfortable and uh and you were there two days two days yeah and uh so i the first night i was doing this just real quick three nights in two days or two days and two nights two days two nights okay sorry to

interrupt no problems wait two shows each night two shows each night? Two shows each night. All right. Yeah. So four shows total. Four shows. Actually, there was a fifth show added on the second night of the two nights. You know it's going well. Yeah. Go on with your story.

And this Dutch audience. Real quick, on the day you left. Did you have to leave real early or could you kind of build in an extra day just for yourself? I left late so that I would have a night of sleeping. Thank you for answering the question. I don't care. I was just trying to give you trouble. So the Dutch audience, they had zero time for this conceit off the top of the show.

I read, I think, three numbers. So they had no time, but you had like 60 hours absolutely uh you notice how i've been unflappable through this entire we'll clap you pat on the back for me zero flaps uh so yeah i was three numbers in and uh dude in the audience just yelled out we get it. Oh! So that was the beginning and the end of that part of the routine. I've actually had someone in a Dutch audience yell, we get it, to me. Really?

Yeah. We get it, you're dylan in a hoodie do you think that it do you think that it is a typical of a dutch audience or do you think it's the same dude i think it's typical of a dutch audience i think that i think they uh they have it's not johnny they don't suffer fools very uh very easily they're just like yeah yeah yeah yeah and the next night there was i asked a question of the audience that you ask sometimes you say is anybody here married and one guy in the back just yelled out no i was like well okay all right he took a poll yeah before that and assigned himself leader of the audience that's right that's why you don't want to leave the house open too long

because they often fall to dictatorship. Although, to his credit, you were playing at a singles event. Yeah, that's true. That should have taken you off. It's just lunch. Are you sure this cord shouldn't be plugged into something? No, that's an old...

That cord is superfluous. Seems to me like you're playing a little game. Am I really on the microphone or not? That cord has a lot of buzz in it, so we got rid of it. But you didn't pull it out. No. You just left it there.

Yeah. This is the money chord. Oh, yeah. We also have overheards that have been sent in to us via email. If you want to send one in to us, you can send it to spy at maximumfun.org. Yay!

And this first one comes from Steph in Minneapolis. I found myself at a karaoke bar last week, and some guy got up to sing Meat Loaf's I Would Do Anything for Love, but I Won't Do That. He was mediocre in that while he was appropriately energetic, he didn't quite have the rhythm of the song, but about two-thirds of the way that song has rhythm no it does yeah that's a big hit that song i love the song don't get me

wrong but it's not a toe tapper well there's a part where it really picks up yeah uh but about two-thirds of the way through he just says oh there's a girl part oh boy whoops whoops that's uh ambitious in karaoke picking a six minute song that you don't know the whole thing and it's got it's got real peaks and valleys that meet me meet loafian highs and lows. But he knew it so little that he didn't realize that. That was a pretty significant part. He holds me down with holy water if I get too hot.

Somebody in the room knows it very well. Yeah, well. This was a slow dance hit for us. For our generation. That's true. That was like if you were trying to whatever a kid could do, touch a girl's shoulder, maybe the small

of the back. I still hope to. You know what? And if you keep trying, you'll get there. Alright. Now, this next one. Can I read it? Yeah, absolutely. The slow dance song from my junior high was Whip It by Devo. We

never got to touch one another. So, you can read this second one. It's from, well, I like reading things. It says at the bottom who it's from,

so you don't have to No one's ever asked before. That's pretty fun. This comes from Ian from Issaquah, Washington. Am I pronouncing that correctly? That's correct.

Issaquah. Issaquah. Coetian. At the post office, the postal worker behind the counter is reading the address label on a box handed to him by a young man in his early 20s. He notices the young man's last name. The postal worker says, that's an interesting last name. Is it Grit?

And the young man says, no, Git, G-I-T-T. And the postal worker says, oh, got it. Where's that name from anyway? Asking about the name Of the name's country of origin And the young man says It's uh From my dad's side

Pretty good Do you want to read the last one? Yeah We've established it Okay So the name is at the bottom uh she's from parts unknown but there you go is that how you pronounce it parts parts and parts and parts and parts and parts and iowa parts and okay so this is from jill., all caps, from Parts Unknown. He asked her, so what do you want to do now?

She said, I'm going to go look at the other side and ran across the bridge. Was there an earlier part? She just began this story right at the meet. First of all, he asked her. Hang on, Dave, I was really listening to that. I'll start over. Do you want to know how many days they spent on the bridge? This is a dramatic reading.

Yeah. And she intended it that way. Don't take me out of the story again, Dave. He asked her, so what do you want to do now? She said, I'm going to go look at the other side and ran across the bridge. We already looked at that side, he said, trailing behind her. Just as I was getting out of earshot, he sighed in a defeated parental way and said, You just want to look at the dead raccoon again.

That one really took me on a journey. It did at first you thought yeah i mean you were doing such a beautiful job reading it until dave interrupted but honestly graham did you just paste the no that's that's that's it yeah that's how that's how that's you start and it's in media rest you know what i mean like yeah yeah who are people? It's like a lyric from a song. But then when you hear the parental, you know, it's a father. And I'm going to take that.

