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Tickets 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! Welcome to Dear Hank and John.
There's effort to get through John and Hank. It's a comedy podcast about death. Well, me and my brother John, we answer your questions, give you a few advice and bring you all the weeks from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Hey John!
Hi! Hi! How are you? You know that part in Rushmore, actually you don't because you're not familiar with Rushmore.
I can't believe you haven't seen Rushmore at least 12 times. How can you even claim to be my brother? Anyway, there's this part in Rushmore where one of the characters says, I ain't even here, Sergeant. I'm in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
That's how I am. I'm not really here, to be honest with you. I'm in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I'm just like, I'm working a lot and I am in grossed in my work and I am not really capable of thinking about anything else.
How are you? Good! How do I get you here? I need a brother for my podcast.
No, I have to stay in Cheyenne. Unfortunately, I have to stay in Cheyenne, Wyoming as long as possible because it is the closest that I really ever come to pure happiness or actually it's not like happiness but pure fulfillment or engagement or whatever. You know how you spend your whole entire life stuck inside of the prison of yourself and there's no escaping it and it's sort of like a horror movie in that you live inside of a consciousness. Stop trying to make me uncomfortable with the prison of my body, John.
I want it not recognized. I don't want to think about it. Yeah, no, lots of people are able to very successfully not think about it and I actually think that is the correct strategy. So we can just move on to the short poem if you'd like.
Well first, I have to say that I got a comb on an airplane and it's falling apart in my hands and I'm like, why do they even give me this terrible comb? Why do they make it out of something that is incapable of holding its calminess? Second, I have to say, John, how are you feeling about PodCon? I'm very excited about PodCon, but if we can briefly return to the issue of your comb, I just want to note Hank that there are first world problems and then there are the free comb I got for sitting in business class on an international flight did not live up to my expectations problems because I know a lot about air travel and so I know how you get those free combs and if you ever complain about that again, I'm disowning you.
I guess I was complaining about it. I've had it for a while and I've been using it and I guess I've been fidgeting with it too much and now it's missing a number of times. Well, life is hard and full of disappointments. I'm very excited for PodCon.
For those of you who don't know, there is a podcast conference coming up planned by my brother Hank and some other people. It's in Seattle and it's going to be lots of fun. I'm going to be there. Tons and tons and tons of people are going to be there.
Yeah, we have I decided to reach out to two of my friends in the podcasting world, Travis Mackerelle and and just a think of Welcome to Night Vale and they were like, yeah, yeah, that is a thing that should exist. And then we got together with the rest of their teams and with the rest of my team who's here on the podcast with me right now. And we're doing an Indiegogo campaign for it and it's going well. Yeah, you can you can attend remotely if you don't want to travel to Seattle and or can't travel to Seattle, but you can also attend in real life with your physical body in Seattle.
And it'll be just like listening to podcasts only, you know, like instead of spending the time that you listen to podcasts in that sort of like non-sensorial place where audio can take you, you'll have to be with your physical body in a room with a bunch of other people with bodies. So I mean, upside, upside down sides. There will be many amazing and weird things happening. But for for remote backers, we'll be sending out all of the stuff that happens in audio form.
But for the people who are going to be there in real life, it is nice to do things with your real physical body, right? Yes, absolutely. I like your physical body. Unfortunately, you have no choice.
It hurts. Sometimes you do have no choice. That is a bit of a, you know, I don't like like this. Isn't it nice sometimes to not have a choice?
Because I hate choices. So I would like if it was like, what body do you want to be in this morning? That sounds like a lot of work. I like stress.
I have to think about that now. It's hard enough picking pants. Yeah, no, for me, the ideal situation would be if it was like, do you want to be in a body today? And I'd be like, nah, just nobody at all.
Yeah, I'm going to take, I'm going to take the pleasures of the senses and just get rid of them completely. That's not true. You're right. No, it's much more complicated than that.
Can I read you a short poem? Okay, everything is more complicated than you want to make it. Nothing fits on a bumper sticker. So we got a short poem suggestion from Crystal.
