Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - More Like Tough Dudder

Episode Date: February 12, 2022

The guys reminisce on an awful workout experience, and then Daniel learns to be a creep but in Spanish! And as always 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.  Get $15 off your first month’s subscription plus free shipping:  Nutrafol.com promo code qq

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends on opposite sides of the country try to stay in touch so they don't drift apart forever, which is sort of what inevitably happens to friendships when you try and do them long distance. On the West Coast, weighing in at 169 pounds, nice. A writer for American Dad and a father himself of two pretty darn neat kids. Soren Bui. Ah! Ooh!

Yeah! And on the other side, weighing, um, I don't want to guess, probably more than that, but only because he's got the rock in his calves on the coast, Daniel O'Brien! Boo! Boo! Hiss Yes! Yes! Daniel, say hello. Yeah, hi. I don't think I've ever done a mean intro. I think I... The only thing that was mean there was that I booed you.

Yeah, no, that's what I'm referring to also. Okay, well... There has to be a heel. to also. Okay. There has to be a heel. There's never a boxing match where everybody's excited for both of them. Yeah.

I would love to see that boxing match. Where they're excited for the first guy and the next guy's a nice surprise. Okay, great. They didn't know who was going to be. Well, I can tell you already who won, the fans. I can't wait to watch these two men that I like punch each other to death. Thanks to Nutrafol for supporting Quick Question.

Nutrafol is physician formulated to be 100% drug free. They use natural medical grade botanicals in consistently effective dosages. You can grow thicker, healthier hair and support our show by going to Nutrafol.com and entering the promo code QQ to save $15 off your first month subscription. Thanks to Shopify for supporting Quick Question. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs like myself the resources once reserved for big business. For a free 14-day trial and full access to Shopify's entire suite of features, go to shopify.com slash QQ. Um, I don't know.

I guess I revealed a lot by giving out my weight. I assume that you probably were built differently in there. For whatever reason, I've got the legs of an ostrich. I have skinny legs, but they're very long and proportionally to the rest of my body to the point where you and I sit next to each other and I'm considerably shorter than you in my upper torso. And then you also have probably some of the best gams in the business. Thank you. Yes. I got these big, heavy tree trunk legs and a world-class dumper that I'm lugging around everywhere I go. You bring your ass with you everywhere. Yeah.

I mean, even just like reaching things off the top shelf is a workout because I got to get – I got to heave all this shit straight up into the sky. I don't think it can be that much work. Your legs are strong. I was surprised the first time that you and I played basketball that you don't jump higher. I'm not a good jumper. And I don't know if that's something that can be worked on. You can't. You have a really great vertical leap.

I don't know if you still do. Yeah. It's like bones. know if you still do. Yeah. It's light bones. I got no bone density. Yeah. This is a top of mind thought now because I'm sure you're not watching the book of Boba Fett because that's on currently. And so there's absolutely no way you're even up to season two of The Mandalorian yet. Well, it's insulting and you're even up to season two of the mandalorian yet uh that's insulting and you're absolutely

right there's an episode where uh a character named grogu who's very small is doing i know grogu okay great so baby yoda is getting trained and his teacher is like uh jump and grogu does little jump and the teacher's like no you could jump better than that jump higher than that and i was and watching that i know it's all fantasy space stuff but i also thought like is that could i get better at jumping i thought you're like you're like born with a height that you could reach and that's it and and you're just like assigned it at birth and some of us are high jumpers and some of us aren't i had no idea that it was something that I could get better at if I had the right teacher. Plyometrics, Dan. You can learn how to jump higher and higher. For a long time, I thought,

I will learn how to dunk. I will get so good at jumping high that I will learn how to dunk. And then obviously gave up on that like I did all my dreams. But you can definitely get much better at it. You are a fast runner. i've been smoked by you and running before uh i don't know is that true yeah we've run to the beach before there was one day where we ran to the beach and i was like can we just can we walk this part i mean you don't you don't uh you're you're gassing me up after all the booze it's fine my i bounced back from it you You don't got to worry. Oh, no.

I'm not trying to blow smoke. There was definitely a time where I was humbled because I was like, I don't think I can keep up with this. But yeah, you and I run a few times together. We ran Tough Mudder together. I was dog shit on that race. I'd like to do it again now. I don't think i ever want to do it again in my life yeah you're right we probably shouldn't do it oh did i convince you

with all my because like i remembered being bad at it and i think i could be better at it now and like any at at 36 whenever i see anything that i'm like i can do this better than my younger self if it's a physical thing then like it's immediately very appealing to me like like i i love being faster now than i am than i was five years ago um so i was happy to pounce on doing a tough mutter again but then i remembered how unpleasant it was and would be again and unpleasant in a way that's not like a that's not a testament to your grit yeah like in a way that's just torture for torture's sake like there's some fun stuff in there but then there's also greased monkey bars and no one can actually do the greased monkey bars because it's like they're just greased in weird ways we're like you don't know which ones

are greased so you're doing these monkey bars and you just have to kind of guess. And if you hit a greased one, you're not hanging on. Nobody's hanging on to the greased monkey bar. It's just there to hurt you. And then also, you get shocked by car batteries for a while. Yeah. I was going to say, in my memory, the worst part was going into the ice bath because they make you plunge for a certain amount of time underwater in like a giant vat of freezing cold water that i don't know all of our bodies are ready to handle uh but then i remembered in addition to that we also got like on purpose electrocuted a bunch of times multiple

times yeah there's like a section where you run through some wires and they zap you and then there's a section where you crawl through some wires and they zap you and then you crawl down in a where you crawl through some wires and they zap you. And then you crawl down in a tunnel and you get zapped. And all you're seeing are these like sparks in the dark. Right. And you're crawling through. It's complete darkness and sparks. And you're hearing other people go, ah! You're just like hearing screams of strong people in pain.

