Party

Mitch: We’ve been recording, so this is just gonna have to be, like, chopped and screwed. We’re gonna make a little mix tape out of this.

Austin: Fine with me.

Mitch: Do we wanna get started for real?

Austin: Yeah, let’s do it.

[intro music - retro 8bit version of Devil Town]

Austin: Welcome to Devil Town. I’m Austin,

Mitch: And I’m Mitch,

Austin: And we’re gonna talk about some drunk teenagers.

[both laughing]

Mitch: Specifically in the context of the show Friday Night Lights.

Austin: And in our lives-

Mitch: Yeah, yeah

Austin: So, first I wanna kind of give you, not background ‘cause that’s basically what this entire episode is gonna be, uh, but I wanna give you some kind of framing. Um, I’m gonna give you some numbers that I found on this, uh, The Journal of Primary Prevention. The article is called Teen Parties: Who Has Parties, What Predicts If There Is Alcohol, and Who Supplies the Alcohol, by Betina Freeze and Joel W. Greub. I’m not sure what year this was. Oh, uh, 2011-2012, so-

Mitch: Ok

Austin: Roughly around the same time we were in high school?

Mitch: I mean-

Austin: I mean I’d graduated college by then but it was four years out.

Mitch: Yeah, a few years after both us in real life and in the show. 

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: But close to it. 

Austin: Close enough for it to be, I would think, about the same. Um, let’s see, so, there’s a lot of information in here. Let’s see, they, uh-

Mitch: Just from the vibe I’m getting, I don’t think Betina and Greub have a lot of personal experience.

Austin: Probably not

Mitch: Guessing they weren’t big partiers. 

Austin: Ok, here we go. Here’s some general numbers. This is from the results section of this article. Teens hosting parties at home - twenty four percent of teens responded that they had had a party at their house in the last twelve months. The teens-

Mitch: What’s the methodology? What do they consider a party?

Austin: I don’t know

Mitch: That’s, that’s-

Austin: They asked people-

Mitch: I know- 

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: Because like if you asked me-

Austin: So it was a survey-

Mitch: if I had had a party, I might have said yes if you considered, like, a like small group of friends come over to watch a movie. Is that a party? Like… anyway

Austin: Purely, I mean like, I’m sure that they did not specify that-

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: But, um, let’s see, these teens reported a mean of about three parties. The last party they hosted was attended on average by about 20 people. 

Mitch: Ok

Austin: So… Alcohol at teen parties: more than one third of youth, thirty nine percent, who hosted parties reported that there was alcohol at the last party. Sixteen percent of parties hosted by fifteen year olds had alcohol. Percentages increase to twenty-two percent for sixteen year olds, thirty-eight for seventeen, sixty-one for eighteen, and eighty-two for nineteen year olds. So nineteen obviously is out of the realm of what we’re talking about, but it’s pertinent. Most of those who had alcohol at their last party reported multiple sources of alcohol. About a quarter, twenty-three percent of respondents who hosted parties reported only one source of alcohol. Half reported two, and a quarter reported three or more sources. Of those reported, um, thirty-eight percent said that they had provided alcohol themselves. Eighty-four reported that the guests did, and seventy-four responded that somebody else provided it. 

Mitch: Just someone else, just generally-

Austin: Yes, and nine percent replied that their parents did. 

Mitch: Hell yeah

Austin: See that’s some wild shit to me.

Mitch: I don’t wanna have kids, but when I hear inspirational stats like that-

Austin: [laughing]

Mitch: it makes me think, maybe I should.

Austin: [laughing] Let’s see, um, seventy-two percent of respondents who had a party replied that at least one of the parents knew. Sixty-four percent of them reported-

Mitch: Wait wait wait, how many?

Austin: Seventy-two percent. Knew about the party… going… uh, happening. 

Mitch: Ok, I’m just thinking like, like, that does not necessarily mean the parents knew that there was drinking at the party. They would still answer yes, like-

Austin: I guess, yeah- 

Mitch: ‘Cause I’m like - I’m trying to think of most of the parties I went to in high school, I’m sure the parents were aware that a party was happening. They weren’t always aware of what was happening at the party. 

Austin: Yeah, they knew about their last party, excuse me. Sixty-four percent reported that at least one parent was home at least part of the time. That’s also bonkers to me. Seventy percent of youth who reported having alcohol at their party indicated that at least one of their parents definitely knew there was alcohol. Seventy percent. 

Mitch: Yeah-

Austin: Twenty-four replied that at least one of their parents probably knew, and five percent said that they did not know. Only five percent-

Mitch: Yeah, that’s surprising to me. I thought that’d be higher. 

Austin: Let’s see - neither parents’ awareness of the party or their presence at the party was significantly related to the number of guests who attended. Um, let’s see, dddddddd… Holy shit, ok, [laughing] three quarters of the youth reported going to at least one party and attended an average of eight point seven parties. 

Mitch: A year?

Austin: A year. About one third of youth who had attended at least one party reported that teens drank alcohol at all of the parties. Sixteen percent reported that teens drank at most of them. Nine percent said teens drank at some of them, and sixteen percent said few of them. I don’t know what the difference between is some, few, most… I… there’s no, like, I don’t know. There’s, there’s no base-

Mitch: Shoddy study…

Austin: [scoffs] It’s on-

Mitch: It’s on a government website

Austin: It’s in The Journal of Primary Prevention, with, I just need to show you this header, it’s pretty bad. 

Mitch: Yeah, it’s, it’s HHS public access

[both laughing]

Mitch: Not getting the big bucks

Austin: No no no. But either way, that’s a lot of numbers just to say, kids drink alcohol in high school. 

Mitch: I- I’m not surprised by the numbers of, like, how many do and don’t and how often. Especially because most of those questions were not worded like, do you? It was, how many parties have you been to recently, were people drinking at them? That makes sense. What I’m surprised by is the parent stuff. Those statistics aren't terribly surprising to me. I'd be interested to see what the numbers would be if you got more specific with the questions.

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: Like, I bet there's a lot of people that are like, "Yeah, I've been to lots of parties this year where there was alcohol," but that doesn't mean that every single person at the party was drinking.

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: 'Cause I knew a lot of kids in high school that, like, par... like went to parties, but didn't drink themselves. 

Austin: Yeah. They did have demographics on there, most of which were white. It was like seventy-six percent white. But, um, I would like to know geographic location.

Mitch: Yeah, for sure. I feel like it's a very - not necessarily just location but, uh, type of town. 

Austin: Yeah, for sure. 

Mitch: 'Cause like, yeah, some of that makes a lot of sense for town like Dillon in the show, and for, like, our hometowns, but probably looks different in, like, a bigger city, or-

Austin: Would it be hard- yeah-

Mitch: If you live in, like, a big city, I... Just from like knowing people that grew up in cities, I feel like it's a lot easier for those kids to go to clubs and bars and stuff, with fake IDs and stuff. But if all your friends live in apartments, you're not gonna throw a big rager house party like you see in the movies. 

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: And then on the other end of the spectrum, like, when I lived in places where it was like way poorer in smaller towns, parties weren't house parties, they were just, like, out in a field somewhere. Like out on a levee or something. 

Austin: [scoffs] The levee-

Mitch: Yeah, I mean-

Austin: Jesus

Mitch: In Louisiana.

Austin: Well see, and-

Mitch: We both lived in towns like Dillon, where it's the sweet spot of, like, you have houses that are big enough to have a party, but parents that are not always there and supervising all that well.

Austin: Yeah

[theme music]

Austin: Give me your background. So, what was... what was your experience with school parties? Not school parties, that's not the case... um, like, parties in general-

Mitch: Yeah, um, it was different... it, it changed a lot depending on where I lived. When I was in middle school I lived in Louisiana, in a very, very tiny town. And that was like, culturally, it was like not a big deal. So that was where, like, I would go to, like- I was in middle school, I'd go to someone's like thirteenth or fourteenth birthday and the parents would like provide alcohol. It reminds me of reading the book Friday Night Lights the way they talk about Odessa, where it would be like, unironically, not a joke, like, "Oh it's just beer. We're not letting 'em drink drink." [laughing] It would be like, no big deal, right?

