Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - An Insane Pivot

Episode Date: July 24, 2022

You wouldn't believe it, but at one point the guys say "lets do one more question and just make this a long episode". And they do that! What a treat! And as always big thanks to our sponsors. Thanks  Avast.com!

I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright? I wanna hear your thoughts, wanna know what's on your mind I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright? The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favourite? Who did you get? What do I be? What's it up with? What do we talk about? I saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien When will I be remembered? Was it out there? Where did all that go? Did we not? Oh, forget it.

Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien. Two best friends and comedy writers. If there's an answer, they're gonna find it. I think you'll have a great time here. I think you'll have a great time here. So hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers ask each other questions and give each other answers. I am one half of that podcast, senior writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, author of How to Fight Presidents, and current heatwave survivor Daniel O'Brien, joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, say hello.

Hey, everybody. I'm Soren Bui. I write for American Dad. And I'm curious, Dan, did you mic yourself as safe on Facebook? I'm not on Facebook. So I did shriek about my safety on Nextdoor. Oh, okay. That's- Where I do everything. That's smart. Yeah. Just let everyone know it's okay. So give me like a ballpark. What are you dealing with in terms of temperature and humidity? It's not too humid by the shore, which is nice.

We've got a little bit of an ocean breeze going, but it's about 90 degrees. I've been trying to schedule my run before work in the morning because it's the only time I can run without like feeling like I'm choking out here. And it's just rough, man. I do. I do most of my work on the porch because it's, it's cooler to have a breeze than it is to sit inside right now. Cause the air conditioning is not great.

Just not up to snuff. No. Thanks to Avast for supporting quick question with a vast one you can confidently take control of your online world by helping you stay safe from viruses phishing attacks ransomware hacking attempts and other cyber crimes learn more about a vast one at avast.com and it's just hot and like and i I'm a baby about it. And I look at the weather for the upcoming 10 days and it's, and it's, it's, yep. It's still going to be hot. It's just hot all the way through. And, and there's no light at the end of the tunnel.

That's tough. Now I've spent some time in Jersey. So I grew up in Colorado, which is very dry. I lived in California, which is also very dry. I go to Arizona frequently, which is, you know, very dry. The few times that I've been to, uh, the East coast, I'm oppressed by the humidity, even on the shore. Like I've been to ocean city and stuff and I get there and I'm just like at night, I'm like, yeah, it's like I'm wearing a blanket. How what's going on here? It's thicker. It's bad. It's, uh, and, and, And again, there's just no way of avoiding it. You just sit here and you just be hot all day. I have work. I can't just go to the movies and cool off. I was always on vacation, so it didn't really matter that my head was under a blanket the whole time. But yeah, you actually have to get stuff done. You have deadlines.

my head was under a blanket the whole time. But yeah, you actually have to get stuff done. You have deadlines. Yes, I do. And just even doing this podcast, I think if you listen back, I slowed down during the intro because part of my brain thinks if I go slower, it won't use as much energy and I will cool down. It's not working. Let me peel back the curtain a little bit. I'm, I'm, I'm here's, let me peel back the, the, the curtain a little bit.

I'm just in a bathing suit, no shirt sitting in my home recording this stupid fucking podcast. And I'm just pouring with sweat. That's going to be a gross chair at the end. I know I have to get rid of the chair now. Well, it makes sense. When you run out of steam, there's obviously less steam in the room at the end. Okay, I'm not crazy. I have bad news for you, Dan.

I did another podcast yesterday. Okay. Do I know the podcast? I don't know. It's called – it's by Ben Mendelsohn. What? It can't be by Ben Mendelsohn. You did a podcast. Let me start over. No, you did a podcast with Ben Mendelsohn where they go through every episode of Bloodline and he gives his thoughts on it.

He's like, oh yeah, I remember that. He was really kind in that he let me go on. He let me do Animal Kingdom for him. I was very excited to talk about that. That's a real thrill for you. It's a podcast called What Are You Working On? BJ Mendelsohn is the one who did it. The B is short for Ben

and then the J is obviously for Jelstrillion. So yeah, I did this podcast and at the beginning of of it he asked me what i was doing and i told him about our podcast and i said that we were a he asked me a little bit about it and i said we were a once in a generation podcast uh and that all the critics are saying that and so we i'm just we have a lot of work to do wow because i think this airs in like september and we got to get to that point you know what i'd be very uh what i would consider a real boon for us as a podcast is to even like have critics at all i don't think uh like we rate or rank anywhere we had one what was it vulture write-up for us. Well, that'd be nice. I didn't

even know that. A year ago, but I don't think, I feel like there's a tier of podcasts that critics pay attention to and we have not been elevated to that tier yet. We are still just a phone call that leaked in the minds of a lot of people in this community. All right. You know what? That's exactly where we should be, I think. I don't think we need to be on the radar because right now we're in a place where our 12 listeners are like, I found this thing and it's just mine. Right. And I understand they're being very protective of it. They don't want anyone else to listen to it and they're doing a great job making sure that happens. No word of mouth happening whatsoever. Yeah. It's kind of like people just sitting on a party line yeah every night they know these two friends talk and so they hop on the party line and

