Hank: Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

John: Of course, I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank.

Hank: It's a comedy podcast where Hank Green, who is me, and John Green, who is my brother, give you dubious advice, answer your questions, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. That's true.

John: How are you, Hank?

Hank: I'm good. Oh, man. My hair is out of control and I can't find a time to get a haircut. It's a disaster, John.

It's so hard to be me.

John: Haven't you gotten to a point in your life where you can just call someone and have them cut your hair while you work? 

Hank: I had not thought of that. I imagine that's how the President does it.

John: That's exactly how the President does it. He's like on the phone with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the Prime Minister's like, I'm sorry, is there some background noise? And he's like, oh, no, I'm just getting a haircut.

Hank: Yeah, I actually went to see the President, you may remember, not to brag or anything. But I was getting my makeup done by his personal makeup. person, and I asked her, you know, what is it like to cut the President's hair? And she was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I do not. I do not cut the President's hair.

He has a barber. So it's two separate people.

John: So he has two people. He has a hair person and a makeup person. Yes.

Hank: And the hair person comes into the White House and cuts his hair. As far as I know, in the Oval Office. So apparently, if you just look at the carpet of the Oval Office, there's hairs from every president. They have never replaced the carpet.

John: That's amazing. Nor have they ever vacuumed it, apparently. Well, I mean, since you brought up the fact that you met the president, Hank, as we are recording this podcast, I am hours away from what could be the most wonderful moment of my entire life. Of course, I have two beautiful children.

I had a wonderful wedding day. Going to your wedding was one of the highlights of my life. I've had so many great days, the premiere of the Fault in Our Stars movie and the premiere of.

Paper Towns, both wonderful nights. But tonight, Hank, here in Indianapolis, I have to tell you, Hank, there's maybe eight or nine properly beautiful days a year. It's usually a little too cold or a little too hot or a lot too cold or raining.

But today, the sky is a cloudless blue, the temperature could be no warmer or colder and be more beautiful. It is just absolutely perfect. And do you want to know why Indianapolis has chosen today to bring out its best self?

Hank: Yes, John, I do.

John: It's because Taylor Swift is coming to town. Taylor Swift is here tonight. And Hank, I may meet her.

Hank: Oh, like you're going to a Taylor Swift concert and you will watch her and yell, Taylor! And then she'll look in your direction?

John: No, no, no. I mean, I am going to go to a Taylor Swift concert and watch her and yell, Taylor! By all means. But also, I may meet her.

Oh, wow.

Hank: Is she going to bring you up on stage to sing a song with her?

John: I sincerely hope not, as my brother. You are well aware that when I am brought up on stage. by musicians to sing along, I perform poorly. Hank always kindly has me come out for the encores when I'm when we're doing shows together and oh my god I'm just the worst. Am I not?

Hank: You're not great at singing. It's kind of remarkable. and the funny thing is you're always like. no it was I did the thing and I'm like. well you did the thing. you just didn't sing any of the right notes and and you think you do it was just fine. and like it's it's fine to You know, to not have one of a million skills that humans are capable of having.

John: You know, like all novelists, I desperately wish to be a rock star. It is true that I can't sing, but I do genuinely believe that when we sung that song, New York City by They Might Be Giants, at Carnegie Hall and I sung the Statue of Liberty Staten Island Ferry part. I truly believe I was on key. Was I not on key that night?

Your silence has broken my heart.

Hank: Yes, you were. You were on key.

John: Are you lying to me?

Hank: Is it okay for me to? lie to you in certain circumstances?

John: No, just tell me the truth. Just tell me the truth.

Hank: I can handle it. You weren't on key. No.

John: Oh, that's devastating. I can't believe you told me that. I specifically asked you never to tell me that. Hank, I do not know the details, but believe you me on next week's Dear John and Hank, you will hear about them.

You will hear about them in excruciating detail. I don't even know for sure that I'm going to get to meet Ms. Swift, but regardless, I am going to enjoy the concert because, as you know, I am a massive fan of 1989, both the year and the pop album, and I am just so So freaking excited.

I am over the moon. I would like to thank Taylor, by the way, for making room at her concert for me in advance. And not to hijack the whole podcast, but there is also other news in my life that I would like to share with you, which is that I have gone on a social media hiatus.

I've stuffed up the posting on the Tumblrs and the Twitters and the Facebooks. So the only thing I'm really doing WorkWise, Social MediaWise, is Vlogbrothers videos on Tuesdays, and then Dear Hank and John, our comedy podcast. And it's so that I can write a novel.

And I'm only two days in so far, but I have to say it's kind of great.

Hank: Well, I've identified a problem with your two pieces of news, which is that you will meet Taylor Swift and not be able to do anything with that. You have to snap that, John.

