ANMA - Our Pillars of the Congress Office

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Good morning, Gus! From the theater in the backroom of Hideout Coffee on Congress, it's ANMA talking downtown Austin. In this episode Gus and Geoff discuss Installing a laser downtown, Gus’s fortress of cubicles, Adventure lunches, AC in the old office, The day the fire department came, City changes while working downtown, Why we left downtown and places we didn’t go, The Dillos, and The mall is back. Check out store.roosterteeth.com for our NEW ANMA SHIRTS on sale now (hopefully.) 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 Ruster Teeth production. This is episode 23. Last time it was the Austin Java redemption episode where we sat in a park and talked about Unotu and DVD testing hell. Did we like Austin Java?

No, I can't remember. No. Gus was mad about the yellow, right? Yeah, probably. Yeah, yeah. But now we're at the hideout on Congress. So, let you guys go for it. And then I got a couple of prompts, so we should begin.

Yeah, so we're, hey, good morning Gus. Hey, good. I hear I've been forgetting that. Let me try it out there. We are at the hideout on Congress, which is next door to one of our old offices, which is no longer there. It's a hotel now.

I think this is the first time I've been back to the hideout since we left, not because I dislike the hideout or love the hideout. Just I don't come downtown here really to this part of downtown anymore, especially not in the morning, were you typically drinking coffee? Yeah, yeah. No, for sure. I think I've been to like an improv show here once or twice since we worked here,

but similarly to me, even when I live downtown, like I lived in a car that had downtown for a couple of years back there, but there were coffee shops close, very close to where I lived. It wasn't convenient to get in. Before our studio was here next door, I used to work downtown before Ruestro Tee,

and I worked right over here kind of down the street on this block, and I would come here all the time even back then, I worked at that office from like 2000 to 2002, I think. I spent time, you know, we had a building over here, kind of close to six in the Congress, and another building over there, kind of close to seventh in Brazos, and some of the old, like,

there's some old RTAs about my time working over there, kind of closer seventh in Brazos. And some of the old, like, there's some like old RTAs about my time working over there. And it's funny coming back here and seeing like some of the stuff that hasn't changed. I remember once back in like, God, I don't know when it was 99 or no, no, no, no, no, it was 2000 or 2001. We opened up this second building, like that was kind of like across the block from the first building we worked at. And we had to like connect the network, so I worked IT back then. We had to like connect the networks of the two buildings. And it was a huge pain in the ass, just because we weren't sure how we were going to do

it. And someone had the bright idea of buying like this, this laser that you could aim and connect the two networks that way. So we put a laser on the roof of one of the buildings. And we had to put like the corresponding laser on the side of the other building. But it was like, I was like 22 or 23. It had no idea how to do it. So we just rented a cherry picker and like a bunch of cones and some high vests and I get three in the morning one night. Me and my coworkers just showed up here and like

coned off a section of the street and like started directing traffic and when I was like got in the cherry picker and installed this laser on the side of a building and when we were driving around I pointed it out that laser's still there on the side of the building. It's been over 20 years. It's still just hanging out there on the side of a building. And when we were driving around, I pointed it out, that laser's still there on the side of the building. It's been over 20 years, it's still just hanging out there on the side of the building. So we can sell it right. Do you know what I remember, do you think it's still there,

still there in the commission? Oh, I doubt it's still working, because it's probably just nobody, like that company got sold five times since then. I'm sure nobody knows what that thing is, and it's just, or who even owns it. It's just there,

who would be shocked if the other one is still on the roof of the other building if you're looking for one half of a free antiquated laser it it was that beam it was expensive I want to say back then it was like $30,000 for that system good Lord God I remember it was like it was so janky like it had to be very precise it had like a little scope on top of it like a rifle scope so you could make sure that the two lasers were perfectly aligned and aimed so that the data connection was optimal. And at one point, one time, like one of them got bumped or jostled and they were out of sync.

So like the network connection got really slow. And we couldn't figure out, like we couldn't get them realigned, so I had to buy like this off the shelf consumer Wi-Fi system and get these super directional antennas and try to aim them out the windows across the block at each other. How'd that work?

Like shit. I mean, it was like, it was really slow and real often. Think about wireless technology 20 years ago, you know? It was like, it worked as a stop gap fix until we got the lasers realigned, but man, it was a weird wild times. Wild to think that this company that you are for when under, when they were making such smart decisions,

hiring 23 year old you to figure this shit out. I thought, I remember when I interviewed for that job. This was like, when we're still working at the call center, I interviewed for this job. I came down here and had to park at the Littlefield Garage, which is a parking garage here at Sixth and Congress. And I was, I'll dressed up fancy, your 2000 fancy, we're like a long sleeve button

of shirt and a tie and shit. And I parked my car in the Littlefield Garage, you know, got in the elevator, hit the button to go to the ground floor, got to the ground floor. And when the doors opened, there was a dude standing there who worked at the call center.

Are you serious? Yeah, I don't remember who it was. I remember it was someone from the call center and I'm all dressed up and I'm like, well shit, there's no way to hide what I'm doing here. I was like, oh, hey, what's going on? Did I just try to walk away as quickly as I could? What was that dude doing? He probably interviewed at the same time.

No, no, he was dressed like, too short. Yeah, like normal. Anyway, I went to the, do the job interview, interviewed with the guy who would end up being my boss, argued with him for an hour about technology, like stupid IT nerd shit. Then he introduced me to the CTO of the company, argued with him for another half hour left. I was like, well, that sucks, I'm never getting that job.

