Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Dearest Martha...

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

This episode the guys review a fancy new movie (that Soren has actually seen!).  Also Daniel gives us an update on his new daredevil hobby. And as always big thanks to our sponsors.  Thanks  Magic Mind! Go to magicmind.co/QQ and use code QQ  at checkout for 20% off. Thanks Truebill.com/qq.  it could save you thousands a year. Thanks Nutrafol. Get $15 off your first month’s subscription plus free shipping:  Nutrafol.com promo code qq  

So hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers ask each other questions and give each other answers. I am one half of that podcast, author, cook, and beach boy, Daniel O'Brien, joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, say hi. Hi. Yeah. Got kind of soft there at the end, didn't it? I liked it. You know, it also started to take on sort of a game show cadence that I liked a lot. Yeah.

And I realized that that's maybe only true of game shows where there's that like, the only show where you can do this. And here we go. And here's how the game works. One player will start. Thanks to Nutrafol for supporting Quick Question. Nutrafol is a physician formulated to be 100% drug-free. They use natural,

medical-grade botanicals in consistently effective dosages. Though there's still no cure for me wanting to pull my thick hair out on account of my ex-wife. You can grow thicker, healthier hair and support our show by going to Nutrafol.com

and entering the promo code QQ to save $15 off your first month's subscription. Thanks to Truebill for supporting our podcast. From forgotten free trials to automatic renewals, when big companies keep charging you, Truebill is your secret weapon to save you money on subscriptions you don't need.

Go right now, truebill.com slash QQ. It could save you thousands a year. Thanks to Magic Mind for supporting our podcast. Magic Mind is the world's first productivity drink that helps you fight off stress and keeps you dialed in, not wired. Go to magicmind.co slash QQ and use code QQ at checkout for 20% off. I've been taking an orange theory class on Monday mornings with my friend Susan. Shout out, Susan. You got a beautiful voice, voice of an angel. And she pointed out that our coach in our classes sounds like he should be introducing segments on Double Dare.

And I can't get that out of my head now. Like, all right, Treads, we're going to have you. Treads got down in three, two, one. Now, Treads, onto the floor. Floor, I'm going to have you guys on the rowers right now. The rowers. I'm like, man, I can't keep a straight face in this fucking class anymore. rowers i'm like man this i can't keep a straight face in this fucking class anymore uh that would make my day i think even in an orange theory because that's that's grueling

right that's just tough i mean you're just you're it's it's hit it's high intensity interval training and you're you're just like constantly moving and uh it's it really throws you off your game if you think now and have you step off that treadmill and reach up into the big nose, find that flag, find that flag blue team. Oh, you didn't get the idol. You got to go all the way back. I guess that's a different one, but still the same, same energy. Yeah.

Now, Daniel, you never went back to that gym where the person was clearly making up how to do it and exercises on the spot, right? that gym where the person was clearly making up how to do it and exercises on the spot, right? No, they finally called me two weeks after I went to that one class. A different person. The same person... So it's one person that I've been on the phone with every

single time and one person who taught the class and they are not the same person. And the phone person is the one who called me back and was like, Hey, I don't know if you remember, but you wanted to join this gym maybe and we kept going back and forth and i just wanted to see how you were feeling i was like yeah i don't think it's for me it's no i went to the gym and it just doesn't have what i'm looking for right now and and this has never happened at any gym i've ever been to in my life. Absolutely no fight whatsoever. No follow-up questions. Just all right. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. That really throws me because gyms are famous for

being like, not going to let, I'm not going to let you go. I got to make the sale or I got to keep you around. I had a similar experience when I quit Equinox recently where I called them up and I was like, I bet I'll have to go in. I bet they'll make me come in person. I called it up and I was like, Hey, front desk person to answer the phone. Didn't transfer me or anything. I was just like, Hey, I'd like to cancel my membership. And they go, okay. Wow. And what's your name? My name is Soren. Okay. I found you. Yeah. Okay. You're good to the end of February, but you're done. I was like, okay, that's good. You don't want me. Yeah. You're not going to make me walk home from the gym and promise me my wife is behind me, but I'm not allowed to look at her? And then at the last minute, I do?

None of that. I guess they were just like, oh, good. We've been looking to free up some spots. And that guy was dead weight. But I joined another gym. I joined a gym in Playa Vista here here near me and when i went there to try it out the guy was like where are you coming from and i was like equinox and he was like okay all right i'd be interested to talk to you at the end of this and i was like oh what's this gonna be

and at the end of the experience he goes so how's my gym compared to equinox like he was so proud of his gym that he was like i want to be honest with me let me have it constructive criticism whatever you got like what do you think about my gym compared to where you were is this gym a uh a chain or is it like it is a chain yeah it's a chain and it's not a chain that you would consider as like a top shelf chain. But to his credit, this was the best of all the gyms that I tried. This one was great. This one, I will say, had all the weights in the places they were supposed to be, which phenomenal start.

