Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - The Branzino Buddies

Episode Date: January 28, 2022

The guys discuss fish dishes served with and without heads! That and all sort of other stuff. And as always big thanks to our sponsors. Go to Shopify.com/QQ for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features. Thanks Truebill.com/qq.  it could save you thousands a year.  Get $15 off your first month’s subscription plus free shipping:  Nutrafol.com promo code qq

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, author of How to Fight Presidents, staff writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and author, reluctantly, of a children's book. Daniel O'Brien, joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, say what's up. What's up? I'm so bad. I write for American Dad. I'm currently a big harvester. I would say a harvester of fruit lately. I'm reaping all of my rewards because I worked so hard as a gardener for so long. And for some reason, this time of year, shit's popping off.

And I'm like, I'm getting all my citrus. I'm getting eggplants. I'm getting tomatoes, uh, in the middle of winter. Yeah. Great. Nice. It was nine degrees where I am yesterday. Oh, wait, how are you, how on earth are you running when it's that cold with layers dog? Yeah. But how do you even get out of the house? I'm talking, uh, mentally and emotionally. How do you psych yourself up enough to be like, no, a run is a good idea in nine degrees? Well, as my dad always said with running, if I didn't, then I wouldn't. I hate that.

I love it. Because now you have to do it. I know. And one of the more practical ways that I get myself to do it is I make sure I get dressed for it well before I have to do it. If I know I'm going to run at 4.30, then a little bit before 4, whatever I can tie to the next time I have to get up to go to the bathroom or to get a seltzer, I'm going to also use that time to get changed into running clothes.

Because then, like, what am I going to do? Change out of my running clothes? No. I'm dressed for running. You got to go. You did the hard part already. No, that's not true. That sucks.

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shopify.com slash QQ. So it really puts into perspective my situation, and my plight which is it gets to be nighttime i've put my children to bed i have the time that's my own at that point i could watch band of brothers for the 14th time or i could i could brave the 56 degree weather outside each time like the choice is obvious god you God, you're describing a lovely spring day. I'm like, I would have to put on a long sleeve shirt to go run. That's crazy. That's it would be awful.

The first part of the run would be cold and miserable. And the second part, I'd be too hot for the shirt. Oh, no, I'm going to go watch. I'm going to go watch i'm gonna go watch uh colonel winter's fucking i can't even think of an episode of it it's been so long i should watch panda brothers that's what i should be doing did you ever watch that that show dan no i didn't i think no i watched the first episode it's really good you should watch the whole thing okay it's really good in a way that makes you makes me feel a little like a grandpa that i like it and how much i like it because i think this is

a show geared to world war ii buffs and i'm i don't i don't want to associate as one of those but i do really enjoy the movie a lot movie the miniseries yeah but that's not what I want to talk to you about wait no it's not what I want to talk about either I've been meaning to talk about this for a while that I feel like my show comes up in conversation often

on this show the show that I write for but I really I think I take for granted sometimes just how everywhere your show is and what an accomplishment that is and how like everyone across the world knows what American dad is it's just a very funny show and I it's like a good anchor point for me anytime I've been traveling and I'm in a hotel was one of the only times that I will just like turn on the

TV and see what's on I can almost always find American dad and I just leave it on because usually it's it's on for like somewhere between four and a thousand episodes and it was like oh good I'm just gonna have this on in the hotel the entire time that I'm in this room and i take for granted what an accomplishment that is and congratulations to you your show is everywhere and beloved and uh that's it's it's a a rare thing i'm not seeking it out because you're my buddy or anything and i'm trying to think like what other what else does this fit the profile of in terms of i put on a tv somewhere strange and i find something familiar it's like it's american dad and it's been the office friends in seinfeld as far as like ubiquitous

universal show that i could just like put on and enjoy. That's very, very kind of you to say. And I feel like I deserve probably none of that praise because the show's been in syndication for so long. I've written myself. You handled the syndication deal though, right? You orchestrated that. Well, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Most of those episodes, in the grand scheme of how big the show is, I'd never touched. I had nothing to do with, and it was only in like recent years that I've joined. And, uh, and as far as like episodes that are specifically mine, there are so few, even in that regard that I think it's a great show. I think that I got to jump on basically a bandwagon, something that was doing very well and that I enjoyed. And I, I agree that it's like a good comfort comedy that, uh, it was built before I got there and I just get to live in it and it's great.

