Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Livin La Pura Vida Loca

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

Daniel takes a trip and wow is it a good one! And as always big thanks to our sponsors. Go to Shopify.com/qq for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features. Thanks to Jiminy's sustainable dog food made with cricket protein. Save 25% on your first purchase, go to jiminys.com/QQ25 and use code QQ25 at checkout. Thanks  Avast.com!

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's it out there? 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. podcast, senior writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, author of How to Fight Presidents, and coming at you all the way from island time, Daniel O'Brien, joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Buiz. Soren, say hola. Hola. Así me llamo Soren y yo trabajo a mercandad. God damn it. That's probably the extent of it. As I started to do it, I also started to... You know, you think about a thousand different things when you start any conversation.

But as soon as I said a C, which means like, so. Yeah. It just doesn't translate the same way in Spanish. They don't use so the same way we do. No. And so I was going to be like, I bet that's wrong. And then I started to think about so again, and I was like, ah, I can't continue. I'm done. I'm done. That was the podcast. Thanks everyone.

Hey, this was so much fun, everybody. This is, uh, we're done with this episode and actually this is our last episode of the show ever. Thank you guys so much. Uh, please keep supporting the Patreon. We will not be making the show anymore, but there's no law against giving us money every month. Adios. Thanks to Avast for supporting Quick Question. Avast's new all-in-one solution, Avast One,

helps you take control of your safety and privacy online through a range of features. Learn more about Avast One at avast.com. Thanks to Shopify for supporting Quick Question. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. For a free 14-day trial and free access to Shopify's entire suite of features, go to shopify.com slash qq. This episode is brought to you by Jiminy's, maker of sustainable dog food made with cricket protein. You guys know how much sustainability matters to me.

This is very exciting. Cricket protein is a superfood that is delicious, nutritious, and easy to digest for dogs. Save 25% on your first purchase. Go to Jiminy's.com slash QQ25 and use code QQ25 at checkout. Daniel, I got a couple questions for you. Number one, I mean, I have a much bigger question coming, but just as a quick question, island time. You're familiar with geography.

You know that Costa Rica is not an island. I mean, in a way, everywhere is an island. I guess in the same sense that every man is an island. In my opinion, yes, every man is an island. I guess so. In the same sense that every man is an island. In my opinion, yes. Every man is an island as well. Okay. All right. Well, that answers that.

My much bigger question is, how the hell was Costa Rica, buddy? It was so much fun. I had such a blast. Everyone there was so nice. Everyone was incredibly generous, letting me practice my spanish we couldn't ask for better weather we crammed in so much stuff we stayed at three different places there was hiking and a farm tour and cooking class and hot springs and some fishing for me and and yeah just like seeing cool ass animals and and uh the a huge takeaway for me is after the the farm tour that we went on just the uh having a renewed sense of appreciation

for like sustainability and and uh seeing what i need to to do to engineer my life in a way that is more sustainable. I was just like so taken by this farm where they grow stuff and we take it out of the ground and then we cook it and that's the dinner. And we were like wiping our hands clean with leaves that collected rain in the farm. And our tour guide was showing us like,

hey, we're going to cook it with the firewood in that stove over there. The firewood, those are all trees that we grew here. And like the columns that support the roof of this farm, those are trees that we grew here. We're using, we picked some of these palm leaves and we're going to put them in the pot that we're cooking the food in because it seals in the heat. And it was like, this is a good and responsible way to be. And Costa Rica just broadly is so focused on preserving the beautiful land that it has.

the beautiful land that it has. That it's very inspiring for someone who did not grow up on a farm or work in any way that was sustainable. I think the most I do is be kind of conscious of how many showers I take. Well, you've also never, other than Los Angeles,

you've never lived in a tourism-based economy either. Yeah. That's the constant threat always, is you're worried that, oh, there's too many people using this. It's going to be destroyed. This is going to be destroyed. And so I think that's probably top of mind for them at all times. Yeah.

It was really- Did you do a frog tour? A frog tour? Yeah, at night. Did you go out and did you see the poison dart frogs at night? No. We saw a very deadly frog called a blue jean frog uh so named because it has like super bright blue legs and this guy i don't know if if this is a scam or like the guy who took us around to the

uh mystical hanging bridges in Arenal, he right off the bat said he's a naturalist and he's really into like plants and animals and everything. And he spotted every fucking, the tiniest animals, this stupid blue gene frog that was maybe the size of a quarter and maybe 25 yards away. He was like, oh, there's a frog down there. And he takes out his, he traveled with a telescope

that he would set up for us to look at these things. And I don't know how he's, if he's just that good or if there's like a network of other tour guides that are like, hey, here's the latitude and longitude for, this is where we're going to see the frog. Here's where we're going to see the bats.'s a snake under this leaf there's a slot off the side of the road um i choose to believe that he is a very good naturalist and it's not a scam but yeah we had a uh when i went there we went snorkeling and there was a guy our guide there

was very similar where like he just kind of like knew he like it was just innate in him where we'd like stop the bone he's like yes it's here like this is where all the animals will be and then we went down and he also had like scars up and down his arms and i didn't ask about any of them but like there was no pattern or symmetry to them it was like clear that like these were like at this is a map of his personal history all over his arms being in the water. And he comes like, he'd go down to the bottom. He'd just start like throwing over rocks. And then he'd come back up. He'd be like, look at this.

