Speaker 1: Everyone, and welcome to another episode of I Am Iffy
Speaker 1: wid the Way, And sitting across from me is Danny Fernandez.
Speaker 1: Very hurt. I missed my first episode. Oh yeah you did. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I I was, Oh my gosh, you don't know how
Speaker 1: hard I tried to fight to be there, but like
Speaker 1: literally I sat down and he was like, we're staying late.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm gonna do my thing. Missed it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, yeah, it'd be like that sometimes it's true. Um,
Speaker 1: but I mean kind of why I missed it funny
Speaker 1: enough is kind of what we'll be talking about. And
Speaker 1: although I told people you missed it because it was
Speaker 1: your birthday, oh man, I was. I'm in a writer's room.
Speaker 1: I was in a writer's room. This is my first
Speaker 1: week off and I don't even know what to do
Speaker 1: with myself. But I was in a writer's room for
Speaker 1: six weeks for a interactive platform called Echo. You may know.
Speaker 1: You may remember it from a web series that came
Speaker 1: out last year called That Moment when that won a
Speaker 1: Webby with Milana vine Troupe. And so we're working cooking
Speaker 1: up a new series, uh you know, and I think
Speaker 1: that's about all I can say, um, but it's it
Speaker 1: was super fun. It was it was very interesting. It
Speaker 1: was a whole new way to write. You know, I've
Speaker 1: written for Late night, written for narrative at this point,
Speaker 1: and now this is like, you know, because before this
Speaker 1: I did a lot of Late night semi edutainment kind
Speaker 1: of like unscripted stuff, and this was the year of
Speaker 1: lots of new venture ventures. Uh. I wrote for an
Speaker 1: animated narrative show and then this was an interactive one.
Speaker 1: So it was like back to back new experiences. Uh.
Speaker 1: But the reason I say that's it's it kind of
Speaker 1: has to do with today's episode is because you know
Speaker 1: that today's episode is how we kind of got to
Speaker 1: where we are today, and and you know that I
Speaker 1: think we'll touch on everything from like being nerdy host
Speaker 1: to being you know, comedians for some people who may
Speaker 1: be interested in to TV writing and development and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, you know. Uh. And before we even dive
Speaker 1: into it, one thing I want to say, which is
Speaker 1: something I think a lot of times, uh never gets
Speaker 1: to get said because of the conversational nature of a
Speaker 1: lot of podcasts when talking about this subject matter, is
Speaker 1: there is no one path. There is no wrong path.
Speaker 1: There is no right path. You know, the everyone's path
Speaker 1: is different, and you can't expect yourself to beat for
Speaker 1: beat do the same thing and expect the same things
Speaker 1: to happen, because really trying to go down this industry
Speaker 1: is pepper preparation, preparation, what's that? Preparation and tim percent
Speaker 1: uh seizing the opportunity a k A luck. Oh my gosh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say, I mean luck, luck and knowing. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was just no, I was gonna say, I'm feeling
Speaker 1: very lovely today. I think thirty one is like my, my,
Speaker 1: my love. Really, I'm getting there. I'm getting there. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't Yeah, not everyone is going to have the
Speaker 1: same trajectory. I think to like, y'all have gotten to
Speaker 1: know us pretty well, but we know if you and
Speaker 1: I really haven't had a chance to really talk about
Speaker 1: how we came to be in our lives and like
Speaker 1: the people behind these voices that you listen to, And
Speaker 1: I think it's really easy to look at our lives
Speaker 1: and say and think that we have it super easy
Speaker 1: and that we just fell into this. That's what it
Speaker 1: looks like. We just offered a show and offered this
Speaker 1: and you see us at premieres and stuff, And I
Speaker 1: think we touched on it briefly in the Women in
Speaker 1: Gaming one where I talked about how Janelle and I
Speaker 1: were in the trenches. I mean we talked about how
Speaker 1: I lived in like a windowless droom. Before that, I
Speaker 1: was living with two girls in a one bedroom apartment
Speaker 1: with their daughter. I mean, when you move to Hollywood,
Speaker 1: you are you are in the trenches unless you have
Speaker 1: your parents or something pain for your stuff, which we
Speaker 1: didn't have that luxury. We worked our way up, and
Speaker 1: so I think it's really hard for people to remember
Speaker 1: that when they only see our highlights. But something that
Speaker 1: we get off we get asked often is like, how
Speaker 1: can I start a podcast? How can I start do this?
Speaker 1: How can I do that? Um, we started from the bottom,
Speaker 1: Like we started with zero followers both on our social
Speaker 1: media with like we started at zero as well. So yeah,
Speaker 1: today's episode is just going to be us talking about
Speaker 1: how we got here. Um, if you're not interested at all,
Speaker 1: hopefully it's just a fascinating thing to listen to our story.
Speaker 1: It's an origin story. Yeah, you can listen to our
Speaker 1: superhero origin story for once. For the people who are
Speaker 1: interested in going down this path. This is will be
Speaker 1: hopefully a great instructional and informative episode and for the
Speaker 1: who are just interested in us, this will be a
Speaker 1: great Yes. So let's let's you know, let's start. If
Speaker 1: you can I start? Um? Can I start my segment? So?
Speaker 1: I wanted to start a segment on this podcast. We
Speaker 1: get tweeted at at nerdificent, you know, and when people
Speaker 1: are polite about it, I love. We want to make
Speaker 1: sure that you know that your voice is heard. So
Speaker 1: I want to start a new segment every week called
Speaker 1: could you please include so ce y p I is
Speaker 1: what I'm calling it. Could you so tweet at us um.
Speaker 1: So we covered Captain Marvel last week and at Dead
Speaker 1: Recca actually wrote us and said Phi Lavel's partner Moon
Speaker 1: Dragon is Drax's daughter, So they were one of the
Speaker 1: few lesbian couples in marvel. Um. They also said in
Speaker 1: Avengers two hundred, which was in ninety it was a
Speaker 1: huge turning point for Carol and women in comics, and
Speaker 1: it was a huge problematic thing that the next twenty
Speaker 1: plus years of Carol's calm mix would be built around.
Speaker 1: So um we didn't mention those two things in the
Speaker 1: in our episode, so we're going to include it. So
Speaker 1: if we miss something that's super huge again, like what
Speaker 1: I like. What I like to give an example of
Speaker 1: is when we did twilight Zone, which is like my,
Speaker 1: y'all know, it's my personal favorite like show, and we
Speaker 1: can't cover all the episodes. So if you're like, you
Speaker 1: miss this, yeah, I know I love it too. We
Speaker 1: there's entire podcasts on twilight Zone. There's no way we
Speaker 1: could have touched on it. But if we miss something
Speaker 1: that is extremely integral, it's extremely important to that lore,
Speaker 1: that franchise, Like maybe I don't know, they had to
Speaker 1: go to Congress to get the rights for such and such,
Speaker 1: and that's how it spinned into this and that. Like,
Speaker 1: those are the things that I'm okay with people being like, hey,
Speaker 1: could you please include this? So that was could you
Speaker 1: please include? If he back to you? So let's go
Speaker 1: back way back. Where did you grow up? Danny? Oh?
Speaker 1: I grew up kind of all over my families from
Speaker 1: San Diego. I spent some time in Orange County, and
Speaker 1: then I moved to Texas when I was like thirteen.
Speaker 1: I lived in Dallas for high school and college. I
Speaker 1: went to Austin. I went to UT in Austin, So
Speaker 1: off rip you right next to Funimation. Off rip your
Speaker 1: body right to Funimation Corps. But you was interesting for
Speaker 1: you that was different from me. Is you kind of
Speaker 1: like got your feet on the ground and nerdy stuff.
Speaker 1: Early you were going to conventions beating your favorite voice
Speaker 1: actors at a young age. I remember you were telling
Speaker 1: me that, and you were going to like Comic Con, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was going to Comic Con was like ten or
Speaker 1: eleven um. And the thing about me and what I
Speaker 1: do now is I always wanted to be a writer.
Speaker 1: When I was little, I used to write poems and
Speaker 1: short stories and perform them for my family. I was
Speaker 1: published in like one of those teen magazines when I
Speaker 1: was in high school. I would think I was like
Speaker 1: two different ones for writing poems. And then when I
Speaker 1: got accepted to UT it was in the journalism program.
Speaker 1: I ended up switching that. But I always wanted to
Speaker 1: be a writer. So that was kind of how I
Speaker 1: got my start at least, and what really kind of
Speaker 1: shaped my, uh helped my career, I would say, is
Speaker 1: in well, actually in two thousand and eight, I started
Speaker 1: my I started a Twitter account, and I would make
Speaker 1: fun of my professors, like I wouldn't actually say who
Speaker 1: it was, but I would kind of just make fun
Speaker 1: of the different types of professors I had. And I
Speaker 1: gained a small following from that from from like other
Speaker 1: college kids retweeting me. And my boyfriend at the time
Speaker 1: was so jealous. He hated the fact that I was
Speaker 1: on Twitter, and I completely deleted my Twitter, which is
Speaker 1: something I wouldn't do now. Completely deleted it and did
Speaker 1: not sign up for a new account until and in
Speaker 1: this is gonna come full circle in twelve, I signed
Speaker 1: up for my Twitter account, the new one that I
Speaker 1: have now that you all follow now, because I wanted
Speaker 1: to follow dB Z updates from Funimation. That's how I
Speaker 1: went back, and that was all I really used it for.
