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Moore's I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank. It's about to be advised to give you advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, I have a friend, I have a friend, he's a farmer and he is his crop failed. His crop failed and now he's going to become a musician.
Do you know why? Why? He just had a ton of sick beats. Yeah, so he's able to make that transition really seamlessly.
Exactly. Exactly. John, how's it going? How's it going?
You told me, I hate to do this, but you told me a story that is so wild that I can't tell anybody else. Yeah, I feel like we can't tell anybody else but it was pretty wild. I was on a, I was on a, I'll tell it, I'll tell it without, I'll obscure the identities. John's on his own call about a potentially cool thing that might, but probably won't happen.
And on this zoom call is a person who is so famous that you haven't just heard of them, you know what they look like, you know, their work, you could, you would be very familiar with the things that they have created. I should say that this has nothing to do with movies, probably. Well, it's a, I would say it's a top 10, top 20 American famous person. Yeah, it's only in their, in their creative endeavor.
But a person like who I, I in particular find cool, like I wanted to take the call because I find the person really cool. And it's not Taylor. I think we should just say that. I think we should just say it's not Taylor.
Otherwise, otherwise, otherwise, we got video on your podcast now, you're like dropping vague gossip about Taylor, like are you the Kelsey brothers and I get why people get confused about it. We're both, we're both extremely handsome. We're both charming. We're both, we both have awesome partners.
Yeah. And muscles. Pointing. Does the other kind of defining feature of the Green Brothers is the must do it.
Yeah. So, so John's talking to the, this, this top top 20 famous person. And they say, oh, here's the book that you signed for me at the Fault in Our Stars tour in 2012. Yeah.
So like they were in the room, they went through the signing line, we signed the thing for them. And like that, like it was just like every other Nerdfighter type interaction. Well, and that's what, that's what happens. Right.
Like, it's just a reminder that like lovely kids grow up to be lovely people a lot of the time. And, yeah, of course, of course, I was a little locked into that moment because it was a very famous person, but I have versions of that conversation all the time where someone I admire or someone who's doing cool work will say, Oh, I watched Crash Course or Oh, but, but to have them actually have gone to the tour was a little, was a little exception. And like, wait a two hour long signing line. Yeah.
Yeah. So, that was very cool. And it was a fun moment. But I mean, one of the joys of middle age is getting to have those moments where like you run into somebody, like I just said, dinner last night with a couple.
And they talked about Crash Course and stuff. So you never know. I tell you weird about this for me. Yeah.
So in the reality was that when that person went through that line, they were them, you know, like they had their name that I would never have heard. And now they are them and they have their name that everybody in America would recognize. Yeah. But they were the same person, but it feels, it feels to me.
And like, I know that this is like dehumanizing, but it feels to me, like they went through the signing line before they were them. Totally, because fame is a weird, weird drug. It's like a hallucinogen. But instead of just affecting the person who has it, it also affects the other people.
Mostly affects the other people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It's like, it's like when I'm in a room with a very famous person, I have taken a hallucinogen. But like, they have also taken a hallucinogen in the sense that like everyone's looking at them. And so they have that sixth grade feeling that everyone's looking at me, except everyone is actually looking at everyone's right. Yeah.
And so their lines are also very distorted by the game. Yeah. Fame is weird. And I'll just, I'll say it since we're in a safe space here, only cool people listen to this podcast.
So it shouldn't be an issue. I said something on Instagram and then the indie star reported as a news article and it really got me in my head where I'm like, now do I have to like think about everything I'm gonna say, because it's gonna be the indie star and my neighbors are gonna be like, I didn't know that you didn't like the guy who tried to ban your books is now going to be the next Lieutenant Governor of Indiana. Anyway, I'm in a safe space indie star. This is author record, the fame, the fame part of fame.
Yeah, sucks. I agree. It is a drug and it's really intoxicating, but like, like it sucks. And a lot of people like it's the goal.
It's like a bigger goal. It was my goal, man. You don't think I want to be famous. I started making YouTube videos.
Like, you know, like obviously I wanted people to see my face desperately. I don't know if it's like slower for us to reach them. What did we want to be famous? Well, well, the quite I think the better question is like, why do why have we stopped wanting to get more famous?
And why do we still even want to be a little bit famous? Like, what is wrong with us that we want like attention to strangers? Well, I mean, there's the part where we want attention from strangers. There's also the part we want to do like, do stuff.