Any gym where you can get all the free weights on the rack in the spot where they're supposed to be, you have a gym that i would like to go to because i'm sick of being at gyms where you're you just you spend you know half an hour looking for 35s the whole time like well okay well maybe they're over on the maybe they're upstairs with the ellipticals maybe they're over here i hate that and and this gym is nice and clean it was i loved it i thought it was great i'm gonna join it uh i am i'm all set to go and i really like this guy because boy did he take pride in it he was showing me around and he was like i was saying this gym is really nice and being as i was washing his balls a little bit um but he was like well it's hard it's hard work and he's like seriously he's just staring at something on the ground and i'm like i look over where he's staring and there's just the tiniest bit of um paper towel on the floor he's like excuse me for a second and like rushes over and grabs it and puts it in trash can i was like

oh i don't know if this is pageantry but i love it i love that that was bothering the guy so much that he couldn't listen to me that there was a little bit of paper towel on the floor that's a very good sign there's uh at my non-orange theory gym my retro fitness gym there's like fully spit on the floor and not only is no one like in a rush to clean it up it's just like yeah this is gyms what the fuck this is this is what we this is you're in a retro fitness in the present what do you think that's so rough man uh wait how many gyms do you belong to i uh i don't think i like orange theory isn't a gym that you belong to that you you could just go to they only do classes it's just like like round the clock classes and i have a plan where where it's like i'm gonna i can fit in

one class a week so i i'm on that plan with Orange Theory. And I have my stupid retro fitness gym. And I don't know if I'm going to commit to joining a rock climbing gym. I'm in the same boat, Daniel. I was just thinking about how there's one that's very close to me that would be fun. I've gone with my son a couple of times. He's into it. I would love to join a climbing gym again, assuming that the time just appears for me where I can go. And now that it seems so cheap that I'm at a new gym instead of Equinox

because Equinox is, it's terrible. It's terribly expensive. And each year they don't reward you. They don't like lock you in at a price. No matter who you are, the next year your rates get raised. Really? Yes.

So every single year that you are a member of Equinox, your rates go up. Why? I don't know. I think it's an exclusivity thing. It's like there's this weird desire to be among the affluent and it translates to gyms. Definitely. desire to be among the affluent and it translates to gyms definitely do they do they do they ever try to justify that with like in inflation i don't know i sure probably they say like rising costs and everything but it's it's a considerable amount every single year it's like five dollars a month every single year that is nutso bo butso that's one of the most bonkers things i've ever heard yeah it's awful

um meanwhile i joined this gym for 18 months locked in at a rate and they're like and we guarantee you that when you then you're in your next contract this will be your rate and i was like okay i like the way you do business let's do it yeah that's it's it's like the opposite of real estate where it's like yeah i joined equinox in 1975 uh and now i pay three hundred thousand dollars a year right they do not reward you for your loyalty by any means because they don't think they think they need to yeah anyway screw that jim i'm done with it i'm done watching those people carry ropes around. It's wrong. I wonder if our audience realizes that after every record, I talk to myself and say, spend less minutes on the podcast talking about gyms and working out because that's not what people are here for. It's true.

And every week we fall back into it. Well, here's the thing. You dedicate some of your life, some quadrant of your life to it. And whether that's two days a week, three days a week, six days a week, whatever you're doing, that's something now that's taking up a bunch of your time. And so you're thinking about it. It was the same when I had children. I was so scared, scared. I was so scared to talk to people about my kids when I had

my kids, because I was like, they don't want to hear about this. It's all I think about, but they don't want to hear about it. You just have to let it go. And so people were like, why don't you post more pictures of your kids? How can we never show us your kids? Like, I don't, I don't think that's a good idea because you're just turning on the faucet at that point. But I'll make a concerted effort not to talk about the gym on this podcast. Unless that's what people want. I have no idea. There's no sense of what anyone wants or gets out of this.

The two times a year that we get together with our business business guy to talk about what what episodes perform better than other episodes the takeaway is always it's unclear they it appears people just like listening in on your phone calls which is great that's we'll just keep doing that right we've done episodes where we really prepped like we brought in music yeah we want to talk about specific songs we did our research we're like surely those perform better he's like no about the same when it comes to thinning hair you no longer have to choose between natural remedies and those that work oh something that's natural and useful that also works sounds like my ex-wife she was the chief breadwinner in our household there's a holistic solution for men that promotes both

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Plus, free shipping on every order. Get $15 off at Nutrafol.com, spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L.com, promo code QQ. Do you know why free trials renew without your consent online? It's a business scam. The idea is that they don't want you to remember that you want to quit that site. I know because I used to work for one. We took subscriptions from people and then years later, they would say, why am I paying for this? And we go, ah, gotcha sucker. If you're suffering from way too many subscriptions, there is a way out and you don't even have to talk to anyone, which let's be fair.

That's the worst part. Let Truebill do the work and set you free. Average users save $720 a year using Truebill. Now by law, most states don't have to disclose when subscriptions renew. I know that because I used to work for one of those sites. God, you're, you're, you're itching to know what it was. Aren't you get a hold of your subscription with Truebill. Here's how Truebill works. It's an app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions that you forgot about. Look, we all have signed up for a lot of things. Your streaming services alone, you must have five or six like me.

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In a matter of seconds, I've saved $660 for the year on my DirecTV bill. Saved $120 for the year on my SiriusXM bill. Saved $840 a year on my SiriusXM bill. Saved $840 a year on my car insurance. Matthew B was in a bit of a bind, it seems, because he forgot a lot, a lot of subscriptions. Probably more than you would have. Don't fall for subscription scams. Start canceling today at Truebill.com slash QQ. Go right now. Truebill.com slash QQ. It could save you thousands a year. Truebill.com slash QQ. There's no shame in being a quitter. All right. Well, let's talk about movies.

