Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Can We Survive NFL Training Camp? | Ep. 299

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Soren and Daniel spiral from NFL training camp envy to the existential dread of improv comedy. Along the way: childhood coaches who never found the magic words, the dream of living in dorms again, why “maximum capacity” should be on a tombstone, and recurring nightmares about being forced onto  @dropout  Game Changer.Thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/qq 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

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

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

So hello again, it's Quick Question, it's the podcast, two best friends and comedy writers Here it is, we're doing it right now from the start I'm your host, Daniel O'Brien, join us on my co-host, Mr. Sorin Bowie. Hey, Soren. Man, filler has, it's got like this special, like, I used to just ignore filler all the time. But filler, the more and more that I experience filler, like, as I've gotten older, I found a real appreciation for it. From the start. From the start.

Doing it. Doing it. Yeah. From the start. Thanks to Shopify for supporting quick question. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash QQ.

Hi, bye, I'm Soren. I'm ready for American dad. Pleasure to be here. It seems like it should be easy to just talk like a human being. And we were doing it seconds before we started doing the show. just chatting with each other. Yeah. But then once the, the self-imposed pressure of recording comes on, it's, it really throws me for

a loop. Well, you have to announce. You have to, the process of announcing anything is a neighbor because you have to be a few steps ahead. You don't want to get stuck anywhere. And while you're thinking ahead, you're counting on your mouth to just do the, like, to follow in the wake and like negotiate what you need to, what needs to be said. And sometimes your mouth is like, oh, I wasn't ready for this.

we're doing it hard we're doing it hard all the way to the stands can i be vulnerable with you and our listeners and viewers right now i'm i and uh later today i'm recording as a guest for behind the bastards a podcast that is run by my former intern robert evans who's uh whose fame and and power and wealth and influence have greatly eclipsed both of ours um he'll always be an intern in my heart. Absolutely. And I, uh, it's a, I think a pretty good opportunity to plug our podcast on it, uh, not just because his show was much bigger than ours, um, but also I feel like there, a lot of the, uh, cracked fans have followed onto like a daily zeitgeist and the I heart and cool zone media empires. And I was like, oh, if there's a chance to get some of those people

and get them if they don't know they might not know we're doing this so this would be a good opportunity for us to reach those folks and uh i've like scripted out how i'm going to plug our podcast because i i did not trust myself to be like oh thank you for asking i do a podcast with soar and it's about blah blah blah blah blah and you can find it here i had to write it out because i don't That was smart. I feel like it needs to be, I'm not going to trust myself in the moment to describe a thing I do every single week. Right. Yeah, I did Creature Feature recently with my old intern, Katie Golden.

And on Creature Feature, she was like, where can people find you? And I was like, I don't know. Culver City? She was like, no, like, do you have a podcast? I was like, oh yeah, I do. What is that thing called? We're pretty cavalier about telling people on this podcast that we can be found on Blue Sky. I don't know how I would get someone there other than just saying like, yeah, you could just like, like Google Daniel LeBry and Blue Sky.

And I'm pretty sure you'll get there. I don't actually think I know what my handle is. Oh, you don't? Because I don't think I ported over D.O.B. underscore I, see you from Twitter and Instagram. No. No, I didn't either. But, oh, you were that on Instagram as well.

Okay. So, yeah, on Blue Sky, I was like, I was an early adopter of Blue Sky because there were a bunch of different ones. It was a time when I really needed to be off of Twitter because I was really upset with what was happening. And I didn't like the idea of Instagram and threads was happening and mammoth. No. What was the other one?

Mastodon. Mastodon. And Blue Sky. I was like, I'm just going to pick one of these. And I was like, blue sky it is. And then I was, I was like, this is just where I will live from now on. I, this is the only place I will go. And this is it.

No matter how many followers I have, this is it. And I'll tell you, not many. Sure. It wasn't, not exactly everybody from him, X came on over. But you're an early enough adopter that you could purchase a sword and buoy handled. Yeah. And own it. No.

I think I might be Daniel O'Brien, but I, I'm not positive on that and I'm not going to find out now. The thing that I'm here's continued vulnerability about what I'm worried about when I plug our show that I've been doing with you for five plus years

at this point. If Evans interrupts me while I'm doing the plug I'm going to be like visibly and audibly flustered. I really hope he doesn't I hope he doesn't jump in while I'm describing our past or the show

I hope he doesn't like, I hope he just opens the door for me to plug and doesn't describe the podcast first because that'll throw me too. I really need a lot of runway to get out this paragraph of plug. But we're not here to talk about behind the bastards. We're here to talk about our show. Quick question with Soren and Daniel. Are we going to talk about it? Because I don't think I want to do that either. I think I'd rather just talk to you.