And they hired me anyway. It was an hour and a half of me telling them why their infrastructure was stupid and why it was never gonna work. And then they hired me. And I was like, hey, and guess what? Spoiler, I was right. Well, it's like when I got hired at the tech support company

by Brian, he was like, well, you don't know a lot of the tech sport, but you know what hell about Star Wars? That's good enough for my book. I remember two things from that area, but I but from that era of you working at that place, so I want to touch on, but real quick, you triggered one memory when you said that that device costs $30,000. It's never minding me. When I was in the army, and we switched from print to digital in 1996, I believe, the

first digital cameras we got, they were just like, if you're a camera nerd, you'll know what this is, but it was like a Nikon F4 body that had like a Kodak digital component like bolted to the back of it, and they were 16 grand each. Jesus. And so we could only afford two

because they were 16 grand. Because the army was hurting for money back then. Yeah, for a phone that is inferior in every way to your iPhone in your pocket right now. But just wild to think like how much. I remember we got our first digital printer, like photo printer and it was like seven grand. That's, yeah, it's fucking insane.

But to two things I remember about you working at that place, one, the biggest thing that I, that I benefit that I got from you working there was that they had a conference room with a projector in it. And you and I would go in on Friday nights with like a six pack of beer and watch movies. We saw Terminator 2 on like 120 inch screen way back when it was not easy to do that. And that was like the coolest fucking thing ever to me.

Yeah, I remember we would also watch like the like the Blizzard Cinematics. Like they would come on a DVD who watch like the starcraft intro, the Diablo 2 intro, like the cutscenes. Yeah, we would do that. We would make popcorn and bring beer and just like watch movies on this giant screen. Friday nights at Gus's office. That conference room got a lot of action from us. That's great.

It was it's funny because we were the only ones who ever used it. We moved into that building then they immediately laid everyone off. I was the only person working in that building for like a year. Which brings me to my other memory of you working at that place. Gus ended up working for a company that that was in trouble. It was around, you know, and they were laying off people left and right. It was like right around the right dot com crash. Yeah, right around the dot com crash, when the bubble burst. And Gus, Gus had some level of job security that I don't understand. But what he did was much like the three investigators, if you remember the old book from the 60s and 70s, had a secret

fort that they hid under junk. Gus built a fortress out of cubicles that had web cameras pointed at every exit. And so you couldn't approach Gus. You couldn't see him, first of all. He was 100% obscured through his, like, the May, the labyrinth of shit to get to them. And so he saw you coming before you could ever get to him. And so he would sit in there and play like counter strike all day and just get alerted if anybody- It was unreal tournament, unreal, sorry, unreal tournament. Playing unreal tournament all day

and he would be alerted like, where, where, where, if anybody walked into the room and he would just shut it down. And he survived like that. I wanna say for about a year. It was a long, they never laid me off or fired, but I had to quit. It's funny because the main door, like you said,

there was cameras all up and down the street, then I pointed out that side door to you guys right before we came here. That went straight to my desk, but no one knew about that door and no one had the badge to be able to swipe into that door. So it's like I could make a quick entrance and a quick escape if I needed to.

Using that door, where it was the main door, where everyone else came in and out of, or had access to, was amazed. That was observed all the time. It was, he was so proud. Like we'd go hanging out at night and he'd be like, do it. I installed a new camera today.

There's nobody's ever gonna sneak up on. I remember once, you know, they were doing a lot of layoffs for a while and at one point, I'm hesitant to tell this story, but at one point, we used to call Friday's fire days because they would round people up and just like fire and it's like, all right, it's just it's fire day, you know, you know, people are gonna get rounded up in the comments room, get let go, then we're gonna go all have a beer at Mike's pub, which we'll talk about here in a bit. I remember one fire day, my boss came by, walked by my desk and was like, hey, I just got called in the conference room.

And he handed me like a stack of discs and was like, don't let them have these. And I was like, okay, and I just like took the stack of discs and put them in my desk. And yeah, sure enough, you went into the conference room and he was fired and then like the next Monday, so like the weekend pass, and then that Monday, his boss, which was now my boss, came by my desk, I was like, hey, have you seen these discs? I'm looking for, you know, your boss should have had them.

I was like, no, I don't know what you're talking about. Is it not in his desk? No, I don't know, I don't know. Do you know what they were? Yeah, it was, is there something you'd say? Yeah, it was, it was some installation disks for some, like, no one else would have needed them, right? It was just like, it was like my department. Some installation disks for, like, our enterprise software that, like, kind of ran everything in the, in the company, like, if anybody needed them, it would have been me. I was the one who was in charge of that.

I think my boss just wanted to be a pain in the ass to his boss and make him worry about knowledge that was lost. I had them, I knew where they were. If anything ever came up, I could easily use them and fix whatever needed to be fixed. But I kept those in my desk for the whole time until I eventually quit and I handed it back over. Like here you go.

If you had never quit, do you think you'd still be there in that little fortress? No, they're not in that building anymore. They're not. You have to build a new fortress. They're not an Austin. They relocated their headquarters. I never understood why their headquarters was here.

Wasn't there, didn't there see a lift here? Yeah, I guess that's why. His, I think, I've worked, like I said, I worked IT. And his, we had rules as far as passwords and security and whatnot. His password was CEO. Jesus Christ. And we could never get him to change it.

And he had it on a post-it note on his monitor, in case you forget. Oh no, it wasn't in case you forgot. It's so his secretary could log into his computer and read him his email if he was out of the office. And it was just one thing after another. And we tried so hard to get him to change that, to do anything, no, no, password, CEO. Like we know, we know, we know, we know dude.

Did he do it or was like a capital C and then lower case CEO? No, it was all lower case, lower case CEO. The unguessable password. Oh my God, they eventually, I don't know, like I was young at the time. I don't know how all the shit went down, but he was ousted from the company. Because of that.

And they ended up, this was towards the end of my time there. So I don't know a lot about it, but they ended up moving the headquarters out of Austin too. I want to say it was like Indianapolis someplace. I thought it was San Antonio. No, San Antonio was one of our sites, but they moved the headquarters back up to Indianapolis because the new CEO was from Indianapolis.

