Dear Hank & John - 358: My Heart Muscle's Chiseled

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

What person growth have you seen in your life? Why doesn't my heart feel sore after exercise? Hank and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Of course, I prefer to think of it dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you a surprise and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Hey, Henry told me a really funny dad joke yesterday that I think he might have invented. Okay. He said, there's something wrong with the electricity in our house. Oh.

And I said, there is. And he said, yeah, something off about the light switch. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Sound. Okay. There you go. All right.

Good. High quality stuff. Now you're in charge of dad jokes, passing the mantle over to you and Henry. He truly is your nephew. I'm glad because I didn't have one, John. I had nothing. I had forgotten that part of the podcast. Great, love it. How are you?

I feel like I haven't talked to you in months, although we've talked. But we haven't talked in front of a microphone, which is when I really feel like I haven't talked to you in months, although we've talked, but we haven't talked in front of a microphone, which is when I really feel like I'm connecting. I don't know and don't know how to check. How you're doing, yeah. I don't, so in terms of honest answers, I often feel that way, where I'm like,

I like, is it okay for me to just not look and just like, I don't think I'm bad. I don't like, I don't have a reason to look. I feel like if I look, then I might find something. But that's probably what you want to do. I did have, I did do a very fun thing in Los Angeles that I can't talk about yet and everybody loves that. Oh, I hate it when talk about yet, and everybody loves that. Oh, I hate it when influencers do that. That's like my least favorite thing, where it's like, oh my God, I had so much fun doing something

I can't tell you about. Yeah, and that is exactly the situation that happened. I just got back from a 30 mile hike. Three red river Gorge in Kentucky with my four closest friends from the neighborhood. We've done these hikes together for many years, but this one was extreme hank. Speaking of not looking, there was one moment where my buddy Alex, who's quite the outdoors person, was like, hey, so for the next five minutes, you're going to want to pay very careful attention to your footing, and you're not going to want to look to your left. When I did look to my left, just in my peripheral vision. I wasn't trying to. I realized that it was a 400 foot drop.

Just, just so close to me. And that made me feel, it made me feel both terrified and quite proud of myself because there's no way that 10 years ago I could have done that. No way. Right? Like in some ways I get frustrated that my mental health isn't better than it is and that like I have to live with this sort of like long term series of mental health problems that I got to do all this crap to accommodate and I feel like I'm not as productive as I could be. And I feel like I'm all that stuff. But then I think like, well, but look at that. This, this change is real, right?

Like I just scrambled up a rock face that 10 years ago would have completely shut me down for like a day. Like I would have had to pitch a tent and go into a quiet for like a day. I would have had to pitch a tent, I'd go into a quiet place for a day. So yeah, it was a really lovely trip, and I really, I don't know, I was proud of myself for pushing myself,

but in a safe and cautious way, like being with people who are really experienced and who have my back and everything. But, ah, man, I was as a rock climber say, it was for me very exposed. Just like, I'm not, I'm not and never will be and have not been ever close to being a rock climber. I've done a couple of scary things like that, like exactly like that. It's so much.

It does. It does. It does sort of, you have to take some time to think afterward, at least with my disposition. But I think that the thing that you were talking about there is so important, is to be progressing and to note progress. And there's lots of different is to be progressing and to note progress.

And there's lots of different ways to be progressing. That can be just like relationship health, that can be being able to stand on a table without being scared, it can be getting better at piano. But you don't really get the benefit from it unless you take the time to notice that you are getting better at that thing And it can be really difficult to notice

Unless it's unless it's like a something that has a lot of quantitative measures that come along with it like bench pressing where you're like I could write to 25 now, which I can right, I don't even know what that is, but it's definitely more than I can do But I think that's one of the reasons we do mild times or bench press amounts is to have metrics, but there are also other, I think, more important metrics, which is being able to look back over the long term and say, like, oh, I couldn't have done that. And then I really did implement tools that I learned through therapy that allowed me to be able to do it. Like, I'm sure that medication played a role in me being able to do that,

but also like I was able to be like, oh, I know what to do here. Like I know how to reframe my thoughts and I, like, I'm gonna frame this as an opportunity. I know that I'm safe. I know that I'm with my friends. I'm not gonna look to the left unnecessarily, but I'm gonna get through this.