Like make a difference in the world boring. Boo, don't believe you don't genuinely think that's what it's about. I don't think that that's what it's all about. But I think that there is a there's definitely a if we just check that we would not achieve all of our goals.
That is a 100% true because I have thought about sound during. I mean, so much so that's Aaron, I have a verb for it. And every time I think about sound during, I'm like, well, but it would be a catastrophe for my work in tuberculosis that gives me a ton of fulfillment. And it would be a catastrophe for all the people who work at DFTBA and Complexly.
Like, you know, the truth is like the consequences of me, salangering would be lots and lots of nice people losing their jobs. So we can't have that. I guess that is true. But I still think that there is part of us that likes attention from strangers.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, positive attention. Yeah. Like, the free point.
I mean, there was no part of me in 2015 who went on tumblr and felt like, oh, this will be fun. I love this so much. But there's also like a sensation part of it. Like, we are also we're like monkeys, you know, and like the social status is a thing.
And it is a thing that we are designed or that we like we want. We like, there are reasons we want it. There's like evolutionary reasons why we want it. And like, so I'm like, I'm just a person.
I'm an animal, a human animal who's inhabiting like a human animal body. And like, when I go on Twitter and I say something and a bunch of people laugh and like, heart it and like it and interact with it. And then they say, oh, well Hank, so relatable, I like this guy so much. I like that.
Especially as a guy who like for, you know, a lot of my formative years was punched by high status individuals. So like, there's a, there's like a thing there. I think that's a big part of it. Yeah.
I used to get really devastated by high, high social status individuals. And now interestingly, those same high social status individuals who now identify as like alphas, and spend a lot of time talking about high social status individuals. They still hate me. And I just don't care anymore.
Because like, then now I want to be liked by different people. Then I know what I'd like. But I actually haven't made any progress since I was 12 with the kinds of kids who used to beat me up. I'd be interested for me, where me to make a video on like the kinds of nerd.
I'm calling it Samir who are like lacrosse nerds. And I'm like, oh, yeah, you guys can say your nerds. But when I was in high school, the lacrosse guys were not like, like, the same kind of coolest football guys, but they were super cool. Like they were way cooler than me.
They were nerdy about their thing. But like, they were not nerdy about their thing the way that like I was nerdy about my things that were just like, unacceptably uncool. Yeah. Yeah, maybe it's partly social structures.
Because if you're into lacrosse in a really nerdy, stance driven way, it's still kind of cool. Whereas if you're into Pokemon in a really nerdy, stance driven way, it's seen as nerdier. Yeah. And some of that's just social constructs, right?
Like that's not all. Yeah. But it's also like, I think if you play enough lacrosse, if you're a lacrosse nerd, you'll be treated a little bit differently. Yeah.
If you play a lot of lacrosse, your forearms do look nice. And if you play a lot of poker, that is not the case. Well, I don't know that that's true. I've seen some pretty handsome forearms on some professional Pokemon players.
But you're pointing from the Pokemon play. When those lacrosse boys roll up the sleeve, you know, like to the halfway point. Yeah. I think all of us are a little bit like, oh, I just had to, oh, yeah.
Yeah. What's the question from our listeners? We should probably do that. I don't think we're gonna get to the bottom of all of our issues.
We should, we'll work on it again next week. Yeah. Let's try to understand what it is that's driving us at some point, not necessarily today. But like before we die, let's understand why we're doing what we're doing and whether or not we should be doing something different.
Anytime you want to figure that out with me, I'm excited for the journey. All right, Hank, we got a question from Avery, who writes Dear John and Hank in movies, when a character is giant, they have a low booming voice and tiny characters have squeaky high-pitched voices. Is this really how that would work or is Hollywood lying to us? Tiny pumpkins and giant penguins, Avery, great question.
This is actually super interesting. So yeah, you could imagine, like mice obviously have a little high-pitched voices. Yeah. You got that.
Elephants have that low. Yeah. They can make a super low like rumble noise. They also make that sort of trumpeting, which is a separate thing is going on.
Yeah. And so you can kind of like extend out from that. Like this is the case. And indeed, it is smaller people tend to have higher-pitched voices, larger people tend to have lower-pitched voices.
This is a tendency, it is not a, it's not like there's a correlation there, but it's not like, it's not super tight. There are small people who have low voices. It's just like some people have long arms, you know? And, but it is about like the actual length.
