Holdout Neighborhoods

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You were made to outdo your holiday,

your hammocking,

and your pooling.

We were made to help organize the competition.

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Okay.

Last episode, we were at Cosmic Coffee.

Don't forget about that one.

We were outside, very loud.

Lots of pumpkins.

Don't worry about it.

I feel like we're really close to it still.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's so big that no matter where you are in Austin, you're close to it.

I want to talk about cosmic coffee.

Oh, you said you had an update.

Okay, I have an update.

All right.

So last time we talked about how nothing works right anymore,

out-stubbering each other, audio texture overload,

Smash Mouth in our home away from home.

But that was all previously.

So this is this time.

That's funny.

What episode is this?

64, technically.

Good morning, guys.

All right.

I said my own joke out.

Nice.

Last time we were talking about out-stubbering each other.

This morning while we were getting coffee, we were talking about outmeaning each other back in the day.

I wanted to give my Cosmic Coffee update.

I was so impressed by that place.

This just in.

I was so impressed by that place, the size and the scope of it, and how nice and how clearly expensive it is, how much money, how many millions of dollars they put into a coffee shop.

So I wanted to take Emily over the weekend because I thought she would be similarly kind of blown away.

And we went.

Different vibe on the weekends.

What does that mean?

I just like, we walked up, there was a door person, they weren't checking IDs and they're like, are you here to drink alcohol?

And we're like, no.

And she's like, all right, you can go in.

But they're giving wrist bands at like 10 a.m.

on a Saturday.

Yeah.

Or on a Sunday.

Yeah.

And

no, it was just way more crowded, weekend crowd.

Music might have been louder somehow

than when we were there.

And just the vibe from the outset, I was like,

I can tell I don't like this as much as we did.

Then we ate tacos from that taco place.

First off, we were all very excited when we sat down at a table because it was a QR code where you can order stuff.

You can order drinks, not tacos.

So I assumed that if you could order anything, you could order the food there too.

So we went all the way upstairs, found only, there was only one QR code on one of the tables, finally found it, sat down, ordered it, went to order the food, and then it was like, no, you can't do that.

So we had to go downstairs and order the food.

How do they do that?

I don't know.

It's weird.

Different setups, I guess, because we're in different buildings.

It's all the same business.

It's all the same business.

The taco, and this is a warning.

I still think the place is beautiful and gorgeous, and the coffee was pretty good.

They have,

they did a run on pumpkins that I

we were trying to figure out what they're going to flood.

They were flooding pumpkins.

Emily swears they had over a thousand pumpkins.

I think they probably had like six or so.

There were a hundred.

There were a lot of pumpkins.

There were a lot.

They always tell us in Texas: if you don't throw your pumpkin away, throw it out in the woods for a deer to eat it.

That's a lot of deer food, dude.

There's going to be some fucking, there's going to be some cul-de-sac somewhere.

Cul-de-sac overrun with deer eats it.

Overrun with deer.

It's going to have like a half-busted sofa and 10,000 pumpkins piled on top of it somewhere in East Austin.

Don't tell Daryl Hall.

The tacos.

Yeah.

Daryl Hall hates deer, by the way.

I don't know if you know that.

No, why?

Yeah, that's what he was referencing.

Daryl Hall got Lyme disease.

He got a deer tick from a deer tick.

Yeah, from a deer tick.

Like in the 90s or early 2000s.

He wants to eradicate all deer.

He wants to,

he has a mission to destroy, wipe deer off the face of the earth.

It's really interesting.

Yeah, he's really aggressive about that one thing.

I was, I grew up in Southern California, so I knew about Lyme disease.

It was not something that anyone that I knew ever got.

It was, we're not living in like the fucking woods and like the bramble.

I was so scared of Lyme disease as a kid.

I still don't know what it is, but I'm so afraid of it.

I think you only get it if you go on the PCH or the Appalachian Trail.

Yeah.

That's what the only, I only hear of people contracting it.

You get it.

I think you can get it here in central Texas as well.

Thanks, dude.

What is it?

It's a lot more real.

I don't remember everything everything it does.

I think the one weird side effect I can remember is like it makes you allergic to red meat.

Like you can't eat beef or something.

Wow, really?

I think it makes you real tired, too.

Yeah.

I think

the lead singer of Bikini Kill, Kathleen Hannah, she had it for a long time, and that's why she stopped making music.

What do you mean, had it for like, you can get over it?

I think you can get better.

Like, she recovered.

There's a documentary about her, and it talks about how, like, she had, like, a 10-year journey to get healthy enough to start playing music again.

Lemon disease.

Speaking of Bikini Kill, there's a great vegan bakery in town called Zucchini Kill.

And there was some

Zucchini Kill stuff here.

Dude, Ziki Kill.

Zikini Kill has been around for a long time.

You would know better than I.

They have a purse as their delivery vehicle.

It just says Zucchini Kill on the side.

But I feel like they are currently taking over Austin because I see them in every country.

They're everywhere.

Yeah, they really are.

They seem to be expanding a lot.

Oh, so what happened with the tacos?

Some of the worst tacos

I've ever experienced in my life.

What did you do?

I got a steak, like a steak taco, and then two

Al Pastora tacos.

So not breakfast tacos.

We're talking like lunch.

Like lunch tacos.

yeah.

And they were so saucy.

I don't even know how to describe it.

They were oily and greasy, and they were so saucy that the tortilla got wet and goopy.

And it was just, the steak was okay,

but it was just like Emily and I both like didn't finish them.

And it was like, it's really hard in Texas to fuck up a taco.

You know what I mean?

And I was just real bummed out.

I was real bummed that my second experience of that place was nowhere near as good as are you rescinding your ANMA recommendation here?

Is this an official

proclamation?

I'm putting on notice.

I think, here's my recommendation.

It's a weekday visit.

Okay.

It's a weekday visit.

Go with a full tummy and enjoy the drinks.

Or go after 5 p.m.

when it's a bar because all their alcoholic drinks looked really interesting.

Yeah.

You know, I was looking at the board for a while, and it seems like

maybe that's

where they really excel.

You know what I mean?

But anyway, you don't eat the food there.

No cosmic taco.

Wow, that's crazy.

I can't believe how different it was you going when we just went on like a cold Tuesday or whatever.

I can't believe they were checking IDs like at 10 in the morning or whatever.

I guess Britain's

so different

inside than it was outside.

When we went in there to order coffee, that was a fucking bar.

That was a bar.

That was a bar.

That was a bar.

That was a bar that also had coffee.

Yeah.

This is a bookstore that also has coffee.

Have we even said where we are?

No, that's your book.

We're at the coffee shop inside of Book People, which is called Coffee People.

Book People's local bookstore, really big.

It's at Sixth and Lamar.

So, I mean, it doesn't really surprise me that Cosmic Coffee

is doing that, but also, like,

I don't know how else to describe it.

It's just like something about the vibe was different.

