Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - The Bow Tie Boyz

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

Big announcement! The guys are launching their very own youtube channel.  Subscribe to check out our first video coming soon at https://www.youtube.com/@QQPodcast And this episode is great too! We talk about tying bow ties and sailing and all sorts of stuff. 

Hey, quick note up front of this episode. If you've ever been listening to one of these and thought, huh, I wonder what Soren and Daniel look like when they're doing this podcast. Well, good news. We're going to start doing a video version of the podcast. You can go check that out at YouTube slash at QQ podcast, where you can see Daniel and I doing the podcast live.

You can see our whole bodies in some of the shots. Some of them are a little tighter, but really just like watch all the ways that we try to find things to do with our hands and our feet and, and fail. So if that's something that interests you, you can go check it out on YouTube, or you can just listen to those same podcasts as you have been previously.

Thank you. And here's the show. I've got a quick, quick question for you. All right. I want to hear your thoughts on what's on your mind. Thank you, and here's the show. When will I be remembered? What's it over? Word it over. 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. So hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers ask each other questions and give each other answers. I am one half of that podcast, senior writer for Last Week Tonight, author of How to Fight Presidents and Tire of Bowties, Daniel O'Brien, joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Bowie. writer for last week's night author of how to fight presidents and tire of bow ties daniel o'brien joined as always by my co-host mr soren buoy soren say hello hello everybody i'm soren buoy i'm a writer for american dad and a bit of a tire uh myself period like a just like a i've gotten a little rounder in the midsection since I haven't been able to work out.

So I brought up bow ties. A few weeks ago, you were absent from this podcast, and I introduced myself as a tire of bow ties to our fill-in hosts, Michael Swaim and Abe Everson. And neither of them asked me any follow-up details about being able to tie a bow tie. And I realized that I rely on you to pick up on whatever I'm dropping and ask me about it. And they just didn't. I am actually very curious because you took me to the Emmys once on a date. And when we went, I considered the possibility of buying a bow tie that was, you know, like at the end of the night, you see it kind of dangling at the,

like somebody's done and like they can just, they don't unclip it. They just untie it. No. Yeah. They call that raw. And I thought, oh, maybe I'd be the type of person who could just wear like a real bow tie. And is it a humiliation not to? And then as soon as i was at a rental place and they're telling me how you tie one i was like oh no this is beyond my means okay so this is uh fascinating i so you have never tied a bow tie before not once in my life wow okay so this oh boy it ties into what I want to talk about as my quick question for you, which is, hey, Sorin, quick question.

Okay. What are assumptions people have had about you that have surprised you? And I'm gonna, I'll bring it all the way around. The first... Okay. The reason this comes to mind is I had a wedding a couple weeks ago

and I was in the bridal party and the groom leading into the wedding was like, everyone get ready at your hotel rooms and then we'll meet at the suite the morning of the wedding to distribute bow ties and pocket squares. And everyone can, we'll all tie our bow ties together.

And he said his best man he knew could tie bow ties. And he said, Daniel, I don't know this for sure, but I assume you can tie a bow tie. And I thought, that is one of the most flattering things anyone has ever said to me. I cannot tie a bow tie, but I really love the expectation, the assumption that I could. And I was in, but before we get into the further assumptions part of this episode, I got to say, I was in a really bad place trying to learn how to tie this bow tie. I was very, we were all together sweating and watching YouTube videos. So you didn't like, you didn't get it beforehand and be like days leading up, be like, well,

I should probably learn this. You're just like on the day. You were like, I'll figure it out on the day. Yeah. Because it's like a group activity. You know, we're all together trying to learn bow ties, and I really lost my cool. And I thought I had aged out of this level of anger in my soul. Daniel O'Brien.

Yeah, yeah. Or I thought I meditated it away. But an hour and a half of struggling to tie a bow tie, I entered into a realm of rage and disquiet that was, I was not good to be around. None of us were. But I really felt it with me. And I was unreasonable. I kept pacing around the suite, not tying this bow tie and repeating, I don't know about this. I don't know, guys.

The most destructive thing you could be saying. I'll keep trying it, but I don't know. What if I can't do it? And then, what's plan B? I'm going to keep trying, but what's plan B? We should have a second plan in case

we need to prepare for a future where I don't tie this bow tie and I, in fact, rivet to shreds. So you were, this is what I'm picturing, telling me this is right. You're trying, you get it wrong again, like, let's say

like for the sixth time, you like take it off and then you take a lap. Yeah, I was going to ask, have you ever done that? I would like I would we'd watch these these videos, which, by the way, if you've ever looked at a YouTube video on how to tie a bow tie, every single one of them is fucking infuriating. It's some dork, loser, magician, asshole who is taking his sweet ass time for the first step and the first step is like a long introduction on the

birth of bow ties and the second step is like hang it over your neck and let's talk about necks for a second and then the third step is like dangle the long part over the right side and then the third step is like dangle the long part over the right side and then the fourth step is make a bow tie real quick yeah yeah hey no i'm familiar i'm building furniture

i found the same thing where people are like origami with my son where i'll be like i'm like all right he's like i want to learn how to make one of those birds i'm like okay you mean a crane we can do that. Sure, that should be easy. Or like even paper airplanes. And we'll get in there like, let's go over the history of planes in general. The Wright brothers on Kitty Hawk or like Kill Devil Hill,

like when they figured out how to fly a plane and like thinking about thrust and things like that. And I was like, okay, let's just scan ahead, scan ahead. Oh, we're too deep. We're too deep. I have no idea how to do any of this. And then I'll go back. And still like everything that I missed, I missed anyway.