It's like a function of this sort of size and length of the things going on in your throat. So it doesn't matter. So there is some biology behind this. Yeah.
Yeah. Under the giant actually had a super low voice because he was very, very large. I was a big fan of Under the Giant. Can you do it Under the Giant impression?
No. No. I can't do any impressions now because my impression of Danish people was deemed defensive, which is hard to do. Like it's hard to have an impression of Danish people that Danish people themselves are like, I'm sorry, but that is actually an insult to our culture.
That's fascinating though. Here's another interesting thing though, because deeper voice, so this is not a human thing, but in some animals because a deeper voice is a signal that you are a larger organism, they will fake having a deeper voice than the otherwise should have in order to appear more attractive to mates. So there's like an honest signaling thing where like as you get bigger, your voice gets lower and there's a dishonest signaling, that's what they call an evolutionary biology, where you make your voice lower to pretend that you are bigger as to attract mates who then we're going for trying to get a bigger mate who would thus be signaling an honest increase in fitness. But in fact, you are dishonestly attracting a mate just by pretending and getting a lower vocal tract and then you have sort of like a arms race of lower voices without the bodies themselves actually getting bigger.
Wait, it's called dishonest what? Disonnelling? Disonnelling. Yeah.
I did a lot of dishonest signaling when saying I'm getting together. You know who's the biggest dishonest signaler? Oh boy, I got some thoughts. Male peacocks, in my opinion.
Because they're actually there's maybe that the feathers of a peacock. First, you have to have succeeded in a lot of ways. So in like to have really big, beautiful feather, you have to, you know, well fed and getting a lot of food. But also, you have to be able to protect yourself to continue having your tail feathers look very good.
So there might be some honesty to the peacock. There's some honesty to that part of the signaling, but the part where they're signaling I am a super sophisticated animal who is crazy about beauty, who's crazy for beauty, who's like, you know, basically like a curator of contemporary art. No, turns out birds, just birds, they're birds. They're done as a sack of rocks.
They have no idea how beautiful they are. They don't know they're beautiful. It's like the, it's like the girl in the 90s rom-com. Just one day he takes off his glasses and he's like, wait a second.
Am I? Am I? Just like walks into school the next day and he's like, look at this. It was there a whole time.
And we're like, yeah, no, we knew. We could tell. We also like glasses are kind of cute. It's yeah, I actually, I actually thought you looked better in glasses with your hair back.
It's kind of my, it's just my thing. Yeah, yeah, makes me feel like maybe they're actually, this actually might happen. All right, Abby asks, do you're John and Hank, where do you fly sleep? Since getting pet chickens a couple years ago, the number of flies that hang around our backyard has gotten out of control and they're driving me crazy.
I noticed they don't ever seem to be around at night, which makes me wonder where are they sleeping? I want to find them and destroy them all at once. Unfortunately, I don't think they all sleep together. It was like a big, cuddle, big fly ball somewhere.
Yeah. You can just shoot with a haplasma rifle. That would be great. But I think that they find there like little different places to go chill out.
Some of them, they like crawl under rocks. So that's not easy to find flies sleeping. They take a huge amount of space when they're flying around because they're, it's volumetric. They're just like constantly everywhere.
But when they're just chilling out, they take up a tiny amount of space. They take up the amount of space that a fly sized amount of space. And that's just up in the corner or under a leaf or under some under like leaf litter under rocks. You're never going to find the flies one.
This is not this is there are other solutions hunting them down while they're sleeping is not the one that I do love the vendential element of it. Yeah. Find you and then I'll put a dead one under your bed. I only kill them at night when they don't see it coming.
All right, I got another question for you. This one's okay. How you read steer John and Hank recently my best friend and I were playing 20 questions in the car and we landed in quite the argument. His word in mind was seed.
However, when I asked is it a plant his response was no. He argues that according to the letter of the law seed is not a plant and therefore the answer is no. I'm arguing that in the spirit of the law claiming that the aim of 20 questions is to move the guesser closer to a final goal. Is it part of a plant should be considered as similar to is it a plant and as such the answer would be yes.
Your input would be greatly appreciated. Boo boo. No, no, no. I'm with your friend.
I'm with the friend. You can't. I mean, I agree. There's like there's like fuzziness eventually, but it is not at seed.
If you ask me if a leaf is a plant, I'm not saying yes. If you ask me if it's not a plant. A leaf is a plant. A leaf is not a plant.