I really, I mean, as should be pretty clear right now, I'm only capable of talking about it in a very specific way when I've been set up and I have not been set up. So we just need to move on and talk about something else. There will, I should give a warning here that you may hear what sounds like construction happening in my house. And they may notice that I'm in a different location than normal. I'm currently working on my garage so it looks a little less like the pantry from the shining when I use it as an office. I it's it's just time. It was well as time six years ago, but I'm finally doing it. So garage is getting gutted. That's fun. I my my garage is very high like on my personal dream list of what I would get changed about this house. But where it is on the reality list is so far down. Yeah. It just might as well not be a thought. It's, I'll, so I'm sure that you've probably had these by now because you live in

your house long enough. You will have dreams. Every homeowner has dreams that they discover new rooms in their house or that their house is much bigger than they remembered. And they're like, oh, I haven't been using this whole other wing. And, uh, and the excitement that comes along with like, just having more space. Yeah. And boy, I'm sure you can hear that.

There's a buzz song going. But it's okay. We'll move past. And now we're going to have that. We're going to have like an extra space. I'll tell you kind of what I'm doing there is sort of like a rec roomish thing. It's going to be an office, but there will also be sort of a living roomish area where you could watch TV in there. Like a very cool office. But the most exciting part is that we're vaulting the ceiling of it.

So it goes all the way to the actual, the true roof of the garage. And then we're putting a loft in half of it for my children that they don't know about yet. What's it going to be for your children to do? Just like hang? Smoke weed? Smoke weed, yeah. Wow. It's going to be a lot for them to plan.

It's just like a secret space, basically, that they don't know about yet, and they're going to not find out about until basically it's done. That's so exciting. I thought when you first started talking about this, I thought this was going to be a story about home projects that just never get done, which is something that I'm coming to terms with because we bought this house less than a year ago and we're looking at all the things that are on our dream list

but I also have memories of talking to my parents like I drove past our childhood home not too long ago and was telling my parents like oh this is what the new owners have done to the house that we haven't lived in in like 15 years they've done all this stuff in the front they built out this like front porch and my mom was like I always wanted to do

that was like, oh, so there are some things on my list that'll just never happen then. I'll just leave this house with unfinished business. That's why the ghost come back. So you are going to, you're in dangerous territory right now because you're at the position where you still see the stuff because you just moved in. And you really, you got to knock it out then because if you don't, you become blind to it and then you never do a single thing about it. Yeah.

This garage was six years where I was just like, I got in there and I was like, at some point I should really make this nicer in here. Maybe like when I have a little bit of a break, maybe I'll just make this back room really nice. And then I just got so used to it that I was like, oh no, I just, I freeze in there in the winter and I bake in there in the summer and that's just how I write. And it wasn't until like one day where I was writing and then felt something crawling on my leg and saw a giant spider where I was like, fuck this. I'm done in here.

I shouldn't, this human shouldn't live like this. It's a real risk that I'll be giving someone a tour and I'll be describing my plans for the garage slash shed. I mean like, yeah, we really like to tear this down and like build something a little bit smaller and move it over a bit so we're utilizing our yard better. And they'll be like, dad, when? Yeah. Whenever you want to pull the trigger, I'm into it.

I'll do it for you. I've got a couple of contractors that I use from my house. Hey, if you're starting your own business, one of the hardest things is all the hats. You have so many different hats to wear, especially if you're opening a business as like a competitor to lids. I think you'd have even more hats to deal with. But in general, the figurative hats, all the different things that you have to take care of. There's so many details that are so hard to consider. and there's not somebody just holding your hand

through the whole process to be like, hey, here's another thing you didn't even consider that you have to take care of. Well, now there is. When you're starting off with something new, it seems like your to-do list keeps growing every day with new tasks, and that list can easily begin to overrun your life.

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if you're just starting out, or you're a monster behemoth of a business like mine, if you are somebody who's like competing with the top dogs out there already, Shopify can still help us at any stage of your business. So turn your big business idea into with Shopify on your side sign off for your one dollar per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash qq go to shopify.com slash qq shopify dot com slash qq uh we got to get into the show and it can't be about home repair the last episode was about home repair okay well uh i have a quick question for you go for it unless i'm derailing you is there something else you want to talk about you write something else down you wanted to do no i really was like we gotta move on and i

had no landing pad great okay well good then I'll let me be your parachute um Daniel did do you watch hard knocks no you know hard knocks is yes okay all right it's just wait I'm just you just you just got to remember that just yeah we did and in fact the last time hard knocks came up on this podcast you said I know this won't matter to you because you don't watch Hard Knocks. Like you have... Was that a year ago? Within the last month, you have forgotten that you used to know this about me.