She wanted me to read a poem by Ruby Cowers. I'm going to. This one is very short. I am water soft enough to offer life tough enough to drown it away.
Just a good short poem, Hank. Good short poem about water toughness and softness. You know, I did think for a tiny bit that the poem you were reading was about what can and cannot fit on a bumper sticker. And I was like, oh, that one was interesting.
I guess that's a pretty good poem. As poems that fit on bumper stickers go, that was a pretty good one. Hey, should we answer some questions from our listeners? Sure, let's do that.
This one is from Grace. I thought that it was interesting because Grace has a pretty cool job but is also worried about it. Dear Hank and John, I'm about to complete my first year working in a somewhat well-known online website covering politics that shall apparently go unnamed. I don't want to do anything else besides the job I'm doing, but I'm struggling with the current war on the media.
It seems like the media in quotation marks is such an undefined character. What is the media? Am I part of the media? Am I as culpable as the makers of Dredg Report?
How can I handle when friends or families blame the media for how they receive their news? And most of all, how can I fairly low down on the food chain but still with a platform to express my views to others make a difference in a fairly stubborn political bubble. News and newspapers and this is news, G-U-N-S. Nope, G-N-U-S.
Oh god. G-N-S, it's just guns. What's a new? Is it like I'm going to animal?
It is exactly like, it's not just like some kind of animal. It is some kind of animal. I've found it. It's some kind of animal.
Yeah. Anyway, news and newspapers grace. Yeah, I mean, Grace, the good news is that hopefully you knew when you were getting into this job, what you were getting into because people have hated the media since time immemorial. Like there's been a lack of trust in newspapers since they were newspapers.
Yeah, it feels a little like we had a brief moment of everybody was like kind of on board with it. And then now it's like moved back into being like everything is fake. And if it doesn't- I don't think people think everything is fake. I think people think that everything is shaped by bias and that they can't trust any facts.
But I also think that's largely because and to an extent, news media organizations aren't doing a good job of differentiating between reporting and analysis. Yeah, it has become very clear to me that even I don't have a really great grasp on that. Like I know the difference. I know what the difference is.
And I know that like collecting and disseminating information is extremely valuable. And without that, there would be no conversations worth having. But mostly don't consume like here's what happened. I consume what does this thing that happened mean?
Yeah, I think the great risk, and we've talked about this a lot, is that in general, a lot of times when people are trying to contextualize the news or present themselves as trying to contextualize the news, what they're really trying to do is to frame the news to meet your expectations or to fulfill the confirmation bias of a particular group or whatever. Like it's not really about context deep down. It's about framing. And people like frames, they want to look at the world through the frames that kind of confirm what they already believe to be true.
And so I understand why that stuff works, but it isn't news. Right, but it is the thing that you can get views on and that's how we're at. There's this problem where if we are looking at what we should be consuming is different from what we want to consume. And so when it comes down to like, okay, should I read the Wikipedia page on this controversial topic?
Or should I read what my feed is throwing me about the take that it most makes me feel good about the way that I feel about the world and most confirms my worldview and my understanding of the people who I like and don't like? I'm going to go with that second thing because reading Wikipedia page is boring. Yeah, but also because going with the second thing allows your mind to indulge exciting and surreal conspiracy theories. And that feels good, right?
Like there's a reason that everybody believes, including me, by the way, believes conspiracy theories that if they were proven to be true would be great news for them. It's because like, it's an incredibly attractive thing. It's like gossip on the largest possible scale. I mean, we have this tension between what is good for us and what feels good in the moment, not just when it comes to news, right?
Like I have it all the time when it comes to McDonald's. I think we live in a world of abundance. We live in a world of abundant information, or at least those of us who are blessed to live in the parts of the world that are defined by abundance. We live in a world of abundant information, abundant food, abundant this, abundant where it's not about how much stuff you can have because you can have a lot of stuff.
You can acquire a lot of combs relatively inexpensively. And we, I feel like we have to get better as a species at understanding that more is not always better and what feels good right now is not always what we actually want. Yeah. So what I say to Grace, I would say, we all, especially people in media and whatever that is.
