Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Very Complimentary & Incredibly Surprising

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

Objects of desire Soren Bowie & Daniel O’Brien present what will be at least two or three people’s favorite episode of Quick Question ever. They cover still having it, being back on your shit, and the inescapable self-doubt of creativity. What would a wedding planning Quick Question spinoff be called? You can sound off in the comments on instagram at @QQSorenandDaniel or on YouTube, where you can also watch this episode: @QQPodcastYou can support the podcast and get a couple of bonus episodes a month on Patreon. Head over to hear the guys design friend dates for one another at https://www.patreon.com/quickquestion.

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Where did all that go? Do we know? Oh forget it Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here. I think you'll have a great time here. So, hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers ask each other questions and give each other answers i am one half that podcast senior writer for last week

tonight with john oliver author of how to fight presidents and object of desire daniel o'brien joined as always by my co-host and fellow slabba meet soren buoy soren say hello hello everyone i'm soren buoy i'm a writer for American Dad. And what an intro to come in on. It's so rare that I get, at this day and age, that I get complimented on my body. Object of desire. That role was filled. What's going on?

You know, Soren, it's true what they say. going on you know soren it's uh it's it's true what they say that once you get engaged now that i am affianced i the offers are pouring in i got hit on today at the gym so oh fuck me holy shit that's when you look your worst the gym is when you're all sweaty and your face is red and blotchy and when i'm showing the world this is how much i can do that's and it's never impressive you're exposing this is exactly how strong i am it's just like jazz and that you're showing which how much you're not lifting that's that's really what's being given up there uh okay i'll walk me through this well uh so i am at the gym uh with the free weights doing dumbbell stuff and the sweetest 73 year old, Alan, he starts chatting me up. Hold on.

It was a misdirect story. Hold on. I got hit on by a very old man at the gym. You have to slow down. You have to slow down. Because is this just a guy that exists at every gym? Because we had this at our gym already. We had this in L.A. in burn fitness at our old gym.

But now this is a brand new person. And I was at my headphones in because I'm listening to my exercise phone DVD. And a man is signaling for my attention. So I tap my headphones. And he says, I you use big weights. I use small weights. And I go, what? He goes, you use big weights. You use the big weights. And I'm just like, oh, sometimes. I mean, like, and like very clearly, there are larger weights to be found right in the section where we are. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to. What?

What muscle group are you doing? I think only if I was, arms. arms okay so you're doing like biceps in front of him yeah yeah that's like the showcase muscle sure right by buys and tries is what i was doing today it was like this this arm superset thing that i was doing and he said you use big weights i use small weights and i was like oh i mean sometimes like no no no no those are those are big weights and I use the small ones. And then he's telling me, he's like, and you know, part of it is I just got, I got out of this, this, this surgery for the, for this thing I had. So I'm just, I'm, I'm fresh out of surgery. So I

can't use heavyweights. I got to use these small weights, but I'm still here. I'm still coming to the gym and like, yeah, yeah, man, that's, that's great. That's top notch. He was like, yeah, I got these doctors, these doctors have no bedsideside manner and he's just like telling me these stories about his doctor and he's like and i had another doctor for this other thing and he told like a charming anecdote about that that was that was like a very clearly prepared anecdote and i'm just sitting there like listening to his story and being respectful and also thinking like oh boy this guy sure is talking to me a whole lot i don't know why he's doing that and he's like nervous in a way that it didn't clock at the time is the nervous you get when you're

trying to wrap it up lightly yeah you're wrapping up someone yeah and we talked for a while longer i was like okay nice to meet you and then i like clicked my headphones back in and was continuing my workout and then he stopped me again to be like, Oh, and I didn't tell you this other thing I got. Um, I had a heart transplant 13 years ago and I want to be like, you didn't tell me this other thing. Cause we don't know each other. We are strangers. There's so many things I haven't told you, for example. And he was telling me about his, he was like, I still couldn't believe the doctors could pull that off. But it was 13 years ago. And I got the heart. I was from a young woman. there's a woman's heart beating in me and

so that's why i have to flirt with every handsome guy i see in the gym and i'm like oh he means me that's why he's talking to me this is so weird this is so rad it's very complimentary and and incredibly surprising and not where i thought this conversation was going. And he, he like continues to, to flirt a little while longer. And then he's like, he tells me his name again, ask my name. And he's like, if, if, uh, if, if we're ever at the gym together and I don't say hi to you, just come up to me and like smack me in the back of the head and, and, and reach out.

Cause, cause you know, I might just be in my own world, but, like, let's talk the next time you're here. I was like, oh. Yeah. Sure. Okay. All right. This gentleman, how old did you say he was? Incredibly flattering.

I don't know yet. He was 73 or something. I'll jury's out on that. Tell me how old he is. Okay. 73. Okay. incredibly flattering i don't know he was 73 years old jury's out on that tell me how old he is okay 73 okay the so like um then i'm gonna like i'm gonna on a fundamental level disagree with you that this is a flattering thing that happened yeah i'm sorry i'm sorry but like in the same way where i was something that happened i think so i an insulting thing that happened? I think so. Ah, rats. Kudos to him for shooting his shot with a young, strapping bull elk.

