Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Extra Bonus Soren Iced Teas | Quick Question. Ep 336

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

After a brief stretch on podcast etiquette — the wrong ways to listen to them, the hard part of explaining this one — the episode settles into its actual purpose: Daniel telling Soren to stop, basically. In a sorta Tarantino of last week's update, Soren explains and defends his ongoing plan to hide bottles of Just Ice Tea around a Whole Foods so tomorrow’s lunch will be cold, which Daniel correctly points out is the kind of behavior that makes a person memorable to staff. Then Soren turns to the equally manageable problem of youth baseball, where the punishment for winning appears to be more baseball forever.Thanks to Mint Mobile for sponsoring this episode. Make the switch! MINTMOBILE.com/QQFollow 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

It's the show of a great. It's the show. It's the showin' It's not important. I'm just by the week and talk tonight. So what's your favorite? I think you'll have a great time, yeah. It's the show.

It's a quick question with Soren and Daniel. We're doing it. You guys talking. Into microphones. You are getting them in your earbuds or maybe you're listening in your car or maybe you're watching it on YouTube. Maybe you don't have any of that setup. You just have your phone and you're playing it from your phone speaker in your room as you're puttering around and cleaning like I do sometimes.

Maybe you put your phone in a little basket in the shower. Like I also do sometimes and you're hearing us that way. There's truly no wrong way to consume this podcast. Let's go through some more. What other scenarios could there be? There are wrong ways to consume the podcast. I amend what I said. You can watch YouTube and you can listen to podcasts at sped up advanced speed.

That is the wrong way to consume this podcast. That is not what we intended. We want you to feel this exact energy the whole way through. It's important that we go slow. Just like this. Hey, it's the podcast. It's the podcast. I love that.

I think I really love that intro. I think for a show with guests, that would really throw them off. I think if we ever have a guest on, that's how we should start it. Because I've been on podcast before where I log in and we start talking. Yeah. And as we're talking, I'll just see that little record button come up. And I'm like, oh, I guess this is the show. Sometimes I'll be on, I'll guest on Hypecast or one of the Small Bean's shows.

And I don't do my due diligence enough to exactly remember which one of these shows about movies that my friends do allows me to talk as soon as I am there or wait for an intro. And our friendly hosts do not make it easy for us. No. I think it's just as far as I'm concerned, the etiquette is I do not laugh. I don't speak until they summon me until they're like, and today we're joined by. And then I blow up. Then I'm like, I've got so much to do because I've been listening to them pulling my hair out. Yeah.

Because I want to talk. I want to talk bad and I want them to shut up. That's why you're on the show. That's why they bring me on. Give their mouths a rest. Yeah. I'm assuming because everything in my life is babies now. And we have people over not to hang with us, but to just hold the baby for a little while so I can do a push-up or fill a glass with ice or something else.

wildly disruptive like that. So I assume that's the same rules when it's podcast, when someone goes on a podcast, it's because they need their mouth to do something else. And I'm here to do the podcast part. I'm here to raise the podcast so they can breathe. I also make it a point not to listen to the podcast beforehand, so I don't really know what it's about because I want to be, I want it to feel fresh to everyone, not just me. I want to feel fresh to the audience, too.

I don't know what I'm going to do. Yeah. Could be a lot of fun. I could wrap to. to, it's my dream to go on behind the bastards which is like a low-lived show.

You're not supposed to have researched the subject of the episode. But I also want to go in having forgotten everything about the show and to just stop him. Everyone's about it. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute,

wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. It's all bad guys. It's just the whole show is you, you're not going to talk the whole time about this. guy, right? And it's just the one.

We only get to focus on this guy for this. Okay. And then we hit the half hour mark and I get to pick a little guy to talk. No? Yeah, interrupt him every once in a while. I'll just be like, Hitler. Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler. Oh, you did? Okay.

Did? Okay. Wow. Nine parts? Holy shit. He's worse than I even knew. Wow. I should listen to the show.

Well, yeah, it's the podcast, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the show. And however you're consuming it, we could go through 20 more if you like. That could be that. Maybe that's all we do all show. If you don't know this show, I have a hard time explaining it to my in-laws and explaining it to other people when they asked me, oh, you have a podcast? What do you guys do? What is your topic?

