Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Shameful Stupid Sunburns
Episode Date: May 28, 2024The guys talk about the unique humiliation of sunburns, the oft-overlooked issue of fish fraud, and the uncomfortable window into other people's lives that we've just learned to live with. Are adult s...unburns inherently humiliating? You can sound off in the comments below or on instagram at www.instagram.com/QQSorenandDaniel And speaking of new rooms, joining the Quick Question patreon page guarantees you'll see Soren's guest room at least one more time, plus you get a extra episode of the podcast every other Friday. Sign up at www.patreon.com/quickquestion
Transcript
Discussion (0)
I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright?
I wanna hear your thoughts, I wanna know what's on your mind
I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright?
The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight
So what's your favorite? Who did you get?
When do I be remembered? What's it up with?
Where did all the good weeks go?
Oh, forget it
Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien
Two best friends and comedy writers
If there's an answer, they're gonna find it
I think you'll have a great time here
I think you'll have a great time here for last week tonight with John Oliver, author of How to Fight Presidents and Vacation Boy.
Daniel O'Brien joined us always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, say aloha.
Aloha, mahalo, fellow travelers in this world. I'm Soren Bui. I'm a writer for American Dad,
but that's not really my real title. I'm a wanderer, a traveler, you might say.
Oh, boy.
You'll notice that I've traveled to a new room daniel
uh so two things first of all visually i will not notice that oh you didn't notice visually if
you're not if you're not watching this podcast fucking get on it baby because we're gonna be
talking about that kind of stuff a lot like daniel is clearly a traveler he's got on a cool new
flowery hat he's got a sunburn on his nose and i am in a brand new room and that's fucking all
we're gonna talk about today i know wait okay i forget which comedian i want to say it was
kyle canane but it's just a line that stuck with me for forever where i was doing a stand-up and
he was also on the show and he had just gotten back from a trip and was very sunburned and he said if you were looking
for if you want to find the stupidest person in any room look for a sunburned adult and it's such
a good point and it's very like it's a sunburn is a really easy thing to avoid as an adult you
cannot be outside or if you're going to be outside and you know you're gonna be outside you can bring in where there's solutions for that yeah yeah and i i uh i'm on
i'm vacation work because i'm on hiatus from work this week and i've just been enjoying just like
truly just baking in the sun and i went fishing on tuesday and you you there you, there's no, there's no shade on a boat.
No.
You're just out there in the water and you're getting blasted with rays from the water as well.
And I thought I was so fucking clever wearing a hat and sunglasses and even like a UV shirt,
like a long sleeved UV shirt for protection, but just nothing on the old face and i just i'm i'm just
like blasted and it's i appreciate how humiliating sunburns are it's the the swastika they carve into
the nazi heads and inglorious bastards i'm not allowed to walk around and not broadcast my stupidity yeah uh which is what which
is the which was the nazis that was their main thing they were so stupid that's yeah brad pitt's
big concern was they were dummies yeah he was like just didn't have the intelligence um no you can't
forget you're a nazi if i don't remind you no you have what i would call the the raccoon tan
which is eyes are white still rest of the face is a different color that's pretty that's like we
that was the goggle tan we would all get as kids for the same reason where like you're up on the
mountain you're getting hit from every direction like you're yeah you're getting bukkake by the sun
because right it's coming from the ground and it's coming from the air
as reflecting off the the snow uh but you i will say that as an adult yes it's not it's a little
humiliating to have a sunburn you have to it only happens through stupidity and we're at a time like
2023 where you see a child with with a bad sunburn like that also reflects really poorly on the
parents you don't see that anymore you don't see kids with really bad sunburns
i'm curious about a couple of things i'd like to know what year you think it is
um 2024 yes that time you got it you can say we're at a time 2023 oh fuck that's i'm just gonna start using 2023 as like the time when
everything changed and we should all be good now so it's past 2023 what are we doing women can be
doctors etc i truly forget what year it is all the time and i forget um what time of year it is i'm glad this
the it's getting warmer so that that clues me in pretty good but if i'm not in a target for a while
i have no idea what time of year it is target is really crucial be like hey it's mother's day i'm
like thank you so fucking much i thought it was christmas this
is really helpful thank you target for your card displays letting me know what where i can orient
myself within the year and just seeing like back to school savings i'm like ah damn summer's over
and this was the only way i was ever gonna find out because i don't write checks anymore
you're right target will help you target can be your calendar don't rely on home
depot to be your calendar anybody because i've gone in there to try and get halloween decorations
in september thinking like oh you know what i could use a couple more skeletons for the old
casa and tried to go in there and they're like no we don't fucking do those anymore it's christmas
it's christmas and like by the end of september there's you're there's no chance you're
getting halloween decorations they've already set up everything for christmas and there might be
like christmas then yeah a dog skeleton somebody forgot about that like you could still purchase
if you wanted to but other than that it's like yeah the home depot is so far in advance like
they're so far out on stuff that you're like oh this is not helpful to me you also i'm i'm doubling back or
going back a little bit because you mentioned uh sunscreen on children and this was something that
is in like my long gestating uh notes doc of stand-up material okay even though i don't do