Yeah. But you're there for, you're being modest. You're there for a reason. You're not like just some guy who got lucky off the street. And now you're part of, you're part of this, like you're part of this,

like national, maybe, I don't know, global institution of a comedy program. I do like being a part of it. That does feel really great. And thank you for saying so. I think that if, as far as like, when you're talking about comfort shows, before I realized, oh yeah, there are, it's a difference between comfort comedies and comfort shows. Like Frasier is a comfort comedy for me. But comfort shows, I was like, we're in the company of like house hunters in my estimation.

No, no. We're like, I would know house hunters will be on, a marathon of house hunters will always be on. I can just sit down and have that show on forever and check in on it every once in a while. It's not fucking top chef or impractical jokers. I am sincerely putting in the category of office in seinfeld and friends is like thank you important massive comedy shows that i'm glad exists and also as far

as like i think everyone i know certainly everyone i know in my life knows American dad. And I think everyone I follow on Twitter, Twitter probably knows American dad. It's I, I want to say everyone, but I don't know like what global broadcast rights are for American dad, but it seems like you, I could walk into any state in this country and people would know what American dad is.

They, they would be familiar with it. Even if they're not a diehard fan, everyone knows what it is. And I don't know what that must be like for you guys as people who work on it, because like last week tonight is a known show and cracked was a big website but i i never felt like everyone i could stop anyone on the street and say the name of it of the site or the show and they would know what it is but they would for american dad everywhere you go yeah yeah that's true that's fucking nuts uh that's i i had to recalibrate the way that i would tell people the way what i did because when you worked at cracked the conversation went like this what do you do i work for a comedy website what's the name of the

comedy website cracked huh crackle no okay oh okay uh oh oh i think i read that magazine yes you did you did you read it in the 80s i know exactly what you're talking about um but the way that it goes with american dad it always feels very condescending because people be like what do you do and i'm like oh i i work in television they're like oh do you work for a show no and i was like a show called american dad and they're like a show called american dad oh oh what's that that's like and i'm like oh i just i'm just trying to give you right now like if you don't know what it is that's fine but that's like i i've never had that in my life. And, and very few people in human history have had that where someone will ask, because the most common followup, if you say like, I'm a writer, whether it's movies, TV or books,

whatever, or plays, I guess. And someone said that the most reasonable followup question is anything that I would know. And you could say yes to like anyone in the country who asked that follow-up question I and most of the people in this industry and most of the people in the world I guess we'll just focus on the industry most of us are just like maybe if you're you know because most of us don't write for these like massive national successes that that hit every dang quadrant like I'm still like very timidly talking to people I was like right for TV

show anything I'd heard of maybe it's it's like a like a political comedy late night you've walked away all right yeah that's fine. Trying to describe your show before you give the title, like prefacing it, like gearing out toward it, that's very relatable. But yeah, it is. There's a lot. I wouldn't say that there's any pressure associated with that, that you're like, we have to feed the millions.

There are lots of different people from all quadrants of life who will watch this show. None of that is there, but it is nice. It is really nice to be a part of something that is sort of an institution in a way where people see it in marathons every single day. Well, thanks, Dan. That made me feel great. Oh, good. I feel really good.

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Truebill.com slash QQ. Can I ask you a quick question? Sure. Okay. How do I put this? Can you explain fancy food to me? Let me try differently can you can you tell me what the fuck is the deal with shaved truffle do you eat that no okay have you

ever had it uh truffle i've had truffle in in various forms yeah i've had truffle oil before have you just had like uh yeah let's say you go to a very fancy restaurant and you get some sort of dinner at the, and they come to your table and they're like, and now we're going to shave a black truffle on top of your food in front of you. Isn't this marvelous? No, I've never had that. Okay. Have you had just shaved truffle on top of a fancy meal? Okay. Have you had just shaved truffle on top of a fancy meal? I think I have. I feel like I went to one fancy restaurant where French fries were tossed in shaved truffle and shaved Parmesan. Okay. It's very common for French fries to appear in truffle oil.

