Skip to content

Making Bad Decisions with My Dad

2018-07-20 · letter vlog · Hank, Mike Green · 3:59 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Personal life (also: Books & writing) · mode: Comedy & performance · tags: guest or collab, self promotion

Hank and their dad recreate the dad's childhood after-school snack of Wonder Bread with sugar and find it surprisingly good; then Dad reads early blurbs for An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, and Hank plugs his book tour and PodCon 2 in Seattle (January 19-20), whose crowdfunding campaign is live.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Dad's childhood after-school sugar bread, recreated and tasted

  • ★★ Mike Green: Hank learned over dinner that their dad, at eight to ten, would come home from school and eat Wonder Bread topped with two or three teaspoons of sugar; Dad calls it an after-school ritual, not a habit. — 00:00:12 · Mike Green
  • ★ Mike Green: Dad says he ate it alone, without his mother or brothers, and that it was just a snack, not getting away with something. — 00:01:01 · Mike Green
  • ★★ Mike Green: Tasting the recreated sugar bread, Dad recognizes the crunch and finds it not as bad as he expected. — 00:01:36 · Mike Green

00:01:53 — Dad reads early blurbs for An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

  • ★★ Hank says many people have said nice things about his book, but he doesn't feel right reading them aloud, so he had his dad read them from paperboard cards. — 00:01:53 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
  • ★★ Mike Green: A blurb Dad reads praises the book's earnestly flawed bisexual heroine with direction and commitment issues and its generosity of spirit, calling it timely, sorely needed and highly recommended. — 00:02:04 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Mike Green
  • ★★ Mike Green: Another blurb calls the book funny, thrilling and an absolute blast to read, saying the writer knew Hank would be good at this but not this good on his first try. — 00:02:19 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
  • ★★ Mike Green: A third blurb calls it the book the writer's teen self would have loved and adult self obsessed over: joyful, devastating, personal, zeitgeisty, modern, classic, fast-paced and thoughtful. — 00:02:31 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
  • ★★ Mike Green: Dad adds his own verdict: he read it, and it's a good book. — 00:02:46 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Mike Green

00:02:49 — Book tour information at HankGreen.com

  • ★ Hank says he ate the sugar bread to excuse spending the entire video promoting things. (playful) — 00:02:49
  • ★★★ Hank says they are going on tour: all the new tour information is up at HankGreen.com, and tickets are apparently already selling fast. (hedged) — 00:02:54 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

00:02:59 — PodCon 2: Dad's review, the Green family attending, crowdfunding, dates

  • ★ Mike Green: Dad was at PodCon, will come again, and says it was great. — 00:03:05 · Mike Green
  • ★ Mike Green: Dad says Mama Green is coming to PodCon, though she doesn't like big conferences. — 00:03:11 · Sydney Green, Mike Green
  • ★ Hank adds that Katherine is coming too, so all the Mrs. Greens will be there. — 00:03:14 · Katherine Green
  • ★★★ Hank says PodCon's crowdfunding campaign is live now and they need people to sign up; more at podcon.com. — 00:03:18
  • ★★★ PodCon is happening again, on January 19th and 20th in Seattle, Washington. — 00:03:26

00:03:31 — Back to the sugar bread; sign-off; outtake about cutting the video

  • ★★ Hank admits that, though he made fun of his dad, the sugar bread isn't bad. (playful) — 00:03:33
  • ★★ Mike Green: Dad recalls his mentor telling him that the more you cut, the better it gets. — 00:03:50 · Mike Green
  • ★★ Hank agrees, calling it the whole thesis of Vlogbrothers. (playful) — 00:03:50

Humor (significant)

  • Hank calls Dad's childhood sugar bread a habit. — 00:00:05

    “It wasn't a habit. I could stop any time I wanted to.”

  • Dad asks whether he has to eat the whole slice. — 00:01:45

    “He's like 90% done.”

  • A blurb says Hank was this good on his first try. — 00:02:27

    “I think I will be less good on my second try, if that's any consolation.”

  • Dad says the sugar bread is like a Danish. — 00:03:38

    “it makes you think, maybe I should eat fewer Danishes.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing · Mike Green

Also: blurb · Four-minute rule · Katherine Green · PodCon · Seattle · Sydney Green · Wonder Bread

← Previous: How to Eat 213 Tomatoes · Next → Other John Greens