Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - QQ ep 3 - The Case For and Against Clapping

Episode Date: June 5, 2020

Hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the writing, comedy, and friendship advice podcast that shoots for the moon. And even if we miss, I won't say we reach for the stars because the stars are technically farther away from us than the moon is, so we just fail. I am one half of this podcast, a writer, comedian, and recovering YouTuber, Daniel O'Brien, joined as always by my friend and co-host, Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, say hello.

Hey, I'm Soren Bui. I'm a writer for American Dad. I'm a family man. I've got two children now. Got a new one, just joined the lot. And I'd say that I'm a YouTube fanatic. I found a new section of YouTube that I'm really into. Dan, would you like to hear about it?

I'd love to. Gardening. Uh-huh. Have you ever watched any gardening videos? I've not. They are so soothing and wonderful. I got into it because I have started planting some new stuff. I did a little exchange with a buddy of mine. I gave him some worm tea. We'll get into that in a second. He gave me an eggplant seedling, a cucumber seedling, and a tomatillo. And so I was immediately, because I throw myself at everything that I do, I learned everything I possibly could about making sure these plants survive. And I love it.

Now I'm watching videos of just a guy in Australia who's like, I'm just going to see what happens if I bury all my old food in this bed. He'll do that. And out of like where the fish heads were just tomato plants will sprout up. And, uh, it's really, it's really great. The community is all, it's all very relaxing and calming. And they talk about pruning and it's, uh, or, uh, my favorites are when they talk about pollination and like pollinating your own plant because it gets very erotic. They take a little Q-tip and they show you where the male section is, where the female section is.

And they gently rub the male section with the Q-tip and then slather it on the female section. Uh, there's, it's, it's amazing. I love, I love gardening all of a sudden only because of YouTube. You've given me too much. I truly don't know what question to ask right now. I wanted to, I thought I wanted to ask because you, you, your Colorado accent, I couldn't tell right off the bat if you were saying warm tea or worm tea yeah and then like while i had that question prepped in my mind so many other things came out let's start there worm tea it is worm with an o

yes goodness um i have a lot of worm tea tons it, a huge backlog of worm tea because I have composting worms, which it's a big pile of worms basically. And you throw in all your old food as long as it's not, uh, you can't put any like meats or anything like that, but you can put in some breads and you can put in, um, any, anything that doesn't have a tough rind and the worms will just break it down and turn it into soil. As they're doing that, a bunch of liquid is also falling through the soil that they've already made. That liquid is worm shit and worm pee and the juices that are just coming out of these decomposing melons and whatever you've gotten in there.

It comes out black like oil at the bottom. You can pour it into a, a big Mason jar. And then that's called worm tea. You put it out in the sun. And so it bakes a little bit and then you put it on your plants. Don't put it on the leaves, but you put it at the base of your plants and it's just like steroids for

your plants. Oh, you don't drink it as one would a tea. Sorry. Oh, I should have started with that. Obviously. Yes. No, don't drink it as one would a tea. Sorry. Oh, I should have started with that. Obviously. Yes. No, don't drink this. This is just to help your plants. Now I started doing this only because we felt bad about all this waste we were creating, but we really had no use for any of

these worm tea. Cause I didn't know shit about gardening. And I would just, as soon as I get a bunch of it, I'd go outside and just pour it on whatever tree I had. But yeah, worm tea is like, it's very, very valuable too. It's like, it looks just like oil. It sells for about the same price as oil right now. And it's great for your plants. Could you sell it? I think so. I think I could, but I'd have to set up like a market for it. And that sounds like a lot of work. Well, so this segues into the next natural segment of our show, which is famously full of segments. The quarantine chat. Do you think you would have done all this if not for quarantine? Absolutely not. There's no way. Um, but I, I will say, I think that the plants are getting the benefit of a lot of my current love that I'm, that my heart is, is feeling for my daughter. Um, I have a new child. And so there's this part of me, I don't know. It's probably chemical. It's probably the child is producing some sort of chemical in me when I smell her or

whatever. That's like nurture, nurture, take care of things, take care of things. And I am obsessed with these plants. Every morning I get up, I go outside, I check on them. I planted a bunch of seeds too, to see if I can get some seedlings to grow. And I, I like, I'll watch them. That's a, not a healthy thing to do. I mean, no.

