Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - 10am Beef Stick | Ep. 347

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

Daniel and Soren imagine the deeply glamorous riders they’d demand if anyone actually needed them for a weekend. Daniel wants a 10 a.m. beef stick, while Soren makes the case for a Payday as an any-meal candy bar. Eventually, their ideal accommodations expand to mysterious party mixes — just don’t insult Soren with something as pedestrian as Chex Mix.Thanks to ASPCA for sponsoring this episode. To explore coverage, visit http://SPCApetinsurance.com/QUESTION.  The ASPCA is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance.Follow the guys on Bluesky!https://bsky.app/profile/danielobrien.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/sorenbowie.bsky.socialBonus episodes 2x/month at patreon.com/quickquestion OR Apple Podcasts

Quick question for you all right I think you'll have a great, I think you'll have a great time here Here we go, it's the podcast, quick question with Soren and Daniel Quick follow up on an episode we did a couple of weeks ago bunch of people are in my blue sky mentions saying tube to me and I don't remember why. I know it's a food thing. Yeah. Food shapes.

Food shapes. What's your favorite food shape? And then we had asked whether. Did we ask if corn dogs were tubes or pockets? Yeah. And somebody was like, no, that's stick food. That's its own thing. Yeah.

And I don't agree. It's crazy what a fugue state I entered. into when I do this podcast that I look at blue sky and a much people are like, hey, tube, tube! And I was like, what the fuck? Why is everyone saying tube at me? What happened? And you specifically had said, say, tuber pocket.

I know. Over time, it dawned on me. It was like, oh, yeah, that's right. I demanded this of our followers. We used to do, so Daniel and I used to go to Comic-Con. There's one in Calgary that we would go to. And we would do panels at these. Those was an LA one, too.

And then afterwards, just even right afterwards, within 10 minutes of me having done it, people would come up and want to keep talking about what they would heard on stage. And I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. You were thinking of someone else. You just said, you just said Robocop should have been a, it follows Othello completely. And I'm like, uh, I did. when we're in in the mode I think everything else just shuts off it's something like

not only do I not remember saying that I don't agree with it I'm mad now yeah what that guy said that the old me he's wrong he's wrong hey speaking of comic cons and kamikazis and all these these panels that we did

The Calgary one was fun because they would stick us in not a green room. They called it the gold room where they were like all the celebrities and us hung out. Rosario Dawson. Gwendolyn Christie. Fomka Jansen had a really fun interaction where she talked to Sean Ashmore's. near identical brother and kept telling him that she did movies with him

and he was like, no, you didn't. And she was like, no, we did the X-Men movies. Yes, we did. We know each other. And he was like, no. And I watched him like, be polite. I watched him also be a little bit starstruck. Like, wow, it's Fanka Jansen. And another part of him just like waiting to get a word in because she

was letting him speak until he could finally be like, that was my brother, Sean. I'm, I'm his brother. And I also do things. Just, just, just, just very famously, just not the X-Men movies or animorphs or the things that people know the guy who has my face. This is not a healthy part of me.

But in that circumstance, I'm going to just accept it. I'm going to just be like, yes, that was me. because what actually happens in the interaction with a celebrity matters very little to me. It is just that I have cut through the noise somehow matters. Yeah. All I want is for them to be like, oh, you're not one of the Wad. You're something else. And now I can talk to you like a normal person.

And that's all I'm looking for it. The contents of the conversation matters nothing. I felt so bad for both of them because, like he he clearly has a career doing stuff that that warrants entrance to the gold room. You know, like he is in enough things that people are like, I want to see this other Ashmore and to hear him speak. I'm not familiar with his game at all. But like he's famous enough that he is supposed to be here. But clearly not famous enough that Famca Jansen, uh, could even conceive of the idea that he is not his brother.

And I felt bad for him. And I also felt bad for her because she is like outside of the X-Men films is an actress of renam. She's been working for a long time. She's good at things. And there's a lot of people in the gold room. Like, you know, there's no reason to dance around. at some of the people in the gold room are me and soaring. We are nobody's in a sea of like...

Rosario Dawson was dying to meet us, Daniel. I know, bro. Sure. Our friend was Aria Dawson, of course. But like, it's a bunch of nobodies, and I'm sure Fomka is just like any port in a storm. She's looking around at like some firefly people. It's like, well, I don't really know them. And I definitely don't know these internet people with their wet mouths. and then she just sees Ice Man from the X-Men movies and is so pumped. And it's like, no, no, no. She's like, please, you were my port in a storm.

Can you just sit with me? Can you just be your brother today in the gold room? Let's see. I'm looking through his catalog here and he's done so much. Give me who he is so I don't keep saying. Working like crazy. When I say so much, I mean that he's been in a lot of things. You don't know the names of any of them.

I don't know his name. Tell it to me. Aaron Ashmore. Yeah. Tough beat. Holy shit. I mean, he's been working since 1991, which is, so he was a child actor. I'm looking for a single thing here that I've heard of.

Conviction? Is that a movie that we've, that's a TV movie. That could be four movies. That could be a hundred things in the 90s. That's why it rang a bell. He was on the West Wing. Oh, there we go. And Veronica Mars.

