Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - QQ ep 74 - The Infinite Jest of QQ episodes

Episode Date: January 29, 2021

In this episode the guys talk about which books they lie about having read, and Soren gives Dan tips about contributing to a new community! And as always big thanks to our sponsors.  Thanks to Audible, Visit Audible.com/qq or text QQ to 500-500 to start your free 30-day trial. And Thanks to FEALS.  Become a member today by going to Feals.com/qq and get 50% off your first order with free shipping. 

Hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers answer all of life's questions with the glaring exception of who is this podcast for? I am one half of the show bass player, bass catcher, boss saver, and podcaster Daniel O'Brien and I am joined as always by my co-host who you might know better as Meaners Badso, Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, make me proud. Hello everybody.

I am Soren Bui and yes, I make me proud. Hello, everybody. I am Soren Bui. And yes, I am an extraordinary performer. I am a character actor. I am an extraordinary writer, a comedic genius. But more important than all of that is, you know, that superficial stuff is that I was handsome once. Wow. Now I'm more like a graying Joffrey with a neck that's sort of growing and a chin that's shrinking somehow. Like the bone structure is changing.

But I don't know. I feel like I deserve something for having been handsome, like an honorary discharge for my service to that community or something. Yeah. So do you think like I'm trying to fast forward to when your kids are in their teens and 20s and like going through, I guess it won't be old photo albums, but like going through whatever we do to show the past and the future. If your kids are like, are you going to feel good if your kid is like, wow, you were handsome? Or is it going to be be is that when you're gonna learn that you're not handsome anymore like what what do you mean it was tell me you wouldn't fuck me right now look at me watch me do some push-ups um no i think i'd know by then i

mean i'm already it's it's clear to me like i had this thought the other day while i was sitting in my car and caught my own reflection in my mirror and thought it's never going to look better than it does today. Like, uh, yeah. Where I was like, you know,

for long period of your life, you're growing towards your, your peak. And then like after a certain point, death has its fingerprints on you. I'm graying. Um, my hair's thinning.

I'm I it's hard. My metabolism is slowing. Like I may be unhappy with parts of my body today, but then I just think to myself, well, this is going to be as good as it gets for the rest of your life today. Like it only goes downhill from here. I think one of the things that I think

puts you at an advantage over me, one of the things, but like you, because time comes for all of us and death comes for all of us you will you have you met colleen when you were when you were like young and handsome and fit and and and and doing things you know you would like you would like like trot and sniff the air i was a young buck yeah yeah exactly that um As a single person now, I feel like I shouldn't be penalized, nor should anyone else who's out there in the dating world, if we put pictures of ourselves when we were a little bit younger in our dating profiles, on our Tinders and our hinges and whatnot. our hinges and whatnot. Like I'm, I'm not, I don't think it's, if it's cheating or lying, if one of my pictures is from a couple of years ago when I was indoor rock climbing and I had

muscles that are better than I have now, because like, Hey, if we end up together, we could just like pretend that's our shared history. Of course. I don't think there's any problem with that, especially given the current circumstances where no one's allowed to leave their house to do anything remotely active. Yeah. We're like, nobody's looking their best right now. No, if I find love with someone, I think we should both be able to say like, yeah, but look at us when we were 22, we didn't know each other, but like, this is our shared past somehow. Yeah. This existed. I mean, you can still see the remnants of it today. One day we'll show it to our kids and they'll be like, man, how come you guys never have pictures of you two together at your peak?

Look. Oh, don't worry about that. She was taking the picture. I'm not going to go to Troy and be like, what the fuck is just a bunch of rubble here? I'm going to go to Troy and I'm going to be like, I know what once was here. That's so exciting to me.

Thanks to Feels for supporting our show. Feels has me feeling my best every day and it can help you too. Become a member today by going to feels.com. That's F-E-A-L-S.com slash QQ. And you'll get 50% automatically taken off of your first order with free shipping. Boom. Thank you Audible for supporting Quick Question. Visit audible.com slash QQ or text QQ to 500-500 to start your free 30-day trial today. Let's get into the show where we ask each other questions and give each other answers. This is normally when we do a quick COVID update, but my first question sort of uh extends from that covet update i have

uh temporarily relocated for a few months it's like a like a like not just a week's vacation or anything like that i just i can work from home and i have been so boxed in by the city that I rented a beach house in a quiet Jersey beach town. I'm immediately happier. It's a three bedroom, two bathroom house with lots of room for me to run and play. And I get to go to the beach with my dog every morning and watch the sunrise. It's an amazing quality of life jump. And the thing that I, the question that I have for you is because I know when you got your first house that you. Hold on. Before you go any further. I don't want to qualify that. I don't own multiple houses.

I had a house moved. I got a new one. Sure. Yes. Starter house new one. Yes. Starter house? No. Is that also bad? I think you're not allowed to say that.

Yeah. Okay. So when you got a house, you became like, once you had your first kid, I'm allowed to say first kid, right? Okay, good. Once you had your first kid i'm allowed to say first oh yeah right okay good once you had your first kid starter kid rather prototype um you got to be a part of that community like you were you were with the other neighborhood families taking the kids on like trips to to disney or california adventure the zoo that's the one. And I was wondering if before that you did

anything to be part of that community. Because I'm a very community-minded person. Like when I was in LA, there was volunteer opportunities to get to know other people and there was like, I was part of like the biking community

because you can just go to meetings and like hang out with other people who ride bicycles and talk about how the streets aren't safe enough for bicycles and, and, and pretend you made real change. I don't really have any of that in Manhattan. Cause it's it's a hell hole and I hate it. And now I'm in this wonderful, quiet beach town. And I so desperately while I'm here want to want to like be a uh a townsperson yeah i i i want to go to meetings and and and like be mad at the same

things and be excited about the same things and i don't know how to do it yeah yeah yeah okay um what you're describing is the most try hardiest part of my personality that I discovered when I bought a new house. And like a part of me that I was like, well, I have to learn how to tone this down. Whenever I entered new community, I man, do I want to like,

