Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - *PREVIEW* Lions Led By Robots 18: Beasting It

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

For this month's LLBR, Joe and Tom reconvene to discuss episode 2 of Neon Genesis Evangelion ("The Beast"). It's an episode that speaks to our respective early-teen years of listening to terrible music on headphones and being depressed. Some of us have not stopped doing this and that's okay too. Cover art by Unzealous Get the whole episode on Patreon here! https://www.patreon.com/posts/lions-led-by-18-136876215 Our merch store is open here: www.llbdpodcast.com

Yeah, and speaking of talking about things for 20 minutes, before we start talking about Evangillion, we do a thing here called the Rich Piano Memorial Wellness Corner. I mean, it's cardio done, God damn it, now I'm eating this breakfast. Wine all day, white. The pepper, cheese, and salsa, no nothing. Got to be out with you. It tastes like shit.

Like fucking shit. Like fucking shit. But you know, there's two things that this segment and Evangillion have in common. And that is every time I watch an episode of Evangillion, I always watch the intro. And every time we do the Rich Piano Memorial Wellness Corner, I always fucking laugh at the intro. We've been doing it for so long now. It's so stupid. like it's one of the stupidest things I've

this and the ass dot gifah are probably the stupidest things I've ever made for this show it makes me happy so for my wellness corner this month I have a few things some people remember that I got into Warhammer 40K miniatures I still am

I am now painting them fun fact I suck at painting I am really really bad at painting but that's not what I'm doing it for I went into this knowing I would be dog shit painting. I have very shaky hands due to nerve damage. So like, doing anything within the lines is just so far beyond my capability. But it's so much fun. I mean, when your hands are the

size of a broad side of a barn, I could imagine you lacked a dexterous skill to paint small man. Yeah, yeah. And like, even if they weren't shaking, I'd have a really hard time. But I'm almost done. It's still, like, I'm having a fucking blast. I look forward to playing my first game. And, oh, Gundam update in today's wellness corner. A Gundam trading card game

has been released, thanks to the Discord for telling you that. And I have gotten in on like a release event here in the Hague that is a story called Tabletop Kingdom. I'm doing it this weekend.

So by the time you're listening to this, I've already gone. I don't know if it's good or not. I will assure you, though, I've lost every game that I've played. But I will let everybody know how that went next month.

I really hope that someone recognizes you not for this podcast are the plethora of books that you have written, but for, oh, that's the G Gundam podcast guy. I hope so. That would make me so happy. Like, there is guaranteed to be at least one person there who will recognize you. I don't know. I'm not entirely sure. I will find out. I will let everybody know how this goes on our next episode of robots because I'm going on Saturday. So by the time I listen to this, it has already happened. But yeah, thanks to Tabletop Kingdom in the Hague for squeezing me in there, even though it was full. But what have you, what do you have for our wellness corner today?

Well, ironically, part of I'm going to be talking a lot about mental health in the actual body of the episode while talking about I'm going to say that I have been very busy and very stressed so I have not been in my own wellness corner but my house is slowly depleting of books they're all slowly slowly being sold and shipped out

I haven't been able to go to the gym only sporadically because of various different reasons But in the most important wellness corner moment, every week after I go to therapy, I get myself a ban me from a very specific bond me place. And I go there so often that one of the guys who works there has started giving me free iced coffees. Unfortunately, last week, when I went to go get one, they are on holidays until September. So either I kill myself before September or I have to find a different ban me spot. you can't take your butt of the suicide bond me

that's what they tried to give Shankai Shack Yeah exactly My gym progress has been interesting Because I've been traveling a lot For work Obviously to UK Got to hang out with you again Which is wonderful

Got to record a lovely podcast series Bubos maxing Yeah we're always Bubomaxing But that also means I end up in a lot of weird gyms And the one that I ended up this time

Was in a very bougie part of town despite the fact that I was staying in a travelage because of course I was. You save money on your accommodation and literally nothing else. It's so fun. If travelage had some kind of reward system,

I would be a lifetime like gratis client. Also, I managed to, because before we did a live show in that same area, I got a travel lodge, right? Had AC and nothing else. It's a travelage. You get a bed and possibly a working bathroom.

in my experience, it could go either way on that one. I thought the same one was booked. But in that particular part of London, there are two travel lodges literally 100 meters from one another. And I booked a different one. This one did not have air conditioning when it was like 37 degrees in London, which was very unpleasant. But I got a local gym that had a very reasonable drop-in fee.

