Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - QQ ep 5 - Quick Question with Soren and Daniel

Episode Date: June 26, 2019

Hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast featuring an exchange of questions and answers between two best friends. One, a TV writer, homeowner, husband, and proud father living in Los Angeles with his life together. And the other, excuse me, it's not TV, it's HBO writer, house fan, timid dater, and proud yet clearly submissive dog father living in New York with his life? Period. I like that one.

Yeah, well, don't get used to it. It's going to change forever. I'm Daniel O'Brien, one half of this podcast, and with me as always is Soren Bui, the other half. Hey, Soren. Hi. Alright, cool. I'll just keep carrying this load now hold on there's somebody else we should introduce uh every podcast because you're going to hear him laughing in the

background occasionally we will ask him for his opinion on things uh bacon our cfo hey guys dan you uh introduced a mathematical impossibility that there was two halves of the podcast and then soren introduced me afterwards. That's my bad then. Because Dan did it right. My math is the one that doesn't check out. There's no space left for me. If you guys were both halves.

No, see, I feel like the way the math would work the way the math would work to me is if you got a pie and you cut the pie in half but then someone put a hat on top of the pie and was like, whoa, that's kind of part of it, but not what anybody asked for. That's the nicest thing you guys have said

in the intro so far. Dan, on a lot of these, you end up asking me at the very beginning how my life is and I never return the favor. And I think that it's high time that I ask you, how's everything going? Oh, thank you for asking. It's been going pretty well.

As you know, I'm a man of the sea now. I went fishing Monday. It was not a great fishing day. Didn't catch any keepers. Your white whale got away. Yes, yes. Didn't catch any keepers when we went out. And honestly, we never should have gone out in the first place. I show up to the boat. The weather said it was going to rain all day, and there was only two of us who had pre-ordered tickets in advance, and they thought this doesn't justify a full-day boat fishing trip, and the weather's going to be bad.

And then at the very last second, two different groups showed up at 7 in the morning on a Monday, and they're like, we feel like doing fishing right now. And the captain was like, I guess we gotta, all these people came out here. Like, we don't want to let them down. Um, and it ended up being like, like, I just like being on the sea and fishing. I caught a couple of flukes, had to throw them back because they're too small. And we saw some little baby sand sharks, which is always fun to see. A couple of people called manta rays, which is always fun to see a couple people called

manta rays which is a thing that uh or stingrays rather which you don't see those every day um i thought the beginning of the trip was ruined because one of the groups was a group of uh five youths soren whoa goth youths goth youth and they were they were smoking cigarettes on the boat soren that's not what you're supposed to do. The fish hate that. The fish do hate that. And that's why none were biting. But anyway, the Goth use got scared of the rain and went inside the boat. And so for a while, it was just me and the first mate out getting rained on, fishing, and talking about fish.

So it was a pretty good day on that score. You and a salty fisherman out there in the teeth of a gale. Yeah. Speaking of teeth, the first mate had like three of them, and then the rest were just like, I don't know, staples? Just like really hastily thrown in pieces of too thin metal. Man, honestly, that's what I want in that kind of guy. Absolutely. Like that's going to be the guy who's going to give you the best.

He knows where the fish are. That's the only thing he's got going on in his life. He didn't this time. And like, I mean, we all blame the captain really. Because he kept coming on the loudspeaker the whole day. We would park somewhere to fish. And like 30 seconds in, he'd be like, I'm sorry, guys. This is a bad spot.

I'm really sorry. There are no fish here. We have to go. And then he'd be like i'm sorry guys this is a bad spot i'm really sorry there are no fish here we have to go and then he'd go somewhere else and apologize about that too and sometimes it wasn't even that there's no fish you just go i'm sorry that the the tide is pushing all your your your lines down under the boat um it's getting caught on the on the seaweed i'm sorry and that's like you that's a thing you can anticipate and he's right to feel like a failure for now he so wait does does eeyore driving the boat does he have like a sonar that tells you if there's fish in that water he's he i assume he does i didn't get a look at his equipment or anything like that but he's very much going to a place with intention.

So it's either sonar or this is where we've caught fish before. We were out here Saturday and we caught fish here. So I assume we'll be able to do it again. But with the rain, with a storm, that always changes conditions. So if he's not using a sonar, he's a fool. Is this... But in his defense, we never should have gone out in the first place. Yeah, I mean, Willis, he's a cruel mistress.

Is this a seasonal thing? Are you going gonna be allowed to do this in the winter or are you just gonna find a new thing that you are you becoming a sledder then uh this particular boat does go year round and you catch different things in different parts of the season i haven't done fishing in really cold temperatures yet so i'm not sure how that's going to affect my passion do you take dramamine before you go out there or you just you're fine no it's here here's a crazy thing that's like knock on wood for me is that um every person in my immediate family except my mother gets seasick like it's like it's really tough for my dad being out on the water my two older brothers both are taking uh either you're about to be arrested hang on one second yeah

that's fine are they taking dromamine or that or something else that starts with an e that like you take this the night before and then you take the next one in the morning okay and and and it almost never works i mean they're not throwing up on the boat or anything like that, but they're clearly struggling, and they're not having as good a time as I am. And I've just been bizarrely blessed so far that the rocking of the boat is very soothing to me. I've never at one point felt queasy or sick or anything.

And my mom's the same way. I mean, she grew up fishing all her life. So I got that from her. I grow, I go in and out of it. When I was a kid, I get really car sick. Yeah. But I, and boat sick too. But then, uh, I didn't for a long time. There was like a good 12 year window where I could be out there. No problem. And in fact, Colleen and I, my wife, we met on a biodiversity trip on a boat called the Vantuna. And everyone else on the boat was throwing up. And that was the reason that she and I talked was because you really could not talk to anybody else.

Now, is that? No, because you went to you met on a boat in college and colleges in California. So it's not. I was going to ask if that was a Colorado, Arizona specifically, like an altitudinal change that made everyone else that you were with sick, but no, it's not like, what, how could that be? Very, very clearly at sea level. Yeah. I don't know. We just, we were the ones who didn't get sick on that trip. Uh, it was like Providence had just blessed us for that moment and it worked out. And then, uh, later she and I went on a sailboat with a friend

of ours who got a sailing license and i was horribly sick this is like 11 years later i threw up all over the place but i was also a little hungover but uh now in her mind she's conflated the stories and she thinks that she was comforting me on the vantuna because i was throwing up over the side which is not true that's not i mean i think is it possible that she's confusing that with another story from your life? We're old friends, so we know a lot about each other. Wasn't she... Didn't you get very sick on a trip you guys took together?