But what I'm hearing is the same thing I felt when I was at that singles thing, where here's somebody who is like, ah, now there's somebody I got a shot with. And in the same way, like, if you're asking for directions in a big city, you're like, well, you got to ask the right person. And like you're looking around and it's not necessarily a compliment to know that you're the type of person that gets asked for directions. Because what that means is that you are a complete non-threat. You are completely benign in every conceivable way and that's not it's not great to be that vanilla but well in this case you have somebody who's asking you out or flirting with you uh thinking yes there it is that's the one i can get i think it was just

flirting which i a revelation that i had after this was, again, a display of the privilege that I had, where I walked away from that situation thinking, like, that's just harmless flirting, victimless crime. It's just fun to flirt, and there's no harm, no foul. And then I realized, well, you're a 38 year old man in a gym who is lifting. I mean, let the record show the big weights and that's a, it's a very different, I'm very lucky that it's harmless flirting because in many other scenarios, someone who is 30 years older hitting on someone younger is not harmless. it's a very scary thing i'm i happen to be lucky that i can take this person not that it ever needed to come to that but like i clock it as harmless because because of what the roles are because of who i am you can pin him down with

the big weights and he's he's helpless he's already told me he can't uh okay uh you're right i i guess also his his line is great his i think it must have worked for him at some point but uh and i don't know maybe i'm yeah maybe i'm this is like old-fashioned of me to say but that this guy would say that he has a woman's heart and so he has to flirt with every guy i'm like yeah it's cute it's it's kind of cute it's it's kind of sweet that that's the old-fashioned me is also like good well done prepared line good job sir but then the more progressive person in me is like well well hang on are we reinforcing heteronormative ideas or aren't we? What's the end game here? What do you want out of this exactly?

Right. These heteronormative ideas have hurt you for probably most of your life, but you're playing into them now. Is it just because that's how you know the game works? Or like, yeah, I got to do it. I went to a concert festival on the beach last summer uh in asbury park it's great it's a really fun festival they get like huge acts there and we went to go see the the zombie version of the beach boys featuring john stamos which is great uh brian which is the one who's still alive mike love brian wilson brian wilson is alive

isn't he brian wilson is the one who's alive and and is like he did smile he's like the main he's he's the guy he's the main guy who's also like like politically kind of a problem at this point the way like all incredibly old men yeah are but he was doing this concert and like we're there to everyone is there because the beach boys have written killer tunes and even if you're getting like less than half of the original beach boys you're still getting a bunch of ringer musicians on stage who can sing and play beach boys music and also john stamos who could fucking wail on the drums and beach boy songs are nice so we're here we're listening we're all enjoying it and uh the guy who i'm gonna say say is Brian Wilson, the front man, was talking about, got John Stamos back there.

The ladies love John Stamos and the crowd woos. And he goes, a lot of the fellas love John Stamos too. And the crowd woos louder because it's like, yeah, man, you're in Asbury Park, New Jersey. This is like, we like that. We're happy with that. And then he goes, but mostly the women. And I had that same confusion as the audience members like what do you what do you want uh i mean he maybe he's a slave

you haven't decided if this is a progressive win or not he might just be a slave to accuracy daniel he's got he knows statistically there are more heterosexual people than homosexual people and so he's like but if we're actually counting the number of men versus women statistically it's more likely that women like john stamos than men i read it the way i did his mental calculation in my own head was women like john stamos big applause and then i'm going to say the men like him too and that's going to get a laugh because isn't that funny that men like other men because i'm 90 years old and it's funny to me and then it didn't get a laugh and then he's like well i don't they weren't supposed to enjoy that also and i don't think i like a crowd enjoys that so let me like set the

record straight it's mostly women everyone let's be real i mean you're you're probably right it's a little grosser and then the entire audience looking at their watches being like he's 90 years old they've got like two songs left well let's just let them finish it out and then we'll watch the foo fighters that's exactly how i feel about every single old person they've got about 90 seconds left let's let them just finish it out. We don't need to change their minds about anything. They're almost done. Some 90-year-old guy at the barbershop is talking about pronouns, and I'm like,

yeah, let them play the hits. What's going to matter? It's not going to matter in two weeks. Indulge him. Well, I don't remember if I told you this or not that I and this is not me trying to like one up your story or anything Daniel that I got hit on at a gym

that I got hit on at a gym recently did I tell you that on this podcast I don't think I did no you got hit on at the most depressing singles night anyone has ever been to that was a big that's still pretty fresh for me yeah um i i okay so this is i'm and again not trying to outdo you i just like this is a fun story that i'm good and i forgot to tell you so i want to give it to

you um i go to a gym it'd be so funny if you like if you burned your your life to the ground i was like i got hit at the gym and i went home with her i just tried it i had never done it i thought you know what scoop for the podcast i've been i've been really taking care of myself I deserve a treat No I I was at a gym that I'm not Technically invited to I'm not actually a member of this gym But it's a gym that I have Found a way into

And it's one that I occasionally Go to because it's like it's convenient For a very specific type of day where like I can't Go as far and my I have a friend who's letting me use his card there because he doesn't go to this gym. But I have to pretend to be him. So for the purposes of the podcast, let's pretend that it's Adam because that's what it is. Okay, that's helpful.

