Circling Back - Texas Dive Bars & Spotify Wrapped | Circling Back 12-3-25

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

Raf from Texas Dives joins the show to talk Texas dive bars, Dave is steaming over a Christmas display, our Spotify Wrapped, and what's next for Texas Dives. Support us on Patreon and receive weekly episodes for as low $5 per month: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.patreon.com/circlingbackpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Watch all of our full episodes on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.youtube.com/washedmedia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Shop Washed Merch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.washedmedia.shop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • (0:00) Fun & Easy Banter • (13:20) Raf from Texas Dives • (40:00) Dave is Steaming • (54:00) Spotify Wrapped • (1:09:40) What’s Next for Texas Dives? Support This Episode’s Sponsors: Squarespace: Check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://squarespace.com/steam⁠⁠⁠⁠ for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, use OFFER CODE: STEAM to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Aura Frames: Exclusive $35-off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/CIRCLING. Promo Code CIRCLING Rhoback: https://rhoback.com/ (WASHED20 for 20% off) Poncho: Go to https://ponchooutdoors.com/STEAM for $10 off your first order and free shipping. Fabletics: Go to https://fabletics.com/steam and sign up as a VIP and get 80% off everything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maddle Ranchos, Maddo Ranchos, Mattel Ranchos, and Mattel Ranchos. All right, we're back. It's a circling back podcast Wednesday. My name is Dave. I'm a chunky boy today. This is probably a better, like, yesterday, given the weather, but like I'm wearing it. So you can't really do much about it. Randolphi, producing. Hi, Dave. Just a tick off on the Mattel Ranchos.

You've been really good, though. I'm just going to stop doing it. Everyone, everyone, I stopped doing it. Dave's being mean. I was just being critical on being real here. Sorry. I'm sorry I didn't play the triangle in the high school and don't have the perfect rhythm that you did.

I did. Triangle and the gong for Ode to Joy. That's where they put the most talented percussionist. I once made second chair. On the triangle and the gong. Yeah, the triangle. is the right field of the fucking percussionists. That's fair.

It's part of a quartet. Were you? Because I thought it was just a trio that showed up. Well, I didn't know what to call it. Part of my head wanted to go tri-tat, but that's not a word. Because he got disqualified. Dylan shivery. I've never been more worried about the KJ effect than I am right now.

Rap is a very tall lad, taller than KJ even. You're afraid you're going to look tiny? Yeah, I'm afraid I'm going to look tiny. I'm trying to have really good posture here. Look fine on this shot. Let's see what the wide shot looks like. Not terrible. Not bad.

And he's just popping in the Hawaiian. I know, man. He's got a look. He's sick to it, and I appreciate that about him. I'm happy to be here. It's going to be a great show today. Very excited about our guest today. Okay.

Yeah, he's right here next to me. From Texas Dives, Draft. Hi, everyone. Excited to be here. Great to join the most sophisticated minds in podcasting today. Thank you. On the only podcast that I listened to. So this is a real treat.

Wow. Why? Is that you being honest? 100%. Let's go, dude. Did you listen before you came on the show a couple years ago? Yeah, I listened to a few. And then I became a more just regular listener.

Oh. That's so nice. The official podcast of Texas Dives. That changes my entire interview strategy. Okay. I was going to be more combatant. we wanted to probe you a little bit what um but no we're gonna we're gonna have some fun raff's been on man you've grown so much since was it a year and a half ago coffee friday let's

i think two two and a half you did a coffee friday yeah way more chill vibes this is kind of like the main event this is a live show as dylan reminded you yeah just in case you you know wanted to say something like super controversial one time i came in here and on the rundown and Dylan forgot it's a live show, and it just said, Dylan's favorite slurs. I was like, dude, we can't do that. I was like, dude, do you not remember it's live? Yeah, two years ago. Oh, man.

Look at you now. Look at you now. Got you a little book. Yeah, he's an author too. Noted author, future New York Times bestselling author. I'll say it. We'll see if we get there, but thank you. I appreciate the kind of words from the finest in keep in Ireland.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Man, you never got to experience Darcy's donkey here in Austin, did you? I don't think so. I was Dylan's favorite bar. I wouldn't say it was my favorite bar, but it was a really solid Irish bar that it was in just an absolutely cursed location here in Austin. That's why it went under. Barton Springs? Barton Springs, yeah.

No foot traffic. It's where Luz currently is. Yeah. Barton Springs. Lose. And even though that place has made it thus far, it's still. empty almost all the time. Shockingly, I think a lot of people pick up from there, including Will.

Yeah. But yeah, they had good meat pies and a good Guinness Poor, which Dave is a very stringent critic of. It's a top nine poor in town. I was going to ask, what do you think? Do you have a opinion who has the best Guinness Poor in town? So I've been getting into the Guinness Pores recently. I was actually in Dublin like a few weeks ago.

So I was there for the weekend. I went to the Guinness factory and the gravity bar which is very cool and it's a great question I don't think you have a definitive rank I do like you know Murray's I think is good

and Kelly's is good you guys were kind of hating on the the rabbit the dead rabbit I haven't been I want to point that out these two have did I hate on it

sometimes I just hate on shit a lot of people were like When I posted the glass on my story, like, oh, that's a sick glass. I'm like, eh, I kind of would just rather be a regular old Guinness glass, like an actual authentic one, because I don't know if that one is. What's your take on it? That's fair about the glass, totally. I just think they have a really, really great Irish coffee and just some non-crackhead energy

on 6th Street. That's nice. That is, yeah. Yeah, I was going to say, the location, I think when people see where it's located, they're like, eh, they see that six. Yeah, we started, we're like thinking about going to dead rap. I'm like, oh, it's on dirty six. And we went in there.

I'm like, oh, yeah, this is very much not a dirty six bar, even though it is. It's like the Driscoll's right there, too. And so it gets a bad rap that area. Is it a price out, the riffraff? Is it like West Six prices on East Six or Dirty Six? I think it's just more that it's a like sit down booth and like small bar. It's definitely not a, you know, loud music dancing. It's kind of cozy.

It's borderline cozy. It's in the ballpark. I think they have a sawdust on the floor. Oh, really? Well, I didn't notice. Huh. Why is that nice? I just don't.

It's a vibes play. Yeah. For vibes? For vibes? Okay. It's like when you go to Texas Roadhouse and there's peanut shells on the floor. They don't do it anymore, unfortunately. Because somebody had a peanut allergy and ruined it for everybody?

Probably. Woke. You got to have a sign on the door, right? I think so, yeah. Yeah. Hey, if this place will kill you, just walking in. You breathe this air. You're fucking cooked, dude.

My buddy went into five guys once. He has a very bad peanut allergy. He walked in and just saw the bags and bags of peanuts and went, I can't be in this building and had to walk out. Jeez. Jeez. Yeah. Hey, yesterday we did cold calls on Patreon.

It was very good. Our first unsolicited three-way call. Yeah, shots at Tyson and Connor. Yeah. A lot of cooks. Your boy on Twitter, Silver Wings, our mystery pilot was quite critical that we didn't call him, and I apologize to him. We called them once.

We did, but he was ready to give some holidays. He was pretty electric, though. You got to give it to me. He brought it. He brought it. And he was not so kind to Tyson and Connor. But that's okay. They were great.

Great way to kick off the show. He called those two guys Rain Man and Stephen Glansberg. Not our word. That's from a fellow listener, Silver Wings. Oh, Silver Wings. That's pretty good. Is that a compliment? It's not.

I don't believe so. We'll record listener voicemails later today. 8886-18-8-48-4-4-22. That's the pipeline. You can still drop us a message. We need to do a theme next week. We'll decide by tomorrow, and we'll announce it on tomorrow's episode. Is that too much to ask?