I get real upset with pests. There's a fly. I don't even know what it's doing. I think it's there to just piss me off. I've got some sweet basil and there's a fly that just comes and lands on the sweet basil every day lives there just hangs out on it if i shoo him away he comes right back to that same leaf and he's there always and

i don't think he's eating it because the leaf hasn't changed at all but that motherfucker is on my shit he's just pooping on it yeah he's something. He's doing something and he's doing it to spite me. So I guess that kind of answers the question of how you're doing in quarantine right now is that you're ignoring your daughter and angry at one fly. I'm in a position where, so when you have a child that's young enough, they're still sort of in a larval state a little bit and they don't do a whole lot. She's completely dependent on my wife because that's who feeds her. And when feeding happens so regularly, the rest of the time is either sleeping or grunting, grunting, and then pooping.

And I can deal with the grunting, grunting, pooping, but those come so infrequently that she spends the majority of time with her mom. And I've got nowhere to put all of this. And so it's going right in the worm tea. Got it. Well, that's good then. I support that and I'm happy for you. How's your quarantine going? It's okay. I started a new workout with my brother, David, because I feel like we've been talking. I've been running a whole bunch, but we get on the phone once a week and we talk about how we're doing. We check in the way that you and I check in. And it's always like, how are you exercising right now?

And the answer has always been like, I'm trying to do push-ups. I'm trying to do squats in my apartment. I'm trying to run, but nothing felt very stable. So we're doing a new workout now. Have you heard of the MRF challenge? No. We're doing a modified version of that. So the proper MRF is one mile run, a hundred pull-ups, 200 pushups, 300 squats, and then another mile run. We're doing, the runs are intact, but we're doing half of everything else. So 50 pull-ups, 100 push-ups, 150 squats for right now anyway. We're trying to do that three times a week for 30 days, just so we can both keep ourselves to an honest workout situation that doesn't require

having weights or access to a gym because neither of us have that right now okay so you're doing all of those things in a day and you're doing it three times a week yeah will you say them one more time one mile run 50 pull-ups 100 push-ups 150 squats one one mile run. Okay. Oh, okay. That's all pretty reasonable. And are you, uh, when you're doing it, are you lumping it all together or is it scattered throughout your day? It's all together. Okay. That's a little harder. Yeah. Um, that's a lot of pull-ups. It's a lot of pull-ups. I don't like that. Everything else feels pretty reasonable. That's a lot of pull-ups i don't like that something else feels pretty reasonable that's a lot of pull-ups to do it is and like honestly if i could trade uh pull-ups for fucking squats i feel like unless

i'm doing them wrong i could do squats for 24 hours a day well you have marius jones drew cherry wood legs they just seem like a very easy workout squats. Yeah. You're not, you're not weighted, right? No, no.

It's just bouncing up over and over again. Yeah. Okay. That's, I feel the same way about planks. I feel like planks are a joke. Like I, like somebody,

I don't know what anybody gets out of those. I feel like planks are a joke. Yeah. I don't get anything out of those. I just, I sit in that position and I'm like, well, at some point, at some point this is going to really start to burn. I guess your bones are hollow, so you don't. Yes, I weigh 75 pounds. Also, yeah, that's why my pull-ups,

I just shoot up in the air every single time I do it. I did get a pull-up bar, Daniel. If you try to look on Amazon right now for a pull-up bar, good fucking luck because everybody's got the same idea in quarantine. Everybody's getting to that point where they're like, oh, fuck, I got to make some changes. It's one of the only times that it's good to be in New York for the constant construction that is always going around because there's so much scaffolding and like, Oh, that's right. Pull up bars that are just like forming around buildings at this point. I forgot that that's how you live your life. That like your exercises are, you become one with the city. You take advantage of all the things around you on a middle, in the middle of a run, you'll stop

and just swing from a scaffolding for a little while yeah absolutely and i saw i i run a mile and then i i uh i scale the front of the statue of liberty and then i uh what is it with ropes when you go down spelunk i spelunk down no no no no what is repeelunk? I spelunk down the back. No, no, no. What is it? Repelling. Repel. I repel down the back of it. Okay. You could spelunk in the middle of it.

It's like caving. Oh, that's caving? Okay. That's a good thing. That's cool. And so you're running out there, I assume. You're just quick enough that you can stay on top of the water out to... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Staten Island?

I know. What is that? What island is that? Ellis? Ellis. Ellis Island? Governors? Ellis Ellis Island. Governors. Oh no. One of us. It's gotta be Liberty Island, doesn't it? It can't be.