Because, boy, oh, boy, do we run the gamut? Gammit. Gambit? We run the gambit. What is, is gamut one as well? It's gamut. We don't want to get a bit. Okay, few.

All right. So, you know, we're just two best friends and comedy writers. You heard it in the intro. And that's when I try to tell people and then they just keep waiting. I presume that there's a period at the end of what I'm saying to them. But they keep waiting to hear what the show is actually about. And I'm like, well, it's the, it's really about the chemistry between me and my friend Daniel. And they're like, and why would people tune into that?

I'm like, legacy. Yeah. We have some legacy fans that stick around and then some new people to find it and are like, oh, you know what, this is fun. For a while, we took pride on it being sort of an antidote to a lot of toxic, misogyny heavy male podcasts in the space. We liked it as an alternative version of what modern masculinity and male friendships could look like. But we've sort of, like, we are, we're two guys with, like, horrible body issues. And so we're not better for the culture by any means. Well, we've all got our blind spots, right?

We are aware of them, at least. Is that helpful? Is that even better? Is that better to know it and still participate in it? I don't know. Speaking of our own particular set of neuroses, Dan, I do have to. to tell you a story. Okay.

About something I've been dealing with lately. I am in, I'm locked in a pretty heavy battle with my grocery store. And they're winning. And I'm not sure that they know that we're in a fight. Okay. Which is the worst type of losing to have happened to you. I've talked to you, I think, before about, for a while, they used to have this honest tea and it was nice tea.

Then they got rid of it. And I was like going to write letters because I was like, it's the perfect amount of sweetness. I don't want a really sweet iced tea. I don't want a stevia iced tea. I don't want a tea with no sugar in it. And so eventually this company, Honest Tea, they created a new company called Just Ice Tea. And I was like, that's my jam. That's going to be what I drink from now on.

And they would stock it in the, I'd go eat my lunch there every day. They'd stock it in the fridge. And then for a while, I don't know why. they just changed it up and they're like, we're no longer stocking that in the fridge. We're going to put some olypop sodas there or whatever. And I don't want that. You're telling me you don't know how to sell this podcast to people. You don't know how to hype this up when people ask what it's about.

Well, I think in a second, you're no longer going to be on my side. Okay. I am barely on it now. So I was like, what? I went to them as a. 43-year-old man will do it. I'll be like, hey, where's the one that I like? Where's that one?

And they were like, oh, we just don't put it in the fridge anymore. If you want it, it's over in the juice aisle. So I got to drink like lukewarm iced tea. So I was like, well, I can solve this problem. They've got a whole, they've got the open fridge full of all kinds of juices and stuff. So I started hiding one in the back behind these seltzers every single day. So that when I come the next day, mine is ready to go. My iced tea is ready to go.

They caught onto that. within two days and started removing it. I started doing it even more because now I'm bringing two because I'm trying to hide them in different locations so that they will not find them hopefully. And now I think they're looking for them. And now they're taking them out every single day. So every single time that I go there, I'm so angry that I bring over more ice teas and try to hide them all over. And at this point, I don't even remember where I'm hiding them. I'm like a squirrel in your yard.

digging around because I just now at this point I'm trying to hurt them Sorin Yeah Stop it

Stop doing this right now Stop it I've No But they can't win Why Have you Have you not worked retail ever

Yeah I worked retail but close Still When you were If you ever If you ever Close your retail store, you do a sweep with your manager of the department or the whole store.

I would, if I was closing at SportsChtarity when I worked there, RIP Sports Already, I don't know why you closed. I did steal a lot of stuff from you, but I think that's unrelated. But I would do a sweep with the manager of the whole store to make sure like everything was clean and everything was put away where it's supposed to go. They're not like, no one is consciously trying to stay ahead of you. It's a different grocery store closer every night who's doing a sweep and seeing there's ice tea where there's not supposed to be. And they need to move it somewhere else. They need to put things back in their places.

And probably earlier in the day, someone stocked the iced tea shelf to bursting to the way it should be. And then the closer comes around and sees there's four more iced teas. And that's not going to fit in the iced tea shelf. these extra bonus soren ice teas. And they're cold. They're ice cold. And they're cold. So. And they probably don't think this is a guy who's going to buy it tomorrow. They can't bank on that because that's an insane conclusion for them to draw. It's so much more reasonable for them to assume this is some TikTok prank I don't understand.

