400: For Those Who Are Still Listening
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You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your question, give you advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. I feel like we've been forever since we made a podcast, John. Since we last made a podcast, I made a major announcement, which is that I'm writing a new book. And it's coming out in March, and it's called Everything...

is tuberculosis. It's a little bit of a departure for me, Hank, because now I am the science one. In fact, I have the best-selling science book on Amazon right now. Yikes. Number four in the world, but number one in science. Ooh, number four book of all books? Yes.

Number four book of all books. That sounds like it's going pretty well, which I have to say is a little surprising to me. Thanks. It's nothing on you. I've read the book. It's very good. I agree that people should buy it. I am surprised that – I don't know. It's tuberculosis. The whole problem with it is people don't pay attention to it.

That is literally the reason tuberculosis exists. It is an attention problem as much as it is a biomedical problem. So I am absolutely delighted on a few levels, I'll confess, to the fact that the book has sold so well and indeed sold so much better than my previous book.

which has been surprising and really exciting. But yeah, it comes out in March and I'm signing 100,000 copies of the first edition. So you can get a signed edition wherever books are sold. That's been interesting, Hank, because I'd forgotten when I made this commitment, I remember saying at the end of signing 250,000 copies of The Anthropocene Reviewed that I was getting out of that game. Yeah, I remember that too.

And then I missed it. You know, I missed signing my name over and over again. That's a weird thing to miss. But I've done it about 12,000 times. I've got about 88,000 to go and I don't miss it as much as I did 12,000 sheets ago. Oh boy. That's 88,000 is a lot more. I had not, I felt like I, my vibe was you were further along than that.

Nope. Nope. I'm about 12,000 in with 88,000 to go and I've got about two months to do it. Do you think that if I wrote a book that it would be a good idea for me to do this? No. For sales of the book though?

Maybe for sales. And this is something that I feel very strongly about. Like, obviously, I always want my books to sell well. I'm not above that. But this book, I especially want to sell well because it is so much about trying to get people to understand both the history of tuberculosis, but also the kind of terrifying present of it and how –

Yeah, it's like Kony 2012, but TB. Yeah.

TB 2024. 2025, actually, in terms of the book. Good God. Can you believe that 2025 is a thing that is part of our lives? I know. We're a quarter of the way through the century. Man, you always hear about the technological change that might happen. You never hear about the political change that might happen. I am uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, we can talk about all of that stuff, but I'd rather not. Instead, I'd like to talk about the fact that people who were born in 2004 can drink in the United States. Yeah. Yeah.

And 2004 is like basically we were thinking about making YouTube videos. Yeah, no, we weren't because that YouTube didn't exist yet. But we were almost thinking about it. We were doing internet stuff in 2004. I certainly was doing internet stuff in 2004. You were helping me design my own website with my hot HTML skills. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, Everything is Tuberculosis is available for pre-order now. And –

It's going to come out 20 years almost to the day after my first novel, Looking for Alaska. 20 years, Hank, I've been writing books. Yeah. Yeah. And you haven't written that many. I know. Sorry, Hank.

You've written almost as many books as me in like three years. I really want to write books more. It's fun. Me too, man. It's a great job. It's the best job. I'm so grateful for it. I'm so grateful that people have responded so generously to this one so far with all the pre-orders. I hope I don't disappoint them with the actual book. That becomes my immediate worry. Once the book starts selling well, I'm like, oh God, I hope I don't disappoint them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. I feel the same way.

about almost everything that I do, but especially the things that people pay money for. It's stressful. Yeah. All right, let's answer some questions from our listeners, beginning with this one from Sarah. And by the way, I'm so glad we didn't get a dad joke today. I just got to confess, I'm...

I'm hugely relieved. I'm sure you're going to squeeze one in in the middle, but it's good not to start off. I want to keep you guessing. You're always waiting for it. I like the idea of inserting it somewhere in the podcast and seeing if I see it coming or whether I'm blindsided. Anyway, this question comes from Sarah who writes, hey, John and Hank, how do you guys keep it so PG? Tompkins and penguins, Sarah. How or why?

