Dear Hank & John - 392: Kill The Part That Cringes

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

Should tiny characters really have high-pitched voices?  Where do flies sleep? Is a seed a plant?  When, why, and how were hard-shell tacos invented? Should I be concerned about nicotine in potatoes?  Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

You're listening to a Complexly Podcast. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Nor does I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you devious advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, I have a friend, he's a farmer, and's a farmer and he is, his crop failed, his crop failed and now he's going to become a musician. Do you know why? Why? He just had a ton of sick beats. Yeah, so he's able to make that transition really seamlessly.

Exactly, exactly. John, how are you? Happy for him. How's it going? How's it going? You told me, I hate to do this, but you told me a story that is so wild that I cannot tell anybody else. Yeah, I feel like we can't tell anybody else, but it was pretty wild. I was on a... I'll tell it. I'll tell it without... I mean, I'll obscure the identities. John's on a Zoom call about a potentially cool thing that might, but probably won't happen. And on this Zoom call is a person who is so famous

that you haven't just heard of them, you know what they look like, you know their work, you would be very familiar with the things that they have created. I should say that this has nothing to do with movies, probably. Well, I would say it's a top 10, top 20 American famous person. Yeah, certainly in their creative endeavor.

But a person like who I in particular find cool, like I wanted to take the call because I find the person really cool. And it's not Taylor. I think we should just say that. I think we should just say it's not Taylor. I think we should just say that. I think we should just say it's not Taylor. Otherwise, otherwise people are going to be like, oh, you've got video on your podcast now. You're like dropping vague gossip about Taylor. Like, are you the Kelsey brothers? And I get why people get confused about it. We're both brothers. We're both extremely handsome.

We're both charming. We both have awesome partners and muscles. Great point, Hank. That's the other kind of defining feature of the Green Brothers, musculature. Yeah. So, John's talking to this top 20 famous person and they say, oh, here's the book that you signed for me at the Fault in Our Stars Tour in 2012. Yeah. So like they were in the room,

they went through the signing line, we signed the thing for them. And like it was just like every other nerdfighter type interaction. Well, and then that's what happens, Hank, right? Yeah. It's just a reminder that lovely kids grow up to be lovely people a lot of the time. Yeah.

Most of them. And, you know, like, of course I was a little locked into that moment because it was a very famous person, but I have versions of that conversation all the time where someone I admire or someone who's doing cool work will say, oh, I watched Crash Course or oh, but to have them actually have gone to the tour was a little exceptional. And wait in the two hour long signing line. Yeah. Yeah.

So that was very cool and it was a fun moment. But I mean, one of the joys of middle age is getting to have those moments where like you run into somebody like I just had dinner last night with a couple and they talked about crash course and stuff. So you never know. Can I tell you what is weird about this for me? Yeah. So the reality was that when that person went through that line, they were them.

They had their name that I would never have heard. And now they are them and they have their name that everybody in America would recognize. But they were the same person. But it feels to me, and I know that this is dehumanizing, but it feels to me like they went through the signing line before they were them. Totally. Because fame is a weird, weird drug. It's like a hallucinogen.

But instead of just affecting the person who has it, it also affects the other people. It mostly affects the other people. It mostly affects the other people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like when I'm in a room with a very famous person, I have taken a hallucinogen. But like they have also taken a hallucinogen in the sense that like everyone's looking at them. And so they have that sixth grade feeling

that everyone's looking at me, except everyone is actually looking at everyone. Right? Yeah. And so, their lines are also very distorted by fame. Yeah. Fame is weird. And I'll just, I'll say it since we're in a safe space here. Only cool people listen to this podcast, so it shouldn't be an issue. I said something on Instagram and then the Indy star reported as a news article. And it really got me in my head where I'm like, now do I have to like think about everything I'm going to say because

it's going to be in the Indy Star and my neighbors are going to be like, I didn't know that you didn't like the guy who tried to ban your books who's now going to be the next Lieutenant Governor of Indiana. Anyway, I'm in a safe space. Indy Star, this is off the record. The fame part of fame sucks. I agree. It sucks. It is a drug and it's really intoxicating,

but like, it sucks. It's not good for you. But a lot of people, it's the goal. It's like a bigger goal than- It was my goal, man. You don't think I wanted to be famous. I started making YouTube videos. Obviously I wanted people to see my face desperately.

