[Intro music] Hank: Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John: The Special Christmas Eve edition!

John: I prefer to think of it as the Christmas Eve edition of Dear John and Hank. 

H: Ah, we-we're going to have a comedy podcast about death - and also Christmas! - in which two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, did you know that Santa Claus is from Poland?

J: I, uh, I didn't know that.

H: Yeah, he's North Polish.

J: Ugh, god.

H: Do you have good news for me?

J: [Laughs] I mean the best news is that that part of the podcast is over.

H: Wait, I got more if you want it. What happens to a cat when it eats a bunch of Christmas decorations?

J: What happens?

H: It gets tinsel-itis!

J: [Pauses] I-I don't even, that doesn't even make sense. Is tinsel-itis a cat disease I don't know about?

H: Ton-tonsillitis is a cat disease, tinsel is the stuff you put on trees?

J: Oh. Yeah, no that's... that's good. Do you have a third? Because they're getting worse by the joke.

H: Yeah, sure! This one's even, this one's way worse. Why did, uh, Santa's helpers feel so sad?

J: Uhh, because they were elv-v-vis was dead?

H: [Laughing] Yeah, he had, he just had the, he had low elf-esteem.

J: Ha-ha, actually that one is great!

H: [Laughs] Okay, well we brought him around everybody.

J: Low elf-esteem! How could you think that was your third-best Christmas joke when that was overwhelmingly your best Christmas joke?

H: Alright.

J: Hank, I do have some good news.

H: [calmly] Okay.

J: It's Christmas Eve as we're uploading this and you know, of course, what that means. Aside from all of the religious and secular implications, the gift-giving, the trees, the what-not, most importantly, it is the 476th anniversary of Sir Isaac Newton's birth.

H: Oh. That is, I'm so happy.

H: Thank you -

J: He gave us gravity, Hank.

H: Can I send a -

J: He gave us gravity.

H: Thank you for creating gravity. Without you, none of this stuff on my desk would stay there, I'd have to have special bulbs to drink out of, peeing would be a complete disaster every day.

J: I think peeing would be hilarious, actually.

H: [Laughing] No, it'd be a disaster!

J: You could just pee in any direction that you wanted to and it would just go forever.

J: Speaking of which, Hank, we gotta get to our first question.

H: Already.

J: Which comes from my son Henry. 

H: Okay. 

J: Henry has requested that we answer his question. 

H: Is it a Christmas question? 

J: Uhhhh...

H: Can you make it Christmas question?

J: I mean in a roundabout way. In a roundabout way.

H: Can you modify it to be Christmas-y, or Isaac Newton-y. Either of those. 

J: Alright. Well it's very Isaac Newton-y, but I'm going to make it Isaac Newton-y and Christmas-y. Are you ready? 

H: Excellent.

J: Alright, Hank. This question is from Henry. What would happen if Santa Claus fired a gun in space?

H: [Laughs] Is it a Christmas gun? 

J: It's a Christmas gun.

H: The answer, John, is that if Space Santa fires a Christmas gun in space, it's just like the same as, uh, as anything else except that, uh, that Space Santa will be pushed backwards?

J: Right.

H: In the same amount that Space Santa would be pushed backwards by firing a gun on Earth, uh, it's just that there would be nothing to stop, like he wouldn't have any way of stopping himself so that he wouldn't move backward as the bullet moved forward, um, and yeah.

J: But more than moving backward, wouldn't he sort of begin to like spin?

H: He probably- yes.

J: Like begin to do flips?

H: Yeah.

J: Like because it's happening toward the top of his body.

H: Sure.

J: Which I would think would lead to some flips. So he'd be kind of flipping backwards in the reverse direction [Hank murmurs agreement] of the gunshot and then the bullet would be, I assume, moving in the direction in which you fired it.

H: Yep.

J: Either, until it hit, say, Jupiter or the Sun.

H: No.

J: Or, until the end of all time.

H: [Laughs] Uh, no. I mean if you fired it directly out away from Planet Earth.

J: Yeah.

H: It might not even escape the gravity of the planet.

