TOT#17 - Kenric, John, and Melissa Chat when a guest can't make it!

Tot 17 – Kenric and Melissa Part 1

[00:00:00] Oh,

Melissa: we have this guy in our neighborhood that drives one of those ridiculously loud exhaust cars and just comes screaming up the Hill once, once every evening. Like he’s, I mean, the speed limits are 25, dude. Where are you going?

So, and my windows are, my desk is right by my front windows. I live in a downtown area, so yeah. So hopefully there’ll be no screaming engine. I’ve been lucky so far. Knock on wood.

 

Kenric: Tiffin just about  your blood and magic. Look. The first one that I pull it, she should do the, the new one that you’re doing too.

Well, let me get through this

Melissa: one. Yeah.

Kenric: She’s going to like it. She loved the Twilight periods, so I know she’s going to love it.

Melissa: Okay. Yeah, there were there definitely more, more graphic,

Kenric: should be fine with that,

Melissa: but she’s an adult,

so she’ll

Melissa: yeah, my new one’s really different. Just it. it’s more of like a romance and the esteem.

Level is pretty, pretty high. I [00:01:00] actually had to put a 18 and over warning on it.

Could you give me your like

Kenric: yeah. Let’s make this steamy.

Melissa: No, exactly. And then I told my mom, I was like, please don’t read it. Just skip or skip over the parts.

Like,

Kenric: Oh my daughter.

Melissa: Yeah, my sister’s all like, Ooh, I can’t wait to read this.

And my mom’s kind of like, okay, maybe I won’t read this one.

Is it more like

Kenric: 50 shades of gray with vampires?

Melissa: Or

how do you want to,

Kenric: we can do a big push on it with, you know, with everything. I don’t know how, you know.

Melissa: Yeah, I would love to my, so my official pub date is, next Tuesday. So I, yeah, I’m in just pushing stuff on social media because, I’m not really spending any money on advertising at the moment. I want to see what happens organically,

Kenric: but it sounds because like, weren’t you in like the top five or some shit like that on Amazon?

Yeah.

Melissa: As soon as I put the, the [00:02:00] book up for pre-order all of a sudden, like a bunch of people went on and pre-ordered it, and then it pushed its rankings up. So that’s the first time I’ve ever ranked that high with a book that’s not even out.

Kenric: And it’s self-published

Kenric: Congrats, man. I

Melissa: hope was exciting. Big time. Thank you. Me too. This is all I want to do, you know, full time is right. I don’t want to go back to working in a hotel.

Kenric: I don’t blame you,

Melissa: especially now with COVID and everything.

Kenric: I think too, like when we have a [00:04:00] conversation, an

interview,

Kenric: do you think as part of this, part of the verse, like

fully, fully,

Kenric: like that story you talked about with Steven Spielberg and stuff? Do you have other ones like that?

Melissa: Oh yeah, that was, Oh my God, dude. I have so many, if I have a funny story about Ian, Ziering asking me out.

cause I sent him a fruit basket.

Kenric: Megan Fox.

Melissa: no that’s that was the other guy. No, Ian’s during was the blonde.

I

Melissa: don’t know who he’s married to now. I think it’s, he’s a model Instagram model. He’s 92. He’s only played Steve Sanders and

Kenric: he was on nine Oh two one Oh.

Melissa: Yeah, he was, yeah, he was on a turn up at the, you’re thinking of the other guy was with Megan Fox, David Austin, Ryan Austin, or whatever.

That’s right.

Melissa: Yeah. No answering, I’ve waited on in searing twice around it. Ironically

Kenric: SWAT in swamp thing.

 

Melissa: Hmm. He might’ve been, I know he was then, do you remember that bounty Hunter movie, called domino really? Really good movie. He, [00:05:00] he, him and, Brian Austin Green played themselves in that film as like actors that got kidnapped by them.

Yeah. He was in Sharknado too. Yeah,

Kenric: exactly.

Yeah. He was food devil and swamp thing as well. Okay.

Okay.

Kenric: He was good in that.

Yeah. Yeah. So I have a,

Melissa: I have a funniest stories with him cause I’ve waited on him twice, two separate occasions in two different places. And he remembered me the second time we met and it was just, yeah, it was pretty funny.

And then I’ve had a funny story with Dave Chappelle. he was,

he was so,

Melissa: Oh my God. Yeah, he was so stoned. Was he funny, but he was so funny. Everyone was like freaking out like the whole staff, because I waited on him when the Chappelle show was still on the air. So he was like at the peak, you know, of his fame and, it was at pebble beach.

So yeah, that was a funny one. what else?

Kenric: I just watched sticks and stones the other day.

Melissa: This

works. I love it.

Kenric: I love that. I love his comedy.

People [00:06:00] hate it, but

Melissa: he’s beautiful areas. He’s, he’s pushed his limits. I mean, I just watched his last up. I didn’t get outside.

Yeah.

Melissa: Is that what it was called?

Kenric: Oh, when he did.

I don’t think I

Melissa: remember.

Kenric: Was he wearing like a number?

Melissa: Yeah, no. He was like wearing like jeans, I think in a shirt. And he was just chain smoking onstage.

Kenric: It was like, he really sticks and stones in that at the same time.

Melissa: Oh, okay. Yeah, you’re right. Cause there was one on Netflix. This one was on YouTube, but you had to watch it and he totally rips on a Trevor Noah or not Trevor Noah.

what’s the same. He rips on the same from CNN

Kenric: Anthony peel. Oh,

Melissa: don’t know, Don lemon, Don lemon. Because Don lemon had said some things to celebrities, you know, during the BLM movement and then Chappelle didn’t agree with him. So he like went off on him and then it was like, honestly, and, and the next day they were like, Dave Chappelle, rips,

CNN, Don lemon.

