Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - QQ ep 48 - Stranger Danger

Episode Date: July 17, 2020

In this episode the guys talk about the last time they were yelled at by a stranger, and Daniel learns he's single from a website. And as always big thanks to Skillshare, get 2 free months of unlimited access to thousands of classes at Skillshare.com/qq

Hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, a podcast where two friends ask each other all of life's least important questions, even if they don't get any answers. I am one half of this podcast, author, comedian, staff writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and an adult who thinks a stranger might have yelled at him and has been thinking about it for days, Daniel O'Brien. And I am joined, as always, by my co-host, Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, say hello.

Hey, everybody. I. Soren Bui. Soren say hello. Hey everybody I'm Soren Bui. I am a scribe, an ink slinger of sorts. Yeah don't you hate it when people say scribe? It fucking drives me nuts. I am a type of guy who's very chill in the room but fearless on the page. Oh boy. That's thing i hate they're they're like some writer cliches that i just i want to write them all down and say all right everyone we're putting these in the fire from now on and no one's allowed to use them fearless on the page good lord i know uh we're gonna get into this show where we ask each other questions and whatnot um i i wanted to bring up something because soar was talking about me being famous at the end of last episode which is I want to be clear not a thing that I think is true I do not believe myself to be famous I do not

want to be famous I think because we were doing very public jobs for ten years on the internet we are known to a specific group of people but we are not famous but i'm bringing this up because um one of my co-workers found uh my page on a website that is called datingcelebs.com which you can find if you go to datingcelebs.com slash who hyphen-daniel-obrien-dating. And it's a page that says, who is Daniel O'Brien dating now? And they have some of my information, but not a lot of it. And it's been very humbling because they've found several different ways to call me single.

because they've found several different ways to call me single. When I feel like you could just say, on the question of who is Daniel O'Brien dating now, you could say no one or I don't know. This fucking website has like six paragraphs. This is impossible to use. I was so excited for this, but I'm in search and I'm searching by profession.

It's not alphabetical. It goes pop singer, drummer, musical star, war hero, explorer, family member. Okay. So I can just like give you the bullet points. Yeah, please. It starts off, Daniel O'Brien, American comedian, 34 years old, single. And then they list some other information about me. And then bold headline, who is Daniel O'Brien, American comedian, 34 years old, single. And then they list some other information about me. And then bold headline, who is Daniel O'Brien dating?

Daniel O'Brien is currently single according to our records. Cool. And then another bold headline, relationship status. As of 2020, Daniel O'Brien is not dating anyone. Daniel is 34 years old. According to celeb couples, Daniel O'Brien had at least one relationship previously. He has not been previously engaged. Fact.

Daniel O'Brien is turning 35 years old in a certain amount of days. Be sure to check out top 10 facts about Daniel O'Brien at Famous Details. Bold headline about Daniel O'Brien's girlfriend. Daniel O'Brien doesn't have a girlfriend right now. All dating histories are fact-checked and confirmed by our users. We use publicly available data and resources to ensure that our dating stats and biographies are accurate.

Bold. Who has Daniel O'Brien dated? Like most celebrities. Stupid. Daniel O'Brien tries to keep his personal and love life private, so check back often as we will continue to update this page with new dating news and rumors. Daniel O'Brien girlfriends. He had at least one relationship previously again who do they think and they again point out that i haven't been engaged we are currently in process

of looking up information on the previous data dates and hookups that's incredible dan i love that moment at the very beginning where what they've essentially done is a Daniel O'Brien is, and then checks notes, single. According to our searches, he's single. And they just keep

going. Yeah, they really want people to know that you don't have anybody in your life. The most curious aspect of it for me apart from the fact that i'm on this website at all is they have confirmed that i've had at least one relationship well i think they just assume right that's probably true of everybody i'm trying to think of who else is like famously single and I'm gonna go look at them and see if it also says the same stuff like a Ken Jeong like does he date

is he married yeah yeah yeah I'm there now have you tried to use the site to search at all because I can't find it's It's really... I only found it because... Somebody pointed it out. Often in a writer's room, you Google around to troll and embarrass your coworkers. And this... I found your page, by the way. Oh, good.

Yeah. I mean, I mostly filled you in, but if you still got questions they call me single and never engaged like nine more times if if you're if you're curious zodiac seems to be very important yeah on this site my zodiac animal is tiger i love it like the you get the entire thing where they just call me single uh an unrelenting amount of times and then the very last line is he attended rutgers university and began writing for crack.com in 2007 it's like all right some real some real information good journalism there you go um but that's enough about how publicly single I am, I guess.

Thanks to Skillshare for supporting Quick Question. Break up the routine of a day spent indoors. Explore workshops, classes, and more in topics like illustration or photography. Get two free months of premium membership at Skillshare.com slash QQ. Before we get into the show, actually, we are at day 100 and something of the quarantine here in New York. We opened up phase two just a few days ago as of the recording of this. I'm still not really changing much about what I do with my life. But Soren, do you have any quarantine COVID civil unrest updates? I do. I recently was featured in the New York Times.

