96: Next Level Laziness

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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. Yours out for thinking with your John and Hank.

It's a podcast where two brothers will answer your questions, give you a few advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. How you doing, John? I'm all right. Hank, you know that line from Rushmore, I ain't even here, Sergeant.

I'm in Cheyenne Wyoming. You don't have to get the reference because I previously referred to it on the podcast. The point is, is this how we're going to, is this now a continuation of the intro where I just say how you do in John and then you quote Rushmore? Like is that our new way?

The point is I've been in Cheyenne Wyoming for far too long and I've kind of lost my sense of self but I can't leave Cheyenne Wyoming right now and yeah, how are you? I'm good. I want to tell you a little story about how I was eating a Cliff Bar one day by which I mean yesterday and walking down the stairs onto my backyard so I could go out in my office. So walking down these stairs is like four or five stairs.

I couldn't tell you how many stairs there are exactly and I'm eating a Cliff Bar and because I was preoccupied thinking about all of the interesting things in my life and also how great this Cliff Bar was, I didn't know how many steps there were and I thought I was done with the steps but it wasn't. And so I, you know, about let's say a second and a half later was on my butt having not entirely sure about the situations regarding my ankles and hands but feeling okay and then I looked down in my hands and I'm like where's my Cliff Bar? So I fell down these stairs and like I think I'm okay. I got a little bit of pain in my leg and wrist from catching myself but my Cliff Bar.

What, where did it go? Do you know where I went, John? I don't and it better be good because the rest of the story has not been great so far. It was in my mouth.

Oh, the whole thing just shot right into the mouth. I just, I like quick put it in my mouth while I was falling a bit down on it, held it real hard and then I was like where did it go? I can't find my Cliff Bar. That wasn't to me with my glasses all the time.

I'm a very similar problem with my glasses. I'm sure at some point during this podcast I'll be like where's my phone and it'll be like oh right I'm on the phone with my brother John podcasting. Yeah, I've been, when I'm under a lot of stress I do that more often. Like weirdly when I'm stressed out I become more obsessive about checking things but I also become far more likely to lose them.

So I'll become very obsessive about checking that I have my wallet for instance but I become infinitely more likely to lose my wallet. I find that there are very few upsides. You know how like people often think that like portray mental illness as having secret advantages? You know like you can, oh yeah that's what we want.

We want that to be a thing where it's like ah but we get something out of it least. Right like the genius is close to madness and whatever. That has just not been my experience. My experience has been that it's just it's just an unfortunate thing.

I don't have to move on to questions for our listeners. This question comes from me. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You didn't bring us a poem?

I didn't bring you. I don't have a poem for today Hank. To be a totally honest with you I have been in Cheyenne Wyoming for so long that I had to do not. I am not prepared for this podcast.

I'm just going to level with you Hank. Like I this is not going to experience my best work and my best work at podcasting isn't even very good. I've got a short poem for you here. Opaque, metallic, permanent ink, no shaking required to start, quick drying, fade and water resistant ink.

Is that from the side of a Sharpie? It's from the back of a package of metallic Sharpies. Yes, John. I spent a lot of time thinking about Sharpies these days.

This question comes from Meredith. You read steer John and Hank. I've recently begun the process of digitizing my wardrobe, meaning that I've been taking pictures of every item of clothing I own, editing it, then uploading it to a special digital closet app. The only reason I'm doing this is because it is my ultimate dream to not have to get out of bed in the morning in order to pick out an outfit.

However, the whole process is proving to be incredibly time consuming. The irony of the situation has dawned on me. I'm putting in a bunch of work just so I can be lazy. My question is, is it really laziness?

If you have to put in work to be lazy, laziness has always been a part of my identity, and I feel as though I'm starting to lose my edge, or maybe I'm moving a level up on the laziness? I can't decide. What are your thoughts? Yours in questionable ironic laziness, Meredith.

Yeah, I think you're becoming next level lazy, which is fantastic. I think I think, you know, really good laziness. If you're going to be the good kind of lazy, you should invest in a future laziness, knowing that you will want to stay in bed is a grit is like investing in that. Well, particularly that staying in bed thing, which is so lovely to be able to do that until like shave a little bit of time off of this like transition into into being upright and cold, which is too unpleasant things to give yourself those five extra minutes.

And also like, I think there's a little bit of like you like spending time with your closet and doing this and being a little bit like you're in the movie clueless. And what a yeah, like you're spending time doing anything that you enjoy doing. And also you're allowing yourself to relax a little bit more. That's great.

Yeah, I have an analogous experience with cataloging my home library. Hank, as you know, I've been cataloging my home library since 2007. I've never finished. But every time I have a spare couple of hours, I get on my library app and I catalog a few more books.