Austin: Thirteen or fourteen years old-

Mitch: And I was never, like- I definitely, like, you know, wanted to have fun- I wasn't... getting into trouble with that.

Austin: Right

Mitch: Like, I definitely could have drank way, way too much and done it all the time. I knew kids who- it was a problem. At that age I like, mostly just wanted to hang out with my friends. And like, if alcohol was there it wasn't bad, but it like wasn't a big deal. 

Austin: Right

Mitch: Then I moved to central Illinois- No, I moved to Missouri for freshmen year of high school, and that was very much the same. It was like, rural, Ozarks, small town. It was just like- it was where you'd see kids like Tim Riggins, where like, everybody in town is aware of the fact that he's drinking. He can go to the gas station and buy himself a six pack and drink it while he's driving and no one's gonna care. That existed in Missouri. So like- but that was where- like I don't remember ever going to a house party in Missouri. We did a lot of driving the strip and someone's barn or like a field somewhere. And then sophomore year I moved to Illinois, where it was like a big step backwards, in like- I've- I partied so much more seventh, eighth, ninth grade than I did tenth, eleventh, twelfth. 'Cause it just wasn't the same kind of town, like we just didn't do it as much. Um.. And thinking back, like, when I was in high school we def- I definitely went to parties where there was alcohol, but it wasn't a given and it wasn't like a requirement. Like, there were lots of fun parties where there wasn't alcohol. And most of the people I knew didn't really care one way or another. So if we like went to like- if we were all... It was also, like, uh, that... my specific age group in that town at that time wasn't really big into like big, everyone hanging out with everybody anyway. So we were way more likely to get together with a group of like five to fifteen people than any big party. And in my experience, those small groups were more likely to have drinking. Like, all the times that I drank in high school, it was more likely to be like, me and two friends found a bottle of something from someone's older brother and went and got drunk at the tennis courts.

Austin: [laughing]

Mitch: That happened way more often than like a big rager keg party. 

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: Uh, I don't know. I feel like it was- and like culturally, like, it wasn't like we wanted to party and couldn't. Or people couldn't get away with it. I feel like the turning point was graduation. Where like, the summer after I graduated high school, all the sudden all the parties had alcohol at them, whereas before they hadn't, and it wasn't really... Like, I'm sure there were people- there were people I knew in high school who did throw parties and drink, it just wasn't as much of a given. 

Austin: Right, yeah. Honestly in high school I didn’t drink. 

Mitch: Were you… was it like you were… was it like you personally were choosing not to, even though you could have, ‘cause there were parties where there was alcohol? 

Austin: Yes

Mitch: Or was it like not a thing?

Austin: No, there were. And I knew that people were going, and I was invited to some of them. Like, I was not a… I played football, what have you, you know, like… I… [laughing] I dated the head cheerleader [laughing] 

Mitch: Oh my gosh

Austin: Uh-

Mitch: You said you were Matt Saracen. You’re Jason Street.

Austin: Ok. Watch it. No, I was not, I was uh… As much as it…

Mitch: [laughing]

Austin: It’s hard to explain because I was not… People like me, I guess-

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: and I was actively friends with everybody from like different groups and things like that. I was not super into the popular group,

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: at all.

Mitch: I feel like that is probably, like, normal generally. I don’t think anywhere in the real world is as much as it is in movies and on tv of, like, there’s the popular kids and everybody’s in these cliques. 

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: Like, my high school was definitely like, everyone was kind of friends with everybody. There were definitely groups that were based on, like, interests and people that had stuff in common, but we were all just kind of friends and nobody was… There were individual people who were more well liked, but it wasn’t like there was “the popular crowd,”

Austin: Right

Mitch: who were like the quarterbacks and cheerleaders. 

Austin: There was, looking back on it and looking at the show, there’s a lot of shit in the show that actually happened to me,

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: and it’s specific shit.

Mitch: I think Friday Night Lights gets it closer than most shows.

Austin: But I was… The reason that I kind of got roped into that group… Me and my best friend in high school, he was the starting middle linebacker, we actively did not drink.

Mitch: Ok

Austin: And we made sure that we weren’t around it and things like that.

Mitch: Oh my goodness

Austin: Yeah, and it was because we didn’t wanna get… we didn’t want it to, like, fuck our shit up. We didn’t, like, we didn’t… Not necessarily, like, “oh we don’t want to,” necessarily, we just didn’t put ourselves in the situation to do it, necessarily. Now once we got out of-

Mitch: So if there were parties, you weren’t going to them.

Austin: Not necessarily, no.

Mitch: Hmm

Austin: Most of the time. Now if we were there, we didn’t drink. We just showed up and we didn’t really do anything. I honestly had never been drunk until I was a freshman in college. 

Mitch: Wooow

Austin: [laughing] Yeah, the first time I got drunk was off of boxed wine. 

Mitch: And that’s not… If I continued my timeline it just gets like, uh… It’s like I aged backwards, because I left high school and went to a very small private Christian college where nobody drank ever. 

Austin: See I went to a-

Mitch: ‘Cause like I knew tons of people in college who were well into before they had ever had a drink at all.

Austin: Oh, it was, it was a drastic change from graduation in high school, went to a party where I drank a little bit the night that we graduated. Not enough for me to like… Maybe one beer, maybe. Sat on the side of the pool and just watched everybody get trashed. Drove home, went to school, uh, went to a state school and it escalated very quickly.

Mitch: [laughing]

Austin: I ended up, uh, I was a functional, like… pretty much an alcoholic by the end of my freshman year.

Mitch: The way that people at state schools sometimes are

Austin: And not necessarily because I was in a frat or anything like that

Mitch: Were you in a frat?

Austin: I almost was.

Mitch: Ok

Austin: It was… I… oof… I got, um, I had to stare into a candle-

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: and they made me repeat something. I was plastered at this point. I don’t remem- like, I don’t remember how I got in the room. But I just remember staring into this candle and they were very serious. It was one of these tables, it was like a plastic table that they, uh, that they just set up in a room. I walk in, and there’s a guy sitting on the other side of the table and he goes, “Sit down.” And I sit down, and I’m just… I’m, again, dizzy as shit, can’t see anything, obviously. All I can see is his face. And he goes, “stare into the candle and repeat what I say.” And I’m just like [breathes deeply] And so I start repeating it, and I don’t remember what they had me say, but what I do remember is in the middle of it laughing.

Mitch: [laughing]

Austin: [laughing] And I look at him and I go, and I just laughed, and he goes, “Stare into the fucking candle!”

[both laughing]

Mitch: I’m so glad I didn’t go to a school that had frats, oh my gosh.

Austin: So I repeated everything- this was a rush event-

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: So, I repeated everything, the lights flip on, and there’s like eight people in the room with like paddles and shit. And then they didn’t do anything, they were like, “Yeah brother!”

Mitch: Oh man…

Austin: And so I was all, “Yeah!” Walked out. They kept calling me to go to rush events, and I never went. 

[both laughing]

Austin: I was just drunk off my ass and I was getting free beer, so… God, that was a nightmare. But it was by the end of my freshman year in college I had gotten to where I was drinking… during finals week it was every night. 

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: Every night. Not during the daytime, but I mean it was, it was… I started at five p.m., didn’t end until, uhhh, one or two in the morning, got up to go do finals-

Mitch: That’s Tim Riggins style. That’s… I have never had the endurance to go multiple days in a row.

Austin: Well, and then went from that, went home, continued it, and then drove through a barbed wire fence and then quit.

Mitch: That was a party. Were you at a party when that happened? 

Austin: I was.

Mitch: Ok

Austin: I was leaving the party, it started raining, I hit a turn, and went and drove right through it. That was one of the worst nights of my life.