I guess the company follows over the CEO's from. And at one point, they had like a big meeting up there. It's a little bunch of people out, fired them, and then canceled their return tickets. So they were stranded up there. Man, they talk about a fucking shitty place to work. That is,, that's malicious man. It was, it was bad, it was real bad. Oh, but anyway, going back a few steps, whenever people would get fired, we'd go, there's a place right down the street over here,

called Mike's pub, and on Fridays we would always hang out there. It was like a, it was a really weird little restaurant that was in a parking garage. With really poor signage, I wanna say they had one sign outside, but you had to like go in a door, go up a staircase, open an unmarked door, and that's where Mike's pub was. Yeah, it was like right, if you go right,

there's parking spots and then left, and like you said, a nondescript door that really didn't have any, there might have been like a UT logo on it or something. Yeah. You go in and then it's this dive, dive of a little burger restaurant that was perfect in every way.

When our office was here on Congress, we used to eat there all the time too. Yeah, I was gonna ask you a question. What do you think is the restaurant we ate at the most down here? We worked down here for what, three years? Something like that. Three and a half years.

And, God, one episode in the hideout is not going to be enough to cover that time period for sure. But probably the most formative period of time in the history of Rooster Teeth. Like, a lot of our pillars, a lot of pillars of the company were founded just next door to where we are right now. Podcasting, broadcast, achievement hunter, Ruby, Monty's level of animation. A lot of that stuff all happened right there in that moment.

The bulk of our commercial work was done in that time as well. But what do you think? Mike's pub is definitely up there because I know they would have the chop, they would have the chop brisket day. And that was once a week. Great chili cheeseburgers. Oh dad, that Philly cheese steak too.

The Philly cheese steak, yeah. And I know we'd eat there all the time. That was a Tuesday. But what do you think is the restaurant we ate at more than anywhere else? Mike's pub would be up there. Oh man. For me, in my memory, the place we always ate at,

where Mike's pub, what's that place called right over here? Roaring for it? Roaring for it, we had it. We had it. We had it. And we would walk over, if we had time, we would walk over to the whole foods.

Yeah. And eat at the whole foods. Those are the places I remember eating at the most. Let me throw a few more at ya. We would go to Frank all the time. Oh, I would go to Frank. Yeah, we would go to Frank. I was like in the heyday of Frank, right?

And actually we would go to the place before Frank. It was called like Starlight or Starlight app. And then we would go there. And then when they rebranded, we just kept going to Frank, because that was even better. I feel like we went to the Belmont, probably more than that. Oh, I forgot about the Belmont.

Yeah, I think the Belmont was probably the place we went to the single most out of any of those places. And then Hat Creek, the original trailer. It's funny you say that. He's talking about Hat Creek reminds me. We also go to the original torches. Oh, yeah, we did. Matt was a fucking torches finale.

Yeah, the original torches trailer was right by Starbar and what's now little Woodrow's. I'm the Hat Creek trailer was right there too. So you'd go and you could either pick up torches or Hat Creek, which were both starting. That was I think, I think those were both of their original locations. I could be wrong about that, but I think that's where they started. Does Hat Creek have a lot of locations now? I don't know, they have one in the domain and the one on Burnett. They've got, they've got like, I'm probably going to guess wrong.

I want to say they have like six or seven. Do you disappoint? They have such good tater tots. Yeah, I have to be quick. They're so goddamn good. I feel like tater tots don't get enough love in the world in general. How are we doing on time?

We're 16 minutes? We've only been going for 16 minutes. Yeah, what are you talking about? I just went out for a while. I just want to make sure we weren't running at time because I know they were nice. No, no, no, no. They were very nice to, we walked in and asked if we could

use the theater without any heads up to the hideout and they were very, very gracious. And they said yes because they remember Gus, the woman who used to own this place. Remember Gus. Yep, she's working here. She remembered our time. We, we, I can tell you hands down the place

we got the coffee from the most was the hideout. The next car office and he's coming here all the time. I mean, multiple times a day getting coffee. Well, it was literally like downstairs from us. Yeah. You know, it couldn't have been more convenient. And that was a time when, let's see, back then there would have been, there were two Starbucks, right? They were a cost treat from each other.

There was the one at Sixth and Congress, and there was the one up over here. There were three Starbucks, there was the one on the other side of Congress. Oh, right, yeah, there were three. Then there was Little City, which I think has been gone for a while now, and then the hideout.

Had it was definitely the best of the bunch. Although, Little City was charming as well. Yeah. I remember we, we used to come here all the time, and when we, I want to say the first live action thing we filmed was those captain dynamic videos Mm-hmm, you know where we had a head from the Bernadier latest thing You know that's another thing. I didn't mention in the pill live action film Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I remember that day we were filming you know Ed came down

You know tried on the captain dynamic suit and we came here to get coffee and he was so in love with that suit in the character He stood out on Congress in front of the hideout while we were getting coffee. Like in character talking to people and like going up to them pretending he was like captain dynamic in real life. Like he was really embracing the character and really getting into like people walking down the street were just like who the hell is just you know I'm sure people were trying to avoid him thinking he was like trying to shake him down for money or like post for photos or something. It's like no that's that's Ed from the bear naked ladies. I know weird costume wanting to talk to you on congress

And Was and I assume continues to be one of the coolest mother fuckers On earth Love that guy so much. I haven't talked to him in years, but such a such a lovely dude who's up for anything Yeah, and also very charismatic. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah And way better looking than us, for sure. Anything else? Anything else?

That's all. We, that office next door, I'm thinking, like talking about Captain Dynamic made me think about filming in that office. And what a nightmare it was. Yeah. Because the, there were nonstop, first of all, from my audio perspective, there were nonstop buses

up and downcon. Maybe we bitched about that train in beauty so much, and we replaced it with sirens and buses constantly. The facade, like that building was built to look like one of these old historic buildings on Congress, but it wasn't. It was built in, got maybe the 50s or the 60s, maybe even the 70s. It's not, it was not like a super, super old building or anything.