stand-up and i i have no intention of going back i still keep it i still like putting notes every
once in a while and i was an idea that i was circling that i couldn't i never actually
figured out how it could crystallize into a joke i think the notes just said have you ever seen an
adult put sunscreen on a child it is one of the most violent things i've ever seen
but i don't know how to what what to do with that but it's it's truly like like they're like pulling on their child because the kid doesn't understand and doesn't want it
and uh like like like child child like like like five where you can't really explain and they want
to go and play in the pool or play in the sand and just watching the adult who's just like just
hold still and really slathering it on this kid who is fighting every step of the way they don't want this thing and the parent is just like if you just do this
one bit of preparation then you're fine for the rest of the day you just need to sit still for a
second and then it'll be done and it'll be over with if you stood still perfectly still the whole
time and i'm like i'm doing this to protect you little shit it's such a battle it's
so fun for me to watch i'll say even the kids that are like sitting still parents are still like
slapping the face and like turning the whole head when they're like trying to get it on their face
because they're trying to rub it in like they're trying to do a good job it's really tense
they're doing a lot of like it's a lot of yanking and pulling of the face in a way that's like whoa
you're not allowed to get away with that any other time now i said if i saw a child with sunburn
i would be like oh that that that parent fucked up um yeah and you don't really see like kids
with a really bad sunburn we get that shit all the time we were young but now everyone knows
better everybody knows that you just shaved off like 10 years of that kid's life but as an like yeah i feel like i got like
parents were great but i was still i was just reckless and lawless and i would just come home
covered in dirt and sunburns missing a shoe and they'd be like where were you i was like
i don't know where am i now now? What the hell? Yeah.
My mom would every summer shave our heads after learning the lesson that we were going to get a bunch of tree sap in our hair every summer.
Yeah.
And she was like, I'm not dealing with this shit.
I can't stop you from going out there and like getting tree sap.
I don't even know where you're getting it.
But you're getting a lot of it in your hair and I'm just going to shave your heads.
That's very smart. We would come home and my mom would immediately check all of our hair for ticks.
Yeah.
Because we were probably somewhere where ticks were going to be.
And also, as usual, I have no memory where we were.
It was like, did you, were you in the woods?
Were you in long bits of grass?
Like, I don't know.
I walked outside when it was sun and then the sun went away.
So I came home.
What's for dinner?
Now it's the new thing. Yeah. I, so had my children like my son my daughter's never actually gotten sunburned because
she's still pretty young but he is a enough of a his own person that like he can live in the world
um without us and i didn't put sunscreen on him one day recently and it's not until recently that
like the sun has mattered because of where it is in the sky and like how short the days were.
But he came home and he had sunburn on his neck.
And I was like, this, like, we can't leave the house for a few days.
This is, this is like neglect.
This is abuse.
If people see this, it's going to be a problem.
I can't let other people see that you got sunburned because it reflects so poorly on me as a dad.
So we're staying
home we're staying home for the next three days till this solves itself i had um some of the most
humiliating sunburn i've ever gotten uh the the weekend that i've proposed to my now fiance
because we were down in florida and we went out on her parents boat and i it's it's it was cartoonish you could really see
um that i was wearing a backwards hat and that i stopped applying sunscreen at the line of the hat
and then at some point had pushed my hat back farther than where it was so when i took my hat
off there was like a perfect cartoon line across my forehead
and then a little window where like the the hat buckle is open the exposed part it wasn't a fitted
cap it was a strap cap so you could see like the window where i'd i had been clearly wearing a hat
anyone who looked at me could see wore a hat backwards fell asleep in the sun didn't that's sunscreen on
before the hat and like when your sunscreen tells a story that's tough yeah and like every
thank god we didn't do like professional engagement photos that weekend because it was just
it's just such a wash every photo of me even when i'm wearing like a nice shirt and i've got product
in my hair there's still a very clear line across my forehead as if i'd had like a nice shirt and i've got product in my hair there's still a very clear line across my forehead
as if i'd had like a scalp transplant it's like a perfect straight line of uh negligence on my part
that's and then you get an extra little semi-circle above it for your third eye
that's so brutal man i so uh we did a sketch of when we used to work at cracked where i was a stripper
and i had to be in american flag briefs and before this i i think we shot in like february
and i was like you know what i'm gonna just tan up for this if i'm gonna have my whole body out
there for the internet i'm gonna tan up a little so it's february tough to tan in february and i thought wow no sunscreen necessary just go sit
out in the sun uh like 11 o'clock in the morning and don't leave the sun for as long as you can
so i had on uh it was little briefs uh not briefs um like boxer briefs so like there's like a little bit of leg
to it as well and set out in the sun just reading and like turning over and just spinning myself
like a rotisserie chicken and eventually came inside and i thought ah that ought to do it
went and took a shower and in the shower it became immediately apparent that i had overdone it
and i was like fuck i am burned like this is way worse than being pale but i'm
burned in a really terrible obvious way so and in a way that like breaks the reality of the sketch
it's like now why is he burnt show up burnt the joke is gone is that the joke is that the joke
the joke of the sketch is ruined because it's been muddied by this new thing.