Okay. And truffle oil can take on a couple different forms. Like one is that it's synthetic and other ones they're actually putting real truffle in there it's kind of like um that was uh a very off-brand dickish way of correcting me i'm like i think they were shaved truffle well it's very common for it to be truffle oil you don't you don't want to live in a world where i've had shaved truffle do you well I've had shaved truffle, do you? Well, I had shaved truffle for, I think, maybe the first time. Okay.

I can't remember another moment. I went to a restaurant this past weekend, and it's a very fancy restaurant in Los Angeles. Carl's Senior? We got gift certificates for my work. Because my work is, and I don't think I could get any trouble for saying this, full of food snobs. The conversation constantly turns towards restaurants in Los Angeles, and they all have their opinions about the very best ones. And every single time they talk about one of the best restaurants, I just think, well, this isn't for me. This is not. I don't understand this.

I don't understand this. I don't want this. If anybody wants to talk about Carl's Jr. or Sr., I'm here and I will do that with you. But they, I went to this nice restaurant because we got a gift certificate from work and got a meal that had shaved truffle on top. And I was like, cool. I've heard a lot about this. People are always very excited about it. It adds like another $40 to your meal. Let's see what we're working with.

And I was like, this sucks. This just tastes like some mushroom to me. Do you not like mushroom? Mushroom's fine. I got no beef with mushroom, but it wasn't like, oh, I get it. I get why this stuff is so expensive. But it wasn't like, oh, I get it. I get why this stuff is so expensive.

I get why people are, this is like the black gold of the woods or whatever. I don't, it made no sense to me. And then I found that with the rest of the meal, I was feeling very much the same way where I was like, what is the, like what elevated this? What is this that's, what's so great about this? And I'm not getting that. I don't quite understand because this just is just some more food to me it's me basically let me give you some context like me walking through museum without any idea of how to read a painting like how to understand a painting and understand like the use of colors and the focus of the eyes and i'm just

like christ painting christ painting christ painting like these are all the same to me so was there just one guy back, I'm going into a fancy restaurant. I'm like, salt, sugar. These are the things I'm tasting. Like I don't, I'm not. And it's, there have been moments where I've gone to a really, really nice restaurant and been like, I have never had anything like that. Or my mouth has never felt those textures together. And this is wonderful. Like Momofuku is one in Las Vegas that I was like, holy shit, this is the best meal I've ever had in my entire life. But on the whole, when I go to fancy restaurants,

I'm always like, everyone else is like, they take the bite. I don't even think they have time to process it. Honestly, it's like in a movie where somebody takes a bite and immediately their eyes close and their mouth opens and they go, oh, yeah. And I'm like, no, no, we're not. I don't get it. don't understand i don't understand fancy food and i feel like i'm missing out because you are all orgasming across the table from me

over this it looks just like burned fish frankly like uh but anyway i i don't get it i can't figure it out and i was wondering if you, because you know food pretty well. You're a foodie. What it is about fancy food and like there's something that I'm just like colorblind in this world. I don't know. to see if there's any time that the specificity of the food itself like the rareness of the food like truffles where you you can't get them everywhere they're there they're hard to come by and that's what makes them expensive and people think expensive means good I'm trying to think if there's something

where it's like because it was this particular fancy food, it was better than other things. And I can't think of an example. I can think of examples where the way food was prepared was better. Like, the clumsiest handling of this is like, you know the difference between supermarket sushi and sushi at Sugarfish. Absolutely.

Or a better restaurant where it's like, oh, okay, okay i like i if you're a sushi person um or even just like casually someone who's had sushi several times in their life you you know the first time you have very good sushi it immediately puts in context what sushi can or is supposed to be and before that you could just say like sushi is fine i can eat sushi growing up in the suburbs of new jersey thinking this is what sushi is supposed to be. And before that, you could just say, like, sushi is fine. I can eat sushi growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey, thinking this is what sushi is supposed to taste like, and then I have really good sushi, and I'm like, oh, okay.

A new bar has been set, and the difference is the freshness of the ingredients and the way it was prepared, but the raw materials are mostly the same. Yeah. know it's it's like lobsters a pretty good example because I do think largely it's it's it's about

preparation but beyond that it's about marketing and it's it's fairly arbitrary like the the fun fact about lobsters is for the longest time it was considered a poor person food because uh they were in such abundance and they looked disgusting they looked like bugs insect of the sea yeah poor people you're gonna eat lobster that's that's your thing and then it was just sort of decided that lobster was a delicacy and then it became expensive and then out of reach for a lot of people um But I've had a lot of lobster and some of it, it's never good just because it's lobster. Right. Which I think you would agree on, agree with.