And we'd be like, what is it? And he'd be like, it's this special kind of sea slug. It's very poisonous. And we'd be like, should you be touching it? And he'd like look at it and be like, oh, yeah, probably not. And then he'd just take it back down. And you're like, okay, it's this special type of person. Yeah. I'm looking at this this blue gene frog i have seen these before uh not i mean not in person i'm familiar with this type of frog but

it was really funny when i looked up if it's poisonous and the first answer is the species is poisonous but only if orally ingested or when its skin oils are rubbed into an open wound do you think that that was an addendum they had to make where they were like, they put up the first part and they're like, it's yeah, if you eat it, if you eat it, it would be poisonous.

And then somebody else came back and was like, ah, hang on a second. Hey, I did this thing where I tried to rub its oil in my wounds. Hey, I'm suing you. My friend died because he thought it would be totally fine to rub the frog on

his, on this fucking open calf wound that he got um and so you saw sloths too yeah did you touch any that was the one that i i most believed was uh possibly not a scam but like he was tipped off because we were driving on this tour bus from one spot to another. And he made a big show of like standing up in the bus and looking out the window and telling the driver to pull over. And then we got out and he, he takes out his telescope points at where the sloth is and whistles. So the sloth's head pops up and we can all see it. And I'm just

like, yeah, either you're the best naturalist in the world who saw this sleeping sloth that very much looked like it was part of this tree from the road, or one of your buddies was like, hey, there's a sloth in the tree at this location. It's not going anywhere. And they don't move. They move an inch every 14 hours. So yeah, pull over. Yeah. When we went to Monteverde at one point there was a slot that was just like a bunch of people were taking pictures of the slot that just wandered over to the hotel and was just like climbing up one of the beams of the hotel and everyone was

like oh okay so they just don't give a shit like they don't care about anybody um now i'm gonna name some some cats and tell me if you saw did you see any ocelots? No. Margays? I can. I can. Do you want to keep naming cats or do you want. Just tell me the cats you saw. We saw one cat. Like a house cat type thing.

It was in. So we stayed in Rincon de la Vieja and then we went to Arenal and then we went to Playa Flamingo, the Flamingo beach and got like an Airbnb beach condo kind of thing. And I woke up and there was a cat on our back porch, just like hanging out, just being a cat. It was a house cat or was it a margay? It was a house cat. Oh, okay. You don't need to tell me that story. That's fine. Sure. We saw a ton of dogs. I was very happy to see dogs just like around everywhere. And when we were driving from Arenal to Playa Flamingo, these roads are scary to drive on.

They can't be. Because they're not. There's a lot of potholes. And a lot of the parts of it are very windy. And the car and the mileage signs are in kilometers so i have no idea how fast i'm even going and uh it's also very rainy often so it's like to begin with slick and scary conditions and when we were doing this this-hour drive, a big German shepherd came out of truly nowhere, just like tall grass, very quickly darted right in the road.

And I take no credit. I instinctively moved to avoid the dog safely. And easily my proudest moment on this trip and like a genuinely surprising moment is the same part of my brain that did the the gut instinct move of like avoid this dog to keep us safe the same part of me that that does things without thinking about it that just does it because it's the thing to do uh saw the dog swerved, and said, Perro, cuidado! I was thrilled. The split decision-making part of my brain took one look at this dog and was like,

that guy doesn't speak English. Oye, mira, mira! And did you find yourself dreaming in Spanish at all while you were there? Nope. Okay. Did you? Yeah. in Spanish at all while you were there? Nope. Okay. Did you? Yeah.

Oh, that's cool. If I spend like a week somewhere that I will eventually in my dreams, I mean, I'm still negotiating it. I'm not like, it's not, there's no fluency by any means in the dream, but I'm like, it's clear that within the dream, I'm also required to speak Spanish. Yeah. required to speak Spanish. Yeah.

It was an adjustment coming home and not saying hola to everyone I passed, which here in New Jersey makes me an asshole. They don't know. Doesn't go over its own. Avast empowers you with digital safety and privacy, no matter who you are, where you are, or how you connect. Enjoy the opportunities that come with being connected on your terms. Avast is a global leader in cybersecurity and has been for more than 30 years and trusted by over 435 million users. Avast's new all-in-one solution, Avast One, helps you take control of your safety and privacy online through a range of features. Learn more about Avast One at avast.com. Security and privacy are very important to me online and everywhere else. Avast One is great for this. They have antivirus stuff,

award-winning antivirus that stops viruses dead and malware from harming your devices. They do data breach monitoring, enabling you to find out if your online accounts have been compromised and whether your passwords need to be changed. they probably do. They also have ransomware protection, fireware protection, and PC speedup. This optimizes the background activity of your apps in order to speed up your PC. And a smart scan. Find and remove viruses and resolve the most common privacy and performance issues through an optimization scan. It's simple enough to use that it's what I gave my parents to use on their computer.

Avast One offers both free and premium options. Avast prevents over 1.5 billion attacks every month. And with Avast One, you can confidently take control of your online world without worrying about viruses, phishing attacks, ransomware, hacking attempts, and other cybercrimes. Learn more about Avast One at avast.com. Shushing! That's not the sound, ladies and gentlemen, of a sword going in and out of a sheath. That is the sound of a cash register. Ooh, I love that sound.

It really makes me smile. That's the sound of another sale on Shopify. You might be thinking about starting your own business and think, that's got to be easy, right? How many things can you actually have to worry about? Well, there are all kinds of logistics that you just don't even consider until all of a sudden it becomes a hurdle for you. For instance, accepting different payment methods.