Yeah. Are you all right with that? Yeah, I am. I want to ask you a quick question. I can't remember if we have a segment title for this or not. I don't think we do. Let's talk about movies yeah no you're right that was it that was it uh quick question dan go have you seen nightmare alley yes follow up before you say anything follow-up question are you proud of me for knowing what nightmare alley is no and how long has it been out it's

got to be like what a week uh this is a remake of like a 1947 or 48 movie so oh that makes a lot of sense that could have been the one you're talking about no i'm talking about the most recent one and uh this movie i just got a screener for. So it can't have been out that long. Yeah, that's right. That one, the Bradley Cooper Guillermo del Toro movie came out last year. And this is a rare moment of synchronicity with us because I finished this movie last night. Tell me your watching experience. I have been trying to watch this fucking movie

for maybe a week and a half and i love watching movies and i have almost nothing to do at night and i just like settled in sometime last week because it's on hbl max now and i put it on and i i fell asleep the first night. And I was like, okay, I want to give this movie an honest shot. Like,

I don't think I was that bored. It must have been late. So I started it earlier and fell asleep again and then put a few days of distance between me and it.

And finally, my third attempt last night, I finished this movie and like, one of the things that made me tired every time I... I'm going to give the game away. I did not like this movie. One of the things that made me tired about it is...

I'm working with a TV that's new to me, but kind of old. It's not my favorite TV in the world. Okay. A TV that's new to me, but kind of old. It's not my favorite TV in the world. So it doesn't remember where I fell asleep. And even if you pause it, it doesn't keep that in its memory. So I've had to fast forward to the most recent thing that I remember every time I've started this movie again. most recent thing that I remember every time I've started

this movie again and both times that I restarted it and fast forwarded I was so bummed at how much more movie there was left especially last night when I was like alright I'm gonna let me fast forward and I'm like no I've sunk days into this now

surely I can't still have an hour and 40 minutes left in this movie but I did it's a long movie and uh everyone is clearly good in it and like yammer del toro i he tells i i'm i'm always excited for expensive-ish movies for adults. Like, I say that instead of R-rated because I don't want R-rated to just mean I need it to be

crass. I just mean like, this is not an action movie. It's not a horror movie. It's just like, this is a movie for adults. This gets adult content on the MPAA rating card. Yeah, and it's just like this is this is a movie for adults and that's their adult content on the mpa rating card yeah it's one of the it's one of the it's it's hard to get those movies made in 2022 no one wants to put up money for like a 40 to 70 million dollar adult movie because as soon as you get a movie that's rated R,

that's not like part of a larger action or horror franchise, you're immediately cutting out, uh, the audience, the population, the subset of the population that actually goes to movies, which is younger people who can't, who aren't old enough to get into R rated movies.

You're cutting them out. And no one wants to take a chance on a $70 million Guillermo del Toro or Jason Reitman or Rian Johnson movie. So it's just a rare thing that they get made, so I'm always rooting for them when they do come out. But I just...

I just... did not like this movie. What day would you say you started this movie do you have any sense of when you did uh what like i can pull i started i'll tell you okay i'm looking at a calendar right now because i was the fact that we had the exact same experience with it is so it's just like music to my ears because this is generally how i end up watching movies is in little installments just because I don't have a ton of time for movies. And it certainly hurts the experience.

It means that I don't get nearly as invested. I have to like reinvest myself when I started up again. But I started this the Thursday before the Super Bowl and I finished it last night. Okay. Yeah. We started it the same week. I'm going to put mine at at february 8th or 9th and so i watched this movie in the smallest installments and then the problem was

that they got smaller and smaller because i would pick up my phone and start doing something on it and find an article i wanted to read and be like oh okay and then it was just never the priority i was never just hooked into this movie and i was trying to figure out why because you're right all the elements are there i like yelmer guillermo del toro i like the sets are phenomenal it's got this cool noir feel and you go from the agrarian kind of um back sticks darn it yeah it's that it's all feels very like it's all hay and twigs and dirt and then you go into like the rits of the city and you go into these really expensive offices and stuff it all looks so cool the people in it are all very cool i like every single one of them

individually and man did this movie just not hold my attention at all it is i like noir too like i like dark old 1943 stories or 1940 stories and that's just it is i like noir too like i like dark old 1943 stories or 1940 stories and that's just it's just sucked i feel like i was the the the two of us are like the the best shot this movie had for an audience and and neither of us liked it uh it did make me uncomfortable i mean i guess that it had something going for it in that sure but in a way where I didn't want to keep watching it, you know, because you worry. I worry about my main characters. But it made me realize also that I don't think Bradley Cooper belongs in a period piece. There are certain actors who I think could be our great actors.

And for whatever reason, they just look too new. Yeah, he's he's very new and also incredibly handsome. And that's not no knock against Cate Blanchett. She's one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen in my life. I also think that she should only be in period movies. Yeah, she's she's yeah, she does not. When I watched her in in Don't Look Up, I was like, no, you're too complicated and interesting for this part. Yeah, she is. don't look up. I was like, no, you're too complicated and interesting for this part. Yeah.

Um, she is, she's somebody who looks, God, does she look like she belongs to that, that time period in a way where I'm like, yes, you belong here.

Don't do anything else. Just play these, be in Howard Hughes movies and be like, this is you. Yeah. Um, and then meanwhile, Bradley Cooper,

who looks like, uh, a 2020s hunk shows up at at this carnival and they're like, I guess we can find some work for this kid. What the fuck are you talking about? That's the hottest guy on the planet Earth right now. Make him the lead in your carnival. Willem Dafoe. His glistening white teeth.

Somehow, even with stubble, you can't make him look worse than he is like he looks so good and clean all the time look at his eyes him trying to do an affectation with his voice to try and even sound somewhat like he belongs to the time period when he's doing the magic and he's up on state not magic when he's doing the seances and he's up on stage i'm just like no you're not yeah that's not that's not where you belong you You belong in Wedding Crashers, my friend. But it's him, mostly, I think. I couldn't get behind him being in 1940s America. It must be tough for you to watch movies in bits and pieces like this, because I don't normally. And certainly one of my takeaways from it was when I finally arrived at the end of this movie last night.