they're like okay let's see what what's going on in their lives hey uh can i ask you a quick question please what are you um talking about oh shit you're four years younger than me you don't know what a party line is no okay back in the day hell yeah i'm gonna take this opportunity to to cool way down back in the day when telephones still had cords on them uh you would occasionally pick up your phone to make a call and there would just be some other people talking on your phone already and it's not other people in your house other Other people in your neighborhood would be on the phone and you're all sharing a line together. It's called a party line. And yeah, so you'd have to wait until they were done with their conversation. Now the play etiquette thing to do is to pick up the phone. You hear somebody talking, you hang up and then you just wait a little while. And then

to make your call, you would pick up your phone later. And if you get a dial tone, you're golden. But like I grew up in a place where- Is that, yeah, that's my question. Is this early 1980s or is this early 1980s specific to that weird town where you're all baptized in the same well together? I can't possibly answer that question because i have no context for the rest of the world i assume everybody had party lines sometime in the early 1980s man um because they're just like i don't know there were a hundred people as far as i know back then and there just weren't a lot of phone calls being made and so yeah would you like

coordinate it to to talk to be on the same on the phone with a bunch of your buddies at once no is that a thing that you could do i think you probably could yeah i think you absolutely could do that um we never did it was it was just like a it was just a thing that we all had to share and we're all it's like a timeshare telephone and we were all very polite about it except when when I was a child, obviously I'd be very curious. So if I'd hear conversations going on, I would just sit on and listen to stories about how Mike Truelove has to go up to the Coke ovens on Friday. Oh God.

Incredible. Incredible. Incredible. oh god incredible incredible back when we used to make names like mike true love yeah um so yeah party lines i want to assume that a lot of people had them but it's entirely possible that it was just us certainly in cities i think it would have been untenable but where i was i mean you can look out anywhere from my house you can't't see a neighbor's house. And so I'm, there was probably like 12 of us all sharing a line and I don't know, man, it just felt like as no, you know what? This makes perfect

sense. As much as I use the telephone now, that's how much people I think use the telephone. Then it was like, please don't ever call me. Yeah. I guess that, I guess that makes sense. You see, now I got to look it up. I wonder why, I wonder why that missed me. I wonder, cause like I have older brothers and older parents.

So you'd think that one of them would have mentioned party lines to me at some point. Like we're not that far apart in age that this is a whole phenomenon that that should have missed me god i'm seeing a lot of stuff from like 1960s about party i think maybe my little enclave of the woods was the last pulled out um but yeah we my friend also had one at his house he lived up the redstone valley redstone's where i got married there's like it's a tiny little valley at the base of sopris and uh he had one as well but he also had one of those rotary telephones too which i loved as a kid

because you're doing so much work it's like you are you're busy as you're making a call yeah yeah yeah yeah he had no time for anything else it's like hey mom i need the phone for for like a five minute prologue and then the actual phone call right nobody talked to me for the next five minutes while i put this number in but like getting it like if you gotta you get to do zero or something like that where you get to go all the way around the phone i can't remember if it was zero or nine and then you let it go and just like it it feels so good. It's like kickstarting a motorcycle. I do think we have, phone technology has come so far, you know? It's great.

But we've lost like the, there's nothing on my iPhone that is as satisfying as the sound that a rotary phone made when you dialed the nine or a zero, whatever it was. It was like, like there was a physical connection to it that felt great. And now phones are, are unpleasant. Yeah. It was so tactile. It was really fun.

But they're just weird, hot mirrors covered in sweat, covered in ear sweat. More than that, man. There's my, wherever my hands have been all day it's all over my phone just like it just this film of grease and you can

tell the places where I touched the phone the most and that's really like oh man sometimes I'll go for a run and like I usually have my phone in my hand when I'm running but I'll occasionally move it to my pocket and then it comes out of my pocket wet and it was like well I've never thought about that moisture before. It can't be, it shouldn't be on the phone. I bet just like thigh sweat. If I'm being charitable,

have you a quick question for you, Dan, what, what type of case do you have on your phone? Is it plastic? Yeah, I have whatever that case is where it's like the, the case that takes up the least amount of room, but still protects your phone from getting dropped all the time.

Okay. And on the back, do you ever just like, this is going to be gross. Do you ever just like develop some, like in certain areas, there's just like all of a sudden like a crusty area. Oh, sure. Yeah. What the fuck is that? You're just scraping at like a little section, like picking a scab basically off the phone. I don't, what is that? Where's that coming from? My hands aren't that filthy when I'm using it. I'm not interested in investigating that.

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with Avast One. It helps you stay safe from viruses, phishing attacks, ransomware, hacking attempts, and other cyber crimes. Learn more about Avast One at avast.com. Should we get into the show? Yeah, I think so. I mean, we asked each other some silly quick questions,

but that's not what the show is. We ask each other very serious quick questions. Hard-hitting questions. Yeah. Can I go first this time, Daniel? Sure. I have a quick question for you. Go.

Is there a celebrity that you think you could be really good friends with uh in the world like you just see them you see them in interviews you see them i guess you can get a little glimmer of this if they're an actor or something um in their roles but just mostly it's in interviews and just the way that they present themselves where you're like you know what if i think we could be really good friends. I think if the opportunity presented itself, we would get along really, really great. And I want you to make your case for a celebrity. And we'll put that out into the world.