Seems like a no-brainer. It seems easy because businesses already have that channel in place. The pipelines are there, but you're a brand new business and you don't. Shopify instantly lets you accept all major payment methods. So whether somebody wants to pay cash or card or on Venmo or PayPal or Zelle or any of these different services that are now available or crypto, goodness gracious, crypto, Shopify will help you. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving you the resources once reserved for big business customized specifically for you with a great

looking online store that brings your idea to life and tools to manage and drive sales. Making your idea real opens endless possibilities. Believe me, this podcast started as just three guys in a bar. We're on taco tuesday trying to decide what we were going to do and how we were going to do it and it seemed so daunting to us shopify can help make it easy for anyone to successfully run their own business shopify powers millions of entrepreneurs from first sale to full scale you can get started by building and customizing your online store with no coding or design experience necessary plus Plus, with 24-7 support, you're never alone. It's more than a store. Shopify grows with you. This is Possibility,

powered by Shopify. Supercharge your knowledge, your sales, and your success. For a free 14-day trial, go to shopify.com slash qq, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash qq, all lowercase, for a free 14-day trial and get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features. Start selling on Shopify today. Go to Shopify.com slash QQ right now. I mean, pull over, but be safe about it. The other dumb Spanish thing, I don't know if you've traveled internationally in a while, but we had no COVID requirements getting into Costa Rica, but you need to get a test coming

back and it needs to be the day of or the day before you travel. And we weren't going to... You could do it at the airport. We tried to find telehealth links to do it in advance, but it was expensive and confusing and we weren't going to find like a facility in the beach to get this test done. So we just did it at the airport. And when I was, when I go to make my appointment there and sign up for my test, the woman taking my information asked me if I spoke Spanish and I was was i would go back and forth on the trip between saying i could speak spanish and

saying i couldn't or i would say like i speak a little bit of spanish and like try to do it that way but for no clear reason in this high stakes situation which is like you speak spanish i was like see and then she was like filling out forms and asking me questions in spanish and i had to just be like i'm so sorry i don't know why i said that please please do the important test in english for me i i got really carried away i i think the answer is always mas o menos mas o menos like that's what you give see yeah um and then because if you say masomenos then they're like all right well fuck this like i'll just do it in english and then you get to save

face as well because you didn't just show up at a country not knowing the language which you didn't yeah i mean you get something you get the credit school credit for it um i really like i can't it's i keep talking about the the language stuff but it's of every other country that i've been to where they speak another language um no one has been as generous with their time as across the board everyone in costa rica like when i try to speak spanish in montreal or french in montreal they don't want me to do it they don't like what my stupid fat tongue does to their beautiful language. So they stop me and insist on English. But Costa Rica, I think people can tell like, he's trying. So let's, let's, let's meet him on his level and like engage with him and

communicate with him as much as possible. And it's just so kind and so cool. There was one person who didn't, I said across the board, but there's one person in one of the hotels we stayed at, at the front desk where I went and I asked him for more coffee for the room. And I asked him in Spanish. And he said, well, I don't have it here. You have to tell me your room number and I'll send it. Like, oh, okay. Oh, yikes.

I realized when I was speaking Spanish in other countries that I have like an affectation that is just me focusing really hard on it. The same way where sometimes when we do like our ad reads, where you're like, you're not totally comfortable and you don't know exactly what you're saying yet. And like, you're kind of like figuring it out as you go. And so I start to get a little higher and it sounds, it sounds a little more frenetic. And so when I went to Spain, there was a lot of people around me who would, I would say something, there would be a pause and then they'd go, tranquilo. Just chill out. We're all chill here. Everybody's chill. Look around you.

And I was like, I didn't mean to sound like, I don't mean to sound argumentative or crazy. That's just how I talk in Spanish. Yeah. I'm not yelling. Let me rephrase that. that's just how i talk in spanish yeah i'm not yelling let me rephrase that i don't want to be yelling i don't like that i am yelling uh oh i did you zipline while you were there we did yeah ziplining that was super fun um which is not something that i ever had an urge to do but it came so highly recommended by everyone. And it's just fucking great. I'll say my favorite part of the zip lining was that they have it down so well, like they have the system on lock to the point where they just, it's people telling me what to do and they clearly know what I should be doing. And I just live for that. I live for being told

like, now you do this, now you do this, now you do this. And I'm like, you fucking watch me. I'll do it exactly like you said. This is going to be great. Yeah. My only scary point for zip lining, and it wasn't even too scary. We were in line behind this older couple from Florida. And when you're doing zip line, there's seven total zip lines. And you're in the same line with the same people for the full like two hours that you're

doing this. So you strike up conversations, you build a rapport. And they were perfectly pleasant. We had a really good time chatting with them. But in the back of my head, I'm looking at their age and I'm thinking about Florida and I'm thinking, this is, there's, I want to say a 90% chance these are Trump people. And so I'm just like being super conscious of like, don't say anything that is even like a backdoor into the economy or oil or health care or schools or pronouns or anything that could set these people off. We're all having a lovely time. Don't say anything that will reveal these people to be exactly who you think they are.

Yeah. Oh, I had a moment like that recently. Yeah. I had a moment like that recently. I went to a birthday party for a little girl. And the guy, the dad of the little girl is like fiscally Republican. I think that he, in a way we're like, it's an issue every once in a while, but not really. And he's somebody who doesn't like Trump, doesn't like a lot of the gun laws and stuff like that. But I'm at this party and obviously he shares company that I usually don't. And we're talking about being in rural areas and how in rural areas, like these things come up and you see big fuck Biden signs and stuff like that. And I said that when I was in Minnesota out in like deep in like the lakes, there was a, I saw a truck and on the front of it was a dummy. Somebody had stuffed a sweatshirt and some pants and then written on the sweatshirt was BLM. So the idea was that somebody had hit somebody who was, I assume, protesting.