It'll also be helpful when I slip up later because I know I'm going to say the actual name. So it is Adam. But I go to this gym as Adam. This is a gym where two things have happened. One, one of the trainers I hear talking to people constantly about the new girl. Loves the new girl. Everybody that he trains, he's trying to, he's like proselytizing, trying to get them to watch the new girl. Specifically, and this is weird.

The show The New Girl. Sorry, weird. The show The New Girl. Sorry, yes. The show The New Girl, which has not been on the air for maybe a decade. And he really loves Schmidt and like can't stop talking about Schmidt. And so he's quoting the show constantly. And then he's got one dude that he trains. And these guys, they go nuts for this show. Like it clearly has worked for him but occasionally

they they they run out of steam and then they start like getting onto another show and on occasion they have been talking about both family guy and american dad and like quoting stuff from my show and i'm like i should just tell of last week tonight at your gym? Anyone talking about our sequel to our piece about lethal injections? They did not quote that one. Okay. Yeah. But they clearly like the show. And he does talk about it.

And he quotes stuff from the show, like recent episodes. And I was like like i should just tell him like oh that would be great like this would make his day i can't do that because i'm adam when i'm there i have to the mask can't slip you see that's right and so that that's been like a great straight to jail that that i can't bask in the glory of seeing somebody who likes a thing I made, which, as we all know, always lives up to the hype. It never goes poorly when you tell somebody that. happened was there is a another woman who works out there who is older, who. What at one point came up to me while I was working out and said, I like your hair.

And I was like, thank you. She's like, it's very punk. And I was like, I don't know what that means. But, you know, I understand that at this point, I'm completely disarmed because no one in my entire life has ever complimented my hair like it is not that's not my leading attribute i i mean logistically if physically it is because that's i walk with it first but uh in no other ways is it like what i'm what i'm gonna like showcase and she's into it at the gym and i was like oh that's very kind of you and she's like you know what it reminds it reminds me of um oh what's that singer and i'm like nick lachey just like joking around just like let's just play around joe jaciba

and she's like no no not nick lachey came out too fast i didn't even say her name right i'm 100 years old i think i said joe josewa i got very excited about about my my really hip reference that i blew it i didn't know here you know like a sword shut the fuck up for a second gabe i'm just gonna give you this clean joe joe siwa okay continue that'll that'll that's seamless that'll slide right he's gonna drop it right in um anyway this woman uh she's like no and then she's like i'll think of it and then she goes you you know i see you at this gym and i just i always want to come to you and say stand up straight and she grabs my shoulders and starts to like move my back up like she's like trying to get my posture better and she's then she starts telling me how she grabs my shoulders and starts to like, move my back up. Like, she's like trying to get my posture better.

And she's, then she starts telling me how she does Pilates and like how, uh, you're supposed to have your ears aligned with your shoulders aligned with your hips. And she's like, just stand up. Let me see if you can do it.

And so I did it. And she's like, that's so much better. And I, it really felt like a moment of like, um, I would assume when a woman runs into somebody who's like, hey, baby, why don't you smile and let me see you do it right. And then she asked for my name.

And I realized kind of at this point, because she's touched me now. And I'm realizing, oh, this is one of those situations. And she asked for my name and I tell her Adam. Smart. And so now when I go back to that gym, if she's there, I fucking

know I'm going to get an Adam from across the room and then she's going to come up and she's going to want to talk to me. She thought of who it was, by the way. Lead singer of this band called the Blow Monkeys, which I was like, I don't know who that is and i looked him up not flattering not pulling it up folks they so rarely go blow monkeys yeah the blow monkeys there's lead singer yeah the lead singer of the monkeys mickeys this is uh this is not a young howard bruce okay yeah just just like take a journey through the pictures this is so

many things about this so so he's not a young fella no he has a very distinct face he's got a really distinct nose and like uh jowl and frown lines and he is having done no research uh british i want to say he's one of the most british faces i've ever seen his faces I've ever seen. His hair is incredible. It's a thick head of hair. God bless him for it.

It's full stop insane that she said to you, Soren, you have great hair. You remind me of this person. Because even if both of those things are true, that she likes your hair it is a different species of hair than what this person is doing you have like thin straight blonde spiky hair and he has like a giant pile of like quaff quaff quaff hair yeah uh and he's uh like Coif hair, yeah.

