[intro music from Gunnarolla]

H: Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John!

J: Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank. I can't believe that my audio didn't record for the last hour so you didn't get any of the magic that we made.

H: ...it's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Again! 

J: You shoulda heard the first time. It was so good.

H: I bet it's gonna be even better. This is the difference between us. I'm like, "We're gonna knock it out of the park, now. We're all loose. We're gonna find ways to make those jokes, but faster and funnier."

J: [unenthusiastic] Great.

H: For example, John. Did you know that the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.... you haven't heard this one before, have you?

J: [chuckling] I haven't, no. It's all new to me.

H: Was the first nonhuman to ever win an Oscar? 'Cause the Academy Awards are, of course, coming up, John. Did you know that?

J: I did not know that.

H: Yeah, he was really outstanding in his field. But then he decided to not be anymore and he got himself a brain and now he's got a podcast... where he does true crime.

J: [laughing] Where he does true crime. It's all bird-related. His obsession is with... the crimes that birds commit against crops... and scarecrows. Yeah.

H: Yeah.

J: Yeah. What's it called?

H: Maybe he's a bird conspiracy theorist. Maybe he's that guy that doesn't think birds exist. On Instagram.

J: Birds aren't real. Trust me. I'm.... a scarecrow.

H: [laughing] The Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.

J: I've seen 'em up close.

H: Yeah.

J: What would it be like to be a bird? Anyway, let's answer some questions.

H: [overlapping] What would it be like to be a scarecrow? No one knows. John, no. First I have to ask you a question.

J: Oh sure, of course.

H: How are your Project for Awesome perks going?

J: Oh yeah! The Project for Awesome just happened! We raised over $3 million for charity. Thank you to everybody who donated. We're so grateful. And it was just an amazing, amazing weekend. I am still tired. I have not fully recovered. I think Hank is fully recovered. But he is younger than I am.

H: [laughs] I was way, way more tired this year than... it's definitely catching up to me. Like, it's not as easy as it used to be. [laughs] To stay up real late. So we didn't have an episode last week. It's because we were sleeping the day that we normally record that because it was the Monday after the P4A. And I slept more than I have slept in years. I slept for, like, 11 hours straight. It was wild.

J: Wow. That probably would've done me well. I didn't sleep late. I got up and took Henry to school at 6:40 in the morning. So maybe that's part of why I'm still tired. But my perks are goin' fine. They're goin' great. I am making all of these pieces of pottery that people bought. And I've made about 20 of the 60 that I have to make. Although some will no doubt blow up in the kiln when I fire them. And so I'll have to make more than 60. But yeah, it's going alright so far. How about you?

H: It's good. I made a huge miscalculation but thankfully Katherine saved me. I thought I was going to make 800 of these hanklerfish things on tiny canvases. And I probably could've pulled that off. But I did not realize that every single one of the tiny canvases would be -- in order to protect the canvas -- individually shrink-wrapped. 

J: Oh no.

H: So the process of... I mean, I've started the hanklerfish but I have no unwrapped all of the canvases yet.

J: Right, like that becomes half the work.

H: It's soooo... it involves a knife, so I have to be careful. But I'm trying' to, like, listen to a podcast or something and my brain's just, like... flow state. But then, like, disconnected and I can't... oh my god, it's draining. But it is what it is. Doin' the work! I'd rather be making the art but instead I am unwrapping canvases.

J:  Which is part of making the art, right? Like, normalize process as part of creation.

H: Mmhm.

J: Normalize process! This first question comes from Lily, who writes:
Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!
Do mouse burp?
H: John, I'm glad that you asked this question a second time. [laughs]

J: [laughs] That was the... I read the question word for word.

H: That is what it says.

J: Do mouse burp?

H: [very fast] Hi!Hi!Hi!Hi!Hi!Hi!Hi!Hi!Hi!Hi!Hi!Hi! Do mouse burp? 

J: Do mouse burp?

H: [normal speed] Well, there is a... so, I looked this up. And Deboki and I both went all over the internet trying to find the answer to this question. There is misinformation about this. Which is that if you feed mice baking soda or just, like, Coca Cola, that they will die because they can neither burp nor fart. So the gas just builds up inside of them.

J: You just fill 'em up.

H: This is not true. They can definitely fart. It doesn't make any sense that they wouldn't be able to fart. If you can get-- 

J: Poop outta there, you can get air of there.

H: --solids out of your... yeah, exactly. So. But. But! Maybe? I couldn't quite get to the bottom of this. Maybe mice and rats can't puke? Which might also mean that they can't burp, if that's a similar brain thing or a similar physiological thing that their mouth is a one-way hole. But I... I dunno.

J: You couldn't find evidence either way.

H: It seems to be a thing that we literally do not know about the world. Among the many things that we do not understand about mice, one of them is... and how would you even measure it? How would you tell? Like, maybe there's a really little burp. Like, how would you know?

J: You'd have to ask. And this is part of the problem, right? 

H: [softly, almost to himself] You can't ask...
J: The hard thing... I mean, I'm more like a mouse, Hank. Than I am like almost any other creature on Earth, right? Like, over 90% of Earth by biomass is plant or bacteria. I'm not very much like a fern. I'm not very much like... e. Coli.

H: No, you're much more like a mouse.

J: Even after you get to all that stuff, right? Like, almost all of life is not animals, and then almost all the animals are insects. You gotta go so far down the line to get to the differences between me and a mouse.