So... Alright - A Deluge Of Memories

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

Geoff is confronted by 21 years of memories. Sponsored by Raycon Go to http://buyraycon.com/alright to get 20% off your order, plus free shipping. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So when I look back on it years from now, I have a little bit of distance and perspective. I think this is going to. I think this is going to be one of the weirdest periods in my life. I would say from from the. I don't know if I could just say 2024 in general, I'm sure it's going to continue to get weirder. But this this period from when, you know, we find out Rooster Teeth is ending. To when it ends completely and then, you know, everybody. Goes on to the next phase of their life, it is this weird phase of it,

because it's like a couple months long, which is both good and bad in, I don't know, a lot of different ways. But it's it is this feeling of arrested development in some ways where I I. You know, I want to take the time to fully grieve Rooster Teeth's ending. And I guess I'm fortunate and really fortunate that we have as much time as we do, because they really have given us a lot of space to wrap things up and to go through this process.

And we are pretty fucking lucky, honestly, because they didn't have to do that. And at the same time, kind of busy, because there's a lot to wrap up. And so it's a lot to think about. But you're also, you know, constantly thinking about what's next. And I'm extremely fortunate

that I know exactly what I want to do next. And I know exactly how I want to do next and I know exactly how I want to do it. So all that part of it is solved. I just want to, you know, I just feel like, in some ways I'm sitting in the starting gate just waiting for the gun to go off so that we can just fucking start racing. And even if it's not a success,

and even if the next thing fails or it doesn't work out, it is, at least I have, at least I know what I want to try. At least I'm not trying to scramble to put pieces together and to figure out like, oh fuck, how do I enter into the next phase of my life or the next phase of my career? I just have to worry about how do I make it a success? How do I pay the bills? You know, which I feel really fortunate that I have at least that side of it worked out. The what do I want to do side?

And how am I going to do it? But I also. And I'm not the kind of person I'm all or nothing, you know, and I'm still at Rooster Teeth. Rooster Teeth still exists. And until the lights go off, I'm going to give 100% of what I have to Rooster Teeth. I think that the last 21 years of this company, 21 years of support from the audience, 21 years of support from friends and family and coworkers who were all the same people.

My coworkers were my friends and family oftentimes. And I just give too much of a shit about all of them and this and everything we've done over the last 20 years to half ass it in the final stretch. I'd be lying if I said I was talking to Jordan the other day about some upcoming, you know, like different ways to message goodbyes and like streams and different things we're doing. And I was telling him, you know, I, at times I feel a little bit of goodbye fatigue, because I feel like we've been saying goodbye now for like three straight weeks and I still have another five weeks or so of goodbyes.

And as I said earlier, I count myself lucky to even to have this time to be able to say the goodbyes, but it's just it's it is, while probably ultimately very healthy, it's just a long time to sit in this period of grief. And I don't know. I don't I don't do well with sitting still. And like I said, I have a lot of RT to finish up, you know, we still were you know, as things wind down, our capabilities of doing things wind down too. So, you know, I'm not doing as many break shows, that kind of stuff. There's gonna be

less people available for edits. So but I want to keep keep communicating through the the channels that I have that matter, which would be face and so all right. I really I want to. I want to make those productions until the day. Like I said, the lights go out at Rooster Teeth. I think I owe it to. Myself and y'all, so with that, it's just it's just it's just a weird time. This couple of months, it's just like. Oh, I really don't know how to describe it.