Well, not featured, but I'm in a story in the New York Times about people still using the postal service, especially now in the times of COVID, where a woman asked me questions about how I was using the Postal Service and I talked about my son and hey how his grandmother sends him riddles in the mail and then the next day and the riddle answer comes and how he sends letters to his best friend from school. How did the New York Times know to reach out to you? I think maybe I had tweeted about the Postal Service and the woman who was writing the article followed me i was like hey i'm writing an art story about this that's

pretty cool yeah it was very cool did you tweet that i didn't see it or anything no i haven't said anything about it except here okay that's very fascinating. Yeah. So I'm in your backyard, Dan. Yeah. You're in the kudos on getting some real estate on the failing New York Times. It's real cool. Should we get into the show? Do you have any questions for me? Yes.

You at the beginning of the show said that you thought that a stranger had yelled at you recently yeah so i had an experience recently where i was uh i ride my bike when i have like a carrier in the back that my son rides in and i was riding past uh a man yelling at a kid who was on his bike and eating a corn cob. And I was like, man, that guy is furious at his son. I wonder what his son did. And he's just like yell at the entrance of this park. He's just yelling at him, yelling, yelling, yelling. And, uh, the kid's just eating his corn and listening to him. And then the guy got in his car and drove away. And I was like, I don't think that man knows that kid. And so I think that there's something had happened. Maybe the kid had like cut him off

or something or rode his bike in front of him, but just came out, got out of his car and then just started berating this child. And I was like, that's fucking that's wild um and then decided he was done and left yeah and but it made me think back to the times that i had been yelled at and i was wondering dan uh was there ever can you remember the time that you were yelled at the worst and it wasn't by your parents um i'll need some time to think about that i have a quick one that I can say real quick just to address the thing I said at the top of the episode was that I was walking down the street I was just like on a walk

I was wearing my mask I was crossing at a proper time to cross the street and had my headphones in so I couldn't hear everything clearly and there was a woman in a car yelling something at her window, and I just looked, and then, like, continued about my business, it looked like she was looking at me, and I know that there were a number of possibilities, she could have been yelling something nice, she could have been like, good on you for wearing a mask, or I'm attracted to your body. Uh, she could have been on the phone in her car.

She could have been singing along to something. She could have been doing, uh, like voices and like sketches talking to herself in her car. Like I used to do when I drove, or she could have been saying something mean about me. And because of the way that my brain works, none of the first few possibilities had ever entered my mind. It was just, this is a person I'm not, I know I'm not doing something wrong, but she's yelling at me and she's right. And I'm going to spend the rest of the day, not knowing what she said, but certain it was bad. And then I was sad about myself well yeah that makes sense i mean i i think your natural reaction is always when i anytime i see people like laughing

with like some inside joke in the street i'm like what the fuck what is it about me fuck do i look funny um i'm always gonna assume it's about me it's just like a i don't even think it's a narcissism thing i think that's just a human thing. Would you remember, could you remember anything that she had said? No, because I couldn't hear. I just heard like the distinctive sound of a voice yelling. And I'm crossing the street at this point. So I just turn around and I see a woman with her window down,

looking what looks like to be in my direction. And I face back in the direction of where i'm going and never look back and like that the the sound had stopped again there it's it's uh entirely possible nothing to do with you at all they had nothing to do with me but i'll go to my grave knowing that i upset this woman in some way and uh have no way of knowing how to atone for it this maybe this guy that was uh upset with this child it was upset that this child was eating corn on his bike because you're generally you don't do that i mean like generally i don't eat corn on bikes but I don't know that it like does does one generally not do that is that I'm just thinking about how

weird it was even to see someone in public eating corn it's like not a food you eat in public it certainly wouldn't push me to anger if someone was- Hey! If a child was on a bike eating corn, I'd be like, Hey! Corn is an indoor snack! You're supposed to be stationary when you eat corn! I have been some places where they sell it out of carts, and they put mayonnaise on it, and chili, but I don't see any of those around here! It was a really weird experience, but the kid also didn't seem super bothered either that's what made me think that it was the a dad and his son it was like oh this happens a lot right because

at that point the kid is like oh he's doing one of his corn wings i don't even remember he'll he'll tucker himself out this is the same situation where i didn't get to hear the the content of the vitriol but it just at the time seemed very much like these two knew each other and then the man got in a car and drove off um anyway uh i was i was yelled at uh in my adult life really badly for i would say probably about 12 minutes of someone solidly yelling at me on a metro train solidly yelling at me on a Metro train. I used to ride my bike to work when we worked at cracked. And what that means is I would ride my bike to the Metro and then the Metro would take me to work, but it was like a two mile ride. And on the way home, it was always awful because it's at rush hour and everybody's trying to get on the train and you feel like such a dick because you've got a bike and you're in everybody's way. There's you're taking up space on the train and you feel like such a dick because you've got a bike and you're in everybody's way.

You're taking up space on the train and you're just as apologetic as you can be every single time. There's nobody who rides a bike and is on the train like, look out for my bike. Look out for my bike. Right. You always like, I also have this. Nobody's happy about this. I'm so sorry, but I have to do it. I don't have, I'm not going to then walk another two miles. Anyway, I figured out eventually, oh, I could just skateboard those two miles. It's like, it's not that much more exercise. It doesn't exert me anymore where

I'm sweating buckets when I get to work. And when I figured that out, I was pumped because then it, I was so much easier to carry a skateboard on the train. So almost the first or second day that I did it, I got on the train going home, feeling good about myself. And a guy gets on with his bike and this woman just starts yelling at him. She's like, no, no, there's not enough room. Get off, get off. And he's like, put his bike up where he's got the back tire just on the ground and the rest of it's up in the air so he's making as much room as he can and it's like just this dude you know polo from wherever he works with the emblem on it just trying to get home and he i'll also say some details that fill out the story but aren't necessarily important uh he was didn't speak a lot of english so when this one was yelling at him him, I'm not totally sure he was, he was like trying

to help in any way that he could, but he wasn't quite sure what she was mad about. And then she was a woman in a wheelchair. Oh, yes. And so she's screaming at him. And then we get to the next, she's like, there's not enough room. Everybody's on the train. I mean, there's clearly enough room. Everybody's there.