Like I watching it, I'm like, I don't, what the fuck did he just do? There's like a double fold. He just did. Yeah. It's, it's very frustrating. And I, I want to find a YouTube video for a bow tie with a guy that looks like me. And it's like, who starts off and is like, I hate this too. I hate fucking doing this. I'll go slow with the normal parts and fast like, who starts off and is like, I hate this too, I hate fucking doing this.

I'll go slow with the normal parts and fast at the who cares parts. But we didn't have that and I kept switching from a different YouTube magician to different YouTube magician. And every time I got close and couldn't do a bow tie to completion, I would just be like, that's it, I'm taking a lap. And I would

wander around like there's nothing to do and nowhere to go. But I couldn't try again. I needed some time to myself. No, some time to just like bring down the energy of the group. You walked around and mentally sabotaged everyone around you. Yeah, for sure. This might not ever happen for any of us. No, we have to live with that. We have to come up with a like a worst case scenario situation. Eventually, I got it. And we all did.

We all figured it out eventually. And then the photographers came into the room to take pictures of us getting ready. And we're all like red face and sweaty. And we're like, no one is undoing their ties. You're not going to get any pictures of us doing ties together this is it none of us are taking our ties off until we fucking die yeah I'll tell you what I'll unbutton the bottom of my shirt and you can get me doing that well shit I'm sorry that that happened I can't imagine when I watched the guy at the at that it called the tuck shop or whatever. It's that fucking place. He was watching him do it

I was like, oh no, that's not for me. My hands don't don't operate like that it's one of the steps in every bowtie video you'll see is One of these magicians saying make a bowtie shape which is an absurd thing to be part of this process what an asshole but now i can tie one and now i just i'm i'm looking for more and more opportunities to to do it which are few and far between right don't lose it obviously you got to hold on to it do you still have the actual bow tie i do yeah i mean this is it's a little dark are you sitting alone at home at night tying the bow tie just to remember how to do it i feel like it's a valuable skill to have is it uh is it less dark if i told you i did

that exact same scenario but in the daytime is that that better? That the day after the wedding, I sent a picture to my group chat of me in a t-shirt with a fully tied bow tie being like, I got it. I got it now. I'm like crunching the numbers in my head. I guess it depends on if it was raining. It was a sunny, beautiful day.

That's worse. That's worse. That's because you could have been outside. That's worse. That's worse. That's worse. That's because you could have been outside. That's good though. I think it's important. I do that with, I still do that with climbing rope. Yeah. There's like a butterfly fold that you're supposed to do with climbing rope to like pack it.

And it's, it's endlessly annoying because when somebody shows you how to do it, they're already practiced at it. Like, practiced hands, watching practiced hands do something that you're learning is infuriating. I think it must be so frustrating to be a child because you see that constantly where someone's just like, just draw a cat. And they show you and you're like, well, hold on. How is your circle so good to start? But like watching people fold a climbing rope, it's super important because you can fray the rope really easily. You can do damage to it and it's got to be right.

You don't want any knots in it. And somebody doing it, you're like, oh, that looks easy. And then you try it and you're like, that's not, that's really hard. And so I used to just sit there while I was watching like Frasier or whatever. And I would just butterfly fold climbing rope. I certainly felt that in first grade when you talk about kids learning things. There's that version of a star that you can draw where your pencil never leaves the page. And you just do one consecutive line to make a crisscross star.

I went to a Catholic kindergarten where we didn't learn how to do that and so when i went to secular first grade everyone knew how to do it except me and uh no one seemed to know how to teach it to me it was like a thing that they all and they'd forgotten that they learned it it seemed like they were all born with it and they were like oh just do like a star and i was like like, but I can't because, because God didn't know. So I guess I'm not allowed to know. And I felt so behind.

I see it in my son too. Like when he's something that I just assume is a priori and like watching him try to then do it and getting like that look of helplessness in his face. Cause he doesn't know how to articulate. I can't do it like you. He's just all of a sudden, he's like, oh, I'm not meant for this. Do you practice origami without him?

Are you really great at doing a crane now? Oh, I should. No. In fact, every time that I do it, it leaves my head immediately. Like, we figured out how to make these really kick-ass airplanes. I couldn't even tell you the first step anymore. At each stage, I learn it just for him, and then it's gone.

Is he into Legos at all? Loves them. Loves Legos. And he's so good at them. I've got a rule follower. That comes from both of us, both Colleen and I. But he, the idea of having instructions in front of him and the idea of going through each step one by one by one

is so enticing and like scratches this special itch in his brain that he is into it and he's like, I don't need to help him. That's cool. But anyway, the reason I wanted to ask you about assumptions, this came up recently. I was protesting a few weeks ago with my coworkers, Sophia and Liz. We are protest listeners. We're pro strike update. We're protesting because the studios are not giving writers a fair contract for the work that we do to make the studios billions of dollars every single year.

So we're protesting a lot. You'll see us out on these streets whenever we can. And I was catching up with some co-workers and my co-worker Sophia brought up two assumptions that she had of me organically. One of them, she assumed I had been a Boy Scout. And she also assumed that I don't like or never had sushi. And I am...