And so the morning of, Colleen was like really supportive.
She was saying, maybe it'll just go away.
Like it's only a February burn.
Maybe it'll just disappear by tomorrow.
I was like, yeah, yeah, maybe.
And then the morning of, she...
Maybe this will be the first time that happens.
I had to get up so early for the
sketch too we started shooting like 6 30 and she got up with me and she was like i think if we just
put some makeup on it it will be fine and this loving supportive wife of mine put concealer
on my whole chest like on my body and my back and then i went and shot the sketch
now i didn't know that i was going to be in these briefs that was uh thrown on me at the last second
on the day i put on these american flag briefs and before that i'd been wearing boxer briefs
just irresponsible filmmaking just so rude so now i've got basically thigh highs of sunburn like picture thigh high boots but
there's just sunburn instead and then a gap of about four inches before the underwear starts
so just this band of pale skin in between so it's nothing could be more glaring now if that
sketches up you could go back and watch it and you could be more glaring now if that sketch is up you could
go back and watch it and you could look and you'd be like oh fuck yeah he's really sunburned oh wow
look at his legs and it's it's rough man it's uh it was the worst decision i ever made and it was
like the worst sunburn i've not like in terms of like blistering sunburn but the dumbest sunburn
i've ever had i don't even think you wanted to do that sketch i
think this was this was very uh early-ish cracked time where you were you you were the only
thing close to a piece of meat that we had at our disposal you were you were always like a very fit
person and like i think like a shared comedy writer brain
is like he's fit so that must mean he wants people to look at his body as close to nude
as possible he's fit so surely he wants to be nearly naked on film forever that's like a like
for some reason every comedy writer assumes like like attractive people want to be staring at and
objectified because we're all broken and miserable inside.
That was the first time that we shot agents of cracked that I have to wear a
squib.
Cause you shoot me in it.
And there's going to be an explosion in my shirt,
but the squib has to be taped to your chest.
And there's
behind the scenes like i'm sitting there with a shirt like half over my shoulder wearing it up
i'm not a part of cracked yet i am as somebody that you guys borrowed from another company that
you needed in a sketch that and uh michael took a picture of me not wearing a shirt and then just put it up on everything and he was
like wow sword's a piece of man meat and i was like oh hey okay like hey everyone check out this
body it would be crazy of me at this point to be like hey everybody please don't look at this and
please take it down like that's not yeah if i'm trying to be part of Cracked, I'm not going to do that.
So I was just like, you know what?
Steer to the skid.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yep.
There it is.
And then, yeah.
And then playing that role for a while.
That's, uh, it's, that's been true.
I'll say not just Cracked.
That's true of every job I've had.
Right.
Where they're like, hey man, man we gotta do this shoot will you just
pop your shirt off i'm like i don't yeah no bosses just like feel very comfortable being like
touching you touching your like your arms and stuff and you're like ah
here's the thing at a job please don't ever remind somebody else that they own a body
yeah that's the safest way you can work if you're just joining us we wanted to issue another uh
correction and on the podcast in real time soren mistakenly remembers the finale of agents of
cracked season one uh and he said that i shoot him through the chest he is actually i believe shot by
mandy manderson that's right yeah mandy shoots i don't think i don't think the daniel character
shoots anyone anyone in that show yeah no you don't so so if you're just joining us Soren thinks it's 2023 and he
completely erased
the woman in STEM that was Mandy
Manderson from Agents of Cracked
Soren the floor is yours
you shoot two giant
machine guns in the intro
to that sketch every single time
fair
okay
well that was a fun walk down memory lane i would have been actually
really good we didn't come in planning planning that but it would have been a fun question to
say what was the most embarrassing sunburn you've ever had and uh oh yeah asked and answered
um did you before we were recording that you were asking me about uh fish my fishing trip
did you have any specific questions about the i do i i have a bunch of questions about it go for it
oh great so you got burned on that trip are you was that near your house or was you were you gone
somewhere to do your fishing trip uh i took a boat out of uh marina that's about 10 minutes from home all right now you sent us
a picture from that trip of you catching a i'm gonna say i don't know fish shark you caught a
shark sure you caught a fish and you showed it to us and this fish is i would say maybe like
eight inches long uh you're incorrect six it has to be at least 12 and a half inches to be kept yeah so that's a
big fish okay yeah you sent us a picture you sent gabe and me a picture of your fish it's a very
pretty fish it's like the silvery fish it's a sea bass it is okay uh it's very pretty it's got some iridescence to it now in the picture that you sent the fish
has an extra little hole in its lip i can see where your hook is in where your hook is uh
going right through the lip and then just above that it's got another piercing like a one that
like it got when it was younger and then decided it it didn't want it anymore yeah did somebody else catch this
fish before you does this happen first of all does this happen a lot where like you're catching fish
and you can tell that somebody else has caught this fish maybe even like three or four times
second of all do you even know what that hole is no i would guess it's uh it had been caught
previously and maybe it was caught and thrown back because it was too small.