That was the joke, was that this person was pasted on the front of their car. And as I'm telling this story, the people around me are having the right reaction, except for this dude who's walking past who I think is probably like 65. And he all he hears is like the end of that story. And it's like BLM. Yeah, fuck them. And starts joining this conversation in a way where like, yeah, it's just going wrong so fast at a child's birthday.

And like, everyone's trying to be very civil about it, but he won't stop. And then he like keeps going. He assumes that he's got like a good audience here because of what I had just said. And then he thought I came down on the other side of it. And I was like, I finally just, it was the first time in a long time where I've just disengaged completely. I walked away from the conversation before it got heated or anything like that. But I was like, it's, you have to be so careful. You have to be so careful because you could ruin somebody's like party that way. Yeah.

Um, well, it sounds like a really good trip, Dan. I'm glad that you had a lot of fun. And did anyone get sick or no? No one got sick. No. Um, and I couldn't, I couldn't ask for a better travel partner our mutual friend massive shout out to her she's uh absolutely not gonna listen to this podcast but she was super down with any of the stuff that i wanted to do because i i vacation incredibly hard and like to cram a lot

of stuff in and she was here for all of it she's also uh respectful of the my neediness of of my time in the morning um which is is is twofold i realized about myself that like the first 20 minutes or so after my morning meditation before i've had coffee it's like i can't i can't be around anyone. I'm a coffee cliche. And I just need to like slowly ease into the day. And I also learned that for the the the first maybe like, hour or so after that, I can't be around anyone. Because then I'm because I'm a problem in a different way. Now I'm too happy and too excited. And like, I would build in my time, wake up. I was up at like five o'clock in the morning every day

because I was excited. And I would get up, meditate, take some time to myself. And then I was like, all right, I'm going to run. I would run every morning. So like, I have to burn up this energy before anyone sees me because I'm going to ruin their time now. And so I would just burn it off however I could

and greet everyone for breakfast. And she was very respectful of that kind of high-maintenance time that I need. We did a lot of singing. You would have loved it, Soren. The music we listened to the whole time was show tunes and System of a Down. It was a blast.

Jesus Christ. And two really remarkable moments with her one of them i have to give a shout out uh very underrated skill that she has which is being an incredibly chill passenger during very tricky driving situations i mentioned the rain and there and there's like some really like hairy roads over there where it's it's unlike anything that i that i ever do and i'm in a car that is unfamiliar to me and the the thing that would make that so much worse is a passenger who's going oh right and like any kind of like panic noises. And she was doing none of that. She was super chill and DJing very pleasant music

when the roads were at their worst. And what was the other cool thing she did? Oh, we did these... Oh, I can't believe I didn't open with this. We did these hanging bridges. So the hanging bridges are exactly what they sound like. For anyone who doesn't know, these hanging bridges so that hanging bridges are exactly what they sound like for anyone who who doesn't know they're these big long bridges in the the the rainforest that you cross and like

they're they're an attraction their own selves they they can be scary if you have a heights thing the bridges are are wobbly and there was a woman uh who was so freaked out on the bridges that she didn't think she could cross them her she crossed uh two of them two out of i think 10 and when there was the the highest one she really struggled with it she held up the whole line and then just said i could i can't do it and she walked off to i'm gonna say she walked off the bridge that doesn't's fine. She just stayed on one side of the bridge and like her group, her family left her. They were like, okay, well, we'll find you at the bottom. And they just like moved on.

So now we just like, we, we took this woman in when we heard her story because she, she needed to cross bridges to get to the end of this thing. needed to cross bridges to get to the end of this thing and my travel partner like she would think she was a born fucking life coach because she like took complete control of the situation and she was like i'm gonna hold your hand you can walk behind me or you can walk in front of me if you're walking behind me you can look at my backpack the entire time just stare at that and i'm going to talk to you while we're doing this and she just like completely coached her across this bridge and and was like patient and supportive and i do i do as much good as i can do which like and i will use my body to block the bridge so no one else comes behind until you're ready to go i will just stand here and be an object because that

is the extent of my abilities in this negotiation strategy. No one's getting past these tree trunk legs. No, absolutely not. And we did. And a travel partner helped her through the bridge and through all the other bridges. And we, of course, bonded with this woman the way you bond with strangers on vacation. A part of me was, by the time we were done with the bridges and she was like like because we were there with our tour guide and she was asking him a lot of questions part of me was thinking did she is this just a fucking scam to get a free tour

what did you land on at the end no she's just genuinely thought she was in peril i thought yeah i do do you care about the environment? Do you have a dog? Check and check for me. You want to consider reducing your dog's carbon paw print? Do it with Jiminy's sustainable dog food and treats made from cricket protein. Dogs love the taste. Jiminy's includes delicious, nutritious plant-based ingredients like sweet potatoes, blueberries, peanut butter, which my dog loves, and pumpkin. peanut butter which my dog loves and pumpkin jiminy's is easy for dogs to digest because cricket protein contains a fiber that is prebiotic which supports a healthy gut in your dog it's also good for dogs with food sensitivity or dogs with allergies i've talked about jiminy's before i love

their blueberry treats and i love their pumpkin treats and my dog jackson loves them as well i use it when I'm training him, which we do every day. And it's fantastic. He's such a good boy and he loves his treats. He's never gotten sick from them and we have a really good time. And they're sustainable,

which is key for me. Plant-based ingredients are great and they have interesting flavors. To learn more and save 25% on your first purchase, go to jimineys.com slash QQ25 and use code QQ25 at checkout. That's J-I-M-I-N-Y-S dot com slash QQ25 with the code QQ25. So I have a couple of questions for you here. Yeah, I gave you a lot. Yeah.

