Podcast: The Ride - The CityWalk Saga - Sector 14

Episode Date: September 27, 2018

The CityWalk Saga - Sector 14 consists of: Blaze Pizza Starbucks Hard Rock Cafe Samba Brazilian Steakhouse Plus, Vivo Italian Kitchen Update! Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/ FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

FOREVER! DOG! When your town has let you down When your porch has fallen short When you're too worn out to run And need some ribs or a Cinnabon You need a place, a need a place A place for rock A place for roll

A place where Oakland Raiders Merch is sold A sublime hot topic And billabong A place where you can purchase A candy thong So let's go take a walk Let's all go to CityWalk.

Tonight. Podcast The Ride presents the CityWalk Saga, a daily 19 part, extremely necessary series exploring the stores, restaurants, and wonderful magic that make up universal city walk hollywood podcast the ride city walk saga sector 14 all right we got no time to waste we got no time to introduce ourselves sector keeper where are we going today boys boys today's sector is sector 14

blaze pizza starbucks hard rock cafe please don't discuss the retail store Samba Brazilian Steakhouse Good luck, boy! Okay, you heard the man. Blaze Pizza, let's go. Alright, Blaze Pizza. It's kind of boring, right? I got nothing and I didn't go. So it's up to someone else to carry the banner here. Do you think it's boring?

You look like you have a sly smile on your face and you want to slow the pace of this way down. I do. Sorry, I'm coming in hot. It's not that I'm upset. It do. Sorry, I'm coming in hot. You are coming in hot. It's not that I'm upset. It's not that I'm having a bad time.

It's just day 14. We've been at it for a while. I see the light at the end of the tunnel and I want to keep heading to the light. I'm willing to meet Scott halfway with my speed,

I think, and Jason, I think, is willing to meet us at his own pace. That's right, Michael. Look, that's what people like for me. That's what they want

i think people would be interested in my normal bullshit people would be interested in you at a peppy rate i think i'm reasonably peppy really all right okay so i went to the blaze pizza i had never been to the blaze pizza before at this location or any of them i tend to like this to make your own pizza like this flash fire pizza uh trend i like pizza rev i like pizza press somebody pointed out to me though what's when they say make your own pizza it's everything's make your own pizza every place is make your own pizza but okay that's not my own job right you point to the ingredients basically as you're as they're making the pie and then they put it in you don't get to to have that at Pizza Hut. You just call and tell them and they do all that magic behind the scenes.

Yes. So, that's correct. That's the difference between like a Blaze and... So, you can also say a little extra this or a little less of this or you drop the band-aid onto my slice. Please take it off. So, I went to the one at CityWalk before we were going to see a movie. And I tried.

So I tried the designer pizza. I got sausage, pepperoni, a little bit of basil and ricotta cheese. Ricotta cheese, you're not really supposed to use a lot of. Like that's first off, that's an expensive ingredient. Second off, like a little bit of ricotta cheese goes a long way they put so much ricotta on my pizza i very quickly did not get any bite that wasn't mostly ricotta can i ask a question why do you not put lots of ricotta on just because it's it's just kind of an overpower it's's kind of like... I had it before. I just don't know what you're talking about.

It's a very mild cheese. And it also usually doesn't have a lot of tang or a lot of flavor to it. So you're saying it takes up too much space for not having a lot of qualities in and of itself. It's not too spicy. It's just boring. It's boring. And when you put it on a pizza you like usually you make it in the shape of like a little ball and then as it cooks it kind of flattens out

into like circles or ovals so there'll be like one ricotta ball per slice is what i like if you see a picture okay and then it just melted down to till it was mostly ricotta and like i couldn't even taste the rest so i was just kind of a bummer so i guess that was i guess i should have said that's enough at some point but he was just like putting on what he normally did you know the ricotta was going to be a problem as you were watching no i didn't because i i get it all the time at these flash fire places and it's usually not an issue cheese on the pizza all the time cheese on a pizza is great ricotta and sausage okay i i just i truly don't know that combination i've had ricotta cheese before and i never started to think twice because it's not you see it in stuffed shells it's uh right right right main thing that uh and this will come up later uh one of the main things

that separates a stromboli from a calzone calzones have ricotta cheese strombolis have mozzarella um one more time i didn't know that yeah one more time uh calzones have uh uh mozzarella mozzarella how do you say it yes strombolis have mozzarella cheese oh strombolis have that and then uh calzones can have mozzarella cheese but usually the main cheese you're getting is that con is that is that pinocchio character stromboli named after that meal no i think the stromboli uh which i learned today originates in philadelphia um uh uh it's named after that or you're very proud of that i think i was i didn't realize it either it's very popular pizza places is the flat is the philadelphia flag of stromboli um no i mean it's going to be a cheesesteak let's be real yeah you're right fair

enough but the and the and but the animal is a cheesesteak with legs and a snout uh and it's and it has uh a stromboli a stromboli and a little side of scrapple okay we mentioned it earlier scrapples back so uh the other thing with blaze i mean it always seems to have a crowd like it seems to be a big crowd pleaser with families when i walk by uh when i was there like in the the late afternoon early evening the restaurant had kind of looked like it had been a in a fight like and i feel like a few city walked like it's a little it looks a little dinged up like a chuckie cheese or something like there's like a lot of action has been seen there yeah so i think it was probably a busy day and they hadn't there the

dinner rush hadn't started yet so it was a little i find the i find the blaze pizza and i haven't been a ton i've been like once or twice and and i find this so kind of boring i find these places boring like with chipotle even there's something specific about the taste of chipotle that i like and i like the bowl i like the burrito even there's a place called kadoba that like there's there's like specific stuff where i go oh that's the taste i like from that place oh that's true it's not just that they create a burrito uh for you on this yeah there's yeah you you they've developed their own brand uh right the stuff that you're after and like even garbage pizza like pizza hut or domino's i can imagine the taste in my head it's maybe not necessarily the best ingredients but it is more specific than this blaze than the two the couple

times i've had blaze like but it's just nothing i feel like it's nothing this was even i found it more boring than the other kinds of pizza places in this sort of sure there's no this is what i'm saying blaze has no identity there's no taste there's no i don't know why these places are expanding it's got a flame as the logo that's pretty strong branding wouldn't you say i well i guess that's uh i'm trying to think of another pizza place with a flame in the logo i guess that might be the only one i think it's hopping on like the fast casual trend you know that chipotle sort of but i think you're right with this entire genre i actually do i find like the logo boring i find the brand boring all these pizza there's

nothing specific about this and especially it has no identity because it's letting average customers choose ingredients which as i've said on the about yogurt land i don't like the the you tell me what's good you give me your special recipe that's not how i feel about yogurt land because i think it's a novelty to get to put gummy worms next to rocky road and maybe it doesn't make sense but it's weird that is pizza though your primary meal yeah i am with you i would rather somebody who knows what they're doing create a flavor combo because if you design design it quote unquote if you put ask for too many toppings it's going to be too much moisture and it's gonna it's gonna lead to a soggy pizza yeah that's true you could easily you can easily fuck it up design your own burgers also can lead

to chaos yeah i've had some real bad uh times at the counter yeah i don't like that place either no that's too much like it seems fun it seems fun to mark down on a checklist what you want but ultimately it's not rewarding and it's not going to give you something memorable in the way that buffets also are kind of more fun to imagine than they are in practice and you almost a lot of the time maybe most of the time would rather just pick a good breakfast item it was 90 of the time because you then you have to make like 90 items that are all memorable as opposed to just like having 15 menu items that are all good. So I had a very different experience. Can I do this

now? This update? Did you get special permission from the sector keeper? The sector keeper gave me permission to cover this breaking news. He gave you the stone of permission. He gave me the stone of permission. Show us the stone of permission. It

also looks like a city walk Gold parking Sounds like you're making it up Okay, I'm making it up I don't have the stone of permission But he said I had permission If you can get him to produce it when he's around And at least let you hold it for a second

Then I believe. Okay. Anyway, what you're getting at, what I'm getting at is I went to the newly opened Vivo Italian kitchen, which technically should have been part of sector two, uh, nine weeks ago, whenever that was.