And you can't just like stop and quit because you've wandered into some hastily put together shock tunnel. We did it on a day that was, I think it was about 42 degrees outside. There was peaks around us and there was snow on top of the peaks and it was the morning. And so it was cold, like frost on the ground cold. like frost on the ground cold and we did it and there was i guess they used the whatever sort of uh terrain they can to improve the the race or i guess make it worse for people but there was a section where we had to swim out into a lake and swim under these buoys and yeah that was like that was the biggest torture to me because the at least in that dunk the ice dunk tank you're just going down and up for a second you don't have a lot of time for your core temperature for like all your blood to rush into the middle of your

body so that you don't feel your limbs anymore. Like out in the lake, that definitely was happening. It was way too cold to be out there. And you could just like, your lips are turning blue. And I remember getting out and being like, um, I see everyone else is kind of walking and recovering from this, but I need to run right now or i'm gonna get hypothermia it's also a thing where uh we uh we paid for it that was so dumb like we were so excited to take this trip and and and like do this race and and and in the very beginning someone is giving like a super inspirational speech about how like we are all better people because we're doing this. We are the Tough Mudder. And like clap yourselves on the – give yourself a hand.

You know, pat yourself on the back. That's exactly how the speech went. You're good for doing this. Clap yourself on the – Clap yourself. Give yourself a hand. But like we really started this race like this is the same as going to war for our country we are tough and good and brave and then smash cut to to mile six

of a 12 mile torture run where i'm getting electrocuted and freezing to death i'm like i paid 145 fucking dollars and woke up early to do this. This is such a nightmare. It was, it was, it was, there was like some moments of it that were very telling for me where like, uh, think about it as like going into battle is a very good way to think about it because like I was, I was not gun shy at the beginning. I was like, yeah, we're going out, we're doing this. And then in the moment, like the heat of battle, I was like, what am I doing here? Like there was, there are people who were doing like these rope climbs that you have to climb up this one section.

And it's, it's, it's got a very dynamic landscape behind it. It looks very cool. And like, they would do it. And then someone would hand them a camera and they'd go back down and do it again. And they, they'd get pictures of themselves doing it. And I was like, well, that's not in the spirit of a race. What are you doing? Like, they're just doing it for the like military porn, essentially.

Like, look at this amazing thing I'm doing. And I was kind of humiliated by the end of it. There was, I'm all for testing your mental and physical fortitude. That's fine. But that's not what this thing was. That's not what a Tough Mudder is. It's just, it's silly. There's also, for anyone who's never done a race before,

any race, not even just Tough Mudder, one of the real joys about doing it is hanging out after the race and just being in that like race atmosphere because there's always snacks. Sometimes there's free beer around. You're also around a bunch of other people who just did whatever this race was.

You all finished it. You've got your medals and you're like hanging out. You're part around a bunch of other people who just did whatever this race was. You all finished it. You've got your medals and you're like hanging out. You're part of this community. There's very often live bands and it's like a really enriching, fun part of any race I've ever done. And we both finished the Tough Mudder and true to form, there is a band playing. We each got our free beers and we're just like sitting silently at this picnic table. Didn't even finish our beers.

At some point, we're just like, can we just go? Can we just, we've got a long drive ahead of us. Can we get out of here? We have a good friend, Greg Burke, from, at the time, sketch group Greg and Lou, which I don't know if they still make sketches or not. But he was a guy you see in cracked videos a lot. As soon as I got back and I was kind of like trying to explain it to him, I couldn't articulate it yet.

And I was like, kind of like trying to explain. He's like, oh, that sounds like Marine bootcamp cosplay. And I was like, yes, yes, that's exactly what it is. When it comes to thinning hair, you no longer have to choose between natural remedies and those that work. I love Nutrafol because unlike my ex-wife, it works. Nutrafol is a holistic solution for men that promotes both healthier hair and whole body wellness without drugs or prescriptions

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by more than 1,500 top doctors. Top doctors sounds like my ex-wife. She's a neurosurgeon. Forgot you didn't know that. You can grow thicker, healthier hair and support our show by going to Nutrafol.com and entering the promo code QQ to save $15 off your first month's

subscription. This is their best offer anywhere, and it's only available to U.S. customers for limited time, plus free shipping on every order. Get $15 off at Nutrafol.com, spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L.com, promo code QQ. Alright, well, we should get into the show. Yeah, we're getting into the show. I want to give you some updates. Okay. DOB's devotees know I've been taking Spanish. I'm on day 26.