I want to fall into fast friendships with everybody there and be part of the in jokes and like, know what's going on in the community and like, no, the like, Oh, in this community, like we laugh about the people who are scared of coyotes or like whatever the fuck it is

but uh i that's how like when i started at my job at american dad everything went so poorly because i was like so quick to be like no i'm part of this please but yeah i moved into my new house and like it was our it was our stated goal for moving in that we were going to ingratiate ourselves to this neighborhood as fast as we possibly could like that we're going to be part of this community and like prove we are good neighbors god damn it and the first thing i did was uh there was an old basketball hoop in front of my house and there's like the road in front of my house when i moved in and there was a uh it was the backboard was all fucked up the the rim was bent um no net or anything and i asked some of the kids in the neighborhood is this yours none of them claimed

ownership of it over it but they would sometimes go out there and play on it and uh i was like oh i got it so i bought the pieces that it needed to be redone you can just buy individual pieces and once i had the serial number, it was easy to just like get a new backboard, get a hoop. And I can't, sorry, I can't pass up an opportunity. This would have been for a hard right turn for your character. And it was like, so I asked the kids if it belonged to any of them. And they said, no, but they played on it anyway. So like, I know what I'm going to do. And I called the cops and those kids never came near that hoop again. Well, my first thought was I should trash it then. And I was like, well, wait a second. That is not,

that's not a neighborly thing to do. Um, and so I fixed it up, left it in front of my house and just fix it up. And like some people in the neighborhood caught notice of that. And they're like, that's a very cool thing to do. Um, and then we would go on just walks, tons and tons of walks. Even before I had my child, we would be out there in tons and tons of walks even before i had my child we would be out there in the streets so that we're actually like integrate engaging with people and that they see our faces um and it was it was so important to me when i moved into my new neighborhood um and i would say that the ways to do that are you're suggesting meetings which you know that's forced interaction that's a great way to do it if you can find them i guess next door would be where you'd find out where that shit's happening

so here's a thing uh i joined next door in manhattan because i was curious about it and if i'm being totally honest i thought i am looking forward to hearing uh from local lunatics right and i was not to support it. Nextdoor is a great resource. There was a woman who posted on Nextdoor and it was like, all caps, DON'T FALL FOR THIS SCAM! I was driving on Amsterdam and 46th and someone told me to pull my car over

because they said there was smoke coming out of it. So I pulled my car over. Then they opened my hood and banged under the hood with pliers and then said, that'll be 280 it's a scam don't give them the money and i and the rest of manhattan was like don't worry about it lady i think they i think they got the one person who's gonna fall for that scam the rest of us were fine we're not running the risk of having that issue lurking on next door

is one of my favorite pastimes it's wonderful but when i relocated temporarily to this little ocean town i thought like i want to like in earnest be a good next door neighbor and see i know there's because of covet there's not going to be like town hall meetings but i still wanted to like connect in whatever way i could and here's some bullshit about next door is that i just went on their website and was like i'm relocating i'm here now uh and let me verify that and they're like okay well we can't verify it um through your email or through your phone because it's the past somehow and i was like okay that's fine how do i how do i prove that i'm i'm here now for the next three months and they said we can only do it if we send you a telegram what i know and i was like next door don't don't do that

like i i just like take my word for it that i i live here and they're like well do you have a utilities bill no i'm renting from someone and i don't want to get them involved already i feel very strange that i'm not going to go to like the person who owns this building and be like, hey, can you, can you tell this website that I live here for three months? Or like, they're going to, they're going to mail a telegram to the mailbox that the, that you control, like the homeowner controls the mailbox and it's, and it's locked. So I can't access it. I can just like, if I'm getting a package, I could tell Amazon or whomever very specific instructions on where to leave it. I can just like, if I'm getting a package, I can tell Amazon or whomever, very specific instructions on where to leave it. And that's how I get my packages. But the mail, like no one is sending me mail here. And I don't want to have to tell the homeowner like, hey, I'm going to need you to travel every day to see if this telegram shows up and then give me the

telegram. And so I can put in the verification code that's on the telegram into nextdoor.com not going to do any of that so i can't do nextdoor out here a huge blind spot for nextdoor that people aren't allowed i know temporarily move i mean you've got snowbirds you got people who like live in one place in one season another place in another they're not allowed to use next door at both of them i know and like nextdoor you're an app you're gonna run out of your target audience uh it's increasingly not going to be homeowners right it's going to be weird weird nomads who rent like me forever as you're talking i'm also thinking man next door is not the place to go and make friends maybe this is the best i mean you might hear about these events where people are going to come to talk about how they want to build a gate.

Never when the community gets a say in it. I'm not sure those are the people you want to be affiliating with. Sure. Man, it's tough in COVID. I think you have to just make your presence known by being in the streets. You got to get out there, man. You got to get boots on the ground. You run you're allowed to i run and there's a local running club that i'm going to try to to uh join like i like sneak my way in because a lot of running

clubs you have to pay for it and i don't know if i'm going to pay a year club membership for three months of course of getting my ass handed to me by people who run all the time god this is you might have already this might be in the back of your mind but what you essentially have is when you were a kid and you went for summer break to i don't know cape cod i don't know where real people go for summer uh i guess the jersey shore and like yeah wildwood new jersey and suddenly you make the best friend of your life there, or you meet a girl there, and it's this real seminal summer for you. And are you trying to grab for that at all? Is that what this is? No, I'm not trying to fall in love or anything like that.

