Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - QQ ep 9 - Quick Question with Soren and Daniel

Episode Date: July 26, 2019

Hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel. This is a weekly podcast that I use mostly as an opportunity to force my best friend to answer my questions to make my life better. And to be completely honest, I don't actually know what he gets out of it. But he's here and his name is Soren and he's the co-host. Say hi, Soren. What's up? Hi.

Yeah, as far as me making your life better, I feel like the results are also inconclusive there as well. That's right. Things have only gotten worse. So you're going to hear our voices. You're also going to hear someone else chiming in and giggling warmly. Does he want to introduce himself? Hey, Dan.

It's Michael. But does he really want to introduce himself? Hey, Dan, it's Bacon. There you go. Bacon is our CFO and has been with us every step of the way with this podcast. And really, people should know that he, like the day after the massive layoffs that cracked happened, Bacon was like, you guys should do a podcast right now. This is a great time to capitalize on the personas that you had built and the popularity that you have.

And we were like, yeah, sounds good. A year and a half later, we did it. Well, because we were like, well, we've got to come up with a really good theme. We've got to come up with something that everybody's going to want to hear. And then we were eventually just like, you know, that sounds really hard. Let's just do it. Yeah, it does sound really hard hard but this is the show quick question with soren and daniel qq with sad and you are our listeners also known as i really like this one quizian quest is that like vision quest

like vision quest yeah you guys know vision quest yeah i mean i'm familiar with vision quest i i didn't it didn't it didn't occur to me at the beginning something about quizian sounds different than vision yeah yeah yeah yeah it's it's uh it's uh nightmarish spilling out of the old mouth it doesn't feel good to say somebody online said that they were the quick in the muds. What is that? Stick in the mud. Oh, stick in the mud. Okay. Yeah, no, I hate that. That's not what they are. Dan doesn't take input on these. They are wonderful

listeners, and we really thank them for listening to the show, recommending it to their friends, donating to our Patreon if they do, but we also love, love, love when they review it on iTunes, because for reasons that I don't understand, that's important for the future, I guess. And so here's a review from someone named Carlsley, and they gave it five stars.

There's no way I'm going to do this. I'm so sorry, Carlsley. I'm not going to do it in the meter that you want me to do it. I'm going to try my best, though. Dan and Soren make me smile. The stories are fun. The quips agile with bacon laughing all the while on this week. We weekly podcast show garbage trucks, adopting dogs, deep sea fishing mouths with frogs, vampire raps and Emmy nods on this weekly podcast show. Highest praise. I'm here to preach. Dan's a grump.

Soren, a peach. Higher Vince at Silicon Beach from this weekly podcast show. Oh, that's wonderful. That's so good. That's very sweet, right?

Yeah, Vincent gets a nod in it. Everybody gets, I'm a peach. I'm fine with that. Grump's not so great for you, but I mean, everybody else

comes out clean. I, I get the, the, the Grump vibe. I'm often very sleepy on this podcast and rarely want to participate in it. But I'm going to turn that around because that is not the brand that I want to put out in the world.

But anyway, thank you, Carlsey, for that wonderful five-star review. We're going to ask each other a bunch of questions today about meditation and power. And as usual, we're going to surprise each other with a few questions. But before all that, just very generally checking in. So, how's it going? Yeah, pretty good. I've got something in my walls. Something's living in my walls.

Yeah, I can hear it at night. So it's clearly something nocturnal. And when I was like hunting for it underneath my house, I didn't see how it got in and then i can't find its access point basically but then i went up into my attic and uh which i never do because it's really gross and scary up there and there was i saw its eye i saw it uh just for a second the flashlight shown on something that reflected and i was like well that's something unique up here. And then it moved and disappeared. And so I know it's up there. So I put a trap up there for it, a humane trap thinking,

ah, I will catch this thing and I will drop it off in Atwater Village. What do you think it is? Just like an eye with feet? Yeah, it's like some transcendental transparent eyeball. I think it's a rat. I think it's a mouse or a rat, but i put out peanut butter for it and it was not interested in the peanut butter that i had given i think because the peanut butter has no sugar or salt in it i don't even like this fucking peanut butter specific with your peanut butter

it's not like the good kind it's not a gif or something like that if this is the the organic you got to stir this shit for six minutes kind yeah and uh it's is that when you when you open the peanut butter is it is there like uh like a lake on top of it just like a wetness yeah yeah there's been an oil are there a lot of uh rats or mice where you live no because we have feral cats in my neighborhood which pretty much take care of all that there were rats uh around my old place in los angeles and i didn't know it, uh,

for most of the time, like for years, I just had no idea. And then they just started doing construction across the street from my building. And suddenly there were rats everywhere because they were living underground, I guess.

And there's like, Hey, someone fucked up our shit. So like this pool seems nice. We're gonna hang out here now. Oh, that's awful. It's just like a Hamlin town.

