ANMA - Convention Efficiency

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

Good morning, Gus! We're at Fleet Coffee on Webberville but recording at the Lost Well next door. This week Gus and Geoff get into Avenue B sandwiches, Food on the east side, Conventions aren’t vacations, Skiing in Australia, Giraffe vs possum, Taking ANMA on the road?, and Reevaluating conventions. Check out http://www.store.roosterteeth.com and grab an ANMA shirt. One has a lil devil man on it. This episode is sponsored by Better Help http://betterhelp.com/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. Is episode 30. Fleet coffee on Weberville. I mean, sort of. We got, we have Fleet Coffee. We ordered Fleet Coffee and then it was pretty crowded there.

And we walked eight feet over to the last well. Yeah, which is the bar next door. We're sitting outside, which we have some history within the Tan General at least. Just in the sense that this was the people who used to open, or who used to run the bar that we used to go to a lot with Adam. Oh, love joys. Love joys. They had the best jukebox in Austin back in the day.

Because Celino did, I thought, for a long time. I like his love joys, but it was a little more punk. Okay, heavy for me. I like the casino one a little more. Yeah, I love the casino, a Camino ju I liked the casino one a little more. Yeah. I love the casino, a Camino jukebox. That is a great jukebox. Love joys, you could like take your own grower

and fill it up with beer there, right? That's like what I remember about them. I tell you what I remember about love joys. What's that? This is how you can tell how rarely these things happen to me in my life. I got hit on by a hot chicken, love joys. Oh, right on there.

It's probably four times that happened to me in my time. It happened It was so clear I was married to my first wife at the time so I was like oh that's very flattering Thank you, but I'm with somebody But I will remember that till a day. I die probably I don't have any memories like that of a load Or in general so I'll just get that out of the way well I only have like three I only have have any memories like that of Lojoys or in general, so I'll just get that out of the way. Well, I only have like three memories. You only have three memories? Yeah, three good memories of being hit on by people, yeah.

And none of them have been in the last 15 years. Yeah, we used to go to Lojoys every now and then it was, I wouldn't say it was like on our regular rotation, but we really stopped in fairly frequently. It was like a local spot for our friend Adam, so we would go there to visit him. Where was it? It was right off of six, just north of six, right off of Trinity. On the west side, I want to say it's like on the west side of the street, north of six, probably off of three blocks west of emoze is how I would have

Described it. Yeah, yeah right around there. I don't remember what was next to it or what was on six or because I can't possibly tell What's there now? Yeah, it it went it closed 2009 doesn't I say like 10 years ago maybe maybe a little longer. Yeah hasn't this place open up not too long after that Audio texture motorcycle. Is this an area of town so we're on Weberville Road? Yeah, there's great stuff on Weberville, which by the way, another little piece of history, we, Gus and I have talked about the French fries that we were in love with from Shaggy's Bumbastic way back in the day.

Oh right, yeah. Cavalier, which is directly across the street from us, is a local bar, they have this fries. They have the fries? Yeah, because the lady that owns it, her and her husband, it was her parents that owns the segues. So I need to come over and get these fries. Yeah, so you want to get the good fries there right there, Cavalier.

Cavalier, okay, what kind of fry? Can you describe the fries again? They're like jerks season. They're like jerks season. They're the fries. Yeah, they're like spicy fries. They're really good. Yeah.

So you go and you eat it cavalier and then come across the street to last well. And then when you're sober up, you go to fleet. Yeah. And then right down the street to the right was Garmons. I don't know if it's still open, which is like the best sandwich dive in Austin. Oh, really?

You better than having you be. Yeah, because they're nice. We haven't talked about having you be. I don't know about this. Have you never been having you be? No, we'll take you to talked about Avenue being. I don't know if you've never been Avenue B. No, we'll take it Avenue. I don't like the way you smiled when you said that. It's a it's a little grocery store on Avenue B over in Hyde Park and it's got like signs. It's been open since like the early 1900s and there's the oldest

grocery store in the state of Texas. Do you remember the the soup Nazi on Sunfield? Yeah, that, that's what it is. Oh, really? You cannot take pictures in there. No. It's basically a glorified shitty convenience store. It's got groceries and air quotes, a couple of things that you might buy.

But at the back, there's a window. And you can have sandwiches there. And they've got a big board over the window, like a bunch of different kinds of sandwiches, you can order or you can do your own. Like, and it tells you, step one, bread, like step two, meat, or cheese, step three, and then you just go down all the different steps.

However, the dude who makes the sandwiches and runs the place is very particular. And you must know what you want, and you must order it in the correct way, or he's going to yell at you. And you had better not in the correct way or he's going to yell at you and you had better not Commit the cardinal sin of opening your soda before you pay for They will throw you out of the store for that. They do not fuck around

Can you give me an example of what it would be like to order a sandwich from Avenue B? It's like you You first of all you got to have a plan. Okay. You got to know you got the steps. You got know the plan. You go in. I want, you, of course, you order one off the menu. It's fine. It's like, I want sourdough, provolone cheese, ham, lettuce, pickles. Thank you. Thank you. I stepped to the side.

Yeah. And it's a good sandwich. It is a phenomenal sandwich. Amazing sandwich. Listen, it's great. See, if you look up the Yelp reviews for the place, it's like five stars, this is the sound, which is amazing, this is the best thing ever. How did I not know about this?

Or one star. The guy who works here is incredibly rude. I can't believe he's open. Like there's no in-between. It's either five star or one star. All I asked for was X and he blew his lid. Yeah. Yeah, don't do that.

Well, hilariously, our good friend Monty, who used to work at Rich's T-thru, rest in peace. He lived across the street when he first moved to Austin. He lived across the street from the Avenue B grocery for, I don't know, like a year and a half, and didn't know it existed. I would ask him all the time. You've been to Avenue B and he's like, I don't know what that is. And I would describe it to him. Like, look at your window.