Oh, my God. Yeah. We went to Costa Rica. And on my birthday, I threw up blood. Red right and blue, it was rough uh i threw up blood all night and i had to do it in the dark in a bathroom because if i turn on the light all the mosquitoes would come into the bathroom and they love blood yeah so i just saw some darkness in the toilet and it was after i had been just throwing up bile for a while i suddenly got like some really good surges of real fluid and i was like that's different and looked and it was blood and uh didn't go to a doctor i just stayed in bed the next day

craving some sort of gatorade or something and it was really it's one of those moments in a movie where in westerns where a guy gets shot and is like i just need some water some water like it was that feeling of my body was just draining of its fluids and i needed something and i was dreaming of gatorade and uh it turned out that i had something called mallory weiss tears in my esophagus which is something that alcoholics get because they're growing up so frequently uh it's just these yeah little tears in the esophagus and the the esophagus doesn't heal itself always, and so sometimes people bleed out from it, but I didn't.

Smart. That was good of you. But anyway, I brought that up because that was a story that I definitely remember Colleen comforting you. Yeah, it was rough. I look back on that, and I'm like, that was the closest I've been to death. Dan, quick question.

No, you can't do that yet. I do this part. We have a bunch of stuff that we need to get into today. We're going to talk about looks like fashion looks. We're going to talk about some critical updates in wolf-related, fox-related affairs. We're going to talk about some comedy stuff uh but before all of that we just want to welcome you our listeners as always we are quick question and as even more always you are a quib called quest i hated that as soon as i said it that was the second quib came out of my mouth i was unhappy and i wanted to bail all of them are the qq tips of club called quest this is hey that's great dan

what are you doing that's it that's the one we landed on it yeah we uh before we get into the show proper where we ask each other questions and we give each other answers we have Soren what? you know Q-tip so the Q-quips from Tribeca okay alright I would like to read a review go ahead

I'm sorry before I read the review hey I'm sorry I'm being salty at you right now Soren this is not a podcast where we fight we're having a good time we're buddies I'm sorry I'm being salty at you right now, Soren. This is not a podcast where we fight. We're having a good time. We're buddies. I'm sorry about all this. I know.

You got something you want to say, you should say it. I'm done. Okay. No, I mean, with this whole thing, I'm washing my fucking hands of this podcast. We're out. This review comes from ChiChi203. It's on iTunes, and she gave us five stars, or he. Forgive me.

Cheechy203. It's on iTunes. And she gave us five stars. Or he. Forgive me. I really needed this gentler form of male camaraderie to add to my parasocial relationships substituting interaction with real people at work. Five stars. I like that review a lot. It's always nice when someone

can articulate something about what you're doing that you didn't realize. Yeah. That's what I thought. I read that and I i was like oh yeah that that is now the plan we do do a gentler form of masculinity yeah uh so thank you very much for that gg203 uh for observing this thing and articulating it better than we could now before we get into questions I have a brief but necessary aside about the Twitter account, Hourly Fox. Now, devotees will recall that I sang the praises of Hourly Fox, a Twitter account that

aims to post a unique high-res photo of a fox every single hour and mostly succeeds, with the exception of a few disappointing doubles, one of which happened today, 15 hours ago. In the time between I mentioned it on the show and the present, Hourlyes made a rare non-hourly fox post to say, FYI, I will be unreliable for the next few days. Looks like Asia found out and really likes foxes. As this is a private project, my resource is limited and currently my servers can't keep up. Once I have time, I will fix it, hopefully without too much money involved. Are we really big in Asia? I have to assume we are. I have to assume I mentioned this Fox account and then Asia jumped on it because they know how important it is and flooded the person who runs this account with emails of different Foxes that they need to post so much so that it has made the runner of this

twitter account unreliable that's i'm patting myself on the back right now that's the qq bump baby that feels good that feels really good i had a feeling you know because our numbers are low here but i thought somewhere in the world they're gonna someone's gotta be into this shit uh hey soren i got a quick question for you god damn all right go Somewhere in the world, they're going to appreciate that. Someone's got to be into this shit. Hey, Soren, I got a quick question for you. No, goddamn. All right, go. Do you want to start us off?

Well, the reason I had before is because I had said that I was that close to death, and then I thought a nice segue would have been if I would have asked you about ghosts. Oh. But either way, it doesn't matter. No, go ahead. Ask me about ghosts. Okay, Dan, do you believe in ghosts whoa no yeah uh here's a real question that i wanted to ask you do you think less of people who believe in ghosts it's a little bit it's it's i've it feels very off brand for me for the kind of person that i try to be as as like an open person and certainly i have uh opinions on things that are not

logically defensible i would i i feel like the you know any of my spiritual religious beliefs whatever you want to call them, I wouldn't be able to stand up to them in court, but I still maintain them and they matter to me. So you'd think I would be okay with someone saying like, no, I saw a ghost in my house and I felt it. Like I got colder and then the door opened and I'd be like, no, you're dumb, it's the wind. I'm open to so many things and I'm just not open to ghosts.

And I'm open to aliens, and I'm open to all sorts of out there things. But if someone's like, no, I know it sounds crazy, but I saw a ghost. I'm like, no, it doesn't sound crazy. It sounds fucking stupid. You didn't. That's pretty much the ship I'm on. I listen to a podcast called Spooked, which is Glenn Washington does it, who does Snap Judgment. And it's good. I mean, it's real stories from people who think that they've seen ghosts, but present it as though they really have seen them.

