Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Ryan Gosling's Impossible Stomach | Ep. 333

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

Daniel and Soren discuss stolen jokes, Gordon Ramsay’s many forms, and the cursed experience of being photographed by someone who loves you at the exact wrong angle. Then they spiral into body-image math, shirtless Jeff Bezos, Ryan Gosling’s unfair torso, and whether time travel would actually fix anything besides your ability to gamble on basketball.Thanks to Mint Mobile for sponsoring this episode. Make the switch! MINTMOBILE.com/QQFollow the guys on Bluesky!https://bsky.app/profile/danielobrien.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/sorenbowie.bsky.socialBonus episodes 2x/month at patreon.com/quickquestion OR Apple Podcasts

I've got a quick, quick question for you all right. I want to hear your thoughts or know what's on your mind. I've got a quick, quick question for you all right. The answer's not important. I'm just glad that we can talk tonight. So what's your favorite? Who did you get? When all that's random comedy, right?

If there's an answer, they're going to find it. I think you'll have a great time here. Sorin, help me out here. We're starting the podcast right this second. Hell, yeah. I saw something on the internet. This is something behind the scene stuff. Off mic, Soren and I were talking about the internet.

Now you're all caught up to the lure. I saw something on the internet. I just picture two people to party, and one of them, like, nothing to talk about. And they'd turn the other one and go, so the internet. Yeah, that's two men at a party who don't watch sports. Like, so you know any good websites? Oh, my God.

Yeah. How much time you got? So I was living on Instagram where my doctor and my travel agent and all my friends live. And I saw a post that found great purchase in my heart because I found a very relatable. I was doing some landscaping last weekend with my in-laws and my wife and doing a whole bunch of great stuff in our backyard. Loaded intro. That's a very loaded intro. The algorithm heard me, and the algorithm started feeding me landscaping content.

And it said something along the lines of, your nemesis ends up being whomever owned your house before you. And they were showing video of a person digging in their backyard and finding a bunch of bricks, which two years in a row, we've done a lot of landscaping. And there's so much fucking brick and rock. and like pieces of concrete with rebar sticking out of it buried under my entire backyard. Every time we try to do anything, it's never simple like, oh, all you need to do is like dig a shallow trench so we can flatten out this land. No, there's always lots and lots of bricks and concrete. Wow.

And that was the case this time as well. Everything takes a little bit longer because there's so much concrete to find free and the part that I haven't even solved yet put somewhere. that's baked into all of our landscaping and I saw this clip and I was telling my friends about it in my group chat because they're all we're all we've all been doing landscaping the last week because we're that age and I mentioned the Instagram post and then friend of the show Jamie she said Daniel I found it and she sent an Instagram post with the same joke and the same spirit made by someone else because as we've talked about on before Instagram no one owns anything and the idea of being funny on Instagram means doing someone else's joke but with your face. I looked at that and I was like, that's not exactly the one that I found, but I understand it. And then a memory flashback. And I think the first time I heard the idea that your great nemesis becomes the person who owned her house before you, I think that came from you.

Did you say that to me on this podcast at one point? I don't know. That's how I feel. feel. It feels like such a sore an observation. I might have said it. I think I said that you'll hate the person who ever owned your house before you, you will hate, yes. Yeah. But I don't know.

That's synchronicity. I'm not concerned that they stole it or anything. All right. I was going to have you sue Instagram. I, every single, I'm so generous with that kind of thing to the point where I think it pisses other people off because I know there have been times it cracked where something has been,

it looks lifted. It looks pretty lifted. And I will advocate on behalf of whoever did the lifting. I'm like, I don't think it's, I think they probably just landed on the same idea. You have to trust that the people out there are, they're not being evil on purpose. Yeah. And I remember making Tom Ryman very angry with that once. Oh, you know what?

I didn't put up my light. Hold on a second. Oh, boy, oh boy. Oh, there you are. I think I really pissed him off once because there's somebody who, would come to a, there was somebody who was coming to a lot of the same conclusions as Cracked Wood, a lot of the same funny conclusions. And I was still giving them the benefit of the doubt. And it happened to be Tom Ryman's joke. And he was not happy about it. But like I've had,

like there's stuff that I've said and then I should like in Jason's book. And I'm like, good for him. Yeah, he found it. You found it too. That's so wonderful. We both found the same thing. I think Well my brain is going in a million places Because I feel like I've seen Jason on record before Saying that anything that Was written or found during his tenure at Cracked He kind of believes is his

Forever So he's making his TikToks that are like Borrowing from different things from I like facts or facts I don't know nobody owns facts So researchers doesn't own facts or anything. But sometimes it does seem like it leads to similar jokes that have happened at Cracked. I think it tickles me a little bit that he is just, and I think it's earned.

He has just decided anything that was found or created during this 15-year stretch of Internet content. He either was directly involved in it or has put in enough work that he, with a clean conscience, can claim that it belongs to him. He's an internet colonizer, man. That's fine. I feel the same way. There's stuff that I just, I sent a picture to you recently of a sketch that we did with Sam Richardson.