And we've just referred to it back then as future Italian restaurant. We didn't know it was going to happen. As you know, there's also been some chicanery with Camacho's closing. look this whole thing has has been in flux i feel like we're in a newsroom in the trump era where facts are changing all the time but we got to go we got to go to air it's 5 p.m yeah it's 5 p.m and we got to go on sure yeah and what do you got to respond to changes as we go so um you know yeah the the shop cycle uh moves much faster today than it ever used to so what what can you tell us about

vipo so i i wanted to bring this up in this sector because this was like kind of the opposite of my disappointment at blaze i was delighted by vipo really uh i thought it looked it looks very nice inside again it's brand new um but i had great service uh uh i went like for a late lunch i went to go do some work up there because i've discovered recently the wi-fi is very good uh that free wi-fi where you're the xfinity wi-fi the xfinity wi-fi is there a password on that thing No no It says you put your Email in I believe Right You put your email In and my phone

Like reconnects Every time I go up There it's like Yeah So does mine Yeah You're not on the Wifi at CityWalk

No I didn't know I didn't know About this Xfinity Thing And also it works At other Xfinity Hotspots

My phone connects At Dunkin Donuts That's new Now they don't Send you like Spam emails That get in the way of important emails from places like francesca's do they no no i don't uh uh well if they do i've probably already signed

up for most universal mailing lists uh so i haven't put the show account but look i look forward to those francesca emails every day this was a twitter thing having a little fun having a little fun on twitter this this yeah this came up on twitter and not on the podcast but you pointed out that we have our show account because i ordered a nine dollar shot glass that we've gotten emails from francesca's every single day yeah it's like getting emails from a lover who is off at war i guess it's like that it's just like that but there's also great deals you don't find the daily nature of it comforting the way that the city walk saga has been a comforting first thing in

the morning arrival in everyone's podcast inbox you know i some days i do some days i don't you're not having francesca some days love isn't always easy there are ups and downs there are ups and downs you got to work at it okay so francesca's um i uh yeah i went for a late lunch uh there were people sitting on the patio it was uh 89 degrees out so i opted to sit inside had the whole restaurant to myself wow uh they started me off with this lovely little a kind of crusty sourdough roll, which I ate about half of. Well, yeah, I was going to say, what do we got size-wise on that? Softball? Yeah, I'd say softball.

Wow. And some dipping olive oil. Delicious. Dipping oil. I ordered this. This is what I would say. So I ordered, essentially, it was a stromboli. They just call it stuffed bread.

Italian salami, pepperoni, sharp provolone, arugula, roasted red peppers wrapped in pizza dough. Again, more delicious fresh bread. It came in this little, darling little shape. The arugula and the balsamic just kind of drizzled on top. How would you describe that shape? It's kind of a volcano. I was going to say volcano is how I would describe it. A bunch of arugula

exploding out of it. They're kind of like a square with like a raised X. The arugula was just kind of like draped on top. So I ate that off and then cut it in half. It's like a temple.

It's like a little Indiana Jones temple kind of thing going on there. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's beautiful. It was beautiful. I got a little marinara on the side

and it was delicious. was really good the the cheese and the meats and the peppers and onions very good um i could easily see you know uh getting inside a temple like that in half or in fours and sharing it with the table um should we should mike and i go up there and put vivo in serious contention i feel like anytime i find a restaurant or something i really like and really enjoy and i tell people oh you should try this they're always like yeah it's fine uh so i don't want to get people's hopes up for my taste i think this might be easily the best food i've eaten at city walk oh my gosh is rather low so i think by being passable i think a b to b plus range restaurant is is maybe gonna sneak in i think an 86 percent

is is probably the best you're getting up there i mean i i thought it was very good i they seem to really be pushing like oh they make the dough you know they make a lot of the stuff fresh um uh although look a few days prior to this i was up there for uh different events which we will discuss on a future episode um uh after this is over um uh and i had a lovely sandwich at ludo and i know you weren't super fond of Ludo. I wouldn't call it lovely by any stretch of the imagination. It was a messy sandwich at Ludo, whether you like it or not. So, yeah, I don't know. But, yeah, I liked Vivo a lot.

The design was good. They were playing lots of Italian music. Sometimes, like, you know. You mean like Lady and the Tramp music? Sometimes Lady and the Tramp music. And then, like, sometimes it'd be italian like techno or house music oh wow was very a very funny switch but it seemed like they had a uh stocked bar and yeah lots of pizza pasta meats um i was into it i wish i had footage of you in

an empty restaurant eating uh while the lady in the tramp song was playing pounding water because because it's 89 degrees and sunny uh yeah um you know i don't want to go out of order but since you said empty restaurant this might be my end to start talking about samba brazilian steakhouse uh which i went to at uh two in the afternoon uh recently and i was in fact the only person in the restaurant uh i well not i mean that and the people that i went with our friend andrew grissom and another uh friend of the podcast buzz buzz and speaking of buzz buzz there were also a lot of flies uh running around the restaurant unrelated to the patio or inside literal and figurative bugs uh no inside ah um i'll post some photos on the twitter of what the uh full uh breadth of the restaurant looked like with with basically just me inside so you know that that's what that i will set the

stage there that i walked into an almost empty restaurant um the uh the the the hostess slash waitress who who was uh lovely wonderful uh gave us a great time clearly like very bored because nobody was going in there and kind of like hung out and talked with us for a while and rightfully so uh i think there was nothing else uh before to do uh but i think she told us we were the third customers of the day and in fact they fired up the rotating meat skillets or whatever what do you call it the uh the giant shish kebab the rotating yeah what's that actual term the spit yeah i would say a spit unless it's like the shaped kind of like like the shawarma like there was a lot of stuff all in that range but there was just nothing going when we walked in and they turned it all on for us uh which I felt guilty about the entire thing.

I think we could have given the staff the afternoon off had we not walked in. I think they were having a real easy time. I went at 5 p.m. and sat on the patio for happy hour and had the similar experience of no one else is here. The difference between this CityW stuff and like downtown disney for instance is city walk is almost a ghost town in the day all these rest like a lot of these restaurants are empty where'd you go like when business districts peak in cities like lunch

uh but i'm saying you guys like lunch and dinner i guess uh although some cities like downtown clears out but you're right downtown disney there's there's never a time of the day where it's not packed right people are like excited to go to downtown and i'm maybe not excited but they're like willing to just go to all the restaurants at any time of day there's always more than 10 people at the uh what's the bar in the middle your favorite bar uva the uva bar yes um as opposed to yeah when we we kept walking uh into different sectors apologies to the sector keeper but uh yeah we like passing by that center area with the five towers stages which we'll talk about and also and then the big like screen playing weird

local music videos and whatever there's just no one there yeah it is such an empty space with nothing to distract from that it is a big empty space and no one there at three in the afternoon that's not such a bizarre no time because you would think people would be going like well let's just have a break from the theme park because it's also close like it's very close it's not they try to make it act like like like it's a very far walk it's not it's like seven minutes to walk back to there you're in the theme park and you've gone all the way down all the escalators and you're in i mean that's like miles to get from that's all the way from the end from the transformers ride up to samba brazil that is an hour and a half walk yeah yeah yeah it's very It's very exhausting.

