Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - QQ ep 36 - The Slim Overlap between Comedy Writing and Plumbering

Episode Date: April 17, 2020

This episode Soren and Dan talk about the challenges in giving advice to up and coming writers, and also something seems wrong with Dan's shower!  And as always, Thanks to Postmates.  Use code qq and get $100 of free delivery credit.

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to use, and you get your cash back through PayPal or check. The idea is simple. Stores pay Rakuten for semi-mum shoppers, and Rakuten shares the money with you as cash back. Download the free Rakuten app and never miss a deal. Or go to rakuten.ca to start giving the most bang for your buck. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. Hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, an advice podcast where two comedy writers separated by 3,000 miles ask each other questions for your entertainment. I am Daniel O'Brien, a newly minted jigsaw puzzle enthusiast and writer, joined as always by Soren Bui. Soren, what's up? Hey, what's going on?

I mean, I'm trying to think of anything else that I'm doing. I'm like, no, I mean, I do puzzles with my kid. I watch shows with him. Thanks to Postmates for supporting Quick Question. When you need red wine at 4 p.m., sushi at 9 p.m., a breakfast burrito at 8 a.m., and ibuprofen at 10 a.m., Postmate it. For a limited time, Postmates is giving you $100 of free delivery credit for your first 7

days. Download the Postmates app and use code QQ. I guess I do know a lot about babies in utero right now and how to deliver an emergency baby. Oh my gosh. How far along are you guys right now?

Okay, so she's due may 10th so like that baby's viable right now it could come anytime i was a month early right so in in my family the genes are that we just we just come when we want sure and you this is like uh i mean it's it's it's hard for for to know oneself, but do you think this is you being overprepared or the correct amount of prepared that you're now researching how to deliver a baby at home? So this is, I was way overprepared the first time to the point that I think I was annoying in the hospital. Right. That's another thing in the Booge family genes is that you want to be a know-it-all. Sure.

And I can't help myself. And so this time I also thought, you know, I knew everything the first time. I was way over prepared. I still, that stuff hasn't gone away. I still know all that stuff. And so I didn't prepare at all until like the last week. And then I started to look back through stuff and I was like, there's just so much I forgot. There's so much I don't prepare at all until like the last week. And then I started to look back through stuff and I was like, Oh, there's just so much I forgot. There's so much I don't know. And so I've again,

started to prepare way, way too much. Like I had a panic attack the other night, just thinking about the prospect that Colleen would have that I'd have to deliver the baby. And I didn't remember how that was done. Yeah. And I was like, okay, I need to know how to do that again. Wow. Uh, and how has Colleen through all this? Is she annoyed by you? Yeah. Yeah. That's like a really, that's like being very generous. She doesn't like thinking about it. And for, I mean, obvious reasons, she's, it's, it's a scary prospect right now only because, you only because we wanted to have a doula. We want to have somebody else there

who is advocating on our behalf. Can you guys hear that? Should we give some context of what people are hearing on both of our ends? Yeah. So I record this in a garage and it's sitting right up against an alley and occasionally you might hear them doing some sort of work.

I'm not entirely sure what it is. I assume it's necessary work out in the alley yeah uh so i record this in uh manhattan if you're familiar and we've been doing this this fun thing every night at seven o'clock which is like a symbolic representation of the changing of the guard for healthcare workers. New Yorkers open their windows and, and like hoot and holler and whistle and scream New York and do chants and cars driving by will honk their horns and everybody claps. And it's a big, it's just like a fun tradition now of just honoring the healthcare workers. Even if, as is my case,

there is not a hospital in sight from my apartment, we still will open our windows and shout just to like, have this big cacophonous celebration of our hardworking healthcare workers, which I am sure they appreciate on some back of the mind level, but on another part of their brain, they're like, no, we really, we sure would like hazard pay though. And like PPE and ventilators and tests and whatnot. But I like the sentiment of that a lot. I think I'm going to start doing that. So I just shout, I shout New York.

You shout New York. Yeah. At seven o'clock. So I guess if you want to do it at the same time as us, you would do it at what? 4 PM. Yeah. So shout New York at the construction workers outside of your house at 4 p.m. every day. I love that.

Okay. But you were saying you guys wanted a doula around? Yeah. So we wanted a doula. You're no longer allowed to have anybody in the room with you. I'm barely allowed to be there. And in some hospitals, there's no significant other. And then during the rehabilitation time afterwards, because having a baby, there's some trauma to your body.

A mom stays in the hospital for a certain amount of time. And, uh, now I'm not allowed to stay there either. So I'll get to this point. If I was, if we were to deliver today, uh, we'd go in there, she'd give birth. I would get to meet my daughter and then I would go away for two days. And then, then my wife comes home and then I then when I finally get to see her again it's a very weird scary time especially for her because it's it's terrifying to think of doing that kind of thing alone um yeah and of course you I'm not doing much but it's to have somebody who's there who you know is important and it's it's tough for her so um she's she doesn't like thinking too much about the delivery. She's doing some, she's got more tools in her,

weapons in her arsenal this time. She's doing like a hypno babies thing, which is where you teach yourself to hypnotize yourself. And it's also got some really empowering messages to it. And it reframes the way that you think about giving birth, that you're no longer thinking about contractions or like labor pains, because the way that we've always thought about labor is that, look, this is going to be a very, very painful thing. Your body's not going to want to do it. We're going to force it out of you at the hospital. And then that's going to be, and

then like you get to go home and everything's going to be fine. But in actuality, like it doesn't have to, we've, we've, we've framed it that way. It doesn't have to be that way. Uh, you can think about it as like this very, this thing that your body is capable of doing. And, um, I think that's being, that's become much more empowering for her, uh, which is great. Yeah, that is good. I also, and there's a, there's a whole, sorry, there's a whole nother element to it. That's a, I listened to it. That's for the partner to listen to that, like as a hypnotizing thing to help me stay calm and everything during it. I'm generally a pretty calm person. I'd realized though, in listening to this thing, I am completely susceptible to hypnosis.

