Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - QQ ep 85 - A Very Special Episode of Quick Question

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

In this episode the guys accidentally dive in to some deep topics, and nearly set a new record by not asking our first question until well after the halfway mark!  And as always big thanks to our sponsor, BetterHelp.  Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/qq

If you're shopping while working, eating, or even listening to this podcast, then you know and love the thrill of the hunt. But are you getting the thrill of the best deals? Rakuten shoppers do. They get the brands they love with the most savings and cash back. And you can get it too. Start getting cash back at your favorite stores like Old Navy, Best Buy, and Expedia. And even stack sales on top of cash back. It's easy

to use, and you get your cash back through PayPal or check. The idea is simple. Stores pay Rakuten for semi-mum shoppers, and Rakuten shares the money with you as cash back. Download the free Rakuten app and never miss a deal. Or go to rakuten.ca to start giving the most bang for your buck. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. Hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers address every question. A podcast that was succinctly described by a past guest off mic when he said, I thought you guys were doing this podcast sarcastically. I am one half of this podcast, Mr. Right on Time and the Jersey Shore thing.

Daniel O'Brien, joined as always by the Colorado Rascal, the once and future king of date night, my co-host, Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, say hello. Hello, everybody. I'm called Soren, unless you're a host at a restaurant, or a barista, or a chef at a food truck, or a cashier at El Pollo Loco, in which case,

of course, you know me as Scott. You know, just to save us both the trouble. Do you, what's the most um because i i imagine you you didn't start out by saying scott you gave your name to to people in places and was it more common for them to not understand it and need it repeated a few times or did you get caught in a trap of oh sorry that's an interesting name where's that name from? What does that mean? Oh, no, it's both of those things.

I mean, they like to keep things cooking. Uh, yeah, not, no pun intended, but like they want to like get you in and out. So it's just,

uh, the name is Soren, Sean, Soren, Sarn, Soren. And then me spelling it out. Uh,

it's, it's become a more common name over the past few years, but it is not common enough that anybody in the food industry, for instance, knows that name at all. It's also, if you're not from Norway or from like Scandinavia, then maybe like some cultures, it's really even tough to pronounce because the S's don't begin a lot of the words in like Spain, for instance. So it's Esoren basically there. And so it's just a tough, tough name in general.

But Scott is people, it's like universal. It's enough people are named Scott that if you're even from anywhere in the United States, like you know that name, it's fine. It's easy. So I chose that one. Thanks to BetterHelp for supporting Quick Question. For 10% off your first month, go to betteratlp.comqq. Start living a better life today. Well, that about does it for the name portion of our show. Oh, wait, no, I could talk about my name for a while. Not that anyone asked. I've been thinking about my last name a whole lot.

Just because the amount of things that I've been ordering and doing online the past year because of COVID and being stuck inside all the time. I'm shocked that website forms haven't released whatever patch they need to release for them to understand that some people have an apostrophe in their names. Because like it's O'Brien's an old old name it's been around for a while yeah and there are some website forms that understand the apostrophe and there are some where it completely breaks all of their shit and it like recreates your name as o and then a series of keyboard nightmare strokes and like ampersands and backslashes Brian and like hey this is at a certain point whomever is coding these websites should have been like that that can't be people are gonna have apostrophes in their name it's just not on the list of fixes and I feel like in 221 if it's or whatever year this is, 221 is how you name years, right?

It is the future. The year is 221. Robots are in control. If they can't do it by 221 when the robots are running things, then I just feel like this is not anyone's radar and it's on me and my, my brothers and sisters and, and, and otherwise to just choose to drop the apostrophe from our names. That is something I had never really considered is. No, you shouldn't. It doesn't matter.

Well, it doesn't matter. I mean, it matters that my name is weird enough that like when I introduced myself to people, it's either conversation or it's a confusion. Yeah. I get a lot of people when it's not in the food industry, it's either conversation or it's a confusion yeah uh i get a lot of people when it's not in the food industry it's not like people trying to keep me moving through the line it's always like a soren like soren through the sky or like you know whatever other thing i've heard 500 million times sure and uh and then are your parents hippies yeah i mean i guess but that

doesn't have anything bearing on the name soren i don't think and it never even occurred to me dan that the apostrophe thing would also be a huge issue and i can see now why it would be i mean i would occasionally on sites put my name in as doctor and then my last name just because i was a kid and i thought that was funny and just putting the dr and then a period that would fuck stuff up yeah absolutely yeah you crashed the entire bank of america infrastructure with a single stroke uh let's get into our show we haven't done a a covid check-in in you know in a while uh i don't really know how things are on your end just like broad strokes new york uh people 16 and older are now eligible for the vaccine so people are getting it they're getting all fucking jabbed up out here and it's and uh