Like, you know how, like, it's one of those places where, like,

all the women look like hand solo.

Do you know what that means?

They got the ug boots.

They got the ug boots and a white shirt and a sleeveless vest.

I thought maybe it was the haircut.

They're all frozen and carbonite.

You know, they're all really Han Solo when you get over here.

I walked up to every moment and said, I love you, and they all just said, I know.

And like, everybody had the exact same dog and the exact same stroller.

It was very Stepford feeling and just like loud and crowded and so no more bugs and denim vests.

It was all like yuppie dogs.

Yeah, it was yuppie dogs.

Do you think it felt less like Austin and more like a big city?

Like what you're describing sounds like when I go to a like city city.

Yeah, and I guess that's what that place is for.

And Emily and I also had a very long talk about how

this is Austin.

Yeah.

You know, and we shouldn't complain about it because this is what it is.

This is, you know, just because Austin changed and we didn't isn't Austin's fault.

Isn't that this podcast?

Yeah.

Were you doing an admo without me?

But

I'm just trying to have perspective and be like, I shouldn't be annoyed at the world changing around me if I don't, if I'm not willing to change with it.

It's not the world's fucking fault.

And I'm not trying to be negative.

More than anything, I'm just trying to say, I think it's a better weekday place than a weekend place, unless you're looking to drink and booze and do that.

And then I can't give you any insights into that because I don't do that anymore.

And just avoid the tacos.

It's still a gorgeous place.

Wild to me.

Yeah, great place.

Seems like a cool place.

Again, I think I said it when we were there.

Seems like a cool place to take someone in from out of town.

But don't give them a taco without a ton of people.

I'm not offering.

You give that person a taco and tell them this is what tacos are about.

They're going to go home to their time.

They're going to be like, I don't know what the fuss is.

I think maybe go eat somewhere else and then go get a drink there.

That's what that is.

Bring your fair tear in Minneapolis.

Exactly.

Oh, yeah.

That's a good question.

That was a great update.

Gus wasn't so high on you giving an update today.

I'm just saying.

No, I was just like, I don't know.

You were like really excited about it.

I was like, I don't know if it's an exciting thing.

I just don't.

I don't often have updates.

I thought it was a great update.

Yeah, it was a good update.

No, I'm glad to get it.

I said great update.

No, it was good.

I'm going to fight you on this.

Should we talk about this place?

So we're, yeah, we're at Book People.

I don't even know how long Book People has been here.

I feel like.

Well, I came to Austin in 1994, and Book People was here in this location.

This is a...

I would consider this kind of like a heart of Austin

intersection, six of them are.

You got Book People here.

You got Waterloo Records like Rodacross Street over here.

24 Diner, which is kind of becoming

like a place.

Yeah, like an Austin establishment.

GNM used to be there.

GNM used to be over there.

It's Garbo's now.

Yeah.

That's where that Rito Sliders was at night.

I think we talked about that before.

Yeah.

And the Whole Foods used to be here where Anthropology and REI are.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Yeah, and

where the Whole Foods is now across the street.

They built that building in the city.

Yeah, that's like their corporate headquarters.

That used to be a used car lot,

and I guess Whole Foods bought it.

They got rid of the car lot and they built their headquarters there, and then they moved out the Whole Foods from here over there.

That's why the Whole Foods at the Arboretum Arboretum reminds me a lot of what the Whole Foods here used to be like.

You know what I miss about that car lot?

What?

That giant wall that had this that had the Texas flag painted on it.

I don't know.

It just like felt so right.

And anytime I'd go to Waterloo, I'd always see it.

It was like larger than life and it felt weird when they bulldozed it and built the Whole Foods here.

I remember that car lot being weird because it was like there was a giant hill right there.

Yeah.

And

like it kind of, you kind of, it gets hidden with the building now, but you kind of realize that when you go in on street level from the Lamar side, but you leave like at the underground garage level here just on the east side

of audio texture going on here nice I don't even remember when that was what was that like 2006

yeah it was early might have been a little earlier than that early 2004 yeah we would we are you know our office used to be over

that guy's riding a lawnmower on the street he's got to come get some coffee he's got to get from point a to point b our office used to be over here at 7th in congress which is not super close to here but it's walkable and every now and then for lunch when you know our office was here, Jeff and I would walk over here to the Whole Foods because they've got like a bunch of different,

I don't want to say, like restaurants,

they have little mini restaurants in there.

Inside, yeah, and we could go around.

You could just show up and be like, I don't know what I want necessarily, but I'm going to walk into the Whole Foods and they're going to have a bunch of stuff and I'll find somebody.

There's like a pizza place, there's a raw food bar, there's a smoothie place, there's a barbecue restaurant.

There used to be a sushi restaurant.

I think that's gone.

There wasn't a little Italian restaurant where people would get a bottle of wine from Whole Foods and then go over there and they would uncork it for you and you would eat.

And They'll change a lot of that.

They have like sandwiches and shit now.

They still have the barbecue place in the back.

The barbecue place.

And like, yeah, like some of the more like, like POS ordering systems, like iPads where you put your order in yourself instead of like going up to a counter and

really extensive.

So yeah, we would come down here every now and then and like whenever we had a little more time for lunch, just like, I don't know, it's like what, like a 10, 15 minute walk to get here from the office and we have to walk back.

Yeah.

And then we talked about the dillow before.

You know, if we'd get lucky, we'd go down to 6th Street and we'd just hop on the dillow and it would take us all the way here to Lamar and we'd just walk right in.

Or if we were really lucky,

sometimes we would take it up to Nows.

Oh, yeah, we did take it to Nows a few times.

Yeah.

That's over on Westland, Sixth.

Well, it's Westland.

It's gone now, but yeah.

Just a little west of here.

I do have banana split bowls that I bought from NOWs

when they went out of business.

I went and did their

stay sale.

We mentioned this before when we talked about NOWs, but the memory in my mind of NOWs that I have of any time I went there was every straw they ever gave me tasted like Clorox.

What?

Because I felt like they were constantly wiping the

counter down with bleach and then they would, you know, put your water down or whatever and then put your straw down and it would instantly like absorb all the bleach or the cleaner that they had.

And it's like, so you would take your first drink and so I was like, that's a, that's a straight cleaner.

What I remember about now is the most, other than just absolutely loving the food and the...

the feeling of sitting in like a 1940s diner that's unchanged is that the service was always terrible

and that every time we went there with Jason, he ran into somebody he knew.

Oh, absolutely.

Every single time.

And it wasn't like always kids.

It was like somebody's dad or who, you know what I mean?

And he's, I always felt like, does Jason know everybody in the city of Austin?

He's like, he really does.

And

he also is like, well, I don't know about it anymore, but back then, I think we talked about this too before.

He also knew every post that was going up on Craigslist as it went up.

Like if someone was selling a car or a house or something, he found our office on Congress.

He found a car for me.

He probably found a car for you.