Scathing, dude. I know. It's real bad. It's rough. I was so fascinated by these assumptions. And I was like, what else do you think about like like what do you mean because it seemed like she like she had broadly constructed a version of me that was um all-american boy which could be very insulting depending on on uh so many things depending on many things uh the sushi

thing in particular was like i'm a worldly person i've had sushi i like sushi i can tell you where the bad sushi is that one's the worst i mean being a boy scout i guess could go either way um yeah i mean people say call other people Boy Scouts pejoratively, right? Yes, 100%. Yeah. You don't do that to children. I think it was born out of like, because I was talking to her about bow ties

and how I couldn't tie one, and she assumed I was good with knots because she thought I was a Boy Scout. And I was like, no, but what do you mean? Also, Boy Scouts aren't out there like tying bow ties into rope hitches and stuff. And through this conversation, we talked to another coworker of mine, uh, who, uh, in like a comedy riff was talking about me hanging out with my buddies. And she's like, yeah, you and

your buddies, Frank and Joe and Mike and Bob and Bob. And then she paused and she's like yeah you and your buddies frank and joe and mike and bob and bop and then she paused and she was like that's what i think all of your friends names are but i just realized because it's all very all-american uh but i realized i've only met one of your friends before and his name was soren and i was like yes thank you my friends are diverse and and interesting where is she from? Where's Sophia from? Sophia? Fuck in Pennsylvania. Why is she?

That's like. I know. God damn it. She has no right. But that is very funny. It is very funny that when you realize who you are in somebody else's head. The one that I get a lot is people assume that I have some history with sailing. Oh.

And I don't know why. Because people who know also that I grew up in Colorado, and I'll be like, why would you think that I know how to sail? There's lots of places to sail. You can sail on lakes and stuff. But I'm like, well, I didn't know that. I don't know anything about sailing. I don't know the first fucking thing about sailing. Yeah.

And I don't know what it is. It's like blonde hair, I think. Or I used to wear polo shirts. And maybe those two things in combination was enough that people were like, ah, he's nautical. Yeah. It does make me want to know what everyone assumes about me like this is so uh you and i were both at a wedding last week uh for our dear beloved sweet sweet former co-worker michael swain and we were in the the bridal party and he gave us each uh amazing groomsmen gifts these little

uh how would you describe them tokens totens? Totems? I would describe them as... Game piece? Yeah, like a game piece. Yeah, if we were playing a board game, this would be the one-inch-tall avatar of me in the game. And each avatar is custom-designed by Michael, and they're meant to represent each person in the bridal party. It was very sweet, very moving. They're all like animal-human hybrids with a bunch of artifacts and tools with them. And every detail in the design speaks to something that Michael put thought into and and speaks to what

he thinks of us as yeah and as people in his party it was very we are to him yeah and he went through and with each of us was like I created this character for you because it represents XYZ it has these tools because they remind me of you and it was really flattering, really sweet, but it also scratched the worst part of my ego, which is like, oh, now I want everyone in the world to tell me what they think I'm like. Michael thinks I'm a strong frog who fishes

and works out a lot and hikes and is outdoorsy. Now someone else, like Soren, what do you think of me? Brendan, what do you think of me? Cody, now you go. Now you, what animal would you make me? There was one in there that, there's something that your frog has on it that he's like, this is because I think you're the strongest writer of all of us.

Oh, I wasn't teeing you up to... But I'm just thinking, I'm trying to remember what that thing was. What was it? It's a unicorn horn. Oh, right. You're the unicorn. Yeah.

You're a unicorn within the group. Yeah. You're the strongest writer. Yeah. Which is, I don't think entirely earned, but it was, it was very flattering to hear,

especially from Michael. But again, ego monster that I am. I'm just like, I would like everyone to, yeah, to tell me what they. I'm just like, I would like everyone to tell me what they think I'm like. Because he thinks I'm like

fucking fit and outdoorsy and a really good writer, which is very nice to hear. I would like other people to say very nice things. The other thing is that he was also willing to be like he's willing to say things that weren't necessarily like completely,

he wasn't gassing everybody up. No. There's elements of each one of those. It's like, and you've got like this thing, and like it's kind of a flop. It's the thing I love about you. Like there's some of those in there, which I thought was really great.

So that it's not just all like ego boosting. It's like, no, this is genuinely how I see it. Like he gave me a rapier. And he's like, because I think that occasionally you may not even be aware of it but you will say one little thing and it will cut somebody down yeah he gave me a a side piece like i've got a a gun holster because he was like i don't think of you as a as a cop but i think of you as very protective and like no this is a cop this is a unicorn frog cop so the one that the one that he gave me was a uh jackrabbit uh with a mohawk and he's like and he said because i feel like jackrabbits are just like the sexiest of creatures and i was like well hold on now i have a bunch bunch of questions. Because is that true?

They've got those big translucent veiny ears. They're trembling all the time. I was like, let's really think through. Like horse haunches, very sexy. Can we start there? Yeah. horse haunches very sexy can we start there yeah i like uh your decision to to give him notes on the creation of your character did i do that no no oh just now yeah yeah no well i was like that because i was like because to him jackrabbit he's like it's like the sexiest creature and i was like in the room i definitely took that compliment i was like looked at everybody else like did you hear that um but

then i thought about it i was like what jackrabbits are sexy huh yeah to michael interesting it would be uh an incredible bit on his part that he wouldn't do because he's he's got such a big heart and he's so loving if he gave all of us these detailed characters and then like and cody you are uh the thimble because because you're you're you're useful and and people like you i don't know oh that's a great bit god he could have done that because i got i was in the bridal party late like it would have been very funny for him to have gone through everybody and then given me the car from monopoly and then like tried to do it because you're so fast and and uh safe if if you're wearing a seat belt he put it's incredible he put so much thought into every single detail.

