Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Franking Stein

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

Soren wages guerilla warfare against wasps. Daniel is a celebration boy that likes to party. Also there are no more websites and a doodoodooduhdoo strike update. Follow us on socials and dole out some sweet, sweet engagement: https://www.linktr.ee/QQPodcast  

I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright? I wanna hear your thoughts, I wanna know what's on your mind I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright? The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favorite? Who did you get? What do I be? What was it I did? Where did all the good things go? Oh, forget it. I saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien.

Two best friends and comedy writers. If there's an answer, they're gonna find it. I think you'll have a great time here. I think you'll have a great time here. So hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel of the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers ask each other questions and give each other answers. I am on behalf of that podcast senior writer for last week tonight, author of How to Fight Presidents and celebration boy Daniel O'Brien joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, let's party! I was listening to some other podcasts recently, and I was realizing that a lot of people just

fade up on them having a very natural conversation, or they fade up on them laughing about a joke, and then they're just kind of like ease into the show. You're like one toe in, and you know what I mean? People don don't just start with like an intro like we do. And, uh, I like our intros. I think there, I think it's a good way to like bookend the show.

Be like, Hey, this is, it's starting now. Fucking pay attention. But, uh, I mean,

also there's something about like just laughter, like coming up on laughter where I'm like, ah, these guys seem fun. It just works on me. You know, I, I go back and forth. I mean, if it's a podcast that I've been listening to for a long time, like, like coming up on laughter where i'm like ah these guys seem fun it just works on me yeah you know i i go back and forth i mean if it's a podcast that i've been listening to for a long time like uh smart list where i just like their vibe and their chemistry that i'm fine just hearing

them whatever they want their cold open to be yeah i think it's good uh but conversely i'm always thinking about how can we grow this podcast in any way that doesn't involve me promoting it on any of my massive social platforms. And I think Alex Schmidt does a really great job with his podcast because it's not as alienating for first-time listeners as ours is, I think. He's very clear. This is my name. This is the premise of the podcast. Here is the topic of this particular podcast. And now we're going to get right into it. And it's like, that's a good, you can safely drop someone into any episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating, and you could convert them into a new listener. I think you're right. You can't do that at ours. Well, with your

introductions, you can. I mean, the premise is flimsy but clear we've always done that it's i i don't have to talk about this podcast much in my in my real life because i because my friends know it and i i don't go around talking about it ever uh but recently i had to because i was meeting a whole bunch of new people who didn't know me and certainly didn't know my work for Cracked but they knew that I had a podcast and that's a really tough place for me to to be in I don't know if you found yourself in that position there's a lot of like yeah so you have a podcast what's it about and I have to very I don't want to lead with it's about me and my buddy Soren talking to each other about nothing but it's truly it's like I'm like it's it really is it's about nothing it's it's

we're comedy writers that rarely comes up we mostly just bullshit for a while and we we like talk about pop culture sometimes talk about ourselves we catch up yeah and they're like why do people listen to it like that's a very fascinating question and it puts me in this this humbling and strange position that i have to be like okay so okay so for like eight years people used to go to websites people used to go to websites. They used to go to websites on their computers every day. Now we have feeds of everything on our phone and that's how we consume content. But for a while, people used to like wake up in the morning and go to their bookmarks

of their daily favorite websites and they would read articles and watch videos on their favorite websites. People used to go to websites. The internet used to have different websites. It wasn't just your mail and Facebook. People would go to a website and then they wouldn't even read the titles. They just picked their favorite thumbnail and they would click on that and the thumbnail would be an article.

They would go to these websites and they really liked it. And they would read stuff by people. And sometimes they would like, no, ooh, it's this day of the week. That means it's Soren's column day or Daniel's column day. And they liked us as writers and as video personalities. And again, there aren't websites anymore. Not even the one that we worked for. But for a while, we were one of the good websites that people liked every day. And it was called Cracked. Don't look for it.

And it was such a, it was a common enough phenomenon that people could make an actual living doing websites. And we got so popular doing it that people still want to hear us today even if what we talk about is of no value and then they're like oh that's interesting i'll check it out like no don't oh fucking do not do that i mean don't listen to. I'm actually reading it might be better. I wonder if we come across better in a transcript. a very specific, but kind of large community of people who care about what I have to say, because you, you're, you're always sort of, uh, on your heels. If the, the thrust of your conversation is explaining to someone who doesn't know you that you are famous. Yeah. Oh, it's also, I mean, there's like a huge element that you can't really explain or

articulate, which is, uh, when I'm talking to my friend, we're very charming together, which is like, it just works. Like that's like a thing I'd live my whole life with, which is when I was trying to be an actor a long time ago, you tell people I'm an actor. They have in their head an idea of what somebody, a struggling actor is. And somebody who fucking sucks at acting, but it's like sticking with it. And like, it's just kind of pretty and not and like they're just like trying to coast on that and hoping they get lucky it's the same with podcasting where people are like oh two white