Speaker 1: And then I fell again into comedy and I was
Speaker 1: tweeting jokes and I was I was going through I
Speaker 1: have I deal with chronic depression, which I'm really open about,
Speaker 1: and I was I was dealing with that. I was
Speaker 1: going through a separation with my husband. I'm marry I
Speaker 1: end up marrying the guy that hated me, But yeah,
Speaker 1: it all makes sense, and I I would use Twitter
Speaker 1: as an outlet to write really dark jokes about my
Speaker 1: life because I needed to. And so I had a
Speaker 1: lot of comedians that started following me and they would
Speaker 1: be like, have you tried doing some of these jokes
Speaker 1: on stage? Um? And at the time, I was not
Speaker 1: considering comedy at all, but just from tweeting about the
Speaker 1: trauma of my life in a funny manner. I was
Speaker 1: living in Denver at the time we got married. I
Speaker 1: moved there. UM. I was working a couple of different jobs.
Speaker 1: We moved for his his job. So UM, I gave
Speaker 1: up my career in life essentially and UM and used
Speaker 1: Twitter as an outlet and ended up getting a lot
Speaker 1: of people following me. So before I ever moved to
Speaker 1: l A, I had about sixteen thousand followers that I
Speaker 1: got in like a year just from tweeting about my depression.
Speaker 1: UM and other people that related that would retweet it.
Speaker 1: So that was a part of my my story. UM.
Speaker 1: I met a couple of comics at Denver Comedy Works
Speaker 1: when I was in when I was in a Denver
Speaker 1: and one of them was Roywood Jr. Who followed me
Speaker 1: and I was so honored and I remember him saying,
Speaker 1: funny is funny, and it's so funny because He's one
Speaker 1: of my biggest men towards now. He's just such a
Speaker 1: great guy. Roy with JR is at, He's on the
Speaker 1: Daily Show, he has like two shows on Comedy Central.
Speaker 1: Very respected comedian. But um, that was kind of what
Speaker 1: kick started my career. And so I want to say
Speaker 1: I did have a writing background. I didn't just have Twitter. Um.
Speaker 1: You still have to have scripts and you know, you
Speaker 1: still have to be able to perform, like, you have
Speaker 1: to have all of that. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: people that got big on Twitter and then they try
Speaker 1: to do those other things and kind of fall flat. Um.
Speaker 1: So I did always have a writing background, but I
Speaker 1: used Twitter as an outlet to build a following. So
Speaker 1: I do want people to know before I think people
Speaker 1: think that I got my following from being on camera
Speaker 1: or from podcasting, and Nope, it was just from tweeting
Speaker 1: jokes every single day. Um. Which is funny because I
Speaker 1: ended up writing a pilot about um life after my
Speaker 1: suicide attempt. So I this is a trigger warning. UM.
Speaker 1: I'm been pretty open on other podcasts. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I've ever talked about on this podcast, but I
Speaker 1: had a suicide attempt in my twenties. I wrote a
Speaker 1: half hour dark comedy about that that got me all
Speaker 1: my reps. Um. I was able to put my trauma,
Speaker 1: I guess, into my writing, and comedy was an outlet.
Speaker 1: I don't like saying comedy is therapy, because therapy is therapy.
Speaker 1: I've done both. Therapy is therapy. Um. But I was
Speaker 1: able to develop a following just from other people who
Speaker 1: could who needed to laugh about the things that were
Speaker 1: happening in their life. So that is part of my
Speaker 1: story of how I got here if he is part
Speaker 1: of my story on so many ways. But one of
Speaker 1: the ways is that he gave my pilot to his
Speaker 1: agents and they signed me, and another comedian who read
Speaker 1: my pilot gave it to his manager and she signed me.
Speaker 1: So um. That's also why it's super important to me
Speaker 1: when people say like, oh, you're not allowed to joke
Speaker 1: about this. You're not allowed to joke about that. I
Speaker 1: literally got some of my jobs from joking about the
Speaker 1: trauma of my life. Yeah, no, it's it is funny.
Speaker 1: I'll save this rant for the tail end of this.
Speaker 1: But there is just this new trend of like people
Speaker 1: being mad that you don't cope or you're not woke
Speaker 1: in the same way that there are woke, in that
Speaker 1: you do different things than them. They're like, no, this
Speaker 1: is the one way and there's no one way to
Speaker 1: cope or be an activist. Uh. Yeah, it's it's so
Speaker 1: interesting listening to your story because it seems so They're like,
Speaker 1: there's such a through line to you. It's like you're
Speaker 1: so like it doesn't feel I know, like, yeah, really
Speaker 1: follows through because you knew what you wanted to do
Speaker 1: and you plan for it. I'm just just so scattered
Speaker 1: brain like everyone. Someone repeated this to me. This is
Speaker 1: something that since I started comedy has been said, and
Speaker 1: someone repeated this to me last week. That was like,
Speaker 1: as soon as you can afford can afford an assistant,
Speaker 1: you need to get one because I am I really
Speaker 1: am the most scatter brained aloof wanderlustie, Like I am
Speaker 1: the most pissen pisces ever work. But you said the
Speaker 1: clouds you said on our when we talked about all that,
Speaker 1: that when you saw Keenan and Kelly, you knew you
Speaker 1: wanted to be a performer, so you knew early on
Speaker 1: that you wanted to perform. That is true. So we'll
Speaker 1: we'll we'll you'll see how it kind of went and
Speaker 1: you'll see I kind of had nudges into my wildness.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I as a child, I've always wanted to
Speaker 1: be an actor. As soon as I saw all that
Speaker 1: and shows like that, I I knew I might. The
Speaker 1: earliest thing I remember trying to do a quote unquote
Speaker 1: performance I can think of is when, uh, I think
Speaker 1: if if we want to go super crazy. The earliest
Speaker 1: memory I have is when I was like I had
Speaker 1: to be a toddler. This is a very early memory,
Speaker 1: so I do not remember what how do you remember
Speaker 1: when you were toddler? Because it was it stuck out
Speaker 1: to me. It was the first time I like tried
Speaker 1: hot sauce and I accidentally had a hot sauce and
Speaker 1: my mouth was burning and I took like a town
Speaker 1: I'm wiping my tongue with it, and my dad had
Speaker 1: guessed over and everybody was laughing. And I got something
Speaker 1: from that where I was like, oh, this is everyone's
Speaker 1: like enjoying themselves, even though like I was kind of hurt.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that that could have went two ways,
Speaker 1: Like I could have been a Stevo, you know, since
Speaker 1: it was like a pain, but it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: just spiciness. And so that was like my earliest memory
Speaker 1: where I was like, oh, I liked you make people laugh.
Speaker 1: And then from then I would watch you know, uh
Speaker 1: it was so funny. It took me so long to
Speaker 1: even consider stand up because I always thought that it
Speaker 1: was they just totally just memorized that whole thing and
Speaker 1: would and and just did it once. Like I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that it was you know, you just go and
Speaker 1: do multiple sets, so like, and my memory has always
Speaker 1: been bad, so I was like, there's no way I
Speaker 1: could remember an hour of stuff. Smash cut to two
Speaker 1: years ago when I came out with an hour album.
Speaker 1: But so I always wanted to do it. But my dad,
Speaker 1: you know, he's a he's an immigrant from Nigeria. And
Speaker 1: I was talking about this earlier today on stream about
Speaker 1: the because you know, Kylie Jenner just got as of today,
Speaker 1: Kylie Jenner just got this self made billionaire, and then
Speaker 1: there was this whole and then we had a discussion
Speaker 1: about like, one, she isn't self made. But then I
Speaker 1: was like, but no billionaire was self made, because I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, like the only self made one I
Speaker 1: could think of is like and Elon Musk or Bezos,
Speaker 1: but there was a lot of collaboration that happened in
Speaker 1: their life to happen that. And then someone who on
Speaker 1: the stream was pointing out that even then Elon Musk
Speaker 1: parents were well off, and I was like, well, yes,
Speaker 1: when you come from a wealthy background, lots of times
Speaker 1: your parents are more willing for you to try I
Speaker 1: like future forward stuff, to try experimental things that you
Speaker 1: don't know paying out. When you come from a poor background,
Speaker 1: your family wants you to pick a trade or something
Speaker 1: that has like a guaranteed way to make money. Uh So,
Speaker 1: so take that into my father who comes from Nigeria
Speaker 1: and my mother who comes from you know, Louisiana, the South,
Speaker 1: and she grew up you know poor as well. They
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of chasing the art. They weren't
Speaker 1: against it. My mom was more forward, being you know
Speaker 1: American and understanding of the arts. But my dad, he
Speaker 1: had no concept of that. But because of that also
Speaker 1: they didn't know what to do with it. This artistic
Speaker 1: daydream of child. They didn't know like, oh, throw him
Speaker 1: in drama and then he can figure it out. So
Speaker 1: all my life I wanted to be an actor, but
Speaker 1: I never truly pursued it. And then I also really liked, uh,
Speaker 1: drawing comics. I love drawing comics, and that's kind of
Speaker 1: where and I remember, I'll never forget this because this
Speaker 1: was the most blunt truth I've ever heard in my life.
Speaker 1: I drew this comic and it was like probably four
Speaker 1: or five pages, and I handed it to my friend
Speaker 1: Gabriel I still remember his name, and he like reads
Speaker 1: and he was like, he was like, yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: I don't think you're a great artist, but you'd be
Speaker 1: an amazing writer. Like this is another like this was
Speaker 1: ninth grade, and I was like, wow, way to be
Speaker 1: a duche. But he kind of was right like that
Speaker 1: that what I was able to kind of formulate these
Speaker 1: dope stories, and so I've nerdy stuff just kind of
Speaker 1: was was rough because my dad wanted me to focus
Speaker 1: on schooling so much, so like cons and stuff like
Speaker 1: I never got to touch it. I went to Catholic school,
Speaker 1: so Dungeons and Dragon was especially out of the picture
Speaker 1: because that was on that weird list, like my school
Speaker 1: had that list of like these are the devil stuff
Speaker 1: we were in kay Rock was on that list. For something. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: Harry Potter, we were able to do, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: like Dungeons and Dragons and still had that weird connotation
Speaker 1: because it really the demonization of it really came from
Speaker 1: the nineties. And before you all ask, we are planning
Speaker 1: the Dungeons and Dragons episode, I already talked to Matt Mercer.
