As some of you may remember, Animated Meat first came to life in 2008 as a way to document some sights that managed to slip through the cracks of most popular travel websites. You may also remember that the original website was built on Apple's now defunct iWeb. From there, it migrated over to WordPress where it met an untimely demise at the hands of Russian hackers. Many of those old, pre-2012 entries have found a new home here in the Before the Now section. I would consider these posts as my starting place as a writer, probably comparable to a musician's first demo tapes. They are very rough, but I took them all seriously and wrote each one with passion. While I would like to believe that I have matured in my abilities as a writer, it is my hope that I carry this same blind passion into all of my new efforts.

Tustin Brewing Company - Originally Published 2011

March 9, 2019

Pretend that you had a cool older brother. Now, pretend that your cool older brother was a restaurant. You know who he’d be? He’d be the Tustin Brewing Company.

You see, here’s the thing about cool older brothers. Cool older brothers are all about the right now. While the rest of the world gives you problems about crappy grades and your lack of direction, your cool older brother tells you now to worry about it. He’s been there before you and he knows that it’s all going to work out.

It’s important to know about Geometry, but it’s also important to know that Mitch Cumstein was kicked out of college for night putting.

Yup. Older brothers are pretty cool. In the time it takes to separate the stems and the seeds from a lid on a copy of Rumors, they’re sure to straighten out your perspective on the world.