I just rewatched the West Wing. Who was he? He's in two episodes of the West Wing. 365 days in King Corn. He plays Trevor. He's Trevor. He's also in Veronica Mars, which feels like he's got a full name there.

He's Troy Vandergrath. Wow. He sounds like, Like he did it. Whenever that episode's about where they're looking for a bad guy, I think I think maybe Troy VanderGraf is behind it. I think maybe you get Aaron when his brother's not available is what it looks like to me. For the same reason that Famke Jensen fell for it, which was,

Oh, I know this guy. You're watching a movie or something. You're like, yeah, yeah, I get it. I know this guy. I have a friend who is the son of a famous celebrity. everybody. Yes. And he is also an actor, wants to be an actor, as far as long as I've known him, and is a good actor. I think in some ways it has paid off for him in his life that he has a father who is already a

famous actor, but it has been a rough go in the acting industry because the shadow is so large. The shadow loom is so large. And the opportunities for jobs are not like, oh, you're the son of this person? Why don't you, let's give you a shot. Let's have you star in your own thing, like Denzel Washington's son. No, every single thing that he gets, even an audition for is your dad's playing the older you, and we want you to play the younger him. They don't look that much alike. I mean, I haven't seen him in a while.

No, they don't. They don't look a ton of life. But yeah, he plays his dad. He's played his dad like three or four times. And I think it drives him crazy that that's all he gets to do. And then just in general, there's like, you always feel like the B team version. And I think that that's probably what Aaron suffers from as well. It's like they wanted Sean.

They didn't get Sean. Well, is Aaron available? It's got to be tough. You see it with like, I'd share. the the Wyatt Russell is doing the same thing where he's playing young Kurt Russell in maybe a Godzilla series

I don't know stars or Pluto it could be Apple it could be one of the real things I don't I don't know it but I know that he plays young Kurt Russell and even though Wyatt Russell has like a career and has been doing movies for years

it must be tough to walk on that set and be like I got this because I had the best audition. Yeah. You must know in the back of your mind that like if Kurt Russell's schedule didn't work out, you are not the second male lead in this show, period. I don't know how you get over that either because there's clearly some actors that they never even suffer from that.

Philip Seymour Hoffman's son is just like working on his own accord. Man, I think I think Cooper Hoffman is so fucking good. I think he rules. Yeah? I hope he lives forever. Yeah, I think he's great. Have you watched, I think it's called The Long Walk? or the longest walk.

I watched it on a plane. It sucks. It's bad. They walked for so long. What are you talking about? What did you want the movie to be when you sat down? The movie starts and they're walking already. It's awesome.

A story with narrative structure, I think, is what I was looking for. They had like a good wrap-up and an ending. They had believable characters. Those types of things. That's what I wanted. I don't know what I was looking for in that film. I understand that it's a very simple premise and it's just short story

and trying to turn a short story into a movie can be tough. It's also one of Stephen King's, like, bleakest, most nihilistic stories ever. Yeah. That's his version of the lottery, right? Maybe, I guess. Oh, did you never have to read the lottery

when you were in school? No. It's just a calling. It's a calling of the community where, like, every year, one person gets chosen to get stone to death. Mm-hmm. But it's that.

It's also the Hunger Games. It's like all these ones where they're like, society's different now. There's one district that controls all the others. And they try to convince everyone else to give up a young kid along the way. I think Long Walk, the book is even bleaker at the end than Long Walk, like the Long Walk movie is the happy ending. And it's still not great. It's still everybody dies except one person. And, you know, there's no.

Hunger Games at least Ultimately You have some kind of hope that The world is going to get fixed Right And this one is just like We have no guarantee that There won't be another long walk

Next year at the end of this movie Yes, that's true That's true But Cooper Hoffman's great in it I don't know that he is Dan I think that in licorice pizza he's wonderful. That I didn't see. Didn't look good to me.

Paul Thomas Anderson, I don't know. I don't know. The acting chops of Philip Zimmer Hoffman's son. Yeah. Based on your catalog of The Longest Walk, Ann? He was in the Saturday night line of movie. Saturday night. Oh, that's right.

He was, yeah. Okay. He was really good in that movie that, is pretty bad, but I've seen maybe three times. Wow. And I saw a clip of him in another movie. Round out the catalog. A different kind of part he was doing.

If this movie were 20 years ago, it's a part that would go to Vince Vaughn, maybe 30 years ago it would go to Vince Vaughn. And now it's a Cooper Hoffman playing that kind of part. So you can already tell that it's like he's playing against type and he's great at it. He's just opposite. Whatever this movie was, saw a clip of it somewhere. This is what the media diet of a young father, not a young father, an old father of a young child. This is my media diet is like a clip of a movie embedded in a vulture article that I'm like, that looks good.