I take it every day for 30 minutes. This Spanish class that I take on the Pimsleur app. I say class, just like lessons. You're learning 30 minutes of an audio lesson. I'm actually, because the classes have gotten a little bit more difficult as time has gone on, I usually take them twice a day now, where I'll do my nighttime class,

and then the next day, I'll take that one again. And then do whatever. Staying current, so I still haven't missed a day in my 26 or that one again. And then do whatever. You know, staying current. So I still haven't missed a day in my 26 or 27 days, however many it's been. And I love it for a thousand reasons. We're going to get into the funny reasons. I do want to just, again, shout out how cool it is to learn things. Like, I don't know if this is going to...

cool it is to learn things like i i don't know if this is gonna it's something on the list of things that i wish i could tell my younger self i would gently like to tell him that we like learning stuff a whole lot because like i it would enrich younger me's life like i'm not trying to do anything to make my current life better I don't want to tell young me to invest in Apple or whatever, but I want to be like hey you should you should know that like You find the act of learning something and taking a regular class very rewarding if you just so start doing it now because You know just take my word for once you do it you'll love it because I really do love it There's I don't think I'm gonna end up being like Casually fluent in Spanish by next year or anything like that.

I don't even know if I can really... I'll be able to hold my own with high schoolers who are currently taking Spanish. But having the objective of a class and learning something new and uh like practicing something is really fun and sometimes they'll the app will be like how do you say this sentence that you know is a slightly more complex sentence and i get it right it's fucking thrilling but you suddenly know stuff that you like at at the age that we're at, we don't, we never learn anything anymore. Like, the lessons that we learn are, like, life lessons. Like, you learn stuff about raising kids, I'm sure, and we learn stuff about ourselves,

but it's, but, like, there's never that, like, practice to reward relationship that you used to get from, like, actually learning something. And it's, it's, it's just a damn blast. I'm really glad I'm taking Spanish. It's recommended to me this app was recommended by Anna Fitzpatrick a great writer who you could find on Twitter at banana Fitz I believe anyway onto the stupid bullshit that we get into for this show I've talked to you soaring about it before about how the I'm a little curious about what exactly they're teaching me or what kind of person they're preparing me to be.

Because we don't start with, we, again, we don't do like the alphabet or numbers or like, here are all the verbs that you're going to need to know. You just, you, you practice conversations that you were learning at the time and we i've joked before about like the unintentional comedy about it with uh that uh what clearly felt like a passive-aggressive domestic fight that i was learning i was learning how to be uh a man whose female partner couldn't decide what she wanted to eat and was just like barely keeping it together that was one of the lessons that this app seems to think i need to know there's another thing there is one that uh i just learned last week there's people who are at a restaurant and uh they're like you you sit down at a table you see two strangers and there's two unrelated people

and the the narrator is like you ask the waitress who is that man immediately like an unhinged thing to do to ask a waitress like who is like point to a man at a restaurant who is that and the waitress because they're this is like a shared universe of lunatics the waitress is like that man he's sick and then you say this and who is that woman that woman also who is she and the waitress says she's sick too and you say i want to send a glass of water to that man and the woman too give that man and that woman a glass of water these are all stuff that like i'm hearing the narrator say and then i'm saying it in spanish uh it's like send them a glass of water and for me give me a beer i'm not sick it's such a strange scenario that like start to finish insane it all sounds like it sounds like

the red room in twin peaks is where all this takes place and it like it were i to internalize this and learn all this it really positions me to be an asshole in this scenario where the waitress goes over to the table and is like, The gentleman over there, he thought you looked like shit. He wants you to have this water. There he is drinking a beer. He's not sick. You are sick. He is not.

That's why he gets beer. And he has sent you free water. Not you, lady. The guy guy the man may have the water you i know you are both sick but the man may have the water we have another lesson that i love um and i'm gonna play some of it on this podcast in this scene you're talking to a friend of yours and you ask him about a friend of his uh and he tells you that you don't want to talk to him and you ask it like you're asking is that because the friend speaks spanish too quickly like they're maybe too fast for you to understand and he says no he speaks slowly but a lot and he doesn't leave if we go to a restaurant And he doesn't leave. If we go to a restaurant together, he doesn't leave.

And the scene continues. Try to ask, what does he talk about? Literally, of what does he speak? ¿De qué habla? ¿De qué habla? Él responde, Who knows? ¿Quién sabe?

Of many things. De muchas cosas. Of nothing. De nada. Pregunta. How's that? ¿Cómo? I don't understand.

No entiendo. Él dice. You don't want to know. No quieres saber. what kind of fucking passive aggressive guy are they training me to be for the like here's how you tell someone this person talks too much and they never leave they talk who knows what they're talking about everything nothing you don't want to know this is i want it's important for me to to tell you soren i haven't learned how to say hospital yet i i just know how to be a dick behind my friend's back oh man i want to know what stories lost out to these. Like when they were making these, there must've been like other ones where they're like,

no, that's too weird. Let's do something a little simpler. Let's do something about a sick man at the restaurant. Let's do something about a friend betraying another friend. That'll be way easier for people to understand. I really love- I love the narrative decision to, that the female character, like character gives him an out, where she's like, Como, what's that?

Did you say what I thought you said? You have a chance to not be a prick here. No, doubling down. You don't want to know. I'm going to say it again. You don't want to know. I'm just going to say it again. I took Spanish in college. And back then, it was like, there was no, you didn't do it over the internet when you had to watch these types of videos. There's like these little vignettes that you'd watch all the time.

But we actually had to go to like a Spanish lab, which was this room that had all these computers in it. You put on headphones and you do a certain number of volumes from this, like, of these vignettes. And you're going to do, like, groceries one day. And a lot of times it's the same characters who appear in all of them. And it's these very simple, very straightforward stories. But, like, there's a real dynamic

that starts to form between the characters in a way where maybe, I mean, looking back on it, it may be that I was all horned up because I was in college. But there were, like, this maybe, I mean, looking back on it, it may be that I was all horned up because I was in college, but there were like this man, this woman who I very vividly remember them going and getting fruit one day. And they're in the kitchen putting fruit away and talking and laughing about the fruit in a way that I was like, just fuck already.