Oh, shit. It's okay. So anyway, do you watch it? I watch it. It's on, so it's a show on HBO Max where they just follow an NFL team around for the beginning of the season. It's like preseason when they're playing their preseason games. And then also there's all these guys on the bubble that they're following. They're like, they may make the team, they may not make the team there by no means ever going to be the star of the team.

But it is like, hey, there's more than just the three guys you know from every team. There's like, there's a real hustle happening here where these guys are like working there at. You've got some, always some long-haired tight end who's a real freak who you're like, man, I'm really rooting for that weirdo. And almost never do they make the team. But then they get like picked up on a practice squad on another team. But I was watching hard knocks and I was like getting found myself doing that. thing I'd do when I found out how much sex was happening at the Olympic Village where I started to get very jealous. And I was like, what am I feeling right now? And I was really checking in on it. And I was realizing that

they've got like a lot of shots of Josh Allen, who is the quarterback of the Buffalo Bills. He's got all these cameras around him. And all the quarterbacks do where they're like monitoring how they throw the ball exactly how their releases and like how they could be doing it better, how they could better use their bodies at every single turn. So you've got this 360 view of somebody throwing a ball and you're just isolating tiny little motions to try and make

maximize how well they throw and they're kind of doing it I mean that's the one we see but they're doing that for every player obviously there's condition the amazing conditioning that's happening there weight training it's like top of the line the forefront of movement like

they know what they're doing when they train these guys and I was thinking that's it I want to figure out how to just go to a NFL training camp I don't we're not going to be hitting yet we're not in pads can I could I survive an NFL training camp sure and I want to know do you think that you could survive an NFL training camp I don't absolutely not I would love to do it for a day though for I think I think similar reasons that you're talking about. And like, again, I've famously never seen Hard Knocked, but I've watched a lot of documentaries about the Golden State Warriors and Steph Curry. And

they're, you'll get like clips of young superstars working with like a coach in high school who will say one thing to correct their shot that changes things forever. And I, I can't throw a fucking baseball. I can't throw a football. I'm I my body doesn't do any of the right things and I think part of that uh is a lack of elite coaching. The fault was theirs all the whole time. I didn't have a clear ceiling there's in the way that like like some uh like a writing a bit of writing advice or a bit of improv or performance advice from the right person at the right time. unlocked doors for me, I think there is probably someone who knows basketball so well that they could see the way I'm shooting and they know the right combination of words

to correct everything. Because, you know, my dad coached me at the league basketball and he could correct anybody else doing just about anything. But there's some disconnect between my brain and my body that normal coaching can't unlock. But I think someone at the elite level could be like, here's the way you need to think about it. Think about your elbow like you're crushing tuna fish or whatever the fuck, whatever weird colloquialism they could come up with. No, it is. Crushing tuna fish. That's what they say. It's crushing tuna fish. Yeah, it's not like a can of it. It's like if you pulled a tuna fish out of the ocean, how would you crush it between the forearm and your bicycle? Keep tuna. This.

60 pound tuna in the crook of your arm and you got a crush it before you allow it out to the boat that makes a lot of sense thanks coach yeah but no i do i do think someone because like i i i've had a ton of different coaches and like friends and siblings and relatives who've tried to unlock things in me that they couldn't when they're just like when they'll say like well you're throwing a baseball bring it back to like your ear and then do this and release it at a certain point and I'm like, I am doing what I think you are describing. Yeah. And the fact that I'm not doing it right probably means someone needs to describe it to me differently.

Right. That's sad that you never got the right coach. Do you have any idea how good I probably am at football sorry? Real good. Just because the gym teachers lacked imagination and they didn't have the vocabulary to connect with me. who was operating on a different level. I mean, don't feel bad for me. Feel bad for the world for what they're missing out.

They never get to see it. Yes, right. Not only could you play football really well, you could be quarterback. Yes. I really want to, maybe if I was like a punter, and I could just sit through training camp as a punt,

if I could sneak on as a punter in training camp, I want to be there for the full thing. First of all, they get to stay in dorms, which I'm very enticed by the idea of, I love the idea of having to be somewhere 100%. Yeah. And then all they're doing all day is conditioning and working. And so they're learning so much about how to take care of your body in their diet, like everything about it. They're learning a ton and I could take all of that information.

I don't know how they know how lucky they are. Like not everybody has that. They're like, you're run, your gate. You're fixing your gate and stuff like that. If there's anything weird about it, they're like, no, you're like, I see what's happening here. You're not tip forward enough. You're too up on your feet. Like, all that type of stuff.

Exercises, like, they'll tell you how to, you're fucking up with your squat. Like, I want all of that. I want to be stuff I will never use, like throwing a football. I want to know if I'm doing it right and I want to do it right. And if I have all of that and I can just memorize it all in that week, fucking cut me. That's great. If I don't actually want to play football, I'm terrified to play football. just tell me what I'm doing.