Yeah. And the windows that faced Congress had no insulation in them. They were like, the air would just go right in or right out. So you could hear the buses clear as a day. And in the summer, it let the in, like there was nothing there. It's like you were standing outside. And the AC never worked. And the AC never worked.

We, at one point called an AC repair company out here to look at the AC. And, you know, the way to get out there is like you have to go through the bathroom, open the window, get out onto the roof, and then, because that's where the unit was, the AC repair guy goes out there, he's out there for a while, and comes back and he's like, yeah, your AC's totally dead, you're gonna need to put a new AC there. We need to get a permit, we need to close a lane of traffic, we need to get a crane to, yeah,

take the old air conditioner off the roof, gonna have to put the new air conditioner up there, gonna order it, it's gonna, super, super expensive. We're all like, fuck, and then, you know, we're like, well, let's get a second opinion, just to be safe. Call another company, new company comes out, you know, dude crawls out the window, goes out to the roof, and then like,

almost immediately comes back in. He's like, hey, why don't you come with me? And I think all of us went out there. I know I was out there. And, you know, we walk out there, you know, to where the air conditioner is, and he's like, points out and goes, look. I want you all, he, we walk out there, you know, to where the air conditioner is and he's like points at and goes, look, I want you all, I wanted someone out here

just to show you, this thing hasn't been opened in years. Whatever guy you called before didn't even bother taking the cover off of this. He's like, I haven't looked at it yet. I don't know what's in there, but I just want to show you it's this very clearly has not been opened in years. And he unscrews it, you know, opens it up, he's like, Oh, yeah, look, this is just like a $200 fix. You just got to replace a couple of parts in here. This air conditioner is fine. Yeah, he just like swapped out some parts, you know, put the cover back on and then the air conditioner

started blowing cold. Yeah, Q narrator, it was not in fact fine. It was never fine. It broke every three weeks. But it was a fix that allowed it to work for a little while longer. Yes, it was, the other guy was full of utter dog shit. Yeah. But we used to have to get these big like portable AC units you could buy at Home Depot and we had like one in every room. And they would kind of help at least move like the stagnant air around. But then because it was the era of live action filming was beginning anytime we had to shoot,

we had to shut everything down. And it would just get like, it's so hot. Upstairs in the summer, in this poorly insulated building. With a bunch of computers. With a bunch of computers on, it would be a hundred degrees in here. And there would just be weeks where we would work

with them like that until we could get like whatever ramshackle repair to the AC. They were able to finagle. I remember at one point, we were filming something and there was like, the lighting was like track lighting on the ceiling. We're filming something and someone looked up and was like, is that smoke?

Is there haze or is there smoke like wafting in front of those lights at the ceiling? We were like, I don't know. It looks like smoke. Do you smell smoke? Is there smoke here? Do we need to call the fire department? So we call the fire department.

I was, let's say, is this the day that the fire department came? Yes, the fire department came. And I guess as a little bit of backstory here, Jason found that office for us on Craigslist. It's like all of my houses. Yeah, and it was listed as available for, as a studio for someone to live in.

And we were running a business out of there with a lot of people and a lot of computers and extension cords running crisscross every works. Like with the way that these eight portable ACs were set up, you couldn't draw too much power from anyone's circuit breaker. So it's like we had to balance everything to not trip any breakers. So the fire department shows up

like a couple of firemen walk up the stairs to our building. And like immediately they're just like looking at all of the electrical wiring on the ground and like following it to the walls and looking everywhere. And they were like, what are you doing here? Like, oh yeah, I afraid almost someone had to be like, yeah, I live here. My friends are just saying, yeah. And they're like, look around. They like have their, you yeah, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, great, great, great, great, thanks for going out, like, kind of, trying to rush them out as quickly as possible,

once they're assured us we weren't gonna die. Oh my God. Oh, man. There was a, yeah, it was a, it was definitely a nerve racking thing, like being there, and running the business out of that space, which, you know, that building, or, yeah, that used to be a Wendy's.

And what? Yeah, it was a Wendy's. It was was a Wendy's and you guys worked out of a Wendy's? No no no when we were there was a pita pen. Yeah that's exactly what I was like what the fuck. So it used to be a Wendy's in fact when I used to work down 10 of my other company we would eat at this Wendy's every now and then and for some reason they had it upstairs. Like you could order your food and everything downstairs and if the downstairs seating was too full, you would walk up some stairs in the restaurant. It was the two store windows. It's not the hardest thing to imagine.

And all the bathrooms were upstairs. Okay. It was a Wendy's full of bathrooms. Yeah, so the Peter place came in, at least the place and renovated the downstairs to be a Peter restaurant, and we renovated the upstairs to be our studio. And-

You split a Wendy's? Yeah, we split a Wendy's. And Jeff is not kidding. The almost the entire upstairs where our studio was used to be a bathroom. It was like all urinals and toilets everywhere. There were. That tiny dining area.

There were eight stalls. Oh my God. And I don't even remember how many urinals. We don't have that many now. Yeah, there were eight stalls. Oh my God. And I don't even remember how many urinals. We don't have that many now. Yeah, there were eight fucking door-shutting stalls. And that's what became, actually, that's what became the Red versus Blue Office. It's the men's bathroom, I think. Yeah, we reduced it down to one toilet and one shower.

Yeah. And what used to be the women's room. Right. Turned the front half of the women's room into the kitchen. Yes. And then the whole left, we just got rid of them in general together and made it the the research. Yeah, there was like the Vio booth and the red versus blue production back there.