There was all, we didn't have TikTok when I worked at sports starting, but we did have the show, Jack, ass and people try to do their own versions of really fun pranks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the one at Sports Party was a guy would, and I'm not blameless in this. It's the guy who's a friend of mine, this guy, Brian. I was not working in concert with him, but I also never told him to stop. He would show up in a shirtless and with a Wolfman mask and American flag shorts with boxing gloves and say, why doesn't anyone want to box the Wolfman?

No one wants to box the Wolfman. And he would do this until he was kicked out of the sports authority. And he was like, hell yeah, this is just like jackass. He wasn't filming. There was no, it's not clear how it was like jackass, but it was just like a youthful prank. I'm going to go to a store and ruin the day of the employees. They probably assume the Wolfman is moving the iced teas into the fridge

for some kind of childish prank that they couldn't possibly understand. Okay. I, it is occurring to me that even if it, when it was just the one, it was still another one, even if they left it for that first day. And they're like, oh, someone's trying to cool one off. The next day, it looked to them like the same one was there. But I had actually used the cold one and swapped it out for a new lukewarm one. So I get what you're saying. But also, if you're working there and you see it appearing in the behind like 14,

waters at the very back every single time, you'd be like, wouldn't you be curious? You'd be like, what is actually happening here? Why does someone keep putting this here? No, I would think someone is messing with me. I would think some teen is messing with, I'm telling you. I would not think this is probably the act of a really nice guy with specific wants. Big thanks to Mint Mobile. I'm sure you've heard about Mint Mobile. I've talked about them before, and you've heard me talk about my love for Mint Mobile.

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Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions applies. See Mint Mobile for details. So what you're saying is that I should just write them a letter asking if I can do this. No. Well, I have to solve the problem somehow. I think you have to stop doing it. I think you can buy ice and put the iced tea in a glass with ice in it.

No, no, it doesn't work that way. I'm on my bike. I get there on my bicycle. Okay. God, I am, I'm just hearing it out loud. I know this type of person. The guy who rides his bike to the store every day and wants things his way, I don't like that I become this, but it's important to me that I get a cold iced tea with my lunch.

So what I'm looking for are solutions that don't involve me losing. You, the problem is, and I've often felt this way about both of us is that it is sometimes unfortunate that we exist in a world of laws. You belong in a little town where everyone can talk it out all the time when you can just explain to someone

this is how I would like to live my life. I am one guy who wants an iced tea and I want it cold and I want it cold tomorrow, so I'm going to store it here, and the shop owner would be like totally, because the shop owner would be your friend because everyone would know everyone in this town.

But unfortunately, we are subject to laws to which we have never consented, and the laws don't want us to build a world that makes sense. They want us to follow the world as it is. You're somebody who, who's hid things in public places before, right? You just knew that you couldn't take it with you wherever you were going. I've gone on planes before and known that on my keychain I had a pocket knife or something.

I've been like, oh, at the last second and gone outside of the airport. And because I'm, this is my whole life is knowing things other people don't. I'm like, where's a good spot that I can hide this for a week while I'm on vacation and come back and it will still be here in a crowd of people? Surely this is your life as well. If you're asking me if I've hidden knives outside of concert, sort of Of course I have. You hide weapons like me, right?

You're a weapon hider. Yes. So I walk into the store and I want things a very specific way that's not hurting anybody. Wait, this is really interesting, the timing of this that I have to tell you that my parents are staying with me right now for a couple of days. Okay. And my dad misplaced his debit card and I thought I would look for it. And I thought maybe it fell out while he was in the car. And so I get in his car and I start looking around for a debit card.

And there's, he's got a, like you'd think it's a seat protector that goes on the driver's seat. Like it's like a felt thing that protects the seat from states or whatever. From a human being sitting. And in between the legs of this thing that extends down over the front of the seat, there's a little hidden pouch that you wouldn't know anything about. And I thought, oh, what a perfect place for a debit card to fall. out of the pocket and slide into there. I'm going to reach in, find it, be the hero. And I got my hand sliced because there are two knives hidden in it.

Two naked knives. Two knives that don't like retract into themselves or have a sheath on them or anything. One knife and a box cutter soaring. A self-defense box cutter. Yeah. If someone's ever trying to steal his car from him while he stopped at a stop sign or something, and he reaches for the knife and fumbles it. He can reach for a box cutter.

