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Tickets go on sale to the general public June 30th at somethingworthknowing.com. So come build a better world with us on September 16th and experience something worth knowing you can get your ticket at complexly.info slash something. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. As I first think of it, Dear John and Hank.
It's a comedy podcast in which two brothers answer your questions give you the best advice and worry about the world a lot and then bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and day of C. Wimbledon John Green. What is the elephant in the room? Alright, Hank.
Let's do it. Three, two, one. Ambient inspired racism. Wait, what?
Ambient inspired racism? Oh, I mean, I have done such a good job of not knowing what's happening with Roseanne other than she doesn't have a television show anymore and then you just you didn't let me continue to live in that world. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Of course, the thing we should be talking about is Liverpool football cup, John. Liverpool had what can only be termed an epic epic failure in the Champions League final hand. It was pretty brutal to watch as the goalkeeper, Lawrence Carrias, led in two of the worst goals, not just in the history of the Champions League but in the history of professional soccer, just a proper collapse and it was brutal to watch and I have this is the part where I would say the good part about it and the hopeful part, but instead all I feel is despair. What's going on with Roseanne and Ambient?
Please don't tell me. Well, apparently, so basically Ambient would like everyone to know that and indeed tweeted about the fact that that what none of the side effects of their drugs is being racist on Twitter. Oh, that's good to know. Yeah, because I do sometimes take Ambient.
What happens? Do you have any good? Does Ambient do stuff? What does Ambient do?
It mostly makes me go to sleep. That's why I take it. Right. Do you ever wake up and you're like weird story for me?
I wouldn't garden in the middle of the night or something. No, not really. No. I took it after the Liverpool Champions League was actually just so that I could get a good night's sleep without having those two horrific goals running through my mind all night long.
Hey, thank you for bringing me up to date on the Roseanne situation. Just kidding. What is the opposite of thank you? I don't know what to bring up because I don't care about sports.
And but like that. Oh man, it's this is day two when we're recording this of the world being like, wow, this whole thing is actually happening right now. This is a situation that we're inside of. And also that Russian journalist or Ukrainian journalist didn't get killed by the Russian government.
He didn't. He just was said so and I don't. I can't follow that. I can not.
I can not recommend not having a Twitter enough because you get a completely different set of news. Like you don't get the like breaking it's happening now news. Instead, you get sort of like summaries of the news provided hours later once the news has broken. So while you're busy like breaking the news, I'm just in my garden waiting for the next day when I will find out from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and the Economist what the news was.
Yeah, it's sort of amazing to think about how people used to live in a world where you had to wait till the next day to find out what news was. That's not new. That's the old's. Let's get to some questions from my listeners.
This first question comes from Scott who writes Dear John and Hank, some cows live in pastures, others live in beautiful diverse landscapes with breathtaking ocean views. Do these latter cows enjoy the view? Great Scott. That's good one.
That's a good one. That's of course, they must. But also why haven't we converted that land to apartments yet? People need houses, John.
Well, cows do not appreciate beautiful views. First off, that's I just agree with you. I don't know. That's true.
I think I think that they appreciate a diverse variety of things to look at. I do. I really do and I don't I don't have any objective scientific basis for that. But I think that all organisms have innate curiosity because that is how you learn things.
And I think that a more diverse environment is almost always better for an animal, even an animal that has been bread and bread and bread and bread to be happy or at least satisfied in any situation. I don't disagree with that. I just think that looking out at the ocean isn't the most interesting view if you're a cow. I think that humans like beaches, but that doesn't mean that cows like beaches.
I think what cows are looking at is a field of tall flowing grass and they're just looking at all that food. I really, yeah, I officially now want to read Watership Down but with cows like right now. If that's the possibility, I would totally ingest that content except that it would have a very sad ending. Well, have you read Watership Down?
It's got some sad parts. It turns out very sad parts, very, very sad parts. Almost nothing but sad parts. Ah, it's very adventurous though.
And I want to know what the cows are thinking, John. Put me inside of that in between those just lifeless looking, beady eyes that seem to contain nothing. I want to know what's going on in there. Do you know that cows are one of many mammals that could not survive without the bacteria that colonize them?
Oh, of course. Oh, man, cows would be totally over immediately if it weren't for the bacteria that colonize them. But I'm also one of those. John, do you know that there are some species of bug?
There are bugs that have bacteria in their stomachs that allow them to survive? Sometimes fungi? Yeast. That's great.
Yeah, it's not just mammals. Like they're all like these bugs that eat wood basically, but bugs can't digest wood, but fungi can, because fungi can digest anything. They're amazing. Yeah, no, I mean, it is crazy how dependent life is upon life.
Oh, that is very true, John, which is why we should be looking out for all of the life and saying, Hey, you life, I forgot to not kill you. I'm so sorry. I don't think we should look out for all life equally. I don't agree with that at all.
Not even a little bit. I agree. I agree with you. Well, I mean, we got to make sure to protect all the mosquitoes because how old are people going to get malaria?
Occasionally somebody will say to me, Hank, all life is supposed to be helpful to the world. But what's the purpose of ticks? And I was like, I don't know where your initial premise came from. Right.
No, life is not like, it isn't that every life every life is necessary for it all to work. No ticks can be over immediately. And everyone would be fine. Yeah, no, let's let's get rid of ticks and mosquitoes and see just see what happens.