And I'm ostensibly doing this so that I stop losing books. I find that I consistently lose the books that I most need at any given moment. I can find every book except for the one I need. And so the idea is that I'm doing this so that like future me will never lose a book.

But the reality is that I'm doing it because I like cataloging my home library. There's like working so that you can live your best life rather than working so that you can work so that you can work so that you can work. And I understand like I definitely have a thing in me where like I want to like drive myself to work hard because I feel like I have an obligation to do like to do the things that I have the ability to do to, you know, employ people and to create things that people are going to enjoy and, you know, project for awesome, like make the world a better place. But like, there's there's also like I also have to counter that with some amount of like I am working so that I can like do the things that I want to do and that I like to do like spending time with my family and traveling and eating delicious pizza and laying in bed for five minutes longer than otherwise could.

I don't know why I'm working. I mean, you are about three years ahead of me and you're like midlife crisis and I am already pretty deep in it. So I can't imagine where you're at. I have no idea.

Honestly, hey, like I have no idea why I work, especially why the last few months I have been working so hard. I'm sorry. Yeah. Hey, I want to underscore the fact that I'm not really here.

I definitely have those moments when Catherine will ask me a question and then it'll be like a solid 30 seconds before I'm able to answer because I have like I've been like that with my family for like two and a half months pretty consecutively. I know it's been very bad. It's been very bad. But on the other hand, like this has been a very creatively productive time for me and in a way, like that's the only way I can do it.

It's the only way I can do it. Like it's not I find that like I can't really work part time on most things like when I'm working on something I tend to be pretty deeply involved in it. And it's really hard for me to be able to like put stuff down. But then, you know, hopefully that also applies to when I'm not working like I'm, you know, present instead of being like half there or whatever.

I feel like we're in fertile ground. So I want that this maybe pretty deeply unrelated to Meredith's question. But I do want to continue and say that I have been there's this thing about like about writing a book in particular. And like, and like that's that I'm writing a book.

Well, this is what I'm saying about me. Not about you. Okay. That I like I you like I have to have my head live in the world.

Yeah, a lot or else I don't get good stuff out of it. And I've started just in the last couple of weeks, started to like really apply myself to the sequel to the book that I haven't finished, because the book itself is sort of in it like in between space where I can't I shouldn't be working on it because it's people are looking at it who aren't me. And so like I want to work a little bit on the sequel before I finish the book so that I can set up the sequel well. And and I will just be sitting there at dinner and like living in the world of the book and having no idea that my mind is in a space that inside of a physical reality.

And I like and I don't feel like I can get good creativity from this other world without having my like without having my mind all the way inside of it. Right, that's I call that space Cheyenne Wyoming. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think it's really difficult to to get yourself out of that when you're in it.

And also you kind of don't want to because it's productive. It's a productive space. And for me, like it's a really like exciting space in some ways, because it's a you know, it's a way out of one's self. It's a moment where you don't feel like you're kind of like stuck inside of this self-shaped prison.

And that's very appealing. But on the other hand, like it does after a while, I mean, this has been this has been a while for me. You start to want to be able to like engage with the world. And I guess for me, like it's like if I'm there, I'm never really all the way like in this world.

Like I know why I know we all have that experience of like you're in a conversation. And one of the things you start to notice is like it's totally possible to trick people. Like it's totally possible to make people believe that that you're really there. And you're like, Oh my God, like 99% of my social interactions are so incredibly superficial that people don't know that I'm not here.

And I would have no way of knowing if they weren't here or if they're not here. But yeah, I think so for several of the last months or much of the last few months, that has been the case for me. And and it's nice in some ways. And in other ways, I'm looking forward to it ending, which hopefully it will soon.

I mean, the other thing is that I never quite know when it's over, right? Like whenever you're working on something, you never know when you're able to let it go. Like I'm always fascinated by people like visual artists who make lots of artwork. And you know, they make more than like one painting every three or four years, which is my rate of production.

Like how on earth do they know that they're finished? You know, I mean, how on earth when you're making an abstract painting, do you look at it and you're like done? I just don't like I admire the I admire that ability to talk about the moment you're finished. Are we still talking about digitizing your wardrobe?

I don't think so. But I think that we got to the root of Meredith's question. And I want to ask a question that's going to bring you all the way into this world with something that you are very passionate about. So you're going to you're going to be here for this one.

It's from Sarah who asks Dear Hank and John, I live in Germany, but I will be traveling to the US in a few weeks. Is there anything that I have to eat or drink while I am there? I've already put diet, Dr. Pepper, on my list, since that's something I've never seen in a German store.

