Podcast: The Ride - The CityWalk Saga - Sector 6 with Eva Anderson

Episode Date: September 19, 2018

Eva Anderson (You're The Worst, Comedy Bang! Bang!) teaches us about passion, intelligence, compassion, integrity, and intensity. The CityWalk Saga - Sector 6 consists of: Tony Romas Bubba Gump Wasabi 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! ribs or a Cinnabon You 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, 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 CityWalk Hollywood. Welcome to Podcast to Ride, the CityWalk saga. We are dealing with Sector 6 today.

Thank you for still listening to this, what is maybe, some might call it a chore, but for others, they would call it a delight. I am Mike Carlson. I'm joined by my co-host, Jason Sheridan. I think it's a delight. I agree. That's why we're doing it. But I'm just saying, I thank you for sticking with us.

Scott Gairdner also here. Hey, what's happening? We've almost made it to the end of week one. I hope it's been as good of a week for you as it has been for us. Yeah, I'm doing great. I didn't mean to indicate that I wasn't having a good time. Yeah. Well, and in fact, in this case want i don't want to speak for everybody but this is probably one of the first

probably the first podcast the ride that has involved some intoxication yes we're all a mess but on the good boy spectrum uh you know two to three drinks is getting up there yeah so i just want to be forthcoming which has been a tradition in my life if i've ever been slightly stoned and then i go out into public i always immediately tell people i'm slightly stoned so keep that in mind while i'm talking yeah let me make you very uncomfortable with this assertion i am at the point where i already have like that headache kind of going on, I think. So I had like a drink and then as we'll find out a drink,

I thought had alcohol in it, but I don't think did. It didn't. I don't think it did. Was it not even on an alcoholic menu? You drank two huge ice cream smoothies? I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure that I was tricked into ordering.

That's our guest, Eva Anderson. Who's joining us again. One of our favorite guests. I'm tricked into ordering. That's our guest, Eva Anderson. Who's joining us again. One of our favorite guests. Sorry. I'm just so shocked. Because as I was drinking and I go,

there's nothing going on. What did you do? A lot of things on the summer menu didn't have alcohol. You had to go to the bottom where it said like

adult beverages. Oh. Yeah, so. You had two non-alcoholic. Because I gave it a taste and i told you it tasted like strawberry compote that would be on the top of iHOP pancakes 64 ounces of like ice cream this is as big a folly as what i did in this sector because you heard me say oh this is delicious i love how this tastes and then obviously the reason is that there was no alcohol to ruin the taste of a sugary treat.

You and my little sister. I'm pretty sure. I got to look at the. We're getting ahead of ourselves here. Get to the website while you. I got it. Here, let's be more inviting to Eva. Thanks for coming back.

You're now a podcast, The Ride, Luminary. I'm so excited. You know know you came here before to talk about the american adventure and now we're talking about some of america's most adventurous restaurants and chains yes um and we we had a big adventure uh while enjoying these um and you you requested this sector from from a list of actually i don't think you saw the full list as bestowed by the sector keeper but before you knew what fell into what sector your for your knee-jerk thoughts were bubba gumps and tony roma's yes i went to tony roma's a lot as a child i don't know why um but i just i ended up there a lot so i had a very vivid memory of tony roma at that one and

there were more tony romas around los angeles uh in the earth before then but that specific yeah i feel like it was a city walk thing and then i went to bubba gump once like four years ago and i was like this place is fucking insane and i i showed up there just as jay leno was leaving which to this day is like one of the biggest ciphers to me what was he doing at tony's bubba gump in city walk like he can eat anywhere he's so rich uh and i had the full experience the full bubba gup experience and i was like this is amazing wow because it really is uh i currently feel i i think i'm i'm my mental pummeling is in thirds one third is a tiny amount of alcohol another third is sun because it is horrible in los angeles right now it's a horrible heat wave and and and the other third is just that we all had a lunch where you could not look in any direction without 19 signs all screaming at you.

Screaming things from the movie Forrest Gump. From a movie that is, what's the, it's 24 years old. Also 1900 calories a piece probably. Yeah. When you add up all that food. Oh my God. Should we throw to the sector real quick to announce what is in this sector? Please, oh, great sector keeper, elucidate us.

What are we talking about today? Hello, boys. Hello, Eva. Today's sector is sector six. Tony Roma's, Bubba Gump, and Wasabi. Good luck. Okay, thank you for best Okay thank you Oh he seems nice He's a sweetheart

He's at it rough and it's cool That he's able to be so nice He's a child trapped In purgatory Essentially forever having been Poisoned by the city walk Fountains So he's It's cool he's still able to be Nice and help us out having been poisoned by the CityWalk fountains. Oh, no. Yeah.

So it's cool he's still able to be nice and help us out. Mike, any progress in what you're looking up over there? No, because I realize now that the menu I ordered off of was like a supplemental menu. So there's no way to solve this problem. So on the main menu, when I go to the Hollywood location, there's no record of the drink existing. So either you drank six shots of Everclear or none. Here's what I'm thinking, too.

The refill on the drink was $1.50. It was $1.50. There's no way an alcoholic drink refill is $1.50 unless you've got some Vegas seafood buffet thing going on where it's all you can drink for 13. Well, Steve, sniff your dirty alcohol glass. Sniff your souvenir glass. I have a souvenir glass. See if you get any oomph of medicinal or an alcohol. It just smells like strawberries.

It's just strawberries. I mean, a few of us all drank strawberry sundaes. There's no way it wasn't just two sundaes. There's no way it wasn't just two Slurpees. There's no way. We all carpooled here after this outing and Mike was talking about something unrelated and Jason caught

are you licking the sugar off of the rim of the souvenir glass? Which now it occurs to me I was driving and I probably well now we know it didn't have alcohol in it so i would have been in the clear but if a police officer i've seen a sloppy man licking sugar off of a full glass not even a can or something i would love to breathalyze you right now it's probably i'm. I probably could drive a car.

You drink giant, like four milkshakes. We should all try these. But they're like slurpy, so they're like less caloric than a milkshake. Are they? Yes. Yes. Yes. But they're at Bubba Gump?

Well, I saw, and I announced to you guys before we started at Bubba Gump, that I saw there's an Icy Machine behind the counter. So we could probably look up what like a medium to large Icy is. Yes, there was an Icy section on the menu. And that's what I ordered. Yeah, Icy branded. Well, that's because also in New Orleans, there's like these daiquiri bars everywhere. Where you can walk around with a giant daiquiri as big as your head. My drink was topped with Mist Twist,

which is the current branding for Sierra Mist. Oh, really? My candy drink had Sierra Mist in it. Boy. My candy drink was the sweetest wine I've ever had. Yeah, you and your wife both just had a couple glasses of wine. You got cupcake brand wine. I heard you. you yeah that's

right yeah um i've had it it's good that's the only one as good as this just slurpy i drank you really specifically said i love this drink yeah now we know now we know because there's no alcohol to ruin the taste of it it was just sugar you have no excuse for any sloppiness demolished a skillet of mac and cheese and the waiter came back and was he was horrified and how quickly it would that shrimp mac and cheese i really haven't eaten very much today also so yeah cool look i'm not trying to make a show of myself i'm not trying to be a spectacle but maybe i made some interesting choices today okay so should we go through the day chronologically i want to start with wasabi

okay all right because we didn't we didn't go to wasabi today but i went to wasabi when this series was first mentioned as a possibility am i breaking the timeline by alluding to that we aren't always doing these? Mostly, we've been at CityWalk every day for the last six days. There's no way we could all go to three restaurants in the time we had. No, there just isn't enough time on this earth, which is unfortunate. We'd all always love to go to three CityWalk restaurants every single day. But when this... i did this as pre research i went to wasabi which is a restaurant that serves sushi food at city walk and i uh i

wanted to get something you know they it's pretty just basic and i wanted to get something you could only get at city walk there was a little unusual and i so i got the terminator roll which is of course are they named after all universal properties or things that would be in the park there are only three things on the menu that are universal related one is the universal roll one is the spicy hollywood roll and one is the terminator uh which says is spicy tuna wrapped with salmon and avocado topped with jalapeno seven flavored chili chili oil ponzu sriracha and green onions hasta la vista baby so this is a menu item themed after an attraction that has not been at universal studios for uh five to years. I'm not sure exactly.