I'm genuinely like, after living in one of two large cities for as long as i have i i really like suburban neighborhood life and like i when i moved into this place i i brought like i set it up real nice for any guests that i have i have like guest towels that i bought specifically for that and i brought a bunch of my own pictures of my friends and families to hang out and like really nest here i truly just want to cosplay yeah being like a suburban guy for a while like i like no one needs to know that i work uh for a tv show and like a fancy job i could just be a normal person who lives in a quiet town and lives a quiet life and like and like i don't know it does like potlucks and stuff it's all like very like i'm just obsessed with normcore no life right now it's just like i just want to

like like get as many of the ingredients to being a dad as i possibly can except for a pretty crucial one you're gonna have to fake a kid dan i know, God, man, put some toys out in the front yard and just like move them around every once in a while. And then whenever you're talking to people, you're like, ah, the kid. And then you just never reveal, no one ever sees the child. Yeah. I'll get a bunch of stock photos of a kid and hang them up in the house and be like, oh yeah, he's with his mother this weekend.

Honestly, it's a huge break for me. You what i'm saying yeah it's it's tough she gets him weekends and days and i get him nights and that's when he sleeps so that's why he's never around tell you i would move out of the city in a heartbeat if i wasn't if i could just you know if my kid could just come with me but i gotta be close to him it's hard in the city yeah it's tough his school's in hell's kitchen weirdly me and a couple other parents are going in on it like we started this little charter uh oh damn i think that might be the solution um i don't know i do see people out in the streets ever or is it too cold for that uh i do i mean it is cold but i still do see that and there are a couple other people

who bring their dogs on the beach and they run around uh in the morning but like no one wants to talk at right 6 30 in the morning not with what the dog's running around and like i see some people who get coffee at the same coffee place that i go to and they're all friends and i just just like just like me too like like maybe if i just get coffee from that same place around the same time eventually someone will say hi to me you're on a you're on a shortened timeline here um because i i think about it like at the gym like you don't know anybody at your gym until you go every single day. And suddenly you're just friends with these people because of proximity. Right.

Man, you may have to do that. That try hardiest thing where you just go up to them and be like, hey, I see you guys here a lot. My name is Daniel. Nice to meet you. Yeah. This is I wish I could I could bake because baked goods is a thing that makes more sense to like give out. Like no one walks around. I'm like, I made too much monogat. Will you have some? bake because baked goods is a thing that makes more sense to give out. No one walks around and I'm like, I made too much monogat. Will you have some?

If I was a guy who baked too many muffins, I'd be like, what am I going to do with all these muffins? Here, neighbor, take them. But I can't. I tried. I can't make muffins. Baking's off the table, but you don't have any fruit trees or anything there, right? No. I don't even know what you can anything there, right? No. Fuck.

I don't even know what you can grow around that area. Because you can also lie about it. I know. And there's like, I'm hoping that we have such a mild winter that I can do some grilling. Because then that's a thing. Like there's a grill in the backyard. And I could just start grilling. And people can walk by and be like, hey, that guy sure is grilling a lot for one person and a dog.

I like that. Let's investigate that. I presume it's for the dog as well. Yeah. He's having a party too. Okay. Or I'm also, and this is again, like I'm fingers crossed for a lot of things to break my way. I'm going fishing Sunday, and I hope that I catch enough fish that I will then be seen cleaning them in the backyard of this home. Like cleaning and filleting fish outside.

Because then someone will have to talk to me, right? If I'm covered in blood and holding a knife. I see no problem with this. Surely people will walk by if for no other reason than to say, hey, buddy, can I stop you? I do like that your plan for meeting people is to gut something in front of them.

Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of exposure in that backyard, I guess, huh? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Is there an alley? No. What do you mean? What if I'd said yes?

Behind the house. Like, is there like a communal space behind the house where that's like? No, no. Gosh, you know, this is what I would do do and it's not the right choice so do what i do listen listen the answer to beat is skin of fish in my backyard in 19 degree weather i would set up a conspicuous slackline because because for anyone who doesn't know what a slack line is, it's a piece of climbing webbing that you attach,

you fix between two solid points, and then you walk on it like a tightrope. It's a fun little activity. It's fun to try, especially if you're bad at it. And everybody will stop. Everybody wants to know what it is. Absolutely. Everybody wants to try it.

Everybody's kid wants to get on it. It just brings people in very quickly when did you bring that to my apartment it wasn't thanksgiving was it was a super bowl super bowl that's right it was halftime and you set up a slack line halftime of the super bowl outside and just some random person neither of us had met obviously walked by smoking weed just sees us walking on this thing it was like can can i do that and we're like yeah absolutely you can absolutely but there's an intimacy to it as well because they when they first try it they can't do it so you'll give them the opportunity you just hold their hand while they walk it yeah and so like already just just like that contact

there's a sunk cost investment in touching another human being where you're like i guess i know this person now right um it's and it's and because no one is good at it like even you're the best one i know at it and and you're not doing like flips you're not doing tricks or anything there's uh it's it's universal for a group of people to all be bad at a thing like just take turns failing at this and trying and laughing together. Oh, that is a good idea. Also, people that see you doing it and see that you're like struggling with it, but it's something that you're sticking to,

there's like a real character to that, to picking something up that's useless, but being like, I want to just get good at this thing. And then if they, over time, do see you getting better, oh man, they're going to love you. You're the hero of the story then, because you've got an arc. That's better.

So I don't have a slack line, but I do have like a camping hammock, but I can't do that. Like I can't set up a hammock and wait for passersby and then be like, do you want to try the hammock? That's good. I'll hold your hand. Dude, you're not. I'll hold your hand when you do it. A slack line is not cost prohibitive, my friend.

