Ugly Dog in Bluebonnets

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Okay, this is episode 80 of Anma.

Last time we were at Sign Bar.

Oh, yeah, 7-Eleven.

Oh, yeah.

That was fun.

Good old 7-Eleven coffee.

Yeah.

We talked about you guys flying together.

Oh, yeah.

Talked about cycles of living in the city, trash foods, red versus blue colors.

And if you are, again, I just want to extend to this.

If you are a billionaire and you want to buy this show,

I mean so be it.

We're happy to sell it.

I'll be your podcast puppet.

Yeah, absolutely.

100%.

I'll be the toy.

You want to say whatever you want.

For enough money, we'll show up in your kitchen every morning and make you coffee and then regale you with stories.

We'll just be talking when you walk in.

Yeah, the podcast starts at 7 a.m.

sharp.

You get there whenever you feel like it.

I'll stop into not actual taco deli.

I'll just buy the tacos from another coffee shop and bring them so you get the real authentic experience.

Yeah.

Eric.

Where the fuck are we?

So we're at Black Rock Coffee.

Well, now we're next to a grocery store.

That place is a chain, huh?

I guess so.

I've never heard of it.

There's a couple locations around Austin.

Well, they have a reward.

Well, around Austin, but not in Austin.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I think there's one in Huddo, and there's one in Round Rock, and there's this one.

You know, kind of like a Bucky situation, which really should tell you everything that you need to know about maybe who owns or runs that place without us having to look it up.

Something to think about, I suppose.

We drove west on Southwest Parkway.

We just like gone on Southwest Park Parkway.

I don't know if I've ever been out here.

I don't even know know what fucking road we're on.

This Southwest Parkway.

Is it?

Yeah.

I had to look it on the map.

We're north of the Y.

Okay, okay.

So the only things that exist out here to me are the Y,

the county line I've never been to, the one up on the hill, and the longest.

Oh, the longest one there, yeah.

Oh, and then the Rudy's where you threw up a, you shot a bean out of your nose.

No, no, no.

That was a, um that was at Salt Lake.

Oh, was that at Salt Lake?

A driftwood, yeah.

I'm sorry, then the Rudy's where we got day drunk and then went home and threw up and then got drunk again.

Yes, but that's closer to the

Barton Creek Mall.

We're not.

We're both past that, yeah.

Yeah, we're out past there.

So the Y is just like an intersection of two highways.

If you live in Austin, you've probably heard of it or know of it.

You probably have never been there unless you live out west.

Not the W-H-Y, but the letter Y.

The letter Y.

It looks like a big Y.

A big Y.

It's two highways.

Always, always

under construction.

Black Rock Coffee has a lot of locations, apparently.

Well, a considerable amount.

Very weirdly spaced.

In Texas, Oh, wow.

Part of the southwest, some of the northwest, and then whatever's in the middle of the country.

I would assume Colorado.

Okay.

Yeah.

They got that supply chain worked out, I guess.

It is.

I wanted to go to a place that was outside of our regular sort of zone or scope.

Yeah, we're outside of Austin.

I'm pretty sure we're outside of Austin.

Yeah.

And we're in.

What?

How.

Everything was built very recently.

There was a...

There's a shooting range I've been to a few times out of Red.

Reds?

Red's indoor range.

That's kind of by the why.

Is Red's still around?

I thought that they were.

I have no idea.

Oh, yeah.

It's been a long time.

Austin Pizza Garden used to be down there, and it was a pretty building, but I heard the food wasn't very good.

I never went either.

Yeah.

Yeah, but to Eric's point, everything looks very new.

We drove, I guess, up the back entrance to get here to the Black Rock coffee.

And there's signs the whole time you're driving in that are like Black Rock drive-through this way, Black Rock drive-through, no right turn.

I guess this place must get really busy.

There's a hotel out here, and I think we all saw it, and I think at the same time we all said, why?

Not why.

The W-H-Y.

W-H-Y question mark.

Yeah.

There's got to be something out here.

I mean, I looked it up.

I just wanted to see.

I just assume with the people who just made us coffee, there has to be a high school around here somewhere.

There's a bunch of houses over there.

Now, so there's going to be a shitload of houses hidden in the hills, right?

But there's also...

like a ton of giant tech companies like in big buildings that are nondescript that you don't know what they are.

Yeah, my old job before Rooster Teeth, we had a location out here on Southwest Parkway, not this far out.

It was further back to the east, closer to central Austin, was like where all the design stuff happened.

There's a bunch of like campuses for companies I've never heard of out this way.

Silicon Hills, as they say.

I hate that term.

So I guess like, you know, looking at all the houses, that's a common thing, right?

It's like the suburbs.

People don't want to pay the high prices of living in the city, so you just move a little bit out, have a bit of a commute, and you pay way less for a house out here versus being like in the core of Austin.

20, 25 minutes.

Yeah.

Right.

Get to live in nature.

Is that what you would call this?

But out there.

I will say we also got really lucky.

There was like no traffic on 35.

Despite the fact it's a Monday morning and it rained last night.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

So that means it's going to take us two hours to get back.

Yeah.

So yeah, it rained last night.

This is our first standing episode of Anima.

Eric's sitting.

He's a...

He doesn't give a shit.

Those are

dry.

I'm just dry seat.

I'm just having fun standing.

Mine's almost dry.

Eric's moving.

Eric doesn't doesn't care.

He'll sit in it.

He's a proud little boy.

He's a proud boy.

That's how we're going out on the picture.

Thanks, Sam.

You and Jordan have a lot to answer.

We're going to figure this out.

Yeah, so I've got, this is the time of year where something happens that I fucking hate.

Happens every year.

It's worse this year than most years.