Yes, absolutely. Agree at. It's the preparation. I understand how preparation matters, but what I don't get is there's a limit to how much prep you can do on a meal. And it's going to taste exactly like the lower-ranked version of the meal. I'm trying to think of an example. Branzino. Do you know what Branzino is? I do.

Okay. Branzino is a fish that that served for our, our audience. Branzino is a fish that's usually served whole. So you're getting like the whole thing and it's like, kind of like a crisp skin on top. You're seeing the head, you're seeing the tail. It's a, it's a meal that can like, you can get a very, very expensive Branzino or you can get a very, very cheap Branzino. I would not, if you gave me a taste test between the two, I wouldn't be able to tell you the

difference between them. One might be maybe a little drier, but like, there's also like a lot of lemon and sometimes like a lemon juice with it as well. But like, that's going to hide a lot of that too, that I, it's just, you're working with one fish. You're just cooking that one fish and then you're putting it on a plate. It's not a sauce, like a special sauce that goes with it or anything like that. There's only so much you can do.

So why is one like, why one seventy eight dollars and 120 I have eaten a lot of fish I've never had brands you know I have this this strange mental hang-up with brands you know that I associate it with idiots trying to be fancy. Okay. Because there was one meal I had out in LA with some people who are in from Ohio, a bunch of like moron suits from Ohio who went to a restaurant and they all got Branzino

and they were very excited about it. And I've done no research into this. I'm sure I'm just projecting my own biases, but these grinning Ohioan idiots who are so stoked that they got a a fish with a face on it i'm like this is some good marketing they they they trick tourists into thinking branzino is good and it worked it worked on these idiots yeah yeah but it might be that i just didn't like those guys that's true branzino is a startling fish to get if you're not if you don't know what you're actually getting Yeah. But it might be that I just didn't like those guys. That's true.

Branzino is a startling fish to get. If you don't know what you're actually getting, you're just like, oh, I'll get the fish. It'll come out like halibut. It'll come out like salmon. And then you get a branzino. A lot of times they're like audible gas from people because they're like, but that's a whole fish. Right. And maybe that's also part of why I don't like it because it's such a showy, attentiony thing.

It's like, look at me. I got the whole fish with the face on it. Yeah. And guaranteed, it's not coming out to you. I think it's different than your thing. I'm like, all right, buddy. Somebody else across from you is going to get a normal meal on a plate. Yeah. And for whatever fucking reason, yours is coming out on a cutting board.

Yeah. Yeah. And like, you have whole lemons with it. And they've been put in a fire for some reason. Yeah. And it's your job to cut those open been put in a fire for some reason. Yeah. And it's your job to cut those open and put it on the fish. Right.

My meals on, my, my short rib pasta is on a normal plate, but, uh, one of my favorite things about it is I don't have to eat around a face. I just, everything in front of me is mine. I just get to eat it. Um, but I, I guess I, I, I should sort of understand that it's all about marketing and it's about like what the, what the restaurant is and the atmosphere of the restaurant that determines pricing and like what constitutes a fancy meal and what doesn't. But I was just like blown away by how kind of mediocre this was.

And I was primed poorly because as soon as I got there, they had a bunch of really great, um, cocktails on this menu and i was like this looks great yeah and i got my first one and it was the smallest drink i've ever been handed in earnest it was like a thimble full of alcohol yeah somebody had spent maybe 15 minutes in the back and cockting the best few drops and i drank it i was like yeah i mean it's fine i this is gonna be wasted on me i won't be able to taste all the profiles that you're intending me to taste because i don't get it also there's just like some i want to say sage floating in it something that shouldn't be there and i'm just like i don't what are we doing? Like, this isn't fun.

Without passing judgment, I do think your reaction to it depends, says a lot about who you are. And that's the thing I'm not saying. I don't think one reaction is better or worse, but I think you're going to go into a restaurant and truffles have been sold to you as this exotic, rare, expensive thing in a fancy place. And that is going to set your expectations a certain way that the thing just can't meet.