You know? He was like, I don't know. I don't know the time for that. Yeah, listen, there's the two top reviews on Yelp right now. The top one's five star. The one right below it is one star. In all caps, it says, do not go here. The man who runs it is at least a jerk and possibly dangerous or violent. At least a jerk. I should have looked up reviews before strolling into this business.

They have really good vanilla pudding to you. Oh, have really good vanilla pudding, too. Oh, and sometimes in the winter, they make soup. It's only when it's cold weather that they'll make the soup. I don't know if you ever had a soup there. I don't know, I know. The nominal. Okay.

Perhaps, like amazing. I bet that they're coffee there, right? We should go. Do they have coffee there? I don't think so. I don't think they do. Maybe they don't. Maybe they don't.

Maybe they don't. Maybe they don't. Maybe they don't do a special episode there. I would be too scared to ask if they have coffee there. We'll take a coffee there and eat outside. I wouldn't even do that. Well, just wouldn't. Well, do you think the convenience store has coffees inside of it to purchase?

No, I don't think cold brew. So like, boy, like any can or something. Did you ever go with Monti to Avenue B? I don't think he ever went. Oh my God. The entire time you live there, he didn't have time for such things. It's, well, I mean, I could see why he could miss it.

It's, like, it looks like a kind of a dilapidated house, but it does have a bunch of, like, weird, like quirky signs on it, right? It looks like, it looks like the kind of place you'd stop at to buy antiques on the side of the road. Right. That's a good way to put it. And it's filled with things that look like

old Mexico signs and shit. Well, that's a good way to put it. And it's filled with things that look like a Mexico science shit. Well, then that's cool that they do have, is they have like logs from the early 1900s, like under like a glass case, so you can go in and you can see like their order logs from like 1905 and it's kind of neat. That's really cool. Yeah.

The way you've described this, I don't have a problem being particular about my order. I have no problem with that. I appreciate that guy. I've never had a good experience ordering from a little window in the back of a store. Oh my God, that's all restaurants in New Jersey. It really? It, man. Just back home and I feel like here it would just be like, well, this is something's wrong. I did something wrong. Everything's wrong now. I'm not allowed to get my food and

I'm about to get yelled at. But you know what? The only place I'm still intimidated by. Sounds like you've been having you be. There, there. Casino al camino is the only place that I order from in the back, and I'm still intimidated by it. But like, that's the only place that I order from,

like, a little window in the back and be all right with it. There used to be an intimidating kind of angry dude who worked at the window of Casino back in the... There was a road to revolving. Cadre of Intimidating Deeds that worked at Casino. I think that was like the first requirement to work there. I think that those people are still like that kind of person is still there. It's just that we're not 22. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Right, we know. Like that's the difference. There is definitely something intimidating about walking into any place in the back of a place. Yes. Because it gives the appearance of like a little secret, like it's not known, you're stepping into something, you probably don't belong to, you're clearly the outsider, the second you walk in,

and you gotta figure it out on the fly really fast. I get it, I think that's scary too. But that being said, we definitely should. I like an idiot, I tried to look up at him, and you'd be on the up to see if there were pictures of the menu online to see him, like if I could find a copy, and I was like, oh right, there's no pictures on the out,

there's no pictures on the lad inside, of course there's no photos of the menu online to see if I could find a copy. And I was like, oh, right, there's no pictures allowed. The little pictures are allowed inside. Of course, there's no photos of the menu. So this area of Austin, not at Avenue B, that's ever in Hyde Park. But we're over in Weberville is there's another bar right down the road called Kitty Coins, which is one of the first bars I ever went to on a date with Emily. Yeah, obviously I had die cook. But that bar was cool. I don't know if they still have it because they had a little waiting pool in it. And so you could go like, to give had die cook. But that bar was cool. I don't know if they still have it

because they had a little waiting pool in it and so you could go like, to give it a little water. Oh, that's that place. Yeah, I've heard about that. How deep are we talking? Oh, not ready. Like a plastic kitty pool?

No, it's like cement, like, designed. And they have it there with drunk people. I guess so, yeah. So it's a urinal. I don't think so, I think. I don't think, I don't think that's the right clientele for them Man, I don't know. I don't think they're a urinal in the bat. That sounds that's the kind of place disgusting to me It's not it's not like super deep for anything right like it's no, I don't get it's even worse

It's not diluted The urine contents way higher. Look get out of here. Be this is a This is technically what would you call this part? Like East Austin, yeah. Is East Austin, yeah. This is off East 7th Street. And it's right off of like, it's past the drag where there's like bars and stuff

and they have a lot of like houses and then there's this stuff in like the middle of stuff. Yeah, it's like a, it's like a two block street that has just a bunch of shit packed into it. Yeah. There's other stuff across the street that I don a bunch of shit packed into it. Yeah. There's other stuff across the street that I don't even know what it is. I don't think I've ever spent much time over here. I lived on the east side for a while as you put it right around the corner, but in reality

far away. I spent a ton of time over here. I don't know why I just never made it out over here. This fleet used to be my coffee shop actually, but I keep running into Sophie and Nathan, and it was just always awkward to have work conversations, so I stopped going. How weird.

They're gone now, though. Yeah, they lived pretty close to here. Yeah, they weren't too too far. We're close to Rockstar Bagels, that place is pretty good. We're close to my old tattoo studio, triple crowns. Oh yeah, that's all pretty. Rockstar Bagels seems like a weird spot.

It's a weird building for you. Yeah, it's just like in a weird place and it has signs outside. Like don't ask us about your online order. We fucking got it. Like it is just like our, it's the vibe. Yeah, definitely.

I'm more of a, I think good because I'm more of a nervous Charlie's Bagels place. That's close to the studio. I like nervous Charlie's. Yeah, this is Rockstar better of a, I think good, because I'm more of a nervous Charlie's bagel's place. That's close to the show. I like nervous Charlie's. Yeah, this is rock star. Better? No, they're just good.