And he's, like, pulled out of a lineup, British and older. And I don't want to say he's out of shape, but I will say that you are in shape and you don't look like him. That's very kind of you. I'm thinking maybe she's just, the hair has put her in rose-colored glasses when it comes to everything else, I guess. Or like somehow his hair, she just wants it to belong to me. Right. You know? And so she's willing it. God bless her.

But anyway, now I have this circumstance. And I also contacted Adam. And I was like, hey, listen listen should you ever go back to that gym uh just know that there's this this woman there who has access to the computers and can see who you are and she she will blow this up for all of us yeah uh i don't think i knew she had access to the computers. Oh, sorry. She's a trainer. Oh, okay. She's a trainer for the older

clientele. Somebody who's a little more accessible. Sure. Anyway, I don't feel great about that one either. Yeah, that's fine. It's nice. It's nice. It is nice. It's nice to be wanted in any capacity.

Yeah. But this isn't how it used to be, Dan. I know, buddy. It used to be different. You know what? And I recall it was different for you as well. I remember being at conventions and someone would come up very sweaty and nervous perfectly normal looking human being and i would dare say attractive and they would be like would you would you want to get coffee with me sometime to you to you and and

like they didn't know you they just met you when they're shooting their shot and i was like this is great this house out will be forever. Oh! In a way, yeah. I still have strange people in buildings covered in sweat asking to shoot their shot with me. So nothing's changed. Time is a flat circle. It's starting to become a monkey paw curse, I think.

Yeah. It stopped at one point that just sort of dried up for me. And clearly the door is open again. But what's on the other side is different. It's not the same people anymore. It's rebooting Frasier on Paramount Plus Kelsey Grammer's being like, why are things different? Why is it the pay is different and the reaction is different? I don't understand.

I'm still doing the same thing, right? But everything else is worse in some way. That's a really good analogy, Kelsey Grammer. So that's a really good analogy, Kelsey, because I think that there is when you get to like the top of what you feel is your like your ceiling in your life of success, whatever that may be, like with success socially or success with a job. I think there are a lot of people like celebrities. They get to a point where they're like, ah, surely this is the top. They stop working on themselves in any capacity and like they just become stunted at that one that one level um i think that's super common and i it's making me realize oh i did that at some point like i was like this is it this is the top and and then things around me started to change, and I wasn't adapting with them. I was like, oh, fuck, fuck, I got left behind. Now I got something catching up to do,

or I just, it's one of those situations where I was like, I got 90 seconds left, let's just let me play. What a fantastic end point that would have been if this was a 23-minute podcast. We can make the outros really long. OK, well. No, let's talk about what we're not going to talk about, because that's going to be the the jazz of this summer season of podcasts, I think. Because last week you mentioned your gun for the second podcast in a row. And you also said that you have no one to talk to about it.

Yeah. Because no one, you've surrounded yourself with people who don't like guns and aren't interested in talking about guns. And so you have this thing that you want to talk about but you're actively suppressing talking about it i feel uh similarly because this podcast if we don't have a plan just minds what's going on in our lives and the same way that the gun is your life now you live by the bullet i everything the only thing i'm doing is wedding planning stuff that is completely consumed my life and i have to like take a five minute uh break before we record an episode to be like don't don't talk about it don't because i don't want to be the person who is incessantly talking about their wedding and i don't want to because it could be the entire podcast for the rest of the summer if if i don't check myself let's have the let's have the summer

of oh bridezilla like we should do it i want it because i have so much to say about wedding planning well i mean we should spin the podcast off and have a separate wedding podcast that is sponsored by someone that pays for a part of my wedding for fuck's sake it's so expensive man it is that's that was gonna be my first episode my my hard-hitting journalism it's a racket man you i would love to talk to you about wedding planning and like where we went wrong and stuff like that and so you don't make the same mistakes we did oh i'm happy to do that with you if you're ever if you ever like want to have like a wedding planning series mini series within this podcast or you know we can actually talk in real life

no we can talk in real life i think uh if we could if we if we had the juice to get a mini series podcast going i think that would be the hit. Sound off in the comments. Is that something we have? Surely people can comment on this show. But not today, because today we're not talking about guns or weddings. No. Folks.

Right. We're not talking about that today, because Daniel, I want to talk to you about something else. I am officially, again again back on my shit of building things. Oh, okay. That could have been so many things. I'm back on. I'm doing meth again. Back on my shit.

Thank you. We were all praying. Yeah. We were really. I'm just more fun. We were all praying. Yeah. We were really. I'm just more fun. We were more fun. Period. I'm going to say it.

I'm more fun when I'm on meth. I take more risks. I'm more engaging. I like food better. I actually don't know if that's a thing. I think with meth you don't eat. Okay. So I'm back.

I'm building things again. And it started because I'm not working out right now. I'm spending two weeks not working out because I've got... Because the real Adam is having surgery? What's going on? No. I got like some tendonitis or tennis elbow and I can't get rid of it. And I'm trying to like shake this thing and nothing else has been working.