Maybe things will be worse, but probably not. This next question comes from K who asks, dear Hank and John, greetings, I'm K. I love your podcast. I just watched John's FIFA video about the Alaska adaptation.
Congrats, John. And John talked about signing a contract, which is very interesting for me because I have currently, in my hand, a contract paper that made me question a very important thing for my future. I'm 20. I dropped out of college early because of a traffic accident in my February and I have a passion in writing horror comics.
My comment is called the librarian and people can read it for free on ciayo.com. She goes on to say that the comic has been doing very well and there's like a mobile game and animated web series, maybe even a movie and then says what I realize, I never once tried to haggle any of these contracts. I just accept them as is talking about money, profits and businesses scary for me. I feel like a little girl lost in a tsunami of adults and big companies.
What should I do so I can handle this better for my future contracts? Whereas it actually just okay to trust these people and have them pick the prices for me, any kind of advice and opinions appreciated wholeheartedly. Thank you for reading this. I hope I could be as kind as you to when I'm older.
Okay, that's very sweet that you think they were nice. John, agents, right? That's the answer. Agents.
Yeah, you need to get an agent and any and if you're bringing in income, a lot of agents will be happy to work with you. Like if your webcomic is generating any money at all, agents will be happy to take 10% of that money and they are worth it. At least a good agent is because they can protect your interests and I think if I'd had a different agent when I signed the looking for a Laskadeel, the rights wouldn't have been sold forever and ever to Paramount. Now in the end, that has turned out okay because I'm really excited about the Hulu adaptation that Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage are doing and I think it's going to be great but it has been a very long 13 years since I sold the rights and it has not always been fun and a big part of the reason it hasn't been fun is because in the process, I did not retain any control at all in any way and that's been frustrating at times because stuff has happened that I didn't like or that I wouldn't have done and people, especially like people in the world outside of the little pond of publishing don't necessarily understand that the rights that authors have and don't have are the ones they retain and don't retain and how that stuff can depend on who your agent is and whatnot.
So yeah, I just think you need to have somebody who is on your team and who has your best interest at heart and who is an expert in this stuff because otherwise the negotiation just isn't going to be fair. It's just never going to be fair. The thing that I didn't realize going into this is that it's not just about the number. Like your agent is looking at the thing and saying like this isn't enough money but it's also about a thousand other things.
So there's the amount of money you get paid, there's the amount of time the like there's different ways that the intellectual property can be used and those are all different categories and there's like how the money is paid out. This stuff you don't want to care about. I don't want to think about this stuff and so I have to have an expert person who knows what is like standard and what to ask for and if they want one thing what to not give them if they if you're going to give them something else and you don't want to be doing that negotiation because one you're not a lawyer and agents often are which is really nice and two like you want to make stuff not worry about all of this tsunami of adults in big companies. Yeah, I just think it's really really hard not to get taken advantage of if you don't have somebody who's an expert who's on your team in that process.
Now some people do it some people don't have agents and are very successful and so our way is not the only way but it's certainly the way that's worked best for me. Also if there's a tsunami of actual human bodies that's very dangerous and you should get away. What could there be a tsunami of that wouldn't be very dangerous? Like it's hard to imagine any matter related tsunami not being a significant threat.
My first thought was bowling pins and I feel like that would be a terrible idea. Like really painful, not even worse than water. Not since you proposed the dog named Manhole have you had a worse idea. It's just a tsunami of like hippos but maybe not big hippos, baby hippos, miniature hippos just coming at you up that'd be bad too.
Sure, how'd you suffocate? Oh under a pile of baby hippos. We would have to be something... Even like feathers or leaves I feel like a bit too tsunami and it's gonna get you too much.
No we should avoid tsunamis. Let's just try to minimize the overall number of tsunamis. This next question comes from Jared who writes, you're John and Hank I've been in a real reading, slim plately and everything I try to start doesn't hold my interest. When I don't follow through with a recommendation from a friend they often get upset or offended that I didn't finish it or give it a fair chance.
But life's too short to finish a book you're not enjoying right? I've seen Hank tweet several times about the Expand series by James S.A. Corey which I loved and the King Killer Chronicles by Patrick Rothfis which are my very favorite books. I've decided maybe you are who I should be getting my recommendations from.
Any other great suggestions to get me back into reading again? Other than of course your book An Absolutable Thing which comes out on September 25th and is available for pre-order now, he went to comma Jared. That's a joke that only Americans will get. People outside of America are gonna be like what Jared is a jewelry chain in the United States and all the commercials are like oh my god he went to Jared.
It's a pretty sexist but materialistic. It does give Jared a name-specific sign off which is great. It's good. It's got that going for it.
The first thing I gotta say to you Jared is never be ashamed for liking the media that you like. It's okay to be like I didn't I'm not into that thing. It's always good to expand your horizons, try out new stuff but if your friends want you to like a kind of book that you don't like that's okay and if you find the kind of thing that you do like then go for it and there are lots of good places to get recommendations based on the stuff that you like. I just read a book that was you'll probably like very much even though it will last you for a total of two days because it's a page turner called Dark Matter by a person whose name I can't remember.
That's a great recommendation. Have you read it John? No. It's by Blake Crouch and it's really an adventure page turner book and super fun sci-fi and I think that you love it Jared.
