On this episode of the Comcastro podcast, we talk with Johnny Martinez and Brandon Ley of Joystick Gamebar, Atlanta, Georgia. Journey with us as we discuss gay larping, elite karaoke, personal opinions of Comcast and the Atlanta Braves, arcade gaming, Orson Welles impressions, Hawkeye’s inferiority, extremely cheap wine, palm reading, personal spirituality, Atlanta’s ancient history, and so much more. At times, it becomes very personal for all of us. Thanks so much to Johnny and Brandon for the conversation.
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Why don’t the extreme knows if you can be a terrible introduction which I’m not really into that city being a calm Castro they have a lot of evolution when I was Maximus grow Matthew queen so it is truly is a great story like the development of Eleanor’s JOHN TAYLOR And the gist of the business my life and everything around it like things are work and some of the examples that the of on guard. Establishment of the New Yorker in my life including choices it’s very hard to overstate the impact they’ve had on our culture and they’re doing it. Our guys are doing it with a new game that’s what we got damn right so I was a little bit a nerd talk a little bit of community a little bit just too much fun actually had spirituality at some point but I have a problem when I can get now the funny part was it. Yeah I did when I was editing this action. Yeah like I remember that part really well in the moment I was at that point. Political Yeah get prepared people for the first psychic reading I can get the first time you know. So without further ado joystick choice well I’m just wondering what goes on at the back of wizardry to constitute little for a bag of wizardry we got to have a star on their. I like what I want some stars and I’m like the hack bike like the tall hat but they all seem to wear we should explain that it’s Gale our being that we did because we’re both gay and it was really just full of glitter. Right exactly level. A bag of wizardry level four is is everything a level three plus letter letter letter so what level do you get to shoot rainbows out of the out of the magic wands and that’s not a level six X. It’s a very advanced move for the rainbow but if you have to draw. Queens where they are allowed to do that at level five times combined. Yes Dr. Yeah. Creating green bow connection to jack up their own Absolutely you know the first time I ever saw a ripoff I was like five or six it was on H.B.O. and I’d never heard of a drag queen before like this was like something like totally new just like entered into my world and I just I just couldn’t take my eyes off the report of an H.B.O. special that I missed. No I don’t watch it. Well it was like it was like real sex or like something weird it was like something I should not have been watching at age five or six right now but yet report did actually have a talk show for a little bit you know that’s probably exactly where I was you know I hate myself for not knowing that well for me it wasn’t repulsing Tim Curry on the arm like V H one late night or something. Yeah yeah that seems like a fair a far more wholesome version of the like. Like tell how you were. How were you introduced to transexuality like Tim Curry and Rocky Horror Show scenes I mean if you’ve got a band with Meat Loaf and Barry bass way yeah it was me look in the movie. Yeah oh yeah. I’ve still never seen it. Why do I have to go see that I’m a little offended by you as my own. Yeah. Yes I think this is Dragon Con they do it for Dragon Con of course. Actually I was at the tucker saloon this past weekend and all of looks down on Dixie where they’re saying this is what they were there for a one of their friends who is a cast member had recently passed away so they’re kind of celebrating her life and so doing karaoke at the tucker saloon. Tucker saloons the best place in Atlanta did karaoke I saw a guy do care you could have a hand puppet so the tucker saloon used to be the other bar in the four it was the other bar it was the tucker saloon moment so and they have a lot of a lot of trends I just call it the once and future talker someone centrally was and is right. It’s great it’s probably the most it is the most diverse dive bar in metro Atlanta. It is it’s got it when you pull up to it you’re going to think you’re. Going into the craziest biker bar you’re going to be scared. Yeah you’re going to expect people to shank you and to be really just terrible. Imagine a healthy family environment. Exactly yeah but it turns out it’s lesbian karaoke night. Yeah and it’s great and you have a lot of hers and you have transgendered folk you have people doing karaoke with puppet Sammy and Ron Howard was pushing that biker scene until everyone just found out he’s gay after the fact and it’s like we really should have known the whole time through this priest entire thing right. Yeah Ethan Anderson is literally called London leather boys. Yeah right just like home. Added we not sit right. Freewill burning I don’t know how that was gay but it was probably and then you compare contrast with Freddie Mercury who actually saying about light emails and stuff so I like him and we never would know him as and called Queen Arkan dressed as a female. Yeah they were. OK OK I want to try cream heavy patients. I I didn’t I was not aware that all I’m going to get you know I have the album cover so I had to set because it’s like certain I can. Eighty nine. So all I saw was that when you flip it over and they all just look like standard rock stars because there’s a little flamboyancy that just comes with Tyler look at that. Anyone in the riser so I’m not interested in watching a rock star that isn’t flamboyant but I sound like you are all I don’t want to know how I mean James Taylor has its place but you know that’s what Dylan that he my country’s on rock N roll anymore. Yeah he’s country now various areas there is rhetoric. It’s kind of the Beatles start that way and it slowly evolved into more of that kind of unrestrained style right. Yeah so it should be. Yeah well you know we were going to be Taylor Swift and start pop country and then just drop the country and I saw a sight so John Oliver recently useless in one of his clips about the neutrality right. Actually it was before his interview with Edward Snowden. As a woman ranting about how angry she is about the pulses of the N.S.A. and I was not brought up before Congress to like or revisit it and she was cut off by the anchor so they can go to a breaking news story of Justin Bieber’s DUI hearing put into India. Yeah it’s ridiculous. I think what I loved about reading why you’re called Comcast is because because of your political beliefs in part right and you believe about Comcast being a complete evil terrible overlord this is you know lives which I also agree with you. Sure they’re like the gift that just keeps on giving. Like Google alerts for Comcast and other second Castro for Comcast and it’s and it’s like every third week I get some outrageous story about how they’re screwing one of us and it’s like good lord like idea you to sue us for the name can cast around every one of these and it’s impressive how good they are at screwing people over like they almost have to go through effort for that to get their customer service to be so bad it’s almost like they go through training. Oh absolutely. Because it’s yeah it’s a it’s all part of the merging of companies because so you’ll have an existing workforce for customer support in one place and then you merge with another and it just never crosses. Over properly and just ruins the entire structure but have you considered the burden of riches. I mean I don’t know are you aware of how much we ask of someone as light as as selfless as Comcast to give us all of this I.S.P. where would the internet be for do you ever try to find tax loopholes. Those