A lot of times you can put a leaf in the ground and get a new dang plant. This is true. That's yeah. Okay.
Well, that's also true of a seed. Like if you put a seed in the ground, that's its whole purpose is to become a whole new dang plant. But a sperm and an egg are not a human. Oh, okay.
If we're going to go there and I guess we are not a sperm nor an egg is a human. Yes. An egg is not a human. I mean a seed is not a plant.
A seed is not a plant. A seed is not a plant. And I think that I would be confused if you said yes, I wouldn't start naming plants. I wouldn't start naming parts of plants.
Yeah. I like to play it like 20 questions where you don't have to say yes or no. Where you might say, right. Okay.
You make space for like, man, yeah. I mean, you're in the right, you're in the right universe, but you have a noise that you like. Oh, that made me think. I'm not actually sure.
And like, ultimately, that is the correct noise to make in that situation. But if you make me say yes or no, a seed is not a plant. It is a potential plant is a fertilized seed, a plant. I am in the world.
I am imagining the seed is fertilized. Like seeds usually don't form unless they're fertilized. When does the plant become a plant? When the seed germinates?
I know the word for that. Okay. Hey, I want to play 20 questions after the ad break. The first podcast is brought to you by the seed germinating.
Hank's very specific definition of when a seed becomes a plant. As Bhagas is also brought to you by Andra the giant's voice. Andra the giant's voice. It's big for a reason.
And today's podcast is also brought to you by famous people complaining about being famous. Famous people complaining about being famous, relatable and enjoyable since 1852. And of course, the podcast is also brought to you by our patrons on Patreon. And this is a real sponsorship.
It's y'all. So one of the things that we have had as our top request for a long, long time is could you get an ad free version of Dear Hank and John and we're finally doing it. We're creating an ad free podcast feed for our Patreon patrons at the $5 tier. If you can only do $2, you'll still get access to our monthly live streams with the two of us on the live stream.
It's the best. The Dear Hank and John live stream is the most important thing in my professional life because it is the 45 minutes a month where Hank and I have a deep conversation with our community about the stuff that we actually think about all the time and that actually matters to us. It's very good. Very good.
And we are always working it out just like we were in the beginning of this episode but for longer. It's like that but it just keeps happening. We are also going to be making our next monthly Patreon live stream open to the public so that you can see it for everybody. That will be on July 3rd.
We are also doing video versions where we're recording video of the podcast right now. But we are not yet are we turning into a video podcast? We're just putting it for clips but the plan is to eventually do that once we think about it. We just got to get on board with those Kelsey brothers, Hank.
We got to get to where they're at. It'd be nice if we were in the same physical space, which those Kelsey brothers aren't. They're not? I've never been to one of them in Philadelphia.
Clearly not familiar with their work. One of them is married to Kylie Kelsey who I find to be the funniest and most charming person in the world other than my wife. And one of them is dating Taylor Swift who is literally Taylor Swift. I did know about that.
I did know that part. You heard about that one. Oh god. It's good to hear man.
They're still together. Listen, we're recording this on June 19th. I don't know what their private life is like. And by the way, I don't want to know it's none of my gang business.
They can share whatever they want to share. Patreon.com slash Dear Hank and John. $5 a month or $2 a month. It's up to you.
We're trying to get to 4400 members. Patreon.com slash Dear Hank and John. All the money by the way, goes to Complexly like the people who make Crash Course and SciShow. And so it just funds cool stuff.
So check it out. Patreon.com slash Dear Hank and John also link in the doobly-doo. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Shopify. There are a lot of things that stand between I have an idea and this is an idea that actually exists in the world and people are buying things from me.
And that is what Shopify makes it easier. When you start with Shopify, the tools, to design and launch and take payments, they're all there from day one. You don't have to build a whole machine before you can start building the business. And this is important because you also have to look good.
And with Shopify's templates, you could get a site set up really quick. That looks credible and professional without needing to code or duct tape a bunch of different tools together. And when things look real, that works on my brain to be like, I'm doing a real thing. It also works on other people's brains to be like, this is legitimate.
Shopify also has one of the best checkout systems on the internet. It's built to help customers finish the purchase effectively and efficiently without a bunch of roadblocks. Returning customers can check out what a single click. That means less friction and fewer abandoned carts and a smoother experience for everybody.