I'm the guy. Yeah. The new thing that I learned about myself is that I have like right from the first, from the start, I am just, I could be transported away. Yeah. That seems nice. Yeah. I think it's a, well, I i mean it means me very vulnerable i guess

an offshoot of you you enjoy being told what to do oh i think you're right yeah um but to go back a a little bit uh because i'm i'm feeling for you on this just just knowing you as well as i know you uh even the idea of you not being allowed in the hospital I know must really grate on you as like – because like, no, you are essential. You are part of this. You will save the day if it needs to happen. And the fact that someone is like, no, no, no, no, we only need the major players in this must really be tough on you. I mean that as a compliment. I hope it doesn't come off as true.

No, no, absolutely. It's true. I mean that as a compliment. I hope it doesn't come off as true. No, no, absolutely. It's true. So Colleen's doctor was telling her, you're not allowed to have any other visitors.

In fact, your husband can't be there afterward. It's that some hospitals, they're doing it where he can't even be there during the delivery. And in my mind, I'm going, that must suck for the other dads. Like, that's not for me. Obviously, that's... They're not talking about me they're necessary there um i did feel like i did a lot during my life first labor that's i'm sure you

did yeah that's such a such a selfish thing to say but um she like without like getting too graphic there's like different positions you need to try and things like that and there's during all of her contractions like i'm sort of like lifting up her upper body and so i just i remember thinking in the middle because she was in in labor for a very very long time i remember thinking wow my arm looks so good right now and you also must be thinking like man how are they gonna fucking pull this off without me yeah i who was gonna be spotting or whatever right yeah i i don't know because she goes the first time she didn't do hypnosis but she was somewhere else it's uh it's like this weird thing that your body's capable of doing where extraordinary circumstances she just like dug

down deep and disappeared from our realm and like solved this somewhere else. Um, because you, you couldn't talk to her or anything like that. And she was not responsive, but she was doing everything that everybody asked her to do. Um, but, uh, I feel like I was pretty, pretty crucial in those circumstances because I was the intermediary. I was the one who was telling them the things that we wanted when they were like, hey, do you think you want to do a, you know, we could do a C-section at this point. Being like, no, I don't think we want to do that yet. We want to try some other positions. And the doula was very helpful and neither of us will be there. Right. That's scary. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure we'll be fine. I hope so. You know, I come from my mother who was a labor and delivery nurse for a number of years and a friend of mine up in Montreal is a labor and delivery nurse.

I know like, Jesus Christ, I know like three labor and delivery nurses currently working. And they're some of the most skilled and attentive people that I've met. So you will be in good hands even if those hands aren't your own but i also imagine that you'll still be able to be there when it happens but moving on from that we're gonna get right and certainly for the episode we're gonna talk about no no no you still have more to say i was gonna do our stupid show but if you want to uh this is what's on my mind right now uh afterward when she's there alone it's actually probably it's better than even her being at home because she's surrounded by people who are will just take care of this baby so like

when she wants to sleep at night and when you're still at the hospital they'll just they'll let they'll they'll have some somebody can come in and say oh we're the night nurse i'll take care of the baby while you're asleep yeah just like she's not getting that at home yeah you're always waking her up to tell her about your dreams yeah i've such vivid dreams uh we're gonna get into the show it'll be a little bit different this isn't a quarantine quarantine themed show as we promised we wouldn't only talk about quarantine, but we are going to dip into a little bit about how we've both been handling this quarantine. And then we're going to get back into the normal swing of the show where we ask each

other questions. But before all that, Soren wanted to say hi to our listeners. Hey there, Christian rockers. Okay. That's pretty good. Yeah. Can I ask you something? So you knew in advance that you were doing four of these. Did you plan them in advance? I used to have a rolling list that I would look at every week and pick from them or get self-conscious and delete them. or get self-conscious and delete them. And where the acting comes in is I, I pretend that it's just coming to me because that way it's okay.

If it's bad, that's a smart move. Cause like if it's planned and bad, then like, what was I doing with that time? You know? But if it's off the top of my head and bad, then it's like,

well, you know, that's almost impressive. Okay. Well, I'm coming in with like a i've planned this out for you if i'm all in if this doesn't work if you don't catch me i'm falling i'm gonna hurt my spine falling on the ground uh but i do have a list that i've just created and

it's it's just a list in my phone that says for dan and then there are a bunch of them that's neat um well let's get into our episode question rockers we love to have you as our our listeners um and before we get into the main parts again we're going to just like do a brief quarantine update soren how's it been going for you uh i mean it's all right it's really hard to explain to a kid what's going on well i'm 34 okay just i feel like maybe if you're a little more worldly it would be easier for you to It's all right. It's really hard to explain to a kid what's going on. Well, I'm 34. I feel like maybe if you were a little more worldly, it would be easier for you to understand. That part's tough.

