465: Weird Trajectory

Dear Hank & John

In this episode of Dear Hank & John, the brothers tackle a range of listener questions while sharing personal anecdotes and reflections. Topics include book tour ticket

Key takeaways

• Rereading books from youth offers profound insight into personal growth and changing perspectives.
• Scent is powerfully linked to memory, influencing emotional connections to past experiences.

Main topics

• Book tour logistics and fan engagement
• Nostalgia and sensory memory (dorm room scent)

Notable quotes

"Scent is just so powerfully linked to memory."

"I don't want to be playing a mostly empty room."

Conclusion

Hank and John close the episode with gratitude for their audience, reflecting on how time

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Speaker 1 (0:09) Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank. 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. John, it's a true that you read a lot of your books inside of this, like, uh, chair. Am I making that up? No, I sometimes write in this chair. It sounds like a special writing chair that you have. Oh, I do have a special writing chair, yes. Is it a recliner? It is. It's a lazy boy. And you've written a lot. Speaker 1 (0:38) in this lazy boy? I've written at least some of all of my, my books in that lazy boy. Is it fair to say that you and that recliner go way back? That's a pretty good joke. Actually, you set it up. Well, you made me feel like I was deeply invested in it as a person. You know, you really personalized it for me before you delivered. So yeah, it needs to be about, it needs to be about you is what I've learned. I've had one of those days, Hank. I've had a long day today. I did just get the very first review of Hollywood Ending, Hank. What? From who? How do they even have it? From Booklist Magazine. Do you want to know what it says? They better star it. You're a legacy. I'm an alum, but it has been 25 years, so I don't know if being an alum matters much. But it is a starred review. Can I read a little bit of it to you? I'm so excited about it. It just came across my desk minutes ago. Speaker 1 (1:32) A YA fiction supernova, Green began writing for adults with his two works of nonfiction, The Anthropocene Reviewed and Everything is Tuberculosis. He now presents his first novel for grownups and his first novel since Turtles All the Way Down. An enthralling tale aglow with all the traits his steadfast fans adore, but deepened by more complex predicaments, inquiries, and insights. Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. Green's storytelling. The book list reviews always have like plot summary. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying not to have any spoilers. Speaker 1 (2:00) Green storytelling is astute, empathetic, and magnetizing as Juniper and Kai take turns narrating reflections on Warhol's profound grasp and exploitation of the vicissitudes of celebrity and the commodification of art and life shaped the novel's provocative and suspenseful conflicts. Yada, yada, yada. This is a spellbinding, tender, incisive, funny, and compassionate story of love and creativity. Ooh. The book list reviews are always about that last sentence. I know. That's the sentence that you want to quote. Speaker 1 (2:28) That's the one. Because when I was writing book list reviews, if I really loved a book, I would try to write a last sentence where I would be like, that's going to be on the back of the book. Yeah. Yeah. I only reviewed a few books that I really, really wanted to succeed. And I would always try to craft just the perfect little, this is good stuff for the back of the book. You feel like somebody was thinking that when they wrote that? I hope so. Speaker 1 (2:57) At any rate, it's a lovely review. And also thank you to the two or three people who wrote into the Dear Hank and John inbox that because they are booksellers or book talkers, they've already read Hollywood Ending and said nice things to me. Nice. John's had such a day that he is, if you can tell, his audio is not as good as mine because he's filming in his living room. It's actually Sarah's office, but it's very echoey. I'm sorry about that. Look at that. I don't even recognize your art correctly. Speaker 1 (3:26) Well, Sarah's always reinstalling the permanent collection, as we say. So I think there's a new picture behind me these days. John, congratulations on your first review. I know that that's a scary moment and it's exciting when it goes well. Do you want to look at some questions from dear Hank and John listeners? Let's answer some questions from our listeners, Hank. We got our first question. It's from Cody, who asks, hello, Brothers Green. Mostly of the John variety. I just went to Hollywoodendingbook.com to purchase tickets for the book tour in Salt Lake City after listening to the most recent pod episode. I don't know why I assumed that you wouldn't be coming to Utah, and I don't know why I wouldn't have checked until you set it out on the podcast, but unfortunately here we are. The venue is sold out entirely, and I can't... Speaker 1 (4:09) find, nor do I want to pay someone for scalped tickets. Is there some version of a tailgate viewing party for an event like this that I could partake in? I want to be a part of it in some way. Would love some devious advice from you both. Cody, you starred this one, John. You told me that you bolded it. John will go through and bold the ones that he wants me to answer. Yeah. I feel like the answer is there's nothing you could do, Cody. I feel so bad, Cody, because that's going to be such a fun show. I don't want to make, I just made it worse, Hank. You did. You did. Cody, you got to go to Brooklyn. Yeah, go to Brooklyn. There's still tickets in Brooklyn and Portland, Maine and Birmingham, Alabama and Boise, Idaho. Boise, Idaho is pretty far from you. Pretty far from you. Well, there's a nonstop. I know this because this is my part of the world. Cody, if you want to fly nonstop. Speaker 1 (5:00) from Salt Lake City to Boise, Idaho, just to see me, that actually isn't going to be a good use of your resources. $369. I'm going to be honest with you, man. I don't think there are watch parties, unfortunately. Now you can maybe host your own watch party with some friends and family because I am going to live stream some of these events whenever I can. I'm going to be live streaming it at John's channel on my YouTube channel. So maybe check it out there. But I do feel really bad that so many of the shows are sold out. That said, many