are difficult and an army of attorneys and that costs money. That’s the it’s a lynching thing Atlanta sort of committed towards in-town revitalisation and everyone is coming in to try to make a great community have the space and then people who could be the cornerstone of that moving to Cobb County with the Atlanta Braves franchise right. We don’t want the bike not everyone in Concow is on board with something like a substantial portion of us right. No Too bad your take you know what I had are gone but it and the best part about it though is that the office space the building that circle somebody five anchor of it is going to be the corporate headquarters of Comcast and I just pray to God that they call it Comcast feel like I just want to go to like a game every Friday and just do a little thing like when you’re on location you can talk to Comcast C.E.O. you won’t let us in but we’re going to try our goddamn companies and become a performance art. Well I think that is devolving into you know like they’re paving it well when I started is that that’s one of the constitutionally protected Matthew Comcast no longer just a tax dodge. Well thank you guys so much for hanging out with us for a little bit. We’re having you having us here and I like to introduce yourselves. My name is Johnny Martinez one of the owners joystick game bar and hopefully at some point in the future the Georgia beer garden well and I’m bringing my bit dumber to his Louis’ fantastic Well I think makes me Gina Davis. So right now there’s actually a really good movie My mom made me watch Why don’t watch a lot of those chick flicks like down on the east Fried Green Tomatoes Steel Magnolias and I don’t like Remarkably enough they’re actually pretty good if you go a little way on your own that I don’t know you know gay rubbed off I hey you know I mean if my mom is going to hear this like you should know those ones did not suck. Those were good movies but sweet now because you guys you guys don’t like do you guys have claim to the first video game bar in Atlanta. I called in to us yes yeah OK Well I mean it is the first arcade bar in Atlanta that we know of at least so we were happy to give that mantle or someone else or someone else did it first. There was of course battlegroup before us and there are some of them and they’re doing more you know that console games and the computer games. P.C. games. Online gaming that sort of thing is opened up there new place there’s no plug for our friends in battle who can see them they just went from area to Sandy Springs they’re doing the anti Braves right yeah exactly. Writing ever closer they heard they were moving up there and said Yeah I can’t have you done with that. So what arcades do you guys have been interested. We’ve got about seventeen games now two which are pinball Terminator two and Dolly Parton pinball which is one of my personal favorites from one thousand nine hundred eighty eight. She looks amazing on the glass said Snap. Yeah because a lot Look that’s right. And then arcade games ranging from the seventy’s to the early two thousand from Gallic centipede Street Fighter Pac-Man ramp a Donkey Kong how one live like digging that up was like almost archaeological to try to find these. It was interesting because in the beginning we kept reaching out a lot of places that in theory that’s what they did is that they placed games inside of bars and made money off what people play and we would call them up and we contact them that we said we need a retro game and they would all tell us now they would all tell us that we were pushed towards those screens you see in bars where you can play like the nudie erotic picture on sale and Solitaire towards those that would be the conventional like bar gaming thing you really want is just a weird slot. Stop right now. So like when when you’re like the exit rate I’m actually going to go point like there has to be like a very tight knit community of dealers who are and collectors really could hardly have like ren original mis Pac-Man. Yeah that’s what we’ve elementally Yeah after we opened the community sort of opened up to us and they’ve been amazing you know we had we had purchased most of our games with first opened for a place called Chattanooga pinball and even though they were called Chattanooga pinball they were mostly arcade cabinets It was interesting because everyone we talked to would tell us we got a warehouse. A warehouse with games that would show up and it would be a storage unit with two or three games. This was an actual warehouse they had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. It was part graveyard part museum it was incredible absolutely airport hangar something that’s just like a lockdown and it was up that it what it was you could have put a plane in there I found the actual Ark of the Covenant probably right from that. Yeah but it was behind the broken down Spiderman right there do you think of building any comments on the whole main box route. I mean when I say we don’t build things that we do you know only businesses and community involvement Well actually happens but I don’t think you know we tried fixing up a few of the games ourselves just little small things that come up but we very quickly discover that that’s just not what we’re particularly good at. There are much more talented people out there who are all. Much better in Atlanta as a huge community not just collectors but the people who work on it and it’s pretty amazing how closely connected in fact the Southern Fried gameroom Expo second year that last year was huge it’s a Southern primed Southern Fried gameroom Expo they just started last year was the very first one. We’re actually lucky enough to be their very first sponsor. We’re really excited about that and it’s just a community of collectors and enthusiasts that came together and for their first year we’ve been involved in a couple different conventions one of which is Dragon Con which is obviously amazing because it’s dragged on of course but the I mean they know how to freakin organize you know it’s really impressive. There was the most flawless sort of convention that we’ve been a part of in any way shape or form. Where was it. Yeah it was at the Atlanta century Center Marriott. So eighty five near that red Claremont. Yeah you’re quite right. But there are going to be you know it’s believe it’s in July or June I probably should have figured out the day before I start talking about them which. Now it’s this summer. Perfect you know it was not an earlier that caught me it’s like you know you have to call someone up and you say you know retro arcade. What the hell is a modern arcade like I thought arcades ended with the advent of the end sixty four. If it involves golf it’s probably not a very large rifle and yet here we got pushed like that a lot to you know honor and Golden Tee. Yeah yeah I want to get stupid amount of play time so that’s that’s true like my my my brother and his friends like they used to like they get real serious about like they put like twenty or thirty bucks in there in a night just like like practicing in radio and twenty years now some will open a bar with those to the ground we had twenty years to start adding that to our Yeah exactly. Much of the really old by then it will be all right. It’ll be like seeing Fresh Prince of Bel-Air on Nick at Nite you’re like is that old yeah yeah yeah I had to moan when the nanny started playing and Nick at Nite they go again. Yes He’s actually been trying to model his life on friend pressure I think for a lot of them I don’t know if any of you have seen beautician in the beast but it’s a really good movie and I do ninety five print dress are you going to work on your voice there a little bit. He’s been working. Just to get it OK for today. You don’t want to hear the real voice yeah so here’s what surprised was that like