Speaker 1: He's in, yeah, yeah, when they're they're doing you know,
Speaker 1: they got that whole animal kidding. Everyone was like, So
Speaker 1: I really didn't take strides in my nerd um and
Speaker 1: necessarily in my chasing my dreams of you know, performing
Speaker 1: and all that until like senior year of high school.
Speaker 1: Like in high school, I started to get instride with
Speaker 1: that because with the Internet, I was on this site
Speaker 1: called Polly Carbon bbs and that I would do art,
Speaker 1: uh and they had these things, this thing called fight
Speaker 1: clubs where everyone would design a character and then it
Speaker 1: would be a collaborative comic that you would make and
Speaker 1: everyone writes draws one page of the comic. And I
Speaker 1: did a few of those. I wish I can like
Speaker 1: go back and find them, but I did a few
Speaker 1: of those, and that kind of you know, while I
Speaker 1: was trying to pursue art, but I was just so
Speaker 1: bad at it. It was actually helping my writer brain
Speaker 1: kind of formulate stuff. But then, um, I really hit
Speaker 1: my stride in senior year when I joined Comedy Sports
Speaker 1: High School League, which Comedy Sports, if you don't know,
Speaker 1: it's it's essentially whose line is it? Anyway? It's a
Speaker 1: family friendly, competitive quote unquote improv show. And they had
Speaker 1: a high school league where you would do these shows
Speaker 1: at other high schools and you would know that the
Speaker 1: homeschool always won because you know, you win based on cheers.
Speaker 1: So that's when I started doing improv. Senior year of
Speaker 1: high school. I felt so behind, and that's when I
Speaker 1: did my first play. I was in As You Like It.
Speaker 1: I played Deuced Duke Senior and that's when I was like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: this is what I want to do, and I'm actually
Speaker 1: doing it graduate and I go to community college and
Speaker 1: I just totally just you know, fart off for at
Speaker 1: least a good to three years. You know, when when
Speaker 1: you have this kind of like strict upbringing, the first
Speaker 1: taste of freedom, you just go wild. And that that's
Speaker 1: and that's the moral of that story. And but I
Speaker 1: eventually found myself on Cherry Spits, which was a Orange
Speaker 1: County based improv team that performed in UH Fullerton and
Speaker 1: sometimes we perform in Long Beach. And then it wasn't
Speaker 1: until my buddy Matt Matt Off the docta who I
Speaker 1: met in high school, who he was a freshman when
Speaker 1: I was a senior, and now we do Candy Dinner together. Uh,
Speaker 1: he'sast o other podcast. He showed me the Donald Glover
Speaker 1: episode of w TF, and Donald Glover was saying he
Speaker 1: was like, oh, there's no not that many black people
Speaker 1: doing improv at UCB, and he's naming UCB people but
Speaker 1: me not hearing my name. I was like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: where I need to be. So then after that, that's
Speaker 1: when everything changed because also like being with Cherry Spits,
Speaker 1: they were the ones who kind of lars who who
Speaker 1: lars who? I was his teacher's assistant in UH in
Speaker 1: senior year, I was his teacher's assistant. When I graduated,
Speaker 1: he invited me to do Cherry Spitz. He also was
Speaker 1: the put me in my first D and D game
Speaker 1: and he really helped do that. He kind of introduced
Speaker 1: me to Comic On and I went down to Comic
Speaker 1: Count and that's when my nerds stuff just it was
Speaker 1: kicked in a high gear. But I've always been a
Speaker 1: huge video game nerd because that's the one thing I've
Speaker 1: been able to play because my dad would let me.
Speaker 1: So now I'm performing, I'm at UCB, and eventually I
Speaker 1: meet the guys who we eventually become white women, and
Speaker 1: through that, I I through just performing and doing stuff.
Speaker 1: I meet this guy weird for all Deaf Digital, which
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, Deaf comedy is kind of a
Speaker 1: web platform. I mean this guy named Zack you Bank
Speaker 1: and he uh and he uh. We did like this
Speaker 1: video kind of basically pointing out the racism in the
Speaker 1: like redskin name and how like, you know, I forgot
Speaker 1: what it was. But it was kind of like when
Speaker 1: the NBA was making this push to talk about domestic
Speaker 1: violence and then it was like, oh it was. It
Speaker 1: was kind of like, oh, what about this thing in retrospect,
Speaker 1: which could have been a much more salient point, but
Speaker 1: it was. It was a fun video. And basically from that,
Speaker 1: he used to have these brunches. He'd have a monthly
Speaker 1: brunch where he didn'tvite all these creatives to come and
Speaker 1: meet each other, and it was cool things like photography.
Speaker 1: There was a couple who did photography who was just
Speaker 1: taking free headshots of people, and then we were you know,
Speaker 1: then you had like it was just a huge CoAP space.
Speaker 1: But when I went to his place and at the time,
Speaker 1: him and Becca were living like on the East Side,
Speaker 1: and they had this big house and Zach just had
Speaker 1: all these comic books and so I just was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a nerd, and we just like gosh about nerds stuff.
Speaker 1: So then I I while all this in this short
Speaker 1: period of me being in l A pursuing UCB in comedy,
Speaker 1: I worked for a social media marketing company and that's
Speaker 1: kind of how I started to get my uh my following.
Speaker 1: See I I got my Twitter following at first through
Speaker 1: straight up social media marketing, and there was tools that
Speaker 1: we would use for his client It's that you know,
Speaker 1: he also allowed us to use for our accounts, and
Speaker 1: that's kind of how I started building it up. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't like bots or anything. It was like he
Speaker 1: had a I don't want to lay it out because
Speaker 1: I don't you know, I don't know if it's public
Speaker 1: knowledge or anything, but he he he basically knew the
Speaker 1: it was almost like a mix of tech and psychology
Speaker 1: on how you would get more real followers and real
Speaker 1: people who are interacting with you. Um, and so I
Speaker 1: used that same system and then I got a decent amount,
Speaker 1: like that's when I've gotten to the thousands, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, but that company ended up launching socialtron Live,
Speaker 1: which was a Twitch channel with Greg Grunberg from Heroes
Speaker 1: and it originally was like Greg Grunberg would come on,
Speaker 1: bring some of his other famous friends and they played
Speaker 1: video games and then we were like the other host
Speaker 1: when it wasn't them and I and my buddy Los Carlos.
Speaker 1: He was like, yeah, if you have any friends, you
Speaker 1: can bring him around and hang out. And so the
Speaker 1: first person in my mind was Zack. And Zach gets
Speaker 1: in there, and you know, he has a production company
Speaker 1: called Aren't We Clever, and he just immediately was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you guys could be doing this better than this, better
Speaker 1: than this, better than this better. So then they bring
Speaker 1: him and Lucas on and Zach kind of revamps with
Speaker 1: Los in the team their whole Twitch streaming set up,
Speaker 1: and then that kind of Peter's out and then Zach
Speaker 1: gets hired by Being and Sundry because they were working
Speaker 1: on another project and then they started talking twitch. Now
Speaker 1: Zack knows all about it. Then that basically is how
Speaker 1: Geacan Suntury started. I remember being walked through legendary offices.
Speaker 1: There was no there was no set yet, there was
Speaker 1: no anything. That was just showing me around. He's like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be doing this D and D show with
Speaker 1: these voice actors, which eventually turned out to be critical role.
Speaker 1: He's like, and I was thinking, you, Becca Hecker Hector
Speaker 1: and Stephanie Woodburn will be the host. And we were
Speaker 1: the original host. And then a few few weeks from
Speaker 1: that it launched with us and Felicia Day doing a
Speaker 1: huge uh fundraiser for I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: Extra Life or if it was another organization. And I
Speaker 1: had Mulligan, which was my Magic the Gathering show, and
Speaker 1: that was kind of my first dip into NERD hosting
Speaker 1: because now I had these shows under my belt. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that we were doing our entire life styme
Speaker 1: yours so and I was like, if I just do
Speaker 1: the truncated versions. People's like, how did if he end
Speaker 1: up there? Oh? That was mine was definitely I have
Speaker 1: done so many things to get here, but we have
Speaker 1: we have to take a quick break. We're going to
Speaker 1: when we get back get into how we started our
Speaker 1: first ever podcast together and how you can do that
Speaker 1: too a second. Then we're back. How you doing that? Tight? Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, before we talk about krilling it, we have
Speaker 1: to talk about I want there's one thing that I
Speaker 1: want to point out and just not necessarily yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess point out and highlight one thing because it does
Speaker 1: seem like it does seem like all NERD hosts are
Speaker 1: just nerdy and then became host. But really it's essentially
Speaker 1: that we were performers first and then because that's that
Speaker 1: because you know, I've had people hit me up was
Speaker 1: like I wanna, you know, know how to do what
Speaker 1: you do because it seems like you just do whatever
Speaker 1: you want. It's like, no, it's just having interest in
Speaker 1: hobbies outside of just your work. And then when something
Speaker 1: touches on that, it just kind of, uh, it just
Speaker 1: kind of focuses that. Like, you know, for example, like
Speaker 1: I didn't Adida's you know, uh comedy sketch video for
Speaker 1: the Adida's channel to promote their um Sound Labs, and
Speaker 1: that that that was I wasn't approached as a sneak
Speaker 1: your head. I was approached as a comedian, and since
Speaker 1: I happen to be a sneaker head, it really drove
Speaker 1: home the reason they should have went with me. I
Speaker 1: think it's yeah, I would agree if he and I
Speaker 1: definitely agree on this because we've talked about it. When
Speaker 1: people hit us up and and are like, I want
Speaker 1: to host, like you, I want to be a host,
Speaker 1: I want to host an UM, I'm like, well, the
Speaker 1: difference between us is that's not IFFI and I's goal necessarily,
Speaker 1: Like we're hired for our personalities at all of our channels.