They were like, she'd be like holding these bananas very coyly. She'd be like, do you want to eat these with me it's like what no yeah this is you these are like the games you play when you don't know what else to say but you're like hey i'm gonna say this in a really sexy way do you want to do you also want to do that and then he's also like he's like like i mean like they're like it's clear that there's some subtext and no one's addressing it the show never addresses it because it has no idea that there's actual subtext because it's just trying to teach you spanish and i was like oh my god yeah it's possible i'll get to lesson 31 and it'll just be like and then they finally give into their carnal urges you don't have to repeat

anything but here's what it sounds like to fucking spanish and then i just listen to that for the whole class it's such a strange sensation because when they're when they're teaching you the the the sentences are always simple and they repeat things a lot in a way that is very like alien and confusing and that's why you assume it's loaded with subtext because it's not how people talk at all and they're like when i'm learning how to say your friend and we're at a party they'll just like keep bringing up keep finding ways for my character to say your friend over and over again it's like and your friend is your friend coming to the party your friend does your friend over and over again. It's like, and your friend, is your friend coming to the party?

Your friend, does your friend eat meat? Because in Argentina, there is meat. Your friend, does your friend talk fast or slow? I'm like, oh man. I would text that friend and be like, don't come to the party. Mateus is acting weird. Mateus wants to know all about you.

Mateus asked if you eat meat, what should I say? He just sent water to my dad. This is the third time he's approached me to ask you what time you're coming, if you are coming and how far away your friend is. It's also very strange when like the lesson that we had last night and again i'm on like 27 or 26 of these classes last night i learned uh left and right because we're getting into directions and i was like why the fuck did i learn how to shit talk my friend before asking for directions on how to get somewhere i i'm like I'm dragging my brain trying to figure out why they think you need to know these particular things.

Yeah. I mean- He talks too much about nothing. Oh, that's a good phrase. I should write that down. I'll be saying that a lot. Especially because like, if I sincerely want to like hang out with people and practice my Spanish with people who know it better than I do, but I don't think I will endear myself to any group of folks.

I'm like, can I practice my Spanish on you? And all I'm doing is, all I know how to do is like, that guy talks too much, huh? He talks about so many things and he talks about nothing. You don't even want to know what he talks about and i'm like how did i do and like hey great prick yeah no no you're supposed to say what and then i say about nothing oh that's wonderful ah yeah but i do have a blast i'm with you on like learning new things. How, how great that feels. I remember my dad, I mean, in school, you don't realize it because all you're doing

is learning the entire time. And you're like, I could use a little break from this. But I remember my dad taking just like, he'd go like take elective courses at the local community college or whatever on physics. And I was at the kid, I was like, what are you doing? You're done with this. Is your dad also forcing you? And, uh, and I did never understand it. And then as an adult, every time when you start to learn

new thing, it's like, you're unlocking this part of your brain that not only learns that very specific task or that skillset, but it's just just like the it opens you up to like seeing things differently when i do like woodworking and i'm figuring out how to make joints or something like that i'm like i'm just more my brain is more primed to accept other information from the world in a way that it's not otherwise where i'm like i'm excited about this new thing oh and there's other things around me too that I didn't even realize. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely, I'm running the risk of turning into Buster Bluth as just like a lifelong student who just like keeps racking up strange degrees. And like, you'll see me in a couple of years taking cartography classes and just whatever other weird shit I'm into, but I like it. I feel like when I'm done with Spanish,

again, I probably won't be able to just be dropped somewhere and communicate 100% effectively. When I am done with this class, I feel like I will want to pick up another language just to still have something to practice and work on every day. Yeah. Cha-ching! Here's my response to that sound.

I love it. Oh, that sound makes me smile. Shopify is an all-in-one commerce platform to start, run, and grow your business. Supercharge your knowledge and your sales and your success. For a free 14-day trial, go to shopify.com slash QQ. Attention all entrepreneurs like me. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving you the resources once reserved for big businesses customized for you. Don't let the big guys squeeze you out. I didn't with a great looking

online store that brings your ideas to life and tools to manage and drive sales. Believe me, when this podcast started, we didn't have, we had nobody working on it. It was a skeleton crew. It was one person who was doing sound and audio engineering. It was our CFO Bacon, and it was Dan and me. Could you believe how small that was? And now look at us. I love how Shopify makes it easy for anyone to successfully run your own business. Like me, Shopify powers millions of entrepreneurs from first sale to full scale. And every 28 seconds, a small business owner makes their first sale on Shopify. That could be you. Access powerful tools to help you find customers, drive sales, and manage your day-to-day.

Gain the knowledge and confidence with resources to help you succeed. There's 24-hour support, and so you'll never be alone. And it's more than just a store. Shopify grows with you as your business grows. This is possibility powered by Shopify. 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 well Dan speaking of learning a new language

through these audio files that you've got yeah I would say please continue in Spanish but I only know how to say your neck looks fat so I'm just going to keep my mouth shut I don't know if you've seen it yet I don't want to ruin it for you are you familiar with the new movie looper uh i'm familiar with a movie looper yeah new uh so

looper's a movie that as far as i know came out last week because that's the first time i saw it i i should preface this by saying if you're not if you're not a connoisseur, then you probably don't know that I catch everything a little late because of children and everything. I don't usually watch movies until they've been out for upwards of a decade. Yeah. Do you actually know when this movie came out? I don't know when it came out. Fully 2012. Oh, man.

