Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - QQ ep 45 - To Mask, or Not to Mas..Actually Please Just Wear A Mask

Episode Date: June 19, 2020

In this episode the guys talk about mask anxiety, tele-dating and other fun quarantine tips.  And as always, big thanks to Postmates.  Use code qq and get $100 of free delivery credit.

Hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, a podcast where two friends ask each other questions about comedy, writing, and life, and rarely land on any answers. I am one half of this podcast, author, staff writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and a guy who sweats so much and so weirdly that in high school he had to get deodorant specially prescribed from the doctor, Daniel O'Brien. And I am joined, as always, by my co-host, Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, say hello and introduce yourself.

Hey, what's up, everybody? I'm Soren Bui. I'm a writer for American Dad. I'm a father, husband, and a guy who once killed a drifter on a road at night and told the mayor, and the mayor just took care of it. Okay, so here's the thing. Yeah. My thing is true oh i thought we were just making up crazy stuff it sounds like i i said like a heightened thing to be funny but it's like definitely true is that also what you did

yeah okay yeah he's dead okay all right yeah and you told so it's interesting that the the first thing you did was tell the mayor he's my dad's friend yeah oh i see i said yeah of course uh hold on so did your parents say at one point this kid sweats too much and took you or was it your decision to go oh it was my decision like i was so sweaty and like it wasn't um i wasn't smelly i don't think um but it was just like i couldn't wear light blue or light gray shirts because i would just get pit stains constantly and i didn't know what to do about it and i was like i'm not i'm not trying to do this i'm not like forcing sweat out of my pores or anything like that. And I was always putting on deodorant and would like, I tried a bunch of very silly things that any 15 year old

would think of words like, maybe if I just like in the middle of the day, go into the bathroom and like, dry my armpits or like wrap a piece of cloth around my shoulder into my armpit that would absorb the sweat so it wouldn't be so visible on my shirt. And then I'll like change that wrapping out throughout the day. These are things that I did with no supervision. I was just like doing my best to solve this problem. And then finally came to my parents and I was like, I sweat too much and I don't know what to do about it so i went to the doctor and got this special um deodorant that contains something i don't want to

say mercury but something fucking crazy something some weird element that goes in the deodorant that you rub into your armpits that um stops you from sweating as much as you do but uh in fact smells worse than if you'd had no deodorant and also in a lot of cases for me specifically burned yeah all right a lot of things here one are you sure yes what you're describing the special deodorant prescribed deodorant sounds a lot like what's called antiperspirant, which has aluminum in it. Okay. Just blocks up your pores and keeps you from sweating. Number two. But do you need to go to the pharmacy to get it?

No. Okay. Number two, I found in my own life from seeing, I've known some sweaty people, that the sweatiest people are rarely the stinkiest. Yeah. It's the difference between a pond and a river. A pond has got the scum on it. It smells a little bad. But a river, it's just this free-flowing thing.

It's great. You can't smell a single thing around a river. But I think maybe it's just all that water constantly coming out of your body keeps you clean. Yeah. And I was never worried about being stinky. I w but I was like, it's just a bad look. There's no way around it. There's there like, you're on a date with someone and you're in high school and you're trying to wear a light blue shirt because it's it's it goes well with your eyes. And I have to be on this day and be like,

look, I promise I'm not lying or scheming. I know it looks like that because I'm sweating profusely, but it's just my body that's wrong. See, I think about back to the days when I was young and I was trying to impress a girl for the first time. And it's awkward and weird, but I realize it's nowhere near as awkward and weird as it was for some other people. Like I, we, we know somebody, we have a mutual friend who sweated sweats an awful lot to the point where he won't wear a, uh, uh, he'll always wear a t-shirt under a button up and he will never wear anything else because he doesn't want people to see how sweaty he is. Right. And he's the same guy who has a little bit of a tremor in his hand. And when he went on dates, he wouldn't, he would specifically order food that he could eat with his hands so that he didn't have to hold a fork. And so his dates wouldn't see him tremor. Like, it's so much worse for some people than it is for others. round. It's not just like, oh my God, I'm talking to a girl for the first time. It's like, I'm talking to a girl and like my armpits sweat visibly and my butt sweats and sometimes my feet smell

and my hands frigging vibrate. So we have to like concoct strange situations where it's like, oh, wouldn't it be fun if there was bowling? so my hand was constantly weighted down and you never had to speculate what was going on with it yeah and the workarounds that teens will come up with are incredible i love your your your first plan was i just take a bathroom break in the middle of the day and i towel off and then i move on with my day i thought for a while i thought like what if i strapped a sponge into my armpit and just like secured it there with an ace bandage? Wow. Forever.

Like this is me at 17 being like, I think I've solved my lifelong problem. One day I'll find a wife and she'll know my secret. But until then, I'm just going to buy 10,000 sponges and swap them out. And I won't tell her till our seventh year of marriage. Yeah. And then I will confide in her. Honey, it's the seventh anniversary. It's famously the sponge year.