And of course, I'm like you, I'm pausing it and writing letters back home of, dearest Martha, it's been so long since I started this movie. I fear, how are the children? Will they remember me when I return from watching Nightmare Alley? When I finally got to the end, and like the end i i know just by like understanding film language that it's it's a striking ending but i i arrive at it and was like okay okay so it's done now all right good and like there's no it doesn't have any impact of, I, I didn't feel like I arrived at the end of a movie that I was, that I had been watching. It was just like, okay, it's, I'm, it's like if someone had put up a bunch of clips of

a movie on YouTube and I had just been bouncing around on it and like, oh, oh, okay. He, oh, he was Kaiser Soze. Okay. Yeah. That's cool. I guess where like i i the movie was over it didn't feel like it was finished it was just like all right i'm done with the act of watching this movie now had no impact whatsoever it does if it's like a greek tragedy and that i don't really care for the main character and that's such a fucking cop out of a criticism i don't like it when other people are like well how i don't i just wasn't invested in the character like well that's because people are complicated like you want to i know you want to root for them but they can't be a perfect you

want them to have some flaws you want to be crazy a little bit but he's just had just no redeeming qualities at all i've had it very hard to like care what happened to him yeah it's it's not super clear what he wants and and yeah i i think when when when the only thing about a character is they just is is pure ambition and like especially i guess the main thing he wanted was lots and lots of money it's like oh yeah that's that's kind of we're still making movies where we're like, all he wants is money. That's kind of boring. Yeah. And it didn't especially when everybody has all the money they could possibly want right now. Yeah.

What's he going to do with it? He already has money. Yeah. So anyway, I was very curious about how you how you saw it, because I watch a lot of movies this way. It does keep me from getting invested in these movies a lot. But it doesn't mean that I won't enjoy what I'm watching. I watched The Woman Across the Street from The Lady in the Window, which is a show.

Is that Kristen Bell? Yeah. But it has a movie quality to it because you definitely, throughout the arc, you get to the end of a mystery. And I also watched that in installments that were shorter than the episodes and these episodes are short like they're like 22 minutes long half an hour long and uh i was still doing it in whatever little time i have finishing the rest of my lunch before we go back on our zoom and i was loving it like I stayed invested the whole time. I was like really into it. And I was really into coming back to it and finding out what was going to happen.

And I just couldn't have cared less with nightmare. You know, you know, it would be a great lunch show for you. Oh, give it to me. Murderville. Oh, so I started watching it. What do you think? I think it's great. It's so much fun.

Yeah. Uh, it's, it's got such a weird pace to it, but I, I just watching it. What do you think? I think it's great. It's so much fun. Yeah. Uh, it's, it's got such a weird pace to it, but I, I just love it. I, I only watched the Conan O'Brien episode and the Marshawn Lynch episode.

Well, you've seen the two best episodes. Okay. Okay. I love Marshawn Lynch. He's, I, I,

I watching that show and like the chatting with my friends in the group text thread that emerges around whatever show we're watching at the moment and i i don't even know what to do with myself i'm like give marshall lynch a a game show a talk show what it just i don't know what the what the best setting for him is, but give it to him. I want more Marshawn Lynch content. He's so much fun to watch when he's out of his element. It's tough to put him in there. Conan O'Brien figured out how to do it when he made him play video games.

Yes. Marshawn Lynch playing video games was so funny. Putting him in a show where he's the only one who doesn't have a script, that's the same element. Him in Point Break Live would be perfect. I would love to watch him as Johnny Utah in a show where he hook of it was that she in real life. Oh yes. Doesn't know a lot of celebrities or, or, or like prominent figures or anything about them.

So she was just like, when she was interviewing someone, it was the first time she was meeting them and trying to figure out who they are. And like, she, she sat down with Lena Headey, whom was,

this was like the peak of game of thrones in arguably one of the most famous women on the planet and one of the most in the most famous show on television at the moment and tic-tac-toe just doesn't know and it's just like so you're i'm gonna guess an actress or a model of some kind that seems like give marshawn lynch a desk and don't tell him who's gonna come out and just confront him with someone who's famous and let marshawn lynch figure it out steal the show wholly from tignitaro give it to marshawn lynch it's a great and uh give me a producer credit yeah just throw my name on there and, you know, pay me. But it's that easy.

Just to get my beak wet. That's also a very great show. Because you just watched how humble this celebrity has to be with Tig and patient with her. Having spent their whole life being recognized and then have somebody

who's just like, I have no idea what you do. I wonder if I can track it down. There was an interview I read, I want to say Esquire, but maybe GQ, in print years and years ago, where a person was interviewing Gerard Butler. And this was also the hook where this person did not know who it was and that was going to be like the thing

of this article and man you can tell that Butler is not happy. Pissed about it. Well yeah it's different. That he thinks he doesn't seem to agree that the premise is possible. He thinks that this interviewer, like, no, maybe

you just don't, like, you haven't seen 300, but, like, maybe you've seen something, like... Yeah. Perhaps you've heard me singing in Phantom of the Opera, and there's, like, a part of the article where they're just in Gerard Butler's kitchen, and he's singing