Do you know what else they get at these training camps? I don't know if this comes up on heart knocks, but yeah, for sure. Brain damage. I've talked about my buddy Ryan Holiday who writes books about stoicism, and he's very famous for writing books about stoicism, and he is contracted to give talks all over the world on this subject, and a lot of this started, like coaches would read his book, professional Belichick and other football coaches would like I love how you're articulating turning obstacles into advantages and I think this could really be applicable to my team will

you come and speak to my team like he was just doing this for a while just like going and talking to teams that is something that also happens at professional sports training camps that I would love to get I would love an occasional guest speaker to just come in and talk about a bunch of shit. I never get that anywhere. Just someone who is like, these are lessons that I've learned from the ancient philosophers that I think could apply to

football. That could apply to my life too. And they're giving it to you in such an easy to digest shorthand because you're dealing with football players. You're dealing with guys who stopped trying at school and high school because they were like, oh fuck, I'm really good at this other

thing. I'm just going to focus on that. Yeah. And you just, like, to, and I know this will appeal to you, but you just, you wake up and you have like your morning run and then it's breakfast time and then it's gym time. You look at your schedule and it's gym time and then it's gym time and then it's lunchtime and then it's like, okay. And then for the next hour, um, the greatest speaker on Stoke philosophy on the planet is going to come in and talk to you for a little while. And then after that, it's yoga. And then after that, it's dinner and just like, man, that sounds nice. Right. Can we do that for more jobs, please?

And now, I understand it's also like, I'm not, I have not yet given credit to how fucking rough this is on a body and like how the tar of training camp is. I understand that. I'm willing to deal with it. I just want to learn the stuff. And I'm going to be throwing up out there. I might be passing out occasionally. That's fine. I'm not trying to make the fucking team.

When we're like running drills and they're like, if you want to, if you want to succeed, like you've got to give it your all. I'll be like, I don't want to succeed. I'm going to give 60%, and that's what you're going to get from me. They're not going to cut me before the end of training camp. Nobody gets that. Fucking 15 years of education has been spent learning mostly stuff I'm not going to do, but it was still okay to go through the motions. I'm going to do it.

Give me a little bit of math. Okay, so another thing that they do in these, I haven't mentioned yet, is that there's a lot of, one of their favorite things on Hard Knocks is when they're all in the room, like they do something nice for the boys, where they like, they get a mentalist to come in and like fuck up there and be like, hey, think of an animal. You're thinking of an elephant. You know how I know that? Because I've set you up the entire day to think of an elephant. And everyone in the room was like, ah! And they all go nuts for this stuff. One of the things that they did in this recent one is they had an improv comedian. come in and play games, play improv games, like the warm-up games, basically, with the players in front of all the other players. They pull like five up. And it's games like he points to you and he says a word, like Charlie's Angels. And then the two people on the other side of you have to put their guns up to the side and then you have a gun up in the middle.

And he's always like elephant. And then two people are on the sides is the ears and one is the trunk in the middle. And as you go through, like you have to know, as soon as he says, your thing, you have to get it right or you're out. It's just a warm-up game. It's an improv-old game. And these football players have never seen anything like this before. This is alien technology to them.

And so, like, when it's working, they are fucking going nuts. They love it. They're the best audience you could possibly have. And I'm like, you know, I don't need an education and philosophy to do that. I know these improv games. I can teach some football players how to play zip-zap Zoom. Sure. Sell the real.

And they'd be like, That'd be like, hey, can I just stick around for a training game? That is not the name of the game. Zipsop zoom? No, zipzaps up. Uh, well, okay. No. I agree to disagree here.

I'm putting my foot down. Zips up zoom. We can search it. Is it regional? I'm seeing zipzaps up, like before I even type the third Zee. Oh, zip-zab Zoom, there it is. Okay, so maybe this is regional. Zip-Zab Zoom is a group game

similar to Zip-Zab-Zop. It says superior to Zib-Zab-Zop. Yeah. Well, then you have the wrong AI. All right. We are both... We're kind of right. Okay, we're both a little bit right.

So I could teach them that. And then maybe they let me just hang out. And then I get to... First of all, I get to talk to people like Josh Allen and be like, dude, buddy, we're the same do you what would you do

after the training camp once you've learned how to at your age now you know the best way to throw football yes what do you do with that coach okay so a lot of that information

will be stuff that I don't use like school a lot of it's going to be like shit that I'm just going to have in my back pocket that like I go to the beach with friends and we're throwing a football. I'm like, fucking go 70 yards away from me. And I will throw this at shoot. It's going to be rad. Just trust me. But it would help with like, yeah, if my son ever played, like, because I do coach baseball. And it's really hard. It's really hard when like a kid shows up who throws from their ear, which means they just pull the ball back to here and throw. And their parent is like, can you fix this? And I'm like,

I don't even know if I remember how to throw a ball all of a sudden. Like, I don't. The mechanics are so, it's such muscle memory for me that I don't remember how to start again. So like learning that again and like learning how you hold where you hold a ball, how you open up your body. So like you're stepping and the other arms going back, keeping it on a plane above your head as opposed to down here by your ear. Like there's all kinds of things that I learn along the way. Yeah, don't. Not there. Not there. So up, up and back. No, not behind your head. That's what Gillie does. Gilly throws like way back here. And I'm like, well, no, that. Oh, good. There's a jackhammer. Yeah. Oh, boy.