Speaker 1: And what I mean is like we're unwilling to change
Speaker 1: how we are. UM. Truly, if I can't speak my mind,
Speaker 1: I don't care about your channel. I I am and
Speaker 1: it's helped me. And there are hosts who have to
Speaker 1: There are hosts who can't be personalities necessarily. They have
Speaker 1: to be kind of like regurgitate the news. They're not
Speaker 1: I think of like some if I had stayed in journalism,
Speaker 1: that's what I see sometimes, Like my friends that are
Speaker 1: anchors that went on to be like anchors on the
Speaker 1: nightly news or whatever, like they have to be kind
Speaker 1: of like then they can never on their social media
Speaker 1: post a type of jokes on posting like stuff like
Speaker 1: that they can't post. There's traps like if you and
Speaker 1: I do so. I think we are performers first, and
Speaker 1: I think that's why we get hired though, is for
Speaker 1: our personalities, is because we're not just That's another reason
Speaker 1: why there was kind of this growing pains when we
Speaker 1: started this podcast of people like just wanting so much
Speaker 1: um facts, and we refused to do that. If you
Speaker 1: want that type of podcast, that's a different type. We
Speaker 1: already knew what we wanted. We wanted our personalities, we
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to our funny friends. We didn't want
Speaker 1: this to be a borning informational podcast because those already exist.
Speaker 1: There are tons of nerve podcasts like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I can just be just straight up, blunt and
Speaker 1: informational about what happened is How Stuff Works is a
Speaker 1: amazing network that that had primarily just unbiased, just clear,
Speaker 1: you know, information for the people without any sway. And
Speaker 1: then How Stuff Works Comedy comes and it's fulls with
Speaker 1: It's filled with all these shows that are typically left
Speaker 1: laning and and I just have strong voices and have
Speaker 1: a bias because they are less about the information at
Speaker 1: hand and more about the personalities. And the biggest bamboos
Speaker 1: of all was Nerdificent, because we share a format that's
Speaker 1: similar to classic house stuff work shows. So if you
Speaker 1: were coming from that house stuff work side, you were
Speaker 1: expecting a show that was just information about nerdum and
Speaker 1: not a show that is nerd um. How it touches
Speaker 1: on us and I think this we did, indeed make
Speaker 1: clear that is a injury point for people who are
Speaker 1: new to it. I I I you know, we've I've
Speaker 1: kind of stepped back, mostly because I just have a
Speaker 1: thing where I don't like repeating myself. But you know,
Speaker 1: as much as we repeat that this is a show
Speaker 1: for everyone, there still is that nerd who's like, you
Speaker 1: didn't go into the deep etches of the history and
Speaker 1: show me something I didn't know. It was like, well,
Speaker 1: that's not what we're about. You you listen to this podcast,
Speaker 1: you hear how people relate to it. Why I think
Speaker 1: this podcast isn't the information about a a certain nerd topic.
Speaker 1: I think it's the information about why it's so important
Speaker 1: to some people. And I think that's the best way
Speaker 1: to describe this and why we have guests who are
Speaker 1: so passionate about certain things. Uh, we should talk about
Speaker 1: how we met. I was going to say podcast. You
Speaker 1: cut me off when I start with that. I'm just kidding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, we both in the nerd world. Danny
Speaker 1: was like crushing stand up way harder uh than than
Speaker 1: I was, which is funny because I'm not doing it anymore.
Speaker 1: But she came from like the roast battle level. I
Speaker 1: was big on improv, me doing stuff. Why when we're
Speaker 1: doing sketch improv obviously as a nerd. And this this
Speaker 1: once again touches on the thing we were lightly touching
Speaker 1: about about being performer first. But highlight, I knew about
Speaker 1: Tournament of Nerds maybe two years before I actually got
Speaker 1: involved with him, uh, which was I was still kind
Speaker 1: of like an improv baby taking classes and someone had
Speaker 1: a Tournament of Nerds sticker. I didn't know what the
Speaker 1: show was, but just on the title, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I need to do that show. And uh and and
Speaker 1: this is once again we're we're telling you stuff we
Speaker 1: did that are oftentimes things you shouldn't do, but like
Speaker 1: I um, I like and there and my buddy was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: how Rudnick Hits runs it, so you should do it.
Speaker 1: So I just message how Rudnick. I've never seen the
Speaker 1: show before. My friend explained it to me, though I
Speaker 1: didn't like wasn't completely blind and you just were like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a nerd debate. But I never seen the show before.
Speaker 1: And I was like, hey, I'd love to I'm a
Speaker 1: huge nerd and I'd love to do Term of Nerds
Speaker 1: and he was like okay. And then two years later
Speaker 1: he asked me if I wanted to do my first show.
Speaker 1: But it's what's but if you ever want to do
Speaker 1: for any like stand up or performance, if you ever
Speaker 1: want to do a show, please go to the show
Speaker 1: the show, show that you're interested, You're you'll you'll show
Speaker 1: up and support it before asking to be on it.
Speaker 1: That's the number. That's I promise you. You You know, sometimes
Speaker 1: people will put you on the shows without being there,
Speaker 1: but I promise you get on the show faster if
Speaker 1: you just show up an ask in person. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I went in there and I and I crushed my first.
Speaker 1: So Tournament of Nerds is a it's essentially a debate
Speaker 1: show between you pick like fictional. I mean sometimes they'll
Speaker 1: have it back because everyone says because I mean, by definition,
Speaker 1: by everything, it is a technically a debate show. But
Speaker 1: like debates, debates get steamrolled by character bits. It's you
Speaker 1: basically are roast battling another character. You pick a character
Speaker 1: and your and you don't know who you're going to
Speaker 1: go up against. So I was Carmen san Diego and
Speaker 1: I was battling Harley Quinn somebody playing Harley Quinn, and
Speaker 1: we just roasted each other. Um. And so that's essentially
Speaker 1: the show. And that's where Iffie and I met. It's
Speaker 1: a show. It's a monthly show at a citizen's brigade. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's at Franklin. It's at midnight. It usually goes
Speaker 1: still too. Uh. You know, it's a real it's genuinely
Speaker 1: a fun show, just like Danks is. It's uh, it's
Speaker 1: a tournament. Um, there's usually I think it starts with
Speaker 1: six rounds. Uh, No, no, six or four rounds and
Speaker 1: it's just a nerd too. But lots of times it's
Speaker 1: a lot of character bits, and sometimes people will come
Speaker 1: and and right well thought out amazing jokes and lose
Speaker 1: to someone doing a impression. I mean, if yeah, that happened,
Speaker 1: I mean that's how I want, like my wins, my
Speaker 1: belt wins. I was the Uh it was funny. It
Speaker 1: was I was the first player in contra which he
Speaker 1: had a name, and someone pointed out but my character
Speaker 1: bits still in my second win, I was, Oh, my gosh,
Speaker 1: who was I? I forget, but it was another bit
Speaker 1: that I did not expect to win by like all,
Speaker 1: the only time I win is when I do a
Speaker 1: dumb character is like, let's see how how how long
Speaker 1: I can make this dumb thing go? And it usually
Speaker 1: go was all the way. But if he and I
Speaker 1: added each other, remember we were friends on Facebook and
Speaker 1: we were both like one of the two comedians that
Speaker 1: would constantly post DBZ jokes and memes. And so he
Speaker 1: hit me up and was like, do you want to
Speaker 1: do a DBZ podcast? And I was thinking, like, if
Speaker 1: I was going to start a podcast, that's what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do. Yeah. I wrote him jokingly and asked
Speaker 1: if he wanted to call it krill in It, and
Speaker 1: he said yes, and I was like, I was joking,
Speaker 1: but that's what we called it. And we bought a
Speaker 1: snow globe mic and we did it in my bedroom,
Speaker 1: so I don't want to hear from anyone before the bedroom.
Speaker 1: We had that dope community room before you moved. Was
Speaker 1: it had community room we had wasn't a community I
Speaker 1: think we had a community room, yeah, like a guest
Speaker 1: room or something we had and then you then you
Speaker 1: moved maybe yeah, and then we then we had to
Speaker 1: do I mean we were literally having our friends in
Speaker 1: my in my bed, in my spare bedroom. I'm about
Speaker 1: to I'm about to bring up I'm about to Are
Speaker 1: you ready to go down memory lane? We I'm just
Speaker 1: going and read it so we might cut it. But
Speaker 1: this was November five, two thousand, first message you sent
Speaker 1: me on Facebook, which was I remember I felt kind
Speaker 1: of crappy after losing my first round in the first
Speaker 1: tournament nerds, and you came over to me and said
Speaker 1: good job and that I was part of the family now,
Speaker 1: which was true. Uh that thank you for that. It's
Speaker 1: seriously meant a ton. Congrats and best of luck on
Speaker 1: your journey at Comedy Central. They are literally the best.
Speaker 1: And I said, thanks so much. Get back in that
Speaker 1: ring too. I was serious, You're hilarious and you said thanks,
Speaker 1: and I said whoa. We didn't talk again until January twenty,
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen, where I said, let's do a
Speaker 1: DBZ podcast. We rewatched the series from episode one and
Speaker 1: talk about it and you said, I so down. I
Speaker 1: replied with five k's and an exclamation point. That's a
Speaker 1: quel k e w L. Remember you still do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to see if I can get some recording
Speaker 1: equip equipment. When are you free? And you said I might.
Speaker 1: You're this confirmed itself right here. It's like, I might
Speaker 1: have some equipment. I have a studio ish room, so
Speaker 1: it was in your room from the jump it was not.
Speaker 1: And you're like, I think I have a micro two.