to the interviewer, and the interviewer's like, so he's, yeah, he can definitely sing. I don't know what he wants me to say. There's no, he's just singing to me in his kitchen. I feel, but that feels like an ambush. I mean, I would, we used to do, we used to do interviews sometimes for Cracked where like somebody wanted to do, like we would go somewhere and there'd be like a radio interview uh happening beloit i remember and like it's always nice when somebody's done their homework anytime you're doing an interview if somebody's done their homework you're just you feel like you're in good hands and if somebody comes to that circumstance and they have no idea why they're interviewing you then you're like i i have to steer oh god all right all right let's try it um but with tig like

people knew what they were getting into yes you're it's not an ambush you know you're getting into a situation where somebody is oblivious to who you are and i can see the fun in that but man an interview for a reputable magazine we're like oh uh mom gq is gonna put me in their art in their in their next issue you'd be sure to read it and then like this person shows up and you're just like what the fuck man do you do your homework quick question do you read uh interviews with with actors or or musicians often yeah occasionally especially when a big crazy one comes out, when you know that there's going to be some really weird shit said. But also like occasionally somebody will just do a really great one and I'll read those as well. Those are always passed on to me secondhand though. It's never like I'm not just pulling up Esquire while I'm sitting in the grocery line and being like all right let's see what paul rudd has to say yeah it's it's a very strange uh tradition to me this specific type of profile i guess like a step beyond interview when it's a profile like there's one that came out as of this taping today with Jake Gyllenhaal that I was reading right before this, where like the interviewer picks him up at his home and then they drive two hours to this members only racetrack.

And they they drive around for a while. And I and like that doesn't inform the interview at all really but it's just one of those it's like this this window dressing that you see in a lot of profiles where it's not they at some point in history someone was like well i can't just sit down with orson welles and ask him about his process i need to box him and ask him questions while we're doing that. And that is a tradition that has been upheld for decades now, where you're racing cars with Jake Gyllenhaal, or you're trying a new smoothie bar with Mila Kunis,

or you and Michael Fassbender are going to some like underground pig fucking competition. Some weird thing, some strange set design that makes the interview more expensive. And I don't know who it's for anymore. I don't know if the point is to like, does Jake Gyllenhaal, do we assume that that by racing cars he's letting his guard down now and we're getting more information because it feels like i'm still getting the same information that jake gyllenhaal is comfortable saying into a recording device there's a lot of just color to it like there's i remember there's a lot of interviews where they're like she played pensively or she she answers me while playing pensively with her purse like she's like she's touching her coffee over and over and like it just gives you it's their way to add editorial to there's a line

that this person just said and i can't just let that sit alone out there so i'm going to describe exactly what they're doing there so to give you like some context for whether or not they believe themselves whether or not like they're they're trying to get me to to write this specific you know what i mean like yeah it's the only way that i think they can add some editorializing although i guess they do the same thing when they just go to somebody's flat and yeah and interview them um the one of my favorite ones is that i think it was a gq article that robert pattinson one did you ever read that he puts a a fist of pasta and some shrapnel in an army helmet and tries to microwave it yeah i think it's confused when it flips out he says that he

invented handheld pasta it's all in a bunch of metal and puts in the microwave i i really love that interview um dakota johnson's done a couple of metal and puts in the microwave. I, I really love that interview. Dakota Johnson's done a couple of those too, where she's just like making fun of the whole idea of it. And then occasionally you go into the, that's just like, Oh,

I, I had no idea that this person was like this, like that Rolling Stone did one a while ago with John Mayer, where John Mayer was just talked about porn the whole time. And you were like, oh, this is startling. I love Magic Mind. We're teaming with Magic Mind and they are offering you 20% off your order when you go to magicmind.co slash QQ and use code QQ at checkout. You guys know me.

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any first purchase will be refunded, no questions asked, if it doesn't meet your expectations. Go to magicmind.co slash qq and use code QQ at checkout for 20% off. So picture this. It's year five. The podcast has really taken off despite our best efforts. And then someone wants to do a profile with you. Do you have, have you ever thought about like where you take the interviewer? God.

Because it always, it never seems like it's the periodical that's pitching like, let's take Jake Gyllenhaal stunt driving. That's clearly his thing that he brought you along to. So what is... Soren, where are you dragging some poor... Yeah. I'm going to take him to the Sky Zone. I'm going to take him to an indoor trampoline park and insist that we stay there as long as our bracelets will allow us to. That sounds not fun for either of you.

I think I would have a great time. Okay. you? I think I would have a great time. Okay. I think I would really enjoy jumping around and taking that time also. I feel in interviews, I get real nervous. So if somebody asks me a question, I want to have not only a good answer, but a quick one. I want to be able to tell them some really engaging information that just feels very top of mind. And I don't have to do that in a trampoline zone, a sky zone where they can ask me a question. I'm like, yeah, watch this misty flip. This is going to be cool. Ah, didn't nail it. All right. Give me a few more shots. Well, let's say three tries and like just taking that time

to think about it and then answer their questions. And also I know that there's no way this interviewer is as good on trampolines as I am. Sure. And that will make me feel great. I think I would. Not that anyone would ever profile us, but I think I would. 100% use the opportunity to fuck with them and fuck with the idea of this, because you see a lot of. Fuck with them and fuck with the idea of this. Because you see a lot of sort of a strange cousin to Jake Gyllenhaal takes you car racing or whatever. Is you're going to go to this person's local haunts where everyone knows them. And it's like this hole in the wall restaurant where they just bring out the usual.

Like that's a very familiar kind of profile with a high status celebrity you see their local haunts and everyone waves knows their name i would find a tremendous amount of money to to like buy out a town and replace everyone in a town with different plants but i wouldn't tell the interviewer and I would just go to coffee shops and have just impossible, fake, organic seeming interactions with everybody everywhere. That sounds like a lot of fun.

