The Less Desirables: January 14, 2026 – Anime and You, Kawaii After Dark

Hey and welcome this week's episode of The Less Desirables. Today is Wednesday, the 14th of January, 2026. My name is Tim, but I'm not flying solo. I have friends, they tell me they're friends, but we're here anyway. No stranger to this show, everyone should welcome Mr. Stallone Frazier. Greetings, greetings, so great to be back in the building again. Love it. And who did you bring with you? I brought the coldest, coolest cat that I know, oh my goodness, venue owner of the Winston Salums hit in that gym, the din, introduce yourself, Tony, tell the people who you are. Hi, my name is Tony and I'm the owner of the din. Where is the din? It's so hidden, I don't know. 36, 37, 56, Ogburn Avenue, so it's right off the Northside of town, super small, 70 rap, music venue, floor stage, manipulate the room to fit the needs of the event, basically it's specifically for up and coming local artists. Okay, excellent. What's it in here? A taco truck, that is amazing, but it doesn't move. It really is, I mean, it's right off the Akron exit turn right and not even a half a mile. Okay. Yeah. Spent some time up that way and been a long time, I've not been a long time since I've been through there, but a long time since I spent any time there. Well, do you need to come back to the din, next show, what you got coming up? I have a metal show on Friday and a rock show on, or a punk rock show with a bunch of locals on Saturday, this Saturday. So, there you go. Come through. All right. It is a very non-descriptive building, so if you have been by the area, you still probably wouldn't know. Okay. Yeah. It doesn't scream at you. No. It does not. It's kind of like a speakeasy, but yeah. It's in all ages, speakeasy in a way of like, I don't do ads really, I mean, apart from just talking about it like this, but because I want the people that have a good time, that bring that good vibe there to tell their friends that will also bring in. Sometimes ads can backfire and bring people that you don't necessarily fit the vibe there, so we're growing slow, but natural. Excellent. Yeah. So, it's the long you have something coming up, right? Yes. Yes, we do. So, we are doing Kawaii after dark, too. This is actually the second version. We did one back in October, so and it's perfect, like we are, you know, we're really excited to bring this back to the people for a second time. This is not just, it's not a rave, it's not a cosplay party. It is an anime nightlife experience because, you know, it's a place for people in the community and not just people in the community because we had a very diverse group the last time, who came out, it's a safe space, able to party, have fun, dress up as your favorite characters, and you know, just have a great time and that didn't exist in this space, you know, prior to us trying to bring it to Winston-Salem, so. So, you did explain it there, but let's pretend that I'm 55 years old and I didn't understand the damn thing you just told me. Okay, so, explain it to me like I'm 55, sunny. Get off my lawn. So, this is a place where a bunch of anime nerds get together. They dress up in ridiculously elaborate at times, costumes that most of the mates, I'm by, but you know, they dress up and they come in and they party and they party in a way that is very specific to them. It's not just regular hip hop, pop, you know, anime nerds have a very specific taste in what they like, you know, whether it's anime theme songs, K-pop, K-pop is really big right now. Yes, it is. And I feel like the anime culture, you know, really introduced that, like I don't feel like K-pop is as big as it is without anime culture. Even though K-pop is Korean, anime Japanese, but they go hand in hand. It's also exploding into pop culture. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Like, that's KJ or other one. Yeah, right. I mean, you talked about how it's diverse and you're talking about a very niche group which is anime nerds and how can that such a niche group be diverse, but it is. You have people there that, let's be real, looking around the first event, these people would not have talked to each other in high school. You know, it's just, it's one of these people and like, but the vibe was so cool. Everybody interacted. Right. Yeah, people that were deep-cutting anime, like just, there's one season, there's five episodes of it and they are all about it and then they are interacting with people, you know, that were just dressed up as, as, you know, the movies, like the cultural, just pop aspect and nobody was, nobody was holding anything against each other, everybody was interacting, everybody was having a great time. It was, it was magical. So I know where the long stands are you a fan of the anime stuff? Yeah. I mean, I definitely don't have much time. I have, as well as running the din, I am the only employee of the din. And so I also have 14-agers, I'm married, I also work a full-time job, so I really don't have a lot of time to watch. But whenever something is just taking everything over, I want to be a part of it. Right. Recently, or last year was definitely the Demon Hunter. Yeah. I lived my son to ask the actual Demon Hunter in the movie and the theaters, which he was loved. He loved that movie and he was like, he's like, movies go to, it's the greatest movie I've ever seen in a lot of my life. But like I really liked the K-pop Demon Hunter. Like I was really amped and then I didn't know it was going to be a musical, I had no idea. But my family goes on drives and screams musicals, like that's who we are. So it works. Yeah. I'm with them now. I don't know about it. If you've never done it, don't watch it. I will know about it. You know, I used to own at least part of a comic book store and the manga and the anime and all that stuff that came through there. And it wasn't that I didn't like it. I just wasn't aware, it was, I was past its prime, right? I was. You were the target audience. Not at that time. Not at the time. You know, now I think that a lot of people that I know would, even the older people. There's a broad target now. Yeah. It's huge. I mean, for everyone. It, see, I feel like that I was amongst that first generation, like in the 90s, before we even had heard the term anime, you had Dragon Ball Z, you had like Gundam or Cowboy B, but yeah, the few of these, it wasn't me. We didn't know what they were, but we knew that we liked them. And then coming into early 2000s, that's when Cartoon Network came and they brought the tsunami block that eventually turned into Adult Swim. And that is where a lot of, you know, anime were introduced to, you know, American masses for the first time and those of us who really nerded it out. And you had to be pretty nerdy because a lot of stuff didn't come on. It came on after 12 o'clock. So the run was like like 12 to 2 or 12 to 3 or something like that. And that was like, so you had to be dedicated to be up watching anime at 2.30 in the morning, you know, trying to watch, you know, Cowboy B-Bop or, you know, Trygun or something like that. So, and that's where it started. I feel like in the last, less than 10 years, like we've really seen an explosion into mainstream pop culture. So the kids that were kind of made fun of for being anime nerds are now the cool kids. Now, when you say anime like that, do you mean just like shows or does that also include movies? It is it because, I mean, a lot of people didn't know that it was happening in the 60s, but there were some in the 60s and TV shows, especially. And then, you know, there was G-Force and all those things that I saw growing up. Right. Yeah. So when you talk to me like I'm 55, it's because I am. Yeah. But, so we didn't know what it was, it just said, oh, it's that animation. We didn't know that it was, we can tell it was cartoon, yeah, we can tell it. We can tell it was Japanese because in the credits, it just said, you know, and I'm like, I don't know what that says, but okay, cool. But yeah, so would like my neighbor Tortoro and all that stuff be considered anime? I think more and more later to the way. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so a lot of those things like because anime is really becoming a kind of a cultural umbrella, for Japanese made media in general because you could say, so power Rangers is because it's developed from Super Sentai. Well, Japanese, you know, so it was basically ripped off from that, but that's heavy into, so there's a cultural connection with that. Yeah. And a lot of people who grew up on power Rangers are now going back to the Super Sentai, or I can take you back to one. How about Subitone Man, the Japanese Spider Man, like that. And now, you know, canonically speaking, that is its own thing, like the Japanese version of Spider Man we got in the 70s is a different or like is a variant of Spider Man now because it is a tie into Japanese culture and anime is even starting to affect comic books because, you know, there's been a run of, I think it was Ultimate X-Men that was done by I don't want to get a name wrong. I think it's Momoko Chan, something like that. Japanese artist, whole run on Ultimate X-Men, and it was pretty good. Like she brought like. Was that the one that had watercolors? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And it was cool. And it was actually genius to be able to bring somebody a not main line X-Men comics, but something that would still be put out to the masses and kind of few, because people who are 55 years old and up are getting introduced to manga and anime and don't realize it, because now they're allowing some of the Japanese creators because Batman, they did a whole series called, I think it's called the Gotham Knight or something like that, where they did short films, by Japanese artists, and basically they turned Batman into anime, and those several different versions are really good. It's like the animatrix for something like that. Yeah. Those different artists. Yeah. Which is awesome by the way. Yeah. It was awesome. They also did one with Halo Legends. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. See, I find all that. Very fascinating. Again, being of the comic book culture, you know, a child of the 80s, but I was born in 1970. So I had all the 70s and I got into comic books around 1979, 78, 79, but yeah, I will admit that I struggled when, as I called it, when the comics stopped looking like real people, and it was like over exaggerated and all that stuff. Oh, that's expressionist. Yeah. I'm like, this is not my comic books, but they'll, you know, you kind of get used to things as they stay around, and that didn't necessarily go away. It's evolved. It's different now, but I earned a whole new respect for it. And I had, you know, Jay Gobble, you can't say I'm familiar. Okay. Yeah. He and his friend Charlie, I can't remember Charlie's last name, but they used to do their own comic books and stuff, and they would go to the comic cons and all that stuff. But they, they were more along the lines of the stuff that I would say didn't look like real people, but, but it was so well done. And the thing I always thought about the anime stuff is like, why are there eyes so big as out of proportion with the rest of their head, but I'm not, I'm not, I'm not putting it down. It's just, it took me a while as, you know, the, the Kirby era and Stanley era of comic books. It was different. But, um, yeah, I, uh, I have turned to really enjoy about a little bit of everything. And like they, uh, spirit away in my neighbor, Tuttoro, it was, um, what's his name, um, Miyazaki? Yeah. Miyazaki. Yeah. I owe Miyazaki. Yes. A lot of stuff. So my neighbor, Tuttoro. Those are great. That's a lot of way both, and bearded, what, yeah, Princess Mono, uh, Mono Nookie. Mm-hmm. Yeah. How's moving castle? Yes. The boy in the hair and ponio, so, you know, the beauty on, uh, HBO Max is they have a whole, uh, section for, yes, that kind of thing. And, uh, speaking of streaming though, like you're talking about the explosion of one pop culture has seen with streaming, you had, when Crunchyroll became a streaming application, right? Like that. And you had, next day after air in Japan, you're able to watch it. Yeah. You didn't have to wait until it gets translated or read up in the English people to start at just time. People were just like, I can't wait. I'm, I'm watching this. Right. I mean, one of my friends was three years before it came out the last season or the last half of, or quarter of the last season of Attack on Titan. Well, my, my buddy is just, was telling the rest of the rest of our friends was like, you guys are going to be so excited. It's so good. Yeah. Three years whenever it gets over here because they just refuse to watch it and sub to like, and it's just, I think that that, talk about the division and like how wide that nerd fandom now is, you do have the people that only watch it when it's sub-titled. Yeah. Yeah. And there's, there's still that, those two factions, but again, those same people can agree that they love the story. Yes. And they loved the art style with the character types and the archetypes and the plot motives and all of that stuff. And that's the same camaraderie that comes out with events like quite after dark. Yeah. For sure. And it's, I think that as, you know, we kind of open things up and more and more people are into it. What people are realizing is that anime is not, it's not a singular thing. It's literally like every genre that exists in movies and TV shows exists in anime. You like comedy, you like slifes of life, you like horror, you like detective, you like whatever you like. But I can guarantee you, I will put my money on it that there's an anime that exists in that genre. My, my usual joke and that is porn, but that's called Hinti. Yes. If you're into that type of thing, that exists too. So, you know, that, you know, that's usually said to just throw a wrench in the whole system, but there is actually one that you know, I mean, that's, it's, it's, it's porn pays the bills, right? That's exactly, sex work is what that's what they did. HD DVD went or lose over Blu-ray, like that's, I mean, yeah, it's time and time again. Yes, yes. Like because the adult industry decided that Blu-ray was the, it was, and that was it. I mean, you know, no, and they were like, you know, we were never here, but that is, it's a multi built, you know, whether they want to admit it or not, it's a multi-billion dollar. They want to burn your signal or not, like it's, it's gonna exist and it does get people into fandoms. Well, let's even go back further. That's the whole reason VCRs became a thing because, and VHS won out over beta, because, yes, because porn could go on VHS, but beta wouldn't let it. Exactly. You could, later, you could double yourself if you wanted to, but not that I did, I'm a friend it. But, um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny how that does, I'm not to get off that, but that does kind of guide. I mean, it's like at the musical, have a new cue and the big song in there, the internet is for porn. Yeah. So, it's just, I mean, it is what it is, right? It's not for everybody, but to not acknowledge the implications or the, the impact that it's has. Yeah. I mean, it has, but, you know, not to say it's good, bad or otherwise, but without it, certain things don't exist in the forefront, like reality. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. We're all over the culture. We're talking about Porter or anime on that one, like that's kind of the same thing right now. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, there you go. You might not be into anime right now, because you can't deny it's effect on pop culture. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. It's a point where it's like, okay, let's say, let's go back 20 years, okay? You were anime nerd. You were probably picked on, you know, you might have collected Pokemon cards or something. Now, okay, high schoolers, something don't even watch, but they wear the attack on Titan T-shirt or the demon slayer T-shirt, like they wear the outfit, some of which they don't even fully understand where it came from, but it's so ingrained in culture right now that, you know, they don't want to be left out. So it's like, oh, that's what the cool kids were doing. Yeah. And it's like that, that shift. And for people to be able to come together, and that's where that diversity comes from. Because now you have the cool kids, the ones that sat at the cool kids table. You have the ones who were more shunned and outcast, and you have the ones who, you know, you would never think where anime felt like you, you seem kind of hardcore, dude. You like anime? Yeah. You know, Michael B. Jordan came out and was like, hey, I'm a huge anime fan. Like his Killmonger armor was based on the one Vegeta War in Dragon Ball. Like, those little things, you know, are making the style in huge anime fan. And you know, you would not have seen that, you know, even 10 years ago, Nicki Minaj would have never came out and like, hey, anime, even though, even though she was heavily inspired by Japanese fashion, she called herself the hard-juku Barbie hard-juku, is it? On the flip side of that, my son is now very into soccer because he found a soccer anime. There you go. It's an anime about a sports team playing soccer. And I'm like, all right, bud, and now he's like soccer, there's Brazil stuff everywhere. There's one about basketball, there's a baseball, you know, just about, and it's not what you think. Like you might look, it's like, okay, so they played baseball during the day and they fight giant robots at night. No, no, it's about the baseball, and that's what it's about. So anybody, you know, people, oh, I don't like anime. If you say that, then it's probably because you've never actually watched it or you watched the wrong thing because I can guarantee you, I can find something that you would like if you gave it a chance. Like, that's the truth. Fan or not. You don't have to be a fan of anime. You can be a fan of something that is anime. And that's, some people are. Some people's like, you know, they may not care about the whole genre, but they found a particular thing that they do like, like, oh, I love Pokemon or I love, you know, this particular thing. And that's fine. You know, all are welcome. Yeah. Excellent. What? How were you when you got into anime? Okay. So the very first time, I'll never forget this. My grandmother used to go to Goodwill and she would always buy a lot of VCR tapes. Yeah. And there was a VCR tape from this movie called Odin, something about Starship Odin or something like that. Oh, it's very obscure. It was literally the first anime, whatever that I'd ever seen. It was on VHS tape and I used to watch it and I thought it was the coolest thing. It was 80s metal soundtrack, terrible English dub acting, but it was awesome. And I played that thing until I had a hole in it. So, and I had to be, I couldn't have been any older than maybe six or seven years old, but I played that thing over and over. So is it Odin, photon, space sailor, starlight? Yes. That is such a longer title than you gave. Yeah, sorry, because I've been a kid and it's like, we want to read all the extra, but yes. Yes. What are you watching? Odin. All right. That sounds hard, right? Right. Space sailor, starlight on the moon, jump does such a Japanese, it's the whole North sailor, people are instantly going to put you into sailor moon at that time as a kid, probably going to be not the greatest. Now, I mean, that's worldwide phenomenon. Yeah. For sure. But that was literally one of the first at the time I didn't know. I knew that it was a company called US Manga or something like that that distributed it, but as far as like understanding that that was a whole genre, I just thought it was cool. You know, you could have told me that that was made by the same people that made Transformers or E-Man. And I would be like, okay. Yeah. Because it was color, Masha, color, color or something. But even with that, you know, Transformers has its roots from Japan, die clone, actually it's, yeah, Voltron, like all of these things are rooted in, you know, maybe not necessarily anime, but even then a lot of the animators were Japanese, they didn't call the anime, but I'm just, if you are wondering why they were so similar or so many similarities between 80s anime and some of these other series that we know like Transformers, E-Man, Thunder Cats, that's why, you know, a lot of those same artists worked on both. They looked vastly different than Spider-Man and friends. That they did. Good as me. That they did. Yeah. Yeah. Because some of the American, yeah. Spider-Man and his amazing friends. Yes, with Starfire and Ice-Man, which, Ice-Man was an X-Man, and Starfire did not exist until that cartoon, then they made her afterwards, and now she's like, "Canon," I'm like, "Yeah, there wasn't there." Right. And while Spider-Man was not in the X-Man, he hung out with them so, so, I guess, if you want them to be. Yeah. But my thing, my point of that is why not pick established people to put with him? I mean, if Marvel was already going to license out Spider-Man and Ice-Man, sure. Why did we need. What year was it? Those were in the 70s, right? Yeah. Well, it was '81, '82. Yeah. Well, that was right when Stanley had leaned right after Stanley had gotten the patent back from Japan because he sold it. He basically got conned into selling it to a Japan artist to do the live-action, and then he hated it, and it was not allowed in America at all. I mean, gigantic Spider-Robots flying cars, not Spider-Man at all. But it's also, Spider-Man is the most recognizable superhero in the entire world over Superman, over Batman. Like, which is wild to me, that was a fact before the Tobin Require movies. That's. So, I mean, part of that is because of him not being just a US icon, whether or not Stanley wanted it, how it happened or whatnot, but I feel like that was probably kind of around the same time. There's a lot of other things in that atmosphere of being able to placate getting Spider-Man back into the US umbrella. Well, I mean, even if you look back at 1963 or whenever it was at the amazing fantasy, Steve Ditko's art was kind of Japanese-inspired anyway. Right. And so, it just fit. I think it fit because Spider-Man looks like what Japanese art portrays. Well, one of the things that people don't realize is that a lot of early anime and mangaka is the ones who make, because a lot of them started a manga. They didn't start an anime right away, but were inspired by, you know, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, sorry, you know, Bill Fingert, all of these guys, you know, that's what they looked up to, a curatoriama, you know, total, like all of these people, that's who, because of when they were coming up, that's what existed. Like, this was before there was such thing as anime, like, they might have been like Astral Boy or something at the time, so. Well, yeah, that was definitely the '60s Astral Boy was. - I just saw it here, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Tim? 1963. - There you go. There you go. - There you go. - Through 1965 there was a 144 episode. - Way ahead of his time and not given enough credit as far as being the, I wouldn't even say the father. That's like the great grandfather of anime, right? - Yeah. - I've been talking about anime on the big screen. This was 2009. Astro Boy, they made the movie, the CG movie. - Yeah, yeah. - I mean, that was the first time that I, I mean, that was an old, you know, cartoon. - Right. - But there wasn't a lot of mainstream animated, like big budgeted movies, at that time. - Right. - That was the beginning of like the superhero craze. - Right, right. - And Freddie Hymor did the voice for that. Who was, you see Neverland, finding Neverland, the Johnny Depp about James Barry who wrote that, the guy who played Peter was Freddie Hymor. - Okay. - And so he is the voice of Astro Boy. - Astro, okay. - And the awful acting Nick Cage is in it, and the quite lovely Kristen Bell. - All right. Shout out to Nick Cage, has a Spider-Man to war. A series coming up, so that'll be interesting. - Yeah, he, I like him. - Right, right. - But he's not a great actor. So. - The best acting job he ever did to me was in face-off. When he was basically playing John Travolta, and John Travolta was playing him. - Yeah. - And they did perfect because you just have to act like you don't know what you're doing. - He did. (laughing) - I love that. - But I don't remember when that movie came out. - I'm not saying the movie was good. - Yeah, I was. - But they actually were acting good because they were acting like each other. - Yeah, that was, wow, that was such a thing. - Yeah, I wonder if they did the same thing that Tom Hiddelsen and Chris Evans did from The Lord Dark World. - Okay. - Because Loki switched during Wednesday, whether in Asgard, he switched to Captain America. - Yeah. - And just did some line. - Yeah. - He watched Chris Evans do the line, and then he like impersonated. So I wonder if it