Maybe Christmas week? Generic, but. Yeah. Like, it could be a worst of Christmas. theme like bad gifts think about it maybe humorous gifts yeah people have you know in my in my there's a white elephant play there sorry interrupt you a white elephant play there um secret santa play there that stuff can can lead to some funny ish um in my experience i've back when i still you know my friends all went back to the hometown we all went out well christmas was the that's when things

got really out control Thanksgiving was like okay but Christmas is when the real alcohol were shining. Dude, same. Right? We used to go out on Christmas Eve when we came back into town. It was like our night. Yeah. That's a real, real drinker hours. That's a lie. Not Christmas Eve, Christmas night. Really? Yeah, Christmas night. Demon time is what they call it. Hey, speaking of good things, roll back. Roll back. 20% off, huh? Washed 20 for 20% off. I have the crew neck on right now. This is the lightweight version of the crew neck. I actually wore one yesterday, too, that light blue one I wore. I have the crew neck on right now.

One of my, one of my favorite items that I own. They're so comfortable, stretchy, breathable. They're for nice cool weather, not cold, not warm. Trying to see whose pecks are popping more. You were random. Probably his. I'm a peck guy. You know that.

Yeah. Randy's got, he's a little more broad than you, but your pecks are a little bit more. Yeah, he's got the kangaroo body. We're just going to talk about our bodies. Yeah, let's talk about it. Welcome, Raf. I also got the joggers on, too. You do.

Ooh. Kind of got you there, bud. Their heavy hoodie got what it's called. Yeah, we both wore it on Monday. We did. That thing is awesome. Nobody called us out. I recently saw the Derek guy, the men's wear dude on Twitter.

He said one of the characteristics of a well-made hoodie is that the hood will kind of stand up behind you instead of fall back flat. Yeah, you don't want a flaccid hoodie. And it does that. It's a good one. Okay. Yeah, I just filed that away. I said, you know what? You're right.

washed 20 get you 20% off at checkout to one time use code load the cart so load the card out get something for your dad your brother-in-law yourself even uh even your wife there's good women's stuff on there randy who's that model you like just kidding i'm joking ran he didn't just joking just kidding um one of their models is um a former bachelorette guy oh yeah dean right dean The guy that he also modeled the, like, taco costume at Party City. He's the one who... It's a pretty sick resume.

He's the one who Homegirl chose... Claire? Like, before the season even ended. She was like, I just... This is the guy. They swapped her out with someone else because she made, like, three episodes and went, no, I'm going to go with Dean. And I don't think they're together still.

I don't think they are. Well, he's moved on. He's no longer modeling pizza costumes. Now he's modeling for Roeback. Yeah. Question. If you model a pizza costume... Is that playing by your Zocard?

You know what your Zocard is, Raff? No. Good. For the best. Just continue enjoying life and food. Don't worry about some mediocre podcaster who made up a arbitrary rule about how much pizza you can eat in a week. Fun fact, it's once a week. Once a week.

Although you can continue to eat the leftovers, correct? It's from the same transaction. You wrote the text. You tell us. I've been out of the game. I didn't renew my license. There is a vacation exemption, too. Is there?

We established that? I thought you did, yeah. There's a vacation exemption, yeah. Yeah. If you go to Italy, you can't just eat pizza once. Well, pizza's not Italian food, so. Okay. That's a Randy take, not a circling back.

The Randy show. Go ahead, bud. It's its own genre. I'll die on that hill. It's his own genre. That's a bad hill to die on it. You're going to die on it. Nope, I'm going to die.

Because if you and you and the misses are talking like, hey, I don't know what I want for dinner night. Chinese? Nah. Mexican? No, I had taco deli. And you say Italian. You're never once thinking pizza. If you're going to go thinking pizza, you're going to say,

I want to get a pizza. I think of Italian, you're thinking fucking meatballs. It doesn't mean it doesn't belong in the genre, the category. I think it's just transcended to its own genre. See, Raff, I don't know how often you listen. I know you've listened before, but a lot of anti-Italian discrimination coming from this fucker. Because you can say, I want tacos tonight.

It's definitely Mexican food. But you say, oh, I want to go, let's get tacos. But if I'm thinking about getting Mexican food, I'm thinking tacos. If I'm thinking about getting Italian food, I'm never really thinking pizza. I'm thinking pasta, eggplant, Parmesan. I'm not going to co-sign that.

I saw a reel the other day, new segment. It was a guy making fun of his friend who ordered chicken parm at an Italian place. Like, he's like, that's a bad order. That's a Gringo order at an Italian place. Yeah. It is. And I like chicken parm.

I like chicken parm. I like Picada. Yeah. We had a chicken paccata summer. It was different, dude. Just a better time. A couple years ago, you remember that? I remember that.

Everybody was eating chicken paccata. Capers everywhere. Capers. Oh, my God, dude. And, man, still talk about it to this day, obviously. But yeah, chicken parm, chicken parm apparently is looked down upon in some circles. Not me.

I'll still order it, but. Anyway, that's the first and last time we do that segment. What are we doing today? Oh, yeah, Raf, you wrote a book. Oh, yeah. there it is texas dives tell the folks at home what you do do you guys like dive bars love cool yeah so i have a social of various social media platforms mainly on instagram at texas dives and i went to a lot of dive bars in texas and i post about that on the instagram and ticotoc and whatnot and

then I wrote a book and here it is. I don't know if your listeners are also into reading. Most of them can read, I think. Okay. But this is a great holly gift idea if you're into dive bars or just Texas stuff in general. I think non-Texas listeners will also enjoy it just because of the wide variety of dive bars that are available in Texas. And they are a different flavor oftentimes than what you, you know, I'm from the Midwest.

And they are different. The Midwest dive bar is a little bit smaller, darker, fewer windows. A lot more pull tabs. Pull tabs, meat raffles. What's a meat raffle besides Dillon's college nickname? It's a great question. Meat raffle is when you buy raffle tickets at the bar and then a bar. big, like, Wheel of Fortune, no, like Price is Right Wheel, they spin it, and then if you

win, you win cuts of meat, like pork chaps and sticks. I've never been a part of them. How do we, why didn't we do that in Chicago, right? I didn't, I know that was a thing. That's a Minnesota thing. Where are you from? Mainly from Chicago, but I lived in Minneapolis, too. Gotcha.

Dude, Raffling away meat? There's nothing like getting some pull tabs, though, at a dive bar. Yes, pull tabs, big. But, you know, they do have pull tabs here at the bank. So you can get them at the bingo hall. What's the dive-iest bar in Austin? It has to be either barflies or GNS probably. G&S, they won't like, they'll let you in for all of like 20 seconds before they kick you out, right?

Oh, you told us about this one last time you're on here actually. GNS Lounge. GNS is over by Kelly's. You can see it from the parking lot, right? Yeah, it's in that area. I don't know if you can see it, but it's definitely in the area. And GNS has its loyal, loyal diehards. And I personally think GNS sucks and I hate it.

And but I do, you know, I still go on occasion and I mean no ill will towards GNS. And I hope that they stay open to rip people off for decades. But they will rip you off. They might kick you out. They definitely have the gnarliest Yelp page in Austin. it's just stories of like cabby drivers getting pepper sprayed billy clubs coming out tazers billy clubs what era is this i'm serious oh my god it's nuts g s is not it's legendary for sure i'm pulling up the the help pages you got he got me really is it's just like they

take one look at you if you if they if they smell like austin tech yuppie and it's like i got to go yeah the owner jimmy is uh he's a tough cookie and And I hear he's much friendlier to young, attractive ladies. And then guys, you know, you put in a wrong order, you ask for something he doesn't have, you're out of there. And that block, it's a pretty, you know, high real estate value part of town over there. Yeah. What I've heard is that he owns that like strip mall stretch right there and he lives in the back. and instead of selling the property for it, I don't know, whatever, six million.

He just wants to go in and kick people out. It's just like his little pet project. He's just love for the game. Dude, that's so sick. Yeah. Yeah, like that's a place that you hate it. Like, I don't, what you just said, I don't want to go there, but I want it to be there. I want that to always be an option.