We did some live action shorts back there. If you ever saw that live action short about the world cup or soccer, we filmed that one back there where like people keep faking injuries. Yeah. I think Nathan Zellner kept coming in and giving people yellow and red cards It's time like the world cups coming back soon Go go check that video out go check out a 15-year-old video Well, we're post that one from 2007. All right cool. What you was that what a big is around then Jesus a wild time

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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. Let me ask you this because you guys were when we were driving here, Gus definitely maneuvered through a parking lot. And then it was mostly talk the whole time of, don't miss this, don't miss coming down here to work down here, don't do not miss doing this. How was it, because you saw Austin change a lot,

I would assume while you were down here, what was that like sort of being in really the center of this is Congress, the capital of the fucking state is six blocks up. Like how was that seeing everything change around here, sort of in your time here, and then when you guys moved out? I think we were here for the best of it. Yeah.

I think we, I would hesitate to use the word best. Okay. I think we were here at a major inflection point. Is how I would phrase it. Okay, yeah, that's fair. Just because at the time we were here, the Frostbank tower existed and the Ostonian was under construction.

Yeah. I think the Ostonian finished right after we moved out from here. Yeah. And it wasn't done when we moved out. The Ostonian I felt like, was the beginning of, a rush of really tall buildings getting built downtown. Cause for a long time, the Austin skyline was really squat.

Yeah, I guess when I was referring to it as the best of it, I just mean that like we were in Austin when, at the period of time, when Austin was exploding. And so it was crowded, but it wasn't like it is even now. Like now, it's just like, and honestly, it just feels like a busy city. Like I'd go to any city and I'd have this kind of level of traffic.

It's a bit shocking coming from a time when like Gus and I could decide we were gonna go drink at Casino El Camino on a Friday night and literally park in front of Casino El Camino, which seems ridiculous, but I mean, it was just like Austin was a small enough city back then that you could just go to the place where you were going to and there was a place for you to stop your car and it didn't cost anything because there just wasn't that much traffic.

But so we were down here when, like, for instance, Southby exploded. Like Southby was, I mean, I went to my first Southby was 96, I think, for music, but so it had been around for a while, but it was when the corporate money came in, and it started making like $300 million a year for the city, and it was that time when every coffee shop and gas station and parking lot had live bands going and free beer,

and then there was, it was also right that time when there was the immediate local counter protest to it where they had all the anti-south by shows that had bands playing in parking lots with free beer. And so it was just a period of time when, if you would go outside in Austin, it felt like a party, you know. There was just like free booze everywhere. There was always a concert or there was always some sort of an event happening. And it just felt like it was in the growth period before it became unmanageable before people really got sick of it. Before people really started to rebel against it. It's funny how there's always that that counter programming, that counter event, like Sundance had slandance, I can't remember the names of the other festivals

that were around here at the time, but you're right, there were like long periods where it's like despite the fact we're in an entertainment district with a ton of bars, you could go days without paying for a drink. Like you could just walk around like event to event, just getting free beer and booze everywhere. And we were just like doing South by especially.

We'd be like, all right, we was gonna walk down the street and see the sale quickly, I can get drunk. Yeah, we would take like, we just like a three in the afternoon just go, let right, and we're just gonna walk down the street and see how quickly I can get drunk. Yeah, we would take like, we'd just like a three in the afternoon, just go let's take a break and just go walk down six street and you would just walk into bar to bar, get your free drinks and then go back and hammer out another scene for RV beer,

whatever the fuck we were doing. So you talked about every coffee shop, you know, had bands and events and whatnot. Including this one. Including this one, which made it very hard to work sometimes. I wanted to point out on Rooster Teeth and one of the comments for our previous episode someone said that they had their mind blown because their brother had just subbed in as a drummer for four on the floor. Oh really?

The week before yeah our our episode came out. Yeah. And that was right next door where the hotel is now. That's wild. And that was right next door where the hotel is. That's so cool. That's wild. Like what a small world at the, the bandsaw around you, Eric, you found it online, you found their page. And yeah, there, I mean, one of our listeners, brothers, was just drumming for four on the floor.

Right, but that's all you can do in four on the floor. So he's just in it. Yeah. I mean, he's not playing guitar for four on the floor. It's just something to think about. There was also a period of time when we worked down here. When Gus and I were trying to be adventurous about where we would eat because you get into patterns where you're like,

I don't know if I can eat, I love Mike's pub, but God damn. And we should also mention, by the way, Megan Castro who used to work at Rooster Teaks. We've told the story on podcasts before. She worked at Mike's pub and before we ever knew her. And so when she got hired at Rooster Teaks, she was like, you guys look familiar. And we were like, you also look familiar

and then we realized that she worked at my club. Yeah, we had frequented her establishment tons. But there was a period of time when Gus and I tried to be more experimental or more adventurous with our eating and we would go on like longer walks to go to lunch, just to break patterns. And I feel like in that period of time,

it bears remembering that Gus saw just had the string of accidentally seeing naked homeless people. What? Cause it was it was non-stop. I couldn't it could not be avoided. Every time we leave Gus to be like, today is the day I don't see homeless boobs.

Oh, damn it. It was a super thing man on wrist teeth. Yeah, I don't know what the what the deal was. It was like just walking down the street or maybe like Eric said, like we're kind of in the thick of it here. Like this is very much a nexus. And there was a long run.

I also, man, remember one time, I think you were walking with me, weren't you Jeff? Like we saw like two homeless people having sex, like, right up against the side of a building. It was on the way to Coriante to get to fuck you. Yeah, to get lunch, yeah. Yeah, you were there. It was a-

They were going at it. Yeah, they were really going at it. It was, yeah. What the fuck? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like you'd see that in Austin now, right? You just aren't here.