And trying to explain to him why he's doing any sort of preschool through Zoom or why he's talking to his friends exclusively on the computer. And we go outside to play. And it's like, I don't know if you ever read the road by Cormac McCarthy, but there's just moments where he's out, like he'll see some kids riding the bike, their bikes in the distance. And they just watch him watching them and being like, ha,

I want to go play with children. Yeah. Like, no, we're making you one shortly. We were very forward thinking about this. It's been going all right. I do a lot more baking, which I was surprised by. Um, that's not really my, my deal. Are you, uh, I was never good at baking because I don't, I don't have the discipline for it. Are you good

at it? Yeah, no. Cool. Yeah. I'm better at it than I am at cooking. I guess I'm just not great at cooking. Cooking always seems like a little sexier. Chefs are cooler than bakers. That's a priori. There's no denying that. But baking, I have a little bit more of a knack for. There's some real chemistry to it, and I really appreciate the exactness of it. Yeah, I think that's why I'm bad at it because you have to be very precise and there is a science to it and you're following all the instructions to the letter. And with cooking, I go off script frequently because I know what I like and I've been cooking since I was like 13. And even when I was in Thailand, taking a cooking class would wait for the instructor to turn his back and then

grab other things that I wanted to put into my thing. Cause like, I know what's going to taste good to me. Um, but baking you, you need to, to follow orders and be patient. And I just, I just can't, I've never baked anything remotely good before. Yeah, I just like being told what to do, even if it's by a book. A lot of people in the quarantine have been making breads from scratch. Are you doing that? No, see, I don't fuck with savory.

I only do sweet stuff. Okay. So I've been making cookie brownies, which are awesome. Just regular cookies. I made Colleen. So Colleen's birthday was recent and I made her, I don't even know. It's like this French custard that has supposed to have cherries in it, but I did with blueberries and almonds. Superfoods. Great. Yeah, exactly. It was all antioxidants for her birthday uh it was good it was really tasty

uh i just found it in a magazine and i was like i could make that it's really cool uh i've been doing mostly the same cooking a whole lot and like i used to think that i cooked a bunch because i i live alone and i do cook a lot, but it's been very clear to me that the amount that I have gone to a restaurant or have food ordered in is very clear to me now. Like just purely based on the amount of dishes I've had to do in the last month or so, however long it's been in the quarantine now that there's just like it's every day you know it didn't used to be every day and now it's definitely every day there's a there's a book by richard matheson called i am legend have you ever read that

is it is it like the movie with the dog yeah okay yeah but i mean, it's some pretty big departures, but like, it just seems so monotonous and relentless that for the first few chapters, he just wants to kill himself. And then he's like, he finally finds the joy in boarding up his windows every single day and stuff like that. And I was like, so every single day when I'm doing dishes, I'm thinking, it's going to come any second now. I'm going to feel good about this. Just pin yourself to the routine and eventually you'll trick your mind into liking it yeah yeah i haven't gotten there yet i i've found um i think i mentioned the first time we talked about this how being someone who's lived alone for a very long time and has managed anxiety as successfully as I have

for my life, I'm uniquely situated for this kind of situation. Well, two weeks have passed since then. It doesn't feel as great. And one of the things that I've certainly learned is when it's raining and you absolutely can't go outside, so I can't go for a run. That is a day changer for me, certainly. That's become one of the high points of joy for me is being outside and doing something physical and feeling a little bit of sun on my stupid face. And then it just reminds me what a baby I am when I wake up in the morning and I think I'm depressed and it's like, Oh no, no, no, no. It's just, the sun's not out. You're not, you're, you're, you're a very simple machine. You like to be outside and running,

uh, and you can't do it today. And so like that, that's become sort of load bearing for me, where if I don't have a run to plan and do and then recover from, I'm just couch bound the day. That's it. I'm taking Jackson out and then planting myself on the couch. Yeah. I wish I had a more productive answer. I play Animal Crossing to distract me from one of the other three screens I have to look at. Now, how does it work when you wake up, you put on a suit, but then at some point you've got to change into running clothes and then do you put back on the same suit after you shower? That's correct. Okay. I have been showering twice a day.

This is because I need to wake up in the morning and I want to like showering is the thing that makes me, it's, it's, it's really the thing that, uh, divides days in the morning. You know, like if I just roll out of bed and then roll onto a couch and sit in front of a computer, then there's no like clear demarcation from what I'm doing that morning and what I was doing the night before. Cause that's like, those are my things. Um, so I like to make sure that I shower, brush my teeth, get dressed and do all those kinds of things. Then I'll change into my running clothes later and then I'll go for a run. Um, but speaking of showers, my shower has, uh, taken a very interesting time to, uh, stop working correctly. Oh my God. It does this. You're good with electricity. You're good with plumbing too. Is that correct? So what it's been doing now is, uh, I turn on the water and I

push down on the, the button on top of my bath faucet that converts it from running bath water to running shower water. And now suddenly it does both of those things at once. It runs like a fast, violent stream from the bathtub faucet as well as from the shower head. And the bathtub faucet used to just be off during these times. And it doesn't seem like the biggest problem in the world, but you're suddenly showering in like two inches of water, depending on how long the shower lasts. And it's just like, it's, it's an unpleasant

feeling. I don't know if you've done that before, if you've showered like in a pool of water on the bottom. I have, um, because when you, when you live with a woman, their hair is longer and frequently your shower drain gets clogged up. And so every six months, you've got to open it up and just pull out a nightmare spaghetti from in there. Got it. So I do know what you're talking about. There's a little device in there. It's a plastic device that as soon as you pull up on that ring, it all does is it slides a plate in the way of your tub faucet

and diverts that water uh up to your shower head and probably something's just wrong with that uh if if you got underneath and looked at it you'll see that it's sitting on a little track it's like a plastic it's uh it should be plastic and you can just look at it and see if you see like holes or anything in it um and then you might be able to replace it but i don't know that's my favorite kind of home maintenance to do where I could just like look at something and see a thing that's out of place. Like anytime a garbage disposal has not been working

and I'm like, all right, let me crack this open. Ah, there's a bottle cap in there. That shouldn't be removed. And then I tell people that I fixed it. It's like opening up the hood of your car and finding like a fried squirrel in your engine and be like well this isn't along here all right done another home improvement task fixed i we so we've been having this work done in our alley and they use one of those things that uh

flattens the ground like it's like a itun. It's a machine that they just coast along with, and it flattens the earth. And in LA, all the gas lines have earthquake sensors on them. So the minute the ground rocks at all, it shuts off your gas. And it's very easy to turn back on. But when it shuts off, all your pilot lights in your house go off and all of your appliances. And I didn't realize that it would happen in my water heater. And so I went to go, like, Colleen went to take a shower. It was too cold. I went to go change to just turn that back on and realized I couldn't reignite it.