I wanted to write stories to have them, to reach them. Why did we wanna be famous? Well, I think the better question is, why have we stopped wanting to get more famous? But why do we still even wanna be a little bit famous, Hank? What is wrong with us that we want attention from strangers? Well, I mean, there's the part where we want attention from strangers. There's also the part where we want to do stuff.

Oh, like make a difference in the world? Boring. Boo, don't believe you. We genuinely don't think that's what it's about. I don't think that that's what it's all about, but I think that there is a, there's definitely a if we just checked out, we would not achieve all of our goals. That is 100% true because I have thought about salinjuring. I mean so much so that Sarah and I have a verb for it.

Every time I think about salinjuring, I'm like, well, but it would be a catastrophe for my work in tuberculosis that gives me a ton of fulfillment. And it would be a catastrophe for all the people who work at DFTBA and Complexly. The truth is, the consequences of me salinjuring would be lots and lots of nice people losing their jobs. So we can't have that. I guess that is true, but I still think that there is part of us that likes attention from strangers. Yeah, yeah. I mean that is true, but I still think that there is part of us that likes attention from strangers.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, positive attention. Yeah. Great point. That's true. There was no part of me in 2015 who went on Tumblr and felt like, oh, this will be fun. I love this so much. But there's also, there's also like a sensation part of it. I wait like we are also, we're like monkeys, you know, and like that social status is a thing and it is, it was a thing that we are designed or that we like, we want, we like,

then there are reasons we want it. There's like evolutionary reasons why we want it. And like, so I'm like, I'm just a person, I'm an animal, a human animal who's inhabiting like a human animal body. And like when I go on Twitter and I say something and a bunch of people laugh and like, heart it and like it and, and interact with it. And then they say, Oh, well, Hank, so relatable. I like this guy so much. I like that. Especially as a guy who like for, you know, a lot of my formative years was punched by high status individuals. So there's a, there's like a thing there.

I think that's a big part of it. Yeah. I used to get really devastated by high social status individuals. And now, interestingly, those same high social status individuals who now identify as like alphas and spend a lot of time talking about high social status individuals, they still hate me and I just don't care anymore. Yeah. It's like I found a different thing.

Because now I want to be liked by different people than I did when I was 12. But I actually haven't made any progress since I was 12 with the kinds of kids who used to beat me up. I'd be interested for me or me to make a video on like the kinds of nerd. So I started to call in and Samir, who are like lacrosse nerds. And I'm like, oh, yeah, you guys can say you're nerds. But when I was in high school, the lacrosse guys were not like like the same kind of cool as the football guys

But they were super cool. Like they were way cooler than me They were nerdy about their thing but like they were not nerdy about their thing the way that like I was nerdy about my things that were just like unacceptably uncool Yeah Yeah, maybe it's partly social Structures because if you're into lacrosse in a really nerdy stats driven way, it's still kind of cool

Yeah, whereas if you're into Pokemon in a really nerdy stats driven way, it's seen as nerdier Yeah, and some of that's just social constructs, right? Like that's not all But it's also like I think you can definitely, if you like playing up lacrosse. I think you can definitely be a lacrosse nerd, it's just that if you're a lacrosse nerd, you'll be treated a little bit differently. Yeah. If you play a lot of lacrosse, your forearms do look nice. And if you play a lot of Pokemon, that is not the case.

Yeah. Well, I don't know that that's true. I've seen some pretty handsome forearms on some professional Pokemon players. But your point is well taken in the sense that when those lacrosse boys roll up the sleeve, you know, like to the halfway point, I think all of us are a little bit like, oh, I just had a, yeah, yeah. Let's answer some questions from our listeners. We should probably do that.

I don't think we're going to get to the bottom of all of our issues. We should, we'll work on it again next week. Yeah. Let's try to understand what it is that's driving us at some point, not necessarily today, but like before we die. Let's understand why we're doing what we're doing and whether or not we should be doing something different. Anytime you wanna figure that out with me,

I'm excited for the journey. All right, Hank, we got a question from Avery who writes, dear John and Hank, in movies, when a character is giant, they have a low booming voice and tiny characters have squeaky high pitched voices. Is this really how that would work or is Hollywood lying to us? Tiny pumpkins and giant penguins, Avery. Great question.

This is actually super interesting. So, yeah, you could imagine like mice obviously have a little high-pitched voices. Yeah. You got that. Elephants have that low rumbling. Yeah, they can make a super low rumble noise. They also make that sort of trumpeting, which is a separate thing is going on. And so you can kind of like extend out from that, that like this is the case.