It's definitely an uncomfortable feeling. Yeah, it's been making me reminisce a lot, which is nice. In some ways, I was thinking about this, in some ways, I kinda already went through a lot of this, and that might sound weird, but when, when Bernie left the company a few years ago, it, I don't think I ever really talked about it in any kind of content,

but it really, really affected me in the moment at the time. You know, it was weird because the company had grown to such an extent that Bernie and Gus and Matt and I didn't really work, we certainly weren't working on the same stuff anymore, you know? I mean, Bernie certainly weren't working on the same stuff anymore. You know, I mean, Bernie and Gus would be on the podcast together. They were still doing that together. And Bernie and Matt would do work on bigger projects together,

you know, in kind of the division of the company and that kind of thing. But for the most part, you know, the days of the five of us sitting in an office or even like the six or seven, if you throw like Nathan and Joel and Jason and Kathleen and all these other people in into the mix, those early, just those early intense days when it was us in a room together for, you know, 17 hours a day, six days a week. You know, it hadn't been that in many years. And thank God, because we would have fucking killed ourselves if we, if we continued like that forever.

But you know, the company grew to the to the point where like I had achieved 100 and I had my things and Matt and Bernie were working on their bigger things and bigger picture things and then Gus was working on broadcasts and his thing and and it just it became harder and harder for us to come back together, you know, into that original little nucleus. It's like the best problem to have, you know, we made a company that was successful enough that we all got to follow our individual passions in whatever direction they took us. Unfortunately, when you're dealing with creative, talented people, those directions are that those passions don't always go in the same direction, you know?

Like it was clear to me that Bernie and Matt wanted to do movies, narratives. They wanted to do high budget narratives or not maybe not high budget, but like high value narratives, I guess would be the way I would say it. And I just wanted to be Howard Stern, you know, and Gus had his own interests and. We were able to. The awesome thing about it was we were able to support each other and help each other in those individual passions and and know that they were supporting us in the same way.

And we gave each other a lot of runway. And it was it was really kind of a perfect symbiotic relationship in many, many ways. But at the end, the end of five people following five different passions is that they all move a little further out from the original thing as they head in their own respective directions. And so when Bernie left, it really crystallized to me in that moment that that thing was over. That five of us in that room was over. It had been over for a long time, but in the back of my head,

I always thought we'd find a way to get back together for something. And there were brief moments here and there, and it wasn't like we didn't work together. I'm making it sound like this dire thing where we never saw each other. It wasn't like that. It just wasn't what it was. It was.

We had different departments and different. Productions and different schedules and different everything, you know, and that's part of why I was so invested in getting the Stuck at Home podcast off the ground. I really, really wanted to do that. And that wasn't it, unfortunately, but we got really close.. I really, really wanted to do that. Matt wasn't in it, unfortunately, but we got really close. And I loved doing it so much.

And even though we did those four episodes and I was very optimistically trying to, I don't know, trying to convince everybody that maybe there's something that we could keep going. I kind of had a feeling that it was gonna be what it was and that I should just appreciate it for those four episodes. And then not too long after that,

Bernie leaves and man, it just brought it all home to me in that moment that that era of my life was over. If you're really lucky, and it's what you wanna do, and you get the opportunity to have your startup moment where you and a couple of friends or family members get to really take a swing at starting your own thing, whether it's a plumbing business or an accounting firm

or an online production or an independent book publishing house, like whatever it is, you have an idea and you have the drive and the determination and a core group of just similarly passionate and invested people, and you get to take that swing. Man, once you jump on that train, especially if you have a little bit of success, it runs away with you and it takes over and it is the most thrilling thing in the world. And you will not know. You will not know when you've left that phase and you're in the next phase

because your head is down and you're just working and you're just working and one day you're gonna look up and you're gonna go like this train, this train has traveled so far from where we started and I didn't realize it at all on the journey. In my head, childishly, naively in my head, I was still in a spare bedroom for many, many years. I tried to recreate that spare bedroom over and over again because I was, you know, I

wanted to trick myself into believing that that's where I still existed. So this is an ad to help support this podcast. You know what I take with me when I leave my house? Well, I take me. I take with me when I leave my house? Well, I take me, I take my feet, take my hands, but I also take my Raycon earbuds, my everyday earbuds, because they offer amazing quality audio at half the price of other premium audio brands. And well, if you don't believe me, I don't know why you would. I don't know why you wouldn't believe me either.

