Coach Jess & Winter 2024 Spotlight Athlete Patrick Long met at Terrible Love in Hyde Park for coffee and a wide-ranging conversation. Though both the interviewer and the interviewee took every opportunity to turn the conversation toward Patrick’s awesome wife Ari, much was learned about Patrick himself… including his answer to a DBS Coach oriented version of F/M/K. Don’t know what those letters stand for? Pour yourself a stiff one and read on…
Coach Jess: Welcome, Patrick, to your SAS Spotlight interview. Let’s kick it off with an easy one, who is Patrick? Where are you from and how did you get here?
Patrick Long: I am from Rockville. Maryland. It is a suburb of D.C. It’s on the metro line. So technically, it’s easier for me to say D.C. It’s nice. Four seasons. Summers are hot and humid- lots of mosquitoes, but they’re okay- they’re not as hot as Austin. DC is kind of a swamp. Winters are very cold and they suck. And then I went to college in Baltimore. And winters in Baltimore are way, way, way worse. Yeah, it’s just a cold wind tunnel
After college, where else did life take you since then?
So I started in Rockville and then went to college at Towson, Maryland. I actually wanted to be a teacher, a history teacher- that’s a little bonus for Chad and Keith there. And then I took a film course. One film class with a professor from Seattle; he actually was there doing reality TV.
WOW. Which one?
He was doing stuff for TLC at the time. So it was like-
My 500 lb life?
Close! Doing shows similar to that. He had a person that was actually that large that was aspiring to be a drag queen where the goal was to lose weight and it was super dramatic. Yeah. It was really cool. Never got picked up though. He treated my class like a job; I loved it. I was good at school, but I wasn’t great at school. After I took that class that was it.
The rest is history.
Yeah, I had to be in the film industry. Right after college, I got an opportunity to work on a big film project with a producer who was out in LA. I was working at a company that my mom was working at. I was doing database management. Spreadsheets. Spreadsheets. Spreadsheets
Gotta pay the bills!
It was a nightmare- I hated it. I was making no money. I was traveling back and forth to Towson to see Ariana because we were dating then, and I had the opportunity to go west. So February of 2013, I packed up my stuff and drove the southern route of the U.S. all the way across the country; funny enough, stopping in Austin! I applied to 180 jobs- I got two callbacks.
In 2013 we were coming out of the recession right?
Yeah. So I got an internship for free. I was driving 60 miles a day working in post production for reality tv and documentaries.
OOOH?!?!?!?!
*For the reader – there is an ever growing argument about how Jess loves reality TV and Patrick hates it*
So anyway, I end up getting a job and my girlfriend at the time, now wife, ends up moving out 18 months later, gets a job, decides she hates said job, so she goes back to school to get her master’s degree, and then on to get into a PhD program in Irvine, California. So we moved from LA. to Orange County after five or six years. Huntington Beach is where we got engaged at the Dog Beach surrounded by a million puppies.
AWWWWW. Also very on par for y’all
Yes, very much so- our dog was going nuts. So Charlie, who is now 12 and a half (and in PT right now), has basically been along for almost the entire ride. Then COVID happens and there’s some family emergencies, so then we go back to Maryland. We lived there for a few years and then Ari got her post-doctorate at UT-Austin and so here we are as of February 2022
And now we’re moving to Seattle in June. RIP!
*For the reader – Jess does NOT like Seattle OR The University of Washington (Go Cougs), so Patrick & his wife are dead to her*
I know. We’re very excited and also heartbroken. I think between our apartments and our various living situations in the last decade, we’ve moved ten times. It’s gross. She’s been working so hard to get through school and we are very excited that after a decade she gets the props and a job she deserves. And I’m going to retire soon!
So one of the questions here is how dope is your wife? Brag about her a little bit
Easy transition there, thank God, because if we keep talking about me it’s gonna go MERRRROW *sound of a plane crashing*
She’s the real SAS!
She’s a soon to be a sugar Mama- Dr. Long is an astrophysicist. She’ll be working at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Boo. Go Cougs! … Go Huskies! (simultaneously)
She’s published! She has a really awesome article in the 2020 January Scientific American yhat she won an award for. I am traveling all around the world because she has conferences everywhere, so I just hold on her coattails. We’ve been to Asia twice and I just got back from a little place called Asssspen..