it's nice you could see that uh you know everyone's prepping for a really horny summer yes which is good for people like me who are like that's the movie theater is going to be even more empty this is thrilling you guys are gonna be all out getting horny all over each other spreading the different variants of covid and i'm gonna be watching fucking shitty shitty bottom barrel movies by myself in giant imax theaters i saw even in the new york post the front page of the new y Post was like, get ready for a horny summer. But we're not as far here. I'm really excited for you. I'm excited that everybody's getting the poke there

because we are nowhere even close to that here. And what's happening here is that they've moved on to, I think, 50 and older. And by April 15th, we're supposed to open it up the same way that you guys have it. But, you know, it's in Los Angeles. So you never really know where there's – you don't be able to find an appointment anywhere. You can go just wait somewhere and see if you can get it. And then every once in a while you see on Twitter, people who are trying to be very healthy,

help healthy. People are trying to be very helpful saying things like, Hey, if you're up for it, you can go up to Carlsbad and get the shot. It's like, I don't know. That's a lot.

That's a lot. Yeah. It's, it's very excited to people who are like, Oh, okay. I'm, I'm pinning the location.

Now there's a box full of vaccines in Barstow. It's surrounded by cats, but the cats, they, they, they're excited because they don't want to throw out the syringes right now. So just go and like find the cat leader and explain that, that you want a vaccine and then you could just grab it and you're good to

go. It's Johnson and Johnson. It's one and done. And there are a lot of people who are, uh, there's the ethics are being called into question a lot here because so many people are getting the shot. It's right now. It's based on good faith. like you're going to go there and you're going to be

within the group that is supposed to be getting vaccinated and it's just an honor system and no one here is honorable and so there's just everybody's getting the shot and all the appointments are booked up and it's it's kind of a nightmare yikes well i'm sorry to hear that i think it's good honestly i think it's good okay i think it's good first of nightmare. Yikes. Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I think it's good. Honestly, I think it's good. Okay. I think it's good, first of all, that the people who are getting the shots,

who are dishonorable, are getting the shots because they're the ones who are most likely to engage in reckless behavior anyway. So good, get them vaccinated. And then also, maybe if everybody cheats early, then when it actually becomes time for the heroes of the story to get their shots, there will be more room.

Yeah. And when you say heroes of the story. Me. Okay. Yeah, I figured. I, opposite of, not opposite of hero, but pretty close to that, learned a new way that I'm insensitive and I'm always happy to learn new things. And as with most things of this nature, I learned it on Twitter and not in real life. But

someone that I know got the vaccine a few, like a month ago. And I was very excited to ask them about it because I was just curious. I also wanted the vaccine. And they told me. And then maybe a week or two later i saw on

twitter a big rollout of people saying with the the clapping hands emoji in between every word don't ask someone how they got the vaccine it might be insensitive and it was like all right right not supposed to do that i know i guess i know that i think you're yeah yeah you're not i guess you can still say how because then they can give you an answer that's like oh you know i went to this place and they still had a lot of appointments available as opposed to i have this genetic disease right which was that that's my my blindness and my stupidity that i wouldn't even think that was an option that when someone says they got a vaccine my brain immediately goes to you sound very clever let me find out what clever thing you did and then it's like oh i got this because i'm i'm i'm i don't have insides i'm just i'm just more

fingers on on instead of a tummy and i'm really sensitive about it and now you made me say it like okay well sorry now i've learned and i apologize yeah so things aren't great here instead of a tummy and I'm really sensitive about it. And now you made me say it like, okay, well, sorry. Now I've learned and I apologize. Yeah. So things aren't great here, but I did do a little trip. I went up to San Luis Obispo and visited my,

well, my brother doesn't live there, but it was kind of like halfway between us. And we stayed at this amazing house for our kids that had a fireman pole in it. There was a trampoline outside. There was cornhole, foosball, ping pong, a slack line. You know how I feel about slack lines. Hell yeah.

And just like a lot of open space. It's basically a big farm that wasn't actually being used as a farm. And so we had a remote control car. The whole thing was just so great for them. But not for you? Well, you know it never is. You go on these trips and it's like you're responsible for everything. So it's actually harder to be on vacation than it is to be just sitting at home.

But you see the joy in their eyes and you tell yourself that's enough. Wow. Did your son try the slackline? Yeah, everybody tried it. Okay. Is that enjoyable for him or a thing he wants to master? Or is that like, this is difficult, a little bit scary. I'm going to do the remote control car now. Yeah. There's nothing that if he's not good at something immediately, he's not interested in it. And that's not many things because he's five years old. Sure. But he, he tried it. He was like, did a good faith try on it. And then, but showed no interest in like getting better. And I don't know that that, I think that that stuff probably comes later.