[00:07:00] Cancel

Kenric: canceled. Yeah. Oh, do you have to see why? Oh, it’s

Melissa: Oh, it’s dead. Now. You said he’s sick. Ah, okay. Well, at least we got to chat.

Kenric: Yeah. That’s crazy.

Melissa: Give us more time to get some more questions together.

Kenric: Yeah. Yeah. That’s too bad.

Melissa: That’s crazy.

Kenric: My mom was excited for this one.

Melissa: My dad too. My dad loves him and he, but he’s on my dad’s list of his favorite knives.

Kenric: My mom is super religious, right. Super conservative. And when I say, Hey, mom, guess who I’m talking to today? She was like, who? And I said, Louis Gossett, Jr. And I don’t think she even realizes she goes, Hmm.

Oh, he’s so good

like that at all.

Melissa: No,

[00:08:00] Kenric: he likes him

Melissa: so funny.

Kenric: Oh, that she likes, she liked him. And she’s so funny. Cause like my mom is border racist. You know what I mean? Because everything is like on the fringe of things she says, but her favorite actors are Sydney part da and Louis Gossett, Jr.

Melissa: Yeah, I

Kenric: think she’s definitely wanted to be with the black guy.

Melissa: Well, you’re going to laugh. So my mom is in love with pit bull.

Kenric: It’s so weird.

He’s just

Melissa: like, Oh, he’s so hot. And I’m like,

wow, how old is your mom?

Melissa: My mom is she’s well, she’s 70, but she’s like a young 70. If you’ve met

her

Kenric: hit like 74 and then everything just kind of went downhill from there. Yeah. She got really sick in 2014. I went to go hang out with her for [00:09:00] a weekend.

Right. It was July 4th weekend. I went to go there for the weekend and I ended up being there for six months taking care of her and she almost died. What was it, Johnny? Three times. Yeah, it was, it was rough. It was rough. Yeah. And then, yeah, it was so weird

and then

Kenric: she’s, she’s better, but she’s not what she was, you know what I mean?

She can’t go, you can’t go through, she had diverticulitis and she’s had diverticulitis for a long time. And so they had to remove like a big chunk. Right. So, and ever since, and then she almost died on the opera. It was, it was an operation was to take 45 minutes. She was there for stressful.

Melissa: Yeah.

Did you want to start it on the table

Melissa: or

Kenric: all this stuff?

Melissa: Yeah. And at that age, it’s just, it’s harder, you know, on your body to come. Like you said, to bounce back from that and it’s just so terrible.

Kenric: She’s never fully bounce back. She’s always, you know, she has to use a cane now or a Walker. I took her on vacation in August. We took her down to seaside, Oregon, just, you know, to hang [00:10:00] out and do things that we could do, like remotely away from people.

We drove into the side. We’re like, no, we’re not getting out of the car. There was Melissa, there were so many people there. Thousands of people that are nobody wearing a face mask. I am not

Melissa: letting my mom get it.

Kenric: Yeah,

Melissa: I don’t get it. It’s like that here too. I mean, we have these beautiful beaches and we have cannery row and all these freaking people come in every weekend from God knows where, and they’re just massing on the beaches without masks.

And we just do these, like drive-bys to check it out. but yeah, you don’t get out of the car. I mean, there’s no,

Kenric: we got out of the car. We ended up in, Tillamook, which is South of cannon beach, South of seaside. And that first day,

it’s a,

Kenric: it’s a, like an eight hour car ride from where we live. And that first day was rough on her.

She couldn’t do anything. Right. We got, we got her to the hotel room. She went to bed like at [00:11:00] seven, he was out. And then we got up the next day and just that long travel the day before killed her for the next day we had, we had to find a bathroom every 20 minutes because she just couldn’t

Melissa: handle a poor thing.

Yeah.

Kenric: Yeah. And then we ended up having the hotel room, like at three o’clock in the afternoon. And then, you know, that we had to go, okay, well, what do we do now? We’ve got to find something to do. We couldn’t go to the beach. So we found a private, we found a getaway beach. That was nobody was there. Yeah. But then there were sand fleas and they weren’t there when we first got, you know what I mean?

But then the sensor went out and they just came out of nowhere and they totally attacked Ella. Like she was just once.

She was like, she

Melissa: was all happy

Kenric: and then she just starts and freaking out and they’re just all, they’re just jumping up and nipping her legs and everything.

Yeah.

Kenric: And then the next day

Melissa: vacation.

Kenric: Yeah, the next day she was fine, you know, and we were able to go to different places and okay. Go to [00:12:00] Canada. We went to, and beach and took pictures by haystack rock. But in the, we didn’t want to go down into the beach cause it’s too many people. So we just went up to the top, took pictures and went right back.

Cause we were just like, I just, I’m not going to risk it.

Melissa: Oh, no, you can not wait. Especially when someone has a compromised immune system. I mean, even as a healthy person, I, you know, I don’t want to risk being around people.

Kenric: Right. And you’re showing that some schools have gotten it and then gotten better.

I’ve had the drill effects from it.

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. Chris, what’s the same, Cuomo fry that’s on CNN. And he had COVID early on when we all, when we first hit and he talks about his, the after-effects that he’s, he’s joined some sort of like support group and they all share their experiences and it’s yeah.

It’s like fatigue and headaches and just brain fog and stuff like that. That continues on, you know, so they, scientists still don’t really know the long-term effects of this disease.

Kenric: Yeah,

it’s, it’s

John: one of the guys on the network, [00:13:00] South from nursing to grabbed

him and I’ve had it,

Oh God, three or four months ago.

And he says, they, they both still have issues with it, like every now and then they’ll just get super

tired of the camp where their breathing will be harder.