It's just littered with metaphors, each one of them. And so it was great to hear him go through each one for every person because it was like, Jesus, there's a story for every one of these. It's incredible. That's probably the best bridal party gift I've ever gotten. Did you give

gifts at your wedding for your bridal party? Yes yes a smallish bridal party no i yeah i was small i gave them i think i gave them the ties that they wore for the wedding and maybe some like tie clips and cufflinks or something like that something that was specific to the wedding and then colleen gave her her wedding party these um gold-plated aspen leaf earrings that were really cool that they all wore for the wedding it was stuff for the wedding yeah but now they have forever right it's cool it's uh the other amazing thing that michael did for us is at their on their wedding website they introduced the bridal party

and he wrote like full on paragraphs about every single member of his bridal party. That was so sweet and moving and also made me just think like, why can't we talk to each other like this all the time? Why can't we just say nice things to each other? Why do they have to wait for Michael to get married to learn all these nice things he has to say about it me and soren and cody and abe and etc yeah it was really i mean uh like humbling

like he was like that he had written just like like vows for each of us basically like they were really beautiful and kind and um and just getting that i was like michael this is like one of the best things i've ever had as a griezmann and he's like no man there's more yeah just wait so metaphors mean a lot to him i'm really happy about that because they mean a lot to me too and he he knocked it out of the park. Yeah. Yeah, sailing. Sailing's mine. Sailing, got it, yeah.

I don't know why. I think I assumed about you, but I don't know if I ever asked you. Lacrosse? That's another one. Is that one? Yeah. That's another one that I get a lot.

I've never played lacrosse in my life. Okay. I understand how the game goes and i understand like cradling and stuff like that but i have never in my life played a game of it i don't think we even had like i don't think the sport of lacrosse had had reached my dirt corner of new jersey growing up uh but But I dimly understood it as like, oh yeah, if your parents made a little bit more money, we would tell you about lacrosse. And so when I met you and I saw your blonde hair and how fit

you were, I was like, oh yeah, lacrosse for sure. I think I told you this story before, but when I worked out in Santa Monica, there was a woman at the gym who was watching me one day and then she came over and she's like, you play lacrosse, don't you? I was like, no, no, I don't. Well, shit.

That was the only, that was my way in to flirting with you. That was my only thing. Yeah. Oh, I really go for lacrosse players. I'm so sorry to have bothered you. No, I don't play lacrosse. I don't play lacrosse. I'm a writer.

Oh, well, that doesn't fit. It's so funny that you say that lacrosse didn't make it to New Jersey yet. Because lacrosse is like the sport that predates all of us being here. That's right. It's an indigenous Native American sport, correct? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And then it did turn like some, it got co-opted and reappropriated and it became rich boy right. Yeah. And then it did turn like some,

it got co-opted and reappropriated and it became rich boy sport. Yeah. But you never played. That's so. No, never played in my life. I've never played. There's a lot of games that I like. I, my son,

I'm realizing now that I've never played because my son shows an interest in things where I'm like, oh fuck, I don't think I can help you there. Like tennis. He was like interested in tennis. And I was like, buddy, this is the wrong guy for that job. I don't think I can help you. But I'm sure you will. I mean, we were not a family

that played soccer at all. We were in Little League, my brothers and I, baseball and basketball. And we played like O'Brien football every Sunday, just my brothers, my dad and me. And like soccer was not on our radar whatsoever. We didn't play it. We were not interested in it and didn't watch it. And now my brother David is like the co-coach of his kids' soccer league.

Oh, wow. You just have to do it, I guess. Like you, as the origami coach for your son. I guess that's probably true. It's very easy to, at that age, to know more about the sport than the kids. Like your knowledge will surpass anything that they will get to throughout that season.

So that makes sense. You're not fucking them up yet. Your knowledge will surpass anything that they will get to throughout that season. So that makes sense. Yeah. You're not fucking them up yet. That reminds me, Dan. I have a quick question for you. Oh, good. Yeah. When you played family football, which I think is like a pretty universal. I guess it's an Americana thing.

Within the United States, people play within their family american football and i would say it generally happens during halftime during football games when you're like watching football uh on tv and then at halftime everyone's like well let's go aside and play football uh what were what was the breakdown of like how you guys play because you have a family of four where you got like like your dad and then two brothers. Yeah. So what are teams? Like what is the dynamic? Me and dad versus Tommy and David, my two older brothers. Okay. And we didn't do it at halftime. We didn't watch a whole lot of football together.

But Sundays after church, we would go to the school down the street from where we grew up and just like take over that field and play two-on-two football. We did flag football where we had like an old, I can't remember if it was a curtain or a bed sheet that we'd ripped to shreds and became the flags that we tucked into the back of our pants. And we would just play two-on-two and stealing each other's flags instead of tackling. And towards the end of our time doing this, my dad built a little wooden trophy that would get handed back and forth depending on who won that week. Where did your brothers and you, did you ever cry during it?