I don't think I've given you a reason not to believe me, but I don't know that I've given you a reason to believe me. However, you can believe there are tens of thousands of five star reviews. I look it up. They're there and they're real. Their optimized gel tips are designed to fit comfortably in your ears and actually stay there.

If you're like me and you've got ears on the larger side, you'll you know the pain of having trouble finding earbuds that stay in. You won't have that trouble anymore if you just go with Raycon. And they have all the important stuff you want, like noise isolation, earbud tap functionality, awareness mode. What's better than awareness? So go to buy Raycon.com slash all right today to get 20% off your Raycon order plus free shipping.

That's right, you'll get 20% off and free shipping at buyraycon.com slash A-L-R-I-G-H-T. Buyraycon.com slash all right. All right. So when Bernie left, I did a lot of grieving. By Raycon dot com slash. All right. All right. So when Bernie left, I did a lot of grieving for that era of my life, that time that I knew that, you know, I didn't groove the groove. I've never grooved in my fucking life. I wouldn't even begin to know how to groove.

I don't have groove in me. I grieved a groove in me. I grieved a lot in that time, not for the end of Rooster Teeth, because Rooster Teeth was still going and going strong, and I was heavily invested in where we were and what we were doing. But I grieved that era, that recognition,

that the thing that we started out of a little bit of talent and a hell of a lot of passion and friendship, that thing was over. So it's weird because I'm almost, now that Rooster Teeth is itself over, it's almost like I'm grieving in two different eras. I feel like I already grieved the first half of Rooster Teeth and now this is for grieving the second half of Rooster Teeth.

If that makes any sense, I just, and it's weird, all them, I mean Gus and Matt and I are all still at RT. The only thing that's different is that Bernie left, but I guess just that moment when he left, it really crystallized to me that things, that that era, that door had closed from that time, right and I don't know man. Just I realize I'm a little all over the map today But I'm a little all over the map in my life right now

Like I said because I'm I'm stuck in this weird period we're all stuck in this weird period where we're kind of it kind of feels like a relief but also like quicksand and it's kind of it kind of feels like a relief, but also like quicksand. And it's kind of like. I don't know, man, it's kind of like it's it's it's kind of beautiful, like I said, and I feel incredibly lucky to have this space, but it's also kind of agony because it's like. But it's really. You know what? It's really fucking important that I'm doing. It really is.

It sucks to sit, to be forced to sit in grief, but it also forces you to really confront it and go through it and to really ingest and digest what you're doing. And so I guess I shouldn't bitch about it because I'm pretty lucky that I even have the opportunity to do this It's also you know, I said I feel like I'd already grieved a lot of the early days but It is forced a lot of memory lane stuff. That's for sure. I was thinking this morning. I don't know why I don't know why But I was just I woke up this morning thinking about

The first time I was thinking about San Jose, California, which is a city that we went to a bunch There was a convention up there Fuck what was it called? Fan of a maybe was that the one? I don't know we would go to it every year year. But there were also other reasons we went. And I think the very first time we went to San Jose, and I'm sure you've heard this story in many places over the years, but for some reason, some entity in San Jose,

I don't even remember who it was now. It may have just been the IMAX theater, but they had one of those IMAXs, probably an educational one. And they invited us out to show season, whatever, probably one or two of RVB on an IMAX. And I remember us thinking like, that's a can't be real.