Yes. Street of rats coming towards your apartment. um so that sucks i'm sorry to hear that man yeah how are you doing i'm doing okay um i i i feel like i have news that you that you should ask me about okay like i feel like something new in my life happened recently and I was public about it on social media and it's a huge deal and I can't bring it up because I'm humble.

So, like, you have to. Sure. So I can reluctantly talk about it. how do you feel about the Cats trailer coming out? Oh,

no, that was the sandbagging you, my friend. You got nominated for an Emmy. Oh, thank you so much. Oh, sorry,

I didn't know you noticed that. Yeah, the show got for an Emmy. Oh, thank you so much. Oh, sorry. I didn't know you noticed that. Yeah, the show got nominated for nine Emmys. Thank you so much for noticing. But you in particular, an episode of your, well, an episode that you, wait, hold on. I don't even know how it works. Nine of your episodes got nominated? No, we got nominated in nine different categories. And the show submits entries for all of those categories.

I have no say over what gets submitted, but they submit one for like, this is what we want to be nominated for show. Like we pick one show of the season that is eligible to be nominated. And this is a separate one that we want to be nominated for writing in particular. We also have like directing and editing nominations as well.

And that's how we got into the nine categories. We just submit wherever we can. And we're really thrilled that the editors and directors for this episode we did with this weird Japanese mascot called Chitan, they got nominated. That's very exciting because that was such a fun, uh, project that like all of the writers loved. It was, uh, my coworkers, Julie and Sina, their baby. And, uh, it just came out great. And we're all very happy for the, uh, recognition that the writers, directors, and editors get for that particular project. But we're also nominated for, for writing, which is the,

you can't tell cause this is a podcast, but I'm pointing at myself with both of my thumbs to the thing that I'm a part of. And really thrilled about that. I think that the crazy thing is like, because before I came here, the show had been nominated for and won Emmys. So it's not like, it wasn't the largest surprise in the world

when they announced that we were nominated again this year and it's also like it's a uh late night's a very small category it's a very specific category with like nine possible shows that could go into it uh but the thing that I'm still uh smiling about and and mentally grappling with is less about the nomination itself, which does feel wonderful, and more like I get to go to the Emmys, which is a thing... That's what I was going to ask.

That's so cool. I never thought was going to happen, even though... And you're in the same path where you've been writing for a very long time. If you want to write professionally and you're writing in the TV space, it's, it should be in the back of your mind is like, this is a thing that might happen one day.

And I've been writing professionally since I was 22 years old and, uh, had no plans of stopping, but even still, I didn't like intellectually think I would ever be at the Emmys. And I still don't, I still think that one of my bosses might sit me down and be like, hey, champ, bad news. We can only afford so many plane tickets. You understand, right? And I'd be like, yeah, no, of course. Of course. I'll stay home. Don't worry about it. I'm not supposed to be at the Emmys. I know what I am. I should not be there. That's so cool. It's got to be very very surreal that's because that's the that's the pinnacle of television writing is if you win an emmy and you could say that word again pinnacle is that how you always do it or is that like a slip no that's how i say it is it well let

me see if i can get it right is it do people say it pinnacle i i mean that's how i say it okay and it sounds like based on the the faint g, that's how Bacon says it too. Yeah, he's nodding along enthusiastically with you. All right. Well, when you reach the pinnacle of TV writing, you could have an Emmy that has your name on it. No, I don't want that. Thank you. Thank you.

No, thank you. Would you say that you, which was more exciting when you saw your own New York Times bestselling book on a shelf in a real bookstore or being nominated for an Emmy? I think the bookstore. Bookstore probably because I spent so much of my life growing up literally in a Barnes and Noble. Didn't work there. That would have been a normal thing.

But the second I got my driver's license, I would go to the Barnes & Noble on Route 35 in Holmdel, New Jersey, probably every night. I would get coffee and read and wander around and look at books and sometimes invite friends to come over and also quietly read around me like it wasn't a party it wasn't a social thing i was like hey i'm gonna i'm gonna be spending the next four hours at barnes noble until they close reading does anyone want to come and also do that and some friends would and and uh that's shocking to me the rest of us grew apart for some weird reason i can can't tell. And I feel like there were a couple times where I would tell my parents, I'm going out to Barnes & Noble, and they would show up to confirm I was doing that. They wanted to see if they could catch me in a lie, but they were just like, no, no, he's really doing it.