And it was good and not a level of spicy through me. And is that all I have to say about Wasabi? Maybe. It had sake that was enjoyable. The service could have been a little faster. And that's maybe the end. I don't know. I think one interesting fact might be

that uh you know panda express has a panda inn and one of the only existing panda inns still in the world is wasabi oh it's owned by that company and there's only like four or five of them oh yeah because there used to be a panda inn next to it but that's dongpo kitchen now yeah so anyway so it's one of those odd off streets of panda express that is not particularly that's sushi taken off okay okay they haven't done the best job of uh launching these spinoffs or what although didn't we determine although maybe this one's in the future i think it's in the future all right save it save panda express facts um is there a panda express in city yes it's yes you guys have to do dongpo in and wasabi and um but they're different sectors

so yeah i'll be so next week the sector keeper would be very unhappy if we uh cross sectors and didn't talk about the ones in this one however am curious, before we get into the places that we went together, any other CityWalk stores or restaurants that you are a fan of in other sectors or experiences at CityWalk? I always, I really liked that fountain, which makes me sad that when I was a kid that a sector keeper died there.

Yeah, that's unfortunate. I used to, I always go to Howl at the Moon, the piano bar, before I go to Horror Nights. Oh, boy. Oh, yeah. I won't say my opinion about it, but it is always the place I go. And I remember in the 90s, there was like a, not 90s, the OOs, there was like a very weird bookstore there.

Really? Upstart Crow? Yes. Was it called Upstart Crow? At some point in time, it was called Upstart Crow. That was the one with the coffee bean in it yeah it was like a fancy a fancy coffee like fancy uh bookstore yeah or just like fake fancy and i think that was in the era when they were trying to pretend that city walk was a real

city yeah because there was a time when they actually polled residents and said what would you want out of a development like this and they said education which is why there was a time when they actually polled residents and said, what would you want out of a development like this? And they said, education, which is why there's a UCLA extension up there. Maybe no longer. I think it's not. No longer functioning. But there were classrooms up there. Oh, my mind is blown.

The sign's still there. You could go there, take classes, go to Upstart Crow. Yeah, it's like a whole quad thing. It was a whole. Yeah. And then you go yeah howl at the and then you go to howl at the moon and then you can buy a store that has giant things in it have we talked about that in any of these no i don't think so i don't know what sector it was in also i'll just include it in sector six but uh my friend tyler i believe said there's a there was a store that sold big

things which is the close related to my nightmare of gigantism no yeah you wouldn't like that yeah and it was presumably in a closed off space and i but i don't know did he list an example of maybe you could like a big pencil a big wine i remember a couple knickknack stores back at ithaca like one at a giant wine glass in the center it might have been like kitchen and cooking supplies but there was also like a comically large wine glass or hmm there were several places at ithaca no just just one okay i'm trying to remember what it's something and i know they sell ones too like novelty ones where it's like it's a big wine glass and it holds a full bottle that's fun yeah that's fun that's fine but why would you ever how would that be deployed

oh well like once at a party and then put in a closet have you ever guys ever seen that picture of jonathan gold when he won the pulitzer prize no uh he's drinking out of a wine glass that big and it's pouring all down his chest and uh oh man doing it upright yeah it's uh it's it's shocking uh it's great i mean it's a man who just won a pulitzer the first ever pulitzer prize for food criticism just like living it up but it is a insane insane photo he was number one he was the first yeah for food criticism i mean other people won for other types of criticism but he was the first one do we know if he's ever weighed in on a city walk establishment he did a very funny review review of like 10 years ago of Olive Garden that he did on April Fool's.

Okay. But it was pretty funny. I might just casually while we're talking, I might see if Jonathan Gold's ever used to that Google search. I looked up Jonathan Gold Pulitzer Prize wine glass and did not get a picture. Just look up Jonathan Gold wine glass. I did. What? That was the first thing. I and Gold Wine Glass. I did. What? That was the first thing.

I didn't want to... I just edited myself. Getty Images has this lockdown. Well, we'll figure that out. He's maybe... He's talked about David Chang, who is... Is David Chang the owner of...

No, but Ludo. He talks about Ludo all the time. Okay. Oh, yeah. But he doesn't specifically review Ludo Bird. But hey, we're talking... We have two of the finest restaurants in los angeles america to cover today and we went to we went to both of them did you find the picture immediately about winning pulitzer did i spell his name here it's guys just look at it really quick yeah that's worth a pass around that's great

and it's like covered in it just show it to me google jonathan gold oh god that's we're like it's just jonathan gold pulitzer i'll get you there it's the first picture that comes up i thought it would be uh well that's what we'll do when we win the pulitzer for city block based podcasts uh we'll head back up to tony roma's and uh do it all over again um so tony roma's huh tony roma's um why do you think you ended up there all the time um i think my um i think i think the 80s was am i wrong to think the 80s was all about people were into ribs like a little more than they are now 80s and 90s i don't think for sure i was way into ribs chili spent a lot of money marketing ribs yeah and reading the tony roma story because you know is it still called tony roma as a place for ribs maybe not that was the name of it for a

long time they might have yanked that for the sake of broadening out yeah so it was a very like rib centric restaurant i remember you would just go there and get racks of ribs and onion loaves. And, um, reading about it, uh, Tony Roma was the, the food culinary manager for, uh,

the playboy club. Is that what it said? Oh yeah. Yeah. Culinary director. So that, then he opened that his restaurant in, was it Dallas or it was in Florida?

Miami is what I saw. In Miami. Yeah. Um, and yeah. And then they had ribs as like a weekend item, but then everyone loved them. So they became like an everyday thing. Oh, it was, yeah, they like tried it out one time

and it took off like lightning. Yeah. There's like a lot of baby back ribs being tossed around in those days. They were very trendy. Nobody got ribs at either of these places. I have in the past gotten ribs, but I did not today. We did have the onion loaf.