And indeed it is. Smaller people tend to have higher pitched voices, larger people tend to have lower pitched voices. This is a tendency. It is not a it's not like there's a correlation there. But it is not like it's not super tight. There are small people who have low voices. It's just like some people have long arms, you know. And it is about the actual length. It's a function of this sort of size and length

of the things going on in your throat. So it does matter. So there is some biology behind this. Yeah, yeah, like Andre the Giant actually had a super low voice because he was very, very large. I was a big fan of Andre the Giant. Can you do it Andre the Giant impression? No.

No. I can't do any impressions now because my impression of Danish people was deemed offensive, which is hard to do. Like, it's hard to have an impression of Danish people that Danish people themselves are like, I'm sorry, but that is actually an insult to our culture. I actually can't. That's fascinating, though, Hank.

Today I learned something. Here's another interesting thing though, because deeper voice, so this is not a human thing, but in some animals, because a deeper voice is a signal that you are a larger organism, they will fake having a deeper voice than they otherwise should have in order to appear more attractive to mates. So there's like an honest signaling thing where like as you get bigger, your voice gets lower and there's a dishonest signaling, that's what they call it in evolutionary biology, where you make your voice lower to pretend that you are bigger as to attract mates who then will, what we're going for trying to get a bigger mate who would thus be signaling an honest increase in fitness.

But in fact, you are dishonestly attracting a mate just by pretending and getting a lower vocal tract. And then you have sort of like a arms race of lower voices without the bodies themselves actually getting bigger. Wait, it's called dishonest what? Signaling? Signaling. Yeah. Dishonest. I did a lot of dishonest what? Signaling? Yeah. Dishonest, I did a lot of dishonest signaling when we all do.

I mean, yeah. Getting together. You know, who's the biggest dishonest signaller? Oh, boy, I got some thoughts. Male peacocks, in my opinion. Because they're actually. opinion because there actually is there actually is maybe that that that the Pete the feathers of a peacock. Yeah. First, you have to have succeeded in a lot of ways. So in like, like to have really big, beautiful feather, you have

to, you know, you see well fed and getting a lot of food. But also, you have to be able to protect yourself to continue having your tail feathers look very good. So there might be some honesty to the peacock feather system. There's some honesty to that part of the signaling, but the part where they're signaling, I am a super sophisticated animal who is crazy about beauty, who's crazy for beauty, who's like, you know, basically like a curator of contemporary art.

No, turns out birds, just birds. They're birds. They're dumb as a sack of rocks. Uh huh. They have no idea how beautiful they are. They don't know they're beautiful. It's like the it's like the girl in a 90s romcom. One day he takes off his glasses and he's like, wait a second. Am I? Am I?

Hot? Just like walks into school the next day and he's like, look at this! It was there the whole time! And we're like, yeah, no, we knew. We could tell. We also like, glasses are kind of cute. Yeah, I actually thought you looked better in glasses are kind of cute. It's yeah I actually I actually thought you looked better in glasses with your hair back. It's kind of my it's just my thing

Yeah, yeah makes me feel like maybe there could actually this actually might happen All right, Abby asks dear John and Hank Where do flies sleep since getting pet chickens a couple years ago the number of flies that hang around our backyard has gotten out Of control and they're driving me crazy. I noticed they don't ever seem to be around at night, which makes me wonder where are they sleeping? I want to find them and destroy them all at once. Unfortunately, I don't think they all sleep together. There was like a big- They don't cuddle.

It's like a big fly ball somewhere that you could just shoot with a plasma rifle. That would be great. But I think that they find their like they all find sort of like little different places to go chill out. Some of they like crawl under rocks. So it's not easy to find flies sleeping. They take up a huge amount of space when they're flying around because they're it's volumetric. They're just like constantly everywhere.

But when they're just chilling out, they take up a tiny amount of space. They take up the amount of space that a fly, like a fly sized amount of space. And that's just up in the corner or under a leaf or under some under like leaf litter under rocks. You're never going to find the flies when this is not this is there are other solutions. Hunting them down while they're sleeping is not the one though I do love the Vendin element of it. Yeah. I'll find you and then I'll put a dead horse head under your bed. I only kill them at night when they don't see it coming. All right. I got another question for you.

This one's from Talia who writes, Dear John and Hank, recently my best friend and I were playing 20 questions in the car and we landed in quite the argument. His word in mind was seed. However, when I asked, is it a plant? His response was no. He argues that according to the letter of the law, seed is not a plant and therefore the answer is no. I'm arguing that in the spirit of the law, claiming that the aim of 20 Questions is to move the guesser closer to a final goal, is it part of a plant? Should be considered as similar to is it a plant and as such the answer would be yes. Your input would be greatly appreciated. Boo boo no no no I'm with your friend. I'm with the friend.