They're pretty cheap. But honestly, I don't know. I think that that would be my first instinct. I had a really similar dilemma when I went abroad for a semester and went to a school. I didn't know anybody. And I went the second semester and it was like the first time in my life where I was coming into a place where everybody knew each other already. They had their groups. And I was just like, please, somebody be my friend.

And they were, you know, everybody's got their groups. They're like, nah, I mean, you're nice, but I'm not going to make an effort to try and hang out with you. Sure. And how desperate I was to like try and make a friend. And so what I did was just joined every single group I could think of. So like the same way that you're thinking of the running club, like you find out there are people playing, I don't know if it might be too cold for this, but like playing ultimate on Saturdays, or you find out that there's a church group or whatever it is that like,

you want to get involved in that specifically in that community and then you sign up for all the shit yeah yeah okay all right that's my you got some wheels moving yeah honestly i think maybe town council is the wrong way to go though that's the wrong crowd yeah yeah yeah all right there's a on one of my walks there's a like a yarn and and fabric shop that always seems to be open uh i'll just go in there and start start you know grab some string and just start fucking twisting it up. See what happens. See if someone is like, hey, you should do that with us. God, that's actually a really good idea.

We have like a weekly craft group. I think you should walk in there and be like, I'm going to be honest with you. I'm totally at a loss. I'm really looking at the idea of getting into knitting or like cross-stitching or whatever the fuck it is. Where you're like, I want to loom. And they're going to be like, we will help you. It's old people too. Like that's, that feels like your thing.

Oh, I know man. Slot right in. I think that's a good idea. All right. Well. All right, great. Problem solved then. That's good news.

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That's F-E-A-L-S dot com slash QQ to become a member and get 50% automatically taken off of your first order with free shipping. Feels.com slash QQ. I have a question for you. Go ahead. What's a thing? So what's a thing? Okay. Shrimp okay um shrimp okay so problems uh that one's baskets oh that's oh okay what's a a book that you have never read but that you reference all the time

as though you have read it oh um there are a couple uh i'm gonna out myself now for anyone whom i've done this to i've used infinite jest somewhat derisively and i don't even know what i mean when i use it like i couldn't tell you like like honestly bare bones couldn't tell you it's a novel or a series of essays or an autobiography. I know I've narrowed it down. I know it's not a cookbook. And I know it's at the moment very popular to dunk on, but I don't know enough about it to dunk on it with any accuracy. accuracy but like i have very often when i'm talking about a book i've read that i didn't love uh or a book i've read that's very long in both of those cases i will qualify it with i mean it's not infinite jest but it's not my favorite it's not infinite jest but you can get through it it's fair to call that like a

like a collection of footnotes that's a fair thing a fair assessment of that book really yeah it's just tons and tons like that's almost like the point of it is that it's a bunch of footnotes man i mean i never put too much thought into figuring out what it was but i'm still way off. But that's a great one. That's a great one because you know, you're like your fingers on the pulse as far as how culture feels about infinite jest right now. Yeah. And that's all that really matters.

Right. And just and describing it, describing something else by saying it's not infinite jest usually leads to no follow up questions. Someone is just like, got it. Because either they didn't read it or they have a dim opinion of it or they don't even need to have an opinion of it. Just like saying it's not infinite jest is enough of a descriptor for literally any book except infinite jest, I guess.

Yeah. And the other books that I haven't read that I talk about because they're both books that I own't read that I talk about because they're both books that I own are Ronan Farrow's books the the the war on peace and catch and kill uh colon much longer title and these are books that I know are important and he's and he's done a lot of great work for the the me too movement uh i i'm very supportive which is why i own these books they're also very long and i do a thing which is sort of the opposite of infinite

jest where uh i reference it in a positive way but still in a way that invites no further discussion like i i will if someone is talking about me too then i can say have you read catch and kill and if they say yes i'm like so good right what did you think and then they get to go and people love to talk so i'm i'm just giving you the gift of talking now and all i have to do is not until it's my turn to talk about something else uh and if they say no then i can say oh you gotta it's totally relevant to what we're talking about you'd love it let's go get some snacks in the kitchen i will not etc i will not elaborate further i don't want to ruin it for you yeah you just the key yeah you're as long you're always allowed to say that and that's your out when they're like ask you any more

questions well i don't want to i don't want to ruin it for you. And those books, especially because I could say, oh, I'll lend it to you. And then I give it to them. And then if they ever give it back to me, I could just take it and say, right? And then we're both gentlemen about it. We never have to talk about what was in the book. That's a good one. what was in the book that's a good one there was that just reminds me of uh this woman i met years and years ago who was uh just like like dated very intensely for like a weekend just like

like three wonderful days and uh and she gave me a book at the end of it and she was like read read this book and because she lived somewhere else so she just went somewhere else and gave me the book and i tried reading it and it sucked and then like months later i finally worked with the courage to be like i hated that stupid fucking hedgehog book that you got me why did you want me to read it and she goes oh i don't know i never read it i just it was it was the book i brought on my vacation to la and i wanted to give you something so i gave you that is it not good like no it's bad was it the literary adaptation of the sonic the hedgehog movie it was it's not good yeah even in the book the teeth were wrong i got something weird about the mouth i can't explain it um That's, God, I love it.

I love it when people give you books that they themselves haven't read. But I guess there's no real way of ever knowing that unless they really come clean. Now, you and I have given each other books before. Oh, shit. No, I haven't read it yet. I'm sorry, man.