which arcade read too like like really prowling our camp we got whatever God but which one got lead already and the reason for that is that it was the one game that we wanted from the very beginning. It’s evidently we didn’t know it at the time really hard to find it very difficult to fix up there are so many pro We almost got it we first opened so we had actually to now announce that we were going to have it. We announced all the games before we opened we took pictures where John and I dressed up like the game so I was his pac man he was a ghost I was Batman he was the Joker. Sort of thing and some of them got very difficult to do spacing writers was really difficult although it’s pretty awesome because it’s just taken from inside and you see it’s outside fighting off invaders from space itself. So we had this amazing gauntlet photo that involved Rupert the owner of nannies done on edge waiting for Henry from church. Yeah and we just as the four characters and it was a great battle down the road or right and then and then we discovered that gauntlet wasn’t coming and we were just heartbroken that we can use this photo so a year and a half later maybe we like government to be right I’ve got a plan now is it. Yes we put the photo up and you know it was awesome and then like a day before we realized oh god that is not coming right. Well no worse it was the wrong that’s the wrong we had gotten someone to fix up got lead and we thought we’ve been very clear about which version of got let you know what if the wrong version of the wrong version of goblet. So we will pull the record out and other any just hanging in there just like on the last leg. All of them every single game in there is yeah it’s only a very gentle to our games. People really they don’t understand that these games are so much older than they are. It’s really crazy but you’re giving you’re putting drunks right next to these things. Now we’re trying to do it all day long and all of these the pinball machines are difficult to maintain because those have a lot of individual little moving parts and each game is different and unique so high so you can’t like you can get a joystick that will fit on pretty much any arcade for you know those little leaf switches are universal right. But then you get to the pinball game you’re like oh Terminator needs a new skull right now multiple skulls to choose from and I gather it’s still worth that I think especially the beginning is a brand I use to be behind the bar a lot. Had today and now we’re not so much. Or if ever. And but it was always great watching people come into there’s always something that everyone would gravitate to and you’d have people tell you stories about those games which it I mean this one lady came in and it was a lethal enforcers and she she said that you know when she was younger her and her parents they were on this cruise and it was that the game was on the ship and there’s nothing else to do on the ship. So they’re paired to give your money and they’ll go down to watch her play and play and so for her it reminded her of that time with her parents and now her but her parents are gone and you know she choked up and I you know it was it was great you know at the same time you know I think some of these games have a very powerful emotional hold that you have people with people when they come in for the first time there are certain games they literally just walk up and touch X. men was like that for a while. We rotated out though it might be coming back soon but people would walk and be like ooh and just touch X. men and then they would go and look around and come to the bar and get a drink or whatever. That’s not so for example because like I have a similar relationship like The Simpsons and X.-Men those like four player wants and I want to back to play them a little bit. It’s like your special move takes down your H.P.. OK dollars. Alec I started making voting video games and so now look at this this is the most exploitive bullshit thing at all but told that I was actually I was impressed with your game selection. Correct me if I’m wrong do you have turtles two or Turtles in Time. Turtles in Time. OK yeah that was outstanding but it’s not the one I got all my money when I was there the one I played the most was Gallagher I played gal I played a stupid amount of Gallagher one time as I was playing five dollars worth and I actually got in the top ten I was like number three for like a little while with base airfare. Yeah per play. Because one of the bigger quarter take right that is the one game I think that cuts across all sorts of demographics you have people come in and that’s all I ask you what’s going on you have got to go and then they go straight to it and then that’s I mean that’s the strategy of surrendering the ship in order to have extra power and you know we’re actually just today or last night rather delegates got a new high score characteristic three point four million or three point four million. Jeff King Jeff tournaments name a good he’s what level is that you know I don’t even know there are surely enough to be the new King of Kong documentary just about like The Tender Bar. Yeah be great. Let little known fact I Gallagher you get up in the levels there like those and we start talking a lot more hits like you got to have that second player or the second ship of the right you’re toast. Right there is there’s a skill level there’s a general comes in it’s name is George a very nice human being and he’s really good at the classic games Ms Pac-Man delegate Space Invaders and he has a lot of our high scores on those kinds of games. One time he was in there playing Ms Pac-Man and he called me over so much must have a new high score come look at and Ms Pac-Man was in a corner and the ghosts were circling underneath her and he said hey can you just watch us make sure no one hits a joystick up to get a batter knows exactly where this thing one what level and what corner and it’s an essential a pause like it only lasts for like five to ten minutes but it allowed him to go to the bathroom down the only thing I knew he knew that perfect time when you were down Japanese actually had named each of the ghosts. Like not liking people and people were there like I’m the aggressor the coward you know always I can come closest to you or any others. It’s like a weird decision making from like roll to spots like that right now the red is the aggressor. He is and every Japanese thing you know like. Jason the Power Ranger right now the leader is bread you know right and as a Georgia Tech fan I hate all of this. Retire Star Blazers. There’s always the red insignia that meant that you were speaking of Hey I’m officially boycotting it man I’m not very comfortable with the superhero that wears red and a lot of black facing off against a villain called the yellow jacket. So we’re just going to go ahead. Perfect to me like I’m sorry I’m not getting that money from me. You probably squash except for Israel to strike that it was you know. So is there is there anything I like is there any like a prized arcade that you guys are looking looking to get can’t find. We think we have a bead on a in a regional Star Wars cockpit game. Well we don’t mind telling you. So we’re expanding you know we first opened we had just the one side of the bar we expanded into our parlor parlor which is awesome by the way I’d like to thank you thank you Chad artwork designer quick release. Right. Carries. Yeah it’s not your opportunity to menacingly whisper Oh yeah right right. That’s how she says her name to it is Hi my name’s Canaries but this is your perfect identifying people’s cologne and deodorants just from afar Actually it would not be shocked if she was in the order in Cologne bar but she’s now helping us expand into the back what we’re putting in a spaceship a spaceship which you know you want to