I can't wait to find out what it is.

The Austin subreddit is overrun with pictures of ugly dogs in blue boxes.

Oh, yeah.

There you go.

I get it.

You think your dog's cute.

No one else thinks your dog's cute.

95% of those dogs are ugly.

You know what else isn't funny?

Your parody photos.

Like you in a snake mask.

It's not funny.

Yeah.

I'm sick of it.

You're dressed up as a dog.

It's not funny.

It's way worse than it's ever been.

I want to read everyone's snarky takes on local politics, on what Kirk Watson's doing.

What do the locals think about Ark Acevelo coming back and then deciding he doesn't want the job?

Those are the posts I want to read.

It's like the Austin Austin subreddit loses its fucking mind during blue bonnets and anytime there's a thunderstorm.

Yeah.

And then it's like 30,000 photos of lightning.

If you're ever wondering what this subreddit's like, it's like

if you heard a helicopter flying near your home and then you felt like you needed to take to the internet to ask a bunch of people, hey, why was there a helicopter?

Yeah.

And you don't have next door.

Case in point, I saw one this morning that was like, it was like, hey, I live at 35 and are like Mopac and Palmer and last night the cops came in and were announcing to everybody's shelter indoors and not to leave their houses anybody know what's going on it's like so Reddit's the first place you go find out the answer to that question the cops just told me not to leave my house you know what I'm gonna do I'm not gonna leave the house yeah

I'll worry about it later

yeah it's um it's it's it's a it's a mess uh but yeah i'm sick of it i don't know and i felt like it came later than it normally does this year normally i felt like the blue bonnet photos start earlier and they're maybe more spread out it was in this last week.

They're just non-stop.

And I get it, right?

Your dog's important to you.

I don't give a fuck about your dog.

Like I said, most of the dogs are ugly.

It's important to you.

It's not important to me.

Do you have Facebook?

Do you have Instagram?

Put that shit there.

It's not like an announce to the entire city of Austin.

Look at my ugly ass dog and these stupid flowers that show up for two weeks.

I will say this about the Blue Bonnets this year.

Has to be, this is my 29th year in Austin or something.

Has to be probably top three years of Blue Bonnets I've ever seen.

There it is.

It's intense.

Andean paintbrushes, blue bonnets, poppies, the fucking black-eyed Susans, everywhere you look, there are wildflowers.

It's fucking awesome.

Yeah,

you were pointing them out on the way in.

That's what made me...

They're intense.

Remember how mad I was, yeah.

They're everywhere.

It's a state flower for Texas, the blue bonnet, but it's only around for like...

Two weeks.

Yeah, two or three weeks, and then that's it.

It's gone.

And there's a whole thing about how you can't touch them or look at them or...

Look at them.

Yeah, you can't make eye contact contact with a blue bonnet.

It's illegal.

If you see them and your dogs with you, you got to put your dog in them.

Yeah.

Your dog's allowed to touch them, but you're not.

Yeah, so they're everywhere.

We're in peak blue bonnet season, right?

There are people walking by.

We're outside of this grocery store because they were playing music from 1992 at Black Rock Coffee, which was nice.

But we're outside of this grocery store and we're next to like an orange fitness and there's people walking by.

Looking at us in the way you two are standing talking into microphones and I'm sitting and watching you, it looks like you're putting on a special show for me.

That could be the billionaire.

It's you, Eric.

You're the proxy.

This could be you.

Hold on.

Let me take a picture of Eric sitting down and enjoying himself.

Then I'll take a picture of you guys also.

Get in there, Joe.

Okay, there we go.

All right.

That could be.

I'm going to send that to Eric.

Eric, you look so happy.

I did.

While we're standing outside of a nondescript.

By the way, this shopping complex could be anywhere in America.

Yeah.

Anywhere.

There's zero Austin present in any way whatsoever.

This is just American urban sprawl.

Yeah.

Which is fine.

It's whatever.

It's what, unfortunately, most of America looks like.

I did a little bit of Austin stuff this weekend.

Did you?

Yeah, I did.

I want to talk about it.

I went to Peace Park on Saturday.

I rode my bike down to Peace Park with my cousin and his husband because they have that new art exhibit on the street.

I was going to ask if you saw it.

Yeah, I did.

I went and saw the troll.

How is that?

I heard it was, I saw a post on the Austin subreddit between all the dog pictures pictures that the troll was looking a little ratty.

So there's a little troll like at the beginning that's real cute, and then you go into the big troll.

I thought it was impressive.

It's like, you know, 20 feet tall, and it's like, seems really sturdy.

I read that it costs like $300,000 to make, but it's all sourced from like local materials, supposedly, which is cool.

Local trolls.

Yeah.

But it's like all found wood and shit, right?

So it's our like old construction.

So then their material costs should have been really cheap.

That's why I don't understand how it costs $300,000.

But I will say this.

It made me fucking hate

people

because obviously it's a big deal.

I don't know the artist's name, but he's from, I think, Denmark, and these trolls are all over the world.

And it's a permanent exhibit, so we'll have it forever.

My cousin was saying that they tend to last, if they're taken care of, five to six to seven years, and then they start to deteriorate.

It'll silver, and then I mean, it's just wood left out in the

elements, right?

So, but so you go there and there's just like people in line to take photos with it and stuff as you'd expect.

And then there's some kids that are like playing on it and you're like, I wish you weren't climbing on that, but your parents seem okay with it.

And there's like troll emissaries there that don't seem to care.

But like five minutes in, I watch this.

beefy kid run up and he's like hanging on the troll and he's just like swinging from her a piece of her hair her hair is all like driftwood and just like snaps it right off you know and it's like instantly broken and he's like oh and he just like sticks the piece next to it and just fucking continues to play.