John: It turns out that you don't have to mediate experiences through social media in order for them to have really happened. That said, I suspect that if I do meet Ms. Swift that I may Instagram that event. But we'll see.

Life is long and who knows. But I'm really enjoying my social media hiatus because I have missed writing so much. It's been so long since I've Had two or three writing days in a row like the two or three that I've had here and obviously you need You know a couple hundred of those to write a novel. but um, but yeah, I'm feeling I'm feeling excited.

Hank: good Well in in among your social. media hiatus I will say that I am Hank GRE on snapchat Hank Green on Instagram Hank Green on Twitter and and and right here at Dear Hank and John on iTunes. So if you'd like to follow me I will not be taking a social media hiatus. Oh, and Edward Spoonhands on Tumblr. And I'll be making all kinds of interesting and well-composed, filtered pictures of my dinner.

And don't you want to see that? Follow me. Snapchat.

John: I don't understand your obsession with Snapchat. You really seem to believe that Snapchat is going to be the thing that breaks you out. of your cult following into the proper mainstream success that like you'll be on The Tonight Show or whatever and Jimmy Fallon or I literally don't know who hosts The Tonight Show so I hope it's Jimmy Fallon but whoever hosts The Tonight Show will be like. so Hank you know you had a big following on the YouTube and of course a big hit comedy podcast that was full of ruminations about death and Mars but it wasn't really until your Snapchat hit it big that the world knew about you.

Hank: So John the thing is. that the only following worth having is a cult following because...

John: Oh, I could not agree more.

Hank: Yeah, like mainstream success is just really unpleasant. So Snapchat is very good at cultivating that cult following. And it's just, you know, it's just a couple tens of thousands of people. Yeah, it's just, it's a nice place.

John: Now that you've explained it that way, I realized that I was completely wrong and I apologize. Speaking of which, before we get to the questions, Hank, we need to apologize to our listeners. who like Mario Kart characters other than Luigi and Donkey Kong.

Hank: There was a substantial amount of controversy about that. Also, we spent a lot of time talking about it. So let's spend a little more time talking about it.

John: People were tremendously angry and hurt by the way that we dismissed the likes of Yoshi, Princess Peach and even Bowser. And I would just like to state for the record that, you know, I am a novelist. Hank is whatever Hank does. Like, we are not professional Mario Kart players.

And I apologize for giving advice as if I were an expert.

Hank: Also, as if we were, just to. be clear, talking about Mario Kart circa N64.

John: Yeah, I mean, I was talking about the Super Mario Kart that I played on a yellow couch in 1994 when there was no. 

Hank: But John, wait! Don't you have to read us a poem?

John: So Hank, you'll recall last week's short poem was by William Carlos Williams, who was a physician, often wrote very short poems on the back of prescription pads. This is just to say I've eaten the plums that were in the icebox, etc. Well, this is a slightly longer poem that I really enjoy. It's by Kenneth Koch, often associated with the beat movement.

Somewhat unfairly, I think. But anyway, moving on. It's called Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams.

I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer. I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do, and its wooden beams were so inviting. We laughed at the Hollyhocks together, and then I sprayed them with lye.

Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing. I gave away the money that you'd been saving to live on for the next ten. years.

The man who asked for it was shabby, and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold. Last evening, we went dancing, and I broke your leg. Forgive me.

I was clumsy, and I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor. Variations on a theme by William Carlos Williams, from Kenneth Cox, that poem's from 1962, and one of my absolute favorites. 

Hank: That's nice, John, I liked it.

John: I knew I could find a poem you would like if I tried hard enough.

Hank: I'm coming around, I'm coming around. I don't know that you're going to sway me into becoming a hardcore AF Wimbledon fan, but you may yet make me enjoy poetry. We have a question, John! This question is from anonymous who asks, Dear Hank and John, I have a very annoying housemate.

She doesn't do her part of chores unless someone tells her she doesn't have a job, so her parents pay her rent, but she still gets money from the government and yet she can't pay her bills on time. She just sits around all day watching TV or singing. How can I get her to do? her jobs and pay her bills and generally be a better housemate without sounding like her mother when I ask her to do these things?

Oh goodness. Oh goodness.

John: Well, having been that housemate, I feel like I'm a bit of an expert in this. So for many years, I lived with my best friend Shannon James in the great city of Chicago. Shannon and I are still extremely close friends. In fact, she's visiting this weekend.

I was a very messy person. I mean, I have I have obsessive compulsive disorder. And so I have like some weird compulsions that in general make it difficult to live with me.

But but also like I'm just not a very clean person. And for many years, I didn't recognize what messiness was. So I would be like sitting watching TV or playing Super Mario Kart or whatever.

And Shannon would be like, is there any way that you could pick up? And I would be like, I would look around and I would be like, oh, no, everything's good here. I don't know what you're talking about.

