John Hodgman is a writer, actor, and comedian who has forged what seems to be - or at least we hope is - a comfortable niche in the entertainment world. He is the host of the Judge John Hodgman podcast on the Maximum Fun network, the co-creator with David Rees of the animated series, DICKTOWN on FX/Hulu, and the author of the books: “The Areas of my Expertise,” “More Information than you Require,” “That is All”, “Vacationland,” and “Medallion Status.”
For every Solid Sound Festival at MASS MoCA since the second Wilco curated wonder-weekend in 2011, Hodgman has curated the comedy portion of the festival and he joins us with a preview.
On Thursday, June 27 at 3 p.m., Hodgman will do an episode of "Get Your Pets" LIVE on his Instagram feed.
Sarah LaDuke: John Hodgman is a writer, actor and comedian who has forged what seems to be - or at least we hope is - a comfortable niche in the entertainment world. He's the host of the Judge John Hodgman podcast on the Maximum Fun network, the co-creator with David Rees of the animated series "Dicktown," which is streaming on Hulu, and the author of the books "The Areas of My Expertise," "More Information Than You Require," "That is All," "Vacationland," and "Medallion Status." For every Solid Sound Festival at Mass MoCA, since the second Wilco-curated wonder-weekend in 2011, Hodgman has curated the comedy portion of the festival, and he joins us now. John Hodgman, welcome back to The Roundtable!
John Hodgman: Thank you so much, Sarah. Thank you for reading that wonderful biography of me - everything was accurate. And hello again to The Roundtable in the entire Capital Region.
Sarah LaDuke: We are talking today - we are getting to speak today because you're curating the comedy portion of this year's Solid Sound festival, as you have been doing every festival since the second one. There was comedy --
John Hodgman: That's also accurate.
Sarah LaDuke: Yes, There was comedy at the first one. The lineup, I checked because I remembered it this way, but I did double check myself.
John Hodgman: I know it too: Todd Barry, Eugene Merman, Kristen Schaal --
Sarah LaDuke: Hannibal, Buress and John Mulaney.
John Hodgman: No.
Sarah LaDuke: Yeah. All of ones that you said, and those two.
John Hodgman: Wowie-zowie. I knew that Eugene and Kristen and Todd were there because I ran into them, the three of them in the crowd at the very first Solid Sound Festival just before, or maybe, maybe right after, Wilco played when I was there, simply as a part time resident of Western Massachusetts and and a fan of Mass MoCA and a fan of Wilco, and all of a sudden there was this huge thing happening that combined all three of those things.
Sarah LaDuke: Yeah, like we designed it in our dreams...
John Hodgman: Wilco designed something to trap me, and they have done so now for more than a decade. Incredible lineup.
Sarah LaDuke: Yeah, it was amazing, um, and has been every year.
John Hodgman: That's right. Thank you very much.
Sarah LaDuke: Of course, of course. How did you go from attendee to curator of the comedy cabaret and performer yourself?
John Hodgman: Well, as I was standing on that magical field, Joe's field at Mass MoCA, listening to Wilco play, and sort of not able to even process what was happening. Like, why was one of my favorite bands playing in a in a former electrical parts factory turned into a large scale art installation Museum in in a town in the far west of of the East, North Adams, Massachusetts, what was, why was this even happening? And then all of a sudden, as if it couldn't get it couldn't get more surreal, a train started to go by. Now, there are train tracks right near MASS MoCA, big freight trains go by there, and they take a they take a turn, it would seem to me, because when, when trains take a turn, they make this horrendous squealing sound. And that's what happened. The screech began to emanate out of the woods, and it lasted for like 75 minutes or something. At the end of this Wilco song, and I, and I thought to myself, well, this, this is on purpose. Sounds like a Wilco song, because a lot of Wilco songs end with exciting noise experiments. And at the time, there was a there was an application on phones called Twitter that was not purely poisonous and was sort of fun and a way for people to connect with each other. And I tweeted like "a train, a freight train just went by, sounds like a Wilco song," and the Wilco account noticed it and and we started sort of talking in DMS to each other. And then I met Jeff and Susie Tweedy backstage in an event some months later, and we kind of hit it off. And the next thing I know, they asked if I would come in and help program the comedy. And I think, I mean, I know, I said yes, and I think the lineup that year was Wyatt Cenac, David Rees, Me, Morgan Murphy, and then over the years, we've had Jessica Williams, Phoebe Robinson, Paul F. Tompkins, Superego, Nikki Glaser stopped by last time
Sarah LaDuke: And she was a surprise - Nikki was.
