ANMA - The Beginning of Our Internet Journey

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

Good Morning, Gus! In an Epoch follow up, we're coming to you from Bennu on MLK in beautiful Austin, Texas. Gus explains why he was late today and how he knows just enough about cars, we get into the ...demotivational posters guys & LiveStrong, our first Austin Coffee Shops, Geoff cleaning a toilet, and listening to a drug dealer on the phone. This episode of ANMA is sponsored by Better Help (http://betterhelp.com/anma) and Fum (https://www.breathefum.com/ANMA). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 What would you do if you had the freedom to be anyone or to go anywhere without limitations? Start your journey and experience for yourself the feeling of total freedom when you game with Alienware. Alienware is your portal to new worlds where limits don't exist and the only rules are the ones you decide to make. Defy boundaries and start gaming now at Alienware.com. Next-gen gaming is built with Intel Core i9 processors. This is a Ruestur-Teeth production. How many times in all of the podcasts that you've participated in now, really creating that entire vertical for our company, how many times have you done a podcast and had it get lost?
Starting point is 00:00:43 Oh, maybe once, if ever. It's such a thing that you fear that happens so very rarely. Yeah, I have definitely, we have definitely had podcasts where we start going and then I realize I'm not rolling. Tell about five minutes in, then I start rolling. That's happened like three or four times. I just had my first podcast, just didn't get recorded for annual pass, the theme park podcast.
Starting point is 00:01:06 I was like, I can't believe I made a 19 and a half years in this industry, which is a predates podcast by about nine years. And that's the first time it's happened. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ You know, we're at Bino this morning, which has a lot more audio texture than our last place. Okay.
Starting point is 00:01:26 And this is the coffee shop you mentioned last time during your epoch. Yeah, this is like the sequel to the last coffee shop. Yeah, so it's like the sequel to, I'm getting rained on, or am I getting birch shit on me? What the fuck just happened? There's, we are underneath a palm tree in this other tree
Starting point is 00:01:42 and they're just dripping, it's just tree drippings. Yeah, man, let's get it. Cool, tree sex. I hope I get some of my coffee. You know, a couple episodes ago, we talked about how you had been looking for that old Ford Bronco, you couldn't find it, you bought that truck, I had an old truck.
Starting point is 00:01:56 And you know, we worked on that and whatever, you let your fall apart and die in your driveway. But the reason I had bought that truck was, I felt like, at that time, how old was I? I was like 25, 26? Yeah, you've got that. I was an adult and I knew nothing about how cars worked, right? Yeah, it was like, it's this enigma.
Starting point is 00:02:15 You pay a ton of money for it, you get in, you turn the key, you hope it turns on, it takes you where you need to go. And I was like, I wanna do something about that, right? Like, my dad knew about cars, his dad knew about cars. Like, and here I am, just like, some wanna be adult with a car who has no idea how it works.
Starting point is 00:02:31 So I bought this 64 Chevy, broke down all the time. It was like a running joke. You guys always saw me. You always saw that truck broken down at a various roads around Austin. Yeah, but always, it was always the joke was like, should I bring a coffee when I picked up Gus on the side of the road on the way to work? It broke down all the time, but it was an immense
Starting point is 00:02:49 learning experience. Nowadays, you know, modern cars totally different than back then, but like, you give me like a car with a carburetor that's not fuel injected, I kind of know my way around it. He says this as if we lived together for a lot of this period. We both had these old trucks at the same time. I know how much shit he's full of because I went to his mechanic too. Listen, the big stuff, the big stuff, the mechanic took care of.
Starting point is 00:03:13 Arbor auto, I learned we would go to get old cars. Did I not swap out the fuel filter, or not the fuel filter, the fuel pump in front of your house? I know memory of him. You remember, I left a giant stain of gasoline all over the street. Yeah, I see you remember now. So the reason I say all this is to set up this story
Starting point is 00:03:31 of what happened to me this morning. I was a little late. I was about 10 minutes late coming here to the podcast recording this morning. I guess I should rewind a little bit. On Friday, hold on, rewind a little bit further and to good morning guests. Oh man, I'm gonna get you into these days.
Starting point is 00:03:44 So Friday morning I woke up and I had a text from one of my neighbors and he was like, Hey, I just, he's like, I came home this morning, like at 12.30 in the morning and there was some dude like pushing his car and stopping it, you know, in front of your house and he just left it there. He said, the battery's dead and he'll be back for it. And I was like, yeah, and I was like, okay, that's weird, whatever.
Starting point is 00:04:05 I was like, all right, yeah, thanks for letting me know. There's this Toyota Camry in front of my house. Not, like, I don't know how old it is, maybe 15 years old, like a 15-year-old Camry just in front of my house. Like, all right, I guess this guy's going to come by later today. You know, and I checked my security camera footage, and sure enough, I see this guy, like pushing a car, and like, that sucks.
Starting point is 00:04:23 Friday afternoon, he comes back out and I'm at work. And I'm like, oh cool, guys back out. I assume he's got a new battery. He's gonna swap this out, he'll be gone. He's there for an hour or two, then he leaves and the car's still there. That's weird, guy came, his car's still here. Didn't seem Saturday, didn't seem Sunday.
Starting point is 00:04:40 Today's Monday, by the way. Today's Monday morning, I'm going to leave, and he's back out there again. And I can see he's got a battery I'm going to leave and he's back out there again. And I can see he's got a battery and I'm like, he's been out there for like an hour. Swapping the battery out, showing it take like 15 minutes. Like something's wrong. Like he, something's gone sideways.
Starting point is 00:04:54 So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna go out here and see what's going on with this guy, see if I can help him. Poor guy man, it's just like, it's obviously has no idea what he's doing. Like he's just totally lost. He's like, yeah, I was, you know, trying to swap the battery out.
Starting point is 00:05:04 I dropped one of these nuts, it fell in down in the engine Like, he's just totally lost. He's like, yeah, I was, you know, trying to swap the battery out. I dropped one of these nuts. It fell in down in the engine somewhere. I can't find it. He's like, I tried to start the car. This big spark came out. I don't know what's happening. I'm like, I'm like, looking at it. I'm like, how old is this guy?
Starting point is 00:05:14 He's probably, if I had to guess, early 30s. Okay. And I'm like, I look at it and I'm like, yeah, you just, you're like, you're the terminals are loose. Like, where your battery connects. Like, we just got to tighten all this stuff down. He's like, yeah, I tried to, but then it sparked real bad. I was like, here, just take the negative terminal off.
Starting point is 00:05:27 I'm like, here, this is car maintenance 101, right? I'm like, here, I've got my tools right there. I'm like, let me help you out. Take it all apart, clean off the terminals. Hook it all back together, tighten it all up. I can't find that nut that he dropped. It's like the nut that tightens the positive terminal. And I'm like, so I looked through my toolbox
Starting point is 00:05:45 and I find, I can't find the same nut, but I find like, some twine to at least like wrap it. Cause there's a, this is not a part store not too far away. Yeah. Like I'm just trying to get it running again for him so we can like get somewhere where he can get this fixed. And I'm like, all right, you know, I was like,
Starting point is 00:05:59 it's not 100% I said, I wouldn't take this car in a road trip. I said, but, you know, this is gonna last you for a couple of months. It'll at least get you the auto parts store down the road. It's like, you need these terminals cleaned. You need to get a new nut for this. They have all that stuff there.
Starting point is 00:06:12 I don't have anything you need here. This is the best I can do. I was like, go down over there, turn over there. I'm like, I don't have anything you need here. Go away. So I sent him on his way as best I could, but I felt so bad for the guy because I was like I was in that position at one point. Yeah. Well, it's like I have no idea. It's just this mystery box that runs. So I had to help a dude get his car started. It started and he drove
Starting point is 00:06:38 away. Not my problem anymore. You know, you know who else can help in that situation? A mechanics are great for that. but B, YouTube. All the dude had to do was Google had to change the battery and watch a very informative video that would have explained everything. I'm sure, yeah, yeah. Your ignorance is no longer an excuse for any task. You are right, you could absolutely Google it.
Starting point is 00:06:58 But I mean, there is some practical aspect to it, right? Sure, sure, sure. You could watch a YouTube video, but the YouTube video might not cover, hey, you didn't tighten the terminals enough. Like, you didn't tighten these connectors enough. There's some corro, I guess maybe we'd talk about corrosion or maybe we'd cover some of this stuff,
Starting point is 00:07:12 but, you know, there is a certain amount of hands-on experience that is helpful for stuff like that. And to be fair to the guy, it's not like he knocked on your door and said, I need help, he was trying to work it on his own. And then you injected yourself into this. I'm shocked, he didn't knock on my door on Friday. Like, I didn't think to go home to try to help him
Starting point is 00:07:27 or anything because I was like, he's got it under control. He came back like if it's just a battery, he'd swap a battery out. I've done a 180 on this guy. I'm a big fan. No, you know what? I just did a 180 back.
Starting point is 00:07:35 I'm back against the guy and here's why. He had three days to figure this out. That car sat in your part. That's true. Yeah, yeah. He could have tried a million. Why watch a million YouTube videos? I got a friend maybe that probably yeah probably you know called a traveling mechanic something. I don't know I don't know
Starting point is 00:07:51 That's something expensive and inflation. I'm flipping back hang on he's flipping again hang on are we doing a 540? We're working on a 720 hang on K. Tony Hawk on this on this podcast. He's't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that.
Starting point is 00:08:10 I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that.
Starting point is 00:08:18 I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. I can't even look at that. And in all seriousness too, it is no fun to have a car break down in Texas. Especially right now, we're in the summer.
Starting point is 00:08:28 In the middle of a heat wave, it was like 105 degrees yesterday. That's what killed me on my truck eventually, is it kept breaking down and it didn't have air conditioning, so it'd be like, just, it'd be like 115, it was always 115 degrees on the side of I-35. And last night, it was 100 degrees at like 9.30 pm. The sun was gone and it was 100 degrees at like 9.30 pm. Yeah. The sun was gone and it was still 100 degrees out here. And I'm sure wherever you're listening from,
Starting point is 00:08:48 it's hotter there, sorry, you live there. We get it, it's not the hottest place on earth, but it's not heat, it's hot. We're the only ones. Start your own podcast, fuck off. Over here on this part of town, you know, we're off, we're at the venue. Are there other venues or is this the only one?
Starting point is 00:09:04 Yeah, there's others? There's others. There's others. There's one on South Congress, I think, over by, in the free, were free bird's'es? Oh, okay, yeah. It's like Riverside and South Congress. This is the only one, I think of the venue this is the place I think of.
Starting point is 00:09:17 And like being on this part of town, we're on MLK, like East of 35, it makes me always think of, it's not even that it's that close. What it makes me think of like East fifth and East sixth down, you know, a little south of here. And it makes me think about that business. I don't even know what the business was
Starting point is 00:09:31 that used to be there. I think it was on East sixth that had that dumb ass clock out front in the early 2000s. Or the late 90s, you remember that? Oh, oh. I know who bought it eventually, but who was it at the time?
Starting point is 00:09:42 Amplifier had that building for a while. But before then, someone, some internet business had a building out there, and they put a big clock on the side of the road that just spun real fast and didn't tell the time. It's like a more Nate clock. It said internet time. It makes no sense, dude. That's so dumb.
Starting point is 00:09:58 It was like an ISP or something, it's like how fast they were. If you go down there, I think that clock is still out there on the side of the road, but it doesn't say internet time anymore and it doesn't just constantly run super fast. It's just like some normal clock now. It's just a clock. It's not telling internet time anymore. I forgot about that.
Starting point is 00:10:14 It's so dumb. That would have been where they were working when we first started working with them, I think. Yes, yes. I was really in the years ago. Amplifier, we worked them for a long time. They were our fulfillment house for real. Really cool people.
Starting point is 00:10:27 Online store. They also did some video production. Oh, actually, you know what? You remember like in the late 90s, there were those demotivational posters. Despair. They made that up. That was them. Really?
Starting point is 00:10:38 That's how they ended up with a fulfillment company is they were making these posters and calendars. Oh wow. And they were doing so well, they had to go out and find outsourced a vendor to ship their stuff, and they were running into the same problems that we were, and so they decided they figured out very quickly how to run that business better than any vendor they could find,
Starting point is 00:10:54 and so they just became a shipping company for their own product, and then that business took off, and so. So they were a fulfillment house for years. For years, so yeah, the demotivational poster people, if you bought something from us for 10, so yeah, the demotivational poster people, if you bought something from us for 10 years or so, the demotivational poster people sent you
Starting point is 00:11:09 your crazy thing about them, is they had the, because they're Austin, right, local, they had the live strong campaign, like they did the shipping for them. Those little yellow bracelets. I don't know if you remember back in the day when those yellow cancer bracelets came out. Oh yeah, apparently anti-cancer bracelets. Anti-cancer bracelets. I don't know if you remember back in the day when those yellow cancer bracelets came out. Oh yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:25 Apparently. Anti-cancer bracelets. Anti-cancer bracelets. They didn't give you cancer there. I will say it's hard to find the cancer bracelets. Yeah. Who started anti? Those are made of lead and they're just still around you.
Starting point is 00:11:37 And I'm butchering this story because it's not my story. I just remember this from, I think he's from the original pitch when we first started talking to him. But, you know, they were doing small business, kind of a local fulfillment house, doing this small cancer thing with Liv Strong, and then he went, he had that cancer thing. And then he went on Oprah,
Starting point is 00:11:57 and they sold 17 million in one day, and they had to ship them all, and it changed their business. Yeah, Eric's jaw dropped, imagine that you wake up, you go to the office like, oh, we need to ship 17 million billions. Not a couple hundred, like we used to, or maybe a thousand, but like 17 million all at once. That's outrageous.
Starting point is 00:12:14 And so they blew up. And yeah, big Austin success story. They also dabbled in video production. And when years ago we were making Red versus Blue, everything we distributed was in standard definition. And finally, God, what year was it? Must have been like, oh, seven, maybe oh six, we need to start making videos in high definition. And we just couldn't figure out the workflow to do it. We had the capture card, but just like hard drives weren't fast enough back then. It's like you couldn't write data fast enough to do this capture codex hadn't really,
Starting point is 00:12:46 you know, they were hadn't really matured to the point where you could do this easily. So I remember I went over to Amplifier for a day because I knew they did video production. I was like, show me how you all capture and encode your HD footage. And they showed me, they were like, this is the hardware we use, this is our workflow.
Starting point is 00:12:59 So I just like, try to remember, I wrote down as many notes as I could, went back to our office, bought all the same hardware, and then was like, boom, now we can capture HD, and then we made the Red versus Blue out of mind series, was our like, proof of concept for high definition. Didn't even watch a YouTube video, figured it all out. I think YouTube was a year old, maybe at this point,
Starting point is 00:13:18 like if that. So that's why we were able to, we had to buy a rate array of super fast hard drives, and it was a whole production, it was super expensive. But they're like, okay, cool. Now we can make a high death videos. Dude, that reminds me of talking about how long ago that was. Did Bernie send you that thing the other day? He texted me this, he said, do you want to feel old?
Starting point is 00:13:37 RVB came out before the Star Wars prequel's finished filming. Yeah. And Lord of the Rings and the Matrix movies. Wow. Yeah. And Lord of the Rings and the Matrix movies. Wow. Yeah. And YouTube. And Facebook. When we started, when we started Rooster Teeth,
Starting point is 00:13:50 my father was one year older than I am right now. Oh my God. Your dad was, I needed dad. He, I guess I still know your dad, but I knew him then too. He was so old. He was such a dad. He was one year older than I am right now. You did a guy hair bag then I think. Crazy. That's wild, right?
Starting point is 00:14:08 I guess that how does that make you guys feel kind of just it's been so long you've been doing this and now you're getting to the point where it's just like yeah that's how old my parents were. I mean I really I made this realization the other day because I was reviewing a video we're going to put out where I'm acting like a jackass. And I was like my dad was a year older than me. I can't imagine my dad walking around with an iPhone filming this. That was, yeah, would have been him. Well, not gonna figure out how old my mom was.
Starting point is 00:14:33 Okay. 2003. In 2003, and I'm born in 1975, and so you add the five, it gets you to 80, and that's five. And then, in 2005, 28, I was 28 in 2003, and my mom was born in 1955. So that makes her 20 years old, 48. So she was one year older than me. Oh, you're in the same boat.
Starting point is 00:14:56 Jesus. It's really scary when you contextualize it that way, huh? Oh, my lord. That was my Howard Stern math for you there. Yeah, that was great. Nine times seven. You're at the age where your parents were when you started this.
Starting point is 00:15:16 So what does that mean? It means I might finally get a real job soon. I'm working on it. I don't know what it means, but I know I wake up every day and I wear my uniform as a t-shirt and swim trunks seven days a week and that was not my mom at 47. So... Yeah, specifically Boston Celtic shirts. I think every episode we recorded you've been wearing a Boston Celtic shirt. There's a reason for that. Celtics play tonight. I wear the shirt. The one in the Celtics play in an episode one? I'm sure they must have been. It was the playoffs
Starting point is 00:15:44 and they were in the finals. I have to wear must have been. It was the playoffs, nowhere in the finals. I have to wear Celtics clothes every day on game day to support the Celtics. What's the series out? 2-2. Right now. Did you hear the story I told earlier? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:54 To Eric, yeah. I was supposed to go to that game. Sad. It's okay. It happens. Listen, this is the new world we live in. COVID happens. And...
Starting point is 00:16:02 And yeah, there is not a cloud in the sky, dude. It's, it is definitely like, tree jizz. Well, yeah, no, it's definitely tree. I didn't just make that up. That's just what trees do. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. I don't mind it.
Starting point is 00:16:13 It's like a, it's just a, it's just a, it's just a, it's just a, pigeon flying and went. Whoa, it was hovering. It was flying. It stopped and mid here. It was just like holding position.
Starting point is 00:16:24 I was, I was convinced it was lining up a shit shot on Jeff. I have a question for you. So we're at B-New at MLK and... Pocito. What's that? Pocito. It means little or a little bit. Oh yeah, Pocito.
Starting point is 00:16:38 I was thinking chicken, but yeah, technically we are at a little dick and... Yeah, a little dick and MLK. It's not too much of a year together a lot. We are a little dick and, a little dick and I'm okay. I'm not too worried you're together a lot. Er, too crazy. And Ritecross from B-New is a giant construction site. They're building, I'm assuming,
Starting point is 00:16:56 from the condos. It's by eight story condos. Say, what is the level they can go with sticks before they have to use? Four, okay. It's by four story condos. I lived in this area and you lived in this area for a long time.
Starting point is 00:17:07 What was on the other side of this building a month ago? Do you remember what was there before they tore it down? I don't know, I have no idea. I, I, yes, same. I was gonna say Arnold oil, but that was down like on six or a minute. It may have been this house that was like this lesbian babysitter club
Starting point is 00:17:25 that Millie would go stay at sometimes. They would have like this group of lesbians but have like a little like, just like group babysitting thing that was kind of cool. But I don't think so. I think it was some sort of other business there, but this thing that's been driving me crazy about Austin lately is I've lived it for 27 years
Starting point is 00:17:42 and I ride my bike 20 miles a day through it. I feel like I've memorized the city. But the second something gets bulldozed, I lose all memory of it. And it's like, it might as well have never existed. I use Google Street View historic data all the time to try to remember what was where and what something looked like.
Starting point is 00:17:59 It's funny you bring that up because I was recently thinking about flipnotics who I hadn't thought about in years. That would have been a prime animal location to record at if they were still around, but it was like a coffee shop that had a couple of locations around town. They're gone, they probably been gone 15 years.
Starting point is 00:18:18 I wanna say, and this is going off, well, first off, Flutonites is a very first coffee shop everyone to in Austin, in 1994. It, first off, Flutonize is a very first coffee shop everyone to an Austin in 1994. It's over off Barton Springs. I think it's a clothing store and a juice land or something. Not a juice land, but like whatever. A daily juice, maybe.
Starting point is 00:18:35 And it's like right at the edge of this huge hill that goes up into that neighborhood. And it's like a split level two story deal. It's a adorable building. And I want to say like when I was in there in 94, the very first time I have ever stepped foot in there. And I remember this very clearly because my first wife smoked. And we walked in and the guy who owned the place
Starting point is 00:18:57 was talking about having cancer, like a lung cancer, I think. And my ex wife was asking if it was a smoking place. And I was like, this is not appropriate. I'm asking. Yeah, I remember being like, ugh,wife was asking if it was a smoking place. And I was like, this is not appropriate. It's time to ask a question. Yeah, I remember being like, ugh, we're just gonna get our coffee and sit outside. So I don't know if that had anything to do with it. I think the first coffee shop,
Starting point is 00:19:12 you can now that you mentioned, I think the first coffee shop I ever went to in Austin, I don't remember the name of it. Maybe you can help me remember. It was on the drag right across from UT. It was a 24 hour place. In Somnia. In Somnia. Wow. Yeah. It was right next to like Lafone a 24 hour place. Insomnia. Insomnia. Wow.
Starting point is 00:19:25 Yeah. Yeah, it was right next to like LaFon and Einstein and stuff. Yeah, I used to go there because in the last episode we talked about bowling night at the call center. Some nights that weren't bowling night, we used to go to Einstein's and LaFon instead, which were like 24 hour arcades over there on the drag. And we would go down and we'd drink coffee and get coffee in Insomnia or get whatever. And then go over to like LaFon
Starting point is 00:19:45 and play, you know, whatever video games were out there until like four or five in the morning and then you know, go home and sleep, just typical dumb, young kid shit. I wonder why I never had any money back in there just wasting coffee in midnight. I would hang out at that coffee shop in the mid 90s all night long because I couldn't get into bars.
Starting point is 00:20:02 And just try, and there was like a bunch of gutter punks and squatters and stuff there back in the 90s. And I would just try to fit in and not look like I was in the army, you know, and just try to like, this is just, it just be desperate to be there with them and not in the military. I was like, why did I join the army? And not the coffee shop army.
Starting point is 00:20:18 This is where I want to be. Yeah. I remember one thing about that in Somnie place, it was one of the most disgusting things. I was standing in line to use the bathroom, and they would always have people come in from outside using this stuff. 24 hour coffee shop, yeah, of course.
Starting point is 00:20:30 And there was this like, kind of heavy set, dude in front of me, who's about my age, and he was fucked up. I remember him is very, very drunk. And he was just like talking to me, and I was trying not to talk back. And he was just like, I'm a douche sprinkler. And I was like, okay, I don't know what that is.
Starting point is 00:20:45 And he went into the bathroom, and when he came out, he just goes, gave me a thumbs up. And I walked in, and I guess a sprinkler is when you stand in the middle of the bathroom and you just piss in a circle. Oh my God. Until you run out.
Starting point is 00:20:55 And the place was just like at waist high, just covered like a ring of urine. And I was horrified, and I actually tried to clean some of it up, and I'm like, Why am I cleaning up somebody else's mess? But then I walked outside, because there's a line on my way. I get you, yeah. And I was like, I didn't it up and I'm like, why am I cleaning up somebody else's mess? But then I walked outside because there's a line. I'm like, yeah. And I was like, I didn't do that.
Starting point is 00:21:08 I didn't do that. I swear to God, that wasn't me. It was the other guy. I didn't make it, I tried to clean it up. I don't know, and I just left. Oh my God. Four of five people would think that I'd done that. I hear you, I would do the same,
Starting point is 00:21:16 I would not, that bathroom would be spotless. Yeah, I'd be like, oh my God. You guys are nuts, that's crazy. I'm neurotic, I don't people believe in me for that? I'm not gonna touch some stranger's piss. Wow, you're in touch. Yeah, you're in touch, but you were towels. But it was like, I feel so bad.
Starting point is 00:21:31 And then I remember thinking too, like something's gotta clean this up. Yeah. Just because somebody wanted to be a dickhead, you know? You want to do a sprinkler? Do you want to do a sprinkler? But it's something I'd never heard of before or since. Yeah, I feel like I quickly figured it out,
Starting point is 00:21:42 but I'm horrified here to know that someone actually does that. I wonder why people don't want to work, those kinds of retail jobs anymore, huh? Okay, I think. I'd imagine that. You're just like, you working at a coffee shop just to make some money, it's like great. Someone pissed all over the bathroom,
Starting point is 00:21:57 and now I gotta clean that up. Man, something like a fucking sprinkler in here. Can I tell you, this is not an awesome story, but this is a high school story. Can I tell you the worst story about bathroom clean up? Oh God. This is brief. I won't get into it.
Starting point is 00:22:09 In high school, I worked at a place called Sydney's Fried Chicken in theater Alabama. And it was like a low-rent Popeyes. Okay. And so I worked in the back washing dishes because I made the customers uncomfortable. This is the release. On brand early on.
Starting point is 00:22:26 Yeah, I got it too. I believe me, I got it because the second they would, anytime somebody would call and stick and I'd have to work the counter and be like, yes, I get to screw with people. So anyway, they would always be a fight over who would have to clean up a particularly dirty toilet. And it's because I was the dishwasher, I was pretty low on the totem pole and pretty determined to stay low on the totem pole because of my mouth.
Starting point is 00:22:45 And so they would always make me clean it. And one night, they came in and just gave me a scrub brush and were like, it's a bad one, you gotta clean it. And so I was like, ugh, so I went to clean it. And I scrubbed it. It was a lady's bathroom and it was hideous and it was a, it was a, it was a, it was a due to explosion. It was very terrible.
Starting point is 00:22:59 I want to get into it. But um, there was explosion. There was a girl I worked with, that thinker name was Bianca. And she was the one who didn't want to clean it, and I hated her. And this wasn't on purpose, but she was my friend's sister, and I just didn't like her. And I was walking back, and I was hold back around the counter,
Starting point is 00:23:14 and I was bringing the scrubber back with me, because it didn't stay in the bathroom for some reason. I don't know. The customers will steal it. I guess. Yeah, probably, honestly, that's probably, yeah. Do a sprinkler. No, no, no, no. But I do know around, I was just like, gonna go give it back to Keith, and be like, yeah, probably, honestly, that's probably, yeah. Do a sprinkler? No, no, no, no, no. But I do know around, I was just like,
Starting point is 00:23:26 gonna give it back to Keith. I'm be like, here, asshole. And I was just like swinging it as I was walking. Oh, no. And she would bend over, she was getting some, I think, like, napkins or something from under the counter. And I went, what?
Starting point is 00:23:39 And I looked over it, and it had just grabbed her in the hair, shit, curly hair. And it just got wrapped and tangled in her hair. And it was in there, and I had to like separate it, and she was screaming, and it was a whole thing, and she got to go home, and I yelled at it. This is one of those things, obviously, like you said, you didn't do it on purpose.
Starting point is 00:23:56 I think it was one of those things that subconsciously your mind set up. Yeah, right. Your mind set this scenario in motion, and you got to experience it. They're not going to be on the air. That's neither here nor Austin. Or they are not here.
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Starting point is 00:25:29 Over the past couple of years, I think we've all become a little more familiar with burnout and what it can entail, and having feelings like that, whether it's working too much, not taking enough time for oneself, there's different ways it can manifest itself. Life can be overwhelming, many people are burned out without even knowing it. Symptoms can include lack of motivation, irritability, fatigue, and more. We associate burnout with work, but that's not the only cause. Any of our roles in life can lead to us feeling burned out. Better help online therapy wants to remind you to prioritize yourself.
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Starting point is 00:27:01 saying about this part of town, I was saying about that stupid internet time clock. And it made me start to think about like, the first time I use internet. Again, maybe this is a little, I think for both of us, is pre-Austin. Maybe start thinking about like, the first time I use internet and like, really early internet days.
Starting point is 00:27:17 And I don't know if you know this about me, I'm a huge nerd. I was even more so when I was a teenager. And I started, this is, this is 20 years of me trying to cool them. Yeah, I'm like, 25, shit. And I was thinking back to like those first internet experiences. And like when I first started using the internet, it must have been like 92, 93, like to the point where it predated
Starting point is 00:27:42 the existence of the web. Yeah. Like the internet was like different protocols that don't the web. Like the internet was like different protocols that don't exist anymore. Like the internet was more robust. It was like these different ways of transferring files and seeking information that no one used anymore. Nowadays the internet's just like apps in the web
Starting point is 00:27:55 and that's it. And I was thinking about how different this all is. And I was the first time I used the web specifically, I remember it very clearly. I remember my first time using the web. It was 1994, it was the summer, it was probably like June of 94. And I was at what is now Texas State,
Starting point is 00:28:13 was it not, yeah, it was Southwest Texas University back in the now it's Texas State, down in San Marcos. Now it was at a summer camp, and I had been in the Vax Lab, which was like a mainframe kind of deal, where you set like a little terminal, it's just like a keyboard and a monitor, and it's all text and super nerdy stuff, right?
Starting point is 00:28:29 And something you'd see like in a 90s hacker movie. And I'd gone over to a different lab than normal and they had computers with web browsers in there. I was like, all right, I'm gonna check this web thing out. And like the lab tech showed me how to use NCSA mosaic, which was I guess the only web browser at the time. And he loaded it up, showed me, he's like, this is the way, this is going to take over, everyone's going to be using this.
Starting point is 00:28:49 I was looking for research paper, I was doing a project, and I'm looking it up and it's taking forever to load, and it's slow. In my mind, it's this slope because of all these stupid pictures. I asked the lab tech, is it always this slow? He was, oh, yeah, I guess it must be a busy time on the internet right now. I looked him dead in the eye tech, I'm like, is it always this slow? He goes, oh yeah, I guess it must be a busy time on the internet right now. And I looked him dead in the eye and I was like, this is dumb.
Starting point is 00:29:10 This is never gonna take off. People don't want pictures on the internet. This is so stupid. I could be done with this if I was in the Vax lab already. And I stood up, left, and went back to the Vax lab. And I've never been more wrong about anything in my life than I was at that moment. Which just speaks to what a fucking insolent little dick I was when I was a teenager.
Starting point is 00:29:30 Like I thought I knew everything. I thought I had the entire world forget. I was 16 years old. And I thought I was the smartest fucking person in the world. What a dumb little piece of shit I was. Yeah. We were so dumb and so wrong even a lot of even early Roostery stuff. But yeah, that's Well, we were so dumb and so wrong, and a lot of even early Roostery stuff, but yeah, that's, do you, well, here's an Austin Tech context to put it in. This was, we've been doing this for so long that when we would do those yard sales,
Starting point is 00:29:53 we talked about, we talked about drunk sailing and stuff, we would find a lot of those yard sales on Austin.yard sale, I believe, on news groups. Yeah, yeah, Austin for sale. News groups and the statesmen, we'd have to look in the states. Well, in the states, in the classified to look all that stuff up. What do you think you'll be wrong about next? Oh god. Everything. I don't know. I feel like I'm wrong about
Starting point is 00:30:11 so many. There are very few. I think that's actually that's actually part of growing up, right? It's like you don't have to be right all the time. There's just like strategic times you can be right. And I think we have looked out enough and gotten a couple of things right, which we've been there when the stars align. Well, there's also nothing, there's a, geez, dive bomb at that bird. There's also,
Starting point is 00:30:35 I'm gonna make one of him, the bird was just flying. It's an aerial picture. It's like a hairier jump jet. Another bird was flying. Okay, well, there's nothing better for your, your personal growth than being confidently wrong, you know. That's a real gut punch for you. I started on my internet journey in the army. I think I even mentioned that early on in this about how I had to make websites for the army.
Starting point is 00:30:59 But I think the first time I ever used the army was the first time I ever used the army was, or used the army. The first time I probably used the army was the internet. Now the first time I probably used the internet was in the army and I was probably 18. And to me, it was an immediate explosion of solving problems I had had my whole life that I didn't understand. I didn't think I'd ever be able to solve. That mostly related to me trying to learning actual lyrics from this fit songs. Because when you were a punk rock kid growing up in the 80s, you listened to music and you wrote down what you thought they were saying,
Starting point is 00:31:31 but there weren't liner notes. And so nobody knew what the misfits, nobody knew what Glendeads was saying for 20 years. And, or well, I guess about 10 years at that point, 15 years. Until the internet came along. And then I could finally understand, so I just would download and print out lyrics to songs so that I could listen to them in my door and sing along on my unpeas of paper. That's all the internet was to me.
Starting point is 00:31:55 I've also been thinking a lot about the explosion of the internet. When I dropped out of college and I moved to Austin, we covered all this. I thought this place was gonna take off. And I felt like early on, I was validated and I had made the right decision because when we were working at the call center, back in maybe like 99, that's when time-order cables started rolling out cable modems.
Starting point is 00:32:18 And like high-speed internet. Like we could finally move beyond dial up and Austin was like one of the test markets where you could get a cable modem. And I remember working at the call center like everyone was super excited about it because a bunch of like techy people like everyone's like really into this stuff and when when these cable modems and this high speed internet first launched I remember it was six megabits was the speed and if you wanted to get a cable modem you had to take a class
Starting point is 00:32:42 yeah you had because it was like when they rolled it out in beta if you wanted to get a cable modem you had to go to the time Warner office and you had to take like class. Like, yeah, you had, because it was like, when they rolled it out in beta, if you wanted to get a cable motor, you had to go to the time-owner office, and you had to take like a two-hour long class about how the internet works and how to set up your cable motor, and they did not let you share that connection. If you had a cable motor,
Starting point is 00:32:56 you could only plug it into one computer. If you wanted multiple computers on the internet, you had to get multiple cable motor. So for a very brief period of time, at least here in Austin, I don't know how it worked elsewhere. A lot of the coworkers that we had would set up this like proxy software because they would run the internet into one computer
Starting point is 00:33:14 and then run like, put a second network card in their computer, run like a proxy router on that computer and then like plug that into a hub and share it amongst all the computers in their home. What year was this? 99. Jesus Christ.
Starting point is 00:33:24 Yeah. And this was like, 99. Jesus Christ. Yeah. And this was like, for the first six months to year, that high speed internet, in air quotes, high speed internet existed. This is like the hoops you got to jump through in order to be able to get anything faster than dial up. But I felt like in that moment when they were testing high speed internet in Austin, that's when it in my mind, I was like, I felt validate. I was like, I made the right decision.
Starting point is 00:33:45 This is the kind of town where the internet stuff's going to take off. We're going to be able to test things early here. We're going to be on the bleeding edge, and we're going to figure this out. And we're going to make money. We meet me and whoever I met in the future to help me with this.
Starting point is 00:33:58 Like, I couldn't do this on my own. Like, we're going to make money on this, and we're going to figure this out. We're going to corner this. And luckily, I met the right group of people at that call center and I think it was just the kind of place that attracted people who had an interest in internet things, maybe not necessarily knowing what they wanted to do,
Starting point is 00:34:16 but it's similar enough thinking-wise. On top of that too, Austin was at that time especially a very easy and attractive place to live for entrepreneurs. Because it was so cheap and affordable and it was pretty highly educated, and there just is an, to this day, I've never experienced it anywhere else. There is an entrepreneurial spirit to the people of Austin, Texas, that like every single person here has an idea and thinks that they can figure out how to turn it into a success. And a lot of them do.
Starting point is 00:34:47 Yeah. And the people in the city support the hell out of it. And that's something that I haven't seen change. The entire time I've been here, is that Austinites support other Austinites in their entrepreneurial dreams. Yeah, I think that is changing a bit. Just as the city has grown,
Starting point is 00:35:04 you know, for better or worse, there's just like a bigger city people are more involved in what they're doing and their day to day thing as opposed to trying to help other people out. But you know, just something you said before in a previous episode, it's like for a long time, it was, what did you call it, the Velvet Ditch? The Velvet Ditch, it's not my phrase,
Starting point is 00:35:21 but yeah, I think it was a place where you could get by on very little money and just try to do whatever it was that you wanted to do. Try to make those dreams happen. So to that point, I started wondering, when we were working at the call center back in the late 90s, early 2000s, I started wondering how much money was I making back then.
Starting point is 00:35:43 I can't remember, it was so long ago. So I looked it up, you can log into the Social Security website and you can look up how much money you are in because all that has to be reported to the Social Security when you're working here. I moved to Austin in 1998. In 1998, I made $10,600. In 1999, which is the year we met,
Starting point is 00:36:02 I made just under $23,000. Like that was the amount of money that was okay. I had a roommate, but like I was living, we were bowling, we were going to the arcade. It's like, we were down at a Gonecocino. Right, it's like, I mean, I was, money was tight, but it wasn't like I was in dire straits by any stretch of the imagination.
Starting point is 00:36:21 In the year 2000, it must have been a good year, I made $38,000. Like, it just wasn't a lot of money we were talking about back then. We were scraping by doing whatever we could do to try to make money to then go out and have fun to read the Chronicle. That's why we would try to find free movies
Starting point is 00:36:36 and go get free beer on South Congress and try to stretch our entertainment. Yeah, I must have made around the same. I really did work to the same place and I owned a home and had a wife who didn't work. Yeah, it really is, you know, they, they, they, they, Monial's talk about the death of the American dream, which was, you know, honestly, bullshit from the beginning, the idea of the American dream. I hope that doesn't sound any other American, but it was like, it was manufactured to try to get people to buy homes. Yeah, absolutely.
Starting point is 00:37:02 So Mark, in the 60s, it was. It was, but yeah, I get it. You can really see it. Like, that really puts it into context. Like, I, at 23, was able to, on an $8 an hour job, I was able to buy a home and support a wife who didn't work. Yeah. Yeah, it's wild. It is wild.
Starting point is 00:37:22 We were not living well, but we weren't living poorly. Right. You know? Yeah, I mean, like I said, I had a roommate, but we were at a car, we would go out and have fun. We were playing video, we had to take the video games back every seven days to the EV games or whatever in return. But like, we were just doing just as well.
Starting point is 00:37:38 We were probably having more fun than than we are right now. Yeah. It's crazy to look back and to have that record where you can look back and try to put that stuff in perspective. It all whiplash so fast, I think is the thing. I had a conversation with a friend yesterday. I listened to Mel and calling the Infinite Sadness that's Mashing Pumpkins album.
Starting point is 00:37:57 It came out in 95 or 96. It was 95, but it was 94 even. Yeah, it almost huge. A great big album or whatever. And I said, if I was going to give somebody an album that's like, what did the 90 sound like? I'd given that album because it's big and it has like a big span and everything. And I said, this is to me what the 90s sounded and felt like.
Starting point is 00:38:17 You put that album on and you worked at a block, like a blockbuster. And that was enough to get by and be relatively comfortable. And then 1999 and 2000 happened and fuck you go to hell. How much money do you make make more? That's how it, like the end of the 90s felt like. What else you got? What else you got? I mean, it was that acceleration.
Starting point is 00:38:41 It's that internet time that we're going there that we mentioned already. It's like the acceleration of the internet. Everything just went on this crazy curve up. And, you know, we've never recovered. We never slowed down. You know, sure, there have been a couple of, like, financial crisis. We're probably in the start of one right now.
Starting point is 00:38:56 There have been a handful of things that knocked the economy down, but baby, we're still kids. It doesn't stay down. That's the thing that scared me after the 2008-2009 financial crash. Like, it felt like we were on such a precipice of collapse and things changing. And then within two or three years, people forgot about it.
Starting point is 00:39:14 It's like, oh, that's old news. Everything is up again. I wonder if it's just generational, right? Because I feel like the 80s was the era of me and wealth, right? And spending and showing your success through spending. And it's very Gordon Gekko, very like, you know, very inwardly focused, very selfish. And that seems like it was a response to a 70s
Starting point is 00:39:39 that was the counter of that, right? Like it was the height of the counter culture and it was when it was starting to go south and the kind of the sheen was wearing off the 60s and the 80s was like a, I guess like a VM in it response to that. I wonder if the 2000s were response to the, honestly, the kind of like the cynicism and the nihilism
Starting point is 00:39:58 of the 90s and it's interesting. I think somebody needs Chuck Klosskerman to figure this out. I think it's a lot I think somebody needs Chuck Klosskerman to figure this out. I think it's a lot of it is like, it's, I hesitate to say this, it's our fault. It's definitely Generation X who grew up. Well, they got older and they were looking at making $22,000 a year being like, what else is there?
Starting point is 00:40:22 You know, I'm not gonna work at this blockbuster anymore. I'm gonna get mine. And it's our generation's fault. Yeah, but do you think, but isn't that what the 80s preached to us constantly? Yeah, and that was gonna be my follow-up was that we learned it from the baby boomers. You know, I think that, you know,
Starting point is 00:40:38 we saw what they were doing and, Oh, by the way, don't fucking work and didn't fucking work. And I think that, you know, Ha-Man, I don't know how much shit I want to start here. I think a lot of it's like the boomers fault and then Gen X saw what was happening and followed suit. So I think it's also to a lesser extent our fault as well. And everything's now fucked up for everyone who came after us. Gen X is that sticky generation too, where we're like possessed of a lot of the unhealthy practices of the previous generation because it's kind of in like it's
Starting point is 00:41:06 imbued in our psyche from growing up and experiencing it, but also wanting to pull the world into a better place that's, you know, more equal and representative. And we've certainly, although you can argue that a lot of those successes are a danger of erosion right now and currently actively being a roadie. But it's sort of like, in a lot of ways, I think the Gen X was sort of the heavy lifting generation. I agree with that. I think they also saw through it the fastest. Like I think that they had the best of intentions
Starting point is 00:41:37 at the beginning and then faster than I think any other generation went, oh fuck this. I think it's generation quit. Oh fuck this. I think it's the internet that came along. I think it's at the tail end of the Gen X generation. Technically I'm Gen X. I don't really identify with it so much. Internet came out when I was like,
Starting point is 00:41:55 I mean I started using it when I was probably 13. What year are you born? 78. You're definitely Gen X. Yeah, I'm at the tail end of it, but I feel like I'm more on the millennial side of it. Okay. I'm a lot more, I think I'm a lot more millennial than I am. You're a cusper.
Starting point is 00:42:07 Right. And I think it was like the information being readily accessible is what kind of changed all of that. Like whether or not you grew up with the internet or not and how early it was introduced into your life and how early you gained that access. Like even though I grew up in the middle of nowhere, I was very fortunate to have internet access. My mother was a teacher, and there was this thing,
Starting point is 00:42:28 I don't know if it exists anymore, there was this service called the Texas Educators Network, Tenet, and if you were a teacher, you could gain free access to it. It was like an 800 number, you could dial from your computer, and it dialed you in to like a mainframe here in Austin that I believe the University of Texas ran. And that's why I was able to access the internet
Starting point is 00:42:46 with no graphics. I had like a 2400-bodd modem and I would dial into this computer here in Austin on an 800 number and just see like this wall of text. And you weren't even looking for misfits lyrics? I wasn't even looking for misfits lyrics, but I mean that's like how desperate I was to try to access it. And then even try to monetize it.
Starting point is 00:43:03 Can I tell the bad story? Yeah. Hell yeah. So like we said, I grew up in a small town of like 20,000 people. I was far and away the first person and to have the internet in that town. And I was the only person to have the internet in that town.
Starting point is 00:43:17 This is Eagle Pass. Yes. And they do have internet now. Yes, they do. Even though like this tenant thing I'm talking about, even though all teachers had access to it, it was like this very obscure thing. No one knew about it, like I don't even know
Starting point is 00:43:28 how I found out about it. So no one used it really. And even then, back then, if you had a computer with a mode, like I had a 2400-bodd modem, you know, it was like really weird to even have access to the stuff. Anyway, I saw an opportunity. Being the only person with internet in the town meant that I had access to research papers,
Starting point is 00:43:48 I had access to other things people had written. Oh my God. And high school and junior high kids are lazy and you help getting projects done. And for a small fee, I could help facilitate and connect you with the information you're looking for at a low, low, very reasonable price. So I started selling access to the information that I could get on the internet to other people who went to school with me.
Starting point is 00:44:13 How'd that work out for you? Look creatively. I used to sell blow pops. That's so much cooler. So like you were a cyberpunk style information broker? Yeah, it's like an eagle pass. You need a research paper on the Hoover Dam. Well, let me, let my fingerless gloves.
Starting point is 00:44:29 Let me see what I can get you here. I'm in. Let me use Archie to connect to a server in San Diego. Were you, were you totally like cool guy hackering it too? Like listen, you can't tell anybody where you got this information from. I wouldn't do a lot of trouble. I'm not even legally supposed to be here in this database right now.
Starting point is 00:44:45 I wouldn't even show them or tell them. I just printed out on my Canon bubblejet printer and just hand them a stack of papers with the information they're looking for. It worked out well for a while. I just got tired of it. Like, then it became not fun. They know I was using the internet for other people.
Starting point is 00:44:59 Like I was, they're Google, right? It's like I just want to use internet for my stuff. I want to download whatever the fuck it was. I was downloading, like I just want to use it for my stuff. I want to Down download whatever the fuck it was I was downloading get stupid chat rooms and look at News groups. God do people even still use news groups anymore. I do they still exist. I Don't know that's where you would get all the hardstone episodes of the way back in the day. Yeah, all that hardstone That's how also like way back in the day. That's how you would Pirate movies. Yeah, there were news groups dedicated to that. I wouldn't know anything about that, but yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:27 Yeah. We, uh, dude, I'll tell you, nothing fixes nothing curves, a piracy appetite faster than watching the thing that you just spent a year making and pouring your heart into getting pirated. That was season one of Red versus Blue was the last time I ever, I was like, I'm paying for everything for the rest of my life. It's also a lot easier to buy stuff nowadays.
Starting point is 00:45:50 Yeah it is. Back then it was like there was no way to buy anything digitally. You know, you had to go see it in the theater or wait, you know, for it to come out and then go buy it physically. You know, if you want to see something otherwise, fuck you. But I remember there was a period in time in those late 90s where I Powered it a movie or two. Obviously, I don't do that anymore I pay it favor everything on the up and up
Starting point is 00:46:11 But I remember sometimes we would get like people would post movies to these news groups that were Unfinished cuts of movies that hadn't come out yet. Yeah, I Downloaded a cut of American pie that had a different soundtrack than what came out in theaters. Oh, wow I remember that it's like oh like and because I went and saw it anyway when it came out in the theater like I remember it's like You saw twice just to make up. Yeah. Well, I was like, oh, there's like the song that played in the scene in the version I downloaded It was totally different than the song that's playing probably in the scene now probably just like a placeholder soundtrack. Right, or like they could get the rights to it or for whatever reason, like the song and the final version changed.
Starting point is 00:46:47 And I remember this is another terrible story. We, not we, I, I had downloaded Star Wars Episode 1 of Phantom Menace. Like, we had camped out, remember we camped out to buy tickets. Maybe we'll tell that story in a second. But we had camped out to buy tickets, we bought tickets, we saw it in the theater, but we had camped out to buy tickets. We bought tickets. We saw it in the theater, and I had downloaded it.
Starting point is 00:47:08 It was a really shitty like shaky cam version that someone had a, was shitty movie too. It was a shitty shaky cam version that someone had downloaded, and we had a bunch of people over to my house, and we were like, yeah, that's all get drunk, let's drink and watch the Star Wars movie at home. It was when I lived at the Metropolis,
Starting point is 00:47:22 I don't know if you remember, I think you were there. No, no. I'll let you think. Can I confirm it tonight? And so we were watching it and I was drunk. And we had, it was like late at night, we had the movie cranked up really loud for some reason, probably because I was drunk. And then like the Texas State troopers
Starting point is 00:47:38 ended up knocking on my door. What? I definitely don't remember this. And I was like, oh shit. So like we had to pause the movie and turn it down. They were like, oh, we got a noise complaint. We can hear whatever it is you're doing in here, like all the way across the apartment complex.
Starting point is 00:47:51 And I was like, sorry, I'll turn it down. Like, all right, yeah, don't make us come back out here. And I was like, oh shit. I was like, yeah, let's do something else. It's the piracy police. They're on in the... Yeah. That was a crazy, that was a wild apartment complex
Starting point is 00:48:06 because the reason I moved there, again, this is like the whole internet thing. They had a apartment, this was in the late 90s, early 2000s, the entire apartment complex was wired with cat-5 ethernet. So you could plug in in every room, you could plug a computer in and get high speed internet. And it had wild colors.
Starting point is 00:48:21 It was, yeah, like, it was this really crappy rundown apartment complex that they painted crazy colors to make it seem like artsy. Those were all the strippers, Liz. My roommates room, like once a year would flood, and it would be like the temple of doom, like all these insects would come crawling out of everywhere. Anyway, they had a ethernet in every room, and you could plug your computers in, but it was like this small, low-rent local company that did it, and they also ran the phone service.
Starting point is 00:48:45 So in my apartment, we still had a landline. If you picked up the landline, and my neighbor was on the phone, you could hear his conversation. And my neighbor was a drug dealer. So it's like, if you wanted to, you could just pick up the phone and listen to him making drug deals all day long,
Starting point is 00:48:59 and people come in and go, and I knew how much everything costs, because like, oh, yeah, the dude's at your store. He is not exaggerating. You would come over to his house and hang out and just pick up the phone random and be like let's see what people are buying the night. What? Yeah. Um and I remember one time I was like sitting in that apartment and uh this is off of like Montopolis or Pleasant Valley it's Pleasant Valley. Pleasant Valley. Pleasant Valley. Yeah. Uh I was was sitting in that apartment, someone knocked on my front door and I opened it and it was some dude I didn't recognize and he was like, hey, my name's Jacob or whatever.
Starting point is 00:49:32 I live upstairs over there. My roommate said he can eat three habanero peppers and we don't think he can. He's about to try it right here in the courtyard. Do you want to come watch? Yeah, I was like, oh, okay, cool. Yeah, so I just went out and watched his roommate eat habanero peppers in the, in the fun courtyard of the metropolis.
Starting point is 00:49:49 Did he do it? He did it. Yeah, absolutely did it. It was like, he's funny. He's like, he just went around knocking and everyone's like, hey, you want to watch my roommate eat some habanero peppers? Hey, you want to watch this dipshit?
Starting point is 00:49:58 Yeah, man. I will say that they were tricking a lot of people with, with some wacky paint and a rusted out car that they put on a pole in front of the place. But the metropolis in the late 90s, early 2000s, if you were in your 20s, was a pretty fun place to hang out. Yeah, it really was.
Starting point is 00:50:15 It really was. It was much more expensive than the previous place I had lived out, but it was worth it for the internet and for those experiences like that. Yeah, man, you're making $24,000, baby. You can do anything. He can walk to work from there pretty much to...
Starting point is 00:50:27 I don't remember how much rent was. I wish I remembered how much I paid and rent for that place. I remember it was expensive, and that's why you live with Frank. Poor Frank, he had the temple of doom bedroom that would just get overrun with his wife. That was also a time,
Starting point is 00:50:41 speaking of these free movies that we would go to, I don't know if you remember this, but there was a very brief period of time where I would randomly get mail from like PR companies with free movie passes. Really? Yeah, like I remember one time I checked my mail and it was like, it was just an envelope,
Starting point is 00:50:57 like an envelope with no return address I opened it and it was like two free passes to watch American beauty at the metropolitan and I was like, who sent this to me? You know what, this is a, I don't have any stories for it, but this would be a good segue into another thing we used to do back then, that I had completely forgotten about to this moment, where we would find it from the Chronicle,
Starting point is 00:51:17 is there used to be, you could go and sit in focus groups for like four hours, watch a commercial about Zima or whatever, and then give your notes on it, and they'd give you like a hundred bucks, and you'd be like, I just got to pay 25 bucks an hour to do, this is awesome. And all that cost me was Saturday. Whenever you were Saturday when you were 25, right?
Starting point is 00:51:37 But you make it $22,000 a year. Yeah, that's good. And we would do that a lot. I remember specifically, it's funny you said Zima. I remember very specifically doing one for Mike's good money. And we would do that a lot. I remember specifically, it's funny you said Zima, I remember very specifically doing one for Mike's Hard Lemonade. I think it was at, back then it was the Rattis and what is it now, the Line Hotel, it was like in one of the conference rooms there. And they showed us like storyboards for a commercial.
Starting point is 00:51:57 And I thought it was so dumb. And they ended up making the commercial. I saw it like a year or two later. It was like a dude getting chased up a tree by a bear. the bear wanted his Mike's hard lemonade or something and I remember just being like it doesn't make any sense whatever and then like you're right at the end there like here's a hundred bucks I was like all right I for the game a hundred bucks I got to tell him the commercial was stupid yeah great then we get drunk we probably did I probably did seven or eight of those and I feel like you did more
Starting point is 00:52:20 I thought you were more prolific I did them as much as I could yeah because it was like back then the way I thought about it was it was free money you did more. I thought you were more prolific. I did them as much as I could. Yeah. Because it was like, back then, the way I thought about it was, it was free money. And as I've gotten older, the thing I realize is that, if you value your time at zero, then yes, that money is free. Yes. It's like, what is the value of your time?
Starting point is 00:52:39 And back then, for 100 bucks for four hours? Absolutely. 25 bucks an hour, that was 100% worth it. Yeah, that's... I think when you're young, you don't know to value your time and you don't know what your time is worth. That's a part of growing up is figuring that out,
Starting point is 00:52:52 figuring out what your time is worth to you. And you have to go through that stuff so you can determine it. And the answer's different for everybody. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, my time became pretty valuable pretty quick to me in those instances. I totally forgot about that.
Starting point is 00:53:05 We're right at this wrap up time. Are we? Yeah, I know, can you believe that? Oh, wow. At that Mike's Hard Limit, we're gonna wrap up. But I just remembered some part of your story that led into something for us. It was, we'll tease it for next time.
Starting point is 00:53:18 Although it's not a big story. It was at that Mike's Hard Limit thing, I believe, that you listened to two dudes talk and who would figure it out where liquor specials were at every bar in Austin, and they knew the cheapest place to drink any night of the week in Austin. Which we thought was a brilliant business model.
Starting point is 00:53:35 Yes. We need to talk about that. We also need to talk about that time. We camped out for Star Wars episode one tickets. Sure. There's a lot of stories actually. Is the Metropolis still there? Yeah. Yeah, Tetzlotan bulldozed.
Starting point is 00:53:45 Yeah, Metropolis still there. We should that reminds me we should also talk about dudes with the speakers in the van. Oh, gas station dudes. Yeah, that's a great one. Hopefully we'll get to all of those next time. I don't know. Well, if we remember, you know, and that's something else too. I was wondering if the audience wants us to talk about anything like we've been doing this. We've been talking to audiences for so long. Part of the reason, I don't wanna retread that water, but is frustrated, like retail and we live all these old stories,
Starting point is 00:54:13 but there may be, there's gonna be a billion things that we've forgotten. If there's anything you want us to discuss, even if it's hyper-specific, like what was it like making a season one of Red versus Blue or whatever, I'm happy to. Oh yeah, we didn't. To go through that stuff.
Starting point is 00:54:25 We didn't even talk about like, I think there was something we wanted to talk about this episode. I told the problem right now until you sit there, like me going to Japan back in 2005 and going to that conversation club. Oh yeah dude. Oh yeah, we talked about that on the way after an episode. Yeah, well we never actually circled back in. I'm making notes for all this stuff.
Starting point is 00:54:43 We never actually got circled back and talked about it. No, there's gonna be a lot to talk about on the next couple of episodes. But before we go, it's a couple of guesses for with the names and words. Before you read this, if anyone ever actually does guess it, do you want me to actually acknowledge it? Yes.
Starting point is 00:55:01 Oh, I think if we say it on the show, yeah. Okay. But like if you read it somewhere, like you said you saw it and it was close, but you need to know that. But yeah, if you saw, it has somebody, has somebody guessed it? No, no, no, no, no.
Starting point is 00:55:11 I'm just trying to get ahead of it. Okay, okay. Okay. Oh, we also rate the coffee. Oh, yeah. This is, it's funny, I'm gonna say this. It's a lot like, you pop coffee. You just say this, you pop.
Starting point is 00:55:21 I can't understand it. So that's a 10. 10, that's a great. Cool. I told that to someone, we did like the seventh episode and he gave the coffee at 10 and he just went what the fuck? Edger man for on Twitter says andma another Monday of andma How does he know we're taking on Monday? I How does he know where it is on Monday? I like the idea of having the name of the thing we don't know the name of in the name. It's fantastic.
Starting point is 00:55:50 Drew Miller says, Ansel Motherfucking Adams. Okay. Also a good anti meta Austinites from Chase Potter, a new mediocre attempt from NERP 83. Despite the fact that works, no. Uh-huh. Scruffy Jack sent a lot, but I'm just gonna read one, avenge my Austin, the end being in the middle of avenge.
Starting point is 00:56:14 I like that line of thinking. Oh, interesting. Interesting. Oh, so we thought maybe N was the second letter in the first word in a pair of things. I'm not saying, I'm not saying that. It's the second letter in the first word in the I'm not saying I'm not saying feeling like saying that like a fifth letter in the third word Do you have a guess Jeff? No, not a thought my head. Okay. I'm gonna say anybody
Starting point is 00:56:35 Makes anything. No, how about any more Austinites? Yes, please I will right by the you're my butter half yep They changed it back up. They're out of my mouth. Yeah, you're my butter. Is it as a you're my butter? It did for a while for like a little. Was it well done?
Starting point is 00:56:50 It was really good. Yeah, you never saw that? No. What? I think I have the pictures. It was so good. That's really funny. You really never saw that?
Starting point is 00:56:58 I can't believe that. Was that like done by the artist? No. I think the artist said that they thought it was really funny. Yeah, I think the artist said that they were like fine with it. Yeah, I think the artists said they were like fine with it, but like, man, that makes me wonder how licensing goes, right? That guy painted that, or lady whoever was painted it. I don't know, that's been there for seven or eight years probably.
Starting point is 00:57:14 Yeah. For a long, long time. I was still living over here when it was over. I feel like six months after that went up, you could go to A town on Burnett and buy, like, co-sales of it. And it was like, it got commercialized so fast. And I wonder, where does that, who gets that money?
Starting point is 00:57:26 Right. That's really funny. That should be the thumbnail for the subset. Okay, I have it saved, I'll have it ready. Okay, well, that's it for Anima. You can follow us at Anima Podcasts on Twitter and on Instagram. Eventually, I'll be posting more on both of those
Starting point is 00:57:43 when I can hire somebody to do it. So thank you so much for listening. Any parting words for people who are listening to this? Move to Austin. If we haven't made it clear yet, the world is easier to live in now than it was then. Wow. Oh, I don't know. You can buy a house on that cheaper back then. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:58:11 Describe the show to a newcomer in a more familiar way. Do you like apples? All right, example. Together in Trempit hosts, Characombs. Characombs are free of ideas of nothing to do with this podcast. Analyze various unsolved and rooster-teeths, cryptic podcast, f*** face. Call to action.
Starting point is 00:58:27 Feel free to add something show premise specific, but short. Listen to show name on Apple Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. It's f*** face, a podcast. Subscribe or no. You do yes? Subscribe or no, you do yes?

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