So that could be a couple years old or several months old, something like that.
It could also be, I mean, blackfish season didn't officially start until,
I want to say May 17th out here.
So it's possible that someone caught him the week before season,
and you're not allowed to keep it if it's off season.
Yeah, so they might have caught it and been like,
oh shit, I can't keep this, and thrown it back.
Or they threw it back because it was too small,
or they threw it back because they had already hit their limit.
They've maxed out on the amount of sea bass they're allowed to take that day,
and threw it back.
Any of these hit reasons for throwing a fish back after you caught it so you are it didn't even occur to me until now that there are fish out
there that have probably been caught like five or six times like fish that get caught over and over
and never learn their stupid lesson right because on the same day it could happen yeah because they
were like oh look a snack oh no my life has changed and then they get thrown back in the water everything's fine man that was that was crazy oh cool a snack right now you said
black fish season uh sea bass sea bass season oh but you it's a black sea bass
oh okay yeah okay i didn't know if there's like you cycle through different colors of fish that are okay to
catch yeah um no there's different seasons for uh for when you're allowed to catch fish and there's
some i and like different rules for different areas i think in in north carolina there's like
two days a year that you are allowed to take home red snapper and you're only allowed one
that's like the limit so there's just people who are like fishing all year long and then they they
wait for fourth july weekend or whatever it's going to be and you're like i'm going to catch
this is the this is my my one day to catch the red snapper pokemon and if i don't then i have
to wait till next year that i was on a boat when someone caught
them and it wasn't in season and they they took it very seriously but like i can't let anyone i
have to make sure they like revived the fish on the boat before sending it back in the water
because they didn't the fishermen are really serious about not breaking the law
and they didn't want to catch or kill cpr what what had they
revived the fish i think because they it's deep sea fishing so when you pull it out it's the same
as humans where like that is too big of a change too quickly for the the fish's bladder so you need
to like pump some kind of air in it or something to get it like
breathing again and re-acclimated to being at just a completely different depth yeah until they like
revive themselves and and swim back down there that's wild um i i've heard of this about red
snapper not necessarily like individual non-market not commercial fishermen but that red snapper that
in within our country there is way more red snapper on menus than there is like red snapper
being caught throughout the year yeah 70 like something like 77 of all red snapper and even
like great restaurants is not actually red snapper it's this other correct really dog shift fish that when you eat it a certain percentage of
the population when they shit after eating it get these oil droplets in their shit that terrifies
everyone like red oil see yeah rises to the surface and terrifies everyone i wish i could
remember the name of this garbage fish i know uh there was a podcast that talked about it and they called it x-lax fish because of what it does to your digestive system but when i had it in uh hawaii
everyone we were no one was putting on airs that's diarrhea fish that's what everybody i
know in real life called it and then i heard about on a podcast called x-lax fish but um it's a kind of escalar escalar that's right thank you um but fish fraud in america even
separate from escalar is huge because there's there's there's lots of incentive to mislabel
fish right there's you can sell diarrhea fish at a much higher price if you say it's red snapper or grouper or something like
that and if you're not buying a fish with its like whole body intact you're not going to know
you're like most fish expert most people buying fish at a grocery store or a restaurant they're
not going to know the difference between tile fish and pollock or whatever so one of the incentives for uh fish fraud is you get
more money pretending it's grouper another is uh you can catch a fish that is off season and you
don't want to get caught for it so you skin it and say this is grouper i caught i caught one of
the fish i'm supposed to to catch um i thought those are the main like incentives for lying about
fish and also it's because it's like it's such a difficult uh thing to track because the food that
we're eating in in uh our grocery stores and our restaurants is very often like caught in china and
then travels through russia before it comes to us.