I think it would be pretty weird if there was like a young determined five-year-old who was like, I'm going to master this. But he gave his best shot at it. And then the other kids did too. And then they were done with the slackline. I walked it quite a bit. That's good. While they were out on the trampoline, it was really nice for me to just walk this line

for a while. Yeah. And how long were you there for? Really, four days. It was actually, I mean, I was talking shit about it, but it was actually really fun. It's good to see my brother. I like his family a lot. I like his wife.

I like their kids. And their kids are both very similar in age to my son. So we had a really great time. And they kind of occupy themselves a little bit more than they do at home. It's like my son is playing with those kids most of the time unless they're fighting and so it's great thinking that I have some free time but it's still

you're constantly watching I'm watching I have a baby too so I'm watching her all the time making sure she's not swallowing the things they're dropping on the floor or that that you know the house is isn't getting destroyed completely destroyed right well that's nice i got a little i got out of the city too even though i was mostly in uh beach town in new jersey for for months the the city is still you know mostly shut down and and not very interesting or fun. But it is loud and cold. So I went to North Carolina

and saw my vaccinated parents for a while and that was nice. And it was just like a very pleasant, relaxing time. Nothing too eventful or like good podcast fodder. The only thing that I really enjoyed was we went golfing, went into the pro shop to pay uh to pay for it or and and everything and get little pencils and whatnot and as soon as i walk in the woman behind the counter looks at me

and says can you fix my computer and i could that's the the that's the best thing about being the youngest person in this part of north carolina by like three decades yeah is that just like yeah probably let me take a look at her uh like her desktop was completely uh sideways rotated 90 degrees to the right so it looks like i god knows how that happened but i can also see how that looks like a completely insurmountable problem that I, a tech genius alone could solve. And I did, you know, you right click and you fix the thing. But I really appreciated just this poor woman doing her best and then just sees someone vaguely younger.

It's like, can you fix my computer? Yeah, of course, ma'am. We all can. Did she give you golf, like some golf balls on the house or anything like that or was she just like thanks no fuck off uh she offered to give us a free golf ball but um my dad my uh we said we turned it down oh my dad is trying to get like a branded golf ball from everywhere he goes and they didn't they weren't they didn't have those on offer so you know we don't we have golf balls soren we are we are we are people of means did you tell her that yes one golf ball no thank you here have a golf i'm like i'm sorry i'm from uh manhattan and before that hollywood so me, I don't need your peasant golf balls.

I'm sorry. That won't do me any good. I am very bad at golf. I will lose that on the first hole. Now that I've fixed your computer and big-timed you, please, which of these holes has bumpers? So did you spend any time in Williamsburg? Because I have follow-up questions if you did.

Uh, Williamsburg, Virginia. Yeah, I did. Remember we talked about it. I, I, uh, got scared of a snake. Oh yeah, that's right. Um, and when you were there, were they doing the reenactments while you were there? They were not doing any of the reenactments or, or, uh, there was a, uh, I was offered a free ticket to go to like a Colonial Williamsburg house like the house and I had my dog with me and I was like are dogs allowed in the thing

and he said no you can go outside with a dog but you can't go inside and this was not someone who worked there this was like staff at a hotel and I was like is it without insulting your entire like fucking deal is it worth it? And he looked at me and he was like, no. Good.

I bet everyone in that town is sick to death of Williamsburg. All the pageantry around Williamsburg. What is it supposed to be? Everybody there who works there, I'm using quotes with my fingers, they dress of the period, they talk of the period, they don't use any technology that's not of the period to make it as realistic for tourists when they come through. And it's colonial, so it's 1700s.

That seems for no one. It's not. It's really terrible. And this is the worst part because I betray my own enthusiasm for that kind of thing. When I was looking at colleges, I thought for sure I was going to go to William & Mary. And one of the big selling points was I was like,

if I wanted to get a job here, keep my acting chops up, I could just work at Williamsburg. And I was like, if I wanted to get a job here, like, you know, keep my acting chops up, I could just work at Williamsburg. And I was like excited by the prospect of calling everyone goody, goody, goody Proctor and shit like that. Yeah, I mean, you'd work on it. You'd have it ready on the day. Yeah, look, it's been a long time since I like practiced. That's uh that that that gives me like like cringy chills a little bit because soren you're an actor so this will be very familiar to you but i just think about all of those like ancillary actor jobs like all these people who wanted to be an actor and when they say that they generally mean working actor broad Broadway commercials, touring companies, movies, TV shows, what anyone acknowledges as like an acting career.

