>> funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by hillco partners, texas government affairs consultancy and its global health care consulting business unit, hillco health. and by the mattson mchale foundation in support of public television. and also by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community. and also by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation and viewers like you. thank you. >> smith: i'm evan smith. he's an actor, author and humorist best known for his regular contributions to the daily show and his star turn on those mac vs. pc commercials. his most recent book, that

is all, has just been published. he's john hodgman. this is overheard. ♪ >> smith: john hodgman, welcome. >> hodgman: thank you very much. >> smith: nice to have you here. >> hodgman: it's nice to be here. >> smith: now, let me ask you about this book and its place in this trilogy of books that together represent complete world knowledge. >> hodgman: yes, that's correct. >> smith: this is number three. >> hodgman: it comes at the end. >> smith: it comes at the end. the last one... >> hodgman: ...that's its place. >> smith: more information than you require. >> hodgman: is this book shelving? [ laughter ] >> smith: this is a book

shelving segment here on the overheard, yes, i'm going to show you how to shelve your books. >> hodgman: whatever you want to do is fine. >> smith: all right, very well. the purpose of this though is complete world knowledge. >> hodgman: yes. >> smith: as we approach ragnarök. >> hodgman: yes. >> smith: i didn't want to mention it earlier because i was a little afraid of this conceptually, so... >> hodgman: people need time to prepare. >> smith: would you explain what ragnarök is? >> hodgman: well, here's the thing. i wrote these other two books of fake world history and invented trivia and amazing true facts fabricated by me. >> smith: right. >> hodgman: and they were joke books. >> smith: right. >> hodgman: but by the time i got down to sit down to write this book, things had turned very serious. you understand, in the world. >> smith: i do. yes. >> hodgman: we have a world economy that's on the brink of collapse, very strange and catastrophic weather events happening all the time with increasing rapidity. a lot of anxiety about what the mayans tell us could be the last year of human history, 2012. >> smith: you're bumming me out. >> hodgman: well, don't blame me, blame the mayans. serious. [ laughter ] >> smith: okay.

the mayans are bumming me out. >> hodgman: those guys. yeah yeah, they're bumming us all out. >> smith: yeah. >> hodgman: my series of television commercials ended. [ laughter ] i presume because we sold all the computers. [ laughter ] >> smith: no more to buy. that's right. >> hodgman: why else? and then i also, i was, when i started writing the book, i had just turned 39, which if do you the math, would mean in about a year's time, i would turn 40, and that happened. >> smith: has that in fact happened? >> hodgman: yeah. yeah. >> smith: you are now 40. >> hodgman: yeah and that was not supposed to happen to me. >> smith: right. >> hodgman: so it was a time of somber reflection in my life, quite honestly. and especially as i approached the writing of this last book in the series, i'd always imagined that it would be three books of nonsense and balderdash, and i always knew that the last one would be called "that is all", for various reasons, that's the way i've been signing emails for 15 years, so i thought that was a good title for a book. >> smith: right. >> hodgman: that was the end of the thing, and it wasn't until i realized that it was

going to be a book about endings, about things concluding in my life and then obviously, things concluding in the entire world to the tune of ragnarök. >> smith: yeah. >> hodgman: that i sort of had the subject matter, which was how do you write a book of complete world knowledge if, as the world goes on, there's always more knowledge? well, what if the world doesn't go on? and so this would be a guide to everything you need to know before the end of the world, such as what to stock in your survival bunker, what kind of livestock to raise to be self-sufficient. goats, rabbits and sperm whales are the ones that i recommend. [ laughter ] most of all. there's a page a day calendar of the last year of human history. everything day by day, you can go through the book and use it as a page a day calendar, and it's like oh well, this the day the omega pulse happens, or this is the day the 700 ancient and unspeakable gods return. and then you tear that page out. and when you've torn out