We had the onion loaf. That was tasty. I've eaten a brisket sandwich there, and I've had some ribs. Was it good? Look, I don't want to give my sum up already but again fine is the answer for most of what tony romans has to offer it's fine it's fine right well i will say that we walked in it was not very full and it was like a saturday afternoon it was 1 30 right at the end of the lunch rush it was probably about a half to a third full it's not what i would describe it as less than lively

unlike the place we would go after yes which we've said the name of multiple times more than lively spoiler spoiler it's bubblegum shrimp it doesn't uh yeah so like i've had the ribs there and they were fine like like they are you know chain ribs like maybe the chili's level maybe chili's level of ribs at least is what what i had you know a year or two ago when i you'd find yourself in a tony romas at city walk we shared a sampler platter today with chips and salsa and uh what was the dip there was some spinach dip there was an onion loaf as said and. And potato skins. Potato skins. I haven't had a potato skin in a long time. I once declared my favorite food when I really specifically wanted to go to TGI Fridays as

often as possible. You declared that was your favorite food? Yeah. It was always my graduation present for middle school or elementary school. Was it at TGI Fridays and get potato skins? Uh-huh. That was also my favorite restaurant. Oh, really? I likedgi fridays a lot very reliable skins and sample platters there that's funny because that actually makes me think

of when i would eat ribs which is when my grandparents would take us out for some sort of event we graduation or like a birthday and we go to a place called dover straits it was a seafood restaurant and i would always order ribs i'd order a full slab of barbecue ribs and eat all of them the half slab versus the full slab is like a an emotional decision you have to make yeah it's a lot of ribs the full slab of ribs which i have not attempted in many years and i don't eat ribs often but you know maybe once or twice a year yeah the full slab really looks like an animal like it's a full animal you can like you could imagine like this it just looks so intimidating it just like i don't jason's looking at me like do you would you eat a full slab of no i don't

think i could yeah pull that off unless it was ribs a la carte i guess but then i think i'd probably fill up or get sick of rips i'm very low-key like this much fried food and a couple of drinks one of which was essentially a strawberry sundae like it's it's a lot on my body what do y'all drink it uh tony ramis i had a romerita which was not as i could have gone premium romerita and i'm glad i didn't drank a glass of black ink it was a purple it was a purple uh martini and it was delicious i mean i it was tasted like a grape something uh i had a cherry hurricane oh yeah a bunch of rum in it you got the drink that the bartender said this is a little much for everybody yeah he did that please he for sure said that was the one to not get because it was too sweet and i said well i have to try

that and then he did it and he made it for me and he goes this is gonna be strong and he goes is and he kept asking like is it bad like is it okay if you want something different i will give you something different he kept saying that to me did it taste like medicine it looked like well rum to me always generally tastes like medicine like cherry like with cherry it seems like it would taste like syrup or something uh no it tasted honestly it tasted like any like chain restaurant yeah rum drink it was he i think he accidentally poured too much rum in it though Which I think probably That slight Intoxication

Is what made me think The drink I was drinking at Bubba Gump I feel like I was feeling the effects Of that drink while I was drinking this Non-alcoholic slushy drink Going wow I'm getting fucked up And then getting a mild sugar rush From just how sweet it was

Can I read you guys something this is what i was looking for in my phone i'm sorry if i looked rude but i found this earlier and i had to dig through a website to find it again um so from this website called the balance it's a list of uh tony roma's uh mission statement and the way they train their employees oh and so the mission statement okay here's the thing okay so the balance it seems like it's analyzing every restaurant's mission statement in a cool way where they're like this one works this one doesn't the tony roma's mission statement does one thing that every good mission statement should do it clearly defines the motivation that all employees

should have behind everything they do by clearly defining the goal that is the most important thing of the company. In this case, the ultimate goal to Tony Roma's is guest loyalty. The mission statement of Tony Roma's restaurant is great food delivered by professional, friendly team members, resulting in guest loyalty, dot, dot, dot, worldwide. Along with this mission statement, Tony Roma's has identified qualities that expects its

employees to demonstrate in order to do things the tony romas way although these qualities are not labeled as such in essence these pici squared so there's pici and then a little two qualities could be considered service standards the tomy tony roma's fici squared qualities are passion intelligence compassion integrity intensity wow well that first of all for part of the family now maroon welcome i've never heard intensity as part of like any mission statement for any restaurant especially like a ribs restaurant that's like a third full what does that even mean what's intensity mean i don't like a intense waiter i want to chill late the first thing i think of about the whole thing is the

loyalty thing which of course makes me think of trump and like what he would say to james comey at dinner that he wanted loyal he demanded loyalty from him. So that's the first thing. And then, yeah, the language is very severe. It is a thing that dumb guys talk about a lot. Like, loyalty, family. Well, wasn't the restaurant mostly invested in by the owner of the Dallas Cowboys or someone like that? Oh, I think I caught that, yeah. Yeah, so it was like the Playboy the dallas cowboys or someone like that oh i think i caught that yeah yeah so it

was like the playboy club guy opened it and then the i'm blanking on his name but he was like i think the owner of the dallas cowboys and he came to eat there and he was like i'm paying for everything it's a franchise now so he franchised out tony romas gotcha and it seems like loyalty is a thing that like an owner of a sports team would care about. Yeah. And so same with intensity. But it's not the same as like a rib man who's making ribs for rib people. Right.

And onion loaves. Can you imagine like being the person who writes these mission statements and the people who carry out these mission statements? Not the thing I can imagine being is being like a server or bartender at a place and rolling your eyes and leaving and complaining about it at the end of the day. The people who drink the Kool-Aid for these restaurants, I cannot wrap my head around the kind of person you would have to be. Because we're all about compassion. Don't forget compassion in the list.

I know it's in the middle, so you might forget it. It's overshadowed by those last two I's. But compassion's a big one. What last two eyes sorry intensity intensity integrity integrity and intensity this is what's crazy too is the other thing this reminds me of is there's a professional wrestler named kurt angle he was a real gold medal winner he won the gold medal in amateur wrestling and he joined wwe and his catchphrase that he would say on wwe tv was his three eyes and they were intelligence integrity and intensity what is happening so those are very similar to the tony roma so there's an olympic thing about

intensity and integrity that is carried over through this sportsman into the tony roma's like whatever video you have to watch when you get hired at tony romas because i remember when i worked at california pizza kitchen we had to watch like days of videos about just making us understand like their whole take on it right because every take is different and some are better than others some people say intensity some people say family. I don't know. But aren't they all just swirling around the same sauce?

They're just delivering food to people and asking them if they want a drink. This is why you most want to be working at some guy's restaurant. He's never had time to make a video because he's been running the restaurant. He's been doing real things. He's back there cooking and doing it i'm suspicious of any entity that uh refers to their family or their community like i'm immediately well it's a it's a mob it's a mob thing right yeah it's mob it's crazy it's like the playboy club was probably had a weird sinatra mob connection anyway of course if he was cooking for the playboy club he's cooking for all sorts of bad bad oh yeah sure that was one of the first atlantic city casinos was the playboy casino back in 76 when

they they legalized gambling not good and what's funny is like tony roma's this location which i don't think i've there was one said, in the valley somewhere else? Yeah, I used to go to one in Encino, yeah. Is that... They can't have any vibe of the Playboy Club at Tony Roma's at CityWalk. But on the wall, the pictures, there's some wise guys hanging out in the pictures a little bit. But you really can't tell unless you walk up to them. So it's the least aggressive.

But it's a little nod to Tony's past, I feel like feel like i mean we are living in a post-goddy world you know the goddy movie is out yeah is this are they seeing a spike in business that tony roma's from like you know respect it's about respect intensity integrity integrity that's what i look for in my capos let Let me tell you something. Tony Romo's greatest restaurant in the face of the earth. You don't understand this. Oh, boy. Have you seen Gaudi?