And you want to like cut out just the exercises that would aggravate it. It's still not going away. So I'm thinking like maybe I'm accidentally aggravating it with other stuff. So I'm just not working out for, and it's good to do this every once in a while. Like if you consistently work out to take like a week off every once in a while, I'm not working out, which means that, man, Like if you consistently work out to take like a week off every once in a while. I'm not working out, which means that, man, it's tough to fill a day all of a sudden. When my kids are away and I don't have them at home, I'm like, I don't know what to do.

And so I'm writing more and working out my mind, really. And I started to clean out my garage. If you were looking for something to do, I could give you a list of hotels to call about room blocks. About block room rates? I cleaned all the wood out of my garage. And I was like, you know what? I haven't used any of this. Some of this is really nice wood. I've been meaning to make floating bookshelves in the book nook, the little reading area that i created in my children's room

so i was like i just banged that out so i sat there i designed it on a piece of paper figured it all out and i was like okay here's what i need i'm gonna have to at some point sort of shape this wood and i don't really have a tool for that like there's i need to round it so that the edges aren't so severe uh and i was like all right this is going to be like the real gamble because i'm going to try and do it with an electric sander and try and make it even and that's going to be really tough to do but i made these free floating bookshelves and i know if every single project i get going to get into the middle of it and be like oh fuck oh i didn't think of this thing that now ruins it now i have to like do something drastically different like with anything with writing you get that all

the time too where you're like ah i got this whole story lined up like it's great i've got outlined and then you get in the middle and you're like fuck i didn't see this part um so with this wood working i get get to the situation and it's all like going really smoothly and i'm like okay it's gonna come it's gonna come don't mention it and i'm building it building and building these three things and i get to the end and it's fine and i was like i actually really like these i think they're beautiful and i'm like i'm gonna let the kids so then it's not like writing well so then i was like i'm gonna let the kids paint them then it's not like writing. Well, so then I was like, I'm going to let the kids paint them. But I'm going to prime it first.

They can choose what colors they want to paint it, but I'm going to prime these things first. So I start priming them. And what that means, for anyone who doesn't know, you're putting this white layer down first. You still see the wood through it, but it's just a layer on which you can then paint really smoothly and get an even coat. And I'm doing the primer. take the just one second i'm going to show it to you so you understand what i'm talking about okay folks it's just us now it's just it's just me and this is the kind of thing that we would cut out of the audio podcast but because we're on video now okay we're gonna take oh he's back all right they look like this so cool they're just like bookshelves they've got like a little they hang on the wall you know like this and then you put the books inside and they just sit up on this thing it had to be a very

specific that is more complex than what i was imagining that's better than what i thought when you said floating bookshelves okay and so you have to the books are all forward facing but yeah you got to mount it on the wall and it also had to be you know like these edges see how these are all softened right here oh that's like rounded and and there's a dowel that goes to the middle and i was like okay great i'll take the dowel out and it'll just make it much easier to to do all the priming that i need to do and then i try to like put the dowel out and it'll just make it much easier to, to do all the priming that I need to do. And then I tried to like put the dowel back in and just, just the little bit of coating on the dowel made it too big to fit back in

the hole. And so like, I'm like using a mallet to push it in. And on one of them, I just completely snapped it and broke it off. And I was like like i it's never not a surprise to me when i've when i get to that point where like i did something kind of wrong and now i got to redo a whole section i thought i was in the clear i was like i did it i did it this time i had all this good proper prior planning to prevent piss-poor performance. But in the end, it's always

fucking something. Anyway, these are them. That looks good. It sits inside a little nook, so it had to be a good length on the ends so that they... Man, this is going to suck so hard for anyone just listening to this podcast

but they're out there oh yeah i forgot the main way people consume the podcast is the audio still they didn't even get my fun physical bits while you were gone uh subscribe they won't get any of it it's anyway that i'm back on it i'm and having something else, I'm like, you know, I got all the tools out. It would be a shame to have to sweep up everything and clean everything again before I build something else. And so now I'm just like percolating on like some fun new things that I can build. Anyway, if you want to buy my bookshelves, let's see. Why does it have to be uh fun and new like i feel like i understand the woodworking if it's like i'm gonna make a thing that is cheaper than buying a thing and also there's more like

character and story to it because i'm making it i could say that is my tv stand are you now past the point of needing things and now you the joy of woodworking is the challenge in doing something new yeah uh yes it is it is nice to build something that i need but also just having built this again it makes my mind work in a different way than anything else that I do. It's just like a puzzle basically. And the whole time you're just alone and you're working on this puzzle. That's very slow, but you see like incremental process progress. It's like a video game in that respect where it's like, it's just mine. It probably does not matter in the end.

Like if this is really fucked up or anything and I enjoy the process of like solving it as i go um and i realized after making these little these three little floating bookshelves that i'm like oh i think i need this in my life like i think i need something like this to satisfy that itch in me so what should i build daniel let's come up with a thing let's like brainstorm uh wooden horse a big wooden horse that people could fit in So what should I build, Daniel? Let's come up with a thing. Let's brainstorm. A wooden horse. A big wooden horse that people could fit in.