And it was advertised as like a bodybuilding gym, which is what I. use, you know? And not that I do bodybuilding, you're never going to catch me on a stage. But like, you know what I mean? It has a bench press, a squire, has dumbbells, has a couple of machines. It's all you need. A normal gym. However, what I got, Tom, was

not a normal gym. It was a normal gym created by a CrossFit guy. And I know that because it was connected to a CrossFit gym. And if there's one thing about CrossFit people, I'm not here to shit on CrossFit. Y'all have fun. I don't care. Do what makes you happy.

But it would be like if I tried to start a CrossFit gym or, I don't know, a gym for gymnastics. I don't know what the fuck you need in there and they don't know what the fuck I need in here. So what I had instead of like a bodybuilding gym

was an entire room of squat racks, some very oddly weighted kettlebells, none of which matched a dumbbell rack that I would compare to, you get in a normal hotel gym, like went up to like 25 kilos, a very

random selection of machines and the strangest cable machine I have ever seen in my life. And I don't know what company was from. It doesn't stick in my mind. But I knew something was wrong with it. Like, look, I understand that I've been training a long time. I'm decently strong. I'm not going to stand here and say I'm Brian fucking Shaw, right? There is no reason that I should set a cable machine to 80 kilos to have to do curls.

like something is wrong with your machine and you know how it was I definitely know it was created by a crossfit dude who'd never use that shit

they had free chalk available no fucking gym does that other than CrossFit gyms it was terrible I straight up could only do

half of my leg day and the people at work there were incredibly rude the only gyms that have free chalk are CrossFit gyms and power lifting

gyms but you can't really just walk into a power lifting gym but on the crossfit thing we've all moved on from hating CrossFit, I still dislike CrossFit as a concept onto making fun of high rocks, because High Rocks is just like adult version of school sports day for people who work in accounts. Like, I think it's not for me, but if that's what gets people to start

working out and having fun, I'm fine with it. Also, it, you know, I think having more specialized fitness spaces is a good thing because not every gym is good for everything. Like, we've often said, like, we hate running into Crossfitters in our normal gym. because our gyms are not built for that. It's like if a power lifter went to my gym, they could kind of use it, but also it's not for them. And I love my power

lifters. You guys fucking rule, but like, you need your own place. Yeah. And I think as these fads like solidify into more of a program, because some of these things die off over time, but some have staying power. CrossFit, has staying power, even though it looks like nothing

like it did 20 years ago. but the fact that they have their own spaces means that like us in the normal gym have less people doing weird pull-ups and the world's worst power cleans to contend with like you guys can have fun in your own spaces doing the Marjorie Taylor Green pull-up routine

shout out to the physio that you have on retainer but hey if that's what gets it like who am I to fucking judge doing unsafe shit I get kicked in the head for a hobby like do what makes it happen literally same but speaking of appropriate places to you know safely build your body we also have

another safe space for bodybuilders that we're going to talk about that I spot them on Twitter this morning so I would like to thank Tom for this because he sends me screenshots with the most cursed shit imaginable just without any context at all normally I don't look into them because they're not at all connected to anything I'm doing with my day but this time since we're sitting down to record today

he sends me a screenshot of a Facebook group called Bodybuilders Against Tipping. I thought this was like the weird British version of Tipping or something to do with dumping trash, which is, again, would be a very strange concept. But today, it's again, it's bodybuilders who are specifically against tipping weight staff. And neither of us have a Facebook account anymore. So we actually had to delve into the lines of by Donkey's staff and have our producer, or Annie look and do it for us because she's the only one we know

with a Facebook account still