Blue Slide Serenade: Tales from Two Hearts
Blue Slide Serenade: Tales from Two Hearts: Join us as we embark on a heartfelt journey through life, adventure, and business. Hosted by a passionate husband and wife team, we explore the exciting worlds of DJing, MCing, photobooths, and balloon art while delving into the latest current events and pop culture. Each episode offers a unique blend of personal stories, professional insights, and entertaining discussions. Whether you're an entrepreneur, event enthusiast, or simply looking for inspiration, Blue Slide Serenade: Tales from Two Hearts has something special for you. Tune in and let our tales serenade your heart!
Blue Slide Serenade: Tales from Two Hearts
From DJing to YouTube: Our Crazy Few Months
After a few months away, we're back with tales from the frontlines of event planning, DJing, and family life in Bakersfield and beyond. Our schedule has been packed with memorable celebrations - from Cassandra's 18th birthday to Gabby's emotional quinceañera where she danced holding her grandmother's photo following a recent family loss. The technical challenges of managing low fog machines while DJing reminded us why teamwork is essential in this business.
February brought "Beats Over the City," our community event that transformed a downtown parking garage rooftop into a vibrant gathering space. Despite an early morning police visit prompted by complaints before we'd even set up, the day flourished with vendors, classic cars, multiple DJs, and toys for kids donated by Salita James. Seeing our daughters selling tickets and our sons handling security made it truly a family affair.
Wedding season has us booked solid, with upcoming ceremonies stretching from Bakersfield to Paso Robles. Our photo booth business has exploded, with three separate bookings on a single day next weekend. We've even expanded our expertise into new territories, launching "All About the Bonuses" on YouTube – a channel dedicated exclusively to casino game bonuses that eliminates the need to fast-forward through endless spinning to see the good stuff.
Between professional obligations, we've doubled down on family time, discovering the profound connection that happens over dinner and board games. There's something magical about seeing our competitive daughter try to hide dominoes in her pocket rather than lose at a game! These moments, where devices are face-down and conversation flows freely, have become our sanctuary in an increasingly busy world.
Not everything has been smooth sailing, though. From confronting racism directed at our family to dealing with unscrupulous service providers trying to overcharge for simple repairs, we've had to stand our ground repeatedly. These challenges remind us why maintaining integrity and respect remains so important in both business and personal interactions.
Have you experienced similar challenges balancing work and family? Share your stories with us and subscribe to catch our next update as we navigate this beautiful, chaotic life of events, music, and making memories.
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Blue Slide Serenade: Tales from Two Hearts. We hope you enjoyed the journey as much as we did sharing it with you. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your favorite platform. Stay connected with us on social media for updates, behind-the-scenes content, and more. Until next time, keep the adventure alive and let your heart be serenaded.
What's up y'all? We are back. It's been a few months. Yes, we have been very, very busy and we need to get an intro sound. We need to get an intro song for this channel. So I may be reaching out, hitting somebody up to hook us up with a beat or something and a little jingle so we can get that going like we have the other channel going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have so much going on, it's crazy. A little jingle so we can get that going, like we have the other channel going. Yeah, we have so much going on, it's crazy been busy, but welcome back.
Speaker 1:Blue slide serenade.
Speaker 1:Tales of two hearts, gordon and marion, or marion or bebe or bebe or booty or a whole bunch of other names good ones and bad ones, we both have. But yeah, it's been a while. We've been staying up on the Most Dope Podcast quite a bit. We've been doing pretty well on that, but this one has slid a little bit. So we are back and we have quite a lot to talk about. And we have quite a lot to talk about. This is going all the way back to February and quite a bit to talk about. What all have we? We had an 18th birthday party for Cassandra. Yeah, we did an 18th birthday party for Cassandra over at her uh mom's and uh stepfather's house. That was a great little turnout, great little event.
Speaker 1:They had a wonderful time they had a great time and we did that.
Speaker 2:We had a uh, we had a quince gabby's quince oh yeah, we knocked out gabby's quince and we did pretty much all the decor for that one as well. I know that one was fun.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's always a oh yeah. We had balloon arches, we had balloon decor, we had quince marquise dance lights up lighting, low fog, dancing on the clouds we had it all.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We had it all and it was an amazing experience. They had an unfortunate loss in their family two or three days, maybe week, prior, uh, to this event, yeah, um, where their uh grandmother passed away. Her grandmother passed away, her mom uh so it was a. It was a bittersweet thing, you know. She was out there dancing with a picture of her grandmother, um, but we captured it yes, we did, it was.
Speaker 2:It was wonderful.