Yeah. How many people are we talking about here? What gates are we storming? A handful of Greeks. Okay. Yeah. I think we could use one of those. That feels like it has even more rounded parts than a bookshelf to me.

And that seems to be like the part that you struggle with. Yeah. You have to get wood wet and flex it to build the hole. Yeah. This is a mistake. That's okay. Anyway, what it means is I'm going to be buying a bunch more wood. What?

Nothing. Oh, I thought you had like a bunch more wood. What? Nothing. Oh, I thought you had like a real... Nothing. Real thing you could build. No, not really. Okay. Is wood cheap? You don't have to answer that. This podcast sucks.

This is going to be a... You know what? This is going to be the favorite episode of like two and a half people. And then everyone else is going to be a... You know what? This is going to be the favorite episode of like two and a half people. And then everyone else is going to be like, what the fuck? I hate it when they talk about the gym. They talked about something that I couldn't see. And he went on and on about a bookshelf.

Who gives a shit? I'd get those at Ikea. Anyway, yeah, wood's not cheap. Wood's pretty expensive. But it's not as expensive as purchasing something wholly made. Do you know what I mean? Like, even the effort that goes into it is still cheaper than actually having something that you bought, like, custom made. And this had to be custom.

It had to, like, be a very specific depth because where it sits, I don't want them hitting their heads on it. Right. That makes sense. And they will never get taller. So that's perfect. It sits in a closet where there were doors and then there were walls that had a lip to them. And so there's a little space where it can fit where it's tucked away inside this little book nook um but anyway it's my kids immediately when i was like hey i'm gonna let you guys paint these like you guys choose what color they're gonna be my daughter was like rainbow and i was like can't do rainbow you're not you're not there like your your skill level is just not there and then my son was like what if we painted it white and then splattered different

colors on it and i was like oh hell yeah i mean okay and he's like and then what if we smeared it and i was like stop no you don't yeah i'm like i'm gonna save you the trouble of ruining these let that be my job that that is a real problem with child art that I definitely remember being a kid my own self and doing a ceramics class for someone's birthday. And now you can paint this however you want. And some of the kids who somehow had patience were doing the very diligent work of like, I'm going to make this look like a Dalmatian. like, I'm going to make this look like a Dalmatian. There's nothing fun about making it white first, and then waiting, and then doing a series of little unexciting dots. And some of us, like me, was like, I'm going to start, each limb is a different color, and like one ear is blue, and the other ear is green. And then inevitably, as it always happens, you think, what happens if

I mix all the colors together? And then you end up with some like greenish brownish reddish monstrosity that is barely noticeable as a ceramic dog at that point and that's why kids uh can't be trusted with no design decisions that it was like first instincts great i like base color and then splattered we did we painted our own walls uh as kids growing up one uh chunk of time i don't know how you measure time it was several years where the walls were one way and then several years where the walls were a different way and we did that thing that was kind of popular in the 90s where you would paint it a base color and then you would get sponges and you would do like sponge paint oh yeah patterns all around and it looked like kind of chaotic and messy and incredibly 90s that was fun and i liked ronan's spirit of base color

and then splatter it with the sort of like controlled chaos it's like yes and now stop having ideas after that just just quit it how many drawings as a kid or paintings as a kid did you start making and it was like it was really coming together and then you just you do too much like you just you end up fucking it up because you're like and now let's try this and like along the way you're like oh that was irreparable just ruin yeah i mean that's that's the problem with with young kids who uh where you take art class in school that is a set amount of time for everyone no matter what because if i do a good painting or drawing in art class or something that is like satisfying to me the teacher still wants me working until the bell rings so it's like

all right i mean i really this is a pretty photorealistic drawing of a monkey with a surfboard but i got 25 minutes left so vampire monkey with a surf not fucked it up terrible forever hate it he's just drooling this is bad this is bad yeah that that's a hard lesson when you you start making something and like you realize that like the less you do it's actually cleaner like it looks cleaner yeah uh it's something like uh we did we're doing still lives and like the kids who would just do the flowers on white background it was so clean and like crisp and good and then my i was like and the background like let's get this whole page filled like what do we do with this negative space and it looks like a messy piece of shit i wonder if our teachers for like elementary and middle school kids are ever tempted to tell a student like stop right there that's gonna

gale it back if you do anything else you'll ruin it and then another student is like me too no no no keep swinging. You keep trying. Jeremy's done. Jeremy is not allowed to touch this anymore. I've decided it's good. You could start a whole new thing if you want. I mean, isn't that terrifying that that probably is not just true of painting, like of any art? I mean, because I can't stop touching a thing. If I write something, I'm going to keep tinkering with it.