It just was over here. Okay. It's the only bagel option within a few miles. I really like nervous Charlie's. I do too. I don't really like the price of nervous Charlie's, but I do like everything else about it. The sound, yeah, I guess it is kind of price.

You can get a bagel by itself or like, what is it, two bucks? Something like that. I don't even get a bagel by itself for like, what is it, two bucks? Something like that. But then you get a bagel by itself. Yeah, but then you want to get, I mean, I want to get cream cheese and a cup of coffee and like all this and it just, I want to get, I want to get like ham and eggs.

You want to get like a big sandwich. You want to get like a big sandwich. Yeah, then you're looking at like 11 bucks. Yeah, and then at that point, you're just like, why am I eating this when I could go to Avenue B? They get yelled at. They, you're just like, why am I eating this when I could go to Avenue B? They get yelled at. They have weird hours.

I don't mean to keep pulling it back to Avenue B, but during the pandemic, their hours became very irregular and they were closed for a long time. So I just, I don't know if I've been back recently, just since they've resumed their regular hours. Cause I would try to swing by every now and then, and it would be like closed, closed.

And I think even before the pandemic, like the owner went on a long vacation and there was just like the close sign was on for a long time with no explanation. Then he came back. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. So irregular hours. What was your regular order? Um, and how did you order it? Scared? Yeah, shaking in my boots. Actually, I got to a point where I went there regularly enough where I wasn't scared anymore. Uh, and I think he started to recognize me so it was okay. Actually, I got to a point where I went there regularly enough where I wasn't scared anymore. And I think he started to recognize me so it was okay. I don't remember. I wouldn't order one of the sandwiches off the menu. I knew I would get like sourdough and ham. I don't have to look at it again. And I'm sure if I looked at the menu, I could tell exactly how I got it, but I can't remember anymore off the top of my head.

I was going to BLT because I was the least substitutions I had to make. Which is no mayonnaise. BLT no mayonnaise. Yeah, but yeah, we should definitely should try to make it a point to go out there. Banana pudding. You guys are going to kind of tropical over here? Yeah. Yeah. That's a good spot. I like this area of Austin.

Kind of tropical unfortunately opened up after I quit drinking. It would have been a great place to day drink. Oh, hey, it is a great place to day drink. It's like the new vert, well, I think some of the people that own yellow jacket also own it. It's like a conglomerate, but I was gonna say it's like the new, well, I think some of the people that own Yellow Jacket also own it. It's like a conglomerate, but I wasn't saying it's like the new Yellow Jacket. I love Yellow Jacket. I used to. Yeah.

They got a kind of tropical, if you're not looking for drinking. They've great curly fries. Big curly fry guy. We've only been there a few times. Crippin' fries are right. I'm thinking I'm trying to give my proper thoughts to Crippin' fries. They're right. They're not my favorite fry, they're not the worst fry.

I spent so many fucking years over here on the East Side in bars and stuff. And now I don't come over here at all ever. I mean, but why would you, right? Like, that part of you is, that sort of, that's, hey, I don't know, that, that's sort of this podcast. It's just like, oh, south of the river. It's like, they're stuff here now. I, it's funny because my, my parents went to college here in Austin and so I was born here and I used to like roll my eyes whenever they would come visit me and be like well when we lived here back in the 70s There was nothing south of Riverside all of this is new and that's that's that's fucking us now

Yeah, like full circle now. I was like oh this didn't used to be here. Oh, or this used to be this or this used to be over there Do you remember um that there was briefly speaking what used to be this or this used to be over there. Do you remember that there was briefly speaking of what used to be here. There's a Peruvian place right on the road. Oh, that sounds familiar. It's in that weird space around Springdale and Seventh. Yeah. It almost looks like an RV park, but it's not. Yeah, I eat there.

Yeah. It's a place called. I don't remember, but we ate there with Matt, or I ate there with Matt a couple times. Yeah, I did eat there. Huge fan of Peruvian food, Matt Hullum. I don't know if you know that. What? Oh yeah.

Huge fan. Huge fan? He's a Peruvial file. Yeah. He is a Peruvial file. Be very careful, I can pronounce that. Yeah. Yeah.

I had to throw it. So have you tried this food truck right here? This lick it up, Mexican street food, plant-based? No. Like I said, I am then over here so long. There's like, it's weird to me when I was like really, really strict eating plant-based. I missed certain kinds of food.

And Mexican food specifically, there's a great plant-based, Mexican trailer that now has a brick and mortar, like off East Twelfth is called Nisi. Some curious how this place stacks up. Because Nisi, they have that trailer on East Twelfth and they opened up a brick and mortar over there, like 183 in Burnett. That place is awesome.

So I'm always looking for more plant-based Mexicans. Food. Like, what kind of stuff do you get there? They have tacos, nachos, burritos, like, Tex Mex text mixed fare. Okay. It's all really solid. But it doesn't have cheese? Well, no dairy.

Yeah, okay. How about that? Yeah. No nothing, nothing animal based. It's all plant based stuff. Gotcha. I should've taken gears a little bit. We were talking about it on the way here. Jeff and I just got back from a vacation. And then, Jeff went, oh, she talked about vacations.

And then it was, you guys are going, we've never been on vacation together. You haven't been on vacation together. And I understand that. And that's not what I'm trying to get at. You guys have been on so many trips to so many conventions together. What was that like?

Because I have a lot of similar, probably story stuff with like mega 64, where it's not like, when you're off the convention floor and it's like, hey, here's the after hours thing. And here's the place that we're going to, you're the bars that we're hopping to, like in Seattle, like we're drinking there or whatever. And always finding something to do

and always finding trouble or whatever, is that kind of how it was for you guys also, like no matter where you went or where you just sort of, like, we'll do the convention, I'm gonna go to sleep, even though you're like 32. Every trip I took with Gus was like a vacation. Oh yeah? Yeah, it was just so much fun.