System of a Down. Not the type of music you would generally listen to. Our mutual friend is Armenian. Is that correct? Yeah. Is that like her type of music? Or is this like the exception that she makes because System of a Down is an Armenian American band? I would say it's both.

She does like that kind of music. And I know that from talking to her, Surge and System are huge in specifically the Los Angeles Armenian community. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. And also, System of a Down rules. Wow. They're just a very good band. I mean, they're fine. I've listened to some System of a Down rules. Wow. They're just a very good band.

I mean, they're fine. I've listened to some System of a Down. You can't help but listen to System of a Down from like 2012 to 2018 on the radio in LA. And yeah, I know their songs. They're tolerable. Totally tolerable. No, they're awesome. And my other question for you is when you guys rode the...

Well, you rented a car is that right so when you guys got to gas stations and stuff did you notice that there were frequently like cemeteries next to the gas stations no we actually only uh found the gas stations were were very few and far between Right. And that was a thing we noticed. The two things that I noticed that I will tell everyone who ever visits Costa Rica is that gas stations are few and far between. So really when you see one, get your gas if you've got a rental car. And the other one is there are not ATMs fucking anywhere. They weren't at any of our hotels. And I know it's like a very obvious thing when you're traveling.

It's like, oh, carry cash on you. But when I left the airport the first day, I thought like, I will pass banks or there will be cash machine in my hotel. And both hotels, no cash machines. And we went into town in Fortuna when we were in Arenal. in uh fortuna when we were in arenal and we're just like wander into places and was like please cash machine and they were like well there's a bank but that one that one doesn't usually work there's another one the better one is at the gas station we're like which gas station like oh there's only one gas station it's the one with the atm in town like great cool yeah

yeah that's frustrating yeah i when we did it we did it by bus and uh we would every time we'd stop at a gas station it felt like there was like a it was just the ones they chose maybe but it was like combination gas station restaurant and then indefinitely there would be a cemetery there and i didn't understand it no i couldn't ask the question properly like i couldn't get an answer because i was like well like trying to ask like why is there a cemetery they're like it's right there and i'm like no no why why is it well geez for the tourist yeah for the dead people um but i also i maybe it's just a rainforest thing or but they all

they're dead are buried above ground it felt like there were no like grass it wasn't the type of cemetery that I was used to it was mausoleum type or it was big yes I do remember mausoleum cemeteries yeah yeah big and

you walk through these pillars of marble throughout the entire cemetery it's all tight it's densely packed bodies on top of bodies but it's like all above ground yeah that was startling to me i'd never seen that before bear you're dead that's what i'm saying yeah otherwise pretty great trip no complaints the weather weather was perfect for us the the one time i couldn't get her to to do my stupid bullshit was on the on the the fishing trip on our the last day there and that was a perfect fishing trip and like the it was just me and the captain

really and he was like all right we're gonna we're gonna catch some bonita fish so we caught three of them and they're like eight or nine inches long and I thought, great, I can eat those. And we used them for bait to catch blackfin tuna and that was a little over two feet long. And I was like, fantastic, I can eat that

tuna better than the Bonita fish. And then I see him slicing up the fucking blackfish at some point and using its its its meat as chum for another fish and at that point i was like bigger bro what are you doing that that tuna was fine and the trip's almost over and we were really really chasing fish his fish finder was broken so he was just like looking around for signs of fish and tracking them down that way and having me drive the boat for a while

when he was like there there turn left here like great got it and we had like truly five minutes left in the trip and he was like let's just try five more minutes and we caught a big beautiful delicious yellowfin tuna that oh man i cooked and ate back at the house and we were just fucking thrilled with this thing just the two of us laughing and smiling at this big big ass stupid fish you and costa rican ahab yeah yeah uh that's pretty cool that it was just you two there was nobody else on that yeah the fishing voyage do you have to do like dramamine or anything like that beforehand are you cool you're i'm cool yeah the i think all of the guys in my family get really seasick except knock on wood me it's never been a problem i don't get car sick and i don't get air sick that's so wonderful for you i am not that way um my last question dan yeah and this is a big one and I, I want you to be honest. Okay.

Did you guys fight? No. Incredible. How is that possible? I know you went on vacation with somebody. Maybe you're just in like that, like golden little window where, you know, somebody just well enough that you don't, there's still like a lot of etiquette to it yeah you're still like you you give in so easily yeah because you don't you realize you don't spend your rest of your life with them but every trip i've ever been on with anybody at some point we have a fight yeah i mean i i would would credit her for the lack of fighting because she is not she is not interested in in fighting and if i'm getting stressed or tense she will just not engage with me and not give me any fuel to be angry which is you know yeah very frustrating i'm on vacation let me fight someone i mean when are we gonna get a chance to fight at sunrise on the beach? At some point, the trip plans break down. Something's going wrong.

You feel like you're wasting your time, like you're burning a day somehow. And then all of a sudden, one of you just snaps. Yeah. It's inevitable. And I'm really impressed that you guys didn't do that. Congratulations. Yeah. Okay.