Motherfucker's still in there. He's really just sitting there reading fucking essays. Dan, are you going to go buy a tuxedo because i presumably you might what should i what should i do my mom said that i i was gonna rent one my mom said maybe i should buy one yeah you should go buy one because i think also you know uh thinking of the best like you guys might get nominated again uh in following years and it'd be nice to have and you'll still be the same size yeah right yeah you won't let this go to your head but like separate from that i don't i don't know uh i mean i haven't priced buying versus renting a tuxedo but i also i buying seems so forward because i i'm somewhere in my

30s right now i always forget and uh i think i've i've worn tuxedos for prom and like maybe a school band thing. But like I haven't worn a tuxedo in 15 years, two decades. I don't know. Like I don't go to a lot of things that require tuxedos. I've rented a tuxedo in my adult life and I'll tell you that when you rent a tuxedo, it's fine at first,

but then as the night goes on, like the suit matures around you and it opens up all the scents of everyone who ever wore it. Yeah, and they give you like Frankenstein's club shoes too. You don't, you should get a tuxedo. Okay, maybe I'll do that then. But anyway, let's move on to like the show. Now that our weird intro is done, 15 minutes and 40 seconds into the show uh hey so I got a quick question for you

shoot um what would you do if your city like your entire city uh suddenly lost power I'm gonna give you time to think about that it's relevant to me right now because New York, we're just sort of coming off the tail end of a massive heat wave. And last week, the power went out in a huge part of Manhattan where I live. I was at a movie seeing Stuber because I felt like seeing a movie in the middle of the day and Stuber was what was playing. So I went to go see Stuber with Kumail and Batista and Natalie Morales and probably some others. It's cool that you and Kumail are on first name basis. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yes, that's born entirely out of how cool we are

and not out of my deep fear of getting his last name wrong. Nanjiani. Yeah. I just go for it. Sorry? Nothing. Go ahead. So I'm at the movie and the power goes out

and we all leave the theater. We talk to the people who work there and they're like, yeah, you can get a refund if you stick around and wait till the power gets on. We can't just give you refunds without access to technology. So I just leave. And for a brief time, it's very scary

because, uh, like it's not just the movie theater street lights are out. Businesses are dark. People are out of this, out in the street, looking around at things. There are a lot of God bless New York, a lot of New Yorkers, like random citizens who are directing traffic because why not and let's keep people safe and i'm like g chatting and texting friends and family but because everyone is doing the exact same thing you're not getting a lot of responses the internet isn't super uh clear at the time because everyone's doing the same thing at the same time so i'm just like this is is probably heat related or, you know, I'm texting my friends like, hey, if this is a 9-11, please let me know because I can't find anything on the Internet. So like someone, if anyone can see this, please text me and let me know if it's a 9-11. And it wasn't a 9-11, which is nice.

And I get back to my apartment because I wanted to get my dog Jackson out of the hot apartment. because I wanted to get my dog Jackson out of the hot apartment and we just sat in the garden of my building like uh everybody else it ended up being like a fun party because a ton of people were like well we could still use the barbecue so they were cooking food and people brought out like their wine and beer that they didn't want to go bad in the fridge and we just had a very nice communal picnic among strangers and just sat looking around at New York until the power went on about three hours later. Uh, but I, I realized it was very pleasant, but I didn't have, I didn't have a 24 hour plan. Like if the power, I, my entire plan was the power is going to come back on because some adult will turn it on somewhere.

I didn't really have like, oh, I wake up in the morning and the power is still not out. Then what do I do? I don't I don't have that plan. I realized and I was very nervous about that. You seem like the kind of person who would have that plan. Yeah. Let me just say, first of all, the power outage is such a charming disaster. And I love that that's the one you were forced to deal with.

I've been in power outages before. And it's really, it does, like, it rallies everyone together. Everyone's like, oh, light candles. Oh, what an opportunity to, like, do something new. It is, I can see how that would be awful going into the next business day when everyone's food starts to spoil. Businesses start dealing with the consequences of that car accidents but right uh yeah i for sure have i'm ready we have earthquakes here and i am uh god it seems awful to say that i'm excited for it but man am i ready but that's

how you feel i i also like when i when i lived in L.A., I had multiple bug-out bags. Just like, this is a bag that's going to contain everything that I'm going to need to survive for a little while. And I had, like, one in my apartment, one in my car, and I think maybe a second one in my apartment just in case. And I still have them, but I realized that they were based very much on me also having a car. I haven't had a car in like a year and a half now, and I have no plans on getting one. But my plan was always surely like, oh, something is going wrong. I have everything I need in my backpack. I could take my dog, get in a car, and drive somewhere safe.

Now I don't really have that plan. Yeah. That will, we, so for Colleen's birthday, just to give you a glimpse inside of my life, uh, for her birthday, I gave her and me bug out bags in our car with full, uh, full equipment, like gas siphons, everything we could possibly need. And I got Ronan a little, um, it was one called lady bug out bag, which is this group of women who create a bugout bags for kids. That's so cool. And it's got, I mean, it's when I did the research for this, I got, I got really down a rabbit hole and like in what I thought I would need and everything that I could put in it and got very excited and then bought a bunch of things. And now I just can't use them.