Hold on, there's been several. There's, I gave you Gates of Eden, which you did read, and you liked a lot you gave me a book that i've forgotten the name of now where there's like an assassin who goes on a mountain climbing trip and has to figure out who on the trip is a spy and kill him uh the eiger sanction eiger sanction it was great it was like a real page turner it was very fun and uh you've also given me some mike sacks books. I still have one of them, by the way. I never gave back to you, which is Poking a Dead Frog.

Okay. And then I also gave you London Fields. That one I have not read. That's fine. It's in perfect condition in my home. So you never even cracked it? No. That makes me feel better, actually, because London Fields is, as you know my favorite book i know i know and so

if you read it and read some of it and you're like no and just gave it up i would be like ah now i gotta reevaluate some things either the book or the friendship goes no and i'm trying to to to remember why i didn't read it it might it might be a boring reason like i was reading something else at the time or it might just be the pressure of like because because sometimes you used to send me before we were as close as we are now you would send me articles that you read online and they weren't like comedy articles they were just things you'd send me and i'd be like why did you do this and you were like you know it's i'm i was just thinking about it it made me think i'm i'm i'm this age and this

article made me think about the experience that i'm going through as a person this age thinking of these thoughts that i have and i thought you'd be able to relate and i just remember being like oh no i'm not I'm not either like intelligent intelligent or emotionally intelligent to respond to this in the way that he wants me to because I just read it waiting for a punchline that didn't come

so like I'm worried that I would read London Fields and at the end of it I would walk away from it being like yeah those fields man oof lush is that what you liked about it? the lushness? you're lucky I would walk away from it being like, yeah, those fields, man. Oof. Lush. Is that what you liked about it? The lushness?

You're lucky. The fields? You're lucky that is what I like about the book. Oh, thank God. Yeah, I do remember. I'd send you essays and things like that and be like, I don't know. I just really like it. Do you want to talk about it? No.

There's nothing funny in it right i'm sure it would just be like yeah man i would i would absolutely love to talk about that hey let's go to the kitchen and grab some snacks that was a lot that was a lot to put on you i'm realizing um i don't know why i do that because it was and because it was it was things that are like how do we how does a writer stay creative in modern times there were they were things like that or like an essay that would make me confront the idea of of my own mortality and i would just read it and be like yeah man that's soren he really feels things those those essays i'd better get out of here if anyone is curious

about reading those that's how do we We Write Now by Patricia Lockwood. And the other one I think is Sometimes They Don't Survive, I think was the name of it. And it was a New York Times article. And yes, it was very much like, I don't know. I think it comes from in school reading stuff. And when I had nothing to do but think about the things I was reading for school. And I just sit there and really try and think things through all the way and I would get really mad at people who didn't like when people would like look at something and they just sort of like

they'd brush it off without giving it much thought at all like a like a kid playing with a toy I'm like I don't get how it works and so I would sit there and I would just think forever about stuff and if there was stuff I hated about it oh that was even better because i would sit there and be like why do i hate it is that intentional and honestly that's what led to my career cracked was right with just doing that for so long it's like that that like mental masturbation of like oh what do i like about this what don't i like why don't i like it do you think the author meant me not to like it and like uh i i thought oh other people must do this as well and i was like trying to feed them i love that that around the time that you were doing this when we were both in like our mid early 20s in los angeles and you're sending me these articles to get me to think and to get me

to engage my cultural equivalent to that was like, hey, Soren, come get drunk with me on a Sunday afternoon and then let's watch Paranormal Activity in the daytime. That was a good day. It was fun. That's my speed. That was great. Yeah, we went and watched a horror movie.

First, we went to our boss's house for a little bit and then we watched a horror movie in the middle of the day. Right. We didn't leave at the end of the party. It was just like, I don't want to be here anymore. Let's watch Paranormal Activity. Yeah. Well, I have a lot of speeds, I think.

I think you do probably, too. Audible has plenty of content to entertain, inspire, and inform. It's easy to find just the right listen, whether it's comedy, romance, suspense, true crime, science fiction, or fitness and wellness. There is a listen for every moment and every mood and so much to discover. With everything all in one place, Audible can truly become your playlist for life.

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And now podcasts. Hey, that's what we are. All members have access to the growing plus catalog with thousands of select originals, audio books, audiobooks, and podcasts, all included with membership. You can start exploring Audible now with a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash QQ

or text QQ to 500-500. Audible Plus members have full access to the Plus catalog and you can listen all you want to thousands of included titles to use your audible membership you'll need to download the free audible app to any smartphone or tablet and you can even listen to cross devices like Amazon Alexa enabled devices without losing your spot soren and I both love audible um and you can get great podcasts or books on there you can get uh they told me to pick a book at random you can get how to fight presidents written by Daniel O'Brien on audible it is narrated

by the incomparable Richard McGonigal who is it's honestly one of my favorite things about this silly book that I wrote is that they got Richard McGonigal who narrated American Lion the the biography of andrew jackson and a bunch of like kennedy books this very serious man who is like known in the audiobook narration field for the gravitas that he carries and brings to every book he narrated my silly nonsense book where i made him say a bunch of curse words and stuff about presidents who poop themselves to death so check it out how to How to Fight Presidents narrated by Richard McGonigal. You could also check out Sherlock Holmes narrated by Stephen Fry, which is super

cool. And Soren, do you have any recommendations? London Fields, my favorite book of all time. Don't know who's narrating it. If I had to guess, I would say Michael Caine, Sir Michael Caine. Okay. Well, I don't think we're allowed to guess, but there are plenty of great titles you can listen to on Audible right now. You can listen to A Promised Land by Barack Obama. Heard of it? You could listen to all three of the Lord of the Rings books right now with Audible. Lord of the Rings, that thing that I just got into. You are going to love Audible. Visit audible.com slash QQ or text qq to 500-500 to start your free 30-day trial that's 500-500 text qq to that number and start your free 30-day trial today

um the books that i have always claimed to read, well, one of them is actually technically a play, but I talk a lot about Hamlet and I've never once read Hamlet. I have like a very basic understanding and not even, I wouldn't even say like cliff notes understanding of what actually happens in the story of Hamlet. But anytime that there's somebody who's like paralyzed by their indecision or that they're like they're vacillating about something and it seems like it's like that just trying to decide is what's actually hurting them the most i'm like fucking hamlet all the way what are you doing hamlet can't make up your mind need a skull to think about it like i i i reference it all the time in fact to the point where on my sat2s, did you have to take those?