Isn't that nuts? came out fully 2012 oh man isn't that nuts doesn't that seem like a movie you remember coming to the theaters and being like i i'll catch i'll get it soon i'll get it soon i'll go over to video hut and i'll get it it was that long ago that i was like i'll get it on dvd when it shows up a video hut um man bruce willis has made like 300 movies called like death on a friday since then so i watched looper finally and i wanted to talk to you about it if that's okay with you as though it just came out and and these are all like really amazing and uh poignant points that i'm making about it can we yeah okay can we live in that world yeah i want just so everyone knows i i watched this when it came out like a like a law-abiding citizen uh so

please understand anything that i remember from it is impressive of me yes i don't that's this you're the only person i can do this with because you maintain an encyclopedic knowledge of everything that you've ever seen. The content that you consume, somehow it sticks with you. I shouldn't say somehow. You work at it. It's not like it's magic. It's hard work, but you take it all in. You know it, and then you have it in you.

You know every actor that was in it. You know all of their names. That's true, but it comes at a cost. I have a nephew, and I rely on him to tell me when my father's birthday is so uh i i was i was deeply surprised in looper at how many kids get shot in that movie first of all that was very startling to the point where i turn it off for a little bit i i generally watch my movies over a couple of nights just because logistics but i i the first kid gets shot in it. I don't know if you remember this Bruce wills goes to, he has three kids.

He wants to go kill in the present time, because in the future, one of these kids becomes an amazing gangster with superpowers who wipes out an entire, the Eastern seaboarders board or something like that, and like takes over all crime syndicates. Um, so he's gonna go to find this kid is it's the go back in time and kill hitler as a child scenario yes so he finds the central premise of looper is um if you are a looper someone will pay you to be at a location at a given time and someone will be sent to you and they will have a bag over

their head you won't know who they are and you kill this person without question and take the bounty for killing them and that closes the loop now is it uh someone from who gets sent where someone from the future gets sent to the past so yeah so the yeah 33 years in the future time travel is invented it's outlawed almost immediately and so it's only the gangsters who have controlled this time uh or controlled time machines and they send people back 33 years in the past it's also incredibly hard for reasons they don't go into to get rid of a body in the future yeah so they send people back in time and your job is to kill them back in

somebody's waiting at a certain place back in time and they kill that person and then they get rid of the body 33 years earlier yes uh and the way that that what happens eventually to every single one of these guys in the past in 30 like in our present is at some point they will send you back you kill your yourself your future self back your they will instead of having a bunch of silver bars on their back to pay you they have gold bars and you kill them and that closes the loop that means like you are no longer like you're you're you're retired you you live the rest of your life now and you know you gotta do whatever your life the rest of your life now. And you get to go do whatever you want. The rest of your life means at some point you will be sent back in time and get killed by your past self.

Yes, exactly. You know how you got there because you did it. Exactly. Because you kill yourself. So that's the general premise of the movie. Bruce Willis comes back and he is the older Joseph Gordon-Levitt. And he gets away. And he gets away in the present.

And so Joseph Gordon-Levitt is trying to chase down his self to go kill him. And meanwhile, the older one, Bruce Willis, he's trying to save his wife in the future. What happens is when they came to get him, collect him in the future, his wife got shot. She died. They brought him to go send him back in time. And he thinks if he could just go find this this man who wiped out all these people in this crime syndicate who started sending everyone back to close the loops, then his wife will never die and he can just live his life with her in the future. future so here we are there's uh we're in the present and he's got to find these kids and he goes it's just a man going to a house watching the house until he sees a kid show up outside and the kid's young i would say like eight or nine and he shoots the kid yeah terminator 2 style he knows the name of the person who is going to

run the crime syndicate that gets his wife killed. And he knows the rough geographical area where that person is, but he doesn't know the exact person. And there are, let's say, three kids by that name in the phone book. There are three kids all born at the hospital on this one day. And, and he knows that the kid was born at this hospital on this day. So he's just, it's like he has the date and the hospital name and that's it. And so like, he's going to these three kids, he knows where they live. And he's like, it's, it's a really sad moment. The first one where he just comes up behind this kid who's coming home from school, who

then pulls his key out from under the door or under the pot or whatever and turns around and bruce willis is standing there with a gun and very slowly walks up to this little boy and shoots him and it's just they do it all i mean they're not they're not shy about lean like oh no he's gonna kill his kid now and that was rough as a parent to watch i don't know if it would have phased me the same way when I was younger, but the rest of the movie, I was so distracted just thinking about this kid who like, like is, and he didn't, he didn't, when the kid's dead, obviously he didn't go back. He didn't disappear from this time and go forward.

So he knows that this kid was innocent. Yeah. Wrong kid died. Oh, it's so rough to watch. Like, there is a difference between us because certainly I didn't, as a non-parent I wasn't like I feel nothing. Kids die all the time in the world. It was effective

in any movie because it's rare to see kids get killed in movies so I certainly was like, okay, that's, what this has done is give me, it's given the movie enough currency that I am rooting for Bruce Willis to die eventually because yes that's that's the ask that they want like he's in love and all he wants is for his wife to be alive okay but we still need him to lose at the end of the movie how do we get you to root against this guy who was just so in

love all right yeah he kills kids good i was thinking of it in those terms um still it sucks to see a kid die oh it's wrong but i think the major difference is that's the the the first thing you use to describe that movie and for me as, as someone, even with a memory like mine, I was like, Oh yeah, I guess he did shoot some fucking kids. Yeah. And he shoots all of them.