H: It would probably - so I mean orbital mechanics are really weird, John. So you'd think that if you're in space, like I'm assuming that Santa is in orbit around Earth. Am I correct about that?

J: No, no no no no. That is incorrect.

H: Oh, okay.

J: Santa is not in near-Earth orbit. 

H: Okay.

J: I will read you the question again. I'm sorry that there seems to have been some confusion about this, [Hank Laughs] but the question's like nine words long. "What would happen if Santa fired a Christmas gun in space?"

H: [Laughing] Okay.

J: Not in near-Earth orbit, not from the International Space Station.

H: O-kay.

J: In space. Halfway to Mars. I think that Santa shoots that gun.

H: Well, even if you're... Okay.

J: The bullet would go for a long time in the direction in which it was shot, [Hank Laughs] unless it ended up in like orbit of Earth or orbit of the Sun or orbit of Jupiter or something in which case like one of those gravity wells would eventually probably suck it in or else it would just be in the Sun's orbit forever? In which case it would kind of be another planet? 

H: Well, no it would just be like one of a number of other little pieces of space dust out there.

J: I would like to think of it as our smallest planet.

H: Just a whole civilization on it. 

J: It's got it's own tiny

H: Christ-

J: We have- we have a tiny. [Both laugh] I'm very fond of the idea that somewhere there might be a bullet orbiting the sun forever that's like an inch long and about like half an inch in diameter that contains a tiny little civilization. 

H: Right, and it's always Christmas 'cause it was fired from a Christmas gun. 

J: That's right! And probably because of the weirdness of spacetime, the way that it's traveling through space makes it so that it's perpetually Christmas, and it's called Christmasland. And it's a bullet in orbit around the sun. 

H: Yeah.

J: It's our fifth planet. It's between Mars and the next one. 

H: The big - I mean I feel like the big question here is how, so like, when you burn stuff on Earth you need oxygen.

J: Yup.

H: But, but for gunpowder to go off you don't that because the oxygen is built in. That's what makes it gunpowder, uh [Johns murmurs] is that it has a lot of oxidizer inside. It's built in when we talk about these, uh, these explosive compounds. They often have, like, lots of oxygen in the compounds and that makes them able to self-oxidize. So, we don't need atmosphere to shoot a gun. You can do it in space. Uh, it's probably, in general, not recommended, uh, because you might hit a space station or something and that would be bad but in a very particular circumstance you can create a perpetual Christmas civilization that orbits the sun or possibly just shoots out forever and ever.

J: Alright Hank I think we've address that one, let's move on. 

H: Okay. This next question, uh, comes from Leah (sp?) who asks, "Dear Hank and John, it is December and I love my neighborhood during this time of the year. Most houses on my street put up pretty decorations for the holidays except that one that's two houses from the end still has this scarecrow with a joker mask that was awesome at Halloween but now it's a week from Christmas. I walk past this thing every day on the way to school and I just want it to be gone! This house even has Christmas decorations up but they refuse to get rid of the Joker scarecrow." Wait, isn't that two different Batman villains? I'm confused. "What do I do? Do I put a note on their door?" No. [Laughing] No! "Do I move? Do I sneakily put a Santa hat on it at night?" Ye-e-e-s. "Please help. Seeya, Leah."

J: Yeah I think you just put a Santa hat on them and then you call it Christmas-y. If it's still there in February you have reason to be concerned. 

H: Right. My neighborhood is not into Christmas decorations? Which really, I don't like, uh, and I recently put the lights up on our house and my across-the-street neighbor came up to me and she was like, "I just want to say thank you so much for putting Christmas lights on your house. We're kind of too old to do that now, it's a lot of work and it's cold out, but it's really nice to see someone go through a little bit of effort." 

H: And I was like, it was a little bit. You know, like not a lot of effort was had. 

J: Eh, I don't know.

H: So it was nice to be appreciated. 

J: I personally don't set up Christmas lights because I'm not trying to call attention to myself, but you do you Hank.

H: [Laughs] It's like, Christmas lights?! That's like, that's like wearing Gucci slides to work.