Speaker 1: Danny had one. Mike. Let's yeah, so we we I
Speaker 1: think that we use pod Bean, which is a podcast
Speaker 1: thing that you can you can upload your podcast too.
Speaker 1: We used Audacity, which is a software that you can get,
Speaker 1: I believe for free and you can edit podcast and
Speaker 1: that is where we started. We built a fault. We
Speaker 1: literally again had nothing. We got a snow globe mic
Speaker 1: we we uh brought our friends over. And this brings
Speaker 1: me to something that a couple of points I want
Speaker 1: to make. If you're trying to start a podcast or
Speaker 1: you're trying to start you know, hosting or whatever. Biggest
Speaker 1: thing consistency. When you start your podcast, you're gonna start
Speaker 1: to get listeners if you're posting about it and your
Speaker 1: friends are listening to it, or let's say you're in
Speaker 1: a let's say it as a twilight Zone podcast, um,
Speaker 1: and you post it in a twilight Zone forum or
Speaker 1: a twilight Zone Facebook group. Hey, I started a twilight
Speaker 1: Zone podcast. And if people start listening and you're not
Speaker 1: putting out episodes every week or whenever, and you're just
Speaker 1: kind of like, yeah, I'll do it this week and
Speaker 1: then work catches up with you, people are going to
Speaker 1: drop off. You need to be consistent. That is one
Speaker 1: of the biggest things I would say is that if
Speaker 1: if you and I missed a week, people would be like,
Speaker 1: what's going on? Where the podcast? Uh? And we were
Speaker 1: just we just we didn't have we weren't at it.
Speaker 1: We weren't you know. Now we're at how stuff Forward
Speaker 1: Slash I Heart Radio. We have bosses that are like,
Speaker 1: you have to be here. But at the time we
Speaker 1: had nobody, we didn't have sponsors, we didn't have anyone
Speaker 1: we had an answer to so we weren't consistent. So
Speaker 1: that is the biggest thing I would say is consistency um.
Speaker 1: And then people are like, well I can't get big
Speaker 1: guests like you guys, we interviewed our friends. Your friends
Speaker 1: can be the best to interview because they're passionate. You
Speaker 1: just want someone interesting. If you're a funny friend that
Speaker 1: is super into I don't know, William Shatner or whatever
Speaker 1: can like recite a bunch of those facts and knows
Speaker 1: about twice again, I'm just gonna go back to the
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone reference. Bring them on. People want to hear
Speaker 1: passionate people. We've had guests on that don't have huge
Speaker 1: followings on this podcast and they're they're great to listen
Speaker 1: to because they're passionate about it. So no, you don't
Speaker 1: have to have the director or the show runner of whatever.
Speaker 1: It's just that Iffi and I have now been doing
Speaker 1: this for several years that we've made friends and you know,
Speaker 1: we're writers and performers that we've now worked with these people,
Speaker 1: so now there are friends, But we started with just
Speaker 1: our friends on our show. Yeah, how do you want
Speaker 1: to talk about that? Real quick too? Because there is
Speaker 1: the instinct too and It's so funny because it feels
Speaker 1: feels like such a weird thing to say, but as
Speaker 1: I've seen it, it just happens. There's an instinct to
Speaker 1: like reach up and see, you know, people who are
Speaker 1: further along in their career or path then you to
Speaker 1: get them on your show. And I'm not saying definitely
Speaker 1: don't try, but don't let that be your only your
Speaker 1: only path, like reach out to people who are you know,
Speaker 1: in the trenches with you, because you know, we who
Speaker 1: was I saying this way? I think I was talking
Speaker 1: to a buddy of my it was on this show,
Speaker 1: one of the writers on the show with me, and
Speaker 1: we both, you know, we're reminiscing because we both started
Speaker 1: at UCB at the same time and now we're writing
Speaker 1: a show together and it and it is crazy to think,
Speaker 1: you know, back in the day, I looked up at
Speaker 1: all these you know, people at UCB who were performing
Speaker 1: and further along to me, and it was like so
Speaker 1: cool that they're all friends and Aubrey Plaza and all
Speaker 1: of them where you CEB people, and now they're on
Speaker 1: parks and ranks. And then you look now and as
Speaker 1: we are further in the career, all our friends who
Speaker 1: kind of have been in the community are also moving
Speaker 1: ahead too. And you have to remember that that rising
Speaker 1: tide raises all ships. If if everyone, If you surround
Speaker 1: yourself with people who are grinding, who are at it
Speaker 1: and just in the motion of trying to get it all,
Speaker 1: all of y'all will never be jealous of someone's success
Speaker 1: because if you, if if your friend, if you like
Speaker 1: your friend, like you actually are messing with them, and
Speaker 1: y'all are all grinding, they're not gonna forget you because
Speaker 1: they got success. It never and never never expect that.
Speaker 1: Don't don't don't wait for someone to get on and
Speaker 1: give you a hand up, like just to just grind together,
Speaker 1: because that that those opportunities will come, those those like
Speaker 1: hands up will come. But just focus on your grind
Speaker 1: and I promise you before you notice, opportunities are going
Speaker 1: to be coming from your peers as y'all all kind
Speaker 1: of rise up. Is it's it's just, I mean, it
Speaker 1: just seems like a dope dream to have. Like the
Speaker 1: person who's like killing it now kind of give you
Speaker 1: an opportunity that just shoot your career up. But honestly,
Speaker 1: it's never gonna be like this. One thing I forgot
Speaker 1: what podcasts or TV show interview I heard, but there's
Speaker 1: a there's this idea of like this one thing that's
Speaker 1: gonna change your career, change your life, and it's never that.
Speaker 1: The one thing that it seems like is uh is
Speaker 1: actually putting all the work in the shadow. Like you
Speaker 1: may think that, you know, Winston Duke after Black Panther,
Speaker 1: that that role got him so much, but he was
Speaker 1: doing so many small roles, audition classes, training, all before that.
Speaker 1: But that's the one role that kind of made him
Speaker 1: recognized by everything the best. The best example is Timothy
Speaker 1: Shallow may you know after um call Me by your Name.
Speaker 1: It just seemed like he shot into the stratosphere. Even
Speaker 1: to me, who's someone who kind of you know, like
Speaker 1: I did a short film with him called Spinners, and
Speaker 1: that's when we first met. And it was interesting watching
Speaker 1: him because I want, you know, knowing him before he
Speaker 1: was the Timothy Shallow may this This dude was grinding.
Speaker 1: He was doing so many films that you probably haven't
Speaker 1: even seen that probably didn't make it out anywhere, and
Speaker 1: then it was just the one that did that. Now
Speaker 1: it seems like, oh, it just takes one but it's
Speaker 1: it really does take a lot of grinding, and don't
Speaker 1: don't get discouraged. Honestly, like when you hear things like
Speaker 1: oh man, like the big saying which the math kind
Speaker 1: of on average does kind of work out, is that
Speaker 1: it takes five years from being in l A to
Speaker 1: like really fill your stride anywhere. Sometimes it takes longer.
Speaker 1: Don't ever use a rule as hard and fast, but
Speaker 1: that on average about five years a lot of people
Speaker 1: start to see something it doesn't and something can range
Speaker 1: from a their for booking your first commercial, to booking
Speaker 1: your first series regular to maybe even for some folks
Speaker 1: even being like in a movie. I want to say, though,
Speaker 1: you don't have to live here to pursue a creative life.
Speaker 1: It just depends on what you want to do. I
Speaker 1: do know people who have written me and they were like,
Speaker 1: am I too old to get into writing? And No,
Speaker 1: it's like there's so many there's so many freelance like
Speaker 1: opportunities that that there are out there to write for
Speaker 1: different sites. Um I if you're following me, I try
Speaker 1: to retweet them, like every week I'm involved in different
Speaker 1: groups um in different forms or Facebook groups and they'll
Speaker 1: share like there's ones that are called like I need
Speaker 1: a production assistant, or there's writers groups, but I try
Speaker 1: to share. You know, they were looking for animators in
Speaker 1: Atlanta and I reposted that, like, so there are so
Speaker 1: many freelancing gigs that you can pitch if you want.
Speaker 1: I know someone that I they don't even live here,
Speaker 1: and they they hit me up and and we're like,
Speaker 1: um they Basically this was back when I had my
Speaker 1: d M s open and then people abuse them, but
Speaker 1: so I had to close them unfortunately. But I used
Speaker 1: to answer people's questions and one of them was an
Speaker 1: older guy, I think, and he was like, do you
Speaker 1: think I'm too old to right? And I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I think that you could. You know, you could freelance,
Speaker 1: you could pitch an article or something if that's what
Speaker 1: you're trying to get into, is like nerd writing or
Speaker 1: hosting or whatever. And he did. He wrote me back
Speaker 1: and was like I got um, I have articles now
Speaker 1: up at Nerdice, thank you, Like I just pitched them.
Speaker 1: I pitched them a couple of ideas of articles I
Speaker 1: wanted to write. And there's so many sites like that.
Speaker 1: There's so many nerds sites specifically that are constantly looking
Speaker 1: for reviewers or your take on you know, if Mad
Speaker 1: Max should have another reboot or if this and that,
Speaker 1: like there's so many of those. Yeah, and and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean honestly, yeah, just know what your industry needs.
Speaker 1: If you want to do nerdwork, like just writing articles
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, then yeah you can. You can
Speaker 1: probably do that from where you are now. If you're
Speaker 1: trying to go down the path of comedy or acting
Speaker 1: and writing like that, they all take different Acting, you
Speaker 1: definitely want to be close to where you're auditioning. That
Speaker 1: could be New York or l A. But I will
Speaker 1: say there's a lot you can do before you make
Speaker 1: that jump. Uh. They But and it's always gonna be
Speaker 1: how you feel, and it's always going to be up
Speaker 1: to you because you will have a small start over
Speaker 1: when you move. That's what it is. Comedy, same thing
Speaker 1: you're gonna you can start comedy in your town if
Speaker 1: it has a comedy scene, go to open mics, try
Speaker 1: that out, get get good, and when you finally feel ready,
Speaker 1: and that's when you make the move. Now, when it
Speaker 1: comes to like nerd hosting and stuff, there's so much
Speaker 1: you can do from home, like Red Letter media is
Speaker 1: not in l A. You know, there's so many Our
Speaker 1: friend who has like hundreds of like whatever, he's in Florida.