We would always, we would have to try to find the fun. You know, you would try to find something to relax or unwind doing and, you know, whenever the megastix of four guys were on set, like we ever coordinated going to places together, but inevitably we'd run into each other and hang out and spend time together. I think nowadays if we were to do that, I probably would not go, I'd probably be like,

all right, I'm going to my room, I'm gonna watch TV and go to sleep. Well, even like when we were just on vacation in Kenken together and we'd spent all day together, I would say together, all day around each other, just kind of like cohabitating, coexisting. And then at night after dinner, it's like eight o'clock and you're like, all right, I'm ready for bed.

I imagine it'd be much the same at this point. I mean, I don't think that anything to do with beach live in. It's just like eight o'clock is about when I start to. But I imagine that it wasn't always that way, especially when you would go to, I don't know. What's a convention that you would go to, down self, mo mo con or some shit? Like, what was that? Was it always just like, okay, let's get this booth done as fast as we can and then go

out? So I think the beauty of it is that Gus and I considered this to be a pretty important part of our jobs in our career. And I think we both really instantly saw, because we were the first people to do a convention. And I think we had that light bulb moment where we saw how like the, I don't know, the really like intense, I guess you would say, what sort of monotone? Intusiasm. I guess you would say...

What sort of money for? Intusiasm? No, well, Intusiasm for sure, but like the intangible benefits would be like so present, even though they're intangible. I think we both really keyed into how important that part of the job was for us, even though they weren't real money makers, at best we probably broke even,

or made a little bit of money here and there. The goal is not to lose money, but you would go and you would do these conventions. And then for the next week, you'd have 500 kids in a high school wearing reverse blue clothes and talking about how great it was to meet us and stuff. And it was great to meet them too. And so I think we realized how important that was to the growth of Rupert Heath in a very like street team, you know, door to door kind of way. And so we took it a lot more seriously than anybody else and we took it as a big part of what we did. So we did more conventions and because we did that and because I think we were so similarly aligned and work ethic and also what we were trying to get out of it,

we worked very fucking well together. So we were like a well-oiled machine. And we would get there, it was no nonsense. We would put everything into efficiency, getting it set up, getting, like getting the pallets torn down, everything set up, getting ready to sell. And then the second we started to sell, Gus and I went into bit mode, where we tried to give every single person that came to the booth 45 seconds of comedy. Like a show or something. And keep it going, we wanted to, but please everybody, give everybody something a little special and then get them out the door so that we could please the next people.

And then at the end of the day, we wanted to get the fuck out of there as quickly as possible. We were pretty burned out from talking to people for 12 hours a day, so we didn't want to spend a lot of time. And mostly, I'll be honest with you, the way it boiled down to is Gus and I did a lot of work, and we were probably a little bit out of shape at the people in the booth who didn't work as hard as us,

and we didn't want to share. Or who could do differently? Yeah, we didn't want to share a expensive steak dinner on the company with them. Yeah. And so we would go back to the hotel room, we would count the money, or eat eat a pizza and go to bed. Yeah, I don't know if you remember this when you know, normally at a convention when the hall closes,

there's an announcement like halls closed, proceed to the exit, whatever. If I saw people like dilly dallying around or not leaving, I would start screaming at them from the booth. Yeah, we like get the fuck out of here. It's closed. I want to go home. I can't leave until you leave. You know, I would get so annoyed. It's like, you've had 10 hours today. Get the fuck out of here. I will say that was the probably the biggest pet peeve Gus and I would have is somebody would come and they would work the beach. I'm not calling out anybody in specific.

There's a large cast of people this could have been in Ristratees. It's all their fault. It would come by full t-shirts for an hour and be like, woo! I'm not going to say that. I'm not going out anybody in specific. There's a large cast of people this could have been in Rooster Teeth. It's all their fault. It would have come by full T-shirts for an hour and be like, woohoo!

Let's go to Rooster Chris. And we'd be like, fuck you. What the fuck? Yeah. You did not do steak dinner work. This was a long day. Yeah. Chris Martin, what the fuck?

Chris DeMaris. Chris DeMaris. Yeah. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Been out with you guys for a steak. I think it packs East, uh, because megastix before was never steak guys. It was always like, well, just eat like the fastest thing and then we're going out is the

way that was. And then we went to Mortons. I think with you guys, and that's when I learned that you guys are everyone that we went with from researchoushurti, like, knew their state inside and out. It was fucking crazy. And then it was just like, five guys, kind of sitting there going,

what are you guys getting at the fuck? What the fuck? I got food poisoning at a steakhouse, at Paxi's, to one, it wasn't a martin's, it was just like, some other chain, I don't remember the name of it, we don't have them here, but I remember went out, didn't even like, wasn't like a night where I went out

drinking a bunch, like went out, had a steak dinner, had a couple drinks and like went back to my hotel room, went to sleep and I woke up like in the middle of the night, you know, with that feeling we were like, oh, I ate something bad, like run into the toilet, like throwing it all up and then being like, oh, thank God, like instant relief, I feel better. And then I mean, like waking up the next morning,

then it's like, all right, gotta shake it off, gotta get to work immediately. That's a awful, I do not miss that stuff. I don't need them in. Those are rough days. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. When you're at your best, you can do great things, but sometimes life gets you bogged down,

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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. The five boundaries and start gaming now at Alienware.com. Next-gen gaming is built with Intel Core i9 processors. out very quickly that it was more fun to be at home than to be at a convention anywhere. And so we wanted to be as efficient as possible so we get the fuck back. But I mean, I feel also you get jaded after a while. Like you try to let off. You know, you're like, okay, I've seen this, I've seen this kind of stuff, I don't want

to do this anymore. But I remember, you know, early on, especially, it was always, it was all new experiences. It was, you know, we, I think we were a lot more wide-eyed about it. You know, for example, like we went to Australia for the first time, we met someone who was really friendly, took us to a ski lodge and we went skiing, which was a whole thing. There's a Mount Buller, I think it's called.