all the pages, you know that's the end of the world. >> smith: and then you're done. >> hodgman: yeah. >> smith: you just know you're done then at that point. >> hodgman: yeah so there's no guesswork about it. >> smith: right. well, i'm glad to know that all of this is fake, because otherwise it would be massively depressing, seriously. >> hodgman: well, as far as i know it's fake. >> smith: right. >> hodgman: we'll see what happens. >> smith: we'll see whether it in fact...at the moment that it does not occur, we know it will be fake. >> hodgman: yeah, i know. if we get to december 21st 2012, and the world doesn't end, i'm going to look like a dummy. [ laughter ] but i think it's better news for everybody. >> smith: you'll go on. >> hodgman: yeah, exactly so. >> smith: why did you decide to write these books? why -- i know that we're in an era where fake news is on the uptick and it's the salad days for fake news or fake information. >> hodgman: yeah, i was a big fan of trivia books growing up. >> smith: yeah. >> hodgman: and i would consume the book of lists and the people's almanac, sort of all these sort of ephemeral books of popular reference. big secrets was this book by this guy william poundstone that purported to reveal the secret recipe of kentucky fried chicken and what goes on behind the unmarked door in disneyland that leads to

the private drinking club that walt disney installed there, it's a real place, it's called club 33. and i love the idea that there is a secret strangeness in american. >> smith: yeah. >> hodgman: .history, and so someone approached me when i was a magazine writer and writing humor for a website called mcsweeney's that i should do a trivia book and i thought yeah this is, it's a great idea, but there have been so many great actual trivia books. what can i bring to the table? >> smith: yeah. >> hodgman: and i realized it was lies. >> smith: made up stuff. >> hodgman: made up trivia. >> smith: right. >> hodgman: so in my first book for example, instead of traditional trivia like lists of the nine us presidents who smoked cigars or whatever, mine is the nine us presidents who had hooks for hands. [ laughter ] people don't remember that franklin roosevelt had a hook for a hand. right, because they kept it a secret. >> smith: right. [ laughter ] >> hodgman: they only photographed him from the wrist up, do you know what i mean? [ laughter ] and his hook was shaped like a wheelchair, you know? [ laughter ]

and so... >> smith: and that was the first book. >> hodgman: and that was the first book. and i enjoyed doing it so much that all i wanted to do is write more of these books, or at least two more. >> smith: right. >> hodgman: and i was hoping that the first book would be successful enough that it would allow me to do that. >> smith: and it was. >> hodgman: well, because i was kidnapped by television. >> smith: so that is all because of television. >> hodgman: yeah you'd be surprised that someone who looks like me, i already hadn't already had a long career in television. [ laughter ] pale, weird, mustache...lazy eye. yeah, exactly. but i went on the daily show with jon stewart to promote the first book, as a guest in a situation very similar to this. >> smith: yeah. >> hodgman: and i'm hoping to take over this show as well. >> smith: yeah, please, bring it. >> hodgman: and i slipped something in his water apparently because during our conversation we seemed to have a nice time. >> smith: yeah. >> hodgman: talking about the secret history of the hobos and the great

depression and the brief period of time they took over the us government, which seems to be happening again right now. [ laughter ] >> smith: right. >> hodgman: and he asked me to come back.the show asked me to come back and be a contributor. >> smith: right. >> hodgman: which i thought they were being polite. i was like, yeah sure, i'd love to come back. >> smith: they say this to everybody. >> hodgman: yeah, it was like, yeah, we'll have you back sometime. maybe you'd contribute to this show. i'm like, sure you will, okay. >> smith: right. bye. >> hodgman: now yeah, five years later and i think they were telling the truth. >> smith: so you became very quickly resident expert john hodgman. >> hodgman: yes, exactly. and the idea was really taken from the book. >> smith: from the first book. >> hodgman: to be the resident expert. >> smith: right. >> hodgman: what the daily show didn't have was the sort of tweedy character >> smith: yeah. >> hodgman: that cable news constantly goes to, to explain world events or science or medicine or history or whatever. and i figured i could be all of those people because expertise in our culture has become so debased at this