We saw it. Oh, yeah. We saw it together. I forgot. You hit and run. I ran in and ran. Should I see it? If I like bad things. Yeah, you would like it but it gets boring it is more boring than you would think except for that beginning makes you think you're watching the best movie that's ever happened okay i might i might see half of it

you know what you should do actually go see the beginning and then time like leave 15 minutes in go get a drink at a mcguffin's type bar a bar in a movie theater and then go back in try to time it to see the last 20 you heard here first that's how to watch goddy in a movie theater that's how you gotta goddy i'm gonna do it we saw it on a monday night and it was packed the theater was full there's no space people believe that campaign they're like don't listen to critics listen to your own own heart. Yeah. Go see it. Who cares? Just like John did.

There was a very odd, the man next to me that he sat down later than I did and I sat down pretty late in the previews. He did not stop heavy breathing for 45 minutes. Do you think he was

beaten off? Oh. If he was beating off, he started before he got in the theater i could have been one of them he was a real man who existed he stood up to his damn kids which i'm unwilling to do you know the best the best stuff in gadi is the real life footage of people like in the neighborhood that were like john John Gotti ain't so bad. He kept the neighborhood good.

He should leave. He should get out of jail. Like just there's plenty of real life footage of those type of guys and just like some really funny characters, like just tearing the neighborhood up when he goes to jail. But then he those are the real people. And that happens towards the end of the movie. And so but until this point, you haven't heard the idea or seen it presented that Gotti was a good man. So all you've seen him do, one time he did a firework show, and when the cops said stop, he was like, Hey, get out of here.

And they did. And then throughout the rest of the movie, he's beating his children. So if he was a good man, they never conveyed it with his actions but i gotta be careful because did you see what happened where our friend who we i'm not gonna name for his the sake of his own life our friend tweeted something bad about the movie and within 30 minutes yeah was like in a twitter thread with thei's daughter. Whoa! We're in trouble. Why are we even talking about this? We should not talk about this. We're not going to make it to sector 12.

I'm not a fucking rat, okay? Can I say, I keep thinking about how maybe the reason that Tony Roma is popular with wise guys, because they're imagining that they like killed, put a hit out on somebody skin them and i know nibbling their little ribs oh wow that's interesting their bloody ribs with

their bloody hands that they then get a little wipey towel to wipe off and that's like don't use your sleeve don't use it the wipey things have a little thing that say don't use a sleeve on them so my thing is i think i saw the two main demographics at uh uh tony room was when we were there one it's families who were like oh let's go somewhere nice today yeah and i saw a couple big you know families eating lunch there the other thing was i saw a guy in the classic, like, khakis, plaid shirt, blue blazer. Like, I am traveling for business. Probably staying at the Hilton just across the street. And, like, just wanted a decent lunch, you know, that he could expense account to.

I think those are the two main demographics. You didn't see any gangsters eating the ribs of his enemies? No. Those are probably, like, the wannabe guys working at the back of the house. They go to the valley. Yeah, they were in the old valley location. They go to their Tonys. That's the real Tonys. Or the other Tonys.

Or the third Tonys, I know, in the valley. You know, they've tried to get away from this image, obviously. We all associate it with mobsters eating their enemy's flesh. That's what mobsters do. They kill them and then they just eat their ribs. There's that scene in Gotti where he eats his enemy's ribs. No, no, no, no, no. Hey, Vincenzo, put it on the grill.

Cook this guy's rib cage up. And they're bloody, so your hands get bloody. I'm craving for my enemy's ribs, please. Yeah, so what? John Gotti ate the ribs of his enemies. Who cares? He shouldn't be in jail. Free John Gotti.

He's a good man. He had integrity. He had intensity. Ma, get off my ass. I'm just trying to eat my enemy's fucking ribs. Classic scenes from a classic film. Basically, they've tried to do a rebrand in the last couple years it's not happening it's not happening uh it so specifically hasn't

happened let me tell you something i ran into i found this really boring i was trying to find youtube videos of tony romas and i found this really boring corporate video uh that was about how they're rebranding to be TR Fire Grill. They're taking one of the locations in Orlando, and that's going to be the base of operations for the new model of Tony Roma's TR Fire Grill. And this is part of a wave of restaurants doing this kind of thing. I didn't learn until this bit of research

that Hooters has tried to do a casual Hooters in Chicago only, and it is called hoots is anyone is this come across anyone's desk no i don't know anything about hoots so all of these when you guys go to schaumburg you should go to hoots we will that will definitely be still there uh yeah it's still around but it just hasn't expanded there might also there are tr fire grills one of them's in hawaii and one of them's in malaysia so is it like fast casual ribs because that's the least fast casual food ever you don't want them to be fast and casual it's like someone just likes like okay uh drops like you put a little number on your table someone drops a slab of ribs and then you

and they're like this is your enemy's ribs they give you a quick sheet of the bullet points of his backstory and why you'd want to eat him he was a bum and didn't respect no one all right enjoy your rest no integrity no intensity no integrity oh good that's those are against my values uh anyway this was this is something that the company tony roma's parent company roma corp inc tried to do and i watched this boring video about it and there's this guy rambling on, running his mouth. His name is Stephen K. Judge. He is kind of ambiguously European.

He's a British, I guess British. I can't tell. It's just a snooty accent. I don't think this guy has integrity or intensity. And he's going on and on about this is going to be, this is like, can I even do the vague European? This is going to be the model of Tony Roma's for the next five to seven years. This is going to be, this is like, and I even do the vague European. This is going to be the model of Tony Roma's for the next five to seven years. This is the direction that we are going.

And this is base of operation. People want millennials. They want a fast, casual dining experience. And going on, and this is the boring eight minutes of this bullshit about how TR Fire Grill is the future of Tony Roma's. Not only are there only two of these not only did this crash and burn this guy repping this thing steven k judge but the video i watched was from october 3rd 2016 by june 21st 2017 he was out the fucking door oh he's now the president of cafe operations for hard rock cafe oh no right does this punk have stephen k judge to go around

talking about the five to seven year plan for for roma corp and then it fails he torches the whole thing and leaves get like goes to his his hot new mistress uh hard rock cafe and then his second guy in command, the VP, the regional VP of operations, Dave Cully, he moved to Steak and Shake. So these guys,

how dare they take a beloved brand of a family and intensity and they flush the whole operation down the toilet with some half-assed millennial gastropod. They read one article about what millennials want

and then they change the whole thing around. Massive failure. The whole company's in jeopardy now and they go and get other jobs this is fucked up i'm furious for days and i'm glad i could finally talk about yeah sorry leave them their wife for their guma it's just terrible it's just unheard of no compassion no compassion no respect no loyalty no loyalty john gaudy kept the neighborhood together stephen k judge tore the neighborhood apart it's not even a place for ribs anymore we don't know what it is can we just go to plus it can we plus this up can we just call

it gaudy's or could we call it let's lean back into the i think when we take it back take it back this tr fire grills bullshit because they're not even putting the great tony roma's name in it anymore i mean the bug main would just tell us to bring back the worms and dirt if i'm remembering correctly this is where the children's dessert worms and dirt oh that used to be there oh it was created yeah tony roma's i don't know what's created but at least served like dump cake kind of like it looks like yeah it's just like chocolate pudding and gummy worms i mean i would love that crumbles i want more goombas yeah yeah there's a we haven't done it yet but i don't know why we would because it's just a restaurant and we're not a restaurant