He found the house I lived in before this one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the only reason I owned that house is because Jason found it and told me about it.

How did he do that?

Was he just on Craigslist?

Yeah, and he would be like, hey, I saw this.

I think this would be perfect for you.

Be like, oh, great.

Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing I want.

He's just a Craigslist super user?

I don't know about it anymore.

Zillow is his homepage.

And he's just, wow.

I don't know if that's true, but it's what it feels like.

Yeah.

He was very plugged in, not only with people, but with just the city at large.

Yeah, that's

one of the things I like the most about him.

Yeah.

But here we are at Book People.

Do you come?

Do you buy books here at Book People very often?

Do you buy books very often?

If I buy books, I buy them at Book People.

Okay.

Yeah.

I don't buy books as much anymore because

I just I have a problem where I could walk into that bookstore and I would get very excited.

You would buy 30 books.

You were distracted a few times as we were walking through.

And then I'll come home and I'll mean to read 30 books and then I'll be like, well, I'll put these 12 away and I'll just keep these out.

And then before I know, I start one book and then I get distracted with work or something else.

And I just have realized that my, I read just as much as I ever did, but I just read differently now.

I read Reddit, I read news stuff, I read research for Soul Alright or whatever.

And if I do read, I tend to do it on a Kindle.

So I don't come here very often, but I did for the longest time.

I mean.

I feel like whenever there's a book signing in town, it's always here.

Matthew Kane was here signing books not too long ago.

Yeah, I drove by that day.

I saw a long line.

What book was he signing?

I don't know.

The Bible.

The Matthew.

That's awesome.

It was not the Bible.

Hey, Gus, keep it cool.

Signed, Matt.

But yeah, I feel like this is

very much like anytime someone's in town for a signing, this is where they always end up doing it.

It's a local independent bookstore.

And it's great.

It's wonderful.

It's huge.

It's two stories.

Upstairs is all kids' books.

Not all kids' books, but there's a kid's book section.

There's an area that has like little bleachers where they'd put on like puppet puppet shows and they read stories and then kids all Millie would go sometimes on the weekends.

She'd sit down and they'd read stories to her.

Inside the little like structure where you can read, there are little tunnels that kids can run around and play in.

It's really wonderful.

I spent so much time here when Millie was a kid because it wasn't just like taking her to the store to get a book.

It was kind of like an event.

She could go and play and like catch the end of a story that somebody was reading.

And just like,

you could burn an hour here with a kid pretty easily.

So if you have small kids, it's a great place to take them.

It's interesting you say all that because Eric suggested coming down here to Coffee People.

And I didn't say this when you sent that message, but I thought about replying that at some point, maybe we should also hit up the Austin Public Library, the downtown branch over here, because it reminds me a lot of what you're describing here with Book People as well.

A lot of activities and a lot of stuff you wouldn't think of necessarily as being something in a library.

That public library is fucking awesome.

It's amazing.

It is awesome.

I've never been, and it's all I hear about.

It's so cool.

And it is so cool.

It's so cool.

It is so cool.

You know how like Roost Teeth has a ton of conference rooms and breakout rooms where you can just hop in.

And the library is like that, but they're all like glass and beautiful and brand new.

And they'll just be like, oh, I'm reserving this room for D and D.

And then you and your friends can go play D and D in there for hours.

Oh, a lot of times they even have the games and shit.

Yeah, say, oh, you can check out.

Yeah, if you need a game, they've got it.

If you forget your tablet or your laptop, you can check one out and use it there in the room as well.

They also have like an outdoor terrace.

Upstairs, yeah.

Oh, it's gorgeous.

There's two different ones.

There's like one on the roof, and then there's like one like on the reading level as well that's like kind of fenced in.

So you can go out.

It's like below, it's not all the way at the very top.

I don't know if I've ever been to that one.

Yeah, it looks like you couldn't get out there, but there's like there's chairs and tables out there, and you could totally walk out there.

It's 90% of the time, it's way too hot to go out there, but it's really nice.

I'll tell you something else I like about that library.

I've never been there and seen it not packed.

Yeah.

Like, it is always full when I go, which is a great sign, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're also, you know, are very understanding.

You know, we went through an incredibly brutal summer.

Yeah.

And if you went there in the summer, like, they would let, you know, homeless people hang out there, like, enjoy the air conditioning while they could.

And, you know, like, that might sound uncomfortable or awkward, but like, everyone kept to themselves.

I think everyone's just appreciative to be able to use air conditioning or have air conditioning, you know, to be able to get some water from a water fountain.

Everybody deserves to be able to have a little bit of time and comfort and not be baking in the fucking sun or having to sit under a bridge right outside the library where a lot of homeless people will hang out and

in the fucking 110 degree shade, you know?

But yeah,

I thought about suggesting it, but I wasn't sure if we could get coffee in there or how that would work.

So there's no, I just look, there's no coffee shop there.

There used to be, or there was a place called like Cook Cafe or something down at the bottom, but it's temporarily closed.

But I'm sure that if we grabbed some coffee and then made our way there, we could find a spot.

They might not be keen about us taking coffee in, was the thing i was worried about well we could always sit outside yeah yeah we'd sneak in under a coat you know we could do we could get like uh we've never done like store-bought uh like pre-packaged coffee

before a real big thermos yeah we get like a nitro cold brew or something and then just sneak it in we'll figure it out i think one way or another we should go to that library though because i do want to go and i'm never going to drive down here by myself get a library card or we could go to like mellow johnny's and get our coffee there which is a coffee shop and bike shop and then walk over it's not far We used to go there every now and then as well when our office was downtown.

Absolutely.

Yeah, Mellow Johnny's is right there.

Okay.

Yeah, let's.

Do you remember the name of the coffee shop?

Mellow Johnny's is the bike shop.

The coffee shop's called Juan Pelota.

Yeah.

Oh, really?

Yeah, which stands for One Nut because it was Lance Armstrong's coffee shop and recycling hub owned by Lance Armstrong.

That is.

And he's only got one testing.

One ball.

It's a ball.

That's very funny.

Yeah.

Huh.

Yeah, we should do that.

Everybody loves it.

Yeah,

local hero.

Nothing bad ever happened with him.

See, Lance Armstrong, an Austin guy?

Yeah.

Oh, I didn't know that.

Oh, yeah.

He was our claim to fame until he suddenly wasn't.

Yeah,

a lot of the bike lanes used to be, like, especially over here, just east of us in downtown, it was like the Lance Armstrong bikeway.

Like, it used to have signs and everything.

Yeah.

Oh, I didn't know that.

It was like a really big deal.

The Armstrong, a Livestrong Foundation is over really close to,

actually really close to where we were last week for Cosmic Cafe.

Did you guys ever get into the plastic bracelets business?

No.

No.

No.

Feel like a missed opportunity?

They made a lot of money off those bases.

Yeah.

Well, for charity.

A lot of money for charity.