Like if you didn't do well, did you get super frustrated? No, weirdly, because I was an emotional kid, but we didn't. I think just the energy of the sport burrowed deep into my heart that I understood like sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And it's the love of the game, I guess. That's great. And it was so much more fun for me than little league little league baseball and basketball i fucking hate it but playing football two on two with my family was was fun yeah because the expectations are different yeah everyone's everyone's playing for fun as opposed to some kids are like this is going to be my career

okay so I had my brother and I and then my dad and it's a very different the game has to move differently obviously the way that it works is we would play we'd rotate out

who was on whose team and you individually were scoring points and whoever had the most points at the end won okay so like two people are on offense one person is on defense and that person on defense is just in coverage in coverage right they're not like sacking the quarterback or anything their job is to just cover whoever's out there trying to catch the ball if they make that catch there's no tagging either you just stop where you are and you move to that point and you're like trying to get up the field and by the way this is on like a 45 degree stone there's just a gravel driveway yeah that we're playing down

into the garage and if you get into the garage you win or you get a point and then it you go back up to the top and you cycle through who's on whose team again and because you have it's very funny that like you talk about not being able to sack the quarterback there's no strategy at all in these early games it's really just like who is faster than the other sibling that's what i came down to for us there's no out thinking at all it was just like i'm the fastest i'm the fastest and then next year my brother hits a growth spurt and it's like well that's the fucking game i'm done i can't i'm cooked yeah yep yeah so it was a lot of like and my brother and i um just because i was the younger sibling, I advanced a lot faster because that's just what

younger siblings do because they have to, to keep up. And so it became like a real competition where I was very serious about it. And when I would lose, I had a hard time emotionally dealing with that because certainly throughout the game, like there'd be something where like you got bumped or you felt it wasn't fair. so i would sit out like we the game would end and if i didn't win i would just stay out there and i'd like walk into the woods and i would just cry man but i am actually really happy that my dad just gave me the space to do that that he wasn't like hey come here let's talk about it that he was like all right fucking if you don't if you're not happy go deal with it but it wasn't it was yeah it wasn't coming from them though it wasn't like you gotta go and and and be sad because i know i i do it was my own

like i wanted to win so bad when i was a little kid and when i wasn't winning and i felt that even the slightest bit of it was unfair or even that like yeah my brother was bigger than me and he could muscle me out and stuff i would get get so, I'd feel so helpless and frustrated that I would just walk into the woods and cry. It reminds me very tragically of a kid I grew up with down the street from me, this kid, Chad, who was a big soccer head.

And when he would lose in soccer, you could see him running miles down the block with tears in his eyes. He was just like self-punish or self-betterment, whatever you want to call it, which is like sprinting for hours after a soccer loss. Yeah, that was his penance. Yeah, yeah.

To run home. Yeah, I just couldn't deal with it. As I sat on my front porch reading books, just like, just don't play soccer. And then you'll never have to do this. You'll never have to practice in the clarinet out on your porch. Oh, he looks really mad. I'm the duck or whatever in Peter and the wolf.

Okay. That's good to know. And then I think there's, there's like it because there's got to be I've played alone with my dad too when I was little like my brother didn't want to play with us and like the game has to fundamentally change and there's like different ways you can play football with the very like a certain number of people that I think everybody knows do you know how you play with two people I don't remember at this point, no. It is the same way where you have a certain distance you've got to go. You come up with plays beforehand. You've got to run the play exactly.

And if you catch the ball, wherever you catch it, you stop right there. You move up to that point, and then you keep going. There's no first downs or anything, but you've got to get to the end zone in a certain amount of drives or else it starts over. Yeah. That makes sense sense that's familiar i i i remember um how excited i was when knockout a variation of basketball was introduced to my

life yeah you you played knockout i assume most of our audience has played knockout or or horse is another example of like a basketball adjacent game that you could play because uh that like very early on lit my fuse for me as like good i don't want to play like competitive basketball i like a fun one at a time version of basketball where where uh we're all having a good time and I'm not like sprinting up and down the court against my friends or family. Yeah, absolutely.

Horse was fucking great. Inventing fun shots and silly shots to try to get other people to do was like, yeah, this is more sports should be about creativity than athleticism.

Rhoda and I play horse. Well, we play a version of horse where he has to spell horse and I have to spell pig. Cause like, it's just, it's just not fair yet. Cause his vocabulary is much better than yours. And then we've, we, so we play a lot of board games. We started... We were playing Sorry. Are you familiar with Sorry?

I'm certain I've played it before, but it's one of those... It's a lot of just fucking over the other person. It's a board game. We have four pieces and you're trying to get yours all the way around the board and into a safe zone.

But there's cards. The one where there's the dice exists in a half bubble in the middle of into a safe zone. But there's cards. The one where the dice exists in a half bubble in the middle of the thing? No. That is not sorry. What am I talking about? I know exactly what you're talking about. Do we do games like that anymore?

What an exciting time that was. That's called Trouble. Trouble! Yeah. This one is just cards and but the cards have like different rules on them and a big part of the game is just trying to screw over the other person so much of it is defense and ronan and i invented like a new way of playing where you're playing some of the other pieces as just defensive pieces and it's it's legitimately fun for me

like i get excited when I'm like, he comes home from school and I'm like, yes, okay, we could play Sorry. And he's like, just give me a second. Like, let me get a snack. Let me wash my hands. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, take your time.