New Jersey and Pennsylvania that I've been to, all of these like technically acting jobs where you're pretending to be a person who churns butter and you're in character all fucking day using the classes that you paid for that trained you only to do this. You only studied pretend forever and you're technically doing it and making your living doing it there's like those reenactors and i think about uh my friend

elise when we were we were kids had a great like haunted house themed murder mystery themed birthday party i think when we were like 15 or 16 and we were all theater kids so this is we were super into the idea of like going around a house and getting clues and solving a murder and there are a bunch of like people there was like a detective character and there was a butler character and there was like an old crone character and they're all uh actors obviously who are staying in character for an entire night and they've made choices with their accents and whatnot and they're really like

it's enough to write home on a letter that says yes mom I'm an actor I'm doing it but it's still like you're walking around this house and a bunch of fucking snotty 15 year old New Jersey worthless punk theater kids are just trying to get you to break character or trying to get you to break character

or trying to make you look stupid or say something gross it's and it's it's those two kinds of jobs and like as adults you and I went to different haunted house experiences in Los Angeles where actors are playing like ghosts and zombies and their job is to scare you and jump out of things these aren't none of these are people who are like when i grow up i want to pretend to churn butter or i want to help kids solve a murder mystery or i wanted to to to jump out of a corner and try to to scare soren and his buddies when they're high. It's people who are like, I want to be Tony Shalhoub. Or, you know,

God help me, a second actor. And you told the woman that your favorite actor was Tony Shalhoub and that's the only person you could think of. She probably would have been like, do you know anyone who could fix a computer? Is there anyone in your family who's younger than you, maybe? You just look very young young i can tell you're my age though um what interferes with your happiness or prevents you from achieving your goals i mean i've got a few guesses off the

top of my head right now in our current situations but whatever your reason is i'm sure it's valid and it matters to you better help will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. You connect in a safe and private online environment. It's very convenient. It works when you want it to work. You can start communicating in under 48 hours, all without ever having to sit in an uncomfortable waiting room. BetterHelp is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy and free to change counselors if needed. That's huge. BetterHelp is more affordable than traditional offline counseling, and financial aid is available. Some important

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Thanks, BetterHelp. I think that's true. I think that it's hard. My brother, when he moved to Los Angeles, he had dreams of being an actor. And while he was trying to make that happen his side job what his side hustle was going to birthday parties as spider-man or like as a magician and learned like some rudimentary tricks where he would then go and do those but even in those circumstances like you're in character for these children and it's just like it's just brutal and very very demeaning yeah i did that children's theater for a long time

where i would we were playing make-believe on some carpets that were outside kids would gather around in tents on all four sides and we would do a story for them like these old stories from different cultures and it was a lot of like now this stick is my is my uh javelin or like now this scarf is what i carry my apples in and like it's a lot of just like playing pretend and really like trying to sell it to these kids and trying to be good and fun and then you as soon as you're done you go and sit on the side you kind of like kneel down you're breathing hard because it's hard and you're just thinking to yourself, this isn't it. This isn't the thing.

I mean, I'm getting paid, but this is not the thing. Yeah. There's no, I wonder if anyone ever gets discovered doing one of those things. Introducing the Miller Optics 2KW Handheld Laser Welder. It's so simple to use, even a rookie can weld like an expert, allowing you to boost your shop's productivity up to 5 to 10 times more than with traditional arc welding processes. Expand your workforce so you can start doing more and making more.

Get the Optics Laser Advantage now and start changing the welding game. I think they probably did years ago. I don't think anyone gets discovered doing anything ever anymore. I mean, you read these old stories that Mike Sachs writes about where in the 1940s, someone was like, they wrote a joke for uh a late night show and they sent it in by mail and the person was like yeah why don't you come down to the studio write some more and that's just how they got their job that shit doesn't happen anymore i don't think you just people get discovered in coffee shops or uh they're out doing

spongebob squarepants at a birthday party. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, the way he moves. He's an actor. You're right. There's a hundred stories about someone sitting in the audience of a club to see, I was there watching Dizzy Phelps, and then I grabbed him backstage,

and I had written six jokes on a napkin, and he's like, write six more tomorrow, baby. And now I'm Johnny Carson. Yeah. It's so...'s so, uh, everyone just like wandered, just like opened a door and walked into a job. It's so, yeah. It makes me so frustrated to read how everyone got their careers started.

Even in like 1980, where they were like, I just showed up in the mailroom and started working there and no one said any different. And then they started paying me a paycheck. And then I worked my way all the way up to exec at NBC. You're like, no, you didn't. You can't do that. There was always some studio head who's like, I got Kirk Douglas and I got a camera.

We're making a picture, but there's no script. Then some mailroom punk was like, I'll write a script. Well, you're hired. Now we can't do that anymore. It sucks. It sucks. It sucks real bad.

You can't do that. Fuck, what were we talking about i have no idea this is i think this is the the most we've talked about on this show before how people are essentially listening into like a phone call of ours as we catch up and we and we we market it as entertainment this is i think the closest thing to an actual phone call conversation that we have where uh it's not about anything it just be it's not for anyone it's certainly not that uh do you want to start the show what do you think yeah let's start the show all right i got a question for you that was by by the way that was that wraps up our covid check-in

we are now at our no we're all right we're only like half an hour in okay uh dan i got a question for you shoot um i'm actually more asking you to just give judgment on this because i got oh hell yeah an an altercation recently not like a fistfight or anything just like a sparring of words with somebody when we were in a grocery store together yeah when was the last time you heard that when was the last time i heard when we were in a grocery store together? Yeah, nobody goes to the grocery. You certainly don't go to the grocery store with someone.