Thank you all for listening to my fish fraud podcast.
I don't know if Soren knew who is teeing me up for a thing that I think a lot about.
Welcome to Fish Fraud with Soren and Dan.
Yeah, this is a great behind the scenes glimpse into what happens to ideas that I pitched to last week tonight that don't get picked up.
They stay in my brain until I can talk about them on the podcast.
I assume that you've also looked a lot into this,
which is like the spiritual cousin to it,
which is that they renamed a bunch of fish so that people would eat them.
Like once they realized they couldn't get away with fraud,
they were catching still a bunch of fish that were like very plentiful,
not bad tasting, but just like a real dog shit fish to
look at it's like a chilean sea bass is a good example like chilean sea bass was not always
called chilean sea bass it was like the patagonian tooth fish and when you see it the actual fish
you're like oh no no one should be eating that no thank you uh and they renamed a bunch of them
and they just decided like at one point there was just
this surge where they're like and now we'll just rename all these fish to make it more palatable
yeah
i my first experience with escalar in hawaii was just going to uh fish market and just i wanted
to buy and make fresh fish so and i didn't know
shit about fuck so i was like that one looks good can you tell me about this one what what
should i cook it with they're like oh just some garlic and butter and it's great and i ate this
fish and i cooked it and it tastes really good um and then i was shitting my brains out and i
it just so happened that the airbnb i was staying at had a book about Hawaii fish.
And as I'm sitting in the toilet, I was reading up about escalar.
And they were like, sometimes called diarrhea fish.
And I'm like, hey!
I know that one.
It's true.
I guess it's just a really oily fish.
I don't totally understand how it happens.
And it also doesn't affect everyone the same way, apparently. Like, there are just some people that are more prone to getting massive diarrhea from this fish.
So they're like, these restaurants are like, we'll roll the dice on that.
It's very funny.
I imagine both of us were thinking about Escalor this year because we listened to the same podcast.
Search Engine.
Search Engine.
Search Engine, yeah.
Search Engine, my favorite podcast um
but the the host was going to this same sushi restaurant in new york and eating the same thing
and getting diarrhea over and over again so he took he was like convinced that he was the victim
of fish fraud and he took a sample of the fish and sent it off to get it dna tested to
see if he had been served escolar from the sushi restaurant and the results were no it's not escolar
so this host is just like he uncovered this whole thing about fish fraud it made it like a very
fascinating episode it was on a whole lot of like end of year lists for just like an incredible
topic an incredible story and uh i'm sure informed a lot of people and changed a lot of lives got no closure on his
thing just it's just unrelated getting consistent diarrhea from this restaurant he so he's somebody
who uh asked very good questions about the world but at the world around him so isn't always aware
on whether this is like a universal issue or this is a issue that's happening within a very small radius in new
york city so yeah uh pj vote will like ask a question like why are there so many chicken
bones in the street and i'm like i cannot i can't relate to that what are you talking about i have
no idea what that means and so like that like just the first part of the podcast is him trying to
convince you that like this is a bigger issue which is always very funny to me try to sell
it doesn't what he's the story he's about to tell is like no this matters yeah i it's such a a fun
and addictive podcast and you're absolutely right that i'll see an episode title that it's like
where have all the roaches gone it's like pj what do you mean what could you mean
yeah i'm probably a good perhaps you moved
um speaking of insects dan and insects disappearing you'll you will notice
visually that i'm in a new location okay please take a moment to do that
all right uh yep the roof is uh slanty are you in an attic it does have that sort of feel or
like an a-frame this is a the guest bedroom in my house we've modeled it after a motel six if you can see uh i got i got severely burned uh on a recent
zoom call where my showrunner asked if my bedroom was in 1996 damn um you are so is your
a quick question for you yeah on your On your work Zoom calls, is a bed behind you?
Yes.
When I work here.
Yes.
When I work here, usually I work in the garage, right?
Obviously that's my, that's my space.
This is a room that I have to use as like a backup.
And when it gets really, really cold in the winter and I need to be on camera, sometimes
like a really rainy season, I will just come in here and work because it's just not i need to be on camera sometimes like like a really rainy
season i will just come in here and work because it's just not worth it to be out there yeah um i
do what everyone does when you have a zoom call in the beginning of the pandemic and it's the first
time we're all doing zoom calls and i could see into my co-workers homes i did what everyone does
and i one by one go through absolutely everyone's background to see what they're showing me, what they're presenting.
And I was and am shocked at people who will have their bed in the background or some people who are like sitting on their bed in like work clothes and everything.
But just like this is, you know, we most of us live in New York.