Mitch: Yeah, uhh

Austin: [laughing] I mean, I can look at it now and laugh at it-

Mitch: It’s not… funny-

Austin: but at the time I was miserable

Mitch: it’s kind of funny.

Austin: No, well, I forced myself to go to a community college after that because I knew I didn’t want to put myself in that situation. 

Mitch: That’s like one of my friends, uh, went to a state school for college, got taken to the hospital in a, in an ambulance the night before classes started with alcohol poisoning [laughing].  I don’t remember if he finished out the semester. I think he might have just, like, stopped-

Austin: [laughing] Oh my god

Mitch: and then switched schools at semester.

Austin: Oh my god. Oh god… But no, there are situation in that show that I am, uh, [laughs] Looking at, specifically looking at- If you wanna jump into specifics real quick-

Mitch: About the show?

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: Yes, I do.

Austin: So, one of the big parties that we saw was the one that was… that they had set up as the alternative prom. 

Mitch: That’s so fascinating to me.

Austin: Alternative homecoming, excuse me. 

Mitch: Homecoming, yeah

Austin: Ours was alternative… I think it was alternative homecoming. Maybe it was. But we did have one, and the same night, and half the people showed up to the one at the school and half the people showed up to the one at the [laughing] girls’ club across the street.

Mitch: What’s a girls’ club?

Austin: It’s like the boys’ club but it’s a girls’ club.

Mitch: Like Boys and Girls Club of America. 

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: The like, like, charity organization.

Austin: Yes. Like a gym.

Mitch: So wait, ok no, for… for context- In the show, Tyra and Billy-

Austin: Yes

Mitch: throw an alternative homecoming. They supply insane amounts of alcohol-

Austin: There was-

Mitch: in a field and they charge a cover. 

Austin: There was no alcohol there, but we did have one. And it wasn’t to drink-

Mitch: Who sponsored it? Who put it on?

Austin: One of the students.

Mitch: Oh! Ok, ok

Austin: Yeah, one of the students did. And the reason was not because we couldn’t drink-

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: or anything like that. It was because [laughing] it was because we couldn’t grind at the high school [laughing] so they threw it…

Mitch: [laughing] So it was a dance. It wasn’t like you had a party-

Austin: No

Mitch: instead of a school dance, you had an unapproved school dance. Just your own school dance.

Austin: [laughing] We could wear whatever the fuck we wanted and we could just-

Mitch: Oh my gosh…

Austin: just get nasty dirty. [laughing] And I remember going to that one instead of the actual homecoming.

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: Yeah, and um, it was trashy. 

Mitch: Did you… did you have… because we- I really liked school dances. All my friends, we like, loved school dances. We always had parties after the dances. 

Austin: We never did. Or I didn’t.

Mitch: I’m saying like… like, you go to homecoming, prom, whatever, and do… and they’re pretty early in the night. Like, you go to dinner, do pictures, go to the dance, but you were like leaving the dance by like ten. And then it really started, and then you were going to like all the house parties. And like, that was one of the few times in high school where like explicitly we’re having, tv show style, house party rager type of thing- 

Austin: We never-

Mitch: was after high school dances.

Austin: I was never involved in that, ever. 

Mitch: Ok. I wasn’t like, I wasn’t throwing them. They weren’t at my house,

Austin: Right

Mitch: but that was when it was like, ok like, everyone’s on the same page. ‘Cause yeah, like, all the parties that were before that were like, you know, if someone’s throwing a party the only people that are gonna know about it are the, maximum, thirty people in their circle. So there were lots of like little  parties that weren’t public.

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: We didn’t have any of the thing where it’s like, everybody’s going to the same house and it’s public knowledge, except for after dances. That kind of happened. 

Austin: We… it… I heard about them. I never went. 

Mitch: But you think they did happen?

Austin: Oh, almost guaranteed.

Mitch: Ok

Austin: I think that our… our class specifically was more, like, divided. So it.. There wasn’t really much overlap in terms of like, uh, in terms of friend group really.

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: A couple of us were. I mean, like, me and my friend, me and my best friend in high school were like-

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: we kinda jumped around, um-

Mitch: Did- ok, did you ever have - because I’m thinking about the tv show - Tyra and Billy throw this field party-

Austin: God

Mitch: I had never been to, I had never been to any kind of party in high school where somebody had provided, like, went out and bought alcohol and then charged a cover to cover the expenses. Like that, that seems, in my mind now as an adult watching it, I’m like, what’s the liability here? Like, whose land are they on?

Austin: I know.

Mitch: Like, ‘cause all of our parties were, you know, someone’s older sibling would… we’d like pool our money and someone’s older sibling would like go to the liquor store, or like, one person would have a fake and they’d try to get us something. Or we’d like… everyone would steal from their parents liquor cabinets. 

Austin: I wanna say it happened a couple of times, that I’ve been, like… I went to a couple parties that were like that. I didn’t pay ‘cause I didn’t drink.

Mitch: [laughing] Yeah, no, I’ve only seen that in movies and tv. I didn’t… I’d never been to one where that was a thing.

Austin: I wanna say that’s what they did, um. I don’t remember how much they charged or… again, that was over a decade ago-

Mitch: I mean…

Austin: Holy fucking shit…

Mitch: I’m curious to see if that happens anywhere at the scale that they did it for their homecoming, where they had hired her sister and her friends to like, work as waitresses. And then paid them, like…

Austin: Yeah, and also-

Mitch: They full on like set up a pop up bar.

Austin: Oh, also, that amount of kids. 

Mitch: When I was in high school I probably wouldn’t have gone to party where I had to pay to get in.

Austin: No

Mitch: It’s Friday night, there’s a bunch of stuff I can go do, I’m not going to a party that has a cover.

Austin: No

Mitch: There’s no way.

Austin: Well, it… you also… you hear that, um, boys. “Oh there’s strippers?” 

Mitch: Oh, yeah yeah yeah

Austin: “So yeah, we’re gonna go. We’re gonna pay to see them.” Now they might have in the back of their mind, “Oh I know it’s not gonna happen. I’m not gonna get to see them naked, but there’s a slim chance that I could.”

Mitch: Also, if I… if I’m, if I’m, if I’m a professional, working girl stripper in Dillon, Texas, I don’t wanna go work-

Austin: No

Mitch: a high school party.

Austin: Hell no.

Mitch: Even as a bartender, like, there’s no way.

Austin: No, no. No way in hell am I gonna be caught dead with kids that are underage

Mitch: I know, I know

Austin: They’re out in the middle of wherever the fuck it is in Odessa. No, they weren’t in-

Mitch: In Dillon

Austin: In Dillon, whatever. How are the cops not even remotely around?

Mitch: That’s where it kind of reminded me, though, of when I lived in Houston, Missouri. Some towns, like some rural places - which, I don’t know if it’s realistic for Dillon - I’ve lived in places where you wouldn’t get caught for doing that. In Louisiana, like, you just go out, you know, on the bayou somewhere, or we go to someone’s field. Even in Illinois, we would like, have some, like, bonfires-

Austin: That’s true

Mitch: out at somebody’s uncles barn, and like, the cops aren’t going out there. They’re not gonna-

Austin: And even-

Mitch: And there’s no neighbors for miles. Who’s gonna hear you?

Austin: Even then, it probably was not like-

Mitch: And even, even-

Austin: they probably didn’t give a shit.

Mitch: if you are, like… We used to go to my friend’s uncle’s property, and like, we wouldn’t like go inside anybody’s house or anything, but he’d let us, like, have a bonfire. Nobody was paying attention to if we had alcohol or not. The people who did live in that area, they didn’t care. Like, they weren’t gonna call the cops on us.

Austin: Yeah. Well we had, uh, I had friends - he was my roommate in college, actually - he got, him and another dude were drinking at the, at the local park. And cops pulled up and they said, “You drinking?” [both laughing] and like, “yeahhh,” and while they’re having the conversation said, “Hey, you play for, you play football don’t you?” 