have a bar to have a spaceship such attacks and it will be the observation deck of a space ship we have a little window looking at space and the next room oh yeah yeah. I’m like imagine space camp like come one come all if you can just like chill out in the back and hopefully with that but what are yours. Seated next winning a game or the end like that future when a lot of Star Trek where all species twenty somewhat not accepted I think and I said a story. We are very much how we view our black like a reset. There is one thing we were missing from Star Trek the entire way through. Right more like a weirdo future raves that you know I would have given a lot of money to it’s kind of parties will be Goldberg would have thrown ten dollars or so because she like knows all of history because she was like an immortal or something. Yeah and she did it the card is like an alternate history or something right. It could well be Gilbert can do anything and she was a friend of Mark Twain’s when data actually goes back in time and brings them out of the stars right. Yeah it’s what a ridiculous show that was. I never noticed that I was amazing. Holy shit there are some specifics that are. So how does it feel to be one of the evil gentrifiers of Atlanta. All however I am going to I don’t know you are right. ARE WE ARE WE gentrifiers because we don’t feel like we are because we because we are we are leftists. We’re progressive and we’re probably the only bar on that street that still lets homeless people come in and get water because you shouldn’t deny people water right. So we don’t I mean if we are we apologized Yeah our ologies too to Edgewood Avenue than now where we are definitely a part of the change and it would happen you know and definitely has a dictator education. But but downtown is coming back. I think finally which we need to do and it’s really interesting and exciting to be a part of that being part of where a member of the business the old Fourth Ward Business Association which started the year maybe year and a half ago and is already up to eighty members like there is just this this growth in this change. When we first opened up we had told people that it was akin to your first week at the dorms like you had to move in and everyone supercooled like oh hey what’s up what’s your. Major Yeah I was going to do you know come on watching movies and it has been great so if I mean I would say that of and I don’t know having never opened a business somewhere else I can say that that the business owners that we have there they are all interested in helping each other out so this is you guys were shot. Yeah yeah I used to be a computer trainer we as we had and have no idea what we were doing. We still don’t feel like a shot in the dark too. Were you guys taking a bet on the neighborhood I was in the neighborhood I think we actually sell it on and we’re pretty paranoid so we take educated and like well thought out bets. We did we were looking at the only other neighborhood we’re looking at seriously was East Atlanta which is obviously much more established but there was something just about the raw vitality of Edgewood. Yeah I used to like the Wild Wild West and there’s we still like that and we like the fact that there’s not a big giant corporate stranglehold on that right there’s no Starbucks on Edgewood and that and we hope it stays and in fact you guys partner with us. They call themselves illegal food Well we did that we you know we’re not trust fund babies you know we didn’t come from money. Sure and so when it comes to things like food we want to help other folks out in a lot of people helped us out and a lot of people who couldn’t afford to help us out helped us out we had to actually do a Kickstarter for the very last little bit of our funds which thankfully was able to you know which worked out for us and we’re incredibly grateful to all of the people who you know gave five bucks you know. Right yeah. So when you said oh we got eight and that’s that’s literally what allowed us to open you know if we hadn’t we didn’t have that all we would have done and when we opened up the kitchen we finally got to the point we realize you know this it’s it’s it’s expensive to open up a restaurant. Yeah and to get a grease trap to get a vent and we figured we would go out we find people who are passionate about what they did who were cool. Good at it too. Right of your vision like someone who knew what they wanted and could execute that but didn’t necessarily have to be the not financially means to do it and so we’d start an incubation program you know where we all bring people and they have to stay here for at least a year or maximum two and will take a tiny percentage and we take ten percent of what they made. We give them a small part they have to pay a small percentage of the expenses and then they keep everything else it all goes through us you know we collect the fees we give them that we collect the taxes we pay the taxes and the idea is that they get their name out. They work on their menu and then they eventually squirrel away enough money they can open up their own place that we don’t have to have a city full of pediatric funsters. Yeah it’s that kind of hope Fox from the start and that’s exactly what I was are in. It was our when our inspirations for that yet. Missile parts where they got started. So you know we found illegal food and brought them in and they did it. We did our name that I gather. Thanks delicious tasty treats you like that’s got a chain yeah. So it became a legal food and we were really excited to see all of the success they had dated you know. Once they got best burger in Georgia from the Business Insider which apparently a lot of burger eaters read. Yeah yeah. One article it was incredible and there is anything like that. Able to to go off and fly the nest like they were like the plan was another open just open up their own restaurant we just started our second incubation which is junk food with Chef Joey’s Olenka do and just really awesome. I’m a cheap popping model takes on you know like snacks so I stop coronets and kimchi popcorn just really good solid beef jerky. Yeah you know it’s all a nurse is on the menu I can get to do it. Yeah yeah if you want to and we recommend the the bean burrito in burrito and the. Talkers which are actually a small potato chips or potato chip tacos with theirs. You guys live in one of the hippest I mean maybe he hit the stereo in Atlanta the all the diversity of food around you I mean I’m a big fan of Argosy which I know is over in the A.V. but let’s face it you can throw a rock from where you are over again where there is everything in between I mean obviously we’ll find out some sweet things you know Edgewood which is and what its own thing like it’s all Fourth Ward it’s only one part of town are you. Well we’re definitely Edgewood in the old Fourth Ward but we’re also part of the king historic district because you have a chance for yeah yeah we’re we’re Cabbagetown adjacent downtown adjacent in the old Fourth Ward Inman park on those that are so many neighborhoods. Yes and that’s one of the interesting is going to work even really I think it’s like it’s just like one street gang and it’s becoming you know more. Yeah I go there have a lot of money they will save you yeah right like they were they develop that whole thing like the most like that’s garage right to resist us anyway which then became another actually the most successful thing or Kickstarter that there was ever coming out of your Fourth Ward just down the street from Dayton or even if they’d been awesome they helped us out a lot. We did a fundraiser for the. Big Bethel Saturday school at auction and an amber Nash guarantees have been wonderful to us. Interview Can I was a lot of other such good people so I really appreciate everything they did for us it was really great. It’s