So it's time I tell you. It's time I take off my shirt for the first time. I'm dealing with this. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Postmates. Thanks to Postmates for supporting Quick Question. If you're like me, you're probably starting to think about what to eat for dinner while you're eating lunch. I love food. That's why I love using Postmates.

For a limited time, Postmates is giving our listeners $100 of free delivery credit for your first seven days. To start your free deliveries, download the app and use code QQ. But let's get into the show where we ask each other questions. Oh, wait, before that, do you want to briefly talk about quarantine, how that's gone for you? I don't think you do. I mean, it just sucks so much. I hate that people are cheating. That makes me very frustrated. And not just because I'm a rule follower, but because they're getting something that I'm not. And I hate that.

Yeah. They're like, maybe they won't get sick and maybe they're doing great and maybe other things fine for them. And they got to have those moments. Whereas I was being a rule follower and I was staying home and, and I'm just jealous, I guess.

Right. Cause then, cause they learned nothing then. Where was the lesson in this? Yeah. And I'm'm following i got a guy from college who i check in on facebook every once in a while and he's he's got so many crazy theories and he's just kind of an asshole about them all and i part of me really like just to this is like a very theoretical part of me i let me say, first of all. A part of me wants a second wave just to fuck this guy up

because he's so set on this fact that we already had the second wave, that the virus has been here since December, that we've all already had it, that we're all wasting our time. And I just want him to know he's wrong. Yeah. But it's bad. It's bad if he know he's wrong yeah but but but it's bad it's bad if he knows he's wrong like like that's that's no good that's the the bummer like like not the karmic bummer but that's like the the the good bummer is that all the people who think this is overblown um continue

thinking that because the work that was already put in. Doesn't solve it. But the best case scenario. Is that the people. Who are doubting the severity of this. Never realize how wrong they are. Which is very unfortunate. Because you want there to be some justice.

And you want the next time this happens. Because we're not out of the woods. As far as viruses are concerned. There's going to be others along the way. You don't want the next time around for people to think I was right the first time who were clearly wrong doing the same shit again and making it worse for everybody. I don't know. I get more frustrated. I get frustrated because I go on runs and I wear a mask and it sucks.

And it's brutal to be wearing a mask while i'm running around and then running past people who are walking uh and not wearing them and i know it's all that like now they've shown that being outside and passing somebody you're very unlikely to get it that kind of stuff but there's just like an etiquette to it all now there's we've all agreed to this social contract of like look we're gonna wear masks we know masks work a bunch of different independent research studies have proven that masks work we finally did the research just fucking wear the mask please yeah just do it even if you can anecdotally say well look i went out without a mask and i got a to-go drink at a

bar and i sat outside and i talked with my friends and now we're all healthy it's like yeah that's fine that's probably true but like show some kind of symbol that we're all in this together right now yeah i mean yeah it's not just about you man uh i don't know yeah i would have been doing the same thing probably 20 years ago yeah i mean i've been seeing a lot of it uh i i because in addition to covid and like we don't neither soren or i are qualified to get into the weeds on this subject uh of the protests that are going on all over the world but uh i've been going to protest the last week and uh in the traveling from my apartment to where these protests are, have been seeing a lot of streets in New York that are just like completely open. It's a bunch of, it's suddenly New Orleans, where it's a lot of bars doing to-go cocktail service

and some bars that are just setting up like makeshift patio areas in the streets that are just like fucking flooded with people. in the streets that are just like fucking flooded with people and i'm still wearing a mask like an idiot i guess and wandering out to protest and people are just like crowded into these tiny areas in manhattan on on ninth street which is just fucking bonkers at this point and i i want to just be like look i understand it's summer and the sun feels nice and you want to be out, but you're cramming 40 people into like a nine by nine square foot chunk of street real estate. And none of you are wearing masks. And what are we doing here? Like, even if you, you, even if there are no consequences to this for your lives,

like what are we saying? What are we representing right now? It feels like, and I don't know if there's studies on this, it feels also like bars are the places where it would spread most easily. Absolutely. You start getting a little loose.

Like you've had a few drinks. Everybody starts spitting when they talk. Everybody starts getting a little closer. You start start disregarding so even general social norms forget about covet but like people get in your face a little bit more when they're talking to you it's loud so everybody gets closer to talk like this just feels like this brilliant ground you're you're all handling the same pens you're all handling the same um books in which the check comes when you're filling those out the you hand your card to a bartender who puts the card into a machine that is not swipe uh wiped down and like

having worked at a bar there were plenty of times where someone would leave and they had like a like a messy spot at the bar and someone would take their spot and be like, Oh, hold on. Let me wipe this down for you. And I take like a fucking wet rag from who gives a shit and wipe it down. So it looks nice briefly. Like that's not, I'm not spraying it with anything. Bartenders don't have enough time to properly clean bars in between, uh,

clients, clients, customers. When, when, when people have scheduled their appointment yeah the bar meet with their bartender yeah is uh what level what level of open is los angeles right now it's pretty it's too open uh so there's salons um stores kinkos types of stores uh stores, kinkos types of stores, restaurants.

You can go and sit down in a restaurant again. Oh. It's troublesome. Yeah. Oh, gyms. Gyms are open again. Gyms are open now? Yeah.