I also can't recommend Cat Valenti's Space Opera enough times which I feel like I've done it a lot but I just like it so much. I'm gonna recommend Children of Blood and Bone to both Jared and Youhank. I thought it was great. It's just really really great big fantasy world full of excitement.
If you liked King Killer Chronicles I think you'll love it. It's really really really good and only the first book in the series is out so you can have that wonderful slash terrible feeling of having to wait wait wait wait for the next book. Also Jared I'm gonna recommend my books. I don't know if you've read them but I you know my books especially Turtles all the way down because it is available only in hardcover and I'm I'm not above that Jared.
I'm not above trying to squeeze out an extra dollar in 60 cents from you. Well at this point like do does the amount of money you make go down for a book as time goes on like when it goes to different types of paperback? I imagine it does. What do you mean like do mass market pay-per-backs pay less than yeah yeah they do usually but that said the big the big gap is between hardcover and paperback so buy those hard covers.
Thank you thank you so much for doing that to all of you. I've got a garden to maintain. I've got to pay for those peas. Yeah you know I'm paying 25 cents a pea right now in terms of in terms of the amount of peas I'm getting per gallon of water used.
Daddy needs a new pair of peas. Like if you buy a hardcover of turtles all the way down what that means for me is 11 peas. Oh it's terrible. Speaking of which this next question comes from John who asks dear Hank and John are there any good billionaires?
John then goes on to describe a number of billionaires some of whom are more well known for their good and some who are more well known for their bad but but really I think we could just leave it at that. Are there any good billionaires? So I am going to take a pretty unpopular position on this one Hank because I know that in our culture there is nothing that people like to both worship and hate more than billionaires. Like in a way it feels like in this new gilded age just like the last gilded age the billionaires have become their own form of celebrity even though the vast majority of billionaires aren't at all famous.
The billionaires who are are kind of wildly famous or famous beyond all. It's great. It's weird. We live in a weird time for billionaires.
Not just well known but but worshiped in a way. Yeah but worshiped and then treated by others as false idols. Yes. It's almost like you have to fall one place or the other.
Billionaires are good or billionaires are evil. Instead of billionaires are humans and they're complicated and capable of doing good things but I think it's very difficult to become a billionaire without behaving in ways that dot dot dot. I think that the other thing to consider is that while a billionaire of course I don't think that any billionaire is evil I don't really believe in the idea of evil when applied to people and that's a big thing to say and not back it up. I do.
Yeah so we can generally I will disagree on that. But I one of the questions that I think about is like whether the possibility of billionaires is evil like the fact that it's possible to have a level of but that is the thing that I think is the problem. I don't think it should be possible for there to be billionaires. Yeah and it is.
It requires a sort of like a set of incentives that don't make any sense societally or individually. Like I don't yeah I'll leave it at that. Yeah I absolutely agree. I think sometimes people feel like billionaires are exempt from social socioeconomic political pressures that somehow they've escaped the systems that shape the rest of our lives and I just don't think that's true.
And I think there are things that are evil about the system and billionaires in many cases have benefited from those systemic evils and that should trouble them but I have also benefited from a lot of those systemic evils and that needs to trouble me. Yeah and I know from talking to you that it does. Oh it does. I buy my new book.
I need a new pair of peas. My favorite joke I've ever made on the podcast. I didn't like it much the first time but I really didn't care for it the second time. This is so often the case.
This next question comes from Andy who writes Deer John and Hank when I do my laundry the lint filter always fills up with every load. I don't know what kind of laundry you're doing there Andy but it seems like you're going a little hard but it doesn't this mean that my clothes are shedding mass and should eventually disappear. Are my clothes gaining mass from another source so that the net loss is zero or is this process just so slow that I should be measuring my clothes in geological time A and B and C and D. Oh that's good Andy.
That's good. I didn't get it until you said it. It's the best. Andy your clothes are losing mass but they are losing mass very slowly.
That's why when you have a 35 year old t-shirt it feels real real thin. Well and also why clothes break. I mean you definitely see this with jeans. I'm just like where did my pants go?
These there was way I could be fascinating. I don't know why I've never seen anyone do this. Put some jeans in the washing machine and then take out the lint filter and weigh it and then take out the pants and weigh them before and after and find out how much pant you lost. Every time like it basically like saying tell me how long before my pants don't exist anymore and I should stop washing my pants.
You know they say John that you shouldn't wash jeans. This is the new thing. You should never wash your jeans and that's just a headline that I read and I know nothing else about that because that's how the internet works. I was gonna say welcome to 2018 internet where you can read a headline and be an expert.
Never wash your jeans again. Stop it. Stop doing that. This next question comes from Rachel who writes Dear John and Hank I'm in my grandmother's house which is decorated with all manner of lovely needle points and hook rugs.
However there is one hanging in the main floor bathroom of a large black cat with angry yellow eyes that stare into the depths of your heart and steal your soul. Those eyes are the only bright spots in a black tiled bathroom with a black toilet and black counters. Furthermore it is positioned above the toilet facing the sink so if I want to pee or wash my hands I have to turn my back on the creepy cat risking my very life. I can keep an eye on it in the mirror but sometimes that's even worse.