Where the beer flows like wine
And the women flock like the salmon of Capistrano! We did Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia. She’s been to the Netherlands twice. I was unable to attend those. She’s going to Italy in another month or two. Our goal is to get to South Africa at some point.
And she speaks at those conferences right?
Yeah, regularly. She usually gets invited and then those are like networking and or presenting places and really collaborative spots. She’s also gotten really into pole dancing and she’s killing that. Level 3 out of 5
That’s awesome! Ryan Romero’s wife teaches pole! She is so cool. And you have Charlie girl?
Yes! Charlie is a Boxer-Rottweiler mix, twelve and a half. Still going very strong even though she is in PT for arthritis. And might I recommend doggie insurance!
Oh I am sure that helps a lot! So you and Ari and Charlie are hanging out in Austin. Where can we find you? Where’s your favorite place to go? What do you like to do?
Well, we’re currently at one of my favorite coffee shops! We are at Terrible Love at Avenue B and 40th Street. It’s like three blocks from the (old) Hyde Park spot. Brian’s awesome. We love coffee-I’ve tried coffee from probably 25 places in Austin. Figure eight is another super favorite spot. Tyson’s Tacos is a place we find ourselves pretty regularly, especially late night since they are open 24 hours.
Do you know the secret? If you play a song for them on the ukulele, you get a free taco.
I don’t have a ukulele and I can’t play so no free tacos for me. You can find me at Dane’s pretty regularly. If we’re going out, definitely into seeing lots of shows. Anton’s, Mohawk, Empire Control room, Cheer up, Outer heaven on 12th.
Coach Lauren loves Outer Heaven!
So basically cool spots with concerts. I will find myself at C- Boys hanging with Jess to see Sir Woman.
Yessssss *snaps*
Ah Sing Den for Food. Great drinks. If you want a speakeasy we like Garage and the Mezcal bar above Whistler’s. Plus Techoo right by the Manor location! You know, we spend a fair amount of time at home. We work really hard and a lot. Which is tough. And so we also spend many a weekend indoors just hanging in. Relax and watch some good TV. NO Reality TV.
Your loss. So yeah, a lot of it sort of sounds like a lot of either coffee spots, shows, out at mezcal bars or good little craft cocktail spots.
Also Cosmic coffee. The new one and the south one by you. The Leroy and Lewis burger. MMMMMM!
Yes. It’s so good. What’s your favorite show that you’ve seen? I know that’s a really tough question. You know that. It’s like asking your favorite child.
We saw Muse recently and Evanescence, opened
M-m-m-m-m-m-mad mad mad
Hahaha yeah! There were so good. Can’t recommend them enough.We’ve been to two ACL’s. White denim was good. The Black Pumas show was pretty good and The Sacred Souls. BUT WHAT TAKES THE CAKE IS TENACIOUS D!
Explain a little bit more about what exactly you do. What have you been working on this past year That’s been really cool for you?
So ‘m crazy and I’m part of a small production company. We produce documentaries and podcasts, and right now we’re working on two pretty big documentaries, one docu-series. Sadly, I can’t give too much more information than that. But I do work in a documentary and podcast space. We have a podcast right at right now called “2 Complicated 4 History”. Super interesting show – if you ever wanted to know more about the nuances rather than names and dates and things that they couldn’t tell you in high school history this podcast deep dives. The first season was around a lot of early American history, but we are expanding into more international things. It’s a really fun show that I’m really proud to be a part of. We have another show called Historical Birthdays Today, which is it’s just a 60 second little tidbit every day of someone who was born on that day. We have partnered with a few other shows. You can check us out on YouTube at Primary Source Media
Nice plug!
Yeah! Like, follow, subscribe. Please, God, please. The algorithm is so unkind to us. Please. Like, listen, comments or whatever. All of it. I hate to do it, but do it.
Are they all going to be history like associated or adjacent? Because that kind of sounds like it’s the best of both worlds for you since you’re interested in history and you like video production.
I would say initially that was our goal but now we’re expanding. We have a few other stories, a few other documentaries where we will do our best to look at history. But our big thing is just being super historically accurate. Shout out to my podcast co-producer, Dr. Glenn Price. Robyn’s just our history pit bull. She’s sick.