It was like the three of us. And it's just like, we were joking around like, oh, it's the three amigos. It's like so crazy that we're even closer now than we used to be. But that was a sketch that I was in. And then I was confident I had written. No, just a sketch I edited that like came through and I was in. And so I was like, that's mine. Oh, you might have rewritten that entire sketch then,

because I also feel like that's your sketch. Yeah, it's possible. I read it. I don't know. But like it's the same thing happens. There was a peek behind the curtain. It cracked. We were writing columns every week that were terrifying because it's addition to your normal job

and you want to write something that exclusively has your name on it and you want it to be good. It's got a banner at the top with your picture. And you're like, I want this to be the best thing I ever do. All of those are, you can't accept it. access any of them right now. But I remember writing one and there is right on the time they were doing the Domino's pizza commercials where people think they're in a restaurant.

I don't know how this even works. They think they're in a restaurant and they're eating great Italian food and then the walls fall down and they're in a field. So they were drugged and brought to this restaurant from what I assume. And they are eating great pasta and talking about how much they'll the pasta and then the walls fall down there in a field. And it's like, no, this is dominoes. We tricked you, bitch.

And then they say, And all that cheese in there, it's made from real cows. And that's why we're in this field. And it was such a weird headfirst crazy idea for a commercial. And I was writing about it. And I was writing about how insulting that was that anyone would assume the cheese they were eating had not been real cheese. Like that it was from spiders or whatever. And as I'm writing this, I'm like, fuck, this is coming real easy.

Too easy. And then went and looked it up. Sean Baby had written something about it. And it was like the joke for joke. Like it was so clear that I had the path was in my brain because of him. And so I was like from that point on, I was so much more generous. Blank a Pache talks about Patton Oswald, like stealing a joke by accident and like coming to him about it. And and Pat and being like, oh, fuck, I thought that was too easy.

So I'm like, I'm so, I'll give people there to do. It's fine. Yeah. I do. Thinking about those commercials now. Because famously I think about commercials more than I think anyone in the world. And just what a what a credulity-straining premise that is for a commercial, because the hook of it is you get people thinking they're eating fine dining.

You don't tell them what they're eating. They're just like eating nice pasta. And you're filming them and you're asking them if they like it. And then when they say they like it a lot, you pull the big reveal, guess what? It's a pizza hut. It's a domino. Guess what? It's a piece of shit.

You're eating olive d'arned. You're fucking idiot. and you don't know shit your tongue doesn't know shit I understand that as a twist but I do feel like if I was one of those people who was told

hey we're filming a commercial you were going to eat pasta in a warehouse and we're going to have a camera and mic on you the whole time and we're gonna just just like eat naturally and like tell us how you feel

I would sit there and eat the pasta and go like yum this is really good if they ask me if I like it I would say yeah I like it a whole lot I would recommend this and if they pulled the walls down and they were like

guess what, you're in a dominoes, then I would probably say, oh, well, now that all the truth is out in the open, it's not that great. I'm being nice because I'm being filmed. You told me we were making a commercial. And so, like, I'm just, I'm hoping to get asked back to do another commercial. The p, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the foot in the door to my whole career. I wasn't going to say, it's fine. So you like me. I'm an actor.

You invited me here. I gave you a headshot before all of this, and you told me to eat some pasta. So they don't just do that with commercials. They also do like Hotel Hell or Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey because you've got to have the before and after. You've got to have people coming into the restaurant, saying the food is dog shit,

and then you've got to later have people coming back or other completely new people being like, you know what, I like this. I love what they're doing here. And so those people are being, prime beforehand. You've got an opportunity. You're going to see a sign in your little town of 3,000 people that says Gordon

Ramsey is coming to town. Will you give your consent to go be filmed in this restaurant that he needs to say because it sucks so hard? And so people, that naturally, like they're going to go there and they're going to be shitheads about the food. Like every single one of those, the things that the people are saying is like stuff I would never say in a restaurant

in my whole life. They are so mean about the food. And there's also, I'm sure they're they've got a camera pointed at someone. They're like, what do you think of this food? I'm like, oh, it's really, it's pretty bad. I didn't like it. I would not recommend it. Okay, cut. And then a producer comes out and like feeds them a little bit. It's like, so what did you

like about it? Okay, could you, um, what are some things you think it tasted like? Okay, Band-Aid. Let's, can we get you saying, it tasted like Band-Aids? Can we actually get you you saying it tasted like fucking Band-Aids? It tastes like I'm eating fucking Band-Aids. Can you say, okay, rolling? Let's get it again. And so now they've got like the people who are not. Not just told it's okay to be mean on camera, but like given specific lines to read,

heightening their own assholery. It's wild. And then same thing on the turnaround. You don't get people, you're not getting the people being like, you know what, the steak's still pretty raw. Yeah.

I don't enjoy this. It tastes like it's cooked in the fry fat. Like, or whatever, whatever it is. Whatever would be bad for, I don't actually know anything bad about food because I only love all the food I eat. Yeah. But yeah, the same thing where they're just, they're just like juicing them.

They're getting these people. They're like, all right, well, come on. Like, what do you like about it? Do you like the layout of the menu? Do you like the layout of the menu now? Gordon changed the whole layout of the menu. And I think they're saying things like that specifically about him. I think that that's all the hype.

Yeah. It's also a very funny risk, the conceit of these commercials, because like if someone had me eat a burger and I said, this is a good burger, I'm enjoying it. And then they're like, guess what? You were at, you thought you were at a five-star, Michelin Restaurant, you were at a Wendy's. There's a real chance that I would be like, oh, I actually like, I ethically avoid Wendy's

because they use slave labor in the farming of their tomatoes. How fucking dare you? It's not a mistake that I came here to this shed instead of a Wendy's. I kind of want a commercial now where they're like, they do the opposite. They'll do like, hey, this beef is great. And then they'll be like, well, we tricked you, bitch. That's not beef. That's fake.