Well, we're just going to talk through it. Sorry, everybody. And she, and so, like, teaching, learning again how to throw a ball so that I can teach somebody else how to do it has been really tough. And so if there was somebody who was there doing it for me, I'd be like, I would be taking notes every single fucking day. Yeah. Or, like, their center of gravity.

When they talk to linemen and about blocking, it's like there's so much of it is getting down low and then coming up. and like keeping your feet under you things I have no idea about like those that just don't look like anything when you look at it but they're doing minute little things that are various or like defensive edges

like they're coming off the snap and they are getting they can get their bodies so low like a motorcycle and a race like they're like diagonal in the air and then they can pop up again it's like that's I would love to learn how to do all that stuff

we had in the weekly fitness class that I do. Um, I had a different coach today that I normally do because I went at a different time. And she caught me, uh, holding my lower back at one point because of my, created and bulged disc that I have for the rest of my life. And she, like, singled me out in class and was like, do you have back problems? And I was like, yeah, but it's fine. She's like, no, do you need, do you want to stretch it out? Do you want to, like, fix it? Not fix it, but like, like, pay more attention to it. And she was, she kept an eye on for the rest of class and was like, like, I moved on to a different station and she was like,

you're not doing this. You're doing this other thing. She's telling me when to like cool it and when not to do things and and catered like the post workout stretches around lower back stuff for me. And I wanted to be like, hey, can you, will you come home with me and watch me mok along too? Like, like, there's so much stuff I do around the house that I would love to do correctly. I don't think I can go to physical therapy because I know that if I went, I'd be like, okay, well, I've got this shoulder thing, but really there's about six other things. I'd also just like to bend your ear about. Like, if we could just do these things together, it would be really helpful to me.

Watch me do this. Now watch me do this. What is this thing? What is this thing I'm feeling in the mornings? Like, I would love that. Ideally, I would love to bring in, like, home security cam footage of me doing things because I'm going to be on my best behavior when I'm doing it in class or for my physical therapist. but like see what I'm actually like when I'm working at the computer all day and and I don't think

anyone's watching. That's the stuff that needs fix them. I just somebody who's there to, to everything, they're like, they're just going to strengthen your joints. They're going to make sure you've got flexibility. They're going to make sure you're operating at maximum capacity. And that's my dream. Yeah. Maximum capacity. I went out of my tombstone. He operated at maximum capacity. Well, he wanted to operate at maximum capacity. I mean, we're back to home repairs where you're going to talk about your dream and then your

kids would be like, Dad, when? Yeah. Yeah. You'll be operating at maximum capacity. This is the this is like, I don't care how much work it is. This is different than my home improvement. Well, I guess home improvement, so you're like relying on other people and that's where it gets tricky. But like for your own body, if somebody who's like

here, it's going to take a lot of work, but like here are the things I want you to do. I'd be like, oh, I'm going to do that plus everything I've been doing previously because I don't want to lose any I all that's now magic to me and so like I just going to keep doing anything I've been doing so basically I'm just piling workout on top of workout on top of stretches on top of stretches that I'm like building up this database of stuff if somebody was like hey here's a brand new workout if you just do this it would be great for your shoulders or whatever I'd be like cool I will do that and then I will do my normal shoulder workout

because that's what I've been doing I think what all this is making me think is that from pop culture, midlife crises get a bad rap. It always seems like someone is like dying their hair or buying a sports car. That's not what it's about. It's about wanting to fix things and change things. It's about time before, and now you have time.

It's about saying enough is enough. That's a middle life crisis. I'm not going to get a car. I'm going to, sure, I'm going to do something deeply selfish. I'm going to go to Buffalo for a week and live in a college dorm room. Yes, that's selfish. Not one of those. Idiots who buys a sports car.

I just need to relocate for a little bit. I'm going to spend a lot of money on plane tickets. Yes. For the kids. This is a long-term investment. It's so I can be a better coach to the kids. I would hope that that's where I could use it. In likelihood, I would never be able to.