Yeah. Here's what's weird. I have a couple answers. There are some that even before you threw this to me on the podcast, there are some celebrities that I see that I think, man, he'd really get along with Soren. I take myself out of the equation. But I look at someone like Chris Pine and I'm like, yeah, they would be tight for sure. If they were on a set together, they would come up with games and they would have a lot of fun.

I want to be friends with Chris Pine so bad. I think you could. It feels like maybe I was in Smoking Aces, doesn't it? I think there's a chance. Yeah, for sure. I guess I don't think about it as like one-on-one, this celebrity would be friends with me, but I do think there are celebrities that could be integrated into my group of friends.

Okay. If that's a clearer answer, like, uh, Jenny Slate is someone who I think would really enjoy. I've read a million interviews with her. I've read her book. I've seen everything that she, she puts out and she's, she's incredibly, uh, fun and open and joyful in her interviews in a way that I think would really integrate well with like my childhood friends, this group of people, we go to the Poconos in a cabin in the woods in Pennsylvania every year. And we just like cook and watch TV and sing songs and, and, and play really stupid games and hang out, just relaxing in this spot for a weekend. And I think she, she would love it.

She would, she would really enjoy this group of people and this thing that we do. And I say it needs to be this group because I don't, I feel like in, in, in a lifetime, most women have, have seen enough men and types of guys that like one-on-one, I don't think I'd be like, hey, Jenny, let's you and I hang out.

I don't think I'm getting my foot in the door that way. I don't know. I think you're selling yourself short because you guys have some very common interests, it's clear, just from the things that you produce. That you, for a long time in your life, made little claymation versions of everyone at your school and did live as to get stop action movies with them okay i don't think it's fair to say that i did that for a long time i did it years after i after i did it i did it really hard for a short period the first time i went to your apartment in la just walls of people um and she i mean clearly she's got a background in that i don't think that

marcel the shell came out of nowhere i think that that was like probably something that she'd already been she she i think she probably had a very similar high school experience to you yeah and i think you guys could bond over that thank you i hope so she's great too. She's so funny. I think about her for this question. And I also think about Dakota Johnson. I just read a great Vanity Fair profile of Dakota Johnson. And she just seems like an incredibly cool, doesn't give a shit type of person. Which neither of those things describe me. But she does seem like razor focused on having fun. And not in a very like classically Hollywood sort of way.

Just like she just seems like a fun, cool person who happens to be a great actress because she was born of acting parents and lived in in L.A., I guess. Yeah. Yeah. in LA, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Like someone who was thrust into acting because like, yeah, of course, of course you would be based on her parents being Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith.

Yeah. It's sort of like a no brainer that she would be into this world. But I, but I, I very easily feel like, oh, if you, if those weren't your parents, then we would have met waiting tables at Ruby Tuesday or something like that. And you would have just been like a cool girl that I would make it my business to become friends with. Well, yeah, I mean, she seems nice, but can't do anything about that. Oh, is there nothing we could do about that?

So Daniel, you know my background that I know her pretty well. Yes. And she is very cool. She's very, she's funny. She's nice. She's kind. Uh, and I, it seems like I'm trying to remember if there's ever been a time where you two were just in the same room and I can't think of why it would have been.

I don't think so. so um but that could happen i mean that could happen for you do you want it to happen yeah i would like that i would like okay uh so here's here's my three i want to hang out with jenny slate i want to hang out with dakota johnson and uh this is the longest of long shots because he's such a big deal now but taiko ytt i think i think if you would just give me the time i could i could impress him and he would like me i don't know i don't know that i that there's any room for me to to get in there at this point because he has like, he's living a fabulous life and hops around on islands

with actually famous people. And I feel like probably the door is shut on that. But I really think like, hey man, I'm also an incredibly silly soft boy comedy person. I think it's like, let's just have lunch and chat, man.

And I think you'll agree that I could be one of your friends. Imagine making Taika Waititi laugh. I know. How good you would feel about yourself. And it was one of those ones where like, he was like, he closed his eyes. It was like,

that is something like I'm, I am sincerely like both manifesting that. And also like the pilots that I'm writing in my, my spare time now are things that were like, I want to get this in front of Taika Waititi. If he wants to produce a new show and, and also be my friend, like it's very,

I'm engineering my pilots for someone else's sensibilities to get onto their radar a little bit. Yeah. He's he, he is somebody who I respect and am in awe of, but I just don't think that I'm cool enough for Taika Waititi. Yeah. He's so cool.