Well, they did, but I feel like other companies also jumped on the bandwagon.

Oh, this is one.

Have you kind of seen a resurgence with Dude Making the Friendship bracelets with Taylor Swift concerts and stuff?

Maybe we should get on Anima plastic or rubber bracelets.

While I don't think we should do that, we do have two new shirts out.

Oh, that's right.

We have Early is the New Late, which is a fantastic shirt that is.

And our Anima logo shirt inspired by the uh the brim logo yeah that is such a cool

what a cool throwback

look with anima with anma what if we stop what if we i

storenutrece.com i i desperately uh would like people to buy those shirts i do agree with i think they're great i do i think they're great shirts as well and uh uh boy would it it make our hearts sing if you were to wear them in public but uh i think you're on to something with this friendship bracelets i think friendship bracelets are overdone and you know they go in cycles i have one that millie made me years ago What if we pioneered a

friendship bracelets?

Acquaintanceship

bracelets.

We're not friends, it's just an acquaintance.

Okay.

That seems like it would make us friends if I gave you a bracelet.

No, it's the because it doesn't say like buddy or on it.

It just says like

potential.

See, I think that I think a bracelet is too friendship-y.

What if it's like acquaintanceship chapstick and it's and it's like because it's something that you'll just get like you don't use it, it's just one that says like hey, you're cool or you're fine, like we're good.

I think that's it.

It just says we're good.

We're good.

We're good.

And you give it to them and then they have it and they keep it in like the little pocket in their jeans.

And then every time they're like, oh, my lips are chapped, take it out and they go, oh, that's right, Eric.

And then

yeah, there you go.

When you give someone like a veggie burger, like, what does this mean?

Yeah, we got no beef.

Yeah, no beef, baby.

No beef.

I've learned to see

these fucking deer out.

So Book People's awesome.

Everybody loves it.

Everybody in Austin loves Book People.

We all support it.

Everybody loves an independent bookstore, especially one as wonderful as this one with just a tremendous selection.

They got a great graphic novel section.

They have a great comic book section.

They have a big manga section.

They have a wonderful horror and mystery section.

It's a really fantastic place.

My first time getting coffee here.

I've never thought to get coffee at Book People.

So that's where I was going.

I kind of figured you were.

Is that I've been coming to this Whole Foods since 1994.

I don't know why I said Whole Foods.

I'm sorry because it used to be Whole Foods here.

I've been coming to this book people since 1994.

I have spent thousands of dollars in this book people.

Thousands and thousands of dollars

over 30 years of patronage now, 29 years of patronage.

It's never even crossed my mind to get a coffee.

Same.

Same.

I've never had that thought.

I knew it was there.

I come here with the mindset of like looking for a book or wanting to do that stuff.

And I knew it was there.

But like when I would come with Millie, I guess the thing you would do if a parent was you just like throw your kid at the upstairs and then go drink coffee.

But I always like to watch, I always like to watch her.

I always like to be like, oh, what's she getting up to?

Oh, that's interesting.

You know, let's see.

Let's see how she plays with that.

And so I just never once in a million years thought to get coffee.

It's funny because when we walked in, I had like a brief pause and in my mind, I was like, where the fuck is the coffee place here?

Like, I said, I'd never been over there to get coffee.

So it's in the back.

When you walk in, it's all the way in the back right corner.

I couldn't, you can't see it when you walk in.

You would never walk in and be like, this, I'm going to get some coffee here.

It's all books.

There was one person working the coffee bar.

They were reading a book.

Yeah.

Super unbothered.

That felt like old Austin to me.

Yeah.

That felt like going to coffee shops years and years and years ago.

Like we talked about pre-store books.

Yeah.

Where it was just like, somebody's hanging out.

There's a picture of the dog on a register.

Here's some cookies.

Yeah.

What do you want?

And it was just like, none of it was like a terse or angry interaction.

It was just like, oh, put my book down.

What do you need?

All right.

It was great.

It was easy and then you order, and then they go back to reading about Proust or whatever.

I mean, really, set the coffee down, and she went, have a good one, and then sat down and just opened the book up.

And it was like, this is like you said, not in a negative way at all.

Or just what coffee shops used to be.

Yeah.

Used to be.

Yeah.

It is like stepping a little back in time.

But that's how this bookstore feels too.

Like

it's organized and there's all kinds of stuff, but they have a big like independent section and it feels like an employee-run, not like a big, you know, hey, here's how we're going to divide everything up.

It feels very employee-run and very like, here are our picks.

Here's the section, here's European history or whatever.

It just feels like an old bookstore in an old coffee shop.

They have great picks, and they do that thing where they'll write a little summary of a book and then put it on.

Yeah, I love that.

And they also have a the in the front left is where you can buy like stationery or like drafting books or like socks with the Schrodinger's cat on them or you know like whatever kind of shit you get.

They're just blank.

You don't know.

Yeah.

Just the shit you get at a coffee at like

when you need to go to a birthday and you realize you didn't buy anything and you're like, I'll just run to book people and they have it all.

I use that side of it a lot too.

A lot of emergency birthday gifts.

A lot of emergency birthday gifts came from there.

Let me know what you like in there.

I'll get you something for your wedding.

Yeah.

Maybe some socks.

You don't know if he's wearing them or not.

I have no idea.

No clue.

I don't know.

I'm not looking at them.

Maybe they're there.

Maybe they're not.

It's the eternal mystery.

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest-paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's going to tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Yeah.

Aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

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When we first started recording, you went down the street here a little bit to look for something.

Yeah, so directly behind us is

GSDNM, right?

Which is an

advertising agency.

It got rebranded to Idea City around 2010 or so.

I don't know if you remember this, but everybody in Austin called it Idiosity.

That's awesome.

Because it looked fucking stupid.

And what a stupid name, Idea City.

So the entire city of Austin made fun of them immediately and called them Idiosity.

But

to build this big-ass building, there was a row of homes here that was like on the, I guess, the further west end of that neighborhood, which is where a lot of lawyer

law offices.

Law offices and stuff.

They go that way in the jails eventually over there.

And so they bulldozed a lot of houses, but they didn't bulldoze one house.

And so if you go past the parking garage, there is still one single-family home right there where people are living.

And I always loved that house because it's very old Austin.

It's a cute little craftsman home, but it butts up to the parking garage for an advertising agency.

It's across the street from the parking garage for whatever the fuck that is.

And Caddy Corner to a bookstore.

On the other side is, I think, a park.

What is, I always assumed that parking garage was for book people.

What is it?

No, the front part of it, I think, is for book people, but there's the no Kona behind it.

Oh, yeah, that condo back there.

Yeah, I think that's where Ann Richards lived when she died.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I believe so.

I looked at, actually, she lived a little further up.

I looked at her house.

It was on the street.

She had a house, but I think she also owned a condo.

Anyway,

and I always just love that that little house is hanging on.