It was just, yeah, but it was just like, it was just Gus specifically. Yeah, it was always me. Very always targeted at him. I don't know what it was, but I also had very aggressive people. I think in general, very aggressive, you're not just necessarily homeless, but remember we kind of briefly talked about that one time

we had the showing at the draft house and that dude tried to fight me as we were walking over to Fado. Even though I did nothing, I would literally just walking down the street. I don't know what it is. I think people think they can take me on. I'm kind of a nerdy, shrimpy, skinny tall guy. They were not so skinny anymore. You definitely had like a kick me sign on you at all times. There were so many like colorful characters working in and around downtown at that time period that I really, I really loved, you know, obviously the leslies and we've talked about Billy and also my favorite of all time was the core pirate. Like that's a character that made its way into achievement hunter and to wrestling and

stuff, but it was based off of this guy who always wore a three-piece suit and was just like looked rich and classy as fuck Like he probably owned a law firm and he had a fucking eye patch and he was just like a cool dude We would see him all the time It was so fun. It was a couple of wins or not with a fucking eye patch and he was always like talking at like tattooed kids Yeah, he just seemed like the coolest old dude ever. And so I used to call him the corpira and then we made a whole character out of him. Yeah, that was like, yeah, that was like right down over there, six in the car, so you see that dude?

He made a fool of the clock. He'd be, yeah. It looks successful as hell. There were so many, there were so many awesome people like that. You know how you could tell like when someone buys like an off the shelf suit versus when someone has a suit made specifically for them in their measurements. This dude had new, we're like, everything was like, when someone buys an off the shelf suit versus when someone has a suit made specifically for them in their measurements, this dude had numerous, everything was perfectly tailored

on this dude. It just really, really, really well dressed. Do you remember, or I'd be interested to hear your take on, do you remember why we left downtown? Well, what is your memory of why we decided to leave? We just, we needed space. It was, that was a big part of it. I remember it being space and also parking. I remember Bernie being furious.

And I get it rightly so because, and it was, we were growing, we were running out of space to put the people we were hiring but also By the time we left here we were paying something like twice as much in parking as we were in rent Well that being said our rent was ridiculous our rent was stupid cheap. Yeah, or that building Yeah, because it was very cheap. It was upstairs. I think they were Shocked that anybody wanted to rent it out to begin with it was not a great spot Because like I said it was on Craigslist as like a place to live,

needed to be renovated. I want to see our rent was $2,000 a month. Oh my God. You remember all the places we didn't rent to bring that place? Yeah. There were so many cooler places we could go. What were some of the other places? It's a lot of buildings that don't exist anymore.

A lot of buildings that have been torn down. There was a basement place that had a theater in it over on fifth street we looked at. There was a bunch of like where all the law firms are, like west six and like west six, that area, on like San Jacinto, west San Antonio, those streets. There were some really gorgeous places. There was a place that's a restaurant now

that was way up on west six that I think it's nightcap now or one of those restaurants. We were really close on that. Oh, I do remember that place. Yeah, there was, but there, I mean, I like across from El Aroio. You're really romanticizing a lot of these places by the way, that by the way,

that day is the only time of arena at El Aroio. I mean, they're twice at the day. We went and looked at that place and then one other time, we ate at El Aroio, I was like, why does anyone eat here? Fucking super mediocre. Yeah, you're romanticizing this search

and all of these places because there were a lot of shit holes too. There were a lot of shit holes. There was that building over on like East Fifth that had a dirt floor. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.

You're right. There was that building down on South Congress that was, I think we talked about this in our ready. That's not there anymore. That was just like filled with people who were strung out. Yes. Like people with squatters. Yeah, where we had to like,

there were just mattresses and needles on the floor. Yeah, there was a, that place was not great. There was another place I want to say over by GNS lounge. Yeah. Like right off of South first, just South of Old Torf. It was, that was building, that building was too small.

I think it's a vet office now. I think that building is still there. There was another place just south of Ben White over in that area too. We looked out for a while. Yeah, that place, I remember we came close to, but we realized that the next building over housed hazardous chemicals, and they had all kinds of signs

that if there was an explosion to run away, that poisonous gases could be released. No, for sure, there were a ton of shit holes. I just remember there were a lot of, like, I just remember there was a tough choice because there were a lot of really interesting places. And I always wonder like how different the trajectory of things would have been

that we picked a different spot. I think this was a great spot. Oh, it was so much care. I think it really suited us well until we had to move over. We really, by the end, we were just so packed in that office, there was no space. It was, and it was a mishmash of cables. We had, you know, we said, we said,

we had to balance our power needs because we were constantly tripping breakers. The ACs couldn't keep up. And we didn't want to go through another summer again. Yeah, it was, it was really brutal. There was something else I was going to say there. AC, shit, there was something, oh, whatever. There was just no room to get anything else done.

And if we were going to even add, like even when Monty came in and started working with us, like there was no space for him went to like rearrange things like crazy to even carve out a little bit of space for him to sit down and have a desk. We had to give up the conference room so that he could have a no cap space. Yeah.

Yeah. It was just, yeah, it was just, it was just impossible. There was no space at all in there. But yeah, it was, it was, despite all the downsides, it was a good spot. It was wonderful. It was like every one of those things that was a good spot. Oh, it was wonderful. It was like every one of those things that made it annoying is what made it great too. And I feel like it became a character.

I wonder how much rose tinted glasses and nostalgia plays with that. I think we were still working there. How much shit would we be talking about? Oh, I was about to ask, did you imagine working downtown? Like what we just went through to get here? I think, and also just like,

do you know how many times a fucking day somebody tried to walk into our office? Oh yeah, we talked about the heat of PETA. Yeah, guess I was talking about people like, what's going on with the whole of me? And yeah, it's like, who the fuck are you? Yeah, I kind of imagine walking up to like a door that says, do not enter and trying to like bang on it

and try to get in. Then we're like, that applies to everyone else but me. There were attempted break-ins a bunch. I remember like we come into work on a Monday and our back door would be all mangled and fallen on. Or that gate across the front would be like torn down. Yeah. Yeah, it was such a pain that for a long time

I would take the bus to work down here. Cause I lived really conveniently on a bus line. Now take the bus here and then the bus home. That was really great, because I could just relax on the bus for a little bit and not have to worry about the stress of driving and parking. But our hours were so erratic, and we would work so late that lots of times,

like the bus wasn't running by the time. I wanted to go home. Then it was just, it just was untenable. But one thing you did mention is the dillos used to run at that time, which was like a free extension of the bus system, and they would just run on a loop, down six, down congress, and six and fifth, so you go in either direction.