And there are other people who have the same context to them, but they're going to orgasm face when they get it because the context worked for them. And it sounds like it doesn't work for you. And it doesn't work for me either. I think years ago in, in my whiskey drinking days, I worked myself up to a state to get Johnny Walker blue at a bar, which came $30 a shot. And I was like, I want this because I like Johnny Walker Red, the affordable version of the scotch. And I hear great things about this somewhere between $190 and $300 bottle of scotch. I'm like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to get, I'm going to spend $30 on one drink for me and I'm going to get it. And I did it. I handed in the money and I took the drink and I sipped it and it was like not fucking worth it. There was nothing that it could have tasted like for me to like it at that point it has to be something so unique and exclusive that you would never experience something like that in your tongue in your life for it to feel like i need

to drink it and then like someone come up behind me whisper like hey uh there's uh a 15th color that nobody else can see i'm gonna tell you how to how to how to see it right now. It's like, oh, great. Cool. Worth it. I get it. $30, you say? What a steal. Yeah. Yeah. I think that you equating it to alcohol makes a lot of sense. Especially like wines, where somebody's like, I've gone out to work dinners too, where people are like, we're going to get a really nice wine.

And it will come to the table and they're like do you want some and my instinct is to just be like no i fucking hate wine don't get it but but everybody else is drinking it i'm like well yeah let's see what it's all about let's see what really nice wine is and drinking it and being like i can't tell you that this is I wonder genuinely if it's what is more rude if someone brings out a bottle of wine they're excited about that they've been saving is it ruder to to to say no thank you it'll be wasted on me I don't want that because I hate wine and I won't taste whatever you want me to have on it like is it rude to make sure the wine goes to someone who

will like it more or is it rude to deprive your host of the special thing we're seeing you yeah yeah oh god that is tough because yeah if other people genuinely do enjoy it then they should have it yeah but i'm still gonna take it and i'm gonna do the thing where i hold the bottom of the glass and i sort of i spin it yeah spin it like a toilet that's flushing like and then i look at the sides because i learned you're supposed to do that and you can see like the drips coming down the side I don't know what those mean but the legs yeah I'll say tannins I'll say a word like that and then uh and then I'll smell it you put your whole nose in the glass and then and then I'll take a sip and I'll be like mmm that's that's wine all right that's cool what I like to do is I like to fit my entire mouth around the whole opening of the glass and just sort of

ha ha ha into it for a while and let my breath bounce off the wine and then come back to me with whatever it's taken from the wine to go inside me as air. Yeah, so I can like hear and taste

it and like if I close my eyes with my mouth firmly wrapped around the glass, just by breathing into it, I know where the wine is. Cha-ching! That's right. Shopify is the all-in-one commerce platform to start, run, and grow your business. Shopify instantly lets you accept all major payment methods, which is great. And Shopify is more than a store. Use it to connect with your customers, drive sales, and manage your day-to-day.

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Kevin Kline describing wines is like, no, they pick up whatever they're grown in. I was like, oh, okay. If I could learn to identify that, I would really enjoy that. It feels like I'm solving some sort of CSI mystery, like that there's forensics in my wines where I'm like, ah, do I detect a note of B? It's like, yes, there was a hive nearby. I want to be able to do that, but that's only because I want a superpower. And it sounds like maybe wine could give that to me. But the drinking of it itself i i'm so bad at it i don't know the difference between a good wine and a bad wine and i don't care to learn yeah and it turns out food i don't know the difference between good food and bad food and i don't care to learn i i should be obvious to everyone right now by my love of fast food i don't know what the fuck i'm talking about but they're like i there are foods that i like and foods that i don't like and i i don't think i have like necessarily the the diet or palate of a child but i also don't think everybody who's considers themselves to have a sophisticated palate and they're eating specific

cheeses and things and being like this is the one these little crystals are the best part of the cheese yeah they don't i don't think i always know what the fuck they're talking about either i'm worried i'm cooking myself into a corner because i cook all the time and i'm always just cooking for myself and everything i make uh i i love it's it's the best and i and that's not to brag on myself as a chef. I just know exactly what I like, the exact amount of spice that I like, and I just cook that for me all the time. And I've noticed that the few times that I'm cooking for other people, I panic a little bit because I try to adjust the recipe