And so this is what I do with every home improvement is that I just sit down and I watch 14 videos about it on YouTube from every different angle, like all the different things that could possibly go wrong. And then I go out and I try and do all of the things. And so I just like getting in there, cleaning out the pan, pulling out the whole igniter and disconnecting everything, rubbing alcohol on the end of it and then putting it all back together. And I did it all. It was in the middle of the night. It was dark and I did it and it took hours and hours. And when it was done, I'd finished it and it worked. And I was like, we're going to be fine in this quarantine. We're going to be okay. Yeah. On that subject, every year that goes by, I'm more in awe of my father because I think back to the times that cars have broken down in our family,

which have been many times. And YouTube was not a thing. And even a robust internet wasn't a thing for a lot of this time and he would just go into the garage and tinker and like he didn't he wasn't a mechanic he didn't have a background in that he just had a background in being like a man in new jersey where it's like things break and you need to to to fix them because because uh i guess in the 80s and 90s, it was the apocalypse. It was I Am Legend. And so he would just like sit in the garage for hours trying different things in his car's engine and none of us knew, or like one of our cars,

and none of us knew what he was doing. I never even had the, like a baseline where I could feel like i could help him do anything like i could only be in the way because i knew nothing about cars and hours would go by and he would just eventually emerge covered in grease i'm like i did it the car runs again and we were just like thanks dad yeah of course you did uh yeah that's my dad was the same way my dad knew so much about like even just cutting down trees how to use a chainsaw like that kind of stuff i remember as a child him clearing dead tree around our house and and having no knowledge of how to do

any of that and he never was like hey it's important that you come out and learn this he was like no i'll just do it it's easier for me to just do it right just and just knowledge that they have and i feel like like i'm at a point now where i could advise someone on close reading or submitting to a late night comedy show because those are things that i've studied and done i could i could be like oh no yeah i was an english major so that's how I know about close reading. But, you know, I, to this moment, don't know where my dad accumulated knowledge where he could, like, fix a car and fix our sump pump when that was on the fritz

and, like, turn our attic into a bedroom for someone. Yeah, that's what blows me away is when people do, like, big architectural changes to their houses on their own. I wouldn't even know where to begin or like how to draw out a plan for that or anything right um it's wild yeah my we're standing on the shoulders of giants yeah but uh should if seriously if you if your tub if you just go to the the faucet portion of it see if you can turn it see if you can start to

unscrew it because it'll unscrew and once you can take it apart you can basically just like take a picture of it and we can fix it okay that sounds good but some people they're like cocked on some people like so that they don't leak and then you're not ever going to be able to get it off it's going to be a pain in the ass to get off okay uh i will look into that as soon as we're done with the record it's i don't we're not really letting maintenance in for anything that is not like absolutely life-saving at this point yeah so it's either thing that i'm gonna fix or live with and you know i would prefer fix but yeah let's get into the show i'm also a peer in the shower so if there's any sort of standing water in the shower with me, it's like,

Oh yeah. Oh, see, I'm different. I, I, I pee in the shower, but never when I'm using it.

Cause my toilet's really clean. It's got like that blue water. So it looks nice. And I don't want to, I don't want to ruin that. Yeah, no, that's smart.

Just get it down that drain. It all goes in the same place. We have to give a huge thanks to our sponsor, Postmates, who can deliver just about anything. I've gotten full meals from them. I've gotten wine from them. I ordered Pop-Tarts through Postmates once, and that came through. So whatever you need, Postmate it, they will get it

to you. Postmates is a service that I've unabashedly loved and used for years. And I'm so thrilled that they're sponsoring us right now. Their food delivery, grocery delivery, whatever kind of delivery service all year round, whatever you want, they can deliver it. I believe listeners to the show know that I have made my brother a convert and he is now once a week using Postmates to get burgers delivered to his house. So that's one. We got one convert. They'll also go to convenience stores for you. Oh yeah. Yeah. So presumably you can get gasoline from them, from what I understand. Is that right? I mean, I haven't tried that. I don't have any need for gasoline right now. So it seems suspect if I ordered some. Why? Do you need gasoline at the moment? I mean, I also don't drive anywhere, but I burn ditches.

I mean I also don't drive anywhere but I burn ditches oh okay well then presumably you can get it on Postmates like you don't have to go to the store anymore you don't even have to know where the store is which is good for me because I'm not allowed to leave my apartment because of the quarantine and as far as knowing where the stores are also good for me because I'm stupid

Postmates will deliver anything to you download the app for iOS or Android for free and then check out local restaurants and businesses and track your delivery in real time. and restaurants because that's uh you're you're keeping more people employed than you think and we're helping build a cushion so we can restart life when this is all over and meanwhile for a limited time postmates is giving our listeners 100 of free delivery credit for your what that soren hang on a second slow down did you just say 100 is that right what i just said it's in all caps i assume it must be man i just i i never read anything i just fly off the dome when i talk if that's true if what i said is true that our listeners will get 100 of free delivery credit for your first seven days from Postmates. That's, that's bonkers. That's bananas. And if you want that to start your free deliveries, download the app and use the code QQ. That's code QQ for one. I can't believe I'm saying this

one hundred dollars of free delivery credit for your first seven days. When you download the Postmates app, anything you need, anytime you need, Postmate it, download Postmates and save with QQ. Soren, I'm actually mad. I can't believe it. I've never been so shocked in my life at savings like this. I'm going crazy here in my apartment, Soren. I picture you in a local access commercial dressed as a wizard for an electronic store or something. Oh, I wish I had that kind of mobility to go somewhere else. I'm just hopping up and down on my couch, hopping like an angry frog, Soren, because these savings are so good

that my brain can't even process it. They're giving away deliveries. Soren, you gotta calm me down, man. I'm liable to do something just nutso. You gotta calm me down. Listen, dude, don't do anything too crazy. I'm gonna. Don't, please don't.