Speaker 1: There's so there's so many things you can do when
Speaker 1: it comes to geeky hosting that you don't have to
Speaker 1: really move until you're ready or until a job is
Speaker 1: going to bring you out here. And that's what, you know,
Speaker 1: the corny advice that you always hear whenever you're like,
Speaker 1: I want to be a comic writer, I want to
Speaker 1: be a TV writer. I want to do It's always
Speaker 1: like then right, And that's kind of true because you're
Speaker 1: not going to get a job just from applying. They're
Speaker 1: gonna want to see something. So make sure you do
Speaker 1: all the stuff you need to do before you even
Speaker 1: worry about moving. Make sure you have it. And you know,
Speaker 1: all our younger listeners obviously you can do little cheat
Speaker 1: stuff like going to college in l A. You know,
Speaker 1: I know I know so many people who who they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I just went to college in l A and then
Speaker 1: got your foot starting, And I was like, that is
Speaker 1: one way to do it, especially because you know, uh,
Speaker 1: that degree, you know, you can kind of get it anywhere,
Speaker 1: but definitely don't overextend yourself and make your realistic plan.
Speaker 1: Don't think you're gonna come out here and don't A
Speaker 1: lot of the biggest trap I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people fall into with l A is They're like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna save up this money and I'm gonna come to
Speaker 1: l A. Don't get a job and grind until I
Speaker 1: book the big thing that will start paying the bills.
Speaker 1: Now that's not gonna work. The reason is the this industry,
Speaker 1: the freelancer life and acting and writing comes with ebbs
Speaker 1: and flows. Until you're like a named working actor or writer.
Speaker 1: You you right for a certain amount of weeks, you're
Speaker 1: off the job, and then you're just waiting for another one.
Speaker 1: It has its own ebb and flow. So you come
Speaker 1: here with the job and grind while you work and
Speaker 1: then let Like basically the rule I always had when
Speaker 1: I had my wake up call, because just so you
Speaker 1: know how it happened for me, I had a full
Speaker 1: time job. I was working with the l A County
Speaker 1: Registered Recorder and that movie that I talked about with
Speaker 1: Timmy They Shallamy. I had spinners and and then I
Speaker 1: was going to New York for UH for um U
Speaker 1: c B, where I was we were doing the Dell
Speaker 1: Close Marathon and and I thought I had it. I
Speaker 1: booked this short film. It was shooting for a week,
Speaker 1: and at the time I was already on the ounce
Speaker 1: with my job because I called in six so much
Speaker 1: for auditions that they're like they I already was suspended,
Speaker 1: and they're like, we're gonna have to fire you. So
Speaker 1: I was like, I have to quit this job. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, well, you know, I got this
Speaker 1: short film, I got, you know, And then I'm I'm
Speaker 1: I'm I'm doing well and UCB I'm about to go
Speaker 1: to New York and perform out there. It's it's it,
Speaker 1: I'm about to be working. And I quit the job.
Speaker 1: I got my likes, a little bit of severance, flew
Speaker 1: to New York, shot that, came back, shot the short,
Speaker 1: came back and literally didn't book anything maybe for maybe
Speaker 1: another few months, maybe even the year. And then I
Speaker 1: finally got real got a job at the Improv and
Speaker 1: that that that was the best thing ever because I
Speaker 1: met so many comics. And then I started doing other
Speaker 1: part time stuff, worked for Press Juicery. Then the geek
Speaker 1: and Sundry stuff started taking off, and then shortly I
Speaker 1: think while I was doing Geek and Sundry, Gecon Suntriy
Speaker 1: was kind of getting to the place where I was
Speaker 1: able to do it, almost able to do a full time.
Speaker 1: Before all that happened, I booked at midnight and I
Speaker 1: was a working writer. We have to take a quick break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, I want to talk about etiquette
Speaker 1: the dudes and don't yeh. We get back and we're back.
Speaker 1: I wanted to say something before we moved on, and
Speaker 1: that is um. One of the biggest things I can
Speaker 1: say is hitting up writers and showrunners unsolicited with your scripts,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, is a big no no. And in
Speaker 1: Gloria Calderon Collette, who's the show runner for one day
Speaker 1: at a time, she's written on a bunch of shows.
Speaker 1: She's fabulous, she's amazing. If you don't follow her, follow
Speaker 1: her because she tweets threads every week for actors and
Speaker 1: writers of dues and don't and they're super helpful. But
Speaker 1: she had an etiquette thread about not sending unsolicited scripts
Speaker 1: um that people argued with her about, which is insane
Speaker 1: because she's literally above them saying don't do this. But
Speaker 1: before we get totally into that, I wanted to say
Speaker 1: too that I um. When I first moved here, the
Speaker 1: first ever job that I had, same with what If
Speaker 1: he was saying, was struggling. The first ever job I
Speaker 1: had was at the ice House Comedy Club in Pasadena,
Speaker 1: and I got that job by looking at Craigslist. It
Speaker 1: was the first week I moved to l A. Don't
Speaker 1: be like me. I moved and I didn't have a job.
Speaker 1: It was literally just what if he was explaining, I
Speaker 1: had only a tiny bit of money saved up. That
Speaker 1: money goes really quickly. I thought for sure I could
Speaker 1: be a waitress or a bartender, you know whatever. Like
Speaker 1: that's really easy where I was to get those jobs.
Speaker 1: That is not easy to get those jobs here. Everybody
Speaker 1: wants those jobs. This city is packed to the brim
Speaker 1: and um, everybody wants to be a waitress because you
Speaker 1: can take off when you you know, you can have
Speaker 1: your um nights free to to perform if you're trying
Speaker 1: to do stand up, or your days free if you're
Speaker 1: auditioning as an actor. I mean I I it was
Speaker 1: so hard for me to find anything. I found a
Speaker 1: Craigslist ad for to work the door were at the
Speaker 1: ice House Comedy Club, and I drove my resume like
Speaker 1: forty five minutes to get to Pasadena and hand them
Speaker 1: my resume because I knew if I just applied online
Speaker 1: that I would be just a nameless, faceless person. Um.
Speaker 1: And in fact, they had two hundred people I think
Speaker 1: that had applied because again so many even to work
Speaker 1: the door. People just want jobs, and especially in entertainment
Speaker 1: in some way. Um. So so I showed up, I
Speaker 1: gave them my resume, and I got that job. And
Speaker 1: then I also worked as a nanny. So I was
Speaker 1: doing that um for about a year or two. When
Speaker 1: I first moved out here, I barely had time to write.
Speaker 1: But when I did have time, it was when I
Speaker 1: got done nanny, I would well, actually when I got
Speaker 1: done nanny, I would then drive to Pasadena and work
Speaker 1: the ice house. So I was working my butt off. Etiquette. Etiquette, UM,
Speaker 1: I would give you here's wait, I do want to
Speaker 1: say so about who will read your scripts? Then there
Speaker 1: are countless, countless fellowship programs. You can go to the
Speaker 1: w g A website and there are countless programs that
Speaker 1: you can submit your your screenplay, your pilot, your play,
Speaker 1: your teleplay. You can submit some of them. You will
Speaker 1: get feedback some of them like they actually have readers
Speaker 1: that will give you feedback. I made it to the
Speaker 1: final round this year of the Diverse Voices screenplay. Um.
Speaker 1: They you know, people were giving me notes on my thing,
Speaker 1: but I made it. It was really cool. It was
Speaker 1: really cool that I made it too. Of we we
Speaker 1: screenplay and made it to the final round. Um for
Speaker 1: a pilot that I wrote. So when you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to hit up Danny and ask her, don't
Speaker 1: hit up strangers because it's rude. It's rude. Um. I
Speaker 1: wanted to say with our podcast to something that I've
Speaker 1: noticed when we post an episode as someone will be like,
Speaker 1: you guys talked about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Here's our
Speaker 1: episode of Buffy the Vampire or Slayer. Don't do that.
Speaker 1: That is the weirdest thing to take the following and
Speaker 1: the people that we our fans, are our followers and
Speaker 1: then try to capitalize it. I don't do that to you.
Speaker 1: Like that is so weird to me to see people
Speaker 1: do that to try and take our I think it's
Speaker 1: I think it's rude. You don't. We don't do that
Speaker 1: in our community. Don't do that. That is a no note,
Speaker 1: that is a taboo unless you want me to start
Speaker 1: stealing your people. But what I'm saying is that's just
Speaker 1: that's rude. That's on our page. That's so weird. Yeah no,
Speaker 1: that's that. And that's something that even goes into not
Speaker 1: even just with podcasts. I've seen that you know done
Speaker 1: on our stuff, but also just even on Twitch. There's
Speaker 1: there's been there was like someone who came in and
Speaker 1: was like who like tried to be like, oh, this
Speaker 1: guy is streaming this on on the channel. Like that
Speaker 1: never works. I promise you no one in anyone's community
Speaker 1: is going to mess with that. You know, no one,
Speaker 1: no one's gonna come to you. If anything, that's gonna
Speaker 1: make people like you less and open yourself up. If
Speaker 1: some people have the time of day to trolling, so
Speaker 1: don't like, just don't test that. Um you know if
Speaker 1: if if you're just so because I know some people
Speaker 1: are like, but you know, some people say you you
Speaker 1: need to talk to the show runers and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing is like you if you if you,
Speaker 1: if it's burning you up inside that you want to
Speaker 1: get your work in front of it, then you need
Speaker 1: to start a correspondence with them. Do not say introduce yourself,
Speaker 1: Hey this, this, that, and attach your screenplay. You need
Speaker 1: to introduce yourself see if they're open to correspondence because
Speaker 1: you sometimes you you might find a showrunner who is like, hey,
Speaker 1: what's up I I do have the time of day,
Speaker 1: or you know, tell them about yourself. Maybe there's something
Speaker 1: about you because you know, like like if someone like
Speaker 1: for example, you might be like, hey, I'm a Nigerian
Speaker 1: woman who you know is trying to get it in,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to trying to make their way in it, YadA, YadA, YadA,
Speaker 1: then like yeah, you know, if there's a connection there,
Speaker 1: I'm this is not an invite for Nigerian women to
Speaker 1: uh send me scripts? Not not because I don't want
Speaker 1: to read it. I just literally right now don't have time.