guys have a podcast congratulations that's what do you have seven listeners like who goes to who goes to this i'm like no what do you talk about movies yeah sometimes but we do it in a cool way let me ask you did do you still go to individual websites i do uh i go to every day i check out av club even though that like rip av club that that site has has stood for a long time but they're they're they've really been hit by the realities of internet content monetization uh like the rest of us back in the day it just has hit them a little bit later but i still go there i still go to i'll go to vulture and i'll go to theringer.com and i'll read about yeah i like their sports writers and their pop culture writers

and uh that's about it as far as like like websites i go to for content i'll still check out like news websites and that's different for our industry like variety hollywood reporter and deadline so i could see what fucking bullshit those bootlickers are writing what press release the studios have given to variety so that they can yeah what studio propaganda they're they're publishing as fact um i do that i do that i go to variety and deadline a lot for that kind of thing deadline in particular was really fun during the the period where writers had all dropped their representation um yeah where there were no more agents because like the agents clearly

had a pipeline directly to deadline and deadline did not give a shit what they published they were anything against the writers and to the point where it was like even people who just had like a cursory understanding of the industry and we're just like reading deadline we're like why why do they hate writers yeah it's wild a couple of things that happened this week where as of this, we're recording this August 18th. So who knows what will change by the time this actually gets released. But this is a week where Variety and Hollywood Reporter both published a couple of articles with headlines that were talking about that, like specifically said, WGA responds to AMPTP's

counteroffer. And there's like a whole article with a with a ton of words in it and it's baffling to me because there's no way either of those websites will know what the wga's response is before i do as a member of the wga so like i know whatever they're writing has got to be hearsay or bullshit or again, propaganda from the studios. And it's just so baffling that they could just like, like nakedly say a lie about this thing. And the other bit of it that's weird to me is, is I don't think any normal person like goes to Variety and Hollywood Reporter to learn about the strike. So it's really only writers who are seeing this and know it's not true and are getting mad and galvanized over it. I know.

It's writers in studios. Every single one of the- Everyone who's reading this knows it's a lie. What are you doing? That's how far out of touch the AMPTP is. They're like, they think that they're going to find some crack between the writers, something like chink in the armor where they can just pull it apart and divide the writers on something.

So they're like, the plan is you come back to the table, you continue to negotiate, but you negotiate in bad faith. So that at every single turn where the WGA is saying, no, we're not going to do that. You can go, we came back. Like we're, we're arguing. I would argue we are, we're negotiating in earnest. And the WGA is being completely irresponsible with, with this negotiation. Like they're not even trying. And like, that's the hope. so that then you can have the writers underneath there who are all struggling to pay their bills right now be like what the fuck like let's just make a deal that's their hope and that's just not yeah it's just not what's fucking happening it's pretty great um it's pretty great to have the internet and to have immediately everybody dunk on anything that comes out about the studios this is really fun yeah it's been's been very, very gratifying. Um, I go to, uh, you could, you could tell me though, it's, it's, it wasn't, it's not as gratifying as, uh, getting paid and, and having secure health insurance.

Right. Would you say? It's pretty sweet. That was pretty, that was, that was better. Well, we had, we're rare. I mean, we had good jobs. We had nice, great, fun jobs and then,. But nobody else did. And that's the problem. But I want to tell you, since you like The Ringer, I think that you should start trying out Defector. only website i still go to because i love the writers there and uh ray rado who is a sports writer and uh david roth who is mostly a sports writer but also like he like writes about trump

in such like a good and nuanced detailed way they're both very funny most of the defector writers are incredible like they're all really fun to read and even about sports that i don't give a shit about like there'll be an article about the Phoenix suns and I'll be like, all right, well, Ray Rado wrote it. So let's go check it out. Um, what are they, are they born out of Gawker or dead spin or both? I think that they're born out of dead spin. Um, I think that must be right because I, I get like regular defector emails because, uh, I blindly started financially supporting them as soon as they emerged as like, we are the new deadspin. If you like deadspin support this. And I was like, great, take my money. I have not read anything. I just support, uh, online content creation as, uh,

a frivolous pursuit. Uh, but I should check it out and see what I've been spending my money on. Yeah. Joe Chandler turned me onto that. Joee chandler who famously got my my job at american dad um he's he's also a guy who just like is keenly has his finger on the pulse of like good writers on the internet and he turned me on to it i was like you're right they're really good awesome um okay do you want to do this show yeah let's do the show i have a quick question for you go shoot let's say i'm gonna give you a hypothetical you have a wasp wasps nest that's forming on your house or like you just discovered it and it's already there do you have any idea how to get rid of that uh no i would probably i would probably like immediately go to the internet

and and figure out how to get rid of wasp nest but i think in the spirit of this hypothetical you don't want me to do that so what would i do if there's a wasp nest on my balcony and my internet is out yeah um i have so many different insect poisons in my house because I have a history with ants. So, I would probably get a combination of a thing that kills ants and a thing that kills bedbugs, just in case, and a thing that kills roaches and spray i would put something over my head okay so i couldn't so the bees can't fly the wasps can't fly into my face okay uh i would put like a see-through plastic bag tie it real tight around my neck i'd wear long sleeves and i would uh spray it thinking poison is poison and then i would flee back into my house and wait for them to all die out

and look for the little wasp bodies. Yeah. And you're getting a see-through plastic bag on your neck. Is that so they still think that they've got a chance? Like that they think like that's still going to be the target. They're like, I see something. It's so I can see.