Goodness gracious. Yeah. Well, that's the coronavirus update, I guess. Still seems kind of bad. Let's get into the show where we ask each other questions hey uh soren a quick question yeah go ahead um this will have a lot of caveats uh is there an outcome for one of your children that would bum you out not in like a like a health thing or they ended up in prison or addicted to drugs or like anything tragic but if you found out that that your son ronan was like like he comes of age and and is like i'm a sword guy dad i'm really into swords what are some of my kids interests that

would really bum me out yeah like i think about i and i think you'd be good no matter what like because i because i think you're a good dad i think about my own dad where he um is like an athlete he's a runner his whole life he's he's good at sports he's interested in sports i'm sure he wanted sports boys i mean we were all in youth sports leagues growing up and uh but the the long and short of it is he got musicians and theater dorks and immediately pivoted and was like well all right i guess i'm building sets for the school play i wanted three quarterbacks and and i got fucking three tonys from west side story all right that's it that's my lot in life i'm gonna then i'm gonna support that uh and i assume you would do the same thing but i wonder

if there was something that like you would be the least excited if if ronan came home and it was like i'm really into like i i it's it's japanese culture that's to be my thing. I'm going to wear kimonos from now on. And I'm learning Japanese just so that I can speak it to everybody. And I've affected somewhat of an accent. So, yeah, there are some things. Of course, I would try and be supportive. But I think right off the bat, if my kids were really into MMA, I would be like, are you sure?

Oh. Are you sure that's what you want? Because first of all, when you're young enough, it's not just a vicarious thing. You're like, I'm into this thing because I want to do it. I like baseball. I like watching baseball or trading baseball cards because I like baseball and I like playing it.

And I don't want either of them getting into MMA and then on top of that it's just it's a it's a fandom that I find particularly obnoxious mm-hmm that doesn't mean that everybody in the fandom is but the loudest ones are a real bummer and i would hate to see him become one of those like a tap out bro or my my daughter to become a tap out bro um if your daughter came home one day and was like dad i don't know if you heard on the latest episode of joe rogan's podcast be like oh fuck yeah she's gone yeah i've lost her um that would be a really hard one i i think also if either of them became really really spiritual in probably any religion oh really i would be like yeah i

would be like oh i don't know how because i only because i wouldn't know how to connect with them on that um it would be really hard i uh uh, I guess Christianity would be the hardest because it feels like it comes with some sanctimony as well. Uh, when people get very, very religious and, uh, it becomes also a little judgmental. And I think I would have a hard time with that. I would have a hard time seeing my kids judging me. Um, but I mean, like just speaking as a Christian, I feel like if you talk to a few more Christians you would realize that you were wrong about that but go on the only reason I say that is because

I have a I have a cousin who became very very religious and just like for a while kind of divorced herself from her family and sat and sat up on a high horse because she didn't approve of her family and they were great people um but uh yeah maybe you're right you're i'm sure that every religion at the at its core is built around tolerance right which is which is what i'm saying and like again i don't mean to say that you're wrong but i do think if you spend a little time and talk to some people you'd find out that uh others are more right than you. Okay. Thanks.

And so I think I would, and I would have a hard time relating to them on that front. I couldn't, I would maybe like, all right, well, let's, let's start going to church together and I can get behind like the music. This is fun and like that kind of stuff, but I don't know. It's just, there's the whole basis of it. this is fun and like that kind of stuff, but I don't know. It's just, there's the whole basis of it. This is like a one chapter and a much longer book of whatever this conversation is, but I just don't think I, it's, I, it's not for me.

Yeah. And I would have a hard time really relating to them on that. Do you have a thing? Do you have a thing that like, if you ever had a child you'd be bummed if they. No, I don't, I don't think there, i don't think bummed i think um like i'm nervous that uh if i have a child they'll be very good at sports like it will have missed me and my brothers and will get passed down from my dad to my children and then like i won't like if i got a kid who was like super fucking good at soccer i feel like i won't be if i got a kid who's like super fucking good at soccer i feel like i won't be able to give them the help that they need like i can't transition from my

skill set the way that my dad could be like okay you don't like football but you like theater so i'm going to build sets for you and if i ever get enough money i will build an entire theater for you it's like i don't know what i could do if I had a kid that was like a soccer prodigy, other than just like give him good coaches or her good coaches who he or she or they would eventually come to know as their surrogate father. Because I'd be back here being like, you really, you, you, uh, uh, you, you cook, you, you kicked real well. You didn't use your hands once.

And that's the main rule I know about soccer. So on that score, you did great. While you were out on that grassy thing, I wrote a little cheer for the other team that we can do at the end of the game. Pretty clever. I think rhymes. We're all going to have to learn it pretty quick though. So everybody get right in front of me.