And of course, like the great thing about blaming the media is that, of course, whenever you say it, you mean the media that you don't like and so you could say it. And yeah, so it's not about you. It's about people having opinions about something that they saw. But trying to find ways to get information across that is both accurate and is new and is contextualized and but also entertaining.
And so it's like figuring out ways to do that. That's what's important. And doing that without resorting to how can I write a headline that sounds misleading so that people will click on it. Because I have gotten really frustrated by this new trend of having really great articles that have really bad headlines because 90% of people only read the headline.
And so 90% of people coming away with an inaccurate point of view on the situation. Yeah. So don't do that. Well, I think it's hard and I think it's complicated.
And I have to say that it's very difficult to go against human nature or the whims of the market forces. So let's move on to another question. Okay, sorry, Grace. Yeah, I don't think we have any good news on that front, Grace.
We both feel a little discouraged. This question comes from Hneen who writes Dear Green Brothers, my name's Hneen. And I'm a big fan of the pod in both you guys. So recently in our Arabic class, we were discussing a poem in which the poet was praising a certain king saying that he built his kingdom to reach higher than Gemini.
And our teacher explained this choice of constellation assigned from it rhyming with the rest of the poem because quote, Gemini is the highest constellation. I was taken aback by this statement. Is that true? Can a constellation even be high?
Are they all a bunch of stars floating in the space? And also it made me think does a poet or writer have the right to mess with science and actual facts just for the sake of making their works sound beautiful and poetic? P.S. Sorry for any grammatical mistakes.
English is not my native language as you may have probably noticed. I might die at any moment. Hneen first off, I just want to say that this email has fewer grammatical mistakes than almost any email we've ever received. Yep.
Yep. You're quite good at that. Also, excellent sign off. Excellent sign off.
It's true. You might die at any moment. Hey, so I like this question because it kind of has questions for both of us does a writer have a right to mess with science and actual facts just for the sake of making your work sound beautiful? A question that I know a thing or two about.
And then secondarily, is there such a thing as a high constellation? Well, in terms of distance from the earth, all constellations are well for the most part are made up of stars that are very far away from each other. So they appear close to each other in the plane of the sky. But they are varying distances away.
There are some exceptions to that where some star clusters in a constellation are actually part of a grouping in space. But most of that is not the case. But they're also, you know, so certainly the higher, like the higher star is like the further away from it is for the most part, that means it's farther away from us. And so the really high constellations are the ones that are made up of stars that you can't even see.
Wait, no, but I think it's not that like stars near the top of our sky are necessarily further away than stars near the bottom of our sky. No, well, indeed, a star like star is in the sky changes all night long and also depending on where you are on earth. So there's, yeah, there's no star that is at the top of the sky. First of all, because the sky is a dome.
And so the top would just be like whatever happens to be right above you at the moment, I guess, because it's not like what's on the north side. No, it's but that's going to change anyway. Like all that stuff moves around. It moves around all night because this goes the earth is spinning around.
It is a matter of perspective. Correct. And then yes, so I don't know if there's it. I don't know what I think about constellations.
I cannot tell you if there's something particularly high about Gemini. Maybe there's something. Do you know, or can I tell you anything? However, I can tell you that the stars in Orion's belt, there's very visible constellation from Indiana.
I don't know how visible it is in the rest of the world. Like the Orion, the Hunter, there's these three stars that look like they're in a complete line and they're very bright in the Indiana sky. And they are literally hundreds of light years apart from each other. Like they are further away from each other than they are from us.
Yeah. It's so mind blowing to think that they look inches apart and they are so, so, so far apart. Nice visualizations. You can experience there's actually a kind of game that it's more of just like a simulator thing where you can download this software and you can like go around like you can go from the earth and you can move off and see what the sky looks like from other places and it's very cool.
That sounds cool. We'll put a link on the Patreon.com slash to your handcon john and you don't have to pay to get this. Yeah. All the things are free, but you can pay.