Mitch: Oh, that’s such a cliche

Austin: “Yeah, yeah, Eric [redacted]” and he goes, “No shit! You’re the starting quarterback!” Like, let him go.

Mitch: Insane

Austin: Yeah, no, that shit happened all the time

Mitch: I know. I don’t like it. 

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: Nobody ever let me out of a-

Austin: You’re gonna have to bleep the name out. 

[both laughing]

Austin: He’s a, he’s a, he’s a high school football coach right now. 

Mitch: So it’s fine.

Austin: [laughing]

Mitch: It’s fine. I don’t think I’ve ever been at a party that got busted in the way that you see in movies and tv shows. 

Austin: I think the closest that I ever got was that party that we went to here.

Mitch: Yeah, no, that’s the closest and that was after college. 

Austin: Yeah, we were twenty-four, twenty-five.

Mitch: Also, scarier because, like, it wasn’t like it was a party where a bunch of underage kids were drinking, it was a party where some people were doing very illegal things [laughing]

Austin: Yes. 

Mitch: That was sketchy. That was scary.

Austin: Well once I… We were there, and everybody was seemingly over the age of twenty-one,

Mitch: I didn’t know everyone at that party, I don’t know.

Austin: Seem… when we first got there anyway. And then it started getting… there were more and more and more people started showing up, and it, and at that point, I had no idea who any of these people were.

Mitch: It was like you see parties in tv shows where nobody knew everybody there. It was just like, people were just coming.

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: Who knows how they were related, how they heard about it.

Austin: I had a guy- 

Mitch: That stresses me out.

Austin: I know! I had a… It was when I worked, when I worked at the convenience store. Guy came up to me and said something about, “Hey, it was a good party that y’all threw.”

Mitch: [laughing]

Austin: “I don’t know who you are! I have no idea who you are. But ok? That’s cool.” Actually I think that was the Valentine’s Day one. 

Mitch: That was at your house, your house. You did throw that one. 

Austin: Uh huh, we did.

Mitch: Those were good parties.

Austin: That was a good party. It was smaller than I expected but it was sloppy as shit.

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: [laughing]

Mitch: Um, I’m trying to remember in the tv show, one of the other parties that sticks out in my brain is the very first episode, the Texas forever. That, like, vibe-wise reminded me of my high school experience. But that party like - I think possibly it’s just because it’s the first episode of the show and they hadn’t really nailed down who everybody was. ‘Cause that party had, you know, obviously Jason and Lila and Tim, but it also had Julie Taylor was there, and Matt and Landry were there.

Austin: That was not the first episode.

Mitch: Was it not the first episode?

Austin: No

Mitch: It was the second?

Austin: That was, uh, that one was out in the middle of nowhere.

Mitch: No it was the… it’s before Jason gets hurt. 

Austin: It was.

Mitch: Yeah. It’s the Texas forever speech.

Austin: They had two parties, they had- No that was the second- There were two parties in the first episode. 

Mitch: Yeah, but you know the part I’m talking about. Everybody’s just kinda hanging out at someone’s house.

Austin: She was, she was not at that one. That was out at like a, a what’s it called, like a double wide.

Mitch: Mmmm ok

Austin: If I’m not mistaken. I think it was, ‘cause they were just sitting out there. And then-

Mitch: I’m pretty sure that the house party that… There’s a house party early on in the show and it struck me that like everybody was there. Smash was there, Julie was there.

Austin: Yeah, I knew that. 

Mitch: Landry, Matt-

Austin: And there’s been several parties since then.

Mitch: Oh yeah, there’s tons of parties in the show.

Austin: You had the party where Voodoo showed up.

Mitch: Mhmm

Austin: Uhhh

Mitch: That’s not… I don’t think the way they present it in the show is unrealistic,

Austin: Oh no

Mitch: it’s just not exactly what I had in high school. 

Austin: No, uh, most of the time it was that, that vibe. It was out at somebody’s house. It was not necessarily in a house. 

Mitch: No we were just kinda… It was mostly just hanging out. 

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: Even if there were fifty people it was small groups, pretty separate from each other, just chilling. 

Austin: There was, uh, I was probably - I remember one specifically where I was with some other dudes from football, their girlfriends and friends and shit like that, and I think they were just burning trash. 

Mitch: Yeah?

Austin: I honestly think that’s what it was

Mitch: Been to some of those.

Austin: Yeah, just burning trash and drinking around the fire. I, again, didn’t drink, but [sighs]

Mitch: Was that… Did other people, like, care that you aggressively didn’t drink?

Austin: They, when I first started going, they, they made a big deal about it,

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: and then towards the, towards the tail end they were just like, “oh he’s just, he’s just there.”

Mitch: Well, I like…

Austin: And I didn’t go to as many as my friend did,

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: Like, he went to a lot more. I did not.

Mitch: I had a lot of friends - especially, like, church related crowds - I had a lot of friends who, like, strictly were like, you know, “We’re not drinking. It’s bad.” I didn’t, like nobody cared, or would like make fun of them, but also those people just didn’t get invited out to places, like [laughing]

Austin: [laughing] Yeah

Mitch: That was where I could see, like, my different groups of friends were very separated, was like, “well if I’m gonna go to this party on Saturday, I need to not mention it to this whole other side of my social circle.”

Austin: I know, yeah

Mitch: ‘Cause they’ll judge the fact that I’d even go to this place. ‘Cause yea, I wasn’t one of those people - I had a lot of friends who were like very churchy strict about that. 

Austin: Yeah. I had a group of friends that I’d hang out with time to time. I remember one of them mixing vanilla ice cream with whisky?

Mitch: Oh that’s good

Austin: Is it though?

Mitch: That’s a good idea, yeah.

Austin: Is it?

Mitch: I like it. 

Austin: It sounds real gross. Or maybe… I think it was whisky, maybe it was Jaeger, I’m not too sure.

Mitch: Here’s the… The first handful of times I ever drank, maybe three or four, it was McCormick’s vodka and orange soda. 

Austin: That doesn’t sound too bad. 

Mitch: It tastes delicious. But there was a period where my only experiences with drinking were getting plastered off the cheapest vodka you could find and orange soda [laughing] So like, everything’s uphill from there. Like, everything’s an improvement. 

Austin: One of the ones we went to in college was, uh, McCormick’s

Mitch: Uh huh

Austin: and Big Blue. 

Mitch: What’s Big Blue?

Austin: It’s Big Red, but Big Blue. 

[both laughing]

Mitch: Ohhh I’ve never had Big Blue

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: Yeah, ‘cause when we were in high school, like, nobody that I knew, none of my close friends, none of us had fakes. We weren’t ever in a position where we could go buy something. If we specifically wanted to get something, like, specific, all we could do was like, you know, scrounge up some money. And usually what would happen, we would like get our cash, somebody’s cousin or sibling or something, we wouldn’t even tell them what we wanted, we’d be like, “We have twenty-seven dollars, get us as much as you can get for that.” 

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: Which usually meant like, Natty Light and McCormick’s. 

Austin: Ugh McCormick’s. I do not miss that.

Mitch: I remember one of - this was one of the parties that was the summer after we graduated high school. So like, we hadn’t left for college yet, but it’s that time. We were partying at one of my friend’s house, and we had heard about this party at this kid who we didn’t like who had an indoor pool in his basement. So we went, and, uh, I feel like when I, uh, when I would get drunk, there were a lot of things that in my drunken mind I thought were just funny, and I was not gonna say no to anything. Was my thing, and that’s been my thing forever. But I remember we were at this quote unquote party, it was at his indoor pool in his basement. There were not that many people there, maybe twenty people. 

Austin: An indoor pool?

Mitch: Yeah, it was very fancy. Both of his parents were doctors.

Austin: Good lord

Mitch: But because-

Austin: Eat the rich, you know? [laughing]

Mitch: because both of his parents were doctors, this was one of the rich fancy parties, we stole, you know the… what’s it called? UV Blue

Austin: UV Blue?