J: [Deadpan] Exactly.

H: I'm not trying, not trying to call attention to myself.

J: No need to brag. [Hank laughs] You can afford lights, fancy pants. Can just light up outside for no dang reason other than to make people happy. 

H: Uh, I like a, I like Christmas lights so much. 

J: Well... I... think that's great and I support you a hundred percent, I just don't want to do it myself. [Hank laughs]

J: Okay Hank, this next question comes from Liz, who writes, "Dear Green Brothers, if I die here in line for the Christmas special edition of Pirates of the Caribbean, and they prep my body for Davy Jones's locker, will they take my contacts out? Will they even check to see if I'm wearing contacts? Liz."

H: That's- Liz I have a story, t-t-to answer your question with.

J: Great.

H: S-so-so okay. There's this couple, um, they've gone to visit Saint Petersburg in Russia on Christmas Eve.

J: Yeah.

H: And they - it starts to like - that way that it does when it like - it's raining but is it snowing or is it raining and it's a little bit in between-y?

J: Wintry mix.

H: Yeah, it's a wintry mix and the guy says, "I think it's raining." And the woman says, "No, no I think this is snow." And, but they're not from there so they decide to ask the uh, the Communist officer who's, who's uh nearby. The guy who's you know, sort of, like, on guard. And uh, and the guy says, "Hey, uh officer. Uh, what's your name?" And the guy says, "I'm Officer Rudolph." And then they say, "Is this rain or is it snow?" And then Officer Rudolph says it is definitely raining and then he just walks off. And then the man turns to his wife and says, "See? Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear." 

J: Ughh. There's so much that I don't like about that joke, but if you don't mind I'd like to highlight a few of my favorite parts. [Hank laughs] My favorite part of the joke that you just told is that it was ostensibly set in Saint Petersburg during the, I guess, during when the Communist Party led the USSR. 

H: Sure, yes.

J: At which time Saint Petersburg was not known as Saint Petersburg, it was known as Leningrad.

H: [Laughing] Not my best work.

J: That's my favorite thing about-

H: Thanks for the- Thanks for the correction.

J: That's the best part of the joke. 

H: We're workshopping it.

J: The other parts of it were all very unfunny. [Hank gives a full-bellied laugh] But the part where you didn't know the name of Leningrad was pretty good. 

H: So you're saying that they're not communist in Russia anymore. 

J: Oh, no. No.

H: What is it then?

J: Uh, it's totalitarian-igarchy.

H: [Laughing] Totali- yeah. Hey.

J: It's-it's great, Hank. We should really adopt it here. And indeed, some would argue that we are in the process of adopting it. Liz, let me answer your question. If you get an autopsy, they definitely take out your contacts. That's part of the autopsy process. If you don't...

H: Why do you know this?

J: Ugh. You know, Hank, I just, I know a lot about being dead. I spend a lot of time thinking about it.

H: Okay.

J: I don't understand why other people don't spend a lot of time thinking about death. It's a big deal.

H: You're right, it is a big deal, but I don't wear contacts. [chuckles]

J: [Laughs heartily] Sure, neither do I, but you know, idle curiosity will take you in weird places. [Hank chuckles again] Liz, I don't know if they're going to take out your contacts, but I do know that you put it in your will-

H: Oh!

J: - that you want your contacts taken out, they definitely will do that. So put it in your will!

H: Hehehe! You can tell them what to do!

J: Yeah.

H: So I do need a will, so I can tell them not to bury me without my glasses.

J: Oh my god.

H: 'Cause I want to see stuff and I want to look normal. I want you- put me in my normal clothes, and in my jammie pants and my hoodie and my glasses.

J: Please tell me that you're kidding and you have a will.

H: I... went to see them, and I had a meeting-

J: Oh my god.

H: - and we talked about it and then... I'm working on it. It was like a year and a half ago. 

J: Okay.

H: I'm not working on it.

J: You're not working on it, because if there's one thing I know about Hank Green, if he starts something, within a year and a half, it's finished.

H: It's either finished or not gonna get done. 