Any other suggestions? Viverre, disces said, qua chitamori, Sarah. I looked that one up. It says, remember to live or learn to live, but remember death.

Thanks, Sarah. I needed that. First off, I've just found out, Hank, that I can't move to Germany. I wanted to because it seems like a great country.

Hank and I are fascinated by the German way of doing business. What's it called, Hank? The middle shot? The middle shot.

All I want to do when we grow up is run a middle shot. But I can't move there because there's no regular access to diet, Dr. Pepper. It might as well be the frickin' moon.

I don't know. What do you eat in America that you can't eat elsewhere? I feel like we've done a really good job of exporting our terrible diets. Well, I mean, so first of all, America has like every flavor of chip.

There's definitely flavors of chip that you can't get in America. There's not, doesn't tend to be ketchup chips here, which are in other places. Paprika Pringles are my favorite kind of Pringle and you can't get them in America. But we have so many flavors of chips.

We are really into chips, guys. We have the weird indie brands like Tim's, and you got the sweet Maui Onion from the Hawaiian chip people. You got the weird, also make a spicy barbecue one. You've got to eat barbecue chips.

Basically, you've got to go to a grocery store and just buy the chip flavors you don't recognize. Also, you're going to want to have a corn dog. Also, you're going to want to have biscuits and gravy. Also, you're going to want to have corn fried steak.

Corn fried steak? That's weird. Chicken fried steak. Chicken fried steak with gravy.

Just in general. I mean, just a general. I mean, just a chicken fried steak is also a weird idea if you're not American. Yeah.

But I don't know. Do they have sausage gravy in other countries because I don't think I've ever seen it. I know. I feel like it's the one thing that they definitely don't do as well in other countries as they do in the United States is barbecue.

Yeah. You're going to want to have, if you eat meat, I think you're going to want to have some nice pulled pork barbecue. And then the other thing, so I actually have spent a fair amount of time in Berlin and I don't know if Sarah's from Berlin, but I thought they had all of the major foods except apparently Dr. Pepper and barbecue.

So that's also, I wanted to say that when Hank says chips, he is referring to the item that in the rest of the world, I believe is called crisps. Yes. That is correct. I'm talking about American chips the way chips should have always been.

Because they're shaped. But then it's not just, of course, if you're visiting the United States, you're not just there to eat and drink. You're also there to have experiences. And I guess the main experience that I would recommend, Sarah, is if you can get an injury or an illness, nothing serious, nothing life threatening because what if you when you come to America, what you really want to experience is our healthcare system.

And I think it would be very interesting for you to just maybe like sprained ankle, something like that, and just get, get a feel for it, get a feel for the expense, get a feel for the efficiency with which everything is done. And then go back to Germany, just crazy jealous of how well we do healthcare. Just be deeply amazed. Don't hurt yourself.

I disagree with John. I've just looked up the etymology of the word chip, John, because I feel very defensive of actually, yeah, Sarah, do whatever you can not to talk to the doctor, just the act of going to the doctor's like 120 bucks. So chip comes, of course, from chipping something off of something else like like chipping, like stone off of a stone, a chip off the old block. I feel like if you're going to take a potato and you're going to chip something off of it, it's going to be more like a potato chip in America than it's going to be like a chip in the UK where it's this like, like it's clearly a sliced diced thing where it's like a long square rectangle thing.

I think, yeah, I mean, I'm not going to want to fight and die on this particular hill. Well, I will. So anybody just come, I want to, yes, I want to, yes, and you, but I literally can't figure out how to. Yes, okay.

Well, and also when I look at a computer chip, I got to say that looks more like a potato chip in America than a chip in Europe. How this talk about a delicious American food is making me hungry. Do we have any like fruits and vegetables we can recommend? I feel like we must have some.

Oh, they're like special American vegetables? Do make, are there mangoes in Germany? It's been a while since I've been there. If you don't have fresh fruits in Germany, Sarah, and again, I'm not totally sure about this, but if you don't have fresh fruit, we do have fresh fruit in America.

We have a bunch of different kinds. We have blueberries, raspberries, mangoes. Sometimes we get papayas, not that often in Indiana, but sometimes so try out some fresh fruit. Maybe it's only freeze dry.

You could have some green asparagus because I hear in other countries asparagus is white, and that's weird. So have it our way and be like, oh, that has different flavor. You know, we're growing purple asparagus in our home garden. Well, why didn't you start telling me that story instead of being like, I'm in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Rushmore is great and you're terrible. I didn't say you were terrible. I do think it's weird that you haven't re-watch Bushmore when it's clearly one of the best movies ever made. Let's move on to this question from Natalie who writes, is it toothbrush water and then toothpaste or is it toothbrush toothpaste and then water?