Please don't. Please just like take it easy and think about this. Don't do anything rash, okay? I'm coming. I'm on my way there. I'm on my way there. Okay, that's good.

Do you want like some red wine or some ibuprofen or some McDonald's because I can get it. That would be great. I'll get it on Postmates. Get some gasoline from a convenience store. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll use it. We're be great. I'll get it on Postmates. Get some gasoline from a convenience store. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to inexplicably start the show 26 minutes into the recording of it. And I have a quick question for you, Soren, that kind of segues nicely from just broadly talking about the quarantine. Are you ready for a quick question? Yeah, I love segues. So one of the things that I've been doing

to fill my time is that I've been taking, there's like a workout Zoom class that I do that is through my apartment building that you just work out for 45 minutes just doing like body weight conditioning in your apartment. And we also had a virtual wine tasting offered through Zoom from my apartment building where they drop off two bottles of wine outside your room. And then an expert like guides you through it. Again, an hour long thing. A friend of mine, Jamie, who is a yoga instructor, personal trainer, just all around fitness goat. She has been doing Instagram yoga and offering private Zoom classes for some of her clients.

And my friend Bernadette is doing like a Zoom presentation on, she works in casting. So she's just like working with actors who are going to read scenes and then she's going to give them adjustments and offer notes on how they can present a better audition going forward. And it made me wonder if I had to in this moment, if my job was slightly different and I had to do a 45 minute to an hour uninterrupted zoom session, teaching people about writing, could I do it? And instead of actually asking myself if I could do it i'm asking you do you think like you could right now gather a bunch of people and for 45 minutes to an hour give writing advice and like what would that be man it would yeah i do i do write specifically now i've got a very weird frenetic energy all of a sudden during oh that

uh i'll i could just go off on things the problem is is really organizing my thoughts would be very very difficult um i mean there'd be so much work you'd want to put in at the beginning because you i know what you're like i know that it would drive you crazy to not do your best on anything and to not have it be the best version. And I think that it would be really, really tough to, from the very, from the jump,

be the best professor anybody's had. Right. Like, I don't think I, and I'm not fishing or anything. I don't need you to boost me up. I don't think my skill as someone who talks about writing is suited for the, like a professorial way. I can't talk for 45 minutes.

When I was watching this guy teach us about wine for this wine tasting, he is someone who can, he has the confidence where he can mute everyone else in this chat and just talk. And he's like, well, first I'm going to talk to you about Greece, where this wine comes from. And then I'm going to talk to you about the white and what we're looking for. And then I'm going to talk to you about the red and what we're looking for. And then at the end, I will open it up to questions and he could just do it. He could just speak for 45 minutes. And I feel like anytime I want to talk about writing,

because I do feel like I have things to say and advice to give, but it's always like, okay, what are your questions? Just like give it. Right. Give me something that I can bounce off of. There was, I didn't talk about this a lot, but when I was at Cracked, there was a thing that came through my school,

my old college where they were like, hey, we're having a bunch of high schoolers come and they're going to learn about different careers. And we'd love to have you come back and talk to them about your career. And I was like, yes, that sounds great. And I, there, the night before they're like, Hey, I don't know what kind of things are you going to need for your PowerPoint? And I was like, Oh no, no, no, I don't have a plan. I'm just going to get in there and like shoot the shit with them. And right. Here's 15 minutes. That is my story and how I got to where I am. And now what are your questions? Right. Exactly. And so I got in there and started talking and realized pretty quickly that like I was all over the place and I wasn't really focusing on anything in particular.

I was like, I need to do a better job at this. On the fly, trying to organize it and coalesce it into here's actually a concrete advice on how to get into a writing career and the ways that you do it. And kids, every single term, they'd be like, hey, is that how you did it? And I'd be like, oh, no, no, no. No, I came in through back doors. Don't do it the way I did it because it's impossible you have to be very lucky yeah that's that's kind of what i'm hoping to get at with this question um which is maybe you can help me articulate it uh a difference between like writing advice like fun and exciting creative writing advice versus actually practical

writing advice. You know, do you understand what I mean when I say that? I do. There's like philosophical ideas and then there's the nuts and bolts of it. Right. Like I have stuff that, uh,

I think if I was on a panel and in front of people, as we've been many times and someone asked me tips about writing, I have like quick soundbite versions about like everything that you want to hear if you're a young writer you know which is all this like oh write every day and like read a lot and be inspired and do these things and da da da da and then i have like the if someone that i knew kind of well or like a family friend emailed me and was like, I'm really trying to break into this business.

What do you have in terms of advice for a young comedy writer? I have a very different set of advice that I give. Yeah. I think you're actually more prepared for this than you think. I'm, I don't mean this isn't me boosting you up because obviously I don't boost you to sit you down in the compliment corner. As you remember, you're, you sit lower than I do. That's right. And I don't boost you to sit you down in the compliment corner.