Oh, wait, is this, is this going over your head? Oh yeah. Over my whole face, my whole face and head. And I tie it tight around my neck. Is this going over your head? Yeah, over my whole face. My whole face and head. And I tie it tight around my neck.

You are suffocating yourself. I see. Yeah, correct. I just pictured a bag folded up lengthwise so that it could still be tied around your neck. No. Okay. All right. I see now.

You've got a whole plastic bag on your head. The thing that we were always warned as children never to do. Yeah, that's correct. Okay. bag on your head the thing that we were always warned as children never to do you'll wear that uh okay that's i mean that's not too far off from what what i've discovered you're supposed to do i really well i mean some of it's right i i just so i did research i found a wasp nest and i was like oh yikes how do we get rid of that? On your house. On my house. Yeah. And like in the front of my house too. So in a place where the wasps are, and I are sharing territory and I don't, I don't like it. So I was like, I got to figure out how to get this thing off. And I've never done more planning for a single like 10 second event in my entire life where I was like, I got to figure out.

Cause I was like spray I got to figure out, cause I was like sprays, certainly sprays. But then all I'm doing is like, they're all inside of it. There's a few of them on the outside, but if I spray the outside, it's the whole point of having an outside is that the wasps inside stay safe. So like, do I just spray it inside of a hole and then just run away as fast as I can? I was like, ah, I don't want these things anger knowing my face after I do a thing like that. I just want to get rid of them in one fell swoop.

So I, I discovered that, uh, you're supposed to, whatever you do, you're supposed to do it at night. You do it in the middle of the night because, um,

wasps are asleep then. Cause they've got, uh, work in the morning, presumably. Um, they're fucking scabs. get cold at night and they their bodies slow down because they're cold-blooded so like they're more lethargic at night so you stand a better chance of getting away and then

what was recommended and i did do research so i'm cheating a little bit but what's recommended is you take a trash bag. And first of all, everything you described of covering your body as much as you can, you do. You put not a plastic bag over your face, but you put on even a mask that you would wear, a ventilation mask, anything that covers body parts and orifices particularly. A spooky monster mask for Halloween. Monster mask and duct tape little nose holes would be perfect okay and uh i've got on like god i've got on safety glasses i've got on a hood and a hat underneath it i've got on long and i'm and i'm i'm uh frankenstein and i'm wearing a

sweater and some some hockey pads did you call him? Otherwise, no bottoms. Did you call him Frankenstein? Frankenstein, yeah. Just in case, that's a foolproof way if someone's like, actually, it's Frankenstein's monster. And I'm like, I didn't say any of that stupid nerd shit. Frankenstein's a totally different character. Frankenstein. And he looks like a monster.

He's a Stein, but he's franking um god now i want to go as frankenstein for halloween so as people be coming up on the holiday ask me what i'm gonna be i can be like frankenstein uh it's such a fun name to get wrong okay um you take a trash bag and you kind of like, you just got to get it wide enough that you feel like you could get the whole wasp nest inside of it. The idea is that you sneak up on it in the night when they're sleeping and you wrap the bag around it as quickly as you can. And then you pull off of whatever it's connected to and the whole thing falls in the bag and then you tie it shut. And then eventually the wash will suffocate in there and die. Oh, you don't take that to like the river and smoke a cigarette and toss it over a bridge or

something? I think you probably could. Yeah, you're already doing weird shit at night. There's no way Colleen would let me put a plastic bag in river water. She doesn't need to know. So I set an alarm so they could get up in the middle of the night on a night when I, like I'm looking at the schedule and I'm seeing like on the weather app when it's supposed to be the coldest. And I'm like, okay,

it's going to get down to like 63. I hope that that's cool enough. And I got up in the middle of night, got my ladder out. I'm wearing clothes that look like I'm breaking into a house. And I have a pair of scissors. Cause I'm like, I know I've seen the top of this thing. And I know that it's just connected by this one little piece.

And in general, wasp nest are like, they, it doesn't, it's not a ton of, of, um, area. And so I'm like, here's the plan. And I'm practicing it alone in my garage. I've got the bag I'm snipping. And then I'm closing the bag up as quickly as I, my plan is to just put the, like throw the scissors down to the ground and close the bag up. I just got to get it inside. And I'm like, I can do this. I get up there. I roll the plastic bag a little, so it gets more space and open and I grip on it. I get it around the wasp nest and they're like, they're all chilling there. Like it's really uncomfortable. Cause as soon as I

get close, there's like this quiver among the wasps where they're like, something's here, something's here. And I'm like, Oh, they're getting ready for me. And, uh, and I get the scissors up above it and they don't like that. Like some of them start leaving it and I'm like, the scissors up above it and they don't like that like some of them start leaving it and i'm like okay and i snip it and the minute i snip it it sticks to the scissors which is something i didn't anticipate is yeah so now like this wasp nest is attached to the scissors and it's because it's made like the wasp nest is just made up of their spit and like whatever they've been fucking chewing on that turns it into a wasp nest. And so it's very, very sticky. And I'm freaking out.