And I know in the back of my mind, there's a chance that I'm at that tipping point. And I'm now making this thing worse. And I can't tell. Right. I have deadlines at work, which means I've written, I don't know, 45 episodes of television delivered on time. I don't have any deadlines in my life. And I also don't have any more books or pilots or screenplays because there's no, because I've been tinkering with things for my entire life at this point.

I mean, I do have some books. How to find presents. You can buy it anywhere books are sold. But you had to give that up at some point. You had to just turn it in. Yeah. Which is why deadlines are so helpful. Right, that was another thing where I had a deadline.

I had a publisher who was like, you need to give me this or we'll call the cops. I don't know. I forget how contracts work. If I write something that's just for me, I guarantee I will ruin it. I will run that engine until it breaks from like from overuse and every single time i guarantee like if it's not for somebody else i'm just gonna keep there's no time limit i'm just gonna keep futzing with it and like lose myself in the weeds and just fuck it up i'll come across things that things that I started writing a couple years ago.

So it's, you know, I'm not finding something that I wrote when I was 17. I'm finding something that was written at a point when I'm already fairly confident in my ability to write, and I've, like, demonstrated skill at that point. But I'll still look at it, this thing that is a few chapters or a few acts deep. And my brain will say like, Oh, there there's promise in this. I like this. Let me make the first parts even better. Let me go back to this other thing that, that I had decided was done a couple of years ago. And let me, let me tweak that instead that instead and i just i wish i had a louder voice

that was like no just finish it first trust that you three years ago when you thought it was good is still correct enough that we can push this over the finish line but no i'll just three years from now i'll come back to the same book or screenplay and tinker with the beginning again i'm doing this right now like i did this it's getting really close to home where i was like i've got this pilot that i'm writing and i'm like i love this idea i think this could be really good i've written like the first 15 pages of it came back and revisit it and i was like yes let's keep working on these 15 pages yeah only work on this on my deathbed i'm gonna turn in the first two really strong chapters of 900 books i think i think that's a fair book to create nobody's done that well maybe

joel and ethan cohen kind of did that with the Gates of Eden. But yeah, you could just have a book that's like the beginnings of stuff. And it's like, oh, yeah, that's a lot of promise. Would love to see where this could gone. That's what I read that that that Cohen book. That's what you're talking about, right? That one of them wrote that it was just like some short stories and some like like kernels of ideas. I read it very much like, yeah, this is a cool thing that you could do if you're a Coen brother, where you can write something and the audience would be like, yeah, this totally

feels like a Coen brothers thing. It's so good. You don't actually have to make it. Like I see it in my head. I'm like, good job. Yeah. This is a nice peek inside your process, which, you know, that's the dream. I feel like I've, I have written enough things that one day i can hopefully rest on my laurels and just like publish a book that is 20 ideas i had for things and people and i could just say like you try just like trust me if i had done one of these it would have been good you believe me right you're like the other stupid shit i did all right good so just pretend i did the whole thing and did a good job on it that's the here's here's like the really brutal part of writing for yourself as well is that as you're doing it you're realizing like you can't tell the difference between something that's a

lazy joke and something that's so specifically your style that you're tired of it do you know what i mean like something like somebody else might read and they'd be like hey i love this part like that's my favorite part you can't tell if that's just like generally because it just comes out so easy there's like one part where you're just like and fucking this like this is that that has like the semblance of a joke. And then you look at it later and you're like, oh, shit, I can't tell the difference. That looks the exact same to me as either a joke that like culture is sick of or just I'm sick of. Yeah. I mean, what's been helpful to me, and I assumed it would've been helpful to you, too, is just writing for a regular show, especially ours, having a live audience where we're not exactly repeating jokes every single

week but there are like joke wells that we dip our bucket into every once in a while just like familiar uh jokes rhythmically that we return to and sometimes we like to uh build on those those jokes that we've made and and subvert them but sometimes we don't we do a lateral version of a joke that we've already done which for writers can sometimes be frustrating especially when you're writing in a vacuum and it's like why would I do that joke again

I did that joke or not even me someone else at the show did the joke but you forget that there's an audience coming like a live audience and they are excited for whatever jokes they don't know to be excited about yet. But they also like they want John to play the hits. You know, there's there's a part of them that like they're going to they're going to laugh when they're surprised by a joke. They're also really going to laugh when it's like, oh, he did the thing. He said that he said hashtag blank or

whatever. He did a thing that is that I remember from one of the other things. And that gets like a different and still like healthy and valid reaction. So that that has certainly helped me as a writer sort of like step outside of myself a little bit and not fully trust the audience but trust them more than i would if i was just completely writing in a vacuum yeah i mean you think back to when you're a kid you're watching saturday night live and you get like a reoccurring like all of a sudden there would be a new um cheerleader sketch with yeah sherry o'terry and and will ferrell will ferrell and you'd be like of the two people you get one of those and you see them come up and you'd be like yes like more of the exact same

like i can't wait for this i know how this how these jokes go like i know the structure of it i know he hits on her at some point i know that he gets over confident and she starts pushing him back and like telling him to walk it back. Like I know exactly where this is going to go and I know all the beats, but I need more of it. Like I'm so hungry for it. So much, so many people in that cast were sick of doing Chris Kattan's mango sketches. But if I got to be an audience member at saturday night live during that

