John Hodgman offers up expertise

    1 of 1 2 of 1

      “The path of my professional life is twisted and implausible,” says John Hodgman. “But real.”

      After graduating with a degree in literary theory (literature was too practical; he just liked the idea of books, he says), Hodgman got a job in publishing. An unlikely performer, he was a literary agent before quitting to become a magazine writer. Some humour pieces led to a book of made-up trivia. So far, so good. He fits the role of nerdy scribe to a T—so much so that an appearance on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart to plug said book led to the opportunity to audition for the very personification of outdated nerdiness, a PC in Apple’s famous ad campaign.

      “I was a pudgy, round, baby-faced man with a little bit of a lazy eye in his mid-30s,” he says from his home in Brooklyn, New York, on a brief layover from his Vacationland tour, which he’s bringing to the Rio Theatre on Tuesday (October 13). “It was not really a time for someone to take on a new career as on-camera entertainment for other humans, but it happened. Perhaps it was an unusual look for a television personality, but it was a great look for a bumbling PC.”

      He figured what the hell, it would make a great story that he was once asked to audition for a TV commercial. “But I got the job and I ruined the story, so sorry.”

      He also became a regular contributor to The Daily Show as its “resident expert” and a “deranged billionaire”, and his transformation from primary writer to primary performer was complete. Now he acts (he’s got a recurring role in the FX series Married) and has a popular podcast called Judge John Hodgman, where he weighs in on disagreements between friends about whether chili is a soup (it isn’t), and whether a machine gun could be categorized as a robot (nope). “I realized that a) I enjoy telling people who’s right and who’s wrong, and b) my opinion is almost always correct. And therefore it seemed a benefit both to me and humanity for me to settle some disputes,” he says.

      Oh, and he performs standup, too. Or is it standup?

      “I don’t classify it as anything,” he says. “I mean, I’m standing on a stage and people are laughing. I’m telling stories. There are labels for these sorts of performances, but all I can say is that this is a John Hodgman show, so if you’re a listener to the Judge John Hodgman podcast, you’re going to know that there’s going to be a lot of my preoccupations in the show and it’ll be very much a mix of jokes, but also sincere interests in the world and an occasional song, because I’ve been indulging my singing on the podcast a lot. And if you’re a fan of John Hodgman from The Daily Show, and you want some esoteric, weird cultural references and completely bogus phony trivia and made-up authoritative facts, there are elements of that, as well. I’m the guy who’s doing all of these different things. They all live within me. A lot of the show is really about the fact that I can only give you who I am.”

      He is, if nothing else, the resident expert on his life.

      Vacationland: An Evening With John Hodgman plays the Rio Theatre on Tuesday (October 13).

      Comments