Well, are you done talking about Costa Rica? I guess so i got my so uh a friend of hers and now a friend of ours joined us for the first couple of days someone who was already in costa rica and just like glommed on to the the beginning of our trip in rincon and uh on day one or two when she found out that i was gonna disappear and go for a run in the woods uh after we'd already like done hot springs and explored waterfalls and did a bunch of hiking she was like where do you get this energy from and that was like that is the fucking vibe that i go for on vacation and i was so happy to get that and take it as a tremendous compliment and i didn't have

to reveal to her i was like oh i get this energy because I'm gonna be asleep at 7 30. I'm gonna shut down very early uh I've so you were running through like the jungle yeah running through and did you hear howler Monkers ever howler monkeys we saw them on one of our tours but I didn't uh see them when I was running through the jungle it is a terrifying sound yeah and like to hear it coming from deep in this vegetation is like a horrifying a horrifying moment we kind of like watched it we got very close to panama we're kind of like walking a beach while we were there and on the beach you know you're 10 feet from just thick jungle it's like water sand impenetrable vegetation and all of a sudden from out there we just hear these screams like somebody is something's going wrong and we're like oh god and we realized it was

howler monkeys no nothing scary everything all all pleasant things so jealous you didn't throw blood you didn't even try that you gotta try it i know i gotta throw a list but there was just no time i get it it's not the thing most people put off next time you go back i'm telling you yeah for sure get into a german hostel down there and just throw blood for a while yeah oh german that was one of the things that uh on the road to rnl there's a bunch of signs like hand-painted signs for a place called the Original German Bakery. It's very old. It seems like it's been there for a while, and they're very proud of their German pastries.

And it's hard to drive by and not think, hmm, original, very old German bakery in Costa Rica. Was someone a Nazi? And? Did you ask? Yeah, we didn't ask okay uh but like there's a huge german presence in costa rica is there really yeah i don't know why i'd have to i don't like the history of it but they are they have like some of the most successful hostels down there because they have like this, they just understand a US and European idea of what a hostel should be. And there's a lot of places down there that have like a very different idea of what that is.

And Germans just like figured it out. And they're like, oh, this is what people want. And put together a bunch of them. And there's a bunch of German expats there. If you're ready to go on with our the actual show do you want to do that yeah okay okay this might be a bit of a culture shock maybe not maybe because you spent so much time doing your little your rituals maybe this will be actually an easy question for you to answer daniel quick question go what is a simple act that you think is like criminally underrated not a video or song or

video not a movie or song or show or anything i want like a something that that note that people do in their lives that like just doesn't get enough credit and i will go first go i love the opportunity at a party to go to the bathroom there's something that in that that experience that's like so sacred not necessarily even like or whatever you're actually doing in there that other time that you spend in there like the other i'd say minute at most that you spend in there, like the other, I'd say minute at most that you spend in there alone, where you're at a party, you're with other people. Sometimes now I noticed a lot more as a parent too, because you also have your children there and they're with other children. There's a lot of screaming stuff. And at some point it's sanctioned. It's like the

sanctioned break where you're like, Oh, Oh, I have to go egest. Like I have to like do this thing. And everyone's like, yeah, no, I get it. You have to do that thing. There's no expectation. There's not like, it would be weird if you like went and sat in somebody's bedroom for two minutes and looked at your phone. People be like, what the fuck are you doing?

But the bathroom is sacred. And like, you get to go to this one space all by yourself. You close a door and it gives you a chance to kind of check in with yourself and how you're doing. It gives you a chance to just get away from with yourself and how you're doing. It gives you a chance to just get away from everybody. And just that feeling of being alone in the middle of like a storm of people is so great. Yeah. I absolutely love it. I have, mine is very similar.

I don't know if the phrase hard out has made the jump from our industry to the rest of the world. But just in case, hard out is something that we first heard on film sets. If an actor has a scheduling conflict and like they need to be, they need all their shots wrapped up by eight o'clock. They have a hard out at eight. So get everything you need from them by eight o'clock and then they have to go. they have a hard out at eight so get everything you need from them by eight o'clock and then they have to go um any time i have a hard out for a party is such a gift or an early morning the next day these are these these built-in excuses for why i have to leave whenever i have to leave uh which is really just like whenever i feel like leaving right uh or um

an excuse for why i'm not drinking or doing any drugs or anything interesting it's just like oh no i have this other thing that i need to go to and it's never like a better party or something like that like i'm not leaving you for something better it's always like like i i fucking love having an early morning it's my favorite thing in the world to be at a party somewhere and be like I have a race tomorrow morning at 7 so that's why I'm gonna I'm gonna leave now and that's why I wasn't drinking and that's why I wasn't doing any of your cool drugs I don't know what party I'm describing here another kids party kids birthday yeah yeah but i love it or or having uh as much as i

don't like having a long drive when i want to be home and just be done with everything it is another one of those like perfect excuses that uh no one will talk you out of if i'm seeing friends i was seeing friends in the city some friends from work a couple months ago and they're like come to this other spot and like oh no i've got to drive i've got this long drive ahead of me then it's like oh yeah i understand you're driving to new jersey of course all right you can leave you you know you never should have come like yes that's the vibe bye boy you're right and like the idea with a hard out, saying hard out, there's never follow up. No.

People are never like, oh, where do you have to be? And maybe that's just because I only encounter it in our profession. People even say in the writer's room, they're like, oh, we're working on the B story, but I got a hard out at seven or whatever. And everyone's just like, yeah, yeah. And no one questions what the thing is. Hard out is enough. Just saying those words. It's like hard out. And the expectation is that you are prepped and ready to walk off the door at that time, as opposed to saying like, I, uh, I got to be done by seven. That doesn't mean seven. That means like seven 15, we can push it or like there's a cushion, but hard out, this hard is in the name. And like, it means that like at 6.55 or even 6.50, if you're like,

all right, I got to start getting ready. People are like, yeah, yeah, I get it. You have to be, you have a hard out at seven. Right. And no matter what's going on, I'm walking out the door at eight and it's like, look, you all understand this is out of my hands, of course. This is the direction that time goes. God, you're right. It also allows you you would leave mid-conversation it's not a big deal like you don't have to like get there for the that well that wrap-up noise that everybody makes like you all you got to do is like people can be in the middle of a story you're like oh sorry i just looked at my watch i got that hard out i gotta go and everyone's just like yeah and it's fine there's no damage control to be done uh yeah