I've been having this debate, actually, with my seven-year-old child. Toothbrush water toothpaste. I do toothbrush toothpaste water. Unfortunately, that's incorrect.

But then the toothpaste doesn't get any water on it. Oh, no, no, no, no. That would also be an issue because the correct order is toothbrush water toothpaste water. And you have to remember to turn off the water between each of those things, which is the debate that I'm currently having with Henry, and it's a big believer that you turn the water on and then you leave it on until the end of time.

Yeah, well, we could we could we could do it. Does Uncle Hank need to give a lesson in environmental sustainability? Well, I mean, well, I was kind of having this debate with Henry about, you know, like what amounts to a couple of cups of water. And then he reminded me that I recently taught him that the water that comes out of our sprinklers is the same as the water that he drinks.

And he just thought that was ludicrous. He was like, but why would you pour that water on grass? And I was like, yeah, no, you're not wrong, but he still did. I don't know.

Waste is waste. I don't know. Henry is getting to that age now, Hank, where he can kind of successfully debate me, you know, like we're occasionally he wins. You're like, you know, you're right.

We're just dumping that onto the literal ground. So maybe maybe you can just leave the water running. Fine, child. Oh, man, that's that's something right now.

My son can debate me in exclusively one way by punching me in the face and ripping my glasses off, which he does regularly. I feel like he doesn't punch you in the face when he's angry. Like he doesn't know about punching to be angry. He thinks it's cute or something.

I don't know. What what do seven months old actually think about that? He definitely is thinking about something like if we take him to a new place, you can't get him to interact with any person because he's like, what is all of this? What is this route?

What are these shapes? What are what is this? What is this movement? What is that color?

And it which is great to just like watch his like little brow furrow up and be like, Hmm, I'm this is all very new. I'm not so sure about it. This is a this is a room I haven't been in before. Is that a good baby voice?

Yeah, that was a good baby voice. That sounded just like Alec Baldwin in Boss Baby. Boss Baby a movie? You didn't see the movie Boss Baby?

Oh, it turns out. No, is it as good as Rushmore? No, it is not. It is not as good as Rushmore.

However, I am friends with the author of the book, Boss Baby and the book is amazing. Have you read the book at least? No, no, John. All right, so the book, well, I mean, you would read it with your with your tiny little baby.

Oh, I got you. I got you. I got you. But I'll send you the board version.

I was thinking of like a like a like a 600 word novel Boss Baby. Oh, no, no. It's a lovely picture book and it is hilarious. It's like it basically imagines that you know, like a baby in their role as like the boss of the of the family.

It's very very freaking cute. Yeah, so anyway, I we still read Boss Baby and our family sometimes. It's it's one of the very few books that you will find on Amazon that is an average rating of five full stars. Wow, that is not easy to accomplish.

Yeah, so the author's name is Marliss Raising and she is also really, really just a great, great person and a great author of children's books. She wrote another one of my favorite picture books about James and Aemon. What is that book called? A couple of boys have the best week ever or something like that.

I'm gonna look it up. At what point do I remind John that he's literally been talking about Boss Baby for like two minutes? Sorry. Because I made a voice that sounded like a voice to him.

It is called a couple of boys have the best week ever. We could move on. What was the question? Sorry, I suddenly got engaged with the world.

I was very excited. I don't even remember why. It's a toothbrush, toothpaste water or toothbrush water than toothpaste. Yeah, we don't know.

I think that I think that you're going to be okay either way. Sometimes you know, John, honestly, I'll do toothbrush. No, wait, toothbrush, toothpaste, and then mouth. Yeah, and that's not that bad of an outcome actually.

There's like that first like first like four seconds where it's like there's not enough water in the mouth, but then your mouth has a magical ability to produce water and then you have it in your mouth. This question comes from Rachel who asks Dear Hank and John, do you think Lin-Man Well Miranda ever listens to Hamilton just for funsies? Does Michael Jordan watch Space Jam every now and again Hank? Do you ever listen to your own music?

John, do you ever reread your own books just because you like them? I must know your obedient servant. Rachel, I like this question mostly because it imagines that just as Hamilton is the most important work Lin-Man Well Miranda has ever done. Space Jam is the most important work Michael Jordan has ever done.

Like, oh Michael Jordan, when you're looking back at your career, what do you look at? Well, mostly Space Jam. Not so much being arguably the best NBA player of all time. I never watched that game where with 104 degree fever, I scored like 60 points in the NBA playoff finals.

I just watched Space Jam. No, I do not reread my own books. I read and reread them plenty before they come out. I don't need to read them after they come out especially because I think I'll just see things that I want to change.