So maybe that is what it is. In terms of workout for a week. But I guess what maybe is odd is, now while two o'clock is not a strange time for lunch, it maybe is a strange time for an all-you-can-eat Brazilian meat buffet. That's how it works. It's similar concept to fogo de chow

probably a more popular iteration of this um you you walk in it's just it's a 25 flat rate there's a big lineup of cold salads and rice and uh uh you know and different amenities to go along with your meats. But then you just, meat keeps coming and coming and coming, and you've got a weird little rod thing that you have to either make green if you want meat to keep flowing, and red if you want meat to stop going. It's similar to the sign system at bubba gump just down the road so several places at city walk with a stoplight system but i guess i can understand i this it seems like the kind of thing to be a lot more fun for dinner pretty odd to be

just a couple of guys having a quiet lunch that entails people a guy the same guy going back and forth with swords over and over again yeah because that if it's empty that takes away part of the allure of just like people wandering around with the swords and do you want some of this do you want that you feel like you're at a party yeah the hors d'oeuvres and they're just flowing and like oh i couldn't possibly oh i guess i will if everyone else is but yeah being in there alone pretty odd one guy do it just doing runs like it's very yeah one sword wielding man who is making the food and then bringing you the food and also we all only took just one piece of meat every time and we were still you know totally stuffed and probably a little sick

by the end of it how many different types of meat um i think we i think lunchtime you get six okay i think we had all six and i should have remembered all of the types uh but i don't know you know the types of meat it's pork and it's sausage because Because this is too many to name. It's too many. There is one in Burbank that does it by the pound. I think that's a good way to do it, where it's like you... Dinner by the pound is kind of creepy to me. No, I don't love it. We've been at two different Brazilian steak houses together.

Well, right. We were in Vegas for a bachelor party, and you almost fell out of your chair when you saw how much it cost. It's a lot of money, and it's's like a buffet it's a glorified but it's a buffet with a little more of an experience on it yeah that one had like 12 different meats or something that was crazy that had so many and i was it was like 60 i think at night you're getting more meats i would recommend i you know look i i had a good time i really i really shot him in the leg talking about emptiness and flies.

But the food was very good. Hostess was fantastic. Great service. The drinks were great. What do you call it? The caipirinha. Caipirinha. Did you guys have those?

Yes. Delicious. Those were excellent, I thought. Wonderful. Yes. Made with a... so that is like a it's a relative of sangria but it's made with brazilian it's a rum rum liquor made with sugar cane cachaca yeah i looked up the pronunciation chassa guide cachaca and that was delicious yeah

legitimately very good drinks i think if you're talking kind of off the beaten path drinks at CityWalk, you probably can't go wrong with Caipirinhas. So I have a lot of good things to say about this. And I believe on the weekends they have samba dancers and that kind of thing.

And they also said it's a great place to have a quinceanera. Should either of you guys be in the market to do so maybe one day um we wanted they were gonna let us tour the second floor but that was right when the health inspector was oh really yeah we got to see the city walk health inspector wow and you didn't get an exclusive with him for the show oh god i'm sorry that would have been a score and said uh i missed the ultimate i should have i should have just barged in i should have had a microphone with me or my iphone uh voice memo just shoved in his face i want answers what the hell happened to camacho's what did they do

also put him on the spot about um how would you feel if you saw a bunch of boba and orange slices and fruity pebbles clogging a toilet? Would you wish that that person had dumped it out into a planter or was the right move made? I would have asked him about, I would have tried to get

Johnny Rockets in trouble when Jason was talking about how wet his burger was. Ah, you're right. And how wet the ketchup was. He should have really, he should know about that to investigate. Because this is all stuff that he probably missed him. I feel like over all these episodes,

we have perhaps a lot of health complaints. Maybe we all together, maybe we file our first podcast lawsuit against the CityWalk organization. Yeah, three counts is a class, doesn't it? Yeah, is he sure? I think. But yeah, Caipirinha. Yeah i think um yeah okay varina was fine uh but i should have had words with that that health inspector and uh

and he i think he could have easily paid me off with um uh you know a picture of capirina half off at a happy hour oh they're happy hours like the kaiperinas i also had a bunch of brazilian beers i've never heard of that look very good um and i think i was there a crowd came up and said the bartender oh we're gonna take a table and they said and they asked you do kaiperinas and the bartender's like yeah they're like oh great we're from brazil oh so stakes are high very curious to hear their opinion because i thought it was delicious And the bartender's like, yeah. They're like, oh, great. We're from Brazil. Oh. Stakes are high. So we'll be very curious to hear their opinion.

Because I thought it was delicious and refreshing. They didn't shout their opinions? No, they didn't. They didn't yell good or very bad? No. OK. On the website, it does not list the actual price of the buffet. Because I assume the price goes up at dinner. It does.

25 for lunch is what I think. 25 for lunch. Do you know what it is for like 40 or something at dinner probably uh yeah that this is very similar to the disney world meal ohana if you've ever had that at the polynesian okay um but that only is like three or four meats um i'm looking here just i if you guys maybe this happened to jason uh you can add a half pound of extra large prawns to your meal but that's premium that's a premium it doesn't say how much that is either but there's the all you can eat brazilian barbecue and then it and it also doesn't specify what meats so the meats must be changed up as well

and then i think there are seasonal meats yes i think they claim that okay uh so probably ones for christmas uh sausages with red and green flakes inside. Uh-huh. Reindeer. Very prevalent in Brazil. Very popular there. Valentine's Day, it's like the hearts of animals. It's just mostly heart.

In St. Patrick's Day, they're all miniature. It's all leprechaun-sized meat pieces. Of course. From tiny cows. And you can get a big kid's meal, whichchaun-sized meat pieces. Of course. From tiny cows. And you can get a big kid's meal, which is all you can eat for six to 12. Hmm. Six to 12-year-olds. Jason's smiling.

Jason's remembering where he put his little beanie hat. His beanie with the spinner. With the propeller on. The old kid's meal grift that you pull out once in a while. Yeah. Well, just remember where you put your razor as well. Get rid of that beard sure yeah that's true now you're talking um so i don't know i don't have a lot like funny to say about this place uh i think what i will say is i think they need to offer

some kind of perhaps small lunch item uh option uh because just just having buffet available i think probably turns a lot of people off my other complaint is that on the outside of it there's a little path that leads to nowhere um it and i think we saw people go into the path and then look confused and then leave this happened to me yeah you went down the path i well i i sat on the patio outside that was what i was gonna yeah i wasn't sure how to get out oh because the bar is two-sided so the inside bar they go through a doorway and it becomes the outside bar and there's just like a pane of glass dividing it and this is some real this is some inception shit yeah and and i went through the door to go outside and i had to i thought it was like i was leaving the rest and they're like

oh no just go right for the patio but the patio is it is kind of fun because you can watch um soccer on the screen while you hear the music from jimmy buffett it's from margaritaville directly behind you bleed going on bleed bleed central the caipirinha it sat very very well and very light with that uh vivo italian kitchen meal that heavy meal was a very nice refreshing light drink you know the caipirinha also put me in the mood for some entertainment and i bring this up this is you know far from the sector that we're also put me in the mood for some entertainment and i bring this up this is you know far from the sector that we're talking about apologies to the sector keeper but i feel more comfortable talking about this because he's not here uh and you've got the permissions he'll give me the permission stone permissions also this is so chill this is adjacent yeah sure yes

uh uh this is a jason rounded by did you say this is adjacent oh well wait wait wait well actually i'm not talking about the stages what i'm talking about is that during my time up there uh uh with our friend buzz buzz we ran uh with bellies full of caipirinha uh we ran into for the first time since we started going up there a television taping uh at city walk now this happens a lot they i think we talked a little about how they film extra with mario lopez up there but this was a different show and we had to stand around for a minute to tell what it was but it was the show street smarts street smarts was a syndicated man on the street type show kind of a cousin of jaywalking the jay leno jaywalking bit uh where

he how dumb uh random people are uh their their dumbness is put on display uh so we ran into just a real like a big field of of lights and flags and bounce boards it was it was very bright it was like a mirage and we realized it was for a tv taping and we stood and we watched it for a minute this show where uh regular people are harassed for not having information and we walked up right as the host of the show who is okay so first i think i'm breaking the news here that street street smarts is coming back because this show was on from 2000 to 2005 and it is now this has not been i published anywhere i don't believe and we heard the guy say oh my god all right well