You can't I mean I agree there's a there's like there's like fuzziness eventually but it is not at seed. If you ask me if a leaf is a plant I'm not saying yes. If you ask me if what no a leaf is not a plant. A leaf is a plant. A leaf is not a plant. I'm not saying yes. If you ask me if. No, a leaf is not a plant. A leaf is a plant. A leaf is not a plant. A lot of times you can put a leaf in the ground and get a new dang plant. This is true. That does.

Yeah. OK. Well, that's also true of a seed. Like if you put a seed in the ground, that's its whole purpose, is to become a whole new dang plant. But a sperm and an egg are not a human. Oh, OK, if we're going to go there and I guess we are neither a sperm nor an egg is a human. Yes, an egg is not a human. I mean, a seed is a seed is not a plant. A seed is not a plant. A seed is not a plant.

And I think that I would be confused if you said yes, I wouldn't start naming plants. I wouldn't start naming parts of plants. Yeah. I like to play like a 20 questions where you don't have to say yes or no, where you might say, right. OK, you make space for like, yeah, I mean, you're in the right. You're in the right universe. But you have to make a noise make space for like, yeah, I mean, you're in the right. You're in the right universe. But you have to make a noise that you're like, oh, that made me think. I'm not actually sure.

And I and like, ultimately, that is the correct noise to make in that situation. But if you make me say yes or no, a seed is not a plant. It is a potential plant is a fertilized seed not a plant. It is a potential plant. Is a fertilized seed a plant? I am in the world I am imagining the seed is fertilized. Seeds usually don't form unless they are fertilized. When does the plant become a plant? When the seed germinates. I know the word for that.

Okay. Hey, I want to play 20 questions with you after the ad break, but first today's podcast is brought to you by The Seed Germinating, Hank's very specific definition of when a seed becomes a plant. This podcast is also brought to you by Andre the Giant's voice. Andre the Giant's voice, it's big for a reason. And today's podcast is also brought to you by famous people complaining about being famous. Famous people complaining about being famous.

Relatable and enjoyable since 1852. And of course this podcast is also brought to you by our patrons on Patreon, and this is a real sponsorship, it's y'all. So one of the things that we have had as our top request for a long, long time is could you get an ad free version of Dear Hank and John?

And we're finally doing it. We're creating an ad free podcast feed for our Patreon patrons at the $5 tier. If you can only do $2, you'll still get access to our monthly live streams with the two of us on the live stream. It's the best. The Dear Hank and John live stream is the most important thing in my professional life because it is the 45 minutes a month where Hank and I have a deep conversation with our community about the stuff that we actually think about all the time and that actually matters to

us. It's very good. Very good. And we are always working it out just like we were in the beginning of this episode, but for longer. Yes. It's like that, but it just keeps happening. We are also going to be making our next monthly patron livestream open to the public so that

you can see it for everybody. That will be on July 3rd. We are also doing video versions where we're recording video of the podcast right now, but we are not yet are we turning it into a video podcast. We're just having it for clips, But the plan is to eventually do that once we figure out how to do it. Yeah, we might. We just got to get on board with those Kelsey brothers, Hank. We got to get to where they're at.

I know. It'd be nice if we were in the same physical space, which those Kelsey brothers seem to be. The Kelsey brothers aren't. They're not? They're not. Oh, well, I've never watched their podcast. One of them is in Kansas City and one of them is in Philadelphia. Okay, I guess that makes sense. Clearly, you're not familiar with their work. One of them is married to Kylie Kelsey, who I find to be the funniest and most charming

person in the world other than my wife. And one of them is dating Taylor Swift, who is literally Taylor Swift. I didn't know about that. I didn't know that part. You heard about that one? From God. It's good to hear, man. They're still together.

Well, I haven't heard- Listen, we're recording this on June 19th. I don't know what their private life is like. And by the way, I don't want to know. It's none of my dang business. They can share whatever they want to share and not share whatever they don't want to share. Patreon.com slash dear Hank and John, $5 a month or $2 a month. It's up to you. We're trying to get to 4,400 members, patreon.com slash dear Hank and John. All the money, by the way, right now goes to Complexly, like the people who make Crash Course and SciShow. Yeah. So it just funds cool stuff. So check it out, patreon.com slash dear Hank and John. Also link

in the doobly-doo. All right, John, this next question comes from Vincent who asks, when, where, and how were hard-shelled tacos invented? I think they are perfect. Also, what should I replace beef with in my tacos since I want to eat less beef crunch? Vincent. I'm going to take your- I would replace it with Impossible Meat, which I've found to be really good and beyond burger or whatever. I'm not loyal to a particular brand.