Yeah. I want to continue to hear stories about people getting kicked out of there. Here's a two-star review. By the way, it's 2.8 star. on Yelp. I'm running out of patience with this place. Either we were overcharged tonight or our well drinks were $6 each. The last time we were in, we pointed out that the games were broken.

One of the games was broken. Not only did we not get our money back, we were informed that we must be wrong. And the subsequent drinks were made extra weak just to punish us for complaining. The place reeks, the new bartender looks like a meth head, and the music generally sucks. Either you've changed GNS or I have. okay that's not terrible see you you can glean the most we've done a lot of like bar yelp review stuff restaurant reviews when somebody does a two star critical review it means more than a one star a one star like you look at that you're like oh this person like just was having a bad

day and you know two star it's like you can you know there's something there where it's like man i wanted to like this place and here's like the actual criticism yeah i trust the one stars can be really like scathing and like maybe they're deserving so two to three stars i trust more a four star is always like oh great experience all this all that uh couldn't find parking and it's like okay like that that's your one little like thing yeah have you ever left a review absolutely i mean i've been banned from twitter i'm back on and i you know i've cooled off on that for sure but i totally agree i generally don't do ones for if like a place like a restaurant or something like i didn't like i usually like still leave a four because i don't want to like ruin the small business but yeah if it's a

two or three that's where you get the real gold i i agree okay um and uh don't want to give away the entire book but uh our old our old haunt dylan um dirty bill a bar that I think you refuse to go to. A lot of people do, honestly. It's not my favorite place. It's a, I just, I correlate it with just getting blacked out drunk. It's just one of those, like, people, I get dragged to at the end of the night because my friends want to go, I'm like, okay. And then it's just, it's just a sloppy shoulder to shoulder.

The music in there is good. I'll give them that. That's what sets it apart, I think. Yeah, everything else I could, I could go without. Technically, a gay bar or no? formerly. I think technically it is. And like to say shoulder and shoulder does not really give it justice for how

packed it is in there. It is like you are cramped shoulder or shoulder. You have to like keep your arms in. If you're in Austin, if you're visiting Austin and you're looking to like go hard and you're in that West 6th area, dirty bills. If you can get there before 10 and get into like a, get a booth. Yeah. Which you will definitely be standing up on at some point.

Like once it fills out, it's a fun bar. you can now getting out of there like you'll want to leave there i think i typically before midnight getting out of there as a chore because like you said it's it's very crowded but the the music they haven't they haven't wavered on that it's always good they throw the videos up there it's good it's a good spot but yeah you will not leave there for you the next day is going to be tough for you yeah absolutely and dirty bills i you know it's probably the least divey bar in this book to be honest it's it's snuck in by the hair you know of its teeth that doesn't i don't know what it with the one one star rating on the dive factor that is

pound in the book um people were saying they slid you a $20 bill and that's what you're in there have you been compromised i i you know please compromise me anyone like you say you want to be on the Instagram, I got a substack that no one reads. Like, bribe me. Let's go. I'm open. But, you know, to your point, if you go to dirty bills on like Tuesday at like five, there's no one in there. And it does look like a die bar. Yeah, as soon as you walk in and does, it's just like the Saturday night when everyone's dancing on the tables and stuff. It's like, okay. Too many, yeah, on Saturday night, there's like too many people having a good time for it to be like a real, like a full authentic dive bar, you know. No one's going there to like. There's too many

reflect dancing going oh my god it's so narrow it's so narrow like it's it's one of those like the shape of the bar is one you might find like a town square like a small town just like they just stack them in so it's like a super long narrow bar and the bar takes up like 70% of the walk like the walk space to get to get through so if you want to go from the front to the back you're fighting through a crowd of people in a walkway that's like four feet wide that's one of the nothing i hate about it yeah it shouldn't take you like 10 minutes to go to the the bathroom there just to get to the bathroom. If you're a real pisser like me, you're in hell.

Dave is a real pisser. I pee a lot, Raff. Me too. You understand the plate. Totally get it, yeah. I'll tell you what, though, real quick, I want to continue talking about the book, but I want to talk about our good friends at poncho. Ose.

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back since you help support the show. I feel like we asked you this last time, but a lot's changed. Did you, where, did you encounter a lot of pushback when you were just hitting up random bars? And did you have to tell the bars like, I'm including you in this book? And has anybody like figured out who you were recognized you? Because you've got to look. Yeah.

Yeah. You can, you're not just another face in the crowd. Yeah. Sometimes it's obvious. Sometimes it's good to be overly obvious. Like, this guy's lost or something. Something, you know, so that's good. But, you know, I got better about it as I went along. And no, I like, I didn't tell almost anyone that I was working on the book because I just wanted to hang out, get a feel for the place. And oftentimes I just wasn't there like that long. You know, I would go in. If I'm going to five, six, seven places in one day because I'm an Amarillo and I'm not coming back to Amarillo for a while, then, you know, I would have a Coke. Toppo Chico, keep it moving, and then towards the end of the night, I would, you know, start

getting after it. But the two places that I think kind of stand out as a kind of memorable visit is a Sandy's country store in Galveston. This kind of like derail my night because I was going to go to these other places and I walk into this place. And there's a potluck. Someone's birthday. They're pouring stiff drinks. All of a sudden, there's some sort of dice money game that they're playing at the bar and they're like come join in then i'm in this game then at some point the owner who's living in an rv outback like just comes barreling through the back door with a wad of cash for the dice game the bar closes we keep playing like an hour plus after the bar is closed and uh that was that was a really good

visit that's memorable visit the other one was north of el paso i go to this bar and it's like a it's like a sons of anarchy biker bar like like everyone in there is wearing their i think they're called cuts they called cuts their vests leather vests yeah and there is a baby being passed around at the bar and a couple of teenage daughters playing pool at the pool table obviously like an after-school program you know safe space kind of situation and everyone was there was super nice to me and i had a couple beers but that was not a photo taking situation and we're going to leave that one anonymous and i hope they continue enjoying their space cool guys damn yeah i guess this sets up to run into some some pretty tough characters huh most of the

time and I most of the time I went and during a day and I think during the day you're it's a lot easier than at night when people are liquored up aggressive and things like that but during a day most people want to be nice if you are chill they're going to be chill if you ask them about the place they generally are like yeah I want to talk about this place no one asked me about this bar in the middle of San Angelo so generally I've had good experiences but yeah i mean you know i am a white guy and i probably have a better experience than some other people might have i can you know if you're a single woman i don't know if you want to be going to all these places by herself yeah yeah i can imagine so how many bars would you

estimate are in the book there's 151 bars in the book and so do you go on like the history of them and all that You didn't read the book? I told you to read the whole book. That was your homework. Dude. Sorry, dude. No, we're coming. Cool.

So they're all over the country? All over the state, I mean? They're all over the state. They're split up in regions. So you have your central, you have your Gulf Coast. You have your south. And then you have the cities like Houston, Dallas. So they're kind of split up by the region.

region regionally and they all have a dive rating of one to five like how divey it is how it looks like a dive bar and yeah I think there's you know a wide variation of these places these places and to circle back to the point circle back of you know the Midwest dive bar it's in Texas you have a range of places that do kind of look differently because Because you have your typical dive bar, you can have like a more spread out ice house, which like has a lot of picnics, table seating and it's more spread out. You can have a can'tina, which is essentially a like a Mexican joint. And they'll be playing like cumbia and like, you know, Salina and just like takates. And then you can have a honky tonk.

So that's more like your Don's Depot, White Horse, Broken Spoke, where you have nightly dancing. on a regular basis with live music, then you can have your dance hall, which we were talking about earlier, and that's a larger structure. You find more like in the rural areas where it's probably open like once or twice a week, maybe even less.