And I like listening to it. I think the stories are very entertaining, but I also am very judgmental of everybody in it. And I was in the same boat as you where I was like, I think, is this a me problem? Like, am I being too judgmental? And started investigating it for myself, like why I felt this way and just started to get more and more mad

at the people who believe in ghosts all the way to the point where I'm now of the opinion that believing in ghosts is problematic. Ooh. Because... point where i'm now of the opinion that believing in ghosts is problematic oh because get two shovels and dig in soren i want more of this this is my hot take uh ghosts are it's like a white person indulgence i think uh i guess you there's also it's not just white, but certainly not a black indulgence. There are, can you think of a single famous ghost of a black person who lived after 1863 who wasn't a slave? I mean, I'm not even going to engage with your question, can I think of a single famous ghost? Well, there are like the Queen Anne ghosts and people like hotels are always talking about their ghosts that they have there but you there are no

no one's encountering ghosts every day that are wearing you know uh thick rimmed glasses and bow ties like what russell westbrook like right there are no black ghosts to speak of except for ones that existed during slavery times which seems like a pretty racist thing that we're not there that people are constantly seeing white ghosts all the time and never anybody who was black when they were alive uh right it's it's always certainly someone in like a new england town that was like oh i was i was hosted i think she was i i think she was some kind of like like very inspired inspired by the Victorian era. I think she, she, she did this in Colonial Williamsburg.

It's like, I'm sorry. Were there no native American ghosts? It's just this posh white lady ghost. I say native Americans only get pulled. They become poltergeists. They just become beams of light and read the whole human, but corporal forms.

Okay. That's I see. Okay. Not, no, not a lot of Mexican ghosts to speak of in this country. And, like, this is the melting pot of America. For some reason, we only get white ghosts here. And, like, granted, a lot of them

are from that same time period. We see a lot, people constantly are seeing Victorian women in these long draping clothing. But I think that's just as bad because in all those circumstances it's some like antebellum woman whose lover wouldn't leave his wife and now like you have to help her find the

letters in her house and mail the letter she never sent people want to help these ghosts all the time that that that woman had slaves most likely and that woman would she thought it was okay to give a deformed baby to the forest at that time period like these people are is that a specific ghost no i just mean like there was a time period where everyone was like oh no just give that baby to exposure like that was a weekly reminder for our audience to not check our work but that they like that who you got to consider that some of these ghosts are not good people that there's maybe a reason that they're in this predicament and that's why i think it's it's from a place of privilege because people are constantly trying to help ghosts move on that's net met if let's say ghosts exist and that that's really a thing that happens

why are you messing with the natural order of things they're here for a reason maybe this is their hell or like the place where they have to spend some time for a while to get their shit sorted and it's not up to you to help them mail their letters or whatever like let that ghost be right i mean well yes uh i think a lot of the ghost story tradition is very much uh white people of privilege helping other white ghosts move on. And it's insane and problematic that there hasn't been a story where a white person meets an African-American ghost and the white person is like, Oh, what is it that keeps you here? What bothers you? It was like, well, my problem is white people. Oh, that's not really my area.

I can't do that. But I do think the, the counterpoint to that is something that I have done no research on. But like, you were just in New Orleans. That's a home of a host of ghost stories that are not white-centric, correct? I think all of them are white-centric. Really? I mean, I didn't go on the ghost tour. It was something that I... I'm drawn to this kind of thing only because the novelty of it is very fun. That's why I listen to Spook. I wanted to do a ghost tour there,, I don't, I'm drawn to this kind of thing only because the novelty of it is very fun. That's why I listened to Spook. I wanted to do a ghost tour there, but I didn't.

And when I was just like looking through the pamphlet, yeah, it was white ghosts. It was a bunch of wives of Confederate soldiers who killed themselves or things like that. It's a very interesting, the only other hole that I'll, I'll punch in it. Cause again, I don't believe in ghosts and I like to support the narrative that you, that you're creating, but, uh, I looked into this a few years ago, so maybe this research has changed. Um, but it, a study has shown that disproportionately women believe in ghosts more than men and that was a fact that i couldn't wrap my brain around it would make sense if the biggest believers in the the argument of privilege it would make sense if the biggest believers in ghosts were ranked white men first because at that point uh you have ghosts because you need to invent a thing to fear because you have everything

already it's like you're not scared of anything else so like what could be oh you know it would You have ghosts because you need to invent a thing to fear because you have everything already. It's like you're not scared of anything else. So like what could be? Oh, you know, it would be like other dead white people. That's the only thing that could take me down is a stronger white person who already survived. A white person with supernatural powers. Right. But the fact that it's women, white women as the, I don't know if it's white women, forgive me for that.

Women as the disproportionately more believers in ghosts than men. I don't see how it fits in the privilege narrative. Yeah, I don't know, man. I also now maybe there's going to be just like a way into this that I'm not considering in which I'm actually the problematic one. So frequently happens. But I think the more I thought about it, the more I was like, no, no, believing in ghosts is genuinely fucked up. Yeah. Now we're going to find the problematic thing.

We're going to find out someone's on Twitter is going to be like, the reason that women believe in ghosts is because in the past when we did math, you burned us. And so we like to believe that maybe we live on. Well, yeah, there are so many, so many women throughout history that suffered injustices that were never, there was no reckoning for. It's nice to believe that at some point, if it's years after death there would be some reckoning yeah what's your unfinished business i invented the telescope and then galileo drowned me yeah so call me a witch and put a bunch of stones on me till my chest cavity collapsed uh we have fun on this podcast uh so i got a quick question. Yeah, go ahead. Oh, is there a look you've always wanted to try out, but you didn't think you could pull off like a fashion look or any kind of vibe or anything like that? Yeah. Yeah.

I feel like I've seen pictures of you in high school and you've been pretty consistent as all-American white J.Crew guy. Yes. Fair? Yes. So, yeah. And when you deviate from that, like, you kind of go full tilt because that's such an archetype that you really got to distance yourself entirely from it if you want to go in another direction. There are two that I've always considered one is a tattoo what kind of tattoo i would get and i fantasize about what kind of tattoo i get knowing full well that i'll never ever get one so in the

in these in these fantasies when you're fantasizing about a tattoo what do you what do you lean towards yes turtle Turtle? Yeah, of course. Yeah, I put Leonardo on there. There was like a Greek phrase that I really liked in college back when I had no self-awareness. And it was kalipatakala, which means everything that's beautiful is difficult.