just took so much longer to do face-off because they would just switch the roles, do their acting, and then go over, and then just mirror exactly what they did. It was like, do your most impersonation of the other guy. - It could be the worst. - But don't impersonate him in impersonating you. Make sure that we can't go down that rabbit right. - Yeah, 'cause that's what those time-space continuing things are. I had a conversation today about time travel in movies and how it just blows my mind. Not that I don't understand the concept, it's just trying to piece it all back together. And my mind says, no, just, no. Just let it be, just let it be entertained. - Other than, you know, back to the future, gave us the ultimate time travel story. - Well, but that's different. - Yeah, because what I'm talking about, the one that really, the terminator, the first one. - Yeah. - That, I can't, well, but how did, if he did, she would, what, you know, it's just how can she be this way, 'cause they would have had to go back to here, to get. - Okay, so terminator franchise, first two movies, especially two, one of my all-time favorites, but it's been said, especially as they continue to make movies that there were quite a few plot holes. Like, number one, it's like, why would you continue to send robots back in time? - To make money. - Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's what the script says. - And you are a super advanced AI with a giant machine army and you only sent one, right? You could only afford to send the one, right? That didn't make sense at all. It was like, no, wouldn't you send 10, 20? No, it was like. - Well, and, you know, they were under the gun of technology, too. - Right. - I love the Star Wars franchise, the last three movies, maybe not, but the prequels and the original trilogy. - Sure. - Why didn't they dumb down the prequels? Because technology in timeline, technology in the Phantom Menace was way better than a new hope. - Right. - So why didn't they just dumb that down in Phantom Menace to not outshine, then again, I think, oh, it's George Lucas, and never mind, my answer is, I just wanted to go all out, but as far as canonically speaking, it's like, you know, they kind of went backwards. - Yeah, yes, yes. - When empires take hold, you know, things kind of slide back. - Yeah, they do, they put them back in the dark ages. So that explains it all. - Yes, which has made everything canonically bad. - The empire made everybody use the Yahoo search engine. - That's it. - That's what it is. - Likos. - Daddy's Likos. - They asked Jeves the entire time. - The entire time, like, what was it? - Netscape. - Oh, on Netscape Navigators. - Gives us a G. - That's taking me back right there to good thing for ever to load. It was on every school computer ever. - Yeah, and having to go through AOL to get there. - You've got mail. - Yeah. - That was really good. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I remember, like, you know, not to get really sidetracked, but, you know, I'm just, I'm, yeah, we are, I'm sorry. That's what this show is about. This show is about going into the weeds. - And we will live in the weeds. - Hell yeah. - Yeah, man. - I'm good with it. And I had, so we had a day-wool computer. I never knew that day-wool made computers, but we had a day-wool home computer. And I remember the first time we got dialed up. I was excited because I was like, wait, internet? At home. And so, you know, they used to send the, I know you remember this. They would send you the disks, right? - Yes. - And it was like 30 day free trial for AOL. And it was just like, now it was like Christmas. There it is. I would have to fax so much at work. I will never forget that sound. - Right. - And then when it finished, 'cause he had the little boxed- - Well, come. - And then you would load, he's like, yes. And it was like, you know, you were like a kid on Christmas, 'cause it's like, hey, I can access email. You know, I might be able to load one picture before bedtime. That's when you still put a hyphen in email. - Yeah, exactly. - Now it's just email. - Right. And that's when you had to type out the entire URL for whatever website that you wanted to go to. - W-W-R-H-T-T-P. - A colon slash, slash, though you go to security. - Yeah. - That's when it was just HTTP. - And you had to type the whole thing. And do not get one letter wrong because, let me tell you something. And this is gonna be go for some people's heads, but there was definitely a difference between WhiteHouse.com and WhiteHouse.org. There we go. - Yeah. - Oh, man. Some, the people who know are chuckling right now because WhiteHouse.com was definitely, I refer back to our earlier conversation. - Yeah, anyway. - Anyway. (laughing) - Yeah. - Please see the Hinti section of our podcast. - Boop, boop. (laughing) - That's bringing it back around. - That's right. We circled it right back into the wagon, right? - So when is this event? - February 28th, 2026 at the din. Be there or be square. - And where is the din again, 20s? - 3756. - Okay, I know this is an admin. - 3756, yes. And we will make sure that your audience has a nice, pretty link that they can click to go get their tickets. They are on sale right now. We have regular and we have VIP tickets. And we, what we wanted to do this time, 'cause Tony and I, we sat and talked and we wanted to bring an experience. So some people are used to, 'cause there have been some anime raves and things around. So people show up, there's DJ, there's some, (laughing) you know, a couple little anime-- - All the boots and pants you can handle, right? Some anime related stuff, people have good time, they go, but we wanted to bring an entire experience. So this time we're, and this is confirmed, we have a burlesque performer who has agreed, she, and this is the cool thing about when you do something, right? 'Cause Tony knows, I reached out to some people and they either couldn't do it or they said no. This time, they contacted me, I didn't contact them. They contacted me and they said, "Can I?" You know, is that still something that I can do? I want to come and I want to be able to perform, I have something that's anime related. So, you know, that was really awesome. So, you know, we have, that's why we use the term experience because we want you to know that, you know, we have games that people play, like kind of like game show games. - Yeah. - So, we did a dance contest, we had cosplay contest, so we're gonna, you know, and we did, so we had different categories. So, it's not just calm and, you know, get something to drink and dance with your friends. There's still a lot of that, but it's an experience that you can take something away from, whether it is, you know, playing a game or doing, name that tune, anime theme additions. And sometimes we just improv, we talked about improv earlier. Sometimes it's just like, hey, we go with a night Texas, but we want to make sure that when you leave, you say, I have to come back. - So, can you tell us who the burlest answer is? Or are you keeping that close to the list? - No, no, no, because she's excited. So, Winston-Salem's on Ms. Mona Loverly. - Okay. - Who is a stable, she's, I think she works at Monster Cave. So, that's, she's a part of that whole thing, but she's, and works with, Nikki couldn't be with us today, but Ms. Nikki Menagerie. - Oh yeah. She's a former co-host of mine. - Yeah, so Nikki and they've worked together. So, she's definitely somebody who has done some things in the city, so, and she hit me up. She was excited and I was like, hey, if you want to be there, we will make a way to make sure that you can, you know, you can do your thing. So, - I love Nikki dearly, she is amazing. - Yes, yes, so, working with her, and I knew when we did this, I was like, yeah, Nikki has to be a part of it, because she's brought me in to several burlest shows, and started out, I was just a photographer. Last time around, I was DJ, so that's a new career path for me, DJ, and so, MC and DJ, whatever you want to call it, that's what we're doing now. So, - How you hyped the crowd pretty good. - Hey, man, I have a good time, and that's what it is. So, what all of this stems from is me sitting in my seat as an anime nerd and saying, what do I want to see? What do I want to go to? And being the entrepreneur in me then says, if it doesn't exist, make it. - Right. - You