If you're going to go to the grocery store at all, you don't go in with somebody. COVID has ruined all of that. That's true. I used to go shopping with all my buddies. Let's knock out of work early and go pick up some ham together. What do you say? I do see couples in the grocery store sometimes. I'm like, what the fuck are you doing?

That sounds miserable unless you're like dividing and like starting at ends and meeting in the middle. But there's so much planning to get that right. Right. And just like walking through the aisles together and meandering too. Like being like, do we want this? I don't know. And I'm like, one of you can make somebody, surely one of you can call the shots. And the other one doesn't have to risk anything.

They stay at home. Right. But anyway, I was in the grocery store because we were on vacation. We had to go to a store together because our children want different things. And the Jackson 5 song came on. The Jackson 5 song. Yeah. Okay.

The Jackson 5 song. The titular song, Jackson 5. Here we are. The Jackson 5. The Jackson song. Yeah. Okay. The Jackson five song, the titular song, Jackson. Here we are. The Jackson five. Yeah. Of course, you know, the one,

um, and, uh, we started talking about Michael Jackson and whether it was like, whether it was acceptable to, to still listen to Jackson five music because of everything that Michael Jackson is, uh,

later done later in his life. I don't play Thriller for my son at Halloween. We try not to listen to songs like Beat It or other music that Michael Jackson created because if you're doing that on Spotify, you're supporting him. You're supporting the empire that he created. And we don't want to be doing that. And so then we were like, well, does it mean anything different if it's when he was a kid before he was a child molester? Like, at what point can you separate the artist from the music?

Like, if the artist created the art before they did something terrible, does it mean anything different than after they created it that's a that's a uh it's a big question i know that's a heavy question for for our quick question podcast that uh remember we started as a joke yeah um i i think about this a lot. I have what will probably be a not exciting or not sexy answer to our listeners, which is very cold and economical. But first, I should start by saying that I don't think there's a right answer

when it comes to separating art from artists because everyone is is is different and will have their own reaction to what the the baggage behind a piece of music or art or or television or book like does to them uh so all that is a long and clumsy way of saying to our listeners, you're all correct all the time. No one's ever been wrong. I do think it's a personal decision and it's okay for things to not be black and white, I guess. And for me, it's the cold economic decision is I'm not going to, if it's at all within my power to not financially support someone who has done something monstrous then then then I'm I'm going to do that uh like Louis CK is a pretty good example because for all of the oh man it was so great when we canceled him and then he took a year

off in Europe and continued his career as if nothing happened uh that's someone that i can point to and say like i can there are mechanisms by which i can choose to not support him financially anymore i can not go to his website and buy his albums i can not buy tickets to see him perform anywhere and if i'm ever at a comedy club and he does a surprise set as he is want to do now i can demand my money back from the person who is running that show uh that is sort of my metric now uh I can also choose not to spread his past work to anyone else, which is what it sounds like you're doing with your kids by not showing them

not having them engage with Thriller or Beat It or anything like that. With Jackson specifically, I really don't know. I think you can listen to I Want You Back all the time. It's a good song.

It's a good song. You're not financially supporting. I mean, I got terrible news for you, buddy. If you think this is fine because it was before Michael Jackson really turned into a heinous monster, don't Google his father because therein lies madness, buddy. The architect of the Jackson 5 is no saint. saint right and then you have to wonder i mean that's a you're getting on a dark bus and going to a very dark place when you start to figure out where blame lies because it doesn't just stop with the abuser there's a history of abuse generally so where did that come from originally was it did it come from like did he become who he was because of who his father was and what what was his father like it gets really convoluted and hard it's I

guess you're right I guess you just try not to support them monetarily and but I also don't think you can pretend that they just don't exist like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna try and shield my son from R Kelly forever I'm not gonna be like this is not a human that exists and when this music comes on I'm like I don't hear anything I don't know what this is. Right. Uh, I have to address it at some point. And I have to be like, we're going to, the song will come on. I will turn it down. And I will be like, here's, here's who this person was. Here's what they did and try and handle it that way where it's like, you're never going to escape this stuff. The art is in the

world already. And it's universally been received and welcomed by so many people that it's like, you're never going to escape this stuff. The art is in the world already, and it's universally been received and welcomed by so many people that it's not going to just disappear. So as we encounter it, we just have to talk about it, I guess. Yeah, I agree with that. And I think there's kind of an interesting thing happening on Twitter and YouTube right now, which is almost never a true sentence. uh twitter and youtube right now which is uh almost never a true sentence but there's as the the trickle down accountability effect of big power players in hollywood getting outed as

uh monsters and abusers as they are that trickles down to other industries and will continue to trickle down to other industries and there's to trickle down to other industries. And there's a large ish reckoning happening in YouTube right now with incredibly popular content creators, uh, because that was just like a field that was a ticking time bomb of, of harassment and abuse. And, and it was just only a matter of time.