That stuff gives you confidence early on and it gives other people confidence in what you're doing. You're not wondering whether the payment system is going to work. You're not wondering whether customers can get through the process. Shopify handles that foundation so you can focus on the thing that you're actually trying to do.
It's really kind of amazing to me that Shopify is a tool that works from the first day your store launches when you're just starting to get customers all the way up to being the size of good.store or dftba.com or being the size of like Mattel and Gymshark. When you build a Shopify, you're building with tools that already work at every scale. All you need is the idea, Shopify handles the rest. You can start your free trial at Shopify.com slash deerhank.
Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash deerhank with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th, 2026. See website for more details. One thing I love about summary is how easy everything feels. The days are a little more relaxed.
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With new subscription only, wild supplies last until September 27th, 2026. See you website for more details. Alright, John, this next question comes from Vincent who asks when, where and how, where hard-shelled tacos invented. I think they are perfect.
Also, what should I replace beef with in my tacos since I want to eat less beef crunch Vincent? I might take your replace it with impossible meat which I've found to be really good and beyond burger or whatever it's not. Yeah, the ground beef that's in the meat free section. Get that plant based meat.
It's good. Tastes delicious. I haven't missed beef at all by the way. Like, there are so many good plant-based alternatives now that it's like about as inconvenient as slowing down for a squirrel as it crosses the road.
Like, I don't even think about the inconvenience of it because it's so minor inconvenient. Can I tell you about the last day before I started beef days? Yeah, what? Catherine and I and Oran had many moons ago booked this exclusive and very difficult to get onto train ride called the Charlie Russell Chiu Chiu where the first Chiu is spelled C-H-E-W.
It's a dinner train and also it is a Wild West performance event where the train gets held up. It's like medieval times but it's set in the West and the train gets held up. But the train gets held up. It's not medieval times.
I don't know where you got that part. Did you say that? No, I mean medieval times like the rest of the- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not the historical period.
It was Wild West but also there were nights for adjusting. I just mean like it's like dinner theatre. It's like dinner show. It's dinner theatre but you're on a train and the scenery is amazing.
It's four hours long and here is the meal that they give you. Number one, iceberg lettuce with cheddar cheese grated on top with Newman's own salad packets. One of my top five all-time starters. It's good.
It's good. I love iceberg lettuce and cheddar cheese. Those are, I mean, I'm an American baby. And then the main course arrives and the main course is potatoes.
Baby carrots, steamed baby carrots and I don't know, a six pound prime rib. Just, and it's the only option. You cannot get a Charlie Russell Choo-Choo unless you eat steak. They're not like a veg option.
This is in Louis down Montana, center of Montana. It's where the cows come from. It's a very cow focused culture and so I looked down at this steak and I was like, well, here's to beef days. I have my last beef and I was like, this is a good last beef.
I watched the people on the train with me eat the whole thing. And then have cheesecake afterward. I love that. And I like, it was insurmountable to both Catherine and I and I was somewhat jealous of Oran who got chicken strips.
I could have finished it. Anyway, what was the question? I don't know what we're talking about. Oh, yeah.
Beef and I, I mean, I check a taco was great. Ground turkey is an amazing taco replacement. We used to eat ground turkey tacos when we were growing up. Mom would always make ground turkey tacos because she did that.
It's easier to like, just eat. If I'm going to not eat beef, like just not eat any meat. Yeah, meat. It's easier, especially with ground meat type stuff.
For sure. Yeah. Now, hard shell tacos. Do you know who Glen Bell is?
John? Yeah, I wrote an entire episode of the Anthropocene Reviewed about Glen Bell. Glen Bell is the reason Taco Bell is named Taco Bell because it's not named after a bell. It's named after a man whose name was Glen Bell and Glen Bell claims that he invented the hard shell taco.
Glen Bell is a liar. Well, that's a little bit of an oversimplification for the record. Glen Bell did acknowledge at certain times the role that the meat la cafe played in the creation of Taco Bell. So Glen Bell had gotten out of the Marines, I believe, and he was running the hamburger stand in Southern California that was like literally across the street from the Great Mexican restaurant that's still there called the Meat La Cafe, where they have hard shell tacos.
And he basically would eat the hair and he'd be like, these are great. And he reverse engineered the hard shell tacos potentially with some like helpful advice from the family who ran and still run the meat like a say. They've often been really generous in their interpretation of what happened to the meat la cafe family. Like they've often been like, well, that Glen, he sure did sell those tacos.