But like, I got it all set up. I got the board set up. Do you want to do like three defensive pieces or one? Look, dad, you're clearly revved up, but like, let me, I haven't even had my fucking banana yet so cool dad i gotta i gotta make dinner i have to go get gilly then maybe we can play before and then i'll read your story we'll go to bed um yeah it's like

let's play let's play a game did you wash your hands ah sorry sorry hold on um yeah it's it's legitimately fun it's the same with like guess who where he and i created the version where you have to say uh oh well i guess it was colleen and i that created it but it was um you could ask uh only questions that could be like rhetorical type of questions like you could be like oh yeah but it's not rhetorical is not even the right word it's just like which uh does your person have a time share yeah you have to be like yes they're like okay and then just based on how everybody looked yeah like like pure vibe questions i think someone on twitter was like you should play guess who where it's like does your person fuck yeah it's like ah no yeah does your person own a gun no richard doesn't richard does not fuck yeah um all right well dan i have a

question for you oh my god is the show still happening that's still going on sure you i think this might be actually really helpful uh a lot of the questions that i hear from people like about writers is like how big is the room that you're in they don't understand the idea of mini rooms they're like oh some of my favorite shows are written by people who uh wrote by themselves like like mike white wrote uh white lotus all by himself yeah sometimes it seems like it's better if you have smaller rooms and they don't understand. Like very funny. People have been saying that like, oh, rooms where a show is written entirely by one person. Like Mike White writing White Lotus.

End of list. Well, Aaron Sorkin, I think maybe writing some seasons of West Wing. Or the first season of True Detective. Is his name Mike Pizzolatto is that his name yeah yeah Pizza Coffee Nick Pizza Coffee Nick Pizzolatto that's right

and they're like I think it's probably better to have smaller rooms you can't force a big room like how big is how big is your room and I'll be like oh it's 16 people and they're like that's way too big and I don't think people will totally understand like that not all those people are writing together and so I thought it would be helpful to

explain to people how a room actually works like what happens in a room I think that would be good to like kind of like explain how the sausage is made is that alright with you? yeah sure I'll tell you mine first it's we have about 16 people 16 writers.

Those writers break up into three smaller groups, and then each of those rooms is doing something different. Sometimes two of them are breaking a story together for one person, and that person will go off and write. But other times that room is like doing a rewrite on another script because there's a lot of overlap between scripts that are already done and different stages in the process uh and then other ones that are just getting written or you're just breaking the

story and then what always happens with like a story that's being rewritten is then you also have a joke room because the story like is taking up so much of the time that you don't want to just sit there on a joke for 45 minutes that's just not working you like send it to another room and they give you 15 versions of it and you can be like oh yeah great we'll take this one um and so at any given moment like everybody's working on different things and then you also have your own episodes throughout the season that you're leaving the rooms to go do you're off on like doing records listening to like other people do the voices for the show in our in my case on a live action you'd be on set and you'd be working there for the day

so you're not even in the room um and so there's like even if you have for 22 episode season 16 people is not it's not a ton it's like it really it thins out pretty fast and if you try to do it with like 10 people it would be highly stressful so with mini rooms like the problem that everyone's complaining about with mini rooms is that it's you've got like six people and their job is to break a story break us like a series from scratch basically they're not only rewriting the pilot that got sold uh so that it can be the very first episode they're not only rewriting the pilot that got sold uh so that it can be the very first episode they're building the arc of the seasons they've got to decide on what they're not just doing like these little bottle episodes it has to be like uh it has to be serial like one

episode depends on the next and so they're building these emotional arcs throughout the seasons as well as like a three-act episode every single episode and then they're also doing all that other stuff that I was describing like rewrites and stuff like that and that's just like it's just it's such a small group that it's untenable for them and they have to do it in like six weeks it's nothing

and when we're talking about these mini rooms it's again like Soren's saying not like you're not doing standalone bottle episodes you are six people writing a season of bridgerton for example a very like involved interconnected show where it's not just like you can't just oh it's my bridgerton episode so in this one the the the main character emily bridgerton rides a submarine and makes friends with a mermaid no you're still like you have to connect to the larger plot of bridgerton

i'm gonna stop right now and say i don't know why i picked bridgerton a show i've never seen because it does feel very heavy it feels like it's very plotty that you'd have to work at it. Yeah. But I think you're absolutely right. It seems really intricate. Yeah, absolutely. In my imagination. And so you've got this impossible job for these people in these small rooms to do.

Yeah. But I wanted to give a breakdown of how our room works because I think people would be interested to even hear that, I assume. Yeah. But it's, yeah, we have, you have three different groups and all of them are working separately and occasionally throughout the year like those groups will get mixed up but you have your core group and you are breaking a story from basically everybody in that group throughout the season in addition to rewrites and jokes and uh anything else that needs to be done along the way that like comes and interrupts the breakings so do you get your room assigned at the beginning of the year or

season or do you pick your room okay no gets assigned by the eps the executive producers pick it and they basically they don't say this but they're trying to make it even they're trying to make sure that every room is balanced um that ever you've got like good strengths from every position there so that that would put me so fucking deeply in my head to look around my room i that's an extra layer of of torture that i don't need in a job, honestly, to look around and, and try to figure out, am I the ringer or am I the dead weight? Yeah. Trying to figure out if you're like a journeyman, it's like, it's rough, man. If you're just like a utility player, you're like, all right, that's fine. What is the utility you want me to do? Surely you think I have a strength.