definitely that crazy positivity said Collie. Right right as opposed to the dark side that you were so easily right. Here’s my needle knots money whenever you say Kevin go he’s a nice guy like Maxon are just like yes like you’re just preaching to the choir like you know I would actually like to meet someone who doesn’t like me. Yes I’m fascinated by who’s And there’s no anyone else they’re not like. Let’s get back and send us an e-mail at I hate Kevan saying I know we should start that campaign feeling like you know what is currently a hate list of everyone to send e-mails and say no way we have gone on. Yeah I like that you’re asked about him in part because I think that’s one of the interesting things that’s happening in metro Atlanta. Just in general because I feel like I’m pretty old and I remember back when people said they’re from Atlanta and if you are from outside of metro Atlanta you would say where you were from. I’m from Duluth I am from Kent aside from Alpharetta I’m from Atlanta and now people who are from Atlanta you know say they’re from Atlanta. They say I from Inman Park and from the set land and from Kirkwood I’m from midtown I’m from West midtown it’s more about the neighborhoods and people who live up in Duluth. If they meet someone who’s not from Atlanta typically say I’m from Atlanta. Now live from Atlanta. Like an anti sprawl I guess I think Emery I think Emery started that they start marketing themselves from Atlanta because nobody from New York wants to go to reckon Decatur Well I was just calling my grandmother. So if I know the story correctly essentially all this federal money is being poured to kind of turn at Jordan’s like this corner of tourism for well there’s a lot of money that’s been that’s been put out by the federal government that’s aimed at going through and rehabilitating inner city main streets. Yeah right like what actors I haven’t heard of this what actors are paid for the street car and yet like in fact the administrations wanted things that revitalize urban areas in Atlanta happen to be doing that exact same time. Right. So we’ve like siphoned all of it right. So we had a street in the street car is from Obama. Thanks I’m on the Obama car bomb a car which we loved by the entire beltline project right now and I’m trying to do that for twenty years and everyone I know who did not. At the beltline beforehand they go down there and then the next day you hear them they say oh my God I love the belt line I wish I lived on it. Yeah and they’re jumping on it every day right. Are they run our friend isn’t the pool industry he’s been ragging on me for a while to buy a house like a cheap any house. Anything about wine because he’s convinced that they’re all going to be five times what they were I was well aware that I was a senior project of a heart attack. Yeah it’s interesting and I like the fact that people are willing to to go outside of the normal areas where you would think that people would have ideas as to what would make things better and go to someone who’s really interested and young enough to look at things a different way because I think that that last part of the best thing is having to Atlanta and while it’s on the search wasn’t young bro did beltline I remember we were we were starting out when I was a freshman in college because the architect for the beltline like nowadays must be and is somewhere in his forty’s really well since I’m trying to have him for over twenty years. Just hasn’t been possible. That’s because the cities are really bad at doing nothing. Yes I don’t mind telling you how bad the city is that doing things because it is really bad the word incompetent comes to mind occasionally a lot OK. Do you face a lot as well when entertainers are restaurant owners or just general business people. So we love they do it so much. There was an opportunity came up for a building across the street the old Edgewood animal hospital at four twenty right and we entered we couldn’t open a dispensary. We figured we would take it away and we would put in another bar and has forgot that one should be a lot happier writing another show you want to pass very soon we’ll be right out there. Giant hill of shitty laws and you can reach what you really need which is just what I just went to one stone guy like is hiring crashes car an employee but on the one politician who made a rattle for years. If he hits the street car that I am but we so you know where you were joking of early about buying local but we believe in that too. Right so we thought to be great to have a place that the Georgia brewing industry in really highlighted it and we would open up a bar. Actually I was so impressive I do want to plug that eventually so please keep talking. The label you had no worries and we so we want to open up a beer garden but specifically a Georgia beer garden one that went through and actually pushed and emphasized brews that were actually made in the state of Georgia that were outsourced to some other state but you know yeah creating jobs locally here. There’s there’s so much going on within the past two years there’s been tens of breweries right wingers and they’re all awesome. Yeah we have so much good beer in this and it’s not like any rules change making it easier just people got pensioners. Yeah and for me that’s the ultimate right is that people doing what what they want to do and they’re saying I do as I think it’s great. I want to share it with other people and we want to give them a bit of a platform to do that and it it just goes back to local communities. Obviously statewide is slightly bigger than local but it’s still in the grand scheme of things right. You know keeping giving these local witches. Now helps environment helps economy to everybody live with everybody a self sustainable. Everybody wins right. We if we carry Georgia appears then that means it helps those Georgia breweries the Georgia breweries go to employ Georgia employees right. There’s Georgia employees get didn’t spend their money locally so it just helps everyone right and by the way you also get better beer. Right so let’s let’s do this. Yeah and we bought that building a little over a year ago and we’ve been dealing with the city ever since. That is definitely like I mean there’s you just listed off like one hundred good reasons to buy you know local brewers but the biggest one is like all that plus it’s higher quality for comparable price because like generally speaking if you want like a fetish Nancy wine like Holy crap it’s like exponentially more expensive if you want the better beer it’s like oh right the same damn price is right. Budweiser is never going to put out the stuff that Orpheus does. Never going to do it and we. What you guys are having trouble trying to openness here and this is where you know it is we I do not hate government right. There’s a place for government I want to be efficiently to do what is supposed to do and in our case we run into situations where for instance with the urban design commission where we spent four months arguing over the alleyway in the back of this building they wouldn’t give us permission to get a building permit because they swore up and down that was a street and it was one hundred twenty years ago. But every other department I just had written off I mean if you it’s a moonscape of an alley even as it is and and and no one in that office seem to understand that you know we’re not a big corporation. You know we don’t have our parents to live on less basis very so and so you know we had to keep coming up with money to keep this thing afloat and it just seemed like a terrible waste of time to go through and do that when there’s probably easier better ways to to protect the integrity of the historical nature of the name. This is almost a broken record with a very like restaurant style business where we talked it was out