know, it's not there. You know, you can go, you can search Google, you can do anything. It didn't exist, and one of the things that I'm most proud of with Kawaii After Dark is we establish not just an event, but a brand. If you Google Kawaii After Dark, first page, like would you see us us? I mean, there is now someone trying to imitate us, but we're not gonna give them much shine, but you know, we use you Google Kawaii After Dark. - And it's spelled like Kawaii with a K? - Yeah, pretty much, yeah. And it's Japanese for cute, but we don't really emphasize it too much like that, because when we first did this, we were scared that the guys were gonna think it was just for girls or, you know, it was gonna be too, you know, girl or oriented, but you know, when we had the event, we didn't have that problem. The guys were there. You know, the guys showed up, they had a good time. So. - Oh, there's Nikki right there. - Yeah, so if the guys were smart. - Like, if you thought the girls were gonna be there, then you should definitely be there. - Oh, absolutely. - Absolutely. - So. - And the Kawaii After Dark event is a ten and a half. - It is. - The din is primarily all ages, but because of the events that we sometimes have, we need to make sure that everybody is filled safe and not so. - There's that, but also things that we like, we didn't really have vendors last time. - No, we did. - We wanted to be more of an experience just, you know, so that it isn't just, you know, dancing, drinking and party, we, more of like convention. So we do, we have reached out to a bunch of local, that's the big thing too, for community. It is local. - Yeah. - We want the performers that are gonna be here. - Right. - To be local. - Right. - You know, it's the heart. It's Winston, you know, this community does exist. Let's connect everybody together. - Right, and it's, so no matter what happens or where it goes, you know, I want it to be said or known that Kawaii After Dark and Winston Salem are one and the same. Like, you know, the idea is like, oh, man, you can take it to Charlotte. It's like, no, if Charlotte wants Kawaii After Dark, Charlotte comes here. - Okay. - You know, and that's what it is. And the, I learned that from a very important person. So I think you've probably heard of the National Black, or it's called the International Black Theatre Festival. Yeah. So I did not this year, but year before, you know, 'cause I do the videos and the voiceovers for the downtown Salem Excellence Awards. And they were award winners and I did the thing for that. - So Mr. Larry Leon Hamlin, who is now passed, but when he decided to bring a national, national festival to Winston Salem, people were like, no, they would, they said, why don't you take it to Atlanta? Atlanta's a bigger city. They have more infrastructure there. Take it to Charlotte. And he said, no, he said, I'm in Winston Salem. I'm part of this community and we're gonna host it here. And I don't know if it was the first or the second, but one of the first celebrities they brought in was Denzel Washington. And '90s, it was, 'cause '89 was the first year. So '90s Denzel was hot. Like this is like post Malcolm X Denzel Washington. Like he was hot and to bring him Oprah Winfrey, you know, because of her relationship, you know, with Maya Angelou. So she had Winston Salem ties and connections. - Of course. - So we had all of these individuals who came here, who would have never come to Winston Salem, had it not been for that event. - Yep. - My mentality, like kind of circling back to what Tony said, build it here. And then if they wanted, if you build it, they will come. - Yeah. - Okay, so the idea is to build, quiet after dark and we actually, you know, we have dreams of something much bigger than that. I'm not gonna jump into it too much of what we're thinking. Like multi-day, multi-event thing. But, you know, bring people to the city. Like bring them, let them come from Charlotte. Let them come from all the way over. Anywhere, to Winston Salem. You know, we're gonna attract people to our community and see just how awesome we have so much talent here. Music talent, art talent, performance talent. You know, excellent, you know, venue. We have just a community of really awesome people. And I'm a part of that, you know, you guys are a part of it. And we are, we're gonna show everyone. Like, so it's starting small now, but we know where we wanna go. - Oh yeah. - And we're excited. - Well good. And that is the 28th. - The 28th. - The last day, actually, is this a leap year? - Think so. - I don't think so. - No, no. - No, so it's the last day of February. - Last day of February, yeah. - Yeah. - And the last day to get tickets is on Valentine's Day. - Valentine's Day. So if you wait to February 15th to try to get tickets, you will not be able to get tickets. And the reason why we're doing this, because we learned a lot. Last event was amazing, but we learned things that we could use to help us make it better. And what we wanna do is, because promotion and ticket sales and stuff, that's a whole thing. There's a lot of work that goes into making sure that happens. So once the ticket sales finish, we need time to make the biggest, bestest, awesomeest event that we can. And we need time to be able to plan it. I mean, we're planning now, but just really be able to put that together to make sure that it is the best that it can be, because we owe it. When you spend money on a ticket, and you say, "I'm coming to Hawaii after dark." We owe you the best experience possible. The only thing you owe us is show up, and just have an open mind. And I wanna shout out. - And behave yourself. - Hey. And I wanna shout out everyone who came to the first Hawaii after dark. It was an amazing crowd. - Energy was so good. - The energy was so good. - Was amazing. And that is, I don't care. Anybody who's ever performed, okay? You know, you guys are in existence, you know this. I don't care how good you are. If the crowd is wrong, it'll stop the energy out of you, because you're playing your heart out, or you're performing, you're up in front of people, and they're just dead, they're just looking at you. And you know, it's just like, it'll stop the energy out of a room. - It was cold that night. - Yeah. - It was cold, and we had people there, two hours early, that were just so excited to be there. And we were still setting up at the time, and that's kind of the point of also having the tickets. We're taking that variable into, not a variable anymore. We're making sure that, hey, these are the numbers, these are the people, these are the names. This is what we're gonna set it up for these people. - Right. - And that helps us with the VIP gift bags. - Yeah. - That helps us know, you know, it helps with my drink preparations. - Yes. - And all of that stuff, and accommodations, and things like that. So taking out that variable, knowing exactly how many people we're gonna come, knowing how many VIPs we're gonna have. - Yes. - And we have a group rate for VIPs right now that actually, I need to make it live as of tonight. - Yeah. - And then we're having the different contests. - Yes. - We talked about the contests. - Yes. - Can we say what contests we're having? - Let's do it. - Okay. - Hey, let's tell the audience what we got brought on. (laughing) - So we aren't gonna have a cosplay duo with all of that being Valentine's Day, last day that's Valentine's Day. We did have a lot of partners come and it was very sweet. Now the duo doesn't have to be a romantic partner, it can be just friends, it can be a group. - Butters. - It could be a group effort. Like if somebody wants to do the entire cast of an anime, do it, please. - That man and Robin. - And by the way. - And by the way, we say anime a lot, but you know, people came and they represented all aspects. We had Star Wars characters, we had. - A Spider-Man. - A Spider-Man. - Exactly that. - Yeah. - It's costume play. - Right, so that doesn't equate necessarily to just anime. - There was somebody there that was a snake from GI Joe. - Yeah, and it was awesome. - That did not speak. - Once. - Never said a word. - It did not, it was settling almost. Took the helmet off whenever I took the ID. However, and then put the helmet right back on. - And it stayed on. - Yeah, got a drink, would type out the drink. Took a long straw, put it on anything. I mean, stayed in character. - Like, and it is, it's people like that. They have that commitment. - Yes. - I mean, they got, there was a couple Spider-Man, but there was one Spider-Man that was, could be in a YouTube series and movie, something like that. And these people connected with us during and after. - And the picture here? - Yes, yes. - I mean, it was just moving like Parker would move. It was, it was really cool. - And that's the commitment. Because one thing that you have to know, if you're not familiar with cosplay and how it differs from, you know, Halloween or people who, you know, just dress up, these people spend time building, a lot of them. Some buy, but a lot build and they take pride in what they've made. They take pride in the character that they are portraying. Like some are, like we said, completely committed to becoming the character. That contributes to the atmosphere. And this is why we highly encourage and we want people to, hey, dress up. We want you to dress up. If you don't wear costumes, you know, wear a t-shirt. Come, you know, this is what this is for. So if you're here. - But definitely wear clothes. - Yeah, definitely, definitely wear something. - Yeah, at least. - Cover the parts that, you know, might get, you totally shut down. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, get some more hot. - But we can't, you can't come nude. Not this time, I'm just kidding, but. - Yeah, the community really, you know, they really show out and, yeah, yeah. - They're shaking my head like, come on guys. - That is a whole nother thing. That is, that is a kawaii way after dark. I don't know about that one. - That is not held at the dead. - Not at the dead. Sorry, Tony said he was not going to be responsible for. - I'm going to go on to my living room. - Yeah, exactly, that is little too great. Like, you know, yeah, it was fun. - It's not just dress up. They're embodying the character. - Yes. - And that's, and if somebody is dressed up like on Halloween, you don't know who it is. Who is that? And they're like, I'm this person. And they go, they go to the next house of Trick or Treat. Here, that starts a conversation, you know. If you don't know what that, you're like, who are you dressed as? They are so excited to tell you who they are dressed as and what it's from and everything like that. And it does broaden horizons. - Yeah, yeah, I mean, because when you are into a fandom, you don't just pick a character. Like, you're not gonna just say, hey, I'm gonna be, you have to be a specific variant of a, you know, and it's like that type of deep cut that, you know, where the conversations do start. It's like, I've never seen Wolverine look like that before. Well, I'm weapon next Wolverine with one hand from Age of Apocalypse. Like, that type of, you know, but that's, they're excited to bring that fandom to people and show people the craftsmanship and put into that, to the costumes, you know. And still be able to dance and get nice and hot and sweaty on dance floor, you know. But, yes, it's a good time. And it's a celebration. It's not just a party, but it is a celebration of not just anime and cosplay culture, but anime and cosplay culture in Winston-Salem and surrounding areas. This is our celebration of our culture within this culture. - Awesome. Well, let me, let me pay some bills and we'll come back to talk a little more about stuff, stuff. - Yeah, the internet here at such and such media studios at Liberty Plaza and top leaf cigar lounge, Bethany could not be here. She was dealing with some issues that she had to take care of. That's all really I know about it. So I'm not being cryptic. That's what I know. It's all provided by X1 Communications. We'll get lightning fast and secure internet being directly to us. And you can, too, almost anywhere in the downtown area. This is no major conglomerate. This is a local internet provider with a history of excellence. Nate is available at the drive of a dime. Installation is always on time. Find out more by visiting x1communications.com or call 336-773-9950. Soft golf is golf for everyone. It's loads of fun. You can come play with big balls, big clubs and big holes right in beautiful tanglewood park. And you can do that from the beginning of spring to the end of or the middle of fall. More information book of tea time for when they do open soft golf.net or 336-3550-99. I mentioned Bethany at top leaf cigar lounge, 509 East Third Street. They're in the traffic circle of research parkway in Third Street, top leaf cigar lounge.com, top leaf cigar lounge on the Instagram. And on TikTok, she is Bethany Miller 3.4. And her Instagram is tobacco Vilnista. If you've ever dreamed of hosting your own radio show, Camel City Radio is looking for DJs to fill some time slots. Rates are affordable. And you have full control over your show's content, including the ability to secure your own sponsorships to help you pay for it, send an email to [email protected] or call Camel City Radio at 336-462-8660 to inquire. And if you thought to yourself, I'm not thinking about doing a podcast. Well, friends don't let friends do their own podcast. So you need to come to the pod father. The pod father. Yes, I have extensive experience with podcasting and what works. And I work with you and coach you from the beginning, from just your conception, all the way to distribution, and then I help you manage it. Find out more by calling 336-403-207-6 or email Tim at such and such media NC.com. And every morning I come in here and I get caffeinated. Thanks to my friends at Coffee Park Airstream. They are the Airstream on Renolder Road, 1208 Renolder Road to be exact. Coffee Park WS.com, they were voted two years ago, the best drive through coffee shop in the whole United States. That was from USA today. Oh yes. And then last year they were first runner up in the same category, so still winners. And Dream Creams in this building serve Coffee Park. Coffee and they have ice cream with or without dairy. So they have options for you there. - Okay. - Yeah. So still on. - Yes. - You said you have music again. Do you have music again? - I do have music again. Do you wanna listen to what you sent me? Is that what you want me to do? - Okay, so before we listen, I just kinda, you know, not to go off on too much of a tangent, but I've recently, you know, and actually DJ at the din was what inspired me because the energy was so amazing and I was able to kind of squeeze in a few original tracks and they went over amazingly. And I was like, if I can create something that can kind of be a backbone, a soundtrack, to Kauai after dark, it's its own project. It's called Dawn on a New Horizons, but mostly EDM, but I said, I wanna do it. I was excited, I was energized, the space, the people, you know, and I think about it a lot. And that was the inspiration for wanting to create this and it will be on streaming services, starting beginning of February, so. Yeah. - This is Kauai after dark, original with Banga. (gentle music) ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ I wanna touch your body, touch your body, touch your body, I wanna touch your body, touch your body, touch your body. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Awesome, what did you say the name of that was? - Touch your body, touch your body, I mean, really, who would have guessed? And who do you say is it Stallone Frazier? - Yeah, it is, it is, I use my name. - Excellent, I wanna be able to. And credit, you've already shown us. - And shout out to my good friend Amy, who actually came and did the riffing with me and let me sample her voice and we sang together. So, you know, I layered my vocals, her vocals in there and we made it happen. So, I'm excited and I'm excited about the way it came out. It's gonna be an awesome album, just like this version of "Quiet After Darks" gonna be an awesome event and, you know, you don't wanna miss it because I promise you, if you miss it, you're gonna be sad. - Well, really? - I agree with you, but how do you know? - If they don't know, they don't know. - That's right, so that's why we're here, so to make sure they do know. - Excellent, that's why we're here. - That is why we are here. We are kicking off this roll out and I say before of what we weren't recording, but I said-- - The pregame. - Yeah, that's right, in the pregame, I said this, you know, no good roll out in the city starts without, you know, the less desirable than Mr. Tim Beeman. - I appreciate it. - If you have something to promote, you know, you come, you come taught to Tim. You know, I appreciate it. And everyone just come taught to Tim. Just like everyone should make sure that they come drop in on the din. They have several shows this weekend and every weekend. You make sure you pull up at the din. They have something, all they just, you know, you wanna be there, amazing artists, amazing acts. And you're gonna love the space, you know. You, the din is a place that once you're there, you know, once the show starts, you know, you wanna be there again. Like, there's no question about it. It's that type of venue. - It's a vibe. I've been very blessed with that. - Yeah, absolutely. And I would-- - Yeah. - Start it out of my house and when we moved over there, I still treat it like it's my house. I work the door, the bar, the lights, the sound. But you are, you're gonna meet me. - Okay. - I'm not that I'm in it, but like, I'm gonna talk to you. Well, that's a better way of putting it. - That's why I talk to you. - That's why I like this guy. - You know, and it's like, I get a gauge on who comes into my place. Like, it's very, very nice to have, and to see the community that has been growing, whether that's through anime artists, whether that's through hip hop, whether it's through punk or metal or burlesque shows, or it's been very refreshing to have a space. Where artists can connect with their community. Whether that, you know, whatever medium their artistry is focused in. - Yeah. - The shout out to small venues because it's, you know, it's the backbone. - Hey man, this is where artists, this is where acts get to connect. And, you know, I knew it was like, when we had the idea, I was like, I had to talk to Donnie and Tony, we have to do this at the dinner. Like, it was, that was the only way I wanted to do this to start. And I've been blessed that, you know, that he was all game and that he was that, because without him, you know, I don't think this happens. So, you know, this is where our partnership has come in and we've been able to do this one time, and we're gonna do it again. Hopefully, many more times in the future. Hopefully. - Excellent. Well, I've already asked you this question. So I wanna turn over here to Donnie. What's on your playlist? What are you listening to these days? - Ooh, I am all over the place. I really am. I am obsessed with the new Devours Proud album called Flowers. All of their theme albums have been EP's. And this one is about cults and leaving the cults. From, I haven't actually seen the movie, but mid-summer, the horror movie. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. - There's from what I can tell a lot of motifs about that. But, this album, normally their EP's are the theme albums and they're like six, eight songs max. This is 14 songs. But, and then. - Am I playing the right thing? - I mean, it's about to get heavy. But yeah. - Yeah, how I don't care. - And then my wife got me tickets to see electric hallway. They're coming to the US in May. I'm very excited. She wrote all my calendar, just no. - No. - So I can't book a show. 'Cause I'm booking August right now. - Yeah. - Of every Friday and Saturday booked till August. And which is a really cool thing. It's also really terrible because again, it's just me and my having group chats, like eight group chats a month for a show, for shows that month is a lot to handle. - It's a busy man. - Yeah, plus the four kids. - It's a busy man. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, and then we just, sorry, I'm so ADD. This isn't my ears I can't think. I'm just focusing now on music, which I guess is the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing. And then we'll see, I just switched over to YouTube because I do not Spotify. I got into Aurora. She's Swedish, I think. Singer-sold writer, very, very odd. But my wife discovered her last year and somehow she's my number one person on my YouTube history. - Ah, wow. - Because we would play her and then we would go to bed. And so it was my YouTube on the TV and that's just what happened. - Nice. - Is this Aurora? - Ring the alarm. - Am I right? - I don't know. - It's tomorrow Aurora and Tom Rowland's all together. - No, she's way just this. - She was involved in that last one? - Yeah, it's just not. - Dude, it cure for me. Cure for me is the one that tickles my brain, I guess. - Okay. - So, Nees is brain tickled. - Oh, no, I was just staying. Like that's the one that got me into her. So if we're gonna talk about like what I'm listening to, that's what I'm listening to. But yeah, I really, I really found myself not listening to stuff on streaming as much as, I mean, I'm doing 10 to 20 shows a month. So I'm really listening to a lot of local artists because I do the lights and this album, I try to kind of give them a little pre-listen if they have stuff out. Just so I can get a head wrapped around, doing the lights for them 'cause it is all on the fly. So that's kind of just, that's kind of what we're trying to do. Like I listen to a lot of local music and I'm not sad about it. There's so much talent. There's so much talent in what stuff? - So much. So what we do on Camel City Radio, I don't know where do you have a station here. It's at base, so it's not. What airways, we can play anything we want to. - Yeah, right. One of our things is we play local, meaning North Carolina, not just Wednesday. - Right, right. - Local musicians, at least three times an hour, 24 hours a day, unless there's a specialty show. - Right. - But outside that, it's because I'm a local musician and the program director is a local musician. So, you know, we are in those communities or were, like I said, I'm retired, I'm, I don't get the same, I don't get the same high or even satisfaction out of playing anymore. So I'm like, you know what, I'll just, I'll promote it with not being here. - I would love to play still. But like, I mean, you're a bassist, I'm a bassist. I'm a bassist on all my bands and I just don't have time. Like, I mean, and it's funny because my bass cab is at the dead. And that's one of the things that tell bands, like, hey, my six tins here, if you want to just bring your head, that's one less thing. And typically, it's a big thing that you don't have to bring. And sometimes that could be-- - Everybody's six tins. - And that could be something that everybody could just, you know, instead of taking two cars, now they're taking one. If they're driving from Raleigh, or Charlotte, or something like that. And that can, that can, it's really help also, it helps with set changes because everybody's using the same amp. - Sure. - Right. - Yeah. So that's always nice to kind of just, you know, people, people either make the joke that they come back for the taco truck, or they come back because they don't have to bring their bass cab. - It's a great taco truck, by the way, but, you know, it's funny. I said the same thing. And if we had had this conversation about six months ago, I would have been right with you guys as far as just, you know, retiring, being done with music, but, it's something about it, me and the musician, that when it's in you, it's in you. And you never know when that, you just, you'll feel that moment where you're just like, "Hey, let me pick that bass up right quick." And just, you know, even if you're just playing just you, and then you're next thing, you know, in a new band, a new album coming soon, right? - My bass sits behind me in my office in here. Five days a week for sometimes 12, 14 hours a day, and I've not touched it in eight months. - Well, things can change. - Yeah, things can. - Things can change. - Right. - I'm just putting that out there in that. - It's just changing. - I'm putting it out in that atmosphere. I think both of you guys gonna pick up a bass in the next six months. I feel it is coming. I said it here, I said it. - Yeah. - So, speaking into existence, that's it, man. So, one more time, web site for the event. - Okay, so it's kawaiiafterdark.wordpress.com. Okay, and that's where you can go. So, the ticket link is there. We have the FAQ, so if you have any questions, you wanna see pictures from the last event, you wanna sign up for our newsletter, which goes out every week. So, people who are, and we call our folks who have signed up, they're the cool kids. So, we have