And it's like, fuck you, I'm still here, even though the whole neighborhood has turned into commercials.

What's going on?

There was an absolute thriving

neighborhood here at some point in the past, and that house is a holdout.

And Austin is full of those houses.

There's one, if you go up Fifth Street, about two blocks, right before you're, I guess if you're going that way, you can't go that way, it's a one-way street, but west of Lamar.

Just a little west of where it is is another coffee shop we should go to called Better Half, which is a fantastic coffee shop.

About a block in east of that, where a restaurant called Corazone used to be, is just a big-ass parking lot.

And in the back of the parking lot is like old, I don't know, Pipeworks factory or something.

And in the parking lot, in the middle of the parking lot, is just a home, a single-family home.

And people, I don't know if they still live there, but until five years ago or so, there were people still living there.

And they just literally just paved everything around the house.

So that's just a house in a parking lot.

I don't know if I've ever noticed that.

I should pay attention out for that.

And there are so many little houses like that.

I'm sure in your city and town, all over America, or all over the world, even.

But there's something about the ones in Austin that I love because they're just like people that are like, no, fuck you.

I'm still like, you can't have this house.

Build around me.

I'm staying.

It's like the house in fucking up, right?

Yeah.

And

Austin's just full of them if you look.

They're everywhere.

Huh.

Yeah.

A little like 900 to 1,200 square foot 1930s craftsman homes that just refused to go away.

That's awesome.

And then you just build around it and now you're in the parking lot of a Staples and a best buy.

Yeah, essentially.

And then you're in the parking lot of a Staples and a Best Buy.

I've never noticed that one on 5th.

I'm really going to keep an eye for it.

Yeah.

We looked at a lot of buildings over there for our office for a while before we moved to Congress in 7th.

We looked at a lot of those houses that are converted into like commercial spaces.

There's a place over there, there.

I think it's called Nightcap

that's a bar that was

a place we were going to move into.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, like right over by Windflow or whatever.

That is the only time I've ever eaten at El Arroyo.

Yeah, I've been there twice.

That time and then,

well, continue.

And so it's like a Mexican restaurant that's over there on West 5th, like a little west of here, but...

They're known for, like, they have a sign out front, and they always put, like, every day they put like a, like a stupid joke on it or whatever.

So funny.

And people take pictures of them and put them on social media, Reddit, or whatever.

And some people really love them.

I fucking hate them.

I hate them.

So mediocre.

And they just take a kind of funny tweet you saw one time and they go, slightly change this wording.

And it's ours now.

Yep.

And they even sold a coffee book with them.

Anyway, the food there is terrible.

Is it really?

Yeah, I never wanted to go there.

It's never a place that was on my list.

And then we were looking at houses out there for a potential office one time, and we were just like right there.

And it was like, let's just walk to El Arroyo and let's just have lunch here.

And it was miserable.

It was absolutely miserable.

I can't believe you went twice.

Well, the only other time I went, and I'll never understand why we did this, was when Michael Jones came to visit us when we were hiring him.

Yeah.

We got, Jack and I picked him up from the airport, and then Jack was like, Michael, you hungry?

And he's like,

I guess, whatever.

He's like, I'm going to take you to the best spot in town.

It's great.

We're going to go right now.

And we drove to El-Arroyo, and I'm like, why the fuck are we coming here?

This This place sucks.

And he's like, no, it's great.

What are you talking about?

Everybody loves El Arroyo.

And I'm like, I've never seen you eat here before.

Like, you don't eat here.

Why aren't we doing it?

And he made us eat at El Arroyo that day, and it was super fucking mediocre.

And I spent the whole time going, listen, dude, this isn't what.

Yeah.

Don't.

Don't judge us by this food.

I don't know why he's doing this, Dean.

It's so weird.

Yeah.

What a great introduction to what he would eventually become a career.

Well, it was a great introduction to the relationship between Jack and I, I think.

Everything could only go up from there.

Yeah, absolutely.

Did you guys ever go to Me Night Cat?

Oh, I've been there a few years ago.

Yes, okay.

What used to be there?

I feel like even that's fairly recent.

Well, they had a, they, you know, much like I was talking about

homes getting bulldozed and ending up with houses and parking lots, when Me Night Cat was built there, I think it was just an old house, and they converted it into Me Night Cat, and it was a huge grass lot all the way around it.

And there was like, that was kind of the cool thing about it was it had tons of parking.

And then all that parking went away, and now it's like you walk out the back door of Me Night Cat and you walk right into a concrete garage.

It's funny because I say I felt like that was fairly recent, but now that I think about it, that's probably been there almost 20 years at this point.

It's probably been there like

15 years or so.

As long as I've known it.

Wow.

Little

Johnny Cash-themed bar.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's right around the corner.

It's like across the street, sort of, and up a little, or down a little from El Arroyo.

There used to be, you know, just behind it, you said there's that wall for the parking garage, and there's like some businesses there, some retail stuff.

There used to be a really great vegetarian restaurant over there called Veggie Heaven.

There was a Veggie Heaven over there?

Yeah, they used to be over on the drag, like next to Coco's, right by UT, but they went away and they closed for a couple years, and they reopened over there, like right behind me and I'd cat in that little

shopping center.

They were open for several years there.

The food was amazing, but when the COVID hit, they closed and they just never reopened,

which is a real loss.

That place was like, normally you hear like a vegetarian vegan food, like, what the hell is that?

Like, it's probably gross, right?

Like, I've never seen a more diverse menu, and everything, everything you order was, like, so good.

I really miss that place.

That place was awesome.

And it sounds like an Austin institution, but another Austin institution that was down here was Schlotzky's.

Come down here and get a sandwich.

Yeah, I used to work over at 6th and Congress in the Littlefield building, which is right there on the northeast corner of 6th and Congress.

And there used to be a Schlotzky's down there

on the ground floor of that building.

And I remember back when I worked there, it was probably back like 2001, 2002, maybe.

They had this brilliant idea, brilliant in air quotes, to fill the restaurant with a bunch of iMacs so you could order a sandwich and like use the computer and use the internet while you ate lunch.

But it was always the most disgusting thing to me because schlotsky sandwiches leave your hands so oily and dirty.

I like schlotsky sandwiches, but dude, I eat the number one.

The original's great.

Yeah.

But it leaves your hands with all that oil.

And then it's like, oh yeah, sure, go paw at a computer that 20,000 other people have been pawing at.

So when you would look at that schlotsky's from Congress, it was all like lined with just like the lamp shade or the lamp style iMacs.

And people would just be sitting there using the internet.

I guess like, you know, there weren't smartphones, maybe Wi-Fi was just like starting to kind of take off.

Like maybe it was kind of a unique thing, but it was just gross.

Just thinking about computers in a sandwich shop is so fucking funny to me.

That's hilarious.

That doesn't make any fucking sense.

Now it's the Capital One Cafe.

We saw it on the way here.

Oh, so it's even better.