And just like you would just be walking down the street, like, oh look, there's a dillow, just just hop on. It was just like a free bus. You could, it looks like a trolley. It did like, names this go trolley. But it was a bus,

like they just put like a trolley facade on the bus. And I had like an armadillo on it. It was the logo, it was like called the dillow. And it was free. And it would just go up and down like, like from South Congress up to the Capitol and turn around and go back all day long.

And it was like a tourist thing. Or was it just like a, like a service thing the city did like I think they never figured it out That's why it went away. Yeah It was this for It was great because Gus and I could hop on the sixth one and go down the Niles and eat lunch it by the way I can pour enough for now is that was closing. Yeah, that's sad Or you just like hop on it and go down the eat at like South Congress cafe or whatever and like come back and hop back

It was awesome. It was free. And then I feel like, I feel like I was gusting out of intimidated by it at first. And then we figured it out and we fell in love with it and then immediately they canceled it. Yeah, I think they were like, wait a minute. Justin Jeff and Jason are having way too much fun with this thing.

We're busing people, we're a bus company that's busing people around for free. Yeah, it was a, it was good times. It wasn't gone for a long time now. I saw one of them get turned into like a food trailer for a place or something. A Dillow food trailer for barbecue? Yeah, I think so.

It's called the Dillow. Is it? I don't know. I have no idea. I don't know. Maybe. Let's just go to the S. I love it. We're at 40 minutes, but here's the thing. I don't don't want to take this room. Yeah, so we should kind of ski-dattle here in a second, but any guesses. Oh, actually, you know what? Let's talk about the coffee. Go ahead

I was gonna jump straight to guesses, but it was talking about the coffee. Yeah, let's let's talk about the coffee I got the drip a cup of coffee. I got to say, I think it's impossible for me to be objective about the coffee here. So exactly what Jeff was saying. Yeah, like it's it is so ingrained through so many years and such like big milestones in my life that I will always love the coffee here. Like it always triggers those memories

and brings me back to that time being here. And these people were kind of like family to us. I mean, literally like family members of the owners interned at Ristraty at that time. Yeah, we were catching up, you know, when we were waiting for the coffee. And so like Gus, like there is so like as an as an nostalgic, it's the biggest 10 of 10 I've ever had for a nostalgic cup of ice coffee. And also, yeah, and she was mentioning that during RTX,

a bunch of people come here and get coffee here. I think that's so cool. That's so great that people support a local business like this. Yeah, it's really cool. And you wouldn't know by looking at it. It says like, hey, we're an improv theater. And you walk in and you go, no, you're not.

Go all the way to the back. Yeah, it definitely is. There's what, seven rows of seats here. This is like a decent, I've been to way smaller improv theaters in LA. Yeah, to see probably way worse in- Oh, man, improv is so hit and miss. But boy, when it misses, it makes me want to die in my seat. And it's one of those places that's open

to like two or three in the morning. Yeah, it's a cool spot. And I think Moon Tower Comedy Festival does like a bunch of stuff here We did We did something here that I pretty is like an RTP thing or something that was like a really small engagement piece that we just did Like these seats and it was really cool And I'd love to come back here and do more stuff. This is just great. Yeah. It's a great spot So many are a long time. time ago, I used to come here

back when I worked at the old place before Mr. Teeth back in 2000. So this place, I don't, I can't imagine the height out not being here. Yeah, check out height out. If you're around. I will say too. They gave it a coat of paint.

It looks very nice. Yeah. That's how they spruced it up. Yes, lovely. Before we get to the guesses, I do one other thing too, Gus. And I wanna lead us, I did something yesterday. I went somewhere I hadn't been in a very long time

and I'm happy to report. The mall is back. I went to the mall yesterday. Like Barton Creek mall? Barton Creek mall, I went to the mall yesterday to walk around and oh my God, what a vibrant world. Stores I've never heard of, but they seem to be doing very well.

Tons of people at the mall, I am here to report like malls are a thing again. And I think I've still an area. Let's go to the reporter in the field, Jeff Ramsey. I think we should do our next anma or a soon to be anma at the food court in the mall. We should, I used to live close out there and we did that first live stream, where we used to live stream video games out right by that mall. And the eB games right there, or was it a GameStop?

It was a GameStop. That's where I got my Xbox. My original Xbox. My original is where we would take advantage of the seven day return policy. For years. That went into fun co-land in Sunset Valley. Yeah, fun co-land.

Awesome. Anyway, you and I spend a lot of time in that mall. We went to a million movies in that mall. I also got the theater across the street, which is no longer there. It has like a apartment complex. Yeah, is there coffee at the mall? I think there's a coffee shop there.

There's gotta be. And it's gonna be like what, like tea leaf coffee bean? Like is that what it is? Oh, it's probably. I'm sure there's a Starbucks in there. Okay. Well, Jeff's our man in the mall, S&M. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just a surprised.

Jeff Maldon. I just, I needed to walk around yesterday and clear my head and it was cold outside, so I thought, oh, air conditioning, temperature controlled. That's what old ladies do. I'm kind of like an old lady. And I was just blown away that like, the whole back, baby.

It's back. It's totally back. I saw somebody say that he thought, he or she or they thought that maybe the logo, the anma name was just a representation of the Austin Skyline. Ooh, that's a good guess. That's really, I thought that was very loved.