It's basically buying a bunch of things and then putting them away forever with the hope that they go bad like that's the best case scenario uh just can't i can't get behind that so every time we find out there's an earthquake in la my first instinct is like yes i'm so ready how was the you you had a two bad earthquakes the beginning of this month how are they for you not not anything at all i mean i think maybe we were in the car forum or something you never feel an earthquake when you're driving unless i guess it'd have to be really big and uh throughout la i think some people felt them but nobody there was no catastrophic damage in los angeles proper and so nothing i didn't get anything from that um i don't know but it's certainly not the last one so there'll be more okay well well that was my question about blackouts i guess i i there's a thing i take from my father

or that my father has certainly given me uh literally he's he frequently just gives me flashlights that's a thing that he's been doing for a very long time, many years for me and my two older brothers. Just give you like sometimes cheap ones, sometimes nice ones, sometimes it's for Christmas, sometimes it's just, he has a habit whenever he sees you. Like we went fishing not too long ago, and he likes to show up with something

knowing that they're going to be cheap things. Like he'll drop by with a bag of like, this is a fishing magazine, this is a lottery scratch off and here is a flashlight i bought them all at the same gas station obviously there's like a very classic dad thing to do that's really great that's a really good bit it's the equivalent of a rich dad but this one is tucking a flashlight into your shirt pocket every time he sees you yeah absolutely that's wonderful you see you have a lot then you're i mean you're prepared at least on that front yeah i have a lot and i i like that very much and like it it became a nice small flex when uh there was a a storm in la years ago

maybe 2011 2010 do you remember the the marathon where it rained like crazy marathon that year yes yeah it rained like crazy and the power went LA Marathon that year? Yes. Yeah. It rained like crazy and the power went out where I was living, which was Sherman Oaks at the time. And I had two friends, Dolly and Jamie, visiting me and the power went out. And I felt like such an adult because like, oh, don't worry, I have 700 flashlights and just like lit the entire apartment and gave everyone a flashlight that they could use to get to and from wherever they wanted to go within the apartment or within the apartment

building and uh like immediately texted my dad the next day and was like i understand now flashlights yes i've got like i've got a isobutane stove i've got food for three days for the whole family i've even got some mres for the family i've got so when i was like looking for uh i was just talking to the women who do this lady bug out bag because they had some really cool stuff in this kid's one and i was like oh that reminds me i need some other things in mind and they're like you should have a crowbar and i was like i should probably also have a hatchet of some sort and so uh i'm buying a lot of these things and i go to home depot to get a hatchet and i realized. And so I'm buying a lot of these things and I go to Home Depot to get a hatchet.

And I realized that they have straight up weapons at Home Depot. There are some amazing, terrifying things there. They've got machetes. What do you mean? Like a thing that could be used as a weapon? Absolutely. Yeah, 100%. They've got these big serrated machetes.

Like, I don't know if you had Ninja Turtle toys when you were a kid, but the types of weapons that they, the bad guys would come with, that's at depot right now no sorry i didn't have ninja turtle toys you weren't listening it's only flashlights it's been flashlights my whole life uh and so yeah i'm not entirely sure it's legal to have the things that we have in our cars right now but uh yeah i've got a bunch of money in one dollar bills like hundred uh two hundred dollars and one dollar bills so that you can tip people along the way or like credit card machines go down, you can only give a certain amount.

I'm ready, man. That's awesome. That's really cool. Do you have anything that, like I know people, I can't remember if this is a bit that someone did or a true thing that I saw on some crazy- That's my life.

Like doomsday prepper thing, like hoarding a lot of batteries because you think they're going to be the new currency. Is there something that you think that you're holding onto because you think, oh, when the apocalypse happens, this will be very valuable, so I will keep this to trade it? Or is it just dollar bills? No, I haven't really thought of a bartering system yet.

I guess that wasn't really a consideration of mine. I have this assumption in my head that it will be like a blackout where everyone comes together that it won't be immediately uh the walking dead where there are factions all fighting against each other i think that the first thing that happens is people's altruism kicks in and they'll want to help each other and uh right because that's what people want to do no one is is or i should say the majority of people we're not waiting for society collapse right for society to collapse we built society because it's better than the alternative so if the walking dead happened we wouldn't just be like oh finally now i can kill people and rob and murder and assault

people's like no no no no you're gonna find some people and like try to build schools and roads again that's because yeah because that's better and we want that uh the uh jason pargin who works at cracked still and famously known as david long uh he's a he's a nihilistic very pessimistic guy but with one exception which is in the apocalyptic scenario he's confident that everyone will come together he thinks the idea of having a gun for a apocalyptic scenario is ludicrous because you would it's it's so pointless more pointless than like having uh a big paperweight in that time and uh i think he's right i think that so we don't have i don't have a gun in the house i don't have and when i say that i have weapons in these bags i mean i have things that are functionally useful

that could also be weapons right you could yeah that makes sense to me i think well well i admire that i i i think where it where it uh became like starkly terrifying to me is thinking ahead about uh having a family like i like even the bug out bag that I have now is very much, I have a small dog that I can carry under my arm and run with somewhere. If I had a disaster and had a kid to worry about, that's a whole other scenario. I think about like the time my car broke down in Baker, California. I took care of that myself.