I want you all to hear your lines. Obviously, uh, Joseph, you're going to be the tree again. I can't trust you anymore. So yeah, I think that's fair. I also read an article not long ago that was about how, what a daunting experience it is when your kid is actually good at a sport because it costs so much money to support a child who's playing, who's like playing a sport at the highest level

because there's so much touring involved. money to support a child who's playing a who's like playing a sport at the highest level because there's so much touring involved there's the there's all the um athletic fees and then on top of that the equipment um there's so many fees and so much time that you have to devote to it for to that passion and it just sounds so exhausting and bad and you would feel terrible if you didn't and so you have to do it right like i imagine like i was uh our sports rec league growing up was hyal the hazlitt youth athletic league that's where we played baseball and basketball and i feel like no one in the world is scouting hyal to to recruit to like a good high school program and then get a good college program.

So like if I had a son or daughter that was a child prodigy in any sport and I was growing up in Hazlitt, I would need to, I don't know, move, like move to a district where they had a more robust youth athletic program. You have to bus your kid basically uh they just yeah they go play in another state uh yeah it just sounds it sounds really awful to have a kid who's a prodigy i also worry on on this same conversation i brought up a uh like having a kid that's super into japanese culture and this might be revealing a blind spot of mine but it's like a thing that i've never investigated but know to be true anytime i've met someone and there were a lot of guys like this in college a white guy who was super into japanese culture i was like that's weird i don't

know why it's not a judgment on japanese culture but the fact that you're like, you're building your entire identity around another culture is weird to me. So if my son came home one day and was just like, yeah, I really, I think I want to go to go to Japan for a year and just like live among them and was like dressing in kimonos and and cooking exclusively Japanese cuisine. I'd be like weird. Don't know why, but probably weird. Yeah. I thought when you said that, I thought you were just choosing any nationality that they could have, your child could appropriate. And I was like, yeah, of course that's. And people do that all the time. You're absolutely right. It does seem like Asian culture pretty heavily is appropriated by wayward

kids. And they're from like age 17 to 24 um they just suddenly land on something new and they're like oh oh this looks good on me i'm gonna wear this from now on you're like oh you're not allowed to do that i had the same uh reaction when i got to do a tour of um i was in dc and got to tour uh the office of uh congressman whom I won't name and he's like through and through white person and his entire office was decked out in Native American memorabilia and like yeah I think Native American awareness is super important. And I'm obviously pro it. But the fact that like this white guy had made it his identity, I was like, this is this is a weird thing.

I don't know if it's a sexual thing. I don't know. I don't know what it is, but it's strange. I'm not for it. Yeah, I know what I think about it. A lot of those guys that were obsessed with Asian culture were really just obsessed with Asian women. I've even heard from some of our friends who are Asian women

who say that when they date a white guy, they have to ask who their previous girlfriends have been to figure out if this is somebody who only dates Asian women because then it's a real problem. been to figure out if this is somebody who only dates asian women because then it's a real problem well we're just white guys man problem across the board folks we really love doing this show and uh we want to keep doing it there are a couple of ways you can support us you can do that by telling your friends to listen and download the show. And you could also do it by sending some love to our sponsors. And this week we are talking about

Postmates, whom I love so much. I use Postmates all the time. I usually try to do it as a reward for a hard day's work, whether it's like I run a bunch or worked out really hard or worked really hard at work. But lately I've just been doing it three times a week, agnostic of reason, because they're so great. If you're like me, you probably think about what you want to eat for dinner while you're eating lunch. I love food. That's why I love using Postmates. I love them even more right now because I can get food delivered without leaving the house or opening themates. I love them even more right now because I can get food delivered without leaving the house or opening the door. Given what's going on in the world, they created non-contact deliveries. So when I order from local restaurants, everything gets left

right outside my door. They also have Postmates pickup, which I have been using to order takeout from my favorite local restaurants. Yo, listen, you guys need to be supporting your neighborhood spots right now. I've only been ordering local because it's a great way to support my community. There's a lot of restaurants that I go to all the time in normal times, and I want them to still be open when this is all sorted out. So I'm ordering from them via Postmates. And Postmates doesn't just deliver burgers and sushi. They actually make my life easier by picking up everything I need from Walgreens and 7-Eleven and dropping it off outside my door. Just download Postmates on iOS or Android.

Find your favorites and get anything you want delivered within the hour. And for a limited time, Postmates is giving our listeners $100 of free delivery credit for your first seven days. Start your free deliveries, download the app, and use code QQ. That's code QQ for $100 of free delivery credit for your first seven days when you download the Postmates app. Anything you need, anytime you need it, Postmate it. Do you have any... Yeah, I got one for you. Dan, I got a long-winded question for you.

All right, great. A long-winded mealy-mouthed question. Do you want it? Yeah, please. Dan, quick question. Go ahead. So I'm not a dater. I don't date anybody.

And I wonder... You famously never got on a date with your wife. You just pointed to her one day and said this one. And my, my Butler picked her up who would actually be, he was the mayor. So the mayor has done a lot of work for my family. Um,

yeah. So I, I don't date and I'm very curious when I haven't been in a writer's room, like we are right now where I don't during COVID, I can't go in and be part of like that lightning in a bottle sort of scenario. You get that energy from being there and like you can come up with jokes that you wouldn't ordinarily come up with. It's something that you like build up to. And it's basically a muscle in your brain that you just build and build and build.