And I'm like, I kind of hate that, but maybe that's what it's for.

But then grown-ups start climbing around it.

And you're like

up there for like 10, 12.

My cousin was trying to take a photo just without people hanging on its face, you know?

And it's like, you're 35, lady.

Can you, can you just fucking, can you stop swinging on it for five seconds and let other people enjoy it?

It's not your personal troll.

You've been up there for 12 fucking minutes.

It's not your troll.

And it just made me, and I just watched so many people be so unaware or unconcerned with the fact that there were other people also trying to enjoy this thing and just ruining it.

And it just bummed me out.

I get that.

But I mean, I think you kind of hit on a counterpoint, though, yourself when you said it.

It's like, it is a public art installation.

It is there for people to enjoy.

So there is a balance.

So I can see...

people wanting to enjoy it, but then like monopolizing it, that's when I think you start going too far.

Like, let other people have fun with it, too.

It's not your fucking private thing.

It's not your private thing.

That's the thing.

It's like, I get it.

Take a photo, fuck around.

If you want to climb on it and be disrespectful of it and break pieces of it off because you're not paying attention, I guess that's what it's there for.

But do it and move on and let the next asshole come do it, you know?

It's just fucking annoying to watch people just decide, oh, this is where my picnic is now.

Yeah.

You ever been out to White Sands in New Mexico?

No.

It's really, really cool.

I highly recommend it.

It's really beautiful.

But like all over the place there, they have signs that are like, please do not take any sand with you.

You know, please leave all sand.

Don't, you know, don't

take any souvenirs.

And every person who leaves there, you see them, they've got like a fucking bucket full of sand that they're taking home with them.

It's like, what are you going to do with that?

I'm just going to throw it away.

That's not going to do anything.

I went to the painted desert a couple of years ago on the way to, on a trip with Emily and a friend of ours.

And we stopped in, just took some photos and walked around.

And everywhere they're like, you know, please don't pick up

fossilized tree fragments.

Please leave it.

And everywhere you look, there's just assholes like, oh,

fucking right in my pocket.

You're like, God damn, man.

So that you can, what, forget about that three weeks from now and lose it at the airport

and it's in a suitcase or you, yeah, you throw it away.

It was here for, I don't know,

50,000 years and now you decided to take it and now it's in the bottom of a fucking trash can somewhere.

Yeah, thanks, Dickhead.

This is the angry episode.

Yeah.

We're going to fucking roast them all.

I got all riled up watching people break that art exhibit that's a day old.

I was just like, God, can we enjoy it?

Can we just look at it?

You know, do we have to rub ourselves all over it?

It's not even like, it's not even that friendly.

It's fucking, you're just going to get splinters.

You're just going to get 86 splinters.

I hope they did.

I hope they got a splinter in the dick.

Yeah.

I'm trying to fuck the troll.

I didn't realize it was such a big deal.

I didn't realize it was like an international artist.

I haven't read too much about it.

I didn't realize it was such a big deal either until my cousin explained to me that it was a big deal.

And he had made a point to go visit the trolls in Maine and showed me a bunch of them.

There's a bunch of them up there.

Maine, yeah.

Yeah, same.

All right, yeah.

I had no idea.

Then I did something else.

Oh.

Little Austin-y.

We rode our bikes over to a restaurant that I don't think I've eaten at in 15 years, and I had only eaten that once.

That is an Austin local that I remembered not liking, and I got,

I still think it sucks.

15 years, and you went there after Peace Park on your bike?

Yeah.

I'm going to take a look at this.

It's cross-mopak.

Oh, across Mopac.

Oh, no, I'm sorry.

It's not.

It's Mopac.

Okay, yeah.

That really narrows it down because there's really not much over there.

This side of Mopac, or the other side of Mopac, 15 years.

It's going to be something like.

Oh, man, what's been there?

Like, I'm thinking, my mind keeps going to campus.

No, I'll say El Arroyo.

Nah, I think West Lynn.

Westland.

Oh, like that place, Zocolo Cafe.

Is that even still there?

Galaxy Cafe?

Galaxy Cafe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Galaxy Cafe.

How fucking mediocre.

I'm sorry, I'm angry this episode.

Yeah, I like it, yeah.

I just hadn't eaten there forever.

My cousin loves it, and I was like, I'll give it another shot.

And it was was so...

I got a chicken burger and it's one of those things where you pick it up and it falls into 80 pieces immediately and then you're like, God damn it.

We shouldn't make a burger out of chicken.

That's on you.

Yeah, I know.

There used to be one over in the triangle that I ate at a few times.

Yeah, it was always just fine.

Just whatever.

It's counterfood.

Never go out of my way for it.

Weird mini.

I didn't realize that that one was still open over there.

The one in the triangle closed forever ago became a fa place.

I think the only one I ever ate at was actually down off Slaughter.

I didn't realize there was any one down there.

There was one down there we ate.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Down by like where the.

It's like there was like a Tex-Mex place.

Was that a Modi's?

Moddies was down there.

Is that around the corner?

Yeah, yeah.

I know what you're talking about.

Yeah, we used to go to all those places down south, and I feel like we never really hit them up anymore.

Yeah.

It's just such a far trek.

That whole area is so different and so built out.

I got to say, Pease Park is fucking lovely, though.

And I feel like it's often overlooked because of Auditorium Shores and Zilker Park.

But, man, if you want to have a picnic,

it's pretty goddamn picturesque there and beautiful and tucked away.

And it's really lovely.

I've been meaning to go the past couple of weekends.

I've just been kind of tied up with other things.

I haven't made it a point to go.

It's been a long time since I've been at Peace Park.