And I did and I was really pleased about it. And that brings me to our first question, Hank, which is from Allison who writes, dear John and Hank, I'm writing a paper about personal growth and how it is not something that just happens in our adolescent years, like the coming of age stories. But we continue to examine ourselves every day to see how we can grow and change. I think this is so important. So many movies end with like graduation from high school or getting married or having a baby, as if that is somehow the end of like personal growth and maturation like you did it. You made it to parenthood. Oh, buddy, you're just getting started.

While writing this, I couldn't stop thinking about your idea of imagining others complexly, so I watched a few of your old videos to get ideas for the paper. Now I'm wondering, what kind of personal growth have you seen in your life and how has being internet celebrities caused personal growth in the last 15 years? Pumpkins and personal growth, Allison. I don't know that being an internet celebrity has caused any growth. What is it?

Well, I mean, what, so for me. I'm better at it than I used to be. Yeah, I'm definitely better at it than I used to.. Yeah, I've definitely better at it than I used. I still, I still am not. I still make lots of mistakes. I was going to say, but I could be a lot better than I am. But yeah, I think that there is something to it for me, which is that it having an audience gives me a reason to do things and doing things gets me better at them. And so it's more the impetus than the thing itself. That's interesting.

So maybe I've gotten better at being a public figure, or having an audience or whatever. But most of it is like having an audience means that I've worked, I've honed particular skills. And there are times when I'm like, wow, I did that well and fast. And that's because I've done it a lot of times. And I know stuff about making content for audiences.

Right. I mean, certainly we've both come a long way in our ability to make a YouTube video, right? Like, I've seen some of my stuff in 2007. I've seen some of my stuff in 2007. I've gotten good at it. But when I look at the last 15 years, I see a huge amount of change in my life, a huge amount of change in my overall ability

to cope with negative emotions. I see a huge shift in my ability to handle to cope with negative emotions. I see a huge shift in my ability to handle obsessive thought. I still lose more time than I'd like to obsessive worry, but I don't lose eight hours a day to it. It's not half my waking life. I also see a lot of... I see a lot of change in like the way that I treat other people

to be honest with you. I think I still, even when I was like 30, I think I still thought of myself as some kind of like somewhat like counter-cultural, funny sort of shoot from the hip kind of character, and I really don't anymore. I, I really, I feel like, I guess what I'd say is that, I feel like over the last 15 years, one of the growth arcs that I didn't expect aside from like not being as afraid of heights, which is a hell of a change, is I didn't expect

to become so earnest and so comfortable in my earnestness. Like our early videos were not earnest ever. And I, I feel quite comfortable now being sincere, even though of course that is vastly more vulnerable. Yeah. And I think that that, they think that that, uh, that comes from a place of security, too. Yeah, for sure, which is something that you build up over time, if you work hard on it, and get lucky.

But I have a sense of emotional security that I didn't have 15 years ago. I also have a sense, and I'm trying, I've been trying to cultivate this to some extent, because I think that it does not happen if you don't try, but of a appreciation for my existence inside of a thing that exists and is good and that is humanity. exists and is good and that is humanity. And to cultivate an appreciation for humanity, even as it has. Oh, that's interesting. That's interesting.

Made a number of sort of inexcusable mistakes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like the world was much more positive about humanity in 2007, but you and I were both privately extremely negative about it Yeah, and kind of cynical about humanity and thought that humanity was sort of a merely a drain on global resources Yeah, or like just like extraordinarily foolish like one of the things I've gotten better at is actually recognizing the lack of agency

for a lot of the choices I make and that a lot of things that have happened to me are it's very easy to sort of attribute that to individual decisions when in fact, there were certainly some of those and certainly some hard work. But you know, like in reality, individual decisions when in fact there were certainly some of those and certainly some hard work. But, you know, like, in reality, like, we all have to exist inside of the systems we exist

in. And we have very little overall control. And the mere ways in which we think are controlled by the technologies and the systems that have been developed over, you developed over hundreds of thousands or millions of years of communication. And we are influenced by which languages we speak. We almost can't have a thought that there isn't a word for sometimes. Or it's much more cognitively difficult.

So that's all. Yeah, that whole idea of like seeking the seeking the sort of like absolute knowledge that is all you need from within, I still sort of believed it a little bit in 2007. And now I understand that there is no me separate from the rest of the world. There is no me separate from the rest of the world. There is no me separate from my circumstances. So these are all ways that we've changed over the last 15 years, but we were adults in both those times. We were married 15 years ago, and we didn't have kids know, we were fully definitely grown. And 15 years from now, I'll be 60.