And I was like, yes, yes. I'm going to put that in my lip or something. Oh, no. I won't put that in my lip or something yeah oh no and so I was like that where would I get that tattoo like where's a cool place to get that tattoo and I was like on my hip oh yeah but I mean obviously never

never had any intention of falling through with it my brother it would be go ahead it would be like honestly great if there was a like I know laser tattoo removal exists but it would be great if there was a, like I know laser tattoo removal exists, but it would be great if there were specific tattoo polars that were like, we're going to give you a tattoo and it's going to go away in six years. So you can get it like sophomore year of college and you can get it somewhere prominent.

That's a fine amount of time, mid-college to mid-twenties, to explain to someone, yeah, it means everything is beautiful is painful. What did you say? Difficult. Difficult. Yeah. Everything that's beautiful is difficult. That's a reasonable thing to show off and say to a person for a six-year period.

And then you're 27, it's like, oh, good, it's gone now. Do I want to re-up this? No, I'll let it fade. No, no, good. It's gone now. Do I want to re-up this? No, I'll let it fade. No, no, no. I think it would go away similarly as Dan's love for Garden State. Dan has a Zach Braff scrubs tattoo on his back. And then the other one, Dan, is something I can never do, which is grow facial hair, grow beard. I always thought it would be really nice. Yeah, that's right.

You can't do that. It sucks. I mean, you have a nice-looking face, so it's fine. I can't grow, like, a full beard, but I've been – it's crazy that this has come up in conversation right now. I just shaved my face for the first time in a while last week because I was working from home for four days and then I had two days off for the weekend. So I knew that I could conceivably not be seen by anyone

for six days minimum. And I just wanted to see what my face looked like without facial hair and remind myself that I hate it and I don't care for it. That the goal is to, uh, obscure of as much of my face as possible with glasses and hair. There was a, there was over this winter, there was a period where I wasn't at work and I was like,

I'm going to try it. I haven't tried growing a beard in a long time. I'm going to see what happens. I'm just going to let it. I haven't tried growing a beard in a long time. I'm going to see what happens. I'm just going to let it fill out no matter what. And, uh, spend some time just like not shaving and letting this terrible pubic hair grow on my face in islands all over like strange patches. And, uh, and then I caught myself one morning in the mirror as the light shone through it. And I went in the mirror, what are you doing? And shaved that morning.

Cause it just, it was not going to happen for me. And I'm not the guy and it will never will. I'm sorry to hear that, man. I want to tell you quickly though, that when I was younger and I was considering tattoos, my brother told me a story in high school where he was like really thinking about getting a tattoo as soon as he turned 18 and he was thinking in his mind you know it's got to be something that's going to be on me for the rest of my life so it's got to be something that i'm into forever so i landed on the blues traveler cat that's the best fucking possible answer in the world he thought that's

what it was gonna be it it was i think blues traveler is great that was never a cool opinion that's just a thing i believe yeah at no point in human history has it was everybody like, yeah, John Popper. That's that's that guy's got lasting power. No, I was like, like even as like a 13 year old,

it's like, man, blues traveler owns. Don't tell anyone you think that. Yeah. Cause it's not true. You're wrong. Uh,

well, uh, I, I feel like you, you, I feel like we talked about tattoos before because I really want one and I thought you gave me shit for it

I didn't have a specific one in mind you didn't like the idea that I wanted a tattoo I also went through a phase where I was thinking that tattoos were like a shortcut to being an interesting person that people were using it as a I don't know what else to do.

I don't know how else to get people's attention. What if I put a scorpion on my neck or like something like that? And I'm now moved on from that opinion as well. But you may have caught me in that phase of my life, in which case, I'm sorry. No, it's all right. I mean, I think you're probably right because I don't, it's not motivated by anything. probably right because I don't it's not motivated by by anything I just the idea of having a tattoo is neat to me and I feel like I came to that decision older in life like I wasn't it wasn't an impulsive let's get a tattoo in high school or even college I was like mid-20s I had been doing

well for myself I was like I think I want a. And I've been thinking about it for like 10 years now. And the only thing that's been stopping me is there's been nothing that's been meaningful enough to me to live on my life permanently. Like if something interesting happened that I was like, oh yeah, I want to commemorate that. So when someone asks me about it, which they inevitably will will i will have a good story for why i got it and i i don't i just don't have like nothing is important enough to me and it was like oh yeah there's a uh this c around my nipple is for comedy which is what i do like i'm not going to do that uh bacon made a really good suggestion for a tattoo for you. Dan, is it possible to get a tattoo of the entire sea?

Maybe you could just get a vermilion snapper. I think honestly, where I'm heading now is waking up hungover one morning with an anchor tattoo or honestly that's some other fish related tattoo no it's not man that it's just gonna be like oh like when i'm 39 someone will be like why do you have an anchor tattoo on the back of your

neck it was like oh it's because for eight months I was super into deep sea fishing. It's because I was never in the Navy. That's your fashion thing is tattoo and facial hair. You have one? There's two parts of this that I want to talk about. I have no discernible fashion thing whatsoever i don't think it's my my dream what i would like to do is is

dress very ostentatiously very garishly a lot of accent pieces and like accessories and things but i will just never do it because i don't want to talk about it or have any kind of attention it feels like it changes your whole lifestyle like the way you carry yourself has to be different if you did something yeah yeah i i certainly don't think i could pull it off and i certainly like if you if you dress like elton john then people are gonna be like hey you're wearing like red velvet horns on your head would you like to talk about that and your answer has to be yes i do i do want to talk about that because you're like when you dress this isn't a this isn't an asking for it kind of thing but when you dress in a very loud way it's it's sort of encourages conversation when when you're when your outfit is more art piece than anything else, it sort of, it's assumed that you have something to say about this.

And I never do. The closest that I've come, I have these shoes with sea turtles on them. Like a pattern of sea turtles from this company that I bought them from from China called Elephant City. And they're very much a conversation starter, which is why I don't like them. I like them because they're loud and I like turtles, but I don't like someone saying, hey, let's talk about your shoes, which is my conflict. I want to wear ridiculous looking things, but I don't want to wear ridiculous looking things but i don't want to have conversations about them yeah that makes sense you want to you want to aim for that guy looks cool but i don't need to talk to him about it right so it's like it's when we did uh uh what's that fucking harry potter series

that we did it correctacked. Welcome Back Potter. Welcome Back Potter. Thank you. Jesus. In that, I had a mohawk and I wore ridiculous sunglasses all the time. Oh, yeah. That's right. And a chain with a giant D on it and a gray tank top and garish clothes all the time and lots of accessory pieces.