I think you should. He asked her, so what do you want to do now? She said, I'm going to go look at the other side. Boom. That's the first verse of a killer pop song. Sounds like that's the great,

that's a great long winter song. It's a killer long winter song. And I'm going to take it. Yeah. Take it. Jill N, thank you so much. Make sure you buy,

make sure everyone listening to this program buys the next Long Winter's record. And remember, all overheards sent in are work made for hire,

so you have no rights. That's right. Public domain. Public domain. In addition to overheards that are written in, we also accept your

phone calls. If you would like to call us, our phone number is 206-339-8328. Like these people have. Hi, Dave. Hi, Graham. Hi, probable guests. This is Derek from Carmel, Indiana. Calling in with an overheard. I go to Wendy's sometimes late at night when I'm hungry. Sure. Of course.

You do. There's this lady who works there who's always super frazzled and hairy, even though I'm literally the only person at the restaurant at a given time. Frazzled and hairy. Today, she hit

a new high when she said, hello, thank you for coming to Wendy's. I like to imagine her taking the hat off her head and looking at the logo at the local Wendy's that I always go to in the drive-thru for years, through generations of workers, it's always said...

Quick question, how many days a week do you go? Once a month. Okay. They always say, welcome to my Wendy's. That's the most Canadian thing I've heard on this whole program. Welcome to my Wendy's. Welcome to my Wendy's. Why?

I don't know. It's a franchise. And obviously the manager or the owner of that franchise misread something in the binder. I think we're required to do this. Yeah. And he was like, oh, that's how. Well, ooh, sorry. That's how it's done.

Welcome to my Wendy's. All right. Here is your next phone call. Hi, Graham and Dave, an amazing guest. This is Kaylee calling from Toronto. I was just walking home and overheard three people discussing their Muppet Halloween costumes. And one woman said, well, you know, Miss Piggy with the pearls and whatever. And then this guy interrupted her and said, yeah, yeah, it's just, I don't know, like, with the green face.

Is it the same as, like, you know, like, is it going to be offensive? Green face. Yeah. I like that. I like that somebody's, you know, making sure. Well, the thing is, back in the day, they wouldn't hire frog actors. They would always, you know, use a human actor to play the frog. But now...

That's how Al Jolson got his start, playing frogs. The original frog actor. And finally... Oh, wow, green face. Your final word. Hi, stop podcasting yourself. This is Casey. I'm in Columbus, Ohio.

I just saw a sad cowboy crying under a bridge. Okay, bye! Ah! I didn't like the tone of Casey's voice with that one. Ah, that's pretty good. Sad cowboy crying under a bridge. Yeah, I didn't like the tone of Casey's voice. He seemed to take too much joy in seeing that sad cowboy. Well, you know, he's from Ohio, right? So,

sad cowboy in Ohio means something different. If he was calling from Oklahoma, you'd be like, Oh shit. Yeah. Somebody just lost the ranch. Right.

But this is an Ohio. If you're calling from Dallas, it'd be a football player. Sure. Right. Right. Various cowboys. Yeah, absolutely.

Astronaut that got kicked out of the program. But this might as well be a party clown or a mime weeping under a bridge. Right. Or some kind of, you know, some sort of like rich farmer's son that adopted too much Western, you know, like. Sure. Yeah. A lot of these guys up there, like the second son of the Amish family, and he decides, oh, I'm going to be a cowboy. Yeah.

I guess we all agree sad cowboy deserves to cry. That's right. It's some kind of room springer thing. They're like, I'm going to be a cowboy. And then he ends up. Everybody's allowed to be a cowboy for one year. And then you're allowed to un-cowboy if you want. That's why he's crying.

His ear's up. They get recruited into the rough trade and then that's why he's crying. Oh, sure. Now that brings us to the end of this here podcast. Now this will be coming out on Monday. Let's call it the 19th. The 19th. Election Day here in Canada.

Yeah. Get it. Going to get that new liberal government that you all desire so much. Something like that. Something. Something like something. Look, we're all hoping for something good. Are you saying that they're...

It's all secret, though. It's all secret. What's the worst outcome that you can imagine? The status quo. Yeah. What is already. And that could happen. Yes.

Very likely. Canadians could say, give us more of this, this rule. Yeah. Don't change a horse midstream. That kind of, that kind of talk.

Right. Um, do you guys have anything that you wish to plug that's coming out this week or the following week? I do. Go ahead. So I am currently traveling around the United States and Canada performing my new one-man comedy monologue called Vacationland. And coming up this Friday, I will be in Orlando, Florida. And then the next day, I will be in Orlando, Florida. Nice. And then the next day

I will be in Durham, North Carolina. I think that's actually pronounced Durham. Durham. Durham. The word Durham. At the Carolina Theater

and you can get tickets at johnhodgman.com slash tour or bit.ly slash jhorlando or bit.ly slash jhdurham If you wish,

I hope you will buy tickets because it's better when you are there. What's your favorite Kevin Costner movie? Bull Durham. Yeah, me too. Bull Durham.