And I really hope I look back at my 45 year old self and I'm like, wow, I've changed a lot since that guy. Like, I hope that I'm not settled. I wanna keep changing and growing. And I think we have great actual models for that in our parents. You know, our mom was 62 years old when she started painting for the first time. And now she's a very accomplished painter.

In fact, her paintings of Ginkgo leaves are available at projectforawesome.com slash donate. And she's a brilliant painter. And our dad, 15 years ago, we felt like was very settled in his career. And then little did we know, actually, he was going to be the person who ran the business that became complexly because Hank and John had no idea how to do that. And he also did not know that that was going,

well, was that in his way? No, there was no YouTube for him to know that. Or I guess there was like a start of YouTube, but there was no idea of like this YouTube with like, Hank being so stressed out, he tells you that he can't stop to think about how he's feeling. What? That's not really what I mean.

I just, I'm not 100% sold. Yeah, we'll get there. I'm on a journey of meaning this next question comes from Malcolm who asked, Steerhank and John, the heart is a muscle. So I've been told, so I suppose you can quote, work it out by doing exercise and making it pump harder and faster. Yeah. Does that mean that I can develop a chiseled thirst trap of a heart. And it's so wide, I never feel sore in my heart after exercise like I do and the other muscles slightly to the left of the middle, Malcolm. Malcolm.

Hey, before we get to the answer to this question, I just wanna tell you, you know that scene in Goodwill Hunting where Ben Affleck shows up to, what's that guy's name? Matt Damon's apartment. I was gonna call him the Martian, but that's not his name.

Ben Affleck shows up to the Martian's apartment. He looks in the apartment and there's no Martian in there and he's like, oh, he left. And he's really happy. He's really proud of his friend. I just want you to know that one Monday, when I call you at 2pm and you don't answer, because you've gone on like a six month silent retreat as part of your journey of

meaning. I'm going to be so proud. I'm going to be so proud of you. You'll be like, I thought I'd have something to do with the heart muscle. No, I'm going to postcard. I'm going to postcard like three months in. That's like greetings from, I don't know. Does the earth, oh yeah, that's what it would be. Greetings from the crust of earth, my beloved brother. Greetings from the small slice of earth that contains all life that we know of in the universe. For 90 days.

For 90 days. For 90 days, I have not taxed my vocal chords that I have seen into the great beyond. And I know what lies on the other side of the void. Hope the kids are good. Hang. I figured it all out. And my heart muscles chiseled.

That's a buff little thirst trap in there. The reason I wanted to... When you're on a silent retreat, you could just be doing pull-ups all day. Yeah, what else are you gonna do? The reason I wanted to answer this question is because it's a great example of how messed up humans are. Right, right. It's like, oh man, I just want to have a sexy heart. If I just had a sexy heart, it doesn't actually matter if it's functional.

But man, if it looks good, if it's ripped, people are going to finally love me. Right, it's like we've made a muscled or bigger, like bigger muscles synonymous with hotness, and to such an extent that we feel that way about a wet, slimy internal pump. Yeah, let's get that. So no, I don't think that your heart would not be any sexier if it, and it would get bigger as it pumps harder and faster.

And it does, that part muscle does get bigger as it pumps harder and faster. And I can't really tell you why it doesn't feel sore while it's doing it, but I can tell you that it gets tired and you notice. You just notice it in different ways than when you're, uh, when you're using your bicep or whatever. Yeah. Well, I mean, you, you could, you could notice it in the sense that you sort of reach your aerobic maximum, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I guess it's not, I guess the heart's just like going as hard as it can. It's, well, it's hard as you can. You don't have as long as it can. And then, and then it feels like you can't stay in that red zone anymore. And that's when like in the tour de France, you see the cyclist going up the hill just like stop and like almost slide backwards.

Yeah. It's got a lot on for a second. Is the red zone a real thing? Because I don't think I've ever been there. I mean, it's a thing that people talk about in fitness circles. Yeah. Like it's like if you there's like the, you ever heard of orange theory. It's like, it like if you, there's like the, you've ever heard of orange theory. It's like,

it's like a, yeah, it's a gym. Yeah. And the idea there is that like you spend a little bit of time in the red zone, a little bit of time in the green zone, but you spend most of your time in the orange zone. That's like where you're pushing it.

It's not impossible. It means something. Oh yeah, you like wear a heart monitor and everything and then like your heart, you try to get heart monitor and everything and then like your heart. You try to get to the orange zone and that's the theory is up there on the board with all the other people's heart rates. So they know if you're taking it easy.