He even shoots the kid that he wants to shoot, shoots him in the cheek from pretty far away. Yeah. Oh, there you go. See, this is why I came to you. I am overcompensating.

Jeff Daniels played Abe. Let's go. Yeah. Uh, and so he, he shoots a lot of kids in it. That's tough to watch. Also, the main kid in it is very cute and a great actor and reminds me also of my son, which was hard to watch him get shot as well.

But I had some questions for you that I think that you can still answer with your knowledge of the plot. One is that Joseph Gordon-Levitt, he finds the main kid, the kid who's going to grow up to be the bad gangster. That's it. Yeah. He goes to this farm. He's living there with his mom. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as soon as he discovers that this is the right kid,

he knows that Bruce Willis is going to be coming for this kid. At no point does he just say, maybe you should leave for a while and I'll just stay here and fight my, my future self. He's like, why don't you guys just stick around? We'll all hang out and maybe I'll sleep with her for a little while. Emily Blunt,

I think is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he sleeps like at no point is that even considered there? He's just like, I'll stay here and protect you when there's a real opportunity there for them.

Just get in their truck and be like, why don't you leave for a week? Just go somewhere else. I feel like you answered your own question with the, why don't I, and then maybe I'll sleep with Emily Blunt. Because the other thing that we know about Joseph Gordon-Levitt, young Bruce Willis at that point, is he is not old Bruce Willis yet. He is not the, I am so heartbroken by the loss of the love of my life that i'm going to break all the rules of time travel and kill several children to to try to get back to my dead fucking wife joseph gordon levitt when we meet him young bruce willis is on drugs

and he is he's visiting sex workers which this is is not to condemn drugs or sex work, I guess. It just means that he's a very different... Love is not on his radar at all. He's a numb person who kills for a living. And we've watched him sort of show little to no sympathy for his friend, Paul Dano, when Paul Dano needs to die. He's a cold, numb person. And he meets Emily Blunt

when he's at this very strange crossroads in his life and she makes him feel something that I don't think he's felt before and probably thought was impossible for him to feel because he's one of the things that makes him so effective as a killer who doesn't flinch at shooting a stranger with a bag over his head for silver bars uh also makes human connection difficult for him so i think finding emily blunt this this badass shotgun wielding single mom in a wonderful farmhouse in the middle of the field

with her like quirky son yeah uh i think it's it awakens something in him that that uh challenges him i think yes like he's not thinking like the cold killer that he was all his life i think it's it's that's the movie being effective by having him not consider sending her away. That's fair from his point of view. Yeah. Why? And he thinks I might be dead soon.

So let me, let me spend this time. Old me got to live a whole life, got to fall in love. And now that I'm, if I don't close this loop, he ruins it for me. And I didn't get to have this love. And now that I'm, if I don't close this loop, he ruins it for me. And I didn't get to have this love that he got. My only shot is maybe falling in love with Emily

Blunt for however much time I have left on this earth. That's fair. From her perspective though, if somebody came to my house and they're like, Hey, a version of me from the future is knows where you live and they're coming to kill you. I would be like, okay, well then I'm, why don't I not be here? Like, why don't I take my child and go somewhere else? Like that would be a way easier way to deal with that. The other thing that I was very confused by at the very end of the movie, Dan was that, uh, hope, hope no, no one else is, this is going to be a spoiler to people, even though it's like a brand new movie.

Um, at the end, real quick, if you haven't seen looper, uh, No one else is. This is going to be a spoiler to people, even though it's like a brand new movie. At the end, he decides. Real quick, if you haven't seen Looper, don't have started this podcast. There's a point at the end where Bruce Willis has the opportunity to kill this child. Emily Blunt's standing in front of him because she wants to take the bullet for him. We find out that this kid has watched his mother die in the future. There's stories about this guy. But this kid has already watched who he thinks is his mother die. Emily Blunt gave this child up when she was very young to her sister.

He accidentally killed her with his powers. And that's the woman that he thinks is his mother and he remembers that moment and he thinks emily blunt is a liar when she says that she's actually his mom she uh we know that he's already watched his mother die that moment has happened and so bruce willis is about to kill his kid joseph gordon levitt sees it about to happen and the only way that he knows that he can stop bruce willis from where he's standing like from a choreographical point of view is to kill himself so he does that he can stop Bruce Willis from where he's standing, like from a choreographical point of view, is to kill himself. So he does that. He closes the loop by just killing himself. So Bruce Willis doesn't even exist. And it's a self-sacrifice that he does to save this kid and this mom. Doesn't that mean this kid just grows up to still be that crime lord i think we are supposed to believe that it doesn't but one of the crucial things about looper that uh i think at the time probably made me angry because at the

time i was still working at cracked and the whole point of that not the whole point of that place but a lot of what we did was pull apart plot holes and inconsistencies in movies and extract them to hilarious premises. There's a scene at a diner with Bruce Willis and young Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, where they're trying to iron out some of the finer details of the logic within the movie. And Bruce Willis very pointedly, almost direct to camera is like listen shut up about time travel if you ask questions we're gonna be here talking about time travel the whole time and i don't want to do it because this movie is about young me versus me and there's a kid involved shut up specifically let me do it he says it's imperfect it's muddy and that's just like i think that was like a note on the side of the

