Oh, hi, Happy New Year! It's me Dave Holmes. Welcome to Troubled Waters, the show that treats popular culture as the most important kind of culture. We celebrate it here. We analyze it. We eviscerate it. And to that end, Troubled Waters pairs a pair of comedians against each other in a pop culture battle to the ego death. To win this battle, each guest will be called upon to use their

smarts, their rhetorical skills, the comebacks they've been saving in their notes app to earn the

coveted Troubled Waters title, Pundit Emeritus, which will automatically give their opinion on

how many fucking times Disney can cut queer shit out of their projects before we start to realize

that it's actually their kink.

More weight than a civilian.

You are listening to Troubled Waters. Let's meet our guests.

Our first contestant is a writer, a neighbor, it turns out,

and the second season of their podcast Jump Leads is coming out this spring.

They also have a sci-fi actual play podcast with Trouble Waters on Riley Silverman.

It's Ben Patton.

Hello.

Hello, hello.

How you doing?

Never better.

How are you?

I am alive, which I was not expecting when I work out this morning.

I don't know why that's the headspace I'm in today. What was the brush with death?

There was no brush with death. I just went to bed last night and I thought, you know what?

If I don't wake up tomorrow, that's really going to mess up the troubled waters recording.

Should I send an email now just in case? Like, that's the headspace I was in when I finally climbed into bed at, I think,

like, 2.30 in the morning. Yeah, I mean, that usually is with the ask. Like, if you're going to die,

...