I'm like, you thought I only had one knife in here? Idiot. I also as a tangent, I do have a utility knife in my car that comes in handy really frequently, but it is also my litmus test to determine if my car has been broken into.

Like, if I'm not sure, if I wake up in the morning and my car is unlocked, and I'm like, did I leave it unlocked, or did somebody break in? I check where this in the glove compartment where this knife is, because that would be like the first thing I would take. It's like a nice.

It's a nice utility knife. Oh, okay. And that's, I can look and see, oh, is the nice still there? Ah, no one was in this car. They would have taken this right away. Okay. So I want to,

I want to revisit the AST thing just for a second. Okay. I think that surely someone would understand. The store used to be a specific way. and I liked that way. And then they changed it. And so if I was to say to somebody, would it be cool if I just started putting a nice tea behind?

I'm not even going to be in any way. It's not going to be in any of the display window or anything like that. I'm going to put it right there in the back. I'm the only one who can reach it. And every day I'm just going to come swap it out for a new one. Is that okay? You don't think that they would be like, you know what? Go ahead.

We see you here every day. It's fine. Let's game it out. Okay. First of all, this is not like a mom and pop grocery shop. No, it's a little, yeah, it's a little hole in the wall called Whole Foods. Yeah. A hole in the wall.

So there's like barely even consistency of who you would be dealing with every day. That's true. I don't recognize any of their faces. Let's say you did get the general manager of the Whole Foods to go along with this. Yes. And you put your iced tea in the cold. And then someone else one day was walking. by and was like, oh, cold iced tea, I'm going to just grab that.

Look, here it is, hidden behind the water. And then you come in from your cold iced tea and it's already been grabbed. Then what? You go to the manager and you're like, hey, I thought we had an understanding. And they're like, we did have an understanding, but you can't expect me to monitor your iced tea to make sure no one else takes it. This is, this is the world that it is. People can take iced teas that they see.

The nice thing is that this is a, because it's a whole, Whole Foods. I could say to the district manager, let's check the cameras. Let's you and I go into the back. Let's figure out who's doing this. I don't think they let you do that. Then I will show them the badge I bought on Amazon

specifically for this sort of circumstance. Okay. I'm leaning towards your side. As I'm saying it out loud and I'm hearing it. And I want you to have that. And there's got to be like, just give me a new place to hide it,

is all I'm saying. A thermos, you can keep cold, empty, and travel with it, and then pour the iced tea into the pre-cold thermos. No, wait a second. That's not a bad idea.

That's not a bad idea. I need to, it needs to be able to travel on my bicycle, and I don't want to be heavy because I've already got the bike lock and I'm not psyched about that. Maybe behind the cheeses.

Okay. It's fine. I'll drink my tepid iced tea until they decide to change this rule again. I do talk to them regularly about another thing that I really want, and so I'm worried that I'm already. Let's just keep... Let's just keep opening it up, man.

They've got a... They just have a specific type of chicken thigh there that they used to do, and they don't do it anymore, and so every day when somebody's coming out with a tray, and they're like, they're busy. Like, they're hustling out with a new tray, I'm like, excuse me, sir, excuse me, just for a moment. You used to do the terriaki chicken thighs here.

I, boy, I would love to get those again. If you're taking suggestions, I would love to have those again. And every time they blow me off, and I don't love that. But I feel like with a nut, same rule. It's a different person every time. So maybe if enough people are getting this little squeaky wheel, they're going to be like, God, everyone is asking for these. I find this unrelatable for a couple of reasons.

I would never talk to the grocery store person about a thing being different because I assume everyone working in retail mostly wants to kill themselves and I don't want to push them over the edge for it. And the other reason is I am also frequently upset that things in my grocery store are different than they, they were before, but I usually don't... Take a stand for it. I don't know exactly what it is that I want. Like, the store has pre-chopped up pre-cooked chicken that I like to throw in salads sometimes. And sometimes they have the one that I, the kind that I like. And sometimes they have the kind that I don't like.

And I don't know what the kind I like is called. I was like little bits of grilled chicken And they're like, you are holding the bits of grilled chicken I'm like, not this one Do you have another one? This is like one of the last messages of my childhood. It's like being a kid and like your mom, sometimes the bagel has the cream cheese on it that's good

And sometimes it has the cream cheese on it that is inedible. You don't understand why. You don't understand why they chose to get a different one. But you've got to be like, I don't like this. And they're going to be like, you fucking like it. Just eat it. You eat cream cheese on a bagel every single day. And you got to be like, not like this.