97 to 2003 or 4 run or whatever that is i was sitting in the audience shaking me like i hope i get to see them do fucking mango i hope they do mango and celebrity jeopardy and the cheerleaders and i don't care if it like they can do the celebrity jeopardy one that i already saw yeah this would make me so happy i would i would do it along with them that's so interesting yeah i mean you're right it's but it's it's it's just tough it's tough to know which ones like is you're going to challenge yourself right you're going to like if you're writing and you see something that looks and even like you get like the whiff of laziness from it you're like that's gone and so like a lot

of times those don't make it through unless you've got somebody else's eyes on it unless you've got somebody else who like reads a draft of yours and they can be like no don't lose that like i like that then you can be like okay great i'll keep it so like there are people in i know there are writers who work on different shows who i've heard stories where they they bring something in they basically don't let anybody touch it like they get really defensive of it so it's like their thesis essentially like when anybody talks about a certain area and they're like i think we could like beat this they're like actually this is really important for later in act three like

they're gonna like defend every single piece of it i don't understand that like if i'm going into a room i know already that i have absolutely zero objectivity about this thing that I've been working on exclusively. And so like, we'll go through it. And if people are like pointing stuff out, I'm like, yes, let's change it. And then somebody else be like, actually, I like that. I'm like, oh, that I don't know. I don't know where we sit anymore. Don't change it. I like it too. I don't know where we sit anymore. Don't change it. I like it too. I've submitted pilots to my pilot group and reached the point of no objectivity where I had it in me. I'm like, I think this is fucking terrible unless you think it's good. I don't know.

Someone just put me down like a dog. And one of them will point out, like, I really like this joke on page seven. And I have to think that was like a placeholder joke that I was just like, this will do until I think of the real joke. And now, now I don't know anything. Now I have no. Now it stays. Do I build the show around this joke now? This joke doesn't even belong here. out we'd write our columns it cracked when i would finish it finally after just working on that exclusively for like 72 hours and fish at 5 a.m and be like i don't know what this is it's

probably terrible this is bad and then turning it and then like getting some feedback from it and being like oh no this is good this is this is the best thing i've ever written like using everybody else's feedback to be like yes yes and now I'm in a tune with all of you. I'm like, this is the good one. Right. Never truly been able to say I'm a good writer or a funny writer or a good anything. It's just always like, well, this one got a million reads on Cracked. And these people liked it.

And I have this nice trophy, so I'm not going to say yes. If you don't think I'm good, then your argument is with those people. Your argument is with anyone who has ever liked anything I've ever done. Because, listen, I agree with you. I'm not involved in this. Yeah, you. I'm on your you. I'm not involved in this. Yeah, you. I'm on your side. I shouldn't be doing this.

I'm also still on the fence about me. But, like, there are some people who are more passionate. You should really, you should ask them. You should talk to those people. Yeah, it's terrifying. And maybe that's why I like woodworking so much, because it's it means absolutely nothing. It is not my chosen career. So if I fuck it up, it's like, ah, fuck that up. I guess I'm not good at this thing as opposed to I fuck this up and I'm like, oh, shit, it's over.

Whatever I had, it's gone. A piece of furniture that you build for your children means nothing. It's not like a cracked article you wrote in 72 hours. That's important. Waka waka. I was the voice of a generation. Well, that's probably got to be enough for the show, right? That's it. The show was Quick Question, but you knew that already.

And I'm flying dead stick here i'm flying blind just going by my eye you can find us at quick question you want me to take over here daniel i have it up okay so daniel and i are on blue sky you can find us both there you can also find quick questions still on X. Going to give it to you at QQ underscore Soren and Dan. You can email us at QQ with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com. I'm just now thinking maybe I will look at that account. I'm curious what's in there. Have you ever been?

No, I don't think they, I don't believe I have the password. Oh, right. You need a password. All right. Well, Bacon will send us stuff from there. I'm sure if there's anything important. We're on Instagram at QQ underscore with underscore Soren underscore and underscore Daniel. It's probably easier to just search us. And we have a sound engineer, an editor, a producer, a videographer, and basically in everything for us.

He keeps the show running, Gabe Harder. And we also have a Patreon, which is Patreon slash Quick Question. Keeps the show running. Gabe Harder. And we also have a Patreon, which is patreon.com. If you liked our theme song, that's by Merex. And you can find their music wherever you listen to your music streaming. Or you can go to merex.bandcamp.com for their full albums. You can find us on YouTube at youtube.com. And because you've probably noticed, we've started doing more video podcasts.

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Okay, bye. Bye-bye. I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright I want to hear your thoughts I want to hear your thoughts. Oh forget it Saw a movie Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here Thank you.