Is it possible? That the clip you saw was from a movie called Lickrish Pizza. I guarantee you it was not. Okay, all right, all right. Hey, everybody. You may feel like this if you're a pet owner. I've got a cat, Bethany, and what of the wishes that I have? Every time I have an eyelash on my cheek, I get to blow up birthday candles,

one of the wishes that I have is that I could just communicate with my pet for like 24 hours so that we could come up with some sort of system where we could tell each other stuff because there are moments where my cat will just be walking around the house limping. And I'm like, what happened to you? And the cat just can just stare at me because there's no. communication or she goes and she hides because she's feeling sick but I can't I can't put a hand on her forehead and tell that she's sick I'm out of ideas because I only ever dealt with children and humans before so when they're not feeling well I feel so helpless so if you've ever found

yourself awake at 2 a.m. phone in hand guling things like is it normal for dogs or do I need to call the vet right now you're not alone those unexpected moments are part of having a pet which is exactly why the ASPCA pet health insurance exists. It helps take some of the financial stress out of vet care so you can focus on your pet and less on the cost. The ASPCA pet health insurance program offers customizable accident and illness plans that can fit your budget, your lifestyle, even your pet's particular quirks. To explore coverage, visit ASPCA pet insurance.com slash question. That's ASPCA pet insurance.com slash question. Again, that's ASPCA pet insurance, dot com slash question this is a paid advertisement insurance is underwritten by either independence

american insurance company or united states fire insurance company and produced by ptz insurance agency limited the as psa is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance speaking of liquorish pizza yeah the juggie sister from from heim is also in that movie and she's wonderful in that movie she's like it turns out an excellent actress maybe maybe not a super a strong musician we're finding out. But she's like, she's an incredible actress. She's in another movie that I saw recently called The Drama

that is outstanding. Have you seen the drama? Hey man, I, we, my wife and I started that movie, not knowing a thing about it. Yeah. And there's a twist pretty early. And it's pretty fucking crazy. It shapes the whole rest of the movie, yeah.

I think at some point we stopped, we paused the movie. Because this was like, a night that we were both going to be awake to watch a movie. And we're like, I'm pretty riveted by this movie, but I could tell that she's not super into it. And when we pause it and see that there is like an ungodly amount of time left in the runtime, we're like, oh, we can't use our one night on this very strange that we can't connect with.

Yeah. Difficult movie. It is. Man. So it's Robert Pattinson is so good. I love him and everything. He's just great. He's like my number one.

He's quickly usurping Ben Foster in my mind as like the best actor in Hollywood. Did you see Mickey 17? Yes. Man, I love that fucking movie. Holy shit, that movie stuck with me. I hope that's what it's called. We tried to, every year, or not every year, but every time that we have like a big round number for our episodes on American Dads, like the 100, the 200, 300, 300, 400, we try to come up with like us it's going to be like a big deal we're going to make a big episode out of it and we're going to have that number somehow involved in the show and so the 400 came up and uh i had pitched this was before mickey 17 or 18 or whatever the fuck it's called came out and uh i pitched what if stan is uh stan is killed on a mission and he comes back home uh because he survived it somehow and

there's just another stand there. And this has been going on for a long time. And they've just got a whole army of stands underneath the CIA that they're like, every time that one of them dies on a mission, you just recycle and you put in a new one. And then we'd also find out that this is happening with everybody in the family.

Like the family's a very unnerved by that. They don't like the fact that this is a new stand. And then they're dealing with the fact that they're grappling with the fact that there are too. But we're also finding out that because of San is so reckless and he brings his family on missions all the time. They've got a bunch of everybody in the family. So we're on like number 14 for some of them, like Francine, for whatever reason, we're on number 15,000. She's died a lot. And and none of them

no. And I, and at first, everyone was like, yes, we like this. And then Mickey came out and we were like, we're not doing that anymore. We got to change it. That'd be a great episode. Exactly. Even with Mickey, that's a great episode. Yeah. It was fun for me. I think also people were concerned that the audience would be mad that the stand they've been watching the whole time is not the same stand. They didn't have the same conundrum as the family did, which is not one that I feel. I feel like, same guy. Yeah, a clone is the same person.

I think the clone doesn't know he's a clone, so that's him. Yeah, that's him. Unless the clone is a multiplicity clone where he is, he's got like other, like weird quirks and stuff like that. Yeah, and the multiplicity clone, when he is born, he has told like, hey, you're a clone, you're not me, you are here to help me. Yes. You're here to help Doug Prime, uh, golf, which I think might be the, the main conflict

of that movie is that he's working, he's working and has a wife, and that's just too much for him. Does he even have kids in multiplicity? I've seen this movie 700 times. I don't think he's got kids. Because I think that would, I'm sure when they were working on that movie, at some point, studio was like, it's okay to trick Andy McDowell in a movie. We are allowed to trick Annie McDowell with magic. She can have sex with four clones and audiences will go along for the ride. It doesn't matter if she is essentially having sex with strangers under false pretenses.

It doesn't matter because it's Annie McDowell and we love it. I don't think we can trick children. We can't have, the audience will not accept a kid saying, I love you, dad, and hugging the wrong Michael Keaton. So the kids have been excised from the movie. And so it's just work. So what we're, and what? Yeah, so what was he so busy with?