of nowhere just from seeming incompetence. It’s not because it doesn’t seem like it’s benefits anyone like slow down approach. Yeah and it is not. It’s incredible how little each. OK So to get a building permit you know you have to go before a lot of offices that are specialized things there’s plumbing there’s mechanical there’s office building zoning planning which involves the U.D.C. that start district none of them talk to each other there is no easy concise way to give plans and how like if they had if they would let us submit it online which apparently we’ve been told the infrastructure is there they just don’t use it they just don’t use it right. Yeah so. So we have had to give our plans to plan routing and then when we met with our fire safety inspector the one fire safety inspector and all of the city Cobb County has seven. You have seven of them there. We have one. As for taking it so far yes and then so we had to go back to plan routing take our planes back from them and walk them down ourselves and I feel like I don’t know all of the intricacies but your name is planned routing What else are you doing out of the right place yet and in this case. So this gentleman who is very nice is a wonderful person yet he’s the only person who’s in charge of fire safety as far as reviewing plans for commercial plans in the entire city. So that means every single commercial plan has to go before him. High rises malls shopping centers are place every development every single one Cobb County has seven people who do this job. This if it has one. So if he’s sick or you know hate the poor man to get a lot to do he took a vacation while the whole city shuts down because he’s on vacation I mean I want him to take a vacation. Yeah he does a lot of work but at the same time that doesn’t seem like it makes a lot of sense to me and you guys were nice enough to bring a very interesting bottle of alcohol over here. Mom always told me never to show up at the hand of the king of buying low Yeah we had to support the Lucky Street Market. Correct. Or a grocery store or convenience store with all of them but it is where we can find the ONE OF A KIND orange driver. Yeah. Yes Can you describe the label. Well first. They time face and tones very much allude to a time of sort of the blaxploitation film aspect fairly sort of a throwback to a Black Dynamite ish kind of going right but then the text itself gets so true to form like honest and content for instance where we have to select white wine substandard grape wine from choice grapes substandard grape wine from choice grapes. That’s one ingredient yes all of that together it’s like a solid B. plus. I know right I can’t all sort I can’t read and have sight read. This gratitude trying not to select white wine substandard grape wine from choice grapes again still it’s like the David Lynch of why you know you’ll make it better is if you said it like Orson Welles selects whites was substandard curried wine from size craves citrus neutral spirits or natural born Shlaim artificially colored with F. D. and C. yellow number five six Bravo This is like Orson Welles makes everything better. Oh yeah that’s what I was actually I was going to follow up with a char and I don’t want to bring in right now because like this guy has had a disastrous whole career about how important he was to the actor Well he probably believed his own bullshit many he died he deserves all the criticism and all the adulation he wants like like you guys are not of the Transformers movie was you went on record as saying We just like this terrible movie there’s just no Excel some action figures or something you have but he did not manage to punk all of the New York area so he mailed it in I was right. Pretty amazing. If Prime I suppose what I do he did not have a war of the Worlds radio broadcast and the man who knew tomorrow you know the scene that I didn’t get is his movie about Nostradamus. Well actually so like my girlfriend. Well every once in awhile like forced me to watch a movie like from the old days and interpret it they’re pretty good a few months ago I took over the you know I don’t I don’t actually have standard conversation when they’re in real person so naturally it was just a few more torture for anyone. Yeah you start to like reviews we like what we’ve been talking about this. She she when we watch Casablanca which was damn good. As a matter of table I was impressed and then after that. Couple weeks ago we went to go see real window it was oh it was eighty five at the Regal Cinema like they had it like it was it was fascinating about it is are film school movies. Yeah they put it in. They had some trivia beforehand like T.M.C. and see one of them was like introducing it saying like See here’s something you should know he had to actually use every single light from the M.G.M. studio and then they had to rent lights from Warner Brothers and then I want to say Paramount because what he wanted to do was he built the world’s largest and because he really wanted like have this broad like panning like sweeping camera angles but you can’t do that if you just have like you built one apartment so they built the whole thing. But in order to keep both of the foreground and background in focus at the same time it needed so many damn lights that the epithet ended up like setting up the sprinkler alarm and then like everyone got soaked in the middle of the technique pioneered by Orson Welles and write a lot of people don’t know that sending set on fire and you got mad focus kind of you know to have the pad of power that Hitchcock had that’s what I want. I decided that we’re creating an apartment complex with all the lights in the world. OK Go and have all the lights yeah right. Have them keep going Alford right. Yeah you know I was going to mention it was Grace Kelly in that movie because she was gorgeous she was George Lucas makes everything but from a computer and it’s terrible. Yeah. There’s another Orson Welles thing right now. Heat there was that weird period piece with Zac Efron in it. There was that weird period piece that Zac Efron and guessing Zac Efron’s mom probably saw it right. Wait what is this that they’re from there is that like I mean I mean. Well Orson Welles Yeah yeah everyone knows that Orson Welles had amazing at this point and that’s pretty much that he had the least dignified and you know my God Like I remember saying like it was a commercial clip sequence of him failing to do it. Just trying to sell a Scotch commercial. Getting stronger and stronger and stronger. Speaking of discovering that they all be like Yeah the outtakes of his fingers why fire oh I like the jelly like spit buckets just for that like eat like you don’t eat a burger eight times and only Chris Pratt does. Well yes Senator as always it’s the food that yeah that’s awesome. Well the problem isn’t any more of us to keep the Marvel labs right yet it’s hard to be Starlord he said his Parks and Rec Eric are talking outperforming expectations. I mean like I went into details like when I will watch this shit and I came out of a going Yeah although I never doubted Chris Pratt He’s been my boyfriend since Everwood was on show concept G.’s you go back a long way. Oh yeah I watched everyone everywhere. Mostly for Chris Pratt. I like I tore my hamstring jumping on the bandwagon I saw him and I Guardians of the galaxy and then I was so actually. And then I went back behind that and watched every episode or at least one through six of Parks and Rec Parks and Rec is one of the best shows not even the one yapping it’s the same as like the first three episodes of Firefly that was just a repurposed Angel script with different characters right where you don’t want to say the Firefly did not hold up upon revealing Oh I don’t call me out that hard. Well yes there are people that listen to this you know wanting to get hate