It was terrible, but I did it. I call a tow truck person, go to Baker, California. I took care of that myself. It was terrible, but I did it. I call a tow truck person, go to Baker, California, go to the mechanics, deal with them, find a way to get to my destination, even if I don't have a car anymore. I feel like I did that all very well and very successfully, but there's an alternate version of me where I turn around and I'm like,

oh shit, I left my kid in the fucking desert. I immediately become like primal every man out for himself kind of thing when there's a disaster. And that maybe means I'm not ready for a child, Soren. I don't know, man. I think it just nature kicks in when you finally have one. I think I was the exact same way. I mean, I was pretty confident that I could take care of my wife, but in the back of my mind, I was like, you know, she's dragging me down.

I could just go. But, uh, I, the only time, the first time I really felt the fear of having a kid in a big situation like that was we were at, uh, the women's March in 2016. And we're, he was in a stroller cause he was so young. And, uh, there were so many people there and there was a big, you know, everybody's shoulder to shoulder and people could see that there was a gap in the middle, but they couldn't see that there was a stroller. And that's why there was a gap.

So everyone started going towards that spot. And then it became even more condensed around us once they realized there was a stroller there. And it became immediately obvious to me that I don't have a way out of here. And like, if something goes wrong, there's no way to get out with him. there and it became immediately obvious to me that i don't have a way out of here and like if something goes wrong there's no way to get out with him and so i that's the first time that i got very scared of like oh i'm not entirely prepared to take care of another person right especially because you know like if push came to shove you could be safe if you needed to yeah you

could find a way out of there but you can't find a way out with you and your son. Right. Uh, that actually scary. That reminds me, Dan, I have a quick question for you. Oh, good. Yeah.

Um, I, do you, situations where you have to be in a big crowd and everybody's kind of feeling the same thing at the same time. I mean like concerts and women's marches and, um, uh,

AIDS walks and things like that. Do you get wrapped up in that? do you get swept up in the emotion of it or is it is it just uh you're there to be another head um i don't get wrapped up in the sense that i moved to um participate vocally or like change myself in in any real way do you do the chance like when the chance women's march watching just just like even the idea of the amount of people that were there even though i'm i'm physically very uncomfortable and uh the women's march march in 2016 like you're not getting any cell reception and you're you're really crammed into a crowd i didn't go with anyone there are a bunch of people I knew there, but I, I showed up on my own and I'm just like shoulder to shoulder

with strangers. And I'm very unhappy about that, but like just seeing, uh, the amount of people who showed up and the diversity of it and the amount of work that people went into like signs and they're doing chants and people brought drums and they're doing things like that's very uh moving especially at that time when you're following the inauguration which was uh for certainly the two of us i don't know about bacon very depressing very unhappy about about donald trump's inauguration so don't speak on that we're just assuming. As hard as that was for a lot of people, it didn't stop us from being part of this thing. I get emotional about that. But at the end of the day, I don't love my chant voice,

so I don't do it. I think it's stupid to chant. I mean, do it. If you think you sound cool and meaningful being like, this is I mean, like, do it if you think you sound cool and meaningful being like, this is what democracy looks like. Let's do it. That's just not me. Like, I'm not a loud person. I'm not going to do it. And I

don't like clapping. I don't like chanting. And I'm here and I support you, but like, don't make me do a voice or anything. It's a real art form I mean it's like real skill to be good in that situation and to go with it 100 and to do a chant and do it with the body language and the conviction that it needs to not look silly and I'm watching

everyone around me and I'm amazed by the people who actually have it but I'm the same way I don't want to when a chance starts a chance starts I immediately turn inward like oh I don't want to, when, when a chance starts, a chance starts, I immediately turn inward. Like, Oh, I don't, I don't, I'm not a chanter. That's right. I also, if I do it, you're going to tell that I'm not, I'm not a chanter. Being immediately aware of the moment. Uh, it's, it's hard for me to, to not be funny. Even if there's no audience, if, if it's just me in my head or just me,

who's like close enough to me to, to hear me, I can still pretend there's a little camera on me that is capturing, capturing my reaction. When people start chance, they're like, what do we want? And everyone knows the same thing to say.