As you remember, you sit lower than I do in the compliment corner and I talk down to you. But you worked at Cracked for a very long time. That was a site where you had to go through the workshop every single day and tell people what wasn't working about their piece, doing it diplomatically and telling them, structurally seeing, you know, I don't like, you can't just look at something and be like, I don't like it. I don't like it. That's impossible thing to do in there. You have to tell them, no, here's why I'm going to break it all down. Here's why it's not working. Here's what you could do to make it work. And so you've, you've already had the practice, I think, and you do, you had to give that advice to people before. And I think that you could probably give some pretty sound advice to people about what it means, like what good writing is.

And the pitfalls, certainly, that people fall into with writing. I feel like advice in my head now, just because I've been thinking about this so much, shifts so much more to the practical in a way that bums me a little bit. Not for my own, like, you know, you want to, if you're going to lead a 45 minute to an hour long lecture about writing, you want people feeling inspired in some way. And the older I get, the more I feel my answers lean towards like, oh, how do I defeat writer's block?

Oh, it's because I have a deadline. It's because I have a deadline and I'm paid to write something. And if I don't meet my deadline, then I will get fired or I won't get paid. And neither of those are an option. So that's why I do it. Like, why do you write every day?

Oh, again, because my job title has staff writer in it. And, you know, like, why did my dad work for Amtrak every day? He wasn't inspired. He did it because it's a job. I would probably go back and just reread On Writing by Stephen King and steal everything from that. Tell them how much I don't remember writing Cujo because I was so coked out. Right. But you know who's really good at this is michael swain yeah outstanding at talking about uh how that how to be better at anything like you listen to him talk about if somebody when

people would turn in videos and they they weren't particularly great like he knew how to fix it immediately because he's very good at isolating what the problem is and how to turn it around in a way that it's just like a skill that is so practiced that I don't have really because I haven't had to practice it. I haven't been on that end of it as often. And so he's outstanding at that kind of thing. He is, but he's not here right now.

He hates it. He doesn't like giving feedback at all because he hates confrontation, but he's not doing it he hates it he doesn't like giving feedback at all because he hates confrontation but he's very good at it and like he's good at it because and i imagine this it's the same reason that he doesn't like doing it is because uh he puts the work into it like there there's not uh if someone submits a video or an article and they need feedback on it, there's very rarely a control C, control V thing that you can do. You can't copy paste something. And it requires you to like watch or read something in completely good faith and then digest it and then come back with something that can make it better

while still maintaining something that isn't in the DNA of it. And it takes time. There's a lot of work that goes into it. And, uh, I'm sure Michael would rather spend that time, uh, making something as well. He should be. I mean, he's also very gifted at that as well. I was just so charmed by how excellent he was at that. There was a panel that you guys did where people would bring in videos, basically, and you guys would tell them what would make it crack worthy. You guys had to vote, I think, on which one was the best. Maybe they're just scripts. I'm having a hard time remembering all this,

but Michael was so good at isolating what was good or not working about every single one in a way that was still not putting the writer down and i was like you're brilliant at this yeah i also don't remember the whatever this contest or panel is but you know this is early days of cracked we were on so much fucking coke back then it was crazy this was like oak desk this was just 2009 No one knew how bad Coke was. It was a great time. It was a great time. Just to narrow it down a little bit, so I do feel like I've asked you a question that can be answerable in this writing advice thing. I imagine that since you've moved from cracked to writing for a successful comedy show, there has been specific questions aimed at you about breaking into the business.

Do you have like a stock answer for someone either on Twitter or someone that you've worked with before who is like, yeah, you are working for a successful long running comedy show right now. What can I do to get there? Yeah. I tell them it's the best time right now because nobody has representation right now because all the writers in the big four agencies all fired their agents because of a big writer strike that's going on or a big strike, but, um, a WGA issue that's happening right now. But it means that there, it's very difficult for studios and staffers

to get a hold of different young new writers. And there's ways of going about doing that. One is you find out who's staffing. That's the most difficult step, honestly, because you need somebody who's already been in the industry, who's getting these email blasts, essentially. They're like, hey, James Corden is hiring, or, this other there's a new pilot that's looking for writers. And then having a packet that's basically ready to go, having something writing samples of yours that you really do like and that you think represent you really well. And then also a pilot and maybe even more than one pilot, depending on what sort of show you might be writing for. Because not just the difference between drama and comedy, but if you turn in a very funny, just two-person talking heads piece to an animated show, it's not going to show them what you're really capable of. You can write something a little crazier. And I think that's probably the best advice I could give.

Yeah, I like that. That's a little similar to the cold practical advice that I feel like I've been giving out more recently, which is just about networking. Because I start from the good faith assumption that anyone who comes and asks for advice about how to get a job in comedy writing, I gently assume you're a good writer and you're a hard worker. Like I'm not going to, because if your biggest stumbling block is you're lazy or you're not good at writing, then I don't know what to tell you. Like I can't fix laziness, really.

So putting those things aside, I focus on the networking aspect of things, which doesn't necessarily mean going to fancy parties and glad-handing, a lot of my success has been just being active in the online digital comedy scene in LA for 10 years back when, when Funny or Die, Onion, College Humor and Cracked were all doing things. And it was a great community. Like that was like, that was the, my comedy community. doing things and it was a great community. Like that was like, that was the, my comedy community and those people, a lot of the people in that, that world who were in their twenties when we were all making jokes together ended up being people who could recommend you for a job somewhere down the line. You don't necessarily need to have cracked college humor on you in front of your eye. Uh, UCB has been great for this. I mean, I, I don't know what the state of UCB is now during the quarantine,

but the long and short of it is find a community of other people who are making comedy right now, network with them, do things with them, do their show, have them on your show, knowing that most people get jobs because someone else puts them up for it.