Such a weird thing.

I fucking love the idea of the Capital One Cafe.

You're going to get a loan, shitty coffee.

We're going to trick you into thinking that if you sit on a fucking love seat and drink a free coffee, that you're not at a bank or at a coffee shop.

We're going to pump you full of so much espresso you get jittery and have to sign.

But yeah,

I feel like things don't last very long right there.

in that uh in that lobby no of that little field building the capital one cafe is probably like a loss leader for them where it's like they just have it to have it there.

It's been a million things.

It has.

And then right

across the street from there, just west of Congress, there was a Starbucks there for a long time.

Yeah.

But they just closed that like last year or two years ago.

I think we talked about that.

All the Starbucks that used to be right there up and down Congress.

For the longest time, that

Capital One Cafe slash Schlotsky's was the sales office for the Austonian, right?

Oh, it was.

I forgot about that.

For a couple years.

Yeah,

when it was all under construction, they were selling that.

Yeah, like all the models and the architecture drawings and everything.

I forgot about that.

I don't know that I've ever walked in that building.

You're in that area.

You've walked in with me because I used to work there.

Yeah, but like in the little cafe part.

I remember when

they first started like TSA Precheck, when like that was a new thing.

That's where I got by the Aegis office up there, yeah.

Yeah, they had like the pre-check office was like on the seventh floor or something in that building.

It was the seventh floor.

Yeah, yeah.

That's where I had to get my first pre-check.

I know that building very well.

That building has a half floor.

I don't know if you know that.

What is a half floor?

You ever see Being John Malkovich?

Yeah.

It's like that.

Except people don't work there.

Have you told this on this podcast?

Have I?

Maybe we talked about that.

The Being John Malkovich thing so it's familiar.

It's like, I think I want to say it's the sixth and a half or the seventh and a half floor.

Weird.

But you just like take your elevator to one of those floors and then you get in the stairwell and you go up or down half a flight of stairs and then there's like a door in the stairwell.

Isn't the reason for that is that was like the original roof, but the guy across the street built his building one story taller, and so Littlefield came back.

We talked about that, we have talked about that because that's a cool-ass story.

Yeah, he was like, No, I will have the tallest building in town.

Hey, you son of a bitch,

it's all storage, it's not there's no cool offices where you get bad backs.

That's great.

Um, we're getting to, I mean, we're flying through this episode.

Yeah, time plus.

Um, I want to talk more about uh coffee people and what we got here.

So, um, coffee people again, inside of this bookstore, all the way in the back.

One person, very fast service for an Americano, a drip coffee, and a cold brew.

Very quick.

The prices were fine.

I got a cookie, but we don't rip cookies on this podcast.

So did Jeff.

He saw that Gus got a cookie, and then he went, me too.

I'm hungry.

Well, the hour change, the time just went back.

So it's like noon now, so I got to get a little sack.

So

we don't rate the cookies, but can you talk about the cookies?

I think my cookie might be a little old.

It's a little firm.

It's fine.

It's just okay.

I took a bite.

I was like, oh, this is an old cookie.

Yeah, it's a C.

Salt C minus.

Yeah.

But it's not cookie people.

They're not called cookie people.

It's cookie rich.

It's down the road.

What did you think of the coffee?

This was not my favorite cup of coffee.

Yeah.

I think I took a total of four

six or four drinks out of this.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

It's not.

Not my favorite.

Great books.

Not my cup of coffee.

Great books.

Best bookstore in Austin, hands down.

Uh-huh.

Not the best coffee in the world.

Okay.

I'm going to go with a 6.85.

Okay.

Okay.

Which rounds up to a 6.9, but I wanted to get a 5.

Which rounds up to a 7.

6.85 is where we started.

Great.

I think you'd be a little generous.

It's like a 5.5.

I think it's a 6.

But here's the thing about

this kind of coffee.

This tastes like going to a bookstore.

Yeah.

It tastes like being in an old coffee shop.

It tastes like the way an old book smells.

Not one-to-one, but it has to me

it has a nostalgia or I have like a memory of like in college

going to

a

cafe.

That's not Starbucks, just like an old cafe around campus, getting

this exact cup of coffee and having to study for an American history class that I don't give a fuck about.

This is

what coffee tasted like.

A lot of texture.

That is incredibly uncomfortably dying.

Yeah.

I think you described it great.

I would say that this is what coffee in 1996 tasted like 100%.

Before like coffee culture took off off and like really like artisan coffee and stuff before we became like coffee dickheads yeah as a society it tastes like if you were to ask them like oh what kind of beans are these they would go coffee and you go that's not well okay

yeah it's like oh it's a dark roast and you're like yeah but like

yeah where they cut coffee it's like being a little kid drinking coffee for the first time be like this is gross why do adults drink this um i will say as much as it is a six

Being in there, getting this cup and drinking it was very comforting.

Yeah, yeah.

Come to book people.

Don't let let that stop you.

Yeah, we come to book people for the books.

I mean, we've

Gus and I have been coming here for 30 years and we've never had the coffee before.

We still enjoy this book immensely.

If you are looking to

look at a bunch of books and be here for a while, get a small cup of coffee and just hold it and be warm and walk around and look at some books.

It's the best.

I think that's like, that's the move.

Nerd out.

Yeah.

I mean, it really is.

This feels like such a throwback.

Everything about it has felt like a throwback.

Absolutely.

And

I kind of love it for that.

Like, I would come back here on a weekend and be like, I want this specific cup of coffee and I want to look at books for like two and a half hours.

All right, all right, all right.

Speaking of comforting, I would say that this intersection, this little spot, is probably the most comforting section of Austin to me.

Oh, this is Austin.

Like, when I think of, like,

coming back to Austin, ice cream, it's this right here.

Waterloo Records and Whole Foods and Book People.

And

this is like the hub of what Austin was.

I feel like, you know, we've talked before about getting the Chronicle and looking for free stuff to do when we were younger all the time.

This is where we would get it.

We'd come to Waterloo.

Yeah, really?

Yeah.

Like, this was the place we would come to get it because lots of times they would give the tickets away at Waterloo.

So it's like this was where we would come and do that, you know, 25 years ago because this was like the hub for everything.

Hell yeah.

Huh.

Well,

that's Coffee People inside of Book People.

Definitely recommend.

I recommend recommend getting the coffee and reading some books.

Absolutely.

It just

feels right.

Yeah.

Feels like 1996.

It definitely does.

But we should get into some anarchy questions.

Just so you guys know, you can send us anarchy questions at Anima Podcast on Instagram and on Twitter and r slash Animopodcast on Reddit, but we don't run that.

This is just where I'm sourcing some questions from.

Also, next week's episode is going to be the last of our eight-episode run, and then me and Jeff will be back for some supplementals.

We'll give Gus some much-needed time off because he's definitely the one getting married and going on a honeymoon with me.

I need time off to buy a new mic muff because mine's disgusting.