Yeah, the ground beef that's in the meat free section. It's good stuff. Get that plant-based meat. It's good. Tastes delicious. I haven't missed beef at all, by the way. There are so many good plant-based alternatives now that it's about as inconvenient as slowing down for a squirrel as it crosses the road.

I don't even think about the inconvenience of it because it's so minorly inconvenient. It's great. I've been very happy. Can I tell you about the last day before I started Beef Days. Yeah, what? Catherine and I and Oren had many moons ago booked this exclusive and very difficult to get onto train ride called the Charlie Russell Choo Choo. The first Choo is spelled C-H-E-W. It's a dinner train.

And also it is a Wild West performance event where the train gets held up. So it's like medieval times, but it's set in the West and the train gets held up. The train gets held up. It's not medieval times. I don't know where you got that part. Did you say that? No, I mean medieval times like the restaurant. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Not the historical period. Did you say that? No, I mean medieval times like the restaurant. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not the historical period. If it really were, it was Wild West but also there were nights. They were jesting. No, I just mean like it's like dinner theater. It's like dinner and a show. It's dinner and a show. It's a dinner theater, but you're on a train and the scenery is amazing.

It's four hours long. Oh, wow. Here is the meal that they give you. Number one, iceberg lettuce with cheddar cheese grated on top with Newman's own salad packets. One of my top five all time starters. Is good, is good. It was legitimately fine. I love iceberg lettuce and cheddar cheese.

Those are, I mean, I'm an American baby. And then the main course arrives. And the main course is potatoes, baby carrots, steamed baby carrots, and I don't know, a six pound prime rib. Oh, god. And it's the only option. You cannot get on the Charlie Russell choo choo

unless you eat steak. Like, there's not like a veg option. This is in Lewistown, Montana, center of Montana. It's where the cows come from. They it's a very cow focused culture. And so I people in Montana, I looked it's true. I looked down at this at this steak. And I was like, well, here's here's to beef days. I have my last my last beef. And I was like, this is a good last beef. It was I watched the people on the train with me eat the whole thing. Yeah. And then have cheesecake afterward.

I love that. I love that. And I like it was it was insurmountable to both Catherine and I. And I was somewhat jealous of Oren, who got chicken strips. I could have finished it. Anyway, what was the question? I don't know, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, beef and I, I mean, a chicken taco was great.

Ground turkey is an amazing taco replacement. We used to eat ground turkey tacos when we were growing up. Mom would always make ground turkey tacos because she knew that turkey was healthier. Yeah, but I've just found it easier to like, if I'm gonna not eat beef beef like just not eat any meat. Yeah, meat It's easier especially with ground ground meat type stuff for sure. Yeah. Yeah now hardshell tacos

The do you know who Glen Bell is John? Yeah, I wrote an entire episode of the Anthropocene reviewed about Glen Bell Glen Bell is the reason Taco Bell is named Taco Bell because it's not named after a bell, it's named after a man whose name was Glen Bell. And Glen Bell claims that he invented the hard shell taco. Glen Bell is a liar. Well, that's a little bit of an oversimplification for the record. Glen Bell did acknowledge at certain times the role that the Meatla Cafe played in the creation of Taco Bell. So Glenn Bell had gotten out of the Marines, I believe, and he was running this hamburger stand in Southern

California that was like literally across the street from this great Mexican restaurant that's still there called the Meatla Cafe where they have hard shell tacos. And he basically would eat there and he'd be like, these are great. And he reverse engineered the hard shell tacos potentially with some like helpful advice from the family who ran and still run the Meatloaf Cafe. They've often been really generous in their interpretation of what happened. The Meatloaf Cafe family, like they've often been like, well, that Glenn, he sure did sell those tacos. But he definitely stole it from them. Yes. He definitely stole it from them. There are even pre Glenn Bell patents on devices that help to form and fry hard shell tacos. Yeah. It was a thing.

I think obviously he refined them and there were lots of refinements along the way and turning them into a kind of, you know, some kind of geographical shaped corn chip. But I think geographical is the wrong term. Geometrically shaped corn chip. I think that to be fair to Taco Bell, I think they were the first person to make a Doritos taco.