I would have such a hard time pulling that off. That's why I'm so, I admire people like Robert Pattinson who just essentially stayed in character the whole time and just insisted this is who he was and did it with such grace and, and, uh, uh, head firstness that the person had no choice, but to believe it. I would, I, the cracks would show with me. I just don't have the confidence that I could pull it off, but man, going to a town like where I got married, where there's a very small population

being like, okay, everyone gather around. This is going to be your job. You're my PE coach, but now you live with me on my sofa. And just going through everybody and giving them their jobs. And that would be so funny. Yeah. But tough. And just the journalist going home at night and being like, I don't think the timeline works.

I don't think doesn't, Adam. He was present for that barista's birth. I'm not really sure. How could he have delivered her in a taxi? He would have been six. Yeah. He described the guy at the hardware store as his war buddy? Why was there even a hardware store?

What year is this town from? All right. We should try to arrange it. Yeah. What do you mean? We are going to... For your interview, Dan. Okay.

Yeah. I want to try and get it right. We're going to go to a small town very shortly for i hope that you can make it for this for oh yeah i'm i'm uh definitely making it uh i'm just trying to plan because your your your big fun birthday coincides with a week hiatus for me from work so i'm trying to uh by then I will have my scuba certification all sewn up. So I'm trying to find someone who is also willing to get scuba certified by this summer

so I can have a scuba trip before your birthday trip. If you want to get scuba certified and do this trip with me, then you can do that. I just didn't think – it doesn't sound like it's your thing. I 100% do not. Yeah. That's water – I don't know what it is.

Water activities, they're not my forte by any means. They freak me out a little bit. I'm a fine swimmer, Dan. I'm fine at it. it's it's it's cool but so yeah that's the the i've i've gone from a soft yes to a uh hard as a rock yes for your birthday and now i'm just trying to figure out the logistics of where am i going to go scuba diving in california before your birthday catalina i know um well but i need a buddy because you can't go without a buddy. You're not allowed to? I see.

Yeah. Okay. I'm going to find you a scuba aid. No, I mean, this isn't you trying to find me a wife or anything. It's done. I've already written it down. I would rather pick my own. I much sooner have you set me up on a blind date with someone than have you pick my scuba companion. Next page.

Got to do a date, too. Okay. Date and scuba sitter. Okay. Get ready, Dan. All right, I'm ready. You're going to hate both these people. Have we talked about how much I love Scuba?

I finished my e-learning and I finished my pool classes. Now I just have to do a couple open water dives and I'm fully certified. Is the pool classes, is that similar to how it appears in Skeleton Twins? I don't remember that movie well enough. Okay. She just has sex with her coach a lot. No. Oh, so you're not doing that.

No. Oh, okay. Maybe, yeah, I don't think scuba's for me. It's a thing that I wonder if you would hate or not, because the first day of lessons is just like, here's how you scuba. Isn't it fun? And then every other class after that is like, you're going to go down to the bottom of the pool and you're not going to know when it's going to happen. But one of the instructors is going to come up behind you and turn your tank off because you you need to know what it feels like for you to run out of air. And, you know, what hand signals you're supposed to use and what you're supposed to do when that happens.

So we did that. And that was scary and fun as shit. And we also, they want you to prep for, here's what's going to happen if you get tangled and you need to take off all your scuba gear underwater and then put it back on again. tangled and you need to take off all your scuba gear underwater and then put it back on again and it's like god that's a process that i think you would love because the scuba gear the bcd suit that you're wearing that has your tank and has your breathing apparatus your regulator and your alternate breathing apparatus and your gauges all the all your stuff that you need uh the the pack is similar to like an intensive backpacking pack where you've got like a bunch of buckles that get attached in a very specific order and i found the whole process of removing

everything in order and then putting everything back on in order just so fulfilling and so zen like and i i i was just like in the fucking zone and this is where i don't want to talk about it too much but meditation came in great handy when you're just like very calmly taking this stuff off and then putting it back on and i'm having the time of my fucking life and then one of the other skills we learned was like we want to make sure you know you can sink you can float but uh we're in a pool now where everything's fine but in the ocean we really don't want you touching the bottom too much because you could disturb the stuff that lives there you could destroy plants and you're

also going to ruin your own fun because you'll like kick up dust and then you won't be able to see stuff so we need to make sure you could just like sit hover above the water without moving your arms and legs, not touching the bottom, just sort of like hang there. And I was like, yep, immediately fucking got this. This is three straight months of meditation. I'm crossing my legs and putting my hands to my heart and just like sitting there like I could do this until I run out of air. And even then I'll be fine because of my training. Oh, man. Awesome. I think maybe you were born to scuba i think maybe i was too except there's so much math oh there is yeah there's a

lot of math for for like when you're when you actually want to plan your trip to do it responsibly you have to look at the amount of air you're going to have in your tank, which is like 3,000 pounds. And then you need to know how much air you're going to use and how much air you're going to need for your return to the surface. So I need to do the math of how much air needs to be showing on my gauge relative to how many meters I have to go up. how many meters I have to go up. And you also have to keep in mind that the amount of air that you use and the amount of air in your tank changes based on how deep you are. So there's a lot of calculations

that you need to do in advance just to know how many minutes out you're allowed to go before you have to turn back to do it safely. When you're doing this in a pool, is it a special pool made for scuba so it's super deep or are you just in a swimming pool? Yeah, it's a swimming pool.