Yeah, that's true. It's a, the pool is a lot smaller than anyone thinks. Considering how many people are actually out there trying to do it. The number of people who are actually within that like comedy community in any particular city is, is you'd meet them all really, really quickly. Whether you're doing standup or you're like, you want to do sketch comedy or just getting involved with other writers in your community. Like it's not a huge group. And when you all kind of come up together, you start getting introduced to other people from other groups

as well. And that's Twitter was like the best thing for that. Cause I never would have met half the people in the comedy scene in LA that I have if it wasn't for Twitter. And the people who I follow telling me, hey, you should also follow this person, just shouting it out into the ether, like everyone should follow this person. I mean, okay, well. Right, and I'm heavily reliant on Twitter for,

you know, if someone, I'm not in a position where I can hire anyone at Last Week Tonight, obviously, but I also want to be prepared as an employee. If someone comes to me and is like, we need some new faces, we need some, some new voices for, for comedy, then I could say like, Oh, these, this, this small network that I found on Twitter, you know, these people who are just like making things and interacting with each other and being funny. Uh, I can, I can give you a list of names right now from this.

Yeah. I would say the only thing I would add to that is if networking is the best way in, it's when you network, this is going to sound weird, but have something that you can offer the other person as well. And what I mean by that is everyone has their guard up immediately when they sense that they're being networked with because nobody that's very it's like a very distasteful feeling to have somebody come up to you who like wants a job and is like hey you just got to give me a shot that's all i'm asking for yes um and so if it's if you don't approach it from that perspective if you it's kind of almost like dating for the first time like Like you don't get right to the point. You can prove that you're a good writer. You can do jokes in a place where that person's going to see them.

Or if it's at a party or something like that, like just get to know them as a person first. And if they think, Oh, this is a fun person. Cause that's also a really important part of being in a writer's room is knowing that this person has good chemistry with other people like you. Right.

Certainly, certainly just being a good networker isn people like you. Right. Certainly, certainly just being a good networker isn't going to be the thing that, that will make me put you up for a job, or I assume make you put someone up for a job, but just like, well, this person seems nice and they're a good hang. Like that's certainly part of it,

but also this person seems nice and is a good hang and has like a proven track record of good material. Right. Uh, do you have any questions for me? Yeah, I got a question for you. Yeah.

I feel like we're really, do you think we're hitting our, our, our stride with the show? I feel pretty good. You mean just in general or mean this episode? In general. Yeah.

I think like the, the, the, the first, uh, like 25 or so, we're kind of like burn batch episodes but i feel like we're getting there here in episode 37 yeah i agree with you the first 25 were you don't you don't think we're good now i'm not sure we're done

but time will tell uh dan quick quick question. Yeah, go ahead. This is something from the old world, as the world used to be. You'd go to the doctor occasionally for physicals, right? Mm-hmm. I went to the doctor right before all this happened, actually, in February. But it reminded me that the doctors frequently ask me questions, and I try to be very honest. But I'm wondering, is there anything that you always lie to a doctor about? Um, so there, there are two parts to this and they're both bad. One, I, I very rarely go to doctors. Uh, I get a lot of shit for it. I should go to doctors. I have health insurance. Uh, there's just like, part of it is stubbornness of just like, Oh, I,

I feel pain. Uh, I guess that is part of it is stubbornness of just like, oh, I, I, I feel pain. Uh, I guess that is my position in life now. And I'll just like be a person in pain forever. Uh, and another part of it is like a, uh, a deep fear of like, well, if, if there's something really wrong and I don't know about it, then I'm going to be fine. You know? Yeah. Until it hits you. Right. I don't have cancer until the doctor tells me i have cancer right and then everything is different uh that's that's crazy but also makes perfect sense yeah uh but i do occasionally go to doctors and uh in the the

past not so much these days i have lied like this is like 20s i've lied about the amount of drinks i'd have in a week that's what i was gonna say all right go on in a way that like i would i would be with a doctor i'm 27 years old or whatever i mean like how many uh drinks do you have a week would you say i'm like i don't know he's like just like ballpark i'm like ah eight and he's like that's too many i, oh, that's not even the real number, buddy. You'd hate the real one. I do the exact same thing where a doctor will say, how often do you drink? And I'll be like, two nights a week. And that means Saturday, means friday and saturday and uh do you ever engage in like reckless drinking like binge drinking and i can't say to him motherfucker

i only binge drink i don't just have a glass of wine with my dinner that's not who i am like settling in at home and be like oh it's 9 30 shall we pour a glass of sherry? Just one and then go to sleep? Yeah. A little brandy nightcap. If I'm going to drink, then I'll go out and drink. And I do it way less now, now that I have a child and certainly during quarantine. But when I would drink, like, that's the plan for the night. And I'm not going to keep track of how many I'm drinking. So I can't tell that to him because he's going to go, you can't do that. It's going to be worse than a dentist telling me to floss. Like the shame I think that I would feel from it. Right.

And also if a doctor was like, listen, you need to drink less. Then I'm like, listen, buddy, all you're doing is proving that I'm not going to go to a doctor again. So like, what do you want out of this? You want to lose business? You did. You got it. I don't know if you want out of this? You want to lose business? You did. You got it. I don't know if you know this, sir, but the liver heals itself.

It's like the only organ in your body that does. What do you want me to do? Be taking a bunch of ibuprofen and just fuck up my kidneys? I think also probably I would lie about nutrition stuff. I don't eat as many vegetables as I know I should. And I resent being asked about my diet because I nail so many other questions.

It's like, yeah, I exercise. I'm active that way. And I'm a non-smoker. And I don't take any drugs at all. And I drink a lot of water and I'm good at sleeping. And then we get into diet and vegetables and stuff. I'm like, no, just assign a point system for the ones that I got right first

so we can get a proper assessment for what a good job I'm doing. Just because I refuse to make myself a salad doesn't destroy the fact that i go for runs every other day right i can't tell the doctor that i ball up fists of lettuce and eat them on the floor of my kitchen um but i it's the same thing where i so i'm a uh certified greedy sugar head means that i have a bit of a sweet tooth. Oh, the certification came through. That's great. Yeah, I know. It was very exciting.