point that you put a chyron underneath someone. that's a tv term by the way, chyron. you put the words "expert" underneath anyone who is talking -- >> smith: yeah. >> hodgman: and they suddenly have this authority. >> smith: branded as experts. >> hodgman: branded as experts and speaking with as straight a face as possible. >> smith: so by being on the daily show the first book turned out to be a success. >> hodgman: it almost single handedly. >> smith: almost single-handedly. >> hodgman: transformed the fortunes of that first book from a modest success to a nice success. >> smith: well, to a best seller. let's call it... >> hodgman: to a best... >> smith: call it what it was... >> hodgman: it was a best seller. >> smith: and so that then begat a second book? >> hodgman: it did well that almost immediately i thought, well, this is a weird venture that will never happen again. >> smith: right. >> hodgman: i will immediately get a contract to write two more of these books. and all i knew was what they were going to be called. the second one was going to be called more information than you require, and the third book would be called that is all. >> smith: and you were able to channel your interest in hobos from the first book into an actual list of hobo names in the second book. >> hodgman: no that was in the first book. >> smith: the hobo, oh was it? i thought that the hobo obsession was really manifested in the second book.

>> hodgman: where is my camera? [ laughter ] for those of you watching at home, all of the material on hobos is contained in the first book. >> smith: there's no hobo material in the second book? >> hodgman: no. >> smith: am i confused reading the two books? >> hodgman: no because, okay so in the first book i recount the history of the hobos of the great depression >> smith: yes. >> hodgman: and i thought it would be interesting. you know hobos have a lot of interesting nicknames. you know, like tennessee jack or like iron-nose floyd or giant leathery wings roland. [ laughter ] >> smith: hobo names and mafia hit men names have a similarity to them it sounds like, actually. >> hodgman: i disagree with you. >> smith: you don't think so? [ laughter ] >> hodgman: no. >> smith: okay, so the bottom line is that all hobos are in the first book. >> hodgman: so i thought it would be interesting...yeah i thought it would be interesting to give a number of interesting traditional hobo nicknames, and the number i chose to give was 700.

and it was -- it ran -- it comprised, composed a huge section of the central part of the book was just a list of ridiculous names, of hobo nicknames. you know, hobo joe junkpan and you know -- right now i'm having difficulty thinking of five of them. >> smith: but there were 700. >> hodgman: but there were 700 and it was supposed to be a sight gag, basically a literary -- >> smith: right. >> hodgman: a literary sight gag where there'd be this ridiculously long list about a thing that doesn't matter to anyone. [ laughter ] >> smith: right. >> hodgman: and, but i would, i would do the heavy lifting and make sure that there were no repeats. >> smith: right. >> hodgman: i think i repeated nick nolte. >> smith: nick nolte and a list of 700 comes back. >> hodgman: yeah, yeah. so the first book had the 700 hobo nicknames. >> smith: right. >> hodgman: and then the second book, i knew that i wanted to do 700 moleman names, because i had said in the first book that i promised that i would give information about the

civilization of creatures who live beneath the earth called the molemen who are highly refined enlightenment creatures who wear powdered wigs and spit acidic saliva in order to burrow through stone. they're a mix of the high and low. >> smith: okay. >> hodgman: they're covered in mucus, but they wear these wonderful powdered wigs. [ laughter ] and they taught thomas jefferson the principles of the french enlightenment because they started it. they were the original savage men, you see. you're following along? [ laughter ] >> smith: i'm right there with you. >> hodgman: i feel like you're a little bit behind. [ laughter ] >> smith: no, no, no. it looks like it, but i'm actually right there with you. >> hodgman: and so in the third book i had to think about whether or not i was going to do another one of these lists because everyone was asking for one and yet i also knew no one really wanted one. [ laughter ]