Mitch: You never saw that? It is what dumb high schoolers in 2010 would’ve thought was really classy and fancy. It’s not. It’s just vodka. But it’s like, an attainable Grey Goose or something.

Austin: [laughing]

Mitch: But we stole the, what size is it that’s the big one? The like, gallon bottle. ‘Cause you know, you have like normal size, you have the mini ones they sell behind the counter,

Austin: Like a handle 

Mitch: and then you have the full handle, bigger size.

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: We stayed at this party for like ten minutes, one of us got pushed in the pool and he got really pissed about it, so we stole a whole handle, unopened, of UV Blue and the birthday cake flavored vodka. 

[both laughing]

Mitch: And we’re like, “We’re outta here! We’re taking our eighty dollars worth of stolen booze and we’re leaving.” 

Austin: [groaning]

Mitch: UV Blue was like, it was like, uh, in Superbad you know how they talk about, uh, Goldschlager, 

Austin: Goldschlager, yeah

Mitch: that’s what UV Blue was.

[Devil Town music]

Mitch: Homecoming my junior year was not a party situation. That was with all my Christian friends so there was no drinking or anything, but it probably would’ve been better if there… like, it would’ve been less embarrassing if there was.

Austin: [laughing] Always

Mitch: It was, uh-

Austin: If there was drinking in any Christian situation it would be better. 

Mitch: Oh my gosh. We had some friends- so I had my group of friends, they were the ones that I was in band with, and they were the ones I was in, like, Crucifictorious style bands with. 

Austin: Yeahhh

Mitch: Had like the emo hair, they, they were a little bit scene. [sighs] When we stopped being friends right after graduation from high school I was like, it was like I woke up from a spell and I was like, “oh my gosh, what was I doing that whole time?” Anyway, it was those people. They were friends with this whole group from - I think they had met through church stuff - from Washington, which is like fifteen miles down the road.

Austin: Mhmm

Mitch: Uh, and it was one of those things where I hadn’t gotten a date for homecoming, they were all going with specific girls from Washington, but they had this one girl in that group named Kristen, and there just wasn’t- like the numbers didn’t work out.

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: So like, “Hey, you’ve met her a couple of times before. You should take Kristen, it’ll be fun, we can all go as a big group.” I was like, “Sure, I’ll take this girl.” I didn’t really know her. I had met her like twice. Uh, also, I had found at Goodwill a full, three piece, seersucker suit. 

Austin: [whispered] Yes

Mitch: Now I realize homecoming’s in like, mid-October. Definitely the fall. 

Austin: Not seersucker.

Mitch: I’m wearing a bad fitting seersucker suit.

[both laughing]

Mitch: So we drive all the way out to Washington. I meet Kristen’s parents. Take our pictures. Those pictures are.. Of all the-

Austin: I wanna see them.

Mitch: high school dance pictures I’ve ever taken, that dance is, those pictures are the worst. They’re ridiculous. Um, and it was a little bit like - it hadn’t even crossed my mind that this would be a big deal, ‘cause like we weren’t gonna party, we were gonna go to the dance, we were gonna come back. We were having dinner at one of our friend’s houses. We weren’t even like going to a restaurant or something. 

Austin: That’s like part of the fun.

Mitch: I know. 

Austin: Getting your parents to spend way too much money. 

Mitch: This was the dance that I went with that group and it was a mistake. Uh, so, go pick up Kristen. I realize as I get to their house and we’re all taking pictures out front that like, oh, I’ve been thinking this is no big deal, ‘cause it’s not. But from the other side of the equation, this is somebody letting their daughter, who’s a sophomore, go to a dance in another town with somebody they’ve never met, with a group they’ve never met, who’s a year older. I was like, oh yeah this is probably like, they were probably a little bit-

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: nervous about it, and they should’ve been. Uh, so we go, we take pictures, we have a very awkward meet and greet with the parents. Uh, go to my friend Kyle’s house, his mom makes us dinner. And they like, they tried so hard to make it, to make up for the fact that we weren’t going to a restaurant. 

Austin: Oh yeah

Mitch: We had like “fancy dinner.”

Austin: Why didn’t they, why didn’t you go out to a restaurant? 

Mitch: ‘Cause they were lame. They were. They were just lame. All of them. Uh, we have dinner, we go to the dance. Our dance policies, our dances would be from, like, eight to ten, or eight to eleven. 

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: And once you got in, you could leave, but you couldn’t come back in after you’d left. 

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: To avoid drinking

Austin: Essentially, yeah, ours were the same.

Mitch: Um, but, so we’re in the girls’ gym. We had two gyms, the girls’ gym was where we had dances. It was not air conditioned I don’t think. 

Austin: Ours was in the commons.

Mitch: Ohhhh that’s cool

Austin: So

Mitch: Uh, we were in the girls’ gym, we were dancing. Uh, I ripped my seersucker pants. It wasn’t like I did anything, it was like, these are Goodwill pants that are probably forty years old.

Austin: Oh yeah

Mitch: But it was where all the seams meet right under your crotch all the way up to where your belt loop is, was just like, completely-

Austin: Oh my god

Mitch: [laughing] like, split. Like if like your whole buttcrack, there was no stitching left.

Austin: [laughing] It’s like a mouth opened up. 

Mitch: So I have to go out to my car. And I like go to the ladies that are like manning the ticket stand at the front, and they’re like, “You can’t leave.” And I was like, “Uhhh can I please go to my car?” And they’re like, “Oh. Yeah sure.” So I go out to my car, change into some jeans that I had in my car, and come back in. Everything’s good. Just didn’t explain to anybody why I was all the sudden wearing jeans with my seersucker blazer. [laughing] So we’re dancing. Nobody’s drinking anything at this point, we’re still at the school dance. Um, but it’s maybe like ten or so. Uh, but I think it was just, like, hot, and like, maybe like, loud, and densely packed. Kristen’s like, “Oh no, I don’t feel so good.” And bolts out the back door of the gym, which are like the back doors that are not supposed to be opened. So me and a couple of other friends go out there, and the school resource officer. And she’s just like puking her guts out.

Austin: [laughing] Ohhh no

Mitch: Like on the, it’s like on the patio on the back of the gym. And also, this is like 2007, I didn’t have a cell phone. Most, like, none of us had cell phones. So, the school resource officer’s out there, and I would’ve like, I would’ve gone and found a cell phone from one of my friends-

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: But he’s out there, he’s like, “Uh we’re gonna call. Who should we call?”  He assumes that we’re all drunk, of course. 

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: Then we have a situation like, she tells him the phone number, I didn’t even realize what was gonna happen until it was happening, but, uh, her dad gets a phone call. He picks up the phone and he’s like, “Uh is this Mr. So-and-so? This is officer So-and-so-

Austin: Oh Jesus

Mitch: with the Morton Police Department. I’m here with your daughter.” [laughing] And I’m like, Oh no! What’s he gonna-

Austin: [laughing]

Mitch: So she’s like still sick, but she’s like, begging this cop to like, give her the phone. And she’s like, “Just let me tell him that I’m not in trouble and it’s ok.” Uh, so it takes forever, and we have our, our, our dean of students is out there, this cop, me, and this girl. 

Austin: Oh my god

Mitch: She’s like crying on the phone with her dad. ‘Cause her dad immediately jumps to like, “I’m getting in the car, this is a problem.” And we have to, like, convince him that like, no we’re fine. No problems here, everything’s good. And he does, he buys it somehow. So she like-

Austin: Buys it, but it’s the truth.

Mitch: At this point we walk around the outside of the gym so that she can get her change of clothes from the car. 

Austin: [laughing]

Mitch: So now we’re still at the dance, it’s not over, but we’re both fully changed out of our clothes. None of our friends have any idea what’s going on with either of us. But also like, we were like, we didn’t really know each other. 