And you're also the host of Judge John Hodgman. Of course. On the Maximum Fun Network. On the Maximum Fun Network, I am the host of Judge John Hodgman. You're the last voice we hear at the end

of every episode. Yeah. Of this. Oh, i'm sorry every show well thank you i didn't offer you it's my pleasure thank you for it's all work made for hire so yeah yeah get that those big maximum fun dollars that's right john roderick where can people get more of you so I am a I am also a podcaster I have a podcast called Roderick on the Line with Merlin Mann not part of the

Maximum Fun Network although always very good friends tight close close friends with Max Fun and you should listen

to Roderick on the Line it should already be part of your podcast diet what is not get in there what is the conceit of this show it's a thing.

I feel like podcasting is kind of exploding right now, but one of the sort of underrepresented sort of corners of podcasting is two white guys talking. Yeah. Agreed. And I feel like there should be more of those and that we have, we've been doing it a while. So we've really got it pretty well.

We take, we do an extra spin, a thing that a lot of people don't do, which is two middle-aged white guys talking without any edits. Ah, there you go. So we don't get in there and make it sound better. Right. We just leave it in its raw, naked state. Exactly.

And we talk a lot about Hitler. It's done in a bunker. Basically, yeah. So pretty much. So it's a great program. And now I have a new podcast. It is a great program. It is.

Yeah. Thank you. So I have a new podcast program because I got a phone call from a guy and he was like, I don't think there are enough still. Yeah. Even with your other podcast. I still don't feel like there are enough two middle-aged white guys talking podcast. What can we do about that?

Can we fill this yearning chasm? And so it was Dan Benjamin of the 5x5 Podcast Network, which is not, I wouldn't call it competing network. I would call it a parallel network. Sure. Okay. Doesn't he also do a show with Merlin Mann? He network. I would call it a parallel network. Sure. Okay. Doesn't he also do a show with Merlin Mann? He does. So this is part of the problem.

There's a lot of, there is. It's a Venn diagram. There is now a fractal universe of podcasts, right? And now that I've been on Stop Podcasting Yourself, right? Another connection has been made. Connections are made. I've been on Judge John Hodgman several times so it's starting to just be like

it's all it's the branches of a tree yes but I so I have a podcast with Dan Benjamin we're only seven episodes in

and it's called Roadwork Roadwork with Dan Benjamin and John Roderick and we talk we don't we talk less about Hitler

but still some Hitler some amount of Hitler talk because it is a podcast yeah yeah yeah uh but also a lot of sex talk you know like stuff that you want to hear from two guys in their 40s yeah yeah what do you what kind of sexy times are you guys having Hitler-esque yeah yeah I mean if I had to describe it in one word Hitler-esque and what about you guys do you have a podcast you'd like to plug yeah hitler chat it's on the the nazi fun network uh but but the url is hitzy chat or hitler chat was

taken because i actually own yeah i know so and hitler chat well we've got HitlerChat.ca. So that's all. Which is, it's French. It means Hitler Cat. This week, myself and Ryan Beal will be hosting Ring-a-Ding-Dong Dandy, the once a month wrestling comedy show at Little Mountain Gallery. Here in Vancouver. Yeah. And also on the 30th, I'll be hosting a show called Instagram, which is a show entirely based on my Instagram account. Wow. So it's Instagram. That's correct. Alright.

Everybody pronounces it Graham. No, I know, but I just want to make it clear so that it's clever. You would pronounce it Graham. Graham. Durham. Instagram. Instagram. Boulderham. durham instogrium instogrium um boulder him

boulder him before we uh sign off are we all starving yes yes

i just i wanted to get the pulse of the room let's get some of this famous canadian food uh

thank you so much for being our guest it was a real pleasure yeah what a pleasure it has been to visit with you. I say, John,

do you agree? Wonderful. I, I, I wouldn't at the beginning of this podcast have said one way or the other, whether this was going to be fun or not, but I, but I now feel like it was really fun.

Nice. And if you like the show, head over to maximum fun.org. Check out the blog recap of this episode. We'll have pictures of, um, and videos of the things we've talked about Alton Brown

for some reason will be he'll be on there I think you should have him on the show I will introduce you I will come by

do you think Alton Brown would look in his eyes and tell him you're a monster he won't let people tell him reasonable limits

you don't understand I don't understand. I don't. And Alton Brown reading or event attracts hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. Oh, yeah. All of them want to meet him. He's very famous. But he won't let people take pictures of him with a phone. But you think he's going to come into this basement past the laundry room studio in a Canadian suburb and do a podcast with these ding-a-lings?

You know what? We're in city limit. He's not telling people not to take pictures with their phone because he's a monster. It is just a profound waste of time. Right. Everyone has good intentions, but no one knows how

to use their phone. That is true. Nobody knows how to use their phone. Yeah, but you just described podcasting. Well, maybe we'll take this up. Maybe we'll finally settle the out-and-round debate on another episode of this. Oh, well, please come back. All right, I shall. And if you like the show, please do tell your friends and come on back next week for another episode of Stop Podcasting Yourself. MaximumFun.org

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