Oh, why? I thought it was how. And I was like, it's hard, Sarah. Yeah.

The question is why, but the question I read in my heart is how. And Sarah, the how is challenging sometimes. I guess. It's funny because I don't keep it PG everywhere. No. In fact, it would be easier to keep it PG in written stuff, but I am less likely to. And when I'm on Tumblr or Twitter or Blue Sky or Threads, I curse up a storm.

I'm also not very PG in my normal life, including in front of my child. We talk about grown-up words and how I can drink some drinks he can't drink. I can say some words he can't say. But I think, John, the why is about...

accessibility. Like there are, there's all kinds of different ways to be a person in this world. And we want what we do to be open to as many of them as possible. And a lot of them, whether they are children or just have sort of a different code of morality than I do, feel very differently about curse words than I do. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's part of it, but that can't be all of it, right? Because like, I want my books to be widely accessible. And ironically, it's my books for teenagers that are the least PG of my books, right? Like the Anthropocene Reviewed and Everything is Tuberculosis are reasonably PG. I'm not sure that like a child would love reading Everything is Tuberculosis, but they might. I mean, I think some children will. Cool babies will be into it. And

For me, the podcast is more about family listening. And like there are, I know there are lots of people who listen to it with their, with their little ones, like not their teenagers, but their little, little kids. Yeah. And I just, and I, I just kind of like it that we have a space where we are reasonably PG precisely because we're less and less PG in other spaces. I mean, I mean, on my sports Twitter, I struggled to go seven or eight words without

throwing in some some bad ones we've also not cursed much on vlogbrothers like i remember like i kind of remember every time we've done it yeah i don't know yeah we don't like to curse on vlogbrothers i don't know why it's just it's so weird like it's just it's like every every place has its vibe and that's the vibe on dear hank and john that's right and people can catch the vibe people can catch the vibe

And I find it weirdly easy to do. You're saying it's hard for you, but I find it's like, I don't know. I just go into that version of myself where I imagine my mom's listening. Not that we don't curse in front of mom. Yeah, mom hears me curse a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

This next question comes from Devin, who asks, Dear Hank and John, as spooky season, a.k.a. the best season, approaches and stores display new Halloween wares, it occurred to me that somehow humanity collectively decided ghosts would be represented by placing a white sheet with eye holes in it over one's head, like in Scooby-Doo. Why? Why is this the way? When and how did sheets over our bodies and moaning, ooh, become the universal standard ghost?

If you're able to provide information, become the universal ghost standard. Stairway to Devon. It's got to be just an ease of access thing, right? It's like you got a sheet. You got a child. You got to have a costume. You got to make a ghost.

No, I don't think it goes back to that. I think it goes back to burial shrouds. That would be my guess. Oh. Because burial shrouds were a much bigger deal than coffins until –

I don't know, like the late 1700s, early 1800s or something. And so when the dead would wake up, they would be wearing their burial shrouds. And so they would basically look like they were wearing sheets with, but they, you know, but then you need to see as a human. And so you cut eye holes in the sheet. Yeah. That would be my guess. Is Casper the friendly ghost just sort of bundled up in his, his little burial shroud. That makes me a little sad. Yeah.

Well, I never realized Casper had died. You know, Casper's a little boy who died. It's very sad now that you mention it. It's like almost always when ghosts are played for laughs, I want to be like, hold on a second. There's a tragedy here. Well, I don't sometimes sometimes it's like an old lady. It's like, yeah, old lady died. No, but like like moaning Myrtle is a bunch of ha ha funny, funny. Yeah.

And there's nothing ha-ha or funny-funny about the situation. I, for one, do not want to be buried in a burial shroud, just so you know. Well, I think that we've kind of – we've skipped over burial shrouds and now we just have regular old suits. Do you want a regular old suit or do you want to wear something special?