But he definitely sold it from them. Yes. He definitely sold it from them. There are even there even pre Glen Bell patents on devices that help to form and fry hard shell tacos.
So it's it was a thing. I think obviously he refined them and there were lots of refinements along the way and turning them into a kind of, you know, some kind of geographical shaped corn chip. But I think geographical is the wrong term. Gically shaped corn chip.
I think that to be fair to Taco Bell, I think they were the first person to make a Doritos taco. But they do that person to make a hard taco or even close. I am confident that Taco Bell has held its fair share of innovations over the years. There's a great article in The New Yorker about the 11 year process to create the Crunchwrap Supreme.
Wow. That's a lot of R&D for what to me appears to be not super complicated. Well, the job was to find something that you could eat with one hand while you were driving. I mean, that's really a beautiful story.
I don't really recommend it if you have a chance to read it in The New Yorker. I'm sure it's online. And it's such a good story because it brings together high culture and local church in such an interesting way. Like because you know, it's the New Yorker.
So it's inherently pretentious. But at the same time, it's about the Crunchwrap Supreme. There's a deliciousness in that way of connecting. All right.
I got a question from Max. You're right. Stear John and Nick, I recently found out that there's nicotine naturally found in plants. Indeed, Max.
That's the main way we get it, especially in something called tobacco. One of these is potatoes. And first of all, excuse me. Second of all, how many potatoes would you have to consume in one sitting to ingest a cigarette worth of nicotine?
Like, do I need to be concerned about this? Do I need to add it to the list of worries that keep me up at night? Always stress to the Max. Absolutely not.
Absolutely not. You do not need to worry that you're going to get hooked on nicotine by eating potatoes. No, no, no, no, look, look, look, look, what about an alternative way to look at this, which is that the world is extraordinarily stressful if you could be focusing on something as unimportant as whether or not you're going to get addicted to potatoes, which by the way, you already are. Then maybe you won't be as focused on some of the worst stuff.
That's going to be a great point. Yeah, you should be addicted to eating potatoes because they're basically the perfect food. Oh, so good. They're better than you think.
What's not great is when you deep fry them. Other than that, what a great food. They're great for you. They have tons of nutrients.
They're delicious. You can survive for many years on a diet of just potatoes if that interests you and it doesn't really drink through that, but it is possible. You shouldn't, but you can. You could.
I think you might need a couple of other things, but yeah, I don't know who would. Well, I once read that it was only that you can only do it if you also supplement with the with dairy milk because there are vitamins in milk that make up for all the ones that you can't get from potatoes. And I read that on the internet. How long could a human live while only eating potatoes and drinking water?
Now, that's a good damn question. And would they get undecatine high? All right. I got an actual answer from an actual magazine.
And magazines are not the internet. They're just on the internet. All right. If you ate both potatoes and sweet potatoes, you would go forever.
There it is. There it is. Yeah, I believe that sweet potatoes. They're all different thing.
I would love to make a vlogbrothers video or actually do the math on this because I have not done the math, but I bet I could eat enough potatoes to get a chill nicotine high. But I think that I would probably just have to do the skins and I would probably need to switch them around on my mouth a bunch because I think eating tobacco is not going to get you that high. Okay. I have some numbers for you.
Here's a little context for you, Max and Hank. The amount of nicotine in a cigarette and for context, Max, I smoked on average between 30 and 45 cigarettes per day between the ages of 14 and 25. One cigarette, one of those, one of them contains about 12 milligrams of nicotine. That's a lot.
Which is around 18,000 times more nicotine than in a potato. So I couldn't eat a chill nicotine high unless you're willing to eat at least five or 6,000 potatoes in a single setting. Yeah, I don't think I could eat 6,000 potatoes. But maybe I don't think you can eat 6,000 potatoes in your life.
But I've never had nicotine in my life. So my tolerance is extremely low. First off, there's no way that's true. It's not true.
I had a cigar at I had a tent of the cigar at some cousins wedding once. Well, that's so cringy. What a cringy way to ingest nicotine. I've done nicotine in all the major ways except for cigars and pipes because I'm not massively cringe.
I have to say, the only way you ever ingested nicotine was via cigar. That's a thing. It was a tradition. What was the tradition?
No, I don't know. It was something. I don't I felt like a tradition. All the cousins were smoking cigars.