And we get to the next stop and she just holds the button which opens the doors and she's like get off get off and she won't she won't let the door shut until he gets off the train and i'm like what i could save this day and so i ran over got in between them and i was like hey he's just trying to get home like let's his bike's already on. Like, let him go. And at that point, like all that ire turned from him to me. And she was furious at me for standing up for this guy and started just like screaming at me

about he doesn't belong on this train. She's mad that he's there. She's mad that I'm not there in front of her. And she's like, I'm like, I'm going to stand in between the two of you. Oh, one of the things she was saying was if that bike falls on me, uh, it could seriously hurt me. Uh, valid, valid complaint if it did fall. Uh, and so I was like, I'll, what I'll do is I'll stand in between the two of you. If it falls, it'll fall on me. And she says, and she said, but then you will fall on me and i will sue you and uh i was it was such a weird thing for her to say that my response was right that's fine i'm made of money oh interesting

choice this is also you know how much i made it cracked it was not a ton of money but i was just like if that situation is not going to happen so yeah fine if i fall on you because the bike falls on me sue away and uh i said i made a money and that she she was so much madder that just all it did was escalate the situation and first stops after that she's just yelling at me and yelling and yelling yelling and i look over at the guy and he's kind of appalled he's like smiling a little bit at me like thank you uh i go to take off my backpack so that i'm not in anybody's oh she's like you're brushing up against that girl you're brushing up against her because i had a backpack on and i think it was there was a woman behind me and i was like okay so i took

off my backpack and as i was taking it off it brushed her arm and she grabbed it and screamed. And I was like, this is insane. I should not have done this. And I put the backpack down. I had the skateboard on the ground and I'm just standing there between them. And I start like looking around the train, like making eyes with other people.

No one's- Does anyone else want to join this fight? Do I have anyone's action here? No, not only that. Not only people are like, you're on your own. People were mad at me. People were mad at me for even like joining the fray, for getting involved in the situation.

She might've been a crazy person, but you don't knowingly talk to a crazy person because it just makes matters worse every single time. Here's the thing. This was like an affluent lady. She was clearly coming home from work she's got her briefcase-ish thing there too with her laptop in it she's dressed nicely she's just so mad and i made matters so much worse and for four stops this woman it was like she was just didn't even need air they just just kept coming and coming.

And she'd do that thing where eventually she'd say something and it sounded very final. And then she'd think of something else and she'd go off again. And it would just keep happening. And I just didn't know what to do. And I had to be in that, I couldn't just like walk to another car

because now I'm a human shield, I've decided. And I'm just sitting there listening to this woman yelled at me and i was like i have not been yelled at like that yelled it like this in a very long time i would love to hear this story from her side i'm still on your side but i want to hear what what happened when she got home and talked to her partner yeah so i saw her you won't believe what happened to me on the fucking metro here's what makes me feel a little better about it. I saw her again on the way to work one day. We got to what I assume was her stop.

Yeah. That's where she got on. Or I guess maybe where she works. She was on the platform yelling at a woman. I was like, Oh, she's just, this is who she is.

This is her like cool down after work. Right. I don't, this is who she is this is this is her like cool down after work right i don't this is her yoga yelling at a woman sitting on a bus bench who was just trying to ignore her and kind of like rocking back and forth in her chair like like lunging at her a little bit i was like that also that also lends a little bit of clarity to why other people on the train might have been annoyed with you. Because they've been like, what is this guy fucking new here? She does this every day. What are you doing?

Are you trying to be a hero? What the fuck? She's harmless. It's also, I want to investigate your impulse when you said, go ahead and do it. I made money. Is that you trying to be funny to diffuse the situation? Or was that a flex? Or is that like, do you not know where that came from? Was that you trying to be funny to diffuse the situation? Or was that a flex?

Or is that like, do you not know where that came from? Was that just like a gut, I need to say something? I wanted. That sounds powerful. Yeah, I was not trying to diffuse it with her. I think what I was trying to do is win over the group. And I thought that was funny. People love blonde white guys with money. That's true.

That's smart. Well, here's the deal. That joke would have been great if they could have out of my wallet taken my bank account statement and shown it to them. They're like, I mean, I'm not made of money. Yeah. I'm only curious about that because this doesn't quite fit the getting yelled at thing. But in high school, I was at a 24-hour Dunkin' Donuts with some of my friends. And an employee there wanted us to leave, not because we were being rowdy, but because he just wanted to clean the entire floor.

It was like midnight. So he had every reason to. I'm sure this is a guy who, you know day at midnight this place is empty i don't close it for 30 minutes but i'd like to close it for 30 minutes just so i can clean everything uh and was just trying to communicate to us like hey can you go right now for 30 minutes? And for whatever reason, my buddy Joe was like, it's 24 hours. And he didn't want, you know, we're 17 years old or whatever. We don't have a lot of options for places to be.