The other bathrooms are occupied and I really have to pee. What should I do? Semper ooby-sub-ooby Rachel by the way that means always wear underwear. It's a pun.
It's not how the Romans would have said it but you get it. Rachel your grandmother is a Satanist or she's just really into the occult. She's definitely really into the occult but she only expresses it in one bathroom. Well you also but there's ways to handle this.
I mean one like first support your grandmother and whatever her beliefs are like absolutely believe different things but also it's okay while you're in a situation with its private private situation to just take something move it and then put it back when you leave. You don't have to touch the creepy cat towel yeah. It's not a towel. It's a rug.
I mean a needlepoint. It's a what? I don't know my nouns. It's a needlepoint but what's the thought of Rachel's grandmother carefully needle pointing this evil black cat to put in her black bathroom that is the main bathroom guests of the house use is just so magnificent and I want to congratulate Rachel's grandmother on being so successfully creepy.
Like how wonderful is it that there's a bath grandma in the world. I think it's good news Rachel. I think you should embrace your bath grandma and be grateful for her. Now the question is would it be better to have the creepy cat like when you're peeing facing like looking at you from behind and you don't know what it's doing or is it worse when you if you to pee and stare into the eyes of the.
Oh it's way worse to stare into the eyes. Definitely worse. I don't know it's always waiting when you're not looking. It's also very scary because you don't know what it's doing back there.
Rachel is there anyway you can draw a smiley face on the cat because I feel like a yellow eyed black cat is super intimidating until you draw like a clownish smiley face on it and then it's just not a big deal. Is it maybe that like having something behind you scaring you helps you pee like maybe you're going to be a little bit a little bit like blocked in the bladder. Sure. Needs needs the fear to inspire the grandma pee.
Brilliant Hank you've solved it. You've solved it again. I mean just call him Perry Mason ladies and gentlemen. Don't call him Perry Mason no one knows who that is.
Everybody knows who Perry Mason is Hank. I mean that show didn't go off the air until like 1974. Oh gosh Perry Mason I got to Google it. I got to Google it.
It went off the air in 1966. Jesus. It's worse than I thought. All right just call him Colombo ladies and gentlemen.
Call him Colombo. That's better but still bad. What's the guy from CSI? Just call him Law and Order SVU.
Just call him that guy from CSI Miami with the sunglasses David Vroncaccio. Warit Brown. David that was the guy who came up when I said the guy from CSI is Warwick Brown. Who's he?
David Caruso. It's David Caruso isn't it? Oh my god. If it's David Caruso I feel like I should win some kind of honorary Oscar.
David Caruso. It's David Caruso. Honorary Oscar bestowed upon John Green. Put those sunglasses on.
You stumbled forth into the unknown of your own mind and found a place that was correct. Wow. I'm very pleased with myself for remembering who David Caruso was. Anyway I hope that David Caruso wherever he is is well.
It's nice of you John. I really like how you're always thinking about other people. This question comes from Katie who asks Dear Hank and John. Is it dishonest to not tell internet celebs that I know who they are if I find myself in a casual conversation with them?
EG we sat next to each other at the theater and are chatting like strangers even though I know weird facts about them and honestly quite a lot about the life they share publicly. Please answer so I have one fewer thing to keep me awake at night. Katie. Sleepy emoji.
I've definitely been in the situation where I've met people several times before I found out that they knew who I am and I don't feel weird about that. I can usually tell or at least I can I think I can usually tell. Oh I've been wrong. Have you ever been wrong because that's the worst.
Oh yeah it's super embarrassing to be wrong. There was one time I might have told the story on the pod before where my buddy Chris and I were at the airport and he checked out right in front of me and then I was checking out and the young woman behind the counter was super nervous and excited and I she was like can I ask you a question and I was like yeah you know yeah I am and she said was that Vince Vaughn? He does look like Vince Vaughn. He looks exactly like Vince Vaughn.
I used to say he told us there in the pod before I've forgotten it so you're good. Yeah yep yep and I was like oh no that wasn't Vince Vaughn. I've actually been on the other side of this experience. I'd valayed my car and I was waiting for the car to come back and also waiting next to me was actually the guy who won the Indy 500 over the weekend Will Power.
That's his real name and he's one of my favorite drivers. He's an incredibly talented driver and a wonderful person does a ton of work in the community and it's just a lovely lovely guy and I was like oh my god that's Will Power. Oh my god oh my god oh my god and then I just like tried to talk as normally as I could him and we had a pretty fairly normal conversation. He actually spoke to me first otherwise I wouldn't have spoken to him.
We had a fairly normal conversation and then the valayed pulled up my Chevy Volt and Will Power said you know I am also a Chevrolet driver. I said I know Will Power. I know I know you're a Chevrolet driver. I know you drive the number 12 Penske.
That's so good. I know he looked at your little fault and he was like oh you know me too. I also have a Chevrolet because 237 miles an hour. He was like well mine has an electric battery with a gasoline generator backup.
Will Power? I do think that it's fine to pretend or just to act like the person you're talking to is a normal person and to try to talk to them as normal away as possible. The only way that this gets weird is if the relationship persists and goes I had a friend who was dating a girl for a year before he found out that she was a fan of his for a year before they met and that's a little weird. Yeah I bring it up before your one-year anniversary.