Austin: Yeah, very weird

Mitch: And she knew nobody else at the school. And I was like, not with my friends. It was weird. Um, I don’t think that we like… mostly we just like, finished out the dance. Probably went back to somebody’s house and like, watched Hot Rod after that. 

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: Uneventful. What I had not realized was gonna happen, her dad was the like, KLove Christian radio station DJ. So a couple days later, he has… It’s all like, worked out. I went and dropped her off, we all like, laughed about it. It was fun, we’re all good. But he tells this hilarious story of how he like, finally let his sheltered daughter, like, leave the nest once and it’s this fiasco. This, like, crazy Mortonite corrupted his daughter. 

Austin: Oh my god

Mitch: And he used enough details that like, most of my parents friends put it together who he was talking about and like, for at least a month every time I would run into one of my friends’ parents, they would like ask me about because they knew who he was talking about.

Austin: What an ass

Mitch: [laughing] They’d be like, “Hey, heard you on the radio.” And I was like, what? And they’d be like, “Well, I didn’t hear you, but it was you, right?”

Austin: [laughing]

Mitch: I’m like, “Ughh dangit!”

Austin: What an ass

Mitch: Right? [laughing] I didn’t hear it. I wasn’t listening to KLove in the morning.

Austin: Right

Mitch: I don’t think he used my name. I think it was just, like, clear enough. 

Austin: This sounds very, very bad, but it is typical, like, Christian bullshit.

Mitch: Oh yeah yeah yeah

Austin: Where they just make up things to make it seem like their life is so much worse than it actually is.

Mitch: I know. I think it was also like… he was, he was… I think if it had actually been bad, if we had been like drinking and driving or like… I don’t think he would’ve talked about it on air if it was really bad.

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: He knew that we were just like, nothing really bad had happened. It was awkward and weird but not immoral.

Austin: Right

Mitch: So he felt comfortable joking about it on the radio. 

Austin: And put you in a weird spot.

Mitch: Uh huh. I didn’t care, I was fine, I didn’t care. Yeah that was, like, that was one of the few dances I went to where there wasn’t partying involved and it was definitely the biggest mess of all of them.

Austin: [laughing]

Mitch: It was a lot neater and cleaner when I’d just go drink at somebody’s house. 


Austin: Draw the conclusions: you need to drink every time you go to a party. 

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: Every time. Even school-

Mitch: I've since learned that.

Austin: Kidding. Don't do that. Kids, if you're listening, do not drink at school. 

Mitch: I think it's irresponsible to make it to graduation without having drunk at least a little bit. 

Austin: I had sips.

Mitch: I think it's a rite of passage. I feel like from me... from people I know, my personal experience... obviously you don't wanna start young young. That's dangerous.

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: And if it becomes a problem, it's a problem when you're a teenager 'cause you're dumb and irresponsible. But the people I know who got started a little bit younger also got control of themselves earlier. It's the people who hadn't drank anything until they were in college or out of college that really lost their minds the first few times they drank.

Austin: Yep, mhmm

Mitch: It's like, if you, like, start slowly a little bit younger, you know, by the time you're in college you know what you're doing. 

Austin: Well, even then, in high school, you're in a situation where you're in a place that you know most of the time.

Mitch: Usually.

Austin: Usually. An area that you know. 

Mitch: That's what I'm saying, obviously there are a lot of ways that it can be very dangerous-

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: for kids, 

Austin: Well if you're-

Mitch: I'm not encouraging it-

Austin: Yes

Mitch: I'm just saying, like, I'd rather someone drink moderately and safely at sixteen at somebody's house party, than have the first time they drink at twenty-one and their friends take them on, like, a bar crawl and they have, like, twenty-one shots. Like, that's dangerous-

Austin: Oh yeah

Mitch: in a way that having a few beers at a bonfire in somebody's back yard isn't really that dangerous. 

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: I don't know

Austin: [sighs] Oh man. How long have we gone?

Mitch: Oh, about forty-five minutes.

Austin: Oh, ok

Mitch: It's good. Do we have any other...

Austin: I don't have anything else because I am a... I was a lame... in, uh, I was a-

Mitch: Yeah, when we pitched this as a, like, idea, I didn't know that you-

Austin: I was a square!

Mitch: didn't party. I know!

Austin: Dude, I was a square.

[both laughing]

Mitch: You were such a nerd.

Austin: I told you that. I was a square in high school.

Mitch: Even Matt Saracen drinks sometimes I'm pretty sure. 

Austin: Sorry. I was a square. I was, I was, I went to youth group regularly.

Mitch: So did I. Still had fun. 

Austin: Yeah, I... [deep breath] I love Jesus. 

Mitch: Yeah, um, that is what... I wanna talk about that in the context of Friday Night Lights. Because we see how church is important, we know that some of the kids are pretty religious, but we never really see the, like, tightrope that that tends to be in high school. 

Austin: Oh, yeah

Mitch: 'Cause I was very churchy. Like, church was, like, a big, big part of my life. But also it wasn't at all. 

Austin: See, what's wild was-

Mitch: It was so segmented-

Austin: I probably went to church less than you did. 

Mitch: Oh, I was at church three or four times a week, every week, my whole life.

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: Like, most of the time.

Austin: I was not, no. I went, uh, I went more when I was a junior and senior in college.

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: 'Cause I worked at one.

Mitch: 'Cause you weren't burnt out on it by that time.

Austin: Yeah. Oh it's very true. Um, and now I've gotten to where I hate it. But, [laughing] that's just how the cookie crumbles I guess. I don't know. 

Mitch: It's God's will.

Austin: Yeah it is. 

Mitch: If God wanted me to be a Christian, I'd be a Christian. 

Austin: Yeah, that's in the Bible.

Mitch: [laughing] Yeah

Austin: I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I mean, we're probably just those, uh, those poor, poor, uh, pots that he made, that the potter made that he can destroy if he wants to. Says that in Romans I'm pretty sure.

Mitch: Oh, yeah yeah yeah

Austin: Yeah, yeah, we're one of those [laughing]

Mitch: I'm like the Prodigal Son but what if he just kept having fun and never went home? 

Austin: [laughing]

Mitch: That's a happy ending, to me. I can, I can either have fun in the city with my cool friends or go have one fatted calf? No thank you. 

Austin: [laughing]

Mitch: Don't need it. 

Austin: Also, this is me making big assumptions, but I'm pretty sure your dad would not hug you when you came back.

Mitch: No. Didn't hug me when I left, wouldn't hug me when I came back. 

[both laughing]

Mitch: My dad didn't shake my hand like Matt Saracen's did. 

Austin: You're dad is the most-

Mitch: As awkward as it is to watch them shake hands all the time, it's more awkward if you don't. 

Austin: Oh God, ok, so I have to tell you this story about when I drove through the barbed wire fence.

Mitch: Yes.

Austin: And I lied to my dad and said somebody hit my car [laughing]. Again, this isn't in high school, but this is-

Mitch: Was it freshman year of college?

Austin: end of freshman year. 

Mitch: Ok, so you were like nineteen. 

Austin: The first, the first night I got back. 

Mitch: [laughing]

Austin: The first night I got back after I got back from my freshman year, ok? Go out to one of my friend's house. We used to play paintball at this place. But it's out in the middle of nowhere. We all got very drunk. My ex-girlfriend was there, so I decided to get way too drunk. 

Mitch: That's not your fault.

Austin: I mean, no, it's not. No, I saw the situation and I was like, "I don't wanna be here but I wanna be here." And so I remember getting into a massive fight with somebody over the music that was being played, kind of like with the whole Smash situation.

Mitch: And Voodoo

Austin: Um, she blocked me from changing it, and so I, like, spun around a couple of times, got really dizzy, and almost threw up.

Mitch: [laughing]

Austin: But I ended up leaving. And at the time, instead of smoking cigarettes like a man, I [laughing], I smoked Al Capone's. 

Mitch: Oh! I loved Al Capone's!

Austin: They were great!

Mitch: Oooh I loved those.