Like they’ll get exhausted.

and that they had, I think they went through a three or four months ago. Wow. Johnny, turn your mic up.

Melissa: That’s so scary.

Kenric: Yeah, it’s super weird. You know, it’s like, what do

you,

Kenric: I don’t know. I get, I gotta go to the store all the time. So it’s like, you know, mask constantly doing this because we don’t have a lot of room. So it’s like, I’m con I feel like I’m constantly going to the store, you know?

Melissa: Do you ever do it? And like Instacart,

Kenric: I started to, yeah, I should do Instacart.

Melissa: That’s what I do now. I mean, it is pricier. Cause you have to pay a little bit more for the actual products and then you have to tip them. But I do the monthly thing. So that waives my delivery fee. Wait, like if you’re gonna order a lot from them, then just pay the 10 bucks a month and then you don’t have to pay for again, [00:14:00] like $8 delivery fee every time.

John: You’re not that much more expensive. I can get the little local QFC here. Cause we that’s how we order from right. Yeah.

Must it’s it’s really,

barring like the, with and

finding their super deals and shit they have.

it’s. I mean, we, we pay about the same as it would just go into the store and we don’t have to go the store.

So it’s not that different when you order online and you just go down there and they just bring it out

Melissa: to you. The curbside. Yeah. That’s that’s good too, because then you don’t have to deal with you deal with just one person.

Kenric: I can’t, I got to get out of the house. I’m a people person. It’s hard for me to be cooped up like this.

Melissa: I’m such an introvert. So I mean, yeah, I’m good.

Kenric: Yeah. I’m like, man, I want to kill out. I want to go do something. We were just

Melissa: traveling. Like that’s my biggest thing is, you know, cause I would just get on a plane and go to Seattle and visit my friend and I’d spend the weekend together just getting drunk on Capitol Hill.

What’s that.

Kenric: So now you have multiple friends [00:15:00] that go see you in Seattle.

Melissa: I know I’m excited now. I’ve got like a whole crew. We can all hopefully go out. We’re going party. Yeah, I love so when I’m on vacation, I like to be out. I hate being in a hotel room. I hate being stuck inside. I like want to see the city and I love I’m a big foodie.

So there’s actually, one of my favorite restaurants is in Seattle is Capitol cider.

Kenric: Oh, okay. I haven’t been to that one. You should try Sarah Phoenix. Next time. You’re here.

Melissa: Oh, good. Well, Capitol cider is a scratch kitchen and everything on the menu is gluten free. So I don’t know if you guys know that I don’t eat gluten.

Oh, nice. I have a I’m allergic to it. so yeah, I’ve been gluten free for like seven years. Yeah, celiacs.

Kenric: What was it like when you were trying to figure out what the fuck is going on with me? And then doctors, aren’t great at diagnosing celiac and even the ones who are white might actually say you have celiac.

Don’t always believe in it, which is weird to me. You have this disease that has been proven, and then there’s literal doctors that don’t believe that that it’s going on to finally going [00:16:00] this is what’s, changing your diet and your whole world change. What was

Melissa: that like? It was crazy. It was actually not even a doctor.

It was at the time I was doing hair. I did hair for like 20 years and I had one of my clients. she was a super like bougie, you know, rich lady, but all into, you know, yoga and organic food. And basically the whole time I was giving her a highlight. She. Just lectured me on food and about gluten. And I thought I started asking her, okay, well, what are the symptoms of, you know, that?

And it just started to click. And I said, I think maybe my problem. So I came home and decided to quit, like gluten, like cold Turkey, like just cut it out completely. And this was like seven years ago. So it was even fewer products. Yeah. Yeah. There was like nothing too. Yeah. It’s much easier now. And I cook a lot.

it’s like the Italian enemy. I’m a really good cook, so I just make everything myself. But yeah, when I’m on vacation, I have to like scout for all the gluten-free restaurant. Do you [00:17:00] just

Kenric: eat a ton of protein when you go out? And just stay away from

Melissa: the park for the most part. Yeah. Like, I’ll get, like I’ll get like a burger without the button, you know, and like a lettuce wrap or some thing.

yeah.

Well, I can

Kenric: do that. You know, I just don’t like it when they preach

to me why

Kenric: I shouldn’t eat, you know what I mean?

I’m

Kenric: like, Oh God, go away. I respect you. I will do what I can to help you out, but I’m, you know, I’m going to order that steak.

Melissa: No, exactly. And I have a friend who’s vegan and, I was doing a vegan thing just for like a week as more like a cleanse, just to kind of, you know yeah.

Better feel healthier. And I will say this when you eat vegan food, you actually do feel like lighter and more energy. so it’s kind of strange. I mean, I guess over long periods of time though, I don’t think you should go without protein, but I think it’s cool to like, do it, do it in spurts just to give yourself a break from all that red meat.

Yeah. My, my vegan friend is like, You know, Oh, he’s [00:18:00] like, it’s the best. And you know, you should totally be vegan. And I’m like, no, I’m good. Like makes I like my, I like bacon.

Yeah,

Kenric: me too. I’m the same way I love, I love steaks. I love bacon. I love pork chops. I love, you know what I mean? I think you want to do it right though.

You know, it’s a great,

Kenric: good book is the big fat surprise.

And it, it

Kenric: races, fat in our diet from when like prior to 1929, somewhere around there. Don’t quote me on that date, but somewhere around there. And if you go to, if you read the book and I’ll tell you, heart disease, wasn’t an issue in America at all.

People died

of old age.

Kenric: Right and died of heart failure from old age, more than clogged arteries, unless they’re already have a genetic disposition to it. Right,

Melissa: right.

Kenric: Eat themselves to that. And it wasn’t until things like trans fat [00:19:00] Cresco, which is only solvable,

GMOs is completely different.