It's like oh that seems like a big lie that we've been living with. Haven't we? I'd say like a medium-sized lie but you know one a big enough lie. A big enough lie that maybe it shouldn't have been there in the first place.
This next question comes from Zachariah who writes Dear John and Hank I'm a senior in high school and I've recently found myself in a sticky situation or rather an unsticky situation. I just purchased it. What's that? I said oh it's lubricated.
The situation. I mean I don't think that was your phrase of the week but I kind of hope that it was. I recently purchased a toaster from a nearby Goodwill and went on a cute random toaster with my crush. Oh yeah.
Wait does this person have a crush on their toaster? No no no no no no no. I brought a person along for a toaster date. I don't know exactly what that is but I'm excited to find out more.
We got to the park and put the bread in and had homemade orange marmalade at the ready but the toaster did not work and we had to go into the evening toaster prived and none of my special homemade marmalade was enjoyed. You did not get it right because it's the part where they're plussed. Zachariah I'm just gonna stop you right there. You can't take a toaster to the park and get mad that the toaster doesn't work because toasters require electricity and you're in a park and that is the issue and I've solved the problem.
Most of the parts I've ever been to don't have plugs. It's just like a thing they don't have but sometimes maybe sometimes they do. When like when do you ever like walk up to a tree in a park and you're like oh there's not here's not that amazing. There's a picnic for the pavilion yeah whether like you can rent out this picnic pavilion if you would like to have your son or daughter's birthday party here and there's there's a gorilla area but maybe sometimes a place to plug in your stereo.
I have seen the grill area and I've seen the picnic area and I can picture all of it and where are the plugs. I don't know. You're in a battery powered stereo. I think it's possible.
Hold on I'm gonna google battery powered to see if something exists. It does. Oh my god it does. I guess.
You got to go to Alibaba.com and this thing takes 23 batteries. Oh no you have to put it. It doesn't recharge. I was just thinking that kind of your Chevy Volt is a battery powered toaster.
Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey you back off right there. My Chevy Volt is a magnificent magnificent car. It's a amazing piece of engineering. I wish I had myself.
Here's a battery powered toaster that toasts one slice and costs 56 dollars on Amazon. Frankly, Frankly's Acariah I think you got an incredibly good deal on your dollar and 60 toaster that doesn't work in the park. Right. I think you should just be happy.
I think that you should just be happy no matter what. If that's an option but also I think that you should be happy that you're the kind of person who goes on a toast date with your crush because that feels like the kind of like perspective that that comes from is also the kind of perspective that's going to lead to just a really great life. I agree Hank and it reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by Toaster Dates. Toaster Dates.
You want to be near electricity. This podcast is also brought to you by John's Pease. John's Pease. They're really the same as other Pease.
Quarterpiece. And of course today's podcast is also brought to you by David Caruso. David Caruso. Remember?
Yeah. Harry Mason. Remember? And finally this podcast is brought to you by Disappearing Pants.
Just put him in the dryer. Turn the dryer on to infinity. Open it after infinity has happened. No more pants.
Isn't that always true if you ate an infinite amount of time? Yeah, it's true. Yeah, definitely. If you ate infinity, all pants will be gone.
Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and to A.S.E. Wimbledon, I want to ask you a few more questions beginning with this question from Graham. You're John and Hank. For a birthday gift, my girlfriend got herself and I meet and greet tickets to see my all-time favorite band, Blink 182.
I'm super excited to go and all, but since I knew I was going, all I can think of is the old adage, never meet your heroes. To call the guys from Blink 182, my heroes is an understatement. I worry there's a truth to the saying and that somehow I'll leave disappointed even though it'll just be a quick allow and have them sign an album or whatever. I'm sure I'm worrying about nothing and that I'll leave with an awesome experience.
How is meeting people you've admired played out? Bon Appetit, Graham and Cheese. Graham and Cheese. It's the thing I'd never get it until you say it out loud.
I also didn't get that one until I said it out loud. Is that your phrase of the week, John Graham and Cheese? Graham and Cheese. Graham would have really helped you there.
In my experience, I've had some experiences where the people I've seen, but to be clear, I've had a lot of experience where I've met people that I've been a big fan of, but very lucky in that regard. And almost never have I been disappointed by the experience. I think that if to some extent this don't meet your heroes thing is a little bit like, might be better said as don't idolize people that way because they are just people. If you're disappointed, it may be because they're jerks.
It will more likely be because they're people and they might be tired and they might be concerned about how long the line is and they might be concerned about how many hours until the show. And so their mind might be on other stuff and that might be a bummer. Now hopefully it'll be a quick interaction and they'll be present and you'll be present and you'll feel really good about the opportunity and it'll feel awesome. But I don't think that always happens, but I also don't think it's anybody's fault that it doesn't always happen.
For a long time, I stopped wanting to do any signings because I felt like I was disappointing almost everyone in the signing line by not being as present as I wanted to be because of my mental health stuff and I just couldn't be there. Well, it's also really easy. It's easy to get into your own head about that. And so at the moment you start looking at the person and being like, am I satisfying that your expectations of this experience, you never know.
And so you suddenly start to feel like every person is just like, you need to give me five star rating here because I don't know if this is going well. How am I supposed to do this? Am I supposed to make a funny, unique joke for every person? Because I can't.