It's like made from mushrooms or whatever. Just do it the other way. Just bring some vegans in who have worked so hard their whole life to be ethical and to avoid meat at all costs. Surprise them. I'd be like, isn't it better? Isn't it better? Paid for it by the Beef Council. Should we get into our show?

No, there's one more thing I want to talk about. I'm so sorry. I did too. I had to. Well, everybody needs Wi-Fi. allowed to not have it. It's a thing. We all need it for everything. Work, school, fun, life. We just need it. Something like that shouldn't cost all of the money that you have. Unfortunately, traditional big wireless carriers disagree. They want all my money and yours too. After years of overpaying for wireless, I finally got

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who is a sweet man who, right of the show. Who does love to nurture a grievance, which is a spirit that I do understand. I feel so terrible because when you're talking about him being mad at someone stealing a joke, I know who she is that stole the joke. And she stole so many jokes. And like, it's fucking crazy how successful she is now.

In a way that you have to laugh at. And in a way that is, is, I don't believe she is now, I don't want to get any, give any more details that will reveal who this is. I don't believe she is stealing anything from what she is currently working on. I think in the same way that Hunter as Thompson improved his writing style by writing, rewriting Great Gatsby word for word, because he wanted. to see what it felt like to write those words. Oh, wow. I think, I think this, this very successful writer put in the work by taking other people's jokes.

And if you do that long enough, you start to learn what's good about it and you get your own voice. And like, it is one way to grow as a writer. And if you mix that with her relentless networking and the unquenchable, unquenchable furnace of her ambition I think you're bound to get someone very successful obviously we can't sit anymore because we're all going to end up working for her one day oh my god if she

but yeah it was she's used other people's jokes as training wheels by the way this was early on before it happened maybe like once or twice before so I was like very kind about it in retrospect and like now that I can see the whole mosaic of what she had taken. I'm like, oh, yeah, she was really robbing from us.

That's, that's all right. But yes, she, it is somebody who, God, I can't say, no,

much more, but, yeah, she cut her teeth early using, tracings of what other people have done. But you trace long enough, you learn what art is.

And she did. I shouldn't compare what we did with to art, but you know what I'm saying. This sentiment stands. Um, The other thing I wanted to talk about was we had we talked about Gordon Ramsey. I don't know if you ever watched Hotel Hell. Did you ever see that show?

I have not, no. Okay. And here's, you know what's, you know what? Can I tell you something's crazy? And then we'll get to the thing that you wanted to talk about. And then we'll start the show. Yeah, that sounds great. Cut all this.

Let's see if there's room to type the show to start the show. Cut the first, the last 16 minutes or so. The, uh, I, I've lived in pop culture long enough that I know all the stuff that I'm supposed to know about Gordon Ramsey. But because reality shows are such a blind spot for me, I've never seen any of his stuff. The only things I've seen from Gordon Ramsey are when I have YouTube trying to find like, I want to learn about how to make the best scrambled eggs. And he's got a video for that.

Or I think he's got one for risotto probably too. And his scrambled eggs one is not him doing the. Gordon Ramsey reality chef bad boy character he's not doing the Simon Cowell thing he's not an asshole him when it is just him teaching you how to cook phenomenal he's so delightful

he is such a little dork he's got so much love this is the only Gordon Ramsey that I know I know like dimly in the back of my head that he's an asshole but what I think of Gordon Ramsey it's like the guy who's like once you've made your scrambled eggs you go upstairs because your wife wants it so you go and you go up to the bedroom

and you give it to her the eggs I mean And I'm like, you fucking scab. You're so sweet. God. What a little dork. As he's making the food, he's like, yeah, just like, oh, that's beautiful. Like, he's, like, talking about the food as he's making it. So gentle, so supportive.

It's like, yeah, you really want that satin sheen on your rice. You're like, you love this food. You love this shit out of making food. He taught, yeah, he taught me through the internet how to make this rice dish. And just like watching him make it and how to, like, get a bunch of flavor in it and stuff. He's so, and he talks in a really calm. monotone voice when he's doing it. And he's just loving it the whole time.

That's not who everybody else knows Gordon Ramsey is. The majority of the world knows him as. Anyway, he does Hotel Hell. Simple premise of Hotel Hell is that there's a hotel that's failing. It's usually got a restaurant attached. I think always. And he goes there and it's always fucked up. There's rats and stuff all over the place.

But this all happened during a time when it was on for like three years when he got what he considered to be in pretty good. shape. And it's clear because you and I have both been through this where your body changes some and all of a sudden you're like, I got to show this shit off. He was every single one of the episodes, there's guaranteed to be a point where he's just popping that shirt off in Hotel Hell. So it gets early on, it's pretty easy. Like there's, there's some good reasons. He's getting into the shower and then he finds centipedes or whatever. And then he's, there's a pool there. And then it just starts to like become more and more incredulous as to why he's getting his shirt off.

But it's necessary. It's clearly like a rider he has or something. He was like, and now, now I pull out the guns. Now everyone gets to see what I've done with my body. And it's not like he's jacked or ripped or like shredded. He is just different than he previously was. And how good that feels. Yeah.