Chad wants to know which historical figure would you want to have dinner with and why? What would you eat or make?
That’s a….that’s a very hard question. Really. There’re so many.
Noodle on it. I mean, maybe noodles for dinner.
I’d say, okay, we’ll call it a sushi dinner.
Okay. We just had to get the food out there. Now we’re rolling!
George Washington. One of the projects we’re working on is about him and as I’ve learned more about him as a human, I realized he was pretty interesting.
He would be rattled by the concept of sushi!
Sushi, devastating. And his teeth are not wooden. They’re much worse than that.
But he wouldn’t need teeth with sushi really
Yeah, it’s pretty soft. He could just smush it down.
Sick.
I’m actually pretty curious about some of the women in history around GW. There’s more scholarship studying women and so we are learning more and more. So I’d also like Abigail Adams. She was the first lady to the second president, and then she was the mother of, I think the fourth or fifth president. She was very much a political advisor when her son was president. She reminds me of Cersi from Game of Thrones.
*insert embarrassing banter about how Jess doesn’t know her presidents*
I’d want to meet them when they were younger, because a lot of us have this image of like all these old stuffy white guys reading the Constitution, when Hamilton was 21. Like they were younger than us, deciding what to do for a new country! Now I’m not interested in meeting all of our forefathers, and there is absolutely horrifying history and circumstances around who they were as people and how they were all enslavers, almost all of them. (I think Adams was the one guy who didn’t). But it’s still fascinating as far as what they were doing. I would love to know more about…well, see, this is weird though, because what about Genghis Khan? Like THAT would be really interesting.
Wow that is quite the shift!
Oh yeah, horrible stuff, but also he saw a lot of the New world. Conquered half the world. But I’m Mexican and I’m Japanese. So I’m interested in Asian culture and Central American and Latin American culture and all of these things that are a part of a larger scale.
OK, going back to your job. I know you’ve mentioned before that you were a DJ for kids parties….
Hell, yeah.
What is the most eclectic job that you’ve had?
So the most eclectic, silly job, I think was when my wife and I met, we were both lifeguards. I was a supervisor- so scandalous! We also did private party stuff – kids parties and athletic camps. We were part of this thing called Tourism Hill back in Maryland, and it was associated with a private school. So I would DJ and we would roll into parties in a big truck with a popcorn machine, a cotton candy machine, a moon bounce, etc. And Ari would help with the kids and then I would DJ. She would lead the dances like the Cupid Shuffle, Cha-Cha slide, you know, all of that good stuff. I was DJ PAT.
When was this?
We were in high school. Actually, a funny story was that we found out after we were married was that actually the first time we met was in 7th grade- she was my neighbor three doors down.
Great band
HA yeah, Three Doors Down! It was Halloween and there were some young girls in another house in the neighborhood, so we scared them a bit. We could hear the girls inside screaming and turns out that Ari was in that house. But the first time I noticed her was when we were playing soccer on the soccer practice fields
You were like who’s that cutie over there?!
I very much was like, “Who’s that in the baby blue shirt.” I vividly remember it.
Cute. Y’all are a dope couple and I just love the two of you, so it’s really sweet to hear all about how you met. So you’re at Dane’s and you like to do movement there…
I am also a personal trainer! I am a behavioral change therapist and now looking to become nutrition certified.
Hell yeah! We love to hear that! I would say you like to do a lot of movement here, but you also get a lot of movement elsewhere…on the VOLLEYBALL COURT. Talk to me a little bit about what other movement you like to do outside of the shop.
I love playing soccer. I was playing a lot of basketball back east because the winters are gross and indoor sports are a lot easier. Then I came to Austin and joined a sand volleyball team and kickball team. Then I’ve played probably ten seasons now of volleyball, whether it’s sand or indoor. Jess and I are on the same volleyball team! I also do a lot of bicycling- I’m training to do a triathlon sprint next weekend *he has done it since this has been printed! Congratulate him!* But I am going to miss being able to do year round outdoor sports in Seattle.
You can always go indoor! Or just stay here… 🙂 So then what drew you to The Shop? How did you find us?
When I was working out in California, I found a cool gym that was an only outdoor gym called Total Fit gym. Then when I went back to Maryland I had started a small personal training company where we worked out of a garage and it was too cold in the winter.