No, I just want to wear like my, uh, my AFC Wimbledon suit, I guess if I were to die tomorrow, my nice suit with the AFC Wimbledon lining. Oh, I thought you meant like your kit, like the kit. Like you just like. No, no, no, not like a full kit, like with my shorts that have DFTBA on them. No, no, thank you. Um, just some kind of, I think I'd probably want to dress up for the occasion. Uh,

But the main thing, Hank, and I know I've said this before, but I literally can't say it enough, is that I'd like to be buried at the very top of Crown Hill Cemetery directly above James Whitcomb Riley, the other famous Indiana author.

This is the guy who wrote Little Orphan Annie. He wrote Little Orphan Annie, which was first titled The Elf Child. Thank God they changed it to Little Orphan Annie. I'm having a moment because I looked up Little Orphan Annie just now. So Annie is what I'm most familiar with. The 1982 film.

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow. Which was based on the 1977 Broadway musical of the same name. Correct. Which was based on Little Orphan Annie, the comic strip created by Harold Gray. Which was based on. Which was further based on Little Orphan Annie, the book by Charles Whitcomb Riley.

James Whitcomb Riley. Whatever. But I love that you don't know his name. By Charles Nelson Riley. Charles Nelson Riley.

And the best part, Hank, about Annie being based on a Broadway show, being based on a comic strip, being based on a poem called Little Orphan Annie, the best part about that is that the main character of Little Orphan Annie is named Little Orphan Allie. And the only reason the show, the only reason the poem is called Little Orphan Annie is because of a typesetter mistake. What? Yeah. Yeah.

The whole thing should have been called Allie. It's a girl named Mary Alice Smith. I don't think that was a mistake. I think that was an editorial choice. They were like, Little Orphan Allie. Annie sounds way better. Riley wanted to call it Little Orphan Allie, but a typesetting error during printing renamed the poem to its current form. And so you're reading this poem that's about a child named Allie that's called Little Orphan Annie. The rest of the poem is still about Allie? That I don't know.

You can actually listen to James Whitcomb Riley read this poem because he's not that old. Well, he's dead. He's the same age as all the other dead people. Is that how that works? Let me see. Little Orphan Annie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Little Orphan Annie throughout the poem because of a typesetter error. Okay. It's not a very long poem. You know, this guy...

This guy. There was a fourth adaptation that just happened in 2021. I think I've seen clips from it. Yeah. They're still at it. Yeah, on TikTok, which is how we watch movies now. I got to say, John, I don't know if you deserve to be up there. This guy's stuff's still happening. You don't think there's going to be versions of The Fault in Our Stars made in 2070? Strong disagree. I am really looking forward to the Broadway musical Everything is Tuberculosis. Yes.

I am too. It's going to be a hit. I mean, people are going to love it. Could we? I am really – I can't wait for the thrilling multi-studio bidding war over the movie rights for Everything is Tuberculosis, my hit nonfiction book about tuberculosis. That's what I'm most excited about. Yeah.

Oh, man. Somebody is going to want to turn it into a Netflix documentary, I'm sure. And they'll pay like – they'll have a budget of $300. I want to say no to that because I don't have any desire to go through that whole process again. But I also feel compelled to say yes to it because like the reason the book exists is to expand awareness of TV. Yeah. You should do it if it comes up. Yeah. But the – I mean the guest lecture probably will reach more people than a Netflix documentary. Yeah.

I don't know. Netflix documentaries, man. I just watched the one about Vince McMahon. Yeah, but that's the one about Vince McMahon. I never thought of Vince McMahon one way or the other until I watched this documentary. You got to have some real criminals going on in your tuberculosis book to get a good Netflix documentary. There are some criminals. There are some criminals.

All right. Like all of us are really participating in a crime that is the ongoing horror of tuberculosis, the world's deadliest infectious disease. I found that when I made jokes like that doing stand-up comedy, people really loved them. That really lands well. Good. All right. Well, maybe I'll write a stand-up comedy special about TB with your stand-up special about cancer. Yes.