And oftentimes it's like UI.OB and oftentimes you're going to like bring your kids to sit at the table while you go dancing and stuff. You have your country store, which is like a little local, bar with kind of a general store like a 7-Eleving or like a feed shop thing attached to it so people go there they'll get some feed they'll get some supplies chlorox whatever and they'll hit the bar next to it um so you know there's just like

there's just a range of these places that you don't find into north they're more distinct is there one of those country stores did that you went to like west of here maybe like an hour, hour and a half. I think it's called the bend. He's familiar with it? My father-in-law told me about it. Like, he was camping out there. And it sounded like a cool place.

So we did like the classic, what constitutes a dive bar? We did that whole segment last time. But I'm curious if, like, anything's changed on your litmus test. Like, what gets a one and what gets a five? That's a great question. And that's a little bit subjective. But, you know, qualifying into the dive bar category, I think.

You know, we talked about, can I have a kitchen? And I think I've seen very, very divey places with kitchen making a burger. So, like, I think that's totally fine. I think the four things are, one, is it, like, shabby? Is it worn down? It's got to have to, it has to have some scoffs. You can't open a new one. number two it has to have uh it's got to be unpretentious so it's not really it's not curated

it's just whatever and it's got the local clientele it's unpretentious and they're not they don't have 20 crap beers on tap they're not doing that they might have two they might have one they don't have 20 they don't have a calendar for all the games they're playing that week like they might they're like oh we'll turn a tv on so they're just not they're just not curating anything three it has it has to be cheap right and that's where uh gns when they're double charging me 10 bucks for a rail tequila you know really really gets me going and the fourth one like dependably is no cocktail menu like 98% of the time if there's no cocktail menu then you know it's going to be a dad okay no touch tunes you know got to have like a

real jukebox so wild like the wild wings in cedar hill texas yeah that's not that's not gonna qualify but they're getting rid of the real jukebox the touch tunes makes more money that's the thing greed corporation and i could understand that for sure yeah oh my guy you guys made a joke about the twin peaks the battle of the twin peaks last time where they had the the the harley kind of shootout and stuff oh yeah yeah so i went to like i went to one of the gangs bars outside of waco oh dude what was the bar call uh the ben-hur bar that place is freaking lit that place looks scary it was it was full of like blacker dudes there was like no one in there it was just the female bartender and she was super cool it was like a club so you didn't like pay for the beer you like

donated money and then they gave you a beer out of a cooler oh it's i don't know i'm not a t a bc compliant yeah i'm not a dive bar lawyer so i'm not quite sure what's going on there but uh yeah and they had you know the like kind of big club like logo behind the stage um and like photos on the walls very old bar very rickety but cool it was cool i went to a bar in uh lano one time right there on town square forgot the name of it and i have a buddy we we have a buddy Travis he's got family who lives in lano and he's like we were going out to his family's property and then we stopped at the bar on the way in and way into town we go in there and my buddy Travis brings just a bottle of scotch with them yeah and we sit down right in the middle of bar and he just starts pouring

drinks for everyone from his own bottle we were in there he drink for an hour or two and left we didn't spend a dime i was like i don't know why they're letting us do this but it was sick it was quite an experience yeah usually you have to pay for they call the setup it's the accoutreman the the the soda the coke whatever they'll charge you the 20 bucks for that and then you can do your own scotch bottle waco interesting place yeah do any other dive bars out there i mean there are some die bars out there um there's one called the pendleton pump out by there that place is hilarious um another great yelp review one of the yelp reviews was so it was so good it was like um i forgot the bartender's name like stephen it's like uh i'm i'm

16 and oh against fights with stephen he tried to sneak he tried to overserve me last night so he could sneak one in but he's getting old that place is really good and like there was a lady just singing she was really good she was probably a former singer in there um oh and the place looks scary so it looks like a texas chainsail mask or vibe in there too but the people were great so that's a really good one uh there's that one papa joe's like north of waco that one's famous because um billy joe yeah yeah billy joe shafer yeah shot that guy in the face there yeah yeah i'm sorry i don't know this story yeah he uh got into a scrap And he shot the guy in the face.

How's he doing? The guy lived, I think. Yeah. But Billy Joe didn't do somebody, somebody vouched for him. Like he didn't get prosecuted. I don't know. Self defense. Self defense.

But every time you read the story, clearly I haven't read it enough. But it was you're like, ah, well, hell yeah. Okay. I fuck yeah, dude. I don't know if you're allowed to have that thing, but you can read about it more in the book. Nice. But basically the guy had a knife and he was threatening. Billy Joe. That was like pretty well established. And then they went out in the back and Billy Joe shot him in the face. The bullet got stuck in. He lived. They got the bullet out. Um, you know, very, some people say is warranted. Some people say it was not warranted. But Billy Joe basically went into Austin played a show at the Waterloo Records that night. And then when the trial started, um, I think it was, I think like Robert Duval and like Willie Nelson like went to.

the trail on his, you know, sat on his side of the bench and everything. And the jury loved that. And he was cracking. Dove, Willie? Yeah. He was cracking jokes and he got off. So. Wow. Yeah. You think the jury recognized Duval from Godfather or Lonesome Dove more? Probably a lonesome dove around these parts. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah, that's a classic brought a knife to a gun fight. Yeah. so how do you go about finding these bars like i'm sure the ones that are in cities you get recommendations but like the stuff that's more remote areas like how do you go about finding a dive bar yeah people still give me recommendations on the instagram and the other thing is doing this book 25 years ago would be crazy because i mean i think you would like have to use a

a phone book. You just literally drive around blind and just walk into places. But now we have Yelp. We have Google Maps. And even when places don't have like a lot of reviews or photos, they'll typically have an exterior photo. You know, we have street view. So you can look up the place. Maybe they'll have like one interior photo. And it's like, all right, I can plan out. I'm going this way. I can kind of plan out my stops. So that helps. But yeah, there's still some bar. that you know they don't have any reviews they don't have any photos and they look like very sketch and it's like all right i don't know like is this going to be worth it or not but most of their time works out okay can i give a recommendation real quick i've got a last-minute

lifesaver for you sitting right next to me the aura frame oh yeah orrame's been with us for a while we like it so much we put it up in the studio uh it's just the best gift i've given it multiple times. I know you have two, Dylan. It's an excellent gift. Yeah, one of the great things about it. Like I've talked about, there's a QR code on the box. You kind of peel back the corner of the label there. There's a QR code there. You scan it. And if you're gifting it, like Dave said, you can preload pictures and videos on it before you give it to your parents, grandparents, whoever. So when they receive the gift, connected to Wi-Fi, boom, they got a bunch of stuff waiting for them already. It's pretty awesome. Yep. You can personalize your gift. Like Dylan said,

preload it with photos before it ships. Upload unlimited photos and videos. Share photos effortlessly, and videos, by the way. Videos like, I, I always thought like that would kind of slow the thing down. It doesn't because I was looking at my parents when I was back home over Thanksgiving. And right now it includes a gift box. Every frame comes packaged in a premium gift box with no price tag. You can't wrap togetherness, but you can frame it. Wow.

Yeah, that's a little thing I say. For a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visitingoraframes.com to get $35 off orr frames best-selling carver matte frames named number one by wirecutter by using promo code circling that's a ura frames dot com promo code circling it's exclusive deal for our listeners and the frames sell out fast so order yours now get it for the holidays support the show by mentioning us at checkout terms and conditions do apply um randy can i have you pull up the um little instagram that i sent you earlier you're steaming on steam real quick let's let's let Dave Steam.

He has mine just. Are you familiar with the steam room segment that we've done in the past, Raff? I don't think I am now. You're welcome to Steam, too. Basically, we just kind of air grievances about things that they're bothering us. Typically, like, very minor things. But I don't steam very often these days.