Right, no, that makes a lot of sense. I sing my own songs all the time. I sing your songs all the time too, actually. But that was not the question.

It's do I listen to my own music? And yes, I also do that. There's this great thing about listening to your own music which is that like when I'm listening to like a Billy Joel song, I try to sound like Billy Joel and when I'm listening to like a Queen song, I try to sound like Freddie Mercury. But when I'm listening to a Hank Green song, I sound exactly like that guy.

I don't even have to try. Yeah, I have to say, I sing your songs more than I like listen to them on Spotify because they're all inside of my head from all those times touring together. What tends to happen to me is like my phone will automatically connect to the Bluetooth in my car. And for whatever reason, it's like, you know, instead of playing for you, the audio book you were listening to five minutes ago, here's a random selection from the things on your phone.

It'll be like, mmm, bop by Hanson or like Demolition Derby, one of the songs that I never think about that I wrote and I'll be like, oh, I would have done this a little bit different, but it's pretty good. And then I'll sing along. Demolition? That's not even me.

That's a different guy singing that part. I don't know. I pick that. Do you ever rewatch old Vlogbrothers' videos?

Oh yeah. God, I used to be great at this. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And like, and I'm sure that I will do that two years from now.

I watched stuff that I made this year and be like, wow, I really, I was really like above and beyond back then. Yeah, sometimes when I meet people at like a grocery store or whatever and they're like, I used to watch your YouTube videos. I think to myself like, and I can't really blame them. My YouTube videos used to be great.

I definitely like, I will, I, I'm really proud of some of the stuff we've done in the last 12 months, but like going back and seeing something I did six years ago that I worked really hard on, there's something very different about that because I like forget, I forget about how hard I work on videos. And then I'll watch this thing and be like, wow, that was like a significant amount of like thought and time that went into that. I mean, some like occasionally I'll like watch a video and be like, I did visual effects for that. Like, like, there's like three videos that I've ever done that I've had some component of like super imposing something onto a screen or, you know, like doing kinetic typography or something.

And I'm just like, whoa, I opened After Effects. That never happens. Yeah, I've never done that. So that sounds like you'd feel good about yourself, but I don't know what that feels like and I never will.

I don't have the talent for it. I have to say, I also go back and watch old vlogbrothers videos and often think like, well, that wasn't very good. Right, of course, yes, that is the thing that I will often go back and watch the ones I'm most proud of. And then I'll be like, I used to be so good at this, but I'm not watching the ones from like 2008 where I was like, I don't know what I'm doing.

Why are we still doing this? There are a lot of them that were not very good. Even the ones, there's a lot from any year that are not very good. Like that's one of the one of the things I really appreciate about our audience, our community and the fact that we've been able to have an audience for a long time is that they're very forgiving.

Like, you know, people tend not to walk away after one bad video, which is good because if they did, everyone would have walked away a long time ago. I don't have very many that I'm not like that, that I'm like, not proud of. There are some, but there's definitely like a large body of middle mediocre. I feel like you've made some clunkers.

Oh, yeah, no, I agree. I just think that the tale is like, it shrinks there at the end where there's like, there's like five videos I wish I hadn't uploaded at all, you know? Yeah, for me, that is much closer to 100. Oh man, this video of a bunch of YouTubers laughing without smiling.

That's good stuff. I went to a large time. Are you going through your old catalog right now? I am.

I'm doing right now. I might be in Cheyenne, Wyoming, but at least I'm not like googling my own name while potting. This one's really good where Nathan Zet took over. Yes, they didn't say I'm still the best vlog brother.

Like, I would argue like the five best vlog brothers are all people other than us. We've taken over during paternity leave. If anything, maybe we should just hand over the channel at some point and just say like, well, we did our best, but it turns out that like, this isn't really where our talents lie. So we're just going to let Nathan Zet and Sabrina Cruz take it from here.

Like, look, it's not about us. It's about a way of looking at the world. Other people have that. See you later.

I'm going to go hang out with my child. All right. Hank, we've got another question. We're just going to pod.

We're going to pod from now on. Oh God, I like hanging out with you on podcast, John. And I like this. Sometimes I'm like, man, I wish I could do that every single morning.

And then I'm like, but that's an at five hours that we got to not have. Not only that. I don't think anyone could tolerate listening to us that much. I'm sure that there are going to be a bunch of people who are like, I would totally do it.

And it's like, you know, you don't know what it actually be like, you don't know. That's too much. It's too much. But the question, the answer to the question does Lin-Manuel Miranda ever listen to Hamilton has to be yes.