Speaker 1:The low fog did amazing yeah, we went over to uh branco yeah branco, right off of uh 24th and 178, maybe o or q or p or something down there, and they have pellets. They have dry ice pellets which work a lot better than the dry ice. Uh chunks, uh surface area volume, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1:We had to tone it down, uh because there was beginning to be too much fog yeah yeah, for for just a split second that thing billowed out quite a bit and we had to adjust it. Um, plenty powerful. Plenty powerful to fill a huge room yeah it was uh, it was nice yeah, definitely hard.
Speaker 2:I mean it's not something you can do by yourself, because you have to dj and and um do the low fog. That was a little hard, so I had to jump in for a second.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very difficult to MC, DJ and control a low fog machine. Yeah, it's very, very difficult.
Speaker 2:So unfortunately I wasn't really able to capture that moment, you know, hands were tied.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I tried to send my daughter, but that didn't go so well.
Speaker 1:You know, she tried her best you know, we we've just gotten to the point where we kind of know how to adjust camera settings a little bit, take pictures, make them look nice, get the right angles, do things like that, and that just comes with time and experience. I think, um, we had beats over the city in February.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did.
Speaker 1:I don't think we've even spoke about Beats Over the City on our Blue Slide Park channel.
Speaker 2:We haven't, and that was such a great success too. It was absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1:We had multiple vendors out there. We had the top of the parking garage full of vendors out there. We had the parking the top of the parking garage full of vendors and people. Uh, we had an amazing, amazing turnout of DJs. Just so much love with DJs that came out Um, I don't even know if I can name all of them. There was Pulse, there was Ill Flow, there was Damage, there was Dynamite, there was Dose, there was um was dynamite, there was dose. There was um uh jewels. There was richie, rich, um, I think. Gus was out there, cheeto 1200 was out there. We had a lot of love. A lot of people came out and showed love. Some of the bug podcast crew went out there. Um, the Bakersfield police went out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a fun little.
Speaker 1:We got there at about 8 o'clock in the morning to set up with Primos and everybody else that showed up, and as soon as we got to the top of the parking garage, three police also got to the top of the parking garage. Yes, and um asked us about our event, said that somebody had already filed a complaint with concerns, um about our event and we had not even set up a single speaker yet. Nothing had been set up yet, no, so there was no noise, there was nothing else, just people minding their business going to the top of the parking garage and setting up for an event that they were authorized to have. But there was some confusion because there's multiple parking garages on 18th downtown bakersfield and a lot of people were going to the incorrect parking garage, which also houses police vehicles.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So unfortunately, somebody within that department, I think, had to stay up there and deter people away and let them know, repoint them. So we thank you for that. We apologize for that. We thank you for coming out showing support and all the stickers you gave out that we were able to give to the kids. Um, showing support. Um, salita james. Um, she donated a ton of toys. She wasn't able to make it out with rolls royce closets, but she uh, donated, brought out a bunch of toys that we were able to give out to all the kids that were there. We had classic cars out there, we had a jumper out there, ritzy's Party Rentals was out there supporting. We had a live artist. It was a great event. It was really a great event. It was ran by the family. Our daughters were selling tickets and our sons and nephews were running security.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:But it was a beautiful day. We look forward to doing it again and we probably will do it again just as soon as we can plan it correctly, make the changes that we want to make to it, which would include a porta potty.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We didn't have any restrooms there um maybe give people a little more time to work their schedule around it yeah um, because we planned it really quick. I mean, when we set our mind to do something, we do it. We don't slack off or anything. We literally plan this within what? What? Three weeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was very, very quick. It came about very quick. We received vendors very quick. We got a flyer, a banner printed out with flyer created. Yeah, big shout out to Monroe Bot and Stacy Henzo for all of the graphics and design and everything else.
Speaker 2:A big shout out to QCS Quick.
Speaker 1:Custom qcs. Oh yeah, they. They printed out the the huge banner. I think it was like 10 foot by four foot or something. It was a very, very large banner printed out the same day and they do all of the pop-ups and all of the tents and all the graphics. I think they do vinyl, they do everything Anything printing you needed done. Quick quality signs, quick custom signs. Qcs I don't remember their exact name.
Speaker 1:We've had a couple Havana nights since then, great Havana nights, and next month Havana will turn one year old. That's crazy. Havana will turn one year old. That's crazy. Havana is already one years old. So we have a one year old anniversary coming up that we are also not going to make. No, we are booked. We have another event going, but of course, stephanie and Carlos and everybody else there at Havana in 1933, legends will be there to continue running it and supporting it, and hopefully, the month after we have that date secured so we can actually be back at our home event Havana. Yes, yes, we missed this month and we're going to miss next month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's definitely hard, because our Hana nights have been landing on a saturday and those are our wedding events yeah, and it's the wedding season, yeah, so it was bound to happen.