you know it should be on next year i hope fingers crossed oh my so i maybe have a little industry inside dope here for any street smarts fans out there this is gonna get picked up by deadline and variety as soon as we put this episode out this is a big breaking news this is a hell of a told you like a harry knowles 1998 ain't it cool news scoop as far as i'm concerned here here i'm very excited one of the great franchises uh finally back on television and we so we got to walk uh right up as a you know a very dumb regular person was given an item uh and i believe she was holding a you know like a nostril trimmer an electric nostril trimmer and the guy's asking what it is and she says what was it a taser and you're like oh that's stupid how could you think that that's

a taser then they cut and then the host said hey that was great so maybe try one more time and just really hit the word tase. I just want to make sure that really comes out. So in addition to the scoop that Street Smarts is coming back, Street Smarts also is a lie. It's all for show. And I'll also spoil some of their bits in that we watched the guy in another hilarious game

of Do You Recognize This Item? He leaves, comes back around to the set, and now he's wearing a mullet wig he looks ridiculous the balls of this guy to put himself out there and wear such silly hair on camera i mean i you couldn't catch i wouldn't be caught dead wearing something what is it the movie point break it was sort of point break s what that's crazy um yeah he looked he looked so stupid man but you know i laughed i was having a good time watching it so look forward to this mullet joke uh but also it it really seemed implied that they didn't know when and where street smarts was going to air so um i wish i could get more specific than that but if you want to put your smarts on the line head up to city one where they are casting people just walking by none of us were brave

enough to do it and thank god because i didn't want to end up in one of those mullet wigs man you'd look you'd look silly i don't think i would ever come back for you my bros from high school saw me looking like that um no way man having this dumb hair and shit well that'd be the end of me yeah for sure man for sure they never had they never had me back to do a shot ski with them again tommy would erode your ass at the homecoming game that you all still go to uh this and now that i think about you you've unlocked a city walk memory of mine real quick and i will be very quick about it. One of the first times I ever went to CityWalk, they were filming or shooting a show there over by kind of where the Globe is, where they do shoot extra.

Jason may know where I'm going with this. I think I know where you're going with this. They were shooting a game of slam ball. Slam ball, of course, is trampoline basketball it was on spike tv for a year or two um i hear it's still kind of big in china um but i we we walked over from city walk and i went oh my god they're playing slam ball and it was official slam ball too it was not some knockoff league it wasn't some jv slam ball league or whatever. Tramp basketball or something. It was official licensed slam ball.

The sport of kings. And I was so excited. I went there and we watched part of a game. You didn't jump into the game? You didn't grab a tramp, jump over the rails, and get in there yourself? Believe me, I want to. But that's just such a highly skilled, you know, that's too, it's out of my abilities.

Yeah, you haven't spent enough time on the tramps. Yeah, I haven't been on the tramps enough, so I'm not going to, I'm going to leave it to the professionals. The professional slam ball players. But if they, if in the success of Street Smarts and they start filming more stuff up there and they bring back, and they do celebrity slam ball oh by then the level the stature of celebrity we will all have from the city walk series yeah we're gonna be so big just at can you imagine once these are all out going back up to city walk and the kind of welcome we'll receive from all these stores now that we've made all of these cashiers famous the people in all of these restaurants we've turned them all into celebrities and we ourselves will be the biggest celebrities

right it'll be like walking through like the old country and everyone kind of is like outside the owners all are outside of the restaurant they're offering us like they're great like their loaf bread and they'll be like jason jason come here come here Try the new voodoo donut that has a Snickers bar inside. Oh, well, if I must, if you insist. I guess it's the Simpsons joke where they're like, Don Homer, Don Homer. Don Jason, Don Jason. There's a new Cinnabon bucket.

It has cinnamon bites, but they have pepperoni on them. No. I draw a line. Scott, we have a new Maca maybe shot glass this one is a double please on the house put some caipirinha in it please michael would you like to see the new marvel movie it's six months it's a rough cut but please come inside and see it that's too good of a deal those movies city walk movies cost 48 each they're not giving that away for free right uh discount four dollars off and a dollar off at the uh mcguffins we have here whatever we call it a dollar 75 off parking the bill is only somewhat crumply all right yeah that's

more realistic yeah yeah yeah well that'll be it's gonna be great uh and when all that to say get in the game get slam balling all right well i will star of celebrity slam ball come in 2020 as jason knows i know the guy who created it yes mike does know the creator oh that's right why is this the case i worked on some clip shows with him many years ago oh this is the second discussion on my clip shows we'll get him on it doesn't make any sense for a theme park podcast but neither does city walk really no this one's this episode has been entirely like slam ball and the street smarts and yeah no all of it pretty well then to me that's the universal hollywood ultimate experience seeing a television show right before your very eyes. That seems related. But, you know, while we're moving past all of the perfunctory stuff, how about we get

Starbucks out of the way? Yeah, sure. There's a Starbucks in this sector. There's a Starbucks. Always had good service there. You've got unlimited access to music, but time? Now that's limited. The PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard gets you unlimited PC Optima points,

free grocery delivery, and time back for what matters. Save time and earn $1,100 in average value each year. The PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard. The card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit PCFinancial.ca for details. Value is for illustrative purposes only. That's good.

Yep. It is one of those things I think I've said maybe on prior episodes. You get that surcharge. Everything's costing you a buck, buck fifty extra. Oh, the theme park tax. The convenience. The theme park, whatever. The magic tax.

Yeah, the magic tax. Sure. I felt a lot of magic certainly in that yeah yeah you you feel it more than some that's always regular shit starbucks yeah you do wait a while it gets pretty crazy look it's it's necessary that there be a starbucks there right um i think it's funny that starbucks can straddle the line they're in they're in disneyland they're in Universal Studios proper. They transcend the theme park.

Nobody had to settle for a coffee bean or a Pete's. Starbucks, I guess coffee beans are not settling. There used to be a coffee bean at Upstart Crow. At Upstart Crow. That's correct. That was pretty good, too. They both coexisted. Starbucks ran them out of town.

Yeah. I do wish there was some sort of, because the Starbucks in California Adventure and Disneyland are nicely themed. Because it's Starbucks on Main Street where the Market House used to be. It is the Market House still. Nicely themed in there. Also, California Adventure, nicely themed. And in the Florida parks.

Very nice. Yes. We could make this Starbucks a little bit like the movies or something. Let's have a little something in there. That's my only note for it. I agree with that. It's kind of a normal Starbucks. Let's make it let's fancy it up i know it's not in the park this is well like the isn't there a little scene in that menchies aren't all the aren't there a

bunch of frozen yogurts that are alive and starring in a movie or something oh wait is that right yeah it's something like that anyway yeah we have a bunch of mochas all up starting to pay and he's he's uh auditioning and he's trying to make it in the business but it's very hard and yeah it's a big it's starting to get discouraged it's a big cup of tivana tea and he's but he's and he's holding his headshot but he's in a row of seven other t-fonities and they all look essentially the same and it's all digital now they really didn't need to bring that headshot they just have a software oh yeah it's formality it's a formality yeah he's murmuring to a cup of cappuccino next to him because why did i pay for this do you have a cheaper headshot guy and they're

all trying to get like drunk by people right that's that's their like analog is they're not trying to be in hollywood oh yes that's what they're trying to yeah they're trying to be customers are going to drink them them that's what they're that's their show business is being well and that makes sense because the universe the one in universal park uh is is very art deco-y that one i think that one looks nice yes they should plus up the city walk one i agree yeah yeah i think they have zero reason to do so with the issue because it's probably a very profitable enterprise yeah just as it is it will not affect their bottom line let me ask this do they have the sippy cup lids for cold drinks there yet do you know what i mean