I mean, he's human like the rest of us, right? I mean, if any of the rest of us had created Hamilton, like we would like, it would be the infinite jest for me. I would spend the rest of my life listening to it. As it is, I'm I spend much of my life listening to it already.

All right, Hank, we have another question. This one comes from Tambi who writes, you're John, and Hank, for almost a year, I've been planning a trip to California for VidCon for my senior trip. I found out that I had the opportunity to meet you guys on Thursday for the meet and greet, and I'm going to low-key-die. Oh, God.

That's going to be really my greatest fears, actually, is that someone will die while meeting me. And just the stress of that. Obviously, I don't want to make that about me. That's going to be a bigger deal for you, Tambi.

And the people who love you, and I don't want to make myself the center of that narrative. But it's hard for me not to, just because like, it's, uh- You live inside of your own body? I mean, I find, I find, I find these signings stressful enough without people low-key-dying. Okay.

Don't low-key-die, Tambi. It's going to be okay. And also, now we have something to talk about. You could be like on the person who has that question on the pot.

First of all, I don't know what to have you guys sign. Anything other than skin works in answer to that question. But also, ever since I've told people I get to meet you two, they ask me if I can get something signed for them. But I know I'm only supposed to have one thing signed, and I kind of want it to be something of mine.

How do I nicely say no? Excitedly conflicted, Tambi. Mm. Mm.

Is there something not nice about saying just no? Yeah, I feel like you just have to say no. Like, I think actually you can probably get two things signed if you're quick about it and cool about it. But yeah, I mean, I think you just say like, listen, I'm the one traveling to VidCon and too bad.

Life is full of disappointments. Yeah, that's the one. Hey, life isn't fair. No, I have worked extremely hard to try to kill the market for my signature.

There are more signed copies of the fault in their stars available than there are unsigned copies. If somebody wants my signature, they can go to eBay and pay literally $2 for a signed copy of the fault in their stars. Good call. Yeah.

Yep. Agreed. I'm really trying to kill the market for my signature, Hank. It is dead, John.

It is dead until you're dead. Like maybe like 50 years after you're dead, there will be some kind of weird secondary market. One of the things like I know a sort of surprising amount about things signed by you and I do kind of have this brain thing that says like someday like a signature by John that is like has like a double scribble instead of a single scribble because you messed up. It's going to be like people are going to think that that's like rare and pay extra for it.

You know what? I don't think that's true is because I don't think that there's some like future where my signature suddenly becomes a big thing to have, you know? Right. Like that's the thing.

You are going to become like you're not going to become more famous after death. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No.

No. I'm taken. That's no. No.

You know who's signature? I I still have and like was such a big deal to me when I got it was the lead singer of the rap group Onyx. His name's Sticky Fingers. He was on a plane.

Yeah. Once. And I got an autograph from him. And I remember thinking it was really cool.

And it still is really cool to me. By the way, like it's still like a valuable thing to me. But like there is no way that in 50 or 100 years that's going to be like a sought after signature. And I think I hope people who acquire a signature is really from either Green Brother understand that it's you know like we're not going to be upset if you part ways with that with that signed book down the road or that signed uglele or whatever it is like we get it.

We get it. It has value in that you give it value. Yeah. Exactly.

This question is not a question. It comes from Kyra. John, you weren't here for what this is a reference to but other listeners probably were. Dear Hank and John, when I heard the question from the anonymous homeschooler who had been poorly homeschooled, I initially wondered if maybe it had been written by me six years ago.

And I had somehow not remembered. But I remember that the puddle is not around six years ago. I was also very poorly homeschooled. My mother stopped attempting to teach me when I was around 13.

I also never took a real history or science class because I was religiously homeschooled. I am now 23 and pursuing my master's degree. I want to offer a little bit of hope to this homeschooler and others in similar situations. I was lucky enough to go to a community college when I was 17.

And there I found many professors who understood it when I had had a poor education and were willing to help me learn. Additionally, Crash Course has been a great resource for me to help fill some of the gaps. There is hope. We can be taught Kyra.

This is a really nice message that I liked. And Kyra also asked if maybe I could be she could be put in touch with the anonymous schooler. Which I think we might try and do. I also had another update on the story of the girl who was born on the plane, John.

So we had a long conversation about this, about like how this mother went into labor on the plane and they couldn't get the plane to the ground fast enough that the baby was born on the plane. Correct. It was a pipe of Seneca C or something. Yes, correct.

And then it didn't make any sense because it doesn't have a very long range. Like, you're going to be within an hour of your airport every time. So if you go into labor, turn around, you can't have a baby in an hour. Like it's maybe it's happened, but it is unlikely.

So I was talking to a person who was an expert in childbirth. She's a midwife, has been for a long time. And she was like, I was listening to the pod. And you know what happened, right?