Well, at any rate, this is the show where we answer questions and, Oh, I think we actually need to get into, so we have a Patreon that either of us recommend you do but if you do it you every once in a while get to submit a question that we have to answer and we have one and it's from tanner barker and they said thought of a question what article cracked or otherwise are you most proud of hmm I can go first here that's good because I've never

been proud of anything I've ever done he says while gazing casually at his Emmy and correcting it without thinking I used to do a series on cracked which was He says while gazing casually at his Emmy and correcting it without thinking. I used to do a series on Cracked, which was I would write a column on my birthday every year, where as I would write it, I would drink if I had to look anything up, and it became like a drinking game. So as the column went on, I would get drunker and drunker. And that became a lot of fun.

And the first one that started with was the, I called it the five best kinds of monkeys and just went through like good monkeys and ended up on koalas, I think by the end. And it was like seven in. And so it was like, it was deconstructing the idea of a list, which was very fun for me. And also just like having a lot of fun writing a column on my birthday. Then it escalated to a point where I went birding in the LA River with my wife. I had to go with her because I needed to drive there, and I had to drink there, full of alcohol and a bird book and just looked up every bird I saw along the way and just got drunker and drunker

until my wife and I got in a big fight about her falling in the water and me making a joke about how she was going to have a river baby from it. And that wasn't very sensitive and I was already kind of, it's not fun to be the sober person around a drunk person. And so the whole column is basically about the fight we had.

Did you, were you always drinking in those columns? Yeah. I would always, I mean, obviously I play it up in them. Right. But you'd be surprised at how much easier it is to find those drunk jokes when you actually are drunk. Yeah. Yeah. The editing was awful because those ended up being 5,000 words

and I would have to go through afterwards hungover and be like, okay, what the fuck is all this? And just like deleting, deleting, deleting, fixing sentences that had a bunch of spelling errors in them yeah i think mine was probably five terrible situations for the socially awkward man i want to make sure that's the first time that i talked about awkwardness which that was the one with haircuts on it yeah Yeah. I think we might as well now call it like general anxiety. But at the time it was like, it's 2011 and it's fine to say like,

I'm socially awkward and I don't know what to do, but yeah, like the, probably this is the first time that I was open about like some kind of anxiety issues that I had. And, um, like line for line is not the funniest thing that I've ever written but I think it what it for me anyway marked a change from what I started doing at Cracked

which was this strange character that we talked about before this like fratty bro character that i did for a while to get attention and to get fans and then what i ended up doing which was not purely true but a slightly more authentic version of my writing you've got the fratty stuff and another line of the sand you've got awkward social nerd stuff and this is the first time that it was sort of like coming out it's like hey by the way like i know i've been like like fun and loud and brash and like this and and playing this strange character but uh i'm really uncomfortable at the dentist and getting haircuts and and at urinals and uh this is this is closer to who i am than anything you've seen before yeah i think that resonated with a lot of people i hope so i mean like uh i hope so it doesn't matter now um but i

hoped it did at the time it was it felt like a real risk at the time writing it because i'd done this one thing for for so long and then you're just like to just come out and be like hey i i i'm scared most of the time do you you agree? And then people did agree, and that was nice. Yeah, that's a good one. I also threatened to fight a bunch of turkeys in front of a Bennigan's once. That was nice. Was that a drunk column?

No, that was just a regular sober column. Was that a sponsored content? I can't remember. I think it might have been. Yeah, I think it was sponsored. I'd have to look it up again, though. I was setting up a fight night in front of a Bennigan's, and it was going to be me against a bunch of turkeys,

and my strategy laid out because they can't fucking read. Well, that was a question that we got from a Patreon and we're very thrilled for all of our Patreons. Thank you for doing that. If you can, we love doing this show and we love your support. And now we're gonna get into the show with questions for each other.

Soren, quick question. Go ahead. Is there a very small thing very low stakes that you would like to get rid of unrelated to quarantine and i'm gonna go first okay i would love to never have to clap again for the rest of my life. I understand. I've been on stage. I understand why it feels good when an audience claps for you. But I think we can just replace that with like a prerecorded musical sting because I've also been in audiences. I've gone to stand-up shows and concerts and Broadway shows.

I've also been in audiences. I've gone to stand-up shows and concerts and Broadway shows, and I purely hate the act of clapping. I would like to never do it again for the rest of my life. I would sooner throw money at a Broadway stage than I would clap after a song that I liked because I still want to show my support but like it it stings the hands and you do so much of it and if you're at a concert or no if uh more appropriately if you're at like a stand-up show a comedian comes out and like give it up for