So getting kicked out of one that we thought we had a right to be at was upsetting. And Joe just wanted to make a fight of it. I was like, it's 24 hours. No. I was like, you want to clean it? That's your problem. You can clean around us. We're not done with our coffee yet.

We want to stay here until we're done. And the guy was like, just go, just go. And Joe was getting louder. No, I'm not going to go. And the guy was like, go, look, you're being crazy. And he was like, yeah, I am crazy. Fuck with me. See how crazy I can get.

And then we eventually left. And I was like, no one said anything. And Joe was like, I don't know why I said that. It's just like this like doubling down. You feel like you have to do in the situation where the release feels amazing. When like you were in a fight like that and you say something along those lines, as soon as you say it's like scratching a mosquito bite, you're just like, oh, that was awesome. Cause you don't get to talk like that to people in your normal life.

Because we were like, Joe, if he did continue to fuck with you, what were you going to do? I don't know, nothing. Just run away? I don't know. I think a time, again, I haven't really been yelled at as an adult. Because I live a time, again, I don't, I, I haven't really been yelled at as an adult, um, because I, I, I live a pretty boring life and I, I, I don't break many rules or, or, or go anywhere or do anything.

I can remember being yelled at at times when I thought I was too old to be yelled at by a stranger. Yeah. And resented it. There was, when I was working at a summer camp in college there was like uh there was one night where a bunch of this is your stories are so much cooler than mine because you like step up to be a hero and mine this story is about how every counselor except me went partying together and was hung over the next day at work and uh the boss

wanted to yell at all the staff for for partying and being drunk and being hung over and being bad at their jobs and i just had to sit in this lecture for like 15 minutes while this guy was like don't fucking do this take this job seriously and if you're gonna like i get it people are gonna go out and get drunk don't fucking lie to me don this job seriously. And if you're going to, like, I get it. People are going to go out and get drunk. Don't fucking lie to me. Don't say that the reason they're going to be late is because of car trouble. Don't fucking lie to me. I know what goes on here.

Don't pull this shit with me. And I'm sitting here, I'm like 19 years old or whatever, but thinking like, first of all, I didn't do anything. And second of all, even if I did, I don't, I shouldn't be talked to this way. I think I'd reached a point where it's like, oh, are you going to keep yelling? Because I'm going to walk away because I'm like, I can, I don't know, I can vote and drive. So like, bye. Like, I don't, I shouldn't be yelled at anymore.

I've reached that point where I don't feel like i'm i'm allowed to be yelled at by someone but also again the main character in the stories uh my virtue is that i was the sole counselor to not party uh i have a i have another one where i get yelled at when i was in college that was that's also very on brand which was uh i was in a play called called uh other places now when you say on brand is this uh uh another story where you are defending a person of color out of the goodness of your heart oh by the way in physical another before like yeah another element of that story is the woman was African-American. Okay. So it wasn't like I was standing up to some Karen.

It was just a situation. That's definitely like those details really complicate what my brain wanted this story to be. Yes. She was not all, yeah. It's a very complicated situation. Now imagine me talking to an Africanrican-american woman in her wheelchair saying that's fine i'm made of money suddenly i'm not the good guy right good good god

uh all right tell your other on brand story so there's see how this one goes there's a play called other places by haroldinter. And it's three different plays, but one of them is just epistolary. It's this kid writing letters to his parents who's like gone off to live on his own. And he's living in a weird ass house where a guy watches him take baths and stuff like that. And but that's all it is. It's like him writing the letters and saying it out loud. And that's like a whole one act. And it was my

first college play and i was i had a teacher who was kind of like um jk simmons in whiplash where he would he was somebody who was famous for like getting the most out of people but he was gonna fuck you up to do it and he was pretty nice nice guy up up until this one point where i was learning like two pages of dialogue a night and two pages is about that would end up being the equivalent of maybe like four monologues a night and i was thinking i am killing it like i can't believe how much i'm memorizing how fast i'm doing this and we only get through about two pages the next day and then one day we got past those two pages and I kept saying line lines. He stopped he goes do you even know this and I said no and he Lost it he went off like he got up threw his pencil at me

threw stuff up through his glasses down on the floor and was like You are you fucking kidding me this isn't high school you got to take this seriously and up until that point i thought a college play certainly was the most important thing looking back now i should have been like where do you think you fucking are this is like 2 000 people at this school with um and uh he just he was like you had like this isn't like bush league like what the fuck are you doing if you've got lines you memorize them you memorize in the first night you get the part there are a bunch of other people who could have this part I would have loved to have somebody else for it like that kind of shit and just kept kept going in a way where it was like oh that was bad and

then it just would just keep going and it, uh, questioning whether not only my integrity or my commitment to this part, but also whether I'm even right for it. Like he's already had his misgivings about it. And like, I wasn't maybe necessarily his first choice. And see, this is another one where I want to be on the fly, a fly on the wall when he goes home to his partner and is like i think i reached him today i think i gave him the push he needs this is gonna do it i the rising star at occidental so i really wanted to in the moment fight back because i was you know i felt like i was an adult at that point i was 18 years old i was like no fuck you you can't talk to me like this didn't say any of that and then it got so hurtful that I started to tear up. And like, it was like in a way where everyone's watching, everyone else is in that play. All this, this, the stage director, I can't remember what they're

called now. Yeah. I think stage director, like they're all, uh, or the assistant director. That's what it is. Um, they're all sitting around and like, they're just watching me start to tear up while this man yells at me and no one's doing anything about it no one's saying anything and everyone's just like well that's maybe that's just what he needs right now and then and then it ended and like well obviously we can't go on a night learn your fucking lines so i went home and just like or back to my dorm and i was just in tears and I was like oh god that was the worst experience of my life and went and

you know was very good about learning my lines after that learned everything all at once and didn't go to classes so that I could learn them and was like I feel like probably one of my best performances was at that play but then on one of my best performances was at that play.