But they weren't the first person to make a hard taco. Or even close. I am confident that Taco Bell has held its fair share of innovations over the years. There's a great article in the New Yorker about the 11 year process to create the Crunchwrap Supreme. Wow. That's a lot of R&D for what to me appears to be not a super complicated object. The job was to find something that you could eat with one hand while you were driving. I mean that's for me that's most anything.

It's really a beautiful story. I can do it. I really recommend it if you have a chance to read it in the New Yorker. I'm sure it's online. It's such a good story because it brings together high culture and low culture in such an interesting way. It's The New Yorker, so it's inherently pretentious, but at the same time, it's about the Crunch Wrap Supreme.

It's just there's a deliciousness in that way of connecting. All right, Hank. I got a question from Max who writes, Dear John and Hank, I recently found out that there's nicotine naturally found in plants. Indeed, Max, that's the main way we get it. Especially in something called tobacco. One of these is potatoes and first of all, excuse me, second of all, how many potatoes would you have to consume in one sitting to ingest a cigarette worth of nicotine?

Do I need to be concerned about this? Do I need to add it to the list of worries that keep me up at night? Always stress to the Max. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. You do not need to worry that you're going to get hooked on nicotine by eating potatoes. No, no, no. Look, look, look, look, look. What about an alternative way to look at this, which is that the world is extraordinarily stressful. If you could be focusing on something as unimportant as whether or not you're going to get addicted to potatoes, which by the way, you already are, then maybe you won't be as focused on some of the worst stuff.

That's going to be a great point. Yeah, you should be addicted to eating potatoes because they're basically the perfect food. Oh, so good. They're better. They're better than you think. What's not great is when you deep fry them. Other than that, what a delightful food. They're great for you. They have tons of nutrients. They're delicious. You can survive for many years on a diet of just potatoes if that interests you. It does interest me, frankly.

You shouldn't do that, but it is possible. You shouldn't, but you can. You could. I think you might need a couple of other things, but yeah. I don't know that you would. Well, I once read that it was only that you can only do it if you also supplement with the with dairy milk, because there are vitamins in milk that make up for all the ones that you can't get from potatoes. And I read that on the internet. How long could a human live while only eating potatoes and drinking water?

How long could a human live while only eating potatoes and drinking water? Now that's a good damn question. And would they get a nicotine high? All right. I got an actual answer from an actual magazine. And magazines are not the internet. They're just on the internet. All right. If you ate both potatoes and sweet potatoes, you can live forever.

There it is. There it is. Yeah, I believe that. Sweet potatoes, they're a whole different thing. I would love to make a vlogbrothers video where I actually do the math on this because I have not done the math, but I bet I could eat enough potatoes to get a chill nicotine high. But I think that I would probably just have to do the skins

and I would probably need to swish them around in my mouth a bunch. Because I think eating tobacco is not gonna get you that high. Okay, I have some numbers for you. Here's a little context for you, Max and Hank. The amount of nicotine in a cigarette, and for context, Max, I smoked on average between

30 and 45 cigarettes per day between the ages of 14 and 25. One cigarette, one of those, one of them, contains about 12 milligrams of nicotine. That's a lot. Which is around 18,000 times more nicotine than in a potato. So I don't think respectfully Hank you could get a chill nicotine high unless you're willing to eat at least five or six thousand potatoes in a single setting. Yeah, I don't think I could eat 6,000 potatoes. But maybe I don't think you can eat 6,000 potatoes in your life. But I've never had I've never had nicotine in my life.

So my tolerance is extremely low. First off, there's no way that's true. It's not true. I had a cigar at my I had I had I just know you I had maybe a tenth of a cigar at some cousin's wedding once. Oh, that's so cringy. What a cringy way to ingest nicotine. I've done nicotine in all the major ways except for cigars and pipes because I'm not massively cringe. I have to say... The only way you ever ingested nicotine was via cigar. That's a thing. It was a tradition.

What? When babies are born? No, I don't know. It was some thing. I don't. I felt like a tradition. All the all the cousins were smoking cigars. Yeah. And so and John, I have to say. I was smoking cigars right with him. It's not that. It's just that like I would never claim that's the only way I ever ingested the only way I've never had a cigarette. I'm saying even if it were true, it's still the wrong thing to say

Look look, I'm not I'm not I have to be me. I can't let the world inhabit my brain I have to kill the part. I don't you can't kill the part that's cringy. You must kill the part that cringes. John, that's the way forward. And I did smoke a 10th of a cigar. And you know how I felt afterward? I felt like I was on cocaine. It really, I don't know what being on cocaine feels like, but I was extremely high.