review show no portillo's in buena park which is a very theme parky area and there's of course many portillos where i come from they have a gangster theme inside and people love it the one in buena park specifically there's mannequins with tommy guns there's bootleg and stuff why is this not in the tony romas why are they trying to get away from it isn't stealing a restaurant idea something that somebody with no integrity and no you know intensity would do maybe intensity it sounds like they already don't have integrity yeah i want it to be a more threatening buca de beppo sure you should feel unwelcome yeah you should be a little scared you're on your toes it does seem a little out of place in city i don't know out of place is the

right word but it does seem like it should be gone you want it gone torch it i don't think it should be there anymore it's old i agree that it should be gone unless there's a whole changeover in in thinking and you come in and everyone's pinstripe suits and there's a whole theming and you get like the great movie ride 30s gangster comes up and serves you you know uh era appropriate food and drink bugsy they need to it could be bugsy i'm not saying yeah it has to be i would love that i would go there once a month yeah because right it is now is just like a very generic space with a couple pictures on the wall and then like a red curtain around the ceiling like very minimalist we had a lovely bartender oh wait scott tell me the thing you learned about um the original position of it

in city walk oh there was a there um the venue that shifted from that ended up as saddle ranch and before that was something called womp hop pompers womp hoppers or maybe it's hoppers i'll put an extra m in womp pompers uh and then also what was the other one uh country star restaurant yes the failed uh hard rock cafe but just for country oh that's what that was okay well that was when the first time i ever went to universal studios that was a tony romas like a the first time I ever went to Universal Studios. That was a Tony Romas. Like a two-story Tony Romas? Yeah, it was massive.

That was a giant. And if you ever, anybody went to Saddle Ranch while it was there, there were many, many, I feel like they had capacity for 700 people. It was a compound at Saddle Ranch. Wow. I never realized. Yeah, there were rooms aplenty for a Gotti-like figure to do business. He could have all 20 of his associates in there,

and that would only take up 10% of the restaurant. That's the one I went to. That's why I thought it was cool. Oh, okay. Now, you did go to that one. Yeah, I remember the ceiling being lower, though, than the one we went to. Because there was a lot of floors.

Was the Saddle Ranch building? Because Saddle because it was not two floors i don't believe um i well it's very tall i don't know if they let you up maybe at the time they let you on at the second floor i just wasn't even aware i just remember it was giant and very ornate and it had that 80s restaurant thing where it's very brown and brick and production design like uh there's a restaurant hula hands that was yeah yeah it was that one that warm you know that way when sizzlers used to be fancier and really heartfelt it sounds like this was a good version of tony romas i liked it yeah yeah i remember that so that must be why you by either of us have affection for it is it was that we go to that fucking place we went today you just shoved in some corner of this dumb mall um yeah that place has no history no family

doesn't tie the neighborhood together nice nice bartender though oh yeah he was he tried to get me to not have that drink and he was very nice to do so, but I was stubborn and insisted on finishing all of it. And look at you now. That was high off the alcohol that was only in that drink. Yep. Well, we should move on to number two. As we've talked about, obviously theming a restaurant off of a very specific film is an idea we're passionate about. And long before there was Gotti's, eventually there was Bubba Gump shrimp company,

Bubba Gump, shrimp comp, which was, I've always wondered what the, the deal was like, why, why is this? And it's that,

is it Paramount or universal who made the movie? Paramount. Paramount approached the rusty Pelican chain and was like, will you make a Bubba Gump restaurant? Yeah. And so they, it was their idea. Originally they were like,

we're going to license. It's never been done since. Right. That's just a movie. One movie. I don't think so. We're going to make a, we're going to make a restaurant off this movie.

We got, you just came up with a plan. And they said a year later rusty pelican came back and was like okay rusty pelican i guess is like it's a newport beach it's like a seafood restaurant okay they came back with a plan they opened the first one and then the rest is history yeah it seems like an idea now that would have you just like people are opening up like that saved by the bell restaurant like it's a big thing. Theme parks now is back to themed restaurants and experiences. It seems like a dumb thing that would happen now.

You'd go, oh, did you hear they're making a Forrest... Oh, man, they're really running out of ideas to make a Forrest Gump restaurant. But it's like, no, that happened like 15, 20 years ago. They never would, though, because the affection... No, it's insane. Any affection for Forrest Gump was left in the 1990s. And in fact, it's so commonly cited with the hindsight of history is how does that get

all the Academy Award attention, not Pulp Fiction? Obviously, the wrong choice was made. And it's not like a location in the movie you like, oh, if we could only go. There's no location. There's no location in the movie. You hear about it, like vaguely. Yeah. No, it's like Bubba Gump wants, Bubbba wants do they open it he does open it uh do you ever get to see it no i don't think you

ever say it no hear about it yeah you vaguely hear about it it's a line in a movie and they made all franchise out of it a restaurant franchise it's insane yeah because people love shrimp and how do you drink what's the percentage of people that go into it that don't know it's insane yeah because people love shrimp and how do you drink what's the percentage of people that go into it that don't know it's related to forrest gump i bet it's very high well it reminds me of the bill and ted show at universal where most of the people there only knew about bill and ted from the bill and ted show like like most of the teenagers there were not born yet when there was a bill and ted movie so they're like oh yeah bill and ted those guys from the show at universal right yes so now kids go to the restaurant they go oh this

movie about those people from the restaurant yes so it's been it's reversed now and there's details of this that are i mean all over the walls there's photos it's themed two characters i saw a framed photo of, I only remember who it was because she was on SNL for a season. Siobhan Fallon is this actress's name. She's a mean bus driver in the movie. Oh my God.

She was framed on the wall? Yeah. A mean chain smoking bus driver has a tribute within this location of Bubba Gump. Also, there's a photo of young jenny framed in one area that's like who it took me a second to be like who am i looking at young jenny there's a fake sign for forrest's company i believe from the army oh uh by the bathrooms and then photos of you start seeing photos of hayley joel osment and until

you guys cracked it for me he's the kid he's for his son yeah who who is the subject of the line is he like me which i keep thinking about he's coming up for me in the recent pet which is funny that hayley joel osment was that this very uncomfortable uh moment with this this handicapped child and then he's also the kid from uh walker gave me walker says i have aids from the famous shown on conan uh walker texas jill osmond had a rough and all these parts but he also he's not like forest he's smart oh yes yeah that's what force is breaking down thinking he had a special son it's like no he's very smart okay yeah hayley handled these heavy heavy heavy scenes for a young actor and he's tributed through framed photos it's the same photo like five times all over this restaurant it is like first of all i i will be honest i had never been in this restaurant were you shocked by like

the theming i wasn't i i was not shocked but very impressed because it seems like they could again nobody really walks in here going well we gotta go to that line that restaurant from the line in the movie from 25 years ago they're just like well shrimp i like shrimp and they go inside so i figure they can get away with something that's much more tony roma's esque as far as theming is concerned yeah so when it was in there and i'm like wow they really like did it up and like if you're a nerdy forest gum fan there's something for you in here yeah and it's also like if you like tgi friday like og tgi Friday, like crazy crap on the walls. There's crazy crap everywhere.