Certainly at the time we were all living in New York and no one has a big home in New York. Certainly at the time, we were all living in New York,
and no one has a big home in Manhattan anywhere.
So I understand space is limited,
but just I'm not supposed to see any of my coworkers' beds.
It's really uncomfortable.
I don't like it.
This is not...
So first of all, it's madness when they don't make
the bed this is uh this is not my bed this is a guest bedroom bed so uh this is not where the
magic happens um right and so i feel more comfortable i feel more comfortable with it
in the background doesn't feel it just feels like another object in my house as opposed to like
something very personal but i know exactly what you mean yeah when i see a co-workers or like they're sitting
there and they're like it's clearly they're lounging a little bit more like their chin is
tucked in and then you can see a headboard behind them and you're like get out of there don't that
it's like somebody it's like seeing somebody's breast fall out you're like i'm not supposed to
see see this this isn't for me katie Stoll once posted a picture that was her boyfriend at the time, Cody Johnston,
friends of the show, friends of ours.
He was in swim trunks, which is like a thing I've seen before.
I've been to pools and stuff, so it's not like an R-rated thing or anything.
And he is in the shower with their dog,
Maggie,
as he is like,
that was how he was getting her clean,
was getting in the shower with her.
And Katie,
I'm sure was posting it as like,
look at this cute thing.
This is how we wash the dog here.
And I almost reached out to her.
I was like,
take that photo down.
I'm not supposed to see Cody in the shower.
That is against the law. I love that you were scandalized by it
in a way that was like did somebody call the police i know he's in swim trunks and i know
he's holding a dog but there are enough other ingredients of cody in the shower that i'm not supposed to see yeah no i get it i get it um i don't like
looking at my co-workers houses but that's all i'm gonna do the entire time is like see i want
to see what i'm not supposed to see for like no other reason than like i look at uh roadkill when
i drive by it i'm like yeah i don't want to see it but i want to make
sure that it's not there i want to look through your everything that's in the background be like
what clean up your fucking floor before you do a zoom i can see a bra on the floor
i was so scrupulous in my early zooms that i was always only going to have a plain white background behind
me just a solid white wall because I didn't want the last thing I ever wanted
to do was invite ten comedy writers into my home and an opportunity for roasts
because I know what we're like we're terrible and so I was gonna give them no
information that was one of the reasons and the other reason was i wanted the freedom to uh take little trips and take great advantage of
working from home and i didn't want uh any like identifying marks like if i was ever in a hotel
room or staying at someone else's place or traveling,
I would find another white wall because I didn't want anyone to know where I was in the world.
Now I give much less of a shit about what's in my background in these Zoom calls. I'll normally have
the depth of my apartment with a window behind me because that's where all the
plants are and i think the plants look nice but uh that is also like the workspace where
fiance works a lot of times and i don't want her in the background so when that happens i just like
wedge myself into a corner with a fire extinguisher hanging on the wall behind me and it's like i
don't give a shit anymore guys you's whatever you didn't realize how many more
questions you were raising early on in the pandemic by only having a white wall behind
you and wearing a three-piece suit on everything single zoom call yeah suddenly it was that's all
anyone could think about right i didn't do a three-piece suit for my work zoom calls that
was just for like my friend yeah happy hour zooms but like we um it's
it's wild that you brought that up because we someone in our group chat was just posting a
bunch of screenshots from our the happy hour zooms that we would do and it is like
such a cry for help it It's such a bad time.
Like, we're all at 3 o'clock in the morning drinking alone in our apartments,
just playing weird games
and, like, doing Pictionary and stuff.
And it's like, it was definitely a fun time.
And, like, we all needed it
to get us through this horrible pandemic.
But looking at those photos, it's like,
oh, I don't actually want to...
I don't think I want to see that.
I don't think I need to be reminded of that. i also don't look at x-rays of my broken wrist
yeah it's enough fun to see me broken um well okay so i mentioned killing insects the reason
that i'm in here today is because oh yeah i have tented i did I said killing insects Yeah
I'm tenting my garage
Oh
What's in there?