a village that we've built already from people who have already attended or who are coming the next time. So, you can go there, and we also have the ticket source link. - Well, that's just, I mean, it's just the Denshoes.com. And that's the ticket link for my entire calendar. - Right. - So, you can follow a direct ticket link from the website. - Yeah, so, kawaii website. And when you go on there and buy tickets, don't just buy for our show, but buy a couple shows from Denshoes.com. Once you go, you're gonna wanna come back. And right now, the way we do it, because we put so much into kawaiiafterdark that we would love to do it every month, but this is a big undertaking. So, we do it every few months, because we wanna give you the absolute best. But, even though we don't do kawaiiafterdark monthly, there's still things going on at the din. And once you come, please come back. Find a show, find something you're interested in. Or if you don't know, just show up on a random night that they have something and just come and buy about by a ticket. So, please come, use the space, support those who support us. - Absolutely. You have social media, website stuff for the din. The Denshoes. Yeah, I mean, it's on Instagram, it's on Facebook. I'm much more active on Instagram, 'cause I don't keep fake flip on my phone. But I think the funny thing is the, what is the, this is come, come, hang out, make friends, like connect, like that's, and that really is, that's the point of it, you know? Like, I have thrived through my community, as being, from being an artist, I moved to Winston and 2010 to play music. And there's some ebb and flows with that as well. - Right, right. - But I found my people here, and it's moved away, and I came back, I really liked Winston. I really liked this area. Really, I also know the place. I know people ask if I want to grow the din. And I think I want to grow the din in a way that people don't really, I'm not trying to get bigger. I don't want to get to a bigger space. I don't want to be, I'm not trying to compete with Gassiel or Ramcat, or anything like that. I know my place. And I am the first stepping stone getting artists ready for the next step. - Sure. - And I appreciate that spot that I'm in. A, because it's easier, it's way less pressure, for sure. - Right. - Juggling and everything. But also, it's needed. People helped me out when I was first starting. And people took me under their wing. I see in your board over there, you have monster gate. Carlos took me under the wing when I was trying to find a space to move it out of my house. So we have a, had a, was still have it. But a detached garage. And like, I mean, the lighting in the din is from my old lighting rig for my band. The sound equipment is from whenever we played. And I haven't played in a decade. And one of my friends after the pandemic was like, "Hey, can you, can you do this?" So the kid, y'all, we had a show that is getting canceled because of post pandemic, you know, what we were living in, and coming out of. And I was like, "Well, I've got all this stuff, probably." And we just had it. And I was one and done thing. And then 50 people showed up. And they're like, "When's the next one?" We need this. "How can I book my band here?" I don't even have a name for this place. What do you, what do you want? And so fast forward, four years, in five, almost five years, and we're still doing it. And very, you know, I think I had 160, 170 shows last year, averaging, you know, you know, I was doing, like I said, 10 to 20 shows a month. And it's, it's, it's, but I don't want to grow it. I don't want to get busier. And I don't want to get bigger audiences. I like my small 70-cap room where people are intimate, where there isn't a barrier between the arts. Where afterwards, you know, you're gonna, if you go there, you're gonna talk to somebody, probably. - Yeah. - Unless you just absolutely do not want to. But if you go there, you're gonna be able to talk to the artists. You're gonna be able to connect with them. You're gonna be able to, if you have questions about the music or their signal chain about them on their pedal board or their merch line or you're a budding artist and you're trying to find people to play with. Go to shows where you like the music, where you want to play that music. You're gonna find other people. I've had kids play last Friday that thanked me because they're finally getting a show at hangar in, in Greensboro. And they wouldn't have done that. They're, they found their basis because he was trying to find people to play with and he was messaging me like videos of him playing. I was like, hey, the best thing you can do is go to the show because I don't have the bandwidth to connect people. I'm not a manager. - Right. - And that's what he did. And then also when he started playing with them, that's great. Fast forward a year. They're playing bigger and better shows. That's awesome. - Yeah. - And that's what it's there for. - Like you said, it's a spinding. - Yeah. Being an understanding that it's not a derogatory thing. It is a, it is a needed piece to be a stepping stone but also a needed piece where people can find their people. - Well, you, until you take the first step, you're not going to walk. - Right. - Oh yeah. - So amazing things have been born in the din and then, you know, we hope to continue that, really. - That's awesome. - Well, thank you both for being on our little suara here. - Thanks for that. - Thank you. - Thanks for the invite, yeah. - Let me, let me finish up and we'll check out it here. So we're talking about the website, TheLessDesirebles.com, or thelessdesirebles.com, cordenah, who you are and what you're doing. And you can find this week's episode and basically the last three or four years worth on the front page there, thelessesirebles.com. You can of course finance and all the pod catchers like Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Audible, all those things. This one is not on YouTube TV because I play a lot of copyrighted music and they flip out over that. - Thank you. - And I just get tired of answering. I can use this because I use it for commentary. I just thought, you know, I'm like, this, it's just tiring. So I just, you know what? It's no one listens to it there anyway, not my show. So I'm just taking off. Anyway, along with TheLessDesirebles, you can listen to Wheeler's Dog, Beeswax Vinyl Daily, the silent podcast. I remember now the Queen's Right podcast. Mom was gonna make it Twin City talk. Mosaic of music is coming. So we have a whole lot of stuff going on. New shows are in the works. Just go to TheLessDesirebles Network website. TLDpodnetwork.com to find out morning, listen to recent episodes and get, you know, links to them so you can find them easier. You can leave comments by sending a message via any of the social media messengers. You can leave a voicemail by calling 336-422-6862. That's 336-422-NUM for those of you who remember when they use letters from others, do I? We will, we will play your voicemail on the air. So thank you both for being here and sharing this event. I have a friend who is in this kind of thing and I said, are you aware of this? She goes, ooh, no, I'm not. So now I am. I was right, let's go. I wasn't being rude, I was promoting. Thank you. And we appreciate that. And we do. Well, it's now time for-- [MUSIC PLAYING] It would take 19 minutes to fall through the center of the earth. So if you fell from here or the ground to the molten core of the earth, it would take you 19 minutes of falling to get there. Wow, that's impressive. I don't think I would make it that far because I would already have had a heart attack. Your body would do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, my body would. Yeah. 19 minutes. 19, what a trip. And like 3,000 years with hollow earth theory and portals. Yeah, of course. You get there? That's Godzilla and King Kong. King Kong, right? Ah, that's dope. All right, well, until next time, same pod channel. Let some pod time. My name is Tim. I'm Stallone, Tony, and we are out. [MUSIC PLAYING] The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the contributors and are not necessarily shared by our distributors or hosting company. This podcast is copyrighted in any use of this product cannot be reproduced without written consent of such and such limited ink. So don't do it. The less desirable.