Shoot I could imagine!
It was like 18 degrees
My God.
And despite being a personal trainer, I hate programming for myself. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. But that’s why I became a personal trainer. Because I know other people need it. So when I was looking for a gym, I knew I didn’t want to do CrossFit, and I lived very close to the Manor location and you popped up online. The pricing is reasonable. And then I went and I met (Coach) Mark.
Oh No.
Yeah. The first person I met was Mark. And I remember he said something like “Yeah, man. I’ve been working out here for quite a few years and I’m 60, not too bad.” And he was super sweaty and flexed on me then smacked his arm. I was like, you know, he’s not wrong. And then I came back for a tour.
My God.
And then I met Chad and the rest is history. A lot of what resonated with me about The Shop is that it’s competitive, but in a friendly way. It’s very focused. There’s a lot of attention to detail when it comes to your lifting. There was optionality with Fusion vs Hybrid vs Strength vs Yoga. And it also has a fixed class schedule. That kind of locked me into doing something good for myself because there wasn’t room for flexibility so I had to prioritize it.
There wasn’t a ton of wiggle room for “welllll maybeeeee I’ll go after dinner…”
Nope, classes are now so lets make it work! Then shortly after I started, I realized the community was awesome. The mini-meets, the social fusion, all of that stuff was super appealing and super fun. And I was also looking to build community.
Humble brag- our community is so cool and fun. Chad wants to know, F***, marry, kill: Dane, Chad, Keith? *Chad here dear readers- I cannot believe Jess actually asked this question- that was a total joke on the text thread!*
Damn you, Chad. It’s rare I am left so stumped. Damn you, Chad!
Well, you know, Keith’s really flexible.
And a very strong man. I guess I’d have to figure it out because my closest relationships are with Chad and Keith. Not to say that I don’t have a good relationship with Dane, right? But if I kill Dane, does that mean the Shop is gone?
No! Ryan (Dane’s wife) will take it over, it’s fine. It’ll be even cooler.
All right. Well, then, I guess Dane’s got to go, he’s got plenty of kids. I guess Keith is getting the marry, and Chad’s getting the one night stand. Dane’s bloodline will still continue, Keith can just carry me around all day, and Chad…well Chad is a tornado of chaos and energy and silly. So like, that sounds fun for ONE night. *Dear readers, Chad here again- I cannot BELIEVE that Patrick actually answered the question!*
So there you have it!
There you go, Chad. I had to kill Dane. The guy who literally owns the shop.
OK one more – Chad also wants to know, what is the most important part of your hair and beard care regimen?
First off, beard care is at an all time low. This is out of laziness, not out of care or style.
Okay…
I’m getting a beard trimmer. It is no longer a cheap trip to barber shops. It’s like the equivalent of a haircut at this point.
Really?! To get your beard trimmed?!
Yeah it’s like $40-50 bucks right. Not too long ago I got a beard salve…lost it that weekend. We went to a wedding that weekend and it was gone after that. I thought “I’m never buying anything for my beard again”. I am lucky and inherited my wife’s hair products.
She’s got beautiful hair.
Yes- her hair is locked right now, but before she had long lots of curls, like the most insane curly hair.
Sounds cute and efficient.
If you have curls like mine, don’t wash your hair too regularly, but you can condition it every day.
But my number one tip for anyone, satin pillowcase. Satin pillowcase- good for your face and for your hair
Yep. We literally travel with ours. And like not to sound too woo-woo, but natural products are better. They’re just cleaner like shea butter.
Yeah that makes a huge difference, too. You heard it here! Well, any last thoughts, remarks, questions?
No, I don’t think so. I’ve super appreciated my time at The Shop and I’m kind of heartbroken this is the final term or my last hurrah. I’ve truly found some great friends, a great community, and a place that really helped cement why I love Austin in a lot of ways, so I can’t thank the crew and the fam enough here. I’ll be back. I’m going to win one of those DAMN push-pull meets.
Didn’t you just get 7th? You made the top 10!
I think there were only 10.
Yeah there were only 10.
Well don’t be surprised when I come back and smoke you all!
Well we appreciate you! You always have a spot in class when you come visit, and good luck with everything!