mail. Yeah you know you know I’m going to do it I’m going to do it at the time to be critical of just like wow you can one Orson Welles impression and I was just I’m just quite aware of the gravitas of this challenge being thrown before a committee. Well I mean for employers it’s the most imaginative and fantastic thing but if you’re looking for complete you know outside of it didn’t reach its depth until like the last episode. Right yeah but it was still like a set up like comic sort of introduction can’t write and then it’s like it deserves so much more and they got a movie but I think the opposite of Battlestar Galactica right away which I got me getting better and better at it. What happened and it was all about Who’s fuckin right yeah yeah and that is what I was disappointing last two seasons that are all star collective did not suffer from a lack of like drama like I mean like at least in season one it’s like every episode is like alright yeah it’s terrible like everything’s awful but I keep watching. So so speaking of constant references did you have to anticipate being. Oh Lord Well it’s like so so much of anything to say that I’m so much that way. Well so much of you describe so much. It’s essentially like becoming part of a whole community and like helping in a small part to make an entire neighborhood explode like as you anticipate like this is part of a thing or just will have a little good time you know honestly all we want to do is open a place that we would go to. Yeah that was you know we were the two friends are like I am totally open a bar and then we just sort of right. Everyone has that moment and I’d rather not go until I was four. Yeah just get daring each other and finally know you signed the lease now I’m going to I’m going to quit my job and I doubt you well yeah you know I just I guess the answer because we weren’t anticipating that I think we just like you said we wanted to open a place that we would go to wanted to be happy I guess. So we like the idea because it doesn’t mean we’re not ambitious regular ambitious but we like the idea. The opening places that we think that we would like to go to in the city that we don’t see we are yeah we’re tired of Atlanta not being the city that it deserved to be so we’re like yeah we could do that yeah we do are a little a little help out there along the way. Whatever fuck it will do a lot right. Yeah and there’s a definition of being cool do whatever you want to do that is the definition being selfish. Yeah I think that’s what we were doing we were pretty you know it’s you know I think we had it was they were I think there’s something about our politics that affects it right you know like the idea of going into a place where not a lot of people were going and there are plenty of people who were there before so help make it possible for us to be over again you know we are by no means pioneers nor do we can we don’t plan to be. We were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and it hasn’t been overwhelming just like the whole process. Yes absolutely can be overwhelming and the response to it was surprising it really the Kickstarter It was our first taste of holy crap people are actually like going for in there you know just our first taste of Internet comment. Yeah. Yeah so I want anyone to Personally I think that when reading the first memo one like what was the one that like I don’t eat your skin like that on her. Oh yeah actually there was a few. What we did is that anytime someone says something mean about joystick and we thought it came it will be clearly put some thought into it right now not just like a review on Yelp it said they were closed. That’s a real Yeah that’s right and what I’m going to come right here but it was really I don’t want to leave my twelve year old on the R.K. right who got him to write one hundred. We’ve reached out to everyone in some of our best customers have been the people who give us the worst reviews I hear that all the time. Like everyone we talk to are like the people who are the most angry We honestly just listen to her. Them out and now they’re our best friends. Yeah I guess I think people just want to people just people don’t just want to say what they want to say. People ought to know that you heard them and were pretty much willing to listen. We only got nothing to do. Yeah yeah. Well give us your comments right so I think that was but I think the weirdest thing for me was I was walking on the beltline when my boyfriend and I hear this thing and like what is what is that. And then as I was walking closer to where it is we’re walking I probably hear someone say ping back X.-Men and then as he got closer to me he was like bring back tax man I was like oh OK yeah well we’re working on it I mean it was weird it was nice but it was a little unusual you guys and I now have a new responsibility to the community Evidently if you provide the proper retro game experience that it can connect to the show with great arcade games comes great responsibility. It’s got way too deep for me. So many of us we had a joke in the very first episode where I was making the argument that Sony Pictures this false charge to subsidize an entire film industry based on exclusively on the Prophet Spider-Man which I said wow that’s so much pressure on Peter Parker and I’m just like I want to do nothing I don’t think. I think you know which I hope it was Marvel Studios who hacked Sony for the guys out of North Korea just for the opportunity for Spider-Man to be the only Batman could think of that are you kidding me I’m right. Speaking of bullshit I think it’s bullshit just how good Daredevil as you do I doubt we’re going to you know like about aliens went back right. But but I actually like Daredevil was so like I just watched the first four episodes last night and like it’s a holy shit moment for me like I’m not saying like it’s going like you’re not going to explore like deeper things about yourself and you know I got out of marijuana. Yeah apparently not but it’s it’s. It’s really fucking look at that good us make it good to know I’ve seen it all yet saw the previous stuff and I was I was intrigued but hesitant. One thing I’m really impressed by is what is the first Marvel movie I’ve seen where they’re trying to showcase martial arts like you know so you know when just when there’s a fight like Buffy it’s always cut right contacts and no one’s ever hitting it it’s really quite stupid but it’s not a real fight. Right and she’s so pretty exactly you know and so and it’s always like her coming up and like the stunt girl was like hit or something. This one is a long takes lots of action. The constant fighting doesn’t process is highly put together very and just so you know what’s what’s what’s fascinating about it is an episode two. There’s a big fight. Toward the end of episode two a lot of people are talking about it what caught me about it is number one I think it was a tracking shot or is that what you call it went on when you take you know your brother was calling it. Masturbates or something. Anyway long story short what I what I took away from it my dear double put like five guys down in a name get up kids using his fists and I was like I am and then like toward you know yeah he was fatigued is Hell humans have a real tough time there and you know mess super healing right. When did you know right. Definitely not the best story of a fight they’ve had like superpower fights as stories we’re bringing the Avengers but as a guy fighting right like pro wrestling so that’s why I was amazed by the Hawkeye and Black Widow and their vendors and it is like I write my God they have you know they’re up with Thor right now you think you actually that’s what was brilliant about the Hawkeye comic book because he has such small problems and he keeps fucking up tremendously and so he’ll be like kidnapped by the