We won't get mad. The second question though, I think is really interesting one because there are times when I think it's okay to mess with facts, but you've got to know that you're messing with them. So, or that's my theory anyway. I did this in the fault in our stars where I wanted there was a line I liked that some infinities are bigger than others, which is true.
But the way that Hazel talks about that is untrue and I liked the attention of that. I think looking back, I would have made it clear that Hazel was wrong somehow because I think a lot of people walked away from that thinking that there are more numbers between zero and two than there are between zero and one, which is not true. And I wish that I had not accidentally misinformed a large swath of a, you know, like a generation of American teenagers about infinite cardinality, but I did. So, no getting around that.
I think in general, like you have to work with the world as you find it as a writer. And part of that is trying to be honest about science. But there are also times in my work, and lots of people would say this is a bad thing about them, where I've taken things that are true in science and tried to apply them to other things in life where they may or may not be true. Like, you know, like the idea that energy isn't created or destroyed.
Well, that is not an idea that you can scientifically apply to the human spirit. Yes. Yeah. I think that that is a common thing that happens where we try to appeal to the things that we know about science, the realities of science, and we try to apply them to things that aren't actually affected by them.
But in general, I feel like certainly it has to be internally consistent. So, one of the great things about writing is that you don't have to write inside of our universe with our universe's rules. Like there are other universes you can write inside of. But if your stuff exists inside of this universe, you're going to get called out if you are creating a thing that does not exist.
But if it's magical realism, do it. Do it up. Like, that's one of the great things about fiction is that we can see, like we can imagine universes that are different from ours. And sometimes those things are going to be resonant in ways that are beyond just how it affects the story and beyond just creating a cool world.
There's also truths that can be told that way. But it can be a dangerous tool, because especially if you're trying to create more than beauty, if you're trying to create ideas, and you're appealing to ideas that are creating truths that aren't actually true, then that's a really good way to sell an ideology that isn't accurate. And I often see that in discourse more than in fiction, where people are like, well, I know that this particular example of this thing is made up, but it's indicative of a larger truth. I know that what I'm saying right now, I understand that I was caught lying or citing something that was fake, and I didn't realize it was fake, but it's indicative of broader truth, and it resonates with people because they see that this is basically true, even if all of the examples we can find are not accurate.
Speaking of which, we have another question from Sarah who writes Dear John and Hank, on my flight tonight, the person sitting next to me noticed I am currently reading The Chronicles of Narnia. I told him I'd never read them as a kid and thought I'd give them the try now. He said he loves C.S. Lewis and proceeded to discuss the books with me at length.
At the end of our conversation, he asked if I'd ever read Ayn Rand, because quote, if I like The Chronicles of Narnia, I would really enjoy The Fountainhead, especially if you've only read two books. Is this true? Would you consider enjoying The Chronicles of Narnia a solid basis for someone to enjoy The Fountainhead? Sarah?
No. No, Sarah, I would not. You know John, I've never read The Fountainhead. I got 16 problems with this guy sitting next to Sarah on the airplane.
Number one. Get a list of them out. I'll get this. This is going to be hard for us.
You never ever interrupt somebody when they're reading a book to tell them that you have also read that book. The only exception to this and it is a questionable exception is if you have written the book in question, it is sometimes, only sometimes acceptable, I think, to say, FYI, I wrote that book. I just want to see someone reading The Fountainhead Star as a bookstore and I was like, nope, not going to do it. Not going to do it.
No, and that's probably the right call. I think, definitely. Hey, my brother wrote that book. Look at me.
I would have been like, no, I might have walked out to them and said that's a good one. You should buy it. You know, I go into Barnes and Noble. I do go to your section and I turn them facing out because it's just a spine.
You don't knock it into as much shelf real estate. So I rearrange some stuff so that your books can face out. I hope you appreciate that. I do appreciate that.
But I also always feel like it maybe hurts somebody else who's probably a nice person, but I do appreciate it anyway. You shouldn't do it, but I'm allowed because this is my brother. The number two thing is if you like The Chronicles of Narnia, it does not mean that you will enjoy The Fountainhead. All it means is that that person has read an extremely narrow set of fiction.