of the shows aren't sold out, and I wish that they were. So I'm kind of torn on which I would prefer. I feel bad for Cody, but I also feel bad for me for the places that aren't sold out. It's strange. I don't know if this is weird, but it's strange that the varieties of sold out and not sold out you have going on. Is that just a... Speaker 1 (5:52) Like a size of the room difference? The space in New York is definitely a size of the room difference. It's a 3,100 seat theater. It's ridiculous. So come see me in New York City, everybody. I think it's also prices to some extent. Like when Ticketmaster gets involved, it gets very expensive. As you may know, call your Congress people about global health, but then mention Ticketmaster at the end. Tucson, Arizona, I'm going to be there and that's not sold out. Speaker 1 (6:21) I think there's still some tickets left in Nashville and Gainesville. Yeah. But yeah, it's starting to sell out. I feel bad about this whole thing, Hank, because it's always, you don't want to be playing a mostly empty room. No, yeah. And we've done it. Oh, we've done it. We've played empty rooms before. Yeah. I've played empty middle school auditoriums. The only thing worse than an empty middle school auditorium is a full middle school auditorium that's full of people who don't know who you are. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Boy, do middle schoolers not know who we are anymore? Maybe they do. I don't know. I mean, certainly in 2008, they didn't know who I was. I remember like one time. Speaker 1 (7:03) like performing at a middle school, like reading from paper towns. And there were two kids wearing nerd fighter t-shirts in the very front row who were extremely excited and 798 kids who were just getting out of English class who were like talking to each other loudly. Absolutely. The classroom was absolutely out of control. Our trajectory is bizarre. Here we are though. Here we are though. I don't know. You can't go back home again. No. No, you can't ever. You can't. I've been thinking about this, actually, because we're releasing a new soap. Hank, do you know about this? Oh, what a weird thing to say, but yes, go on. Okay, so at Good.Store, our company that donates 100% of its profit to charity. Speaker 1 (7:53) We have a soap company and we now make shampoo bars and conditioner bars and soap and it's great and it's really high quality soap. I use it every day. I use all those products. I don't use liquid-based shampoo or conditioner anymore. Speaker 1 (8:09) uh, they were like, is there anything you'd like to any kind of soap that you'd like that you don't have? And I was like, yeah, so I'd like a soap that smells like my high school dorm room, which sounds like it smells really bad, but in fact, it smelled really good. Cause I had this amazing roommate, Todd, who was a very hygienic person. And always we had this beautiful, I mean, aside from when we would smoke cigarettes in the dorm, which don't do that. We had this beautiful, beautiful smell. And occasionally I'll catch a glimpse of it and smell is just so powerfully linked to memory. Yeah. And so I asked- A glimpse of it. That's fascinating that there's no like word for that in smell, but- There's no word for glimpsing a smell. So I, dude- A whiff. A whiff of it. That's what it is. I asked the people at Botany to design a soap that smelled like my high school dorm room. And because- Speaker 1 (9:02) They are so good at turning language into smells and smells into language because that's basically what they do for a living on some level. They got pretty close. That's wild. And it's called memory. And we just released it. That's weird. That's how weird our trajectory is, Hank, that I can get a custom soap. Yeah. Yeah, I also have a custom soap. What's yours? Tell me about it. It's based on Catherine and I's favorite British drink, the Pimms Cup, which we could not name it. We could not name it the Pimms Cup because it turns out that's an actual brand, unfortunately, not just a drink name. So go to good.store and get our weird soaps. Yeah. I think ours is called Garden Party. Oh, yeah. I like Garden. The Garden Party is in my top three in my rotation. Oh, nice. Yeah, I love it too. I was doing a citrusy this morning. I don't know which one it was, but yeah. It's crazy to like... Speaker 1 (9:57) always be decked out in my own products. I got a Pizza John shirt on. I got awesome socks. I took a shower this morning with sun base and soap. And it's all, all those things for a charity. Weird trajectory indeed. All right. How about you ask me this question from Ella because I'm very interested in it. Okay. Dear Hank and John, please, what the blazing heck should we actually be doing with collagen as a woman of a certain age? 25. All right, stop right there. Oh my God. Oh my God. Panic at the disco. Panic. As a literal child, 25. No, sorry. As a newborn baby who emerged from her mother's womb mere minutes ago. As a person who wasn't alive on September 11th. Oh boy. Speaker 1 (11:04) Okay. As a woman, I am bombarded with adverts for collagen. I buy this. Everyone is using it. Apparently, we need more of it. I have a basic scientific understanding of human anatomy and physiology, but I have to admit, I don't really understand how we absorb collagen. Are the face serums all a waste of time? Do we need to eat more of it? Also, as men, are you guys dealing with the societal pressures of aging and the looming devaluation of your worth? I doubt it. You guys are hot. Curse word. Curse word. Cheers. Speaker 1 (11:42) Uh, F L S fellas. Cheers. Fellas. Great. Good. Good work. I have to say I get very few ads for collagen. Yeah, no, I don't. I, I will sometimes look at my hairline and I will think about it. Yeah. You could stand, you could stand to go to Turkey as they say. A trip to Istanbul would be nice. I've always wanted to go. I have actually always wanted to go. Me too. It's definitely on my list. Yeah. I don't think that I'm going to get a hair transplant anytime soon, but. I don't think you need one, Hank. Yeah, I want to look distinguished. Well, I've thought about dyeing my hair because it's so gray now, but everyone would know. Everyone certainly would know. Speaker 1 (12:30) I've thought just about dying. So collagen is a protein that your body has and it makes it's there's a bunch of different kinds, but it's in the skin and it's also in the joints. It does a lot of different stuff. And the idea is that the more collagen you have in your skin, the more elastic your skin is and that is more