And she would be like, well, your pants are currently on the coffee table. and that's not ideal. And also, there's 17 cans of wild cherry diet Pepsi on the living room table, as you might notice. And I would be like, oh, that stuff!

And slowly, over the course of many years, Shannon trained me to have a better understanding of what messiness is. But that was an act of extraordinary generosity and love between two absolute best friends. This person doesn't sound like your best friend.

You should just kick her out.

Hank: Yeah, this person, in fact, it sounds a little bit to me like you sort of waver in this question between being like, this person, we need to come to a better understanding and insulting the person, which makes me feel like you have a bad relationship with the person.

John: Yeah, I would just go ahead and sever the housemate-ness. There's a bunch of people out there looking for roommates.

Hank: Yeah, if that's an option. I mean, the other thing to remember is that a lot of times what this activity comes from, and I also suffer from messiness, blindness, the way that John does, which is a struggle for Katherine, and she has also lovingly trained me to understand. what messy is. Oftentimes, I had a roommate that was a lot like this and it turned out that he was, you know, struggling a lot with depression. And that can be, you know, like that's a, you know, unemployment is a symptom of depression.

You know, not doing things is a symptom of depression. And, you know, not taking care of... Thanks for watching!

And try and have that structure be the boss and not you. Because one of the great allies of mental stability is structure. And if you can create that and have it be something that this person doesn't feel like they have an option to avoid, then they won't avoid it.

They will do it. But that might mean being a little bit of a mom. or someone has to be the authority in that case and if it's the kind of thing that this person is going to be like you can't be the boss of me then you know maybe you find a different place or they find a different place. however it's set up. whoever's the person on the lease is going to have to make that call in the end yeah.

John: I agree with you. I kind of feel like If you can't have open lines of communication in a roommate relationship, it gets dark and walking on egg shellsy and passive aggressive really, really fast. Yeah. So you've got to just. you've got to what Shannon and I would always say, because we had like other roommates who would come and go.

And what we would always say to the other roommates is like, in this house, you must be able to fight like you must be able to fight lovingly. And Forgive Each Other, because if things are not like open and honest around here, then like it gets super weird super fast.

Hank: All right. That's actually something that we both have legitimate experience with. John, do we have another question?

John: Yes, we do. And it's another thing that we both have legitimate experience with. It's from Kathy. She writes, Dear John and Hank, who do you think would win in a fight?

John's Puff or Patrick Rothfuss's beard?

Hank: I mean, John's puff is amazing. It's elegant.

John: Some people call it historically significant.

Hank: It is indeed historically significant. Patrick Rothfuss's beard is also all of those things, and also. much bigger than the puff. And I would say, you know, significantly more badass than the puff.

John: Yup.

Hank: So I think that Patrick Rothfuss's beard would win. Patrick Rothfuss, if you don't know, is the author of The Name of the Wind, an absolutely beautiful fantasy novel that's part of a series that is in the middle of being completed.

John: Oh, he's a great writer.

Hank: It's beautiful. It's wonderful stuff. It's like, you know, if you like fantasy at all, it's basically, in my opinion, like the thing that happened since 2000. ten that matters a lot.

John: I mean, I don't I don't know anything about fantasy. All I know is that like sentence to sentence, he is a beautiful, beautiful writer. And I met him in real life at VidCon this year. And, you know, I'd seen pictures and everything, but meeting him in real life is interesting because almost immediately, as soon as you start talking to him, you realize that his his beard is bigger than he is.

And it's he's really the only person. he's the only person I've ever met. who Patrick Rothfuss? you have friends who maybe like aren't your closest friends but you. just you love seeing them. yeah he's one of those people.

Hank: yeah we're working on a conference together so we're talking a lot right now which is nice to get it to be on the phone once a week or so. and and it's called NerdCon Stories and tickets are available now. the agenda went live earlier or last week I guess and It's going to be fascinating. It's in Minneapolis. And if you are around there or even if you just want to come see a lot of amazing storytellers, authors, poets, musicians, that sort of thing, then come on, come on over. John and I will be there.

It's going to be a good time.

John: I will be there. It's my only public appearance for the next year, actually. Also, Hank, I don't know if you know this, but are you aware of what Maggie Steve Vader and Steve Vater, Steve Steve Fader, you know Maggie. Are you aware of what Maggie and I are doing?

Hank: I heard a rumor, but I don't know if it's true.

John: We are racing each other in an actual car race with actual race cars on a dirt track, a half-mile dirt. track outside of Minneapolis that Friday night. So in addition to going to NerdCon Stories, you can go and watch An extremely successful young adult novelist who is also a race car driver, race me, a person who has not gotten in a car crash in a couple of years. 