But then on one of the... It's the end of Whiplash. You're just like fucking crushing it. Your dad shakes his head and walks away. I did. Yeah, it was like, I felt like I did really well. And then on one of the nights during the performance, he came in and I think somebody in the room had asked him, like, are you happy with the play?

And he's like, well, you know, it is what it is. That's what every play ends up becoming. And I think what he means is like in the same way where you write something, you have an idea of what it should be. It doesn't end up being that ever. And you're like, well, it's close enough. And I think that's what he was trying to say.

But to me, that was so hurtful of like, well, we get what we get. I mean, this is what I signed up for. And these are the people that I've got. So this is what the product is. Yeah, that's absolutely the natural reaction. Every time I handed a draft, Kay asks me, how do you feel about your draft? And I'm always like, it's done.

Right. I finished it. I handed it in on time. I've decided not to work on it anymore. Yeah. Which is like the whole reason i think people are always like why do writers procrastinate so much how come it takes people forever to finish something because motherfucker like you'll never stop working

on that product until it's until you have to turn it in that's why everybody does that and that's also why people procrastinate because you know that whether if you have two weeks you worked on it those full two weeks that's you staying up so late every single night working every single night doing it as opposed to that first week just you staying up so late every single night working every single night doing it as Opposed to that first week just you putting it off putting it off putting it off and then working the same amount of time on it Yeah, after work Anyway, I

It was it was startling to be yelled at like that and the full range of emotions that I went through was Like chilling. No one had made me feel that small since I was a child went through was like chilling no one had made me feel that small since i was a child i'm trying to think i feel like if i got yelled at now at this age and at this level of uh life experience not like the person who i a stranger who i assumed yelled at me uh while i was crossing the street because that's a separate thing that's that's my uh constant need to be liked by everyone peeking its head uh that's i've upset this person in some way that i can't fix and that's uh devastating to me but if someone like was actually mad at me and wanted to yell at me i feel like my reactions would either be sad or laughing a lot because the idea of adults being so angry that they yell is very funny to me and

in a way that like maybe is emotionally detached i don't know it it it creeps into my mind a lot when you you see these viral clips of like matt gates or some other politician who is wearing a suit in a hearing and being like, where the hell do you get off? How dare you, sir? How absolutely dare you? And it's like, you're an adult. What are you doing? You're wearing like trousers.

What's going on? Why are you screaming like that? Stop it. I don't want to take anything away from people who are passionate about real issues, but yelling at a person feels so performative to me sometimes that I just feel like I don't have the fight reaction that I had when I was younger. Now I'm just like, look, you can be as mad at me as you want, but just like talk, be a person because you sound really silly. Now you sound like, like Yosemite Sam right now.

You understand that? I think maybe it may, you would like me. Probably. It might've been shamed out of you at a certain age where like, if I got really upset at my family when I was young, my dad and my brother would make me so ashamed of the fact that I had let myself get that riled up.

Like, what look at you? What are you doing? And they laughing at you when you're angry, there's nothing worse. And there's no worse feeling than someone laughing at you when you're feeling passionately about something. And so after a while, I was certainly growing up with three boys. There's you're bound to get angry at each other, but if you're not at the exact same level of anger, one of you looks very sick. Absolutely. And it's always the angry. And so you, I just learned not to, not to show anger out, uh, like a tremendous amount of anger all at once. Like if I'm mad at somebody, you, you

handle it in a very cool collected way because boy, losing your cool is very much means just that you are not cool when you are angry this podcast is brought to you by skillshare skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people explore new skills deep and existing passions and get lost in creativity a class i recently took dan was on illustration and it was a passion of mine when i was really young and then i just sort of like closed the door on that in my life, and I was like, I'm not particularly good at this, and gave up. But now that my son is into drawing,

I've gotten back into it. And it's actually very, very helpful to have a teacher basically teach you how to teach somebody else. I'm learning all about shading, I'm learning all about the, when you draw a face, my instinct is always to put the eyes at the top,

the nose in the middle, the mouth at the bottom. But it turns out you don't actually do that and that's not how faces look. Like the majority of your head is not face. The face only takes up the bottom third. And I had no idea. And it's making me feel like I'm actually an artist

and it's making my son, well, jury's still out. We don't know what he's gonna be yet uh where do the eyes go they kind of like right below the middle if you drew a cross section of a face the eyes go right underneath that that horizontal line so the whole bottom half of the face there's like that's a whole bottom half that's where the that's where the that's like the the big show? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, it's something I didn't realize. And when you do it and you actually draw it that way, you're like, oh yeah, this makes a lot more sense. It feels like I'm not trying to blame Skillshare or art, but it just seems like that's much of unused real estate, frankly. It's why they call it a forehead. Yeah. At a time when so many important conversations are happening in our world,