no oh well starbucks was i don't know if they do you know about this you know about this they were saying they were going to get rid of straws and there was a different kind of plastic that looks like a clear plastic lid but it looks like the hot beverage lid so it's kind of got that shape but it's clear plastic and it looks like a sippy cup for a child yeah it kind of looks like a sippy cup for a child and they were like aha we've gotten rid of straws the only issue is that kind of lid uses more plastic than the uh lid with the straw there's all sorts of problems with this straw van as we know there's all sorts of like well it doesn't really make sense when i saw it okay are we pro

paper straw or anti-paper straw paper straws i'm fine with yeah paper straws are better but i mean like for instance like disney like there's so many countries like they're gonna get rid of straws but then those plastic bags are gonna be handed out at splash mountain so like there's just there's other things too that would help more as far as plastic consumption well at least they have cut back on the big thing that they used to do seemingly constantly in the 80s and and one of doug jones's fantastic mashup videos shines a light on this that there were there were all kinds of disneyland events in the 80s where they do gigantic balloon releases 500 and everybody proudly watches them go yeah uh fly away fly away friends brighten the sky brighten the throats of birds and gutters propeller plates

brighten power lines by making them explode when you crash into them um those are the days yeah yeah so you know disney's made uh some progress but when will universal make progress and make this starbucks two percent more themed yeah two percent is never never but i think that i think the starbucks does have unless it's on the other side i'm not totally sure can you guys confirm uh somewhere around there there's like a neon light that says cruisin and then like like kind of an angular guitar-ish car and a there's definitely a cruise light yeah i can picture that i can't picture so that is theming i guess i love that love that. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. That's probably CityWalk 101, like first generation.

You think that's like leftover, basically? Probably. That makes sense. I think that's probably been there. Yeah. I don't think since the beginning, because this whole zone, don't forget, is post-2000 expansion. Oh, you're right. And I don't think that Starbucks was there, though I could be wrong. I don't exactly know the confines.

I don't think the Starbucks was there, but are you saying it was there whatever is this is starbucks a wholly new place didn't it go didn't it replace something man now we're looking like real rubes yeah no or is that's been there the whole time starbucks has been there i don't i wouldn't be so sure i mean i don't know offhand but i also since 2000 for as long as i've been going there i remember a starbucks presence i can sense it i feel like you're gonna have to do a lot of googling here yeah this is probably not really learned there's not a lot of city walk history there's not a lot of no one's keeping tabs on this except for someone in the universal enterprise but as we said before they did not help us we're not interested in that this will become the biggest record um this is how people will tell their children their children's children about

the history of city luck we are providing the ultimate history and is it spotty yes but is that our fault no we could have been helped out by the actual people. And because they didn't help us out, we are going to throw their parking garages under the fucking bus. Hey, don't tip it. In about five days or so. That's not a big spoiler. It's just, you know, I was saying that perhaps the general attitude. And hey, universal clock's ticking. You got five days if you don't want us to reveal everything we know about your parking garages uh well look i i if you're saying that i'll say this i searched

for a term on google today trying to like reconfirm something from one of the uh very early episodes in this series and uh one of the results on the first page was our show we're immediately to the top of google we're a source we're a source which thing the burger place kwgb world's greatest burger i searched city walk radio station restaurant and our show was on it was like yeah it was like six or seven but it was also the results before it were not what i was looking for it was mostly like yelp stuff of like restaurant okay citywalk.com that's cool and i don't mean to plow just past that because that's an immense achievement that we've all pulled off but i'm not going to be happy until when you go to google and you type in city

walk the auto fill-in is not universal it's not hollywood it's not orlando the auto fill-in is sector keeper i want this to be popular enough that that is what google assumes that you want to learn about so everyone out there with a blog uh with with myspace pages and with Angel Fires and GeoCities start talking about the Sector Keeper and help us build his legend. And tell us in words or drawings what you think the Sector Keeper looks like.

Oh yeah, that's kind of in question. We've seen him. It's a fun exercise is basically what it is. It'd be it's a fun exercise it's basically cheating to tell you it'd be cheap to tell you and then sometimes i get the feeling that we're all seeing something a little different well he is a christ-like figure and everybody has their you know kind of their different views of what god might look like um do you any specifics you guys want to say about how you see the sector keeper oher? Oh, well, sure.

I see him, he's like kind of a projection. So he's like, he's big. Oh, interesting. Oh, you think he's big? He's a Snoke. He's kind of a Snoke, right. Because like Snoke in Force Awakens is very big. But in reality, he's not.

He's just a normal size. He's like a hologram or something yes i see him sort of like a force projection or a holog star wars like hologram whatever either way i see him very small because as you know i'm afraid of giant things in small rooms and he would never uh wants to you know alarm me he wants me to be comfortable with him so i i see him small yeah he tailors his appearance based on the soul of who he that to whom he speaks oh yeah that makes a lot of sense because like he's in mine he's wearing like a gold robe and he uh is horribly disfigured too so he is like just snoke which by i guess now they about it, Snoke is my favorite character from those new movies.

So I guess he sort of knows that. So like he's making me feel good whenever I look at him, which honestly, that's very nice of him to do. Wow. I really appreciate that. Huh. He, mine has, I see him with pepperonis for eyes. It's very similar to those that you ate at Wetzel's.

That's got to be adjacencies too though i well yes i mean the my vivo meal was the the wait a minute redemption of pepperoni when you look at scott and i do you see humans or food well i haven't eaten a lot today so at the moment it's kind of right on the right on the line do my arms just look like big pieces of pretzel dough to you uh what about me like if i stand i'm a tall kind of slender guy is it sort of a beef jerky kind of thing is it a slim gym about this yet because the other sectors were so packed full of stuff but that wetzel's pretzel sector fucked up my stomach for like three days like i was just i was just lying around the house the day after that experience you say this with some surprise in your voice i i was a little

surprised because like pretzel like that has never i think it was the combination of the pretzels and the sugary drink what food has made you guys feel the worst so far that's jason's answer i would imagine oh yeah mike i feel like you're steeled up enough to this bullshit that you don't none of it makes you feel bad but i could be wrong well i'm trying to think what the worst one would be um mine was uh bucca didn't sit great but also yeah wait what's the wait what's the oh luda bird luda you guys are crazy with luda bird i felt like a hundred a million bucks after i ate at ludo the other day i look as i talked about uh the hot chicken craze is sweeping has been sweeping for years now and i can't when i eat ludo i go this is fine i don't i don't dislike it but it's not nearly as good as

something like that it's not in the ballpark the first meal first worst meal that pops into my head is one i believe i ate with jason but it was not during the research specifically for this it was a couple years ago we were at hard rock oh that fucked me up too yeah we both got sick from the from so i guess this is a good this is a transition and this was not planned but it was like two or three years ago and they had like some sort of special barbecue kind of thing spicy sandwich thing going we got like it was the pulled pork which they've always had ribs and pulled pork that's all that and burgers have been since they opened vaguely the hard rock definition which as i've said many times is very hard to pin down but i guess, yeah, it's like just meat sandwiches

and some barbecue sort of. It's ill-defined. Their corporate history, I think it was the story, was like the guys were living in London, but they wanted a little more of like kind of American bar, and they also really liked music, and they kind of combined that all together. And they liked making people sick.

Yeah, and tearing apart stomach lining. There was these weird jalapenos on it. Like the regular pulled pork I've eaten since I was a kid and it was always good. It was always fine. I didn't throw up, but I think it came out fast. It was like down, as soon as we got down the hill, I had to go to the bathroom.