script from somebody at some point it was like this whatever this explanation is it's imperfect and when they're like that's perfect put that right in put that right in the dialogue i i kind of wish more movies would would uh embrace that kind of thing i'm not like advocating for shitty writing because i don't think that's shitty writing. I do think sometimes people can get themselves, writers can get themselves twisted in knots, trying to justify everything. And I do think it's important every once in a while for Paul Rudd in Avengers Endgame to be like,

yeah, it's a time heist. It's that's what we're going to do. We're like, don't think about it too much. We're going to go back and don't look, don't you want to see captain america fight past captain america you do okay then shut up yeah then shut the then let me

drive you want to see tony stark meet his dad wouldn't that be fun all right well quiet down yeah all right i'm gonna let it go here here's a did you like it yeah i did i thought that joseph gordon levitt did a great bruce willis it's really i love bruce willis so goddamn much well he's not trying to do joseph gordon levitt that's not at all when they were like deciding when they were gonna like make this movie they're like all right well you two should like mirror each other and like trying to figure out each other's mannerisms bruce willis was like no he could do yeah i'm sure joseph gordon levitt was like we should meet and like i want to talk about we should figure out together because we're building this character

together how we would hold a cup of coffee how we would walk around a room and i'm sure bruce willis just like wordlessly mailed him a couple of dvds of diehards he's like i'm gonna do it like that i'm gonna do it like i've been doing movies yeah forever 12 monkeys it's basically the same thing oh i i i think it's good i think it's a really good movie i think they're both really fun in it and and uh and i think paul dano i think is that before he's famous it must be because he's got a very small role in it. And I think Paul Dano, I think, is that before he's famous? It must be because he's got a very small role in it. But he's excellent. It's 2012. It's before anyone was famous. This movie came out so long ago. It could have been the first movie.

It was one of the first. Well, they got a great cast together. People clearly went on to have some really magical careers. Yeah, Paul Dano, I was very excited in the beginning because I was like, oh, cool. And then he's gone within like 10 minutes. And I was like, okay, well, you burned that one. Sure. We'll move on to some new characters. I think the kid in it is really excellent.

Does a very good job. I know that I'm going to look up this kid after this podcast because I know that he did I Wish I Was Here, the crowdfunded, Zach Braff-directed movie that was supposed to be like a spiritual cousin to Garden State and was kind of dog shit. But that kid was in it it and he was very good um and then in my brain he completely fell off the map but that there's always a a chance that like i'll do a google

search it's like whatever happened to this actor and then i find out they've been on some like disney xd show for the firm yeah 10 or like boy this actor was great what happened to him oh he's a series regular on something called blue bloods all right he's been steadily working for 15 years on some cbs procedural cool right um i i also this movie does a thing that i really enjoy like children of men does it really well too where you have future technology that's old as shit by the time you're watching the movie. Like it's already rusty and bad. Technology we don't have in our time but like they clearly

have that and that they're all just taking for granted and it's dog shit to them as far as they're concerned. Like cool motorbikes that hover and they're just like as far as they're concerned this is an old piece of shit. And I really like when like future technology is rusty in of shit. Yeah. And I really like when like future technology is rusty

in my movies. Yeah. What else did I like about that movie? I like the scene with Jeff Daniels. I love Jeff Daniels so damn much. He's great in it. And he is

one of the rare people sent from the future to live in the past because the crime syndicate needs someone from the future to be like their man on the ground to run things. Someone because the crime syndicate needs someone from the future to be like their man on the ground to run things. Someone they trust. Most people just like live their lives forward, except some who get sent back just to die. And Jeff Daniels is one

rare exception of like, no, it's like taking a job across country. Like i'm moving across time for work and i and you can't go you can't time travel forward in time except the normal way of just like aging and time passing so he will never get back exactly to his life he's just sent on assignment to grow old 33 years yeah in his past it is very cool funny and when he's talking to joseph gordon levitt about retiring and joseph gordon's life was like i think i'm gonna learn he was like you should learn chinese or you should learn mandarin just for love like i think i'm gonna learn spanish i'm from the future you should learn mandarin remember liking that exchange when i saw it back in back uh exchange when I saw it back in back

back at at 26 years old back when you were a young buck well thanks for taking the time to talk about this movie with me Dan yeah man of course next week I will be tackling Spider-Man no that's not true I was trying to even which one could it be there's more than one

it certainly is no way home I'm certainly not no way home No, that's not true. Which one could it be? There's more than one. It certainly is No Way Home. I'm certainly not No Way Home. I won't get to that one for quite a while. No, I almost spoiled some of that, but then I thought, no, there's no way that's on planes yet. Oh, the idea of a plane ride sounds so nice to me right now. What was the, how did you manage to, I guess I have- Watch Looper? Yeah.

Great question. Did you watch it with Colleen? No. To Esposa, no? No. I did not watch it with my Esposa. I don't, she doesn't watch movies, really. The only one that we watched was, got, we got screeners too.