Wow. That's entirely, I figured it was all branding. I'd like to say that I thought that's something to do with oranges, but I didn't. I just thought I was all branding. I'd like to say that I talked about it and I needed to do it with oranges. But I didn't. I just thought I was just branding. Since we're talking about fitness, I gotta tell you something.

You know, sometimes we have an idea and we talk it through and we're like, that's not a good idea. But then it doesn't go away. Every week. I know. Every week. I've been texting John ideas.

He's just not even responding to me anymore. Some of them are just, they're bad. Like, they're first off. We don't need another idea right now. We need one less idea. We need to remove the number of ideas down from 72 to like 68. Secondly, if we do have a new idea, I want it to be way outside the box. Yeah, totally me too. I've been sending you some real weirdos.

So we had an idea a few months ago, we talked it through, we really thought about it. And then we were like, this is a bad idea and we put it away, okay? Yeah. And I've been thinking it's maybe not, maybe it's a good idea. What, which one is it?

It's a, it's called, it's called 16 weeks to glory. Okay. I don't so far. I'm not. I'm a little bit. I'm somewhat skeptical. So the idea is that for 16 weeks, you and I train. Oh my God. And we record ourselves training. And then at the end of the

16th week, we meet in a boxing ring. No, this you've had this idea for a long time. I know I had this idea and then I let it go. And then now I'm coming back. I still think it's good. I think it could raise so much money. Oh sure. Yeah. Like, look, I think I still think it's good. I think it could raise so much money. Oh, sure. Yeah, like, look, I think we would get ripped. I think our heart muscles would be so sexy and ripped, not like literally ripped. That would obviously be a catastrophic issue. Yeah, that might be the end.

Just beautifully perfectly formed muscles. So, so I, John, as I am entering into my 40s, yeah, shirts off by the way, which I mean nearly 43, so now, boxing, boxing, interviewing hundreds of people watching thousands more watching via cymocast. Right. So I think that like, I love to dissect ideas. And I think that so there's good parts about this idea. One, it really does give me the impulse that I need to do to take better care of my body, which I definitely do need to do. 16 weeks, you're going to be like, well, I mean, I got no

choice here because my brother's going to punch me in the face. Right. So that's good. Now, I think that there are better ways to train than 16 weeks of, you know, whatever. Like I think that that's not long enough. Like I need 52 weeks. Oh, you could say that if you want Hank. I need hundreds of weeks. I need to be taking care of myself for the rest of my life, right?

Yeah, of course, but this is 16 weeks to jump, start that journey. So, so I like it for that. I like it for that reason. Thank you. As long as it's done in a healthy way, I like it for the reason that I think lots of people would absolutely sign up to watch it and they would pay for money and that would be a lot of money for partners in health. I agree. I like it for that reason. I have two drawbacks. One, I can't. I like it great idea so far. Punched in the face by you. I could punch you in the face,

but I just don't think I have it in me to get punched in the face by you. What do you mean? I don't know. I just don't, I don't know. It's John's like, you're not gonna have a choice. Like it's not like that. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

I'm very confused. I feel that, because I almost feel the opposite. Like, I almost feel like I could get hit by you, but I don't think I could punch you. And you feel like you could hit me, but you couldn't get hit by me. This sounds great. Actually, I'm in.

I'm in. It sounds like I'm gonna kick your- That's, well, you don't think you could hit me? Now I'm in. I just like, emotionally, I think you can hit me now, I'm in. I just like emotionally, I think it would be difficult for me to like really like know, potentially land a crushing lift. I'd have to do a lot of, we'd both have to like do a lot of boxing practice so that it just got a lot of boxing statue all to punch.

I have to find, I gotta find whoever won the Indiana Golden Gloves and hire them for 16 weeks. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm sure that the Indiana Golden Gloves and hire them for 16 weeks. Yeah, yeah. And I'm sure that the Montana Golden Gloves will also have some guy. I, but I also don't like participating in the parts of YouTube that I don't feel like

are our parts of YouTube anymore. I do. I do. I find it so funny. Like it would, I agree. Like if we were, if it were five years ago and we did that, it would be all wrong, right? Because like, we were still adjacent enough to those parts of YouTube for it to be an issue.