That he's like, I got to get this out to the world. History will want to know what happened here. Right. It's, I can fill in the blanks. He is not jacked or shredded. He is a guy that did a couple of seasons on TV and read the reviews and saw one reviewer called him Doey or Potato Face. And it's stuck with him. And now he reviews swimming pools.

God damn it. Get a crew. Yeah. It's so interesting when you start working out. Because you'll eventually pass that area too, where your body does that first transformation. And then you continue to change after that, but it's much more gradual. But now having looked back, like when I started lifting and getting really into it or when I would fall out of it because I had children and then get back into it,

you have that same thing happen again where you're like, whoa, I look different. This is great. I'm going to find reasons to, I'm going to get tighter shirts. I'm going to look better all the time. And you go through it every single time. And then once you're through it, you look back on it and you're like, oh, that was embarrassing. I spent a lot of time trying to get my arms out there. You can you can really see a change in cracked videos because my transformation happened completely on camera. I think you were always

in shape when I went by the time that I met you. But I I did I not say cracked in in in that you did. No, I was thinking back on it and I was just reminiscing for yeah. You're absolutely right. get cracked is when you started like really hitting it. Yeah. And you started getting and online everyone was like, I see you Daniel. Getting a new a new kind of attention for it. Yeah, it is very humiliating

to it's it's you know Jeff Bezos suddenly is doing photo shoots in a really tight fucking shirt and like look here I am on my boat shirtless in this place and he's super yoked because he's been drinking kid blood or something

like that and it's like this is can't you just be a billionaire? You also want us to think, like you also are finding, constructing reasons for us to see how fit you are. And, you know, don't completely knock it if you haven't lived it, I guess. I think it's every. As I'm thinking back to the cracked video where both of us found reason to have our shirts off, I think yours was like written into it.

And mine, I was like, it's, I'm in the background of a video taking, my shirt off because I thought like, what am I wasting all this work? Well, that's what it feels like. I mean, you, you spend so much time doing it and you see the transformation and you're like, fuck yeah. Like I everybody, I, what else would I do it? Why else would I do it? For me? Stetics. Yeah. I'm not an athlete. What am I gaining from this? Health, years on my life, that means nothing to me right now. It's not making me better at my job. It's, it's, it's, I The court has ruled it's not funny. Yeah, I didn't.

Actually, I went through it twice or maybe, maybe more. But like, yeah, before I worked at cracked is when it really happened. Because I was in college too. So your brain isn't quite fully developed either. And I was just like, we, anytime we had a patio or anything, wherever we were, I was like, fuck yeah. I'm out in the sun. I'm out there with a shirt off because I felt like, oh, I've changed. And then had children after cracked had meals brought to me every day at my new job and start to not lift nearly as much and felt my body changing.

And like you start to get really down on yourself too. You start to you see yourself in positions you didn't ordinarily see. I saw someone, someone took a picture of me from behind when I was sitting down and I was like, how fucking dare you? Yeah. Why would you do this? Why would anyone see me like this? You should all avert your eyes when I'm not in the positions that I want to be in. that still make me look like I might be okay.

And then I'm lucky enough to have a job that has like hiatuses and stuff built in so I can like work out. And even with a family and when that change happens again, you're like you're like Mac and always sunny. You're like I got to fucking tell people. The world needs to know. I mean, we can get incredibly vulnerable here because as you talk about losing a step when you when you have a kid and meals are brought to you, we are, I have a kid. two month old now and yeah you're in it we've been having food either prepped previously or more often than not just like delivered food because neither of us have time to to cook or clean up after cooking so we've been eating like garbage kings and queens and i've been doing i've cut down my running to

like sneaking out for maybe two runs a week i've gone to my normal gym uh classes maybe three or four times in two months and you talk about seeing a photo this is this is like a bad glimpse into my psyche that my my wife took a video of me I'm I'm mostly shirtless at home all the time because it's summer and like you're bouncing a kid a lot it's it's sweaty difficult activity so there's just a lot of that's I don't need to explain myself I take

my shirt off my fucking house go to hell yeah um and she took a video I uh I just finished changing my son and I I have different uh playlis that I'm I'm changing his diaper. And I'm, I was doing one of the, the best of show pond playlist that I put when it's like,

we're not like, best of show. Yeah, Tom Sharpling. Right. I know that. It's not party time. It's like we're,

it's instrumentalist piano. We're, we're calming down a bit. And I'm leaning over him after I've changed him and he's having a good time. So I'm, I'm playing piano on him. He's the little guy that I'm,

he's my piano there. He's the instrument. Yeah. And he's liking it. And I'm, liking it and my wife in the other room saw what was going on. She loved it and she filmed me because it made her happy to see her husband playing the baby like a piano when he thought no one was looking and she shared it in our two-person photo album. And I see what my stomach

looks like when I'm shirtless and leaning over a thing. And like every if there's 10 details in this story, nine of them are the sweetest thing in the world. The details are, I'm having a moment with my son. I'm playing piano on him. He's happy. I'm happy.

My wife is in love with me, so much so that she wants to film it and share it with me. All of this is great, but there's one detail. And it's how my belly looks right now. And I can't get over. And I'm very unhappy about it. Like, enough that my first reality,

actually was like anger at the wife. Yeah. Yeah. That's there. We go to Minnesota every summer and we're like playing in the lakes and there's like video of me or pictures of me with my daughter and I'm bent over either putting her down or like picking her up in the water. And it's like beautiful pictures of, there's a sunset and everything.