Hank: I didn't know about that. I heard something about that. I assumed it was remote control cars.

John: It's one of those things where like Maggie was like, would you want to do this? And I was like, yeah, of course, that sounds hilarious. And then but, you know, like I didn't think she would actually set it up. and then she's like asking me the circumference of my head so I can get a helmet that's the right size and I gotta wear a fire suit in case the race car catches on fire and I'm just thinking like I've gotta not get lapped. That's my goal.

Just want to not get laughed. So that's Friday night and then Saturday and Sunday as NerdCon Stories. It's going to be an amazing weekend.

Hank: This one's from Natalie who says, Dear Hank and John, My name is Natalie and I'm thinking about. applying to college in the USA, but I have absolutely no confidence in my speaking and pronunciation abilities since I'm from Ecuador and I speak Spanish as my native language. Do you have any advice for improving my speaking? Yes, I do. Let's come up with a hashtag on Twitter.

Talk to Natalie and maybe you can find some people who speak English natively to talk to you. What should that hashtag be, John?

John: Hashtag talk to Natalie. So if English is your first language, just use the hashtag talk to Natalie and then maybe Natalie will find out about this and then she can talk to you. But in general, Natalie, I have to say, I think you're going to be fine having read your email, which was grammatically perfect, which is extremely rare for Dear Hank and John emails. I think you're in good shape.

Hank: Yeah, absolutely. Yes, all right. That one was easy.

John: Hank, I'm going to ask a question that's somewhat harder now. This one is from Isabella, who asks, what do you do when your parents have a different political opinion than yours and they try to force theirs upon you?

Hank: Oh, man, John and. I don't know, because like the only way that this has happened to us, well, it's happened to me a bit with my in-laws, though they are very nice about it. But with our parents, it's like, how far left can you go? is often the topic at our dinner table.

John: Yeah, I mean, I guess that I do have some different political beliefs than my parents. But first, like they don't try to enforce their beliefs on me, and they really never have, even when we were little kids. That's true. You know, when I when I was like nine years old and I said that I thought Ronald Reagan should be elected president and not Walter Mondale.

My dad was incredibly supportive. In fact, I didn't even know at the time That, you know, he'd secretly written me out of his will. But no, I mean, yeah, our parents are extremely.

I mean, I wouldn't say that they're communists, but I would definitely say that they are further to the left than either Hank or I. And Hank and I are pretty progressive liberal on the political spectrum. I don't know, actually.

I'm not as liberal as Hank. The order is my mother, my father, Hank, and then me, almost in the center. In some Northern European nations, Hank, I would be a centrist.

Hank: Oh, gosh. In some Northern European nations, you would be to the right.

John: I might be, actually. So Hank, I have a good friend who is a Jesuit priest. He is a Catholic priest. And He and his parents often have political disagreements, and he has been a real model for me in how to talk about politics or other controversial topics with people who disagree with you.

And it seems to me that what he does very well is listen. He listens very well and very openly, and he tries to understand people's concerns who disagree with him. And then he states why he believes what he believes very strongly and clearly.

And he doesn't apologize for it, but he's also not aggressive about it. He doesn't assume that people who disagree with him are evil. He just has X, Y and Z justifications for his belief system.

And I also, of course, often disagree with him as well, although my disagreements with him are different than his family's disagreements with him and. I find it really kind of invigorating and refreshing to be able to have conversations with him because they aren't confrontational and they it doesn't feel dichotomous. it doesn't feel like there's good and evil and I am always on the side of good and those who disagree with me are always on the side of evil. it's just really really hard in contemporary American political discourse to have those kinds of conversations to embrace subtlety and nuance and also Also to acknowledge the possibility that you might be wrong, which you might be. I mean, as strong as my convictions are, I might be wrong.

I've been wrong before.

Hank: That, what your friend does, and what, you know, I think we should all attempt to do, is really hard. It requires great presence of mind and also great sort of understanding of your own perspectives and biases. And it is Important and such an amazing exercise in knowing yourself and understanding how you became who you are. That's a difficult thing, but if you can do it, even if you can just try to do it, it has dividends that are way outside of improving your ability to discuss. politics with your parents because it helps you know yourself and it helps you better understand Not only where your opinions come from, but why other people think the way they do.

And that's it's hard, but it is a really powerful ability to cultivate.

John: Yeah, I mean, I don't want to pretend that it's not hard, though, because I think on a day to day, minute to minute basis, it's often impossible not to feel outraged, particularly when people are, you know, expressing outrage at you. It's very difficult not to respond to that by getting ratcheted up and like, you know, getting angry. And it's It's hard and I feel like, I mean, I think it's always been hard, but I certainly feel like the way that political discourse has become so black and white that there are these two political positions in America, one of quote unquote liberalism and one of quote unquote conservatism has not helped. our ability to have conversations because you are expected to be either one thing or another. And then you kind of don't end up having conversations about policy.