want me to do surely you think i have a strength could i i'll just do that that's fine um but yeah it's i spin out on it every single time um yeah like if i got a room and was like man it's three legends oh wait no it can't be it's two legends and me oh no and then our boss knows all that and we'll do we'll say things just to get under everybody's skin like he'll like he'll see the rooms and he'll be like oh two of these rooms are really great then you have to

be like oh man okay all right never gonna say which ones that's fine that's fine probably didn't even believe that just wanted to hurt me um but yeah we break up into those rooms and then like throughout an ordinary day you're only working on one one thing if you're working on breaking a story for somebody in that room and breaking a story just means that you're somebody comes in they have an idea a very broad strokes idea for what they want an episode to be

and then you're deciding on what the scenes are and what the acts are and the act breaks that make it all make sense into like a really good not only like plot plot of a story but also like you want the a good emotional arc so that a character is learning something throughout the episode right and so then you when you're deciding that together really the person whose episode it is kind of like leading the room occasionally an executive producer who's there will also if they feel like it's steering in a the wrong direction they'll like bring it back like for instance i was doing an episode about um trish and suze who are on the show called morning mimosa and in our world

and I was like it would be really cool if they were like like an Elvis situation where they we find out that they're just trapped there that they are drugged up each episode like they're on the ground before the episode and somebody's standing over the producer standing over them being like it nothing else matters except that we

get them on stage in the next 30 seconds and like and i was very excited about that and it wasn't until like a week into breaking that they're like it feels a little dark like it feels like maybe we're like that gets a little sad and it's really that we've had essentially what is these kidnapped women and i was like oh you're yeah that's totally true absolutely it's so funny how different our shows are that uh that seems a little too sad is never going to be a criticism that stops us from making an episode of last week tonight it's in fact like that's the start of the pitch like this is really sad

women forced into slavery on television it's like yeah yeah greenlit straight to prompter let's go on television it's like yeah yeah greenlit straight to prompter let's go all right make it funny yeah so tell me like what is your what is how does your room work our room is a little bit different than yours because we're not so narrative obviously there's uh in my time at last week's night our room has been as large as 13 people and as small as six people. And six people was easily one of the lowest points of my professional career because of the amount of work that we all had to do was just like punishing. Typically, it's a little bit similar to yours in that there's different things that you're doing throughout the year. You break off into groups of two or three writers per story, per episode, where we're doing the main story, whatever it is. And if you're not assigned to a main story, then you'll be on the top of show, which is the beginning of the show where it's like,

just a quick recap of the week. Here's six to eight minutes on whatever happened this week with some some jokes then we get into the main story uh and if you're not on either of those then you are pitching constantly and all of us depending on who's available get in to do just jokes like the same as your room where it's like hey we have there are a couple of holes in the script that need jokes so we're going to get every available writer together to gang on these setups and write as many punch lines as we can right when we were and uh uh so we we read and rehearse every episode two or three times a week before it actually airs. And if you didn't write that episode, then you will be called in to be fresh eyes,

to just sit in on the rehearsal and take in the script for the first time and give your notes as essentially like an audience member. Like, here's what didn't make sense to me. Here's what I think could be cut from this episode. It's a very helpful thing because when I'm working on an episode, I know it forwards and backwards, inside and out. And the same as the other writers who were on that episode.

And it all seems essential. And you also, it all seems very familiar to you. It's incredibly helpful for a new person to come in and be like, I don't know why this clip is in here. Or I don't know why this point is in here. Because as the writers were like, it's in there because I learned it. So now you have to fucking learn it. I don't know. Yeah. But they come in like, no, I'm an audience member. And like, this is not useful information for me to digest this story. Yeah.

We have a little bit of that in our story rooms. Because somebody will bring a script back in. That's the writer's draft. And then we do a rewrite on the writer's draft before the table read. And a lot of times during that, you start to like, you have no idea what your script is anymore. You cannot look at it objectively. You've just brought in this very vulnerable thing and you're like is this am i still good at this and you show it to everyone and they're like yeah wait but why is this like what is this scene and you're like it's a month of my life you asshole yeah oh yeah i, that scene. Yeah. Fuck that scene.

But when we were a writing team of of six people, I was a friend of the show. Friend of ours, Caitlin Large, was staying with me in New York at the time when one of my bosses, my producer, Kat, sent the schedule of what our lives were going to be for the next couple of months whether it's writing outlining researching writing top of show being fresh eyes doing jokes uh she sent this very elaborate schedule that dictated all of our lives and i like collapsed on the floor because six people was not enough to do this job. And I think Caitlin and I were supposed to like do a thing, like go to a movie or have dinner. And I got this email and she's like, is everything OK? And I'm face down on the floor like, yes, everything's fine. I don't think I can eat.

There's no room in the schedule for it. I think I just need to be here yeah and like that's so with many rooms there's also the expectation is that you're going to make 16 episodes or whatever and then those aren't even going to be the first season you're going to have season 1a and 1b which means it's dividing between two seasons essentially uh especially for streaming and then you like you don't know if you have a job for the next two years because now they've got enough episodes for two seasons

and they're not backing those up. They're just waiting to see how they do. And then they'll be like, maybe we'll do another episode. I mean, another season. And if you get back on a show, you're no guarantee that you're going to be back for it because it's two years later or whatever.