and really i think what people were trying to do was torture me to go through the mind-numbing and sort of traumatic experience of having to write one of these lists. >> smith: another list. >> hodgman: because it's an enormous number. i chose 700 because my friend sam potts who designed the books inside and out -- and they're beautifully designed, and we've always loved these weird, old, out of print books and old almanacs and old you know, ephemera and stuff.all the literature that was supposed to be thrown away is the literature that i really like the most. things, books you find in summer houses that have been left behind. do you know what i mean? or in a doctor's office, or books like the book that my friend sam gave me, 700 sandwiches. [ laughter ] >> smith: ahh. >> hodgman: yeah. >> smith: i'm sensing that this was the origin of the number... >> hodgman: guess what it was. >> smith: a list of 700 sandwiches. >> hodgman: a list of 700 sandwiches. [ laughter ] >> smith: pretty good.

>> hodgman: and so yeah. >> smith: so there is in fact that list. this is the list that you alluded to. >> hodgman: well, no, that's not -- well, this isn't sandwiches. >> smith: no, no, no, but it's the ancient and unspeakable ones. >> hodgman: yeah the ancient >> smith: unlistable, unlistable. >> hodgman: well, yeah, that's right. so, but, you know, once i appreciated that this book was going to take on a somewhat apocalyptic tone >> smith: right. >> hodgman: i struck upon, i wasn't going to do a list of 700 just for the sake of it, but i struck upon the idea of listing 700 h. p. lovecraftian old gods. and h. p. lovecraft is one of my favorite authors, and he, at the turn of the century, wrote these phantasmagoric stories about people confronting ancient beings that long preceded us, and really cared nothing about us and were coming back to crush us with their 10 that kels, and that's your sort of archetypical lovecraft story is, someone told me this was true and guess what? it was, and then i went mad. [ laughter ]

>> smith: well, you know, it's a good list, i have to say, you know. i like in particular he who is... >> hodgman: well, why don't you read all 700? >> smith: i'll read one. [ laughter ] he who is mainly just a giant boil with a rheumy eye and a single deformed tooth. >> hodgman: that's gross. no one wants to hear that. >> smith: it's a fantastic...no it's great. [ laughter ] they were all sort of like that, and then of course... >> hodgman: the headless body of nug shuhab and then the frozen head of nug shuhab and they have to meet each other. >> smith: pretty good. >> hodgman: yeah. >> smith: but i also see then again number two, you mention this, nick nolte, the plumed serpent is one of the 700 ancient and unlis....what is your thing with nick nolte? >> hodgman: i don't...i have no.listen, i have no problem with nick nolte. [ laughter ] he -- i don't want him to come for me. [ laughter ] >> smith: because he looks in that mug shot like he could take you, actually. >> hodgman: he looks like an outer being, a creature from another dimension >> smith: he does. >> hodgman: and that one, that one mug shot of course, the poor guy has to live with that for the rest of his life. >> smith: whole career is defined by that one moment. >> hodgman: well, i don't know. 48 hours.

>> smith: okay, 48 hours, and the mug shot. >> hodgman: cape fear. >> smith: cape fear, 48 hours and the mug shot. >> hodgman: someone give me another one, quick. prince of tides. [ laughter ] >> smith: you did well, actually. >> hodgman: nick nolte is an incredible actor. he also happens to be the avatar of the ancient meso-american god quetzalcoatl. [ laughter ] >> smith: i did not know that, actually. it's not on his imdb. >> hodgman: quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent. quetzalcoatl is actually the ancient nahuatal word for feathered boa. [ laughter ] >> smith: also did not know that. >> hodgman: someone was correcting my pronunciation on quetzalcoatl? >> audience member: quetzalcoatl. >> hodgman: come on, you're not going to ask me to say that. [ laughter ] say it one more time, and i'm going to say correctly. >> audience member: quatza. >> hodgman: quatza. >> audience member: .quato. >> hodgman: .quato. quetzalcoatl. >> smith: that's pretty good. you picked up something. who knew? [ applause ] >> hodgman: or nick nolte