Teresa Lee and you clap and then she does jokes and then you clap for her jokes because they're funny and then at the end she's like thanks that's my time and you clap and then she does jokes and then you clap for her jokes because they're funny And then at the end she's like thanks That's my time and you clap because she's been funny And then the mc comes out and it's like give it up some more for Teresa Lee and then you clap some more And it was like I just can I like can I just file somewhere? The right amount of support Can I just like log my support somewhere and then I don't have to clap for the rest of the night? can I just like log my support somewhere and then I don't have to clap for the rest of the night because I just want to enjoy my evening without having to

slam my hands together and make them sting. Am I, am I a hundred years old? No, but I am not on board with this plan whatsoever. First of all, I objectively see the value of the clapping because it's such a loud noise that fills an otherwise awkward silence of transition that's going to happen. And it's just a nice way to show like you're reciprocating. The person on stage is working so hard. You're also doing something and you're like, hey, we're in this together. Like you're giving back. And then subjectively, I'm such a good clapper, Dan. I've such a loud popping clap that it will startle the people next to me.

I'm a good laugher. I'll be a great laugher in the audience. I just don't want to clap. Yeah, but you can't feel there's such a, there's a, that big amount of time. Okay. I guess maybe here's what you just need to fill it with something else. I guess you go like a sketch show. You're going to get the class, but you also immediately after the last line, you get the music starts up and it's loud. And that's how they do their transition underneath the music. If that could be it for everything in the world, their transition underneath the music. If that could be it for everything in the world, I think maybe you could make this work. You just fill that space with some other noise. It has to be filled with noise. Otherwise it's really bad. You hear the, cause people know it's over. Your natural

instinct is to shuffle in your chair or get more comfortable or do something else. And you're just going to be hearing a lot of that squeaky noises of a folding chair or like shoes on the floor. And there's nothing more brutal to somebody on stage than those noises. I guess, but don't you like, don't you hate clapping? No, I love it. Really? Yeah. The sting is worth it to me. Afterwards that my hands are a little numb, man, I had a good time and I'm, I can't stress this enough.

I've perfected my clap. I worked on it. Walk me through it. Okay. My left hand is cupped slightly. Let's say like if I was going to be holding a softball, but I'm got all my fingers together, even the thumb on the side, I could hold maybe a pool of water for five seconds in this cup my other hand is coming in oh you know what thumb i'm wrong thumbs out because it's got to be out of the way the other hand's coming in across and all my my index to my pinky of my other hand are hitting my hand between the thumb and index finger of the first hand does that make sense it does and then and it's not about the hands the two palms hitting each other that's i mean that's rookie varsity is you're you're hitting that cup with your fingers like the middle knuckle is landing right in the m in the middle of

your palm you know the m that i'm talking about no oh maybe this is just the way my palms are i'm missing a lifeline in my palm it's possible i have something that you don't um there's like a the wrinkles in my hand make a very clear m and uh just in the middle of the palm the heart of the palm hearts of palm uh that's where i'm hitting with the fingers and it's it's i can make just like it sounds like a snap pop that you throw at the ground when i do it and you don't get you don't get bored of that for a night well i mean obviously i'm always excited when i start clapping for for a show but like have you ever been to like a shitty hip-hop show yeah but you don't have i mean that's the the beauty of it is that not everyone has to participate every single time

it's not like you've been to an award show those are bad yeah that's where i'm like no more clapping this is bad i mean soren great question i've been to many go on okay oh did you win did you win an award um and uh i but yeah you're right in those circumstances there's way way too much clapping um but a show where there's somebody who's doing they're like performing their heart out in front of you whether it's a sport or an act they're at a play or uh doing comedy. Like I'm willing to give them that sting to be like, look, you earned this.

No, I think I can amend this to hosts. It's hosts who are like, give it up for my next person and then keep it going for this last person and give it up for yourselves. Like anything that, that, that is just like the host is clearly uh trying to get re-energized by having a bunch of artificial applause thrown at them but sometimes it's like this is like the secret it's like you start living at first and then you start believing it at the when you hear the energy of the crowd of just a bunch of people clapping at once, you start to get more pumped up from it.

The people who are backstage can get a sense of how big the audience is and like how much they're feeling this. I think. I mean, it starts synthetic, but I think it becomes true. There's a symbiotic relationship between people on stage and people in the audience for sure i understand that i still hate clapping all right do you want to hear mine yeah i want to get rid of thank you cards oh my god this might be... I never want to write another thank you card in my life. This might be our first fight. I hate thank you cards. I hate giving them.

I hate having to take the time to write out... They know how you're using whatever they gave you. Or if they came to your party, you're like, hey, it was really nice having you. Now I got to think of an anecdote that's personalizing it. Oh, I really liked when you did this. Or, uh, we do it with baby gifts. People send us stuff and you're like, okay, uh, she's really enjoying the sleepers you sent. They're very comfortable or, Oh, what a beautiful giraffe there was embroidered on that thing.