And then I can't shut the bag because I can't... What I need to do is peel it away from the scissors, but I can't let go of the bag either. And so I panic and I just throw the scissors and the whole thing inside the bag and shut it and tie it up. And I can hear them. Yeah, you have more scissors in the house.

Yeah, and I can hear them buzzing around in there. And then all of a sudden there's some wasps around me and i'm like what like were these guys just out on reconnaissance and like came back and i realized no when i dropped the scissors in there i just punctured a hole in the bottom and so i get it down on the ground and i step on that area to like shut it off. But now I'm stuck in the middle of the night. Yeah. Holding one end of a bag, my foot on the other one, and I can't go anywhere. Like I can't move. Yeah.

Now the solution is clear. Set fire to your foot. That will weld the bag shut. Yeah. And they're like, I can hear them in there and they're not happy. And they're like, I can hear them in there and they're not happy. It's like this dull drum of all these wasps coming out being like, what the fuck is going on? It's the middle of the night.

And they probably know they're not dealing with the top brass here. No, they realize this is somebody's first time. And they're just like hungry to get out of this bag. I reach down and I can like at least twist the end of the bag, push the scissors all the way back in, twist that end of the bag so that they can't get out. The wasps that are around me have fucked off. Like they didn't even try and fight me. Like the two or three that came out were just like, ah, we'll start over. We'll start a new life somewhere else. And so I twisted it shut. I'm holding this bag from both ends. I'm like, I don't know when I'm ever going to get, I like these scissors.

I don't know when I'm going to get these back. Cause I have no idea how long they can survive in there. And so I was like, okay, new plan. I ended up getting duct tape. I put it around the other end of the bag. I tie up the very top nice and tight. So now at least it's sealed and I empty out as much of the air as I can because it's not completely airtight. And then I stick the whole thing in my freezer. Oh my God. And, and I just am like, this will go fast, I think. And so, uh, I'm in the morning, I go back and I open it up and I'm just like shaking it a little to see if I can get some action from in there.

And nothing's happening. They're all quiet. And I don't know if this is an ambush or not. And so I take it outside. I put on all the gear again, just in case. And I open the bag and there are so many wasps. Like they're way more than I anticipated. I was thinking maybe there'd be like 12 in there.

There are like a hundred wasps and they've all come out and they've all frozen to death. But I got my scissors back. I killed the wasps. Got to just toss that whole thing, that whole mess in the garbage and not have to worry about it again. Yeah. And now you know, now you know what you're supposed to do. In the middle of the night, you put a trash bag around it and then just don't throw sharp scissors inside your bag to cut it open.

I definitely don't think I would have done that part. I mean, I wouldn't have thought to do the garbage bag thing, but if I did think to do the garbage bag thing, I wouldn't have done the scissor thing. I don't think. Yeah. You're not supposed to. I mean, you're supposed to get up above it. It's just so hard. It's like, it's so close to the ceiling and you're supposed to close it up and pull. I don't think I would have done the freezer thing.

I mean, it makes sense, but there's a real window of opportunity there for Colleen to have a very confusing morning if she wakes up before you. I did go tell her i woke her up and i was like don't open the freezer in the morning she was like why and i was like is there a surprise in a way yes yes but not for you i'm hoping um yeah and so then i yeah it's just a plastic bag full of dead insects in my freezer for a little while man why

why did you think that was the move instead of just like hopping on your bike and leaving them somewhere my scissors i want my scissors back yeah i mean times are tight in this strike i every little bit counts right now if this if this were february or march sure throw more scissors in there who cares the money's not going away but the entire time i was doing it i was thinking a lot about the last time that i had to kill an animal and i was like that was a really hard experience too, where I'm just sitting there looking at it thinking, all right, what is the cleanest, fastest way to do this? And I don't know, I think maybe I told the story on the podcast before, but just very quickly, there was a possum that was not doing very well. It was being eaten alive from the back end by ants. And it was like out in the middle of the day, which is always a bad sign. It couldn't walk or anything. And I was like, it was in front of my son's daycare. So I was like, I got to get rid

of this thing. I put it on a shovel and brought it home. And then I was like, okay, what's the best way to dispatch this thing? Put scissors in its mouth. Put it in the freezer. And so I was like, I could hit it with a shovel. I don't think I can like, that's going to weigh on me a lot. And it's also going to be very messy for my driveway. And so I had elected to drown it in a bucket. And that was also, it turned out very hard on the soul. Where watching bubbles come out of its noses, it was like looking at me and like not wanting to die,

like moving around a lot as I pin it down with a shovel in a bucket. But on the other hand, very fast and very clean. Yeah. Man, possums can drown fast, it turns out. And that was actually nice. But then afterwards, I was like, I had it in a bag and I was walking out to my front to go put it in a trash can and my neighbor had stopped me and he was like, Hey, how's it going? And I was like, not good.