And that's the other thing I'd say is that I find it. much more interesting and I find it much more interesting and helpful to have conversations about policy. Like instead of saying, should we tax the rich? Like let's ask, well, what should the income tax rate on income over $500,000 a year be?

Should it be 34%? Should it be 37%? That becomes a question about policy and about nuance, not a question about the government is trying to take from successful people versus the rich have to do their part.

I find questions about specific policy considerations much More beneficial to me personally.

Hank: Yeah That being said there's a complete possibility that your parents are just really mad and upset and scared about the state of the world and they think that things are going very badly and that makes them reactionary and upset and and and it's. you know that it's fear that's driving that you know that outrage usually and You know personal fear, but also fear that things are just going places where they shouldn't go. and you know sometimes when I'm dealing with scared people what I do is just sort of like acknowledge their fear and not engage with it because like what are. you gonna do say you don't have the right to be afraid. their fear might come from bad places. their fear might come from unconscious bias. their fear might come from you know just being exposed to people who are intentionally trying to scare them all the time. 

John: Hank, our next question comes from Emily who writes, Dear John and Hank, I've been having trouble falling asleep lately, particularly because I want to hum and sing songs. I get stuck in my head. Do you have any advice on how to get the song out of my head so I can get to sleep? Thank you for your dubious advice. and don't forget it's a comedy podcast.

Oh, Emily, I have already forgotten that it's a comedy podcast because all I see in front of me is the gaping canyon that is the endless misery of being unable to sleep until finally at last death comes for you and you can do nothing but sleep.

Hank: Oh, um, I have a- a higher sort of surface level question here. Is it possible that you, a person who's having trouble sleeping and is singing all the time, have a roommate who might? think that you are really messy? 

John: Emily, I just need you to double check that you are paying your bills on time and not really messy, because I think the underlying problem could potentially be that, you know, you're having a difficult time with the unemployment and everything. But if you're a different person, then yeah, I think we need to look at different possible solutions here. My number one go-to solution for an earworm, which is a song stuck in your head, is Free Fallen by Tom Petty. Once I just start singing Free Fallen, whatever was in my head goes away and I can just drift off to sleep. free fallen. 

Hank: I have no ability to help you because I sleep really well because I take medicines that make me very tired. So you could take mercaptopurine and that works for me. It's not without its side effects. It is not intended to be a sleepy drug, but it sure does knock me out.

John: Yeah, Emily, go ahead and get ulcerative colitis so you can take the pill that Hank takes to make him sleepy. It's worth it. You know Hank, when Sarah and I first started dating, Hank, when Sarah and I got married and began to sleep in the same bed for the first time in our entire relationship, She would often sort of be chatting with me toward the end of the evening and I would be talking back to her and I'd be talking about something and then I would look over and I would learn that she was asleep. And in fact, in the 11 or 12 years that we've been a going concern, I've never seen her take more than 12 seconds to fall asleep.

It is the most infuriating thing about my wife. The idea... That you can lay your head upon a pillow and fall asleep at the time of your choosing is So foreign to me and I am so intensely jealous of it.

I can't even explain it to you. So Emily I do empathize. my number one piece of advice when it comes to sleeping is is to spend at least 30 minutes away from Screens before you try to go to sleep.

Hank: Yeah, and the another important one is to is to have a really set schedule of sleep, which is very hard to do, but. that's what the sleep scientists say. The number one thing for insomnia is going to sleep and waking up at roughly the same time every day. And who does that, though? Really?

John: But you know, the other thing, Hank, I can't help but recommend as a solution to this humming business, maybe listening to, you know, the sweet, sweet baritone of a podcast before you go to bed. Like, for instance, maybe re-listen to old episodes of Dear John and Hank. 

Hank: I don't know that that's a good idea. We're too engaging, John.

John: Today's episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Dear Hank and John itself. That's right, we're sponsored by Recursion.

Hank: Oh man. Listen to Dear Hank and John, it's available on iTunes or wherever. podcasts are free.

John: Today's episode of Dear Hank and John is of course also brought to you by NerdCon Stories. NerdCon Stories, October, Minneapolis, Race Cars Stories.

Hank: Today's episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Patrick Rothfuss's beard, which is epic and glorious and historically significant and would totally win over John Green's puff in a fight.

John: Today's episode of Dear Hank and John is brought. to you by Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift, the most important country and pop musician of the last 15 years. Taylor Swift on tour now.

Hank: Ah, Taylor Swift on tour now. I'd go see her if she came to Missoula, Montana. I'll tell you what.

John: Well, she isn't because I have all of her tour stops memorized.