A few years ago, the last WGA Awards, he was at the table next to ours because Last Week Tonight was nominated, and that was the year he was nominated for uh jojo rabbit and i and i went into the we get almost no one for the east coast wga awards feeds uh because it's like mostly late night variety they announce all the categories simultaneously in la and new york but we just like there's not a lot of action happening in New York so you don't see a ton of really really famous people at our show but this year Tyke was there at the table next to us and I genuinely might have said oh no when I saw him because I was not prepared to see anyone that famous a and b not prepared to see anyone that i would be

that starstruck by and because like i don't get starstruck often and uh i'm not prepared for it i really walked into a place thinking like what am i gonna do see fucking bill maher who gives a shit oh no it's taika and he saw me you think, and I want you to search your heart when you answer this question, is part of the appeal of being friends with him is that you think you might also meet Tessa Thompson? A hundred percent. Okay, great. Yeah. Yeah. I think their chances are high that if you were buddies, that would happen. Yeah. And boy, is that a boon. That would be a get.

that a boon that would be a sure to get uh well one of mine is taika will be so crushed when he finds out that i only became friends with him to get to tessa we can't ever release this podcast he can't know that there are a lot of people that uh when we used to go to like comic-con or we go to calgary at the stampede and stuff for there'd be people who would come up and they would be like oh my god you're from cracked and like they'd want to talk and it seemed very exciting and i was like this person knows like we've i've never met this person this is a stranger who just likes me and then they'd be like is uh is is daniel o'brien around i'm like oh fuck you okay i get it i get it and i wonder if tyka's just dealing with that constantly ever since like a people magazine came out where there are pictures of him with tessa where you're everyone everyone else is just like suddenly

everyone you meet you'd have to be like hold on a second do you want a job do you want to sell me a script do you want to meet tessa those are the things like those are non-starters for me yeah and it's tough whenever those fans would come up to you you would have to cover for me because i was always uh out fucking yeah you're always out fucking and you had to you you would have to cover for me because i was always uh out yeah you're always out and you had to you had to be like no he's in he's in his hotel room preparing for a panel yeah and you just and you just knew that i was in the bathroom pounding it out yeah i had to be like don't i mean don't go in there he's in there but you can't go in because he's just drowning and right now

He's in there, but you can't go in because he's just drowning in fucking. So one of mine is actually pretty close to that. Rise Darby. Is it rise? I think Reese. Reese. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Reese Darby, I think is such a cool guy. I think that he's so funny. I love everything that he does. And I also feel like we would get along really well. There's some issues, obviously. There's like a little bit of a generational gap. There's, but

he's also, you know, every single person that I meet, I'm like picking at their background and I'm just like finding the thing, the foothold where I'm like, ah, we share that in common. That's what we're going to talk about. And boy, that's really tough to do with somebody from the other side of the world. Yeah. He is five, ten and a half though.

And that's the exact same height that I am. And so I think that we're going to get along great. We see eye to eye. You understand? I don't know if this is a... Dan, we see eye to eye. No, I got it. Very good.

I don't know if this is a rude question or not for you or for him, but did you specifically pick someone like this? You didn't pick George Clooney. Yeah. Right. You're saying, yeah. You're saying, did you like the bar where you think it's a, yeah. Did you pick an attainable person? Yes.

No, I don't think that there's ever a chance that I feel hang out with restart. No, I don't think that there's ever a chance that I feel hang out with restart. I think that there might be an opportunity sometime when I would get to meet him. Yeah. Potentially in my life, but I don't think that I would ever get to, we'd ever be in an opportunity to hang out or that he'd want to hang out with me. Yeah. I got to earn it. You know what I'm saying?

Like I need, I need half an hour alone with him to to really make him see, oh no, I like this guy. It would be very funny if you did answer the question with someone who you knew you could get, where it was like, ah, Cody Johnston from the Some More News podcast. I really think he and I would hit it off and then you win. Well, it's possible I did this subconsciously because the other person I've chosen, and this is not a knock against him, is Dax Shepard. Okay. I think that we would get along great. Yeah. Is he from Colorado also? No.

Doesn't seem like it though. Yeah, it sure does. Yeah, he's from Michigan. But he grew up in a small suburb of Michigan. Then he moved to Los Angeles and he went to Santa Monica Community College and then he went to UCLA. And I've got a lot to say about both those places because I live right next to-

What do you have to say about, oh, you live next to- Santa Monica Community College, yeah. I lived right near there. And then do you remember, we used to work with a guy named Johan? Yeah. He went to Santa Monica Community College, so I know a ton about it.

So I've got like a lot of insider knowledge about like things that people like, things that people don't like. They have a football team. That's very funny. Um, and they would just get, they just get destroyed community college games. Um, and then he also went to UCLA, which is where my wife works. And I think, man, also think that his wife and my wife are very, very similar. Um, they've got a game show together. I don't know if you've ever watched it. similar. They've got a game show together. I don't know if you've ever watched it. No.

It's called... His wife, Kristen Bell, for the listeners, who I also think would be a great addition to my friend group. Not necessarily want to hang out with me, but like... Oh, God. What a guest she would be. She would love all the people that I

have around me. Okay. I think it's called family game night their game show oh it's called uh family game fight ah with an exclamation point so we both work on shows with an exclamation point at the end yeah that's exciting uh but yeah they to hear them interact with each other on the show is really it's like it feels so it's just like stripped from my family and yeah she's very funny she's also like very she's just an open book she's let she love how much she loves slots how like and when she doesn't understand something she's very open about it she's like i don't get this i don't get this game she is someone i think uh points against me being her friend is that she is someone who has publicly in the past said very nice things about last week tonight, about the show that I write for.