Hard Rock Cafe. I didn't throw up, but i think it came out fast i and suspicious that fast is the riffs from a van halen record the other thing that's made me ill is the adjacent wetzels pretzels but i ate at the hard rock cafe in atlantic city which is um very odd they just redid this is a whole thing but the hard rock cafe in atlantic city is located in the new hard rock casino which used to be the trump taj mahal oh yeah taj mahal themed casino on the boardwalk in atlantic city uh run by a bad man and uh they full on so the hard rock used to be in one location neither even when the taj closed the hard rock was able to stay open because

they were like sort of in the front of the building on the boardwalk when the hard rock took over the whole facility they moved the hard rock to the other side of the building and that original location became something else and my family and i were just like this feels weird right and it's like a very bother minimalist like yeah why did they bother it was a very minimalist, like, yeah, why did they bother? It was a very weird, minimalist Hard Rock, like the Johnny Rockets. So, but I ate there, felt fine. But the Universal City Hard Rock, yeah, Mike and I both kind of got fucked up there a few years ago from food and not from drinking. Let me keep the excellent segues going by saying that i i found some literature about if you wanted to

rent the hard rock up there for a party or something and they point out in the official literature that they consider that location to be a taj mahal influenced building really in did that occur that the city walk location they think is kind of like the Taj Mahal. Did that occur to either of you and anyone listening that that is anything like the Taj Mahal? No. It's just a building with a dome. That doesn't count as Taj Mahal. Right. No.

That it was painted white, but I always associate it that they kind of like expanded or were roughly inspired by the mission style architect. Like the missions of California are kind of white, right? It's much closer to a mission than the yeah okay so that that's what i associated is more of a there's there's kind of more of a teardrop shape right which this thing does not have say that that's a bunch of bullshit there's other bullshit in this description uh it's 1996 hard rock cafe hollywood since 1996 hard rock cafe continues to rock Universal CityWalk.

That's not correct. No. Is it? Since a date, it continues. Not right. Since blank, blank, has been rocking. Yeah. I think, right?

Yes. Since 1996. Has been causing copious rocking. Yeah. Right. The denizens of CityWalk Hollywood. Giant Fender guitar fountain. I can't argue with that one. But the interior. That'sizens of City Walk Hollywood. Giant Fender guitar fountain. I can't argue with that one.

Yeah. But the interior. That's a Van Halen guitar we've talked about. Oh, yeah. Okay. That is specifically a recreation. I mean, I don't know. It's supposed to be looking like it.

Maybe it's copywritten and it's supposed to be a knockoff. But that's what it's for sure inspired by. All right. As you enter past a Stone temple pilot's guitar or clothes worn by velvet revolver in their first video uh-huh oh boy they are speaking my musical language uh and then you as you enter past like obviously you stop and you look at the velvet revolver clothes for 25 minutes minimum but if you can pull yourself away then you keep going into the restaurant and you see a big revolving cadillac there's a big pink cadillac which makes this the second

unorthodox elevated pink cadillac at city walk there are two and i'm not sure if it's still pink i couldn't tell you exactly yeah but either way, this adds to the seemingly endless array of unusual vehicles that are lifted high above where vehicles usually are. Seems a little redundant, but I guess it's a cool centerpiece. Then you see one of my odd things with the Hard Rock Cafe is what's up with like rock the planet? There's all this weird environmentalism that's not committed to and what does it mean and how do they actually help was or is one of their charitable causes but they're mysterious like yeah what is corporate it doesn't exist outside specific uh political action of rocking the rainforest yeah uh that's it's easy there's a lot of wood this is one of the

hard rocks cover like there's a lot of old or a lot of dark wood fixtures and they said they switched to wood straws when everybody else was switching for plastic i guess you reuse those and they made there's a little note on it that says entire tree killed for this single straw rest of wood thrown out but i that is the thing i like about i like the wood i like how just a sheer assault of music memorabilia this and the orlando ones are what i think of when i think hard rock cafe not like well the orlando white cocaine whatever at whatever Atlantic City is going for. Yeah, I'm looking at the pictures of them. The one in Orlando are like the ruins in Greece.

They're like... The exterior. I love that. That's pretty silly. I like that. Yeah, that's... Even though I'm not sure what that has to do with rock and roll. Yeah.

You know, I will not argue in the same way that De Evan Susser just said. How do you argue with the giant King Kong? A big guitar is a lot of fun. It adds to the skyline of some of the bizarre touristy places that Hard Rock is in, which if you look at the entire list, it's like 750 locations. It's in every major city across the globe. But why?

Why are people demanding this specific restaurant? I don't understand the hunger for it. And how could they possibly have enough guitars and picks and velvet revolver shirts to populate all of them? I think some of those are lies is what I think. I think we talked about that. I just don't trust this this brand would the city walk uh health inspector be able to also identify a counterfeit velvet revolver outfit maybe is that a different part of the government that has to be checking into stuff like that uh if if it maybe he tests it

for like fluids or like yeah was is there like sweat for who's the same which one's velvet revolver was that i get that list had two scott wyland bands yeah i think that right isn't velvet revolver scott wyland that's really weird well because because it was slash for sure it was it was part of guns and roses with velvet revolver because at the same time it's also confusing as audio slave was happening which is chris cor Chris Cornell, which both of these singers have passed away. So it was Chris Cornell and Rage Against the Machine was Audioslave. And then Velvet Revolver was Scott Weiland and Guns N' Roses. This is, I'm far too confused to try these.

They were in the Scott Weiland game, I guess. Maybe, I don't know. It is interesting, interesting though that they point out those two bands yeah if you really ran the numbers it is quietly 85 of the merch at all 750 locations all scott wyland stuff right they just have every item of clothing he ever wore every uh all the boxer shorts every sock is that harper ray's like boyfriend oh harper well then harper's at a rough poor harper gee whiz uh no harper's dating duff mckagan i think from guns and roses he's much more stable much more stable uh very talented so a couple other things to say about this specific location.

It is perhaps part of why you think of this location when you think about the brand is that don't forget this specific Hard Rock Cafe used very prominently in the opening sequence of Kenan and Kel. Oh, sure. Think back to the opening. Yeah Kenan and Kel. Oh, sure. To the opening. Yeah. In which you're warned to watch out for Kenan because Kenan be scheming. Uh, that is all under the backdrop of the hard rock cafe. Also a little cameo from our old pal, uh,

the, the giant King Kong. He factors in there. So, um, you know, outside of honey, I blew up the kid, one of Honey, I Blew Up the Kid,

one of the most prominent film uses of a hard rock cafe. So, good on you. So, that's good. This location. And also, Jersey Girl. That's where they have the record release party that Ben Affleck has put together. Is that right? Really?

No, no. Just a hard rock cafe. I don't think it's this one. I think it's the Times Square one. Sorry. Sorry to get your hopes up. Because then, Jersey Girl takes place in Jersey. Takes place in fucking Jersey.

Fucking city walk. Is it the Atlantic City location? No, I don't think it is. I think it's in New York. Because that's before he's got to give up his big career. Yeah, that's before he learns that he has to go back to the suburbs or whatever. I think so. Getting silenced for me on the Jersey Girl.

I saw it in the theater. Yeah, I did too. Wow. Yeah. Did it invalidate the rest of the VSQ universe? It's not part of the VSQ universe. It's not part of the VSQ universe. But did it make you not enjoy the previous films as much?

No, time did that. No, no. Clerks 2, much more damage. I thought Jersey Girl was fine, honestly. I thought that was a pleasant little movie. Oh, okay. He's trying a different thing. George Carlin's nice in that?

He's nice. He's very nice. He's very nice. He plays Ben Affleck's nice dad. It was good to see George Carlin be nice. It was. It was. He usually says a lotck's nice dad. It was good to see George Cullen be nice. It was. It was. He usually says a lot of very offensive words.