Kenric: So GMOs there’s been no proof that GMOs have actually had the issues they’re saying, but we don’t know what it’s a great experiment.

We don’t know what it’s gonna be. Yeah. Like in a hundred years didn’t affect us. I prefer organic. Anytime I can. Yeah, just because then I know that it’s Hey, it’s non-GMO I just personally

Melissa: like the science

shows

Melissa: that’s really the thing.

Kenric: Yeah.

Melissa: Well, I think the only thing with the genetically modified stuff is, especially when it pertains to gluten and this is why gluten has become a problem for, for some people is because the wheat is.

Genetically modified. It’s not the same wheat that they grew in the twenties, you know? Cause everyone says, Oh, well, how come nobody had celiac back then? I’m like, well, the food was different back then. So now, you know, we’re, everyone’s eating burger King and taco bell and all these processed, frozen foods that they just didn’t have.

Kenric: It’s like, I regret it every time [00:20:00] to taco bell. It’s like my kryptonite.

Melissa: Oh, it’s good. No, it’s definitely good,

but it’s horrible.

Melissa: Yeah.

I used to eat. I would eat, talk about, and when I was in my twenties yeah. At two in the morning after the bar, we would go to taco bell and I would. I would order so much food. I’m a tiny person, but I would literally wake eat like two double dagger tacos and nachos. And then I would like arrive around on the floor in pain and my friends would laugh every time.

That’s my biggest

Kenric: issue. Like I’m a bigger guy and it’s really, I, worst thing is, is, taco bell or things like that. Right. Especially when I’m working to get something quick. Then I, I, I duck out, you know, which I should, I got to stop. Yeah, no I’ve been doing better to feed does really good. She always like, you’re going to die young.

You got to stop

eating this way. So she’s,

Kenric: she keeps me in check, but at the same time, it’s like, it’s just hard. You know, my [00:21:00] biggest issue is time cooking, good home cooked meals. It’s I love to eat. I love food. And so my portions are way out of control, you know? Yeah. And then I’m like,

why did I

Kenric: eat all this?

Melissa: Well, and I was just talking to my friend, Katie about this last night. Cause she she’s like me. She it’s very organic and and we still, I mean, we, we still eat good. I mean we’re eating pasta and reading tacos and all that fun stuff. It’s just, we’re doing it with like cleaner ingredients. But one of the things we were talking about was that the thing that’s hard for people to believe, but like, if you let’s say, if you.

Didn’t eat fast food for like six to eight months. You actually wouldn’t crave it again. It’s hard because your body is dependent on it right now, because it’s like in your system, those flavors, but then when you caught them out, you reached like a certain point and then your body just like, doesn’t want it anymore.

Like I could smell it and be like, eh, I’m good.

Kenric: Yeah. I cut out a ton of sugar and it was the same thing. You know, I don’t drink, don’t drink. If I drink soda, then [00:22:00] it’s like, Extra with my, my rub. You know what I mean? Or my vodka or something, but as a whole, I don’t, I don’t drink a lot of soda. And if I do, it’s

basically I drink, like,

Kenric: I’ll do zero, like Coke, zero, but which is not any better, but I still, you know, but candy, just sugar overall.

I’ve cut like 90% of it out. And it took like, you know, like a month after doing it, you don’t get those crepes. You don’t go looking at a candy bar. Ooh. I really want to have that. You know what I mean? It kinda goes, yeah. You know, and I did keto two years ago.

Cool.

Kenric: And I did keto for like six months and it worked really, I lost like 50 pounds.

but the thing is, yeah, but I gained a lot of it back, so you gotta stick with it. You know what I mean? Yeah. That’s the hard part.

Melissa: Yeah. And then you ended up yo-yo dieting, which isn’t good for your body. I don’t want to do that.

Kenric: Yeah. So now I’m just trying to get, I’m trying to cut out more fast food.

Which I started to do, you know, it’s still hard. I still go like once every other week, but it [00:23:00] was like every other day,

you know?

Melissa: Well, and there’s, there’s like little things you can do. like for example, like if you’re going to do tacos, right, instead of using sour cream, you can use plain Greek yogurt.

And I S I swear, it tastes like. The difference is very, very minimal. Like it’s you, if you put it on a smothering on a taco or a burrito, you won’t notice the difference. So little things like that, like using all of oil

instead of

Melissa: over, over using butter. And like, I dunno, like that’s probably, I don’t have a sweet tooth at all.

I, my biggest thing is like fats, like butters

and

Melissa: dips and chips and yeah, I’m a big savory person. So sugar, isn’t an issue. I’d say most of my sugar comes probably from, from wine, you know, because there’s a lot of sugar in

Kenric: alcohol. My sugar comes just from whatever’s being cooked in.

Melissa: Oh yeah. That,

Kenric: yeah.

So it’s hard to, you should, you should read my, the big fat surprise.

Melissa: You’ll be shocked.

[00:24:00] Kenric: You’ll be shocked at the findings and th the way the government lied about things, because they’re getting so much money from the companies that were pushing these new products.

Melissa: It’s like farmers,

Kenric: especially the 30th.

Oh, they’re way worse than the pharmaceutical. So thirties and forties,

you know,

Kenric: Oh,

Melissa: check out, check out a book called wheat belly.

Yeah, it’s really good. And it’s, it tells you kind of why, like people can’t eat gluten, you know, what’s

is it one word

Kenric: or is it hyphenated or,

Melissa: I think it’s two, two words. Wheat. Belly. Yeah. And I, I read that right in the beginning. So that’s a good one, tutor eight, and it kind of opens your eyes to just, you know, if you have an issue with gluten, then you would know, because when you go down the symptoms, then you could say, Oh, what’s interesting though, is that, they did some studies where some people that cut out gluten actually were able to reverse their diabetes.