I'm fumigating it
Termites
Oh gross
Termites
Are something that any
I don't know if this is true of everywhere
This might be my PJ vote thing
Where I just assume every house has termites
But within Los Angeles certainly Everywhere that I've ever looked at When we were looking for houses this might be my pj vote thing where i just assume every house has a has termites but within
los angeles certainly everywhere that i've ever looked at when we're looking for houses uh
everywhere i've ever lived has termite damage and it's like a guarantee that while you're living
there if you're living there for like seven years you're gonna get termites at some point every
house you buy you gotta tent it immediately then you live in it for a little while you're going to get termites while you live there and you have to tent again it's just like
it's just how it goes here um and so i've been in the situation where i was working in the garage
looked in a corner while i was sitting there probably on a zoom with you or on this call
with you and i was like man what is that pile of sawdust oh that's just termite like where
the termites are shitting i guess and they're like it's like coming out of the wall and so i had a
guy come and he's like i can't spot treat this you're gonna have to tent it and i was like okay
sounds easy enough it's just a garage but my garage shares a wall with a neighbor it's like
it is the a wall comes to the garage stops at it and then you know that
becomes the wall and that wall has these beautiful vines growing all over it for them in their
backyard so i had to like really negotiate how am i going to tell my neighbors i have to kill all of
that i'm going to put a tent over my garage it's going to kill all your vines i know that it took
years and years for those to grow but the garage is gonna you understand the garage will fall down if we
don't do this and so like trying to decide how can i make this up to them like i'll offer to
paint it like offer to scrape it do whatever they need done and uh just have them um pivot to
youtube that's what happened the last time vine died. Soren, did you hear me?
I'm letting it just sit.
I'm going to let it marinate.
Okay.
We'll add it in some laughs.
Nobody went to YouTube, did they?
Nobody went to YouTube.
All the Viners went to YouTube.
TikTok was not available when Vine died.
Okay. Wow. I hope their careers survived that jump uh so i'm in a situation now where like yeah i'm i'm tenting it it looks awful out there
i can tell that like it's killing even the stuff that's nearby it and uh at some point that's going
to come off and i have to now i have
like this whole new mess of problems where i gotta fucking solve a wall that i don't even see every
day because i feel terrible for my neighbors my uh old place where i lived uh and my landlord she
was uh 197 years old and she lived in the unit above me and the place was
falling apart for a million different reasons and we had like the clearest
textbook indication of termites you will ever see in your fucking life in our bathroom of just like
a hole in the ceiling and then a perfect circle of that
sawdust debris or termite whatever it is that coarse dust underneath it yeah yeah like
unmistakable signs of termite infestation and as she did with all home repairs she looked to see
if she could fix it herself and she couldn't because uh i got 197 years old and she couldn't because I got 197 years old and she wouldn't let me call any
professional for for this or any situation she always had a very specific
person for each thing and it was like reliably someone who would tell her that
the damage is not that bad and that it would cost too much to fix or replace
anything whether it's like the washing machine broke or the ceiling was leaking or the ceiling was full of termites she would get some fucking kirkland
brand repairman to come in and be like i can plug up that current hole where the termites are
throwing their droppings and then you won't see that anymore yeah and that would be i wasn't
allowed to get a second opinion from anyone that would would just be like, well, I talked to my expert and the expert says, you're crazy.
The ceiling is not leaking and there aren't termites.
So I guess this is just your life now.
And that's what happened.
We just like cocked up that hole and I was like, this is not my home.
This is going to fall apart on someone else's watch.
It's going to collapse.
It's going to collapse at some point.
And how embarrassing is that? Like, how embarrassing is it that you didn't like so much of home ownership is you
being like i just have to avoid a wall falling down or something that's gonna really embarrass me
stuff can go wrong underneath the house it was really wild knowing being like so
very aware because it was it was just her her husband had
passed away a while ago and um her plan for the house is truly to just die i know it's a dark
thought but like she so much was falling apart in that house.
And I would I you'll never get a better tenant than me because I would say like, hey, I'm sorry to bother you.
But the the window fell out and I need it because it's winter.
And she's like, can you live without the window?
And I would say, I guess I technically can.
Like, you'll never get a better tenant for this particular situation.
window and I would say I guess I technically can like you'll never get a better tenant for this particular situation but I would would think about like this is this is your home this is your
investment all the things that I'm fine living with the next tenant is not going to be fine with
like you're not going to get me ever again what could the plan be and I think I'm pretty sure I landed on it. The plan is to just die.
And then the house goes to the state and it's someone else's problem.
And at a certain level, I was like, I kind of respect that.
You're not going to.
What are you doing?
What are you doing?
Building up a nice home for someone else.
This isn't going to be.
You're not getting buried in the house.
Yeah.
Yeah. else this isn't gonna be you're not getting buried in the house yeah yeah i i mean you can see it with parents too where parents will be like they're trying to decide what they want to
do with their house and they're like do we we've got like wood rot or whatever and they're like
should we fix it or should we just let it ride because how much longer can it conceivably go for?
I am looking forward to eventually reaching the age where something goes wrong with my body.
And doctors don't advise changing my diet or rehab or anything to fix it. when they're just like well your knee could just suck
now until the end i'm like thank you that's right that is that's what i wanted that's how i feel too
you need the kirkland doctor you need the doctor who's gonna tell you everything's gonna be fine
i somebody uh i think it was my in-laws one of them had gone in for an eye exam and the doctor
was like well you've got this you've got astigmatism and you've got like clearly some
these other signs of like aging.