But, I mean, all the workout stuff, I would. Just seeing, like, if they're going to give you different routines every single day, the same way you would have, like, a trainer. A trainer's going to be like, all right, well, let's shock the muscles. Like, let's do something brand new. And you'd be like, oh, I didn't even thought about doing it this way. Like, they're going to give you a bunch of that shit. And if you can just write it all down, this is all I do on Facebook every single day.

It's like, I go through and look at these, my algorithm feeds me different. workouts and I'm like okay I'll try that one yeah and then I go do it and sometimes I'm like yeah that was nice that's going in the collection like that I'll add that to the arsenal and other ones I'm like this was just like they're just trying to get clicks they're like hey the worst thing you can be doing for your chest is flies and you're like oh oh that's what everybody does show me what I'm supposed to be doing instead oh I'm supposed to be throwing a hammer interesting it's it's funny to me that those those are the things that that work on you the the the viral workout things that are always going to catch me in their in their little traps are

100% things like according to men's health this is what tom holland did to get in shape for spider man and i'm like yeah that's the workout that i want to do too and then i do it we talked about this before but yeah you see you see the bodies it was the miles teller top gun exercise been just like there was one that got you before that the chris pratt one got you before that did it really that sounds right i mean it's even though i know even though i know they're wrong and i know they don't work it's still you get a headline that is like here is what this person did to get in shape for this fucking marvel movie and i'll be like yes yeah well because you can see it i know you're like oh i would also like to look like that and be that tall yeah surely i could do that

I understand that Colleen had a friend and her husband was a trainer for guys who were doing movies like 400 and stuff like that. Yeah. And I was like, oh, look. The sequel that no one talks about. 400. They should get more attention. It was really good. I think there actually was a sequel to that movie. But it was not called four.

Yeah. I think it was not called four. Yeah, I can't remember if it was a sequel or a prequel, but it was definitely bad. Yeah. Something that wasn't about Thermopyly. Nobody gave a shit. Yeah. But, yeah, 300.

So I was like getting those guys in really, really good shape. And I was like, hmm, hmm, maybe I'll work out with this guy. Then I started to realize he was constantly injured. And I was like, oh, oh, right. If you're going to get somebody in shape super, super fast, you're pushing that body to the point where it's not a healthy situation. Yeah. It's not a, it's not something you can maintain for a long periods of time. I don't think I want to do this.

No. And the very annoying thing about these, the Tom Holland workout or the Miles Teller or Chris Pratt workout, it's, what I say is true. I want to get in that really good shape and I'm looking for the list of exercises. That list exists. There's like, for all the new fads that come and go, there's like a pretty standard list of things that a person can do in the gym and in the kitchen that will get them where they want to go. And like, it's just pure stupidity or ADD on my part that I'm like, no, they just haven't. They haven't cracked it yet. They haven't written the right list and the new list will be the correct one. It's like, no, it's like the

boring stuff that's been true since before I was born. Sort of. Sort of. And I don't mean to feed this part of you that you don't like, but there are just like baseline workouts that you could do that would make you better. That would like make you stronger, make your, you like look stronger too, which I think is always like a goal of everybody too. But then you're kind of like you can reach a plateau in that. And then beyond that, it's individual body types. And so like you can't, some guy could be like, this is the way to do it. But if you don't have the exact, like the same type of body as him, that's not actually going to work super well for you. Yeah. So you're just like sort of doing like this scatter plot of like, well, what is everybody saying? What is the ones like

trying to find ones from each individual person and like pull from, same with the writing. Like writing's a great example. How do you write? You can read something like Stephen King's on writing and you're like, oh, that's really interesting. Like, that's how you should do it. But it's not necessarily true. There's a lot of conflicting information out there from other writers who are like, no, that's not how I do it at all. In fact, that would be really detrimental to my writing. And so you got to kind of like go through all of them and then you find the one where you're like, oh, this is working for me. I see. This is like for my type of brain. And then it works. sorry so it's okay

what time for you know some racist in origin theory in orange theory will help you Dan I have another quick question for you hit me are you familiar with the show Game Changer yes I drop out love it yeah yeah actually I don't actually know this how do you I don't even know how you've watched

anything on Dropout, other than if you're on Facebook, and it just comes across your feed. I am one of many proud subscribers to Dropout. Oh, so you just subscribe and you watch it on your computer? I subscribe and I pay money and I watch it on Dropout.tv. Yeah, I had a free trial in the beginning because when Dropout first launched, I did some work for them on the text side of things. Oh, okay.

And I got hooked pretty early. And then when my subscription ran out, I just kept paying with actual money. Okay. Well, for anyone who doesn't know, Game Changer is like a game show, Sam Reich, a hostet, who used to run called Chumar, and now runs Dropout. And he's, it's a game show where, like, it's very confusing how the points matter, when the points matter.