But if we did it now, like, where, where it mid 40s? Like, we, I don't, I met Idubs once for two and a half seconds outside of VidCon, you know? Like I'm not, and I think if you probably asked Idubs like, who are your best friends? It would take them a while before he got to me. I don't know that you'd be on the list. Well, I just mean that if you put him on a desert island and gave him like a hundred years to name everybody's ever met. He might get to me, but it wouldn't be, I'll tell you what, it wouldn't be like before

he discovered an ongoing source of food that would allow him to have a so long term survival. I love this. Okay, cancel, cancel 60 weeks to glory. I've got a new idea. Okay. We put eye dubs on a desert island. Okay. We filled it from a bunch of angles and we wait, we ask of Delis the names of his closest

friends in order and when he gets to the name that is the name that we're looking for, the whole thing ends and he gets to go home. responded to. What is that idea? Tell me that idea is wouldn't it be cool if we could make higher production value stuff. We could make like cooler, weirder, not necessarily educational, but like nerdy stuff. And we're like and had the budget to do that because it was on a streaming platform that we have operated. No, no, no, no. And it's come. No, no, no, no. Wait for it. And we do it with a few other YouTubers. And like it's sort of like we go in. And it's going to be like more classic YouTubers doing stuff that's really fun. Yeah. And we call it the doobly do.

Well, okay, let me tell you what I love about it Okay, one you stole the name from weezy waiter. Yeah, which I love I also think weezy waiter would be a great candidate for my desert island show Yeah And then the name that like weezy waiter would have to come up with would be like You remember that guy from like 2006 YouTube who kind of got to be a big deal by putting Diet Coke and Mentos together His name was like Renato

Renato. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That would be the name that we see waiter would have to come up with on the desert island to get off the desert island I think you come out with it pretty quick, but I think that I like this idea You have to you have to like. You have to have like four categories and you don't know when you've succeeded in any of them. So you just have to make the longest list you can. Yeah, or it could be something like, hey, name some soda brands. And when you get it, you're good.

Right, right, it just happens. And it's AL8, that ginger ale they sell in Kentucky. Oh no. It has to be something people know about. It's IBC root beer. Oh boy. Oh, terrifying. So yes, shows like that, but maybe not that.

And. Oh, well Hank, I don't like the idea of a streaming service. I think the last thing the world needs is a new streaming service. Like when I look at the streaming service landscape, what I don't like the idea of a streaming service. I think the last thing the world needs is a new streaming service. Like when I look at the streaming service landscape, what I don't think is, oh, God, I just wish there was a way for me to spend five more dollars a month. That's my concern.

I, so yeah, this is, this was, yeah. So I think generally it's, it's niches, niches, niches. I think it's gonna, there's, Nebdula, there's, there's college humor, there's all these things. Yeah, I think it's gonna niche out. And I think the most successful ones are gonna be the niche ones

because they're gonna create content exactly for their audience. And they're not gonna spend, you know, $20 billion on TV shows. It's gonna do the exact same thing that YouTube did to television. We're gonna niche out streaming services. I think it seems obvious to me.

It's like, it's not obvious to me, but it is possible. I will acknowledge that this is not a bad idea. My question is, where does your capacity do? Right. The problem is that it is definitely not a, here's, you know, doesn't feel like a bunch of shows that aren't going to have hankered them. It feels like more work, not less work to me. Yeah. But I will take on all of the work and become the CEO of Doobly Doo Incorporated

if our first two shows can be 16 weeks to glory and desert island until you say the word we're thinking of. Until you say Cory, Mr. Safety or like oh what if it's just like a word? What if like the only what if the only prompt you're given is adjective? You just like blue tall far windy happy tall, far, windy, happy. This is like the worst, Mr. Beast video. You just have to sit around, walk around the island and say word.

And it's live-streamed, man. So you, it's like big brother, except that the person's alone and they're just muttering adjectives to themselves. So there's no sense of competition. There's no sense of like, oh, they're getting closer, they're getting further away. The more I talk about this, the more I freaking love it.

It's only the sort of like lovely weirdness. And by the way, it's always the same island tank. So you don't have to like reset the cameras. You just put a new person on the island. And okay, all right. You have to do like five people and you cut them all together so that there's some variety.

I don't think so, because I think it's live streamed, right? I think it's like Twitch streamed on all the time. There's a bathroom that you can go into obviously, whatever, whatever, but like it's live streamed in general. But here's the kicker. The person has seven days to find the word. Okay.

And if they don't find the word in seven days, they had a nice seven day vacation, and they get nothing else. And if they do find the word within seven days, they get to go home early, and they receive as a prize. Yeah, I think you pay them. I think that's mostly the thing. You think it's money? Well, I think you've got to pay people for their time.