J: Yeah, Hank, you need a will. I mean, Liz needs a will. But you really need a will. 

H: [Chuckles] Thanks, John.

J: Because not having a will, is going to be a tremendous inconvenience to me if you die.

H: Yeah...

J: 'Cause like I am going to have a huge problem. Think about me, [Hank exhales forcefully] the most important person in the universe.

H: That's uh, that's motivating. You know, like the, honestly like I feel like most people I know could like handle it, figure it out, but now that I'm thinking about you trying to handle it and figure it out? You're right, I do need to give you some guidance. I don't want to cause you more stress than necessary.

J: [Chuckles] I mean, I would take that personally, but [Hank laughs] you're right.

H: Okay John, we have another question. This one comes from Blitzen who asks, "What do Christmas and a cat in the desert have in common?"

J: Sigh. What?

H: Sandy claws. 

J: Eughh. I mean, it's so much better than that Rudolph joke, that's it's

H: [Laughs] Yeah, it's, you gotta bring it down so you can bring it back up.

J: It's hard to get mad at you. This next question comes from Kylie, who says, "Dear John and Hank, I met my best friend's new boyfriend recently. His name is Isaac Newton. She's crazy about him, [Hank laughs] and he seems like a good guy, but when my friend and I left the room and I came back to the living room first, I saw him spitting in my friend's fish tank. [Hank starts laughing hysterically] I asked what he was doing and he said that it was an accident but I don't know how you can accidentally spit into a fish tank.

H: What is it an accident? Well the good-

J: "Should I tell my friend? It's been a week, and I have no idea how to bring it up. Kylie."

H: The amazing news is at least he's a terrible liar-

J: laughs

H: - like, that's always a good thing to have in a boyfriend. You know? Like, you're like, "what are you doing?" and he's like "zphb-it's an accident! ... I don't know I was walking by the fish tank and I accidentally stopped and very deliberately dribbled my spit out into the fish - " No, look, Isaac was just trying to get the fish to eat his spit, which is a thing you do when you're nine -

J: I know exactly what happened

H: and then Isaac grew up and hadn't done it in a while and was like, "Ah, I should try that again." It's fine.

J: Yes, that is exactly what happened, like, Isaac probably fishes, and Isaac, when fishing, often like, spits into the lake and notices that sometimes fish come up to the surface to try to eat what they initially think is food and then quickly realize is human spit. That is what was happening. Isaac is not being, like, a complete weirdo -

H: [Laughs] It's a little, yeah.

J: It's a little weird, but it's not, like, cause for alarm, and Kylie, I think you need to keep this one to yourself -

H: laughs

J: - If I'm being perfectly honest, I think... I'm imagining that Kylie - look, Kylie, if you're 32 years old, or 70, then yeah maybe bring it up. But, like, if you're 15, I think I might have done that when I was 15 and over at...

H: Yeah, totally. 

J: someone's house. I was gonna say over at my girlfriend's house, but I didn't have a girlfriend, so -

H: Sure

J: So over at a buddy's house. I think you need to hold onto this one and then maybe bring it out when they're getting married at the wedding toast.

H: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is a good one for the back pocket, like, just in case-ies. I don't know what that case-ie is but it might be out there somewhere.

J: The other time when you might want to use it, is like, when Isaac completely breaks your best friends heart and you're like listen, I know it sucks that you broke up with Isaac, he's a good guy and everything, and I'm sorry he dumped you, but, uh - 

H: born on Christmas, calculus and all that

J: Yeah, discovered gravity, etc

J: ...but he spit in your fishtank.

H: I saw it. I saw it happen.

J: And then he said it was an accident. Which is just clearly untrue.

H: [Laughing] Just such a bad lie! Oh god.

J: It's such a fifteen-year-old lie though, like I, I feel myself being fifteen and doing something really embarassing and just being like "It was an accident! I don't know- How did I get here? What- who- ah I don't know!" 

H: I blacked out! I don't know!

J: [Laughing] Yeah.

H: I have a - it just happens sometimes to me. I'm sorry.