And you could see the discourse from a lot of commenters who were reacting to the fallout from some of these huge YouTube creators, content creators, that is just their... The interesting move for the commenters and the fans wasn't necessarily just cancel, this person's bad, get rid of them forever. I mean, there's certainly a reckoning that's happening, but a lot of them are a refreshing takeaway that a lot of them are having is we shouldn't to begin with put content creators

on such a pedestal, which I think is a very healthy attitude for uh the younger generation to have because i think the a lot of these conversations that you and i struggle with in our generation is is it's a it's very much about like a superstar's fall it's it's some like giant in an industry and then it turns out that that they have a a horrible side to them a trauma-inducing uh history and i think if you've got uh the next generation who is raised on this idea that they're sort of going into all of the creative works that they're being fed with an eye on their creators is like, everyone is human, everyone is flawed, not in a forgiving sort of way, but just in a tempering of expectation sort of way, I think

is a healthy way to engage with content. It's a nice thing to say. I agree with you in principle. I think it's impossible to ask that of somebody. It's like asking somebody to not be in love. Like it's so instinctual in you to aggrandize somebody that you respect that much. And especially when you're young, when you're looking for idols around you, it's very easy for you to just be like, this person is it. They fit the mold. This is it. This is everything I'm going to try and be the rest of my life or everything I fall in love with the rest of my life. And it's I don't know that you ever get away from that with people who are celebrities. There's just there's something so ingrained in our DNA that we love somebody who's universally loved.

That's true. Love somebody who's universally loved. That's true. And especially when you're young and especially when someone is creating something that speaks to you and you feel like they're articulating something that only you ever experienced. Yeah. You're right. I think the, I am asking for an impossible thing. just the the there's a a scary worry that happens whenever someone else is uh when when someone's horrible deeds are are publicized and it's one of these whether it's a musician or popular youtube content creator there will there are a a a worrisome amount of people who are like man another one turned out to be a piece of shit

well i just hope person y does never let me down that way and it's like oh no buddy i don't even know anything about person y but like don't do that don't find a second idol right that's not that's a good point people are so willing to be burned another time as soon as they see somebody fall they're like all right well let's see who is good like let's find the good ones it's like uh i don't know i don't know i mean what part of the problem is that this this culture of uh yes men being surrounded by yes men and having a bunch of money creates a bad person like we're we're just building these people up we're every we're turning celebrities into monsters too. Um, I guess that's a different conversation. What I wanted to ask you next about it though, was that why, oh, why, oh, why is everybody's

response? I shouldn't say everybody. Why is the common response when somebody falls to say, huh, I never really thought their stuff. I always thought their stuff sucked anyway. that's you're touching on a thing that i that i i am i'm nervous to say because uh i it gets dangerously close to defending a monster or defending a monster's work. And that is too close to the line of. Excusing their behavior.

In exchange for the great work that they did. And I want to be very clear. That's not what I'm doing. And that's. I'm not. I'm not worried about having these thoughts. I'm worried about the nuance of them. Getting lost or everything like that.

But to keep it going with. The previous example of like Louis C.K. Because there were a lot of people when he was outed as a serial sexual abuser, sexual assaulter. This had been like a rumor that a lot of us had known about for a while. And it came to light and it was good that people were that that people were finally coming forward not finally people were coming forward when they wanted to come forward and he was finally seeing some repercussions for it uh that was uh a good time we were happy that you know he gets his show canceled good you're you're you you don't need to have a show forever. You don't need to, to, to, to have that forever. That's not owed to you as a human being.

And I was fully supportive of that. And let's, let's, we can, you know, vote with your wallet, boycott him, protest him. You don't, don't support him. And then seeing people who were like, God, I'm glad we finally hate this guy he was never funny and that's where a thing operate a switch flips flips in my brain it's like well hold on yes he was he and and i i believe like fully with my heart and gut and hog and balls that there are people who didn't find him funny ever i think that that's obviously sure that's no one is universally beloved but for the entire internet to turn on a dime and say like by the way none of his jokes were good that's like no you're you're over correcting i understand the impulse uh but but no he was definitely funny there was there there was a lot of people who were laughing and he was