Speaker 1: Right now is going to be like the busiest time
Speaker 1: anyway for a lot of just for any writers, Like
Speaker 1: it's it's ramping up into staffing seasons, so lots of
Speaker 1: lots of show runners and writers are already reading their
Speaker 1: friends scripts right now. So it's kind of hard to
Speaker 1: be on the back burner. But you know, when you
Speaker 1: do send the script, if someone does allow you, because
Speaker 1: sometimes there will be people who's like, I want to
Speaker 1: send scripts. I think definitely first send it to your friends.
Speaker 1: You want to make sure your your script is pretty
Speaker 1: great before you send it to someone of power and authority,
Speaker 1: because this is your introduction to them. This is like
Speaker 1: if if, for example, if for any reason, a showrunner
Speaker 1: was to read your script, you got to know that
Speaker 1: this is your their first impression of your one chance. Yea.
Speaker 1: If they read it and and they're just not interested,
Speaker 1: they're probably not going to read the next draft in
Speaker 1: the next Also consider that too. If someone is going
Speaker 1: to read your stuff, send it to them, and if
Speaker 1: they get back to you, they get back to you.
Speaker 1: Don't check up every week every the people are busy
Speaker 1: and and I promise you checking up weekly isn't going
Speaker 1: to get them to read it faster, because if they're
Speaker 1: too busy to do it, having someone bug them to
Speaker 1: read it is not going to make them rush to
Speaker 1: do it. And if your friends aren't writers, join forums
Speaker 1: and just ask. You don't have to ask someone specifically.
Speaker 1: You don't have to write a famous writer specifically. You
Speaker 1: can join a forum or one of those Facebook groups.
Speaker 1: There's a gigantic. Sorry to cut you off, but there's
Speaker 1: a gigantic l a TV writers group that I mean
Speaker 1: there there are gonna people be people who want to
Speaker 1: read on there who you can check or there's like services.
Speaker 1: Now you have the black list, but you can just ask, hey, UM,
Speaker 1: I have this script that's about this, would anyone want
Speaker 1: to read it? That is what I would do if
Speaker 1: you need eyes on your script and you want feedback
Speaker 1: instead of right, instead of writing someone that who doesn't
Speaker 1: know you again you're a stranger, approaching them, just openly
Speaker 1: post Oh, I would love for someone to read my
Speaker 1: script if if anyone that way, the people that want
Speaker 1: to will volunteer to um and a lot of those
Speaker 1: people do want to read scripts, I think sometimes also
Speaker 1: just to see what's what's going around out there. So
Speaker 1: um yeah, but I would say, don't cold. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: you want That's why it's so great to have a community,
Speaker 1: to have a community of other people. Find other people
Speaker 1: who are at your level. So if he and I
Speaker 1: started at the same time, we're in the what's considered
Speaker 1: the same comedy class, your comedy or your writing class
Speaker 1: or whatever. Those are people that are coming up at
Speaker 1: the same time as you. So people that you have
Speaker 1: heard on our podcast, like Danielle Radford, Hector Navarro, we
Speaker 1: all started that we were all no one at the
Speaker 1: same time. It was great and we all started to
Speaker 1: come up at the same time. So it's really important
Speaker 1: to develop your community in and if you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I live in you know, this podunk town and I
Speaker 1: don't have a community. That is why the Internet exists.
Speaker 1: Because I was one of those people in in chat
Speaker 1: rooms in forums when I was in middle school. Probably
Speaker 1: shouldn't have been, but um, I loved writing fan fiction.
Speaker 1: I love talking with other middle schoolers who might have
Speaker 1: possibly be grown men. But when I was in the
Speaker 1: middle like, but I had this, you know, community of
Speaker 1: people that were into anime and fan fiction and we
Speaker 1: would trade that. So there are forums out there for
Speaker 1: you to get your writing out. Or again, if you're
Speaker 1: making a podcast, if you're making a short, that's another thing.
Speaker 1: Just go out and make it. Do you know how
Speaker 1: many films in the last couple of years have been
Speaker 1: made entirely on iPhones. People are trying. Filmmakers are trying
Speaker 1: to make a statement. You don't have to have a
Speaker 1: bunch of equipment. You can write a four minute sketch.
Speaker 1: The example I always bring up is, UM, David F. Sandberg,
Speaker 1: who you got who is directing in Shazamne. He's directing Shazamne.
Speaker 1: He made less than three minutes. His short, Lights Out,
Speaker 1: was two and a half minutes. That went completely viral.
Speaker 1: If you haven't seen it, it's amazing. Um, if you're
Speaker 1: not in a scary stuff, like if he's not in
Speaker 1: a scary stuff, don't watch it. It was great, it's
Speaker 1: so good. He shot at himself, he used his wife.
Speaker 1: It's only two and a half minutes. It's terrifying. It
Speaker 1: went viral. He got to make the film Lights Out.
Speaker 1: He got to do. He worked on what Annabelle creation conjuring.
Speaker 1: So make your sketch, make your short, make your whatever,
Speaker 1: get your iPhone, get your get your friends. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're like my friends, can't act, look on forums,
Speaker 1: cast people, bring them in, bring people in your town
Speaker 1: and you might have to drive forty five minutes or
Speaker 1: whatever to get to where you are to get to
Speaker 1: you know where other people are. But there are communities
Speaker 1: out there for you. And again, because the Internet exists,
Speaker 1: you can UM submit your scripts to the Blacklist you
Speaker 1: can submit your scripts to fellowships, you can get people
Speaker 1: to read it. Um, that is my rant. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I will say this industry as many reasons
Speaker 1: it's hard. I mean, some of the ones that we've
Speaker 1: we've already mentioned. But the one that I think also
Speaker 1: that is worth mentioning is yes, this is a dreamer's industry.
Speaker 1: And in where you are in life, your community, you
Speaker 1: might talk about this and people are going to be like,
Speaker 1: oh really, oh so how are you going to do it?
Speaker 1: So what I've heard that when I when I had
Speaker 1: my full time job, people were mocking me for wanting
Speaker 1: to do this. You just you just have to push through.
Speaker 1: If you really want it, you gotta go out and
Speaker 1: get it. And you know, I'm gonna tell I'm gonna
Speaker 1: just say it because this is kind of my mantra
Speaker 1: and what kind of made me finally make the jump.
Speaker 1: And if this helps someone, uh, someone else makes the jump,
Speaker 1: I'd be happy I got into this industry because I
Speaker 1: would rather try it and fail than to live my
Speaker 1: whole life wondering what would have happened if I actually tried.
Speaker 1: So just remember that when you're on the fence, because
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, you can always there.
Speaker 1: You're you're never too old for anything. You can always
Speaker 1: go back to getting a full time job, especially you know,
Speaker 1: if you graduate and have a degree, you know you
Speaker 1: can you can always find, you know, go back into
Speaker 1: your old industry. But why do that? Why? Why there's
Speaker 1: so I know so many people who are just straight
Speaker 1: up dog miserable because they're just doing something because it's convenient.
Speaker 1: So just take the jump, but do it safely. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because my friend Sarah Benacosta, she has a book out
Speaker 1: that's called Real Artists Have Day Jobs, And I think
Speaker 1: that that might be really helpful for people who want
Speaker 1: to pursue a creative life but need to keep their
Speaker 1: day job a hundred percent. Um. You know, we like
Speaker 1: if he and I were saying we worked other jobs.
Speaker 1: He was, you know, working in clerical and I was
Speaker 1: working as a nanny um and working the door, so
Speaker 1: you can pursue these things. I think we just wanted
Speaker 1: people to know that we all we were in the trenches.
Speaker 1: We were in the trenches together. Um. I can't speak
Speaker 1: for Iffy, but I was dirt poor. I was like
Speaker 1: dangerously poor, which I don't recommend when you're so poor,
Speaker 1: like you can't afford like your medicine, and you're in food.
Speaker 1: I would eat like cans of tuna, which is funny
Speaker 1: because I think Gloria Caldro and Collette who's now one
Speaker 1: of my friends, um that show runner that was talking
Speaker 1: about she, I think posted that she used to eat
Speaker 1: like cans of tuna because that was all she could afford.
Speaker 1: So we've definitely been in the trenches to get to
Speaker 1: where we are. And I know when you see on
Speaker 1: social media it's like, oh, they're doing so much, but
Speaker 1: we started from nothing. It is really important to have
Speaker 1: a community and have friends who are going to be
Speaker 1: there for you. Um So, if you can't find them
Speaker 1: person annally, hopefully you can find them online. That is
Speaker 1: where a lot of our friendships have come from, is
Speaker 1: online and from these communities. Whatever you're most passionate about,
Speaker 1: that's the easiest thing. And that's why our first podcast
Speaker 1: together was about DBZ because it was easy for us
Speaker 1: to talk about that was an easy thing. And uh
Speaker 1: so we started our podcast without having any again, any sponsorship,
Speaker 1: any studio, any anything. We built it up and then
Speaker 1: Zach at Hyper invited us to do our podcast like
Speaker 1: live on his Twitch channel at hyper RPG, and from
Speaker 1: that we had really great chemistry that when how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works was trying to open up their l a division.