And that to me means like, ah, I'm not really like that show. You wouldn't like me. Like, I don't talk about the news. You wouldn't like me in real life. I'm only doing that for work um i have a few for you dan that i want to oh yeah i'm past you yes first of all um i'm going to give you a few names and i want you to tell me if any of them like are appealing to you kristen bell is on this list by the way yeah and then i'm going to tell you why she's on this list, by the way. Yeah. And then I'm going to tell you why she's on the list. Okay.

Kristen Stewart. Jennifer Aniston. Okay. Lady Gaga. Jason Momoa. You know that I know what you're doing, right? Zac Efron.

Oh, you do? Oh, you do? What do you think all these people have in common? New Jersey, baby? No. No? These are people, these are celebrities who like rock climbing

oh like me like you you're a rock climber kristen stewart likes rock climbing that's so fucking cool well so here's what i'm suspicious of because i mean i remember when i was trying to be an actor and i had a resume and at the bottom i put my special interest and you throw in anything that makes you sound great in there and like it's something that you've done one time I kayaked for a season once when I was in high school and I will put kayaking on there I'll put like rodeo kayaking on there which is like oh yeah that's like riding sure I'll put anything on there and so I'm wondering if a lot of that people have just found old headshots or something like that. And then be like,

Oh yeah, uh, Lee Michelle, she goes on the list. She likes rock climbing and she's done it maybe once in her life, or she's scrambled up a rock once. Yeah. Um,

but it does seem like Kristen Bell's genuinely into it. It does seem like Zac Efron is definitely into it. Yeah. And Kristen Stewart. That would be cool. I would love to go. I think, um, yeah, I And Kristen Stewart. That would be cool. I would love to go climbing with them. Yeah. I think Kristen Stewart is

a fantastic actor and incredibly cool person and like one of the most watchable movie stars around. That has nothing to do with this episode. It's just a thing that I feel in my heart that I think about all the time. And I don't say it enough, Soren.

She's very compelling. I'll agree with that. Anything that she's in, you can't really stop watching her. She's always doing interesting things. I think that, I think I wouldn't get along with her. She,

I mean, watching her in interviews, obviously maybe she just hates press junkets, but she seems like somebody who's so like bored by it that I'd be, I'd be sweating my balls off trying to impress her. Yeah. I feel the same where when I meet someone, I'm very much doing a press junket interview for them. I'm asking questions and trying to find something fun to talk about.

And if she's just done an entire weekend of that then fucking forget it i'm out yeah it's i don't i would be i would be trying way too hard and it would be clear that i'm trying because i don't know how to hide that and so like that's it's how i am on first dates too i'm like so what can you tell us about what's coming up for you next what are you excited about for the future your last relationship ended six months ago do you have any fun stories from that For the future. Your last relationship ended six months ago. Do you have any fun stories from that? Do you guys like to play pranks on each other?

Come on. I saw you in some of your photos on Instagram. You were some sort of gal. What were you wearing? What was that? I used to think it was jake plumber i thought for sure who was a quarterback for the broncos who was just always seemed like he was had that eli manning syndrome where he just hated football yeah every time you see him on the sidelines he looked like oh thank god thank god i'm done being out there i got i have to go back are you kidding

me um he had that feel to him and he just looked like he he was just a very mellow guy and i was like i think i'm jake i'm jake i'm jake plumber speed i mean yeah jake plumber speed i don't think there's a single athlete that would want to be friends with me really uh maybe maybe renaldo maybe zach levine basketball player for the bulls he likes last week tonight maybe maybe we could talk about that i don't know i really i used to think i could be good friends with paul pierce yeah because that check i wouldn't i i like bowling and he likes bowling and i also don't mind sitting around talking about how great Paul Pierce is. Like that's fun for me too. And I know he loves doing that.

So I feel like we could make a whole day of it. I think actually you would get along really well with Joel Embiid. Really? I do. He's a very funny guy. Because of our love of stoic philosophy? No. Huh.

He's so funny. Have you ever heard him interviewed he's quick uh he's smart i've i've heard him interviewed i don't think i've heard him being funny though he's very funny he's funny on twitter he's he's like he gets it and he gets oh yeah that's right i used to see him on twitter all the time being hilarious that's right yeah okay so you guys would get along great i think he'd be psyched to have that in his, like, that notch in his belt, too, of somebody from

the news. I write the news. I'm going to set it up. Yeah, that would be great. All right. That's all I had for you. Oh, wait, I had a quick question. I don't know if this will get us any mileage,

but it's because you mentioned Dax Shepard being from Michigan. This came up at work the other day without Googling. So a quick question. What's the Midwest? Ohio. That's right. That's what I said too. All right.

Let's see if I can define it. I'm going to give you like a range. I'm going to give you a northeast, Southeast, Northwest, some quadrants, a square to make in the middle of the country. I'm going to say Northeast, it goes as far as Michigan and then it stops, like Michigan and Wisconsin. Then Oh, this gets tough. I wouldn't put Kentucky or anything like that in there. I guess just Ohio. It doesn't go because it's all south below that.