I like that you take the kids on. You're like, well, all right, then we've got to do some real work here to figure out why this guy's so busy. You know what takes them a lot of? of my time, golf. It's really. A movie that I'm on the record as loving and have been seeing his praises for so long,

it just now occurs to me what bullshit it is and how the central conflict of that movie. How do I make time for the one thing that I have to do? It's so funny too that they had, they were like, all right, well, we're going to do a movie

with a bunch of Michael Keatons. Like, we haven't even dived into it. it. We already know that this is juicy. There's a lot of meat on the bone for like we're going to do different variations of him. Yeah. But knowing that, knowing the ones that won in the end and they're like, whatever didn't win to these is amazing. They were like, okay, well, we're going to have one that's going to be kitchen Michael Keaton. He's just like, he's the one that. He's the one that he knows a lot about like getting air out of plastic bags before he put it in the refrigerator and stuff like that. And then we're going to have the dumb one. And then we're going to have kind of. We're going to have kind of. one. You're calling him Kitchen Michael Keaton. I feel like we can say queer-coated Michael Keaton. I think that is this. He does canonically have sex with Annie McDowell. Yeah, does me? But this is what queer-coded means. This is like, we're not going to say this is gay, but we want, there's Michael Keaton Prime, and then there's the second Michael Keaton, who's, who doesn't shave as often, and he

wears a leather jacket, and he's a little bit tougher. And then the third Michael Keaton. Motorcycle Michael Keaton is what I call. Yeah, motorcycle Michael Keaton. And then there's kitchen tucked in shirt. Yeah. Plastic wrap on the sandwiches, fastidious, queer coat of Michael Keaton. Because that's if it's the 90s and you're like, what are the different types of guy there are?

You do bad boy, homosexual. And then I guess the space cadet is the third kind of person that they could imagine. I agree with you. I think also Jason does a lot of this in his books where he deals with the idea of cloning

and whether the same is still the same person. In my mind, as long as there's just one of you, there's no difference. You're exactly the same. I agree with that. So what I wanted to ask you about,

Soren. Oh yeah. Go ahead. So anyway, really quick. Everybody see the drama. It's very funny. It's a very,

fucking funny movie. You should watch it. It is really funny. And Robert Pattinson is so good. There's, there's, I don't think it's, um, stealing any, like, spoiling anything. But it's one of the, it's, it's such a funny beat for his character to me that he, well, he, he, he, he meets Zendaya. Uh, he sees her at a coffee shop. And he sees her reading a book.

And he quickly on his phone, like, Googles something about the book. And then goes up. to her and starts a conversation. Like, I love that book. You're reading this book. I think it's, you know, whatever pull quote he just read off his phone. This is his way in of talking to her. They strike up a conversation.

They obviously go on a date. Based on this, I love, like his lie about having read the book. And then he's on the date and she's asking him what he thought of the ending. And it's clear that like he can't hide it anymore. He didn't read the book. He lied about it. to try to meet her and she finds out

and she's a little bit weirded out by it but then they get over and when he's relating this story to a friend of his and the friend is like you didn't read the book between the coffee shop and the date

and he's like no I didn't seem like it seemed like a lot for a date and it's so so a piece of shit lazy guy

who was like I want to read this woman so bad I want her to like me so bad I'm not going to read this book for our date film. Well, that's so much work. Not even going to peruse it. Not going to like look through it. Not going to do a little Wikipedia search on it or anything. Knowing it would probably come up on the date. You still just like, well, no. The one thread connecting

the two of them. Yeah, it's funny in like a Todd's Alon's kind of way. It's like it's very dark. But it is, it's so, so awkwardly funny. And I don't think that's the intent of it. I guess we can spoil it. I guess it doesn't. Yeah. Doesn't matter? Yeah. So they, uh, Robert Pattinson and Zendaya are, Zendaya are about to get married. And, uh, they're hanging out with another couple friend of theirs. And the couple friends suggest doing this thing where, where everyone goes around and says the worst thing that they've ever done, go around the table and saying your worst thing. And everyone's got bad, but still like, forgivable things that they've done. And, uh, Zendaya's thing is that. that she planned and almost executed the school shooting and then backed out at the last minute. And the reason she backed out is it's because the reason she backed out is because there was another shooting at the mall that day. She thought it would overshoot.

Not because she felt bad or like finally felt some humanity or anything. She was just like it would the other one would overshadow mine. And so she didn't do it. And then in the process of like as the town mourns this shooting, she makes friends and no longer wants to do a shooting anymore because now she has friends. It becomes staunchly an anti-gun advocate. It's very silly. It's very, it's really dark.