John Hodgman: Yeah, and brought the house down, obviously, Tig Notaro, River Butcher, all these incredible comedians - and this year is, I'm glad to say, no exception. No thanks to me, because the incredibly talented people that I asked to be a part of it said, yes.
Sarah LaDuke: How do you decide who you're going to ask to participate?
John Hodgman: Well, first I make a list of the people that I want to spend a weekend in the woods with. First and foremost, my co-host of the past several Solid Sounds, Jean Grae. Jean Grae used to be one of the most prominent underground rappers of all time. She's since put rap behind her. She's now a writer, an artist, a painter, a polymathic genius, an incredible comedian, and she's got a memoir coming out that I encourage you to read, called "In My Remaining Years," and just someone that I would host shows within New York all the time, just a real pleasure to have on stage. Then we make a list of the people that we know who we might be able to convince to go to out of their way - dramatically - to spend a weekend with Wilco in a museum, and everyone wants to do it, but everyone's very busy. But luckily, we had a lot of people who just said yes right off the bat, including Dave Hill, Todd Barry, and Eugene Merman are coming back, as well as two comedians who I just happened to see on stage and absolutely loved living in New York City, Sydnee Washington and Brittany Carney.
Sarah LaDuke: It is like kind of an unofficial theme of comedy at Mass MoCA -- during Solid Sound, or any other time where a comedian, you know, they often get on stage and do a little bit of local something to, you know, warm up the crowd, Just a tiny bit - and that at Mass MoCA, it's almost always: "This is amazing. Where am I and how did this happen?" Because it's a full fever dream every time.
John Hodgman: Exactly, and it's exciting in particular for comedians, because when comedians are asked to do music and arts festivals, it's usually a real drag, because they have to do it in a tent, and tents are bad for comedy.
Sarah LaDuke: Yeah, Sunshine is bad for comedy.
John Hodgman: Oh, indeed, but, but don't worry, everybody, the Hunter Center is dark - dark and roofed. No matter what's happening outside, whether it's sun or raining, you can always come in and and see some incredible comedy throughout the afternoon on Saturday and and what we always try to do, we always like to have a little bit of Massachusetts in the mix. So they're, you know, Eugene fits that bill. And me, to some degree as well, though I am from the east of the east Brookline, Massachusetts, sorry, North Adams.
Sarah LaDuke: They must have forgiven you for that by now.
John Hodgman: Yeah. And then we, and then we like to, you know, have have some people that people have definitely heard of, if they if they're interested in comedy. And then we love to have some people that people have never heard of, and I won't say that no one had ever heard of her. But you know, Paul F Tompkins last year suggested someone who fit both the bill of then emerging comedian and talent, and also a person from Massachusetts, Ayo Edebiri -- who came on the stage destroyed it, and then The Bear came out in 2022 and now, I mean, I was so excited that we got to have her on stage before the world got to know her so well, because she's such an incredible talent.
Sarah LaDuke: Can't can't get enough. Can't get enough of her work.
John Hodgman: Can't get enough. Can't Get Enough.
Sarah LaDuke: Can't get enough Ayo. She's so funny on the red carpet every time, like she's had to do all of these, you know, very zhuzhy things, and just always seems to be answering honestly and funnily, and it's so awesome to watch.
John Hodgman: But you know, when those comedians come out and say, "where am I and why am I here?" You know, I have an answer to one of those questions, which is, you're in one of the most beautiful places in the world that also happens to have one of the most amazing museums in the world, that also happens every other year to conjure up this incredible, surreal, wonderful, warm event, which is the Wilco Solid Sound Festival. I know where you are, why you're here. I still don't understand why I'm able to convince these people to come. I'm as mystified as they are, but it's truly magical and always a lot of fun.
Sarah LaDuke: Now, why do you think that - or why do you sound like you believe that they wouldn't want to come just because you asked them, and your reputation is such that that should influence their decision?
John Hodgman: That would well, I mean, what? What if they -- I don't want to be responsible for it.
Sarah LaDuke: Okay, you know, haven them take name off the poster?
John Hodgman: What if they missed their flight? And then that's on me. I think that it has a lot to do with the fact that people really like Wilco, yeah, and they see the and they see the lineup of the entire event, and, and, you know, like, I'm looking at the lineup right now for the non comedy stuff, and I'm like, Well, okay, there's Wilco, and then there's Jason Isbell, and then there's Nick Lowe, and then there's Iris Dement. When was I going to see Iris Dement perform? I didn't know that was going to happen in my life. I mean, I suppose I could check her website or whatever, but --
Sarah LaDuke: She hadn't been playing much for a long time. That was not, yeah, a new record out, yeah last year or early this year, and yeah, now she's going to be at Solid Sound. I'm so excited.