It was like a four-hour drive away from Melbourne. We got in a car with a stranger and drove up a mountain. And then it spent like two days skiing with them. Yeah. We also went to... Never spoke to that person again. No. There's a lovely time.

Yeah, it was great. We had a blast. We also went to... Learned how to ski. It was fun. We went to that zoo in Melbourne. Yeah. We went to the platypus tree, which was maybe...

You went to the what? Like the building where they keep the platypus. It was the platypus tree. The platypus tree. It was the funniest thing in the world to me. I probably stood outside that building for 15 minutes laughing at it. We saw that that giraffe kill a possum.

Yeah, that was brutal. Guess what's talking in the car about how the graces, the most brutal thing he's ever seen is a hawk kill a pigeon. And that was reminding him that we saw a horrific scene of a giraffe just stomping this possum to death and then like ripping at his head with this giant giraffe mouth. It was, we were at the zoo in Melbourne and we heard, you know, we were walking around, we heard like this commotion, like people, like a hubbub, people were like, like,

a hula-blue. Yeah, like talking loudly and kind of yelling and exclaiming, like, well, let's go see what's going on. Like, idiots, right? At a zoo, you hear yelling, let's walk in that direction. We walk over there and it's like a crowd of people around the giraffe pan, and there's screaming things like,

someone get help. Oh, you know, the good one. Did that come to a zookeeper? Someone do something like that kind of stuff? Like, oh, what's going on? And there was like, uh, a giraffe kind of by, like, there was like a rock in the middle of the enclosure. And like, like next to the you're like, oh, what's going on? And there was like a giraffe kind of by, like there was like a rock in the middle of the enclosure. And like next to the rock was like this little possum

that was like trying to hide and was like huddled up next to it. The giraffe was not letting it go, right? This giraffe was like stomping at the rock, trying to get the possum to get out. And I guess at finally at one point, the possum decided to try to make a break for it. But the giraffe was much faster and like started like trying to kick at it and stomp on it while it was running It got like a glancing blow on it which kind of like days the possum and then it like brought down its full weight on to it

And then like I guess the other giraffes noticed what was going on because they all like convened on this scene And they all like put their stupid big necks and heads down and they all started ripping it apart. One of them lifted it up to it, like it's full height and then dropped it down to the ground and it was brutal. Little kids started crying. Parents were shielding their children's eyes and full grown adults were like tear streaming down their face. Someone do something. Gus remembers it much more visually than I did. It was brutal. It was really good. It was amazing That's fucking cycle easy. Yeah, I mean what what were they gonna do? Yeah, I like there's don't be a possum right stay out of the stay out of the draft

pen, but that's when I realized Drafts can be mean or yeah, drafts can you up. It's like, oh, they're big. You know they're big, but it's like, oh, why don't you get Draft actually use its weight and seeing it move around, it's like, oh, no, it's a, that Draft can fuck you up. That's fucking crazy.

I bet Gus, I bet I've been to Pike's place market with Gus more than anybody else. Yeah, on purpose. Little T in the day. Yeah, why not? Board and Seattle. Swalk down over there. Saw the couple all 30.

Really? Is that still there? Yeah. I think they cleaned it off a few years ago, and then like, it's the big people restarted. I sent Jack there and made a meat gun off of it. No, we got to try it. That's right. Did you like watch guys throw fish?

Yeah. Yeah. In any city we've been to, I've got the thing. I've got the thing. We've done the thing, the touristy thing, we've done it. We had a slice of sabarros in New York. As you do. Awesome.

Yeah, but yeah, it's been a great experience. But even before Rupert, he's like my old job, I used to do a lot of traveling. It was a traveling job. I was been five days out of the week on the road, and my days off were Tuesday and Wednesday, I would spend Tuesday and Wednesday in Austin, and then Thursday through Monday. I was going to some town, somewhere, so I've spent a lot of time traveling around the United States, which I feel like was very lucky. I did that stupid thing when I was a kid where I took that other job before we stayed

because I thought I've never really traveled. This is a traveling job. I get to see so much stuff. What you don't realize, unless you've ever had a traveling job is you see a lot of airports and hotels. Like you see the place you're gonna work, you see the airport, you see the hotel,

and that's about it. You see the thing I remember is convention center carpet. Yeah, in every city I go to. In airport carpet. In airport carpet. Do hotel carpet. Yeah. Try to think of how to ask this.

If you could do conventions again. No. Just like, no, like nothing in you wants anything to do with it, huh? I did a couple last year. Yeah, and it's a different kind of convention now than the days when we would go and be at the booth three hours before opening to set up and do all the work and then, you know, racing around town,

one of us racing around town trying to find a bank open to get changed for the day. Yeah, that sucked. Oh, it's the worst. And run in daily reports and then selling and being on all day and then cleaning up and going back and counting them. And like that's a lot, it's not like that now.

I would love to do it if I don't have to do all of the other stuff. If I could just show up and do the entertaining part. That's what it is. Yeah. And not have to worry about all the other logistics and everything. Horse are packages.

Why haven't they unloaded it from the dock? Well, for the love of God can somebody get shrink wrap? Yeah, it's just so much stuff. Well, let me ask you this, what if we did this show somewhere? Is that something you would want to do? It's when you say that, because I was thinking about RTX, which is our event here in Austin.

I wonder if we're going to do anything for that. But are you saying like doing this on the road somewhere? I don't know I get I Don't want to say like oh we take it like a traveling road show We go to like these venues or whatever but like if there was a convention that was like I would love to have you guys do like a live anma thing and Just do like like a panel but like doing an episode of the show is that something that You would want to do it's a Cuckoo Burr. Is that something of any interest in?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think also the interesting thing is that we've been to enough cities and enough of these events that we could find something local to latch onto to tell stories about. I think so. Yeah, that would be interesting.