Speaker 1:It was gonna happen, it was gonna come up. Um, yeah, we had, uh, sarah's seventh birthday party yes, the cutest little girl.
Speaker 2:It was her best day ever.
Speaker 1:Oh, she said that so many times. It makes you feel good. This is the best day ever which you know. I think she probably says that about anything when she gets her way or gets what she wants. This is the best day ever.
Speaker 2:But it's the cutest yeah it meant a lot.
Speaker 1:It was a Descendants theme, disney Descendants, and there were so many costumes. Adults and kids alike were in costumes. There was a girl on stilts out there, there was a face painter, there was a balloon artist, there was ourselves DJing, emceeing, running games for the kids out on the floor. Quite a bit, quite a bit. It was a fun little event, fun event. We had the comedy show, clyde's comedy show, cmaq productions. That was a great event as well. Um, some wild birthday stuff was going on up on the stage. Yeah, I won't, I won't say any names, but uh, your boy had to turn and face the wall while he was DJing to not see and witness.
Speaker 2:We're not going to mention any names, but she's a good friend of ours.
Speaker 1:Yes, she is.
Speaker 2:She is so much fun she really is, and I think she just. She balled out up there, she had fun, it was her birthday.
Speaker 1:You know, you only get one 40th or 150th, however old she is, now I'm gonna say 40 I'll give her 40 um, you know, you only get to turn 40 once, and uh, she turned 40 once and she does not look like she's 40. Oh no, no no, no, she's done very well for herself, taking care of herself. She's, she's done good.
Speaker 1:She's done good. We also had another event out at Highgate. We had the the school luau dance, which was a great event as well. We had balloon crafted pineapples. We had a huge balloon arch, we had all the DJ set up, we had the photo booth and a balloon wall behind the photo booth.
Speaker 2:Which the balloon wall behind the photo booth was like a.
Speaker 1:It was an emergency act.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Our backdrops don't do real well in the weather outside, wind, stuff like that. Think of it as a pirate ship and a sailboat. Right you have these big old sails that catch air and push the boat along. Well, the photo booth backgrounds do the same thing they catch air and they fly off. So but that one was good. The beginning of that was an autistic. There was a big autistic crowd there, yes, the beginning of it. So the beginning of it we were quiet, you know it was low. We were just chilling. We, you know, make sure no sensory issues or things like that. And that was the first half hour hour. Then, after that, we cranked it up. They had a Aloha dance team out there, luau, doing all the cultural Polynesian dancing, which was beautiful and amazing. We had a huge conga line.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Huge conga line that both parents and kids got involved with. That was a lot of fun and played some games. There were some food vendors out there, drink vendors out there. It was a nice turnout. Yes, it was a nice turnout.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:It was a nice turnout. We we then had a wedding out in Keene, twin Oaks, california yes, twin Oaks, which is basically between here and Isabella, california, going up through keen and caliente, and that wedding was was pretty amazing too yeah that was a country wedding.
Speaker 1:That was strictly country. That was all country, all night, all day, all night. It was all country and we rocked it. Uh, country not being my main genre or anything, but being very familiar with country because of my, my parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts, and you know stuff like that, I, I know that country music, um, and it grows on you too yeah, the family was absolutely lovely yeah, the venue up there, the the lady's ranch.
Speaker 1:She's talking about converting it and using it as a dual purpose, as a venue as well, and, uh, we had a couple suggestions for her um, just small ones, but otherwise we thought that it went amazing. I thought I thought they did a great job it was I thought they did great.
Speaker 1:Um, what else do we got going? We've had multiple photo booths out in the wild. I mean, I guess probably over the last two months we've had 20 photo booths out in the wild. I mean, I guess probably over the last two months we've had 20 photo booths out I know it's crazy how it's kicked up, so much I mean next Saturday alone. We have three photo booths going out on the same day.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That's going to be a tough one.
Speaker 2:It definitely is, because I also have a balloon thing to do. What do you have to?
Speaker 1:do. Oh, the Mother's day balloon and 1933 legends. Yes, now I don't know if it's still called 1933 or if it's called legends or if it's called 1933 legends I'm not sure what the exact naming convention is yet. Um, but the georges took over um and if you're not familiar with george, I believe it's massad um, he's the owner. They're the owners of mcgary's, I think, waterfall cleaners, some other businesses, some other stuff around town. Great guys, a great business. Um, really hoping to. You know, see what they do with 1933. They've already converted part of it into a cigar lounge, cigar bar, a real chill atmosphere out there. So real excited to see what they continue doing, what. I think the menu is changing there a little bit as well. The event center is going to change a little bit. I believe they're going to take out some of the VIP booths and things of that nature and open it up to fit more people. Yeah, which is also great. Um, wow, what it's been a blur. It's been a blur. We, uh, we went out to ohio we did.