Yeah. I thought that

Melissa: was [00:25:00] interesting.

Yeah.

Kenric: It’s the same thing. When they talk about the big fat surprise to talk about the difference between, Mano and poly saturated. And you want to stay away from the Polyset. The model is not that big, a deal like eating butter isn’t as big a deal as you think, if you can, if you’re able to cut out the poly and cut out everything else, you know what I mean?

It’s kinda crazy.

Cause like

Kenric: the world has used butter for 10,000 years and they have medical records going all the way back to ancient Rome. Right. And in ancient Rome, nobody died of heart failure. You know what the biggest issue was was migraine headaches. That was the issue. And they eat everything with butter and pasta and all this stuff, but they didn’t have it.

Melissa: Yeah. And then, yeah, they had lower hygiene standards too. I mean, their food wasn’t even a story

Kenric: you’re right. But they, they didn’t have any of that bullshit, poly saturated fats. Cause it wasn’t invented yet.

Yeah.

Kenric: It changed.

Melissa: Everything.

Kenric: Changed everything with our diet.

Melissa: God. No, that’s [00:26:00] yeah. That’s a huge thing.

I guess that if you cut out fast food, Oh, the other one that’s really bad is the high fructose corn syrup

Kenric: is so

Melissa: bad. Okay. That’s all right.

Kenric: Yeah. I gotta stay away from that crap, man. It’s so bad.

Just stay just really,

Kenric: I think at the end of the day, if you stick with organic stuff, organic butter, organic, whatever it is, then they’re not having a bunch of other crap.

Add it in

Melissa: and making stuff from scratch too, when you can. I mean, I know a lot of people, well, before COVID, didn’t have time now we really do have the time to do it. Right. but yeah, like when you’re, it takes longer to prep a meal, but when I make salad, I make my dressings from scratch with like olive oil and vinegar and mustard, a little bit of maple syrup.

And while I have like an amazing, you know, vinegarette. And, you know, what’s in it. It’s not like, you know, nine things that you can’t pronounce.

Kenric: No, that sounds good. And that sounds really good. Did you guys see my idea for August [00:27:00] spoiler verse?

If, if, if COVID is at a

Kenric: point that’s not a big deal going for a couple

Melissa: of years, I’d love to, that’d be so much fun.

Kenric: What about you, Johnny?

Melissa: Do you leave us?

Kenric: I don’t know. I think he did. He did he totally left. He

Melissa: dropped all, whatever

Kenric: I’m going to drop, you guys should record and just do an episode the whole time. So,

Melissa: Oh my God. I know. I noticed that.

That’s

Kenric: hilarious.

He’s just like, Oh

Melissa: my God. It’s so funny.

Kenric: Like Johnny didn’t even notice

Melissa: he was really quiet for a minute.

No, he’s not usually that quiet was

that

Kenric: you done any episodes with them? Like interviews?

Melissa: I have it now so far. I’ve done. I’ve done one with Casey and, I’ve done two with Casey actually now. And I have done one with Jeff.

[00:28:00] Kenric: Yes. Yeah. Johnny doesn’t. He loves to do the interviews and meet people, you know, I think, but he doesn’t want to run them.

Right.

Melissa: So, yeah, no, I remember like when you guys interviewed me earlier this year, you did most of the talking

Kenric: that’s all of them go.

Melissa: Yeah.

Kenric: And it’s just been like lately, I’ve been so busy with house and everything else that I haven’t been able to do a lot of the interviews. So Casey and Jeff had been doing more and you, so, and you’ve been doing quite a few already.

I

Melissa: think I’ve done like almost 10 now.

Wow.

Melissa: I mean, cause I’ve just been doing I’m like once you know, every one a day, sometimes three, four days straight.

Kenric: What is your, what is your, your booth

think?

Melissa: He, he loves that. I mean, he, he knows. Yeah. Like it’s kind of something like that. It’s up my alley, I guess you could say.

Yeah. Cause Baca and, I was telling job when I was first [00:29:00] working for this spa. at the Hyatt, I was, there’s a local radio station that actually broadcasted out of, a golf course, like literally like a diner and a golf course. And you would just walk in and they’d be sitting at the bar with their mix in their, you know, their headphones.

Then they would be just broadcasting lives. So I went on there a couple times as a guest to promote the spa. And I really liked it. I thought, Oh, this is fun. I like radio. Like, you know, I’d never done it before. And so then when I did the podcast with you guys, I thought, Oh, I could really do this. This it’d be fun to like, you know, do this for a career or as a hobby, you know?

Kenric: Well, if we can get it to where it’s a career, I think we’d all be

happy.

Melissa: Oh my gosh. Yeah, that’d be amazing.

Kenric: I know. Cause it’s just like we’re so it’s just kind of funny because it’s exploded the last year and a half. We’ve really bloated. You know, so that first year and a half was defined, which was a lot of fun.

We did some of our most fun episodes cause it was just Johnny and I

that’s all it was.

Kenric: And then, you know, what’s funny. Did you know that Casey [00:30:00] heard our, we dropped our first episode in two days later. I think it was Casey reached out to us.

Melissa: Oh, cool.

Kenric: And he’s been with us ever

since.

Melissa: Oh, that’s super cool.

He’s like, Oh yeah, I did it for the day. Yeah. He’s

Kenric: great.

He’s great.

Melissa: So nice. He’s so organized too. When, you know, when I do the interviews with them, he just, he has all the questions like completely written out and he just does that. Yeah. It sounds really professional when he’s doing ’em so yeah,

Kenric: I kind of want them to stop doing the NP cause he does this NPR thing.