Apparently, they're still working. That's a necessary service. I got a... The doctors will ask me, how's your diet? What do you usually eat? I can't tell him how many sweets I have a day. I can't even tell another human being how many sweets I have a day because the number is horrifying. I should be diabetic.

It's very lucky for you that like, are you a smoker is a question. Do you take drugs is a question. How much do you drink a week is a question. How many pieces of candy do you eat a day is not a question. That's very lucky for you. I'm lucky that they don't ask that. They don't ask, how many times have you been to Wendy's in the last week? for you. I'm lucky that they don't ask that. And they don't ask how many times have you been to Wendy's in the last week? Because then I'd have to be like, um, four. And he'd be like, that's too

much. Oh, you don't even know. I went at 10 in the morning the other day. I know what time Wendy's opens. That's how much I go to Wendy's. Um, but so I think we're basically on the same page with this it used to be when i was younger that uh i remember as a teenager i would get asked a lot of sexual questions by the doctor yeah that they don't ask anymore i guess because i'm wearing a wedding ring when i when i was going in college and they were asking me if i was sexually active and there were uh some amount of years in college where I was not. And it was an embarrassing question to be asked. And since every time I've gone to doctors and they don't ask, I'm very upset.

Like, come on. Ask the fucking question, man. I vividly remember in freshman year of high school going to the doctor for a physical and him saying uh do you are you engaging sexual activity i said no and he goes what about heavy petting and i said yeah yeah i know and i was not but i was like shit like he he's breaking it down in my mind it was him being like you're not okay well i mean what what do you do wow and so the minute he said heavy petting i was like yeah i do that i do that one i remember in high school asking sorry uh i remember in high school a doctor asking are you sexually active and naive me not

knowing exactly what that question meant and just like internally thinking well i'm horny all the time so like i consider myself a sexual being but i don't i don't think it's for me to decide how active i am so i asked him what do you mean and he said are you having sex and i was like oh god no uh that makes just all these conversations that made me think of this moment from my brother's past that is so funny to me where we had a grandmother who died when we were young of emphysema. And that's not the funny part. He was at his friend Bill's house and he was telling Bill that they're shooting basketballs outside. And my brother said that his,

his grandmother had just died. And as Bill was taking a shot, he missed the shot and went, ah, too much sugar. My brother goes, no, it was emphysema.

See, if this were a podcast where we went out on high notes we would go out right there but it's not so we won't i need to track down all the social accounts in fact uh and while i do that um i just wanted to say in 1997 meredith brooks had an absolute banger of a song called bitch receiving grammy nominations for both best female Rock Vocal Performance and Best Rock Song. The title of the song comes from the chorus, which features Meredith Brooks' best attempts at describing herself. She sings, quote, I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a child, I'm a mother, I'm a sinner, I'm a saint, I do not feel ashamed, I'm your hell, I'm your dream, I'm nothing in between, you know you wouldn't want it any other way. And Soren, I recall that you wrote a companion piece to that song from your male perspective,

where you sing how you would describe yourself in a similar fashion. Would you like to sing the chorus of your version, which is incidentally also called Bitch? Dan, thank you so much for opening the door for me on this. It's just been tough to get this out into the world because I don't want to just be the guy who's like, hey, here's my response. It's really nice to have somebody who tees me up so nicely for it. Sure. Unfortunately, the title is not Bitch, it's Bish.

Just a little different. Tiny difference, but you're in the right lane. So mine goes like this i'm a bish i'm a brother uh i'm a child i am attracted to your mother. I like moms now. I didn't when I was young. There's something about the maternal instinct that gets me turned on. I'm a space cowboy.

I'm a space cowboy. You can find Soren at Soren underscore LTD on Twitter or me at DLB underscore INC on Twitter or our CFO who we didn't even talk about, MakeMeBaconPleasePLS on Twitter. You can find the show on Twitter at twitter.com slash QQ underscore Soren and Dan. Or you can email us QQ with soren and daniel at gmail.com tell us all of your fears at that email address uh you can find and hire our engineer

producer and editor gabe at gabeharter.com we also have a patreon that you should ignore right now and instead donate to your local food banks or give blood if you can soren do you have any other places the post office would be a nice place for your donations right now. Oh, yeah. The post office used to be a government utility until 1971. It became a private industry, and it's not really clear why. And we've had so many setbacks with the post office since then where they've tried to strike because they don't have the things that they need,

and the government just says, no, you're not allowed to because we deem you essential, but not so essential that we're going to completely protect you. So yeah, donate to your postal service. There's a service called Akiva as well that I really like. Just say it one more time because is it Akiva or Kiva? Kiva, K-I-V-A. And it allows you to donate to microcredit organizations in Central and South America. Actually, you can do it pretty much anywhere. But Kiva, you donate a certain amount of money. It helps fund somebody's business.

You can kind of choose between the businesses that you want to support. It's Kiva.org. And yeah, you can donate money. You'll go through any of the organization. I mean, any of the businesses that you can fund, it'll tell you, hey, this guy's trying to open a farm here and you can help fund that. As soon as he repays that, you can then donate that money to another organization and your money just keeps getting cycled between all these microcredit lending people. Yeah, Money just keeps getting cycled between all these microcredit lending people.

Yeah, it's a really great service. I think that that's the crucial part of it, that the money keeps going back. You're not just like handing money to someone for a business that might fail or anything. The money is constantly going back to pay forward to other people. It's wonderful. Yeah. All right. I think that's about it unless gabe has anything to add gabe uh no i just agree with all that well it's settled goodbye