Oh, I, I love the engineering challenge of building a grave on, uh, that, that hovers upon another person's grave. You're going to have to stay alive for a while so we can build that hover technology, but Elon's got me.

All right, Hank, it's time to answer another question from our listeners. This one comes from Elin or possibly Ellen. Dear John and Hank, I realize it might still be a bit too soon, but when do you think we should start worrying about how our computer systems are not built to handle years beyond 9999? By we, I of course mean humanity since we will all long be dead by then. Memento Mori, Elin. You know, I had this feeling that

Not too long ago that we wouldn't have that much lost media. You know, like there's always like you always much is always lost to history. But it just feels like everything is being preserved all the time. Yeah. We're taking so many photographs and videos and every every tweet that we write is preserved. And it just feels like everything is going to be preserved. Right. I'm like, I've never been worried about.

about YouTube videos going away, like about losing Vlogbrothers. Now, there is one Vlogbrothers video that has been lost to the lost media hole. Some gamma ray hit some hard drive in some warehouse somewhere, and that YouTube video literally just doesn't work anymore. We did not take it down. It's just not there. I don't know which one it is, but I remember finding this out and being upset. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

I mean, what a loss. It feels like Vlogbrothers is incomplete now. Yeah. Well, there's also a couple that we've taken down over the years, so it's incomplete in other ways as well. True enough. We don't have to talk about those ones. Nope. More embarrassing and cringe than anything else. And mean, occasionally. But anyway...

My point is, in the last few years, as it feels like computers are changing in a kind of deeper, more fundamental way, with like just on – like right on the edge of autonomous agent computer programs that can sort of conduct themselves in the world as if they are themselves –

people-ish, I've started to feel like, oh, this is not static. This is not like a thing that's going to be forever. Now, I will say, I think we're going to have phones for a long time. That's a very convenient thing to have a handheld computer, and there isn't really a better way to do it than the way we're doing phones right now. But I think in the year 999,

When we're about to roll over to 10,000, I would be shocked if any of the systems that we are currently using have any bearing on that reality. What do you think is the chance? Because we have almost nothing from 10,000 years ago, right? We've got some monumental structures, but we don't have much in the way of –

Anything else? I mean, we got 10,000 years is a really long time. I guess we're talking about 8,000 years. So what do you think the chances are that in 8,000 years there will be any relic of any – like do you think there will be a Mr. Beast video or a copy of an absolutely remarkable thing available in the world? I think no. No.

I think yes. You think we're going to get better at preserving information. I'm not sure that we are. Well, I think that it's going to be less burdened. I think that particularly books because they are just nothing. Even now, they are – Right. They are kind of like just like having a store of all the books available.

That have ever been made digitally is like an endeavor that a single person could take on and they wouldn't even have to be that rich. Right. But you've got to count on each of those things being preserved generation after generation for 8,000 years. Like a lot of stuff is going to get lost. Yeah. I mean, is it generation after generation or is it like literally one autonomous AI agent that lives that whole time? Yeah.

And its job is just to save the books. Like Justin Casey's. Book guy. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I hadn't thought about one autonomous AI that waits for 8,000 years, but I guess that is around the corner. I have been – I'm really overwhelmed by –

The state of things. And I wouldn't be surprised if people die and then we keep them alive doing jobs that they seem like they would be good at as humans.

Well, that's one of my big fears is that like that I'll be made like there will be Vlogbrothers videos into perpetuity because my consciousness will be uploaded enough by virtue of the amount of stuff that I've made that people will continue to make Vlogbrothers videos and they will feel like they were made by me. And on some level they were. That is very weird. The the other thing there is I'm I'm worried that in the same way.

That like a sort of creator's – like an author's descendants control their work in the future, that an author's descendants will control their image and likeness and voice and creations. And so like – And I go back and forth on that because there's part of me that like right now in my will, it just says like none of that ever, period. Yeah. Like this all goes public domain or something? Yeah.