But, you know, probably because every time I do, Dylan gets a towel, what's the tip, rolls it up and just pops me with it. Pop is bare bottom with it. Yeah, it's a thing. It's a visual show. this thing is uh what's this instagram account at wealth okay good a good handle to have i guess but it came across my uh my my my reels last night and um it says this man just surprised his entire neighborhood with one of the most insane christmas light shows ever all sorts of people i follow liked

it people were commenting two million likes all sorts of views and drew a big crowd out in the streets A bunch of neighbors stopped by to see what was going on. I'm like, okay, yeah, let's see what's up. And Randy, I want you to play it. And if you can like... I've started 48 seconds into the rule because I started at the countdown. This guy is going all in. It's a visual show.

But if you're not watching, he went hardcore on his lights. And there's a, there's a playlist with it. So if you could hit it. Because the first 45 seconds is just like the countdown from like Apollo 13 or something like that. So it, this made me so upset. Four, three, two, one. Recognize those drums? I fucking hope you did.

Great acoustics, by the way. This ain't your grandma's Bluetooth speak now. Dyer straits. What? Oh, my goodness. It's Bruno Mars. The buildup to one of the most famous intros. It's just in rock and roll history.

It's a top. 10 lick it's a top 10 riff and they just didn't deliver on it and they hit us with the bruno instead they they went for the song that like your aunts and uncles will dance to at the wedding I'm going to defend uptown funk it's one of the best songs out there it's it's it gets everyone going but yes edging you and just the pump fake it's just terrible it's the best riff out there I mean like that's one where you if you're if let's say you're you're doing the radio dial you're old school and you get out of you're like oh and you hear the drums you're like oh well leaving it on this because you're gonna at least stay for the riff it reminds me i know we've all

seen the videos of djs who will have just a crowd just like you know on the palm of their hands they're hitting they're building up you know they're building up and then right before the beat drops they'll hit you with like a mariah carey song or something and just totally throw everybody off and we're like what the fuck is that it's a girl talk move yeah is that a girl talk move well i mean like yeah everybody does it now but it's it and then but typically like they'll do something like unexpected like they'll hit you with like it's green day over like an avici beat you're like oh how did that yeah okay and you're kind of it's all coming together and you kind of like how i reference to vici i've got so many deep cuts i just got an avichy record you did

yeah true avich somehow not on my spotify rap because my son is a big fan oh speaking which am i supposed to do my spotify rap do it okay we'll do that in a minute um but yeah this is this this made me upset. So much so that I might do the, uh, what's the style, ref, you do this where you're the green screen where you have the face and you're just like, nah, I'm mad about this. Yeah. I'm going to do that. Okay. I think Dave's attitude right now is not doing justice of how mad he was earlier in the office day. He was, he was fuming. It, it's, dude, it's like, it's like, it's an iconic guitar riff. And it's so, it's, it's just like, it's one of those ones when you hear Like, no matter what, you kind of get, like, at least like 15 seconds of like, yeah, a little bit of testosterone flows and you just kind of walk a little taller.

Instead, you get Bruno Mars. That's typically like, I'm going to go get a drink at the open bar. Hopefully, that's a, it's a wedding song. I get you're doing it for the kids in the neighborhood, but what are you doing, dude? Show a little ball knowledge. I'm done. I told you all this earlier. My neighbor has, it's not a setup like this, nothing near this elaborate.

But he's got this big tree in his yard and it displays differently. Like, you can program it to show different things on it. It's pretty cool. He has a sign in his yard that says tune to channel, whatever, it is some radio station channel you can dial up. And he has his own custom playlist that goes along with a light display, which I think is pretty sick. I haven't done it yet.

We've come a long way. Yeah. We've come a long way with this. Yeah, I think, I don't know. I think like people are doing this more and more. it's getting tricked up but houst there's always like one or two guys in like houston that do like they'll have one and like it's always done to like uh still tipping or something yeah some houston song love that like a u gk song keep a regional yeah that guy wins you do any uh celebrating you put up

lights or anything um i yeah i do pull up lights inside nothing too much but you know i agree with you guys, this is horrible. I really makes me really upset. You know, I saw like a fan edit of Top Gun Maverick with this song, like over it on YouTube and it just got me so torqued up when I saw that. And this just makes me upset. Yeah. Okay.

Glad everybody feels that way except for Randall. I mean, I like the song. I like Bruno Mars. I need to you agree with me, though. We did a dance to it in college and whenever I do it. I mean, hit the Brunar Bruno button after you hear the riff. I agree. I am 100% agreeing with you that this was terrible.

I also like it, the fact that then he did the rift stopped, and then it was like a voice like, ladies and gentlemen. It sounded like... And then it went into Bruno Mars. It's like, just hit us with the rift. It sounded like noted German new metal band Romstein. Duhausmeij guys. I saw him in concert.

It had family values to her. They opened for corn. Hey, not... That sounds sick. A lot of pyrotechnics. It was a weird show, very odd band. Yeah. I was like, this is objectively a sick show.

Going through my Spotify rap right now, my listening age is 69. Dude, mine's 26. Mine was 69 too. I think there's a lot of classic rock and disco that I've listened to. Will's is 80. He's an old soul. That's fine.

I have a question about Will. Has Will been bringing up the admin Fitzgerald around a lot around the office? It was his entire personality in November. yes unfortunately like he was on vacation and then he got like deathly ill so he kind of like had to sit this one out he was on very online did some numbers on twitter um but yeah no he dude i didn't know anything about that till i met will i didn't either it's not it's not like the lord didn't make its way down to texas yeah big midwestern yeah or i think one of the parts of it is because it happened in

1975 which isn't that long ago. It's one of the thing, like the first time I heard about it, I was like, oh, this is like an old like 1800s. I thought the same thing.

1700 shipwreck. Like, no, no, just. Pretty recent. Like there's probably people that maybe my aunts or uncles knew

that had like a brother or like an uncle or something that was made, could have been on that ship. Who knows? Yeah, you think like shipwreck and pretty much any outside of like war. Like,

from like 1970 on, it's like, people are getting out of there. There's, there's, you know, the technology's there. They've got some boats, some helicopters, things of that nature. No, 1975, six, what do we say? Now when the gales of November, it hit you on the Lake Superior. That's right, dude.

There's nothing you can do, really. She doesn't give up her dad, man. The official Lake Superior Twitter account. Yes, there is one. Like, slow released all the names of the deceased from the shipwreck. Does Will run that? He runs the, does people know the other account he has? I don't know if that's public knowledge yet

Okay Will's no stranger to owning regional Twitter handles He owns one I don't think he's updated in a really long time though He's squatting Yeah

Yeah He has a lot of Twitter handles He's a barred guy He has lad football braved too Dude nobody knows that's him Don't they do Dump it It's not obvious it's in at all

Dump it Um Yeah that was That's always a fun time On Twitter I feel like Maybe I'm just saying I feel like we were the show

The previous iteration touching base We were I feel like we're ground floor Edmund Fitzgerald Content creators because of will Because of will Yeah Because it was mainly like there was like one whole show Where I think we spent the entire episode

Like him just telling us about it We're just like what This happened when Edmund Fitzgerald just such an old school boat name too Yeah yeah That shouldn't be a boat name past like 1920 I digress There's a great beer

I think it's a Great Lakes Brewing Company Which is maybe Cleveland or something But they There's a beer Yeah it's the beer It's Edmund Fitzgerald It's popular I know that because Will

He posted about it yeah Are you what's your go-to beer? You know Dylan's a sneaky Undercover craft beer guy Oh yeah sneaky Okay Go-to Panic Order

Miller High Life good choice solid former sponsor alert yes they were nice okay mine used to be Shiner yeah I mean that that's obviously a Texas thing I didn't know much about beer outside like high school college you drank like Keystone or Natty and then like going to the bars panic ordering is like a 23 24 year old's like you don't want to look like a like I was still in college I was like um Shiner we'll put out a vibe my my cheap domestic is yingling now um and that's mostly because in texas it wasn't available in texas for the majority of my life it's wouldn't it moved to texas like five years ago i feel like right right before

covid yeah i could be wrong and i was like because anytime i would travel east i would always drink yling and i loved it i still mean i still do obviously but when it became available here it was it was a big day for me what do you guys think is the worst beer keystone light oh yeah uh Keystone was college for us there. I always hated Rolling Rock. I hated it. Rolling Rock does stink. Keystone, though, is bad.