So Ohio. And then I think west, you'd go all the way to Kansas, like Nebraska and Kansas. I went as far west as Idaho. My answer was Ohio, et cetera. And then my coworker was like, be as specific as possible. And I was like, Ohio, Illinois, the Fargo States, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and maybe Idaho. Idaho shocked people. Well, yeah, that's west though but i wouldn't call

it northwest it's not like pacific northwest yeah um but there's i will the dakotas feel like they should be midwest but they are definitely not they're like and i don't think people consider them midwest do they what what else would they be the The West. I think this is one of the things that we learned is that people from the Midwest have very specific definitions of it. And none of the rest of the country thinks about it at all, which is the knock on the Midwest. I mean, like I obviously think about New Jersey and California more than anyone else in the world, but it was interesting to me to realize in real time, oh, I guess I've literally never thought about what I mean when I say the Midwest. I mean, Ohio. That's it.

That's what I meant too. I just looked at a map and I didn't realize that Michigan sits right on top of Ohio. When I gave those quadrants, I was like, and then there's like six states and then Ohio's down there. I don't even know what our country looks like uh yeah it really is just a tiny little box up in that corner yeah i mean up in the very middle um i guess north dakota and south dakota would qualify definitely minnesota wisconsin iowa i was yeah nebraska kansas those feel right and so i would even group oklahoma in there oh yeah yeah but then arkansas is definitely south arkansas south oklahoma feels south to me but i guess i don't i don't even i don't really think about the west often i think about california is the west coast and i think about pacific northwest

as its own very specific thing. But I guess anything between California and where I day-to-day decide the Midwest ends doesn't exist to me. It does feel like it should be like the Rocky Mountains is really the delineating factor. But it's not. It's like, because there's tons of Wyoming and there's tons of Montana where,

even some of Colorado, that's just nothing but prairie and flatlands. It feels very Midwest, but it's not. I don't think. No. I don't know what qualifies. Wait, so somebody asked you this question. Did they have an answer for it?

Yeah. I mean, well, two Midwesterners had a private conversation and they were like, all right, we're going to open this up to the rest. It was clear that there was a fight and it was time to open it up to the rest of the staff. I mean, like,

let's see where the New York and California elites think the Midwest is. And we're all like, Oh buddy, wrong group. Did anybody have any more crazy answers than Idaho? The craziest answer that still made a whole lot of sense was one of my coworkers said, Western Pennsylvania. And I'm like, yeah, that's right.

For sure. Western Pennsylvania is the Midwest. It does. And like West Virginia feels like it should be the Midwest. It's just not. Kentucky, those places, Tennessee, I've never been to them, so I can't say for sure. But just looking at the map, I'm like –

You've been to Tennessee. Put them in there. Oh, yeah, we've been in Nashville. Yeah. Just doesn't qualify, though. That was my other question for my coworkers was, if you're from Chicago, do you think you're from the Midwest or do you think you're from Chicago, do you think you're from the Midwest or do you think you're from Chicago?

Right. And she said both, which is I'm sure the right answer. But in my mind, if you're from Chicago, I don't think you're from the Midwest. It does feel different. Yeah. It feels in the same way where you're like, if you're from Austin, you're not really from Texas. You're from Austin. Yeah.

It just is a little enclave of its own. So here's the thing, though, is that this is the area that's going to survive the coming apocalypse. When global warming starts having all these fires and crazy storms all over the country and the world. Yeah, when that happens. But I mean, even when we start having crazy storms and fires. In 30 years, when it starts to feel very apocalyptic. This area, I mean, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, these places are going to be like the last vestiges of places with water, I feel like. You want to say that about Michigan?

Yeah, I mean, Michigan. Don't they still have a don't they still have a water crisis michigan's got a water crisis flint michigan doesn't don't they like famously have that's yes that's they've got tainted water they've got water with um so what it led in it no what is it i can't remember they've got some sort of poison in their water yes that's correct but in just terms of like actual access to water, any water at all, I feel like that's going to be the last places you can go where also there's not,

it's not the threat of forest fires constantly. I feel like this is going to be the part of the country. That's going to be where all the real estate is because you can't really live anywhere else. You're around, man. I had, this is a natural segue.

Do we have time? We got time. We're going to have a long episode. Yeah. It's sort of a quick question. Go ahead. And I swear this, this is relevant.

Did you read or were you aware of Tucker Max growing up? Yes. They did. Do they serve beer in hell? Right? Yes. Yeah. I hope they serve beer in hell. yes yeah i hope they serve beer in hell um

as quickly as possible to explain this person he uh rose to fame writing essays about drinking and fucking and just being generally inappropriate and was incredibly successful because he was publishing them for free online in 2004 and beyond and this is a period of time a where the options for written comedy online were very thin on the ground you had so few places to turn to and if you wanted an essay to like a long read about something that wasn't the news or wasn't about sports your options were like tucker max or maddox uh or sean baby like kind of very uh aggressively male lightly misogynistic sometimes not so lightly when it's misogynistic uh aggressive essays and uh he became incredibly famous and wealthy writing these stories under the sub

genre that he created called frat tire and published books. They made a movie of one of his books. And, uh, he also, I mean, obviously one of the reasons that he is successful is this type of the, the drunk alpha character that he'd been writing as,

uh, found great purchase in, uh, 14 year old said weird boys on the internet, which I was. Not even 14. In 2004 or whatever, I was still like, as an 18-year-old, I was like, this guy seems cool.