John Hodgman: You know, it's all about the mix, and it's like incredible acts that you're really excited to see, and then acts that haven't played for a long time. I think that a lot of people like to say yes to Wilco. I know I do. I mean, I have for years and years.
Sarah LaDuke: Our guest is John Hodgman, the actor, writer and comedian. He's the comedy captain for Wilco's solid sound Festival at Mass MoCA happening this weekend. Curating the comedy at Solid Sound is one of the, one of the jobs that you have. And do you also host, as you know, the Judge John Hodgman podcast. You're a writer, you co created with David Rees a cartoon that I loved, loved, loved, loved, and rewatch often, Dicktown, which was, on FX and Hulu.
John Hodgman: Thank you very much - and it is still on Hulu, and it is still called Dicktown, so you can check that out over there. And yes, I am the host of the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Now for almost as long as I've been doing, perhaps longer than the Solid Sound Festival, almost a decade of me hearing real life disputes between real people over dumb, strange things, and then I tell them who's right and who's wrong.
Sarah LaDuke: And that's on the Maximum Fun Network. What else are you working on?
John Hodgman: I don't do enough -- I don't do enough for you. Sarah?
Sarah LaDuke: You do. You do more than enough for me. In fact, my husband and I always, always quote a joke, or, I don't know if it was in a book or something you said out loud, but about busses being unpredictable and they could just go anywhere. And we, we say that all the time.
John Hodgman: I hate that. I am I'm a nervous only child - even now that I'm a very much an elderly adult. I'm still a nervous only child and I do not like ambiguity. Don't tolerate it well, and I'll ride a train or subway any day of the week, and often do, but bus you can get on there you get one, one rogue bus driver maybe does a handful of mushrooms just to experiment for the first time in his life that morning, and you don't know where that bus is going to go, it could take you somewhere other than your desired destination, the worst possible outcome in the world. As far as I'm concerned, don't care for unpredictability.
Sarah LaDuke: All respect to our municipal workers --
John Hodgman: Of course I do. And you know, like, I'm not saying that a bus driver shouldn't take a handful of psilocybin mushrooms, you know, but you know, if it helps you get in touch with yourself, just do it on the weekend, or your day off, or whatever.
Sarah LaDuke: You do do enough for me - but I am still curious what you can tell me about that you're working on coming up. If there's anything that you can announce?
John Hodgman: Well, David and I are working on a new project, and I hope to have some news about that soon. In the meantime, if you want to tune in with me every week, the best place to do it is the Judge John Hodgman podcast and column in the New York Times Magazine. But also I have a newsletter, which is on Substack. Hodgman.substack.com it's called Secret Society. There are no weird initiation rights to join. You just go in and type in your email address, and every, you know, two or three times a month, I just write a letter about what's going on in my life, and some and, you know, it's a little bit of travelog, a little bit of rumination, a little bit of talking about this experience I just had reading the novel "Middlemarch."
Sarah LaDuke: Yes, I saw that. It had a enormous impact?
John Hodgman: Yeah, it's, -- Hey, you know, what's a good novel Middlemarch.
Sarah LaDuke: I should read it.
John Hodgman: Yeah, I'm gratefully at the time of my life where I am sort of just sitting around like, what am I going to do today? You know, and trying to follow my nose to the next creative endeavor. And a lot of that means taking in a lot of culture. You know, in order to create culture, you have to absorb a lot of culture. You can't just read "Am I The Asshole" on Reddit from 10pm to 2am every night, trust me, I tried it for two years. It doesn't actually lead to creative output. So at the beginning of the year, I was like, What am I going to do this year? And my wife, who's a whole human being in her own right, who teaches high school English, had read Middlemarch a couple of years ago and raved about it, but also raved about it being one of the most difficult novels she'd ever read. And then our daughter, who just graduated from college, wrote her senior thesis on Middlemarch and claimed that it was actually a very easy novel to read. I'm not sure whether that was just to make my wife feel bad, or
Sarah LaDuke: Take that mom! Oof!