I remember once, we've been to lots of coffee shops at all these different cities we've been to. Who knows if they're still open or not. But I remember one time we were on a trip out at a bungee when they were still in Kirkland at the the old Pancake House office. And we were staying at a hotel down the street and one morning I was walking over to that bungee office to work on something, I was walking with Matt. And it was like our second or third day there.

And I pointed out a place, I don't know if you were there or not, but there was a kind of across the street and down the ways a little bit from that bungee office. There was a pay what you want coffee shop. Um, it was like a coffee shop in order whatever you want and there was like a box with a lock on it. And so I could ever you felt like putting in the box, you put in there as an exchange for the coffee.

They're like, there are many, but there was no set prices. It was like, whatever you wanted to pay, you put money into the box. Wow, that's cool. And I was telling Matt about it, because I'd gone there the day before. I was like, oh yeah, there's like a pay what you want at coffee place, like you go in,

you know, order whatever you want and put cash in this box with a lock on it. He was like, oh cool, I want to go there too. I was like, oh yeah, there's like a pay what you want at coffee place. Like, you go in, order whatever you want and put cash in this box with a lock on it. He's like, oh cool, I want to go there too. I was like, all right, we got a couple minutes. We stopped, you know, cross the street, stop into the coffee place. I walk in first, Matt walks in behind me. Matt walks in, takes one step and loudly exclaims,

hey, is this a free coffee place? Oh my God. Oh, oh, my God. Every employee like descended on Matt all at the same time to explain, it was a pay what you want, coffee place. That is such a mad thing to do, I love that. I was mortified, I was so embarrassed that I walked in there with him.

Yeah, let me clarify one thing. I don't have any problem with conventions. Commissions are great. I think it's just the difference between working a convention for 15 years and attending conventions. There's different beasts. But I would love to. I love performing. Yeah. You know, so if there was a reason for us to perform anywhere, I would do it. So you think we did the... I hope that's something people would want. This isn't me. Is this something you need to be in question? No, no, no, no.

I'm just thinking about like what? I hope that's something people would want. This isn't me, is this something you need to eat? Is this something you need to eat? No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just thinking about like what, I just never thought about this show being anything other than what we're doing right now. And like taking it somewhere. That sounds fun. It would be so interesting, but I don't know how, how entertaining, I guess people wanna see it, so whatever.

People like going to like podcast tapings and stuff, don't they? Yeah, it's a thing. Yeah, it's just the energy here is like, they were kicking back having a cup of coffee. Like we just had in 2022, we just had that wildly successful podcast tour that we stopped before we finished, because it was losing so much money. We have a history of losing money.

Let's do that again. Stop doing stuff like that, I don't know. The Face Jam was fucking great. We did a great live Face Jam show. I know, that's cool. Yeah, that stuff is cool. And it's like, I could see this crossing over like with conventions, I guess. I just never really thought about it like that. If we're already going to a convention. Yeah. Not that that's something we really do anymore. But I feel like we should start doing that again. I don't know why we, I think we should re-evaluate conventions in the way we

approach them. I think doing them the way we did in the past doesn't make sense. But I think we should reevaluate conventions in the way we approach them. I think doing them the way we did in the past doesn't make sense, but I think having a presence and showing up to do events at like you're talking about, that conventions, at other conventions, makes total sense. I don't know why we stepped away from that. Just as valuable. I mean, I remember why we were just burned out

and we, there were some only so many hours in the day and we had to be more purposeful with where we put our man out. Yeah, I get that, but you know, we don't, they don't all have to be the time syncs that they were before. Like all that huge time investment to get things spun up and going. Totally, okay. So what kind of presence would you want, I'm not saying for the show, but I'm saying like,

if you reevaluate conventions or whatever, and this isn't something we're going to do, I'm just saying like, how, how could say, like a small booth and then like, hey, come hang out, like a panel, immediately. What we did at VidCon this last year. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay.

When you and I went to VidCon. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I know you did other stuff, but what I did was you show up do a panel. And that's it. Stay for a day, leave. Stay for the next day if there's another panel or a Q&A or something.

Right. Yeah. I'm also, you guys probably noticed about me, but maybe the audience doesn't know it. I'm not big. These days I'm not big on traveling for work a lot. Yeah. There's so much stuff to get done here in Austin.

If I can show up, go do something for a day, like, and then fly back the next day, or fly back the same day, that's ideal, that's great. Mm-hmm. I'm not, I don't want to give like a big, gonna go there for two or three day, like time commitment kind of thing, just because then shit here falls behind schedule. It's just it's just a whole ordeal and it just gets harder

Honestly, it gets harder the older you get just with life. Yeah, shake it in the way I it's funny you say that though because I have been thinking a lot about this podcast going forward and just I mean I think the Gus and I have luckily 25 years or something of stories to tell, but there will come a point when we run out, but it's become apparent to me that you and I didn't really interact much for the last couple of years because we didn't have a production together,

and we're both hormones. And if this naturally runs its course, we'll go back to not talking. And so I was telling Eric the other day, I need to find a way for this podcast to continue to outlive our old stories because otherwise we would go back to not seeing each other. This is the only way our friendship flourishes.

By work obligation. Yeah, we just need to roll it into whatever the next thing is. I just wonder if that's the next thing, I wonder, if it is like a podcast, like convention appearance kind of thing or whatever and go get a cup of coffee, you know, fly and fly out kind of deal, meeting, reading sort of situation.

Yeah, that could be interesting. That means no, right? Oh, no, he's a good guy. Yeah, I have a side thought. So there was this other idea I had for a different podcast. I do. You know, I got my pilot license last year. And I discover, I have this other podcast black box down

that covers aviation disasters. And I discover that there's an airport that is, the airport code is BBD. Yeah. Yeah. That is all black box stuff. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere. You're not built-up, Duval.