I mean, that's a very cool idea. I know. Speaking of logo. This is bullshit. We've got, we've got about this. A couple of shirts. Yeah, yeah, there's three of us and we got a couple of shirts. We've got a photo of this here.

So here's the thing, here's what happened. We've been waiting for these shirts. I think Tony and our merch team came up with some really cool stuff. And I didn't get sent the shirts. We have two shirts, Gus and Jeff are wearing the, you'll be able to see a picture of this, the Get Your Own Podcast shirt. Great Anima shirt says, as a great Anima logo on the inside.

Yeah, that quote, the tag would be no tag. I wouldn't know. I don't have one. There's another one that is, it says Anima L podcast that looks, it's a ringer shirt, which, Okay, I wouldn't know. I don't have one. There's another one that is, it says, Anima L podcast. Yeah. It looks, it's a ringer shirt, which fucking I love it.

I love it. I love a ringer shirt. And it looks like the casino up mean a logo. Fucking awesome. I don't know when those go on sale. Probably soon. I think when this episode comes out,

really? I think when this episode comes out. It comes out Monday. Yeah, we are launching these. Wow. At least that was the last I heard. Okay, I'll work with Tony and find out. I'm mad I didn't get any, had to message the team

and go, hey, what happened? So we'll see. Yeah, as of this taping, the plan is for these to come out when this episode, that you'll listen to right now, comes out. Well, they're cool with concerns. I mean, get your own podcast. It's a very good one in the casino commino looking one is awesome.

Yeah, so. Yeah, absolutely. Um, um, speaking, the, the, the, the talking of the logo in the skyline, maybe think about the shirts. I wanted to plug them real fast. Is it a representation of the skyline? No, okay. And I, I know you've been sent this a lot as well, Eric.

People speculate that maybe the capitalization of the letters in the Twitter name meets something, it's not, I had nothing to do with the creation of that. It will not let me change the capitalization of the name or Twitter. Don't know why, it just will not let me and the end. So it's not that. That has nothing to do with that.

When I put in for the name, it was capitalized all the right way and then I got the name and I went, that's not right and I cannot change it. I do not know why. So I saw some people, I believe on Ristratheath where we're becoming desperate about the name. And I feel like... I count myself among them.

Feeling like no progress has been made. And I feel like enough time has passed now where I can say, there have been some guesses that have been so fucking close. Even not just posted online, but guesses that have been told to me in episodes have been so fucking close. Even not just posted online, but guesses that have been told to me in episodes have been so fucking close. And I didn't want to say anything at the time.

I didn't want to say anything the week after. I wanted to give a little space to breathe. What episode? I don't want to say. That's why you were gonna say, well, I think a little space to breathe. But there have been some that were, like, man, almost 99.9% of the way there.

I just can't. Are you looking at me? I'm too mad to look at him. So don't lose faith. I'm shocked it hasn't happened so far. This dude, if you fucking Greg this. This Greg? This is killing me.

This is killing me because I don't even know where to go. From here, you know what I mean? Like, where do you guess? Like, what do you lead from? Somebody do investigations and see what we've been close on. Like, real like, oh, this is killing me. Okay, here's one from Kyle, a nightmare adventure. No nightmare, man. Is it like, when you say 99.9% is it the same as if like do you like how different is saying somebody works in finance versus somebody works in accounting. I would say that's pretty much the same thing. Okay, cool. So he's not Andrew. Okay. No, no, no, I trust Gus. Okay. I'm not sure. I'm not there. I trust Gus. Okay, this is from Nick. Absolutely no meaning actually.

That's a good one. I like that one a lot. How about, oh boy, Austin make amends from Caleb. I don't think Austin's fighting with itself. No, no, it definitely, it definitely is. No, no, no, that's not it. Another Mexican in Austin. That's an Andrew guess, that's not mine.

That's not in from a different Andrew. That there's only one, that's me. I got, I mean, that's, I got nothing out like, you're killing me saying that we got close. That we're so close, because now I don't even know where to like jump off from. Yeah, that's good. I want to keep it vague.

Oh, great, cool. Well, you're doing a great fucking job. I gotta go back and listen to old episodes. Oh, what a chore. No, no, it's a wonderful journey we're all on together. It's gonna be like Rumpel's Tilskin. Someone's, you're gonna say it and I'm gonna fucking scream and disappear.

I'm gonna be like, Scream and disappear. Okay, well, that's all my guesses. If you want, you can buy these shirts, you go to SwordAristeeeth.com. I'm sure they are. Are we able to link tree? Probably not.

I'm sure we can set one up. SwordAristeeeth.com where you can buy these shirts, I really recommend jumping on them because I think they're great. And you can follow us and see the shirts at andmapodcast on Twitter and on Instagram. I'm so disheartened knowing that we've been close to the name and I don't know what we've been close on.

But the narrow is a down quite a bit. And thank you to the fine folks at the hideout for lending us their theater for 45 minutes and it was great to catch up and see that the place is still thriving. Absolutely. Any other parting words from you guys? What's for lunch? I don't know. Well, I mean, we can go to the one you did.

Did you want to eat today or do you want to eat in 2008? Because all the restaurants we've been in have closed. Did you ever eat at James Coney Island when it was here? Yeah. Yeah. I missed that place. Yeah. Do you remember the fucking three months of the dirty hot, the dirty water dude was outside

with the movable hotdog thing I ate at him every day. He fucking disappeared Every restaurant we mentioned is gone. No, except I mean the bill months there isn't it? No, it's not a restaurant anymore. It's a big space. Oh, yeah, I mean fucking tortillas exist, but not where it did that quick Exist, but not where it did Frank's fucking gone. It's a dinosaur. Is this still the episode? No, we're still the episode. No, we're done. We're done.

All right, bye. All right. 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 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? It's f*** face, a podcast. Subscribe or no. You do yes?