And there's no way I'm going to focus on any of that. I couldn't tell you what else is in the photo because I'm like, why would you take a picture of me when I'm completely bent over and shirtless? This is, look at that thing. It's dragging in the water. My navel is like touching the waves. What do you do? He's like, look at, look at how happy you are with your son.

We're not ordering out anymore. I mean, sweet potatoes and spinach until this is fixed. There's, yeah, there's a part in Barbie where obviously Ryan Gossling's in tremendous shape all the time, but in tremendous shape in Barbie in particular, where he's singing, I'm Kenne, Knuff. Yeah. And he's, but he's, you know, he's hunched over in like the thinking man pose and he's doing that. And he's singing as he's hunched over like that. And his stomach is great in like the very worst position you can possibly be in to the point where I don't know the name of the fucking song.

I can't remember anything about that part because I'm so distracted by the fact that how much, how hard that work was for somebody who is 40 or he was like 39 or whatever when he did it. But for that age to get to that level where you can. bend your knee up to your chest and your stomach looks great. You'll find interviews with especially people who weren't normally known for their physique and then are suddenly ripped in a movie like Chris Pratt when he'd Guard to the Galaxy or John Crosinski when he first did one of those really great Jack Reacher things. Whatever pro-comail not pro-war propaganda. John Cresensky has pivoted to him after the office.

strangest career move I've ever seen. I mean, Kumail is a great example of that. Yeah. But some, uh, it's, they do get into shape, but the shape that you see in their shirtless scene in the movie is like,

that is a, uh, a date that is circled in their calendar that are like, this is the date that I have to be in shape. I'm going to take my shirt off. And when we're dehydrated, I'm like, I'm going to do all this stuff for a scene.

It's, it's a tremendous amount of specific work for the five second scene where John Corseski, turns around and he's shirtless and someone sees him for the first time and it's like this is how you need to look good. That's a scene where he is standing. He is standing up. Yeah. The conditions are perfect for him to look jacked. He could right before action, he could have been doing a bunch of push-ups or whatever needs to do to get into the exact shape to be fit on camera for 13 seconds. Ryan Gosseling bent over singing is insane. I don't think you can prepare for that outside of just being.

different all the time. I think so. I mean, it's because you're, regardless of what actual visceral fat or whatever you have in there, the guts and stuff, like his diaphragm is at full extension because he's fucking singing.

And your diaphragm, if you breathe out and you breathe properly, your whole stomach expands, like in a way that you need to do for a full belting singing. And he's, it's just not happening for him. He's a different breed. It's such a funny thing with Gosling because I hope this is, this story is true.

And it seems like it would be that he read the script for crazy stupid love. I was just going to say this. I love this, that movie. And the line, his character takes his shirt off in the movie. And Emma Stone's character says, fuck, it looks like you're Photoshopped because he looks so good. That was written before Gosling was cast, before anything. He read that part. it was like, okay, this character looks like he's Photoshopped,

so I'm going to look like that. I'm going to get in the shape to like to match what the script says, which is an incredible dedication for an actor and just like a cool thing that he's decided to do. The part that it's, that's a little bit of a bummer is the other body transformation story for Ryan Gosling is that he was hired to do Peter Jackson's A Lovely Bones and he was playing like a middle-aged, age dad character and he independently decided this dad should look kind of like kind of doughy.

He gained like 30 or 40 pounds of just like non-muscle weight and got a mustache because I did not see the movie. And I believe the premise is like a daughter goes is like killed or kidnapped. It's terrible sad stuff. And the father is trying to find out who, where, where his daughter is. daughter went and eventually. She's dead, but she's trying to help solve the crime from the afterlife. And he is like trying to, I imagine from him reading the book, because this is his dedication, the book version of the dad is not maybe seal. So just like, well, I'm going to be like,

I'm going to have a classic dad bod. I'm going to look like a kind of guy who is not used to running around solving mysteries because that makes for a better story. That makes it. for a more interesting thing to have some guy who doesn't look like a hero trying to be the hero in this thing. And he shows up on set with his choice that he's made. And he's fired and replaced with Mark Wahlberg. Oh, it's so helpful that I didn't see that movie because I did not see that comic. Really? Peter Jackson was like, why did you do that?

And he's like, I thought this is what dad should look like. No, get out of here. Oh, man. We're putting Mark Wahlberg on the poster. Holy shit I hope I got that right I think I did There's

Okay I really want to talk to Bob Odenkirk at some point I want us to be friendly enough That I could be that I could ask him this question Without it being weird But I want to know if when he did Better Call Saul If he just worked on his calves a ton Because

If you go on your next rewatching of Better Call Saul which surely is due anytime now. His calves are absolutely jacked. And I don't know if that's just he's built like that. He's a Daniel O'Brien at heart. But he's just got these crazy big calves. And I was like, that's perfect for him. Because he's just like, he's always moving.

He's always like on his feet and he's hustling constantly. So yeah, somebody like that, like there's not, it's not stop for them. They just have these pulsated calves. And it's like, I hope that that's a choice. And I want to know if he chose to do that. man i thought this was going to i thought your question for rob bob odenkirk was i call him rob close i get him and rob cordy mixed up there's a uh shot in that show where he is um nude in a locker room with a towel over his head and it's it's uh i thought it i found it to be a pretty vulnerable

move for him to do because he was in like not even like funny bad shape he was in like very normal bad shape and you can see like the top of his

ass crack it's like all of it was just like this is it's shot from a bad angle this is perfect for the scene but like that's that's that's a lot of real flaws on a on a on a TV screen I was going to ask if that one shot was it all related to his late career pivot to action start?