And, and it's like, there's not a lot of room. There's not a lot of room to play. It's like, it's all business. Uh, there's, there's nothing to it. And then you send it off and then they have to get it because if they don't, now there's a fissure in the relationship. Like that's a problem. If somebody doesn't get a thank you card for doing a thing. And the thing is, I don't give a shit on the other end. I will, if a thank you card comes, I'm like, like oh i'm surprised every single time and then the first thing i do is read it and then throw it away yeah i mean i think it's fine to read them and throw them away i'm on the other side of this because uh thank you cards are so rare in my life so both when they show up and when i send them to someone

else it's very exciting it feels like a very big deal because there are so few opportunities in my life to send a thank you card because like i don't i'm not married and I don't have kids. So the idea of sending or receiving a thank you card is, is still very novel. Like my dad gave me a bunch of blank thank you cards from North Carolina where he lives now with like an artist drew a bunch of sea turtles on them. And I like sea turtles. So now I get to send out thank you cards with sea turtles on them. And I can say, Hey, thank you for this thing that you did.

Here's a sea turtle. I like sea turtles. And that's in my world, a very novel thing to do. Not just because because like, yeah, I get that. It's novel for my son right now too. And I see that the benefit in him because we have sent out a lot of thank you cards right now and i like it's giving him an opportunity to see the cause and effect of of writing you he doesn't know how to you know write on his own but he knows how to write each letter and he can kind of spell a word out if we help

him out and it's a good opportunity for him to see the practical application of these words these letters that he's otherwise just been tracing for no reason at preschool and so he does get excited about because he also then will choose like which stickers he's willing to part with he's like okay i like the sticker a lot but i also really love nini so she's gonna get this paw patrol sticker and there's value there but just among, it feels like there's so much writing on it that if a thank you note doesn't go out or for some reason it gets lost in the mail or whatever it is, that's something you're never going to talk about. That person who didn't get it will never bring it up. They wouldn't have remembered a single word that was written in it

had they gotten it. But the act of writing it and receiving it is like what keeps the bridge standing and without it it crumbles and i hate that actually i actually do think that we're on the same page because the reason that i like thank you cards is because i don't expect them and i and like society won't crumble if they don't show up. I like them because they're a novelty in my world. And I will say, yeah, I do like because I don't expect them either.

When I get them, I'm always like, oh yeah, are they thanking me for coming to their wedding? That's amazing. But in general, I think if we just did away with that, I'd be so much happier. I hated him as a kid. We'd have to write him after every Christmas for all of our gifts. Yeah, I did that for high school graduation gifts.

Thank you so much for coming to my high school graduation party. Uncle Jim. Yeah. Thank you for the card with a hunt crisp hundred dollar bill in it. I will. Here's what I'm going to spend it on. I would like to say that I'm spending this on books. I'm probably spending it on gas.

Woo. Yeah. You have some, so sorry. It's going to be gas and food for the summer. It's. to be gas and food for the summer. It's and I, that's the other thing is I put the time into it to try to slide in something that's like a joke or could be fun for them to read.

And it's like, it's just exhausting. And it feels like no one else is making that effort. Thank you, Kurt. What am I doing? Do you have any questions for me? Yeah, got a quick question for you shoot are you in your life you've come across celebrities who you see out in the wild or maybe even in your job and you're like god i really i you're just you you're drawn to want to talk to them and i don don't know where it comes from. It might be that like, it's just having that person know you exist kind of feels good. Just having them address you, to look you in the eye, to shake your hand, that feels good.

And everybody gets that impulse because they go and approach celebrities all the time. Do you have a strategy for approaching celebrities that you really like? I really don't. for approaching celebrities that you really like? I really don't. And in fact, the closest I'd come was at the Emmys last year. So if you win the Emmy, which we did, you go to a different building to actually collect your Emmy and sign it out. They make you sign it out. Then you have to take a bunch of pictures and stand around

while people who are more important than you talk and answer questions. Then you circle back to the actual building where the Emmys are being held. You cross in front of the stage during the commercial break you just like quietly march back to your seat like we did and i saw ted danson who happened to be standing and i'm i'm so enamored by ted danson i think he's so incredible and so talented, and he seemed so genuinely nice. And I just looked at him and, like, briefly considered holding up my Emmy to point to it as a way to show him, like, we are peers, you and I.