Speaker 1:We went to go see mom yeah, we went to go see my mom out in ohio, uh, surprised her on a like a two-day notice, like two days prior. We said, hey, mom, we're going to be out there in two days. And you know, I don't think mom really believed us at that point, but at the end of the conversation she knew that we were serious and, yeah, we had bought tickets and we were headed out there and we had a great time out there too. Now, every time we go out there, we try to help time out there too. Now, every time we go out there, we try to help them out with every anything we can. Um, and it's not that they need a lot of help, you know, just the extra stuff.
Speaker 2:so yeah, it's like the dust right, like we don't want mom on a ladder and she just shouldn't be on a ladder, but make things cozy for her yeah, so we got.
Speaker 1:We got a lady out there, a lady and her husband. They came out and they deep cleaned their house and they were pretty ecstatic with that. We did a lot of work in the backyard. We hung string lights around her gazebo. In her gazebo we hung solar lights on her fence posts. We put stair lights on her stairs All solar powered. Everything is just works. You know, they have remotes for the lights outside. They can turn them on, turn them off. We went to the casino a few times out there.
Speaker 2:We did, we did we had a good time.
Speaker 1:Took mom to the casino. She likes to play every once in a while. She won't really go on her own, but if we take her she'll go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and she just goes because we're there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the only reason mom goes.
Speaker 2:She went with us once and then the next two times. She didn't want to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not her thing, it's not, it's just not her thing.
Speaker 2:So we kind of waited until she went to bed so we wouldn't take time away from her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we went after 10 o'clock or 9 o'clock at night Casinos don't sleep, so mom can sleep and we can go play.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you don't know this about mom, she will stay up until we say we're going to bed.
Speaker 1:Oh, she'll fight. Yeah, she'll fight. She'll be fighting to stay awake. She'll fight. Yeah, she'll fight. She'll be fighting to stay awake. You know it'll be 11 o'clock at night and she'll be fighting to stay awake to spend time with us like a little toddler we had a lot of good food out there, a lot of good drinks out there.
Speaker 1:um, it was just good. It's good to get out there and reset and kind of get back to a baseline, kind of get back to a norm. Mental health, physical health, emotional health, psychological health it's all important and sometimes you just got to step back and step away and focus on those things and make sure that you're good and okay and healthy. Yes, yes. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, we do. We need to refocus sometimes.
Speaker 1:We also had a. The night before we went out and flew out of here from Bakersfield to Columbus, we had a 420 event. We did, and that was a pretty nice event too.
Speaker 2:That was fun.
Speaker 1:It was fun, it was a donation of our time, of our equipment, everything else, um, you know, trying to give back to the community and communities and went out there there was a local kid I believe he was a local kid, and it was rapping, um performing. You know, he performed, uh, I think 10, 8 or 10 of his songs and I, uh, I had him come out and do it twice yeah I was like hey, man, you know you did it early on. Now there's more people here, let's do it again.
Speaker 1:Yeah you know, let's get you some more, some more views. Let's get you some more, you know, on more people's radar and, you know, have people enjoy that and experience your music, your sound. Needless to say, we got all kinds of goodies.
Speaker 2:Everybody took really good care of us, yeah everybody took good care of us.
Speaker 1:There was a bunch of vendors out there and they all dropped by some very nice things for us. I was really impressed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everybody's so nice. What was that lemonade place that I got?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you posted her, she was pretty good.
Speaker 2:Her name was Coco Sweets.
Speaker 1:Coco Sweets.
Speaker 2:Yes, Coco Sweets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So her lemonades. If you ever needed someone to come out and do lemonade, she was awesome.
Speaker 1:We had an early easter here at the house with the family. You know the, the brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces, and everybody all came out and we had a good time here at the house. We played games. Anybody that's been here knows that we have games all over the house. You know anything, anything from Tetris Tumble to Monopoly, to Loteria, to Uno, to Pictionary, to Pie Face, to Candyland, to Connect Four to Tic-Tac-Toe to. You know we enjoy games in this house. Oh, yahtzee. We can't forget Yahtzee. No, we can't. You know what. Everybody right now stop what you're doing Order Yahtzee on Amazon or go to the store and buy Yahtzee and start playing Yahtzee with your friends and parents, and it's a great game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, overall, I suggest you guys all play games with your family. It is just such a great bonding experience.
Speaker 1:And you really get a different version of people sometimes. Yes, like my daughter, avery is competitive.