your voice is more essential than ever. Explore classes to unlock your creativity for social good. Skillshare offers creative classes designed for real life and all the circumstances that come with it. These lessons can help you stay inspired, express yourself, and introduce you to a community of millions. Skillshare offers membership with meaning. With so much to explore, real projects to create, and the support of fellow creatives, Skillshare empowers you to accomplish real growth. And I like, this is going to sound a little sappy. I genuinely feel that. When I do these classes, I'm like, when you're starting from scratch, that trajectory of how quickly you learn something, it makes you feel good again. It's like, you're not in school anymore. You're not learning

constantly. It's like this muscle that starts school anymore. You're not learning constantly. It's like this muscle that starts to atrophy. And as soon as you can start exercising it again, it feels great. Members get unlimited access to thousands of inspiring classes with hands-on projects from the community of millions. Skillshare is also incredibly affordable, especially when compared to pricey in-person classes and workshops. An annual subscription to it is less than ten dollars you can explore your creativity and get two free months of premium membership at skillshare.com slash qq that's two whole months of unlimited access to thousands of classes for free get started and join today

by heading to skillshare.com slash qq that's two free months of unlimited access to thousands of classes at skillshare.com slash QQ. I have a quick question for you. Yeah, go ahead. This is a weird one. Just any weird thing that you've witnessed but were not part of, just a wild random thing that you saw in your life that stuck with you. Ideally not like something horribly traumatic.

Yeah. Although mine kind of is. Mine, mine yeah i mean my mine's not mine's not sad trauma but it is like it was it definitely made an impact on me um do you want me to go first here i have one in mind i can go okay go ahead yeah um this is a thing that has stuck with me ever since i saw it um and uh i apologize if it upsets people it upset me at the time too but i was walking around new brunswick new jersey when i was going to rutgers university uh for college and was minding my own business walking around there's a dog walker who had become uh very familiar to me just because he always had like six dogs strapped to him at any given time he was just like a professional dog walker who was walking around with way too many dogs all the time and i just

saw him a lot i was like hey that's that's that very distinguishable person. And I was walking around George Street, and there were a bunch of pigeons. And one of his dogs, a golden retriever, went and darted at the pigeon and bit its head off. Whoa! And killed the pigeon. And then the other birds flew away. And then time stopped for three hours and we all just looked and there happened to be a cop who was walking around the street at the time and the

cop turned to the dog walker and said you can't let him do that and it was clearly not from a place of like according to this city ordinance dogs can't xyz it was just like i can't this can't be the world we're not allowed for this to happen and i'm upset and the dog walker was shaking his head like i know i didn't i'm also upset and if i can just project onto the dog a little bit the dog also seems like i'm as shocked as you guys are this is not the outcome that I was expecting I dove because I always dive I never thought I catch it now that I did and I found out this is what I'm like I'm very disappointed in myself and I agree that this is a problem for everyone and we all collectively was like let's all walk away and whatever role we played in this

let's not do it again and let's just all turn around and go our separate ways and then we all did that and it's just this very strange chaotic moment that no one expected to happen and no one knew how to handle the aftermath of it and we all just like collectively agreed okay so this is this is the end of sphere where we just decide to forget this yeah god that poor dog that dog must have been like guys this is not who i am you gotta believe me i thought i thought there were safeguards in place for this there's a a show that I watch called Alone, which I love very much. I think it's on the History Channel. And it's where they really put people out in Vancouver Island.

And they have to stay out there with nothing until they say, I need to come home. And whoever stays out there longest gets money. And Vancouver Island is famous for having a lot of bears, famous for having a lot of mountain lions. There's a woman out there who, I think she was in law enforcement or something like that. She can handle herself. She's great. She's really fun to watch. She's very cool. She knows what she's doing out there. And this bear just keeps sniffing around her tent and it keeps getting like encroaching on her territory. And generally black bears will just run away from you. But this one, for whatever reason is just like pushing her buttons.

And one night it's circling around her tent and she just lays into this bear. She just starts yelling at it and like telling it all the things she's going to do to it. And like that's like the bear understands. And I'm not sure the bear is still there. Like as soon as she started yelling, it's entirely possible that the bear just fucked off. But she's just yelling into the darkness about this violence she wants to commit. And at the end of it, she just starts crying and calls and says, I need to leave. Because she did not like who she was.

And she thought that that environment had brought it out of her and she didn't want to see it again. It's like she even scared herself into being like, I don't I don't want to be this. I feel like that's what happens when dogs actually kill an animal. They're like, OK, all right. I got to figure out what I am because. Right. All of the domestication has made me something completely different from this. Yeah.

It's very much like, oh, I never thought this would actually happen. I thought I was just playing and now i'm a monster i need to i think dog therapy is the thing for me can you set that up i don't have i would i would dial the number myself but i don't have listen i have uh no thumbs and no money please please help Please help me. Do something. I need help. That's a good one. Is that recent? No, if you were listening.

No, I don't. I was in college. I was wandering around New Brunswick, New Jersey at Rutgers University in college. I'm sorry. Did you say like last couple months?