You know, such a lovable personality. That I think it comes through after the first, like 10 minutes, but I kinda just want them to start off with just

Casey being Casey.

Kenric: You know what I mean? I think it would connect faster, you know, but it’s so funny. Cause, cause he,

cause he’s like stops down and goes, okay, everybody, this is Casey with,

Kenric: and he does this whole thing and it’s just like,

Melissa: it’s like, it’s like Casey.

Kazem

Kenric: exactly it. [00:31:00] It’s so funny. Yeah. But at the same time, it’s like, man, you’re such a, I don’t know. People like him.

Just being,

Kenric: you know, cause it was hard not to like, and he’s, and he’s got a great sense of humor. So it’s like, That sounds a great sense of humor.

Melissa: Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, I’m, I’m very laid back.

So I mean, of course I try to be super professional too, but, I, I’m kind of, you know, I’m giggly and I, I’d just like to have a good time and really like, make people feel comfortable.

Kenric: I know I laugh all the time and I think sometimes. Slack is it’s not I’m really? No.

Melissa: Yeah, I know. I have a lot. I like to laugh.

Kenric: It’s hard now was like, Oh, that’s hilarious.

And

Kenric: I don’t know if you go back. It’s so funny, Jeff. So I wrote this whole thing up on Facebook. I started like, when we started in 2017, I was like, okay, I didn’t want to put it out on Facebook. You know, for all my friends to join, because I felt [00:32:00] like it would be fake.

Right. Like we didn’t earn it. People just joining because they know me, but they didn’t actually listen and they didn’t actually care or anything like that. So I didn’t, I didn’t promote it with my friends and just,

we just go

Kenric: slowly, you know? And then when we had, God, we had somebody on now, I, I, I felt like we, we, we turned this big corner, right.

And it’s been two years and it had this whole thing and I’m like, you know what? I’m going to put this out and I wrote up this whole thing, but by this time, all these comic book people, and you know, all these, you know, all these different people have, have had friended me on Facebook. And so that’s when Jeff reached out, said, Hey, I’ve been on your show a couple of times.

I’d love to help you guys out.

I was like, Oh,

Kenric: like, yeah, I, you know, I I’ve done getting guests in the past. And so if you guys want help getting guests, I’d love to be, you know, help out and maybe do some interviews from time to time. And I was like, yeah. And [00:33:00] yeah. And then when Jeff came on, you know, he got us huge comic book names that were in the industry for years that are alias comic book guys, like Eric started image and

Melissa: it’s so crazy.

And I remember looking that up. You know, cause when he first reached out to me, I was telling him the story too, you know, when, when you’re in the public, you, sometimes you get emails from all kinds of, you know, crazy people and spam. Yeah. And you know, people trying to sell you stuff. And you know, so whenever I get an email, I’m always like, okay, who is this person?

And, he, when he first emailed me, I thought, okay, I got to do some research before I agree to go on, you know, and talk to people and that kind of thing. And I looked up at your podcast and I was like, Oh my gosh, they’ve gotten some really amazing people. And I love that it was, you know, more, like comic book centric, you know, at the time.

I mean, now it’s so much, it’s just like you were saying, it’s grown so much into pop culture, but yeah. I mean, [00:34:00] you have some really big names that I thought, well, this is super legit, you know,

Kenric: man, out of nowhere. And it was so funny, he started doing interviews and if you go back and listen to Jeff, Oh, rigid at the beginning, so rigid, you know what I mean?

And I was so nervous. He just wants to get to his questions that he wasn’t always, he’ll probably kill me if he hears this, but he wasn’t always, truly listening to the person coming back at him. You know what I mean?

I mean, he probably,

Kenric: he was, but the, his demeanor makes, but I think he was so nervous that he wants to get through his questions that it could come across that does that make sense?

Melissa: Yeah, totally. And I there’s actually some, there’s some famous like talk show hosts. That do that. And it drives me nuts. Cause like, I don’t know, I’m not talking about Jeff, cause I haven’t heard those, but, or they’re actually not listening, you know, they’re not listening and they’re just trying to get to their bullet point questions in their time slot, you know?

And it’s Ugh.

Kenric: But he’s patent like tremendously [00:35:00] better. Like yeah. It’s like night and day from when he started to where he’s at today. It’s it’s incredible how much he’s grown. I love it.

Melissa: That’s awesome. Wait, where

people emailing? Yeah.

Kenric: Just keep doing it. But I got to the point, you know, like he got that email the other day where an unknown person that we won’t say, they just weren’t very nice to him.

An email lined up. It’s like, Oh hell no, dude. We can meet in the store.

Melissa: Yeah, no, I know when I, we won’t name the person, but when I, when I read that, I was like, what a Dick? Like,

I mean,

Melissa: like you can’t be so, you know, and it’s interesting, like I obviously I’ve been doing this for a while, like a month and a half.

Right. And I’ve already sort of seen how. People that are really, really, really famous, right. Tend to be more humble and down to earth than some of the people that are just maybe up and coming and not, not all of them because I’ve talked people I’ve talked to personally have been amazing. [00:36:00] But I have noticed that just from hearing Jeff’s stories about when he’s trying to book guests, I’m like, wow, some of these, like the person we were talking about, you’re just like, nobody actually wants.

No, one’s lining up to get that person on right now. So, but you know that they, they were so snarky about turning us down. I was like, Oh, that’s a great

Kenric: word for it. As the snarkiness, I was like, Oh, that bummed me out. How can you be that snarky over somebody just asking you that, Hey, we’re not interested right now, but you know, maybe reach out in a couple of months who knows.

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. There’s always a polite way to, I mean, don’t burn your bridges.

Kenric: Right, right, right, right.