I want the people, the thing that I'm trying to say is I appreciate you and they're trying to say I appreciate you. And that is, from my experience, like that's what really we're trying to get out of a meet and greet is to like have that experience where everything I do is reliant upon people who support our content. And if they want to say that they, you know, have like, have been had good experiences because of the stuff that I've made, I want to tell them that I have had good experiences because they like the stuff that I've made. And just that that moment of mutual appreciation is the thing that I try and get out of it instead of being like, am I supposed to be like, make this the most memorable amazing experience of this person's no, we're just trying to say we like each other.
Yeah, I can't really do that very effectively. I feel like but the guys have Blink 182 have been out a lot longer. So I feel better about their ability to get it done Graham than I feel about my own ability. So don't ever meet me, but I wouldn't worry too much about meeting Blink 182.
We got a question here that comes from Poppy who asks Dear Hank and John last year I was diagnosed with cancer, which has been a lot of hospital stays and a lot of being around nurses and doctors. I'm thankfully fine and in remission now, but I still go to see the doctor fairly often to make sure everything's going to plan. Whenever I see doctors, the first thing they ask is how I am and as an extremely awkward person, I find this question really difficult to respond to every time. Are they asking me as a doctor?
How my health has been? Or whether like life at uni is going particularly well? Am I meant to ask them how they are too? What are the social rules around doctor patient small talk?
I hope you can provide me some advice so that my next appointment is a little less stressful Poppy. So John, you walk with a doctor and the doctor's like, how are you doing John? What do you say? I say fine except for symptom so that we can get right to the point because I don't think that they're in the room to become my friend and I certainly have not gone to the doctor to have a social engagement.
I've gone to the doctor because I have a health concern or because it's a checkup or whatever. And so I think, you know, even if you have, I guess if you have a long-term relationship with your doctor, you know, you might talk about other things like, for instance, when Sarah was pregnant, our doctor who delivered the babies, you know, we got to know that doctor much better than we get to know most doctors. And so that's a little bit different. And it may be because you've had a long-term relationship with these people and because, you know, they've cared for you through treatment for cancer and everything that it's appropriate to answer by saying that you're doing really well at university.
That probably makes them super happy to hear. But also if you've got a concern, I say lead with it. Right. Yeah, I live in a small town.
So I like see my doctor sometimes at the store or a restaurant or some such. And so there's some expectation that like we're going to have a relationship that is beyond just like, I have a bad toe problem, please help. I don't have any bad toe problems. I'm a new mama, listen to the podcast and say she's going to call me and be like, what's wrong with your toe?
And so I just want to make sure that we're explicit about that. That's a huge relief. But yeah, I think that in general, that's that is small talking. It's okay to be like, good, school's great.
And and I've been feeling XYZ. And you know, that is a fine amount of small talk. But are you supposed to ask them how they're doing? They're probably not going to tell you any of their symptoms and be like, yeah, well, I've got this chronic hemorrhoid that's no fun.
That doesn't seem like a very doctory thing to do. But I think it's also fine to ask them how they're doing. And they'll probably say, boy, this this rain sure is a lot. Now on to doctor things.
Yeah, there's a part of me that wonders what people who live in extremely consistent climates even talk about. Like if you live in Los Angeles, what is the casual conversation about? Like, I could have been 72 degrees and beautiful again today. That's the reason I couldn't bear to live in a place like that.
Because the weather is essentially the only thing I talk about to strangers. And if I didn't have that, if I wasn't able to say like, Oh, it's a hot one today, I think I couldn't I just couldn't handle it, man. I could not handle social engagements. How about those kings?
Oh, I can't do that. I can't do that partly because I'm just not interested. Like nobody cares about the sports that I care about. Like nobody cares how AFC Wimbledon did this weekend in Indianapolis.
So it just doesn't work for me. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. We don't want to get to the news from AFC Wimbledon until the last possible moment. Because it isn't great.
What about what about if you're at a grocery store? This is something that happens in Missoula because it's this type of place. And they've been somebody comments on the items in your cart. And I'm just like, no, no, like this, like I'm super into small time living, but I feel like it's a violation of privacy to even look into there and see what I'm going to put into my body.
I don't want you to know that. Totally, totally. Yeah. I don't need you to see the three jars of French onion dip.
Okay. I don't even know about that. Right. Like you're sometimes I'll be in line at the grocery store and I'll put down like three things of lime testitos and the person behind me will say somebody's having a party and I'll be like, first off, don't judge me.
Second. Nope. It's just for me, man. No, it's just that I don't want to go back to the grocery store for seven days.
Every two days I eat a bag of lime testitos. Yeah. And then on the seventh day, I rest. Those gets your gardening fuel, John.
You need something to pump it up for your for your digging and watering and pulling peas off plants. That's really all the peas you got. That was all the peas I got. I mean, actually, I don't know another pee harvest a few days earlier in which I got 13 peas.
So it might have been closer to like 18 cents a pea. I'm not totally positive, but it's not a great return on investment. I am enjoying myself though. And let's continue with the gardening theme by answering this question from Paige who writes, John and Hank, I understand how ridiculous this sounds, but I feel I have nowhere left to turn.
I'm very pro gardening in concept. It can be relaxing and rewarding. Plus you get food out of it. Not if you're me.