I couldn't even do that. I just looked at him, we made eye contact, and then I put my head down and I moved away. Okay. You can't. The short answer is no. I don't know how. Even when I have a trophy that seems to literally say,

like, I'm part of this community, I still don't feel it. Not enough that I can talk to anyone else in this community. Right. Because you have two options i feel like you as meeting a celebrity you can be like hey i'm just want you to know i'm a really big fan and then you you fuck off like you don't don't say anything else don't stick around don't like linger just go because i or go ahead because I don't want to say we are peers, you and I. You know, I don't, I want to be like, we're the same. Like, I want to, I don't want to be a fan.

I don't want to claim to be peers. I want to prove value in some way. And like, I don't think I can prove value with Ted Danson. That's what I'm saying. So the other one is, the other way you do this is that you have to, in some way, cut through the noise of the people that would ordinarily be coming up to them and be like, I'm different than that. It's okay for us to talk. This isn't going to be one of those awkward situations. Here's this thing we have in common or whatever it is. And you can like see somebody disarm. You can watch a celebrity who you come up to them,

you know who they are. They don't know who you are. They have just like this glazed look on. And the minute you can cut through that and like pierce it, then you can see like it drop off of them. And like the weight comes off their shoulders. There's less anxiety in the situation. They're just like, oh, okay, this person's okay. And so I understand your instinct to be like,

I also have an Emmy. It's fine. I like you. And now we can talk about it. I have a strategy, Dan. Yeah. I think you're much better at it than I am. I developed it specifically after you and I went to, what was that? The Webby's and Ellie Kemper was there. And as you know, Ellie Kemper is somebody I've been enamored with for a very long time. I think that she's very funny, but she's also, uh, Ellie Kemper, she's on the office.

She was, uh, the receptionist on the office and she was on a mystery team. And she's Kimmy Schmidt in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. She's also, I would say that's her main thing. She's Kimmy Schmidt. She's also a really deadly funny writer too. She's written some stuff for McSweeney's and that's really where I found my, I don't want to call it like a crush

because I don't even feel like it's sexual. It's just like, I really respect this woman and I like her an awful lot. In a horny way. In a very horny way. And so she was at the show and I like her an awful lot. In a horny way. In a very horny way. And so she was at the show and I was like, she has to know I exist. She has to know I exist. And so I went up to her to just be like, hi, I'm a really big fan of yours. And I thought that that was enough that if you were also at this ceremony, you're all doing the same stuff like maybe not the same caliber but like you're

all making similar things and i didn't have a plan other than that and it went so bad it went so so badly and after that i developed a plan okay and uh i can walk you through it right now and i feel like it's pretty foolproof unless everybody starts doing it. Can I quickly write a note? Because I do want to put a pin in. You need to know I exist because I want to talk about that. Okay. Go ahead. I do a thing now with celebrities where if there's somebody that I'm interested in meeting or that I think is particularly interesting,

like Todd Glass is a comedian who I think is really funny. I saw him at an airport and I think about how I'm going to lie to this person and convince them that we've met before. And so I will look at Todd Glass and I'm like, what do I know that he does? He goes to, okay, he's at Earwolf Studios a lot because he does comedy bang bang. And then I will go up to him and I'll be like, hey, Todd. And. And he's me like, yeah. And I go, oh, it's I'm soaring. We met a few times at Earwolf, uh, doing comedy bang bang. And he'll immediately, because there's so many people in and out of that, he'll be like, oh yeah, yeah, of course. And so as long as you can find some place where you would have met in which they

would have been meeting a lot of other people that are all doing a very similar thing, Then they're like, oh, this is how we know each other already. We've worked together or something. And that's your in. And then you can, they, then you're just allowed to talk. And then the next time you see that person, you don't have to reference the first thing. You just go to the one you did previously. But like what happens if you and Todd Glass become very good friends? And then one day when you're giving a speech at his wedding and someone's like, by the way, how did you guys meet? And he's like, comedy bang bang. And then you have to still uphold this lie? No, this is now a way better story. If Todd Glass and I became actual friends, for me to talk about how I lied to meet him at

the beginning at his wedding and for him to find that out, I think would be great. He finds out at his wedding that you lied. Yeah. But we're friends now. I can't stress this enough. I've earned it at this point. So that's what I've done. And it's worked every single time. I just sit there for a little while and I think about where we like where on earth we could have met. And then I will bring that up. And a lot of times it's just for laughs. Like the Montreal Comedy Festival. Sorry. Yeah. In Montreal every year they do a comedy festival and pretty much every comedian is there. I will go up to like a Doug Benson or somebody

and I'll be like, oh yeah, we hung out at Just for Laughs. I was like, or we smoked in your room at Just for Laughs. He doesn't fucking remember who smoked with him that entire time because it's one big party up there and there's a really, really good chance that this actually happened.