And I was like, no, I don't know what happened. It seems very strange to me. Was it like the air pressure pushed the baby out? And she laughed at me and said, no, it was a medical transport.

Oh, of course it was. Yeah. That makes sense. So she's in like rural Alaska or something.

And they're like, we need to get you on a plane to get you to the hospital because you're about to have this baby. You are currently in labor. I see. Yeah.

It wasn't like they were my I was kind of picturing that they were like, you know, on their way to a vacation or something like just the pre-baby vacation that one takes where you fly in a small airplane to us, you know, Lake Tahoe. I don't know. And that but that makes much more sense. That's okay.

So now we know half the story. I would argue that we still don't know the half of the story. And then I guess no, we actually do know the other half of the story because the other half of the story is that the tail number is not necessarily associated with the same aircraft that crashed. Yeah.

I just want to say one other thing in response in response to previous pods, which is that Abby wrote in to say, you're John and Hank, I just wanted to share that the saddest big bird is in the Sesame Street movie entitled Follow That Bird, in which Big Bird is sent to live with a family of other birds, runs away and is captured by two guys who put him in the circus. It made me cry as a child. But we'll always hold a special place in my heart just thought you guys should know childhood and saddest Abby, which I wanted to read because I watched Follow That Bird with Henry when he was like three or four. And Henry was like, what the hell are you doing to me?

And I was also like, I'm sorry. I did not know what we were getting into. I thought that this was going to be like the other Big Bird movie that we'd seen, which was called Big Bird Comes Home. And Henry, the whole time during Big Bird Comes Home was like, this is horrible.

And I was like, Henry, don't worry. The movie's called Big Bird Comes Home. He's going to get home. But then when we were watching Follow That Bird, I was like, you know what?

Maybe this time Big Bird isn't coming home. Maybe he's going to be on the circus forever. Like this is pretty dark, actually. I mean, Big Bird spends a fair amount of time being sad, but I also have to say I don't want to say this because it's going to be hard for me to say it without crying and I'm going to make other people cry.

But saddest Big Bird is 100% Big Bird's processional at Jim Henson's funeral, which is the thing that happened to me emotionally wrecking. Like, this podcast is brought to you by saddest Big Bird. The saddest Big Bird, the saddest thing. So sad, really, really sad.

This podcast is also brought to you by Next Level Lazyness. Next Level Lazyness, The Future. This The Future. And this podcast is additionally brought to you by Infinite Water.

Just leave your taps on. And finally, this podcast is brought to you by Hank's music. Hank's music. Listen to By Hank and available at dftba.com.

Don't wear available on Spotify. I mean, why would you purchase it? It's not 100% available on Spotify. You want to know why, John?

Why? Because I'm lazy. It takes extra work. I'm sure it does.

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This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Factor. Imagine 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 p.m. and that you did not eat lunch. What are you gonna do?

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Head to factormeals.com slash deer hank 50 off and use the code deerhank50off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th, 2026. See you website for more details. Hank, you know how everybody always talks about like which member of the Winnie the Pooh crew you are? Like everybody's personality is similar to one or the other of Winnie the Pooh characters.

I'm always called an E or I think unfairly for the record. Like I think that it's a bit of an oversimplification to call me sort of merely E orish and I get very defensive about it because because I feel like I feel like E or gets a bad rap in the Winnie the Pooh stories. Like you never see the kind of upsides of being an E or of which I would argue there are many. Anyway I was just gonna say that in the world of Sesame Street if we're gonna like give everybody a Sesame Street character I would say that you are very much an Elmo.

Thanks. I'll take it. You're welcome. You're welcome.

I'm a Grover myself. Yeah I think Elmo and Grover get it like we're a good team too. I agree. So I think that that's good.

Yeah. Yeah let's get rid of this Winnie the Pooh stuff and just talk about what Sesame Street character you are. That's way more interesting. Well I have a really hard time figuring out what Winnie the Pooh crew member I would be.

Like I don't really have it. Like maybe maybe the owl guy because I'm pretty pretentious and obsessed with my own intelligence. Yeah I was gonna say only only owls think that they're owls. With that noted let's move on to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

Hank what is the news from Mars this week? It's bad news John. It's always bad news. It's always bad news.

It's Donald Trump not gonna get to Mars by 2024. Oh he does say things. So the bad news is John when you shoot a cell with an alpha particle it has a chance of mutating and becoming cancerous. And that is the model through which we estimated how likely it would be for astronauts to get cancer on their way to and while inhabiting Mars being hit by cosmic rays from the sun or cosmic rays from the cosmos.