Speaker 2:She don't like losing to the point where she'll cheat hey, what's this thing?
Speaker 1:if you're not cheating, you're not trying, yeah, she'll hide a domino in her pocket to say she was out of dominoes or something. You know she'll.
Speaker 2:She'll do all kinds of stuff so bad, but she has fun and um and we get to talk to them, right, they'll tell us what's going on like. We start off with dinner and we talk about what's going on in their day and then we play games and we absolutely love it. We love having that time with our daughters and you know, sometimes weekends we're so busy, so we really cherish our our dinner time with our girls you know and I don't want it to sound like we're the brady bunch because we're not we have problems just like everybody else.
Speaker 1:Um, we have our little disagreements and arguments and, you know, issues and having to, you know, manage the girls or reprimand them or whatever we, we we're the same as you guys, we're the same as everybody else. This is just something that we do, that we take a little bit of time because, again, like marion said, we work all week, we work all weekend. We have to take the time that we're given and use it correctly, and dinner time is a perfect time to to everybody sit down at the table, turn, turn off their devices, face them, face them, screen down, leave them in their rooms, do whatever sit and eat, sit and talk, sit and joke, sit and have a serious conversation, whatever it may be. Pull out the board games or the card games Usually it's Uno in our family, you know with the girls.
Speaker 2:Uno, no mercy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have quite a few Uno games y'all, like it's no, no mercy. Yeah, we have quite a few uno games y'all like we have uno, no mercy. We have um, what's the other one's called um all wild all wild uno. We have comically large uno like the. The. The cards are bigger than my hands. It's giant, giant uno. That's exactly what it's called.
Speaker 2:Okay, um but we like, like, even our tetris is giant.
Speaker 1:We have a giant tetris, tumble, yeah um we got the original tetris tumble like three years ago, literally three years ago, and it's still sitting down right in front of us, just like the big tetris is. Um, and it's a little Tetris tumble. It's like a travel size one, if you will. Comparatively to the one that's as tall as me, it's a very small Tetris tumble.
Speaker 2:Yes, we have Hangman. The girls like to watch, I mean like to play Hangman.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have this magnetic Hangman game where once the final leg gets attached, it just proves to be too much weight and it it tumbles right. So hangman, you got hangman. Um, yeah, we have all kinds of just cool little games. We have nintendo switches, we have you know whatever else. But we really do enjoy our card games and dice games and domino games and board games and things of that nature. Monopoly takes too long.
Speaker 2:Yes, it does. I mean, we tried, but it's not a dinner, an after dinner game.
Speaker 1:No, that has to be its own session. I think you have to set a two-hour session aside from Monopoly.
Speaker 2:You have to do it maybe on a Sunday after lunch or something monopoly like you have to do it maybe on a sunday after lunch or something um we also do.
Speaker 1:We also built a chest out of legos. Oh yeah, we got a chess set a lego chess set.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fun story, oh yeah um, we, I played chess with my father-in-law and you know he obviously didn't think I knew what the pieces did, but I did because my dad plays, my dad plays, he played professionally. Um, he played um chess. So it was fun because we got them together and they played chess online and it was. It was cool. You know, it was a play date it was a play date. It was a play date for the grandpas we set up play dates for grandpas.
Speaker 1:Well, needless to say, little did they know that they both joined the army at the same time. They were both deployed in Germany at the same time and they're both very intelligent human beings. Yeah, one of them was nuclear crypto and one of them was a ranger or something. So very, very intelligent, dangerous men.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, but it was fun. It was fun and hopefully they keep on playing chess together. I mean, obviously the time zones are complete, it's a three-hour difference, but I hope they keep playing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they both play Warcraft, or they did at one point, so they may both join up and link up on Warcraft 2 eventually, which is really cool.
Speaker 1:We have. This Friday we're going to be at Sundale Country Club. Yeah, sundale Country Club, north of the river, north Kern, north of the river. They have like a scholarship thing where they're raising money for four of the northern schools in Bakersfield and I think it was like Liberty North and a couple others, whatever's on the north side of Bakersfield. So we're going to donate our time out there and, you know, go support a good cause, go support a good cause.
Speaker 1:We have weddings out the kazoo lined up. It seems like we have two weddings one in Paso Robles coming up. We have one in what's the other, the other one that's right out there, cambria, paso and Cambria something or Tascadero. So those three out there we're going to be out there the next few weeks. We got a couple big weddings out there. We have another wedding here in town, two weddings, three. So we have about five weddings over this next month. I think. Yeah, five weddings, multiple photo booths.