Um, you kind of caught me, caught me at a low point. Um, I can't, I can't honestly say things are good right now. Yeah. I'm feeling pretty bad about a thing. Look, I've, I've either got to say nothing right now or way too much. Pick which one of those, because this could affect your day too. Yeah. And in fact, I told him only because I was like, someone has to share this

emotional weight. I'm a writer. I'm pretty good at describing what things look like when they die. Now I've learned how to be very eloquent about what souls leaving eyes might look like. Okay, so that's out of the way. Anyway, what's going on with you? You having a good day? Yeah.

Anyway, as I'm trying to think of the best and fastest way to get rid of these wasps, I'm like, I tried to drown another fucking thing all the air in this bag is worrisome to me i don't even know if the water will get in there so and i elected to do freezer man i am back on my ruthless lanternfly murdering bullshit have they been a problem at all in california is it strictly east coast lantern fly let me take a look at these things oh no we don't have these they started showing up a couple years ago uh and they're they're they're beautiful looking and they don't like they don't

harm me or anything like that they harm our trees and they are not they're an invasive species they're not native to this area but they destroy trees and they multiply so quickly and it's the first time in my lifetime that the government has come out as and has been like kill these fucking things if you see them step on them murder them all it's like i know that's very common in if like you're a hunter the your state will come out and say, hey, the coyotes are a problem. It's open season on coyotes. Kill every single one of them that you see.

We got to get rid of them. But I'm not a hunter and coyotes aren't a problem for me. But these lantern flies in New York and Jersey, there's like, yeah, get rid of them, step on them. They are sneaky. They can't fly for long periods of time, but they are pretty good at sneaking up on you and landing on you to follow you into your home and then be in your home.

They just like rely on you to get them from place to place. And they're deceptively hard to step on. Like they know I'm, they'll freeze when they see me coming. And I don't think there's, I'm not like giving it a count off or anything. I'm trying to be spontaneous when I stomp on it and they hop and fly a few feet away every time. And like, I chase them down the boardwalk every once in a while, but they, we have been given, um, car plans to murder as many as we see.

You've got a license here yeah and there are so so many of them uh the larvae and again it's not easy to spot the larvae are like a bright red with white spots on them yeah yeah they're always easy to spot and like new york and new jersey again and probably other places there's so many of them so you'll see one and then you'll see six. And again, it's not like if I had an ant infestation in my house, that's worse than a lanternfly infestation or like bees or wasps or spiders or mosquitoes or anything that like bites or harms me is objectively worse for me. But there are just so many of them. And I don't like them and I don't want them destroying our nice trees i agree uh i mean and like yeah like invasive species in general they're also not a thing that like you can't call in the way that

you can call like a mosquito company that will spray a poison to protect your lawn for some amount of time or like ant exterminators whatever yeah there's they're not like a controllable thing because they don't really as far as i know they don't like nest in certain places they're always just bopping around yeah yeah i i mean so i don't know if this is a thing that happens on the east coast but there's a certain season usually it's like september and October, which happens to be really nice. Cause it's around Halloween when spiders just overrun Los Angeles. Yeah. Um, you spiders show up out of nowhere. A lot of times it's like these brown widows, uh, that make these really messy webs, but there's also funnel spiders. There's a bunch of different ones, but for whatever reason, that's their season. And they all come out. I guess it's also because that's the end of the summer when the most flies are out too,

I would assume. Yeah, and it's so spooky. That's when all your Frankensteins and spiders and jackals. And so there's spiders, and that's late. I mean, it's like fall usually. For whatever reason, this season there's spiders and and that's late i mean it's like fall usually for whatever reason this season there are spiders everywhere our whole front area we have like a zero scaped yard so it's

it's there's like a lot of opportunity for them there's a bunch of different foliage and stuff and they're making these huge elaborate webs in our front yard. And you just see them hanging out in the middle and they're huge. They're like, some of them are like quarter size. And my wife was like, can you get rid of the spiders? And I was like, no, because surely they're there for a reason. Like these are succeeding. These are thriving spiders. And that means that they're killing something I also don't want here.

And so I wouldn't get rid of them. And so there are tons of spiders all over my house, like the eaves and stuff. And then yesterday I came outside and there was just this horde of dragonflies all over my yard. And I was like, there are a lot of dragonflies out in LA right now. And I walked down the street a little bit

and realized, no, there are a lot of dragonflies just around my house. And I think generally the only time I ever see dragonflies are around ponds or water. And they're always cruising around on the top. There must have been like 70 dragonflies all furiously flying around my house. And I'm trying to watch to see what's going on. And I'm realizing that I've created a whole habitat here. And they're

eating the spiders. They're just flying down, grabbing a spider off its web. They don't get caught in the webs because they're just too big, I guess. But they're just like plucking them up and just eating them, pulling them down to the ground and eating them. And I was like, oh, well, that problem solved itself. Great. That's a little scary in its own right too, because I, it's so rare for me to see dragonflies and I like seeing them. I think they're cool. They're really interesting looking. They look like a spaceship. Their name is dragon. That's my name too in some circles. And I just think they're, they're, they're fun and cool. I, I don't think I would do well if I saw a lot of them together.