I don't like this. And they're like, okay, we will get you the cream cheese that you like. What is it that you, what do you like? I don't know. The kind that has the texture I like. God. Yeah, I did work retail. I worked retail in a clothing store.

And it was, you're right. If somebody was constantly moving a jacket. into a new area. I'd be pretty fucking pissed about it. And then I would be watching the kid. I would try and figure out who it was. I'd use all these same powers I have currently, but in the other direction to try and find them and kick them out of the store.

I would think either this is a kid messing with me or this is someone who is trying to put this on hold because they want to buy it later and they want to make sure it doesn't sell out. But they don't want to go through the formal process of putting on hold. so they're putting this nice down jacket and shoving it into a canoe so they can get it later. Or I would think one of my coworkers was messing with me, which was very likely.

Or I would think this is like a manager test where they're going to do something a little bit wrong. They're going to add brown M&Ms to their rider to see if you follow all the instructions. I think the other opportunity, The other alternative is that you're dealing with somebody who is sick, somebody who is mentally has a problem. And that's not entirely wrong. I think that that's a pretty safe assumption.

And maybe if that's the case, leave it there. Just leave it. See what happens. Roll the dice. I mean, it's, it's, you don't have any, any record anywhere. So this is. That's true. I mean, you're a, you're lucky right now.

that there are elections happening all over California that are fraught with drama because you are a slow news day away from the morning news being like, watch the security cameras, capture this sweaty man every day putting things

into the freezer, leaving, coming back, getting really exacerbated, and then putting more things into that freezer. If you or anyone you know has seen this person, we just want to talk. We just want to know more.

I'm also, I mean, I'm like you. Like, I'm going to, after this gym, I'm going to go work out. So I've got on gym apparel. I've got on like a sleeveless shirt. And I'm this sleeveless shirt guy. Just move in ice teas, shuffle nice teas back and forth throughout the store. Okay. So the amount of anger you got when you heard that story because you worked in retail was,

I felt it because I think this is the I don't like to tell you no on this show I think it's I think this is the biggest You're right You're right to say no to me I having worked in clothing

When I go into a clothing store now And the way that we would do it is like even You have the The jackets or the shirts on a rack I'm folding the sleeves In such a degree that like they all match each other So the whole thing looks really good And then you have people who just like rifle through it all.

And then you go through and you fix it all. And I had one of those plastic boards that you'd fold shirts around to like really get it exactly right. And when people go through the stack of shirts, they're just, they don't know how to do that. So they're just tossing them. And then you've got to go back through. It's just Sisyphine. My wife, I never worked in a retail store. And so when I go shopping with her, it's the biggest fight we have because she will just, she's so hard on the clothes.

She's so mean to them. in what way she's like just like pulling stuff across the rack like she's mad at it sliding stuff across the rack like she's angry getting it all mixed up

and then just like and touching everything because you know she wants to feel a fabric of stuff and so she's a lot of stuff in the store too she's like pulling on it like pulling sleeves out

and like shirts are coming out and getting stuck up because you know they're squeezed in with everything else because she already moved everything over on one side and so now everything's catty wampus

on the rack And so I'm like, hey, can you just be a little nicer to the stuff? She's like, it's not your stuff. I'm like, I know, but there's like a, there's a respect that has to go into this. You're saying this as you're like stuffing winter hats into the sleeves of shirts for later. Yes, yes. Yes. When I'm doing this, by the way, I'm, if I can't reach all the way in the back of what, where I want to put this iced tea, I'm taking out the waters, which probably looks very strange.

But I'm taking them out for a very specific purpose. I don't want to knock any over. I don't want to get them out of line. I want to put it in the back and then I want everything to look exactly the same as it did before. Branding up front, everything. Like, I'm going to put it all back right. Yeah, I know what covering up a crime looks like. Can I tell them that?