So he'll be like, yeah yeah of course which is what you do in that situation because you don't want to be an asshole you don't like no i don't remember you uh and then that's all it takes and then you're allowed to have a conversation with somebody under false pretenses and that's all i want yeah okay is that bad no i mean yes but uh for the purposes of moving the podcast along no i do want it to go back to um you said uh you need to know i exist yes um i want to dig into that. Okay. Because I... This is alienating and not fun for our audience. But I do think about our relationship to people who are in our industry and are at levels above where we are right now

and what we actually hope to achieve with conversations with them. Like, I would love to meet Conan O'Brien. I would love to meet John Mulaney. I'd love to meet Melissa Villas and your, but I also think like we're, we're, we're not peers and we will never be peers. to be acknowledged by these people um i think i'm never really gonna get that and i should focus more on like the incredible community that we have already built around us or that has been formed around us rather are you saying you have no interest then in like, no, I just mean like, there's like a comedy community that is like, for big Leah, John Mulaney,

Nick Kroll, Amy Schumer, uh, most cash, Natasha Leggero, that aspirationally I want to break into. Yeah. That I know I will never break into.

Right. And so i should just like content myself with the fact that we are forming our own comedy community at this time yeah but don't you want to be even it's like i mean you think about a cult oh yeah who the people in a cult who the car drives by with the the leader in the car and the leader waves to somebody, like how good that feels or that you are acknowledged by this person who is on this hierarchy that is made up is better than you. And it doesn't matter that the hierarchy is made up. The person's better than you and they acknowledged your existence. And that feels good. That's just like how cults work.

There's some part of us that scratches an itch and that's why they can make these kinds of things happen. And a celebrityism is like, our celebrity that is that same cult. It's like, I know that those people are out of my league. That's probably why I'm fine lying to them because I'm not going to be friends with them at any point. We're not going to, at some point,

we're not going to be equals. And so I can just be like, I don't, I want to just have a conversation with you or like, I know that you will find out that I'm a, I'm a great, fine person and that I can be a lot of fun. And that will be the end of it. We're not going to like exchange phone numbers at any point in this moment. I just want to meet you. I want you to look at me and I want you to acknowledge that like, I am also a person. And that feels really good from somebody who's quotes better than you. Yeah. That makes sense. I developed, I developed this, my strategy after also dealing with a lot of people from, we would go to Calgary or we go to LA's Comic-Con and the people that come up and they like you,

like they are fans of your writing. And then I just want to dip back for a second. When you're talking about how you're trying to illustrate how popular we were, definitely start with Calgary and then go to LA. That's the order that I would do things'all do y'all know rodeo days up in calgary well you should know that a month before that just 40 miles sorry just 80 kilometers outside of banff a little cow town called calgary uh and but it is like I feel like that's their Comic Con up there, isn't it? Or Toronto, I guess maybe would be theirs. But when we go to these things, there are people who

do recognize you from the videos that you've done or they recognize you from your writing and they'll be like, oh my god. Or my band. And they want to be appreciative, but they also, these are people who feel a kinship with you. These are people who have developed, not necessarily in a normal way. I don't want to say that.

They have developed a relationship with you that you have not been privy to. You can't help but do it when you're reading somebody's stuff all the time, you're seeing them on TV. So you have an established relationship in your mind with this person that they don't share with you. And that's like a weird energy and a weird dynamic when you meet up with somebody. And it's, it almost always goes badly. Like, it seems like it would be really cool to be somebody who people were coming up to and being like, Oh man, I love your stuff. But it always ends up being weird no matter what, because they come up, they say that you say, what's your name? You beat them. You say, thank you so much. That means a lot. And then the two of you just fucking stand there. And then they are like grinning and like trying to think of like, well,

you know, just like that Chris Farley interview. They're like, do you remember that time when you did the, God, that was so cool. Or they are, or they are waiting for you to carry the conversation, in which case you have to do it. And it always ends up being weird and strange. And so I was just like, how do I make it not that I lie to them? That's the way. I think we had similar life experiences and my decision was, how do I not do that my answer was oh we're just like not going to talk to anyone like even if i know it's not a question i'm just like not going to

wasn't an option for me dan no you had to yeah i gotta be known i got it i have to be known and immediately forgotten. Like that's my aim. I think you, like if you meet a celebrity, uh, correct me if I'm wrong. Your two, your top two reactions. One would be,

um, he's pretty great. I'm going to have him write my next movie or next TV show or next song. And then number two would be man that is the way that i want a fan to respond that is the perfect response are those your top two yes yeah i think you accomplished those thanks man anyway don't try that it's my thing i won't anybody listen to this don't fucking steal that because it's working for me now. And if you blow it, then I can't do it anymore.