So it's been like, oh my, maybe it's like in my head because of the troll stuff.

I'm glad I didn't go this weekend if that was opened and it was crazy because of that.

It was very crazy.

Yeah, maybe I'll wait a few more weeks

before the evil sun shows up.

It's a little chilly this morning.

It is a little chilly.

It's going to get to like 78 later, so it's like, I'll just wear a short sleeve shirt.

I'll be fine.

It's cold.

We're in the shade.

I'm regretting my decisions right now.

It's Austin fucking with us.

Yeah.

So our chairs are dry, but I'm liking standing.

Yeah, I feel like I'm standing.

Yeah.

It's angry energy, but it's good.

Yeah.

The blood's flowing.

I like it.

Yeah.

Get it going.

Hell yeah.

Shit, I've just been on edge lately.

I don't know why.

Yeah, I can't.

I'm not going to think of anything going on.

Some big change, maybe.

Something going on in your life that's different now than it used to be.

Still no answers.

I know people keep asking.

Keep asking the same questions.

When we know, you'll know.

I know it's frustrating as an audience to not know what the future of the production that you're invested in is.

Pretty fucking frustrating to be the guys making it

as well.

Pretty fucking frustrating.

Imagine that you're, you know how you're asking.

So now what?

Imagine other people are asking you also.

That's what it's like.

Yeah.

So yeah, that'll uh, I don't want to like dwell on it too long, but just a reminder, what we know, you'll know.

Yeah.

Yeah, so

it's that deceptive time of year.

South by ended.

I think we talked about that in the last episode.

But it's that deceptive time of year where it's going to be really nice for the next couple of weeks, and then the sun's going to show up and remind us why we need to be punished for living here.

But I'm looking forward to enjoying it.

That's why I was trying to go to Peace Park, try to do anything to enjoy the weather outside before it turns brutal.

Maybe I should, you know, I have a bike too.

Maybe I should start riding it around.

You really should, dude.

Yeah, I put it up for the winter just because it gets so ugly for so long.

I just got to inflate the tires.

Yeah,

this is the time of year to do it.

I've been riding bikes with my cousin for the last two weekends in a row.

We just meet and we just spend the day riding.

It's been so much fun.

It really is.

How far do you bike?

I typically stay within 20 to 30 miles.

He went on like a 65-mile ride a couple weeks ago.

He's younger than I am.

He's a lot younger than me.

I love it, too.

like, he's like, keep up.

And I'm like, dude, I'm fucking 48.

I'm almost 49.

You're like 35.

You slow down.

Like, I'm not supposed to keep up.

Yeah.

I saw.

I'm so old.

Keep up when you.

How about this, Christopher?

When you're 48, let's see how well you ride.

Yes, he'll be riding better than you are.

He's in such good shape.

He's a rock climber.

He's so fit.

That reminds me talking about biking that long of a distance.

I saw something I'd never seen before.

I guess

it was pretty iconic, but I saw footage of what I guess was like a woman finishing the Iron Man triathlon in 1982.

And it was like, I guess, like ABC Worldwide Wide World of Sports used it for a long time to showcase agony of defeat, where it's like

she could see the finish line and she was almost there and just couldn't make it.

It's like falls down.

She had like a 20-minute lead on the person behind her.

Person behind her passes her.

She falls down, shits herself,

and it's like just crawling, trying to make it to the finish line.

And it's like, just gets past at the last second as you can as you can't make it it's like i can't imagine all of that work all of that swimming all of that running all of that biking to just like a hundred feet from the end it's like your body you've pushed yourself so hard you physically just can't do it

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Dude, it's so crazy.

You know,

I've our old, Patricia, do you remember Patricia?

Our friend Patricia, who was an Olympian, who was blind.

She was in some Rucheth content back in the 2010s, I think.

And she was in a short.

She might have been in the Talking That Shit music video, maybe.

I think she was.

That might have been it, Talking That Shit.

Yeah.

Anyway, just lovely, lovely woman and uh

uh olympic athlete but before she started doing the olympics for triathlon she would do iron man's

which is what is it like uh two and a half mile swim like a hundred and sixty mile bike ride or something like that 116 mile bike ride and then a marathon right

and so we would go

like me and Millie and my ex-wife would go cheer her on when she would go like do competitions around Texas.

She would do them in Austin or Houston or or whatever.

And you would get there at like 6 a.m.

They'd shoot the gun, they'd go off, and then you'd watch them disappear into the water or wherever.

And then you'd go eat breakfast and then

go check in at a spot and see her run by for two seconds.

And then you'd go to the mall for a while and shop and then go eat lunch and then check in and then go

maybe go back to the hotel and take a nap.

And then like 11 hours later, she's finishing.

And you're like, that is a long fucking time to be physically active.

You should be like, man, you'll never believe the day I had.

Let me tell you.

You just remember thinking like, God damn, that's like...

And she would finish up like 11 and a half hours and it'd be a record.

And you'd be like, fuck, that's a long day.

That is a long day.

I don't know how you even begin training for that.

I run on a treadmill and I go like two minutes.

I'm like, all right, that's enough.

That's a woo.

Dude, I ride.

If I ride 35 miles on my bike with pedal assist, I'm like, all right, all right, I'd take tomorrow off.

And that's like a quarter of what they're doing just on the bike with no assist.

They should have.

And she was blind the whole time, too.

Right.

They should have like

steroid e-bike triathlons

where it's like you can do all the steroids you want.

You can use an e-bike, but you have to go like a thousand miles.

That's or something really ridiculous.

It's all steroid Olympics, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's such a great idea.

I want to see somebody's heart explode.

Yeah.

I want to see, like, I would love to see baseball go the other way and just go like 100%.