Hank: Yeah, I don't know that she would find a room that could be really suitable, though we do have a stadium. She could just play at the stadium. Some people do that. The Rolling Stones played.

We had the Rolling Stones, John. We're a big metropolis now.

John: We had the Rolling Stones play at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 4th. It was magical. I was not actually in town because I was touring for Paper Towns, but I heard that it went well. Speaking of which, we have a question from Robert.

Robert writes, Dear John and Hank, John has written in the past about the do's and don'ts of meeting him or any well-known person as a fan. My question is, what are the do's and don'ts of conducting a press junket interview?

Hank: Oh my.

John: There are lots of ways it can. go wrong, but what can make it go really well?

Hank: Well, I've done a couple of press junket interviews, but John has done a million of them.

John: Literally.

Hank: Hank, an added question to this is, how can John Green not embarrass himself when meeting Taylor Swift? So let's do Robert's question first.

John: Hank, talk to me about what kind of fan interaction works for you. Like, if you're in Target and you're meeting Taylor Swift, what—no, that's not—no. Like, if you're in Target and someone comes up to you and says hi, like, what's the ideal way it could go?

Hank: I mean there's. there's multiple ideal ways like some people. just be like. hey Thanks for the videos that helped me with biology which is great like. I like that a lot because then I feel like I proved like it. It was. it's. it's immediately obvious the value I provided Whereas you know I also like it when it's more sort of obscure and like. oh my gosh. It's you.

I like all of your things. you do so many things and I like all of them. That's also nice. I just it's to me the As long as. you're not expecting me to do something, like to be funny or to do some kind of performance, then I'm happy.

I'm happy to take a picture, I'm happy to talk, I'm happy to be complimented in public by a stranger. But there have been a couple of times where it's been like, it felt like This person is disappointed that I am not doing a thing. And I'm like, well, I'm currently just here to get my suppositories from the pharmacy. 

John: Yeah, I mean, I would say 99% of the time I've been. It's been awesome. Like it, it's, it, it is really encouraging to hear from people, to get to hear from people directly. You know, what kind of stuff that you make matters to them and how it matters to them.

And that varies from like the person at Target who pointed at me and said, crash course world history and gave me a fist bump and kept walking. You know, to people who come up and tell me that they're nerdfighters and and what NERDFIGHTER? um not that i've practiced what i'm gonna say but as far as as far as press junket interviews go um. I mean, nobody likes press junkets.

The press doesn't like them. The people who are doing them don't like them. I think the people at the studio who organize them don't like them.

I think the people who are running the cameras and the mics don't like them. I don't think it's fun for anyone. I think it's considered sort of a necessary evil to try to get the word out about the movie or whatever the project is.

I guess the only thing I would say is to to try to remember that the people that you're talking to have been talking to people all day and that they've had a different interview every six minutes and that they are feeling probably pretty dehumanized and pretty exhausted. When I was on the press junket for Paper Towns, a hippopotamus escaped a zoo in Budapest, I think. And between every interview, Nat Wolff would just show me a picture of this escaped hippopotamus and he would whisper, someday that will be us.

And I found it tremendously comforting to think of the escaped hippopotamus and on multiple occasions people would like test how well Nat and I knew each other. and one of the questions would always be do like what's your favorite animal or what's John's favorite animal or whatever and it would we would be so specific we would write hippopotamus recently escaped from zoo in Budapest. The only thing I would say is if you have to get the quotes that you have to get, then go in and ask the questions that you have to ask. And I guess probably don't have a particularly high set of expectations for what people are going to say because I think it's almost impossible to answer a question thoughtfully when you're so tired and feel so weird.

Yeah, but if you want to try to have like a really interesting thing, then just do something that's completely different where you don't ask any of those questions and you just maybe allow them to play a game. Like I remember when I was in Brazil, a reporter played a game with us where she was like, Nat, you and I are going to create a new John Green novel together and John, you are going to provide the dialogue. And that was really like a really fun seven minutes.

In. fact, at the end of it, Nat was like, can we please just keep doing this and stop the other thing? So, I don't know. It's not easy, and I think it's kind of inherently dehumanizing.

It's really difficult in those situations for the people who are being interviewed to remember that the interviewer is a person who is having a very specific seven minutes of their day, and it's really difficult for the interviewer to think that about the people who are being interviewed. So, my strategy moving forward is going to be trying to avoid them as much as possible.

Hank: All right, John, it seems like it might be time for the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

John: It is, Hank. I think it is time. What's the news from Mars this week?

Hank: Well, in Mars News on the, I think, the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. No, it was with Stephen Colbert. The new Colbert Show, which I don't know what that's called. It's very confusing because they all sound exactly the same to me.

John: Did he not change his name to Colbert now? Is he still Colbert?

Hank: I would assume. No, I thought Colbert was just.