for short. [ laughter ] >> smith: right. >> hodgman: so i put nick nolte in the first one >> smith: yeah. >> hodgman: and then i thought he would be the running gag. >> smith: running gag. well, it works. >> hodgman: he would be the one creature in this made up fantasy world that is myamericae he was at one time a hobo, he briefly lived with the molemen, and he also happens to be the living incarnation of quetzalcoatl. [ laughter ] did i not do it again? one more time. >> audience member: quetzalcoatl. >> hodgman: hello? [ laughter ] yes? >> smith: let me throw you a life preserver here. how'd you get the mac pc commercial? how'd that happen, since we've agreed that it's come to be a big part of your public brand? >> hodgman: it was arguably the most important part of my life. [ laughter ] >> smith: i stopped myself, actually, from saying that. right, yeah, but it's a big deal, so how'd you get that commercial? >> hodgman: i was asked to audition. i had been on the daily show three or four times >> smith: yeah.

>> hodgman: and basically planning for my life to go back to normal, because i didn't.i kept waiting for them to call and say, that was enough, thanks, don't come back again. but they never did, and i had a call to audition for the series of ads. and i knew only that it was for apple and i wrote my books on apple computers, i wrote all my term papers in college and all my favorite things that i've ever created -- >> smith: yeah. >> hodgman: in the realm of culture was done on apple products for the most part, and so i thought i would go into the audition because it would be a fun story that i auditioned for this ad, that i would never in a million years get the job. >> smith: couldn't possibly get it. >> hodgman: right, exactly. but i got the job and it ruined the story. so, sorry. [ laughter ] >> smith: but it is truly within the realm of commercials over the last, say, you know, 10 or 15 years, it's one of the most memorable series of ads that you could conjure up, right? it's a huge campaign. >> hodgman: it was a huge campaign.

>> smith: how many did you do? do you have any idea how many there were? >> hodgman: 10 thousand. >> smith: it seems like it, actually. [ laughter ] well, they were on every two minutes. >> hodgman: we filmed many, many more than aired. >> smith: is that right? >> hodgman: yes, and often a lot of the ones that we had filmed that would be edited, and steve jobs would pick out the ones that he wanted to see on tv, himself. >> smith: literally. he was, this is not a joke. >> hodgman: that was my understanding of what was going on. >> smith: okay. the voice of your character in that of the pc >> hodgman: yeah that's my voice. >> smith: it seems very much like... >> hodgman: my own voice. i dubbed it in afterwards. >> smith: yeah. it seems to... >> hodgman: you're wondering why i sound like that guy...that's me. [ laughter ] >> smith: that's you, actually, right. it seems to have been written for you in your voice or you led the effort for it to be in your voice, which was it? >> hodgman: i was not an act -- i mean, i had performed...what chops i had in performing were emceeing weird literary readings in bars in williamsburg. >> smith: yeah.

>> hodgman: and yet i was always a ham and i always liked to -- i mean, it's obvious right? quetzalcoatl. [ laughter ] and so it was. but this was a situation where as soon as i read the script, i completely understood what was going on. i completely understood the dynamic, i completely understood this guy who of course was not a guy, but the living embodiment of the computer, but you know, i got where they were, and so i could meld into it very easily. >> smith: so you were a literary agent -- this is not just the myth, this is actually a fact. you were a literary agent prior to becoming a writer, prior to... >> hodgman: i wanted to be a writer when i moved to new york. i really wanted to write short stories. >> smith: you had gone to yale, you were a literature major. >> hodgman: yes, that's right.well, literary theory. literary theory. literature is too practical. [ laughter ] it might actually help me to get a job in some way. >> smith: right, something totally useless. >> hodgman: yeah.