Yeah. And so and John, I have to say, it's not that it's just like I would never claim that's the only way ever. It is the only way I've never had a cigarette. I'm saying even if it were true, it's still the wrong thing to say.
Look, I'm not I have to be me. I can't let the world inhabit my brain. I have to kill the part. You can't kill the part that's cringy.
You must kill the part that cringes, John. That's the way forward. And I did smoke a tent of the cigar. And you know how I felt afterward?
I felt like I was on cocaine. I don't know what being on cocaine feels like. I was extremely high. So much is getting revealed in this episode.
I I felt I felt like wild. I was like drinking like eight cups of coffee. I was like, Oh, this is a drug. Hank Green nicotine salesman.
No, I like I don't know. I just kind of assumed that since it's everywhere all the time that like it can't be that impactful on your physiology, but it was intense. It's not actually it's not actually a pleasant high. I remember like the first 20 or 30 times I smoked a cigarette being like, this just sucks.
Like I don't like the way that I feel right now. I feel different, but not in a positive way. And then eventually I got to the point that I think I was trying to get to from the beginning where I just had a problem and the problem was that I needed a cigarette and the solution was to have a cigarette and like the joy of resolving that problem was the high rather than whatever a little high came with smoking. Oh, man, it would be nice to be able to solve a problem by grabbing something and turning on the lighter.
I mean, it does it does create a new problem, but it's even creates a number of larger problems. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
But there's not so much for so long, which is that that's it. Yeah. Yeah. But now like my life is in danger because of something stupid I did when I was a kid.
So yeah, you know, I just that's side of it. That is such an interesting way to talk about because I have this too, but with the things I'm addicted to, which is almost based social media where like the thing that I like about it is that it is solving a pro like it's an easy way to solve a problem. And the problem is that I am bored. And like a lot of like that's a lot.
That's an interesting way of thinking about the sort of like a certainly not all of addiction, but kind of maybe a bit of a trigger for it, which is like it is nice to have a problem that it is easy to solve. Yeah. Or fast. Anything going on an addiction, of course.
But I do think that that's part of it. And you're right about boredom. You're also just and the lack of the lack of intense feeling, right? Like one thing that I like is intense feeling and I want I want to really and I like purity of feeling.
And if nothing else, the internet still gives me very, very intense feelings. And I've been thinking about it a lot because like listeners may not know this, but you do, which is that I've been quite depressed for the last couple months. And it's been interesting to see my behavior on social media be a little more self-destructive and a little less productive because I'm trying to feel something and I just everything is so grayscale. Everything is so kind of like empty and like the, you know, these like intensilize that my brain is telling me are so compelling about meaninglessness and despair and everything that it really does feel like, well, if I go on the internet, like, I'll feel something and if I post, I'll feel something even more.
Yeah. And then the indie star will write an article and that's if it was real instead of just me trying to feel something. Right. Yeah.
And the the barriers so low, like they design the barrier very well. Yeah, the barrier super low, like within five seconds of picking up my phone, I can at least be feeling something, starting to feel something. Yeah. This is actually what my video on Friday is about because I obviously have not struggled with depression that much.
But when I was sick, I did. And that feeling of not being interested in anything and not really wanting anything and only feeling like the things that I cared the most about I didn't even feel like I would like if I was gonna die, that would just be sort of like a negative, like all the things like just being around would just be like a burden on people. And it would just be like me sort of like heading into like making the people who I loved, like making their lives worse. Yeah.
And and and like the, you know, obviously I used social media a lot when I was sick. Like I was on Twitter a lot. And I think that that's part of it. And then the thing that like really helped me get out of it was like working instead on private projects, or working on my like stand up instead, which was like, oh, I'm like, I'm getting something out of this being public.
And and also like I'm watching all of the stand up comedy that is like very, it's like very interesting to me to figure out how these comedians are doing the work that they do, to try and understand the art and the craft of it. That became interesting to me. And it like was a lifeline that I just sort of held on to. And I was like, I can't let go of this thing as I actually am interested in it.
And like, I'm interested in nothing else. I can't get interested in TV shows or video games that like this is doing it for me for some reason. And I just like held on it didn't like, oh, yeah, the only thing that was providing me like that like any interest at all. Which is so hard.
Like I've never experienced that before. Yeah, it's really, I agree with you. It's really hard. And it is really, I also think you make a good point that a lot of times the way out, like I feel like the way out is like rest and you rest.