Ukrainian mob all of which wear Adidas tracksuits and address each other’s bro and you know he would simply be wrapped up in a snatched up in a van to be like that for doesn’t have these people right. And then later Likewise for having a personal fuckin meltdown he’s trying to set up his D.V.D. player doesn’t know how to do it so he called Tony Stark to do it but our society and he’s like What the fuck is wrong with you. Let me just buy you a new one I didn’t know what to do or this is the mildest word to work crazy fucking tantrum I did not know that I identified with the character of dude aka I’m going to have to thank you Matt Fraction is a bold comic book writer is writing the the Hawk-Eye run right now which is just amazing in his inferiority. Point of the series is a second one called sex criminals. Yeah they said you’ve peaked. Johnny said I as you know right you could not trust me you guys will love this one in that there’s these people whose superpower is when they come time literally stops just like real life. Yeah right but the thing is they can like start moving around as all the world is still around them and do whatever they want it so long as they’re still coming if you can stay if organizations hire it’s a ration of like your afterglow So as soon as you’re ready to fight again time resumes and so the thing is the guy and the girl had never met someone else who has this power. And so every time they ever had sex or stopped in the other person’s like frozen there just got really weird you know it was very strange because you know that’s awkward like what I do because when time resumes you expect me to still be here you know but and so and so the girls know how to reach out and ask questions about her sexuality is no one understands what the fuck she’s talking about because no one else time Stubbs and the guy just use it to jerk off at work and take a shit in his boss’s plan that’s a brilliant use of that power series. Man I don’t know where you can and I don’t have any of you know I like you laughed real hard at that because the boss of my old job. I’ll never forget him coming in to take a piss. It was the loudest quickest angriest shit I’ve ever heard in my life even. All gone I’ve never heard that much aggression. Wow that’s I’m sorry didn’t mean to interrupt you. We all know there’s only one word in really you know you said Google earlier used to be a computer trader and so I would I would I would do work for them I was not a Google employee it was only a contractor I hear they are I hear that there are two levels of being treated at Google. One is staff one is contractors like staff are all like holier than thou by the people of the contrary cult. Their Coke Coke is the same way I mean my they they like the whole coke life thing like they have everyone buying into a lesser contract or the fact you know I think it is again just like Max a saint stole second class society within this company. My other contract what was so bad that when I got to them I was like oh this is not so bad compared to the other and I get to hang out playing video games all day. Right well sort of yeah. A fighting city hall the yeah right at that video game with your game play it so that musical it sort of rock with modern life. Good reference there that we don’t get to work Rock on modern life all the time. You should feel quite such an empty one of those bars attributes a word like ninety’s kids it is kid so just throwing that out yeah yeah yeah right. Johnny’s more of an eighty’s kid I’m more of an old how old are you even today forty four years old. OK I was wrong again I keep on you were going to say sixty five or you know how I was and what he’s already done one of the hippest things in town so well as are all the twenty two year old want to be right now. Great good you told at what point do you just stop giving a shit what twenty year olds think about anything. Twenty I think I don’t know that’s that’s going to grow faster. Being always at the skin have to grow faster not giving a shit. I think I think the older you get the care you are. Then the less shit you give someone with my boys you know what I’m going to hell once it’s the inverse equation of flux so this is right exactly the same like relation of magnetism. Remember Square right. Never mind yeah that’s how it worked out. Becoming friends with Brandon because even the brain and so much younger than me you know he’s old. Like mentally internally emotionally as far as his anger and everything holding the old anger here non-body frankly we’re jealous in those situations you should have a lot of grey hairs or I was in high school and I did this show where I had to be an older character. So the grade my temples I look at myself in there and I’m like holy fuck this is what I want to look like this is amazing I was so excited when I turned thirty. Oh my God I don’t understand why he was so happy about turning old yet although I have only gotten more amazing with age I don’t see why the trend will continue. Young people with very few exceptions are down through there. That’s true for all but I was I was self-conscious about turning thirty until about two weeks before my birthday. The shit stopped giving I don’t know what it was about me but there was like this moment when I realized like you know. I’ve got a house like I’m looking at the moon. Yeah I’m happy and I like to say that it was a very it was like you know you know it’s not profound another day anyway and then I was meditating No nothing like that I just looked up I was like the fuck don’t give a shit I’m thirty and the like and then I realize just how stupid right I had been in my entire life and I still am but it was like it was like a moment where you realize like the amount of stupidity contained in one person is like like so concentrated you can be stupid but the moment you realize that you have been stupid it makes you a little less stupid. Well it’s if you learn to accept the stupid you know well that you know you have to go if you’re going to no I don’t I know that I am still. But two and I still love me. It’s allowed to be stupid right. My father taught me to never be the smartest guy in the room and I was you know my dad told me the exact opposite. You know I’ll always be willing to acknowledge that well you know a lot more about pod casting than I do so I’m not going to pretend I know a single thing. There’s no way you guys jump in the Punisher you know literally make it up as we go on oh wow. Well and best of luck. Yeah OK well you know what I don’t trouble in the Shadowmen strain which is very similar to owning a bar if you don’t like people comfortable give them a drink. Just talk the do is talk I think I mean all the anyone who you’re just acting as a therapist for like many more because mostly because we’re not our tenders. Yeah all of them. Yeah we are we have been behind the bar in a while so but yeah people are definitely willing to talk I remember when I was a bartender of Earth’s surface. There’s this lady who came in she was a regular restaurant but I had never really done it before and she just went into this whole thing about her sister in the hospital blah blah and I’m like OK so another shard maybe I shouldn’t. I don’t have to do with myself it was very uncomfortable but kind of nice you know a guy like you could trust me with this. People do open up you end up hearing all sorts of things but then I guess it’s because they trust you and that it’s a good thing and then I was in a slightly drunk. Well well secretly trust you honestly people need more therapy like this is true but without it how else would we have such great podcast I think. Exactly I think the time that people opened up the most to me is we did a good end to the what we did. Oh yeah I was in Iraq the end of the law was just for twenty to twenty. Yeah I fourteen we said we love the end of