I can probably name like five other books that person has read. Probably some Robert Heinlein, however you pronounce his name. I bet he's read The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Probably the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
I suspect he's read 1984, but not in a way that really took it to heart. You will be a big fan in high 451. I don't know if you know the saying, The Lord of the Flies. I don't know if you know this about me, but I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate the fountainhead.
I hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it. I hate it. I know a lot of people listening out there right now don't hate it and I'm sorry because I probably am making you feel like not great and I'm sorry. I don't want to make you feel that way, but it's just I just hate it.
I just I think the world would be better if it didn't exist. And I think the ideas in it are a vintage example of what you just described where you create a fictional world in which a bunch of things that are not actually true are true. And then because people feel like it reflects something true about their experience that is based on the idea that they are somehow special or unique and the world is aligned against them, but it's not aligned against other people. It's just I can't go back to that.
I was wrong. I yeah, yeah. I've got another question, John. It comes from Becky who asks Dear Green Brothers.
The third thing I don't like in this situation. John, can you skip the like the middle, the middle 13 things and skip straight to 16? Yeah, but I'm starting a spinoff podcast called Issues I Have With The Guy Sitting Next to Say. Well, I'm also excited to hear that.
This one is from Becky who asks Dear Green Brothers. I'm a US citizen working in Mexico for the year with NGO and I recently come by attention that my Mexican colleagues were taught and firmly believe that there are five continents, Africa, America, Asia, Europe, and Oceania. And I on the other hand, I and the other US citizens in the office were taught and believed until recently that there were seven continents, Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, and South America. Although this was an earth-shifting discovery for me, I can appreciate that continents are that was only six.
That was only six. I didn't say all of them. You didn't say all of them, but it's kind of better that way because it points to how made up continents are. So just go on.
Although this was an earth-shifting discovery for me, I can appreciate the continents are social constructs. And my question is this, is there a right social construct to teach? Yes. Oh, there is?
Yes. First off, I think it's crazy that we differentiate between Europe and Asia when they are clearly obviously inarguably one continent. I mean, it's interesting that the Mexican colleagues also think that Europe and Asia are separate continents. I think that there's really, there's only one argument to be made, John.
In my opinion, yeah, there is one continent. No, there used to be one continent. I agree. But now there are two continents.
I am willing to accept two because there are two really big up. But if you look from the top, all that stuff's really close together. Yes, but we don't look from the top because nobody lives up at the top because it's so cold. I mean, it's getting warmer every year, but it's still fairly cold.
I'm just saying I just flew from America to Europe. And I don't think I saw the ocean the whole time. I'm going to just go ahead and call BS on that one. Maybe it was a cloudy day, but you flew over the ocean, I promise.
I flew over some limited swaths of ocean. So the two continents, just to be clear, the two continents, this is like my argument that everything is essentially a shade of brown. That's why I feel like there's one continent. I'm concerned that I'm under minding my authorities so much that a bunch of people are going to go out and read the fountain head or alternately that I hate the fountain head so much that it's going to make people want to read it.
Maybe I should just ignore it because actually the opposite of Lovehank is not hate. It's apathy. Anyway, anyway, there are two continents. There is Afro-Eureggio, which is obviously one continent.
And then there is the Americas, which is obviously one continent. Now I realize this leads out a bunch of places like Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand. Those places are not, they just don't count. Well, no, it's not that they don't count.
Do you have to be on a continent? No, Greenland. Nobody argues that Greenland is a continent, but it is a large landmass that contains people. Iceland is not a continent.
Neither is Australia. I mean, I understand the Oceania. I understand the Oceania. I understand the Oceania.
I have to be one to include all the people. But let's, you can't include all the people because we're talking about weird social constructs. Two continents. Afro-Eureggio, okay, there's three continents.
Afro-Eureggio, Oceania. I'm backing down on Oceania. Oceania, I don't even know how to say it. It's such a made-up idea that I don't even know how to say the word.
I'm back. Okay. Yes. I'm backing down.
But there are, let's establish, are there people who are not on continents? Yes. Yes. Hawaiians and astronauts.