And I'm just, you know, my living, my weird Larry David existence where I'm just like a number of systemic things that it's hard to really boil down to a single chant when do we want it gosh 30 years ago I don't know that's that's a hard question like it no progress starts on a single day so like it's it's it's uh it it grows by inches it dies by feet I'm so sorry i wish i could i could

tell you i i feel like you want me to say now but i mean we can't start progress because we're here in downtown la we don't even have a cell reception these are things that i'm mumbling to myself at the women's march because it's abstractly funny to me that a person like me is stuck in a chant yeah i i feel the same way at concerts i've never enjoyed a concert i don't think maybe when i was never enjoyed a concert when i was 18 years old i think i enjoyed a concert and it was because i was it i was so swept up in like in the emotion of it was my first punk show i'd ever been to and seeing what people do at punk shows and like there's a mosh pit and i was very excited about all that and the idea of at the end of it, having other people's beer and sweat on me was like, this is amazing. We're all one. But then after that,

I don't think I've enjoyed a single one. I've been to several concerts and every single time I'm very much like, this is okay. This is good. We should, I mean, no, they'll wrap this up soon. Right. That would be nice. Oh, everyone, please, please stop cheering. They will do an encore. If you do that, I've seen this before. You got to stop. I know this move. I enjoy concerts, but I also, there's two different kinds of concerts that I go to. I'll go to like small local shows where it's not a famous band.

I just want to see live local music from local artists and have a clear run towards the exit if I need to. And the like bigger concerts that I go to are, I think almost exclusively like theaters. Like I'll see Ben Folds or Tim Minchin at a theater where, where it's understood that we all sit and, and clap when the songs are done and not. It's very nice.

That's the dream. Yes. A concert where you just sit. The Hollywood Bowl I get. The Hollywood Bowl is a place where people go and they get their reserve seats. They sit down. They bring their wine.

They drink it there. They clap when stuff is over. But when people start getting up and really getting into it, the Hollywood Bowl, I think to myself, this is not what you're supposed to be doing. We all have our reserve seats.

No, I don't care for any of that. My ideal concert is Ben Folds addressing the crowd and being like let's uh the back row you can start and get and and get your cars now i know the parking lot's gonna be a nightmare parking garage is gonna be terrible so like if we just like single file line out and like i'll play for a little while longer but nothing huge this will be like wedding tables going to a buffet. You start in the back. Yeah. I honestly, I think that even a small concert is maybe even worse because I'm so hyper aware of my job as an audience member of like what I'm supposed to be doing. And what they want is for you to be everybody kind of into it, everybody feeling it. And so if I'm just standing there and looking at the band,

I'm not doing enough, but I don't want to do any more than that. And so I, it becomes a real conundrum for me. I feel like I'm in a real pickle when I'm at any concert because I don't want to dance. I, it, it's a weird, that's a weird thing to do too. Uh, I don't really want to sing along cause I've been next to people who sing along and I don't like them much. And there's just no I haven't really landed on what I can do that's helpful to them. Like that's also weird because like you want to be good, but you're also like you're you're not on drugs. You know, you're not going to go to a concert and be on drugs and just like be comfortable being sweaty and moving, which visually looks very nice from a band's perspective

if you just have like a writhing math mass of people who are feeling the music but that's that's not you and that's not me either i think maybe that's what it is it's drugs as people are like i don't know i think we went to uh michael and i and I and you did as well down in South by Southwest years past would go to like nerdcore hip hop shows and a thing that I learned about nerdcore hip hop shows in those moments was that they're incredibly

participatory I don't know if this is true of all hip hop shows but it's very much like hey in this next song I'm going to say a thing and then I'm going to need you guys to say this thing and I'm going to prompt you what it is in advance so that every time the chorus comes, you say it back to me. And that happened like 12 songs in a row. And it's like, sir, I'm clapping for you. And I already hate clapping. Don't give me an assignment for each thing. In my mind, music is a feel thing. I'm here to let it wash over me and fill me with feelings.

I don't want to have to remember that every time in the chorus, you say, quote the Raven, and I say, nevermore. I just don't. I don't want to roll in this at all. Oh, man, you saw Poe in concert? If you need someone to say that, get a backup singer to do it for you, please. Yeah. This is the episode where I was trying to turn around my grump persona well so that's music um soren i have another quick question for you that might be a little bit longer is that okay yeah absolutely

um have you ever tried meditating and have you ever or have you ever like been driven to try it? Is that an impulse that you have ever had? And I will, as usual, give you time to think about this while I, as usual, tell a story about me. This is how all interactions should go from now on. This came up recently. I was talking to coworkers because a coworker was asking me about fishing and why I like fishing so much and how it's immediately taken over part of my life. And part of it is just like, you know, I found a new hobby and I'm obsessed with it

right now. But another part of it is I'm always looking for things that take up a lot of time that aren't work and keep me off a phone. That's like a very important thing for me to do. And it used to be running and I sort of fell off that a little bit and it's been biking and it's been making clocks in the past. And it's just the newest thing because I'm always looking for something because left to my own devices, I will sit in front of a computer and work or just be professionally online forever. So I'm always looking for these things. And that's why fishing is the new drug. And he said, I understand that completely. That's why I meditate. He