Speaker 1:What else are we getting into? We got an action cam, 360 action cam. You know, I think Dose and ill flow might've started that little trend here in town. Rich got one and he got. You know, rich got all of us DJs over there at Chewy's, and I think there was over over 11 DJs there at Chewy's that night with the action cam, so we had been seeing them online too with all the DJ vlogs and stuff that we watch. So we went ahead and picked one of those up as well and it's proven to be pretty cool. Yeah, it is. We've gotten a lot of footage off of them. Lots of footage off of them.
Speaker 2:This last Sweet 16 we did was cool with the 360.
Speaker 1:We got four Cold Sparks.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We have four mini Cold Sparks. They are just larger than an iPhone as far as height goes. Right, they're still a little cube device. They're still a little four by four, five by five cube device, but they're about the size of an iPhone. Yes, height wise and apparently just as powerful. So we got those, picked those up, those came in, we got powder for them, all that good stuff. Um, oh, we got mom and air purifier. Oh, we did. Yeah, we had to get mom and air purifier out there. You know, we got that deep clean and everything else done out there and we wanted to try to keep most of those particulates and stuff out of the air and maybe help keep the house a little cleaner. Um, we had to pick up a couple, uh, a couple phone cases. We need to get some new phone cases. We didn't have them little mag safe cases and, uh, we bought a couple mag safe battery packs that just snap right on the back of the phone and charge wirelessly you know all of it.
Speaker 2:It's everything we get we try to get for our business and um the battery packs. Sometimes we're recording and or using our hotspot and we run out of battery, so we needed to get some extra charge yeah, so now we have, uh, two mag safes, we also have two portable ones.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, and at point you just have to make sure that you charge those guys. Nothing is going to prevent you from having to charge a device. You're going to have to charge one device or another.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But we also have some huge news, huge, huge, huge news, huge news, huge, huge news. Now we're going to send it over to Marion for the huge news update.
Speaker 2:What's the huge news?
Speaker 1:What's the huge news? Yeah, you're a podcast star now.
Speaker 2:Oh, stop A YouTube star.
Speaker 1:We got a YouTube star in our midst y'all.
Speaker 2:Stop, we're trying.
Speaker 1:So we enjoy going to the casino and it's a losing venture, so don't do it. No, but you play right. You can compare it to going to Disneyland or Magic Mountain and however much you spend there for your experience, that's what you're spending at the casino for an experience, right, and possibly an option to to actually win some big money sometimes. And, uh, we've been watching these casino videos for a long, long time. I mean every day on youtube or something. We're watching one of the one of the creators, one of the content creators, and, like you know what, as much as we're there, we can do the same thing yeah like why not try to get monetized for this?
Speaker 1:why not try to cut back on some of the costs, if not make some money on some legit business, right? Yeah so we are now on youtube. Our channel name is at the ampersand the at symbol, the at symbol. All about the bonuses. Yes, now the reason we named it this. I guess you could say hip hop, you know. You know all about the Benjamins. Whatever you want to call, you know.
Speaker 2:That's what kind of brought it on is all about the Benjamins, right?
Speaker 1:I mean, we love music and so I I thought it was perfect, so we named it all about the bonuses and that's what we want to get, right benjamins when we're playing and that's our content is bonuses, because it's what we've experienced and what you guys will look at if, if you listen to this through and decide you want to go watch some slot videos. Uh, the difference between our channel and everybody else's channel, which you have to have a differentiating factor, is that we focus on bonuses and only bonuses. You're not going to get any just spinning a wheel, spinning a whatever. We only record bonuses. We only record bonuses. And what we experienced when we first started watching these videos is we would find ourselves forwarding endlessly until we seen the bonus hit. So we're skipping 80 90 percent of the person's content just to see the bonuses. Yes, and we said we couldn't be alone in this.
Speaker 2:We can't be the only people that don't want to spend an hour watching a video to see three bonuses no, and you see that right when you're watching the bonus, the videos, you're seeing where, where you're trying to fast forward, you see that little elevation the graphs the little graph. Yeah, and that's where you normally want to fast forward to, because that's where everyone else is fast forwarding to.
Speaker 1:So we went all in. We had a logo created, we had a banner created, our YouTube channel looks pretty official and one of the other things that is going to set us apart from everybody else is our aspect ratio. Us apart from everybody else is our aspect ratio. A lot of these content creators go for the longer full videos and they're at 16 by 9, but it chops off the bottom of the machine. It chops off the top of the machine. You can't see the bonus trigger up at the top, you can't see the minors, the majors, the grands, the minis, and then you can't see any of the controls down below, and we do not like that format. So we record four by three or three by four, you know, vertically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you're going to watch it on your phone, and mostly people are watching videos on their phone nowadays. They're not watching it on their TV videos on their phone.