And if you're away from it and you come back, it kind of atrophies a little and you're not as rusty. You're not as good anymore and i'm wondering if there's also a dating muscle where like everybody who can't date right now for months and months if you're going to come back and everybody's going to be bad at this all of a sudden or if this is just something you're either good at or you're not um i think the two things are different like i also have been out of a writer's room for a hundred days or however long it's been. And I feel like once I get back in, I will be like knowing myself, I'm going to be way too eager. I'm going to, I'm going to dive in too hard and try to get too many laughs because I'm just so excited to be around people again. But I don't feel that way with dating,

because I think they're different muscles. And the little evidence that I have is, Soren, I had a quarantine FaceTime date. Oh, yes. Oh, I want to hear all about it. And it's so different from the problem that i would have with the writers room where i'm where i'm i'm too eager and too excited because uh when you're having a facetime date in quarantine with someone so much has been stripped away at that point and you're

really just two people who are just like you're a a new person. You're a new thing. I want to learn about you right now. I'm pounding my fist in my hand because that's how like driven we are on these dates. It's barely romantic and it's not at all sexual, but it's just like the, the, there's an energy in seeing a new person in this context for the first time when you've been locked away in your respective homes for so long, where you just drop all the artifice of like normal first date stuff. And just like, where are you from?

What do you do? What do you, what, what's a, when was the last time you cried? What's the hardest thing about quarantine right now? What's the saddest thing you've ever had? Yeah, it's like immediately very serious

because both people are so consumed with the idea of learning new things about a new person. And I think, I'm hoping that that energy carries over when people start dating in real life, outside of the quarantine, once we're no longer FaceTime dating. And you just like have your first date with someone because you have and I'm not going to use the word trauma because that feels too heavy, but you, you will both be coming at this with a shared pain, a shared experience that like you don't, that people don't necessarily have when they go on first dates normally.

Now we're going to be going to these first dates with like this very strange energy of we've both been through not war but war together we've both been through this thing and we've both been forced to uh be introspective deeply in a way that maybe we haven't at all in our lives and we've both been uh thrown face to face into what life is like being completely alone and not having anywhere to go or anyone to to to go to romantically so now like a whole lot of bullshit has been stripped away right that's i kind of hope that for you as well i hope that when it's over that that's it's everybody can connect on a, there's a,

it's like a, a doing away with bullshit in a way. It's like, look, we can just start from the fact that we're both humans. We don't have to, the other pageantry we don't really have to deal with. I think there's,

there's like on my end anyway, a tremendous difference in profiles on dating apps. And like, I'm only on one dating app and I'm not interested in talking about which one it is but it's the difference between pre coronavirus quarantine where people are like saying what they think will be attractive on a dating app and there's always some level of bullshit to it there's always like only message

me if you're into traveling and like long something whatever just some kind of nonsense where your dicks you're trying to sell yourself and now there's been like edits to profiles mine included that are just like i'm barely checking this because we're in fucking quarantine defund the police I'll look into this later shut up good god there's not really time for me yeah I hope we don't all die oh man I'm so excited that you went on this quarantine date I want to hear about it if you're willing to share any of it with all 12 people who listen to this yeah uh yeah I'm willing to share any of it with all 12 people who listen to this yeah uh yeah i'm willing to share this with you and my parents i need to open a word document so that i can start working on my wedding speech do you are you thinking like dj or band because i could dj too

um now that you said that definitely band i gotta learn an instrument what are your questions about FaceTime date? I wanna know okay so were you there first or did she get there first? to the FaceTime? what are you talking about?

oh it's not a Zoom oh okay so it's FaceTime and and did you dress up? no cause it was very she was just like do you want to facetime right now and i said yes were you wearing sleeves yeah okay all right

and uh and so what was she wearing uh uh a white sweater thing i should be better at describing women's clothing she's wearing a white sweater thing and a brown like wool cap in june okay and uh and does she have glasses no i wonder if she really does okay i'm just trying to think of like how much she prepped to get ready for this. Right, because Soren, you famously say men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses. And so I understand why you'd ask that. I should have saved that for the episode where we talked about the thing that we made up and that culture has taken over. That phrase, that was mine. So, okay.

I have so many questions about this. when you first got on there what was your background did you decide or were you just like I'm just gonna answer this I decided I've not done a single zoom chat where the background wasn't carefully decided even if the background was a blank wall it was still intentional and so in this case uh the background was this lamp stand that i have that also has a bunch of books on it uh because i was communicating that i'm uh clean and well read and have access to lamps you've got a lamp guy how long did the date last an hour and did you drink uh she doesn't drink so she was uh smoking uh marijuana and i was drinking water did she have a vape pen or was she like smoking an actual she had a vape pen i want to ask like does do the answers to your questions matter yes Yes. Oh, man, so much.