meditates for hours every single day. And it gives him that kind of like, peace and distance and stability that I find in fishing. And I, I really can't meditate. Like I've tried it just like, googling how to meditate and trying to do it in my apartment, I inevitably feel very stupid and get nothing out of it. Years ago, I went to a church that specializes in guided meditation ceremonies where you're meditating in like a huge group setting it's like a two and a half hour affair and I did it because I was I this is a period of my life where I was going partially blind from stress and was trying to do anything under the sun to de-stress and it did fucking nothing for me the whole time i'm sitting there and i i i can feel the energy of people around me who seem to be successfully meditating and i'm

sitting there the whole time if i have a mantra at all it's this isn't working this isn't working this isn't working i'm not meditating right now not meditating five minutes ago wasn't meditating gonna shoot my shot for the future 10 minutes from now, not going to meditate. So that's my experience with meditation. Yeah, I'm in a pretty similar boat. I was forced into meditation a few times with in acting classes. Meditation is a big part of that. And in sports, when I was in high school, they really thought meditation would help out.

And I tried it. We would do it. They were throwing everything at the wall then though. Were you guys really bad? No, I think they just wanted us more focused and that you do these things as a team and even if they're placebo, you're doing it as a team and that's

automatically helping. I have tried meditation. I've tried it on my own a couple of times, but I don't really know what I'm doing because I haven't bothered to really look it up. But the times that I've been instructed to do it, I got absolutely nothing out of it. I got absolutely nothing. And I don't, I, the other day I was talking to somebody who is a meditator and about this exact same subject. And as we were talking, we careened into a different direction.

And I told them something that I do at night while I'm lying in bed. And they're like, you know, what you're describing is meditation. And I was like, oh, oh, OK, shit. So what I do when I'm lying in bed, if there's if I can't sleep because I'm thinking about something, uh, I like, let's say I'm writing a script. I visualize putting it in a manila envelope and putting it away in a cubby. And I'll be like, I'll just deal with that later. And then when it comes back out again, I never really think about it again. I do the exact same process and I put it in a manila envelope and I put it in a cubby and I do that, you know, like 40 times a night. If it's something

that I'm really thinking hard about and uh eventually it just goes away and somebody was like you know what you're doing that's that's like a form of meditation and i was like oh okay so i guess i guess kind of is your is my answer so like is it a separate from um when you're trying to go to sleep when you can't sleep is uh the idea of meditation or the idea, like the promise of what it's supposed to give you. Is that something that you feel like you need generally or that you would seek out generally? No, I don't. I really, in fact, I really dislike the idea of it. I just like the idea of burning

that much time in my day. So there's a, having a kid, I, and I'm sure that, that people who have even like two kids or three kids would laugh at this, but I feel like I have absolutely no time at all. I see him barely at all on a normal work day. You see him with your kid a little bit in the morning. You see your kid a little bit at night and you can want to savor those moments. You want to get home as quickly as can, as you can. You want to spend that time with them. Um, and then the rest of your night is occupied with, you know, eating dinner or I go and work out at night. There are these things that I need to do for to to still be a human. And meditation is just not on the table. It's not one of the things that I feel like I need. And it does. I don't feel like

I'm suffering because of it in any way. I don't have any sort of big stresses as far as I know. And it just feels like a big, if I was to carve out that time, I would feel really bad at the end of a month of doing that. I'd be like, I could have done so many other things. Yeah. That sounds like my, my brother, David too, who also has a young son. He's got a two year old and works a job and also works out and is like an athletic person that uh the idea of meditation to him is is probably insane that if he even if he got something

out of it if he meditated every day for two hours six months would go by and he'd be like i could have fucking learned to play guitar in that time what am i doing yeah it's such a sunk cost investment where like you have to give yourself to that. And I'm not. And then it's the worst kind of investment because you're thinking about the investment the entire time. You have nothing to do but sit there and think about the investment. So it's not going to work. Yeah.

That's why it doesn't work for me is that I'm just sitting there in my head thinking about, hey, Daniel, is this working? No, it's not. Just shut up. Shut up for a second. Just let me, let me, let me meditate. Okay. You're doing it yet. No, shut, shut the fuck up. I know. I know what I'm supposed to do. Yeah. Clear your mind. No, I know. Just get out of here. But, but, but I can't. And so it just becomes me yelling at myself, which, uh, actually enhances the stress if you can believe that much,

because now I'm just sitting there thinking about how I'm doing meditation wrong. Bacon, do you do meditation? No, I feel similar to you, Soren. The first time I tried it, I got convinced to go to a guided meditation class. And I found out later I had fundamentally misunderstood the point of it because I had come out of it. I'm generally kind of an anxious person sometimes. And the person I was with was like, do you feel better?

Do you feel more relaxed? And I told them, yeah, I do. It was a wonderful set aside time to work through a lot of problems I had. And she just looked horrified. She was like, that's the opposite of what you're supposed to do and i was just amazed that i thought that was the point of it was to like uh put like serious thought behind issues and and utilize the time appropriately and i i've since then tried to do it the real way, and I have very little success doing it. Shit, Bacon.