Why did it change colors?

I think I talked too forcefully into it, and I've been spitting coffee onto it.

Look at that.

That's coffee color.

Oh, Gus.

Oh, Gus.

Hang on.

That's vile.

It's so gross.

Look at his big smile.

It used to be green, but now it's like a disgusting brownish color.

Oh, man.

So So you can send us your anarchy questions where we'll take questions from you.

Yeah.

I like this one.

This is from the Anma subreddit.

This is from I Ate Too Many Eggs.

With the holidays coming up, what are some fun or happy memories you have of Austin or Rooster Teeth around that time of the year?

Someone deleting the website right before Christmas, which was pretty fun.

This may not a happy memory of the year.

The last year that I was fully in charge of customer service in the store, and I got 107 customer service calls on Christmas Eve and I called Bernie and Gus and I was like you guys got to help me out I'm getting buried here and they're like we're off

and I had to I had to talk to 107 people on the phone on Christmas Eve 107 moms I counted it I counted it oh my god

in happier news there's that street

up a little bit here that does all the lights every Christmas 37th Street yeah 37th Street yeah right

it's back it stopped for a few years but it's back now just east of Guadeloupe yes

we should go to oh it's close to Civil Goat, which we have done before.

Yeah, we've done Civil Goat.

Not that one, though, have we?

Yeah, we did.

Oh, we did?

That's the Jason episode.

We did that with Jason.

Yeah.

Oh, okay, cool.

Yeah, because I remember waiting in line for a really long time at this place and going, it's too many people here for a Monday.

But yeah, if you're in town or on the holidays, that's like they really do it up.

It's really difficult to drive around there.

It gets really crowded.

So you can park a few blocks away and then just walk.

That's a real pro move.

How do you feel about holidays in Austin in general?

Because, I mean, it snowed here, but that's more January.

Yeah, that's February when the grid shuts down.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's just kind of

cold here, but

I like it.

I love it.

You got the trail of lights up here, you got the big Christmas tree in Zilker Park, you got Coda, they have their Peppermint Parkway.

I did that for the first time last year.

The Peppermint Parkway?

Yeah, it's adorable.

It's fine.

Yeah.

I don't like the tree in Zilker.

You don't?

You don't like the tree?

I love it.

Is it too tall?

Like you're intimidated?

It's not by it.

It's not a tree.

You just walk on it.

It's a metal pole.

What do you mean?

It's a metal pole with lights that come down, and you go and you buy

a funnel cake or an elephant ear and some hot cocoa and then you go stand on it and you just spin in a circle on it like you do what i hate it i hate it

you spin in a circle it might have been quaint when the city was a lot smaller it's it's too big now there's too many people well isn't that what the the trail of lights thing is now too you have to buy tickets for specific times it used to be free it used to be free yeah uh yeah i i i i i have not been since they started uh charging for it i i the last time i went was probably like the last year it was for you last year yeah i go every year yeah yeah how is it now is it better because i feel like it was it was kind of waning in the it was It was weird.

After COVID, it became a drive-through thing, or during COVID, and then after.

And then last year was the first year that they opened it up for walking again.

Oh, really?

And it was nice, but

the problem is that Austin is too crowded and too big.

And we had to park

basically under Mopac, you know, and then walk all the way through Zilker Park, all the way over there.

It's like a half an hour walk just to get there.

But you can see the big tree, spin underneath it, get an elf in here.

That part you don't even have to pay for.

That part's on on the other side.

That's free.

But the trail of lights, you do have to pay for.

And I think we had to get like, I don't know, we got like a ticket to go right through or whatever.

Like I skip the line thing.

But yeah, it's awesome when you get there, but it's a fucking nightmare to get there.

It's just an, like, we tried to go to Kite Festival a couple months ago.

I always loved the Kite Festival.

Oh, man, that's crazy.

And we got stuck on Mopac for over an hour, and eventually we just had to turn off.

We couldn't even get within five miles of it.

Like, it's just that, unfortunately, there's too much demand for the shit we we have.

You know, I used to live over there.

I rented a house by where that HEB is now off of Lake Austin Boulevard for a couple of years.

And anytime ACL happened, the street I lived on would just be filled with cars.

People were like parking in the neighborhood there and then walking from there to get to ACL.

That's crazy.

That's a long walk.

Which is far.

That's really, really far.

Yeah.

Jesus Christ.

A lot of Christmas trees in Austin.

I feel like it's a pretty holiday spirit.

kind of town.

Austin loves events.

Yeah.

Oh, big time.

Holiday or otherwise.

Austin loves to to do stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah, big time.

And I think that's evident when you go to something like the kite festival and you go, can't even go to it.

It's impossible to get it.

There's kites five miles in that direction.

Why didn't we go at 8.30 in the morning to look at the kites?

Oh, okay.

Hey, man.

Early as the new night.

Early as a new late.

Hey, that's it.

If I go to breakfast,

it's like 10 o'clock or after, I won't go.

You have to go before 10.

I won't wait in line for breakfast.

Dude, this get in line for breakfast before 10 while wearing your early is the new late shirt.

I was already an early is the new late guy, but this time change fucked me up.

I went to bed at 8.30 last night.

I was in bed.

I fell asleep before 9.

Jesus.

I was at a pro wrestling show last night that didn't end until like 11 o'clock, and it was me and my buddy driving home.

And we're like, we're so fucking tired.

We're so tired.

I couldn't even wake up to play trucks with Bernie Hogg and Antonio.

Some of the stuff you posted on the wrestling show was fucking cool.

Dude, there were these two guys.

So Inspire Wrestling in Austin is like the premier pro wrestling in Austin.

And the main event last night is this guy, T-Ray Watford, who's been around the Austin scene for like a long time.

He's like in his mid-40s, this young guy, Danny O'Reilly, he's like really up and comer.

And he's like, Danny, he's like, if I beat you, you retire, whatever.

So they had this knockdown drag out match where they suplexed each other off of shit through a pile of chairs, not like laid out, laid down, like set up.

And they just set up all these chairs, fucking threw each other through that, pulled the mat and the canvas up from the ring, the wrestling ring.

So you just have two by eight boards all just like slatted and just power bombed each other and off the top rope.

It It was fucking insane.

That's fucking cool.

Austin wrestling is crazy.

It's so fucking hot right now.

It's so cool.

Here's a question from

Rostofsky.

Ever seen Tarantino's death proof?

Takes place in Austin.

How accurate is it?

Happens all the time.

It's always on the news.

I'm constantly looking at feet, eating chili parlor,

getting car accidents.

I'm in my 2008 Hyundai accent and I say this car is death proof, but just in the driver's seat.

I mean, in the sense that if you want to go to Weros or Texas Chili Parlor and watch people talk too much, you can do that.

I will say

I think that our old office fucking funny.

Our old office in stage five was in Planet Terror.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like

the bay doors opening and then them coming out.