Go ped crazy.

We don't care.

Like, just start,

start over, just have a day.

Be like, this next season, it's the all-steroid season.

So this season is like the last one where it's just like, you're all clean, whatever.

Next season, we're going all-steroids.

And also, the old Hall of Fame, that's where we have the cutoff.

Like, the delineation is like then.

And then from that point on, our first inductee is Barry Ponds.

And we have a new sport.

And it's called Super Baseball.

Why even have a cutover?

Run this in parallel.

Run them in tandem.

Well, Well,

no one's going to watch regular baseball.

Within 10 years, there'll be dudes hitting 800-foot home runs.

Oh, I would love to see the new redesigned stadiums.

Oh, yeah.

They're like center fields, like 650 feet out.

Stadiums would have to get so much bigger or just lose all of the seating,

like, past the outfield.

Or you just have a big wall at the back with, like, bonus points for shit.

Oh, that's.

Kind of like, do you remember that baseball game they had on 360s?

It was like big league baseball or something where you just like it was a home run competition

and you just try to fucking bust out all the signs in New York City.

That's how they have, I'm sure it's in other places too, but I've only seen it in Japan.

They have a big like wall that you hit the ball at like these targets and spots.

So, because indoor, you know, you build everything up, so everything's indoor.

It's not like they have 600 feet that they're gonna fucking crush this thing.

Smart.

Do you think Shohei Otani is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

Do you think he's too big to fail?

Oh, yeah, for Major League Baseball?

Absolutely.

There's nothing they can do, right?

Their hands are tight.

they came out they oh like he owns baseball they immediately came out and had three stories about what happened and nobody denied any of them they just went um no this one wait this one and it was like oh this is not good for you pete rose is sitting at a fucking memorabilia store in the mall in vegas right now just stewing they are just fucking stewing 500 autographs i mean the thing that everyone keeps going is like well there was all this betting but none of it was on baseball so it's okay

oh is that oh is that how that works also that's a lie

also there may have been a little baseball in there that's what a lie says guys i bet on everything but not baseball not baseball i didn't i didn't i would i would never do that the sacred sport itself didn't we were talking about how well you you were there we saw pete rose right in vegas yeah yeah he was just like hanging out

hanging out no line just sitting there waiting um the dude clocks in every day he does and he'll write anything you want on a baseball much the way that we'll do any podcast you want if you're a billionaire and you buy this we also saw him later that night at like that steakhouse.

Or if you're Pete Rose, like I know you're pretty well off still.

If you're interested, we'll do a podcast specifically for you.

Yeah.

You could bet on us.

Yeah.

There you go, Pete.

Bet on us.

What was I going to say?

You talked about...

I got a Pete Rose audio.

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

Do you?

Yeah, I got one in the break show, remember?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was talking with Eric and Elisa about this last week or the week before, a couple weeks ago, I guess, at this point.

I guess, you know, WWF superstar Virgil passed away.

And I was telling them the story of the time I saw Virgil at San Diego Comic-Con.

And I may have told the story a long time ago in the RT podcast, but I think it was the first year we went to San Diego Comic-Con, which has been like 04.

And I was trying to find, you know, they had like that upstairs autograph area, and we had time booked up there.

We've told that story before, I know.

The Superman story?

Yeah.

With Margaret Guiner.

Yeah.

And the fucking Superman 2 people.

Good luck, kids.

I go up there.

I think this is before our signing time.

I was trying to figure out where this place was.

I wanted it so I didn't get lost.

So I go up there and

I saw Virgil sitting there.

And I remember stopping.

Because

doing conventions and seeing celebrities and people like this was brand new.

It was like the first really big event we'd been to.

We've done like DreamCon and other stuff.

I was like, wow.

I remember stopping in the middle of the hallway, looking and thinking, wow, Virgil.

I grew up watching Virgil.

I grew up watching wrestling.

Like, it's a big fucking deal.

And I'm standing there watching him.

And this dude is walking by and he walks between me and Virgil and he stops and he looks at Virgil looks at the sign and then like starts pointing like at the sign then pointing at Virgil and he goes I remember you and like Virgil like lights up and the guy goes you used to be famous and then turns around and keeps walking and then Virgil just like just deflates just deflates and I'm like man that's fucking brutal like that dude no no thought about what he just said but it's like man I could see it physically affect him hundred last convention I did was in Atlanta I want to say two years ago now or a year or two ago.

I went with Jeremy.

And

so much the same.

Like, so many people would come up and go, like,

Red vs.

God, man.

I love, man, what have you been up to for the last 15 years?

I loved Red vs.

Blue.

And you got to go, well, we're still making it, you know?

They go, huh, yeah, I really like season three anyway.

Best of luck with that, I guess.

And you're like, ugh, you live long enough to be Virgil.

Yeah, yeah.

I remember success.

I remember thinking that at that time.

I hope we make a lot of time.

It was still early in the rooster teeth time.

I remember thinking, man, I hope I get there one day.

Yeah.

100%.

Welcome.

We were in a coffee shop a week or two ago, and as we were leaving, a guy sort of like tapped me on the shoulder as we were walking out, and he went,

hey,

are you guys rooster teeth?

And I went, yeah, we used to be.

And he's like, oh.

Yeah, I used to just like watch your guys' stuff all the time.

And I just started walking away.

And I went, well, yeah, that's why we used to be.

So we just took off.

It's like, I get it.

I hope he looked it up later and he went, oh no.

We were timing.

When we're recording Stinky Dragon, we've been having some gallows humor about it.

And

we had, you know, the announcement was made on a Wednesday a couple weeks ago and we had a recording the next day, Thursday.

So everyone showed up in the morning, the recording was Thursday afternoon.