I'm pretty sure actually Hawaii is technically part of Oceania. It's all inclusive of the oceans. I think it might include some, I think it might include Madagascar. Yeah, Oceania, Madagascar, Hawaii, and Greenland.
That's what Oceania is. Yeah, definitely Greenland is in Oceania. I don't think you'll find any disagreement about that. The question is, are the Caribbean islands in Oceania?
What about Bermuda? Bermuda is, I went, I've never been to Bermuda, but I was thinking maybe it would be fun to go to Bermuda. I would like to go on a beach vacation. And so I was looking on Google Maps all, just south of Florida where all the Caribbean islands are.
And I was like, man, I cannot find Bermuda anywhere here. That's because it's nowhere near there. It's off like South Carolina. Yeah.
It's up there where the Bermuda Triangle is. First off, I have no, I mean, I thought the Bermuda Triangle was just south of Jamaica. Nope. It's not by Bermuda.
I'm pretty sure that, okay, first off, just not to correct you, Hank. But the Bermuda Triangle, one point of it is in Bermuda. The other point is in South Florida. And the third point is in Puerto Rico.
So in fact, a number of Caribbean islands are inside the Bermuda Triangle. I'm not as much of an idiot as you would like to have me believe. However, Bermuda itself is like basically it's basically one of like Maine's outer islands. I mean, it is much closer to Canada than it is to Jamaica.
It sounds like when you say Bermuda, you're like, oh yeah, this has got to be, but I mean, I think it is fairly warm and tropical because it's in the middle of the ocean. And it's really far off the coast. It's a weird thing. It seems like one of the locations that would have been mentioned in the classic Beach Boys song, Kokama.
Indeed, Bermuda is the first one in the list. Oh, it is mentioned Bermuda, Jamaica girl. I want to take you. I believe it's the, I don't know.
Did I just violate? No, it's not. It's Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama. That's the second one.
Okay, there's no, no, it begins. A Roomba, Jamaica. I want to take you to Bermuda. Bermuda is third.
It's in the second stand. Key Largo, Montego, baby. Why don't we go? Is there really a place off the Forta Keys called Kokomo because there's a place about 40 minutes north of me called Kokomo, Indiana, and I would not describe it as tropical.
I don't think that there is a real place called Kokomo. In the, there's a, there's a Sandals K is the privately owned island in Jamaica that was formerly called Kokomo Island, but I think after the song, there's a, there's a, I think, I think I'm going to check formerly called Kokomo Island. It was originally named after the, the song that was not written by the Beach Boys just performed by them. The inspiration for the song was a poolside bar and Isla Morada in the Florida Keys.
So, who wrote the song? John Phillips, Mike Love, Terry Melcher, and Scott Kenzie. Mike Love is in the beach. Mike Love is in the Beach Boys for the record.
Okay. Well, what about Terry Mel? I don't know. Is John Phillips of, isn't John Phillips in like Peter Paul and Mary or something?
Probably not in Peter Paul and Mary since he's not in Peter Paul or Mary. No, he was, he was in the Beach Boys and also the mamas and the Papas. The mamas and the Papas. I was close.
Okay, I was close. All right. But he was just, he was just associated with the Beach Boys according to this Wikipedia page. His name is not Ryan, so I don't know why I'm on his Wikipedia page right now.
Yeah. Anyway, the best part about this whole bit, Hank, is that literally nobody who listens to this podcast remembers the Beach Boys song Kokomo, except for you and me because it came out in 1989. So like, and also I don't think it was that big of a hit. I think our parents just liked it a lot.
So sorry. Everyone was listening. I cannot, first of all, I cannot believe that it came out in 1989. I always assumed that it was much earlier than that because most of the Beach Boys stuff was much earlier than that.
Second, it was me and my girlfriend in third grade. It was our song. Was it really? It was.
That's pretty cute. Yeah. I got to say, that's pretty cute. You know, my first song, my first song with a girl was that Tiffany song.
I think we're alone now. I think we're alone. That's also not my channel. It's also not my channel.
Vinyl. Oh, yeah. Probably not. Yeah.