to be closer to whatever original recipe I saw written down somewhere that I've customized and perfected. I try to strip out all of my English on it and just do what I think the broadest amount of people will like. And I don't think it ends up being good. And I't know if if uh if i should just trust my gut and make the thing that is exactly what i want because the fear is i'll serve it to someone else and they'll be like it's so fucking spicy and i'm like yeah i like spice i don't shut up who cares this is it's supposed to be spicy because the the chef really likes it there's a metaphor for writing in there dan oh who are you trying to please uh an american dad sized audience oh no

but i could give you some tips i'm really good abroad um yeah i i don't know i i don't think i'm i'm the right audience i think that kind of food is but with the exception of like i have gone to one or two really nice restaurants eating there like republic is another one in los angeles where i'm like i've eaten stuff there where i was like whoa this is so good this is like the best version of this i've ever had in my life and uh i can i can tangibly get it like i get why this should be so expensive i get why they included the ingredients that they did and then other places that are very very fancy where i'm like i mean come on man this is a quesadilla what are we doing here yeah i could make this uh another question on this show quick

question that i have to assume was successfully answered. I guess so. Hey, buddy, quick question. Go ahead. I guess this isn't a quick question. It's a, I have a California mystery. That's the best kind of question. That's, no, that's a question.

That counts because you don't know the answer. Yes. And it's a, I've, I've've i've tried to to solve this mystery by googling and i don't think i have the right combination of words and i don't know if i ever will and i'm coming to you because you are the person who knows things, very specific, random things. Uh, you, there are so many times in my life where I've just like had an idle thought, uh, like I was in the bathroom at work and they had these strange things above the urinals, just these like metal knobs sticking out. And I was like, I wonder what those knobs are for. And you knew what they were. It was like some kind of

holdover from like a plumber's union. What was it? First of all, I just want to take a minute to say that this episode is making me fly. You complimented me left and right in all the right ways, like the things I'm most proud of. This is really great.

Those things are left, yeah. The plumber's union, when the plumbers came through to install new uh urinals in buildings they were that uh that didn't flush anymore yeah they're going to install some flushless urinals so it's like waterless urinals and i can like tell you how they work and stuff that they don't use water but they the way that they they still wanted to install the pipes that would go up to bring water to the urinal, because that's part of like the union, like they're going to make money on every single one of those pipes that they bring up to bring water to it. And the union successfully lobbied to make sure that you still had to have water going to those, even if you weren't going to use the water. So each one of those caps that you see above a waterless urinal is because of like union politics where they got to install a, instead of just a sewer line going away from the toilet, also a water line going to it. This is the kind of thing that Soren excels at. He just knows stuff that you see in everyday life that you take for granted. And I am hoping you have the answer to this.

So last time I was in California, I did a solo hike. We'll get to where in a bit. And it was like one of those, like a lot of L.A., like dry desert canyony hikes, very exposed. And I went down this big road. And on the left side of the road, you can park and you can go up to this canyon, to this peak, very exposed. And I went down this big road, and on the left side of the road, you can park, and you can go up to this canyon, to this peak, and you can do some hiking up, go a mile and a half up. It's fun. On the other side of the road, there is a lookout spot,

just a carved chunk of land where you can go and look out into the canyon below. I parked and went up left and went up this thing, got to the top, took a bunch of pictures, went back down. As I'm going down back and forth on this thing, I hear a lot of noise coming from down below. And it's in Spanish. And I hadn't started taking Spanish yet. So I knew even less than the nothing that I know now about Spanish but I just identified it as that language and it was unbroken streams of Spanish so it wasn't a conversation I clocked it as either a prayer or a chant and I didn't know what I was gonna be seeing when I got down to the bottom

of this canyon. As I got lower and lower, I saw that there were people in that lookout section across the way. And I just heard lots of voices carrying. And I decided once I got to the bottom, I'm going to investigate. I started to cross the street and there were three women on their hands and knees, one facing one direction, one facing the other direction, one facing straight out into the canyon. So like forming basically a T right over the canyon and then to the right of her, to the left of her, on their hands and knees, all of them chanting or praying and bawling. And there was one woman in the middle of all of them holding a baby and just sort of like walking around with her baby. And I heard there was a similar lookout section, maybe 50 to 100 yards down the road.