you're right yeah i'd like that one of the best things about doing stand-up a thing i never want to do again is getting a light getting the the signal from the person running the show that it was like you have to wrap up at the end of this story or you have like 30 seconds or 60 seconds and it's like okay great pretty soon i'm gonna just stop talking and then walk off the stage away from everybody this is great this is my i wish i could get a wrap it up light everywhere i go anytime that i i'm in a work meeting and i could feel a story getting away from me i would love it if someone gave me like hey man 10 seconds get out of here just a tiny orchestra that starts playing very quietly where you're like, Oh shit. No,

you're right. No, that was, yeah, I just, I'm going to wrap this up. Um, I,

that light always made me so nervous. I hated it. It fucked up my rhythm. It fucked up. Yeah. I was the opposite of you. We're like, I was like telling the story,

I'm in it. And then all of a sudden I see that light and I'm like, well, no, no, none of you are supposed to do a thing. You're all supposed to just sit there quietly. There should not be any distractions for me. I'm basically

a golfer up here. Don't fuck me up. It's great for comedians who are much better at the form than us where they see the light and they're like, okay, I know I have 60 seconds that are strong that I will just transition to right now and end perfectly on time.

They look through their arsenal in their mind and they're like, all right, well, what's a good 60 second joke I've got? And they know it. They know like the down, they've got it timed. Yeah, and I've certainly been doing standup where I got like a 30 or 60 second light and I just thought, well, this story is still

like three minutes long, so that's what we're getting. Sorry, man. I don't know what to do. Yeah, the light has also never meant a single thing to us. This is what I plan to say. I'm going to say every word I thought of, and then I'm going to walk away. I mean, you know this, but I don't know that our audience necessarily does, is that when you and I used to do stand-up, we would write out every single word. Absolutely.

Of the stand-up. And that includes mistakes, like little stutters that help sell a joke to make it sound more organic. That includes ellipses where you're going to pause for stuff. I showed a, I want to say set, but it was a typed and printed

out monologue, essentially. I showed that to Shelby Farrow backstage and she was so horrified that I had written in like stutters and pauses and like, here's where my train of thought diverges. And I start chasing down this thread and she just, she couldn't, she was like physically unhappy to see it. But here's the thing, if you, and this is a muscle that's atrophied for me over time because

i haven't had to use it but if that's like if you can make it sound organic then who gives a shit like if it sounds on stage like you're doing it then that's the point yeah but i there's no way i would ever be able to do crowd work that The idea of going off script as a comedian, I was not in any sense a stand-up. I was just somebody who was playing at stand-up. I remember hosting a show at West Side Comedy once, subbing in for Adam Todd Brown. And there was someone, a guy in his 50s,

in the front row, I mean, like in a front table. And he had a leather jacket on and a motorcycle helmet. And he was by himself at this table. And my brain was like, this guy seems like pretty richly interesting. Shame I won't be able to do anything with all that raw material. That's not on the piece of paper that I printed out. Yeah. I mean, I bet I could write

some really good jokes for that guy over the next 45 minutes. I'll ask him to come back next time. Would it be cool if I just pause up on stage and stare off into the distance for a while? Okay, alright, I got it. And then give a half-assed version of it.

That's how long I need to write the joke. It's just who I am. I'm not a stand up um we did have you ever been um hey quick question have you ever been the subject of crowd work yes oh i have two do you want me to tell you the story of it yeah um there was a i went to a open mic to see somebody perform oh no yeah i went to work at an open mic well it was the mc too it was like him like out of shit by the 10th comedian and just like all right well what kind of fuckers do we have in the audience and uh there's this woman emily fay you might maybe you follow her on twitter she's very funny

um she's somebody who wanted to she she was looking for a PA job. And I was like, oh, she's funny on Twitter. Maybe I'll see her stand up and I'll see if maybe I can get her a PA job. And when I went and watched it, she was on dead last. And in between this guy's like, well is anybody here like not here to do the show and i raised my hand and that was a huge mistake because then i was like zeroed in on me where's like and what do you what he's like all right so it's just like a civilian great this is great what do you do and i was like oh fuck me and it's at west side comedy theater like we had

done a show the night before and i was like oh it's complicated like i i write for a comedy website and he was like all right well what site and i was like cracked and then he started doing the gobot shit where he's like oh yeah like mad mad was the magazine that everybody reads uh that was the transformers cracked was the gobots like whatever that low-hanging fruit bullshit joke is and um and i just like sat there for a very long time thinking like i don't we're not like this isn't fun for either of us you're not getting anything out of me that's helpful i can't give you anything that's gonna be helpful i'm so sorry yeah i'm not even gonna supply you with information you will be able to repurpose later you're never gonna see someone

from cracked in your audience again this isn isn't going to play in Iowa. Yeah. Did you get insulted? Yeah, it was very fun. I was at the improv in Orange County or Irvine, maybe. in orange county or irvine maybe wherever the the the improv is down there or was down there and i was on a date and uh the comedians were all very good and a bunch of them did crowd work and i was wearing uh a shirt that was uh form-fitting but an argument could be made that it was that was too tight and so there were a lot of jokes from different like they all they all noticed it so they just kept coming up across different comedians and uh i was laughing i was in such a in in high spirits and like we also uh this this isn't west side comedy no disrespect this is like you wait out in line outside and

the person an audience coordinator like decides where you're going to sit oh and they they they have some mental algorithm for that and they just knew that me and the woman i was with on this date like these are these are like happy young people on a date let's put them up right in front and and they will be like good fodder for the comedian so we were just like we and the other people around us were getting a lot of it and i was happy to be this involved in the show and just like having a good time on my date and when one of the comedians made some kind of joke about me i laughed like i like i'd done before like i'm not gonna be a shitty audience member i'm gonna have a good time and the