John Hodgman: Well she's younger, you know, she can do, she can also probably run farther and faster than we can't do. But I decided, well, it maybe it's time for me to read this novel, and I started it, and I can report that it is neither as hard nor as easy as the people in my life told me, it's just right. And luckily, as it happens, through weird serendipity, a guy named Christopher Frizzell, who used to be the editor in chief of the Stranger newspaper in Seattle, has been running book clubs. He's an old acquaintance of mine, and he'd been running book clubs online, sort of starting in the pandemic, but they continue. And he had just started an online Middlemarch Book Club right around the time I started the novel. So I started that, and, you know, it was just me and a bunch of other old people reading a book we had never read before and marveling at all the sentences. Boy, oh boy. George Eliot, she was a really good writer.
Sarah LaDuke: What are some of the other cultural things you've enjoyed that you've absorbed lately?
John Hodgman: Oh, this is what David Rees and I call our our television research.
Sarah LaDuke: Oh, yeah! I love that! Oh, I'm Oh immediately, yeah, stolen immediately, thieving that. Because it is my, I call it my only hobby, watching TV usually. So, yeah, elevate it by calling it research.
John Hodgman: It seems ridiculous, but if you, if you're trying to make a television show and, and we are and have done, but, you know, it's like, you should know what's on television and, and so it's been, it's been really fun. So in, you know, basically everyone knows there's too much television to watch, so much so that it almost becomes, it feels like a chore or homework, and the only way maybe to enjoy it is to be like, well, it's homework. I have to watch it. I have to watch these shows that came out. And then the exciting thing happens when you discover something, it's like, oh, wait, I love this is my favorite show in the world. So that happened to me recently with a Canadian comedy that just ended after many years called Letterkenny.
Sarah LaDuke: I've you heard of it. I've not seen it.
John Hodgman: I think that it has to do, you know, I spend part of the year in Maine, and there is some overlap between the main accent and the eastern Canadian rural accent. And Jared Keeso, who is the creator of Letterkenny and is plays the main character, Wayne, who is a farmer in rural Ontario in his 20s, who hangs around with his friends around the farm stand and talks nonsense and and just shoots the breeze. It's a very flinty, I don't want to say Maine cadence, but because it's an Ontarian accent, but it's just something I absolutely love, this incredibly laconic sense of humor. And this is a, this is a show that has swear words in it and some adult themes, just so everyone understands also on Hulu. The moments that I love the most are when this guy is just hanging out with his friends at the farm stand, uh, shooting the feces, as it were. And it is so, so weird and linguistically hilarious. And then also the physical performance of this guy, Jared Keeso as Wayne, is something I've never seen before in my life. Just the way he conducts himself physically is incredibly funny. Letterkenny, strong recommend. And then I also just watched the first episode of a show that came out last year called "Killing It" with Craig Robinson, which is over on Peacock.
Sarah LaDuke: Yeah, Claudia O'Doherty!
John Hodgman: Exactly. And I mean, I never would have thought that Claudia O'Doherty and Craig Robinson would should be in a car together all the time, but they are so funny individually and together. It's just pretty magical. So I love that a lot. And then I watched Kristen Wiig and Palm Royale on Apple+, which is gorgeous, beautiful, funny. She's such an incredible performer. So I love, I love watching television. You know, it's so sad that culture ends up feeling like a chore a lot of the time because we're so it's like we're staring into a fire hose of film and television and books all the time, and just having to narrow down your focus to one project. It's really wonderful. You know Chris Frizzell, the guy who he also has a Substack. Look him up. Check out what he's got going on. But he also hosts what he calls reading parties, both in person and online. And the reading parties are just people who get together and silently read whatever they're reading. And it's like, what a brilliant idea.
Sarah LaDuke: That's really good.
John Hodgman: You just have to show up and read. And it's like, why does that feel like such a relief to me? Well, it's because we have so much stuff competing for our attention and and so much, you know, I don't want to be a crank about it, but like so much of what's competing for our attention does not have our best interests at heart. And yet, I feel like there is so much culture that truly does have our best interests at heart. And when you find that stuff and it nourishes you that way, just sitting around with people silently reading, I can't imagine a better way to spend an afternoon. Oh, wait, I can - go to the Solid Sound Festival.
Sarah LaDuke: Very well done.
John Hodgman: All of that culture has your best interest at heart. I guarantee you. Wilco wants you to thrive. Wilco wants you to be happy, and so do I - John Hodgman. And the nice thing about it is we, whether it's Wilco or the comedy stage, we're never counter programmed. We, believe me, we're up. We're up all afternoons on Saturday Solid Sound Festival, starting at like noon or so into the into the just before the big Wilco concert. So you will not miss any Wilco if you come sit around and laugh. And I guarantee you, if you come through, you're gonna you're gonna see people that you love instantly, and you're gonna see people that you've never you've never heard of, that you're also gonna love instantly.