what is literature? that was my whole thing. >> smith: yeah. [ laughter ] worked out great. yeah. >> hodgman: and -- but it led me to probably my biggest, my favorite author who is the argentine author jorge luis borges, and how'd i do with the pronunciation? [ laughter ] perfecting... >> smith: they're going to give you notes on that one, right. >> hodgman: and the literary theorists love borges because borges is constantly redefining what story is and doing writing stories, short stores, about metaphysical ideas that take the form of literary articles, right? so it's like fiction.fiction posing as fact. you can see why i liked it and then pierre menard, author of don quixote was a story about a guy named pierre menard who wanted to

write don quixote, but not to copy it. he wanted to achieve it the exact same text word for word through his own experience in 20th century argentina. i think it was set in argentina, but i'm not entirely sure. and that was a story that took the form of a literary monograph, you know, so.and what i loved about borges was that he was an incredible poet and incredible writer and incredible thinker and yet also very funny. like he was playing games and he was doing literature, and this is why the literary theorists loved him, because he was doing literature that made you think about what a story was and he was. and he was building little puzzle boxes for you to figure out. and i loved the fact that literature could be playful and to me, he was really my hero, and what i also loved about him was that he never wrote a novel, because i knew i was never going to do that either because i'm lazy. you know, all of my ideas would only, that i have for any kind of writing that i

would do, lasted maybe you know, from a couple hundred to a few thousand words and then that was the end. >> smith: short form. >> hodgman: short form, and i also -- but i knew enough that there weren't a lot of people in the world paying big dollars for serious short stories that were imitations of borges. right? so, i mean you know in the 70s, yes, sure, of course, you could make a living that way. but in the early 1990s in new york city you had to do something else. so i decided to become, to work in publishing, and i took a job at a literary agency called writer's house, largely because it was in a beautiful old brownstone and looked like what a publishing company should look like, in my mind. it had a lot of ferns around and leather couches and i was like, yeah, this looks like a movie of a publishing company, or literary agency. and so i started, i decided that since i couldn't make a living writing these little weird short stories, i'd help other writers that i loved to, in their careers.

so i tried to do that for about seven years and i ended up representing some people that i really love still adore and helping -- well well, let's say not horribly harming their careers, but you know, what i was doing was in bad faith because i still wanted to write, and i just. i had to eventually break away and do my own thing. and so in 2000 i was, i finally, you know, released them to actual literary agents, and started writing for magazines, and that was really when i found mcsweeney's as an outlet particularly online, that i was able to start to play with a voice that was not these weird, stilted, serious short stories that i had been writing, but a voice of what i started writing an advice column called ask a former professional literary agent, where i would, people would write in questions like what do you need to be a writer, and i would say, well, you need a very special kind of beret, you

know. and like what is the best kind of novel to write, and it's like, well, the best kind of novel to write is vampires versus serial killers. [ laughter ] turns out there are a lot of books about that. >> smith: you were ahead of your time. >> hodgman: i know, well, yeah. and slowly i began to realize that i could be funny and that i could use the opportunity to answer these questions to tell little stories or little jokes, and explore this character who is basically deranged, but in a position of authority and he was going to lord it over everybody he ever encountered. >> smith: well, it's a great developing of the sensibility that infuses these books and they're all very funny. joking aside, great, everyone should go buy them, and if the world doesn't end, as we're out of time, we'll have to have you come back. >> hodgman: isn't it true that we're all out of time? >> smith: we're all out of time. [ laughter ] it's kind of, it's spooky how it all dovetails, doesn't it? >> hodgman: yeah. >> smith: we'll do a whole show about the mustache if you come back next time, i promise. >> hodgman: well, you'll have to check with the mustache's publicist about that. [ laughter ] >> smith: you'll slip me the

number, i appreciate it. >> hodgman: yeah. >> smith: okay, john hodgman, thank you very much. >> hodgman: thank you so much. >> smith: good luck. >> funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by hillco partners, texas government affairs consultancy and its global health care consulting business unit, hillco health. and by the mattson mchale foundation in support of public television. and also by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community. and also by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation

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