They're still around when you came up. I mean, I feel like there were so many SATs, PSATs, GEPAs, ACTs. Yeah. I don't think SAT2s were in my curriculum. For us, it was you had to take the SATs and you took the SAT 2s. And SAT 2s were more focused. You could choose what study you wanted to focus on your SAT 2s. And it would help you determine also when you went to college

whether you could skip some prerequisites there. So if you did math and you did Spanish and you did well enough on your SAT twos, then you don't have to go through like Spanish one-on-one. Oh, okay. And they also, the colleges look at it. They want to see how proficient you are at like the subjects that you seem to

show a passion for. Was that, did you also have AP classes in high school? Not in my high school. No. Okay. I wonder if that, if that was our substitute for SAT twos.

Could have been. Yeah. It was when I, when when i took them i took them in uh literature and i want to say science but that can't possibly be right um and when i did it in literature i wrote about hamlet in that and at the time i was like oh man like as soon as I started writing and like the pencil had already been committed to paper for a paragraph I was like I can't stop now and so I just started writing about Hamlet and I was like I fucking I don't know man and then got the

responses back and did very very well on my SAT twos and from that point on I was invincible I was like fantastic my understanding of Hamlet is bulletproof I'm sure it was also just some ta somewhere reading it and being like i don't know i don't get this i'm sure it's fine yeah i didn't read it either and so uh i now i talk about hamlet all the time like i feel i want to apologize for anyone listening to this that i know in my life who have like been like you know what this sounds like? It sounds a lot like Hamlet because I've never read the shit.

I have read it. I studied Shakespeare because Rutgers, we were very lucky to have one of the best Shakespeare professors alive. He's probably dead now. Rest in power, Professor Laveau, assuming that's your name and you're dead uh and i i really liked it i also wanted to be someone who um would occasionally quote shakespeare yeah but like not

be an asshole about it and my inspiration for that was sea biscuit nick no oh it was a Nick Offerman interview on the short lived Pete Holmes TBS talk show and I can't remember if this episode ever aired or it was one of the test episodes because there was like 10 test episodes before the show was actually picked up and went on television and our friend Shelby Farrow wrote

for it so we got to go and like see a taping and Nick Offerman uh the guest at this taping and pete holmes was was interviewing him as you do and mentioned something about how i was like you're he just he described offerman in this very like cool way that he was uh a meeting of like the art side of things and also the for lack of a better term the manly side of things like that he bridged these two worlds and offerman said a consummation devoutly to be wished and i got fucking chills and pete holmes goes

did you just make that up and he goes no that's Hamlet consummation devoutly to be wished I wish that were I hope that is true of me that's a union of things that I would like to be true of me and I was like consummation devoutly to be wished consummation devoutly to be wished consummation devoutly to be wished

which is a quote that I love that I've quite obviously gotten no mileage of because it relies on someone to describe me using two really cool things and then for me to be humble about it. But in a really pretentious way. Yeah. And so far it has not come up.

I've been your friend for a long time. I've never heard you say that. Oh man, that's a long time. I've never heard you say that. Oh man, that's a great one. Yeah. And like, I rewatched, like Departed recently

and Leo says something and Martin Sheen goes, who said that? And he goes, Hawthorne. And I was like, yeah, it's cool to quote people,

but when can I do it in a way that is like as cool as Leo and departed or as cool as Nick Offerman. And I don't think I ever can. I don't think there's a single Shakespeare quote that I could pull off, but I really, well, I want to set myself up in a position where I could say something that works in a moment, feels kind of profound. And for someone else to say who said that and for me to say shakespeare and uh for no one involved to feel like an asshole uh i'll tell you i quote literature a lot it never works it's always like the fuck are you doing like they know immediately that it's something that i've memorized and then

they know like they know that they can see the tracks of where you went in the memorization of it that you it wasn't just something that you read and you're like ah i like that and it just stuck with you it's something you read and you're like fuck i could use this right i'm gonna remember this and even though i know it always works in movies i know it'll never work in real life like the um the trial of the chicago seven is on netflix right now that aaron sorkin movie and sasha baron cohen's character abby hoffman he's like a real life person he says something while he's on on the stand and uh he says you know who said that and the lawyer makes a joke of it is like ah your buddy over there he's like nah no it wasn't my buddy it was jesus christ like and it's in the movie it's a powerful moment the whole like the jury and the the crowd is like the guy that we

thought was like a shitty shitty liberal atheist person is is quoting jesus christ oh my goodness uh in real life i you know trial or no trial you get your ass kicked if you're like you know who said that jesus christ okay buddy let's let's go talk about it outside right now you fucking pretentious prick there's a moment in sea biscuit actually several moments in sea biscuit which is uh i don't know if everybody remembers this movie from like 2002 or something like that no i don't know why i tried to get us off Seabiscuit when you brought it up earlier. It's, I know how you get when you have a reference