Did you guys see, did you guys notice the racks of hot sauces on the walls that were not present on the table? Oh, really? Have you ever gone to like a fish restaurant or like a honky tonk or something? And it's like, we got lots of kinds of hot sauces. Like that is a kind of restaurant that i've been to and this seemed like it had the simulation of that because there was hot sauces like on the walls but like high up but from what i could see there was only one kind of

hot sauce on our table yeah it was like a tabasco and i had to dig around in a bucket to find it yeah if if bubba gump's was a legitimate restaurant like just somebody's homegrown restaurant where would you when you if you were to buy into the story of the restaurant where are you myrtle beach shreveport i guess that's what they're damning for it's like an old rusted out right that we took which is kind of the vibe of that old tony rom as well. Or the place you used. The Wisconsin Dells. Oh, I mean, are you speaking about a specific restaurant?

No, I'm just trying to think of where this would make sense. That's not really... There's a little water near there. I want like a big... I think there needs to be a lot of water. Yeah. Like an Ocean City, Maryland situation. Yes, that's right. Yeah, that's perfect. That place is gross. a big i think there needs to be a lot of water yeah like an ocean city maryland yeah situation yes that's right i mean yeah that's perfect that place is gross i don't know yeah you love it oh

there's like a different there's a different a mini golf course on every block oh boy and it's all these sign of quality it's old like 40s signs for like weird liver restaurants and it's crazy wow you'd like that's where people would really go to get fucked up where i grew up yeah like that for senior week or after prom and stuff my family went to ocean city new jersey a dry town we're nice people america's number one family resort according to the travel channel i didn't know that that's great it's dry there's dry cities in new jersey uh that is the main one i know of they never changed the blue laws so it's a barrier island uh so there's like three big bridges into

town and you can bring alcohol in and have it at your home that's go nuts but not like at the restaurants or at public at the bottom of each bridge right outside of town there is a warehouse size liquor store that's so crazy yeah do you think any of those restaurants serve what i have now confirmed is a non-alcoholic drink called the strawberry mango chiller you're so crazy why did you do that i love this drink i'm first of all nothing i said at the time was wrong i did love that drink i still love it i did think maybe i was getting a buzz from it i was not but i regret getting a sugar rush i was getting a sugar rush obviously and i was the alcohol giant it's as if i had like an extra

large slurpee while i was eating a meal uh in my meal of shrimp mac and cheese shrimp mac and cheese like a true child i had a strawberry basil smash and i know for a fact mine supposedly had vodka in it i could not taste vodka it was a couple leaves of basil uh ice sierra mist uh excuse me mist twist and a lot of strawberry puree which you said that sierra mist is no longer sierra mist it's called just mist twist it's called like mist twist i think they rebranded it why that's impossible to remember huh yeah would you drink i had like a lynchburg lemonade type thing okay uh which was great huh i picked like the lower calorie thing and the fancy drinks.

And it was like a whiskey lemonade. It was fucking fantastic. Which we did on the, both of us did for the meal. And I'm so glad because everything, they list the calories on everything. It's all 1,000 to 2,000. Oh, yeah. And we already split this sampler platter. I feel like I'm alive today Because you noticed The soup and salad combo I really might have

Missed that altogether Yeah let's see what My calories were From the meal Oh yeah I do want to know Because we kept it pretty light We came in around

Like 500 calories For our little lunch By doing just kind of A side salad A little cup of gumbo You did a gumbo I did a Oh my god

What did you eat? A thousand calories Wait for the drink? No, for the shrimp mac and cheese. I want to know. Oh, but you don't know about the drink. I'm trying to find out. You could have gotten a lot higher.

There was a lot of 1500, 1800. That was actually a pretty reasonable choice. Can you look up? I just had the calamari. Like just a basket of fried calamari. Yeah, it was under appetizers. Oh, calamari. Oh, that's not bad.

640. Okay. We're ruining this for ourselves. That's true. Why take it back? Well, I's not bad. 6.40? Okay. We're ruining this for ourselves. That's true. Why take it back? Well, I think it's a good service to the listeners that we save them a trip to the BubbaGump.com calorie counter. Yeah, of course.

But I don't want to save them a trip to Bubba Gump, which I fucking love. We had a fun time. Get in your cars and go. We watched people do birthday dances. They make you dance if it's your birthday i didn't understand how that was a dance off once it began they said it's these two people's birthdays so they gotta you know what that means they gotta do a dance off and then everybody clapped and i the whole time i was waiting for the dance part to start and it did not

as far as i could tell am i wrong were you guys confused i was confused sort of bounced up and down and like waved their arms a little bit and then it was over that counts as dancing more specifically we did the trivia contest the most immersive part of the day yeah our waiter was great it was awesome shout out to cory shout out to cory cory ruled uh the one kind of intense thing cory said to us though so, he almost belonged at the other restaurant. When he said, actually, Forrest Gump used to be my favorite movie as a child. Haven't watched it once since I got hired here. Because I asked, would you be able to do this trivia without having been hired here recently?

And he said, yeah. He said that. And it started off really fun and then like had a little boo-boo at the end yeah it was a little earnest and a little intense well how could you watch the movie if you worked in that restaurant you would be a great there's one guy who does both and he's insane yeah he's the worst person you've ever met he's like that oj juror that showed up wearing the like star trek outfit or the whitewater juror yeah yeah i remember that i don't actually during whitewater a juror like got selected for the

whitewater jury and then showed up the day of in a full star trek next generation outfit with a like a like a bloop bloop thing on her chest whoa she's in that movie trekkies and she hid that part of her personality until the first day and then she showed up like that and through the entire trial when the president was on trial into complete chaos which probably is what tina fey was making fun of on 30 rock when she was like princess leia and a jury that was it did she get dismissed did they get rid of her immediately they're like what are you doing she's like i just wanted to show people that what i believe in wow this is my true self but it made clinton go few but she didn't do it to get out of jury duty she wanted to be on the jury to show off her cool pins um who could blame her i guess i have to do this i have to say

falling asleep i'm yawning yeah we all are one thing as we sat down and we're taking it all in and when we first met corey he said so what brings you all to bubba gump today and i think we all had a beat where we're like should we how do we answer this question like we all said he asked if we'd been here and we all said no because we thought we'd get kind of a more from the ground up experience if we said no and we kind of did yeah uh though i really showed my cards when i asked for the trivia game specifically oh yeah yeah uh i guess that showed that i'd been there yeah what did we we struggled to come up with the answer yeah the trivia game was great it was very fun do you remember that what any of the most obscure stuff in there? Like, like a town.

I, the ones where I didn't know. Shreveport. No, it wasn't. But it's written on the license plate that's on the table because there's a license plate that says, go run for us,

run. And then you can flip it over, say, stop for a stop. And when you do that, you mean it's like an, a Korean bar. You want the waiter to come by and say,

yeah, the other one is like stay away from us waiter we're having a good time that's what that means the trick question what color was lieutenant dan's shrimping boats no or shrimping boots excuse me he still wore shoes even though he was had no legs because yeah oh you know he's on the boat no's got, he's all no legs at all, right? Yeah, the CGI, the legs out. He doesn't have shoes because. Because he's being mean. He doesn't have legs, yeah.

He hasn't come around and got his titanium legs and his wife yet. And he's like, I have a wife now and she's from Vietnam. That's how you know he's become a good man at the very end. Right. Oh, right. It shows up at Forrest's wedding. Uh-huh. And he's like, here's his, this is young Jean or whatever.