Everyone showed up in the morning.

And I was like, hey, you know, if you all aren't feeling it, if you don't want to do this, that's fine.

You know, we don't have to do this.

We can push it off.

We can figure it out.

Like, I know it's still new and fresh in everyone's mind.

Everyone, to their credit, was like, no, no, no, we got to do this.

Let's do this.

We really want to do it.

Everyone's like super enthusiastic about it.

We had a ton of fun.

It was a great episode, great recording.

But at one point, in the middle of the recording,

just all the players, like 20 after 20, Nat 20, constantly non-stop.

Yeah, and like as an aside,

as an aside to myself, I said, man, we should have shut down Rooster Chief more often.

And everyone started laughing, and then the editor came to me when they were doing the final pass in the episode, like, hey, do you want to keep this in here?

Do you want to cut it?

I was like, nah, keep it.

We got to keep it.

That That was like, everyone was really laughing about it.

I think the listeners in the community were like, ouch.

I love how so many people will misinterpret that and go like, well, I guess Gus really is happy that they're in July.

Like, we make a joke about Bernie being a doofus.

Yeah.

Because I've known him for 30 years.

And people go like, wow, they have real bad blood with Bernie, huh?

I have to say, I'm really impressed with FaceGam fans who immediately got on board where when we talked about it all ending or whatever, Michael's just like, well, I don't really know what's going on.

I'm going on like a really long vacation.

And so all these fans are going like wow i wonder what their upload schedule is going to be like when they are all on vacation in a couple of months that seems pretty exciting though good time off i was happy i showed up that was the same day when i showed up to and you all were doing the oh yeah and then you had a rum cocoa you gave me a rum cocoa uh yeah we had it was that same thing the worst candy i have ever tasted it was like chocolate covered pine salt so they were they're like austrian candies they're called rum cocoa and they're supposed to be a little chocolate like it looks like a whopper but instead of like a malted milk thing in the middle it was supposed to be a coconut, like almost like liqueur, but like a Mozart Kugel kind of.

I don't know what that is.

He made that up.

This is Austrian candy.

Hell no.

Mozart Kugel.

Do you remember when Captain Picard was trapped in the Mozart Kugel

by Q?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I remember.

He escaped.

The Borgs were there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I remember.

Mozart Kugel.

It is like that.

Is that it?

That's not it.

I mean, it's pretty close, but without, but like the inside was hollow, except for like this little core thing.

I think Gus was the first one to try it before we all tried it he popped it into his mouth he bit into it he ran out of the room and spit it out i was afraid i was gonna vomit did it taste like boozy no no no no no no it's like like i said like pine salt yeah or like some kind of industrial cleaner it really did taste like cleaner it was crazy.

A fan sent it in and he's like, I like these.

Try these.

And we tried them and it was like crazy bad.

It must have gone bad.

Yeah.

Because Mozart was pretty good.

Yeah.

Something happened because then we took him over over to Dog Bark and then Trevor had it and he had to spit it out.

I mean, I had it, I spit it out.

Michael spit his out.

Jordan spit his out.

I think Gracie spit hers out.

I think Nick had two.

Yeah, he did.

Michael had two because his first one was fine and then the second one he had to spit out.

Trevor had to spit his out.

So did Jaron.

Joe ate it and was like, yeah, man, that's great.

Ha ha ha.

And then he had like 12 and his face went beat red.

He was fucked.

It was awesome.

I love making these shows for moments like that.

And it sucks that we're not going to be able to all be in one place to do that.

For sure, for sure.

It is, that was some of the fun.

A lot of the fun is being able to walk into another room and go, like, oh, what's going on in here?

They're like, why are you swinging that thing around?

Oh, okay.

Cool.

I'll get in on that.

Yeah, it's one of the things that sucked the most during the pandemic and during lockdown.

Yeah.

Was, you know, we could still keep making some of this content virtually, but

not having the other people around, like, all in one place, like that, I felt like a lot of stuff really suffered because of that.

And

it's gonna suck not having everyone in the same roof for that.

Ever again.

Yeah, it's crazy.

Yeah.

It's coming up soon.

I think it'll be a long time before there's another rooster teeth.

I don't know if there ever will be.

Yeah.

I mean, I'd never say never because the markets change.

Who knows what the world will look like in 10 or 20 years, but it's going to be a long time before the...

The markets,

the landscape has changed so much.

Like when we started, it made sense, sense, right?

Like you got to work together to collaborate.

The tools are so readily available.

Yeah, and anyone can just, well, not with just a little bit of work, anyone can figure out how to put some shit together and pop it up.

But the playing feel has definitely been leveled.

Yeah, when we started, I mean, capture cards were fucking expensive as hell.

You know, the only reason we had it was because Bernie made that movie.

Yeah, that was like a $3,000 capture card.

Right.

And now it's like, no, you can buy like a USB device.

It does it for like 50 bucks.

I bought one.

Target.

Yeah.

I bought one on Amazon and had it later the same day and it captures in 4k and it was just like oh yeah this is why the internet is the way that it is computers are so much more powerful now every

phone has a camera your fucking phone can do everything i remember the time when we had to we we walked around with flip video cameras to record everything dude if you would have come and told us gus in like 200 four

right like year two of roosteteh that someday we'd be able to walk into a target and buy an hd capture card and a dildo.

You'd be like, what fucking future?

That's amazing.

When did you get here and you're like, oh, the future sucks so bad.

When we made the transition with Red vs.

Blue from standard def to high def, and then we had to go back and re-record everything in high def.

We had to build special hard drive arrays that were fast enough to capture the HD footage because you couldn't capture HD footage on just a normal hard drive.