It's kind of in the middle of nowhere. It's about an hour and a half flight from here Maybe a two-hour flight from here. It's a small town I thought about organizing a fly-in event for black box down there where it's like one morning I fly out there and I land and I wait and see if anybody else shows up if there's like any other pilots who listen Who would show up at this middle airport in the middle of nowhere wait there for three hours and then take off and leave This is the most niche idea. Right, a lot of it. Yeah, but that's the kind of stuff I love,

like this weird, quirky event, where chances are, nobody's gonna show up, and if nobody shows up, that's fine. Yeah. I like that kind of stuff, just like really off the wall. I mean, you remember my stupid RTX ideas, I love crazy and practical shit. Yeah.

I like the idea of you flying into a place and going, say, we pilot show up to this. It's just like, what are you? You narrow it. You narrowed the field. Might look like a F1 weekend in Austin. It's been nothing but planes. Really crazy. I always think about like, I'm always drawn

to the idea of doing interviews. And I think that a fun direction to go with this podcast, if Gus and I did take it on the road, go on to other cities, we do have like an episode in certain cities for sure. We could fill out, but it would be just as much fun to go to a city and then interview somebody from that city of some prominence or providence that are in note and then learning about the city through their stories. But I feel like when we do interview, I feel like I personally find interview content

to be very interesting and engaging, but I feel like whenever Roostery does it, the audience doesn't dig it. I mean, I don't care for, here's the thing with guests. So you don't do well. The thing about guests and interviews and all that stuff to me is that it's just not

the type of content that I dig. Yeah. I want to hear, like what you guys are doing here is like, there's a reason I subscribed to this podcast. Yeah. And having like the Jason episode, I thought was really cool because it wasn't an interview. That was, hey, this is our friend

and we're gonna hang out with our friend and kind of like told stories. So exactly what I was thinking about, and that's what I was gonna counter to Jeff is that we still have plenty of people here locally that we haven't had on, that we've talked about having on this show, right? Of course.

Yeah, and I'm talking about like us running out of idea, a running out of stories years from now. I don't think it's something that we have to confront in 2023 or 2024 I just the idle mind wanders and I start looking down the road and Just you know I've been thinking a lot about like just intentionality in general and where I'm putting my efforts and My creativity and my work and where I want to put it Yeah, and I don't want this to get lost in the shuffle.

No, I got that. Cause I think it is genuinely, it seemed like a lark at first, but it's become a pretty valuable part of my week. Oh, I'm sure, okay. I get your shame. Same here. This podcast is one of the reasons

that I am also very restricted in my travel. I want to make sure that, like, for work stuff. I want to make sure that I'm here on these days so that we can record like this one and Black Box now, which I talked about. I don't want to get blind on those. I want to make sure that we're... You prioritize it, right? We're giving them the proper attention.

Yeah. Interesting. Okay. I mean, it's... I think you saw a lot of run-way with this show. And I do think that having people used to work with or friends on or whatever is probably what we're gonna keep doing.

I was talking to, we were talking about having Beckon. I was talking to her the other day and she's like, oh, hey, like let's do Anima. And so we just have to find a time. It's a great, and she would be great. Yeah, right. We still got to talk to Frank. Yeah, I don't know if Frank knows his podcast exists. Oh, and that we've talked about him.

We need to have him. Oh, I'd love to have Frank on this. Frank, I haven't seen him forever. Okay, so I guess that would probably be like the next step and like what we're doing here then, right? Yeah, we should have Becca on first. Yeah. And then who's on second?

Okay. Boom, boom, boom. Terrible, maybe we should in this podcast. Okay, so let me ask this because we are right around like the 40 minute mark. We haven't talked about the coffee at all. Fleet coffee, it is. No, no, you're so good. Here's the thing.

It's the same coffee as the coffee we had. It looks like this. Yeah, this coffee is so cute and tiny. Like the sleeve for my Americano is almost as big as the coffee we had it will fill yeah, this coffee is so cute and tiny like the sleeve for my Americano It's almost as big as the cup itself. Yeah, yeah, this is awesome So some I saw someone online Suggest it said that if we were gonna come here we should also try the this new little coffee, which I guess is a trailer right around here Oh, okay, I'll come here next time. I know hit that up next time. I will say

From my money fleet is and continues to be the best cup of coffee in Austin. It's a yeah, it's my favorite cup of coffee and my favorite brand of animal. I mean, okay, we go again. No, that's a lot about animal brands. And he keeps talking about it. I think it's a really good cup of coffee. I think this is a neighborhood spot. Yeah, right? Like, if you lived here in New York, yeah, that would rule. It would just be like, gonna go get a cup of coffee. I would have a cup of coffee here every day.

It'd be fucking great. And then go across the street and have lunch and then come across the street and get drunk at, lost well. Like, great, great little corner here on a road. Millie's middle school was right down the road. Oh really? So I would come here after dropping off from school

every day to get a cup of coffee. Oh, that's a great routine. I'm not gonna lie. I thought this place was called the Friendliest Bar. No, it's called the Lost Well. It says the Friendliest Bar and Big Yellow Litters on the front, like the Lost Well sign at the top kind of gets lost for me.

I was like, oh, the Friendliest Bar. Yep. I saw the same thing. Yeah, I thought that. And then it was like, this is the Lost Well. Oh, it's the Lost Well. Yeah, you look up a little more. Yeah. Oh, there we go.

Yep. So let's talk about the name of this podcast, which I wanna reiterate is not a bit. We are trying to guess the name. We asked last time, should we just say the name? A lot of people said yes. I still say no. Somebody said, what if Gus gives a hint every episode?

Gus, is that you wanna give a hint? I have been. What the hell are you talking about? I'm not giving a hint. Not, let me tell you Clara. Not every episode? I have been. What the hell are you talking about? I'm not giving a hint. Not us. Okay, let me tell you Clara. Not every episode. Probably not for the last couple of episodes.