This guy who's like getting out and fucking all the time and not apologizing seems like an interesting guy. It was like gonzo journalism that was accessible for a 14-year-old. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah, okay. And I check in on this person every once in a while because I think about my time

as a young, confused person reading him. And I think like, oh, thank God I found other writers like Jay Pinkerton and David Wong, other people who are writing online that I was like, Oh no, this is much more my style. I much more prefer this type of comedy writing. And, and then thank God for Jack O'Brien inventing crack. And I was like, okay, yeah, I'll, I'll, this is where I'm, I'm supposed to be. Right. Um, cause without those things, I could have very much been like one of these strange tucker max alcohol acolytes but

you want to be he's a celebrity you want to be friends with isn't he he's a celebrity you want to be friends with but i i check in on him every once in a while just out of curiosity because obviously you can't he couldn't still be doing that he couldn't still be doing like i got drunk and and picked up a girl at a bar stories at his age and at this time in society. So I wanted to know what he was doing. A few times I've looked into him. He's been like a vague entrepreneur starting vague businesses. And what he's doing now is this thing that he's calling a movement

called Doomer Optimism. He is, I hope it's not rude to say gone completely insane he has moved to a ranch he is so afraid that the world is going to end but he's not calling himself a prepper he's a a doomer optimist and he's on this ranch where he's raising and killing and cooking his own food. And he's telling everybody that they need to prepare for the end of the world. It's going to happen sooner rather than later. He thinks everything that's happened in the last few years has been a psyops. A psychological operation by the government.

Thank you. Yeah. He doesn't know who is conducting it or to what end, but he is just very convinced, and his military buddies have assured him, yeah, this is a psyops operation happening to control the populace, so you need to go somewhere where you can control your food and control your water and like forget all institutions you were just living uh on your

own compound now and he's he's his tips are uh certainly live on a ranch certainly uh become friends with people in your community certainly get get weapons training, get MMA training, get knife training and be strapped at all times. It's like very scary. It's very weird. It's the, the most surprising place for him to end up to me when I'm looking like, Oh,

what's this, what's this alpha bro doing now? And it's like, Oh, he's, he's raising a family militia on a farm in texas now okay yeah okay if i like just on the dartboard of where i anticipated him being that's not too far from it i expected him to be like taking a a route like milo yiannopoulos where he's just like i'm gonna

say some uh incendiary stuff and then i'm gonna try and back it up somehow and like i the more incendiary the better and like that's all i want to do with my life the fact that he's kind of doing like he does it sounds like he genuinely believes it though like he genuinely believes that the government it i so like with covid doesn't like i assume that's a psyop yes that there's so here's his writing uh in april 2020 i started to smell a rat. I'm no expert in infectious disease or epidemiology, but I know media very well, and it all felt too coordinated and aligned. Something felt very wrong. I just didn't know what. By early May, I knew the whole thing was bullshit. I'm not saying COVID isn't real. For people over 60 with underlying health conditions,

it can clearly be very serious, even fatal. But for healthy people, the infection fatality ratio is lower than the flu. Something wasn't adding up. And here's an insane pivot, Soren. It's settled science. We know this now, not then. But even then, the pandemic just wasn't adding up. Then the George Floyd tape came out and all hell broke loose. They're connected.

It's all one big tie up. Absolutely. big absolutely yeah oh that's okay so here's my next question is that it in the reading of this is he like is there any element of him that sounds gleeful that the end is coming uh a little bit yeah i think that's where the optimist part comes from and like talking about this about this with friends, a buddy of mine was like, oh no, I'm not surprised by this. He always, in all of his writing, at any time in his life,

wanted to be the smartest guy in the room who saw through the bullshit. And this is definitely more of that where he's the only one who sees the end of the world coming and it might be in three years and it might be in 15 years and it might not happen, but he thinks it's going to happen. And if it doesn't happen, he's still right anyway.

Right. The part that worries me is that you're familiar with accelerationists, right? No. Okay. So there's a group of people that they don't necessarily have a political leading. I think a lot of them are right-wing, and they want it for different reasons, but there are people that are called themselves accelerationists

because they are accelerating whatever the end of the world is to them. So in some cases, it's a race war. In some cases, it's like the apocalypse for religious people. For others, it's just the collapse of society, which is a much more anarchistic, anarchy view. But they've all found each other online. Where would you have heard them? Oh, Dylann Roof. Dylann Roof is one. And Dylann Roof is their hero. There's a lot of people that call themselves the bull cuts or whatever, but they're people who saw him as leading the charge of accelerationism. And that's a really dangerous group.

I feel like they're some of the most dangerous people in society because it's only to destroy it. Their main goal is like, no, let's just get to the end. So whatever gets us to the end fastest is like, that's the way we're going to take. So even if they believe in global warming, it's like, good. Even if animals are going extinct, they're like, it's good. Even if anything that happens between police, like how much, what's happened with police in the last few years? And like everyone kind of realizing that the police are these gangs, essentially, these kind of roving gangs in the cities. They're like, good, take down the police are, are these gangs, essentially these kinds of roving gangs in the cities. They're like,

good, take down the police. So like they, they kind of like fit onto all sides a little bit. And so these people find themselves are, uh, they can adapt into these groups very easily where the cause that they're associating with can actually be a good cause, but that's not what their end goal is.