No, no, no. Just none of it ever, period. You can't use my likeness. Oh, your likeness. I was talking about IP, intellectual property. Oh, oh.

But you can't like use, you can't like feed an AI a bunch of John Green books and then start publishing new John Green books. I haven't written that into the will yet, John. That's in my will. Hank, you got to get on your- I got a normal will, like a normal guy. I'm not thinking about my likeness. Now that you have a normal will, it's time to start updating your will all the time and with weird, weird stuff like that. Okay.

What do you do? You just like email your lawyer. You're like, hey, can you put in don't ever turn me into a weird AI bot in the language? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Can you add some language that says no botting me for the foreseeable future? On the other hand, I don't want to deny my descendants. If there's some cool technology that I can't foresee right now, and they're suddenly very limited. I'll give you an example. The estate of James Joyce has made it very difficult to do James Joyce studies.

And that's probably in line with what James Joyce wanted, but who the hell cares what James Joyce wanted? Like that's not useful anymore. Like we need to be able to do, we need to be able to like read all of James Joyce's letters and we need to be able to do all that stuff because it's cool and interesting and it helps us understand Ulysses better. And, and, and so I, I go back and forth on it because the, the needs of the world change and, and,

I mean, I realize that I've just compared myself to the greatest novelist of all time. Hey, John, there is a comparison to be made. You both are professional writers and you will both die.

And we will both die. We share a profession and a fate. That's more than most people. Most people only share a fate. But everybody who shares a profession also shares a fate. True.

Unless. No, it's yes. Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by sharing of fate. Sharing of fate. It's universal. This podcast is also brought to you by the S word, the F word, and also the E word. What's the E word? Eagle. Eagle.

We've never said it. We've never said it on this podcast one time. Never in 400 episodes have we ever, by the way, this is our 400th episode. Never in 400 episodes have we ever said the word eagle because it's too filthy. Today's podcast is also brought to you by James Whitcomb Riley's Little Orphan Alley. Little Orphan Alley, saved by a typo. And this podcast is brought to you by Bot Hank. Bot Hank, ready to take over once I'm done.

Oh, God. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Quince. With the new year comes a chance to reimagine ourselves for the better. And more importantly, it's a chance to reimagine our closets for the better. Maybe you're looking for workout motivation with some new active wear. They've got these performance tees and tech shorts that are perfect for any movement. It says in my script. Here's what I'll say.

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This next question comes from Grace, who writes, hey, Green Brothers, let's cut to the chase. If the president of the United States is allergic to peanuts, would the entire White House become a peanut-free zone like in elementary school? Would someone with such an anaphylactic allergy even be allowed to run for president? Seems like too much of a security risk to me. I think they would have to go peanut-free, to be honest. Would love to hear your thoughts, Grace. This is the kind of question I've been waiting for, Grace. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like it when you say, let's cut to the chase. Let's cut to the chase. That's my favorite part of your question.

Yeah. I mean, first off, you can have an anaphylactic allergy and a run for president. Absolutely. That is not disqualifying on its own. I'm not sure you've been following our presidential election, but it turns out a lot of things aren't disqualifying. Oh, John, I have always worried about peanuts because –

If you have two of them, chances are one of them is assaulted. Damn it. This is a joke. I can tell it. What was the end of it? Sorry, I didn't even get to hear the end. One of them is assaulted. Oh, yes. That's an old school dad joke. It's an old school peanut joke. Two peanuts are walking down the road. A classic among dad joke enthusiasts. One of them was assaulted. Yeah. It's a classic among the, in the form of.

It's the little orphan Annie of peanut-related dad jokes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That guy's also buried on a hill somewhere. Have I told you how unfunny the people at Crown Hill find this joke? That you want to be buried on top of Charles Nelson Reilly? James Wickham Reilly, yes. They are not amused by it one little bit. They don't find it funny at all. Hmm.