Yeah. In my space or not in my space. I think I would just be like, oh, I don't want them coming at me like 70 tiny bullets. No, a swarm of dragonflies seems tough to deal with. Yeah. I don't think I would like them all around, hovering around me. I was reading a book and it was talking about dragonflies. It was like this little girl was having a carefree summer on a lake and she's talking about how dragonflies stitch your mouth shut.

What? What is that? And she had a different name for it in the book. And I can't remember what it was. I think it was like needle flies or like knitting flies or something like that. And so I looked it up and the myth is that they can stitch your mouth shut and sometimes the eyes and ears of lying children.

And I was like, hell yeah. So for a long time, I think people thought that they looked like knitting needles or something. Sure. Because of their body shape. And then the concern became, same with like earwigs, for instance, like that they just like, well, surely that's meant for us. And it's meant to do something terrible to us. It's going to stitch all our orifices together. Right.

That's a thing I know. Earwig. Growing up, people said, oh, they're earwigs. And they're called that because they they use those objectively terrifying looking ass pinchers to crawl into your ear and do ear business i believe that for a very long time and that's like a mistranslation of the original french which is like no we called them something that uh because they look like earrings because they have those two hooks that like they don't actually do anything to your ears. But if you were a,

a worthless French person and you saw an earwig with those little pinchers, you'd be like, I didn't know that. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. So your ears are fine. You don't have to worry about it.

I don't even think that they pinch with those things. I think that that's specifically for mating. That's how they hold on to each other. Yeah. Okay. So I did not know that. That's good news. Yeah, man.

That's what this show is all about. I also, I mean, while we're on the subject, there's another thing that I wished was true. I read it and I immediately was like, this is the coolest fact in the world. I'm going to share it with everybody. And then I did some further research and realized, oh no, this is not true at all. Um, the question mark, there was a book at my vet that I was reading through and it was talking about cats and it was like, do you know the birth of the question mark?

It's based on a cat. Cause, uh, when the cat is very curious, they do these very specific things with their tail. When they're looking at something, they curve it and it looks a lot like the top of a question mark. And then do you want to guess what that little point at the bottom of the question mark would be if that's the cat's tail? The butthole. That's right. And so the birth of the question mark in this book was saying that the birth of the question mark was to imitate a cat, the back of a cat when it's curious. So you're getting that little point on a question mark was a cat's asshole.

And I was like, perfect. I'm logging that information away and I'm bringing it out at Thanksgiving. It's not true, unfortunately. And it's one of those things that I still wish was true. I think I'd like to think that, that you and I could have really thrived in a time before

answers to things were readily available. Oh my God. And you realize that people would listen to you if you just seemed confident and had answers that wouldn't hold up to a ton of scrutiny, but would hold up to just enough that people would believe it and spread it around. I think it would be decent. I mean, the value in knowing what's interesting about anything is like, it's priceless. There are so many people in so many different fields who have no idea what's interesting about their field. They were passionate about it and they assume everybody else shares that and they just can't look at it objectively. You and I are passionate about nothing. And we're just dilettantes. We just pick and choose from any other walks of life.

And we're like, oh, that's sort of interesting. That's sort of interesting. And we can understand objectively what is interesting about these things. So very good conversationalists, also very big liars, full of disinformation. Right. Sort of like talking to a child where it's like, well, I can't answer all of my nephew's questions, but I can, well, I can't give him information, but I can give him answers. Yeah.

I can give him a story. Very interesting ones. That will like hook him and make him think that he's learned something and that the world is magical. And then I can walk away and leave and go on to another town and find another nephew. Find another Rube. Don't worry, I'll believe your stories. Yeah. I mean, there's so many things that I've picked up along the way that I just,

I don't even know if they're true or not, but I say them like they're truth. And then later, we'll find out, oh, I'm going to have to walk that back. I'm going to figure out who the people are that I told that question mark thing to and just walk it back. I was talking to somebody about the phrase break a leg when someone's auditioning for something and they say break a leg. So, you know, the reason that they say that if you're auditioning for a role, they say break a leg because they're essentially saying, I hope you get in a cast. And the person was like, is that true? true she's like do you want it to be sure it is who cares you're like there's not gonna be a test who cares you're like calvin's dad and calvin and hopper were like his answers rule like i love his answers for stuff because

calvin has these big philosophical quandaries and like his dad's like no I got the answers for that and he's like very fun none of them are true yeah aspire to be like Calvin's dad yeah god damn how'd you think of that that's really fun I'm sure I heard that from someone else yeah I do know the original way that break a leg

or the origin of it what I'd actually learned from theater was that it's it was just like a superstition thing where they don't want to, like, we just decided it was bad luck to say good luck or you're going to do great. Yeah, so you say the opposite. You say the opposite of that, yeah.

The only anecdotal birthplace I'd heard about that was tied to John Wilkes Booth, who, after he shot Abraham Lincoln, a hotified president available at Amazon, he fled and broke his leg. But he also had a great performance, stellar performance in that. Yeah.