comedian was like ah this guy's laughing glad at least someone's gonna get laid tonight after the show indicating me and my date and she goes oh no oh and then the comedian was just like whoa and like moved on like like couldn't didn't do anything with that information because i think he was just so surprised at this completely unnecessary correction from my date that he was like oh i gotta i gotta move on i gotta get out of here this is uncharted territory he could have just put you under his thumb easily there i know that's exactly what you're looking for very kind of him you're like oh you're not the date isn't going well and you're finding that out now the same time as all of us miss do me a favor look around the room is there a guy here you wish you were on

a date with what who is your type like that kind of shit you're like oh fuck me please no ma'am why is it is it because we all correctly made fun of the way he dressed for two and a half hours it's the shirt isn't it is it more than the shirt tell us is it more than the shirt it's okay you're not gonna fucking see him again tell him it's his baby gap t-shirt is that it that's that's pretty fucking brutal that you got it from multiple comedians it's just devastating uh well at least you know how to be a good audience member i'm yeah eternally angry at people who are bad at being an audience and don't understand that they have a role to play yeah pisses me off which sometimes we would get that for uh cracked fans when we would do stand-up shows because we were we were always a strange fit for stand-up because no one who became fans of the website we weren't

like doing stand-up material on the site we We were doing articles and columns and videos. And then coming to see us do stand-up is just a very different muscle to see flexed. And we would do these shows and bring in real seasoned comedians as well. And the audience that came to support us, they're so sweet. They were going to clap and laugh just to be in the same room with us when we were performing stuff. They were going to they were going to clap and laugh just

to be in the same room with us when we were performing stuff. It was the easiest crowd if you worked for Cracked. But if you didn't, they're like. There's they're they're often strange little guys, our audience members who otherwise

would not go to a comedy clubs. They're not it's not their favorite thing in the world to do. Their favorite thing in the world to do. Their favorite thing in the world is to read Cracked. And now they're at a bar at night experiencing it. And then there's Matt McCarthy, who's going to come out and do jokes about how you look because you're sitting in the front row

and you're not smiling and you're being weird. And these people are just, they're like, this is not a thing that I do. I came here to smile at soren and you're not soren so get out of here yeah they don't know the rules laughing just like laugh laugh at the jokes if especially if you're in the front like make eye contact don't fucking talk to anybody and just laugh at the jokes that's i know this isn't the guy you came to see but this isn't a movie with bad trailers.

Like he can see you. He is aware that you're there and you can't, he doesn't know that you're waiting for Soren. It was within the rights of every comedian that we actually did shows with, like get up there, like to look out at this crowd and be like, wow, a lot of tuxedo t-shirts here. Yeah. Y'all went with that look, huh? And they were so kind, even though, and it must've been so baffling to them too. We did a show with Hannibal Buress. I'm sure that he must've been like seeing a bunch of people in the back and like, there's no, we don't understand comedian etiquette

in the back. Like we're, we're doing our own shit. Yeah. And it's clear. He's never heard of us before we get out there. We're doing our jokes, which are not standup jokes and killing. Yeah. And he's like, you would, you would assume that this is a really hot crowd. Just like destroying up there.

And he's like, I don't, I don't know. Like you, you got up there and you would just tell a story and everyone would be like losing their minds. And he must've been I don't know. You got up there and you would just tell a story. Yeah. And everyone would be like losing their minds. And he must have been so confused. Anyway, we stole his whiskey afterward of the show. Yeah.

That was a highlight in my stand-up career was he got a writer. He demanded a writer that there was a bottle of whiskey and like 20 coronas waiting for him backstage and he didn't touch any of it and as soon as he took his paycheck and and left the show just fucking moths to a flame the way we descended on that bucket we're drinking hannibal versus beer yeah it really goes from my head to be like, maybe if I'm lucky, he'll offer to share the one bottle of whiskey with the other comedians who invited him to do the show.

And then as the night goes on, I'm thinking, well, he's not going to do that. Is he going to take the bottle with him home? That's a pretty good scam if that's what he's doing. And then as he was leaving without it, it was like, oh, fuck, thanks for getting the jackpot, guys.

We're all, I mean, we're like 25 years old. We're old enough to go buy our own alcohol, but we're like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. I checked, he got in a cab. He's not coming back for it. Guys, guys. All right, well, Daniel, I think that's it for us today. Okay. guys guys alright well Daniel I think that's it for us

today okay are you alright with that yeah I love that well we've talked enough see the thing is I've got a heart out oh chill chill chill and I've got a long drive say no more literally say no more

you can follow Daniel on twitter at dob underscore I've got a long drive. Oh, God. Say no more. Literally say no more. You can follow Daniel on Twitter at DOB underscore Inc. You can follow me, Soren, at Soren underscore LTD. You can follow Quick Question at QQ underscore Soren and Dan. Our email address is QQ with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com. We've got a couple of people that worked on the show and continue to work on the show. We've got a CFO named Bacon, and you can follow him on Twitter at MakeMeBaconPLS. And then our sound engineer, editor, producer, Gabe Harder, who you will not be able to find anywhere.

And lastly, our theme song is by Merex, M-E-R-E-X. You can find their music at Merex.Bandcamp.com. We also have a Patreon that you can follow and you can listen to our after hours version of the show where we answer your questions. That's at Patreon.com. And that is literally it. All right. Have a good drive home, Dan. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye Who did you get? When will I be remembered? Was it awkward?

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