That's how you know. The movie has all of the, like when you mentioned that there's a framed photo of Jenny. Young Jenny is abused in the film. And then in the movie, she gets AIDS. She tries to kill herself. She tries to kill herself. So to ignore all of these things, I guess i don't want them to address it but implicitly a forrest gump restaurant has to ignore aids suicide and abuse it's like i guess

was this ever talked about in the did anyone have a a kind of a cultural sensitivity discussion in starting this restaurant or were they just like yeah but the mesquite shrimp's gonna be delicious i think that because the trick trivia question was about how lieutenant dan's leg was a double amputee like i guess they don't really care they're like we'll talk about that one also the trivia questions are like essentially you're helping tell a chronological story of forest's life yeah and it's just like the nice i mean not all the nice stuff but like a lot of nice stuff none of the historical events that forest falls into ass or elbows he didn't in this part of the trivia

contest ask us if we thought the vietnam war was a just war there's only one right answer he would accept if we didn't say yes all of us he would have kicked us out of the restaurant uh can i say a not nice story from my past oh sure oh please well i wouldn't probably the first one of these i went to uh was in maui in hawaii on a trip with my family and i remember having all the confusion about, huh, it's a restaurant based on forest. This is weird. And so I was confused the whole time. And my dad was kind of like zoning out. He was kind of weirdly quiet.

And the whole dinner was like, what's going on here? And about 45 minutes in, my dad said, oh, my God, this is where my dad had a heart attack. Jesus Christ. When it was not Bubba Gump's, whatever the location was previously, my dad's dad had a heart attack at the table and like fell into his soup jesus yeah like this is my and my i watched my dad unlock this terrible memory and then right then like okay so you guys remember the movie uh what did what they say when they wanted to stop when he was running football uh it was my dad just like got lost the rest of them, it was, yeah, I could flash to that memory very easily. Wow.

Yeah, very upsetting. That's crazy. He survived. I mean, he made it. He didn't die at Forest. He did not die at that restaurant. Dying at Bubba Gump is not, you don't want to die at Bubba Gump. No.

Although we did worse restaurants, though. Worse chain restaurants. Yeah. Jordan Morris just declared he'd be happy to die at Margaritaville, which I think any of us might be, especially due to a plane crashing into the wall. I was thinking, there's another thing that's sort of a Forrest Gump-themed experience that's not Bubba Gump, because I was like, well, that's weird. And then I was like, oh, well, there is something, there's another entity that tours using a character, of course, from Forrest Gump.

But it's not a themed experience. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? Oh, I do. I'm talking about, of course, Lieutenant Dan Band. Oh. Gary Sinise's charity band, usually for, which we can't make fun of, I guess, because he donates money to the military. Except that he has become a crazy fucking conservative. So yes, we can make fun of him.

And we can't go on mission space anymore. Steppenwolf's Gary Sinise is now only tweets insane military things and tours with the Lieutenant Dan band. Yes. It's like he thinks he was Lieutenant Dan. That's what, yeah. He served.

That was his service with that movie service yeah was he was in that movie he's an honorary troop i think there's three strikes against any older actor the obvious one being harassment of any kind but the other two not as important but almost their strikes i think are uh crazy right-wing tweets and playing white guy blues music. These are the three worst moves that any older actor could make. So Bruce Willis doesn't pass. Yeah, from one of the three

and I hope not more. I don't know the whole story of Bruce. The story of Bruno. But James Dolan is okay. He's the New York Knicks owner. His blues brand is cool. Yeah, yeah. He's doing fine. Wait. He's the New York Knicks owner. His blues brand is cool. Yeah, yeah. He's doing fine.

Wait, who's the guy who made, um, who does, like, Mom and Big Bang Theory? Chuck Lorre. He's a blues guitarist. I saw him at LACMA once. Like, playing with, like, the jazz, outdoor jazz at LACMA. We don't have time to get into Chuck Lorre's sins.

No, I'm sure the other categories are spotless moving on um i'm sure his blues is great as well i would like to speak about the gift shop briefly of course yes um were you gonna play a lieutenant dan band song is that why you're pulling it out no i mean i was just looking to see what was there we don't need to we don't need to do that to hear a friend of the devil by the lieutenant do they only play patriotic songs or they play like i'm trying to find a set list honestly i bet you can you can talk about the gift shop is full of it's huge it's like half the size of the restaurant it is full of stuff like t-shirts license plates things but all with phrases from forrest gump on them things that you forgot about like they're stupid as a stupid does but there's also like

for a long time last time i was there there were a lot of shirts that said i gotta pee which is what he says to jfk but just having a shirt says i gotta pee on it there's so many steps where you have to be like that's from forrest gump especially in like 2015 which is when i saw this shirt also so here's here's what it is a couple years ago after i'd been and i just marveled at the gift shop i met a friend of a friend who was a manager of a baba gump oh and i asked him what i was wondering is like, has it always been the same shirts? And he's like, no, every six months entirely new I got a P shirts come in. They remainder or whatever the old ones,

like that's like new layout of I got a P on a new color of shirt. And they have to replace everything in the gift shop, like every six months. And so, but it still says I got a pee it's just like a new design and that happens it's been happening this whole time and you asked right you went to the cash register well no no no oh yeah i asked for it to see if there was an i gotta pee thing because there wasn't any i gotta pee stuff and i was like that's the most egregious of all the phrases for

me because it's just a little bit just offensive that would i guess bug me uh you know walking around in the world or in a fancy setting of some kind to see i gotta pee and i would not think of gump that's for sure you have to look really like underneath he says bubba gump shrimp you're like what's that and it's like oh that's movie force gum oh he does say that that one time it's one yeah i don't think it really took as a catchphrase or anything. It for sure didn't take. But are you saying that they sell out of it or they have to just keep representing I got a P in different ways? Yeah, they just have to get rid of the ones that are there and make some new ones.

And it's just like, that's the slog. So I don't want to go open up another whole Lieutenant Dan band thing. First of all, I want to make it clear to the audience, when they search, we're not talking about the Dan band. No, they're real. They're a different weird band. They're a different cool band. So, Lieutenant Dan band. Scott, I think you were incorrect just thinking these guys just play blues music

because according to the Lieutenant Dan band and the Mandalay Bay concert they did in 2011, they cover songs by Kelly Clarkson, Evanescence, Beyonce, Lone Star, the Zac Brown Band, and many more. And I just pulled up them doing Wake Me Up Inside by Evanescence on YouTube. Should we all experience this together? Is Gary Yerkesity singing? I don't have any. We'll know soon enough.

My heart is racing right now. I'm really worried. It's obviously a woman singing. Can you see Gary Sinise there? What's he bringing to this operation? Is that him dancing? No. With the tambourine?

No. He's not on screen right now. This is the Lieutenant Dan band. Wait, I think he plays bass. There he is. Oh my god. Wake me up inside. There he is. Oh, my God. Wake me up. Forrest Gump.

There he is. Oh, my God. He's not singing. He's just playing bass. Why don't they have a camera on him? Why did it take that long to get a shot? He's the star. Why would you see this for any reason?

Like you wouldn't go. He's going to get a shot. He's the star. Why would you see this for any reason? Like you wouldn't go. If I told you they were playing the OC County Fair, you would be there with me. Yeah, yeah. Scott, can you record this weekend? I can't. I'm going to see that Lieutenant Dan man. Going to a thing?