B, it's like a video is already a postage stamp. How the fuck are you going to project it on an IMAX theater? It was a dome, too. So it was like one of those three, like full domes. And so we said yes just because it seemed impossible and it would just seem like, I just couldn't imagine it working. And Gus and I went out there,

I don't remember if anybody else went there, I think it was just Gus and I that time. And it was, and it was, and the entire event was a fiasco from the start. The guy picked us up. Lovely, lovely man. I can't remember his name, uh, unfortunately, but he showed up to pick us up. He was really interesting. He was involved with Burning Man. I remember that it was pretty high up in

Burning Man and I had not much knowledge of Burning Man at the time and so he was, I just thought it was really interesting what he was explaining to me. And like imagine hearing about Burning Man for the first time. You're like, what? He's like, what, huh? And so we're going into the parking lot

and we go to the car and his mom is in the car, she was lovely and so we got to meet his mom and then they lost the ticket. And so we couldn't leave the parking lot. And I don't remember why, but we drove around for like a half an hour, like retracing steps and trying to find this ticket. And the whole time I'm thinking like, I'll pay the $7. I just want to go to the hotel.

But eventually it got worked out. They found it. And then we showed RVB on the IMAX. And it looked great. It wasn't a full, it didn't stretch, it wasn't a full dome, but it was big, man. And it looked really fucking good. And I was so blown away by how good it looked.

And man, I wonder, the theater was full, there were probably a couple hundred kids there. I wonder if anybody that was at that event was there. Drop me an email at ericatjeffsboss.com and let me know. Let me know what you remember about that day or night because my memory is pretty fragmented. And I would just love to hear about your experience. I don't think that the chances are

you're probably not listening to this. But if you're one of those couple hundred kids, man, I would love to hear from you. And then that night actually, I remember that, I think that was the night Gus and I discovered Cinnabar, which was a dive bar that we kind of fell in love with. We had a lot of stories from Cinnabar. It was one of those places that we would go to

every time we'd go to San Jose, get excited about it. Because one of these things we figured out really quickly, because we were traveling, I've talked about this a lot, but we were traveling 25, 30 weekends a year and for six, seven years, maybe eight. And so you would be in these places just often enough where it felt a little bit familiar. Like you'd go to San Antonio.

We actually didn't go to San Antonio for Rooster Teeth at all that I think about, maybe once for PAX South. San Jose, for instance, you'd be there twice a year somehow. San Francisco, you were there four to six times a year. New York City was three to five times a year. LA constantly, Baltimore, you'd be at twice a year for some reason. Florida we were always being you're always in these places these cities, just enough. And so Gus and I figured

out really early on that we needed to have a home base a place that felt homey and comfortable to us. So we would find the coolest dive bar in every city we would do a convention or an event in. And then we would have that place. We had like a mental Rolodex of all the dive bars and all the cities we went to. And then when we get to San Jose and you're like fucking exhausted and you have a long day setting up a booth or whatever,

then you can go to your spot, the Cinebar, where you feel like not a local because it's like the third time you've been there, but it feels I don't know It's it's where it's a place you've been to before and it starts to feel like your spot in that city, right? and so we've got had all the stories that Cinnabar about like the police line In front of the place and having to step over the pile of blood while the crime photographers are like taking photos and stuff. We had the dude that wouldn't let Gus walk to the bathroom

until he picked his race. It got it hilariously wrong. It had a lot of, we had a lot of fun at that Cinebar place. But that night, we also, I remember we we went to we were just walking around downtown San Jose and we We saw that Ralphie May the comedian was playing and I had enjoyed him on last comic standing He was the guy that got like runner-up on season one. And so we thought fuck it. Let's just go see a Ralphie May show So we bought tickets on the spot. They sat us at a table with a couple on their first date.

I remember that. I remember Ralphie was funny. I don't really remember anything else other than that Gus and I were delighted that we were making this poor couple so uncomfortable because we had to sit at the same fucking table as them. And it was so awkward. And Gus and I love to lean into awkward. And anyway, I don't know.

I don't know where that came from but it was my literally the first thing that popped into my head this morning was red versus blue on the IMAX and that's kind of what the last that's kind of what the last three weeks have been and kind of what I imagine the next five or so weeks will be. Just a... a deluge of... hopefully really wonderful memories of really wild and... ah... important moments in my life, or at least

good memories of moments that I shared with good people. Alright.