Melissa: I know. And it’s funny, my, my boyfriend, Chris, I told him about it and he goes, Oh, well, you should ban him for life. Now

Kenric: we had one guy that is pretty well known. He’s been on a [00:37:00] ton of TV shows and movies, and he’s done music

and. We had them, we had them scheduled

Kenric: and he’s like, this is what I can do. It I’m like great. I had, once I had a ton of questions ready to go, right. I was like, so excited to talk to this guy and he’s been in some cool stuff and I’m sitting there waiting and waiting.

I waited three hours and they finally go, Oh, you know, he’s stuck on set. I’m like, okay, no big deal. Can we do it tomorrow? No problem. What time? 12 o’clock. I will be there.

Melissa: Okay.

Kenric: It’s set up. Get ready. Have my questions. 12. O’clock the next day, hour later

after it’s supposed to show up,

Kenric: we’re still stuck on set.

We’ve got all this stuff. can we do it tomorrow? Oh my God.

Melissa: Okay.

Kenric: Three days in a row. This goes on,

right?

Melissa: Oh my God.

Kenric: The third day. Yeah, they just don’t even respond. They don’t anything. And, and Jeff reaches out and they’re just like their response was, I think you should drop [00:38:00] it. It’s like, wait

a minute.

Kenric: This wasn’t

us.

Kenric: We’ve been, we’ve been bending over backwards to make it easy for you. What the hell man? I was so.

Oh, well, like I get,

Kenric: if you get busy, that doesn’t bother me. Yeah. There was that last response that really bugged

Melissa: me. Well, you almost wonder what that, whoever he was, told his publicist, because I think sometimes they, you know, they can kind of manipulative too, and he, he might’ve.

Not wanting to show his publicists that he was being, you know, unprofessional, maybe lied and said, you know, you guys, weren’t the ones showing up or something, you know? Yeah.

Kenric: Yeah. Well, we’re reaching out saying, Hey, we’re ready. We’re we’re what’s going on.

You know,

Melissa: but

Kenric: it is kind of, it is rude, but at the same time, it’s like, If you wa if he reached out to us, Hey, I want, you know, I really do want to deal.

Let’s do this.

I’d be like, okay.

Kenric: And I wouldn’t even bring it up. Actually. I did bring it up with somebody else. And I’ll tell you later,

it was kind of funny.

Kenric: I told the guy, you should give the case shit. Cause there was, I mean, at the end of the day, we’ve made, [00:39:00] we’ve turned it into this whole joke,

you know?

Kenric: Oh, he did this to you. I didn’t it kind of thing.

Melissa: Well, yeah. I mean, if you can laugh it off, great. You know, a good sport about it.

Kenric: Yeah. But it is super rigid thing, man. My time is just as important as yours.

Melissa: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you know, one of the things I, I learned I’ve been learning is there there’s a lot of work that goes into it just beforehand, because we’re doing the research where we’re watching their movies or, you know, whatever, reading their book, so that we can make sure we’re prepared and have like the classrooms

Kenric: after they interview a whole other set of work happens.

There’s the intro outro that Johnny and I have to do for each individual episode that to set everything up. You know, and then editing, adding of the music, transcribing all this stuff has to happen. And sometimes it has to happen like in a huge turnaround, like in 24 hours because they’re pushing something or something’s going on, or, you know, and [00:40:00] you know, and right now we’re trying to figure out how do we streamline this process and have people help out.

And the thing is, is difficult. So if people are listening, I don’t know if we’re doing releases or not, but if we do and you’re listening,

what’s difficult is

Kenric: if you haven’t noticed we don’t charge for anything, you know, and we don’t have any ads coming in. Right. And it’s, we don’t have any revenue coming in right now until we’re able to, because you have to have a certain amount of stuff and we want to get to the certain point.

Then we’ll do something. Hopefully you know, that we can turn it into something that’s makes it all

profitable for all of us.

Kenric: But until that time we’re doing all the editing. And right now Johnny’s doing all the

unit by himself and

Kenric: he’s 38 episodes behind.

Melissa: I know, I noticed, I saw that. I was like, Oh crap.

That’s why I volunteered because, you know, if I can, if I can try to learn, learn and do it, but yeah,

it’s tough because

Kenric: like, you look at someone like Jeff, who is doing all the leg work, you can’t ask them to do more. [00:41:00] You know, and

we don’t want to ask

Kenric: Casey to do more because no, one’s getting paid.

Like if, if,

Kenric: if I was sitting there going, okay, I’m giving you 10 grand a month to do this da, you need to edit,

you know? Yeah.

Melissa: No, for sure. Yeah. It changes everything,

Kenric: but no, one’s getting paid, so it’s like, okay, if you want to volunteer, you want to help. Great. We’d love it.

Melissa: Yeah. You’re like,

Kenric: yeah. But at the same time, it’s like, I

can’t.

Melissa: Yeah. Well, and I think too two-way especially cause like, John, you know, he, people don’t also realize that everybody has another job as well. Right. And families and kids and all that good stuff. So that also makes it hard to find time to edit when you got to put, you know, dinner on the table and help the kids with the schoolwork and all that stuff.

I don’t have kids. So actually that’s one of the reasons why I volunteered because of that. Well, you know, I do have a little bit more time. I think probably to, even if I can just do like one or two. You know, here and there to help out just to bring [00:42:00] that number up more. So you’re not so far behind.

Kenric: Yeah.

One or two a week would be ginormous. Yeah. You know, I don’t know whatever your time limit is, you know, one or two a month would be huge. It doesn’t matter. Yeah.

Melissa: Anything to help. Yeah.

Kenric: And it’s easy. That’s the thing it’s, it’s difficult when you first try to do it, then as you go, it gets easier. I mean, it’s not easy.

I shouldn’t say that. Cause there’s, there’s an army editor out there going, probably screaming at me right now, going fuck.