Okay. Okay, this is exciting. And did it go well? I think so, yeah. But again, it felt far from romantic and more just like I'm excited to meet another person and learn their story. Like we dug into a lot of not first date conversations. Like we wanted to know about each other's families really. And it's,

it's hard to tell at this point if there will be any future for the two of us or if it's just like, these are two people who have been cooped up for too long that just that are just looking to explore something new okay i wonder if there's also just because there's that disconnect where you're not sitting in front of the other person that it's way easier to be open and honest it is i think in the same way that I'm more open on this podcast than I am in a phone conversation with my family. I think that the like just being in front of a computer or a phone creates this this strange impetus to be very confessional. Yeah. And I want to know, just like give me a percentage.

How much of the date did you spend looking at yourself percentage how much of the date did you spend looking at yourself and how much of the date did you spend looking at her oh uh percentage yeah i want to say because i 60 40 looking at her which is still not great yeah no but i mean you got it right because it's you you have your own face there. You get to see exactly what you look like. Yeah, and I'm filming from my table, which is right by a floor-to-ceiling window that I have. So I'm losing light, so I have to reposition myself

so the light hits me better as we're going, which is very, very vain and silly silly but also a thing that i did i would be so nervous that i they would catch me because i want also i'm deeply interested in other people's places and like the window into their room for their through their computer and uh that she would just catch me checking out every single aspect of her room. She was so much more fearless than, than I am. She gave me a tour of her space. Whoa. Which I could not do.

Cause, cause this was like a, a not planned date. And so she was like, yeah, this is this room. This is this, this is where I go,

go for here. And it was like, oh, okay, well I can't, you're not allowed to see my kitchen for, uh, several weeks.

Oh, that's, that's great of her. I want... No, I'm not going to say it. Go ahead. We can cut it if I hate it. I'm wondering if maybe she had been on some other dates and had cleaned her apartment and was like, and they didn't go well, like maybe one other one.

She's like, well, I didn't do this for nothing. Oh. And that's why she was immediately like, you want to do this right now? Can you get on a phone call right now? My place is ready. I would say she is just like genuinely confident. Okay.

Wow, she sounds great, Dan. She's great, yeah. Okay, well, congratulations. Thank you. I will tell you that generally in august i'm a little busy uh going forward so maybe like a spring thing or a winter wedding people do those okay you're planning our wedding and what are you busy with in august well that's when my hiatus is so we go on vacation oh okay yeah all right i don't think winter wedding is in the in the cards a birthday wedding no i'm gonna that would be the

worst birthday present i can give you i'm gonna throw you a winter wedding please soren i have had one date with a person over facetime please do not throw me a wedding as a prank give me her number I gotta get in contact with her so she knows to get a dress okay I'm gonna give you her number but only if you promise not to prank me yeah of course of course uh there's something I want to talk to you about Dan that isn't exactly a question but I wanted to just run it past you and get your feelings on it okay this is nerve-wracking immediately go ahead it's almost father's day it's coming up my wife has not said anything about it um it's obviously the kids are too young to know by on their own but ordinarily

my son would get this kind of thing from school and then maybe he'd make me like uh he'd paint a mug or something but we don't have that she's not checking the news or anything because it would just bring her down when she's trying to be a good mom to a newborn and so she's a little unplugged i think that there's a chance that she will forget father's day and i am so excited about that prospect and i want to know if that's weird so I'm going to ask you a question and I think I know the answer are you excited because a you don't want to make a big deal out of Father's Day and you're looking forward to it just being a normal day or b you want to have something to hold over her head for a while and well it sounds gross when you say be like uh-huh so like reinterpret b then rephrase it the way that feels normal to you

okay well you see dad our relationship is is like a zero sum game of points and you accrue points by doing something nice for the person for stepping outside of your, your allotted tasks in the relationship and like doing something above and beyond doing kind things you get point like there's a, and then you also cash in points every once in a while when like you do something selfish, anytime you're going to do something selfish, like you're going to go out without the other person or you're going on a trip or like a work trip or whatever it is that you're leaving the other person in the lurch like you are you got to cash in right colleen is going to raise both children for a few hours while you record a podcast in your garage yes yes so like i pick and choose where the things are that

i'm like oh this is important i would like to through this. And it's just like this game of tug of war. It's not mean spirited or anything, but if one person collected all that rope and the other person didn't have any more to hope, well, usually the giver becomes more aware of that at a moment. And it's, it's like a fissure in the relationship. And it's the same, I think with a marriage, like you are, you have you the weight that you pull and the other person has the weight that they pull. And occasionally you pull their weight for them. And even though you're just doing it to be nice, both of you have kept track of that, maybe subconsciously. And if one person continues to pull that weight and the other person can use to shirk it, then like it, that's when it becomes, that's when any relationship breaks down. Now, the reason that I would think that having her forget about father's day would be nice is that i have forgotten about her birthday in the past oh and so this would just like it would really help to like get me closer to even on that so i

wonder uh because this is a very specific thing i know about you regards to keeping score like you're very it always stays in your head uh relative scores of what people owe each other enough that um in my mind famously we got drinks something like nine or ten years ago with the britannic guys and this guy, Chris Lowell, who has gone on to he's a recurring character on glow on Netflix. He plays bash Howard and he's been on Grey's anatomy, I think, and a bunch of other, maybe private practice, a bunch of other shows.