Okay, so you haven't been doing it. Do you want to tell the audience what you told us right before we started? I have, I have easily said every word in the title. Sometimes I repeat the word to like emphasize that what I'm saying, not every time, but sometimes I do, to try to like get you to ask why you've seen that,

and nobody ever does. You say theater, we just think that like, it's the way you say stuff. Yeah, you say Chicago. Yeah. But so yeah, there have been plenty of hints, there have been so many hints. Sometimes like, it's like, I'm trying to shoehorn,

I'm like, I'm afraid that what I'm saying, like they're gonna clearly know that I'm saying something here because what I'm saying makes no sense. It's too obvious. It's not, turns out it's not. It turns out it's not. It's killing me, killing me. Yeah, killing me.

No, okay. You have said the name now though. You have said it out loud. I said my last week or the week before my wife asked me what it stood for and I said it out loud and I hated it. But well also, what is, I fucking, I hear that your wife's not the only person that you've said it to now.

What do you, what are you hearing? Do you tell Armando? What do you tell Armando? What is called? No, I didn't. Really? He's going around saying that I never told him. That's awesome. That's so cool.

What does sneaky little snake? Subtrifuge. I like it. Intrigue. He was smelling the truth. Now, if that name comes back up, then I know he's talking. Wow. It's like, do you give him a fake name?

You give him a guffin name? I mean, he didn't tell me what the name was. He just told me that he knew and that made me more mad. Yeah. I was pretty angry. Yeah. Brendan Tate says anyone must answer. The whole name is a Macuffin. No, no, no, no, no.

It's not anyone must answer. Is Macuffin in the title? No. That would be great. Oh my God. Oh my God. Uh, ancient missionimators. That's very true, but no.

Another Margarita. Ooh. I've been there a long time so I had a Margarita, but no. Derek Ham says, name guess, grandma. Yeah. All the letters are in order. It does not start with an A. I really like it. Yeah. I mean margaritas You think you had this weekend on Friday. I had 12 and five hours. Wow It was a margarita machine the guy just kept I gave the guy cash and it was like Keep him coming bud and he just I got to say I never got the appeal of all inclusive until I went to

Cancun with Eric and it's just air say all inclusive over and over again. Yep. It was pretty cool Are you were you in Margaritaville? Oh, I'm wasting away again Yeah, Margarita's are great and then we went to dinner one night and the waiter was like, hey, what's going on guys? Hey, well you want this you want that you want to get this and we want a shot and I went I want a shot And it was before dinner and And it was like, what I do this? And then he made me say it was like a, a rib, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a drunk. He was helping me, buddy. It was, I mean, it was so cool to sit down and they just go, what do you want? And it's like, oh, fuck.

No. Is this the free food place? Yeah, everything was the free food place. We were all that whole of that. Absolutely. Gabriel Edward says, annoying mantra? No. It is, but no.

Another mantra. No. Ah. Okay. It is, but no. Another mantra. No. I appreciate the two guesses. Okay, this will be the last guess that we make. Well, it's not that one. Animators, miss adventures. Okay, so still don't know the name. Keep sending guesses in at Animal Podcast on Twitter

and on Instagram. Go back and relisten for any opportunity or any time Gus repeats himself. Yeah, anytime Gus says something fucking weird, just know that it's a- I'm also fucking weird. I'm also fucking weird. That's the other thing.

That's what we were saying. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'm agree with you. Now let me talk about this. Recently we have another podcast called, f*** face and it was nominated and it was Blackboss down for a signal award. Mm-hmm.

One the audience vote, overwhelmingly. Overwhelmingly. Did not win an award. Weird. And neither did Black Box down. Weird. After they closed the voting and everything. Voting closed.

Black box, sub-diffuse. Can he thoughts? Listen, I just don't like promoting stuff for that reason. You know, it's if they're gonna give the award, give the award, I'll happily take it, but I'm not gonna promote it because you never know what's going on.

I'm not saying anything happened. I'm just saying it's weird. We called it before, we talked about it before. And that's why I wanted to bring it up here, because you talked about it, I think on the mall episode where it was like overwhelming, ohiva, oh, you lost. And fuck you in the drive through. And we definitely won the audience award, which was great.

And I'm sure we'll talk about more of this on face because I think Andrew has a lot to say about. He like emailed to try to find out with how this voting worked because it did not make sense. It's his first time getting screwed over, huh? Because there were categories with two golds and six silver's and there were categories

with six silver's and two bronze. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess what I'm driving at is there are a lot of life lessons that you can take away from the animal podcast. It's don't try. Yeah.

It really is the history sort of repeats itself in a way where you really see it coming down the road and either you go see it coming or you go Ain't no way it happens again Mm-hmm. And then it does and then it does it certainly did it certainly happened again, but we knew it I knew it going forward or immediately certainly happened again. But we knew it. I knew it going forward immediately. That's why I always say if you set the bar of expectations low enough,

it's impossible to trip over. It's, yeah. Yeah. You know, I still don't go to drive through to this day because of your peshy. I mean, lethal up into your resume. Loo gets, and he want loo gets. I'm like, yeah, they do fuck you in the drive.

They do like fuck you in the drive. I watch it at a very pivotal moment in my life. And to this day, I do not trust drive through. Wow. I still I think about I don't know why that it's not even a very good movie But I think about him all the time in a minute. It's a romantic community. That's that one right? Yeah, I think it is Maybe I think that too was about diplomatic to that conversation about they fucking the drive-through was two was that was four was it for I think it was no They fucking the drive-through. I thought that was two was Leo gets into I thought so I was in four letters to Up to look it up Interesting

Very good You follow us at Anna podcast on Instagram and on Twitter Don't trust awards. Yeah, no. Yeah, they're out to get you. Yeah, any final words for the folks at home. We told you so How do I top that? Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Describe the show to a newcomer in a more familiar way. Do you like apples?

All right, example. Together in Trempathos, Characombs, Characombs are free to deal as I've nothing to do with this podcast. Analyze various unsolved, and Ruestrites 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? Subscribe or no, you do yes?