So you haven't gone super deep yet? No. And the baseline certification you only I am allowed to go 40 meters period okay like i have to get a new level of certification to that's pretty deep though 40 meters is a lot i imagine at that point you start to feel pressure yeah around your body like pressure on your face and

everything yeah you'll have to you have to clear like every six inches or so like purge like hold your nose and and and uh they don't say bust your ears but that's the only thing my brain's letting me come up with right now so you gotta you go down and you bust you just gotta keep busting you bust. Scuba's a whole lot of breathing. And like, well, it's not breathing because it's not like you're using the regulator. So it's more like you're ingesting air. It's basically a lot of sucking and busting. That's what scuba is.

You get all wet and you do some sucking and busting. And then you also have to worry about the bends, right? You have to worry about the bends right you have to worry about coming back up wrong like you have to go slowly and breathe out the whole time that would terrify me that i was doing that wrong that's the other thing the uh do you know what the most important rule in scuba is there are no rules close uh it's never stop breathing so like even when even if you lose your regulator they don't want you to hold your breath ever because if you hold your breath it will like the the pressure could fuck up your lungs i i didn't retain a whole lot of the e-learning but the i was watching nightmare alley at the same time the important thing is like you're like

constantly blowing bubbles while you're fishing for your regulator to put it back in your mouth to breathe and if you completely run out of air they still want you exhaling as you're going up to the surface to with with a controlled emergency uh surface. What we call busting. You bust past the surface into normal air again. Yeah. Are you sure you're not fucking your instructor? That part's so scary i i guess it's different though because you're the whatever air is in your lungs changes how compressed it is as you're rising so you constantly have air

to breathe out but that would also be a very weird feeling to like rise the surface for 30 seconds and to be breathing out for 30 seconds would be terrifying, I think. Well, I mean, if you wanted to, you could meditate for a while. And that would help your scuba. I don't think you want to do either of those things. No. I don't know. Maybe I'll meditate.

I don't think I want to do scuba though meditating is great you just repeat a mantra over and over again and you clear you uh uh this is i don't want to lose too much of our audience and get again as technical with meditation as i did with with scuba but you sort of blow your mental load and you want to meditate to completion. Yeah. No, I get it. Obviously, the goal is to transcend multiples. You just want like a white space. You got to make it white.

You got to do it yourself. You got to cleanse those walls yeah uh that's almost too easy yeah this is shaped up to be one of our worst episodes huh no come on talked about some great things talked about nightmare out well that wasn't great yeah talked i'm actually very curious about school but this is pretty exciting for me to hear about because i will never do this this is like i'll jump off of bridges uh uh cliff jump i'll do bungee jumping i'll skydive i'll do all kinds of like crazy things on land but i am not a sea animal yeah that's it's very surprising to me because I'm not a good swimmer.

I don't think you need to be a good swimmer for scuba. They really don't want you working too hard. It's a pretty passive experience. I've snorkeled before and I got that. It's just so uncomfortable for me. I feel so out of place. I don't want to say fish out of water. It just doesn't work that way. It's a uncomfortable for me. I feel so out of place. I don't want to say fish out of water. It just doesn't work that way.

It's a confused metaphor. But I don't like the idea of breathing into a thing or my air going somewhere else other than immediately out of my face. And I don't like being completely horizontal like that in the water and trying to fight currents and stuff like that. It's not my bag. But it can be yours and that's fine. We can grow apart. Did you do a

question for me this episode? I didn't, but we're at minute 46. I think we're done. My main thing I wanted to talk about is going to take too long. Let's see if there's anything quick. Oh, this is in my notes that I've had for a while. Quick question. Go ahead.

Did they have parent-teacher conferences at whatever weird alternative to school you had when you grew up? Yes. I, you know, I went to public school up until high school where I then went to school in a barn. So it was, it did exist where I was public school.

Uh, yeah. And like middle school and elementary school, my parents would have to come in, uh, even, you know, even preschool because I,

there was, uh, a distinct point when my mom came home and told me to leave this little girl Sarah alone. And still talks about to this day that they pulled her aside and they were like, he's spent a little too much time around Sarah. It's really starting to become distracting for her. I was showing stalking tendencies when I was four or five. It's one of those processes that I didn't realize until thinking about it recently that to this day is completely shrouded in mystery for me. It's something growing up that I held in my head with such dread, even though I wasn't a bad kid. And I had no reason to suspect the teachers were going to say anything terrible about me. It was still just this period where like, fuck, my mom and the teacher are alone together. What are they going to do?

What could they possibly be talking about? And like the worst thing that's ever happened is teachers telling my parents that I talk too much. Oh, yeah. Which was like, yeah, I mean, well, good luck fixing that. That's, that's, my parents would still be like, try to talk less. If it's a distraction, don't do it. But, you know, we weren't, there was never any real possibility that I was going to do something wrong. And no real threat that my parents were going to punish me in some dramatic way if I did do something wrong. But I still, it was like the most tense moments of my young life was parent-teacher conference night when my parents would go away and then come

back having learned, you know, again, I have no idea whatever they do in that room. learned, you know, again, I have no idea whatever happened, whatever they do in that room. Yeah. It's anytime, you know, that people have to get together for 45 minutes to talk about you. That's very unnerving. Yeah. I realized though, as a parent, cause now I've had one of those, well, I guess a couple, but one like true one through Ronan's public school. And it's, I had a very different perspective because as a parent, you realize you and the teacher are on that kid's team, essentially like the kid, they both are like rooting for you. They both want you to succeed. So they're only going to say good things. Also, they're complete strangers. So they're not just, even when you're a shitty kid, the teacher is

very candid, not very candid about that. The teacher will dance around it and give you like well he needs improvement in paying attention like that area when in fact that child every single day is like clipping a girl's hair in front of you um so yeah it's from my perspective as a parent, it's like, oh, my child has nothing to worry about. I think I was, I was watching, I say watching because my niece and nephew are old enough now that I'm mostly just like hanging out with them, but hanging out with them while my brother and sister-in-law were off at conferences. And as an uncle and an adult, I'm thinking like, they're going to go and they're going

to find out that their kids are great. The teacher is going to say, your kids are great. Great job with these kids. They're amazing kids. They're the best kids in the world. And if the teacher says anything that's not that, the teacher is wrong. Like the idea that my brother and sister-in-law would come home from parent-teacher conferences and be like, yeah, your teacher says you're a dick.