He got you a shot of whiskey and then left the bar and you've not let go of it. You, you need to get him a shot of whiskey at some point in the future i did get him you did it was like yeah yeah like nine years later i got him back and he didn't even remember who i was or anything like that it's like it doesn't matter so i will famously keep track if it's something that where i owe because i don't i hate the idea of yeah so in any i want to know like what is the score between you and Colleen right now? I'm she's always up. Okay. She's always up. Um, she does, but she's, it's because she does so much and she does it without, um, without complaining or anything like that. Like she's, she's just so good at like

Like she's just so good at like getting stuff done. And I frequently forget a lot of stuff. And so she's, and she's always, I owe, I owe all the time. But I've still like, I've got some of that rope left and I can pull on it. And this would just like help me get a little bit closer to the black. Can I ask, so when i turned uh 31 you stealthily hired an acapella group to sing kiss from a rose by seal to me in the middle of a work day under the guise of it being a work meeting um a week a work meeting that you would specifically that i hate the idea

of it would be mad to be there for what what birthdays of of colleen did you forget uh okay are these like college birthdays or is this no oh no we weren't married yet i know but it was so this is one and she might not even remember this or maybe she does but sean baby was in town and uh i wanted to go meet up with him we we celebrated her birthday on a saturday and her birthday ended up being on like a monday we celebrated uh that saturday we'd had like a party and everything and then i thought in my head i was like that's it we did it and completely forgot that her real birthday was on a Monday and started to make plans with Sean baby and I was gonna go out with him

that night and I was like oh I gotta call my wife and tell her and like just went to just be like hey running on this by you I'm gonna be I'll be gone for dinner tonight um and she was like what the fuck okay sure and it didn't occur to me till I was driving there that I was like, oh, no, it's actually her birthday right now. And she didn't say anything about it. She just kind of gave me that kind of like, all right, if that's what you really want. And in my mind, I've never lived that down. It was rough. It was, it was a rough moment for me.

And I don't know if it was nearly as rough for her. I can't remember if she really ever addressed it, but I want to be, I got to earn it back. And so I'm sorry, just for clarity, you can't remember, you didn't remember her, her birthday and can't remember how she felt about it. I knew she was bummed about it i knew but i don't remember how bummed or if she's it's even something that she's held on to right why ask this is such an off because it's such an off-brand podcast episode for us because I had like a healthy date and you were a bad husband briefly, which is like not the normal situation for us. You're a very good husband and dad and I'm a fucking train wreck. The people are going to revolt when they hear this.

Yeah, they're not going to want this. They're like, go fucking get back in your quarters. What are you doing? want this they're like go fucking get back in your corners what are you doing um but yeah i my first thought was oh it's almost father's day oh my god it's almost father's day oh my god what if she forgets okay so on that like is is the the best present you could get her forgetting or is there something else that you would rather is there like like what's an ideal father's day for you at this point we've well we settled into a system where father's day mother's day you basically just get left alone that day um either certain things that i like i like to be able to

sleep in to like eight nine and i want to be able to uh go get a sandwich from this one place that i really like the sandwich shop i want to to have a Dr. Pepper for lunch. I want to maybe watch something in the afternoon. And then and for the most part, like I'm just not responsible for the kids. Now that was a little harder on this last mother's day because my wife is the only one who can feed our child currently. Yeah.

And so she was still responsible for a lot, but I would get, I got up early, made her waffles and things that i know she would like did things throughout the day i knew she'd like and basically just kind of took ronan off of her hands for a very long time uh and i that's how mother's days and father's days and birthdays have played out for the last four years and i like that system a lot so i wouldn't mind we did that. It's a very boring celebration that we do, but it's one that means a lot to me. And it's like this time that you suddenly have back in your life

that feels really good. What is the thing that she could make in the morning for you that would be very exciting? Nothing. If she just let me sleep, I don't eat breakfast. Yeah, I don't either. The idea of waking up to a breakfast is really, it makes my stomach turn a little bit.

I feel sort of nauseous when I wake up in the morning. And I don't eat until like 11 or 12 each day. I don't either. And it's been very weird to my family. Like anytime I stay with my parents, my mom is always thinking that like, I'm just being coy about what I really want. Like I'll stay with my parents in North Carolina for a week. And I'll be like, there's bacon. And I'm like, oh'm like oh no thank you i don't get hungry until like 1 p.m

and the next day she's like french toast like no no no i'm not trying to trick you i'm i'm just not hungry and the next day i'd be like pancakes with fucking chocolate chips it's like i swear to god you're not gonna get it. Colleen's family stays with us sometimes and her parents are the same way. Breakfast is an important meal for that whole family. And, uh, so she, her dad gets up very early and he makes breakfast and like,

I'll come down. And now it's a big joke where he's like, you want some pancakes? I got plenty still. And I'm like, no, I don't want any. I am.

I'll eat a Turkey sandwich in four hours. Um, but, uh, I don't want any. I'll eat a turkey sandwich in four hours from now. But I, yeah, I think. Oh, no, but back to the subject of Father's Day. You want no meal. You just want to be able to sleep. Oh, that's the dream. Yeah, that's, and sleep is always takes precedent for me. If I'm very, very hungry and also very tired, sleep comes first. I will sleep and then I will eat.