It's pretty funny. There's just strange beat when she admits to the group that this is the worst thing she's ever done. The people at the table are, are, as you'd expect, pretty upset about it. And a little hym sister who is acting in the movie,

she is extra upset. She can't forgive this. And specifically is like, you know my cousin who's in a wheelchair? She's in a wheelchair because she was in a mass shooting. This is so personally offensive to me. And that is not playful laughs in the movie. But I was really laughing

about it because it's like, you don't need a personal connection to know why a mass shooting is bad. It's not like, I think everyone else at the table is just as upset about it. Oh, I don't think any of the laughs in the movie are played for laughs. Like, I think all of them are played for the awkwardness, but the awkwardness is so, and like the, the, the cravenness of each individual character is so funny. Sorry, Daniel, I didn't mean to derail you. You had a question for me. We were talking about gold rooms in Comic-Conns, the places where all the celebrities hang out. And this question comes from friend of the show, Mommy, my wife, she was asking, what would be in my rider? Like, a writer, if you are a touring musician or a

comedian or whatever you're going to be somewhere and you have a list of things in your contract. Like this needs to be waiting in the green room for me at every event that I, that I attend. Every time I perform, I need this list of things in there. And I was rethinking about it as like not you're about to perform stand-up. What's in your green room? That stand-up, like, let's say you have to do a, uh, you're, your way for a weekend. Like what is in your, what is in your hotel room that weekend that is like, this is the stuff that I need to, to be there, to be in my space. Yeah. I always find myself

buying Advil when I go somewhere. Whether or not I'm going to need it, I am preemptively getting some because I'm like, I don't want to be stuck. I get migraines. And if I start to feel a migraine coming on and I get those like first symptoms of it, it's going to be. trouble if I don't take care of it right away. And taking care of it requires me taking like four Advil, laying down in the dark and trying to basically crush my head between two pillows for about

45 minutes. And usually that turns it around. That will solve it. But if I don't have that and I don't have that available to me, I'm going to just sink deeper and deeper into it and then there's no coming out. Like I might throw up. So that's definitely going on the list. And then obviously a gonzo puppet from

sure um the the real one from Christmas story yeah from Christmas Carol yeah from Christmas Carol I'm going to need that the authentic one and I'm going to ask for that the first time because after that no one will be able to find it yeah it just it will have mysteriously disappeared and if your writer is not met then you don't have to perform

whatever whatever whatever current day Sorin has been booked to do yeah yeah I guess that's the bigger question more than our writers is like who the fuck is calling you who's asking you to come do a weekend I think your Advil thing is really smart because I also think about neosporin and band-aids as something that on like a short trip

I frequently forget to pack but I'm always I'm always waking up with weird scratches I'm always bumping into things and ripping my hands open and it's a really annoying thing to have to buy neosporan bandades every time on a trip So I would want those and like the most obvious thing for me would just be like I need the

Assume that I'm going to have four cups of coffee every day I need that amount of like coffee pods or that amount of coffee Grines to to make my coffee beyond that I worry that I would fall into a trap and it's the same trap that like that I often will fall into grocery shopping or especially if I would like when we are going to visit my in-laws and they're like hey what groceries do you want in the house I am always picking things on behalf of an idealized version

that doesn't exist and so we was like well I'd love some blueberries of course and some high protein breakfast bars and I guess beyond that just just water at a place to skip rope and maybe some free weights and then I get there and I was like where's it I want a sweet treat and I'm so worried that I would have my weekend rider and I would do the same thing where it's like breakfast bars coffee neosporin water and apples let's pretend to my guy who eats apples

all of a sudden. And then I'd get there and be like, I could have asked for whiskey and ice cream. This sucks. Man a hotel room. Why do I have all this stupid fucking apples around me? Yeah, I guess here, this is going to be such a fucking dad answer,

but I want a payday there. Their candy bar payday? Yeah. Okay. That is a, that's an any meal type of candy bar. That can subs too for a meal. because it doesn't count as a candy bar

because it doesn't have chocolate around the outside in my estimated opinion. I think that, oh, Daniel looks confused. There are paydays that you can get that are chocolate coated, but the majority of them are just peanuts around nougat. That's the whole bar. And so they're a great one to have in your car

or something like that or where it's hot because they don't melt. I would love to have... They're a great one to have where it's hot? Yeah. Just leave? I know, there's a video game called payday. Okay, it's not that.

That's not what I'm asking for. No, I know. I'm just telling you, I'm going to, I want this payday because also in the mornings, too, if there's like, I have to put something in my stomach. I would love to have RX bars or something like that, but I'm not realistically. I'm not going to eat those the rest of the day. Yeah. That's not something I really want. whereas a payday, it serves a lot of different purposes.

And I can, a king-sized payday, I'll take one bite of that and be good to go for the rest of the day. I want, I'm going to eat that over the course of like three days. I think I now know what a payday is. My memory had it wrapped in chocolate, but you're right. It's just nuts and goo. my payday equivalent I would probably be a if I want to spoil myself

a very large variety pack of chomps beef and turkey sticks different flavors jalpeno cheddar yeah habanero too they've got so many different different variations of the chomps and they were like a perfect any time of day snack

and you don't feel too bad about eating it. You're like, well, this is real food. This is a, this was an animal died to make this. So it's got to be real. I've gotten over the hump and that this, it took me a while to get there. Some people might balk at the idea of a 10 a.m. beef stick. I am not such a person. 10 a.m. is the right time for my first beef stick.

I've been up since six with a baby. So it's not really 10 a.m. for me. It's basically early dinner for you. It's early dinner. That's right. And a beef stick for dinner. I had my 8 a.m. soup lunch. Part of, I'm also including the payday because one of my triggers for migraines is that if early in the morning, if I end up eating chocolate and that's like one of the first things I eat, it's I'm pretty much guaranteed to be getting a.

diving into a headache by the afternoon. And that can kickstart like a whole migraine. I don't know why. Maybe it's the insulin shock or whatever. I don't get the same thing if I eat a payday. So this is basically just an excuse for me to eat a candy bar for breakfast. It's what I want. Yeah.