So I guess you're a dick now. Like unthinkable. We would would my entire family would rise up and destroy any teacher that said a bad word about these kids uh but as a kid i don't think about that scenario at all i just think like here are these two the two most important authority spheres in my life are coming together and like i don't know what they're gonna say i'm not in the room so i can't provide any context and And there's, I think even as a kid, I was thinking like, look, the guy I am at school is different than the guy I am at home.

And I- They're different worlds. I don't understand. Can't have my parents know what Danny is like. That's very funny because I have a nephew named Gus who, uh, go goes to a skateboard camp. And I, maybe I told you this story,

but they, he, his mom went to pick him up one day and she's like, uh, my son is Gus. And the guy was like, who she was Gus. He's right over there.

And the guy looks over and he goes, Gary, she goes, I don't know. Maybe. So it's at skateboard camp.us had just started calling himself gary and like that's who he was there gary has a mom he told us he was a mob salesman from indiana we had no idea i had no it's great to meet you what's it like being the mother of a war veteran

uh yeah so i yeah i think i felt the same way i would feel the same way going into like a new What's it like being the mother of a war veteran? Yeah. So, yeah, I think I felt the same way. I would feel the same way going into like a new grade every single year. I'd be like, what if this is the year that I get held back? What if this is the year I just don't get it? And like these things that you find to worry about when you're a kid, especially a good kid. You're just like, they're completely inconceivable.

My parents would come home from or like a report card would come. I'd be like, what if there's somehow a C on it what if there's something i didn't remember it was a terrifying day even though i was there the whole time at school and know that i did well and there should be no surprises it was still like this is gonna i it sucks today's gonna be the day that i find out i can't read that sucks so fucking much my mom's gonna be pissed if it turns out i can't read i'm out of the house for sure yeah um yeah i i go to them now i actually really look forward to them i love hearing about the things that he does when i'm not around yeah because you do really have a different kid uh and i wouldn't say a worse kid or anything like they're just i'd say in a lot of ways he's more outgoing and like um fun and more alert and pays attention better when he's

not at home he saves a lot of that stuff for us because this is like a safe environment for him just test boundaries and everything but when he's at school he's such a good kid and occasionally when i go to pick him up i can see through through the fence him playing. And I'll just like, this is going to sound creepy. I'll sit there and just watch and just see how he interacts with the other kids and the way that they play together. And he's so rad. He's so good with them. And like playing the games and like helping kids up when they fall down and being like, we got pause, pause. America fell.

Now, are you at all worried that this is a sting and one of your teachers, one of Ronan's teachers, is going to contact your parents and be like, he's really spending a lot of time staring at Ronan after school. It's distracting. You got to get him to leave his son alone. I'd be mortified if a teacher was like, hey, hey, move along. It's not your time with him yet. But yeah, I look really look forward to him. I love hearing about the things he's doing. And I also like, I come in hot. I come in like, Hey, he's writing his name wrong. Now I noticed that he's putting his ends backwards and he never used to do

that. Like what, what's going on at school. But there, every single time that I come in that way,'s never i'm immediately disarmed by the teacher yeah well it makes total sense as an adult it's just this i it sticks out in my head the way that that some people joke about like cartoons and video games making you think that quicksand was going to be a bigger problem yeah growing up the idea of parent-teacher conferences was the most terrifying thing in the world to me. It was. And it shouldn't have been.

And if I would have just thought about it for a few seconds, I would have realized that it was going to be fine. Performances too. I really didn't like it when my parents would come into the school at night and we would do some sort of performance and then they got to see my classroom and they got to see the other kids that I'd say say hi to in the hallway yeah i was like this isn't this isn't your world yeah you just want to keep those things separate when you're young

well that about wraps her up i'm gonna do our social accounts unless you have anything else no go for it good you can find the show at QQ underscore Soren and Dan on Twitter or Soren at Soren underscore LTD or me at DOB underscore INC. You can email the show. We are still looking for theme song replacements for our show and you can email them to QQ with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com. We are on Instagram. We are on Patreon.

And you can find us and support us there where we answer questions from you, the listener. We have an engineer, producer, editor. You can't find him. We have a business daddy who's on Twitter at MakeMeBaconPlease, P-L-S. And... Ah. Nope. I have nothing else to say.

What was the ah? It seemed like you discovered something and then went no it's not worth it it's uh was it our is our instagram no it's it's uh it's either in in this episode or the one that we already recorded where uh where the season nine premiere of Last Week Tonight is this Sunday. But I also realized that in both introductions that we recorded, I did not mention that I work at that show. Oh. Well, Dan works at Last Week Tonight

and you should be watching that show. There's a premiere coming out soon. Or it's already come out and you should go back and watch it. Or it came out, yeah. While you're at HBO Max, why don't you check out nightmare alley you'll be doing our buddy guillermo a real favor all right bye