It stings the ears of us, the good boys. That's right. But it was very good. He kept it in his pants in this film. Yeah. But there's one bit of history, which I think I've alluded to in prior episodes. But this Hard Rock Cafe, very important to me because it was the location of my very first date in my whole life wow um and you know just as it as i revealed city walk factored heavily into

my eventual marriage this also the the very beginning bookend of of my romantic career uh so i'm very fond of it i talked about this a little bit on my doughboys episode um about the hard rock cafe i was doing the math also and realizing that uh the doughboys episode about our cafe two episodes about the hard rock park we talked about the retail store two days ago then there's this episode and when walliner was back here hard rock park came up again so this is the sixth podcast on which i've discussed the the great brand hard rock we will do another two episode arc with hard rock park i assume oh no i don't think i don't think we covered it all yeah yeah well there's too much barely touched on freestyle music part i know so we'll get so this is we're still early in the amount of eventually

by the end of my podcasting career there will be you know minimum 55 podcast episodes where but my first or my my first date on which i was i was very nervous about it. And my dad coached me about how to. I never just paid for someone at a restaurant. So my dad talked me through it. And he said, well, just the bill will come. And you give him a card. It's very easy. And then you have to put down the tip.

And I said, oh, how does that work? And he said, oh, you know, you just give him like 10% of what. My dad's date advice was really tipping oh yeah he continues to be a shitty tip wow really yeah yeah what is the what jason said what was you do you say yes affirmative to the 10 was that a yes of oh no that was yes that's good for my no especially in california you give at least 11 or 12%. Oh, stop it. I tip appropriately. I was going to say in California it's a little easier

because in a lot of places it's practically 10%. So you just sort of like double the tax and round up. You end up to about 20%. Hey, it saves you some mental anguish to just go to 20. But anyway, my dad gave me that advice. I was very nervous about the whole endeavor. And in fact, I did not tell this girl that it was a date until we were dropped off oh she was visiting for the summer and i had arranged this whole scheme and we had done a lot of touristy

stuff already so my mom took us and she assumed the whole time that we were going to be walking around with my mom until the door opened and all right have fun guys so oh this is misleading yeah what a great yeah great move off the bat to bum rush the person with that really date uh important to note i was 15 years old she was 13 years old oh my god the most romantic ages that exist jason looks real stressed out about this although the the meeting the getting to the location and trying to figure out it was a date sometimes that doesn't go away when you're there you don't have to worry about that anymore but yeah thank god well i played i became such an expert dater thanks to all of these great city walk encounters i got to just blast through it got to got to marriage as quick as i could

but thanks to dates like this hard rock date going so perfectly because spoiler alert after all was said and done we went back to my parents house in woodland hills and the the sequence of events of that evening led to my first kiss my whole life so city walk city walk in your belly is a vhs copy of the winslow boy playing on tv i was just trying to estimate about what would have been out that time i don't know i'm not sure this is the year 2000 uh i think i might have gone on a date to see ai with her around that time as well well yeah what a great when she when when you got out of the car and it was apparent your mother wasn't going with you guys did you announce it's a date or was it just sort of assumed and you didn't speak no she no it did not come up right after the fact we like we

talked on the phone about it and like yeah that was i don't know that's like my little plan or whatever uh uh will hill well you got me um another moment of this date that i don't think i talked about when we talked about hot topic was that we passed by the hot topic on the way to the hard rock cafe and she said oh they have these back uh back in my hometown of houston i this store is pretty weird like you and i was like yeah yeah and you took it as a good thing oh yeah no no that meant like i was like you know i was as cool as hot topic was yeah yeah yeah an old hot topic that was more focused on anthrax shirts yes Yes. I was as cool as that. And I took her in there and I said, oh, yeah, I don't know.

Maybe I'll try to find something. And I found a shirt. I found a Spinal Tap shirt that had, it was a good shirt because it had all the tour dates on the back from the film and they all get canceled as it goes. And I'm super playing up, you know. Yeah, it's this little movie. Like, have you heard of it? Maybe you haven't heard of it.

Yeah, it's like waiting for Goffman. It's like, yeah, totally cool. Like, yeah, not everybody knows about it. you know yeah it's this little movie like have you heard of it maybe you haven't heard of it yeah i think i did like waiting for goffman it's like yeah totally cool like yeah like not everybody knows about it i know about it um i saw that movie five years ago for the first really i'm not kidding how was it to not grow up with it uh it was good i i i think it's the last guffman or the last um guest movie guest movie or no i never saw the movie studio one whatever that was called that's fine that one's fine and i can't think of the name of it yeah um but uh but yeah sponse super nervous the whole time but felt pretty good about it didn't throw her with this whole first date switcheroo um we got back home and the sequence of events that led to the first kiss was that i was like playing her cds and whatever and i put i put on like a slower song and then

we started dancing we started slow dancing and it was in movie i yeah well that's because that's all i knew i was like creating really contrived like movie moments yeah it doesn't go away if you're 32 you're still your dates are like my dates at 15 that's delightful you you're except you don't have braces and no just fucked up teeth you just let them grow out yeah and you drive character act your teeth you drive with a girl to a place with another person and then you make the other person go away and go hey it's a date kidding. I find it comforting to know that there's a chaperone at least. A chaperone? Chaperone.

Chaperone. What do you say? Chaperone? A chaperone. That's what all people say. Yeah, that's how you pronounce it. Because there's no other O. It's not a macaroon situation.

I was going to say, are you thinking of macaroons? I mean, always. We're playing this old chestnut, huh? This old flute. Yeah, but it's one of the best songs we know. You said flute, not flute. I want to give a shout out to the listener who sent us a picture of the original Hot Topic facade. Oh, that's right.

While we're talking about it. Oh, it was so weird back then. There were gargoyles and flames. Gargoyles and ghoulies and flames. It really is a darker, darker. That's like all the angst I had inside me at 15 it's as weird as you were yeah yeah i get to pretty weird pretty weird uh i also had hair twice as long as i currently have and braces so picture all that um so i then we get into this slow dance situation and but the

slow dance is in my sister's bedroom oh as is As is my sister. And the entire point, so this was a childhood friend who came out and was like being set up to be a friend of my little sister. And instead, she got lured in

by the charms of her older brother. So it was a really, you know, it was a rough week. My sister was jealous and mad about the whole thing. And then we started slow dancing

and my sister's reaction was to yell, oh, gross gross and then she left the room slammed the door opened the door again slammed it again opened the door again slammed it again rule of threes very funny incredible there was like a kramer exit um you've done this genre before um but this is i can imagine the wes anderson version of this whole date yeah where like you're straightening a bow tie in the mirror and then you've kind of like planned the record and you put the record down it's an overhead shot of the record for the slow dance and but except it's a cd it's a fetish it's a wes anderson style shot of a cd right put down the lid being closed me putting

it on random mode right and it's like you into the like into the mirror i have a crush on a girl like like it's perfectly i can imagine how weird i am uh the entire time i'm pretty weird yeah yeah but everyone's very emotionless in the background sure yeah and i was where i was wearing the i was wearing the braces as an affect it was a i was wearing the i was wearing the braces as an affect it was a choice it was like a little uh it was an endearing little touch of flair so anyways these are just these are all the events surrounding my first date your madness uh wow yeah that's something uh shout out to at sc jacka who sent us that picture of the original hot topic i'm glad we got to mention it absolutely your story thank you uh where we we just see you know the show is just slowly

painting pictures for people of like oh here's why these men are like this yeah well that's i thought that's all important context spinal tap shirt braces this this is uh um you know now you know this about me and the i think i think what's really going to make the city walk saga persist in people's minds is how much we opened up and uh revealed our truth yeah sure and it's easiest for you of course because this is you lived your whole life at city walk i really have really have. It's wild. Thinking about how I saw Mission Impossible 2 and then many years later, 6. Right. All in the same location.

That is crazy. It's like my whole life. I've been standing still and CityWalk has been changing in fast motion all around me. It's a Garden State style fast motion shot. The world just keeps spinning. It's kind of beautiful. Except that one rock named Ethan Hunt.