I even took a beginning gardening class at my college because it counted as a pea credit. Wow. I love it. It's brilliant page.
Also, you need pea credits at college? What's happening? I know. We live in a different time.
There's no Colombo on the air, etc. My problem is that every time I buy plants to nurture and love, I feel like I'm not gardening as much as watching my new friends die. Oh, no. I live in the middle of Texas, which is consistently in drought and 107 degrees.
Oh, no. So I don't completely blame myself for my failure. But now every time I buy a plant, I get deep anxiety about it, seemingly inevitable death. There's nothing seemingly about its inevitable death page.
Should I give up on my dreams? Every new chapter starts with a new page. Nice. No.
Page, you got to understand that things die. It is the nature of things to die. Your job is to keep them alive as long as possible and hopefully get 11 peas out of them. Also, there's got to be plants that grow in that weather.
I mean, there's first, as long as you got water, because that's what plants need. It's the plants crave. You need water and sunlight. There are some plants that are not going to do well in 107 degrees, but there's got to be some that will.
And see what you got to go do is go to like centraltexasgardening.com, which I'm not even getting as a website and find out about the kinds of gardening that is best done in 107 degrees. You're not going to grow the same things we grow here in Montana, but you're going to have a much longer growing season. So that's good. Yeah.
The thing I'd say is that you got to give yourself permission not to be an expert at first. Oh, so don't get bummed out when some of your plants die, because you're learning how to grow plants. And in the long run, plants overall are going to be grateful that you've put in that time. Even if in the short run, it kills a few plants.
At least, that's what I'm trying to tell myself, because I'm a very novice gardener and I've definitely killed some plants already. I also feel like it's much easier to feel like you're taking credit for a plant dying. Like it's like, I did that. Then it is taking credit for them like flourishing because it kind of feels like they did that.
Oh, I did. Like, I just gave them the things that they needed and they made themselves into delicious tomatoes and artichokes and bulbous onions. So you, you, that's the thing that I find most magical about gardening is that sort of like, I feel like I'm involved, but I'm only sort of this, this, this, like helping hand. And then suddenly this tiny, tiny little speck of nothing has turned into something that I've only ever seen at the grocery store before.
It's very weird to watch a carrot happen. Well, I mean, you actually don't watch it. It mostly happens underground. But yeah, I agree with you.
It is pretty large. Well, for the magic, like suddenly you're like, well, this thing has grown out and like the day arrives and you yank it out and you're like, there's a freaking carrot under the ground. What was it doing down there? Yeah, no, it is pretty magical.
I mean, just watching the tomatoes turn from green to red. I'm like, this, how does this happen, man? My mind is blown. Yeah.
Speaking of mind blown, Hank, it's time to move on to the news from Mars and A.S. Wimbledon. Would you like to go first today? Yeah, John, it seems like you want to save the news from A.S.
Wimbledon the last possible moment. So let's talk about this very cool paper that just came out in the Journal of Geophysical Research, which John I know is your favorite. I'm a longtime subscriber. Absolutely.
I've got, I of course knew that. And do you want to know the very good title of this article? I do. It's a field guide to finding fossils on Mars.
That is a great title. Like, I would read that book. And the great news is John that the article is available. It's in the Creative Commons.
So you can you can read it yourself. It's 29 pages long and it has a number of very good graphs, figures, pictures, and the idea of it is to say like, okay, so here are the places where it's best and easiest to find fossils on Earth. Here's how the Earth fossil record works. And yes, Mars is a cold, barren wasteland as you are want to say, but at some point it was not, it's definitely was warm enough to have liquid water and those that liquid water stood on the surface for a long period of time.
And those of course are the places that people want to look for fossils. And we have to know good places to look when we're going to send these scientific experiments like the Mars 2020 rover to areas on Mars. They have not yet selected the site where that rover will be landing. And so yeah, the paper is looking at various rocks and minerals on Mars that could be the places where ancient life would be preserved, places where it was warmer and wetter for a long periods of time for I think hundreds of millions of years.
And also applying like basically recent research into how fossilization happens on Earth and the best places for fossilization on Earth. And thus where we should go to look for fossils on Mars. And this is a legit story that's like basically, yeah, why not look? And for a long time, I feel like NASA has kind of not wanted to call that their mission because it, you know, I think when we launched Viking, there was this idea that like we don't know what we're going to find.
And then we arrived and it was like, well, this planet is a very, very large desert, a very cold, large desert. And we had a lot of hopes and turns out they were dashed. But I think people are getting more serious about like actually, you know, looking to see if there is a way to discover what may have been happening on early wet Mars, especially now that we know that early Mars was wet. Yeah, no, I think it's really cool.
I am excited too. That's cool. I love that title. There are so few good titles in academic journals.
So it's always a pleasure to come across a field guide to finding fossils on Mars. Well, the news from AFC Wimbledon. Hank, do you remember when we did like those dance classes and then we would have to go to those ballroom dances when we were in like seventh grade? And do you remember how there was a rule that the boys would have to walk up to the girls and say like, shall we dance or whatever?
And then the rule was that the girls had to say yes. You remember all that? I do. Do you remember how, when that happened to me, like the girls said, no, they all organized themselves and say no, and it was like devastating and I was like cried a lot.
I don't, I didn't remember that. That's very bad. I'm sorry. I did not know about that.