funny in in what felt like at the time a revelatory and new sort of way um but these are the things that i'm not gonna get on the internet and say because even if i agree with me and i usually do i also understand that that's not the point it's not helpful it's not it's not helpful it's not mine is not a voice that's needed and like i'm getting i'm i would only be doing it to like get the record straight and who gives a shit it's a score that no one's keeping but me i i see you say you understand the impulse i don't know that i totally do because it does feel very much like trying to score some sort of credit for having written the person off before for something completely different yeah like to say when i

to say oh no their songs always sucked finally everyone knows it's like no those are two different things happening here yeah it's like no those are two different things happening here yeah it's like there's a there's some they were objectively bad now for a reason but you had like a subjective hatred of them maybe you're claiming it now and for something completely different and they're not related at all so you're not advancing this conversation in any capacity how they are as an artist isn't really the issue it's like i don't i don't get where that even comes from it's other than to try to say i was the first to hate this person yeah and it's also it's it's it's a strange way to try to claim credit to be to be like well i i was the

first to hate them i always thought their music sucked. Oh, did you always think their music sucked because you knew they were like privately an abuser? Is that? How are you connecting this to like you're being smarter than everyone? I just had a feeling. So I know some people in my life who do that where like an event will take place.

Somebody will have a baby and like my mom is one. My mom will go, you know what? I had a feeling she was going to have that baby today. And I'm like, no, you didn't. No, you didn't. You can't just claim this stuff after it happens. Everybody has feelings all the time. When somebody says, uh, when some they're like, I just, there was something wrong. I was there and the energy was bad in that house. No, there's been like a thousand houses you've walked into and you've been like, well, this is kind of weird. And then nothing happened and that was the end of it.

And you never thought about that again. But because this happened to be one of the ones where you thought something weird happened and then you found bones in the fireplace or fucking whatever. Like you were like, aha, I had a premonition. Right. You're rewriting the narrative because you're the main character. Something happened and then you were like, okay, well, what did I do today before that happened? Yeah, let's see where the foreshadowing was.

Anyway, I think we came to a good conclusion on this, honestly. I feel a little bit better about it. I feel like I'm making the right decisions with my children as far as introducing them to the art. And just talking it through. Who are you arguing with in the grocery store about this? My sister-in-law. Oh. Yeah.

I don't know why I said oh like that. I've never met your sister-in-law. I have no opinion about her. She's a very nice person. Yeah. Yeah, she's wonderful. And it was like a very friendly argument, but it was still like, at the end I was like,

I guess I still don't know. I don't know if I'm allowed, if radio is still allowed to play Jackson 5, like how it works. What are we allowed to do is ike turner okay are we allowed to just play tina turner just because of association i didn't know yeah and luckily as you said we solved it today yeah we did it uh and i think this is maybe i actually i I'm checking. Yeah. This is the hundredth thing we've solved, Daniel. Yeah. Question that we answered correctly, the hundredth.

So this is really a big deal. It's a big deal. Yeah. You'd think we would have blown it once or twice, but really, it's just a perfect game. Grocery stores reminded me of a couple of things we have time to talk about grocery stores? hell yeah I found myself

turning on my own team in a grocery store recently and I wondered if you had anything similar happen to you, it was a very low stakes thing I've been, as our audience knows, DOB's's devotees the sworn swords of sorens and crispy quesadillas they all know uh i am famously bravely lactose intolerant and uh i am less famously very uh dissatisfied with the state of dairy-free cheese options there are

a lot out there kite hill and dia there are plenty of options There are a lot out there, Kite Hill and Daya. There are plenty of options. There are more now than there ever were when I was growing up. But I still want there to be more. I don't want to have to, in New York right now, go to, there are three different stores that I go to because they don't all carry the same variety of dairy-free cheeses. So that's just like a lot of traveling for just my basic cheese needs. And one of the biggest failures of dairy-free cheese is it doesn't melt as well as normal cheese, which is really frustrating. I want our cheese scientists on that and uh i want there to be uh a good reliable dairy-free ricotta that is available in more stores and i get really close

to just like knocking over a a milk crate and standing on top of it and like speechifying right in the middle of a market and talking about how lactose intolerant people will not be ignored there are a lot of us and we need better options and then i'll look over and i'll see in the dairy-free section that there's a dairy-free feta cheese option and i'm like well who the fuck is that for nobody wants that and that's me immediately turning on my team because right i used to be standing up for the And I'm like, well, who the fuck is that for? Nobody wants that. And that's me immediately turning on my team because I used to be standing up for the little guy who wanted more options. But then I'm like, ew, feta, no. We don't, we don't, no one should be wasting their time making dairy-free feta.

Get out of here. You're right about cheese in general. Thanks, man. I've been to vegan restaurants and stuff, and I know that as soon as you try to get something that replicates another meal, you're in for a disappointment. You should just buy a great salad at one of those places because as soon as you try to get a chili cheese dog with all the fixings, it's going to be awful.