See, I feel like I've been, I am very comfortable pushing off sleep for some future time. Uh, I guess death, like I don't sleep a whole lot. I have like very bad hours of sleeping and I'll, I'll wake up at six 30 because I'm, I'm thirsty or because the sunlight hits in a certain way. And it was like, well, I guess I'm up now. And then like,

that's when I start my day. Whenever I wake up is when I start my day. And it's, it's rarely late into the, into the day, into the early afternoon. I, if I was allowed to just have my druthers,

I would sleep till noon every single day i and and that's going to bed at like midnight two or one o'clock did you ever used to watch the show gargoyles of course not at not you know that wasn't a show that was on at midnight i'm going somewhere else they i would stay up late watching reruns of Frasier. I still do that. They would get grievously injured by some... Macbeth would fuck them up or whatever. And then they would go and they would turn to stone.

And when they were not stone anymore, they were healed. It was like that sleep had just healed them. That's how I live my life. Whatever happened the day before, I can just sleep it off. And wake up the next day and I can just sleep it off and it, and wake up the next day and I'm a new guy. Of course I feel a little sick in the morning. That's just the,

who I am. But for the rest of that day, I feel great. As long as I can get the right amount of sleep, I will either be up late watching TV that I, I want to watch as like a treat for myself or jeopardy, or I will be up late because I'm writing. And then I go to sleep as like your brain is fried, you need three hours, and then you'll be able to wake up and work again. And,

and then I do that, which I recognize is not a healthy thing to do. But it gets results. Yeah, the your, your legacy will live on. That's's the important thing doesn't matter how long your life is um we should close things out uh before we get into the the end segment of this show i do want to mention because we've talked in the past about like we had the big cracked episode of this podcast where we talked about the mass layoffs in 2017 and we talked about uh the end of robert brockway's tenure at cracked where he was unceremoniously laid off and jason's end of his run where he quietly left the company we have another addendum to that which is the unceremonious and completely unjustified laying off of Alex Schmidt, who was hosting and I want to say producing, like running every aspect of the Cracked podcast since Jack left

years ago. Literally Media, the company that owns Cracked now and that had acquired them from Scripps Media, they made the decision that they didn't want Alex anymore and they didn't want the Cracked podcast anymore. A decision that anyone who has ever met Alex or who is familiar with the medium of podcasts would recognize as a foolish decision. Um, I don't know why they did it. Alex is an incredible talent who, uh,

is like top of the list recommendation. If anyone ever needs to hire a person in writing podcasting or comedy like alex is uh cut from a different cloth yeah he's just so autonomous he'll any job you put him into he doesn't have a lot of questions for it he will figure it out on his own and not in a way where like he's making a bunch of mistakes he's like i'll learn from those he really puts the research in and like does it and doesn't bothers you if he actually has a problem. So like if you're, I was his manager for a little while at Cracked and he was the easiest

employee to be the manager of because he did his job. He did his job well and then went above and beyond and did like other things on top of that. So when he took over the Cracked podcast, you're right. He took over the entire thing, every aspect of it. And if he needs to learn, well, how does, how does ad revenue work? Uh, do we, should we be in business with somebody else? He's going to go solve that problem. He's not going to leave that to somebody else. And so, and that was a huge arm of cracked was the crack podcast. It's got its own

built in audience. It's a money generator. And for whatever reason, I don't want to speculate as to why they were just like, we don't want that. and we don't want one of this best employee we've ever had and it's it's very strange because i've i've uh i've been in this industry since 2007 i've met 10 000 funny people uh alex schmidt is one of those 10, but he is also kind and he's also professional and he's also optimistic. And I've met so fewer of those people. And the fact that any company would let him go is, is just mind boggling to me. And anyone who is in a position to hire right now, reach out to him. I mean, I, I don't worry for Alex Schmidt because he's going to be fine. He's like one of the most hireable people I've ever met in my life.

But if you're in a position where you can give him an opportunity, I promise you he will make your company better. I was about to say, he's great. All right. Well, I guess we should get to the section of the show where we give out all of our social information. But before I do that, Dan, you probably already know this, but one of the industries that's been really hard hit during COVID and that's sort of quietly struggled is sex workers. Things have really fallen off for them. People who previously were in strip clubs or were working in prostitution. I mean, they haven't been quiet with me, but go on.

Uh, so it's been really tough on them and I just, I wanted to make a yes or no answer from you. And that's all. Dan, have you ever picked up a prostitute? Okay. So moving on, here we go. I found them on Twitter. You can follow Daniel at DOB underscore Inc. You can follow Soren at Soren underscore LTD. If you want to find out about Michael, find out what's going on with him. You can find him at make me bacon, please with PLS, or you can follow Quick Question at QQ underscore Soren and Dan. You can email us, maybe with questions about what you just heard from Dan, at QQ with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com.

And you can follow, find, hire our producer, sound engineer, editor, Gabe at GabeHarder.com sometime in the future. You're like an actual piece of shit. All right, explain. No. Good. All right, leave it. Bye.