We should all aspire to be like John Wilkes Booth. Absolutely. 100%. But even that story, it feels... I will also tell that story to anyone who... To all of our millions of listeners, I'll tell it. I don't know if that's true. And I don't... I truly don't care. It seems way too neat for that to be true. Yeah. Yeah. But it does seem strange also. I mean, any of the origins seem very strange that they, that you would say the opposite, like that there are theater gods or like that fate is listening to you before your performance and really wants you to not have what you want. Like really does not want you to succeed at whatever you're looking to do. So if somebody says good luck, it's like,

ah, nah, fuck them. Like they're going to do bad. They're do bad. They really do a great job out there. Those theater guys don't want that. What they do want is for you to be miserable. So if somebody's like, hey, break a leg, they're like, oh, he wants to break a leg. I'm going to give him the opposite. He's going to have the performance of a lifetime. And he'd be completely healthy the whole time.

That's also very strange to think. Yeah. Soren, I got a quick question for you. Yeah, go ahead. How come at the start of this episode, when I called myself Celebration Boy and then asked you to party, you ignored all of that and started talking about other podcasts that you prefer? Because I stopped listening to you as soon as I started thinking of my own shit. Oh, okay. Daniel, why are you celebration boy today?

Oh, thanks, man. I came in just buzzing with energy because my car broke. It just wouldn't start about a week ago. And I had it towed to a place and they very expensively fixed a thing they said was wrong. And then my car started again, and that was great. And I drove to, I was in the city for a few days. So I drove to New York and left this morning from New York and my car wouldn't start again. And I, the parking lot attendant informed me about it. And he's like, I tried to jump it the other day and it worked, but now the jump box isn't working. And I was just like so mad because this is a bad time.

And I just spent stupid money fixing this car. And the attendant was trying to jump it with a jump box and that wasn't working. He was like, let me pull my car around and try to jump it with that. He pulls his car around and then he's like, wait a minute. And he puts out a safety cone to make sure that no one comes and disturbs the cars all i'm thinking this entire time is my car is going to be dead in this tight narrow new york city underground parking thing which is uh it's it's total chaos no one is ever supposed to see those things because because they they cram so many cars in there.

And all I'm thinking is like, there is no way a tow truck will ever get in here for my dead car. And even if it ever does, where am I going to ask it to take it? I mean, I'm in the city. This is such a nightmare. And then the very nice parking attendant gets my car started and like moves the

cone away, clear some other cars out of the way. I'm about to go. And I'm still like, even though my car is working, I'm fuming in my car. And he runs back up to me and puts a finger up, say one second and like double checks to make sure my hood is closed. And my brain, I'm thinking, like double checks to make sure my hood is closed and my brain i'm thinking asshole just get out of my way and i drive uh i had a a scheduled gym class that i take in jersey i was like i'm gonna go to this class and get my head screwed on straight uh and then i'm gonna deal with the car after that because i know the class is near a mechanic and I will at least be closer to home and like, let me just fucking cool off and sweat this out. I go to the gym, I do my class, I crush it, uh, with the wrong kind of energy. And you know how you're so mad that you don't pay attention to

your form anymore and it's going to hurt later. Yeah. It's one of those things. It's just like you gain this new strength from being angry yeah uh and then i call uh triple a and i'm prepared to wait for a very long time and triple a shows up so quickly and he's like what do you what do you need it's like i need just a jump hopefully i don't i it's it's not starting again uh and just take i, once I get a jump, I'll take it to this mechanic I know. And he lifts up the hood and immediately fiddles with a connector on my battery. And he says, start it now. And I, I, I started and it works. And I was like, Oh my God, what did you do? And he's like, it's this connector here, this, this connector on the battery. Uh's it's it's loose you need a new one and i was like

stay and he said uh give me one second and he goes to his truck to get tools this guy who was just supposed to jump the car is now like taking tools to work on it and i was like hold on a second and i run into my car and i get a replacement connector piece for the battery and i was like is this the piece that you need and he's like yeah that's perfect and this guy who was again just supposed to do one job completely fixes my car it's it's not good as new it's a 2007 but it works and I can start it whenever I want and drive it around and I was so happy and I was staring down the face of having to go to a mechanic. And like, I called the original mechanic because it's a chain. And I was like, hey, you fixed my car on Saturday and it's not starting again. And they're like, all right, bring it back here. It's like, no, you are an hour and a half away. I only took it to you because I happened to be there when it broke.

I'm not going to have it towed to you. I'm going to have a tow to another brick in your chain, another link in your chain. And they said, well, they probably won't take it. They're going to probably advise you. They don't want to touch it if we're the ones who did the service. So they're probably going to send you up here. And I'm thinking, great. I'm going to, whatever that tow is, I'm going to have to pay that. And then whatever other thing they find that's broken, I'm going to have to pay that. So realizing I don't have to do that because it was a simple thing that this guy fixed was uh a weight was lifted off my shoulders uh and it also made me realize that this entire day i was met with nothing but kindness from strangers

from the first the parking lot attendant who was like going out of his way to try two different ways to jump this car and make sure i was leaving safely and wish me good luck to this triple a employee who didn't need to fix this he could have just tried to zap it or said ah you need a tow just taking time out of his day knowing that like he can't charge me for this service. He was just doing it. And just like how closed my eyes were to this. And in fact, it probably made me madder that I was like, where am I supposed to put this anger if everyone's being so nice to me right now? That was a feeling I would try to capture in you on your birthday back in the day. Yes, absolutely. Because that's when you were at your maddest when you had nothing to do with your anger.