Speaker 1:Nowadays they're not watching it on their TV and generally it appears through the analytics that they're watching in the afternoons and evenings, so that's on their lunch breaks, on their breaks or in the evening. And again, our shorts videos are only a minute or two long now, so you can watch one of our videos and get through it and move on with your day. Give us a like, give us a comment, give us a subscribe, do all that good stuff, help us get monetized. But we're not asking for an hour of your day. Most of the time we're asking for a few minutes of your day.
Speaker 1:I think the longest video we have is a 10-minute video, and it's because we got a triple bonus or a double bonus, and they normally go a little bit longer, and the other longer videos are our subscriber. Uh, celebrations, right? Oh, we got 10 subscribers. Let's do a special 10 spin for 10 spins, whatever it may be, and those are the longer videos as well. But we got uh recording equipment. We have microphones, we have road mics, we have DJI mics, we have gimbals, we have everything you can think of to do this right and do this correctly, similar to what we do with everything that we try to get involved in. You know your name's attached to something, do it right.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You know, if you don't do things right, I know how you're going to do things going forward and they're not going to be right. So you have to do things right. The small things, the big things, you have to do them right. You can't just expect success for mediocrity. You can't just open a YouTube channel and say, oh, I want to get monetized and I want to be successful and everything else. If you're not doing what it takes to be successful, if you're not doing all those right things, if you're not doing all of the in-between steps. And most of the time nowadays people just want to get rich quick and I don't think they want to put in the actual work and effort of what it requires yeah but, um, we've had some home issues, we've had some home challenges.
Speaker 1:We had a little leak under the house. We had a hot water heater go out. Um, yeah, we have a clog in the back studio, we you know. So we've tried a couple plumbers. You know some of them are better than others, some of them aren't worth a shit and some of them again are just trying to make money off of you really quick. You know the, the hot water heater and for instance, it had nine flashing red lights on it. And you know, anybody with a phone or the internet or anything else can look up water heater blinking nine times and it tells you exactly what it is. It's an internal combustion chamber sensor. So you had a bad sensor. Now somebody coming out and trying to tell you uh, my, I'm gonna estimate five hundred dollars when I already know the sensor part is thirty dollars.
Speaker 1:Uh, you're gonna piss me the fuck off yes and I'm gonna let you know that I'm not ignorant and you're not gonna pull this over on us. You know like, and that's somebody that I will never do business with again after that. So if you're gonna do business with us, you better come correct, you better come factual, you better have all of your p's and q's and t's and i's and everything else checked, crossed, dotted, everything else, or we are just not gonna do business. No, um, and then the last plumber that came out he had all that, he did everything. He, uh, he was pretty awesome. He was awesome, he was right on, he wasn't out here to try to screw anybody over.
Speaker 1:Um, but I find that more and more in these service industries, it's hard to find people that are not trying to just rake you over the coals for some reason. Yeah, they're going to learn sooner than later that bad business is bad. Yeah, you're not going to get continued business, you're not going to grow, you're not going to have success if you do bad business. Yeah, so one plumber got a bad review and another plumber got a great review.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and now we got google talking to us in the background, acting like we're talking to her, saying that she didn't understand what we said we didn't even talk to her she goes crazy up here sometimes she does typical female behavior just stop it, huh so we're uh coming up into uh may, uh we're on uh april 30th, right now tomorrow's may yeah tomorrow is may. We got, uh, like I said, we have photo booths, we have balloons, we have weddings, weddings on the coast, havana nights um, we have a lot coming up and a lot going on. So hopefully we come back in May for you guys and get this podcast back on track and keep you updated and let you know everything that's going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What else do you got Ben.
Speaker 2:I think that's it.
Speaker 1:We want to talk about how shitty people are oh man, yeah, I mean, yeah, we had a real bad. We had a real bad incident. We had a real bad incident over, uh, we were doing balloons at a location that we normally do balloons at and photo booths, and, uh, marion went down there the next day, which was a friday this event was a thursday night and Marion went down there the next day, which was a Friday this event was a Thursday night thing. So she went down there Friday afternoon, went to pick up the photo booth and, you know, pop the balloons, tear them all down, throw them away. And my daughters, avery and Kai, were with her helping her out. And she went to go throw the, helping her out. And she went to go throw the balloons away in a trash can and some some guy comes out and asks her, confronts her about throwing balloons in the trash can and apparently it wasn't a shared dumpster or it could have been, and they were just being pricks about it, who knows, uh. But she said look, I threw them in the trash. I don't understand what the problem is. Right, they're trash, they're air, they're vinyl, they're not going to take up any space, they're in a trash can. Big deal Like what is the big deal here and the guy decided to call her a bitch as she walked away with my daughters. So she immediately texted me and of course I immediately drove down there.