Everyone always said, yes, to me, because that was the rule. Well, Hank, AFC Wimbledon walked up to Dean Parrot and said, shall we dance? I offered him a new contract. And he said no.
Oh, no. He said no. Dean Parrot, arguably one of Wimbledon's best players said no and instead signed for Jillingham or Gillingham, I could never remember for the soccer hard G. Oh, it's in the same league, even.
I know it's in the same league. They're in League one. It's not like they're, you know, up a level. I'm sure that they're probably offering a little more money.
I am a little disappointed though. I can't pretend not to be disappointed. Meanwhile, Jimmy Abdu, the French player who spent the season at Wimbledon, who also would have been very useful next season in League one, has also decided to move on to a club in the fourth tier in his native France. So that means the, but you could go, Hank, I don't even know if Wimbledon, we don't have a lot of players is what it comes down to.
We're going to have to do a tremendous amount of recruitment to play to play a game of soccer. How many do you need? I am astonished that you do not know the answer to that. I'm gonna guess 13 11 with the two subs.
See that? Oh, you have more than two subs with the two subs that you generally use there. You get three subs in a game, but you, I think you can put either five or seven people on your bench. So you need 18 to really minimum, but you need more than that because there will be injuries and stuff.
So it's not great. The situation that Wimbledon are in is not great. Like we lost a bunch of our best players last season, but this season it looks like we're going to lose Lyle Taylor. We've just lost Dean Parrot and Jimmy Abdu.
It looks like we're going to lose a big part of the kind of spine of the club. And then we've released four players, including George Franco and Barry Fuller, who are really important last season. So I don't know, man, I am definitely, I am nervous. I tweeted today on my sports Twitter, which is now my only Twitter, which I can't recommend highly enough.
I tweeted today. Is it too soon to be hashtag concerned because I feel hashtag concerned? Well, what if, like, what does they have people to need? Do they need money?
Is that the problem? I probably, well, it would be great to have more money, but the issue is that when you're a small ish club in terms of budget, it's really hard to sign players to multi your contracts. And that means that they can, you know, leave on a free at the end of each season. So it's just really hard.
And of course, it was a tough season. I mean, if you're a player, like that's a hard, hard season to go through to barely stay up to feel the nerves of the crowd every Saturday for the last 30 or so Saturdays that you're playing like, it's hard. So oh, yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know either.
I don't know what to do about your situation, John, but they look like all very handsome, man. I'm looking at the roster right now. Yeah, we've got some lookers. I mean, in the league one, a hot table, some people say that we're a playoff team.
I was just looking at a picture of one of your players and thinking that man looks quite old to be a soccer player, but he is two years younger than me. So and then this one looks like he's maybe 16. Yeah, there's some there's some actual children. And it looks like some of them may be playing next year.
Well, maybe they've got a lot of move up to do. We'll see. Hank, what did we learn this week? Oh, well, we learned that you can be an actual child and be a professional football player.
We also learned that if your grandma is golf lean into it. I forgot that we learned that we learned that there are battery powered toasters available at Alibaba and also sometimes Amazon. And also we learned that if you run into Indy 500 winner and Chevy driver willpower, just be cool. Just be cool.
Just be cool, John. Hey, what was your phrase of the week? You're gonna have to tell me what you think my phrase of the week was. Was it that was it bad toe problems?
No, that's good. I'm glad I threw that in there because it certainly seems like it was miniature hippos, which happened very early on. Oh, and who donated it? It was from Johannes.
Thank you, Johannes, for donating to the project for awesome. And John was yours. I don't have any idea disappearing pants. No, it was actually, nope, it was actually I must dance, but I misremember it as shall we dance.
So my bad. It was donated by the Pineapples of Solidarity. I see it. Well, I do like I do like a good introductory story, John, and I'm glad that the phrase of the week is getting you an opportunity to do those.
But I should be more on the lookout for them. You should be you should be but anyway, I'm sorry, I messed up your phrase of the week Pineapples of Solidarity. I think we also have a project for awesome message. Someone donated the project for awesome to get us to read this message on the pod.
It's from Matt and Kate of Southeast Michigan to their son Maxwell, and it's called a short poem on a fourth birthday. Maxwell, my light, bright, body spry, curious eyes, mind open wide, heart and soul kind. Maxwell, my son, my light, when the time is right, you'll fly. It has been an absolute joy watching you grow, learn and explore.
We are immeasurably proud and cannot wait to see how you contribute to the world. We love you dearly, mom and dad. Geez, Matt and Kate, that is so nice. Yeah, that is so nice.
And happy birthday, Maxwell. John, thanks for podcasting with me. People out there, and thank you for listening. If you want to send us questions, you can do that at HankandJohn at gmail.com.
That is our email address, and we appreciate everybody who sends some questions because how else would we do a podcast? You can also read us on Twitter, I'm Hank Green, and John is sports with John now apparently. This podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins. It's produced by Rosie Anna Halsrow-Hoss and Sheridan Gibson, our head of Community and Communications is Victoria Bonjourneau, who also runs our Patreon, which if you go and donate there, it will help out SciShow and Crashverse.
And you'll get our weekly bad podcast, This Week in Riance, which we're about to go record right now. Thank you, everyone, for listening, and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.