I mean, they do do Superstition by Stevie Wonder. Does he sing that? Is it always that woman? Oh, man. There he is sm? Is it always that woman? Oh, man. There he is smirking, making bass face. I think he doesn't sing in the Lieutenant Dan band. Never? I'm trying to find.

He must banter or something. He's got to banter. Doing like a mild cover of. Uptown Funk. Oh, no. All right. I don't think he sings that. No, I don't think he Funk. Oh no. Alright. I don't think he sings that. No, I don't think he sings. He just plays bass. He just plays bass. He gets to call it Lieutenant Dan Band. It's just his

hobby. He doesn't want to be the star of his hobby. As in films, he's a journeyman. He's a, he slides into whatever the role calls for. He's not seeking the spotlight. Perfectly fine New Year's band the new lieutenant dan band how much would it take for us to book the lieutenant dan band for the for for a live show podcast the ride anniversary party the podcast right anniversary bash it's probably startlingly

expensive and you have to delete this episode yeah you know i've seen him at a church that i've been to with my parents uh so if we could somehow convince him that it was like a catholic fundraiser if we could trick gary sinise into thinking that money is that he doesn't have to be paid because in order to help pay the Catholic Church. We also, what we really have to do is tell them that Jason has PTSD. He fought in the Iraq War. Straight out of college, he was over in Iraq. I was in the theme park wars. Disney versus Universal.

It was a hell of an orange race there in the late 90s. Jason had his legs blown off. The cable got loose on one of those drop rides. I think this seems like... Do you think that us tricking Gary Sinise into thinking he's part of a catholic ptsd benefit can we just dress me up as a jesuit isn't that just easier to get me a robe and a rope tie i just want to check if you guys think that this is something that people with compassion

integrity and intensity would do oh forget about it you're right what am i talking about you know yeah we hey we can't think too hard about the moral dilemmas here we have to get Oh. Forget about it. You're right. What am I talking about? You know, yeah, we can't think too hard about the moral dilemmas here. We have to get to the present part of the podcast, which is Eva. Because you, thank you for, because of your interest in the Bubba Gump store. Hang on a second. I want to send you on a one-way trip down Eva Boulevard.vard oh my god you got that it's a customized sign uh i'm sure in invaluable this is so sweet thank you you're very welcome this is such a nice gift did you get a picture of it uh oh yeah before i leave we'll take a

picture and you can put it on yes yeah yeah yeah the world the world should see the what eva boulevard is like i want to point out it doesn't just have a bubba gump logo it has a tiny feather because that's what forest uh loves is the tiny feather spirit uh-huh oh yeah feather thank you guys i didn't really stare at it for long you got a feather oh yeah and it's it's kind of like a like a glossy photo of the uh of the bub this particular bubba gump's location your favorite restaurant and guys look the stone is appearing for this sector the sector stone it's half a rib and half a feather it's a nightmare and a little it's a spread of wasabi smeared on top oh my god before we go i just want to share maybe my favorite thing that happened all day oh wait yeah we didn't even talk about this

so this is this restaurant's part of the landry's family of restaurants and jason immediately realized that his father uh was a landry's vip member which we all spent some time going oh it's a lowry's no no it's a Landry's we Jason and I are Lowry's VIPs all three of the hosts are Lowry's VIP are you as well no I'm a Musso and Frank VIP okay all right you're representing to be a Lowry's VIP I should it's it's very easy it makes a lot of sense if you go to Tam O'Shanter once in a while I know I gotta do it uh so you were like texting with your father trying to make sure that you were a Landry's VIP. I said, hey, do you use your cell phone number for that?

I'll put your number down and get the points. So there was a whole thing where I tried the bill at the end. And like, I realized that Scott has a universal pass. So that's 10% off. So we're like putting the card in there. The guy wrote the phone number down. And then you want to give points to your dad because he has Landry's VIP status.

And he'll get money off. And he'll get money off. So we're going to try to help your dad out too, I guess. So we're doing a lot of stuff. The benefits. And he's writing down the phone number. And you're trying to look up which phone number of your dad's it should be. And he puts it down.

And he comes back to the table. And he lets you know that you had $25 in credit on your Landry's VIP account and that he's applied it to our bill. It automatically just goes to the bill. And you look like someone's like shot you in the head. Like you look like you're like stunned. Do you remember what you said?

You said I don't want to use that. I said I didn't want to use and he goes oh it just goes on automatically don't worry about it. I'm like, okay. You stole $25 off a meal of a bunch of friends. An expensive meal gets $25 off. And your father's expense. It's already been 10%ed off.

And then we get more. And your dad can't use those points. It's like he's starting over from zero now. No. Well, I think like he's still got some points. But it's like he got maybe a dollar's worth of points. It's possible that he spent a lifetime working and accruing those points at Landry's VIP restaurants. And that you just callously took it out, took away from him.

Yeah. You fucked your dad over. Hey. That's why he was upset no we didn't care he's like i probably just got another Jason cared he worked hard now you come out to Hollywood to just have this freewheeling lifestyle doing theme park podcast he worked hard for those points i am just now covered in flop sweat because you know it's true i am trying to give them back we all watch you try to give them

back i want to say that that's you played with the man please it was too late also usually they say oh it's got to be your name on the card for the oh none of that we have three different cards with three different names on it today he didn't care yeah it was great by the way one a one like truly a great waiter very fun so can we book the lieutenant dan band to re-raise those points your dad was a military vet and then he subsists on he specifically was uh not draft like he just just dodged it his number did not come up. My dad too. Is your dad a draft misser? How old are your fathers? My dad, I don't think

he was too young. Would have missed it? He missed it. Oh, my dad fled the draft. He went overseas. I can say that now. Hell yeah. He moved all over the country and made people lie on his behalf. He moved all over the country and maybe we'll lie on his behalf.

Oh, he just, he failed to have an address to be pinned down at. No permanent address. He was a street performer. Well, that makes him the smartest person. Yeah.

Thanks. Gotta live with it. Wow. Well, that magic really came in handy. It really did. That was disappearing at some point.

You never see me. You never saw me. Well, yeah. But none of them served. We have no fathers that served. No, no, no. But we will edit that out before we book the Lieutenant Dan Band for an

important point. Razor. I want to book him but it'll be like, we just don't want the drummer and we don't want the singer and we don't want the guitarist or the piano player the tambourine woman that's we just want to book we would like dan we just want dan just going do do do do do do do do do do do do do one mic and one bass amp can you make it work you think think, anyway? Can you learn Wake Me Up by Evidence? Can you still do Wake Me Up Inside? We find out Gary Sinise is just like Primus Good.

Oh, yeah. Well, only one way to find out. And Sector Keeper, you're invited. We'll see you there. Eva, thanks so much for hanging out with us. So blissed out by this whole day. What an afternoon. What a nice day, yes.

Thanks for having me. Thanks for doing it. You So blissed out by this whole day. What an afternoon. What a nice day, yes. Thanks for having me. Thanks for doing it. You're blissed out. Mike is wasted off of strawberry jam. He's bouncing off the walls like a toddler. Hey, this has been a blast. We'll see you tomorrow. Hey, Lieutenant Dan Band, play us out.

Oh, now we have to remember to do that. I'll add it in later. Sure. Without a soul My spirit's sleeping somewhere cold Until you find it there and leave it back home Wake me up inside Wake me up inside

Call my name and save me from the dark This mouth loves to run Before I come undone Save me from the nothing I've become. 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.

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