that you want to talk about. It's a storm. What am I doing yelling at a storm? Just let it, let it hit you, buddy. I just had a similar moment to you where Tobey Maguire, who's the jockey in that, is like very charming with the press. And the way that he's charming

is that he occasionally just casually like throws out some Shakespeare. And he's like, that's Shakespeare, boys. And they're all like ah and like they like get horny for it and uh and my in my life i was like yeah if i just do some shakespeare my life would be different and so like now i have i have whole poems by shakespeare memorized daniel that the only once did it come did it like ever help me and only helped you with one individual person which was I was in another class where someone was like a teacher was like hey will someone like does anyone just know a poem like he wanted the first

couple lines of a poem and uh and no one was answering and I was like yeah I got one and so I just started saying it and then he didn't stop me and I went through the entire thing and he was like wow wow you like that was pretty impressive and then I look around saying it and then he didn't stop me. And I went through the entire thing and he was like, wow, wow. You like, that was pretty impressive. And then I look around the class and everyone is disgusted. And like these noses turned up like, what the fuck do you think you're doing? Yeah. They hate that guy.

Because it's not, it's, we've talked about before, uh, being good at anything requires a bunch of, uh, nerdy indoor practice for it. Yeah. And this is one of those things that is not as fun to show off the practice as juggling or any kind of athletic achievement. Because no one thinks you just like, man, he knew that poem because he's just so smart. Or some other second good quality it's like what did you do you sit around memorizing that poem hoping someone would ask you to recite a poem how long did that take you uh and it was yeah you cannot hide the

work that went into it and like the only way that it can look carefree and easy is if no one sees the work but the work is evident immediately right you can't disguise that as like oh yeah i heard it sometime and i and i just like memorized it from from the one time i the one time i heard that poem it was just stuck in my head it's stuck in my heart that's every single word of it tattooed there um yeah i, you can't get away with it, but anyway, yeah. Hamlet's one of those for me. And then the other one is I think probably one that's pretty common for

most people. Moby Dick. Oh yeah. But I, I consider myself pretty well read and I know a lot about Moby Dick and like what's going on in the story and why it's a white whale and like the metaphors of that and just the sounds of it and why it's a white whale and like the metaphors of that and just the sounds of it and how like ghostly words are and semantics and then uh i will i'll

talk about that i'll talk about that for fucking days with somebody who's read moby and i've never read it that's that's surprising to me that you you would fake that one because i don't i don't feel any shame having not read moby dick but there's a real cachet to have having read it i think and i shoot for the moon i suppose that's fair um i can't i mean i don't want to I want to say you should read Hamlet, but, but like, I don't really care if you do. Uh, I think that's just like a, like a, I can feel my, my stupid soul, my, uh, strong substitute teacher energy peeking through and being like, there's some Shakespeare you'd really like, Sorin, if you just sat down and like, I'll read London Fields if you read the following

four Shakespeare plays. All right, I'll read it. I'll read it. What the hell? All right. I have another quick question for you, unless you want to talk about books more. No, go ahead. This one, it'll be real quick because we're running out of time.

You might not have a good answer for it. I just want to take your temperature on it. And it's a rare opportunity where I actually do want feedback from our audience. That sounds mean. Careful. Yeah, careful. Yeah. Careful. Yeah. I mean,

I don't want to sound like I, I don't want to hear from you. I mean, I, I don't, I just don't want to sound like that. I still want you to think I'm nice, but I also want like how I feel to be out in the world. Um,

but this is a time where I do want to hear from you because it's something that comes up in my world a lot, but doesn't come up in your world. Soren is, you'll be on a dating app from you because it's something that comes up in my world a lot but doesn't come up in your world, Soren, is you'll be on a dating app and if it's Hinge, for example, there's like four or five pictures and your bio

is essentially like you ask, you answer a few, you choose like three simple questions and questions are things like ideal Sunday or ideal first date. we would get along if blank you'll know i really like you if blank you know a bunch of questions like that people answer with short sentences you pick three of them and and that's the information that goes out there and

every once in a while uh women on these apps will also include a link to their Instagram page and I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that information. Like there's like, especially if it's someone that I see their pictures and I read their information and I'm like, oh, I think I would get along with this person. The only power that I have to do, that I have in the moment is to like click like on them or comment like comment on a picture or comment on their answer and that's like the only shot I have normally on that app but then there's the Instagram link and I don't know if I'm supposed to use that to further shoot my

shot it always seems weird like they're they're they're putting the instagram account on their profile it's not a thing that like that you have to unclick you have to choose no this is a thing that i want out in the world and you would think that that means that i am encouraged to like a photo or comment on something, but I don't do it because it feels super creepy. And I don't know. You, you,

you understand why I'm confused by this. I do. I, I, is it just their way of being like, here's a very easy way for you to get to know me more is to see what's not like, I don't want you interacting with me there necessarily, but like here,

this is a, this is your, I'm opening a door onto my life so you can see a little bit more about me. Oh, look, he's really into fishing. Oh, look, she's really into swords. Maybe. It's almost never qualified with like, and here's the extended biography of me via Instagram. It's just like, oh, Link link here's my instagram and i go on that and like

i will sometimes feel tempted especially if like hey i i liked this person's profile and that's all i could do but wait no there's this second avenue i'm i i want to get their attention because uh it my profile didn't do it but maybe if they see a stranger liking their photos, maybe that's going to get them to reconsider. I don't know. I don't know if I'm just supposed to like passively enjoy it. Or if like you say, I'm supposed to use that to make a better, a more informed decision by clicking on their profile and being like, oh, okay. We wouldn't work because she's got a bunch of pictures about how much she hates fishing or whatever. we wouldn't work because she's got a bunch of pictures about how much she hates fishing or whatever um yeah man i i can't so for my limited understanding of both

dating and a website that i don't use which is instagram uh um interacting with a stranger on instagram especially by like liking their stuff and then going into their ds even like that's definitely frowned upon, right? Like that's not something you do. I think so. Yeah. Then that can't be what it's for. I think it's just the, it's the very, it's the easiest way to say, I don't, I don't want to explain who I am and like try and succinctly put it into a couple of sentences. Like here, just here's a smattering, like here's a scatterplot of who I am. Please just go look at that and see if you're still interested.