And I was so happy to be doing it because it was for a character and i didn't and like so then it wasn't my fault i could just live in this character but like that's a that's like fashion is very fun to me i i think it's it's really interesting and exciting but i just don't have the confidence to be a part of it at all yes now there was one time oh i want to see if you remember uh this is hold on do you have like a truck backing up into your apartment that you're like waving in right now it's just been happening forever yeah i just i i like this is how we get our ice in new york the truck backs up and there's a shoot and it comes down is it is it so distracting

that we need to no i don't think so I just want to call attention to it. Good. I want to see if you remember this. This was a 4th of July party that we went to many years ago at Nick Mundy's house. And I had gotten a pair of white-rimmed women's sunglasses that were like big and attention-attracting. And I really wanted to wear them and i did and then i talked to you at the party and i mentioned them and i was like i was nervous about wearing these sunglasses but then uh right before i walked in i just like mentally decided i'm the kind of person who is allowed to wear these sunglasses. And do you remember what you said to me? No.

It's going to sound douchey, but... That's par for the course. That's von Brand for me. Your answer was, Dan, that's how I walk into every room I ever go into. Just this idea of I belong here and I'm allowed to do this, which is a really good like tip for me in in being more confident places is just like remembering soren at fourth july

fourth of july just being like yeah i know you feel self-conscious but like don't yeah that's i was watching the uh bring bringing down the house documentary uh withOC in it. And she's in her like apartment just prepping for a debate. And she starts just talking about like, she starts moving her hands in this weird way and being like, take up space, take up space, take up space. And I was like, yeah.

I mean, yeah, just be a physical presence. Do people not do that? Do people not know to do that? It's like you have, whatever you do, you have to own own it and that's the only way you get away with it if you don't own it man everybody locks onto it immediately which i can't own most things which is paradoxically a thing i own like i'm i'm okay that i can't do most things but i owned those white sunglasses that night and it's all thanks to you buddy i'm glad i could help in my in the my terrible uh self-involved way uh dan i have a quick question for you oh yeah go ahead have you ever had a performance

it could be stand-up or like sketch or even an interview where you just bombed like bombed as hard as anyone could possibly bomb no next question honestly i've had uh i think three that i want to talk about and one of them is arguably a bomb um the first one i i think about and still makes me very upset all the time is early years of of cracked and uh me and abe epperson the director and cinematographer were sent down to comic-con it was my first comic-con and it was just like this was the lawless days of cracked where there was like one and a half employees and a pool of freelancers and no direction so it was like go there with a camera and get content and uh it was at a time that like the thing to do at comic-con was to film people in costumes and be snarky about it and that that is just not a skill that I had.

And so we just wandered around with Abe with a camera and he kept reminding me, he was like, they paid for our tickets. They paid for our hotel rooms. We need to get something. And I just like didn't have the nerve to talk to anyone. And I didn't have any bits in my mind and every once in a while we would like pull a cosplayer over to us and i would start to talk to them and i'm

22 years old i don't know how to interview anyone so it's just like who what do you are so you're you're uh what are you uh you're you're zelda okay thanks for your time. Bye. And there's one thing that I thought was a bit, because there was like a line of people and they all had a bunch of Star Wars clothes on and I noticed that they were waiting at a door

and also next to the door was a garbage can and it's R2-D2. Like a panic and desperate move. I was like, what is that is that r2d2 yep and like it's so disingenuous because i know it's not and i love star wars too i would rather be on that line waiting to learn about star wars stuff but i did this fucking smug disingenuous is that r2d2 and the person that i asked said no and then a guy behind him like two people behind him said not even close to funny ouch oh and i said i like

honestly i just said i know i'm sorry and then we walked away and then i texted orin our boss at the time and i was like we're not gonna get anything out of this. And that just like stuck with me the entire rest of the weekend. It's just like this person saying not even close to funny and him being right and me knowing it and everyone knowing it. Yeah, that's that's brutal. When you're like trying to fill the shoes of somebody else you've seen do this before, but it doesn't feel good. And like you're attacking your own team right and then on the drive home i thought oh you know it would be

funnier if the bit was i was tasked to do this but didn't agree with it if i just steered into the skid yeah which you should almost always do that would have been a new fresh thing it would have been better than like talking about how Bubba Fett is a virgin. It's just a guy who is not good at being snarky, trying to be snarky, and then getting owned by a bunch of Comic-Con people. That would have been fine content.

That would have been fresh in 2009. A guy who's really trying to do it, but then like can't help but get invested in the stuff. Yeah. I like that idea. Yeah, that's really fun. Yeah, but I didn't come up with it until I was miserable and self-hating

on the drive home. Next year. No, I'm never going again. I have more bomb stories. Do you want to do yours first? No, no, no. I want to hear your other ones. Okay.

This is the one that might not be a bomb. It's just like another experience that haunts me is that i'm gonna wait for this siren that's an english siren where are you are they arresting jack the ripper where you are very safe hell's kitchen all right this is another one that i'm not even sure if it's a bum. It's just another experience that haunts me. You know the show Get Smart? Yeah. So they did a play version of that. There's a play called Get Smart, which is like an hour and a half straight play version of Get Smart.

And I was the titular character. I was Maxwell Smart. Is it Maxwell? I don't remember. All right. Me neither. I was Agent Smart. get smart smart yeah is it is it maximal i don't remember all right me neither i was agent smart and uh i damn it my this is a high school play and a majority of my life has been uh plagued with stomach problems and uh normally i can i can figure it out or work through it and this is a particular day on a show night where in between scenes i really needed to use the bathroom and it was a tremendous emergency and i can't put a timer on it it's gonna finish when it finishes so i was

