My guest today, John Hodgman is a writer, comedian and actor.

You may know him as the personal computer in a series of long-running commercials for

Apple Computer or from his recurring roles in TV on shows like Married, Bored to Death

and The Nick, but he actually started and built his career in the world of writing as a

literary agent in New York.

Before stepping into the role as a writer of his own books, then finding himself on the

Daily Show in a simple segment that he thought was just about promoting his first book.

But that segment would land him a series of recurring roles on the show as the quote

resident expert and then the deranged millionaire and launch him into the world of TV and writing,

producing, performing on stage and hosting the long-running Judge John Hodgman podcast

where he settles really important disputes between real people.

Things like Is a Hot Dog to Sandwich.

Now the author of multiple books including a series filled with fake facts and invented

trivia and his latest memoir, Medallion Status, kind of a meditation on status, what we value,

strive for and relinquish as we move through sort of the changing seasons of life.

We explore his remarkable perpetually shifting journey in today's conversation.

So excited to share it with you.

I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.

You grew up outside of Brooklyn's like kind of part of Boston, soberbish.

So my early growing up was on the much more suburban western end of Brooklyn.

Which was now very affluent at the time.

Upper middle class to affluent, I would say.

...