Because you're not supposed to be around people with the COVID and everything, right? Okay. I'm not going to be around people and you with the covid and everything right okay um i'm not gonna yes and uh okay so i i have a thing it requires a little bit of backstory i the backstory is gonna end up being like so you know how when you reach seven you start parasailing yeah well get ready so we were doing that I can buckle in here Dan well when I was in college I famously went abroad first person in the world to do that it was a great idea everyone else has been doing it since I went to England and when I was in England I was on a thing called the

trampoline team and that meant that I I don't think you need to break it down that's not a complicated sequence of words that you just said. Okay, great. Moving on. I played Ultimate Frisbee while I was there. And they play indoors sometimes because it would snow. And when you play indoors, it's a huge gymnasium. And the huge gymnasium has like sections.

And in one of the sections, they were jumping on these Olympic-sized trampolines. And I was like, how do I get into that? I'm like, oh, that's the trampoline team. And I was like, I'm joining. And join this trampolines. And I was like, how do I get into that? I'm like, oh, that's the trampoline team. And I was like, I'm joining. And join this trampoline team. They find, I find out that we're going to a tournament in Dublin. And I'm like, fuck yeah. And it's also not necessarily super pertinent,

but this is me and then 11 girls on the trampoline team. Uh-huh, okay. Feels kind of perfect. And we're all going to Dublin. And I was like, this is going to be awesome. I can't wait. Because of all the trampolining and culture,

right? That's why you said it's going to be awesome? Yes. Well, it was also, the trampolining was only going to be for a day, but we were going to be in Dublin for three days. And I was like, this is going to be so fucking rad. And very excited. Before I i leave i'm telling other people in the ultimate frisbee team about it and they're like they're making jokes uh homophobic jokes about how every guy who does trampolining is gay and they're like just watch

just watch every guy you're gonna meet there is gonna be like all over you like the types of jokes you would make if you were homophobic or like anyone who's gay is gonna want me like that's just the way all they think about is sex sex sex with the same sex and uh there was a lot of that i brush it off uh i go to this tournament i meet other people there it's so much fucking fun it's so cool everybody's very cool there and fun and the other tramp leaners like the other boys all wear these unitards. I don't have one of those. I'm wearing like Umbro shorts and doing grabs and things like that. But they do these things called front summies with a full twist and things like that.

Here we call it a misty flip. But these guys were so good. They look like professionals in the Olympics. So we get done. Everybody goes out drinking afterwards and we're all sitting around and we're playing poker at a table to bar. And so it's a circular table and it has a circular booth that goes around it. And I'm playing with two other guys. Some other women are there and, uh, we're having a great time. Everyone's laughing. And I'm like, these guys are great.

Like I would tell my ultimate Frisbee friends, like, look, fuck you. Like everybody there is awesome. It's very cool. I, at one point, dropped my card, go to grab it from under the table and happened to look up and see under the table that the two guys are sitting next to each other. One of them's giving the other one a hand job in the bar, Dick Foley out, just giving him a hand job underneath the table.

I came back up and was so startled and embarrassed that I hadn't known what was going on before that point. Like I felt like everyone at the table knew at that point, except me and that I should have known. And I was like trying to get out of the situation, but it's a booth scenario. So I can't get out. I can't go under the table now. I can't go over. And I just sit there and I'm just like, can't not be not aware of it. Now I can see the arm, the shoulder moving. Now I can see it all. And I'm just like dying cannot be not aware of it now. I can see the arm, the shoulder moving now. I can see it all. And I'm just like dying for a way out of there.

And finally, I'm like, I need to pee. That's what I need to do. And they let me out. I go out of the booth. Just the idea of two people basically having sex near you is a very uncomfortable situation. Yeah, I don't think I'll ever be like free and and open and not prude enough that i'm uh not taken aback by anything sexual happening in the wild the time i was in

new orleans we went to bourbon street once just our first night to like get it out of our system and for anyone who doesn't know bourbon street is like the wild street everywhere in new orleans you walk around drinking openly in the streets. Everyone's drunk all the time. And people are flashing their bits and whatnot. And just to illustrate exactly how much I can't hang, it's my first night. I'm walking around and a woman a few yards in front of us pulled her pants down because she wanted to pee on the side of the road. And as soon as I saw that happen, I said out loud, oh no, a butt, because I was very shocked.

The way that someone would be like, shark, you know, because like, this isn't a thing I'm supposed to see this close to me normally. Yeah, it's almost like even when people have chosen the circumstances in which they're going to be nude in public, I'm still, the Pearl Graspy part of me is still like, no, no, no, that's not for everyone. That's something intimate. That's something you share with the people you like the most. that's a, that's something intimate. That's something you share with the people you like the most. Um, it was a, it was a really, really startling experience that I didn't think could possibly happen. I I've also been in a circumstance where I've been peeing in a stall before, and I've heard people having sex in the, in the stall over at like a bar and been so, I don't,

my first reaction, by the the way is always humiliation i don't know why it's like yeah my own humiliation for having stumbled into the circumstance like it's my fault that i got there i i i feel that as well like everybody else knows why didn't i fucking know i'm not supposed to be here um right if i had walked into um my apartment and two strangers were having sex in it i would say oh my god i'm so sorry this is so rude of me this is there's there's gatorade in the fridge for when you're done and i'm again this is on me i'm sorry i'll wait in the hallway is that my suit yeah it was a really startling awful experience that's all I got to say about it though yeah all right it's good I'm glad like so we're both clearly riddled with issues about public nudity and,

and public sex. But I appreciate us both. Like you didn't call the cops or anyone. Like I'm like, I, I don't want to shame anyone who takes their butt out in New Orleans if they're happy to do that. I,

I do in my core feel like, Oh, I'm, I'm the one who has the issue here because like, it's an adult doing a thing they want to do on purpose. I don't feel in the right to be, like, mad about it. Right. No, that's certainly not my first instinct is never anger at them.