Don't worry about me. The waters are going to look good. Yeah. The waters are going to look fucking better than when you did it. I promise you. The whole staff like slowly approaching you And you're like, no, labels out. I know

When I mentioned the cameras earlier as a joke But now I'm starting to wonder Because at one point I did four Four iced teas Which as many as I could carry And I have to assume that when they found all of those They were like, all right, fucking we're going to look at the cameras This can't go on

So maybe they do know me now Maybe When you worked the clothing store, did you ever have access to security cameras to look at things? No, I did not. Even as a employee, I didn't have access to those. Yeah, we had like a guy whose job it was to look at the security cameras, and he wasn't good at stopping theft. We had a buddy at our old job who had previously been a grocery store detective. Do you remember that?

I did? Yeah, Charlie Daniels. Charlie Daniels, not the singer. Charlie Daniels was, before he had worked with us, he had worked as a grocery store detective, not like a security guard. It was his job to figure out the loss management. Oh. So I think that was his job as he was watching cameras. And then he was also a guy who was just sort of like moseying around the parking lot in plain clothes seeing what was happening.

I would love me. We should get him on the show. Talk to him on the show. There's another thing I want to bring up with you, Daniel, which is less psychotic. We'll see. Okay, so my son was playing baseball. You played small town sports, at least a little bit. Yeah.

And at the end of small town sports, the sport just went away, right? Like you had like whatever the end of the championship or whatever it was at the end. And then there was an opportunity to keep going, right? There was the baseball. championship ended and then there was the All-Star game, which is like you just pick the best players and make, I think, two super teams. You make a tournament team. And they play against each other. It wasn't like travel or anything.

Oh, that's great. Yeah. I'm discovering. Yeah. My cool brother made the all. I want to be clear. I know about this as a spectator only. I've been pretty panicked lately because.

my son finished baseball they won the championship and I was like yes and what was their record in the regular season soren if you don't mind I think they were you know what I should just look it up I think they were like nine and four

or something like that that's a pretty good record but they were great they were they came in first we even had a buy through the first round of the championship the championship series and I'm sorry through the playoffs were series of three so you have to play so many more

games of baseball in the playoffs. And who was their coach, Soren? Oh, that would be me and my neighbor. Hell yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's so much baseball. It's a lot of baseball. And I was like, that's fine.

This is just like the sprint to the end. You have nine games essentially through the playoffs if you go all the way. And I was like, okay, we just got to, we got to get through it. It's three games a week. That's a lot and a practice. We did it. And we did it well. We won.

And we won the championship. And I was like, this is it. You boys are. getting rings. This is it. We all did it. We worked so hard. This is our Super Bowl. Now we're in the tournament of champions. This is our Super Bowl. Forgive me. Not this is our World Series. No, yeah. This is, you finish a series of competitive baseball games. Boys, this is our Super Bowl. I can't think of anything else to compare it to. I have a very good coach. This is our Tony's.

They love my speeches. Then we got the EGOT boys. So, sure. This is our World Series, whatever that is. And we win it. We get the rings.

But then you get put to a different pipeline after that. There's just more to go always. It's not, I remember I played small town sports and you're limited by your proximity to other places. Like you, it just ends at the end. And apparently. in a place like Los Angeles,

there's no, there's no bottom to children's sports. It just, you just keep digging and there's more and more and more and more. And at least there was seasonality other places too. Like you, there's baseball season because then you're going to have snow and stuff that precludes you from playing. Here,

you could just keep going. It just keeps going. There's a tournament champions. And then after that, there's like, there's the all-star teams. And the all-star teams play a district, then a regional,

then like a city-wide, then state. and that goes until the conclusion of that, which is the Little League World Series. I have to imagine there's some amount of drop off, though. Like even the most dedicated players at some point their parents are just going to be like, well, it's the summer and we have vacation now. We go and we go. We can't continue.

We can't play baseball forever. Well, this is where it's really bit me in the ass to tell your team, like, hey, your team's depending on you. you can't leave this game in the middle of the game for your soccer practice, like that kind of stuff where I'm like, hey, the team needs you, the team. And now the team is all tired of playing.

I'm tired of playing. And they're like, I think that there should be some drop-off. I see it, the fatigue in the parents' eyes. And I'm like, we just got to, we keep winning.

We just got to stick with it because, because what if we just stopped? And then we didn't know how far we could go. I mean, it's a really good question. I understand. So I'm wondering like this is not something I've ever had to deal with in my life because I lived in a town of 10,000 people. Yeah.