J: It's not an embarassing- it's an embarassing thing to get caught for. It's not as embarassing as like, a lot of things that you could-

H: Sure.

J: - get caught for, you know?

H: That's true. That's absolutely true. Alright, John. This next question comes from Ash who asks, "Dear Hank and John, I'm testing for my driver's license fairly soon, and-"

J: Oh thank god, does that mean that the Christmas jokes are over?

H: [Laughing] I mean, who knows? "And as a Christmas gift from some relatives I was given a copy of the official Florida Drivers Handbook." It's actually a birthday gift, but we're changing it. 

J: Yeah.

H: "This was very nice and all, but there's one problem. I don't live in Florida. I don't even live near Florida, and neither do the relatives who gave me that handbook. I really appreciate them thinking about me, but I don't know what to do with this driver's handbook that doesn't contain information that is relevant to the state in which I live. What do I do with it? Dubious advice is always appreciated. Not from a fireplace, Ash."

J: I actually know the answer to this. Do you know this?

H: Oh, absolutely not.

J: Okay, so. The state of Florida's drivers manual is like the national drivers manual. 

H: Oooh.

J: Like it is the equivalent of passing the California bar. So, if you study and memorize the state of Florida's rules, those rules apply in every other state. So that's why they gave you the Florida state one.

H: Mmm! Weird. I-

j: I just made that up. 

H: Oh god, I was so on board. [John laughs] 

H: Gh-dangit! Speakin'- you're so credible, and - ah god, I like pride myself on doing that to other people and then I hate it when people do it to me. 

J: Just remember. Sounding credible is not the same thing as being credible. It's a lesson, Hank. It's a lesson.

H: [Sighs] We have learned an important lesson and I don't think I, at this point, care about what you do with your drivers license handbook. Let's just move on. I'm mad.

J: Okay, Hank. This question comes from Mariah who asks, "Dear John and Hank, as an avid fan of Timothée Chalamet, I take offense to the joke of breaking up with him. I do not know how anyone can even think of getting out of a relationship with Timothée Chalamet because he is so precious and talented and amazing." I should add, Hank, that this was one of about a hundred emails [Hank laughs] that were broadly on this topic, but this was the most impassioned one. "As I am pondering over the brilliance of Timothée Chalamet- I cannot get over his astounding performance in Call Me by Your Name and Lady Bird- I thought about why humans have the tendency to put people they admire on golden pedestals. Why do we do it? What do we get from it? Is it wrong, or does it have its advantages? And if it is unhealthy, how do I stop doing it to people who clearly have flaws and make mistakes, just like I do? People who aren't Timothée Chalamet. All I want for Christmas is answers, Mariah."

H: You really brought it around there, 'Riah, through your question starting out at, like uh, being pretty defensive of Timothée Chalamet and then, and then realizing maybe that there was some more complexity to it than that. I, uh, myself have never been in a romantic relationship with Timothée Chalamet, so I don't really know what it's like, uh, and I probably won't ever, is my guess? 

J: I mean, Hank, you know what? Don't give up.

H: Have you ever been in a relationship with Timothée Chalamet?

J: Well no, not yet, but I'm not willing to close the door on it completely. [Hank laughs] He's incredibly handsome and talented. I mean, who knows what the future holds for me or Timothée Chalamet? 

H: I mean that's right. 

H: Why close any door that doesn't need to be closed.

J: No, I mean there's a few people I'll close the door on. I'm not gonna have a relationship with Bob Barker.

H: [Laughs] Well, you found one. That's good. John, why do we put people on golden pedestals. And where do we get the golden pedestals? And why don't we melt them down for more useful uses.