Like that was stage five.

Yep.

Yeah.

I mean

A lot of people getting shot in the streets here these days.

A lot of road rage.

A lot of road rage.

I take people to Texas Chili Parlor.

I think it's a cool spot.

And you can go, like, here's where they shot this.

And they go, really?

And you show them a scene and they go, wow.

It's one of my favorite places on earth.

Texas Chili Parlor, just a cool old place.

They don't really close for events.

They just do not.

We tried to have our rehearsal dinner there.

Yeah.

And they were like, no, we think it'd piss off our regulars.

And I was like, fair.

Absolutely.

That's the best answer I've ever heard for that.

Like, what, what a way to take care of your loyal clientele.

I think that's, I was totally understanding about that.

Yep, um, thanks for the question, Rostovsky.

This is, I would get one more.

Uh, pre-tong can duel.

Hopefully, I said that right.

I'm sorry that I didn't.

Since Jeff enlisted in the Army straight out of high school and just and Gus dropped out from university pretty early, what are some quintessential college experiences that you feel like you missed out on?

Oh, aside from the student debt, I can answer that easily.

Okay, college.

No idea what that's about.

I saw

Animal House,

I assume that I missed that.

Nope.

No.

That's not quite.

I mean, almost, but no.

You don't feel like you missed it.

I mean, I guess you don't really know what it would be.

Yeah, I missed it all.

Huh.

And by the way, I was very bitter about it for a very long time.

Is that right?

I didn't know that.

Very happy we missed out on the student debt, though.

Yeah, yeah.

Not sad about missing out on the student debt.

You were bitter about not going to college?

Oh, for a very long time.

I joined the Army because I felt like I had to, not because I wanted to.

I didn't feel like I had any other options.

I mean, if if it helps, I didn't think that you wanted to.

Yeah.

Nothing.

There was a part of me.

Well, listen, I mean, all kidding aside, I'm very quietly a pretty patriotic dude.

It's true.

Pretty pro-America,

pretty pro-the military.

You're not very pro-gun, though.

I'm not super pro-gun.

Yeah.

I'm not.

I mean, I respect them.

I think that they're a tool.

I used that tool when I was in the army.

Soldiers have to use that tool.

I don't begrudge anybody for owning a handgun or any kind of gun for personal protection.

I'm not here to police what kind of gun you buy.

I just am not a fan of them personally.

I don't like to hold them.

I don't like to shoot them.

I don't like to be around them.

People say, like, well, you just don't, you just weren't around guns enough.

No, no, no.

I grew up in Alabama.

And then I joined the Army.

I was around

every day of my life for the first 23 years.

That's why I don't like guns.

You've experienced plenty of guns.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But what made you bitter about not going to college?

I just was jealous.

Yeah.

I was jealous of all the kids that had opportunity that I didn't have.

I was jealous of kids that got to go.

Like the experience of joining the army, and I wouldn't change it for anything now because I believe it set me up for success.

And it taught me discipline and structure that I would have never found on my own.

And I certainly wouldn't have gotten college.

And so the...

I think the things that I learned in the military were invaluable.

And they're probably the main reason I'm successful in life.

But it was a very different experience to go through basic training while other people are going through rush week.

Yeah, you know, and I just like we glorify that era of college in media constantly.

There are movies and TV shows and songs and culture built around it.

And it's all about kids finally getting away from home and finding their true voice and learning what they're into and making mistakes and trying things and experimentation and getting to

get a taste of what it's like to live in the world as an adult for the first time, but in this really safe, curated kind of way.

And I, as a soldier, don't get that.

You become a piece of property and you're told when to get up, what to eat, where to work, what to do, how hard to work, how long to work, when to go to bed, when to get up the next day.

And after five years of that, as opposed to somebody having four years or five years of a traditional college experience, I was pretty jealous of the experience that they had versus the one that I had.

I felt like I had to go through it.

I've gotten over it.

Uh, I'm 48 now.

I understand my emotions a lot better, but yeah, there was a period probably into my early 30s where I just like I had a grudge.

Yeah, with me, I felt like

people

thought less of me or looked down on me for not having finished or not having the degree.

Sure.

It's like saying, Oh, yeah, I'm not going to have the same opportunity.

Like, I'm going to apply for this job next to someone else, and they're not going to pick me just because I didn't get a degree.

That's another thing, too, dude.

I already felt like I was at such a deficit for being from Alabama.

And

there are a million people in Alabama that are listening to this that are like, fuck you.

But I can only speak to my experience, which is growing up and becoming an adult in the 1990s and already like being from the South was a strike.

Not going to college was a strike.

Being a soldier was a strike, you know?

And so I always felt like I, I don't know, I had like a

a lot going against me just out the gate.

And then somebody who had a fucking political science degree that their parents paid for, which just didn't feel fair to me.

You know what I mean?

I think a lot's changed in Alabama.

It's been 30 years.

They're proudly in the 80s at this point.

I think the time has marched on.

Congratulations.

That's interesting.

I never considered that.

Yeah, don't worry.

They don't get podcasts in Alabama.

You don't have to worry about anyone getting upset.

They're still using Garfield phones.

They just got ELF.

It's going to be crazy.

That's really interesting.

I hadn't considered a spiteful thing, and I get it.

I get what you're saying.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And as you've gotten to know me for years, you understand that I am motivated largely by spider.

And I can, yeah, you definitely see that.

And this makes a lot of sense to me when you start talking about it and the way that it, I think, motivated you to do this stuff.

The whole, like, the whole Michael Jordan and I took that personally meme that we all laugh about and stuff.

I also completely and totally identify and understand with that.

And when he said that, I went, yeah, of course you did.

Yeah.

100%.

Had to create something.

Had to really get after someone.

Oh, okay, cool.

Right on.

Interesting.

Well, I think this was a good one.

This is a great episode of Anma.

Again, we have new shirts on sale, store.roosteet.com.

Early is the new late shirt.

Let everyone know that you've aged.

You're okay with that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Go get some breakfast with your friends.

Shoot a text and be like, hey, man, you want to go get breakfast at 8:30 a.m.

tomorrow?

And they're going to be like, yeah, I mean, I'm up at 7 every day.

I can wait late.

I'll late breakfast.

Yeah, I mean, I'll wait off a cup of coffee before we go.

No problem.

Get early the new late shirt.

Get the new Anima brim shirt as well.

Check those out, store.roosterteeth.com.

You can follow us at Anima Podcast on Twitter and on Instagram, r/slash anima podcast.

I shouldn't say the brim shirt.

The Anima 70s logo shirt.

Yeah, that's right.

Brim is going to come after us.

The one guy, there's one guy sitting in a room going, I got that copyright to Brim.

I got to use it one day.

I got to use it one day.

He's drinking decaffeinated coffee.

He's tired.

But thank you for listening.

Any final thoughts, last words?

Store.roosteeth.com.

There There you go.

Thank you.