And occasionally she will be interested in watching screeners. Oh, you finally got the looper screener? So she and I watched licorice pizza together, but that was like, that was her movie for the year. Basically. I watched it on my own because occasionally at work, our schedule is, is frenetic where like, we'll be working really, really hard. And then all of a sudden

like something will come up and we don't work for that day for whatever reason or like the other room finishes early and we were the joke room for them and so we just like well we'll just cut out early today and so every once in a while i get these moments where i have an afternoon to myself and i had already worked out that morning i didn't have a ton that i needed to do and i was like i'm gonna just go to netflix i don't even know what movie it's like basically like when i was a kid i would just turn on upn or something like that and be like whatever's on i'm watching it yeah and i was so excited to do that and just go to netflix and the first thing that popped up for me was looper and i was like you betcha and so i watched looper

that's good i'm glad that you landed on looper because it is an enjoyable film and i'm glad you got to see it uh i just it's yeah yeah with you and because my brother doesn't get to watch a lot of movies either because he he spends a lot of time with his family and he works and he's like always fixing his house or or exercising with his free time. And so with both of you, whenever you see a movie, I'm like, what's it going to be? What is the movie that you're going to see this month? What made the cut somehow? Prestige again. All right.

It doesn't sound like there's a rhyme and reason to it. There is. It doesn't sound like there's a rhyme and reason to it. But the idea of wasting time is almost more enticing to me than like watching something really good and that I need to see for pop, like for pop culture reasons. The idea of me just spending time, burning time is like the greatest. That's that would be the greatest gift I could have, which is why I'm so excited about the prospect of a plane ride where it's, it's only me. I'm not, I can't do anything else. I can't work on my house or do any of the other stuff because I'm stuck in

this plane. And I know that these movies are going to be mediocre and broad and bullshit, but I'm going to watch one of them and I get to choose which one it's going to be that I waste my time with. And just the idea of wasting time is so luxurious to me that I, Ooh, just thinking about it gives me goosebumps.

Huh? Well, good for you. Tenemos tiempo para uno mas? Oh no. Champo? What does champo mean? No,

I was trying to understand what you said. I think it said champo. Oh, say it again. Say it again. Tenemos tiempo para uno mas uno mas see it to the most tiempo tight what did you want to ask I know you're gonna do in Spanish aren't you no I actually, I don't have another question. In my fantasy, this played out as you just being impressed with that sentence. And also the answer being no. Let's see what time it is. Oh, no, we don't actually. No. Oh, good.

Yeah. No. Oh, good. Yeah. That's how I wanted things to go. I wanted those to like, like easily flow into Spanish to take us out of the episode. Instead, I did my best. And then you said, Chapo. Yeah, I fucked that up.

Sorry, Dan. I have a very cowardly pronunciation of things where I need to do it fast because I don't trust myself. I do that off also with like actors names that are not like firmly, very basic, easy English names where like I'll, I'll, she would tell a G a four and my brother will be like, well, wait, slow that down. Let me hear it. I'm like, no, it only comes out that speed i have to get a running start and then i scream it and then i'm gone i can't break it down into its component parts because i memorized it as one would a song

and that's it uh dan i had to look this up because i don't know how to actually say it Lo aruine Fuck Lo aruine Aruine That means I messed it up Okay so So you had to look it up Because you didn't know how to say it And

What about looking it up made you think that you Then did know how to say it Well it's right there on the computer I thought I would just pronounce that normally But then I got And what about looking it up made you think that you then did know how to say it? Well, it's right there on the computer. I thought I was pronounced that normally, but then I got... I really got... I struggled. There was an accent over the E because it's past tense and I didn't anticipate that. And I knew that the minute I did it, it was a mistake.

Although I was reading it, I was thinking, huh, ruins in the middle of that word. Oh no, there's more. And then had to keep going. I love the confidence that I think we both felt because as soon as you said, I had to look this up, I thought, well, I'm in safe hands. It's now occurring to me also that maybe you're, there's your translators onto something because I somehow never learned in school how to say I messed that up or I messed up, which seems super useful. I'm, I'm definitely sure before I learn how to say I'm bleeding, please help me. I will, I will know how to say, I fucked that up,

man. Let's start over. Shit. I didn't think you could hear me. My bad. Well, you could find us. I mean,

it's just occurring to me that this podcast must be tortured. Anyone who actually speaks Spanish. I mean, on the plus side, it's also torture for anyone who actually speaks spanish i mean if on the plus side it's also torture for anyone who who came here in 2011 yeah anyone who saw looper in 2011 anyone who was like oh a podcast where people ask questions and get answers that sounds right up my alley anyone who was anyone a fan of ours on cracked and uh enjoyed uh a version of me that didn't talk about working out and going on races so much that quick poppy dialogue we used to have when we would write it

fans of last Tonight, fans of American Dad, this show's not for you. No, it's really thinning the demographic. Yeah. Sorry. I guess sorry. Lo siento. Is that sorry? Yeah. Okay. That's a helpful one. That's good to know. Yeah, absolutely.

You can find Soren at Soren underscore LTD on Twitter or me at DOB underscore INC on Twitter. You can find Soren at Soren underscore LTD on Twitter or me at D-O-B underscore I-N-C on Twitter you can find and continue to congratulate our CFO at MakeMeBacon P-L-S, MakeMeBacon please email the show at QQ with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com, find the show on

Twitter at twitter.com slash QQ underscore Soren and Dan people are probably wondering why I'm going in that order because it seems like i would do all the twitter things together and uh they must be wondering why i jumped for uh directly to email and then back to twitter it's because that's how it's written down in front of me two years ago and i haven't changed it since uh which is why i say things like we also have a patreon because that's written down even

though the address of our patreon is not you can find higher and uh just respect can't do any of those things can't do any of those things a guy named gabe runs this whole show you'll never find him he's great and he is wise to distance himself from us smart adios adios