Speaker 1: Jack O'Brien, who knew both of us, he knew if
Speaker 1: he and I both from writing and comedy, hit us
Speaker 1: up and we're like, yeah, you two are so good together.
Speaker 1: Do you want to do Do you want to do
Speaker 1: a show here? Maybe not about anime? Can you make
Speaker 1: it more about something broader for us? And then found
Speaker 1: Jack by his car and HELLI my gunpoint, give me
Speaker 1: a Danny this show where you gonna have to go? Oh,
Speaker 1: I want to say one more thing. My first comic con.
Speaker 1: I slept in my car. I want my first comic con.
Speaker 1: Um when I was working it, I couldn't afford a hotel.
Speaker 1: They're so expensive. I got changed in my car and
Speaker 1: I told the Marriott I was staying there so that
Speaker 1: they would keep my my luggage like behind their desk,
Speaker 1: and my friends who did have a room would let
Speaker 1: me shower in their shower. Um. But I slept in
Speaker 1: my car, and then I think the second year, I
Speaker 1: slept on the floor of somebody's place. And if you
Speaker 1: and I have slept on the floor of people's places
Speaker 1: many times. And now we're here. So we started from
Speaker 1: the actual the bottom. We started from the floor, started
Speaker 1: from the floor. Sky Bound paid for rooms. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I got Disney this year's um that was a subtle flexible. No,
Speaker 1: I think we earned it at this point. Oh so,
Speaker 1: what do you want to tell people about Danny oh Man?
Speaker 1: That wasn't even my whole life. I was on I
Speaker 1: was on Culture Kings last week. And if you want
Speaker 1: to hear more about the struggles that I've been through,
Speaker 1: um the struggle. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things people don't know about me. I'm obviously divorced from
Speaker 1: that guy that I was with and just did so
Speaker 1: much like when I think of when I think of
Speaker 1: my life, of everything that I it took to get
Speaker 1: even here, it's a lot. Um, what do I want
Speaker 1: people to know? We love you if you and I
Speaker 1: are also hustling. I mean, if you see us, we're
Speaker 1: working like so many different jobs, we have families, we
Speaker 1: have like different things that we that we have to do.
Speaker 1: So we do love everyone. We want everyone to you know,
Speaker 1: do well. We might not be able to answer everyone's
Speaker 1: questions just because we ourselves are auditioning. We ourselves are
Speaker 1: submitting packets and submitting grips and getting rejected and rejected
Speaker 1: and rejected, and then one, you know, maybe we hear
Speaker 1: a yes here, yes there, and that keeps us going.
Speaker 1: But I just want everyone to know that we do
Speaker 1: love you a lot, and just because we can't read
Speaker 1: anything right now doesn't mean that we're not rooting for you. Yes,
Speaker 1: I actually like that a lot. That is very true.
Speaker 1: I plus one that statement to the max. Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think the one last thing I want you
Speaker 1: to do before you do anything is to really think
Speaker 1: about what you want to do, why you want to
Speaker 1: do it, and if it's if in that batt will
Speaker 1: get you a long way, if you want to get
Speaker 1: into this life because you truly are passionate about it.
Speaker 1: I mean me, I could not work a desk job.
Speaker 1: I just couldn't. I was getting in trouble literally every
Speaker 1: day from going around and talking to people because that's
Speaker 1: what I like to do. I like to talk, I
Speaker 1: like to make people laugh. So then I made it
Speaker 1: my job. Uh. There there was no other option for me. Uh.
Speaker 1: If if you're doing this because you know you want
Speaker 1: the perks or you want, you know, yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: I say the perks because that is the perks. Like
Speaker 1: sometimes you're famous, sometimes you get lots of followers, sometimes
Speaker 1: you get to go to cool events. Don't like the
Speaker 1: perks are a bonus, but it really is only worth
Speaker 1: it if you truly because the perks are so few
Speaker 1: and far between. And it is a grind. It is
Speaker 1: a lot, and it may seem like like lots of times,
Speaker 1: you know, you think one thing is gonna make everything better,
Speaker 1: but it's just like it really is like puff Daddy
Speaker 1: and Bigie said, more money, more problems. Uh, just consider
Speaker 1: that that it is a grind. It isn't like, you know,
Speaker 1: you are always grinding. You don't have the same stability.
Speaker 1: You know, you can be like if you look at
Speaker 1: you know, some of these shows that got canceled. You know,
Speaker 1: if you if you were writing on a show, you
Speaker 1: got a season two, You're like, here we go, and
Speaker 1: then at the end of season two it's canceled. That's
Speaker 1: all that stability that you thought was coming. Or like
Speaker 1: you work a show for a year and you don't
Speaker 1: get brought back home for the next season. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: even in pilots there if you pay attention to closely
Speaker 1: to pilots. There are some people who are in a
Speaker 1: pilot and then they get recast when it goes to series.
Speaker 1: So you booked this pilot, You're like, oh, I got
Speaker 1: a TV show I'm on and the TV show gets
Speaker 1: picked up, but you don't. So it's a lot of it.
Speaker 1: It really is a lot of let downs. But when
Speaker 1: you're really passionate about it, the winds are just so
Speaker 1: good it's worth it. With that note, make sure you
Speaker 1: go to my twitch. It's uh twitch dot tv slash
Speaker 1: if d s if you if you are an Amazon
Speaker 1: Prime member, you can connect it with your twitch and
Speaker 1: you can give me a free sub A few a
Speaker 1: lot of y'all have been coming in and doing that.
Speaker 1: A lot of y'all are active in the discord. The
Speaker 1: discord is popping. I I can't I cannot be more hyped,
Speaker 1: proud and excited about my community when I go in.
Speaker 1: When I was writing in the room and I couldn't
Speaker 1: you know, stream in the day and I would see
Speaker 1: everyone just having a conversation amongst themselves, having a gaming
Speaker 1: amongst themselves. That's what I want to build. It's more
Speaker 1: about like it's it's less about a place for people
Speaker 1: who are fans of me and Danny or fans of
Speaker 1: my stream to hang out. It's more of like minded
Speaker 1: individuals to find their people online. And you know, I
Speaker 1: love you know, I love the amount of you know,
Speaker 1: just there's it's just well rounded, so represented. We have
Speaker 1: lgbt Q people in the discord. We have you know,
Speaker 1: black people, people of all races, and I like that
Speaker 1: that's there because, you know, not throwing shade to anyone,
Speaker 1: but I've been in some people's communities, some people's discord
Speaker 1: and it's just a whole bunch of white dudes. And then,
Speaker 1: you know, I like the diversity in mind. I like,
Speaker 1: you know, they're you know, they're they're look in my
Speaker 1: discord there are people who are racially, ethnically, sexuality wise,
Speaker 1: gender and even politically diverse. And that's that's wild to
Speaker 1: me because I was like, you know, this is left
Speaker 1: leaning discord and they're like, well, you know, I'm open minded.
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, Uh, the basic rules of
Speaker 1: the discord as long as you respect people, use the
Speaker 1: proper pronouns, treat everyone with love and respect. You can
Speaker 1: hang haters, douchebags, you get kicked. But yeah, definitely go
Speaker 1: to my Twitch. Drop that drop that, drop that free
Speaker 1: sub there if if you widway on Twitter and Instagram,
Speaker 1: that's I f Y n W A d I w E.
Speaker 1: As far as shows go, I got some shows creeping up. Also,
Speaker 1: I got my older brothers bachelor party that still need
Speaker 1: to be planning that's supposed to be on the twenty
Speaker 1: and I still got time. It's a really random thing too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been. It's been haunting me as as someone as
Speaker 1: just a scatter brained is me trying to plan a
Speaker 1: whole it's just rough. Um but yeah, no, it's uh yeah,
Speaker 1: no shows coming up yet until the end of the month,
Speaker 1: and I'll just save it to a podcast closer to that.
Speaker 1: Um but yet, just stick stay tuned to the to
Speaker 1: the Insta and then you insta. We have lots of
Speaker 1: stuff going onf um. I am at MS Danny Fernandez
Speaker 1: and I will be at wonder Con. I have a
Speaker 1: panel on Friday and Saturday. So if you follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter, I will be posting about those where you
Speaker 1: can catch me. So the w g a website you
Speaker 1: can type in fellowship and it gives a list of
Speaker 1: writing programs some of them are looking for diverse candidates.
Speaker 1: Some of them aren't. UM it will say that on
Speaker 1: there and it's just a full list. I'm looking at
Speaker 1: the Box Writer's Lab, NBC Writers on the Verge. They
Speaker 1: have Sundance Episodic Story Lab. I mean, y'all, you can
Speaker 1: submit from anywhere, wherever you live. You can submit to
Speaker 1: these some some of them will give you, Like I said,
Speaker 1: some of the ones that I applied for give you
Speaker 1: feedback on your scripts. You can make it too. If
Speaker 1: you make it to the final round, you get in it,
Speaker 1: I mean great. Some of them you have cash prizes
Speaker 1: that they'll give you so that you can get your
Speaker 1: script funded. Really do your research, though, if this is
Speaker 1: a community that you want to be a part of.
Speaker 1: I mean, the internet is so vast, we can't answer
Speaker 1: all of your questions. You know, show runners don't always
Speaker 1: have time to answer all your questions online. So definitely
Speaker 1: do your homework, like you know, start looking into it
Speaker 1: of places of how can I submit my comic that
Speaker 1: I made? How can I submit my short you know,
Speaker 1: the short film that I want to do. UM because
Speaker 1: the information is out there, that is all I have.
Speaker 1: And as we say, every episode stay nerdy