Washed Weekly: All Hat, No Cattle

It's Washed Media Christmas Dinner time in Austin, TX

Dec 15, 2023

Welcome to Washed Weekly — a weekly newsletter that will feature original columns, quick reads, exclusive product drops, and an offering of some of the best content we’ve created throughout the week that was. Read it, enjoy it, and pass it on to anyone you think will enjoy it, too. You can also check out the Washed network of podcasts.

Five New Year’s Resolutions for Washed Media

by Will

Each year around this time, I write down ten resolutions for myself in my journal. While I do this under the guise of bettering myself, the reason I do ten of them is so that if I fail at nine, I’ve at least bettered myself in one single area. But with the year winding down quickly and everyone dispersing next week for their own holiday festivities, we haven’t had time to all sit down and plan our 2024.

Which is why I’m just going to do it here.

We will have an out-of-state meet-up.

There’s been a lot of chatter about running back Touching Base’s Douchebag Bar Crawl in Chicago. People have tossed around the idea of us going full-That Awkward Moment and heading to NYC. We’ve even weighed the prospect of doing Springs vs. Springs where we pit my hometown (Harbor Springs) versus Brett’s hometown (Saratoga Springs). Hell, we’ve even talked Vegas (baby!!!!!).

But we’ve failed miserably in 2023.

Will I re-pitch the idea of doing a charity auction where you donate money in the name of your city, and then the highest-grossing city gets a meet-up? Perhaps. After all, it’s for charity.

We will make good on our bets.

A list of the following bets owed at Washed Media (or, at least the ones I remember):

Dillon: Bleaching his backside; tattoo on his butt of the Circling Back logo but all with his faces instead of ours; Gen-Z haircut.
Will: Gen-Z haircut.
KJ: Truck nuts retribution after they “fell off” the first day he had them.
Dave: Not sure if he has anything but maybe that’s because he never plays odds with us.

This is easy for me to say because all I have to do is shave a couple lines in my head, get a perm, or go full ice-cream scoop (see below).

The difficult thing here will be making sure Dillon adequately settles everything in a way that satisfies everyone. Should he just have Bet Day where he does it all at once and then hibernates for two weeks? Maybe. Should we stop wagering things we’ll never make good? Most definitely.

We’ll actually use the conference room more than 10 times.

The loneliest place in the office? Our conference room. Not only does it have the old table we used to record in at The Lodge, but the chairs we use in there are pretty much the opposite of Deal Closers Only stuff. In fact, we inherited them from the old tenants and at least one screw falls out of one every time you sit in it.

But how are we supposed to do business if we aren’t utilizing the Deal Den? Sure, Brett has calls in there almost daily but the rest of us only use it to talk to our significant others when they call us while we’re on the clock.

A live “board meeting” from the c-room every month? Who knows, that *feels* in play.

Everyone will have a tattoo by 2024.

Guys talking about tattoos they’ll never actually get? Wow, so original. That being said, three-fifths of the full-time crew has gotten some ink. The only outliers are myself and Dave, and I think we’re both ready to let it rip.

While Dave has been upfront and open about the tattoos he’s considered, I’ve held my cards a little closer to my chest. I’ve got my artist picked out and I have one of three (3) designs to choose from. I know they say you should never put a bumper sticker on a Ferrrari, but I’m built like an old 1997 Toyota Previa. Time to add some edge.

New blood.

Will there be a hire here in the next 365 days? Well, I can’t guarantee it. But do we have some areas that we’ve been considering improving upon in the form of a new squad member? Yep.

While I plan to hire an intern for Sunday Scaries in January (local only, please), something tells me that won’t be the only splash. Maybe we’ll finally get Scott Van Pelt or maybe we’ll just hire some emerging fratstar salesman from Texas State.

Let’s just hope they’ve got a tattoo (or an ice cream scoop haircut).

The Post-Holiday Dinner Hungover Live Stream

That video you see above is probably something we’ll regret doing. At the time of writing this, we’re all gearing up for the annual Washed Media Holiday Party at Carve (south location) that normally consists of martinis, salty steaks, and even more martinis.

Since we never live stream anything from Circling Back these days, we thought doing a hungover Coffee Friday would move the needle for some Backers near and far.

Currently, we’re set to jet at 11 a.m. CST barring any technical difficulties. Or Dorn puking on the soundboard from having too many oysties.

To watch this live stream, join us later today here. To simply subscribe to our dedicated Circling Back channel, do so here—

Subscribe to Circling Back

My New Cowboy Hat Is Now My Entire Personality

by Dillon

Note: I wrote this yesterday before the company dinner, so I will be speaking about an event that hasn’t happened yet, though when you read this, it will have already happened (and I will be nursing a hangover).

Tonight is the annual Washed Media Christmas Dinner, where I will be debuting my brand new cowboy hat that I picked up Wednesday afternoon. It was a gift from my old man. I met him at Austin’s famous Allen’s Boots to pick one out. I’ve lived in Texas all my life, and even though I’ve had several pairs of boots for many years, and my family has a literal ranch that I frequently visit, this is my first real cowboy hat.

I’d been wanting a cool/felt season cowboy hat for a while now, and with our Christmas dinner on the books, which we made cowboy themed (and I can’t believe it took us five of these things to think of this), the time was now. Wanting to buck the flat brim trend, I decided to divert to a classic style. Plus, being from Texas, it was high time I added the quintessential Texas staple accessory to my repertoire.

I settled on a beaver skin in natural color. Did you know these bad boys are shaped by hand? I honestly did not. Very cool to see it take shape in less than five minutes.

There she is, being shaped and formed to fit my rather large head. A little steam and the hands of a seasoned hat artist made her come to life.

Here’s the thing: I absolutely love it. I’m not taking it off, maybe ever. Save the singing of our national anthem at a sporting event, I can’t imagine a scenario that necessitates me taking it off. Therefor, I will not be doing so — again, maybe ever.

This hat is my entire personality now. I’m no longer Dillon the cool dad/podcast guy. I’m Dillon the cowboy. That hat is me. I am the hat.

I have this irrational fear about our dinner tonight, and it goes like this: What if there’s a group of actual cowboys there tonight? The restaurant is adjacent to a WASP-y golf community so this is pretty unlikely, but we are in Texas, and the hill country isn’t far from us. I’m not talking cowboys like we’re pretending to be. I mean cowboys who work outside, on ranches, with livestock. The kind who will rope a calf, brand a steer, and move a heard of cattle to the next county on horseback.

I’m talking about six or seven real alpha male types who roll their own cigarettes and don’t use facial moisturizer. Just some real tough hombres who won’t take kindly to city folk like us turning their culture into a theme night at an upscale steakhouse. I’m just saying that’s a situation that could turn south in a heartbeat, and one guys like us simply aren’t built for.

They strike up a convo with us to see what’s what, maybe to ask where our land is or how the summer drought affected our hay crops or some shit. They’ll quickly see that my hat is fresh off the shelf and Randy has a strawberry daiquiri in front of him, then Will quickly blurts out that we’re podcasters to diffuse the tension in the room and to imply we don’t want any smoke. It’ll be too late, though.

They’ll be waiting for us outside next to their fleet of F-250s and Dodge Rams. They’re smoking post-porterhouse Marlboro Reds while we throw in 3mg Zyns to catch a buzz. So embarrassing. We’ll be trying to scurry away and hop into our Tesla Ubers to go be posers at the next bar, but they’ll intercept us and beat the suburbs right back into us. And honestly we’ll deserve it.

I don’t know, man. Tonight should be good.

P.S. I swear if I don’t get a ‘gram off tonight I’m gonna fucking lose it.

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