Sarah LaDuke: I wanted to talk about one more quick thing before I let you get on with your day, and that is that the last time you and I were on each other's screens was when you were doing Get Your Pets live on your Instagram, and I raised my hand to be on - the second time was our dog, because we got a dog during the pandemic - Paul and I, and then the time before that was from Paul's fish, and I had to get him because I don't know anything about the fish tank.
John Hodgman: For people who are very confused at this time. I accidentally started doing a daytime talk show on Instagram Live, because I went on Instagram Live, and I just to see what it was all about, and all of a sudden people are requesting to be part of the of the live broadcast that I was doing. I don't know what I was talking about my day, or something, and I accidentally invited someone to join the broadcast, and it was a stranger. And I was like, I don't want to talk to any strangers. But then in the background, the stranger had a dog. I was like, Well, wait a minute, I do want to talk to your dog. Show me get your pet, get your dog, your cat, your fish, or whatever. And that became the basis of a semi regular afternoon talk show. I still do it from time to time. My Instagram handle is @johnhodgman. It became a regular thing, particularly during the early months of lockdown, when we were all stranded with each other, and we could all or not with each other. We were stranded alone, and we could all use some emotional support, animal therapy. And so usually for one or two hours in the afternoon, I would go live and just talk to random people and their and primarily their cats and dogs and fish and bearded dragons and African gray parrots and cockatiels and whatever. And it was a really wonderful thing for me, I really enjoyed seeing all those animals and and also getting to know people and and share a little bit of the I don't know, share a little bit of ourselves with each other during a time when we were really, I think, very emotionally challenged. I think the emotional challenge continues, by the way, yes, like it's I do not suggest that things have gotten particularly better. So maybe it's time to get out, to get out the old Get Your Pets sometime soon as well.
Sarah LaDuke: I loved watching it, and then it was very exciting to be on it. So thank you for welcoming me and Doritos and Paul and the fish on Get Your Pets during the pandemic. It was really exciting.
John Hodgman: Well, you know what? You give me a really good idea I'm going to do, I'm going to do a get your pets for the first time in many, many weeks, over on my Instagram, John Hodgman is my handle [spells name] I'll start streaming at 3pm and if you've got a cat or a dog or another pet, let me know in the comments that you heard. You heard me on the round table with Sarah LaDuke, and I'll try to get you in there with some priority. You'll be like, uh, Platinum medallion status.
Sarah LaDuke: And we know from your book, how incredible --
John Hodgman: Are you talking about my book? "Medallion Status?"
Sarah LaDuke: I am talking about your book!
John Hodgman: I do too much stuff. I got too many things. Go to my Wikipedia page if you want to know what I'm all about. And Sarah, if you can join. I don't know what time you get off work at the radio station, but if you and Paul and the fish and the dog or whatever, can join, all the more, we'll continue this conversation then. If you want to be in part of the show, you have to have a pet. And stuffed animals and children do not count as pets. Nope. Gotta have a real life pet, or if you have access through like Bird Rescue, to a Raptor, we've had some incredible owls that isn't really a pet, but you know what I mean? You gotta have a real animal. You gotta have a real live animal, a living animal, a real live non human animal.
Sarah LaDuke: Okay, so 3 p.m. tomorrow, that's Thursday, June 27 Get Your Pets live on your Instagram feed. You're on there as John Hodgman and I will link that account in the post of this interview at wamc.org, I don't know if you know how, how braggy I'm going to be about this happening. Steal your fame and tell the people that I sort of got a "Get Your Pets" to happen.
John Hodgman: You did! You absolutely did. You go through life and you don't give yourself permission to do the fun things. Do you know what I mean? And you need people in your life to give you permission to do the fun things. Like, I need David Reese to say, this week, we're going to watch as many first episodes of as many shows as we can, and all of a sudden, I'm not feeling terrible all the time. I'm thinking about the show that I liked, or maybe the show I didn't like that much, or why I didn't like it that much. You know, I need Chris Frizzell to say, you have permission to read Middlemarch and take up that time. And if you skip going to the gym because you're reading Middlemarch. That's good, you know. So thank you for giving me permission to do the fun things, and I'm giving all of your listeners permission to come see us at Solid Sound.
Sarah LaDuke: John Hodgman, I think you're so great.
John Hodgman: Sarah, thank you. I think the same thing about you. You know that I'm a WAMC listener. I'm a Roundy - that means a fan of The Roundtable - have been for years.