We had to have like super fast hard drives and RAID arrays and capture all of that stuff and to be able to keep up with the amount of data you were putting on it.

I remember I visited Amplifier because they did video content at the time and asked them what their HD workflow was like and tried to

emulate what they did

just to be able to like from the tech side.

And now it's like my fucking phone does 120 FPS 4K footage

and uploads it to the cloud.

It's just such a totally different world than it was back then, which is...

Good.

I'm glad everyone has the access to do it now because they can see how fucking hard it is.

Well, and and it's also it's like the truly talented and driven people have a path to explore that, and that's great, and people will find success that way.

But it's just a bummer,

just a bummer to look at the landscape and realize that like the things that made what we had special, I think are just going to be a lot harder to accomplish now.

I think, you know, you still see, and it's not as popular as it was for a while, but like those content creator houses where people like, you know, get together and all work out of a house and shit like that.

Like, that'll still happen.

It's not quite

insane, same, but and there are still people that are doing.

I mean, dropout is still fucking killing it.

I think the mythical guys are doing pretty well.

There's still versions of it, but I just don't think, I don't think there'll be new ones.

Yeah, those are all old examples, too.

Even like Mega 64, who we talk about.

Mega 64 is maybe the best example.

Yeah.

It's like you get to a certain size and

you can maintain that and hold on to it.

People don't do it new anymore.

There's not a new, oh, yeah, at least that I know of, new people starting up, a group like that.

That's why I'm here to announce that I'm getting on with Mr.

Beast.

I'm going to be the new

who's another dynasty group

Chandler.

Oh, you get a Zimdor.

That's the regular name.

Dude, I'm a big Zend head.

That's the regular name you went with.

Don't they all have dumb internet name?

Mr.

Beast is cooler, is like more regular than Zimdor.

But that's his real name.

His last name is Beast.

Donald Beast.

His name is Jimmy Beast.

Mr.

Beast is my father.

That's going to be his kid.

His kid's going to sing that.

Just call him Donald.

Oh, I fucking know.

Oh, fuck.

Let's talk about BlackRock a little bit.

This coffee sucks ass.

This is maybe the worst cup of coffee we've had on the show.

It's a 7.38 on Mike.

You're a maniac.

This is totally fun.

This is worse than the 7.11 coffee.

This is worse than the 7-Element coffee.

I didn't have hot coffee.

This cold brew is totally fun.

This is like a two.

Yeah, it's a two.

This is a two.

I would easily, if I were ever here for some reason, like if I was going to Marigold Market, I would stop in and get a nice coffee.

That place is

so clearly found out.

It's a chain once we got here.

Yeah.

Very.

Like a bunch of 17-year-olds, like a bunch of kids running the shop.

Nothing against that.

It's fine.

It just kind of threw me for a loop when it was that, but the music was all from the 90s.

It was their parents' playlist.

It was 100% the kid with the fashion mullet and the blonde mustache.

His dad was like, put this on.

Your friends will love it.

And Gus was like, I had no idea.

I've never heard this song.

Gus, we heard Pretend They Were Dead.

And Gus went, I've never heard the song.

In 1992, I was living on the border.

Yeah, we had no access to anything.

You got to start saying that.

I had to spend a few years.

Once I moved away from the border, I had to spend a few years catching up on pop culture.

Oh, my God.

He's so far removed from it.

Movies, music, there was so much I had to catch up on.

We walked into the coffee shop and held the door open for someone that looked exactly like Gracie, and it really fucked Jeff up for a while.

Hey, I thought I was bumped into Gracie, but it wasn't Gracie.

It was, there was like a good amount of people in and outside of that place.

That's like a hopping little coffee coffee shop.

Where else you would go out here?

In a strip mall where there's nothing else.

That's the kind of place that if blockbusters still existed, it would be next to a blockbuster.

I would love to open a coffee shop next to this one to make a kid be like, hey, that place next door sucks ass.

Come over here.

Hey, come on down.

That would be the craziest business.

Look, I only opened coffee shops next to shit.

This place is so bad, it made me so mad.

I invested my own money to open up a coffee shop.

I didn't like anything about BlackRock coffee.

I didn't like the logo.

I didn't like the vibe or anything, but this iced coffee is genuinely okay.

You're crazy.

Your coffee sucks, and I'm sorry, but this iced coffee, I can't deride an iced coffee when it's totally cold.

But it's like, it's the easiest thing in the world, right?

It's great because it's just a cold brew.

Yeah.

They're like, oh, do you want like an iced Americano?

And I went, no, cold brew's fine.

They went, oh, okay good yeah we don't have to make that yeah

no i i can clearly see what we're doing here it's fine don't worry about it um but just a spot that feels like again just indicative of the area yeah this could be no personality this could be pow way in san diego this could be the middle of oklahoma and tulsa like you could be in any

road trip 100 and i'd be like i totally wish i would have stopped at 7-eleven.

Yep.

This is, it's definitely 100% that.

The only thing that makes this feel Texas-y is, I bet if you hung out here long enough, you'd see a scorpion.

I was going to say, I bet you'd hear some racist shit.

From the look of it.

I forgot to update the Admiral website until I woke up this morning.

I was scrambling before I came to.

That's why I was like three or four minutes late this morning because I forgot.

I was like, oh, shit, the Animal website.

And we had to record.

We got together early just for him to take it.

We're trying to wrap up.

We're trying to get as much Stinky Dragon done.

We don't know.

Because we don't know.

There's no, like, for this or for that.

We just don't know.