It's a game show that's designed to, like, take a deconstruct what a game show is, basically. But he has comedians on. He's got this stable comedians that he's. he's gathered and like they're the ones who exist throughout the dropout network they're like on every single one of the shows but he's just cycling them through a group of very funny people doing a bunch of different funny stuff and I had a dream the other guy so I watched the show I watched dropout I had a dream the other night that I was asked to be on dropout which isn't inconceivable no it's not inconceivable given that like we had like a shared history

that like we all knew each other yeah then I got asked to be on dropout and I was like Like, as I'm not on dropout, on Game Changer. And I'll just say that even in within the dream, Dan, it was just at every turn, me mitigating disaster because of how bad I was doing and how bad it was going. There's a lot of, there's a lot asked of the contestants on that show. There's a lot of vulnerability asked of them because they're like on the spot,

asked to do like a short little improv scene every once in a while and be really funny. Yeah. And I don't, that muscle is asking. I don't have that anymore. I'll also say, everybody on the show, 15, 10 to 15 years younger than I am, sure. So there's also a generational disconnect as well that I think would be a big hindrance if I was ever on this show. And it was a nightmare.

This was a honest-to-god nightmare that I was on Game Changer. And I woke up, because I've always watched that show, just like Taskmaster and thought, it looks like a lot of fun. Yeah, I think I would like to do something like this. this would be great. I don't want to play the game. I don't want to play the game anymore. My dream was like, you're not ready for this, man, and you're not going to be. Your ship has sailed. Can I tell you? So our listeners should know that Sorin and I discussed this yesterday. He was texting me that he got, he had this nightmare about being on Game Changer and would we be able to talk about it for an episode of the show? He texted me. Last night, it infected me. And I had a nightmare about having to do that prof. Not through game changer. But, like, you incepted me. Because when you texted me, I was like, I think I could probably do game changer. I think I could have fun. And, like, improv is never really a muscle you lose.

You can know it's just, like, always stay sharp. And even though it's a dream, a nightmare where it's not real, it was real enough. There was like, that's probably how I would handle an improv situation right now. Whereas, like, not only was my improv bat, but there was a group going. before my group and I got to the theater late and made a loud noise in the audience and the people on stage called me out for it and I didn't even have a funny thing to say then and then their show wrapped up and it was my turn to be on stage and and I was just like this is what like even even in a dream even with the power of dreams I'd like it doesn't

need to make sense can I just be like spiritually a good improviser in the dream no no I was drawing blanks on stage. It felt very real to me. It's such a cruel, cruel thing for your brain to do it. Because in my dream, everybody else was doing pretty good. And when I looked back on like what they were doing, I was like, oh, that is funny. Yeah, that's pretty funny. I just couldn't give it to myself.

I was making all that up. I was everybody. But I was going to let myself succeed. I'm in a scene with four people and all the other people are like doing business that my subconscious gave them to do. but the character of Daniel was just incapable of making a choice. It was just like, all right, that guy's sweeping so I can't sweep. That guy's out of his phone. I can't do that.

This guy's got a little accent. My character, they took all the good ones. And it's like, no, you took all the good ones. They are just like, presentationally, they are very funny people. Everybody, the same has found. He's done right. Like, he found the right ones. And there's nobody on that show who's a weak link.

Like, they're all really fun. They're fun to watch and they do a good job. And I think he also has them play to their strengths a little bit or the writers do. But given that this is like on the spot every time and that's sort of the point of the show, I'm so amazed every single time I watch it. And I'm like, I don't think I have this in me at least at one point I did. It's also, it's wild because like I mentioned, again, I mentioned that I'm doing behind the bastards today. I'm going into this even though I don't know who the bastard is going to be. I am preparing myself to have things to say and be in the moment and respond to things

because I want to, and I'm listening to the show to re-familiarize myself with like the most recent episodes to see if there's anything instructive there. And this is the level of preparation I do to be a guest on a nonfiction podcast, just trying to figure out where I fit in and what I'm supposed to do functionally. I don't know how anyone prepares for game changer because like the spirit of the show is the contestants don't know what the show is, what the theme of the show is going to be. And they just have to like show up to work and get behind a podium knowing that this episode could be like Survivor or this episode could be a singing episode or it could be one where you're doing impressions or where you're like playing characters, whatever it is. And they just like, I don't know, put out a fucking shirt and go to work. And I just don't know if they asked it to be on Game Changer, how I would prep for the unknown, I don't think I would do well with it.

I would like, maybe I could just like try to script a few improv bits. Yeah. I mean, in a show like Taskmaster feels infinitely easier than Game Changer where I'm like, oh, I'm just doing the task and like, I can be funny as I'm doing whatever this is. That's no problem. It's like you've got to come up with scenes on the spot and stuff like that. Or you've got to, like, you've got to figure out if Sam is just fucking with you. Yes. And, like, making it hard on you.