But of course, like I also need to be doing stuff that brings me fulfillment and makes me feel connected and doesn't kind of put me further and further into the place of alone, you know, deep, deep aloneness. Yeah, so it's good, it's good advice as well as good sharing. So thank you. As usual, I don't remember the question that we were answering.
I thought we were good on was about depression. So let's go ahead and move on to the news from Mars and ABC Wimbledon. John, what's going on in the world of ABC Wimbledon? Well, Hank, we've just said goodbye to our longtime striker, Josh Davison, who is leaving AFC Wimbledon to play for Tranmere Rovers, which is a great football team name.
But that means that we have one fewer attacking player. Lots of people are speculating that now we definitely need to sign a striker. And why not the Montserratty and Messi? Why not bring home the greatest striker of the AFC Wimbledon era?
Montserrat, national team player, Lyle Taylor. And I think that'd be great. He's 34 years old. He's not as young as he used to be.
But then neither am I, you know, if somebody said to me, like John, you can't repeat the past. You can't keep pretending to be young. You can't stay on YouTube. It's a young man's game.
I would say, I still got one more year in me, coach. That's right. You know, and I believe that about Lyle. So we'll see if that actually means that we also signed a guy from Salahul Moors.
I know, I know he played for a team named Salahul Moors. His name is Callum Callum Makoc. Not Callum Wilcock and not Callum Won't Cock, but Callum Makoc. Yeah.
Yeah. He's 26. He's a midfielder box to box guy. That's what we refer to as the runners, the ones who can defend from the defensive penalty box to the to the Francia attacking one.
So yeah. He's Makoc box box to box. Makoc box to box. That's a great.
He's even got a nickname already. This is wonderful. Oh, we also are women's teams signed our first player. And she is also her name's Leanne Bell.
And she is also from the most extraordinary football club. We're only selling and buying players from hilariously named football teams. So we sold Josh Davis and the train mirovers. We signed Callum Makoc from Salahul Moors and Leanne Bell comes to us from Biller K Town.
Okay. Biller K. Biller K Town. Okay.
I don't know. I don't know. So there you go. What's the news in Mars?
Well, Mars recently had a big old geomagnetic storm right in the middle of May. And if that sounds familiar, it's because we also had a big old geomagnetic storm from the same exact solar flare that caused the auroras here on Earth. It was also hitting the aurora hit in Mars. But on Mars, they do not have a magnetic field.
So the aurora happens everywhere on the planet. It does not get focused into the poles. It just goes all over the whole planet. And the the so if you missed out on the auroras on Earth, bad news, you also missed out on the auroras on Mars.
Was it a good show? Good question, John. I have no idea. The spacecraft were on Mars.
We're able to measure it in various ways. But I don't know that we got any good pictures of it. I guess we got like, I think some like very fuzzy pictures given that there's so little in the way of atmosphere. Yeah, I think that that's the big problem is that there's not a atmosphere to get more.
I believe that there's enough. Technically, something gets borealis to not aurora. That's my own position. I think that actually gets aurora because there's also no, no, I disagree with you because you're going to say like, Oh, because there's also the southern lights.
Yeah. And those are also borealis. There's just not a word. But I would say that the borealis is the light part.
So you're getting borealis when you get the lights. And then I would also say as a follow up to that. And this I feel very strongly about. I know that shaden means pleasure and Freud means friend and the pleasure you see in your other friends suffering is shot in Freuda.
But I still believe instead of saying that if all the Freudas shot in is the best, I think we should say of all the shaden's Freuda is the best. Yeah. No, look, sometimes we're wrong. And that's, and we just move forward being wrong and it doesn't matter.
Yeah. So I'm going to say that it gets borealis. So did it get borealis? It did.
It did. You actually see grainy images of the barest minimum of barely being able to see that there is a detectable change in the sky. Borealis. Borealis.
John, thank you for making a podcast with me. If you want to send your questions to us, it's at hankandjohn at gmail.com. That's without that. We don't have a podcast.
So please do that. This podcast is edited by Linus Ovenhaus. It was mixed by Joseph Tinematic, Communications Coordinator, his book shot well produced by Rosie on a house in head west, executive producer, Seth Bradley, editorial assistant, is Deboki Trapper of Artie, the music hearing now, the biggest podcast by the great Gonna Rolla, and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.