Okay. I assume. That makes a lot of sense. And I don't know why I didn't think of that. I was thinking very much as like, use this for connection in some way, which, which was confusing to me. No, I get it. They're putting it on in a dating website where they're like hey because like if someone if

i didn't put my instagram or twitter which i don't and someone reached out to me in one of those places and was like hey i saw you on a dating app we didn't match uh but i tracked down your instagram i think you should give me another look that's fucked up i hate that i don't want to do that right right but when you're volunteering that information, I don't know if the rules change. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. You know what I think you could do is if like, if there's something very specific from their Instagram

that they're like interested in that you were also interested, where you're like, you see them on the summit of something and you're like, oh shit, I know that that mountain, that's Capitol. I've been up there. And then you can like, then you've got your inroad.road so the same way i do with conversations that you watch me do where i circle a conversation like a fucking shark where i'm like yeah where are you from and uh where did you go to school where did you okay here's the connection here's what we're doing this is where we meet each other

like i know yeah i've been to that town as well here's why i spent a bunch of time there here's a crazy story from when i was there right someone mentions Machu Picchu when suddenly there's blood in the water and Soren's on it. Yeah. I think that you are, you're a rare combination of somebody who is assuming that a dating app is supposed to, you're actually doing it properly. Like you're trying to put yourself succinctly into that position and be like, look, this is who I am. Yeah. Like everything's in the window in this store. Like you get to see it all. And then also just assuming other people would do that as well.

Yes. You are, it's hard to say what that tis. What is, what tis that Dan? Right. And I also, I can't.

Oh, God damn it. It's almost like a consummation devoutly to be wished. Dammit. Well, we should probably wrap up the show. I like that joke, and I don't want to, I don't think we should keep talking about anything else. I'll track down the social accounts, but

while I'm doing that, Soren, you have no choice but to be completely 100% unshakingly honest about this answer you saw my rock and roll band with cody brendan and abe epperson how were we were we any good yeah i loved you really yes um so dan performed at i thought i was gonna trap you no, for our whole company. So we, there have been a couple of bands who have gone through our company and some of them I have been ruthlessly, ruthlessly critiquing behind their backs. But yours, so it was at the Christmas party, right?

And I had a fever that night and I didn't even want to go and went anyway, because this was pre-COVID and I didn't care about infecting other people. And I was like, I was very curious how it was going to be. It was similar to like Jack black playing in high fidelity where I was like,

Oh, I like, I like this person. Let's see how this goes. Cause it's Cody too. It's Abe. Yeah. People that I genuinely like.

And you have no choice, but to be fairly earnest on stage. And I was like, this is going to be a thing. I don't know if I've, it's something I want to see. And then when you guys performed, it was so good. And Cody's a great front man. You are a great backup. And like, you're as a bass player, you know, your role, like, you know what you're supposed to be doing on the stage. And like, you're grooving to the music, you're dancing around, but you're not showboating. Like

you you're hitting all the right, for lack of a better word, all the right notes. And you guys were awesome. It was really, really fun to watch, and everybody was feeling it. Man, I was really, that's very kind of you to say. I was teeing you, I was not teeing you up for that. I really thought I was going to get a hilariously long pause, and then like a, what do you want me to say man like like just because the because everyone friends will always say that you're that you're good they want to say

nice things but i i always secretly believed we were terrible i think because um um well a mutual friend of ours saw us perform another time at a show that I don't think you were at. And I asked her after the show, like, what do you think? And she said, you guys are very serious. What? Which is like, that's a person who doesn't think that we were good, doesn't want to say that, and is looking to find what is one thing that I can, what's one compliment that I can give. Okay, they were very serious. Like, I'm i'm not gonna lie i can't live with myself if i tell them that they were good but i can say that like it's clear that you guys thought about this

i think that that's maybe that's what i'm saying with like the earnestness like you that's something you'd be expected from any band up on stage that's not like a parody band like you're taking it seriously because this is polished work like you guys put time into this and so you you just you have no choice but to be earnest as you're not playing a character sure you're performing and so it's just you and that's a scary thing to do and you guys were great you played twist and shout and it was awesome it was like such a great song it got everybody going in the crowd it was wonderful well you could find soren who's just a sweetie at soren underscore ltd on twitter you could find me at dob underscore inc you can email the show uh qq with soren and daniel at gmail.com that's probably the best place to tell us how women on

dating apps use instagram or whatever that question was by the show on at gmail.com. That's probably the best place to tell us how women on dating apps use Instagram or whatever that question was. Buy the show on Twitter at twitter.com slash QQ underscore Soren and Dan. Gabe, do you want to give us an update on your website? Our engineer, our producer, our editor, Gabe? Yeah, actually, I had a bunch of very nice emails from you guys, the listeners, which was really great to hear. And so I got some help getting my website back.

So it is back. You can go to www.gabeharder.com at the time of this episode releasing, and there will be a website there. Okay. There is definitely not now. No, sure. There's just a rocket taken off from an earth clip art.

It says your website is ready to go. That's very exciting. Oh, cool. Yeah. So it's up. I didn't realize that. I want to say excellent choices. Excellent choice for the tab to say name cheap parking page.

All right. Bye. Bye.