Well, of course, Hank, but I'm saying like what's the difference between winning and not winning? Like, right. Maybe it's a golden play button. Well, I think the main thing is that you get to leave the island if you get the word. This is the greatest idea. I mean, this is the greatest idea I've ever had. And unfortunately, the only place to do it is on the hit new streaming service, doobly do. This is what I'm what I'm hearing is that if I say to John Green, what shows would you make if we had, if we had the ability to make shows that weren't constrained by the ridiculous circumstance of the ad supported internet.

What ideas would you have and you'd have tons? I'd make crabulous. It's a show about crabs, but it's a show about all kinds of crabs. So there would be one episode devoted to people who walk like crabs to improve their core strength and what a weird hobby that is. And then there would be another episode about hermit crabs.

And then there would be a third episode about ghost crabs. And whether when ghost crabs die, they become ghost ghost crabs. And at what point in the sort of endless infinite cycle of ghostedness does one cease to be. That's a good topic. And then, so I'd make Crabulus. I'd make 16 weeks to glory, starting out with me in Hank.

But then after that, that can just go into season two. We can do it with any number of people. Retten Link might be available. We could do it with all three Gregory brothers plus Sarah Gregory, a sort of tag team, do a, we could do a chess boxing version with the boat, boat has sisters. There's a lot of opportunities there. So I do 16 weeks to glory, Crabulous, and then I would definitely do Desert Island Vokab. Desert Island vocab.

Yep. All right. I've also got ideas. And mine are better than yours, because I've been thinking about for long. I'm going to write the war. How could they be better than those? It's even better than them. Impossible.

I know. Okay. Pitch them to me right now. The rest of the episode is over. We are no longer in answer. Clear in question. We are only discussing from here on out, dupliedu, the new hit streaming service featuring

Crabulous 16 weeks to glory. And by the way, you have to do 16 weeks to glory. I do not accept you not doing 16 weeks to glory. I will not sign on to this. If it doesn't involve me becoming a boxer with a chiseled. You're not nothing's going to be chiseled. You're not going to get rid of any, not in a healthy way. You will not get rid of the necessary percentage of body fat to have abs in 16 weeks. Just telling you the truth. Abs.

Abs. So you think about abs. Hank, I'm 45 years old. The abs ship has sailed, okay? Abs. Okay. I'm not Brad Pitt. Like, I actually remember the day, Hank.

I went down to the beach in Mobile, Alabama, and I watched as the ABB robot slowly rode its way out to sea, out over the horizon until I knew that it was just no more. Of course, the ab ship is sailed. I'm saying that I can still have a chiseled physique as long as I have a shirt on. I'm not sure what a chiseled physique is, but I don't care. I think that your head's in the right place. So I just threw three punches.

I just threw a quick combination. It's just jab, jab, right. I'm terrified. I'm so scared. There is the other part where there is fear. I don't know, like I don't wanna get hurt. You're not allowed to get too strong. Hank, I'll be honest with you.

Yeah. The chances if you getting hurt by me punching you are so much lower than the chances of me getting hurt by me punching you. You know what I mean? Like I'm gonna, I'll tear a rotator cuff or something. I don't have any power. Like I box my, like Henry's a rotator cuff or something. I don't have any power. Like, I box my, like Henry's a boxer and I will box him

and he'll hit me seven times and I don't even know what happened, I don't even know where he is. You know, like I'm just about to throw the punch when he lands the seventh punch. Yeah. Well, luckily we'll both be pretty old. So the idea I recently had is, so you know, family feud. I love family feud.

I think family feud is great, but could be 10 times weirder. And that's the idea. What is it? It's family feud, but 10 times weirder. So are there still families or are there, is it all in, family feud, but 10 times we're there. So. Are there still families or is it all in? I don't think that we need some memories. It's, we don't need families. We're just gonna use people we know who are funny.

And then you have, you have, you have, you got the Paul Brothers on one side and he's gone on the other. No, you know exactly who it is. You know all the people it's gonna be flula, and it's gonna be grace, and it's gonna be Tyler. It's gonna be, yeah, I can picture it. Yeah, so, and then it's just like,

and we pull the audience with weird questions, and then the ones that rise to the top, and it's like, where's the weirdest place you've ever pooped, or how do you pronounce this word, and you just like show a collection of letters. Is this like you get completely, remove the box that family feud had been contained by and you let it be as weird as possible.

I mean, do you think it's, do you think that that's gonna be a copyright issue? Oh, certainly not. You wouldn't use the words family feud. Right, right, right. You might be using the same stuff. Just like, you might be using the same thing. It's just apples to apples, you know.