There are people on the show who I see, they're like, do something incredibly vulnerable right now. That's like, Sam, it's like, Sam says do something incredibly vulnerable right now. And so somebody's like, like, as somebody who weighs 270 pounds, I'll be like, you know what? I've never been able to do one of these, but I want to try it right now. I'm going to do a cartwheel. And you're like, oh, my God. No. I can't look at this.

They do it. bad and it's like devastating and it looks like they're injured and he gets up after a little wild leg there and he goes I'm going to try it again oh god how are you doing this I just don't think there's enough space to store my ego no and put it aside I have to wear it because it's all I have it's not the spirit of the game to you never see the contestants who we're like, can we cut that? Can we please cut that part where I embarrass myself or just or or you never see contestants asking for a little bit more time to come up with their improv?

Or they're not stumbling, which is a fantastic and amazing and I don't understand that either because I used to do improv, even at like the height of my improv, which was not high. It was like the foothills of my improv. I was still stumbling over words or like deciding in the middle of a sentence something that would be a little bit better and like trying to. like retcon on it. It just sounds messy generally when you don't have scripted lines. And they're not doing that either. And I'm like, what the fuck? So mad at these people, these youngians. I know. I was, uh, I did, uh, I was a guest on, uh, it's, I think it's called going down

live now. It used to be called, uh, late stage live. That's right. They had me on last year. And it was incredibly loose and it was like improvy game type situation where I'm playing a heightened version of myself as a late night television writer and we mapped out story beats together and over and over again

the writers were like it's fun, it's easy you're set up for success just come out here and like hit these beats and I scripted so many fucking alts for myself in this this like loose improvised thing and it was like me and I've talked about this before

Martin Urbana who's a fantastic comedian and writer and he was like truly in the moment truly like didn't prepare anything like we were talking backstage and he was like it seemed like this should be pretty easy pretty fun just like go out there and do stuff and I was like yeah Matt as I'm cycling through like three pages of all fake off the cuff things

that I can say it's so dangerous It's so dangerous because if you've got good ones, you're going to want to use them. And then you're like trying to shoehorn it in a place where it doesn't totally fit. And then the joke doesn't land. And you're like, ah, shit. You should either save that one or just not used it. What a waste.

That's how standup was for us. We know when we first started. You and I had a very similar temperament when it came to standup where it was like, oh, no, I'm not just going to go up there with the idea of a joke. I'm going to get it perfect on paper. And then I will say it. Yeah. And I eventually lost that, and I got more comfortable just sort of like going up on stage and talking and being funny, which is, you know, stuff that we did on panels and live podcasts once we had practiced it enough. And I started to feel like this is the probably the best use of whatever my art happens to be.

But I've lost all that. I've lost all that. Yeah. Well, you know what? Here's a thing. We have time for this. I've noticed that doing this podcast with you

I've become a terrible conversationalist in my everyday life like just hanging out in groups or hanging out with one other individual person I cannot fucking help myself when there's a starts to be a silence you and I think have a very good sense of like when to pick up a conversation

and when to like let the other person speak and like when the other person seems like they're starting to dwindle out it's like you come in and swoop under and then you start talking for a while and like we're very good at that only because we've been together for so long in our relationship. Yes, yeah.

But you don't have that with other people. And so you're just like, you're kind of listening to them, but you're also like, what is the story I could do? Here we go. This will burn some time. And it's just like, it's just who I am now. And it's not a likable person. No, we're just podcasting 24-7.

I can't. That's just how conversations work to me now. Or I'm just waiting. I'm like, oh, fuck, that reminds me of this. Oh, that would be a fun one. I bet people would like that one. I bet the people listening to a home would like that one. Yeah.

Just sitting around, I'm like, Mom, this was such a great dinner. We'll be right back. Yeah, after these ends. All right. Well, let's be done. Yeah, that sounds good. All right. Thank you, everyone, for listening.

This has been quick question with Sorin Daniel. You knew that. If you liked our theme song, that's by me, Rex. You'll find their music anywhere you stream music. If you want a video version of this podcast, you can do that on YouTube. We also are on Apple subscriptions. I think that we have a video version there as well. And if you were on Apple subscriptions, you could also find the better, no, I don't want to say better.

The different and shorter version of this podcast would do for our Patreon to subscribers. You can find that on Patreon or on Apple subscriptions. And if you like this podcast in general, that's because of our very monogamous. What? He's monogamous in that he only works for us. Gabe Harder, our monogamous producer who will not answer your calls, I promise you. He just works for us. Not interested in updating his website.

He wants to know their jobs other than ours. That's it. Bye. Bye. important I'm just glad that we could talk tonight. So what's your favorite? Who did you get? When will I be in remember?

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