I'm just a 17-year-old pooping unhappily and sweating and knowing that Agent Smart is most of this show. Are you wearing your costume? You're wearing your costume and your makeup? I'm in my costume. Yeah, it was like somewhere in the second act of the play. Everything had been going fine, and then it was like, okay, this is a time where I have about five minutes where i'm not on stage okay let's see if i can get this done in five minutes and i couldn't i was just like like non-stop pooping backstage and trusting that

either the director had come out at some because no one even knows where i am right now so i'm trusting that either the director had come out and been like, we're experiencing difficulties, just wait and we'll resume. Or my scene partners were doing expert, impossible improv vamping. And I'm just sitting there and being like, this is

seven minutes, this is nine minutes, this is no good, this is not right. And I just, as soon as I'm ready to go out, I just like sprint to the stage and to where i'm supposed to be and just like walk out on stage sweaty and i look at two other high school student actors who look at me and it's very clear that they're mad and it's very clear that there's been several minutes of silence and we just we pick up the scene and like the rest of the show goes on the way it's supposed to go but my scene partners afterwards were like hey what the fuck where were

you and my parents who had seen the show were like this one was different tonight honey what happened and everyone in the audience who hadn't seen the show you know just like someone's the dad of someone who's on the crew was surely like i don't know plays i've never seen a play before in my life but this isn't how it's supposed to go that was a weird choice not supposed to be four minutes of these two agents being like where is maxwell when's maxwell gonna get here late again maxwell there are no winners in that story no no it's very bad your other one at least had a hero it was the guy who said not even close to funny but yes yes that was a learning experience

that's so brutal dude it's it's it's very brutal and like i it's like just an uncontrollable like my body is wrong thing it's's just, I just got sick. Yeah. And there's nothing I could do about it. And it's just the kind of thing, like I think about the scene partners that I left, let down and the audience that I let down. And like anyone afterwards who told me we didn't even notice it.

It was like, Oh, you're very kind. That means you'll lie to me all the time. I can't trust you. Yeah. I, so that's something I think that's really common.

So kids who had to be in theater or chose to be in theater. No one has to be in theater. Or kids who just did it for the back rubs. Like they, I think they all continue. It was such an emotional and crazy time because you have to be, you're in front of all those people at the time of your life where you least want that. Yes. And that can be seminal for you or it can be traumatic. And I still have dreams to this day of me going to, I'm in the play, I'm backstage. I don't know anything about it.

I don't know any of the lines and I have to go on. And everybody else is prepared, but I'm not. Or like I've missed, just like you, like I've missed a good six minutes before. And everyone's like, where were you? You got to be on. You got to be on right now. And then I go on and I don't know anything. There was nothing good about those six minutes.

I even had a dream once that we were doing it and I kind of felt like it was going okay. And I was just like hoping I wasn't taking the show in the wrong direction. And then the audience just started clapping because they hoped we would stop. Like they hoped that would be the end of the play. That's the equivalent, I think, of people who have the dreams of going to a final and having not gone to the class the whole year. I think theater kids have a different version of that. Yeah. I have the,

the, the dreams of ruining get smart and also being in, in plays that like I, and musicals that I was definitely in, but don't remember the parts of, and I'm like hiding behind a stage rock being like, just give, let's just give me like five seconds and i'll remember yes uh this entire

song from pirates of penzance if you just give me like one second it's gonna come flooding back i promise you there's and it doesn't know and or you you can look at a script in your dream but you can't read in your dreams so it's all just this gobbledygook and you're like oh no yeah uh and you actually lived it i'm you came out the other side you're like a person who's been through it did I come out the other side? I think so yeah you seem pretty well adjusted now is this better? I'm never on stage anymore

I've removed that part of my life that is a brutal brutal story the last time the sweetest time i bombed was uh i'm not gonna name this person but we've both done his live comedy show uh under a bridge in suns on sunset okay okay uh i did his first version of this uh years ago it was like i'm trying out a new show it's like comedy variety stand-up whatever and i want you to be on it and i was early enough and stupid enough in my

stand-up career that was like there's no bad gigs and uh also stupid enough that it was like i should be a stand-up and so i took took it because I thought, why not? And I had like five minutes to fill and I didn't have any consideration of the fact that it was the first show and there was absolutely no momentum for it. There was no like built-in audience for it. Yeah. And I didn't pay attention to the fact that it was like a weird variety show i just went because i thought like yeah i could do stand-up i'd done stand-up a bunch of times

i'll just do standard jokes and then you get there and it's the audience was exclusively the other acts the other performers and maybe three other people one of them was my friend ben joseph and it was so empty and so sad and so unclear what this show would be because the the first act was a guy just like telling a very long story that wasn't very funny just like a story of a thing that happened to him just like a story of a thing that happened to him and then it ended and then the next act was a magician and the magician blew it

like did tricks that failed and you know what it's supposed to be but it wasn't a bit he was doing this thing where he was like I'm going to roll this newspaper and then I'm going to pour milk into it and then the milk is going to disappear

and then the milk didn't disappear and he said oh shit and threw the newspaper on the ground and then was like does anyone like car tricks and then he did car tricks and he was just it's very bad and it's really hard to follow a magician and it's extra hard to follow a magician who's bad and and that was me i followed and i was like i'm gonna so i'm the first like a comedian who's gonna do a thing here you guys thought the show was stories and magic and now i'm gonna i'm gonna do eight minutes on how hey dating apps are weird right i don't know whatever whatever it is that i was doing at the time and i wasn't getting laughs because there's no one in the audience except other performers they're thinking about their own sets and i'm just like performing to silence and I wasn't getting laughs because there's no one in the audience except other performers.

They're thinking about their own sets. And I'm just like performing to silence, except one time where I did a punchline where, God bless him, our friend Ben Joseph did a classic Ben Joseph thing where the punchline happened. He goes, ha, yeah. He's not a big laugher, but he respects a joke that he likes. So he did that. And in the middle of my set, I had to say, hey, thanks, Ben. And then just continue the rest of my set.