Austin: But I smoked those. And it was pouring rain. And I was going to leave, and I was in a white Expedition at the time. 

Mitch: Who? Was it yours?

Austin: Yeah, I bought it. It was from my parents, like-

Mitch: That's incredible.

Austin: But yeah, I bought this thing.

Mitch: I love that.

Austin: It got like six miles to the gallon.

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: It was a family vehicle for twelve years before I got it. 

Mitch: [laughing] That's great

Austin: So, no, it was not twelve years. Maybe ten? Whatever, who cares. So I'm sitting there, I leave, I light up an Al Capone, I am very drunk. And I start driving away. I have the, uh [laughing] the window cracked but it's pouring rain and I drop the Al Capone inside my car.

Mitch: I've heard this story many times, I didn't know that Al Capone was so central.

Austin: Yes!

[both laughing]

Austin: I drop it into the floorboard. I go to pick this thing up because I knew it was gonna light my entire car on fire. At the time, anyway, I could've just like stamped it out. And I forgot that there was a hard left turn. And all I remember is, like - again, raining cats and dogs - I pick it up, I look up, and it's right there. And I just, like, I hit the brake as hard as I possibly can. And then - instead of it being like this violent-

Mitch: Yeah?

Austin: flying over it thing, I went over it like ten miles an hour.

[both laughing]

Austin: It like, slowly rolls and goes-

Mitch: Awww

Austin: It just didn't stop fast enough, and it just went down this muddy hill into these peoples' yard. And it went straight into the barbed wire fence.

Mitch: [laughing]

Austin: This barbed wire fence had steel poles and they shot up and then one of them, like, hit my windshield. Like, full on, perpendicular to the windshield, almost went through my windshield.

Mitch: Oh my gosh

Austin: And then hit it and then flipped over the top of it and then raked over the top of my car. [deep breath] There's this moment where I flip this thing around and I try to get up the hill and I can't do it.

Mitch: [laughing]

Austin: I've done this two, maybe three times at this point, and I keep backing up trying to get traction. And the saddest thing in the world, slash the funniest thing in the world now that I'm looking back on it, I get out of my car [laughing] and I try to push this thing up the hill. 

Mitch: Ughhhh

Austin: So I'm sitting there, and I fall, and I just start crying. 

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: In the middle of this field. So I get out- I mean, I get back into the car, and I'm like, "ok, you're gonna get out of this. You're gonna get out of this." So I keep on backing up trying to get up this thing, and eventually I gain some traction on something. I do not know what it was. I didn't know what it was at the time anyway. I did not know what it was, but I ended up getting on a road and I drove back to the place. 

Mitch: To the party? 

Austin: To the party. Because, in the mean-

Mitch: Yeah, where else are you gonna go?

Austin: While- when I got back on the road I checked to see where my phone was-

[both laughing]

Austin: couldn't find it. So I drive back, and I'm like, "Guys, I fucked up." I don't even remember the conversation, really. I just started screaming and like, crying in front of them. And everybody's like- nobody even remotely, like, paused. I was like, "I need your help." Five people, like, got up and they're like, "Let's go." And they got into the car and we drove back down there. And I remember looking for my phone. Somebody called it and I'm like, searching around on this just wet-ass mud and trying to find it. My car- the lights, I've propped it up to where I can, like, look out onto the thing.

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: I'm sitting there looking for my phone while somebody's calling it, and I see out of the corner of my eye, one of my friends, he walks by and he goes, "Hey I got your headlight." 

[both laughing]

Austin: Runs up and puts it it and like, punches it into my car.

[both laughing]

Austin: So, we find my phone. Um, we go back. I drive home very slowly. And then I get home at like four in the morning and I tell my dad, "Hey, I think somebody hit my car."

[both laughing]

Mitch:  Your dad's a lot of things but he's not stupid and he's not naive.

Austin: He's not dumb. So he's like, "We'll deal with it in the morning. We'll deal with it in the morning." So I go outside, I look at the car, and I had this realization of: there is no way he's gonna think that somebody hit my car. 'Cause it- there is just like, full on- it looks like somebody got a steel comb that's massive and just raked it over the top of my car.

Mitch:  [laughing]

Austin: There's a crack in the windshield. 

Mitch:  Which, if you ask me, that's the coolest way to drive a white Expedition. 

[both laughing]

Austin: Yeah, and with gold pinstripes on the side. 

[both laughing]

Austin: So I go back inside and I break down in the middle of my dad's room. Crying, just bawling my eyes out. 

Mitch:  I can't remember, is this the house that I've been to?

Austin: Yeah

Mitch:  Ok

Austin: He, again, half asleep, he goes, "We'll deal with it in the morning." I go to sleep. He wakes me up at 7 a.m. 7 a.m.

Mitch:  You're probably still drunk.

Austin: Very drunk. And he, he throws the door open and it hits the wall and he goes, "What the hell did you do?" And I get up and I'm like, "[sighs] I know dad. I'm sorry." And my dad walks over to the bedroom, my mom's bedroom, opens the door and he goes, "You need to see what the hell your son did."

Mitch:  [laughing]

Austin: She goes, "What are you talking about?" And he goes, "Come here!" And so we go outside, we look at it, he asks me all these questions and I'm like, "Dad, I told you all this last night." And he goes, "We're going over to the house's fence that you busted. So we go over there and I realize- I found out who's house it was. It was somebody that was related to somebody I knew. And they were real chill with it. They said- 

Mitch:  That's good.

Austin: They said that my basketball coach had done it on multiple occasions.

[both laughing]

Austin: Uh, but, they found out that what I had hit when I got traction and left was their water supply. 

Mitch:  Oh no

Austin: They, they, they woke up and they didn't have any water. And they're out in the middle of, like, rural, like, uh, [beep].

Mitch:  Yeah

Austin: We're gonna have to bleep that shit out. But, just, uh, out in the middle of nowhere. So they had to fix this shit themselves. And I promised them that I would fix their barbed wire fence and never went out there. 

Mitch:  Have you ever done barbed wire? It's not fun.

Austin: No, I don't want to.

Mitch:  It's hard. 

Austin: They said that our basketball coach, he didn't even tell them anymore. It had gotten so bad that they would wake up and he would be like, "What's up guys!" and he'd be fixing the fence for them. 

[Devil Town music]

Austin: Oh man.

Mitch: All right. I think that's all the time we have for parties and stories. 

Austin: Do you have a question for me? For football?

Mitch: I do. I was trying to think of a name for this segment and I couldn't think of one. This segment's gonna be called...

Austin: Austin's Football Corner

Mitch: Austin Teach Mitch Basic Football Facts

Austin: Got it. [laughing]

Mitch: This week in Austin Explains Basic Football Things to Mitch: What is... the difference between a running back and a blocking back?

Austin: A blocking back?

Mitch: Yes, it's from the book.

Austin: So, I would assume they're calling a blocking- like, he's expl- like, he's talking about a blocking back as a fullback. 

Mitch: Maybe. I don't know what that is either.

Austin: Well, ok, so, say you're in, um, an I formation. 

Mitch: I wouldn't be, but ok.

Austin: So I formation is basically - you have the line, you have the quarterback under center, you have a fullback directly behind him, probably three yards behind, and then five to six yards behind him- I mean behind the quarterback you have a halfback so it's like three and three.

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: Halfback's your runningback. That's going to be the guy that primarily-

Mitch: Wait, halfback is your runningback?

Austin: They used to call them halfback and fullback. 

Mitch: Ahhh ok

Austin: Smaller guy, usually runs the ball. Fullback is the dude that blocks, usually.

Mitch: Ok, ok

Austin: So, but, the runningback is the, uh... Yeah, the runningback the dude that primarily runs the ball. That's what Smash is.

Mitch: But that wouldn't be... 'Cause here... Yeah, I've [unintelligable]. In the book the context is, Boobie Miles, who Smash is, I think, based on, 

Austin: Right

Mitch: had been the runningback, had been the ball carrier, the star. And he was mad at the thought that he was gonna have to be some other guy's blocking back. 