It really does take just one comment, doesn't it? From somebody you don't care about. From strangers. If you, if next year, I'm playing fucking Jack Richard Jr. Or if I'm, God, Scar, which is Hulk's son in the next Marvel movie, and I look yoked. It's because of this cute video my wife took of me playing piano on my son.

I've talked about this with my brother because occasionally like pictures will just show up. And we all have the same photo sharing app, all the whole family. So I see anytime pictures. It's called Facebook. My niece or nephew come in. Like, I'm seeing all those. And so occasionally there'll be pictures of one of us. And the other one will text.

The other one would be like, rough one, huh? Can't believe your wife took that picture, huh? Like, I was so angry. I was so mad. And like, the only ones we can talk to about it.

Because in the moment, you can't be angry about that for the same reasons you mentioned where it's like, this was taken with love. And also, this is how bad it is. That's how you look enough that they don't know the difference. They're not like, Oh, this is a bad photo.

That's how you look. Yeah. Because I'm sure she takes photos that she thinks, oh, no, he's not going to like the way he looks in this one. So I'm not going to share it. Well, yeah, there are photos that are just unflattering. But this one? The worst I've ever seen. That made the cut?

That's where you start getting mad because you're like, we're supposed to be on the same team here. we're supposed to be protecting my ego why aren't we both working towards that goal or we should be motivating me you should have printed that out yeah you could put it on the fridge yeah I'll take that too I'll take hey I need to

I need to have a frank conversation with you and it's only this photo because then yeah I agree with you then I can there's actionable but when you're but when this is who I am enough that you don't notice a difference and you don't know that this is bad,

we're in pretty rough shape together. Do you really think that's the best I can do? So I, now my system is I go to work and work is I slip and slip and just try to mitigate damage throughout my entire season of my job

where I'm just slowly getting worse and feeling that the whole time. And then I panic and then hiatus happens and I just go nuts during hiatus and like try to work back. Work myself into tendonitis. Work myself in all kinds of like joint injuries and stuff but I'm like,

I gotta get back because I'm going back to work and I know what's going to happen. And then it's just this ebb and flow. Yeah. I, the diet is the. real thing because abs are made in the kitchen, you know? And I do the bulk of the cooking in our house. And I can't, I'm not in a position where I can make two meals, two different meals

every day. And I'm also not suicidal. So I'm not going to put my wife on a diet. Right. And she doesn't need a diet. Right. I'm not going to be like, you also eat sweet potato and spinach. now for every meal all the time. Right. So it's a real. You got to pick and choose your meals. Yeah. You got to, you can, the meals that you don't eat together are the only ones you can

focus on. And then the ones you eat together, you just, you do whatever they want because, and pretend everything's normal. That's what I do with my family too, because dinners are out. I mean, dinners just can't count because I've got to, I'm going to be eating whatever they're eating. And then the rest of my meals, I can do alone. And then that's where it all, that's where like the magic's going to happen.

But you're right, that work is tough. That when I do go into the office, I'm not going to pack a lunch that's healthy. I'm going to order something. And you know I'm not going to order something healthy. I'm in New York City. Right. In an office.

And they're going to bring me something. A menu in front of you where you can order anything. And you're like, what the, what is satsuka? What is that? I want to try that. That sounds great. I want to get more. Multiple items.

A thing I would have never dreamed of for lunch. I'll say that this is a double-edged sword because every single time that I do kind of feel like I'm bouncing back and I'm in a healthier place and I look better. I'm noticing a ton of difference. But I don't think my wife is. Like I'm only doing this because I'm a crazy person. This is all mental. This is like the difference between me at my heaviest and me at my, what I think, consider my lightest, is night and day to me, and I think to the rest of the world,

negligible. It means nothing. Like, no one can see the difference. And so when I'm not getting also compliments from my wife where she's like, whoa, you're looking good. Let me back up. She probably can't also say that kind of thing because you can't say that to your significant other when they get into some other kind of shape because it implies they were looking

bad before. and you don't ever want somebody to feel like they're if they fall back into that you don't want them to feel like you're no longer attracted to them we don't have that that specific uh toxic problem that you're describing we have a completely different toxic problem where i will um look at myself in the mirror or i'll get on the scale and if it so happens that i don't like what i what i discover yeah and later that day completely randomly my wife will say you're looking trim which she will do. She'll say nice things about my body from time to time.

Oh, wow. She loves me and we're married. So you're looking trim, like the, that won't land for, for a day or a week for me. If I'm walking by and she says, you're looking trim in that shirt. My, like, honest to goodness, no thought reaction is, no, you're wrong. I was on the scale. And that information is incorrect. And then I will, like, continue out my day.

Oh, Lord. I thought so too, but the numbers don't lie, honey. You're an idiot. And I'm a piece of shit. I thought, I didn't know you were going to say that you're like, oh, she's saying that you're like, oh, she's saying that specifically because I don't and she's trying to say something positive. No. I have the person in my life who I'm, who I should be most interested in looking good for, telling me I'm, I'm looking good.