I think it's very rare for any stand-up comedian to thank a specific person in the audience for a single laugh. Occasionally they'll say, hey, thanks, mom. Yeah, right. But Ben, I mean, that's honest. It's too honest. It's too much to be a joke everyone this is ben joseph he's a great guy he's really funny he endorses that joke so you all suck oh man that's yeah that's rough it's rough doing it in front of other people who are also going up and that's your only audience because they are all they're doing is they're in their head thinking about their shit. What are your bombing stories? What do you got? I have one that's just

the worst stand-up bomb that I can imagine. I got hired to do a stand-up for this environmental group. They were going to do an award show. What has the environment won in the last 50 years? I don't know. Six-pack rings got environment won in the last 50 years i don't know six-pack rings got

cut up in the ocean uh that so they're they're doing an award show or they're doing like just an awards thing in a mixer basically i think it's called a mixer and uh they told me beforehand that they wanted me they're like we saw this thing you did on cracked about showering and uh and how what an indulgence that is for people in first world countries to just like indulge in all that fresh water and just sit under it and masturbate and they were like we would like you to do some sets like a set about the environment you have enough jokes to fulfill that and i was like i could write them and so uh i planned a 12 minute set for that and i was like but i told them beforehand i was like listen i i i'm worried

because you don't have any other acts that people aren't going to know that this is that there's going to be stand-up there and and there's nothing worse than ambush stand-up comedy so like you need to prepare this audience that they're going to at a certain point stop whatever the fuck they're doing and pay attention to the stage yeah and they're like yeah no it's no problem we'll we'll take care of it we totally understand and uh i went there uh with my wife and i told her beforehand listen if this goes bad i want to just leave afterwards and i want to we need to like some sort of sign that i can give you and you will know that i need to go because i don't want to hang out with a bunch of people after i if it goes really poorly i don't want to be there with a bunch of people after I, if it goes really poorly, I don't want to be there with everybody after I tank.

That's actually nicer than where I thought it was going, where I imagine like, look, honey, if this goes bad, I want you to put an arrow through my fucking heart. I don't want to wake up from this. And so I get there. I realize that the venue is a bar. It's the Angel City Brewery, if you know that downtown. Oh, I love that place. Yeah. And all it is, is there's an area that's been sectioned off by one strip of rope,

like the airport canvas that they make lines with. There's just one of those stretched out over this other section that's separating it from the rest of the bar. Yeah, so that's the... Is that the brewery... Like, that brewery is, like, truly a large and echoey metal expansive place that has like an upstairs and like games and stuff. Cornhole. Yeah.

Yeah. Some pin game. Yeah. They've got lots of games, two different bars. And then there's one quadrant that they've sectioned off for this mixer. That's all that they've rented out. And I get there and I'm like, uh-oh. And also no no seating, so

it's just standing, and no stage. There's nothing delineating where this is actually going to take place or where they'll do their award show. I shouldn't say award show. I just mean that they're going to be handing out awards and it's a mixer for all these people in the environmental field to get to know each other and know her.

So I get there and I'm kind of sussing it out and i say where where are you gonna set up and like well where do you want to be and i was like no no no i don't want this to be my decision uh and finally we like land on where the stage should be and then they go are you gonna be do you think you'll need anything to amplify your voice? And I was like, yeah. Like, I need a mic. Otherwise, I'm just a guy at the bar who wants a lot of attention. Yeah. I mean, stand-up comedian.

Hold on. Wait, what the fuck is going on? Someone playing Zelda? That's like the professor's howl from Harry Potter who turns into a werewolf. Good poll, Bacon. That's going to register with this crowd. Dan Soren, who I've never seen any of those. That's staying in the pod.

It's staying right in. Absolutely, it's staying in. So eventually, we get to the point where we're like, okay, I need a microphone. And they're like, okay. So they get a little tiny speaker that you would i need a microphone and they're like okay so they get a little tiny speaker that you would plug into a guitar and play in your garage yeah like

practice amp yeah a little practice amp and they get a microphone they've they've dug around in the bar enough that they found a microphone and uh i'm getting real worried we found this wet microphone in the back of the freezer i'm not sure if it still works i'm getting real worried also because these are not these are not tried and true jokes that i have this is all fresh stuff that i came up with right for this event like catered to an audience that i hope likes it all right this is based on the assignment we like your jokes about water do you have more yeah and so i'm just like going through the set in my head and like all right i just got to worry about this make make sure that I know it. And I know all the beats and I know all the transitions.

And then it becomes time for it. There's no lead up to it. Nobody's doing anything else. Somebody just gets up on stage and says, okay, we want to thank you all for coming. And now here's Soren Bui. Not even like, here's some stand up. Right. So you could be like the president of the environment for all they know.

Yeah. You're just the special guest. I'm like, they fucked me. They fucked me. And so I get up there and I immediately start launching into it. I think my first joke was something like, my wife was pregnant at the time. So I think it was something like, hey, my wife and I are having a baby. No one claps, which fine.

That's fine. I'm like, no, that's an act of violence. It's like my wife and I are having a baby, which is a good thing because we're really thinking about getting a dog and we want to make sure we're responsible enough first or something along those lines. Like that was my opening and met with nothing but chatter as everyone goes back to talking to each other with their drinks in hand. And I realized that everyone's just going to be talking through this set. No one's going to be paying attention to the stage. Except for like the three people who organized it, who are all right there at the front, glued. And not glued in a way where they're paying attention.

Glued in a way where they're like, see, I'm a good audience member. And so they're not listening to the jokes. They're just listening to the cadence for the punchlines and then laughing. And it's brutal. Like I'm going through it and I'm, because I'm so hyper aware of what's going on around me. Like I'm all over my own set. I don't know where I am.

I'm like skipping jokes and things are not going well. I'm not doing a good performance. The audience is not good there's a guy another guy at the bar who's not involved in any of this who goes shut up uh and i don't know how to like call attention to that and still make it funny because i'm not a good enough comic to like to banter because you're like you're very off the like you're you're funny off the cuff certainly like i like some of the funniest things you've done you're you're an incredibly talented writer and incredibly incredibly talented stand-up but some of the

funniest moments that i've i've had with you have been just you like living present in the moment but you're still i wouldn't say trained at responding to hecklers no you're still, I wouldn't say, trained at responding to hecklers. No. You don't have that skill. Like, I don't have that skill either. No, I'm not. And I mean, I've improvised before, but that's not a strong muscle in me.

I'm not the best improviser. I'm not the best at dealing with that kind of stuff. So I don't address it. This is the wrong decision. And I just keep barreling ahead, and it's going so badly. And after a while, even the people who organized it are kind of like whispering to each other and

they're not paying attention anymore. And maybe the, I mean, I, I don't know if I'd even, if I went back and looked at it, if I'd stand by the jokes that are in there, maybe they're not good too.