Oh, man. Our parents are at Crown Hill today, actually. I was like, where are you guys going? And they were like, going to Crown Hill. And I was like, just for a walk. And they were like, yep. So we come by it honestly. It's nice in there. Look. It's a pleasant cemetery. Occasionally, you find a person who's actually buried in the wrong grave. You do? Yeah. Grave mistake. Jesus. OK. That's no more. No more. You know what?

You know, our parents got into the cemetery, but oftentimes you can't because they're surrounded by fences. Do you know why? Why? People are dying to get in. It is funny that they're surrounded by fences, though. Like...

Are they keep out fences or are they keep in fences? A little bit of both. A little bit of both, I think. Just in case. I just think the one thing we know about ghosts is they're not going to particularly struggle with like a wrought iron fence. They're not going to be like, oh, well, guess I'll stay in the cemetery tonight. I guess it's got to be for the protection of all of the stones. But you can go – I guess at nighttime they might lock it up. Yeah, they lock it up at night. Crown Hill is open sunrise to sunset. Okay. Yeah.

And there used to, of course, be a lot of grave robbing. What if you just hid, though, in there? It's a big cemetery. Could you just hide in there and just spend the night? Yeah, I think it's home to over 100,000 human souls. Or none, depending on your worldview. I don't know that that's how souls work. I don't think they stick around. No, but people just say that. That's how people say it. Yeah, it's better than saying it's home to 100,000 human skulls. Or 100,000 human or 200,000 human femurs. Yeah.

Probably a little less. That's right. That's right. All right. Well, I think we answered the question, which was about peanuts. So, yeah. Look, I think that the president would have an EpiPen. I think it'd be pretty easy to manage. Yeah, I agree. But they did do that on – you know, recently, sometimes they have little treats on planes. Mm-hmm.

My life has been sort of the process of watching the little treat get worse. Yeah, well, not necessarily worse. And I'm not going to blame a peanut allergy on this, but I will blame an airline. I...

I agree with you. The classic peanuts was great, except for people with serious peanut allergies for whom it was catastrophic. I don't mind making a small sacrifice for the peanut people. There were other options. We could have gone with like a Gardetto's style snack mix. Yeah, snack mix. That would have been great. I'm just saying, and I'm saying it loud for everyone to hear, pretzels suck. A hard pretzel is the worst snack food. Oh, you've been –

I've seen you go off on this rant on Twitter, which by the way, what a waste of time Twitter is. What a waste of time ranting about pretzels on Twitter is. It's not just a waste of time. It's a waste of time that makes the social order a little bit worse. It's like smoking cigarettes. It's not just bad for you. It's also a little bit bad for the social order.

Yeah.

Yeah. They'll never feel what they, what they want to feel. That's you and me on Twitter. Yeah. And Sarah was like, you criticize Hank's tweet, Twitter usage a lot, but I can't help but notice that you yourself are using Twitter. And I thought that was a good argument. So I'm going to stop criticizing your Twitter use and start criticizing my own. Well, John, if you left, I believe I'm only there for you. Is that a lie? I don't believe you. Okay. That's it. I'm leaving. I'm leaving. I'm leaving. No, no, I'm not. I,

I have been enjoying Blue Sky lately. I've never been on Blue Sky. It's very, very, very weird. It is. Of course, very similar to Twitter, but it is surprisingly lively and not just sort of chock full of complete garbage the way that Threads is. Also, I think that there is so little sort of...

uh, high talent posters on, on, uh, blue sky that I just do very well.

Oh, Jesus Christ. Calling yourself a high talent poster is like calling yourself a really good gambler. Yes! Where you're like, well, you know, I'm just an excellent gambler. I happen to win at roulette all the time because of my excellent high talent gambling. No, I think that like probably like maybe two to five hundred people just turned off the podcast and were like, I'm done with that guy. Yeah.