Me telling her. She's a liar. Fuck you. Fuck you. No, I don't. You don't know what good is. Yeah, I crunch the numbers and you're wrong. Scientifically, you're wrong.

I, yeah, I, we don't talk about each other's bodies. Yeah. Probably for the best. We are very polite to one another. In the moments that we pass each other in the house, we're like, there's other, you know, fish to fry. There's logistical planning for summer vacation and stuff. like that to be done. I do

definitely try to make an effort. Every conversation with the parents is, where are the children? Yeah. And even when we have like a date night out, we're going to go out and it's a fucking, the stupid hack sitcoms are right. We go out and we just talk about the kids.

Yeah. We're out and we're like, man, Ronan's really loving baseball and he's really turned a corner with his game. and stuff like that. But yeah, we are, I guess I do compliment her something. Sometimes, like, if she's wearing a, I can tell that she's put effort in, like she's wearing a dress or she has done more with her hair or whatever.

I'll be like, you look great, just because I can see that the effort is there. Yeah. But ultimately, I like the way she looks all the time. Me too, that's a really big problem. You can't say that shit When they are not trying Because then they're like

What the fuck? Then when I try it doesn't mean anything anymore I guess the same thing we're dealing with Bad news, honey, it kind of doesn't It really doesn't matter for me I yeah There are several times where I want to say to her You look great

But I know that that's not the right time Because she's wearing pajama pants I don't know. I think maybe it's probably the same thing. They deal with the same thing with us. It's just with us who are like crazy. Yeah. And so there are times probably where you are not religiously working out very hard.

You're not at a calorie deficit or whatever. You're not trying your hardest. Where they look at you, where you're like, your hands are on a counter in such a way that your forearm is flexing. And it's like, oh, that looks really nice. Like the definition of that looks really nice. And they'd want to say something, but they know. But he's not trying right now. And so I can't burn that here.

Right. And they've also had a lifetime, a lifetime that didn't prepare them for men being sensitive about their bodies, probably. Yes. That's not something that is like often discussed or dramatized and probably. for for for past boyfriends and friend groups is not a thing that that uh and and maybe it's not big for anyone except the two of us but certainly it's entirely possible that this is a very skewed podcast that we are just feeding each other's toxic traits uh so what does you want to talk about this episode oh fuck yeah uh uh let's talk about my kids okay right um right now i'm i'm not

not getting, I'm on hiatus. Generally, this is the most coasting, easy time of my life where I'm stress-free. Because having a television job, it turns out stressful. It's stressful all the time. Even when things are going great, it's very stressful because you want to be good. And you're constantly worried that whatever you've got is just disappearing at any moment. Yeah.

And some of our TV, right, I mean, currently, all TV writing jobs are kind of at risk. Every single TV writing job in the world right now is at the risk of going, poof, when a couple of billionaires and private equity people to decide we don't need TV anymore, we made enough TV, they could all just go away and then we don't have TV anymore

and not to play a larger violin. But some of us are even more at risk of our jobs disappear. So my daughter asked me the other day, because she turned six recently. And she was like, if you could go back. Yeah, she's into it. She likes the idea of six. Six is a good age. Good.

Has not looked over the horizon at seven yet. She's like living in six. And I'm like, yeah, that's exactly where you should be. But she asked me, if you could go back to being six, would you? And two things. One, I was like, no way. No fucking way. Especially, there were times where when I was younger,

where I thought when I'm old or older, if I could go back to this moment, I would take it in a heartbeat because I'm young and like I have everything that I think I want in my life. But you're not aware of like the things that you're terrified of. There's a whole world in front of you that you don't understand yet. And maybe you're going to be working a dead end job the rest of your life or unhappy in a relationship. Whatever. You don't know those things. So I thought I would take it. But since I've had kids, if I had the opportunity to go back in time to any age,

There's no fucking way I would take it because I would miss them so much. Oh. Yeah. I couldn't go live knowing what I know now to any other time period because it would be heartbreaking. It would destroy me. But the reason I was thinking of it is that, yeah, she asked me if I would go back. And I was thinking about going back and like what I would tell my previous self. And I was, I had a really dark thought about my job where I was like,

I would probably, if I could go back, I would tell my child itself not to get into this, not to get into writing, not to get into this job. And I was having the argument of myself, I was like, well, would you also tell them that you're a television writer? And I was like, yeah, I think I'd have to, but I'd also say it's scary all the time and don't do it. Because your job is, it's not for the future. Don't be a journalist either. Those jobs die. You'll have to find something else. I often feel like the only advice I would give my past self because obviously we both thought way too hard about time travel to make this a fun conversation.

You know, like because and also where as you say, you love your children, we're happy enough with our lives that it's like, well, I wouldn't want to do anything that didn't, that had a chance of leading me to somewhere else that wasn't exactly here in this house with my wife, with my son. so I would not talk to my young self, which is not the way to handle this hypothetical question. People just want, like, they want you to give some answer, not to prove that the question could have set your perfect life. But I still think any advice I would have for my younger self would be some versions of like, take things a little bit less seriously and have a little bit more fun.