I know that was a cover. I own that on vinyl. My first two vinyl records were Michael Jackson's Thriller, which is a properly good album. And Tiffany's I think we're alone now, which does not hold up that well.
I do remember you owning that record. John is not making this up. Do you remember what my first vinyl was, John? I 100% know what your first vinyl was.
I don't know if you know, but I'm 100% positive. Do you want to say it at the same time? Sure. Okay.
Three, two, one, the Chuck E Cheese album. Oh, you're right. It probably was the Chuck E Cheese album. It was 100% Chuck E Cheese 45 that played like Happy Birthday on One Side.
It might have even been to show this pizza. It played Happy Birthday on One Side. But it wasn't the usual Happy Birthday song. It was da da da da da da da.
I think it's your birthday. Yeah. Yeah. That one.
I think it's your birthday. Is that what they say? I was thinking that it was the Super Girls album, but that was that was later, which was like a collection of a bunch of like girl rock bands from the 60s and 70s on to two LPs. Yeah.
That's actually pretty good. It was good. I think that pop pop out it for me off the time life time life subscriptions. Quick, quick, quick follow-up questions.
What questions are we really for people really for people who were born significantly before 1980 like we've really made this we've limited our scope of our audience dramatically with this last conversation. But there is one continent and Kokomo is not on it. Oh, that's how we got here. The continents.
Oh my God. Oh my God. I wish like I wish I could get a diagram of the series of sentences that led to this moment. Well, we'll work through it.
Do you want to move on or can we just admit that continents are a made up idea and before we move on, I just have to quickly say that today's podcast is brought to you by Sandals. Sandals secretly sponsoring this podcast. Can we maybe get 378 free Sandals days, Hank? No, thank you.
Honestly, I do not have the time or interest for any Sandals. The podcast is also brought to you by the media. The media. You don't like us for summaries.
Hey, I'm just gonna stop you right there and say that I love a good all-inclusive vacation and I do not like you talking smack about them and I suspect when your kids get a little bit like it too. And of course, these podcasts is also brought to you by Oceania. Oceania, a word that John is trying to learn how to pronounce. And finally, this podcast is brought to you by Subparcombs.
They're not very good. But they were free. Yeah. This episode of your 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 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 with 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 dftv.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 Dear Hank. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash Dear Hank.
With new subscription only, while supplies last until September 27th, 2026. See website for more details. One thing I love about summer is how easy everything feels. The days are a little more relaxed.
My kids don't have to wake up at five in the morning and I find myself reaching for the same comfortable go anywhere pieces again and again which is why I keep coming back to quince. I often wear either a long sleeve or a short sleeve button down from quince and it fits well and I never have any complaints. In fact, sometimes I get compliments about it. I was at the airport a couple days ago as I often find myself in airports and someone said I like your shirt and I said thanks.
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Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash Dear Hank for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash Dear Hank. For a moment that you are absolutely immersed in some work where you're creating something beautiful or useful or useless and ugly but you love it anyway and you look up and suddenly you have a feeling and that feeling is that it is 2.30 pm and that you did not eat lunch.
What are you going to do? Are you going to get meal delivery that's going to cost too much and maybe be a bit of a mistake or are you going to go to the cupboard and just eat several fistfuls of peanuts? Those are my two choices unless I have a factor in the fridge. You can get smokey barbecue chicken breast with potato mash, cream corn and peppers.
You can get creamy lemon pepper chicken with veggie rice peel off broccoli and carrots. This has the fiber I need. It has the protein I need and it has the deliciousness I need. What about garlic herb roasted barramundi with potato zucchini and burr blanc sauce?
I don't really know what that means but it sounds delicious. What about a black bean taco bowl with corn salsa and cilantro crema? A delicious high fiber high protein meal that no animals had to die for? Any of those can be ready in two minutes.
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Alright John, I got one more question for you. It's about me. I hope that's okay. This question comes from Lily who asks Hank what are Amber lamps?