I was gonna say, that means so much is getting revealed in this episode. I felt like wild. I was like drinking like eight cups of coffee. I was like, oh, this is a drug. Hank Green, nicotine salesman. No, I like I don't know. It's a drug. I just kind of assume that, like, since it's everywhere all the time,

that like it can't be that impactful on your physiology, but it was intense. It was like a real high. It's a freaking drug. It's not actually a pleasant high. I remember the first 20 or 30 times I smoked a cigarette being like, this just sucks. I don't like the way that I feel right now. I feel different, but not in a positive way. Then eventually I got to the point that I think I was trying to get to from the beginning

where I just had a problem and the problem was that I needed a cigarette and the solution was to have a cigarette and like the joy of resolving that problem was the high rather than whatever little high came with the smoking. Oh man, it would be nice to be able to just solve a problem by grabbing something and turning on a lighter. Well, I mean, it does create a new problem, but it solves.

It creates a number of larger problems. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, but there's a reason I smoke so much for so long, which is that, you know, yeah. But now, like, my life is in danger because of something stupid I did when I was a kid. So, you know, there's that side of it. That is such an interesting way to talk about, because I have this too, but with the things I am addicted to, which is, you know, mostly social media, where like the thing that I

like about it is that it is solving a problem, like it's an easy way to solve a problem. And the problem is that I am bored. And like a lot of like that's a lot. That's an interesting way of thinking about the sort of like, certainly not all of addiction, but kind of maybe a bit of a trigger for it, which is like, it is nice to have a problem that it is easy to solve. Yeah. Or I mean, I don't think that's the only thing going on in addiction, of course. But I do think that that's part of it.

And you're right about boredom. You're also just... And the lack of intense feeling, right? One thing that I like is intense feeling and I want a really... And I like purity of feeling. And if nothing else, the internet still gives me very, very intense feelings. I've been thinking about it a lot because listeners may not know this, but you do, which is that I've been quite depressed for the last couple of months. It's been interesting to see my behavior on social media be a little more self-destructive and a little less productive because I'm trying to feel something and I just everything is so grayscale Everything is so kind of like empty and like the you know The these like intense lies that my brain is telling me are so compelling about

meaninglessness and despair and everything that it really does feel like well if I go on the internet like I'll feel Something and if I post I'll feel something. And if I post, I'll feel something even more. Yeah. And then the indie star will write an article about my post. And this, and the- As if it was real instead of just me trying to feel something. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the barrier is so low, like they designed the barrier to be very low. Oh yeah. Yeah, the barrier is super low. Like within five seconds of picking up my phone, I can at least be feeling something,

starting to feel something. Yeah. This is actually what my video on Friday is about because I obviously have not struggled with depression that much, but when I was sick, I did. And that feeling of not being interested in anything and not really wanting anything and only feeling like the things that I cared the most about, I didn't even feel like I would, like if I was going to die, that would just be sort of like a negative.

Like all the things, like just being around would just be like a burden on people and it would just be like me sort of like heading into like making the people who I loved, like making their lives worse. Yeah, that's very much how I see it right now. into like making the people who I loved like making their lives worse. Yeah, that's very much how I see it right now. And and and like the, you know, obviously I used social media a lot when I was sick, like I was on Twitter a lot. And I think that that's part of it.

And then the thing that like really helped me get out of it was like working instead on private projects, working on my like stand up instead, which was like, oh, I'm like, I'm getting something out of this without it being public. And and also like I'm watching all of the stand up comedy that is like very it's like very interesting to me to figure out how these comedians are doing the work that they do to try and understand the art and the craft of it. That became interesting to me and it like was a lifeline that I just sort of held on to. And I was like, I can't let go of this thing because I actually am interested in it. And like, I'm interested in nothing else. I can't get interested in TV shows or video games. Like this is doing it for me for some reason.