And I'm going to get it. Outside of that, like I'm not going to ask for alcohol in there because drinking alone is... I probably wouldn't either. It's just like the idea. of getting something for free is really is really appealing to me but I do did you do stand up with me the time we did it with Haddle Burris yeah that was he is the only comedian that we did anything with that that had a writer that that was met and this is the the the West Side Comedy Theater a very small comedy club our

our favorite place to play in in in back in the day in Santa Monica in like an alley across from a parking structure. And at the time, it didn't even have a liquor license. But Handel had a, had a, uh, a writer that, that was a bottle of Jameson whiskey and a bucket of coronas. Yes. And we were all doing this show. Uh, he's the only one with the writer.

He's the only one who got paid. He did his mean set and, uh, left immediately thereafter, didn't want to talk to any of us, which is, which is fine. He's a bigger deal. But we're all in that green room just waiting for him to leave because he was not touching his beer and whiskey. He was all, yeah. The second he was gone, we left on it. We were just like, oh, boy.

So it was just children. We're like, yes. And we took it all. Yeah, we took everything and drank it all there. Yeah, I don't think I'd ever have alcohol in a writer, even if I'm doing a show. I mean, you think about the things not only that you want preemptively for the show that are getting give you the best show, but you want whatever it is that's going to be the treat afterward, too. Like, what's going to be, what do I want to come back to after I'm like, I finished, I no longer have those nerves. I'm ready to celebrate what a great job I did.

Even then, I think I'm like, you know, it'll be great. A really good cold Dr. Pepper. Right. The treats are something that I don't want on a right of. Maybe I would have the clarity of forethought to say I would like Ben and Jerry's dairy-free lights caramel action ice cream. Jesus. But even that, I would feel a little embarrassed to put into a contract.

And I know the thing that I actually want, like if I did a, if we had a great set and then I'm back in the hotel room, I don't want anything that has been sitting there since I checked in. I want some cheese. I want a burrito. I want a pizza. I want something that's going to give me a stomach egg. And I want it late. And I want it hot.

I want it delivered. I can't put it in a rider where it's like I'd like a carton of blueberries and a case of water and some emergency just in case. And then at a quarter to one in the morning, I want. two slices of pizza with some of the places they do it where they put baked ziti on top of the pizza I would like one of those and another piece of pizza with buffalo chicken

on the pizza as well and then also around that time do not disturb hanging thing on the outside of the door please and thank you check out please and thank you if you could turn the TV to HGTV

and I'm just going to watch some people try to buy a house in Costa Rica for very little money I would love that. I'm the same way. I don't want that pizza, but I do want to be, I want to try something new. Like, that's my big thing when I'm on a trip is I'm going into gas stations on road trips and I'm seeing all the neat juices and sodas that they have there that are not available to me where I live. And same with candy bars and stuff and the chips, things like that. So I don't know how to put this in the writer, but I want it to just say something new.

Surprise me with a party mix I've never had before. Some sort of like conglomeration of pretzels and bagel chips and a honey mustard, honey roasted peanuts. I don't even know if that exists, but that sounds interesting. I'd like to try that. And I'm sure it sounds pretty vague and open-ended, but there is a wrong answer. So you will be judged accordingly. If I've had it, I'm going to be bad. Like if I get there and it's like

Alligator Fritters, I had these on a cruise, you piece of shit. Get out of here. I want even like knock off funions. But if I get there and you give me checks mix, something as pedestrian as checks mix, you're fucking fired. I'm not coming back to your city ever again. Yeah, I want to try something that's exciting and new and salty and a little sweet. And it's just different.

That's why I love like, I don't. know what that company is that sends out gift baskets but every once in a while you'll get a gift basket that just has like some some like small boutique type of party mixes in it or like salty treats and you're like oh this is completely fucking new to me every everything flavored cashews that sounds great and i'm way into it rosemary and olive oil flavored goldfish like absolutely you can't buy this anywhere this only comes in one of these baskets pickled flavored almonds. And I'm like, yeah, let's try it.

I'll ride the lightning. This is a good reminder to our listeners that Soren and I are not available to come to your town for anything that you would need us to do. We, I still see posts on Facebook from that guy, Joey, who asked us to come to Akrono. No, where were we? Beloit, Wisconsin.

Beloit, Wisconsin. That's right. We did one college trip, exactly one at our time at Crackt, where we went and did stand-up. And we were invited to Beloit, Wisconsin, and we performed there. And I'll say, on the way there, we lost 30% of our people because everybody got sick that morning. I don't know if, like, that morning everyone was just shuffling around some norovirus or something. But, like, we got to the airport, and immediately people had to peel off because they were just thrown. up on control. That's right. Jack didn't even make the flight. Jack couldn't even, Jack was

like booked to go there and just, just morning of was just like, he might maybe at the airport was like, no, I'm not, I'm not going to make it. Cody got sick. Yeah. We, we all ended up the room situation got really interesting too because the only healthy people had to all share together. And then like, even people that didn't get sick still started feeling kind of weird. Yeah. It was a very strange, strange time. But yeah, we did a bunch of sketch comedy there. We did. It was like the timing was fortuitous where there was like a film festival and a sketch like comedy thing the night after.