John: the act, but is that his real name?

Hank: I think that's his real name. 

John: Nice guy, by the way.

Hank: Yeah, he seems like a great guy.

John: No, but I've hung out with him, he was really nice.

Hank: Oh, right, you did, yeah. I have not. I just hung out with the president.

John: That was a total brag, I apologize. I want to apologize to my friends and family for that clear, unadulterated brag.

Hank: That's fine, no. Nothing wrong with bragging. Well, Elon Musk was on Stephen Colbert's show, and they were talking about Mars. Mars came up.

John: I hate to bring this up, but I've also hung out with Elon Musk. 

Hank: Did you get to go to the White House and hang out with the president, John?

John: No, no, no. But only because I was like, eh, I think my brother should do that. He hasn't had a big media hit in a while. Uh-huh.

Hank: Yep. That's how I remember it as well.

John: All right, I'm sorry. What did my friend Elon Musk talk about with my friend Stephen Colbert?

Hank: They were talking about Mars and how to potentially make Mars habitable or more habitable for future visitors. And Elon. Musk proposed the fast way to make Mars a little warmer and give it some atmosphere would just be to drop a bunch of thermonuclear bombs on the poles of the planet. which uh what yeah so Elon Musk uh you know noted um Tony Stark impersonator, creator of many amazing things including PayPal which no one talks about and Tesla Motors and SpaceX has proposed that we drop H-bombs on the poles of Mars so that the carbon dioxide and water that is stored in the poles of Mars would be released in the atmosphere. then there would be a quote runaway greenhouse effect Which would warm the planet further, which would create more carbon dioxide and water being released into the atmosphere, which would warm the planet further, etc. This is a legitimate idea.

There are a couple of problems with it. One, if there is an ecology on Mars, it would be the largest scientific discovery in the history of mankind, and we don't want to just really mess up that ecology really fast before we study it. Two, you're jumping a bunch of...

Thermonuclear weapons on Mars, which might be, you know, there are ways to. design nuclear weapons, so, like, particularly fusion bombs, so that they have less fallout, but there's still going to be some fallout. That's not ideal. And, of course, you are just releasing carbon dioxide and water into the atmosphere, which is not the kind of atmosphere that humans would really enjoy breathing.

But it would help shield astronauts from radiation, and it would increase the pressure of the planet. Which is good because it would mean, you know, less vacuum to immediately kill people who are on the surface. It does not solve a lot of the problems that Mars has with regards to habitability, but it's not that far out there idea.

You know, it's certainly not within the next hundred years, though. Yes.

John: Now, as you know, I'm not an expert in science or in Mars or anything, but what would, if we did that, what would happen to the dinosaurs on Mars?

Hank: Well... The dinosaurs that are on Mars in our movie Jurassic Mars Would have to be specially designed to function in that atmosphere, whatever that atmosphere is. Which it doesn't seem, like that doesn't seem outside of the realm of movie science, which is completely. fake anyway. So let's just design dinosaurs that can breathe water vapor instead of oxygen, which of course chemically makes no sense, but who cares?

And we'll be fine. Jurassic Mars, coming to theaters.

John: So it has not affected the box office potential of Jurassic Mars?

Hank: Not at all. I think that introducing the possibility of thermonuclear warheads into the plot of Jurassic Mars can only be a positive.

John: I actually completely agree with you, because whether it's at the beginning of Act I or the end of Act II, there is definitely an opportunity for nuclear war on Jurassic Mars. So... Hank, I don't know how much you know about the history of AFC Wimbledon, but you're about to know a little bit more. As you do know, back in 2001, the club was moved by rapacious owners to the town of Milton Keynes, 100 miles away from Wimbledon, the historic home of this football club that had been together for 120 years.

And then Wimbledon supporters in protest started their own club, AFC Wimbledon, but they couldn't start at the historic home of Wimbledon, which is actually, you know, in Merton, this stadium called Plough Lane. So, in fact, on the closed sad gates of Plough Lane at the very end of its history, before it was destroyed in the early 2000s, someone spray painted Womble Till I Die because the Womble is the mascot of AFC Wimbledon and fans are often called Wombles. And so now they play their games in Kingston in South London at a stadium that also houses non-league side called Kingstonian.

But the dream has always been to get back to Plough Lane. In fact, AFC Wimbledon fans sing a song, Show Me the Way to Plough Lane. The dream has always been to get back to the historic spiritual home of this football club with a new stadium that can support permanently a club of AFC Wimbledon size and maybe even allow them to make more money and have You know, more concession sales and stuff so they can maybe get up to League One or even higher.

And so they're trying to build this 11,000 seat stadium that's directly across the street from where Plough Lane was. Plough Lane is now houses. And it's been a long effort.