And I heard a similar group of men chanting or praying, just unbroken stream of words happening. just unbroken stream of words happening. And I was like, oh, all right, I've stumbled on something religious or personal or important. And this is not for me to be here. So I got in my car and I left. A day later, I went out to dinner with a friend of ours, Gatine, that we used to work with. And I was telling her this story of this random wild thing that I couldn't figure out. And she said, it's so funny that you mentioned that. I grew up around Tujunga or Tujunga? Tujunga. She grew up around there.

And she and her friends... That was the thing, right? The mystery. She and her friends used to drive through Tujunga Canyon if there was like a clear night and they thought they were going to be meteors. Like any times that you wanted to see like big sky in California, she and her friends would go up there at night and look at the stars. And twice they had heard this thing that I'm describing. It was dark when they did it. They were,

because obviously they're there at night to see the stars. And so they would get to the same exact spot that I went to, Condor Peak, in this canyon. And they got out of their car and they heard chanting or praying. And because it's pitch black, they don't know what the fuck is going on. They just hear a bunch of voices and they're like, all right, let's get out of here. They thought witchcraft of some kind. They got in their car and left twice this happened and it happened to them At night and it happened to me at 10 30 in the morning on a thursday these groups of people coming to this spot and I haven't been able to figure out what it is. I feel like i've i've

Used the wrong words when i'm googling i'm trying every combination of tajunga chanting praying I've, I've used the wrong words when I'm Googling. I'm trying every combination of Tejonga, chanting, praying, Spanish, crying. And I haven't found anything that is like, oh, it's this, it's part of this, this very specific ritual. The, the closest thing was, uh, people practicing Santeria, but that didn't seem like what was happening there. Because in that area, Santeria rituals take place, but there's remnants of that. There's plastic bags full of clothes and bones around, and people aren't as loud and public about it as these men and women crying and chanting were because it's it's not the most popular practice in the world santeria do you know what this is i have no idea

what it is uh i want to know more about it though are they all chanting the same thing or they it's a bunch of people just speaking yes at once and some of them like fully bawling fully crying facing different directions some of the ones are on their knees and when they're on their knees are they they're not kneeling with their with their hands crossed they're not like in prayer it's hands and knees yeah on the ground head down chanting crying and crying no no one is singing there's nothing like musical about it it didn't seem like they were doing a call and response with each other it was just all happening simultaneously men in one section women in another section baby in the middle i don't know if the baby in the middle was part of it

and this is the kind of thing that like i would like our listeners to if if they have the answer let us know but i have to be very very clear about the importance of if they have the answer because what i what i i don't want what i don't want the the swiftest way to a block is maybe it's this that's your fucking one-way ticket to band city because i will read it and if it's speculation i will be so mad man that is a tough one i don't have any idea what that is a tough one. I don't have any idea what that is. I'm very fascinated by it now, though. And so how many women? Three, and one in the middle holding the baby. Okay, and they're the only ones there?

Yes. There aren't people surrounding them? No. So in the parking lot across the street, there were two women who were standing in the parking lot watching them. And they were older women and they were in the shade. And that's why I thought they were there. And what age? 30s, 40s. Oh, my God.

What is going on? I sent a picture in the podcast chat. Do you see it? That's just a picture of the hike that I'm talking about. You can see where the cars are and then that little patch of dirt across the street. That's where they were. That's very easy. That's exactly what I pictured.

That's fine. And they're over in that patch and they're facing in different directions, but three not even four four if you count the woman in the middle but but not four in terms of like there's not like a north south east west no right that's i am and even if even if it wasn't i wasn't gonna be like yeah then i know um so the the closest thing that I can approximate it to is like when we were in Peru, when you get to the top of a pass or like a peak, there was a prayer that you would do there. And it involved like, there was some accoutrement along with it. Like you'd have coca leaves for it and you'd have different things that came along with it and you could do it very loudly. Uh, but this is not the top of something this is somewhere you can just drive and park correct and are they dressed for hiking or are they like

i i would say street clothes they're not dressed for hiking or ceremony they just came up to cry yeah they're and i and three directions if it's helpful to anything anyone i want to say this is december 3rd december 2nd or december 3rd so if there's any kind of holiday to tie it to but then then if there's a holiday then god in a was seeing the same thing a couple times throughout the year and at night yeah um i don't know i have no idea what that is dan i'm so sorry isn't it an exciting mystery it is i really am tantalized i'm gonna start researching after the podcast is over because i really want to know here's what's here's a fun difference between the two of us is you're gonna research this because you want to solve the mystery but for me the fact