I love your song Amber lamps but it's so relaxing but I had absolutely no clue what it was about so I looked up what are Amber lamps and I found a very odd meme. Did you write an entire song about a meme? The meme was created in 2010 so it's entirely possible that your album Ellen Hart Castle which came out in 2011 could have a song about a meme? I'm very confused I would like an answer for every confusing episode of books Lily.
Yep. That's all I gotta say. That is where... yep.
It is a nice call soothing song that is about a meme. Yeah Hank wrote a song about a meme. It's not even really his first song about a meme. I would say it's one of the lesser known memes and it's also one of Hank's lesser known songs.
Yeah I mean honestly I was finishing that album and I was like I really feel like there should be one more song in this album and I was like okay well I guess if something strikes me and then it struck me and I recorded it and I put it on there and I did it all in an afternoon by myself. So it's a bit of a departure on that album. It's like suddenly we're what are we doing now? But yeah it's about a meme.
All right speaking of what are we doing now it's time for the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Hank do you want to go first or do you want me to go first? Oh the news from Mars. It's bad news from Mars John so you'll remember that Donald Trump our president of my country said that he wanted he would like to see and he was rooting for and was excited about getting astronauts on Mars during quote during my first term or at worst during my second term.
So NASA has responded. They're not gonna do that. That's a bit of a special NASA responses. Yeah yeah they have said the White House asked us to look at the plan that we have today and see if we can keep going on that current plan said the acting administrator Robert Lightfoot who is what an amazing name for an administrator of NASA.
They have asked us they have not they have not asked us to go to Mars by 2024. Several news from me John. But it's confirmed that Donald Trump was like all right jump over this 50 foot high building and NASA was like can we have like I don't know a trillion dollars and they're like that's not how this works and they're like well no we can't we cannot unaided jump over a 50 foot tall building. Yeah I mean that's not a huge surprise Hank that Donald Trump said that he was going to be able to do something that he's struggling to execute.
It's kind of been a theme of the presidency so far. The news from AFC Wimbledon well Hank it's the silly season as they call it it's the off season. We've got two long brutal actually more like three long brutal horrible months of this. However the silly season kicked off an earnest earlier today Hank when a news report came out in which Wimbledon manager Neil Ardeley said that he quote might have to do some wheeling and dealing in order to improve the squad.
There's not a lot of money at AFC Wimbledon it's not a particularly well funded team owned by its fans as I might have mentioned a few times not owned by some billionaire. So it's going to be difficult to improve the squad but it's obviously also necessary to improve the squad due to the lack of a goal of the month in April due to no goals. So that might mean some selling might mean some players will get sold. That is at least the takeaway that a lot of people on Twitter have is that players might need to get sold in order for other players to be bought which would be a shame because I really like the current AFC Wimbledon squad but I'll tell you what I also like staying in League 1.
Yes me too. You weren't listening but that's okay I'm not mad at you. Hey what are we going today? We learned that Gemini is so high it's so high in the sky.
We learned that Bermuda, Jamaica, Madagascar, Australia, New Zealand, Greenland and Antarctica are all in the same continent. Of Oceania we also learned that Hank and John don't ask us about the fountainhead. Yeah just don't bring it up and lastly we learned that Hank's first album was a 45 from either Chuck E. Cheese or Show His Pizza.
It was definitely Show His Pizza because we didn't have a Chuck E. Cheese back then John. We were up at different times guys it was hard out there. That's right and we listened to the Beach Boys later hits.
All right it's time for us to go record our weekly podcast this week in Ryan's which you can get over at patreon.com slash dear Hank and John don't feel obligated you're not missing much of but if you want to you can sign up for it we appreciate it and it helps us fun complexly shows like SciShow and Crash Course and The Art Assignment and Sexplanations and lots of other stuff so thanks everybody who donates through the patreon. Thanks to all of you for listening and I think Hank is going to read the credits now. Yes this podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins it's produced by Rosie Anna Hals Rojas and Sheridan Gibson. Our social media manager is Victoria Bonjour.
Our music is by the great conerola you can email us at hankandjohn at gmail.com we're on twitter at Hank Green and at John Green we love to see your tweets and as they say in our hometown don't forget to be awesome.