And if you have, let's say you have a live action show where you have a child or children actors in the show, they're like adults now. they're like two years older and so then you got to write around that and so it's just it seems like an untenable thing and uh i hear about people on the lines talking about it and i'm just like i it's you can't live that way there's and the job security there's just nothing and it's it's it's crazy and absurd i mean we this podcast isn't about writing it's about bow ties uh so we don't want to spend too much time talking about writing in the strike or anything like that but it's it's crazy to me coming from where we came from that we

were both working for a comedy website that was under the larger umbrella of a Silicon Valley, Silicon Beach tech startup, where it's a whole bunch of goobers with too much money who don't understand things, who are trying to tell writers and website developers how to do their thing better and faster. And like, wouldn't it be cool if we could disrupt web, if we could disrupt social media, if we could disrupt this and just like, I think I'm a fucking idiot with too much money. I think we could do it faster and cheaper.

And now it seems like all of those goobers are running television, which is, we were both so happy to be free from web and to work with showrunners and and writers and directors and producers but now it seems like at the top of all of our chains is some rich goober who owns a retail company that also makes lord of the rings or some rich goober that owns a phone company that also makes Ted Lasso. It's, it's, and it's, and it's, again, it's these people at the top of the chain who are like, do we actually need writers? Or could we just like get three buddies in a room for a week to just make, just go make a Game of Thrones. You've seen Game of Thrones, make another

one, do it, do it in three weeks we'll push them hard but like that's you got to be scrappy man you got to be scrappy that's how you survive and like that's also like apple's not going to be consent with just having like hey we've got a pretty good streaming model now seems to be doing all right that's not how like it works they're going to be like we got to see growth every single year There's got to be growth or we kill it the the headlines for the last Ten years or so that have been like every streaming network is trying to find the next game of Thrones It's like oh every streaming network is trying to find a wildly successful show that was based on a book that took decades of time to write and

Produce and get right sure i mean that makes sense you're not gonna do it this summer it takes time yeah yeah uh all right well thank you for letting me vent about that daniel no that's okay i didn't even think i was gonna vent but i i obviously i mean we got to you and i got to protest together yesterday for the first time that's great uh because i'm out in la for reasons that i uh can no longer remember and we got to to march around sony and talk to other writers and it's like i've said before on this podcast uh inspiring to be around other writers who are protesting and also incredibly demoralizing. And, you know, we all want to just fucking get back to work.

And that's the thing that I think about when I've got my foot in a boot because it's broken and your wrist is in a cast because it's broken and we're marching around carrying signs and like raising our fists when cars drive by and honk to support us it's like yeah this is good but also just like please let us

get back to work i never thought i would be a person who was like begging to go back to work but i really want to i want to write and the studios won't let let us right now. So they force us to march around. You and I, these hobbled heroes. I was talking to my mom on the phone. She was like, how's the strike going? I'm like, you know, it's okay. We're out there every day. And she was like, so are you getting paid at all during it?

And I was like, no. Yeah. No, I don't have a job. And she's like, well well do you think that your job would be in jeopardy by this i would you think your show might go away and i was like yeah very easily and she was like but then you but you had a great job and i was like yeah oh this strikes not for me personally like this i'm on the strike things are bad for most writers i'm on a very lucky show and the point is is that we have to make it hurt all the way around like i'm leaving this for the sake of everybody else because that's what they did to get

me my job like my job is great because other writers did this yeah and like that's just part of it she was like oh i i didn't realize you weren't getting paid i do think i i think that is worth pointing out to our listeners because someone asked me that too, like, cause I'm back in LA and so I'm letting all of my LA friends know that I'm around and available. And they're like, Oh, I'm sorry. You broke your foot on vacation. Like not vacation. I am functionally unemployed right now. I'm not getting paid all of the writers on strike. Even if we seem happy in pictures on Instagram or Twitter, we're all not getting paid. We're all unemployed

at the moment. That's just the risk we're taking. It's important. You can follow Daniel on Twitter at DOV underscore Inc. You can follow me, Soren, at Soren underscore LTD. You can follow our show at Quick Question. No, you can't.

You can follow our show, Quick Question, at QQ underscore Soren and and dan we have an email which is qq with soren and daniel at gmail.com we've got a producer sound engineer editor and all-around great guy and gabe harder um still a great website gabe harder.com i encourage you to go visit it just see i think maybe if i remember correctly there's a flash animation of maybe some construction work being done um i mean a page flash is generous i think it is just a single image we have a patreon at patreon slash quick question or you can just search it on patreon if you wanted to and our our uh our theme song is by me rex a really great theme song i i listened to it the other day because i listened to the episode that i wasn't on with you and michael and abe and i was like oh shit our theme song rules uh so you can find more of me rex's music on spotify or on apple on

itunes you can also find them at me rex.bandcamp.com exciting news pretty soon we don't know when yet but we will be doing video versions of the podcast where soren and i you can see our our mouths and bodies moving as we talk and that's going to be on youtube uh youtube.com slash qq podcast yeah you'll still be able to listen to these episodes uh the way you usually listen to podcasts but if if you were interested in watching it as a video instead, we've already started filming them. So you could see those soon. God, that's a lot of fucking shit that we talk about at the end.

That's a lot of like plugs and stuff. I know. You know, we may want to lead with the video stuff next time because I think people just, if I was listening to this podcast, I would, as soon as we were like, well, let's wrap it up. I'd be like, all right,, let's go to the next one. Yeah, 100%. All right, well, thanks.

I was just going to say bye. Bye. I've got a quick, quick question for you, all right? I want to hear your thoughts on what's on your mind. I've got a quick, quick question for you, all right? The answer's not important. I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favourite? Who did you get? When will I be remembered?

What's it out there? Where did all the guys go? Oh, forget it Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here