That you would just keep playing forever. And also these kids are going to age out. They're like they're in the, you know, 11 U age group. They're with the seasonality. They're just going to start getting too old to keep being on the team that they're still winning with. Yeah. So I don't understand how the world little league world series happens because it starts now with the all our team. And then the Little League World Series

happens in months and months because the team's got from all or the world have to have to get there. And those kids have got to be like 16 by the time they play. This is how we get to situations where someone watches the World Series of the Little League World Series on TV.

And they're like, this picture looks like a fucking adult. You have to understand. When the season started he was crawling. He misses his family By which I mean his two kids Different moms But he loves them both the same

Of course different moms He's in a new city every day Just spent a lot of chapters in his life So we do have kids on our team Who are at that age where they're going through puberty too And with three even the season that we play them, these kids are growing.

They're a different kid by the end of the season. I looked at the photos that we take on the first day because you get everyone's pins and stuff like that. And at the end of the season, I'm like, oh, that is not the same kid. That kid is, just a short amount of time has sprouted. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't understand how it works.

I'm not happy about it is my main point. I think that this tournament of champions is as far as we will go. If we lose it, which, you know, God willing, we lose it, then great. If we, for whatever reason, win this tournament of champions, I think I just have to be like, that's all the baseball we're prepared to do. Yeah. For the sake of everybody.

You don't have any information that tells you anything about the, because when you're in the playoff series, you have played a lot of these teams before. Yes. Because you're in the same league. For this tournament of champions, do you have any coverage of the other teams? That's a great question. won, but it's very sketchy intel because no, for the most part, you don't.

We're playing, when I say tournament champions, it's going to be all the teams, the championships from all the other teams, that team that won from West L.A., from Venice, from Santa Monica, from Malibu. And we know them a little bit because there's also fall ball here in L.A., where you have the opportunity to also play baseball in the fall if you want to. fewer kids do it than in the spring, but you do then play these teams from other places. And we know kind of like what the quality of play was when we'd play these other teams. Like Lederra, we know plays hard. They're a hard, hard team to beat. And they're in this tournament.

And we don't know if it's the same kids throughout the spring and the fall. And that's pretty much all the information we have is that. Yeah. Nothing that would give you a heads up with like, oh, these guys will definitely beat us and we could finally sleep. Yes, that's my hope with Lederah. Lederah, what I mentioned them is that I know that they play hard and fall ball. I know that they're a good team. And I'm like, I see them and they would be, I would assume, our second game in this tournament.

I'm like, there it is. That's the date right there that I'm most excited about. Because it also means not only is baseball over, I can put all the baseball stuff away, the shoes that I've been wearing out on that field every single day, I can just fucking throw away. Yeah. They're so gross and bad. Baseball is a terrible sport for shoes. You can, I think, always, donate shoes. Ah, these are, these are such a...

Are we going to put it to the test? That'd be fun. These are shoes that you pick them up and a little dust cloud comes off of them. Yeah, hell yeah. Yeah, they're inundated with Sam. So anyway, I'm not too happy with the idea of sports. And now this isn't going to be the only sport either, because he's going to want to play something else in the fall.

and my daughter's going to want to play stuff. And now does the sports, if you just do well in it, is he punished by doing more? I mean, you're right to ask me what happens when you exceed in sports. You had brothers, you know. I can tell you that like if you're in the, if you get the theater bug as I did back then. and as nieces and nephews have now,

there is, unlike baseball out here, there is always a show. There is always sometimes multiple shows that you are in rehearsals for and, you know, a different show that you're performing in that weekend. There is just like constantly shows to do. Our nieces and nephews are,

I don't think there's any, low in the year. And if there is, it would just be them saying, I'm going to take a break and I'm going to miss this show because I don't like what's going on. But when I was doing it as a kid, it was local theater stuff until I got to high school. And it was like, well, there's the fall play and there's the spring musical. And in the summer, I will do a summer show. And that is the whole year. And I will, I will do that until, uh, I go to college, basically. Yeah. And but that's, there's no breaks. No breaks. There's always a show. especially if you're good

because then also if you're if you're a theater boy they will always have a spot oh right if you're a theater boy it's a little dearth of men yeah yeah that makes that's actually a really good analog

I think because also the better that you are the more rehearsals you have to be at and the more that you have to be there and you're that you are they're dependent on you they're dependent on you you can't just be like you know what it was fun but that's enough

fiddler for me. I'm going to try tennis or whatever. You can't do that. They need you. Yeah. Directors will pick shows knowing that you are going to be there and you're going to audition because they're building it around you and you can't let them down because the director is the team.