There's like clouding in the eye and stuff.
And like your vision's pretty poor.
So ultimately really good for your age.
Yeah.
You're just getting these, these report cards that are like, I mean, at this point, a C minus is awesome.
So you should be really happy with what you've got there.
I get that with teeth.
Dentists.
I hate going to the dentist because I'm always concerned that I have done something drastically wrong throughout the year.
I've just fucked up.
And I go in and I'm just like ready for bad news.
And a lot of times the doctor would be like, doctor, listen to me.
The dentist will be like, okay, so I see like some cracking here.
You got some really bad gum recession everything looks great yeah because you see i guess you see people who don't brush
ever in their entire lives who then are like wandering to a dentist by mistake
um right and people just need like full crowns and stuff or like bridges whatever a bridge is
and so seeing some teeth where
somebody still has all their original teeth the doctor's like what the doctor yeah the
dentist is like somebody else get in here look at this look at this
uh i don't get that i get very clearly every dentist will say boy you really grind your teeth
huh like yeah sure do i had to go to a periodontist to see if they wanted to do surgery on my gums to make more gums for me.
Yeah.
Which is like brutal.
The process, I guess, is that they, you have all that wrinkly stuff on the roof of your mouth, that wrinkly skin.
That's a bunch of extra.
That's, yeah, that's the gold of your mouth.
Apparently they cut that off your roof of your mouth apparently they cut that off
your roof your mouth and then they tape it to your gums and then and then hopefully it takes
and it turns into more gums i don't want that but it's the most painful process in the world
leave that crying skin just where it is that's where it's supposed to go it's not supposed to
see any more light than it does currently my dad had had that process done and then he said the only thing that he said was
super painful it was very hard for him for like an entire week and then after that he just couldn't
get over the fact the roof of his mouth was so smooth because you've grown up your whole life
with that that piece of your brain down there that piece of your brain that you just put your
tongue against all the time and it was
different all of a sudden and so like he couldn't couldn't get over it he's like talk about it
constantly dinner and stuff it's so smooth i think it's just sliding down there slipping and sliding
don't like it apparently the process has changed somewhat When I'm talking to my periodontist, he was trying to assure me that if I did want to get it done,
they, and this was not comforting,
they go underneath the gum.
They cut out a slice of like skin underneath the gum
and just raise it up.
Like a window, basically.
Like a sliding window.
That's the only way I can describe it.
They separate some of it and just slide it up and then it continues it restores in place and i was like that sounds worse that sounds like way worse yeah i don't want any of this let's take it off a
cadaver let's do that yeah and then not even stitch it into mine let's just put it there
and if it takes it takes
and see if it doesn't yeah if it doesn't i write it out how much longer can i be here
speaking of how much longer uh we somehow recorded a whole episode oh we're done
daniel it was you got something else no i i only wanted to say the reason that
this happens this happens to us occasionally this is a little peek behind the curtain
where daniel and i will uh record and then we don't ever say any of the things we meant to say
because we just want to talk to each other and i gotta say it was great talking to you man
great talking to you i came in with four to you. I came in with four questions.
I've never been more prepared for this podcast.
And we didn't use them.
So back to the trash they go.
We'll never use them.
Goodbye.
Bye.
Hold on, hold on.
Let me get through a couple outros real quick.
Okay.
If you want to find Daniel or I, you can find us on blue sky.
Uh,
quick question is still on X at QQ underscore Soren and Dan.
There's a,
uh,
Instagram is QQ Soren and Daniel.
You can watch a little snippets of these episodes and I mean,
watch them because you can see both Daniel and I,
if you're also interested in seeing more bonus content of us and seeing our
faces, you can do
that at patreon slash quick question or you can watch all these podcasts in their entirety on
youtube at youtube.com at quick question podcast sorry at youtube.com slash let me start all over
again youtube.com slash at qq podcast and you can find our stuff there you can also just go and
search it.
It's got a good search function over there on YouTube.
They're doing it right.
Thanks always to our sound engineer,
editor and producer,
Gabe harder.
In this case,
our stand in engineer and editor and producer,
Jacob Weinstein.
You probably more likely to find him out there than you are to find Gabe
harder.
And that's it.
So.
Bye. Bye. out there than you are to find Gabe Harder. And that's it. So, bye.
Bye. The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favourite?
Who did you get?
Who do I be?
Who do I remember?
What's it up to?
Where did all that go?
Oh, forget it I saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien
Two best friends and comedy writers
If there's an answer, they're gonna find it
I think you'll have a great time here
I think you'll have a great time here