Who is there for our sins. He's changed. He's had lots of different haircuts. So has City Walk. Ethan Hunt and City Walk, they've always been there. And they always will be there. But they go through changes like everything does. So those are really the only

two constants i can think of in life in the world in the world anywhere yeah well off the top of my head yeah for sure city walk has stood strong amidst political tumult yes um presidential term after presidential term it still remains yeah it just keeps on rocking and that velvet revolver shirt just keeps on glimmering in the window and uh waitresses at the hard rock cafe keep bitterly looking at 15 year olds checks that where they got stiffed on the tip and throwing them down in anger you did tip 10 um i think i may have on my dad's command i didn't know any better when did you learn that that was a little bit underwhelming for it with uh much later girlfriends who were like mad when they found out i think yeah i i uh i think i died yeah very late in life left

like a dollar on something that should have been much more my girlfriend's like what the fuck is wrong with you wait a minute what card were you putting down um i thought my day i must have borrowed one from my unless i paid cash not sure yeah because i didn't have any money at the time you know i didn't i didn't have a job yet but i still want to i still want to take a girl out for just a good honest bard rock cafe lunch and the wes anderson version of course like you put the piggy bank down and it's an overhead shot of the piggy bank and then you smash it with a hammer and then you collect the money and perfect little tink and then they're all um they're all old spanish coins which for some reason the hard rock cafe right they take that accepts um well uh oh also there's a like a stage where there's concerts and shit i put it in this sector

but who cares i have nothing to say about the five towers you'll see like a little dance recital going on you'll see you know like it seems like schools get to like put things up there well i'll tell you this i thought this was very smart uh In the summer, they were playing World Cup games on the big screen. On the screen above the stage. That drew a crowd. Like, people. That was a very smart move on their part. Soccer.

Very popular. Oh, maybe the screen is more the thing to talk. The stage, I don't know. Have you guys ever sat and watched anything at the stage? No. I mean, you walk by and you go, it's like a bunch of 12-year-olds doing, like, a cheerleading routine or something. And I go, okay. And I walk away.

I annexed this and wanted to talk about it because I assumed if I Googled, there would be interesting concerts and stuff that had happened there. But one of the only ones I found was Hollywood's most noted gossip columnist, Perez Hilton will introduce Octone recording artist, Graham to perform her hit single, Put Your Graffiti On Me. So that's the best thing that ever happened on the stage. They don't do concerts. It seems like it would be perfect for some big splashy event.

Sure. When Jimmy Buffett was playing the opening of Margaritaville, I go, for sure, he's going to play the outdoor stage. Yeah. Some more people can be part of it. No, no, no. He played the tiny stage inside some more people can be part of it no no he played the tiny stage inside margaritaville for like you know 100 people so i don't they i don't they just don't do that i guess i don't know why and now here's another thing after all this is said and

done how how great would it be if we could do a live podcast the ride from the five towers stage i think we should do it i think we should and now we can officially announce the final episode episode 19 will be live from the five tower stage at you know that's not true no that's not absolutely not they're not cool they would never do that how how amazing would that be if we could end it i will look into it tomorrow days of our lives at the five tower stage which is pretty cool it's so clogged with soap opera stars how are they going to fit us i'll email i will email tomorrow we should do this last one there really i mean we should it'd really be a rush the problem is the problem is the problem is jason first of all doesn't like fun and that's the problem but not but but hang on that was a big leap what do you mean i mean jason doesn't like on this for like

10 years jason doesn't like um like if you're like hey let's do something like spur the moment quick or something this is like sprung on him and he's like no there's no way they'll ever let us do something like that you mean like if we were to record an episode of the city walk saga live at city walk like jason would object to that. I think that if you're referring to a real specific incident when Scotch suggested we sneak a microphone into CityWalk and just record an episode there and Jason flipped out, then yes. Jason was so upset. If that was a specific situation. If that was a specific thing, yeah, he would not like that.

And if Jason hypothetically was making a literal big frowny face right now as I bring it up. I think you're making false promises. I'm going to email. I'm going to email. Nothing's going to come to that. What did I say? You're giving these people false hope. I'm not.

It's not happening. When you say false promises, I didn't say you can bet your life that we'll do it. I said, hey, you know what? I'll email. We should do that. I'm the one who started announcing that this would happen, and it was a straight lie. It was a lie. I did bail halfway through the lie. That well i should email and ask now i'm thinking of course the last episode is this is the parking garage and again we're given given these secrets away i know but people at this point are so fatigued

by this whole thing and they're like what are they going to do like oh i was wondering the secret is out i was thinking they were going to do you know the garbage cans in the parking lot for the last episode the sherry substation yeah like so so it's not like it's crazy but do we do an unofficial bum rush flash mob episode from the top of we pull our car up to the top of the jurassic parking lot and just start doing it and a crowd shows up it's like a it's like a fast and furious street race we just start doing it and if the cops show up everybody everybody skedaddles we get out of there but you know that's how we do it we're running gun-huh. And we should do it like, what's the, is it from Dukes of Hazzard? The big, a car with a big bullhorn on the top and just broadcast the show like that.

Yeah. You know what I'm talking about? Why not? Well, somewhere on that universal property is that Blues Brothers car. Oh. That has the big, with the big megaphone on top. Yeah. with a big megaphone on top. So in Blues Brothers anarchic spirit, we sneak onto the lot, steal the car,

hook up our microphones to it, which I assume that it is a functioning audio mechanism. For sure. We hijack that baby. Using my knowledge of the universal roads from being a tour guide, we find a stealthy path up to the top of the parking garage and that's episode 19 and i'll tell the listeners right now i promise it will happen i would like to want to

do a tribute to this everyone hasn't aged well everyone lean into the look at this comedy it's so funny however that's a false objection you're upset about the idea that we would do a bum that we do an unofficial thing and get in trouble you're not upset about the blues brothers holding up just go to these places and drink wine you barely ride the rides you're doing a bum for us i want everyone to lean closer to however they're listening to this podcast and i want you to listen to this i promise you that this will happen that the 19th episode show up what is it october 2nd or 3rd get to the second of the second go to the top of just get up there pay the fee go to the top of the front of no it's not frankenstein are you both doing this i will give you mike's the value of mike's promises on the

line and i think he's got to prove it. There's a reason they call him Mike the Fraud Carlson. I will give you Jason Sheridan's address too. And we will all meet up there before. Shut up, the stone is appearing. We'll all go up the hill together. I don't see it, are you sure?

Meet outside. No, the stone, that's not the stone. It's hailing in here. It's hailing in here. Look, if in here i look if i could see it i would point it out but yeah it's kicking in and not until now i promise you will make lemonade for all of us too before we get up there because we will be parched by the time we get up the hill five ball of ricotta cheese which is how you feel right now. Which is how I feel right now. You feel like a 14 day old

ball of ricotta cheese rotting in the alleys behind CityWalk, which will be episode 18. Another spoiler. The alleys and the dumpsters. And the pipes. And we promise you that's true.

Yes. And we will be doing the podcast live from a bathroom stall. So go into every bathroom stall at CityWalk. Open them all up. Don't ask permission. Just barge in. Slide your little feety underneath. Pull a Larry Craig and slide your foot on.

And if we pull your big toe three times, then you know we're in there doing the podcast and you can be our special guest um well you survived podcast the ride jason jason sort of mainly did for the a second episode i'm going to say i feel like i'm going to die and i did not see that coming well wait until tomorrow when we go to sample some of CityWalk's finest nightlife. We're all engaging in a little date. You know that I'm the king of the CityWalk social excursion. And y'all will be my 13-year-old girlfriends. Oh, yeah.

Tomorrow. That's great. On a trip to some of city walks, finest bars. Look forward to that one. If you think you want to die now, Jason. Oh my God. Wait till tomorrow.

You are going to feel it tomorrow. Yeah. And so will you, our audience. See ya. Forever. Dog. This has been a forever dog production.

Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit foreverdogpodcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram at Forever Dog Team and liking our page on Facebook.