Unless I was in the disgusting shape that I'm in currently, then I would go to my young self, and I would lie and say, I'm 20. And then that would really light a fire under his ass. Oh, my God. I look like shit at 20. I got to make some changes right now. Yeah, the minute somebody offered me the opportunity to go back to any young age,

I would have so many follow-out questions where I'm like, well, when I finally get to this age again, do I do the same thing? Do I cycle? Do I only ever get to see my kids? I get to watch them grow up again, but only to these particular ages and I never get to see beyond that. because that's how time travel works. I'm going to get to this point again and make the same choice.

Right. What if I went back to being six and did everything exactly the same way except one conversation at one party or one like I saved a little bit more money at this job? Like I wouldn't want to fix anything major. I was like, ah, I'd be, I would do everything except I wouldn't have gotten on my bike and broken my wrist that one time because that's right. That was a real pain in the ass, but everything else is fine. I will live my entire life at six years old. That was not break my wrist. That romantic comedy that we both genuinely love called About Time.

Hell yeah. He does, it's a genetic trait that the boys can travel through time in that family. And he does a lot of traveling, goes and sees his dad who's already dead a lot. They go hang out and play ping pong. And then he tries to travel and change something. and comes back and has a different child because you can't travel back before you had your kid

or you have somebody different. And I was like, that's a really cool idea. Now I have a lot of questions about my own time travel. Is everything, is anything that I changed going to change my kid?

I don't want to change a single thing. I want the ones that I have. They are my favorites. They were the ones that I deserve. Let me have these ones. But I do have a quick question for you. This is a long walk to, got here. Oh, God. We've been recording for 50 minutes. Well, this is, this is, this is, it's, this one's

easy. Okay. It's very quick. If you could go back a week, or let's say even three days, how would you substantially make your life better with the information? Like, you don't get to, like, prep. You just, you get to, you get the opportunity to go back right now. Is there anything that you could do to make your life any better in those three days? Like, can you remember a sporting event and be like, I'm pretty sure the Dodgers win this game, but I'm not 100%. Soren, I do believe I would remember that three days ago, the Spurs stole a game from OKC in double overtime. Oh, buddy.

You'd be, you have it. You have it. Okay. I think it's sporting. Sports are the only thing I could do. Yeah. I don't think there's a single other thing. I have no idea what's going on with the stock market in any given moment.

I don't know that there's any substantial way that I could make. a bunch of money or that would make my life beyond that point better other than like reversing some embarrassing things or like little things that you did where you're like I shouldn't erode my bike that day because I get a flat and then I have to walk the bike home like that kind of shit doesn't make my life substantially better but if I can go back three days and that's all I have I'd be like I think it's got to be sports right yeah I think it would be sports and and and this week is such an outlier for me because it's the eastern and western conference finals and I'm watching everything.

And it's also like, these are, this was a, that was a historic game. I couldn't even, if I wanted to go back, I don't believe that I would be even a little bit better at the episode of Jeopardy that I watched.

That's like a real, that's one of the only other things that like, could I seem smarter to my wife when we're watching Jeopardy? Because I get a bunch of them right. I get a bunch wrong. If I had, if I could ground dog day that, just that episode of Jeopardy, it was like, no, the ones I got wrong, I didn't like, I didn't retain the right answer. I didn't really like, ah, yes, of course.

I'm still going to say the exact same wrong answer. I think my jokes would even be a little worse because it's not the first time I thought of them and they're always like a little bit more of a stumble after that. I'd know, I'd see the situation coming. I'd be like, oh, yeah, I said something really funny here. in the moment. It's like an ape. One of the best

small things in Groundhog Day is he has one of his days where he goes on a date with Annie McDowell and it's perfect and it's great. And he gets into like an impromptu like they're having a nice moment

and then some kids are on my throat snowball at him and it's so cute and they roll with it and it turns into a nice moment and then when he tries to recreate that he looks manic and insane and he's like trying to force

the kid. kids to snowball fight with him and he's like really losing it because he's trying to keep for this magic again. I would 100% try to do something goofy with my son and he's not having it. I'd be like, no, no, no, this works. We do this. Trust me. This works. Just trust me. Buy in. Buy in. Come on. Stick with me. That's also why our jobs are terrifying. Every single time that I, you're writing it, you're writing a scene. You've got a great joke in there. But then you read it again, you're like, oh, it does not make me laugh the same way. What if I changed it.

And you're just, you don't know, you might be making everything worse all the time. It's such a giant. I mean, it's part of the joy of having other, uh,

common writers that you work with and, and trust, but also, uh, a terrible indictment of yourself and your craft where I'm, I will write a joke and then often run it by a coworker to be like, is it funnier, um,

with this wording or this change of, wording. That's the thing I'm supposed to be able to fucking know. That's the thing. I am supposed to know which words are best. I know. I never know anything. I never know anything. I read a joke and I'm like, fuck yeah. And then later

I'm like, I don't think that's good. I don't know that that's good. All right. Well, thanks everybody for listening. This is a quick question with Sorin and Daniel. You know that. If you like our theme song, that's by me, Rex. If you want to watch a video version of this, it's on YouTube.

If you want to get more of this podcast, we do Patreon exclusives, and you can just become a Patreon subscriber for whatever you feel like paying. And you get access to that. Thank you, as always, to the editor, engineer, producer of this podcast, The Glue, Gabe Harder. Goodbye. Bye. on your mind

I've got a quick, quick question for you all right the answer's not important I'm just glad that we can talk tonight So what's your favorite? Who did you get? Who did you have? Two best friends and comedy

if there's an answer, they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time, yeah. I think you'll have a great time.