Yeah. It's always like, oh, I got to deal with this. This is my thing. I didn't wake up today thinking i was gonna see a butt so now i have to like change the rest of my night um i i saw another thing do you want to i can tell you another one really quick if you want yeah absolutely um i was i ain't got shit to do probably like 20 and i was flying from color to LA and in the air in DIA, there were a group of kids that had been on some trip together, like high school age. And they'd gone somewhere. I don't, I don't fucking know where this might've been Raya for all or whatever.

What was your thing called? Rila. Rila. It might've been that. Cause they all, there's clearly like some bonding it happened between all these kids and they were so it the only people in the world that mattered to them were them like they were loud they were uh laughing and running around and kind of like running into people and stuff like that just like this airport was theirs and i was getting sort of pissed off at these kids quietly because they were being so rambunctious and already I was an old man. And, uh, I didn't notice it at the time, but these

kids had all been there together and then they were going there separate. They all had their flights home. So they weren't all flying on the same plane. They were just all been hanging out together until their flights would come. And then they would peel off to go to their respective flights in other terminals. And I didn't realize realize at the time but there were two kids that were clearly like in love for the first time and they were quietly spending time these last few moments together they had met on this trip it looked like they liked each other a lot and just like trying to savor what they could with one another. And then one of them went to her flight and the boy was just like crying and crying.

And then I watched the craziest thing. I watched two people run at each other in an airport. I watched him just get up and decide he's going to go get her. Him start running towards her. Her coming down the conveyor belt, the other direction, also in tears. And like those two meeting on a conveyor belt, holding each other as they just sort of like

drift listlessly down this hallway of windows. And everyone around is just like feels it at once. It's not like, and nobody's laughing at them. Nobody's embarrassed for them. Everybody who sees it is just like touching their chest. Like, oh my God. And of course, you know, it's high school love. So it doesn't, it's just the first time you feel that shit.

It doesn't actually mean anything. They didn't stay together. But it's, to watch it happen in real time was like, everyone was right there with them. And they're like, oh my God. Oh, good for them. That's lovely. Yeah. It was a really with them. And they're like, oh, oh my God. Oh, good for them. That's lovely. Yeah, it was a really great moment.

Well, I don't know how we're going to top that with anything. So we might as well just wrap the show up. I'm going to track down all the social accounts. While I'm doing that, we should probably fill the time. So Soren, if you don't mind, you'll be doing that. him doing that we should probably fill the time so soren if you don't mind you'll be doing that um we've talked a lot about um you know like the the dreams of what that dog wanted the the dreams of those kids who are brave enough to share their love out loud in front of strangers um it's just seemed to have been a theme of the podcast. So I was wondering, Soren, what dreams personally have you given up on?

That's a great question. I wanted to be an actor at one point in my life. When I first graduated from college, I thought that's what I was going to be. And I started going on auditions. that's what I was going to be. And I started going on auditions and I had a job that was not a job that was helping me build any particular skillset in my life. It was just a job that would let me leave occasionally to go try and be an actor. I would leave and go sit in traffic for two hours, go to a pizza hut audition where I pretended to be a disembodied head who went, that's delicious. And then drove two hours

back to my job and then never heard from them again. And during this time, I had a girlfriend who was looking at everyone else around us who were clearly working their way up at careers that they liked and building skill sets. And she was too. And then here's this guy who's just working this job, just sort of like hoping to win the lottery one day, which is kind of what it feels like to be an actor. And I realized this is not going to work. And so I quit. I gave up on acting and never went back i mean except of course when we did cracked and then i acted a lot so the question was dreams plural gave up on my dreams to be an actor decided that wasn't for me plural that's that's oh that's only one? Yeah. Okay. Another dream was I really wanted to meet Kirby Puckett.

He was a big hero of mine when I was a kid. Number 34 from the Minnesota Twins. Helped win the 1987 and 1982 World Series. And wanted to meet him so badly. Wanted to go to a Fruit League game, which was spring training, because that's where they do a lot of their signing of autographs and everything. Wait, so did you give up on that dream or did he just fucking die? I gave up on it before he died. But yes, he is dead.

Gave up on it before he died. But I remember lying in bed one night, my wall covered in Kirby Puckett paraphernalia and thinking, I'm never in my life going to meet Kirby Puckett. It's just not going to happen. And I gave up. I wasn't going to try anymore. I had been saving up to go to Florida for a Fruit League game,

and I was just like, you know what? It's not in the cards. I don't ever get to meet my hero and gave up. Well, you can find the show at twitter.com slash qq underscore soren and dan or you could find me at dlb underscore inc or soren at soren underscore ltd or our absent cfo michael at make me bacon please uh you can find and hire our engineer producer editor gabe harder at gabe harder.com uh we have a patreon you can support if you want, but honestly the best way to support this show is to download it

and tell your friends to download it and tell your enemies to download it. Yeah, get them on board. Find some sort of common connection between the two of you and don't live in hate. Live in love, man. Live in love, yeah and uh that's that's good and don't hey don't be like soren don't give up on your dreams there's so many more than that all right bye see ya