that you don't know it means that the mystery is solved means that's it then we're never going to know it i i so i did a i used to be an actor back in the day and i did a movie called blind ambition and part of it was shot up in griffith park at night and you have to go up there with a forest ranger the forest ranger has to be on set the whole time and we're shooting the middle of night at like three in the morning and i can see the forest ranger there's a lot of time when you're on set where you're just like sitting around uh for anyone who hasn't done that before where you're just like chilling and so i'm watching the forest ranger kind of walk the perimeter of our shoot and she kind of walks she's doing these kind of zigzags out in the woods. And then she stops, comes back in, grabs a trash bag and goes back out and put something in a trash bag and

comes back and, and takes it to like a bear dumpster and puts it in. And I was like, what was that? And she was like, it's a goat's head. That's that's Santeria. Fucking what?

Yeah. That's why, that's why I'm bringing it up. So I was like, what are you talking about? It's like, it happens a lot up here. Like we'll find dead chickens or mutilated chickens and we find mutilated goats and entrails and things like that up here. And it just, we encourage people not to do it, but you know, they're going to do it if they're going to do it. And so we just clean up after them and we just move on so that other people don to do it, but you know, they're going to do it if they're going to do it. And so, uh, we just clean up after them and we, we just move on so that other people don't find it.

But she had just found a goat's head and she was like, Oh, not another one. And for me, I was like, we're all going to die up here. That's the first thing that happens in a horror movie is you find the animals dead. Um, but yeah, so I, but i but yeah there's you're right there's a lot more um there's a lot more props yeah i think in all of my googling about this i found the the santeria stuff because there are a bunch of articles about like yeah if you find a plastic bag with some like scraps of clothing and some bones in it, it happens. Don't freak out. It's not a murder. It's Santeria.

And the same thing as you're saying, we try to discourage it, but yeah, it's going to happen. I found those articles, and one person, I'm trying to see if I can track down the link right now, one person on Reddit who basically described exactly what I described to you and was asking Reddit writ large, does anyone know what this is? And no one knew. Gabe, our engineer, is pretty confident that it's Santeria. Okay.

Yeah, you might have found this too, Daniel, but I did a little Google and I came across a Facebook thread. And it was an article that someone posted about a shallow grave found in the Angeles forest around where you were used for animal sacrifices. And then there was a string of comments, probably about 10 comments on this thread of people saying, yeah, I go up there and I see people chanting, a lot of people wearing white gowns. I see people chanting, a lot of people wearing white gowns. And then I also found an LA Times article from like 2002 that's referencing how Los Angeles is the third largest population center in the U.S. for practices, practicers of Santeria. Wow. Yes, Gabe knew. Gabe solved it.

All right. And I think that there's surely there must just be like a light version of a ritual, right? Like where you go up there and you're like, well, it's the middle of the day, but we need to get this over with. And so maybe we'll do away with the gowns and the bags and stuff. It's really hot. Can I do it without goat bones, do you think? That's nice that the baby was involved. That's good.

The silence that you're all experiencing right now is me weighing if there's anything I could say right now that could be offensive, and I think it all could be. Because I know so little about this practice. Right. Almost anything I say will be handling it with flippancy. Uh-huh.

So, Soren, get me out of here. Well, we got a couple options here. We could just move on to another topic. Okay. Or we could just end the show. All right. I think you know my preference. Well, you could follow Dan on Twitter at D-O-B-O underscore Inc. Or you could follow me, Soren, at dobo underscore inc or you can follow me soren

at soren underscore ltd you can follow quick question at qq underscore soren and dan and you can email us at qq with soren and daniel at gmail.com uh you can also find us on our patreon you can get some extra fun bonus content we We do little tight episodes for just our Patreon listeners. And that's at Patreon slash Quick Question. And our producer and sound engineer editor, his name is Gabe Harder. And he solved a mystery for us today. He answered the quick question we couldn't solve. And honestly, I think this might be the first quick question that had a legitimate real answer to it.

Yeah. And somebody who wasn't us did it. Right. And again, I didn't want to speak too much about it because at the end of the day, I don't practice Santeria. I ain't got it. Play us out.