No, but I mean, I think one of the things that everyone can take away from this is, is if you ever see Soren, definitely try that on him. Oh, absolutely. I would love to play that game with you. Prove that it works. Also, I'd just be so happy that somebody came up to me it was like i know you i'd be like yes i know you from your podcast that one episode i listened to because my my ex-girlfriend made me on a car trip um yeah i i would love it if they tried that with me although and also no none of you fucking narcs go tell Todd Glass what happened.

Don't do that. It's tough because I know that, because we did some insider polling, and I know that our audience is 85% narc. And that's by no one's design. It just happened. No one knows how these things came to to be but it's it's like it's mostly narc yes we should dig into that figure out why that's who we attract i mean i know why but i'm not gonna fucking say anything good dad all right um well i think what what Good, Dan. All right.

Well, I think, where are we? What kind of time have we done? Yeah, we're good. All right. I'm going to go find the social accounts and everything. I think that's going to be important for us to find. But God damn, this always takes me so long because I don't know where I put the folder. I hide it so many places.

I guess I just need you to stall for a little bit. Oh, you know what I want you to talk about? Okay, so famously, you don't believe in the moon landing. But you've said that the technology needed to fake the moon landings is actually more impressive than the moon landing would have been. Can you speak on that? Can I speak on the technology that was used to fake? Just why you think that the technology that they used to fake the moon landing is so much more impressive than even going to the moon.

Okay, yeah, I can do that. So the main part of what I find completely unbelievable about the moon landing is that it would take several men to do it. There's, you've got Buzz Aldrin, who's up there, Neil Armstrong, which like on a writing level, hey name, you're doing a little bit of work much. And you've also got Michael Collins, who doesn't even show up on the fucking moon, but he's there as an ancillary character that is just trying to reinforce the idea that this is a male endeavor that's the most surprising thing about the moon landing to me is that it's three men who are doing it so you're gonna you're gonna land on the moon

and there's gonna be no women around i'm sorry you're gonna need some pretty sophisticated editing technology late 1960s to erase all of the women who are definitely in the background definitely making this happen i'm sorry i know michael collins looks good on a request for a bank loan. And Neil Armstrong looks good on a fucking. Toothpaste label. But that's just not. Reflective of the reality. Of late 1960s. Space bullshit.

So they had to. Create a whole lot of nonsense. Just to get rid of all the women. Who were doing the real work. To. Again if I tug on this thread my point is the moon landing was faked but still it was faked with the help of a lot of women who were one of whom was katherine johnson she was people thought she was a mathematician no great cinematographer cinematographer. Okay. On Twitter, you can follow Daniel at DOB underscore Inc. You can follow me, Soren, at Soren underscore LTD. You can follow, quick question, at QQ underscore Soren and Dan.

I mean, at this point, it seems silly to even do Michael's because he's not on the show anymore. He's gone. Yeah. michaels because he's not on the show anymore he's uh gone yeah we used to have a cfo named michael who uh prefers to be called bacon and uh my mom shout out to my mom i love you you gave me life she asked if if he's okay and where is he and uh and i told her that he's fine but like in truth he's missing we don't know where he is. Strange time to be missing, too, because police aren't allowed to leave the station.

They have to wear their masks there, and obviously it's social distancing and all. Anyway, we're still looking for him. You can follow, find, hire our producer, sound engineer, and editor, Gabe, at GabeHarder.com at some indeterminate

point in the future or you can follow us no you know i have a i have a competing website for an engineer that is even better than gabe it's it's gabehardest.com and uh my website for g hardest.com will be unleashed around the same time as Gabe's website will be unleashed. So you have as good a shot as finding Gabe hardest as you do and finding Gabe harder. I'm going to look up if that's a real website. Oh no. Okay.

It's not. You're fine. Well, you can't beat that superlative, Gabe. I'm afraid Dan has backed you into a corner. You can also pay us if you wanted to. But you know, there's a lot of other stuff going on. You can pay other people who are more deserving of this money at Patreon slash quick question.

Soren, I want to plug nycfoodbank.org and childrenofthenight.org slash donate. And I can come up with a third one if you want to vamp while you find one to donate to. Cysticfibrosis.org.com slash donate. Yeah, there's one called Project Night X2. Oh, yeah. That's really great. It gives supplies and also just some entertainment, like toys and things for kids and families that are in need right now. Oh, hell yeah.

That's great. All right. Is there anything else we need to say? No, that's it. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye.