ANMA - Trying Not to be Single Threaded

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

Good morning, Gus! From behind Patika coffee in a parking lot seating area, it's another edition of ANMA. This week Gus and Geoff talk about Keanu Reeves, The name of the show, Rooster Teeth’s 20th anniversary, Puerto Rico & The Punisher, Star Wars Galaxies, Burnie’s spare bedroom, Not owning Intellectual Property, Motivated by spite, and a new segment: Anarchy Me Anything.  Now that the name is revealed, instead of name guesses you can send questions and prompts for the guys on social @ANMApodcast  Sponsored by Better Help http://betterhelp.com/anma and Aura Frames http://auraframes.com and use code ANMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Rooster Teeth production. All right, this is episode 37. Last episode is a radio coffee. We talked about how Snoopy owned a Hooters. We talked about Nussus Stututions at El Gayo. We talked a little bit about South by Southwest, high school snacks, conventions, doing a live show at RTX, which is coming up in July.

So that should be a lot of fun. And we got the name. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We also have audio texture. You know what's funny, Eric? Yeah. I don't see any grass anywhere. I guess. Why? There's nothing to cut. There's nothing to trim. Is that a ride on mower? Yeah. We are. He's on a strip of land that's as wide as the moor We're in a parking lot. What grass is being moored here? We're at Patika down on South Lamar, which is like right next to Loro and by Golden Loose I guess and we're just like in a like a little courtyard that's

Fenced off with Cinder block and there's a dude on a riding moor for some reason Making sure the parking lot doesn't get too high. I don't know what he's doing over there. It's so fucking loud. I think he's done it like Jeff said the whatever he's on must be as white as the mower because he's gone immediately rolled up and went how is there lawn care going on there's no lawn like there's no gray John went it'd be done fast That's a good one constant team. That's a piano Different show. Yeah, I owe the gift. That was a good one. We're doing a different show now We're talking about the replacements hilarious replacements is a great

For that. I was in that I I think there's some shit out the the replacements is like Major League for football. Yes, absolutely. I think it's absolutely. I think it's really good like the NFL Sorry, we got in a conversation about a sister act and somehow that turned into talking about how there's a lot of good Cano Reeves movies. You don't remember yeah, yeah, but there are go back and look He was making movies. You don't remember. Yeah. But there are. Go back and look. He was making movies. I promise you. So have you ever drank?

Have you had, are you just opening your coffee for the first time? Have you drank this yet? I haven't had any yet. I save it for on it. OK. Yeah, I just took a sip. I had an McConnell.

I got a sip. Gus took a sip and went, oh. It's not OK. It's a little bitter. It's bitter. It's five and a half. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Are we so we got the name and we're just changing the whole point of the show. Yeah, we'll just get out of the car. We'll be out of the way immediately.

The right can turn off now. The the the painter's tape on the window over here. She should take a photo of that. It looks like a smiling face. What does that some purpose? You think so? Yeah, why wouldn't it be? It's a it's looking at a smiling. It looks like a smiling face. What does? I bet that's on purpose. You think so? Yeah. Why wouldn't it be? It's looking at a smiling. It's like, hey, I know what Enma means. And I'm happy now. OK. I don't have to do this anymore. So we've had some time to think about it. Yeah. How you feeling about the name?

Tick-tock-tock-like. A young skinny Louis CK. He does. I feel, he's right. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. I feel pretty good about it still. I still think, I feel,

well, I listened to that episode this morning when I was getting ready. And I feel much the same I felt like in the moment. I'm still a little shocked. It makes way more sense to me than I thought it would. Yeah. Gus' dream logic has logic to it. Well, there was, there is still logic.

It's just like dream, it's abstract. It's not, it doesn't necessarily, it makes sense in a conventional way. I still think, I mean, I was there is still a lot of it's just like dream. It's abstract. It's not doesn't necessarily make sense in a conventional way. I still think I mean I think that there's a lot of opportunity for merchandising now. We finally we saw the mug afterward. Yeah. We didn't talk about this. I've seen that. I saw the mug. It's fucking cool and we still make the mug. Is it too late to change it to the tour guard mug? Yeah. We should send to guard. To the tour guard. To guard is the guy who guessed the name and was thrilled and was screaming in bed with

his girlfriend when he heard that he got the name right. Good for him. Hey, better than he's screaming in bed. It was going from somebody else. So we're going to send some sense of stuff out to tour guard. I'm going to get with them today. But I'll loop that back into the end of the show because I have a segment that I want to get to at the end instead of name guessing. A segment. Yeah. So that will be at the very end. Have not run that

by you guys at all, but it does not matter. Um, segments are when shows usually go downhill I read it. We did that. But we've been doing a segment at the end of the last 10 minutes of the show has always been a segment, not a bit though, not a bit. Oh, no, do not call it a bit. But it's not a bit. It's a bit. No, no, do not call it a bit. But it's not a bit. It's a segment. So, Gus, you wanted to talk about Puerto Rico. Yeah, I've been thinking a lot, you know, Ristis having this 20th anniversary.

And there's been a lot of headlines like the New York Times did a story the other day about Ristis Tadamsky. They did a story about the 20th anniversary of the invasion of the Iraq war. So I've been thinking a lot back about 20 years ago, about early, about this time, you know, 2003. And, you know, at that time, I was living in Puerto Rico, I just moved to Puerto Rico in late February,

a 2003, right before, which she really took off in earnest. And I feel like we've been doing this long enough where people at first knew that I had been living in Puerto Rico and I feel like everyone've been doing this long enough where people at first knew that I had been living in Puerto Rico and I feel like everyone's forgotten that. There's so much turnover in audiences. And that's just something that's in the past and forgotten. And when we did, when you would record

Red versus Blue Audio, you all would have to call me on the phone and put me on speaker phone to record my audio, which is why. Someone sounds like that? Do you want to hear me piss us off instantly? Oh, I would love it like in two seconds. I'm old and calm now. You can't piss me off anymore This whole Puerto Rico thing The narrative is that we started Rooster Teeth We started we started making red versus blue. It was a lot of fun, it was a lot of work. And as soon as it became like,

as soon as the fun ended and it became a lot of work, Gus was like, sorry guys, I'm moving to Puerto Rico, best of luck. And then the motherfucker abandoned us for like a year where it was just me and Bernie bustin' our asses for a full fuckin' year, co-hated each other, couldn't even talk to each other, we were so stressed out all the time.

And Gus was on the beach, learning how to surf. How many episodes of Red versus Blue did you film before I left? A hundred. They hadn't done anything. That's not what it's gonna have. That's not the reality of the situation, but that is how it's been,

that's how it's been. That is not what happened at all. There was nothing had been made before I left. That's not true. But the trailer. But the trailer had come out in September of 2002. That's true. And then like nothing had been done with it, it wasn't until like we finished drunk gamers, so we killed drunk gamers at the end of January, we owe three. Yeah.

Thank you. Then great decision. Yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine still still stayin' by that decision. Pist everybody off, but we were in the right. And then that's when the magazine contacted about running the Apple Switch parody on the disc, and then that's when like Red vs. Blue spun up very quickly as a follow up project to capitalize on that. And I'm moved to Puerto Rico was already cemented by that point. And I think we say April 1st, 2003

is like the anniversary of the company. It didn't really start exactly on April 1st. It was somewhere around there. I couldn't tell if the exact date was. I'm sure Bernie has a very stuffy answer about it. Yeah, but it really worked on it, started in earnest after I left. So I tried to do what I could remotely

to help like answer emails, like, man it, take care of the forums, take care of the website. Cause back then, you know, it was, what we've talked about this before, it was like a movable type template. Yeah. For blog posting and then we use PHP, BB for the forums. So whenever someone like sent money to sponsor

or super sponsor, like I would take care of the back and stuff, like giving them appropriate forum access, you know, keeping track of their address so that we knew where to send a DVD if necessary. Why don't you explain what a sponsor and a super sponsor are? Oh, we have two levels of sponsorship by patronage. Yeah, where people can give us money. They can give $10 for the season and would give them elevated access on the PHP

B before. I'm like, they would have an exclusive forum. They would get a star by their name and they would get like high resolution versions of the episode so I can set up 360 versions. They would get 480 versions Didn't they get them early as well? I just super sponsor. I thought they both did super sponsors. Just got the DVD I think they did I'll both get them really so the other thing was Friday night We would release an episode of red versus blue and it didn't hit the public until Monday or Sunday I would think it was Sunday Sunday and I think part of it was that so blue and it didn't hit the public until Monday or Sunday. I would think it was Sunday.

Sunday. And I think part of it was that, because we would distribute it via BitTorrent. Yeah. So we wanted to distribute it to a small group of people so they would hopefully see it as well. So it wasn't just all seating from our three internet connections. It also wasn't for this purpose, but we used it for this purpose constantly. The super sponsors and the sponsors would discover mistakes in the episodes, which we could

then go correct very quickly before they hit the public. Yeah, smart. That happened on occasion. And then super sponsor was just like the next level is $20 for the season, and you got all the same things except you got a DVD at the end. Yeah. And you got, I think, if I remember right on the forum, you got two little stars by your name instead of one star.

That sounds right. I want to say that say that was the case. Just to differentiate, you gave 10 bucks more and you were getting a DVD. But man, it was, it was, it was, it was, Puerto Rico's beautiful, but it was a struggle to live there in 2003,

just because the internet was not great. They did have cable modems, like, so there was quote unquote high speed internet. It wasn't super fast. It was way slower than what we had in Austin at the time. And the power was unreliable at best. Yeah, it definitely would lose power at least once a day.

You would have this rolling brown out, that's all the time. Yeah. I would always hook my computer up to a battery backup system. And it was constantly kicking on and off. And the power was so unstable, it killed the battery in that UPS within a couple of months. It was just like the UPS was shot, just because the battery was just constantly being worked.

And we would lose water a couple times a week. That one wasn't an everyday thing, but a couple times a week uh... the water would go out and but it was beautiful i'm i assume if you go to vacation there you stay like a resort yeah deal with all of that uh... but when you're actually living there it's uh... it was a lot more difficult i didn't live like in san hwan i lived out in like a small city on the northwest corner of the island cala wadea

and uh... i'm sick jeff what was that it is i know i was lucky enough i love it i love the uh and uh... I'm saying Jeff what was that? I know why he's laughing. He knows why I'm laughing. I love it. I love the uh... Here's why I'm laughing. Because Gerson... Do you remember the Thomas James?

Exactly. The classic, the Punisher. It is like we share the same brain. I love it. Uh huh. But we taught what... Let me tell you this. You tell it.

You remember how we talked about how in the in the old Austin they would publish on the Chronicle, the Austin Chronicle, the free the free rag. Yeah. Uh where you could get movie tickets early. Yeah. One of the movies that Guss and I saw early Old Austin, they would publish on the Chronicle, the Austin Chronicle, the free, the free rag, where you could get movie tickets early. One of the movies that Gus and I saw early, because we stood in line for three hours

at a clothing store or something, was Thomas Jane's Punisher. And we went and we got to see that movie earlier early. And he hadn't been back from Puerto Rico that long. It was like the week after I got back, maybe. Yeah, very briefly. Are very recently. And we sit down and we watch it.

And the fucking movie opens in this picture-esque, like, I don't know, beautiful beach setting. And there's this long pier, I remember, going out to a boat or something. And it looks like a billionaire's palace. And it says, I'll go out of the border. And this is like, what the fuck? I think I screamed out loud in the movie theaters.

It's like, oh, this guy's like, what? It's a small town on the northwest corner of Puerto Rico. There is an airport there. It's like an old Air Force base. But I was thinking about things that I would do back then. It would spend a lot of time on the beach, believe it or not, went surfing a little bit. And I remember trying to still stay in contact with you guys outside of just red versus blue

and rest your heat stuff. And I remember that we were super excited about Star Wars Galaxy's coming out, just like the big Star Wars MMO. And it came out while I was down there. And like the town I lived in was so small we didn't have like a video game store. I had to drive over to the next town over called MyOS,

which is like down further south on the coast and go down to like a game stop there. And by Star Wars galaxies and like go back up to my house and install it and play with you guys. And I remember just like being up all night long playing galaxies, trying to find holocron so one of us could become a Jedi. Or just like sight up all night long playing galaxies trying to find holocron so one of us could become a Jedi or just like sightseeing being like let's

go see if we can find Obi-Wan's hut yeah because they had everything modeled out in that game I remember I had so much fun just like sightseeing in that game I'm trying to like Obi-Wan's hut and you're like huh let's go along of a walk it is to Jabba's Palace right it's a very it's very long he was safe yeah he was far away he definitely picked a safe place to put his heart. Yeah, that was I remember being really scared. No, I think scared is right. Scared when Gus moved to Puerto Rico because Gus was my best friend and we we were inseparable and we spent all of our time together. You know, he lived with me off and on and we, you know, we made we worked together. We played together. we drank together, we spent all of our time together,

and I was so fucking heartbroken that he was gonna leave, and I know it was temporary, he was only gonna go for like a year to get that experience and come back to me, that he wasn't leaving me forever. And it is true what they say, if you love something set it free, if it comes back, it's yours.

It's really fun. I was gone, I lived there for a little over a year. And I remember just being so bummed that he left and then Less than a month in the Gus living in Puerto Rico I realized this has an impact at our friendship in any way whatsoever All we do is text and all we do is play video games together and we are still playing in galaxies together every fucking day And so it's like he's in the other room. I just want to smell technically it wasn't text it was a well-in-sermon Yeah, a hell yeah,'t text, it was AOL, and so I'm asking him.

Yeah, but hell yeah. Yeah, it was a, it was a, it was fun. It's a beautiful place, I highly recommend people visit. Check it out, you don't need a passport to go. I mean, 2003, the technical hurdles, and not just, we're losing power. Now we just do remote shows. Now you just have people dial in on a link and it's so easy

and there's almost no lag and it's fine. I just can't imagine what that was like in 2003 to try to get anything to work. It wasn't great. So luckily, what happened to my voice there? Luckily, the bulk of it was recording audio, and they were in Austin recording it off the speakerphone. They put a microphone up to it, which was fine.

That worked. The other stuff I was doing as far as tin care of the website, all of that's text-based stuff. It's just like connect to a Linux prompt, and just type shit. So it's not like there was a bunch of bandwidth going through. That stuff was easy. That we weren't, I wasn't like,

remoteing into a computer and seeing a desktop and like doing that kind of stuff. When did you move home? Like, move back to Austin? Yeah. That was in 04. I want to say it was like March or April 04? So that would have been somewhere in season two. Yeah, it was right before I think I came back right before we started season two production

Okay, because I remember thanks Thanksgiving was when we started bundling DVDs Yeah, that can't be right actually now that I'm thinking about it because we premiered Episode one of season two at the Lincoln Center. Yeah, and that was January, oh four. Yeah So I must have come back early. You were back for that. You hadn't. I came back to visit for that. Okay. So what I mean is like I wasn't here right at the start. Okay. Yeah.

So, so then you're back somewhere early in season two. Yeah. And Matt would have moved back, well moved back moved to Austin somewhere around then as well. No, he came back like a year later. A year later. It was before season three. Before season three, okay.

Move back or he didn't live in Austin. So it is, it is appropriate to say that it's a pro-community move back. Yeah. Okay, so then, and then, so season two, it's me, you and Bernie. Yeah, I did show up a few times during season one to help with some filming.

Of course. I remember specifically season 10, the long tracking shot inside Winder. I mean, I see the SAC's time in Of course. I remember specifically season 10, the long tracking shot in Sidewinder. I haven't seen the SACs that I'm in episode 10. At the side 10. The long tracking shot in Sidewinder, private Jimmy getting beat to death with a skull. I was here for all of that.

I remember you being here for that. Yeah. But yeah, but in earnest back early season two, to help with all of that stuff. So then it was, I'm just trying to put that timeline of work together. So season one was probably the simplest season, largely because it was mostly Bernie and I.

And then you would come in to help out, Matt flew down a couple times to help out. Jason would help sometimes. Yeah, I was going to take a little bit of time. Dan helped occasionally. And then season two, you're back full time. And then so that's the crew until we bring Matt in season three. And then it would be season five

We were making the season five DVD when Joel moved to Austin. Yeah, and that was at the beauty apartment So we were in the spare bedroom and Nathan was already working for us for a while at that. Yeah, yeah, Nate When do we move to the apartment in Buda? Season three, maybe? No, because I think Matt is in fourth. Season four, season four. So we moved to the apartment in Buda. Then we were there for four and five, and then it was after season five, we'd left the apartment in Buda,

went to the office of downtown, because we took that little bit of a break, and then it was reconstruction was at the downtown office. It definitely wasn't season three, because I remember sitting in Bernie's dining room as he gave us the scripts for season 30 to read through and I didn't like the scene where it's like the protective flag, the little guys run around

on the grunts, I wasn't blown away by that, I remember thinking like, it's okay and he got so mad at me for not liking that, I remember he was like, furious, that's about right, that I didn't get it and I'm like, it's okay, I like it. And it turned out to be some of the funniest shit ever. People love that. And that's always the case. Yeah, and he would always get mad at us. Because I think we've talked about it before. When I moved back, didn't have a lot of money.

And I tried to keep, you know, I was trying to do this full time. So I lived with Jeff to keep my expenses down. I didn't have to pay Jeff rent. I didn't have really much savings. So I bought the cheapest vehicle I could. So I bought it like an old 1964 Chevy pickup, which we've talked about before. And so we would, you know, and then you bought a like a 666 or a 6700. So we drove these old pickups around and we would drive them down to Bernie's house

and you would get so mad at us because we would have to park there. So he built like a little extension to his driveway, Like he called the parking pad for us to park on, but those trucks leaked so much oil and gas that that parking pad went from like being brand new fresh concrete to just being disgustingly like brownish blackish. Fucking hated my truck, because it leaked all over his driveway.

But then anytime like somebody wanted to come film, he was always like bring the truck down. We use it as a set of days. We you can stand behind it like I don't hate it but man we wrecked that parking lot it was it was not good can I just say I kind I loved how easy it was to fuck with Bernie in those days he was so easy to annoy and it was so I felt like I had a super power for getting under that guy's skin you did you really did oh like I had a super power for getting under that guy's skin. You did, you really did. Oh man, that was your superpower in general, was getting under anybody's skin.

You think so, really? Like even right now, when you tell these stories, you're like, I can tell the story in the right way to get a reaction out of Gus. It's like, it's what you do. You know the scab to pick at, to get a rise out of people. And I think you do it subconsciously sometimes. Yeah you do something long enough I think it just becomes like it just becomes a sick image. Yeah second nature. Yeah so we went down there then we went over to the apartment I remember thinking the apartment

was awesome when we moved in like it was like it was gonna be great because it was always I always felt really guilty when we worked out at Bernie Sparabedroom because obviously his family was there, you know, his wife. His kids. He's trying to have bedtime at 9 p.m. Right, we're like screaming. We're in the next bedroom over

till four in the morning screaming into microphones. Yeah, it was, yeah, it was, it was like, even though we spent so much time there and I always felt like we were intruding, even like Leaving the spare bedroom to go to the bathroom across the hall I remember like in the middle of the night like trying to open and close the door super quietly and like tiptoeing To go use that bathroom and just like like always like never wanting to inconvenience anyone even though we were really

All like I always hated because I'd go down to get like a coke or something from the kitchen And you like tiptoe down and you're trying not to make any noise and then Bernie's first wife Jordan would walk through and you're like I'm so sorry. I'm in your space. Let's go. I'm like shut up. It's fine. It's fine She's cool. I would never go downstairs to get anything I would be dying of thirst upstairs and this fair bedroom is like this isn't preferable to going downstairs and potentially having an awkward encounter Dude she was she was a fucking saint for putting up with us because it was like it started out as like a two nights a week kind of thing and then within two months I was there six to seven nights a week every single week it was just it became you know we always joke about how it was another full-time

job but it really was like Gus and I were to the call center I tell a network we may have had different schedules or whatever but like for me it was I had to be at work at seven a.m. I had the 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift at Yeah floor manager, so I would be there from 6.45 to like 4.15 or whatever go home eat dinner Package up some DVDs after like September or whatever of 2003 then drive the fucking 40 minutes to Bernie's house 30 minutes to Bernie's house and then be there till three or four in the morning and then drive the fucking 40 minutes to Bernie's house, 30 minutes to Bernie's house, and then be there till three or four in the morning, and then drive home 40 minutes, get two hours of sleep, and do it again. Can you imagine making that drive nowadays with traffic the way it is?

That being popped grip would take like double what it would have took back then. Yeah, how long were you guys in that spare bedroom doing that? Probably three years. Two years, three years, three years, two years, two and a half years maybe. Oh my god. And then no one thought we should get out of here in two and a half years. But everybody thought we should get out of there. But nobody did anything. But Bernie didn't have to go anywhere. It was like burning in that put pants on. He was fucking. Yeah, I forgot about that. Also, it was what we're gonna do. You know, if we likeased office space, then it's like,

then you're on the hook for a lease. And it's like, then it's a business. What if this thing goes away? Then it's like, oh shit, we have to pay like a year's worth of a lease for this thing. I think that's why we ended up getting the apartment. It's like, oh, it's cheaper, it's an apartment kind of in the suburbs.

We can make this work, even if the reggae's pulled out the day after we signed this lease. It's like, you know, in hindsight, it seems easy, but even though we had a very good relationship from almost day one with Bungie and Microsoft because they discovered us and they got what we were doing and they told us they appreciated it and they appreciated that we were, you know, basically turning, creating South Park out of Halo, and it was great marketing for them, and they got it. And I, you know, I owe my entire career,

I think we both are our entire career to a couple of forward thinking people, a couple of people like Pete Parsons, who really understood what we were doing, and allowed us to continue to do it. And the lawyers. And the lawyers. But even then, I think it's impossible to over explain how stressful it was

to be building a legitimate company on IP that we didn't own. Like we went to make Red versus Blue every day, and I say this without exaggeration for the first seven years of that company. Every day I went to work thinking today might be the last day. Today's the day they could call us today and it's over.

That's why I never bought a newer car. That's why I tried to keep expenses down. It's like if this goes away, I don't want to be on the hook for much. And yeah, it was nerve-racking. And lots of times when things change at big companies, Microsoft's a huge company, right? It's one of the biggest in the world.

Like managers change, it's like someone comes in new and they're like, oh, I don't like this thing. This was all-se change. This was someone else's project. I don't care about this thing, get rid of it. You're always like at that whim. Not that anyone did that. Yeah, it did that, but it's just something that hangs over your head that's

possibility at any time. They were always only supportive. I got to say honestly, they really were supportive in so many ways and they really didn't need to be or have to be. Yeah. And it was, we were so, so very fortunate, but it was still, it's just like, and that's why we tried to diversify it. Yeah.

As quickly as we did. It took us a minute. It took us a minute, but we built a commercial business where we were doing commercials. We were doing custom gigs for private corporations and stuff. We were doing the game stop stuff. That's why we started the Strangerhood. It's why we started podcasting. It's why we started the animation.

It was also that if one project won under, the company didn't go on. Yeah. You know? Yeah, it was also that like, if one project went under, the company didn't go on. Yeah. You know? Yeah, it was, I remember, that was always our big thing. It's like, man, we are so single threaded as a company. It was always our worry, you know, how are we gonna diversify this? And it took us a long time just because we were so

underwater on the work for so long. And it's so scary, because like at this point, Gus left a very good day job. Oh yeah, my left is the best day job. I was at, I barely graduated high school in Alabama. Congratulations. I had offered vice presidency of a company at 27 and I had to turn it down for Red versus Blue.

Like I was never getting that opportunity again. If Red versus Blue didn't make, didn't work, I would be in jail. Right down the road from the porn store that didn't hire you. Yeah, right. I had to go back and apply again. Not even good enough to work with the porn store. It had to work. Yeah. There was, we, we at all, Bernie gave up a tremendous career at Teller Network as the president. And that was there too. And that, that was a very accomplished

story. That was so fucking successfulvisual effects. That was fucking rocket Hollywood that left Hollywood that left a successful career in Hollywood Have you ever seen that Sylvester Sylvester still in racing? We write? Yeah, it's driven. Drive. No, drive is the The other movie driven you ever seen that movie is like so much so I'm placed like a race car driver Yeah, I've one driver kind of like for like the late 90s? Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Matt did visual effects on that. And if you ever go back and watch that movie, there's like a scene where a tire comes off a car

and goes in and crush someone in the crowd. Matt's the dude in the crowd that gets crushed. He put himself in. He put himself in the movie as like a dude getting crushed by the tire. That rules. Yeah, he's like, yeah. That's so cool.

I don't want to talk to him now. That's like scrappy, scrappy Zilla, didn't he? Scrappy Rex, scrappy Rex? Is that what he's called, yeah, that's so cool. I don't know what it's like to make scrappy, scrappy, scrappy zilla, didn't he? Scrappy Rex, scrappy Rex? Is that what he's called? And this could be doing with me? How crazy. Yeah, that's bizarre.

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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. You talk about being single threaded as a company. When did that expand? Because when I think of you guys,

it's mostly like, it's not just the Red versus Blue stuff, because that's what like when I was in high school, like right at like the end of high school, that's when you guys were starting and that's when I saw Red versus Blue, but then the stuff that I really knew you for like, later with the live action stuff and then conventions, obviously.

But like when was that? That was all to the downtown office. So that would have been like. Well, conventions started immediately, but. Right. Yeah, that was down there. But the live action stuff and really the diversification happened after seeing six that would have been

at downtown that would have been like oh, eight, oh seven. Oh, seven, oh eight. But we were actively, but we were actively working on that and trying to get there almost from day one. I think we all saw the potential of where we could take this thing and we all saw the risks of being single threaded. So we were trying to build that those next things, but it's so hard. It's so hard, especially when you strike lightning in the way that we did with Red versus Blue. You know, what is the thing that kills most production companies?

The second production, right? The sophomore release. You have a banger that comes out, and then you have to follow that up with something, and it's almost always a failure. And we had to make sure that whatever our second thing was helped extend the company. And I guess technically that would be the stranger hood.

And I don't know if you'd call that a success or a failure. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we we that was hard. It was hard. We definitely didn't From a manpower standpoint. I don't think we made our money back I mean I was like two years of Matt's life. Wow but But you know we were we set out to make sure that whatever like additional productions we made We're gonna be fucking awesome and it takes time to make that stuff It takes time to formulate those ideas and figure it out. It's the same like the music industry, right?

It's like you have your whole life to make your first record and then you have like a year to make your second one That's what I was gonna bring up just now It doesn't feel like with red versus blue that was a thing you guys had been waiting your whole life to make That seemed like a thing where you went. Oh, this will be yeah, we'll just we'll do this This will be fun and it's a thing you you went, oh, this will be, yeah, we'll do this. This will be fun. And it's a thing you did. And so the sophomore release not being such a stumbled doesn't really surprise me because it's not like you had 20 years to be like this and this is my idea. Red versus blue wasn't the story. Bernie had been writing to his

eight years old. Exactly. Exactly. This was a thing where it's just like, oh, it's the right people. It's lightning in a bottle, like you said. It's the right people, the right place, the right time. And that's it. Yeah, then you have to like come up with another miracle. So it's even worse. Yeah. It's like, get lucky again.

Idiot. That's why I always think like, I'm so blown away and I feel so fortunate because we really struck lightning with red versus blue and rooster teeth. And that company in a lot of ways no longer exists. And that's fine. You know, it was, it was very 2003 to 2010. It was a place in a lot of ways no longer exists. And that's fine, you know, it was very 2003 to 2010 was a place and a time. And then I was very lucky to have success with Achievement Hunter and kind of strike lightning again.

That also started at the downtown office. Also started at the downtown office, Gus clearly struck lightning with the broadcast department and the RT podcast. And the fact that we're talking on a microphone right now is only because of Gus's forethought and foresight and presence. As we've mentioned, it was spiked.

And spiked. A lot of stuff gets done on a spiked for the streets. I'll be honest with you, a lot of my successes from spiked to, and then to be able to strike lightning or have lightning strike a third time, I guess you could say with like the let's play stuff, but I'll ignore that and just say, f*** face. Yeah. And I think podcasting is the error that we're in the lets play stuff, but I'll ignore that and just say. F**k this.

Yeah. You know, I think podcasting is the error that we're in and like being able to like flex in like a totally different way is such a cool thing. Yeah. Who would have thought? Who would have thought? Well, it's interesting because you know, when some of the podcasts we do have a very niche market, right?

It's not like you're trying to write something to, or not write, it's not like you're trying to produce something to cast the widest net possible and draw as many people as possible. Like a lot of these can be hyper focused. It's like we're going after specifically these people, or like Black Box Down is specifically people who want to learn about playing crashes.

This podcast, like people who wanted your stories from 20 years ago, it's not any random person's gonna be like, oh, this is something I'm gonna listen and get into. Right, right. So it's really about the passion, about the topic and getting that to come through. Yeah. I think that you guys doing it for so long

is a testament to the spite that you have within you to be able to continue Where where everyone's going you can't do this and you go oh fucking show you yeah, I am I am I am solely motivated by all fucking show you yeah, I have been my entire life. Yeah, it's all that matters I think I say it's you when I share that yeah, I really do I really do. It's all that matters. I think. It's you and I share that first. Yeah, I really really do. I really do. It's why I watch, it's why I appreciate guys like Michael Jordan.

You know, you really do. You really do. Like he did, he is in his entire life was fuck you, right? I'll show you. You said what about me in an interview? Did I hurt? The one of the stuff was when you would make up? Oh, yeah, he was in his head. Yeah, to get fun reasons. Yeah, you got to do what you got to do. Um, so you moved back from Puerto Rico,

then lived in Jeff's house and worked out a Bernie's apartment. What was it like when you find when you guys finally got that other apartment when you had like a space that was just for this company? Did I know I want to say Was it so cool and you went wow? We're really making something happen or was it Like putting a bunch of rabbit dogs in a hovel and going like fight for it now I think it was extremely unhealthy because my attitude at the time was, this is great, I can work 24 hours a day now. Yeah, right, it's like, there's just so though,

we don't have to go home. Right, it's like, I can just sleep here and just work all the time. Like it was like, that's not good. When you're in your early 20s, I guess, if it's your thing, right? Man, that was not healthy, that was not good at all. It wasn't healthy, but like we locked ourselves off

from, and we've talked about that before. Part of why we had this podcast to revisit Austin because we missed so much of it. And it was not a clean place. It was, I don't know if everyone mentions, Jeff had a fingernail drawer. Yeah. Oh, what?

I used to, I have like, I can't stand fingernails, so I'm always cutting my fingernails. I always have fingernail clippers on me at all times. Do you chew your fingernails? No, no, gross. No, I just cut them with fingernail clippers. Just want to point out the man with the fingernail drawer just said gross.

I didn't chew my nails. So I would do it. I didn't want it, because I thought like, I needed to cut my fingernail and I was working and I thought, oh So I did it once, because I thought like, I needed to cut my fingernail and I was working and I thought, oh, just do it in the drawer. Like I just just get working, open the top drawer. And throw it away later, right? And Gus saw it and was like, and here's this

Gus back to what we were talking about Eric. Gus saw it and he was like, that's fucking gross. He was so gross, that's disgusting. And I went, well now I'm only cutting my fingernails in this drawer for the rest of my life. And so the entire time we worked there, I cut my fingernails in that drawer for the rest of my life. And so the entire time we worked there, I cut my fingernails in that drawer just to piss him off. We sat, like, we were both on our desk

we're in the living room with this apartment. He was like over, like closer to the kitchen, I was closer to the door. So he was to my left, I remember looking over, like, what the fuck are you doing? Okay, what I'm doing, I'm doing it. The thing I'm gonna be doing every fucking three days for the rest of the time we're here.

Dior got filled with fingernails for the next couple of years. I'm not dumping out everyone so long. Would you? You did not. That thing was fucking full of fingernails all the time. He would never dump it out. He's that, that is already calm.

Vile. He's a vile. Vile. Yeah, it was a, like, what was it? One, two, three, four, five, there's six of us in that apartment. And it was just, it was, did everyone have like a desk and everything?

Yeah, it was me, Gus, and Nathan in the front of the house, Jason in the middle in the laundry nook, and then Matt and Bernie in the bathroom in the bathroom and the bathroom in the bathroom. Matt in the left, Bernie in the right. And so it was just, you know, six people spending, you know, practically 24 hours a day in a one bedroom apartment.

It's too much, especially when everyone's so focused on work. Like, there was never a, it was very rare. It was like, hey, let's clean up today. You know, it was like, just, it was a misery in there. We, I remember that was also the era where Bernie had a brilliant idea. And I really really to this day I appreciate it because we were working so much and we were so exhausted We did the higher cleaners. I don't know why we didn't have that idea

But the idea he had is he had a massage therapist come every Friday and give everybody 20 minute massages And so she would come and set up and we would all get like a massage on Fridays and if you had your allergies acting I'm sure you've got sinus massage too. It's true. It's true. It would like drain your sinuses and she would and she She was in love with Joel and Joel. Joel always got a couple extra minutes on his massage Just I thought that was bullshit ridiculous. What are you gonna do? Wow. That's such a good idea What I don't know. What a great. This is a smart move. Yeah damn It really helped too. I remember I would get into a routine there You know like you said that couch was in the living room.

I would get into a routine where we would work throughout the morning, go eat lunch, and after lunch I would come back and take a little siesta. I'd never even remember this. I'd lay down on the couch and take a 30 minute nap, and they'd wake up and be like, man, that was great. That's time to get back to it.

That was another thing too, is we all had different schedules. So I, Bernie and I had small kids, and so we were very early risers. And so I had the million to be we were very early risers and so I had the milleid to be at like preschool by like 715 or something. And so I would be at, at work by 745 or 8 and Bernie would always be there early too. And we would sit on that sofa and drink coffee and there was this show that used to come on. Do you remember this called Sunrise Earth?

And we would sit and watch Sunrise or win talk. We would just sit quietly and it was just this show that was on like Travel Channel or whatever. And it just showed high definition footage of the Sunrise in different locations, like over a mountain, over a beach, in the sticks, wherever. And we would just sit there for half an hour and just drink coffee and watch Sunrise Earth together. And then, then spend the day fighting.

So, it's So dystopian. That's like so, yeah, we would say. It was our special time together. That's so fun. We can't watch the actual sunrise. We're gonna sit here. Yeah, exactly. I already saw one sunrise today.

I'm gonna watch four more while I have this coffee. That's some of my best memories of Bernie. It was us watching that together. St. Quietly. Just sitting quietly together close to each other and just watching the same. Watch the sunrise. Some of my favorite Bernie just watching the same, watching the sunrise. Some of my favorite Bernie memories,

we sat quietly and watched the sunrise. And I know if he hears this, which I hopefully he will. If he hears this, he'll go, yeah, I feel the same. I'm sure he does. We should talk about the coffee. So we're at Petika, which is right down the street from a bar that I love called Golden Goose. I think that bar's fucking awesome.

It has a great jukebox that doesn't take quarters and doesn't take cards. Maybe it takes $1.00. Wow. Yeah, it's only $1.00 bills, but pretty good stuff. I mean, if you want to hear all of Billy Joel's stuff, then that is the bar for you. It's a great spot, but Patika is a little, it's not really tucked away, it's right on the road, but it is a little hard to spot. It's next to the store storage and wine seller.

It's right next to Laura. Weird. Yeah, big, big parking lot in the back that I guess for overflow parking. And we are, so we found a spot that is like, a breakfast place I guess, there was no one here when we got here. They make the food here for the two coos.

They keep the you can't order here. They keep running it into particular. This is the kitchen. So the kitchen's a trailer out back. We found a spot like this is just like a little area in the back where this is probably what they did for COVID, right? Like it was just like this area back here. And we just sat down and now it's like filled up.

Yeah, there's like a bunch of people here. It's been a Monday morning and so on from us. Yeah, they're filled up. There's like a bunch of people here. It's happened Monday morning. It's going from us. Yeah, they're smart. I wouldn't want to listen to us either. Now let's get into the coffee. Twelve people on Spotify disagree with them. Let's get into the coffee.

I got the drip. Jeff got the cold brew and Gus got the Americana. If you didn't know, that's our typical order. We get where we go unless something like all gimmicks happens where they go, well, we're out of everything. We can just make hot Americana. It's back there. Back there.

What do you think they're doing right now? We have to stand around thinking about tomorrow. Yeah. What do you think about Patika? It was kind of bitter. Really? Yeah, it was a bitter pull on the espresso for my Americana. What do you think about Patika? It was kind of bitter. Really? Yeah, it was a bitter pull on the espresso for my Americana. It, uh, it, it, it wakes you up.

Yeah. Well, so what do you give it? I think, I think you were right, what you said earlier, about like a 6.5? Yeah, mine's a 6.5. It's not. I, I will say that as a cup of coffee, it's not, it no means is this bad. It is a cup of coffee and a 6.5 is, I think, right on the money.

It is, it's like, I would come back here. I would come back and get a cup of coffee if I was in the area. I would be like, I'll do this and then whatever. Yeah, six and a half is worth rebuffing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's not. No, I would not, especially where this is.

I would have to come here if I was driving on the road. Yeah, oh shit, I need a cup of coffee. Yeah, I got 45 minutes to kill, I can jump in here. I think it's a great spot for that. Those are just a cool name, Petika. Petika, so there's two of them. There's this and then there's. Petika lunchenette.

Lunchenette, I guess. Oh, long-longer, I've heard of that. When I tapped it into my GPS to get here, it was like, which one? Oh, god. This was actually suggested by an animal listener who said, hey, you should check out Patika. And I went back and re-evaluated our list.

I was going over stuff and looking at, oh, what should we do? What haven't we hit yet? And that kind of stuff. And somebody mentioned Patika and it was not on the list. So I put it on the list and then figured, oh, let's just jump right on it. And there's a lot of, guess that goes back to what we were talking about

for like the initial thing for the show. There's so many new coffee shops, and their shit popping up all the time. It is crazy. Had no idea when we were looking originally, not on the list. Yeah, you mentioned this place, I was like, I don't know, I don't know what that means.

It's been around since before the pandemic, but I'm not down here very often again. I'm not down there. I'm nowhere ever. Every time I go anywhere else and I'm like holy shit. Yeah. Yeah. This happened. I feel like how many upsets are we in now like 30 something? Yeah, somewhere in there. 3637. I feel like we haven't even scratched the surface. No, no, there's so many. There's so many. We got another hundred. Yeah. The suggestion was from Jenny, who follows us on Twitter at Anima Podcast. She said, if you guys want to local cafe suggestion,

try Petika. They also roast their own beans, so I'd love to hear what you think. Forrest Gump ruined that name for me. What? Jenny? Oh, Jenny. I watched Forrest Gump the other day.

My wife put it on after she had surgery and just wanted something that was like very easy That movie I think at the time very cool if you watch it now. It's so fucking silly It is it is of Sir Jeff hated that movie. It is so when he's sitting like that It's like the dick-cavete show or something and then like John Lenin's there and he's talking about going to China And he's like no religion. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, hard to imagine. And John Lenin goes, it's easy if you try. And I, it's in my living room and I started booing. So when he, how about when he wipes his face on a shirt and he drinks the fucking. The smiley face. Oh, God.

Like it's so fucking over the top goofy. That's not what I hated about it though. My prejudice was just that it's hard enough to be from Alabama. Yeah, it's hard enough to be from Alabama. I don't need that. I don't need all that ball of battery shit. I grew up right by there.

It's like that. I also think that there's like a sequel book. Yeah, I think so. And I think they like write congeny where she like doesn't get HIV. there's like a sequel book. Yeah, I think so. And I think they like write congeny where she like doesn't get HIV. It's like. So there's a lot of controversy over whether she got HIV or hepatitis.

And so like in the book, in like the second book that like she had hepatitis and it's like, hepatitis is what, that doesn't seem right. Yeah, I always thought it was HIV in the movie. Yeah, I think it's because it was. But it's like it's changed over the book. And HIV was a big deal, but it's gone I think it's because it was like it's changed for the book and HIV was a It was a big deal, but oh, it's gone. Damn it. I'm

Okay last thing Ending segment now because we can't guess the name anymore Ham well, no, no, no, we got it. I've been telling people I've been replying to people who keep guessing names and I go no, that's not it. Keep trying. I brought up to Torgard. I said, you can be the first one. You can test drive this segment for me. We can see if it works. I want a prompt for you guys where it's just like, what jogs you remember about this? Is there anything you want to talk to about this? Yeah. Okay. Could be about your memory about this, is there anything you want to talk to about this? Yeah.

Okay. Could be about some work that you've done or just you in general, whatever. And I wanted it to be an AMA type thing, but more anarchy. Yeah. And truly, Torgard came through. I'm very interested to hear what it was like for them during the 2008 financial crisis. You know, what's funny? we do have a story about that. Are you serious?

This is great. I think when that happened, we were in the downtown office. Yeah, yeah. And we were still very lean. We didn't take investment money. It was like all from us, it was all our doing. And things were going nuts. I think we viewed it as an opportunity for us.

We thought, you know, when things are bad, people want to laugh and get their mind relieved off of these things. So we thought, if we just keep making funny content, people will want to come here and it's a, you know, we're providing free content, people can give us money if they want. It's a huge growth opportunity for us

to distract people from what's going on in the world. Absolutely. And then on a more selfish level, huge growth opportunity for us to distract people from what's going on in the world. I mean, on a more selfish level, I was finally able to buy a house in Austin. So I was like, oh, you know, I think interest rates are gonna, you know, level off and the market didn't really, the housing market didn't really go down in Austin,

but it leveled off a little bit. So I was able to buy a house here. I have a, which was tough. I have a funny anecdote from that time period. We had a, you know, a company. We had a legitimate company, right? So we had a retirement plan, we have health insurance, all that stuff. And so in our 401k plan, we had moved from one provider

to another in 2008. And actually we moved in 2007. And in the process, everybody was fine but me. Oh I forgot about this. They lost my money. They lost my 401k money. They lost the check. They couldn't find it.

Like they knew that it existed. They had a record of it. They just couldn't tell where it was and the process of being switched from one company to the other. And so when the market crashed and everybody lost a ton of money, my money was sitting stuck in cash because I had been cashed out before in 20 2007, and it was just lost. So the moral of the story is, and I'm going to get these dates wrong,

so don't double check me, but the intent is the same and about the time is the same. I want to say the market hit rock bottom on like March 9th of 2008. They found my money on March 11th and invested it. And so it ended up being, I doubled my money that year. Yeah, I had it when it went a long way, but it like seriously, like that was ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me. Wow. So like I got, I got in two days after the market, I got out before the market crashed and through no work of my own. It didn't, nothing. You know,

through someone else's mistake. Someone else's mistake and then I got reinvested two days after the rock bottom. That's incredible. Yeah, it was insane. That is unreal. I've never heard that. It was very lucky for me.

Yeah, I think lots of times when 401Ks are moved, it's not like an electronic transfer. Like one company cuts a check, it mails it to another company. Wow. It's a stupid, stupid process. No, he doubled his money. I think it's a great process.

It just worked out well for me. I got very lucky on that one. I will say, Torgaard test driving the segment, way to go, man. Great job, Torgaard. I will say when he initially pitched 2008 financial crisis, I laughed and he's like, oh, he can also ask him like this other thing or whatever and it was just like oh how was what was

it like working with some of these companies in like the early days I love the direction of 2008 financial crisis. I was back around us. I mean it's very topical now with bank failure back in the front of everyone's mind. Yeah wow way to go to our guard well if you want to send us an anarchy me anywhere segment, you can, you can send a question. I don't give you anything. You can anywhere. Yeah, you did.

Well, if you want to send us an audio podcast, because that's it. If you want to send us a question, you can add anamo podcast on Instagram and on Twitter. You have a lot more luck on Twitter, but I mean, I guess you can just comment the question on the pictures on Instagram, because I'm you can just comment the question on the pictures on Instagram because I'm not checking messages, I'm not crazy.

So tweet at us, let us know your question and maybe you'll get featured on the Anarchy Me Anything segment of this podcast, the Anarchy Me Anything podcast. Oh right, Mugs coming soon. Hopefully, fingers crossed. We're still working on it. You should check out GetTicketStyle.tx because we are still working on it. You should check out get tickets to RTX because we are going to be doing a live show there. Yeah, there's an early word pricing through the end of March. Yeah, and that's July 7th to 9th here in Austin.

Yeah, we're not doing the fourth of July weekend. So we can after which I'm super into because it's going to be just as hot but I can do something else for the fireworks. Which will be very nice. It won't be on Barbara's birthday. Well, Barbara Dunkelman, not my wife. It also will not be on my Westbury. But that's not even close. Any final thoughts, anything you want to leave these folks with before we take off for this episode of ANMA? Invest in a 401k and have them pull it out right before crash.

Yeah, well, the reality is invest in a 401k or retirement or an IRA or whatever you have access to as early and as soon as possible. More man advice, the old man. Yeah, boy, no kidding. We're gonna go check Zillow prices after this. Thank you. Ha ha.

Hey. Describe the show to a newcomer in a more familiar way. Do you like apples? All right, examples. Together in Trempathos, Characombs, Characombs are free to deal with nothing to do with this podcast. Analyze various unsolved and rooster teeth's cryptic podcast, f*** face. Call to action. 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?