Specifically, though, there's a... No one drinks this, but in high school, we would get cheaper kegs of butt-eyes 5.5 because you could get it in Texas. And nothing, nothing will have, like, lasting effects like butt-eyes 5.5. It was like you drank, it was like you just chuged salsa. I have a buddy who used to buy, like, the magnum cans. of Natty Ice, which I think it was probably maybe even a little bit stronger than Bud Ice, I'm not sure.

And it was just nasty. Yeah. Just like, I'm just trying to get drunk as fast as I can. Like, okay, man. There are other options. These days, like, dude, I got blowback. People really hate Red Stripe. A lot of people don't think, like they think it's like a bad beer.

Really? And I genuinely like the beer. Yeah. I think you like the bottle more than you like the beer. It's a vibes, boy. That's what I feel like. I'm having, yeah, it's a vibe. Yeah.

It's a good bottle. God forbid a white boy puts out a vibe, but. You know who has them? Like the dive bars on the way to Key West along the Keys. You know, you're like, they got, you know, they got the palm trees. You're in a, yeah, island dive and they got the red stripe. It's a good vibe. Yeah.

It's all the nose, but it's one that I've, it's kind of hard to find in Austin, weirdly. Got to go to total one. Well, there was a shortage recently. There was a short. We never got to the bottom of that. No. You were right about that. Hey, we were right about using Squarespace to launch our company, don't you think?

Absolutely. The templates. We'll talk about the templates real quick, Dave. Please do. We use the templates, and they're very useful for people who maybe not so graphically inclined. It sets you up. It gives you plenty of options. You can customize the templates.

It gives you, like, a foundation to work from. And it's extremely useful if you don't have, you know, web designing experience, which probably most people out there. You ever design a web page, Raff? Yeah, I use Squarespace for my personal web page. I get the traffic. I can check my analytics. The updates are easy.

It's a great place to put your personal business on. Jeez. Did you send him the copy before? No, he just, that was a dangerous move. Did he just nail it? Just speaks to it. Go to Squarespace.com slash Steam for a free try. When you're ready to launch, use offer code Steam to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Again, check out Squarespace.com slash steam for the free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code Steam to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. It's Spotify rap season. We do it every year, polarizing. But, yeah, I think people have a right to know, like what we're listening to, what we're on. We're older now. Some older than others. How old are you, Raff?

I'm 40. Fuck, yeah. Are you really? 40 Club. Let's go. Hell yeah, dude. All right. Randy and I already announced it.

So they're giving you, have they done this before the age thing? Like how old you are in like music years? Maybe. I don't know how to really frame it. This is the first time they've done that. Last year they did, I think it was last year or two years ago,

they did like where your listening habits put you on the map. They didn't do that this year. Like where like they put me, I think somewhere in the Midwest. Like they put me in Ohio. So like they didn't do that this year. So I always think they do one little gimmick every year. Yeah, I'm 69.

That's smart. They should honestly, like, they probably went out of their way to give, like, a lot of people 69 because they know dumbasses like me at TC Rough on Instagram will share it. Which I did, because I'm 41. I still think that's funny. Which listening club are you a member of? Ooh, let me look that up. I believe I was a part of the grit or something like that. I'm the soft hearts club.

What? Yeah. Which 34% of people fall into this club, so it's, I'm not very unique. Sounds like 34% of people eat bachos. Yeah, look, I do like, sad, sad country, like sad boy country is, I love it. I do. It's not, not because of like, I'm sad. It's just, I just like the music.

I'm about to find out which club I belong to. This is very, you don't even know? No, I overlooked it. Oh, I'm in the Grit Collective. Is that you? Dave. He's in. Both 69?

Both Grit Collective. I think that's only 9% of people in the Grit Collective. You're not part of our 9%. I'm the leader. My listening is strongly aligned with club values making you a perfect role model

or me. I'm a loyalist. Huh. Does that mean like Poser? It says you rarely skip tracks confirming your unwavering dedication to the club. Okay.

All right. Top artist, who we got? I'm pretty proud of this one. I got Spoon. my local boys so hell yeah spoon don't know who they are they sound dope they're from austin i've heard of spoon before yeah i just they had a little mainstream success yeah i just saw them at sagebrush like a couple weeks ago yeah they did a little private like a low-key show there it was awesome oh did you get a little instagram influencer uh no i freaking got there at five p m and i

didn't go on till like 11 and i was just pounded on beers See, I love, I like that you're, you're, you're manned people, you'll go do that because like, you've got a big following. There's a lot of Instagram accounts where like, you'll find out like, oh my God, Leon Bridges is doing a secret show at fucking white white horse or whatever. And like, you're like, man, I'd love to go. You don't go because you're like, man, I'm not going to be able to get. And you look and like 90% of the crowd is like giant Instagram accounts in Austin. Yeah. And like, yeah, I'm glad I didn't go.

I'm still medium size. My top artist, Mount Joy, Josh Malloy, Redd Clay Strays, Drake, and Chris Stapleton. Stapes. That's okay. You know what? That makes perfect sense for you. Mount Joy was a heavy player earlier on in the year, but I kind of, I still love them. I feel like we discovered Mount Joy on accident one time.

It was like, man, they sure do pop up on festival, like, headlines, like often. They're so good. They really are. So. My number one's turn style. Of course. really that's why you're the leader of true grit man you know i i i i saw them in concert will and i went uh when a when a band when i go see a band i will often just

listen to that band for the next two weeks like straight through and like they're on the workout playlist and stuff so yeah so i'm actually comparing mine to last year because i looked up last year uh four of the five of mine from last year are the same it's different orders. So, like, it's clearly like these are my favorite bands. My top one from this year is Old Dominion, which is probably up there. I listened to a lot of them. You got a shirt from them. I did. I went to, I went to their concert. So the only one that fell out this year, last year, Blink was part of my top five and they fell out and got replaced by Fall Out Boy. Damn. But then again, I did get all three blink vinals that I wanted. So I've been listening

I'm onto my record player. Randy's a big vinyl guy. I love vinyl. I sold mine after too many moves. I was just hauling them around. But I might be back one day. Yeah, they are heavy. So I only have one fallout boy vinyl, but I have three blink ones.

So that's probably why they fell off. See, this is having a driving a four and a half year old around. Top. Okay, so turnstile, Childers, the minions. Sturgle Simpson, Wayland Jennings. Okay. Top songs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Just the basic one. Waylon Jennings, huh? Yeah. I think that's what got me in my old, my 69. My top album, Moment of Truth, Red Clay Strays. Most popular band at whatever that festival we went to. I think they're awesome. Crazy show.

So my artists are Old Dominion, Kenny Chesney, A Day to Remember, Def Punk, and Fall Out Boy, which were the same as last year except for Blink was in place of Fall Out Boy. And two years in a row, my number one song is one more. Time by Daft Punk, which is probably my favorite song of all time. Do you listen to it on your way into work? I listen to it often when I'm traveling. I listen to the Discovery album a lot because I like the movie that went along with it. I got to go see it in theaters last year too.

They re-released it in theaters, Interstellar 55555. It's pretty good. It's an anime movie. Nobody got any canceled artists, it sounds like. Congratulations. Is Bad Bunny canceled yet? No. He's actually playing the Super Bowl.

He's doing the Super Bowl. Well, you know. Depends which group you're talking to. I'm pretty mad about that, actually. I'm glad you brought it up. I'm fucking pissed off about that. I got to get duolingo now. Yeah, yeah.

He's laughing. Bad bunnies play the Super Bowl and he's laughing. No, it is bad bunny, right? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I actually talked to my dad about that over Thanksgiving. He doesn't know any bad bunny songs. I was like, yeah, that checks out.