And so when this guy reached out to us, we're like, well, Michael and Abe have this movie Kill Me Now that hasn't come out yet. But we would love to do a screening at this film festival thing. and then we will perform comedy for you. And it's, I, I feel a little bit bad in retrospect because the guy who reached out, this guy, Joey, very sweet guy, I'm sure he's doing very well right now. But he reached out and asked if we would do a college, if we would perform. And the same thing I always say is like, yes, we will do it.

We don't need to be paid, but we just, We can't lose money. So if you can get us out there and put us up, then, yeah, 100%. We will do this. And I have a feeling that he himself just paid for all of our travel and logic. Really? I don't think he was dipping into, like, the college entertainment fund or whatever it was. I think this guy was independently wealthy.

And I was just like, sure, I'll get a bunch of normal class flights. for these people to fly into St. Louis and then take a shared van from St. Louis to Beloit. I mean, we were remarkably cheap, but I can't imagine that the school wasn't lit. The school's always getting, they've got like a budget to have standups come and stuff. I guess.

But it was a fun. It was like a really cool venue. We did a, the performance is really fun. A lot of us, it was our first time doing it. doing stand-up. Two of you, I think you and Michael had done South by Southwest, but for everybody else, Cody and I, I think Cody and I, we're just doing stand-up for the first time. And so it was like, you can have us come. We're going to try some stuff that we don't know if it works

or not. Yeah, we hadn't quite figured out what a traveling live performance of Cracked should be. And we really, we really wouldn't figure that out until later. Because like the after hours panel and live podcasts those that's like the the best use of us some some of us stand up short but really like the after hours panel that we would do a couple of times year at different conventions was like the the the perfect use of this specific group of people's skills like the fact that we were doing honest to goodness sketch comedy live sketch comedy at Beloit, Wisconsin was a very

silly thing for us to do. A lot of us had sketch background and performance background. And we just kind of believed that we could be a live sketch troupe because we liked it and we liked each other and we wanted to. We really forced it. A lot of venues, we forced it. We're flying out with

Lisa Foyles too Lisa was part of our sketch troupe yeah and no oh yeah she was and then I think Caitlin came out too Caitlin came out too didn't perform with us but she was there for like the premiere of the movie and yeah

I think this is when when Deep pockets Joey when he's like sure we'll fly out from every you want it's like well great you're flying out my best friend Caitlin because she's in the movie and all of our sketch performers and plus Jack O'Brien, who's not a performer, but we want him there.

He's not going to do anything, but he should come to. And our buddy Randall, Randall worked for the site. He doesn't do anything live. But like, let's get Randall out there, too. We want Randall. It's important that Randall comes. Randall does all of our visual mediums. He's like, he's really great.

Whiz with Photoshop. We may need him. We just need that on call. That's right. We brought him out. That's, yeah. We forced our sketch comedy into a lot of different live things because people

were interested in Crack at the time where they're like, oh, crack could come do a thing. And we were like, yeah, we could. Sketch comedy. Yeah. And we would practice. We'd rehearse. We had tight sketches that we believed in. I remember doing a show, even in Los Angeles.

And it was, when it was we were like figuring out that maybe this wasn't the best use of our, our talents. we had done a show with Rachel Bloom in Echo Park and their show was so great and tight and fun and then we did just one sketch there and at the end I was like I wasn't a great showing from us I think there were only maybe three of us there and I think they felt it too

they were like so this is what you guys do huh and we're like yeah and there's like I'll stand by our are filmed sketches that we did. I think they were well done. And it's not like a knock on us as performers, but like there are really good sketch comedy performers in Los Angeles. And they have been studying live sketch comedy writing and performing for years.

And a lot of them have gotten really good at it. And we were just undisciplined sketch film. Fans basically were like, I think we can probably do this. And I think the bar in L.A. was so high. And we were comfortably walking underneath it. I think that there is. I talked earlier about what it means to be the child of a celebrity or the brother or sister of a celebrity. In a lot of ways, everything that we would do live was a us just trying something out because we already had this like built in audience.

We already had a fandom. And we're almost taking advantage of that fandom because we were like, well, I'm interested in stand-up. And then you'd pack a house for a stand-up show. And they didn't, the venue would always be like, what the, who are you? Have you done this before? Yeah, I did it twice, but I just told stories. And we were not true stand-ups. We were not true sketch cut.

Well, I mean, some of us have cut our teeth in sketch, but it was not, it was like film sketch. All right? So we doing live sketch for like a really full house, the venues would be very confused because we didn't have the same chops as Britannic. You watch Britannic do a live sketch and it's like this is they're taking advantage of the live medium. Like this is really, really fun and cool. Yeah. We weren't doing that. We were just like.