Austin: Yes

Mitch: So my question with that was - I think I got what those two things were - Is that something that you would be both depending on the play? 

Austin: So, it can be, yes. 

Mitch: Like, it can change... You're not like always a running back, you're not always a...

Austin: See, that, that has changed a lot. This was written in 1988.

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: Uh, there's a lot of difference now. I mean, now it's primarily a spread offense, which is, they just spread the field. You have five linemen, quarterback, and then the runningback right next to you.

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: Very rarely - especially going into the NFL now - you don't really have fullbacks all that much. 

Mitch: Ok

Austin: Um, now, it, depending on the offense, you have different positions that could essentially move into that position-

Mitch: But...

Austin: as a fullback or a blocking back, you could say.

Mitch: Yeah. Here's my question... Let's get real basic. In the show, you have Tim Riggins and Smash

Austin: Right

Mitch: who are both running backs sometimes?

Austin: Tim Riggins would be more of a blocking back in that situation.

Mitch: That's what I'm asking. If they're both playing a position that involves getting the ball and running, if it's a play where Smash gets the ball, Tim's gonna block, and vice versa?

Austin: Right, exactly.

Mitch: Ok

Austin: So, yeah. Were they talking in play context in the book?

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: Was it like a specific play?

Mitch: No, it was just in general. "Oh, now I'm gonna have to be so-and-so's blocking back."

Austin: Usually

Mitch: "Instead of being the running back that I wanna be."

Austin: Usually when you're - back then, especially if it was a primarily running offense -

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: you had the bell cow, which is like, the running back. They guy that definitely carried the team and he had the most carries and he had the most yards. That's the way our offense was set up. We did a, uh, we did a T, pretty much. You had running back, you had basically two fullbacks right here, and they just pitched the ball and then they would go. 

Mitch: Ok

Austin: And that's primarily what our team right.

Mitch: So if you're the fullback that doesn't get the ball on a play, what do you do?

Austin: You block.

Mitch: Ok, you block.

Austin: Yeah, you just block. Um, and that's, that's essentially what a fullback... I would assume that's what he means by blocking back.

Mitch: That's probably what he means. Last question.

Austin: Yes

Mitch: Are those people also receivers? 

Austin: Um, technically, they can receive the ball. They're not a receiver. 

Mitch: So if you're going out on the field and you're gonna do a running play, you're gonna have your running backs and your fullbacks and halfbacks out there. But if you're gonna be doing a passing play, is it the same people? That are gonna run and receive it? 

Austin: So you can have receivers,

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: and that's mainly to just keep it even-

Mitch: You would have both backs and receivers on the field at the same time?

Austin: Yeah. You can have eleven people on the field. You have five linemen usually, tight end, which is, uh-

Mitch: That's for next episode. I don't know what that means.

Austin: [laughing] Ok. Um, but, usually you would have receivers on the field at the same time as you having blocking backs and whatever.

Mitch: Ok

Austin: But depending on the type of, like, set you have-

Mitch: So it's not like, this play is going to be a passing play so let's put the receivers out there. It's like, y'all are already out there-

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: this play it's going to you guys, this play it's going to you guys. 

Austin: Right

Mitch: But you're out there no matter what. 

Austin: Then you can throw in play action. Play action is - I know I'm throwing a lot at you - 

Mitch: Mhmm

Austin: Play action is faking a run play and doing a passing play.

Mitch: Yes. That was where I was confused.

Austin: So, and that's where, you throw as many, obviously if you throw, if you have two different sets and you say, Ok we're running the ball now, we're gonna put our running set out there, we're gonna have a... so many people out there, eventually the other team's gonna catch on.

Mitch: Yeah, yeah

Austin: "Oh that's a run play, oh that's a passing play." That's, there was - oh, I forget what team it was, maybe it was Texas, I think it was Texas - they had primarily a running tight end and a blocking tight end and a receiving tight end. And they would switch them out on different plays.

Mitch: Ok

Austin: And it got to the point where it was almost, like eighty-five to ninety percent of the time whenever the blocking back was out there, they ran the ball. So it got very obvious as to what they were doing.

Mitch: Yeah yeah yeah yeah

Austin: I think that was... I think it was Texas. I wanna say it was. It was very stupid.

[both laughing]

Austin: But yeah, I mean, that's essentially it.

Mitch: That makes sense. The question was actually: what does a running back do? And now I know. 

Austin: Oh, runs the ball.

Mitch: Yeah, I didn't know.

Austin: Boobie Myles,

Mitch: Boobie Myles is a running back, Smash is a running back.

Austin: Yeah, they're running backs.

Mitch: And half and full is talking about how far back they are. 

Austin: Essentially, yeah...

Mitch: But that's where the name comes from.

Austin: I think it has to do with size. 

Mitch: Oh.

Austin: Fullbacks are bigger than runningbacks. 

Mitch: But they're blocking, but they're blocking later than the linemen are blocking? Linemen are blocking as soon as you hike the ball, right?

Austin: Uh, yeah, I mean, unless the lineman pulls. [laughing]

Mitch: Ughhh I don't know what that means.

Austin: So, but, it all depends on... It's hard to... You can't sit there and say, because they block earlier or what have you-

Mitch: I guess my question is, if Tim Riggins is a fullback and he's blocking, who is he blocking? [laughing]

Austin: There are... It depends on the type of defense that's being played. 

Mitch: But he's not blocking the people that are, like, on the line, that are immediately rushing?

Austin: Could be.

Mitch: He might be?

Austin: Yeah

Mitch: So he's just gonna like run up-

Austin: Very well could be.

Mitch: Hmmm

Austin: It depends on the type of defense they're running, and also the blocking assignments. 

Mitch: Ok

Austin: So if you have a tackle that doubles down on - like, a tackle's the... you have the five linemen, the tackles are the two outside guys.

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: You have a tackle and a guard. Guard's on the inside. If they double on a guy-

Mitch: So the reason he would be so far back as a blocker is so that he has room to adjust-

Austin: Could be.

Mitch: after discovering what's happening?

Austin: Could be. Now primarily, fullbacks would most likely - say you're running, like, straight up the field, a dive is what they call it. Um, quarterback spins around, does like a belly, which is when you spin around the opposite side of the play, the fullback runs through the hole. The hole opens up. He runs through the hole, the first person he's probably gonna see is a linebacker. 

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: That's who he's leading on. He's the lead blocker. The running back gets the ball and he runs behind him. 

Mitch: But he's staying back so that he can go to a different place every play depending on where he's needed?

Austin: Yes.

Mitch: Got it. Got it got it got it got it got it. I think I learned something. 

Austin: [laughing] We're gonna have to get schematics and shit up here, like-

Mitch: Here's the... I understand that a quarterback sometimes throws the ball to somebody,

Austin: Right

Mitch: and sometimes hands the ball to somebody,

Austin: Right

Mitch: that's about it. As far as what I know about how football works.

Austin: The running back can throw the ball too.

Mitch: Ahhh! No!

Austin: [laughing]

Mitch: Not in my football, he can't. Not until next week at least. 

Austin: Not in my good football. 

Mitch: Oh man, all right, I think that's all we have.

Austin: All right, Jesus, now that we've talked about, just-

Mitch: [laughing] I'll have to make my questions more granular and specific so they're not twenty minutes answers.

[both laughing]

Austin: It was... there's just so many, like-

Mitch: It's so complicated.

Austin: It is complicated. It's just that I've known, I've been playing since I was seven years old. So I played for a decade. It's just kind of ingrained in me.

Mitch: Yeah

Austin: I guess, so... Do you have more questions?

Mitch: Oh, I've got lots, lots more questions. 

Austin: Not for this one, obviously.

Mitch: [laughing] We did not discuss how we were gonna intro or end these things.

Austin: Nope. 

[both laughing]

Austin: Bye

Mitch: Bye

[Devil Town music]