It's really beginning to take shape now. And as part of that, they're. selling King's Meadow. their current stadium to Chelsea Football Club, one of my least favorite, possibly my least favorite football club owned by Roman Abramovich who bought the club Chelsea literally with the blood of Russian peasants. He just sent a large amount of Russian peasant blood to London and then was given Chelsea Football Club.

So anyway, Chelsea, it looks like, is going to buy King's Meadow to help fund the building of the new AFC Wimbledon stadium. And this is great news because for the club to really Sure, yeah. They sing, to make fun of AFC Wimbledon, they sing, you're just a pub team from Kingston, to say like, you're not really Wimbledon and you're not really a club, you're just a pub team from Kingston.

To be able to be back in Wimbledon in a stadium that's appropriate for a football league club really would be the end of this story and would put The Club on a stable path where they can survive. And so it's a huge deal to be selling King's Meadow to help fund the building of the new stadium. But there's still a long way to go.

And if you're a. member of the Don's Trust, which Hank, by the way, you are. I just bought you a membership. You own exactly as much AFC Wimbledon as I do or as the chairman of the club, Eric Samuelson, does.

All 5,500 of us own equal shares of Wimbledon. Happy birthday. If you're a member of AFC Wimbledon, you can vote.

In fact, you need to vote. If you remember the Don's Trust, you need to vote to help move this forward to sell the current stadium and then to invest to buy and build the new stadium. It's a really, really exciting time in the club's history.

And really, for the first time in the last 10 years, it looks like the stadium might actually happen.

Hank: That's great. What's going to happen? to the current stadium if Chelsea owns it, though.

John: Oh, yeah, so Chelsea is going to turn it into a place for their women's team and also their youth teams. Oh, okay. So they'll play their games there, and it'll be good for the development of their women's side and their, like, under 18 side. So it's great for them, too, potentially, anyway, because Chelsea need a better developed. women's soccer program.

As I've talked about previously in the podcast, AFC Wimbledon has a really strong women's soccer program, but many teams in the football league, including very famous ones, don't. Like Manchester United doesn't have a women's soccer team at all, which is just an embarrassment. And so it's great.

I think it's great, potentially great for everyone. But the main thing from from Wimbledon's perspective is, you know, gosh, how amazing would it be to have an 11,000 seat brand new state of the art stadium? You know, where they could play and grow into being the club that they could be if they just didn't have this very small stadium.

Hank: Cool. That's exciting, John.

John: I'm so excited. I can't even tell you. I can't wait to go. Hank, we're going to do so many crazy sponsorships of the new stadium.

I'm going to get so many like bricks on the walkway to the new stadium dedicated to you. I'll be like, this is the Hank Green. Mars sucks brick.

This is the fourth rock from the sun. who cares brick. This is the AFC. Wimbledon is more important than Mars brick.

I'm going to buy you. so many anti Mars bricks at the new stadium.

Hank: All right. Thanks. You're a jerk.

John: What did we learn today, Hank?

Hank: Oh, we learned that you can... 

John: And of course we learned that the key to taking Jurassic Mars to the next level is thermonuclear warfare.

Hank: We learned that a podcast can sponsor itself.

John: And we learned that if a song Freefallen by Tom Petty wasn't in your head... Hank, thank you so much for podcasting with me. This is my favorite part of the week, and I also want to thank everybody for listening. Their comments and responses on Twitter—I still check my at replies even though I'm not tweeting—really do mean a lot to me.

So thank you guys for listening, and we hope that you continue to enjoy the podcast.

Hank: Yeah, if you could hashtag your things on Twitter, hashtag Dear Hank and John, so that we know that those things are there. Don't use hashtag Dear John and Hank. That would be confusing.

John: Hank, why don't they just use hashtag talk to Natalie? And that way Natalie can also have more people to get in touch with.

Hank: Well, I think that if they have specific questions with regard to Dear Hank and John, they want to correct us on something. In fact, we do have a correction, which is that I said that the number one impact that you can have on the world is by controlling how much you heat or don't heat your place of dwelling. But in fact, I was corrected. The number one impact you can have is eating less meat, which, uh...

There's a tremendous amount of greenhouse gases that are produced in the production of meat, especially the large animal meats of pork and beef. So that is a thing that you can also do and has a tremendous impact. So corrections such as those or just comments so that we can see what people are thinking.

You can hashtag deer. John and H- Ah! Dear Hank and John!

Ah! Hashtag Dear Hank and John!

John: I prefer the hashtag Dear John and Hank myself, but I guess it's up to readers, listeners, whatever they call themselves. It's fine, use Dear Hank and John, that's fine. Today's podcast was edited by our friend Nick.

Hank: Yeah, the theme music is from Gunnarolla. You can send us questions at hankandjohn at gmail.com. And. as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.