So we want to be ready, whatever direction,

if we can get it out or not.

gavin said he wants to see if we can record face on wednesday this week and i asked if we can do two so

okay great i just told i just made an appointment with my

on wednesday because it's the open day but that's fine it's fine maybe we can do it friday uh well that's uh that's black rock coffee if there's one near you go go go i would say go try it and then know how right we are yeah yeah i got the regular black coffee gust got the americano get a nice coffee get all three get an ice coffee and see what you think have a flight of coffee get all three we all got larges get all three go insane

listen to linger by the cranberries and go fucking nuts out front

I'm more of a zombie guy

he's just a weird dude I went outside the other day on Saturday Sunday Saturday or Sunday and my neighbor was working in his yard blaring the cranberries really it was so funny he's like an older tattooed guy like me, and he was just like going to town on the fucking cranberries.

Nice.

What?

Nothing wrong with that?

No, I wasn't.

It was just funny.

That's fine.

It's just, why the cranberries?

I like the cranberries.

I just, honestly, I feel like the cranberries are a little fucking overdone.

Like, I feel like the last like five or six years, every time I turn on TV, there's a cranberry song on a commercial.

Well, the singer died, and then it was like

fuck, man.

Roman cranberries?

Yeah, she died.

It sucked.

But I'm not being.

Dolores O'Rearden was her name.

I know.

I saw them live.

I was a Stanberry.

That's what we call ourselves.

I thought it was bogheads.

Different terminology in different parts of the country, I guess.

Oh, my God.

Oh, man.

Oh, that's great.

Well, we should probably get on to wrapping this up because

you have to go record a bunch of Dungeons and Dragons with

your other friends.

We'll figure all that out.

But let me ask you an anarchy question, which you guys can send to us at Animopodcast.

Time's running short.

You better hurry.

You know, don't worry.

I got you right here.

This will be an easy one.

No matter what happens going forward,

whatever version of this show continues,

whether it's called Anma or whatever, they should always be called Anarchy Questions.

I love that.

All right.

All right.

Here's your anarchy questions from Grayton again.

Who asked the one from last week?

And I think a few others.

Eric's Lavinia.

Is he by any chance a billionaire?

Because it sounds like everybody's an audience on this.

It's the only one on the thread so far from today.

And I didn't really like any of the other ones.

It's the only one from the thread today.

What was the biggest meal you have had?

The biggest meal I've had.

I'm going to say it's probably like Fogo de Chow,

like an all-you-can-eat Brazilian barbecue place.

And I'm going to say it probably wasn't even in Austin.

It was probably, it probably wasn't even actually a Fogo de Chow.

It was probably a Brazilian steakhouse in San Diego after a day of working at Comic-Con.

I know the one you're talking about.

It was like in that strip mall.

It was upstairs.

The strip mall.

It's like it wasn't a Casa de Brazil, but it was like that kind of thing.

That the woman with the drink cart was coming around making all the drinks.

She was making the

Canino or something?

Coinho.

I don't know.

Something like that.

Terrible.

We were drinking them heavy, though.

Yeah, I would.

It's probably that.

I was going to say Felga Chow, but you're right.

I think that because those were those days where we would work like 12 hours hard physical labor, and we'd be so fucking hungry.

And we'd be like, we've earned this.

Yeah.

And you would just gorge.

Yep.

I'm sure Eric went there all the time when he had a tax.

Oh, yeah.

You know how I'm always going to that seat?

I'm taking my dad.

That's such a dad spot to go to.

Like, your dad's in town, take him to Brazilian barbecue, and he's going, oh, right.

Put the little flag up.

Dude, that was early Reese's TV.

That's probably 05.

That's probably 05.

Every achievement on a Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch was FOGO.

They'd get so fucking excited every year.

It was so fun.

See the little happy faces.

I think people underestimate how

physically taxing it was to work a convention.

Oh, my God.

I mean, imagine you're walking around a convention,

but you don't get to stop, and it's a constant conversation with a new person every two minutes

all day, every day.

Unpacking and unpacking boxes.

It was an empty room two days ago.

Yep.

Moving shirts, moving boxes, moving crates, setting up, tearing down, grabbing stuff, yelling across the thing, I need this enlarge.

Get the fuck out.

Non-stop.

It is a constant, not just like even physical thing,

brain fucking frying.

Yep.

Exhausting.

Gus and I, I really think a lot of our like lifelong friendship was cemented in those trenches.

We We were friends for a very long time before that, obviously.

But Gus and I,

we developed such a fucking rhythm when we were working booths together that we would volunteer to other people not to go because we didn't want them in our way.

Because we had it down.

And we had it down to where every single person got FaceTime with us.

They got a little bit.

We gave them 30 seconds to joke.

They got the autograph they wanted.

They got the photo.

We got the money.

We gave them the merch.

They had left smiling.

and we had it, we had it down to what's fucking science, and we could crank it out and try to like and we would kick everyone else out and kick everybody else out because everybody else would just get in the way and then be like, and just like you'd walk in and they'd have like bags of food and they'd go like, oh, let's just, and suddenly half of the merch is on the ground, and you're like, what are you doing?

There's a system.

Yeah.

Oh, I used to drive us nuts.

Yeah.

And that's working in convention.

Yeah.

There you go.

You've been there.

So there you go.

That's the biggest meal we've ever eaten.

It's a great anarchy question.

And if you want to send yours, our slash anima podcast, the subreddit we don't run, at anima podcasts on Twitter and on Instagram, so you can follow us.

When we have more news about what's next, we'll let you know directly.

Yeah.

I mean, probably as soon as we know.

So there's that.

But that'll do it for this week's anima.

Sorry for a shorter episode.

We got to go.

We have a long drive and guest has to roll some dice or whatever.

Any final thoughts for the folks at home?

Explore your city.

Try some new things.

Get out of your comfort zone.

Or go to that place you really like that's already cool.

There you go.