I would try to achieve that on your birthday every year. I know exactly what you mean. When you are completely helpless, you unlock this new kindness from the people around you in a way where you're like, oh shit, the world's good, but I'm still really angry right now. When I had broken my wrist and I was on my way back to Colorado, I had like this huge splint on. I had to, it was imperative that I get to Colorado for a separate reason, but like I had this huge splint on and it looked like I was turning into

a wickus from district nine and yeah uh how do you whip in sweet and it was i was so unwieldy and awful and people would see me on in the airport and they were so much gentler with me just like in general and you it's just like you there's like surface level interaction with people and then as soon as you are helpless or like a baby like a child that people do the same thing you just unlock this new level where everyone there's like way more compassion in the world than you anticipated. And you're like, oh shit, everybody's actually pretty good. Yeah. When my wrist was broken at the same time that I was moving to New York, I was, I was, I had like two or three big suitcases with me that I was loading onto the train. Like I'm an ingenue in

a musical in the past. And I'm on my way to the big city. And a guy at the train station leaving from New Jersey was like, here, let me help you with those bags. And he helped me bring them because I only had one hand to do all of this. And 45 minute train ride later, he finds me again. And he's like, you're probably going to need help getting off the train too, right? I was like, yes, yes, please, sir. And he like help getting off the train too right like yes yes please sir and he like helped me through the train station and helped me get a cab and I was like people people are so great when I'm at my weakest yes and I also wish it didn't like an ugly thing about myself for today's experience I wish it didn't take things working out for me

today's experience i wish it didn't take things working out for me to reflect on how kind everyone had been this whole time like if things didn't work out then i'm sure i paint a different picture about and then the parking attendant was taking too long and then the triple a guy didn't even fix my car but but everything worked out. So now I love everyone. I'm also surprised there's a part of the story that you didn't latch on to. Because I, once the car was working and I was so excited, I called my girlfriend because I was giving her the play by play of what a terrible day I'd been having. And then I was like, and the guy said, it's this part. It was the connecting part. And I reached my car and I pulled the part out and I was like, do you mean this?

And he fixed it. And now my car's working I pulled the part out. And I was like, do you mean this? And he fixed it. And now my car's working. And baby, I'm back and I'm feeling good. She said, why did you have that part? You had the part in your car? Yep. So I was like, don't focus on that. Don't you dare focus on that.

Because the truth is that part was pretty rough back in December. And my dad gave me a replacement part. pretty rough back in December. And my dad gave me a replacement part on my car and I didn't do it because the car was working. And if the thing is not really broke, don't fix it. And even when the car was having issues last week and again today, he texted to say, ask them to look at the connector. So not only were there so many angels in this story, I was the bad guy. Oh man, that changes the whole story. I hope you didn't tell her that. No, I didn't. What I had assumed was that the last time that you went in, you talked to those guys and they're like, it may be this thing, but we don't know that it is and we don't want to change it. So we'll just

give you the extra piece. That's what they do with my bike. If I'm riding my this thing, but like, we don't know that it is. We don't want to change it. So like, we'll just give you the extra piece. That's what they do with my, my bike. If I'm like riding my bike and they're like, Hey man, your inner tube on one of these tires, like it's seen a lot of damage. Like we're going to give you another inner tube and you can replace it.

It's very easy to do. Yeah. And I would be like, yeah, great. Cool. And then I would never, I just forget about it.

Right. That goes in the garage with your box of other, like a weird chunk of PVC pipe and like an elbow joint or whatever. Exactly. Yeah. Oh boy, you had the piece. Yeah. I had the piece in the package in the car that I now I want to go back and talk to the

I mean, like, like, fully I want to go on a love tour and call the parking lot attendant be like huge news, man. I got a fix for free. Thanks for everything. We're we're we did it you and i and i want to talk to the triple a guy just to be like what what was going through your head when i had the i had the perfect thing in my car you played it pretty cool yeah that'll work he did yeah all right i gotta go we gotta end this podcast all right cool yeah the podcast which is called

quick question but you knew that already you can find me on x at dob underscore inc and soren at soren underscore ltd oh wait we decided we're not going to do socials anymore yeah we don't care about that anymore uh we are recorded directed produced and mixed by our engineer, Gabe Harder. And our theme song is by the fantastic band, Me Rex, which you can find on Bandcamp. Get their music anywhere you get music. That seems like plenty. Yeah. All right, bye.

All right, bye. I've got a quick, quick question for you, all right. I want to hear your thoughts. I want to know what's on your mind. I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright I wanna hear your thoughts I wanna know what's on your mind I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright The answer's not important I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favourite?

Who did you get? What do I remember? What did I do? Where did all the good and weak go? Oh, forget it Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer, they're gonna find it

I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here Thank you.