Their end goal is to just kill everything. And I'm worried that that's what he's become i think yeah i there are a thousand reasons to worry about him like it's it would be it would be fun to be completely detached and just laugh at what seems like a guy who fell for conspiracy theories and has changed his life because of it but uh it's not as fun because i'm like 95 certain that he's going to one day accidentally shoot his neighbor or family member because he's cosplaying seal team six or something like that. And if that doesn't happen, I also feel like if you put this guy and his family alone on a compound preparing for the end of the world, and then the end of the world doesn't

happen, he's not going to be like, well, I was wrong. Time to go back to society. He's going to snap in some other way to try to, I guess, like these people, accelerate the end of the world. Yeah. Where they feel it's more important that they're right than anything else. And that's really, yeah, it's scary. Every time that I fall into those rabbit holes where I'm researching those type of people,

I'm like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this to myself? It's not benefiting my life in any way. I can't change them from where I am. It's so scary and not worth my time. Yeah. The interesting thing that our friend Jason Pargin pointed out, because I sent this to him too, because I knew he would be aware of Tucker Max and, and I just wanted to get his thoughts on it. He pointed out rightfully that, uh, it's not enough for Tucker Max to just live this lifestyle.

It has to be a brand. It has to be, it's, he can't even call it prepping like every, like everyone else does. It's I'm a doomer optimist. I'm a new thing. And in fact,

it's a movement. And in fact, I have to talk about it. It's, it's a brand, it's a podcast, it's a lifestyle and I'm living it. Like it would be very easy for him to not do any of those things. And just like, if he thinks the end of the world is coming, just go and live like it is. But no, he, he, he needs to package and, and brand and sell it, which is very sad and very funny, especially because I did some more tooling around on Tucker's website. And he's also part of an organization called Front Row Dads. And Front Row Dads redirects to a website about dads.

And I did just a little bit of digging around. I'm pretty sure it's just friendship. around i'm soren i'm pretty sure it's just friendship i'm pretty sure he just like found other dads that he talks to about fatherhood and he's incapable of like just having friends it has to be like no we're part we're we're front row dads we're part of a new movement about entrepreneurs slash fathers like okay i think you guys just like each other and that's okay. He has to have his angle. He's got to have his angle on. It's different from everybody else's.

Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. This is, it has like this kind of like aggressive color scheme and font to it. But the things that are listed on are things like thriving marriage emotional intelligence it looks like a vision board from pinterest yeah it's amazing but everything's in blood red yeah it looks like it looks like a man soap It looks like man soap. Yeah. Good for him.

Right. Any of those products where it's like, your fucking nuts are sweaty. Get these dude wipes for your fucking nuts. I'm like, yeah. It's the same ingredients as soap, but I appreciate it meeting me at my level. What's his involvement with this thing?

He's deeply invested. He's just a part of it. I don't know. I mean, I guess that's good. It's actually, I it's, it's comforting to know that he has children because I don't see how you can be somebody who wants to hasten the end of the world when you have

children. It does seem like front row dads, uh, right off the bat is the wrong thing when they're like, we help dads win with their wife, win with their children, win at home. No, no, no. Come on, guys. What are you trying to make your wife lose at? I'm reading somewhere right now and it does have that. It's, it's very aggressive. It's like aggressive dadding. Yes. But they do,

they are there. You know what it is? Oh, you know what this is? This is a, if you've ever had to read a baby book, there's always a section in it for dads. And in every single case,

it's, it's so condescending. It's like, listen, it's time to putending. It's like, listen, it's time to put down that beer and pick up the baby wipes because you're going to be changing diapers. You don't even know what a baby is, is the way that it treats you. It's so condescending and the bar is so low. Tips for the first time your baby doesn't call you sir. Yeah. And so a lot of this is like when i had a kid i didn't have all the answers and it wasn't because i wasn't in search of them and like these things are like

just these hollow platitudes about uh about what it means to be a dad and like finding your way as being a dad and and keeping your the rest of your life keeping yourself as well yeah yeah well good for them if they found each other and that's good uh well thank you dan for sharing some tucker max news with me i was not wondering about him i hadn't thought about him since since i think i did an interview with ian 40 at one point and he asked me if there were any comedians that i hated and i said yeah tucker max was the only person because that was a bridge i didn't mind burning and yeah uh and i stand by it yeah it's it's reasonable not to keep tabs on on tucker max for sure i think i was just like an idle curiosity to be like what what this person who i don't think has any real skills, what are they doing now?

How, how are they? Yeah. Well, the surviving that medium is gone. I mean, that whatever that early internet comedy was, that does not exist anymore.

Yeah. Um, and for a good reason. I mean, obviously it was, it was really toxic and created some weird cultures on the internet. Yeah. Uh, all right. Well, that's our show. That the internet. Yeah. All right.

Well, that's our show. That's it. Yeah. Thank you, everybody, for listening. And Daniel, I had a really nice time talking to you. I had a great time talking with you. You can follow Dan on Twitter at dob underscore inc.

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