Yes, I agree. There's two to five people who will never hear my voice again because of what you just said. And you know what? They're right. Yeah. The people who are still listening are the ones – are just exceptionally generous. The problem is that I was like mostly – I was like – I was joking but like a little bit I wasn't. Not enough. Yeah. Not enough. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, Hank, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, let's answer this question from Jacob who writes, Dear John and Hank, in the comic strip Garfield, John appears to hold conversations with his cat, but all of Garfield's dialogue appears in thought bubbles. Is John able to guess what Garfield is thinking or is he so insecure that he imagines himself scorned by his own cat slowly depreciating in value? Jacob. Oh, Jacob, I don't think that's necessarily true. Yeah.

How are John and Garfield able to have a conversation when one of them is only thinking and one of them is speaking? Is it telepathy? I think it is. I think that it is. As a cat owner – so I think that there's two ways. There's the way that people who aren't cat owners see this, which is that John is insane. And then there's the way that cat owners see it, which is that we know all of the thoughts our cats are having. Right. Right.

Right. And I like do. I look at the shape of his ears and what he's doing with his tail, what his face looks like, what his eyes look like, what his fur is, how it's pointed. And I'm like, I know exactly what Gummy Bear is thinking.

What does Gummy Bear think about most of the time? Food? He thinks about Chester a lot. Which is the other cat. The other cat. He thinks about going outside. He has a little outside tent that he goes in. So he's constantly thinking about that. And when he's outside, he's thinking about coming inside. He's thinking – there's like – he could have sort of complex thoughts about whether or not he would like to be –

affectionate or have affection directed toward him. And indeed, he is at many times of two minds on that subject. Yeah, he has to hold in concert two competing ideas in his head, which is, of course, the definition of a first-rate intelligence, according to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Gummy Bear is often thinking, I would like to be cuddled, but also I'm a wild jungle cat. Right, right. Do you think he ever has to hold...

At the same time, a sense of the need to hope and a sense of the futility of effort. No. Okay. Then I would like to be a cat. I think cats should vote. Wow, that's bold. I mean, I don't. I've read Garfield. I don't think cats should vote. Yeah. I think they can be bribed with lasagna too easily. Yeah.

As opposed to regular people, which have much more sophisticated bribing techniques, like the chance to win a million dollars. Oh, my goodness. I'm so nauseated by this moment. I'm not having the best time. Ready to be done with it. Well, except that I am having kind of a good time. Yeah? Just not on that front. Right. Yeah. I'm letting myself have fun. Good. Listen. Yes. Hank. Yes. There is one other thing we have to talk about before we get to the news from Mars and AFC World. Okay.

We have to talk about this email from Walt who says,

Not a question, but just agreeing with you. Prepositions are messy. Walt, whose grandson calls him Grandpa Walrus, which is the cutest grandpa name I've ever heard of. On accident. On accident instead of by accident. That is what we say as English speakers. Like this happened on accident. I failed to get my homework done on accident. Would it be by accident? It would be by accident, except that it doesn't matter because prepositions are terrible. They're catastrophic. Sorry, that wasn't a word. So, yeah.

I mean, I'm glad I don't have to learn English because apparently the prepositions rule is whichever one we use is the one we use. It's so vibes based. Yeah. As is so much. You know, one thing that has been giving me a little shot of hope is that I got to see AFC Wimbledon play in person twice in the last week. That's awesome. I got to see us win. How long does the season end? It just began, Hank. I know, but when does it end? I'm asking because I'm maybe going to go to the UK. Okay.

Oh, in May. You're going to go? Yeah. When are you going to go? That's a long season. Yeah, it might end in April. No, it ends on May 3rd. Okay. Well, maybe I'll look at some games, see if I can go. And then I'll probably not go because I don't care that much. You got to go. You would love it, actually. You'd have a great time.