And so that's like a sort of accepted model but it turns out and we've known this for some time. That in fact if an alpha particle hits one cell the chance of cancer not just in that cell but in the cell surrounding that cell goes up. And we have some ideas about the mechanism of how this might be. It's sort of like it creates chemicals that leave that cell and there's sort of a bystander cell effect.

So there's a higher than one would expect chance of getting cancer every time you are hit by an alpha particle or any higher energy particle has the sort of same effect. And so NASA recently took this into account or a study took this into account and said that NASA's radiation guesses are based on an inaccurate model and they say that if you take the more accurate model that includes bystander cells that might become cancerous even though they weren't hit by a high energy particle that the chance of getting cancer on your trip to Mars while you're on Mars and your trip back doubles. Doubles from if you just stayed on Earth? No doubles from if you didn't if you uh oh if you didn't take into account that effect.

Yeah doubles from our previous estimates. But it was already higher than if you just stayed on Earth. Oh yeah yeah but now it's higher than that. It's higher than we thought it is higher than higher.

Is there a sense of how high it is? Yes I don't know exactly what that is though. In general like your chance of death from a mission to Mars is much higher from accident than from cancer and also the cancer will come later. So that's something astronauts are already risking their lives in tremendous ways but but especially if you consider a long term kind of like like program of going to Mars regularly or people inhabiting Mars there has to be solutions for the cosmic ray problem and we've got some ideas but they are at the moment just ideas and you can.

Is there any way we could just I would advocate for curing cancer? Sure that's one just just cure every type of cancer. Yep and I also am pro that. Interestingly that is not easy to do.

Of course yeah I know I know I'm aware of that I'm aware of that issue. It seems like there's a lot of parts of going to Mars that are hard and I for one am glad to be right here on Earth with our sweet sweet atmosphere. Speaking of Earth it is home to the greatest third tier English Locker team the world has ever known AFC Wimbledon. Well like the news from is as you know we lost our goalkeeper James Shea he was released at the end of the season.

There's a 16 year old goalkeeper on Wimbledon's squad at the moment Joe Bursick but he as well looks to be moving on. It looks like he joined Crystal Palace a premier league side. I don't think he'll be playing for their first team to start but very exciting for him. I mean you always want to go.

How many 16 year olds are there in the premier league or just in soccer in general like that? That seems very. Like it's any 16 year old who plays soccer could be on a premier league youth squad but yeah it's okay he's very he's a very promising prospect and AFC Wimbledon have done a great job developing goalkeepers in general. Also Tom Elliott is moving on it would appear probably to second tier Millwall so that's great for him.

Unfortunately we don't get a we don't get any kind of transfer fee for that because he will be out of contract at the end of the month so there's no like financial benefit to him. That means that we don't have a goalkeeper and we have one fewer strikers which is not like an ideal situation but Neil Ardeley has shown an ability to bring in great players and I just I'm gonna we just got to keep our fingers crossed that we've got some people coming in. I mean are you guys in a better financial situation because you're in the better tier or have you gotten some money for all these players that you're sending off? Yeah if Joe Bursick leaves I think there will be a significant transfer fee and then yeah that's part of yes the short answer is yes and and the club is in a better financial position from what I understand but it's always going to be one of the I mean it's definitely still one of the smallest clubs in league one and so that that comes with a lot of challenges but never bet against AFC Wimbledon if I've earned anything these last few years it's that so hopefully hopefully it'll all work out.

I'll tell you what Hank we could get into the premier league for a tenth of what it would cost to get to Mars. I mean hopefully less than that. Yeah actually probably probably less than that. I think that would be an interesting proposition for NASA though just be like listen guys this Mars stuff it's very complicated it's it's going to be extremely challenging why don't you just take 10% of your Mars budget and toss it right into AFC Wimbledon and see if some magic happens.

I mean that is a certain kind of magic John. All right what did we learn today? We learned that barbecue is the great American flavor. It's true.

It's true we learned that John wasn't really here most of the pod. We learned that boss maybe is a really great movie almost better than Rushmore. No I didn't the book the book is good everybody buy the book and lastly we learned that Michael Jordan's most important work is space jam. Of course of course it is.

Congratulations to Michael Jordan on his great work on space jam by the way and also to be a great one on his great work on boss baby which I'm sure he looks back on his most as his most important work as well. This podcast is produced by Rosie Ann Halzerowhausen Sheridan Gibson. It's edited by Nicholas Jenkins our social media manager is Victoria Bonjourno. Our music is by the great Gunnarola using our follow us on patreon at patreon.com slash deer hank and john or on twitter at hank green or john green thanks to everybody for listening hanks thanks for potting with me and as we say in our hometown don't forget to be awesome.