Speaker 1:I went into the business that we were working with To find out what other businesses use said dumpster and found out that the neighbors do so. I knocked on the neighbor's door and a kid answered and Marion identified him. Yeah, that was him, and I had to have a talk with him and I had to ask him hey, do you think it's appropriate to call a female a bitch for throwing balloons, vinyl or air in the trash? And the kid doubled down like yeah, it is okay to do that. And I told him it wasn't. And I told him he needed to apologize. Immediately he said he wasn't going to fucking apologize. So I punched him in the mouth and a gun was pulled. Cops came out, police report All that good stuff. Charges weren't pressed, luckily.
Speaker 1:I guess I probably could have went to jail that day for assault, even though you know he both called Marion a bitch and an N-word. I won't even repeat the N-word, especially with a hard R. He was a white kid. He was about 6'6", 280 pounds. He was a big kid. I think he probably played football somewhere and yeah, it was very, very unfortunate that my family, my daughters, my wife, had to experience such hate, even knowing that it still happens today. It hadn't really happened to us, but we know, you know, you know it happens. Race is still a big problem for people for some reason, and it directly correlates to their IQ, I'm sure. But yeah, we've been running into a lot of nasty people lately, it seems like, and it's getting real tiring and real old.
Speaker 2:And it makes you feel not want to be nice anymore, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, unfortunately, that is what it makes you feel not want to be nice anymore. Right, like, yeah, unfortunately that is what it makes you feel like, like, I'm still gonna be the nice person if you're nice to me. Uh, however, the minute that you're disrespectful, the minute that you have an attitude, the minute that you say something, I am gonna check you yeah and I will give you an opportunity to think about what you just said and apologize for it, or I'm going to Call you out, call you out, and it's not going to be pretty.
Speaker 1:I'm done with it Not having it. I'm tired of it Not tolerating it. Don't bring your bullshit around here. It will not be accepted and I will check your ass quick around here. Um, it will not be accepted and I will check your ass quick. Yeah, um, but yeah, it's just been happening more and more and more and more ever since that that particular incident or are we just not letting things slide? Oh.
Speaker 2:So we're becoming more confrontational and not letting things slide, so that's why it's happening more often that's what I'm thinking that's a possibility it gets to the point where you get just get too tired of being nice and letting things just slide yeah right, so maybe that's what it is.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know there's a whole lot of tough guys and tough girls in cars around here too. A lot of people get real tough when they're inside their car until you get out of your car yeah and all of a sudden they're.
Speaker 1:They're not very tough anymore and they don't want to be rude and they don't want to honk at you or flash their lights at you or or try to look at you a certain way or whatever it may be. All of a sudden they don't want it. There's a whole lot of people that y'all got to settle down because that car does not make you invincible.
Speaker 2:It does not make you invincible.
Speaker 1:It does not make you invincible. You can get killed in a car, you can get pulled out of a car. All these things can still happen in a vehicle. So everybody just needs to slow down, be respectful, be courteous and understand that everybody is living a life and everybody's in a different place and a different position, and to just, you know, just check yourselves, yeah, and we have to check ourselves too, and you know we've lost sleep over some of these, these.
Speaker 1:you know, if you know events or situations that have happened recently and uh, you know it's just tiring.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. I mean, and I think the other thing too, Bebe, it's like people think that they're higher than you and they have this chip on their shoulder right, Like we had an incident at one of the casinos we go to and you know, it's like absolutely like ridiculous, you know yeah, customer service.
Speaker 1:Customer service has also just failed, like everything seems to be going to shit, and I hate to see. I hate to be that person, I hate to be the old white guy now that's talking about. You know how things used to be better, you know. But you know what? There were a lot of things better. And I'm not I'm not a trump guy, I'm not a biden guy, I'm not a republican, I'm not a democrat. So I'm not going to get into relate, you know, into into politics with you guys, but there were certain things in older generations that were better respect, customer service, um, just a lot of things, intangibles that are not being taught to these kids nowadays.
Speaker 1:And we had an incident with a neighbor down the street as well fairly recently. You know people out there revving their cars at you know 11, 30, 12 o'clock at night and I'm like, no, you're gonna have some respect for this fucking neighborhood. You know there's other people here, there's other people. They have to work, they have to get up, they, you know, have stress. They have a whole lot of things going on. So we'll see, we'll see. But I think that's about it. I think we're going to wrap up this podcast and we'll get back to you guys next month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this was fun.
Speaker 1:All right, guys, Take care. Thank you guys.
Speaker 2:Bye.