That feels like that kind of meditation I could get behind. You should start a business like that, where meditation is just study hall. Just a quiet room. And I just get to think about things a little harder. You spend three hours, and I walk out, and I'm like, got it, I got my screenplay. I know what it's going.

I like that. That feels very useful. I'll sign up for that. All right. very useful yeah i'll sign up for that um all right well i think we're we're heading towards the end here unless there's no we're at time we're at time okay great well well do you have anything to say yeah i do um i i've hijacked the outros from this point forward and I'm going to be, that's right. Yeah. We should give the audience a little bit of,

uh, clarity. We had, we recorded an episode nine that, um, the reason this episode is late this week is because the episode that we recorded that was supposed to go this week was, uh,

unlistenable because I was tired and Soren gave me a lot of opportunities to participate. And I turned them all down. So we had to record again. But at the end of that episode that you'll never hear, Soren promised that he would do the outros from now on with all of the social accounts. And I really appreciate that. That episode was a really humbling experience for me too because it made me realize how quickly I could never carry

an episode. I was in the weeds immediately. Listening back, I felt so bad because you teed me up for so many conversation points that I just was not interested in being a part of. You were like, Dan, do you like weekends? I'm like, no, not

particularly. Soren said at one point dan you uh you have an opinion on that and you went nope yep that's right i was trying to punish you i think yeah that sounds right all right well i'm gonna do the outros but before i want to find them here i just do i want to give you some time. You at one point told me, well, I know that you hate letting old adages that are wrong stand. And you said that you'd create a list of jobs that are objectively harder than being a mom. And I just wanted you to have an opportunity to, to roll those out jobs that are harder than being a mom. Yeah.

I mean, so many people say it's the hardest job in the world. And you've always said, no, sir, here are several that are harder. Do you say that? And so you're going to give me some space now to give that list? Yes. Okay, great. That sounds good. I want to say male nurse.

I'm going to say principal. Again, parenthetically, male. say uh oh there's if you go to like a home depot there's a a guy who has to man the station where it puts the paint can in a machine and it shakes the paint because you because the paint needs to get mixed properly to get the color that you want and it's a very scary machine it shakes violently similarly if you go to a sports party the machine that puts the spool onto a reel, because you do that with a machine that, that can really, that can, that can knock you on your toes if you're not careful and then you have to start from scratch. And the man who, uh, works that is also, I would rank as a hero above, uh, mom, which isn't a job.

That's perfect. Thank you. Thank you so much for doing that. This show is called Quick Question with Soren and Daniel. You can follow us on Twitter. You can follow Daniel at DOB underscore INC. That's DOB Inc. Soren at S-O-R-E-N underscore LTD.

You can follow Michael Schro at MakeMeBaconPlease. That's MakeMeBacon and then P-L-S. Man, I'm reminded why we rarely say his full name on this podcast. You can email us, although

I don't recommend it, at QQ with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com. Not to be confused with Quick Question with Soren and Dan. Here's another one. Instagram is QQ underscore with underscore Soren underscore and underscore Daniel. So don't do that with a Dan because that's a totally different podcast. No, you'd hate to follow that Instagram. You can also.

And I mean, you could follow it but i the only thing i can say for it is that it's not going to take up much room on your feed because nobody mans that i don't i've never even looked at it uh okay you can follow find or hire our producer and sound engineer and editor vincent at silicon beach podcast.com. And you can follow, you can also, uh, you can give us money at Patreon. You can go to Patreon backslash quick question. You can go in and give us money for this podcast.

If you still feel inclined. I mean, you don't have to, it's fine. We got, we got to move that one on top. So far back. Uh,

a good joke that someone had on Twitter about our Patreon. Soren, um, uh, because I was doing my, my, a good joke that someone had on Twitter about our Patreon, Soren, to tell you the story. Um, uh, because I was doing my, my, my fun bit of being a,

a grump who doesn't support this podcast. Uh, and I said, you should, you can donate to us, donate to us on Patreon if you want. Frankly, I think there are,

are better ways that you could spend your money. And someone on Twitter, I wish I kept her name. She replied to me and said, you mean like $60 on a candle? Very good bit. Very good joke. Just dunked on.

Yep. I'll find that. She sounds like she deserves all the Patreon money. Can we give it to her, Bacon? I don't have the password. From now on, we're going to be giving out our Patreon money to the people who burn us the best. Now we're going to be giving out our Patreon money to the people who burn us the best. That's a good bit, but it's stepped a little bit on Bacon's bit, which I also love, that he doesn't have the password to our Patreon account.

So no one has it. So just money that is piling up that we can't access. Patreon has it. I assume they use it as a bank. Thanks, Dan. Yeah, bye.