It's not going to taste anything close to what you approximate to a chili cheese dog. a big problem with that is the cheese and it's not just them it's like reduced fat cheese even somehow you take the littlest thing out of cheese and you ruin the whole thing somehow it's become this perfect uh food but you're right it doesn't melt it doesn't act right in your mouth it doesn't do any of the right things you also can't get it close to any other cheeses which i think is why i i'm curious what this feta is i i'm suspicious that it might just be tofu uh and it's it it's just bad it's bad all around and i would even say don't just put the cheese scientists on it pull a few people from cancer and other places because

100 000 percent yeah it's it's funny you bring up vegan restaurants because there are there's it's the most adorably smug yet still insecure industry i've ever encountered where you go into one of those all vegan restaurants where where they're they're so bold about it on their menu where it's like this is a bacon cheeseburger you will be able to tell the difference you're gonna think it's real bacon and you eat the thing and then it's like good try sport um just i'll have the brussels sprouts let me just i'll just get the brussels sprouts next time you're good at making vegetables. Just say you make vegetables. Don't try. Yeah.

And you know what that food's supposed to taste like. You don't remember what the other food was supposed to taste like. I can tell. Yeah. I can tell it's not even on your palate anymore because you think this is good. Yeah. I'm not a child. You're not going to put me in a bathtub and tell me it's the ocean.

I know. I've been there. Both coasts, baby. The only two coasts there are in the world. I've been there. You have been bragging about that a lot throughout the entire time I've known you, that you're both coast Daniel. Yeah?

No. That would be funny, though. That would be a good bit. Well, I'm sorry for the plight that you suffer, both the apostrophe and the cheeses. Well, I'm sorry for the plight that you suffer, both the apostrophe and the cheeses. It's really, it's, I'm very lucky. Those are the two biggest problems in my life. I mean, but the cheese really does suck.

I wouldn't say that. That's not a problem. Yeah, it's, when you have a lunch break at work and you use that lunch break to walk to the far Whole Foods because they're the ones that have the Kite Hill ricotta and then you get there and they don't have it

but they have feta of course they have feta cause no one's buying it news fucking flash and then you have to walk home without your dairy free kite hill ricotta guess what your lunch breaks over and now what are you gonna make for dinner

at a kite hill could you make a sweet cream ricotta into like a cannoli or something like that or is that just not a possibility that's one of those things like the whole dairy free dessert world i haven't even gotten into because there's there's so much we have so much work to do before we get there i just thought about a vegan cheesecake and almost threw up i i i haven't had

a milkshake since i was like 10 years old and i just think like maybe like my goal is that my kids will have milkshakes one day, like good, trustworthy, dairy-free milkshakes. But like, I don't think it's in the cards for me. It's the American dream. Yeah. All right. Well, we're running out of time here. I'm going to go find our outros. I just, I should just leave them in the garage right here or put them on my computer. That would be the best place for them. Yeah. But I'm going to go grab those in the meantime, though, Dan, I want to give you a chance. I know that you don't have a car to do it anymore,

but you still are very good at impressions. Like surprisingly good. You pop them out of nowhere. Can I just pause you for a second? I just told you in the last episode that I have a car. You just learned this. You're carless.

It's not a, it're Carlos it's just another one of your plates it's one of those things that you'll have to just begrudgingly deal with every day and you do great impressions and I wanted to give you 30 seconds to really showcase all of your greatest hits

your Jared Leto's and your Carrie Coon's and your Chris Sabo's from the 1991 Cincinnati Reds all the good ones so go ahead oh it's me mark walberg and uh i got a new show coming to hbo max it's wall street i can't think of any better use of hbo's money than making two count them two different shows about me mark wal Wahlberg, and how successful I am. Anyway, I could have stopped 9-11. This is John Lithgow. Me? Who else did you say I could do?

It's me, Chris Sable from the Cincinnati Reds. Do you carry coons, Dan? I hate being a leftover. It's not a big deal. But I hired a prostitute to shoot me in the chest. It's fine. It's under control. That's actually a really good carry coon.

I'm married to Tracy Letts and Daniel just, he can't believe it. He's like, that guy? The playwright? I could do better. Or on Twitter, you can follow Daniel at DOV underscore Inc. You can follow me, Soren, at Soren underscore LTD. You can follow our CFO, Bacon, at MakeMeBaconPlease, spelled P-L-S. And you can follow us, quick question.

That's QQ underscore Soren and Dan. That's the Twitter handle for quick question. I don't know why I said it so weird. You can also find maybe... Actually, if you want to hire Gabe Harder, your best bet is to just contact one of us instead of actually trying to contact him. But Gabe Harder is our producer, sound engineer,

and editor, and he does a fantastic job. And if you wanted to get him into your own podcast, he's so good at his fucking job. I love him. Yeah, that's really sweet of you yeah i agree he's good bye