UCB did not like us and was mad at us. And like we sold out a show at the UCB theater. UCB theater is one of the famous theaters. for company in Los Angeles. We sold it out in like minutes and did our weird, cracked variety show of music, sketch, and stand-up. And then, uh, and like our audience liked because our audience likes us. Yeah, very generous audience.

The artistic director afterwards, me and Adam Ganser, our director met with the artistic director. And he was just like, because we wanted a regular spot. The audacity that we were like, we sold this out in minutes. We want. we want a monthly spot at UCB to be the cracked show and don't worry we will figure out what that means for the course of years we will we will come to know what we mean by that and the artistic director at the time i shouldn't name him because he's still like in the industry and and do it very well um but he was just like very candidly like yeah i don't i don't get it i don't yeah i don't know what a

cracked show is. It's clear that you guys had a lot of people there, but I don't know why we would do a cracked show here. And I'm at a time, it's like, because we want to do it. And if I'm being honest, because college humor did it, and we've been tap dancing down their path this whole time. So can we just do it because the other guys did it? And because we sold it out and he was just like really sticking to

his guns back like yeah I know it's sold out but I just don't know I just don't know like what your show gives us that other shows that we have already aren't doing and I think the implication was and doing much better

doing well better at the time I left that meeting so mad and so like chip on my shoulder like this is just because like this cracks has always been the underdog and we're gonna we've just got a we're gonna find our own theater.

We're gonna, we're like, fuck UCB. We're gonna be our own thing somewhere else. In retrospect, he was right. We had nobody to this being a sketch show. He was doing a really good job. He was really taking care of the Upper Citizens Brigade Theater. Tremendous respect for him for like, like having reverence for his own brand. And like, no, I think it would cheapen the brand to bring it the worst product.

It's, I mean, we, we locked in, we locked in with a couple different things. And it, I think figuring out, we did panels and we didn't know what, panels would be like and panels notoriously are fucking drags. They can be really boring. It is just fans going crazy for any little morsel like loving that kind of stuff. But we could do

and I will say this objectively a great panel. So with all of us up there we all had great chemistry and we could get up there and really make bring the house down. We could like make people laugh we knew what they wanted. We were everybody's good on the fly that's like our wheelhouse

and then we started doing it with the podcast too. I'll say some hit or misses there. But this one may be a big mess. This one that we currently do, we just reminisce about old times, or I complain about the weather. Could be maybe that this one isn't one of the big swings

for a home run. So anyway, have us come to your city. Daniel and I will come do a live podcast. Get the Advil. Get the Neosporin. Get the coffee, the blueberries, the payday. Get the

fucking payday, buddy. If you're going to put Daniel and I in the same room, which by the way, not a deal breaker, but we're going to need two sets of drawers because Daniel and I are very specific about putting our clothes away as soon as we get there. I would prefer one of the

hotel rooms with two toilets. It's not a thing that exists, so you could just book us for one room that we share and then give me a key to another room that has a toilet that you don't book out for anyone. This is our preferred setup. I can use that bathroom and and work out in the hotel room. Oh, right. You're going to need to probably

you're going to have to have another hotel room that has free weights in it and then you just tell Daniel about but tell him he can't use it. Yeah. And then he will be in there. I'm going to get so fucking jacked over this weekend. It's crazy. It's huge. It's always my plan. When I'm like, leave for a vacation. I'm like, I should pack. Let's see. I'm going to be, I'm going to be there for four days. So probably like, five sets of exercise shorts. It's so crazy. I do the exact same thing where I was like,

what if I do two a days? What if I run and I want to work out? That's going to be three outfits. We're flying out to L.A. for a quick two-night trip for the Creedmoor's next weekend. And I just like scoping it. I was like, oh, let me take a look at the hotel gym. Why, Daniel?

Why are you looking at the gym to make sure to see if they have what? What are you going to fucking do? I can't believe I am so pleased that for my 11 dude strong bachelor party you guys rented a giant house with a home gym in the house

God bless you we really thought we're going to love that gym The number of trips that I've gone on and lugged running shoes Running shoes never worn Sad as short story ever written

Well, yeah, the amount of trips that I've lugged around running shoes, a bulky, awkward, big foam-sold running shoes and just never touched the whole trip. It's like every, it's like 90% of the trips I go on. All right, everybody, this has been our show. Thank you so much for being here. This is a quick question with Storn and Daniel. You knew that. If you liked our theme song, that's by me, Rex. If you like a video version of this podcast, you can watch us on YouTube.

You can watch our reactions to one another, which you don't get. yet because we do a lot of silent playing. We do. Yeah, big ones like that. Daniel said, I bet Joey's doing great. And I gave a fun look to the camera. Oh, did you do? Did you do it again?

I missed it. No. I just did a, yeah, I just did Jim. Jim Halpert. Oh, did it. And if you like this podcast in general, and you're like, this is really well put together. This is cut really nicely.

I like to see it. I found this from clips online that I really liked. You guys just do a great job. That's not us. That's McKenzie, She's running the show behind the scenes. And you can follow her podcast. It's called Don't Make It Worse.

Thank you so much for being here. Daniel's confused. Goodbye. Bye. 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