So some of this is on me as well, but I'm just dying up there. I'm there for, I'm supposed to be doing 12 minutes. I get through about nine and then I go, you know what? I'm going to put doing 12 minutes. I get through about nine, and then I go, you know what? I'm going to put you all out of your misery. Let's end this.

And then people clapped. And they went on. Oh, I'm sorry. There's one more part of this. There is, when we're doing the awards, they've asked me to do the awards afterwards. Oh, Jesus. So I just have to transition from, okay, and that's the end of the prepared

comedy. Now it's time for who was the best in the environmental field this year. Oh my God. And that's so awful. Some get, some of them are kind of like joke awards too. And like people who did the least and then you, you know, some celebrity who couldn't be there that kind of stuff and it's man it's it's just brutal it's an it's an audience that doesn't know how to be an audience but also wasn't aware that they were supposed to be like they weren't filled in on their role and uh yeah there's i don't know who to blame for this because they just thought they were going to a work thing right and all of a sudden there's a guy who's like hey hey you know it's uh you know it's funny about uh pooping in toilets all that fresh water you're using up um and so it it dies on the vine and afterwards i step away and i'm like okay and i go to my wife and i give her the look immediately and she registers it and then she goes i have to

stay and take pictures with these people so she has to go into another room with these other people who are on the board of this environmental program uh i'm now left alone they go upstairs in the bar i don't even know if they're how they where that is but they i'm left alone with all these people who have just done a show in front of strangers strangers, who are trying their hardest to be like, that was good. That was really fun. I'm trying to latch on to a single thing you've said so that we could talk about it, but nothing comes to mind. See, I can't believe you stayed. You could have stayed in the area, but I think at that point you have full permission to like, excuse me, I'm going to go to a McDonald's, order a happy meal, specifically in the discontinued styrofoam environment ruining stuff.

And I'm going to get a six pack and take the rings and throw them at a family of ducks. You're allowed. You've earned it. You've earned the destruction. I stepped through the velvet rope and went out to the bar and got a drink by myself on the other end of the bar. But two of the people that had been there were playing cornhole over on that side and so i stepped outside and outside one of the people from the board was on the phone and i was like i can't get away from these people i just want to leave i just want to crawl into a hole right now and die and uh i was so mad and embarrassed at myself like and i was also like going through the set too

and be like well you fucked that up i mean of course they didn't laugh no that wasn't even a good joke that was bad so i'm beating myself up over it too and i just want to go so badly and it's not happening yeah that's my and it's actually you're still there you're still there yeah you still haven't left there. You're still sitting there. Colleen's still taking pictures. Yeah, still up there taking pictures. And yeah, then she came down.

And when we left, I was finally like, what the fuck? Like, I gave you the look. What happened? She was like, I have to, like, this is my job. Like, I have to do this. I was like, yeah, but you see, I was embarrassed. You should just quit. You can never see these people again.

You don't understand. I don't ever want to, I can't run into them again. We, what we should do is just kill them all. Yeah, I know it's your job, but they're wrong and you should tell them. So anyway, that, that was it. So do we have time for anything else? Are we, have've been recording for an hour yeah that's it that's it okay um well this was a fun one this is a cringy one yeah i didn't think this podcast was going to turn to uh pooping as quickly as it did um i knew let me let me take us out of here i need to forgive me i need to track down i should

have this up earlier i need to track down our social accounts but uh while i'm doing it soren could you kill some time you said you had an original poem you wanted to read and in your text you said it was the kind of poem that rhymed nothing experimental about it just a straightforward rhyming poem you'd been working on you'd been working very hard on it you said uh so soren do you want to read that rhyming poem while i look into the social media yes i do okay um okay it goes it goes a little something like this no longer mourn for me when i am, then you shall hear the surly sullen bell give warning to the world that I am fled

from this vile world with vilest worms to dwell. Nay, if you read this line, remember not the hand that writ it, for I love you so that I and your sweet thoughts would be forgot if thinking on me then should make you woe. Oh, if I say you look upon this verse when I perhaps compounded and with clay, do not so much

as my poor name rehearsed but let your love even with my life decay lest the wise world should look into your moan and mock you with me after i am gone c minus so you can follow us on twitter at dob underscore inc that's where you can find me dan Daniel. You can find Soren at Soren underscore LTD. You can find our CFO Bacon at MakeMeBaconPlease. That's MakeMeBaconPLS. You can follow the show on Twitter at QQ underscore Soren and

Dan. You can email us if you don't value your time at QQ with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com. You can find us on Instagram. I can't imagine what the fuck we're doing with Instagram. A lot of you underscore

with underscore Sorin underscore and underscore Daniel. If you're looking for a lot of behind the scenes footage or photos, you will absolutely not find it there. What are we posting on our Instagram account?

We haven't posted anything. We have the exact same profile picture we have everywhere else. But that's it. Okay, so we haven't posted anything. We have the exact same profile picture we have everywhere else. But that's it. Okay. So we haven't posted anything. We just made sure we got it because we had to secure that handle. That's why.

It's a cool one that everybody else is jumping to get. It's the best handle you can get. Okay. It's not much better. The only thing that's useful, you can find, hire, and love our editor, engineer vincent at silicon beach podcasts.com that's i want to make sure i said that right silicon beach podcasts.com uh you should like and rate us on itunes torture for you important to business people. You should tell your friends if you like this show that they should listen to it too.

You should subscribe. We probably have a Patreon that's up by now. Okay. Is there... I've been reading fucking dot coms for nine hours now. Does someone else want to read what our Patreon is? Bacon, you know it. I think you just

Google Patreon quick question with Zoran and Daniel. Oh my god. want to read what our patreon is bacon you know it i think you just uh google patreon um quick question with soren and daniel oh my god oh my god wait dan i also want to just say bacon can attest to the fact that my poem was at the top of my dome i didn't look at my phone at all those three rhymed poem dome phone that's, poem. That's a... Never ask a theater kid to do a poem, man. They'll just fuck you up with some shit. I don't... I don't believe you looked at your phone, but I do

believe that that poem was one that you'd memorized a long time ago. Yeah, it is. It's great, though. It's very, very good. Very good. I mean, I was half listening to it. I was looking for the social location. Oh, you actually are looking at shit. I thought that was a bet. Okay, shoot me a minute.

All right, bye. Bye.