You probably never going to. I don't. I just know, like, they're fun. I think they're fun. It's going to be a good performance. Did you guys see the John Hamm, like, videos of him at the Bad Bunny residency in San Juan, Puerto Rico? No. Incredible stuff.

He's just wearing, like, matching, like, a bucket hat, like matching Hawaiian short and pants, and he's just on stage. I was up front looking. Yeah, noted huge cock have her. Yeah. That's what I've heard. A large, very large penis. I've just been seeing the reels of him, like, dancing in a club that's clear, like, a music video or something. And, like, everyone's just, everyone over the age of, like, 35 is just pretending to be him.

That's all you want in life. So, wait, what happened? He went to UT for, like, a year and, like, set a pledge on fire and had a transfer? Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Cool. No, yeah.

I have a John Hand story. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I'll pull up that story by you telling your story. So I used to work at, um, I used to worry at the startup. up. I'll leave the names out. And the CEO of this company, do you guys remember where Mad Men ended? It was like the Coca-Cola meditation scene. Oh, yeah. So the CEO bought that house from the end of Mad Men. Okay. So John Hamm calls him up and he goes, hey, can I use your house for my wedding?

I'm getting married. And so now the CEO has got a new. company where they do like transcript AI transcription and editing and stuff and he says yes John Ham you can use the house for your wedding but you have to come in and do a favor for me so you had them come in remember those like old like Clippy Microsoft yeah tips get him come in

and there's now like record a bunch of like John Ham Clippy walk through like onboarding like how to use this product I know and he did Did it? He did it. And not only for, I get firsthand, uh, evidence, uh, John Ham came in and he was like, no, that take wasn't good enough.

We got to do this again. Like this has to be, he was a full professional. Good for him. And did the, the, the clipy videos. And I don't know. I just thought it was a funny story. That is. I, that's.

Yeah, I would probably not have done that. So the pledge incident took place in 1990. Yeah. Checks up. Mark Allen. Sanders, a 28-year-old pledge. He failed to recite something from the Sigma Nu, whatever, properly. Doesn't know the fucking creed?

This guy's fucking suck, man. John Hamm set his jeans on fire, shoved his face in the dirt, and struck him with a paddle. Yeah. All right. Probably didn't know the alphabet. This guy's fucking suck, dude. Worst fucking shit class.

Fucking worst class. Fucking ever. Find a way, dude. Lit his pants on fire. I can say. yikes never had my pants lit on fire well you're not a liar then oh okay hmm randy hey that's the type of comedy you're gonna get from me he's a producer but he's more than that it's producer plus it's cool to see that like i i have pretty much spotify rap like i have my favorite artists and i have two of my favorite songs that have made appearances two years in a row so like it's like all right i know what i like it's pretty cool Okay, but were there any injuries from the fire? Because if there's no injuries, like, it's kind of really funny.

It was just a narc. It's only said I got burned. Like, if he lit it on fire and then, like, immediately put it out, then, yeah, it's funny. The article I found didn't say anything about any, like, lasting injuries or anything. We should track him down, that place. You'd be like, what's up now, man? What's the story? Did you ever reach out to John and be like, hey, dude, I'm sorry I'm narct on you because you lit me on fire.

Yeah, I think he had to either drop out or. just transfer schools or something i think that was his last semester at texas went to missou is that correct i don't know there there's always the uh the rumor that will feral for other for life dealt uh like flooded the basement of ucLA delts and like made the uh the pledges like paddle like in a boat in there or something like that there's always that rumor dylan's having a lot of trouble with this couch just love seed i finally got it yeah yeah the arms are it's a cheap couch looks good on camera yeah the quarter always great it's comfortable but it's just it's cheap uh yeah spotify wrapped i'm i'm interested um you know i've never shared it to my instagram i

did share the story because 69 thought would be funny even though it's a little bit uh overdone but you know i just wanted to put it out there i'm 41 i still like to joke have fun i still do a show despite what people say. Yeah. I do get to say that three of my artists this year I got to see live in the past year. It's a brandy's year of live music. Live performances, not just live music. Even cover bands.

My top three, Old Dominion, Kane, Chesney, and a day to remember all got to see live. Pretty cool. Hmm. Okay. Well, good. If you want to share yours, email Dylan at washmedy.com and let them know, like what? What your music selection looks like. I'd love to hear it.

I did have circling back as my top listen podcast because whenever I catch up on it stuff, I always go on, uh, circling on Spotify for circling back. We forgot to do the video. We, we, we, we were going to and then we also thought like, we've got a weird thing. We had a link our, yeah, usually sometimes like, you know, I'm sure everyone out there has kind of like a little message from one of their, uh, their artists or something like that. We could have done that, but we were also fearful that, uh, it was going to completely completely break our system and how we link stuff.

Should we just do one and put it out there and people can like reshare it or or something if they want people to know? Yeah, we'll just put it on our story. Tag us on Instagram if you were, if we were yours, because definitely I know we always reshare those and maybe we'll do a little thank you on our Instagram stories. Yeah, we should we should do something, you know, for the folks at home. Imagine doing Apple music. It's a bat, dude.

You want it. My girlfriend's an Apple Music girl, and I'm going to flame her today. I just got her girlfriend's all I talk about. Yeah. Dude, I switched from Apple Music mostly just because of the rapt. I feel like I was, I had so much FOMO. Yeah. They have their own version of it, but it's so inaccurate that it's, it's pointless to even try.

It's not good. Not good at all. So you're going to stay with her despite this? Yeah, probably. That's an ideal breaker. She's a 10, but. But she has Apple Music. That's a good one.

That's a good one. Is she a Fabletics gal? I bet she is. We're a Fabletics pod. We're VIPs. We get 80% off everything. How crazy is that? So true story.

They sent us two packages already, and they were going to send us a third. And I was like, I'm loaded up on Fabletics. I have so much. So I actually pivoted and asked if they could send me female stuff for Chels. And we got it last night. And she is over the moon with this stuff. This guy's got a girlfriend, too. James came early for Chels in the form of a Fabletics package.

She won't show up about how much she loves the stuff. It's great. The fit and the feel are dialed. No waistbands rolling down joggers to actually keep their shape. Jackets that are warm without the bulk. Solves the usual issues you have with active wear while still being soft, breathable, and durable enough for workouts, travel, or everyday wear. Also helps knowing that Fabletics has built a community of over 2 million VIP members

and more than 100 retail stores, which makes me feel like I'm joining something. people already love and rely on. I told the story I walked by at the domain, the Fabletics store, and I walked in there just kind of like, what's up? I'm here. And they didn't recognize me as the podcast guy. It's a little disappointing. But I did take a look around and I just kind of nodded, being like,

yeah, I've been in on this for at least a couple months. That's the guy who does the REITs, right? Is that D-Man? Original? We're huge fans. I've got the joggers. I've got a black t-shirt that I work out. I never thought it'd be a black t-shirt workout guy, but I am.