Right, but you're not going to, but it's not going to be like we asked a hundred people. No, no, because we're not going to ask a hundred people. We're going to put a poll up on the Twitter. Oh, on the website. Right. I love it. Great. Yeah. Yeah. That dupli-du, what are we going to call them? Dupli-duers can answer. Exactly, that's correct. Yeah, the doobly dudes and doobly dudes, and doobly do others. Exactly. I don't hate the idea, I just hate the amount of work. Here's what I'll say, Hank, if you called me

and you were like, I had somebody, netflix has called us and they're really tired of having two billion customers. It's really stressful for them. Yeah. They want to start a startup and all we do is show up and work out to become boxers and narrate crab documentaries that have a mockumentary element and participate in weird family feud. I would be like, yeah, I'll come do that for a few weeks. But I feel like that's not what's gonna happen.

Yeah, I feel like what's gonna happen is there's gonna be a bunch of work. So let's just, can't we just have this kind of shared fantasy that it did happen and think about how great it would be if it happened and then just go to dropout.tv, subscribe there and enjoy other people working hard to make things. Exactly. That we don't have to work hard to make. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Oh my God, it's amazing being your brother. What a gift But it is also like vicariously exhausting like the fact that you would be in your current situation where you are I know unbelievably overworked and Your way out of it would be to work more. It's just fascinating to me. I just come from a different I

come from a different world. I don't know how else to do it. My way out of working more is working less. Ah, it doesn't seem like it would work. It's, it works great. I don't believe you. I don't know, man. I had a really good writing year last year.

And part of the reason I had a really good writing year last year was because I had time really good writing year last year and part of the reason I had a really good writing year last year was because I had time to write. I don't know how good of writing here. Hey, hey, it's time for the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Oh, is that really? Wow. Yeah. Good. Good. Good. We're going to keep these questions for next week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just got, you know, sometimes the moment is there and you need to take the moment

and the moment was there and we took the moment and we hope that you enjoyed the ride with us and also we would really love to hear your feedback on all these ideas. What do you like? What don't you like? I think what they're actually going to say. I have to say I'm, I'm very nervous, spilling idea beans on dear Hank and John. I don't know why I'm just telling you a fact about my body. Oh no, these are trustworthy people. Okay. These are true. I mean, I know that they're trustworthy people because like every three months,

I like go on YouTube live and read like the first three chapters of a new book and they're all like, yeah, we won't tell anybody and they don't. It's great. Good. All right, Hank, there's so much news for me. I've seen Wimbledon that I'm glad we get to have a little bit of time with it, because it's been a while. So AFC Wimbledon are in 13th place, which is about right, top of the bottom of the table.

We're in first place among all the teams in the second half of the table. We've had some ups, we've had some downs. The one thing we haven't really had in, and then we've had a couple pieces of really bad news. First, our much-voted six-foot-eight striker Kyle Huddlin has returned to his lone club. Even more worryingly, our really good midfielder, Paris, magoma, returned to Brentford, where he was on loan and Riley Taler, who'd been sort of our mainstay in central defense, returned to his lone club. So now it's the January transfer window, Hank. That means that things are moving, things can happen. And so far, most of the things happening have involved people leaving Wimbledon, which

is not ideal. And what we'd like to do is have some people come in in as well. So that's okay. Do you have solutions to that problem? Here's the thing. Okay. F.C. Wimbble then have one star, I think it's safe to say.

I mean, we have a lot of good players, but we have one star and his name is Ayuba Saul, and he is a star. He is incredible. He is really a really, really special player. And what I will say about Ayuba Saul is that he recently, he hasn't played all of January because he's been, and this is in quotation marks, ill.

And I don't think he's super happy with how things are going, just judging from the fact that a couple days ago, he made his Twitter profile picture black and also made his background image black. I don't think he's, I think he might want to move on from AFC Wimbledon, the club he's played for since he's 11, but he has a contract and I think there might be some friction there. That maybe, that is difficult. And I certainly, I want to you, basalt, to have the long, happy career that he is no doubt going to have in the higher echelons of English football. I just would like him to wait until May,

until the end of the season. So I don't know how that's gonna resolve. It's high drama in the world of Wimbledon lots. You know, like people think that sports is just about watching the balls move and everything, but actually sports is mostly about the soap opera, you know, like this, like everything. Sports is just a different version of days of our lives or a different version of TikTok drama.