Do

Kenric: you know in the process that we were at it’s we make it a little easier.

Melissa: Yeah. On yourselves with lots of their software comes in, you know, having a good software program and stuff.

Kenric: Yeah. So before I fall, if people don’t know, Melissa is a, an author.

Melissa: Yes.

Kenric: That could be another book, right?

Yeah, I know. Right, exactly.

Melissa: You just gave me another title,

Kenric: five books into your career. [00:43:00]

Melissa: yeah, I’ve actually, I’ve written six, but, it’ll be book five. Yeah, published five as of next, next Tuesday, the 27th,

Kenric: 27th of October after I fall, it’s gonna be available on Amazon paperback and Kindle.

Melissa: Yeah, paperback and Kindle for just Amazon for, for now

what

Kenric: what’s a good way to describe it.

So people will, if you like this, you’re going to love it.

Yes.

Melissa: So after I fall is a dark romance. It’s paranormal. So there are some elements of, of, vampires and things like that, but it’s not the main focus like it is in some of my other books.

So it’s basically,

Melissa: if you liked 50 shades of gray, if you liked 365 days, the movie that was on Netflix, then you’ll, then you’ll like this book.

it’s, it’s not, it’s not at the level, of you seen us as those two that I just mentioned, but it’s in that, that vein, that same kind of genre. So

Kenric: yeah, at the level.

[00:44:00] Melissa: I mean, just like to the extreme of the graphic

content.

Kenric: Cause 50 shades of gray, which I didn’t know, started off

Melissa: as Twilight it writing wise though.

No, mine’s better. No, I’m kidding.

What was that? Yeah. Oh

yeah,

Melissa: that was, yeah, that was that. Oh, yeah, no, that was the, so my setup is it’s hilarious. Cause it’s, the mic is attached to my desk and then I have a small side tables at my wine, but I just forgot and set it on the desk and I went okay. Wow. Yeah. Oh, it’s fine.

I just

Melissa: can’t wait.

And I’m Italian. So I talk,

Kenric: talk with your hands and your everything.

Melissa: Yeah. Everything I’m moving. I’m moving everything right now.

Kenric: My hands are flailing, man.

I can’t wait

Kenric: to see how this book does when it comes out though. Cause this is your first self published.

this is.

Melissa: Great. It’s so exciting. [00:45:00] It’s I was talking to my friends.

It’s a different type of like feeling of accomplishment when you’ve done everything yourself. I’ve literally put my own money into Intuit. It’s all out of pocket. I hand-picked, you know, my artists, my format or my editor, so it’s just different. I feel. and, and not to take away from any of my other books by any means, but it is just a different feeling of like, wow, I completely did this.

Like by myself and in a sense, you know, I’m, of course I hired people and they are amazing people and I give them credit in the book as well. But yeah, it’s just different when you’re, when you’re with a publisher and you don’t really have a lot of control. And when you do it yourself, yeah. It’s just, it’s like, all right, like I did this,

Kenric: the other publisher that published that did your first four published books

is Citi owl.

Kenric: Right?

Melissa: They’re great.

Kenric: How much did you learn from them to even be able to feel confident to do this self publishing?

Melissa: Oh, my gosh. It’s so [00:46:00] much. I would, I would never, yeah. Two years ago, three years ago, I would not have been able to self published competently. Yeah. I, I needed this experience with city owl to give me the knowledge.

I mean, I’ve learned so much and from, from the owners of city Al, but also the authors that aren’t, you know, more seasoned or some that were debuting at the same time as me, we learned together. And I mean, we’re constantly on the phone with each other, texting and bouncing ideas off each other, you know, helping each other promote.

So there’s like, yeah, there’s so much that goes into being an author that people don’t realize. It’s not just writing the book, which is a feat in itself. Yeah. But there’s like a ton of legwork that you have to do afterwards, then, you know, graphics and social media and contests and giveaways, you know, it’s just like the list goes on and on.

So yeah, if I did, I needed that. Two three years with the city owl before I could say, okay, I can do this. You know, [00:47:00] myself. And it also gave me like a huge, like new respect for what they do, because they’re literally doing all the work that I put into this book. They’re doing that times 30 for all the authors that they have.

And they’re a small. crew, you know, they don’t have a hundred employees. It’s just, you know, Tina and Elena and a couple other people that are putting all the books out. So I, my hats off to them, like for doing that, cause it’s, it was tough to put one book together to self-publish.

Kenric: I

bet. I

Kenric: bet. Well, man, I can’t wait to see where it goes and hopefully you can share able to big time us later on.

Melissa: I hope so. Right.

That’s the goal now

Melissa: I’ll be like my, I can’t come on now. So statement

Kenric: just to talk to you.

Melissa: Oh God. No, I mean, well, I hope that I can just, you know, um, I just wanna be able to keep writing, you know, forever [00:48:00] and, and to make enough income to where I can do that just right. Or not have to. You know, yeah.

Just not, not have to get, you know, another job just, just focused on writing. Cause then I can really put more into it and I can produce more if I’m not focused, you know, on going into a nine to five job.

Kenric: Yeah, no, I feel the same way. I love my job. I love the people that I work with. Um, they treat me really well.

They really do. And it’s given me a lot of opportunities that wouldn’t have otherwise, you know, buy a house because of that job. You know, it’s, it’s hard to sit here and go, Oh, I really just want to get another job. It’s not that I want another job. It’s just that I love this so much more, you know? So it’s hard to go with it.

It’s it’s more fun to be creative on your own

Melissa: stuff. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Cause you can make your own hours. You can, you know, set your own. Boundaries and your own goals rather than having [00:49:00] to, you know, report to someone. I think that was the hardest part of being in the hospitality industry is,