You'd be moved beyond belief. You really would be, as I was when we beat Carlisle 4-0 thanks to a Matty Stevens hat trick and an own goal, my favorite kind of goal. It was like the perfect game for me. I got to see an own goal and a hat trick. It was magic. But my son wasn't able to go to that game. Poor Henry has seen us play six times. He's never seen us win. We went all the way up to Nottingham there in the East Midlands to see us play Knotts County where we lost 1-0 on a crap goal, like a week two loss.

a flail at the ball, meaningless goal, only to have us win 3-0 against Morecambe in the game that Henry didn't see. So poor Henry has still never seen us win. I feel bad for him, but not that bad. I'm still going to make him go to lots of games. I just looked at the schedule and they don't have a game while I'm there. Really? Yeah. I'm only there for like three days. Oh, you're only there for three days. Yeah. Oh, I see. Yeah.

So currently, AFC Wimbledon have played three fewer games than almost all of the other teams in League 2 because of the pitch situation. Remember, our pitch flooded. We had soggy pitch issues. And so we're currently in 10th place. But if we win those three games in hand, we would actually be winning League 2. We would be number one in League 2. That is nice.

Yeah. I mean, I think that it's a long shot to – Assume that. You know, to win League Two. But anything is starting to feel possible. I watched us play – the most recent game was yesterday as we're recording this against Morecambe. And I just was like, this team –

They know how to put the ball in the onion bag, as the commentators like to say. Of course, you got to do that. That's where balls go. They know where the ball is supposed to go, and it's supposed to go in the onion bag. Yeah.

Why don't they do it like, I've seen Messi do some goals recently. They should do it more like him. They should. They should. We should sign him. I was recently at a party and somebody asked, could you sign somebody like Mbappe? And I was like, no. No. No.

No, we're the 86th best team in all of England. If you mean like – if you mean by like Mbappe that they share the same fate? Yes. And the same profession? Have the same job and share the same fate? Yes, we could sign somebody like Mbappe. We could sign the John Green to his James Joyce. Yeah.

Oh, God. Oh, man. But we are beating the franchise who are currently in 12th place. So love to see that. What's new in Mars news? You know, I don't really know. I didn't have a chance to look. I actually had a time set aside to do it, but I didn't do that. And instead, I did something else. I think I was making a TikTok. I'll give you some Mars news then. Oh, yeah? What you got?

We're going up a crater rim, Hank. Perseverance is. It's working its way up a steep crater rim. We talked about that. That's the exact thing I brought up last time. All right. But that's okay. Bruno Mars and Jessica Caban met at a restaurant in New York City in 2011, at which point they began dating. And they have been dating for over 13 years now. Yeah. Yeah.

And in 2024, there were some rumors that they had called it quits. It's unclear whether or not they are still together. 13 years is a long time. It is. That's a long relationship for Bruno Mars. I hope that they're doing okay. Yeah, that's a hard transition, if that's what's going on. For sure. I hope everything's going okay with Bruno Mars. Yeah. We're thinking about you, Bruno Mars. Yeah.

If you want to send us questions, we should have done more for our 400th episode. How was this? Are you kidding? This is perfect. We should have done something. No. Pre-order Everything is Tuberculosis, available wherever fine books are sold. That's true. You can go to everythingistv.com.

And find out all the places where it is. Or you could just like use your existing knowledge base of where books are purchased. Either one works. Yeah, but this way Penguin gets whatever Penguin wants. Yeah, that's true. Out of having a landing page. They do like it. It's the number one bestselling books in communicable diseases.

That's right. They had it as the number one bestselling books in viral illnesses, and I had to send them an email. Really? Nope. That's not what this is. We need to learn about TV. It's a bacteria. Got to learn about TV. In this hit new book, everything is tuberculosis. That's right.

Yeah, go do the credits, man. This was fun. I had a great time. It's HankandJohn at gmail.com if you want to send us a question. Thank you to everybody who did. This episode was edited by Linus Obenhaus. It was mixed by Joseph Tuna-Medish. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosianna Hals-Rojas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. The editorial assistant is Deboki Chakravarti. The music you're hearing now is by The Great Gunnarolla and As They Say in Our Hometown. Don't forget to be awesome. Don't forget to be awesome. Don't forget to be awesome.

Bye.