I kind of feel like John Travolta and Greece their t-shirts are great they are great fit perfectly comfortable stretchy comfy fabletics already has amazing deals but right now they're running out their biggest sale of the year

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We could talk Billy McFarland, but I really think, you know, he's doing another thing. And it's saved for tomorrow. I feel like we haven't, we can go back to the Texas Dives well. Because I want to know, like, what's next for Texas Dives 2025? It's a very good question. And, you know, to anyone considering writing a book, self-publishing book, traditionally, publishing a book. It's a real pain in the butt. And it takes a lot of time. And I feel like whatever, however long you think it'll take, it takes like twice as long to do it. So I'm looking

forward to having some free time. But, yeah, just, you know, I, when I lived in Chicago, I used to do an underground, like, dinner club where we would visit like multiple locations in one night. And that was somewhat profitable, you know, that's maybe like bring that back. I was, I started working at another book actually. And this was going to be, and I've done a lot of travel for it already. And this one's supposed to be like the different bars that are Hemingways to hang out in. Oh, okay. Like around the world. So I go to Madrid for work sometimes. And so I've been like all over the Spain spots and Key West and Paris. I got to still do like Cuba and Michigan,

used to summer Michigan. I hit up well one time to give me a tip on the spot in Potoskey, Michigan. Okay. So, but now I'm just like so sick of books that, you know, I don't know. I got to do something else. have you thought about maybe doing like dive bars Oklahoma yeah absolutely not like i'm never doing this again this is crazy uh something something else maybe you know i like maybe like diners would be like more interesting fun like the same thing with all die bars are closing you know

we haven't like really brought these up and some people have different opinions on this but I absolutely think that they are diminishing over time. My main thing is, like, tell me the last time a new bar opened in, you know, it happens in like rural areas sometimes, but like in Austin where the bar didn't have like a curated interior, a cocktail menu and like an extensive food menu. It just doesn't happen anymore. The people's tastes have changed. The people who manage these bars understand that they can get a little bit more revenue out of the cocktails and, you know, bring more people in with the food.

And we kind of also have had this resurrection a little bit of like the bar that looks like a dive bar, but it's in a dive bar. I kind of like call this the throwback bar. Like Frazier. Like Frasers, like Busties, Golden Horn, Mama Dearest. I don't know if y'all but basically you walk in and they do have they do have cheap beer

and shot specials which I like and I like all these bars and like I'll absolutely go to these bars but they will also have you know a curated interior where like they hired a designer to get the old vintage neon signs

and make it look like a vintage place and they'll also have like a cocktail menu so John Taffer effect yeah don't say that around Brett. I don't like that guy. So, they're just Brett. Yeah, all that brought quite famously. Oh, really? Yeah, back at Barstool. It's on video. It's pretty, it's pretty brutal to watch.

Yeah. We should watch it later. For those curious, it is available on Amazon. It's called Texas Dive Bar Encyclopedia. Yeah, someone in the chat was asking, what is the best way for them to buy that you see the biggest cut? Is Amazon the best way to go about that? Amazon's the only way we right now. I am working on some like local store distribution. I'm just, uh, I do everything myself. So it's like one step out of time. And I just wanted to get the Amazon out before the holidays. So just for now, Amazon's great. And then come next year, they'll be bouncing around some local stores and stuff like that. So. And is that linked here in your bio at Texas Dives? Yep. LinkedIn bio. And if you want, uh, to send me any angry tirades or, uh,

argue about dive bar stuff, hit me up in those DMs too. I'm happy to argue with anyone. Or if you want to bribe him. Or bribe me too, please. I found it, we talked about this earlier, really interesting that your journey kind of started at Dry Creek Cafe, which is it's not open anymore. But I went there a long time ago.

It's an Austin place. And I found out about it because I was a Texas country fan and there's a song by Owen Temple about the bar and with my friends we listen to it like that's a cool song i wonder where this place is we looked up and went there um and so yeah i've been there and it's it's a really cool place um like a mean old lady was like the owner and you you couldn't if you bought a uh a long neck glass bottle and you couldn't get another one until you brought that bottle back to the bar you had to like swap them out um but yeah it just it was like it's such a throwback to find out that that's where you started your journey

pretty cool i mean as you know that place is just so unique and to its day i just remember that place it's absolutely lit i mean something out of a movie like you in those places are like that place is like so special like it's you're never going to recreate that place again like even if you tried so um yeah that's kind of the closing of that place kind of got me started thinking about this project and you know I recommend when I travel like go on vacation or whatever like I like nice places too I'll go to the natural wine bar that's you know I'll have some orange wine that stuff great but I always advocate you have to go to some like local corner hole in the wall kind of place because we've just become so much more globalized when you go on vacation to

San Francisco or Mexico City or Paris, like the new cool places, they're getting more similar. Like they're all kind of like designed. They're all curated. And that's why you got to branch out and go to your like local dive bar, local pub, whatever, just to get like some of the local flavor history, not curation and have that like authentic experience. So I think that's like one thing that I hope that people take away from, you know, this book and just like my page in general is just like go branch out like you don't have to go to the hot

new spot every time like go to your local neighborhood place and see what the regulars are arguing about you know smoking sigs and um telling dirty jokes you know yeah maybe go meet up uh with some random people at like 10 a m yeah do your own drinking club you know randy go randy loves going to coffee and beats you do no No, no, but Jay Bone did send that to me saying that we need to talk about that. I'm so out on that. The cold plunge thing was different. That was in the park and it was a DJ in preparation of us going to ACL.

I find that that is completely different than these. It's okay. Whatever you're into, man. Coffee disco things. The coffee stuff, I keep getting sent to it. And I'm like, oh, you know what? Fine. I like, I just go right to the comments.

And it's just a lot of Austin hate. Yeah. I don't need to get up at 10 and go to a coffee shop and listen to EDM and dance completely sober before I go to work. But you do need to go to what bar did you do that at, the 10 a.m. meetup? We did it at the Lazarus Brewery on the East East Sixth Side. Yeah. Didn't know this when I started looking. Not that many places open at 7.8 a.m. in Austin.

Sadly. Times are changing. The times are changing. Where are all the third shift steelworkers going, right? And I'm not here. I'm not trying to hate on the run clubs, the cold plunges, the coffee and beats, and the scream clubs. You do, you. Like, more events is great.

I support all the events. I'm just saying we just need more dirt bag events, too. You know, like, let's, like, have some dirt bag events for the morning drinkers for the, you know, like a crazy parade. Like, we need like a crazy parade that's like not sanctioned in Austin. Like, why don't we like, I'm talking about like, you know, like Santa Con in Portland or Chicago is this thing called Chiditarat where people race shopping carts around town. I did not know about Dylan. Dylan loves the Costco shopping cart. It's great for riding in the parking lot.

There you go. being heavy rides true yeah when i did uh the same patty's day like bar crawl in chicago it's like the only time i've ever seen a complete city be drunk it's insane everyone was just hammered at like 10 o'clock yeah and if that if that weather takes up above 50ish for the day it's over there's a great article i forgot who used to do it but they used to do a daily an annual rundown someone would just listen to the police radio all day and it would just be like the craziest drunk arrests by Chicago cops on St. Patrick's stage, people climbing telephone poles and all that kind of stuff.

Great read. Yeah. Yeah. After we were done with like the bar crawl, we just posted up at the Chicago River, middle of downtown, and there's multiple people with just like cases of beer just sitting on the timeline. All right, guys, cops don't care. It's the way it should be.

That's awesome. Next, next one, we'll link. We'll link. You need to run it back. I'll run it back. I think there's. And it was like totally fun and chill. And we did some networking too.

So, you know, I met this guy who builds telescopes, like the gigantic telescopes. And he was working out by the Marfa McDonald Observatory for some time. And now he's in Chile. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen, I saw something about that. I know the one in Chile or whatever. Chile, yeah. Dave's going to try and get in telescopes.

Don't you have like a- I wanted to get into. You have like a neighbor that has a big telescope, right? I've got an acquaintance who's a telescope guy and gal, his wife. Dylan, Dylan's family ranch. They've got, he was the form, what was it? It was like a space observatory because it's in a very dark part of the state. There's nothing close to it at all.

And yet, you see owned by the University of Texas, and there's a big concrete platform on the top of this hill where our house is. And they used to, yeah, Mount Telescope's up there. Pretty sick. northwest alano okay well raff from texas dives we'll give you the final word thank you for having me on uh it was a pleasure as always uh glad to be here with the hottest man on earth as always and you know check out my book available on amazon dot com check out my instagram and uh give your local dive bar a chance well said thank you raff we appreciate you on Instagram. Check out the book. It's cool. It looks awesome. I'm going to get one. I'm going

to get a couple for some friends, too. Ralph, thank you. We'll see y'all tomorrow morning. Bye-bye. Bye. Thank you. Thank you.