And I just like held on and didn't let go. Yeah, the only thing that was providing me like that, like any interest at all, which and that's so hard. Like I had never experienced that before. Yeah, it's really I agree with you. It's really hard. And it is really I also think you make a good point that a lot of times, I feel like the way out is like rest. I need rest. But of course, I also need to be doing stuff that

brings me fulfillment and makes me feel connected and doesn't put me further and further into the place of Alone, you know deep deep aloneness. Yeah, so it's good. It's good advice as well as good sharing. So, thank you As usual, I don't remember the question that we were answering. I think they were good. I was about depression So let's go ahead and move on to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, what's going on in the world of AFC Wimbledon? Well, Hank, we've just said goodbye to our longtime striker Josh Davison, who is leaving AFC Wimbledon to play for Tranmere Rovers, which is a great football team name. But that means that we have one fewer attacking player. Lots of people are speculating that now we definitely need to sign a striker.

And why not the Montserratian Messi? Why not bring home the greatest striker of the AFC Wimbledon era, Montserrat national team player, Lyle Taylor. And I think that'd be great. He's 34 years old. He's not as young as he used to be, but then neither am I, you know? And if somebody said to me like,

John, you can't repeat the past. You can't keep pretending to be young. You can't stay on YouTube. It's a young man's game. I would say, I still got one more year in me coach. That's right. You know?, I still got one more year in me coach. That's right. You know? Mm-hmm.

And I believe that about Lyle. So, we'll see if that actually means that. We also signed a guy from Sulwhull Moors. I know. I know. He played for a team named Sulwhull Moors. They definitely name him anything. And his name is Callum Maycock.

Not Callum Wilcock and not Callum Woncock, but Callum Maycock. Maycock. Yeah. Yeah. He's 26. He's a midfielder box-to-box guy. That's what we refer to as the runners, the ones who can defend from the defensive penalty box to the front.

Gotcha. You know, attacking one. Yeah, he's Maycock box to box. Maycock box to box. Maycock box to box. That's great, Hank. He's even got a nickname already. This is wonderful. Oh, we also, our women's team signed our first player, and she is also, her name's Leanne Bell,

and she is also from the most extraordinary football club. We're only selling and buying players from hilariously named football teams. So we sold Josh Davison to Tranmere Rovers. We signed Callum Maycock from Sol Humores, and Leanne Bell comes to us from Billericae Town. Okay. Billericae. Billericae Town. Biller Bilirike. Bilirike Town.

Bilirike? I don't know. It's both ways. Yeah. So there you go. What's the news in Mars? Well, Mars recently had a big old geomagnetic storm right in the middle of May. And if that sounds familiar, it's because we also had a big old geomagnetic storm.

Right. I remember. From the same exact solar flare that caused the auroras here on Earth. It was also hitting the aurora, hitting Mars. But on Mars they do not have a magnetic field so the aurora happens everywhere on the planet. It does not get focused into the poles, it just goes all over the whole planet. And so if you missed out on the auroras on Earth, bad news, you also missed out on the auroras on Mars.

Was it a good show? Was it a good show? Good question, John, I have no idea. The spacecraft that were on Mars, we're able to measure it in various ways. But I don't know that we got any good pictures of it. Okay, well, I that we got any good pictures of it. Well, I guess we got like, I think some like very would have been pictures, given that there's so little in the way of atmosphere. Yeah, I think that that's the big problem is that there's not much atmosphere to get

more. But there's enough technically something gets borealist, not aurora. That's my own position. I think that actually, in fact, it gets aurora because there's also the- Well, but it's like how, no, no, I disagree with you because you're going to say like, oh, because there's also the southern lights and those are also borealists. They're just not aurora. But I would say that the borealis is the light part. So you're getting borealalis when you get the lights and then I would also say as a follow-up to that and this I feel

Very strongly about I know that shodden means pleasure and Freud means friend and the pleasure you see in your other friends Suffering is shodden Freude, but I still believe instead of saying that of all the Freud is Shodden is the best. I think we should say of all the shas, Schaden is the best. I think we should say of all the Schaden, Freud is the best. Yeah. No, look, sometimes we're wrong. And that's, and we just move forward being wrong and it doesn't matter. Yeah. So I'm going to, I'm going to say that it gets borealist. So did it get borealist? It did. It did. You can actually see grainy images of the barest minimum of barely being able to see

that there is a detectable change in the sky. Borealist. John, thank you for making a podcast with me. If you want to send your questions to us, it's at hankandjohn at gmail.com. Without that, we don't have a podcast. So please do that. This podcast is edited by Linus Obenhaus. It was mixed by Joseph Tunamettish. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. It was produced by Rosianna Hals-Rojas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Bradley. Our editorial assistant is Taboki Trok-Rivardi. The music you're

hearing now is the biggest podcast by The Great Gun gunnarolla and as they say in our hometown Don't forget to be awesome