I have a problem with all that. I haven't known. Yeah, I definitely didn't know that. That's new information for me. Well, yeah, no, I mean, it's like, you know, like there's some TikTok drama that you're involved in. Sports is just another form of that where you're like, there's also, yeah, there's always stuff. So we don't really know what's going on behind the scenes

with a Saul, but it doesn't look good. That doesn't sound good at all. So we might lose him in January, which is really sad. We do have some new players that we've gotten since the January thing started. Our biggest signing I think is Ali Al-Hamadi who is an Iraqi British player who's come in and he looks the part. I saw him I saw him play and he looked it looked pretty good. So I was I was happy. Yeah. Looks like a sports player. He looked like a sports player

We tied that game nil nil which certainly isn't the worst outcome for us But yeah, we have a hard time We definitely have a hard time scoring goals without a Ubisoft and We're not going to have him for the second half of the season. I could see that being an issue Oh boy. Well, good luck. I mixed me nervous. Me too. And you should also be nervous in Mars News because the Gerang Rover might not have woken up from its hibernation after the Martian winter. It's China's first mission to Mars, went into hibernation in May of 2022 to prepare for the Martian winter. It was supposed to emerge, but it does not seem to have, but it's hard to know exactly what's going on because

there hasn't been any comment from the space agency yet, and updates are coming from unnamed sources that have spoken to the South China Morning Post. Also, the sources say that the issues might have to do with sandstorms that maybe weaken the ability of the rover to gain more power from its solar panels. It also seems like ground control has been having difficulty getting data from their orbiter. And again, this is all like second hand.

Amateur radio operators can kind of tell when it's communicating and it seems like they have just like ground control is just stopped trying to contact you more better. So we don't know, but there has been no comment, but it looks like. But that would be very bad, right? I mean, that would just be the end of that mission. For sure. Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, sorry. It's time to do it stuff, but it seems like it. But you'd ever know, sometimes it just takes a little extra time.

Sometimes you can get some more information to it in some other way. And so work it on that. Fingers crossed for the rover. I'll keep my fingers crossed, but I'll be honest with the hang from the outside anyway. It looks as likely as a Ubisoft finishing the season as a Wimbledon player. So legitimate reason to be concerned. Yeah. God, that's the other show I'd love to have on, on duplicated.

Just the other one. Now that I know that the idea is in his head, he's going to not be thinking about anything else for the next. And I mean, I'll be honest with you, Hank, we're going to we're going to end this call and I'm literally going to go back to writing about tuberculosis. But like, if you want to make a tuberculosis documentary in the style of boburnums inside on duplicated, I would be very interested in that. Wow. I would be very interested in that. I've thought a lot about like what's wrong with the way that we tell stories about illness. And I think part of it is that we have this rigid sense of what they're supposed to look like. So yeah, I want to, if I ever, I mean, I'm only writing for now, but if I ever were to make a video about tuberculosis, I would want to make it very, very different and feel very closer

to inside than it feels to like, you know, tip of blocks. Yeah. Boy. See? People are going to be excited about this idea that can't happen. Also, I have not told Craig about it. So this will be, if it gets to him, his first introduction to the idea. Well, I mean, certainly he would be involved in some way. You haven't told anybody about it. I, that, that's, yeah, I mean, that's, I don't think that's the issue. It's not going to happen, Hank, respectfully unless, like, unless somebody is listening and they are in actual billionaire and they say, not only do I have all

the money that you need to start duplicated, I also have all the executive talent you need to start duplicated, and all you have to do is show up. Please get in touch with me. By the way, the only way we will sign that deal, future billionaire sponsor of duplicated, is if it comes with a really generous AFC Wimbledon sponsorship package. I don't know. I think there might be some other

ways. Nope. Nope. That's the only way to get my attention in this world. Good for you, child. Well, Hank, thanks for potting with me in this somewhat unusual format that we've just invented. Maybe we'll use it again sometime, but in the meantime, thanks for your questions. We'll try to use the same ones next week. John, thank you for potting with me. If you want to send us questions, you can do that at hankajunagemail.com. We are now off to record our Patreon-owned only podcast this weekend stuff,

where we'll probably just talk more about our stupid ideas for stupid shows shows so that we can think about it without actually having to do it. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuna Mettish. It's produced by Rosiana Halls-Rohos. Our head of community is Brooke Shotwell. The music you're hearing now is by the great Gunnarola, our editorial assistant is Deboki Chakravarti and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. now is by the great gunnerola our editorial assistant is to Boki Chakravarti and as they say in our hometown don't forget to be awesome.