Yeah. Well, I'm realizing these kids are 9, 10, 11 that I've got right now. I'm realizing that that is, that's pretty much my cap in terms of the type of kids that I can actually help. Sure. That if I tried to, this is the minors team, if I tried to coach a major's team, which is the 12 year olds, the 11 and 12 year olds, I see those games and I watch them and I see the coaches giving signs to the pitchers

and their batters and stuff. And I'm like, oh, that's, I didn't get there. I didn't get that far in baseball where I know how to do all of that. I can, I think that I'm at my depth right now and I can't possibly help these kids be on this point. So baseball does have, is going to end for me at least. Okay, that's good. I have a ceiling, even if these children don't.

Well, I really hope you guys lose. I mean, I'm so kind of you. Thank you. A little part of me hopes you win because now I want to see how deep it goes. Yeah, how many layers are out of this onion. We do have some kids. You must be so tired. And you must be so curious about other things.

to do with a weekend. This is pretty personal, but I also, I don't like who I am when I'm doing baseball. I'm not sleeping well because I care so much about it. This party is partially because I'm on hiatus, and this is the thing I'm investing my time in. So there's like a real complex around how much I've invested into it. Yeah.

But I'm sweating over these lineups for the day before the game, thinking about them over and over again. I'm getting like an upset stomach on the day of the game and I'm thinking about it a lot. And I have to occupy myself with other things so that I'm not stressing out about it. When we're actually there on the field, it's, I'm so stressed out internally. Like I am, I'm more nervous than these children are. And it just gets worse and worse, the more that you win because then there's more and more expectation. And I'm worried that I did something wrong, that I'm going to, the game's not going to be

for them, that one of them's going to be like, I don't like baseball from like where I've been playing. That's your ticket out. I'm trying to be a Friday night lights coach here. I'm trying to like make these into better men too. I want these kids to be good all around. And there's a lot of pressure. There's a lot to think about. And I don't like that I can't sleep at night before games or that I wake up in the middle

night. And if I know that there's a game the next day and I think about that at all, I have to like shove it out of my mind. Otherwise, I'm just going to be focused on, did we drill that? Do we, oh, wait, they're playing drop three strike in this tournament. I don't think we've been playing drop three strike. We haven't talked about that. Oh, I know that at the Beverly Hills field, there's two bags at first base. And we haven't talked about which bag you go back to after you run through that orange bat.

Like that kind of stuff, where I'm like, there's just a million things that I'm going to fixate on. And I want to be, I want to just be done with it all. Man, I really. I mean, I mean, I, not to go back to the same. same well. I know I've said this earlier in the podcast. I'm going to sound like a broken record, but Soren, stop it. Stop this thing that you're doing. I'm trying. I'm trying. And they, yeah, the kids, I think, are, they say they're not done. They say they're pretty excited to still play baseball. They look like they're excited to still play baseball. But I don't want them to lose it either. I don't want them to do so much baseball that they're like, God.

this sucks. I'm tired of this. I want to keep him hungry. I know. Anyway, it's hard. It's hard. Well, that about desert right. Yeah. Thank you, everybody, for listening to Soren spins out this podcast that we have where Dan tries to talk soaring off a ledge at multiple places. Tiny ledges, obviously, iced tea and baseball ledges, but ledges nonetheless.

less. It's good that we don't have our work hiatuses at the same time. You would be giving me much worse advice if you were on hiatus. And I would be giving it to you as well. I become a different person on hiatus and I don't like that person. If you like this podcast, though, you can watch it on YouTube. You can see video of Dan and I talking to each other. If you want to get more of it, we have a Patreon exclusive that you can listen to.

you just pay a little bit of money, and we do an extra little podcast just for you. Not you, just you, the entire Patreon community. If you liked our theme song, that's by me, Rex. And if you like this podcast in general,

you like the way it's put together, you like the cut of its jib. That's Gabe harder doing that cutting. Thank you. Bye. I'm just glad that we could talk tonight. So what's your favorite? Who did you get?

Two best friends and comedy writers. If there's an answer, they're going to find it. I think you'll have a great time here. I think you'll have a great time here.