J: [Chuckling] Yeah, so that, uh, rich people can collect them in bars? [Hank laughs] I think we put people on golden pedestals because there is this natural- I, I remember- I-I don't know the answer to your question, Hank- but I remember when I first started to feel like a lot of people, especially young people, were looking up to me, and when I started to get a lot of fanmail and stuff like that, right around the time that Paper Towns came out in 2008, I remember trying desperately everywhere I went to say, "We have to imagine other people complexly!" And I was talking about the theme of Paper Towns, but I was really talking about me, right? Like I was also talking about like, I desperately wanted people to see me a-a-as a person, and not to have like a set of expectations for me that were different from the set of expectations they might have for anyone else. [Hank murmurs in approval.] You know, I didn't want them to see me as uh, some larger than life figure. And I remember I was talking about this with my therapist, and my therapist was like, "Yeah, but they're gonna." [Hank murmurs again] Because you can't, you can't remain on that same person-to-person scale when a lot of people are paying attention to your work, and that's just reality. And denying that reality, which is what I tried to do for a long time, didn't do me any favors. And I also think, ultimately, didn't do my audience, you know, any favors. So, I don't know if it's natural, but it's definitely been part of the human story for a really long time. Like it's older than our ideas about celebrity. 

H: Yeah.

J: Like definitely, the celebrity worship in contemporary culture is a fairly new phenomenon, but I think the underpinnings of it are not- are not that new.

H: Right. It's ti-

J: Like there have been famous people and powerful people for a long time.

H: Mmhmm. It's tapping into something that, that is human, I think.

J: Yeah.

H: And, and I also think that it is sometimes tapping into it in very intentional ways, and sometimes in unintentional ways. So sometimes this happens as a side-effect, and sometimes it is done to us on purpose, with the goal of, you know, exploiting that feeling. And I don't think that Timothée Chalamet is doing that. I think that some people are. And I think that a lot of times people, you know, obviously I thought a lot about this because it's in many ways what the book I wrote is about, um, like how do you decide what your resonant attributes will be? And, and like sort of put them out there over and over again into the world and be like, "Here is me, the simple version of me that you can latch onto and understand as a person who is exposed to lots of different celebrities. Here is how I fit into the sort of like celebrity pantheon. And-and-and, here is the stories that I want told about me." And there are like, literally entirely industries of professionals who help make that happen. And it's weird.

J: It is super weird. It is. I have- I have been fairly near the center of it at times in my professional life. And the closer to the center of it you are, the weirder, and on some level more sickening, it is. The other thing about it though is it almost creates this sort of dichotomy where people are either talked about as like gods, or literal gods, or like whatever, or they're talked about as trash, or literal trash, or whatever.

H: Mhmm. Yeah.

J: And so, you make the journey from god to piece of trash so quickly that it's very dizzying when you're inside of it. And it's also like super, super hurtful.

J: Because the more people build you up, the more you start to believe that and sort of depend on that for your self-esteem. And then, when you turn out to be a complicated person, or you make a lot of missteps and you make a lot of mistakes, [Hank murmurs] maybe you aren't as worthy of the platform that you've been given as you wish you were, or as, you know, as someone else might be, then people start to say, "Well, that person is complete trash." And you know, I always feel bad for those people. I understand that there are much bigger problems in the world, but I always feel really bad for those people. Because even for those people who I do not feel have used their platform well, I don't think that they're trash. I think that they're human. And our kinda inability to see famous people or successful people as human is-is-is kind of problematic. But on the other hand the famous people and the successful people and all of the people who feed off of them, they depend upon that culture, because being famous and successful allows them to generate lots of revenue for yourself and for big corporations.

H: John, you know that reminds me of like, the fact that, uh, Christmas trees are actually really bad at knitting.

J: Why are they bad at knitting, Hank?

H: 'Cause they always drop their needles.

J: [Chuckles] They're all so much better than [Hank joins in] the reindeer in Leningrad joke. I'm enjoying all of them.

H: This next question comes from Owen, who asks, "Dear Hank and John, mornings are hard. How can I get better at mornings? Like for example, Christmas morning is also a morning. Thanks! Owen." 

J: Owen, you've got to treat every morning like it's Christmas morning. 

H: That's right.

J: Like, how do you feel on Christmas morning? You're like, "I can't wait to get out of bed and see what's in my stocking." I want you to bring that emotion to every morning, and then, but no stocking.

H: Right, so what you got- well or, yes stocking. [John gasps] Yes stocking.

J: Yes stocking.

H: Okay. Here's what you gotta do.